Galatians 2:11

Κηφᾶς. אABC vulg. syrpesh. Harcl. marg. Πέτρος Text. Rec. with DGKL syrHarcl. text.

11. ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν Κηφᾶς εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν. When was this? (1) If after the Council of Jerusalem it must have been during the period mentioned in Acts 15:35, for we have no reason to think that St Barnabas and St Paul were ever together after that time. But it seems quite impossible that St Peter and even St Barnabas (Galatians 2:13) should refuse to eat with Gentiles almost immediately after that Council, where it was expressly decided that the Gentiles were not bound by the Law as such, and after, in particular, St Peter’s strong defence of their freedom. However impetuous St Peter may have been this is to attribute to him an incredible degree of weakness. The fact that the scene is in Antioch, where, according to this theory, the question had already come to a head and had been referred to Jerusalem, makes the impossibility greater. It has indeed been urged (Steinmann, Abfassungszeit, pp. 133–136) that the Council decided as a question of doctrine that Gentile Christians were not bound to be circumcised and keep the Law, and that here is a question of practice, whether Jewish Christians were defied by eating with Gentile Christians. But a negative answer to this question of practice was the only logical deduction from the decision on the doctrine. Hort indeed supposes that St Peter’s policy of withdrawal from social intercourse with the Gentile Christians was due to no antagonism of principle but to “a plea of inopportuneness: ‘more important to keep our Jerusalem friends in good humour than to avoid every possible risk of estranging your new Gentile converts: no need to reject them or to tell them to be circumcised, but no need either for us Jews to be publicly fraternising with them, now that we know what offence that will give at Jerusalem: better wait awhile and see whether things do not come right of themselves if only we are not in too great a hurry.’ Plausible reasoning this would have been, and some sort of plausible reasoning there must have been to ensnare Barnabas and indeed to delude St Peter himself. But what it amounted to was that multitudes of baptized Gentile Christians, hitherto treated on terms of perfect equality, were now to be practically exhibited as unfit company for the circumcised Apostles of the Lord who died for them. Such judiciousness, St Paul might well say, was at bottom only moral cowardice; and such conduct, though in form it was not an expulsion of the Gentile converts, but only a self-withdrawal from their company, was in effect a summons to them to become Jews, if they wished to remain in the fullest sense Christians” (Judaistic Christianity, p. 78). Further, Jewish Christians might have argued that the decision of the Council did not affect their obligations to abstain from unclean foods, but recognized two bodies in the Christian Church, Jewish and Gentile, with equal privileges but incomplete social connexion. If so it was extremely illogical and likely soon to lead to bitter resentment on the side of the Gentile Christians. But of this resentment there seems to be no trace. (2) We are therefore almost compelled to place it before the date of the Council. This agrees with St Paul’s description of St Peter’s previous life (Galatians 2:14), explained to us by the account in Acts of his relations to Cornelius, 10 and Acts 11:3. The only difficulty is the position of the incident in our Epistle, where Galatians 2:1-10 have described the scenes at Jerusalem during the Council, Acts 15:4-29 (see Appendix, note B). But St Paul does not now write ἔπειτα, and save for the position there is nothing to indicate an intention to place Galatians 2:11-14 chronologically later than Galatians 2:1-10. The probability is that having described his relations with the Church at Jerusalem and in particular the Three, he now speaks of his relations with St Peter individually and even Barnabas. As we know that the question agitated the Church at Antioch, where it was caused by the same means as those described here (those “who came from James” (Galatians 2:12) being identified with those “who came down from Judaea,” Acts 15:1, or from “us,” Acts 15:24), it is most natural to suppose that the incident here described formed an important part of that agitation, and in consequence that it took place during the period described in Acts 15:1-2. The effect on Barnabas appears to have been immediate, Acts 15:2. It was also probably immediate on St Peter, but we only know that he argues on St Paul’s side during the Council, Acts 15:7-11.

Ramsay now strangely places it before even the first missionary journey of St Paul and Barnabas, and thinks that St Peter “was sent from Jerusalem as far as Syrian Antioch to inspect and report upon this new extension of the Church [to Antioch!], just as he had been sent previously to Samaria along with John on a similar errand” (Cities of St Paul, pp. 302 sq.).

Two curious theories of the incident, made to save St Peter’s credit, may be worth mention: (1) The Cephas here mentioned is one of the Seventy and a different person from St Peter (Clement of Alexandria in Eusebius, Ch. Hist. I. 12. 2). (2) The “dispute” was got up for the occasion. St Peter feared that it would be difficult to persuade the Jewish Christians (who accepted him as their teacher) to treat the Gentiles rightly. He therefore pretended to be on their side in order that when openly rebuked by St Paul without making any defence his followers might change their opinion more easily. So Chrysostom 687 C—E, cf. 688 B. Jerome, who held this theory till convinced of its untenableness by Augustine, attributes its invention to Origen (see Lightfoot’s additional note on Patristic accounts of the collision at Antioch).

κατὰ πρόσωπον, “face to face,” Acts 25:16.

αὐτῷ�. 2 Timothy 3:8; 2 Timothy 4:15; Acts 13:8.

ὅτι κατεγνωσμένος ἦν, “because he was condemned.” (1) By his own contradictory actions, as St Paul explains. (2) Perhaps by his own conscience. So Sir 14:2 μακάριος οὗ οὐ κατέγνω ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ, and in the only other passages where the word occurs in the N.T.: 1 John 3:20-21 (cf. Romans 14:23). (3) It is possible that it refers to blame by others for his inconsistency, in which case the ὅτι will state the reason for the publicity of the rebuke. (4) Field, Notes on the Translation of the New Testament, still prefers the reprehensibilis of the Vulg. and A.V. quoting Diod. Sic. t. x. p. 19, ed. Bip. ὅτε δὲ εἰς αὐτὸν (Antiochus Epiphanes) ἀτενίσοι, καὶ τὸ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων κατεγνωσμένον, ἀπιστεῖν εἰ περὶ μίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν φύσιν τοσαύτην�, “where τὸ κατεγνωσμένον can only mean the reprehensible character, or blameableness, of the acts just described.”