294 AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER vin 



ment of which determined the fortunes of the 

 nascent religion. It is that the disciples at Jeru- 

 salem, headed by " James, the Lord's brother," and 

 by the leading apostles, Peter and John, were strict 

 Jews, who had objected to admit any converts 

 into their body, unless these, either by birth, or by 

 becoming proselytes, were also strict Jews. In 

 fact, the sole difference between James and Peter 

 and John, with the body of the disciples whom 

 they led and the Jews by whom they were 

 surrounded, and with whom they, for many years, 

 shared the religious observances of the Temple, 

 was that they believed that the Messiah, whom 

 the leaders of the nation yet looked for, had 

 already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 

 The Acts of the Apostles is hardly a very trust- 

 worthy history ; it is certainly of later date than 

 the Pauline Epistles, supposing them to be 

 genuine. And the writer's version of the confer- 

 ence 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 



