Acts 21:21

“Then also a third cause is given: "And they all," it says, "have been informed of thee" - they say not, "have heard," but have been instructed, that is, so they have believed, and have been taught, "that thou teachest apostasy from Moses to all the Jews which are among the Gentiles, by telling them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs."”

“Thus the apostles and the holy disciples of the Savior, in the beginning, allowed converts from Judaism to the life of the gospel to be circumcised according to the law of Moses in order that they would just believe in the Lord. Later, they themselves on their own, filled with worship in the Spirit and with evangelical perfection, rejected the small shadowy observances of the law.”

“But they have heard about you, that you teach the Jews among the Gentiles to depart from Moses, etc.; that is, they claim that you say that what was administered to the fathers by Moses should be condemned as sacrilegious and not commanded by God due to the doctrine of Christ. This had been alleged of Paul, not by those who understood with what mind these things should have been kept then by the faithful Jews to commend the divine authority and the prophetic sanctity of those sacraments, not to attain salvation, which was already being administered in Christ through the sacrament of baptism; but by those who had spread this about Paul, who wished these things to be observed as if salvation in the Gospel could not be obtained without them. For they considered him a most vehement preacher of grace, teaching contrary to their intent, that one is not justified by those things, but by the grace of Christ, for whom these shadows in the law were ordained to foretell. Therefore, seeking to stir up envy and persecution against him, they accused him as an enemy of the law and divine commandments. He could not more fittingly avoid the envy of this false accusation than by himself observing those things which he was thought to condemn as sacrilegious, thus showing that neither the Jews at that time should be prohibited from them as impious, nor the Gentiles compelled to them as necessary. For if he indeed rejected them as had been heard, and yet undertook to celebrate them to conceal his opinion with a simulated action, James would not have said:”