Parent: JesusWordsOnly
Did Paul Admit He Rejected the Teachings of Peter?
In Paul, we see hostility toward the twelve apostles in many ways. The twelve "imparted nothing to me," says Paul. (Gal. 2:6.)
However, let us ask whether there is anything in Paul's writings that specifically corroborates this kind of hostility between Paul and Peterl Peter is claiming in the Clementine Homilies that Paul makes up a false charge to make Peter look like a liar. Paul makes it appear Peter does not know the Lord Jesus very well. Peter calls this an opposition to an apostle of Jesus Christ. It is a major effrontery that cannot stand. Peter warns Paul in effect that Paul is in danger of the Sodom and Gomorrah warning of Jesus. Did Paul ever
25.Paul sneers at the three "so-called" leaders at Jerusalem: James, Cephas (i.e. Simon Peter) and John, adding pejoratively that they "seemed to be pillars" ((Gal. 2:9)). Paul then boasts that he believes he is at their level: "For 1 suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles" ((2Cor. 11:5)). And in 2 Corinthians 12:11, Paul claims "in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing." There is some textual and historical reasons to think Paul calls the twelve false apostles in 2Cor. 11:12-23, viz. verse 13 "fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ." (Other than the twelve, who else claimed to be apostles other than Paul? No one that we know.) Another example of derogation involves the apostles' amazing gift of tongues (Acts 1). Paul ran down that gift, which had the effect of taking the lustre off the true apostles' gift of tongues. See (1Cor. 14:4-33). Finally, if the Galatians understood the twelve contradicted Paul in any way, Paul would be cursing them in Gal. 1:8-12. He warns the Galatians that even if an "angel from heaven" came with a different Gospel than Paul preached, let him be anathema {cursed). In light of Paul's comments in chapter two of Galatians, it is fair to infer he meant to warn of even a contradictory message from boasts about it.)
In (Gal. 2:11-14), we read:
(11) But when Cephas (i.e., Peter) came to Antioch, I resisted him
to the face, because he stood condemned.
(12) For before that certain came from James, he ate with the
Gentiles; but when they came, he drew back and separated himself,
fearing them that were of the circumcision.
(13) And the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him;
insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their
dissimulation.
(14) But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to
the truth of the gospel, I said unto Cephas [i.e., Peter] before
them all , 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? (ASV)
Paul boasts here of being able to condemn a true apostle of Jesus Christ. "I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned." Then Paul says he gave Peter a dressing down "before them all." Paul did this publicly, not in private.
In doing this, Paul violates his own command to us: "Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but appeal to him as a father." (1Tim. 5:1.) Paul also violated Jesus' command: "if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private ; if he listens to you, you have won your brother." ((Matt. 18:15).)
Yet, who was right in this public rebuke by Paul of Peter? There is strong reason to believe Paul was wrong, obeying Christ. Now you as a Christian must choose: is Peter as an apostle of Jesus Christ somehow less authoritative than Paul who Jesus never once appointed as an apostle in three vision accounts? While most commentators assume Paul is in the right on the withdrawal issue, on what basis? Paul's say-so? Because Paul permits eating meat sacrificed to idols but the twelve were misled in Acts chapter 15 to approve prohibiting it?
One must not be influenced by Paul's one-sided account. We can see Paul had an eating practice that made dining with Gentiles under his influence impossible. Jewish custom was to avoid violating food laws by simply not eating with Gentiles. This way they would not offend their host by either asking about foods presented or by refusing foods Gentiles offered. This is all that Peter was doing: being polite as well as conscientious.
Peter's Question Why Jesus Would Use Paul Aside from Apostles
Finally, Peter in the Clementine Homilies speech (previously quoted) asks his antagonist (Paul) a blunt question that remains valid even if Homily 17 were fictional:
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,
Peter thinks this is a major flaw.
What Peter brings out in the Clementine Homilies again can be corroborated by looking at Paul's writings. Paul admits in Galatians that after he was converted he then began his work for fourteen years before he ever went back to Jerusalem to leam from the apostles who knew Jesus. (Gal. 2:1). Paul admits that until that time, he only had a brief two week visit to Jerusalem three years after his vision. Paul emphasizes his lack of contact with the twelve by pointing out that in those two weeks he only met Peter and then briefly James, the Lord's brother. Paul adamantly insists this is his sole prior encounter with the apostles within "fourteen years" (Gal. 2:1):
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb... To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately /conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three [more]years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles I saw none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ((Gal. 1:8-21))
Peter in the Clementine Homily 1 7 thus asks a very good question. If Jesus spent a year with the apostles after the resurrection teaching them, Jesus obviously did so in order that their witness would be full and superior to others. Then it was incumbent on Paul to leam from them. Yet, by Paul's own admission, Paul fails to do so for years. How then can Paul form the greater body of New Testament Scripture my enemy. And indeed some have attempted, while I am still alive to distort my word by interpretation of many sorts, as if I taught the dissolution of the Law ... But that may God forbid! For to do such a thing means to act contrary to the Law of God which was made to Moses and was confirmed by our Lord in its everlasting continuance. For He said: 'For heaven and earth will pass away, but not one jot or tittle shall pass away from the Law.'" Letter of Peter to James, 2.3-5 (presumed 92 A.D.) a
a. Bart D. Ehrman, Peter, Paul and Maty Magdalene (Oxford: 2006) at 79.
Other respected thinkers have been astonished by Paul's lack of mentioning any lessons of Jesus. Albert Schweitzer once said:
Where possible, he (Paul) avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in
fact even mentioning it. If we had to rely on Paul, we should not
know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered the sermon on
the mount, and had taught His disciples the 'Our Father.' Even
where they are specially relevant, Paul passes over the words of
the Lord. 27
"Paul created a theology of which nothing but the vaguest warrants
can be found in the words of Christ." Wil Durant Caesar and Christ
- Paul in (1Cor. 11:24-25) quotes from the Last Supper at odds with Luke's account. See Luke 22:19-20. Luke says Jesus' body is 'given' but Paul says it is 'broken.' This variance is significant. As John 19:36 mentions. Psalm 34:20 says not a bone of His shall be broken. Paul's quote is thus contradictory of Luke as well as theologically troublesome. The aphorism is 'better to give than receive.' Acts 20:35.
The Ebionite Records on the Trial of Paul
A modern Christian scholar, Hans van Campenhausen, agrees this deficiency in Paul's writings is a striking and glaring problem:
The most striking feature is that the words of the Lord, which
must have been collected and handed on in the primitive community
and elsewhere from the earliest days, played no, or at least no
vital, part in Paul's basic instruction of his churches.
Peter's point in the Clementine Homilies is likewise that Paul's failure to teach what Jesus teaches is the clearest proof that Paul is not following Jesus. It is a point well-taken.
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Albert Schweitzer , Albert Schweitzer Library: The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (John Hopkins University Press: 1998).
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Hans van Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible