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St Paul's relations

stadt for iconoclasm writes like two different persons. He bids the timid and gentle Melancthon 'sin and sin boldly': he would have cut his right hand off sooner than pen such words to the antinomian rioters of Munster. It is not that the man or his principles were changed: but the same words addressed to persons of opposite tempers would have conveyed a directly opposite meaning.

St Paul's language then, when in this epistle he describes his with the relations with the Three, must be interpreted with this caution, that it necessarily exhibits those relations in a partial aspect. The purport of this language, as I understand it, is explained in the notes: and I shall content myself here with gathering up the results.

Three as described in this epistle.

(1) There is a general recognition of the position and authority of the elder Apostles, both in the earlier visit to Jerusalem when he seeks Peter apparently for the purpose of obtaining instruction in the facts of the Gospel, staying with him a fortnight, and in the later visit which is undertaken for the purpose, if I may use the phrase, of comparing notes with the other Apostles and obtaining their sanction for the freedom of the Gentile Churches. (2) On the other hand there is an uncompromising resistance to the extravagant and exclusive claims set up on their behalf by the Judaizers. (3) In contrast to these claims, St Paul's language leaves the impression (though the inference cannot be regarded as certain), that they had not offered a prompt resistance to the Judaizers in the first instance, hoping perhaps to conciliate them, and that the brunt of the contest had been borne by himself and Barnabas. (4) At the same time they are distinctly separated from the policy and principles of the Judaizers, who are termed false brethren, spies in the Christian camp. (5) The Apostles of the Circumcision find no fault with St Paul's Gospel, and have nothing to add to it. (6) Their recog nition of his office is most complete. The language is decisive in two respects: it represents this recognition first as thoroughly mutual, and secondly as admitting a perfect equality and independent position. (7) At the same time a separate sphere of labour is assigned to each: the one are to preach to the heathen, the other to the Circumcision. There is no implication, as some have represented,

that the Gospel preached to the Gentile would differ from the Gospel preached to the Jew. Such an idea is alien to the whole spirit of the passage. Lastly, (8) Notwithstanding their distinct spheres of work, St Paul is requested by the Apostles of the Circumcision to collect the alms of the Gentiles for the poor brethren of Judæa, and to this request he responds cordially.

to them in

stles.

With the exception of the incident at Antioch, which will be References considered presently, the Epistle to the Galatians contains nothing other epimore bearing directly on the relations between St Paul and the Apostles of the Circumcision. Other special references are found in the Epistles to the Corinthians, but none elsewhere. These notices, slight though they are, accord with the view presented by the Galatian letter. St Paul indeed says more than once that he is 'not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles” (τῶν ὑπερλίαν ἀποστόλων, 2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11), and there is in the original a slight touch of irony which disappears in the translation: but the irony loses its point unless the exclusive preference of the elder Apostles is regarded as an exaggeration of substantial claims. Elsewhere St Paul speaks of Cephas and the Lord's brethren as exercising an apostolic privilege which belonged also to himself and Barnabas (1 Cor. ix. 5), of Cephas and James as witnesses of the Lord's resurrection like himself (1 Cor. xv. 5, 7). In the last passage he calls himself (with evident reference to the elder Apostles who are mentioned immediately before) 'the least of the Apostles, who is not worthy to be called an Apostle.' In rebuking the dissensions at Corinth, he treats the name of Cephas with a delicate courtesy and respect which has almost escaped notice. When he comes to argue the question, he at once drops the name of St Peter; While one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal? What then is Apollos, and what is Paul' Apollos was so closely connected with him (1 Cor. xvi. 12), that he could use his name without fear of misapprehension. But in speaking of Cephas he had to observe more caution: certain persons persisted in regarding St Peter as the head of a rival party, and therefore he is careful to avoid any seeming depreciation of his brother Apostle.

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In all this there is nothing inconsistent with the character of

tween St St Paul as drawn in the Acts, nothing certainly which represents Paul and him as he was represented by extreme partisans in ancient times, by the other Apostles. Ebionites on the one hand and Marcionites on the other, and as he has been represented of late by a certain school of critics, in a position of antagonism to the chief Apostles of the Circumcision. I shall next examine the scriptural notices and traditional representations of these three.

ST PETER claimed by

1. The author of the Clementine Homilies makes ST PETER Ebionites the mouth-piece of his own Ebionite views. In the prefatory letter of Peter to James which, though possibly the work of another author, represents the same sentiments, the Apostle complains that he has been misrepresented as holding that the law was abolished but fearing to preach this doctrine openly. Far be it,' he adds, 'for to act so is to oppose the law of God which was spoken by Moses and to which our Lord bare witness that it should abide for ever. For thus He said, Heaven and earth shall pass away: one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law. And this He said that all things might be fulfilled. Yet these persons professing to give my sentiments (τὸν ἐμὸν νοῦν ἐπαγγελλόμενοι) I know not how, attempt to interpret the words that they have heard from me more cleverly (povμwrepov) than myself who spoke them, telling their pupils that this is my meaning (opórnua), though it never once entered into my mind (ô ¿yw ovdè éveľvμý0nv). But if they dare to tell such falsehoods of me while I am still alive, how much more will those who come after me venture to do it when I am gone (§ 2).' It has been held by some modern critics that the words thus put into the Apostle's mouth are quite in character; that St Peter did maintain the perpetuity of the law; and that therefore the traditional account which has pervaded Catholic Christendom from the writing of the Acts to the present day gives an essentially false view of the Apostle.

