Galatians 2:6-10

6-10. Having dismissed the case of the Judaists and the Council, Paul now touches the question vital with the Galatians: What were your final relations, Paul, with the pillars? And this he now answers. These pillars, on whom you so much lean, though they are only my co-equal apostles, agreeing that Peter and myself had one Christianity yet different fields, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. Undoubtedly there are slightly disparaging terms of expression regarding the apostles, and these arise from two sources: 1. St. Paul uses terms derived from his first impressions on arriving at Jerusalem. He had been but transiently there since his schooling under Gamaliel. He had been “roughing it” for fourteen years as foreign missionary. On arriving at the sacred capital he finds three apostles looming up as pillars, as if not only the apostolate, but the Church, seemed all but embodied in them. It costs him some effort to adjust his conceptions to this seeming, and to present his history in a fore-council to them. 2. He intimates that the Galatians, in subjecting his apostolate to the decision of these pillars, do make them over tall, and he is willing to diminish the surplusage. He, too, is a pillar, and all the pillars are of equal height. There is no proof, and no probability, that, as Renan maintains from this passage, any contrariety existed between Paul and these apostles. Christianity was not thus divided into two hostile camps.