Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Galatians 2:13 - 2:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gal_2:13. And the rest of the Jewish Christians also played the hypocrite jointly with him—those, namely, living in Antioch, who previously, in harmony with the liberal standpoint which they had already attained to, had held fellowship at meals with the Gentile Christians of the place, but now, misled by the influential example of Peter, had likewise drawn back. This was hypocrisy on their part and on Peter’s, because, although at the bottom of their hearts convinced of Christian freedom, they, from fear of men (Gal_2:12), concealed the more liberal conviction of which they were conscious, and behaved just as if they entertained the opposite view. It is true that the apostolic council had not decided anything as to the conduct of the Jewish Christians among Gentile Christians; but the immorality consisted in the inwardly untrue duplicity of their behaviour, which was more than a mere inconsistency (Baur) of reformed Judaism, conceived by Paul as being hypocrisy (Hilgenfeld). The view of Holsten, z. Ev. des Paul. u. Petr. p. 357 ff., is similar.
On συνυπεκρίθ ., comp. Polyb. iii. 92. 5, v. 49. 7; Plut. Mar_14:17; Joseph. Bell. xv. 7. 5.
καὶ Βαρνάβ .] even Barnabas, who was my associate withal in the apostleship to the Gentiles (Gal_2:9), and should consequently least of all have ventured insincerely to deny the principle of Christian freedom, to the disparagement of the Gentile Christians! So injurious was the effect of Peter’s example!
συναπήχθη ] was jointly led away (led astray), namely, from his own standpoint. Comp. 2Pe_3:17 (Rom_12:16, and Wetstein in loc.). ὥστε with a finite verb, in the secondary sentence (comp. Joh_3:16), denotes the consequence simply as a fact which has occurred. See Tittmann, Synon. II. p. 70; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 1012 f.; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 772. The infinitive would make the representation subjective (the seduction being conceived as a necessary result).
αὐτῶν ] that is, αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν Ἰουδ . It is emphatically prefixed. The dative is instrumental: by their hypocrisy, not to their hypocrisy (Luther and others). No one can, without wronging Paul in respect to the choice of his strongly inculpating expression,[88] either call in question the fact that the conduct of Peter is here expressly designated as hypocrisy (Schwegler, I. p. 129), or reduce it to a mere supposition; although Ritschl, p. 145, is of opinion that the reproach thus used does not quite evince a clear and thorough conviction of the rightness of the non-Jewish practice. The purposely chosen expression in our passage shows, on the contrary, that Peter’s conviction, which was well known to Paul, agreed with the conviction of Paul himself, although it was hypocritically denied by the former. Peter’s ὑπόκρισις , according to the text, consisted in the Ἰουδαΐζειν , to which he had drawn back after his intercourse with the Gentile Christians, not in his previous fellowship with them, which is alleged to have been “a momentary unfaithfulness to his real conviction” (Baur, in the theol. Jahrb. 1849, p. 476; Schwegler, Zeller, Hilgenfeld). And the censure which Paul—certainly unwillingly, and with a complete realizing and appreciating of the moral situation to which it has reference—has directed against Peter expressly on the ground of hypocrisy,[89] exhibits plainly the agreement in principle of the personal convictions of the two apostles (comp. Wiesinger, de consensu, locor. Gal. ii. et Act. xv. p. 36; Lechler, p. 426).
[88] This expression is all the more strictly to be understood as it stands, since Paul has not anywhere else in his epistles or speeches used either the word ὑποκρίνεσθαι , or ὑποκριτής , or (with the exception of 1Ti_4:2) ὑπόκρισις . He would be the less likely to have omitted to weigh the gravity of the reproach conveyed in this very word otherwise strange to him, especially seeing that it was used after so long a time and was directed against Peter. This remark also applies in opposition to Schneckenburger in the Stud. u. Krit. 1855, p. 554 f., and to Möller on de Wette.
[89] Not merely (comp. de Wette) on account of an easily excusable want of firmness and clearness in conviction (Bisping), or of a momentary throwing of the same into the background under pressure of circumstances (Reithmayr). Even Erasmus exerts himself to come at length to the result, that “Pauli objurgatio nihil aliud fuit quam confirmatio parum adhuc sibi constantium.”