I think the words quoted will strike most readers as betraying a consciousness on the part of the writer that he is treading on hollow and dangerous ground. But without insisting on this, it is im

portant to observe that the sanction of this venerated name was and also by oppoclaimed by other sectarians of opposite opinions. Basilides (about site sects A.D. 130), the famous Gnostic teacher, announced that he had been instructed by one Glaucias an 'interpreter' of St Peter'. An early apocryphal writing moreover, which should probably be assigned to the beginning of the second century and which expressed strong antijudaic views', was entitled the 'Preaching of Peter.' I do not see why these assertions have not as great a claim to a hearing as the opposite statement of the Ebionite writer. They are probably earlier; and in one case at least we have more tangible evidence than the irresponsible venture of an anonymous romance writer. The probable inference however from such conflicting statements would be, that St Peter's true position was somewhere between the two extremes.

1 Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. p. 898, Potter.

On this work, the κnpvyμa IIéTрov, see Schwegler Nachap. Zeit. I. p. 30 sq. Its opposition to Judaism appears in an extant fragment preserved in Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. p. 760, undè κατὰ ̓Ιουδαίους σέβεσθε...ὥστε καὶ ὑμεῖς ὁσίως καὶ δικαίως μανθάνοντες ἃ παραδίδομεν ὑμῖν φυλάσσεσθε, καινῶς τὸν Θεὸν διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ σεβόμενοι· εὔρομεν γὰρ ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς καθὼς ὁ Κύριος λέγει· Ἰδοὺ διατίθεμαι ὑμῖν καινὴν διαθήκην K.T.A. The fragments of this work are collected by Grabe, Spicil. 1. p. 62 sq. It was made use of by Heracleon the Valentinian, and is quoted more than once, apparently as genuine, by Clement of Alexandria.

The identity of this work with the Praedicatio Pauli quoted in the treatise De Baptismo Haereticorum printed among Cyprian's works (App. p. 30, Fell) seems to me very doubtful, though maintained by several able critics. The passage there quoted is strangely misinterpreted by Baur (Christenthum p. 53). I give his words, lest I should have misunderstood him: Auch die kirchliche Sage, welche die Apostel wieder zusammenbrachte, lässt erst am Ende nach einer langen Zeit der Trennung die gegenseitige Anerkennung zu Stande kommen. Post

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tanta tempora, hiess es in der Præ-
dicatio Pauli in der Stelle, welche sich
in der Cyprian's Werken angehängten
Schrift de rebaptismate erhalten hat
(Cypr. Opp. ed. Baluz. s. 365 f.), Petrum
et Paulum post conlationem evangelii
in Jerusalem et mutuam cogitationem
[?]et altercationem et rerum agendarum
dispositionem postremo in urbe, quasi
tunc primum, invicem sibi esse cogni-
tos.' Baur thus treats the comment of
the writer as if it were part of the
quotation. In this treatise the writer
denounces the Praedicatio Pauli as
maintaining 'adulterinum, imo interne-
cinum baptisma'; in order to invalidate
its authority, he proceeds to show its
thoroughly unhistorical character; and
among other instances he alleges the
fact that it makes St Peter and St Paul
meet in Rome as if for the first time,
forgetting all about the congress at Je-
rusalem, the collision at Antioch, and
so forth. Schwegler takes the correct
view of the passage, II. p. 32.

Other early apocryphal works attri-
buted to the chief Apostle of the Cir-
cumcision are the Gospel, the Acts,
and the Apocalypse of Peter; but our
information respecting these is too
scanty to throw much light on the pre-
sent question: on the Gospel of Peter
see above, p. 274.

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But we are not to look for trustworthy information from such sources as these. If we wish to learn the Apostle's real attitude in the conflict between Jewish and Gentile converts, the one fragmentSt Paul's ary notice in the Epistle to the Galatians will reveal more than all notice of the occur- the distorted and interested accounts of later ages: But when CeAntioch, phas came to Antioch I withstood him to the face, for he was condemned (his conduct condemned itself). For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision: and the rest of the Jews also dissembled with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation (συναπήχθη αὐτῶν τῇ VTOKρío). But when I saw that they walked not straight according to the truth of the Gospel, I said unto Cephas before all, If thou, being born a Jew ('Iovdaîos vπáрxwv), livest after the manner of the Gentiles and not after the manner of the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to live like the Jews? etc. (ii. 11-14).'

Now the point of St Paul's rebuke is plainly this: that in sanctioning the Jewish feeling which regarded eating with the Gentiles as an unclean thing, St Peter was untrue to his principles, was acting hypocritically and from fear. In the argument which follows he assumes that it was the normal practice of Peter to live as a Gentile (ἐθνικῶς ζῇς and not ἐθνικῶς ἔζης), in other words, to mix freely with the Gentiles, to eat with them, and therefore to disregard the distinction of things clean and unclean: and he argues on the glaring inconsistency and unfairness that Cephas should claim this liberty himself though not born to it, and yet by hypocritical compliance with the Jews should practically force the ritual law on the Gentiles and deprive them of a freedom which was their natural right'.

1 I do not see how this conclusion can be resisted. According to the Tübingen view of St Peter's position, his hypocrisy or dissimulation must have consisted not in withdrawing from, but in holding intercourse with the Gentiles; but this is not the view of St Paul on any natural interpretation of his words; and certainly the Ebionite writer already quoted (p. 352) did not so understand his meaning. Schwegler (1.

P. 129) explains συνυπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ 'were hypocritical enough to side with him,' thus forcing the expression itself and severing it from the context; but even then he is obliged to acquit the other Jewish Christians at Antioch of Ebionism. Hilgenfeld (Galater p. 61 sq) discards Schwegler's interpretation and explains Tóкpiσis of the self-contradiction, the unconscious inconsistency of Jewish Christian or Ebionite

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