The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 23

nized as being pillars, gave to me end BarnabM the right hands of partMrship, that we should go to [or, 'work for'] the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision" (eh. ii. 9). •This public formal act of the "pillars " of Christ's Church both metropolitan and • universal, embodie~ in the shaking of hands in the presence (no doubt) of a general meeting of apostles, elders, and brethren, conferred upon St. Paul and likewise, no doubt, up<in St. BarnRbae, the Church's commission to be envoys of the gospel to the Gentiles in permanence; for ministrations, not limited, as on tha.t former occasion ae Antioch, to eome one special work of service, but indefinitely and without limitation. Thenceforward, wherever in the Gentile world St. Paul went bearing the gospel-and the like holds_trne no doubt also of Barnabas-he came as a formally authorized apostle of the Church, and therefore also, the Church being Christ's body and his vicegerent as herald of 6alvation to the world, as an "apostle of Christ." This apostleship, let me again observe, was not identical, but ran parallel with that which St. Paul bad held from the beginning of hie Christian life, received from Christ himself with no human intervention. That· the' title, "apostles of Christ," was bome by men who patently and (no doubt) confessedly by themselves had received no such immediate appointment from Christ in person as the twelve and St. Paul had received, has already been ma.de clear from 2 Cor. :ir.i. 13 (see aobove, p. xxix.). St. Batn'abae had yet earlier than the first of the four occasions above recited received a like apostolioal commission; namely, from " the Church" at Jerusalem, when he was sent'down to Antioch with authority to inquire upon the spot into the real ground of the tidings, then felt at Jerusalem to be so astounding, that "the hand of the Lord" bad there been effecting the conversion·of Gentiles [-EM,wczs, not 'EM7111urrcLs], owning no connection· with the synagogue (Aots xi. 20-22). That :first·arrival of St. Barnabas at Antioch was followed by his making that city his principal place of a.bode for a long continuance ; at an early period of which h8 went over to Tarsus to engage Saul's co-operation with him in the bnilding up of tha, highly important community of Gentile converts then rapidly forming in Antioch. Though we are unable to define what was the precise ecclesiastical status held by St. Barna.bas during that time in the Antiochian Church, we cannot doubt he occupied a very prominent position in it; looked up to and reverenced and exercising by weight of opinion a leading influence in its affairs, not merely on the ground of his eminent ministerial gifts and of his noble personal character, but also as having come there in the capacity of lin apostle, delegated by no less an authority than the mother Church of Christendom and the twelve apostles, who as yet were still making Jerusalem their head-quarters. St. Barnabas'& partial deflection to anti-Hellenism. The " sweet reasonableness " which would seem to have been a natural constituent of Barnabas's character, elevated by the hallowing influences of the Holy Spirit, had in his case very greatly softened the strict formalism and narrow-mindedness which still attached to Jewish believers iu general, and especially to the Pharisean section of them. In liberality of sentiment, in large-hearted candour, in love of the human race in general, be proved himself on various occasions to be far ahead of the great mass of his believing fellow-countrymen. Nevertheless, the character of apostle from Jerusalem, in which he had in the first instance come among the Antiochians, and which, as we have seen, was again and again anew bestowed on him, formed e. tie strongly linking him, in his ministerial work at Antioch, to the Jerusalemite Church. In consequence of his sustaining this character, brethren of the circumcision coming down from the capital would naturally resort to him, would attach themselves to his immediate society, would expect- to receive from  xxxvi THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.