The Non-Pauline Origin
of the Parallelism of the Apostles Peter and Paul.
Galatians 2:7-8

Ernst Barnikol


JHC 5/2 (Fall 1998), 285-300.  Forschungen zur Entstehung des Urchristentums des Neuen Testaments und der Kirche, ed. Ernst Barnikol (Kiel: Walter G. Mühlau, 1931). Translated by Darrell J. Doughty with B. Keith Brewer.
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To my teacher, Albert Brackmann, with gratitude.

Introduction

In the Old Marburger period before the [First] World War, the lectures on the origin of the papacy delivered by my highly regarded teacher, in whose honor this work is presented1 -the historian who never forgot the theologians of his academic youth and who, as a theologian, also thinks historically-were especially valuable to me. Since today more than ever this earliest church history of the West forms the common field of work for critical historical scholars in both faculties, this occasion gives me the welcome opportunity to touch on a particular, hitherto unsolved problem of the "most historical" letter of Paul and, with a new, unique solution, to illuminate the ongoing formation of the text in church history and the wealth of new historical problems in the first two centuries.

Not primarily the judgment of history, but the proclamation of the early Catholic Church in the second century already exalts Peter and Paul2 as the two great figures3 high above all other Christian missionaries of the early period.4 Did Paul himself already have this concept in mind when he speaks of Cephas and dares to compare himself with him?5 Did Paul already see and profess this providential parallelism, this working alongside and with one another of the two great and united chief apostles Peter and Paul? Did he even, as has been thought until now, express this idea in writing? For he himself created this idea when, admonishing the wavering Galatians, he affirms:6


Those, I say, who were of repute added nothing further to me; but on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised--for he who worked through Peter for the mission to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles--and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Gal 2:6-9).7

Our theme encompasses a mutually interwoven dual problem of the text and the parallelism. The starting point is the unsolved textual problem of the ten Kęphas-Petros passages in Paul, i.e., in the Corpus Paulinum, in 1 Corinthians and Galatians, particularly Gal 2:7 and 8. As I hope to show, the new solution explains not only the hitherto puzzling evidence of the text but presents, above all, unexpected insights into the problems of the history of the origin of the apostolic parallelism in the second century and leads thereby to the church historical problem whose recognition confirms the origin and solution of the textual problem.

I. The Textual Problems of the Pauline Epistles:
Kęphas or Petros?

Paul mentions Cephas-Peter ten times in his letters, four times in the present text of 1 Corinthians and six times in Galatians. The following table concisely illustrates the evidence of the agreement and disagreement of the witnesses:8

Passage

1 Cor 1:12
1 Cor 3:22
1 Cor 9:5
1 Cor 15:5
Gal 1:18
Gal 2:7
Gal 2:8
Gal 2:9

Gal 2:11
Gal 2:14
Text

I belong to Cephas
were it Cephas
also Cephas
he appeared to Cephas
to become acquainted with Cephas
as Peter
he who worked through Peter
James and Cephas
Peter and James
when Cephas came
I said to Cephas
Kęphas

all witnesses
all witnesses
all witnesses
all witnesses
Aleph* A B


Aleph B C K L vg

Aleph A B C H vg
Aleph A B C H vg
Petros





D G K L it vg
all witnesses
all witnesses
D G fu

D G K L
D G K L

The first impression from this table is that: four references, all of which belong to 1 Corinthians, have exclusively Kęphas; two others in Galatians have exclusively Petros; the remaining four passages in Galatians have both forms. In other words, while 1 Corinthians has only Kęphas, Galatians has in part, at the two verses 2:7-8, only Petros attested, and thus has textual evidence for Petros in all six passages, and only in four of these six passages also for Kęphas.

How is this puzzle solved? Not in the way that Zahn himself struggles to do: "Here in 1 Cor (1:12; 3:22; 9:5; 15:5) Kęphas is transmitted steadfastly and unanimously; in Galatians, on the other hand, Petros securely stands twice (2:7, 8), but in the remaining passages (1:18; 2:9; 2:11; 2:14) the tradition fluctuates between the Greek and the Aramaic forms of the name; so it is beyond doubt that Paul alternated in this letter between both forms."9 This is an odd conclusion! Why did Paul alternate?10

Holl recognizes the impossibility of this explanation and recommends the bold move of assuming and inserting Kęphas everywhere as the original Pauline form-even in Gal 2:7 and 8, although no witness offers Kęphas there.11 In addition, Holl is defenseless against the obvious question, which he does not address: Why does the form Petros stand in four of the six passages of the same letter?12

