[2,1-2] Later, after fourteen years, I went back to Jerusalem with Barnabas, also taking Titus. Name these as presenting several witnesses. I went up thanks to a revelation. This detail seeks to avoid any strangeness in the fact that it went up just then to a place where it had not risen for so long. If it rose driven by a revelation, we must conclude that the rise was useful at that precise moment. And I told them the gospel that I preach to the Gentiles, but I made the notables in private. The fact that the notables of the Church were exposed to their gospel in private, after having presented it in public to all, is not because he had said any falsehood and needed to tell the truth in private to a few. What he did was omit some particulars that certain people could not support because they were still toddlers (in the faith); people like those in which he says in the Letter to the Corinthians that he gave them milk, not solid food (Cf 1Co 3,2). It is never permissible to say falsehood, but sometimes it is useful to silence part of the truth. It was necessary that the remaining apostles knew in their totality the work that was being done. From the fact of being a believer and possessing the orthodox and true faith, it did not follow that he should also be an apostle. Then he says: Lest perhaps he is running or has run in vain. It is not necessary to understand these words as said to those with whom he confronted his Gospel in private, but, as if it were an indirect question, to the recipients of the Letter. He wanted to see that he did not run or had run in vain. By also having the attestation of the other apostles, it was clear that he did not depart from the truth of the gospel in any way.

[2,6-9] However, they pointed their finger at him and, full of jealousy, wanted to make the apostle Paul suspect for having persecuted the churches for some time. That's why he says: On the part of those who seem to be something -as they once were, I'm not interested- ... He speaks like that because even those who seem to be something in themselves are nothing; it is only a matter of men who let themselves be carried away by the flesh. And if they are good ministers of God, who is something is Christ present in them, not them by themselves. If they were something by themselves, they would have always been. Regarding how they once were - an allution to the fact that they too were sinners - he affirms that the matter does not interest him. The reason is that God has no respect for persons or, what is the same, without respecting persons, called everyone to salvation, not to impute their crimes. Hence, in the absence of those who were called to the apostolate before him, Paul received perfection from the Lord. In this way, when confronted with them, they had nothing to add to their perfection; rather, they saw that the same Lord Jesus Christ, who saves without respect of persons, granted Paul to exercise the ministry among the Gentiles, just as he had granted Peter to exercise it with the Jews. They discovered nothing in which they dissented from him. When he told them that he had received the gospel in its fullness, they did not deny it or pretend to add something as if it were incomplete. On the contrary, instead of failing it as incomplete, they approved its perfection. And they stretched out their right hand in agreement, that is, they agreed to keep in communion, and obeyed the Lord's will by giving their assent to Paul and Barnabas addressing the Gentiles and they to the circumcised, circumcision that seems contrary to uncircumcision, that is, to Gentiles. It can also be understood, by contrast, in another way, ordering the phrase in this way: For those who seemed to be something made me add, but, on the contrary, agreed that we, Barnabas and I, should go to the Gentiles, the opposites to circumcision, and they to circumcision. This is what the words refer to: They stretched out their right hand in agreement.

No one judges as an affront to those who preceded these words: On the part of those who seem to be something as they have been in the past, I am not interested-. For they too, as spiritual men, wanted to offer resistance to the carnal, to those who believed to be something in themselves and not, rather, Christ in them. They were filled with immense joy when they persuaded other men that they, Paul's predecessors, like Paul himself, since they were sinners, were justified by the Lord, who has no respect for persons. All because they sought the glory of God, not their own. But as carnal and proud men are angry if something is brought to light concerning their past life and they take it as an affront, they presuppose the same way of reacting in the apostles. Pedro, Santiago and Juan were the ones who enjoyed greater honor among the apostles. The proof is that the Lord manifested himself to the three on the mountain, the symbol of his kingdom, because six days before he had said to them: There are some of those present here who will not taste death, until they see the son of man in the kingdom of his Father (Mt 16,28). Neither were the columns, but they seemed to be. Paul knew that Wisdom had built a house for himself, raising not three columns, but seven (Cf Pr 9,1). Number that must be referred to the unity of the Churches, since it is usually used to indicate the totality, according to the words of the Gospel. In him these words are read: in this world he will receive the seven for one (Mt 19,29), which mean the same as these others: As one who has nothing, but owns everything (2Co 6,10). For the same reason the apostle John writes to the seven churches (Cf Act 1,4), which clearly symbolize the universal Church. That same number of seven columns may refer rather to the sevenfold operation of the Spirit, the operation by which he donates wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength, and science and piety, and the fear of God, (Cf Is 11,2-3) operations with the that the house of God that is the Church is sustained.

