03 — The Council of Jerusalem
The Apostolic Council of c. AD 48–50 (Acts 15) is the moment at which St. James the Brother of the Lord steps to the center of the Church’s life: presiding bishop of the mother church of Jerusalem, he hears the apostles and elders debate whether Gentile converts must be circumcised, and he pronounces the decisive judgment. This section reads the council as the prototype of the conciliar principle by which the Orthodox Church has settled her gravest questions ever since, and examines the four-clause Apostolic Decree that issued from it.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)
The crisis at Jerusalem was the first great doctrinal question the Church faced after Pentecost: on what terms are the Gentiles received? The answer — “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28) — gave the Church the very grammar of her later councils. James does not act as a lone monarch but presides while the body acts collegially, and his closing word, grounded in Amos 9:11–12 and framed as a krima (“my judgment is,” Acts 15:19), becomes the council’s sentence. These two files trace the proceedings and the decree, attending to the Greek where it bears weight, to the relation between Acts 15 and Galatians 2, and to the textual variant that has divided readers of the decree since antiquity. The blood prohibition that the decree pronounces is not a dead letter in the East: it remains formally maintained in Orthodox canon law, and the section notes where Eastern observance parts from typical Western practice.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Council of Jerusalem | The crisis over circumcision and the Law (Acts 15:1–5); Peter’s speech (15:7–11); the report of Paul and Barnabas (15:12); James’s decisive judgment citing Amos 9:11–12 (15:13–21); the council as the prototype of the Orthodox conciliar principle; and the disputed relation of Galatians 2:1–10 to Acts 15. |
| The Apostolic Decree | The four terms of abstinence (Acts 15:19–29; 21:25) — idol-meat, fornication, things strangled, blood; the encyclical to Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia; the Western (Bezae) textual variant; and the abiding Eastern observance of the blood prohibition in Apostolic Canon 63 and Quinisext Canon 67. |
See Also
- The Throne of Jerusalem — James as presiding bishop, the office from which he speaks at the council
- Ecumenical Councils — the conciliar principle of which Acts 15 is the prototype
References
- The Holy Bible. Acts 15; 21:25; Galatians 2:1–10; Amos 9:11–12. (Greek text consulted for krinō, eidōlothuta, porneia, pnikton, haima.)
- Bruce, F. F. The Book of the Acts. Rev. ed. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.
- Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft / United Bible Societies, 1994. (On Acts 15:20, 29.)
- The Rudder (Pedalion). Trans. D. Cummings. Chicago: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957. (Apostolic Canon 63; Quinisext / Trullo Canon 67.)
- Lightfoot, J. B. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. London: Macmillan, 1865. (On the identification of Galatians 2 with Acts 15.)