Holl had a predecessor (Whether he knew it, I do not know). It is Merx who actually-along with Nestle13-was the only one to set forth the problem with great precision. He saw it in a splended way from the perspective of textual history, but unfortunately not in the same way from the perspective of church history, so that he missed the obvious solution. In 1902 Merx wrote:

Petros forces its way into Galatians, which must be the work of an editor who made the text more acceptable to Greeks.14 ....What a basis for criticism of the Greek text! Where would there be a critical task so peppered with thistles and thorns as this, where canonical and dogmatic reflection has been applied to the text? Our Peter problem may also be connected with it. And so the majority of exegetes still believe they can get by with the decree "this is formulated according to S B D in one way or the other," while each step is made uncertain by pitfalls.15 ....Criticism is nothing but the practical application of the knowledge textual history [I would add: and of church history and the history of doctrine] with a view to determine the oldest accessible form. This oldest form in Galatians was definitely Kęphas. Then, however, against all witnesses-except the Peshitta, which retains the ambiguous (Kęphas or Petros) )pyK-in 2:7/8, Petros must be deleted and Kęphas must be inserted.16

The error of Merx and Holl is more frightful than the convenient conservative persistence of many exegetes and commentators who cling to the Textus Receptus. In this case, what they both recognized is rightly preserved, namely, that Paul did not write Petros in Gal 2:7/8. So they conclude that he wrote Kęphas also in Gal 2:7/8. But did Paul write Gal 2:7/8 at all? Van Manen17 as well as the new radical school18 have already summarily denied this.

Did Paul have reason to change? No! He wrote only in Greek, and therefore Kęphas. The first letter to the Corinthians, or as the case may be, the collected fragments of letters to the Corinthian congregation, sufficiently testifies that Paul said and wrote Kęphas, even to the Greeks, indeed exclusively. For him there was then-it was the common time of the letters to the Corinthians and Galatians-still no Latin or Greek rendering of the Aramaic title of honor, just as little as for maranatha! If it is certain that Paul only externally graecized the Aramaic terms in a proper and liturgical way, then both passages in 2:7 and 8, which alone have Petros, which is foreign to Paul, could not have been written by Paul. Basically it is really one passage, a conspicuous parenthesis. That is the most obvious conclusion. The other conclusion of Merx and Holl could be considered more justified if all witnesses in all other passages consistently proferred Kęphas and if the early transformation of the original Kęphas into Petros could be made credible exactly here and only here. Neither Merx nor Holl attempted that.

Even without being able to justify it from the content, I would not hesitate in this case to regard the two Petros passages in Gal 2:7/8, i.e., the one section encompassing both references to Peter, as an interpolation of a later time. For in this case everything is clear with regard to Paul: He wrote only Kęphas not Petros! The later inserted passage with the double but otherwise isolated Petros leads to the mishmash of the textual attestations of all other passages, i.e., original passages in Galatians, but not in 1 Corinthians, and because of its secondary origin, remained itself unanimously attested, a sign of its non-Pauline origin.

II. The Non-Pauline Structure of Gal 2:7-8

In addition to the manuscript evidence, the non-Pauline style supports the non-Pauline character of our passage. Paul does not employ the use of energein with the dative, which we meet only here in the transmitted Corpus Paulinum: energęsas Petrô... kai emoi. Especially in Galatians, Paul joins this verb with en; en humin (3:5). In a second passage (5:6) it stands absolute. In Phil 2:13 the Pauline combination meets us again with en humin, just as in 2 Cor 4:12 with en humin, 1 Thess 2:13 with en humin, and even Col 1:29 with en humin. This evidence could not be any clearer: Paul writes energein en emoi; he never wrote energein emoi!

