We the People

[Note: I will be on vacation next week, so I won't be posting any new articles until I return the week of August 8.] 

The Council of Jerusalem sits at the center of Acts and marks a turning point in the story. Prior to the council, Luke’s narrative thread darts from one character to another: Peter, Stephen, Philip, Saul, Peter again, and Paul. But after the council, the apostles disappear from the story and the focus is solely on Paul. Not only that, but the author seems to insert himself into the story with an unexpected shift from 3rd person narration to 1st person.

Paul’s New Partner

After the men from James arrived in Antioch and started enforcing the separation of Jewish and Gentile Christians at common meals, Paul decided to hit the road on another missionary journey. Acts explained (15:37-39) that Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them and Paul refused. Whether for that reason or Barnabas siding with Peter in the table-fellowship controversy (Gal 2:13), Paul chose Silas as his new missionary partner.

Silas was first mentioned in Acts 15:22 as a leader in the Jerusalem church who, along with Judas Barsabbas, would carry the Jerusalem council’s decree to Antioch. He is most likely the same person Paul identifies as Silvanus in his letters. Given Silas’ position within the Jerusalem community, he would bring legitimacy to the Pauline mission.

Timothy’s Circumcision

Revisiting the towns from the previous mission, Paul and Silas travelled overland to Lystra where lived a disciple named Timothy (Acts 16:1-4). Timothy was the son of a Jewish Christian mother and a Greek father and was highly recommended by believers in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to join him on the mission, so he had him circumcised.

Paul’s action here has puzzled many commentators. Why did Paul circumcise Timothy when the Jerusalem council did not require it of Titus (Gal 2:1-3)? The key, I think, is that while Titus was Greek, Timothy was the son of a Jewish mother. If he was then considered to be Jewish by birth, he needed to be circumcised if he would be accompanying Paul since he did not want Timothy to become a distraction to his mission.

Timothy’s circumcision would also demonstrate that Paul was not opposed to Jewish Christians following the Mosaic law. It was a literal embodiment of what Paul wrote in 1 Cor 9:20:

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law.

The “We” Passages

Leaving the region of Galatia, Paul and his companions were prevented from going to the cities on the west or northern coasts of Asia Minor (16:6-10). They made their way to Troas, a seaport on the northwestern shore and there Paul had a vision one night of a Macedonian man inviting him to come over to Europe. Convinced that God was calling them, “we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia.”

This first use of the 1st-person plural in what had been up to this point 3rd-person narration is quite jarring. It marks the first of four We-Sections (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16). The first We-Section covers the journey from Troas in Asia Minor to Philippi in Macedonia. The second and third pick up four chapters and several years later and cover the journey from Philippi to Jerusalem. The last We-Section covers the captive Paul’s journey from Caesarea to Rome.

Scholars have debated the meaning behind these “we” passages. The obvious explanation is that the author is recounting experiences that he shared with Paul and the others. The day-by-day detail of the itinerary in the We-Sections reads like the travel journal of an eyewitness. The problem is that Acts paints a different portrait of Paul than what we know from his authentic letters. The alternate theory is that the use of “we” is a stylistic device well-known in sea voyage literature of the time. Critics of this theory argue that the “we” passages do more than simply recount travel by ship.

For the time being, I am inclined to believe the “we” passages are taken from an eyewitness source. Scholars say that the use of language in these passages match that of the rest of Acts, so they either come from the same author or were thoroughly re-written to match his literary style.

In the second century, Irenaeus attributed the Gospel and Acts to Luke, a companion of Paul. Why Luke and not any of the dozen other companions of Paul? Maybe it was a guess or maybe that was the tradition he received. Whatever the case may be, I refer to the author as “Luke” for simplicity’s sake, instead of using a circumlocution such as “the author of the Third Gospel.”

Icon of Lydia of Thyatira. Thyatira is one of the "seven churches" mentioned in Rev 2-3. The message to the church in Thyatira (Rev 2:18-29) warns against a prophetess who teaches the community to practice immorality and eat food sacrificed to idols. We know from Paul's letters (1 Cor 8) that he had no objections to eating meat sacrificed to idols. If Lydia returned to Thyatira and promoted Paul's version of Christianity, could she be the false prophet condemned in Revelation? NT Christianity was not monolithic and one group of faithful believers could be considered false brothers by another group.

Women’s Liberation

The first convert in Philippi – indeed, the first Christian convert in all of Europe – is Lydia (16:11-15), a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira in Asia Minor. Royal purple cloth was a luxury item that only royalty and the wealthy could afford. Since Lydia had a household large enough to accommodate both servants and guests, she was probably a financially independent woman. Acts calls her “a worshipper of God,” so she was a Gentile God-fearer.

