The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the Epistle to the Galatians
To spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus . Our liberty from the yoke and burden of the numerous legal ceremonies from which Christ has set us free by His faith and His Church.
Ver. 6. — But by those who seemed to be somewhat (supply nothing ) was added to my teaching. The Apostle, as is his wont, breaks off and interpolates a clause (whatsoever they were it maketh nothing to me ), and then returns to his subject with a change of case. Peter, James, and John, the chief Apostles, added nothing to me (Anselm).
They who seemed to be somewhat (1.) These leading Apostles who seemed to be somewhat were illiterate and uncultivated fishermen, whilst I, a Roman citizen, excelled them in zeal and knowledge of the law (Ambrose and Anselm). Since Paul was pressed by the authority of the other Apostles, who were claimed as Judaisers, he exalts his own authority and his own teaching, though with all modesty. This is why he adds, God accepteth no man’s person, as appears from this choice of fishermen to be Apostles. (2.) Augustine turns the ὁποῖοι (quales) as implying sinners. No one need trouble to cast in my teeth the sins of my persecuting days, or remind Peter that he denied Christ. (3.) Chrysostom and Jerome, however, read it : Whatever they were in doctrine and observance of circumcision and the law is nothing to me ; to God they will give account, for God accepteth no man’s person. The first of these three explanations is nearest the intention of the Apostle.
God accepteth no man’s person . I.e., the conditions attaching to a person, which have nothing to do with the free calling of God. To pay attention to these in conferring benefices and offices is in men a vice contrary to distributive justice, which is called in Greek προσωποληψία. In God it would be no vice, but it would be inconsistent with His liberality and greatness. See Rom. ii. 11 and comments.
Added nothing to me . This is Valla’s translation [and that of A.V.], but the Greek is προσανέθεντο, they communicated nothing— being content with my statement as sufficient. See Gal. i. 16 and comments.
Ver. 7. — The gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter . i.e., of the circumcised Jews. See my canon 21.
You will urge: Then Peter was not head of the Church, but Apostle and Pope of the Jews only. Some reply that this is said of the care and division of protection — that Peter was appointed to protect the Jews, Paul the Gentiles ; and this especially, because he adds, He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles ; which signifies: I was given the duty, the necessary graces, and apostolic gifts for my apostleship to the Gentiles.
Jerome’s answer is much better. He points out that at that time, at the very beginning of the Church, when there was still, as verse 12 shows, a wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles, Peter and Paul divided between them not power but works, so that Paul, hateful as he was to the Jews, might primarily and chiefly preach to the Gentiles, and Peter to the Jews. On occasion Paul preached to the Jews, as Acts ix. shows, and Peter to the Gentiles (Acts x.). Moreover, Peter transferred his see to Gentile Rome, as all historians, all the Fathers, the chronicles and monuments testify in common. See Bellarmine for these in detail. If any one after reading them still is in doubt, he must be too prejudiced or too impudent to form a sane judgment
Ver. 8. — He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision — to make him the Apostle of the circumcised Jews by filling Peter with strength and effectual energy, did exactly the same for me among the Gentiles. As Ephrem puts it, he was alike effectual in us, both by working signs and wonders, by efficacy of speech, by the conversion of some — many — to Christ.
Ver. 9. — Cephas . Clement of Alexandria (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. ii. 12) and Dorotheus (in Synopsi) thought that that Cephas was not the Apostle Peter, but one of the seventy disciples. But the Church neither knows nor commemorates any other Cephas save S. Peter. The words, who seemed to be pillars , show that an Apostle is meant, and, therefore, Peter. Accordingly, in verse 14, S. Paul opposes himself to Peter, as being a sort of primate over James and John. In Syriac, spoken at Antioch of Syria, the same person would be called Cephas who by the Greeks was called Peter. So the man styled Cephas here is in verse 7 Peter.
That we should go unto the heathen , and they unto the circumcision. So Christ is called, in Rom. xv. 8, a minister of the circumcision, inasmuch as He was promised and given to the Jews as the first-fruits of the world. Accordingly, the Apostles at first confined their labours to these circumcised Jews.
