quered gave laws to the conquerors." Dio Cassius (XXXVII., 17) says: "Among the Romans also is this race"-the Jews-"indeed, often persecuted, but they increased to such an extent, that they express their belief without any fear." With regard to Antioch, says Josephus (Bell. Jud., VII., 33) that the married women were nearly all observers of the law -so of Damascus. Helen and her royal son Izates turn Jews (Antiq., 20); Vespasian's nephew suffered death for his inclination toward Judaism. The smaller number of these converts were proselytes of righteousness; the vast majority were proselytes of the gate, and these as well as the women were most ready to embrace Christianity. And in the face of these facts of history, M. Rénan dares to say, that the conversion of S. Paulus to Christianity in those days was a psychological impossibility! Paul and Barnabas must have recourse to trickery, and the illustrious Roman must have seen in a miracle only a trick for amusement, or the proof of the presence of a god (p. 55). "If S. Paulus had really believed in Paul's miracles, he would have reasoned as follows: this man is very powerful, perhaps he is a god,' and not, 'the doctrine which he preaches is true'” (p. 56). To this we reply by merely asking M. Rénan, whether he thinks that S. Paulus would have taken the words of a presumed god for a lie?

Or as the transaction under consideration bears some resemblance to Peter's encounter of Simon Magus (Acts viii.), distorted in the Clementines a whole century later so as to make it almost unrecognizable, it is, according to Rénan, possibly a mere version of the Peter story, without any historical basis, with a view of glorifying Paul. And such a wilful mutilation of history we are called upon to accept as the quintessence of truth! Very pathetically says Rénan at the close of the volume under review: "O humanity! certain of thy judgments are just," to which we would add: "O history! certain of thy pages are comically defaced by designing men!"

We cannot possibly follow our author step by step through the whole work, as we should have to write not a review, but a work larger than the work reviewed, and we shall,

therefore, content ourselves with calling attention to one or two more prominent points, and this we can do with the greater propriety, as our author has followed in his sketch the commonly received opinions, has started no new theory or hypothesis, and has brought forward no new argument in support of his views. Nor has he attempted to give us something like a system of Paul's teaching, as he was bound to do, in order to establish the truth of what he asserts as to the unrelenting opposition of some of the older Apostles to Paul, especially of James and John. For if there is no radical difference between Paul's teaching and that of his reported enemies and persecutors proved to exist, however widely they may differ in terminology and even on minor points of doctrine, the allegation, that men who once have recognized Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and had given him the right hand of fellowship, afterward turned his unrelenting enemies, is nothing but an empty assertion, and unworthy of any intelligent student of history.

It is true we have in the book before us very lengthy extracts from the writings of Paul, but in no case are these extracts given with a view of systematizing Paul's doctrine, or of proving and elucidating certain points of his doctrine. So we have (pp. 193-201) the whole Epistle to the Galatians transcribed, apparently for no other purpose than that of swelling the size of the book, for the few comments are puerile and worthless; pp. 229-233 we have lengthy extracts from 1 Cor., but likewise for no other purpose, as it would seem; p. 244 we have 1 Cor. xiii. transcribed, introduced, indeed, with the compliment: "Borne along by a truly prophetic inspiration beyond the mingled ideas and aberrations, Paul wrote this admirable page, the only one in all Christian literature which might be compared with the discourses of Jesus." But the additum reads: "Had he been versed in experimental psychology, Paul would have proceeded a little further. He would have said, 'Brethren, put away illusions. These inarticulate stammerings, these ecstasies, these miracles, are the dreams of your childhood. But what is not chimerical-what is eternal-that I have just been preaching to you;'" pp. 248-249, we have the greater

portion of 1 Cor. xv. transcribed, followed by what? by an effort to systematize Paul's eschatological teaching? Alas! no; but by "the Christ did not come. All of them "-the believers-" died, one after another. Paul, who had believed himself to be one of those who would live until the great coming, died in his turn.'

The few points more, to which we wish to call attention in these pages, are the first synod held at Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts xv. and Gal. ii., and the alleged persecution of Pat:l by James and John.

