But there rose up certain of the sect of the
Pharisees
Which was the strictest sect of religion among the Jews:
which believed;
that Jesus was the Messiah, and professed their faith in him, and
were members of the church, though they still retained many of
their pharisaical tenets, and are therefore said to be of that
sect: these rose up in opposition to Paul and Barnabas, as they
were relating their success among the Gentiles, and giving an
account of the difference that had happened at Antioch, and their
own sense of that matter:
saying, that it was needful to circumcise them:
the Gentiles that believed:
and to command them to keep the law of Moses;
both moral and ceremonial; the observance of which they reckoned
was absolutely necessary to salvation. Some think these are not
the words of Luke, relating what happened at Jerusalem, when Paul
and Barnabas gave in their account of things to the apostles and
elders; but that they are a continuation of their account, how
that in the controversy raised at Antioch, certain Pharisees that
came thither from Judea, rose up and asserted the necessity of
the, Gentiles being circumcised, and of their keeping the law of
Moses in order to their being saved; which is favoured by the
Syriac version, especially by the Latin interpreter of it, who
supplies the words thus, "but say they" (i.e. Paul and Barnabas)
"there arose men"
