Whoever wants the Gospel to advance and spread successfully will not act in this way. You are acting so as to undermine the success of the Gospel. This is your unrighteousness. A prudent measure is no longer prudent once it produces effects entirely opposite to those expected.
"I said to Peter." Saint Paul speaks to the Apostle Peter because the estrangement from the Gentiles began with him. Therefore, if he ceases to estrange himself from them, the others will also cease after him.
This could also be done for another reason. If Saint Paul had addressed the others, they might have thought that Saint Peter was on their side and boldly begun to object. But now, seeing that Peter is rebuked and remains silent, they too had to be silent and submit to Saint Paul's word.
Saint Chrysostom writes that Saint Paul addresses Peter so that the believers from the Jews might learn the truth from the rebuke given to him. If Paul had directed his rebuke against the believers from the Jews themselves, they would have rejected it with contempt and indignation. They had not yet learned to esteem him greatly. But seeing the silence of their own teacher when rebuked, they could neither despise Paul nor contradict what he said.
He speaks to him before all because the act that prompted the remark was done before all. Still more, it was useful and necessary for all to keep in mind and heart what he was about to say.
"Necessity compelled him to say this before all, so that this reproach might serve as healing medicine for all. For it was not useful to correct secretly a matter that had openly caused harm" (Blessed Augustine).
"He said it before all in order to strike fear into the hearers" (Saint Chrysostom).
"Those who have healthy feet but pretend to limp still have no defect in their feet. They limp for some other reason. So Peter knew that circumcision and uncircumcision are nothing, but the keeping of God's commandments. He had eaten before with Christians from the Gentiles, but afterward withdrew from them for a time, so as not to drive the Jews away from the faith. Therefore Paul, in the same spirit, withstands him and speaks before all. He does this not to rebuke Peter, but so that those for whose sake Peter was dissembling might be corrected. Or else he does it to humble the pride of the Jews and to keep the Gentiles from despair" (Blessed Jerome).
"If you, being a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, why do you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?" Saint Paul turns to what had happened before and takes this as the basis for his remark.
Saint Peter had grown up in the bonds of Jewish ordinances. Entering the society of Christians from the Gentiles, he gave himself complete freedom from these constraints. He did not observe the usual Jewish rules that governed relations with the Gentiles.
Saint Paul speaks as though saying: you, who were not free, gave yourself freedom from Judaism. Yet you compel the Gentiles, who never knew this bond, to Judaize.
The substance of the reproach is not that Peter became a Jew with the Jews. It is that by doing this he compelled the Gentiles to Judaize. How? By his example, which in him had the force of a persuasive word, and even of law.
Seeing themselves estranged, and wishing to preserve communion with a highly revered person, they were ready to submit to the yoke of the Law, or at least came to think of doing so. Thus the convictions sown there by Saint Paul among Jews and Gentiles were shaken. The purity of evangelical truth was in danger of receiving an admixture that would distort it.
I shall cite the patristic opinions on this case, for they interpret its meaning impressively.
Blessed Augustine writes: "Peter was reproached by Paul not for observing Jewish customs, but because by this observance he compelled the Gentiles to do the same. By separating himself from the Gentiles to please those who considered observance of Jewish ordinances necessary for salvation, he gave the appearance of thinking it necessary to impose the yoke of legal servitude on the Gentiles also. This is clear from the very words with which he was reproached. Saint Paul does not say to him, 'Why have you again returned to Jewish customs, you who, being a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew?' Rather he says, 'Why do you compel the Gentiles to Judaize?'"
