Iscool
Ok fair enough.
Iscool, drifdiver, Mr. Rogers and Pugetsoundsolider:
With respect to the St. Peter and St. Paul question, and I am now at a lost with respect to who I had corresponded on this issue, I think one of you was with the Roman Rite and Eastern Rite Catholic issue, so have linked the 4 of you who have engaged in this thread.
I still stand that Paul in no way was correcting Peter for teaching false doctrine. If this were true, then Paul would also be guilty of what he was correcting Peter of doing. Again, no Father ever interpreted Peter as teaching unorthodox doctrine. The most we see is that some of the Fathers (St. Augustine being one of the) accused him of acting hypocritically, and thus sinning, which is what the text actually states (c.f. Gal 2:13).
St. Jerome’s Letter Number 112, addressed to his friend St. Augustine, which I have linked goes through the Scriptures and points out, correctly, the problem one has if one assumes that St. Peter was teaching false doctrine. I encourage you to read St. Jerome’s commentary and go back to the Scriptures and see how your interpretation in the end, is not correct.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102075.htm
For example, St. Jerome points out that first, Biblical scholars and theologians need to read Acts 15 first, to understand Galatians in proper context. Some key texts from that chapter are as follows, first we read “After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said to them, My brothers, you are aware from early days God made his choice among you that the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe…..on the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way they are.”” (c.f. Acts 15: 7-11). We next read, “the whole assembly fell silent, and they listened while Paul and Barnabas described the sings and wonders”(c.f. Acts 15:12).
Now you and I can agree that St. James was the overseer/leader of the Church in Jerusalem, which was made up of ethnic Jewish-Christians. So, a theological question is who had more authority at the Council, Peter or James. However, I think the text is clear that St. James begins his statement in verse 13 after the council fell silent and he makes specific reference to St. Peter [called Symeon by James] as we read “After they had fallen silent, James responded, My brothers listen to me. Symeon has described how God first concerned himself with acquiring from among the Gentiles a people for his name.” (c.f. Acts 15:13-14). Thus, St. James assents to St. Peters doctrinal declaration, by specifically referencing Peter, and then as leader of the Church in Jerusalem, gives a pastoral plan on how the Jewish-Christian community can implement Peter’s decision and stay in communion with the gentile Christians coming into the Church [c.f. Acts 15:19-21]
Next, in the context of what we read in Acts 15, it is also important to note that the Jewish-Christians from the Church in Jerusalem were causing the friction in Galatia and having trouble accepting gentiles as Christians “came from James” (c.f. Gal 2:12 and Acts 11: 2-4). So, given the Jewish-Christians at Jerusalem having difficulty with the gentiles becoming Christians, it was important for St. Luke to record in Acts, that St. James accepted St. Peters decision recorded in Acts 15.
Now back to Galatians and St. Peter and St. Paul. Again, Acts 15 also shows that it was St. Peter who first came to see that the Jewish ceremonial laws were not longer in effect and that it is through Grace that God saves humanity (c.f. Acts 15:11). It is also true that the context of Galatians that ST. Paul does in fact regard ST. Peter has a great authority (c.f. Gal 1:18, 2:1-2) as he mentions those of repute several times and claims that those of repute “made me add nothing” (c.f. Gal 2:2; Gal 2:6). St. Jerome in his Letter 112 to St. Augustine quotes Galatians 2:11-14 and then writes:
“No one can doubt, therefore, that the Apostle Peter was himself the author of that rule with deviation from which he is charged. The cause of that deviation, moreover, is seen to be fear of the Jews. For the Scripture says, that at first he did eat with the Gentiles, but that when certain had come from James he withdrew, and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. Now he feared the Jews, to whom he had been appointed apostle, lest by occasion of the Gentiles they should go back from the faith in Christ; imitating the Good Shepherd in his concern lest he should lose the flock committed to him.”
So from St. Jerome’s writing, which was also consistent with Origen before him, it is clear that St. Peter was being a good shepherd and feeding the lambs, as Christ commanded him, and trying to strengthen the faith of the Jewish-Christians from Jerusalem. So it is clear that were still problems with the ethnically mixed Christian Churches that had both Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians, as was the case in Antioch. So, St. Jerome suggests that St. Paul rebuked St. Peter in a “figurative sense”, as a way to provide both an opportunity to stress again that gentiles are saved by Grace and no longer to keep the Jewish Ceremonial Laws. To argue that St. Peter was “literally wrong” and taught doctrinal error is problematic because later in Letter 112, St. Jerome shows that St. Paul, when confronted with similar situations did similar things that St. Peter did and cites three passages to make his point [c.f. Acts 16: 1-3; Acts 18:18; Acts 21: 18-26).
