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A COMMENTARY 



ON THE 



rREEK TEXT OF THE EPISTLE OF PAUL 



TO 



THE GALATIANS. 



BY 



JOHN EADIE, D.D., LL.D., 

PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE AND EXEGESIS TO THE UNITED 
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 



EDINBURGH : 

T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. 
LONDON: HAMILTON & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO. 

MDCCCLXIX. 



-MURRAY AND GIBE, EDINBURGH. 
1 KIXTLRS TO HER MAJESTY S STATIONERY OFFICE 



PREFACE. 



HflHE object of this Commentary is the same as that stated 
-- in the prefaces to my previous volumes on Ephesians, 
Colossians, and Philippians. Nor do its form and style greatly 
vary from those earlier Works. Only it is humbly hoped, that 
longer and closer familiarity with the apostle s modes of thought 
and utterance may have conferred growing qualification to ex 
pound him. The one aim has been to ascertain the meaning 
through a careful analysis of the words. Grammatical and 
lexical investigation have in no way been spared, and neither 
labour nor time has been grudged in the momentous and re 
sponsible work of illustrating an epistle which contains so vivid 
an outline of evangelical truth. To find the sense has been 
my first step, and the next has been to unfold it with some 
degree of lucid and harmonious fulness. How far my purpose 
has been realized, the reader must judge ; but, like every one 
who undertakes such a task, I am sadly conscious of falling far 
short of my own ideal. While I am not sensible of being 
warped by any theological system, as little am I aware of any 
deviation from recognised evangelical truth. One may differ 
in the interpretation of special words and phrases, and still 
hold the great articles of the Christian creed. I have gone 
over every clause with careful and conscientious effort to 
arrive at its sense, and without the smallest desire to find a 
meaning for it that may not jar with my theology. For 
"Theology," as Luther said, "is nothing else than a grammar 
and lexicon applied to the words of the Holy Spirit." I am 
well aware that scholastic theology has done no small damage 



VI PREFACE. 

to biblical interpretation, as may be seen in so many of the 
proof-texts attached to Confessions of Faith. The divine words 
of Scripture are " spirit and life," and have an inherent vitality, 
while the truth wedged into a system has often become as a 
mummy swathed up in numerous folds of polemical dialectics. 

Several features of this epistle render its exposition some 
what difficult. In some sections, as in the address to Peter, 
the apostle s theology is but the expression of his own experi 
ence ; brief digressions and interjected thoughts are often oc 
curring ; longer deviations are also met with before he works 
round more or less gradually to the main theme. The epistle 
is not like a dissertation, in which the personality of the author 
is merged ; it is not his, but himself his words welling up 
freshly from his heart as it was filled by varying emotions of 
surprise, disappointment, anger, sorrow, and hope. So, what 
he thought and felt was immediately written down before its 
freshness had faded ; vindication suddenly passes into dogma, 
and dogma is humanized by intermingled appeals and warnings, 
the rapid interchange of I, We, Thou, Ye, They, so lighting 
up the illustration that it glistens like the changing hues of a 
dove s neck. The entire letter, too, is pervaded by more than 
wonted fervour ; the crisis being very perilous, his whole nature 
was moved to meet it, so as to deliver his beloved converts 
from its snares. One result is, that in his anxiety and haste, 
thought occasionally jostles thought ; another idea presses upon 
him before the one under hand is brought to a formal conclu 
sion ; his faculty of mental association being so suggestive and 
fertile, that it pressed all around it into his service. These 
peculiarities show that the letter is an intensely human com 
position the words of an earnest man writing in the fulness 
of his soul to other men, and naturally throwing himself on 
their affection ; while there lies behind, in conscious combi 
nation, that divine authority which conferred upon him the 
apostleship in connection with the appearance and voice of the 
Saviour, and that divine training which opened up to him those 



PREFACE. Vll 

sudden and perfect intuitions which he terms Revelation. The 
contents and circumstances of the epistle endeared it to Luther, 
for it fatted in wondrously to his similar experiences and trials, 
and he was wont to call it, as if in conjugal fondness, his 
Katherine von Bora. One may also cordially indorse the 
eulogy of Bunyan : " I prefer this book of Martin Luther s 
(except the Bible) before all the books that I have ever seen, 
as most fit for a wounded conscience." For the epistle un 
veils the relation of a sinner to the law which condemns him, 
and from which, therefore, he cannot hope for acceptance, 
and it opens up the great doctrine of justification by faith, 
which modern spiritualism either ignores or explains away. 
Its explicit theology is, that through faith one enjoys pardon 
and has the Spirit conferred upon him, so that he is free from 
legal yoke ; while his life is characterized by a sanctified 
activity and self-denial, for grace is not in conflict with such 
obedience, but is rather the spring of it death to the law 
being life to God. It is also a forewarning to all time of the 
danger of modifying the freeness and fulness of the gospel, 
and of allowing works or any element of mere ritual to be 
mixed up with the atoning death of the Son of God, as if to 
give it adaptation or perfection. 

Any one writing on Galatians must acknowledge his obli 
gation to the German exegets, Meyer, De Wette, Wieseler, and 
the others who are referred to in the last chapter of the Intro 
duction. Nor can he forget to thank, among others at home, 
Bishop Ellicott, Dean Alford, and Prof. Lightfoot, for their 
learned and excellent labours. Each of these English com 
mentaries has its distinctive merits ; and my nope is, that this 
volume, while it has much in common with them, will be found 
to possess also an individual character and value, the result of 
unwearied and independent investigation. Ellicott is distin 
guished by close and uniform adherence to grammatical canon, 
without much expansion into exegesis ; Alford, from the fact 
that his exposition extends to the whole New Testament, is of 



Vlll PREFACE. 

necessity brief and somewhat selective in his remarks ; while 
Lightfoot himself says, that " in his explanatory notes such 
interpretations only are discussed as seemed at all events possi 
bly right, or are generally received, or possess some historical 
interest;" and his collateral discussions occupy longer space than 
the proper exposition. I have endeavoured, on the other hand, 
to unite grammatical accuracy with some fulness of exegesis, 
giving, where it seemed necessary, a synopsis of discordant 
views, and showing their insufficiency, one-sidedness, ungram- 
matical basis, or want of harmony with the context ; treating 
a doctrine historically, or throwing it into such a form as may 
remove objection ; noticing now and then the views and argu 
ments of Prof. Jowett ; and, as a new feature in this volume, 
interspersing several separate Essays on important topics. 
Authorities have not been unduly heaped together ; in the 
majority of cases, only the more prominent or representative 
names have been introduced. The text is for the most part, 
but not always, the seventh edition of Tischendorf, to whom 
we are indebted for the Codex Sinaiticus N*, and for his recent 
and exact edition of the Vatican Codex of the New Testament. 

My thanks are due to Mr. John Cross, student of Balliol 
College, Oxford, for looking over the sheets as they passed 
through the press. 

And now, as an earnest and honest attempt to discover the 
mind of the Spirit in His own blessed word, I humbly dedicate 
this volume to the Church of Christ. 



JOHX EADIE. 



6 THORNVILLE TERRACE, BILLHEAD, 
GLASGOW, 1st January 1869. 



CONTENTS. 



SOME of the longer illustrations and separate discussions referred to 

in the Preface are noted in the following brief Table of Contents : 

PAGE 

Abraham in him, with him, . 

Accursed, 

Adoption, 

All things to all men, . . 

Allegory, . . 359-363 

Antagonism, inner, ..... 

Brothers of our Lord, neither step-brethren nor cousins patristic 

and modern theories reviewed (a Dissertation), . . 57-100 

Christ s self-oblation not a mere Jewish image, as Jowett affirms, 12 

Clementines, , 199-200 

Cut off which trouble you meaning of the phrase, . 397-400 

Druidisni, ..... xxxiv-xxxix 

Dying to the law living to God, 

Elements, . . 295 

Faith, life by, . 

Fault, overtaken in, 

Flesh, works of, . 415-420 

Four hundred years, . 259-261 

Galatia province its history, . 

Population of, Keltic in blood, . xx 

Introduction of the gospel into, . xxviii 

Epistle to contents of, . xxxix 

,, genuineness of, . . xlvii 

,, commentators on, . Ixii 

Hagar Mount Sinai : allegory, 364-368 

Harmony of Paul with the other apostles, . . 123-135 

Israel of God, ... 470 

James brother ; relationship discussed, . 57-100 

James, certain from, at Antioch, . 397 

Jowett on atonement, reviewed, . 12, 192-194 

Judaism, exclusiveness of, 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Justification by faith, ..... 1GG, 229-235 

Law, meaning of, ...... 103-104 

Law as instrument of death to itself, .... 182 

Law 430 years after the promise, .... 259 

Law, uses of, etc., ...... 2G2-2G9 

Law, not under meaning of, . . . . . 412-415 

Law a paedagogue, ...... 279-284 

Love the fulfilment of the law, . . 402-400 

Letters, large, used by the apostle, .... 454-459 

Mediator not of one God is one, .... 2G7-275 

Xatnes of the Saviour meaning and varying use, . . 109-170 

Paganism, religious truth underlying, . . . . 312 

Paul and Peter at Antioch long correspondence between Jerome 

and Augustine on the subject (a Dissertation), . . 198-213 

Putting on Christ, .... . 280-287 

Revelation, its nature, ...... 45 

Righteousness, ....... 227-230 

Sarah, Jerusalem above, ..... 368-309 

Seasons, sacred condemna titoa of keeping them, no argument 

against Christian Sabbath-keeping, . . . 313-317 

Seed harvest, . . ... 444-448 

Seeds Seed, ..... . 25G-258 

Sinners, found to be meaning of the phrase, . . . 170-177 

Son, minor, servant Roman law, .... 290-290 

Spirit, fruit of, ... . 421-420 

Thorn in the flesh, the apostle s infirmity in Galatia (a Disserta 
tion), ..... 329-345 

Visits of the apostle to Galatia, .... xxviii-xxxi 

Visits of the apostle to Jerusalem (a Dissertation). . . 133-145 



GREEK WORDS AND PHRASES. 



A/3/3S 6 Trarij/j, . 

A8f\<pos TOV Kvpiov, . 



Afiapnav with dj/rl, Tiepi, 



AtreAyeta, 



Aid, .. 

AiadrjKT), . 

AlKatOCTVVT), SiKCllUO), 

Acopeai/, . 



Els, eVo s, . 

Evdi/o/uit, . 

"Epya z/d/iov, . 

Eptdeia, . 

"Erepoy, . 

ZijAoff, . 

zijv, ^17, . 

euro s, . 

KXI/tti, . 

Aoyifo/iat V, . 



Ov8e yap, 



PAGE 

.. 303 

.. 57100 
.. 14 
.. 220 

. . 10 
. .26-28 
.. 95 
. . .416 
. .215 

. 102, 320-325 

.. 453 

. 229235 

. . 196 
, . 424 
. 269-274 
.. 286 
.. 163 
.. 418 
. .22 
417 

185-190 

. .417 
, .53 

. 228-229 
. .19 
.. 445 

163-164, 262-269 
.. 453 

.. 35 

. .282 
. .41 

.. 455 
244-246 



Xll GREEK WORDS AND PHRASES. 

PAGE 

Hpocrcinrov Aa/z/3aVe if, .... 120 

..... GO 



..... 
2irepp.a. .... 255-258 

Srty/na, . . . . .472 

Srot^eta, . . . 295 

2ri\os,jig. . . . .126 

2w, eV, . . . 238-240 

..... 423 



EEKATA. 



Page 15, line 6 from foot, for /mra rmtZ /card. 

Page 44, lowest line, for fjfj.ds read fmas. 

Page 56, line 2 from top, for bearing read losing. 

Page 120, line 15 from top, for Aa/i/3am rc 

Page 134, line 4 from foot, for 7re(j)opr)K5)s read Tr 

Page 364, line 6 from foot, for Pro read De. 

Page 418, line 19 from top, for ?) read f] ; for epideia read 

Page 459, line 6 from foot, for Pro read De. 



INTRODUCTION, 



I. THE PROVINCE OF GALATIA. 

Galatia or Gallogrsecia of the " Acts," the region to 
JL which this epistle was sent, was a central district in Asia 
Minor, bounded on the north by Bithynia and Paphlagonia, on 
the south by Cappadocia and Phrygia, on the east by Pontus 
and Cappadocia, and on the west by Phrygia and Bithynia. 
The Roman province of Galatia was considerably larger than 
this territory, and comprised Lycaonia, Isauria, Phrygia, and 
Pisidia the kingdom as ruled by the last sovereign Amyntas. 1 
Some critics therefore hold that this epistle was sent espe 
cially to believers in Lystra and Derbe ; Mynster, Niemeyer, 
Paulus, Ulrich, Bottger, and Thiersch arguing that in the 
reign of Nero, Galatia included Derbe and Lystra along with 
Pisidia, and that therefore in Acts xiii. and xiv. there are full 
details of the apostle s missionary labours in the province. But 
Galatia is not used in the New Testament in this wide Roman 
sense ; it has always a narrower signification. For by its side 
occur the similar names of Mysia, Pisidia, and Phrygia. Nay, 
Lycaonia, Pisidia, Phrygia all included in the Roman province 
are uniformly mentioned as countries distinct from Galatia ; 
the obvious inference being that the terms denote various locali 
ties, without reference to political divisions. Thus the author of 

1 Galatia quoque suit hoc provincia facta est, citm antea regnum fuisfset 
primusque camM. Lollius pro prsetore administravit. Eutropius, vii. 8. Tot/ 
3 AftvvTOV r&wr haot.VTns oil tolg Trotiffiv minou TVJV dpx,^" iiFfrff>^lit t XX s; 
Tqy i/Trqxoov lasjyissye, KOC.I wru x.a.1 y Ycthartot ftiTct TV; Avzaovt as fufActlov 
Kpxoyra, ia^e. Dion Cassius, liii. 3, vol. ii. p. 48, ed. Bekker. See also 
Strabo, xii. 5, 1. Pliny puts the Lystrem in the catalogue of the tribes 
occupying the Roman province : Hist. Nat. vii. 42. 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

the Acts describes the apostle and his party as going "throughout 
Phrygia and the region of Galatia" (Acts xvi. 6); and these are 
again distinguished from Lycaonia and Pisidia, Acts xiii. 14, 
xiv. 6, 24. Nay, the phrase first quoted ryv (frpwylav KOI r^v 
Ta\arLKr]v ^copais, " the Phrygian and Galatian country"- 
implies that while Phrygia and Galatia were different, they 
were closely connected geographically; for the Galatian district 
was bounded south and west by Phryffia, nay, it had originally 

v , O */ / O 

been Phrygian territory before it was conquered and possessed 
by the Gauls. 1 The towns of Lystra and Derbe, " cities of 
Lycaonia," with Iconium and Antioch, are never regarded as 
belonging to the apostolic Galatia, though the Roman Galatian 
province apparently included them. At the same time, in the 
enumeration of places in 1 Pet. i. 1, an enumeration running 
from east to west, Galatia may be the Roman province men 
tioned with the others there saluted. 

The compound name TaXko^/paiKia Gallogrecia Greek 
Gaul, is connected with the eastward migration of a fragment 
of the great old Keltic race which peopled western Europe. 
Indeed, Keltai, Galli, Galatse, are varying forms of the same 
name. The first of these terms, Ke\rol, KeXrat, is probably 
the earliest, being found in Hecatasus 2 and Herodotus ; 3 while 
the other form, JaXcma, is more recent (o-v^e), as is affirmed 
by Pausanias, 4 though it came to be generally adopted by 
Greek writers as the name as well of the eastern tribes in Asia 
Minor, as of the great body of the people to the west of the 
Rhine. It occurs on the Augustan monument in the town of 
Ancyra ; and being applied alike to the Asiatic and Euro 
pean Gauls, there needed occasionally some geographical nota 
tion to be added, such as that found in ./Elian PaXara? 
JEuSo^o? TOU? rijf jEcoa? \eyet, Spav roiavra ; and it has been 
found on an inscription dug out from Hadrian s Wall in the 
north of Enland. Diefenbach* shows that this name had an 



1 Strabo writes : \v (>s rrt ftiaoyxix Tqy n (frpv/iay, q; itrri ftip o; 57 n TUV 
TaKhoypoiixuv hsyofttvYi YxhctTitx. : Gcofj. ii. 5, 31. 

2 Fragment. 19, 20, 21, ed. Miiller. 

3 Hist. ii. 33, iv. 49. Polybius, ii. 13 ; Diodorus Sic. v. "2-2. See 
Suidas, sub race FAXo/, and the Etymologicum Magnum, sab voce 

4 Dcscript. Gnxc. i. 3, 5, vol. i. p. 18, ed. Scliubart. 

5 DC Nat. Anim. xvii. 19, vol. i. p. 382, ed. Jacobs. 
G Cdtica, ii. p. C, etc., Stuttgart 1839-40. 



KELTS, GAULS, GALATIANS. XV 

extensive range of application. Ammianus Marcellinus 1 says, 
Galatas ita enim Gallos Sermo Grcecus adpellat ; and Appian 2 
explains, e? rrjv Ke\riKrjv rrjv vvv Xeyo/jiev rjv PaXarlav. Galli 
JTaXXoi, Gauls was the current Roman name, though the 
other terms, Kelt and Galatian, are also used by Latin writers 
the last being confined to the people who had settled them 
selves in Phrygia. Julius Caesar s 3 words are, tertiam qui ipso- 
rum lingua, Celtce, nostra Galli appellantur. Livy, 4 in narrating 
the eastern wars in Galatia, calls the people Galli. Pa\\la 
is also employed by late Greek writers, and at a more recent 
period it almost superseded that of Galatia. Theodore of Mop- 
suestia has ra<? vvv KaXovfjiev^ .TaXX/a? ad 2 Tim. iv. 10, 
Fragm. p. 156, ed. Fritzsche. Diefenbach 6 quotes from Galen, 
De Antidot. i. 2, a clause identifying the three names : KaXovcn 
<yap avTOVs evioi fj,ev PaXara?, evioi Be PaXXov?, avvrjOea-repov 
e TWV Ke\T(ov ovofjia. Strabo 7 reports some difference of lan 
guage among the western Galata3 a statement which may be 
at once believed, for, not to speak of Welsh and Erse, such 
variations are found in places so contiguous as the counties 
of Inverness and Argyle. Appian, 8 speaking of the Pyrenees, 
pays, " that to the east are the Kelts, now named Galatians and 
Gauls, and to the west Iberians and Keltiberians." But the 
names are sometimes used vaguely, and sometimes also for the 
sake of inter-distinction, as in the definition of Hesychius, 
Ke\rol eOvos erepov Ta\cnS)v ; in Diogenes Laertius, 9 -KeXroi? 
KOI Ta\drai<^ , and in fine, we have also the name KeXro- 
7<zXo.Tta. These ethnological statements imply that the know 
ledge of ancient writers on the subject was not only vague and 
fluctuating, but often merely traditionary and conjectural, and 
that the various names Greek and Roman, earlier and later, 
eastern and western given to this primitive race, led to great 
confusion and misunderstanding. Perhaps it is not far from 
the truth to say that Kelt was the original name, the name em- 

1 xv. 9. 2 Hann. iv. p. 115, vol. i. ed. Bekker. 3 Bell. Gall. i. 

4 Hist, xxxviii. 12, 27. For these various names, see also Contzen, 
die Wanderungen der Kelten, p. 3, Leipzig 1861 ; Gliick, die lei C. J. 
Csesar vorkommende Keltischen Namen, Miinchen 1857. 

5 Wright s Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 325. G Celtica, ii. 7. 
7 Geog. iv. 1, 1. 8 Hisp. i. p. 48, vol. i. ed. Bekker. 
P. 1, vol. i. ed. Huebner. 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

ployed by the people themselves; and that the Greeks, on getting 
the name or some peculiar variation of it, represented it by 
Galatse ; while the Romans, by another initial change far from 
being uncommon, pronounced it Galli the t or at in Kelt 
or Galat being a species of Keltic suffix. 1 Not only is the 
initial letter of Kelti and Galli interchangeable, but there is a 
form KaXarla, Kd\arov, allied, according to some, to Cael- 
don the Gauls of the hills Celadon, Caledonii. The northern 
form of the word is Gadhael, Gaidheal, or Gaoidheal, of which 
the Scottish term Gael is a contraction. Hence Argyle is ar- 
Gadhael, the coast of the Gael, and Argyle has become Argyll, 
just as Gael became Gall, Galli. The conflicting mythical 
derivations of the name need not be referred to ; it seems to 
be allied to the Irish Gal, " a battle," Gala, " arms," and will 
therefore mean "armed" pugnaces, ar-mati? This derivation 
is abundantly verified in their history, for they were, as Strabo 
says, "warlike, passionate, and ever prepared to fight." 3 The 
essential syllable in the earlier name is found in Celtiber, 
Ke\Tij3i)pi and the other form, Gall, makes the distinctive part 
of Gallicia, a province in the Spanish peninsula, of Galway 
and of Galloway, connected with the idea of foreign or hostile ; 
hence the old Scottish proverb about " the fremd Scots of 
Galloway." The same syllable formed portion of the grand 
chieftain s name latinized by Tacitus into Galgacus, into whose 
mouth, in his oration before the decisive battle, the son-in-law 
of the Roman general puts those phrases which in their point 
and terseness have passed into proverbs : omne ignotum pro 
magnifico ; solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant? 

The Celtic races were among the earliest migrations from 
the East, and occupied western Europe ; they were as far 
west, according to Herodotus, as to be " beyond the Pillars of 
Hercules" "they are near the Kynetae, which are the most 
western population of Europe." 5 They were also found in 
northern Italy, France, and the British Isles. Many Latin 

1 T derirans in nominibus GaUicia rel Britannicis vetustis. Sinyularis 
accedcns ad radiccm as Critognatus from <jnu. Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica, 
vol. ii. pp. 757, 758, Lipsiae 1853. 

2 Do. vol. i. p. 993. 3 Geog. iv. 4, "2. 

4 Agricolse Hta, xxx. p. 287, Op. vol. iv. eel. Rupcrti. 

5 ii. 33, iv. 49. Plutarch, Vitx, Marius, p. 284, vol. ii. ed. Bekkcr. 



KELTIC EXPEDITIONS. XVli 

terms connected with war are of Keltic origin. 1 But the 
ocean prevented any farther westward progress, and in their 
restlessness the Kelts retraced their steps, and commenced a 
series of movements towards the East. After some minor 
expeditions, and in the year 390 B.C., a portion of them, under 
Brennus or Bran, crossed the Apennines, captured Rome, 
and spread themselves over the south of Italy. According to 
Livy and Diodorus, these invaders came from the vicinity of 
Sens, and were therefore Kelts according to Caesar s account 

/ o 

of the races of Gaul. Others suppose them to have belonged 
to the Kymric branch of the Gauls : Kip/Spot, Ki/m/Aeplot,? 
About 279 B.C. another body of Gauls, under a leader of 
the same name, rushed eastward into Greece, overran Thrace 
and Macedonia, found immense wealth, and enriched them 
selves for another and more violent expedition, their forces 
being said to consist of 150,000 infantry and 61,000 cavalry. 
These hardy hordes otytyovoi T troves, late-born Titans 
swarmed thick as snow-flakes vufidSeo-a-iv eot/core?, as the 
poet describes them. 3 On pushing their way to Thermopylae 
so famed in olden story, they met 20,000 Greeks assembled to 
defend the pass, the shore being guarded also by an Athenian 
fleet. The Gauls, in spite of their numbers, were beaten 
back ; and one party of them, crossing the mountains into 
.ZEtolia, ravaged the country with incredible barbarity. The 
leader then marched in haste on Delphi, gloating over 
the rich prize that should fall into his hands the sacred 
treasures and statues and chariots dedicated to the sun-god ; 
profanely joking, according to Justin, 4 that the gods were so 
rich that they could afford to be givers as well as receivers. 
But the Delphian Greeks, mustering only 4000, proved more 
than a match for Brennus and his impatient troops. The 
defenders had an advantageous situation on the hill, and, 
aided by a stern arid intense wintry cold, they bravely re 
pulsed the barbarians. Their general, wounded and carried off 

1 Pri chard s Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, p. 124, Latham s ed. 

2 Appian, Celtic, vol. i. pp. 34, 42, ed. Bekker ; Diodor. Sic. v. 32 ; 
Arnold s History of Rome, vol. i. p. 524, etc., 3d ed. 

3 Callimachus, ad Delum. 175, p. 33, ed. Blomfield. 

4 Justin, xxiv. 6. Contzen, Wanderungen der Kelten, p. 193, etc.; 
Wernsdorf, De liepub. Galat. vii. ; Pausanias, Descript. Grxc. x. 19. 

b 



XVlll INTRODUCTION. 

the field, was unable to bear bis mortification, and committed 
suicide ; and the impetuous invaders, on being beaten, fled in 
panic a national characteristic, and a few of them escaping 
the slaughter that accompanied their disorderly retreat through 
an unknown and mountainous territory, reached their brethren 
left behind at Thermopylae According to Greek legend, 
Apollo s help 1 led to the discomfiture of the invaders. Justin 
says that a portion of these marauders, the tribe called Tecto- 
sages, returned with their booty to Tolosa Toulouse ; but the 
story is uncertain, and the fluctuations of these Celtic tribes, 
ever in quest of new territories and plunder, cannot be dis 
tinctly traced the hazy reports of their movements hither and 
thither cannot be clearly followed. The expedition to Delphi 
had bred fierce dissension among the leaders of the force, who, 
like all Keltic chiefs, were too self-willed and independent to 
maintain harmonious action for any length of time. Two 
leaders, named in a tongue foreign to their own, Leonnorius 
and Lutarius, had escaped the great disaster by refusing to 
join in the march ; they and their followers fought their way 
through the Thracian Chersonese to the Hellespont, and after 
some quarrels and vicissitudes were carried across into Asia 
Minor. Nicomedes I., king of Bithynia, being at war at the 
time with his brother Zyboetes, gladly took these foreign mer 
cenaries into his service, and by their help gained the victory, 
but at a terrible expense of misery to his country. In the 
campaign they had acted as it pleased them, and divided 
the prey among themselves. According to one statement, 
Xicomedes gave them a portion of the conquered country 
which was on that account called Gallogrecia. According to 
other accounts, the Gauls, disdaining all such trammels as 
usually bind allies or hired legionaries, set out to conquer for 
themselves, threw themselves over the country west and north 
of the Taurus, and either forced it to tribute or parcelled it out 
as a settlement. The Syrian princes were terrified into sub 
mission for a season ; but their spirit at length revived, and one 
of them, Antiochus, got his surname of Soter from a victory over 
these truculent adventurers, or rather over one of their three 
tribes the Tectosages. Such, however, was the importance 
attached to them, that the princes of various countries subsi- 
1 Diodorus, Billiotli. Hist. vol. iii. p. 52, Excerpta Vaticana. 



SETTLEMENT IN ASIA MINOR. XIX 

clized them, and they are found in Egyptian as well as in 
Syrian battles. But they were dangerous friends ; for after 
helping to gain a battle for Antiochus Hierax, they turned and 
compelled him to ransom himself and form a bond with them. 
Their spreading over the country like a swarm velut examen, 
and the terror Gallici nominis et armorum invicta felicitas, are 
referred to by Justin. 1 In this way they became the terror of all 
states, an ungovernable army, whose two-edged sword was ever 
ready to be drawn to glut their own lust of booty, and which, when 
paid for, often cut on either side of the quarrel for which they 
had been bought, and was seldom sheathed. They knew their 
power, and acted according to their wild and rapacious instincts. 
But their unquenchable turbulence became intolerable. Atta- 
lus, prince of Pergamus and father of Eumenes, gained a great 
victory over them, or rather over the two tribes, the Trocmi 
and Tolistoboii ; he refused to pay them tribute, and hemmed 
them into the province proper of Galatia, about B.C. 230. 2 Yet 
we find Attains employing another horde of the same hirelings 
in one of his wars, who, as their wont had been, broke loose 
from all restraint, and plundered the countries and towns along 
the Hellespont, till their defeat by Prusias, about B.C. 216. 3 
But Rome was about to avenge its earlier capture. Some 
Gallic or Galatian troops had fought on the side of Antiochus 
at the battle of Magnesia ; and the consul Manlius, against the 
advice of the decem legati who were with him, at once invaded 
their country, while the native Phrygian hierarchy, trodden 
down by the Gauls, encouraged the invaders. The Gauls, on 
being summoned to submit, refused stolida ferocia; but they 
were soon defeated, in two campaigns and in a series of battles, 
with prodigious slaughter. Certain conditions were imposed on 
them, but their country was not wrested from them. They may 
by this time have lost their earlier hardihood, and, as Niebuhr 
remarks, have become quite effeminate and unwarlike, as the 
Goths whom Belisarius found in Italy. Fifty- two Gallic chiefs 
walked before the triumphal car of Manlius at Rome, B.C. 189. 
In subsequent years they were often employed as indispensable 
auxiliaries; they served both with Mithridates and with Pompey 
who showed them some favour, and some of them were at 
Actium on the side of Antony. Roman patronage, however, 
1 Hist. Philip, xxv. 2. 2 Livy, lib. xxxviii. 16. 3 Polybius, v. 11. 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

soon crushed them. Deiotarus, first tetrarch, and then made 
king by Pompey, was beaten at Pharsalia, but he was defended 
at Rome by Cicero ; the second king of the same name was 
succeeded by Amyntas, on whose death Augustus reduced the 
country to the rank of a Roman province, B.C. 25, the first 
governor of which was the proprietor, M. Lollius. The differ 
ence between the limits of Galatia and the Roman province 
so named has been already referred to. 

The Gauls who had so intruded themselves into Asia 
Minor, and formed what Juvenal 1 calls altera Gallia, were 
divided into three tribes : the names of course have been 
formed with Greek terminations from the native terms which 
may not be very accurately represented. These three tribes 
were the To\ta-To/3o<yioi, to the west of the province, with 
Pessinus for their capital ; the TeKroa-dyes in the centre, with 
Ancyra for their chief city which was also the metropolis of the 
country ; and the TpoKfjioi, to the east of the territory, their 
principal town being Tavium. 2 Each tribe was divided into 
four tetrarchies, having each its tetrarch, with a judge and a 
general under him ; and there was for the twelve tetrarchies a 
federal council of 300, who met at Drynaemetum, or oak- 
shrine the first syllable of the word being the Keltic denv, 
oak (Derwydd, Druid), and nemed in the same tongue mean 
ing a temple. 3 That, says Strabo, was the old constitution 
TraXai, fiev ovv r]v Toiavrr] -m ?} Siara^t?. 4 

The previous statements, however, have been questioned, 
and it has been denied that those fierce marauders were Gauls. 
There are, it is true, contradictions and uncertainties among 
the old writers about them, statements that can neither be 
fully understood nor satisfactorily adjusted. The outline is 

1 Sat. vii. 16. 

2 Memnon in Photii BiUiotlieca, pp. 227-8, ed. Bekker. The spelling of 
the names varies, and under the Emperor Augustus the epithet Ss/Sacmji/o/ 
was prefixed to them. Who would not have thanked Tacitus, if in his 
Life of Agricola, instead of his stately Latin terminations, he had spelled 
the proper names as nearly as possible according to the pronunciation of the 
natives of Pictland or Caledonia? But the Romans looked with contempt on 
such an effort. Pliny sneers at a barbara appdlatio (Ilist. Nat. iii. 4), and 
a professed geographer says, Cantabrorum aliquot populi amiiesque sunt, sed 
quorum nomina nostro ore concipi nequeant. P. Mela, De Situ Orbis, iii. 1. 

3 Diefenbach, Celtica, i. 160. 4 xii. 5. 



GALATIANS, WHETHER KELTS OR GERMANS ? XXI 

often dark, and the story Is sometimes left incomplete, or filled 
in with vague reports, legends, or conjectures. But the wild 
wanderers referred to were generally believed to be Gauls 
proper from the west, and probably of the great division of 
Kymri or Welsh Kelts. Latham, in his edition of Prichard s 
Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, p. 104, etc., throws out 
the conjecture that the Galatians were from Austrian Gallicia, 
and therefore of Sclavonic origin ; but his arguments are 
neither strong nor strongly put. Others maintain that those 
Gauls or Galatians were of a German stock. There are ob 
scurities in the distinctions made by Greek and Latin authors 
between the German and Gothic races, of which Suidas under 
KeXroi is an example; for he says the Kelts are called Germans, 
adding, that they invaded Albion, and are also called Senones 
a Gothic race beyond all dispute. Dion Cassius falls into 
similar blunders. " Some of the Kelts," he says, " whom we 
call Germans, holding the whole of Keltike toward the Rhine, 
have made it to be called Germany." 1 He places the Kelts on 
both banks of the Rhine, or rather with this odd distinction, ev 
dpicrTepa fjuev rrjv re TdKariav . . . ev Se^ia Se rov$ KeXroy?. 
He also identifies Kelts and Germans, calling the latter KeXro/, 
and the Belgians Ke\TtKoi\ nay, vaguely regarding K\TIKIJ 
as a Celtic territory bordering on Aquitania, he sometimes gives 
it the special meaning of Gallia, and at other times uses it in 
the broader sense of Western Europe containing Kelts and Ger 
mans. 2 Other old writers were apparently quite as bewildered 
on the subject, and as various in their references. A know 
ledge of the geography and the history of outlying regions 
could not be easily obtained in those days, and much of it 
must have been the result of oral communication, so liable to 
mistake, exaggeration, and distortion. But a distinction was 
usually made, though it was not consistently adhered to ; and 
the hypothesis that these Gauls were of a Teutonic origin 
is quite contrary to the current traditions and the ordinary 
beliefs of the earlier times. There are extreme views on 
both sides ; such as the theory of Mone, 3 that Germany as 

1 liii. 12, xxxix. 49. 

2 xxxix. 46, 49. See Brandes, das Etlmograpliisclie Verhaltniss der 
Kclten und Germanen, p. 203, Leipzig 1857. 

3 Celtisclie Forschunrjen, Freiburg 1857. 



XXll INTRODUCTION. 

well as Gaul was peopled with Celts, and that of Holtzmann, 1 
that the two peoples named Celts and Germans were both 
alike a Teutonic race. Something like national vanity has 
been mingled with this dispute, which is not unlike a fierce 
and famous quarrel nearer home as to the origin and blood of 
the Picts. Thus Ilofmann, in his Disputatio de Galat. Antiq. 
1726, cries : En igitur coloniam Germanorum in Grcecia en 
virtutem majorum nostrorum quai sua arma ad remotissima loca 
protulit. Selneccer (Wernsdorf, De Repub. Galat.} is jubilant 
on this account : cum ad Galatas scripsisse Paulum leyimus, 
ad nostros majores Germanos eum scripsisse sciamus. Germani 
ergo epistolam hanc sibi vindicent, ut hceredes et posteri. 2 Luther 
also says, " Some imagine that we Germans are descendants of 
the Galatians. Nor perhaps is this derivation untrue, for we 
Germans are not very unlike them in temper." " The Epistle 
to the Galatians is addressed to Germans," Olshausen writes ; 
" and it was the German Luther who in this apostolical epistle 
again recognised and brought to light the substance of the 
gospel. It can scarcely be doubted that the Galatians are the 
first German people to whom the word of the cross was 
preached." Tournefort warms into enthusiasm when his travels 
carry him among Keltic affinities. Gleams of the same spirit 
are found in Thierry ; and Texier says more distinctly, Pour 
nous, nous ne devons pas nous rappeler, sans un sentiment 
cCorgueil national, que les Gaulois out penetre jusqit a centre de 
VAsie mineure, s i/ sont etablis, et out laisse dans ce pays des 
so uvenirs imper is sables? 

Now, first, the names of these Galatian tribes appear to 
be Keltic names. The Tolisto-boii, or perhaps Tolisto-boioi, 
are Keltic in both parts of their appellation. For Tolosa is 
yet preserved in France and Spain ; 4 and the second portion 
of the word is Keltic also, the Boii beino; a well-known Gallic 

/ O 

tribe a turbulent and warlike race who left Transalpine Gaul, 
crossed into northern Italy by the pass of the Great St. 
Bernard, fought against the Roman power at intervals with 

1 Kelten und Germanen, Stuttgart 1855. See Prof. Lightfoot s Essay, 
in his Commentary on Galatians, p. 229. 

2 Wernsdorf, De Repub. Galat. 94. 

3 Revue des Deux Alondes, 1841, p. 575. 

4 Diefenbach, Cellica, ii. p. 339. 



PROOFS OF KELTIC ORIGIN. XX111 

varying fortunes, but on being at length driven out of the 
country, settled on a territory named from them Boien-heim 
home of the Boii Bohemia. 1 The Tectosages bear also a 
Keltic designation. A Gallic tribe of the name is mentioned by 
Caesar as being also a migratory one, like so many of its sisters : 
Germanice loca circum Hercyniam silvarn Volcce Tectosages occu- 
paverunt atque ibi consederunt ; 2 and Tolosa Tectosagum occurs 
in Pom. Mela, ii. 5, as among the cities of Gallia Narbonensis. 
The Tectosages are supposed indeed by Meyer and others to have 
been a German tribe, called by CaBsar Volcse Tectosages ; but 
Volcse has no connection with the Teutonic Folk or Vblk, for they 
were a Keltic race who had conquered a settlement in Germany 
and adopted German manners (Caesar says these things not from 
his own knowledge), while the great body of the tribe occupied 
the basin of the Garonne, with Tolosa (Toulouse) for its capital. 
The name of the Trocmi is more obscure. Some, as Strabo, 
followed by Texier, derive it from a chief; Bochart took it from 
Togarmah ; 3 others connect it with @pr)ifce$ Thraces ; while 
others identify them with the Taurisci mountain-dwellers. 4 
Secondly, the persons engaged in the expedition into Greece, 
and the chiefs noted among them afterwards, have Keltic names 
like the Gallic ones in Ca3sar; ending in rix (chief), like Dum- 
norix; Albiorix, Ateporix occur after the lapse of two cen 
turies ; or in marus (mar, great), as Virdumarus, and in tarus 
or toruS) as Deiotarus, tar being equivalent to the Latin trans, 
The leader Brennus (king) was called Prausus terrible 
(Gaelic, bras ; Cornish, braid). Brennus had a colleague or 
^vvdp^cav ; Pausanias calls him Aici xwpiosf and Diodorus 
Siculus Kt^copto?. In the Kymric tongue the name would be 
Kikhou iaour, or Akikhou iaour, which without the augment a 
would be Cy9\viawr. 6 Thirdly, names of places often end in the 
Keltic briga (hill) and iacum. 1 Fourthly, Pausanias refers to 
a plant which the Greeks called /co/cvo?, the kermes berry, but 
which the Galatians tywvf) rfj eTTi^wpiw call 9, or according to 
a better reading va-yij, the dye being called v&yivov. 8 Now, the 
Kymric has hesgen, a sedge, and the Cornish has heschen. 

1 Tacitus, De Germania, c. 28. 2 De Bell. Gall. vi. 24. 

3 Phaleg. iii. 11. 4 Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. 256. 

* x. 19. 6 Thierry, Hist, des Gaulois, i. 129. 

7 Zeuss, Celt. Gram. 772. 8 x. 36. Suidas, sub voce. 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

Pausanias 1 tells also that one mode of military arrangement 
among the invading Gauls was called rpi^apKLaia, from their 
native name for a horse, ftdp/cas ; tri or tri being Celtic for 
three, and march or marc the name of a steed. In Irish and 
Gaelic and Welsh, trimarcliwys signifies " men driving three 
horses." Fifthly, the long lance, the distinctive weapon of the 
infantry, was the ryalaov ; hence the epithet ^aivaTai TaXa-Tai? 
It is in Irish gad, a lance, gaide, gaisthe, s solitaria often falling 
out. 3 It is often incorporated into proper names, as Rada- 
gaisus, Gaisatorix, not unlike Breakspear, Shakespear. It is 
allied to the Saxon goad, and the old Scottish gad, the name 
of a spear and a fishing-rod. The account of the word and 
epithet given by Polybius is wholly wrong. Talcros occurs in 
the Sept., Josh. viii. 18, and in the Apocrypha, Judith ix. 9. 
Sixthly, Jerome is a witness whose testimony may be trusted, 
for it is that of an ear-witness. He had sojourned both among 
the Treviri for some time when a young man adolescen- 
tulus, and he had journeyed to Galatia, and seen its capital 
Ancyra. In a letter to Ruffinus he refers to a pilgrimage 
totum Galatice et Cappadocice iter? In the preface to the second 
book of his Commentary he says, Scit mecum qui videt Ancyram 
metropolim Galatice civitatem. 5 Not only does he mention his 
being in Gaul, but he writes more definitely to Ruffinus, in 
the letter already quoted quum post Romana studia ad Rheni 
semibarbaras ripas eodem cibo, pari frueremur liospitio. In his 
second book against Jovinian he tells a story about the canni 
balism and ferocity of the natio Scotorum whom he saw in 
Gaul; 6 and more precisely still, he informs Florentius of a 
literary work, librum Sancti Hilarii quern apud Treviros manu 
mea ipse descripseram. 1 Now, Jerome s distinct words arc : 

1 x. 19. 

2 Polybius, ii. 23. Gsesum occurs Bell. Gall. iii. 4. Athenseus, lib. vi. 
p. 548, Op. vol. ii. ed. Schweighauser. 

3 Zeuss, Celt. Gramm. p. 64. 4 Op. vol. i. p. 10. 5 Op. vii. p. 430. 

6 Vol. ii. p. 335. The tribes called Scots in those days were Irish ; and 
Irish -wanderers came gradually over to Argyleshire, and founded the old 
kingdom of Dalriada. St. Columba is called utriusque Scotlie patronus, 
there being a Scotia and a Dalriada in Ireland as well as in Britain. Pro 
bably the name Scot itself is allied to Scyth, the vague title assigned to a 
wild and distant race. 

7 Op. vol. i. p. 15, ed. Vallars. Yenetiis 1766. 



PROOFS CONTINUED. XXV 

" It is true that Gaul produces orators, but Aquitania boasts 
a Greek origin" et Galatce non de ilia parte terrarum, sed de 
ferocioribus Gallis sint profecti. . . . Unum est quod inferimus, 
Galatas excepto sermone Grceco quo omnis Oriens loquitur, pro- 
priam linguam eandem pene habere quam Treviros. 1 So that 
six hundred years after their first settlement in Asia Minor 
their old language was spoken by them. 

But, according to Meyer, Winer, Jablonski, Niebuhr, Hug, 
Hermes, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Holtzman, 2 German 
was the language spoken then, as now, in and around Treves. 
This statement, however, though partially true, does not prove 
the point contended for. For there had been an intrusive change 
of population toward the end of the third century. A colony of 
Franks had settled in the territory of the Treviri, and natu 
rally brought their language with them rep/j,avovs ol vvv 
$pd<yyoi fca\ovvTcu. 3 Yet the older tongue survived, and might 
survive for a long period afterwards, like the Welsh tongue of 
the present day, centuries after the annexation of the princi 
pality to England. Wieseler argues from the testimony of early 
writers as to the Germanic descent and blood of the Treviri. 
Tacitus says indeed that the Treviri and the Nervii affected a 
German origin, a confession that they were not pure Germans, 
and he proceeds to distinguish them from peoples which were 
German hand dubie* Strabo indeed seems to admit that the 
Nervii were a German race. But the Treviri are called Belga? 
and Gauls again and again, as by Tacitus in his Annal. i. 42, 43, 
iii. 44. In his Hist. iv. 71, 72, 73, Cerealis addresses them, 
Terrain vestram ceterorumque Gallorum. . . . Cassar says, Tre 
viros quorum civitas propter Germanice vicinitatem . . . ; livec 
civitas longe plurimum totius Gallice equitatu valet . . . ; Gallus 
inter Gallosf in which places they are distinguished from 
Germans ; and Pom. Mela writes, Clarissimi Belgarum Treveri. 7 
Their leaders names are Keltic, such as Cingetorix. Some 
doubt is thrown on this by the way in which Pliny speaks of 
them, 8 and there may have been, as Thierry allows, some German 

1 Op. vol. vii. pp. 428-430. 2 Kelten und Germanen, p. 88. 

3 Procopius, Bell. Vandal, i. 3. 

4 De Germania 28. * Geog. iv. 24. 
6 Bell Gall. viii. 25, v. 3, v. 45, vi. 2, vii. 8. 7 iii. 2. 

8 Hist. Nat. iv. 81. 



XXVI INTRODUCTION. 

tribes mixed up with them, as was the case among the Keltic 
Belgians. 1 Caesar s statement, De Bell. Gall. ii. 4, may be ac 
counted for in the same way, and the apparently Teutonic 
names of some of the leaders in the invasion, such as Lutarius 
(Luther) and Leonnorius, may be thus explained. Great stress 
is laid on the names of these two leaders, and on the name of a 
tribe called Teutobodiaci, and a town oddly styled Germano- 
polis. Thierry supposes that the Tolistoboii were Teutonic, 
because of the name of Lutarius their leader. But the Teu 
tonic origin of even these names has been disputed. With 
regard to the first word, there is a Keltic chieftain in Ctesar 
named Lucterius, 2 and Leonorius is the name of a Cymric saint. ;i 
The second syllable of the tribal name is found in the name of 
the warrior queen Boadicea, in the name Bodotria, and the o 
being resolvable into ua, the word assumes the form of liidid, 
victoria? Zeuss also adduces such forms as Tribodii, Catbud, 
Budic, etc. Germanopolis, as Prof. Lightfoot remarks, is an 
exceptional word, and probably denotes some fragment of an 
exceptional population ; or the name may have been one of later 
introduction, as the Greek termination may indicate. The name 
does not appear till more recent times, it being conjectured 
that a foreign colony had been planted there. Still more, 
the dissyllable German itself, not being the native Teutonic 
name of the people, may have a Keltic origin, according to 
Grimm, from garm, clamor^ or according to Zeuss, from ger or 
gair, vicinus. 6 

Lastly, Ammianus Marcellinus, writing in former times, 
speaks of the tall stature, fair and ruddy complexion of the Gauls, 
and the blue eyes of their women; 7 and Diodorus 8 describes the 
white skins and yellow hair of the f EXkT]vo^a\draL. If any faith 
can be placed in national resemblance of form and feature in 

1 Hint, des Gaulms, i. p. 225. 2 Bell Gall. vii. 7. 

3 Diefenbach, Celtica, ii. 254. 4 Zeuss, Gram. Celt. vol. i. p. 27. 

5 "Wernsdorf, De Repullica Galat. p. 219. 

6 G. C. vol. ii. p. 375. Some deny that the Belga? were Kelts. Caesar 
distinguished them from the Celtse and Aquitani ; but it is admitted that 
among them were German colonies who had expelled the aborigines and 
settled near the Rhine, so that many Germans were mixed up with them. 
But the people itself was Keltic, and to them Csesar gave the generalized 
name of Belgse the name being allied to Belg, Fir-bolg in Irish. 

7 xv. 12. 8 v. 28, 32. 



ORIGINAL PHRYGIAN ELEMENT. xxvil 

two periods so remote, Texier may be listened to : Sans chercher 
a se faire illusion, on reconncfit quelquefois, surtout parmi les 
pasteurs, des types qui se rapportent merveilleusement a certaines 
races de nos provinces de France. On voit plus de clieveux 
blonds en Galatie qu en aucun autre royaume de VAsie mineure, 
les tetes carries et les yeux bleux rappellent le caractere des 
populations de Vouest de la France. Cette race de pasteurs 
est repandue dans les villages et les yaela (camps nomades) des 
environs de la meiropole. 1 

All these points enumerated are conclusively in favour of 
the old and common belief of the Keltic origin of the Galatians. 

The original population of the province indeed was Phrygian, 
though in the current name no account is taken of that people, 
but of the Greeks who were settled in it, as in all the East 
since the period of Alexander s conquests, so that Strabo calls it 
TaXa-ria EXkrjvwv? The partial amalgamation of these races 
must have occupied a long time. The Phrygian superstition may 
have taken hold of the Kelts from some points of resemblance 
to their ancestral faith and worship ; and they learned to use 
the Grecian language, which was a kind of common tongue 
among all the tribes round about them, while neither the 
Phrygian nor the Gallic vernacular was wholly superseded. 
The Gauls had coins with Greek inscriptions prior to the 
Christian era. The consul Manlius, addressing his troops, 
says of the Galatians : Hi jam degeneres sunt mixti, et Gallogrceci 
vere quod appellantur . . . Phrygas Gallicis oneratos armis? The 
Galatian lady who is praised by Plutarch and others for killing 
her deforcer, spoke to her attendants in a tongue which the 
soldiers knew not. The Jewish dispersion had also been 
spreading itself everywhere, and was found in Galatia. The 
population was therefore a mixed one, but it was profoundly 
pervaded by a Keltic element which gave it character. The 
manifestations of that temperament occasioned this epistle, and 
are also referred to in it. The TaXariKa of Eratosthenes has 
been lost, and we can scarcely pardon Jerome for giving us no 
extracts from Varro and other writers on Galatia, forsooth on 
this weak pretence, quia nobis proposition est, incircumcisos 
homines non inlroducere in Templum Dei. 

1 Revue des Deux Mondes, 1841, p. 598. 2 Gcog. i. 4. 

3 Livy, xxxviii. 17. 



XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 



II. INTRODUCTION OF THE GOSPEL INTO GALATIA. 

It was during the apostle s second great missionary circuit 
that he first preached the gospel in Galatia, probably about 
A.D. 51 or 52. A mere passing hint is given, a mere allusion 
to evangelistic travel, as it brought the apostle nearer to the 
sea-board and his voyage to Europe. The simple statement is, 
" Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region 
of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach 
the gospel in Asia." 1 The apostle had proposed to visit Asia 
or Ephesus, but the set time had not come ; and on arriving in 
Mysia, he and his party prepared to go north-east into Bithynia, 
but " the Spirit of Jesus did not suffer them" such is the better 
reading. Thus checked and checked again, passing by Mysia, 
they were guided to Troas, the point of embarkation for Greece. 
They could not therefore purpose to preach in Bithynia after 
such a prohibition, and probably the prohibition to preach in Asia 
suggested the opposite continent of Europe. If the apostle had 
any idea of crossing to Europe at this time, the effort to ad 
vance into Bithynia may have been to reach Byzantium, and 
get to the West by the ordinary voyage and highway. 2 These 
brief words with regard to Galatia are thus a mere filling 
up of the apostle s tour, during which he was guided into a 
way that he knew not, and led by a path that he had not 
known. When it is said that he went through the Galatian 
territory, it is implied that he journeyed for the purpose of 
preaching, as is also shown by the contrast that he was for 
bidden "to preach" in Asia preaching being the one aim and 
end of all his movements. In the cities of Galatia, then, the 
apostle preached at this time, and naturally formed associations 
of believers into churches. But nothing is told of success or 
opposition, of inquirers, converts, or antagonists. 

The apostle s own reference to this visit is as brief, inci 
dental, and obscure as the passage in Acts. " Ye know how, 
through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you 
at the first:" Gal. iv. 13. The plain meaning of this decla 
ration is, that he was detained in the province by sickness, and 
that on this account, and not because of any previous plans and 
1 Acts xvi. G, 7. 2 Wieseler, Chronol. p. 32. 



SUPPOSED EARLIER VISIT. XXIX 

arrangements, he preached the gospel at his first visit to Galatia. 
The phrase Si aadeveiav admits grammatically of no other mean 
ing, and Trporepov refers to the earlier of two visits. See the 
commentary under the verse. But he reminds them of his 
cordial welcome among them as " an angel of God, even as 
Christ Jesus;" asserts, too, that in their intense and demonstra 
tive sympathy they " would have plucked out their eyes, and 
given them to him," and that they overlooked that infirmitv 
which tended from its nature to create loathing of his person and 
aversion to his message. See commentary on iv. 14. Their 
impulsive and excitable nature flashed out in enthusiastic re 
ception of him; and their congratulations of one another on the 
message and the messenger were lavished with characteristic 
ardour, all in sad contrast with their subsequent defection. 
But we learn, too, from some allusions in his appeals, that in 
Galatia as everywhere else, he preached Christ and His cross, 
pictured Him clearly, fully, as the one atoning Saviour, 
and announced as on a placard to them the Crucified One. 
That preaching was followed by the descent of the Spirit; 
miracles had been wrought among them, and their spiritual 
progress had been eager and marked "Ye were running 
well." But the bright morning was soon and sadly overcast. 

Some indeed suppose that an earlier visit than the one 
now referred to is implied in Acts xiv. 6, which says that Paul 
and Barnabas, on being informed of a persecution ripening 
against them in Iconium, " fled unto Derbe and Lystra, cities 
of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about." But 
these geographical notations plainly exclude Galatia, as we 
have seen in the previous chapter ; and 97 Trepfytopos, the 
country surrounding Lystra and Derbe cities toward the 
south of Lycaonia, cannot include Galatia which was situated 
so far to the north, Phrygia lying between. Such references 
as Macknight gives in proof to Pliny and Strabo have been 
already disposed of. Koppe maintains that the mention of 
Barnabas in Gal. ii. 13 presupposes a personal knowledge of 
him on the part of the Galatians, which could only be acquired 
through an earlier visit. But Acts xiv. 6 will not, as we have 
just seen, warrant any belief in such a visit; nor does the state 
ment of the strength of that current of Judaistic influence 
which at Antioch carried even Barnabas away, really imply 



XXX INTRODUCTION. 

any more than that his name, as the apostle s recognised fellow- 
labourer, must have been in course of years quite familiar to 
them. It is a mistake on the part of Koppe and Keil to affirm 
that the visit on the second missionary circuit was one of confir 
mation only, which must therefore imply previous evangelical 
labour. It is true that Paul and Barnabas resolved on such a 
journey, and that, from a difference of opinion as to the fitness 
of Mark to accompany them, Paul and his new colleague 
Silas carried out the intention. " They went through Syria 
and Cilicia confirming the churches," xv. 41 ; then proceeded 
to Derbe and Lystra where Timothy joined them ; and the 
result of the tour is formally announced thus : " So were the 
churches established in the faith, and increased in number 
daily." But this daily increase implies that the confirmation 
of believers was not the only service in which the apostle en 
gaged ; he also preached the gospel so as to gain numerous 
converts. The description of this journey ends at xvi. 5, and 
the next verse begins a new and different section the account 
of a further journey with a somewhat different end in view, 
preaching being the principal aim and work. 

During his third missionary circuit, a second visit was paid 
by the apostle to the Galatian churches, probably about three 
years after the first, or about A.D. 54. As little is said of this 
visit in Acts as of the first. It is briefly told in xviii. 23, that 
"he went over the Galatian country and Phrygia in order, 
strengthening all the disciples." The apostle passed through 
Phrygia in order to reach Galatia, and therefore Phrygia pre 
cedes in the first account ; but at the next visit he passed 
through Galatia in order to reach Phrygia, and Galatia natu 
rally stands first in the second account. The results are not 
stated, but we know that the effects of this " strengthening" 
were soon exhausted. It may be safely surmised that the 
allusions in the epistle to his personal presence among them, 
which have in them an element of indignation or sorrow, refer 
to his second visit all being so fair and promising at his first 
residence. During the interval between the first and second 

O 

visit, incipient symptoms of defection seem to have shown 
themselves; the Judaistic teachers had been sowing their errors 
with some success. The constitutional fickleness of the people 
had begun to develop itself when novelty had worn off. lie 



SECOND VISIT. xxxi 

did not need to warn them about " another gospel " at his first 
visit ; but at the second visit he had felt the necessity of utter 
ing such a warning, and that with no bated breath : He, the 
preacher of such a gospel, angel or man, let him be accursed. 
The solemn censure in v. 21 might be given at any of his visits, 
for it fitted such a people at any time ; though perhaps, after a 
season of suppression at their conversion, these sins might re 
appear in the churches during the reaction which followed the 
first excitement. At the second visit, the earlier love had not 
only cooled and its effervescence subsided, but estrangement 
and misunderstanding were springing up. Such a change is 
implied in the sudden interrogation introducing an exposure 
of the motives of those who were paying them such court, and 
superseding him in their affections: "Am I become your enemy 
because I tell you the truth ?" See commentary under iv. 15, 
16, 17. The apostle had the fervent and abiding interest of a 
founder in the Galatian churches : in the crisis of their spiritual 
peril, he travailed in birth for them Suffered the throes of a 
first travail at their conversion, and those of a second now, 
that " Christ might be fully formed in their hearts." 

It is probable that the apostle followed in Galatia his com 
mon practice, and preached " to the Jews first, and also to the 
Greeks." The historian is silent indeed on this subject, and it 
is wholly baseless in Baur, Schneckenburger, and Hilgenfeld 
to allege that the reason of the silence is because Paul did 
not follow his usual method, there being in fact no Jews to 
preach to. Hofmann inclines to the same view, though not for 
the same reasons. But the view of Baur assumes a primarily 
improbable hypothesis, that Luke constructed his narrative for 
the purpose of showing how the gospel was transferred from 
the rejecting Jews to the accepting Gentiles. In reply, besides, 
it may be stated, that on that ground the accounts of his labours 
at Lystra and at Athens must be taken as exceptions, which 
certainly show the improbability of the hypothesis. The rea 
son alleged by Olshausen for the historian s brevity, viz. that 
he wished to bring the apostle over as speedily as possible to 
Rome, is nearer the truth; only Olshausen s argument can 
scarcely be sustained, that Luke thereby consulted the wishes 
and circumstances of his first readers. Nor is it less likely that 
the apostle at his first visit, and so far as his feeble health 



XXXll INTRODUCTION. 

permitted, would labour in the great centres of population 
in Ancyra, Pessinus, Tavium, and Gordium. 1 But we have 
several indirect arguments that many Jews had settled in the 
province and neighbourhood. We find in Josephus a despatch 
of king Antiochus, in which he says that he had thought proper 
to remove two thousand Jewish families from Mesopotamia 
and Babylon into Lydia and Phrygia. 2 "Wherever there was an 
opening for gain, wherever traffic could be carried on, wherever 
shekels could be won in barter or commercial exchange, there 
the Jews were found, earnest, busy, acute, and usually success 
ful, the Diaspora surged into all markets ; yet in the midst 
of its bargains, buying, selling, and getting gain, it forgot not 
to build its synagogues. Josephus quotes an edict of Augustus 
addressed to the Jews at Ancyra, protecting them in their 
special religious usages and in the enjoyment of the Sabbath ; 
and he ordains that the ^(f)Lcrfj.a formally granted by them 
be preserved (avareOfjvai), along with his decree, in the temple 
dedicated by the community of Asia in Ancyra. 3 Names and 
symbols found in the inscriptions lead to the same conclusion. 
So that there was to be found in the territory a large Jewish 
population, to whom the apostle would prove that Jesus was 
the promised Messiah. How many of them received the gospel, 
it is impossible to say. 

The churches, therefore, were not made up wholly of 
Gentiles, as Baur, Schneckenburger, and Hilgenfeld contend. 
That there was a body of Jews in them is probable also from 
the clauses in which the apostle identifies himself with them : 
"we Jews by nature," ii. 15; "redeemed us from the curse 
of the law," iii. 13; "we were kept under the law," iii. 
23 ; " we are no longer under a schoolmaster," iii. 25 ; " we 
were in bondage under the elements of the world," iv. 3. 
Heathen believers are specially appealed to in many places, 
iv. 8-12 ; and to preach to them was his special function, 
i. 16, ii. 9 : they are assured that to get themselves circum 
cised is of no avail, v. 2 ; and the party who would force cir- 



1 Strabo writes : Hwaiyov; S sarlv eftTropttov ruv Ta.i/ry /aiytaToy, Geoij, 
xii. 5, 3 ; and Gordium is described by Livy id hand magnum quidem 
oppidum est, sed plus quam Mediterranean, celclre et frequens emporium, 
tria maria pari ferme distantia intervallo halet : xxxviii. 18. 

Antiq. xii. 3, 4. 3 Ibid. xvi. 6, 2. 



CHURCH MADE UP OF JEWS AND GENTILES. XXXlii 

cumcision upon them are stigmatized as cowardly time-servers, 
vi. 12, 13. These Gentiles are regarded by Storr, Mynster, 
Credner, Davidson, and Jowett as proselytes of the gate ; but 
the assertion has no sure foundation. Some may have been 
in that condition of anxious inquirers, but in iv. 8 they are 
accused of having been idolaters ; and the phrase " weak 
and beggarly elements," to which again 7rd\iv they desired 
to be in bondage, may characterize heathenism in several of its 
aspects as well as Judaism. See commentary on iv. 8. But it 
is no proof of the existence or number of Jewish Christians to 
allege that Peter, i. 1, wrote to elect strangers in Galatia ; for 
a-Tropd may be there used in a spiritual sense, and it is certain 
that many words in that epistle must have been addressed to 
Gentiles : ii. 11, 12, iv. 3. Besides, the apostle makes a free 
and conclusive use of the Old Testament in his arguments a 
mode of proof ordinarily unintelligible to a Gentile. Again 
and again does he adduce a quotation as portion of a syllogistic 
argument, conscious that his proof was taken from what was 
common ground to them both from a source familiar to them 
and acknowledged to be possessed of ultimate authority. It is 
true that the Old Testament contained a divine revelation pre 
paratory to the new economy, and that the apostle might use 
it in argument anywhere ; but there is in this epistle a direct 
versatility in handling the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as an 
uncommon and esoteric application of them, which presupposes 
more familiarity with them and their interpretation than Gen 
tiles by birth could be easily supposed to possess. 

The amazing success of the apostle s first labours in the 
midst of numerous drawbacks, might be assisted by various 
secondary causes, such as the novelty of the message, and 
the unique phenomenon of its proclamation by one who was 
suffering from epileptic paralysis. The Celtic temperament, 
so easily attracted by novelty, might at once embrace the new 
religion, though, on the other hand, nothing could be more 
remote than the Phrygian cultus from the purity and simplicity 
of the gospel. Yet that gospel, presented in the enthusiastic 
eloquence of a man so wildly earnest as to appear " beside 
himself," and yet so feeble, so stricken, and so visibly carrying 
in himself the sentence of death, arrested and conquered them 
with ominous celerity. It is impossible to say what about the 



XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 

gospel specially captivated them, though there is no doubt that 
the cross was exhibited in its peculiar prominence. The appeal 
in iii. 1 would seem to imply, that as the public and placarded 
presentation of the Crucified One is brought forward to prove 
the prodigious folly of their apostasy, it may be inferred that 
this was the doctrine by which they had been fascinated, and 
which spoke home, as Prof. Lightfoot surmises, to their tradi 
tionary faith in the atoning efficacy of human blood. 1 That 
the blood of bullocks and of goats could not take away sin, 
was a profound and universal conviction in old Gaul, if Caesar 
may be credited; and man for man appeared a juster and more 
meritorious substitution. Might not, then, the preaching of 
the man Jesus put to death as a sacrificial victim throw a 
wondrous awe over them, as they saw in it the realization of 
traditionary beliefs and hopes ? 

Still Christianity had nothing in common with the Phry 
gian religion, which was a demonstrative nature-worship, both 
sensuous and startling. The ciiltus was orgiastic, with wild 
music and dances led by the Corybantes not without the 
usual accompaniment of impurities and other abominations, 
though it might have mystic initiations and secret teachings. 
Khea or Cybele (and Rhea might be only another form of 
epa, the earth), the mother of the gods, was the chief object 
of adoration, and derived a surname from the places where her 
service was established. The great Mother appears on the 
coins of all the cities, and many coins found in the ruins of 
the Wall of Hadrian have her efnVy. At Pessinus her ima<ie 

Cr/ O 

was supposed to have fallen from heaven, and there she was 
called Agdistes. Though the statue was taken to Rome during 
the war with Hannibal, the city retained a sacred pre-eminence. 
Strabo says that her priests were a sort of sovereigns endowed 
with large revenues, and that the Attalian kings built for her a 
magnificent temple. 1 The Keltic invaders are supposed to have 
been accustomed to somewhat similar religious ordinances in 
their national so-called Druidism. But the Druidical system, 

1 Quod, pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur, non posse a liter 
deorum immortalium numen placari arlitrantur, publiceque ejusilem gait-ris 
habent mstituta sacrificia. Bell. Gall. vi. 16. StraLo adds that sonic of 
their human victims were crucified, Ge.oy. iv. 4, 5. 

2 Hid. xii. 5, 3. 



DRUIDISM EXAGGERATED. XXXV 

long supposed to be so specially characteristic of the Keltic races, 
has been greatly exaggerated in its character and results. The 
well-known description in Csesar was based on reports which 
he harmonized and compacted ; and the value of those reports 
may be tested by others which follow in the same Book as to the 
existence of a unicorn in the Hercynian Forest, and as to another 
animal found there like a goat, which had no knee-joints, and 
which was caught by sawing through the tree on which it leaned 
when asleep, for it could not rise when it had been thrown 
down. 1 The statement of Csesar, based on mere unsifted 
rumour, was amplified by succeeding writers ; and Pliny,^ 
Strabo, 3 Ammianus Marcellinus, 4 and Pomponius Mela have 
only altered and recast it, while Lucan 6 and Tacitus 7 added 
some new touches. If the Druids held the high and mysterious 
rank assigned to them in popular imagination, if they dis 
pensed laws, taught youth, offered sacrifices, possessed esoteric 
science, and held great conventions, how comes it that they 
never appear in actual history, but are only seen dimly in the 
picturesque descriptions of these Greek and Roman authors, 
not one of whom ever saw a Druid ? In all the previous inter 
course of Gaul with Rome, no living Druids ever appear on 
the scene, and no one notices their presence or influence in any 
business in any consultations or national transactions. Csesar 
never alludes to them save in the abstract, never, in his marches, 
battles, or negotiations in Gaul and Britain, comes into contact 
with one of them, or even hints at their existence. Tacitus 
relates that when the Capitol was burned during the struggle 
between Otho and Vitellius, the Druids predicted (Druidce cane- 
bant) from that occurrence the fall of the empire. 8 The same 
author records, indeed, how at the invasion of Mona (Anglesea) 
they w T ere seen in terrible commotion, the Druidesses like weird 
women or furies screaming and brandishing torches. His pic 
ture, however, is coloured for effect, since no genuine informa 
tion is imparted by his description. 9 Ausonius describes the 
Druids as an ancient race, or rather caste, but he has no allu 
sion to their sacerdotal character. Descent from them is in 

1 Bell. Gall. vi. 12-18, 25. 2 Hist. Nat. xvi. 95. 

3 Geog. iv. 4, 4. 4 xv. 9. 5 De Situ Orbit, iv. 2. 

6 Pharsalia, p. 14, Glasguae 1785. r Annul, xiv. 3. 

8 Hist. iv. 54. 9 Annal. xiv. 30. 



XXXVI INTRODUCTION. 

his view a special honour, like that from any of the mythical 
deities : stirpe Druidannn satus, si fama non fallit fidem ; stirpe 
satus Druidum. 1 Lucan also vaguely alludes to them in the 
first book of his Pharsalia, and they help to fill up his elaborate 
picture. 2 Again, if the Druids had possessed the authority 
claimed for them, how is it that we never find them in flesh 
and blood confronting the first Christian missionaries ? The 

O 

early church makes no mention of them, though there was a 
continuous battle with heathenism from the second century to 
the age of Charlemagne. It is remarkable that in no classic 
author occurs the term Druid as a masculine noun and in the 
singular number. The forms Amides and Druidce do not always 
distinctly determine the sex : but the feminine term undoubt 
edly occurs so often as to induce a suspicion that the order 
consisted chiefly of females. It is somewhat remarkable that 
in the Keltic church of the Culdees in Ireland, the person 
holding the office of Co-arb was sometimes a female, and that 
office was one of very considerable territorial influence. The 
only living members of the Druidical caste that we meet with 
are women. -ZElius Lampridius puts among the omens pre 
ceding the assassination of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 
that a Druidess accosted him with warning mulier Dry as eunti 
exclamamt Galileo sermone. 3 Vopiscus 4 tells of Aurelian con 
sulting Gallic Druielesses Gallicanas Dryadas on the ques 
tion whether the empire should continue in his posterity ; and 
he further relates that Diocletian, when amoni; the Tunm-ians 

O O 

in Gaul, had transactions with a Druidess as to futurity : cum 
in quadam caupona moraretur, et cum Dryade quadam muliere 
rationem convictus cotodiani faceret. These Druidesses appear 
in a character quite on a level with that of a Scottish spaewife. 
Divitiacus the .ZEduan, a personal friend of Cicero, is said by him 
not to be a Druid indeed, but to belong to the Druids, and he 
is described as being famous for fortune-telling and guessing 
as to events to come." The Druids were probably a sacerdotal 
caste of both sexes that dealt chiefly in divination. Suetonius 
says that Druidism, condemned by Augustus, was put down 

1 Pp. 8G, 92, ed. Bipont. 2 P. 14, GlasguK 1785. 

3 Scriptores Historic Augustie, vol. i. p. 271, ed. Peter, Lipsise 1865. 

4 Scriptores Historic Augustse, vol. ii. pp. 167, 223, do. do. 
" De Divinatione, i. 40. 



KELTIC HEATHENISM IN SCOTLAND. XXXvii 

by Claudius. 1 An extirpation so easily accomplished argues 
great feebleness of power and numbers on the part of the 
Druids, and no one else records it. Yet Tacitus afterwards 
describes the seizure of Mona and the cutting down of the 
grove. The anecdotes given by Vopiscus one of which he 
had heard from his grandfather (avus meus mild retulit) ex 
hibit them as late as the third century. The nearest approach 
to the apparition of a living pagan Druid fighting for his faith 
is that of a Magus named Broichan at the Scottish court of 
Brud king of the Cruithne or Picts, who dwelt by the banks 
of the Ness. The magic of St. Columba proved more powerful 
than his ; and the Magus, if he were a Druid, was not a whit 
exalted above the mischievous Scottish witches. In a Gaelic 
manuscript quoted by Dr. M Lauchlan, and which he ascribes 
to [the 12th or 13th century, this Magus is called a Druid. 2 
Dr. M Lauchlan is inclined to hold that the old Scottish 
heathenism had magi, and that these were of the order of the 
Druids ; but he does not point out a single element of resem 
blance between the Scottish Geintliglieclit and the description 
of the Druids in the sixth book of the Gallic War, or between 
it and the Zoroastrian system to which he likens it. The 
oriental aspect of the Scottish paganism is faint, save in super 
stitious regard for the sun in some form of nature-worship. 
The naming of the four quarters of the heavens after a position 
assumed towards the east, the west being behind or after, the 
north being the left hand, and the south the right hand, may 
spring not from the adoration of the elements, but from univer 
sal instinct, as it is common alike to Hebrew and Gaelic. 3 The 
connection of cromlechs, upright pillars and circles of stones, 
with the Druids is certainly not beyond dispute. The Roman 

1 Vita Claudii, xxv. But the spelling Druidarum in the clause is 
challenged ; and as the interdiction by Augustus referred tantum civibus, 
the extirpation may have been also confined to Rome, and may be likened 
to the expulsion of Jews from the capital. Indeed the two events are told 
in the same breath. 

2 Early Scottish Church, p. 35, Edin. 1865. 

3 Druid is connected with dru, an oak. The supreme object of 
Druidical worship is called by Lucan, Teutatis : Pharsalia, i. 445. Maxi- 
mus Tyrius says that the Kelts worshipped Dis, and that his image was 
an high oak. The name Teutatis is said to signify strong, and the oak 
was the symbol of strength. Max. Tyr. Dissert, p. 400, ed. Cantab. 1703. 



XXXVlll INTRODUCTION. 

Pantheon was not very scrupulous as to the gods admitted into 
it; and if the Druids were extirpated, it must have been for other 
reasons than their religion. What kind of theoloo-y thev taught. 

O O/ " 

it is impossible to say ; the careless way in which Caesar speaks 
of the population of Gaul as being divided into equites and 
plebs as in Roman fashion, and in which he gives Roman names 
to their objects of worship, takes all true historical value from 
his account. Not more trustworthy is Pliny s statement about 
the amulet used by the Druids which himself had seen, a 
large egg, to the making of which serpents beyond number 
contributed ;* and on his sole authority rests the tradition of 
the white robe of the arch-Druid, the misletoe, and the golden 
sickle. The Druids, if a sacerdotal caste, were apparently de 
voted to astrology or some other kinds of soothsaying, and they 
are socially ranked by Cresar with the equites. According to 
Strabo 2 and Caesar, 3 they affirmed that souls were immortal like 
the world that matter and spirit had existed from eternity. 
Some liken Druidism to Brahmanism, and Valerius Maximus 
pronounces it a species of Pythagoreanism. But so little is 
really known of the songs of the Bards, the ritual of the Ovates, 
or the teaching of the Druids (f)i\6cro<poi Kai Oeo\6yoi, that all 
attempts to form a system rest on a very precarious foundation 
"y chercher davcmtaye cest tomber dans Vhypotliese pure" ( 
They served in some idolatrous worship, and they taught 
immortality in the shape of transmigration, though they seem 
to have had also a Flaith-innis or Isle of the Blessed. Their 



1 Hist. Nat. xxix. 12 : Angitcs inmnneri estate convoluti salivis fauciurn 
corporumque spumis artijici complexu glomerantur . . . vidi equidem id ovum 
mail orbiculati modici maynitudine. For an interesting dissertation on the 
Druids, see Burton, History of Scotland, vol. i. chap, vi., and an article by 
the same author in the Edinburgh Review for July 1863. On the other 
side, compare The Celtic Druids, or an attempt to show that the Druids were 
the priests of Oriental colonies, . . . who introduced letters, built Carnac and 
Stonehenge, etc., by Godfrey Higgins, London 1829. 

2 Geog. iv. 4, 4. 8 Bell. Gall. vi. 14. 

4 Memorab. ii. C, 9. 5 Diodorus Sic. v. 31. 

6 Pressense, Histoire des trois Premiers Sicclcs de I Eglise Chretienne, 
deuxieme serie, tome premier, p. 54, in which section a good account of 
Druidism is given, with a review of the theories of Henri Martin in his 
Histoire de France, vol. i. p. 48, and those of M. Reynaud in his article on 
Druidism in the Encyclopedic noucdle. 



PHRYGIAN RELIGION. XXXIX 

system might find some parallel in the Phrygian worship, and 
be absorbed into it. But in a word, there is no foundation what 
ever for what has been apparently surmised sometimes, that so- 
called Druidical teaching might have disposed the Galatians to 
that immediate reception of the truth which is described in this 
epistle. The attempt to prove from a symbolic tree called Esus 
figured on an old altar found under Notre-Dame in Paris, that 
the Druids worshipped a personal god not unlike the Jehovah 
of the Old Testament, is only a romantic absurdity. 

The Phrygian system of religion was one of terror, 
Paul s was one of confidence and love ; dark, dismal, and 
bloody had been the rites of their fathers, the new economy 
was light, joy, and hope. Perhaps the friendless, solitary 
stranger, unhelped by any outer insignia, nervous and shat 
tered, yet unearthly in his zeal and transported beyond him 
self in floods of tenderness and bursts of yearning eloquence 
on topics which had never greeted their ears or entered their 
imagination, might suggest one of the olden sages who spoke 
by authority of the gods, and before whose prophesying their 
fathers trembled and bowed. But apart from all these auxi 
liary influences, there was the grace of God giving power to 
the word in numerous instances ; for though with so many 
perhaps with the majority the early impressions were so soon 
effaced, because profound and lasting convictions had not been 
wrought within them, yet in the hearts of not a few the gospel 
triumphed, and the fruit of the Spirit was manifest in their 
lives. The Christianity planted in Galatia held its place, in 
spite of numerous out-croppings of the national character, and 
in spite of the cruelties of Diocletian and the bribes and tor 
tures of Julian. In the subsequent persecutions not a few were 
found faithful unto death. 



III. OCCASION AND CONTENTS OF THE EPISTLE. 

The Judaists had apparently come into the Galatian churches 
before the apostle s second visit (Credner, Schott, Keuss, Meyer), 
though at that period the mischief had not culminated. But 



xl INTRODUCTION. 

the course of defection was swiftly run, and after no long time 
the apostle felt the necessity of decided interference. Neander 
and De Wette, however, date the intrusion of the false teachers 
after the second visit. Who these Judaists were, whether Jews 
by birth or proselytes, has been disputed. They might belong 
to either party, might have journeyed from Palestine, like 
those who came down to Antioch, and said, " Except ye be cir 
cumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved ;" or 
some of them might be proselytes, contending for the obligation 
of that law to which they had conformed prior to the introduc 
tion of the gospel. Most likely what had happened in the 
Galatian province was only a repetition of what had taken 
place at Antioch, as the apostle himself describes it in the 
second chapter. There were myriads of Jews who believed, 
and who were all zealous of the law ; l and an extreme faction 
holding such opinions were the inveterate enemies of the apostle 
of the Gentiles. It was so far innocent in Judaa to uphold 
the Mosaic law and its obligation on Jewish believers, but it 
was a dangerous innovation to enforce its observance on Gentile 
converts as essential to salvation. For the Mosaic law was not 
meant for them ; the rite of circumcision was adapted only to 
born Jews as a token of Abrahamic descent, and of their in 
clusion in the Abrahamic covenant. The Gentile had nothing 
to do Avith this or with any element of the ceremonial law, for 
he was not born under it ; to force it on him was to subject 
him to foreign servitude to an intolerable yoke. Apart from 
the relation of circumcision to a Jew, the persistent attempt to 
enforce it as in any way essential to salvation was deroga 
tory to the perfection of Christ s work, and the complete de 
liverance provided by it. Legal Pharisaism was, however, 
brought into Galatia, circumcision was insisted on, and special 
seasons were observed. To upset the teaching of the apostle, 
the errorists undermined his authority, plainly maintaining 
that as he was not one of the primary twelve, he could on that 
account be invested only with a secondary and subordinate rank 
and authority ; so that his teaching of a free gospel, uncon 
ditioned by any Mosaic conformity, might be set aside. The 
apostle s doctrine on these points had nothing in the least 
doubtful about it. The trumpet had given no uncertain sound. 

1 Acts xxi. 20. 



SUDDEN CHANGE. xli 

But while the false teachers were undermining his apostolic pre 
rogative, they seem to have tried also to damage him by repre 
senting him as inconsistent in his career, as if he had in some 
way or at some time preached circumcision. He had circum 
cised Timothy, and had been, as his subsequent life showed, 
an observer of the " customs," and it was insinuated that he 
accommodated his message to the prejudices of his converts. 
Since to the Jews he became as a Jew, there might be found 
in his history not a few compliances which could be easily 
magnified into elements of inconsistency with his present preach 
ing. In some way, perhaps darker and more malignant, they 
laboured to turn the affections of the Galatian people from 
him, and to a great extent they succeeded. We learn from the 
apostle s self-vindication what were the chief errors propagated 
by the Judaists, and what were the principal calumnies directed 
against himself. 

These open errors and vile insinuations did immediate 
injury. The noxious seed fell into a congenial soil among the 
Galatians. Their jubilant welcome to the apostle cooled into 
indifference, hardened into antagonism. Their extreme readi 
ness to accept the gospel indicated rather facility of impression 
than depth of conviction. The temperament which is so imme 
diately charmed by one novelty, can from its nature, and after 
a brief period, be as easily charmed away by a second attrac 
tion. Their Celtic nature had sincerity without depth, ardour 
without endurance, an earnestness which flashed up in a 
moment like the crackling of thorns, and as soon subsided, 
a mobility which was easily bewitched witched at one time by 
the itinerant preacher, and at another time witched away from 
him by these innovators and alarmists. What surprised the 
apostle was the soonness of the defection, as well as the extent 
of its doctrinal aberrations and its numerical triumph. It had 
broken out like an infectious pestilence. The error involved 
was vital, as it supplanted his gospel by another " which is not 
another," neutralized the freeness of justification, rendered 
superfluous the atoning death of the Son of God, set aside the 
example of Abraham the prototype of all believers in faith and 
blessing, was a relapse to the weak and beggarly elements, and 
brought an obligation on all its adherents to do the whole law. 

Besides, there was apparently in the Galatian nature a 



xlii INTRODUCTION. 

strange hereditary fondness for ritualistic practices ; the wor 
ship of Cybele was grossly characterized by corporeal maim- 
ings. What was materialistic with its appeal to the senses, what 
bordered on asceticism and had an air of superstitious mystery 
about it, had special fascinations for them such as the cir 
cumcision of Hebrew ordinance in its innocent resemblance to 
Phrygian mutilation, or the observance of sacred periods with 
expectation of immediate benefit from ritualistic charms. As 
the errorists brought a doctrine that seemed to near some of 
their former practices, and might remind them of their national 
institute, they were the more easily induced to accept it. 
Having begun in the Spirit, they soon thought of being made 
perfect by the flesh. They were taught to rest on outer ob 
servances more or less symbolic in nature, to supplement faith 
with something done by or upon themselves, and to place their 
hopes of salvation, not on the grace of Christ alone, but on it 
associated with acts of their own, which not only could riot be 
combined with it but even frustrated it. In no other church 
do we find so resolute a re-enactment of Judaistic ceremonial. 
The apostle bids the Philippians beware of the concision, of 
the mere mutilators, implying that Judaizing influence had 
been at work, but not with such energy and success in Europe 
as in Asia Minor. Addressing the Colossians, he tells them 
that they had been " circumcised with the circumcision made 
without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh 
by the circumcision of Christ" a statement of privilege per 
haps suggested by some attempt to enforce a physical circum 
cision, while other elements of mystical theosophy had been 
propagated among them. The Judaism in Galatia is more 
Pharisaic, and that of Colosse more Essenic in type. Sepa 
ration from social intercourse with heathen believers, and the 
observance of Mosaic regulations as to diet, also characterized 

O 

the Judaists ; and perhaps they were on this point more readily 
listened to, as the people in Pessinus abstained from swine s 
flesh. Pausanias gives a mythological reason for the absti 
nence. 1 

The peril being so imminent, the alarmed and grieved 
apostle wrote to them in indignant surprise. He felt that their 
defection was all but incomprehensible, as it was in such con- 

1 vii. 15, 7. 



SELF-VINDICATION. xliii 

trast to their early and hearty reception of the gospel and him 
self. Pie was filled with holy anxiety for them, though he has 
nothing but angry censure for their seducers who had no true 
respect for the law which they were trying to bind on them, 
for they did not themselves keep the whole of it, but were only 
by a wretched diplomacy endeavouring to escape from perse 
cution, that is, by representing to the bigoted Jews that they 
made heathen believers Jewish proselytes as a first and indis 
pensable step in their change to Christianity. 1 

And first, and formally, the apostle vindicates his full 
apostolic authority : affirming, that his office was primal like 
that of the original twelve ; that his gospel was in no sense 
of human origin or conveyance, but came to him directly 
by the revelation of Jesus Christ ; that his change from 
Judaism to Christianity was notorious ; that his views as the 
apostle of the Gentiles had all along been decided ; that when 
false brethren stealthily crept in to thwart him, he had opened 
out his teaching fully to James, Peter, and John, who acquiesced 
in it ; that he would not circumcise Titus, his fellow-labourer ; 
that the apostles of the circumcision acknowledged his mission 
and gave him the right hand of fellowship ; and that so averse 
to any compromise on the point of a free gospel was he, that 
at Antioch he publicly rebuked Peter for his tergiversation. 
While his opponents were meri-pleasers, his whole conduct 
showed that another and opposite motive was ever ruling him, for 
men-pleasing and Christ s service were incompatible ; that the 
insinuation of his preaching circumcision was met and refuted 
by the fact that he was still persecuted ; and that, finally, he 
desires to be no further troubled, for his connection with the 
Saviour had left its visible traces upon him, as he bears in his 
body the marks of Jesus. 

Secondly, as to the doctrine of the Judaists, he utterly 
reprobates it ; calls it a subversion of the gospel of Christ ; 
asserts that justification is not of works, but only of faith in 
Christ; identifies this doctrine with his own spiritual experience; 
adduces the example of Abraham whose faith was counted 
for righteousness ; proves that law and curse are associated, 
and that from this curse Christ has redeemed us ; argues the 
superiority of the promise to the law in a variety of particulars; 
1 See Commentary under vi. 12, 13. 



xliv INTRODUCTION. 

shows the use of the law as a poedagogue, while during paedagogy, 
and prior to the fulness of the time, the heir was a minor, differ 
ing nothing from a bond-slave; repeats his sense of their danger; 
fortifies his argument by an allegory based on the history of 
Abraham, the lesson of which is the spiritual freedom of the 
children of the promise, and in which they are exhorted to stand 
fast ; utters a solemn warning, that if a man gets himself cir 
cumcised, Christ profits him nothing, and that all who seek 
justification by the law are fallen from grace; affirms that cir 
cumcision and uncircumcision are nothing in themselves, and 

O / 

that he who troubled the Galatians, whoever he might be, shall 
bear his judgment, exclaiming in a moment of angry contempt, 
" I would they were even cut off that trouble you." Toward 
the end of the epistle the apostle recurs to the same errors ; 
accuses their patrons of being simply desirous of making a fair 
show in the flesh, and of wishing to avoid persecution ; and he 
concludes by avowing his glorying in the cross, and his belief 
that what is outer is nothing, and what is inner is everything. 

There are in the epistle some elements of Galatian character 
referred to or implied. The Galatians are warned against 
making their liberty an occasion for the flesh ; against biting 
and devouring one another ; against fulfilling the lusts of the 
flesh and doing its works which are specified ; against vain 
glory, and mutual provocation, and envy. Exhortations are 
also tendered to them against selfishness and conceit ; against 
sowing to the flesh, for the harvest is certainly of the same 
nature as the seed ; against exhaustion or despondency in well 
doing; and they are encouraged, at the same time, as they have 
opportunity, to do good. 

It may be safely surmised that these advices were not ten 
dered at random, but that they were meant to meet and check 
certain national propensities detected by the apostle in the 
Galatian people. Whatever modifying effect their long resi 
dence in Asia Minor might have had, however much certain 
earlier characteristics may have been toned down, they were 
not wholly obliterated. Their fickleness (Gal. i. 4) has been 
noticed by several observers. Cassar pictures this feature of 
their western ancestors : Partim qui mobilitate et levitate animi 
novis imperils studebant" 1 Again he says, Et infirmitatem 
1 Bell. Gall. ii. 1. 



FEATURES OF KELTIC CHARACTER. xlv 

Gallorum veritus, quod sunt in consiliis capiendis mobiles et 
novis plerurnque rebus student ; l and he adds some touches about 
their anxiety for news, and their sudden counsels on getting 
them. 2 In another place, where he repeats the sentiment, he 
asserts, Ad bella suscipienda Gallorum alacer ac promptus est 
animus, sic mollis ac minime resistens ad calamitates perferendas 
mens eorum est. 3 Livy observed the same feature : Primaque 
eorum prcelia plus quam virorum, postrema minus quam femin- 
arum esse. 4 Tacitus speaks of one tribe as levissimus quisque 
Gallorum et inopia audax? Polybius says, Sia TO ^ TO 
7T\elov, aX\a crvX\,rj(3& r]V CUTTOV TO >yi<yvouevov VTTO TWV TaXaTtav, 
6vua> [j,a\Xov 77 \oyi(T/jio:> (3pa/3evea@ai. ti Their modern historian 
also thus characterizes them : Les traits saillans de la famille 
Gauloise, ceux qui la distinguent le plus, a mon avis, des autres 
families humaines peuvent se resumer ainsi, une bravoure per- 
sonnelle que rien n egale chez les peuples anciens, tin esprit franc, 
impetueux, ouvert a toutes les impressions, eminemment intelli 
gent ; mais a cote de cela une mobilite extreme, point de Constance, 
une repugnance marquee aux idees de discipline et d ordre si 
puissantes chez les races Germaniques, beaucoup d ostentation, 
enfin une desunion perpetuelle, fruit de V excessive vaniteJ 

The passion of their ancestors for a sensuous religion has 
been also marked : Natio est omnium Gallorum admodum dedita 
religionibus* Diodorus Siculus relates the same characteristic." 
Cicero tells of Deiotarus, that he did nothing without augury, 
and that he had heard from his own lips that the flight of an 
eagle would induce him to come back, after he had gone a 
considerable portion of a journey. 10 That the old nation was 
impetuous and quarrelsome has been told by several writers, 
and there is earnest exhortation in the epistle against a similar 
propensity in the Galatian churches. Ammianus brands them 
as extremely quarrelsome, and of great pride and insolence 
" their voices are formidable and threatening, whether in anger 

1 Bell. Gall. iv. 5. 2 Ibid. v. 5. 

3 Ibid. iii. 19. See Commentary under iii. 1. 4 x. 28. 

5 De German, xxix. p. 136, Op. vol. iv. ed. Ruperti. 

G ii. 35 ; Opera, vol. i. p. 201, ed. Schweighiiuser. 

7 Thierry, Ilistoire des Gaulois, Introd. xii. 

8 Cajsar, Bell. Gall. vi. 16. 9 v. 27. 
10 De Divinatione, i. 15, ii. 36, 37. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION. 

or in good humour." 1 Diodorus affirms their love of strife 
and single comhats among themselves after their feasts ; their 
disregard of life arising from their belief in the Pythagorean 
doctrine of transmigration : Kdrotvoi Se 6We? /caO V7rep{3o\i]v 
. . . peOvcrOevTes et9 VTTVOV rj i^aviddSeis? "The nation," says 
Ammianus Marcellinus, " is fond of wine, and of certain liquors 
resembling it ; many of the lower class, their senses being 
weakened by continual intoxication, run about at random." 3 

The warring against the works of the flesh might also allude 
to certain national propensities. Their ancestors were marked 
by intemperance and quarrelsomeness they are forbidden to 
bite and devour one another. 

What effect was produced by the epistle we know not. 
The Judaistic influence may have been neutralized for a time, 
but it might not be uprooted. Some of the fathers witness 
that the errors rebuked still continued, with more or less modi 
fication. Jerome says without hesitation, that the traces of 
their virtues and their errors remained to his day. 4 They 
followed the Jewish reckoning of the paschal feast. One sect 
is described as insanientes potibus et bacchantes. Galatia was 
the region of later ecclesiastical strifes and heresies. Jerome 
gives a catalogue of them in his second preface to his com 
mentary on the epistle. 

The epistle consists of two parts the first doctrinal, and 
the second practical ; or it may be taken as consisting of three 
sections : the first containing personal vindication, and in the 
form of narrative the first two chapters ; the second, doctrinal 
argument the third and fourth chapters ; and the third, prac 
tical exhortation the fifth and sixth chapters. The autobio 
graphical portion is linked on to the dogmatic section by the 
language addressed to Peter at Antioch ; and the conclusion at 
which he arrives, at the end of the fourth chapter the freedom 
of believers suggests the admonition to stand fast in that 
freedom, and then not to abuse it, but to walk in love and in 
the spirit the works of the flesh being so opposite. Other 
counsels follow, connected by some link of mental association. 

1 xv. 12. 2 v. 2(>, 30. 

" J xv. 12. Compare Suidas, sub voce "Aor,y. 4 Vol. vii. 417. 

" See Milrnan s History of Christianity, vol. ii. 1G2, London 18G7. 



PATRISTIC EVIDENCE. xlvii 



IV. GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLE. 

The earlier fathers have no direct citations from the epistle, 
but their allusions betoken unconscious familiarity with its lan 
guage. Thus Clement writes : " Christ our Lord gave His 
blood for us by the will of God" 1 not unlike Gal. i. 4 ; " His 
sufferings were before your eyes" 2 a faint reminiscence of 
Gal. iii. 1. Ignatius says : " He obtained the ministry not of 
himself, nor by men," 3 like Gal. i. 1 ; " If we still live accord 
ing to Jewish law, we confess that we Jiave not received 
grace," 4 borrowed from Gal. v. 3, 4. Though these Ignatian 
epistles may not be genuine, they are early productions, and 
give us the echoes of a sub-apostolic writer. In the Syriac 
recension, Ignatius, ad Polycarp. enjoins : " Bear all men as 
the Lord beareth thee ; bear the infirmities of all men, as thou 
saidst;" which may be compared with Gal. vi. 2. Polycarp 
is more distinct : " Knowing then this, that God is not mocked,"* 
Gal. vi. 7 ; " Built up into the faith delivered to us, which is 
the mother of us all," 6 Gal. iv. 26 ; " The Father, who raised 
Him from the dead," 7 Gal. i. 1. The allusions taken from Bar 
nabas xix. and Hennas, Simil. ix. 13, may scarcely be quoted as 
proof. In the Oratio ad Grcccos, ascribed to Justin Martyr, 
occurs the quotation from Gal. iv. 12, ytveaOe 009 eya) OTI 
Kajfo tfprjv Co? u/xet? ; and the sins named in Gal. v. 20 are 
quoted with the apostle s addition : ical ra op,oia TOVTOIS. In 
his Dial c. Trypli. cap. 90, 96, he adduces two quotations from 
the Old Testament like those in Gal. iii. 10, 13, and in the 
apostle s version too, which agrees neither with the Hebrew 
nor the Septuagint. The first quotation is introduced by the 
apostle s marked words, inro Kardpav. In his Apology, i. 53, 
Justin quotes Isa. liv. 1, and works upon it, as does the apostle 
in Gal. iv. 27. 



1 To aCipat, aiiTW fouziv tv QihqfAKri Qtov. Ad Corinth, i. 

2 T vetSvifteifret a.\nw f /iv x-po oQda. hfAuv vpuv. Do. ii. 

3 Oux. $ ectvTov ovos 0< cLvdpuvuv. Ad Phttadelph. i. 

4 E/ KMTX. vciftov Iov%aix.o!> ^ufAsv, ofto hciywptu xa-piv 
Ad Maynes. 8. See Cohortatio ad Griecos, 40. 

5 E/$orf bvv OTI o Qec; ov ftvxrypi^SToti. Ad Philip. V. 
n/oT/v, %ITI; ts~l fAqntip 7?u.vTuv y^uy. Do. 3. 

7 Qui resuscitavit eum a mortals. Do. 12. 



xlviii INTRODUCTION. 

Irenaeus quotes the epistle by name : Sed in ea quce est ad 
Galatas sic ait, quod ergo lex factontm, posita est usque quo 
veniat semen cui promissum est. 1 Allusions are also found in 
iii. 6, 5, to Gal. iv. 8, 9, in iii. 16, 3, to Gal. iv. 4, 5, which is 
avowedly quoted from the apostle s letter to the Galatians in 
epistola qua? est ad Galatas ; and in v. 21, 1 are quoted Gal. iii. 
15, 19, and iv. 4. The Alexandrian Clement quotes expressly 
Gal. iv. 19, under the formula JTauXo? Ta\drai<? eTncrreAA&w." 
Tertullian is as explicit in referring to Gal. v. 20 : Paulus 
scribens ad Galatas. The Epistle to Diognetus contains the 
expression : TrapaT^prjcriv rwv fjirjvojv Kai ro)V rj/^epwv Troieladai." 
Melito repeats in spirit Gal. iv. 8, 9. 4 Athenagoras cites the 
phrase, " the weak and beggarly elements." 6 This epistle is 
found in all the canonical catalogues, in the Muratorian Frag 
ment, and it is included also in the old Syriac and Latin ver 
sions. Marcion recognised it, and placed it in pre-eminence 
jyrincipalem adversus Judaismum. 6 According to Hippolytus, 
the Ophites made considerable use of it, and their writings con 
tain many quotations : 7 77 avw lepovcraXtf/j,, Gal. iv. 26, in 
Hceres. v. 7 ; and in do. v. 8, Gal. iv. 27 is quoted. The 
Valentinians were also well acquainted with the epistle, as 
IrensBus testifies in i. 3, 5. Celsus asserts that the Christians, 
whatever their wrano;lings and shameful contests, agreed in 

Cj O J O 

saying continually, " The world is crucified to me, and I to 
the world;" Origen quietly adding, rovro <yap povov airo rov 
TIav\ov eoiKe fjie^vriiJiovevK&vai 6 .KeXcro?. 8 See commentary 
under ii. 11, and the attitude of the Clementine Homilies in 
relation to the passage. 

The one exception against all critics is Bruno Bauer, 
who regards the epistle as made up of portions of llomans 
and 1st and 2d Corinthians, and condemns the compilation as 
stupid, aimless, and contradictory. To review his assertions 
would be vain ; they are so weak that the merit of perverse 

1 IliKres. vii. 7, 2. - Strom, iii. 

s Just, Mart, Opera, vol. ii. 474, ed. Otto. 

4 Oral, ad Anton. Cxs. Cureton s Spiciley. Syr. pp. 41-49. 

5 Ilptafatat, 16. G Tertullian, Adv. Marc. v. 2. 

7 Pp. 106-114, ed. Miller. 

8 Origen, c. Celsum, p. 273, ed. Spencer. 

9 Kritik der Paulinischen Briefe, Erste Abtheil, Berlin 1850. 



OBJECTIONS OF BRUNO BAUER. xlix 

or learned ingenuity cannot be assigned to them. The process 
is a simple one, to find similar turns of thought and expression 
in the same man s letters on similar or collateral themes, and 
then, if he write three letters in such circumstances within a 
brief space of time, to argue that one of them must be spurious 
from its accidental or natural resemblances to the other two. 
The shortest, like the Epistle to the Galatians, may be selected 
as the one to be so branded. And yet such similarities of thought 
and diction as are adduced by Bruno Bauer are the standing 
proofs of identity of authorship, for every writer may be 
detected by the unconscious use of them. Some of the simi 
larities which he arrays throughout his seventy-four pages are 
close like those taken by him from Romans where the apostle is 
illustrating the same truths as he has been discussing in this 
epistle ; but many other instances have no real resemblance 
are only the accidental employment of like terms in a totally 
different connection. Baur himself says of this epistle, that to 
Rome, and the two epistles to Corinth, gegen diese vier Brief e ist 
nicht nur nie auch nur der geringste Verdacht der Undchtheit 
erhoben werden, sondern sie tragen auch den Character paulin- 
ischer Originalitdt so unwidersprechlich an sich, dass sich gar 
nicht denken Idsst, welches Recht je der kritische Zweifel gegen 
sie gelten maclien konnte. 1 

The genuineness of the epistle has thus been unanimously 
acknowledged the slight exception of Bruno Bauer not suffic 
ing to break the universal harmony. The apostle s mental cha 
racteristics are indelibly impressed on the letter. In a doctrinal 
discussion or a practical dissertation, in a familiar correspondence 
on common things, or in any composition which does not stir 
up feeling or invoke personal vindication, one may write without 
betraying much individualism ; but when the soul is perturbed, 
and emotions of surprise, anger, and sorrow are felt singly or 
in complex unity, the writer portrays himself in his letter, for 
he writes as for the moment he feels, what comes into his mind 
is committed to paper freshly and at once without being toned 
down or weakened by his hovering over a choice of words. 
The Epistle to the Galatians is of this nature. It is the apostle 
self-portrayed ; and who can mistake the resemblance ? The 
workings of his soul are quite visible in their strength and suc- 
1 Paulus, p. 248. 
d 



1 INTRODUCTION. 

cession ; each idea is seen as it is originated by what goes before 
it, and as it suggests what come after it in the throbbings of 
his wounded soul ; the argument and the expostulation are 
linked together in abrupt rapidity, anger is tempered by love, 
and sorrow by hope ; and the whole is lighted up by an earnest 
ness which the crisis had deepened into a holy jealousy, and 
the interests at stake had intensified into the agony of a second 

O v 

spiritual birth. The error which involved such peril, and 
carried with it such fascination, was one natural in the circum 
stances, and glimpses of its origin, spread, and power are given 
us in the Acts of the Apostles. Who that knows how Paul, 
with his profound convictions, must have stood toward such 
false doctrine, will for a moment hesitate to recognise him as 

/ O 

he writes in alarmed sympathy to his Galatian converts, who 
had for a season promised so well, but had been seduced by 
plausible reactionists the enemies of his apostolic prerogative, 
and the subverters of that free and full gospel, in proclaiming 
and defending which he spent his life ? 



V. PLACE AND TIME OF COMPOSITION. 

The place and time of composition have been, and still are 
disputed, and the two inquiries are bound up together. If the 
letter was written at Ephesus, the period was relatively early ; 
but if at Rome, it was late in the apostle s life. 

Those who hold that the gospel was preached in Galatia 
at an earlier epoch than that referred to in Acts xvi. 6, 
assign a correspondent date to the epistle. Others hold that 
it was written before the apostolic convention in Jerusalem, 
as Baumgarten, Michaelis, Schmidt. Koppe, Keil, Borger, 
Paulus, Bottger, Niemeyer, Ulrich, though not for the same 
reasons, generally maintain this view. Marcion seems to have 
believed, like these critics, that it was the earliest of Paul s 
epistles. According to Tertullian and Epiphanius, he set this 
epistle first in his catalogue ; but as he places the Epistles to the 
Thessalonians after the Epistle to the Romans, no great credit 
can be reposed in his chronology, for which, however, Wieseler 



OPINION ON DATE OF THE EPISTLE. ll 

contends. Tertullian s words are, principalem adversus Judais- 
mum epistolam nos quoque confitemur qua; Galatas docet, and 
there follows a running comment on the epistle. The epithet 
principalis has apparently an ethical meaning, placed first as 
being the most decided against Judaism. Epiphanius SRAS of 
Marcion s canon, al eTTicrroXal al Trap avrw Xeyo/^evai elai 
Trpcarrj fj,ev Trpos PaXara?, Bevrepa Se vrpo? KopivOtovs. 1 Again : 
Avrr) jap Trap avrw Trpwrr) Kelrai. f H//.et<? Se rrjv dva\.ojrjv 
rore eTTOiTjad/jieOa ov% co? Trap aurw, aAA, co<? e ^et TO cnrocr- 
TO\IKOV prjTOV, rrjv Trpo? Pco/zatou? rd^awres Trpcarrjv. 2 But the 
chronology is wrong which dates the apostle s first visit to 
Galatia before Acts xvi. 6, and the relative o{mw<? ra^eox; in i. 6 
is rather an indefinite term on which to found a distinct date. 

But the epistle is by some supposed to be the last of 
Paul s epistles, and to have been written at Rome. The 
epigraph eypdiprj CLTTO Pco^s is found in several MSS., as B 2 , 
K, L, the two Syriac and Coptic versions. The same con 
jecture is found, among the fathers, in Eusebius of Emesa, 
Jerome, Theodoret, Euthalius, and CEcumenius ; and their 
opinion has been followed in more recent times by Flacius, 
Baronius, Bullinger, Hunnius, Calovius, Lightfoot, Hammond, 
Schrader, Kohler, and Riccaltoun. Theodoret dates the epistle 
as the first of the Roman imprisonment ; and Kohler dates it 
the last, in A.D. 69, two years before Nero s death. The notion 
that the apostle was in prison when he wrote the letter has partly 
given rise to the hypothesis. But the language of the apostle in 
iv. 20, " I desire to be present with you," does not prove that he 
was in bonds does not bear out all Jerome s paraphrase, vellem 
nunc prcesens esse si confessionis me vincula non arctarent. 
Jerome repeats the same idea under vi. 11 (prohibebatur quidem 
vinculis). Theodoret merely gives his opinion in his general 
preface, and CEcumenius in his brief prefatory note to this 
epistle. On iv. 20, the commentator named Eusebius in the 
Catena says, eVeiS?) erv^ave 8eSefte^o9 Kal /eaTe^o / uez>o?. 3 
Riccaltoun says on vi. 17, that "the clause, from henceforth 
let no man trouble me, would go near to persuade one that 
this epistle was written near about the time when he finished 

1 Panar. lib. i. torn. iii. ; Hseres. xlii. ps. 5GG, vol. i. cd. GEliler. 

2 Panar. lib. i. torn. iii. 68, p. 638, vol. i. ed. CEhler. 

3 Catena, p. 67, ed. Cramer. So also Carey. 



Hi INTRODUCTION. 

his course, and much later than that which is commonly fixed 
on ; and the note of being written from Rome, which is allowed 
not to be authentic, seems much nearer the true date than any 
other which has been pitched upon before he went thither." 
The clauses so referred to are otherwise better and more natu 
rally explained. See the commentary under them. The con 
jecture that the epistle was sent from Home has therefore no 
authority no warrant from any expression in the letter itself, 
is plainly contradicted by the chronology of the Acts, and the 
ovrco To^e&>9 would certainly be inapplicable to a period so 
very late. 

Other opinions may be noticed in passing. Beza assigns 
Antioch as the place of composition, before the apostle went 
up to Jerusalem ; Macknight fixes on the same place, but dates 
the epistle after the council ; Michaelis supposes it to have been 
written from Thessalonica, and Mill from Troas ; while Lard- 
ner, Benson, and Wordsworth hold that the apostle only once 
had visited Galatia, and that the epistle was written at Corinth 
during his first visit to that city, Acts xviii. 11. These 
opinions may be at once set aside. Wordsworth s argument 
based on the omission of any direction about a collection for 
the poor is exceedingly precarious, especially when viewed in 
connection with 1 Cor. xvi. 1. 

It has been held by perhaps the majority that the epistle 
was written at Ephesus. The apostle, on leaving Galatia, after 
his second visit of confirmation, having " passed through the 
upper coasts," arrived at Ephesus, and there he remained three 
years, from A.D. 54 to 57. In this city he could easily and 
frequently receive intelligence of the Galatian churches ; and 
if the news of their danger reached him, he w y ould at once 
despatch a remonstrant epistle. The OUTW? ra^eW fits into 
this period, and to any year of it his surprise that they 
were changing so soon after his second visit to them, or so 
soon after their conversion or after the intrusion of the false 
teachers. The elastic OVTCO ra^ew? will suit any of these ter 
mini, but it would not so naturally suit an epoch very much 
later, though perhaps a year or so might make no great differ 
ence. In such a conclusion one might be content to rest, the 
sojourn at Ephesus being alike probable in chronology and in 
circumstances as the place and period of composition. The 



SIMILARITY TO OTHER EPISTLES. liii 

first Epistle to Corinth was written at this time and from 
Ephesus, and in that epistle there is a reference to the Galatian 
churches : " Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I 
have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye," 
xvi. 1. These words may not mean that the apostle sent a 
written order to the Galatians, for they may refer to some 
command given by him during his second and recent visit. 

But there are other letters written nearly at the same 
period which have a generic resemblance to the one before us. 
Between it and the first Epistle to the Corinthians there are 
no such striking points of similarity as would imply an all but 
simultaneous orimn. The case is different with the second 

O 

Epistle to the Corinthians and that to the Romans ; and it 
has been suggested that the resemblances are so close and so 
numerous, as to furnish an argument for supposing the three 
epistles to have been written about the same period. The 
reasoning is quite legitimate. The state of mind under which 
one writes in any crisis does not soon subside, especially if 
similar topics are presenting themselves for illustration and 
similar perils are prolonging the excitement when another 
epistle is to be composed. The previous thoughts, if they are 
to be repeated, clothe themselves instinctively in the previous 
words ; the old allusions recur ; and though there may be much 
that is new, though there may be fuller statement and varying 
appeal, still there is a ground-tone of similarity, like the vibra 
tion of a chord which had been already struck a brief period 
before. What we refer to is not repetition or mechanical 
identity, nor the jejune iteration of characteristic idioms and 
turns of expression, nor the formal recalling and employment 
of the earlier diction ; but the spirit has been so moved by a 
recent train of ideas and emotions as unconsciously to combine 
them with newer thoughts and fresher arguments. 

In the second Epistle to the Corinthians there are themes 
akin to those more briefly handled in Galatians, but with 
marked difference of circumstance. The apostle s vindication 
of his office as compared with that of the original twelve, while 
it is as undaunted in spirit as in Galatians, is not so incisive 
not so autobiographical in character, and is wrapt up with 
other elements of his career. The challenge to his enemies 
and to the false apostles is laden with touching allusions and 



llV INTRODUCTION. 

crowded with vehement appeals, wrought out with a self- 
depreciation which yet could assert itself in ringing accents, 
if its divine prerogatives were impugned or thrust in any way 
into a lower place ; for he was " not a whit behind the very 
chiefest apostles." But his conversion and his life prior to 
that change which involved his call to the apostleship are not 
alluded to in the letter to the Corinthians. The hostility to 
himself rested on a different ground still Jewish, but not of 
that fanatical pharisaical type which it assumed in Galatia ; 
and therefore the self-vindication takes another form not 
the assertion of a divine call, but of work done, and especially 
suffering endured and pressing anxieties. 2 Cor. xi. 23-33, 
xii. 10, 11. The allusions in Galatians to bodily suffering 
and to the o-rijf^ara of the Lord Jesus are brief, but in second 
Corinthians (xi. 21-33) the argument bursts out in a torrent of 
overwhelming force and grandeur. In the two first chapters, 
and toward the end, the descriptive appeals are so copious, that 
they would fill up the half of the Epistle to the Galatians. 
In Galatians his enemies are not directly flagellated, save in 
their subversion of the gospel, though their hostility is taken 
for granted ; but in Corinthians his antagonists are openly 
pictured in various attitudes and assailed " some who think 
of us as if we walked after the flesh ;" there are allusions to 
his meanness of presence ; there are " false apostles, deceitful 
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ," 
acting like the serpent that beguiled Eve through his subtlety : 
xi. 14, 15. In both epistles there is extreme anxiety about his 
converts, lest they should be seduced into error and estranged 
from himself. In both epistles, also, he is quite conscious of 
the power of the adverse influence used against himself, of the 
hollow court paid to his converts to wean them from him ; in 
both there is a suspicion that his authority has been shaken, 
and that the seeds of evil and alienation have been sown. 
But in Galatians the sphere of enmity is more limited ; the 
error threatening to come in a flood is palpable and simple, 
though multifarious in result ; the people were passionate 
and demonstrative, and are appealed to in terms fitted to awe 
and impress them. In Corinthians, on the other hand, the 
sources of opposition are apparently numerous and complicated ; 
there were rivalries and factions, so that there was a party 



SIMILARITY TO SECOND CORINTHIANS. Iv 

taking for its motto, " I am of Christ ;" there had been false 
philosophies at work denying the resurrection, along with pro 
pensities to idolatry, and the sexual impurities connected with 
it. Spiritual gifts, such as that of tongues, had been abused, 
and had led to scenes of disorder. The apostle is anxious to 
impress upon them his unabated love in the midst of his stern 
rebukes, and his disinterestedness in all his labours, which some 
had apparently called in question, and his care not to build on 
another man s foundation, which some had been mean enough 
to do. Little of this field of discussion is found in Galatians. 
In a word, both epistles are loving letters, not cold and imper 
sonal treatises ; and they let out more of the writer s heart of 
his joys, his loves, his griefs, his anxieties, his fears, his hopes, 
his physical weakness and trials than any other parts of his 
writings. They are a true cardiphonia, and in them you learn 
more of him as a creature of flesh and blood of like passions 
with those about him ; beneath the mantle of inspiration you 
find a man intensely human and sensitive no one more alive 
to affront and disparagement, or more keenly desirous to stand 
well with those whose spiritual benefit he was spending himself 
to promote. 