The whole so-called Tübingen school maintains and labors hard to prove that there are irreconcilable differences, positive contradictions, between the record of Acts xv. and what Paul writes in the Epistle to the Galatians. M. Rénan does, indeed, not maintain this absolute contradiction, but from his lofty stand-point he is not under the necessity of doing so. For whenever a difficulty presents itself, he solves it by asserting that Paul accommodated himself to circumstances; that, whenever he needed authority for any thing he said or did, he claimed or manufactured a revelation, he claimed a miracle, played a trick; and a man who takes such liberties can scarcely ever be at a loss how to justify his conduct. According to Acts xv. (and in this case Rénan gives the preference to this document), the church at Antioch sends Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem in order to have the question about circumcision settled there. Paul (Gal. ii. 2) says, that he went by revelation. That the two statements are perfectly consistent with each other Rénan does not seem to think of, at least does not intimate by a single word. Again, the conclusions arrived at by the synod and embodied in a letter carried by Barnabas and Silas to the church at Antioch, as recorded, Acts xv. 23-29, "cannot have been formally adopted, certainly not been embodied in a letter, because Paul says nothing of it, and because Peter's subsequent conduct at Antioch is altogether irreconcilable with the existence of such an authoritative document."-Pp. 176 -188.

But whoever reads Gal. ii. 3-10 attentively, will soon have the conviction forced upon himself, that the two statements are perfectly consistent with each other. Paul's authority to

preach the Gospel had been impugned or denied-this was no personal matter, but the Gospel itself was at stake-to submit tamely to such attacks, that imperilled the success of the Gospel, would have amounted to a denial of the Gospel itself on the part of Paul, an offence as grievous as that of Peter when he denied his Master, and infinitely more pernicious in its consequences. Paul, therefore, vindicates his authority and his conduct, and states, what is also stated in Acts xv., that the older Apostles recognized his calling to the apostleship and the legitimacy of his whole proceeding. To say in that connection, on that occasion, for the purpose he had in view,—more, to give the resolution verbatim,-would not only have been irrele vant, but would have been used by Paul's adversaries as a quasi justification of their conduct.

As to Peter's conduct at Antioch and the assumptions Rénan and others found upon it, they are based on a radically wrong view of the Apostle's inner life. The enemies of Christianity and a certain class of Christians agree on this point-they have no idea of an organic development of the Apostle's inner life and higher knowledge, as they seem to have no idea of any progress in God's self-revelation to men-all their knowl edge was complete at once, and came (according to them) from without, being communicated in a mechanical manner, without any human and individual mediation, and when this view is contradicted by facts, then the enemies deny the truth of the Scripture, while the second class overlook the facts or have recourse to unnatural explanations. Many of the finest parables concerning the kingdom of God give prominence to the idea of development and expansion, not only outwardly, but also inwardly. In the individual as well as in the aggregate of believers, growth in knowledge, in an insight into the nature of the kingdom, is as much a law as growth in grace. We see this exemplified in the case of all the Apostles of whose teachings and doings we have authentic record. Without denying the higher dignity of the Saviour, he is to the Apostles of Jerusalem, at first, the servant (Taic) of God, which does, indeed, not exclude his divinity, but does not necessarily imply it either. So with regard to the admission of the Gentiles into the kingdom-the Lord had laid down principles which,

if consistently developed, would not only have led to the admission of Gentiles, but also to their admission without submitting to the works of the law, whose obligation was formally recognized by circumcision. Yet Peter needed a vision and a positive instruction from heaven on the subject, before he saw his way clear. Of the same kind was the conduct of all the disciples with reference to their belief in the death and resurrection of their Master. The Synod at Jerusalem had settled the question of the admission of believing Gentiles into the church without circumcision-this decision embodied the principle, that circumcision was in every case something indifferent in man's justification before God; that the partition wall between Jews and Gentiles was broken down; that all laws holding up this distinction were abrogated; that in Christ all believers are one. But did they all draw the legitimate inferences from these premises? From the accounts we have of James by Hegesippus and Josephus, it would seem that he did not draw all these inferences, at least not practically, although there is no evidence on the other hand that he relapsed, that he abandoned the principles established by the Synod and became the avowed enemy of Paul. Without the explicit narrative of Acts xxi. 18-25, we should infer from what we know of the two Apostles by other sources, that their conduct would have been essentially what it is there described, although Paul went as far in making concessions as he possibly could. Peter was less consistent and firm than Paul, and facing enemies and dangers was not among the leading features of his character. Paul charges him, on the occasion in question, with hypocrisy, implying that his actions belied his convictions, and it is very likely that Peter felt at the time the justness of the charge. Renan charges Paul with rashness, says that he penned the Epistle to the Galatians in a state of high excitement, and would probably not have sent it at all if he had reflected but a moment on its contents, and calls it, repeatedly, rude. At the same time he recognizes the importance of the subject in dispute, admits that if Paul's opponents had prevailed, Christianity would have dwindled down into a second edition of Judaism, and would thus have been destroyed in its very infancy. And yet St. Paul's con