Bible Commentaries
Acts 15

Verses 1-41

XV 1-35 The Judaizers and the Council of Jerusalem, A.D. 49 —St Paul in Gal condemns the Judaizing party; and the question of how best to reconcile his account with that of Luke in Ac has become very complicated. The view here taken is that Galatians 2:1-10 refers to St Paul’s third visit to Jerusalem, Ac 15.

[According to the South Galatian Theory St Paul wrote Gal just before the Council of Jerusalem to still the repercussions of the Judaizing controversy among his recent South Galatian converts. If this be so, then Galatians 2:1-10 can only refer to an earlier visit, viz.Acts 11:30. Nevertheless Gal gives us a wonderful picture of St Paul’s mind at the time of this Council, cf.§ 893c-d.—Gen. Ed.]

XV 1-3 The Question of the Observance of the Law raised at Antioch —1. St Peter’s action in the case of Cornelius had been decisive, and made possible the Gentile church at Antioch, and the missions of Barnabas and Saul. The church at Jerusalem, though so devoted to the temple and the Law, had accepted that decision, 11:18, and the initiatives of its delegate, Barnabas. Some of its members were now becoming a little obscurantist, with the Apostles gone, and St James emerging as its first bishop, cf. 21:18-26. The reliance it placed on Jewish observances would eventually lead some of its members into heresy; cf. Heb and the history of the Ebionites. Already a party, led by believing Pharisees, 5, and unable to grasp the preparatory and transitory nature of the Law, took alarm at the successful mission of chh 13-14 and the enormous influx of Gentiles into the Church. The Law was a great bulwark of morality, and there was excuse for wondering whether pagans could keep its moral precepts, without observing it entirely. So this party, which did not represent the church at Jerusalem, 13 ff., came to Antioch and insisted that circumcision and the Law were necessary for those who wished to enter the Messianic kingdom on earth, and be saved.

2. A serious controversy arose, and ’Paul and Barnabas and some of the others’ went up to Jerusalem, cf.Galatians 2:1. It was decided to appeal to the Apostles and presbyters, § 820d, at the mother church, whence the objectors had come.

3. The Judaizing party had evidently little following outside Jerusalem; cf. 20:38; 21:5.

4-5 The Welcome at Jerusalem —4. ’They were welcomed by the church and by the Apostles and Presbyters’, i.e. with solemnity. St Luke wishes us to realize that the church as a whole did not share the views of the Judaizers. The question had already been decided; cf. 7-11.

6-12 The Council. St Peter’s Intervention —6. This, the first Council, was composed of the church at Jerusalem only, and so was hardly oecumenical. It re-affirmed the decision accepted a decade earlier, that justification came through faith in Jesus, not through the Law, and promulgated a practical measure, to deal with a particular situation. The affair turned out to be much less grave than appeared at first.

7. Perhaps 6 describes a private meeting, during which ’there had been much debate’, and now St Peter announces the result to the multitude. Be that as it may, he speaks with an authority that all accept, and by re-stating his decision in the case of Cornelius, implies that the question should not have been re-opened.

8. God Knows hearts, 1:24, and does not respect persons, 10:34. cf. 10:44. 9. The hearts of the Gentiles were made pure by Faith, not by circumcision and the Law, Romans 3:24-25.

10. In view of the Pentecost of the Gentiles, the Judaizers are tempting God, either because they wish for further miraculous proof of his Will, or better, because they doubt the saving power of faith in Christ. They are trying to re-impose an unbearable yoke, cf. 7:53.

11. We might paraphrase: ’We Jews will be saved, not by the Law, but just like the Gentiles, by the grace of Jesus’. St Paul himself could not have said more. For Jews, too, the Law is unnecessary.

12. Silence shows approval. The objectors hold their peace. But Barnabas and Paul are not silent, they give further evidence that God approves what has been decided by St Peter who exercises a Primacy that none contest, and pronounces authoritatively on the question of doctrine, cf.§ 819e.

13-21 The Speech of St James —Traditionally and more probably an Apostle as well as the ’brother of the Lord’, cf. comm. on James. He was renowned for his devotion to the Law, and seems to have been the first Apostle to become a local bishop; cf. 12:17. His reply to the Judaizers was thus doubly important.

