_THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COUNCIL._
"And certain men came down from Judæa and taught the brethren,
saying, Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye
cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had no small
dissension and questioning with them, the brethren appointed that
Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to
Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question....
And the apostles and the elders were gathered together to
consider of this matter."... James said, "My judgment is, that
we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles turn to
God."--ACTS xv. 1, 2, 6, 19.
I have headed this chapter, which treats of Acts xv. and its
incidents, the First Christian Council, and that of set purpose and
following eminent ecclesiastical example. People often hear the canons
of the great Councils quoted, the canons of Nice, Constantinople,
Ephesus, and Chalcedon, those great assemblies which threshed out the
controversies concerning the person and nature of Jesus Christ and
determined with marvellous precision the methods of expressing the
true doctrine on these points, and they wonder where or how such
ancient documents have been preserved. Well, the answer is simple
enough. If any reader, curious about the doings of these ancient
assemblies, desires to study the decrees which proceeded from them,
and even the debates which occurred in them, he need only ask in any
great library for a history of the Councils, edited either by Hardouin
or Labbe and Cossart, or, best and latest of all, by Mansi. They are
not externally very attractive volumes, being vast folios; nor are
they light or interesting reading. The industrious student will learn
much from them, however; and he will find that they all begin the
history of the Christian Councils by placing at the very head and
forefront thereof the history and acts of the Council of Jerusalem
held about the year 48 or 49 A.D., wherein we find a typical example
of a Church synod which set a fashion perpetuated throughout the ages
in councils, conferences, and congresses down to the present time. Let
us inquire then into the origin, the procedure, and the results of
this Assembly, sure that a council conducted under such auspices,
reported by such a divinely guided historian, and dealing with such
burning questions, must have important lessons for the Church of every
age.[121]
[121] Mansi, A.D. 1692-1769, was Archbishop of Lucca. He was a
very learned man. Besides valuable editions of other men's works
he published his _Sarcorum Conciliorum Collectio_ in thirty-one
vols. folio, Florence and Venice, 1759-98. Mansi fixes the date of
the Jerusalem Synod either to 49 or 51 A.D. He counts it the third
synod, regarding as the first synod that held for the election of
Matthias, and as the second that assembled for the choice of the
deacons.
I. The question, however, naturally meets us at the very threshold of
our inquiry as to the date of this assembly, and the position which it
holds in the process of development through which the Christian Church
was passing. The decision of this Synod at Jerusalem did not finally
settle the questions about the law and its obligatory character. The
relations between the Jewish and Gentile sections of the Church
continued in some places, especially in the East, more or less
unsettled well into the second century; for the Jews found it very
hard indeed to surrender all their cherished privileges and ancient
national distinctions. But the decree of the Jerusalem Assembly,
though only a partial settlement, "mere articles of peace," as it has
been well called, to tide over a pressing local controversy, formed in
St. Paul's hands a powerful weapon whereby the freedom, the unity, and
the catholicity of the Church was finally achieved. Where, then, do we
locate this Synod in the story of St. Paul's labours?
The narrative of the Acts clearly enough places it between the first
and the second missionary tours in Asia Minor undertaken by that
apostle. Paul and Barnabas laboured for the first time in Asia Minor
probably from the autumn of 44 till the spring or summer of 46. Their
work at that time must have extended over at least eighteen months or
more. Their journeys on foot must alone have taken up no small time.
They traversed from Perga, where they landed, to Derbe, whence they
turned back upon their work, a space of at least two hundred and fifty
miles. They made lengthened sojourns in large cities like Antioch and
Iconium. They doubtless visited other places of which we are told
nothing. Then, having completed their aggressive work, they retraced
their steps along the same route, and began their work of
consolidation and Church organisation, which must have occupied on
their return journey almost as much, if not more, time that they had
spent in aggressive labour upon their earlier journey. When we
consider all this, and strive to realise the conditions of life and
travel in Asia Minor at that time, eighteen months will not appear too
long for the work which the apostles actually performed. After their
return to Antioch they took up their abode in that city for a
considerable period. "They tarried no little time with the disciples"
are the exact words of St. Luke telling of their stay at Antioch.
Then comes the tale of Jewish intrigues and insinuations, followed by
debates, strife, and oppositions concerning the universally binding
character of the Jewish law, terminating with the formal deputation
from Antioch to Jerusalem. These latter events at Antioch may have
happened in a few weeks or months, or they may have extended over a
couple of years. But then, on the other hand, we note that St. Paul's
second missionary journey began soon after the Synod of Jerusalem.
That journey was very lengthened. It led St. Paul right through Asia
Minor, and thence into Europe, where he must have made a stay of at
least two years. He was at Corinth for eighteen months when Gallio
arrived as proconsul about the middle of the year 53, and previously
to that he had worked his way through Macedonia and Greece. St. Paul
on his second tour must have been then at least four years absent from
Antioch, which he must therefore have left about the year 49 or 50.
