St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate (Icons)

by Karen Armstrong

Titus’s presence would bring matters to a head, and, as he expected, the “intruders” seem to have demanded that Titus be circumcised on the spot. But so compelling was Paul’s argument and so authentic was Titus’s spirituality that the Pillars ruled against his forcible circumcision and, Paul insists emphatically, they “did not impose anything further on me.” On the contrary: “They saw that I had been entrusted to take the gospel to the gentiles as surely as Peter had been entrusted to take it to the Jews; for the same God who was at work in Peter’s mission to the Jews was also at work in mine to the gentiles.”68 Paul, Barnabas, and the Pillars all shook hands, formally sealing an agreement that had two clauses. First was the acceptance of both Peter’s mission to the Jews and Paul’s to the gentiles as equally valid—and “nothing further” was demanded in the way of circumcision or ritual observance.69 The second clause asked that the diaspora communities “should keep in mind the poor,” which, Paul says, was “the very thing that I have always made it my business to do.”