The other major terms of the interpolation are also foreign to Paul in this connection. The man who according to Gal 1:6-9 admits no other gospel than the gospel of Christ and its truth (Gal 2:5), knows, alongside this absolute gospel, nothing about an -- apologetically later differentiated -- euaggelion tęs akrobustias and tęs peritomęs and a corresponding divided apostolę tęs peritomęs and eis ta ethnę, although he occasionally uses the words individually.19

Stylistically, the form of the parenthesis is also remarkable. Certainly self-interpolations occur in Paul, as just before in Gal 2:6. But precisely for this reason the immediate repetition in the present text is suspect. If one examines it closely, one senses that the second, subsequently interpolated parenthesis qualifies the increasing impact of the decisive sentence, since it breaks apart and abrogates the essential connection between the two closely related participles, dokountes kai gnontes, in a way one would not expect of an original letter writer and missionary who was concerned with making an impression. In addition, for their part, the two sustaining participles are already sufficiently burdened. Against Harnack, Schürer once rightly pointed to the significance of the fact that this "seeing" and "recognizing" first happened and had to happen at the missionary conference,20 because it did not previously exist with those who were of repute. How then can one exegetically suggest that Paul interrupted his important and highly-charged account of the events at the missionary conference with a summarily conceived retrospective glance and quashed its impact with a comparison inappropriate at that time.

The content of the interpolation is entirely non-Pauline because it is precisely a retrospective view which presupposes the completion of the missionary activity of Peter as well as that of Paul and also the recognition of the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul did not have in mind such a retrospective view; he did not aspire to a position alongside and thus parallel with Peter. He defended only his independence, i.e., his absolute dependence on the messiah himself. In addition, as 1 Cor 9:5 and 1 Cor 15:5-11 show, he knows Simon Peter only as "Cephas," not as "the" (or "an") apostle.21 Not until the following period which no longer knew "Cephas,"22 since one had no community with the Jewish Christians, did anyone see the problem: Paul and Peter! The schematic conception, which perceives Paul as the apostle to Gentiles and Peter the apostle to the Jews, is foreign to Paul.23 First Corinthians especially contradicts this. In his struggle against factions and parties, against the parties of Apollos and Cephas, Paul never thinks that the Jewish Christian minority might appeal to Cephas as their delegated apostle to the Jews. For him the problem whether the Jewish Christian minority might be identical with the Cephas Party does not yet exist at all. For Paul Simon "Cephas" is not an apostle, but precisely the Cephas beside, before, indeed, above the Jerusalem apostles. Therefore Paul could not have written these sentences in Gal 2:7-8.

III. The Original Text of Paul

But what did Paul write in our passage in Galatians? Can the Peter insertion be removed and the genuine text of Paul be restored? Fortunately, this is possible. The revised text, whereby I set off the interpolation with bold, reads:

The interpolation connects with hoti pepisteumai to euaggelion; its closing words, eis ta ethnę, have in view the result of the missionary conference: hęmeis eis ta ethnę, autoi de eis tęn peritomęn.

Accordingly the original Pauline text reads:

The original text possibly also included the connection: to euaggelion eis ta ethnę, which then would have been expanded by the insertion before eis ta ethnę.24 The strongest reason for the originality of eis ta ethnę is that, from a stylistic perspective, it somewhat explains the remarkable absence of the apostolę in Paul,25 i.e., this peculiar26 non-parallelism. However, even the Pauline eis ta ethnę of Gal 2:9 suffices as a stylistic precedent. And there is a striking parallel for the absolute use of to euaggelion in connection with pisteuein in 1 Thess 2:4. Paul affirms:

The genuine earliest text presents a clear picture, free from obfuscation that has lasted until now. Entirely in the historical sense of Gal 2, "Here Paul wants to know and must know whether he is running or had run in vain. Here Paul strives for the fundamental decision whether he was regarded as a Christian by those of repute27 and whether his congregations were regarded by them as Christian congregations."28 He does not think about equal status with Cephas. The situation at that time, and likewise in the Galatian conflict, would not have allowed him to parenthetically claim a schematic parallelism-a schematic, a racial, and therefore impractical parallelism. For the unifying decision of the missionary conference and the meaning of the handshake of the five does not signify a racial, but a geographical parallelism: We go into Gentile territory, into the diaspora, but they remain in the homeland, in Palestine, in the land of Israel. This corresponds with the missionary activity of Paul, who surely went forth into the Gentile world to win Jews as well for the Messiah Jesus.

In a similar way, the insertion has other unhistorical schematic concepts of the the Gentile world, Jewish and Gentile gospels, Jewish and Gentile apostolates, which first correspond to the situation of the second century and the developing church.

