Friends, the apostle Peter was being sensitive to the Jews who had been under the law of Moses for 2000 years by following the Old Covenant law whenever he was around them, so that he would avoid offending them and have a chance to preach to them. He didn’t intend on keeping aloof from gentile converts forever, but only for a short time. He didn’t teach a false doctrine, but only acted a certain way when the Jews were around. Peter was thankful when Paul came and backed him up! Peter was afraid of losing converts if he didn’t coddle them. He never taught that all gentiles must be avoided! For goodness sake, it says in the same text that he WAS eating with gentile converts! In Acts 10, Peter made it clear he “understood” that God had made the gentiles clean to associate with:
“You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” – Acts 10:27
Paul also coddled the Jews in order to win them to the faith. He didn’t teach that anyone was required to be circumcized or offer animal sacrifices in the New Covenant, but he performed those things to avoid offending the Jews, which James told him was permissible.
Acts 21: 17 After we arrived in Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. 18 And the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. 19 After he had greeted them, he began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 And when they heard it they began glorifying God; and they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law; 21 and they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. 22 What, then, is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23 Therefore do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; 24 take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Law. 25 But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.” 26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them.
Acts 16:1-3 Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. And a disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek, 2 and he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted this man to go with him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
Wherefore also the heresies of the Barbarian philosophy, although they speak of one God, though they sing the praises of Christ, speak without accuracy, not in accordance with truth; for they discover another God, and receive Christ not as the prophecies deliver. But their false dogmas, while they oppose the conduct that is according to the truth, are against us. For instance, Paul circumcised Timothy because of the Jews who believed, in order that those who had received their training from the law might not revolt from the faith through his breaking such points of the law as were understood more carnally, knowing right well that circumcision does not justify; for he professed that all things were for all by conformity, preserving those of the dogmas that were essential, that he might gain all. – Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, Book 6, chapter 15
Do you have any idea how much Paul HATED circumcision? Do you think he WANTED to circumcise Timothy?
Galatians 5:2-4 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
But Paul is not being inconsistent. Paul and Peter both taught the true doctrine, but they ACTED in obedience to the law of Moses when trying to win Jewish converts. By the way, the law of Moses is not HERESY! It’s just been replaced with the New Covenant law. You should all be able to see the difference between the apostles doing something in condescension to weak-minded people who think they’re still under the old law given by God and someone TEACHING A HERESY.
Romans 14:13-14 Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. 14 I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.
1 Corinthians 9:20 – To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law;
Tertullian: Now, with the view of branding the apostles with some mark of ignorance, they put forth the case of Peter and them that were with him having been rebuked by Paul. “Something therefore,” they say, “was wanting in them.” (This they allege,) in order that they may from this construct that other position of theirs, that a fuller knowledge may possibly have afterwards come over (the apostles,) such as fell to the share of Paul when he rebuked those who preceded him…. Still they should show, from the circumstance which they allege of Peter’s being rebuked by Paul, that Paul added yet another form of the gospel besides that which Peter and the rest had previously set forth. But the fact is, having been converted from a persecutor to a preacher, he is introduced as one of the brethren to brethren, by brethren—to them, indeed, by men who had put on faith from the apostles’ hands. Afterwards, as he himself narrates, he “went up to Jerusalem for the purpose of seeing Peter,” because of his office, no doubt and by right of a common belief and preaching. Now they certainly would not have been surprised at his having become a preacher instead of a persecutor, if his preaching were of something contrary; nor, moreover, would they have “glorified the Lord,” because Paul had presented himself as an adversary to Him. They accordingly even gave him “the right hand of fellowship,” as a sign of their agreement with him, and arranged amongst themselves a distribution of office, not a diversity of gospel, so that they should severally preach not a different gospel, but (the same), to different persons, Peter to the circumcision, Paul to the Gentiles. Forasmuch, then, as Peter was rebuked because, after he had lived with the Gentiles, he proceeded to separate himself from their company out of respect for persons, the fault surely was one of conversation, not of preaching. – Prescription against Heretics, Chapter 23
