Daily life, in any era, is filled with symbols. Over time, some of those symbols become disconnected from their initial functions and significances. Many people wear baseball caps who neither watch nor play baseball. One type of earring, which once signified slavery, is now worn as fashion. Many modern shoes have patterns of dots which were originally designed to drain excess moisture from the shoe after stepping in puddle; now those dots are understood as decorative in purpose and few wearers are aware of the original task of the perforations.
In Paul's letter to the Galatians, he mentions in the second chapter two symbols which had lost their meanings: circumcision and communal dining. Nicholas Thomas Wright discusses the adventures of Nigel Barley among the Dowayo people of Cameroon. Barley, a sociologist and anthropologist, carefully observed, recorded, and analyzed the culture of the Dowayo. Wright summarizes Barley's findings:
Social psychologists can and do come up with theories as to why circumcision plays such a large role in certain cultures. The ritual seems to highlight both the importance of the reproductive function and the fact that sexual appetite is a force that must somehow be controlled (though from Barley's accounts of Dowayo life this aspect is decidedly more symbolic than actual). Its origins are lost in the mists of time, through the Bible speaks of one occasion on which God commanded Abraham that he and his household and could be circumcised as a sign of the covenant God had made with Abraham and his family (Genesis 17). The Jews were by no means the only people in the ancient world to wear this badge, just as they are not alone in this respect today.
In many cultures, circumcision had a specific meaning or meanings, purpose or purposes, and context or contexts. The Hebrews were not the only nation to attach significance to this ritual. But over time, the initial functions of circumcision - to remind the Hebrews that their covenant with God was hereditary and therefore linked with the act of reproduction; to remind the Hebrews that the human sexual drive was a powerful force requiring discipline and judiciousness - were gradually less and less linked to the ritual itself. Circumcision became a ceremony disconnected from its primordial purpose. Floating free, as it were, a symbol without a referent, people found other alleged meanings for it. Circumcision came to be seen as a distinguishing mark, one which created two classes: the circumcised and the uncircumcised. To be sure, from its initiation, it had de facto created these two classes; but that was not its original purpose, meaning, or context. Consider carefully whether this text was meant to create two social classes, or whether it was to remind people of a sacred arrangement between God and humans:
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Again, while the text does generate a two-class system, such a class system was at most a byproduct of the text. The focus and theme of the text is covenant. By Paul's time, however, two thousand years after God's conversation with Abraham, circumcision had come to be seen as a "badge" - Wright's word - of a group. Many of Paul's readers had misunderstood the primary function of circumcision: they assumed that its purpose was to divide humans into two groups.
Likewise, the act of dining with others was an act loaded with significance. Throughout the Tanakh and New Testament, communal dining was exactly that - communal. A meal was a "being together" - a phrase worthy of Heidegger. From Abraham's meal with visitors (Genesis 18:2 through 18:8), to the Last Supper, to the eternal banquet which is Heaven in the future, the Scripture uses mealtime as a metaphor for unity. Yet in the narrative concerning Peter's eating habits, meals will become divisive instead of unifying.
Anyone who has seen a cafeteria in an American high school will find this narrative easy enough to understand: imagine Peter eating lunch routinely at a table with a group of people - daily, over a series of weeks and months. They eat together because they are friends, and they are friends because they eat together. The shared meal both reflects and strengthens the bond. But one day, as Peter is on his way to lunch, he sees an old friend, a friend whom he has not seen in a long time. Happy to see his friend, he is also concerned about what his friend might think or say when he sees the people with whom Peter has been dining. Peter suddenly breaks his habit of eating at the table of friends.
Peter's error? He has detached the common dining experience from its primary meaning of a "being with" or a "being together" and instead has attached the dining experience to a new meaning, "being seen" as a part of a group. When the symbol is disassociated from its original referent and connecting to a new and foreign significance, social disruption results.
Paul's main concern in writing to the Galatians is not the purity of the symbol; Paul's concern is not preserving the meaning of the symbols. His concern is preserving the Gospel. Paul sees that the misunderstanding of these symbols - circumcision and common dining - threatens something of a larger magnitude. If the problem were merely this misunderstanding, then the problem might be overlooked, or dealt with in a more low-key manner. But this misunderstanding concerns Paul because it could lead, if left unchecked, to much worse problems.
Explaining that he is not held up by minutia or by the technicalities of definitions, Paul points to the question at the heart of the matter: unity. When symbols are detached from the original referents, and attached to other referents, the resulting misunderstanding is the least of the problems. The graver issue is conflict and divisiveness.
The reader might be misled into thinking that the concerns in the second chapter of Paul's letter to the Galatians are circumcision and shared meals. Those are not the main concerns; they are merely the occasions or instances. The main concern is unity. Nicholas Thomas Wright continues:
Why? Because the gospel is the announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord of the world. And if he is Lord of the whole world, then those who believe in him, who give allegiance to him, must form a single family. There cannot be divisions based on nationhood or race. If the church had learnt this from Paul, instead of conveniently forgetting it, many troubles in today's world might have been averted.
Paul cares about circumcision and common dining only because, and only to the extent that, they impact the Gospel, for good or for ill. If someone asks Paul about his theology of circumcision, he might reply that it's whatever most effectively promotes the Gospel. Asked about his theology of shared meals, he might reply that it's whatever most accurately transmits to people the idea that Jesus loves them.
One possible understanding of the second chapter of Galatians, then, is this: Paul understands that unity serves the Gospel, and disunity hampers it. In this particular case, the issues which offer an opportunity for unity, or which threaten to disunite, are circumcision and mutual mealtimes.
