We may now inquire whether we find in authentic records of the Apostle Peter's conduct and views any confirmation of the liberality which is attributed to him in the Acts. He is here represented as proposing the emancipation of Gentile Converts from the Mosaic law: does this accord with the statements of the Apostle Paul and with such information as we can elsewhere gather regarding Peter? Very much the contrary.
Peter in this speech claims that, long before, God had selected him to make known the Gospel to the Gentiles, but Paul emphatically distinguishes him as the Apostle of the Circumcision; and although, accepting facts which had actually taken place and could not be prevented, Peter with James and John gave Paul right hands of fellowship, he remained, as he had been before, Apostle of the Circumcision(1) and, as we shall see. did not practise the liberality which he is said to have preached. Very shortly after the Council described in the Acts, there occurred the celebrated dispute between him and Paul which the latter proceeds to describe immediately after the visit to Jerusalem: "But when Cephas came to Antioch," he writes, "I withstood him to the face, for he was condemned. For before 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 other Jews also joined in his hypocrisy, insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, I said unto Cephas before all: If thou being a Jew livest [———] after the manner of Gentiles and not after the manner of Jews, how compellest [———] thou the Gentiles to adopt the customs of the Jews? [———]"(1)
It is necessary to say a few words as to the significance of Peter's conduct and of Paul's rebuke, regarding which there is some difference of opinion.(2) Are we to understand from this that Peter, as a general rule, at Antioch and elsewhere, with enlightened emancipation from Jewish prejudices, lived as a Gentile and in full communion with Gentile Christians?(3) Meyer(4) and others argue that by the use of the present [———], the Apostle indicates a continuous practice based upon principle, and that the [———] is not the mere moral life, but includes the external social observances of Christian community: the object, in fact, being to show that upon principle Peter held the advanced liberal views of Paul, and that the fault which he committed in withdrawing from free intercourse with the Gentile Christians was momentary, and merely the result of "occasional timidity and weakness." This theory cannot bear the test of examination. The account of Paul is clearly this: when Cephas came to Antioch, the
stronghold of Gentile Christianity, before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles, but as soon as these emissaries arrived he withdrew, "fearing those of the circumcision." Had his normal custom been to live like the Gentiles, how is it possible that he could, on this occasion only, have feared those of the circumcision? His practice must have been notorious; and had he, moreover, actually expressed such opinions in the congress of Jerusalem, his confession of faith having been so publicly made, and so unanimously approved by the Church, there could not have been any conceivable cause for such timidity. The fact evidently is, on the contrary, that Peter, under the influence of Paul, was induced for the time to hold free communion with the Gentile Christians; but as soon as the emissaries of James appeared on the scene, he became alarmed at this departure from his principles, and fell back again into his normal practice. If the present [———] be taken to indicate continuous habit of life, the present [———] very much more than neutralizes it. Paul with his usual uncompromising frankness rebukes the vacillation of Peter: by adopting even for a time fellowship with the Gentiles, Peter has practically recognised its validity, has been guilty of hypocrisy in withdrawing from his concession on the arrival of the followers of James, and is condemned; but after such a concession he cannot legitimately demand that Gentile Converts should "judaize." It is obvious that whilst Peter lived as a Gentile, he could not have been compelling the Gentiles to adopt Judaism. Paul, therefore, in saying: "Why compellest thou [———] the Gentiles to adopt the customs of the Jews? [———]," very distinctly intimates that the normal practice of Peter was to compel
Gentile Christians to adopt Judaism. There is no escaping this conclusion for, after all specious reasoning to the contrary is exhausted, there remains the simple fact that Peter, when placed in a dilemma on the arrival of the emissaries of James, and forced to decide whether he will continue to live as a Gentile or as a Jew, adopts the latter alternative, and as Paul tells us "compels" (in the present) the Gentiles to judaize. A stronger indication of his views could scarcely have been given. Not a word is said which implies that Peter yielded to the vehement protests of Paul, but on the contrary we must undoubtedly conclude that he did not; for it is impossible to suppose that Paul would not have stated a fact so pertinent to his argument, had the elder Apostle been induced by his remonstrance to walk uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel which Paul preached, and both to teach and practice Christian universalism. We shall have abundant reason, apart from this, to conclude that Peter did not yield, and it is no false indication of this, that, a century after, we find the Clementine Homilies expressing the bitterness of the Petrine party against the Apostle of the Gentiles for this very rebuke, and representing Peter as following his course from city to city for the purpose of refuting Paul's unorthodox teaching.
It is contended that Peter's conduct at Antioch is in harmony with his denial of his master related in the Gospels, and, therefore, that such momentary and characteristic weakness might well have been displayed even after his adoption of liberal principles. Those who argue in this way, however, forget that the denial of Jesus, as described in the Gospels, proceeded from the fear of death, and that such a reply to a merely compromising question