Peter Was Never Condemned By Paul

Peter Was Never Condemned By Paul

Many Protestants and Catholics alike seem to believe that in Galatians 2:11 Paul condemned Peter for refusing to eat with Gentiles. However, a close Biblical and historical examination proves that it wasn't Peter that Paul was condemning, but another man.

The text reads:

Galatians 2:6-11

"But from those who seemed to be something—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man—for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me. But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter (for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles), and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do. Now when Cephas had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed;"[/b]

Take immediate note of three things:

1. Paul refers to Peter as "Πέτρῳ" or "Petrō".
2. Paul refers to the other man as "Κηφᾶς" or "Kēphas".
3. Paul seems to suddenly switch from using Πέτρῳ to Κηφᾶς without reason.

While Peter's name was Cephas,

John 1:42

"He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, 'You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas' (which means Peter)."

Paul, contextually, refers to Peter as Petro. It is highly likely, that the "Cephas" was simply another man with the same name that Paul was distinguishing from. But has this any other grounds? Yes! The early church historian Eusebius actually states this exact thing as a given fact:

Eusebius, Church History, Book 1, Chapter 12, #2 (4th century AD)

"They say that Sosthenes also, who wrote to the Corinthians with Paul, was one of them. This is the account of Clement in the fifth book of his Hypotyposes, in which he also 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."

While we no longer have Clements book titled "Hypotyposes", it's clear the view was not only Eusebius', but also St. Clement's. Cephas, then, appears to simply be one of the 70 disciples of Christ. He was a different man, not the apostle Peter. An even earlier Christian writing distinguishes the two men:

The Epistle of the Apostles, #2 (160 A.D.)

"We, John, Thomas, Peter, Andrew, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Nathanael, Judas Zelotes, and Cephas, write unto the churches of the east and the west, of the north and the south, the declaring and imparting unto you that which concerneth our Lord Jesus Christ: we do write according as we have seen and heard and touched him, after that he was risen from the dead: and how that he revealed unto us things mighty and wonderful and true."

Thus, if we are to be honest with the evidence, Paul rebuked a man named Cephas, not Petros. Many Bible translations will simply use "Peter" in both instances, but this is a faulty translation. "Cephas" is a transliteration, not a translation. We must treat it as such.