Acts 21:20

Acts 21:20. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him. Thus the Jerusalem elders and James, when they heard the story of the successful missionary apostle, reverently gave thanks to Almighty God for the great work done by the hand of His servant Paul. In their minds after his narrative no shadow of mistrust or suspicion of the earnest and devoted man lingered. Then after the prayer of glad thanksgiving, they gave him counsel how best to win the hearts of their suspicious, jealous countrymen.

Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law. The Greek word rendered ‘thousands' is even stronger, ‘myriads,' ‘tens of thousands.' We must bear in mind that James was speaking not of the Christian Jews of Jerusalem only, but of that vast multitude which was in the habit of coming up yearly to keep the feast of Pentecost in the Holy City, and who at that moment were present in Jerusalem. Of all the great Jewish festivals, Pentecost attracted the largest number of pilgrims from distant countries. This in great measure was owing to the danger of travel in early spring or late autumn, which was an effectual bar to pilgrims from a distance coming up in great numbers to the Passover or feast of Tabernacles. We read in Acts 4:4, how the number of ‘believers' in the city was about five thousand. This was some twenty-four years back, and during this long period Christianity had continued to spread with a strange and, in some places, with a startling rapidity. We must remember the myriads here spoken of include the Jewish Christians of all lands.

‘But,' James continues, ‘these Jews who have accepted Jesus as Messiah are all zealous,' more accurately rendered, ‘are all zealots of the law.' The Jews of the first century in great numbers were willing to acknowledge as Messiah, that Crucified One whom so many had seen after He was risen from the dead; but they were reluctant to give up their privileges as a chosen race, and so they clung to their law and its stern restrictions with an attachment more devoted than ever. The hatred of the Jews for Paul sprang from their consciousness that he looked upon this sacred law as having done its work, and consequently doomed to vanish away.

A large body of these Jewish Christians subsequently withdrew from the Church; these are known in ecclesiastical history as Nazarenes and Ebionites. The latter sect was very widely spread, and counted in its ranks great numbers of the chosen people. They rejected the authority and writings of St. Paul, branding him as an apostate. They held, also, erroneous views respecting the person of Christ. This Judaising sect was very numerous even as late as the close of the fourth century.