the observance of the law of Moses. So far were his disciples from imagining that he contemplated any such change, that they were at first in doubt whether it was allowable for them even to relax the rules which forbade social intercourse with heathens. The writer of the Acts of the Apostles, however, informs us that, when an important convert was to be won over from the pagan ranks, Peter had the privilege of a vision which enjoined him not to call anything which God had cleansed common or unclean. Interpreting this to mean that he might associate with the Gentiles, he received the heathen convert, Cornelius, with all cordiality, and even preached the gospel of Jesus to the uncircumcised company by whom he was surrounded. That this was a novel measure is plainly evinced by the fact that the Jewish Christians who were present were astonished that the gift of the Holy Ghost should be poured out upon the Gentiles. They therefore had conceived that Christianity was to be confined to themselves (Acts x).
But there is more direct evidence of the same fact. When Peter returned to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers there found fault with him because he had gone in to uncircumcised men, and had eaten with them. Peter, of course, related his vision in self-defense, and since there was no reply to be made to such an argument as this, they accepted the new and unexpected fact which he announced: "Well, then, God has given repentance to life to the Gentiles also" (Acts xi. 1-18). Paul, who was too strong-minded to need a revelation to teach him the best way of promoting Christian interests, also received heathen converts without requiring them to come under Jewish obligations. But the conduct of these apostles was far from meeting with unmixed approbation in the community. Some men from Judea came to Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas were, and informed the brethren there that unless they were circumcised they could not be saved. So important was this question deemed, that Paul and Barnabas, after much disputing with these Judaic Christians, agreed to go with them to Jerusalem to refer the matter to a council of the apostles and elders. Obviously, then, it was a new case which had arisen. No authoritative dictum of Jesus could be produced. The possibility of having to receive heathens among his disciples was one
