[155] 2. THE DISPUTE IN ANTIOCH. The new departure in Galatia and Antioch -- the opening of the door of faith to the Nations -- forced into prominence [156] the question of the relations of Gentile to Jewish Christians.

There had already been some prospect that this question would be opened up during Paul's second visit to Jerusalem (p. 56 f.); but for the moment the difficulty did not become acute. The older Antiochian converts, as we have seen, had all entered through the door of the synagogue; and had necessarily accepted certain prohibitions as a rule of life. But the newly rounded Galatian Churches contained large numbers who had joined Paul directly, without any connection with the synagogue; in the face of Luke's silence on such a crucial point we cannot think that Paul imposed on them any preliminary conditions of compliance with Jewish rules; and, if so, we must understand that the same interpretation of "the open door"characterised his action in Antioch, Phoenice and Samaria.

The Jews who had been settled for generations in the cities of Syria and Asia Minor had lost much of their exclusiveness in ordinary life (p. 143). Moreover, the development of events in Antioch had been gradual; and no difficulty seems to have been caused there at first by this last step. We learn from Paul himself (Gal. II 12 f.) that even Peter, already prepared to some extent by his own bold action in the case of Cornelius, had no scruple in associating freely with the Antiochian Christians in general. But the Jews of Jerusalem were far more rigid and narrow; and when some ofthem came down on a mission to Antioch from the Church in Jerusalem, they were shocked by the state of things which they found there. They could not well take the ground that one Christian should not associate with another; they put their argument in a [157] more subtle form, and declared that no one could become in the full sense a member of the Church, unless he came under the Jewish Law, and admitted on his body its sign and seal: the Nations could be received into the Church, but in the reception they must conform to the Law (XV 2). The question, it must be clearly observed, was not whether non-Jews could be saved, for it was admitted by all parties that they could, but how they were saved: did the path of belief lie through the gate of the Law alone, or was there a path of belief that did not lead through that gate? Had God made another door to Himself outside of the Law of Moses? Had He practically set aside that Law, and declared it of no avail, by admitting as freely them that disregarded it as them that believed and followed it?

When the question was put in this clear and logical form, we can well believe that Jews as a rule shrank from all the consequences that followed from free admission of the Nations. We can imagine that some who had answered practically by associating with the Gentile Christians, repented of their action when its full consequences were brought before them. Only rare and exceptional natures could have risen unaided above the prejudices and the pride of generations, and have sacrificed their Law to their advancing experience. The record confirms what we see to be natural in the circumstances. Paul stood immovably firm; and he carried with him, after some wavering, the leaders (but not the mass) of the Jewish Christians. This point requires careful study.

The occasion of the dissension at Antioch is thus described by our three authorities, -- Luke, the Apostles at Jerusalem, and Paul himself. [158]

It is noteworthy that Luke used the vague expression that "persons came down from Judea,"which is made more definite in v. 24: the champions of circumcision who caused the dissension in Antioch had come on a mission from the Apostles in Jerusalem. Luke pointedly avoids any expression that would connect the leading Apostles with the action of these emissaries. They had been sent from Jerusalem: but in v. 24 the Apostles [159] disclaim all responsibility for their action. While Luke gives all the materials for judging, the substitution of Judea for Jerusalem in his narrative is very significant of his carefulness in the minutiae of expression. Itis in no sense incorrect (it puts the general name of the whole land in place of the city name), and it guards against a probable misconception in the briefest way.

The incidents described in Gal. II 11-14 are not usually referred to this period; and it is therefore advisable to elicit from the words of Paul the precise situation as he conceives it. Certain persons had come to Antioch from James: James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem, here stands alone as "the local representative"of that Church (to borrow a phrase from Lightfoot, Ed. Gal., p. 365).These persons had found in Antioch a situation that shocked them, and they expressed their disapproval so strongly and effectively, that Peter shrank from continuing the free intercourse with Gentile Christians which he had been practising. What do we learn from the context as to their attitude? They are styled "they of the circumcision"; and this phrase (as distinguished from the mere general expression of disagreement and dislike used about persons of the same class in Gal. II 4) implies that they actively championed that cause against Peter. The exact form of the argument which moved Peter is not stated explicitly by Paul in his hurried and impassioned narrative; but we gather what it was from the terms of his expostulation with Peter. He said to him in public: "how compellest thou the Nations to Judaise? "The words have no force unless Peter, convinced by the Judaistic envoys, had begun to declare that compliance with the Law was compulsory, [160] before Gentiles could become members of the Church fully entitled to communion with it.