Now all these general points of similarity are certainly a token 
of identity of authorship, but they scarcely amount to a proof 
that both epistles were written at the same period. The diversity 
is as great as the resemblance; the crisis was somewhat alike in 
both cases ; and though some time elapsed between the dates 
of the two letters, such resemblance would be easily accounted 
for. But there are other points of coincidence. The points 
first adduced by Prof. Lightfoot are not very striking, and 
little stress can be laid on them. " Christ redeemed us from 
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," 1 is quite 
different, save in general doctrinal import, from " He hath made 
Him to be sin for us who knew no sin." 2 The image, " What 
soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," 3 is not "reproduced 
in almost the same words," " He that soweth sparingly, shall 
reap also sparingly;" 4 for in the first case it is the certain 
identity of the harvest with the seed, and in the second case it 
is its amount apart from its character, which is asserted ; in 
Galatians it is like quality, but in Corinthians like quantity. 

1 Gal. iii. 13. 2 2 Cor. v. 21. 3 Gal. vi. 7. 4 2 Cor. ix. 6. 



Ivi INTRODUCTION. 

There are other and more striking similarities which Prof. 
Lightfoot has adduced, though he professes not to lay any 
great stress upon them : 

Gal. i. 6, " another gospel," and in 2 Cor. xi. 4. 

Gal. i. 9, v. 21, " tell you before," and in 2 Cor. xiii. 2. 

Gal. i. 10, "persuade men," and in 2 Cor. v. 11, but in a different 

sense. 
Gal. iv. 17, " zealously affect you," and in 2 Cor. xi. 2, "zealous over 

you." 
Gal. vi. 15, "a new creature," and in 2 Cor. v. 17. 

These are more than fortuitous cases ; they indicate the use 
of favourite phraseology. Some words are peculiar to the 
two epistles. The figure /carea-Blew occurs Gal. v. 15 and 
2 Cor. xi. 20, cnropov^ai,, Gal. iv. 20, 2 Cor. iv. 8 ; </>o- 
/Bov/^at, /i?;7rax?, Gal. iv. 11, 2 Cor. xi. 3, xii. 20, and nowhere 
else ; TOVVCIVTIOV, Gal. ii. 7, 2 Cor. ii. 7, and nowhere else in 
Paul s epistles ; /cvpoco in Gal. iii. 15, 2 Cor. ii. 8, and nowhere 
else in the New Testament; and Kav&v is found in Gal. vi. 16, 
and in 2 Cor. x. 13. These words are not so distinctive or so 
numerous as to form a substantial proof, but they have some 
weight when taken along with other coincidences. 

Prof. Lightfoot adduces one peculiar connection between 
the two epistles the counsel to restore a fallen brother. In 
Galatians it certainly comes in abruptly, and seems to have 
been suggested by something without, not by anything in the 
immediate course of thought. It is surmised that what had 

O 

happened at Corinth gave rise to the admonition. A. member 
of that church had fallen into sin, and the apostle had bidden 
the church subject him to discipline. But the church had in 
severity gone beyond what was necessary, and the apostle 
pleads for his forgiveness and restoration. Such an event so 
happening at the time might suggest the injunction, " Restore 
such a one in the spirit of meekness," guarding against ex 
cessive seventy. 

The similarity of the Epistle to the Galatians in many 
points to that to the Romans has often been remarked. Jerome, 
in the preface to his Commentary, says : ut sciatis eandem esse 
materiam et Epistoltx Pauli ad Galatas et qnce ad Romanes scripta 
est, sed hoc differre inter utramque, quod in ilia, altiori sensu et 
profundioribus usus est argumentis. Similar themes are sur- 



SIMILARITY TO ROMANS. Ivii 

rounded with similar illustrations. There is very much more 
material in Romans, both at the beginning and end of the 
epistle, but the Epistle to the Galatians is imbedded in it. The 
one is like an outline, which is filled up in the other, but with 
less of a personal element. The Epistle to the Romans is 
more massive, more expansive, and has about it as much the 
form of a discussion or a didactic treatise as of a letter. The 
presumption then is, that as the likeness between the two 
epistles is so close, they were written much about the same 
time. Nobody doubts the likeness, though many deny the in 
ference, for the plain reason that this similarity will not prove 
immediate connection of time, since the inculcation of analogous 
truths may, after even a considerable interval, lead to the use of 
similar diction. No one can safely or accurately measure the 
interval from the nature or number of such similarities. It is 
certain, however, that no long time could have elapsed between 
the composition of the Epistle to the Galatians and that to the 
Romans, and their juxtaposition in point of time may not 
exceed the relative limit implied in ovra)s ra^iw^. 

The points of similarity between Galatians and Romans are, 
generally, as follows in this table : 

Gal. ii. 16. Knowing that a man Rom. iii. 20. Therefore by the 
is not justified by the works of the deeds of the law there shall no flesh 
law, but by the faith of Jesus be justified in his sight : for by the 
Christ, even we have believed in law is the knowledge of sin. 
Jesus Christ, that we might be jus 
tified by the faith of Christ, and not 
by the works of the law : for by the 
works of the law shall no flesh be 
justified. 

Gal. ii. 19. For I through the law Rom. vii. 4. "\Yherefore, my breth- 
am dead to the law, that I might ren, ye also are become dead to the 
live unto God. law by the body of Christ ; that ye 

should be married to another, even 
to him who is raised from the dead, 
that we should bring forth fruit 
unto God. 

Gal. ii. 20. I am crucified with Rom. vi. G. Knowing this, that 
Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not our old man is crucified with him, 
I, but Christ liveth in me : and the that the body of sin might be de- 
life which I now live in the flesh I stroyed, that henceforth we should 
live by the faith of the Son of God, not serve sin. 
who loved me, and gave himself for 
me. 



Iviii 



INTRODUCTION. 



Gal. iii. 5, 6. lie therefore that 
ministereth to you the Spirit, and 
worketh miracles among you, doeth 
he it by the works of the law, or 
by the hearing of faith ? Even as 
Abraham believed God, and it was 
accounted to him for righteousness. 

Gal. iii. 7. Know ye therefore 
that they which are of faith, the 
same are the children of Abraham. 



Gal. iii. 8. And the scripture, 
foreseeing that God would justify 
the heathen through faith, preached 
before the gospel unto Abraham, 
saying, In thee shall all nations be 
blessed. 

Gal. iii. 9. So then they which be 
of faith are blessed with faithful 
Abraham. 



Rom. iv. 3. For what saith the 
scripture ? Abraham believed God, 
and it was counted unto him for 
righteousness. 



Rom. iv. 10, 11. How was it then 
reckoned ? when he was in circum 
cision, or in uncircumcision ? Not 
in circumcision, but in uncircum 
cision. And he received the sign of 
circumcision, a seal of the right 
eousness of the faith which he had 
yet being uncircumcised : that he 
might be the father of all them that 
believe, though they be not circum 
cised ; that righteousness might be 
imputed unto them also. 

Rom. iv. 17. (As it is written, I 
have made thee a father of many 
nations,) before him whom he be 
lieved, even God, who quickeneth 
the dead, and calleth those things 
which be not as though they were. 

Rom. iv. 23, 24. Now, it was not 
written for his sake alone, that it 
was imputed to him ; but for us 
also, to whom it shall be imputed, 
if we believe on him that raised up 
Jesus our Lord from the dead. 



Gal. iii. 10. For as many as are 
of the works of the law are under 
the curse : for it is written, Cursed 
is every one that continueth not in 
all things which are written iu the 
book of the law to do them. 

Gal. iii. 11. But that no man is 
justified by the law in the sight of 
God, it is evident: for, The just 
shall live by faith. 

Gal. iii. 12. And the law is not of 
faith : but, The man that doeth 
them shall live in them. 



Gal. iii. 15-18. Brethren, I speak 
after the manner of men : Though 
it be but a man s covenant, yet if it 



Rom. iv. 15. Because the law 
worketh wrath : for where no law 
is, there is no transgression. 



Rom. i. 17. For therein is the 
righteousness of God revealed from 
faith to faith : as it is written, The 
just shall live by faith. 

Rom. x. 5. For Moses describeth 
the righteousness which is of the 
law, That the man which doeth 
those things shall live by them. 

Rom. iv. 13-16. For the promise, 
that he should be the heir of the 
world, was not to Abraham, or to 



^STANCES OF RESEMBLANCE. 



lix 



be confirmed, no man disannulleth, 
or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham 
and his seed were the promises made. 
He saith not, And to seeds, as of 
many ; but as of one, And to thy 
seed, which is Christ. And this I 
say, that the covenant, that was 
confirmed before of God in Christ, 
the law, Avhich was four hundred 
and thirty years after, cannot dis 
annul, that it should make the pro 
mise of none effect. For if the 
inheritance be of the law, it is no 
more of promise : but God gave it 
to Abraham by promise. 

Gal. iii. 22. But the scripture hath 
concluded all under sin, that the 
promise by faith of Jesus Christ 
might be given to them that believe. 

Gal. iii. 27. For as many of you 
as have been baptized into Christ 
have put on Christ. 



Gal. iv. 5-7. To redeem them that 
were under the law, that we might 
receive the adoption of sons. And 
because ye are sons, God hath sent 
forth the Spirit of his Son into your 
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Where 
fore thou art no more a servant, but 
a son ; and if a son, then an heir of 
God through Christ. 



Gal. iv. 23, 28. But he who was 
of the bond woman was born after 
the flesh ; but he of the free woman 
was by promise. . . . Now we, 
brethren, as Isaac was, are the chil 
dren of promise. 



Gal. v. 14. For all the law is ful 
filled in one word, even in this, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
thyself. 



his seed, through the law, but through 
the righteousness of faith. For if 
they which are of the law be heirs, 
faith is made void, and the promise 
made of none effect. Because the 
law worketh wrath : for where no 
law is, there is no transgression. 
Therefore it is of faith, that it might 
be by grace ; to the end the promise 
might be sure to all the seed : not 
to that only which is of the law, but 
to that also which is of the faith of 
Abraham, who is the father of us all. 



Rom. xi. 32. For God hath con 
cluded them all in unbelief, that he 
might have mercy upon all. 



Rom. vi. 3, xiii. 14. Know ye not, 
that so many of us as were baptized 
into Jesus Christ were baptized into 
his death ? But put ye on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and make not provi 
sion for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts 
thereof. 

Rom. viii. 14-17. For as many as 
are led by the Spirit of God, they 
are the sons of God. For ye have 
not received the spirit of bondage 
again to fear ; but ye have received 
the Spirit of adoption, whereby we 
cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself 
beareth witness with our spirit, that 
we are the children of God : And if 
children, then heirs ; heirs of God, 
and joint-heirs with Christ ; if so 
be that we suffer with him, that we 
may be also glorified together. 

Rom. ix. 7, 8. Neither, because 
they are the seed of Abraham, are 
they all children : but, In Isaac shall 
thy seed be called : That is, They 
which are the children of the flesh, 
these are not the children of God : 
but the children of the promise are 
counted for the seed. 

Rom. xiii. 8-10. Owe no man any 
thing, but to love one another : for 
he that loveth another hath fulfilled 
the law. ... If there be any other 



Ix 



INTRODUCTION. 



Gal. v. 16. This I say then, Walk 
in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil 
the lust of the flesh. 



Gal. v. 17. For the flesh lusteth 
against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
against the flesh : and these are 
contrary the one to the other ; so 
that ye cannot do the things that 
ye would. 



Gal. vi. 2. Bear ye one another s 
burdens, and so fulfil the law of 
Christ. 



commandment, it is briefly compre 
hended in this saying, namely, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 
Love worketh no ill to his neigh 
bour : therefore love is the fulfilling 
of the law. 

Rom. viii. 4. That the righteous 
ness of the law might be fulfilled in 
us, who walk not after the flesh, but 
after the Spirit. 

Rom. vii. 23, 25. But I see another 
law in my members warring against 
the law of my mind, and bringing 
me into captivity to the law of sin 
which is in my members. ... So then 
with the mind I myself serve the law 
of God, but with the flesh the law 
of sin. 

Rom. xv. 1. AVe then that are 
strong ought to bear the infirmities 
of the weak, and not to please our 
selves. 



These resemblances are very striking, and would seem to indi 
cate nearness of period in the composition. But Dean Alford in 
terposes thus: "It may be that the elementary truths brought out 
amidst deep emotion, sketched, so to speak, in rough lines in the 
fervent Epistle to the Galatians, dwelt long on St. Paul s mind, 
even though other objects of interest regarding other churches 
intervened, and at lensjth worked themselves out under the 

J O 

teaching and leading of the Spirit into that grand theological 
argument which he afterwards addressed, without any special 
moving occasion, but as his master- exposition of Christian 
doctrine, to the church of the metropolis of the world." The 
statement is true, but it does not on this point bring out the 
whole truth. For the resemblances are closer, more definite, 
and in every way more characteristic than the objection allows. 
Not only is the Galatian outline preserved in Romans, but its 
minutiae, its sudden turns, its rapid logic beating down opposi 
tion, its peculiarities of quotation and proof are rewritten ; the 
smaller touches are reproduced as well as the more prominent 
courses of argument ; forms of thought and imagery suggested 
and sharpened by personal relations and direct collision in the 
shorter letter, are reimpressed on the longer and more impersonal 



COMMENTARIES ON THE EPISTLE. Ixi 

production, without any immediate necessity. The parallel is 
about as close in many sections as between Ephesians and Colos- 
sians. See our Introductions to these epistles. There are also 
words peculiar to the two epistles, such as Kw^oi, fj,arcapio-/uios, 
SaaTa^eiv, e\ev6epou>, t Se, Kardpa, KaTapaadai, 
9, Trapa/Bdrifi ; and phrases also, as rl eri; Trap o, ol ra 
Toiav-ra Trpacrcrowres, ri Xeyet f) <ypd<prj So that Prof. Light- 
foot s argument becomes very plausible, and, to use his own 
words, " The reasons given certainly do not amount to a demon 
stration, but every historical question must be decided by striking 
a balance between conflicting probabilities ; and it seems to me 
that the arguments here adduced, however imperfect, will hold 
their ground against those which are alleged in favour of the 
earlier date." He ingeniously concludes that the epistle may 
have been written between the second Epistle to the Corin 
thians and the Epistle to the Romans, and on the journey 
between Macedonia and Achaia. This view is adopted by 
Bleek, 1 and virtually by Conybeare and Howson, who date the 
epistle from Corinth, while Grotius and De Wette do not 
definitely commit themselves to it. 

Looking, in a word, at both sides of the question, we feel 
it still to be impossible to arrive at absolute certainty on this 
point, and critics will probably oscillate between Ephesus and 
Greece. The opinion that Greece was the place where the 
epistle was written has certainly very much to recommend it, 
though we may not be able to reach a definite and indisputable 
conclusion. 



VI. COMMENTARIES ON THE EPISTLE. 

There are the well-known commentaries of Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, with some extracts 
from Eusebius Emeseuus, Severianus, and Theodore of Mop- 

1 Einkitung in das Neue Testament, p. 418, Berlin 1862. Storr has a 
good essay with this heading, Prolmio de consensu Epistolarnm Panli ad 
Hebrxos et Galatas (Comment. TJieol. ed. Velthusen, Kuinoel, et Ruperti, 
vol. ii. p. 39-4), Lipsise 1795. 



Ixii INTRODUCTION. 

suestia in Cramer s Catena. Extracts from Gennadius and 
Photius are found in CEcumenius. Among the Latin fathers 
may be named Marius Yictorinus (Abbe Migne s Pat. Lat. 
viii.), the pseudo-Ambrose or Hilary, Jerome, Augustine, 
Pelagius, Primasius, and others of less note. Mediaeval writers 
may be passed over. Luther follows, with Calvin, Beza, Eras 
mus, Musculus, Bullinger, Calovius, Zanchius, Crocius, Coc- 
ceius, Piscator, Hunnius, Tarnovius, Aretius, Wolf, etc. : and 
the Catholic commentators, Estius and a-Lapide. Wetstein, 
Grotius, and the writers in the Critici Sacri and Fratres Poloni 
are well known, and so are the collectors of annotations, as 
Eisner, Kypke, Krebs, Knatchbull, Loesner, Alberti, Kiittner, 
Palairet, Heinsius, Bos, Keuchenius, Dou;hta3us, and Hom- 
bergk. There are also the older English expositors, Ferguson, 
Dickson, Hammond, Chandler, Whitby, Locke, Doddridge, 
etc. etc. We have also the general commentaries of Koppe, 
Flatt, MoruSj Rosenmiiller, Jaspis, Hyperius, Cameron, and 
Eeiche 1859. 

The following more special commentaries may be noted : 
Luther, 1519 ; Pareus, 1621 ; Wesselius, 1756 ; Semler, 1779 ; 
Schulze, 1784 ; Mayer, 1788 ; Krause, 1788 ; Carpzov, 1794; 
Borger, 1807 ; Paulus, 1831 ; Eiickert, 1833 ; Matthies, 1833 ; 
Usteri, 1833; Schott, 1833; Zschokke, 1834; Sardinoux, 1837; 
Olshausen, 1841 ; Windischmann, 1843 ; Baumgarten-Crusius, 
1845; Peile, 1849; Conybeare and Howson, 1850; Jatho, 1851; 
Hilgenfeld, 1852 ; Brown, 1853 ; Jowett, 1855 ; Bagge, 1856 ; 
Trana, 1857; Ewakl, 1857; Bisping, 1857; Winer, 4th eel., 
1859; Wieseler, 1859; Wordsworth s New Test. P. iii., 1859: 
Webster and Wilkinson, do. vol. ii., 1861; Meyer, 1862; 
Schmoller, J^aur/es J3ibelwerk, viii., 1862 ; Kamphausen, 
Bunsen s jBibehcerk, viii. Halb-band, 1863 ; Hofmann, 1863 ; 
Gwynne, 1863 ; Ellicott, 3d ed., 1863 ; Alford, New Test. 
vol. iii., 4th ed., 1865; Matthias, 1865; Lightfoot, 1865; 
Vomel, 1865 ; Carey, 1867 ; Larsen (Kjobenhavn), 1867. 
Reference may be made also to Bonitz, Exam. Gal. iii. 20, 
1800 ; Hank, Exeget. Versuch tibcr Gal. iii. 15, 22, Stud. u. 
Kritik. 1862 ; Hermann, de P. Epist. ad Galat. tribus primis 
capitibics, 1832 ; Elwert, Annot. in Gal. ii. 1-10, 1852 ; Keerl 
in Gal. vi. 1-10, 1834; Holsten, Inhalt, etc., des Briefes an 
die Galaten, 1859, enlarged and reprinted, 1868; Fritzsche, 



COMMENTARIES ON THE EPISTLE. Ixiii 

de nonnullis ad Galat. Epistolce locis, Opuscula, p. 158, etc., 
1838. 

Of a popular and practical nature are Perkins, 1609 ; 
Riccaltoun, 1772; Barnes, 1840; Haldane, 1848; Anacker, 
Leipzig 1856 ; Twele, Hannover 1858 ; Kelly, 1865 ; Bayley, 
1869. Exegetical remarks on portions of the epistle may also 
be found of a rationalistic nature in Holsten s Zum Eoangelium 
des Paulus und des Petrus, Rostock 1868 ; and of an opposite 
character in CErtel s Paulus in der Apostel-geschichte, Halle 
1868. 

When Buttmann, Matthias, Kiihner, Winer, Scheuerlein, 
Bernhardy, Madvig, Schmalfeld, Krliger, Schirlitz, Green, A. 
Buttmann, and Jelf are simply named, the reference is to their 
respective Grammars ; and when Suidas, Hesychius, Host mid 
Palm, Wahl, Wilke, Bretschneider, Robinson, Cremer, Liddell 
and Scott are simply named, the reference is to their respective 
Lexicons. The references to Hartung are to his Lelire von den 
Partikeln der griecldschen Sprache, Erlangen 1832. 



COMMENTARY ON GALATIANS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE apostle s standing had been challenged by a faction in 
the Galatian churches, in order that his distinctive teach 
ing might be disparaged or set aside. To undermine his doc 
trine, they denied or explained away his apostleship. It seems 
to have been alleged against him, that as he had not been a 
personal disciple of Jesus, he could not claim the inspiration 
enjoyed by those on whom He breathed, as He said, " Receive 
ye the Holy Ghost;" that his gospel had been communicated 
to him through a human medium, and therefore was not 
primary and authoritative truth ; and that his position in the 
church was only of secondary or intermediate appointment, and 
on that account quite subordinate in rank and prerogative. 
Or there may have been an impression that the first number 
could not be augmented; and as it bore a relation to the twelve 
tribes of Israel, no one could be regarded as equal in office and 
honour to the SooSe/ca, o><? Kal aTrocn-oXoy? wvopaa-zv (Luke vi. 
13). The number was hallowed as a sacred one (Rev. xxi. 
14). Justin also speaks significantly of the twelve : avSpes 
Se/caSuo TOV apiOfiov (Apol. i. 39, Opera, vol. i. p. 216, ed. 
Otto). If the Clementines be taken as embodying to some 
extent the traditionary opinions and prejudices of the Jewish 
Christians, then Paul s official standing would be disallowed, 
as being unattested by credentials from the twelve ; his doc- 
trine denied, as unsanctioned by James, called " the Lord s 
brother," and the head of the church in Jerusalem ; and his 
apostleship ignored, because he had not " companied" with 
Jesus and the twelve in the days of His flesh (Homilicr, xi. 35, 
xvii. 19, pp. 253, 351, ed. Dressel. 1853). In the Recognitiones 

A 



2 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

it is more distinctly stated : neque proplieta neque apostolus in 
hoc tempore speratus a vobis aliquis alius prceter nos. . . . Ipse 
cnim est annus Dei acceptus nos apostolos habens duodecim 
menses (iv. 35). Besides, Paul s official affinity with the Gentiles, 
and his characteristic assertion of their freedom their non- 
obligation to submit to the Mosaic law, excited suspicion and 
hostility against him on the part of all frXwrat rov vop.ov 
who held that it was to be rigidly enforced on heathen converts, 
who were to be permitted only through the gate of virtual prose- 
lytism to enter into full communion with the church. Perhaps 
this depreciation arose also from some false view of his connec 
tion with Barnabas, and of their relation to the prophets of the 
church at Antioch, by the laying on of whose hands both had 
been separated and designated to missionary work. The apostle 
therefore enters at once on self-vindication non superbe sed 
necessarie (Jerome) not because of the mere slander, 8ia/3o\^v 
(Theodoret), or because they held him cheap, e^vre\L^ov 
(CEcumenius) ; but because the slight cast upon him was not 
only a denial of Christ s authority to rule in His own church, 
and to choose and endow any one to serve in it, but was also 
a preliminary step to the promulgation and advocacy of a mass 
of errors, which detracted from the fulness of His atoning work 
by suspending Gentile salvation on the observance of Gentile 
Jewish ritual. True, indeed, he was not one of the original 
twelve, but he claims a parity of rank, as his call was as real as 
theirs though posterior to it : axnrepel ru> e/crpw^art w<j)0r) Ka^ol 
(1 Cor. xv. 8). The same Jesus who summoned the twelve 
by the Lake of Galilee, did, after being taken up into heaven, 
appear in glory " above the brightness of the sun," and make 
him " a minister and a witness," and send him to the Gentiles. 
He saw "that Just One, and heard the voice of His mouth," 
and therefore had a commission as divine, distinct, and inde 
pendent as any one of those whom he calls ol irpo epov avrocr- 
roXot. So that he opens by a sharp and resolute assertion of 
his full apostolic prerogative ; and the first verse contains, not 
exactly what Jowett calls " the text of the whole epistle," but 
an assertion of official dignity, which underlies the grand ques 
tion discussed in it. 

Ver. 1. JTaOXo?, aTrocrroXo? OVK a-n av0pa>7ra)V ov&e Si av9pu>- 
Paul, an apostle, not from men nor by man." There 



CHAP. I. 1. 



needs no participle to be inserted after aTnWoXo?, as Borger, 
Bloomfield, and others suppose, its relations being sufficiently 
marked and guarded by the following prepositions. In most of 
the other epistles the same assertion is made, though in quieter 
and more general terms. For its different forms, see on Phil, 
i. 1 ; and for the meaning of " apostle," see on Eph. iv. 11, and 
this epistle, i. 19, in the essay at the end of this chapter. But 
now, the reality of his apostleship being impugned, and that for a 
selfish purpose, he at once asserts its divinity with bold and un- 
mistakeable emphasis. Sometimes, when the opposition to him 
was not so fierce, he uses other arguments : " the seal of mine 
apostleship are ye in the Lord;". truly the signs of an apostle 
were wrought among you;" "I am not a whit behind the 
chiefest of the apostles ;" but the antagonism to him in Galatia 
demanded a more incisive vindication. The statement is made 
by a change of prepositions and a change of number. The use 
of two prepositions in successive clauses is indeed quite charac 
teristic of the apostle s style ; and cnro and Sid are not to be con 
founded, as if the whole meaning were, that in no sense did Paul 
receive his apostleship from a human source. On purpose he 
puts the fact very distinctly : he was an apostle, not from men, 
7ro, referring to remote or primary source ; nor by man, Sid 
referring to medium or nearer instrumental cause. Winer, 
47 ; Bernhardy, p. 222. Some expositors, as Koppe, Borger, 
TJsteri, and Gwynne, neglecting the change of preposition, lay 
the stress on the change of number. Gwynne denies the 
distinction between airo and Sid, but without foundation in 
any of the instances alleged by him. Nor does he see, in the 
case of OTTO, how the literal so naturally and necessarily passes 
into the ethical meaning of a particle, or how "remotion from" 
comes to signify origination. The ov8e implies a difference of 
relation in the second clause from the first. Aid may not 
always denote instrument in the strict sense, for means may be 
blended in conception with source, especially when God is spoken 
of, as in Kom. xi. 36 : " for of Him (e avrov) and by Plim 
(Si avrov) are all things," being His alike in origin and agency, 
Himself the worker of His own will or purpose one or both 
aspects of relationship being equally applicable to Him (com 
pare Heb. ii. 10 ; 1 Cor. i. 9, viii. 6). It is true that Sid is used 
with both^ouus in the following clause ; but here, as in contrast 



4 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

with ttTro, it has its distinctive meaning, and is the first step in 
the argument. Bengel s distinction, therefore, is baseless, that 
his call (vocatio) is referred to in CLTTO, and instruction (institutio 
immediata) in Bid. But it is wrong in Hofmann to say that 
any distinction of meaning between the two prepositions serves 
no purpose. Borger errs far in supposing that airo and Bid 
are both used for VTTO which points to an active and more 
immediate cause. In the decaying stage of a language, the 
precise distinction of similar particles, with the more delicate 
shades of relation indicated by them, ceases to be felt; and thus, 
as Winer remarks, airo is frequently used for VTTO after passive 
verbs in Byzantine Greek, and the two prepositions are often 
exchanged both in classical and New Testament, codices ( 47, b). 
On the difference of meaning, see also Poppo, Thucydides, 
vol. i. p. iii. p. 158; Stallbaum, Plato, vol. iii. p. 137. The 
apostle s office flowed from no body of men, nor was it given 
him through an individual man, either by himself or as repre 
senting any body of men and acting in their name. He was 
no delegate of the original twelve, and was in no way dependent 
on them ; nor even did he stand in any official subordination 
to James, Cephas, or John ol So/cowre? cnv\oi elvai. Or if 
avOpwTrov be taken as the abstract, the clause may mean that 
his was no dependent charge delegated to him from any party 
of men, nor was it an independent charge conveyed to him 
through mere humanity. It may, however, be doubted whether 
it be the abstract, or whether any direct personal allusion is 
intended ; for the change to the singular forms a designed 
antithesis to the following clause, while it denies the interven 
tion of human agency in any form and to any extent. It does 
not seem likely that, in this vindication of his independent 
standing, the apostle alludes to the false teachers as having no 
divine commission (Jerome, De Wette, and Lightfoot) ; for to 
have brought himself into any comparison with them would 
have been a lowering of his plea. Rather, as we have said, 
these Judaizers, the more thoroughly to controvert his doctrine 
and undermine his influence, denied his true apostleship. He 
might, in their opinion, be a SouXo?, Sia/owo?, evajjeXio-r^ but 
not an apostle ; for they seem to have maintained that there 
was the taint of a human element in his commission, and they 
assigned him a far lower platform than the origiaal twelve. 



CHAP. I. 1. 5 

But Christ had called him immediately, ovpavodev eicaXeaev OVK 
avQpwTTw xpycrdfjievos vTrovpya) (Theophylact) ; and he was not 
therefore like Silas or Timothy in his relation to Christ and 
the ruling powers in the churches. What the apostle asserts 
of his office, he afterwards as distinctly asserts of his doctrine 
(vers. 11, 12, etc.). Negatively, his apostleship was not from 
men as its causa principalis, nor by man as its causa medians ; 
but positively, 

A\\a Bia ^Ir/aov Xpiarov teal Qeov Trcnpos rov eyeipavros 
aurov etc vefcpwv " but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father 
who raised Him from the dead." Had the apostle consulted 
mere rhetorical fulness, he might have repeated airo before Qeov 
Trarpds. But both nouns are governed by the same preposition 
Sid, and are included under the same relation. For, to his 
mind, so much were Christ and God one in purpose and act, 
that the Bid not only implies the OTTO, but absorbs it, primary 
source in God being identified with mediate agency in the 
appearance and call of the Lord Jesus. The phrase is there 
fore placed first, as being nearest his thought at the moment, 
and as it was the relation expressed by Bid which formed the 
question in dispute. The apostleship might be admitted as 
being from God, and yet not by Him as its immediate agent ; 
aTTo does not of itself prove Bid, but Bid certainly implies airo. 
Aid is not used therefore for the sake of shortness, as Olshausen 
says, and as Ellicott partly allows ; but it points to the direct 
agency of God, manifested in raising His Son from the dead. 
By Jesus Christ was the apostle selected and directly called, 
and by God the Father acting in and through Him whom He 
had raised from the dead ; for it was the risen and glorified 
Saviour who bestowed the apostolate on him. See above on 
the prepositions, and Fritzsche on Kom. i. 5. In ver. 3, again, 
the usage is reversed, and airo is employed with both names. 
Both nouns here want the article, and @eo? iraTijp has all the 
force of a proper name (Gal. i. 3; Eph. vi. 23; Phil. ii. 11; 
1 Pet. i. 2). The genitive veicpwv wants the article, too, as 
usually when preceded by e/c (Winer, 19), the quotation in 
Eph. v. 14 being an exception, and there being in Col. ii. 12 
various readings with authorities almost balanced. God is called 
-ira-Trip, not generally as Father of all (De Wette, Alford), nor 
specially as our Father (Usteri and Wieseler), nor directly as 



6 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Christ s Father, as is the opinion of Meyer, Ellicott, and the 
rendering of the Syriac ; but the name is probably inclusive of 
all those relations. Because He sustains such a relation to Christ 
and Christ s, because of His foremost place in the gracious 
economy, and His fatherly manifestations in it and through it, 
may He not receive the characteristic and almost absolute name 
of Father ? The relation of Christ and believers to the Father 
is often indicated by a following genitive (i. 4 ; Eph. i. 2, 3 ; 
Col. i. 2, 3 ; 1 Thess. i. 3, iii. 11, etc.). 

The predicate is, TOV eyelpavros avrbv e/c ve/cpuiv. Why this 
addition, for it must have some connection with the apostle s 
self-vindication ? The addition is not a vague one, as if the 
act asserted had become an attribute of God (Jowett) ; nor 
is it the mere token of almighty power (Olshausen), nor an 
affirmation of His resurrection against Jews (Chrysostom), nor 
chiefly a refutation of the objection that he had not seen Christ 
(Semler, Morus), nor a passing historical notice that he had been 
called by the risen Saviour, nor a recognition of the Father as 
the Urheber, originator of Christ s redeeming work (De Wette, 
Usteri), nor only the historical confirmation of the ical Qeov 
Trar/30? (Meyer) ; nor is it principally to exhibit the resurrection 
as awaking faith in the Risen One and in God as our reconciled 
Father in Him (Wieseler) ; but it is the proof that Jesus who 
died could call him, though He had not called him at the period 
when the twelve were commissioned in the days of His flesh, 
and that the apostleship was one of the gifts which specially 
belonged to Him as the ascended Lord. Eph. iv. 11. It may 
be said generally, the Father raised Him from the dead, so 
that all His apostles could proclaim the truth of which His 
.resurrection was the primal evidence and a distinctive tenet 
(Rom. i. 4, iv. 24 ; Eph. i. 20 ; Phil. ii. 9) ; and specially, God 
the Father entrusted Paul with the apostleship, and did it 
through Jesus, whom He had raised from the dead : so that 
the risen Saviour invested with supreme authority, added, by 
a direct and personal act, one to the number of the twelve, 
with every element of qualification and prerogative which had 
been conferred upon them. There is no need to say, with 
Luther, that the clause condemns justitiam operum. It would 
l>e at the same time laying too great stress on the words, 
to suppose, with Augustine, Erasmus, Beza, and Calvin, that 



CHAP. I. 1. 7 

the apostle is claiming a superiority over the other apostles, 
inasmuch as he alone had been called by the risen Saviour, but 
they by Him adhuc mortali. But the clause plainly implies 
that he possessed all the qualifications of an apostle ; that he 
had been commissioned immediately by Jesus Himself, having 
not only heard Him but seen Him, and could be a witness of 
His resurrection equally with any of the twelve ; and that he 
possessed the gift of the Holy Ghost in such fulness and adap 
tation as fitted him for all spheres of his work (1 Cor. ix. 1, 2). 
It is a strange lection which is ascribed by Jerome to Marcion, 
which omitted the words Geov Trarpos, and seems to have read 
J. X. TOV eyeipavros eavrov etc veKpwv, for it is opposed to the 
uniform teaching of the Pauline theology. The Greek fathers 
lay no little stress on the fact that J. X. and @eo? TraTtjp 
have a common bond of connection in Std. Chrysostom speaks 
of it as " fitted to stop the mouths of the heretics who deny 
Christ s divinity, and to teach us not to prescribe laws to the 
ineffable nature, nor to define the degrees of Godhead which 
belong to the Father and the Son." Theodoret presses the 
inference to prove ouSe/u oj/ (fyvcrews Siafyopdv between Father 
and Son. But such a theological pressure upon the passing 
phrase cannot be sustained in all its weight, though the words 
do imply economic unity of will and operation, and show that 
to the mind of the apostle Christ and the Father were one in 
authority and prerogative. Nay more, I. X. is placed in direct 
opposition to avdpairov, as if, in Augustine s phrase, He were 
totus jam Deus. 1 The reason why Crellius and Le Clerc and 
others insist on inserting CLTTO before @eov is, that they may 
impugn the equality which the common vinculum of Bid implies. 
Brown inclines very needlessly to their exegesis, though cer 
tainly not for their doctrinal grounds. In a word, this self- 
assertion of the apostle is in no way opposed to what he says 
elsewhere in self-depreciation, as when he calls himself "the 
least of the apostles," " not meet to be called an apostle," 
1 Cor. xv. 8, 9, for these are the utterances of conscious 
personal unworthiness. Nor is the statement before us in con 
flict with the record in Acts xiii. 1-3. Paul was an apostle, 
as himself felt and believed, prior to this scene in the church 

1 This phrase is guarded and explained in his Rctractationes, Opera, vol. 
i. p. 74, ed. Paris, 1836. 



EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

of Antioch. Acts xx. 24, xxii. 14, 15, xxvi. 16-20. Was 
not the formal apostolic commission given in the hour of 
his conversion eOvwv, eh oi)? cjco ae cnrcxneXkwl See also 
Gal. i. 12, 15, 16, 22, 23; 1 Tim. i. 12, 13. The fasting, 
prayer, and imposition of hands were not, as Hammond, 
Wake, Wordsworth, and the Catholic commentators Bisping 
and Windischmann, 1 argue, a consecration to the apostleship, 
but a solemn designation of Saul and Barnabas to a special 
missionary work, which on their return is said to have been 
" fulfilled." Even Calvin speaks of the call of the apostle as 
being followed by the soUennis ritus ordinationis ; see under 
Eph. i. 1. But if ecclesiastical ordination was essential to full 
apostleship, what becomes of the ovSe t avOpunrov^. 

After this decided assertion of his apostleship an assertion 
necessary in the circumstances, at once for his own vindication, 
and the confirmation of the gospel which he preached, as also 
to give their due weight to the censure, counsels, warnings, and 
teachings which were to form the contents of the epistle he 
passes on to say 

Ver. 2. Kal ol avv e /zot Traces a$e\<jjol " and all the bre 
thren who are with me." This phrase, designating a number of 
persons beyond such names as Timothy, Sosthenes, and Silvanus, 
found in some of the other epistles, cannot refer exclusively, as 
Brown after Beza supposes, to official colleagues, nor generally, 
as Schott, Victorinus, Jatho, Schmoller, Jowett, take it, to 
the brethren or community in the place from which the epistle 
was written. It denotes an inner circle of friends, in special 
companionship with the apostle at one with him in opinion at 
the present moment ; Trdvres emphatic referring not so much 
to number, though it must include several, as to unanimity, 
no exception among them, all of them in the crisis sympathizing 
with the Galatian churches, and sharing his anxiety to deliver 
them from imminent jeopardy. In fact, in Phil. iv. 21, 22, 
the apostle distinguishes " the brethren with him" from " all 
the saints." The question as to who might be included in the 
irdvres is answered in various ways, according to the opinion 
adopted about the place where the epistle was written in 
Ephesus or Corinth. Wherever they were, they joined in the 
salutation ; but their position and unanimity added no authority 
1 Estius is an exception. 



CHAP. I. 3. 9 

to the epistle (Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, Olshausen, Meyer, 
and De Wette, hold the opposite view), though probably they 
might strengthen its appeals, as showing how wide and warm 
an interest was felt in the Galatian defection. Tit. iii. 15. The 
authority of the epistle rests exclusively on the official preroga 
tive of Paul himself, singly and apart from the aSe\</>oi. For 
the association of other names with the apostle s own in his 
salutations, see under Phil. i. 1. 

The epistle is not sent to one community in a town, but 
Tais KK\r)(riat,s T?}9 PaXartW " to the churches of Galatia" 
the letter being therefore a circular. Acts xvi. 6, xviii. 23 ; 
1 Cor. xvi. 1 ; 1 Pet. i. 1. It has been often remarked, that 
eKK\t](ria^ occurs without any qualifying element or additional 
clause ; and it has been explained since the time of Chrysostom, 
that, on account of their defection, the apostle could not give 
them any title of honour or endearment. Usteri denies this, and 
appeals to both epistles to Thessalonica ; but there the words eV 
Oca} jrarpl are added. In both epistles to Corinth, TOV Qeov is 
annexed to eKK\r)(rla, passages strangely referred to also by Hof- 
mann and Sardinoux, as if proving that Paul had felt, in writing 
to these churches, as he did in writing to those of Galatia. It 
is quite baseless on the part of Theophylact, to find in the plural a 
reference to divisions evrel Be KOI Biea-racria^ov. For the places 
where those churches were probably situated, see Introduction. 
Ver. 3. Xdpis vfuv Kal eip-ijvr) ebro @eov Trarpos Kal Kvpiov 
f]fjio)V lya-ov Xpiarov " Grace be to you and peace from God 
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ." The pronoun rjp&v is 
placed after Kvpiov on good authority, though A and N, with 
some of the Latin fathers, insert it after Trarpo?, as in other 
salutations. Rom. i. 7 ; 1 Cor. i. 3 ; 2 Cor. i. 2 ; Eph. i. 2, 
etc. As Bid in the first verse, so airo in this verse governs 
both the genitives, as both are sources of divine blessing, ac 
cording to the aspect in which each is viewed, primarily indeed 
from God and proximately from Jesus Christ. This con 
tiguous use of two prepositions, each of them in application 
both to the Father and to Christ, shows that to the apostle 
God and Christ were so much one in will and operation (" God 
in Christ"), that no sharp dogmatic distinction of origin and 
medium needed to be drawn between them in such a prayer 
offered for the churches. See under ver. 1. 



10 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

For the meaning of the benediction, see under Eph. i. 2, 
and also the note of Wieseler. As the West embodied its wishes 
in %/w, and the East in DW elpr/wr), so the apostle, in 
catholic fulness, uses both terms in their profoundest Christian 
significance : no ordinary greeting, or " as the world giveth," 
but a prayer for all combined and fitting spiritual blessings. 

In connection with Christ, and as an unusual addition to his 
salutations, he now describes His distinctive work in its blessed 
purpose and in its harmony with the divine plan ; for the pass 
ing statement presents a truth in direct conflict with the errors 
prevailing in the Galatian churches. Thus the first arid fourth 
verses contain in brief the two themes of the epistle, a vindi 
cation of his apostleship and of the free and full salvation by 
faith without works of law, which he rejoiced to proclaim. 

Ver. 4. Tov ScWo? eavrov irepl rwv afJLaprLwv r/pwv " who 
gave Himself for our sins." The virep of the received text is 
found in B and K \ and some of the Greek fathers, but Trepi 
has the authority of A, D, F, K, X, several minuscules, and is 
apparently the preferable reading. The correction to vjrep 
might appear to be more in the apostle s manner (Meyer). 
The two prepositions, so similar in meaning, are often ex 
changed in New Testament MSS. Meyer holds that they are 
not different in meaning. 

The act here ascribed to Christ Himself is often ascribed to 
God, as in Rom. viii. 32 ; sometimes it assumes the form of a 
simple statement, as in Rom. iv. 25, v. 8; but here, as also in 
other places, especially in the pastoral epistles, it is regarded as 
the spontaneous act of the Self-offerer, as in John x. 18, 1 Tim. 
ii. 6, Tit. ii. 14, Eph. v. 2 where a compound verb is used. 
(Rom. v. 6, 8, etc.; 1 Mace. vi. 44.) Wetstein quotes in illustra 
tion from Xiphilinus, the abbreviator of Dio Cassius (in Othone, 
p. 193), the following clause : ocms OVK v/j,d<? virep eavrov, aXX 
eavrov VTrep V/AV SeS&j/ce. Meyer says, and so far correctly, that 
the idea of satisfaction lies not in the meaning of the preposition, 
but in the whole Sachverhdltniss ; quoting also Iliad, i. 444 : 



pi^oti vvsp Actvaav 6 <pp faetaofttaScc tx.vsnx.rci: 

Wesselius cites the versiculus notissimus of Cato : 

" Ipse nocens cum sis, moritur cur victima pro te ?" 
Hepi, as might be expected from the meaning of the words in 







CHAP. I. 4. 11 

such a connection, is often used with the thing, and vTrep with 
the persons : Trepl afiapTiciov, VTrep abi/ccov (1 Pet. iii. 18 ; Sirach 
xxix. 15). But the usage is not uniform, as Heb. v. 3, irepl 
rov Aao>, . . . Trepl eavrov, . . . VTrep ajJLapnwv ; and in the first 
verse also of the same chapter, virep a^apnwv. In 1 Cor. xv. 
3, vTrep is used with a/jiapTitov, but rjfiwv is a personal quali 
fication. In Matt. xxvi. 28 we have Trepl Tro\\a)v, but the 
personal design is introduced, et? afaviv a/jLapriaJv ; and in the 
parallel passages, Mark xiv. 24, Luke xxii. 19, VTrep occurs, 
and the personal explanatory clause is wanting. In 1 Thess. 
v. 10 the various reading is Trepl VTrep, and a personal purpose 
follows. The preposition vTrep denotes a closer relation "over," 
or "for the benefit of," "on behalf of," personal interest in, 
that interest being often an element of conscious recognition 
(Gal. ii. 20; 1 Cor. v. 20; Kom. xiv. 15), and has a meaning 
verging very close on that of avri, " in room of," as the con 
text occasionally indicates (chap. iii. 13 ; Eph. v. 2 ; Philem. 
13). See Fritzsche on Rom. v. 7, 8 ; Poppo on the phrase vTrep 
eaurov, which he renders suo loco, vrrep pro avri, Thucydides, 
part iii. vol. i. p. 704 ; Euripides, Alcestis, 690 ; Polybius, i. 
67, 7 ; Matthiae, 582 ; Host und Palm, sub voce. ILepi is 
more general in meaning, and may denote " on account of," "in 
connection with," bringing out the object or motive of the act : 
Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins on account of them, 
or in such a connection with them that He might deliver 
us. See under Eph. vi. 19. The distinction between the two 
prepositions is often very faint, though frequently irepi ex 
presses only mentis circumspectionem, VTrep simul animi propen- 
sionem (Weber, Demosth. p. 130). See also Schaefer s full note 
on the phrase of Demosthenes, ov Trepl So^s ou8 VTrep /j,epov 9, 
Annot. vol. i. p. 189 ; and the remarks of Bremi, Demosthenes, 
Orat. p. 188. The two prepositions may, as commonly employed, 
characterize the atonement or self-oblation of Christ ; the first 
in its object generally, the second specially in its recipients, 
and the benefits conferred upon them. Christ gave Himself 
for us, on account of our sins, that expiation might be made, 
or on behalf of sinners, that by such expiation they might 
obtain forgiveness and life. See more fully under Eph. v. 2, 
25. AvTi is more precise, and, signifying "in room of," 
points out the substitutionary nature of Christ s death. Matt. 



12 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

v. 38; Luke xi. 11; 1 Cor. xi. 15; Jas. iv. 15; Matt. xvii. 

27, etc. 

The meaning is, that He gave Himself to death (not volenti 
diabolo, Ambrosiast.), or, as in other places, gave His life. 
Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45. Sometimes a predicate is added, as 
avrfavrpov, 1 Tim. ii. 6 ; Trpoatyopav, Eph. v. 2. Such a predi 
cate is here implied in the clause defined by Trepi, and in the 
purpose indicated by O7r&>9. The freeness of the self-gift is 
prominent, as well as its infinite value HIMSELF. We pause 
not over theological distinctions as to the two natures of the 
Mediatorial person in this act : He gave Himself a gift im 
possible without incarnation a gift valueless without a myste 
rious union with divinity, as is at least indicated by the common 
vinculum of 8i in the first verse, and of arro in the second 
verse. The ^^utv refers primarily to the apostle, the brethren 
with him and the persons addressed by him in Galatia, but 
does not by its use define in any way the extent of the atone 
ment, either as limiting it to " us" believers, as some have 
argued, or extending it to " us" " mankind sinners," as others 
contend. The doctrine taught is, that Jesus Christ did spon 
taneously offer Himself as the one propitiation, so that He is 
the source of grace and peace ; and the inference is, because 
He gave Himself, the oblation is perfect as also the deliverance 
secured by it, so that obedience to the Mosaic law as a means 
of salvation is quite incompatible with faith in Him. 

The self-oblation of Jesus is surely no mere Jewish image, 
as Jowett represents it, something now in relation to us like a 
husk out of which the kernel had fallen. True, as he says, 
" the image must have had a vividness in the days when sacri 
fices were offered that it may not have now;" but the truth 
imaged has not therefore faded out. Take away all that is 
Jewish in the presentation of that truth, yet you alter not its 
essence and purpose ; for through the death of Christ, and its 
relation to or influence on the divine government, God is just 
while He is justifying the ungodly. The teaching of Scripture 
is something more than that " Christ took upon Him human 
flesh, that He was put to death by sinful men, and raised men 
out of the state of sin in this sense taking their sins upon 
Him : " that is, in no true sense bearing our guilt. For not 
only expiation or propitiation, but reconciliation, justification, 



CHAP. I. 4. 13 

acceptance, redemption from the curse, are ascribed to His 
death. Men are raised out of a state of sin when their xruilt 

O 

is forgiven, and the power of sin is destroyed within them ; and 
both blessings are traced to the Self-sacrifice of the Son of God. 
The sinfulness of the men that put Him to death is not incom 
patible with the voluntariness and atoning merit of His death ; 
for it was more than a tragedy or a martyrdom, though it is 
not withoiU these aspects. The figures, as Jowett says, are 
varied ; but such variation does not prove them to be " figures 
only," and the truth underlying them has varying and connected 
phases of relation and result. " The believer is identified with 
the various stages of the life of Christ;" true, but his life 
springs from Christ s death, and is a life in union with the risen 
Lord. Gal. ii. 20. The definite doctrine of Scripture is, that in 
dying, Christ bore a representative or a substitution ary relation 
to sin and sinners, as is expressed by avrl, and implied in Trepi 
and virep. This teaching of Scripture in the age of the apostles 
is the truth still to us, even though its imagery may be dimmed. 
Moulded for one age, and given primarily to it, it is adapted to 
all time as a permanent and universal gospel. The palpable 
terms fashioned in Jewry ray light through the world. The 
apostolic theology, though bodied forth by Hebrew genius, and 
glowing with illustrations from Hebrew history and ritual, is 
all the more on that account adapted to us, for it speaks in no 
dull monotone, and it is no exhibition of such abstract and 
colourless formulas as would satisfy the scanty creed of modern 
spiritualism. The purpose of the self-sacrifice is 

"OTTOO? ee\rjTai ^a? e/c rov alwvos rov evecrr tiros irovrjpov 
" that He might deliver us out of the present world an evil 
one:" nequam, Vulg. ; malo, Clarom.; maligno, Aug. Perhaps 
this is the better reading, and it is supported by A, B, N 1 . The 
received text places eVecrToSro? before attoi/o?, omitting the article, 
and is also well supported by a large number of MSS., some ver 
sions and fathers. The verb, from its position, is emphatic, and 
Trovrjpov is virtually a tertiary predicate. "Iva is the apostle s 
favourite term, and the relative particle OTTOX? "in such manner 
that" is rarely used by him. In the New Testament it is con 
strued with the subjunctive, sometimes with av, but it is found 
with other moods in classical writers (Kriiger, 54, 8, etc. ; 
Klotz-Devarius, vol. ii. pp. 629, etc., 681, etc., in which sections 



14 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

iva and OTTW? are distinguished in meaning and use). The verb 
e^aipeicrOat, (eriperet, Vulgate) occurs only here in Paul s epistles. 
In other passages of the New Testament it has the sense of 
rescue from peril by an act of power, as of Joseph (Acts vii. 
10) ; of the Hebrews out of slavery (Acts vii. 34) ; of Peter 
from the hand of Herod (Acts xii. 11) ; of Paul from the mob 
in Jerusalem (Acts xxiii. 27) ; and it is the word used by the 
Divine Master to the apostle in reference to his frequent de 
liverances from danger (Acts xxvi. 17). Compare Gen. xxxii. 
11, Isa. xlii. 22, Ps. cxl. 1. The noun alwv connected with 
aei, Latin cevum, and the Saxon aye (" God shall endure for 
aye"), means "duration;" its adjunct determining whether 
that duration reach indefinitely backwards or forwards, as in 
air or K alwvos in the one case, and et9 rov alwva in the other. 
The latter is a common meaning both in the classics and in the 
New Testament : Ast, Lexicon Platon. sub voce. With a more 
restricted duration, it often means in the New Testament, the 
age or present course of time, with the underlying idea of 
corruption and sinfulness, though, as having a temporal sense in 
more or less prominence, it is not to be identified with #007409. 
Luke xvi. 8 ; Rom. xii. 2 ; Eph. i. 21, ii. 2. In rabbinical 
usage, there was the n-jn DPiy, the present or pre-Messianic 
age, and N2H D?iy, the coming age, or period after Messiah s 
advent. Allusions to such use would almost seem to be in 
Matt. xxiv. 3, Heb. vi. 5, ix. 26. The alwv //-e XA&w, however, 
of the New Testament is not so restricted as the corresponding 
rabbinical phrase, Matt. xii. 32, Mark x. 30, Luke xviii. 30, 
Eph. i. 21. The noun, in Christian use, and in both refer 
ences, acquires a deeper significance. The o vvv alwv of the 
pastoral epistles, 1 Tim. vi. 17, 2 Tim. iv. 10, Tit. ii. 12 6" ai&v 
euro?, Rom. xii. 2 has a pervading element of evil in it, in 
contrast to the o alwv /ze/VAajy, o alutv 6 ep%6[j,evos, which is 
characterized by purity and happiness (Mark x. 30; Luke 
xviii. 30). The alwv is this passing age this world as it now 
is fallen, guilty, and corrupt, in bondage to a " god " (2 Cor. 
iv. 4), and to ap-^ovre^ who are opposed to God (1 Cor. ii. 6 ; 
Eph. vi. 12). We often use the word "world" very similarly, as 
signifying a power opposed to Christ in its maxims, fashions, 
modes of thought, and objects of pursuit, and as continually 
tempting and often subduing His people ; the scene of trial 



CHAP. I. 4. 15 

and sorrow, where sense ever struggling for the mastery over 
faith, embarrasses and overpowers the children of God. See 
Cremer, Bibliscli-tlieolog. Worterb. sub voce, Gotha 1866. 

The participle evearcos has two meanings, either time pre 
sent actually, or present immediately time now, or time im 
pending. The first meaning is apparent in Rom. viii. 38, 
ovre evearwra ovre peXX-ovra, " nor things present, nor things 
to come" present and future in contrast. Similarly 1 Cor. 
iii. 22, vii. 26 ; Heb. ix. 9. Instances abound in the classics 
and Septuagint, Esdras v. 47, ix. 6, rov evearfara %eifia)va ; 
3 Mace. i. 16 ; frequently in Polybius, i. 60, 75, xviii. 38 ; 
Xen. Hellen. 2, 1, 6 ; Joseph. Antiq. xvi. 6, 2 ; Philo, de 
Plantat. JVoe, Opera, vol. iii. p. 136, Erlangse 1820. Phavo- 
rinus defines it by Trdpovra, and Hesychius gives it as 6 
-7-779 &>?79 %p6vo<$. The Syriac renders it " this age," and the 
Vulgate prcesenti seeculo. Sextus Empir. divides times into 
rov TrapqyfflfjLevov Kal rov evearwra teal rov fj,e\\ovra } Advers. 
Phys. ii. 192, p. 516, ed. Bekker. It is also the term used by 
grammarians for " the present tense;" thus evearwcra /xero^ 
the present participle. Theodore of Mopsuestia, in loc., defines 
the term by Trapwv, and explains it as the period stretching 
on to the second advent, ed. Fritzsche, p. 121. Compare 
Clement. Horn. ii. 40, Ignat. ad Epli. xi., Corpus Ignatianum, 
ed. Cureton, p. 29. While there may be a few passages in 
which it will bear the sense of impending (Polybius, i. 71- 
4), or ideally present, as good as come or seen as certainly 
coming, it is questioned whether it has such a meaning in 
the New Testament, even in 2 Thess. ii. 2, compared with 
2 Tim. iii. 1. See Schoettgen s Hortv on this place. But 
this view is taken by Meyer, Bisping, and Trana, the phrase 
denoting, according to them, impending time, the evil time 
predicted as coming and preceding the second advent. 2 Pet. 
iii. 3 ; 1 John ii. 18 ; Jude 18 ; 2 Tim. iii. 1. Matthias, a 
recent annotator (Cassel 1865), holds the same view, and would 
punctuate alwvos, Trovrjpov Kara that is, the evil is allowed 
by God to culminate just before the second advent, that it may 
be effectually and for ever put down. The first interpretation 
is preferable. It accords with the simple meaning of the pas 
sage, which states, without any occult or prophetic allusion, the 
immediate purpose of Christ s death ; and such is, in general, 



16 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

the theme of the epistle. Nor does there seem to be anything in 
the context to suggest to the apostle s mind the idea of the last 
apostasy, or to deliverance from it as the design of the atone 
ment. His thoughts, so soon to find utterance, concern pre 
sent blessing through Christ, and Him alone ; the reception of 
such blessing being prevented by looking away from Him, and 
putting partial or complete trust in legal observances. 

The phrase " this present evil world " cannot therefore 
mean merely the Mosaical constitution (Locke, Krause), or the 
entire system of things defective and unsatisfactory connected 
with it (Carpzov, Gwynne), an exegesis too technical and nar 
row, and which comes far short of the meaning of the apostle s 
pregnant words. The meaning of the verse is, that the purpose 
of Christ s self-sacrifice was to rescue believers out of (e /c) a 
condition fraught with infinite peril to them the kingdom of 
darkness and bring them into a condition safe and blessed 
" the kingdom of His dear Son." This change is not, in the 
first instance, one of character, as so many assert, but one of 
state or relation having reference rather to justification than 
to sanctification, though change of relation most certainlv 

/ O O / 

implies or entails change of character (De Wette, Meyer, 
Hofmann). Believers are rescued out of " this present age," 
with all its evils of curse, corruption, sense, and selfishness, 
not by being removed from earth, but being translated into 
another " age " accepted, blessed, adopted, regenerated. John 
xvii. 15, 16. Not that redemption is confined in any sense 
to the present age, for its recipients are at length received 
up into that glory which lasts a <? TOU? alwva? rwv aluvuv. 
Chrysostom and Jerome are anxious to guard against the 
Manichsean heresy, that the age or world is essentially and 
in itself evil, for it is only made so by evil Trpoaipeae^ ; the 

latter dwelling; on the deliramenta of the Valentinians, and the 

i 

mystical meanings which they attached to the Hebrew DTiy, as 

written with or without the 1, and as meaning eternity in the first 
case, and the space reaching to the year of jubilee in the other. 
Kara TO 0eX?7/m rov Qeov KOI vrarpo? rjftwv " according 
to the will of God and our Father." Theophylact distinguishes 
6e\r]^a from eTriTayrf, and identifies it with evSoKia. (See under 
Eph. i. 11.) Is r)fj,(t)v connected only with Trarpd?, or is the proper 
rendering "our God and Father?" It is rather difficult to 



CHAP. I. 4. 17 

answer. The article is omitted before Trarpo?, according to 
usage. Middleton, p. 57 ; Winer, 19, 4. The teat seems to 
have its ordinary connecting force. The phrase @eo? teal 
Trarrjp occurs with a genitive following in several places, Rom. 
xv. 6, 2 Cor. i. 3, Eph. i. 3, Col. i. 3, 1 Pet. i. 3 ; and in these 
places the dependent genitive is rov Kvplov TJUWV I. X. See 
under Eph. i. 3. A simple r^nwv follows the phrase, Phil. iv. 
20, 1 Thess. iii. 11, 2 Thess. ii. 16 ; and it stands alone in 
1 Cor. xv. 24, Eph. v. 20, Jas. i. 27. That ^&v is con 
nected only with irarpo^ is probable, because not only, as 
Ellicott says, is the idea in eo? absolute, and that in irar^p 
relative the relation being indicated by the pronoun but 
also because irarrip has often, in the apostle s usage, a genitive 
after it when it follows @eo?: Rom. i. 7, 1 Cor. i. 3, 2 Cor. i. 2 
" God our Father." The places last quoted, however, have 
not the conjunction. Nor will the article before &eov indicate 
that both clauses are connected with fjpwv, for it is usually in 
serted in such a connection of two predicates. Winer, 19, 3, 
footnote 2. The rendering, then, is, "According to the will 
of God who is also our Father " He who is God is also our 
Father the article not repeated before the second noun, as 
both are predicates of the same person. In fine, this statement 
underlies the whole verse, and is not in mere connection with 
rov Bovros (Chrysostom, Wieseler), nor with the clause before 
it OTTO)? (Meyer, Schott) ; nor is 6eXrj/j,a the elective will of 
God in the rescue of certain individuals (Usteri). But Christ s 
Self-sacrifice, with its gracious and effective purpose, was no 
human plan, and is in no sense dependent on man s legal 
obedience. Its one source is the supreme and sovereign will 
of God, and that God is in relation to us a father who wins 
back his lost child. Luke xv. 11. The process of salvation 
stands out in divine and fatherly pre-eminence, and is not to 
be overlaid by man s devices which would either complicate or 
enfeeble it. In harmony with the eternal purpose, the Son of 
God incarnate gave Himself for us, and for our rescue. This 
redemptive work was no incident suddenly devised, nor was it 
an experiment made on the law and government of God. 
Alike in provision and result, it was in harmony with the 
highest will, and therefore perfect and permanent in nature 
an argument against the Judaists. 

B 



EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

Ver. 5. fl t] Soa et? rou? alwvas rwv atcavotv a^v " To 
whom be the glory for ever. Amen." Most probably the verb 
eH?) is understood (1 Pet. i. 2 ; 2 Pet. i. 2 ; Jude 2), not earl, 
which some editions and versions present (the Vulgate having 
cui est gloria\ and which is preferred by Lightfoot and Hof- 
mann ; nor ecrrtu, though it be found in 2 Chron. ix. 8. It is 
more natural to regard the verse as a wish than as an affirma 
tion, it being the devout aspiration suggested by the blessed 
and wonderful assertion of the previous verse, and quite in the 
apostle s style. Rom. ix. 5, xi. 36; 2 Cor. ix. 15 ; Eph. iii. 20. 
In such doxologies So^a usually has the article, when, as here, 
it stands alone. Rom. xi. 36, xvi. 27, Eph. iii. 21, Phil. iv. 
20, 2 Tim. iv. 18 ; but Luke ii. 14, xix. 38, are exceptions. 
Occasionally it wants the article when other substantives are 
added to it (Rom. ii. 10, which, however, is not a doxology ; 1 
Tim. i. 17; Jude 25); but it has the article in 1 Pet. iv. 11, 
Rev. i. 6, vii. 12. Ao%a, translated " praise" in the older 
English versions, does not here take the article, not as beinc; an 

O O 

abstract noun (Matthies ; Middleton, v. 1) ; but the meaning 
is, the glory which is His, or which characterizes Him and is 
especially His due. The doxology is based on the previous 
statement : To Him, for His gracious will that wrought out 
our deliverance through His Son s self-sacrifice, be the glory 
" to the ages of the ages." This last expression is not a pure 
Hebraism. Winer, 36, 2. See under Eph. iii. 21. These 
ages of ages still beginning, never ending are as if in con 
trast to " this present age, an evil one," out of which believers 
are rescued. And this blessed change is not of law or of works 
in any sense, but solely from His will as its source, and by the 
self-oblation of Christ as its intermediate and effective means 
means which have this rescue for their direct object volun- 
tas F d d Patris voluntatem implet (Jerome). 

The Hebrew iX ? " truly," is sometimes transferred in the 
Septuagint dfjujv, sometimes rendered by <yevoiro in praise and 
response, while Aquila translated it by TreTrto-Tw/ie^o)?. " So 
ought it to be, so let it be, so shall it be " (Brown). 

Ver. 6. avfjba^w, ori ovrco ra^eco? fjueTarideaOe airo rov 
KoXeaavTos v/j.a<? ev yapiTi Xptarov " I marvel that you are 
so soon turning away (are removing yourselves) from Him 
who called you in the grace of Christ." The apostle now 



CHAP. I. 6. 19 

rushes, sis one may say, on the main subject of the epistle, dis 
closing in a moment the feeling of disappointment which he 
could not repress or modify. By a sharp and sudden Oavfid^w 
he shows his surprise, not unmingled with anger and sorrow. 
The result had not been as he had fondly anticipated ; nay, it 
was so contrary to previous manifestations on which he seems 
to have trusted, that his censure and chagrin are expressed by 
his amazement. Rebuke lurks under his surprise. The verb 
often from the context gathers into itself the ethical notion of 
what is culpable surprise excited by what is object of censure. 
Mark vi. 6. Sometimes it is followed by et, when what is 
thought of is matter of doubt, and by ort, as here, when it is 
matter of fact. 1 John iii. 13. Sturz, Lex. Xen. sub voce. 

MerariOetrOe^ the present middle not the aorist will not 
bear the rendering, " ye are removed," nor, as Dr. Brown gives 
it, "ye have removed yourselves;" but, "ye are removing your 
selves." Gal. iv. 9, 11, v. 10. The falling off was in process, _. 
not completed, as Chrysostom says : OVK eiTre peredeade, aAAa, 
ouSeTrco TTtcrreuty ovSe rjyovfuu aTrijpricrf^evrjv elvat 
The verb cannot be aoristic in sense, for it is not 
a historical present (Matthies). Bernhardy, p. 372. Nor is it 
passive, as Beza, Erasmus, and others take it ut cidpam in 
pseudapostolos derivet. The Vulgate gives also trans ferimini. 
The verb signifies to transfer or put in another place locally, 
as Heb. xi. 5, Sept. Gen. v. 24 ; and then tropically, to put 
to another use, or to change place ideally. Jude 4. In the 
middle voice it signifies to change what belongs to one TO. 
elpijfj,eva, Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 18, or rrjv yvcap^v, Joseph. Vita, 
33, Herodotus, vii. 18 ; then to fall away from one party 
e or aTTo, 2 Mace. vii. 24 to another, ew or vrpo?, Polybius, 
iii. 118, 8, and often in the Sept. 1 Kings xxi. 25. Dionysius 
of Heraclea, who became an Epicurean from being a Stoic, 
rejoiced to be called Mera0fj,evos transpositus sive translatus 
(Jerome). Athena3us, vii. p. 25, vol. iii. ed. Schweighaiiser ; 
Host und Palm, sub voce. 

There was special surprise that this changing of sides was 
going on otmo ro^eo)?, " so quickly." These words have been 
taken either in a positive or a relative sense. In the first sense, 
or as referring to manner, they have been supposed to signify 
OVTW eutfoA.&)9 (Koppe), parum considerate (Schott, Chrysostom), 



20 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

t( gewiss zu rasch" (Riickert), or "so readily," "so rashly" 
(Lightfoot, G wynne, and Hofmann). But relatively they 
have been taken as signifying " so soon " after 

1. The last visit of the apostle to them, as Bengel, Hilgen- 
feld, and Wieseler. No chronological inference can indeed be 
based on this exegesis, for it is untenable. The idea of his 

C 1 / 

own visit is not in his mind, so far as his language implies, for 
Ka\cravTos does not refer to him ; 

2. Or " so soon " after their conversion, as Usteri, Ols- 
hausen, Meyer, Alford, Trana, Bisping, Jatho. This is no 
doubt true ; but such a terminus does not seem directly in the 
apostle s eye. The points before his mind are : the one from 
which they are changing away "Him who called them;" 
and that into which they were sinking; "another o;ospel." His 

*/ O O 1 

mind turns at once to the false teachers, and their seductive 
influence ; and therefore the meaning may be, 

3. "So soon" after the intrusion of the false teachers amono; 

O 

them. Chrysostom describes it as e/c Trpomy? 7rpo<j/3oX?}9 (De 
Wette, and Ellicott). The apostle refers at once to these men, 
and to their disturbing and dangerous power. The Galatians 
had not the courage or constancy to resist the fascination of 
these unscrupulous Judaizers. But if the false teachers came 
among them after the apostle s recent visit (Acts xviii. 23), 
these two last opinions may so far coalesce. Their conversion, 
however, was a point further back, and connected with an 
earlier visit. But though, if one adopt the relative sense, the 
last opinion be preferable, yet probably the apostle had no 
precise point of time in his reference. The unexpectedness of 
the apostasy involving, it is true, some latent temporal refer 
ence appears to be his prominent element of rebuke. Taking 
in the whole crisis, so sudden and speedy, so contrary to 
earlier auspicious tokens, he might well say, without any 
distinct allusion to a precise date, ovrw ra^e &j?. While the 
remark of Jerome, Galatia translationem in nostra lingua sonat, 
is without basis, this fickleness was quite in keeping with the 
Gallic character. See Introduction. 

ATTO rov Ka\e<ravTo<? i//za9 ev %dpm XpiaTOv " from Him 
that called you in the grace of Christ." The words are not 
to be construed thus, cnro rov KaXecravTos Xpio-Toi) (" from 
Him that called you Christ"), as the Syriac, Jerome, Calvin, 



CHAP. I. 6. 21 

Bengel, a-Lapide, and Brown. As Meyer remarks, however, 
against Schott and Matthies, the absence of the article would 
be no objection to this exegesis. Rom. ix. 5 ; 1 Pet. i. 15. 
The calling of believers is uniformly represented as the work 
of the Father in the Pauline theology, Rom. viii. 30, ix. 24, 
1 Cor. i. 9, Gal. i. 15, 1 Thess. v. 24 ; and therefore TOV 
xa\. cannot be understood of the apostle, as Piscator, Balduin, 
Paulus, Bagge, Olearius, Gwynne, and even Doddridge. Their 
defection was all the more sinful, as the calling was from God. 
He alone effectually summons the soul to forgiveness and life, for 
He has access to it, and as His love yearns over it, His power is 
able to work the blessed change. God called them, and there is 
emphasis in the omission of Qeov ; as they needed not to be told 
who the Caller was, their defection was no sin of ignorance. 
It would be very strange if the apostle should in this place 
arrogate to himself what everywhere else he ascribes to God. 
Reuss, Theol. Chret. ii. 144. His own special work is thus 
characterized by him evrjyyeXiad/AeQa. 

^Ev %apm X. " in the grace of Christ." Xpia-rov is want 
ing in F, G, and in some of the Latin fathers, and is wrongly 
rejected by Griesbach. The phrase ev ^dptri is neither to be 
identified with 8ia ^aptro9, nor et? ^dpira; Vulgate, in gratiam, 
that is, "to a participation of that grace," as Borger and Riickert 
explain it. The preposition ev denotes the element that ele 
ment here viewed as possessing instrumental power. Eph. ii. 
13, vi. 14. It may thus be the instrumental adjunct (AYunder, 
Sophocles, Philoct. 60 ; Donaldson, 47, 6), but the instru 
mentality is here regarded as immanent. Jelf, 622. In some 
other passages with KaXew the preposition has its usual force. 
1 Cor. vii. 18; 1 Thess. iv. 7. It is only or chiefly after verbs of 
motion that ev as result combines the sense of efc (Winer, 50, 
5), though originally they were the same word, related to each 
other; as /ie/9, fiev Se/<?, Sev. Donaldson, New Cratylus, p. 318. 
They were called "in the grace of Christ;" for the call of God 
works only in that grace, never apart from it. Rom. v. 15. 
That call, sphering itself in Christ, and thus evincing its power, 
is on this account opposed to the w/u-o?, to the entire substance 
and spirit of the Judaizing doctrine. This grace of Christ, so 
rich and free, crowned in His atoning death and seen in all 
the blessings springing out of it, seems to be suggested by, or 



22 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAKS. 

connected in the apostle s mind with, the phrase just used 
" o-ave Himself for our sins." But they are falling off 

O / O 

Eh erepov evayyeXiov " to a different gospel" the ruling 
element of which was not the grace of Christ, nor w r as its 
leading doctrine that " He gave Himself for our sins." No 
moral feature is expressed by the adjective, though it may be 
implied not corruptum et adulterinum, as Calvin has it. The 
adjective erepov marks distinction, a\Xo<? indicates addition. 
2 Cor. xi. 4. This signification of difference is seen in such 
compounds as eTepo7/Va>crcro<?, Ps. cxiii. 1; erepoyevrjs, Deut. xxii. 
11 ; erepo^iryo?, Lev. xix. 19. It represents the Hebrew ^ "! ( 7, 
" new," in Ex. i. 8, and X aliemts, in Ex. xxx. 9, " strange in 
cense." It is found with an ethical sense also, Ex. xxi. 2, Num. 
xiv. 24 ; often as applied to false divinities, Pan. vii. 5, 6, 8. 
The adjective thus generally denotes distinction of kind. Even 
in Matt. xi. 3, adduced by Ellicott to show that erepo? does not 
always keep its distinctive meaning, it may signify not simply 
another individual, but one different in position and function. 
But aXXo? is used in the parallel passage, Luke vii. 20. Titt- 
rnann, De Synon. p. 155. The Judaiziug gospel, for it might 
be named gospel by its preachers and receivers too, was of a 
totally different genus from that proclaimed by the apostle, dif 
fering from it as widely as z^oyu-o? and %dpis, ep<ya and irians, 
bondage and liberty, flesh and spirit. But the apostle at once 
checks himself, lest the phrase erepov evayy. should be misinter 
preted, on the plea that by its use he had admitted the possibility 
of another and different gospel. Therefore he abruptly adds, 

Ver. 7. "O OVK eariv aXXo, el ^ " which is not another, 
save that :" it is no new or additional gospel OVK, the negative 
being emphatic, there is only one gospel. The eva^/eXiov 
expressed after erepov stands vaguely and imperfectly, as the 
Judaizers might so name their system, but the evajj. implied 
after a\\o is used in its strict and proper sense. The connec 
tion with the following clause is variously understood. 

1. Schott, preceded by a-Lapide, connects el firj with Oav- 
/jtdfyjd, making the previous clause a parenthesis : " Mir or vos 
tain cito dcficere ad aliam doctrinam salutarem (quanquam luvc 
alia salutaris mdla est) nisi nonnulli sint." But such an 
utterance requires iQav^aCpv tiv : "I should have wondered" 
that you fell away so soon, unless there had been some troubling 



CHAP. I. 7. 23 

you. The sentence also becomes disjointed, and would make 
the apostle give only a hypothetical statement of the cause of 
his surprise. 

2. Some make the whole previous sentence the antecedent 
to o, such as Calvin, Grotius, Winer, Riickert, Olshausen: Your 
defection to another gospel is nothing else but this, or has no 
other source but this, that some are troubling you. But why 
should the apostle, after the censure implied in the last verse, 
really lift it by throwing the entire blame on the Judaizers ? 
It would be to blame them in one breath, and make an apology 
for them in the next ; and to refer Kokea-avros to Paul himself, 
as G wynne does, does not remove the difficulty. 

3. Others, again and this has been the prevailing opinion 
take evay<ye\t,ov as the antecedent: "which is no other gospel, 
because indeed there can be no other." So the Greek fathers, 
with Luther, Beza, Koppe, Borger, Usteri, De Wette, Hilgen- 

feld ; the Peschito, (7l_A_| j]j I,-.], "which does not exist;" 

1> i 7 

and the Genevan, "seeing there is no other." 1 But it seems 
plain that erepo? and aXXo?, occurring together, must be used 
with some distinctiveness, for the one sentence suddenly guards 
against a false interpretation of the other. 

4. The antecedent is, as Meyer, Hofmann, Wieseler, and 
others suppose, erepov evay. : which different kind of gospel is 
no additional or co-ordinate gospel. The apostle does not say, 
it is not gospel ; but it is not a second or other gospel, which 
may take a parallel or even subordinate rank with his. And 
he adds, 

El fir] " save that." By this phrase, not equivalent to a\\d, 
as Dr. Brown argues in support of his exegesis, an exception is 
indicated to a negative declaration preceding, and it signifies 
nisi, " unless," " except," even in Matt. xii. 4, 1 Cor. vii. 17. 
Klotz-Devar. ii. p. 524 ; Herodotus, iv. 94, a\\ov Qeov, el pij ; 
Xen. Cyrop. ii. 2, 11, ri S aXXo, el //-r); Aristoph. Eq. 615, rl 
8 aXXo; el ^; Poppo, Thucyd. vol. iii. P. 1, 216; Gayler, 
Partic. Neg. p. 97. The Vulgate has, quod non est aliud nisi. 
The meaning is, this gospel is another, only in so far as 

1 The Gothic of Ulfilas reads, " which is not another." Vornel trans 
lates, Welches anderartlge Evangelium in nichts andcrem IcsteJit a/x, 
Frankfurt 1865. 



24 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 



elcriv ol rapdo-aovres v/jids " there arj some who are 
troubling you." In this participial phrase, as Winer says, the 
substantivized participle is a definite predicate to an indefinite 
subject. A. Buttmann, p. 254. The apostle says of the rives, 
that it was their function or their characteristic to be disturb 
ing the Galatian converts. Luke xviii. 9 ; Col. ii. 8. Bern- 
hardy, p. 318. Tives neither marks insignificance, avdovvfioi 
(Sender), nor infelices (Bengel), nor yet paucity, pauci duntaxat 
sunt (Winer). Though not named, they were well known, 
but the apostle would not further characterize them. An 
extraordinary interpretation of rives is given by Wordsworth, 
who takes it as the predicate : " unless they who are troubling 
you are somebody," persons of some importance. The exe 
gesis is not sustained by any of the examples which he has 
adduced, for rives in them is marked by its position as a 
predicate, and the use of ri is not to the point. Nor would 
the clause so misunderstood bring out any self-consistent mean 
ing. The verb rapdaa-co, used physically (John v. 7), signifies 
to put in fear or alarm (Matt. ii. 3), then to disquiet (John 
xii. 27), to perplex (Acts xv. 24).- The apostle adds of those 
disturbers, what their desire or purpose was : 

Kal OeXovres fieracrrpe-^ai ro eva<yye\iov rov Xpio~rov 
" and desiring to subvert the gospel of Christ." The verb 
jAeraa-rpecfra) is to change, to change into the opposite (Acts 
ii. 20 ; Jas. iv. 9), or to change to the worse. Aristot. lihet. 
i. 15, p. 60, ed. Bekker ; Sept. 1 Sam. x. 8 ; Sirach xi. 31. 
The genitive rov Xpiarov may either mean the gospel which 
is Christ s as proclaimed by Him, or that which has Him for 
its object. One might say that the former is preferable, as 
then the different gospel preached by the Judaizers would 
stand in contrast to that proclaimed by Christ Himself. Still 
there would in the latter exegesis be this contrast, that as the 
gospel preached by them was conformity to the Mosaic ritual, 
it was in antagonism to that gospel which has Christ for its 
theme, for by its perversion it would render " Christ of none 
effect." Whatever would derogate from the sufficiency of 
Christ s gospel, or hamper its freeness, is a subversion of it, no 
matter what guise it may assume, or how insignificant the addi 
tion or subtraction may seem. Bengel s oft-quoted remark, Re 
ipsa non poterant, volebant tamen olnixe, is true in result. Yet 



CHAP. I. 8. 25 

they in their preaching revolutionized the gospel, and such is 
the apostle s charge against them. 

Ver. 8. AX\a /ecu eav riuels ?? ayyeXos e ovpavov evajye- 
XttyjTCU v/u,iv Trap o evrpyyeXiadfAeOa vpZv, dvdOefjia ecnut " But 
if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any other 
gospel different from what we have preached to you, let him 
be accursed." There is some difference of reading. K, Theo- 
doret, CEcumenius, have evajye\L^eTat; while A, K, and others, 
have evayjeX.la-ijTai. There are also variations with regard to 
vfuv: F and K omit it; B, H, place it before the verb; the ma 
jority of MSS. place it after the verb; while D 1 has u/za?. "But" 
be the TIVG? who they may who seek to subvert the gospel, they 
incur an awful peril. The icai belongs to edv, " even if." The 
case put so strongly is one which may never have occurred ; 
but its possibility is assumed, though it may be very impro 
bable. Hermann, Opuscula, iv. p. 95 ; Hermann, Vigerus, vol. 
ii. 664, London 1824; Jelf, 861. On the difference of el 
/cat and KOI el } see under Phil. ii. 17 ; Kiilmer, 824; Har- 
tung, vol. i. pp. 139, etc. The 77/^19 not himself alone, the 
pronoun being expressed and emphatic may take in, though 
not necessarily, dSeXfol GVV epol of ver. 2, or perhaps Silvanus 
and Timothy, fellow-preachers (Hofmann). 1 He was speaking 
by divine commission when he preached, and he had no right 
to alter the message. If it should ever by any possibility hap 
pen that he did so, on him should fall the anathema. " We or 
an angel from heaven" no fallen spirit who might rejoice 
in falsehood, but one ef ovpavov ; the phrase being joined to 
77eXo9, and not to the verb (2 Cor. xi. 14), which agrees with 
1776X09. An angel from heaven is highest created authority, 
but it cannot exalt itself against a divine commission. An angel 
preaching a Judaizing gospel would be opposing that God 
who had " called them in the grace of Christ." Chrysostom 
supposes allusion to other apostles. The verb euc^yeX/^rafc 
is here followed by the dative of person: iv. 13; Luke 
iv. 18 ; Rom. i. 15 ; 1 Cor. xv. 1 ; 1 Pet. iv. 6. The variety 
of construction which it has in the New Testament it being 
found sometimes absolutely, sometimes with accusative or dative, 
often with accusative of thing and dative of person may have 

1 Against the view of Hofmann, see Laurent, Neutestam. Studien, p. 
120, Gotha 18G6. 



26 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

originated the variations connected with vpZv, though Light- 
foot, from these variations, regards the word as doubtful. The 
spurious preaching is characterized as 

Hap o evayyeXicrd/jieOa vfuv " contrary to that which we 
preached to you" (Ellicott), or "beyond" it (Alford). The 
Trapd can bear either meaning. Bernhardy, p. 259. The 
Vulgate has prceterqyam, and some of the Greek fathers give 
the same sense, so Beza also ; while " against," contra, is the 
interpretation of Theodoret, Winer, Riickert, Matthies, De 
Wette, Jatho, Turner, Estius, Windischmann. Thus Rom. i. 
26, Trapa (frvcriv, Acts xviii. 13, Trapd VO/AOV, Xen. Mem. i. 1, 18. 
Examples may be found in Donaldson, 485. What is speci 
fically different from it, must in effect be contrary to it. Rom. 
xi. 24, xvi. 17. Usually Catholic interpreters take the sense 
of " contrary to" (Estius, Bisping) ; and Lutherans adopt that 
of " beyond," or " in addition to," as if in condemnation (aus 
blinder Polemik, Bisping) of the traditions on which the Romish 
Church lays such stress. But the apostle refers to oral teach 
ing only, and the preposition Trapd glancing back to erepo?, 
naturally signifies " beside," that is, in addition to, or different 
from, the gospel, or what is really another gospel. But the 
gospel is one, and can have no rival. 

"AvdOefJia ecrro) "let him be accursed" (v. 10). AvdOe/ma: 
the earlier classical form was am^/za, ^rrt/crco? (Moeris). 
Lobeck, PhrynicJius, p. 249. Thus errlOeaa, eTTtdrj/jia ; evpe^a, 
evprj/jta. 1 The general sense is, " laid up," set apart to God : 
TGI @eu> dvariOe/uevov (Suidas). The meaning of the word 
in the New Testament is derived through the Septuagint, 
where it represents the Hebrew D"}n, something so set apart to 
God as to be destroyed or consecrated to divine vengeance. The 
other form, avd0rj/^a, retained its original meaning, compre 
hending all gifts to the gods. Xen. Anal), v. 3, 5. Such gifts 
were often ornamental, and Hesychius defines it by 
but the other form, dvaOep-a, he identifies with 
The distinction begins to appear in the Septuagint, though 
differences of reading prevent it being fully traced and recog 
nised. In Lev. xxvii. 28, 29, the living thing devoted to God 
is to be surely put to death : TLav dvdOe^a d^iov dylatv eaTai 

1 TLxxTs; TTi^o^cyoi eTriQ-sifta x.y.1 etvuSyftet Xsyovovy. Cramer, Anecd. 
Grieca, vol. i. 165, Oxon. 1835. 



CHAP. I. 8. 27 

TW KvpiM . . . 6avdrw OavarcoOijcrerai : the city of Jericho, 
and all in it, was declared avaQe^a Kvpiw ^afiatoO. Josh. vi. 
16, 17. This consecration of Jericho to utter ruin was in 
obedience to the command, Dent. xiii. 14-16, avade^art, dva- 
OefjLaTielre avrrfv, and was a reproduction of an older scene 
(Num. xxi. 1-3), where a city Avas devoted, and then truly 
named i" 1 ^! 1 ?? dvaOepa. Comp. Josh. vii. 11. In the case of 
Jericho, portion of the spoil was set apart for the sacred trea 
sury, and part was to be utterly destroyed two modes of con 
secration to God, for divine blessing and for divine curse God 
glorified in it, or glorified on it. Trench, Syn. p. 17, 1st ser. 
In Ezek. xliv. 29, the offering of a dedicated thing given to the 
priests (the same Hebrew term) is rendered d^optcrpa in the 
Septuagint, but avddrjfia by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theo- 
dotion. Orig. Hex. torn. ii. p. 321, ed. Montfaucon. In the 
Apocrypha the distinction appears to be preserved: 2 Mace. ix. 
16, tca\\icrTois avadrj fiacre Kocrfirjcreiv , 3 Mace. iii. 14; Judith 
xvi. 19 ; also in Joseph. Antiq. xv. 11, 3, Bell. Jud. ii. 17, 3. 
So in the New Testament, Luke xxi. 5, the temple adorned 
with goodly stones, Kal avaQ^acn, " and gifts." But the other 
form, dvdOeaa, occurs six times, and in all of them it has the 
meaning of accursed. Acts xxiii. 14 ; Rom. ix. 3 ; 1 Cor. xii. 
3, xvi. 22 ; and Gal. i. 8, 9. Theodoret, on Rom. ix. 3, recog 
nises this Snr\rjv Sidvoiav, which he gives to avaQr^ia ; also on 
Isa. xiii., and on Zeph. i. See also Suidas, sub voce ; Chrysos- 
tom on Rom. ix. 3 ; and Suicer, sub voce. Among the ecclesi 
astical writers, dvd0e/j,a came to signify excommunication, the 
cursing and separation of one put out of communion. Bing- 
ham, Antiquities, Works, vol. v. p. 471, London 1844. Such a 
use of the word was natural. Council of Laodicea, Canon xxix. 
But to justify this use by any appeal to the New Testament is 
vain. Nowhere has it this meaning, but a darker and a more 
awful one. Nor does Bin in the Old Testament ever signify 
ecclesiastical separation ; it is synonymous with aTr&rXe/a, Isa. 
liv. 5; eo\odpevfj,a, 1 Sam. xv. 21; a</>cmoyia, Deut. vii. 2. On 
the various forms of the Jewish curse, see Selden, De, Syned. 
viii. ; Opera, vol. i. p. 883, etc. The idea of excommunication 
cannot be adopted here (Grotius, Semler, Flatt, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Hammond, and Waterland) ; for it is contrary to the 
usage of the New Testament, and could not be applicable to 



28 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

an " angel from heaven." Excommunication is described in 
very different terms, as in John ix. 22, xii. 42, xvi. 2, or Luke 
vi. 22, 1 Cor. v. 2, 13. Winer, sub voce. How tame Grotius, 
cum eo nihil vobis sit commercii ; or liosenmiiller, excludatur e 
ccetu vestro. The preacher of another gospel exposes himself 
to the divine indignation, and the awful penalty incurred by 
him is not inflicted by man : he falls " into the hands of the 
living God." See Wieseler s long note. 

Ver. 9. fls TrpoeiprjtcafAev " as we have said before." The 
reference implied in Trpo. is doubtful. By a great number 
including Chrysostom, Bengel, Winer, Neander the reference 
is supposed to be simply to the previous verse : "As we have just 
said, so I repeat it." 2 Cor. vii. 3 ; 2 Mace. iii. 7 ; and Winer, 
40. Others, as the Peschito, Borger, Usteri, Hilgenfeld, Meyer, 
Wieseler, suppose the allusion to be to a previous visit of the 
apostle. The use of the perfect, though not decisive, and the 
antithesis of cipri in the following clause, favour this view. The 
language would have been different had the apostle wished to say 
nothing more. See v. 21; 2 Cor. xiii. 2; 1 Thess. iv. 6. This 
opinion is confirmed by the sameness of tense of the two verbs, 
as if they referred to the same event. The re-asseveration in 
v. 2, 3 is no case in point to be adduced as an objection ; for 
it has no verb compounded with Trpo, and the statement in ver. 
3 is far from being a repetition of the second verse. Evajje- 
\iadfA60a, Trpoeipiitcaftev /cal aprt, mark a more distinct lapse of 
time than a recurrence to what had just been written, and the 
change from evayye\io-a/j,e6a to TrapeKa/Bere points to the same 
conclusion : As he had said when among them by way of 
affirmation and warning. 

O 

Kal aprt iraXiv \e<yco " and now again I say." The change 
from the plural TrpoeipijicafAev to the present ^670) is significant. 
The previous warning was uttered by the apostle and his 
fellow-labourers, but the following sentence is based on his sole 
apostolical authority. This is not, as lliickert makes it, part 
of the protasis or preceding sentence: "As I said before, I now 
say again." The meaning is : As we said before, so now I say 
again, 7ra\iv referring to repetition of the same sentiment, 
and aprt in contrast with Trpo. in composition with the verb. 
The first of these opinions preserves, as Ellicott says, the 
classical meaning of cfym, for it refers to a time just passed 



CHAP. I. 10. 29 

away. Matt. ix. 18. Tempus qnodqm proximum, apn et 
dpTi(i)s significant," Lobeck, Pliryn. pp. 18-20. But later 
writers use it as it is employed in this clause, " now," or in this 
next sentence. Matt. iii. 15 ; John ix. 19, 25, xiii. 7 ; 1 Cor. 
xiii. 12. The statement is : 

Ei rt? u/ia? evajfye\i^Tai Trap 1 o TrapeXdflere " If any man 
is preaching to you a gospel different from what ye received, 
let him be accursed." The Rheims version tries to preserve 
the original in both verses : " evangelize to you beside that 
which we have evangelized to you." The statement is now 
made merely conditional, or the fact is assumed by et with the 
indicative. The case is put as one that may be found real. 
Donaldson, 502. See also Tischendorf, Pro 3 /, p. Ivii. 7 ed. ; 
Klotz-Devarius, vol. ii. 455 ; Luke xiii. 9 ; Acts v. 38, 39. The 
verb evayy. is here followed by the accusative of person, u/za9, 
emphatic from its position. No other example occurs in the 
writings of the apostle. But we have the same construction in 
Luke Iii. 18, Acts viii. 25, 40, xiii. 32, xiv. 15, 21, xvi. 10, 
1 Pet. i. 12. Phrynichus, ed. Lobeck, 266, etc. ; "Winer, 32. 
For Trap o, see on previous verse. The verb 7rapa\a[i/3dva>, 
followed either by 0.77-0 or by Trapd, pointing to the source, is to 
receive, to take into the mind, what is given by instruction, and 
corresponds to the vplv of the preceding verse. In this verse the 
evangel, which is the theme of the verb, goes out on them as its 
direct objects u/Lta?; in the other it is given to them, or for their 
benefit vfuv and they received it. The change may have been 
intentionally suggestive. For dvd0e/jia ecrrw, see previous verse. 

Ver. 10. "Apn yap dv0pa>7rov^ Treidw, rj rov eov ; " For 
do I now conciliate men or God!" or, "Now, is it men I am 
conciliating, or God?" The emphatic apn of this verse must 
have the same sense as that of the preceding verse " now," at 
the present moment, or as I am writing. It cannot contrast 
vaguely the apostle s present with his previous unconverted 
Jewish state, as is held by Winer, Riickert, Matthies, Bisping, 
Olshausen, Neander, and Turner. For, grammatically, we can 
not well sever the second apn in meaning and reference from 
the first ; and historically, the favour of men was not a ruling 
motive with the apostle in his pharisaic state. Phil. iii. The 
connection is somewhat more difficult, as expressed by ydp. 
It might mean, "Well, now, am I pleasing men?" Klotz- 



30 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Devarius, ii. 245. But it rather states an argument. It is 
no apology, as Dr. Brown takes it, for the preceding language ; 
nor, as Alford similarly asserts, " softening the seeming harsh 
ness of the saying." It states the reason idiomatically why he 
pronounces anathema on the Judaizers, that he did it from 
divine sanction, or in accordance with the divine will. His 
fidelity was so stern, that it might be unpalatable to his ene 
mies ; but he was securing through it the friendship of God. 
There is some probability that he is rebutting a calumny of 
his opponents (Usteri, Lightfoot), based on a misconstruction 
of some previous portion of his career, such as the circumcision 
of Timothy. The verb ireiOw^ to persuade, signifies, by a 
natural transition, to conciliate by persuasion or to make friends 
of. Acts xii. 20, xiv. 19. Josephus, Trelaai ruv Qeov, Ant. iv. 
6, 5 ; Zr)vo<$ rjTop eVetcre, Pindar, 01. ii. 80, ed. Dissen ; Swpa 
&ovi TretdeL, a portion of a line ascribed by Suidas to Ilesiod ; 
Plato, De Repub. iii. 344, 390 E, do. Opera, vol. iii. pp. 146, 
231, ed. Stallbaum; similarly Euripides, Medea, 960. There is 
no occasion to attach to the verb the idea of conaius as distinct 
from effectus : " For am I, at the moment of uttering such an 
anathema against perverters of the gospel, making friends of men 
or of God?" What but faithfulness to my divine commission 
can prompt me to it "? It was no human passion, no personal 
animosity, no envious or jealous emotion at being superseded 
in the affections of the Galatian churches : it was simply duty 
done in compliance with the ruling motive of his soul, and to 
enjoy and secure the divine complacency. The noun dvOpcoTrovs, 
wanting the article, is " men generally," while eov has it, 
as if to specialize it by the contrast. The connection of ireiOw 
with rov eov is no formal zeugma, though the sense is neces 
sarily changed with such a change of object. What fully ap 
plies to men can only in a vaguer reference apply to God ; but 
it has suggested several improbable forms of exegesis. Calvin 
goes the length of interposing a Kara before the two nouns, 
owing to what he calls the ambiguity of the Greek construc 
tion ; and nothing, he adds, is more common with the Greeks 
than to leave Kara understood : " Do I persuade according to 
men or God ? " Webster and Wilkinson apparently follow 
Estius, non apud homines judices, sed apud tribunal Dei causam 
hanc ayo } but without any warrant or adduced example. Pis- 



CHAP. I. 10. 31 

cator renders, " Do I persuade you to believe men or God ? " 
Utrum vobis suadeo ut hominibus credatis an ut Deo ? Luther, 
Erasmus, Vatablus, and others give, Num res liumanas suadeo 
an divinas ? But TreiOw governing a person is distinct in mean 
ing from ireiOw governing a thing or object; irelOetv riva being, 
as Meyer remarks, quite distinct from TreiOeiv n. The mean 
ing is more fully explained in the following clause, where the 
apostle adds more broadly : 

*H 77x0) av6pu)Trois apecrKeiv ; " or am I seeking to please 
men ?" the stress being on az^jOcoTrot?. To please men was not 
his .endeavour or pervading aim : it was no motive of his ; for 
he adds : 

El en av6pu>TTOi<s rjpeaicov, Xpiarov SoOXo? OVK av fj^v 
" If still men I were pleasing, Christ s servant I should not be." 
The leading nouns, avOpoyrroi^ and Xpicnov, are in emphatic 
contrast. The received text reads el <yap ert, after the slender 
authority, D 2 3 , E, K, L, the Syriac and Greek fathers; whereas 
A, B, D 1 , F, G, X, the Vulgate, and many Latin fathers want 
it. The asyndeton, however, is the more powerful. Tischen- 
dorf, indeed, says, a correctore alienissimum est; but the yap seems 
really to be a natural emendation, as if giving point to the argu 
ment by it as a connecting particle. There is no conatus in the 
imperfect, as Usteri, Schott, Bagge, and others hold. He says, 
not, "if I were studying to please;" but, "if," the study being suc 
cessful, " I were pleasing men." The result implies the previous 
effort. The particle ert, " still," gives intensity to the declara 
tion, and looks back to apri. Baumlein, Griecli. Part. p. 118. 
If, after all that has happened me, my devoted service to Christ, 
and the deadly hostility I have encountered, I were yet pleasing- 
men, if yet such a motive ruled me, Christ s servant I should 
not be. The form of the imperfect IJ/JLTJV is peculiar, being used 
E\\t]viKO)<;, according to Moeris. It occurs in the later writers, 
and is used by Xenophon, Gyro. vi. 1, 9, and Lysias, Areopay. 
p. 304, ed. Dobson. Its use is not confined to its occurrence 
with av. Lobeck, Phryniclms, p. 152. It is quite common in 
the New Testament : Matt. xxv. 35, John xi. 15, Acts x. 30, 
xi. 5, 17, 1 Cor. xiii. 11, all without av. After el with a 
past indicative in the protasis, av in the apodosis points out 
an impossible condition. Donaldson, 502. The apostle calls 
himself Soi)Xo9 in various places. Compare John xiii. 16, xv. 



32 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

15, 20 ; Kom. i. 1 ; Tit. i. 1 ; Phil. I. 1 ; Col. iv. 12 ; 2 Tim. 
ii. 24. Here he may refer to the inner nature of all Christian 
service, which admits of no compromise between the Master 
and the world, and especially to such service embodied and 
wrought out in the varied spheres and amidst the numerous 
temptations of his apostleship. See under Phil. i. 1. The 
Greek fathers, followed by Koppe, Paulus, Riickert, take the 
words in a historical sense : If my object had been to please 
men, I should not have become a servant of Christ. But, as has 
been remarked, OVK av eyevo^v would have been more fitting 
words to express such an idea. Besides, such a contrast does not 
seem to be before the apostle s mind, nor could such a refer 
ence be in harmony with the supernatural and resistless mode 
in which he had become a servant of Christ. It is better to 
take the words in an ethical sense : " I should not be Christ s 
servant :" man-pleasing and His service are in direct conflict. 
No one can serve Him who makes it his study to be popular 
with men. For to His servant His will is the one law, His 
work the one service, His example the one pattern, His ap 
proval the continuous aim, and His final acceptance the one 
great hope. 1 Cor. iv. 2-4 ; 2 Cor. xi. 23. This declaration 
of the apostle as to his ruling motive is not opposed to what he 
says of himself in 1 Cor. ix. 20, x. 33 : " To the Jews I became 
as a Jew;" "all things to all men;" "to please all men in 
all things." There he is referring to his versatility of accom 
modation to national and individual humours and failings in 
cases where no principle was involved. Though he claimed 
entire liberty, he would not, by acting it out, wound unneces 
sarily the feelings of a " weak brother." To please himself, he 
would not stir up prejudices in fellow-believers. To conciliate 
them he " made himself the servant of all," by continuous 
self-denial in things indifferent. He might, but he did not ; 
he could, but he would not. He had a claim of support from 
the churches, but he preferred at Corinth to labour with his 
own hands for his maintenance. He believed that an idol was 
"nothing in the w r orld," and that one could without sin sit down 
to a repast in a Gentile s house ; but if his liberty were chal 
lenged by a scrupulous conscience, he should at once abstain. 
Without a grudge he yielded his freedom, though he felt the 
objection to be frivolous, for he sought " the profit of the 



CHAP. I. 11. 33 

many." But while there was such wise and tender forbear 
ance in minor matters which were naturally left open ques 
tions among believers, many of whom could not rise to the 
realization of "the perfect law of liberty," his adherence to 
principle was -uniform and unyielding towards all classes, and 
on all occasions. These two modes of action are quite coales- 
cent in a mind so upright, and yet so considerate, so stern, 
and yet so unselfish, so elevated, and yet so very practical, as 
was that of the apostle of the Gentiles. 

The apostle in the first verse had asserted the reality and 
divine origin of his apostleship, that it came from the one 
highest source, Jesus Christ ; and then, in vers. 8, 9, he had 
maintained, in distinct and unmistakeable phrase, that the 
gospel preached by him was the one true gospel. He now 
takes up the apologetic part of the epistle, and proceeds to 
explain and defend his second position, for both were livingly 
connected. The gospel preached by him was in no sense human, 
as his apostleship rested in no sense on a human basis. He 
had not been one of the original twelve, and he had not com- 
panied with Christ ; and this posteriority had been apparently 
laid hold of to his disadvantage, as if his gospel were but 
secondary, and he had been indebted for it and his office to 
human teaching and authority. But the truth proclaimed by 
him and the office held by him, not only sprang from a pri 
mary relationship to Christ, but had even no human medium of 
conveyance. The apostle therefore argues this point, that his 
gospel had Christ for its immediate source, and revelation for 
its medium of disclosure to him ; that he was not indebted to 
the other apostles for it ; that he had held no consultation with 
them as his tutors or advisers, for his apostleship rested on a 
basis of its own but identical with theirs ; and that, in fine, 
they recognised it riot as a derived and dependent office, or as 
in any way holding of them, but as a distinct, collateral, and 
original commission. Therefore he says : 

Ver. 11. Tvwpifya Be vplv, aBeXfol "Now I declare unto 
you, brethren." Instead of Be, which is found in A, D 2 3 , 
K, L, K, Chrysostom and Theodore t, and in the Coptic and 
Syriac versions, yap is read in B, D l , F, X 1 , and by Jerome, 
the Vulgate, and Augustine. Tischendorf has yap in his second 
edition, but Be in his seventh ; and the reading is adopted by 

C 



34 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

Scholz, Griesbach, Lachmann, and the Textus Receptus. 
Authorities are thus nearly balanced. Possibly the apologetic 
nature of the section might suggest to a copyist to begin it 
with yap, argumentative ; whereas Se is only transitional to 
another topic, or to some additional illustration of it. It may, 
however, be replied, that the insertion of Be by copyists was in 
fluenced by its occurrence with this verb in 1 Cor. xv. 1, 2 Cor. 
viii. 1. The topic has been twice referred to, in 1 and 9 ; so 
that this verse does not spring by direct logical connection out 
of the last verses, but rather gathers up the pervading thought 
of the previous paragraph. Tvatpi^w is a term of emphatic 
solemnity with the apostle (1 Cor. xii. 3, xv. 1 ; 2 Cor. viii. 1), 
as if he were obliging himself to repeat, formally and fully, 
what had before been so explicitly made known. They are 
called a&e\<f)OL still dear to him, in spite of their begun aber 
ration, as in iii. 15, iv. 12, v. 13, vi. 1. What the apostle 
certified them of was : 

To eva<yye\iov TO evayyeXicrOev VTT efiov on OVK ecm Kara 
avOpwrrov "As to the gospel preached by me, that is not 
after man." This clause may characterize his gospel wherever 
preached, o K^pvcraw ev roi9 eOveo-i (ii. 2) ; but the pointed lan 
guage of vers. C-9 specializes it as the gospel preached by him in 
Galatia. The attraction here is a common one, especially after 
verbs of knowing and declaring, the principal clause attracting 
from the dependent one, as if by anticipation. 1 Cor. iii. 20, 
2 Cor. xii. 3 ; Winer, 66, 5 ; Krtiger, 61, 1. The noun 
and participle give a fulness and impressiveness to the state 
ment, as if referring back to vers. 8 and 9 (compare i. 16, 
ii. 2). The gospel preached by me is not Kara avQpwrrov 
" after man." The phrase does not express origin, as Augus 
tine, a-Lapide, and Estius assert, though it implies it. The 

Syriac renders ^-lo, " from," as it does UTTO in ver. 1 ? and 



Trapd in ver. 12. It means " after man s style." Winer, 49. 
Xen. Mem. iv. 4, tear civOpcoTrov voftoOerov ; Sophocles, Ajax, 
747, //,?) Kar avOpunrov (fipovel; CEdip. Col. 598, r) KO,T av0pa>- 
TTOV vocrels. For in form, quality, and contents, it was not 
human or manlike ; it was Godlike in its truths, and in their 
connection and symmetry. It was God s style of purpose and 
thought in no sense man s, and all about it, in disclosure and 



CHAP. I. 12. 37 

result, in adaptation and destiny, proves it to be " after" Him 
whose "ways are not our ways." Turner presses too much 
upon the phrase, when he gives as its meaning, " in character 
with human weakness and infirmity." 

Ver. 12. OvBe ydp eyco irapd dvOpwrrov 7rape\a/3ov avro 
" For neither did I receive it from man." Tap assigns the 
ground : The gospel I preach is not according to man, for 
man did not teach it to me. Through no human medium did 
I get it, not even from James, John, or Cephas, who are 
reckoned " pillars." I got it from the same source as they 
from the one Divine Teacher. I was no more man-taught 
than they were, for I had apocalyptic intercourse with the Lord 
as really as they had personal communications ; and I received 
what they received. This side-glance at the other apostles is 
plainly implied in the emphatic position or relation of the 
first three words, ovBe ydp eyco. OvBe ydp is different from 
the absolute ov ydp, and also from ovBe eyoo ydp, which 
might give a different turn to the thought. The pronoun 
expresses emphatic individuality, and ydp occupies its usual 
place. It is not ovBe for ov (Schirlitz, 59) ; nor is the 
meaning nam ne ego quidem (Winer), " not even I, who might 
have been expected to be man-taught." OvSe, as Hartung 
remarks, is in negative sentences parallel to ical ydp in positive 
sentences (vol. i. p. 211) ; Herodot. i. 3 ; ^Eschylus, Agam. 
1501. This implied reference in ovSe is common: ut aliquid 
extrinsecus adsumendum sit, cui id, quod per ovSe particulam 
infertur, opponatur. Klotz-Devar. ii. 707 ; Kiihner, Xen. Mem. 
p. 94 ; and Borneman, Xen. Conv. p. 200, says truly that ovBe 
ydp and ov ydp differ as neque enim and non enim. Lightfoot ob 
jects that this interpretation is riot reflected in the context; but 
surely the following paragraph plainly implies anxiety on the 
apostle s part to free himself from a charge of human tuition, 
and thus place himself in this matter on an equality with the 
twelve. Matt. xxi. 27; Luke xx. 8; John v. 22, viii. 11, 
42 ; Rom. viii. 7. The reference cannot be, as Riickert and 
Schott make it, to those taught by himself, quiuus ipse tradi- 
derit evangelium ; for that is in no sense the question in 
volved. 

The source denied is, Trapd dvdpcairov, " from man," with the 
notion of conveyance, irapd denoting a nearer source than a-; 



34 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

It might have been UTTO X., and yet irapa dvOpanrov ultimately 
from Jesus, yet mediately to him from a human source. But 
man was not the nearer source of it, as some had apparently 
insinuated ; it was to him no TrapdSocrts. The distinctive mean 
ings of Trapd and diro for this verb may be used with either 
seem in some cases almost to blend. The apostle in a matter 
of revelation which excludes all human medium, may drop the 
less distinction of near or remote. He adds-: 

OvTe e&iSd xdrjv " nor was I taught it." The reading 
ovSe is found in A, D 1 , F, N, and is but ill supported, being 
probably an unconscious assimilation to the previous particle 
commencing the verse. The adverb ovre often occurs simi 
larly, and, as Winer says, divides the negation ( 55-6). The 
ovSe belongs only to the previous clause, and its connection 
with the foregoing verse. The ovre is not co-ordinate with 
ovSe, but subordinate. Hartung, vol. i. 201 ; A. Buttman, 315 ; 
Klotz-Devarius, ii. 709. The difference between the verbs in 
this denial is, that the first may refer to truth presented in an 
objective or historical form (1 Cor. xi. 23), while the other 
may refer to his subjective mastery of it in a doctrinal or sys 
tematic connection, the first verb being, as Bengel says, to learn 
sine labore, and the second to learn cum labore. The verbs do 
not differ, as Brown following Beza maintains, as if the first 

/ O / 

denoted reception of authority to preach, apostolatus onus Paulo 
impositum, and the other referred to instruction ; for avro goes 
back distinctly to evayye\i,ov. See Mark vii. 4 ; 1 Cor. xv. 1-3; 
Phil. iv. 9. 

A\\a Bt aTTo/caXu-^eco? Irjcrov Xpicrrov "but through 
revelation of Jesus Christ." A\\d is strongly adversative. 
The one medium was revelation, and that revelation came from 
Christ ; the genitive being that of author as in formal con 
trast to Trapd dv0pci)7rov } denoting origin. But one may say, 
that a revelation from Jesus Christ is also a revelation of 
Jesus Christ, Himself being theme as well as source ; and 
thus the phrase, though not grammatically, yet really and 
exegetically, includes a contrast also with Kara dvOpanrov, 
and virtually asserts of his teaching what he had declared of 
his apostleship, that it was OVK CLTT dvOp&Trwv ovSe Si dvOpw- 
TTOV (i. 1). See under ver. 16. 

The apostle now proceeds to give an autobiographical proof 



CHAP. I. 13. 37 

of his position : that his gospel came from direct communica 
tion with Christ; that it was as original and trustworthy as 
those of the others who were apostles before him ; that for a 
long period after his conversion he had no communication with 
any of them ; that three years elapsed before he saw one of 
the twelve, and then he saw Peter only for a fortnight ; and 
that fourteen years additional passed away ere he had any 
interview with the pillars of the church. His gospel was 
therefore in no sense dependent on them, nor had his first 
spheres of labour been either assigned or superintended by 
them. He had felt no dependence on them, and was con 
scious of no responsibility to them. Separate and supreme 
apostolical authority, therefore, belonged to him ; and it sealed 
and sanctioned the message which it was the work of his life 
to publish. 

