Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 15:24

"Forasmuch as we have heard that certain who went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls; to whom we gave no commandment;" — Acts 15:24 (ASV)

Certain who went out from us.—The reference is obviously to the teachers (their names are wisely and charitably suppressed) who had appeared at Antioch, as in Acts 15:1. Saint John, who was present at the Council (Galatians 2:9), and who, though he took no part in the debate, may well have had a share in drawing up the letter, uses similar language: They went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John 2:19).

Subverting your souls.—The Greek verb, literally, turning upside down, implies throwing into a state of excitement and agitation. The Gentiles had been unsettled by the teaching of the Judaizers.

And keep the law.—Assuming the Epistle of Saint James to have been already written, there is something almost like a touch of irony in his repeating the phrase of James 2:10. The teachers who instructed the Gentiles to keep the Law were reminded in that Epistle that they, in their servile respect of persons, were breaking the Law deliberately in one point, and were therefore guilty of all. Putting the two passages together, they bring Saint James before us as speaking in the very accents of Saint Paul: Thou, therefore, which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? (Romans 2:21).

To whom we gave no such commandment.—The word such is a needless interpolation. What Saint James declares is that the teachers had had no commission of any kind from him. The passage is important as throwing light on the nature of a later claim set up by the same party (Galatians 2:12).