Prescription against Heretics 23

To accuse the apostles of some ignorance, then, they put forward the fact that Peter and those with him were rebuked by Paul. “So something was lacking in them,” they say; and from this they also build the claim that fuller knowledge could have come later, such as came to Paul when he rebuked his predecessors. Here too I can say to those who reject the Acts of the Apostles: first you must show who this Paul is, and what he was before he was an apostle, and how he became an apostle, since they make great use of him for their other questions as well. For if he declares himself an apostle, turned from a persecutor, that does not suffice for everyone who believes with examination, since not even the Lord bore witness of himself. But let them believe without the Scriptures, so that they may believe against the Scriptures; still, let them show, from their claim that Peter was rebuked by Paul, that another form of the gospel was brought in by Paul besides the one Peter and the rest had already proclaimed. On the contrary, changed from persecutor into preacher, he is brought to the brothers by brothers, as one of the brothers, and to them by those who had put on the faith from the apostles. Then, as he himself relates, he went up to Jerusalem to get to know Peter, as the duty and right of the same faith and preaching required. For they would not have marveled that the persecutor had become a preacher if he preached something contrary, nor would they have glorified the Lord because Paul, his adversary, had come over to them. So they even gave him the right hand, the sign of concord and agreement, and arranged among themselves a division of labor, not a separation of the gospel, not that each should preach something different, but that each should preach to different people, Peter to the circumcision, Paul to the nations. Further, if Peter was rebuked because, having lived with Gentiles, he afterwards separated himself from their company out of regard for persons, that was certainly a fault of conduct, not of preaching. For it did not result in proclaiming another God than the Creator, another Christ than the one born of Mary, or another hope than the resurrection.