Galatians 2:11-14

INTRIGUE AT ANTIOCH TO AFFIX THE STIGMA OF UNCLEANNESS ON UNCIRCUMCISED BRETHREN, COUNTENANCED BY PETER AND BARNABAS, BUT OPENLY REBUKED BY PAUL. The gathering of many Christians at Antioch after the Apostolic Council during the sojourn of Paul and Barnabas in that city is recorded in the Acts, but no mention is made of Peter or of this episode. The omission is instructive, for it bears out the impression which the Epistle itself conveys that the collision was a transitory incident, and had no lasting effect on Church history. The fact, however, that Peter and Barnabas both consented to affix the stigma of uncleanness on their uncircumcised brethren rather than incur the obloquy of eating with them bears striking testimony to the strength of the prejudices which then prevailed among Jewish Christians. Neither of them had any real scruples about intercourse with these brethren: Peter had been taught of God long ago not to call any unclean whom God had cleansed, and had recently protested at Jerusalem against laying the yoke of the Law upon the neck of the disciples; Barnabas had ministered for years to Greek converts, had championed their cause at Jerusalem with Paul, and had like Peter consorted with them freely of late: yet neither of them had the moral courage to act up to their convictions under the eyes of the brethren from Jerusalem. Their vacillation attests the difficulty of retaining Jews and Greeks in one communion, and the wisdom and prudence which guided the decision of the Apostolic Council. But that decision had materially strengthened Paul's position. A basis of union had been formally ratified between the two Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. The Church of Jerusalem by calling on Greek Christians to consent, as they had done, to certain prescribed forms of abstinence had virtually bound themselves to accept these as conditions of intercourse, and the withdrawal from the common meal violated therefore the spirit of a solemn treaty. Paul had therefore strong ground for remonstrance, independently of his authority in his own Church, and his protest was evidently effectual, though he refrains from recording Peter's humiliating retreat from a false position. For it is recorded here for the express purpose of exemplifying his successful vindication of his apostolic rights.

The early Fathers shrank from admitting the moral cowardice of which Peter was guilty on this occasion, and made various efforts to evade the plain sense. Clement of Alexandria questioned the identity of Cephas with the Apostle. Origen propounded a theory that the scene was a preconcerted plot between the two Apostles for the confutation of the Judaisers; and this theory prevailed extensively in spite of the discredit which it cast on the character of both until it was effectually exposed by Augustine in controversy with Jerome, who had himself adopted it.

Again, this momentary collision be ween the two great Apostles was distorted by party spirit into an evidence of personal rivalry. Their preeminence in their two respective spheres has been already noted as early as the Apostolic Council, and this led, perhaps inevitably, to personal comparison. In the Corinthian Church opposite partisans adopted their names for rival watch-words. At a later time elaborate fictions of their lifelong antagonism were invented and circulated in the Clementine literature. But the collision here mentioned was obviously a transitory incident. The language of gratitude and esteem applied to Peter elsewhere in the Epistle precludes any idea of permanent estrangement. ὅτι κατεγνωσμένος ἦν. Our versions are surely wrong in giving a causal force to ὅτι in this clause, for it adduces no clear and reasonable justification of the opposition offered. It is much better to take ὅτι as declarative: Paul is here stating the ground which he took up against Peter: I withstood him, saying that he had condemned himself. He urged that Peter was condemned by his own inconsistency. By first eating with Gentiles and then pressing upon them observance of the very principles that he had violated he was playing fast and loose with the Law.