J.M.-O'C., Paul, A Critical Life, Chapter 6.

Meetings and Meals: Jerusalem and Antioch  

The Jerusalem Conference

Why did James agree with Paul?

The Agreement

The Collection

Antioch And Its Jews

Problems Of A Mixed Community

The Law A Rival To Christ

Pastoral Instruction

Paul himself does not tell us what happened in Thessalonica after the writing of 2 Thessalonians. It is difficult to imagine that this letter solved all problems of the self-absorbed Thessalonians, but we next hear of them some four years later when he lays out a plan to pass through Macedonia en route from Ephesus to Corinth in the summer of ad 54 (1 Cor. 16:5). A lot was to happen in the interval.

Luke's estimate that Paul's stay in Corinth lasted eighteen months (Acts 18:11) enjoys solid probability; it is the figure that one would have to postulate to explain the nature of the Apostle's relationship to the Corinthians. From Corinth, we are told, he sailed for Syria and, having landed at Caesarea, went up to Jerusalem, and eventually returned to Antioch (Acts 18:18-22). This sea voyage should be dated to the late summer of ad 51, because mid-summer of that year is the only date for Paul's encounter with Gallio (Acts 18:12), and Luke gives the impression that the voyage took place before the close of the sailing season in September.

Paul himself tells us only that fourteen years after his first visit to the Holy City as a Christian he returned to Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1). But this visit, as we have seen, must also be dated to ad 51. The simplest, and in fact the only adequate hypothesis, is to recognize that the accounts of Paul and Luke are references to the same visit; no valid objection can be raised against it. The letters furnish slight and indirect confirmation in so far as they invite us to assume that, on his return from Corinth, Paul dropped off Prisca and Aquila at Ephesus, precisely as Luke says (Acts 18:19, 24, 26).

{page 131} Prisca and Aquila were with Paul in Corinth. The warmth of their greeting to the church there (1 Cor. 16:19) permits of no other explanation. Subsequently they are living in Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:19), and arrive in Rome prior to Paul (Rom. 16:3-4). In other words, Prisca and Aquila appear in the same cities as Paul and in the same order. If, as seems likely, their role in Rome was to prepare for Paul's arrival, is it not likely that he placed them in Ephesus for the same reason?

The Jerusalem Conference

From Antioch to Jerusalem

Did Paul go directly to Jerusalem from Ephesus? The text we have just seen (Acts 18:22) gives a clear affirmative answer. But this is what one would expect of Luke. By placing the journey into Europe (Acts 16-18) after the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15), Luke intended to co-opt Paul, that is, to detach him from Antioch and make him an extension of the missionary effort of Jerusalem. Thus it was imperative that Paul should return to Jerusalem after having established Christianity in Greece.

The journey into Europe, however, antedates Paul's second visit to Jerusalem, and in Galatians he makes it perfectly clear that at no time was he ever an emissary of Jerusalem. He did go there after his conversion, but simply to make a brief visit to Cephas (Gal. 1:18), and the agreement they made regarding their respective spheres of activity did not in any way imply that he was subordinate to Peter, at least as far as Paul was concerned (Gal. 2:7b-8). The implication of the difference between the address of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and those of all subsequent letters, was also noted, namely, when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians his missionary work was under the aegis of the church of Antioch. This relationship continued until the incident narrated in Galatians 2:11-14. One must assume, therefore, that Paul in fact returned from Greece to Antioch his home base. There would have been no reason for a detour to Jerusalem.

This inference is supported, and the possibility of an accidental visit due to a boat sailing to Antioch being driven off course excluded, by the fact that Barnabas was with Paul in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1). Had he accompanied Paul on the long journey across Asia Minor into Greece, Paul's failure to mention him in 2 Corinthians 1:19 and in 1 and 2 Thessalonians is inexplicable. The only feasible inference, namely that he was not with Paul at the foundation of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth, is confirmed by Luke, according to whom, {page 132} Paul and Barnabas had planned a joint missionary journey, but quarrelled over John Mark, and thereafter went their separate ways (Acts 15:36-41). Whatever the value of his explanation, the important thing is that Luke was aware that Barnabas was not Paul's companion on the 'second journey'.

Where, then, could Paul have encountered Barnabas? The speculative possibilities are almost limitless-e.g. Paul's ship from Ephesus put in at Cyprus, the homeland of Barnabas (Acts 4:36-7) to which he had returned (Acts 15:39)-but the most plausible place for the meeting is Antioch, which was the home base of both missionaries. Formally stated by Luke (Acts 13:1-3), this is implied by Galatians 2:11-14; whereas Peter and the people of James 'come' to Antioch, Paul and Barnabas are simply there.

The Occasion of the Conference

It will gradually become clear that Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem as delegates of the church of Antioch. Paul, however, insists that he went up to Jerusalem on account of a revelation (Gal. 2:2). His reason for putting this interpretation on his voyage is to head off the accusation made by his opponents in Galatia that by going to Jerusalem, he acknowledged the superiority of the Jerusalem apostles, and thereby at least implicitly put himself under their orders. There must have been a serious practical reason which forced two committed missionaries to divert from their real task to participate in a meeting in an area which was not their concern.

Lüdemann finds this reason in the dispute between Peter and Paul at Antioch in Galatians 2:11-14, which he dates prior to the conference in Jerusalem. While he correctly argues that a strict chronological order need not be followed in the narratio, his hypothesis is excluded by one simple observation. If Lüdemann is right, at the Jerusalem Conference Paul and Barnabas should have been opposed to one another, because the latter ceased to eat with Gentile Christians (Gal. 2:13), thereby implying that they should conform to Jewish law. In fact, however, at the conference Paul and Barnabas were on the same side because the pillars 'gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship that we should go to the Gentiles' (Gal. 2:9). Moreover, the issue at Jerusalem concerned the circumcision of Gentile converts, not the problem of dietary laws, which subsequently became the issue at Antioch.13

 {page 133} What, then, forced Paul to go to Jerusalem? His own answer is hidden in the confused language of Galatians 2:4-5. Certain facts are clear but not their precise relationships. He describes those who insisted on the circumcision of Gentile converts in most derogatory terms; they are 'false brethren' who were 'secretly smuggled in' in order 'to spy'. Unfortunately he does not tell us where this 'infiltration' took place. Such language, however, implies that his opponents 'are alien to the body into which they have come'. Thus a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quem have to be determined. Within the framework of a Jerusalem-Antioch axis there are two possibilities: either conservatives from Jerusalem infiltrated Antioch or conservatives from Antioch infiltrated Jerusalem. Given that Jerusalem was much more conservative than Antioch (cf. Gal. 2:12), the latter hypothesis is most unlikely. Hence, it is probable that Paul had in mind pro-circumcision believers from Jerusalem, who created trouble in a community to which they did not belong, namely, Antioch. It goes without saying, of course, that, once the debate had been transferred to Jerusalem, these people would also make their case there.