The Synod of Jerusalem must therefore be assigned to the year 48 A.D.
or thereabouts; or, in other words, not quite twenty years after the
Crucifixion.
II. And now this leads us to consider the occasion of the Synod. The
time was not, as we have said, quite twenty years after the
Crucifixion, yet that brief space had been quite sufficient to raise
questions undreamt of in earlier days. The Church was at first
completely homogeneous, its members being all Jews; but the admission
of the Gentiles and the action of St. Peter in the matter of Cornelius
had destroyed this characteristic so dear to the Jewish heart. The
Divine revelation at Joppa to St. Peter and the gift of the Holy Ghost
to Cornelius had for a time quenched the opposition to the admission
of the Gentiles to baptism; but, as we have already said, the extreme
Jewish party were only silenced for a time, they were not destroyed.
They took up a new position. The case of Cornelius merely decided that
a man might be baptized without having been _previously_ circumcised;
but it decided nothing in their opinion about the _subsequent_
necessity for circumcision and admission into the ranks of the Jewish
nation. Their view, in fact, was the same as of old. Salvation
belonged exclusively to the Jewish nation, and therefore if the
converted Gentiles were to be saved it must be by incorporation into
that body to which salvation alone belonged. The strict Jewish section
of the Church insisted the more upon this point, because they saw
rising up in the Church of Antioch, and elsewhere among the Churches
of Syria and Cilicia, a grave social danger threatening the existence
of their nation as a separate people. There were just then two classes
of disciples in these Churches. There were disciples who lived after
the Jewish fashion,--abstaining from unlawful foods, using food slain
by Jewish butchers, and scrupulous in washings and lustrations; and
there were Gentiles who lived after the Gentile fashion, and in
especial ate pork and things strangled. The strict Jews knew right
well the tendency of a majority to swallow up a minority, specially
when they were all members of the same religious community, enjoying
the same privileges and partakers of the same hope. A majority does
not indeed necessarily absorb a minority. Roman Catholicism is the
religion of the majority in Ireland and France; yet it has not
absorbed the small Protestant minority. The adherents of Judaism were
scattered in St. Paul's day all over the world, yet Paganism had not
swallowed them up. In these cases, however, the minority have been
completely separated from the majority by a middle wall, a barrier of
rigid discipline, and of strong, yea, even violent religious
repugnance. But the prospect now before the strict Jewish party was
quite different. In the Syrian Church as they beheld it growing up Jew
and Gentile would be closely linked together, professing the same
faith, saying the same prayers, joining in the same sacraments,
worshipping in the same buildings. All the advantages, too, would be
on the side of the Gentile. He was freed from the troublesome
restrictions--the more troublesome because so petty and minute--of the
Levitical Law. He could eat what he liked, and join in social converse
and general life without hesitation or fear. In a short time a Jewish
disciple would come to ask himself, What do I gain by all these
observances, this yoke of ordinances, which neither we nor our fathers
have been able perfectly to bear? If a Gentile disciple can be saved
without them, why should I trouble myself with them? The Jewish party
saw clearly enough that toleration of the presence of the Gentiles in
the Church and their admission to full communion and complete
Christian privileges simply involved the certain overthrow of Jewish
customs, Jewish privileges, and Jewish national expectations. They saw
that it was a case of war to the death, one party or the other must
conquer, and therefore in self-defence they raised the cry, "Unless
the Gentile converts be circumcised after the manner of Moses they
cannot be saved."
Antioch was recognised at Jerusalem as the centre of Gentile
Christianity. Certain, therefore, of the zealous, Judaising disciples
of Jerusalem repaired to Antioch, joined the Church, and secretly
proceeded to organise opposition to the dominant practice, using for
that purpose all the authority connected with the name of James the
Lord's brother, who presided over the Mother Church of the Holy City.
Now let us see what position St. Paul took up with respect to these
"false brethren privily brought in, who came in privily to spy out the
liberty he enjoyed in Christ Jesus." Paul and Barnabas both set
themselves undauntedly to fight against such teaching. They had seen
and known the spiritual life which flourished free from all Jewish
observances in the Church of the Gentiles. They had seen the gospel
bringing forth the fruits of purity and faith, of joy and peace in the
Holy Ghost; they knew that these things prepare the soul for the
beatific vision of God, and confer a present salvation here below; and
they could not tolerate the idea that a Jewish ceremony was necessary
over and above the life which Christ confers if men are to gain final
salvation.
