The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-12-05

ing to the truth Of the Gospel" and
when Peter was come to Antioch !
withstood him to the face, because he
was to be blamed" (Il, II, 14). Hence
the inspired Apostle, st. Paul, could
not have believed that ST. Peter was
infallible, or that ne was Head of
the Church; for how could he have
spoken so boldly of him if he regarded
him with the respect that Catholics
pay to the Pope nowadays?
The Protestant who uses this OBJ
lection is very short-sighted. For st.
Peter was an inspired Apostle, too, as
we'll as st. Paul, and wrote two in
spired epistles; the best proof Protes-
tants can give of the inspiration of st.
Peters Epistles is drawn from the
fact that he was an Apostle, who re-
ceived the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
The Holy Spirit helped him in his
preaching as well as in his writing.
Let them, then, explain, if they can,
how st. Peter erred in preaching the
faith. Let them also explain what
right st. Paul had to attack an Apos-
tie that was sent by our Lord and
aided by His Spirit just as st. Paul
himself was. They cannot do it with
out coming to us to hear what we
have to say about it. AS a fact, this
very episode has been made the basis
of an attack upon Christianity itself
by a very large class of non-Catholics
who are thorough-going in their uses
of the privilege of private judgment.
They try to make out that st. Peter
and st. Paul had not the same religion
at all. The leader of this school is
Harnack of Berlin, the head of the
German Protestant "Modernists."
Many professors and preachers, and,
of course, a horde of popular novelists
and magazine writer's in this country,
place more implicit faith in the alb
surdities of Harnack than their fathers
placed in the Bible itself. Thus, like
most Protestant arguments against
the Catholic Church, this is shown by
the logic of history and of facts to be
an attack on Christianity and on all
religion, when it is pushed to it's logi-
cal conclusion. Coming to the text,
we ask, first of all, why does st. Paul
lay such stress on the fact that it
was st. Peter he faced and spoke up
to? Why does he go out of his way
to mention st. Peter? Because he
wanted to convince the Galatians of
the truth of his own claims to Apostle
ship; and he knew their reverence for
st. Peter. He did not accuse st. Peter
OF any error in faith; he merely &C,
cused him at most of certain i'm
prudence and want of sincerity in
yielding to the prejudices of the Jew
ish converts. The position of st.
Peter rendered his mistake all the
more dangerous, so serious in fact as
to merit the public animadversion of
st. Paul himself. st. Paul would never
have brought up the incident if he had
thought that St. Peter was a person
of no consequence. In this very
epistle, st. Paul takes care to state
that he had made it his business to
go to Jerusalem to see st. Peter and
stayed with him for fifteen days. This
was three years after his conversion
q, 49,. Fourteen years after that, he
went to Jerusalem again, and com
muniCated to them that Gospel which
| preach among the Gentiles, but pri-
vately to them which were of reputa-
ton, lest by any means | should be
running, or have run in vain.
And of these who seemed to be some
what, i. e., who were in high reputa-
ton, James, Peter, and John, who
seemed to be pillars, they gave to me
and Barnabas the right hands of fel-
lowship." Gil, 81. This shows st.
Pauls object in referring to st. Peter.
He assumed the high dignity of st.
Peter as already known to the Gala
tians; from that he argued the truth
of his own apostolic mission. As to
the point at issue, whether it was
right to avoid intimate social relations
with Gentle converts, when such in
timacy might give scandal to converts
from Judaism, it was not an easy
matter to decide. You will find that
st. Paul himself had occasion to deal
with somewhat similar problem
when he wrote to the Romans and
w IuO NOIlAIuIdAo \ANOhl1ho <NIN nhN
/ Corinthians Wild. To the Romans
he wrote: Destroy not him with thy
mean for whom Christ died. :.
1t is good neither to eat flesh nor to
drink wine, nor anything, whereby thy
brother stumbleth or is offended or is
made weak" from. XIV, Is, 2D. 1t
seems that st. Peter made a mistake
in yielding too far to the Jewish con-
verts who came to Antioch from Jeru-
salem; though he did so in accord
ance with the rule laid down by st.
Paul himself that one ought to abstain
even from what is lawful in itself,
rather than give scandal to the weak
and the ill-informed. In an ordinary
person the mistake would not have
been worth notice; it was precisely
the dignity of the prince of the apos-
ties. the reverence with which st Paul
and everybody else regarded him, that
lent seriousness to his mistake. st.
Paul corrected him, just as St Bern:
ard made it his business to advise
and warn Pope Eugenius But what
st. Bernard and St Paul, enlightened
by special grace, raised above us by
great sanctity, may do in cases of
this kind, is no rule for the rest of
us who have quite enough to do to
mind our own business. st. Paul was
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