Tertullian: This most patent conclusion requires to be defended by us against the clamours of the opposite side. For they allege that Marcion did not so much innovate on the rule (of faith) by his separation of the law and the gospel, as restore it after it had been previously adulterated. O Christ, most enduring Lord, who bore so many years with this interference with Your revelation, until Marcion forsooth came to Your rescue! Now they adduce the case of Peter himself, and the others, who were pillars of the apostolate, as having been blamed by Paul for not walking uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel — that very Paul indeed, who, being yet in the mere rudiments of grace, and trembling, in short, lest he should have run or were still running in vain, then for the first time held intercourse with those who were apostles before himself. Therefore because, in the eagerness of his zeal against Judaism as a neophyte, he thought that there was something to be blamed in their conduct — even the promiscuousness of their conversation — but afterwards was himself to become in his practice all things to all men, that he might gain all — to the Jews, as a Jew, and to them that were under the law, as under the law, — you would have his censure, which was merely directed against conduct destined to become acceptable even to their accuser, suspected of prevarication against God on a point of public doctrine. Touching their public doctrine, however, they had, as we have already said, joined hands in perfect concord, and had agreed also in the division of their labour in their fellowship of the gospel, as they had indeed in all other respects: Whether it were I or they, so we preach. 1 Corinthians 15:11 When, again, he mentioned certain false brethren as having crept in unawares, who wished to remove the Galatians into another gospel, he himself shows that that adulteration of the gospel was not meant to transfer them to the faith of another god and christ, but rather to perpetuate the teaching of the law; because he blames them for maintaining circumcision, and observing times, and days, and months, and years, according to those Jewish ceremonies which they ought to have known were now abrogated, according to the new dispensation purposed by the Creator Himself, who of old foretold this very thing by His prophets. Thus He says by Isaiah: Old things have passed away. Behold, I will do a new thing. Isaiah 43:19 And in another passage: I will make a new covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. In like manner by Jeremiah: Make to yourselves a new covenant, circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart. Jeremiah 4:4 It is this circumcision, therefore, and this renewal, which the apostle insisted on, when he forbade those ancient ceremonies concerning which their very founder announced that they were one day to cease; thus by Hosea: I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. Hosea 2:11 So likewise by Isaiah: The new moons, and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; your holy days, and fasts, and feast-days, my soul hates. Now, if even the Creator had so long before discarded all these things, and the apostle was now proclaiming them to be worthy of renunciation, the very agreement of the apostle’s meaning with the decrees of the Creator proves that none other God was preached by the apostle than He whose purposes he now wished to have recognised, branding as false both apostles and brethren, for the express reason that they were pushing back the gospel of Christ the Creator from the new condition which the Creator had foretold, to the old one which He had discarded. Against Marcion, Book 1, chapter 20
Origen: The first book of our answer to the treatise of Celsus, entitled A True Discourse, which concluded with the representation of the Jew addressing Jesus, having now extended to a sufficient length, we intend the present part as a reply to the charges brought by him against those who have been converted from Judaism to Christianity. And we call attention, in the first place, to this special question, viz., why Celsus, when he had once resolved upon the introduction of individuals upon the stage of his book, did not represent the Jew as addressing the converts from heathenism rather than those from Judaism, seeing that his discourse, if directed to us, would have appeared more likely to produce an impression. But probably this claimant to universal knowledge does not know what is appropriate in the matter of such representations; and therefore let us proceed to consider what he has to say to the converts from Judaism. He asserts that “they have forsaken the law of their fathers, in consequence of their minds being led captive by Jesus; that they have been most ridiculously deceived, and that they have become deserters to another name and to another mode of life.” Here he has not observed that the Jewish converts have not deserted the law of their fathers, inasmuch as they live according to its prescriptions, receiving their very name from the poverty of the law, according to the literal acceptation of the word; for Ebion signifies “poor” among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites. Nay, Peter himself seems to have observed for a considerable time the Jewish observances enjoined by the law of Moses, not having yet learned from Jesus to ascend from the law that is regulated according to the letter, to that which is interpreted according to the spirit,—a fact which we learn from the Acts of the Apostles. For on the day after the angel of God appeared to Cornelius, suggesting to him “to send to Joppa, to Simon surnamed Peter,” Peter “went up into the upper room to pray about the sixth hour. And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth; wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts, and creeping things of the earth, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common.” Now observe how, by this instance, Peter is represented as still observing the Jewish customs respecting clean and unclean animals. And from the narrative that follows, it is manifest that he, as being yet a Jew, and living according to their traditions, and despising those who were beyond the pale of Judaism, stood in need of a vision to lead him to communicate to Cornelius (who was not an Israelite according to the flesh), and to those who were with him, the word of faith. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul states that Peter, still from fear of the Jews, ceased upon the arrival of James to eat with the Gentiles, and “separated himself from them, fearing them that were of the circumcision;” and the rest of the Jews, and Barnabas also, followed the same course. And certainly it was quite consistent that those should not abstain from the observance of Jewish usages who were sent to minister to the circumcision, when they who “seemed to be pillars” gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, in order that, while devoting themselves to the circumcision, the latter might preach to the Gentiles. And why do I mention that they who preached to the circumcision withdrew and separated themselves from the heathen, when even Paul himself “became as a Jew to the Jews, that he might gain the Jews?” Wherefore also in the Acts of the Apostles it is related that he even brought an offering to the altar, that he might satisfy the Jews that he was no apostate from their law. Now, if Celsus had been acquainted with all these circumstances, he would not have represented the Jew holding such language as this to the converts from Judaism: “What induced you, my fellow-citizens, to abandon the law of your fathers, and to allow your minds to be led captive by him with whom we have just conversed, and thus be most ridiculously deluded, so as to become deserters from us to another name, and to the practices of another life?” Against Celsus, Book 2, chapter 1
Irenaeus: Neither [in that case] would they have had such a tenor with regard to the first covenant, as not even to have been willing to eat with the Gentiles. For even Peter, although he had been sent to instruct them, and had been constrained by a vision to that effect, spake nevertheless with not a little hesitation, saying to them: “Ye know how it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company with, or to come unto, one of another nation; but God hath shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I without gainsaying;” indicating by these words, that he would not have come to them unless he had been commanded. Neither, for a like reason, would he have given them baptism so readily, had he not heard them prophesying when the Holy Ghost rested upon them. And therefore did he exclaim, “Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” He persuaded, at the same time, those that were with him, and pointed out that, unless the Holy Ghost had rested upon them, there might have been some one who would have raised objections to their baptism. And the apostles who were with James allowed the Gentiles to act freely, yielding us up to the Spirit of God. But they themselves, while knowing the same God, continued in the ancient observances; so that even Peter, fearing also lest he might incur their reproof, although formerly eating with the Gentiles, because of the vision, and of the Spirit who had rested upon them, yet, when certain persons came from James, withdrew himself, and did not eat with them. And Paul said that Barnabas likewise did the same thing. Thus did the apostles, whom the Lord made witnesses of every action and of every doctrine—for upon all occasions do we find Peter, and James, and John present with Him—scrupulously act according to the dispensation of the Mosaic law, showing that it was from one and the same God; which they certainly never would have done, as I have already said, if they had learned from the Lord [that there existed] another Father besides Him who appointed the dispensation of the law. – Against Heresies, book 3, Chapter XII, Section 15
Jerome: From the fact that “Peter, before certain men came to Antioch” from Jerusalem, “ate with the Gentiles,” it is shown that he had not forgotten the precept “Do not call any man common or unclean.” Now on account of those who thought that the law still had to be observed, Peter “withdrew” himself a little from association with the Gentiles (so that the “others” as well who were of the Jews did likewise, and “Barnabas,” who with Paul had preached the gospel among the Gentiles, was compelled to do this). Because of this, those who had believed in Antioch from the Gentiles and had not been circumcised were compelled to overstep in a move toward the burdens of the law. For they did not understand Peter’s policy (dispensationem), whereby he longed for the Jews to be saved. Instead, they thought that this was the guiding principle of the gospel. And so, when the apostle Paul saw that the grace of Christ was endangered, Christ’s fighter made use of a new kind of fighting: he himself corrected the policy of Peter, whereby he was longing to save the Jews by a new policy of contradiction, and he “opposed him to his face.” He does not expose his purpose, but it is as if he is publicly contradicting him. Thus, from the fact that Paul offered opposition by exposing him, those who had believed from the Gentiles would be saved. But if anyone thinks that Paul truly opposed the apostle Peter, and that for the sake of the truth of the gospel he boldly inflicted an injury on his predecessor, this will be contradicted by the