supposing them to
be genuine. And the writer's version of the conference of which Paul
gives so graphic a description, if that is correct, is unmistakably
coloured with all the art of a reconciler, anxious to cover up a
scandal. But it is none the less instructive on this account. The
judgment of the "council" delivered by James is that the Gentile
converts shall merely "abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and
from blood and from things strangled, and from fornication." But
notwithstanding the accommodation in which the writer of the Acts
would have us believe, the Jerusalem Church held to its endeavour to
retain the observance of the Law. Long after the conference, some time
after the writing of the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians,
and immediately after the despatch of that to the Romans, Paul makes
his last visit to Jerusalem, and presents himself to James and all the
elders. And this is what the Acts tells us of the interview:--

And they said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many
thousands [or myriads] there are among the Jews of them
which have believed; and they are all zealous for the law;
and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou
teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to
forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their
children, neither to walk after the customs. (Acts xxi. 20,
21.)

They therefore request that he should perform a certain public
religious act in the Temple, in order that

all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof
they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou
thyself walkest orderly, keeping the law (_ibid_. 24).[77]

How far Paul could do what he is here requested to do, and which the
writer of the Acts goes on to say he did, with a clear conscience, if
he wrote the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians, I may leave
any candid reader of these epistles to decide. The point to which I
wish to direct attention is the declaration that the Jerusalem
Church, led by the brother of Jesus and by his personal disciples and
friends, twenty years and more after his death, consisted of strict
and zealous Jews.

Tertullus, the orator, caring very little about the internal
dissensions of the followers of Jesus, speaks of Paul as a "ringleader
of the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts xxiv. 5), which must have affected
James much in the same way as it would have moved the Archbish