[2,10] Only that we remembered the poor, something that I also strived to fulfill. These words refer to the concern, common to all the apostles, for the poor among the saints residing in Judea, who had put the proceeds from the sale of their possessions at the feet of the apostles (Cf Hch 4,35). Thus, Paul and Barnabas were sent to the Gentiles, so that, thanks to their exhortation, the churches of the Gentiles, who had not made such expropriation, would help those who had done so. This is what Paul says in his Letter to the Romans: But now I will go to Jerusalem to serve the saints, since Macedonia and Achaia saw fit to collect money on behalf of the poor saints living in Jerusalem. They had a good time, and they are in debt to them. In effect, if the Gentiles have participated in their spiritual goods, they must, in turn, serve them with the materials (Rm 15,25-27).

[2,11-16] Paul had not fallen into any pretense because he followed the observances that seemed most appropriate in each place, both in the Gentile and Jewish Churches, and did not suppress a rite anywhere. whose observance did not prevent to obtain the kingdom of God, limiting itself only to warn that nobody put the hope of the salvation in superfluous things, even if it wanted that its use was maintained to avoid giving cause of trip to the weak ones. As he says to the Corinthians: Was one called being circumcised? Do not present your foreskin. Was another called being uncircumcised? Do not be circumcised. Circumcision counts for nothing and nothing for uncircumcision. What counts is the observance of God's commands. Let each one remain as God found him when he called him (1Co 7,18-20). This was applied to those uses or conditions of life that in no way harm faith and good customs. Needless to say, if one was a thief when he was called, he should not remain in that thief condition. Different case is Pedro's. When he arrived in Antioch, Paul did not reproach him for following the Jewish observances in which he had been born and had been educated, although he did not follow them before the Gentiles, but he who wanted to impose them on the Gentiles, when he saw that some of the people from Santiago were arriving. , that is, from Judea. Santiago was the one who presided over the Church in Jerusalem. Fearing those who still thought that salvation lay in those observances, he stopped associating with the Gentiles and with his pantomime he allowed the former to impose the servile loads on the latter. This is clear from the words with which he reproached him for such a procedure. Indeed, it does not say: If you, being a Jew, live as a Jew and not as a Gentile, how come you return to Jewish observances again, but how do you force the Gentiles to behave like Jews? It was the need that forced him to tell him in the presence of everyone. In that way, the reproach addressed to him could heal everyone. It was not profitable to privately correct an error that caused public harm. To this is added the detail of the firmness and love of Peter, whom the Lord said three times: Do you love me? Feed my sheep (Jn 21,15). For the sake of the salvation of his flock, he endured with great pleasure such reproach that came to him from another inferior pastor. The person who received the reproach was more worthy of admiration and more difficult to imitate than the one who addressed it. In fact, it is easier to see in someone something to correct and correct, through vituperation or reproach, than to see what needs to be corrected in oneself and accept the correction willingly, whether it comes from oneself or from another. ; moreover, of someone inferior to oneself; and more still, if it is in the presence of all. The fact has the value of an extraordinary example of humility, top of the Christian teaching, because through humility charity is preserved. Nothing extinguishes it more quickly than pride. For this reason the Lord does not say: Take my yoke and learn from me that I raise corpses that have been in the tomb for four days and expel from the bodies of men all devil and sickness, and things like that, but Take my yoke and Learn from me that I am gentle and humble of heart (Mt 11,29). These prodigious actions are signs of spiritual realities; On the other hand, being a meek and humble maintainer of charity are themselves spiritual realities; realities to which are led who, submitted to the eyes of the body, seek faith in the invisible through new and unforeseen realities, since it is no longer possible from the known.

Therefore, even those who compelled the Gentiles to behave like Jews would have learned to be meek and humble of heart, which Peter had learned from the Lord, at least once corrected so excellent a man, they would have been invited to imitate him. And they would not have thought that the gospel of Christ had been delivered to them in payment of their justice; rather, knowing that man is not justified by the works prescribed by the law, but only by faith in Jesus Christ who helps his weakness, so that they would fulfill the works prescribed by the law, not because they deserved it, but by the grace of God. In that hypothesis, they would not require the Gentiles to fulfill the carnal observances of the law, but, by virtue of the same grace of faith, they would know that they could perform the spiritual works of the law. Because no flesh, that is, no man or nobody who thinks with criteria of the flesh receives his justification from the works prescribed by the law, when he attributes it to his forces and not to the merciful grace of God. Therefore, those who, being already under the law, believed in Christ came to the grace of faith not because they were righteous, but to become so.