Accordingly, the situation described in (Gal. II 11-14 is that which existed in Antioch after Paul's return from the Galatian Churches. In the first part of his letter to the Galatians, Paul recapitulates the chief stages in the development of the controversy between the Judaising party in the Church, the premonitory signs on his second visit to Jerusalem, and the subsequent open dispute with Peter in Antioch. The dispute occurred after Paul's second, but before his third, visit to Jerusalem, i.e., either between Acts XII 25 and XIII 1, or between XIV 26 and XV 4. Now in XV 1 (cp. v. 24) envoys from James caused strife in Antioch; and we can hardly think that envoys also came from James after XII 25, and caused exactly similar strife, which was omitted by Luke but recorded in Gal. II 12.

When the question was put distinctly in all its bearings and consequences before Peter, he was unable to resist the argument that Christians ought to observe the Law, as Christ had done, and as the Twelve did. On one or two occasions, indeed, Christ had been taunted with permitting breaches of the Law; but His actions could be so construed only by captious hypercriticism. It is quite clear that Peter and the older Apostles did not for a time grasp the full import of Christ's teaching on this subject: the actual fact that He and they were Jews, and lived as such, made more impression on them than mere theoretical teaching. Barnabas, even, was carried away by the example of Peter, and admitted the argument that the Gentile Christians ought "to live as do the Jews". [161] Paul alone stood firm. The issue of the situation is not described by Paul; he had now brought down his narrative to the situation in which the Galatian defection arose; and his retrospect therefore came to an end, when he reached the familiar facts (p. 185 f.). We must estimate from the context the general argument and what was the issue. Obviously, the rebuke which Paul gavemust have been successful in the case of Peter and Barnabas; the immediate success of his appeal to their better feelings constitutes the whole force of his argument to the Galatians. The power of his letter to them lies in this, that the mere statementof the earlier stages of the controversy is sufficient to show the impregnability of his position and the necessity of his free and generous policy: the narrow Judaising tyranny was self-condemned; Peter was wholly with him, and so was Barnabas; but the victory had been gained, not by listening to the older Apostles, but by obeying "the good pleasure of God, who called me by His grace to preach Him among the Gentiles". If the hesitation of Peter and Barnabas had resulted in an unreconciled dispute, the force of Paul's argument is gone: he has urged at great length that the older Apostles were in agreement with him, and accepted him as the Apostle called to the Foreign Mission, as they were to the Jewish Mission; and, as the climax of his argument for equality of privilege, he says: "Peter and even Barnabas wavered for a moment from their course, when the gravity of its consequences, viz., the supersession of the Judaic Law, was set plainly before them by some of their friends; but I pointed out Peter's error in one brief appeal from his present wavering to his own past action".

[162] From this analysis we see that the issue of the situation implied in Gal. II 11-14 is described in Acts XV 2, 7: Barnabas joined Paul in combating the Judaising party, and Peter championed the cause in emphatic and noble terms at the subsequent Council in Jerusalem. That follows naturally on the interrupted narrative of the Epist.le: the history as related in Acts completes and explains the Epistle, and enables us to appreciate the force of Paul's argument and its instantaneous effect on the Galatian Churches.

It is an interesting point, that Peter used at the Council the argument in favour of freedom with which Paul had pressed him in Antioch. Paul said to him, "In practice thou, a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles; how then compellest thou the Gentiles to act according to the Jewish Law? "Struck with this argument, Peter puts it in a more general form to the Council, "Why put a yoke on them which neither we nor our fathers could bear? "It is true to nature that he should employ to others the argument that had convinced himself.

It must, however, be confessed that while Galatians leads up excellently to Acts, and gains greatly in force from the additional facts mentioned there, Acts is silent about the facts narrated in Galatians. The eyewitness's narrative gains from the historian and stands out in new beauty from the comparison; but here Acts seems to lose by being brought into juxtaposition with the narrative of the eye-witness. To our conception the omission of all reference to the wavering of Barnabas and Peter appears almost like the sacrifice of historic truth, and certainly loses a picturesque detail. But the [163] difference of attitude and object, I think, fully explains the historian's selection amid the incidents of the controversy. For him picturesque details had no attraction; and the swerving of all the Jews except Paul from the right path seemed to him an unessential fact, like hundreds and thousands of others which he had to leave unnoticed. The essential fact which he had to record was that the controversy raged, and that Paul and Barnabas championed the cause of freedom.

