The narrative of Acts follows oral and written traditions which were already influenced by later
views and prejudices, and it is for this reason unreliable in part, yet by no means a conscious
fiction."
OttoPfleiderer: Der Paulinismus. Leipzig, 1873, pp. 278 sqq. and 500 sqq. He tones down the
differences to innocent inaccuracies of the Acts, and rejects the idea of "intentional invention."
C. Weizsäcker (successor of Dr. Baur in Tübingen, but partly dissenting from him): Das
Apostelconcil in the "Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie" for 1873, pp. 191–246. And his essay
on Paulus und die Gemeinde in Korinth, ibid., 1876, pp. 603–653. In the last article he concludes
(p. 652) that the real opponents of Paul, in Corinth as well as in Galatia, were not the primitive
apostles (as asserted by Baur, Schwegler, etc.), but a set of fanatics who abused the authority
of Peter and the name of Christ, and imitated the agitation of Jewish proselytizers, as described
by Roman writers.
K. Schmidt: Der Apostel-Konvent, in Herzog and Plitt, R. E. I. (1877), 575–584. Conservative.
Theod. Keim: Aus dem Urchristenthum. Zürich, 1879, Der Apostelkonvent, pp. 64–89. (Comp.
Hilgenfeld’s review in the "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theologie," 1879, pp. 100f sqq.) One
of the last efforts of the author of the Leben Jesu von Nazara. Keim goes a step further than
Weizsäcker, strongly maintains the public as well as the private character of the apostolic
agreement, and admits the circumcision of Timothy as a fact. He also entirely rejects the view
of Baur, Weizsäcker, and Overbeck that the author of Acts derived his information from the
Ep. to the Galatians, and perverted it for his irenic purpose.
F. W. Farrar: The Life and Work of Paul (Lond., 1879), chs. XXII.-XXIII. (I. 398–454).
WilibaldGrimm: Der Apostelconvent, in the "Theol. Studien und Kritiken" (Gotha), for 1880, pp.
405–432. A critical discussion in the right direction. The exegetical essay of Wetzel on Gal.
2:14, 21, in the same periodical, pp. 433 sqq., bears in part on the same subject.
F. Godet: Com. on the Ep. to the Romans, vol. I. (1879), pp. 3742, English translation. Able and
sound.
KarlWieseler: Zur Gesch. der N. T.lichen Schrift und des Urchristenthums. Leipzig, 1880, pp.
1–53, on the Corinthian parties and their relation to the errorists in the Galatians and the
Nicolaitans in the Apocalypse. Learned, acute, and conservative.
Comp. above § 22, pp. 213 sqq.; my Hist. of the Apost. Church, §§ 67–70, pp. 245–260; and
Excursus on the Controversy between Peter and Paul, in my Com. on the Galat. 2:11–14.
The question of circumcision, or of the terms of admission of the Gentiles to the Christian
church, was a burning question of the apostolic age. It involved the wider question of the binding
authority of the Mosaic law, yea, the whole relation of Christianity to Judaism. For circumcision
was in the synagogue what baptism is in the church, a divinely appointed sign and seal of the
covenant of man with God, with all its privileges and responsibilities, and bound the circumcised
person to obey the whole law on pain of forfeiting the blessing promised. Upon the decision of this
question depended the peace of the church within, and the success of the gospel without. With
circumcision, as a necessary condition of church membership, Christianity would forever have
been confined to the Jewish race with a small minority of proselytes of the gate, or half-Christians
while the abrogation of circumcision and the declaration of the supremacy and sufficiency of faith
in Christ ensured the conversion of the heathen and the catholicity of Christianity. The progress ofA.D. 1-100.