Galatians 2:11

Galatians 2:11. The scene here related is of great importance for the history of Apostolic Christianity, but has often been misunderstood and distorted both in the interest of orthodoxy and heresy. It took place between the Apostolic conference (A. D. 50) and the second great missionary journey of Paul (A. D. 51). To the same period must be assigned the personal dispute between Paul and Barnabas on account of Mark, related in Acts 15:30-40. Barnabas followed the bad example of Peter (Galatians 2:13), and Mark would naturally sympathize with Barnabas, his cousin (Colossians 4:10), and with Peter, his spiritual father (1 Peter 5:13). There was, therefore, a double reason for the temporary alienation of Paul and Barnabas. It appears that soon after the council at Jerusalem a misunderstanding arose as to the precise bearing of the decree of the council (Acts 15:20; Acts 15:29). That decree was both emancipating and restrictive; it emancipated the Gentile converts from circumcision as a test of church membership (on the observance of which the Pharisaical Judaizers, or ‘false brethren' had vainly insisted), but it laid on them the restriction of observing the precepts traditionally traced to Noah (comp. Genesis 9:4-5) and required from ‘proselytes of the gate,' namely, the abstinence from ‘meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication' (including probably unlawful marriages within the forbidden degrees of kindred, Leviticus 18:1 and forward). The decree was framed to meet a special temporary emergency and certain specific complaints of the Jewish converts against the Gentile brethren in regard to these detested practices. But the decree made no direct provision for the conduct of the Jewish Christians, who were supposed to know their duty from the law read every Sabbath in the synagogues (Acts 15:21). And it was on this point that the difference of a strict and a liberal construction seems to have arisen. The logic of the decree pointed to a full communion with the Gentile brethren, but the letter did not. It was a compromise, a step in the right direction, but it stopped half way. It left the Levitical law concerning clean and unclean meats untouched (Luke 11:4 ff., comp. Acts 10:14). [1] The heretical Judaizers considered the whole ceremonial law as binding upon all; James and the conservative Jewish brethren as binding only upon Jews; Paul and Peter as abrogated by the death of Christ. The conservative party at Jerusalem, under the lead of James, understood the decree as not justifying any departure of the circumcised Christians from their traditional rites and habits, and continued to maintain a cautious reserve towards Gentile Christians and all uncircumcised or unclean persons (Luke 15:2; Acts 10:28), without, however, demanding circumcision; while the more liberal Jewish Christians at Antioch, encouraged by the powerful example of Peter, who had been freed from narrow prejudices by his vision at Joppa, and eaten with the uncircumcised Cornelius at Cæsarea (Acts 10:27-28; Acts 11:3), associated with their Gentile brethren in social intercourse, and disregarded in their common meals the distinction between clean and unclean animal food; they may possibly even have innocently partaken of meat offered to idols, which was freely sold at the shambles, or at all events they ran the risk of doing so. Paul considered this as a matter in itself indifferent and harmless, considering the vanity of idols, provided that no offence be given to weak brethren, in which case he himself would ‘eat no flesh for evermore,' lest he make his ‘brother to stumble' (1 Corinthians 8:7-13; 1 Corinthians 10:23-33; Romans 14:1-4); while as to fornication of any kind he condemned it absolutely as defiling the body which is the temple of God (1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20). This freedom as to eating with Gentiles threatened to break up a part of the Jerusalem compromise and alarmed the conservative Jews. Hence the remonstrance from Jerusalem which prevailed on the timid and impulsive Peter, and all the Jewish members of the congregation at Antioch, even Barnabas, but provoked the vigorous protest of Paul who stood alone in defence of Christian liberty and brotherhood on that trying occasion. This view of the matter seems to afford the best explanation of the conduct of both James and Peter, without justifying it; for Peter certainly denied his own better conviction that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34), or that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew (as Paul expresses it, Colossians 3:24), and once more denied his Lord in the person of his Gentile disciples. The alienation, however, was only temporary, and did not result in a split of the church.

[1] Augustine distinguishes three periods in the ceremonial law: (1.) before Christ it was alive but not life-giving (lex viva, sed non vivifica); (2.) from Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem it was dying but not deadly (moribunda, sed non mortifera); (3.) after the destruction of Jerusalem it became dead and deadly (mortua et mortifera).

The residence of Peter at Antioch gave rise to the tradition that he founded the church there (A. D. 44, according to the Chronicle of Eusebius) before he transferred his see to Rome. The tradition also perpetuated the memory of the quarrel in dividing the church of Antioch into two parishes with two bishops, Evodius and Ignatius, the one instituted by Peter, the other by Paul.

Cephas is the Apostle Peter mentioned Galatians 2:9, and not one of the seventy disciples, as Clement of Alexandria and other fathers (also the Jesuit Harduin) arbitrarily assumed in order to clear Peter of all blame.

I withstood him to the face, personally, not secretly or behind the back. It was a very bold act of Paul, requiring the highest order of moral courage. It seems inconsistent with the harmony of the Apostolic church and to reflect too severely on Peter, the prince of the Apostles. Hence it has always been a stumbling block to those who believe, contrary to the explicit confessions of the Apostles themselves (1 John 1:8; James 3:2; Philippians 3:12), that their inspiration implied also their moral perfection, or that doctrinal infallibility is inseparable from practical impeccability. Several of the most eminent fathers, Origen, Jerome, and Chrysostom, tried to escape the difficulty by a misinterpretation of the words ‘to the face,' as if they meant, ‘according to appearance only' (secundum speciem), not in reality, and assumed that the dispute had been previously arranged by the Apostles for the purpose of convincing, not Peter, who was right all along, but the Jewish Christian members of the congregation, that the ceremonial law was now abolished. This most unnatural interpretation makes bad worse, by charging the hypocrisy upon both Paul and Peter, and turning the whole scene into a theatrical farce. St. Augustine, from a superior moral sense, protested against it, and Jerome himself tacitly abandoned it afterwards for the right view. The author of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies (an Ebionite fiction of the second century, xvii. 19) understands the passage correctly, but makes it the ground of an attack on St. Paul (under the name of Simon Magus) by Peter, who says to him: ‘Thou hast withstood me to my face. If thou callest me condemned, thou accusest God who revealed Christ to me.'

He was condemned, self-condemned, self-convicted by his own conduct, not by the Gentile Christians of Antioch, for Paul would hardly have waited for the judgment of others in a matter of such importance. The inconsistency carried in it its own condemnation, as Paul proves (Galatians 2:15-21). The translation ‘he was blamed' is not strong enough, and the translation of the E. V. ‘he was to be blamed,' or reprehensible, deserving of censure, is ungrammatical and lame.