that certain came from James,” who was the teacher at Jerusalem, “he did eat with the
Gentiles, but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were
of the Circumcision:” his cause of fear was not his own danger, (for if he feared not in the
beginning, much less would he do so then,) but their defection. As Paul himself says to the
Galatians, “I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labor upon you in vain:”
(Gal. iv. 11.) and again, “I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve,…so your minds
should be corrupted.” (2 Cor. xi. 3.) Thus the fear of death they knew not, but the fear lest
their disciples should perish, agitated their inmost soul.
Ver. 13. “Insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation.”
Be not surprised at his giving this proceeding the name of dissimulation, for he is un-
willing, as I said before, to disclose the true state of the case, in order to the correction of
his disciples. On account of their vehement attachment to the Law, he calls the present
proceeding “dissimulation,” and severely rebukes it, in order effectually to eradicate their
prejudice. And Peter too, hearing this joins in the feint, as if he had erred, that they might
be corrected by means of the rebuke administered to him. Had Paul reproved these Jews,
they would have spurned at it with indignation, for they held him in slight esteem; but now,
when they saw their Teacher silent under rebuke, they were unable to despise or resist Paul’s
sentence.
Ver. 14. “But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
Gospel.”
Neither let this phrase disturb you, for in using it he does not condemn Peter, but so
expresses himself for the benefit of those who were to be reformed by the reproof of Peter.
Ver. 14. “I said unto Cephas before them all.”
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Observe his mode of correcting the others; he speaks “before them all,” that the hearers
might be alarmed thereby. And this is what he says,—
Ver. 14. “If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how
compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”57
But it was the Jews and not the Gentiles who were carried away together with Peter;
why then does Paul impute what was not done, instead of directing his remarks, not against
the Gentiles, but against the dissembling Jews? And why does he accuse Peter alone, when
the rest also dissembled together with him? Let us consider the terms of his charge; “If thou,
being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the
Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” for in fact Peter alone had withdrawn himself. His object
then is to remove suspicion from his rebuke; had he blamed Peter for observing the Law,
57 [For the bearing of this passage upon the Tübingen theory of Baur, “the most important of recent theolo-
gical controversies” see Lightfoot’s Commentary on Galatians, Excursus on St. Paul and the Three, pp. 191 ff.,
and Fisher’s Supernatural Origin of Christianity, pp. 205-ff.—G.A.]
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Galatians 2:1,2