The author writes that on the Sabbath day Paul and his companions went outside the city to a place along the river where the Jewish women gathered for prayer. This suggests there were not enough men in Philippi to form a proper synagogue. After her baptism, Lydia welcomed Paul and his companions to her home, ignoring the restrictive customs of the day that would not allow a woman talk to a man, let alone invite him into her home. By the end of the chapter (v. 40), Lydia’s home had become a house-church for the Christian community in Philippi.

Luke’s subtle point here is that Jewish women could not be founding members of a Jewish synagogue. But as Christians, women like Lydia could be the founding members of a local church. The freedom of the Gospel empowers women and frees them from the restraints placed on them by their faith and culture. It calls to mind the statement of absolute equality in my favorite passage from Scripture (Gal 3:28):

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are one in Christ Jesus.

The Jerusalem Diet

The English word diet is derived from a Latin word meaning both “parliamentary assembly” and “daily food allowance.” Although the political use of the word may not be very familiar to us today, it was used for the governing body of the Holy Roman Empire and the most famous Diet was one held in Worms, a city in the German Rhineland. The Diet of Worms was called by Emperor Charles V in 1521 to demand Martin Luther either recant his views or be declared a heretic. He didn’t recant.

The Jerusalem Conference in Acts

Both senses of the word apply to the Jerusalem conference (c. 49 CE) described in Acts 15:1-21. It was a general assembly of the apostles and elders (first- and second-generation leaders of the church) and its final decree dealt with food restrictions on Gentile converts. Paul’s account of the Jerusalem conference and its aftermath are reported in Gal 2:1-14.

In the opening verses of the account in Acts (vv. 1-2), Luke explains that the crisis was precipitated in the Antiochene church when members of the circumcision party arrived teaching that circumcision and observance of the Mosaic law were requirements for salvation. This generated confusion and dissension, so Barnabas and Paul were sent to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles and elders there.

After both sides presented their case (vv. 4-5), Peter spoke of his experience with converts like Cornelius and how he witnessed the Holy Spirit poured out on the Gentile Christians (vv. 7-11). James concluded the conference when he announced his decision (“I have reached the decision,” v. 19) that Gentiles will only be required to abstain from certain foods and improper sexual relations (vv. 13-21). Curiously, both James’ decree and the resulting letter (vv. 22-29) said nothing of circumcision, the driving issue for the conference.

The main image in the St. Peter Window (c. 1870) of the Cologne Cathedral in Germany shows the Council of Jerusalem. Sts. Peter and Paul are the central figures. Peter's stance and gestures indicate he is the more significant figure in the window..

Two Separate Decisions

Biblical scholars believe that Luke is conflating two different decisions by the Jerusalem authorities. In Paul’s description of the council in Gal 2:1-10, the apostolic leaders decided that circumcision would not required of Gentile believers. But in a later decision where Paul was not present, some ground rules based on Lev 17-18 were established for Gentile Christians that would allow them to live and worship alongside observant Jewish Christians.

What evidence do we have for this? Paul reported (Gal 2:11-14) how table fellowship in Antioch was disrupted by insistence from the “men from James” that Jewish believers could not eat with Gentile believers. But the whole point of James’ decision in Acts 15:19-20 was to lay down minimum dietary rules for Gentiles that would allow Jews to be able to join them in table fellowship. It doesn’t make any sense for the James party to insist on separation at meals if the decision of the Jerusalem conference had established rules to eliminate the need for separation.

Not only that, but according to Acts 21:25, on a later visit to Jerusalem (c. 57 CE) Paul is informed by James that a letter was sent listing the four restrictions on Gentile Christians, the same letter that he and Barnabas were supposed to have carried to Antioch (15:25)! But it all makes perfect sense if there were two decrees from the Jerusalem authorities made a few years apart and Luke combined them as the product of one council.

Why No Circumcision?

Why did the pro-circumcision faction lose? The best explanation I’ve seen is that James realized that forcing circumcision and the Mosaic law would have driven away many potential Gentile converts. Although they might then be considered nominal Jews, the Gentiles’ allegiance would be to Christ and not to Moses. When push came to shove and outside persecutions against Jews arose again, the Gentile believers would consider themselves Christians and not Jews, in spite of any circumcision they received. They would not be willing to die rather than denounce the Mosaic law that was forced upon them.

The unspoken flip side of the Council’s decree meant no relaxation of the Mosaic law for Jewish Christians. This was not something Paul agreed to and Peter only accepted grudgingly. By ending the joint table fellowship between Jew and Gentile Christians, it dissolved the glue that held together churches like those in Antioch.

