Very few readers have ever noticed that even though almost everyone (including the Gospel writers) assumes that Peter and Cephas are simply names for the same person (Simon Peter, Jesus’s disciple), Paul  — our only author from antiquity who knew Peter indicates he was not the same person as Cephas.  WHAT?

In my previous post I gave the evidence that in the early church there were writers who maintained that Cephas and Peter were *not* the same person, despite what is explicitly said in John 1:42.  Some readers may point out that these later Christian authors *may* have differentiated between the two (saying they were not the same person, even though they were) for a very clear and certain reason: in Galatians 2 Paul confronts “Cephas” and blasts him for not understanding the Gospel.  Could there have been a major rift between the two most important apostles of early Christianity (Paul and *Peter*)?  Surely the apostles were more unified than *that*!  Well, if Cephas was not the same person as Peter, it is a much, much smaller problem.  So maybe that is what was driving early Christians to claim there were in fact two figures, the apostle Peter and the other person Cephas.

I continue the discussion here.  I’ve decided not to give the entire article here – it gets increasingly technical and rather, uh, boring to general readers.  But I will give here, below, one of the most important parts, where I begin to argue that there is good evidence in Paul’s own writings that Paul, who knew Peter, talks about him as being someone other than Cephas.

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I have already shown that it cannot be argued, as one might be inclined to do otherwise, that this tradition (that Peter and Cephas were two different people) derives simply from the ignorance of Christians who did not realize that ”Kephas• and”Petros• are translational equivalents.

The most common view concerning the origin of this tradition is that it derives from an apologetic concern, namely to show that the person whom Paul opposed in Antioch was not the other great apostle of the early church, Peter, but an apostle of much lower standing, Cephas, one of the seventy.  There is a good deal to be said for this view, given the circumstance that several of our sources state explicitly that Paul did in fact confront this otherwise unknown person in Antioch.  At the same time, none of the sources that draws this distinction actually makes anything of it — i.e. none of them uses it for any explicit apologetic ends.  Furthermore, it should be noted that in several of the representatives of this view, including our earliest, the Epistula Apostolorum, Cephas is not one of the seventy at all but is a member of Jesus’ original twelve disciples.

For these reasons, a simpler explanation for the tradition should perhaps be considered at greater length:  it may have derived from a close reading of the NT documents themselves, particularly those in which “Cephas” is most frequently named — the writings of the Apostle Paul.  We ourselves would do well to engage in a careful reading of Paul–the only author from the early church of whom we can say with some certainty that he actually knew Cephas (Gal 1:18; 2:9).  And what is striking is that, although he also mentions Peter (Gal 2:7-8), he gives absolutely no indication that they are the same person.  Quite the contrary, if one were to read Paul without prejudging the issue in light of John 1:42 and the overwhelming consensus of Christian opinion through the ages, one would be hard-pressed indeed to show that when Paul said Cephas, he really meant Peter.

Cephas and Peter in Paul
Whereas Paul mentions Cephas by name eight times in his letters, (1 Cor 1:12; 3:22; 9:5; 15:5; Gal 1:18; 2:9, 11, 14), he mentions Peter only twice (Gal 2:7, 8).  What is initially intriguing, and what has been most frequently observed in this connection, is that when he does mention Peter in Gal 2:7-8 he names Cephas in the same breath, and in such a way as to provide no indication that he is referring to the same person.  Here is what he says:

When they [those ‘of repute’] saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for the mission to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles), and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship…”

Since Peter is mentioned in vv. 7 and 8, one would naturally expect him to be named first in the list of v. 9, or at least to be called by the same name.  While Paul may have had other reasons for naming James first, it is very difficult to see why he would suddenly call Peter by a different name without giving any indication to his reader that he had in mind the same person. Early Christian scribes, of course, recognized this problem and rectified it by changing the text of v. 9. “Cephas” has been changed to “Peter” in P46, D, F, G, 629, 1175, a, b, r, and several other witnesses.

Paul’s modus operandi here has proved to be an insoluble conundrum for commentators, resulting in explanations of Paul’s interchange of names that are as numerous as they are ingenious. Indeed it is safe to say that most commentators have simply overlooked, or rather chosen to ignore, what should seem rather obvious: whoever did not know that “Kephas” is a rough Aramaic equivalent of “Petros,” and who further did not realize that traditionally Cephas and Peter were identified as the same person, would never on the basis of this passage be led to make the identification themselves.  On the contrary, any sensible reader would assume that they were different persons.

Among recent scholars, the most popular explanation for Paul’s use of the name “Peter” in Gal 2:7, 8 but “Cephas” in 2:9 is the view that was proposed independently by Oscar Cullmann and Gunther Klein. According to this view, Paul cites some kind of officially transcribed document of the Jerusalem Conference in Gal 2:7-8.  This document used the name “Peter” with reference to the great missionary to the circumcision.  But when Paul reverts back to his own language, he uses the name he prefers, “Cephas.”

It is not surprising that such an idea occurred to no one for 1900 years.  There is almost nothing in the text to suggest it and virtually everything to discount it.  The passage is given entirely in the first person, so that even if it were embodying a formal decree of some kind, it has been seriously reformulated.  And apart from the inherent improbablility that Paul has – without warning or indication — inserted a fragment of such a document, partly recalled (or discovered among his papers!) one should query what his purpose might be in doing so.  Presumably it would be to lend authority to his claim that the Council in Jerusalem had simply affirmed his own position in its official decree.  But if the citation were made to buttress his claim, he surely would have made it quite clear that he is in fact reproducing the original wording of the agreement.  The wording of vv. 7-8 is in fact one of the chief problems with the theory.  For as Ulrich Wilckens has demonstrated, these two verses are permeated by characteristically Pauline words and phrases. [HERE I GIVE THE DATA, IN GREEK]  The only real exception to the Pauline character of these verses is the name “Peter” itself.

For Wilckens that is enough to establish the likelihood that Paul is citing the earlier agreement of the Jerusalem conference.  But the issue at stake is precisely this, Paul’s peculiar alternation of names.  It will scarcely do to construe our question as the primary evidence for the answer!  In point of fact, unless we are somehow to think that the Jerusalem Conference lapsed into Pauline jargon when framing its conclusions, we must conclude, as is usually done, that Paul has not at all quoted the report verbatim, but expressed it in his own words.  Once that concession has been made, however, one is back to the root problem of why Paul uses the name “Peter” in vv. 7 and 8 but “Cephas” in v. 9.

The other theories for this phenomenon are well-known, and are frequently discounted for a similar want of evidence or probability. For our purposes it simply need be noted that if in fact there were two different persons, Cephas and Peter, then the matter would be handily solved.  Paul speaks as if Cephas were not Peter because in fact he was not.  If this view seems too far-fetched for modern sensibilities, it can at least serve to explain the genesis and perpetuation of the tradition we have sketched.