AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 179 



tians somewhere between the years 55 and 60 A. D., that is to say, 

 roughly, twenty, or five-and-twenty, years after the crucifixion. 

 If this is so, the Epistle to the Galatians is one of the oldest, if 

 not the very oldest, of extant documentary evidences of the state 

 of the primitive Church. And, be it observed, if it is Paul's writ- 

 ing, it unquestionably furnishes us with the evidence of a partici- 

 pator in the transactions narrated. With the exception of two or 

 three of the other Pauline epistles, there is not one solitary book 

 in the New Testament of the authorship and authority of which 

 we have such good evidence. 



And what is the state of things we find disclosed ? A bitter 

 quarrel, in his account of which Paul by no means minces matters 

 or hesitates to hurl defiant sarcasms against those who were "re- 

 puted to be pillars " : James, " the brother of the Lord," Peter, the 

 rock on whom Jesus is said to have built his Church, and John, 

 "the beloved disciple." And no deference toward "the rock" 

 withholds Paul from charging Peter to his face with " dissimu- 

 lation." 



The subject of the hot dispute was simply this : "Were Gentile 

 converts bound to obey the law or not ? Paul answered in the 

 negative ; and, acting upon his opinion, had created at Antioch 

 (and elsewhere) a specifically " Christian " community, the sole 

 qualifications for admission into which were the confession of the 

 belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and baptism upon that confes- 

 sion. In the epistle in question, Paul puts this — his " gospel," as 

 he calls it — in its most extreme form. Not only does he deny the 

 necessity of conformity with the law, but he declares such con- 

 formity to have a negative value. " Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, 

 that if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing" 

 (Galatians v, 2). He calls the legal observances "beggarly rudi- 

 ments," and anathematizes every one who preaches to the Gala- 

 tians any other gospel than his own — that is to say, by direct con- 

 sequence, he anathematizes the Jerusalem Nazarenes whose zeal 

 for the law is testified by James in a passage of the Acts cited 

 further on. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, dealing with 

 the question of eating meat offered to idols, it is clear that Paul 

 himself thinks it a matter of indifference ; but he advises that it 

 should not be done, for the sake of the weaker brethren. On the 

 other hand, the Nazarenes of Jerusalem most strenuously opposed 

 Paul's " gospel," insisting on every convert becoming a regular 

 Jewish proselyte, and consequently on his observance of the whole 

 law ; and this party was led by James and Peter and John (Gala- 

 tians ii, 9). Paul does not suggest that the question of principle 

 was settled by the discussion referred to in Galatians. All he 

 says is that it ended in the practical agreement that he and Bar- 

 nabas should do as they had been doing in respect of the Gentiles ; 