Blessed Jerome expresses the same thought more fully: "He presses Peter with an irrefutable proof, or rather, in Peter's person, those who compelled him to such contradictory actions. If, he says, you, Peter, are a Jew by nature, circumcised in infancy and having observed all the prescriptions of the Law, yet now, by the grace of Christ, know that all this is nothing in itself. But was only a figure of good things to come, and have begun to eat with believing Gentiles in complete freedom and without disturbance, then how is it that now, withdrawing from them as though from the unclean, you compel them to Judaize? For if those from whom you withdraw are unclean, and you withdraw because they are uncircumcised, then by this you force them to be circumcised and to become Jews, while you yourself, being a Jew, live like a Gentile. Paul presents as the cause of his opposition to Peter the fact that Peter, by his well-intentioned dissimulation, compelled the Gentiles to Judaize. For they were disposed to imitate him."
Saint Chrysostom draws attention to another side of the matter. Saint Paul stands up for the Gentiles, but he has in view the instruction of the Jews. He does this not by addressing them directly, but in the person of Saint Peter.
"What does Saint Paul have in view when he says this? He wants to make his rebuke easier to receive and bear. If he had said, 'You are doing wrong by keeping the Law,' the Jews would have accused him of insolence against their teacher. But now, by accusing Peter on behalf of his own disciples, he made his speech more acceptable. He did so not only by this, but also because, leaving all the others aside, he directed the whole rebuke against the Apostle Peter alone. 'If you,' he says, 'being a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew.' He is almost saying, 'You imitate your teacher, yet he himself, being a Jew, lives like a Gentile.' But he did not say this plainly, because they would not have accepted his counsel. Instead, he reveals Peter's thought under the guise of a reproach on behalf of the Gentiles. Likewise, if he had said, 'Why do you compel those converted from the Jews to live again like Jews?' his words would have been much more unbearable. Now, however, as though taking the side of the disciples from the Gentiles, and not from the Jews, he corrects the latter. For rebukes and reproaches are accepted more easily and quickly when they are not too severe. None of the Gentiles could complain against Paul, because he was speaking against the Jews. Peter arranged all this for good by his silence. He took upon himself the appearance of dissimulation, so that he might free the Jews from real dissimulation."
Saint Peter's silence makes us suppose that he had such thoughts in answer to Saint Paul: if this is so, and those believing Gentiles are indeed being scandalized, drawing from my action the conclusion that one must Judaize for salvation, then you are right. I must not act so. I agree with you that this middle wall, Judaism, must not stand between believers.
Saint Paul's speech did not produce a rupture. Saint Peter saw its correctness and remained on good terms with Saint Paul, as he himself testified (cf. 2 Pet 3:15). The peaceful acceptance of Paul's word shows that he spoke what was also in Peter's own heart.
Perhaps Peter even rejoiced at the occasion for such an impressive admonition of those zealots with whom it was very difficult to speak and manage matters in Jerusalem.
Blessed Theodoret writes: "The great Peter confirms Paul's words by his silence, as though saying to the believers from the Jews who were then with the Apostles: Paul reproaches me justly. It is impossible to contradict his words. It is evident to everyone that Peter, having in view the benefit of the hearers, was satisfied with Paul's words. Therefore, since one reproached and the other received this in silence, a medicine was being prepared that was useful for believers both from the Jews and from the Gentiles. The divine Apostle wrote this to the Galatians to make known that the great and foremost Apostles, because of the weakness of the Jews, sometimes permitted the Law to be kept, but did not always act in this way."
Saint John of Damascus also explains how this event relates to the Galatians, showing how its remembrance corresponds to the aims of the Epistle.
"By this circumstance Saint Paul incidentally teaches the Galatians to accept calmly the rebuke directed at them also. If Peter, being from the Jews, was reproached because he disposed others to Judaize, and calmly accepted this rebuke as proper and good, much more should the Galatians accept this rebuke calmly. They were from the Gentiles, yet after believing in Christ they inclined toward the yoke of the Law and were reproached for it."
"With what love Saint Peter accepted this rebuke for the salvation of Christ's flock!" says Augustine. "The one rebuked was more wonderful than the one rebuking. Here is an example for imitation, an example of humility, which is the highest Christian virtue. By it mutual love is especially preserved, and nothing destroys that love more quickly than pride."
THEOSIS