The Second Decree

Something had to be done to avoid schism. The result was a second decision holding Gentiles to the same rules spelled out in Leviticus 17 and 18 for Gentiles who are resident aliens in Israel. Acts 15:20 spells it out:

“We should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.” (NRSV)

Three of these are clearly dietary regulations: abstinence from (1) meat that was part of a pagan sacrifice (Lev 17:8-9); (2) meat from an animal that was not butchered by having the blood drained from it (17:14-15); and (3) food made from the blood of animals (17:10-12).

The odd man out in this list is porneia in Greek, translated variously as “fornication”, “unlawful marriage” (NABRE), “sexual immorality” (NIV), and “unchastity” (RSV). It is a vague term, so we look to the context to understand it. The other three restrictions come from Lev 17, and Lev 18:6-18 lists a variety of sexual unions among kin that are forbidden. As with the dietary rules, these incestuous unions are not just demanded of Jews, but also of resident aliens (Lev 18:26).

James’ cryptic statement in Acts 15:21 regarding how Moses has been read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath must be his way of saying that these are not rules that he has invented but are rules that were set forth by Moses for Gentiles living with Jews. Any Gentile familiar with the Torah would also be familiar with the regulations in the Holiness Code. In short, if it was good enough for Moses, it was good enough for James.

Finally, these were rules imposed for a mixed community. If the local church consisted of none but Gentiles, the dietary restrictions would not need to be followed. Gentile Christians in those areas, like Christians today, could still enjoy black pudding or eat their steaks rare.

A Painful Issue

The Christian church of the first-half of the first century was not a monolithic entity. We have seen how divisions arose between “Hebrew” (Hebrew-speaking) and “Hellenist” (Greek-speaking) believers. Besides following Greek – instead of Jewish – customs, the Hellenists may also have felt less of an attachment to the Temple and the sacrificial cult. After persecution drove them out of Jerusalem, Hellenists like Philip found kindred spirits in the Samaritans who also devalued Temple worship.

The Gentile Problem

Jewish monotheism and ethical practices were attractive to a certain segment of Gentiles known as God-fearers, but a full embrace of the Mosaic law which included circumcision and dietary restrictions was beyond them. So when Peter baptized Cornelius and his family, God-fearers like these could be accepted into the church as if they were Jewish converts.

But it was one thing to for a church comprised largely of Jews to accept a few Gentiles knowledgeable of Jewish law and practices, and quite another to be faced with entire congregations of Gentile Christians who knew almost nothing of Jewish scriptures and traditions. If church leaders insisted on circumcision and observance of the Mosaic law for these new Gentile Christians, most would not accept it and the budding Christian church would become just another Jewish sect. On the other hand, if the Gentiles were accepted without insistence on circumcision and following the law, then the church would lose all of its Jewish character and become a separate religion.

Four Factions

Such was the dilemma facing church authorities at the so-called “Council of Jerusalem” described in Acts 15 and Gal 2:1-10. To the question of “What is required of the Gentile Christian?” there were four basic answers, each represented by a faction within the church:

1. Full observance of the Mosaic law, including circumcision. Believers in this group were headed by former Pharisees (Acts 15:5) who saw Christianity as just another way of being Jewish. They could point to the example of Jesus who followed the Mosaic law and preached only to Jews. Therefore, Gentile followers of Jesus needed to become Jewish.
2. No circumcision, but adherence to some Jewish practices. Jews were chosen by God and were required to follow the Mosaic law, but that was not a burden that needed to be laid on Gentile converts. Lev 17-18 provided rules for Gentiles living among the people of Israel that could be applied in this situation. Peter and James were proponents of this view.
3. No circumcision and no insistence on Jewish food laws. In the view of Paul, the law served as a disciplinarian until Christ came (Gal 3:24). But Christ removed the curse for failing to fully follow the Mosaic law (Gal 3:10-13). If the risen Lord chose Paul while he was still a persecutor of the church, this proved that a person is not justified through works of the law.
4. No circumcision, no food laws, and no significance in Jewish cults and feasts. This view was held by Hellenists like Stephen, the author of the Gospel of John, and the author of Hebrews. The Temple is rejected as a place where God dwells and Jesus is seen as the replacement for the Jewish high priesthood and sacrificial offerings. More radical members would teach that Jewish Christians no longer needed to circumcise their children or observe Jewish traditions (Acts 21:21).