Here, perhaps, is the proper place to set forth St. Paul's view of
circumcision and of all external Jewish ordinances, as we gather it
from a broad review of his writings. St. Paul vigorously opposed all
those who taught the _necessity_ of Jewish rites so far as salvation
is concerned. This is evident from this chapter and from the Epistle
to the Galatians. But, on the other hand, St. Paul had not the
slightest objection to men observing the law and submitting to
circumcision, if they only realised that these things were mere
national customs and observed them as national customs, and even as
religious rites, but not as _necessary_ religious rites. If men took a
right view of circumcision, St. Paul had not the slightest objection
to it. It was not to circumcision St. Paul objected, but to the
extreme stress laid upon it, the intolerant views connected with it.
Circumcision as a voluntary practice, an interesting historical relic
of ancient ideas and customs, he never rejected,--nay, further, he
even practised it, as we shall see in the case of Timothy;
circumcision as a compulsory practice binding upon all men St. Paul
utterly abhorred. We may, perhaps, draw an illustration from a modern
Church in this respect. The Coptic and Abyssinian Churches retain the
ancient Jewish practice of circumcision. These Churches date back to
the earliest Christian times, and retain doubtless in this respect the
practice of the primitive Christian Church. The Copts circumcise their
children on the eighth day and before they are baptized; but they
regard this rite as a mere national custom, and treat it as absolutely
devoid of any religious meaning, significance, or necessity. St. Paul
would have had no objection to circumcision in this aspect any more
than he would have objected to a Turk for wearing a fez, or a Chinaman
for wearing a pigtail, or a Hindoo for wearing a turban. National
customs as such were things absolutely indifferent in his view. But if
Turkish or Chinese Christians were to insist upon all men wearing
their peculiar dress and observing their peculiar national customs as
being things absolutely necessary to salvation, St. Paul, were he
alive, would denounce and oppose them as vigorously as he did the
Judaisers of his own day.[122]
[122] We miss the true standpoint whence to judge St. Paul's
conduct aright, when we think as people generally do that St. Paul
opposed circumcision _per se_. He simply opposed it when connected
with wrong ideas. The Judaising disciples viewed the Jewish nation
as the covenant people to whom alone salvation belonged. St. Paul
viewed the Church as the body to whom alone salvation belonged,
admission to which was gained by baptism. If any Christian holding
St. Paul's view chose to add any private ceremony such as
circumcision in order to gain admission into any human society,
St. Paul would not have opposed him any more than, if he were now
alive, he would have opposed or denounced a Christian man because
he became a Freemason, or an Orangeman, or joined the Oddfellows,
observing the special ceremonies appointed for admission. The
nearest approach in later times to the position taken up by the
strict Jewish party will be found in the history of mediæval
monasticism. The Cistercians and subsequently the Mendicant Orders
endeavoured to persuade every person that every one who wished to
be saved must join their Orders and assume their peculiar dress.
On this account Fitz Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, and his friend
Wickliffe denounced them most vigorously. I have given some
amusing instances of the opposition to the Cistercians evoked two
centuries earlier by similar claims in _Ireland and the
Anglo-Norman Church_, p. 42.
This is the explanation of St. Paul's own conduct. Some have regarded
him as at times inconsistent with his own principles with regard to
the law of Moses. And yet if men will but look closer and think more
deeply, they will see that St. Paul never violated the rules which he
had imposed upon himself. He refused to circumcise Titus, for
instance, because the Judaising party at Jerusalem were insisting upon
the absolute necessity of circumcising the Gentiles if they were to be
saved. Had St. Paul consented to the circumcision of Titus, he would
have been yielding assent, or seeming to yield assent, to their
contention (see Gal. ii. 3). He circumcised Timothy at Lystra because
of the Jews in that neighbourhood; not indeed because they thought it
necessary to salvation that an uncircumcised man should be so treated,
but because they knew that his mother was a Jewess, and the principle
of the Jewish law, and of the Roman law too, was that a man's
nationality and status followed that of his mother, not that of his
father, so that the son of a Jewess must be incorporated with Israel.