[2,15-18] Due to a certain arrogance already rooted, as if they were righteous and as seeing the speck in the eye of others but not the beam in their own, the Jews had labeled the Gentiles as sinners. Speaking in his style, the Apostle says: We, Jews of birth and not Gentile sinners, that is to say, those whom the Jews call sinners, nevertheless also be themselves. He says: We, Jews of birth (since we do not come from the Gentiles, whom they call sinners), being also us sinners, have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to get justification by faith in Christ Jesus. In fact, they would not seek justification if they were not sinners. Or did they sin when they wanted to find justification in Christ? If they were already righteous, they certainly sinned when looking for something else. But if things are like this, then, as he says, Christ is at the service of sin. Something they can not affirm, since even those who wanted the gospel to be delivered only to the Gentiles who had been circumcised had believed in Christ. Consequently, that Ni thinking it does not say it alone, but also they with him. He annihilated the pride of glorying in works of law, pride that could and should be annihilated to prevent the grace of faith from appearing unnecessary. Such would be the case, if it were believed that also the works prescribed by the law justify without it. He would be a prevaricator if he again raised the works prescribed by the law, maintaining that they too justify without grace, with the consequence that Christ would appear in the service of sin. You could object to his words: If I raise the works once demolished, I declare myself a transgressor. So what? Have you become a transgressor because you have attacked the faith in Christ that you now raise? But it did not demolish that faith because it does not admit demolition. What had really demolished and continued demolishing incessantly, since it admitted demolition, was that pride. This is the reason why he is not prevaricator who, although he tried to demolish a true reality, when he later discovered his truth and indestructibility, he kept it to be raised in it. Prevaricator is the one who, after demolishing - since it was possible to do so -a false reality, he raises it again.

[2,19-21] The Apostle claims to have died to the law, but through the law. He says this perhaps because he was a Jew and had accepted the law as his pedagogue, as he states later (Cf Ga 3,24). The role of the pedagogue is to make the pedagogue himself unnecessary, just as the maternal breasts nourish the newborn so that the time comes when he no longer needs them, or just as, by boat, he arrives at the homeland in which no such vessel is necessary anymore. He could also be dead to the law through the law, by understanding it in a spiritual sense so as not to live carnally under it. In this way he wanted them to die to the law by means of the law when he says to them shortly thereafter: "You who want to submit to the law, tell me: have you not read the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, (Ga 4,21-22) etc., seeking to die to the carnal observances of the law through the law, understood in a spiritual sense.

Then he adds: In order to live for God. Live for God who is under God; the one who is under the law lives for the law, but one is under the law inasmuch as he is a sinner, that is, to the extent that he has not changed, stripping himself of the old man. In this case, he lives by virtue of his own life and, therefore, the law is on him since the person who does not comply is under it. In fact, the law has not been given to the righteous (1Tm 1,9), that is, it has not been imposed so that it is on him. He is more in it than under it, since he does not live by virtue of his own life, to repress which the law is granted. As it were, the law itself lives in a certain way, who lives according to justice by loving justice and finding that his joy is not in a private and transitory good, but in the common good and without end. For that reason the law was not to be imposed on Paul who says: But I no longer live, but it is Christ who lives in me. Who, then, will dare to impose the law on Christ who lives in Paul? For no one will dare to affirm that Christ does not live as it should, so that the law must be imposed with a coercive purpose. As soon as I live in the flesh, he says. As life in the flesh is mortal life and could not sustain that Christ lived even in mortal life, he adds: I live in faith in the Son of God. Christ, therefore, also lives in the believer, living by faith in his inner man (Cf Eph 3,16-17), to later fulfill him through the vision, once the mortal condition has been absorbed by life (Cf 2Co 5,4). To show that the fact that Christ lives in him and that, while living in the flesh, lives in the faith of the Son of God is not personal merit, but a gift of his grace, he says: Who loved me and gave himself same for me. By whom, really? For a sinner, to make it fair. And this is said by a Jew of birth and education and whose life had stood out among those of the others for his greater zeal in favor of the paternal traditions. Therefore, if Christ also gave himself for people like him, it is that they too were sinners. Do not hold, therefore, that it was granted to the merits of his justice what was not necessary to give or to the just. Well, says the Lord, I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinners (Mt 9,13), with the aim of ceasing to be so. So, if Christ loved me and gave himself up for me, I do not make the grace of God useless by claiming that justification comes from the law. If justification comes from the law, then Christ died in vain. Or, which is the same, he would have died without cause to justify such a death in the event that men could obtain justification by the works prescribed by law in which the Jews placed their trust. But that Christ died in vain does not sustain him or those whom the Apostle rejects, since they wished to be considered Christians. They were not right when they tried to convince that Christians attained justification through those works ordered by law.