EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 107 



Eory, formed the business for the sake of which the journey 

 was undertaken. The mention of the council and of its 

 determination, while the apostle was relating- his proceed- 

 ings at Jerusalem, could hardly have been avoided, if in 

 truth the narrative belong to the same journey. To me it 

 appears more probable that Paul and Barnabas had taken 

 some journey to Jerusalem, the mention of which is omitted 

 in the Acts. Prior to the apostolic decree, we read that 

 " Paul and Barnabas abode at Antioch a long time with the 

 disciples." Acts 14 : 28. -Is it unlikely, that during this 

 long abode, they might go up to Jerusalem and return to 

 Antioch ? Or would the omission of such a journey be un- 

 suitable to the general brevity with which these memoirs 

 are written, especially of those parts of St. Paul's history 

 which took place before the historian joined them? 



But again, the first account we find in the Acts of the 

 Apostles of St. Paul's visiting Galatia, is in the sixteenth 

 chapter and the sixth verse : " Now when they had gone 

 through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, .... they assay- 

 ed to go into Bithynia." The progress here recorded was 

 subsequent to the apostolic decree ; therefore that decree 

 must have been extant when our epistle was written. Now, 

 as the professed design of the epistle was to establish the 

 exemption of the Gentile converts from the law of Moses, 

 and as the decree pronounced and confirmed that exemption, 

 it may seem extraordinary that no notice whatever is taken 

 of that determination, nor any appeal made to its authority. 

 Much, however, of the weight of this objection, which ap- 

 plies also to some other of St. Paul's epistles, is removed by 

 the following reflections. 



1. It was not St. Paul's manner, nor agreeable to it, to 

 resort or defer much to the authority of the other apostles, 

 especially while he was insisting, as he does strenuous. y 

 throughout this epistle insist, upon his own original inspira 

 tion. He who could speak of the very chiefest of the apos 

 tJes in such terms as the following — " of those who s-eraed 



