About two years later St. Paul, with Barnabas, visited Jerusalem in connexion with the famine. His stay there was, from the nature of his mission, a short one. The historian’s mention simply of ‘the elders’ (Ac 11”) at Jerusalem and St. Paul’s silence as to this visit in Gal 1. 2 appear to show that neither St. Peter nor any other of the Twelve was then at Jerusalem.
At the end of the decade—probably A.D. 49— Paul and Barnabas, as the envoys of the Antio chene Church, went up to Jerusalem about the question of the circumcision of Gentile converts (Ac 1515), James, the President of the Church there, and (of the Twelve) Peter and John were at Jerusalem. Whether the two latter had been speci- ally summoned, or whether they were for a time living in the Holy City, there is no evidence to show. Even in the calm narrative of the Acts, much more in the broken sentences of the Epistle to the
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Galatians, there are signs that the controversy was not without its bitter and painful side. St. Paul appears to imply, though he does not state, that the older apostles favoured some kind of com- promise (cf. Ac 21”*-)—the circumcision, perhaps, of Titus, as a qualification for his position as teacher and as the companion of an apostle. In a private conference between the three ‘Apostles of the Circumcision’ and St. Paul, it was agreed that they should all follow the general lines of their earlier work, the latter aiming primarily at the evangelization of the Gentiles, the three former continuing to work among those of the circumcision. The subsequent history of St. Paul shows how far he was from zegardings this understanding as laying down rigid and cramping limits for his activity. As he felt free to teach the Jews at Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus, so, we may be sure, St. Peter would not consider that he was precluded from teaching Gentiles, whether by word or by letter. Neither side could alter or could wish to alter the terms in which the commission from the Lord had severally come to them. St. Paul had been sent to Israel as well as to the Gentiles (Ac 9” 2617), the older apostles to the Gentiles as well as to Israel (Mt 28! [Mk] 1615. Lk 2447, Ac 18). At the same time, St. Paul’s language in Gal 2°, drawing a com- parison between his own activity in the Gentile world and St. Peter’s among the Jews, implies that the years of St. Peter’s life, of which the Acts preserves no record, were marked by successful work among his own people. The private con- ference prepared the way for the assembly of ‘the apostles and the elders,’ of which the Acts gives an account. After long discussion, St. Peter addressed those gathered together.
(1) Vv.7-9. (a) Those present remembered that, in the early Gays of the gospel, Peter, a staunch Jew, was fixed upon, not by any human arrangement, but by a Divine choice, as the means whereby the Gentiles should hear and believe. (Ὁ) And, further, God confirmed the step itself, taken under His guid- ance, by giving His Spirit to these Gentiles as He had given it at Pentecost to Jews; and, purifying (not their flesh by circum- cision but) their hearts by the gift of faith, He put Jew and Gentile on a level. (2) Vv.10-1, The history of the past points to the duty of the present (νῦν οὖν). Those present had no right to tempt God by putting a yoke on the neck of Gentile dis- ciples, the hopeless weight of which was proved by the ag oa ence of generations of Jews. On the contrary, so far from bearing this burden, and so having any justification for im- pe it on others, Jewish disciples had put themselves on a evel with Gentile disciples by their belief that (not circum- cision but) the ‘grace of the Lord Jesus’ was the means of salvation for Jew and Gentile alike.
St. Peter’s words, it appears, calmed the excite- ment of the whole assembly (ἐσίγησεν δὲ πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος), which had been aroused in the ‘long dis- cussion,’ so that they listened Beealy to the state- ment of ‘ Barnabas and Paul.’ The reference of St. James’ speech to ‘Symeon’s’ narrative, and to the agreement of its drift with the words of the prophets, is the last mention of St. Peter in the Acts.
The Church at Jerusalem decided to send to Antioch with Barnabas and Paul two delegates, viz. Judas Barsabbas and Silas. They in due time returned to Jerusalem, while Paul and Barnabas remained behind. It was natural that the official messengers of the mother Church should in time be followed by the chief of the apostles. St. Paul, under the stress of a later controversy, raises for a
moment the veil which hid the history of St. |
Peter’s sojourn at Antioch (Gal 2"),.* At first, he
* On St. Paul's journeys to Jerusalem as given in the Acts and in Galatians see art, on CunoxoLoay or NT in vol, Lp. 4538, The present writer, however, is quite unable to accept the inter- pretation of Gal guid. suggested on p. 424, viz, that that oe Ὁ precedes in time Gal 910, In plain narrative the simple era δὲ (with aor.) must surely express sequence ; cf. Gal 1521944, The parephrase given to justify the interpretation alters the setting of 211 and supplies just the word which must have been ex- pressed in Greek h the Ὁ borne the suggested meaning —'‘ So far from ἘΠῊΝ submitting to them, I once (sic) publicly rebuked their chief.”