Early readings of Galatians 2: the visit, Cephas, and Antioch

Says Paul set out his gospel “for fear that I was running or had already run in vain” (Gal 2:2). He names Peter (2:7–8) and Cephas, a pillar with James and John (2:9), and writes, “When Cephas came to Antioch, however, I opposed him to his face” (2:11).

Chrysostom puts the question to Paul: “dost thou now confer with them, after fourteen years are past, lest thou shouldest be running in vain?” Eusebius reports that Clement “says that Cephas was one of the seventy disciples, a man who bore the same name as the apostle Peter, and the one concerning whom Paul says, ‘When Cephas came to Antioch I withstood him to his face.’” On the men of 2:12 Chrysostom calls James the one “who was the teacher at Jerusalem”. On the rebuke he holds that Peter acted “both to avoid offending those Jews, and to give Paul a reasonable pretext for rebuking him.” Calvin reports this reading of “Jerome and Chrysostom, who represent the whole transaction as a feigned debate”, and sides with Augustine “that this was no previously arranged plan”. These are their readings; the exegetical notes weigh them.

Uncertain How the Antioch rebuke (2:11–14) is to be read is open; these readings do not fix the meaning of the text.