Timothy was circumcised in obedience to national law and custom not
upon any compromise of religious principle. St. Paul himself made a
vow and cut off his hair and offered sacrifices in the Temple as being
the national customs of a Jew. These were things in themselves utterly
meaningless and indifferent; but they pleased other people. They cost
him a little time and trouble; but they helped on the great work he
had in hand, and tended to make his opponents more willing to listen
to him. St. Paul, therefore, with his great large mind, willing to
please others for their good to edification, gratified them by doing
what they thought became a Jew with a true national spirit beating
within his breast. Mere externals mattered nothing in St. Paul's
estimation. He would wear any vestments, or take any position, or use
any ceremony, esteeming them all things indifferent, provided only
they conciliated human prejudices and cleared difficulties out of the
way of the truth. But if men insisted upon them as things necessary,
then he opposed with all his might. This is the golden thread which
will rule our footsteps wandering amid the mazes of this earliest
Christian controversy. It will amply vindicate St. Paul's consistency,
and show that he never violated the principles he had laid down for
his own guidance. Had the spirit of St. Paul animated the Church of
succeeding ages, how many a controversy and division would have been
thereby escaped![123]
[123] I have often noted what I consider an unfair use of this
controversy and of St. Paul's position in it. Men in the heat of
argument have represented the High Church, or rather the so-called
Ritualists in the Church of England, as answering to the Judaisers
of St. Paul's day. There seems to me, however, no parallel between
them. The Judaisers contended for a certain ceremony as _necessary
to salvation_. I never heard of any Ritualist who considered any
of his dearest practices in this light. He may view them as
lawful, as edifying, and very necessary for the instruction of the
people; but I have never heard of their most extreme adherents
contending for their necessity to salvation. It would be just as
true to identify their opponents with the Judaisers, because they
have insisted, and often with great vigour, upon the use of the
black gown in the pulpit. I have known extreme men to take up the
position that the gospel could not be preached where the black
gown was not used. Any one who will take the trouble to read the
_Life of Bishop Blomfield_ of London, edited by his son, vol. ii.,
will see some striking illustrations of the extent to which such
views were pushed half a century ago.
III. Now let us turn our attention to the actual history of the
controversy and strife which raged at Antioch and Jerusalem, and
endeavour to read the lessons the sacred narrative teaches. What a
striking picture of early Church life is here presented! How full of
teaching, of comfort, and of warning! How corrective of the false
notions we are apt to cherish of the state of the primitive Church!
There we behold the Church of Antioch rejoicing one day in the tidings
of a gospel free to the world, and on the next day torn with
dissension as to the points and qualifications necessary to salvation.
For we must observe that the discussion started at Antioch touched no
secondary question, and dealt with no mere point of ritual. It was a
fundamental question which troubled the Church. And yet that Church
had apostles and teachers abiding in it who could work miracles and
speak with tongues, and who received from time to time direct
revelations from heaven, and were endowed with the extraordinary
presence of the Holy Ghost. Yet there it was that controversy with all
its troubles raised its head, and "Paul and Barnabas had no small
dissension" with their opponents. What a necessary warning for every
age, and specially for our own, we behold in this narrative! Has not
this sacred Book a message in this passage specially applicable to
our own time? A great Romeward movement has within the last seventy
years, more powerful in the earlier portion of that period than in the
latter, extended itself over Europe. English people think that they
have themselves been the only persons who have experienced it. But
this is a great mistake. Germany forty and fifty years ago felt it
also to a large extent. And what was the great predisposing cause of
that tendency? Men had simply become tired of the perpetual
controversies which raged within the churches and communions outside
the sway of Rome. They longed for the perpetual peace and rest which
seemed to them to exist within the Papal domains, and they therefore
flung themselves headlong into the arms of a Church which promised
them relief from the exercise of that private judgment and personal
responsibility which had become for them a crushing burden too heavy
to be borne. And yet they forgot several things, the sudden discovery
of which has sent many of these intellectual and spiritual cowards in
various directions, some back to their original homes, some far away
into the regions of scepticism and spiritual darkness. They forgot,
for instance, to inquire how far the charmer who was alluring them
from the land of their nativity by specious promises could satisfy the
hopes she was raising. They hoped to get rid of dissension and
controversy; but did they? When they had left their childhood's home
and their father's house and sought the house of the stranger, did
they find there halcyon peace? Nay, rather did they not find there as
bitter strife, nay, far more bitter strife, on questions like the
Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility than ever raged at home?
Did they not find, and do they not find still, that no man and no
society can put a hook in the jaws of that Leviathan, the right of
private judgment, which none can tame or restrain, and which asserts
itself still in the Roman Communion as vigorously as ever even now
when the decree of Papal infallibility has elevated that dogma into
the rank of those necessary to salvation? Else whence come those
dissensions and discussions between minimisers and maximisers of that
decree? How is it that no two doctors or theologians will give
precisely the same explanation of it, and that, as we in Ireland have
seen, every curate fresh from Maynooth claims to be able to express
his own private judgment and determination whether any special Papal
decree or bull is binding or not?[124] This is one important point
forgotten by those who have sought the Roman Communion because of its
promises of freedom from controversy. They forgot to ask, Can these
promises be fulfilled? And many of them, in the perpetual unrest and
strife in which they have found themselves involved as much in their
new home as in their old, have proved the specious hopes held out to
be the veriest mirage of the Sahara desert. But this was not the only
omission of which such persons were guilty. They forgot that, suppose
the Roman Church could fulfil its promises and prove a religious home
of perfect peace and freedom from diverging opinions, it would in
that case have been very unlike the primitive Church. The Church of
Antioch or of Jerusalem, enjoying the ministry of Peter and John and
James and Paul,--these pillar-men, as St. Paul calls some of
them,--was much more like the Church of England of fifty years ago
than any society which offered perfect freedom from theological
strife; for the Churches of ancient times in their earliest and purest
days were swept by the winds of controversy and tossed by the tempests
of intellectual and religious inquiry just like the Church of England,
and they took exactly the same measures for the safety of the souls
entrusted to them as she did. They depended upon the power of free
debate, of unlimited discussion, of earnest prayer, of Christian
charity to carry them on till they reached that haven of rest where
every doubt and question shall be perfectly solved in the light of the
unveiled vision of God.