The Jerusalem Conference and Its Aftermath

With this background in mind, we can turn to Paul’s account of the Jerusalem Conference in Gal 2:1-10. Paul says that, “in response to a revelation,” he and Barnabas travelled to Jerusalem and brought along Titus, an uncircumcised Christian. Concerned that the church authorities could shut down his ministry, Paul laid out the gospel he proclaimed to the Gentiles. Although he was opposed by members of the “circumcision party” (group #1 above), the “pillars” of the church – James, Peter and John –– did not insist Titus be circumcised and authorized continued outreach to the Gentiles. To hear Paul tell the story, he got everything he wanted.

The Dispute at Antioch: Saints Peter and Paul by Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652) aka “Lo Spagnoletto” (“the Little Spaniard”). Peter is the one holding the big key.

Thus it is something of a surprise when Paul continues to tells us the story of what happened when Peter visited the Antiochene church (Gal 2:11-14). After his arrival in Antioch, Peter enjoyed communal meals with the Gentile members of the church, but once members of the pro-circumcision faction arrived, he no longer shared in the communal meals with the Gentiles. Peter’s position within the Jerusalem church led other circumcised Christians and even Barnabas to isolate themselves from the Gentiles as well. Paul called out Peter on his hypocrisy but does not report what happened next. We can only conclude that Paul realized he lost the battle and severed his ties with the Antiochene church. (This episode may also explain why Paul chose Silas instead of Barnabas to accompany him on his next missionary journey.)

Was Peter really the hypocrite Paul made him out to be? At the Jerusalem Conference Peter and James were trying to split the difference between the pro-circumcision and Pauline factions. The circumcisers insisted that full observance of the law was the price of admission to the Christian church. Paul had no objection to a Christian – Jewish or Gentile – following the Mosaic law as long as they understood that justification came through belief in Jesus, not adherence to the law. Peter and James did not want to impose the Mosaic law on Gentiles but considered it necessary for Jewish Christians.

The Dietary Problem

Unwittingly, Peter and James had solved one problem only to introduce another. With no requirement that Gentiles follow Jewish dietary laws, the circumcised Christians had no way of knowing if a communal meal prepared by a Gentile Christian was kosher or not. There had to be some element of trust that a Gentile would not knowingly serve ritually unclean food to his circumcised Christian brother. Peter had first-hand experience of Jesus’ table fellowship with outcasts like tax collectors and prostitutes, so he didn’t have a problem eating with Gentiles.

But when the party from James arrived from Jerusalem, they planted seeds of distrust in the minds of the circumcised Christians. James still required Jewish Christians to fully observe the law of and part of that law required them to eat separately from Gentile Christians (Acts 10:28a). Peter was caught in the middle but had to side with James because separation at meals was the logical consequence of the decision of the Jerusalem Conference that he was party to.

Paul, though, saw it as both a betrayal and counter-productive. Without shared table fellowship, there was nothing to hold the Antiochene church together and the two sides would grow further apart, perhaps leading to a schism. The Jerusalem church would need to take action to ward off such a disaster.

We're On a Mission From God

The story of Paul’s first missionary journey is presented in Acts 13 and 14. Some scholars question its historicity since Paul’s Letter to the Galatians seems to rule it out. Others point to a verse (2 Tim 3:11) that references sufferings Paul endured “in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra” and those are three towns on the itinerary of the first missionary journey. It is widely held that 2 Timothy is not an authentic Pauline letter, but it may be an independent witness to the Lukan source that underlies Acts 13-14.

The mission begins in Syria when the Holy Spirit spoke to the five “prophets and teachers” leading the Antiochene church and Barnabas and Saul were commissioned to go forth and proclaim the word (13:1-3). The other three men are otherwise unknown, but the mention that Manaen was brought up with Herod Antipas indicates that Christianity was not just a religion of the lower classes.

Conflict in Cyprus

The first stop is Cyprus, Barnabas’ homeland (13:4-12). From Antioch, it was a day’s walk to the port city of Seleucia where they were able to take a cargo ship – no passenger ships in the 1st century CE – to Salamis on the eastern shore of Cyprus. They walked the length of the island, proclaiming the word in the synagogues as they went, eventually arriving on the western shore at the capital of Paphos (100 miles from Salamis).

In Paphos the apostles encountered a Jewish magician named Bar-Jesus who was in service to the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus. Saul (who, Luke finally tells us, was also known as Paul) admonished Bar-Jesus. As a result, the magician became blind and the proconsul became a believer. The whole story is reminiscent of the conflict between Peter and Simon Magus in 8:5-25.