If the insertion was the work of a Jewish Christian before 70-100, then one could expect: "For the one who worked through Cephas and James and John for the mission to the circumcised..."! Why only Peter?29 The one who immediately thereafter, at the handshake, originally stood in second place! Likewise, the characterization, or conception, of the three speaks against an immediately preceding absolute characterization of Peter. The popular image of Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles is foreign to the historical Paul, although we certainly find it in the revised 15th chapter of the transmitted Epistle to the Romans (v. 16): eis to einai me leitourgon Xristou Ięsou eis ta ethnę, which represents the same later conception almost word for word and presumably arose at the same time.

Paul knows nothing about the problems and schematizations of the Church of the second century. It was enough for him to be able to say to the Galatians: "Those, namely, who were of repute imposed nothing further on me, but on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, extended to me and Barnabas the hand of fellowship, so that we should go to the Gentile world, but they-as until now-to the circumcised (as Messiah missionaries).

IV. History of the Early Text and the Interpolation

When, where and why did this important and skillful interpolation taken place? Those are the further questions. The answers, especially the facts of the case, show that we are on the right track.

Is there a history of the early text? No. We do not come across it until a century later -- c. 160/180. This is indeed the century of silence about Paul. But more precisely, it means that the earliest text does not meet us until the time of the interpolation.

If we once more assume, however, that Paul had indeed written the entire document, original text and interpolation, around 55, then he himself would have already provided the best solution of the Peter-Paul problem, in the same way as it was sought--and found--a century later by the early Catholic church! Would he not have already provided in advance a decisive refutation of the Marcionite heresy, for which Paul was the apostle, while all others, especially James, were pseudo-apostles? It is almost embarrassing to have to say that to my knowledge no commentator30 noticed this and asked when the entire passage was first cited, if it has been there since 55. If one is suspicious of every argumentum e silentio, then one should still make the effort to explain why, in a foolish way, this brilliant trump-card was first cited so late, and investigate when it first appears (or appears again).

Marcion did not have our present-day text. In this Zahn and Harnack are almost in agreement with respect to Marcion. "Gal 2:6-8 was probably missing from its place," Zahn says, for "Tertullian could hardly have left 6-8 unused if he found it." Of course, according to Zahn, Marcion had utilized Gal 2:6-8 in Phil 1:14-18. "[Van] Manen included vv. 6-8 without justification in Marcion's text."31 Harnack concludes more decisively: "vv. 6-9 (the introduction to the apostle conference with the distinction of euaggelion tęs akrobustias and tęs peritomęs and the sentence gnontes tęs xarin tęn dotheisan moi) are quite unattested and must have been absent, if not completely altered."32 But since Marcion retained 9b-10, he also must have had or recalled a preceding sentence, even our early text, which was identical with the surviving text still preserved in Tertullian, and thus offered no cause for complaint! How advantageous would it otherwise have been for Tertullian to be able to triumphantly hold up to him, on the basis of this parallelism, the acknowledgement of the Petrine Jewish apostolate by Paul himself, with this sentence to be able to negate the entire position of Marcion, or at least to remark scornfully: "Naturally, heretic that you are, you had to strike this sentence of Paul."

No, around 206/207 Tertullian still knows nothing of the present-day interpolated text, although he certainly cites the handshake several times.33 Here there can be no evasion. Here also neither the familiar timidity concerning the argumentum e silentio nor apologetic makeshift is of any help, i.e., the suggestion that he knew, but did not mention it. For not only can one point to the absence of any citation, the absence of the interpolated text can also be established with certainty. The man who wrote, in a characteristic apologetic argument: Paul went to Jerusalem, "to gain the protection of Peter and the other apostles,"34 he "felt the need to become recognized and strengthened by them,"35 how it was proper that "for one inexperienced and still wavering belief regarding observation of the law,"36 Paul "wished to support his belief and his manner of preaching by the authority of his predecessors,"37 wanted "to become acquainted with and question the apostles,"38 and bring his gospel "into harmony" with their belief,39 the man who selects the opposite of Paul's opinion out of the genuine epistle to the Galatians, namely, that, through the handshake when "his predecessors gave him the right hand," Paul first then "took over the office of preaching among the Gentiles, having been attested by them"40-this Tertullian can only interpret in this way and fabricate this kind of commission by the original apostles and the acceptance of the preaching office because he did not know Gal 2:7-8, according to which God had, long ago, already given and confirmed the commission of proclaiming the gospel more or less equally to both Peter and Paul!41

We must conclude from these facts of the case that Tertullian--i.e., the African Bible of his time--did not yet know the interpolation as a biblical text. And from these striking facts of the case alone, we must suppose that the whole passage was reworked, and was available to Tertullian only as an unaltered early text. With regard to time, then, the interpolation can be sought not far from Tertullian's time. The identity with Marcion's text, whose Pauline dogma, as generally recognized, does not bear the parallelism, raises this to the level of certainty.

