in their bid to spite the Jews and to provoke them even further; added (1) to that motive was what is written in their own book—known among them as Afraksīs (Acts) (2)—that a group of Christians left Jerusalem, went to Antioch and other parts of Syria (3), and called the people to the true religion of the Messiah. They urged them to live by the Torah, to forbid the meat of anyone whose sacrifices were not acceptable, to practise circumcision, to observe the Sabbath, to renounce swine-flesh, and to abstain from everything the Torah had forbidden (4). This weighed heavily upon the gentiles and they found it burdensome. So the Christians convened in Jerusalem and consulted one another about what stratagem might endear the gentiles to the religion of the Messiah and draw them into it. They unanimously resolved to mingle with the gentiles, grant them concessions, mix (5) freely with them, eat their meat, pander to their desires, adopt their manners, and devise a law that would lie midway between the Gospel and the customs of those nations—and they set all this down in writing.

This was one of their major councils.

Whenever they wished to introduce something new, they would gather in a council and disperse having agreed upon whatever innovation they intended (6), until they held the greatest council they had ever convened, in the reign of Constantine the Roman, son of Helena, the innkeeper from Harran. In his time the religion of the Messiah was altered; he is the one who erected (7) the fabricated Christian creed and championed it.