The Acts of the Apostles

288 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Gentiles have been freed from the observance of the
Law ; he knows that the great majority of the Jewish
nation have fallen under the sentence of '• final har-
dening"; but he feels that only the more respect is
due to those Jews who, while observing the Law,
believed in Christ. They are " the nation "" for whom,
in the first place, all the promises have been and are
being fulfilled, and their ohservatio legis is for him an
object of admiration.
This attitude of St. Luke towards the Law and
the Jewish nation ^ reflects very early conceptions,
and expresses historical relations which existed at the
time of St. Paul, but can scarcely have continued
much later. Hitherto this has not been clearly
recognised, rather the standpoint of St. Luke has
been obscured by all kinds of distorting theories.
These theories all proceed a priori from the assump-
tion that St. Luke's point of view can only be regarded
as a stage in the development of post-Pauline doc-
trine. Hence we hear of compromises between Jewish
and Gentile Christianity which may be discerned in
these writings, or of a Gentile Christianity which had
" already " absorbed Jewish Christianity and so modi-
fied itself, &c. But the real situation is much simpler.
In these writings we must recognise a position parallel
with that of St. Paul, just such a position as must
have been taken up by a Christian Greek of the
earliest period ; one who was more humane but also
^ After what has been already said there is no need of a special
discussion of St, Luke's attitude towards the Old Testament. It is
now self-evident that he never doubted that this book had been
given to and belonged to the Jewish nation. In that the Gentiles
are called, they take a share in the inheritance of the nation.