[124] The conduct of the Romish clergy in Ireland when the Papal
rescripts were issued concerning the Parnell tribute, boycotting,
and the Plan of the Campaign was an amusing commentary on their
view of Papal Infallibility. Any one who will take the trouble to
search the columns of the _Freeman's Journal_ at that time will
see how freely curates even criticised the Papal infallible
utterances. One of them remarked to me at the time, "I think we
have taught the old gentleman a lesson he will not forget,"
referring to the Papal rescripts. Infallibility is very good so
long as it is with us, but when against us it becomes very
fallible. Such is clearly the view of Irish Roman Catholics.
Then, again, we learn another important lesson from a consideration of
the persons who raised the trouble at Antioch. The opening words of
the fifteenth chapter thus describes the authors of it: "Certain men
came down from Judæa." It is just the same with the persons who a
short time after compelled St. Peter to stagger in his course at the
same Antioch: "When certain came from James, then St. Peter separated
himself, fearing them of the circumcision" (Gal. ii. 12). Certain
bigots, that is, of the Jewish party, came, pretending to teach with
the authority of the Mother Church, and secretly disturbing weak
minds. But they were only pretenders, as the apostolic Epistle
expressly tells us: "Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which
went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls;
... to whom we gave no such commandment." These religious agitators,
with their narrow views about life and ritual, displayed the
characteristics of like-minded men ever since. They secretly crept
into the Church. There was a want of manly honesty about them. Their
pettiness of vision and of thought affected their whole nature, their
entire conduct. They loved the by-ways of intrigue and fraud, and
therefore they hesitated not to claim an authority which they had
never received, invoking apostolic names on behalf of a doctrine which
the apostles had never sanctioned. The characteristics thus displayed
by these Judaisers have ever been seen in their legitimate descendants
in every church and society, East and West alike. Narrowness of mind,
pettiness and intolerance in thought, have ever brought their own
penalty with them and have ever been connected with the same want of
moral uprightness. The miserable conception, the wretched fragment of
truth upon which such men seize, elevating it out of its due place and
rank, seems to destroy their sense of proportion, and leads them to
think it worth any lie which they may tell, any breach of Christian
charity of which they may be guilty, any sacrifice of truth and
honesty which they may make on behalf of their beloved idol. The
Judaisers misrepresented religious truth, and in doing so they
misrepresented themselves, and sacrificed the great interests of moral
truth in order that they might gain their ends.
IV. The distractions and controversies of Antioch were overruled,
however, by the Divine providence to the greater glory of God. As the
Judaisers continually appealed to the authority of the Church at
Jerusalem, the brethren at Antioch determined to send to that body and
ask the opinion of the apostles and elders upon this question. They
therefore despatched "Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them,"
among whom was Titus, an uncircumcised Gentile convert, as a
deputation to represent their own views. When they came to Jerusalem
the Antiochene deputies held a series of private conferences with the
leading men of Jerusalem. This we learn, not from the Acts of the
Apostles, but from St. Paul's independent narrative in Galatians ii.,
identifying as we do the visit there recorded with the visit narrated
in Acts xv.[125] St. Paul here exhibits all that tact and prudence we
ever trace in his character. He did not depend solely upon his own
authority, his reputation, his success. He felt within himself the
conscious guidance of the Divine Spirit aiding and guiding a
singularly clear and powerful mind. Yet he disdained no legitimate
precaution. He knew that the presence and guidance of the Spirit does
not absolve a man anxious for the truth from using all the means in
his power to ensure its success. He recognised that the truth, though
it must finally triumph, might be eclipsed or defeated for a time
through man's neglect and carelessness; and therefore he engaged in a
series of private conferences, explaining difficulties, conciliating
the support, and gaining the assistance of the most influential
members of the Church, including, of course, "James, Cephas, and John,
who were reputed to be pillars."
[125] The reader should consult what Mr. Findlay has written on
this point in his _Galatians_, chs. vi. and vii., pp. 92-112.
