A Historical Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians

By W. M. Ramsay

Part 2

Historical Commentary

Chapter 4

Relation of Paul to Barnabas

It has often been said that Paul is very niggardly here in recognition of Barnabas’s work as a champion of Gentile rights. But Paul was not writing a history for the ignorant; he assumes throughout that the Galatians knew the services of Barnabas. The single phrase “even Barnabas” is a sufficient answer to that charge. The one word “even” recalls the whole past to the interested readers; it places Barnabas above Peter in this respect. Peter had recognised the apostolate to the Gentiles: Peter had eaten with the Gentiles: but his dissembling, after all that, was not so extraordinary a thing as that “even Barnabas was carried away with the dissimulation” of the other Jews. That one sentence places Barnabas on a pedestal as a leading champion of the Gentiles; and yet it does not explicitly state that; it merely assumes the knowledge of his championship among the Galatians.

Further, where Paul speaks of his first journey, i.e., his Gospel to the Galatians, (It is important to observe that when Paul speaks of the Gospel to the Galatians, he means the message which converted them, i.e., on his first visit.) he uses the plural pronoun: “any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you” (Gal 1:8); “as we have said before, so say I now again” (Gal 1:9).

The Galatians caught the meaning of “we” in these cases as “Barnabas and I”. On the other hand, where the reference is to the division which had now come into existence between the Galatians and their evangelist, Barnabas is not included, and the singular pronoun is used (Gal 4:12 ff). There was no alienation between the Galatians and Barnabas, for Barnabas had not returned to them; and, as we shall see, it was through perversion and through real misunderstanding of Paul’s conduct on his second journey that the division arose.

 

 

Book Navigation Title Page Preface Table of Contents Religion in Asia Minor      ► Chapter 1      ► Chapter 2      ► Chapter 3      ► Chapter 4      ► Chapter 5      ► Chapter 6      ► Chapter 7      ► Chapter 8      ► Chapter 9      ► Chapter 10      ► Chapter 11      ► Chapter 12      ► Chapter 13      ► Chapter 14      ► Chapter 15      ► Chapter 16      ► Chapter 17      ► Chapter 18      ► Chapter 19      ► Chapter 20      ► Chapter 21      ► Chapter 22      ► Chapter 23 Historical Commentary      ► Section 1      ► Section 2      ► Section 3      ► Section 4      ► Section 5      ► Section 6      ► Section 7      ► Section 8      ► Section 9      ► Section 10      ► Section 11      ► Section 12      ► Section 13      ► Section 14      ► Section 15      ► Section 16      ► Section 17      ► Section 18      ► Section 19      ► Section 20      ► Section 21      ► Section 22      ► Section 23      ► Section 24      ► Section 25      ► Section 26      ► Section 27      ► Section 28      ► Section 29      ► Section 30      ► Section 31      ► Section 32      ► Section 33      ► Section 34      ► Section 35      ► Section 36      ► Section 37      ► Section 38      ► Section 39      ► Section 40      ► Section 41      ► Section 42      ► Section 43      ► Section 44      ► Section 45      ► Section 46      ► Section 47      ► Section 48      ► Section 49      ► Section 50      ► Section 51      ► Section 52      ► Section 53      ► Section 54      ► Section 55      ► Section 56      ► Section 57      ► Section 58      ► Section 59      ► Section 60      ► Section 61      ► Section 62      ► Section 63      ► Section 64