article14

§9 Paul’s Presentation of His Confrontation with Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2:11–13)

2:11 / Paul continues to present his relationship with the Jerusalem Christians to the Galatians. In the next verses he recounts an incident with Peter that occurred at Antioch. It is almost certain that the Galatians had already heard of this incident, for before describing it Paul declares the sides in the case (Paul opposed Peter to his face) and pronounces the verdict (Peter was in the wrong). But it seems that the Galatians have understood this incident from a different perspective—one in which Peter, not Paul, is the hero.

If later church tradition is correct regarding Peter as the first bishop of the church at Antioch, Paul’s presentation of the incident becomes all the more impressive. Paul claims that at Antioch he demonstrated that Peter—the most eminent Christian—was in the wrong. The Greek participial construction translated “in the wrong” (kategnōsmenos ēn) expresses Paul’s perception that Peter had been “in the wrong” over a period of time but that when Paul opposed him Peter discontinued his actions. Consequently Peter is now not condemned. Paul may be using this story in part to counter any rumors that he and Peter remain at odds after the incident. The record follows naturally from Paul’s record of his triumph at the Jerusalem meeting: at Jerusalem Peter and Paul are recognized as partners in the gospel; at Antioch Paul’s law-free gospel is accepted by Peter.

2:12 / Paul says that before certain men came from James, it was Peter’s practice to eat with the Gentiles. According to Paul, Peter changed his behavior not on principle or in line with the faith but because he was afraid. Paul portrays Peter in this incident as one who draw[s] back out of fear and who therefore exhibits his “hypocrisy.” Paul’s presentation of Peter implicitly reflects well on himself, since Paul is unafraid, even in the face of the most significant people from the Jerusalem church.

One function of this story is to acknowledge the difficulties of a situation in which, even though there was an agreement at Jerusalem (2:1–10), people from Jerusalem who did not accept the law-free gospel for Gentiles have a continuing and formidable influence, even over the likes of the apostle Peter. The “men from James” are a fearsome group. By recounting this story Paul lets the Galatian readers know that their experience of being persuaded by the rival evangelists is neither unprecedented nor shameful.

Throughout this section Paul has been making a distinction between the Jews/circumcised and the Gentiles/uncircumcised. His reference here is framed slightly differently. The Greek reads literally “those of the circumcision,” and the parallelism in the verse makes it clear that the circumcision group is the same as “certain men … from James.” Perhaps this is the same group of people who let the false believers into the Jerusalem meeting and who, despite the agreement of James, Peter, and John to Paul’s gospel (2:9), remained convinced of the rightness of law-observant Gentile Christianity.

If we can trust early church tradition that Peter was the founder of the church at Antioch, then the statement in Galatians 2:12—along with the corroborative evidence in Acts that Peter recognized that the gospel was for Gentiles (Acts 10:1–11:18)—suggests that Peter established a church in which Jewish and Gentile believers saw themselves as a single social unit. The fact that subsequently Peter could be influenced by those promoting separation indicates the degree of social pressure that fell on a new religious movement that did not fit within the Jewish or the pagan ethos. A religion that embraced Jews and non-Jews, requiring only faith in Christ, faced the daunting task of creating a new social space for itself.

The Greek for the verb to eat (synesthiō) is in a progressive tense, which suggests that it was over a period of time that Peter joined Gentiles for meals. There are several reasons to understand the meals Peter was eating as ordinary as opposed to eucharistic meals. First, whereas in other places Paul clearly refers to the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:20–21), here he does not. Secondly, given that Paul elsewhere connects eating the Lord’s Supper with the principle of social harmony among the participants (1 Cor. 11:17–34), we may assume that if the meals at Antioch had been eucharistic he would have appealed to this principle in service of his position. Furthermore, on the presumption that if Paul does not mention the Lord’s Supper we should understand his references to eating are to ordinary meals, we have corroborative evidence in Romans (ch. 14) for Jewish and Gentile believers eating ordinary meals communally, or at least for Christian Jews and Gentiles having close enough social contact that they knew what each other ate.

The translation circumcision group conveys the sense that these men from James were on a circumcising campaign. While we know that Paul is concerned about such people in Galatia (6:12), it is far from clear that his opponents in Antioch were preaching circumcision. In the Greek the phrase means simply “those of the circumcision,” that is, Jews. Read in the context of the preceding passage, in which the circumcision refers to the Jews (2:7), verse 12 most likely indicates the ethnic identity of the men from James. Paul’s clarification that these men were Jews draws the Galatians’ attention to the investment in being respected by his kinsfolk held by Peter, the apostle to the Jews.

The dynamics of hypocrisy and truth play loudly in these verses. Paul has no doubt but that he is on the side of truth. Paul charges that Peter’s change of behavior when the visitors from Jerusalem came was not “in line with the truth of the gospel” (v. 14). Until the arrival of the “men from James” the Jewish Peter had, on account of the gospel, lived “like a Gentile and not like a Jew.” With the arrival of the Jerusalem contingent, however, Peter separated himself from his Gentile brothers and sisters in Christ and adopted the stance of the “circumcision group”—a stance that would “force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs.” Paul’s charge is that this is contrary to Peter’s previous practice, in which he had demonstrated his understanding that there is no distinction between Gentile and Jew in Christ.

2:13 / Peter and those who followed his lead changed their direction out of hypocrisy and fear. Paul’s comment that even Barnabas was swayed by Peter’s response to the Jerusalem Christians may give the Galatians a means of retreating in a dignified fashion from the position they have now put themselves in. The fact that even Barnabas—who along with Paul had convinced the Jerusalem Christians of the validity of Gentile Christianity—could be led astray makes the Galatians’ temptation to follow the rival evangelists at least understandable.

Paul makes clear that Peter changes his behavior in response to “the circumcision group” rather than to the “men from James.” This suggests that the circumcision group was a smaller subgroup of the “men from James.” Just as there was dissension over Paul’s gospel at the meeting in Jerusalem between “some false brothers” and the church’s leaders, so it may be that the visitors from Jerusalem display discord among themselves when they visit Antioch.

Paul’s mention of other Jews who join in Peter’s response to the people from James gives evidence that the congregation at Antioch had a significant number of Jewish Christians; that initially these Jewish Christians had felt comfortable with close interaction with Gentile Christians; and that Peter had played a leadership role among Jewish Christians at Antioch.