Against Heresies: Book III
Chapter 13: Refuting the belief that Paul was the only apostle who knew the truth
Regarding those (the Marcionites) who claim that Paul alone knew the truth and that the mystery was revealed to him by revelation, let Paul himself refute them. He says that the same God worked in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised and in himself for the Gentiles. Therefore, Peter was an apostle of the same God as Paul, and both preached about God and the Son of God; Peter to those of the circumcision and Paul among the Gentiles. For our Lord did not come to save only Paul, nor is God so limited that He would have only one apostle who understood the plan for His Son. Furthermore, when Paul says, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news and preach the Gospel of peace,” he clearly shows that there were many who preached the truth. Additionally, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, after listing all who saw God after the resurrection, he continues, “But whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed,” recognizing the unity in the preaching of all those who witnessed God after the resurrection.
And again, the Lord replied to Philip, who wanted to see the Father, “Have I been with you for such a long time, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? Whoever sees Me, also sees the Father; so why do you say, Show us the Father? For I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Therefore, the Lord testified to these men that in Himself they had both known and seen the Father (and the Father is truth). To claim, then, that these men did not know the truth is to be false witnesses and to be separated from the doctrine of Christ. For why did the Lord send the twelve apostles to the lost sheep of the house of Israel if these men did not know the truth? How did the seventy preach unless they had already known the truth of what was preached? Or how could Peter have been ignorant, when the Lord testified to him that flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but the Father, who is in heaven? Just as “Paul was an apostle, not from men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father,” it was the same with the rest; the Son indeed leading them to the Father, but the Father revealing the Son to them.
Paul agreed to the request of those who called him to the apostles because of the question that had come up. He went with Barnabas to Jerusalem, not without reason, but so that the freedom of the Gentiles might be confirmed by them. Paul himself mentions this in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Then, fourteen years later, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, also taking Titus. I went up by revelation and shared with them the Gospel I preached among the Gentiles." He also says, "For an hour we did not yield to subjection, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you." If anyone carefully examines the timing from the Acts of the Apostles concerning when it is written that he went up to Jerusalem for that question, they will find that the years Paul mentioned align with it. Thus, Paul's statement agrees with and is essentially identical to Luke's testimony regarding the apostles.