14. He refers again to the case of Cornelius, which shows that God is forming a Chosen People from the Gentiles.

15-17. This is borne out by the prophet Amos 9:11-12, quoted from LXX. The Heb. promises that the nations once subject to David will be restored to Israel in Messianic times, but this can be understood typically in the same sense as LXX. The kingdom will be restored, so that the rest of men may seek the Lord, and all nations receive a call to enter it.

18. The better reading is ’Saith the Lord, who hath made these things known from the beginning’.

19. From St James’ ’I judge’ it has been argued that he and not. St Peter had the first position, but a word cannot prevail against the context, so favourable, here, as in the rest of Ac, to the Petrine primacy. The phrase bears a very different interpretation. ’For which cause’, in view of Simon’s action in the case of Cornelius, and of the prophecy, ’I’, without wishing to engage others, ’judge’, am of opinion, a usual sense of the Gk ??í??, and one found often in Ac, ’that the Gentile converts are not to be disquieted’. St James shows why he adheres to the decision which has already been given by Peter on the point at issue. He then puts forward a practical suggestion, which so far from being a decree of his own, is expressly attributed to the Apostles and presbyters who adopted it, 15:28; 16:4.

20. The freedom of the Gentiles is recognized, but four practices which Jews found particularly heinous in pagans must be forbidden. Thus Gentile converts will not appear so scandalous to Jewish Christians, and relations between the two will be facilitated. On the ’Western’ text of the prohibitions, which is to be rejected, see § 821a.

The Apostolic Decree is given three times, here, 28-29 and 21:25. ’Pollution of idols’ is food offered to idols, 29. Rom and 1 Cor show what difficult questions of conscience this provoked. ’Fornication’ finding a place among ritual matters has led exegetes to explain it as the prohibition of marriage within degrees forbidden by the Mosaic Law. The word must be taken literally. There is enough evidence of pagan licence to show how necessary this clause of the Decree was; cf. the warnings found in St Paul’s epistles. Pagan and Jewish standards contrasted sharply in this. ’Things strangled’, i.e. animals whose blood was still in them, Lev 17, Deut 12. ’Blood’, this too was forbidden by the Mosaic Law, ibid. Neither the blood of animals nor meat with the blood in it were to be eaten.

[The correspondence between the four apostolic prohibitions and those of Leviticus 17:8, Leviticus 17:10, Leviticus 17:13; Leviticus 18:5-26, where four prohibitions are laid down as the minimum observance required of Gentiles living in Jewish territory, is too striking to be overlooked. James would therefore appear to be invoking an old legal practice and adapting it to the similar situation of Gentile Christians living in the midst of Christian Jewish communities. The observance of these four prohibitions would provide the Mosaic legal basis for ’intercommunion’ between Christians of Jewish and Gentile origin wherever the Jews predominated, cf. CR 20 (: 1941) 283-94 Art. Except it be for’ fornication, by R. S. J. Dyson, and B. S. J. Leeming—Gen. Ed.]

21. The most satisfactory explanation of the bearing of this verse on the argument is that here is a matter of charity and expediency, for these things are forbidden in the Law of Moses, esp. Lev 17-18. This is read each week in the synagogues, and Jewish Christians, or Jews too, will be scandalized if Gentile Christians do not observe them. On the other hand the meaning could be that it is not necessary to announce these prohibitions to Jewish Christians, who know them already.