Thus if one had to imagine a scenario to explain the conference at Jerusalem on the basis of the letters alone, it would be difficult to better Luke's,

But some men came down from Judaea and were teaching the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.' And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about the question.  (Acts 15:1-2)

For Luke, therefore, Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem because they were selected to go as members of an official delegation. This is the antithesis of what we find in Galatians, where by his silence, his stress on a revelation as the motive of his visit, and his use of the first-person singular, Paul insinuates his independence of the church of Antioch. In this instance, however, Luke's version is preferable. The needs of the letter to the Galatians forced Paul to distance himself from Antioch as much as from Jerusalem. As we shall see when dealing with Galatians 2:11-14, the shift in the position of Antioch with respect to Gentile converts brought it into line with the practice of Jerusalem. Under such circumstances for Paul to acknowledge his dependence on Antioch, while at the same time disagreeing with its policies, would have been to give arms to his opponents in Galatia. The agreement with Peter made fourteen {page 134} years earlier (Gal. 2:7 b-8) could not have been invoked because it concerned only the fact of a Gentile mission, and not the conditions under which Gentiles could be received into the church.

Paul manages to give the impression that the appearance of aggressive missionaries of the Law-observant Jerusalem church in Antioch, and later in Galatia, Macedonia, and Corinth, was inspired by unworthy motives. But he never specifies what they were. He must have had a severe shock when he found his missionary practice called into question when he returned to Antioch. Manifestly he saw only the danger to his life-work. Under such conditions tolerant understanding of the concerns of those with a different theology was not a psychological option. Subconsciously, his resistence may also have had roots in an awareness that those who differed from him did so on grounds that were difficult to dispute.

At this stage in the history of the church it was taken for granted by all, including Paul, that salvation was related to the chosen people, who worshipped the one God, and to whom he had sent his Messiah. The salvation question as far as Gentiles were concerned was: how can they be integrated into God's messianic people? Paul's adversaries could point to situations in which Jesus not only obeyed the Law (e.g. when he went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem) but proclaimed its eternal value (Matt. 5:18-19) an(i recommended obedience to it (Mark 1:40-5). Not unnaturally, therefore, they took it for granted that converts to Christianity should accept the same obligations as converts to Judaism. This point of view is documented in the Jewish Christian pseud-epigraph The Epistle of Peter to James:

Some from among the Gentiles have rejected my [Peter's] lawful preaching and have preferred a lawless and absurd doctrine of the man who is my enemy [Paul]. And indeed some have attempted, while I am still alive, to distort my words by interpretations of many sorts, as if I taught the dissolution of the law and, although I was of this opinion, did not express it openly. But that may God forbid! For to do such a thing means to act contrary to the law of God which was made known by Moses and was confirmed by our Lord in its everlasting continuance. For he said, 'The heavens and the earth will pass away, but one jot or one tittle shall not pass away from the law'.  (2. 3-5 )

Given the intense eschatological expectation of the beginnings of the Jesus movement, it is most unlikely that anyone among the first generation of Christians thought that Jerusalem would ever lose its centrality in determining the orientation of Christianity. The imminence of the Parousia, it was felt, guaranteed that the authority of Jerusalem would not be overwhelmed.

{page 135} Traditionally a massive influx of Gentiles would take place only in the eschaton. In the present there simply would not be enough time for great numbers of pagans to be converted.

This projection, based on the painful slowness of the mission to Jews, failed to take into account the appeal the gospel would have for pagans. The tremendous success of the missionary effort of the church at Antioch, which demanded only faith in Jesus Christ for conversion, brought home to some Law-observant Jewish Christians in Jerusalem that their vision of the church as the flowering of Judaism was in serious danger. If things were permitted to continue as they were, they foresaw themselves becoming an ever smaller minority in an institution whose only ties to Judaism were (1) the racial identity of its founder and of the first generation of his disciples, and (2) recognition of the Old Testament as the record of God's preparatory work for the advent of Jesus Christ. This, they decided, must not be permitted to happen.

Such Law-observant Jewish Christians had only two options in order to fight back. On the one hand, they could contest the validity of Paul's approach, while on the other they could attempt to convert Gentiles who would accept circumcision. The alternatives were not mutually exclusive. And a two-pronged attack developed. The first, as we have seen above, is documented by Galatians 2 and Acts 15. The second, as J. L. Martyn has pointed out, is attested by the Clementine Recognitions:

It was necessary that the Gentiles should be called into the place of those [Jews] who did not believe [in Jesus as the Messiah], so that the number might be filled up which had been shown [by God] to Abraham. Thus the preaching of the blessed Kingdom of God is sent into all the world.  (1. 42.1)

The mention of Abraham is manifestly an allusion to the promise 'in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed' (LXX Gen. 12:3), which is explained by Ben Sira, 'The Lord therefore promised him on oath to bless the nations through his descendants' (44:21; cf. Jer. 4:2). Law-observant Jewish Christians would have had no difficulty in considering this promise adequate legitimiza-tion for a mission to Gentiles. The advent of the Messiah in the person of Jesus of Nazareth signalled the providential moment when the privileges of election and covenant should be extended to pagans, but obviously on the same conditions which governed their enjoyment by Jews, namely, observance of the {page 136} Law. Thus there began a movement among Jewish Christians to invite Gentiles to a Jewish life-style rooted in belief in Jesus.

The Meeting in Jerusalem

What must have been a long, complex, and stormy meeting in Jerusalem is compressed by Paul into two verses which succinctly articulate the problem and its solution.

First the problem: 'I laid before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles-but privately before the men of eminence-lest somehow I should run or had run in vain' (Gal. 2:2b). 'The gospel' is a very broad concept, but here it can only mean that faith in Jesus Christ is the one indispensable condition for salvation; everything else is secondary and fundamentally irrelevant. This, as far as Paul was concerned, was the one item on the agenda. Paul, it must be stressed, at this stage is not saying that obedience to the Law is wrong, but only that it is unnecessary.

It is impossible to decide whether there were one or two meetings, i.e. with the church as a whole and subsequently with the leadership group identified as James, Cephas, and John (Gal. 2: g), or only with the latter. In any case, it was the troika who made the critical decision in the name of the community whose 'pillars' they were.

The official tone of 'to submit something for consideration to somebody' (Gal. 2:2) is implicit recognition of the authority of the Jerusalem church, which Paul attempts to attenuate by calling its leaders 'men of eminence', which could be taken in a derogatory or ironic sense. Paul was aware that he could not force, but only await, a decision. The extreme level of his anxiety is betrayed by the confession that, if the decision went against him, all that he had done so far would be in vain. The language may reflect what Paul's opponents were currently telling the Galatians, namely, without obedience to the Law their conversion was ineffective in terms of salvation. Schlier, thus, opts for what at first sight seems to be the most natural interpretation, and the one sup- {page 137} ported by Tertullian and Jerome, i.e. that Paul had doubts about the validity of his gospel which could be assuaged only by confirmation by the mother church.

