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Dr IAN ELMER… |
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CLICK HERE FOR INDEX TO THIS SERIES ON ST PAUL  There's probably a good film script in the series of commentaries Dr Ian Elmer has brought us in recent weeks exploring in some detail the fighting that went on in the early Church around the time of the first Council at Jerusalem. Unfortunately the Scriptural record is actually not clear about what actually transpired. As becomes clear through reading Ian's commentary today, to make sense of what was going on "back then" we are largely reliant on scholarly conjecture. Studying this material though is important because it has fairly direct relevance to the disputes we see still going on within the Church today. Enjoy the next thrilling instalment of the contest between the goodies and the baddies at Antioch and Jerusalem. Whose side are you on? A debate about intercommunion… According to Paul, at some stage after the conference in Jerusalem, Peter came to Antioch, where he joined fully in the social and faith life of the community (2:11-12). However, with the arrival of "some people" who had been sent as envoys of James from Jerusalem, Peter withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentiles (2:12). Paul claims that it was fear of the "circumcision party" that led not only Peter, but also Barnabas and all the Jews to separate themselves from the Gentile converts (2:12-13). Incensed by what he saw as "hypocrisy" on Peter's part, Paul accuses Peter (2:14), a Jew who until the arrival of James' people lived like a Gentile and not like a Jew, of forcing the Gentile converts at Antioch "to live like Jews".
As a mandatory rule, the Catholic Church does not permit devotees of other Christian denominations from receiving communion at a Catholic Eucharist, and Catholics are discouraged from accepting Eucharistic hospitality in other Christian churches. The situation in Antioch in 50 CE was only slightly different in that the issue of intercommunion, or table fellowship, was tied to the larger issue of Jewish identity. In particular, the James' "circumcision party" from Jerusalem were intent upon "forcing" the Gentile converts to adopt Jewish dietary and purity practices in order to maintain the Jewish character of the Jesus' Movement. Scholarly differences of interpretation… Some scholars (Dunn, 1990: 133-135) have argued that the actions of James' envoys were driven by the situation of the Church in Jerusalem, which had become particularly difficult in the light of the contemporary increase in nationalistic and militant reaction to Roman rule leading up to the outbreak of the Jewish War. By flouting Jewish sensibilities regarding the separation of Jews from Gentiles, Peter, as one of the primary leaders of the Christian movement, was leaving the Jerusalem church open to persecution from the Jews. Other scholars (Hill, 130-131) are sceptical. The rise in nationalistic discontent is probably better placed later on the eve of the Jewish revolt against Rome in 66 C.E. The escalation of militaristic ferment in Palestine was both "rapid and dramatic" with little in the way of rising tensions prior to the outbreak of war in the mid-sixties (Goodman, 1993: 7-19). In any event, it is unlikely that political concerns current in the wider Jewish community at Jerusalem would have been paramount in shaping the views of the people from James. More to the point, it is improbable that the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem would have been much interested in events that transpired in distant Syria, even if they knew of such events. Sequel to the Jerusalem Council… Paul intends his account of the incident at Antioch to be read as the sequel to that of the Council. James' people are obviously equated with the false brothers (Gal 2:4) who earlier initiated the debate at Jerusalem, part of which included a call for the circumcision of the Gentile Titus (Gal 2:3-5). More to the point, we are told that the people from James came from Jerusalem and persuaded Peter, Barnabas and the other Jews to withdraw from sharing a common table with the Gentiles, which had the effect of forcing the Gentiles to "Judaise". Once again, we are reminded of similarities to our situation today where Christians of different denominations are unable to share a common Eucharistic table. There is no doubt that the issue in Antioch was precisely that — Eucharistic hospitality. In Paul's account of this incident, Peter seems to have initially accepted the Eucharistic hospitality of the ethnically mixed community at Antioch. It may even be the case that Peter's initial actions at Antioch in sharing a common table with the Gentiles were in line with this policy vis-à-vis Eucharistic gatherings that were represented in the terms of the provisional treaty forged at Jerusalem. With the arrival of the envoys from James a new