Atos 16

Atos 16:3

As to Paul's circumcising of Timothy, performing a vow at Cenchrea and undertaking on the suggestion of James at Jerusalem to share the performance of the appointed rites with some who had made a vow, it is manifest that Paul's design in these things was not to give to others the impression that he thought that by these observances salvation is given under the Christian dispensation. [His intent was] to prevent people from believing that he condemned, as no better than heathen idolatrous worship, those rites that God had appointed in the former dispensation as suitable to it and as shadows of things to come. For this is what James said to him, that the report had gone abroad concerning him that he taught people "to forsake Moses." This would be by all means wrong for those who believe in Christ, to forsake him who prophesied of Christ, as if they detested and condemned the teaching of him of whom Christ said, "If you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me." LETTER 82. — TO JEROME