The Making of the New Testament. Bacon Benjamin Wisner
III
PAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE
Most vital of all passages for historical appreciation of the great period of Paul's missionary activity and its literature is the retrospect over his career as apostle to the Gentiles and defender of a gospel "without the yoke of the Law" in Gal. i. – ii. Especially must the contrast be observed between this and the very different account in Acts ix. – xvi.
Galatians aims to counteract the encroachments of certain Judaizing interlopers upon Paul's field, and seems to have been written from Corinth, shortly after his arrival there (c. 50) on the Second Missionary Journey (Acts xv. 36 – xviii. 22). We take "the churches of Galatia" to be those founded by Paul in company with Barnabas on the First Missionary Journey (Acts xiii. – xiv.), and revisited with Silas after a division of the recently evangelized territory whereby Cyprus had been left to Barnabas and Mark (Acts xv. 36 – xvi. 5; cf. Gal. iv. 13).
The retrospect is in two parts: (1) a proof of the divine origin of Paul's apostleship and gospel by the independence of his conversion and missionary career; (2) an account of his defence of his "gospel of uncircumcision" on the two occasions when it had been threatened. Visiting Jerusalem for the second time some fifteen years7 after his conversion, he secured from its "pillars," James, Peter, and John, an unqualified, though "private," endorsement. At Antioch subsequently he overcame renewed opposition by public exposure of the inconsistency of Peter, who had been won over by the reactionaries.
Acts reverses Paul's point of view, making his career in the period of unobstructed evangelization one of labour for Jews alone, in complete dependence on the Twelve. It practically excludes the period of opposition by a determination of the Gentile status in an 'Apostolic Council.' Paul is represented as simply acquiescing in this decision.
As described by Paul, the whole earlier period of fifteen years had been occupied by missionary effort for Gentiles, first at Damascus, afterwards "in the regions of Syria and Cilicia." It was interrupted only by a journey "to Arabia," and later, three years after his conversion, by a two-weeks' private visit to Peter in Jerusalem. In this period must fall most of the journeys and adventures of 2nd Cor. xi. 23-33. It was practically without contact with Judæa. His "gospel" was what God alone had taught him through an inward manifestation of the risen Jesus.
As described by Luke8 the whole period was spent in the evangelization of Greek-speaking Jews, principally at Jerusalem. This was Paul's chosen field, worked under direction of "the apostles." Only against his will9 was he driven for refuge to Tarsus, whence Barnabas, who had first introduced him to the apostles, brought him to Antioch. There was no Gentile mission until Barnabas and he were by that church made its 'apostles.' This mission was on express direction of "the Spirit" (Acts ix. 19-30; xi. 25 f.; xiii. 1-3; cf. xxii. 10-21). Paul's apostleship to the Gentiles begins, then, according to Luke, with the First Missionary Journey, when in company with (and at first in subordination to) Barnabas he evangelizes Cyprus and southern Galatia. The two are agents of Antioch, with "letters of commendation" from "the apostles and elders in Jerusalem" (Acts xv. 23-26). Paul is not an apostle of Christ in the same sense as the Twelve (cf. Acts i. 21 f.). He is a providential "vessel of the Spirit," ordained "by men and through men." His gospel is Peter's unaltered (cf. Acts xxvi. 16-23).
There is even wider disparity regarding the period of opposition. Luke slightly postpones its beginning and very greatly antedates its suppression. Moreover, he makes Paul accept a solution which his letters emphatically repudiate.
According to Acts there was no opposition before the First Missionary Journey, for the excellent reason that there had been no Gentile propaganda.10 There was no opposition after the Council called to consider it (Acts xv.), for the conclusive reason that "the apostles and elders" left nothing to dispute about. As soon as the objections were raised the church in Antioch laid the question before these authorities, sending Paul and Barnabas to testify. On their witness to the grace of God among the Gentiles, Peter (explicitly claiming for himself (!) this special apostleship, Acts xv. 7) proposes unconditional acknowledgment of Gentile liberty, referring to the precedent of Cornelius. In this there was general acquiescence. In fact the matter had really been decided before (Acts xi. 1-18). The only wholly new point was that raised by James in behalf of "the Jews among the Gentiles" (Acts xv. 21; cf. xxi. 21). For their sake it is held "necessary" to limit Gentile freedom on four points. They must abstain from three prohibited meats, and from fornication, for these convey the "pollution of idols." The "necessity" lies in the fact that liberty from the Law is not conceded to Jews. They will be (involuntarily) defiled if they eat with their Gentile brethren unprotected. "Fornication" is added because (in the words of an ancient Jewish Christian) it "differs from all other sins in that it defiles not only the sinner, but those also who eat or associate with him." Paul and Barnabas, according to Luke, gladly accepted these "decrees," and Paul distributed them "for to keep" among his converts in Galatia (!). Peter is the apostle to the Gentiles. Antioch and Jerusalem decide the question of their status. The terms of fellowship are those of James and Peter.