But, it may be objected, Barnabas had wavered, and it is not accurate to represent him as a champion along with Paul. We reply that Paul does not make it clear how far Barnabas had gone with the tide: the matter was one of tendency, more than of completeseparation. Peter began to withdraw and separate himself 1 from familiar communion with the Gentile Christian: the resident Jews joined him in concealing their real sentiment and their ordinary conduct towards the non-Jewish members of the Church: even Barnabas was carried off his feet by the tide of dissembling. These words would be correct, if Barnabas had merely wavered, and been confirmed by Paul's arguments in private. Paul's public rebuke was not addressed to Barnabas, but only to Peter. There is a certain difficulty in the record; but I confess that, after trying honestly to give full emphasis to the difficulty, I see no reason why we should not, as the issue of the facts in Gal. II 11-14 conceive Barnabas to have come forward as a thorough-going advocate of the Pauline doctrine and practice.

Moreover, the difficulty remains, and becomes far more serious, on the ordinary view that the incidents of [164] Gal. II 11-14occurred after the Council in Jerusalem. According to that view, Barnabas, when delegates came from Jerusalem (Acts XV 2, 24), resisted them strenuously, represented the cause of freedom as an envoy to Jerusalem, and obtained an authoritative Decree from the Apostles disowning the action of the delegates, and emphatically condemning it as "subverting your souls"thereafter delegates came again from James, the same Apostle that had taken the foremost part in formulating the recent Decree; 2 but this time Barnabas, instead of resisting, weakly yielded to their arguments.

Worse, almost, is the conduct of Peter in that view. When the ease came up before the Council to be considered in all its bearings and solemnly decided, he, "after there had been much discussion"(in which we may be sure that the consequences were fully emphasised by the Judaising party), appeared as the most outspoken advocate of freedom, and declared that "we must not demand from them what we ourselves have been unable to endure"Shortly after the Council (onthat view), Peter went to Antioch and put in practice the principle of freedom for which he had contended at the Council. But "certain persons came from James"the same Apostle that had supported him in the Council; these persons reopened the controversy; and Peter abandoned his publicly expressed conviction, which in a formal letter was declared with his approval to be the word of the Holy Spirit.

We are asked to accept as a credible narrative this recital of meaningless tergiversation, which attributes to [165] Peter and to Barnabas, not ordinary human weakness and inability to answer a grave issue at the first moment when it is presented to them, but conduct devoid of reason or sanity. Who can wonder that many who are asked to accept this as history, reply that one of the two authors responsible for the two halves of the recital has erred and is untrustworthy? For the truth of history itself one must on that theory distrust one of the two documents. That is not the faith, that is not the conduct, which conquered the world! The only possible supposition would be that the Apostles were men unusually weak, ignorant, and inconstant, who continually went wrong, except where the Divine guidance interposed to keep them right. That theory has been and is still held by some; but it removes the whole development of Christianity out of the sphere of history into the sphere of the supernatural and the marvellous, whereas the hypothesis on which this investigation is based is that it was a process intelligible according to ordinary human nature, and a proper subject for the modern historian.

It is true that Peter once before denied his own affirmed principles, but that was when he was younger, when he was a mere pupil, when a terrible strain was put on him; but this denial is supposed to have been made when he was in the maturity of his power, after he had experienced the quickening sense of responsibility as a leader of the Church for many years, and after his mind and will had been enlarged and strengthened at the great Pentecost (see p. 365).

Further, according to the view stated by Lightfoot, the feeble action of Peter and Barnabas in Antioch [166] produced lasting consequences: it "may have prepared the way for the dissension between Paul and Barnabas which shortly afterwards led to their separation. From this time forward they never appear again associated together."If it was so serious, the total omission of it by Luke becomes harder to understand and reconcile with the duty of a historian; whereas, if it was (as we suppose) a mere hesitation when the question was first put explicitly, it was not of sufficient consequence to demand a place in his history.

Peter's visit to Antioch was not of the same character as his visits to Samaria and other Churches at an earlier time, in which he was giving the Apostolic approval to the congregations established there. The first visit of Barnabas to Antioch, followed by theAntiochian delegation to Jerusalem (XI 28, XII 25), and the recognition of Paul and Barnabas as Apostles (Gal. II 9), had placed Antioch on a recognised and independent basis (XIII 1). In Luke's view, therefore, as in Paul's, Peter's visit was not a step in the development of the Church in Antioch, as Barnabas's had been.

FOOTNOTES:

1 Imperfects, not aorists.

2 "The Apostolic letter seems to have been drawn up by him" (Lightfoot, Ed. Gal., II 12).