22-29 The Letter sent to Antioch —22. After St Peter’s speech and St James’ plea a unanimity is reached which includes even the Pharisees of 5. Though all were present, the letter was sent by the Apostles and presbyters. Two delegates were chosen to accompany Paul and Barnabas. Nothing is known of Judas. Silas became the companion of St Paul. He was a prophet, 32, and besides being a leading member of the church at Jerusalem, a Hellenist and a Roman citizen, 16:37; 2 Corinthians 1:19.23. The letter must in the nature of the case have been carefully preserved. As to the Scope of the Decree, the letter is addressed only to Syria and Cilicia, where the dispute had arisen. It held for any churches that could be said to depend on Jerusalem, 21:25. St Paul communicated it to the cities of S. Galatia, which had been evangelized from Antioch. The essential part of the Decree applied universally, and here St Paul’s victory was complete. The four prohibitions must have applied only in the churches mentioned above, where Jewish Christians were numerous; there may be a reference to them in 1 Corinthians 8:13 and 10:28, but there is none in Gal. They are found observed long afterwards in other parts, but perhaps after they had begun to be transformed into a moral code, as in the ’Western’ text. The decision only applied directly to Gentile Christians, but the disagreement at Antioch, Galatians 2:11 ff., shows SS Peter and Paul agreeing that it affected Jewish Christians too, which ’followed from the principle invoked in 11.

24. The Judaizers are strongly disowned. The words ’going out’ should be omitted, i.e. ’Some members of our community, but without a mandate’.

25. The Gk emphasizes the complete unity of purpose. The praise heaped on Paul and Barnabas suggests the bitterness of the opposition they had encountered.

26. They staked their lives continually; cf. 9:23; 13:50; 14:18. 28. The Apostles have decided under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit. The phrase with which the verse begins is still used by the Church in her conciliar decisions.

29. The four prohibitions (in the same order as Lev 17-18) are ’necessary’ to avoid scandal and facilitate relations between the two kinds of Christians; cf. 20. The Holy Spirit had guided the church of Jerusalem. If its role was now finished, and its horizon was to grow more and more limited and Jewish, at least it had witnessed faithfully to our Lord’s command to teach all nations.

30-35 The Decree promulgated at Antioch —30-31. The whole church was assembled, and rejoiced at the news that there was no question of imposing the Law, and that the Judaizers had had no official status. As to the extent to which the Law still bound Jewish Christians, see 21:21. 33. The emissaries having fulfilled their mission receive the kiss of peace. 34. There is little authority for this verse, which seems to have been inserted to explain the presence of Silas, 40.

XV 36-XVIII 22 The Second Missionary Journey, A.D. 50-2 —With the door of faith opened to the Gentiles, the work of preaching must be resumed. This journey brings St Paul, guided as always by the Holy Spirit, 16:6-7, 9; 18:9, to Greece, with Corinth as his main centre.

XV 36-41 The Separation of Paul and Barnabas —36. After a short while, in the spring of 50 when travel became possible again, St Paul’s solicitude for his converts, so evident in his epistles, made itself felt. 37. cf. 12:12.

38. He considered that St Mark’s inconstancy disqualified him, and he was unfamiliar with the churches that were to be revisited.

39. ’And there arose a sharp dissension’. The conciliatory Barnabas wanted his cousin to repair his fault, and so took him to the field where both had laboured previously. Always a peacemaker, he had introduced Saul to the Twelve, welcomed the first Gentile converts at Antioch, and recently the desire to conciliate the Jewish Christians there had led him to dissimulation, in the company of St Peter, Galatians 2:13. Indeed it has been suspected that the difference in that matter was not without its effect on the dissension here described. Nevertheless Barnabas remains the standing refutation of all the theories which try to oppose St Peter and St Paul. He was always in St Peter’s confidence, with St Mark as a further link, and he was a wholehearted collaborator with St Paul, during the momentous period between the first preaching to the Gentiles at Antioch and the Council of Jerusalem. St Paul refers to him with obvious friendliness in Galatians 2:9 and 1 Corinthians 9:6, and that is all that the NT tells us. Perhaps he did not live long, as we may infer from the presence of St Mark in Rome without his cousin at the time of St Paul’s first captivity, Colossians 4:10. St Mark ended by becoming once again the fellow-labourer of St Paul, Phm 24; 2 Timothy 4:11.

40. Silas (cf. 22) must have returned from Jerusalem. He took the place of Barnabas as fellow apostle. St Paul and he were ’recommended to the grace of the Lord’ as before. No doubt the same happened to Barnabas and St Mark, but St Luke is no longer recounting their history.

41. St Paul revisits the scene of his earlier labours, 9:30. The second half of the verse is to be omitted. Probably Silas and Judas had already published the Decree in Cilicia.