Acts 18:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

To their narrow Jewish sight, what they had heard about the free preaching of the Gospel among the Gentiles seemed scandalous. The decree of the apostolic council had long since forced the Pharisaizing Christians into silence. Yet it had not wholly changed their way of thinking. The extraordinary widening of Paul's field of action again stirred envy and rivalry against him. Particular attention had been drawn to his journey to Jerusalem and Antioch. To give greater force to their words, these zealots presented themselves as men sent by James from Jerusalem. But this was entirely false. They had no such commission. These men would not acknowledge as their brothers in Christ the uncircumcised Christians from the Gentiles, who did not observe the ceremonial Mosaic law. Because of this they regarded them as unclean, and they recoiled from eating with them. Peter had at first so strongly defended the rights of Christians from the Gentiles, and had done so again at the apostolic council. Even now he had not changed his view. Yet, fearing that believers from the Jews might cause confusion in the Church, he began to withdraw from table fellowship with converts from the Gentiles. The example of so highly revered an apostle strongly affected others as well. Even Barnabas began to avoid communion with Christians from the Gentiles. Paul regarded this as hypocrisy. He found it necessary to say to Peter before all: "How is it that you, being a Jew, formerly found no difficulty in living with Gentiles according to Gentile custom, but now wish to compel Gentiles to be Jews? We are Jews by nature. If the claims of the Jews were just, we would by no means be sinners like the Gentiles. As members of the chosen people, we would be pure and holy men. Yet by our actions we express precisely the opposite conviction. For all our observance of the law, we have acknowledged ourselves to be sinners. Like all other men, we too stand in need of justification. Knowing that no man is justified before God by works of the law, and that this is possible only on condition of faith in Christ, we seek justification in this faith alone. It is inconsistent with this to seek justification again in works of the law. Otherwise we would have to think that Christ deprived us of the only means of justification and taught us sin, by teaching us to renounce the law. But may this never be!" Chrysostom thinks that in the present case the Apostle Peter acted in this way so as to give Paul occasion to rebuke the Jewish error more forcefully. Indeed, one cannot think that Paul needed to explain to Peter that justification is given not by the law, but by Jesus Christ. This was needed only for the Judaizing Christians. It had to show them their self-contradiction when they called themselves Christians, yet continued to ascribe such importance to the law. This rebuke of such thinking in the person of Peter was not resisted by Peter. Peter had intentionally taken for a time the side of its defenders. Since he accepted the rebuke as just, it had to produce greater success than an unnamed refutation, or a rebuke of little-known and little-respected men. If we assign this dispute between Paul and Peter to this time, we gain somewhat more light for considering the connection of subsequent events. As later history shows, the dispute produced no division between them. Until then, the peace established in Jerusalem between Christians from the Jews and Christians from the Gentiles had been preserved. Until then, Paul had to contend in the Gentile churches with unbelieving Jews, not with Judaizers. Now this discord arose again in the capital of the Gentile churches. From there it quickly spread through all the churches composed of Jews and Gentiles. It may seem strange that this discord arose precisely then, and not at another time. It arose at a time when Paul's latest stay in Jerusalem might have seemed especially able to make a favorable impression on Christians still attached to Pharisaism. But this could be expected only among the more moderate. Among fanatical zealots, who in no way wished to reconcile their principles with his manner of teaching, the very opposite had to be expected. They saw in Paul a man who spoke so freely about the law among the Gentiles. He always ascribed equal rights to Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians. He showed himself a despiser of the law, and yet appeared in Jerusalem to fulfill a vow. But Paul did not contradict himself here. He regarded the law, in relation to the grace of redemption, as something indifferent. He made use of it from Christian motives, wherever greater benefit could be attained. For him, the law was not important in itself. Yet it could become important when it could serve the attainment of his apostolic aims, just like other means. But his opponents misinterpreted his actions. They accused him of contradicting himself and of flattering Christians from the Gentiles. The influence of these opponents of Paul's teaching quickly spread to the Galatian and Achaian Christians, in Corinth. When Paul left his friends in Antioch and, on the way to Ephesus, visited the churches in Phrygia and Galatia, he did not yet find in them any significant change. Still, he already noticed how these Judaizing teachers were trying to insinuate themselves into the churches he had founded. He saw what zeal they professed for the salvation of souls converted from the Gentiles. He saw with what apparent earnestness they desired these converts to attain fully the promised blessings of the Kingdom of Christ.

This later broke out in a powerful disturbance against him during his next visit to Jerusalem. See Acts 16:27."

"Paul, learning of this, left Jerusalem, since he had to undertake, undoubtedly by the Spirit's prompting, another, third journey into Gentile lands with preaching about Christ. This he did."

Concerning Paul's visit to Antioch, Saint John Chrysostom remarks that "he had a special love for this city. This is a human feeling."

"The Antiochian Church was dearer to the Apostle Paul as the firstfruits of his apostolic labors," says Hieromonk Gregory.

"It was also dear to him because here the principles of Christian freedom had been firmly secured by him. The condition of the Antiochian Church at that time required his presence.

He had left it several years earlier. Then there was peace in Antioch. The false preaching of the Judaizers had lost all danger for the Christians there.

Saint Paul's defense and the decree of the Council protected them from all doubts. But by now the Apostle Paul could hardly have found the same peace in Antioch.

The Judaizers were becoming ever bolder. They reached the same agitation that prevailed among them during Paul's last stay in Jerusalem."

The joy of the meeting between the holy Apostle and his companions, Timothy, Erastus, and Aristarchus, and the Antiochian Church was, of course, great.

Those who arrived certainly told the Antiochians what God had done and how He had opened doors to the Gentiles.

Saint Paul's chief activity here was the preservation of the principle of Christian freedom. He did this through the positive disclosure of Christianity's complete sufficiency for salvation.

He also did it through the negative clarification that the Mosaic law is only a shadow, definitively passed away as soon as the truth itself appeared.

When Peter came to Antioch, Paul personally opposed him. See Gal 2:11-12. At first Peter did not avoid the Antiochian Christians, but drank and ate with them.

But when certain men came to Antioch from James, meaning from the community where its head, the holy Apostle James, lived, or in other words, from Jerusalem, Peter began to withdraw and separate himself, fearing the circumcised.

Evidently, those who arrived were Judaizers, enemies of the Apostle Paul, who rose up against Christian freedom from the Mosaic law.

"Saint Peter's action appears in the following way. He was fully convinced that the Mosaic law had no significance for Christians from the Gentiles.

Earlier he adapted himself to the Antiochian Christians from the Gentiles. Now, fearing for the circumcised Christians, Saint Peter began to adapt himself to them.

He had no time to consider how this accommodation would affect the Antiochians."