Others, however, have seen that this interpretation is excluded by Galatians 1:11-12, where Paul formally articulates the certitude he experienced in the revelation of his encounter with Christ. He needed no confirmation from any external authority; he was utterly convinced that he was right. The troika could never persuade him that he was wrong, but they could destroy what he had achieved, and they could systematically oppose any future ministry. Envoys could be sent to the communities he had founded to inform them that Paul was an isolated, unrepresentative maverick, since all authentic followers of Jesus observed the Law. The threat was very real. Paul had few illusions about his converts' loyalty to his theological principles. Many misunderstood his teaching, and those who did understand could easily be persuaded that they were in error. He knew the difficulties of living in freedom, and he had experienced the spurious but seductive security that rules and regulations offered.

The solution: 'But not even Titus, who was with me and was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcized' (Gal. 2:3). Paul dramatizes the response of Jerusalem by personalizing it. Titus found himself the test case which decided a question of principle. The fact that Titus was not required to undergo the operation made it clear that circumcision was not necessary for salvation.

Some have detected a certain ambiguity: was Titus not compelled or not circumcized? The former interpretation could imply that he had freely accepted circumcision once the principle had been established. It arose because some witnesses to Galatians 2:5 lack the negative particle oude and so have Paul saying 'to them [those demanding that Titus be circumcized] we yielded for a moment'. In other words, having won his point that circumcision was not necessary, Paul made a graceful concession to his opponents by permitting the circumcision of Titus. And thereby showed his consistency, because according to Acts 16:3 he had Timothy circumcized. Lagrange, however, has shown that it {page 138} was precisely the desire to harmonize Acts and Galatians that led to the omission of the negative particle. Paul in fact made no concession with respect to Titus, because none had been demanded of him; 'the men of eminence added nothing to me' (Gal. 2:6). They imposed no conditions on his ministry. He could continue as he had begun.

Why Did James Agree With Paul On Circumcision?

We have seen the reasons why certain Law-observant Jewish Christians wanted to impose circumcision on Paul's converts. Why did others object to this proposal? In other words, how did Paul persuade James, Cephas, and John? The possibility that they were predisposed in his favour would seem to be excluded by the subsequent activity of James in Antioch, where he is strongly in favour of the maintenance of Jewish practices. The arguments used by those who insisted on the circumcision of all converts must have appealed to James, and we have seen that their force is considerable. Circumcision was the traditional sign of belonging to the covenant people which was still seen by all Christians as the divine channel of salvation.

It is unreasonable to assume that the troika accepted Paul's position against the opposition of the entire Jerusalem church whose 'pillars' they were. The fact that Paul singles out 'false brethren' for provoking the crisis insinuates that others in the Jerusalem church favoured his liberal view. Hence, James could be assured of backing from certain members of by far the biggest block in the Jerusalem church, Jewish Christians. This, however, simply pushes the question back a stage; it does not answer it. How and why had these come to the conviction that Gentiles should not be circumcised?

It is not sufficient to appeal to a division within Judaism on whether proselytes should be circumcised. Not only is it unreasonable to assume that a similar division should automatically follow within the Christian church, but there is no real evidence that there was a signficant body of opinion within Judaism opposed to circumcision. No one had any doubt as to the mandatory character of circumcision, even if there were those who attempted to hide it, or who spiritualized it for converts. Moreover, when conversion without cir- {page 139} cumcision was contested, circumcision was imposed. As far as Jewish Christians were concerned, circumcision was the traditional sign of belonging to the covenant people, which was seen as the divine channel of salvation.

Nor is it sufficient to claim that James and the others started from the premiss that 'the law was given solely to Israel', and thus were led to the conclusion that it could not be applied to Gentile converts. Not only does this fail to respect the intrinsic link, admitted by all in the early church, between salvation through faith in Jesus and belonging to the messianic people, but it makes the position of Paul's opponents inexplicable.

If the religious situation of Judaism throws no light on the issue, perhaps its political situation might be more illuminating. In the Roman empire the Jews had certain rights which were clearly and precisely defined in law. Such privileges, however, were enjoyed at the good pleasure of the emperor, and never stood in the way of imperial action against Jews. Thus in ad 19 Tiberius expelled the Jews from Rome. When the Nabataeans attacked and routed the troops of Herod Antipas, probably in ad 29, Rome exacted no vengeance. The situation deteriorated seriously when Gaius (Caligula) came to power in ad 37. His weakness permitted a violent outburst of anti-Semitism in Alexandria in the middle of ad 38. Synagogues were burnt or desecrated, and the mob persuaded A. Avillius Flaccus, the prefect of Egypt, to downgrade the status of Jews in Alexandria to that of aliens without right of domicile. Many Jews were massacred, and those who survived were forced into an overcrowded ghetto. Violence ceased with the arrest of Flaccus and the arrival of a new prefect, C. Vitrasius Pollio, in October, but traditional Jewish rights were not immediately restored.

Jews in Palestine can hardly have been unaware of what was happening to their co-religionists in Egypt, and feared for themselves. They had good reason. In the spring of ad 40, in reprisal for Jewish destruction of an altar of the imperial cult set up in Jamnia, the emperor Gaius ordered the legate of Syria, Publius Petronius (ad 39-41), to transform the Temple in Jerusalem into an imperial shrine by erecting a giant statue of the emperor as Jupiter in the Holy of Holies. He was authorized to use two of his four legions to enforce the decision. Petronius managed to delay implementation of his orders until Agrippa I in late summer persuaded Gaius to change his mind. For the Jews of Palestine it {page 140} must have been a nerve-wracking six months as they prepared to sacrifice themselves rather than submit. They could never be fully at ease while Gaius lived. In fact he was planning to go back on his word when he was assassinated on 24 January 41.

On his accession Claudius (ad 41-54) moved quickly to undo the damage caused by the madness of Gaius. The emperor made it very clear, however, that he considered the Jews a disruptive ferment throughout the empire, and that their enjoyment of their privileges was conditional on good behaviour. Thus, though the right of religious assembly was guaranteed, when a disturbance broke out in a Roman synagogue in ad 41 Claudius closed the synagogue and expelled the agitators from the city. The Jews were served unambiguous notice that they were on probation.