Ver. 10. — The poor . The Jews, who, for Christ’s sake, had been spoiled of their goods by their fellows (Heb. x. 34 and Chrysostom). Jerome, however, understands the poor who became so voluntarily to be meant, those who had sold their possessions and had given the price to the Apostles, to be distributed among the faithful —especially the poor among them, of whom there was a great number.
Ver. 11. — I withstood him to the face. Erasmus and others interpret this to mean in appearance, outwardly, feignedly, and by previous arrangement. The literal meaning is better: I openly resisted Peter, in order that the public scandal caused by him might be removed by a public rebuke (Augustine, Ambrose, Bede, Anselm, and nearly all other authorities).
Because he was to be blamed. (1.) Because he had been blamed (κατεγνωσμένος) by other brethren, whom Peter had offended by this proceeding, in their ignorance of his true intention and motive, as Chrysostom and Jerome say, or, as Ephrem turns it, “because they were offended in him.” (2.) Theophylact and Œcumenius understand it: Peter had been blamed by the other Apostles because he had eaten with the Gentile Cornelius at Caesarea. Fearing lest he should be blamed again by them or Jews, he withdrew himself from all intercourse with the Gentiles. (3.) The opinion of Ambrose is better. He had fallen under the condemnation of the truth and of Gospel liberty, which sets the Gentiles free from the darkness and slavery of Judaism. (4.) The Vulgate reprehensibilis (in place of reprehensus, as with the authors cited above) is better, and agrees with the context. It gives the reason for resisting Peter, because he was to be blamed for simulating Judaism.
It may be asked whether Peter was really blameworthy and was actually blamed by Paul. For many years there was a sharp dispute on this point between S. Jerome and S. Augustine, as may be seen in their epistles. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Baronius answer in the negative, and hold that the rebuke was only theatrical. They argue that Peter, who had lawfully followed the Jewish customs at Jerusalem among Jews, lived as a Gentile among Gentiles at Antioch; when, however, the Jews arrived who had been sent to Antioch from Jerusalem by James, he withdrew from the Gentiles in favour of the Jews, lest he should offend those who had been the earliest to receive the faith (see ver. 9), and also that he might at the same time give Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, an opportunity of rebuking him, that by yielding he might teach the Jews that the time for Judaising was past. On the other side S. Augustine maintains that Peter was really blameworthy, and was blamed by Paul, as the record distinctly declares.
Out of this arose a dispute between S. Augustine and S. Jerome about simulation and lying. Jerome argued from this action of Peter’s that any similar simulation is lawful. Augustine denied that he did simulate, and laid down the unlawfulness of all lying or simulation, especially in matters of religion. In this second question, however, neither seems to have understood the other’s position. Jerome did not maintain that Peter told a lie, or put on a profession of Judaism while secretly detesting it, as Augustine, by the strength of his language, seems to think that Jerome held. The latter did not say that Peter was right in professing Judaism; if he did, then it would be right for any one of the faithful to make a profession of any false faith or any heresy. But Jerome only held what S. Chrysostom did, viz., that the rebuke administered to Peter by Paul was not really intended, but was merely theatrical, it being arranged between them beforehand that Paul should rebuke Peter, not for simulation , but for thoughtless dissimulation , and that Peter should accept the rebuke thus arranged for, that so the Judaisers might be really rebuked in the specious rebuke given to Peter, and with him might clearly understand that Judaising was forbidden. The lawfulness of such an action is not denied by Augustine, all he denies is that the proceeding was of this nature.
From this it appears how little ground Cassian ( Collat . xvii. 17-25), Origen, Clement, Erasmus, and others (see the passages in Sixtus of Sens, lib. v. annot. 105) had for founding the lawfulness of lying on this passage, or for endorsing the saying of Plato, that, although a lie is an evil thing, yet it is occasionally necessary , just as we use hellebore or some other drug ; for this is now an established error condemned by Innocent III. (Tit. de Usuris , cap. super eo.), and by Ecclesiasticus vii. 14. Against it too S. Augustine writes two treatises, one entitled de Mendacio and the other contra Mendacium . Nor is there any exception to be taken here against Jerome and Chrysostom. They only understand and excuse a secret arrangement , whereby no lie was acted, but a rebuke was simulated, and this is a legitimate action, as is evident in military stratagems, when for instance, the enemy feigns to flee, and so draws its foes into an ambush.