The life and work of St. Paul

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALA.TIANS 43&
to me, James, and Kephas, and John, who are in repute as pillars, gave right hands
of fellowship to me and Barnabas, that we to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision
only that we should bear in mind the poor, which very thing I was of my
own accord even eager to do. 1
" But when Kephas came to Antioch I withstood him to the face, because he was
a condemned man. 2 For before the arrival of certain from James 8 he used to eat
with the Gentiles ; but on their arrival 4 he began to withdraw and separate himself,
being afraid of these Jewish converts. And the rest of the Jews joined in this
hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was swept away by their hypocrisy. 5 But
when I perceived that they were not walking in the straight truth of the
Gospel, I said to Kephas, before them all, If you, a born Jew, are living
Gentile-wise and not Judaically, how can you try to compel the Gentiles to Judaiso ?
We, Jews by birth and not '
sinners '
of the Gentiles,' but well aware that no man
is justified as a result of the works of the Law, but only by means of faith in Jesus
Christ even we believed on Jesus Christ that we may be justified as a result of faith
in Christ, and not of the works of Law ; for from works of Law ' no flesh shall bo
justified.' 7 But (you will object) if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we turn
out to be even ourselves '
sinners '
(men no better than the Gentiles), is then Christ
a minister of sin ? 8 Away with the thought ! For if I rebuild the very things I
destroyed, tfan I prove myself to be not only a ' sinner '
but a transgressor." The
very rebuilding (he means) would prove that the previous destruction was guilty ;
"
but it was not so," he continues to
"
argue, for it was by Liw that I died to
Law ;" in other words, it' was the Law itself which led me to sec its own nullity,
and thereby caused my death to it that I might live to God. 9 " I have b^en crucified
with Christ ;" my old sins are nailed to His cross, no less than my old Jewish
1
ii. 1 10, It was, as Tertullian says, a distributio officii, not a separatio evangelti
(De Pmescr. Haer. 28). He had already shown his care for the poor (Acts xi. 30).
3
ii. 11, (careyc. Manifestly and flagrantly in the wrong. Of. Rom. xiv. 23. To
make KOTO irpderwnw mean " by way of mask, " and treat the scene as one got up (KO.TO. crxrjiia.)
between the Apostles as Origen and Chrysostom do or to assume that Kephas does
not mean Peter as Clemens of Alexandria does is a deplorable specimen of the power
of dogmatic prejudice to blind men to obvious fact. St. Peter's weakness bore other
bitter fruit. It was one ultimate cause of Ebionite attacks on St. Paul, and of Gnostic
attacks on Judaism, and of Porphyry's slanders of the Apostles, and of Jerome's quarrel
with Augustine. (See Lightfoot, pp. 123 126.)
3 Cf. Acts xv. 24.
4
ii. 12, foe (H, B, D, F, G), if St. Paul really wrote it, could only mean " when
James came
"
; and so Origen understood it (c. Cels. ii. 1).
4 We can scarcely even imagine the deadly offence caused by this boldness, an offence
felt a century afterwards (Ireii. Haer. i. 26 ; Euseb. H. E. iii. 27 ; Epiphan. Haer. xxx.
16 ; Baur, Ch. Hist. 89, 98). Even when the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies were written
the Jewish Christians had not forgiven the word Ka.rfyviaa-iJ.evas. Ei lan^vui^^ivov ue Xe'vets eeoO oiro