The next Roman move came in response to the appearance of a false Messiah. In the spring of ad 45 the procurator of Judaea, Cuspius Fadus (ad 44-?46) ordered that the vestments of the High Priest (without which he could not function), which had been released to the Jews by Vitellius in ad 36, should be restored to Roman custody and housed in the Antonia fortress. The Jews persuaded Claudius to rescind the order, but once again they were made to feel fortunate. Whatever their rights, the decision could very easily have gone against them. Their awareness of the fragility of their position was intensified by two episodes which took place when Ventidius Cumanus (ad 48-52) was procurator of Judaea. Both involved senseless deliberate provocation by individual soldiers. The first was permitted to escape unscathed, even though a great many Jews died. The second was executed, but a scroll of the Law had been ripped apart and burnt.

The inevitable consequence of such repeated incidents-many others may not have been recorded-was a profound sense of insecurity among Jews. If the Romans could not be trusted, then there was nothing for it but for Jews to take matters into their own hands. This is precisely what happened on one of the pilgrimage feasts in ad 51. When Cumanus did not arrest the Samaritans who had slaughtered Galileans en route to Jerusalem, their friends and other Jews took their own vengeance on the Samaritans. Things had reached such a pass {page 141} that any perceptive observer could have predicted growing tension between the Jews and Rome with an ever increasing potential for violence. Clearly it was imperative for Jews to stand together. Only if they were totally united could they survive. Any diminution of commitment could be fatal.

The dilemma in which this placed politically conscious Jewish Christians is obvious. They were first and foremost Jews. All that separated them from their brethren was their acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Even without pressure from their co-religionists, their own instincts would have told them that the beginning of the 50s was a time to affirm, not to dilute, Jewish identity. Which end would the circumcision of Gentile converts achieve? Manifestly the latter. To circumcize Gentile converts was to accept them publicly as Jews, even though they had no attachment to Judaism; they were followers of Christ not of Moses. What loyalty to the Jewish people could be expected of such individuals when hostile pressures began to take their toll? In a crisis could any nationalistic Jew really trust them? Would such nominal Jews be prepared to sacrifice their lives for the Temple and the Law?

Questions such as these must have occurred to the more far-sighted members of the Jerusalem church. What seemed to be right in the present could be seen to be a dangerous threat in the not too distant future. James, I suggest, was one of these. As the leader of the Jerusalem church he was swayed, not by theological reasons, but by practical considerations. Those who demanded the circumcision of Gentile converts might be correct in theory, but it was not the moment to insist on principle. Whatever his personal inclinations, historical circumstances conspired to make James want to find justification for not circumcising Gentile believers. This need made him receptive to Paul's personality and arguments. No more than he had fourteen years earlier (Gal. 1:19), could he doubt the sincerity with which Paul explained the implications of his conversion. Nor could he deny the grace manifested in the number of Gentiles who accepted the Pauline gospel (Gal. 2:9a). Similar success, presumably, was duplicated by Barnabas elsewhere. Such evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit manifested the divine will that Gentiles should be admitted to the church as Gentiles.

If this line of argument is correct, it should have as a corollary a concern on the part of James to strengthen the identity of Christians who were of Jewish origin by insisting on more exacting observance of Jewish practices. As we shall see, this is precisely what happened at Antioch (Gal. 2:11- 14).

{page 142}

The Agreement

Paul expresses the agreement reached in Jerusalem thus: 'James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcision' (Gal. 2:9). The inclusion of Barnabas underlines, not only that Paul was but one of a number of missionaries to the Gentiles, but also that the exception from circumcision accorded his converts was valid for all others.

The frustration and anger which Paul experienced when Law-observant Jewish Christians appeared in his communities in Galatia and Corinth suggests that the terms of the agreement might not be as unambiguous as one would wish. The possibility that both sides could have read it in different ways is confirmed by the variety of interpretations current among scholars.

E. Burton argues for a geographical meaning,

The use of eis ta ethne rather than tois ethnesin, therefore, favours the conclusion that the division, though on a basis of preponderant nationality, was nevertheless territorial rather than racial. This conclusion is, moreover, confirmed by the fact that twice in this epistle (1:16; 2:2) Paul has spoken unambiguously of the Gentiles as those among (en) whom he preached the gospel, and that he has nowhere in this epistle or elsewhere used the preposition eis after euangelizomai or kerysso to express the thought 'to preach to'.... The whole evidence, therefore, clearly indicates the meaning of the agreement was that Paul and Barnabas were to preach the gospel in Gentile lands, the other apostles in Jewish lands.

Abstracting from the spurious clarity of the philological argument, one has only to ask the precise meaning of'Jewish lands' to see the weakness of this position. In Judaea alone, possibly in Galilee and Perea, was there a preponderance of Jews. Yet all together they numbered less than a million, whereas estimates of the Jewish population of the Roman empire range from four to eight million. It is highly unlikely that James and the others intended to cede all these potential converts to Paul.

Those who appreciate the force of this objection go to the other extreme and understand the agreement in exclusively ethnic terms. Paul and Barnabas could approach Gentiles anywhere but not Jews, whereas missionaries from Jerusalem could preach to Jews anywhere but not to Gentiles. This inter- {page 143} pretation gives rise to two serious problems. The cogency of the arguments justifying a Judaizing approach to Gentiles has been emphasized above. It is difficult to think that Paul's opponents would abandon such a well-founded position. Moreover, if they were prepared to give way on Paul's gospel, they had a right to expect that both he and the 'pillars' would accept their version of the Gentile mission. It is not as if it would become a squabble over a small number of possible converts. The world was vast and the number of Gentiles uncountable. Secondly, the ethnic understanding of the agreement would deny Paul access to Diaspora synagogues, and there is no hint that he felt so restricted. On the contrary, many arguments in his letters are unintelligible without a reasonable knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures, which implies that there were at least some Jews, and certainly God-fearers in his communities. There is also another side to this objection. Is it reasonable to think that Judaizers would have felt themselves bound to ignore 'God-fearers', who had shown themselves so sympathetic to Judaism that they participated in its prayers and study, just because they were Gentiles?

The fact that neither the geographical nor the ethnic interpretation of the Jerusalem agreement can explain what actually happened in the missionary expansion of the early church forces us to look at the agreement from another perspective. The issue at the meeting was not the legitimacy of a mission to Gentiles, but the conditions under which Gentiles could be accepted as members of the church. Jerusalem accepted that Paul need require nothing more of them than faith in Jesus Christ. What the agreement meant as far as Paul and Barnabas were concerned was that they need not circumcise their converts. One would assume, in the light of the points made above, that other missionaries were free to circumcise their recruits. The agreement, in other words, concerned neither territory nor race, but missionary practice.

