62 Jesus, Prophet of Islam
promises must have seemed overwhelming. To Paul, who had al
ready displayed his tendency to change what little teaching he did
know, it must have now seemed absolutely necessary to make what
adjustments were needed to make Jesus' s teaching palatable to the
cornrnon people. Greece was now part of the Roman Empire. The
Roman gods bore a marked resemblance to the Greek ones and
belief in them only served to support the same misconceptions
whicha belief in the Greekgodsentailed. Paul hadpreviouslyspent
sorne time in Rome and was a Roman citizen. It is possible that his
own reasoning had been influenced by his contact with the Roman
way of life. He was well aware of the strong hold which the Graeco
Roman religions had on the cornrnon people within the Roman
Empire. It is clear that he seems to have felt that it would not be
possible to change their ways without making changes too. Barna
bas, on the other hand, as isrecorded of jesus in Matthew5: 17-18,
knew that his Creator did not wish His Law to be diminished or
changed 'one jot or one tittle.' He therefore held firm to the guid
ance he had been given.
At this stage in the spread of Christianity, the main source of
contention was not of a metaphysical nature. The subtle arguments
and fine distinctions of the intellectuals were a development which
was to come later. The issues over which Barnabas and Paul disa
greed were principally those which affected a human's everyday
existence and way of life. Paul wished to avoid making anyabrupt
changes in those customs which the Greeks had probably taken
for granted before his and Barnabas's arrivaI in Greece. He there
fore wished to abandon the cornrnandments transmitted through
Moses as to what meat it was lawful to eat and how the animal
was to be sacrificed. He also wished to reIinquish, where it seemed
expedient, the cornrnandment established by Abraham regarding
the necessity of circumcision for males. Faced with the practical
difficulty ofestablishing andimplementingthese aspectsof [esus's
teaching, the differencebetweenPaul and Barnabasmusthave been
emphasised rather than diminished.
However, at this stage, these differences were probably not that
marked. Both Paul and Barnabas were faced with the practical chal
lenge of estabIishing [esus's way of Iife. The teaching of the affir
mation of the Divine Unity was essential to this, but initially it was
necessary to establish a pattern of behaviour which was probably
different in many ways to the one to which the pagans had been
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