The Acts of the Apostles

THE SOURCES AND THEIR VALUE 199
in this section it only shows interest in leading
features.
It seems to me most important for the criticism of
chap. XV. 1—35 that the Antiochean origin of this
passage should be kept in view. If the tradition here
is Antiochean—and from the words of verse 2 : yevo-
/jLevTjg oe cTacreoog Kai ^tjT^crecog ovk oXlytjg t(jo \\av\(a
Koi Bapi''d/3a ttjOO? avTovg as well as from Tivdg aWovg
of verse 2, and jmeTa koi crepcov ttoXXwv of verse 35,
it follows that the source knew more than St. Luke
tells us, and that it could only know this because it
was Antiochean—everything at once explains itself.
There was no need to record what St. Paul and St.
Barnabas had said at Jerusalem. The whole interest
would be concentrated upon the attitude adopted by the
whole Church of Jerusalem, under the leadership of St.
Peter and St. James, towards those teachers of the Law,
who without authority (xv. 24 : oh ov Siea-reiXdjuLeOa),
had come down to Antioch (xv. 1), and who belonged
to the party of Christian Pharisees in Jerusalem
(xv. 5). Neither does the passage on the whole give
any other information, and to try to coax more out of
it is quite inadmissible. It simply marks the result,
while defining the attitude of St. Peter and St. James
more clearly by a free reproduction of their speeches.
It is at the same time clearly shown that the stand-
point of the former was somewhat different from that
of St. James. According to St. Luke both recall the
Divine leading given in the history of the centurion of
Caesarea—those men of Cyprus and Cyrene who first
preached to the Gentiles in Antioch could not therefore,
in St. Luke"*s opinion, claim such Divine leading—
;