Is there not something very modern in the glimpse thus given us of the
negotiations and private meetings which preceded the formal meeting of
the Apostolic Council? Some persons may think that the presence and
power of the Holy Ghost must have superseded all such human
arrangements and forethought. But the simple testimony of the Bible
dispels at once all such objections, and shows us that as the
primitive Church was just like the modern Church, torn with
dissension, swept with the winds and storms of controversy, so too the
divinely guided and inspired leaders of the Church then took precisely
the same human means to attain their ends and carry out their views of
truth as now find place in the meetings of synods and convocations and
parliaments of the present time. The presence of the Holy Ghost did
not dispense with the necessity of human exertions in the days of the
apostles; and surely we may, on the other hand, believe that similar
human exertions in our time may be quite consonant with the presence
of the Spirit in our modern assemblies, overruling and guiding human
plans and intrigues to the honour of God and the blessing of man.
After these private conferences the apostles and elders came together
to consider the difficult subject laid before them. And now many
questions rise up which we can only very briefly consider. The
composition of this Synod is one important point. Who sat in it, and
who debated there? It is quite clear, from the text of the Acts, as to
the persons who were _present_ at this Synod. The sixth verse says,
"The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider of
this matter"; the twelfth verse tells us that "all the multitude kept
silence, and hearkened unto Barnabas and Paul rehearsing what signs
and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them"; in the
twenty-second verse we read, "Then it seemed good to the apostles and
the elders, with the whole Church, to choose men out of their company,
and to send them to Antioch"; while, finally, in the twenty-third
verse we read the superscription of the final decree of the Council,
which ran thus, "The apostles and the elder brethren unto the brethren
which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia." It seems
to me that any plain man reading these verses would come to the
conclusion that the whole multitude, the great body of the Church in
Jerusalem, were present and took part in this assembly.[126] A great
battle indeed has raged round the words of the Authorized Version of
the twenty-third verse, "The apostles and elders and brethren send
greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles," which are
otherwise rendered in the Revised Version. The presence or the absence
of the "and" between elders and brethren has formed the battle-ground
between two parties, the one upholding, the other opposing the right
of the laity to take part in Church synods and councils.
Upon a broad review of the whole affair this Apostolic Assembly seems
to me to have an important bearing upon this point. There are various
views involved. Some persons think that none but bishops should take
part in Church synods; others think that none but clergymen, spiritual
persons, in the technical and legal sense of the word "spiritual,"
should enter these assemblies, specially when treating of questions
touching doctrine and discipline.[127] Looking at the subject from
the standpoint of the Apostolic Council, we cannot agree with either
party. We are certainly told of the speeches of four individuals
merely--Paul, Barnabas, Peter, and James--to whom may be conceded the
position of bishops, and even more. But, then, it is evident that the
whole multitude of the Church was present at this Synod, and took an
active part in it. We are expressly told (vv. 4 and 5): "When they
were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the Church and the
apostles and the elders.... But there rose up certain of the sect of
the Pharisees who believed, saying, It is needful to circumcise them."
This indeed happened at the first meeting of the Church held to
receive the Antiochene deputation when they arrived. But there does
not seem to have been any difference between the constitution and
authority of the first and second meetings. Both were what we should
call Ecclesiastical Assemblies. Laymen joined in the discussions of
the first, and doubtless laymen joined in the discussions and much
questioning of the second.
[126] The fifth verse states that after Paul had rehearsed the
wonders done among the Gentiles certain of the sect of the
Pharisees rose up saying, "It is needful to circumcise them." Some
maintain that this was in a missionary meeting before the Synod,
but that this is no proof that such laymen, if they were laymen,
were allowed to raise the question in the Synod. Of course the
next verse states that "the apostles and elders" came together to
consider this matter; but it also states that there was much
questioning before St. Peter opened his mouth to speak on the
subject. Surely the much questioning must have been on the part of
the "certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed"!
[127] It is a curious thing that three parties otherwise very much
opposed unite in this view: the extreme High Church party in
England, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Wesleyan Conference,
which latter body restrains all questions of doctrine and
discipline to ministers alone as rigorously as either of the
others. The Presbyterian Assemblies are in many respects open to
the same charge, the elders who represent the laity being ordained
by imposition of hands as truly as the ministers and signing the
same doctrinal tests. I cannot say how far this may be true of the
Established Assembly in Scotland, but as far as the Free Church
and the Irish General Assemblies are concerned, I am bold to say
that no unordained layman sits in them. I was much amused some
time ago reading the charge of a Wesleyan President of Conference
to the newly ordained ministers of the Irish Conference, when he
bid them remember that Christ had entrusted to them alone the care
of all questions touching doctrine and discipline. See for the
High Anglican theory, which is just the same as the Wesleyan
President's, Joyce's _Acts of the Church_, A.D. 1531-1885, p. 12.