Ver. 13. H/covcrare jap rrjv efj,rjv avacrrpo(f)r/v Trore ev ro) 
IovSa icr/Aq) " For ye heard of my manner of life in Judaism." 
Tap formally commences the historical proof, and the verb 
rjKovaare beginning the sentence has the stress upon it : Ye 
heard, not have heard, referring to an indefinite past time, 
it was matter of rumour and public notoriety. His mode 
of life or his conduct he calls avacrrpoffrr), literally and in 
Latin, conversatio, " conversation " in old English. He uses 
in Acts xxvi. 4, in reference to the same period of his life, rrjv 
Piwa-iv fMov. Comp. Eph. iv. 22, 1 Tim. iv. 12, Heb. xiii. 7, Jas. 
iii. 13, 2 Mace. ii. 21, viii. 1. The word in its ethical sense 
belongs to the later Greek. Polybius, iv. 82, 1. The position 
of TTore is peculiar, no article as rrjv is attached to it, and it 
occurs after the noun. It is used with the verb in Eph. ii. 3, 
and in Eph. iv. 22 the phrase occurs, Kara rrjv rrporepav ava- 
<rrpo(j)r)v. In the same way, words are sometimes separated 
which usually come in between the article and the substantive 
(Winer, 20). The apostle places Trore as he would if he had 
used the verb. Such is one explanation. Similarly Plato, De 
Leg. 685 D, ?? T?}? Tpo/a? aXcocrt? TO Beurepov, where Stallbaum 
says that ro Bevrepov is placed per synesin ob nornen verbale 
aXwa-is. Ojyera, vol. x. p. 290; Ellendt, Lex. Soplwc. sub voce. 
The entire phrase contains one complete idea, as the absence 
of the article seems to imply. Winer, 20, 2b. As the verb is 
followed by eV, denotive of element, in 2 Cor. i. 12, Eph. ii. 3, 



38 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

so the noun is here closely connected with a similar ev ; and, 
according to Donaldson, the position of Trore is caused by the 
verb included in the noun. The element of his mode of life 
was 

Ev TO) lovSat oyico " in Judaism," not Mosaism, not ex 
actly the old and primitive Hebrew faith and worship, nor the 
modern or current theology, but rather ritualism and the mass 
of beliefs and traditions held by Pharisaism. The abstract noun 
is specialized by the article, and it occurs in 2 Mace. ii. 21, xiv. 
38, 4 Mace. iv. 26, and the correspondent verb meets us in Gal. 
ii. 14. Similarly he says, Acts xxvi. 5, T^? ^erepa? ^/^ovcaa?, 
this last noun being more special and referring to worship or 
ceremonial. Judaism is here the religious life of the Jews or 
Pharisees, in its varied spheres of nutriment and service. See 
under Phil. iii. The apostle now honestly adduces one charac 
teristic of his previous life in Judaism 

"On teat? V7T6p/3o\r)V e^iuncov rrjv eKKXr/crtav rov eov, KOI 
7ropdovv avrijv " how that beyond measure I was perse 
cuting the church of God, and was destroying it." The con 
junctive 6Vi, frequently used after atcovw without any inter 
vening sentence (Madvig, 159), introduces the first special 
point in the apostle s previous life in Judaism which he wishes 
to specify. The imperfects eStcoKov and eiropOovv are to be 
taken in the strict sense (Schmalfeld, 55). The second verb 
has been often rendered, " was endeavouring to destroy." So 
Chrysostom, Thcodoret, Theophylact, give it this sense aftea-ai 
eire^Lpei. The imperfects represent an action carried on during 
his state of Judaism, but left unfinished owing to his sudden 
conversion. He was in the very act of it when Jesus called 
him on the road to Damascus, and that mission to lay waste 
was not carried out. Nor is the meaning of the verb to be 
diluted, as is done by Beza, Winer, Schott, and Usteri, the 
last of \vhom says that Winer is right in denying that it 
means evertere, but only vastare. But Passow, Wahl, and 
Bretschneider give it the meaning which these expositors would 
soften. Examples are numerous. It occurs often in the 
strongest sense (Homer, //. iv. 308), is applied to men as well 
as cities (Lobeck, Soph. Ajax, p. 378, 3d ed.), and is some 
times associated with Kaieiv (Xen. Hellen. v. 5, 27). Com 
pare Wetstein, in loc. What the apostle says of himself is 



CHAP. I. H. 39 

abundantly confirmed. Saul, " he made havoc of the church," 
etc., Acts viii. 3 ; "yet breathing out threatenings and slaugh 
ter against the disciples of the Lord," ix. 1 ; his mission to 
Damascus was, "that if he found any of this way, whether 
they were men or women, he might bring them bound to 
Jerusalem," ix. 2 ; "is not this he that destroyed them which 
called on this name in Jerusalem?" ix. 21; "I persecuted 
this way unto the death," xxii. 4 ; "I imprisoned and beat 
in every synagogue them that believed on Thee," xxii. 19 ; 
" when they were put to death, I gave my voice against 
them, being exceeding mad against them," xxvi. 10, 11. No 
wonder, then, that he uses those two verbs, and prefixes to 
the first KaO v7rep/3o\7Jv, one of his favourite phrases. Horn, 
vii. 13 ; 1 Cor. xii. 31; 2 Cor. i. 8, iv. 17. It was no partial 
or spasmodic effort, either feeble in itself, or limited and inter 
mittent in operation. It was the outgrowth of a zeal which 
never slept, and of an energy which could do nothing by 
halves, which was as eager as it was resolute, and was noted 
for its perseverance no less than for its ardour. And he 
distinctly sets before his readers the heinousness of his pro 
cedure, for he declares the object of his persecution and fierce 
devastation to have been 

Trjv eKKkrfa-iav TOV &eov " the church of God." 1 Cor. 
xv. 9. The possessive genitive TOV Qeov points out strongly 
the sinfulness and audacity of his career. It may be added 
that the Vulgate reads expugnabam ; and F has eVoXe/iow. 
This Greek was probably fashioned from the Latin. The Vul 
gate has, Acts ix. 21, expugnabat for 6 7ropdr]<ras, without any 
various reading in Greek codices. The object of this statement 
is to show that the apostle, during his furious persecution of the 
church, could not be in the way of learning its theology from 
any human source ; its bloody and malignant enemy could not 
be consorting with the apostles as a pupil or colleague. 

Ver. 14. Kal irpoeKoirrov ev TO> louSaioyiw inrep TroXXou? 
avvrj X.iKKOTas ev TO> yevet (JLOV "and was making progress in 
Judaism beyond many my equals in my own nation." The 
tropical sense of the verb is, " to push forward," and intransi 
tively " to make advancement," followed by ev, and sometimes 
with a different reference by eVi or a simple dative, as in Luke 
ii. 52. His progress in Judaism was 



40 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 



7roAA.oL>? Gvvrj\iKi(t>Tas " beyond many contempo 
raries." Such compound terms as avvr)\iK., which the apostle 
uses only here, belong to the later age ; the simple noun suf 
ficing at an earlier and fresher stage. Diodor. Sic. i. 53, in 
which place, however, several codices have the simple term. 
So, too, Dionysius Halicar. x. 49. The persons referred to are 
those of similar age and standing, fellow-pupils, it may be, at 
the feet of Gamaliel. And they were his countrymen 

Ev TO) yevei /AOV. Compare Acts xviii. 2, 2 Cor. xi. 26, 
Phil. iii. 5. Numerous contemporaries of pure Jewish blood, 
and not simply Jews from Tarsus, were excelled by him. His 
zeal pervaded every sphere of his life and labour. He could 
not be lukewarm, either in persecution or in study. His 
whole soul was ever given to the matter in hand ; for he thus 
assigns the reason of his forwardness and success in the follow- 

<D 

ing clause : 

Hepia-aoTepws ??Xci>Tr/9 vTrup^cov ro)v TrarpiK&v JJLOV irapa- 
Boaecov " being more exceedingly a zealot for the traditions of 
my fathers." This participial clause may be modal, as Meyer 
and Ellicott take it (vTrdp^cov, " as being"), but it may be 
causal : He excelled his contemporaries, inasmuch as he was 
more exceedingly zealous than they were. In Trepiaaorepo)^ 
the comparison is not surely, as Usteri explains, mehr als 
gewohnlich, but more than those contemporaries to whom he 
lias just referred. Strange and unfounded is the notion of 
Gwynne, that the comparison in Trepcro-oTepco? is not between 
Paul and his contemporaries, but between " the precepts and 
ordinances of the law of Moses of which his appreciation was 
not so high, nor his zeal for them so fervid as for his ancestral 
traditions." Such a comparison comes not into view at all. The 
noun r/A&>T?; <? signifies one filled with zeal for what is contained 
in the following genitive rov 0eoO, Acts xxii. 3 ; rov vofjiov, 
Acts xxi. 20 ; irvev^arwv, 1 Cor. xiv. 12 ; aXwz> epyatv, Tit. 
ii. 14 : the genitive of person being sometimes preceded by 
inrip ; 2 Cor. vii. 7, Col. iv. 13. The noun is not here used in 
the fanatical sense attaching to the modern term zealot, though 
it came also to denote a fanatical party in the last days of the 
Jewish commonwealth. The object of his intense attachment 
was 

Tu>v Trarpi/cwv [JLOV Trapa&ocrewv " for the traditions of my 



CHAP. I. 14. 41 

fathers," the genitive being that of object, as in the places 
already quoted. The noun Trapa&oais, traditio, " giving over," 
is literally employed as with 7roXe&>9 (Thucydides, iii. 53 ; 
Josephus, De Bello Jud. i. 8, 6 ; Sept. Jer. xxxii. 4 ; Esdras 
vii. 26) ; then it signifies handing over or down an inheritance 
(Thucydides, i. 9), and by a natural trope it is used of narra 
tion. Josephus, contra Apion. i. 6. So it came to denote in 
structions delivered orally, as Hesychius defines it by aypdfov? 
SiSaa-KaXtas. It is used of apostolical mandate, 1 Cor. xi. 2, 
2 Thess. ii. 15, iii. 6 ; and especially of the Jewish tradition, 
Matt. xv. 2, 3, 6, rrjv Trapd&oaiv rwv TrpeaftvTepwv, rrjv Trapd- 
&O<TLV VJJLWV, in opposition to the written divine law. Mark vii. 
3, 9, 13 ; Col. ii. 8. So in Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 10, 6, and 16, 
2. Thus the term seems to denote not the Mosaic law itself, 
but the accretions which in course of ages had grown around it, 
and of which the Mishna is an example. Luther and Calvin 
think that the term denotes the Mosaic law ipsam Dei legem, 
as the latter says ; and many suppose that the law is included, 
as Estius, Winer, Usteri, Schott, Hilgenfeld, Olshausen, and 
Brown. The law may be included, in the sense that a com 
mentary includes the text, or that a legal exposition implies a 
statute. But the terms, from their nature, cannot primarily 
refer to it or formally comprehend it, for the law written with 
such care, and the sacred parchment kept with such scrupulosity, 
could not well be called traditions. In Acts xxii. 3 the phrase 
is TOV Trarptoov vopov " the law of my fathers" and refers 
to traditionary pharisaic interpretation ; but the traditions are 
here called irarpiKai [j,ov. The adjectives irdrpio^, TrarpiKOf, 
Trar/aoSo?, generically the same in meaning, are supposed to 
have been used with specific difference, though what the pre 
cise difference was has been disputed. Ellendt, Lex. Soph, sub 
voce ; Kiihner, Xen. Anab. iii. 2, 17; also Schoemann, Isaeus, 
p. 201 ; and Hermann, Opuscula, vol. iii. 195. The apostle, 
however, uses in these two places the two adjectives TrarpiKos 
and Trarptoo? with much the same reference. We cannot 
agree with Meyer, followed by Alford, Ellicott, and others, in 
saying that the adjective and pronoun limit these traditions to 
the sect of the Pharisees, Paul being fyapia-alos, vlos fyapia-aiov, 
" a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee." We rather think, with 
Wieseler, that the reference must be as wide as in the phrase ev 



42 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

T&> yevei, ; that the traditions described as handed down from 
his fathers are viewed as national and not as sectarian ; and 
that though in effect they were pharisaic, still, as the Pharisees 
were the mass of the nation, they are regarded as having cha 
racterized the people to whom Paul belonged. It cannot 
therefore be supposed that the apostle would be learning Chris 
tianity during the period when his progress in Judaism was so 
marked, when his zeal for patristic traditions so far outran that 
of his contemporaries, a zeal in utter and burning antagonism 
to the new religion. He had kept from all contact with it, 
save the contact of ferocity witli the victim which it immo 
lates. Luther touchingly applies this verse to his own previous 
history. 

Ver. 15. "Ore Se evSoKrjcrev 6 @eo?, o afyopicras ytie e/c Koi\ias 
fj,r)rpo<> pov " But when God was pleased, who set me apart 
from my mother s womb." The 6 @eo? of the received text has 
for it, D, K, L, N ; but B, F, G, omit it. The Greek fathers 
are doubtful, but the Vulgate and Jerome have it not. The 
words are left out by Tischendorf and Alford; but if they are a 
gloss, they are an old one. Ellicott refers to 0. preceded and 
followed by f O, as the probable source of omission. One may 
say, on the other hand, that the supposed demands of syntax 
might seem to warrant the insertion of the words ; yet the 
phraseology of the following clauses is so precise, God s desti 
nation and call of the apostle, the revelation of His Son in him 
with his commission to preach to the Gentiles, that though in 
the hurry and glow of thought the nominative was omitted, 
nobody could doubt what it was. " I persecuted the church of 
God, yet HE was pleased to select me," all the more solemn 
from the omission of the name. Comp. i. 6, ii. 8 ; Rom. viii. 11 ; 
Phil. i. 6. Pie, provoked as He might have been, euSoKrjaev 
"was pleased" of His own sovereign grace. The verb is, as usual 
with Paul, followed by an infinitive, though it is found in other 
constructions with a simple accusative. Heb. x. 6. It occurs 
with an accusative and et? in 2 Pet. i. 17 ; and with ev and a 
dative in Matt. iii. 17, and probably in 2 Thess. ii. 12. 

The verb afyopia-as is not used here in a mere physical 
sense (Aquinas, Cajetan, Paulus), as if e/e were local, but is 
ethically " to set apart," and is followed by et9, pointing to 
the end, as in Acts xiii. 2, Horn. i. 1. Instead, however, of 



CHAP. I 1C. 43 

being followed here by et9, the construction leads on to an 
infinitive of purpose, but connected with the previous verb. The 
etc points out the time from which his destination is to be 
reckoned (Winer), and the phrase is an imitation of open 
Hebrew speech. Judg. xvi. 17 ; Ps. xxii. 11, Ixx. 6 ; Isa. xliv. 
2, xlix. 1, 5 ; Matt. xix. 12 ; Acts iii. 2, xiv. 8. It is equiva 
lent in sense to e/c yeverfjs, John ix. 1, and does not glance in 
any way at pharisaic separatism (Wessel). The apostle means 
to say that God destined him from his birth to his vocation, 
no matter how wayward and unlikely had been the career of 
his youth. The words do not mean from eternity (Beza), 
though, indeed, every act of God is but the realization of an 
eternal purpose ; nor do they mean, before he was born. To 
support this sense, advocated by Jerome, Grotius, Semler, 
Rilckert, "VYieseler, and Hofmann, reference is made to Jer. 
i. 5 ; but there the language is different, rrpo rov /-te rrKaaai <re 
ev K0i\la. It is therefore only an inference, but not the sense, 
to say, If he was chosen from the womb, he was chosen in it. 
His being set apart from his birth was of God s sovereign 
good pleasure. The phrase may imply also, in an undertone, 
that his education had been, under God, adapted to his high 
function. Not only from his birth was he a designated apostle ; 
but he adds : 

Kal KaXecras Bia rr}? ^dpiro 1 ? avrov "and called me by His 
grace." Designation was not enough : he brings out another 
essential link that of vocation as a second step in his pro 
gress. The participles are closely connected, no article being 
before the second one the designation showed itself in the 
K\rja-i<;. The Sid is instrumental by means of His grace 
(1 Cor. xv. 10) ; and the call came to him near Damascus. 
This is the plain historical sense and allusion. The apostle 
refers to the period of his conversion, and to its medium, as 
not of merit but of grace. Now he proceeds to show how his 
call to the apostolate was connected with qualification for it. 

Ver. 16. ArroKaXvfyai rov Tlov avrov ev epol "to re 
veal His Son in me." The infinitive is not connected with one 
or both of the participles, but with evSo/crja-ev, arid its aorist 
form denotes the past and completed act. The phrase ev epoi 
is " in me," in my soul, in my inner self. It cannot mean 
" to me ; " nor is it to be taken for the simple dative (Calvin, 



44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

Rosenmiiller, Koppe, and Flatt), for what then should be the 
force of the preposition! In Matt. xi. 27, 1 Cor. ii. 10, Eph. 
iii. 5, Phil. iii. 16, the simple dative following the verb has a 
different meaning. Winer, 31, 8, 48a ; Bernhardy, p. 213. 
As little can the phrase mean "through me/ as Jerome, Pela- 
gius, Grotius, Estius, Lightfoot, and Bagge. Nor can it mean 
coram me (Peile), or "on me" (P. Lombard, Seb. Schmidt), 
as if it were a manifest token of divine power. 1 (Ecumenius 
says, ev efjuol Se et?re Sel^at 6e\wv ov \oyco ^JLOVQV paOovra avrov 
aXka teal vw real tcapBia. Lightfoot s objection to the natural 
meaning is only a hasty anticipation of the following clause, 
which tells the purpose of the revelation. 

The object of this divine revelation was " His Son ;" not the 
truth about Him, or His work, or His death, or His glory, but 
Himself Himself including all. His person is the sum of the 
gospel. See, for some remarks on " Son," under Eph. i. 3, 17. 
This revelation may have been in some sense subsequent to 
the direct call, or it may refer also to the appearance of the 
Redeemer near Damascus qualifying him for the apostleship. 
1 Cor. ix. 1. It gave him full and glowing views of the Re 
deemer s person, including His various relations to God and 
to man, such views as fixed the apostle s faith upon Him, 
centred his love in Him, and enabled him to hold Him out in 
his preaching as the one living and glorified Saviour. It was 
by no process of reasoning that he came to such conclusions, 
by no elaborate and sustained series of demonstrations that he 
wrought out his Christology. God revealed His Son in him, 
divine light was flashed in upon him, so that he saw what he 
had not seen before, fully, suddenly, and by a higher than 
intuitive suggestion. He had not been taught, and he did not 
need to be taught, by any of the apostles. The purpose of this 
revelation is then stated : 

"Iva evayyeX.l^a)/j,ai avrov ev roi? eOveaiv "in order that 1 
should preach Him among the Gentiles." The Son of God 
was the living theme of his preaching, and the good news about 
Him was what is stated in the fourth verse that " He gave 
Himself for our sins " the theme which the apostle elsewhere 
characterizes thus, " We preach Christ crucified." The en 
lightenment of the apostle w T as not for his own individual 
1 Even Blomfield says, \v yplv pro tig yps vd ijpJi/. Agamemnon, 1425. 



CHAP. I. 16. 45 

luxury ; it was to fit him to make known what had been so 
conveyed to him. Acts xxii. 1 5, 21, xxvi. 17-19. The iva points 
out the purpose, and the present tense of the verb describes 
the work of evangelization as no passing or isolated act, but an 
enduring function. And the sphere of his labours is distinctly 
avowed " among the heathen." Rom. i. 5, 13, xi. 13, xv. 16 ; 
Eph. iii. 8 ; 1 Tim. ii. 7. The verb evayye\%ay has already 
been used with the simple dative, ver. 8, and with the accu 
sative, ver. 9 ; here it is followed by ev among the heathen 
peoples or all other races beyond the chosen seed. He forgot 
not his own people they were ever dear to him ; but his 
characteristic work to which he had been set apart, called, 
qualified was to be the apostle of the Gentiles ; and this, so 
specially his own office, he magnified. 

Eevelation is opposed to knowledge gained by prolonged 
and patient thought. It is unlike the common process by 
which an intellectual conclusion is reached, the inference of 
one syllogism forming but the premiss of another, till by a 
series of connected links, primary or abstract truth is reached. 
For it is sudden and perfect illumination, lifting the receptive 
power into intensest susceptibility, and so lighting up the whole 
theme disclosed, that it is immediately and fully apprehended 
in its evidence and reality. We know not, indeed, what the 
process is, what the waking up of the higher intuition is, or 
what the ecstasy which throws into momentary abeyance all 
the lower faculties. It may resemble that new sphere of vision 
in which genius enjoys gleams of unutterable beauty, or that 
" demonstration of the Spirit" which gives the truth new 
aspects of richness and grandeur to the sanctified soul in some 
mood of rapt meditation. But still it is different and higher 
far both in matter and purpose. It was God s revelation of 
His Son, not glimpses of the truth about Him, but Himself ; 
not merely summoning his attention to His paramount claims, 
so as to elicit an acknowledgment of them, not simply pre 
senting Him to his intellectual perception to be studied and 
comprehended, nor even shrining an image of Him in his 
heart to be loved and cherished, but His Son unveiled in 
living reality; and in him in his inner self, not in any distinct 
and separate realm of his being, with the conscious possession 
of all this infallible and communicable knowledge which was 



46 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

given perhaps first in clear and vivid outline 
and then filled in surely and gradually eSiBd^Orjv. 

Ev0ea><> ov Trpoaavede^v aapKl KCU al^an " immediately 
I conferred not with flesh and blood;" " I communed not of 
the matter with flesh and blood" (Tyndale). It would almost 
seem that the apostle meant to write evdews . . . u7r^\0ov el$ 
Apafilav I went at once into Arabia ; but other explanations 
of a negative kind struggle first for utterance (Jowett). Still 
evOews, standing emphatically, may qualify the whole para 
graph, as Chrysostom hints. What he describes happened imme 
diately after his conversion, non-conference, non-visitation of 
Jerusalem, departure for Arabia, all told in the same breath. 
The construction is close ; for the intermediate negative state 
ment, " neither did I go off to Jerusalem," is connected by 
ouBe as a denied alternative with the first clause, and then by 
the directly adversative uXkd with the last clause, evOecos 
underlying all of them but specially pointing to, " I went off 
to Arabia." Kiickert, after Jerome, against all MSS., would 
join evOecos to the previous clause, and so Credner, Einleit. 
p. 303. The adverb might stand at the end of the clause. 
See some examples not wholly analogous in Stallbaum s note, 
Phaedrus, p. 25G E, or vol. iv. p. 134. The phrase o-dpj; teal 
al^a, cn] Tw Iij here denotes human nature, or man generally, 
not specially in contrast with higher powers, as in Eph. vi. 12 ; 
nor in his more earthly nature, as in 1 Cor. xv. 50 ; but man 
as in contrast with divine agency, the contrast suggesting, how 
ever, the idea of inferiority, Matt. xvi. 17. The verb Trpoaave- 
Oe/jLyv is classically "to add a burden to," or "on one s own self;" 
and then, as here, " to make address to," or " hold communion 
with." The non acquievi of the Vulgate is not the correct 
rendering, though it may be so far according to the sense. In 
the double compound, the first preposition indicates " direction 
towards" (Meyer), and not addition, prceterea (Beza, Bengel). 
" I did not address myself to," or " did not take counsel with," 
two successive phases of the one idea, " I did not consult." 
Diodorus Sic. xvii. 116; ^fl Zev . . . e/xol TrpocravdOov, Lucian, 
Jup. Tragced. i. Opera, vol. vi. p. 223, ed. Bipont. ; Suidas, 
sub voce. The phrase " flesh and blood" does not refer to the 
other apostles (Chrysostom), nor is it a contemptuous allusion 
to them, as Porphyry insinuated; nor does the apostle mean 



CHAP. I. 17. 47 

himself (Koppe, Gwynne), for the verb would not be in har 
mony ; nor does it include the apostle and the others, with 
whom conference is denied (Schott, Winer, Matthies). The 
reference, as is held by the majority of expositors, is simply to 
others, as the spirit of the context also shows, his object being 
to prove that he was in no sense dvOpcoTroSiBaKTos. The apostle 
is not alluding to any self-denial or any victory over his own 
desires and preferences, but is only stating the fact that, after 
his conversion, he had studiously shunned all human conference. 
The non acquievi has been unduly pressed. Tertullian speaks of 
some who held that flesh and blood meant Judaism, and that 
the apostle is to be thus understood : " Statim non retulerit ad 
carnem et sanguinem, id est, ad circumcisionem, id est ad Juda- 
ismum, sicut ad Galatas scribit." De Resurr. Carnis, cap. i. 
p. 534 ; Opera, vol. ii. ed. Oehler. Primasius writes, " Con- 
tinuo non acquievi, continue non fui incredulus coelesti visioni 
quia non carnis et sanguinis voces audivi." 

Ver. 17. OvSe a7rfj\0ov et? Jepocro/Vu/za Trpos T0i9 irpo e/zo) 
ttTTocTToXoi^ "Neither did I go away to Jerusalem to them 
who were apostles before me." The dvfj\.dov of the received 
text is very well supported, having in its favour A, K, L, X, 
Chrysostom, and the Latin, both Vulg. and Clarom.; while 
airff^Oov is found in B, D, F, the Syriac, and in Basil. The 
form avfj\6ov is the one usually employed, going up to Jerusa 
lem, not only as the capital city, but as one built on high land, 
and may be fairly supposed to be a correction of the more 
general airrf^Oov. It may be indeed replied, as by Tischen- 
dorf, that it is improbable that Paul should have written 
airr)\0ov twice consecutively; but we find e Xa/Sere . . . eXa/Sere 
in Rom. viii. 15; Heb. ii. 16. There was no temptation to 
change dv. into UTT., but to change dir. into av., so as to har 
monize it with general usage. Acts ii. 15, xxi. 15, xxv. 1. 
In the ovSe there is reference to the previous negation, while 
another more definite is added, so that there is something 
more than the fortuities concursus given by Klotz-Devar. ii. 
707, and acquiesced in by Ellicott. Generally he held con 
ference with nobody, with no members of the church in Damas 
cus ; and specially, as the contrary might have been expected 
or insinuated, he did not go off to Jerusalem, and consult 
the elder apostles. Horn. xvi. 7. He did not rehearse his 



48 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

experience to them, or receive either authority or instruc 
tion from them. In fact, he carefully kept aloof from them ; 
and so far from journeying to Jerusalem, and to the leaders 
in the mother church, he went away in quite a different 
direction 

^.XV aTTYJXOov et? ApafSiav " but I went away into 
Arabia." The a\\d is found in its full form in A, B, D, F, 
L, and X ; and as introducing an affirmative after a negative 
statement, it lias its strong adversative force. Arabia may 
mean Arabia Deserta, a portion of which comes so near Damas 
cus. 1 Not to speak of wider geographical descriptions of the 
name, as in Herod, ii. 12, Xen. Anab. i. 5, Plin. Hist. Nat. 
vi. 32, Justin Martyr says, AafJiacrKo^ TT}<? ApafliKfjs 7/79 fy 
real eanv. Dial. c. Trypli. Op. vol. ii. p. 268, ed. Otto, 
1843 ; and Tertullian repeats the account, Ado. Marcion. iii. 
13, Adv. Jud. 9. Or if Arabia be used more strictly, as in 
iv. 25, then, as some have fancied, he may have visited, like 
Elijah, the grand scene of the old legislation. But probably, 
had he done so, there would be some allusion to such a pil 
grimage of honour in a letter in which he unfolds the rela 
tions of a law which he was accused of rashly undervaluing 
and setting aside. 2 The point cannot be determined ; and in 
the brief narrative of the Acts the journey is omitted. Nor 
can the definite motive of the apostle be ascertained. It does 
not seem to have been to preach the gospel (Meyer, Wieseler, 
Ewald), though he would not decline such work if oppor 
tunity offered, but rather to prepare himself for his coming 
labour. Jerome thus allegorizes the matter: "The Itus ac 
reditus mean nothing in themselves ; but Arabia, the country 
of the bond slave, is the Old Testament, and there he found 
Christ ; reperto illo, he returned to Damascus, ad sanguinem 
et passionem Cliristi" a play upon the Hebrew meaning of 
the first syllable ; and " so strengthened, he went up to Jeru 
salem, locum visionis et pads" an allusion again to the sig 
nification of the name. At all events, the journey to Arabia 
is here adduced, not as an illustration of his early preaching 
of Christ among the heathen, but as a proof that he had 

1 Conybeare and Howson, vol. i. 104. 

2 There was at that time a large and flourishing kingdom of Jews in 
Arabia Felix. Milman, History of the Jeics, vol. iii. p. 85, 4th ed. 1866. 



CHAP. I. 18. 49 

held no consultation with flesh and blood ; so that probably 
he retired to enjoy solitary thought and preparation, sounding 
the depth of his convictions, forecasting possibilities, receiving 
revelations and lessons, truth presented inviting him to earnest 
study, divine communications viewed on all sides and in all 
lights, till they were mastered in sum and detail, and became 
a portion of himself ; a lifetime in awfulness and intensity of 
thought and feeling crowded into a few months. He in this 
way followed the Master, who, after enjoying the divine mani 
festation at His baptism, was led of the Spirit into the wilder 
ness. It is not likely that Paul s object was to find safety 
from Jewish persecution under king Aretas in some part of 
Arabia (Thiersch). 

Kai TraX.iv vTrearpe-^ra ets Aa^acrKov " and again returned 
to Damascus." The phrase implies through irakiv that he had 
been in Damascus before he went into Arabia. His work on 
his return to Damascus, was " proving that this is very Christ ;" 
and he " confounded " the Jews by his arguments, antici 
pating every objection, removing every scruple ; remembering 
how himself had felt and reasoned, and diffusing that new 
light which had been poured into his soul. A conspiracy was 
formed against him, but he escaped by night and by a peculiar 
stratagem, as himself tells, 2 Cor. xi. 33. Thus early did he 
begin to realize what was said to Ananias, " I will show him 
how great things he must suffer for my name s sake." 

Ver. 18. "ETreira p,era err] rpia dvfjXdov et? lepocroXvfta 
" Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem." What 
must have been his emotions as he passed the scene of his con 
version, or if he entered the holy city by the gate through which 
he had left it ? The adverb eVetra, " then " after his return 
to Damascus is a connecting link in his narrative. The point 
from which the three years are to be computed is fixed by some 
at the return from Arabia (Borger, Riickert, Jatho). The majo 
rity, however, date them from his conversion. That event had 
just been referred to by him, in its origin, nature, and design. 
God had set him apart, called him and qualified him, and 
this event of events to him stood out so prominently in its soli 
tary grace and grandeur, that he reckons from it without any 
formal reference. The o @eo? euSo/o?crez/ dominates the whole 
paragraph. How much of this time was spent in Arabia, and 

D 



50 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

how much in the two sojourns at Damascus, is a question for 
the solution of which we have no proper data. The first stay 
seems to be indicated by the words r^epai rives, and the second 
by &)<? Be e7r\rjpovvro rj^epm i/cavai, in Acts ix. 19, 23. This 
last phrase is indefinite, but coupled with the verb seems to 
denote a considerable space. Eichhorn, Ilowson, Anger, sup 
pose the three years to have been wholly spent in Arabia. The 
fjiera err) rpia are in contrast with the evdews of ver. 16, and 
dvrjXdov refers back to the previous a7rrj\6ov. The object of 
the visit to Jerusalem was 

Icrropijaai Ki](f)dv " to make the acquaintance of Cephas." 
The reading Herpov of the received text is well sustained, 
having in its favour 1), F, K, L, K 3 , the Vulgate, and many 
of the fathers ; while Krjtydv has A, B, K 1 , three MSS., Syriac, 
Coptic, and JEthiopic. The rarer name is to be preferred. 
The verb laTopfjcrat, occurring only here, has sometimes in 
earlier Greek the sense of knowing through inquiry, or of 
asking ; Hesychius defines it by epcordv. In later Greek 
it denotes " to visit " as applied to places or things, and to 
persons in the sense of making the acquaintance of coram 
cognoscere- It differs from ISeiv in that it implies that what 
is to be seen is worthy of a visit of inspection. See Kypke, in 
loc., and so Chrysostom illustrates it. Thus taroprjcrai .EXea- 
crapov, Josephus, Antiq. viii. 25 ; similarly, Bell. Jud. vi. 1, 8, 
he says of Julian the Bithynian centurion, ov e<yu> la-roprfcra; 
and often in the Clementines, as adduced by Hilgenfeld : 
ffomilice, i. 14, ix. 22, ix. 6, etc. But these instances, as 
usual, refer to things, not persons. 

Paul did not go to consult Cephas, or get any information 
essential to the validity of his office and work, but to visit him 
as a noted apostle, one whom it would be gratifying to know 
through private and confidential intercourse. 

But even this first visit to Jerusalem, three years after his 
conversion, was a very brief one : 

Kal eTre/j,eiva Trpos avrov rjftepas SetcaTrevre " and I abode 
with him fifteen days." IIpos so used does not differ in mean 
ing from Trapd with a dative. Matt. xxvi. 55; John i. 1; 1 Cor. 
xvi. 6, 7-10. A similar construction is often quoted from 
JEschyl. Prom. 351 ; Eurip. Ion, 916. Fritzsche on Mark vi. 3 
warns, however, that there are many cases in which, though 



CHAP. I. 19. 51 

somewhat similar, irpos cannot have this meaning quce ali- 
quam motus significationem habeant, cases which even Wahl 
has not distinguished satis feliciter. Luke xvi. 20, xxii. 56 ; 
Acts v. 10, xiii. 31. 

It is needless to lay special stress on the eirl in eTrefietva, 
for it seems to be neither distinctly local nor intensive. It may 
denote rest (Ellicott), and thus give a fuller meaning to the 
compound verb than the simple one would have borne. The 
verb is followed in the New Testament by eV/, Acts xxviii. 14 ; 
by ev, Phil. i. 24; by Trpos, 1 Cor. xvi. 7; and by a simple dative, 
Rom. vi. 1, xi. 22, 23, Col. i. 23, 1 Tim. iv. 16. In the latter 
case there is a difference of meaning, qui in aliqua re manet 
et perseverat. Winer, De verborum eutn prcep. compos, ii. 11. 
The form BeKairevre is for the more classical and the fuller 
TrevTetca&eKa. Kiihner, 353. The later form occurs often 
at an earlier period, as in the Tabulce Heracleenses (Light- 
foot). Jerome, finding a hidden meaning in the number 
fifteen, supposes it to mean here plena scientia. Why the visit 
was so brief is told in Acts ix. 29. The Hellenists with whom 
he had been disputing " went about to slay him," and the 
brethren, on becoming aware of the conspiracy, " brought him 
down to Cassarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus." A simul 
taneous reason is assigned by himself. He was praying in the 
temple, and fell into a trance, identified on slight grounds by 
Schrader and Wieseler as the rapture described in 2 Cor. xii. 2, 
and the Master appeared and said to him, " Make haste, and 
get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy 
testimony concerning me." He pleads now for Jerusalem as a 
field of labour, because his history was so well known to the 
Hellenists whose prejudices he understood from experience. 
The excuse is not listened to : not Hellenism but heathenism 
was again formally assigned to him as his field of labour. 
" Begone," was the reply, " I will send thee far hence unto the 
Gentiles." Acts xxii. 17-21. 

Ver. 19. "Erepov Be rwv aTrovroKtoV OVK el8ov, el f^rj Ia/y- 
(3ov rov aoe\(f)ov TOV Kvpiov " And another of the apostles I 
did not see, except James the Lord s brother;" or, "None 
other of the apostles did I see, save James the Lord s brother." 

The adjective erepov is simply numerical, not qualitative. 
Two different meanings have been assigned to the verse. 



52 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Victorinus, Grotius, Fritzsche (on Matt. xiii. 55), Bleek, and 
Winer supply simply elbov after el pr) " none other of the 
apostles did I see, except that, or but, I saw James the Lord s 
brother;" the inference being, that this James was not an 
apostle. In this case el /Arj still retains its exceptive force, 
which is, however, confined to the verb. Thus in Matt. xii. 4 
it is rendered "but only;" Luke iv. 26, 27, "save," "saving;" 
Rev. xxi. 27, " but." Others more naturally supply rov 
aTToaroXov " none other of the apostles did I see, except the 
Apostle James, the Lord s brother;" or, "none other of the 
apostles saw I, save James the Lord s brother ;" the inference 
plainly being, that the Lord s brother was an apostle. Thus 
1 Cor. i. 14, ovSeva VJAWV e/3a7m<ra, el pr] KpLcnrov KCU Taiov 
" none of you I baptized, save Crispus and Gaius :" I baptized 
them, and they were V/AWV " of you." The el ptj being sug 
gested by erepov, thus refers to the whole clause. See under 
i. 7, ii. 16. 1 

Ver. 20. \4 8e ypdtya) VJMV " but as to the things which I 
am writing to you," the reference being to the assertions just 
made his visit to Jerusalem, and his brief residence with Peter, 
and that during that fortnight he saw only him and the Lord s 
brother. Some, as Calvin, Winer, Matthies, refer the decla 
ration to the whole paragraph from ver. 12, or from ver. 15 
(Estius and Hofmann), some of the elements of which were 
not, however, matter of dispute. The apostle becomes fervent 
in his affirmation, and calls God to witness : 

ISov eva)7riov TOV &eov on ov i/reuSo/xat " behold before 
God that I lie not." The construction is broken. Schott 
denies it, ypdffrw being supplied qua> vobis scribo, ecce coram 
Deo scribo, siquidem non mentior. So generally Jerome and 
Ambrose. The ellipse is striking, and ISov evanriov r. 0. is a 
virtual oath. ISou, as Lightfoot remarks, is never used as a 
verb, so that here it cannot govern on. The word to be sup 
plied to resolve the ellipse has been variously taken : ypdtyw by 
Meyer; Xeyw by De Wette, Olshausen, and Bisping; o^vv^i 
by Usteri ; fjuaprvpS) by Ililgenfeld ; and earl by Riickert and 
Bengel i.e. it is before God that I lie not. In 2 Cor. xi. 31 
we have o 0eo? . . . olSev . . . OTI ov ^euSo/Aai. In 1 Tim. v. 21, 
occurs with eva>7riov r. &. ; ^la^aprvpo/jbevo^ with 
1 See note at end of chapter. 



CHAP. I. 21. 53 

rov Kvpiov in 2 Tim. ii. 14 ; similarly 2 Tim. iv. 2. 
This verb might therefore be the most natural supplement, if any 
supplement be really necessary. But the ellipse, abrupt, terse, 
and idiomatic, needs not to be so diluted, and probably no sup 
plementary term was in the apostle s mind at all as it suddenly 
threw out this solemn adjuration. Besides, a similar construc 
tion occurs in the Sept. : t Se OTL ras ezmAa? aov T^yaTTT/cra, Ps. 
cxix. 159 ; t Se Kvpie OTL &\i^op,ai, Lam. i. 20. " Behold before 
God " is equivalent to saying, I call God to witness that, on 
(Lightfoot). There might be no human proof, but there was 
divine attestation. Augustine, in loc. } enters into the question 
of the lawfulness of swearing. One can scarcely suppose that 
the apostle would have used this solemn adjuration, unless the 
statement had been liable to be questioned, or a different 
account of his early Christian history had been in circulation. 
It would seem that a totally different account of his visits to 
Jerusalem after his conversion, and of the relation he sustained 
to the elder apostles, had been in use among the Judaists, to 
undermine his independent authority and neutralize his teach 
ing. And because what he now tells would contradict received 
opinion as to his earlier actings and journeys, he confirms what 
he says by a virtual oath, though the phrase as in Hebrew, 
njn^pBpj is not formally always used of oaths. 

Ver. 21. "ETTGira rjKQov et? ra K^ifiara T?}<? Hvplas fcal rrj<? 
KiXiKlas " afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and 
Cilicia." The noun /cXt/iara, found also in Rom. xv. 23, 2 Cor. 
xi. 10, originally means inclination or declivity, such as that 
of a hill ; then a space of the sky, so named from the inclina 
tion of the heaven to the poles /cXi/io, ^ear^^pLvov, Dion. H. 
Ant. i. 9; fiopewv, Aristot. De Mund. Opera, vol. iii. p. 133, ed. 
Bekker, Oxford 1837 ; 7*79 pepos ^ /cXt/ia ovpavov, Herodian, ii. 
11, 8 ; then a tract of earth, so called in reference to its incli 
nation towards the pole rot9 717309 pear] p/Bp lav /c\i//,a<rt, Polyb. 
v. 44 ; rovro TO K\lpa . . . T7/9 IraXia?, ib. x. 1 ; and then, as 
in Joseph. De Bell Jud. iii. 7, 12, approaching the modern sense 
of climate. Thus Athenasus, evSaipovtav TOV o-vfATravros TOVTOV 
K\//iaT09, referring to Siris in the south of Italy, lib. xii. p. 445, 
vol. iv. p. 444, ed. Schweighauser. Lobeck (Parallp. 418) 
shows that the true accentuation is /cXi/wi, a properispomenon 
like Kplfjia which is long in ^Eschylus, Supp. 397 ; Lipsius, 



54 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Gramm. Untersucli. liber die Bill. Grcecitdf, pp. 40, 41, Leipzig 
1863. Codices A, L, have K\ijfj-ara. Syria is naturally Syria 
proper, which he reached from Coesarea, not Csesarea Philippi 
(Eichhorn, Olshausen), and not the country formerly called 
Phoenicia (TJsteri, Schott) : the supposition of such a near vici 
nity is not in harmony with the apostle s argument. Cilicia was 
his native province ; and Barnabas soon after found him in 
Tarsus, and brouo;ht him to Antioch. According to the narra- 

/ o o 

tive in Acts, he seems to have sailed from Csesarea to Tarsus. 
Cilicia was more allied to Syria than Asia Minor, and both 
countries are collocated vaguely by the ra Kki^ara. The apostle 
is not stating his tour with geographical precision, but is merely 
showing how far he travelled away from all Judsean influence 
and recognition. 

O 

Ver. 22. "H^v Se a>yvoov/jivo<> ry TT poo-wiry rals e/c/cA^crtai? 
Trjs lotiSa/a? rat? eV Xpiary " and I was unknown by face 
to the churches of Judoea which are in Christ." The first 
words are a strong form of the imperfect, equivalent to " I 
remained unknown." Jelf, 375, 4. The ry Tr/oocrcoTrw is the 
dative of reference, carrying in it that of limitation or the defin 
ing or qualifying element which characterizes this case. Winer, 
31, 6 ; Bernhardy, p. 82 ; Donaldson, 459. The apostle 
was known to these churches in many aspects, but he was un 
known in this one thing in person or face. The churches in 
Judaea did not know him personally, and they are thus distin 
guished from the churches in Jerusalem, many of whom had a 
knowledge of his person, and could recognise him if they saw 
him, for he had been " going in and out" among them, "speak 
ing boldly and disputing," having sojourned fifteen days with 
Peter. Acts ix. 28. The object of Hilgenfeld, following Baur 
and others of the same school, in maintaining that the church 
in Jerusalem is here included, is to bring the statement into 
conflict with the Acts, so as to ruin the credibility of the nar 
rative. But compare John ii. 23 with John iii. 22, Acts i. 8, 
x. 39, xxvi. 20 ; and for an analogous foreign example, Acts 
xv. 23. The churches in Judrea are characterized as rai<? eV 
Xpiary, " that are in Christ," in Him as united to Him, the 
Source of life and power, and having fellowship with Him, so 
included in Him as the members are organically united to the 
head. It is not certain that this definition is added because 



CHAP. I. 23. 55 

unconverted Jewish communities might be called churches of 
God (Lightfoot). Is there any example in the New Testa 
ment ? The apostle was hurried away to Csesarea, where he 
took shipping for Tarsus, and thus had no opportunity of be 
coming acquainted with the Juda3an churches ; nor had they, 
for the same reason, any opportunity of gaining a personal 
knowledge of him. He is not showing that he could not 
learn the gospel from Judaean Christians, as CEcumenius and 
Olshausen suppose, nor, as Chrysostom thinks, that he had 
not taught circumcision in Judnca. For these are not topics in 
dispute. The apostle means to affirm, that so little intercourse 
had he with the apostles, that the church in Judaea, having 
constant correspondence with those apostles, did not know him, 
so wholly was he away from their home sphere of labour. The 
notion of Michaelis is out of the question, that the church of 
Jerusalem is included among those that did not know him per 
sonally, because, though known to a few individuals of them, 
he was not known to them as a body, since his labours were 
principally among his unconverted brethren. 

Ver. 23. Movov 8e aKovovres r]aav not audierant (Estius), 
nor "they had heard" (Luther, Brown), "only they were 
hearing," they continued hearing : fresh and pregnant reports 
were brought from time to time. The Se contrasts this clause 
with the previous r)/j,r)v d<yvoovf*,evo<>. Atcouovres, not the 
KK\T]ariai formally, but the members of them. Such con 
structions Kara avveaiv are not uncommon. Winer, 21, 
58, 67; A. Buttmann, p. 113. The "resolved imperfect" 
conveys the idea of duration more fully than the simple tense. 
The usage is found in classic writers (Kiihner, 416, 4; 
Winer, 45, 5), but with a closer connection with the subject 
than in the freer style of the New Testament, which may in 
this case be influenced by Aramaic usage. In the Sept. it is 
chiefly employed in clauses which in Hebrew have a special 
significance, ubi etiam in Hebraico non sine vi sua adhibita erat, 
as Gen. iv. 17, Ex. iii. 1, where the Hebrew has the same con 
struction of substantive verb and participle, or where there is 
only a participle, Gen. xviii. 22. The periphrasis occurs often 
with the future. Thiersch, de Pent. Vers. p. 163. What they 
were hearing was startling to them : 

"O-ri o Bt(OK(ov rjnas TTOTC " that he who once persecuted 



56 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

us," that is, our former persecutor, the participle with the 
article bearing its temporal significance and becoming a sub 
stantive. Schmalfeld, 222 ; Winer, 45, 7 ; Schirlitz, 47. 
The participle &IU>KWV is not for St&>fa<? (Grotius, Riickert), nor 
is on superfluous (Koppe). The Trore is out of its usual place. 
According to Schott, Matthies, Hilgenfeld, and Trana, the OTL 
is recitative ; and it might be so if the following clause be re 
garded as a quotation. They might say one to another, "that 
our former persecutor is now become a preacher." This use 
of ori is limited in Paul to quotations from the Old Testament: 
iii. 8, Rom. iv. 17, viii. 36, ix. 17; somewhat differently, 2 
Thess. iii. 10. The address here passes in rj/jias from the 
oblique introduced by or i, to the direct form in the pronoun, 
as in Acts xiv. 22, xxiii. 22, 1 Cor. xiv. 23, 25. Kriiger, 65, 
11, Anm. 8, gives examples from classical writers, so that the 
diction here is neither so lax nor inaccurate as Gwynne sup 
poses it. It seems a mere refinement on the part of Meyer to 
deny the passing of the indirect to the direct form, by alleging 
that Paul might now as a Christian include himself among the 
?7yLta9, and call himself " our former persecutor." He 

Nvv evajyeXl^erai rrjv TTLO-TLV r)v Trore eTropOet " is now 
preaching the faith which he once was destroying." Some 
MSS., the It., and Vulg., with many of the Latin fathers, have 
eVo/Ve/iet. The present and the imperfect are to be taken in 
their full and proper meaning. 

ITicrTi9 has an objective reference, but not in the later 
ecclesiastical sense. It was the distinctive pervading element 
of the new evangel, and soon gave its name to it. Its facts 
and truths claim faith ; its blessings are suspended on faith ; 
its graces are wrought by faith ; its Lord and Saviour is the 
object of faith ; and its disciples are called faith-ful believers. 
In the New Testament, the word seems always to carry in it 
reference to the inner principle, the governing power in the 
soul, for "we walk by faith." On eTropOei, see ver. 13. 

The result of their knowledge of this momentous and noto 
rious change was 

Ver. 24. Kal eSo^a^ov ev e/j,ol rov &eov " And they glori 
fied God in me." The ev epol is not & e /^e (Photius), " on 
account of me " (Brown), as if it were "O for ^y (Beza), or de 
me, vel propter me (Estius). The preposition marks the sphere 



NOTE ON CHAP. I. 19. 57 

in which the action takes place. Winer, 48, 2, a ; Bernhardy, 
210; Ex. xiv. 4, eVSo^ao-^cro/zai ev $apaa); Isa. xlix. 3, ical ev 
aol Sot;ao-0)j(roijLcu. To glorify God is a favourite Pauline 
phrase: Acts xi. 18, xxi. 20; Rom. i. 21, xv. 9 ; 1 Cor. vi. 20; 
2 Cor. ix. 13. " In him " and the change wrought within 
him, with its marvellous and enduring effects they glorified 
God. Not only did his conversion give them occasion to glo 
rify God, but they glorified God working in him, and in him 
changing their malignant and resolute persecutor into a bold 
enthusiastic preacher. They were thankful not simply because 
persecution had ceased, but they rejoiced that he who did the 
havoc was openly building up the cause which he had laboured 
to overthrow. On hearing of a change in so prominent and 
terrible an adversary a change not leading merely to a momen 
tary check or a longer neutral pause, but passing into unwearied 
activity, self-denial, and apostolical pre-eminence they glorified 
God in him, for in him God s gracious power had wrought with 
unexpected and unexampled might and result. They did not 
exalt the man, though they could not but have a special interest 
in him ; but they knew that by the grace of God he was what 
he was. If the churches even in Judea were so grateful to God 
for His work in Paul, were they not a rebuke to the Judaizers, 
who now questioned his apostleship and impugned his teaching ? 
Eph. iii. 7, 8 ; 1 Tim. i. 16. Chrysostom adds, he does not say 
on eOavpa^ov pe, iiryvow /*e, e^eifKriT-rovro, a\\a TO irav -7-779 
v 6v. . . . 



NOTE ON CHAP. i. 19. 
i<kco/3oi/ TOV aSfA$6i> rov Kvpiov " James the Lord s brother." 

What, then, is meant by the phrase, " the Lord s brother !" 
If, as here implied, he was one of the apostles, was he one of 
the twelve James, son of Alphseus ? or if he did not belong 
to the twelve, why is he ranked among the apostles ? 

First of all, who are these dSeX</><H, brothers of our Lord, 
to whom this James belonged I One may surely discuss this 
theme without incurring the censure of Calvin : Certe nemo 



58 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

unquam hac de re questionem movebit nisi curiosus, nemo vero 
pertinaciter insistet nisi contentiosus rixator. On Matt. i. 25. 
For, after all, it is simply an attempted answer to the question, 
Are there two only or are there three Jameses mentioned in 
the New Testament ? What, then, from the simple narrative 
may be gleaned about the aSeAx^ot? They are referred to nine 
times in the four Gospels, once in the Acts, and once in the 
first Epistle to the Corinthians. From these incidental notices 
we learn the following: 1. The "brothers" are a party 
distinct from the apostles. Thus, John ii. 12: "After this 
He went down to Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His 
brethren, and His disciples;" Matt. xii. 46, 47 : "While He 
yet talked to the people, behold, His mother and His brothers 
stood without, desiring to speak with Him. Then one said, 
Behold, thy mother and thy brothers stand without, desiring to 
speak with thee." Mark iii. 31 ; Luke viii. 19. Again, the 
men of " His own country " cried, " Is not this the carpenter s 
son 1 is not his mother called Mary 1 and his brothers, James, 
and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? and his sisters, are they not 
all with us 1 ?" Matt. xiii. 55. "Is not this the carpenter, the 
son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses, and of Judas 
and Simon ? and are not his sisters here with us ? " Mark 
vi. 3. " His brothers said to Him, Depart hence, and go into 
Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. 
For neither did His brothers believe on Him. But when His 
brothers were gone up, then went He also up unto the feast." 
John vii. 3, 5, 10. Four times do this party, so nearly related 
to Him, pass before us in the gospel history : immediately after 
His first miracle ; as wishing an interview with Him ; as sneer- 
ingly referred to by His fellow-townsmen ; and as not yet be 
lieving on Him. The same distinction is still marked after 
the ascension : " These all (the apostles) continued with one 
accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary 
the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers." 1 Acts i. 14. 
The plea of the Apostle Paul is : " Have we not power to lead 
about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the 
brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?" 1 Cor. ix. 5. 2. The 

1 Strange is the view of Guericke " with His brethren," i.e. with His 
other three brothers, besides James that had just been named. EM. 
p. 156. 



THE LORD S BROTHERS. 59 

brothers appear always in connection with Mary, save in John 
vii. the scene and expression of their unbelief, and she could 
not be entangled in that unbelief ; and she is always found in 
company with them, save in Luke ii. 42, Joseph being then 
alive, and in John xix. 25, where she was commended to John 
and not to one of them. Four times is she a widow probably 
by this time connected with them as their parental head. 3. As 
a family they are once named as consisting of four brothers 
" James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon " and of at least 
two sisters, as the word " all " (iraa-ai a&e\(f)al) would seem to 
imply. 4. We have in the verse before us " James the Lord s 
brother," not to distinguish him from the son of Zebedee, as 

/ O 

Plug supposes, for then his patronymic Alphsei would have been 
quite sufficient. He was therefore one of these dSeA^oi. 

Now, had there been no theological intervention, no pecu 
liar views as to the perpetual virginity of Mary, or at least no 
impression that the womb chosen for the divine infant was so 
sacred so set apart in solitary honour and dedication, that it 
could have no other or subsequent tenant, the natural or 
usual domestic meaning would have been the only one given 
to the previous quotations, and Jesus, His brothers, and His 
sisters would have been regarded as forming one household 
having the common relationship of children to Mary their 
mother. The employment of the anomalous double plural 
" brethren," l instead of " brothers," in all these places of the 
Authorized Version, lessens or diverts the impression on the 
English reader ; for " brethren " now never denotes sons of the 
same parents, but is official, national, functional, or congrega 
tional in its use. But the simple and natural meaning of aSe\- 
</>oi has not been usually adopted, and two rival explanatory 
theories have had a wide and lasting prominence. 

The theory so commonly held among ourselves is, that the 
brothers of our Lord were His cousins either children of the 
Virgin s sister, wife of Clopas, or children of Clopas, Joseph s 
brother. 2 The first hypothesis is real cousinhood ; the second 

1 Bruder, Briider (Brither, Breether, Scottice), " -en " belonging to 
another plural form, as in ox, oxen. Latham calls these last forms 
" collectives," rather than true plurals. English Language, p. 503. 

2 Clopas, not Cleophas, is the proper reading of John xix. 25, and is 
so given in the margin. Cleopas is the name in Luke xxiv. 18. 



60 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

is only legal and unreal in reference to Him who was not 
Joseph s son. 

Jerome, who is identified with the theory of cousinhood, as 
being the first who gave it an elaborated form, refers (under 
Gal. i. 19) to his Adversus Helvidium de perpetua Virginitate 
Beatce Marice, written about 382, an essay which he wrote, as 
he says, dum Roma , essem, impulsu fratrum. Now, to hold, 
according to the title of this tract, the perpetual virginity of 
Mary, forecloses the discussion as to the question of full and 
natural brotherhood ; and Jerome s avowed and primary object 
was to show that no theory about the aSe\(f>oi was permissible 
which brought the perpetual virginity under suspicion or 
denial. But the dogma has no scriptural support, so that it 
cannot demand acceptance as an article of faith. For, 

I. What does TT^COTOTO/CO? imply ? We read, Matt. i. 25, 
KOI OVK eyiWovcef avTi]V e&)9 ov ere/ce rbv vlov avrris rbv Trpa)- 
TOTOKOV u and knew her not till she brought forth her first 
born son." Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles exclude 
TrpwTOTOKov, but only on the authority of B, Z, and X, and on 
the suspicion that the phrase was taken from Luke ii. 7. It 
may be replied, however, that this intense belief in the per 
petual virginity formed a strong temptation to leave out the 
epithet ; for from it, as Jerome bitterly asserts, some men 
perversissime suspected that Mary had other and subsequent 
children. The epithet, however, occurs in Luke ii. 7, where 
there is no difference of reading. Now, in ordinary language, 
" first-born" implies that others are born afterward ; and Jesus 
could have been as easily called her only as her first-born son. 
The force of this argument is somewhat neutralized by the 
opinion, that the word "first-born" may have had a technical 
sense, since in the Mosaic law it might be applied to the first 
child, though none were born after it, " the firstling of man 

J O -* O 

and beast being devoted to God." Ex. xiii. 2 ; Luke ii. 23. 
Thus Lightfoot says : " The word is to be understood here 
according to the propriety and phrase of the law," and he 
instances 1 Chron. ii. 50, where " Ilur is called the first-born 
of Ephrath, and yet no mention made of any child that she 
had after." 1 But " first-born " occurs generally in these 
genealogical lists in its relative sense ; and as sons are usually 
1 Works, vol. iv. 194, ed. Pitman. 



MEANING OF FIRST-BORN. 61 

registered only, might not Ephrath have had daughters ? The 
Hebrew law, as originally ordained, was a present enactment 
with a prospective reference as regards the first child or son, 
whether an only child or not, and the statute was easily inter 
preted. The same principle is applicable to the term " first 
born " as belonging to the Egyptian families that suffered 
under the divine judgment, and to Jerome s objection that the 
law of redemption applying to the first-born would, if the 
word be taken in its relative sense, be held in suspense till the 
birth of a second child. But Jerome s definition is true only 
in a legal sense : Primogenitus est non tantum post quern alii, 
sed ante quern nulhis. 1 For the diction of law and history are 
different. The law ordained the dedication of that child by 
the birth of which a woman became a mother, and called it 
the firstling or first-born irrespective of any subsequent chil 
dren, and at its birth the redemption must be made. But in 
writing the history of an individual many years after his time, 
it would be strange to call him a first-born son, or to say of his 
mother that she brought forth her first-born son, if there were 
in that family no subsequent births. A biographer would in 
that case most naturally call him an only son. Epiphanius 
must have been greatly at a loss for an argument to prove 
" first-born " to be the same as " only," when he bases it on 
the position of ai/r% in Matt. i. 25 : TOV vibv avrr/s . . . KOI OVK 
etTre TOV TrpwTOTOKOv avrrj<? . . . dX\,a rrpajTOTOKOv fjiovovf as if 
avrfjs did not belong to both words. 

Besides, the epithet " first-born " is used by an evangelist 
who in subsequent chapters speaks of brothers and sisters of 
Jesus ; and what could he suppose would be the natural infer 
ence of his readers when they brought rrpwTOTOKos vt o? and ?} 
p^rr^p fcal ol dSeXfal avrov together, there being no hint or 
explanation that the relations indicated are other than the 
ordinary and natural one of blood ? The epithet, too, does 
not seem to have an absolute sense as used in the New Testa 
ment : TrpcoroTOKov ev TroXXols aSeXc^ot?, Rom. viii. 29. Com 
pare Col. i. 15, 18; Heb. xi. 28; Rev. i. 5. The inference 
of Eunomius is a natural one : el TrpwroVo/co? OVKGTI fjiovoyevijs. 
Helvidius, who, as is well known, holds the natural kinship, 

1 Opera, vol. ii. p. 214, ed. Vallars. 

2 Panaria, vol. ii. pp. 431-2, ed. (Ehler, Berlin 1861. 



62 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

and against whom Jerome fulminated in the tract already re 
ferred to, argues, as might be supposed, in the same way ; and 
Lucian says : el pev Trpcoro?, ov /JLOVOS, el 8e [LOVOS ov Trpcoro?. 1 

II. No definite argument can be based on the particle e&>9 
in the same verse, for it does not always mean that what is 
asserted or denied up to a certain point of time is reversed 
after it. In 2 Sam. vi. 23, where it is said " she (Michal) had 
no child till the day of her death," the meaning cannot be mis 
taken. But the sense must be determined by the context, whether 
what is asserted as far as e&>9 ceased or continued after it. 2 See 
Fritzsche on Matt, xxviii. 20 ; Meyer on Matt. i. 25. 

This verse undoubtedly affirms the virginity of Mary up to 
the birth of Jesus, and this prior virginity is the principal 
fact ; but it as plainly implies, that after that event Mary lived 
with Joseph as his wife. Even prior to the birth she is called 
" Mary thy wife," and her virginity is stated as if it had been 
a parenthesis in her wifehood. Basil himself, while asserting 
that her virginity before the birth was necessary, and that the 
lovers of Christ cannot bear to hear that she, rj OeoroKos, ever 
ceased to be a virgin, admits that the phrase eco? ov ereKev 
creates a suspicion, VTTOVOICIV, that afterwards this prenuptial 
condition ceased : TO. vevo^ta-f^eva rov ydpov epja //.j) airapvri- 
o-afj,evr)s T?}? Maplas* The theory of Jerome, on the other 
hand, was intended, in fact, to conserve the perpetual virginity 
both of Joseph and Mary. It is beside the point, and a mere 
assumption, to say, with Olshausen on Matt. i. 25, Joseph 
might justly think that his marriage with Mary had another 
purpose than that of begetting children. " It seems," he adds, 
" in the order of nature, that the last female descendant of 

1 Demonax, 29 ; Opera, vol. v. p. 245, ed. Bipont. 

2 Isidore the Pelusiot, repeated by Suidas, says : TO tas w h ha.x.i; X.KI 
SKI rov t>iYivtx.uz Iv ry 6(tef, ypaipy fiipfoxofttv x.itptvov. Theophylact, on 
Matt. i. 25, gives as the result, otii von uvr^u tyva. Strauss quotes from 
Diogenes Laertius, iii. 1, 2 (p. 195, vol. i. ed. Huebner), the case of Plato s 
father, of whom it is said, in consequence of a vision of Apollo, Zdtu 
xctdotpitv ytzpov (pv^^xt fa; T% otvroxutiarsus, and Plato had brothers. But 
when Strauss says of Mary, that she had children younger than Jesus 
jungere und vielleich aucli altere, " younger, and perhaps older also " the 
audacious assertion makes the TrparoTox-ov a falsehood. Das Lelen Jesu, 
vol. i. p. 246. 

3 Opera, vol. ii. p. 854, ed. Gaurne, Paris 1835. 



JAMES THE LITTLE. 63 

David, in the family of which the Messiah was born, closed 
her family with this last and eternal scion." This is only 
sentiment without any proof, though I confess that one natu 
rally clings to such a belief. The perpetual virginity cannot, 
however, be conclusively proved out of Scripture ; but an 
inference decidedly against it may be maintained from both 
the terms TrpwroroKo^ and ecu? in Matt. i. 25. 

If the dSe\.(f)OL were only cousins, the perpetual virginity 
becomes at least possible. Jerome s first argument on behalf 
of cousinhood is, that in Gal. i. 19, James is recognised as an 
apostle, and must therefore be James son of Alphteus, one of 
the twelve. If not, he reasons that there must have been 
three Jameses, the son of Zebedee, the son of Alphaeus or 
James the Less, and this third one ; but the epithet rov piKpov 
given to the one James implies that there were only two ; so 
that the imagined third James is identical with the son of 
Alphaeus. Mark xv. 40. But in reply, first, James the Lord s 
brother was not, in our view, one of the twelve, so that such 
an argument forms no objection ; and, secondly, the compara 
tive minor, " the Less," is not the proper rendering of the 
positive o /j,iicp6<> ; and though it were the true rendering, it 
might still be given to James the Lord s brother, to distin 
guish him from James the son of Alphaeus. Probably the 
epithet is absolute, and alludes to stature and not to age; 1 at 
all events, the other James is never called James the Great. 
Gregory of Nyssa, indeed, gives him that title because he was 
among the apostles; the Lord s brother, on the other hand, 
being called "Little" as not being among them, a conjecture 
on a par with that of Lange, that James was named " the 
Less" from his later entrance into the apostolic college in 
comparison with the other James. It is highly probable, too, 
that " the Little " was not the epithet he bore at the period of 
the resurrection, but was his individualizing epithet when the 
Gospel was written. 

1 Aristophanes, Ranas 709, names the bathkeeper Kleigenes, o pixpo;, 
having just styled him W^xo?, an ape ; pix.x.6$ y pxxos olrof are used 
similarly, Acharn. 909. In Xenophon, Mem. i. 4, 2, we have the phrase 
x-po; Apm-o S^oi/ rov Mixpov kKixaKovfttvov ; and the meaning is apparent, 
for the diminutive atheist is called opix-pos in Plato, Symp. 173 B, vol. i. p. 
8, ed. Stallbaum. 



64 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

2. The other steps of Jerome s argument are : Alphseus 
father of James, was married to Mary sister of the Virgin ; 
so that James was the Lord s cousin, and might be called 
His brother according to Jewish usage. That is, Mary 
the mother of James the Little is asserted to be wife of 
Alphoeus his father, it being assumed, first, that James the 
Little is the same with the son of Alphseus ; secondly, that 
this Mary is the wife of Clopas and the Virgin s sister ; and 
thirdly, that Alphscus and Clopas are the same person. Yet 
Jerome says in his very tract against Helvidius that he does 
not contend earnestly for the identity of Mary of Clopas with 
Mary mother of James and Joses, though one should say that 
it was the key to his whole argument. Nay, in his epistle to 
Hedibia he writes : Quatuor autem fuisse Marias, in Evangeliis 
legimus, unam matrem Domini Salvatoris, alterant materteram 
ejus quce appellata est Maria Cleoplia } , tertiam Mariam matrem 
Jacobi et Jose, quartam Mariam Magdalenam. Licet alii 
matrem Jacoli et Jose materteram ejus fuisse contendimt. 1 

But Clopas and Alphseus cannot be identified with cer 
tainty. The names are not so like as some contend. In Matt, 
x. 3, Mark iii. 18, Luke vi. 15, Acts i. 13, we have James the 
son of Alphasus, and in Mark ii. 14 we have Levi the son of 
Alphseus ; but whether these two Alphscuses are the same or 
different, it is impossible to decide. 2 Then we have KXw?ra9 
(Clopas) in John xix. 23, and KXeovra? (Cleopas) in Luke 
xxiv. 18, the proper spelling of the two names in the Greek 
text. The original Syro-Chaldaic form, as given in the Syriac 

version, is n . <*\*^ Chalphai, 3 and is found in the five places 

.7 . 

where A\<f)aio$ occurs, but it gives \>n \O for the two 
names Clopas and Cleopas in John and Luke. The names are 

1 Ep. cxx., Opera, vol. i. p. 826. 

2 The Greek Church has a feast for St. James the Just, October 23d : 
and another on the 9th of the same month for St. James son of Alphseus, 
" and brother of Matthew the publican and evangelist." The Syrian and 
Coptic Churches observe the same festivals. Chrysostom also makes 
Matthew and James brothers : on Matt. x. 3. 

3 The name Xa*<p/ occurs in 1 Mace. xi. 70, and represents, perhaps, 
such a Hebrew form, 



MARY OF KLOPAS. G5 

thus evidently regarded as quite different by the author or 
authors of this oldest version. Clopas therefore is not, as is 
often affirmed, the Aramaic form of Alphajus ; and to assert 
that Alphaeus and Clopas are varying names is opposed to 
philological analogy. The Syriac Cheth may pass into the 
Greek A with the spiritus lenis, as in \4X(/>ato9, for the 
Hebrew n is so treated by the Seventy, rnn becoming Eva, 
though often it is represented by the Greek X or K. But 
would A have any alliance with the consonantal Kuph in 
Clopas or Klopas ? At least the Hebrew Koph seems never 
to be represented by a vowel in the Septuagint, but by K, X, 
or F. Frankel, Vorstudien, etc., p. 112. In fine, it cannot be 
safely held that by James the Little must be meant the son of 
Alphseus, for, as Hegesippus says, " there were many Jameses." 
Nor can any solid assistance for this theory of cousinhood 
be got from John xix. 25, for it cannot be proved that the 
words " His mother s sister" are in apposition with "Mary the 
wife of Clopas." The punctuation of the verse is, probably, 
not TOV Irfcrov rj fjLr)Trjp avTOv, KOL <TJ a8e\(f>rj TT}? /jirjTpos avrov 
Mapla TJ TOV KXwTra "Mary His mother, and His mother s 
sister Mary wife of Clopas ; " but there should be a comma 
after ^rpo^ avrov, so that Mary of Clopas becomes a third 
and different person, the " sister s " name not being given : 
" His mother and His mother s sister, Mary wife of Clopas and 
Mary Magdalene." The Peschito inserts "and" before Mapia 

7 

and in the Greek the four clauses are arraned in 



couplets, as in Matt. x. 2-4. This punctuation is preferable, 
for it is not very likely that two sisters in one family should 
have the same name, and there is no parallel case in Scrip 
ture; for the name of Herod, an example adduced by Mill, 
comes not, as being a royal name repeated in the family, 
into comparison. But again, there is no certainty that r/ TOV 
K\oj7Ta is " wife of Clopas ;" for it may be either wife, mother, 
or daughter of Clopas, as the context may determine. Thus 
a Mary is called mother of James and Joses in Matt, xxvii. 
56, Mapla rj TOV la/ceo/Sou KOL ^laxrrj (MJTr/p ; but in Mark 
(xv. 47) she is named simply Mapla luxrtj, and in Luke (xxiv. 
10), Mapia la/cai/Sov. Why may not these two last places 
guide us to interpret Mapia 17 TOV Rk&ira as " Mary mother of 

E 



6G EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

Clopas ? " It cannot, then, be demonstrated, either that Alphseus 
and Clopas are the same person, or that Mary of Clopas is 
necessarily his wife, and to be identified with Mary mother of 
James and Joses. But it has been triumphantly asked, If a 
Mary, not the Virgin, is called for distinction s sake " mother 
of James," what James can be meant but the most famous of 
the name James of Alphseus called the Lord s brother, and 
in the early church James the Little, and therefore the cousin 
of our Lord ? But be James the Little who he may, his position 
does not seem of sufficient prominence to distinguish his mother, 

A O / 

for the name of another son, Joses, is added, as if for such a 
purpose, in Mark xv. 40. The combination of both names was 
apparently required to point out the mother, so that it is natural 
to infer that this James, like his brother Joses, was of small 
note in the church, and could not therefore be the son of 
Alphaeus. And to show what confusion reigns on this point, 
it may be added that not a few identify Mary mother of James 
with Mary mother of our Lord. This is virtually done in the 
apocryphal gospel Historia Josepld, cap. iv., by Gregory of 
Kyssa, by Chrysostom, by Theophylact, by Ilelvidius, by 
Fritzsche, and by Cave who makes Alphaaus another name of 
Joseph. The James and Joses who had this Mary as their 
mother could not, therefore, be the brethren of our Lord, as the 
four would most likely have been mentioned together ; and it is 
not possible either that "mother" should have a vague signi 
ficance, or that her maternal relation should be ignored, and 
two other sons or step-sons placed in the room of her First-born. 
Again, if the brothers were merely cousins, sons of Alphssus, 
how could they be called again and again aSeX^ot? Jerome 
replies, Quatuor modis f nitres did, natura, gente, cognatione 
affectu natura, Esau, Jacob; gente qua omnes Juda i inter se 
fratres vacant ; . . . cognatione qui sunt de una familia, id est 
patria, Abraham, Lot, Laban, Jacob ; affectu . . . Christiani 
fratres, etc. Then he asks, Were these cousins fratres juxta 
naturam ? non ; juxta gentem ? absurdum ; juxta affectum ? rerum 
si sic, qui magis fratres quam apostoli? . . . Restat igitur fratres 
eos intelligas appellatos cognatione. 1 But in these examples re- 



1 Theophylact also says, fiunsy i; -/patyy TOV; awyysvti; 
fAiiQiv. Monod s reference to Matt. i. 11, in defence of the same opinion, 
caonot be sustained. 



NATURAL MEANING OF BROTHER. 67 

ferrecl to, the context prevents any confusion of sense. Lot is 
called a brother of Abraham, and Jacob of Laban, they being 
only nephews, and specially beloved for the original fraternal 
relation. These indefinite terms of relation are found in the 
oldest book of Scripture ; but there is no instance of this laxity 
in the New Testament found with aSeAx/io? in reference to kin 
ship, nor with dSek^rj unless it is used tropically, Rom. xvi. 1. 
The New Testament has special terms, as avyyeveis, ave-^no^ : 
Mark vi. 4 ; Luke i. 36, ii. 44 ; Col. iv. 10. Even in the old 
books of the Old Testament, when relation is to be marked, 
there is perfect definiteness in the use of ns ? as in Gen. xxxvii. 
10, 1. 8, Lev. xxi. 2, Num. vi. 7, Josh. ii. 13. When it is em 
ployed along with father, mother, or sister, it evidently bears 
its own proper meaning. In the same way, in those clauses of 
the New Testament already referred to, aSeX^o? is used along 
with fMijr Tjp CIVTOV ; and it would be strange if in such a con 
nection, where the maternal relation is indicated, the fraternal 
should not correspond, if along with "mother" in its true mean 
ing, " brother" should be found in a vague and unusual sense. 
Do not the phrases, " His mother and His brothers," " thy 
mother and thy brothers," suggest that Mary stood in a common 
maternal relation to Him and to them ? And if these brothers 
were only first cousins, sons of Mary s sister and Alphasus, why 
are they always in the evangelical history associated with the 
mother of Jesus, but never with their own mother, while they 
are uniformly called His brothers ? 

It is also held by many, though not by Jerome, that along 
with James Alphaei there were among the twelve two other 
brothers, a louSa? Ia/ca>/3oi;, " Jude brother of James," and a 
Simon called the Zealot ; the proof being that in the lists of 
Luke and Acts, James is placed between these two, as if he 
had belonged to the same family. See Matt. xiii. 55, Luke 
vi. 16, and Jude 1. That is, His "brothers" are James, 
Joses, Simon, and Judas ; and these being cousins, three of 
them are found among the primary apostles. But if in the 
same list Ia/D/3o9 A\(f)aiov be James son of Alpha?us, why 
should Iov8a<; Ja/cco/3ou not mean Jude son and not brother of 
James, especially as brotherhood is marked by d$eX<f>o<; in a 
previous part of the catalogue in Luke vi. 16? Son is the 
more natural supplement, as in the Peschito, and the opinion is 



68 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

adopted by Luther, Herder, Jessien, Dahl, and Wieseler. As 
Lightfoot has remarked, " Had brotherhood been intended, the 
clause would have run as in other cases, such as that of the 
sons of Zebedee, James the son of Alphseus, and Jude his 
brother, or James and Jude, sons of Alphseus. " Simon Zelotes 
is never called brother of James ; and Jude is termed Lebbseus 
whose surname was Thaddasus in Matt. x. 3, in Mark iii. 18 
simply Thaddasus, and Judas not Iscariot in John xiv. 22. It 
is likewise passing strange, that if three out of the four 
brothers were apostles, not one of them should be ever desig 
nated by that honourable appellation. Nor is there any proba 
bility at all that Jude and Simon are two of the four ; nor is 
the case different with James and Joses, for if Joses be not one 
of the so-called brethren, neither was his brother James. One of 
the Lord s brothers is called by the Nazarenes, in Matt. xiii. 55, 
lata-rfcf) (Joseph), according to the best reading ; but the son 
of a Mary is called I&xr?)? (Joses), making a genitive Iwo^ro?, 
in Matt, xxvii. 56, according to the highest authorities. These 
Greek words may represent different Syro-Chaldaic forms, and 

7 71 7 

the Syriac has for Joses ]TDQ_J, the other form being _LCCQJ. 

But no great stress can be laid on such variations, unless we 
had faith in the minute exactness of copyists. Schneckenburger s 
identification of Joses with Joseph Barsabas surnamed Justus 
in Acts i. 23, is for many reasons quite a gratuitous conjec 
ture. Levi (Matthew) is called "of Alphscus," Mark ii. 14: 
was he another son of Alphssus, or is the father of Matthew 
a different person of the same name? 

But further, after this disposal of the names individually, 
we may ask, If three out of the four of Christ s "brothers" 
were among His called and consecrated, how could they come 
with His mother desiring to speak with Him ; how could they 
as a party be always named as distinct from the apostles ; 
and especially, how could it be said of them at a period so 
far advanced in our Lord s ministry, that they did not 
believe on Him ? For it is declared of them : ouSe <yap ol 
dSe\(f)ol avrov eiriarevov ei9 ainov, " for neither were His 
brothers believing on Him." John vii. 5. They certainly 
could not be His apostles and yet be unbelievers in Himself 
or in His divine mission. Jerome indeed holds that James was 



UNBELIEF OF BROTHERS. 69 

a believer, arid his theory allowed him to single out James ; but 
the brethren are plainly spoken of as a body. Nor would this 
alleged faith of James serve Jerome s purpose, or warrant 
James enrolment among the twelve ; for the brethren, even 
after they did believe, are described as a party quite distinct 
from the apostles, Acts i. 14, 1 Cor. ix. 5. It is remarkable, 
too, that our Lord s reply to His brothers is the same as that to 
His mother, John ii. 4, " My time is not yet come/ as if He 
had detected in them a similar spirit to hers at the marriage, 
when, the wine being done, she ventured to suggest His imme 
diate interposition. The force of this argument from the un 
belief of the brothers has been sometimes set aside, as by Ellicott 
after Grotius, Lardner, and Hug, who assert that the verb eV/o-- 
revov may be used in an emphatic sense, as if it meant, did 
not fully believe on Him. The context is against such a view ; 
for whatever their impressions and anticipations about Him 
and His miracles, they wanted faith in Him, and spoke either 
in selfish or satirical rebuke : " Depart hence, and go to Judaea, 
that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest." 
Ellicott refers, in vindication of his statement, to John vi. 64, 
" There are some of you paOrjTai that believe not ; " but 
there the assertion is an absolute one, and in proof we are told 
in the 66th verse, that " many of them went back, and walked 
no more with Him." The 67th verse, by the question, " Will ye 
also go away?" does not, as Ellicott alleges, imply any doubt, 
for it was only a testing challenge proposed to draw out the 
noble response of Peter for himself and his colleagues. See 
Meyer, Liicke, in loc. Further, to say, in opposition to what 
has been advanced, that two at least of the dSe\xf>oi were among 
the apostles, assumes the correctness of the theory that they 
were cousins, but the phrase ol dbeXfol avTov seems to include 
the domestic party as a whole ; and there was no need, as Pott 
and Monod imagine, for inserting iravres in order to get this 
sense. The exegesis of Lange on this passage is quite un 
tenable, and is no better, as Alford calls it, than " finessing." l 
He says that the unbelief of the Lord s brother is parallel to 
(aufeine lime mit) the unbelief of Peter, Matt. xvi. 23, and of 
Thomas, John xx. 25. " The evangelist does not," he adds, 
" speak of unbelief in the ordinary sense, which rejected the 
1 Article Jacobus in Herzog s Encyclopedic. 



70 EHSTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Messiahship of Jesus ; but of that want of trust, compliance, 
and obedience, which made it difficult for His disciples, apostles, 
and even also His mother, to find themselves reconciled to His 
life of suffering and to His concealment of Himself." Now 
the phrase introducing the statement is ovSe yap, " for neither 
did His brethren believe on Him," the relative ovSe bringing 
a previous party into view, that is, the Jews, who sought to 
slay Him, the w T orst form of unbelief ; or if ouSe be taken 
absolutely, " not even," it still brings out a very strong asser 
tion of unbelief. The unbelief ascribed to Peter and Thomas, 
on the occasions to which Lange refer?, was a momentary 
starrier, the first at the idea of the Master endurino; the 

oo / o 

sufferings which Himself had predicted, and the other was 
a refusal to admit without proof the identity of the appari 
tion which the ten had seen with Him who had been crucified. 
The phrase Tna-reveiv els avrov has but one meaning in the 
narrative portion of John, as in ii. 11, 23, iv. 39, vii. 31, 39, 
ix. 36, x. 42, etc. ; and that simple and natural meaning does 
not bear out the ingenious exegesis by which Ellicott and 
Lange would exculpate the Lord s brethren. Nay more, the 
evangelist records the saying in vi. 69, " We believe and are 
sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God," 
and this is said of the apostles as a body ; but when he says a 
few verses farther on, vii. 5, " Neither did His brothers believe 
on Him," the contrast is surely one of full significance. In 
fine, the de\<j)oi distinctly, and one would almost say taunt 
ingly, exclude themselves from the wider party when they 
name them oi fj,aOrjrai crov. They went up to the feast sepa 
rately from Jesus and the apostles. Other shifts have been 
resorted to in order to take its natural significance of fraternal 

O 

unbelief from the passage. While Chrysostom (on John vii. 5) 
distinctly places James among the brethren the James of Gal. 
i. 19 ; Grotius and Paulus imagine that the same persons are 
not always represented by the aSeX<oi, some of whom believed, 
and some did not. Pott and Gabler conjecture more wildly 
that the aSeX</>oi were brothers of James who was only a 
cousin, and not comprehended therefore in this position of un 
belief. But why should James the "Lord s brother" be put 
into a different category from the Lord s brothers, one of 
whom is called James? It may be added in a word, that the 



TRACTATE OF JEROME. 71 

unbelief of the Lord s brothers so incidentally stated, becomes 
a proof of the veracity of the evangelists. They hesitate not to 
say that His nearest kindred opposed Him, and they did not 
deem the unlikely fact to be derogatory to His character. Their 
unbelief proves, at the same time, that there was no inner 
compact, no domestic league, to help forward His claims. He 
did not first win over His family, so as to enjoy their interested 
assistance as agitators and heralds. The result then is, that the 
theory which holds that these brothers of our Lord were His 
first cousins seems very untenable, as is shown by this array 
of objections viewed singly and in their reciprocal connection. 

The tractate of Jerome, who first argued out at length the 
hypothesis of cousinhood, and of the identity of James the 
Lord s brother with James son of Alphaeos, was an earnest 
vindication against Helvidius of the aeL-TrapOevla of the blessed 
Virgin as a dogma not to be questioned without presumption 
or impugned without " blasphemy." So much is his soul 
stirred by the daring outrage, that he begins with invoking 
the assistance of the Holy Spirit ; and of the Son that His 
mother may be defended ab omni concubitus suspicione; and of 
the Father, too, that the mother of His Son may be shown to 
be virgo post partum quce fuit mater antequam nupta. What he 
defended was to him a momentous article, the virginity of 
Mary after the Lord s birth being as surely held and revered 
as her virginity prior to it. He professes to be guided solely 
by Scripture : Non campum rhetorici desideramus eloquii, non 
dialecticoruin tendiculas, nee Aristotelis spineta conquirimus. He 
shows no little ingenuity in his interpretation of various phrases; 
is especially exultant on the meaning of donee or usque in the 
clause donee peperit filium, and of primogenitus in connection 
with the Hebrew priesthood 1 and the destruction of the first 
born in Egypt ; cries out on Helvidius, who thought that Mary 
the mother of Jesus is she who is called mother of James 
and Joses among the women at the cross; 2 then develops 
his theory of cousins-brothers, and thinks that he has obtained 

1 He pictures a Hebrew as saying to himself, Nihil debeo sacerdoti nisi 
et ille fuerit procreatus per quern is qui ante natus est, incipiat esse primo 
genitus. Advers. Helvid. p. 215, vol. ii. ed. Vallars. 

2 Yet, as we have said, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostora, Fritzsche, and 
Cave, hold the same view. 



72 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

a decided victory by a cornuta interrogatio, when he winds up 
a paragraph by affirming that in the same way as Joseph was 
called His father, they were called His brothers. 1 He next 
passes into a eulogy on virginity, not forgetting, however, that 
the saints in the Old Testament had wives, nay, that some had 
a plurality of them ; but proceeds to a very spirited picture of 
the woes of married life, the wife painting before the mirror, 
and busied in dusting, knitting, and dressing, infants scream 
ing, children kissed, cooks here and dressmakers there, accounts 
to be made up, correction of servants, scenes of revelry, Re 
sponds quceso inter ista ubi sit Dei cogitatio ? Any house other 
wise ordered, must, he adds in his celibate wit, be rara avis. 
At length he ventures to go so deeply into the privacies of 
the matter that we forbear to follow him. His tone towards 
his opponent is one of utter contempt and savage humour : he 
brands him as hominem rusticanum and vix primis quoque imbu- 
tum literis, cries on one occasion, doleamne an rideam, nescio ; 
upbraids his style, vitia sermonis, quibus omnis liber tuns scatet ; 
salutes him as imperitissime hominum ; accuses him of a love of 
notoriety madder and incomparably more flagitious in result 
than his who set fire to Diana s temple at Ephesus, for he had 
done a similar outrage to the temple of the Lord, and had 
desecrated the sanctuary of the Spirit ; compares his elo 
quence to a camel s dance, risimus in te proverbium, camelum 
vidimus saltitantem ; and ends by assuring him that his censure 
would be his (Jerome s) highest glory, since he would in that 
case suffer the same canina facundia as did the mother of the 
Lord. This sternness of rebuke and outpouring of scorn and 
indignation on the subject, are an index to that general state 
of feeling which Helvidius was so luckless and daring as to 
offend, solus in universe mundo; and yet he was all the while 
so obscure an individual that his respondent, living in the same 
city with him, knows nothing of him, and cannot tell whether 
he be fair or dark of visage, albus aterve sis, nescio quis te, 
oro, ante hanc blasphemiam noverat, quis dupondii supputabat ? 
It is at the same time to be borne in mind, that Jerome, in 
the midst of this fury, claims no support from the ecclesi- 

1 Chrysostom, on Matt. i. 25, gives the same opinion. He asks, How 
are James and the others called His brothers ? and his reply is, uairep x.x.1 
OIVTO; fyofiisro eivijp TJJ$ Mxpt ct; 6 laaqfy 



THE PERPETUAL VIRGINITY. 73 

astical writers before him, quotes no one in his favour, appeals 
to no father of an earlier century, even while he admits that 
Tertullian held his opponent s views, and curtly dismisses him 
as not belonging to the church. 

The general purpose of his treatise was to prove the per 
petual virginity, and to root up and scatter to the winds the 
argument against it, that Mary had other sons besides her 
"First-born." Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenasus, Justin Martyr, 
and "many other apostolic and eloquent men," are appealed 
to by him as holding the general opinion, hcec eadem sentientes ; 
but he does not aver that they held his special hypothesis that 
the brothers were cousins, though certainly he does not inti 
mate that he and they differed on the point. Jerome refers to 
this treatise ten years afterwards in an epistle to Pammachius, 
and vindicates the doctrine of virgo perpetua mater et virgo, 
by bringing such strange analogies in proof as Christ s sepul 
chre "wherein was never man yet laid;" His entrance into the 
chamber, "the doors being shut ;" and the prophetic utterance 
about the gate, " No man shall enter in by it, because the Lord 
the God of Israel hath entered in by it ; therefore it shall be 
shut." 1 Ezek. xliv. 2. 

Now, Jerome s object being to prove Mary virgin post as 
well as ante partum, it was quite enough for his purpose to 
show that the brethren of Joseph were not her true and 
proper sons. Ambrose, ten years afterwards, contents himself 
with this simpler declaration : Potuerunt autem fratres esse ex 
Joseph non ex Maria. Quod quidem si quis diligentius prose- 
quatur inveniet. Nos ea persequenda non putavimus, quoniam 
fraternum nomen liquet pluribus esse commune. 2 Jerome, how 
ever, in his zeal, and from the impulses of an ardent and 
impetuous temperament, deliberately preferred a theory in 
conflict with the well-known tradition on the subject, which 
he scouted as being taken from the deliramenta Apocryphorum. 
He was thus well aware of the alternative ; for in his note on 
Matt. xii. 49, he says : quidam fratres Domini de alia uxore 
Joseph filios suspicantur ; again, in De Viris Illustrious : 
Jacobus qui appellatur frater Domini, ut nonulli existimant, 
Joseph ex alia uxore, ut autem mihi videtur, Maria; sororis 

1 Ep. xlviii. vol. i. p. 234. 

2 De Institut. Virg. vi. Opera, vol. ii. p. 317, ed. Migne. 



74 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

matris Domini cujus Joannes in libra suo meminit, filius. 1 
So Pelagius and Isidore Hispalensis, who says, Jacobus Alplicei 
sororis matris Domini filius. Tom. v. p. 153, ed. Migne. The 
view of Jerome, which was a comparative novelty among the 
Western churches, was not at first adopted by his great contem 
porary Augustine. In his note on Gal. i. 19, he says : Jacobus 
Domini frater vel ex Jiliis Joseph de alia uxore rel ex coynatione 
Marice matris ejus debet intelligi. These words indicate no 
fixed opinion ; but otherwise he appears to maintain a view not 
unlike that of Jerome. Thus, in a spiritualistic interpretation 
of the second verse of Ps. cxxvii., he describes the brethren 
as cognati ccnsanguinitate. 2 Again, Non mirum est dictos esse 
fratres Domini ex materno genere quoscumque cognatos, cum 
etiam ex cognatione Joseph did potuerint fratres ejus ab illis qui 
ilium patrem Domini esse arbitrantur? Further : Unde fratres 
Domini? Nwn enim Maria iterum peperit? Absit. Inde ccepit 
dignitas virginum. Cognati Marice fratres Domini, de quolibet 
gradu cognati? lie does not in these places call them cousins, 
though he repeats in some of them the stock argument about 
the brotherhood of Abraham and Lot, Laban and Jacob. He is 
content with the more general terms, consanguinei et cognati, 
their cognatio, however, being derived through Mary, not through 
Joseph. The same opinion had, however, some few advocates 
in the Eastern church. Chrysostom, on Gal. i. 19, calls James 
son of Clopas oirep ical 6 euayyeTucrr?)? e\eyev, thus identifying 
Clopas with Alphasus and regarding James as an apostle. But 
Chrysostom is far from being consistent with himself ; since, as 
he identifies Mapla laKcaftov (on Matt, xxvii. 25) with the Lord s 
mother, he must have held either that James was full brother, or 
at least step-brother. In other places he does not place James 
among the twelve at all, as on 1 Cor. xv. 7, but calls him an 
unbeliever with the rest of the Lord s brethren, and says that 
they bore this name as Joseph was the reputed husband of 
Mary (on Matt. i. 25). Theodoret says explicitly that James 
was brother, not, however, ovre f^rjv w<? rti- e? uTretX^acrt rou 
vios ervy^avev, wv e /c Trporepwv yd/^cov yevo/^evos, 

1 Tom. ii. p. 829. 

2 Opera, vol. iv. p. 2058, Paris 1835. 

3 On Matt, xii. 55, Opera, vol. iii. p. 1669. 

4 II. i. pp. 1793, 1998 ; Opera, vol. viii. 594, and v. 934. 



BROTHERS-COUSINS. 75 

Toy Rkwrra pev TJV vios, TOV Be Kvplov dvetytos (on Gal. i. 19). 
But this view did not obtain wide currency in the East. 

The theory of mere cousinhood thus won its way into the 
Western churches, and became the common one among our 
selves. Professor Liglitfoot has said that Jerome " did not 
hold his theory staunchly and consistently," and that in his 
comment on this verse he speaks like " one who has committed 
himself to a theory of which he has misgivings." Certainly 
Jerome did not hold his view at a future period so tenaciously, 
or with so keen and impatient an opposition to others, as he 
did at its first promulgation. Thus in the Epistle to Hedibia 
he says : " There are four Maries : the mother of our Lord ; 
another her aunt, Mary of Clopas ; a third, the mother of James 
and Joses; and a fourth, Mary Magdalene; though others con 
tend that Mary mother of James and Joses was the Virgin s 
aunt." (See Latin on p. 64.) Again, on this verse, he refers 
to his treatise written when he was a young man, and then, 
curtly dismissing it, advances a new argument, that James was 
called the Lord s brother proper egregios mores et incomparabilem 
fidem sapientiamque non mediam, and that for the same reason 
the other apostles also were called fratres Domini. But where 
do they get this distinctive appellation ? The first of these 
quotations is virtually an abandonment of his whole theory, at 
least of its principal proof, and the second is the occupation 
of entirely new ground ; but there is no preference indi 
cated for the other hypothesis, that of step-brothers, as Pro 
fessor Lightfoot would infer. Lastly, in his commentary 
on Isa. xvii. 6, Jerome formally admits fourteen apostles : 
duodecim qui electi sunt et tertium decimum Jacobum qul appel- 
latur frater Domini et Paulum. . . . 

This theory of Jerome, whose adherence to it did not grow 
with his years, does not however appear to be the absolute novelty 
which some would assert it to be. The opinion of Clement is 
somewhat doubtful, and we can only guess at it from extracts, 
some of which may not be genuine. Cassiodorus quotes from 
his Hypotyposds thus : " Jude, who wrote the catholic epistle, 
being one of the sons of Joseph and the Lord s brother, a man 
of deep piety, though he knew his relationship to the Lord, yet 
did not say he was His brother ; for this is true, he was His 
i Vol. iv. p. 19-i. 



76 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

brother, being Joseph s son." It is hard to say whether the 
last explanatory words are those of Clement, or are inserted 
by the Ostrogothic statesman Cassiodorus, his Latin translator, 
who may not have held the theory of Jerome. 

But Eusebius, speaking of the Lord s brother, gives other 
extracts from Clement of quite a different character : "Peter, 
James, and John, after the ascension of the Saviour, were not 
ambitious of honour ; ... but chose James the Just Bishop 
of Jerusalem." 1 James the Just was therefore a different 
person from the three apostolical electors ; and if the first 
James is the son of Zebedee, the last is James son of Alphseus. 
For the historian adds another illustrative quotation: " The Lord 
after the resurrection imparted the gnosis to James the Just, 
and John, and Peter. These delivered it to the rest of the 
apostles, and the rest of the apostles to the seventy, of whom 
Barnabas w r as one. Now there were two Jameses one the 
Just, who was thrown from a battlement of the temple, and 
the other who was beheaded." These extracts from Clement 
favour the theory of Jerome ; for James the Just, as seen in 
this statement, which admits two persons only of the name of 
James, cannot be a son of Joseph, but must be the son of 
Alphajus, and not a half-brother, though he may be a cousin. 
There is no room to doubt the genuineness of the epithet rut 
AIKCLLW in the beginning of the second excerpt, in order to 
make the triad the same in the first and second quotations ; for 
it is in connection with James the Just that the second quota 
tion is made, and it is introduced by the words en fcal raura 
Trepl avrov tfyqcriv. 

Nor, on the other hand, was the opinion of Helvidius so 
great a novelty as Jerome represents it. Victorinus of Petavium 
is said to have taken the word " brethren " in its natural sense, 
but Jerome denies it. Tertullian, who was claimed by Helvidius, 
is rudely thrown out of court by Jerome because he did not 



1 Tlsrpov yap <?*)(/< x,ctl Idxcufiov x,oti \uot,vv/jv fAtT 

"SuTqpOg ... IX.U/3oi/ TO!/ A.IX.O.IOV i7riaJC07?OV \00<S(t hV[6tj) 

2 Ix.uj3u TU AIX.O.IU x.oc.1 luxvu fi x.xi Ilirpu {Aira. rqv ct.vxarM.aiv "7ra.fi- 
oax,t TVJV yvuaiv o Ki>pio; . . . Avo Be /lycivxciy Ixxufioi, ti; 6 Ai x,oiio; 6 X.O.TIX. 
rw irrspv/tov /3A/i0(j . . . ertpo; ^s zMpxTcipridii;. These extracts from the 
sixth and eighth books of Clement s Hypotyposeis are found in Euseb. Hist. 
Eccks. lib. ii. 1, vol. i. pp. 93, 94, ed. Heinichen. 



TEKTULLIAN S STATEMENTS. 77 

belong to the catholic church. In discussing the reality of the 
incarnation, Tertullian seems to employ mater et fratres in their 
ordinary sense, evidently regarding that sense as essential to his 
argument : Et Christum quidam virgo enixa est, semel nup- 
turapost partum, ut uterque titulus sanctitatis in Christi censu 
dispungeretur, per matrem et virginem et univiram. 1 Again, in 
his treatise against Marcion, and on the assertion, inquiunt, 
ipse (Chri&tus) contestatur se non esse natum, dicendo quce mild 
mater et qui mihi fratres ? among other elements of reply, he 
asks : Die mihi, omnibus natis mater adivit ? omnibus natis ad- 
generantur et fratres ? non licet patres magis et sorores habere vel 
et neminem ? . . . et vere mater et fratres ejus foris stabant, si 
ergo matrem et fratres eos fecit qui non erant, quomodo negavit eos 
qui erant? 2 Tertullian thus took mater and fratres in their 
natural sense, and the opinion is strengthened by Jerome s 
treatment of him. Helvidius had quoted Tertullian as being in 
his favour, and Jerome does not deny it, but tartly says : nihil 
amplius dico quam ecclesice hominem non fuisse. Now Ter 
tullian does not regard his view as an uncommon one, and the 
likelihood is that it was widely held ; for if so pronounced an 
ascetic as he was did espouse it, it must have been by the com 
pulsion of undeniable evidence. Still we do not find any ex 
press testimonies on the subject in other quarters ; nor do we 
know any sufficient grounds for Neander s assertion, that many 
teachers of the church had in the preceding period maintained, 
that by the brothers of Jesus mentioned in the New Testament 
were to be understood the later-born sons of Mary spdter 
geborne Sohne der Maria. Vol. iii. p. 458, Engl. Trans. 

The other theory which Jerome scouted, maintains equally 
with his that the aSeX^ot were not relations in near blood or 
uterine brothers, but were children of Joseph by a former 
marriage. This hypothesis seems to have been, if not origi 
nated, yet perpetuated by the grammatical necessity of giving 
aSeX(o<? its natural meaning on the one hand, and the theo 
logical necessity, on the other hand, of maintaining the post 
nuptial virginity of Mary. Cousinhood would suffice for the 
dogma, but not for the philology. " Brothers," in the position 
which they repeatedly occupy in the Gospels, could not well be 

1 De Monogam. viii. Opera, vol. i. p. 772, ed. (Ehler. 

2 Advers. Marcion. xix. Opera, vol. ii. pp. 20G-7. 



78 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

relatives so distant as cousins ; but they might be earlier chil 
dren of Joseph, yet related in no degree of blood to Jesus as 
the son of Mary. Indeed, had they been the children of Mary 
herself, they were only through her related to Jesus, who in 
fatherhood was separated by an infinite distance from them. 
This view is presented by Theophylact in a peculiar form 
to wit, that they were the children of Joseph by a levirate 
marriage with the widow of his brother Clopas who had died 
childless. 1 But was Joseph husband of the widow of Clopas 
and of Mary mother of Jesus at one and the same time ? and 
if this widow were the Mary wife of Clopas supposed by so 
many to be the sister of the Virgin, what then would be the 
nature of such a marital connection ? Or was Mary widow 
of Clopas dead before he espoused the Virgin Mary ? Or are 
the two women, unrelated in blood, called sisters because 
married to two brothers ? There is no proof that such a con 
nection would warrant a designation of sisterhood. 

Now, first for the theory of step-brotherhood, there is no 
explicit evidence in Scripture no hint or allusion as to 
Joseph s age or previous history- Nor arc the aSeX^ot ever 
called the sons of Joseph, as if to identify them more parti 
cularly with him ; nor are they ever associated with him, 
save remotely in the exclamation of the Nazarenes. Nor, 
indeed, are they called the children of Mary, through her 
they are always associated with Jesus. Dr. Mill, however, 
says that the theory " imparts a meaning to the Nazarenes 
wondering enumeration of those (now elder) brethren, which 
on the other supposition is senseless." This is mere hypo 
thesis. No question of comparative age has anything to do 
with the sceptical amazement at Nazareth. The ground of 
wonder was, how one member of a family still among them 
selves, and with whom they were or had been so familiar, 
could start into such sudden pre-eminence, displaying such 
wisdom and putting forth such unearthly power. As for the 

1 His words are : doihfov; xst.i ao&tyoc.; t?%sv 6 Kvptog TW; rov laa;](f} 
Trtx. ioa,; ov; irticev tx, r^g TW o<A<po:/ a,inw KAwra yvua.ix.ci ,. TOV "/dp 
Khuvci oivxtoo; rt htviqaa.vTog 6 lav/itf) tha-fa x.rx rov voftov TT,V yvvoCix-y. 
CIVTOV, the sequel being, that he begat by her six children four sons and 
two daughters, one of whom was Mary called daughter of Clopas accord 
ing to the law, and the other Salome. On Gal. i. 19. 



JOSEPH S CHILDREN. 79 

" tone of authority " ascribed by Dr. Mill to the d&e\(f)oi, we 
find it not ; the phrases, " desiring to speak with Him," and 
in a spirit of unbelief urging Him to go up to the feast, 
are certainly no proof either of it or of superior age on 
which they might presume, For any appeal on this point 
to Mark iii. 21 cannot be sustained : /cal dKovaavres ol Trap 
avrov ef)\6ov Kparijaai avrov e\e<yov yap, Ori, e^eartj. 
Now the persons called here ol Trap avrov, ol oiKeloi, (diffe 
rent, certainly, from ol irepl avrov (Mark iv. 10)), who wished 
to seize Him under the impression that He was " beside 
Himself," could not be exclusively the a8eX(/>ot who are 
formally mentioned in a subsequent part of the same chap 
ter, Mark iii. 31. Meyer, indeed, and many others identify 
them. Nor can the phrase mean, " those sent by Him," or 
the apostles ; nor can it denote the Pharisees ; a most absurd 
conjecture. Nor does it characterize a wider circle of disciples 
(Lichtenstein, Lebens-geschich. d. Herrn. p. 216). Least of 
all were they guest-friends who were with Him in some house 
of entertainment (Strauss). Nor is it necessary, with Lange, 
to include among them the apostles. The persons called ol 
irap avTov were relations of Jesus, either of near or remote 
kinship. Bernhardy, p. 256 ; Susann. v. 33 ; Fritzsche, in loc. 
The phrase ol Trap avrov is plainly the nominative to IXeyoz/, 
and 0^X09 cannot be the nominative to e^earr), as if they had 
told Him that the multitude was mad against Him. The argu 
ment of Hilary and Epiphanius, that if the brothers had been 
sons of Mary herself, her dying son would have commended 
her to one of them rather than to John, is just as strong 
against the supposition that the brothers, though not her own 
children, were Joseph s. Lange s theory, that Joseph had 
undertaken the charge of his brother Clopas children after 
their father s death, so that the " brothers " were only foster- 
brethren, is no less a hypothesis unsupported in Scripture than 
the opposite one of Schneckenburger, that Joseph dying at 
an early period, Mary became domiciled in the house of her 
sister, wife of Clopas or Alphasus, so that his children, brought 
up under the same roof with Jesus, might be called His 
brothers. Quite as baseless is the statement of Ores well, that 
while the brothers were full brothers, the sisters of our Lord 
were probably only His cousins, because they are said to be 



80 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

living in Nazareth, while the brothers are supposed to have 
their abode in Capernaum. But the notices in the Gospels 
are too indistinct to warrant the opinion of such a separation 
of abode ; and as the brothers were married (1 Cor. ix. 5), 
why might not the sisters be married and settled in Nazareth ? 
If, then, the ordinary meaning of the term aeX</>ot is not to 
be retained, or rather, if it is allowed to ^]rrip but inconsistently 
refused to aSeX^ot in the same connection an inconsistency 
which would be tolerated in the biography of no other person ; 
if mere cousinhood cannot be satisfactorily vindicated, if it is 
opposed to the natural sense, and rests on a series of unproven 
and contradictory hypotheses ; and if the other theory of mere 
affinity, unsupported by any statements or allusions in the 
evangelical narrative, was yet the current opinion among the 
fathers, we may now inquire as well into their statement and 
defence of it, as into the source whence they got it. If they 
had it from tradition, was that tradition at all trustworthy? If 
Scripture is silent on some historical points, these points may 
be found in some old tradition which details minuter or more 
private circumstances of which inspiration has taken no cog 
nisance. But if the general character of that tradition be 
utterly fabulous and fantastic ; if its staple be absurd exag 
geration and puerile legend ; if its documents are forgeries 
composed in furtherance of error, pious frauds or fictions 
ascribed in authorship to apostles or evangelists ; and if some 
fragments are coarse and prurient as well as mendacious, 
then, as we cannot separate the true from the false, the reality 
from the caricature, we must reject the entire mass of it as 
unworthy of credit, unless when any portion may be confirmed 
by collateral evidence. No one can deny, indeed, that there must 
have been a real tradition as to many of those points in the 
first century and in Palestine. The first two chapters of Luke, 
with the exception of the exordium, are so Hebraistic in tone and 
style, so minute in domestic matters and so full and so character 
istic in individual utterances, that they must have been furnished 
from traditions or from documents sacredly preserved in the 
holy family. The relationship of the aSeX^o/ must also have 
been known to the churches in Galilee and Judaea ; and had it 
been handed down to us on assured authority, we should have 
accepted it without hesitation. But we have no such reliable 



APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. 81 

record, nay, none earlier than the second century. One class 
of documents very minute and circumstantial in detail as to 
the family of Nazareth is utterly unworthy of credit, and 
many of them were composed in defence of serious error. 
The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions dating somewhere 
in the second century support a peculiar form of Ebionitism : 
the "Gospel according to Peter" 1 was Doketic in its doctrines 
and aims, so much so, that Serapion was obliged to denounce 
it ; the Protevangelium of James is a semi-Gnostic travesty of 
many parts of the sacred narrative, and might be almost pressed 
into the service of the immaculate conception of Mary ; the 
" Gospel of St. Thomas " was Doketic also in its tendencies, 
filled with silly prodigies done by the boy Jesus from His 
very cradle ; the " Gospel according to the Hebrews," or " the 
Twelve Apostles," was translated into Greek and Latin by 
Jerome : some fragments, however, which have been preserved 
show that it has little connection with our canonical Matthew, 
but was the work of early Jewish converts, manufactured from 
some older narrative perhaps from one of the products of the 
many, TroXXot, who, according to Luke, had " taken in hand to 
set forth in order a declaration of the things most surely be 
lieved." If the tradition be uniform on any point, it deserves 
attention, though one must still inquire whether any impres 
sions or opinions might help to create and sustain such a be 
lief, and what is its real value and authority ; for its authors, 
instead of being independent witnesses, may be all of them 
only repeating and copying without investigation what a pre 
decessor had originated and diffused. Besides, if we find the 

O 

" brothers " called simply sons of Joseph, it is open for us to 
question who their mother was. Might not the phrase, sons of 
Joseph, mean children by her who is so familiarly known as 
his wife in the sacred narrative? We should maintain this 
inference in any other case, if no other mother be distinctly 
stated; and the canonical Gospels are silent as to any earlier 
conjugal relation of Joseph. 

We may observe in passing, that it is remarkable that in 
the genuine Gospels Joseph is not mentioned by name as father 

1 Evangelia Apocrypha, ed. Tischendorf, 1853. See also the Testi- 
monia et Censurx prefixed to each of the books by Fabricius in his Cotkx 
ApocrypTius Novi Test. 1763 

F 



82 EPISTLE TO THE GALAT1AXS. 

of Jesus, though it must have been the current belief on the 
part of all who were ignorant of the supernatural conception, 
or did not credit it. Mary indeed says, "Thy father and I;" 
but how else could she have alluded to the relation ? The con 
temptuous exclamation was, " Is not this the carpenter s son ? " 
or, " Is not this the carpenter ? " and then His mother Mary is 
named in the same connection. Probably Joseph was dead by 
that time, though his age cannot be certainly inferred from any 
period assigned to his death. The sinister purpose of Strauss 
is apparent in his explanation : " Joseph had either died early, 
or had nothing to do with the subsequent ministry of his son. 
But it is not improbable that, on dogmatic grounds, the person 
who was not to be supposed to be the real father of Jesus was 
removed from the traditions about him." Yet we cannot but be 
struck with the fact, that while the inspired Gospels have so 
little about Joseph, many of the apocryphal Gospels are full of 
him, and give him a primary place, in the same way as they 
abound with romance about the unrecorded infancy and early 
years of Jesus. Such legends must be discarded : and though 

* O O 

they are so closely interwoven, it is hard to discover in them 
any thread or basis of genuine tradition. To proceed : 

Origen is quite explicit in his belief that the brethren were 
children of Joseph by a former wife. In his note on Matt. 
xiii. 55, he states this opinion, says it was held by some 
though not by all, and adopts it as his own. 1 " And I think it 
reasonable, that as Jesus was the first-fruit of purity and chas 
tity among men, so Mary was among women ; for it is not 
seemly to ascribe the first-fruit of virginity to any other woman 
than her." Again, on John ii. 12, "They were," he says, 
" Joseph s children etc TrpoTeOvrjtcvLas yvvaifcos, by a predeceased 
wife." In the first quotation he ascribes this opinion to some 
only, fyaa-i Tii e?, a minority perhaps is naturally designated 
by the term. But what opinion was in that case held by the 
majority ? Was it not very probably that of uterine brother 
hood rather than that of cousinhood ? for the last upheld 



1 K.l oif^di "hoyov t &i J oiuopuv fttu xadctpoT /jro; TSJJ Iv xyvsict oiir a,p-/, /i j 
ysyo jivctt TOV l>jroSy, yvvctix.uy ds TYIV M.otpix(6. . . . See Commcntarii, vol. 
i. p. 223, ed. Huet. No small amount of this kind of traditional lore 
may be found in Hofmaun s Das Lebcn Je.su nacli den Apocnjphen, etc., 
Leipzig 1851. 



THE PASTOKAL OF EPIPHANIUS. 83 

the perpetual virginity equally with the view which Origen 
espoused. If he took the same side, chiefly or solely, as he says 
the persons referred to did, " to preserve the honour of Marv 
in virginity throughout," and because of his own belief in the 
same dogma, is it rash to infer that the other opinion, because 
it denied it or set it aside, was rejected by him ? Origen traces 
the opinion held by the "some," and advocated by himself, 
only to the " Gospel of Peter, as it is called," or " the book of 
James," 1 and does not claim for it a clear uninterrupted tradi 
tion. He could have no great respect for those uncanonical 
books, and he does not allude to any remoter relationship. Nor 
does he hold his opinion consistently or firmly, for in one place 
he assigns a wholly different reason, and in another place he 
affirms that James was called the Lord s brother not so much 



r 7rpo9 cufiaTO<s crf77ez/9, as ia TO r]os KOI TOV 
" " not so much on account of blood-relationship as on 
account of his character and discourse." Contra Celsum, i. 35, 
ed. Spencer. Origen had plainly made no investigation into the 
matter, perhaps shrunk from it on account of his belief in the 
perpetual virginity, and was ready to adopt any opinion of the 
origin of the name that did not come into conflict with this belief. 
Epiphanius wrote a treatise on the subject against the 
Antidikomarianites, who, as their name implies, refused certain 
honours to the blessed Virgin, a sect, he says, " who from 
hatred to the Virgin or desire to obscure her glory, or from 
being blinded with envy or ignorance, and wishing to defile the 
minds of others, dared to say that the holy Virgin, after the 
birth of Christ, cohabited with her husband Joseph." At one 
point of the treatise he incorporates an address which he had 
formerly written against the sect, and dedicated o/LtoTTicrrot? 
op0oSoot<?. The pastoral abounds in wailings, censures, and 
expressions of astonishment at the audacity, profanity, and 
ignorance of these heretics. " Who ever," he exclaims, " used 
the name of the holy Mary, and, when asked, did not imme 
diately add, the virgin?" But we still use the same epithet, 
though with reference specially to the miraculous conception. 
James, he adds, is called the Lord s brother, ov%i KUTO, fyvcriv 
a\\a Kara xapiv, and Mary only appeared as the wife of 
Joseph, fjLT] e^ovaa irpbs CIVTOV O-W/JLUTOOV avvdfaiav. Joseph, 
1 Tot/ tKi /iypxpipsyov X.XTM, Tlirpov svct y/t hiov zi rijj /3//3XW letxufiov. 



84 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

he goes on to say, was fourscore or upwards when the Virgin 
was espoused to him, his son James being then about fifty ; and 
his other sons were Simon, Joses, and Jude, and his daughters, 
Mary and Salome, these two names, lie strangely avers, 
being warranted by Scripture rj ypa(f)ij. In the Histona 
Josepld they are called Asia and Lydia. His conclusion is : 
ov yap crvvifyOri eri TrapBevos, p,rj yevoiro. He then resorts to 
another style of argument taken from (frvcrioXo yiwv cr^ecrei? ; 
one of them being, that as the queenly lioness, after a gestation 
of six-and-twenty months, produces a perfect animal which by its 
birth makes physically impossible that of any second cub, so 
the mother of the Lion of Judah could be a mother only once. 
Joseph was old Trpecrftvrov Kal vTrepfidvTOs rov ^povov 1 at 
the birth of Jesus with all its prodigies ; and though he had 
been younger, he would not have dared to approach his wife 
afterwards evvflp^eiv awfia ayiov ev to KaruiKiaOr] @eo9. 2 His 
argument in a word is virtually this, that the cohabitation of 
Joseph with Mary was on his part a physical and ethical im 
possibility. Besides, he maintains that as Jesus was Trpcoro- 
TOK09 of the Father in the highest sense, avw Trpo irdcr^ /crt crew?, 
and really alone in this relation fAovoyevifc ; so it was and 
must have been also on earth between Him and His mother. 
And not to dwell upon it, the good father thought that he was 
holding an even balance when he proceeds in his next section 
to oppose the Collyridians, a sect which offered to the Virgin 
divine honours and such kind of meat-offering as was often 
presented to Ceres. The theory of Epiphanius is quite clear 
in its premises, but he finds difficulty in defending it out of the 
simple evangelical narrative, and is obliged to guard it by proofs 
taken from apocryphal legend and ascetic theology. Nay, he 
has doubts of the Virgin s death; 3 such is his extravagant 
opinion of her glorification. 

