he had never contemplated. Called to deal with this supremely important question, on which the whole future of the Church turned, the apostles displayed moderation and good sense. Acting on the concurrent advice of Peter, Paul, James, and Barnabas, they wrote to the brethren in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, that they had determined to lay no greater burden upon them than these necessary things:—1. Abstinence from meat offered to idols; 2. from blood; 3. from things strangled; 4. from fornication. Hence it will be seen that they absolved the heathen believers from all Jewish observances except two, those that forbade blood and things strangled. These, from long habit and the fixed prejudices of their race, no doubt appeared to them to have some deeper foundation than a mere arbitrary command. These therefore they enjoined even upon pagans (Acts xv. 1-31).
Be it observed, however, that this dispensation applied only to those who were not of Hebrew blood. The apostles and elders assembled at Jerusalem had no thought of dispensing themselves from the binding force of the law of Moses. To observe it was alike their privilege and their duty. They did not conceive that, in becoming Christians, they had ceased to be Jews, any more than a Catholic who becomes a Protestant conceives that he has ceased to be a Christian. The question whether those who had been born Jews should abandon their ancient religion was not even raised at this time among them. The only question was whether those who had not been born Jews should adopt it.
Innovation, however, is not to be arrested at any given point. Liberty having been conceded to the Gentiles, it was not unnatural that some of the apostles, when living among the Gentiles, should take advantage of it for themselves. No overt rule was adopted on this subject. It seems to have been tacitly understood that all Jews should continue to be bound by the rigor of their native customs, except in so far as they had been modified by common consent: and the attempt of some to escape from this burden was an occasion of no small scandal to the more orthodox members of the sect (Acts xxi. 20; Gal. ii. 12). Both Peter and Paul indeed, at separate times, were compelled to make some concessions to the extremely strong feeling in
