Parent: JesusWordsOnly
Evidence of Peter's Testimony Against Paul in a Trial
Additional evidence of a trial of Paul comes from a sermon collection called the Clementine Homilies from 200 A.D. Scholars believe it contains a smaller fragment from an earlier Ebionite writing about a trial involving Paul with Peter as a star witness against Paul. This fragment is stuck inside a later story written to appear as if the opponent is someone called Simon Magus. (This was apparently done to avoid the censor's hand.) Instead scholars deduce the original fragment was certainly talking about Paul. This can be validated by comparing what Peter says to how Paul responds in statements we find in Acts chapters 22 and 26.
Homily 17 and the Trial of Paul
In this section of the Clementine Homilies, Peter asks Simon Magus publicly why would Jesus come to an enemy in a vision. Peter wonders why would Jesus spend years teaching the apostles to have their message supplanted by someone who merely claims to have had a vision of Jesus. These are all good questions even if the fragment were really directed at a confrontation of Peter with Simon Magus. But was it?
To answer that we need more background. This dialogue appears as Peter's testimony in a trial atmosphere. It is found in Clementine Homilies: Homily 1 7. Scholars say this fragment's original source must have been written by the Ebionites. Later, it was inserted into the Clementine Homilies as if directed at someone else called Simon Magus. Scholars concur that its original context was written to tell what transpired when Peter was testifying against Paul.
How do scholars deduce this? This fragment so clearly applies to Paul that it is inconceivable Simon Magus could involve all the same characteristics as Paul. As Alexander Roberts, the editor of The Anti-Nicene Fathers, explains: "This passage has therefore been regarded as a covert attack upon the Apostle Paul." 19 Likewise, Robert Griffin-Jones, a pro-Pauline scholar, admits Paul is the true adversary in this passage: "Paul is demonized...in a fictional dispute [in the Clementine Homilies] in which Peter trounces him." Bart Ehnnan concurs in this Homily that "Simon Magus in fact is a cipher for none other than Paul himself."
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The wording in Homily 17 where Peter says his opponent claims he "stands condemned" is interpreted as a clear allusion to Paul's telling Peter he "stands condemned" in Gal. 2:11. Roberts then explains: "This passage has therefore been regarded as a covert attack upon the Apostle Paul."
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Robin Griffith-Jones, The Gospel According to Paul (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2004) at 260.
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Ehrman, Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene (Oxford: 2006) at 79.
You can decide for yourself. Here is the excerpt that has convinced scholars the target is Paul. This is Peter's statement at this trial of one who said "he became His apostle" but Peter refutes:
If, then, our Jesus appeared to you in a vision, made Himself
known to you, and spoke to you, it was as one who is enraged with
an adversary, and this is the reason why it was through visions
and dreams, or through revelations that were from without, that He
spoke to you. But can any one be rendered fit for instruction
through apparitions ? And if you will say, 'It is possible,' then
I ask, 'Why did our teacher abide and discourse a whole year to
those who were awake?' And how are we to believe your word, when
you tell us that He appeared to you? And how did He appear to you,
when you entertain opinions contrary to His teaching ? But if you
were seen and taught by Him, and became His apostle for a single
hour, proclaim His utterances, interpret His sayings, love His
apostles, contend not with me who companied with Him. For in
direct opposition to me, who am a firm rock, the foundation of the
Church, you now stand. If you were not opposed to me, you would
not accuse me, and revile the truth proclaimed by me, in order
that I may not be believed when I state what I myself have heard
with my own ears from the Lord, as if I were evidently a person
that was condemned and in bad repute. But if you say that I am
condemned, you bring an accusation against God, who revealed the
Christ to me, and you inveigh against Him who pronounced me
blessed on account of the revelation. But if, indeed, you really
wish to work in the cause of truth, learn first of all from us
what we have learned from Him, and, becoming a disciple of the
truth, become a fellow-worker with us. (Ps-Clementine Homilies
17,19.) 22
Let's test the possibility that Peter did in fact deliver this speech, and Paul heard it. We will find evidence in the New Testament that Paul was aware of this charge that Peter made, as recorded in the Clementine Homilies. Paul's knowledge of this charge can be proven in how Paul embarrassingly changed his accounts of his vision with Jesus.
The version in Acts chapter 22 is precisely the vision that Peter is addressing in Homily 1 7, as it lacks any positive words from Jesus toward Paul. This must be what pressures Paul later to change the account into what we see in Acts chapter 26. This account reverses the Acts chapter 22 account. It puts words in Jesus' mouth for the first time that are positive toward Paul. However, by Paul changing the accounts, he demonstrates a clear contradiction with the earlier version in Acts chapter 22. Thus, the Acts chapter 26 account eliminates the point Peter raises in the Clementine Homily 1 7. However, it does so at a great price-terrible embarrassment when the later version of Acts chapter 26 is compared to Paul's earlier vision account in Acts chapter 22. Only something precisely like Peter's speech in Homily 17 can explain such a risky reversal of the vision account. We next examine the evidence for this.