But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother ( ἔτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον εἰ μὴ ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου); but no one besides of the apostles saw I, unless it were James the Lord's brother.
The words," unless it were," are here proposed as a rendering of εἰ μή, as betokening a certain degree of hesitancy on the apostle's part as to the perfect justness of the exception which he makes.
The reason of this will appear if we consider that "James the Lord's brother" was not really one of the apostles; but nevertheless, through the position which he held in the Church of Jerusalem, and through various circumstances attaching to him, stood in general estimation so near to the revered twelve, that St.
Paul felt he was required, in connection with his present statement, to make this reference to him, when affirming so solemnly that Cephas was the only apostle that he then saw. For a fuller discussion of the personality of "James the Lord's brother," the reader is referred to the additional note at the end of this chapter.
How it came about that St. Peter was the only one of the twelve that St. Paul then saw, there are no certain grounds for determining. The intimation in Acts 8:1 that, in the persecution which ensued upon the martyrdom of Stephen, the apostles still remained at Jerusalem when they of the Church there were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, relates to a period two or three years previous.
The state of things was no doubt now quite different; the Church had come together again; but the apostles may for the most part have been absent in the country, engaged in their apostolic labours, as St.
Peter himself is soon after described as being (cf. Acts 9:31, Acts 9:32). The surmise that this was the cause appears more probable than the view which supposes them to have continued distrustful, now that the two great leaders, Cephas and James, had been won over to frankly and publicly recognize the new convert.
A difficulty has been thought to result from a comparison of these words of St. Paul with St. Luke's statement in Acts 9:15, Acts 9:16, that Barnabas took and brought him to "the apostles," and that he "was with them" going in and out at Jerusalem.
That he was not with them for long was a fact not unknown to St. Luke, as we may, gather from what we read in Acts 22:18. There is, therefore, no discrepancy in that respect between the two representations.
But is there no discrepancy between St. Luke's mention of "the apostles" as then admitting Paul into partnership with them in public work, and St. Paul's so emphatically affirming that it was Cephas alone of the apostles that he saw?
We must acknowledge that there is—the same kind and the same amount of discrepancy as e.g. obtains between St. Matthew saying that those who were crucified with Jesus reviled him, and St. Luke specifying that one did so, but that the other rebuked him.
In all such cases, the more vague and general statement must in all fairness be accepted, but with the modification supplied by the one which is the more particular and definite. It seems to the present writer that there is a way of quite naturally accounting for the form in which St.
Luke states the circumstances. It is as fellows. St. Paul had been two years in imprisonment at Rome when St. Luke compiled the Acts; that is, St. Luke wrote the book about a.d. 63 or 64, twenty-two or twenty-three years after St.
Paul made this first visit of his to Jerusalem. Barnabas appears in the story as a disciple (Acts 4:1-37., fin.) some years apparently before even the conversion of Saul. Considering, therefore, the lapse of time, it would seem a not at all improbable supposition that, when the Acts was written, he was no longer alive.
And the tone in which he is spoken of in the book, whose author, as we know, was in close association with St. Paul, and no doubt both drew from the apostle's inspiration many of the particulars he relates and reflected his feelings, is generally so kindly and respectful as to accord well with the supposition of Barnabas's decease, and even of his then recent decease.
The pensive, touching reference to his character in Acts 11:24, introduced in the narrative in so unwonted a manner as it is, betokens this. Carefully does the historian indicate that Barnabas was the new convert's sponsor with the at first distrustful brethren at Jerusalem; also that it was he that went and fetched Saul from his distant retirement at Tarsus to co-operate with him at Antioch; also that he linked him to himself in the eleemosynary journey to Jerusalem, and again under Divine direction in their great evangelistic tour in Asia Minor,—in both of which expeditions Barnabas at the first appears as the leading figure of the two; after which comes the mournful disruption recorded at the close of the fifteenth chapter, the last reference to Barnabas in the Acts.
£ That, however, this interruption of their brotherly attachment did not last long is shown by the respectful and sympathetic manner in which St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians (9.), six or seven years after, speaks of the oneness in sentiment subsisting between Barnabas and himself in labouring for the gospel at their own charges.
Since the time that St. Paul sent that letter to the Corinthians as well as this to the Galatians, some five years had elapsed when St. Luke wrote the Book of the Acts. All these considerations taken together agree perfectly well with the conception that Luke had heard his master, perhaps repeatedly, make pensive reference to his old relations with Barnabas now gone to his rest.
"When the apostles at Jerusalem," he might say, "looked upon me coldly and distrustingly, he it was that took me by the hand [the reader will note the pathos in the expression, ἐπιλαβόμενος αὐτὸν ἤγαγε] and led me into their presence, and told them what the Lord had done with me!"
What more natural than that Luke had heard Paul speaking thus, Barnabas's dear venerated form looming in the far past before the apostle's view as the principal object just then of reminiscence, the surrounding figures in the scene more indefinitely realized!
But when, years before this, the apostle, Barnabas being still alive, had been writing to the Galatians, and with solemn carefulness as speaking in the sight of God, had set himself agonistically to state the facts in their very exactness, of course there would result a precision which in those tender reminiscences uttered to his bosom associate was not to be looked for.