There is not indeed a hint which would lead us to conclude that the
Pharisees, who rose up and argued on behalf of the binding character
of the law of Moses, held any spiritual office whatsoever. So far as
the sacred text puts it, they may have been laymen pure and simple,
such as were the ordinary Pharisees. I cannot, indeed, see how any
member of the Church of England can consistently maintain either from
Holy Scripture, ancient ecclesiastical history, or the history of his
own Church, that laymen are quite shut out from councils debating
questions touching Christian faith, and that their consideration must
be limited to bishops, or at least clergymen alone. The Apostolic
Church seems to have admitted the freest discussion. The General
Councils most certainly tolerated very considerable lay interference.
The Emperor Constantine, though not even baptized, obtruded much of
his presence and exercised much of his influence upon the great Nicene
Council. Why even down to the sixteenth century, till the Tridentine
Council, the ambassadors of the great Christian Powers of Europe sat
in Church synods as representing the laity; and it was only in the
Council of the Vatican, which met in 1870, that even the Roman
Catholic Church formally denied the right of the people to exercise a
certain influence in the determination of questions touching faith and
discipline by the exclusion of the ambassadors who had in every
previous council held a certain defined place. While again, when we
come to the history of the Church of England, we find that the
celebrated Hooker, the vindicator of its Church polity, expressly
defended the royal supremacy as exercised within that Church on the
ground that the king represented by delegation the vast body of the
laity, who through him exercised a real influence upon all questions,
whether of doctrine or discipline. I feel a personal interest in this
question, because one of the charges most freely hurled against the
Church of Ireland is this, that she has admitted laymen to discussions
and votes concerning such questions. I cannot see how consistently
with her past history as an established Church she could have done
otherwise. I cannot see how the Church of England, if she comes in the
future to be disestablished, can do otherwise. That Church has always
admitted a vast amount of lay interference, even prior to the
Reformation, and still more since that important event. Extreme men
may scoff at those branches of their own Communion which have admitted
laymen to vote in Church synods upon all questions whatsoever; but
they forget when doing so that statements and decrees most dear to
themselves bear manifest traces of far more extreme lay intervention.
The Ornaments Rubric, standing before the order for Morning Prayer, is
a striking evidence of this. It is dear to the hearts of many, because
it orders the use of eucharistic vestments and the preservation of the
chancels in the ancient style; but on what grounds does it do so? Let
the precise words of the rubric be the answer: "Here it is to be noted
that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof, at all
times of their ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were
in this Church of England, _by the authority of Parliament_, in the
second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth." Objections to the
determinations, rules, and canons of the Irish Church Synod might have
some weight did they profess, as this rubric does, to have been
ordained and imposed by the order of laymen alone. But when the
bishops of a Church have an independent vote, the clergy an
independent vote, the free and independent vote of the laity is
totally powerless by itself to introduce any novelty, and is only
powerful to prevent change in the ancient order. I do not feel bound
to defend some ill-judged expressions and foolish speeches which some
lay representatives may have made in the Irish Church Synod as again
no member of the Church of England need trouble himself to defend some
rash speeches made in Parliament on Church topics. In the first
moments of unaccustomed freedom Irish laymen did and said some rash
things, and, overawing the clergy by their fierce expressions, may
have caused the introduction of some hasty and ill-advised measures.
But sure I am that every sincere member of the Church to which I
belong will agree that the admission of the lay representatives to a
free discussion and free vote upon every topic has had a marvellous
influence in broadening their conceptions of Scripture truth and
deepening their affections and attachment to their Mother Church which
has treated and trusted them thus generously.[128]
[128] I may perhaps be allowed to refer to a little tract of my
own on this topic published at the time, on "The Work of the Laity
in the Church of Ireland," as embodying the principles of Hooker
applied to modern times and needs.
V. The proceedings of the Apostolic Synod next demand our attention.
The account which has been handed down is doubtless a mere outline of
what actually happened. We are not told anything concerning the
opening of the Assembly or how the discussion was begun. St. Luke was
intent merely on setting forth the main gist of affairs, and therefore
he reports but two speeches and tells of two others. Some Christian
Pharisee having put forward his objections to the position occupied by
the Gentile converts, St. Peter arose, as was natural, he having been
the person through whose action the present discussion and trouble had
originated. St. Peter's speech is marked on this occasion by the same
want of assumption of any higher authority than belonged to his
brethren which we have noted before when objections were taken to his
dealings with Cornelius. His speech claims nothing for himself, does
not even quote the Scriptures of the Old Testament, but simply repeats
in a concise shape the story of the conversion of Cornelius, points
out that God put no difference between Jew and Gentile, suggesting
that if God had put no difference between them why should man dare to
do so, and then ends with proclaiming the great doctrine of grace that
men, whether Jews or Gentiles, are saved through faith in Christ
alone, which purifies their hearts and lives. After Peter's speech
there arose James the Lord's brother, who from ancient times has been
regarded as the first bishop of Jerusalem, and who most certainly,
from the various references to him both here and elsewhere in the Acts
(chs. xii. 17, xxi. 18) and in the Epistle to the Galatians, seems to
have occupied the supreme place in that Church. James was a striking
figure. There is a long account of him left us by Hegesippus, a very
ancient Church historian, who bordered on apostolic times, and now
preserved for us in the _Ecclesiastical History_ of Eusebius, ii., 23.
