Galatians 2:6

6. Seemed to be somewhat In special contrast to those who seemed to be no-what at all the factionists. From this point the narrative flows in a clear yet troubled current, like a pure stream rippling among pebbles. The reader’s eye may leap from this clause to Galatians 2:9, where Paul fairly begins again, all that intervenes being a tangle of parentheses. The main thought is, that the three seeming pillars accepted him as a fourth.

Whatsoever… person These clauses are a first parenthesis; for they connect subordinately with somewhat.

No matter to me Paul here retraces his impressions at the time. He brought his case before them as accidental, not essential, superiors. Their position was of no importance to him.

Accepteth… person Prof. Lightfoot notes that this phrase in the Old Testament Hebrew means to favour one, without necessarily including any invidious sense. But in the New Testament Greek the word person originally signifying an actor’s theatrical mask acquires the idea of something assumed upon and over the real being. To accept the person, then, is to favour him, not for or according to his real desert or quality, but according to some external advantages, as rank, dress, wealth, reputation. Paul, appearing at Jerusalem, was conscious that his call was equally divine; his qualifications, at least, as great; his labours and successes more abundant. And so he knew the divine Eye saw. These pillars are lofty metropolitans, and I am a hard looking itinerant; but God is not deceived by externals.

Added nothing In spite of their seeming. They imparted to me no new gospel. I had derived from Christ by revelation all they could tell me. Quite the reverse, as he will next show.