Thus Paul and Barnabas were free to accept converts from both Judaism and paganism, as were their opponents. Both parties to the agreement, therefore, recognized and accepted mixed communities. Whether the implications were as clear to Paul and Barnabas as they were to their rivals remains to be seen. The Judaizers could look forward to churches that were mixed only in theory, since Gentile converts who accepted circumcision would naturally also accept other Jewish observances. For all practical purposes they were Jewish communities (cf. Acts 2:42-7). Since Paul and Barnabas had resisted attempts to force Gentiles to live like Jews, it must be assumed that they recognized that they had no mandate to force Jewish converts to live like Gentiles. All that they demanded of each convert was belief in Christ. Jewish converts, therefore, were at liberty to continue to obey the Law and, if they wished, to circumcise their {page 144} children. Such communities were truly mixed and inherently unstable, because their components followed different rules. Often what was important to one part of the community was irrelevant to the other. If they blended to the point of creating a genuine unity, it can only have been because of conscious concessions by both sides. Such arrangements were a permanent source of tension because they were continually renegotiable, as the case of the church of Antioch illustrates.

The Collection

Paul concludes his account of the meeting in Jerusalem with the words, 'all they asked was that we should remember the poor, which very thing I was eager to do' (Gal. 2:10). A number of commentators capitalize 'The Poor', and understand 'remember' in the sense of an acknowledgement of personal merits. Thus, we are told, the agreement 'stipulated that the Gentile Jesus believers were to give recognition to the exemplary performance on the part of their fellow believers in Jerusalem'. It is perhaps not impossible that this was what the Pillars of the Jerusalem church had in mind when they invited Paul to accept the condition, but it is most improbable that it was Paul's interpretation.

With the exception of the Christological statement in 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul always uses 'poor' (2 Cor. 6:10; Gal. 4:9) and 'poverty' (2 Cor. 8:3) in their natural material sense. The socio-economic meaning is confirmed by his reference to 'the poor among the saints in Jerusalem' (Rom. 15:26), where it is most improbable that the genitive is anything but partitive. The natural reading is that some believers were in need. How many cannot be determined, but the formulation does not exclude a high proportion of the community.

Those who espouse a more spiritual interpretation do in fact recognize an economic dimension, but they formulate the problem in such a way as to make need a by-product of unrealistic detachment. This is to wilfully ignore what J. Jeremias has established regarding social conditions in Jerusalem in the first century:

Jerusalem in the time of Jesus was already a centre for mendicancy; it was encouraged because alms-giving was regarded as particularly meritorious {page 145} when done in the Holy City Jerusalem had already in Jesus' time become a

city of idlers, and the considerable proletariat living on the religious importance of the city was one of its most outstanding peculiarities.

That a number of Christians belonged to this class is shown by the note in Acts to the effect that wealthy members of the community sold land and houses in order to subsidize needy members of the community (Acts 2:45; 4:34-5). Unless rich new members were regularly recruited, this system could have only one result; the community would run out of money. Since Christians were persecuted by at least some Jews (Gal. 1:22-3), the possibility of aid from traditional Jewish sources steadily diminished. That left only the burgeoning Gentile church, whose members, though not rich, were almost certainly better off than the majority of the Jerusalem community.

The shift from the plural to the singular in Galatians 2:10 is not without significance. The basic agreement was between churches. Jerusalem had made a fundamental concession to Antioch and intended to profit from it. As a mere agent of Antioch, Paul had no personal responsibility for the collection of funds, and once he had broken with Antioch (Gal. 2:11-14), he was in no way officially involved. His conscience, however, thought otherwise. Paul had lived in Jerusalem long enough to be fully aware of the social conditions of the city. Coming from a well-established Diaspora community, he may even have wished, while still a Pharisee, that Jews abroad would do more for their coreligionists in Jerusalem. Now that he had the opportunity to invite others indebted to him to alleviate some of the misery of poor Christians in the Holy City did he have any choice? Common sense and the subsequent witness of 2 Corinthians 8 combine to exclude the possibility that Paul might have used his differences with the authorities in Jerusalem as an excuse to avoid a simple imperative of charity. The opportunity to pour burning coals on the head of his enemies (Rom. 12:20) might have been an added attraction!

Once the business of the Antioch delegation had been completed in Jerusalem, there was no need for Paul to hang around there. Fortified by the affirmation he had received, he would have been eager to strike out into new mission fields. Already autumn, it was too late in the year for boats to be still at sea. In any case sailing to Europe was always an extremely slow and laborious business. The prevailing wind was from the west, and boats of the period were not rigged to sail into the wind efficiently. They had to anchor when the wind was contrary, and then scramble to take advantage of any favourable breeze. The decision to go north overland was the obvious one, even if Paul were not {page 146} obligated to return to Antioch with Barnabas to report the outcome of the conference in Jerusalem. By November the first snows had already fallen on the Anatolian plateau, and passage beyond the Cilician Gates, if not impossible, was highly dangerous. Hence, we must assume that Paul and Barnabas spent the winter of ad 51-52 in Antioch.

Antioch And Its Jews

At the time with which we are concerned Antioch-on-the-Orontes-so-called to distinguish it from the fifteen other cities endowed with the same name by a single founder, Seleucus I Nicator (311-281 bc)-was the third largest city in the Roman empire, surpassed only by Rome and Alexandria. The prime position at the intersection of north-south and east-west trade routes, which Corinth enjoyed as a birthright, was created for Antioch. The north-south route already existed, but the building of a harbour, Seleucia Pieria, 20 miles (32 km.) to the west at the mouth of the Orontes river, encouraged exploitation of the river valley as a trade route through the mountains to the Fertile Crescent.

The original population was artificially assembled from Macedonians, Athenians, and Jews, plus some native Syrians who were very much second-class citizens. Under the Seleucids the grid-plan original city grew by the progressive and systematic addition of three further areas. The most conservative estimate puts the population of Antioch in the first century ad at ioo,ooo. When the legions tramped into the east in 64 bc, Pompey made Antioch the capital of the new Roman province of Syria. Emperors and kings vied for the honour of augmenting its splendour and beauty. Herod the Great, for example, gave it the most majestic cardo maximus in the known world by paving the 9.5 metre (31 feet) wide street with marble, and building 9.8 metre (32 feet) wide covered sidewalks along both sides of its entire 3.2 km. (2 miles) length.

By Herod's time the Jewish community was well established. According to Josephus, the Jews in Syria were particularly numerous and were concentrated in Antioch (JWj. 43-5). The validity of his claim that Jews as such were full citizens of Antioch is suspect because of the lack of any independent confirmation. Some may well have acquired citizenship, but as a group the Jews would have been resident aliens organized as a separate politeuma within the body politic. This gave them an official position in the city, but without having a {page 147} voice in its affairs. None the less they were masters of their own affairs with clearly defined rights, which at Antioch were displayed publicly on bronze tablets.