There he is described as an ascetic and a Nazarite, like John the
Baptist, from his earliest childhood. "He drank neither wine nor
fermented liquors, and abstained from animal food. A razor never came
upon his head, he never anointed with oil, and never used the bath. He
alone was allowed to enter the sanctuary. He never wore woollen, but
linen garments. He was in the habit of entering the Temple alone, and
was often found upon his bended knees, and interceding for the
forgiveness of the people; so that his knees became as hard as
camels', in consequence of his habitual supplication and kneeling
before God. And indeed on account of his exceeding great piety he was
called the Just and Oblias, which signifies the Rampart of the
People." This description is the explanation of the power and
authority of James the Just in the Apostolic Assembly. He was a strict
legalist himself. He desired no freedom for his own share, but
rejoiced in observances and restrictions far beyond the common lot of
the Jews. When such a man pronounced against the attempt made to
impose circumcision and the law as a necessary condition of salvation,
the Judaisers must have felt that their cause was lost. St. James
expressed his views in no uncertain terms. He begins by referring to
St. Peter's speech and the conversion of Cornelius. He then proceeds
to show how the prophets foretold the ingathering of the Gentiles,
quoting a passage (Amos ix. 11, 12) which the Jewish expositors
themselves applied to the Messiah. His method of Scriptural
interpretation is exactly the same as that of St. Paul and St. Peter.
It is very different from ours, but it was the universal method of his
day; and when we wish to arrive at the meaning of the Scriptures, or
for that matter of any work, we ought to strive and place ourselves at
the standpoint and amid the circumstances of the writers and actors.
The prophet Amos speaks of the tabernacle of David as fallen down. The
rebuilding of it is then foretold, and James sees in the conversion of
the Gentiles this predicted rebuilding. He then pronounces in the most
decided language against "troubling those who from among the Gentiles
are turned to God" in the matter of legal observances, laying down at
the same time the concessions which should be demanded from the
Gentiles so as not to cause offence to their Jewish brethren. The
sentence thus authoritatively pronounced by the strictest Jewish
Christian was naturally adopted by the Apostolic Synod, and they wrote
a letter to the disciples in Syria and Cilicia embodying their
decision, which for a time settled the controversy which had been
raised. This epistle begins by disclaiming utterly and at once the
agitators who had gone forth to Antioch and had raised the
disturbances. It declared that circumcision was unnecessary for the
Gentile converts. This was the great point upon which St. Paul was
most anxious. He had no objection, as we have already said, to the
Jews observing their legal rites and ceremonies, but he was totally
opposed to the Gentiles coming under any such rule as a thing
necessary to salvation. The epistle then proceeds to lay down certain
concessions which the Gentiles should in turn make. They should
abstain from meats offered in sacrifice unto idols, from blood, from
things strangled, and from fornication; all of them points upon which
the public opinion of the Gentiles laid no stress, but which were most
abhorrent to a true Jew. The decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem, as the
inspired historian expressly terms them in ch. xvi. 4, were mere
temporary expedients. They determined indeed one important question,
that circumcision should not be imposed on the Gentiles--that Judaism,
in fact, was not in and by itself a saving dispensation; but left
unsolved many other questions, even touching this very subject of
circumcision and the Jewish law, which had afterwards to be debated
and threshed out, as St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians proves. But,
turning our eyes from the obsolete controversy which evoked the
Apostolic Epistle, and viewing the subject from a wider and a modern
standpoint, we may say that the decrees of this primitive Synod
narrated in this typical history bestow their sanction upon the great
principles of prudence, wisdom, and growth in the Divine life and in
Church work. It was with the apostles themselves as with the Church
ever since. Apostles even must not make haste, but must be contented
to wait upon the developments of God's providence. Perfection is an
excellent thing, but then perfection cannot be attained at once. Here
a little and there a little is the Divine law under the New as under
the Old Dispensation. Truth is the fairest and most excellent of all
possessions, but the advocates of truth must not expect it to be
grasped in all its bearings by all sorts and conditions of men at one
and the same time. They must be content, as St. Paul was, if one step
be taken at a time; if progress be in the right and not in the wrong
direction; and must be willing to concede much to the feelings and
long-descended prejudices of short-sighted human nature.