Paul has no mention of either Council or 'decrees.' His terms of fellowship positively exclude both. He falls back upon the private Conference, and lays bare a story of agonizing struggle to make effective its recognition of the equality and independence of Gentile Christianity. The struggle is a result of his resistance to emissaries "from James" at Antioch, who had brought over all the Jewish element in that mixed church, including Peter and "even Barnabas" to terms of fellowship acceptable to the Pillars. After the collision at Antioch Paul leaves the "regions of Syria and Cilicia," and transfers the scene of his missionary efforts to the Greek world between the Taurus range and the Adriatic. For the next ten years we see him on the one side conducting an independent mission, proclaiming the doctrine of the Cross as inaugurating a new era, wherein law has been done away, and Jew and Gentile have "access in one Spirit unto the Father." On the other he is defending this gospel of 'grace' against unscrupulous Jewish-Christian traducers, and labouring to reconcile differences between his own followers and those of 'the circumcision' who are not actively hostile, but only have taken 'offence.' Throughout the period, until the arrest in Jerusalem which ends his career as an evangelist, Paul stands alone as champion of unrestricted Gentile liberty and equality. He cannot admit terms of fellowship which imply a continuance of the legal dispensation. Jewish Christians may keep circumcision and the customs if they wish; but may not hold or recommend them as conferring the slightest advantage in God's sight. He will not admit the doctrine of salvation by faith with works of law. Jew as well as Gentile must have "died to the Law." There is no "justification" except "by faith apart from works of law."11
Unless we distinctly apprehend the deep difference, almost casually brought out by this question of the (converted) Jew among Gentiles and his obligation to eat with his Gentile brother, a difference between 'apostolic' Christianity as Luke gives it, and the 'gospel' of Paul, we can have no adequate appreciation of the great Epistles produced during this period of conflict. The basis of Luke's pleasing picture of peace and concord is a fundamentally different conception of the relation of Law and Grace. Paul and Luke both hold that the Mosaic commandments are not binding on Gentiles. The point of difference – and Paul's own account of his Conference with the Pillars goes to show that Luke's idea is also theirs; else why need there be a division of 'spheres of influence'? – is Paul's doctrine that the believing Jew as well as the Gentile is "dead to the Law." And this doctrine was never accepted south of the Taurus range.
Agreement and union were sure to come, if only by the rapid disappearance from the church after 70 a. d. of the element of the circumcised, and the progressive realization in 'Syria and Cilicia' of the impracticability of the Jerusalem-Antioch plan of requiring Gentiles to make their tables innocuous to the legalist. If only the participation of Paul and Barnabas be excluded from the story of Acts xv. (or better, restored to its proper sequence after Acts xi. 30) we have every reason to accept Luke's account of an Apostolic Council held at Jerusalem not long after "Peter came to Antioch" to settle between the churches of northern and
Or perhaps thirteen. Gal. ii. 1 may reckon from the conversion (31-33). In both periods (Gal. i. 18, and ii. 1) both termini are counted.
We apply the name to the writer of Luke-Acts without prejudice to the question of authorship.
Acts xxii. 10-21 is not quite consistent with xxvi. 15-18; but the general sense is clear.
Cornelius' case (Acts x. – xi. 18) is exceptional, and no propaganda follows. The reading "Greeks" in Acts xi. 20, though required by the sense and therefore adopted by the English translators, is not supported by the textual evidence. Luke has here corrected his source to suit his theory, just as in x. 1 – xi. 18 he passes by the true significance of the story, which really deals with the question of
The assertion has recently been made in very high quarters on the basis of 1st Cor. vii. 18 that Paul also took the "apostolic" view that the Christian of Jewish birth remains under obligation to keep the law. One would think Paul had not added verse 19!