Today's reading shows us the limit that religious consciousness can reach. This limit is marked by Gamaliel's speech (vv. 34-39). Gamaliel belonged to the rabbinic school founded by Hillel, a teacher of the Torah who lived approximately two centuries before the Nativity of Christ. Representatives of this school were never religious formalists, believing that the Torah should be written in the human heart, determining a person's whole life and helping him build a relationship with God. For them the first place belonged not to ritual, but to intimate, mystical communion with God. Hillel is credited with the words: "Where two or three gather in the name of the Torah, there the Shekinah dwells among them" (in Judaism, the Shekinah is the presence of God). It is no surprise that a representative of this very school spoke before the Sanhedrin in support of the apostles.

The situation did not at all seem clear and unambiguous to Gamaliel either, but he was not afraid of what the temple leadership feared: that the new movement that had begun among the people would turn against them (vv. 27-28). His absence of fear and readiness to accept everything that truly comes from God distinguish him from most representatives of the official religious authorities.

Gamaliel cannot say anything definite about the apostles and their preaching, and that is not surprising: he remains a bearer and guardian of a religious tradition, in no way connected either with Jesus or with His disciples. But his spiritual and religious experience tells him that movements of this kind succeed only when they come from God. Therefore he is calm: if the apostles are doing God's work, he has nothing to worry about; if not, then there is no need to be anxious anyway, because in that case it will sooner or later come to nothing.

Such a position appears neutral and watchful, but it could not have been otherwise: Gamaliel remained within religious boundaries, although his faith was sincere and his religiosity consistent. He truly knew nothing either about Jesus or about the apostles, and no religious experience could reveal to him what is revealed only through contact with the Kingdom. At the same time, however, Gamaliel, as we can see, remains absolutely open to God's action and ready to accept everything that comes from God. His position presupposes, above all, absolute honesty before himself and before God. And this is, apparently, the best that religion can give a person. In such a state of spirit a person will neither rush after false prophets and false messiahs, nor grab stones whenever some new religious movement appears. His religion gives him inner peace. That peace, of course, does not replace the Kingdom, but it gives him the possibility of seeing it.

This is how Gamaliel, the most authoritative rabbi, recommended that the Sanhedrin treat the newborn Church of Christ. These words of his are called "Gamaliel's principle"; the evangelist Luke cites them in Acts as a kind of testimony that Old Testament spirituality as such proved open enough to judge the actions of the Spirit of God by their fruits.

This means that the hostility of the Jewish religious authorities toward the Lord Jesus and His Church was dictated by other, purely human causes: envy, political calculation... According to tradition, Gamaliel himself became a Christian at the end of his life. Thus Gamaliel's principle is a generally biblical principle, flowing from both Testaments, for our attitude toward spiritual phenomena unfamiliar to us.

This is very important, because only by being guided by it do we avoid placing our judgment ahead of God's. The actions and views of other people often seem strange to us, and sometimes even outrageous, and it is natural for us at once to show our position and take corresponding measures. Our judgment is quick and unambiguous. But here is what wisdom nourished by the deepest knowledge of Scripture says: "Do not hurry; give God the opportunity to reveal His judgment". The fact that we do not agree with something can become our own condemnation if it is from God. For God Himself says that He makes all things new. New means unfamiliar to us, something with which it is not easy to agree at once. Here patience and a peaceful spirit are needed, without which it is impossible to be a Christian.

Speaking of the traditional Synagogue, one should keep in mind that, both spiritually and religiously, it was by no means homogeneous. Evidence of this is the speech in the Sanhedrin by one of the most famous teachers of the Torah of that time, Gamaliel, who had many disciples, among whom, incidentally, was Shaul, or Saul, the future apostle Paul. Gamaliel belonged to the school of Hillel, one of the two main theological schools of that era; the second was the school of Shammai. Hillel, who lived about two centuries before the events described, focused chiefly on the experience of direct, immediate communion with God, which, as he taught, was available to every seeker, provided that seeker was ready to follow the Torah.

This concerned, of course, not only the external Torah, but also the inner Torah. Hillel was not a religious formalist. He considered thoughtful, prayerful reading of the Torah, continuous inner prayer, and attention to one's inner life, to the intentions that determine the quality and direction of a person's spiritual life, to be central in spiritual life. He certainly did not reject the traditional forms of the Jewish religion, but he regarded them only as a religious shell for the main thing, for spiritual life itself.

Gamaliel also belonged to this school and, judging by the testimony of contemporaries, had absorbed its best features. It was he who spoke in the Sanhedrin in defense of the new movement. Gamaliel himself, of course, was not a Christian, though later Christian circles circulated legends about his conversion to Christ. But he was spiritually sensitive enough to understand that what was involved here was possibly an act of God. And so he advised the temple leadership and the synagogue leaders not to hurry.

Simply leave these new messianists alone and see what would happen next. He also offered a weighty argument in favor of such a decision, pointing to other messianic movements that had come to nothing, and such movements often flared up in Judea in those days. For the authorities this was a no-lose option: if the new movement was like the former ones, it would end on its own; if not... well, then they would have to think about what to do next. For the moment, they did not need to worry. That is what they decided to do: the apostles were punished for formal disobedience to the Sanhedrin's ban on preaching the new sacred name and then released. And they began to watch what would happen next.