If one questions further, and questions the Apostolic Fathers, the apologists, and all Christian witnesses before 180, prior to Irenaeus, not one mentions the present-day parallelism text, not even 1 Clement 5, not even Ignatius. Might the parallelism text not have existed at all before Irenaeus?

But what of Irenaeus himself? The parallelism text occurs first with him.42 Exactly in the sense and in the line of argumentation which we so sorely missed before him and after him with Tertullian. Irenaeus writes:

With regard to those who allege that Paul alone knew the truth, and that to him the mystery was manifested by revelation, let Paul himself convict them, when he says, that one and the same God wrought in Peter for the apostolate of the circumcision, and in himself for the Gentiles. Peter, therefore, was an apostle of that very God whose was also Paul; and Him whom Peter preached as God among those of the circumcision, and likewise the Son of God, did Paul [declare] also among the Gentiles. For our Lord never came to save Paul alone, nor is God so limited in means, that He should have but one apostle who knew the dispensation of His Son (Adv. haer. 3.13.1).

Here the text of the interpolation meets us for the first time, on the side of the early Catholic Church and Irenaeus, who triumphed with it.

But when did the interpolation take place? Since Marcion-like Tertullian-did not possess our present text, the interpolation did not take place before 140 nor after 185. Most likely, it took place shortly before 185, since it is not yet known to Tertullian. It is a reaction to the one-sided Pauline proclamation of Marcion, the affirmation of the unified parallelism of the early Catholic Church. Paul himself could not have written and made available a more suitable reply against Marcion for the benefit of Peter, who had been rejected by Marcion, than the way this interpolator meets this need a century later. This interpolation is the classic expression for the anti-marcionite church dogma of the harmonious parallel work of both apostles. As predecessors we are familiar with 1 Clem 5 and, some time later, Ignatius in Rom 4.3, who both place Peter and Paul together, still in the manner, to be sure, of Dionysius of Corinth.

Where did this interpolation take place? In my opinion, some testimony can be obtained here from the manuscript evidence. It was not in the East, where the Cephas form predominated, that the Petros interpolation was created, but in the West, along with the manuscript transformation there of Kęphas into Petros. It is possible that the Latin Petros-sentence was inserted on the occasion of the first Latin translation of the Corpus Paulinum and was translated back into Greek manuscripts like D G and penetrated their bilingual prototypes.43 In addition, the possibility remains that a primary penetration of the interpolation is likewise present in Greek manuscripts of the West. There, where the perhaps simultaneous assimilation of the six passages in Galatians occured, as in the western manuscripts D E F G, is where we should also look for the source of the interpolation-in the West, certainly not in the Africa of Tertullian, but in Gaul or earlier in Italy, in Rome. There seems to be a connection with a (or the?) early Catholic edition and recension, for which some signs are still present in the Corpus Paulinum. In this Roman, early Catholic edition the interpolator changed Kęphas into Petros throughout Galatians and neglected to do the same in 1 Corinthians.

In conclusion, I would still like to point out two remarkable parallels.

In the Acts of Paul, after the self-baptism, Thecla searches for Paul, finds him, and reports to him: "But perceiving this, she said to him, "I have taken the bath, Paul; for he who worked with you for the gospel has also worked with me for my baptism" (hę de sunidousa eipen autô Elabon to loutron, Paule. ho gar soi sunergęsas eis to euaggelion kamoi sunęrgęsen eis to lousasthai).44

Since according to Carl Schmidt's convincing explanation,45 the Acts of Paul presuppose the Acts of Peter and are to be dated "certainly before 200,"46 this passage could easily be understood as the second attestation following Irenaeus. But we do not know if this passage in the Acts of Paul might not stem from earlier fragments. For the time being, I can not completely rule out the possibility that an apocryphal passage like this in the Acts of Paul was transferred to Peter and included in the canonical text.

Additionally, there is the second more distant parallel in the Acts of John. The prayer of the dying John begins:

However that may be, the non-Pauline origin of the interpolation passage seems to me in any case to be certain.