Hilary of Poitiers holds a similar view; 4 and so does Hilarv 

1 Panaria, vol. ii. p. 428. etc. 

2 E/ f /a.o x.ot,l Trpocreoox.oiTO q Trapdivo; ry \uayQ it; avudfttxv <v; oi/ bs t-jrs- 
O^STO Otoe. TO y/ipcthiov. . . Again, -TTU; ciacc lroh[*ot avvu,(p6qva.i TYI ToactvrYi x.ot.1 
- jictvTfi ayta, Trapdivu ~M.xpiet. . . Ib. 

1/5 Qv y\s>/a ori a.6<x. ja.-og tfieiviv, AA OVTI Oiafofiotiovftcii tl Ti6 jr,xtv.ll>. 

4 Verum homines pravissimi Mnc presnmunt opinionis suie auctoritatem 

quod plures Dominum nostrum fratres haluisse sit traditum, and argues that 



PROTEVANGELIUM OF JAMES. 85 

the deacon or Ambrosiaster, on Gal. i. 19, one of his argu 
ments being, that if these were His true brothers, Joseph was 
His true father si enim hi viri fratres ejus, et Joseph erit verus 
pater ; while those who hold the opposite view, that is, of their 
being veri fratres, are branded with insanity and impiety. 
Gregory of Nyssa, brother of Basil the Great, also maintained 
that Mary is called the mother of James and Joses as being 
only their step-mother. 

Now, as all these fathers held the perpetual virginity, they 
were therefore shut up to deny the obvious sense of oSeX^ot . 1 
The theory of Joseph s previous marriage suited their views, 
and they adopted it. It was already in existence, and they 
cannot be accused of originating it to serve their purpose. 
The theory of cousinhood was equally valid to their argument, 
but they make no reference to it. Either they did not know 
it, or they rejected it as not fitting in to the sacred narrative, 
or as not coming up to what they felt must be the sense of the 
term aSeX^o?. 

The apocryphal sources of these beliefs are well known. 
The Protevangelium of James 2 enters fully into the matter : 
recounts the prodigies attending the Virgin s birth, she being 
the predicted daughter of Joachim and Anna ; describes the 
wonders of her infancy, she being brought up in the temple 
and fed by an angel ; tells how, when she was twelve years of 
age, all the widowers among the people were called together 
by the advice of an angel, each to bring a rod in his hand, 
that Joseph, throwing his hatchet down as soon as he heard 
the proclamation, snatched up his rod, that the rods were 

they are children of Joseph ex priore conjugio, because Jesus on the cross 
commended His mother to John and not to one of them. On Matt. i. 
Opera, vol. i. p. 922, ed. Migne. 

1 Origen says explicitly : ol & rxurx htyovrs; TO elfciaftot ry; M&pis * > 
xetpQfi/tep rnpe iv f*-ex,pi T&OVS ftov^ovrsti. Comment, vol. i. p. 223, ed. Huet. 
See Basil. Opera, vol. ii. p. 854, Paris 1839. 

2 An old Syriac version of several of these documents may now be 
thankfully read in the excellent edition of Dr. Wright, London 1865 ; and 
see also, for another recension of some of them, in the Journal of Sacred 
Literature, 1865. Ewald, in reviewing Dr. Wright s work, characterizes the 
tract called Transitus Marise, or Assumption of the Virgin, as the source 
derfeste Grundfur alle die unselige Marienverehrung und hundert aberglan- 
Usche Dinge. . . . Der game Mariencidtus der Papstlicher Kirche beruhet 



8G EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

received by the high priest, who, having gone into the temple 
and prayed over them, returned them to their owners, that 
on the reception of his rod by Joseph a dove flew out of it and 
alighted on his head, and that by this gracious omen he was 
pointed out as the husband of Mary. But Joseph refused, 
"saying, I am an old man with children;" and he was also 
ashamed from so great disparity of years to have Mary regis 
tered as his wife. 1 The other incidents need not be recounted. 
The pseudo-Matthew s Gospel is very similar, mentioning in 
chap, xxiii. Joseph s four sons and his two daughters. In Codex 
13, Tischendorfs edition, p. 104, Anna, mother of the Virgin, 
is said on Joseph s death to have married Cleophas, by whom 
she had a second daughter, named also Mary, who became the 
wife of Alphaous, and was mother of James and Philip, and 
who on the decease of Cleophas married a third time, her 
husband being Salome, by whom she had a third daughter, 
named also Mary, who was espoused to Zebedee, and became 
mother of James and John. It is needless to refer to the 
other legends, unequalled in absurdity and puerility. 

The Apostolical Constitutions do not give a decided testi 
mony ; but they uniformly assert that the brother of our Lord 
was not James the apostle, and reckon, with the addition of 
Paul, fourteen apostles. James is severed alike from apostles, 
deacons, and the seventy disciples. They speak in one place 
of the mother of our Lord and His sisters (iii. 6) ; James 
more than once calls himself Ka^co Idtcwftos aSeX^o? /JLGV Kara 
crap/co, rov Xpicrrov. viii. 35, etc. Constitut. Apostolicce, pp. 65, 
79, 228, ed. Ueltzen. As the perpetual virginity is not in 
sisted on in these writings, perhaps these extracts favour the 

an/ diesem Buclte. . . . Gotting. rjelehrte Anzeigen, 18G5. This statement is 
true, though Pope Gelasius would not admit the document among the 
canonical writings ; but the further truth is, that the appearance of this 
tract, probably during the second half of the fourth century, shows that 
the worship of Mary already existed. It did not originate the Marien- 
cultm, but it is an index of that state of feeling out of which it had grown, 
and by means of which it attained a rapid development, the worship TJJ; 
zat.yat,ytct; IVQO^W diorox-ov xml ti 7rxp6fyav "Hxpix;. A Greek edition of the 
same tract, Ko/^tj(r/ff ry; QIOTOMI/, is now also printed in Tischendorfs 
Apocalypse* Apocryphal, p. 95, Lipsise 18GG. 

1 An excellent edition of several of these Gospels may be found in 
Hilgenfeld s Novum Testamentum extra Canonem receptum, Lipsise 18G6. 



TESTIMONY OF HEGESIPPUS. 87 

idea that sisters and brothers are taken in their natural and 
obvious meaning. The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions 
give James the chief place among the apostles, as 6 Xe^#ei<? 
SeX(o9 TOV Kvplov (Horn. xi. 35) ; which may either mean, one 
who ordinarily went by that appellation, or one so called without 
any natural right to the name, called a brother as he was one, 
or called a brother though hot really one. As James, however, 
was universally known by the title, the clause may be thought 
to express real brotherhood. Recoynit. i. 66, etc. 

The testimony of Hegesippus has been variously under 
stood. One excerpt preserved by Eusebius runs thus : " There 
were yet living of the family of our Lord the grandchildren of 
Jude called the brother of the Lord according to the flesh." 1 

O 

Eusebius calls this same Jude " the brother of our Saviour 
according to the flesh, as being of the family of David." The 
participle \e<y6/m,evos is doubtful in meaning ; it may refer to a 
reputed brotherhood, or it may mean simply that such was the 
common and real designation. Whatever be the meaning of 
a8eX</>o<? real or reputed brother it cannot mean cousin. 
Hegesippus supplies no hint that he did not believe the brother 
hood to be a full and not simply a step-brotherhood. Again, 
Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. ii. 23) inserts a long extract from 
Hegesippus which gives a graphic account of James death, 
and in which he says " the church was committed, along with 
the apostles, to James the brother of the Lord, who, as there 
were many of the name, was surnamed the Just by all from 
the Lord s time to our own." 2 In a subsequent excerpt from 
Josephus, the same appellation is given to James, " the brother 
of him who is called Christ." The meaning of another extract 

1 "Er/ cis 7rspiqGoe.v ol TTO ytvov; tw Kvpiov virjvoi lovdct TMI x.f aK.px.ix, 
htyoftevov etvrtjv A<po. Hist. Eccles. iii. 19, 20. 

2 A/5s;T/ ryv kx.x. K-fttjia.v ftiTix, ruu otTroaro Awv, 6 x.tit hQo; TQV Kvptou 
Icixuflo; 6 ovof4.ct.adti/; VTITO Trcty-rcav Aixeiio; oivo tuv rw KvplOV xpovav fttjCP 1 

x.tx.1 qpun. Jerome s translation of (tira. by post, in the phrase p.tr* TU 
K.KOUT faun, is wrong ; but Stier adopts it, as he holds that James Alphaei is 
referred to in Gal. ii. 9-12, and that he was the first head of the church 
in Jerusalem, James the Lord s brother being his successor. Lange s 
interpretation of pir* -ruv diroarfauv (in his article in Herzog) is quite 
fallacious. The phrase plainly implies that James was not a primary 
apostle ; but Lange argues that he was an apostle, and that only in hold 
ing episcopal office was he distinct from the other apostles. The state- 



EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

from Hegesippus has been keenly disputed. He says : " After 
James the Just had been martyred, as also the Lord was on 
the same charge (or for the same doctrine), his uncle s son, 
Symeon son of Clopas, is next appointed bishop, whom all 
put forward as second, being a cousin of the Lord." 1 The 
meaning is, not that Symeon was another son of his uncle, or 
another cousin in addition to James, as Mill and others con 
tend, but that the second bishop was Symeon, son of Christ s 
or James paternal uncle Clopas ; that is, James is brother, but 
Symeon is only cousin of the Lord. Hegesippus in another 
place calls him 6 etc Oeiov rov Kvplov 6 



K\w7ra. Euseb. Hist. EccL iii. 32. Hug, Schnecken- 
burger, and Lange suppose him to be the Apostle Simon the 
Canaanite, who in the two lists of Luke is mentioned imme 
diately after James Alphasi. See Bleek, Einleit. p. 544. 
Hegesippus thus calls Symeon second bishop and cousin of 
the Lord, and he carefully distinguishes between the rela 
tionship of Symeon and James ; for though Symeon was a 
cousin, he never calls him the Lord s brother. Eusebius him 
self does not speak distinctly on the subject when he says, 
James called the Lord s brother, because also He (OUTO?) was 
called the son of Joseph, Joseph being thus regarded as the 
father of Christ." 2 He does not seem to mean that James 
was called the son of Joseph, but that Jesus was so called. 
There is, however, another reading, and the words do not 
clearly assert what James natural connection with Christ was. 
If he was Christ s brother as Joseph was His father, then 
there was no relationship in blood, and he might only be a 
cousin ; or if ovros refer to James, then James was a real as 

ment that the superintendence of the church was committed to him along 
with the apostles, excludes him from the number ; but Lange draws an 
opposite inference, quoting in support of his exegesis, 6 TLtrpo; zxl 0,7^60- 
roAo/, Acts v. 29, which is a very different form of phrase. See Alford s 
Prolegomena to the Epistle of James. 

1 ^lerx ro (j.aprvp /jaa.i \cc,x.ufioy rov &t%,ioy, u; xxl o Kvpto; ~i ru vry 
~f.o"/u, TrciKtii o IK rov dttov vrov ^Lvy.iuv 6 rov K^UTTX KaQiararxt S7ri <rxo??oz : 
o j Trpot&si/ro 7?/x. jTZ$ Q jTct oivs^ toy Tbv K.vpi fjv osvTSoov. Hist. Ecclcs. iv. 22, 
p. 382, vol. i. 

2 Tore (JijTas x.ot.1 Ixxtufiov rov rov Kvpiov ^.f/o^svov dothipoy, on O /i x,xl 
oi/ro; rw luar$ uvoftetaro KXI;, rov o; \piar.oi> irasrvjp o \bHsyQ. Hist. EccL 
ii. 1. 



OBJECTIONS. 89 

Jesus was a reputed son of Joseph ; and if a real son of Joseph, 
why not by Mary? Eusebius (Comment, on Isaiah, xvii. 6), 
in a mystical interpretation of the "gleaning of grapes" and 
" shaking of the olive-tree," " two, three berries left on the top 
of the uppermost bough, four, five on the outmost branches," 
makes out from the addition of those numbers that James was a 
supplementary apostle as Paul was, counting fourteen apostles in 
all. 1 But the apocryphal theory of step-brotherhood was current 
in that age, and Eusebius may be supposed to have held it, as 
he does not formally disavow it. Cyril of Jerusalem distin 
guishes James from the apostles, calls him rm eavrov a8eX0<w, 
and the first bishop r% TrapoiKias ravr^ " of this diocese." 
Catechesis, xiv. 11, p. 199 ; Opera, ed. Milles, Oxon. 1703. 
Hippolytus may be passed over ; and the Papias who is some 
times referred to, is, as Prof. Lightfoot has shown, not the 
bishop of Hierapolis. The extract sometimes taken from this 
Papias of the eleventh century may be found in Routh s Reliq. 
Sac. vol. i. p. 16. 

If, then, the theory of step-brethren or cousins be sur 
rounded with difficulties, and rest on many unproved hypo 
theses ; if the one theory can be made the means of impugning 
the other ; if the first has its origin in apocryphal books filled 
with silly legend and fable, and the second has no true basis 
in the evangelical narrative ; if both have been held from the 

o y 

earliest times avowedly to conserve the ecclesiastical dogma of 
the perpetual virginity ; and if there be nothing in Scripture 
or sound theology to upset the belief that gives our Lord s 
"brothers" the natural relationship which the epithet implies, 
what should hinder us from takin aSeXot in the same sense 



as 

There are indeed objections, but none of them are of any 
serious moment. One objection that weighs with many is thus 
stated by Jeremy Taylor : " Jesus came into the world without 
doing violence to the virginal and pure body of His mother ; 
He did also leave her virginity entire, to be as a seal that none 
might open the gate of that sanctuary." Life of Christ, 3. 
Bishop Bull also asserts, " It cannot with decency be imagined 
that the most holy vessel which was thus once consecrated to 

1 Similarly also Jerome, as before quoted. Compare also what he sayp, 
Opera, vol. iv. p. 280. 



90 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

be a receptacle of the Deity, should afterwards be desecrated 
and profaned by human use." Bishop Pearson adds, " Though 
whatever should have followed after could have no reflective 
tendency upon the first-fruit of her womb, yet the peculiar emi- 
nency and unparalleled privilege of that mother . . . have per 
suaded the church of God to believe that she still continued in 
the same virginity." Spanheim holds it as admodum probabile 
sanctum hoc organum ad tarn eximium conceptum et partum a 
Deo selection non fuisse temeratum ab homine. Dulia Evang. 
i. p. 225. Mill himself admits, " They hold themselves free to 
include this doctrine as a matter of pious persuasion, but by 
no means of the same gravity or indispensable necessity as the 
belief of the immaculate conception." Mythical Interpretation 
of the Gospels, p. 269. So also some Lutheran confessions, 
Artie. Smalcald. p. i. art. 4, and in the Formula Concordicv. 
Numerous persons of opposite views on many other points, as 
Zwingli and Olshausen, Lardner and Addison Alexander of 
Princeton, agree on this theme. Both Taylor and Pearson 
quote Ezek. xliv. 2, the first as an argument, and the second 
as an illustration of the dogma under review. The words of 
the prophet are : " Then said the Lord unto me, This gate 
shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter 
in by it ; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered 
in by it, therefore it shall be shut." But these utterances 
have no connection with the subject in any way. Still I 
suppose that every one feels somewhat the force of the senti 
ments contained in the previous extracts. They may be super 
stitions, but they are natural even to those Avho by force of 
evidence are not able to make the perpetual virginity an article 
of faith. It is not, however, a belief basing itself on Scrip 
ture even by one remote inference. That Jesus should be 
born of a virgin, fulfilled prophecy ; still, whether virginity was 
essential to immaculate conception is open to question, for the 
mere suspension of male instrumentality would not remove the 
sinfulness of the mother. But divine airencv wrought out its 

Of O 

purpose in its own way, and the child of the Virgin was a 
" holy thing." The supernatural origin of the babe did not 
depend for its reality on her virginity, but very much for its 
visible proof and manifestation. A second-born child might, 
for anything we know, be born by immediate divine power, 



GLORIES OF THE VIRGIN. 91 

but the absence of human intervention would not so palpably 
present itself. Jesus, virgin-born, was thus set apart in unique 
and awful solemnity from all mankind, as born pure, not 
purified, divine, not deified, " the second Adam, the Lord 
from heaven." 

That the Virgin had no other children is the impression of 
many who do not believe in the perpetual virginity. Thus 
Lange says : " We must not forget that Mary was the wife of 
Joseph. She was according to a ratified engagement depend 
ent upon her husband s will. ... As a wife, Mary was subject 
to wifely obligations ; but as a mother, she had fulfilled her 
destiny with the birth of Christ. . . . And even for the very- 
sake of nature s refinement, we cannot but imagine that this 
organism which had born the Prince of the new ./Eon would 
be too proudly or too sacredly disposed to lend itself, after 
bringing forth the life of Christ, to the production of mere 
common births for the sphere of the old JEon." Life of Christ, 
vol. i. 425, English Trans. But the theory of natural brother 
hood throws no shadow over the glories of Mary, ever blessed 
and pre-eminent in honour. It does not in any way lessen the 
dignity of her who was so " highly favoured of the Lord" and 
" blessed among women." For though one may shrink from 
calling her OeoroKos Deipara* an unwarranted epithet that 
draws after it veneration and worship, yet her glories, which 
are without parallel and beyond imagination, and which are hers 
and hers alone, are never to be veiled. For she was the elected 
mother of a child whose Father was God, her son " the only- 
begotten of the Father;" through her parthenic maternity the 
mystery of mysteries realized " God manifest in flesh ;" her 
offspring the normal Man, and the Redeemer of a fallen race 
by His atoning blood, the Man of Sorrows and the Lord 
of all worlds, crowned with thorns, and now wearing on His 
brow the diadem of universal dominion, the object of praise to 
saints, to angels, and to the universe; for of that universe He 
is the Head, in that very nature of which, through and in Mary 
the mother-maid, He became a partaker. 

It is therefore unfair on the part of Mill to allege against 

the natural and obvious interpretation of the term aSeX(/>o/, 

that it " aims at no less than the error of the grosser section of 

1 James has also been called o 



92 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

the Ebionites, who held that Jesus was in the same manner 
her son as all the rest are supposed to have been." The two 
beliefs have no natural alliance. Equally futile is it in the 
same author to tell us that Ilelvidius was the disciple of an 
Arian Auxentius, and that Bonosus is said to have impugned 
the Divine Sonship. Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels, 
pp. 22 1, 274. For whatever errors may have been held along 
with the theory of natural relationship, and whatever the cha 
racter of such as may have espoused it, it stands out from all 
such adventitious elements of connection. One may hold it 
and hold at the same time the supreme divinity of the Lord 
Jesus Christ with most perfect consistency. It does not con 
cern the cardinal doctrine of His divinity, nor the equally pre 
cious doctrine of His true and sinless humanity. It impugns 
not His immaculate conception, or His supernatural birth, He 
being in a sense peculiar to Himself the seed of the woman, 
the child of a virgin Immanuel, " God with us." It refers 
only to possibilities after the incarnation which do not in any 
way affect its divineness and reality. It leaves her first-born in 
the solitary glory of the God-man. Jesus indeed passed among 
the Jews as the ordinary son of Joseph and Mary, yet this 
belief was very erroneous ; but the ground of the error does 
not apply to this theory. The first chapter of Matthew tells 
the mystery of the incarnation, and the event is at once taken 
out of the category of all ordinary births ; but if Mary had 
other children, no such wonder surrounded them, and no mis 
take could be made about them. The Jewish misconception as 
to the parentage of Jesus could not be made regarding subse 
quent members of His family, whose birth neither enhances 
nor lessens the honour and the mystery of His primogeniture. 
It was a human nature which He assumed ; they were persons 
born into the world. Neither, then, in theology nor in piety, 
in creed nor in worship, can this obvious theory of natural 
relationship be charged with pernicious consequences. It is 
vain to ask, Why, if there were births subsequent to that 
of Jesus, are they not recorded ? The inspired narrative 
keeps steadily to its one primary object and theme the life 
of the blessed Saviour, first-born son of Mary and the Son of 
God. 

Another objection against the natural interpretation of tiSeX- 



" STABAT MATER." 93 

$09 is the repetition of names in the family of Mary and in 
the company of the apostles; James, Joses, Simon, and Judas, 
brothers, and two Jameses, two Simons, two Judes, among the 
apostles. Or, identifying Clopas and Alphseus, there would be 
James and Joses as cousins ; and if the JovSa? latcwftov, Luke 
vi. 16, Acts i. 13, be rendered " Jude brother of James," there 
would be two sets of four brothers having the same names. It 
is not necessary, however, to render the Greek phrase by 
" brother of James," and the sons of Alphseus are only James 
and Joses. But surely the same names are found among 
cousins every day, and would be more frequent in a country 
where a few favourite names are continually repeated. There 
are in the New Testament nine Simons, four Judes, four or 
five Josephs; and in " Joseplms there are twenty-one Simons, 
seventeen named Joses, and sixteen Judes." Smith s Diet. 
Bible Antiq., art. " Brother." 

A crowning objection against the view we favour is, that 
Jesus upon the cross commended His mother to the care of 
the beloved disciple. This objection, says Lightfoot, " has 
been hurled at the Helvidian view with great force, and, as it 
seems to me, with fatal effect ;" and Mill has also put it in a 
very strong form. Hilary adopts the same argument, as also 
Ambrose, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, and Jerome. That is to 
say, if Mary had children or sons of her own, her first-born 
would not have handed her over to a stranger. The objection 
has never appeared to us to be of very great force ; for we 
know nothing of the circumstances of the brothers, and there 
may have been personal and domestic reasons why they could 
not receive the beloved charge. They might not, for a variety 
of reasons, be able to give Mary such a home as John could 
provide for her. As we cannot tell, it is useless to argue. We 
are wholly ignorant also of their peculiar temperament, and 
their want or their possession of those elements of character 
which would fit them to tend their aged and widowed parent. 
Especially do we know, however, that up to a recent period 
they were unbelievers in her divine first-born ; and though He 
who did not forget His mother in His dying moments fore 
knew all that was to happen, still their unbelief might dis 
qualify them for giving her the comfort and spiritual nursing 
which she required, to heal the wounds inflicted by that "sword" 



94 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

which was piercing her heart as she contemplated the shame 
and agony of the adored Sufferer 011 the cross. Every atten 
tion was needed for His mother at that very moment, and Pie 
seized that very moment to commend her to John, who had 
been to Him more than a brother, and would on that account 
be to her more than a son. John was " standing by," and so 
was His mother ; so that perhaps his ministrations to her had 
already commenced. The close vicinity of the two persons 
whom He most loved on earth suggested the words, " Woman, 
behold thy son," who will supply, as far as possible, my place ; 
"Son, behold thy mother:" be what I have been to her. 
" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home." 
The brothers might not be there, or might be unfitted, as poor 
and unbelieving Galileans, for doing what John did, for 
immediate obedience to such a command. Nay, if the com 
mendation of His mother to John in the words, " Behold thy 
mother," be a proof that Jesus had no brothers, might it not 
prove, on the other hand, that John had no mother ? Besides, 
if James were either a cousin or half-brother, and therefore a 
blood-relation, why in that case pass over him ? So that the 
objection would tell against the theory of cousinhood, though 
not so strongly as against that of brotherhood. Wieseler, 1 
indeed, contends that Salome was a sister of Mary, so that the 
sons of Zebedee were cousins of our Lord, and that as Salome 
was present at the crucifixion, John might designate her as the 
" sister of Mary," just as he calls himself " the disciple whom 
Jesus loved." No conclusive argument can thus be drawn from 
this last scene of Christ s life as to the relation of the aSeX</>oi 
to Himself. Far from us, at the same time, be the thought of 
Strauss, that the esoteric tendency of the fourth Gospel sets 
aside the real brothers of Jesus as unbelieving, " in order to 
enable the writer to transfer under the very cross the place of 
the true son of Mary, the spiritual brother of Jesus, to the 
favourite disciple." 2 

Nor has Kenan s opinion anything in its favour. He ima 
gines that the Virgin s sister, named Mary also, was wife of 
AlphjEus ; that her children, cousins-german of Jesus, espoused 

1 Die Sohne Zebedai Vettern des Hcrrn. Studicn und Kritiken, 1840, 
p. 648. 

2 Neu Lclen Jesit, 31. 



APOSTLES BEYOXD THE TWELVE. 95 

His cause, while His own brothers opposed Him ; and that the 
evangelist, hearing the four sons of Clopas called brethren of 
the Lord, has placed their names by mistake in Matt. xiii. 55, 
Mark vi. 3, instead of the names of the real brothers who have 
always remained obscure. Vie de Jesus, p. 25, llth ed. The 
statement is only a piece of gratuitous wildness, devoid even 
of critical ingenuity. It has no basis, is but a malignant 
dream. 

But apart from these theories as to relationship, it seems 
plain, for many reasons, that James the Lord s brother was 
not one of the twelve, though he is virtually called an apostle 
according to our exegesis of the verse. The name apostle was 
given by Jesus specially to the twelve, Luke vi. 13 ; but it is 
not confined to them. In 2 Cor. viii. 23 certain persons are 
called aTTocrroXot e/c/cX^o-iw^, and in Phil. ii. 25 Epaphroditus 
is called v^&v aTroa-roXov. In these instances the word is used 
in its original or common signification, and is not implicated in 
the present discussion. But the title (see under i. 1) is given 
to Barnabas, though Acts xiii. 2, 3 is not an account of his 
consecration to the office, but of his solemn designation to 
certain missionary work. In Acts xiv. 4, 14, he is called an 
apostle, in the first instance more generally : crvv rot? aTrocr- 
roXot?, that is, Paul and Barnabas ; and in the second, the 
words are ol airocno\oi, Bapvd/Bas KOI ITauXo?. Compare 
1 Cor. iv. 9, ix. 5 ; Gal. ii. 9. Besides, why should it be said 
in 1 Cor. xv. 5, 7 that Jesus appeared " to the twelve," and 
then " to all the apostles," if the two are quite identical in 
number? Paul also vindicates himself and his fellow- 
labourers, " though we might have been burdensome to you ct><? 
Xpia-rov aTrooToXoi," 1 Thess. ii. 6 Silas being in all proba 
bility the person so referred to by the honourable appellation 
(Acts xvii. 4). In none of these cases, however, is any person 
like Barnabas or Silas called an apostle directly and by him 
self, but only in connection with one or other of the avowed 
apostles. Again, in Rom. xvi. 7 Andronicus and Junia are 
thus characterized : omye<? elcnv hrimjpoi ev rot9 aTroo-ro- 
Xot?, rendered in our version, " who are of note among the 
apostles." The meaning may either be, " highly esteemed in 
the apostolic circle" (Reiche, Meyer, Fritzsche, De Wette), 
or, " highly esteemed among the apostles," reckoned in some 



96 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

way as belonging to them. Such is the more natural view, 
and it is taken by the Greek fathers, by Calvin, Tholuck, 
Olshausen, Alford. On the stricter meaning of the term ajrocr- 

t O 

ro\o9, see under Eph. iv. 11. We cannot, however, agree with 
Chrysostom, that the phrase " all the apostles," in 1 Cor. xv. 
5-7, included such persons as the seventy disciples ; nor with 
Calvin, that it comprehends discipulos etiam quibus evangelii 
prcedicandi inunus injunxerat ; since some distinction is appa 
rently preserved between ordinary preachers and those who 
in a secondary sense only are named apostles. For, as it is 
pointed out by Professor Lightfoot, Timothy and Apollos are 
excluded from the rank of apostles, and the others not of the 
twelve so named may have seen the risen Saviour. Eusebius 
speaks of very many apostles TrXe/o-rcoi . 1 The Lord s brother, 
then, was not of the primary twelve. He is placed, 1 Cor. 
xv. 7, by himself as having seen Christ ; or rather, Cephas 
is mentioned, and then " the twelve," of which Cephas was 
one; James is mentioned, and then "all the apostles," of 
which James was one. One cannot omit the beautiful legend 
founded apparently on this appearance : " The Lord after His 
resurrection went to James and appeared to him, for James 
had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in 
which he had drunk the cup of the Lord until he had seen 
Him risen from the dead. Then He said, Bring hither a 
table and bread. Then He took bread, and blessed it, and 
brake it, and gave it to James the Just, and said to him, My 
brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man has risen from 
the dead." This scene is taken by Jerome from the Gospel 
according to the Hebrews, which he translated into Greek and 
Latin. De Viris lllustr. ii. Some for Liberal calicem Domini 
read Dominus, and render " before the Lord drank the cup," 
or suffered. The Greek has Tre-Trco/ce/, TO Trorrfpiov 6 



which is also the more difficult reading. The other reading, 
Domini, would imply that the Lord s brother had been present 
at the Lord s Supper. The writer of the legend did not, how 
ever, regard him as one of the twelve. 

James appears as the head of the church in Jerusalem, 
and is called simply James in Acts xii. 17 and in Acts xv. 13. 
Such was his influence, that his opinion was adopted and em- 
1 Hist. Eccles. i. 12, p. 77, ed. Ileinichen. 



OBJECTIONS OF LANGE. 97 

bodied in the circular sent to " the churches in Antioch, and 
Syria, and Cilicia." Acts xv. 13. Paul, on going up to the 
capital to visit Peter, saw James also, as we are told in Gal. 
i. 19; and on his arrival at Jerusalem many years afterwards, 
he at once "went in with us unto James" 77/309 Id/cwftov, 
a formal interview. Acts xxi. 18. In Gal. ii. 9, too, we read, 
" James, and Cephas, and John, who were reputed to be 
pillars," most naturally the same James, the Lord s brother, 
referred to in the first chapter ; and again in the same chapter 
reference is thus made " certain came from James." James 
was thus an apostle, though not one of the twelve. 

The original apostles were, according to their commis 
sion, under the necessity of itinerating ; but the continuous 
residence of James in the metropolis must have helped to 
advance him to his high position. Lange, indeed, objects, 
that " on such a supposition the real apostles vanish from the 
field," and quite correctly so far as the book of Acts is con 
cerned. For the assertion is true of the majority, or of eight 
of them; and a new apostle like James he of Tarsus fills the 
scene. Another of Lange s objections is, " the utter unten- 
ableness of an apocryphal apostolate by the side of that insti 
tuted by Christ." 1 But his further inference, that the elevation 
of James to a quasi-apostolate lifts Jude and Simon, too, to a 
similar position, is without foundation as to the last. The 
apostleship of Paul, however, is so far of the same class ; only 
he became through his formal call equal to the twelve in rank, 
his grand argument in that paragraph of the epistle out of 
one statement of which the previous pages have sprung. Jude 
and James were not regarded as primary apostles, and could not 
claim such a standing, though they received the general name. 
True, the book of Acts is silent about James Alphsei, and in 
troduces without any explanation another James. But if this 
James had been the son of Alphoeus, he would probably have 
been so designated, as, indeed, he is everywhere else. One 
may reply, indeed, that the paternal epithet is omitted because 
by this time James son of Zebedee had been slain, and there 
remained but one of the name. Still, it would be strange that 
he is not formally called an apostle, when there is nothing said 

1 Die vollige Unhaltbarkeit eines apokryphisclien Apostelstandes nelen 
dem von Christus r/estlfteten Apostolat. 

G 



98 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

to identify him. A James unidentified is naturally taken to be 
a different person from one who is always marked by a patro 
nymic. And to how few of the apostles is there any reference 
made at all in the Acts ! Luke s habit is not to identify for 
mally or distinguish persons in the course of his narrative. It 
is therefore worse than useless on the part of De Wette to 
insinuate that Luke has exchanged the two Jameses in the 
course of his history, or forgotten to distinguish them. The 
apostles at the period of Paul s visit were probably absent from 
Jerusalem on missionary work. Peter and John happened to 
be there ; but James was the recognised or stationary head. 
The difficulty, too, is lessened, if, with Stier, 1 Wieseler, 2 and 
Davidson, 3 we take the James whose opinion prevailed in the 
council, and who is mentioned in Gal. ii. 9, to be the apostle, 
son of Alphreus ; but the view does not harmonize with the 
uniform patristic tradition. 

The relation which James bore to Christ must also have 
invested him with peculiar honour in the eyes of the Jewish 
church. Nor was his character less awful and impressive; he was 
surnamed " the Just." According to Hegesippus, he was holy 
from his mother s womb, and lived the life of a Nazarite, 
neither shaved, nor bathed, nor anointed himself ; wore linen 
garments ; was permitted once a year to enter the holy of 
holies ; and was so given to prayer, that his knees had become 
callous like a camel s. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. ii. 23. Much of 
this, of course, is mere legend. Yet, though he was a believer, 
he was zealous of the law, a representative of Jewish piety, 
and of that peculiar type of it which naturally prevailed in 
the mother church in Jerusalem, still the scene of the temple 
service, and the centre of all sacred Jewish associations. In 
his epistle the same elements of character are exhibited. The 
new dispensation is to him vo/j,os, but 1/0/^09 rf)s e\evdepias. 
He was a stranger to all the practical difficulties which had 
met Paul and Peter who had to go arid form churches among 
the uncircumcised ; for his circle was either of Jews or cir 
cumcised proselytes. He was the natural head of the " many 
thousands of Jews who believed, and who were all zealous of 

1 Andeutungen, i. 412. 

2 Ueler die Briider des Herrn. Studien und Kritih-n, 1st Heft, 184:2. 

3 Introduction to New Testament, vol. iii. p. 310. 



JAMES THE JUST. 99 

the law " (Acts xxi. 20) ; and he was able to guide the extreme 
party, for they had confidence in his own fervent observance 
of " the customs." 1 

Such was his great influence even in distant places, that 
when "certain came" from him to Antioch, Peter dissembled, 
and even Barnabas succumbed. His shadow overawed them 
into a momentary relapse and inconsistency. His martyrdom, 
recorded by Hegesippus, and by Josephus in a paragraph the 
genuineness of which has been questioned, was supposed by 
many 2 to have brought on the siege of Vespasian as a judg 
ment on the city. St. James is glorified in the Clementines as 
" lord, and bishop of bishops." 3 In the Chronicon Paschale he 
is called apostle and patriarch of Jerusalem, and is said to have 
been enthroned by Peter on his departure for Rome (vol. i. 
460, ed. Dindorf). So strangely do opinions grow into ex 
tremes, that Victorinus the Rhetorician, a man mentioned 
cautiously by Jerome, 4 but extolled by Augustine, 5 denies 
James to be an apostle, affirms him to be in hceresi, and 
reckons him the author of those Judaistic errors which had 
crept into the Galatian churches. His interpretation is : "I 
saw James the Lord s brother (habitus secundum carnem) ; as 
if Paul meant thereby to affirm, You cannot now say, " Thou 
deniest James, and therefore rejectest the doctrine we follow, 
because thou hast not seen him." But I did see him, the first 
promulgate! of your opinions ita nihil apud me valuit " " The 
Symmachians make James," he adds, "a supernumerary apostle, 
quasi duodecimum, and all who add the observance of Judaism 
to the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ follow him as master."" 

On a question so difficult, critics, as may be supposed, are 
much divided. Against the theory put forward in the pre 
vious pages are Baronius, Semler, Pott, Schneckenburger, 



1 What the name n/SA/aj, given him by Hegesippus, means, it is im 
possible to say, for no solution is satisfactory. See Heinichen s note, 
Kouth s Reliquiae Sacrx, vol. i. p. 233, 2d ed. ; Fuller s Miscellanea Sacra, 
lib. iii. cap. i. ; Suicer, sub voce ; Schaff, Kirchcng. 35. 

2 As Hegesippus, in Euseb. Hist. Eccl. ii. 23. 

3 Ta xvptu x.oc.1 i ziax.ci xav ETT/o-JieVu, ^iiTrovn (>e TVJV Ispouact hYip dyixv 
Rfipxiuv lx,x.~fi.r,aiu.v. Homilix, p. 10, ed. Dressel. 

4 De Viris Illust. cap. 101. 

5 Confessionum, lib. viii. cap. 2, vol. i. p. 252, Paris 1836. 

6 Mai, Script. Vet. Nova Collectio, vol. iii. 



100 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

Guericke, Steiger, Olshausen, Lange, Hug, Friedlieb, Lich- 
tenstein, and Arnaud ; on the other side are De Wette, Rothe, 
Herder, Xeander, Stier, Niedner, Winer, Meyer, Ewald, 
Gresswell, Wieseler in a paper Veler die JBrilder des Herrn, 
Stud, und Kritik. 1 Heft, 1842 ; Blom, Disputatio de rot? 
<i8eX<oi9 real rcu? aSeXc^ai? TOV Kvpfov, Lugduni Batav. 1839; 
Schaff, das Verhtiltniss des Jacobus Bruders des Herrns zu 
Jacobus Alplicei auf Neue exegetiscli und historisch untersucht, 
Berlin 1843. In a later work (Church History, 95, 1854), 
Dr. Schaff has modified his view of some of the proofs adduced 
by him, saying that he had made rather too little of the dog 
matic argument against the supposition that Mary had other 
children, and of the old theory that the brothers were sons of 
Joseph by a former marriage (vol. ii. p. 35, English transl.). 
See also an essay of Laurent, Die Brilder Jesu } in his Neu- 
testamentliche Studien, Gotha 1866. 



CHAPTER II. 1-10. 

AFTER his conversion, the apostle had held no consulta 
tion as to his course or the themes of his preaching 
with the other apostles ; and in proof he still continues his 
narrative. He had been in Jerusalem once, and had seen Peter 
and James, but he had stayed only for a brief period. The 
apostles whom he met did not question his standing, neither 
did they sanction his commission nor add to his authority. He 
now in his historical argument refers to another visit to Jeru 
salem, when he saw the chief of the apostles ; but met them 
as an equal, on the same platform of official status, and took 
counsel with them as one of the same rank and prerogative. 
Nay more, at a subsequent period he confronted the eldest, 
boldest, and most highly honoured of them, when he was in 
error ; did not privately warn him or humbly remonstrate with 
him as an inferior with a superior, but solemnly and publicly, 
as one invested with the same authority, rebuked Cephas, the 
apostle of the circumcision. 

Ver. 1. "Ejreira 8ia SeKarea-crdpwv eV<wi> 7rd\iv ave/Sijv elf 
lepoaoiXv/jba fjiera Bapvdfta, crvfj,7rapa\a/3(i)v Kal Tirov " Then 
after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barna 
bas, having taken along with me also Titus." "Erreira marks 
another step in the historical argument, as in vers. 18 and 21 of 
the previous chapter, another epoch in his travels and life. 
The period is specified by 8i<z BeKarea-a-dpcuv erwv "after four 
teen years." It is vain to disturb the reading, as if it might be 
read rea-crdpwv (Bia tS erwv changed into Sia % eVwv), as is 
maintained by Semler, Capell, Guericke, Rinck, Winer, Reiche, 
and Ulrich in Stud. u. Kritik. 1836. The Chronicon Paschale, 
sometimes adduced, is no authority, nay, very probably it also 
read fourteen years, as it computes them from the ascension 
TTO TTJS dva\,tj^reo)<;. Vol. i. p. 436, ed. Dindorf. Sec Anger, 

101 



102 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Wieseler, and the reply of Fritzsche, Fritz schiorum Opuscukt, 
p. 1GO, etc. 

The phrase Bia BefcaTeo-o-dpwv ITWV is rightly rendered 
" after fourteen years," Bed denoting through the whole period, 
and thus emphatically beyond it or at the end of it ; post in 
the Vulgate, Acts xxiv. 17, Mark ii. 1, 4 Mace. xiii. 21, Deut. 
ix. 11 ; Xen. i. 4, 28 ; Winer, 47 ; Bernhardy, p. 235. Thus 
BIM xpovov, " after a time," Sophocles, Pliiloct. 285, wrongly 
rendered by Ellen dt " slowly," nor is the translation of 
Wunder and Ast more satisfactory ; Bia %povov, Xen. Mem. ii. 
8, 1, and Kiihner s note ; Si erovs, in contrast with e/ttyufi/oy?, 
Lucian, Paras. 15, vol. vii. p. 118, ed. Bipont. Hermann, ad 
Viger. 377, remarks, Bia %p6vovest interjecto tempore. Schaefer, 
Bos, Ellips. p. 249, ed. London 1825. In Deut. ix. 11, the 
unmistakeable Hebrew phrase fip.p, "at the end of" forty days, 
etc., is rendered by the Sept. Bia rea-a-apaKOvra rjfiepwv. Others 
give Bid a different sense, the sense of intra: at some point 
within the fourteen years, in which I have been a Christian. 
CEder, Rambach, Theile, Schott, and Paulus take this view. 
The preposition apparently may bear such a sense, though 
Meyer denies it, Acts v. 19, xvi. 9. But with such a meaning, 
we should have expected the article or the demonstrative pro 
noun. Nor would the expression with such a sense have any 
definite meaning, as it would afford no distinct date to give 
strength and proof to the apostle s statement of self-depen 
dence. But the main question is, From what point does the 
apostle reckon the fourteen years ? 

1. Many date it from the journey mentioned in i. 18, as 
Jerome, Usher, Bengel, Winer, Meyer, Usteri, Kiickert, Trana, 
Eeiche, Jatho, Bisping, Hofmann, Prof. Lightfoot, Kamp- 
hausen in Bunsen s Ztibelwerk, and Burton, Works, vol. iv. p. 45. 

2. Some date it from his conversion, as Estius, Olshausen, 
Fritzsehe, Ililgenfeld, Windischmann, Wieseler, Meyer, Ebrard; 
also in former times, Baronius, Spanheim, Pearson, and Light- 
foot. 

3. Others date it from the ascension, as the Chronicle re 
ferred to, Peter Lombard, and Paulus. This last opinion may 
be discarded, and the difficulty lies between the previous two. 

It does seem at first sight in favour of the first view, that 
the apostle has just spoken of a previous journey; and now when 



CHAP. II. 1. 103 



he writes e-rretra . . . TraXiv, you may naturally infer that he 
counts from it. And then, as it is part of his argument for his 
independent apostolate to show how long a time he acted by 
himself and in no concert with the other apostles, the dating of 
the time from his first journey adds so much more weight to 
his declaration, so much longer an interval having elapsed ; and 
he also places 8ia Setcarea-o-dpwv in the position of emphasis. 

Yet the second opinion is the more probable. The grand 
moment of his life was his conversion, and it became the point 
from which dates were unconsciously measured, all before it 
fading away as old and legal, all after it standing out in new 
and spiritual prominence. His conversion divided his life, and 
supplied a point of chronological reference. As he looked 
back, it faced him as a terminus from which he naturally 
counted. Not only so, but in the commencement of this vindica 
tion he recurs to his conversion and its results, for it severed his 
former from his present self, and it was not till three years after 
it that he went up to Jerusalem. He lays stress on the lapse 
of so long a time, wishing it to be noted that he speaks of 
years, and so he writes pera errj rpia, the emphasis on errj ; 
but now, the idea of years having been so emphatically ex 
pressed, when he refers again to them, their number becomes 
prominent, and he writes, as if still reckoning from his conver 
sion, Sid SeKaTea-adpcvv erwv. Had this verse occurred imme 
diately after i. 18, we might have said that the fourteen years 
dated from the first visit to Jerusalem ; but a paragraph inter 
venes which obscures the reference, and describes some time 
spent and some journeys made in various places. It is natural, 
therefore, to suppose, that after a digressive insertion, the 
apostle recurs to the original point of calculation his conver 
sion. The second eirevra of this verse thus refers to the same 
terminus a quo as the first in i. 18, and he now uses 8id } not a 
second yttera, as if to prevent mistake. 

TlaXiv dveftrjv " I again went up." On the question, with 
which of the visits of the apostle to Jerusalem recorded in the 
Acts of the Apostles this visit is to be identified, see remarks 
at the end of this section, after ver. 10. The Trd\iv does not 
qualify perd Bapvdfia, as if, according to Lange, a previous 
journey with Barnabas had been alluded to. Paul on this 
journey was the principal person, Barnabas being in a subordi- 



104 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

nate, and Titus in a still inferior relation. Acts xv. 2. There 
had, indeed, been an intermediate visit (Acts xi. 29, 30) ; but 
the apostle makes no allusion to it, either because he was sent 
up on a special errand of beneficence, or because, as under the 
Herodian persecution the apostles might be absent, he did not 
see any of them (Spanheirn). The record of this visit was not, 
on that account, essential to his present argument, and the mere 
use of TrdXiv will not prove that this second visit is the one 
intended. Compare John xxi. 1, 14. 

^vfJLjrapaXalBwv teal Tirov " having taken with me also 
Titus : " " also," as he is going to speak of him immediately, 
and he is thus singled out from the nvas aX\ov ? of Acts xv. 
2. Compare Job i. 4. The precise circumstances attending 
this visit are minutely dwelt on, as corroborating his statement 
that he was an accredited apostle, working and travelling under 
a parallel commission with the others for a lengthened period. 
Therefore he adds 

Ver. 2. Aveftrjv Se Kara airoicaXvfyiv " But I went up by 
revelation." Jerusalem stood on a high plateau ; but to " go 
up " refers, as with us, to it as the capital. 1 Kings xii. 28 ; 
Matt, xx. 17, 18; Mark iii. 22; Acts xv. 2, etc. "See C. B. 
Michaelis, Dissertatio Chorographica notiones superi et inferi 
evolvens, etc., 37, in vol. v. of Essays edited by Velthusen, 
Kuinoel, and Ruperti. Lest the visit should be misunderstood, 
the avefiijv is repeated and put in emphasis, while the iterative 
and explanatory 8e at once carries on the argument, and has a 
sub-adversative force : I went up, as I have said, " but I went 
up according to revelation." Klotz-Devarius, ii. 361 ; Har- 
tung, i. 168. The nature- of that divine revelation we know 
not. The apostle was no stranger to such divine promptings. 
He had received the gospel by revelation, and in the same way 
had often enjoyed those divine suggestions and counsels which 
shaped his missionary tours. Acts xvi. 6, 7, 9. The apostles 
did not summon him to account, asking why he had assumed 
the name and professed to do the work which so specially be 
longed to them. Granville Penn renders Kara cnroKaXv^nv 
" openly," palam, as if opposed to /car IBiav, privately, a use 
less departure from usage. 1 Schrader, Schulz, and Hermann 
render the same phrase in the words of the latter : essplicationis 
1 Morehead proposes to put a comma after XQX.K><.V$>IV : " I went up 



CHAP. II. 2. 105 

causa, ut patefieret inter ipsos, quce vera esset Jesu doctrina. 
The preposition itself may bear such a meaning (Winer, 49), 
but this phrase cannot ; for it would be contrary to the New 
Testament use of the noun, and would be in the face of the 
apostle s very argument for his independent position. Nor is 
Kara riva UTTOK. required for the common interpretation. See 
Eph. iii. 3 ; also, Gal. i. 12, 16. The apostle does not specify 
the individual revelation, but affirms absolutely that it was under 
revelation that he went up, and not under human suggestion 
or control. He went up " by revelation," not by a particular 
revelation. Yet the turn given to the words by Whitby is 
inadmissible : " according to the tenor of my revelation, which 
made me an apostle of the Gentiles." What happened in 
Jerusalem is next told : 

Kal aveQepyv avTols TO evayyeXiov o K^pvcrcrco ev rot? eOvecri 
" And I communicated to them the gospel which I preach 
among the Gentiles." 

AveOe/arjv is rendered in the Vulgate contuli cum eis. Com 
pare Acts xxv. 14 ; 2 Mace. iii. 9 ; and Wetstein in loc. It 
does not exactly mean, "to leave in the hands of" (Green, 
Gr. Gram. p. 82), but to tell with a view to confer about it. 
Jerome adds : inter conferentes cequalitas est. The noun im 
plied in avrois is to be found in the term lepocro Xu/ia no un 
common form of antecedent. Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35, xi. 1, xii. 9 ; 
Luke v. 14 ; Acts viii. 5 ; Winer, 22, 3, a ; Bernhardy, p. 288. 
The avrols are the Christians in Jerusalem, not the elders, as 
is held by Winer hesitatingly, and by Matthies decidedly 
auf die Vorsteher und Aeltesten in der Gemeinde ; nor yet the 
;ipostles (Calvin, Schott, and Olshausen), a view which would 
not only make a distinction among the apostles, but also a dif 
ference in the mode and extent of the communication, as if he 
had told as much as he chose to the apostolic college, but 
opened himself more fully and unreservedly to a select com 
mittee of them. The gospel propounded by him was 

<V O Kripvcrcrto ev rot? edve<rtv the present indicating its 
continuous identity and his enduring work ; that conference 
made no change upon it. The gospel so characterized was, 
indeed, the great scheme of mercy, but especially in the free 

and communicated according to revelation," or, according to his own full 
light, his gospel to them. Explanation of Passages, etc., Edin. 1843. 



106 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

form in which he presented it, unhampered by legal or Mosaic 
restrictions, unconditioned by any distinctions of race or blood 
TO ^pls 7re/)tTo/i?79, as Chrysostom describes it its charac 
teristic tenet being justification without works of law. Though 
lie was speaking in the heart of Judaism, and among Jewish 
believers who were zealous of the law, he did not modify his 
vocation in describing it, or present it as his exceptional work. 
Where it was most suspected and opposed, where it was sure 
to provoke antipathy, he gloried in it. But, as if correcting 
himself, he suddenly adds 

Kar ISiav 8e rot? SOKOIKTIV "but privately to them of 
reputation." These words seem to qualify the avTols and to 
confine them to a very particular class, though to state the 
persons communicated with, first so broadly and then with 
pointed restriction, seems peculiar. Some therefore suppose 
that there were two conferences a first and more public one, 
and a second and more select one. Such is the view of De 
Wette, Meyer, Windischmann, Ellicott, Bisping, and many 
others. But why should the apostle first to all appearance 
proclaim his gospel publicly, and then afterward privately first 
to the mass, and then to a coterie? The doctrine of reserve 
propounded by the Catholic Estius is not to be admitted. We 
prefer the view of Chrysostom who admits only one confer 
ence ; and he is followed by Calovius, by Alford apparently, 
and Webster and Wilkinson. There is no occasion, however, 
to mark the clause with brackets, as is done by Knapp. Going 
up under revelation, the apostle made known his gospel "to those 
in Jerusalem, privately, however, to them who were of repu 
tation." The reason, as given by Theodoret, is, that so many 
were zealous for the law vjrep rov vo^ov %rj\ov e%ovres. That 
there was a public meeting and discussion is true, as recorded 
in Acts xv. ; but the apostle does not allude to it here in defi 
nite terms. He seems to state the general result first, and 
then, as if referring to the revelation under which he acted, he 
suddenly checks himself, and says he communicated with them 
of reputation. Thus he may have distinguished his general 
mission, which is perhaps alluded to in Acts xv. 4, from the 
special course of conduct which his revelation suggested. The 
church at Antioch deputed the apostle in consequence of the 
Judaizers ; the Judaizers in Jerusalem thought their cause 



CHAP. II. 2. 107 

betrayed by the favourable reception given to Paul, and their 
agitation in the metropolis seems to have necessitated the pub 
lic conference. But "the revelation" may have referred more 
to the matters which were treated of in confidence with the 
noted brethren. 

The phrase KO.T IBiav is " privately." Matt. xvii. 19, xx. 
17, xxiv. 3; Mark iv. 34. It does not mean "especially" 
(Baur), or " preferably," as Olshausen and Usteri give it. 
The margin of the common version has " severally," and the 
Genevan reads " particularly ; " but the Syriac correctly, 

^001X0 - . i . *"\ " between me and them." It corresponds to 

IBia in the classics as opposed to icoivfj or BTJ^OCTLO,. The pecu 
liar phrase TO?? Bo/covcri is rightly rendered, " to them which 
are of reputation" eirtarffjun? (Theodoret), or, as Hesychius 
defines it, ol evSo^oi. There needs no supplied insertion of ri 
after the participle, as Bagge supposes. Thus ^Elian says 
of Aristotle, <ro<o9 avrjp KOI <av Kal elvat BOKWV, Hist. Var. 
xiv. ; a8o^ouvratv is in contrast with BOKOVVTMV, in reference 
to the weight of their word or opinions. Euripides, Hecuba, 
294, 295. Pflugk in his note refers to Pindar, Nem. vii. 30, 
aSoKijTOv ev Kal SofceovTa ; to Eurip. Troad. 608, and Heracl. 
795. See Pindar, OL xiii. 56, and Dissen s note. Borger quotes 
from Porphyry a clause in which ra 7r\tjdr) is in contrast to ol 
SoKovvres. Similarly the Hebrew 2KTI. See Fiirst, Lex. sub voce. 
Wycliffe s version is wrong in rendering "to those that semeden 
to be summewhat." And there is no ground for the supposition 
of Cameron, Eiickert, Schott, and Olshausen, that the phrase 
was chosen as one often in the mouths of the party who pre 
ferred them as leaders. Nor is there any irony in it, for the 
apostle is making a simple historical reference rot? tcopvffratois 
(CEcumenius) to his intercourse with them and its results, all 
as confirmatory of his own separate and independent commission. 
Mr) 7T&)? et9 Kevov rpe^co r/ eBpa^ov " lest I might be run 
ning or have run in vain." The figure of the two verbs is a 
common one. Phil. ii. 16 ; 2 Tim. iv. 7 ; Gal. v. 7 ; and also 
1 Cor. ix. 24, Heb. xii. 1. The meaning of et? Kevov, "in 
vain," may be seen, 2 Cor. vi. 1, Phil. ii. 16, 1 Thess. iii. 5, 
Sept. Isa. Ixv. 23 ; Kypke, in loc. It is surely prosaic in 
Jowett to refer e&pa/j.ov to the journey to Jerusalem, which he 



108 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

had already accomplished. Homberg, Gabler, Paulus, and 
Matthies connect this clause with rot? SOKOVO-W qui putabant 
num forte in vanum currerem. Wieseler says that he mentions 
this connection simply as a philologische Antiquitdt. 

Allied to this view is one originally held by Fritzsche (Con- 
jectanea), by Green, and similarly by Wieseler, that y^ TTCO? 
may mean num forte. In such a case the verb is in the present 
indicative. Green renders it thus : " I laid my gospel before 
them, that they might judge whether I was running or had 
run in vain" (Gr. Gram. pp. 80-83). But prf 7r&>9 is ne forte, 
and is dependent on avede/^rjv. Hofmann also regards the clause 
as a direct question to which a negative answer is anticipated ; 
but the question in such a case would, as Meyer says, be made 
by i TT&)?. QEcumenius proposes also to take it tear epcorrjcnv, 
but as containing a confirmatory result, that he had not run in 
vain. Gwynne, finding that all his predecessors have mistaken 
the real meaning, thus puts it : "I submitted the gospel which 
I preach among the Gentiles, so that I run not now, nor was 
then running in vain ; " but it is simply ungrammatical to 
make ftrf 7ra>9 signify adeo non, and his doctrinal arguments 
rest on a misconception. At the same time the inference of 
Augustine is too strong, that if Paul has not conferred with 
the apostles, ecclesia illi omnino non crederet. Contra Faust. 
lib. 28. The verb rpe-^w is subjunctive, 1 Thess. iii. 5, and 
eSpapov indicative. Stallbaum, Plato, Phced. p. 84, E, vol. i. 
127-8. It does not require that the first should be indica 
tive because the second is, for the use of the mode depends 
on the conception of the writer. Kriiger, 54, 8, 9. The 
first verb in the present subjunctive, where perhaps an opta 
tive might have been expected, describes Paul s activity as still 
lasting; and the past eBpapovis regarded by Fritzsche in a hypo 
thetical sense proposui . . . ne forte frustra cucurrissem, that 
is to say, which might perchance have been the case if I had 
not held this conference at Jerusalem. Or the change of mood, 
causing also change of tense, may mark that the event appre 
hended had taken place. Winer, 56, 2, and examples in 
Gayler, Partic. Negat. p. 327 ; A. Buttmann, p. 303. There was 
fear in the apostle s mind of something disastrous, and that 
generally is expressed : " whether I be running or had run in 
vain," the idea of apprehension being wrapt up in the idiom. 



CHAP. II. 2. 109 

Matt. xxv. 9 ; Rom. xi. 21. But to what does or can the apostle 
refer ? 

1. The ei? tcevov cannot refer to his commission, the validity 
of which depended not on human suffrage, and of which he 
never could have any doubt, nay, which he was employed at 
that moment in justifying. 

2. Nor can the phrase refer to the matter of his preaching. 
He had received it by revelation, and its truth was independent 
altogether of the results of any conference or the decisions of 
any body of men. Chrysostom asks, " Who would be so sense 
less as to preach for so many years without being sure that his 
preaching was true?" Some Catholic expositors hold, however, 
that his preaching needed the sanction of the other apostles or 
of the church. See Corn. a-Lapide, in loc., who stoutly con 
tends against all Novantes or Reformers who do not act like 
Paul, and consult mother church. 

3. Nor can the words mean that he doubted the efficacy 
or success of his labours. So many sermons preached, so many 
sinners converted, so many saints blessed and revived, so many 
churches founded, so many baptisms administered by himself 
or in connection with his apostleship and followed so often by 
the visible or palpable descent of the Divine Spirit, were surely 
manifold and unmistakeable tokens that he had not run in vain. 
And these realities were unaffected by the opinions of any parties 
in Jerusalem. Tertullian is bold enough in hitting Marcion 
to barb his weapon by the supposition, that the apostle was in 
doubt as to his system, that he wished auctoritas antecessorum et 

fidei et prcedicationi suce. Adver. Marcion. iv. 2, vol. ii. p. 163, 
Opera, ed. QEhler. 

4. Nor probably can we regard the whole matter as merely 
subjective, with Chrysostom, Beza, Borger, Winer, Riickert, 
Meyer, and Ellicott, that is, lest in the opinion of others I be 
running or had run in vain; or as Theodoret plainly puts it, ov 
irepl eavrov reOeiicev a\\a irepl rwv aXXcav. This, we apprehend, 
is only the truth partially, not wholly. It was not the mere 
opinion others might form of the gospel which he preached 
among the Gentiles, but more the mistaken action to which it 
might lead. He was now under a commission to ask advice 
on a certain point, the point which characterized his gospel 
among the Gentiles. This private conference enabled him 



110 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

to state what his views were on this very question ; and his 
apprehension was, that if it should be misunderstood, all his 
labour would be lost, if his free and unhampered mode of offer 
ing Christ to poor heathens were disallowed. Should the church, 
in defiance of his arguments, experience, and appeals, insist on 
compliance with circumcision as essential to admission to the 
church, then on this point which signalized his preaching as 
the apostle of the Gentiles, his labour would be so far in vain, 
and the Gentile churches would be in danger of losing their 
precious freedom. No man who had laboured so long and so 
hard to maintain a gospel unrestricted by any ceremonial con 
ditions would wish his labour to be in vain, or so in vain as to 
be authoritatively interfered with, and frustrated as far as pos 
sible by being disowned. And the question involved so much, 
that to enjoin it was to introduce another gospel. No wonder 
that in connection with so momentous a matter fraught with 
such interest to all the Gentile churches, the apostle of the 
Gentiles went up by revelation. But he gained his point, and 
that point was the non-circumcision of Gentile converts, as the 
next verse shows. We do not suppose, with Thiersch, that the 
reality of his apostleship was the matter laid before the private 
conference after the public settlement of the controversy, so 
that thus the " faithful at large were spared the trial of a ques 
tion for which they were not prepared, the recognition of Paul s 
apostleship being much more difficult than the rights of the 
Gentiles." History of the Christian Churchy. 121, Eng. trans. 
But it was his gospel, not his office, which he set before them. 
Winer s view is as remote from the point : Ut ne, si his vide- 
retur paribus eastigandus, publica expostulation ipsius auctoritas 
infringeretur. He had not run in vain 

Ver. .3. .4XA. ouSe TITO? 6 crvv e /zot, "EXXyv wv, ^vajKacrO rj 
7TpiT{j,r)0f]vaL " Ilowbeit not even Titus, who was with me, 
though he was a Greek, was forced to be circumcised." The 
reference is not to what had happened at Antioch prior to the 
visit (Hofmann, Keiche), but to what took place at Jerusalem 
during the visit. The aX\.d is strongly adversative. So far from 
my having run in vain ; in the very headquarters of Jewish 
influence or Judaistic leaning, my Greek companion Titus, 
heathen though he was, had not circumcision forced upon him. 
The apostle s position was tested in the case of Titus, and was 



CHAP. II. 3. Ill 

not overthrown. A\\ ov&e is a climactic phrase at ne quidem; 
"neuerthelesse nother" (Coverdale). Luke xxiii. 15 ; Acts 
xix. 2. Titus is the emphatic word : his was a ruling case, 
"a strong and pertinent instance," as Locke calls it. For various 
reasons that might have been deemed expedient at the moment 
and in the place, his circumcision might have been demanded, 
and yet the tenor of the apostle s preaching among the Gen 
tiles not disallowed. But not even Titus 

"E\\vv wv " Greek though" or " as he was," Kairoi, 
Theodoret, the participle declaring the reason by stating the 
fact. Ponaldson, 493. Titus was a Greek, or of Greek 
extraction, and circumcision might on that account have been 
exacted from him as also my companion ; but on the very same 
account it was resisted. " Greek" is equivalent to being of 
heathen extraction. Mark vii. 26. 

The verb rjvcvyKdaQr}, the opposite of Treldfiv, is a strong ex 
pression, denoting to compel even by torture, to force by threats, 
more mildly by authority (Acts xxvi. 1 1) ; then to constrain by 
argument : Matt. xiv. 22 ; Mark vi. 45. See under ver. 14. 

Two wrong and extreme inferences have been drawn from 
the word : 

1. The Greek fathers, Winer, De Wette, Usteri, Matthies, 
and Schott go to one extreme, and give this meaning, that the 
circumcision of Titus, as a Greek and Paul s companion, was 
not insisted on, so much did Paul find himself at one with the 
leading authorities in the mother church. But this hypothesis 
does not harmonize with the strong expression ^vajtcda-drj, nor 
with the well-known state of opinion and feeling in the church 
at Jerusalem. Such a statement at this point, too, would be a 
forestalling of the argument as based on the results of the con 
ference. The apostle is showing that he had not laboured in 
vain, that the very point which characterized his gospel was 
gained, that point being the free admission of uncircumcised 
Gentiles into the church ; for even in Jerusalem the circum 
cision of Titus was successfully resisted, the enemy was 
worsted even in his citadel. Titus was " with me," and my 
authority in the matter was equipollent with that of the other 
apostles. 

2. Some have gone to another extreme, and have drawn 
this inference from the language, that Titus was not forced to 



112 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

circumcision, that is, he was circumcised voluntarily, and not 
of constraint. Such is the idea of Pelagius, Primasius, Wieseler, 
Baur, Tran a, and others. The verse may bear the inference, 
but the context disallows it. The circumcision of Timothy is 
no case in point; and such an interpretation is in direct conflict 
with the course of argument. For the circumcision of Titus 
would have been a concession of the very point for which the 
agitators were disturbing these churches, first in Antioch, and 
afterwards in Galatia. The " false brethren " for whose sakes, 
or to whose prejudices, the apostle is supposed to have yielded, 
are the very persons with whom he could have no accommoda 
tion. How could he say that he " yielded not," if at the very 
time and on a vital doctrine he had succumbed ? " The apostle 
might be accused of preaching uncircumcisiori ; but had lie 
allowed Titus to be circumcised, a far more pointed charge 
might have been brought against him" (Jowett). And how 
could such a compromise in such a crisis, a compromise which 
the council virtually condemned, secure the truth of the gospel 
coming to or remaining with the Galatian churches (ver. 5) ? 
If Paul yielded in Jerusalem, why not in the provinces ? His 
conduct would have been quoted against himself; the Judaizing 
teachers would have had warrant for their fettered and subverted 
gospel, and " the truth of the gospel " among the Galatians 
would have been seriously endangered. Would not the Judaists 
there have pleaded Paul s example, proposed Titus as a noted 
precedent, and ingeniously pictured out similarity of circum 
stance and obligation ? Holding the ofc ovSe to be genuine, 
we regard him as affirming that very strenuous efforts were 
made, by whom he says not, to have Titus circumcised, efforts 
so keen and persistent as to amount almost to compulsion, but 
which the apostle strenuously and effectively resisted. Such a 
view is in harmony with the course of the historical argument. 
Though there is no sure ground for Lightfoot s assertion, that 
t( probably the apostles recommended Paul to yield the point," 
yet they may have left him to contend alone on this point 
with the alarmists ; for the subsequent IBovres . . . yvovres 
certainly imply, that if they did not alter their views, they 
came at all events to clearer convictions. The apostle proceeds 
to give the reason, or rather the explanation, of the statement 
just made : 



CHAP. II 4. 113 



Ver. 4. A La Be rou9 Trapeiad/cTovs fyevBaBe X.fovs "now it 
was because of the false brethren stealthily introduced." The 
difficulty of this connection lies in the Be, and the Greek fathers, 
expounding their own language, were puzzled with it: 6 Se 
(rvv8ecr[i,o<; TrepiTros (Theodore t). The statement is repeated 
by Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theophylact transforms it into 
ovSe. Jerome says, Sciendum vero quod autem superflua sit, et 
si legatur non kabeat quod ei respondeat. But Be gives an ex 
planation which virtually contains a reason. Klotz-Devarius, 
ii. 362. Rom. iii. 22 (Alford, in loc.}, Phil. ii. 8, are similar, 
but somewhat different. The connection is not, Titus was not 
forced to be circumcised, which, if it had happened, would 
have happened on account of the false brethren ; but rather, 
Titus was not forced to be circumcised, and the reason was, 
because of the false brethren, either they pressed it, or would 
have made a handle of it, and divided the council on that point 
and others allied to it. 1 Nor is Be adversative, and Trepierfji^drj 
to be supplied " but he was circumcised on account of false 
brethren" (Pelagius, Riickert, Elwert, Schmoller), nor is rjvay- 
Kaadrf to be simply repeated. The construction is probably of a 
more general nature, and apparently refers to some unexpressed 
connection between the expected and the actual result of the 
conference with the apostles, the difference being caused by 
the efforts of the false brethren. The clause has also a sort of 
double connection, one suggested by Be with the verse before 
it, and one carried on by ot? with the verse after it. The con 
nection is thus peculiar. The suppositions of an anakolouthon 
Bia T. tyevB. ... 049 ovBe, ver. 5 or of a blending of two con 
structions, the ofc of ver. 5 being redundant or resumptive 
(Winer, Wieseler, Hilgenfeld, Windischmann, Rinck, and Hof- 
mann), need not be detailed. The apostle s words, though loose 
in connection, may be otherwise unravelled, though not perhaps 
to one s complete satisfaction. There is, as Lightfoot says, 
some " shipwreck of grammar. He must maintain his own 
independence, and not compromise the position of the twelve. 
There is need of plain speaking, and there is need of reserve." 
Yet one may say with Luther, Condonandum est Spiritui Sancto 

1 Augustine says, Nam et Titum circumcideret, cum hoc urgerent Judxi 
nisi subintroducti falso fratres idem vellent, etc. De Mendacio, 8, p. 718, 
vol. vi. 

H 



114 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

in Paulo loquenti si peccet aliquando in grammaticam. Ipse 
mag no ardore loquitur. Qui vero ardet, non potest exacte in 
dicendo observare regulas grammaticas et prcecepta rhetorica. 

It is an unnatural and far-fetched connection given by 
Storr, Borger, Rosenmiiller, S troth, Olshausen, Hermann, and 
Gwynne, to connect this verse with avefiqv. or with dvedefirjv 
(Turner). Nor was it necessary to write, " Titus w r as not al 
lowed to be circumcised, yea not; on account of false brethren." 
The preposition Sid assigns the reason propter. Matt. xxiv. 
22; Acts xvi. 3; Rom. viii. 20. The more abstruse meaning 
assigned by Wieseler is not in point, at least is not necessary. 
The 8id gives the ground for the preceding statement as a 
whole, but specially for the non-circumcision of Titus. 

Who the -v/reuSaSeX^ot in Jerusalem, not Antioch (Fritzsche), 
precisely were and the article gives them a known promi 
nence we know not. 2 Cor. xi. 26. The apostles certainly did 
not coincide with them ; and they must have been Judaizers, 
though all Judaizers might not be called " false brethren, 
for many were no doubt sincere Christians, though zealous of 
the law. But this faction who clamoured for circumcision were 
Christians only by profession, owning the Messiahship so 
far as to secure admission to the church, but still Jews in their 
slavish attachment to the old economy and its ritual, and in 
their belief of its permanent and universal obligation. Epi- 
phanius affirms that they were Cerinthus and his party : Hceres. 
xxviii. 4. Their mode of introduction showed what they were 
TOU? TrapeiaaKTOvs. The word occurs only here; the verb 
is used in 2 Pet. ii. 1, and the term is also found in the pro 
logue to the son of Sirach. It appears to be sometimes used 
simply for a stranger, and is rendered by Hesychius and Suidas 
ttXXorpto?, and it is found with the same meaning in Polybius 
more than once ; but the additional sense of surreptitious (sul>- 
introductitios, Tertullian) was in course of time attached to it, 
as its verb here implies. Or may not the term mean that their 
falsehood lay in their surreptitious introduction to the company 
of the apostles, not their admission into the church, that they 
were false in professing to be brethren, while yet they were 
only spies, not from curiosity, but from an earnest and insidious 
longing to enslave the Gentile converts ? Further are they 
characterized : 



CHAP. II. 4. 115 

Omz/es Trapei<rri\6ov " who came in stealthily." Omi/e?, 
"as being a class of men who." Jelf, 816 ; Ellendt, Lex. 
Soph, sub voce significatio non tarn causalis, quam explicativa ; 
Bornemann, Scholia in Luc. p. 135, comp. Jude 4. The verb 
is applied to Simon Magus in the Clementine Homilies, ii. 23. 
Their first object was 

KaTacrK07rrj(T(u rrjv I\ev0eplav THJLWV T)V e^opev ev Xpicrrw 
Irja-ov " to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ 
Jesus." Josh. ii. 2, 3 ; 2 Sam. x. 3, 1 Chron. xix. 3, where it 
stands for the Hebrew ?J"| ; Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 22 ; Polybius, 
v. 20, 2; Eurip. Hel. 1607. Their work was that of spies- 
inspection for a sinister purpose. The aorist may refer to the 
act as done before they were detected ; or they had no sooner 
done with spying out our liberty, than their design became 
apparent. The liberty referred to in the clause is not spiritual 
liberty in general, nor independence of human authority 
(Kohler), but freedom in the sphere where it was menaced 
and threatened to be curtailed. It was freedom from the 
Mosaic ritual, but not in and by itself ; for that freedom con 
tained in it at the same time justification by faith without deeds 
of law. This liberty is precious 

v JEf v e^ofjiev ei> Xpiaro} I^croO " which we have in Christ 
Jesus." It is ours, rj/jiwv, for we are having it in Christ Jesus. 
It is our present, our asserted possession. See Eph. i. 7. Its 
element of being is " in Christ Jesus," not by Him (Fritzsche, 
Brown), though He did secure it, but in Him through living 
faith, and in Him by fellowship with Him. By Him it was 
secured to us, but in Him we possess it. Their purpose was 
"Iva 97/ia? KaTa?)ov\(i)(Tov<riv " in order that they might 
bring us into utter bondage." The ^/m? are not all Christians, 
or the apostle and the heathen Christians (Usteri, Meyer, 
Wieseler, Hofmann), but as in contrast with vpds it is more 
distinctive, and is restricted at the moment to the apostle, Titus, 
and Barnabas, with perhaps the deputation from Antioch re 
presenting the freer party in the church. Still, what was true 
of the ^yLtet? at that moment as a representative party holds true 
of all believers. F, G read iva fjuj. The Textus Receptus 
has KdTaSovXttHTcovTai, vindicated by Reiche, with K and the 
Greek fathers who virtually use the middle; but the other 
reading has in its favour A, B 1 , C, D, K, and it is received 



116 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

by Lachmann and Tischendorf. B 2 , F, G have the subjunctive 
Kara^ovXfoa-coo-Lv. The future is the most probable as the rarest 
form of construction, for the future indicative is very uncommon 
after iva, though found in John xvii. 2 (Lect. Var."), Rev. iii. 9, 
viii. 3, xxii. 14. Winer, 41. The change to the subjunctive 
is thus easily accounted for. There is no reason whatever for 
Bloomfield s assertion, that the received reading was altered on 
account of ignorance of the proper force of the middle voice, 
for the middle voice would be inappropriate here, since the 
subjection is not to themselves, but to the law; or for Fritzsche s 
opinion, that the future is only the subjunctive aorist depra- 
vatum. The term iva points to the final cause, and the /card 
in composition deepens the meaning of the verb. The con 
nection with the future is rare, though O7r&>9 is so employed. 
Gayler, Part. Neg. p. 169, says that it is used sensu improprio 
finem spectante. Horn. 77. vii. 353, xxi. 314. In connection 
with O7r&)9 /^, see Schasfer, Annot. in Demostli. 01. III. vol. i. p. 
277. According to Winer, 41, the future expresses duration, 
or a continued state ; according to others, confident anticipa 
tions of the result ; or, as Alford gives it, " certain sequence in 
the view of the agent ;" or as Meyer puts it, they expected the 
result as certain and enduring als gewiss und fortdauernd. 
Schmalfeld, 142 ; Klotz-Devarius, p. 683. It probably indi 
cates purpose realized in the view of the false teachers. 

Ver. 5. Ol? ov8e irpos wpav eta/iei> rfj viroTcvyfj " To 
whom not even for an hour did we yield in subjection." The 
reading ol? ovBe has preponderant authority. The words are 
found in all Greek uncial codices except D at first hand, and 
in almost all the cursives, in a host of versions and originally 
in the Vulgate. Many of the Greek and Latin fathers so read 
also. Ambrosiaster refers to the reading, and so does Jerome : 
quibus neque. But some of the Latin fathers omitted the nega 
tive. Tertullian justifies the omission, reading nee ad horam, 
and accuses Marcion of vitiatio Scripturce, for Paul did some 
times yield, ad tempus. The omission thus arose from the 
grammatical difficulty, and the desire to preserve the con 
sistency of the apostle who had circumcised Timothy. The 
verb occurs only here, and by the aorist refers to the historic 
past. The dative vTroTa<yfj is that of manner, the article rfj 
before the abstract noun specifying it as the obedience which 



CHAP. II. 6. 117 

was demanded or expected, not " the submission we were 
taunted with," in the circumcision of Titus (Lightfoot). The 
noun does not signify obedience to Christ Jesu obsequio (Her 
mann), but refers to the ot<?, the false brethren in Jerusalem, 
on account of whom and whose conduct Titus was not com 
pelled to be circumcised. The vTrorajfj claimed was a specimen 
of the tcaTaBovXwa-is designed against them. Its resolution by 
Winer and Usteri into ei? rrjv vTrorayrjv, or by Bloomfield into 
7rpo9 T. VTTOT., is not to be thought of; nor can it mean, as with 
the older interpreters, Bi vTrorayris, per subjectionem (Calvin), 
nor is it in apposition with 0*9 (Matthies). The subjection 
was not yielded for the briefest space, ovBe 7rpo9 &pav " not 
even for an hour." 2 Cor. vii. 8 ; Philem. 15. This natural 
interpretation of the clause goes directly against those who, 
thinking that Paul voluntarily circumcised Titus, are obliged 
to strain the meaning thus : obsequium se prcestitisse Paulus 
profitetur, sed non ita prcestitisse ut illis se victum donet vel de 
jure suo aliquid cederet. See Elwert. And the purpose was 
"Iva T) a\,i]deia rov eva<yyeXlov Bcaf^elvr, 7rpo9 vfias " that 
the truth of the gospel might continue with you." " The truth 
of the gospel" is not simply the true gospel, but truth as a 
distinctive element of the gospel, opposed to the false views of 
its cardinal doctrine which the reactionary Judaists propounded. 
That truth was, in its negative aspect, the non-obligation of 
the Mosaic law on Gentile believers, in its positive aspect, 
justification by faith. The long theological note of Matthies 
is foreign to the point and the context. The Sid in the verb 
is intensive "might endure," ad jinem usque. Heb. i. 11 ; 
2 Pet. iii. 4 ; Wilke, sub roce. The phrase Trpbs v/ma<; means, 
with you you Galatians, the readers of the epistle. It is an 
instance, as Alford remarks, " in which we apply home to the 
particular, what, as matter of fact, it only shares as included 
in the general." The apostle s motive in resistance was pure 
and noble, and the Galatians should have highly appreciated it. 
Ver. 6. Airo Be TWV Boxouvrcov elvai ri " But from those 
high in reputation." The construction is plainly broken and 
involved. It is evident from this clause that the first inten 
tion was to end the sentence with ovBev TrpoaeXaftofArjv ; or, 
judging from the words actually employed, it might or would 
have been efiol ovBev TrpoaaveTedrj "but from those high 



118 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

in reputation nothing was added to me ;" instead of which he 
writes : " From them who are high in reputation to me these 
persons high in reputation added nothing." The construction 
begins with a?ro, and passively, then two parenthetical clauses 
intervene, and the parenthesis is not formally terminated, but 
passes into the connected active clause, e^ol yap. Winer, 
63. The apostle is still asserting his apostolic independence. 
First, generally, he went into conference with the ol So/co{We<?, 
and he got nothing from them no additional element of in 
formation or authority. His commission did not receive any 
needed imprimatur from them. But. secondly, the apostle, on 
referring to the ol So/coiWe?, and while such a result as we 
have just given is before his mind, is anxious that his relation 
to them should be distinctly apprehended that he met them 
on a perfect equality ; and so he interjects, " Whatsoever they 
were, it maketh no matter to me." Then, thirdly, to show that 
this declaration was no disparagement of them on any personal 
ground, he subjoins, as if in defence or explanation, " God ac- 
cepteth no man s person." And, lastly, going back to his in 
tended statement, but with an emphatic change of construction, 
he concludes, " To me, it is true, those who are high in reputa 
tion added nothing." The anakolouthon is the result of mental 
hurry, the main thought and subordinate ideas struggling for 
all but simultaneous utterance, his anxiety to be distinctly 
understood in a matter of such high moment as the indepen 
dency of his apostleship and teaching, leads him to commence 
with a statement, then to guard it, and then to explain the very 
guard. This throng of ideas throws him off from his construc 
tion which he does not formally resume, but ends with a dif 
ferent and decided declaration. Such, generally, is, we think, 
the structure of these clauses of terse outspokenness. 

More particularly: UTTO 8e rwv &OKOVVTWV elvat rt "But from 
them who were esteemed something," literally, "who were" or 
"are in high estimation;" qui videbantur, Yulgate; " which seme 
to be great," Tyndale. The &e is resumptive of the thought 
first alluded to in ver. 2, but going off from the previous state 
ment. The phrase is not to be taken subjectively, or as mean 
ing " who thought themselves to be something." Examples 
of similar language are : VTTO TroXX&iy teal SOKOVVTCW elvai n, 
Plato, Gorg. p. 472, A ; eav So/cwcrl n elvai yu-^Sey oWe?, Apolog. 



CHAP. II. 6. 119 

41, E. See also Wetstein, in loc. There is apparently a slight 
element of depreciation in these quotations, but not in the 
clause before us. If those in whose estimation they stood so 
high were the Judaizing faction, such an inference might be 
legitimate, and Bengel and Wieseler adopt it ; but if the per 
sons who held them in honour were the church and such seems 
the case from ver. 9 then the words simply indicate the hio-h 

i v O 

position of the individuals referred to. See under ver. 2. The 
next clause is explanatory 

O-TToioi Trore r)aav, ovBev /JLOI Siaffrepei " whatsoever they 
were, it matters nothing to me ;" quales aliquando fiterint, Vul 
gate. Some give Trore the sense of olim, and understand the 
reference to be to the apostles and their past connection with 
Christ during His public ministry (Luther, Beza, Hilgenfeld, 
Olshausen) ; while others refer it to the life of the apostles prior 
to their call by Christ " Whatever they had been " sinners 
(Estius after Augustine); or but unlearned and ignorant fisher 
men (Ambrosiaster, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Cajetan, and 
a-Lapide). Others suppose a reference to previous opinions sub 
versive of the gospel held by them (Gwynne), or to the past time, 
when they were apostles, but himself was alienus a fide Christi 
(Calvin). Hofmann and Usteri make it "whether apostles or 
not." The first of these views is not without plausibility, for 
the prevailing sense of Trore in the New Testament is temporal; 
but it is too pointed to be contained in these simple words, and 
the reference is one not employed by the apostle usually when he 
maintains his equality. He says that he had what they had as 
in 1 Cor. ix. 1, xv. 10, but does not refer to their personal con 
nection with Christ as giving them any official advantage over 
him, for he was not a " whit behind the very chief est apostles " 
rwv vrrep\iav arrocrro\u>v. 2 Cor. xi. 5. The apostle speaks 
simply of their position in the church when he conferred with 
them, or rather, of the honour they were held in at the period 
of his writing. The Trore, therefore, may be used in an inten 
sive sense cunque as often in interrogations. 

OvSev fioi Siatyepei " nothing to me it matters :" the 
stress on ov8ev utter indifference. The present Siafyepei does 
not express his present view of the case, but his view at the 
time, vividly recalled, or assuming the present. Phrynichus 
says, p. 394, Xeye ovv rl Sia^epet, quoting Demosthenes against 



120 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

the use of the dative rtW, as poi here. Lobeck, however, quotes 
in correction from Aristotle, TIVI Bia^epet, ra appeva, De Part. 
Animal, viii. 555 ; Xenophon, Hier. 1, 7, OVK olff ei nvi oia- 
(f>epei. Plato uses both dative and accusative, Alcibiades, i. 
109 B ; and ./Elian also has ^ei/yo? yap r\ TLVI YI ovoev Sta<})pet f 
Hist. Animal, xiv. 26, vol. i. p. 327, ed. Jacobs. Chrysostom 
writes too strongly in saying that " he presses hard on the 
apostles for the sake of the weak." Theophylact, on the other 
hand, says, OVK e^ovOev<ov rou? dyiovs " not vilipending those 
holy men." It matters nothing to me, and the reason is 

TIpocrwTrov @eo? dvOpcaTrov ov \a/ji(3dvei " God accepteth 
no man s person." The asyndeton, or want of any connecting 
particle, gives point to the statement (Winer, 60), and by the 
peculiar order of the words the emphatic <9eo9 is placed next 
the contrasted dvdpwTrov. The phrase Trpoawrrov \a^dvei is 
a Hebraism, a translation of O^D KEO, which means " to favour, 
to show favour," used first of all in a good sense of God in 
Gen. xix. 21: Gen. xxxii. 20; 1 Sam. xxv. 35; 2 Kings iii. 
14 ; Job xlii. 8 ; then specially in a bad sense to show undue 
favour to, Lev. xix. 15; Deut. x. 17; Ps, Ixxxii. 2; Prov. xviii. 
5 ; Siracli iv. 27. But in the New Testament the phrase is 
invariably used in a bad sense : Matt. xxii. 16 ; Mark xii. 14 ; 
Luke xx. 21, etc.; to favour one for mere face or appearance, 
Jas. ii. 17. Hence the nouns 7rpocr&)7ro/V?? \|ria, TrpoacoTro- 
A^TTT???, and the corresponding verb. God is impartial in the 
bestowment of His gifts and in the selection of His instruments. 
The apostle takes God for his model, and he judges and acts 
accordingly. " I acted," as if he had said, " in my estimate of 
these men, and in my conference with them, without regard to 
such external elements as often influence human judgments 
and occasionally warp them." He showed no undue leaning 
on them, though they justly stood so high in the esteem and 
confidence of the mother church in Jerusalem. Koppe s con 
jecture, that the apostle might be thinking of his mean bodily 
appearance, is really bathos. Chrysostom gives another turn 
to the thought : " Although they allow circumcision, they shall 
render an account to God ; for God will not accept their per 
sons because they are great in rank and station." But this 
future and judicial reference is not in the context, which is 
describing present feeling and events. 



CHAP. II. 6. 121 

The resumed statement is : 

^Ep,ol yap ol SoKovvres ov8ev TrpoaaveOevro " to me in fact 
those in repute communicated nothing," e/W emphatic. If <ydp 
assign a reason, it may be connected with ovSev, /JLOI Siatjiepei 
"it matters nothing to me, for they added nothing to me;" or it 
may be joined to the preceding clause, TrpoawTrov 6eos dvdpw- 
nrov ov \a^dvei God is impartial, for lie has put me on the 
same level (auf so gleiche Linie, Meyer) with the persons so 
high in reputation. Both connections appear unnatural, linking 
what is the main thought to a clause subordinate and virtually 
parenthetical. Nor will e/iot <ydp bear to be translated mihi 
inquam (Peile, Scholefield). But yap may be regarded rather 
as explicative. Donaldson, 618, says yap is often placed first 
with an explanatory clause. Composed of 76, verily, com 
bined with apa, " therefore," it signifies " the fact is," " in 
fact, as the case stands." Klotz-Devarius, ii. 233 ; Kiihner, 
324, 2. 

The verb irpoffavaT&hjfU is to impart, to communicate ; in 
the middle voice " on their part." This is the real significa 
tion of the verb, though the idea of " additional" or new be 
found in it by Beza, Erasmus, Bengel, Winer, Usteri, Wieseler, 
Hilgenfeld, and others ; but Trpocr- in composition will not sig 
nify insuper. Though, however, the signification of the verb be 
simply " they imparted," the sense or inference plainly is, they 
imparted nothing new, as Meyer has it, um mich zu beleliren. 
The men of note, ol So/covvres, imparted nothing nothing which 
was so unknown, that he felt himself instructed in his preach 
ing or strengthened in his commission. The least that can be 
said is, they did not interfere with him, and they felt that they 
could not. Chrysostom is therefore too strong when he explains 
it, TouTecm, /za#(We9 TO. epa ovSev TrpoaeOrjKai , ov&ev StcopOco- 
<rav. In a word, the apostle makes this statement in no spirit 
of vainglory, but simply narrates the naked facts. 

Other forms of exegesis have been tried. 1. Some render 
the first clause, as Gomarus, Borger, Bagge, quod attinet ad as 
regards the persons high in repute, thus giving avro the sense 
of irepi, and rendering the next clause, as Theophylact, ouSe/zta 
fj,oi (frpovrw, or as Olshausen paraphrases, " I do not trouble 
myself about the distinguished apostles in the matter." 2. 
Homberg in his Parerga, p. 275, thus renders : ab illis vero, 



122 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

qui videntur esse aliquid, non differo. Vult enim, he adds, se 
non esse minorem reliquis, quanticunque etiam fuerint. This 
interpretation makes CITTO superfluous, and also /not, consueto 
pleonasmo; and Homberg quotes in justification several examples 
which are far from bearing him out admitting, too, that the 
clause is the same in meaning with ovSev Stamped. (Similarly 
Ewald.) 3. Eisner, throwing airo aside, renders, qni videbantur 
esse aliquid nihil ad me, nulla ab illis pervmit ad me utilitas. 
4. Heinsius, keeping a?ro, renders, de Us autem qui existimantur 
esse aliquid, qualescunque it fuerint, niliil mild accedit, a mean 
ing which the verb will not bear. 5. Bengel s paraphrase is, 
Nihil mea interest quales tandem fuerint illi ex insignioribus, 
etc. : this would require in the last clause CLTTO rwv SOKOVVTCOV, 
and the paraphrase is very loose and disjointed. 6. As re 
mote from the context, and subversive of the order of thought, 
are the two methods proposed by Kypke, which need not be 
given at length ; one of them, reckoned by him the prefer 
able, being, " It matters not to me whether these false brethren 
were held in high esteem or not." 7. Eiickert gives the 
sense as, Was ihn anlangt, ist es mir cianz fjleiclicjidtig an 
exegesis not unlike that of Castalio, Calovius, Zacharia?. 8. 
Still worse is the exegesis of Zeltner, given by Wolf : " Of 
those who seemed to be somewhat TI, what ? What, in a 
word, of those in repute ? What they were formerly, whether 
they held another opinion or not, I am not concerned ;" the 
view also of Schrader. 9. Hermann proposes an aposiopesis, 
CLTTO TWV &OKOVVTWV elvai n quid metuerim ? But this is not 
the kind of style for such an oratorical pause. 10. Kohler 
joins the clause to the last clause of the previous verse : 
"That the truth of the gospel might remain with you, (as a 
gift) from those who were high in reputation." But this 
exegesis mars the unity of thought, and the persons high in 
reputation were not specially concerned with the preaching and 
permanence of a free gospel among the Gentiles. 11. Words 
worth, after Bengel, calls UTTO paraphrastic, and takes it as 
indicating origin or quarter : " But it is no matter to me Avhat 
sort of persons were from those who seemed to be somewhat." 
So also Gwynne, who finds the syntax to be remarkably simple, 
and its parsing a "schoolboy s" exercise. On the other hand, 
Laurent conjectures that the difficulty arises from the apostle s 



CHAP. II. 7. 123 

habit of adding marginal notes to his epistles after he had 
dictated them, and that ver. 6 is one of these notes : Neutest. 
Studien, p. 29, Gotha 1866. 12. Hofmann contrives to con 
strue without any anakolouthon, making the parenthesis begin 
with oVoioij-and ending it with aXXa rovvavriov, which words 
he dissevers from ver. 7 for this purpose, a clever but quite 
unnatural mode of sequence. All these forms of exegesis, more 
or less ingenious, are out of harmony with the context and the 
plain significance of the terms employed, in such broken and 
hurried statements. 

They not only gave me no instructions, as if my course had 
been disapproved by them, " but on the contrary" aXXa rov- 
vavrlov their conduct was the very opposite ; neither jealousy, 
nor disparagement of me far from it, " but on the contrary, 
they gave me the right hand of fellowship." 

Ver. 7. A\Xa rovvavrlov, ISovres on TTCTT la-reveal TO evay- 
ye\iov r?7<? d/cpo fiver (as, tcaOax; TTerpo? T>}? 7repiTo/j,fjs " But on 
the contrary, seeing that I have been entrusted with the gospel 
of the uncircumcision, even as Peter was with that of the cir 
cumcision." The passive verb governs the accusative of the 
thing, the active combining a dative with it. Rom. iii. 2, 1 Cor. 
ix. 17, 1 Tim. i. 11; Winer, 32, 5 ; Polybius, xxxi. 26, 7. 
Other examples may be found in Fischer, ad Weller. Gram. 
Grcec. vol. iii. p. 437. The perfect passive, emphatic by 
position, denotes the duration of the trust, or that he still held 
it. The resolution of the more idiomatic TreTrla-rev/j-ai TO evayy. 
into TreTricrTeuTai pot TO euay. is found in F, G. 

The noun aKpo/Bva-rlas, " of the uncircumcision," is equiva 
lent to TWV aKpo/Bvarwv, Rom. ii. 26, iii. 30, the gospel as 
addressed to them or belonging to them, the gospel as it was 
preached by him among the Gentiles. Of course, the gospel 
of the circumcision is that belonging to Jews, as specially 
preached to them by Peter Kadws. It is plain that this agree 
ment was the result of the apostle s frank disclosures. They 
had confidence in his statements, and seeing that his was a 
divine stewardship for a special sphere of labour, they could 
not, they durst not, oppose it. It might not be in all points to 
their perfect liking, it might not quite tally with their ideas of 
becomingness ; but they could not set themselves against it. 
They now did more than allow Paul " to fight his own battle" 



124 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

(Jowett) : not only did they leave him undisturbed in the field, 
but the council, after a characteristic address by Peter, the 
apostle of the circumcision, and on the motion of James, sent 
out an edict which must have smoothed away some prejudices 
and confirmed the success of the apostle among the Gentiles. 
One should like so much to know what the beloved disciple 
said at the private conference, or what he who lay in the 
Master s bosom addressed to the public assembly. 

The verse implies that Peter was a representative of the 
other apostles who laboured among the circumcision. Yet 
he had been the first to evangelize and baptize the heathen 
(Acts x. xi.) ; and on being challenged for his conduct, he 
had made a pointed and successful vindication. It is not 
implied by this language that there were two gospels, or even 
two distinct types of one gospel. But circumcision formed 
the point of difference. The Jew might practise it, for it was 
a national rite ; but it was not to be enforced on the Gentile. 
The first Epistle of Peter shows the accordance of his theo 
logy with that of Paul. In Peter there are Jewish imagery 
and allusions, but no Judaistic spirit. The relation of the 
old economy to Gentile converts is not once glanced at. He 
does not refer to its overthrow, for to him the old Israel had 
passed into the spiritual Israel which had burst the national 
barriers. He does not write of Judaism and Christianity as 
rival faiths, or of the one supplanting the other ; but to him 
Judaism had reached a predicted spirituality and fulness of 
blessing in the Messiah, by "the sprinkling of the blood of Him" 
who was the "Lamb without spot." So that, as Tertullian 
tersely puts it, this arrangement was only distributio officii, not 
separatio evangelii, nee ut aliud alter sed ut aliis alter prcedicarent. 
De Prescript. Ilccret. xxiii. vol. ii. p. 22, ed. GEhler. 

Ver. 8. This parenthetical verse gives the ground of the 
preceding statement. The same God who wrought effectually 
for Peter wrought effectually for Paul too ; therefore the mis 
sion of Paul, divine in its source and sustentation, could not 
but be recognised. 

o 
O <yap evep<yrjcra$ Herpw et? airocrro\r]V Tr)s Treptro/ir}?, 

evripyrjcre Kal e /iol et? ra Wvt] " For He who wrought for 
Peter toward the apostleship of the circumcision, the same 
wrought for me also towards the Gentiles." This he adds, 



CHAP. II. 9. 125 

Jerome says, ne quis eum putaret detrahere Petro. The datives 
ITeTpw and pot, as Meyer observes, are not governed by eV in 
the verb which is not a pure compound, as eV could not stand 
independently. They are therefore dativi commodi. The 
purpose of the divine inworking is expressed fully in the first 
portion, et9 aTrocrro^v " with a view to the apostleship," for 
its successful discharge ; at least such is the sense implied, 
2 Cor. ii. 12, Col. i. 29. The last clause, fully expressed, as 
in the Syriac version, would have been et? aTrocrroXrjv TWV 
eOvwv ; but the curter form is used by the apostle (comparatio 
compendiaria). Winer, 66, /. The inworker is God, and 
that inworking comprehends every element of commission and 
qualification outpouring of the Spirit, working of miracles, 
and all the various endowments and adaptations which fitted 
both men so fully for their respective spheres. Acts xv. 12. 

Ver. 9. Kal yvovres rrjv tfapiv rrjv SoOeicrdv fj,oi " And 
coming to the knowledge of the grace which was given to me, 
James and Cephas and John, who are reputed pillars, gave to 
me and Barnabas right hands of fellowship ; that we should go 
or preach to the Gentiles, but they to the circumcision." First, 
Ibovres, perceiving, that is, probably struck by Paul s repre 
sentation of his work as the apostle of the Gentiles, a phrase 
parallel to Kal yvovres, " and learning," from the details com 
municated to them. The %api? here is not barely the apostolic 
office (Piscator, Estius), nor yet the success of his labours 
potissimum de successu (Winer, Fritzsche), but all that divine 
gift embodied as well in the apostolate as in all the freely 
bestowed qualifications for the successful discharge of its duties. 
See under Eph. iii. 8. They came to a knowledge of the divine 
gift enjoyed by Paul, implying that they had not distinctly 
understood it before. If they added nothing to Paul, he cer 
tainly added something to them. Horn. i. 5, xii. 3. 

Ta/c&)/3o<? Kal K^as Kal Iwdvvrjs "James and Cephas 
and John." The order of the names differs. A omits KOI 
Kr)(j)as ; D, F, G, and the Itala read JTer/ao? Kal laKw/Sos, 
followed by few supporters ; while the reading as we have 
given it is found in B, C, K, L, N, and versions and fathers. 
The placing of Ki)(f)a$ first is a natural correction from the 
mention of Peter in the previous verse ; but James is first, 
from his immediate official status, and he must have had 



126 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

great influence at the consultation. So much did he become 
the central figure, that Irenseus characterizes the other apostles 
as Id autem qui circa Jacobum apostoli. Advers. Hceres. 
iii. 12, vol. i. p. 494, ed. Stieren. See Essay at the end of 
previous chapter. There is no good reason for supposing that 
the James of this verse is other than the Lord s brother, i. 19, 
who according; to all tradition was head of the church in Jerti- 

O 

salem. Stier, Wieseler, and Davidson, however, take the 
James of this verse for the Apostle James, son of Alpheeus. 
But is it not likely that some clause or epithet would have been 
given to the James of the second chapter, if he were different 
from the James of the first ? or how were his readers to be 
guided to make the necessary distinction ? See p. 98. The 
two participles have these proper names as substantives. Of 
them the apostle adds 

Ol So/cowre? arv\ot elvai " who have the reputation of 
being pillars," not, as in Authorized Version, " who seemed to 
be," either in tense or signification. The Genevan has, "which 
are taken to be pyllers." There is no pleonasm in SoKovvres. 
Mark x. 42; Luke xxii. 24; Josephus, Antiq. xix. 6, 3; Winer, 
65-7. The figure in the term o"rv\ot, is a common and 
natural one. It represents the Hebrew "NBy in Ex. xiii. 21, 22, 
xiv. 24, referring to the pillar of fire, and it occurs often in a 
literal sense in the description of the tabernacle. Its tropical 
use may be seen in the New Testament, 1 Tim. iii. 15, Rev. 
iii. 12. It is employed often by rabbinical writers as an epithet 
of great teachers and saints. See Schoettgen, i. 728, 9 ; com 
pare Prov. ix. 1. It occurs in a personal sense in the Epistle 
of the Church at Lyons crruXou? ebpaiovs, Euseb. Hist. EccL 
v. 1 ; in the first Epistle of Clement, i. 5, Peter and Paul are 
ol fjieyicrTOL Kal Si/catoTaroi aTV\ot eStcoy^cray. See Horn. 
Clement, xviii. 14, eTrra arvXovs /cooyiw. Many examples from 
the Greek and Latin fathers will be found in Suicer, Thes. 
sub voce. The figure is found also in the classics : aTv\oi <yap 
OLKWV elal 7roiSe9 apaeves, Euripides, Ipli. Aid. 57 ; u-v/r^X?}? 
(7x67775 CTTV\.OV TroBrjp T], yEschylus, Agam. 897 ; also, stantem 
columnam, Horace, Od. i. 35. The accent of cmXo9 is doubt 
ful, though probably evidence preponderates for crrOXo? 
perhaps the old xEolic form : Lipsius, p. 43, Leipzig 1863. 
Ellicott and Tischendorf print it crruXot, and the v is invariably 



CHAP. II. 9. 127 

long in poetry, though it is short in the Latin stylus. Rost und 
Palm, sub voce. These three men were esteemed as " pillars," 
and deservedly so, as they supported and graced the Christian 
edifice which is not necessarily imaged here as a temple, 
zealous, gifted, mighty, and successful labourers, able to look 
beyond the narrow and national boundary within which some 
would confine the gospel, and qualified to guide the church in 
any crisis with enlightened and generous advice; for they 
solemnly and formally recognised Paul on this occasion. 

Je|ta? e&wfcav e /nol teal Bapvdfta tcoivcwtas " gave to me 
and Barnabas right hands of fellowship." The first noun is 
far removed from the genitive which it governs. Such a sepa 
ration when the genitive follows sometimes happens from the 
sudden intervention of some emphatic or explanatory phrase. 
John xii. 11; Eom. ix. 21; 1 Cor. viii. 7; Phil. ii. 10; 1 
Thess. ii. 13 ; 1 Tim. iii. 6 ; Winer, 30, 3, note 2. One may 
say in this case that Seta<? e&toKav stand first, referring to the 
visible hearty pledge of recognition; and that efiol Kol Bapvdfia 
follow, from their close relation to eScoKav and icoivwvias, which 
are put in immediate connection with the explanation. Both 
nouns are anarthrous. The first noun with this verb is often used 
without the article, the second wants it by correlation. Middle- 
ton, pp. 36, 49, ed. Kose ; Apollonius, de Synt, p. 90 ; 1 Mace, 
xi. 50, 62, xiii. 50. Compare, however, Gersdorf s Beitrage, 
pp. 314-334. For tcoivcavta, see under Phil. i. 5. The giving 
of the right hand was a common pledge of friendship or cove 
nant then as now. While the Hebrew T jri3 means " to sur 
render," as in 2 Chron. xxx. 8, Lam. v. 6, it denotes also to 
pledge, 2 Kings x. 15, Ezra x. 19. Compare Ezek. xvii. 18, 
Prov. xi. 21, Lev. vi. 2; Diodor. Sic. 16, 43; Xen. Anab. ii. 3, 
11; Aristoph. Nub. 81 ; Euripides, Medea, 91, and Person s note. 
This giving of right hands was the pledge of fellowship, the 
recognition of Paul and Barnabas as fellow-labourers. Chry- 
sostom exclaims, */2 crvvea-ea)? vvrep/SoXr/ fcal <rv[Mfxov(a$ d?roSetf t? 
avavrip priTos. " It was no such parting as when Luther in 
the castle of Marburg refused the hand of Zuingle, or when 
James Andrea? refused that of Theodore Beza at Montbeliard" 
(Thiersch). The purpose was 

"Iva T^et? 69 TCL e&vq " in order that we unto the heathen." 
The particle /j,ev is found after T^CI? in A, C, D, K, many cur- 



128 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

sives, and several of the fathers ; but the simple pronoun is 
read in B, F, H, K, L, K 1 , Vulgate and Clarom. and Gothic 
version, in Origen, Theophylact, CEcumenius, and in most of 
the Latin fathers. Griesbach marks it as probable, Tischen- 
dorf omits it, Lachmann and Meyer accept it ; but Wieseler, 
Ellicott, Alford, and Lightfoot rightly reject it. It seems 
to have been inserted to produce a correspondence with the 
following Se. The clause wants a verb, and is all the more 
emphatic, as if no verb of sufficient fulness and distinction had 
presented itself readily or at the moment to his mind. The 
words " we to the Gentiles " say all that is needful. His 
readers could easily divine what the phrase implied. Compare 
Rom. iv. 16, 1 Cor. i. 31, 2 Cor. viii. 13, iva being similarly 
placed in all these quotations. 

Avrol &e el$ Trjv TT^ITO^V " and they unto the circum 
cision," the abstract used as in ver. 7 for the concrete. Are 
not the Jews so named here on purpose, as if the reference were 
not only to the covenant rite, but also to what had been the 
theme of dissension at Antioch and the subject of present con 
sultation in Jerusalem I while Wvr) is used in its broad sense, 
of all the nations beyond Palestine, as nations in want of a free 
and unclogged offer of the gospel. Some would supply evay- 
ye\ia)fjie0a COVTCU, as Winer and others ; but et? with a per 
sonal reference is not used by Paul after this verb. Yet we 
have a very similar connection in 2 Cor. x. 16, and this prepo 
sition follows the corresponding noun, 1 Thess. ii. 9; see 1 Pet. 
i. 25. Meyer in his last edition drops his objection to evayye\. 
as the supplement, which he had stated in his third edition. 
Others propose TropevOwjjLev Qwcnv, as Bengel and Fritzsche ; 
but the apostle s idea implies both these verbs ; Erasmus and 
Schott fill in by apostolatu fungeremur. Though this agreement 
referred generally to spheres of labours, it cannot strictly be 
called a geographical division ; nor was it a minute mapping out 
of future travels. Thousands of Jews were in " the dispersion," 
among whom the three apostles might labour ; and Paul, " as 
his custom was," went first to the Jews : Acts xvii. 2, 10, xviii. 
5, xix. 8. He speaks in his imprisonment of some of his com 
panions "who are of the circumcision," Col. iv. 11 ; and Peter 
and John travelled into heathen countries. Peter is found in 
Paul s way at Antioch ; but Paul " would not build on another 



CHAP. II. 10. 129 

man s foundation " " would not boast in another man s line 
of things made ready to our hand." 

Ver. 10. Movov TWV TTTW^WV iva fj,vr]fj,ovev(i)/nev, o /cal 
aa avro TOVTO Troifjaai " Only they asked us that 
we should remember the poor, which very thing I also was 
forward to do." The adverb belongs to the previous clause 
beginning with iva. There is no formal ellipse, and no verb 
like alrovvres or Trpoa-KaXovvres needs to be supplied (Borger, 
Winer, Riickert, Usteri) : vi. 12 ; 2 Thess. ii. 7. The clause 
is scarcely a limitation of the compact, but is rather an under 
standing, so slight as not to contradict what the apostle has just 
said " they communicated nothing to me." They gave us the 
right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles; only 
we were to remember the poor of the circumcision. Horn. xv. 
26, 27 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 3. The order of the words is peculiar, and 
fiovov iva TWV TTTCO-^MV in D, F, etc., is an evident emendation. 
The position of rwv TTTW^WV is emphatic, John xiii. 29, 2 Thess. 
ii. 7 ; and this irregular position occurs in a different form in 
the previous verse. Winer, 61, 3. For a similar position of 
iW, see 1 Cor. vii. 29, 2 Cor. ii. 4. The emphasis is thus on 
" the poor," the understanding being that Paul and Barnabas 
were to remember them. The subjective verb fiv^fjiovevw governs 
here the genitive, though occasionally it is followed by the 
accusative, indicating a different aspect of idea. Matthiae, 
347 ; Winer, 30, 10, c. Many believers in Juda3a were 
poor, and the victims of persecution. It would be wrong to 
limit the poor to the city of Jerusalem (Piscator and Estius). 
In the contract that thev should go to the Gentiles to make 

/ O 

them the special field of labour, they were, however, to take 
with them this understanding, that they were to remember the 
Jewish poor believers. To "remember the poor" is a quiet 
Christian way of expressing generous pecuniary benefaction, 
not the idle and cheap well-wishing reprobated by the Apostle 
James. The apostle now adds this brief explanation for him 
self ; for he and Barnabas soon after parted : 

V O fcal ecTTTovoacra avTo TOVTO Troiijaai, " which very thing 
I was also forward to do." The repetition of avro TOVTO after 
the relative is no direct imitation of a well-known Hebraism. 
Nordheimer, ffeb. Gram. 897, 898. In such cases ayro? is 
the pronoun most commonly employed in the Septuagint. 

I 



130 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Thiersch, De Pcntat. Alex. p. 123, lias noted some examples 
in the Seventy, as Gen. xxiv. 37, xxviii. 13, xlviii. 15; Ex. 
xxx. 6 ; Num. xiii. 20 : and also in the New Testament, as 
Eev. vii. 2, xii. 14. Ellicott adds Mark i. 7, vii. 25. The 
idiom before us is thus no Hebraism (Ixiickert, Baumgarten- 
Crusius) ; nor are avro TOVTO redundant, as Piscator and 
many of the older interpreters affirm. The idiom is well 
known. Kuhner, ii. p. 527 ; Winer, 21, 3, 2, 22, 4 ; Stall- 
baum, Plato, Goryias, p. 285 (509 E.) ; Sophocles, Pldloctet. 
315, and there Hermann s note in reply to Person s conjecture 
in his Adversaria, p. 199. See under Phil. i. 6. The emphasis 
is on the verb the apostle was forward to do it, and needed not 
any such recommendation. The past tense of the verb needs not 
have either a perfect (Conybeare) or a pluperfect signification, 
as denoting time past with reference to the conference, that is, 
before it (Jatho, Webster and Wilkinson) ; but it signifies, that 
at that past period now referred to, he was forward to remem 
ber the poor " also," Kai as forward to do it as they were 
to stipulate for it. Probably the Galatians did not need to be 
told this, for he informs the Corinthians, 1 Cor. xvi. 1, " Now 
concerning the collection for the saints, as I have mven order 

O / O 

to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye." Compare Horn, 
xv. 26, where Macedonia and Achaia are said to make a col 
lection et9 TOU? 7TTftnOi>9 ro)V dylcov rwv ev Iepovcra\i]/A, and 
the argument which follows in ver. 27. Such benevolence 
shows the unity of the church amidst this apparent diversity of 
procedure. The special spiritual obligations under which the 
Gentiles lay to the Jews, were partially and cheerfully fulfilled 
in those temporal charities which the Jews did not hesitate to 
receive from their Gentile brethren. But the sending of this 

O 

money was no tribute, no token of their dependence on the 
mother church (Olshausen) : Acts xxi. 17, xxiv. 17, and Acts 
xi. 29 at an earlier period ; 2 Cor. viii. and ix. To take 6 for 
Si o, a conjecture hazarded by Schott, is vague and inadmis 
sible here, though it may occur in poetry. Allied to this is 
another meaning, den deshalb, "for that very reason :" 2 Pet. 
i. 5 ; Xen. Anab. 1, 9, 21 ; Plato, Protag. 310 E ; Winer, 21, 
3, 2 ; Matthiae, 470. Such a mode of construction is here 
quite unnecessary. Nor can the reference be that which Usteri 
quotes from his friend Studer, " even this," that is, " nothing 



CHAP. II. 10. 131 

more did the apostles communicate ;" nor can it be " which also, 
that same, trifling and inconsiderable as it was" (Gwynne). It 
simply refers to the fact that the very thing stipulated was the 
very thing the apostle was forward to do, and independently al 
together of the stipulation. It is needless to ascribe the poverty 
of the believers in Jerusalem to any such remote cause as the 
free table established after Pentecost, and which was furnished 
by a kind of voluntary communism ; for we know not how long 
the experiment lasted, or to what extent it was supported. Nor 
need we think of any abuse of the doctrine of the second advent 
as being near at hand (Jowett), an error in the Thessalonian 
church which apparently unhinged its social relations. We 
have but to remember " the spoiling of your goods" in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, and what the apostle says to the Thes- 
salonians, 1 Thess. ii. 14, 15, " For ye, brethren, became fol 
lowers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ 
Jesus : for ye also have suffered like things of your own coun 
trymen, even as they have of the Jews ; who both killed the 
Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us ; 
and they please not God, and are contrary to all men." 