For example, in Acts 16: 1-3 we read “He reached [also] Derbe and Lystra where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him and Paul wanted him to come along with him. On account of the Jews in that region Paul had him circumcised, for they new that his father was a Greek.” So since Timothy was not fully Jewish, as he had not been circumcised and he had a gentile Father, Paul accepted circumcision so that Timothy could do missionary work among Jews, knowing that the ceremonial Jewish Laws were abrogated. Paul allowed this, while still maintaining what St. Peter declared in Acts 15” 6-12, that the Jewish ceremonial laws can’t be imposed on the gentile converts to Christianity.
In Acts 18:18 we read “Paul remained for quite some time, and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria together with Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchrea he had his hair cut because he had taken a vow.” (i.e. The Nazirite vow described in Numbers 6: 1-24). In Acts 21: 18-26, we see St. Paul giving instructions to four men to have their heads shaved and have themselves purified.
ST. Jerome goes on to say the reason that St. Paul did this [3 cases] was for fear of offending the Jews who had come to believe in Christ, the same reason St. Peter did. So, St. Jerome. In fact, St. Jerome comments that St. Paul sometimes had envy towards ST. Peter and boasted of things that he did not do. Remember, St. Paul himself notes that he struggled with a sin throughout his life, perhaps Jerome was telling us that this may have been the struggle St. Paul had, as St. Jerome writes with respect to Paul he “had written boastfully of things which he either had not done, or, if he did them, had done with inexcusable presumption.” Again, one can gather from reading Galatians that St. Paul is claiming that he settled the doctrinal question with respect to Gentile Christians and the Jewish Law, but as St. Luke records in Acts [and independent source], it was clearly St. Peter.
In closing, whatever interpretation one has with respect to Galatians 2, the entire biblical text does not allow for an interpretation that St. Paul was correcting St. Peter on “False Doctrinal Teaching.” In addition, St. Jerome in his closing sort of takes a friendly jab at his friend St. Augustine and asks Augustine to forgive him [Jerome] for this humble attempt to correct Augustine with respect to how Peter and Paul at Galatia.
Sir,
From the link you posted, Jerome to Augustine:
“5. You, however, in order to avoid doing what I had asked, have devised a new argument against the view proposed; maintaining that the Gentiles who had believed in Christ were free from the burden of the ceremonial law, but that the Jewish converts were under the law, and that Paul, as the teacher of the Gentiles, rightly rebuked those who kept the law; whereas Peter, who was the chief of the “circumcision,” Galatians 2:8 was justly rebuked for commanding the Gentile converts to do that which the converts from among the Jews were alone under obligation to observe. If this is your opinion, or rather since it is your opinion, that all from among the Jews who believe are debtors to do the whole law, you ought, as being a bishop of great fame in the whole world, to publish your doctrine, and labour to persuade all other bishops to agree with you.”
Augustine was obviously in the wrong, since what he wrote is contrary to scripture. However, Jerome is also insisting, 3 centuries after the fact, that Paul did not rebuke Peter - which clearly is contrary both to scripture, and to the account given by an eyewitness, while the other party was still alive and capable of contradicting him.
“11But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.”
And what had he done? In addition to action, he had tried to “force the Gentiles to live like Jews”. Frankly, force is a much stronger word than teach, since it implies a penalty if the teaching is not followed.
Also, I believe you lay at the feet of Jerome what he considered blasphemous.
“In fact, St. Jerome comments that St. Paul sometimes had envy towards ST. Peter and boasted of things that he did not do. Remember, St. Paul himself notes that he struggled with a sin throughout his life, perhaps Jerome was telling us that this may have been the struggle St. Paul had, as St. Jerome writes with respect to Paul he “had written boastfully of things which he either had not done, or, if he did them, had done with inexcusable presumption.”
But Jerome wrote: “...and to restrain the shameless blasphemies of Porphyry, who says that Peter and Paul quarrelled with each other in childish rivalry, and affirms that Paul had been inflamed with envy on account of the excellences of Peter, and had written boastfully of things which he either had not done, or, if he did them, had done with inexcusable presumption, reproving in another that which he himself had done.”