fact that Paul himself “became a Jew to the Jews in order to gain the Jews.” And he will be held guilty of the same pretence when he shaved his head in Cenchrea, and having become bald, made an offering in Jerusalem. Moreover, he circumcised Timothy, and he took part in the procession (exercuit) with bare feet. Assuredly these are things that very openly derive from the ceremonies of the Jews. And so, if the one who had been sent to preach to the Gentiles did not think of saying groundlessly, “Be without offense to the Jews and to the church of God, just as I please everyone in all things, not seeking what is useful to myself, but what is useful to the many, that they may be saved”; and if he did certain things that were contrary to the freedom of the gospel in order not to scandalize the Jews; then by what authority, by what effrontery, does he dare to rebuke this in Peter, who was the apostle of the circumcision? For he himself, the apostle of the Gentiles, is convicted of having done the very same thing. But, as we have already said earlier, he opposed Peter and the others with his public face, in order that the hypocrisy of observing the law, which was harming those who had believed from the Gentiles, would be corrected by the hypocrisy of correction. Thus both peoples would be saved, as those who praise circumcision follow Peter, and those who do not want to be circumcised preach the freedom of Paul. Now by his words “he was blameworthy,” he has softly tempered [his rebuke]. Thus we should understand that he was not so much blameworthy to Paul as to those brothers from whom he subsequently separated himself, after formerly eating with them. In fact let the example of Jehu king of Israel show us that a pretence is useful and should be adopted on occasion. He would not have been able to kill the priests of Baal had he not pretended that he wanted to worship the idol, saying, “Gather to me all the priests of Baal. For if Ahab served Baal a little, I shall serve him a lot.” And David did this when he altered his face before Abimelech, who dismissed him and he went away. It is no wonder, however, that just men feign some things just the same to suit the occasion on account of their own salvation and that of others, since even our Lord himself, who had no sin nor the flesh of sin, adopted the pretence of sinful flesh so that by condemning sin in the flesh he would make us the justice of God in himself. Surely Paul had read the Lord’s command in the Gospel, “But if your brother sins against you, go and correct him between you and him alone; if he listens to you, you will have gained your brother.” How is it, then, when he likewise commands this to be done for the least brothers, that he has dared with his public face to convict the greatest of the apostles, so impudently and so persistently, unless it be the case that Peter was pleased to be convicted like this? And Paul would not have injured him of whom he had previously already said, “I went to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him fifteen days; but I saw none of the other apostles”; and again, “For he who worked in Peter in the apostolate of circumcision”; and after this, “Peter, James, and John, who seemed to be pillars”; and the other things that he says in summation in praise of him. Many times when I was a young man, I practiced public speaking in Rome and trained myself for true disputations by means of fictitious lawsuits. I would run to the judges’ tribunals and watch the most eloquent of orators contending among themselves with such great bitterness that often they would leave business on the side and turn to private insults, ridicule, and biting one another with their teeth. If they do this without incurring any suspicion of collusion with the defendants and fool the people who are standing around, what do we think such great pillars of the church ought to have done, Peter and Paul, such great vessels of wisdom, in the midst of Jews and Gentiles who were at odds with each other? What else but a feigned dispute between them that would bring peace to the believers and bring the faith of the church into harmony by means of a holy quarrel between them?
There are those who think that the “Cephas” of whom Paul writes here, who he “resisted him to his face,” is not the apostle Peter, but one of the seventy disciples who was designated by that name. They say that Peter could never have “drawn back” from association with the Gentiles, since he had baptized Cornelius the centurion. Moreover, when he had gone up to Jerusalem—after he told the story of the vision to those who were of the circumcision who argued with him and said, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”—he concluded the speech with this summary: “‘Therefore, if God gave the same grace to them as he also gave to us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?’ When they heard this they were silent and praised God saying, ‘so then, God has granted even to the Gentiles repentance unto life.’” [Such interpreters] think this most of all because Luke, the writer of history, makes no mention of this conflict and does not say that Peter was ever in Antioch with Paul. Thus they give Porphyry an opportunity to blaspheme, if one believes either that Peter had gone astray or that Paul had impudently rebuked the chief of the apostles. – Jerome, Commentary on Galatians 2:11-13