The three apostles here referred to, whatever their prepos 
sessions, yield to the force of Paul s statements. Peter also 
at the council called the imposition of the law on Gentile con 
verts an intolerable yoke, for the Gentile was saved by the 
same grace as the Jew. Peter appealed only to the great facts 
which had met him unexpectedly in his own experience ; but 
James, in the old theocratic spirit, connected the outburst of 
Christianity with ancient prophecy as its fulfilment. In his 
thought, God takes out of the Gentiles a people for His name, 
and by an election as real as when He separated Israel of old 
from all the nations. The prophecy quoted by him describes 
the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David, not by restoring his 
throne in Jerusalem over Jews, and over heathen who as a test 
of their loyalty become proselytes, but by the reconstitution 
of the theocracy in a more spiritual form, and over myriads 
of new subjects "all the Gentiles" without a hint of their 
conformity to any element of the Mosaic ritual. This expan 
sion of the old economy had been foreseen ; it was no out 
growth unexpected or unprovided for. Believers were not to 
be surprised at it, or to grudge that their national supremacy 



132 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

should disappear amidst the Gentile crowds, who in doing 
homage to David s Son, their Messiah, should raise " the 
tabernacle of David" to a grandeur which it had never at 
tained, and could never attain so long as it was confined to 
the territory of Judaea. The Jewish mind must have been 
impressed by this reasoning this application of their own 
oracles to the present crisis. So far from being perplexed by 
it, they ought to have been prepared for it ; so far from being 
repelled by it, they ought to have anticipated it, prayed for 
it, and welcomed its faintest foregleams, as in the preaching 
of Philip in Samaria, and of Peter to Cornelius. Paul and 
Barnabas, in addressing the multitude " the church, the 
apostles and elders" did not launch into a discussion of the 
general question, or attempt to demonstrate abstract principles. 
First, in passing through Phenice and Samaria, they "de 
clared the conversion of the Gentiles;" and secondly, at the 
convention theirs was a simple tale which they allowed to work 
its own impression they " declared what miracles and wonders 
God had wrought among the Gentiles by them." The logic 
of their facts was irresistible, for they could not be gainsaid. 
Let their audience account for it as they chose, and endeavour to 
square it with their own opinions and beliefs as best they might, 
God was working numerous and undeniable conversions among 
the Gentiles as visibly and gloriously as among themselves. 

The haughty exclusiveness of the later Judaism made it 
impossible for the church to extend without some rupture and 
misunderstanding of this nature. That exclusiveness was 
nursed by many associations. For them and them alone was 
the temple built, the hierarchy consecrated, and the victim slain. 
Their history had enshrined the legislation of Moses, the priest 
hood of Aaron, the throne of David, and the glory of Solomon. 
The manna had been rained upon their fathers, and the bright 
Presence had led them. Waters had been divided and enemies 
subdued. Sinai had been lighted up, and had trembled under 
the majesty and voice of Jehovah. Their land was hallowed 
by the only church of God on earth, and each of them was a 
member of it by birth. His one temple was on Mount 
Moriah, and they gloried in the pride of being its sole pos 
sessors. The archives of their nation were at the same time 
the records of their faith. Nothing was so opposed to their 



CHAP. II. 10. 133 

daily prepossessions as the idea of a universal religion. Or if 
the boundaries of the covenanted territory were to be widened, 
Zion was still to be the centre. Foreign peoples were to have 
no separate and independent worship ; all nations were to flow 
to the " mountain of the Lord s house, established in the top of 
the mountains, and exalted above the hills." It is impossible for 
us to realize the intensity of Jewish feeling on these points, as 
it was ever influencing Hebrew believers to relapse into their 
former creed, and leading others into the self-deceptive and 
pernicious middle course of Judaizers. In such circumstances, 
the work of the Apostle Paul naturally excited uneasiness 
and suspicion in the best of them, for it was so unlike their 
own sphere of service. But the elder apostles were at this 
period brought to acquiesce in it, and they virtually sanctioned 
it, though there might not be entire appreciation of it in all its 
extent and certain consequences. 

There is no ground, therefore, for supposing that there was 
any hostility between Paul and these elder apostles, or any de 
cided theological difference, as many strenuously contend for. 
They all held the same cardinal truths, as is manifest from the 
Gospel and Epistles of John, and from the Epistles of Peter. 
There are varying types of thought arising from mental pecu 
liarity and spiritual temperament, accidental differences show 
ing more strongly the close inner unity. Nor is the Epistle 
of James in conflict with the Pauline theology. It was in 
all probability written before these Judaistic disputes arose ; 
for, though addressed to Jews, it makes no mention of them. 

/ O w 

Its object among other things was to prove that a justifying 
faith must be in its nature a sanctifying faith ; that a dead 
faith is no faith, and is without all power to save ; and that 
from this point of view a man is justified by works the pro 
ducts of faith being identified with itself, their one living 
source. 

Nor can we say that there were, even after the convention, 
no misunderstandings between Paul and the other apostles. 
While they were at one with him in thought, they seem not to 
have had the same freedom to act out their convictions. There 
was no opposition on any points of vital doctrine ; but though 
they held that his success justified him, they did not feel at 
liberty, or had not sufficient intrepidity, to follow his example. 



1 34 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Though their earlier exclusiveness was broken, their nationality 
still remained, their conservatism had become an instinct 
"they to the circumcision." This mere separation of sphere 
might not give rise to division, but these pharisaic Judaists, 
who were not so enlightened and considerate as their leaders, 
were the forefathers of that Ebionitism which grew and fought 
so soon after that period, having its extreme antagonism in 
Marcion and his adherents. How the other apostles who had 
left Jerusalem at the Herodian persecution, and may have 
been in different parts of the world, acted as to these debated 
matters, we know not. It is storied, indeed, that John, living 
amidst the Hellenic population of Ephesus, kept the paschal 
feast on the fourteenth day of the month, in accordance with 
the Jewish reckoning; and that he wore in his older years 
one special badge of a priest. Such is the report of Poly- 
crates ; l but no great credit is to be attached to it, for it may 
be only a literal misapplication to the " Divine" of the sacerdotal 
imagery of his own Apocalypse. But the stand made by Paul 
subjected him to no little obloquy and persecution from Jews 
and Judaists. His apostleship was depreciated as secondary, 
and liis doctrine impugned as not according to truth. His perils 
were not sympathized with; nay, some during his imprisonment 
preached Christ "of envy and strife," intending thereby to 
"add affliction to his bonds." The mournful admission is wrung 
from him during his last hours, " All they which are in Asia 
be turned away from me." For his bold and continuous asser 
tion of Gentile freedom he was frowned upon during his life, 
and no doubt censured as pragmatic, vehement, and unreason 
able in the advocacy of his latitudinarian views ; and after his 
death, he was for the same reason caricatured in the Clementines 
under the name of Simon Magus, the malignant and worsted 
antagonist of the apostle of the circumcision. And yet Paul was 
the truest Jew of them all, true in spirit and in act to the 
Abrahamic promise which contained in it a blessing for " all 
families of the earth" to the divine pledge, " I will give Thee 
the heathen for Thine inheritance" and to the oracular utter- 

1 The words of Polycrates are, o; iyiv/;6r, hpivg TO verx^ov 7r^opr,x,u;. 
Euseb. Hist. Ecclcs. v. 24. The word Trirx^ov is rendered by Jerome (De 
Viris Illus. 4, 5), aurea lamina the plate on the high priest s mitre. 
Epiphauius records the same thing also of James the Just, Hseres. 39, 2. 



NOTE ON CHAP. II. 1. 135 

ance, " I will give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou 
mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." Truer by 
far was he to the old covenant, and those numerous fore-show 
ings of a better and broader dispensation, than they "which were 
scattered abroad upon the persecution that rose about Stephen, 
and who travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, 
preaching the word to none, but unto the Jews only" and than 
those who, by insisting on the circumcision of Gentile converts, 
were barring the way while they professed to open it, and clog 
ging the gift in their mode of presenting it with conditions 
which robbed it of its value by hampering its freeness. 

The power of early association, w r hich grows with one s 
growth, is very difficult to subdue; for it may suddenly reassert 
its supremacy at some unguarded moment, and expose inherent 
weakness and indecision. He who, on being instructed by a 
vision, had preached to Cornelius and admitted him by baptism 
into the church, and who, when " they of the circumcision 
contended with him," had nobly vindicated his procedure, and 
rested his concluding argument on the remembered words of 
the Master, who had spoken so boldly in the synod, and 
joined in the apostolic circular, sunk at Antioch so far beneath 
himself and these former experiences, that Paul was obliged to 
withstand him to the face. 



NOTE ON CHAP. n. 1. 
Ai/e ^i/ els lepod6Xvfj.a " I went up agaiu to Jerusalem." 

Five visits of the apostle to Jerusalem are mentioned in the 
Acts, and the question is, which of them can be identified with 
the visit so referred to in the first verse of this chapter, or is 
that visit one not mentioned in the Acts at all? 

These visits are : 1. That recorded in Acts ix. 26, and re 
ferred to already in Gal. i. 18. See p. 50. 

2. The second visit is described in Acts xi. 27-30, and the 
return from it in Acts xii. 25. In consequence of a famine, 
" which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar," Bar 
nabas and Saul carried up from Antioch " relief to the brethren 



136 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

which dwelt in Judaea ;" and their mission being accomplished, 
they " returned from Jerusalem." 

3. The third visit is told in Acts xv. In consequence of 
Judaistic agitation in the church at Antioch, it was resolved 
" that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should 
go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this ques 
tion." The agitation was renewed in Jerusalem, and after the 

O t 

deputies had been " received of the church," a council was 
held, and a letter was written. Then Paul and Barnabas re 
turned to Antioch, accompanied by Silas and Judas Barsabas, 
who carried the epistle, and had it also in charge to expound 
its contents " to tell the same things by mouth." 

4. The fourth visit is inferred from Acts xviii. 21, where 
the apostle says, " I must by all means keep this feast that 
cometh in Jerusalem," followed by the announcement, that 
" when he had landed at Caasarea, and gone up and saluted the 
church, he went down to Antioch." 

5. The fifth visit is given at length in Acts xxi. 1-17, etc. 
The apostle sailed from Philippi " after the days of unleavened 
bread;" and he would not spend any time in Asia, for "he 
hasted if it were possible for him to be at Jerusalem the day of 
Pentecost," 

Now the first and last visits may be at once set aside. He sets 
aside the first himself by affirming that the one under discus 
sion was a subsequent visit to it eVetra; and he did not return 
to Antioch after his last visit, but he went down to it after 
this visit, as is implied in ii. 11. Nor is it likely that his visit 
to Jerusalem as a delegate from Antioch on a theological con- 

O O 

troversy was the fourth visit, for its only asserted purpose was 
to keep a Jewish feast. Whiston, Van Til, Credner, and 
Blickert virtually, with Kohler, Hess, Huther (on 1 Pet. p. 8), 
and Lutterbeck, adopt this view, which has been strenuously con 
tended for by Wieseler in his Chronologie d. apostol. Zeitalters, 
p. 179, and in a Chronologischer Excurs appended to his com 
mentary on this epistle. Wieseler, struck by Paul s circumcision 
of Timothy after the visit referred to in this epistle, and by some 
objections adduced by Baur, tries to escape from the difficulty 
by adopting this hypothesis. But in this visit of the Galatian 
epistle, the apostle describes his interview with the apostles as a 
novelty ; while the entire narrative implies that they met for the 



THE FOURTH VISIT. 137 

first time, and came to a mutual understanding as to their re 
spective spheres of labour. Such a visit cannot therefore be the 
fourth, for at the third visit Paul had most certainly met with 
the apostles and elders, and there had been a public synod and 
debate. Besides, Barnabas was with Paul at the visit in ques 
tion ; but there is no mention of him in the account of the 
fourth visit, for the two apostles had separated before that 
period. If what Paul relates in this epistle, as to the results of 
his consultations with the older apostles, had happened at the 
fourth visit, it would have been surely mentioned in Acts ; but 
Acts is wholly silent on the matter, and dismisses the visit by 
a single clause " having saluted the church." Can those 
simple words cover, as Wieseler argues, business so momentous, 
prolonged, and varied as that described in the epistle before us ? 
Besides, if this fourth visit, which appears to be limited to the 
exchange of cordial greetings, is the one here described by the 
apostle, then his historical argument for his independence 
breaks down, and he conceals that at a previous period he 
had been in company with the apostles, and had obtained 
from them a letter which was meant to suspend an agitation 
quite of the kind which was placing the Galatians in such 
serious peril. In arguing his own independence from the fact 
of his necessary distance during a long period from the primary 
apostles, could he have concealed such a visit as that which led 
to an address from Peter and a declaration from James on 
points of such importance, and so closely allied to those which 
he is about to discuss at length in the letter under his hand ? 
"VVieseler s arguments are futile. One of them is, that not till 
the time of the fourth visit could Paul have risen to such emi 
nence as to be on a virtual equality with Peter, nor would Paul 
have ventured at an earlier period to have taken a Gentile like 
Titus with him to Jerusalem. This is only an assumption, for 
during those fourteen years the churches must have been learn 
ing to recognise Paul s independent mission, since he had so suc 
cessfully laboured in Antioch, the capital of Syrian heathendom, 
had gone a long missionary circuit, and returned to the same 
city, where he " abode long time." There was therefore, before 
his third visit, an ample period of time and labour, sufficient to 
place him and Barnabas in the high position assigned to them. 
The record of the fourth visit in Acts is also silent about Titus; 



138 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

but at such a crisis as that which necessitated the third visit, 
Titus, a person so deeply interested that in his person the 
question was virtually tested, is very naturally found along with 
the champion of Gentile freedom in the Jewish metropolis. 
Wieseler indeed attempts to find Titus in Acts xviii. 7, where 
the common reading lovarov is found in some MSS. as Tirov 

O 

lovcrrov or TLTLOV a reading rejected by Lachmann and 
Tischendorf, and probably a traditional emendation. lie again 
argues that the clause, ii. 5, u that the truth of the gospel 
might remain with you," implies that Paul had been in Galatia 
before he could so write of any purpose of his at the conven 
tion. But the apostle merely identifies, as well he might, a 
more proximate with a more future purpose. See on the verse. 
Another of Wieseler s proofs that the visit must be the fourth 
one is, because it allows unrestricted freedom to the Gentile 
converts, whereas at the third visit the circular issued and car 
ried down to Antioch laid them under certain restrictions. 
But in making this affirmation he travels beyond the record in 
Gal. ii. 1-10, which speaks only of the apostolic concordat, and 
says not a syllable about the general standing of the Gentile 
converts. There is thus a certainty that his fourth visit is not 
the one referred to by the apostle in the words, " Then fourteen 
years after I went up to Jerusalem." 

Nor in all probability was it the second visit, when he went 
up with funds to relieve the poor. This opinion is given in the 
Chronicon Paschale, 1 and held by Calvin, Keil, Kuchler, Gabler, 
Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Koppe, Bottger, Fritzsche, and by Browne, 
Ordo Sccclorum, p. 97. The prophecy of Agabus could not be 
the "revelation" by which he went up; and this visit could not 
have been so long as fourteen years after his conversion. On such 
a theory, too, he must have spent nearly all the intermediate and 
unrecorded time at Tarsus. But, according to Acts, no period 
of such duration can be assigned to his sojourn in his native 
city, for w T e find him very soon afterwards at Antioch. Prior to 
the visit of this chapter, Paul and Barnabas were noted as mis 
sionaries among the heathen ; the elder apostles saw that Paul 
had been entrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, for 
he described to them the gospel which he was in the habit of 

1 Ketl o ilTre Trdhiv, ^yhovoTi tripa iaTiv Kvfiu.iji$ UVTYI. Vol. i. p. 436, 
ed. Dindorf, Bonn 1832. 



THE SECOND VISIT. 139 

preaching among the Gentiles. These circumstances were im 
possible at the second visit, for at that period the conversion of 
the Gentiles had not been attempted on system and over a wide 
area. It may be indeed replied, that as the apostle refers to 
one visit, and then says, " After fourteen years I went up 
again," the natural inference is, that this second must in order 
of time be next to the first: Prlmum proximum iter (Fritzsche). 
But the inference has no sure basis. The apostle s object must 
be kept in view ; and that is, to show that his mission and 
ministry had no originating connection with Jerusalem ; be 
cause for a very long period he could hold no communication 
with the twelve, or any of them ; for it was not till three years 
after his conversion that he saw Peter for a fortnight, and a 
much longer interval had elapsed ere he conferred with Peter, 
and James, and John. Any visit to Jerusalem during which 
he came into contact with none of the apostles, did not need 
to be mentioned ; for it did not assist his argument, and was 
no proof of his lengthened course of independent action. But 
the second visit was one of this nature the errand was special; 
the Herodian persecution, under which James son of Zebedee 
had fallen, and Peter had been delivered from martyrdom by a 
singular miracle, had driven the apostles out of Jerusalem, and 
the money sent by the church was, in absence of the apostles, 
given into the custody of " the elders." This view is more in 
accordance with the plain meaning of the narrative than that 
of Ebrard and Diisterdieck, Meyer, Bleek, and Neander, who 
conjecture that this visit to Jerusalem was made by Barnabas 
only, Paul having gone with him only a part of the way. So 
that the so-called third visit was therefore really the apostle s 
second. But this view charges inaccuracy on the Acts of the 
Apostles, and is only a little better than the assumption of 
Schleiermacher, that the historian has confounded his authori 
ties, and made two visits out of one. Nor had Paul at the 
second visit risen to an eminence which by common consent 
placed him by the side of Peter. We dare not say with 
Wordsworth that he was not an apostle at the period of the 
second visit, for the apostleship was formally conferred on him 
at his conversion, but certainly he had not as yet made " full 
proof" of his ministry. In the section of the Acts which nar 
rates the second visit he even appears as secondary the money 



140 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

was sent "by the hands of Barnabas and Saul;" "Barnabas 
and Saul returned from Jerusalem." Acts xi. 30, xii. 25. If 
one object that the visit under review could not be the second 
visit, because Peter, on being released from prison, had left 
Jerusalem (Acts xii. 17), and could not therefore come into 
conference with Paul and Barnabas, Fritzsche replies, perperam 
aflrmes, for Paul and Barnabas had finished their stewardship 
prior to the martyrdom of James and the arrest of Peter. But 
to sustain his view, he breaks up the natural coherence and 
sequence of the narrative. 

The probabilities are therefore in favour of its being the 
third visit recorded in Acts xv., when Paul and Barnabas went 
up as deputies from the church at Antioch on the embarrass 
ing question about the circumcision of Gentile converts. The 
large majority of critics adhere to this view ; and among 
authors not usually referred to in this volume may be named, 
Baronius, Pearson, Hemsen, Lekebusch, Ussher, Schnecken- 
burger, Thiersch, Lechler, Baumgarten, Kitschl, Lange, 
Schaff, Anger, de Temporum in Actis ratione, iv. ; and Trip, 
in his Paulus nach der Apostelgeschichte, Leiden 1866. Baur, 
Schwegler, Zeller, and Hilgeufeld hold the same opinion, 
only for the sinister purpose of showing that the discrepancies 
between Acts and Galatiaus in reference to the same event 
are so great and insoluble, that Acts must be given up as 
wholly wanting historical basis and credit. But in Acts, Paul 
and Barnabas were commissioned, and "certain others;" in 
the epistle, Titus is mentioned as being with the two leaders. 
The question at Antioch was virtually the same as that dis 
cussed in the public conference at Jerusalem ; and as a 
testing case, the circumcision of Titus was refused, after it 
had been apparently insisted on with a pressure that is called 
compulsion. At this visit Paul stood out in the specific 
character and functions of an apostle of the Gentiles ; the 
other apostles acquiesced in his work, not as a novel sphere 
of labour, but one which he had been filling with signal suc 
cess. True, he says, "I went up by revelation;" but the 
statement is not inconsistent with the record in Acts, that 
he was sent as a deputy. Commission and revelation are not 
necessarily in antagonism. The revelation might be made 
either to the church to select him, or to himself to accept the 



THE THIRD VISIT. 141 

call. Or it might open up to him the true mode of doing the 
work, and of securing Gentile liberty. Or it might take up 
the more personal question of his own standing ; and he chiefly 
refers to this point in the epistle, for it concerned the argu 
ment which he was conducting, and closely touched the more 
public theme of disputation. The first form of revelation is 
found in the history of the same church, Acts xiii., but the 
case is not analogous to the one before us. Quite a parallel 
case, however, is related by the historian, and told by Paul 
himself : the efforts of the brethren to save his life were co 
incident with a vision vouchsafed to himself. Acts ix. 30, 31, 
xxii. 17-21. 1 As the iraXw of ver. 1 does not make it of 
necessity a second visit, so the history of the third visit in Acts 
xv. is not in opposition to the paragraph of the epistle before 
us. The historian, looking at the mission in its more public 
aspects, describes the assembly at Jerusalem to which Paul 
and Barnabas were deputed ; but the apostle, looking at it 
from his own line of defence, selects what was personal to him 
self and germane to his argument his intercourse with the 
three " pillars," and their recognition of his independent apostle- 
ship. It is vain for Baur and his school to insist on any noto 
rious discrepancy; for private communication is not inconsistent 
with, but may be preparatory to a public convention, or may 
spring out of it. It is true that John is not mentioned in 
Acts as being present at the assembly, as he might have taken 
no prominent part in the consultation, though he is spoken of 
as being at the interview in Galatians. It is further argued, 
as by Wieseler, that the third visit to Jerusalem and its convo 
cation cannot be the one referred to in this epistle, because in 
the epistle no notice is taken of the decrees of the council. 
This silence about these local and temporary decrees, which were 
simply " articles of peace," as Prof. Lightfoot calls them, is 
one of Baur s curious arguments for denying that such a docu 
ment was ever issued at all. The abstinence enjoined in them 
was to produce conformity in three things to the Jewish ritual; 
and the moral veto refers probably not to incest or marriage 
within the Levitical degrees, but to the orgies so often con- 

1 Biley, however, without any good ground, places this vision at the 
second visit, during the Herodian persecution. Supplement to I aley s 
Horse, Paulinas, p. 6. 



142 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

nected with heathen worship, and to indulgence in which the 
heathen converts, from custom and a conscience long seared as 
to the virtue of chastity, and not yet fully awake to its neces 
sity, might be most easily tempted. 1 But the apostle never 
refers to the decrees at any time, when he might have made 
naturally some allusion to them, as in 1 Cor. x. and in Ixom. 
xiv. Nay, in the first of these places, he virtually sets aside 
one of the articles of the apostolic letter. It forbade the eat 
ing of "meats offered to idols;" but lie represents it to the 
Corinthians as a matter of indifference or of liberty, the ques 
tion of eating or of abstinence depending on the degree of 
enlightenment one may have, and on the respect he ought to 
show to a brother s scruples. In the Epistle to the Romans he 
takes similar ground, not that it is wronj in itself to eat certain 

~ O 

meats " I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that 
there is nothing unclean of itself;" but the law laid down is, 
that no one in the exercise of his just liberty is to put a stum 
bling-block in his brother s way. The apostle probably did not 
regard the decrees as having any force beyond the churches 
for which they were originally enacted and designed " the 
brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch, and Syria, and 
Cilicia." The apostolic circular, which was a species of com 
promise in a peculiar and vexing crisis, was not meant for the 
churches in Galatia which at the time had no existence. The 
circumstances, too, were different. The Gentile section of the 
church at Antioch wanted to guard itself against Judaistic 
tyranny, and there is no proof that any of its members had 
succumbed. But many in Galatia had become willing cap 
tives, and the enactment of the council had therefore no 
special adaptation to them. The churches in Antioch, Syria, 
and Cilicia were exhorted to conform on some points to Jewish 
observances, with the guarantee that no further exactions 
should be demanded ; while many in the Galatian churches 
were willing to observe, as far as possible, the entire Hebrew 
ritual. 

It is sometimes alleged, as by Keil, that Paul after the 
council became more lax in his treatment of Jews, for he cir 
cumcised Timothy ; so that this controverted visit must be one 

1 See in Deyling specimens of an attempt to show that the " decrees " 
were meant to comprise the so-called Xoachic precepts, vol. ii. p. 409. 



VACILLATION OF PETEK. 143 

earlier than the third, for at it he strenuously resisted the cir 
cumcision of Titus. But while there is no general proof of 
the assertion, the special case adduced in illustration is not in 
point. Titus was wholly a Gentile, and his circumcision was 
resisted. Timothy was a Jew by one side, and might receive, 
according to law and usage, 1 a Jewish ordinance which was a 
physical token of his descent from Abraham. Paul circumcised 
Timothy " because of the Jews in those quarters," to gain them 
by all means ; but he would not have Titus circumcised to 
please the Judaists, for their demand was wrong in motive and 
character. To circumcise the son of a Jewish mother that he 
might have readier access to those of his own race as one of 
themselves, is one thing ; but it is a very different thing to 
circumcise a Gentile on the stern plea that submission to the 
rite was essential to his salvation. Nor can the objection taken 
from Peter s conduct at Antioch, as recorded in the following 
verses, be sustained, viz. the strong improbability that one who 
had taken such a part in the apostolic council at Jerusalem 
should so soon after at Antioch act so unlike himself, and in 
opposition to the unanimous decree of the synod. Some, in 
deed, place the scene at Antioch before this council, as Augus 
tine, Grotius, Vorstius, Plug, and Schneckenburger ; but it 
seems most natural, according to the order of this chapter, to 
place it after the council. Wieseler and Neander date it after 
the fourth journey, with as little reason, though Wieseler, 
in accordance with his own theory, places it not long after the 
council. But granting for a moment that Peter did act in 
opposition to the decrees, his conduct at Antioch affords no 
proof that he had changed his opinion in any way. What he 
is accused of is not any sudden, violent, and unaccountable 
alteration of opinion, but he is formally charged with dissimu 
lation, not Selbstiuiderspruch, self-contradiction (Hilgenfeld), 
but hypocrisy, not the abjuring of his former views, but 
shrinking from them through timidity. His convictions were 
unchanged, but he weakly acted as if they had been changed. 
Such vacillation, as will be seen in our commentary, is quite in 
keeping with those glimpses into Peter s character which flash 
upon us in the Gospels. Besides, while occasional vacillation 
characterized Peter, his conduct at Antioch was not a formal 
1 See Wetstein on Acts xvi. 1-3. 



144 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

transgression of the decrees. They did not distinctly touch the 
point on which he slipped ; for while they enjoined certain 
compliances, they said not a word as to the general social rela 
tions of the Gentile to the Jewish brethren. This question 
was neither discussed nor settled at the council. So that 
Peter cannot be accused of violating rules in the enactment 
of which he had borne a principal share, and the objection 
based on his alleged and speedy disobedience falls to the 
ground. See under the llth and 12th verses. 

Some of the objections against the identity of the third 
visit with the one referred to in Galatians, disposed Paley to 
the notion that the Galatian visit is one not recorded in Acts 
at all. Some of these objections he certainly solves himself 
with his usual sagacity, particularly that based on the omission 
of all notice of the decrees in the epistle. He says that " it is 
not the apostle s manner to resort or defer much to the authority 
of the other apostles ;" that the epistle " argues the point upon 
principle;" and Paul s silence about the decrees "is not more to 
be wondered at, than it would be that in a discourse designed 
to prove the moral and religious duty of keeping the Sabbath, 
the writer should not quote the thirteenth canon." Works, vol. 
ii. p. 350, ed. London 1830. Still, as he is inclined to think 
that the journey was a different one from the third, he puts it 
after Acts xiv. 28 ; and he is followed by his annotator, Canon 
Tate, in his Continuous History of St. Paul, pp. 141, etc., Lon 
don 1840. Beza held a similar opinion ; and Schrader would 
insert the journey after the 20th verse of Acts xix., that is, 
the visit was made during the apostle s long sojourn at Ephesus, 
and is thus placed between the fourth and fifth visits. Der 
Apostel Paulus, vol. ii. pp. 299, etc. But while there are diffi 
culties in spite of all explanations, there seems great proba 
bility at least that the visit recorded in the epistle is the same 
as that told in Acts xv. -the third recorded visit of the apostle 
to Jerusalem. The remarks of Hofmann on the harmony 
between Acts and Galatians on the point before us may be 
read with advantage. 

Approximate chronology reckoning, according to ordinary 
Jewish computation, a fragment of a year as a whole one, 
leads to the same result. His first journey to Jerusalem was 
probably in A.D. 41, his conversion having happened three 



DATES OF THE VARIOUS VISITS. 145 

years before ; his second visit with funds for the poor may be 
placed in A.D. 44, for in that year Herod Agrippa died, Acts xi., 
after a reign of seven years ; his third visit may be assigned to 
A.D. 51, or fourteen years after his conversion ; his fourth visit 
may be dated A.D. 53; and his fifth and last A.D. 58. Then 
he was kept prisoner two years in Cacsarea ; Festus succeeded 
Felix as procurator in A.D. 60, and probably the same year the 
apostle was sent under his appeal to Rome. See Schott s Pro 
legomena ; Riickert, in loc. ; Davidson, Introduction, vol. ii. p. 
112 ; and Conybeare and Howson, vol. i. p. 244, etc. 



K 



CHAPTER II. 11-21. 

THE apostle pursues his vindication no further in the same 
strain. He has said that he received his commission 
and gospel immediately from the same source as did the other 
apostles ; that he owed nothing to them ; that he did not on his 
conversion rush up to Jerusalem and seek admission among 
them, or ask counsel or legitimation from them; that three years 
elapsed before he saw one of them, and him he saw only for a 
brief space; that fourteen years afterwards he went up again to 
the metropolis, when he met them, or rather three of the most 
famous of them, as their equal ; that he did not and would not 
circumcise Titus ; that the original apostles gave him no in 
formation and no new element of authority, nay, that they 
cordially recognised him, and that he and they came to an 
amicable understanding as to their respective departments of 
labour. Who then could challenge the validity of his apostle- 
ship, or impugn the gospel which he preached, after Peter, 
James, and John had acquiesced in them ? Who would now 
venture to question their opinion ? for they were satisfied, even 
Peter, specially marked in contrast as having the gospel of the 
circumcision divinely committed to him. Nay more and such 
is now the argument he was not only officially recognised as 
a brother apostle by Peter, and as possessed of equal authority, 
but he had opposed and rebuked Peter on a solemn and public 
occasion, and in connection with one of the very points now in 
dispute. While Peter had resiled for a moment, he had never 
done so : his conduct in Jerusalem and in Antioch had been 
one and the same. He thus proves himself invested with the 
same high prerogative, measuring himself fully with Peter as 
his equal, nay, more than his equal. 

Antioch, a large and magnificent city, had communication 
by the Orontes and its port of Seleucia with all the territories 



CHAP. II. 11-21. 147 

bordering on the Mediterranean, and it was connected by an 
overland route with Arabia and the countries on and be 
yond the Euphrates. Men of all nations easily found their 
way into it for business or pleasure ; and into this capital 
named after his father, Seleucus had introduced a large colony 
of Jews who lived under their own ethnarch. From being 
the metropolis of Greek sovereigns, it became through the 
fortune of war the residence of Roman proconsuls. The 
gospel had been brought to it at an early period. Persons 
who had fled on the martyrdom of Stephen travelled as far as 
Antioch, " preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only," 
acting according to their light and their national prepossessions. 
But a section of these itinerating preachers, " men of Cyprus 
and Gyrene," had larger hearts and freer views, and they at 
Antioch " spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus." 
Great results followed these ministrations. Tidings of the 

O 

immense success were carried to the church in Jerusalem, 
which at once, and probably from a combination of motives, 
sent Barnabas to visit the Syrian capital. The earnest and 
self-denying Cypriot at once undertook the work, and rejoiced 
in the spectacle which he witnessed ; but he felt the labours so 
augmenting, that he went and fetched Saul to be his colleague. 
Their joint ministry among the mixed people that thronged 
the streets and colonnades of this Rome in miniature lasted a 
year ; and such were its numerous converts, that the native 
population were, for the sake of distinction, obliged to coin a 
name for the new and rising party, and they called them 
Christians. Antioch thus became the metropolis of Gen 
tile Christianity, and Jerusalem looked with jealousy on its 
northern rival. In it originated the first formal Christian 
mission, and Paul made it his headquarters, starting from it 
on his three great evangelistic journeys. The peace of this 
society, however, was soon disturbed by Jewish zealots from 
Jerusalem, and Paul and Barnabas went up to the mother 
church "about this question." Gal. ii. 1. A council was held, 
the decrees were issued and sent down, and the two deputies 
returned to Antioch and resumed their old work " teaching 
and preaching the word of the Lord." At some period after 
this, Peter happened to come down to Antioch, and ths 
scene here described took place. Just as from attachment 



148 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

to Jesus he followed " into the palace of the high priest, 
and found himself in almost the only circle where he could be 
tempted to deny his Lord ; so now he had travelled to almost 
the only city which presented that strange variety of circum 
stances by which, from his peculiar temperament, he could be 
snared into this momentary cowardice and dissimulation. 

Yer. 11. "Ore Se r/\9ev K??(/>a? ei<? ^Avno^eiav " But when 
Cephas came to Antioch." K^fyas is found in A, B, C, II, 
N, in the Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic versions ; but Ilerpo^ 
has in its favour D, F, K, L, and the Greek fathers. The 
Hebrew name was more likely, however, to be altered than the 
usual Greek one. By Se he passes to another and different 
argument. Paul and Barnabas went down after the council, 
and Peter seems to have followed them, though his visit is not 
recorded in Acts. Augustine, Hug, and Schneckenburger 
refer the visit to an earlier epoch, yet the apostle appears to 
follow the order of time ; while Neander, Sardinoux, Baum- 
garten, Lange, and AVieseler of course, assign it to a later 
year. But Barnabas had separated from Paul before the 
time alluded to in Acts xviii. 22, and they were together in 
Jerusalem at the period of the council. There is no authority 
for saying either, with Schrader, that Peter had accompanied 
Paul and Barnabas from Jerusalem, or with Thiersch, that it 
was his first visit to the metropolis of Gentile Christianity. 

Kara TrpoawjTOV ai>Tu> avrecrT^v, on KaTeyvwcrfAevos TJV " I 
withstood him to the face, because he had been condemned." 

The Syriac reads <TLO oooi . \ n / ? AVn> ^.^SD, " because they 

~~ 7 

were stumbled by him." The last clause sets out the reason 
of the conflict, and then it is historically stated. The 
verb KarajL yvuxrKco, generally followed by the genitive of the 
person and accusative of the thing, means to know or note 
something against one, next to lay this to his charge, and then 
naturally to condemn him accusation followed by the passing 
of sentence. The perfect participle passive with rjv has its 
natural meaning, " because he had been condemned," not 
simply accused, but condemned. Compare 1 Cor. xi. 5, Heb. 
v. 14, x. 22. The Vulgate reads doubly wrong, in sense and 
in syntax, guia reprehensibilis erat; and so Calvin, reprehensione 
diymis. And this rendering is followed by many, as Beza, 



CHAP. II. 11. 149 

a-Lapide, Kiittner, Borger, Matthies, Brown, and the English 
Version. Others, as Winer, Schott, De Wette after Luther, 
and Jowett, take the milder meaning, which is, however, 
grammatically correct, quia reprehensus erat " because he was 
blamed." But the phrase " I withstood to the face " necessi 
tates the full signification of the participle. The instances 
commonly adduced in behalf of the adjectival meaning will 
not bear it out. It is true that in Hebrew, from its want of 
verbal adjectives, the passive participle may occasionally bear 
the sense of one ending in bills, or a participle ending in ndus. 
Gesenius, Lelirgeb. 213 ; Nordheimer, 1034, 3, b. The 
idiom is based on the notion that what is praised is praisable, 
that what is loved is lovable or deserves to be loved. Thus 
one passes easily from the idea of incorrupt to that of incor 
ruptible, from that of seen to that of visible, from that of 
touched to that of touchable or palpable. But it is difficult to 
say in regard to the Hebrew idiom when and how far the one 
notion is expanded into the other, and there is no reason why 
this usao;e should be transferred into Greek. The common 

O 

proofs taken from the classics TereXeo-^ei o?, Iliad, i. 388, and 
Lucian, de Saltatione, p. 173 (vol. v. ed. Bipont.), where the 
same word occurs as in the passage before us will not bear 
it out, and those quoted from the New Testament are also 
defective. For the aorist participle etcpi&Bevra in Jude 12 
has its regular meaning, "rooted out;" the perfect participle 
e/SSeXiry/iei/oi? in Rev. xxi. 8 is not "abominable," but "covered 
with pollutions," or abominated ; and the present participle in 
Heb. xii. 18, ^Xa^co/jeww, has its literal meaning of being 
touched. See Alford, Delitzsch, and Bleek, in loc. ; Winer, 
45, 1. So that the strong term used by the apostle leads 
us to infer that the condemnation was not simply self-con 
demnation or conscious inconsistency (Bengel, Bagge, Win- 
dischmann, Hofmann), but condemnation pronounced in no 
measured terms by those who were aggrieved by Peter s hypo 
critical conduct. Tergiversation on the part of such a man 
could not but produce deep and wide sensation in such a church 
as Antioch ; and the outraged feelings of the Gentile portion 
of it so suddenly shunned, and to all appearance so decidedly 
disparaged, must have condemned the apostle. They had but 
to compare himself, not with his former self, as he had cham- 



150 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

pionecl them twice over in Jerusalem, but with his recent self 
on his arrival in their city. The hollowness of his withdrawal 
from them carried with it at the same time its own condem 
nation. 

Peter therefore being signalized as a condemned man, Paul 
was obliged to interfere on behalf of honesty, consistency, and 
spiritual freedom 

Kara irpoaMirov avroj avreaTrjv " to the face I withstood 
him" not simply coram omnibus (Erasmus, Beza, Matthias, 
and Conybeare), for the preposition retains its sub-local mean 
ing, as may be inferred also from the attitude described in the 
verb avreaTrjv. Acts iii. 13, xxv. 16. Comp. 2 Cor. x. 1, 7 ; 
Sept. Dent. vii. 24, ix. 2 ; 2 Chron. xiii. 7, 8 ; Kara TrpoaceTrov 
Ta|a?, Polyb. iii. 65, 6 ; similarly xi. 14, 6. This meaning is 
not very distinctly brought out in Winer, 4-9. The antago 
nistic sense of the verb may be seen in Eph. vi. 13, 2 Tim. iii. 8. 
These two words TrpocrcoTrov, ui recrTrjv have the emphatic 
position as an index to the fidelity of the argument. Private 
remonstrance, written correspondence, appeals against Peter 
or crimination of him in his absence, would not have proved 
Paul s conscious equality of status so truly as a face-to-face 
rebuke, and that publicly, of the apostle of the circumcision. 
The iniquitous gloss Kara cr^tta " in appearance only" as 
if the whole scene had been got up between the apostles, is as 
little to be thought of as the assertion that this condemned Peter 
was not the well-known apostle, but another individual of the 
same name. See the history of that controversy at the end of 
this chapter. 

Ver. 12. Tlpo rov yap e\0elv nvas CLTTO IaKa>/3ov " for 
before that certain from James came." What is the connec 
tion of the word e\0eiv with rivas UTTO la/cco/Sou? 

1. The preposition seems to be used in no vague sense, as 
if they only came from James locality, or from Jerusalem, for 
they came from himself. Augustine, Beza, Olshausen, Schaff, 
Baumgarten-Crusius, and Brown incline to this view. But 
why name James, if locality only be alluded to ? As easy, 
since UTTO has so often a local meaning, would it have been to 
write at once, from Jerusalem airo Iepoa-o\v/jLa>v. 

2. Usteri, Winer, and Zeller connect rivas with UTTO Ja/cw- 
/3ov certain dependants or followers of James, as in the phrase 



CHAP. II. 12. 151 

Bernhardy, p. 222. Winer s explanation 
of this conjecture is loose qui Jacobi auctoritate utrum jure an 
secus usi fuerint. But this idiom is specially connected with 
names of places and abstract nouns (Ellicott), and James never 
appears as the head of a party. His name never seems to have 
been used as the watchword of any faction of Jacobites, like that 
of Paul, Cephas, and Apollos ; and this probably because he 
was resident in Jerusalem where the church thought and felt 
so much at one with himself, whereas Peter must have con 
stantly come into contact with persons of opposite sentiments, 
and preached to communities of divided opinion. 

3. The inference seems to be well grounded that they were 
persons sent from James (De Wette, Meyer, Trana). Matt. 
xxvi. 47 ; Mark v. 35 ; Mark xiv. 43 ; KOI apri, air etcelvov 
epXpfMij Plato, Protag. 309u. It may, on the one hand, be 
too strong to affirm that they were formally sent by James on 
an express mission, though it may be fairly inferred that he 
knew of their coming, and that they appeared in Antioch with 
at least his sanction ; but, on the other hand, it unduly softens 
the phrase to give it the meaning of persons who " gave out 
themselves as from James" (Winer, Eilicott). There is no war 
rant for Prof. Lightfoot s supposition, that they came " invested 
with some powers from James, wldcli they abused" For there 
is no hint that they were the same very extreme party described 
in Acts xv. 24, a party which Peter would rather have resisted 
than succumbed to. Who those men were, or what their 
mission was, we know not. The narrative of Acts says nothing 
of the occurrence. But from the result one may infer, that 
they were sent to see as to the obedience of the church to the 
decrees. These decrees respected the Gentiles, and indeed 
they originated in a reference regarding their position. No 
additional burden was to be placed on them ; but the believing 
Jews were expected to keep "the customs," and not to mix 
freely with the Gentiles. Acts xv. 19. It may, therefore, 
have been suspected at Jerusalem that the Jewish believers, 
through intercourse with Gentile brethren, were relaxing, and 
were doing what Peter had begun to do at Antioch with in- 

o o 

creasing freedom; so that the business of this deputation may 
have been, to see that the circumcision did not presume on any 
licence in consequence of the opinion of the council. See 



152 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Alford. Other purposes have been imagined for these " certain 
from James," without any foundation. At all events, they could 
not be the false brethren already mentioned by Paul, nor those 
disowned by James in his address before the council, and in 
the apostolic circular. Nor could they be the bearers of the 
decrees, as Eitschl (AltJcath. Kirche, p. 128) supposes, for these 
documents had been sent down at an earlier period. Before 
these certain came from James, we are told of Peter 

Mera ra>v IQvwv avv^aOiev "he was eating with the Gen 
tiles." As he had done before (Acts x.), and had defended 
the act at Jerusalem so nobly and conclusively, as is told in 
the following chapter (Acts xi.). The charge at that time was 
Kal avvetyayes aurofc, himself admitting to Cornelius that by 
Jewish ordinance such intercourse was dOe/Jurov. Compare 
Luke xv. 1 ; 1 Cor. v. 11. Some, as Olshausen and Matthies, 
widen the meaning of the phrase too much, as if it signified 
general social intercourse ; and others, as Thiersch and Hilgen- 
feld, emphasize it too much, and refer it not to ordinary diet, 
but also to communion in the love-feasts and eucharist. Peter 
then had been acting according to conviction, and as the vision 

O O 

had long ago instructed him. But on the question of eating 
with Gentiles the council had said nothing, it only forbade cer 
tain articles of food; and the circular did not settle the general 
relation of converted Gentiles to the law, for it only spoke out 
against the necessity of circumcising them. But this last enact 
ment releasing them from circumcision virtually declared them 
no longer common or unclean; and for a time at Antioch Peter 
thus understood it, so that his tergiversation was a violation in 
spirit at least of the " decrees." There is no ground for 
Wieseler s assumption, which is based on the late date which 
he assigns to this meeting at Antioch, that Peter s conduct had 
reference simply to the articles of food forbidden by these 
" decrees " which in lapse of years had fallen into comparative 
desuetude, and that, in withdrawing from social intercourse 

77 O 

with the Gentiles, he only obeyed them. The reproof of Paul 
on such a supposition would have been uncalled for and unjust; 
and for such a withdrawal, hypocrisy could not be laid to 
Peter s charge. The "certain from James" seem to have in 
sisted that the decision of the council was to be limited entirely 
to the points specified in it, and that it did not warrant such 



CHAP. II. 13. 153 

free intercourse with believing Gentiles as Peter had been 
practising. The believing Gentiles were, on that view, to be 
an inferior caste in the church. 

"Ore 8e r]\6ov, V7recrr\\ev Kal afjxapi^ev eavrov " but when 
they came, he withdrew and separated himself." The reading 
r)\6ev has B, D 1 , F, X, two other MSS., and the Itala in its 
favour ; but the plural form has preponderant authority. The 
singular rj\Qev, accepted by Lachmann, may have come from 
the following verse, from some reminiscence of the previous 
eXOeiv in ver. 11, or from some odd meaning attached to rives 

O 

arro IaKo>(3ov ; for Origen has ekdovros la/cwfiov irpos avrov, 
as if James himself had followed his rives. Contra Celsum, ii. 
1, p. 56, ed. Spencer. The two connected verbs represent 
Peter first as withdrawing himself, and then, as the fear grew, 
ultimately and formally separating himself. The imperfects 
show that not one act only, but the course which he was 
following is depicted as if placed before one s eyes. Jelf, 
401, 3. 

^oj3ovfjievos rovs e/c rrepirofJbYjs " fearing," or " inasmuch 
as he feared them of the circumcision" that is, Jews in blood, 
but Christians in creed, called lov&alcov rwv irema-revKorwv in 
Acts xxi. 20; Tit. i. 10, 11. The participle has a causal sense. 
Schmalfeld, 207, 3. Before the rives who had arrived at 
Antioch he quailed; and they certainly represented, though not 
by any formal commission, the creed and practice of the mother 
church (Wieseler). Peter might imagine that his position 
as the apostle of the circumcision was endangered. It would 
thus appear, that though he was the apostle of the circum 
cision, and might naturally be regarded as the head of that 
section of the church, there was an influence in it hio;her than 

O 

his, and a power resident in Jerusalem of which he stood in 
awe. Chrysostom is anxious to show that his fear had no con 
nection with himself, but was only anxiety about the disciples, 
his fear being parallel to that expressed by Paul in iv. 11 ; and 
Theophylact adds, that he was condemned wrongfully by men 
who did not know his motive. Somewhat similar opinions are 
held by Erasmus, Piscator, Grotius, and Dr. Brown, and most 
naturally by Baronius and Bellarmine. 

Ver. 13. Kal avvvTreKpld^arav avraj teal 01 \onrol lovSaioi 
" and the other Jews also dissembled with him." The com- 



154 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

pound verb the aorist passive with a deponent sense (Polyb. 
iii. 31, 7) means " to act a part along with," " to play the 
hypocrite in company with." The rest of the believing Jews 
in Antioch acted as Peter did withdrew themselves, and 
shunned all social intercourse, of the kind at least referred to, 
with their fellow-believers of the Gentiles. Now this secession 
was hypocrisy, for Peter and these other Jewish converts trans 
gressed against their better convictions. They concealed their 
real views, or acted as if they thought that it was really wrong 
to eat with Gentiles. Probably they felt as if they had gone 
beyond the understood compact, in enjoying such familiar 
intercourse with their Gentile brethren; and on account of the 
party which came from James, they suddenly and decisively 
asserted their rigid Judaism, and acted as if they had been 
convinced that their salvation depended on complete ritual 
conformity. This hypocrisy involved a denial of one of the 
primary truths of the gospel, for it had a tendency to lead the 
Gentiles to believe that they too must observe the law in order 
to justification and life. It is added, in fine, to show the mar 
vellous strength of the current 

flare /cal Bapvd/3a<$ avvaTrifyOri avrwv ry inroKpiaei, " so 
that even Barnabas was carried along with them by their dis 
simulation." The Kai is ascensive " even." Winer, 53, 3, e. 
The verb is used only tropically in the New Testament, but 
not always in malam partem : Rom. xii. 16 with the dative of 
thing. The particle ware is usually joined with the infinitive, 
that mood, according to grammarians, being used when the 
result is a matter of necessity ; but the indicative, as here, is 
employed when the result is represented as a matter of fact. 
Klotz-Devarius, ii. 772 ; Kuhner, ii. 563 ; Winer, 41, 5, 1. 
The vacillation of Barnabas was the direct but not the neces 
sary result of their dissimulation. The dative vTro/cplaei may 
be that of instrument, or it may be governed by aw in com 
position, as our version gives it. 2 Pet. iii. 17 ; rj ^Trdprij 
avvcnnjyero rfj KOivfj T?}<? .EAAaSo? aXwcret, Zosimus, Hist. 
v. 6, p. 409, ed. Reitemeier, in which places also both 
forms of construction are possible. The first, said to be so 
harsh, is probably the true one. They were swept along with 
others by their hypocrisy, and of course swept into it, though 
the translation cannot be that of the Vulgate, in illam Simula- 



CHAP. II 14. 155 

tionem. That, however, is the undoubted inference, as crvv 
implies it. Fritzsche on Rom. xii. 16. The contagion of such 
an example infected Barnabas, " a good man, and full of the 
Holy Ghost, and of faith," who had shared in Paul s labours 
among the Gentiles, and must have possessed no little of his 
free and elevated spirit. Even the apostle s colleague was 
swept away from his side by the influence of Peter, and per 
haps by a similar awe of the rtves. If Peter and Barnabas 
had changed their views, hypocrisy could not have been laid to 
their charge. But with their opinions unchanged, they acted 
as if they had been changed; therefore are they accused of 
dissimulation. It was "not indecision" of opinion, as Jowett 
affirms, but indecision certainly in acting up to their un 
altered convictions. Nor was it error or inconsistency, induced 
by want of clear apprehension, that is laid to their charge 
(Ililgenfeld, Bisping) ; but downright hypocrisy, and that is 
the proper term to describe their conduct. What Peter could 
say in his genuine state may be read in his first Epistle, i. 22, 
23. This dissimulation, so wide and powerful, was compro 
mising the freedom of the gospel, for it was subverting the 
doctrine of justification by faith ; and therefore the apostle, 
who could on fitting occasions " to the Jews become a Jew," 
was obliged to visit it with immediate and stern rebuke. 

Ver. 14. ^.XX ore elSov on OVK opOoTro&ovai vrpos rrjv 
a\ijdetav rov evafyye\dv " But," or " howbeit," " when I saw 
that they were not walking according to the truth of the gos 
pel." The compound verb occurs only here, and is translated 
in the Vulgate, recte ambularent ; in Tertullian, non recte pede 
incedentes : Contra Marc. iv. 3. O pBoirovs (Soph. Antig. 972) 
occurs also in later ecclesiastical writers, and the use of 6p06s 
in other compounds leads to the correct apprehension of its 
meaning here, which is " to foot it straight," to walk straight, 
that is, in no crooked paths to conduct one s self uprightly or 
honestly. The apostle often uses TrepnraTelv and aroi-^elv. 
See under Eph. ii., etc. The present tense employed as in 
this clause denotes action beginning at a previous period and 
still continuing " a state in its entire duration." Kiihner, 
846 ; Winer, 40, 2, c. Schmalfeld says that in such a case 
das Subjekt in dem Processe der Ausfilhrung seines That verge- 
gemudrtiyt wird, p. 96. The TT/OO?, pointing to the norm or 



156 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

rule, signifies " according to." Luke xii. 47 ; 2 Cor. v. 10 ; 
Winer, 49, h ; Bernhardy, p. 265. But Estius, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Meyer, and Alford give it its more ordinary sense of 
"in the direction of," or marking aim, that aim being, according 
to Meyer, to uphold and further the truth of the gospel. The 
apostle generally uses Kara, as denoting rule or measure, after 
TrepiTrarelv. Ellicott says, indeed, in reply, that "motion is 
much more obscurely expressed in opOoTroSelv than TrepiTrareiv." 
Hofmann affirms that the verb means "to stand with equal feet," 
op0o7rovs (Antigone, 972) meaning ein gerad aufrecht steliender. 
Usao;e seems to declare for the second meaning, and the idea 

O O-* 

of norm may be implied in the verb itself. The " truth of the 
gospel " is not the true gospel, but the truth which it contains 
or embodies evidently the great doctrine of justification by 
faith, implying the non-obligation of the ceremonial law on 
Gentile converts, and the cessation of that exclusiveness which 
the chosen people had so long cherished. See ii. 5. 

Elrrov TO> Kr)(f>a. The reading Krjtya has the authority of 
A, B, C, tf, the Vulgate, Syriac, and many other versions, with 
several of the Greek fathers: but IlerpM has only in its favour 
D, F, K, L. The apostle uses no strong term, does not say in 
any overbearing spirit, "I challenged him, or I rebuked him ;" 
but simply, " I said to him." The expostulation, however, was 
in public (not tear* l&lav now), and he puts his own apostolic 
independence in direct conflict with that of Peter. He was 
in this publicity only following the injunction which he after 
wards gave to Timothy, 1 Tim. v. 20. But while the words 
e/jiTrpoaOev Travrcov, " before them all," describe the publicity 
of the address, there is no warrant for saying expressly, 
as Thiersch does, that the phrase means " in a meeting of 
both sections of the congregation specially summoned for the 
purpose." 

The scene is quite in keeping with the respective ante 
cedents and character of the two apostles. See note at end of 
chapter. 

The address is somewhat difficult and involved, from its 
brevity and compactness, and its passing away from the direct 
second person singular to the first person singular which 
rehearses in wondrous words the depth of Paul s own experi 
ence. Yet G wynne, in opposition to all who have written on 



CHAP. II. 14. 157 

the subject, says, " Methinks a plainer, simpler, more intel 
ligible line of argument is not to be found within the compass 
of the Bible." 

The commencement is bold and somewhat abrupt 
El (TV, Iou&uo9 VTrdp^cov, edvifcws Kal oi>% Iou8<ziVcco9 779 
" If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles 
and not after the manner of the Jews." The place of the 
verb in our text has the authority of A, B, C, F, N, MSS., and 
Latin fathers. Cod. Clar., Sang., with the text of Ambros. 
Sedulius, Agap., omit KOI ov% lovBai/cws. The position of 779 
in the received text after edviKws has the authority of D, K, 
L, nearly all MSS., the majority of versions and of the Greek 
fathers, and is followed by Tischendorf. Instead of OVK, ov% 
is found in A, C, K 1 , etc., and is accepted by Tischendorf, B 
and D 1 having ov%i. Winer, 5. Paul brings the matter 
home at once to him. If a Jew as thou art vTrdp^cov, stronger 
than wv, which is found in D 1 . The el throws no doubt on 
the case, but puts it syllogistically, as in Rom. v. 10, xv. 27 ; 
2 Cor. iii. 7, 9, 11 ; Eph. iii. 2. If thou, being a Jew born 
and brought up a Jew as thou hast been the stress lying on 
lofSato?. By the present $9 is represented the usual life of 
the apostle his normal conduct ; for at that very moment he 
had receded from his ordinary practice, and was again living 
IouSai/c9. The present 779 is certainly not for the past 779, 
either actually (Flatt) or in effect (De Wette), nor is el for 
eireiS^, nor 779 for e^cras (ITsteri). Like all Jews, he had felt 
it unlawful aOifjarov Ko\\acr6ai rj Trpoaep^ecrdai aX\.o$>v\a) 
to associate with or come unto a foreigner. Acts x. 28 ; 
Joseph. Cont. Ap. ii. 28. Such association was limited and 
defined by avve^a^e^ when Peter was challenged for his free 
social intercourse with Cornelius. Since that period of divine 
warning and illumination at Joppa, as to what was tcoivbv 77 
aKaOdprov, Peter had so broken through Jewish custom that 
he freely ate and drank with Gentile converts. He had been 
doing so till the moment of his present withdrawal. To live 
eBviK&s was to disregard the old distinction of meats, drinks, 
and races ; and this Peter did, as is said in ver. 12. And he 
had not renounced his liberty ; he had in no sense retracted his 
principles of life ; he had not refused to eat with Gentiles from 
force of conviction that such association was wrong, but only 



158 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAKS. 

from pressure of circumstances undue deference to the pre 
judices of some he desired to stand well with. So that Paul 
justly and with emphasis says 779 "thou art living" the 
word by the present form rebuking his inconsistency, as if 
overlooking his momentary defection. Wholly out of ques 
tion is the view of Usteri, that the adverbs e9viicws and 
lov&atKws are to be taken ideally and not in their ordinary 
objective sense, the first meaning " wrongly," and the 
second " with spiritual rectitude," Horn. ii. 23 ; that is, Peter 
had acted ethnically or sinfully, in his dissimulation, since he 
was not " an Israelite in whom is no guile." But it is not to 
the morality, it is to the hollowness and inconsistency of the 
action that the apostle refers. The charge is, Thou art living 
after the manner of the Gentiles, and, though a Jew, not after 
the manner of the Jews. Now, this being admitted and unde 
niable, the challenge is 

/ O 

IT<w? TO, Wvt] ava^KaCpis lovSatQiv ; " how art thou com 
pelling the Gentiles to live after the manner of the Jews!" 
Wycliffe has it more tersely idiomatic If thou that art a Jewe 
lyuest hethenlich and not jewliche, how constreynest thou 
hethen men to bicome jewis ? We read TT<W<? on the authority 
of A, B, C, D, F, X, the majority of versions and the Latin 
fathers. The other reading TL of the Received Text, has Iv, 
L, the majority of minuscules, and the Greek fathers in its 
favour, and it is retained by Tischendorf, in violation of his 
own critical principles. The verb avayKa^eiv, used here as 
often with an accusative followed by an infinitive, passes away 
from its strict original meaning into the kindred one of moral 
compulsion by suasion, menaces, or authority. So often in 
Plato and in Xenophon. Ast defines it as argumentis cogo 
aliquem ut concedat, Lex. Platon. sub voce ; Sturz, Lex. Xen. 
sub voce, gives it as necessitas quam presens rerum condltio efficit. 
Matt. xiv. 22; 2 Cor. xii. 11. See under ver. 3. Libanius 
has TI ?]/uLas avajfcd^eis rot? ijOecriv AOrjvcucov aKO\ov6eiv, 455. 
Comp. Iloin. Clement, xiv. 7, and Recogn. ix. 38. It has been 
supposed by De Wette, Wieseler, Lechler, and Ritschl, that the 
Tives aTro larcwfiov had insisted on the observance of the cere 
monial law, and that Peter did not merely remain silent or 
passive, but openly and actively defended their view. But 
this verb and the context afford no sure Ground for this ex- 



CHAP. II. 14. 159 

treme supposition. All we are warranted to say is, that Peter 
belied his own principles in his conduct ; for there is no proof 
that either he had changed them, or had intimated that he 
had changed them. The Jewish party naturally followed 
Peter, even Barnabas among them ; and such an example in 
the circumstances, and connected with the arrival of these 
men from the mother church, exerted a pressure amounting to 
a species of compulsion on the Gentile converts. What infer 
ence could they draw from the sudden change of Peter but an 
obligation to follow him and submit ? The direct tendency of 
Peter s conduct was so to act upon them as to constrain them 
into Judaism, a result which, by the concealment of his real 
principles, he was doing his best to bring about. The verb 
lovSaiQiv is apparently more pointed and full than louSatVoS? 
%f)v the one depicting the condition of, and the other implying 
the entrance into, the Jewish life, and properly used of a con 
forming Gentile. Joseph. Bel. Jud. ii. 18, 2 ; Sept. Esther 
viii. 17. Wieseler, according to his theory already referred to, 
takes "to Judaize" as equivalent to, "to keep the decrees of 
the council." Iov$aieiv is formed like eXXyvlQiv, (})i\\nrl%eiv, 
XaKwvlQtv, /jujBl^eiv. Buttmann, 119-8, d. The TTCO? repre 
sents the case as incomprehensible and surprising qui fit ut, 
quo jure (Winer) ; Mark xii. 35 ; John iv. 9 ; Rom. iii. 6, 
vi. 2 ; puts his conduct in such a light, that it needed imme 
diate vindication. 

How far the address of the apostle extends, has been dis 
puted. Beza, Grotius, Semler, Koppe, Matthies, Hermann, 
Wieseler, and Hofmann hold that the address ends with ver. 
14; Luther and Calvin that it ends with ver. 16; Cajetan, 
Neander, Turner, Gwynne, that it ends with ver. 17; and 
Flatt with ver. 18. On the other hand, the majority of com 
mentators suppose that the address extends to the end of the 
chapter. For it would be strange if, in such a crisis, these two 
clauses alone, or these and ver. 15, formed the entire expostu 
lation. 

Wieseler argues, and he is joined in this portion of his 
argument by Hofmann, that if the two apostles were at one 
in principle, then, though Peter dissembled, how could Paul 
so earnestly prove to him the truth which he did not deny ? 
But Peter was not alone concerned ; the words were spoken 



1 GO EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

" before tliem all," and the inconsistency between principle and 
practice needed to be fully exposed. The appeal in iii. 1, it 
is argued, is abrupt if the address to Peter be carried on to the 
end of the chapter. But the abruptness is not more than that 
expressed by 6av/j,da) in i. G ; and the conclusion of Paul s 
expostulation so shapes itself as to accord with, and form an 
introduction to, the train of argument and appeal with which 
the epistle is to be filled. Wieseler objects again, that the 
direct av is not found after ver. 14, and that the tone of a 
personal address is wanting. But the (TV is taken up by the 
/7/i665, and the apostle does not reproduce his exact words ; he 
gives only the substance without the precise original form. 
Nay, the 6700 in the hypothetical case put in ver. 18 plainly 
arraigns the conduct of Peter, and is an indirect description of 
his inconsistency " For if the things which I destroyed, these 
again I build up, I constitute myself a transgressor." In the 
15th verse the words are rjpels (frvcret lovBaioi, which could not 
be said directly to the Galatian churches, the majority of whom 
were Gentiles. Nor are there any marks of transition, indi 
cating where he passes from the address to Peter to the general 
style of the epistle, till we come to the sharp and startling 
words of iii. 1, &> dvorjroi TaXd-rai. The verses, too, are all 
closely connected the 15th and 16th verses by syntax ; these 
to the 17th by the adversative inference in el Se; it to the 18th 
by the argumentative el <ydp ; and it to the 19th by <ydp, ren 
dering a reason, while the remaining clauses are logically 
linked together to the end of the chapter. Vers. 15, 16, 17 are 
in the first person plural 97/ietv, and the remainder in the first 
person singular, not precisely the apostle s " musing or argu 
ing with himself with an indirect reference to the Galatians" 

O 

(Jowett), but the vindication of his consistency, which had its 
roots deep in his own personal history. The apostle is not 
"speaking to himself," nor can we regard the words as "the after 
comment of the narrator" (Lightfoot) ; but he brings out some 
elements of his own spiritual consciousness to vindicate the part 
which he had taken, and to show by this representative / that 
he, and those who had passed through his experience, of all of 
whom he was a prominent specimen, could not but regard 
Peter s tergiversation not only as unworthy of him and detri 
mental to the cause of the gospel, but as utterly in conflict with 



CHAP. II. 15. 161 

the inner life and trust of every believer. Nor does the apostle 
really " drift away from Peter at Antioch to the Judaizers in 
Galatia" (Lightfoot) ; rather, the apostle s reminiscence of his 
address to Peter naturally throws into relief the points which 
had reference to the letter which he was writing at the 
moment. That is to say, his immediate object was to show his 
perfect independence of the primary apostles, even of Peter ; 
for he opposed him resolutely on a certain occasion, when by 
taking a retrograde step he was exercising an adverse Judaistic 
influence ; but this theme of dispute was in itself intimately 
connected with the Judaizing reaction in Galatia, so that in 
his narrative of the interview and expostulation he brings out 
its bearing on the immediate object of the epistle, to which 
he passes at once without any formal transition. The apostle 
gives only an abridged report of what he said to Peter ; and he 
introduces what he says of himself, first, because he was the 
object of suspicion and attack, and secondly., because at the 
same time it carried him into the line of thought which he was 
about to pursue in the parchment under his hand. He is not 
to be supposed as calling up his very words, but he writes the 
general purport in brief, at once vindicating his independence, 
or in a human sense his autonomy, and exposing in the process 
the very error which had seduced the Galatian converts. 

Ver. 15. Jf/Liet? (frvcrei, JouSa-iot, real OVK % zdvwv a^aprcoXoL 
"we by nature Jews, and not of the Gentiles sinners." 
Primasius, Eisner, Schmidt, Bagge, Grotius, and Brown con 
nect afjLaprw\.oi with lou&uoi nos natura Judceij licet non ex 
Gentibus, peccatores, we being by nature Jews, and not of the 
Gentiles, yet sinners ; or, Jews, and though not Gentiles, still 
sinners. True, the apostle concludes all under sin ; and Jews 
are not only no exception, but their sinf ulness has special aggra 
vations. Rom. ii. 3, 22, iii. 9, 23, 24. Yet he does not here 
say that the Jews are not sinners, but the heathen are cha 
racterized as " sinners" from the Jewish standpoint sinners 
inasmuch as they are Gentiles, or in consequence of being 
Gentiles; and it would be as unfair to infer from this language, 
on the one hand, that those who were by birth Jews were there 
fore not sinners (Hofmann), as, on the other hand, that the 
Gentilism of the contrasted party excused their sin. The term 
is not taken in a strict spiritual sense, but with the signification 

L 



1G2 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

it carried in Jewish parlance as a designation of all who were 
beyond the limits of the theocracy. The apostle thns speaks 
relatively : Men born Gentiles, being without the law, were by 
the privileged Jews reckoned " sinners." Bom. ii. 12 ; Eph. 
ii. 12; 1 Cor. ix. 21; Luke xviii. 32, xxiv. 7, compared with 
Matt. xxvi. 45, xviii. 17; 1 Sam. xv. 18; 1 Mace. ii. 44; 
Tobit xiii. 6 ; Horn. Clement, xi. 1 6, p. 241, ed. Dressel. It is 
perhaps better to supply ea^ev than 6We9. We (himself and 
Peter) are Jews by nature, not of Gentile extraction, and 
therefore, from our national point of view, sinners. AVieseler, 
according to his view, takes the ?//Aei9 to be Paul and the other 
Jewish believers like-minded with him. The stress is on ?///a?, 
arid Kal OVK normally follows an affirmative assertion. The 
dative (frva-ei (Winer, 36, 6) affirms that they were Jews in 
blood and descent, not proselytes, etc <yevovs Kal ov Trpocr/jXvTot, 
Theodore Mopsuest. See under Eph. ii. 3. But the opposite 
phrase ef eOvwv has not the very same meaning, as it signifies, 
though not so distinctively, " out of or belonging to the Gen 
tiles," as in Acts xv. 23. The Kal, may have a consecutive 
force : Gentiles, and being such, sinners. Phil. iv. 9 ; Matt, 
xxiii. 32. The particle /^ev is not needed in such a connec 
tion, nor is there an ellipse, as lliickert, Schott, and others 
suppose. Fritzsche, Rom. x. 19, vol. ii. 423 ; Donaldson, 
503. The verse seems in a word to be a concessive state 
ment to strengthen what follows : Though we are Jews by 
descent, and not Gentiles who as such are regarded by us from 
our elevation as sinners, yet our Judaism, with all its boasted 
superiority, could not bring us justification. Born and bred 
Jews as we are, we were obliged to renounce our trust in 
Judaism, for it was powerless to justify us. Why then go 
back to it, and be governed by it, as if we had not abandoned 
it at all ? 

Ver. ll". ElBore? Be on ov BiKaiovraL livOpwrros e ep<ya)v 
VOJJLOV "but knowing as we do that a man is not justified by 
the works of the law." The Be is not found in the Received 
Text, nor in A, D 3 , K, some versions and Greek fathers ; but 
it occurs in B, C, D 1 , F, L, X. Some connect the verse with the 
preceding, regarding its 77^619 as taken up by the following 
Kal ?}/u-et9, the nominative to eTna-Teucra/jiev : " We by nature 
Jews, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the 



CHAP. II. 1C. 163 

law, even we believed into Christ." This is the view of Winer, 
Matthies, B.-Crusius, De Wette, and Alford the whole form 
ing one sentence. But the previous verse may be taken as a 
complete statement : "We are Jews by nature ; but, knowing 
as we do that a man is not justified by works of law, even we 
believed." Such is the view of Beza, Borger, Schott, Hilgen- 
feld, Ellicott, Lightfoot, Ewald, Hofmann, Meyer, and Turner. 
The construction is supported by the Be, which was probably 
omitted in favour of the other view. Nor can Be w r ell mean 
" nevertheless," as Alford renders it, nor " and," as Bagge 
gives it ; nor can obgleich, " although," be supplied to the pre 
vious verse, as is done by De Wette, or quamquam, as by 
Trana. None of these supplementary ekes are required. 

The Be then is " but," with its usual adversative meaning, 
pointing to a different course from that to which the previous 
verse might be supposed to lead, and indicating a transition 
from a trust in Judaism, so natural to a born Jew, to faith in 
Christ. The participle etSores has a causal sense (Schmalfeld, 
207, 3) ; but the meaning is not that it was a logical conclu 
sion from the premiss, " a man is not justified by the works of 
the law," which led to the conversion of Peter and Paul. The 
faith of Peter had showed itself in attachment to the person 
and life of the Master, and must have developed within him 
the conviction, that He to whom he had ascribed " the words 
of eternal life" could alone bestow the blessing. Paul, on the 
other hand, had been arrested in a moment by the sucklen 
challenge of Jesus (Phil. iii. 12); and his first thought was, the 
identity of Him that spoke out of that " glory" with Him who 
had been put to death on the cross. This earliest belief, be 
gotten in an instant, must have created the persuasion, that in 
Jesus and not in works of law a man is justified. But the 
apostle now speaks in the light of present knowledge, puts 
into a definite shape the result of those mingled impressions 
which led to their discipleship, or at least sustained it. 

The phrase e| epycov VO/AOV, the stress on epywv, may be ren 
dered " by works of law," as virtually by Peile, Brown, and 
G wynne ; for if a man cannot be justified by the Mosaic law, 
he cannot be justified by any other. But, 

I. Such a generalization, or the idea of obligation arising 
out of law, though it is the blessed truth, could scarcely be 



164 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

attributed to so early a period in the religious history of the 
apostle and that of the Jewish converts. 

II. The law referred to is certainly the law in dispute, the 
Jewish law, the law which Peter was so inconsistent as to allow 
himself to observe through pressure of Jewish influence his 
hypocrisy in the matter leading to the whole controversy. 
That a man cannot be justified by any law whatever on the 
score of duty done, is indeed the ultimate inference, but it was 
not the immediate point of discussion. That a man cannot be 
justified by the works of the Mosaic law, was the doctrine de 
manding immediate defence, the doctrine so far invalidated by 
Peter s dissimulation ; nay, it was this conviction which led so 
many Jews in possession of that law to put their trust in 
Christ. 

III. IVo/io?, in the sense of the Mosaic law, does not require 
the article, as some suppose ; for it was to the Jewish mind the 
only divine law, the only law revealed and sanctioned for them. 
In the Gospels it has the article indeed, except in Luke ii. 23, 
24, in which places there is the qualifying genitive Kvplov. 
But it wants the article in Rom. ii. 12, 23, iv. 13, 14, 15, v. 
13, 20, vii. 1, x. 4 ; 1 Cor. ix. 20 ; Gal. iii. 10, 11, 18 ; and as 
Winer remarks, " it always occurs as a genitive when the prin 
cipal noun has no article," xix. Middleton, Gr. Art. p. 48. 

The preposition e/c, " out of," denoting source, passes 
often into a causal meaning, " resulting from," and is not in 
such use distinguishable, as Fritzsche remarks, from Sid, as 
frequently in Herodotus, or even from VTTO or jrapd : Epist. 
ad Horn. i. pp. 332-3 ; Jelf, 621, 3. Source or origination 
may be the relation here indicated : works are not the source 
out of which justification springs ; or, with a slight change of 
relation, works are not the cause of justification. The genitive 
VO/AOV is taken as that of subject by Augustine, by the Catholic 
interpreters, Aquinas, Bellarmine, and Salmero, by Windisch- 
mann and Maier, as also by Usteri, Keander, Olshausen, Lep- 
sius, Hofmann, and Gwynne who calls it a genitive of quality 
" with an adjectival force." Under that view the meaning is, 
" works capable of satisfying the requirements of God s law, 
i.e. meritorious works." But ep<ya vo^ov are works which fulfil 
the law, in contrast, as Meyer remarks, to u/jLapT^ara vofiov, 
Wisdom ii. 12, deeds which transgress the law. In this way 



CHAP. II. 16. 165 

it is regarded as the genitive of object by Beza, Riickert, De 
"Wette, TVieseler. And the vopos or law we regard as the 
whole Mosaic law, and not merely its ceremonial part, as is 
the opinion of Theodoret, Pelagius, Erasmus, Michaelis, Semler, 
Schott. And the epja are not works external in character 
and proceeding from no inner principle of love or loyalty, epja 
vexpd, which Catholic commentators place in contrast to spes, 
charitas, timor ; the plural epya does not of itself convey this 
insinuation (Usteri). See under Eph. ii. 10. See Calvin, in 
loc.; Philippi on Rom. iii. 20, p. 89, etc., 3d ed. his opinion 
being changed from that expressed in his first edition. Neither 
meritum de congrno nor rneritum de condigno has any place in 
a sinner s justification. The so-called ceremonial part of the 
law may indeed have been specially in the apostle s mind, as 
suggested by Peter s withdrawal from eating with the Gentile 
converts, but the modern distinction of moral and ceremonial 
is nowhere formally made or recognised in Scripture ; the law 
is regarded as one code. See under iii. 10-13. 

Eav prj Bia TTicrrews I^croO Xpiarov " except by faith in 
Jesus Christ," the stress lying on Trio-reco?. This is the order 
of the proper names in C, D, F, K, L, and X, the majority 
of cursives, versions, and the Greek fathers, Chrysostom, 
Theodoret ; also, Jerome and Ambrose. The inverse order, 
adopted by Tischendorf in his 7th ed., has in its favour only 
A, B, Vietorinus, and Augustine. The phrase eav /jirj has the 
usual meaning of el /j,rj, and refers only to the ov SiKaiovrcu 
a man is not justified by the works of the law, or a man is not 
justified except by faith in Jesus Christ. See under i. 7, 19, 
pp. 33, 51 ; Matt. xii. 4; Luke iv. 26, 27 ; Rom. xiv. 14, and 
the remarks of Fritzsche on that place, vol. iii. 195. The verb 
SiKaLovraL is the ethical present the expression of an enduring 
truth. The relation indicated by e/c in the former clause is 
indicated in this clause by Sid, the reference being to source 
or cause in the former, in the present to means or instrument ; 
or, as Meyer says, it is causality in two forms " Jes Ausgeliens 
und des Vermitteltseins." It is the apostle s manner to exhibit 
relations in various connected phases by a change of preposi 
tions. Rom. iii. 30 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6, etc. The Bid is changed 
again into e/c in the next clause, showing that they indicate the 
same relation with a slight difference of view, TT/CTU? being 



166 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

taken as cause or as instrument in connection with that is, 
originating or bringing about the same result. Besides IK and 
Bid, eVt with the dative occurs Phil. iii. 9, and the simple geni 
tive is used Rom. iv. 11. Bengel s strange distinction is, that Bid 
refers to Gentiles, and IK. to Jews. Like the preceding vo^ov, 
the genitive I. X. is that of object. Rationalists, according to 
Wieseler, make it the genitive of subject. Thus Schultess, 
der Glaube Christi, Glanben icie Christus cm Gott Jen Vater 
hatte und Ictlidtigte. But others, not rationalists certainly, hold 
a similar view. Thus Gwynne, who takes the genitive sub 
jectively or possessively, " Faith not only of Christ as author 
or giver, but of Christ as the author or possessor Christ, in a 
word, believing within them." See also Stier, Eph. i. 447. 
Whatever theological truth may be in the statements, they do 
not lie naturally or apparently in the words before us. The 
faith which justifies is characterized by its object, for by its 
object it is distinguished from all other kinds of belief ; the 
difference being, not how one believes, but what one believes. 

These clauses seem sometimes to have been understood in 
the following fallacious way, chiefly by Catholic expositors : 
" A man is not justified by works or by the laAv, except 
through faith in Christ ; that is, on condition of faith in 
Christ, works of law will justify a man, or works acquire justi 
fying power through faith in Christ." Xon justificatur homo 
ex operilus leyis nisi per fidem Jesu C/insti, i.e. opera letjis non 
justijicant quatenus sint Icyis, scd quatenus ex fide fiunt, ita lit 
opera vim justificandi a JiJe accipiant (a-Lapide, Holsten). 
But this opinion is plainly against the grammatical meaning 
and the entire logical bearing of the apostle s argument. See 
Parseus in reply. 

The notion of Jatho is peculiar, as he takes ep<ya vopov to 
mean, in some way or other, the works done in fulfilment of 
the law by Christ the obedientia aclica, die Gesetzeserfullung 
Christi, on which faith lays hold. A man is not justified by 
Christ s fulfilment of the law, except through faith in Him 
who had so acted. The idea is far-fetched, and wholly foreign 
to the natural meaning of the terms, for it comes not within 
the scope of the apostle s statement. 

No man can fulfil the law, and therefore no man can be 
justified by it ; for as he breaks it ; so he is exposed to the 



CHAP. II. 16. 1G7 

threatened penalty. Law detects and convicts transgressors ; 
it has warrant to condemn, but it is powerless to acquit. It 
pronounces every man a violator of its precepts, and leaves 
him under the curse of death. But the law is holy ; it does 
not create his guilt, save in the sense of showing many acts to 
be sinful which without its light and power might be regarded 
as indifferent, and of stirring up desire after forbidden things : 
it only declares his guilt ; and "we abandon it," as Chrysostom 
says, " not as evil, but as weak." Faith is a principle wholly 
different from works. It does not merit justification ; but as 
it has its root in Him who died for us, it brings us into union 
with Him, and into a participation of all the blessings which 
His obedience unto death has secured for us. It is not the 
ground (propter), but only the instrument (Bta Trio-Tews, and 
never Sta TTIO-TIV or propter fidem, Lightfoot) by which Christ s 
merit is laid hold of " the hand," as Hooker says, " that 
putteth on Christ to justification." See under chap. iii. 

Kal ?7/ze69 ei? XpicrTov ^Irfcrovv eTricrreucra/iey " we also 
believed into Christ Jesus." There is some variation of read 
ing as to the proper names. B, some versions, Theodoret, and 
Augustine place I^crow first, so that it is precarious to lay 
stress on the change. The aorist is not " we have believed," 
but indefinite, or at a previous point of time " we believed." 
The Kal may be taken in its ascensive force " even we," born 
Jews as we were. Its ordinary meaning, however, is just as 
emphatic " we also," as Avell as the Gentiles " we too," born 
under the law, renounced all trust in the works of the law, 
and putting ourselves quite on a level with Gentile sinners who 
never had the law, we as well as they believed into Christ Jesus. 
In r)/j,i$ there is the personal application of the precious doc 
trine a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by 
the faith of Christ Jesus. In order to be so justified, " we too" 
believed on Christ, is the exhaustive statement ; and Paul re 
minds Peter how they had both brought this truth home to 
themselves, and acted in harmony with it. The relation indi 
cated by 619 not so frequent a usage in Paul as in John is 
more than mere direction, and means " into " (Winer, 30), in 
the same way as the other expression, a<? Xpicrrov e /^aTrrio-^Te, 
in iii. 27. The faith enters into Christ through union with 
Him. But faith is not to be identified with this union or 



168 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

incorporation (Gwynne), for it is rather the means of creating 
and sustaining it the Spirit being the agent, the Spirit in the 
Head giving organic union to all the members. 

The verb Tno-revw is used with various prepositions. Thus, 
it sometimes governs the dative, expressing an act of simple 
credence, a usage common in the Septuagint. See Matt. xxi. 25, 
28-32 ; Mark xi. 31 ; Luke xx. 5, in reference to the Baptist ; 
John v. 38, 46; Acts xviii. 8; Gal. iii. 6. Sometimes, though 
rarely, it is followed by the dative with ev, expressing confi 
dence in or in union with : Mark i. 15, Sept. Jer. xii. 6, Ps. 
Ixxviii. 22, 3 ppsn ;. sometimes, but very seldom, by the dative 
with err I, implicit reliance on : Luke xxiv. 25, spoken of divine 
oracles, 1 Tim. i. 16, Matt, xxvii. 42 ; sometimes with the 
simple accusative of the thing believed: John xi. 26 ; occa 
sionally with a? : 1 John v. 10 ; sometimes with accusative 
of person and e/9 faith going out toward and entering into, 
often, as might be expected, in John, and also in Peter ; and 
sometimes with an accusative and eVt faith going out with a 
view of being reposed upon fidem alicui adjungere, only 
once in Sept. Wisdom xii. 2. The accusative with a? or eVt 
is more specially characteristic of believing in the New Testa 
ment of that faith which implies union with its object, or 
consciously places calm confidence on it. Rom. iv. 5. The 
ecclesiastical uses of the verb and noun, the more correct and 
the laxer, will be found in Suicer s Thes. sub voce. See also 
Heuss, Theol. Chret. vol. ii. p. 129. 

"Iva 8t,Kai(i)6a)/*iev etc TrtWew? Xpiarov " in order that we 
might be justified by the faith of Christ." This reading is 
well supported, and is generally accepted. X. is omitted in F, 
Theodor., Tert., the omission made apparently on account of 
the previous repetition of the name. The "va reveals the final 
purpose or object of their believing the momentous end 
sought to be realized. The use of e/c shows that it does not 

o 

essentially differ from 8id in the previous part of the verse, 
and it was preferred probably as being directly opposed to the 
repeated e l ep^/wv. Justification springs out of faith in Christ, 
not as its ultimate source, but as its instrumental cause. Or 
may not e/c have been suggested by the previous et? THO-? 
els X. ... IK TriVreci)? X. out of this faith so uniting us with 
Him into whom it enters as its object, comes justification ? The 



CHAP. II. 16. 169 

apostle adds in contrast, KCU, ovtc e epjwv vop^ov " and not 
by the works of the law." See on the first and last clauses. 

If the reading of the previous clauses as here given be 
adopted as correct, there are th ee ways in which the Saviour 
is mentioned Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, Christ. It is hard 
to say what suggested such variations to the apostle s mind in 
this verse or elsewhere. The nouns are all anarthrous, and, as 
may be expected, there are often various readings. In this 
epistle the names Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus occur about 
equally ; but with ev it is always X. I., as with et9 in this verse. 
If the variations of name are designed to be significant, then 
they may be explained thus : In *lie first clause where the 
name occurs, it is Jesus Christ " the faith of Jesus Christ " 
faith which has for its object the living and loving man 
brought so close to us by His humanity indicated by His 
birth-name Jesus, and that Jesus the Messiah or Christ, the 
double name being connected with a proposition of universal 
application. Then in the next clause it is Christ Jesus " we 
also believed into Christ Jesus" into Him, the promised 
and anointed Deliverer, His mission and work giving our 
faith its warrant, and our union with Him its saving reality, 
this Messiah being He who was called Jesus, a proposition 
made by the KO.\ ^/zet? especially Jewish in its aspect, and 
therefore naturally giving the name Christ or Messiah the 
prominence in thought and order. Next it is simply " Christ " 
" that we might be justified by the faith of Christ." The 
solitary Jewish name in its recurrence is all-inclusive to the 
rjfj,ei$ "we" "you, Peter, and I:" we Jews believed on our 
Messiah, on whose mother and for Him rested the unction of 
the Holy One, and on whom at His baptism the Spirit visibly 
descended, in fulfilment of the oracles and promises of the Old 
Testament. In the Gospels these names are used with dis 
tinctive propriety ; and it may be added, that I^crou?, the 
familiar name of the Man, occurs in the Gospels 620 times, 
61 of these, however, being various readings; that 6 Xptcrro?, 
the official designation, occurs 47 times, four of these being 
various readings ; and Xpicrros five times, the form XpLarbs 
I^crow not occurring once. But in the Epistles such precision 
is not preserved : the ascended Lord had become more than 
mere Jesus, and I^croOs occurs only 62 times, 10 of these 



170 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

being various readings ; the promised Deliverer now stood 
out to view, and 6 Xpiaros occurs 108 times, 22 being various 
readings ; and the simple Xpurros 148 times, 17 being various 
readings. The compound name is also naturally employed : 
lya-ovs XpLaros being used 156 times (nine various readings) ; 
and Xpia-Tos I^croi)?, which is never used in the Gospels and 
only two or three times in the Acts, occurs in the Epistles 64 
times (two various readings). These changes are natural, and 
are easily accounted for. Xpto-ro? lost its official distinctive- 
ness and passed into a proper name, though there are places 
where the names could not be interchanged. The name 
^Ir/aovs (Joshua) is from JJV^ Neh. viii. 17, the later form of 
JKflrr, " Jehovah help" Num. xiii. 1(5, Matt. i. 21. Com 
pare Acts vii. 45, Heb. iv. 8. Some of the Greek fathers 
absurdly derived the word from Iciofj.ai, as Eusebius, Clement 
of Alexandria, and Cyril of Jerusalem who says " it means 
saviour among the Hebrews, but in the Greek tongue Io>//,e- 
z/o?" Healer. Xpia-ros, OV??? or the anointed one, is applied 
to such as had enjoyed the sacred unction. The priest is often 
called o ^piaro^, Lev. iv. 3, 5, 16 ; the king was also called 
o ^picrro?, 1 Sam. xii. 3, 5, as is also Cyrus, Isa. xlv. 1 ; and 
the prophets also get the same title rwv %pi<nwv yu-ou, Ps. 
cv. 15 my anointed ones, Abraham being specially referred 
to, Gen. xx. 7. The word is applied in pre-eminence to 
Jesus, and the reason is given in Luke i. 35 ; Matt. iii. 16, xii. 
18 ; John iii. 34 ; Acts x. 38. In the Received Text the last 
clause of the verse reads 

ALOTL (6 rt) ov $iKaia>9ijcreTai e% ep^/wv vofjiov Tracra crdp% 
" because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justi 
fied." This order of the words is found only in K, L, in the 
Gothic version, and in some of the Greek fathers. But the 
order on e ep^wv vopov ov ^iKaiwO^crerai is found in A, B, C, 
D, F, K, in the Itala, Vulgate, Syriac, and in many Latin 
fathers. The reading 8 ion is doubtful. It is found in C, D , 
K, L, many MSS., versions, and fathers, and is adopted by 
Tischendorf and Ellicott ; whereas the shorter on has in its 
favour A, B, D 1 , F, N, etc., and is received by Lachmann, 
Alford, Meyer, and Lightfoot. It may be said that Sion was 
taken from Rom. iii. 20 ; but it may be replied that on is a 
correction of the longer Bion : the latter, however, is not so 



CHAP. II. 16. 171 

likely. The clause is a free use of Old Testament language, 
and in Paul s manner it is naturally introduced by on, which 
in meaning is not materially different from Biort in the later 
writers " because that," " because." It is not a formal quota 
tion introduced by a formula, bat rather a reminiscence of Ps. 
cxliii. 2 in the Sept., on ov SifcaicodrjcreTai, eva>7ri6v crov iras 
%(av. That the allusion is to that psalm, is indicated by the 
Hebraism ov Traa-a. The apostle leaves out evufmov aov } which 
implies an appeal to Jehovah ; and to give the clause special 
adaptation to the case before him, he adds e epywv vo^ov, 
The Hebrew reads, rrb spaa!> PWT6 3. The negative &6 
belongs to the verb, as the Masoretic punctuation shows 
(Ewald), and forms a universal negative. Ex. xii. 43 ; Josh. 
xi. 12; Jer. xxxii. 16. So in the Greek: non-justification is 
predicated of all flesh. Compare Matt. xxiv. 22, Luke i. 
37, Acts x. 14. The idiom is found chiefly in " sentential 
quotations," though it occurs often in the Septuagint. Ex. 
xii. 16, xx. 10; Deut. v. 14; 2 Sam. xv. 11. It is put by 
Leusden in the sixth section of his sixteenth class of Hebra 
isms : Philologus flcb. Grcvc. p. 118, ed. 1785, Lugd. Batav. 
See also Vorstius, De Heb. N. T. p. 91 ; Pars Altera, p. 91, 
ed. 1705, Lipsise. The Seventy now and then render by ov 
ouSet?, or simply ouSe/?. Compare Deut. viii. 9, Josh. x. 8, 
xxiii. 9. It is especially when the negative precedes the article 
that the Hebraism occurs. Winer, 26, 1. The iraa-a <rdp%, 
equivalent to ^ 3, is perhaps chosen in preference to the eoy 
of the Septuagint, as in the apostolic times, and so close on the 
life-giving work of Christ, forf with its associates was acquiring 
a new and higher meaning. Tlao-a <rdpj; is all humanity the 
race without exception, Luke iii. 6 ; John xvii. 2 ; Acts ii. 
17 ; 1 Pet. i. 24, representing in the Septuagint "1JP3~73, there 
being apparently in the phrase no accessory notion of frailty, 
or sin, or death (Beza, Schrader). It means, however, man as 
he is, though not insinuating his inability in naturd adfectibus et 
cupiditatibus sensuum ounoxia (Schott) ; nor does it carry any 
allusion to the overweening estimate placed by the Jews on their 
fleshly descent from Abraham (Windischmann). The future 
SiKcuwdrjaerai, as the ethical future, affirms possibility under 
the aspect of futurity, and with the negative particle denotes 
" something that neither can or will happen." Webster, Syntax 



172 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 



of the New Testament, p. 84. It thus expresses a general truth 
which shall ever continue in force quw omnino non fount, et ne 
fieri quidem possunt. Thiersch, de Pentat. p. 160. The future 
contains no allusion to a coming clay of reckoning (Hofmann) ; 
nor is there any such allusion in the psalm, for the phrase 
" enter not into judgment with Thy servant " refers to present 
divine inquisition or trial. Peile, p. 238. The apostle in the 
clause bases his reasoning upon an assertion of the Old Testa 
ment familiar to Peter and to his Jewish auditors. The quota 
tion is more than " an axiom in our theology " (Alford), and 
it is not a mere repetition of what is found in the first clause 
of the verse, but it is an authoritative confirmation of the 
major premiss of the argument. Usteri, Lehr-begr. p. 90 ; 
Messner, Die Lelire der Apostel, p. 219. 

Ver. 17. El Se fyrovvres &iK.aiw9?]vai iv Xpia-rw 
d/jiapra>\oi 7 apa Xpio~TO<> a^apTta^ Bid/covos ; prj 
" But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we were 
found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin ? God 
forbid." Of this difficult verse various interpretations have 
been given. 

The verse plainly takes up an assumption, and reduces it 
to an absurdity. Theodoret says at the conclusion of his re 
marks on the previous verse, elra criAAcr/i^eTai ra elpr)/j,va. 
" But if, in accordance with these premises of thine, or assuming 
the truth of these thy retrogressive principles" (Ellicott). The 
apostle had said, " we believed into Christ," iva, with this end 
in view justification; and he now uses ^rjTovvres, describing the 
action in unison with it, or which had been prompted by it. It 
is to be noted, that with the active participle he uses the aorist 
infinitive, which, though it cannot be expressed in English, 
" gives a momentary character to the action." Jelf, 405, 2. 
Not as if two justifications arc spoken of one enjoyed already, 
and another yet sought after " (AYieseler, Lipsius). The 
apostle throws himself back to an earlier period ; and indeed 
some regard fyrovvres as an imperfect. He does not insinuate 
any doubts as to the reality of his justified state, but only 
represents the general attitude of an earnest soul its uniform 
aspiration toward Christ and justification in Him ; as it still 
feels its sins and shortcomings, still prays for a growing faith 
and an inteuser consciousness of union with Him, and the pos- 



CHAP. II. 17. 173 

session of its blessed fruits. The phrase ev Xpiaro} has its usnal 
meaning, " in Christ " in union with Christ, and not " by 
Christ," as in our Authorized Version, which follows Cranmer, 
Tyndale, and the Genevan. Wycliffe and the Rheims have, 
however, " in Christ." The faith possessed by Peter and Paul, 
which had gone out of themselves and into Christ, et?, was the 
nexus of a living union ev XpiarM. They were justified 8ta 
Trto-reeo?, for it was the means, or e /c Tr/oreo)?, as it was the 
instrumental cause ; but they were also justified ev X. 7 as onlv 
in such a union has faith any power, or divine grace any sav 
ing efficacy. The soul out of union with Christ is faithless, 
unforgiven, and lifeless. So that the relation indicated by ev 
X. differs from that indicated by Bia X. The phrase "by 
Christ " may cover the whole extent of His work as Media 
tor; but ev X. narrows the meaning to the more special point 
of union with Him the inner and only source of life. 
Wieseler, followed by Schmoller, wrongly takes the phrase to 
mean, the " ground, or Christ as causa meritoria" But the ev 
and Bid ai e used with distinctive significance, as in Eph. i. 7. 
See under it. The two prepositions cannot be so distinguished 
here, or in such an argument, as if the one pointed to a 
mere inquirer and the other to a professed member of Christ 
(Gwynne). In evpeOij/jiev lies a contrast to fyTovvres: "if while 
seeking," or, " if after all our seeking, we ourselves also were 
found to be sinners." The verb evpicrKCi) has been often re 
garded as a periphrasis of the subjunctive verb idem est ac 
elvat. Kypke, Observed, i. p. 2. Even Gataker makes it a 
Hebraism jevo^evo^ et evpeOek idem valent. Antonin. Med. p. 
329, ed. London 1697. By this dilution of meaning the point 
and force of the verb are taken away. Not only the Greek 
verb, but the ND3 of the Hebrew idiom also, keeps its proper 
meaning (2 Chron. xxxvi. 8; Mai. ii. 6), and denotes not simply 
the existence of anything, but that existence recognised or dis 
covered. Matt. i. 18 ; Luke xvii. 18 ; Rom. vii. 10. Soph. 
Track. 411 ; Ajaz, 1135 ; Winer, 65, 8. The aorist refers 
to a point of time past ; that is to say, " but if, while seeking 
justification in Christ, we too were found to be, or turned out 
to be" (perhaps with the idea of surprise, Lightfoot), or "after 
all," a^apTwKoi. It is surely requisite that this word be taken 
in the sense which it has in ver. 15 " sinners" as the Gentiles 



174 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

were regarded from the Jewish point of view, because not 
living in subjection to the Jewish law. 

The particle wliich begins the next clause may be accented 
apa or apa. "Apa pa has in it, according to Donaldson, the 
idea of distance or progression in an argument, and may in 
volve the idea that the existing state of things is at variance 

O O 

with our previous expectations " so then," or " as it seems." 
Cratylus, pp. 304, 365. In Attic usage it indicates both direct 
and oblique allusions, the idea of surprise being sometimes 
implied ; or, as Stallbaum defines it, Earn habet rim ut aliquid 
prcvter opinioncm accidere, significet; also, doch. Plato, Repultl. 
375 D ; Apolofj. 34 E. It does not usually stand first in the 
sentence among classical writers, nay, sometimes is placed at 
the end. Ilerod. iii. 64 ; Xen. Hell. vii. 1, 32. Hermann 
says, apa avXKo^icrTiicov in initio poni non potest : Antiy. 628. 
But in the New Testament it stands first. Matt. xii. 28 ; 2 
Cor. v. 15; Gal. ii. 21; 2 Thess. ii. 15; Klotz-Devarius, ii. 
1 60, 1. Some take it here as the conclusive apa. As Chrysostom 
says, e2oe9 et? oo">]V avdjKrjv TrepiicrTrja-ev aroTTias TOV \oyov. 
More fully his argument is : " If faith in Him does not avail 
for our justification, but if it be necessary to embrace the law 
again ; and if, having forsaken the law for Christ s sake, we 
are not justified, but condemned for this abandonment; then 
shall we find Him for whose sake we abandoned the law the 
Author of our condemnation. This opinion changes, however, 
the meaning of a^apTuiXoi into KaTaKpivojaevoi. Theodoret gives 
the same view, but more distinctly : el Se ore, TOV vouov /cara- 
\iTrovTes TOJ XpLaToj Trpo(re\.r)\v0a/j,ev Sta rfj<> eV avrov 7r/<JTeeo9 
aTToXaixraaOai TrpoaooKijo avTes, Trapd/Sacris TOVTO vevofAiaTai, 
et? avTov rj atria %u>p-/]crei, TOV SecrTroTrjv XptaTov. In this case 
the apostle is supposed either to take up the objection of a Juda- 
izer thus put: "To forsake the law in order to be justified, is to 
commit sin ; and to make this change or commit this sin under 
the authority of Christ, is to make Christ the minister of sin, 
a supposition not to be entertained ; therefore it is wrong to 
plead His sanction for renunciation of law." Or the statement 
may be the apostle s own argument : " It cannot be a sinful 
thing to abandon the law, for such abandonment is necessary 
to justification ; and if it were a sinful thing to pass over from 
the law to faith, it would thus and therefore make Christ the 



CHAP. II. 17. 175 

minister of sin : but far from our thoughts be such a conclu- 

O 

sion." So generally Koppe, Flatt, Winer, Borger, Schott, and 
many others. 

2. But apa is supposed by some to put a question ; and it 
needs not with this meaning to be changed into apa, because it 
introduces an unauthorized conclusion rebutted by urj yevoiTo 
(Hofmann, Wieseler). It is better, however, to take the particle 
as apa. True, indeed, in the other places where it occurs, Luke 
xviii. 8, Acts viii. 30, it introduces a question to be followed 
by a negative answer ; but here, from the nature of the case, 
an affirmative that is, on the principle admitted but virtually 
a negative, which urj <yevoiro thunders out. On the other hand, 
it may be said, that in Paul s epistles firj yevoiro occurs only 
after a question, and denies an inference false in itself but 
drawn from premises taken for granted, as is pointed out by 
the indicative evpedyftev. The apa expresses a perplexity, so 
natural and striking in the circumstances. It hesitates in put 
ting the question, and has a shade of irony in it. Are we then, 
pray, to conclude that Christ is the minister of sin ? Simplex 
apa aliquid site vercc sive fictcv dubitationis admiscet. Stallb. 
Plato, DeRepub. 566A. It does not necessarily stand for up ov, 
nonne (Olsliausen, Schott), which prepares for an affirmative 
reply. Jelf, 873, 2 ; Hermann, ad Viger. 823. Unde Jit, ut 
ul>i apa pro ap ov dictum videatur orationi scepe color quidam 
ironies admisceatur. Kiihner, Xen. Mem. ii. 6, 1, p. 244. The 
general meaning then is : But if we, seeking to be justified, are 
found to be sinners ; if we, having renounced the law as the 
ground of justification, have placed ourselves on a level with 
the heathen who are sinners from our point of view ; is it to 
be inferred, pray apa, ergone that Christ is a minister of sin ? 
iillicott and Lightfoot find an irony in a/iapreoXot : We look 
down upon the Gentiles as sinners, and yet, in order to be 
justified, we must put ourselves on a level with them. Our 
possession of the law as born Jews gives us no element of justi 
fication ; we renounce it, and thus become as Gentile sinners 
who never had it. Is Christ in that case, in whom alone justi 
fication is to be sought without works of law, a minister of sin? 
The lesson given by Peter s dissimulation in reverting to legal 
observance was, that renunciation of leo;al observance had been 

f O 

wrong. But the renunciation had been made under the autho- 



176 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

rity of Christ; so that you, and they who hold with you, must be 
prepared to affirm that Christ, necessitating such renunciation, 
is a minister of sin. 

The expositors who attach a different sense to a/aaprwXot 
in this verse from what it plainly bears in ver. 15, bring out 
forms of exegesis which do not harmonize with the apostle s 
reasoning, or with the special circumstances in which he w 7 as 
placed. 

1. A common exegesis among the older interpreters gene 
rally, as Paraus, Wesseling, etc., and recently Twele, Web 
ster and Wilkinson in their New Testament, has been this : If 
men seeking or professing to seek justification in Christ are 
yet found living in sin, is Christ to blame for such an abuse of 
His gospel? vi. 1. It is a monstrous inference to teach, that 
" to dispense with works of law in regard to justification is to 
allow men to continue in sin." But surely this exegesis does 
not follow out the apostle s train of thought. It is not the 
abuse of the doctrine of faith or fides sola at all, but the virtual 
denial of its sole efficacy, that the apostle is reprehending in 
this verse. 

2. Others, as Calovius, Locke, Zschokke, Haldane, bring out 
this idea : If while seeking to be justified in Christ, we are yet 
found sinners or unjustified ; if His work alone cannot justify, 
but must have legal observance added to it ; then Christ after 
all leaves us sinners under condemnation. As Dr. Brown re 
marks, the inference in such a case would be, not, Christ is the 
servant of sin, but, Christ s expiation has been incomplete. 
This exegesis does not suit the context, nor is it fairly deducible 
from the words. 

3. The same objection may be made to Calvin s notion : " If 
justification by faith puts Jews and Gentiles on a level, and 
if Jews, sanctified from the womb, are guilty and polluted, 
shall we say that Christ makes sin powerful in His own people, 
and that He is therefore the Author of sin ? He who discovers 
the sin which lay concealed is not therefore the minister of 
sin." Compare Piscator and Wordsworth. This, however, is 
not by any means the point in dispute to which the apostle is 
addressing himself. 

4. Nor better is the supposition of Grotius, that the apostle 
has in his eye the flagitious lives of Judaizers, though he puts 



CHAP. II. 17. 177 

it in the first person : The inference that Christ is the minister 
of sin, will be gathered from our conduct, unless it far excel 
the life both of Gentiles and Judaizers. 

5. The opinion of Macknight needs scarcely be noticed : 
" If we practise the rites of the Mosaic law contrary to our 
conscience, will Christ promote such iniquity by justifying 
teachers who delude others in a matter of such importance?" 

6. Olshausen s view of the last clause is as objectionable, for 
it overlooks the special moments of the verse : " If justification 
depends on the law, while Christ ordains the preaching of faith 
for that purpose, then He is the minister of sin, as He points 
out a false method of salvation." 

7. The form in which Jowett puts the question changes 
the meaning of a/j,apr(a\oi : " If we too fall back under the 
law, is Christ the cause of this I Is He the author of that 
law which is the strength of sin, which reviving we die?" etc. 1 
This paraphrase introduces a new idea from the Epistle to the 
Romans; and it is not so much to the inner working of the law, 
as to its powerlessness to justify, that the apostle is here refer 
ring. The point before him suggested by Peter s inconsistency 
is rather the bearing of the law on our relation to God than on 
our character, though both are inseparably connected. 

The phrase a^aprla^ Sia/coi/o? is a pregnant one (2 Cor. xi. 
2), the first word being emphatic, not a furtherer of lawless 
ness, as Morns, who gives a^apTw\oi the meaning of lawless, 
or without law gesetzlos, and Rosenmiiller, who sums it up, 
Christum esse doctorem paganismi ! 

The apostle protests against the inference 
Mr) yevoiTo " God forbid " let it not be ; absit, Vulgate. 
The phrase is one of the several Septuagint translations of 
1 T ?0j ad profana, sometimes joined to a pronoun of the first 
or second person, and sometimes to the name of God. The 
Seventy render it by fi^Sa^w? or firj eir/ ; I Xea)? aoi occurs in 



Matt. xvi. 22 ; and the Syriac has . m .,. = propitius sit Dens. 

The phrase is not confined to the sacred writers, but is found 
abundantly in Arrian s Epictetus and in the same sense, but 

1 " Meint Ihr, dass Christus dann an uns Gefallen, grosseres Gefallen, 
als an den Heiden finden, und so uns in unsrer Sunde stdrken undf order n 
u-erde ? Das wird er nicht." Riickert. 

M 



178 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

with a change of reference in Herodotus, v. Ill ; Xeri. 
Cyrop. v. 5, 5. It is used only by Paul among the writers of 
the New Testament : Kom. iii. 4, 6, 31, vi. 2, 15, vii. 7, 13, 
ix. 14, xi. 1, 11 ; 1 Cor. vi. 15 ; Gal. iii. 21 ; and with a differ 
ence in Gal. vi. 14. It is spoken by the people in Luke xx. 1G. 
It is usually and suddenly interjected against an opponent s in 
ference. " God forbid " that any one, for any reason or to any 
extent, from any misconception or on any pretext, should either 
imagine or suspect Christ to be a minister of sin ; or should be 
involved in any course of conduct, the vindication of which 
might imply such an inference ; or be entangled in any pre 
misses which could lead by any possibility to such an awful 
conclusion. Perish the thought ! Let it be flung from us as 

O O 

an abominable thing ! 

Ver. 18. El <yap a KareXvaa ravra jraX.iv ol/coSofjib), Trapa- 
(3drrjv 6/j.avrov crvvicndvo) "for if the things which I destroyed, 
these again I build up, I constitute myself a transgressor." 
The arwicmjfJM of the Received Text rests only on the slender 
authority of D 3 , K, L. 

This verse has a close connection with the preceding one. 
The yap, in spite of AVieseler s objection, is a confirmation of 
the firj yevoiTo, as in Rom. ix. 14, xi. 1. Why say I prj yevoiro 
so sharply ? the reason is, For if I set up again what I have 
pulled down, my rebuilding is a confession that the work of 
demolition was wrong. And if I claim the authority of Christ 
for both parts of the process, then I make possible an affirmative 
to the startling question, "Is He after all a minister of sin?" 
Nay, if I re-enact legal observances as indispensable to justi 
fication, after having maintained that justification is not of 
legal merit but of grace, my second work proves my sin in my 
first work. Or : Is Christ the minister of sin ? God forbid ; 
for in the renunciation of the law, and in the consequent find 
ing of ourselves sinners in order to justification, there is no sin; 
but the sin lies in returning to the law again as the means or 
ground of acceptance, for such a return is an assertion of its 
perpetual authority. There is yet another and secondary con 
trast, not so primary a contrast as Olshausen, Winer, Schott, 
and Wieseler would contend for, since e/j.avrov coining after 
Trapa/BdrTjv has not the emphatic position : You, from your 
point of view toward us who have forsaken the law and only 



CHAP. II. 18. 179 



believe in Christ to justification, find us sinners a 
and would implicate Christ; but in rebuilding what I destroyed, 
it is not Christ who is to blame, but myself I show to be a 
transgressor. Or : You Judaists regard as a^apTw\oi all non- 
observers of the law, yet this non-observance is sanctioned by 
Christ ; but would you dare to impeach Him as the promoter 
of anything that may really be called dpapTia ? No, far from 
us be the thought ! But a direct Trapd/Sacris must be charged 
on him who, like Peter, sets up in Galatia what at Csesarea and 
at Antioch he had cast down so firmly, and that as the result 
of a supernatural vision and lesson.. The structure of the verse, 
which prevents it from being well rendered into English, is 
emphatic : a . . . ravra. The change to the first person was 
probably dementia causa mitigandi vituperii causa (Jaspis), 
for it might well have been crv. The figure is a common 
one with the apostle, as in Rom. xv. 20 ; 1 Cor. viii. 1, x. 
23 ; Eph. ii. 20. The tropical use of Kara\vo), to loosen 
down, is common in the New Testament, as applied to VOJJLOS, 
Matt. v. 17, and epyov, Acts v. 38, 39, Rom. xiv. 20. The 
apostle utters a general principle, though the intended appli 
cation is to the Mosaic law. There is a distinct emphasis on 
ravTa : " these, and nothing else than these," a rebuilding of 
the identical materials I had cast down. The verb oi /coSo/u-eet) in 
the present tense is suggested by the general form of a maxim 
which the verse assumes, while it also glances at Peter s actual 
conduct. The rarer form crvvtardvw^ not different in meaning 
from the other form O-IW OT^/U, signifies " I prove, or am prov 
ing," not commendo (Schott). Hesychius defines it by eiraivelv, 
fyavepovv, fteftaiovv, TrapaTiOevai. The true meaning comes e 
componendi significatione : Rom. iii. 5, v. 8 ; 2 Cor. vi. 4 ; Sept. 
Susan. 61 ; Jos. Antiq. ii. 7, 1 ; and as here with a double accu 
sative it occurs in Philo, avvia-rrja-tv avrbv (^po^rjTTjv, Quis rer. 
div. Ilaer. p. 114, vol. iv. ed. Pfeiffer; and in Diodor. Sic. xiii. 
91, 0-two-Ta? avTovs oi/eeiW, vol. i. pt. 2, p. 779, ed. Dindorf, 
Lipsias 1828. Bengel s notion of a mimesis, and Schott s of 
irony, in the selection or use of the verb, are far-fetched and 
groundless. Hapa^aT^ is a transgressor, to wit, of the law, 
a more specific form than tt/iaprcoXo?, for it seems to imply 
violation of direct law: Rom. ii. 25, 27, iv. 15; Jas. ii. 9, 11. 
But what law is referred to? It cannot be the law of 



180 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

faith or of the gospel (Koppe, Matthies) ; but it is the Mosaic 
law itself. For Peter was guilty of notorious inconsistency in 
preaching the abrogation of legal observance, and then in re- 
enacting it in his conduct ; and specially, that conduct was a 
confession that he had transgressed in overthrowing the law. 
So Borger, Usteri, Hilgenfeld, De Wette, and Ewald. Alford 
takes the phrase as the explanation of afJLaprwXol evpedr/fiev 
" found sinners," that is, in setting aside the law. Various 
modifications of this view have been given. Pelagius places 
the Trapd/Baais specially in this, that Peter was confessing him 
self mecv sentential prevaricator ; Morus, in that by his inconsis 
tency he was showing himself to be one, qui non observed officium 
doctoris. Hammond takes the noun to signify an apostate. 
Wieseler understands the verse in a general sense as enforcing 
the connection of justification and sanctification, sin being 
an actual rebuilding of what in justification had been thrown 
down ; an opinion which Schmoller is justified in calling ein 
starkes Exempel dogmatisirender Exegese. Hofmann, too, gives 
a peculiar view : The sinner, to be justified, must acknow 
ledge himself guilty of a violation of law ; and such a con 
fession shows himself and not Christ the servant of sin his 
very attempt to obtain righteousness in Christ is an acknow 
ledgment of transgression. But these opinions are aside from 
the context. Bao;e s view is too vasme : " If a -justified man 

OO O <J 

seek justification by law, he again binds himself to the law, 
and thus declares himself a transm-essor." So is that of 

O 

Rollock : Ego sum transgressor quoniam recadifico peccatum, 
quod per fidem in Christum, quoad reatum et maculam destrnere 
desideravi. Similarly Webster and Wilkinson. The apostle s 
general argument is, there was no sin in declaring against the 
validity of legal observance in order to faith in Christ, who is 
"the end of the law;" this emancipation was only obedience 
to Christ, and He cannot be the minister of sin. Men, Jews 
especially, renouncing the law as a ground of justification, will 
find themselves sinners from their previous point of view, and 
Christ is not to be blamed. But this renunciation of law must 
be sin to all who, now regarding themselves as having been in 
a false position, not only recoil from it, but go back to the old 
Judaic ordinances, and seek acceptance through subjection to 
them. Abrogation and re-enactment cannot both be riiiht.- 

O D 



CHAP. II. 19. 181 

But there lies a deeper reason which the apostle now pro 
ceeds to develop. This deeper reason it might be difficult to 
trace in this verse by itself, but the yap of the next verse brings 
it out. It is also recognised by the Greek expositors ; and it is 
this, that the law itself was leading on to faith in Christ. From 
its very form and aspects it taught its own typical and tempo 
rary character, that it was an intermediate system, preparing 
for Christ and showing the way to Him ; and in serving such 
a purpose it indicated its own supersession. But if, after 
Christ has come, you re-enact it, you not only confess that you 
were wrong in holding it to be abrogated, but you also prove 
yourself a transgressor of its inner principles and a contravener 
of its spirit and purpose ; for the next words are, eya) yap Sia 
VO/LLOV vofjiw airzQavov. Chrysostom gave as the meaning: "The 
law has taught me not to obey itself; and therefore if I do so, I 
shall be transgressing even its teaching." Theophylact explains, 
o vopo$ pe oDSijyyae Trpo? TT]V Trlcmv Kal eireicrev afaivat, avrov. 

