And they are informed of thee... — This, it is clear, was the current version of St. Paul’s teaching. How far was it a true representation of its tendencies? As a personal accusation it was, of course, easy to refute it. His rule of adaptation led him to be to the Jews as a Jew (1 Corinthians 9:20). He taught that every man, circumcised or uncircumcised, should accept his position with its attendant obligations (1 Corinthians 7:18-20). He had himself taken the Nazarite vow (Acts 18:18), and had circumcised Timotheus (Acts 16:3). It was probably false that he had ever taught that Jews “ought not to circumcise their children.” But fanaticism is sometimes clear-sighted in its bitterness, and the Judaisers felt that when it was proclaimed that “circumcision was nothing,” in its bearing on man’s relations to God (1 Corinthians 7:19; Galatians 5:6; Galatians 6:15), it ceased to have a raison d’être, and sank to the level of a mere badge of the national exclusiveness, which, in its turn, was assailed by St. Paul’s teaching that all middle walls of partition were broken down (Ephesians 2:14), and that Jews and Gentiles were alike one in Christ. If a Jew had asked, Why then should I circumcise my child? it would not have been easy to return a satisfying answer. If it were said, “To avoid giving offence,” that was clearly only temporary and local in its application, and the practice would die out as people ceased to be offended. If it were urged that it was a divine command, there was the reply that, as a command, it had been virtually though not formally repealed when the promises and privileges connected with it were withdrawn. It was the seal of a covenant (Romans 4:11), and could hardly be looked upon as binding when the covenant itself had been superseded. Few Christians would now hold that a converted Jew was still bound to circumcise, as well as baptise, his children. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews did but push St. Paul’s teaching to its legitimate conclusions when he said that the “new covenant had made the first old,” and that “that which is decaying and waxing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13).
That thou teachest all the Jews... to forsake Moses. — Literally, that thou teachest apostasy from Moses, the term used, with all its burden of evil import, adding weight to the charge.
Neither to walk after the customs. — On the general import of this phrase, as including the “traditions of the elders,” as well as the precepts of the Law, see Notes on Acts 6:14; Acts 15:1.