Galatians 2:11 - Exposition

In the narrative which the apostle next proceeds to give, several points, we may suppose, were definitely meant by him to be intimated to his readers. Thus to those Gentile Galatians who were wavering in their attachment to himself and to the gospel which he had preached to them, he shows his claim to their firm affectionate adherence, on the ground of the steadfastness with which, as before at Jerusalem so now afresh in Antioch, he had successfully asserted their rights and their equal standing with Jewish believers, when these were assailed by "certain come from James." In contrast with his own unflinching championship of their cause, were here seen vacillation and inconsistency on the part of "Cephas;" were, then, any justified in exalting those "pillars, James and Cephas," as certain were disposed to do, for the sake of disparaging him ? This experience at Antioch should lead them to regard with suspicion Jewish or Philo-Judaic brethren, who were setting themselves to tamper with the truth of the gospel. Crooked conduct was sure to accompany such darkening of the truth, as on that occasion was most palpably evinced in the case of even Barnabas, and was in open encounter before the whole Church exposed and rebuked. And, especially, there was the grand principle that the Law of Moses was for the Christian believer annihilated through the crucifixion of Christ; which principle he had then held aloft in the view of the Church, and here takes occasion to enlarge upon, because it was so directly relevant and helpful in respect to the trouble now springing up in Galatia. But when Peter was come to Antioch ( ὅτε δὲ ἦλθε κηφᾶς [Receptus, πέτρος ] εἰς ἀντιόχειαν ); but when Cephas came to Antioch. The reading κηφᾶς for πέτρος is generally accepted. The time at which this incident took place is in a measure determined, on the one side, by its being to all appearance after the visit to Jerusalem which has been previously spoken of, and, on the other, by the reference to Barnabas in verse 13; that is, we are naturally led to assign it to that time of Paul's, and Barnabas's united labours at Antioch which is briefly indicated in Acts 15:35 . It can hardly have occurred subsequently to the rupture between them which St. Luke immediately after describes. The manner in which St. Peter's coming to Antioch is introduced seems to betoken that his coming thither was not felt to have been at all an extraordinary circumstance. It is open to us, and indeed obvious, to conjecture that the visit was made in the course of one of those journeyings of St. Peter "throughout all parts," of which another , taking place fourteen years or more previously, is mentioned in Acts 9:33 . As the "apostle of the circumcision," he was, we may reasonably suppose, in the habit of traversing, in company often with his wife ( 1 Corinthians 9:5 ), the whole of those districts of Palestine which were largely inhabited by Jews, and extending as far as Antioch itself, in the exercise of apostolic supervision over the Jewish converts. Quite supposably, this was not his first visit to this city. The lengthened continuance of his stay, which may be inferred from Acts 9:12 , is thus explained. It may be assumed that it was this exercise of apostolic superintendence that gave rise to the tradition, which gained early acceptance in the Church (Eusebius, ' Hist. Eccl.,' 3:36), that Peter was the first Bishop of Antioch. His presence there now, while St. Paul was also there, found, probably, its analogy, twelve or fourteen years later, in the simultaneous presence of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome; St.. Peter being there also, we may suppose, in the discharge of his office as apostle of the circumcision. I withstood him to the face ( κατὰ πρόσωπον αὐτῷ ἀντέστην ). I seized an opportunity at a meeting of the brethren ( Acts 9:14 ) of publicly confronting him as an adversary. It seems almost suggested that their spheres of work at Antioch, which was a very large city, were so far not identical that they were not commonly to be seen together. The verb ἀντέστην , " set myself to oppose him," expressing deter mined oppugnancy ( 2 Timothy 3:8 ; James 4:7 ; 1 Peter 5:9 ), strikes us the more, as coming so soon after the "gave us the right hands of fellowship of Acts 9:7 . His adopting of this mode of recalling his straying brother instead of dealing with him in a more private manner, is indicated with an evidently intended pointedness. His course of proceeding was both justified and required by the public nature of St. Peter's offence, and by the necessity of promptly exposing and beating back the aggressions which Israelitish bigotry was always so ready to make upon the perfectly equal footing possessed by all believers, by virtue simply of their relation to Christ. Because he was to be blamed ( ὅτι κατεγνωσμένος ἦν ); because he stood condemned. The perfect passive verb is commonly felt to point, not so much to the censures of bystanders, as to the glaring wrongness of his conduct viewed in itself (comp. John 3:18 ; Romans 14:23 ). The rendering to be blamed , correct so far as it reaches, is inadequate in expressing the sense which St. Paul had of the gravity of St. Peter's offence. It is interesting to note the clear reference to this verse made in the second century by the Ebionite author of the ' Clementine Homilies,' who, writing in a spirit of bitter hostility to St. Paul, who is covertly attacked in the person of Simon Magus, represents St. Peter as addressing Simon thus: "Thou hast confronted and withstood me ( ἐναντίος ἀνθέστηκάς μοι ) . If thou hadst not been an adversary, thou wouldest not have calumniated and reviled my preaching If thou callest me condemned ( κατεγνωσμένον ), thou accusest God who revealed Christ to me" ('Hom.,' Acts 17:19 ). Not only is this a testimony to the authenticity of.. the Epistle; it betokens also the sore feeling which this narrative of St. Paul's and the manner of its diction left behind in the minds of a certain section of Jewish Christians.