The objection of Alford to this view is, as Ellicott remarks, 
u of no real force." The Dean says, " The eya> of the illus 
tration has given up faith in Christ, and so cannot be regarded 
as acknowledging it as the end of the law." The Bishop truly 
replies, that " the eym had not given up faith in Christ, but 
had only added to it." Peter certainly had not renounced faith 
in Christ, but he had given occasion for others to suppose that 
he regarded legal observance to be either the essential comple 
ment of faith or an indispensable supplement to it. His view 
of the relation of the law to faith may not even have been 
obscured, for his inconsistency was dissimulation. How the 
law was transgressed, if re-enacted either to compete with faith 
or give it validity, the apostle proceeds to show : 

Ver. 19. Eya> yap &ia vo^ov vopw tnreOavov "for I through 
the law died to the law." Aia VO/JLOV cannot mean "on account 
of the law." The yap has its full force : If I build up that law 
which I pulled down, I prove myself a transgressor of it, for 
by it I became dead to it ; or as Lightfoot happily expresses it, 
" In abandoning the law, I did but follow the leading of the 
law itself." The position and expression of eya) are alike em 
phatic "I for my part;" it being the revelation of his own 
experience. The eyco is not merely representative in its nature, 
as is held by Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Kamphausen, and 



182 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Wieseler who understands it von Paulus und seinen judenchrist- 
lichen Gesinnungsgenossen. This is true as an inference. But 
Paul s personal experience had been so profound and decided, 
and had so moulded the entire course of his life, that it may 
certainly isolate him from other believing Jews, even from 
those who could trace in themselves a similar change, even, in 
a word, from Peter, whose momentary reaction had challenged 
this discussion. So far as the result is concerned, the experi 
ence of believers generally is pictured out ; but the apostle puts 
himself into prominence. The experience of others, while it 
might approximate his, could never reach a perfect identity 
with it in depth and suddenness. That both words, vo^ov 
vofj,a), should by necessity refer to the same law, has not been 
universally admitted. The genitive has been referred by very 
many to the law of the gospel, such as Jerome, Ambrosiast., 
Erasmus, Luther, Calovius, Hunnius, Vatablus, Vorstius, 
Bengel, Koppc, Morus, and Borger. It is also an alternative 
explanation of the Greek fathers and Pelagius. Kiittner quietly 
says, Intellige Tr/crrea)? quod omisit ut elegantior et acutior fieret 
sententia. 

But this signification cannot be received as even plausible. 
It is true that TO/ZO? is a term occasionally applied to the gospel, 
but some characterizing element is added, as Trw-reo)?, Rom. 
iii. 27 ; r. Trvev^aro^ r. &>?79, Rom. viii. 2 ; SiKaioo-vvrjs, Rom. 
ix. ol ; Justin Mart. Dial, cum Try ph. p. 157, ed. Thirlby. 
The word can bear here no meaning but the law of Moses, the 
law of God embodied in the Jewish economy. The Mosaic 
law is the point of dispute, the only divine law known to the 
speaker and his audience. The article is not necessary. The 
want of the article in some clauses, even when the reference 
is to Mosaic system, may express to some extent the abstract 
idea of law, but it is ever divine law as exemplified or embodied 
in the Jewish economy. See pp. 163, 164. 

How, then, did the law become the instrument of the 
apostle s dying to itself, for 8ia VO/JLOV has the stress upon it ? 
How through the instrumentality of the law was he released 
from obligation to law ; or, more briefly, How did the law free 
him from itself? 

1. Some find this power in the outspeaking of the law as 
to its own helplessness to justify. Thus Winer: Lex legem 



CHAP. II. 19. 183 

sustulit, ipsa lex cum non posset mild salutem impertire mei me 
juris fecit atque a suo imperio lileramt. Similarly Olshausen, 
Matthies, Hilgenfeld, and Matthias. But this statement does 
not contain the whole truth. 

2. Some ascribe to the law the peculiar function of a TraiSa- 
70)709. Thus Beza: Lex enim terroris conscientiam ad Christum 
adducit. So Calvin, Schott, Bagge, Trana, and virtually 
Lightfoot. But surely this abandonment of the law forced 
upon sinners by its terrors does not amount to the profound 
change described in the very significant phrase ro3 



3. Some refer this instrumental posver to the Messianic 
deliverances of the law, as Gen. xv. 6, explained in Rom. iii. 21, 
or Deut. xviii. 18 Aia re rwv Matcra iKMv \oya>v KOI rwv Trpofir]- 
TIKWV, Theophylact. Theodoret, Hammond, Estius, Wetstein, 
and Baumgarten-Crusius. It is also an alternative explanation 
of QGcumenius, Pelagius, Augustine, Crocius, and Grotius. 
But the written law would be o w/io?, and it did not as such 
embrace the prophets by whom those utterances were most fully 
and vividly given. Besides, as Lightfoot remarks, " such an 
appeal" based on type and prophecy would be "an appeal rather 
to the reason and intellect than to the heart and conscience." 
The apostle s words are indeed an argument, one not based 
however on written external coincidences or propaideutic and 
typical foreshowings, but drawn from the depths of his spiritual 
nature. Marian. Victor, puts it peculiarly: Ego enim per leg em, 
quie nunc spiritualiter intelligitur legi mortuus sum, illi scilicet 
legi quce cdrnaliter intelligebatur. 

But to aid inquiry into the meaning of &ia VO/AOV, the 
meaning of vopw dtreOavov must be first examined. The noun 
is a kind of dativus commodi as it is called. Such a dative is 
found with this verb Rom. vi. 2, 10, vii. 4, xiv. 7. To die to 
the law, is to die as the law demands to bear its penalty, and 
therefore to be no longer under its curse and claim. In Rom. 
vii. 4 the apostle says, " The law has dominion over a man as 
long as he liveth;" but that dominion over him ceases at his 
death. This is a general principle ; and for the sake of illus 
tration he adds, that the yvvrj vTrav^pos dies to the law of 
marriage in her husband s death, and therefore may " marry 
another." So believers died to the law in the death of Christ 



184 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 



ru> vo/J,a> $ia rov (To^iaro? TOV Xpiyrou. They 
were freed from the law (/car^pjrjOrj/jiev, nullified), and so are 
discharged from it. The common reading aTroOavowros in 

o O 

Rom. vii. G is to be rejected "that being dead in which we 
were held ;" for the true reading is aTroOavovres " we having 
died to that ev u> KareL-^o^eOa in which we were held bound," 
and so we are freed from it. But how can a man die by the 
law to the law and be relieved from its curse? The apostle 
explains in the following verse 

XpiaTw crvvea-Tavpa>ncu " I have been crucified with 
Christ." Wondrous words ! I am so identified with Him, 
that His death is my death. When He was crucified, I was 
crucified with Him. I am so much one with Him under law 
and in suffering and death, that when He died to the law I 
died to the law. Through this union with Him I satisfied the 
law, yielded to it the obedience which it claimed, suffered its 
curse, died to it, and am therefore now released from it from 
its accusations and its penalty, and from its claim on me to 
obey it as the means of winning eternal life. By means of 
law He died ; it took Him and wrought its will on Him. As 

o 

our Representative in whom we were chosen and in whom 
we suffered, He yielded Himself to the law, which seized Him 
and nailed Him to the cross. When that law seized Him, it 
seized at the same time all His in Him, and through the law 
they suffered and died to it. Thus it is that by the law taking 

t> */ O 

action upon them as sinners they died to the law. This is the 
view generally of Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, and Gwynne. At 
the same time, the passage is not parallel to the latter portion 
of the seventh chapter of Romans ; for there the apostle shows 
the powerlessness of the law to sanctify as well as to justify. 
Yet the law is not in itself to blame, for it is " holy, and just, 
and good;" and it has its own functions to reveal sin in the 
conscience, to irritate it into activity, and to show its true 
nature as being " exceeding sinful." When sin revives, the 
sinner dies not the death referred to in the passage before us, 
but spiritual death and misery. And now certainly, if the law, 
avenging itself on our guilt, has in this way wrought our release 
from itself has set us for ever free from its yoke, and we have 
died to it and have done with it ; then he who would re-enact 
legalism and bring men under it, proves himself its transgressor, 



CHAP. II. 19. 185 

nay, opposes its deepest principles and its most gracious design. 
See Usteri, Paulin. Lehrb. p. 171, 5th ed. 

But release from law is not lawlessness. We die to sin 
as well as to the law which is " the strength of sin," and 
" Christ died unto sin once." But death to the law is followed 
by life to God as its grand purpose : 

"Iva e<w V? o-w " that I might live to God," even as Christ 
" liveth unto God." Life in a high spiritual form succeeds that 
death to the law life originated and fostered by the Spirit of 
God the life of faith the true life of the soul or Christ living 
in it. The dative @e&) is opposed to vo/io), and with the same 
meaning. The verb 770-0) is the subjunctive aorist (Winer, 
41, p. 257), in keeping with the historical tense of the prin 
cipal sentence. The phrase tyjv TIVI, vivere alicui, is common : 
eavraj %fjv, opposed to rw KvpLw ^wf^ev, Rom. xiv. 7; e/j,avru> %fjv, 
Euripides, Ion, 646 ; QCkiTnTw wi/re9, Demosth. Philip. Epist. 
vol. i. p. 100, ed. Schaefer ; T&> -jrarpl ^coz^e?, Dion. Halicar. 
iii. 17, vol. i. p. 235, ed. Kiessling, 1860; TOUT eV TO "C^v ov% 
eavro) "(fiv fjiovov, Menander in Philadelpho, Stobseus, Flor. 121, 
5, ed. Gaisford ; alcr^pov <yap ffiv novois eavrols, Plutarch, Ag. 
et Cleom. Opera, vol. iv. p. 128, ed. Bekker; tycnv T&> @e&>, 1 
Mace. xvi. 25 ; 0eu> p,ovu> $crai, Philo, de Nom. Mat. p. 412, Op. 
vol. iv. ed. Pfeiffer ; ^rjaai, eu> f^aX\.ov rj eavrw, Quis rer. Div. do. 
p. 50 ; non sibi soli vivere, Ter. Eun. iii. 2, 27 ; mihi vivam, Hor. 
Ep. xviii. 107 ; vive tibi, vive tibi, Ovid, Tr. iii. 4, 4. These 
current phrases were therefore well understood. To live to 
one s self is to make self the one study to bend all thoughts, 
acts, and purposes on self as the sole end ; so that the inquiry, 
how shall this or that tell upon self either immediately or 
more remotely, deepens into a species of unconscious instinct. 
To live to God is to be in Him in union with Him, and to 
feel the assimilating influence of this divine fellowship to 
give Him the first place in the soul, and to put all its powers 
at His sovereign disposal to consult Him in everything, and 
to be ever guided by His counsel to do His will, because it is 
His will, at all times to regard every step in its bearing on 
His claims and service, and to further His glory as the one 
grand end of our lives. Such is the ideal in its holy and 
blessed fulness. Alas, how seldom can it be realized ! Such 
a life must be preceded by this death to the law through the 



186 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAKS. 

law, for the legal spirit is one of bondage, failure, and un- 
happinesS, works done in obedience to law to ward off its 
penalty, with the consciousness that all the while the perfect 
fulfilment of the law is impossible, God being viewed as the 
lawgiver and judge in their sterner aspects, and not in His 
grace, so as to win our confidence and our unreserved conse 
cration. The clause is connected with the one before it, and 

not with the following- one. 
o 

Ver. 20. Xpia-ra) crvvea-TavpwfAai, " I have been crucified 
with Christ." The meaning of the words has been already 
considered the wondrous identity of the saint with his 
Saviour. See under Phil. iii. 9, 10, 11. Compare Rom. vi. 
4, 8 ; Rom. viii. 17 ; Epli. ii. 5; Col. ii. 12, 20; 2 Tim. ii. 11. 
Lightfoot errs in giving it a different meaning from VOJJLW 
aTredavov, of which it is the explanation, as if the one were 
release from past obligation, and this were the annihilation of 
old sins. For the allusion here is not to the crucifixion of the 
old man as in v. 24 (Ambros., Grotius), the image of spiri 
tual change, self-denial, and " newness of life." The apostle 
is describing; how death to the law and release from leo;al 

O C3 

bondage were brought about. Some connect the clause i va 
ew fyjaa> with the one before it " in order that I may live 
to God, I am crucified with Christ" (Chrysostom, Cajetan, 
Calvin). But the position of I va, and the contrast of aire6avov 
and fyjarat, show that the first clause is a portion of what is 
introduced by <ydp. The punctuation of the following clauses 
has been variously attempted. In one way the arrangement is 
Zw Be OVK6TL ey&r %f) 8e ev e^ol Xpiarros " but it is no 
longer I that live, but it is Christ that liveth in me ;" or, " I 
live however no longer myself, Christ however liveth in me." 

O / / 

It has been common, on the other hand, to put a point after 
the first &e, as in our version " nevertheless I live, yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me ;" and so Bagge, Gwynne, Scholz, 
Luther, Morns, etc. As Alford remarks, however, that punc 
tuation would require d\\d before ov/ceri in such a negative 
assertion. It is difficult, indeed, to translate the clauses ; but 
that is rather in favour of the idiomatic structure which the 
newer punctuation brings out. Still, under the older punctua 
tion there is something like the Pauline antithesis, eKOTrlao-a- 
OVK eya> Se, 1 Cor. xv. 10; 2 Cor. vi. 8-10. But here the 



CHAP. II. 20. 187 

phrase " I am crucified with Christ" is a kind of parenthetical 
explanation suddenly inserted ; and the co Be, therefore, is not 
in contrast with it, as the older punctuation supposes, but goes 
back to the previous clause &ew $aa>. 

The w . . . 77 have the emphatic place the idea of life 
after such death fills the apostle s thoughts : " living, however, 
no longer am I ; living, however, in me is Christ." The first 
Be has its proper force, referring to "va &ew $0-0) : " That 1 
may live to God ;" but " it is not I that live." I have said 
" I," but it is not /. It is something more than the fortschrei- 
tendes Be (De Wette, Riickert). This eyto is my old self 
what lived in legalism prior to my being crucified with Christ ; 
it lives no longer. The principle of the old life in legalism has 
passed away, and a new life is implanted within me. Or, When 
I speak of my living, " I do not mean myself or my natural 
being;" for a change as complete is spoken of as if it had 
sundered his identity. The explanation of the paradox is 
this new life was not himself or his own, but it was Christ 
living in him. His life to God was no natural principle no 
vital element self-originated or self-developed within him ; it 
sprang out of that previous death with His Lord in whom also 
he had risen again ; nay, Christ had not only claimed him as 
His purchase and taken possession of him, but had also entered 
into him, had not only kindled life within him, but was that 
Life Himself. When the old prophet wrought a miracle in 
restoring the dead child by stretching himself upon it so 
exactly that corresponding organs were brought into contact, 
the youth was resuscitated as if from the magnetic influences of 
the riper and stronger life, but the connection then terminated. 
Christ, on the other hand, not only gives the life, but He is the 
life not as mere source, or as the communicator of vitalizing 
influence, but He lives Himself as the life of His people ; for 
he adds 

Zfj Be ev e/nol Xpicrro?. There are idiomatic reasons for 
the insertion of this second Se, for it marks the emphatic 
repetition of the same verb. The idiom is a common one. 
r}(j6r)v Be /Siaia, irdvv Be ftiaid. Aristophanes, Acharn. 
v. 2. 

(o Be rdcrBe Balfj,ovas KO\O) B* "Apr], Soph. CEdip. 
Col 1391. 



188 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 



Be crvfcr) 7ro\v S e~\.aiov, Xen. Cyrop. ii. 22. Many 
other examples are given in Ilartung, i. p. 168 ; Klotz- 
Devarius, ii. 359, who adds, significatio non mutatur etiam turn, 
cum in ejusdam rei aut notionis repetitione ponitur ; Kiihner, 
Xen. Mem. i. 1 ; Dindorf, Stepli. Thes. ii. p. 928. That is to 
say, 8e is not wholly adversative ; but it introduces a new, yet 
not quite a different thought similis notio quodam modo oppo- 
nitur. Living is the emphatic theme of both clauses ; the 
contrast is between ejca and XpiaTos in relation to this life ; 
the one clause does not contradict or subvert the other, but the 
last brings out a new aspect under which this life is contem 
plated. 

The utterance is not, as might be expected, I live in 
Christ ; but, " Christ liveth in me." Some, as Riccaltoun and 
Olshausen tell us, take this expression " for a mere metaphor" 
or " a mere oriental figure, or if not, " for cant and unintel 
ligible jargon;" while others, as Olshausen also informs us, base 
a species of pantheism upon it ein Verschwimmen ins allgemeine 
Meer der Gottheit. But Christ-life in us is a blessed fact, 
realized by profound consciousness ; and the personality is not 
merged, it is rather elevated and more fully individualized by 
being seized and filled with a higher vitality, as the following 
clauses describe. AYhat a sad interpretation of Semler, that 
" Christ " in this clause means ilia perfection* doctrina C/iristi ! 

<V O Se vvv fa ev crap/a a but the life which I am now living in 
the flesh," the stress lying on vvv. The Be is used as in the first 
of the two previous clauses, and it rebuts an objection suggested 
by the words vvv cv crap/cL The vvv, glancing back to ou/ceVt, 
has been supposed to allude to the apostle s unconverted state : 
my present life dating from my conversion ; as Alford, Meyer, 
Wieseler, Trana. Others take it to be in contrast to the future 
state, as Kiickert, Usteri, Schott, Bisping : iny present life, my 
life now in contrast with what it shall be, is a life of faith ; 
Meyer adding, though he adopts the previous interpretation, 
that Paul expected at the second coming to be among the 
living who shall only be changed. The idea of Chrysostom, 
followed by Ellicott, comes nearer to our mind, that vvv cha 
racterizes simply his life as a present one, life in the flesh Jxxc 
vita rnea terrestns. The words ev crap/a would be all but 
superfluous if a contrast with his former unbelieving state were 



CHAP. II. 20. 189 

intended, for he lived ev <rapici then as now. As for the con 
struction, it is needless with Winer to fill it out as quod vero ad 
id attinet, or Ka(? o 8e vvv w, the alternative and preferred ex 
planation in his Gram. 24, 4, 3. Here o is simply the accu 
sative to the verb <y (Bernhardy, p. 297) ; not precisely, as 
Ellicott resolves it, TTJV Se ^wrjv fyv vvv co, for o limits and 
qualifies the idea of life, as is more fully seen in Rom. vi. 10. 
See Fritzsche in loc. The implied repetition of the noun in 
connection with its own verb is common. Bernhardy, p. 106. 
The ev crap/ci, in this body of flesh, is not carnaliter or Kara 
crdpKa; there is no ethical implication in the term; it merely 
describes the external character of his present life. My pre 
sent life so true, so blessed, and so characterized by me is 
a life in the flesh. Granted that it is still a life in the flesh, 
yet it is in its highest aspect a life of faith. This idea or 
objection suggested the Se, which is simply explicative, and is 
more than ndmlic/i, to wit (Meyer) : " but what I now," " or 
so far as I now live in the flesh." " I live indeed in the flesh, 
but not through the flesh, or according to the flesh" (Luther), 
for the believer s life externally resembles that of the world 
around him. Thus Tertullian, in vindication against the charge 
of social uselessness : Quo pacto homines vobiscum degentes, 
cjusdem victus, habitus, instinctus, ejusdem ad vitam necessitatis ? 
Neque, enim Brachmana:^ aut Indorum gymnosophistce sumus, 
ttylvicolte et exules vitae. Meminimus gratiam nos debere Deo 
Domino creatori, nullum fructum operum ejus repudiamus, plane 
temperamus, ne ultra modum aut perperam utamur. Itaque non 
sine foro, non sine macello, non sine balneis, tabernis, officinis, 
stabulis, nundinis vestris cceterisque commerciis, cohabitamus in 
hoc seculo ; navigamus et nos vobiscum et militamus, et rusti- 
camur et mercatns proinde miscemus, artes, opera nostra publi- 
camus usui vestro. Apologet. cap. 42, vol. i. p. 273, ed. (Ehler. 
While his life was in this visible sense an earthly one, it was 
characterized at the same time by a higher principle 

Ev TT/crret > Ty rov vlov rov @eov " I live in the faith of 
the Son of God ;" or, in faith," to wit, "the faith of the Son 
of God." Codex A omits co ; rfj rov Qeov real Xpicrrov is 
read in B, D 1 , F, and is accepted by Lachmann ; but the usual 
text is supported by A, C, D 2> 3 , K, L, N , and by many of the 
versions and fathers. It is difficult, indeed, to see how the other 



190 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

reading could have originated ; unless, as Meyer supposes, viov 
rov had been omitted, and some other copyist, to bring the 
clause into harmony with what follows, added rov Xpiarov. 

He lived ev Tr/crm, "in the faith," not by the faith, either as 
the simple dative, or as if it were Sta Tricrreft).?, though the Greek 
fathers, with Michaelis, Beza, Balduin, so render it ; and our 
version has also " by the faith," the only place where the phrase 
is so translated. .Ei/, indeed, with the dative has an instru 
mental sense ; but here, while that is not wholly excluded, it 
falls into the backoround. Faith was the element in which he 

O 

lived ; his life was not only originated instrumentally by it, but 
it was also sustained in faith. A weak dilution of the phrase 
is given by Grotius, Sub spe vitcv melioris, and by Koppe, who 
explains the clause by omne studium religionis Jesus. How odd 
is the notion of Vatablus, Propter fidem, i.e. ut jidem doceam ! 

This faith is held up or is particularized as ry rov viov TOV 
Geov. The article, as inserted at this point, gives it special 
prominence or moment " in faith, and that of the Sou of 
God." The genitive is that of object faith resting on Christ, 
as in ver. 16. And the name is chosen with fitting solemnity. 
It is as the Son of God that He has and gives life. John 
v. 25, 26. Divine personality and equality with the Father 
are implied in the Blessed Name. Both names are specified 
by the article. See under Eph. i. 3. That faith rested on 
no creature, but on God s own Son so like Him as to be 
His " express image," and so loved by Him as to be in His 
bosom. And what He has done for the apostle is stated in 
glowing terms 

Tov cuyaTTija-avTOf; fie KOI TrapaSovros eavruv VTrep e /u-oO 
"who loved me, and gave Himself for me." See under 
i. 4, and under iii. 13. The teal is illustrative et quidem, 
Winer, 53, 3, C, though he warns correctly, that " this epexe- 
getical force has been attributed to /cat in too many passages." 
The participles, emphatic in position, are aorists, referring the 
facts to the indefinite past ; and they show how well warranted 
that faith was, by the relation which the Son of God bore to 
him, for He loved him with a love which none but He can 
feel a love like Himself, and by the gift which Pie gave for 
him, and which none but lie could give Himself, the fruit of 
His love. Me, though repeated, for it is still the same eyo>> 



CHAP. II. 20. 191 

has not a position of special prominence. But it shows the 
depth and individualizing nature of his faith ; he particularizes 
himself : No matter who else were loved, He loved me ; no 
matter for whom other He gave Himself, He gave Himself for 
me. Is it any wonder, then, that my life even now is a life of 
faith in Him, and no longer one in legal bondage ? Paul had 
been many years in Christ ere he used this language of assur 
ance. That assurance was unchanging. If the Son of God 
loved him, and so loved him that He gave Himself to death for 
him, and if his faith had been resting on that love crowned 
in His sacrifice, how could he think of disowning this divine 
Redeemer, slighting His love and disparaging His self-gift, 
by relapsing into legal observances and rebuilding what He 
had been so strenuously throwing down? His confidence 
in the Son of God, and the near and tender relation of the 
Son of God to him, made such retrogression impossible ; for 
these elements of life were weightier than all arguments were 
the soul of his experience, and identified with himself. He 
must deny himself and forget all his previous history, before he 
could turn his back on that cross where the Son of God proved 
the intensity and self-denying nature of His love for him in 
that atonement which needs neither repetition nor supplement. 
" "Wilt thou bring thy cowl, thy shaven crown, thy chastity, thy 
obedience, thy poverty, thy works, thy merits? What shall those 
do?" (Luther.) To be faithless is to be lifeless, without union 
with Him who has life and imparts it. Faith rests on His 
ability and will as a divine Redeemer " the Son of God ;" feels 
its warrant and welcome "He loved me ;" and revels in the 
adapted and numerous blessings provided " He gave Himself 
for me." These blessings are all summed up in " life," as 
awaking it, fostering it, and crowning it, so that its receptive 
faculties are developed, and it pulsates healthfully and freshly 
in sympathetic unison with its blessed Source. Faith brings 
the soul into close and tender union with Him " who is our 
life," keeps it in this fellowship, and creates within it a growing 
likeness to Him in the hope that it shall be with Him for ever. 
Faith gives Him a continuous influence over the conscience, 
writes His law on " the fleshly tables of the heart," and enables 
the believer to realize His presence as his joy and power. In 
short, the new existence which springs from co-crucifixion with 



192 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Christ, "lives, and moves, and has its being" in this faith of the 
Son of God. It is a lamentably superficial view which is taken 
by Rosenmiiller of these clauses ev Trla-rei, in religione Messice 
excolenda et propaganda. 

Prof. Jowett at this point makes an apparent assault on 
the common theology, because it does not follow the apostle s 
special order of thought in this place. " We begin," he says, 
" with figures of speech sacrifice, ransom, Lamb of God and 
go on with logical determinations finite, infinite, satisfaction, 
necessity in the nature of things. St. Paul also begins with 
figures of speech life, death, the flesh ; but passes on to the 
inward experience of the life of faith, and the consciousness of 
Christ dwelling in us." But this use of the apostle s present 
form of argument is partial and one-sided. Prof. Jowett s accu 
sation implies that " we" do not reason on these subjects in 
the apostle s order ; and he institutes a needless comparison be 
tween theology and experience, between objective and subjec 
tive Christian truth. But it is surely quite possible to begin 
with such " figures" as those lie refers to " sacrifice, ransom, 
Lamb of God" and move on naturally to the other figures 
which more delight him, as " death, and death with Christ." 

O / / 

May not one after referring to the fact that " Christ has given 
Plimself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God," to the 
" price" with which men " are bought," and to " the Lamb of 
God taking away the sin of the world," and these are realities 
of Scripture, pass without any incongruity to the necessity of 
faith as a means of appropriation, to the inability of the law to 
justify, and to the blessed fact that the same law has no power 
to condemn believers they being dead to it while their faith 
originates a new life within them, of which Christ is the true 
vital element ? Nay, might not a man put all this as the record 
of his own experience? Might not he say, Christ my pass- 
over has been sacrificed" for me; I "have redemption through 
His blood;" I have been "redeemed with the precious blood of 
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot ?" And 
what then should hinder him either to drop altogether the scho 
lastic terms "finite, infinite, satisfaction," or, making his own 
use of them as the inadequate symbols of momentous truth, to 
go on to vital union with the Life-giver, and that fellowship with 
Him in His death which emancipates from legal bondage and 



CHAP. II. 20. 193 

gives a community of life with the Son of God in whom faith 
ever rests. If it be common for divines to do as Prof. Jowett 
alleges, if it be their normal progress of argument, it is because 
they have some purpose in view which is different from that of 
the apostle in this report of his address to Peter. For, in re 
ferring to Christ s death in this paragraph, it was foreign to 
his purpose either to discuss or illustrate such aspects of it as 
the terms " finite, infinite, satisfaction, and necessity," point to. 
Neither these words, nor any words like them, are ever used 
indeed by the apostle, for they had their rise chiefly in medi 
aeval times ; but the ideas suggested by them, we will not say 
represented by them, are occasionally illustrated by him. His 
object, however, here is to connect the death of Christ subjec 
tively with his own experience which shadows out that of all 
true believers, and he required not to consider its value, extent, 
or connection v/ith the divine government. That is to say, the 
apostle does not himself follow a uniform order of thought on 
this central theme; and why should blame be insinuated against 
those who do not follow him in the special style of reasoning 
adopted here for a specific object and in personal vindication ? 
Finally, the apostle begins at a point more remote than that 
selected by Prof. Jowett, from which to start his depreciatory 
contrast. He commences with an objective declaration that 
justification is impossible by the works of the law, and that 
this blessing comes through faith as its instrument, with an 

O O 

assertion that under this creed or conviction himself and Peter 
had renounced Judaism and had believed in Christ. But 
while Peter had recoiled and partially gone back to the law, he 
would not and could not go back to it, for he had died to the 
law. He did not need to fortify his position by argument ; his 
own history was conscious and undeniable evidence. Unless, 
therefore, writers on theological science have a purpose iden 
tical with the apostle s before us, there is no reason why they 
should walk in his steps ; nor, if they deviate, are they to be 
tacitly censured, for in such deviation they may be only follow 
ing the apostle in some other section of his epistles. Let, then, 
these "logical determinations" be dismissed as not being scrip 
tural terms, but only inferential conclusions, and not perhaps 
in all their metaphysical senses and uses warranted by Scrip 
ture ; still, one may hold the scriptural ideas which by common 

N 



194 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

understanding they are intended to symbolize, and may from 
them pass over, by closely connected steps and in the apostle s 
mode, to spiritual experience in its elevation and rapture. There 
is no occasion, then, to contrast the method which men may 
ordinarily adopt in the construction of creeds with the apostle s 
special and limited illustration in the present paragraph. The 
presentation of doctrine in its scientific aspects and relations is 
surely a warranted effort, and not incompatible with a living 
spiritual experience as the result of the truth accepted. A 
sound creed or Scripture teaching arranged and classified, and a 
true and earnest life acted on by faith and reacting on it, are not 
necessarily at opposite poles. Still it had been better if, in our 
treatises on divinity, it had been more deeply borne in mind 
Pectus est quod theolocjum facit. The whole truth contained in 
an inspired utterance can never be fully expressed by any 
human dogma ; but the divine and illimitable will always out 
stretch its precision and logic. Confessions of faith, however 
necessary and exact they may be, are only as cisterns ; and no 
matter how skilfully and capaciously they are hewn out, the 
water from the living fountain will not be confined, but will 
always overflow them. 

Ver. 21. OVK aOerw rrjv yapiv rov @eov "I do not frus 
trate the grace of God." The verb, which is used first by 
Polybius, has various shades of meaning. As applied to per 
sons, it means "to despise" or "reject." Mark vi. 26 ; Luke 
vii. 30, x. 16 four times ; John xii. 48 ; 1 Thess. iv. 8 ; Sept. 
1 Sam. ii. 17. So Theodore! here has OVK cmp-d^w ; Grotius, 
non vilipendo ; and the Vulgate, non dbjicio. The definition 
of G^cumenius falls short of the full import : TO cnna-relv, TO 
e^evTeXi^eiv, TO &ia7rai^eiv. In a stronger sense it denotes " to 
cast off" or violate, such as vop,ov, Ileb. x. 28, or one s faith, 
1 Tim. v. 12 ; then it means "to annul or make void." This last 
sense it has in the clause before us; as TTJV evroXyV) Mark vii. 9; 
rr]v (rvvecriv, 1 Cor. i. 19; Sept. 1 Mace. xv. 27; Ps. xxxiii. 10; 
Polyb. ii. 58, 5 ; Gal. iii. 15. The sweeping conclusion Swpeav 
inriOavev shows that this must be its meaning. The " grace of 
God" is not in a general sense the gospel, nor exactly the work 
of Christ (Gwynne), though that work was its proof and 
channel, as the last clause indicates ; but His sovereign kindness 
manifested in the death of His Son, spontaneous on His part 



CHAP. II. 21. 195 

and wholly unmerited on ours. See Eph. ii. 4-9. The apostle s 
realization of identity with his Lord, dying with Him and rising 
with Him, his conscious possession of Christ as his life within 
him, and that life moving and being sustained in its element 
of faith in the Son of God, all were proofs to him that he was 
not frustrating the grace of God. For he felt that the one 
source of justification was grace, and that the medium of it was 
grace embodied in the incarnate Son. In trusting in Christ, 
and in Him alone, he was magnifying the grace of God ; while 
Peter, on the other hand, by his reactionary dissimulation, was 
in effect putting aside that grace. For if any one put faith in 
works, or revert to works, or in any way, either wholly or in 
part, give them place in justification, either as opposed to faith 
or as supplementing it, if any one hope to merit what God so 
freely bestows, he frustrates the grace of God, regards it as 
void, or as an unneeded arrangement. For most surely 

El <yap 8ia vopov SiKaiocrvvr), apa Xptcrro? Saypeav aTreOavev 
" for if through the law comes righteousness, then Christ 
died without cause." Tap introduces strong confirmatory proof. 
The phrase Sia vopov, emphatic in position, is in contrast with 
Xpia-To? in the same position. Aucaioavvf] is supposed by some 
to be the result of justification (Alford) ; by others, righteous 
ness imputed and inherent (Ellicott) ; by others, the possession 
of St/ca/wcTi? (Wieseler). Righteousness is that by which a 
man becomes right before God that on his possession of which 
he is Tightened or accepted as righteous in God s sight. Such 
a basis of justification may come through law, and be personal 
righteousness, but that is impossible for fallen man. The 
law which he has broken can only arraign him, convict him, 
and work his death ; works of law can therefore in no sense 
justify him. Another provision has been made by God, and a 
righteousness wrought out by the obedience unto death of His 
Son, becomes his through faith. See under Phil. iii. 9. It comes 
not Sia v6fj,ov, but Sia 7r/crTe&>9 ; and law and faith are antago 
nistic instrumentalities. But if righteousness did come by the 
law, then there was no necessity for Christ s death. If man by 
works of law can justify himself, what need was there that Christ 
should die to provide for him what he can win for himself ! 

"Apa " then," " after all" standing first in the apodosis 
after the previous conditional sentence then as an undoubted 



196 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

inference. Matt. xii. 28; Luke xi. 20; 1 Cor. xv. 18; Klotz- 
Devarius, ii. p. 160. 

Awpedv does not mean " in vain," frustra (Erasmus, 
Piscator), or /j-dr-^v (Theophylact), nor gratis, as often in 
classical use. Matt. x. 8 ; Ivom. iii. 24. From this meaning, 
nulla prcvgressa causa, it comes to signify sine justa causa. 
Tittmann, Synon. i. 161, gives it as nulla erat causa moriendi. 
Sept. 1 Sam. xix. 5, Oavarwcrai rov Aavl8 8a>pedv rendered in 
our version "without a cause;" Ps. xxxiv. 7, Swpedv e/tpv^av 
" without cause they hid for me a net," rendered by Sym- 
machus ammW, but followed by /j,dri]v uivelSicrav ; C3n being 
used in both clauses. So Sirach xx. 23, KCU eKTtjo-aro avrov 
e-^Opov Swpedv "and made him his enemy for nothing;" 
John xv. 25, efila-^a-dv fie Scopedv " they hated me without a 
cause," quoted from Ps. xxxiv. 19, ol /ucrouyre? yu,e Scopedv. 
Gesenius and Fiirst, sub voce Q2n. If there can be righteous 
ness through the law, Christ s death was uncalled for was 

O 

gratuitous ; TrepiTTos o T. X. Odvaros, Chrysostom. The sense 
is not, if works are necessary, Christ s death is ineffectual or 
in vain ; but, if works can secure righteousness, Christ s death 
was needless. But Christ s death could not be needless, there 
fore righteousness comes not of the law ; it is the purpose and 
result of the creat atoning sacrifice. His theme is, I do not 

O O 

constitute myself a transgressor ; the reason is given, " I do not 
frustrate the grace of God ;" and then the proof contained in 
the last clause is added. The former declaration was connected 
with dpa (ver. 17), and this similarly with the same particle 
two conclusions alike absurd and impious, but to which the 
inconsistency of Peter assuredly led by necessary consequence. 
What reply Peter made, or how his subsequent conduct at 
Antioch was shaped, we know not. Nor know we how the 
crisis ended whether the believing Jews recovered their 

O 

earlier freedom, or whether any compromise was brought 
about. Yet in spite of this misunderstanding and rebuke, 
evincing the superior consistency of one of the apostles, tra 
dition, with the exception of the Clementines, has placed Peter 
and Paul on a similar level in many points. The Apostolical 
Constitutions (vii. 46) report Peter as saying, " Evadius was 
ordained bishop by me at Antioch, and Ignatius by Paul ;" but 
whether simultaneously or in succession, cannot be ascertained. 



CHAP. II. 21. 197 

The same authority adds, that Paul ordained Linus the first 
bishop of Rome, and Peter Clement as the second bishop. 
Irenasus says, again, that the church of Rome was founded a 
(jloriosissirrds duobus apostolis Petro et Paulo a false asser 
tion indeed, but showing what honour both apostles enjoyed. 
Contra Hares, iii. 3, 2 ; Opera, vol. i. p. 428, ed. Stieren. 
Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, as quoted by Eusebius (ii. 25), 
says, " Peter and Paul planted us at Corinth, and likewise 
instructed us." And this is very much in the spirit of the 
Acts of the Apostles, where Peter is found vindicating free 
Pauline doctrine, and Paul goes into the temple to show that 
he " walked orderly," while miracles similar in character are 
ascribed to each. We may hold this opinion without going the 
length of asserting that the " Acts" was written for the apolo 
getic purpose of defending the apostolate of Paul, or of placing 
him on the same official standing as Peter. Baur, Schwegler, 
and Lutterbeck admit that, if judged by the first Epistle of 
Peter, there is no essential difference between the Pauline and 
Petrine doctrine. The original apostles are, indeed, found in 
the temple again and again after the ascension ; but after what 
was agreed to by them at the council, they cannot be justly ac 
cused of Ebionitism. The address of Peter at the council pointed 
indeed at the free and untrammelled admission of Gentiles, 
while the modifications are proposed by James ; but even these 
restrictions gave up circumcision the initial rite, the necessity 
for submission to which had been so fanatically contended for, 
and proposed only certain compliances with the national ritual, 
along with obedience to the law of chastity, for the breach of 
which Syrian idolatries and the Antiochene grove of Daphne 
afforded so many facilities and temptations. Still, that con 
formity to the Jewish ritual should prevail especially in Pales 
tine, is scarcely to be wondered at. Eusebius enumerates 
fifteen bishops, " all of the circumcision," who held office in 
Jerusalem prior to the last Jewish rebellion, the church being 
entirely made up of " believing Hebrews," Ilistor. Eccles. iv. 5. 
Sulpicius Severus records : Namque turn Ilierosolymw non nisi 
ex circumcisione liabebat ecclesia sacerdotem . . . pcene omnes 
Christum Deum sub legis observatione credebant. Chron. ii. 31 ; 
Opera, vol. i. 36, ed. Halm, Vindobonae 1866. Jerome de 
scribes the church at Alexandria founded by Mark, Peter s 



198 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

interpres et disciplus, as aclinic judaizans, that is, in the period of 
Philo, De Viris Illust. viii. 1 But the insurrection under Bar 
Cochba brought the vengeance of Hadrian upon the capital, 
and by him the Jews were forbidden to enter it under its new 
heathen title of ./Elia Capitolina. Christians had on the other 
hand free permission to settle in this Roman colony ; and then, 
the Jewish element being so thoroughly eliminated, the church 
elected Marcus as the first Gentile bishop or " presiding elder." 
Probably Jews who had fully renounced Judaism, who had 
denationalized themselves in embracing Christianity, might 
also be enfranchised. But the exiled Jews of the stricter 
party, who clung to their old Judaism like ivy to a ruined 
tower, and clung to it all the more keenly on account of this 
proscription, repaired to Pella, their refuge under the first 
siege, and the Ebionite community so originated survived till 
the fifth century. In course of time the Christian element had 
nearly faded out among them, and, as Origen informs us, there 
was little left to distinguish them from ordinary Jews. There 
were, however, various modifications both in the theology and 
practices of the party ; and a section called Nazarenes, the 
original Jewish appellation of believers, were noted for their 
more orthodox creed and for their stern anti-pharisaic tenden 
cies. See Neander ; Lechler, das ApostoL u. das nachapostol, 
Zeit alter, p. 235. 



NOTE ON CHAP. n. 11. 

Kara 7rpoVa>7roj> avrw uvrta-rr^v " I withstood him to the face, bccatlSC 

he had been condemned." 

THIS scene at Antioch Peter s dissimulation and Paul s re 
buke was soon laid hold of by infidel opponents to damage 
the truth of Christianity. Jerome in the preface to his Com 
mentary on Galatians refers to Porphyry, who took such an 
advantage of the altercation, 2 and under ii. 11 he puts this 

1 Compare Schwegler, Nachapost. Zeitalter, i. p. 113. 

2 Volens et illi maculam erroris inurcre et Jiuic procacitatis et in com 
mune ficti dofjmatis accusare mendacium, dum inter se ecclesiarum principen 
discrepent. 



THE CLEMENTINES. 199 

alternative : ad extremum, si propter Porpliyrii llaspliemiam^ 
alius nobis fingendus est Cephas. Opposing parties also in these 
early times made the most of the occurrence. The Ebionites 
through it attacked Paul, as in the Clementines, in which 
Peter assaults the apostle of the Gentiles under the name of 
Simon Magus. We need not say a word about the date of the 
Clementines Homilies and Recognitions. Nor need we discuss 
the critical opinions of Schliemann, Hilgenfeld, Uhlhorn, and 
Ritschl as to their relations and origin ; nor the elaborate 
efforts of Neander, Credner, Baur, and Schwegler to evolve 
their doctrinal system. 1 Suffice it for our present purpose to 
say, that in the letter of Peter prefixed to the Homilies he says, 
" Some of those among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful 
preaching vofii/jiov fcrjpvy/Aa, having embraced the lawless and 
foolish teaching of the enemy," " hostile man" TOV e^Opov 
dvffpanrov. " Some have tried by diverse interpretations to 
shape my words into an abolition of the law et? ryv TOV 
vofj,ov KctTaXva-iv, as if this were my sentiment, and I did not 
dare openly to preach it ;" with more to the same purpose, in 
evident allusion to the vTroKpia-is charged upon him at Antioch. 
HbmiKcBj pp. 4, 5, ed. Dressel. In Homily xvii. 19 (p. 351, 
do.} Peter then refers in sneering depreciation to the visions 
and revelations which Paul enjoyed, and places his own honours 
and privileges in very favourable comparison the personal 
instructions of the Divine Teacher for a year being put into 
contrast with instructions for but an hour, adding : " For me, 
being a firm rock, the foundation of the church, as an adver 
sary thou hast withstood ; if thou hadst not been an enemy, 
thou wouldest not have reviled me and calumniated my preach 
ing, that I might not be believed when I declared what I had 
heard from the Lord myself in His presence as if I were 
condemned, and not to be approved ; or if thou calledst me 
condemned, thou accusest God who revealed Christ to me. 2 

1 Uhlhorn supposes an earlier work than either the Homilies or Recog 
nitions to have existed among the Elxaites in eastern Syria, and argues 
that the Recognitions are a recasting of the Homilies, because the quota 
tions from the New Testament in the former agree better with the cano 
nical text. But this better harmony may have been the work of the Latin 
translator, though he certainly professes a strict adherence to his original. 

2 See the critical note of F. Wieseler in his appendix to Dressel s 
edition of the Clementinorum Epitomss dux, pp. 308, 309, Lipsise 1859. 



200 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

The reference is plainly to this section of Galatians. The 
phrases evavrios avOea-rr/Kas fioc efiov KarayvwcrOevTos rj el 
Kare^vwap.evov /u,e Xe^ei?, are borrowed from it. That Simon 
represents the Apostle Paul is now generally agreed. Many 
proofs may be found in Schliemann s Clerncntinen, p. 96, and 
in Zeller, Die Apostelgeschichte, p. 158. This opinion is denied, 
but on insufficient grounds, by Ernest de Bunsen (Hidden 
Wisdom, vol. ii. pp. 12-14), who, however, regards these 
documents as genuine, and " as based on originals dating from 
apostolic times." 

On the other hand, the conflict at Antioch afforded an 
opportune handle for Marcion to depreciate Peter, and to 
prove the direct opposition of the true gospel to Judaism. 
Irenocus thus meets the objection : " This dispute about the 
law did not argue a different origin to it from the gospel." 1 
Tertullian, occupied with the same objection, rebukes his 
opponents thus : credunt sine scripturis ut cred ant adi ersus 
scripturas ; and his explanation is, that Peter s fault lay not in 
his preaching, but in his life utique conversations fuit vilium 
non prcedicationis. 2 

This Antiochene controversy was thus sadly misunderstood, 
and its meaning perverted for sceptical and polemical purposes. 
But it did not touch the truth of the gospel, nor militate 
against the inspiration of the apostles. For inspiration does 
not charge itself with the government of personal conduct, but 
is connected only with official labour done in Christ s name. 
Peter s momentary timidity, so like himself, and yet so un 
worthy of him, did not influence his preaching, since he acted 
against his own theory, and shrunk from his asserted freedom. 
Peter and Paul preached all the while the very same gospel, 

1 Religiose agebant circa dispositionem Icgix, quiz est secundum Moysem 
(ib uno et eodem significantes esse Deo. Vol. i. p. 494, ed. Stieren, Lipsise 
1853. 

2 De Prescript. Ilxret. xxiii. ; Opera, vol. ii. p. 22, ed. Oehler 

Tamen doceant ex eo quod allegant Petrum a Paulo reprehensnm aliam evan- 
(jelii formain a Paulo superductam citra earn quse priemiserat Petrus et ceteri. 
.... Non enim ex hoc alius Deus quam creator et alius Cliristus quam ex 
Maria, et alia spes quam resurrectio. See also i. 20, p. 69, ib. Plane 
repreJiendit, non ol aliud tamen quam ob inconstantlam rictus, quern pro 
personanun qualitate variabat, non ob quam divinitatis perversitatem. 
Advers. Marc. v. 3, p. 280, do. 



TEMPERAMENT OF PETER. 201 

though at this startling crisis Peter did not act in harmony 
with it, but allowed earlier feelings to acquire for the time a 
second and cowardly predominance. To eat with one of 
another nation had been his first abhorrence ; and though a 
vision helped him, nay, forced him, to surmount the antipathy, 
it had never wholly died out within him. Traditionary edu 
cation and habit produce certain associations which may have 
a dormant co-existence with a better creed, but which in an 
unexpected hour and under strong temptation may reassert 
the mastery. To make a bold assertion, and then on a sudden 
to recoil from it, had been Peter s temperament. " Lord, bid 
me come to Thee on the water," was in a few moments 
followed by "Lord, help me!" the avowal, "Though all 
men forsake Thee, yet will not I," " though I should die 
with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee," was only a prelude 
to the denial a few hours afterwards, " I know not the 
man;" "Thou shalt never wash my feet," was said one 
instant, but the next brought out the changed desire, " Lord, 
not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." His 
answer to those who " contended with him," saying, " Thou 
Aventest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them," 
had been, " God hath showed me that I should not call any 
man common or unclean," and his intrepid conclusion had 
been, "What was I that I could withstand God?" Nay, 
to those who insisted on the Gentiles being circumcised and 
keeping the law of Moses, his reply had been noble and un- 
fearing: "God made choice among us that the Gentiles by 
my mouth should hear the word of the gospel. Why tempt 
ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples?" And 
yet, after all this undaunted and unreserved vindication, he 
turns his back on himself, abjures his own protest, and in a fit 
of weakness bows his own neck to that very unbearable yoke. 
Paul s record of the scene shows how free and open the 
founders of the church were without any collusion which a 
misunderstanding might break up, or any compact the fraudu 
lent basis of which a sudden alienation might expose. The 
worst that could be said of Peter was, that overawed by the 
presence of " certain from James" and the mother church, he 
fell into a momentary vacillation ; and that his courage and 
constancy sank for a time under a conservative influence, 



202 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

before winch even Barnabas, first the patron and then the col 
league of Paul, and filled with no small portion of his spirit, 
quailed and fell. 

In this debated matter of Gentile freedom, while others 
stumbled or advanced with unsteady step for theirs were 
but " broken lights" Paul moved onwards without hesita 
tion or pause, and by his single courage and consistency 
secured to the churches a liberty which, though it might 
be grudged or suspected in many quarters, could not be 
withdrawn, but has descended as an invaluable legacy to 
modern times. As he knew Peter s character, it must have 
cost him a pang to confront him whose name stands first 
in all the catalogues of the apostles ; but the claims of truth 
were paramount. The unhappy entanglement of Barnabas 
in the controversy, and this rebuke, in which he must 
have shared, perhaps helped to exacerbate the misunder 
standing or " contention" which soon afterwards severed the 

O 

two fellow-labourers, when they " departed asunder the one 
from the other." Who that knows anything of human nature 
will not sympathize with Peter in his sudden weakness, so 
characteristic of persons of his temperament, which, without a 
steady self-control and true all the while to the ultimate 
motive, so vibrates under proximate influences as to swerve 
for a season into devious courses ? His dissimulation was an 
honest obedience to the impulse of the moment, and that im 
pulse was the sudden awakening of early and deep impressions. 
What bitter regrets must have followed such aberrations ! what 
prayers for a steadier walk and for an unbroken unity of will ! 
what reluctance . to forgive himself, even though he had the 
assurance of divine forgiveness ! But it needed the greater 
nature of Paul to ward off the injuries which such tergi 
versation was so certain to produce. He was a stranger to 
that infirmity by which Peter had been overtaken. With 
an emotional nature as profound though not so variable as 
Peter s, his temperament was as decided as it was ardent, as 
lofty as it was inflexible. He saw truth on all sides of it, 
both in theory and result, in germ and in development ; and 
obstacles unforeseen by others did not, as they started up, so 
surprise him as to make him question or re-examine his leading 
principles. 



FICTION OF ANOTHER PETER. 203 

It is pitiable, therefore, to see what shifts have been re 
sorted to in order to explain away a scene so life-like in the 
case of Peter, and so true to his character in that of Paul. 
And first it was hinted that this Cephas was not the Apostle 
Peter, but another bearing the name, and who was one of the 
seventy disciples. This opinion was started by the Alexandrian 
Clement. In the fifth book of his Hypotyposeis, as cited by 
Eusebius, when speaking of the Cephas whom Paul withstood 
to the face at Antioch, he says : eva yeyovevaL rcav e/38ojj,i]Kovra 
fj,adTjr(t)V, 6[A(i)Wfiov Herpfp rvy^dvovra rm aTrocrroXft). Hist. 
Eccles. 1-12, pp. 75, 76, vol. i. ed. Heinichen. Eusebius 
simply reports the opinion without controverting it ; but his 
neutrality is construed by (Ecurnenius into positive agreement, 
with the addition, Kal TnOavos o 71070?, the argument being 
the great moral improbability of its being that apostle who had 
seen the vision and baptized Cornelius, and who had already 
stood out so boldly on the subject ov <yap TJV 6 etTrcav ravra. 
Jerome repeats the same conjecture, though he does not hold 
it ; adding, that its advocates argue that Luke makes no men 
tion of the dissension, or ever places Peter and Paul together 
at Antioch et locum dari Porphyrio blaspliemanti ; si autem 
Petrum errasse, aut Paulus procaciter apostolorum principem 
confutasse credatur. Chrysostom, in his homily on the clause, 
" I withstood him to the face," refers to the same opinion, but 
asserts that it is refuted by the context teal CK r&v avwripw 
ical K TWV pera ravra. Opera, vol. iii. p. 446, Gaume, Paris 
1837. Gregory the Great mentions it too, but denies it. 1 
Nay, this Cephas appears in the list of the seventy in the 
Paschal Chronicle : Kijtyas o/u,&W/u,o? Ilerpov co Kal e^a^rjcraro 
JTauXo? Kara Iov8alo-/j,ov ; and in the list ascribed to Dosi- 
theus, the martyred bishop of Tyre, the addition is made : 
Kr/(j)d<$ ov 6 aTTocrroXo? JTauXo? ev Ai>Tio%ela rj\.e<y%ev, 09 KOI 
eViV/coTTO? Kovlas eyevero. Chron. Pasch. vol. i. p. 400, vol. 
ii. p. 126, ed. Dindorf, Bonn 1832. This wholly groundless 

1 Patet ergo de quo Petro Paulus loquitur, quern et apostolum nominal et 
prxfuisse evangelio circumcisionis narrat. In the previous paragraph also, 
when telling that Paul rebuked Peter, and Peter called him afterwards 
charissimus frater noster, he adds : qu.ate.nus qui primus erat in apostolatus 
culmine esset primus et in humilitate. Homil. in Ezek, lib. ii. Horn. vi. ; 
Opera, vol. ii. pp. 1002-3, ed. Migne, Paris. 



204 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

opinion lias not wanted favourers in more modern times, as 
may be seen in Vallarsi s editorial note on Jerome, which has 
also guided us to some of the previous references. Hardouin 
the Jesuit revived it, and its refutation in Deyling s Observ. 
Sac. (cap. xlv. vol. ii. p. 520) degenerates ultimately into an 
antipapal polemic. See also Calmet, Dissert, torn. iii. p. 519, 
Paris 1720. This absurd opinion originated in a fear that 
the great apostle of the circumcision might be disparaged ; 
but it is rightly and honestly repudiated by many exegets 
and controversialists who owe allegiance to the chair of St. 
Peter. 

To gain a similar end, another method was adopted ; and it 
was held that the dispute was only a feigned one, the apostles 
being quite agreed in opinion, and that the scene was got up in 
order that Peter might submit to a rebuke, as a lesson to the 
Judaizers who were censured and condemned in him. Jerome 
asserts that Origen first propounded this extraordinary notion. 1 
Jerome himself adopted it, and it was advocated by Chry- 
sostom, 2 first in his Commentary on Galatians, and also in a 
separate treatise referred to in the footnote^ The Latin father, 
who, according to Luther, " neither understood this place, nor 
the whole epistle besides," in various ways justifies this acting 
of a lie, quasi in publico contradicens. The apostles must have 
been at one, he argues ; for Paul was just as much committed 
as Peter by " shaving his head in Cenchrea, for he had a vow," 
by his carrying offerings to Jerusalem, and by his circumcision 
of Timothy, so that, cjusdem simulationis tenebitur reus. Then 
he asks in triumph, " How, then, could Paul resist and rebuke 
with a good grace, when himself was guilty of similar inconsis- 

1 His words, in a letter to Augustine, are : Ilanc autem explana- 
tionem quam primus Origenes in dccimo Stromateon libra, nbi cpiatolam 
Paull ad Gcdatas interpretatur, ct cctcri deinceps interpretes sunt sequuti, 
ilia vel mctxime canssa subintroducunt, nt Porphyrio respondeant l>lasplie- 
rnanti, qui Pauli aryuit procacitatcm, etc. Epixt. 112 ; Opera, vol. i. ed. 
Vallarsi. 

2 Quid dicam de Joanne qui dudum in Pontijicali gradu, Constantino- 
politanam rexit Ecclesiam; et proprie super Jioc capitulo latissimum exaravit 
librum, in quo Origenis et veterum sententiam est sequutus. Ep. 112, do. 

3 The treatise of Clirysostom thus referred to by Jerome is in the third 
volume of his works, p. 431, Gaume, Paris, and is a homily preached at 
Antioch on the clause ~K.tx.rx TrwuTtov ctvra KVTSOTYIV. 



THE DISPUTE A FEIGNED ONE. 205 

tencies?" This tu quoque reply is heartily and admiringly 
endorsed by Stap in his Etudes, an attempt to popularize the 
criticism of the Tubingen school for French readers. 1 But the 

O 

proofs adduced do not come at all under the same category of 
personal inconsistency or hypocrisy. Jerome then refers for 
an instance of utilis simulatio to the treachery of Jehu, without 
which the priests of Baal could not have been assembled to be 
all massacred. " Call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all his 
servants, and all his priests : let none be wanting ; for I have 
a great sacrifice to do to Baal," were also the words of Elijah. 
But the adduction of such a case is truly as melancholy as his 
next is ridiculous, which is David s feigning of madness for his 
personal safety at Gath. Another of his proofs is based on the 
publicity of the rebuke ; for such publicity, if the censure were 
genuine, would, in his opinion, be a direct violation of the 
Master s precept, " Tell him his fault between thee and him 
alone." But the inconsistency of Peter was no private offence ; 
it scandalized the entire Gentile portion of the church. His 
next reference to the practices of pleaders in the Roman forum 
is pithily put, but is still farther from the point, and needs not 
be replied to. Chrysostom, in the midst of his rhetoric, is as 
precise as Jerome. In his commentary his deliverance is, 
"Peter s conduct, as Paul well knew, was dictated by two 
secret motives : to avoid offending the Jews, and to give Paul 
a good opportunity for animadverting. . . . Now that the one 
refutes, and the other submits, the Jewish faction is seized 
with great fear." 2 His explanation of the clause Kara Trpocrw- 
irov avre<mjv is o-^rj^a fjv, it was a feint, or merely in outer 
appearance ; for if they had been in earnest, they would not 
in public have censured each other. Peter s inconsistency was 
only a sham &>? d/jLaprdvwv that the Judaizers through him 
might be rebuked. The plot was this : " If Paul had reproved 
these Jews, they would have been indignant and contemptuous, 
for they held him in small honour ; but when they saw their 

1 Etudes historiqnes et Critiques sur les Origenes du Chrwtianisme, 
par A. Stap, 2d eel., Paris 1866. 

2 Ai/o TCIVTO. oixovoftut, x.oe.1 TO fty ax.a.^a. hivu.i TW; 1% lovOett uy, x.a.1 TO 
T^xfoiay^ilv TU Htx.v hu ti/hcyov TJJJ tyirift^atof irpoQeuriv. . A/& x.a.1 Ilai/Aoj 

x.a.1 TltTpo; dvi-^TO.1 ivet tyza. hovft.ivov TOV Otoaaxxhov KXI ar/uv- 
y oi ftetffifrctt {&ST6t6uvTcii. 



206 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAKS. 

teacher under rebuke and yet silent, they could not despise nor 
gainsay what was spoken." 1 Chrysostom is eloquent on the 
impossibility of one who had spoken and acted as Peter had, 
falling into the alleged inconsistency. In his homily on the 
subject his motive is apparent, for he espoused the theory on 
account of the bad use that was made of the incident irapa 
Th)v e%K>6ev Kctl TWV rrjs Trtcrreco? a\\oTpla)v. " Would not 
one," he adds, "be struck with terror if he heard that the 
pillars of the church had come into collision ? The great 
wisdom and benevolence of the two apostles would have pre 
vented them from coming into actual strife. Could Peter be a 
coward SetXo? KOI civavSpos he to whom the name of Rock 
had been given ; who had himself been the first to confess the 
Messiahship and boldly to preach it ; whose ardent impulses 
outstripped all his fellows, and who had protested before the 
rulers, We cannot but speak the things which we have seen 
and heard ; could he who had been so bold at Jerusalem in 
the midst of enemies waver at Antioch ev rfj Xpia-TiaviKO)- 
rarrj TroXet?" Time, place, and circumstances alike forbid the 
thought. Besides, Paul, who was " as weak to the weak," was 
too modest and loving, and must have had too much respect 
for Peter s prerogative, to have rebuked one, to make whose 
acquaintance he had not long before gone up to Jerusalem, and 
with whom he had sojourned fifteen days. This, and a vast deal 
more poured out in impassioned declamation and challenge, 
does not touch the matter. In the case of a man of Peter s 
temperament, it is dangerous to argue from only one side of 
his antecedents, leaving the other side in discreet abeyance, 
such as his boast and his subsequent denial of the Master. 
Similar things will be found in CEcumenius, and in Theophy- 
lact. who calls the dispute a-^rj/^aria-detaa fJ d^ij. Theodoret s 
commentary is wanting at this part ; but he elsewhere cha 
racterizes Peter s conduct as dissimulation KOI TO> ITer/ow 
o"^rj/j.aTio-afj,evo) rov vop.ov $v\aKi ]v. Op. vol. ii. p. 536, ed. 
Sirraondi. 

The interpretation of Jerome came at length into the hands 

1 E/ i&kv "/oep TO?? ^ lon oaiay o Tiotv ho; tiri Tr h-rfev, vf/a.va.x.Tr^eiiv x.a.1 
oii7?TV<rciii ov yap woAAfjj/ T^ipt civrov ^o^cty i%oy vvvl OB -rijy $ioxa%a h<jy 
fjpayrsg Ivtri^uf/^ydu xot.1 CI /UUTOI, CUTS xsira.ppoyqffcti, olirs dvrsi7?iiy T Jig 
fayopivots six&v ; and in tins the Greek father discovers s- 



JEROME AND AUGUSTINE. 207 

of Augustine, 1 and greatly shocked him, 2 non mediocriter 
doleo. Ep. 28, probably A.D. 394 or 395. He wrote at once 
to Jerome as the reputed author qucedam scripta quce tua 
dicerentur ; but he was not perfectly sure si alius ilia scripsit. 
He puts the case very plainly, not as one of lying on the part 
of good men, but whether it behoved the writers of sacred 
scripture to lie. The same allegation, he adds, may be made 
regarding other passages, such as those regarding marriage, 
1 Tim. iv. 3. The authority of Scripture is thus destroyed 
nusquam certa erit in sanctis literis castcv veritatis aitctoritas. 
Augustine writes firmly, but in all modesty nee me onerosum 
aut impudentem judices. This first letter does not touch the 
context, nor its bearing on the subject ; it deals only with 
ethics, and not with criticism. In another letter (Ep. 40) he 
refers to the same subject, and enters into it more fully in its 
various aspects, has a word on the value of Origen s authority, 
and urges Jerome to sing a palinode, " for the truth of Chris 
tendom is more incomparably beautiful than the Grecian 
Helen." Augustine is in profound earnest, and yet quite 
without arrogance. Nequaquam vero mild arrogaverim ut in- 
(jenium. tuum divino dono aureum, meis obolis ditare contendam. 
The first letter, which had been entrusted to Profuturus, had 
been lost in the conveyance, but its contents had got into 
general circulation. Jerome s temper was none of the best, 
and this supposed slight was enough to exasperate him. He 
could not bear to be attacked by a younger rival (Ep. 102). 
Through Sysinnius the deacon, he had got, he says, a copy of 
a letter purporting to be addressed to him epistolce cujusdam 
quasi ad me scripts, in which Augustine urged him to 
recant and imitate Stesichorus. 3 If the letter be genuine, he 

1 The letters of Jerome are quoted as numbered in the first volume of 
his works edited by Vallarsi, Venetiis 17C9 ; and those of Augustine, as 
in the second volume of his works published apud Gaume fratrcs, Paris 
1836. 

2 Opera, vol. ii. p. 68, ib. 

3 The legend was, that Stesichorus, " the poet of Himera" in Sicily, 
wrote an attack on Helen, and was punished with blindness for the libel ; 
but recovered his sight on composing a recantation a palinode. Pausanias, 
iii. 19, 11, vol. i. pp. 541-2; Opera, ed. Schubart, Lipsise 1838. The 
unlucky allusion stuck fast in Jerome s memory, and again and again he 
makes reference to it, as in a sense " the unkindest cut of all." 



EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

bids him aperte scribe, vel mitte exemplaria veriora. Augustine 
explained afterwards that the person entrusted with the letter 
had neither delivered it nor returned it. Jerome was there 
fore suspicious and irritated, because he had seen only an 
anonymous copy of a document, which, though addressed to 
himself, he had never received, while the attack upon him found 
in it had come to be generally known in Rome and over the 
churches. Augustine solemnly denied on oath that he had circu 
lated any book against Jerome. Deum nostrum testorhoc me non 
fecisse (Ep. 67.) It turned out, however, as Augustine admitted 
afterwards, that this denial was caused by the distinction which 
he made between liber and epistola. He had not written any 
liber against Jerome, nor had he sent that ill-fated epistola 
to the capital. But Jerome was not aware of this at the time, 
and consequently his indignation begins to glow at what he 
reckoned unhandsome treatment, and he warns his youthful 
tutor of the juvenile weakness of crowing over illustrious men, 
as if it were a way to fame. He reminds him that the writer 
(Jerome) had had his day ; and lest Augustine should suppose 
that poetic allusion was specially his property, he hints in 
return for the reference to Stesichorus, that Entellus, ao;ed 

/ / O 

though he was, might crush the younger Dares. 1 In another 
communication (Ep. 105) Jerome returns to the letter on the 
subject which had been circulated in Africa and in Italy ; and 
he plainly suspects Augustine of using undue means for its 
publication, as it had never reached him, save in some anony 
mous form. Busy friends, too, had been at his elbow -fami- 
llares mei et rasa Christi, and they had insinuated doubts of 
Augustine s integrity of motive, and the hints officiously whis 
pered in his ear lose nothing through his telling of them. The 
old and suspicious story of the letter, and Augustine s denial of 
its authorship, again turn up with the sharp innuendo : " Thou 
hast not written, and yet how are there brought to me reports 
of my being censured by you ? If the book is not yours, deny 
its authorship ; if yours, say so honestly, that I may write in 
my defence." Augustine had quietly asked Jerome to cor- 

1 Yirgil, jfcncid, v. 362, etc. 

2 Quod aut.em juras te adversum me librum nee scripsisse, neque Roman 
misisse quern non scripseris. Non scripisti librum et quomodo mild repre- 
liensionis a te mcx per alias scripta ddata sunt ? Cur habct Italia quod tu 



JEROME S REPLY. 209 

rect anything wrong in his works ; but Jerome tartly retorts, 
"that he had not given special attention to them, and had 
seen indeed but few of them, but that there were opinions in 
his book on the Psalms not consonant to the views of the old 
Greek interpreters." The next letter of Augustine (Ep. 73) 
is a long and pointed one. It takes up the allusion to Entellus 
and to his own works fortasse dura sed certe salubria verba ; 
reciprocates his protestations of love ; declares that he wrote 
about the Galatian Comment, when he was a young man, and 
that now, though he was an old man, he had got no reply. 
Probably ten years had elapsed, so slow was correspondence in 
those days. The letter is occupied not with recriminations 
certainly, but it shows that the writer had been touched by 
some of Jerome s hard words : " If we cannot correct what 
may be wrong in one another s writings without suspicion of 
envy, or breach of friendship, let us give it up quiescamus ab 
his et nostne vitce salutique parcamus ;" and he ends with sen 
tences of noblest Christian charity. So boldly challenged, 
Jerome replied at length (Ep. 112), perhaps A.D. 404, to what 
he calls tres epistolas imo libellos breves. In the introduction and 
at the end he purposely omits all compliments, even those with 
which his opponents had tried to soften his censures. In defence 
of his Commentary on Galatians, he quotes a portion of the 
preface which enumerates the authorities which had been con 
sulted by him Origen, Didymus, the Laodicene (Apollinaris), 
Alexander (an ancient heretic), Eusebius of Emesa, and Theo 
dore of Heraclea ; and he challenges Augustine to produce one 
supporter of his view. The old arguments are then repeated : 
the various points of Peter s life ; his sayings and doings which 
make the tergiversation ascribed to him so unlikely, for he was 
the first to advocate the freedom which he was now accused of 
having deserted ; and then he sets upon Paul, to show him 
guilty of the very course for which he reprehended Peter. 1 

non scripsisti? Qua rations poscis, ut rescribam ad ea quas scriptisK te 
denegas? . . . Igitur aut tuum negato librum, aut si tuus est ingenue confitere; 
ut si in defensionem mei aliqua scripsero, in te culpa sit qui prouocasti, non 
in me, qui respondere compulsus sum. 

1 beate Apostole Paule, qui in Petro reprehenderas simulationem, quare 
subtraxisset se a gentibus propter metum Judxorum qui ab Jacobo venerant, 
cur Timotheum filium hominis gentilis, utique et ipsum gentilem (neque enim 

O 



210 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

The abuse which Porphyry had made of the scene is still 
the stumblingblock which Jerome could not surmount or thrust 
aside. Augustine had spoken in a previous letter of the com 
parative harmlessness of a Jew observing the Mosaic institutions 
of his country, that being a different thing from fixing their 
observance on the Gentiles ; but with striking inconsistency, 
Jerome s blood boils at the thought, and he declares the opinion 
to be vilest error bordering on Ebionitism ; l and this thought 
is elaborated in various ways, and with increasing vehemence. 
The letter then passes into some biblical questions, among 
which the proper Latin translation of Jonah s "gourd" 2 is 
a source of irritation ; and it draws to a close with a request 
to be let alone, so as not to be provoked into further contest, 
and with an advice to Augustine who, though young, was 
a bishop to teach the people and enrich the lloman church 
with the fruits of his African genius ; concluding with a sigh, 
perhaps of wounded pride milii sufficit cum auditore et lectors 
paiiperculo in angulo monasterii susurrare. To this epistle 
Augustine sent a distinct and formal reply (Ep. 82), in which 
he carefully reviews all the points of the argument ; lays stress 
on Paul s declaration, " When I saw that they walked not 
uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel," a handle to 
the falsifying Manichseans if it were not true ; analyses the 
conduct and motives of Paul ; shows that his becoming a Jew 
to the Jews was non mentientis astu, sed compatientis affectu ; 
dwells on the relations of the law to believers ; throws off all 
Jerome s authorities but three as being heretics ; opposes to 
them the two fathers Ambrose and Cyprian ; and asserts that 
if he had read much, he could easily have found a third (ut 
tres trilus opponam). In default, however, of a third, he will 
summon the apostle himself, and ask him if, when he accused 
Peter, he had spoken dispensativa falsitate; and his reply is, 
what he had stated in a previous verse, " Kow the things which 

Judseus erat qui non fuerat circumcisus) contra scntentiam tuam circumcidi 
coeyisti ? Respondebis milii ; proptcr Judmos qui erant in illis locis. . . . Qua 
igitur fronte, qua audacia Paulas in altero reprelicndit quod ipse commisit? 

1 Eyo e contrario loquar, ct reclamante mundo, libera race pronuntio : 
cseremonias Judxorum, et perniciosas e$se et mortiferas Christianis ; et qui- 
cumqite eas olservaverit sive ex Jud&is, sive ex gentibus, earn in barathrum 
diaboli devolutum. 

2 Whether it should be licdcra or cucurbita. 



JEROME S CHANGE OF VIEW. 211 

I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not." The epistle 
concludes with warm expressions of attachment, and some 
undervaluing of Jerome s biblical labours. To this last letter 
Jerome does not seem to have replied. Augustine gives 
another and a very clear and succinct view of the subject in 
his De Mendacio. 1 The reasoning of Augustine must have told 
upon Jerome; but there is no answer extant to Augustine s last 
epistle. Jerome s pride was hurt : the beginning of the corre 
spondence had been so awkward and unfortunate, that it had 
given him an adverse bias; the allusion to Stesichorus evidently 
rankled in his mind, as it is often alluded to in his letters ; he 
expected his opponent to pay greater deference to his age and 
standing, and had some suspicions of his motives ; and he was 
ruffled by his calm and dignified arguments arid expostulations, 
to which he answered in a style of vaunting vehemence. In 
attempting to vindicate Peter from a charge of inconsistency, 
and Paul from that of procacity, he really finds both of them 
guilty of a darker sin by far when he describes them as con 
spiring to act what Augustine calls officiosum mendacium. But 
it would seem that afterwards and on reflection Jerome was at 
length convinced of his error, and he appears to have adopted 
the view which Augustine had so warmly and conclusively 
pressed upon him. In his treatise or dialogue Contra Pela- 
gianos, written after this correspondence, he gives the honest 
and straightforward view, and at the end of it he refers to his 
former opponent as vir sanctus et eloquent episcopus Auyustinus. 2 
In his tract against Jovinian the same view is given as a pass 
ing reference; 3 similarly in the midst of a few sharp words at 

1 Qni et Petrum coram omnibus in rectam viam revocavit, ne gentes per 
eum Judaizare cogerentur, et ipse suse prsedicationi atlestatus est, qui cum 
putaretur liostis paternarum traditionum, eo quod nolebat eas imponere genti- 
bus, non aspernatus eas more patrlo celebrare, satis ostendit hoc in eis Christo 
adveniente remansisse, ut nee Judms essent perniciosse, nee gentibus neces- 
sarise, nee jam cuiquam liominum salutares. Vol. vi. p. 718, ib. 

2 Opera, vol. ii. 804, ib. In the same treatise he says : Si enim ipse 
apostolus dicit de Petro, quod non recto pede incesserit in evangelii veritate 
et in tantum repreltensibilis fuerit, quis indignabitur id sibi denegari quod 
princeps apostolorum non habuit (ib. p. 718) ; and all this to show that when 
it is affirmed that a bishop ought to be irreprehensibilis, the epithet is not 
to be taken in a universal sense, because aut nullus ant rams can claim the 
epithet. 

3 Et certe castiyaverat Galatas Petrumque repreltenderat quod se propter 



212 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

the beginning of his tract against Ruffinus ; l and again in his 
Commentary on Philemon, Opera, vol. vii. p. 755. In these 
places there is only a simple allusion to the scene at Antioch, 
but such an allusion as would honestly seem to imply his con 
viction of the reality of the dispute, involving the error of 
Peter and the necessity of the rebuke. Only, he makes these 
references without a syllable indicative of his own past or pre 
sent opinion. But the dates are uncertain, and some of those 
treatises may have been written during the correspondence ; if 
so, Jerome did not hold his view tenaciously, though he could 
not but accept the challenge of an opponent and junior rival 
who was in no way abashed before his age, fame, and position. 
It was not in him to make a formal acknowledgment of defeat 
in such circumstances. Yet no matter how Porphyry reviled 
Christianity through its two apostles, he could say nothing of 
them so severe as Orio;en and Jerome had said of them, in 

O / 

asserting that they had conspired to act a hollow drama. A 
traditionary halo was already gathering round Peter, and the 
veracity of Paul must be sacrificed to save Peter s consistency, 
as if infallibility of conduct and the utter elimination of every 
human element of character were a necessary result of a divine 
commission. It was, however, quite like Peter and his ante 
cedents to shrink in a moment from a perilous and bold step, 
and quite as like Paul to rebuke without a moment s hesi 
tation such cowardice. The straightforward meaning of his 
words in his own account of the occurrence, must therefore be 
maintained. Honest interpretation must be listened to, no 
matter what traditionary dogma it upsets, or what unwelcome 
inferences may be suggested by it. Augustine s opinion pre 
vailed in the western churches, even though it exposed a con 
stitutional weakness in their great primate s character. In a 
word, Augustine believed that Jerome had changed his opinion, 
yet he does not take any credit for producing the change. 2 But 

nbservationes Judaicas a ycntibus separaret. Adversus Jovin. vol. ii. p. 
264, ib. 

1 Nonne idem Paulas in facicin Ceplits restitit quod non recto pede ince- 
deret in Evangelio? Advers. Ruffin. vol. ii. p. 532, ib. 

2 To Oceanus he writes (Ep. 180, vol. ii. p. 948) : Sed quid hinc 
diutius? cum de liac qusestione inter nos, ego et prssdictus venerabilis frater 
Hieronymm satis litteris egerimus ; et in hoc opere recentissimo, quod sub 
nomine Critobuli adversus Pelagium modo edidit, eamdem de ista re gesta 



FINAL UNCERTAINTY. 213 

there is uncertainty still about Jerome s real or ultimate view, 
for in his Commentary on Isa. liii. 12 (perhaps A.D. 410) he 
says, those who regard the controversy between Peter and 
Paul as real ut blasphemanti Porphyrio satisfaciant, debent et 
auream in mille annis expectare Jerusalem. Zockler s Hierony- 
miiS) sein Leben und Wirken, p. 275, Gotha 1865. 

Some remarks on this controversy may be found in Thomas 
Aquinas, Summce Theologicce prima secundw, Quaest. 103, Art. 
4, vol. ii. p. 849 ; et secunda secundce, Quasst. 43, Art. vi. vol. 
iii. p. 349. The first volume of Moehler s Gesammt. Scliriften 
contains a paper on this subject, giving a fair critical estimate 
of the controversy. He says that Jerome put himself into the 
position of many whose zeal for truth and goodness is greater 
than their insight into what is true and good, and Augustine s 
last letter (82) he characterizes as crushing Jerome s argument 
mit der Geivalt ernes iiberlegenen Geistes. 

dictisque apostolicis sententiam tenuit, quam beatissimi Cypriani etiam nos 
secuti sumus. Cyprian s opinion so referred to is found in one of his 
letters, in which he says of Peter when rebuked by Paul : Nam nee Petrua 
quern primum Dominus eleyit et super quern sedijicavit eccleslam suam, cum 
secum Paulus de circumcisione postmodum disceptaret, vindicavit sibi aliquid 
insoknter out arroganter assumpsit, ut diceret se primatum tenere et obtem- 
perari a novellis et posteris sibi potius oportere. Nee despexit Paulum quod 
ecclesiiK prius persecutor fuisset, sed consilum veritatis admisit. Ep. 71, 
Opera, ed. Fell, vol. ii. 194-5, Bremse 1690. Similarly thought also Zosi- 
mus of Tharassa at the Council of Carthage, A.D. 256. Compare Tertullian, 
De Prsescrip. 23 ; Contra Marc. iv. 3 ; Gregory the Great, Horn. vi. lib. 
ii. in Ezek. vol. ii. p. 1002, Op. ed. Migne ; and Cyril. Alex. vol. ix. p. 
999, ed. Migue. 



CHAPTER III. 



apostle has now finished his self-vindication. He has 
JL maintained his apostleship to be divine in origin and in 
fulness of prerogative ; and the discussion at Antioch proved 
his equality with Peter, nay, it evinced his superiority as com 
pared with the momentary relapse and dissimulation of the 
apostle of the circumcision. His rebuke of Peter does not rest 
simply on logical argument, but it has its source and power in 
the living depths of his own spiritual experience. The address 
as here presented concludes the first portion of the discussion, 
and is so moulded in its parting words that it naturally intro 
duces us into the second division of the epistle. The object of 
this second or theological part is to illustrate and defend the 
doctrine of a free justification through faith, without the works 
of the law. He concludes his address to Peter by affirming, 
"I do not set aside the grace of God ;" but all who rest justi 
fication on legal merit put aside divine grace. I am not guilty 
of this error, nor can I, for the Son of God died for the great 
and blessed purpose of providing pardon and acceptance : you 
Galatians knew this " for Christ was set forth in you, cruci 
fied." How foolish, then, to fall away from Him, to resile for 
justification to the works of the law, and so to nullify the grace 
of God, and bring on you the fearful but inevitable conclusion 
that the death of Christ was superfluous and unneeded, and 
might have been dispensed with ! 

Having therefore vindicated his apostolic prerogative, he 
now turns sharply round on his readers, and, as their sudden 
change seemed so inexplicable, he cries 

Ver. l.*/2 avorjroL Takdrai " O foolish Galatians!" "O 
senseless Celts!" The epithet a^o^ro?, sometimes taken among 
the classics in a passive sense, but always having an active 
sense in the New Testament when applied to persons (Luke 

214 



CHAP. III. 1. 215 

xxiv. 25 ; Eom. i. 14 ; 1 Tim. vi. 9 ; Tit. iii. 3), means foolish 
acting in a spirit which manifests the absence of wisdom. 
Tittmann, De Syn. p. 144. The apostle does not, as Jerome 
wrongly supposes, charge them with foolishness as a national 
characteristic regionis suce proprietas. Their temperament 
was rather different. It was not stupidity, but fickleness ; not 
dulness, but susceptibility so quick as to be at variance with 
decision and permanence. Their folly showed itself in that 
facility of fascination by which they had been characterized. 
True, indeed, Callimachus says, 

al TaXdrrjcn /caKrjv 6&ov atypovi <uX<w 
G-TijaovTai. Hym. ei<? A. 184, p. 33, ed. Blomfield. 
On the other hand, Themistius calls the Galatians o|et9 real 
dy%Lvot Kal evfiadecrrepoi, TWV ayav EX\.tjvo}v. Orat. 23. See 
Wernsdorf, de Republica Galatarum, p. 268. Jerome informs 
us, too, that Hilary, Gallus ipse et Pictavis genitus, calls his 
own race, in one of his Hymns, Gallos indociles. 1 The avoia 
had showed itself in the senseless change which they had made. 
See Introduction. Chrysostom is anxious to vindicate the 
apostle s use of such an epithet from being a violation of 

Christ s law, Matt. v. 22. The Syriac reads |jLj_l5 - ; *- 

t> f -K 17 

" deficient in understanding." 

Ti? v/jLa? eftdcTKavev ; in some of the Greek fathers, etc., 
e/3da-Kr/vev (Winer, 15; A. Buttmann, p. 35) "who bewitched 
you?" This expressive verb still indicates the apostle s sur 
prise, as if he could not explain their change, or as if ordinary 
causes could not account for it. BacrKalvct) (not as the scholiast 
on Aristophanes puts it = fydeai icaiveiv " to kill with the 

1 Jerome had spoken of the word Galatia as connected with the Hebrew 
n^J, to migrate, as if their name had indicated their fickleness Galatia 
translationem sonat in nostra lingua. AVeinrich, for the same purpose, con 
nects the name with ^>j, rota: Comment, in Ep. ad Galat. p. 119; see 
Borger in loc. Luther brings the matter home thus : Quinam putant nos 
Germanos oriundos esse ex Galatis. . . . In omnibus enim rebus sub initia 
prima valde calemus, ut ubi deflagramt is ardor primorum affectuum mox 
sumus remissions. Lactantius, in a work not extant, had, as Jerome tells 
us, connected the name with ya*, milk, as if they had been so named a 
candore corporis which some have improved upon, as if the apostle here 
meant to stigmatize them as sucklings. The name of Lac-tantius himself 
has been fancifully supposed to image the milk-like character of his style. 



216 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

eyes," but) from ftdfa, ftdo-Koo Latin, fascino (Benfey, ii. 104), 
signifies to hurt by an evil tongue, to slander, then to talk 
over, or mislead by insidious speech. The word occurs only 
here in the New Testament. The eye is sometimes the organ 
of witchery as well as the tongue. Bacr/calvcov T&> 6(/>$aA./nc3, 
Sirach xiv. 8 ; " ocuhis olliquus" Horace, Ep. i. 14, 37 ; also 
Virgil, Eclog. iii. 103. It is not in unison with the context to 
take the verb, with the Greek interpreters, as signifying to 
envy, for the word with that sense usually governs the dative 
(Lobeck, Pliryn. 463), but sometimes the accusative also, with 
an ideal difference. Jelf, 589, 3, obs. 2. Chrysostom 
renders it ris etyOovr/cre ; who has envied you ? your previous 
privileges excited envy. Jerome adds that the evil eye was 
specially hurtful to the young, and therefore to the Galatians, 
as they were but recent converts in Christo fide nuper nati. 
The stress is on ?7^a9, " you :" who has juggled you ? you, who 
possessed and so appreciated your high privileges, he must 
have wielded very uncommon powers of fascination. In TI<? 
there is no reference to the seducer s imagined piety or power, 
as Brown thinks ; nor is there any apology, as Luther sup 
poses, in the question, as if he "laid the fault on the false 
apostles." Prof. Lightfoot lays too much stress on the mere 
popular image employed by the apostle, and Hammond supposes 
that sorcery was practised. Winer, Real-Wort., art. Zauberei. 

The next clause of the Received Text, rfj aX^Oeia pr) 
TrelOeaOaL " that you should not obey the truth" is generally 
rejected as without authority, and as having been probably 
taken from v. 7. It is not found in A, B, D 1 , F, X, nor 
in many versions and fathers. There was also some doubt 
about the reading in Jerome s time in exemplaribus Adamantii 
non Jiabetur. The reason why the apostle, in his sorrow and 
surprise, puts the striking question is now given. Their privi 
lege having been so great, it was passing strange that they 
should have been so quickly tempted to abandon it. 

Ot9 tear 6<pOa\./jiov<i ^Itjaov^ XpLaros Trpoejpd^Tj ev vfuv 
eVraupwyu-efo? " before whose eyes Jesus Christ was evidently 
set forth in you crucified." 1 The words ev vfj.lv are not 

1 Macknight gives, "crucified for you," and innocently adds "the 
common translation of this clause is not true : Christ was not crucified 
among the Galatians." Tirinus puts it alternately : " either in Judsea, 



CHAP. III. 1. 217 

found in A, B, C, N, and were omitted, perhaps, because they 
were not understood, or were regarded as superfluous. But as 
they create a difficulty, it is almost impossible to regard them 
as an interpolation. Much depends on the meaning assigned 
to Trpo in TrpoeypdcfiT] whether the local meaning of palam, 
" openly," or the temporal meaning of antea, " before." The 
phrase KCLT cxfrdaXfAous and the classical usage seem to favour 
the former, and it is espoused by Winer, Usteri, Riickert, 
Wieseler, Ewald, Schott, Lightfoot, and Hofmann; but the 
Pauline usage is as strong for the latter (Rom. xv. 4 ; Eph. 
iii. 3), which is adopted by Erasmus, Beza, a-Lapide, Trana, 
and Meyer. The simple verb sometimes signifies to paint or 
depict, but not so the compound, though Jowett translates, "as 
in a picture was set." The meaning then is, that Jesus Christ 
had been at a prior period, or when Paul preached to them, de 
scribed to them /car o00aX/zou<?, so that as the placard fronted 
them they could easily comprehend it. Comp. Sept. 2 Chron. 
xxxii. 23, Jer. Iii. 10, Ezek. iv. 12, xxi. 6 ; Aristoph. JKanae, 
626. Compare tear o/i/ia, Eurip. Androm. 1064 ; Soph. 
Antig. 760. There is no reference to the foreannouncements 
contained in the prophets (Jerome, Hermann). The ordinary 
reading of the Vulgate is prcescriptus est, but some codices have 
pro&criptus ; and Augustine, Ambros., and Lyra take the words 
in a kind of legal sense "pro-scribed" Rheims Version. The 
Claromontane has proscriptus est in vobis. This sense it some 
times has. Comp. Aristoph. A ves, 450; Demosthenes, vol. ii. p. 
228, ed. Sclisefer ; Dio Cass. ii. p. 46, ed. Bekker ; Jude 4. The 
phrase eV vfuv cannot be regarded as tautological nor as epexe- 
getical of ol?, nor does ot<? preceding and agreeing with it form 
a Hebrew construction, E32 T^X. Winer, 22, 4. It is an 
nexed to 7rpoeypd(f) T] as a species of local qualification in you. 
This division of the words is better than to assign ev vfiiv to 
the ecTTavpw/Aevos, as if the sense were crucified among you, 
the idea of Calvin, Borger, and Matthies; or, for, or on account 
of you (Koppe), or by you. Ev vplv, bearing the emphasis 
(compare eV e/W, i. 1, and ii. 20), shows the nature of the 
description, or where it could be read. Compare 2 Cor. iii. 2. 

near you, or by some of you who happened to be present in Jerusalem ; " 
while the Jesuit Gretzer argues that the apostle s language implies the use 
of pictures and crucifixes. 



218 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Before their eyes had it been posted, and in them was it appre 
hended. What the apostle preached, they accepted. It was 
not unintelligible, or they might be pardoned. It was not a 
transient impression meant only for the senses ; it had pene 
trated into them. They understood, appreciated, and believed. 
Had it not been openly made, and inwardly understood and 
realized, there would have been no wonder at the sudden revo 
lution ; for men cannot hold tenaciously anything of which 
they have no just perception or cordial appreciation. Had it 
been only /car ocf)6d\/j,ous, it might have faded away ; but it 
was also ev vfuv^ and therefore the apostle was amazed that it 
should so very soon lose its hold. There is no need of taking 
ev v[uv in any proleptic sense, l( So that in you He becomes a 
crucified one," or dead, as Jatho, and his references to Bremi 
and Stallbaum are not to analogous instances. Nor is there 
any allusion to Jewish phylacteries or to heathen amulets : 
" Your frontlet of faith Christ crucified" (Wordsworth). 

And there is special moment on the last word earavpc^f^evo^, 
not to be diluted by " as if" (Turner), but the One who has 
been crucified, who still in this character is preached, or who 
still maintains the relation of a crucified One. Winer, 45, 1. 
The previous and patent presentation of Christ Jesus was of 
Him as the Crucified One (1 Cor. i. 23, ii. 2); and Theophylact 
adds, that with the eye of faith they saw the cross more dis 
tinctly than TWI> rore r napovrwv KCU Bewfjicvwv. The theme of 
preaching was Christ crucified, and it was the object of com 
memoration in the Lord s Supper. The death of Christ really 
involved the whole question in dispute, and the ea-ravpco^evo^ 
of this verse repeats the fact of the previous verse, " He gave 
Himself," nay, is an echo of an earlier utterance " I have 
been crucified with Christ." He had made atonement by His 
obedience and sufferings, and had thus provided a free and 
complete salvation received through faith in Him. This doc 
trine of salvation by His blood they had accepted ; and what 
then could induce them to turn away so speedily, and seek by 
the law of Moses what they had believed to be attainable only by 
the cross? Luther s notion is strange and foreign to the point, 
and the image is unnatural here, that the Galatians had by their 
inconsistency crucified Christ afresh : Heb. vi. G. So Ambros., 
Storr. Out of place also is Bengel s view, that the form of 



CHAP. III. 2. 219 

His cross was so portrayed in their hearts that they might be 
crucified with Him (Windischmann, Ewald) ; and Cajetan s, 
that by their sufferings they had become partakers of Christ s 
sufferings ; and that of Mar. Victor., that in persuading them 
to follow Judaism, their enemies crucified Christ in them. 
Hofmann, without any good reason, divides the clauses by a 
comma after I. X. " abrupt und gewaltsam" as Moeller in De 
Wette calls it. The same remark may be made on the punc 
tuation proposed by Matthias. 

Ver. 2. Tovro fiovov 6e\a> fiaOelv a(j> vpwv " This only I 
would learn of you." This only this one thing out of many ; 
for this one point is sufficient for the purpose, and is in itself 
decisive of the controversy. There is no irony in the language 
(Luther) ; he wished information on this one point. Acts 
xxiii. 28 ; Sept. Ex. ii. 4, 2 Mac. vii. 2 ; Soph. (Ed. Col 504; 
Xen. Hell. ii. 1, 1. A(f> VJJLWV is less direct or immediate than 
Trap vfjiwv. Winer, 47, 2, note. The one thing so conclusive 
of their folly lies in the question 

JE epywv VO/JLOV TO TlvevfJia eXa/3ere, rj e afcor/s 7rtcrT09 ; 
" Did ye from the works of the law receive the Spirit, or by 
the hearing of faith?" The meaning of Hvev^a is restricted 
erroneously, by Chrysostom, Jerome, and others, to miraculous 
gifts. It is no argument on the part of Schott and Meyer 
against this view, that the apostle writes to the entire churches, 
and that only a fraction could enjoy the ^ap la- para, because 
the gift of a few was really the gift of the church at large, as 
a church may be said to enjoy a revival though all its mem 
bers without exception may not have partaken of the heavenly 
gift. That the Ilvevp-a included extraordinary gifts is evident 
from ver. 5 ; but that it included greatly more is evident from 
its contrast with adpf; in the next verse, from the allusion 
of the 14th verse, and from the entire strain of the epistle, 
especially of the fifth chapter. The Holy Spirit was the cha 
racteristic possession of believers. To settle a previous dispute, 
Peter had said, " The Holy Ghost fell on them as upon us." 
Though the Spirit was bestowed under the law, it was with 
scantiness ; but fulness of gift was a prominent element of the 
promise in Joel ii. 28. That fulness seemed to overflow at the 
first descent, and miracles, tongues, and healings were the re 
sult as if the prismatic sparkling of the baptism of fire. The 



220 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Spirit, as the originator and sustainer of the new life, is the 
special endowment of believers, and was received openly and 
visibly by many of the converts to Christianity from Judaism. 

What, then, was the source of that spiritual influence 
possessed by them? Was it e f epywv VO/AOV e/c, as in ii. 16, 
denoting origin or cause the works of the law, which have 
the law for their object and are done to fulfil it ? 

The precise meaning of aKorj TriVrecy? which, however, 
cannot mean "faithful hearing" (Gwynne) has been disputed. 
The noun CLKOI -J may be taken either in an active sense the hear 
ing of faith, that is, the hearing or reception of that gospel in 
which faith is the distinctive doctrine, in which it is presented 
as the rule of life ; or in a passive sense that which is heard 
of faith that " report " or message which holds out faith as 
its prominent and characteristic element " the preaching of 
the faith" (Tyndale). Jlt cm? is used generally in a subjective 
sense (see i. 23). The passive sense is the prevailing, if not 
the only one of aicor) in the Xew Testament. Matt. iv. 24 ; 
John xii. 38 ; Rom. x. 16, 17 ; 1 Thess. ii. 13 ; Heb. iv. 2. 
Herod, ii. 148 ; Plato, Tim. 23, A, D. It represents in the 
Sept. the Heb. HJttDlP, a passive participle. The contrast also 
justifies this meaning : on the one hand are works done, on 
the other hand a report or declaration is made states of mind 
quite opposite. Works done in obedience to law is the one 
alternative, the presentation of a message about faith is the 
other. The contrast is not so defective as Jowett supposes. 
Schott and Sardinoux represent that the parallelism of the con 
trast demands, that as the first clause is subjective, the second 
must be subjective too. Granted that the first clause is subjec 
tive, the second is all the stronger a contrast that it is objective 
works that ye do, placed in opposition to a report brought to you. 
Did they receive the Spirit in obeying the law, or in so trying 
to obey it as to merit eternal life by it ? or was it when the 
message of faith was preached to them, and they embraced it ? 
for it is to the period of the introduction of the gospel that the 
apostle refers. They could at once determine the matter it 
was one of experience and history. The apostle does not give 
the answer, for he knew what it must be. It was under the 
hearing of faith that they first enjoyed the Spirit that Spirit 
which enlightens, sanctifies, certifies of sonship, makes inter- 



CHAP. III. 3. 221 

cession for us as being in us, seals us, and is the earnest and 
first-fruits. Opposed to usage and correctness is the interpre 
tation of Eollock, Matthies, and Wahl, that atto-f) stands for 
vTraKotj obedience. It is needless to object, with Gwynne and 
Hofmann, that the hearing of the gospel does not in itself secure 
the gift of the Spirit, as the apostle is alluding in the contrast 
to open and usual instrumentality. Jerome starts and answers 
the question si fides non est nisi ex auditu quomodo qui surdi 
nati sunt possunt fieri Christiani ? It is needless to debate the 
question raised by De Wette and Wieseler, whether, as the 
first holds, the parties specially addressed were Jews or prose 
lytes once under the law, or whether, as the second maintains, 
they w r ere Gentiles who had never been under the law at all. 
The challenge, however, has a special point as spoken to Jews, 
to whom their law had been everything. 

Ver. 3. OVTCOS dvorjroi eWe ; "Are ye so very foolish?" 
oimo? being used of degree or extent : i. 6; Mark vii. 18 ; John 
iii. 16; Heb. xii. 21; OVK eariv ovro) (Awpos 09 Oavelv epa, Soph. 
Antig. 220; Xen. Cyr. ii. 2, 16. The folly is again noticed, 
and the ovrcos refers to it. 

Evapt;dfj,evoi Trvev/jLari, vvv vapid eiriTeXela-Oe ; "having 
begun in the Spirit, are ye now being completed in the flesh?" 
The words evap^dpevoi and eTrireXetcrOe occur in Phil. i. 6. 
See also 2 Cor. viii. 6. The two datives are those of manner. 
Winer, 31, 7 ; Bernhardy, p. 101. The two clauses are so 
arranged in contrast, that they make what grammarians call 
a Chiasma. Jelf, 904, 3. They had begun in or with the 
Spirit ; that is, the beginning of their spiritual life might be 
so characterized. His influences, enjoyed through the hearing 
of faith, are the commencement the one way in which life 
is to be enjoyed and sustained. The natural course would 
be, begun in the Spirit, and in the Spirit perfected reaching 
perfection in Him as He is more copiously given and His in 
fluences work out their end more thoroughly, and with less 
resistance offered to them. But the apostle adds abruptly, 
"are ye now being carried to perfection in the flesh?" The 
verb eTTireXeiade contains more than the idea of end as in con 
trast to that of commencement in evap^dpevoi, the notion of 
perfection being in it, not simply and temporally but a perfect 
end ethically. 1 Sam. ii. 12 ; Luke xiii. 32 ; Rom. xv. 28 ; 



222 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

2 Cor. vii. 1, viii. 6; Rost und Palm, sub voce. The verb may 
be either middle or passive. In the former it often occurs in 
the classics, but usually with an accusative of object. Win- 
dischmann, De Wette, Hilgenfeld, Ewald, Bisping, Hofmann, 
Wieseler, and Winer so take it here. Some in this way render, 
" Are ye now for finishing do ye think that you can finish or 
be perfect, or do ye seek to be perfected, or do ye bring your 
selves to perfection ?" But the passive form only is found in 
the Septuagint and the New Testament, and thus Chrysostom 
and others regard it ; the Vulgate has consummamini. The 
use of the present (not the Attic future, Usteri) implies that 
they were at the moment cherishing this mistaken perfection. 
The language, perhaps, is not irony, but springs from a deeper 
source. It depicts their own experience and their folly. Is it 
possible that you can suppose that a beginning in the Spirit 
can be brought to maturity in the flesh ? Are ye so senseless 
as to imagine it ? Are you living under such a delusion ? As 
the dvoijTot, is repeated in his fervour from the first verse, it 
being there the warning epithet ; so Trvevfj-art, comes from the 
second verse, it being there the testing word. By irvevfjia is 
meant here again the Holy Spirit the Life and Power of the 
gospel which fills the spirit of believers, and not vaguely the 
gospel itself ; and by adpj; is designated, not the Jewish dis 
pensation, but the sensuous element of our nature, which finds 
its gratification in the observance of ceremonial or of external 
rites. See under Phil. iii. 4 ; Rom. iv. 1. It is too restricted 
on the part of Chrysostom, Riickert, and Schott to give crdp 
any immediate reference to circumcision, though it is not ex 
cluded ; and too vague on the part of Theodoret to render 
Trvev/^a by %a/w, and on the part of Winer to describe it as 
indoles eorum qui mente Deum colere didicerunt. The folly was 
extreme to go back from the spiritual to the. sensuous, from 
that which reaches the soul and fills it with its light, life, and 
cheering influence, or from the gift of Pentecost, to the dark 
economy, which consisted of " meats, and drinks, and divers 
washings." Shall he who has been conscious of his manhood, 

O / 

and exulted in it, dwarf himself into a child, and wrap himself 
in swaddling bands ? It was so foolish to turn round so soon 
after they had so auspiciously begun ; though there is no allu 
sion here or in the context, as Wolf and Schott think, to the 



CHAP. III. 4. 223 

image of a race. Lightfoot s allusion to a sacrifice is far 
fetched ; as is the similar notion of Chrysostom, that the false 
teacher slew them as victims. 

Yer. 4. Toaavra iirdOere et /c?} ; el 76 teal elfcrj " Did ye 
suffer so many things in vain, if it be really in vain?" We 
hold this to be the right translation of the verb, that it has not 
a neutral sense, and that it cannot be used in bonam partem 
" have ye experienced so many blessings in vain ?" The verb 
has such a meaning in extra-biblical writings, but not in itself 
never having it when used absolutely, such a sense being 
determined by the context, or by the addition of such words as 
ev, xdpiv, dydOa, etc. Eost und Palm, sub voce ; Joseph. Ant. 
iii. 15, 1 ; wyaObv icai KaKov Trua-^ovcn, Artemidorus, iv. 67 ; 
r jra6u>v djadov /^eya, Theognis, 342, p. 20, ed. Welcker ; wv 
iretrovOev OUK e^et %apty, Chares, ap. Stobad Florileg. xvii. 3, 
vol. i. p. 345, ed. Gaisford ; Kypke and Raphel. in loc., and 
Hombergk s Parerga, p. 278 ; Bos, Ellips. p. 131. In Homer 
and Hesiod it never has such a sense at all; nor in the Hellenistic 
Greek (Septuagint and Apocrypha) ; nor in the New Testament, 
though it occurs in it above forty times, and eleven times in the 
Pauline writings. But this meaning is given it here by Schomer, 
the first apparently to propose it, and by Borger, Flatt, Homberg, 
Winer, Wieseler, Bagge, Holsten, Sardinoux, De Wette, TJsteri, 
Schott, Trana, Ewald, Hilgenfeld, Jowett, and the lexicogra 
phers Robinson, Wahl, Bretschneider, and Wilke. The sense 
then will be, Did ye experience so many things, or, "Have you 
had all those experiences in vain?" (Jowett.) But the proper 
translation is the natural one " Did ye suffer so many things 
in vain?" Such a reference to previous suffering is surely not 
" unlike the noble spirit of the apostle ;" for he is rebuking that 
inconsistency which, as it turns its back on blessing, forgets the 
lessons of persecution. The Syriac appears to favour this view 
"have ye borne;" and the Vulgate has passi estis. But if the 
verb do refer to suffering, what sufferings are spoken of? Not 

1. Suffering with the apostle himself, though they had 
borne with him most patiently. Such is Bengel s view, un 
supported alike by the diction and by the context. Nor is it 

2. Sufferings of bondage which were brought upon them by 

O O O A * 

their false teachers. For, as Alford remarks, a different tense 
would have been employed, as the apostle would consider them 



224 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

as suffering from that source still. But the aorist refers to a 
specific period in their past history. The appeal would also be 
in vain ; for the Galatians, so long as their delusion lasted, 
would not admit that they were suffering in this sense. The 
ceremonial under which they were brought was hailed by them 
as a means of perfection, and not a source of suffering. The 
apostle alludes to a previous epoch. And 

3. To the sufferings endured by them on their first con 
version, when the Crucified One was so vividly set before 
their very eyes, and they received the Spirit, and began in the 
Spirit. Thus Theodoret, virep rov Xpiarov ra iraO^p-ara ; 
and Augustine, multa jam pro fide toleraverant. It is objected, 
first, that there is no historical account of persecution endured 
by the Galatian churches ; but the silence of the Acts of the 
Apostles can furnish no argument. The record is there so 
very brief and incidental it is not even a sketch. We cannot 
suppose that the Jews were less busy in Galatia than in other 
places, as at Antioch in Pisidia, Lystra, and Thessalonica. 
1 Thess. ii. 13, 14. 1 The probability is, that the Galatians 
suffered like so many of the infant churches, and suffered just 
because they professed faith in the doctrines of the cross 
apart from any Jewish modification, supplement, or admixture : 
v. 11, vi. 12. It is objected, secondly, by Meyer and Usteri, 
that the idea of suffering is not in harmony with the course of 
thought. But surely the appeal is quite in keeping with pre 
vious statements. The argument rests on the folly of the 
Galatians. It was folly to be so bewitched as to revert to the 
law, which did not and could not give them the Spirit ; folly to 
begin in the Spirit, and apostatize to the flesh which could not 
perfect them ; and folly assuredly all the more unaccountable, 
after they had suffered so severely for their first and opposite 
views and opinions. They were so foolish as to renounce bless 
ings which they had once prized, nay, for which they had also 
undergone persecution. Men naturally cling to that for which 
they have suffered, but they had in childish caprice flung it 
away. The apostle thus appeals first to what they had enjoyed, 

1 Justin Martyr boldly says, as if the fact were notorious and undeni 
able, " Other nations have not inflicted on us such wrongs as you have ; " 
adding, that "chosen men were sent from Jerusalem" to stir up the 
heathen governors against the Christians. Dialoy. cum Tryph. 17. 



CHAP. III. 5. 225 

and then to what they had endured, as the proof of their folly 
their senselessness. See under Phil. i. 29. 

Ei 76 Kal eltcr) " if indeed they be in vain." The particle 
et 7e, different from eiirep, does not express doubt, the usage, 
according to Hermann, being, elVep usurpatur, de re quce esse 
sumitur seel in incerto relinquitur utrum jure an injuria sumatur; 
el 75, autem, de re quce jure sumpta creditur. Kal signifies 
truly or really if it really be in vain. Klotz-Devarius, ii. 308 ; 
Hartung, i. 136. If what has been said is true, and it must 
be true, those sufferings are in vain though he is loath to 
believe it. There is therefore no need, first, to weaken the 
sense, and render the clause, si modo frustra, si modo dicere 
ita liceat (Morus) ; nor secondly, with the Greek fathers, and 
many others, as Bengel and Hofmann, to suppose the apostle 
as hinting, on the one hand, that possibly after all the elicf) 
might be prevented ; nor, thirdly, with Augustine, Meyer, 
Wieseler, etc., as surmising, on the other hand, that worse than 
ei/cfj may be dreaded ne ad perniciem valeat. The Syriac 

reads, "And I would _2ioAj^o that it were in vain." 

Ver. 5. O ovv eTri^op rjjcov VJMV TO Tlvev^a, /cal evepywv 
&vvdp,eis ev vfuv, e% epyaiv vopov, rj e% aKofjs Tr/crrew? ; " Pie 
then that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles 
in you, doeth He it by the works of the law, or by the hearing 
of faith?" The ovv is continuative, or rather resumptive, 
is " then," not " therefore," taking up again, after a momen 
tary digression, the question of ver. 2, which has not yet been 
formally answered. The first participle ejrvxppvfy&v signifies 
to furnish, to minister to : Sir. xxv. 22 ; 2 Cor. ix. 10 ; Col. 
ii. 19 ; Eph. iv. 16. Its original meaning in connection with 
the furnishing of a chorus on some public occasion is lost sight 
of, and the generosity of the act, not the purpose of it, re 
mains in the verb. Xop^ovai ol TrXoucrtot, Xen. Athen. i. 13. 
The eW does not signify, as often, " additional," but probably 
specifies direction. The Spirit came down eVi upon them. 
Of that Spirit so furnished, the apostle gives a specimen 
evepywv Suvdpei^ ev vfuv. The ev is not " among," as Winer 
and others take it, but " in," its natural sense. Matt. xiv. 2 ; 
1 Cor. xii. 6 ; Phil. ii. 13. These Swdpeis are works of power, 
which the Spirit alone can effect the result of His influence 

r 



EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

and inhabitation. They arc not, perhaps, to be confined to 
miracles, but may comprehend other results of divine energy. 
The Galatian believers were conscious of the Spirit s presence 
and working within them, as they had felt the pulsations of 
the new life, and perhaps could speak with tongues, and they 
were therefore prepared to answer the interrogation. But 
there are two questions What is the tense of the participles ? 
and to whom does the apostle refer? Peter Lombard, Eras 
mus, Macknight and even Augustine, Doddridge, Riccaltoun, 
and Brown understand the apostle to apply these participles to 
himself " out of modesty declining to name himself" (Locke). 
In some inferior sense they might be true of him. But the 
apostle was not likely so to characterize himself as if he stood 
in God s stead. Could he say that he furnished the Spirit 
when he was only at best the vehicle of communication, or 
that he wrought these miracles in them when his hands simply 
conveyed the energy ? The participles portray the source, 
and not the mere medium. In fact, these two clauses give only 
the reverse view of ver. 2. There the reception of the Spirit is 
spoken of, here it is the donation of the Spirit ; there it is man 
who gets, here it is God who gives. See also under i. 6. 

Nor do the participles refer to the same point of time with 
eXaftere, as they are not aorists. The Greek commentators, 
followed by Semler and Bengel, take them as imperfects, and 
as referring to the time when the apostle was among the Gala- 
tians. But as the reference is to God, it is most natural to 
take the participles as presents; and the present tense may 
refer not specially to divine gift as continuous, but may be used 
in a substantival sense to characterize God as the Giver, 
this function of supplying the Spirit specially belonging to 
Him. Winer, 45, 7. See under i. 23. God, whose prero 
gative it is to give the Spirit and work miracles, does He, is 
He in the habit of giving the one and doing the other by the 
works of the law or by the hearing of faith ? In the second 
verse of the chapter the apostle refers to the period when they 
received the Spirit ; and in this verse, while he refers to God, 
it is to God not simply as giving the Spirit at that precise 
period, but to the principle on which He usually acts, or the 
instrumentality which He usually employs, in the bestowment 
of such gifts. See under ver. 2. 



CHAP. III. 6. 227 

Example is often more pointed and powerful than theo 
retical illustration, just as for geographical instruction a map 
excels a verbal description of a country. The Jews boasted 
of Abraham, their forefather, and of their being Abraham s 
progeny. " We be Abraham s seed " was their characteristic 
vaunt, and they believed that because of this relationship all 
spiritual blessing was chartered to them. Matt. iii. 9 ; John 
viii. 33. Some of their sayings were " All Israel hath part 
in eternal life ;" "Great is the virtue of circumcision no cir 
cumcised person enters hell." "Your Rabbins," said Justin 
Martyr, " delude themselves and us in supposing that the 
kingdom of heaven is prepared for all the natural seed of 
Abraham, even though they be sinners and unbelievers." See 
Wetstein on Matt. iii. 9. Such being their trust in Abraham 
and in lineal descent from him, his justification was a ruling 
precedent for all those who truly hoped to be saved after 
his example. If he, then, was justified without circumcision, 
and prior to it, how could Judaizers insist on its necessity? 
But his justification was prior to his circumcision, nay, his cir 
cumcision was but the seal of a righteousness already possessed 
by him. Abraham was not circumcised in order to be justified; 
he was circumcised because he was justified. Let the example 
of Abraham, then, decide the controversy, for Judaizers can 
not in loyalty refuse to be bound by it. It is surely enough for 
you to be as he was, and to accept the doctrine which his life 
suggests and embodies. Ought it not by common consent to 
be a divine precedent to all generations ? At once, then, 
without warning, and without any connecting particle, does 
he add 

Ver. 6. Ka9a><$ Aftpaafju erria Tevcre TW @ew, real eXoylcrdrj 
avra) et9 StKcuoavvriv " Even as Abraham believed God, and 
it was counted to him for righteousness." The apostle does 
not answer his own question : he takes for granted that every 
one will reply, "By the hearing of faith," faith being the 
^ leading term, which is now illustrated in the case of Abraham. 
He thus passes so far from the point of the interrogation, which 
was the supply of the Spirit, and takes up another topic justi 
fication by faith. But lay /ca&o? both themes are associated, as 
indeed they really are in ver. 3. The reception of the Spirit 
implies justification, and is a blessing either dependent upon it 



228 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

or collateral with it. So related to each other are the two gifts, 
that the apostle binds them together in the following illustra 
tion, which, after dwelling on law, curse, faith, righteousness, 
life, returns to the leading question as answered in ver. 14. 