“But when I saw that they were not proceeding on the right foot toward the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before everyone” (Galatians 2:14a). Just as those ones do not have a defect in their feet who have sound steps but pretend to limp, yet there is some reason for their limping, so too in the case of Peter. He knows that circumcision and uncircumcision are nothing, but keeping God’s commands is what matters (1 Corinthians 7:19). To be sure he ate previously with the Gentiles, but to suit the occasion he drew back from them, lest the Jews be lost from faith in Christ. This is why Paul too, by the same contrivance by which Peter himself was feigning, resisted him to his face and says “before everyone,” not so much to convict Peter as to correct those for whose sake Peter had feigned. But if this interpretation displeases anyone, whereby neither Peter sinned nor is Paul shown to be impudent in having accused his superior, he should explain what the consequences are of Paul’s reproving in another what he himself has done. – Jerome, Commentary on Galatians 2:14
John Chrysostom: Many, on a superficial reading of this part of the Epistle, suppose that Paul accused Peter of hypocrisy. But this is not so, indeed it is not, far from it; we shall discover great wisdom, both of Paul and Peter, concealed herein for the benefit of their hearers. But first a word must be said about Peter’s freedom in speech, and how it was ever his way to outstrip the other disciples. Indeed it was upon one such occasion that he gained his name from the unbending and impregnable character of his faith. For when all were interrogated in common, he stepped before the others and answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Matthew 16:16 This was when the keys of heaven were committed to him. So too, he appears to have been the only speaker on the Mount; Matthew 17:4 and when Christ spoke of His crucifixion, and the others kept silence, he said, Be it far from You. Matthew 16:22 These words evince, if not a cautious temper, at least a fervent love; and in all instances we find him more vehement than the others, and rushing forward into danger. So when Christ was seen on the beach, and the others were pushing the boat in, he was too impatient to wait for its coming to land. John 21:7 And after the Resurrection, when the Jews were murderous and maddened, and sought to tear the Apostles in pieces, he first dared to come forward, and to declare, that the Crucified was taken up into heaven. Acts 2:14, 36 It is a greater thing to open a closed door, and to commence an action, than to be free-spoken afterwards. How could he ever dissemble who had exposed his life to such a populace? He who when scourged and bound would not bate a jot of his courage, and this at the beginning of his mission, and in the heart of the chief city where there was so much danger—how could he, long afterwards in Antioch, where no danger was at hand, and his character had received lustre from the testimony of his actions, feel any apprehension of the believing Jews? How could he, I say, who at the very first and in their chief city feared not the Jews while Jews, after a long time and in a foreign city, fear those of them who had been converted? Paul therefore does not speak this against Peter, but with the same meaning in which he said, for they who were reputed to be somewhat, whatsoever they were, it makes no matter to me. But to remove any doubt on this point, we must unfold the reason of these expressions. The Apostles, as I said before, permitted circumcision at Jerusalem, an abrupt severance from the law not being practicable; but when they come to Antioch, they no longer continued this observance, but lived indiscriminately with the believing Gentiles which thing Peter also was at that time doing. But when some came from Jerusalem who had heard the doctrine he delivered there, he no longer did so fearing to perplex them, but he changed his course, with two objects secretly in view, both to avoid offending those Jews, and to give Paul a reasonable pretext for rebuking him. For had he, having allowed circumcision when preaching at Jerusalem, changed his course at Antioch, his conduct would have appeared to those Jews to proceed from fear of Paul, and his disciples would have condemned his excess of pliancy. And this would have created no small offense; but in Paul, who was well acquainted with all the facts, his withdrawal would have raised no such suspicion, as knowing the intention with which he acted. Wherefore Paul rebukes, and Peter submits, that when the master is blamed, yet keeps silence, the disciples may more readily come over. Without this occurrence Paul’s exhortation would have had little effect, but the occasion hereby afforded of delivering a severe reproof, impressed Peter’s disciples with a more lively fear. Had Peter disputed Paul’s sentence, he might justly have been blamed as upsetting the plan, but now that the one reproves and the other keeps silence, the Jewish party are filled with serious alarm; and this is why he used Peter so severely. Observe too Paul’s careful choice of expressions, whereby he points out to the discerning, that he uses them in pursuance of the plan, (οἰκονομίας) and not from anger. His words are, When Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned; that is, not by me but by others; had he himself condemned him, he would not have shrunk from saying so. And the words, I resisted him to the face, imply a scheme for had their discussion been real, they would not have rebuked each other in the presence of the disciples, for it would have been a great stumblingblock to them. But now this apparent contest was much to their advantage; as Paul had yielded to the Apostles at Jerusalem, so in turn they yield to him at Antioch. The cause of censure is this, For before 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: Galatians 4:11 and again, I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve,…so your minds should be corrupted. 2 Corinthians 11:3 Thus the fear of death they knew not, but the fear lest their disciples should perish, agitated their inmost soul. – Homily 2 on Ephesians