Acts 21:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

There are two reasons: the multitude of those who believed from among the Jews, and the disposition of their mind. If they had been few, even then they should not have been despised.

But if they are many, even though not all held to the law, this is a serious matter. Then comes a third reason.

Rather, those spread this about Paul who wanted these things observed as though without them there could be no salvation in the Gospel for believers.

They understood that he was a zealous preacher of mercy. They knew that he taught the direct opposite of their opinion, namely, that man is justified not by rites but by the mercy of Jesus Christ.

For the sake of prefiguring this mercy, these figures had been given in the law. Therefore, trying to stir up hatred and persecution, they falsely asserted that he was an enemy of the law and of the divine ordinances.

He could not avoid the hatred caused by this false accusation in a more fitting way than by doing himself what he was thought to condemn as sacrilegious.

Thus he showed that Jews should not be restrained from them as unlawful, and that Gentiles should not be compelled to them as obligatory.

I affirm that circumcision and the other things like it were divinely given to the ancients through the covenant called the Old, in order to announce future events that were to be fulfilled through Christ.

Once these had come, Christians should read them only in order to understand the prophecy made beforehand. They should not be obliged to perform them, as though the revelation of faith were still expected.

It was the coming of this faith that those prophecies foretold. Although these things were not to be imposed on the Gentiles, they were not to be removed from the custom of the Jews as something abhorrent and condemned.

Thus, gradually and little by little, the preaching of Christ’s mercy truly burned with fervor. Believing people knew that by this alone they were justified and saved.

They were not saved by those figures of deeds once foretold and now already coming and present.

With the conversion of those Jews whom the presence of the Lord’s flesh and the apostolic times found to be such, this whole operation of shadows was brought to an end.

It is enough to say that the rites were not to be avoided as though they were filth or idolatry. Yet they had no further development and were not regarded as necessary for salvation.

Salvation did not depend on them, nor was it impossible without them. This was the opinion of heretics who wished to be both Jews and Christians, and so could become neither Jews nor Christians.

I must beware of their opinion, although I have never held it. Yet you, Jerome, have graciously been willing to remind me of it.

This accusation was unjust if it meant that Paul rejected the outward observance of Judaism in itself. He rejected it only as a means of man’s justification and sanctification.

His chief principle was this: no one should abandon the earthly, national, and civil relations in which he had lived before Christianity, unless there were weighty reasons for doing so.

In accordance with this principle, Paul also allowed Jews to remain with their Jewish institutions. The observance of the law of Moses belonged to these (1 Cor 7:17, 18).

Therefore, in order to refute this accusation by action itself, James proposed that Paul publicly bear witness, through respect for Jewish rites, that he was not an enemy of the Jewish law.

Paul accepted this proposal and resolved, with four brethren from among the Jews, to take upon himself a Nazirite vow for seven days.

Consequently, he subjected himself to the same renunciations required of Nazirites. He announced to the priests of the temple that he would pay for himself and his fellow participants the sum due from them for offering sacrifice to God at the release from the vow.

Popular rumor about this preaching reached them in a distorted form. Everyone in Jerusalem had heard that the Apostle “taught Jews living among the Gentiles apostasy from the law of Moses.”

They said that he told them not to circumcise their children and not to walk according to the customs of the fathers.

This rumor was supported and inflamed by the Apostle’s enemies. It made all the Palestinian, and especially the Jerusalem, Jewish Christians so hostile toward him that his very appearance in the holy city was unsafe.

More than twenty years earlier, about eight thousand Jews had believed in Jerusalem (Acts 2:41; Acts 4:4). Since then their number had kept increasing. Now, without doubt, James could say to Paul: you see how many thousands.

“And they are all zealots for the law.” They were zealous fulfillers and defenders of the institutions, ordinances, and rites of the law of Moses. They could not tolerate any violation of them, much less any disparagement, since these were given by God.

Such zeal for the law is understandable precisely among Jewish Christians of Jerusalem and Palestine, compared with those in the Diaspora.

Here was the temple. Here was divine worship. Here sacrifices were offered. Here the feasts were celebrated. Here tens and hundreds of thousands of people gathered.

The newly converted could not suddenly depart from the magnificent temple worship. Nor was there any need, because none of this hindered the Christian faith.

It was even useful when there was a correct understanding of the law of Moses. The apostles allowed it so long as Christian truth did not suffer from it.

According to tradition, James, the bishop of Jerusalem, was himself a strict observer of the law.

It was another matter when attachment to the law violated Christian truth. Then the apostles took measures against it (compare ch. 15).

They said he preached that they should not circumcise their children and should not walk according to the customs, that is, should not fulfill the rites of the law of Moses.

These are evidently the same opponents of Paul, the teachers who troubled the Church of Antioch and Jerusalem. They demanded circumcision and observance of the law of Moses even for Gentiles turning to Christ (ch. 15).

The accusation against Paul, released among the people, was slander. From all his teaching, as it is unfolded in his epistles, and from all his activity, one sees what alone he taught.

He taught that the salvation of those who believe in Christ is conditioned neither by circumcision nor by fulfillment of the law of Moses, but by faith in Christ Jesus. See the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and Corinthians.

This means: if you wish, keep the law of Moses; if you wish, do not. His act concerning circumcision bears witness to how he taught about it. Taking Timothy as his fellow worker, he circumcised him.

Thus the insinuation that Paul was an apostate from the law and taught others apostasy was a malicious insinuation and slander against the Apostle.”