The connecting compound KaOais (a later form of /caOd } 
Pliryn. ed. Lobeck, p. 426) is not to be causally rendered as by 
Gwynne u Forasmuch as Abraham believed God, therefore 
know ye," etc. ; for such abruptness mars the consecutive force 
of the argument, since KaOcos introduces the illustrative example. 
The verse is a quotation from Gen. xv. 6, as given in the Sept., 
and as in Rom. iv. 3, Jas. ii. 23. The Hebrew of the last 
clause is somewhat different : HjTiv i? fl?^!}, " and He counted 
it to him as righteousness." The nominative to the verb eXo- 
7/cr$?7 in the Greek translation is TO Tricrrevcrai. The meaning 
of et? after \oyl^erai has been viewed in various ways. Some 
give it the sense of destination, one of its common uses his 
faith was counted unto, or, in order to, righteousness ; that is, it 
was the means of securing righteousness to Abraham. Writers 
on systematic theology have generally adopted this exegesis, as 
indicating the connection of an instrumental faith with the 

O 

righteousness of Christ. Thus Gerhard, Loci Com. i. vii. 238 : 
Fides . . . dicitur nobis imputari ad justitiam quippe cujus est 
organum apprehendens. Many also have held that faith must 
mean here the object of faith, " that," as Bishop Davenant 
says, " being ascribed to faith itself which is due in reality to 
Christ." Disputatio de Justitia, cap. xxviii. Others take it 
as the state of mind which was regarded by God as true faith, 
and therefore instrumental to the obtaining of righteousness. 
But the phrase seems to be more idiomatic in meaning, and, 
according to Fritzsche, \<yyl%Tai n efc rt is equivalent to \oyl- 
Qra! TL et? TO ware eivai rt, ita res cestimatur, ut res sit, h.e. ut 
pro re valeat. Fritzsche ad Rom. ii. 26. The one thing is 
regarded as being the other thing, or its equivalent. Thus 
Acts xix. 27, the temple of the great goddess Diana els ovSev 
Xoyio-Otjvcu " should be counted for nothing," or regarded as 
nothing ; Rom. ii. 26, ov%l ^ aKpo^varla avrov a? Trepiro/a^v 
\oyia-6rjo-eTai ; " shall not his uncircumcision be counted for 
circumcision ?" the one state being regarded as the other state; 
Rom. ix. 8, aXXa ra refcva T?}? 7T(vy<y\,ia<i Xoyt^erai et9 o-TrepfAa 
" but the children of the promise are counted for a seed," or 



CHAP. III. 6. 229 

are reckoned as a seed. So too in Septuagint : 1 Sam. i. 13, 
KOI eXoyla-aro avrrjv JEfXei et? jJieOvovcrav " and Eli regarded 
her (Hannah) as a drunk woman;" Isa. xl. 17, /cal efc ovSev 
eXoylcrdrja-av avrm " and they (all the nations) are counted to 
Him for nothing" quasi non sint, sic sunt coram eo (Vulg.) ; 
Wisd. ix. 6, " for though a man be never so perfect among the 
children of men, yet if Thy wisdom be not with him," elf ovSev 
\oyia-0 /jaerat " he shall be counted for nothing," or, as in the 
Authorized Version, "he shall be nothing regarded." Such an 
idiom is plainly tantamount to a simple predication. Compare 
Wisd. v. 4, xv. 15 ; Mark x. 8. The preposition is used in the 
same way after verbs denoting to make or constitute, as Acts 
xiii. 22, v. 36 ; with the verb of existence " they shall be et? 
adp/ca fjbiav" Matt. xix. 5 ; or after <yivea0ai eyevero et<? &ev- 
Spov peya in our version, " waxed a great tree." Acts v. 36, 
vii. 21 ; Rom. xi. 9 ; 1 Cor. xv. 45 ; Bernhardy, pp. 218, 219. 
See also Rost und Palm, sub voce, p. 804. This interpretation 
gives no support to the theory that the verb by itself means 
to impute or reckon to another what does not belong to 
him the notion of Jonathan Edwards, Arminius, and many 
others, who confound the signification with the sense of the 
term. Nor will its use in Philem. 18 justify such an assump 
tion, for there the meaning is settled by the circumstances and 
the context. It is the same with the corresponding Hebrew 
verb SB n, which, when it means to reckon to any one, does 
not by itself determine whether such reckoning be rightly or 
wrongly made. This inferential or ethical sense is to be 
gathered from the connection. According to this idiom, the 
faith of Abraham was accounted to him as his righteousness, 
or God regarded his faith as his righteousness. 

O D 

The factitive verb SiKatoio is peculiar in its uses, and occurs 
37 times in the New Testament. It is used absolutely of 
God, Luke vii. 29 ; of man, Luke x. 29, Rom. ii. 13 ; and also 
relatively, as in a judicial sense, Ps. Ixxxii. 3, Matt. xii. 37. 
In the general classical use of the word in reference to acts or 
events, there is a kind of legal element involved, or a judgment 
formed or a decision come to (Thucyd. v. 26) ; and in the 
case of persons, the verb means to act justly toward them, to 
right them, to put them in a right relative position. And so 
the verb came to denote to condemn, to punish, to put a cri- 



230 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

minal in a right position in reference to the law and society. 1 
Thucyd. iii. 40 ; Herod, i. 100 ; ^Elian, Var. Hist. v. 18. 
In the Septuagint it represents the Pihel and Hitlipahel of P"^ , 
the former, P^V, at least five times Job xxxii. 2, xxxiii. 32; Jer. 
iii. 11 ; Ezek. xvi. 51, 52 in all which vindication is the idea, 
righting one s self or others by a judgment pronounced. The 
Hiphil P^V 1 ? occurs many times. In Ex. xxiii. 7, Deut. xxv. 1, 
1 Kings viii. 32, 2 Chron. vi. 23, Isa. 1. 8, it describes God s 
vindication or judicial approval ; in 2 Sam. xv. 4, Job xxvii. 5, 
Ps. Ixxxii. 3, Prov. xvii. 15, Isa. v. 23, it is used of men, and 
of them under a legal aspect, as of Absalom promising to right 
every suitor who came to him, or that he would declare in his 
favour, of Job vowing that he could not vindicate or pro 
nounce sentence of acquittal on his eliminators " miserable 
comforters," of judges who are summoned to give decisions 
based on character, and who, if they act in a contrary spirit, 
have a woe pronounced on them, and are, from their unjust 
sentences, " an abomination to God." The phrase as occurring 
in Dan. xii. 3 is of doubtful meaning, and the word in Isa. liii. 

O 

,11 involves the question under discussion. The Greek term 
is frequently found, besides, in the Septuagint and Apocrypha 
with a similar reference, though not always so distinctly as 
in the previous instances, the reference in the majority of 
cases being to an opinion or a judgment uttered or an acquittal 
pronounced, and not to heart or character made better inhe 
rently. The phrase in Ps. Ixxiii. 13 is an apparent exception, 
where, however, eSiKaiaxra represents a different Hebrew term, 
!"9J, and it is the rendering in several places of the Hebrew 

1 In mediaeval Latin, jiistificare meant to condemn. Non tarn justhiam 
exercere quam judicio dato damnare, vel per judicium compellere. Du Gauge, 
sub voce. "Justify" had the same meaning in old Scotch. Thus in Pit- 
scottie s History it is said, "Writings were brought to the Duke of Albany, 
telling him that he should be justified on a certain day" i.e. executed. In 
the Complaint of Scotland, " He gart bryng furth the presoners to be justi- 
fiet" = to execute justice on them. The words of Bellendene, "the child 
was justifiet in presence of mony peple," are rendered by Boethius 
muliis conspicientibus fared est suspennus. James IV., in a letter to Charles 
vn. of France, says, " The chief rebels who were found in the camp " 
pocna suspendii justificavimus " we have justified by hanging." See 
Jamieson s Scottish Dictionary, under Arettyt Justine. Hesychius gives 
only this meaning. See Cicero in Vcrrcm. v. 57. 



CHAP. III. 6. 231 



tiSty, to judge. In Ps. li. 4 the Kal of P1^ is rendered by 
av BiKaiwdfjs ev rot? Xoyoi? crou " in order that Thou may be 
just in Thy words," or, "that Thy rectitude may be made 
apparent in Thy utterances." The common meaning is thus 
forensic in nature to righten a man, or to give him acceptance 
with God, Rom. hi. 24, 26, 28, v. 1, vi. 7 ; or from its nature 
as acquittal from a charge irapa @eq> a at the bar of God." 
It is used in ii. 17, in opposition to " found sinners," or being 
under the curse. It means thus to give one the position of a 
8//cato?, or to righten him in relation to God by releasing him 
from the penalty, so that he is accepted by the gracious Judge, 
and at the same time to purify and perfect him a process 
which, beginning at the moment of his justification, stretches on 
through many a struggle to its complete development. Thus 
the blessing of Abraham, or justification by faith, and the 
reception of the Spirit the Worker of spiritual renewal, are 
regarded as collateral or as interconnected gifts in the 14th 
verse. To condemn is the opposite of to justify Kardicpifia 
is the opposite of BucauDfJM (Rom. v. 16) : but condemnation 
is not making a man a criminal, it is proving or asserting him 
to be one ; so justification is not making a man righteous, but 
declaring him to be righteous, not for his own merit, but 
through his faith in the righteousness of Christ that faith 
being the means of vitalizing the soul at the very moment of 
its being the instrument of release and acceptance. AiKaio- 
crvvrj might be taken in a broad sense as covering the whole of 
that rightening which a sinner needs and through faith enjoys; 
that is, righteousness both imputed and inherent. But specially 
in such passages as this, where the leading thought is release 
from the curse which violation of the law has induced and per 
petuated, its reference is rather to the basis than to the method 
of justification to that, on his possession of which a sinner is 
Tightened in relation to the law, relieved from its penalty. 
AiKaioavvi] is not to be confounded with Sucalwcns which in 
Rom. iv. 25 is opposed to the TrapcnnajpaTa on account of 
which Christ was delivered up, and is the realized result of 
His resurrection ; while in Rom. v. 18 it is defined by &)>}?, 
as obtained Bt evbs (Htfat&tyiaro?. J. A. Turretine, Wesley, 
Moses Stuart followed by Dr. Brown, take Si/caioa-vvr) @eov as 
meaning generally God s method of justification or of justifying 



232 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

a sinner. The explanation is vague, unless method mean some 
thing more than plan or outline, and include also basis and 
result, and it will not fit in to many passages where the phrase 
occurs. But BiKaioavvr) is said to refer to moral condition, 
as " nothing can be more inapplicable than a Greek noun 
ending in ocrvvr) to a mere business of reputation or extrinsic 
change." Knox s Remains, vol. i. 303. But, first, there are 
passages where the word cannot bear such a meaning as applied 
to God s dealing with sinners, so that it has not this moral 
sense uniformly ; secondly, in its meaning as the basis of justi 
fication, it is moral in the sense of being personal, or in our 
individual possession ; and thirdly, in another aspect, BiKcuoavvrj 
may be regarded as the " moral " state of one who is Si/caios 
at God s tribunal, or as that quality which characterizes him 
before God. The meaning of the term mav be thus conserved 

O * 

without making the ground of justification inherent righteous 
ness without grounding, as Mr. Knox and others do, justifi 
cation on sanctification. The compound term justification 
would naturally signifv " making righteous" justum facere, 
and several Romish theologians lay hold of this as an argu 
ment ; but the word belongs not to the classic Latin, and came 
into general use as a representative of the Greek Si/caioco. Still 
the word, from its composition, is unfortunate, especially when 
ranged by the side of sanctification " making holy." The 
analogy taken from the verbs "magnify" and "glorify" as 
applied to God will not hold, for "justify" belongs to the relation 
of God to man. Not a few theories about different kinds of 
justification are wanting in any sound scriptural basis ; some 
confounding it with election, faith in that case being only its 
proof, not its instrument ; others assuming a first, and a final 
justification at the last day; and others laying no small stress on 
the difference between an actual and a declarative justification 
a theory apparently necessitated by the attempt to reconcile 
the statements of the apostles James and Paul, but not indis 
pensable by any means to a true adjustment of their language : 
thus Cunningham, Historical Theology, vol. ii. p. 67; Buchanan, 
Doctrine of Justification, p. 233, etc., Edin. 1867. Owen dis 
tinguishes between justification and justifaction ! 

The passage before us implies that Abraham had no right 
eousness, or was in want of a righteousness which no law could 



CHAP. III. 6. 233 

provide for him, and that Jehovah reckoned faith to him as, or 
in lieu of, such a personal righteousness which he had not. A 
new principle was brought in by God Himself ; as the Hebrew 
text so distinctly expresses it " He counted his faith to him 
for righteousness ;" and the non-righteous Abraham stood 
before the divine tribunal acquitted and accepted as truly as 
if he had possessed a personal righteousness through uniform 
obedience. His faith, not as an act, but as a fact, put him 
into this position by God s own deed, without legal fiction or 
abatement. He believed God; that is, God in the promise 
given by Him in Gen. xv. 5 : " And He brought him forth 
abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, 
if thou be able to number them. And He said unto him, So 
shall thy seed be." He was lifted into acceptance with God, 
however, not on account of his faith, but through it laying 
hold of the promise. That faith had no merit ; for what merit 
can a creature have in believing the Creator s word ? it is only 
bare duty, but Abraham s trust in God introduced him into 
the promised blessing. His faith rested on the promise, and 
through that faith he became its possessor or participant. 
That promise, seen in the light of a previous utterance, in 
cluded the Messiah ; and with all which it contained, and with 
this as its central and pre-eminent object, it was laid hold of 
by his faith, so that his condition was tantamount to justifica 
tion by faith in the righteousness of Christ. In Abraham s 
case the promise was vague the Redeemer had not become 
incarnate, and righteousness had not been formally provided ; 
but now the person and work of Christ are distinctly set before 
us as the immediate object of saving faith the characteristic 
doctrine of the New Testament. Tholuck indeed objects that 
the parallel between Abraham and believers is not complete 
unvolkommene Abraham s faith bein^ his righteousness, and 

O O * 

Christ s righteousness being reckoned to believers. But the 
promise included Him whose day Abraham rejoiced to see, and 
whatever was included in the promise was grasped by his faith 
Compare Alford and Meyer on Rom. iv. 3, and Philippi on the 
same verse in reply to Tholuck and Neander. And this right 
eousness is not innocence, as Bishop O Brien more than once 
represents it in his Treatise on the Nature and the Effects of 
Faith) 2d ed. p. 186. That the justified person has sinned, is an 



234 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

element of his history which can never be obliterated ; nay, 
it is confessed in all the songs of the saints, and the atoning 
work of Christ ever presupposes it. He who believes becomes 
righteous, not innocent as if he had never broken the law or 
had uniformly kept it; for he has sinned, and Omnipotence itself 
is unable to reverse a fact. But from all the penal effects of his 
sin he is graciously absolved, and is treated as righteous by God. 

It was faith, then, and faith alone, which was accounted to 
Abraham for righteousness. Bishop Bull maintains that faith 
justifies, not as " one single virtue," but as being the germ of 
holiness, or as "comprehending all the works of Christian 
piety." St. Paul, he affirms, is to be interpreted from St. 
James, not St. James from St. Paul. Be that as it may, the 
Pauline doctrine is, that justification is by faith alone -fide 
sola sed non fide, quce est sola; 1 that is, this faith, while alone it 
jtistifies, does not remain alone it proves its vitality or justi 
fying nature by clothing itself with good works. The function 
of faith as justifying differs in result from its function as sanc 
tifying; but it sanctifies as surely as it justifies. "God infuses 
righteousness in the very act of justifying." Davenant. Its 
sanctifying power is as certain as its justifying influence, and 
therefore the view of Bishop Bull is superficial : " Whoso 
firmly believes the gospel, and considers it with due attention, 
will in all probability become a good man." No such proba 
bility is hazarded in the New Testament absolute certainty is 
asserted. One may ask, in fine, how far Bishop Bull s theory 
about the nature of faith -fides formata differs from that of 
Bellarmine and that of the Tridentine theology which represents 
no less than six graces as co-operating with faith in a sinner s 
justification. See also Newman, Lectures on Justification. 

The discussion of the doctrine of imputation belongs to 
systematic theology, and it has been ably treated, with varying 
opinions and conclusions as in the treatises of Hooker, Owen, 
Martensen, Dick, Wardlaw, Edwards, Hodge, Cunningham, 
and Buchanan. See other authors in Buchanan s Notes. 

It may be added, in conclusion, that it has been often 

1 Bellarmine puts the difference between the Eomish and Reformed 
creed on the point thus : his own party teaching Fidem non justificare solam, 
sed tamen posse esse solam; but his opponents, Fidem solam juslijicare, 
minquam tamen posse esse solam. 



CHAP. III. 7. 235 

asked why faith should have been constituted the one instru 
ment of justification; and various answers have been given. It 
may be replied that the loss of faith in God brought sin and 
death into the world. The tempter insinuated doubts of God s 
disinterestedness, as if He had been jealous, and had selfishly 
forbidden access to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
since those who partook of the fruit would become gods and 
rise to a feared equality with Himself. The insinuation pre 
vailed, His creatures so poisoned against Him, gave up confi 
dence in Him, and fell into spiritual death. And surely the 
restoration of this confidence or faith in God is, and must be 
in the nature of things, the first step toward pardon, accept 
ance, or reinstatement toAvard reunion with the one Source 
of life. Still, faith is indispensable only as instrument or con 
dition, not for any merit in itself. The phrases e /c TriVrew?, or 
Bia Tr/o-reco?, or ev or eVt rfj Trla-rei, are used, but never Bia 
TTLCTTLV on account of faith which would be allied to the 
justitia inhcerens of Thomas Aquinas, and the meritum ex 
congruo of Peter Lombard. See under ii. 16. The earlier 
fathers were not accustomed to minute doctrinal distinctions, 
and they often write without precision their thoughts occupied 
with the entire process of salvation, without any minute analysis 
of its separate parts. Such freedom produces apparent inconsis 
tency in careless utterances which may be variously expounded. 
So that the patristic history of the doctrine of justification has 
been viewed from opposite points, and been to some extent 
interpreted in the light of previous opinions. See, for example, 
on the one hand, Davenant s De Justitia, cap. xxix. ; Faber s 
Primitive .Doctrine of Justification, chap. iv. ; and on the other 
hand, Bellarmine s De Justificatione, and Newman. See also 
Donaldson s Critical History of Christian Literature and Doc 
trine. 

Ver. 7. Fivcaa-Kere dpa on ol etc Triarew^, OVTOI eiaiv viol 
Afipadfj, " Know ye therefore that they who are of faith, 
those are the sons of Abraham." This verse is an inferential 
lesson which, he charges them to learn. The verb is better 

O 

construed in the imperative than in the indicative, which is 
preferred by Jerome, Beza, Riickert, Alford, Lightfoot, etc. ; 
for the apostle is not taking for granted that they know it, 
but he is enjoining their knowledge of it, and he proceeds to 



236 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

expound and prove it to them. Cognoscite ergo Vulgate. The 
particle apa gives peculiar force to the imperative: "therefore," 
it being admitted that Abraham s faith was the undoubted 
means of his justification. Hartung, p. 443 ; Klotz-Devarius, 
ii. 167. Compare 2 Tim. iii. 1, Heb. xiii. 23. The phrase ol 
efc 7r/crTea;9 is more than a mere periphrasis for ol TucnevovTes. 
The preposition represents origin genetic relation. Horn. ii. 8, 
iii. 26, iv. 14 ; John xviii. 37 ; Winer, 47. The aspect of 
thought is not simply those who possess faith but those who 
are sprung of faith ; yet not specially here the faith of Abraham 
(Windischmann), faith being at once the formative and the 
distinctive principle. The pronoun ovroi, so placed, has a sharp 
exclusiveness of meaning, those, and those alone those and 
none other. Bernhardy, p. 283. The contrast to e /c Trto-reco? 
is not e/c aapKos, as Chrysostom wrongly illustrates, but specially 
ol e f epjcav in ver. 10, though at the same time it is implied 
that mere natural descent does not entitle a man to be ranked 
in this spiritual progeny of Abraham. It is not Abraham s 
blood, but Abraham s faith which forms the filial bond. The 
phrase viol AfBpadfju is expressive, and is meant to be so. Rom. 
iv. 12-18 ; Schoettgen, in loc. vol. i. p. 731. To be his children 
is to have what he had, and that is faith ; and to be what he 
was, and that is to be justified. Faith is the common principle 
between father and children ; justification is the common bless 
ing, or the gift of righteousness is the common inheritance. 
Only such as have faith and the point is not raised whether 
they be Gentiles or of the line of Isaac and Jacob, whether they 
be of the circumcision or of the uncircumcision they alone are 
true Abrahamids airep^a Afipadp,. The aspect of thought 
is different here from that in ver. 29, where to be Abraham s 
seed is said to result from connection with Christ. The con 
clusion is levelled directly against proud Judaizing errorists, 
who insisted more on imitation of Abraham s circumcision than 
on the possession of Abraham s faith, thus misunderstanding 
the place, nature, and meaning of the seal and rite, and delud 
ing their victims away from the Spirit to trust in externalism, 
and seek for perfection in the flesh. 

Ver. 8. IlpoiSova-a 8e 77 7/><// "But the Scripture fore 
seeing." The particle Be is transitional (" but," not " and," as 
in our version), to urge an additional but different aspect of 



CHAP. III. 8. 237 

the same truth (Klotz-Devarius, vol. ii. 523), that there is 
community of blessing with Abraham, and that this was no 
novelty. It had been described or foretold at a very early 
period, for it is found in the inspired record of the patriarch s 
life. In the words Trpo iSovcra rj jpa^Tj the Scripture is per 
sonified, from the divine power and presence originating and 
pervading it. The Scripture embodies the mind of God, and 
that God being omniscient, His Scripture foresees as well as 
narrates, glances into the future with the same eye as it sweeps 
round the present or looks back into the past. Prophecy in a 
book coming from the All-knowing One is as natural as history ; 
but there is no distinction meant here and on this point between 
divine and human writing (Hofmann). This species of per 
sonification is not uncommon in Jewish books. Surenhusius, 
Bib. Katall 567 ; Schoettgen, in loc. vol. i. 732. Rom. iv. 3 ; 



John vii. 38. The Syriac reads ]CTL v. S*oj j-x 

t> " I Vb> 

"for because God knew beforehand." 

What the Scripture foresaw is 

"On, CK Tr/oreo)? 8i/caioi ra eOvrj 6 @eo? " that of faith God 
justifies the nations." The verb is present, not, as Meyer and 
De Wette argue, because the future time is taken as present, 
there being no time with the Unchanging One ; nor merely, 
as Alford, because it is God s one way of justification ; nor, as 
Ellicott, because the reference is to eternal and immutable de 
crees ; nor, as Trana and Bengel, a view from the apostle s own 
position: but rather because it is God s continuous and uniform 
way of justification, and that by which He may be character 
ized. The words eV Tr/o-rew? have the emphasis that out of 
which justification springs faith as opposed to works ; for it is 
of this means or source of justification that the apostle s quota 
tion and reasoning are a proof. Winer, xl. 2 ; Schmalfeld, 54. 
The Wvr] are supposed by Estius, Alford, and Winer to in 
clude all nations Jew and Gentile, the word being accepted 
in its widest significance. But we are inclined to take it in its 
more common and current usage, and therefore that in which 
it would be most likely understood by those w T hom the apostle 
addressed the signification which it has in ver. 14. It there 

O 

denotes the Gentiles, or other races than the Jews. Not only 
were his own race to be justified by faith such as his, but races 



238 EPISTLE TO THE GALAT1ANS. 

alien to him and his should be justified precisely in the same 
way. The Scripture notified to Abraham the glad tidings 
beforehand 7rpoev r]j y6\i(Taro J a word occuring in Philo, but 
found only here in the New Testament. This early prophetic 
notification made to Abraham was committed to writing 77 
ypafah and its substance was 

"On evev^oytjOijarovTai ev aol iravra ra edvrj " that there 
shall be blessed in thee all the nations." This second double 
compound verb rests on high authority, and it is plural, though 
in concord with a neuter nominative. Ktihner, 424, a. "Ore, 
is recitative, or introduces the quotation. The words, however, 
are not found as the apostle quotes them. In the Septuagint 
occur : Gen. xii. 3, evevXoj^Orjaovrat ev crol Tracrai, al <$>v\al r?}<? 
7% ; xviii. 18, evevXoyrjOrjcrovrai, ev avTco Trdvra ra eOvrj. The 
quotation represents both passages, as it so far combines them. 
The difficulty lies in the determination of the meaning of eV aol. 

1. It has been common to take it as meaning virtually "in 
thy seed" thy seed as embodied in thee, and that seed meaning 
Christ. This view has been held by many, as by CEcumenius 
and Jerome, and more recently by Estius, Hunnius, Ram- 
bach, Bullinger, a-Lapide, Borger, Bagge, and Schott. In that 
case ev would signify per, through through thee, or thy seed 
springing out of thee. But (1.) the mere words cannot bear 
this meaning it is a foreign sense imposed upon them ; (2.) it 
would not sustain the inference of the following verse " blessed 

o 

with Abraham ;" (3.) nor would it warrant the language of the 
14th verse, in which a certain blessing is called the blessing of 
Abraham ; and (4.) it would forestall the new and peculiar 
argument of the IGth verse. 

2. Nor can the phrase mean, as Calvin, Brown, Semler, 
Rosenmiiller, and Baumgarten-Crusius suppose, " along with," 
or "in the same manner as;" for then the statement of the 
following verse, so far from being a deduction from this one, 
would only be a repetition of its sentiment, and the logical link 
expressed by wcrre would be broken. Calvin is content with a 
reference to Abraham as commune exemplar, and Augustine 
with an imitatione fidei ; while Chrysostom explains ev aoi by 
rr]v TTIGTIV fj.LiJL nadfjievoi, and that in contrast to their possessing 
Trjv (f)V(TLKy]v crvyyevetav. 

3. The meaning, then, seems to be, that Abraham is pic- 



CHAP. III. 8. 239 

tured as the root and representative of all the faithful. They 
are in him as spiritual children in a spiritual ancestor or federal 
head, and are therefore included in his blessing are blessed in 
him. It is only a quotational illustration of the truth announced 
in the previous verse. Gwynne, afraid lest the phrase "in 
thee" as so explained should lead to theological error, presses 
the meaning so far down that " father of the faithful" is only 
analogous to " Jabal, father of such as dwell in tents," " Jubal, 
father of all such as handle the harp." Wieseler understands 
" in thee" = "having a share in thy blessing," which indeed is 
the result. 

And what is the ev\o<yia, blessing, promised or predicted ? 
It does not seem to be merely the reception of the Spirit, that 
being a result of the blessing, ver. 14 (De Wette, Wieseler) ; 
nor is it properly salvation as a whole, or the benefits attached 
to it (Hoffmann) ; but it is specially that blessing which has 
immediate and uniform connection with faith and righteous 
ness, i.e. justification. The quotation is adduced to prove that 
God justifies the Gentiles by faith, and it is this phase of bless 
ing which has been since the conclusion of the previous chapter 
especially before the apostle s mind, and which he now proceeds 
more fully to illustrate. It was the free nature of this blessing 
and its dependence on faith alone which the Judaizers so 
strenuously and malignantly impugned. The " blessing" is in 
contrast also with the " curse " so soon referred to, and that 
curse is the penalty of a broken law. The prophecy does not 
teach that when men wish to bless one another, they shall take 
Abraham for a proverbial example, and say, God bless thee as 
Pie blessed Abraham (Jowett). But God, foreseeing His own 
gracious and uniform process of justifying the Gentile races 
through faith, made it known to Abraham, even while disclos 
ing to him the blessing of his own promised and direct posterity. 
God revealed it, not to some heathen prince or priest, one of 
the Gentiles himself, but to the father of the Jewish race. He 
wrapped up blessing for the world in benediction given to the 
Abrahamids. And the words are surely " good tidings," fully 
warranting the epithet ; for they show that the non-Abrahamic 
races were not utterly cast off, though they were not comprised 
in the covenant, and that they do not need to seek admission 
into that covenant by circumcision in order to obtain right- 



240 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

r- 
eousness before God. It is Abraham s faith, not Abraham s 

blood, which brings them into federal or genetic unity with 
him. 

Ver. 9. flare ol e/c jricrrew^, ev\.o<yovvrat avv TU> incrra) 
Aftpadfj, " So then they which are of faith are blessed to 
gether with the faithful Abraham." "flare expresses a conse 
quence. Schmalfeld, Synt. 155. The deduction is not 
specially from evevXa^rjO^a-ovrai (Alforcl and Ellicott), but it 
rests also upon ev aoL Believers are ideally Abraham s children, 
inheriting his righteousness, for it had been fore-announced 

O O 

"In thee shall all nations be blessed;" therefore those who 
believe are really blessed along with believing Abraham. Faith 
brings them into such a filial union with Abraham, that they 
are as if contained in him ev croL and are through the same 

/ O 

faith blessed along with him crvv ra> *A/3pad[j,. Ol e/c Tria- 
re9, as before, has the emphasis. The aspect of relation is 
now changed : it was ev, now it is avv. In the one the idea is 
that of unity ; in the second, that of company. " In him," as 
children in an ancestor, are they blessed, according to the pro 
mise in the quotation, and therefore "with him;" in fellow 
ship with him are they blessed, he and they together they 
being e/c Tr/crreco?, and he being TTicrro?. For ru> maru) is 
prefixed to Abraham, to prevent any mistake as to that in 
which this unity and community consist. The adjective is 
used in an active sense. See under Eph. i. 1. It is alto 
gether wrong in Grotius to take avv as equivalent in mean 
ing to KaOuts or wcrTrep, " in the same way." The apostle s 
representation is by no means so vague. The assertion is 
directed against that error which insisted on the Gentile races 
submitting to the seal of Abraham s race and lineage, before 
they could enjoy his blessing. It attacks V orgueilleux egoisme 
des Juifs (Sardinoux), which mistakes the ground of Abraham s 
justification, and would frustrate the promise which Jehovah 
made to him. Judaizing was opposed alike to the example of 
Abraham and this early statement of Scripture. The apostle 
had therefore been preaching no novelty when he preached to 
the Gentiles, and Jews too, a free and complete salvation, 
simply through faith in the Crucified One. Chrysostom de 
scribes the apostle in the conclusion of this verse as avXkoyito- 
s Those who are of faith are Abraham s children ; Abra- 



CHAP. III. 10. 241 

ham s children are blessed ; therefore those who are of faith 
believers are blessed with believing Abraham. 

Ver. 10. "O<roi yap e epycov vofiov elcrlv, VTTO /cardpav 
elcrlv " For as many as are of the works of the law are under 
curse." The <ydp introduces another argument from the oppo 
site point of view. Believers alone are blessed ; and that they 
who are of faith are alone blessed is plain from the fact, that 
they who stand in antagonism to them, or they who are of 
the works of the law, are under curse are not only negatively 
unblessed, but positively under curse. The etc is expressive, 
denoting origination and that dependence which it character 
izes, as in ol ex. Tricnews. It is not simply ol epya6fj,evoi, men 
in the act of working, but men whose character and hopes 
have their origin and shape out of works of the law. All such 
oa-oi as are under law are VTTO fcardpav. Compare VTTO ^apM, 
Rom. vi. 14. The preposition is used in an ethical sense (Matt, 
viii. 9 ; Rom. iii. 9, vii. 14 ; 1 Cor. ix. 20 ; Winer, 49, k) ; 
the original image of position, " under," fades away in familiar 
usage, and the idea remains of subjection. Kardpa is plainly 
opposed to ev\oyla, and denotes here the penalty of sin. They 
are under the penalty, according to the apostle s proof, not 
merely because they have broken, but because they are break 
ing, the law. Their obedience is neither complete nor uniform. 
They are under the curse, and the law cannot deliver them ; 
for the function of law is to arraign, convict, and punish. By 
it is " the knowledge of sin," it shows their conduct to be out 
of harmony with its requirements, and thus by its demonstra 
tion all the world becomes guilty before God. " For," as the 
apostle adds in proof, yeypaTrrai yap, on. OTI by authority 
of A, B, C, D, F, N, and it introduces the quotation : " for it 
has been written," and still stands written 

JETTi/caraparo? vra? o<? OVK efj,/j,evei ev Tro.cn rot? yeypa/A- 
fjuevois ev ru> /3i(3\ia) rov VOJMOV, rov Troirjaat avrd " Cursed 
is every one who continueth not in all things which have 
been written in the book of the law, to do them." The quo 
tation is from Deut. xxvii. 26, but not precisely in harmony 
with the original Hebrew or the Septuagint. The Hebrew 
is : Dnix nib^ nKtrrrninn na n-nK D pp6 nete ins ; and the 
Septuagint reads : eVt/carapaTO? mi? avOpwiros 05 OVK e/i/ueWt 
ev Tratrt rot? Xo709 TOV vopov TOVTOV iroifjaai, avTOVs. The 

Q 



242 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Hebrew wants the 7ra<? and iracn. Jerome, however, says 
that he saw CiiOL in the Samaritan Text Qnam ob causam 
Samaritanorum Hebrcea volumina relegens, inveni Choi quod inter- 
pretatur OMNIS sive OMNIBUS scriptum esse, et cum Septuaginta 
interpretibus concordare. And he accuses the Jews of making 
the deletion wilfully, though the motive he ascribes to them is 
somewhat puerile lest they too should be under curse ; for 
the omission does not change the sense, and the verse is a sum 
mary conclusion of all the Ebal curses recorded in the previous 
paragraph. Surenhusius well says : t^xn TTiN, maledictus vir 
iste, id est quisque, et in responsione dicitur, (l respondit totus 
populus, dimtque Amen." Billos Katall. p. 569. The verb 
e/A/j.evei, "to stand in," "to continue" (Thucydides, iv. 118; 
Polyb. iii. 704 ; Acts xiv. 22 ; Heb. viii. 9), is sometimes fol 
lowed by the simple dative, but here by eV, not, however, as if 
the relation were doubly marked. The directive CITI in the ad 
jective eTn/cardpaTos is based upon an image the inverse of that 
implied in the previous VTTO. He who is VTTO fcardpav is truly 
eTriKardparos. The term does not belong to classic Greek. The 
"all things which are written in the law" are the sphere in 
which any one must abide who purposes to do them ; but if he 
leave this sphere and break any of them, he is cursed the 
emphasis being placed on eTriKardpaTos. The last clause, rov 
TToirjaai aura, is the infinitive of design, such an infinitive being, 
as Winer remarks, 44, 4, b, almost peculiar to Luke and Paul. 
It grew out of the ordinary meaning of the genitive as de 
noting result, for purpose and result are closely associated. 
This usae;e, which is also found in the classical writers after 

O / 

the age of Demosthenes, is common in the Septuagint, the 
translation being partly induced by the Hebrew infinitive with 
? prefixed. Thiersch, De Pent. p. 173. The apostle s mean 
ing is, that confessedly every one fails to keep all the written 
enactments of the law ; therefore every one seeking salvation 
by his own obedience is under curse. He is striving to obtain 
blessing from a code which has condemned and cursed him, to 
win life from a law which has wrought his death. Ps. xiv. 3 ; 
1 Kings viii. 46. It is useless to refute the notion of Semler 
and others, that the law here is the ceremonial law, and the 
curse the civil penalty that followed trespass or neglect. 

This is one argument fortified by Scripture; and the apostle 



CHAP. in. 11. 243 

adduces another, and a more sweeping one. This tenth verse 
states the principle no obedience save what is uniform and 
universal can be accepted ; no one renders this, or can render 
it ; therefore they who yet are legalists are under the curse, 
and the word of God has emphatically said so. But he now 
states as a result the broad fact fortified by Scripture too, that 
justification is impossible by the law, for it is declared to depend 
not on obedience, but simply and solely on faith. 

Ver. 11. "Oil Be ev VOJJLM ovSel? oiKaiovraL Trapa TO) eaj 
&tj\ov " But that in the law no one is justified before God 
is evident." Flatt gives the connection in this way : because 
no man is justified by the law in God s sight, it is clear that 
the just shall live by faith. But the second ort, introducing 
a quotation which contains an argument, must be causative in 
signification. Berigel seems to take 8f)\ov on as one word 
Srj\ovori } id est " As concerns the fact that no one is justified 
in the law before God, it is beyond all doubt true that the just 
shall live by faith." Homberg suggests that a point is to be 
placed after @eo3 ut TO Bfjj\ov sequentia regat " since no one 
is justified in the law before God, it is plain that the just shall 
live by faith." Hofmann adopts a similar view, taking &}Aoz/ 
ort adverbially, and regarding the following clause as an expla 
natory parenthesis, and a protasis or premiss to vers. 13, 14. 
But 1 Cor. xv. 27 and 1 Tim. vi. 7 will not bear out this con 
struction which is never used by the apostle ; and so far from 
being an incidental insertion, this quotation is an essential por 
tion of the argument, which is made up of a series of brief state 
ments fortified by a series of Scripture proofs. Ae is more than 
continuative. It introduces not an additional argument merely, 
but one of another kind. Justification is not of works, for 
legalists are under curse, since they cannot render perfect obe 
dience, is the one argument ; but the second is, Justification 
cannot depend on works, for the Scripture asserts its connection 
with faith. It seems to many as if some objection had started 
itself to the apostle s mind. Brown puts it thus : " But are not 
justification by the law and justification by believing reconcilable? 
may they not be coincident ?" But the verse does not afford a 
reply to such a question, nor does it seem to be the objection 
present to the apostle s thought. De Wette, followed by Ellicott, 
supposes it to be, " but lest any one should imagine that if a 



244 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

man did so continue in all things written in the book of the law, 

O 7 

he should be blessed." Granting that this hypothesis might be 
started, the answer must have been in the affirmative, for per 
fect obedience must secure acceptance; though on another view 
it must be in the negative, since no man ever did find accept 
ance by works, and justification before God has uniformly 
been by faith. And such is his answer to the supposed chal- 
leno-e. We see no need, however, for accounting for the chain 

O / / o 

of argument by forcing such a link of association. Justification 

" i/ O O 

cannot be by law, for legalists are under a penalty; and he says 
now, Justification as a fact has never been by works, but invari 
ably by faith. The verb St/ouourat is therefore in the ethical 
present it is God s characteristic and invariable way of justi 
fication. The phrase Trapa rm eco has a judicial aspect. Rom. 
ii. 13 ; 2 Thess. i. 6 ; 1 Pet. ii. 20 ; Rost und Palm, sub roce. 
The phrase eV VO/AM is not nach der Norm des Gesetzes (Wieseler), 
but may mean, by or through law as instrument, as Meyer 
maintains, for, as he says, " XpiaTo? is in contrast to it." But 
eV may have a wider meaning : no one is justified " in the law"- 
in any aspect of it or in any connection with it, for justification 
is found wholly beyond its sphere. The proof of the position 
is again taken from Scripture, but the quotation is so well 
known that there is no introductory formula 

"On 6 S//CGUO? IK vr/crreft)? ?;<Terat (i because the just 
shall live by faith." Codices D 1 and F, asreeino; with the 

/ O O 

Syriac and the Itala, have on ^eypcnrrai yap, F omitting 
Srfhov. The quotation is from liab. ii. 4 rPIV iruiCS3 P^Yl, 
" the just man by his faith shall live ; " and is rendered by the 
Septuagint, 6 8e St /wuo? e/c Tr/crreto? /zou ?;<rerai. The apostle 
omits p,ov. The pronoun fiov, if not an error and its position 
differs in the MSS. indicates another Hebrew reading, and may 
be used objectively : " by faith in me," that is, God. The 
rendering of n:iX by irlan? is found also in Aquila, Sym- 
maclms, and Theodotion, but with the reading avrov or eavrov. 
Orig. 7/c.r. vol. ii. p. 372, ed. Montf. But " his faith" may 
mean either ex fide ejus faith in Him God, or ex fide sua his 
own faith. The idea of stedfastness expressed by the Hebrew 
noun implies faith, and it is commonly rendered Tr/crri? in the 
Septuagint; though only in this place it is translated faith in the 
Authorized Version, its usual renderings being "steady," "faith- 



CHAP. in. 11. 245 

ful," "faithfulness," "truth," "truly," "verily," "stability," 
and "set," as in the phrase "set office" margin "trust." The 
quotation occurs again in Rom. i. 17, and in Heb. x. 38. 

It is difficult to determine the connection, whether e /c 
Tr/crreo)? belongs to o St /ouo? before it the man just by faith 
shall live, or whether it belongs to fyja-erai after it the just 
shall live by his faith. Interpreters are greatly divided. The 
first view is supported by Cajetan, Pareus, Bengel, Michaelis, 
Semler, Morus, Riickert, Usteri, Hilgenfeld, Meyer, Brown, 
Alford, Sardinoux, Bisping, Umbreit on Rom. i. 17. In favour 
of this view it may be said, that the apostle s aim is to show 
the source of justification, and not the means or foundation of 
spiritual life ; his theme being justification by faith, not life by 
faith. Besides, as Meyer says, 6 St/cato? e/c 7r/crTe<w9 stands 
opposed to o Troiijcras avrd in the following verse. The other 
view is held by many old interpreters by Borger, Schott, 
Matthies, Winer, De .Wette, Ellicott, Middleton, Wieseler, 
Bagge, Ewald, Holsten, Hofmann, Philippi on Rom. i. 17, 
Delitzsch on Hab. ii. 4. 

And 1. The original Hebrew is in favour of this meaning. 
The first clause reads, " See, the proud, his soul is not upright 
in him ; but the just shall live by his stedfastness." See Fiirst, 
Lex. sub voce. The first clause of the verse in the Septuagint 
is wholly different from the Hebrew, though there is quite a 
harmony of sense with the second. 

2. The order of the Greek words is also in its favour. It 
is not 6 e/c 7rt o-Te&>9 Sl/caios. Great stress, however, cannot be 
laid on this argument, for it has been replied that the apostle 
quotes the words as they stand in the Septuagint. But it may 
be answered, the apostle quotes them in the sense which they 
bear in the Septuagint, which is a true translation of the ori 
ginal, though the first part of the verse would seem to be 
rendered from a different Hebrew text (Hitzig). 

3. There is the contrast e/c TTicrretu? ^crerat and $<rerai ev 
avTois 6/370^9, phrases directly antagonistic ; the one living 
by faith, the other living in works life and its source, life and 
its element. 

4. The apostle s theme is justification by faith. Now 
justification and life are not different, as Alford s objection 
would imply ; he who is justified or rescued from the curse 



246 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

that curse being death lives Trapa no @e&5. The apostle has 
spoken of his own experience as a justified man under the 
more subjective aspect of life in the end of the second chapter, 
and the same idea recurs to him as suggested by a quotation 
from the Old Testament. No man is justified in or by the 
law before God, for the justified man lives by faith faith 
giving him life, or rescuing him from death as the penalty of 
the law which he has broken. Or the statement, he is justified 
by faith, is the inference, inasmuch as he lives by faith life 
being the result of justification, or rather coincident with it. 

The K denotes origin out of faith comes life. Abiding 
faith is continuous life. If faith vary, life flickers, it is so sus 
ceptible and so dependent on faith ; or, to speak differently, 
the Spirit of life cannot dwell in an unbelieving heart. The 
apostle adds 

Ver. 12. O Se vbfJios OVK eartv etc rricrrews li But the law 
is not of faith." This Se introduces the minor proposition of 
the syllogism. The law is in no sense connected with faith in 
its origin, essence, or working does not spring from it, and in 
no way belongs to it. Theodoret says truly, 6 z^o/zo? ov iria-riv 
&rei, d\\a Trpd^iv drrairel. The law is not, as Dr. Brown 
paraphrases, " the way of justification by the law," but the law 
itself as an institute, the Mosaic law being the reference, and 
on this point representing all law. The insertion of fyjcrerai 
after Tr/a-reo)?, which Gwynne " confidently presses as the true 
grammatical construction," would be a clumsy and unsatisfac 
tory interpolation. 

AXk 6 TroLijaas avra Qiaerai ev avrols " but he who hath 
done these things shall live in them." The a\\d is strongly 
adversative. The Received Text has livOpwrros after avra on 
such slender authority as D, K, L, and it was probably taken 
from the quotation as it stands in the Septuagint, Lev. xviii. 5. 
The Hebrew clause is, Dna m DljSii DHX nb jp-iPK; and the whole 
verse in the Septuagint is, teal (frvXd^eade Trdvra ra Trpocr- 
rdy/*ard aov Kal Trdvra ra fcptfiard /AOV, ical Tronjo ere avra a 
Troirja-as avra avOpcoTros fyjcrerai, ev avrols. The avrd are the 
Trpoa-rdyuara and Kpipara of the previous clauses. Compare 
Neh. ix. 29 ; Ezek. xx. 21 ; Baruch iv. 1. As in the previous 
quotation, there is no formula as jeypaTrrai, nor does it need to 
be understood. The apostle uses a well-known quotation, and 



CHAP. III. 13. 247 

does not need to name it as such ; but there is a formula em 
ployed in Rom. x. 5. The emphasis is on the aorist Troirjaas. 
Doing, not believing, is always connected with the law. It 
prescribes obedience, and threatens penalty. Works, not faith, 
belong to it. It does not recognise faith, for it says, Do, and 
then thou shalt live. He who has kept these laws lives in 
them as the element of his life. Prcecepta legis non sunt de 
credendis, sed de faciendis (Thomas Aquinas). The two quota-" 
tions are placed almost side by side. Faith and obedience are 
very opposite in nature, and so are a life of faith and a life of 
legal obedience. Perfect obedience would secure life ; but there 
is, and there can be, no perfect obedience. All are therefore 
under the curse who are under the law, and the law has no 
justifying power ; but by a new principle which the law knows 
nothing of, and which is quite opposed to law in essence and 
operation, are men justified to wit, by faith. These two 
verses are a species of inverted syllogism. The major is, " The 
just shall live by faith ;" the minor is, " but the law is not of 
faith ;" and the conclusion is, therefore " in the law no one is 
justified before God." See under ii. 16, etc. 

Ver. 13. Xptcrro? r/^a^ e^rjjopacrev e/c rf}<? /cardpas rov 
vofjiov " Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law." 
There is no connecting particle, and the abruptness of the 
asyndeton gives vividness to the expression. Compare Col. 
iii. 4; Dissen, ad Find. Excur. ii. p. 277. Olshausen needlessly 
supposes a fjiev in ver. 10 and a Se in this verse to be left out. 
As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse 
" Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law." There is no 
doubt, whatever general truth may be inferred from the pas 
sage, that the 97/^645 are specially or primarily, if not solely, 
Jews. If the law, as seems clear, be the Mosaic law or the 
published law of God, then its curse lay upon the Jews who 
were guilty of violating it, and to them the threatening of ver. 
10 applies. The ^a? also stands in contrast to et? ra Wwr], 
who are not included in it. Freed from the curse through 
faith in Him who bore it, why should they be so rigid and un- 
dutiful in enjoining that law on the Gentiles ? That law did 
not originally include the Gentiles under its sway, it in fact 
severed Israel and non-Israel, Jew and Gentile. The us and 
the we are, therefore, properly those who in ver. 23 are said to 



248 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 



be VTTO vonov, and also in iv. 5, and not heathen also (Pareus, 
Winer, Matthies, Baumgarten-Crusius). The law of Moses is 
wrongly affirmed by Winer to have authority over the heathen. 
The apostle gives a different view of the heathen world in Rom. 
ii. 14, 15, and states a contrary doctrine that they are " with 
out law." So far, indeed, as the Mosaic law is unnational, or so 
far as it is a proclamation of earlier moral law springing out of 
those essential and unchanging relations which creatures bear 
to God and to one another, it must bind all races. 

The aorist verb e^jopaaev " bought us out," redeemed or 
ransomed corresponds very much to the other terms employed 
elsewhere \vrpow, a7ro\vrpwai^. The preposition in a com 
pound verb in the later Greek is not to be unduly pressed, as 
Ellicott remarks, and as Thiersch has illustrated, De Pent. vers. 
Alex. p. 82. The simple verb occurs 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23 ; 
2 Pet. ii. 1 ; Rev. v. 9, xiv. 3, 4. The idea is deliverance by 
ransom. See under Eph. i. 7, v. 2, v. 25 ; Col. i. 14. The 
curse of the law is its penalty of death, under which it holds 
us in terrible bondage. The mode in which the action asserted 
by the verb was done is told by the following participial clause 

Tevo^evos vjrep rjfj.Mv fcardpa " having become a curse for 
us," <yevb[Jievos having the stress upon it. The noun Kardpa is 
the abstract, and without the article points out that the curse 
which He became was full not circumscribed or modified 
wide as the curse of the laAv. 2 Cor. v. 21. Cursed is every 
one who has not kept the law eTriKardparo^ Christ became 
Kcndpa not an accursed one, but curse. No element of the 
Kardpa that fell on the sinner is beyond the sphere or influ 
ence of the Kardpa which He became ; yev6p,6vos not under 
the curse originally, but filled with blessedness, the law having 
no claim on Him derived from previous or personal violation of 
any of its statutes. 

He became a curse vTrep r^av, for us. See what is said 
under i. 4. While vjrep signifies primarily on behalf of, or for 
the good of, it may here bear in combination the meaning of 
"in room of," as certainly in John xiii. 37, 38, 2 Cor. v. 20, 
in Philein. 13, and in Plato, flfAoXoytj/cafAev eyco virep aov 
aTTOKpivov/uiai, Gorgias, 515, D, Opera, vol. ii. p. 305, ed. Stall- 
baum. Compare Usteri, Paulin. Lelirb. p. 117. If substitu 
tion be not formally expressed, it is certainly implied in this 



CHAP. III. 13. 249 

striking declaration. He became the curse that lay upon us, 
and thus ransomed us out of it. 

A quotation is introduced as proof of the last statement by 
yeypa-TTTai yap, "it has been" and it stands "written," as in the 
Textus Receptus; but the on yeypaTrrcu has in its favour A, B, 
C, D 1 , F, with the Vulgate and several of the Latin fathers. 

ETTiKardpciTOS va? 6 /cpe/iayxefo? eiri %v\ov " Cursed is 
every one that hangeth upon a tree." The quotation is taken 
freely from Deut. xxi. 22, 23. The Hebrew of the clause 
is TOjl EPiptjj rippip" 1 !) for he that is hanged is accursed of God ; 
the Greek, art /ceKarripapevos VTTO &eov Tra? Kpe^djjievo^ eVt 
%v\ov. The whole place is given in our version thus : " And 
if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to 
be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree ; his body shall 
not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise 
bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God ;) 
that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee for an inheritance." The clause " and he be to be put 
to death," is properly " he be put to death," for crucifixion was 
not a Hebrew punishment. The common version of the clause 
under consideration is the correct one "the curse of God;" 
though another rendering has been sometimes given " He that 
is hanged is an insult to God" vftpis @eoO, the rendering of 
him whom Jerome calls Ebion ille hceresiarches semicliristianus 
et semijudcBus. The rendering of the Peshito, of the Targum 
of Jonathan, and of the Greek translators Aquila, Symmachus, 
and Theodotion, is a modification of this view. Jerome also 
makes allusion to an altercatio between Jason and Papiscus a 
controversy referred to also by Celsus and Origen in which the 
words in dispute are rendered \oiSopta eov. See Prof. Light- 
foot s note on the subject. The words VTTO Oeov are omitted 
in the quotation, and eVt %v\ov is added from the previous 
verse. Lightfoot says that the words VTTO Qeov are " instinc 
tively" omitted by Paul ; but they are really implied in the cita 
tion the criminal having broken God s law bore God s curse ; 
and in their application to Christ, it is still God s law whose 
curse was borne by Him, though the VTTO &eov fades into the 
background, as it is not essential to form a result of the pre 
sent argument. Biihr and Hofmann suppose the words to be 
omitted on purpose to keep out the idea expressed, as, among 



250 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

other grounds, it might be a stumbling-block to the unsettled 
Galatians. The citation is thus made as to sense a citation 
the force and truth of which his readers must at once admit. 
Suspension from a stake (though %v\.ov in later Greek and in 
the New Testament signifies also a living tree) was a posthu 
mous degradation awarded to certain classes of criminals put to 
death probably by stoning. Crucifixion was not a Jewish 
punishment, but the dead criminal was exposed on a stake by 
the hands. A man so handed was a curse, and was not on 

o / 

that account to remain exposed all night, because the land had 
been consecrated to God. So the very means of Christ s death 
showed it to be an accursed death. His beino; hanged on a 

O O 

tree proved that He was made a curse. The manner of the 
death, besides being in consonance with prophecy, was a visible 
proof and symbol of its real nature ; for " He bore our sins on 
His own body on the tree." He bore the curse of a broken 
law, and the mode of His death signally showed that He became 
a curse, for, by being suspended on a stake, He became in the 
express terms of the law a curse. Acts v. 30, x. 39 ; 1 Pet. 
ii. 24. And this declai ation was a continuous stumbling-block, 
as Jerome testifies, and as may be seen in Tertullian, Adversus 
Judceos, 10, Opera, vol. ii. p. 727, ed. CEhler ; in Justin 
Martyr, Dial, cum Tryph. 9G, Opera, vol. ii. p. 327, ed. 
Otto ; and in Aristo Pellaeus, some fragments of whom may be 
found, with annotations, in Routh s Reliq. Sac. vol. i. p. 95, etc. 
Jewish contempt styled the Saviour "the hanged man," as 
may be seen in the second chapter of the first part of Eisen- 
menerer s Entdeckt. Judenthum, " on the slanderous names which 

o / 

the Jews give to Christ." Eisenmenger did with a will this 
work, which is a curious, erudite, and ponderous indictment 
against the Jewish nation. 

Ver. 14. "Iva els TO, edvrj r/ evXoyia rov A{3paa/j, yevrjrai, ev 
XpitTTft) Irjaov " in order that to the Gentiles the blessing of 
Abraham might come in Christ Jesus." The iva points to the 
final purpose expressed by e^rjjopaa-ev and the clauses connected 
with it, and not simply with <yev6/j,evo<; virep rjfiwv Kcndpa, as Al- 
ford, after Theophylact, CEcumenius, Winer, Usteri, and Schott; 
and 77 ev\oyia rov Aftpad^ is the blessing possessed or enjoyed 
by Abraham not the blessing promised to him, as Wieseler 
and Schott argue, but the blessing itself, justification by faith, 



CHAP. III. 14. 251 

ver. 6. Ellicott and Trana make it the genitive of object, the 
blessing announced to Abraham ; the promise was vouch 
safed to him, and he enjoyed the reality. The apostle does not 
allude by contrast in ev\o<yla to tcardpa in the previous verse, 
though it may not be altogether excluded, but he re-introduces 
the idea of vers. 5-9. Winer takes the blessing generally as 
felicitas, but too vaguely; Gwynne as the " Spirit" a confu 
sion of ideas ; and Wieseler, the collective blessing of God s 
kingdom. These are included as results, but the blessing to 
which the apostle gives prominence is justification by faith, as 
in ver. 8. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the 
heathen by faith ra eOvrj ; and Christ became a curse, that 
upon the same ra edvrj the blessing of Abraham might come. 
Besides, it is the object of the apostle to vindicate the doctrine 
of justification by faith, for it was endangered by the false teach 
ing of the Judaizers. The heathen are foreshown to be justi 
fied bv faith, and it was contravening this foreannouncement 

** / O 

to insist on something more than faith in order to justification. 
For the phrase <yevr)rai eh, " should come to" or " should 
reach," compare Acts xxi. 17, xxv. 15 ; 2 Cor. viii. 14 ; Rev. 
xvi. 2. The preposition retains its local meaning, and does not 
signify, as in Peile s paraphrase, " in reference to" the nations. 
Winer, 49, a. The eOvr) are the heathen in contradistinction 
to the Jews, and not the peoples generally, as Estius, Olshausen, 
and Baumgarten-Crusius suppose. This blessing of Abraham 
comes upon the Gentiles ev X. I., in Christ Jesus the ele 
ment in which it is found, conveyed, and enjoyed not in the 
law, which claims perfect obedience, and inflicts a curse on 
all transgressors. But why this connection ? Christ became a 
curse that the blessing of Abraham might come, not on his own 
descendants, but on the Gentiles the moment lying on the 
words ei? ra edvrj, from their position. Through His death 
comes justification, or deliverance from the curse, and accept 
ance with God, the curse of the law being borne by Him, 
and that death, the infinite merit of which flows over to the 
Gentile, at the same time (though the idea is not formally 
introduced here) put an end to the typical and national eco 
nomy from which the Gentiles were excluded, and introduced 
a new dispensation without distinction of race or blood. Besides 
the expiation of guilt in Christ s death, which is the express 



252 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

and special thought of the apostle, there was in it also the ful 
filment of the old symbols, with their consequent abolition, and 
the inauguration of a system of world-wide adaptation and offer. 
The blessing so specially characterized as Abraham s, and so 
founded on Christ s expiation, passes over to those who bear no 
natural kinship to him "aliens," "strangers," "afar off" who, 
looking up to the Source of all spiritual good, may say, " Doubt 
less Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, 
and Israel acknowledge us not." 

"Iva rt]v eirayyeklav rov irvev/JiaTos \d/3u>/Jiev $ia r^9 TTICT- 
rect)? " in order that we might receive the promise of the 
Spirit through faith." This second iva is co-ordinate with the 
first, and is of climactic force. Riickert after Chrysostom 
maintains the second clause to be subordinate to the first, and 
to express the result of it. Schott has a similar view. Flatt 
renders this second iva, "so that." The conjunctions iva iva, 
co-ordinate or parallel, are found in Rom. vii. 13, 2 Cor. ix. 3, 
Eph. vi. 19. It is also something more than an explanation, 
the error of Grotius, Estius, and Koppe. In the first plural 
\d/3oop,ev the "we" includes probably both Jews and Gentiles. 
He does not say \d/3uxn,, as Clirysostom reads, in direct refer 
ence to the Gentiles just referred to, nor does he formally ex 
press 77/zet? as in contrast to ra e9vr), but he employs the simple 
verb. Having specified the Gentiles, and recurring to the use 
of " we, the probability is that he means " we" both Gen 
tiles just referred to, and Jews, the subject of the previous para 
graph. Ilofmann, Beza, Bengel, and virtually Brown, confine 
the subject of the verb to the Jews Judtei benedictioni in Christo 
propinqui. What they should receive, the apostle styles 

Tip GTrayyeXlav rov Trvev pharos "the promise of the Spirit." 
The verb \dftu>p.ev may mean to receive it in full, or into 
conscious possession. The i] 7rayye\la rov Trvev/jiaros is no 
Hebraism standing for TO eTrayyeXOev irvev^a the promised 
Spirit ; and as little can it mean promissio spiritualis Calvin, 
Pareus, Zegerus. The genitive is that of object the promise 
which has the Spirit for its object ; or perhaps is the genitive 
of nearer specification or definition, as Wieseler takes it. The 
genitives which admit of the resolution referred to are very 
limited. Winer, 34. See Fritzsche also on the phrase ev 
&>?)9, ad Rom. vi. 4, vol. i. p. 367. Were the geni- 



CHAP. III. 15. 253 

tive that of subject, as "Winer takes it, it would mean, as he 
phrases it, bona ilia quce a divino spiritu promissa sunt. But 
the Spirit Himself stands out as the special subject of promise : 
Joel ii. 28 ; Luke xxiv. 49 ; Acts i. 4, ii. ; Eph. i. 13. In the 
apostle s idea, the Spirit does not give the promise, but seals it 
in personal realization. The Spirit is a characteristic predic 
tion of the Old Testament, and the Paraclete is Christ s pre 
eminent promise in the New Testament. Thus it is plain that 
the apostle recurs in this clause to the question of the second 
verse, TO irvevfia eXa/3ere ; "Did ye receive the Spirit ?" and 
he answers that question by various connected arguments, re 
ferring to Abraham to faith as opposed to law and works to 
the curse of the law and Christ s endurance of it, in order that 
the promise of the Spirit may be enjoyed as an actual blessing. 
His questions were, "Did ye receive the Spirit e epyeovl" 
ver. 2 ; " Does God furnish the Spirit e epycov ? " ver. 3. No ; 
and the answer is elaborated in a series of pithy and pointed 
sentences, " compactly built together," till he ends the demon 
stration, and sets down as the proved result Sta T?}? Tr/o-reeo?. 
For wtyio? and epya are associated with tcardpa, and Christ 
became Kardpa for us, that justification might come to the 
Gentiles, according to the old promise that all the nations 
should be blessed in Abraham, their faith and not their blood 
being their bond of union with him ; their faith being at the 
same time inseparably connected with their possession of the 
Spirit God s great promise to believers. 

Ver. 15. A8e\(f)ol, Kara avOpwrrov \eja) " Brethren, I 
speak after the manner of men " I am going to use a human 
analogy, or to propose an illustration from a human point of 
view. " Brethren, yet beloved and cared for," though they are 
censured as senseless in their relapse; affectionate remembrance 
naturally springing up at this pause in the argument. The 
phrase Kara avOpaoTrov has various shades of meaning, as may 
be seen by comparing Rom. iii. 5, 1 Cor. ix. 8 with 1 Cor. iii. 3, 
xv. 32, Gal. i. 11. See Wetstein on Rom. iii. 5. The point 
of the statement is, that if it be true beyond doubt of a human 
covenant, it applies much more to a divine covenant a minore 
ad majus. 

dv6p<i>7Tov KKVpa>fjievr]v SiaOr/Krjv ouSel? dderel fj CTTI- 
" though it be but a man s covenant, yet when 



254 EPISTLE TO THE GALAT1ANS. 

it has been confirmed, no one annullcth or addeth to it" im- 
posetli new conditions. AiaO^Kr] is rightly rendered covenant, 
for the context demands such a sense. Such is its constant 
meaning in the Septuagint, and its uniform use in the New 
Testament Heb. ix. 15, 17 being no exception. The classical 
meaning of the plural form of the word and the testamentum 
of the Vulgate have given currency to the other translation of 
" testament," which is adopted here by Luther, Erasmus, and 
Olshausen. The Hebrew ^1^ as a name both of the Abra- 
h amic and Mosaic covenants, is always represented by it. 
Suidas defines it by avvdij/cr}, a covenant in the strictest sense ; 
but it has a wider significance than this allied term. Yet the 
meaning is not so general as dispensation or arrangement 
dispositio (Winer, Matthies, Usteri, Schott, Hofmann, Hauck, 1 
and virtually Brown) ; the usual sense fits in to the illustration. 
The participle Ke/cvpcofj-evij is applied to the ratification of a 
bargain, Gen. xxiii. 20 ; of a public measure, Thucyd. viii. 69 ; 
of a treaty of peace, Polyb. i. 6 ; and of laws, Andocides, De 
Myster. p. 27, ed. Schiller. The confirmation might be effected 
in various ways, as by an oath, Heb. vi. 13-18, or by the erec 
tion of a memorial or witness, Gen. xxxi. 44-53. The adverb 
OyU-co? is not to be taken as o/^w?, " in like manner" (Morus, 
Jatho), but it signifies " yet," or " though," not dock selbst 
(Zacharise, Matthies) nor quin imo (Wolf). Windischmann, 
Olshausen, and Iviickert refer it to /car avOpwirov, and take it 
as tamen or certe "I speak only as a man" one certainly 
cannot abrogate a man s testament ; but the point is missed in 
this exegesis. Some connect it with avOpcajrov " yet even a 
mans covenant no one annulleth" (Gwynne, Matthias). Bagge 
lays the emphasis on the participle KGKvpw^ev^v^ and connects 
o/io)9 with it " no one sets aside a covenant, although ratified 
by man." But the illustration is broader in its basis, for o/acos 
logically belongs to ouSe/?, and is out of its order by an idio 
matic displacement. 1 Cor. xiv. 7 ; Winer, 61, 4. This tra- 
jection happens oftenest with participles partici.pio suo prcc- 
mitti soldo. Stallbaum, Phcedo, 91, C ; Plat. Opera, vol. i. p. 
155 ; Xen. Cyrop. v. 4, 6 ; Thucyd. vi. 69. The sense then is, 
though it be a man s covenant, when it is confirmed no one yet 
or notwithstanding annuls it or adds to it. The last verb sig- 



Studien und Kritiken, p. 512, 1862. 



CHAP. III. 16. 255 

nifies to add or to supplement (superordinat, Vulgate), and by its 
composition eVt it hints what the supplement is, or insinu 
ates that it is contrary to the contents of the covenant or pur 
pose of its author (Erasmus, Winer). Joseph. Bell. Jud. ii. 2, 
3, where eTriBiaOri/cr) means a second will; Antiq. xvii. 9, 4. 
After a man s covenant has been duly ratified, no one dares to 
set aside or supplement it with any new matter or any addi 
tional stipulations. It stands good beyond strife and cavil 
against all opposition and argument. AvOpwirov is emphatic, 
to mark the contrast ; for if it be so with a mere man s covenant, 
how much more so with God s, which was also a ratified cove 
nant ! To add to a covenant is virtually to annul it ; the Juda- 
istic dogma, under the guise of a supplement, was really an 
abrogation of the original promise or covenant. 

Ver. 16. Ta> Be A/3paa/jb eppeOvjcrav al eVayyeX/at, teal ru> 
<T7rep/jiaTi avrov " Now to Abraham were the promises made, 
and to his seed." The non- Attic form eppeOrja-av has the sup 
port of the best MSS., as A, B 1 , C, D 1 , F, K, etc. ; Lobeck, 
Phrynichus, p. 441 ; Buttmann, vol. ii. p. 121. It is needless 
and irrelevant on the part of Schott, De Wette, and Hilgen- 
feld, to make vers. 15-17 a syllogism, and this verse the minor 
premiss. A more definite contrast must in that case have been 
expressed, and the parenthetical and explanatory clause ov Xeyei 
would destroy the symmetry. The minor premiss is in ver. 17, 
and this verse is rather a subsidiary illustration of some points 
or words in the covenant, the validity of which he is just going 
to prove. Thus 

1. The plural al eVo^eX/at is not one promise, but many, 
or the promise repeated in varying terms : Gen. xii. 3, xiii. 15, 
xv. 18, xvii. 8, xxii. 16-18. The arrangement of the words 
gives the emphasis to teal ru> cfirkp^aii avrov by severing it from 



2. The promises were spoken not to Abraham only, but to 
Abraham and his Seed. This Seed he explains to be Christ, 
so that until the Seed came, the promise was not fulfilled ; it 
was still a divine promise awaiting its fulfilment w T hen the law 
was given, and could not therefore be set aside by it, or be 
clogged with new clauses. The force of the argument lies in 
this, that the seed is not Abraham s natural progeny, to which 
1 So, too, in the palimpsest recently published by Tischendorf , Leipzig 1865. 



256 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Canaan had been given, but Christ, who did not come into the 
world till the fulness of time. The simple dative, not that of 
relation, is here employed, and the meaning is not, for Abra 
ham and his seed (Matthias, Vomel), nor " through" or " in 
reference to Abraham and his seed" (Brown), but the Seed is 
characterized as the party to whom the promises were uttered 
or given. 

3. The point of the argument then is the quotation KCU ru> 
GTreppari aov, the very words employed by God. For he ex 
plains 

Ov \e<yei Kal rot? cnrep/jiacnv, &>9 eirl 7ro\\a)V, a\\ o>9 
efi evb? Kal TOJ (nrepfjiari aov, 09 eari Xpicrrbs " He saith 
not, l And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, ( And TO THY 
SEED, which is Christ." The Kal is plainly a part of the quo 
tation, which must be taken either from Gen. xiii. 15 or from 
xvii. 8, and therefore not from Gen. xxii. 18, as Tertullian and 
many after him have supposed. The apostle now explains the 
meaning and the unipersonal reference of the singular a-Trep/jia. 
Ov \eyei, referring back to eppedtja-av^ probably in this instance 
not impersonal (Lightfoot), for <9eo9 is emphatically implied 
in the context and in eppeOTjcrav. He who spoke the promises 
used this phrase, " And to thy seed." In the two clauses eVt 
with the genitive has some trace of its local meaning, " on" 
the utterance of God in the promise rests not on many, but on 
one like scribere super. Winer, 47, 9. There are several 
instances in classical Greek. Ast, Lex. Plat, sub voce. Aeyo- 
fjievov eVl TO)V Oewv TOUTOW, .ZElian, Var. Hist. i. 31 ; Plato, 
Charmides, 155, D ; and Stallbaum s modification of Heindorf s 
note, which, however, is not applicable here, vol. ii. 132-3 ; 
Diodor. Sic. i. 12. For the attraction in 09, which has not 
ew9 for its antecedent (Beza), see Winer, 24, 3; Mark xv. 16; 
1 Tim. iii. 15. 

The apostle s argument is, that the singular a-irepua signi 
fies what the plural a-Trep/^ara could not have suggested. This 
plural is indeed found in 4 Mace. xvii. 1, rwv ^A^pafjaaiwv 
a-Trep/jidrwv ; but this use is not so natural. Comp. in poetry, 
JEschylus, Supp. 290 ; Sophocles, (Edip. Col. 1275. The 
Hebrew term JHT is used in the plural, with quite a different 
meaning, to signify " grains of seed," 1 Sam. viii. 15, and in 
Dan. i. 12, where it is rendered "pulse" in our version. On 



CHAP. III. 16. 257 

this account the plural D^JHT could not have been employed in 
such a promise, and therefore the apostle s argument from it 
would be void. The plural, however, is used in Chaldee in 
the sense of posterity ; and the apostle s inference only implies, 
that had a plural been employed in the promise, his reasoning 
could not have been sustained. It is also true, on the other 
hand, that (STrep^a may have a plural signification, as in Rom. 
iv. 18, ix. 7, where the apostle s argument depends on it, as 
also in ver. 29 of this chapter. The singular jnt denotes a 
man s offspring as a collective unit, not its separate individuals 
but in their related oneness, the organic unity of the branches 
with the root. In the promise made to Abraham, however, 
the singular term is not a collective unity, but has an uniper- 
sonal sense which no plural form could have borne, such as 
D 33j T^l. The singular form thus gives a ground for the in 
terpretation which he advances. The Septuagint had already 
given a similar personal meaning to crirep^a avros crov Tijprja-et, 
Kefyakrjv, Gen. iii. 15. That seed is Christ not Jesus in indi 
vidual humanity, but the Messiah so promised. The posterity 
of Abraham was embodied in Him ; He was its summation and 
crown. It would never have existed but for Him, nor could 
its mission to bless all nations be fulfilled but in Him. For 
Him was Abraham chosen, and Canaan promised and con 
ferred. In typical fore-union with Him was the old economy 
organized, and its testimony to Him was the soul of prophecy. 
The seed of Abraham blessed the world by the circulation of its 
oracles in a Greek translation, its code being a protest against 
polytheism, against atheism the negation of the Infinite, 
and against pantheism the absorption of the finite, a vindi 
cation of the dignity of man as made in God s image, and of 
the majesty of law as based on His authority ; while it made 
a special providence a matter of daily experience, and disclosed 
the harmony of mercy with the equity and purity of divine 
legislation. Babylon, Egypt, and Phoenicia had contributed 
to the education of humanity, which was also mightily ad 
vanced by the genius of Greece and the legislation of Rome. 
But Judaism diffused a higher form of truth: it taught 
religion the knowledge and worship of that God who was 
in Christ, in whom all the spiritual seed are comprehended, 
in whom they were chosen, and in whom they have died, 



258 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

been raised, and enthroned in the heavenly places. In the 
Old Testament there are glimpses of the same truth ; for the 
servant of Jehovah is sometimes the Messiah in person, some 
times Israel either national or spiritual, and sometimes Messiah, 
combining in Himself and identified with the theocratic people. 
Messiah was the Lord s servant, and so was Israel; their ser 
vice, either individual or collective, had its root and accept 
ance in Him. Israel was God s son, His first-born closely 
related to Him, reflecting His image, and doing His will among 
the nations ; and Messiah s relations and f auctions are described 
in similar language. In this way Moses, in his time, bore "the 
reproach of Christ;" and in the Gospel of Matthew (ii. 15) a 
prophetic utterance regarding the chosen people is said to be ful 
filled in the child Jesus "Out of Egypt have I called my son." 
Hos. xi. 1. The same truth is more vividly brought out in the 
New Testament the identity of Christ and Christ s. " AYhy 
persecutest thou me?" said Jesus to the persecutor. The 
apostle "fills up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ 
in his flesh for His body s sake," and he says, " The sufferings 
of Christ abound in us ;" and again, " For as the body is one, 
and hath many members, and all the members of that one 
body, being many, are one body : so also is Christ." Acts 
ix. 4 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12 ; 2 Cor. i. 5 ; Heb. xi. 26. See under 
Eph. i. 23 and Col. i. 24. 

The meaning is not, Christ and His church (Augustine, 
Beza, Matthies, Jatho) ; nor the church under a special aspect, 
as Bengel and Ernest! ; but Christ Himself, embodying at the 
same time His church the Head with its members in organic 
unity. 

Ver. 17. Tovro Be \eya) " This, however, I say," or, my 
meaning is. The 8e serves to resume or restate the argument, 

O r O 7 

applying the previous principle underlying a man s covenant to 
the point under discussion in the form of an implied inference. 
AiaO^KrjV 7rpoKeKvpu>/Aevr]v vrro TOV &eov els XpicrTov 6 fiera 
rerpaKocna /cat rptaKovra err] <yeyowws vo/Jios OVK aKvpol, et? TO 
Karapjrjo-ai rrjv 67rayye\iav "a covenant which has been before 
confirmed by God for Christ, the law, which was four hundred 
and thirty year.3 after, does not invalidate, so as to do away 
the promise." The words efc Xpiarov of the Received Text 
are doubtful. They are found in D, F, K, L, majority of 



CHAP. III. 17. 259 

cursives, the Syriac version (]_K> i v n r "i), the Claromontane 

t> 

Latin, and the Greek fathers ; but are wanting in A, B, C, N, 
in the Vulgate, Coptic, and in Jerome and Augustine. The 
words are therefore suspicious, though Ewald, Wieseler, Hauck, 
and Hofmann vindicate their genuineness ; and were they 
genuine, they cannot mean " in Christ " as in the Authorized 
Version, nor " with Christ " as Scholefield, nor " until Christ " 
as Borger, but "for Christ." Jelf, G25 ; iv. 11, v. 10 ; Bom. 
ii. 26 ; 2 Cor. xii. 6, etc. The phrase, however, is quite in 
harmony with the statement of the previous verse : the cove 
nant was ratified with Abraham and his Seed, or its primary 
object was Christ not in Him, but with a view to Him was it 
confirmed. The covenant was ratified " before " by God with 
Abraham, the irpo in the participle being in contrast with the 
following f^erd. The ratification took place when the cove 
nant was made. In one instance there was a sacrifice ; in 
another an oath, when God " sware by Himself." If a man s 
covenant on being confirmed cannot be set aside or interpolated 
with new conditions, much more must God s covenant remain 
unchanged, unvitiated, unabrogated. The law, so unlike it in 
contents and purpose, can be no portion of it ; and the priority 
of the covenant by four centuries is additional proof of its 
validity : the law, that was introduced so long after it, can have 
no retrospective annulling influence over it. Magnitude inter- 
valli auget promissionis auctoritatem (Bengel, Koppe, Meyer). 
The <y6<yova)s means " that came into existence" with the act of 
legislation at Mount Sinai. The et? introducing the last clause 
gives the purpose of dfcvpot : " so as to do away with the pro 
mise" the promise which was so much the core of the covenant, 
and so identified with it that they are convertible terms. Rom. 
i. 20; 1 Thess. ii. 16. 

The law came in "430 years after the promise" /uera errj 
rerpaKcxria KOI rpid/covra. The apostle thus puts the interval 
in specific numbers. If the period from the promise to the 
Exodus was 430 years, 1 as the apostle asserts, then the sojourn 

1 After the promise twenty-five years elapsed to the birth of Isaac, 
Abraham being seventy-five when he came into Canaan, and 100 years 
old when Isaac was born, Gen. xii. 4, xxi. 5 ; Isaac was sixty years old 
when Jacob was born, as is related in Gen. xxv. 26 ; Jacob was 130 years 



260 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

in Egypt could not have been 400 years ; or if it lasted 400 
years, then the apostle s chronology is defective by more than 
200 years. But in Ex. xii. 40 the abode in Egypt is said to 
be " 430 years ;" in Gen. xv. 13 the time of affliction is pre 
dicted to be 400 years, the statement being quoted by Stephen 
in his address, Acts vii. 6. There is thus a very marked 
difference of computation, and the apostle has followed the 
chronology of the Septuagint. It reads in Ex. xii. 40, rj 8e 
/caroL/cr/cris rwv vlav Icrpa^X TJV Kara)Kri(rav Iv <yfj AuyvTTTfp 
KOI ev 777 Xavadv, [avrol KOI ol Trarepes avrwvj] err) rerpaKocna 
rpiaKovra the clause within brackets being found in Codex A, 
and there being other minor variations. The Samaritan Pen 
tateuch reads similarly. The apostle adopts this chronology of 
the Alexandrian translators, who might, from their residence 
in Egypt, have some special means of information on the point. 
Josephus, Antiq. ii. 15, 2, says "that they left Egypt in the 
month Xanthicus . . . 430 years after our forefather Abraham 
came into Canaan, but 215 years after Jacob s removal into 
Egypt." Josephus, however, with strange inconsistency, had 
announced another chronology in his Antiquities, ii. 9, 1, and he 

old when he went down to Egypt ; these periods producing 215 years. 
Similarly as to the length of the abode in Egypt. It Is stated, Gen. xii. 
46-7, that Joseph was thirty-nine years old when Jacob went down to 
Egypt ; and as Jacob was 130 at the same period, it follows that Joseph 
was born when his father Jacob was ninety-one. Jacob s marriage with 
Rachel took place when he was about seventy-eight, and at the same time 
as his marriage with Leah. Levi, Leah s third son, could not have been 
born before Jacob s eighty-first year, and he was therefore about forty-nine 
at the settlement in Egypt. Levi lived 137 years in all, eighty-eight of 
them in Egypt. Amram married his father s sister Jochebed, " the daughter 
of Levi, whom his mother bare to Levi in Egypt." Now Jochebed must 
have been born within eighty-eight years after the arrival in Egypt, and 
Moses her son was eighty years at the Exodus. Giving her the full age of 
forty-seven when he was born, you make the sojourn 215 years. But if 
the sojourn in Egypt was 430 years, then, allowing Jochebed to have been 
born in the last year of her father s life, she must have been 262 years 
when Moses was born. In this way the apostle s shorter chronology may 
be made out and sustained. It is the result of an implicit faith in entangled 
theories of the succession and duration of Egyptian dynasties for Bunsen to 
lengthen the sojourn in Egypt to 1500 years, or for Lepsius to shorten it 
to ninety, or for Engelstoft to make it only a century. See Schottgen s 
Horse Heb. p. 736 ; Augustine, De Civitate Dei, xvi. 24, Opera, vol. vii., 
Gaurne, Paris 1838 5 also Kosellini, Monumenti delV Eyitto, vol. i. 293. 



CHAP. III. 18. 2G1 

follows it also in his Jewish War, v. 9, 4. Plillo adopts it, 
Quis rerum divinarum hceres, 54, Opera, vol. iv. p. 121, ed. 
Pfeiffer ; so also Theophilus, ad Autolycum, iii. 10, p. 215, ed. 
Otto. Hengstenberg, Kurtz, Havernick, Ewald, Tiele, Eeinke, 
Delitzsch, and Hofmann support this view, and disparage the 
Alexandrian reading as a clumsy and artificial interpolation. 
But the apostle adopted the Hellenistic chronology, and it can 
be satisfactorily vindicated out of many distinct intimations 
and data even in the Hebrew Text. There seem to have been 
two traditions on the subject, and Josephus apparently ac 
knowledged both of them. It is ingenious but baseless to 

O O 

attempt a reconciliation by supposing that the promise may be 
regarded as made to Jacob just before he went down to Egypt, 
so that 430 years can be allowed for the sojourn (Olshausen) , 
or by maintaining that the " land not theirs" of the Abrahamic 
promise comprehends Canaan as well as Egypt. See Usher s 
Citron. Sac. cap. viii. As to the possible rate of increase of 
population during 215 years, see the calculations in Birks, 
The Exodus of Israel, chap. iii. 

Ver. 18. El yap e/c voaov 77 K\rjpovouia, OVK en e eTray- 
yeXuzs " For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more 
of promise." The yap shows strongly the basis of the previous 
statement if the law abrogate the promise, inheritance comes 
of law ; but law and promise are quite antagonistic in nature, 
so that if it be of law, the promise is completely set aside. The 
one hypothesis excludes the other there is no middle ground. 
has its usual significance of origin, and OVK en, is used in 
a logical sense " no more," not in point of time, but by force 
of inference. Winer, 65,10. The "inheritance" was to 
Abraham the land of Canaan ; and as the name is naturally 
employed in connection with the Abrahamic covenant, of 
which it was the characteristic term and gift, it became a 
symbol of spiritual blessing, or of " the better country," as the 
apostle argues in Heb. xi. It does not mean expressly the 
Holy Spirit (Gwynne). 

Ta> Be Aftpaafj, Si irayy\la<i Ke^dpia-rai 6 @eo? " but 
God has given it to Abraham by promise." " By promise," or 
"through promise" through the medium of promise; not exactly 
in the form of promise (Riickert, Peile), though that is the re 
sult. The verb is used in its common transitive signification, 



262 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

the inheritance being understood ; and the perfect tense denotes 
the duration of the gift. Compare Rom.viii. 32 ; 1 Cor. ii. 12 ; 
Phil. i. 29. It alters the connection to make Christ the object 
of the gift, as Grotius ; or to supply no object at all, as Schott, 
Olshausen, and Matthias (gratiosum se ei exhibuit) ; or to take 
the verb in a passive sense, God giving Himself as the inherit 
ance, as Caspar!. This is not the usage of the New Testament 
which never identifies God with the inheritance, but describes 
Him as its Giver, Lord, and Possessor. Rom. viii. 17 ; 1 Cor. 
vi. 9, xv. 50 ; Eph. v. 5 ; Jas. ii. 5. The object of the apostle 
is to show the validity of the promise having for its gift 
the inheritance, which, if it be of law, cannot be of promise ; 
but the fact is, that God gave it to Abraham by promise, and 
it cannot be of law. What is expressed as the subject of the 
first or conditional clause is naturally supplied as the object 
of the second or demonstrative clause, resting on the great 
historical fact which was universally admitted. The point of 
the argument is lost in generality if no accusative be supplied. 
For the verse is a species of dilemmatic syllogism, 1 the first 
giving the hypothesis disjunctive major if the inheritance be 
of the law, it is no longer of promise ; the minor being, but 
God has given it to Abraham by promise ; and the conclusion 
is so self-evident that it does not need to be expressed there 
fore it is not of the law. For similar reasoning, see Rom. 
iv. 13, etc. If, then, the law cannot upset the promise, and 
vet if that law be of divine origin and introduction, what is its 

V O 

use and meaning ? It must serve some purpose worthy of its 
Author, though its functions be very different from those as- 

O V 

signed it by the Galatian Judaists. Therefore the apostle 
puts the question 

Ver. 19. TL ovv o MJ/UO? ; " What then is the law?" 
"What thanne the lawe?" (Wycliffe.) TL is not for Sia 
rl " wherefore " (Schott, Brown, Wieseler, Bagge, and 
Jatho) ; nor is ereOrj, as the latter thinks, the natural supple 
ment, e crri being quite sufficient. The passages adduced in 
proof by Wieseler have a verb expressed, and one of a dif 
ferent character. The ri is the neuter, employed in reference 
to the abstract nature of the subject. It often occurs with 
such a meaning. Bernhardy, p. 336. The law not " the 
1 Sir Win. Hamilton s Logic, vol. i. pp. 350-1. 



CHAP. III. 19 263 

n ceremonial law" alone (Gwynne) is not useless, as mio;ht be 
f conjectured ; it is in no sense Treptrro?, d\\a Trdvv 
(Chrysostom), for 

Trapa/Bdcrewv Xfipiv Trpoa-ereOrj " on account of the 
transgressions it was superadded." The compound verb is to 
be preferred, on preponderant authority, to the simple eredrj of 
the Received Text, which has little in its favour D, F, and 
the Latin versions (posita est), Clement, Origen, and Eusebius 
in some quotations- There may have been a temptation to sub 
stitute the simple verb, as the compound might seem opposed 
to e i jn8t,ardcrcrTai of ver. 15 " adcleth thereto." 

The idiomatic %aptv, originally in gratiam "in favour of," 
" for the sake of " came at length to signify generally " on 
account of," a definite purpose being involved. Many examples 
may be found in Ellendt (Lex. Soph, sub voce), who explains it 
as in gratiam alicujus, inde alicujus aut liominis aut rei causa sig- 
nificans, quanquam minime semper gratia adsignificatur ; and in 
Ast (Lex. P/afon.), who says : Prcepositionis instar ita ponitur, 
ut vertipossit " causa et "propter" Various meanings have been 
assigned to the expression, " on account of the transgressions." 

1. Many give it the sense of to restrain transgressions 
Clement, HomiL xi. 16, Trapa jrrwfjidrwv yapiv rj ri/Awpla eirerai 
the result being that " Pie may present them pure in the day 
of universal judgment." Many of the fathers and the older 
expositors held this opinion, followed by Neander, Olshausen, 
De Wette, Baur, and others. This is one of the ends of law 
generally, since it commands obedience to its statutes and 
threatens a penalty on transgressors. But the term employed 
is 7rapa/3da-eo)v, not a/zapr/a, and implies in itself the existence 
of a law or legal standard, without which sins could scarcely 
bear such an appellation : " where no law is, there is no trans 
gression." 

2. Some attach the meaning to the phrase "the law was 
superadded for the sake of transgressions," to multiply them. 
Alford, Meyer, Wieseler, Lipsius, and Hofmann, who put it 
in various phases. But such a view is extreme, for it is the 
application to a passing phrase such as tj.iis of the formal 
argument of the apostle in a theological section of the Epistle 
to the Romans, v. 20, etc. It is true that the law does this in 
various ways, for it irritates man s fallen and perverse nature, 



264 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

and brings about that love of forbidden things which the apostle 
pictures in Rom. vii. ut transgressio sit et abundet. Luther. 

But 3. probably the phrase means that the law multiplies 
transgressions chiefly by detecting them, and bringing men to 
a knowledge of them. " I had not known sin but by the law : 
for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt 
not covet;" "sin that it appear sin;" " that sin by the com 
mandment might become exceeding sinful." Rom. vii. 7-13. 
So Calvin, Winer, Matthies, Windischmann, Ellicott. Meyer s 
objection to this opinion, resting on his view of the uniform 
meaning of %/>">, falls to the ground. This view is thus the 
virtual basis of the one enunciated before it, as it is princi 
pally by the knowledge of transgressions that they are multi 
plied. For the law so instructs in the nature of sin, that what 
before was reckoned innocent is seen to be transgression, and 
what was regarded as trivial comes to be recognised as "exceed 
ing sinful." Through this detection transgressions are of neces 
sity multiplied in number and intensified in enormity. Gwynne s 
notion is inadmissible, that the phrase refers to the work of the 
priesthood in offering sacrifice " on behalf of sins." It must 
not be forgotten, too, that the law is here regarded as an inter 
mediate dispensation, as is intimated in the following clause 
TrpoaereOr], a%pi<} ov. The purpose of the superaddition of the 
law was connected with the coming of Christ that is, to pre 
pare for it, by so deepening the sense of sinfulness that men, 
convicted of so often breaking it, could not look to it for riojit- 

O J O 

eousness, but must be " shut up unto the faith which should 
afterwards be revealed." The Mosaic dispensation, provisionally 
introduced between the Abrahamic promise and the coming of 
the Seed, was a preparative or an educative instrument, not 
merely in its typical services as foreshowing the realities of 
atonement and pardon, but in the ethical power of multiplying 
transgressions through the light which it cast upon them, and of 
convincing those who were under it of the necessity of Christ s 
advent in order to release them from its curse. The function 
of the law was to produce profounder views of the number and 
heinousness of sins, as preparatory to the appearance of Him 
who came to deliver from its awful penalty, so that, under the 
pressure of such convictions, His redemption might be wel 
comed as a needed and an adapted blessing. Thus the law did 



CHAP. III. 19. 265 

nut add to the promise, but was a different institute altogether ; 
as Meyer remarks, " it was not an eTrioiaQijfcr)" or anything 
connected with the eTrtSiaracrttTai, of the fifteenth verse. And 
it was also temporary 

*A%pts ov e\0r) TO <nrep/j,a & e r 7rij y<ye\Tat, " until the Seed 
to whom the promise has been made shall have come." This 
use of the subjunctive proceeds upon this, that the apostle 
throws himself back to the time when the law was given, 
which thereby becomes to him present time, and from it he 
looks down into the future, though historically that future was 
now past time. Winer, 41, 1 ; Jelf, 841. The particle 
av is not used, as the period referred to is a definite one, with 
out any contingency. Stallbaum, Plato, Phcedo 62 C, Opera, 
vol. i. p. 32 ; Hermann, de Part, av, pp. 1 10-12, omittitur av in 
re certa designanda ; Klotz-Devarius, ii. 368, nonadjuncta av ubi 
eventus per se ponitur. The Seed is Christ a>, to whom, not 
et <? ov, but the ordinary dative (Winer, TJsteri), as ver. 16 
shows. It seems better to take the verb as passive, for then 
it is in harmony with eppeOrjaav, ver. 16. The Vulgate has 
promiserat, and Bengel and Flatt prefer it. Compare 2 Mace, 
iv. 27 and Rom. iv. 21, Heb. xii. 26, in both which places the 
Authorized Version prefers the active. Bretschneider in his 
Lexicon gives the meaning, cui demandatum est ut legem mosai- 
cam tollat a meaning unauthorized by New Testament usage 
and unnatural in the context. It serves no purpose, as in many 
editions of the New Testament, to make this clause a paren 
thesis. The same sense might have been expressed by two 
:finite verbs and a conjunction. Hermann, Vigerus, vol. ii. p. 
614, London 1824. The next clauses point out the mode in 
which the law was superadded, and the first is 

Aiarayels Bi ayyeXav "being ordained by means of 
aingels " ordinata, Vulgate ; disposita, Clarom., the aorist 
Denoting time contemporaneous with the former verb Trpocre- 
r;e0Tj. The phrase Biarda-aeiv vopov is to enact a law : vopov 
Siterafe Kpoviwv, Hesiod, Opera et Dies 276, ed. Goettling; rov 
7, e vopov SiarctTTeiv, Plato, Leg. 746 E. Comp. Judg. v. 9. 
S<o in his address Stephen says that they received the law efc 
Siarayas dyyeXwv "at the enactments of angels," et? as in Matt, 
xii. 41. But the word will not bear the sense of " promulgate," 
asi many have wrongly conjectured. The phrase Si 



266 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

signifies by the instrumentality of angels, whatever that instru 
mentality may mean, and is not to be diluted into " in tlie 
presence of" (Calovius, Loesner), or " under the attestation of 
(Peile). Nor can dyye\a>v signify men messengers (Zegerus), 
nor priests, /epea?, as Chrysostom alternatively puts it. The 
angels are not the source of the law in any sense (Scliultess) ; 
Sid implies only instrumentality. But in some way or other 
as God s instruments they enacted it, so that it was o Si dyje- 
\o3i> \a\rj0els Xoyo? u the word spoken by angels." Heb. ii. 2; 
Winer, 47, 1. The divine precepts were by them made 
audible to the people, or they had mysterious connection with 
the awful phenomena which enshrined the majesty of the Law 
giver. Josephus holds fast the distinction rwv ev rot? vofjiois 
Si dyyeXtov irapd rov &eov ^aQovrwv. Antiq. xv. 5, 3. It is 
one thing to originate a law, and a different thing to enjoin it. 
The special point is, that the law was not given immediately by 
God, but mediately by angels they came between God and 
the people ; but Jehovah, without any intervening agency, and 
directly, spoke the promise to Abraham. No allusion is made 
to ano-els in the portions of Exodus which relate the invhifj of 

O 1 O O 

the law. The first reference is in the last blessing of Moses, 
Dent, xxxiii. 2 : " The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up 
from Seir unto them ; He shined forth from Mount Paran. 
and He came with ten thousands of saints : from His right 
hand went a fiery law for them." The special clause is nnsi 
cnp ro:n?p " lie came from the midst of thousands of holy 
ones." But the Seventy had a different reading, or fused 
together two readings, and translate, crvv pvpidcn KdSrjS) add 
ing, etc Se^i&v avrov dyye\oi /zer avTov. Not a few expositors 
follow the Sept. rendering, which requires the pointing ^ !i?> 
and render, from the heights of Kadesh ; but the Hebrew will 
not bear such a rendering. Aquila has euro i^vpid^wv dyiaa-- 
fjiov ; Symmachus, UTTO /auptaSo? 0,7/0,? ; the Vulgate, cum eo 
sanctorum millia. So also the Targums. The common ren- 

O 

dering is the best. The angels appear already in connection 
with God, Gen. xxviii. 12 ; and as " God s host," Gen. xxxii. 
1, 2. The u holy ones" of the Hebrew text cannot be the 
Jewish people, as is thought by Luther, Vatablus, and Dathe ; 
for He came not with them, but to them. Again, in Ps. 
Ixviii. 17 there is a similar allusion : " The chariots of God are 



CHAP. III. 19. 267 

two myriads, thousands repeated (or thousands on thousands) : 
the Lord is with them, Sinai is in His holy place." Jewish 
tradition gradually enlarged on these hints, though the word 
angels occurs in none of the original clauses, and made such 
a romance out of them as may be found in Eisenmenger s 
Entdecktes Judentlium, vol. i. 308, etc. The mention of angels 
in connection with the law is not specially meant to shed lustre 
upon it, as in Acts vii. 38 and Heb. ii. 2 ; but the object here 
is to show that the employment of angels glorious though 
these beings are in the enactment of it proves its inferiority 
to the promise, which was directly given by Jehovah in sole 
majesty to Abraham, no one coming between them. And for 
the same end it is added 

Ev %pl /JLealrov " in the hand of a mediator. Meyer 
takes the clause in a historical sense : Moses having received 
from God the tables of the law, carried them to the people. 
Ex. xxxii. 11, xxxiv. 29. But idiomatic usage shows that 
ev xeipt has much the same meaning as 8td, the Hebrew 
phrase T3, which it often represents in the Septuagint, having 
this general signification. Ex. xxxv. 29; Lev. x. 11, xxvi. 46; 
Num. iv. 38, 41-45, xv. 23 ; Josh. xiv. 2 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 8 ; 
in all which places the phrase is by the hand of Moses. Com 
pare 1 Kings xii. 15, Jer. xxxvii. 2, Prov. xxvi. 6. As the 
giving of the law is described here, there can be no doubt that 
Moses is the mediator, whatever might be the position of the 
high priest in subsequent times. Moses thus describes his own 
mediation : " I stood between you and the Lord at that time " 
avafjiicrov Kvplov teal V/AWV. Sept. Deut. v. 5, 27. Philo says, 
that on hearing the sound of the idolatry connected with the 
worship of the golden calf, and receiving the divine command, 
he sprang down to be " a mediator and reconciler" ^ea-ir^ ical 
SiaAXa/cT?? ?. Vita Mosis, iii. 19. The name mediator, "ncno, 
is often given to Moses in the rabbinical writings. See 
Schoettgen and Wetstein. The allusions in Heb. viii. 6, ix. 
15, xii. 24, also plainly recognise the mediatorship of Moses. 
Origen started the opinion that the mediator was Christ, and 
was followed by Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, 
Chrysostom, Hilary, Victorinus, and others ; but Basil, Gre 
gory of Nyssa, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, Epi- 
phanius, and others rightly maintain that the mediator was 



268 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Moses, and the most of modern commentators adhere to the 
same view. Schmieder takes him to be the angel of the 
covenant (Nova Interpretation Gal. iii. 19, 20), as does also 
Schneckenburger. This angel is often referred to in the Old 
Testament, but there is no ground for the opinion that He is 
referred to here, and in those simple terms. But Moses did the 
work of a mediator went from the people to God, and came 
from God to the people ; the first function more priestly, and 
the second more prophetic, in character. Through his media 
torial intervention the law was superadded, but the promise 
was made by Jehovah to Abraham without any one between 
them. On the other hand, it is held by Calvin, Meyer, 
Wieseler, Winer, Schott, Baumgarten-Crusius, and Alford, 
that the apostle refers to angels and a mediator in order to 
illustrate the glory of the law. But even in Heb. ii. 2, " the 
word spoken by angels" is put in contrast to the "salvation 
spoken by the Lord," and is regarded as inferior to it, the argu 
ment being from the less to the greater. The contrast for 
mally stated there is implied here the majus did not need to 
be expressed : the covenant was confirmed l>y God ; God gave 
it to Abraham by promise ; God is one. Is the law against 
the promises of God ? It is 110 objection to say that the em 
ployment of a mediator is no mark of inferiority, since the new 
dispensation has its Mediator too ; for, first, the contrast is not 
between the law and the gospel, but between the law and the 
earlier promise ; and secondly, the Mediator of the new cove 
nant is the Son of God 110 mere man, as Moses ; and, as 
Professor Lightfoot says, " the argument here rests in effect 
on our Lord s divinity as its foundation." Nor could it be 
" unwise," as Meyer argues, in the apostle to depreciate the 
law in writing to those who were zealots about it ; for he only 
states in these two clauses two facts about it which they could 
not gainsay, and he quietly leaves them to draw the inference. 
Nor is his object to enhance the solemnity of the giving of the 
law as a preparation for Christ ; for that is not the theme in 
hand it is the relation of the law superinduced because of 
transgressions, to the older promise, and the function of a law 
as a pedagogue is afterwards introduced. Granting that its 
enactment by angels glorifies the law, it is yet inferior to a word 
immediately spoken by the God of angels. The argument of 



CHAP. III. 20. 269 

* V, 
the verse is : 1. The law lias no organic relation to the promise, 

was neither a new form of it nor a codicil to it, did not spring 
out of it, but was superadded as a foreign and unallied element. 
2. The law has functional connection with sin ; the promise 
regards an inheritance. 3. The law was provisional and tempo 
rary only; the promise has no limitation of time, and is not to 
be superseded. 4. The law was given by a species of double 
intervention the instrumentality of angels and the mediation 
of Moses ; the promise was given directly and immediately 
from God s own lips, no one stepping in between its Giver and 
its recipient neither angel ordaining it nor man conveying it. 
5. The promise, as resting solely on God, was unconditioned, 
and therefore permanent and unchanging ; the law, interposed 
between two parties, and specially contingent on a human 
element, was liable to suspension or abolition. 6. This law, 
so necessitated by sin, so transient, so connected with angelic 
ordinance and human handling, was an institute later also by 
far in its inauguration was 430 years after the promise. 

Ver. 20. O Se //.ecrm;? evos OVK ecrnv, 6 Be eos el? ecrriv 
" Now a mediator is not of one, but God is one ;" equivalent to 
saying, No mediator can belong to one party evos emphatic 
but two parties at least are always implied. It is philologically 
wrong in Hauck to regard pea-iTr]? as meaning " one taken out 
of the midst," and equivalent to intercessor or representative, 
for it is "middleman." The verse defines by the way what a 
mediator is, Se being transitional, and 6 //.ecrm?*? giving the 
specific idea virtually every mediator, " denoting in an indi 
vidual a whole class." Winer, 18. Matt. xii. 35 ; John 
x. 11 ; 2 Cor. xii. 12. Compare Job ix. 33. Meyer quotes 
Hermann : Articulus definit infinite . . . aut designando certo 
de multis, aut quce multa sunt cunctis in unum colligendis. 
Prsef. ad Iphig. in Aidide, p. xv. Lipsiae 1831. In every work 
of mediation there must be more than one party, and thus at 
the giving of the law in the hand of a mediator there were 
two parties God on the one side, and the Jewish people on 
the other, there being a covenant or contract between them. 
This view of the clause is held generally by Theodoret, Luther, 
Keil, Usteri, Rtickert, De Wette, etc. The numeral evos must 
be masculine, in correspondence with the following et? ; but 
Koppe and Bengel supply vopov, Borger 7r/ja7yu,aT09, Keil 



270 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

/Liepof?, Sack rpoTrov, Rosenmiiller and Steudel crTrepytiaro?, under 
standing by it believers, also Guiiitt who limits it to heathen 
believers (Stud. u. Kritik. 1843), and Jatho who restricts it 
to Christ, the one Seed. Some, with a wrong interpretation of 
the clause ending with dyyeXuv, take the singular evos in con 
trast : Moses was not a mediator of one, i.e. God, but of many, 
i.e. angels ; as Schultess, Schmieder, Caspari, Huth, Schnecken- 
burger, and Gfru rer in his das JahrUundert des Heils, i. 228, etc. 
u But God is one ; o Se @eo? el? ea-riv. Ak adversative; 
evo? being numerical, so must et<?. God is one, and is therefore 
mediatorless. God Himself without any intervention speaks the 
promise to Abraham ; the promise is conveyed through no third 
party, as was the law. Whatever contingency might be in the 
law and its conveyance by a mediator who went between God 
and the people, there can be none with regard to the promise, 
the direct and unconditioned word of Jehovah Himself alone. 
The all-inclusive One uttered the words, " In thy seed shall all 
nations of the earth be blessed," to Abraham immediately, no 
one placing himself between them. God the Giver is one (not 
two Himself and a mediator) in the bestowraent of that 
absolute promise, which the introduction of the law four cen 
turies afterwards cannot modify or set aside. It is not neces 
sary for this interpretation, as some object, that the historical 
r)v should be employed, as the present is commonly employed 
in a definitive sentence. The clause, " but God is one," does 
not announce dogmatically the unity of the Godhead, as do 
several similar utterances in the Pentateuch. Whatever doc 
trinal ideas the words might suggest, they are here used on 
purpose to deny all duality in the bestowment of the promise, 
the 6 yu,ecrtT7?9 as implying more than one evos OVK being in 
contrast with God, who is one ei?. The law, in the period of 
introduction, in its temporary and provisional nature, and in the 
mediatorial process by which it was given, is so different from 
the promise and its method of bestowment, that the apostle 
next puts the question sharply, " Is the law then against the 
promises of God?" This view, which appears to be the 
simplest, as well as grammatically correct and in harmony 
with the context, has been opposed by many, who take 6 
/iecrn-7?9 to refer to the mediator just mentioned either Christ 
or Moses the verse being then regarded as descriptive of his 



CHAP. III. 20. 271 

relations or functions ; some supposing it to state an objection, 
others regarding it as the refutation of one. 

The interpretations which have been given of this verse, so 
difficult from its terse brevity, amount to several hundreds; 1 
and it would be a vain attempt to enumerate or classify them. 
Suffice it to say, first, that it is in vain to attempt to displace 
the verse, as if it were spurious, for it is found without vari 
ation in all MSS., or as if it were made up of two glosses, first 
written on the margin, and then carelessly taken into the text 
(Michaelis, Liicke, Stud. u. Kritik. 1828). Equally vain is it 
to rewrite it, as if the first words should be TO Se (nrep^a 
(Godor) ; or to change the accentuation of eW?, and give it 
the unwarranted signification of annual " the yearly mediator 
is no more," ovtc ea-riv (Weigand). As little to the purpose 
are such eccentric interpretations as that of Bertholdt, who 
takes evos to refer to Abraham, because he is called *"^? in 
Isa. li. 2 ; or that of Kaiser, who supplies vios " Moses is not 
the son of One, that is God, but Christ is;" or that of Holsten, 
that o fAeaiTT]? is the law standing between two things the 
promise and the fulfilment ; or that of Matthias, who, over 
looking the contrast between 6^09 in the first clause and efc in 
the second, understands the second clause thus " God (and 
not fallible man) is one of the two parties," his conclusion 
being, that therefore the law, though given by angels, is of 
divine origin ; and then, giving the Kara of the following verse 
the sense of " under," he makes the question to be, " Does the 
law fall under the idea of promise ? " or, " Does the law belong 
to the category of the promises?" or that of Hermann, who, 
preserving the numerical meaning of efc, and regarding it as part 
of the minor proposition of a syllogism, brings out this odd sense : 
Deus autem unus est ; ergo apud Deum cogitari non potest inter- 
ventor, esset enim is, qui intercederet inter Deum et Deum, quod 
absurdum est ; but the reductio assumed as an inference is 
wholly foreign to the verse and context, and his further 
exposition proceeds on the sense of testamentum, as given to 
BiadiJKT) ; or that of Ewald, whose interpretation is not dis 
similar in some points, but who, instead of saying " between 

1 Weigand in 1821 reported and examined 243 interpretations, and 
controversy on the passage may be seen still in several recent numbers of 
the Stud. u. Kritiken. 



272 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

God and God," speaks of two " innerly different Gods, or an 
earlier and a later God." So Bagge " There are not two gods, 
one giving the promise, the other the law, but One only ;" 
and similarly Vomel. Ben gel s general view is, " The party 
to whom the mediator belonged is different from God namely, 
the law. There is not one God before and another after the 
mvinrr of the law. Before the law He transacted without a 

O 3 

mediator ; the mediator belongs to the law, but the promise to 
God." Quite apart from the meaning and the course of argu 
ment is the opinion that makes et9 mean o avros, unus idemque 
(Semler), or sibi constans (Beza), or that regards ew9 as evo- 
T?7T09 a mediator implying diversity of opinion (Gabler, 
Schb ttgen). The exegesis of Dr. Brown is ingenious but 
philologically baseless, because 6^09 and et9 never signify immu 
table, as Borger and Koppe contend. " The law was given 
by the hands of Moses as a mediator. But was he not the 
mediator of Him who is one and the same, unchangeable? 
Now God, who appointed Moses mediator, is one and the same, 
unchanged and unchangeable." To give evo<$ a numerical 
meaning in the first clause, but et9 an ethical meaning in the 
second clause, is not consistent (Schleiermacher, Usteri). Koppe, 
Cameron, Sack, and Barnes who gives his exegesis as original, 
educe this meaning : " While there may be many mediators, 
God is one, consistent with Himself, so that the two dispen 
sations cannot be opposed." Hilgenfeld, after Matthias, in the 
same way gives et9 the sense of absolute unity monarchie. See 
also Baumgarten-Crusius, Lipsius, Rechtfertigung, p. 77. Some 
what similarly Luther : Neque Deus eget mediatore, cum sit 
ipse unus secum optime conveniens ; and again, Deus neminem 
offendit ergo non indiget ullo mediatore. Luther s opinion is so 
far reproduced in Matthies ; in Kink " God is eternal unity" 
(Stud. u. Kritik. 1834), and in De Wette " God is essential 
unity." Windischmann has a more complex and untenable 
view : " God is one the Giver as the Father, the Receiver as 
the Son united," unmittelbar dem Geler und dem Emptf anger 
nach. So too his co-religionist Bisping, " The promise was 
given immediately to the Seed, that is Christ, who is God and 
man in one person. The promise made by God to God needed 
no mediator." And similarly also Wilke. It is loading the 
verse with an inferential sense to explain, that as God is but 



CHAP. III. 20. 273 

one of the parties concerned, and as Moses was mediator be 
tween God arid the Jews only, his mediation could have no 
effect on a promise which included Gentiles as well as Jews 
(Locke, Whitby, Chandler) ; or to conjecture that the apostle s 
w r ords suggest an allusion to the unity of man to whom God 
is one and alike and to the unity of man with God (Jowett) ; 
or to argue, God is one only, one part only, and the Israelites 
as being the other part are bound to obey the law Deus est 
wins, una (altera) tantummodo pars est gens Israel (Winer, 
with whom agree virtually Kern, Paulus, and Sardinoux) ; or 
to affirm, God is one, not the other party, and stands therefore 
not under the law, so that the freedom of Christ the Son of 
God from the law is established (Steinfass). 