Not only after 200, but already in the previous century, Rome preserved tradition, as far as it remained alive, and moreover created tradition and also transformed tradition. Only the uncovering of these church-historical transformations in the texts of the canon and the liturgy, the confessions as well as in historical traditions,48 makes visible the beginnings of the Roman community. One layer of tradition covers up the other and covers up the real history. Perhaps this study opens an interesting process to the astonished eye. As I think I am able to show by working on this newly achieved basis, the Roman Church is not erected on the graves of the apostles Peter and Paul; 49 rather, the Roman legends of the second century buried the Neronian grave of the last Pauline community.


NOTES

1 Since this study was submitted late, at the beginning of March, it was not included in the "Brackmann-Festschrift," since, as the publisher informed me, it would "considerably change the character and the organization of the entire Festschrift if at the conclusion would still come such a significant and comprehensive article," I am publishing it separately, in a kind of parallel, as a theological "Brackmann-Festgabe" in this series of my "Forschungen."

2 For the ancient church, the most important thing is the-supposed-fact it asserts that both were united and worked harmoniously together, above all in Rome.

3 More precisely, it is a two-fold problem, that of the number two, i.e., the parallelism of Paul and Peter, and that of the number thirteen, i.e., the problem of Paul as the thirteenth apostle, as the unique apostle, alongside the twelve, i.e., alongside the twelve apostles. It sets the limitation of the apostle concept to the twelve in advance, which took place against Paul.

4 This means the separation of the church of James.

5 This actually happens only in Gal 2:7-8 and speaks indirectly for interpolation. The apostle Paul is sui generis as an apostolos dia Ięsou Christou (Gal 1:1), he compares himself - setting up a parallelism - with the apostles who go out from Jerusalem, the Dodeka (1 Cor 9:5), but does not belong to the upper "Jewish Christian hierarchy" (1 Cor 9:5). The historical Paul would never have dared to place himself next to Cephas, neither in Jerusalem, nor in Antioch, not even in Corinth.

6 In certain contradiction to the letter introduction and to Gal 5:10.

7 Translator's note (my emphasis): Barnikol follows Lietzmann's German translation, which read "Mir haben die Angesehenen nichts weiter auferlegt" ("Those who were of repute added nothing further to me").

8 Therefore, the selection is sufficient.

9 Galatians (3 ed. 1922), 70, n. 84.

10 Zahn's artificial attempt at an explanation, namely, that Paul in 2:9 by the transition to Kęphas "as well as by stu=loi, conveys the manner of speech of the Jewish Christians who came from Palestine" (Einleitung II, p. 14), demonstrates exactly the difficulty.

11 "It seems to me that everywhere in Paul, even where Petros is inserted in the editions of the N.T., specifically on the basis of the Latin tradition, Kęphas must be written." ("Der Kirchenbegriff des Paulus in seinem Verhältnis zu dem der Urgemeinde," in Sitzungsberichte der Pr. Akad. d. Wiss. Ph.-hist.Klasse, [1921], Vol. II, 921, n. 3. Ges. Aufsätze, II, 45 n. 3.)

12 It would be understandable if, from the six Galatian passages, Kęphas remained in 2:11 and 2:14, since one already soon finds in Clement of Alexandria (Euseb. HE 1.12.2) the well-known hypothesis of K. Lake, revived in 1921(HTR. 14, pp. 95/7), that this Peter whom Paul repremands was not the apostle, but one of the seventy disciples, and that one sharply distinguished between them for that reason. As far as can I see, this seems to have a later effect in the Vulgate. It has the chief apostle "Peter" in Gal 1:18; 2:7-8, but "Cephas" in 2:9; 2:11 and 2:14, and perhaps originally means one of the seventy as a scapegoat. That this transformation begins already in 2:9 can not be disturbing since thereby the two persons in 2:7/8 and 2:9/11 would be sharply distinguished, but this would not be the case if it first occurred in 2:11. However that may be, this "Cephas" (or Cephas and his "double") hypothesis and exegesis, whose influence in the Vulgate text and elsewhere deserves an independent investigation, does not solve our problem for the time of Paul.

13 See Nestle, Eberhard, Einführung in das Griech. Neue Test. (2 ed., 1899), 249f. In the fourth edition (1923) any reference to this textual problem is unfortunately missing. It is also missing in Jülicher-Faschers Einleitung in das Neue Testament (1931), 582-591.

