For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day - thus keeping alive in every Jew those feelings which such practices would shock, and which, therefore, the Gentile converts must carefully respect, if the oneness of both classes in Christ was to be practically preserved. This seems to us the most natural sense of the allusion to Moses here, (that of Calvin, Olshausen, DeWette, Meyer, Humphry, Hackett, Alford, etc.) Another view of it (that of Erasmus, Grotius, Thiersch, and Lechler) - that the authority of Moses was in no danger of being lowered by the admission of uncircumcised, Gentiles into the Church, seeing that he was "read in the synagogues every sabbath day" - seems to us a much less probable one. Be this as it may, the course suggested by James seems to have immediately commended itself to all present; for it is added,