Those interpretations which give o /jLeair^ a personal refer 
ence, and identify it with either Christ or Moses, labour under 
insuperable difficulties. The fathers generally held the former 
view, as Chrysostom, Ambros., and Jerome, and many others. 
The exegesis of some of this class may be thus reported : " The 
law was given in the hand of a mediator Jesus Christ. Now 
He is not the mediator of the one dispensation only, but of the 
other also. But God is one the one God gave the law and 
the promises, and in both cases He has employed the same 
mediator." But the mediator of the context is very plainly 
Moses, and that paraphrase assumes greatly more than the text 
asserts. Similar objections may be made to another form of 
the same exegesis : " Now the mediator (Jesus Christ) does not 
belong to one part of the human race, but to both Jew and Gen 
tile, even as the one God is God of both." Others give it this 
form : " Christ is the mediator between two parties ; but God is 
one of those parties, the elect being the other." Or, " God is in 
Himself One ; so likewise was He one of the parties, the other 
party being the children of Israel." l But the majority hold 
the reference to be to Moses, as Theodoret, Bengel, Schultess, 
Jatho, Brown, Hof mann, Wieseler. Theodoret explains : " But 
Moses was not the mediator of one, for he mediated between 
God and the people ; but God is one. He gave the promise to 
Abraham, He appointed the law, and He has shown the ful 
filment of the promise. It is not one God who did one of 
these things, and another God the other." Others, as Noesselt, 

1 The Epistle to the Galatians, by Sir Stafford Carey, M.A., 1867. 

S 



274 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

follow the form already given with Christ as mediator: "Moses 
was not the mediator of the one seed, containing both Jews 
and Gentiles ; but God is one, standing in a common relation 
to both Jews and Gentiles." The one seed, however, is Christ; 
and o>o5 is masculine, as the construction plainly determines. 
Piscator brings out a different conclusion : " God who gave the 
law by Moses is one, and therefore, being unchanged, still will 
punish such as break His law ; therefore justification by works 
is impossible." Another form of the exegesis is that of Pareus 
(1621) "a mediator implies two parties, out of which one must 
be transgressors, in reference to ver. 19. But the transgressing 
party cannot be God, who is one justitia et sanctitate semper 
sill constans" Cameron puts it thus: "A mediator (Moses) 
does not belong to the Sinaitic covenant only, but also to the 
Abrahamic or Christian covenant (Christ) ; but God is one 
both covenants originate in Him." Wessel takes the genitive 
evos in the sense of dependence " the Mediator Christ is not 
of one God, i.e. is not subject to Him as a creature, though 
officially He became a mediator, nay, He is Himself the One 
God;" as if the apostle had wished to vindicate Christ s divinity 
from some objection based upon His economic subordination. 
Turner regards the verse as an assertion of the great charac 
teristic of the gospel, that " the illustrious Mediator thereof is 
not the Mediator of one race or class or body of men, as Moses, 
but of all, as God is one and the same, equally the Father of 
all." The objection to this and other similar interpretations 
need not now be recounted. Wieseler s notion is, that the 
failure of the mediation of Moses since it concerned not 
God, but man also arose out of his having to do with men 
who have not obeyed the law ; the apostle s purpose being to 
show how the divinity of the law may be reconciled with its 
sin-working power. The first part of this exegesis is adopted 
by Kamphausen in Bunsen s Bibel-icerk. Hofmann s inter 
pretation of the first clause virtually is : " The mediator Moses 
did not concern himself with the one united seed, as such a 
unity, according to ver. 28, exists only in Christ, but with a 
multitude of individuals ;" and his interpretation of the second 
clause is, that it stands in contrast to the phrase " ordained by 
angels," and asserts the divine unity as opposed to the multitude 
of those spirits. See Meyer and Wieseler on this interpretation. 



CHAP. III. 21. 275 

Yer. 21. O ovv z/o/^o? Kara rwv 7ra<y<ye\ia)v TOV @eov ; pr) 
" Is then the law against the promises of God 1 God 
forbid." The ovv aperte collectivam vim prce se fert. Klotz- 
Devarius, ii. p. 717. "Promises" in the plural may refer to 
its repetition at various times and in various forms. The geni 
tive TOV @6ov may, as read in the light of the context, charac 
terize the promises as God s in a special sense His as given 
by Him singly, and without any intervention. The sense 
proposed by Gwynne, " God in contrast with any other beings," 
is feeble. The question anticipates a natural objection, which 
the previous reasoning would suggest not the statement merely 
of the 20th verse (Meyer, Winer), nor merely the clause " be 
cause of transgressions" in the 19th verse (Estius, Bengel, De 
Wette) ; for neither of these two statements by itself leads to 
the objection which the apostle starts and refutes. The ovv 
takes up the entire description. If the law cannot set aside the 
promise, if law and promise are so opposite principles, that 
if the inheritance be of law, it can no longer be of promise, 
if the manner in which the promise was given surpasses in true 
divineness that in which the law was announced, the query at 
once rises a query that seems to cast discredit on the previous 
reasoning by reducing it to an absurdity " Is the law then 
against the promises of God 1 " No. There is a wide differ 
ence, but no antagonism. The promise is not touched or 
altered by it, and it had its own function to discharge as a 
preparative institute. For prj yevoiTo, see under ii. 17. Nay 
more 

El yap eSodrj v6fj.os 6 Swdftevos ^cooTroifjcrai, 6Vreo9 etc vopov 
av rjv rj ^iKaioavvr] the order in the last clause having the 
authority of A, B, C ; N places r\v before av, and the Received 
Text places av before e/c i/o/iou, while D omits it ; F, G leave 
out av fy, and B has ev vo^w " for if there had been given a 
law which was able to give life, verily by the law should have 
been righteousness" the argument for the-yu,?) <yevoiro. For 
the form of the hypothetical proposition, see Jelf, 851, 3. 
The vofMO^ is the Mosaic law, and the article following confines 
it to the special quality to that denned by the participle. 
Compare Acts iv. 12, x. 41, Rom. ii. 14 ; Winer, 20, 4. 
The verb faoTroiTJaai is " to quicken," " to impart life," to 
bestow that iw?; which Christ speaks of as the sum or result of 



276 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

all His blessings, John iii. 16, etc. Life is opposed to that 
death which sin has wrought within us, and is not specially a 
new moral life (Riickert, Winer, Matthies, Olshausen, Ewald). 
To give life is only here another and more subjective form of 
saying to bestow the inheritance, and in using the term the 
apostle is mentally referring to vers. 11, 12. If the law could 
have given life, truly 6W&>?, emphatic in position " in very 
truth from the law (as its origin) righteousness would have 
been." 

AiKaioavvr] is the one indispensable condition or means of 
life or justification, and not the result (Wieseler). To give life, 
the law must confer righteousness 6 &ltcaio<; fyja-erai. The law 
is not against the promises of God ; it comes not into rivalry 
with them, for it has a different aim and work, being super- 
added on account of transgressions. If it could have justified, 
righteousness would have sprung from it, and the promises 
would have been by it annulled, or rather superseded. But no 
one can obey the law, and win righteousness by his obedience 
to it. Righteousness is found in a very different sphere that 
of trust in the divine promise, iii. 10-13. Law and promise 
are so far removed from one another in character and opera 
tion, that the one conies not into collision with the other as if 
to counterwork it. The law, as Chrysostom says, is OVK evavrios 
T?}? ^apiro9 aXXa KCU crvvepyos. Nay, as the apostle proceeds 
to illustrate, the law cannot be hostile to the promise, for both 
are portions of one divine plan carried out in infinite wisdom 
and harmony. For the law subserves the promise, one of its 
special functions being to produce such convictions of sin as 
"shut up" men to faith in the promise as the only means of 
salvation the teaching of the following verse. But this verse 

O o 

looks back to ver. 18, and its declaration, as the next verse does 
to ver. 19, the connection of the law with sin. 

Ver. 22. A\\a avveK\eicrev rj ypa(j)rj ra irdvra VTTO d/j,ap- 
Tiav " But the Scripture shut up all under sin." A\\d is 
strongly adversative u but, on the contrary," the statement 
following being in direct contradiction to the preceding one : 
so far from righteousness being of the law, the Scripture em 
bodying that law shuts up all men under sin, as unrighteous 
and beneath its curse. Therefore the law, which encloses all 
under sin and its penalty, cannot by any possibility be the 



CHAP. III. 22. 277 



source of life. The phrase ?? ypa^jj is so far personified, as 
doing what God its author does. Rom. xi. 32. It may signify 
the Old Testament as a whole, or, as being in the singular, some 
special portion of it, as Ps. cxliii. 2, or Deut. xxvii. 26. Com 
pare for use of singular Luke iv. 21, and chiefly in John, as 
John xix. 37, xx. 9, etc., in many of which places the quotation 
is not given, but only referred to. The aw in the verb crvv- 
K\eta-ev does not mean that all are shut up together omnes 
simul (Bengel, Usteri), for the verb is sometimes applied to 
individuals, and means to hem in on all sides. Sept. Ps. 
xxxi. 9 ; Polybius, xi. 2, 10. Compare Herod, vii. 41 ; Pol. 
i. 17, 8. Many of the fathers, followed by Calvin, Beza, and 
others, suppose that " Scripture " means the law. It indeed 
contains, expounds, and enforces the law, but it is not to be 
identified with it. Nor does the verb mean merely, convinced 
them of sin faey^ev (Chrysostom, Hermann), for this sub 
jective experience was not always effected as a reality ; but the 
Scripture so shut them up objectively under sin as to bring 
out their inability to obtain righteousness by the law. Bishop 
Bull and others assign a declaratory meaning to the verb con- 

o / o 

clusos declaravit ; and similar reference to the verdict of Scrip 
ture is alleged by Schott, Winer, Wieseler, Usteri, Hofmann, in 
the same way as an analogous dilution permisit, demonstravit 
is proposed for the same verb in Rom. xi. 32 by so many ex 
positors. Such a meaning is only inferential as to result. The 
Scripture was the divine instrument of this spiritual incarcera 
tion, in which sin has the lordship over its prisoners. Bondage 
and helplessness are intended by the phrase not, however, to 
produce despair, but to serve a very different purpose. There 
was little need for Jerome s caution, nee vero cestimandum 
scripturam auctorem esse peccati, . . . judex non est auctor 
sceleris. The neuter plural ra Trdvra (not eOwr), Grotius) is 
certainly more comprehensive than the masculine, though it 
is putting undue pressure on it to extract the signification 
of man and man s things (Bengel), humana omnia, non modo 
omnes sed etiam omnia (Windischmann, Hofmann), Brenz 
including especially the lower animals. The statement is 
certainly true, but the following verse is rather against such 
a view as required by the context, and the masculine is used 
in Rom. xi. 32 to express an analogous thought. The neuter 



278 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

sets out the comprehensive or unindividualized generality of 
the statement. Winer, 27, 5. Compare John vi. 37, 
xvii. 2, 1 Cor. i. 27, Col. i. 20, 2 Thess. ii. 6, and examples 
in Poppo, Thucydides, Prolegom. i. 104; thus, too, qiurcunque 
for quemcunque, Sallust, vol. ii. p. 68, ed. Kritz. And the 
purpose is 

"Iva r) efrayyeXia e/c Trt crrea)? ^Irjaov Xpicrrov $o6fj TO?? 
TTicrTevovcn " in order that the promise by faith in Christ 
Jesus might be given to them who believe." The telic "va 
expresses the divine purpose of the previous statement. It 
cannot mean the mere result, or be taken loyice quo appareret 
dari, as Winer, Burton, Peile, Koppe, Sender. The promise, 
CTroyyeXta, is the abstract, tantamount in this clause to the 
blessing promised. It is connected with faith e /c, for the 
words are to be construed with eTrayyeXia, and qualify it. 
That faith belongs to, rests on, I. X. as its object. Gwynne s 
notion of its being a subjective genitive has a precarious founda 
tion. The article is not inserted befoi e I. X., as no denning 
limitation is intended. Winer, 20, 2. The antithesis looks 
back to e/c vo^nov in the 21st verse the promise springs out of 
faith, and is conditioned by it. It has no connection of origin 
or stipulation with the law. Originating in faith, and depen 
dent on faith, it is given rot? iricrTevovcnv they only being 
its recipients. It is harsh to connect e /c Tr/o-reco? with Bodfj, 
and the repetition of idea is not a mere emphatic tautology 
(Winer) ; but the apostle first says that the promise is one 
which from its nature is conditioned by faith, and then he adds, 
it is given to those in whom this condition is realized, or the de 
fining element of this promise and the requisite qualification for 
receiving it are ever one and the same faith. The Galatians 
accepted the last part of the statement, that the recipients of 
the inheritance were believers ; but they demurred to the first 
part, that the promise is of faith, for they practically held that 
it was to some extent connected with works of law, and was 
partially suspended on the performance of them. Therefore 
the earnest apostle first defines the promise as " of faith," and 
then limits the reception of it to those " who believe," that 
there might be no possible mistake as to his meaning. The 
shutting up of all under sin shows the impossibility of salvation 
by works, and brings out clearly the connection of salvation 



CHAP. III. 23. 279 

with the promise and faith. The next verses look back to the 
clause of ver. 19 in which the intermediate duration of the law 
is stated. 

Ver. 23. II pb TOV 8e e\6elv rrjv TTIGTW, VTTO vopov efypovpov- 
fj,eOa crtxy/ce/cXeicr/ieyot et? TTJV jJieXkovcrav Tricmv dTroKaXv^Or/vcu 
" But before the faith came, we were kept in ward, shut up 
under the law for the faith to be afterwards revealed." The 
perfect participle of the Received Text has C, D 3 , K, L in its 
favour, with several of the Greek fathers, and is adopted by 
Tischendorf ; while the 1 present a-wyK\i6[j,evoi, has A, B, D 1 , 
F, X. The last, accepted by Lachmann, is apparently the 
better supported by MSS., though it may be suspected of being 
a conformation to the verb typovpovfteOa. Ae leads on to 
another explanatory thought to an additional element of con 
trast, and it stands third in the clause on account of the pre 
positional phrase. Hartung, i. 190; Klotz-Devarius, ii. 378. 
The particle is postponed, uli quw prceposita particular verba 
sunt aut aptius inter se conjuncta sunt aut ita comparata, ut sum- 
mum pondus in ea sententia obtineant. Poppo, Thucyd. i. 302. 
The article specializes the faith as that just mentioned " the 
faith of Jesus Christ" not in an objective or theological sense, 
the body of truth claiming faith or the gospel, as many of the 
older commentators supposed, with Schott, Bisping, Gwynne, 
Brown, etc. It is subjective faith placed under an objective 
aspect (see under i. 23), or an inner principle personified. It 
is not " Christ" (Pelagius, Bullinger), nor " Christ and the 
preaching of the doctrine of faith" (Brenz). The faith with 
this special aspect and object did not come till Christ came, till 
the promised Deliverer or Christ appeared in human nature, 
and under the human name Jesus, ver. 22. Under the law, 
faitli in Him unincarnate did exist, and certainly such faith 
did justify; for the " non-justification of the Jew antecedent to 
the coming of Christ," asserted by Gwynne, is tantamount to 
his non-salvation, and contradicts many utterances and thanks 
givings of the Old Testament. The pre-Christian faith resting 
ideally on One to come, brought them acceptance and pardon, 
for men are saved not by the doctrine, but by the fact of an 
atonement ; though faith in Him as really existent, or as Jesus, 
came with Himself into the world. Faith came w r hen prophecy 
merged into history, and prior to the incarnation the Jews were 



280 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

under the pressure of law the reference in the verb and parti 
ciple being to them and their law. 

The verb e<j>povpov{j,e6a is not asservalamur the notion of 
aa-(f)d\eia is not in the context (Winer, Usteri, Schott), but 
custodiebamur, kept under guard oxnrep Iv ret^lcp TIVL (Chry- 
sostom). They were under guard, being or having been shut 
up literally, concluded^ to retain the translation of the previous 
verse ; the aw not referring to those who form the object of 
the verb, but expressing the fulness of its action shut round 
so that escape is impossible. The meaning is not that the 
pedagogic power of the law severa legis disciplma (Winer) 
restrained sin, for such a sense is not found in the context, 
which refers not to the moral restraint of the law, but the 
helplessness of the law to bring righteousness or justification. 
The connection of a-v<yKK\eicr/j,6vot is disputed. Some, as QEcu- 
menius, Theophylact, Augustine, Raphelius, Wolff, Bengel, 
and Hofmann, connect it directly with et?. If the reading of 
the perfect tense be admitted, this connection becomes impos 
sible, for it supposes the act to have been done when the law 
was given ; whereas standing by itself, or unconnected with et?, 
it denotes the completeness and permanence of the state. The 
meaning of the participle directly joined to et? has been thus given 
by Borger : eo necessitatis redigere ut ad /idem tanquam sacrum 
anchoram vonfugere cogatur, or conclusi adeoque reservati atque 
adacti ad fidem. The construction is justifiable, for there are 
several examples of it. See Fritzsche on Rom. xi. 32 ; Raphel. 
in loc. ; Schweighaiiser, Lex. PolyL. sub voce. Yet it does not 
fit in here so well, as " shut up to the faith" would imply the 
existence of "the faith" during the actor the period of the 
incarceration. But during the whole of that period it had not 
yet come, as the apostle expressly argues. The e/<> either of 
time or destination is more in harmony with the verb in the 
imperfect, etypovpovpeda " we were kept in ward until the 
faith came," or rather "for the faith about to be revealed." 
The law was an institute of intermediate and temporary guard 
and bondage, but it had a blessed purpose. El<? is not tem 
poral (Borger, Matthies, Brown), a sense it very seldom has, 
and one unneeded here after the distinct temporal assertion, 

1 Thus Hooker, " The very person of Christ was, only touching bodily 
substance, concluded in the grave." 



CHAP. III. 24. 281 

" before the faith came." The preposition has its ethical mean 
ing of aim or object (not in adventum ejus fidei, Augustine). 
Donaldson, 477 ; Jelf, 625, 3. The temporally qualifying 
epithet pe\\ovcrav seems taken out of the usual order that it 
may have the emphasis, and that the idea expressed by it may 
be put into the foreground, as in Rom. viii. 18, x. 4. The faith 
was future when the law was given, and from his assumed 
standpoint the apostle specializes it ; but it was revealed, when 
the apostle wrote revealed divinely disclosed the theme and 
the mode being alike of God. Matthias connects airoKaXv^- 
Qr\vai) not with fieXkovcrav^ but with crvyK6K\eicrfj,ei OL ) giving 
et? a temporal signification, as if the purpose were to show them 
openly as persons who, through the guardianship of that law, 
must remain under its curse till they were freed from it by 
faith. The Jews, during the continuance of that law, were in 
spiritual bondage and seclusion ; as obedience could not win 
righteousness for them, they were helpless ; and all this that 
they might pass into freedom when the Seed came, and faith 
in Him gave them emancipation and acceptance with God. 
From a law, the curse of which so terribly enslaved them, 
they were to pass into faith and deliverance. The very con- I 
trast should have rejoiced them, as it did the apostle himself, I 
for his own experience gave proof and power to his theo- j 
logy. And yet they were seeking back to that law, and 1 
ignoring that faith, which unmixed and by itself, had been the I 
instrument of righteousness to Abraham, and would be the J 
same to all his spiritual children. The law had its own work 
to do, but that work did not result in the gift of the Spirit, or 
in the perfection of those under it, iii. 2-5 ; its work was done 
in its own sphere which was one of curse and confinement, and 
done under an economy which was a parenthesis in the divine 
government, brought in and moulded with a view to the intro 
duction of a better and nobler dispensation, the characteristic 
principle of which is faith. The law was not, and was not 
meant to be, a final economy. 

Ver. 24. " flare 6 volets TraiSaywyos r^iwv y&yovev et9 Xpicr- 
rov " So that the law has become our tutor (paadagogue) for 
Christ." Wycliffe has " under-maister;" "schoolmaster" is 
in Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Genevan ; the Rheims has 
" pedagogue ; " and the interpolated words to bring us are taken 



282 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

from the Genevan, Tyndale rendering " unto the time of 
Christ." f/ /2crre marks the conclusion from the preceding 
statements, and especially from e^povpov^eda. We are the 
children of God; and the law prior to the coming of faith acted 
toward us as our pedagogue, with all his vigorous discipline 
and vigilant superintendence. The pedagogue was not the 
SiSdo-fcaXos or muSovo/Ao?, 1 non mayister et pater (Jerome). 
The term, as its composition implies, is one qui pnerum manu 
prehensum ducit . . . ad mayistrum. The poedagogue was usually 
a slave selected for his fidelity, to whom was entrusted the 
complete supervision of the children of a family from their 
sixth or seventh year till they arrived at puberty." Under his 
charge they went to and from school gymnasia; he accom 
panied them in their walks and recreations, as responsible for 
their personal safety ; and he guarded them against evil society 
and immoral influences. Horace, Sat. lib. i. vi. 81, 4. A 
pEedagogue is accused of the opposite, Athenceus, vii. 279, 
Opera, vol. iii. p. 1.6, ed. Schweighaiiser. He was therefore 
obliged to maintain the rigid discipline which was commonly 
associated with the name. Not only were pedagogues called 
assidui and custodes, but their functions came to be associated 
with moroseness and imperious severity. 3 Their countenance 
became proverbial for its sourness. It represents in the Jeru 
salem Targum the Hebrew ip^, "nursing father," of Num. 

xi. 12 ; and the Syriac renders it by | pZ ? " monitor." The 

t> 

apostle in 1 Cor. iv. 15 puts pedagogue in contrast with "father." 

1 The two are sharply distinguished : rov w/8y6iyo x.x\ rev OIOKG- 
zxhov, Plato, T)e Leyibus, vii. 14 ; and the corresponding verb is often 
used in this distinctive sense. Compare Xenophon, DC Lac. Rep. ii. 1 : 
Quintil. Inst. Or. i. 1. 8, 9 ; and on the character and qualifications of a 
proper psedagogue, Plutarch, De Liber is Educandis, vii., Opera, vol. i. 
p. 12. l;j, ed. Wittenbach. 

2 Thus, in Plato, Socrates says to the boy Lysis, " "Who then governs 
you ? My psedagogue, he said. Is it so that he is a slave ? How could 
he be otherwise ? our slave however. . . . And by doing what, then, does 
this psedagogue govern you ? Of course, said he, he conducts me to my 
masters, etc. Lysis, 208 E, vol. iv. p. 13G, ed. Stallbaum. 

3 Tristior et pxdayoyi vultus. Suetonius, Nero, xxxvii. 2f/3p/r>ij 
dy/ip vctidxyu f /o;, TOV vxtoo; o j /tys "hix, TV; o Soz/, lay^dt^i vsoirvftoyro; x,ce,t 
dvehofttitov, iirk 7r\y%iv avru Iff^vporctfce,. yElian, Hist. Var. xiv. 20. He is 
called Mayister in Terence, Andria, i. 1. 



CHAP. III. 25. 283 

In the later clays of Rome the young slave pedagogue was deli 
cately trained, his office in the palace degenerated into that of 
a mere ornamental attendant on his imperial master, and natu 
rally pedagogue was shortened into the modern page. The 
Rabbins took the word into their language, making it JiriQ, and 
associated with it the additional idea of a closer superintendence, 
as in food, 1 etc. 

Thus the surveillance of a pedagogue carried with it the 
idea of a strictness bordering on severity, and of an inferior 
but responsible position. The law was in the place of a peda 
gogue to the Jews hard, severe, unbending in its guardian 
ship of them when they were in their minority, it being im 
plied in the illustration, however, that all the while they were 
children. The pedagogic function of the law was not in the 
repression of sins (De Wette, Baur) ; it was given " for the 
sake of transgressions," to produce such convictions of guilt 
and helplessness as prepared for faith in Christ. Its types and 
ceremonial services conduced to the same result. The phrase 
et<? XpicTTov is very naturally understood as meaning " to 
Christ," the pedao;oo;ue bringing the child to the Teacher. 

7 I O O C 1 O 

So the Greek fathers, with Erasmus, Eisner, etc. But this 
idea does not suit the imagery, for Christ is here not regarded 
at all as a Teacher, but rather as a Redeemer, as the following 
clause distinctly implies, as well as the commencing imagery of 
the next chapter. Nor is the ei? temporal, usque ad (Morus, 
Rosenmtiller, Riickert, Bagge), but telic ; it expresses the 
spiritual design of the previous pedagogy : it was for Christ, 
as its ultimate purpose. Winer, 49, a. The statement is 
therefore a virtual reply to the objection, " Is the law against 
the promises of God?" No, it is a pedagogue with a view to 
Christ, and to Christ the Seed were the promises made. The 
next clause explains the et9 Xpia-rov, or shows in what sense 
we ought to regard it in order that we might be justified by 
or out of faith ; e/c Tr/cn-ow?, as in contrast to v6[ju><s, having 
the emphasis. See under ii. 16, iii. 6. See Suicer on 
Ver. 25. EXOova-rjs Be r^ 7rio-Tew9, ov/ceri VTTO 



1 Rex filio psedagoyum constituit et singulis diebus ad eum invisit, inter- 
rogans eum, Num. comedit flius metis ? Num. bibit Jllius meus ? Num. in 
scliolam abiit? Num ex schola rediit? Tanchuma, 35, 1, in Schoettgen s 
Horse, i. p. 741. 



284 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 



" But the faith being come, we are no longer under a 
pedagogue." The 8e is adversative introduces a contrasted 
statement. The preposition VTTO (" under," " under the power 
of," Kriiger, 68, 45, 2) is here followed, as always in the 
New Testament, by an accusative, as in Rom. iii. 9, 1 Cor. ix. 
20, Gal. iv. 2, 21 ; but in Attic Greek it is sometimes followed 
by a dative. The pedagogy was from its very nature tem 
porary ; it ceased when the faith came. The coming of faith 
being identical with the coming of the object of that faith 
the Seed or Christ for whom the pedagogy was instituted as 
its purpose marks at the same time the period when the 
children pass from the austere constraint and tutelage of the 
law into maturity and freedom. The noun, though repeated, 
has not the article after the preposition, the personality of the 
psedagogue being merged in his work u no longer under peda 
gogy" (Meyer). Winer, 19, 2, b. And the reason is annexed 
we are not children, but are now sons full-grown viol, not 



Ver. 26. Havre? <yap viol &eov e crre Sia Trjs Tricrrew? ev 
) Irjcrov " For ye all are sons of God through the 
faith in Christ Jesus." "You all," Jews and Gentiles also, 
spoken to in the second person, the previous clause being in the 
first person himself and the Jewish believers who were once 
under the law. 1 Thess. v. 5. Usteri and Hofmann wrongly 
on this account take the address in tyiet? to be, u you believing 
Gentiles," the former interpolating thus : though " we are no 
longer under a pedagogue, how much less you who were never 
under him !" The sons of God are sons in maturity, enjoying 
the freedom of sons, and beyond the need and care of a rigorous 
pedagogue. The viol has the stress upon it in tacit contrast 
to vrJTrtoi, reKvlov being John s favourite term, with a different 
ethical allusion. See under iv. 6, 7 ; Rom. viii. 14. Theodore 
of Mopsuest. connects the sonship with TeXaor???. It was by 
the instrumentality of faith that they were sons of God ; and 
that faith the faith already referred to was ev X. I. ; and 
there being no article after 7riWet9 to specialize it, the clause 
represents one idea. See under Eph. i. 15. 

Some would join the words ev X. I. to viol Qeov, as Usteri, 
Schott, Windischmann, Wieseler, Ewald, Jowett, Hofmann, 
Riccaltoun, and Lightfoot. But this construction is against 



CHAP. III. 27. 285 

the natural order of the words, and would be a repetition of 
Bia rrjs Triffrews as expressing mode. JZYa-rt? stands alone in 
the two previous verses, as in direct contrast to VO/AOS, and now 
its fulness of power is indicated by the adjunct "in Christ 
Jesus." The construction with ev is warranted, though Ric- 
caltoun denies it. Eph. i. 15 ; Col. i. 4 ; 1 Tim. iii. 13 ; 2 Tim. 
iii. 15 ; Sept. Ps. Ixxviii. 22 ; Jer. xii. 6. See p. 168. " Sons of 
God" not "ye will be" (Grotius), but "ye are sons." Sons as 
His creatures, for Adam was "the son of God;" and the prodigal 
son did not cease to be a son, though he was a lost and wan 
dered one, nay, the father recognised the unbroken link. " We 
are also His offspring," said the apostle on Mars Hill, sustaining 
a filial relation to Him, and still bearing His image, though 
many of its brightest features have been effaced. But now we 
are "sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus" by that faith 
forgiven, accepted, regenerated, adopted born of God, and 
reflecting the paternal likeness loved, blessed, and disciplined 
by Him trained to do His will and to submit to it enjoying 
the free spirit which cries " Abba, Father," and prepared in all 
ways for His house of many mansions. 

Ver. 27. "Oaoi <yap et9 Xpiarov eySaTTT/o-^re, XpiuTov ev- 
e&vaacrOe "For as many of you (ye whosoever) as were baptized 
into Christ, ye put on Christ." This verse confirms, and at 
the same time explains, the statement of the previous verse. 

Those who, like Prof. Lightfoot, separate ev X. I. from 
7ncrTe&>9 connect thus : " In Christ Jesus, I say, for all ye who 
were baptized into Christ put on Christ." Those, on the other 
hand, who keep the words in their natural connection, give this 
as the argument: "Ye are sons of God ; for in being baptized, 
ye put on Christ who is the Son of God." Si autem Christum 
induistis, Christus autem filius Dei, et vos eodem indumenta filii 
Dei estis. But the statement is not so minute as to show rbv rr}? 
ryevvija-eax; rpoTrov (Theodoret). Chrysostom says that already 
they had been proved to be sons of Abraham, but now sons of 
God. The phrase ei <? X. is "into Christ," into union and 
communion with Him, and differs from baptism either ev TCO 
ov6fj,ari,, or even et9 TO ovop^a. When a purpose is specified, as 
perdvoia, Matt. iii. 11, or a^>ecrt9 TWV dfiapriuv, Acts ii. 38, 
ei9 means " with a view to ;" but when followed as here by a 
person, it has the same meaning as in the phrase, " believed into 



286 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Christ." See under ii. 16. This is the true baptism, Acts viii. 16. 
But the thing signified does not always or necessarily accom 
pany the sign. Estius remarks, Ex quo liqvet non omnes omnino 
baptizatos Christum induisse ; and Peter Lombard, Alii per bap- 
tismum inducunt Christum tantum sacramento tenus. See Jerome 
and Calvin in loc. 1 Both verbs are aoristic, and the two acts 
are marked as identical in point of time. The figure of "put 
ting on, being clothed with," is a common one in relation to 
" power," Luke xxiv. 49 ; " armour of light," Rom. xiii. 12 ; 
"the Lord Jesus Christ" as a command, Rom. xiii. 14; "in- 
corruption, immortality," 1 Cor. xv. 53,54; an "house from 
heaven," 2 Cor. v. 3 ; the " new man," Eph. iv. 24, etc. The 
figure is also common in the Sept. : " the Spirit," 1 Chron. xii. 
18 ; " salvation," 2 Chron. vi. 41 ; " the Spirit of the Lord," 
2 Chron. xxiv. 20 ; " shame," Job viii. 22 ; " righteousness," 
Job xxix. 14, Ps. cxxxi. 9 ; " fear" (thunder), Job xxxix. 19 ; 
"shame and dishonour," Ps. xxxiv. (xxxv.) 26; "majesty," 
" strength," Ps. xcii. (xciii.) 1 ; " honour and majesty," Ps. 
ciii. (civ.) 1; "cursing," Ps. cviii. (cix.) 17; "salvation," Ps. 
cxxxi. (cxxxii.) 17 ; "glory," or beautiful garments, Isa. lii. 2 ; 
" garments of salvation," Isa. Ixi. 10, etc. : and often, too, in 
the Apocrypha 1 Mace. i. 29 ; Wisd. v. 19 ; Sir. xlv. 10. 
Distinct examples are found in the classics : ov/ceri /uLerpid- 
^ovres, d\\a rov TapKvviov evBvo/mevoij Dionys. Halicar. xi. 5, 
Operctj vol. i. p. 657, ed. Hudson ; eveBv rov GO^L^TI IV, Libanius, 
Ep. 956 ; nisi proditorem palam et hostem induisset, Tac. Annal. 
xvi. 28. See Wetstein on Rom. xiii. 14, and for some rab- 
binnical examples, Schoettgen on the same place. The classical 
passages clearly show, that when one man is said to put on 
another, the full assumption of his nature or character is meant 
the personation of him in thought and act. There is there 
fore no need to resort to any such image as the toga virilis (Ben- 
gel), or the stoling of the high priest at his consecration (Jatho ; 
Deyling, Observ. iii. 406), or to baptismal robes, which were -not 
then in existence (Beza). Bingham, Antiq. xi. 11, 1. 

What is it, then, to put on Christ ? If to put on a tyrant, as 
in one of these examples, be to change natures with him, to put 
on Christ is to exchange our natural character for His is to be 
come Christ-like in soul and temperament is to be in the world 
1 See Mozley s Primitive Doctrine of Regeneration^ London 1855. 



CHAP. III. 28. 287 

as He was in the world, the " same mind being in us which was 
also in Him," every one in all things a representative of Him, 
His "life" thus "made manifest in our mortal flesh:" ev 
avru) SeiKvvs rov Xpiarov (Chrys.). Wieseler, overlooking the 
striking peculiarity of the language, identifies the phrase with 
the putting on of " the new man," Eph. iv. 24, Christ being 
only a concrete ideal term. But while the result is the same, 
the modes of conception are different ; and in this place the 
second clause is moulded from the first, and expresses vividly 
the connection of Christ with spiritual renovation as its source 
and image. Chrysostom says, " He who is clothed appears to 
be that with which he is clothed" etcelvo ^aiverat oirep evSe- 
Svrai. On Rom. xiii. 14, Opera, vol. ix. p. 767, ed. Gaume. 
It is also to be borne in mind, that while it is here said that 
those who were baptized into Christ put on Christ, the apostle 
elsewhere exhorts those who had been baptized still to put on 
Christ, Horn. xiii. 4. Believers baptized professedly put on 
Christ, but the elements of the Christ-like are to be ever 
developing within them the new life is ever to be ripening to 
maturity. 

Ver. 28. OVK evi louSato?, ov&e ".EXX/tyy OVK evi &ov\o<?, ovSe 
e\ev0epos OVK evi apaev KOI 6rf\v " There is among such 
neither Jew nor Greek, there is among such neither bond nor 
free, there is not among such a male and a female." The evi 
is supposed by Buttmann, Kiihner, Winer, and Robinson to be 
another form of the preposition ev with a stronger accent, after 
the analogy of eiri and Ttdpa, " the notion of the verb being so 
subordinated that it is dropped" (Kiihner, 379, 2). But what 
then is to be said of clauses in which evi and ev are used together, 
as 1 Cor. vi. 5; Xen. Anal. v. 3, 11 ; Plato, Phcedo, 77 E? 
Others take it as a contracted form of eveo-n. The sense is not 
different, whatever view be adopted. In the New Testament it 
is usually preceded by ou, as 1 Cor. vi. 5, Col. hi. 11, Jas. 
i. 17. OVK evi is a strong negative " there is not among you," 
almost equivalent in strength to " there cannot be among you." 
De Wette denies the reference "in you," and understands it, 
" there is not in this putting on of Christ ;" others give it " in 
Christ" (Koppe, Webster and Wilkinson), or in that state 
(Hofmann). But this narrows the reference, and does not 
harmonize with the last personal clause. In the spiritual family 



288 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

of God, the distinctions of race, social position, and even of 
sex, are lost sight of. National, social, and sexual distinctions 
cease to exercise their special influence. The Jew is not to the 
exclusion of the Greek, nor the Greek to the exclusion of the 
Jew ovSe ; the bond is not accepted to the refusal of the free, 
nor the free to the refusal of the bond. Not that in themselves 
such distinctions cease to exist, but they interfere not with spi 
ritual oneness and privilege. They are so noted in the world 
as to divide society : Jew and Greek are in reciprocal alien 
ation ; bond and free are separated by a great gulf ; to the male 
much was accorded in prerogative which is denied to the female, 
such as the ordinance on which the Judaists insisted ; but these 
minor characteristics are now merged in a higher unity among 
the children of God. Such differences were specially promi 
nent and exclusive in ancient times. 1 Cor. xi. 7-9. 

The generalized neuters apaev KOI 0>]\v are not connected, 
as the previous two pairs, by ov8e, but by /cat (Gen. i. 27 ; 
Mark x. 6), for the distinction is not of race or rank, but of 
physical and unchangeable organization. Duality is denied : 
there is no longer a male and a female no longer the two, but 
only one. The distinction in its ethical consequences ceases 
to exist : as a member of the spiritual family, the woman is 
equal to the man ; there is not a man and a woman, but simple 
humanity. Having put on Christ, the woman is a child of 
God, equal to the man in all filial honour and enjoyment. See 
under Col. iii. 11. Some minor points of difference yet remain, 
as the apostle insists in 1 Tim. ii. 12, v. 9, etc., but they inter 
fere not with the general statement. The reason is subjoined 

Havre? jap tyzet? el? ecrre ev Xpicrra) Irfcrov " for all ye 
are one (person) in Christ Jesus." The TroWe? of the Received 
Text is well supported, but ajravres is found in A, B", N. The 
masculine is now employed, not the neuter e y, as it implies 
conscious oneness. Theodoret says, TO el? avrl rov ev crw/za. 
The unity is organic, not unconscious or fortuitous juxtaposi 
tion, but like the union of all the branches with the root, and 
through the root with one another. There may be many dis 
parities in gifts and graces, but there is indissoluble oneness in 
Christ Jesus, its only sphere, or through union to Him, its 
only medium. See under Eph. ii. 15. 

Ver. 29. El Be ty^ei? Xpiarov, cipa TOV A/3paa/u, 



CHAP. III. 29. 289 

eVre, tear 7rayye\,lav K\r)pov6[ioi " But if ye are Christ s, 
then are ye Abraham s seed, heirs according to promise." 
XpiaTov is the preferable reading in the first clause ; the other 
words, et? eVre eV X. I. in D 1 , T, are a comment; and the KCLI of 
the last clause of the Text. Recept. is omitted on the authority 
of A, B, C, D, N, 17, Vulgate, etc. The moment rests on 
ty^efc you the objects of my present appeal. If ye be Christ s, 
then (the ovv after apa being without good authority) Abraham s 
seed are ye the stress being on rov Aftpadfj, the indubitable 
conclusion, for Christ is Abraham s Seed, and you belonging to 
Him one in Him must be Abraham s seed also. " And if 
children, then heirs," the emphasis is more on /car e 
(Ew ald, Wieseler, Hof mann) than on the concluding word 
povofjioi, (Meyer) absolute, or without any annexed genitive 
as TOV Afipad/ji,, for they are heirs not of Abraham, but co 
heirs of the same inheritance with him. Kar eTrayjeXlav is 
" agreeably to promise," the very point which the apostle has 
been labouring to substantiate, as against the claims made for 
the law by the disturbers of the churches, the reference 
being to ver. 16. "Heirs according to promise;" for "to 
Abraham and his seed were the promises made," and that 
promise, containing the inheritance, the law did not and could 
not set aside all in illustration and proof of the starting 
premiss in ver. 7, " They which be of faith, the same are the 
children of Abraham;" and of the earlier declaration, that 
justification comes not from works of law, but through faith 
in the divine promise, as Abraham was justified by faith. But 
the Galatian legalists ignored these reasonings, and fell into 
the error of expecting justification from works ; an error 
which, as the apostle has argued, involved the awful conse 
quence of making Christ s death superfluous, counterworked 
the example of Abraham the father of the faithful, and ignored 
the promise of inheritance made by God immediately to him 
a promise still given to all those who believe, as the seed of 
Abraham. In a word, he has fully vindicated the sharp words 
with which the chapter opens, " O foolish Galatians, who has 
bewitched you?" What folly was involved in their sudden 
and unaccountable apostasy ! See a paper by Riggenbach on 
"Righteousness by faith" Rechtfertigung durch den Glauben 
in the Stud. u. Krltik. 1868. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE apostle had said in the end of the last chapter that 
those who are Christ s are Abraham s seed, heirs ac 
cording to promise. The idea suggested by a K\r)povop,os who 
is so not through right, but by promise, dwells in his mind, 
and he now illustrates some of its peculiarities. These he 
notices, and then works round again to the conclusion el Be 
vibs Kal K\rjpov6/jio<; " but if a son, an heir also," through God. 
The illustration is parallel in some points to that of the previous 
section. 

Ver. 1. Ai^/w Se, e< ocrov %povov 6 KXrjpoi OfAos VYJTTIOS eanv, 
ov&ev Bicupepei BovXov, tcvpios nravrwv wv " Now I say, That 
the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a ser 
vant (bond-servant), though he be lord of all." This formula 
introduces a continued explanatory statement : ver. 16; Rom. 
xv. 8. Otherwise the apostle writes as atiii. 17, TOVTO Be \ejw; 
or as in 1 Cor. i. 12, Xeyto Be TOVTO ; or in 1 Cor. vii. 29, TOVTO 
&e (frrjfjbi. These cases are analogous, but somewhat different in 
emphasis. The train of thought which he has been pursuing 
suggests the following illustration. "Now I say," carrying 
out yet another point of illustration, and by a different figure. 
The sense is not, " my meaning is this ;" but a new phase of 
argument, connected closely, however, with what goes before, is 
introduced. For the phrase e < oaov %povov, see Rom. vii. 1, 
1 Cor. vii. 39 ; and this period is parallel to that of the pseda- 
gogy. The apostle states the simple proposition, and does not 
use the accusative with the infinitive as in Rom. xv. 8, or on 
as in 1 Cor. i. 12. NIJTTIOS is an infant or minor, and this 
term or av^/So? stands opposed to e^/So? (?rai? uvtfp), one 
who had attained to his majority. In Athens e ^/Se/a began 
at the age of eighteen, and two years elapsed before complete 
emancipation. In Rome infancy ended at the seventh year, 

290 



CHAP. IV. 2. 291 

puberty began at the fourteenth, but tutelage lasted till the 
twenty-fifth. In Scottish law pupillarity extends to fourteen 
in males, and minority to twenty-one. Among the Hebrews 
the period of nonage was thirteen years and a day for males, 
and twelve years and a day for females. Selden, de Snccessi- 
onibus, ix., Works, vol. ii. p. 25. It disturbs and enfeebles the 
analogy to attach to v^irios any ethical meaning, as if " it im 
plied imperfection of understanding as well as of age " (Bagge 
after Chrysostom). Doubtless it is because the heir is a child 
that tutors are appointed over him, and youth implies inability; 
but the apostle refers simply to the fact of childhood in its 
legal aspect not to infancy in any physical sense, as might be 
suggested by the composition of the word. We must not put 
more into the figure than is warranted by the apostle s own 
deductions from it. The phrase 6 tcX-qpovo/uLos is like o /iecr/TT?? 
in iii. 20 " the heir," any or every heir as the case may be. 
Winer, 18, 1 ; Dionys. Halic. iv. 9, p. 13, vol. ii. ed. Kiessling. 
" The heir" is not the possessor, but only the expectant possessor. 
The inheritance is in reserve for him, Matt. xxi. 38 ; but he 
differs nothing from a servant. The genitive SouXou is used as 
in Matt. vi. 26. See on ii. 6. The heir is nothing different 
from a bond-servant the idea being that he has no real posses 
sion, no power of independent action even though he be lord 
of all : Kvpios TrdvTMv a>v " being all the while, or though he 
be lord of all." This concessive use of the participle is com 
mon. Jelf, 697, d; Donaldson, 621. The Kvpiort]^ is his 
de jure, not de facto the Travra being his by right even now 
from his birth and position. It is not in eventum, as Meyer 
gives it, but now, at the present moment, he is lord of all, 
though not the actual possessor ; yet, though lord of all, he is 
in dependence and discipline nothing different from a servant 
who has no right in the inheritance at all. 

Ver. 2. A\\a VTTO eVtrpoTrou? ecrrl Kal oi/covofMOVs, a%pi, 
TT}? "TrpoOecrpias rov iraTpos " But is under guardians and 
stewards, until the term appointed of the father." The Vulgate 
has sub tutoribus et actoribus; Augustine, procuratores et adores; 
Wycliffe, " kepers and tutores," adores = to " doers " in old 
Scottish statute. The eVtrpoTro? literally is one on whom 
charge is devolved, or he might be the guardian of orphan 
children optyavwv eTrlrpoTros, Plato, Leg. p. 766, C ; Plutarch, 



292 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Lycurgus, 3, p. 66, Vitce, vol. i. ed. Bekker. He is not to be 
identified with the TracSaycojo^ (Eisner), but the heir is under 
his charge he has the control of his person. On the other 
hand, the olicovofju)? is entrusted with his property, as indeed 
the name implies who provides for him and manages his 
possessions. Luke xvi. 1 ; Gen. xv. 2 ; Xen. Mem. ii. 10, 4. 
The word has been disguised into a rabbinical one. Schoettgen, 
in loc. et in Luke viii. 3 ; Selden as above. In ordinary New 
Testament use it means overseer, as in Matt. xx. 8, Luke 
viii. 3 ; Herod, i. 108 ; Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 6, 6. But it is 
here employed in a more restricted meaning as a guardian or 
legal representative, called in Attic process Kvpios. Xen. Mem. 
i. 2, 40 ; Ael. Var. Hist. iii. 26. Compare what is said of 
Moses in Heb. iii. 5. Neither the person nor property of the 
heir are therefore at his own disposal during his minority the 
first is under guardians, and the second under stewards. 1 But 
the period of subjection is limited, yea, defined 

*A%pi T?}? 7rpo0ea-fj,ia<? rov Trarpos " until the term ap 
pointed of the father." The term Trpodea/^la, meaning " ap 
pointed before" Trpo prearranged, occurs only here in the 
New Testament. It is used substantively, though r]^epa<^ may 
be supplied. The word is a legal term found often in classical 
writers, as meaning the time defined for bringing actions or 
prosecutions (" Statute of limitations"), and it also denotes the 
period allowed to a defendant for paying damages. Some 
times it signifies any time pre-fixed Trjs irpodea^ia^ eviara- 
//.eV/79, Joseph. Antiq. xii. 4, 7 ; but here it denotes the period 
fixed when the tutorship comes to an end. See Wetstein, 
in loc. 

The general meaning of the apostle is quite plain ; but 
some points in the analogy, though they are not essential to 
the argument, are involved in difficulty. The apostle is not 
to be supposed to treat the subject with forensic accuracy in 
minutias, but only to bring out the general conception, so that 
his meaning could be easily apprehended. One question is, 
" Is the father of the heir described supposed to be dead or 

1 In Scottish law the tutor is vested with the management both of the 
person and the estate of his pupil, while a curator s sole concern is with 
the estate ; and this has given rise to the maxim, Tutor datur persons:, 
curator rei. Lord Mackenzie, Roman Law, p. 143. 



CHAP. IV. 2. 293 

alive?" Commentators are divided. That the father is sup 
posed to be dead is the opinion of Theodoret, Riickert, De 
Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Hilgenfeld, Windischmann, and 
Hofmann. The other opinion, that the father is supposed to 
be alive, is held by Cameron, Neubour, Wolf, Winer, Schott, 
Wieseler, Matthies, and Meyer. The question is of little im 
portance in itself, and the settlement of it is not essential to 
the illustration. It may be argued, on the one hand, that the 
father is supposed to be dead, because the word eVir POTTO? so 
often refers to a guardian of orphans, and the present parti 
ciple a>v describes a claim or right scarce compatible with the 
idea of the father s being alive. There is little force in the 
opposite argument, urged by Dr. Brown and others, that the 
supposition of a dead father would not be in harmony with the 
antitype, the living God of Israel ; for the supposed death of 
the father would only symbolize some change of relation on 
the part of His children to God. On the other hand, it is in 
favour of the supposition that the father is alive, that the ter 
mination of the minority is said to be fore-appointed by him, 
whereas were he deceased the interval of minority would be 
regulated by statute. It may, however, be replied, that the 
father might fix the period which the law itself had ordained, 
or that there might be exceptional cases of power granted to a 
father, 1 or that in Galatia the will of the father was more 
prominent in such arrangements than in other provinces. 2 To 
decide either way dogmatically is impossible, though the second 
view has some probability. The ingenuity of Grotius in saying 
that the father is supposed to be absent, is parallel to that of 
Jatho in saying that the child-heir is an adopted child. The 
apostle simply states a common case states it as it must have 

1 Thus Justinian, ad certum tempus vel ex certo tempore vel sub condi- 
cione vel ante heredis institutionem posse dare tutorem non dubitatur : Institut. 
i. 14, 3 ; Gaius, et idea si cui testamento tutor sub condicione aut ex die 
certo datus sit, quamdiu condicio aut dies pendet tutor dari potest : Institut. 
i. 186 ; and Ulpian also, tutorem autem et a certo tempore dare, et usque 
ad certum tempus licet : Digest, xxvi. 2, 8. 

2 Gaius is sometimes quoted to prove this assertion, but he only affirms 
that the patria potestas a power supposed to be characteristically and 
exclusively Roman prevailed in Galatia : nee me prxterit Galatarum 
fjentem credere in potentatem parentum liberos esw. Institut. i. 55, p. 19, ed. 
Booking, 1855. See also Caesar, De Bello Gall vi. 19. 



294 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

often occurred, and as it was best suited to illustrate his argu 
ment, in which the sovereign will of the father has a prominent 
place. He does not say and it was not essential to his illus 
tration to say why the heir was thus placed tinder tutors and 
stewards. He merely records the common custom, that the heir 
for a definite period limited by the father s will, was usually so 
placed, and the occurrence was no rare or abnormal arrange 
ment. Nor, in speaking of the spiritual truth so pictured out 
under a form of domestic administration, need we be curious or 
careful to distinguish the respective spheres of the tutors and 
trustees, as if the first referred to the Jews and the second to 
the Gentiles (Baumgarten-Crusius), or to inquire who they 
were, as if the eVirpoTro? were the law and the OLKOVO/J.OS the 
Aaronic priesthood (Windischmann). It is needless to track 
out points of analogy so minutely, for the apostle himself gives 
his meaning in the following verse 

Ver. 3. Ovro) real ridels, ore r^ev V^TTLOL " Even so we also, 
when we were children" not individually or in our own pre 
vious personal lives, but the reference is to the church in its 
past immature state. Kai is used in the comparison the heir 
was for a time i/^vrio?, and we too are v^irioi in pointed parallel. 
Klotz-Devarius, vol. ii. G35 ; Winer, 53, 5. 

Who are meant by r/yitefc has been disputed. The previous 
illustration as to spiritual relationship to Abraham and the 
spheres of law and faith leads naturally to the conclusion that 
the ?7/u.e49 are Jewish Christians, especially as the Son of God 
is declared in the next verse to have been born under law 
that is, Jewish law to redeem them who were under it. Such 
is the view of Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Grotius, 
Estius, Usteri, Schott, De Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, and 
W^ieseler. Others suppose that, while the special reference is 
to Jewish Christians, Gentiles are not excluded as Koppe, 
Kiickert, Matthies, Olshausen, and Ellicott. But it is difficult 
to see on what principle the subordinate reference to the Gen 
tiles at this point is proved. The language is not in its favour, 
the spirit of the context does not imply it, and the direct ad 
dress to Gentiles is postponed till ver. 8. The Jewish believers 
were children while the law was over them, and the Son of 
God was born under that law to redeem them who were under 
it. A third party take ^et? in a general sense we Christians: 



CHAP. IV. 3. 295 

so Winer, Borger, Trana, Meyer, Bagge, Evvald, and Webster 
and Wilkinson. The heir while a minor is under tutors and 
stewards, and differs nothing from a servant ; and we too, as 
long as we were in nonage, were in a similar condition 

Tiro ra aroi-^ela TOV KOO-^OV r)/j,ev Se8ovXa)fj,evoi " were 
under the rudiments of the world kept in bondage." For the 
" elements" of the Authorized Version, Tyndale and Cranmer 
have " ordinaunces," and the Genevan " rudiments." The heir 
was in all respects as a Sov\o<; ; so we have been and are SeSoy- 
\cofj,evoL perfect participle. Winer, 45, 1. He is under 
tutors and guardians ; ovT&>9, so we were rj^ev under VTTO ra 
(TTOi-^eia TOV Koafjuov. The verb and participle may thus be 
taken separately ecrriv rjp,ev ; SouAo? SeoovXcoftevoi. The 
term aroi^ela, elementa, is used in reference to physical ele 
ments in 2 Pet. iii. 10-12, Wisdom vii. 17 ; especially the 
heavenly bodies ovpdvia a-roi^ela (Justin, Apolog. ii. 5, p. 
294, Op. vol. i. ed. Otto ; and the term by itself has probably 
the same meaning, as it is said they " never rest or keep Sab 
bath " in Dial. c. Tryph. p. 78, vol. ii. do.). They are defined 
as "sun, moon, stars, earth, sea, and all in them" in Clement. 
Horn. x. 9, p. 218, ed. Dressel. The common numeration, 
rea-crapa cn-oi^eta, occurs in Hennas, Vis. iii. 13, p. 29, Nov. 
Test, extra Canonem receptum, ed. Hilgenfeld, 1866 ; Plato, 
Timceus, p. 48, B ; Theophilus, ad Autol. i. 4, p. 14, ed. Otto. 
In this sense the word was regarded by many of the fathers 
(Chrysostom, Theodore Mops., and Pelagius) as referring to 
new moons, Sabbaths, and festivals ruled by the seasons, etc. ; 
Augustine taking it to describe the Gentile worship of the 
physical elements a thought excluded by the ^yu-ei? ; Hilgen 
feld, Schneckenburger, and Caspari, regarding the phrase as 
denoting the adoration of the stars as living powers a form of 
nature-worship with which the Mosaic cultus cannot certainly 
be identified. But the term aroL^ela means also in the New 
Testament rudiments or elementary teaching primas legis 
literas (Tertullian) as in Heb. v. 12, where it is opposed to 
T\ioTr]s ; in Col. ii. 8 it has much the same meaning as in 
this place, for there it is opposed to " traditions of men," and 
in ii. 20, where it is viewed as connected with " ordinances." 
The noun also denotes letters, alphabetical symbols, what is 
suited to the tuition of infancy. The genitive TOV /cooytou, 



296 EPISTLE TO THE GAL ATI AN S. 

subjective in meaning, may not have a gross materialistic 
sense (Hofmann), nor that of humanity (Wieseler), but a sense 
similar to that of its adjective in the phrase aytov KOCT/JLIKOV 
"a worldly sanctuary," Heb. ix. 1. The words may thus mean 
" elementary lessons of outward things" (Conybeare). The 
Jewish economy was of the world as it was sensuous, made up 
of types appealing to the senses, and giving only but the first 
principles of a spiritual system. See under Col. ii. 8, 17. 
Cremer, sub voce. Bondage and pupillarity appear to be com 
bined in the illustration the a-roL^ela are fitted to the VTJTTIOI, 
and necessary to them. The child-heir, when he was a child, 
was taught only faint outlines of spiritual truth suited to his 
capacity, and taught them to some extent by worldly symbols 
the fire, the altar, and the shedding of blood, StKaica/jLara aap- 
/co9, Heb. ix. 10 a state of dependence and subjection com 
pared with the freedom and the fulness of enlightenment and 
privilege under the gospel, or after the fulness of the time. 
While the "we" seems to refer so distinctly to Jewish be 
lievers as under the law, it may be said, that as in the pre 
vious paragraphs the Mosaic law in its want of power to justify 
represents on this point all law, so this state of bondage under 
the elements of the world represented also the condition of the 
Gentile races as somewhat similar in servitude and discipline. 

Ver. 4. f Ore Se rj\6ev TO ir\.r)pu>p,a rou %povov " But when 
the fulness of the time was come ;" 8e introducing the opposite 
condition. For Tr^pco/^a, see under Eph. i. 23. It is the time 
regarded as having filled up the allotted space, or itself filled 
up with the inflow of all the periods contained in the Trpodecr- 
jj,la of the father. The one clause is parallel to the other. 
The &ov\eia of the heir lasts till the Trpodecr^ia of the father 
arrives ; our spiritual bondage expires with the advent of the 
fulness of the time God s set time. The nonage of the church 
was the duration of the Mosaic covenant. But not till the last 
moment of its existence, when its time was filled like a reser 
voir with the last drop, was it set aside, and the ripe or full 
age of the church commenced TreTrXripwrai, 6 Kaipos, Mark 
i. 15. The fulness of the time was also the fittest time in thq 
world s history. See under Eph. i. 10. 

Ea7recrTei\.ev 6 6>eo9 rov vlov avrou " God sent forth His 
Son," that is, from Himself. Many passages of Scripture 



CHAP. IV. 4. 297 

assert this truth of the mission of Christ from the Father. 
The verb is a double compound. He sent forth " His Son," so 
named here with a reference to the subsequent viol : through 
His Son they pass from servants into sons. Christ came not 
without a commission : the Father sent Him ; and He under 
took the mission, came in love, did His Father s will, " became 
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." He was w r ith 
the Father as His Son prior to His mission His pre-existence 
at least is clearly implied, but not impersonal, as Baur (Paulus, 
p. 628), or only ideal, according to the representation of Philo 
(Leg. Allegor. p. 139, Opera, vol. i. ed. Pfeiffer). 

Tevopevov etc lyvvamos " born of a woman." The reading 
yevvao/jievov, defended by Kinck, has only a very slender sup 
port, and is found in no uncial MS. (Reiche). The preposition 
e/c indicates origin : Matt. i. 18 ; John iii. 6 ; Winer, 47. 
No specialty is expressed in etc yvvaiKos, for the reference is 
not to the virgin birth of our Lord. The meaning is not de 
virgine sponsa (Schott). Nor are Theophylact and CEcumenius 
justified in regarding the phrase as formally directed against 
Docetism e/c TT}? ovcrias avrfjs crcoytio, \d/3ovra. 

The clause, while it contains the profound mystery of the 
miraculous conception, does not give it prominence. It says 
nothing of the supernatural, save the fact of the divine mission 
and the incarnation, for it had no immediate connection with 
the apostle s argument. It is the phrase employed to describe 
human birth in Hebrew: Job xiv. l,Matt. xi. 11; as Augustine 
says, Mulieris nomine non virgineum decus negatur, sed femineus 
sexus ostenditur. But there is an implied exclusion of human 
fatherhood, though not a formal expression of it as Calvin 
maintains ; but he adopted the reading factum ex muliere of the 
Vulgate, factum being by many of the Latin fathers, as Ter- 
tullian (De Came Christi xv.), regarded as in contrast with 
natum, and ex with per. So Estius, Calovius, Perkins. But 
the phrase " born of a woman " (eV, not Sid), though not in 
tended for the purpose, furnished a fair argument against 
Docetism, the e/c implying rrjv tcowcwlav TT}? <uo-e&>9, as Basil 
says, De Spiritu Sancto v. 12, p. 13, Opera, torn, iii., Gaume, 
Paris. While the previous clause assumes His pre-existence, 
this asserts His genuine humanity. But Hegel s philosophy 
ventures a transcendental commentary : God sent His Son 



298 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Das heisst nicht Anderes als, das Selbst-bewusstseyn hatte sick zu 
denjenigen Momenten erhoben, welche zum Becjriff des Geistes 
gehoren, und zum Bedurfniss, diese Momente auf eine absolute 
Weise zu fassen. See Mansel s Hampton Lectures, v. Schelling 
philosophizes away the fulness of the time thus : Die Mensclien- 
werdung Gottes ist also eine Menschemuerdung von Ewigkeit ; 
apparently identifying the incarnation with what divines call 
the eternal generation. 

Tevofj.vov VTTO vop^ov "born under the law." 1 Mace. x. 
38. The phrase is more common with the simple verb of 
existence ch. iii. 25, iv. 21, v. 18. In classic usage a dative 
is often employed. Kost u. Palm, sub voce. It would be 
forced to change the meaning of this second yevopevov, and 
render it with Scholefield, " made subject to the law ; " or 
with Luther, unter das Gesetz gethan. So also Calvin, Winer, 
Usteri, Wieseler. For to change the meaning would lose the 
emphasis involved in the repetition. Christ was not only born 
a man, but He was born a Jew one of the seed of Abraham. 
He was a member of the Hebrew commonwealth by birth, and 
by the fact of that birth was under the law ; so that He was 
circumcised, presented in the temple by Mary, and baptized by 
John ; and He worshipped in the synagogue, kept the Sabbath, 
regarded ceremonial distinctions, observed the great feasts, and 
paid the tax of the half-shekel. The apostle does not mean that 
after becoming man He did, by a distinct and additional volun 
tary act, place Himself under the law, but that by His very 
birth He became subject to the law whose claims upon Him 
He willingly allowed. 

According to promise and prophecy, salvation was to be of 
the Jews. The woman s Seed was to be specially the Seed of 
Abraham, through the line of Isaac and Jacob, of the tribe of 
Judah, and the family of David. He was a " minister of the 
circumcision," being sent only " to the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel." And the purpose is then described 

Ver. 5. "Iva TOU<? VTTO vopov e^ayopdcrr) " In order that He 
might redeem those under the law." See under iii. 13. Those 
under the law are certainly the Jews ; and Pie was born of a 
woman, born under the law, in order that He might redeem 
them. As their representative in blood, and in position under 
the law, He obeyed its precepts and He bore its penalty, so 



CHAP. IV. 5. 299 

that they were freed from its curse and from its yoke, and 
became disciples of a more spiritual system, which taught truth 
in its realities and not in obscure symbols, whose sacrifice was 
not " the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer," 
but " the precious blood of Christ ;" which gave them the privi 
lege of kneeling, not toward a mercy-seat of gold, but before 
the " throne of grace," and whose High Priest had gone into a 
holiest place beyond the skies. We enter not into the question 
of the active and passive obedience so often discussed under 
reference to this verse, but only say that obedience and suffer 
ing were ever combined, so that in obeying He suffered, while 
His suffering was His last and highest act of obedience : " He 
became obedient unto death." 

They were no longer under bondage to a law which Christ 
had obeyed alike in its requirements and penalty. To the 
bondage of the law, as we may learn from the second verse, the 
apostle has special allusion. God s own children living under 
that law differed little from slaves. Spiritual freedom was denied 
them. Minute prescriptions were given for diet, dress, travel, 
labour, for home and for field, for farm and orchard, for pri 
vate piety and public worship, for ceremonial purity and ethical 
relations, for birth and marriage, for each day and for the 
Sabbath-day, for trade and for war, for child and for parent, for 
tax and for tithe. The entire and multifarious code lay a heavy 
burden upon them, nothing was left as a matter of choice to 
them, almost in nothing were they masters of themselves ; so 
that the national life must have been to a great extent mecha 
nical a routine of obedience into which they were so solemnly 
drilled the service of SovXoi. Law cannot save ; it has no 
means of deliverance within itself. Nor could they throw the 
burden off. They durst not dismiss the tutors and guardians, 
nor proclaim of their own power that their minority had ceased 
and that they henceforth assumed the position of men. They 
had to wait the fore-fixed time of the father. But now from 
the burden of the law they are delivered, as they had been 
redeemed from its curse, though certainly the curse was also 
an element of the burden. See under iii. 10-14. 

"Iva Trjv vio6e<riav airoXd^w^ev " in order that we might 
receive the adoption of sons." Rom. viii. 15, 23 ; Eph. i. 5. 
The apostle again uses the first person plural, and the use of it 



300 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

may resemble iii. 14. The redemption of those who were under 
the law was necessary to the adoption both of Jews and Gen 
tiles. So that the second iva is scarcely co-ordinate with the 
first, but introduces a higher ulterior purpose common in its 
realization both to Jew and Gentile. Compare iii. 15, Eph. 
v. 25. Both clauses are connected with the one finite verb, 
but the lines of connection are not parallel, the first clause 
" that He might redeem those under the law" specially linked 
with the one nearest to it " born under the law," and the 
second with the more remote one " born of a woman." Jelf, 
904, 3. The blessing is vloOea-la, not simply V IOT?]? not 
sonship natural, but sonship conferred. Kiickert, Usteri, Schott, 
and Brown deny this, and refer it to the change by which the 
heir who had been under tutelage passes to his majority, and 
is recognised as a son. That is straining the analogy. Hesy- 

O O Oi/ */ 

chius rightly defines the term orav rt? Oerov vlbv \afj,/3di>r]. 
Diodor. Sic. iv. 39 ; Herod, vi. 57. They had been in bondage ; 
but they were freed from it now, and adopted into the house 
hold. By no other process could they enter into the family 
they were not of it, but were brought into it. And they are 
freed from legal burden before they are adopted ; nay, their 
emancipation from servitude is virtually their adoption. Both 
are gifts Christ died to redeem them, and they receive the 
other from God. The idea of receiving " back" or recovering 
is not in the verb, though Augustine argues, non dixit, accipi- 
amus sed recipiamus, and Jowett paraphrases, " receive back 
our intended blessing." The O.TTO- may sometimes signify 
"again," Luke xv. 27; Liddell and Scott. Adam had a 
u/oT?79 before his fall he was vlbs eov ; and in this sense our 
adoption is reinstating us in the family. But the new sonship 
is so different, that it can scarce be termed a recovery, since it 
is far more it is a higher relation than man originally pos 
sessed. For it is the imao;e of the second Adam to which we 

O 

are to be conformed, and the inheritance is in heaven, and no 
mere paradise restored on earth. Nor, as Meyer remarks, was 
the viodecrla which belonged to the Jews really lost. Ex. iv. 
22 ; Hos. xi. 9. The nation was still in theocratic covenant 
with God. Chrysostom gives the verb another meaning to 
receive as one s due, for the promise was made of old (Theo- 
phylact, Bengel). Such a sense may sometimes be inferred 



CHAP. IV. 6. 301 

from the context, as in Luke vi. 34 ; in the other passages 
Luke xxiii. 41 ; Rom. i. 27 ; Col. iii. 24 a distinct term is 
found which formally conveys this sense. But the idea is here 
foreign to the train of thought. Nor can the notion of Schott 
and Riickert be sustained, that OTTO- means inde, or as the fruit 
of the redemption ; the notion is implied in the context, but 
not directly expressed by the verb. The verb is used simply 
as elsewhere Luke xvi. 25 ; Col. iii. 24 " to receive into pos 
session from," pointing ideally to the source. Through faith, 
the apostle had said, believers are Abraham s seed, and children 
according to promise ; and how faith confers adoption upon us 
is told us in these verses. Christ s incarnation and death inter 
vening the curse and yoke of the law being taken away by 
faith in Him he who was a servant is gifted with the position 
and privileges of a son. See under iii. 26. That sonship is 
now enjoyed, but its fulness of blessing and fellowship waits 
the coming of the Lord Jesus. For it is added 

Ver. 6. "OTL Be eVre VIOL. It is difficult to say whether 
OTL be demonstrative or causal whether it mean " that" as a 
proof that, or " because " quoniam in the Vulgate and Claro- 
montane Latin. The question then is, Is the sending forth 
of the Spirit of His Son regarded by the apostle as the proof 
or as the result of sonship ? The conjunction will bear either 
meaning ; the causal meaning is the simpler syntax, but the 
demonstrative meaning is more in unison with the argument. 
To render " because ye are sons " seems to interfere with the 
formal conclusion of the following verse two-re " wherefore 
thou art no more a servant, but a son." He would be taking 
for granted their sonship before he had proved it as his con 
clusion there would be an assumed result, and then a formal 
conclusion. But with the other rendering, " that," or " in 
proof that ye are sons," the apostle is only adding another 
argument forging a last link in the demonstration. Christ 
was born a man, and born under the law, to redeem such as 
were under the law, that we from being servants might be 
adopted as sons ; and that this is your position is proved by 
your possession of His Spirit. 

Critics are divided. The causal meaning is held by Luther, 
Bengel, Olshausen, De Wette, Hilgenfeld, Alford, Windisch- 
mann, Lightfoot, Trana, Bisping, and Meyer in his third ecli- 



302 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

tion, having maintained the other view in his first and second 
editions. The demonstrative meaning is held by the Greek 
fathers, who found no difficulty in the construction, by Ambro- 
siaster, Koppe, Flatt, Borger, Riickert, Schott, Jatho, Brown, 
Ellicott, and Wieseler who renders somewhat differently by quod 
attinet ad id, quod et? e/celvo, on. 

In adopting the demonstrative meaning we admit a brevilo- 
quence, which, however, can be well defended. Winei*, 66, 1 ; 
Demosthenes, contra Pantccn. p. 110, vol. ii. Opera, ed. Schaefer. 
In confirmation of the same view the core speaks, for it lias 
the emphasis and not viol, and the verb is that of actual pre 
sent state. In such a case, too, one would expect vfjiwv, which, 
however, is a correction, probably for this reason, of the better 
supported rjfjiwv. 

" And that ye are sons." The Be introduces the statement, 
not, however, as opposed to what precedes, but as something 
yet different a step in advance. The words TOV Qeov found 
in D, F, and in the Latin fathers (Augustine, however, ex- 
cepted), are an unwarranted exegetical supplement. 

Ea7recTTeiJ\.ev 6 @eo? TO Trvevpa TOV viov avrov et? ras 
KapSias rjftwv " God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into 
our hearts." The authorities for the v^wv of the Received 
Text are D 3 , E, K, L, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Augustine, 
the Vulgate, Coptic, and Syriac ; while rj^cov has in its favour 
A, B, C, D 1 , F, N, with many of the fathers, such as Basil, 
Tertullian, Jerome, and Hilary. The reading v^wv might 
have been a conformation to the previous eVxe. But the change 
of person is as in Rom. vii. 4. The appeal is to them directly 
in the previous e crre ; but the apostle at once and now includes 
himself with them, when he adds a clause descriptive of spiri 
tual experience. The TO 7rvevfj,a TOV viov avTov is the Holy 
Spirit, in no sense "spirit" meaning disposition or temper sensus 
christianus or a filial nature (Gwynne) ; 6 0eo? e^a7rearei\ev 
TOV viov avrov, and similarly e^a7rea-Ti\ev 6 eo? TO irvev^a 
TOV viov avTov. The mission is first of the Son and then of 
the Spirit on the part of the Father, implying by the parallel 
language the personality of the Spirit. And Pie is the Spirit 
of His Son, who dwelt in Him, as He has secured His gracious 
influences, and as it is His " things" which the Spirit shows, 
one of His special functions being to deepen in all the sons their 



CHAP. IV. 6. 303 

resemblance to the elder brother the Son of God. Rom. viii. 9. 
In the fulness of the time God sent forth His Son, and no doubt 
in the fulness of the time, too, God sent His Spirit into their 
hearts the time fore-appointed for their ingathering and con 
version in that crisis of their history which Himself had set 
apart, iii. 2. The aorist does not represent the fulness of the 
Spirit s outflow upon them, but the fact that the Spirit was 
sent into their hearts when they believed and were adopted. 
The Spirit of His Son is a token of its adoption to every child, 
for it is the bond of union with Him who is " the first-born 
among many brethren." That Spirit is sent into the " heart," 
the central seat or organ of the inner life and power, which the 
Spirit of God s Son inhabits, and out of which He cries through 
us, Abba, Father. The eVre viol seems to have suggested the 
correlative appellation rov vlov avrov. There is thus triune 
operation Father, Son, and Spirit in providing, securing, 
and enjoying this adoption. And that Spirit in their hearts is 
represented as 

Kpd&v, -4/3/3a o Trarrip " crying, Abba, Father." Mark 
xiv. 36. In Rom. viii. 15 the aspect of thought is, ev M Kpdo- 
fjiev A/3@a, 6 irarrjp ; and in ver. 26 of the same chapter it is 
said of the Spirit, vTrepevrvy^dvei virep fjfiiav. The Spirit in our 
hearts cries no Hebraism meaning " making to cry." But 
the Divine Agent Himself, as the Spirit of adoption, is repre 
sented as crying. For the impulse is His, the realized son- 
ship is of Him, the deepened sense of want is of His creation, 
in the heart whence rises the tender and earnest address, Abba, 
Father. The nominative is used as the vocative. Matt. xi. 26; 
Bernhardy, p. 67 ; Kriiger, 45, 2, 6, 7. But why the double 
appellation, first in Aramaic and then in Greek, as in Mark 
xiv. 36, Rom. viii. 15 ? The childlike lisp in the word Abba, 
and its easy labial pronunciation, may account for its origin, 
but not for its use here (Olshausen) ; nor can Dr. Gill be 
listened to in his dream that " the word being the same pro 
nounced backwards or forwards, shows that God is the Father 
of His people in adversity as well as in prosperity." It is a 
superficial explanation of the formula to allege, with Beza, 
Schott, Usteri, and Conybeare, that o Tranjp is merely, like 
the Abaddon-Apollyon of Rev. ix. 11, explanatory of the 
Aramaic Abba. For why should such a translation be made 



304 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

by Jesus in the garden, where no human ear heard Him, and 
by Paul when writing to the Romans of the Spirit of adoption? 
Nor is it more likely that the double appellation is meant to 
convey what the elder interpreters find in it to wit, that it 
was uttered to point out the spiritual brotherhood of all men 
in all languages. This opinion, so naturally suggested, cannot 
certainly apply to the individual address of the Saviour in 
Mark xiv. 36. But one may say, in the first place, that en 
deared repetition characterizes a true child, as it clings to the 
idea of fatherhood, and loves to dwell upon it. In the second 
place, the use of the Aramaic term must have arisen in the 
Jewish portion of the church, with whom it seems to have been 
a common form of tender address. And then, as believing 
Jews used another tongue in foreign countries, they appear to 
have felt the 6 Trarrjp to be cold and distant, so that, as to the 
Lord in His agony, the vernacular term impressed on the ear 
and heart of childhood instinctively recurred. O irarrjp is 
what the apostle wishes to say; but in a mood of extreme 
tenderness, speaking of God s children and of their yearning 
filial prayerfulness and confidence in approaching and naming 
Him, he prefixes the old familiar term Aftfta. It was no 
absolute term at first, like some other names, but ever a rela 
tive one. So Jesus, realizing His Sonship with unspeakable 
intenseness, in that awful prayer names His Father Aj3/3d o 
Trarrfp. The double appellation could only arise among a 
bilingual people, where certain native words were hallowed, 
and in moments of strong emotion were used along with their 
foreign equivalent. And soon the phrase became a species of 
proper name, so that in heathen countries A/3/3a 6 Trarrjp 
passed into an authorized formula. As this formula com 
mences prayer, so we have a similar concluding one, but in 
reverse order, val A/Ar/v, Rev. i. 7. Similar expressions are 
found in the rabbinical books. Schoettgeri, vol. i. p. 252. 
Selden s explanation is, that the use of the name implies the 
change of a slave to a freeman ; but the apostle is proving 
a different point that of sonship or adoption. Works, vol. 
ii. p. 14. Lightfoot affirms that the form ^N signifies a master 
as well as a father, but the form N2X denotes only a natural 
father (Hebrew and Talmudic Exercitations on Mark, Works, 
vol. xi. p. 438). In Chaldee with a single 2 it is said to mean 



CHAP. IV. 7. 305 

a natural father, with a double 2 a father in a spiritual sense. 
The Syriac renders simply " Father, our Father." 

The apostle now comes to the conclusion or application to 
which he has been working in the three preceding verses, con 
nected as they are so closely with the illustration which begins 
the chapter. 

Ver. 7. "flare ovfcen el Bov\o<;, a\\a vio<; " Wherefore 
thou art no longer a slave, but a son." The first term intro 
duces the statement as a result from what precedes, and it is 
followed here by the indicative, as often at the commencement 
of a sentence. Winer, 41, 5 ; Klotz-Devarius, ii. p. 771. 
See under ii. 13. The comparative term ovtceri refers back to 
the Sov\ela in ver. 3. The address is narrowed down in this 
pointed appeal from the first person plural in ver. 5, through the 
second person plural in ver. 6, to the second person singular. 
Compare Rom. xi. 17, xii. 20, 1 Cor. iv. 7, x. 29, for a similar 
form of individualizing appeal. 

El Be uto9, Kal /c\rjpovofj,os " but if a son, also an heir." 
The two positions are identical the one is bound up in the 
other. The slave is no heir, but he who is a son is also an heir 
by the fact of his being a son. Bom. viii. 17, el Be re/o/a, /cat 
KhiypovofAoi. If thou art a son, in addition to such sonship 
thou art an heir an heir of the promise made by God to 
Abraham and his seed. See under Eph. i. 11. That thou 
art a son is proved from thy possession of the Spirit ; no longer 
a slave thou canst say, Abba ; and if a son, then also an heir. 

The Received Text reads, tckypovo/jios @eou Bia Xpurrov 
" an heir of God through Christ" a reading quite in harmony 
with the context. This reading is found in C 3 , D, K, L, K 3 , 
the Claromontane which reads et hceres Dei per Christum, and 
the Gothic version. Chrysostom and Theodoret follow the 
same reading, and there are other smaller variations. The 
simpler and shorter reading Bta eov is supported by A, B, 
C 1 , K 1 , the Vulgate which has hares per Deum, Ambrosiaster, 
Augustine, Pelagius, with Clement, Basil, Athanasius, Cyril, 
Didymus among the Greek fathers. F reads Sia &eov, and 
some MSS. have Bia I^o-oO Xpia-Tov. Some versions seem made 
from a text which read simply &eov, while others must have 
read eov Bta rov TrvevfAaros. This variety of reading shows 
that emendation has been at work, and that the similar phrase 

u 



306 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

in Rom. viii. 17 KX.Tjpovo/j.oi pev eov (rvyK\r)pov6[Aoi, 8e 
rov lias suggested the different readings. Some indeed as 
Riickert and De Wette, and as Griesbach thinks probahle 
suppose that all the words after K\r]povo^o^ are spurious addi 
tions, as in iii. 29. But the MSS. all declare, with one exception 
(C at first hand), for some addition. Rinck and Usteri main 
tain the reading 8ta Xpia-rov, as if eov from Rom. viii. 17 
were first written above Xpiarov and then exchanged for it. 
Lachmann and Tischendorf adopt the shorter reading. It is 
needless to object with Matthffii that the orthodox wrote Bta 
eov for $ia Xpiarov, for the reading Sia eov is as old as 
Clement of Alexandria; nor could the hostility to Arianism 
suggest such a change. Reiche, Fritzsche, and Halm defend 
the Received Text. Fritzsche supposes that the copyists first 
confounded eov with Xpiarov per oculorum errorem, then 
omitted Sta Xpia-Tov, and then wrote Bia eov a critical 
hypothesis not very credible. If we accept Bia eov, the curter 
reading, all the others can be, by a series of natural emenda 
tions, easily accounted for, and by the desire to express the 
mediation of Christ. But &ia eov is in harmony with the 
whole passage. The agency of God in the process of adoption 
has special prominence. The time " appointed of the father" 
is the express terminus of the SouXeta in the figure. Then it 
is e^aTreo reiX.ev TOV viov avrov, then e^o.TrecrmXei 6 Oeo? TO 
7rvevp,a that Spirit which cries o Trarrjp : and the clear and 
undeniable conclusion is, we are brought into the position of 
sons Sia eov through God s agency. Thus there is no 
occasion to adopt the view of Windischmann which takes eov 
in its widest sense of God Father, Son, and Spirit, the 
Father sending the Son and the Spirit, the Son redeeming us, 
and the Spirit completing our son ship. The noun is anar 
throus, as it often is after prepositions. Winer, xix. It 
would seem, too, that God the Father is directly referred to ; 
for He adopts, sends His Son to provide for it, and His Spirit 
as the proof of it, so that we become sons, also heirs, " through 
Him." No genitive follows KkypovofAo? in this clause, but it 
has eov in Rom. viii. 17 ; r?}<? /3a<nXeta9, Jas. ii. 5. The in 
heritance is also referred to in iii. 18, 29. 

The declaration, " if a son, then an heir," is based on a 
general law or instinct " The parents lay up for the children." 



CHAP. IV. 8. 307 

Perhaps this common practice is enough for the apostle s argu 
ment. But if the statement is regarded as a special declaration 
based on legal enactment, the reference cannot be to the Hebrew 
law which gave the first-born a double portion and excluded 
daughters ; for there is in Christ neither male nor female, and 
each one is an heir. The allusion is rather to Roman law, 
under which all the children inherited equally. Thus Gaius : 
sui autem et necessarii heredes sunt velut filius filiave. Sui autem 
heredes existimantur liberi qui inpotestate morientis fuerint, veluti 
filius, filiave, nepos neptisve ex filio . . . nee interest utrum natu- 
rales sint an adoptivi, suorum heredum numero sunt. Institut. 
ii. 156, iii. 2, ed. Bocking. Sui et necessarii heredes were quite 
in this position if children, then heirs. The Athenian law, 
which, however, made no distinction between real and personal 
estate, was not so precise : it gave sons an equal right, the son 
being merely bound to give his sisters a marriage-portion. 1 

The apostle now turns to the Gentile portion of the church, 
and impresses on them the folly of placing themselves under 
bondage to the Mosaic law. 

Ver. 8. A\ka rore pev, OVK elSores Qeov " Howbeit at 
that time indeed, not knowing God." The d\\d introduces 
the statement of their condition, and throws it into striking 
contrast with the conclusion arrived at in the preceding verse. 
Sons you are now, but the time was when it was different with 
you. In the adverb rare the allusion is not formally to ver. 3 
(Winer), but generally to their previous state to the en in 
ov/ceri. It does not signify vaguely TraXat, as Koppe and Flatt 
take it, and the stress is on the p,iv " indeed," " truly." The 
OVK et Sore?, as Meyer remarks, forms one conceptus ignorantes. 
Winer, 55, 5 ; Gayler, p. 287. This ignorance of God was 
a characterizing fact no mere opinion of the writer. 1 Thess. 
iv. 5 ; 2 Thess. i. 8. See under Eph. ii. 12a6eoi. 

ESovXeva-are rot? fyvaei fjirj oven, 0eot<; " ye were in bond 
age to them which by nature are not gods," or, " to gods which 

1 This division among sons was the same as the custom of gavel-kind 
in Kent, which, according to Selden, was all but universal in England 
before the time of the Norman conqueror, and the same as the present law 
of France, where there is also no preference of males over females, and no 
distinction of real and personal estate. See also a dissertation by Fritzsche 
in Fritzschiorum Opuscula, p. 143. 



308 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

by nature are not." The former negative is historic ov ; but 
this is subjective fjbrf. The order of the words in the Received 
Text is rot? /u,?) 0u<ret oven Oeols, which is found in D, F, G, 
K, Li, some minuscules, and in Chrysostom, Theodoret, and the 
Philoxenian Syriac. The other arrangement is found in A, B, 
C, D 1 3 , E, N, and in the Vulgate, Gothic, Coptic, etc. The 
last order, which is also best substantiated, is the more em 
phatic it denies them in the apostle s estimation to be gods 
in any sense ; whereas the other order would say less strongly 
that they were gods not so indeed by nature, but converted 
against their nature into gods by human superstition. By 
the use of ^ the apostle gives in his own judgment a denial 
of the divinity of those objects of worship (Winer, 55, 5), 
1 Cor. viii. 4, 5, 6, called by him Bai/Aovia in 1 Cor. x. 20. 
The dative tyvcrei is that of characterization (Madvig, 40), 
and means " by nature," or essentially, in opposition to what is 
accidental or derived from circumstance. See under Eph. ii. 3. 
The aorist eSovXevcrare refers simply to the past period of their 
ignorance. During this period, and confined to that period 
over and gone, they were servants (Kiihner, 401) in slavery 
to gods which in no sense were gods, and had no real right to 
be so named. Idolatry characterized them. " Gods and lords 
many " were worshipped and served among them in their state 
of ignorance, or because of it, as the participle may have a 
quasi-causal sense. The Galatians probably inherited the 
"abominable idolatries" of their Gallic ancestors. " Natio est 
omnis Gallorum admodum dedita religionibus" Csesar, de Bella 
Gall. vi. 16. Diodorus speaks of the Galatian $eio-t,8aL/j,ovta, 
which led them to lavish gold on their gods and temples, though 
they were fond of money to excess, v. 27. The native Phrygian 
idolatry may have been partially adopted on the Gallic occupa 
tion of the province the worship of Cybele ; and there may 
have been combined with it some elements of Hellenic super 
stition. Wernsdorff, De Repullica Galat. 32 ; Pausanias, 
Descrips. Grce.c. vii. 17, 10, vol. ii. p. 584, ed. Schubart et 
Walz. The apostle does not enter into particulars, as there 
may have been variations among the three leading tribes, the 
general fact suffices for his purpose. These words cannot be 
addressed to Jewish believers, as Theodoret seems to imagine. 
The scholiast quoted in Usteri says that the keeping of times 



CHAP. IV. 9. 309 

marked by sun and moon is to be in slavery to those heavenly 
bodies a species of idolatry. 

Ver. 9. Nvv Be yvovres eoz>, fj,aX\.ov Be yvcocrOevre^ VTTO 
0eov " But now having known God, or rather being known 
by God." The vvv Be stands in contrast to the TOTC fj,ev. 
There seems no true ground for making any distinction here 
between ei Sore? and yvovTes, as is done by Olshausen, as if the 
former meant rather external knowledge mehr bios ausserliche 
Wissen, and the second inner knowledge. There is more truth 
in Professor Lightfoot s distinction, that the first refers to 
absolute and the second to relative knowledge the difference 
between " to know " and " to come to the knowledge of." 
1 John ii. 29. At least the following verses do not warrant 

O 

Olshausen s distinction, for John vii. 27 especially John viii. 
55 would seem to reverse it, where Jesus says of His Father : 
KOL OVK ejvdo/fare avrov eya* Be olBa avrov. In 2 Cor. v. 16, the 
words el Be Kal eyvu>Ka/j,ev Kara adpica Xpiarov do not certainly 
imply an inner or active knowledge. The Galatians had come 
to the knowledge of God of God in Christ, the one living 
and true God the only object of genuine worship and trust. 
And this knowledge had been carried to them by the gospel, 
and by the preaching of Christ. " No man knoweth the Father 
but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him." 
The apostle, however, at once corrects himself, and adds 

Md\\ov Be yvcoo-devres VTTO Qeov " but rather were known 
of God." Compare for a similar change of voice, Phil. iii. 12. 
In /j,a\\ov Be lies the notion of a climactic correction of the 
previous clause. Raphelius, in loc.; hie est corrigentis ut swpis- 
sime alibi, Stallbaum, Plato, Sym. 173, E ; Bornemann, Xen. 
Cyrop. p. 354. Rom. viii. 34 ; Eph. v. 11. The phrase has 
been variously understood. 

1. The most improbable interpretation, is that of Beza, 
a Lapide, Koppe, and others, who give the participle the sense 
of the Hoplial conjugation in Hebrew scire facti, "being 
made to know." It is forced and unnecessary. Winer, 39, 
3, n. 2. 

2. Some, as Grotius, give the simple sense of approbati, 
which the usage does not warrant. 

3. Others, as Borger, Winer, Riickert, Usteri, Schott, and 
virtually Trana and Ewald, attach the meaning anerkannt seid 



310 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

acknowledged by. But this direct meaning does not seem 
proved by any distinct instance in the New Testament. Matt, 
xxv. 12 ; Phil. iii. 12 ; 2 Tim. ii. 19. The sense, then, seems 
to be that of the Greek fathers, that they had not so much 
known God, as they had been taken into knowledge by God. 
1 Cor. viii. 2, xiii. 12 TT/aocrX^^^cWe? VTTO Qeov (Theophylact). 
It was not that by any intuition or argument they had arrived 
at the knowledge of God ; but the apostle glorifies the divine 
agency in their enlightenment, and refers to their condition, 
rather than their actual knowledge. God knew them ere they 
knew Him, and His knowing them was the cause of their- 
knowing Him. See many examples from the Old Testament 
in Webster and Wilkinson. Nostrum cognoscere est cognosci a 
Deo (Luther). Matthies understands the clause as referring 
" to the Spirit of God knowing Himself again in them ;" but 
Kimmel justly calls this exegesis ein HegeV sclier dem Paulns 
fremder Sinn. Jowett s statement is not unlike that of Matthies. 
Compare for another form of putting the same truth, 1 John 
iv. 10, Isa. Ixv. 1. Recognition, conversion, and other bless 
ings are implied, though not expressed in the clause. That He 
did not know them before the gospel came among them argues 
no defect in His omniscience. The lano;uao;e is warranted by 

r? o / 

usage. But brought into His knowledge, they saw light in 
His light. The gospel, he who preached it, and the Spirit who 
accompanied it, were alike of Him, and given to them. Their 
privilege thus began with His gracious knowledge of them, not 
their apprehension of Him. The apostle feels that this is the 
truer \vay of stating the case giving the grace of God the 
glory, and putting their apostasy in a yet more awful light, it 
being an ungrateful rebellion against God s kindness, as well 
as a relapse into what w r as unsatisfying and obsolete. 

And the startling question then comes 

JTco? eTria-Tpefare iraXiv eVt ra acrOevr) nal -TTTW^CL crroi^eto. ; 
" how is it that ye are returning ao;ain to the weak and 

*. O O 

beggarly elements ?" In the question begun by TTO*? that sur 
prising inconsistency is rebuked. Their going back is some 
thing amazing "Who bewitched you?" After your high 
privilege conferred on you, your emancipation from the servi 
tude of idols, your pure theology, yea, and your being taken 
into the knowledge of God, how comes it that you, so pre- 



CHAP. IV. 9. 311 

ciously blessed, are turning, and that without any tempting 
bribe, or any plausible benefit turning " to the weak and 
beggarly elements ? " The adverb iraXiv does not mean 
" back" retro as in Homer, but as usually in the New 
Testament, " again " iterum. Damm. Lex. Homer, sub voce. 
Ellicott says that the notion of back is involved in the verb ; 
but 7n does not necessarily imply it, for OTT/CT&) and ei9 ra 
oTriaw are often connected with it. Comp. also Acts xiv. 15, 
xv. 19, 1 Thess. i. 9. The present tense shows the act to be 
going on the apostasy to be proceeding. See under i. 6. 

For crro^eta, see under ver. 3. 

These elements are stigmatized as da-Oevfj " weak," wholly 
inadequate to secure justification or provide spiritual deliver 
ance (Rom. viii. 3) ; and irrwya "beggarly," an epithet often 
used in its literal sense as applied to persons, and here signify 
ing that they were endowed with no clusters of spiritual bless 
ing, and were not fraught with " the unsearchable riches of 
Christ." Heb. vii. 18. 

OI? 7rd\iv avwOev SovXevew OeXere "to which ye are 
desiring again afresh to be in bondage." Wisd. xix. 6. The 
English version, the Syriac, and Vulgate omit the translation 
of one of the two adverbs, probably regarding them as synony 
mous an opinion adopted by Borger. The emphasis lies on 
ird\iv avco6ev once in bondage, and again anew placing them 
selves under it, as if the first slavery had been forgotten. "Ye 
desire" to be in it again, and are anew beginning to place 
yourselves beneath it. Strange to say, of their own accord 
they were wishing to be in this servitude " afresh." As their 
condition struck him their divine deliverance, their spiritual 
freedom, and their willing relapse into servitude he natu 
rally asks 7TW9, is it possible 1 One difficulty lies in 7raX>, if 
the aroi^ela as in ver. 3 be restricted to the Mosaic ritual. 
Were the Gentiles under crrot^eta previously as well as the 
Jews ? There is no sure historical ground for alleging that 
the persons so addressed had been proselytes (Olshausen, 
Credner), though in all probability many of the class existed 
in the churches of Galatia and in all the early churches, as 
if the meaning were ye are going again into bondage to the 
Mosaic ritual, since in some sense they had been in it, and afresli 
they were recurring to its aroi-^ia. This notion cannot be 



312 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

sustained, and therefore it is probable that the heathen cultus 
receives by implication the same name from the apostle as do 
the Jewish ordinances. While there was not identity, there 
was such similarity between them that they may be both com 
prehended under the same epithet, though such a comparison 
as that of Grotius between castratio and circumcisio is simply 
absurd. The system into which they were relapsing was of 
a like character to that under which they had been originally 
enslaved. For it was ritualistic in a high degree, with its 
orgies and mutilations. Such a ceremonial institute, hedging 
in a man with its rigid minutiai, and binding him to the 
punctilious observance of them, was an intolerable yoke like 
Judaism. Besides, even in paganism, with all its follies and 
falsehoods, there were rudiments of truth. The worship of 
many gods proved the felt need of some god, the altar with 
its victims implied convictions of sin, and the lustrations be 
tokened the conscious want of purity. Thus under such 
systems, and not wholly overlaid by them, were some " ele 
ments " of religious verities, in harmony with irrepressible 
spiritual instincts and yearnings, educated by such discipline 
into an intensity which must in many instances have prepared 
for the reception of that gospel which meets all wants and 
satisfies all awakened longings verifying what Tertullian calls 
testimonium animce naturaliter christiance. Augustine also gives 
another aspect of the same opinion. He had said in his treatise 
De Vera Religione, written by him when a young man (A.D. 
390), that Christianity belonged to later times nostris tempo- 
ribus ; but in his Retractationes, composed towards the close of 
his life, he explains the assertion, and distinguishes between the 
res and the noinen, the latter having originated at Antioch; but 
of the former he uses the following words : nam res ipsa, quce 
nunc Christiana reliyio nuncupatur, erat apud antiques, nee defuit 
ab initio generis humani, qnousque ipse Christus veniret in carne, 
wide vera religio quce jam erat, ccepit appellari christiana. Com 
pare Acts x. 34, 35. The Retractationes and the De Vera 
Religione are in the first volume of Augustine s Opera, pp. 
20, 1202, Gaume, Paris. Other fathers had similar views. 
Clement and Origen speak of the dark night of paganism as 
having had its stars which called to the morning star which 
stood over Bethlehem ; Justin Martyr describes a ray of divine 



CHAP. IV. 10. 313 

light shining in the soul, and turning toward the divine light 
as a plant to the sun. " Obey your philosophers," says Theo- 
doret to the heathen, " for they fore-announced our doctrines." 
Grcecarum affectionum Curatio, p. 483, vol. iv. Opera, ed. Sir- 
mondi, Lutetias 1642. Clement also asserts of the Greek 
philosophy that it led to Christ ZTrai&ayayyei . . . et<? Xpiarov. 
Strom, i. 5, 28. The apostle himself on Mars hill, penetrating 
to the instinctive feeling which underlies idolatry, and recog 
nising that inner necessity under which man must worship, 
uttered a kindred statement when he virtually identified the 
God who had the altar wanting a name with the object of his 
preaching : " What therefore, not knowing it, ye worship, that 
proclaim I unto you." Not that the " unknown God " was 
really Jehovah, but the inscription implied that He was not 
found in their lists, and was beyond the circuit of their recog 
nition ; and taking up this idea of a divinity above and beyond 
their pantheon, he expanded and applied it. Acts xvii. 23. 
See also Pressense s Religions before Christ: Clark, Edinburgh; 
Max Miiller s Chips from a German Workshop, Preface, and 
Essays in first volume, London 1867. It may be said, too, the 
apostle argues that the abrogation of the Mosaic law in the 
death of Christ was essential to the adoption of the Gentiles 
to their becoming the seed of Abraham, or free children ; so that 
the Mosaic institute this thing of weak and beggarly elements 
prior to Christ s death really held Gentiles in bondage, and 
why should they now relapse into servitude under it ? They 
differed nothing from servants, as truly as the Jews while the 
Jewish law was in force ; how was it, then, that they were de 
siring to go back to that law, and be in subjection to it over 
again ? 

The apostle now adduces a specimen of the bondage into 
which they were so willing to fall the ritualistic observance 
of certain portions of the Jewish sacred kalendar 

Ver. 10. H/jiepas Trapar^peia-Be, KOL p>r)va<$, KOI Kdipovs, 
KOI evcavTovs " Ye are observing days, and months, and 
seasons, and years." The force of the middle voice cannot be 
expressed in English, but it deepens the sense = religious 
assiduity. Many give this verse an interrogative form, as 
Koppe, De Wette, Hilgenfeld, Meyer, Bisping, and Trana ; as 
also the editors Griesbach, Knapp, Tischendorf, and Lachmann. 



314 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

But the form of solemn statement is in better harmony with 
the context. The question had been put already, TTW? how 
comes it ? It may appear incredible, but alas it is true " Ye 
are observing days," etc. And the statement lays foundation 
for the mournful declaration of the following verse fyojBov^ai 
vp,a<$. The compound verb Traparr/peiv in its original sense is 
" to watch carefully," as being Trapa, near to, Acts ix. 24 ; next 
" to watch closely," Ps. cxxix. 3, and with evil purpose, Mark 
iii. 2, Luke vi. 7 ; and then, as here, " to observe carefully," to 
keep in a religious spirit, not however superstitiously, as Sar- 
dinoux, Winer, and Olshausen assert, for the verb is applied to 
the keeping of the seventh day or Sabbath by Josephus, Antiq. 
iii. 3, 5. The observance may appear superstitious to the on 
looker, but the idea is not contained in the verb, nor that of 
prceter fidem (Bengel, Wessel, Wordsworth). " Days ye are 
observing," the moment being on iea? as their observance 



would of course be more characteristic in its frequency. The 
" days" were the Jewish Sabbath, with other times of religious 
observance appointed by the law. The " months " were pro 
bably the new moons days indeed, but observed with periodical 
exactness : Isa. Ixvi. 23. The seventh month had a sacredness 
attached to it like the seventh day. The naipoi were the seasons 
of festival, as the passover, pentecost, and feast of tabernacles : 
Lev. xxiii. 4; 2 Chron. viii. 13. The eviavroi, years, may be the 
seventh or sabbatic year and the year of jubilee. Compare 
Judith viii. 6 ; Philo, De Scpten. p. 286. The two last terms 
do not stand for icaipovs eviavrov (Borger, Wahl). 

The order of the terms is progressive days, months, seasons, 
years. The last, supposing it to refer to the sabbatic year, 
they could not have observed more than once ; and to infer 
from the present tense of the verb that they were then in 
the act of observing such a year, is in the highest degree pre 
carious. Wieseler so calculates it, that from autumn 54 to 
autumn 55 there was a sabbatic year, within which period the 
epistle was written during the apostle s sojourn at Ephesus. 
Chronologie des Apostolischen Zeitalters, p. 287. But the 
epistle may have been written from Macedonia two or three 
years later. Michaelis, from the allusion to a sabbatic year in 
1 Mace. vi. 53, which he places 162 years B.C., finds that the 
49th year after Christ was the thirtieth sabbatic year from that 



CHAP. IV. 10. 315 

period, and therefore he dates this epistle in 49. But he admits 
his ignorance as to the Jewish mode of calculation, whether 

O / 

they uniformly adhered to the seventh year on its recurrence, 
or began a new reckoning from the year of jubilee ; as in 
the former case the 56th year would be the sacred year, and 
in the other it would be the 57th. " Introduction" by Marsh, 
vol. iv. p. 11. The sabbatic year and that of jubilee applied 
only to Canaan, its soil and the people on it ; and it is not 
easy to see how it could be kept in other countries where Jews 
might own no land, nor engage in its cultivation. The re- 
constitution of society every fiftieth or jubilee year belongs 
also to the promised land, as really as the sacrifices to the 
central altar in Jerusalem, and its arrangements could not have 

O 

been to any extent carried out among foreigners. If the state 
ment in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21, "Until the land enjoyed her 
sabbaths, for as long as she remained desolate she kept sabbath 
to fulfil threescore and ten years," mean that those years of 
desolation are a penalty chronologically parallel to a series of 
neglected sabbatic years, then the neglect must have extended 
backward 490 years, dating from the time of Solomon. These 
sabbatic years might be early neglected; for a nation that could 
subsist without cultivation of the soil for a year must either 
store up with cautious forethought, or enjoy a signal blessing 
from the God of the seasons. Such storing was not enjoined, 
as direct fulness of blessing was promised ; but during so many 
periods of apostasy the promise of temporal abundance would 
be suspended, and the observance of the sabbatic year fall into 
desuetude. Lev. xxv. 18-22. But the year of jubilee, fraught 
with so many kind provisions to the slave, the debtor, and 
the poor, and involving so many changes of social relation 
to rural property, was more likely to be partially observed, 
for those to be especially benefited by it would naturally 
clamour for it. The prophets do not upbraid the nation for 
neglecting it ; Josephus asserts that it was kept ; and there is 
no ground for Michaelis and Winer to question its observance, 
or for Kranold and Ilupfeld to deny it. Diodorus also makes 
allusion to the strict entail of Jewish property, and the testi 
mony of Jewish tradition is unanimous on the point. Saalschiitz, 
Das Mosaische Recht, xiii. ; Keil, Handbuch d. Bib. Arcliiiol. 
vol. i. p. 374. No such stress can be laid, as Ginsburg does, 



316 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

on Ezek. xlvi. 17 as to the uniform keeping of the jubilee ; for 
the chapter is an ideal sketch of a re-distribution of the terri 
tory, and the re-organization of the national worship. Art. 
Jubilee, Kitto, Bib. Cyclop. 3d edition. 

It is going too far on the part of Bullinger and Olshausen 
to affirm, that in this verse by synecdoche a part is put for the 
whole, i.e. the customs mentioned stand for all the customs. 
Nor can it be, as Kiickert says, that only such customs are 
mentioned as were common to Jews and Gentiles; for, as 
Olshausen remarks, no relapse to Gentilism is apprehended. 
The apostle does not certainly speak of two of the Jewish 
"elements" distinction of meats and drinks, and circumcision. 
There is no substantial evidence for saying that, as proselytes, 
those Galatians had been circumcised already ; for it may be, 
as Meyer observes, that they had not yet relapsed so far as to 
be circumcised : v. 2, 3, 12, vi. 12, 13. The accumulation of 
terms of time, not meant to be exhaustive, may denote gene 
rally sacred periods, or it may be " a rhetorical description of 
those who observed times and seasons" (Alford). Dean Alford 
adds, " Notice how utterly such a verse is at variance with any 
and every theory of a Christian Sabbath, cutting at the root, 
as it does, of ALL obligatory observance of times as such" This 
generalization is far too sweeping ; for, 

1. It makes assertion on a subject which is not before the 
mind of the apostle at all. Nothing is further from his thoughts, 
or his course of rebuke and expostulation, than the Christian 
Sabbath and its theme the resurrection of Christ. 

2. The apostle is not condemning the obligatory observ 
ances " of times as such," but he is condemning the observance 
only of the times which the Galatians, in their relapse into 
Judaism, kept as sacred ; for their keeping of such Jewish fes 
tivals was the proof and result of their partial apostasy. 

3. Nor is it even Jewish festivals as such which he con 
demns, for both before and after this period he observed some 
of them himself. 

But, first, he condemns the Galatian Gentiles for observing 
sacred Jewish seasons, which, not being intended for them, 
had therefore no authority over them. The Gentile keeping 
of Jewish sabbaths, or of passovers, pentecosts, new moons, 
and jubilees, was in itself a wrong thing a perilous blunder 



CHAP. IV. 11. 317 

then as it would be a wretched anachronism now. And 
secondly, he condemns the observance of these " times," be 
cause the Galatians regarded such observance as essential to 
salvation, and as supplementing faith in the atoning work of 
Christ. These limitations are plainly supplied by the context, 
and the true theory of a Christian Sabbath, or rather Lord s 
day, is not in the least involved in the discussion. 

The apostle having described their perilous and unsatis 
factory condition, adds in sorrowful tone 

Ver. 11. $o(3ov/jiat tyxa?, pr) 7ra>9 ei/cr} rceKOTTLa/ca et? vad? 
"I am afraid of you, lest perhaps I have in vain bestowed 
labour on you." Winer, in his Commentary and in his Gram. 
66, 5, a, regards this construction as a species of attraction 
that in which the principal clause attracts something from the 
dependent one ; and he is followed by Usteri, Wieseler, Hil- 
genfeld, and Jatho. But the supposition is not necessary. In 
such cases the object of the one clause is the subject of the 
other ; but the pronoun is object here in both clauses, and the 
repetition of it intensifies the meaning, or gives distinct emphasis 
to the declaration. I am afraid of you is a definite idea, and 
the reason of the <o/?o? is then stated. The Kara suggested by 
Turner is not needed, as in such a sense the verb governs the 
simple accusative the accusative of equivalent notion. Jelf, 
550, b; Kiihner, 857. Compare Plato, De Leg. x. p. 886, 
A ; Diodor. Sic. iv. 10 ; Soph. (Ed. Tyr. 767. 

In the perfect KeKOTriaKa, and after ^ 7nw9, is the "idea of 
enduring labour, and the indicative means that the apprehension 
expressed by foftovpai (Winer, 56) is realized the fear has 
become a matter of fact. Gayler, p. 317 ; Klotz-Devarius, vol. 
i. 129. See under ii. 2. So Theodoret, but not Chrysostom. 
who gives it a different turn " the wreck has not happened, 
but I see the storm travailing with it." Comp. under Phil. i. 16, 
Col. iv. 17. 

In the phrase et? vfjias the preposition implies direction, 
Rom. xvi. 6, not in volis as the Vulgate, nor propter vos even, 
but in vos, upon you, as having been directed to them. Bern- 
hardy, p. 217. His labours had them for their special aim and 
object. 

It must have been a sad thought to the large-hearted apostle 
that his toils, anxieties, and prayers were proving themselves so 



318 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAKS. 

far in vain. Surprised was he at the speedy revolution of 
sentiment, and indignant also toward the false teachers who 
had been seducing them. It cannot, however, be inferred from 
uyu-a? after foftovfiai that the apostle is blaming them as if the 
Judaizers could not have done it without their assistance. 
However true the sentiment may be, that they were a willing 
prey to the false teachers, these simple words will not bear it ; 
and the passage in Acts v. 26 adduced by Storr in defence is 
quite different in structure. 

Ver. 12. rtveaOe &>9 6700, on Ka<yu> &>9 ty^efc "Become ye 
as I am, for I also am become as you are." For somewhat 
similar phraseology, ^iM ^i3 ? compare 1 Kings xxii. 4, 2 Kings 
iii. 7. These brief and terse words can only be explained from 
the context. He has been speaking of their returning to 
Judaism to the weak and beggarly elements, and of the 
anxiety which their dangerous state caused him. As a personal 
argument and illustration he refers now to himself and the posi 
tion he sustained toward the same weak and beggarly elements. 
"Become ye as I am, for I too am become as you," become free 
from Judaism as I, for I also am free from it like you as if I 
too were a Gentile. Or, become ye as I elpl or yeyova being 
supplied free from the law, in no sense recognising its obliga 
tion upon you, for I have become as you; a Jew though I be, I 
am as regards the law quite like you Gentiles ; or, Reciprocate 
my feeling and relation to Judaism : ii. 14 ; 1 Cor. ix. 20, 21 ; 
me imitamini gentiliter vivcntem, quia et ego gentiliter vivo, as 
Pelagius gives it. Such generally is the view of Usteri, Winer, 
Hilgenfeld, Fritzsche, De Wette, Meyer, and Wieseler. The 
appeal is direct : I am afraid of you, lest my labour upon you 
be in vain. It will not be in vain if ye will become as I am 
in reference to the law ; for toward that law I have become as 
you Gentiles to whom that law was not given, and over whom 
therefore it has, and was meant to have, no jurisdiction. 

Another view has been given by the Greek fathers. " Be 
come as I am, for I was once a very zealot for Judaism, as you 
are." Thus Chrysostom : rovrov el%ov TruXai rov %TJ\OV o-foSpa 
rov vofjiov erroOovv. Vatablus, Semler, and Matthies hold this 
view : " I once thought as you do, but I have changed my 
opinion ; so do ye :" ye will not be the first who renounced the 
Mosaic law ; or, ye can do what I wish you to do, since I have 



CHAP. IV. 12. 319 

done it. But the words will not bear this interpretation. For, 
first, the appeal is not to Jews, but to those who had been 
Gentiles ; and secondly, r]\i>i}v, the word to be supplied, in that 
case must have been written, as the emphasis would be on it : 
so, as has been remarked, Justin, Orat. ad Grcecos, writes, 
yivecrde 009 e<yut on tca<ya) ij^v &>9 u/^efc, p. 12, vol. i. Opera, 
ed. Otto. 1 The context would only warrant the supple 
ment of eyevofMjVj which would not bear the sense assumed. 
Others, as Jerome, a Lapide, Riickert, and Olshausen, take 
another view. Thus Olshausen : " I always sought to look at 
matters from the same point of view as you did ; so do ye act 
now also in the same spirit toward me." But this is too vague, 
and puts the two clauses out of unison. 

Different is the interpretation of a fourth party, who suppose 
the words to refer to a reciprocation of love : Love me as I 
love you. This view is held by Luther, Beza, Calvin, Gro- 
tius, Cramer, Gwynne, Bagge, and Brown. 1 Kings xxii. 4. 
But the Greek phrase ^Iveo-de &>9 certainly will not bear such 
fulness of meaning. It is true, at the same time, that the 
apostle s under-current of appeal is to his love to them and 
their former attachment to him. Afraid of them he was, yet 
he would have them act in love to him, so as to imitate him ; 
and he goes on to refer to that affection which once subsisted 
between them. This interpretation has been thought by some 
to derive some countenance from the following clause, as they 
understand it : "I love you still, I do not feel toward you as 
an injured man." But the next clause begins apparently a new 
declaration, and is indeed a motive for them to become as he 
was. The apostle adds, however 

ASe\<f>oi, Seo/iai vpuv " Brethren, I beseech you." These 
words have been taken to refer to the following statement by 
Chrysostom and his followers, with Riickert, Koppe, and others. 
But there is no request contained in the following clauses at 
all, so that the phrase cannot be a preface to them. The re 
quest lies in the previous part of the verse. 

The paragraph now commencing extends to the sixteenth 

1 Cureton found this treatise in a Syriac recension ascribed to some 
one called Ambrose, " a chief man of Greece," Spicilegium Syriacum, xi. 61. 
Otto after Tillemont and Maran defends its genuineness, but Grabe, Semisch, 
Xeander, and others Lave doubted or denied it on good grounds. 



320 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

verse. It is an appeal to their previous conduct and attach 
ment, and it is adduced as a motive why they should follow the 
earnest counsel, ylvea de o>? eyoo. The succession of aorists 
shows that the apostle writes of a previous point of time, pro 
bably his first visit to them. So that he says generally 

OvSev fte rfSifcrja-aTe " in nothing did ye wrong me;" on 
the contrary, they did treat him with extreme kindness. But, 
1. Beza, Bengel, and Riickert give by a meiosis this turn to the 
words, that " he forgave the anxiety and sorrow which they 
had occasioned him ;" that " he would forgive and forget all" 
(Ewald). 2. The clause is not a mitigation of the previous 
rebuke, or something said in contrast to soothe them (Chry- 
sostom, Estius, Winer). 3. Some, as Ambrosiaster, a Lapide, 
and Schott, put the emphasis wrongly on /ie, and bring out 
this contrast : " ye did not wrong me, but ye wronged your 
selves." 4. Grotius and Rettig give it another point : " you 
have done nothing; against me, but against God and Christ." 

O O t O 

These four forms of evolved contrast are alike to be rejected. 
They do not give the aorist its proper past signification which 
it must have, as is indicated by the following series of verbs in 
the same tense. 

Ver. 13. Ot Sare Se "But ye know." So far from doing 
me any injury, your treatment of me was the very opposite ye 
wronged me in nothing ; on the other hand, Be, ye know that. 
A e is wanting in D 1 , F, but found in A, B, C, and it is sup 
ported by the Vulgate. The demonstrative ori introduces the 
series of clauses describing the facts of his first reception, which 
were matter of knowledge to them. He does not say, Ye re 
member, as if an act of reminiscence were needed, but, Ye 
know. And first he says 

"OTI 6Y aaOeveiav rrjs crap/co? va f y<ye\icrd/j, r]V vp.lv TO Trpo- 
repov " that on account of weakness of my flesh I preached 
the gospel unto you the first time." The phrase TO Trporepov 
Vulgate, jam prius might point to an early time, or for 
merly: John vi. 62, vii. 51, ix. 8; Sept. Deut. ii. 12, Josh. 
x. 9 (Usteri). But it here refers to the apostle s first visit. 
Heb. iv. 6, vii. 27. Had he been once only in Galatia, the 
phrase would have been superfluous. The article gives em 
phasis to the expression. