between two fires on that trying occasion. As Jews they seemed to be bound by the restrictions of
the Jerusalem compromise on which the messengers of James insisted; but by trying to please the
Jews they offended the Gentiles, and by going back to Jewish exclusiveness they did violence to
their better convictions, and felt condemned by their own conscience.^473 They no doubt returned to
their more liberal practice.
The alienation of the apostles was merely temporary. They were too noble and too holy to
entertain resentment. Paul makes honorable mention afterwards of Peter and Barnabas, and also of
Mark, who was a connecting link between the three.^474 Peter in his Epistles endorses the teaching
of the "beloved brother Paul," and commends the wisdom of his Epistles, in one of which his own
conduct is so severely rebuked, but significantly adds that there are some "things in them hard to
be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to
their own destruction."^475
The scene of Antioch belongs to these things which have been often misunderstood and
perverted by prejudice and ignorance in the interest both of heresy and orthodoxy. The memory of
it was perpetuated by the tradition which divided the church at Antioch into two parishes with two
bishops, Evodius and Ignatius, the one instituted by Peter, the other by Paul. Celsus, Porphyry, and
modern enemies of Christianity have used it as an argument against the moral character and
inspiration of the apostles. The conduct of Paul left a feeling of intense bitterness and resentment
in the Jewish party which manifested itself even a hundred years later in a violent attack of the
pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions upon Paul, under the disguise of Simon Magus.
The conduct of both apostles was so unaccountable to Catholic taste that some of the fathers
substituted an unknown Cephas for Peter;^476 while others resolved the scene into a hypocritical
farce gotten up by the apostles themselves for dramatic effect upon the ignorant congregation.^477
The truth of history requires us to sacrifice the orthodox fiction of moral perfection in the
apostolic church. But we gain more than we lose. The apostles themselves never claimed, but
expressly disowned such perfection.^478 They carried the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels, and
thus brought it nearer to us. The infirmities of holy men are frankly revealed in the Bible for our
encouragement as well as for our humiliation. The bold attack of Paul teaches the right and duty
of protest even against the highest ecclesiastical authority, when Christian truth and principle are
endangered; the quiet submission of Peter commends him to our esteem for his humility and
meekness in proportion to his high standing as the chief among the pillar-apostles; the conduct of
both explodes the Romish fiction of papal supremacy and infallibility; and the whole scene typically
foreshadows the grand historical conflict between Petrine Catholicism and Pauline Protestantism,
which, we trust, will end at last in a grand Johannean reconciliation.
Peter and Paul, as far as we know, never met afterwards till they both shed their blood for
the testimony of Jesus in the capital of the world.(^473) Gal. 2:11, Peter stood self-condemned and condemned by the Gentiles, κατεγνωσμένος ἦν, not " blameworthy," or " was
to be blamed"(E. V.).
(^474) Comp. 1 Cor. 9:5, 6; 15:5; Col. 4:10; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11.
(^475) 1 Pet. 5:12; 2 Pet. 3:15, 16.
(^476) So Clement of Alexandria, and other fathers, also the Jesuit Harduin.
(^477) This monstrous perversion of Scripture was advocated even by such fathers as Origen, Jerome, and Chrysostom. It gave
rise to a controversy between Jerome and Augustin, who from a superior moral sense protested against it, and prevailed.
(^478) Comp. 2 Cor, 4:7; Phil. 3:12; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8; 2:2.
A.D. 1-100.