Galatians 2:11-14

Excursus on the Controversy of Peter and Paul.

The collision of the two Apostles was of course only temporary. Peter showed weakness, Paul rebuked him, Peter submitted, and both continued to labor, at a respectful distance, yet as brethren (comp. 1 Corinthians 9:5; 2 Peter 3:15-16), for their common Master until they sealed their testimony by their blood and met again never more to part in the church triumphant above- The same is true of the alienation of Paul from Barnabas and Mark, which took place about the same time, but was adjusted afterwards, as we learn from Paul's respectful allusion to Barnabas (1 Corinthians 9:6), and Mark's later connection with Paul (Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:11). [1] At the same time it cannot be denied that the scene in Antioch reveals an immense fermentation and commotion in the Apostolic Church, which was not a dead unit, but a living process and a struggle of conflicting views and tendencies with an underlying harmony. On the one hand the quarrel has been greatly exaggerated by Celsus, Porphyry, and other enemies of Christianity, old and new, who used it as a weapon against the character and inspiration of the Apostles; on the other hand it has been explained away and dishonestly misinterpreted by eminent fathers and Roman commentators in mistaken zeal for a rigid and mechanical orthodoxy.

[1] The words used by Luke of the general controversy in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:2), are στάσις (dissension, a factious party spirit) and παροξνσμός (disputation, questioning); the word used of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:39), is ζήτησις, exacerbatio, paroxysm, and implies a warm and sharp contention, heightened in this case by the previous friendship and cooperation, yet, after all, passing away as a temporary alienation. The same word is used Hebrews 10:34 in a good sense of ‘provocation to love and good works'

We take the record in its natural, historical sense, and derive from it the following instructive lessons:

1. The right and duty of protest against ecclesiastical authority, even the highest, when Christian truth and principle are endangered. The protest should be manly, yet respectful. Paul was no doubt severe, but yet he recognized Peter expressly as a ‘pillar' of the Church and a brother in Christ (Galatians 1:18; Galatians 2:9). There was no personal bitterness and rudeness, as we find, alas, in the controversial writings of St. Jerome (against Rufinus), St. Bernard (against Abelard), Luther (against Erasmus and Zwingli), Bossuet (against Fenelon), and other great divines.

2. The duty to subordinate expediency to principle, the favor of man to the truth of God. Paul himself recommended and practised charity to the weak; but here a fundamental right, the freedom in Christ was at stake, which Peter compromised by his conduct, after he himself had manfully stood up for the true principle at the Council of Jerusalem, and for the liberal practice at Antioch before the arrival of the Judaizers.

3. The moral imperfection of the Apostles. They remained even after the Pentecostal illumination frail human beings, carrying the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels, and stood in daily need of forgiveness (2 Corinthians 4:7; Philippians 3:12; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8; 1 John 2:2). The weakness of Peter is here recorded, as his greater sin of denying his Lord is recorded in the Gospels, both for the warning and for the comfort of believers. If the chief of the Apostles was led astray, how much more should ordinary Christians be on their guard against temptation! But if Peter found remission, we may confidently expect the same on the same condition of hearty repentance. ‘The dissension if dissension it could be called between the two great Apostles will shock those only who, in defiance of all Scripture, persist in regarding the Apostles as specimens of supernatural perfection.' (Farrar, Life and Work of St, Paul, i. 444.)

4. The collision does not justify any unfavorable conclusion against the inspiration of the Apostles and the infallibility of their teaching. For Paul charges his colleague with hypocrisy or dissimulation, that is, with acting against his own better conviction. We have here a fault of conduct, a temporary inconsistency, not a permanent error of doctrine, A man may know and teach the truth, and yet go astray occasionally in practice. Peter had the right view of the relation of the gospel to the Gentiles ever since the conversion of Cornelius; he openly defended it at the Apostolic Council (Acts 15:7; comp. Galatians 2:1-9), and never renounced it in theory; on the contrary, his own Epistles agree fully with those of Paul, and are in part addressed to the same Galatians with a view to confirm them in their Pauline faith; but he suffered himself to be influenced by some scrupulous and contracted Jewish Christians from Jerusalem. By trying to please one party he offended the other, and endangered for a moment the sound doctrine itself.

5. The inconsistency here rebuked quite agrees with Peter's character as it appears in the Gospels. The same impulsiveness and inconstancy of temper, the same mixture of boldness and timidity, made him the first to confess, and the first to deny Christ, the strongest and the weakest among the Twelve. He refused that Christ should wash his feet, and then by a sudden change he wished not his feet only, but his hands and head to be washed; he cut off the ear of Malchus, and in a few minutes afterwards he forsook his Master and fled; he solemnly promised to be faithful to Him, though all should forsake Him, and yet in the same night he denied Him thrice. If the legend of Domine quo vadis (which is first mentioned in the Apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul) has any foundation in fact, he remained ‘consistently inconsistent' to the last. A few days before his execution, it is said, he escaped from prison, but when he reached a spot outside of Rome, near the gate of St. Sebastian, now marked by a chapel, the Lord appeared to him with a cross, and Peter asked in surprise: ‘Lord, whither goest thou? (Domine, quo vadis?) And when the Lord replied: ‘I am going to Rome to be crucified again,' the disciple returned deeply humbled, and delivered himself to the jailor to be crucified head downwards.

6. It should be remembered, however, on the other hand, first, that the question concerning the significance of the Mosaic law, and especially of the propriety of eating meat offered to idols, was a very difficult one and continued to be agitated in the Apostolic Church (comp. 1 Corinthians 8-10; Romans 14). The decree of the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:20; Acts 15:29), after all, stated simply the duties of the Gentile converts, strictly prohibiting them the use of meat offered to idols, but it said nothing on the duties of the Jewish Christians to the former, thus leaving some room for a milder and stricter view on the subject. We should also remember that the temptation on the occasion referred to was very great, since even Barnabas, the Gentile missionary, was overcome by it.

7. Much as we may deplore and censure the weakness of Peter and admire the boldness and consistency of Paul, the humility and meekness with which Peter, the oldest and most eminent of the twelve Apostles, seems to have borne the public rebuke of a younger colleague, are deserving of high praise. How touching is his subsequent allusion in 2 Peter 3:15-16, which is addressed to the Galatians among others, to the very Epistles of his ‘beloved brother Paul,' in one of which his own conduct is so sharply condemned. This required a rare degree of divine grace which did its full work in him through much suffering and humiliation, as the humble, meek, gentle, and graceful spirit of his Epistles abundantly proves.

8. The conduct of Paul supplies a conclusive argument in favor of the equality of the Apostles and against the papal view of the supremacy of Peter. No pope would or could allow any Catholic bishop or archbishop to call him to an account and to talk to him in that style of manly independence. The conduct of Peter is also fatal to the claim of papal infallibility, as far as morals or discipline is concerned; for Peter acted here officially with all the power of his Apostolic example, and however correct in doctrine, he erred very seriously in practice, and endangered the great principle of Christian freedom, as the popes have done ever since. No wonder that the story was offensive to some of the fathers and Roman commentators, and gave rise to most unnatural explanations.

We may add that the account of the Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15 likewise contradicts the Vatican system, which would have required a reference of the great controversy on circumcision to the Apostle Peter rather than to a council under the presidency of James.

9. The Apostolic Church is typical and foreshadows the whole course of the history of Christendom. Peter, Paul, and John represent as many ages and phases of the Church. Peter is the rock of Catholicism, Paul the rock of evangelical Protestantism. Their temporary collision at Antioch anticipates the world-historical antagonism of Romanism and Protestantism, which continues to this day. It is an antagonism between legal bondage and evangelical freedom, between Judaizing conservatism and Christian progress. Jerusalem, Rome, and Petersburg are in different degrees on the side of Peter; Wittenberg, Geneva, and Oxford at various distances and with temporary reactions follow the standard of Paul. Let us hope also for a future reconciliation in the ideal Church of harmony and peace which is symbolized by John, the bosom friend of Christ, the seer of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Paul and Peter, as far as we know from the New Testament, never met again after this scene in Antioch. But ecclesiastical tradition reports that they were tried and condemned together in Rome, and executed on the same day (the 29th of June), Peter, the Galilaean disciple, on the hill of the Janiculum, where he was crucified; Paul, the Roman citizen, on the Ostian road at the Tre Fontane, where he was beheaded. Their martyr blood thus mingled is still a fountain of life to the church of God.