14 Das Evangelium Matthaeus (1902), 161.

15 Ibid., 162.

16 Ibid., 163.

17 Van Manen ("Marcions Brief van Paulus aan de Galatiers," Theol. Tijdschrift, 21 [1887], 382-404; 450-533) deletes only from kathôs on to the end of the actual parenthesis eis ta ethnę (pp. 530 and 513). He argues that, according to Gal 1:6-9, Paul knows no eteron euaggelion, he speaks "never of Peter, but always of Cephas." Irenaeus, AH. 3.13.1 shows that "the Catholic party felt the need for a word from Paul, where he himself testified: one and the same God worked in Peter for the apostolate of the circumcision, and in himself for the Gentiles" (p. 514).

18 Paul Louis Couchoud ("La premičre édition de Saint Paul," Revue de l'histoire des religions, 93 [1926], 258) also finds here the work of Catholic redactors: "The Catholic editor developed the scene. He imagines a providential and distinct mission of two great apostles of the future Roman church, Peter and Paul 7-8," without justifying this in more detail. Henri Delafosse attributes Gal 2:6-8 to Marcionite redaction! (Les écrits de Saint Paul III. La seconde épître aus Corinthiens etc. [Paris, 1927], 189/190).

19 For example, Paul writes apostolę elsewhere only in Rom 1:5 and 1 Cor 9:2.

20 "These two participles, idontes (2:7) and gnontes (2:9), irrefutably prove that the early apostles were first brought to acknowledge Paul's law-free mission to the Gentiles as a work ordained by God through Paul's reports and presentations at that time." Theol. Literaturzeitung (1906), p. 406.

21 Cf. supra, note 3.

22 Already 1 Clement has, as is well-known, Petros in 5:4, Kęphas in the citation of the Letter to the Corinthians 47:3. 2 Clement has only Petros, which, as the Synoptics prove, prevailed early on. Kęphas survived alongside thanks only to the citations of the Kęphas-letter passages.

23 Even Wagenmann, in his not always problem-comprehending investigation (Die Stellung des Apostels Paulus neben den Zwölf in den ersten zwei Jahrhunderten, 1926), speaks of Peter, on the basis of Gal 2:8, as the "apostle to the Jews" (p. 28/29), who can certainly also convert Gentiles, without suspecting difficulties.

24 The insertion then consciously flows into the eis ta ethnę of this possible original text, in which it already occurred twice (also in v. 9).

25 Carl Holsten sharply saw this (Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus, 1868, p. 273, n. 1): "Why then does Paul avoid the expression eis apostolęn tôn ethnôn, tęs akrobustias? The entire passage is so constituted that Paul offers all the premises from which the apostles should have inferred apostleship for him as well-but they did not draw this conclusion because they evidently did not condition the office of apostle, as Paul did, on God's judgment of the result, but on the personal relationship to the Messiah. The Messiah apostles did not acknowledge Paul as an apostle (or even Barnabas), but only as a koinônos and sunergos. Otherwise, since he was attacked by the Galatians with regard to his apostolic office, Paul would certainly have held up the recognition of him as an apostle by the pillar-apostles." Holsten sensed the unhistorical nature, even the impossibility, of this parallelism claimed by and for Paul.

26 The interpolator did not yet represent, as did Irenaeus, the full apostolic parallelism, but, as a Jewish Christian, only represented the missionary parallelism, using Gal 2:9: eis ta ethnę.

27 For Paul, who was immediately active as a Christian missionary, Christian and evangelist formed a unity in the sense of the hoti pepisteumai to euaggeion.

28 See my Forschungen zur Entstehung des Urchristentums, des Neuen Testaments und der Kirche, II: Die drei Jerusalemreisen des Paulus (1929), p. 25.

29 Ambrosiaster certainly muses about this in our passage: Petrum solum nominat et sibi comparat; quia primatum ipse acceperat ad fundandam ecclesiam; se quoque pari modo electum, ut primatum habeat in fundandis gentium ecclesiis [Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, 2:7-8; cf. H. Vogels, ed., Ambrosiastri qui Dicitur Commentatius in Epistulas Paulus [CSEL 81. Vienna: 1969], Part 3, p. 23). This is correct for the Roman conception of 180, but not for the reality of the mission in 55.

30 Not even Burton in his commentary (1921), p. 93.

31 Zahn, Geschichte des neutest. Kanons, Vol. 1 (1888), p. 528 and p. 499.

32 Marcion (21924), p. 71.

33 According to Roensch (Das Newe Testament Tertullians [1871], pp. 446 to 447) three or four times; AM 5.3 (two times) Prae. H., 23 and AM 4.2.