There are a couple more items of interest in this passage. First, Sergius Paulus was the proconsul of Cyprus between 46-48 CE, so that gives us a rough idea of when the first missionary journey could have taken place. Second, from this point on Luke will refer to Saul as Paul. Unlike Simon who was given the name Peter (Aramaic Kephas, meaning “rock”) by Jesus, the names “Saul” and “Paul” were given to him at birth. “Saul” would have been his Hebrew name and “Paul” his Roman name. (John Mark would be another example of a double name.) It makes sense that Paul would go by his Roman name in his interactions with the Gentile world.

Inciting a Crowd

With the Cyprus part of their mission concluded, Paul and his companions began the next leg (13:13-52). They sailed to Perga on the southern shore of Asia Minor where John Mark left them to return to Jerusalem. Barnabas and Paul continued on the dangerous 100-mile overland route to the mountainous region where Pisidian Antioch lay. It was called “Pisidian” because it was close to the border of the district of Pisidia (and to distinguish it from a dozen other cities named Antioch).

According to Acts, Paul gave a lengthy speech in the synagogue and won over a following, but that success aroused jealousy in the local Jewish population who eventually had the apostles expelled from the district. They shook the dust of the town off their feet in protest, just as Jesus instructed the disciples (cf. Lk 9:5; 10:11), and moved on to Iconium where the sequence of success and rejection repeated itself (14:1-7).

After fleeing Iconium under threat of stoning, Barnabas and Paul travelled 25 miles to the Roman town of Lystra (14:8-20). It was the first town they visited that did not already have an established Jewish community so they preached in the agora (the public open space). Paul saw a man there who was lame from birth and healed him. The Gentile crowd reacted by calling the apostles Zeus and Hermes and wanted to offer sacrifices to them. (Luke explains that Paul was called Hermes because he did most of the speaking, Hermes being the messenger of the gods.)

Barnabas and Paul tried without success to dissuade the crowd from treating them as deities when Jews from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium arrived and turned the crowd against the apostles. Paul was stoned and left for dead outside the town, but his disciples formed a circle around him and Paul recovered. The next day the apostles left for Derbe but Acts reports nothing of the visit there.

“The priest of Zeus…brought oxen and garlands to the gates; he and the crowds wanted to offer sacrifice.” Paul and Barnabas in Lystra (1678) by Johann Heiss

Everybody Must Get Stoned

The entire Lystra episode bears tell-tale signs of Luke’s reworking. Paul’s healing of the crippled man is a parallel to an earlier healing story involving Peter (3:1-10), but in his letters Paul never refers to having performed healings. Jews stalking the apostles from town to town in order to turn the local pagan populace against them stretches credulity. The Jewish antagonism is part of the Lukan program to show that hostile rejection of the Christian message on the part of the Jewish population forced the apostles to turn to the Gentiles.

That said, in 2 Cor 11:24-25 Paul speaks of his sufferings as am apostle: five floggings (Jewish punishment), three beatings with rods (Roman punishment), one stoning. Stoning usually ended in death, but I wonder if the reference to Paul’s disciples forming a circle around him may have been an intervention to stop a stoning in progress.

[Side note: The RSV (1952) translates 2 Cor 11:25a, “Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned.” In the NRSV (1989) this verse was translated, “Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning.” In the 37 years between these two translations, the term “stoned” developed a different connotation in the US English vocabulary and the NRSV translators didn’t want readers thinking Paul got high on anything other than the Holy Spirit.]

Acts 14:21-28 reports that Barnabas and Paul retraced their steps before sailing back to Syrian Antioch. It would have been shorter and quicker to continue along the road towards Tarsus from which they could then book passage home to Antioch. Does it make sense to return to cities that had rejected and almost killed one of them? The route of the return journey suggests that Luke exaggerated the rejection and downplayed the successes. After all, even in Lystra where Paul was stoned he had won over disciples who formed a protective circle around him.

Paul’s first missionary journey was the shortest of the three in terms of distance travelled. Scholars estimate that he and Barnabas were away for two years. The actual travel time by ship and foot was about two months; most of the time was spent in residence in the cities on their itinerary.

Clouds on the Horizon

When the apostles gave an account of the outcome of their mission to the Antiochene church, they said God “had opened a door of faith for the Gentiles.” Gentiles were a tremendous opportunity for the new faith, but also posed a problem. It was one thing to win over Gentile God-fearers, but quite another to convert pagan Gentiles to Christianity. What about dietary laws and the rest of the Mosaic law? Do the new Gentile converts also need to be circumcised like all Jews? Those were the questions that pre-occupied the minds of the leaders in Jerusalem. The future of the Christian faith would depend on the decisions they were about to make.