61. Ep. 81 (CCL 31A:96); trans. Parsons, FOTC 12:390. (continued)
The Exegete 189 tainly not have said: "How I wish I might deserve to embrace you, and that we might teach or learn something by mutual conversation."62
(2.4) But if, as I believe, you said this as an expression of your own life and character and not as a pretense or deception, how much more reasonable is it for me to believe that the Apostle Paul thought nothing other than what he wrote, when he said to Barnabas about Peter: "When I saw that they were not living rightly according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter in the presence of all: If you, while a Jew, live as a Gentile and not as a Jew, why do you force Gentiles to live like Jews?" (Gal 2:14) For how can I be certain that the Apostle does not deceive me in writing or speaking, if he was deceiving his own children? He was in labor bringing them to birth until Christ, that is, the Truth, should be formed in them. And given that he began by saying to them, "As to what I am writing to you, behold, before God, I am not lying" (Gal 1:20), was he not writing the truth? Or was he [as you think] making use of some sort of diplomatic pretense when he said that he had seen Peter and Barnabas walking not rightly according to the truth of the Gospel, and when he said that he had stood up to Peter face-to-face for no other reason than that Peter was forcing Gentiles to live like Jews?
(2.5) Is it really better to believe that the Apostle Paul wrote something untrue than that the Apostle Peter did something unrighteous?63 If it were, then we could (God forbid!) go on and say that it is better to believe that the Gospel lies than that Christ was denied by Peter; and that the Book of Kings lies [in saying] that a great prophet [like King David], so eminently chosen by the Lord God, committed adultery by coveting and seducing another man's wife, and was guilty of a revolting murder by killing her husband. On the contrary, I will read Sacred Scripture with complete certainty and confidence in its truth, founded as it is on the highest summit of divine authority; and I would rather learn from it that human beings were truly approved or corrected or condemned than allow my trust in the divine word to be everywhere undermined just because I am afraid to believe that the all-too-human conduct of certain excellent and praiseworthy persons is sometimes worthy of blame. . . .
(2.7) One should not believe, you say, that Paul blamed Peter for what Paul himself had done. I am not now asking what he did; I am asking what he wrote. The fact that the truth of the Divine Scriptures, so necessary for
62. " 'How I wish . . . mutual conversation' ": Quoting Jerome, ep. 68.2 (CCL 31A:30). 63. Parsons, following the CSEL edition of Augustine's letters, translates this as: "Surely, it is better to believe that the Apostle Paul wrote something untruthful than that the Apostle Peter acted not uprightly." This, however, plainly contradicts the view that Augustine is so strongly arguing for here. I have modified the translation so as to follow the new CCL critical edition of Augustine's letters, which gives this sentence as a question, not a statement.