The Foundation of the Church

Paul tells us nothing about the evangelization of Antioch. Luke's rather detailed account (Acts 11:19-26) is a complex mix of tradition and redaction. His source attributes the foundation of the church to 'certain people from Cyprus and Cyrene who, having come to Antioch, spoke to the Greeks' (Acts 11:20). Luke himself created Acts 11:19, but J. Taylor convincingly argues that he drew on an ill-defined tradition of a mission from Jerusalem to Jews in Antioch. How these two missions were related to one another remains obscure, but a mixed church certainly existed there by the end of the 30s. It was in this community that Paul and Barnabas ministered for at least a year. According to the continuation of Luke's source, Barnabas arrived in Antioch from Jerusalem, and subsequently recruited Saul from Tarsus (cf. Gal. 1:21). The implication of Luke's source that the evangelization of Antioch was an unimpeded success is accentuated by his redactional additions. Only one brief note hints at savage currents roiling beneath the placid surface of the narrative. He tells us that 'in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians' (Acts 11:26). J. Taylor has drawn attention to the fact that in non-Christian first-century sources the names 'Christ' and 'Christians' are invariably associated with public disorders and crimes, and linked this fact to three reports of events in Antioch all of which are dated to the same year, namely, ad 39-40. The first is the note by the Byzantine chronicler John Malalas that many Jews were killed in a pogrom, whose improbable cause is said to have been a dispute between two circus factions. The second is the synthesis of a series of hints in Josephus that the affair of Gaius' statue provoked a pogrom similar to that which occurred at the same time in Alexandria under Flaccus.92

 {page 148} The third is the notice in the Chronicle of Eusebius that the founder(s) of the church in Antioch left the city for Rome.

The natural impression that the four events are somehow related is given expression by Taylor in a simple but eminently plausible hypothesis: 'the disciples of Jesus were first called Christians at Antioch in connexion with a disturbance among the Jewish population of the city in the third year of Gaius (ad 39-40), and that this disturbance had to do with the preaching of the Gospel and the beginning of the church at Antioch'. To be more specific is to be more speculative, but the chain of events has a certain inevitability. The Christian missionaries preached Jesus as the Messiah, which could be understood in political terms as a call to liberation. In the extremely tense atmosphere created by the announcement of Gaius' proposed desecration of the temple, Jewish extremists seized this as a pretext to whip up opposition to Rome. In the process they alienated the Antiochenes who rose against them and killed many. When Petronius succeeded in stopping the violence, he looked for the instigators. Realizing that they were likely to be blamed, the founders of the church departed, leaving behind converts who found themselves landed with a name which identified them as troublemakers capable of sedition.

If this estimate of the situation in Antioch in the spring of ad 40 is correct, it provides a very simple explanation of why the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to Antioch. In view of the intense communication between Jerusalem and Antioch engendered by the affair of the statue of Gaius, there is nothing implausible in news of the fracas for which Christians were blamed reaching Jerusalem very quickly. The fate of the young community, which had lost its leadership, naturally would be a matter of great concern to believers in Jerusalem. The fraternal response would be to fill that gap by sending an experienced Jewish Christian from the Diaspora (Acts 4:36). Barnabas did not go to Antioch to inspect or correct, but to stabilize a demoralized community. His name, it will be recalled, means 'son of encouragement' (Acts 4:36); this quality might explain why he was selected for the mission, or the name could be due to what he achieved at Antioch. In this scenario Barnabas' recruitment of Saul was a most astute tactical move. For a persecuted community, the symbolic value of a converted persecutor of the church could not be overemphasized. The presence of Saul among the distressed believers of Antioch verified the power of grace promised in the gospel. God was all-powerful. There was hope for the future.

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The Problems Of A Mixed Community

There is no doubt that, once it overcame its initial difficulties, the church at Antioch flourished. The missionary outreach attested by Acts reveals a level of energetic commitment to the Good News that betrays a confident and vital community. Given the mixture of Jews and Gentiles (Gal. 2:12-13), this was no mean achievement, and it is necessary to assess the factors which contributed to it.

Unlike the Jews whose synagogues were legally recognized public meeting-places, the first Christians had to make do with the hospitality offered by the more affluent members of the community. There is no evidence that any of these belonged to the patrician class which owned vast mansions. In consequence, space became a problem as the size of the church increased. The number of Christians in Antioch cannot be determined, but at the very least it cannot be less than the minimum of 50 postulated for Corinth. It would have been difficult to fit all these into the public space of the average house of a moderately wealthy person. Presumably this is why Paul speaks so rarely of a meeting of'the whole church' (Rom. 16:23; 1 Cor. 14:23). If believers met only as a single group the adjective 'whole' is unnecessary. Its use necessarily implies the existence of sub-groups, 'the church in the home of X' (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2). Hence, we must assume, that at Antioch for purely practical reasons the Christian community was made up of a number of house-churches.

Such an arrangement had the advantage of offering converts a choice. While in theory they were joining a single community, in practice they had to opt for one particular house-church among a number. Many and highly diverse factors no doubt influenced selection, but it would be unrealistic to assume that individual house-churches had both Jewish and Gentile members. The trend must have been towards the creation of Gentile and Jewish house-churches, which were grouped together under the umbrella of one ekklesia. Unless the umbrella was to be a complete fiction, however, there had to be strong and regular links between the different house-churches.

The most important of such links was table-fellowship. In the ancient Near East a formal meal was the prime social event. To share food was to initiate or reinforce a social bonding which implied permanent commitment and deep ethical obligation. In the eyes of their contemporaries there would have been {page 150} no genuine community among Christians unless, in addition to the ritual of the Eucharist, they gathered around a common table.

Nowhere was the significance of the meal more accentuated than in Judaism. As we have seen above, 67 per cent of Pharisaic legislation which can be dated with some plausibility to the pre-AD 70 period is concerned with dietary laws, 229 specific rulings out of 341." Not all Jews would have been as scrupulous as the Pharisees. It is equally certain, however, that the vast majority would have observed the fundamental distinction between clean and unclean food, and would have insisted on the former being entirely drained of blood (cf. Acts 10:14). It was a matter of principle for which their ancestors had died (1 Macc 1:62-3), and it was one of the most obvious identity markers of the Jewish religion. 'Separate yourselves from the nations, and eat not with them' (Jub. 22. 16). What this meant in practice for relations between Jews and Gentiles is well spelt out by E. P. Sanders, 'All the Jewish evidence thus far considered presents the legal situation perfectly clearly: There was no barrier to social intercourse with Gentiles, as long as one did not eat their meat or drink their wine.'

How then did the Jewish and Gentile house-churches of Antioch maintain any semblance of unity? Dunn rightly dismisses the two extreme possibilities, namely, that the Jews created no difficulties for Gentiles by ignoring their own laws, or that the Gentiles created no problems for Jews by adopting a Pharisaic level of dietary observance. In this latter case Peter could not have been said to have 'lived like a Gentile' (Gal. 2:14) simply because he ate with believers of pagan origin. The most probable scenario lies somewhere in the middle.