policy was implemented, which could only have amounted to a separation of the Eucharistic community into two distinct gatherings, one for the Jewish members of the community and the other for the Gentiles. The actual situation, however, was probably far more complex and was focused on more fundamental issues. Neither in 2:11-14 nor in the rest of the letter does Paul make any allusion to the Eucharist, even though it could undoubtedly have served as a powerful lesson on unity among believers (cf. 1 Cor 10:17; 11:17-34). We might imagine that, from Paul's point of view, it would make no difference whether or not the meals were Eucharistic. What really mattered was that the actions of Peter, Barnabas and the others amounted to a severing of the bonds of unity between Jewish and Gentile members of the community. This development alone indicates that no final or lasting agreement in this regard could have been struck at the Jerusalem Council. The First Schism… Ernest Haenchen (1966) has famously characterised the series of disputes at Jerusalem and Antioch, which reached its climax in this so-called "incident at Antioch" (Gal 2:11-14), as "the first confessional schism in Church history". In a very real sense, it offers us a forward glimpse of all further schisms that would sunder the Church down through coming centuries, as cultural and social issues became entangled with theological ones. What had begun as a dispute between two wings of the nascent Jesus movement in Jerusalem, the Hebrews and the Hellenists, had given birth to two, distinctly different forms of faith in Jesus Messiah. The first, led by Peter and the Twelve and centred in Jerusalem, held tenaciously to its Jewish heritage and continued to operate within the ambit of Jewish custom. The second movement drew its initial membership from Diaspora Jews and, eventually basing itself primarily in Syrian Antioch, embarked on a program that sought to convert Gentiles without demanding circumcision or obedience to the Mosaic Law. Despite numerous attempts by the mother church in Jerusalem to rein in its wayward offspring in Antioch, the Gentile mission flourished and spread into Cyprus and throughout the Roman Province of Galatia in Asia Minor. The rise of Jesus' brother James to a position of authority at Jerusalem, however, signalled the beginning of a new offensive on the part of the Law-observant faction to gain control of the situation in Antioch. Through a series of envoys James and his circumcision party achieved what Peter and the previous administration at Jerusalem were unable to do. They brought the troublesome Hellenists to the conference table at Jerusalem. What the immediate outcome of the Jerusalem synod was is unclear. But the one thing that is clear is that neither James nor the Jerusalem church agreed to allow the Antiochene community to continue its independent Gentile mission. Paul's subsequent account of the incident at Antioch indicates that James was ultimately successful in imposing strict Law-observance on the Hellenists' community at Antioch. Only Paul resisted this disturbing development; but he was fighting a losing battle. As we shall see next week, the consequence of this latest skirmish found Paul marginalised and forced to leave Antioch in search of new missions further afield of the widening reach of James' circumcision putsch.  CLICK HERE FOR INDEX TO THIS SERIES ON ST PAUL Bibliography and Further Reading:
What are your thoughts on this commentary? ©2008 Ian Elmer |
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This ancient spat has a familiar ring, in that it seems to have been a debate about intercommunion — who can, and who cannot, receive communion in "our" church?
Dr Ian Elmer is a lecturer in New Testament at ACU National (formally Australian Catholic University). He is also a member of the Centre for Early Christian Studies, and was recently admitted into ACBA (Australian Catholic Biblical Association). His research specialities are Paul and First-Century Christianity. He is the author of published articles in the Australian Ejournal of Theology and in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church (a publication of the Centre for Early Christian Studies). He doctoral thesis was entitled Paul, Jerusalem and the Judaisers: The Galatian Crisis in its Broader Historical Context.
How economic inequality harms societies... We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust. Richard Wilkinson, is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, and cofounder of The Equality Trust, a nonprofit that aims to reduce income inequality by educating and engaging the public while supporting political commitment to address the problem. 16m55s [String on the Catholica Forum where the general issue of wealth inequality and this documentary was first discussed 25Jan12] | [WATCH THE VIDEO]
Doco 035: 25Jan12
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