Pharisees, Acts xv. 10, 11. Here commences a proposition consisting of two members, of which the first, if thou, etc., is treated of in ver. 15, 16; the second, why — the Gentiles, etc., at ver. 17, 18. — 'lou<3a/bs ucra^wv, being a Jeiv) and therefore more closely related to the law. — stivmug 'Qc, livest after the manner of Gentiles) So Paul speaks, Kar Avtipwrov, i.e. [using the ad homi- nem argument, turning Peter's own practice as an argument against him] For Peter, retracting his former mode of living, declared for the Gentile mode, since it was right in itself. Tak ing away this figure, the proposition itself, we must not live after the manner of the Jews, is presently discussed. — ra e0vq, the Gentiles ) set free from the law. — avayxa fyie, thou compellest) by thy conduct. They would have held it necessary that the Gentiles should either follow the Jewish ritual, or be deprived of communion with the Church. — 'lovdaigeiv, to live as do the Jews [Judaize]) what had been formerly obedience to the law is now mere Judaism.
15. 'Hpeis, we) Paul, sparing the person of Peter, dismisses the second person singular, and passes to the first person plural, then figuratively to the first person singular, ver. 18 ; lastly, /in its proper [literal] meaning, ver. 19, 20. We, although Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, viz., we have been: comp. the preterite knowing — we have believed. This we, after the reason1 has been interposed in the way of parenthesis, is taken up again in the following verse with epitasis [an em phatic addition, viz., even we] and reaches to we have believed. — <p-jffei, by nature) not merely proselytes. — ou/c l"^ IQvZv apapruho}, not sinners of the Gentiles) Paul openly declares it as a thing acknowledged, that the Gentiles, inasmuch as they did not even possess the law, are sinners, while the Jews, on the con trary, had the law or even works; Tit. iii. 5. Then by the way he grants, that it is only in Christ that the Jews can have communion with them ; but he especially declares, as a thing acknowledged, the justification of the Gentiles by faith, and he also infers the same thing concerning the Jews. To this refers the expression sinners, ver. 17, note.2
1 By « aetiologia. ' See Append.
2 Sinners such as the Gentiles heretofore were justly regarded. — ED.