When Gentile believers dined with Jews they accepted the food offered them, even though kosher meat might not have been to their taste. When Jews dined in a Gentile house, they trusted their fellow-believers to offer them Jewish food and drink. From a Jewish perspective such trust was a significant concession. Most if not all the meat available outside Jerusalem would have been part of a pagan sacrifice, and the common assumption was that Gentiles would pollute Jewish food and drink if they got the slightest chance (m. Abodah Zarah 5.5). Hence Jews regularly brought their own food when dining with Gentiles.

The plausibility of this compromise is enhanced by the number of God-fearers at Antioch (JW 2. 463; 7. 45). If, as seems probable, the majority of Gentile converts to Christianity at Antioch were drawn from such people, whose attraction to Judaism found expression in the adoption of Jewish {page 151} practices, it would have been very easy for them to make the relatively minor concession which made table-fellowship with their Jewish fellow-believers possible. In practice all they needed to do was to buy at a Jewish shop when they had Jewish guests and to accept the added expense. 'Not only would tithes have had to have been paid on [such produce] to conform with the Law, but it is an universal economic reality that any produce required to meet specifications over and above what is normative in the market will accordingly be more expensive.'

Outside Interference

This delicate balance was disturbed by a delegation from Jerusalem; 'certain people from James came' (Gal. 2:12). Prior to their arrival Peter had had no difficulty eating regularly in Gentile house-churches. He continued for a while, but he gradually drew back and ended up by stopping completely, 'and the rest of the Jewish believers joined him in playing the hypocrite-so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy' (Gal. 2:13; trans. Longenecker). A barrier rose between the Jewish and Gentile house-churches.

What had the people sent by James insisted on to precipitate this crisis? No prohibition of mutual hospitality was necessary. All they had to do was to assert that Jewish believers should no longer assume that Gentile Christians would offer them Jewish food. Such blanket and unwarranted criticism of their standards of honour and decency must have proved extremely offensive to Gentile church members. Those who were prepared to accept the slur, and who believed that communion with Jews was essential to preserve the ideal of unity would have had to hand over control of their kitchens to Jews.

One's judgement as to whether even this would have satisfied James depends on why he intervened at Antioch. The nationalistic reasons which led him to refuse the circumcision of Gentiles also obliged him to insist on the observance of dietary laws for Jewish converts. In both cases it was a question of conserving Jewish identity, in one by refusing dilution, and in the other by positive reinforcement. In such circumstances no matter what concessions Gentile converts might be prepared to make, others would be demanded. Separation was the real objective, and Judaization only the means.

{page 152} Whatever his personal feelings, such consistency would have been imposed on James by those in Jerusalem, who had had to accept his position on circumcision. Peter found himself on the horns of a dilemma. His actions had declared the table-fellowship of the church at Antioch unobjectionable, but he had sided with James at the meeting in Jerusalem, and he was responsible for the mission to Jews (Gal. 2:8). He was now in a situation where he could not have it both ways. He had to make a public decision, and he opted for his Jewish roots. For Paul his motive could only be unworthy, and he postulates 'fear' (Gal. 2:12). It is entirely possible, however, that Peter read the situation clearly, and in great agony of mind decided for those who needed him most. The strength of the Gentile church was apparent at Antioch, and it had dynamic leaders in Paul and Barnabas. The Jewish church was struggling, and would be shattered by the defection of one of its most revered figures.

Peter's decision reinforced the authority of the Jerusalem delegation, and naturally the Jewish Christians followed his lead. What is surprising is that Barnabas also did so. This pained Paul grievously. The pathos of 'even Barnabas' (Gal. 2:13) reveals the depth of his disappointment. They had soldiered together in the mission field (1 Cor. 9:6), and in defence of the freedom of the Gentiles at Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1-10). Why did Barnabas now deny everything that he had stood for? The verb 'to carry off with' bears the connotation of irrationality and suggests that Barnabas was swayed by emotion. The nationalistic appeal of James touched his Jewish heart and blinded him to the consequences for the church at Antioch.

For Paul this development was manifestly unchristian. James, on the contrary, did not see it as at all incongruous. In fact he must have been surprised and offended by Paul's reaction. It is a tragic paradox that James's inherited conviction that separation was the only way to preserve Jewish identity was reinforced by the very argument on which Paul had insisted so passionately during the circumcision debate, namely, that belief in Jesus as the Messiah was the one essential condition for membership in the church. James could hardly be blamed for drawing the conclusion that social contacts between Jewish and Gentile converts were irrelevant.

The Law A Rival To Christ

For Paul the shock of being hoist with his own petard proved to be the providential incentive to rethink his vision of a mixed Jewish and Christian local {page 153} church in at least two respects." Fir's^ what he had always acted on in practice (cf. 1 Thess. 4:9), he now was forced to articulate as a principle. Faith in Jesus was basic, but it alone did not make a person a Christian. A believer had to live the truth in love ('Without love I am nothing'; 1 Cor. 13:2), and a believing community had to 'put on love which is the bond of perfection' (Col. 3:14). Second, whereas previously Paul had been content to permit Jewish members of the church to continue to observe the Law, he now recognized that if the Law was given the tiniest toe-hold in a local church it would ultimately take over, as it had in fact done at Antioch. If Paul did not immediately become antinomian, he was well on the way to perceiving the fundamental incompatibility of the Law and Christ.

The vivid urgency of his criticism of Peter in Galatians 2:14-21 strongly suggests that Paul is reliving the crucial argument. What he writes, therefore, is probably an adequate reflection of the thrust of what he actually said. Though his logic is not ours, the central thrust of his argument is unambiguous.

The action of the delegation from Jerusalem said in effect that, though Gentile believers were 'in Christ', they none the less remained 'sinners', because to be a Gentile and to be a sinner were one and the same thing (Gal. 2:15 b). Paul understood them to assert that the death of Christ was meaningless (Gal. 2:21b). Not only did it change nothing for the better, in fact it made the situation worse. If Jewish believers are also 'in Christ', Paul prolongs the logic, they are in an intimate union with Gentiles, and so they too must be 'sinners'. Hence Christ is nothing but an 'agent of sin' (Gal. 2:17).

To any believer in Christ the two conclusions are absurd. In consequence, the premisses from which they flow must be false. Neither Jewish nor Gentile believers are 'sinners'. What is true for one, however, is true for the other. If Gentiles are justified, Paul asserts, it cannot be in virtue of 'works of the Law', because they neither know nor execute its demands. It must be solely in virtue of their faith in Jesus Christ that they are saved (Gal. 2:16). If faith alone is 4 adequate for Gentiles, then it is also sufficient for Jews (Gal. 2:21).