34 AM 5.3: Ad patrocinium Petri ceterorumque apostolorum.

35 AM 5.3: Adeo ab illis probari et constabiliri desiderart .

36 AM 5.3:Hoc enim rudi fidei et adhuc de legis obserbatione suspensae competebat .

37 AM 4.2: Auctoritatem antecessorum et fidei et praedicationi suae optavit.

38 AM 4.2: Exigeretur enim id quoque evangelium, quod Paulus invenit, cui fidem dedidit, cui mox suum congruere gestiit.

39 AM 4.2: Ante...quam dexteras ei darent antecessores, quam ex c[ons]ensu eorum in nationes praedicandi munus subiret.

40 AM 5.3: Ante... quam dexteras ei darent abtecessores, quam ex c[ons]ensu eorum in nationes praedicandi menus subiret.

41 It surprises me that, to my knowledge, even none of the commentators on the Epistle to the Galatians has seen this, not even Fr. Barth in his careful study, "Tertullians Auffassung des Apostels Paulus und seines Verhältnisses zu den Uraposteln," Jahrbücher f. prot. Theol. 8 (1882), pp. 706-756. Fr. Barth rightly appreciates these passages translated by him; cf. p. 742, p. 743 and p. 751.

42 Sandy-Turner, Novum Testamentum S. Irenaei (Old Latin Biblical Texts, VII) Oxford (1923), p. 154, where 3.12.1 stands incorrectly. The Epideixis does not cite Gal 2:6-8. Victorinus, Ambrosiaster, Hieronymus, Pelagius, Theodore and Chrysostom comment on the Textus Receptus, which Clement of Alexandria never cites according to the information kindly provided by Prof. Stählin.

43 Given my feeling for the language, the Greek text is conceived in Latin terms, perhaps even originally formed in Latin. Is a pepisteutai not missing after Petros? G also latinizes the early text: pepisteutai moi.

44 Lipsius-Bonnet: Acta Apoctolorum apocrypha (1891) I, p. 266. The Coptic translation is fragmentary here, cf. Carl Schmidt: Acta Pauli, 2 Edition (1905), p. 50; The compatible Syriac translation was translated by Conybeare (The Apology and Act of Appollonius and Other Monuments of Early Christianity [1894], p. 86).

45 "Zur Datierung der alten Petrusakten," ZNW (1930), pp. 150 ff.

46 Ibid., p. 154.

47 Zahn, Th., Acta Johannis (1880), p. 246.

48 In his insufficiently appreciated monograph: Der Paulinismus des Irenäus (T.U. VI, 2, 1889), Johannes Werner saw what was essential: "Thus the creation of the Catholic Petrine and Pauline authority (i.e., Peter as the representative of the 12) rests upon a leveling comparison: Paul had to relinquish the exclusive claim of his historical fame and receive, in exchange, dogmatic affirmation, which he had lacked until then; Peter or the Twelve had to make room for Paul's participation in their official authority, and in return received a carring over of the fame historically only accorded to Paul for his fruitful missionary work" (p. 59). Paul, even if not considered absolutely canonical, yet however practically already "equivalent to the canon" (p. 46, cf. p. 28 and p. 41), counts as the "like-minded colleague of the Twelve" (p. 64), which is exactly what is proven in (Ign. AH) 3.13.1 by Gal 2:7/8 (p. 70). Fr. Barth judges Tertullian as follows: "Contrary to the statements in the writings of the New Testament, Paul must share his various merits with the other apostles" (p. 738).

49 Only after Clement in the second century did Rome, out of Cephas-who in my opinion never saw Rome, create its "Peter" beside and against Paul. To my delight, I can here agree in principle with Caspar: "Not the historical personality of Peter, whether or not he may have completed his journey in Rome, but his mythical and dogmatically elevated figure, as it developed since the third century" [in my opinion, already since the second century!] "is what became a factor of enormous historical consequence" (Geschichte des Papsttums,, vol. 1 [1930], p. 2). Unfortunately, Caspar hardly touched upon the Roman problems, developments, and formations of the time of the New Testament until 180 and its documents.


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Posted February 18, 2000
Copyright © Institute for Higher Critical Studies, 2000

Darrell J. Doughty
Institute for Higher Critical Studies
Drew University, Madison, NJ, 07940
ddoughty@drew.edu