ing Judaism, the
Church decided that Gentile converts need not be circumcised.

In A.D. 49, soon after the Council at Jerusalem, St. Paul began a
second missionary journey, and crossed over into Europe, where he
founded several Churches, including those of Philippi and Thessalonica.
At Athens he seems to have made {121} but little impression, but at
Corinth, the busy and profligate centre of Greek commerce, he was more
successful. He stayed there for eighteen months, and during this stay
he wrote the Epistles to the Thessalonians. They are marked by the
attention given to _eschatology_, or doctrine of "the last things"--the
second coming of Christ, the resurrection of mankind, and the judgment.

This second journey closed with a visit to Jerusalem, and was followed
by an incident which shows that the apostle's long warfare with Judaism
was not over. The Judaizers had been defeated at the Council of
Jerusalem, and they were aware that the Gentiles were pouring into the
Church. So they attempted a new and artful plan for securing their own
predominance. They no longer denied that uncircumcised Christians were
Christians, but they tried to gain a higher status for the circumcised.
They asserted that special prerogatives belonged to the Messiah's own
people, and to the apostles whom He had chosen while He was on earth.
When St. Paul went from Jerusalem to Antioch in A.D. 52, St. Peter,
fearing to offend these Judaizers, was guilty of pretending to believe
that he agreed with them.[1] He refused to eat with Gentile
(uncircumcised) Christians. He thereby tried to compel the Gentiles to
"Judaize" (Gal. ii. 14), treating them as if they were an inferior
caste. St. Barnabas was carried away by St. Peter's example. St. Paul
then openly rebuked the leader of the apostles. It is on this incident
that F. C. Baur and the Tuebingen school founded their fictitious
history of a doctrinal struggle between St. Paul and the original
apostles. The fundamental falsehood of this history lies in the fact
that there was no real difference of opinion between St. Peter and St.
Paul. The latter rebuked the former for "dissembling," _i.e._ for
acting on a special occasion in a {122} manner contrary to his
convictions and openly professed principles.

The Judaizing party not only tried to inoculate the Church with
Judaism, but strained every nerve to undermine the authority of St.
Paul. They said that he had no authority to preach Chr