Were Paul, or any other Jewish believer, to accord the Law the absolute authority it enjoyed when he was a Pharisee, he would in effect be denying Christ, the true source of authentic life (Gal. 2:20). It is no longer the Law which speaks for God, but Christ alone. Henceforth obedience is defined by reference to Christ (Gal. 6:2). Paradoxically, therefore, to obey the Law is to make oneself a transgressor (Gal. 2:18).

Whereas he had once seen the Law simply as another factor in the human situation, Antioch taught Paul that it was a dangerous rival to Christ. He saw for the first time that, if the Law was given a foothold in any community, it {page 154} would assume a dominant role. Once one imperative was obeyed, the increasing insistence of other demands would deflect attention away from Christ. It was only in his letter to the Romans, written some five years later, that Paul spelled out in detail his criticisms of the Law. But one can see in his comportment, and in the pastoral instructions he gave his communities in the interval that he became convinced, not merely that nothing in the Law was binding on believers, but that 'law as such is no longer valid for the Christian'.

Pastoral Instruction

When dealing with the ethical directives which Paul gave the Thessalonians, attention was drawn to his recognition that the witness value of believers depends on freely chosen behaviour. He instinctively refrained from imposing or prohibiting any particular act. Only when he felt he had no other choice did he issue a command ordering the community not to associate with the undisciplined (2 Thess. 3:14). No doubt he regretted the necessity, but he could still justify the precept in terms of his concern to ensure the positive impact of the church on its environment (1 Thess. 4:12).

After the incident at Antioch, this was no longer possible. Could Paul have intended his precepts to have a coercive force which he denied to the commandments of God in the Law? Could he have insisted on being obeyed, while arguing that to submit to the Law was to become a transgressor (Gal. 2:18)? In this sphere Paul proved to be totally consistent, both as regards his own practice, which had exemplar value for his converts (Gal. 4:12; 1 Cor. 11:1), and in what he said to his churches.

Paul twice quotes commands of Jesus. The first is the prohibition of divorce in 1 Cor. 7:10, which Paul accepted in a particular case (1 Cor. 7:11), not because he felt bound by it, but because he disagreed with the reasons for the divorce. In another instance, however, he found the reasons compelling and permitted a divorce (1 Cor. 7:15), thereby revealing that, despite the {page 155} imperatival form, he refused to give the prohibition of Jesus the force of a constraining precept. His attitude towards the second command is even clearer. The form in which he quotes it-'I command those who proclaim the gospel to live from the gospel' (1 Cor. 9:14)-makes it an obligation for the minister to receive, not for the community to give. Yet Paul immediately goes on to insist that he has not obeyed and will not obey; he will continue to earn his own living (1 Cor. 9:15-18). The citation of the two dominical commands underlines their value, and the respect in which they should be held, but Paul's practice indicates that he did not see them as imposing an obligation.

Since habits of speech are not automatically altered by ideological conversion, it was perhaps inevitable that Paul should occasionally command that something be done. In some cases he catches himself and introduces a correction, but in others he does not. In this he cannot be accused of inconsistency. A distinction can be drawn between the two sets of situations. He speaks in the imperative mood regarding conjugal relations (1 Cor. 7:5), and generosity in giving to the poor of Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8:7), but in both instances he immediately adds, 'I say this not as a command' (1 Cor. 7:6; 2 Cor. 8:8). The issues on which he does not correct himself concern change of social status subsequent to conversion (1 Cor. 7:17), issues raised by the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:34), and the mechanics of the transmission of the collection to Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1). Paul, in other words, is careful to avoid imposing strictly moral judgements, but has no hesitation in making administrative decisions. The latter concern purely practical matters, whereas the former involve interpersonal relations which are of the essence of Christian life. On basic moral issues, Paul will only offer advice, 'I say this for your advantage, not to lay any restraint upon you' (1 Cor. 7:35).

The assumptions behind this attitude should be clear from what has already been said about the Law, but Paul none the less makes them explicit in two passages. He refuses to oblige anyone to contribute to the collection for Jerusalem because 'Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver' (2 Cor. 9:7). The freedom of the decision is stressed both positively and negatively. It must come from the 'heart', which in biblical terms is the core of the personality. The {page 156} choice must well up from within. It cannot be forced in any way. What one is compelled to give will always be given with regret, and cannot be pleasing to God (Prov. 22:8).

The second passage is even more explicit. Paul writes to Philemon, 'Even though I have full authority in Christ to order you to do what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather beseech you' (vv. 8-9a). Paul knew that he had the personal authority to command Philemon to do the right thing concerning Onesimus, his runaway slave, namely, to receive him back without any punishment. In a subtle captatio benevolentiae Paul expects Philemon to recognize that only love is always 'fitting' for Christians. But there was also another reason, 'I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your good act might not stem from compulsion but from your own free will' (v. 14). The opposition between 'compulsion' and 'free will' is absolute; the same act cannot be both voluntary and forced. To be bound by a precept is to be incapable of acting freely. The constraint of a command makes a free choice impossible. If Philemon is to love Onesimus, the decision must be entirely his.

Only when the pattern of such Pauline passages is perceived does it become clear just how radical Paul's antinomian stance was. He would not give obedience to any law, and he would.not exact submission from his converts. He would indicate what he expected of them. He would attempt to persuade them to modify their behaviour. He would propose his own example (e.g. 1 Cor. 8:13). It would have been much easier for him to have forcibly imposed the comportment he desired. But his experience at Antioch had taught him that to operate through binding precepts would necessarily bring him and his converts back into the orbit of the Law.

Henceforth for Paul there was only the law of Christ' (Gal. 6:2b; cf. 1 Cor. 9:21). The complex debate about the meaning of this phrase is fuelled, not by its intrinsic difficulty, but by an obstinate desire on the part of certain eminent exegetes to find in Paul the basis of a binding code of Christian conduct. The vanity of this quest should be clear from what has been said above. The genitive, in consequence, is appositive (BDF §167), and the underlying idea is  clearly articulated by Philo, 'The lives of those who have earnestly followed "virtue may be called unwritten laws' (De Virt. 194; cf. VitaMoysis 1.162; trans. Yonge).

Nomos Christou should be translated as 'the law which is Christ'. The Jewish Law no longer enshrines the will of God for humanity (Rom. 2:18). Now God's will is embodied in the comportment of Christ, who both exemplifies the demand made on, and models the response of, humanity. As the immediate context {page 157}  indicates-'Bear one another's burdens' (Gal. 6:2a)-love is the sole binding imperative of the new law. It was the salient feature of Christ's humanity, and is the content of the one true precept which remains (Gal. 5:14; Rom. 13:8-10; 1 Cor. 7:19), because it is of the very essence of Christian life (1 Thess. 4:9; 1 Cor. 13:2).