i. In order that there should be this conquest and annexation of the

whole Church by the Pauline Gospel it is implied, and it is of the essence of the theory to imply, that there was a broad and well-marked difference between this Pauline Gospel and the general belief of the Church, more particularly of the Mother Church. But St. Paul himself expressly disclaims any such difference; he was anxious that there should not be any, and he took steps to guard against the possibility that serious divergence might have come between them unawares. He tells us that he compared notes with the leading apostles at Jerusalem, to make sure that he and they were preaching substantially the same thing: ‘I laid before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before them who were of repute, lest by any means I should be running, or had run in vain’ (Gal. ii. 2). And again, at the end of the conferences, he tells us how James and Peter and John gave to him and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, as a pledge of their substantial agreement (ibid. ver. 9).

It is true that there were points of discussion, which in other sections of the Church amounted to controversy, between St. Paul and the Judaean Christians. But the Epistle to the Galatians allows us to see the full extent of these debatable matters; and, by defining them, it also defines the extent of the common ground of agreement. What we should call the doctrine of the Person of Christ certainly comes under the latter head, and not under the former. The Mother Church was not Ebionite, or St. Paul would have been in still sharper antagonism to it than he was.

ii. It was this substantial agreement between St. Paul and the leading Apostles that saved the Church from a formidable rupture. Such glimpses as we have of the Judaean churches do not at all give us the impression that they would have submitted meekly to Pauline dictation. No doubt there was a considerable prejudice against St. Paul personally; but it was a prejudice that turned upon other things altogether than his teaching about Christ. We have in Acts xxi. 20-5 a graphic description, which is also full of verisimilitude, of the kind of ways in which St. Paul came into collision with the Jewish Christians; but his teaching about Christ was not one of them.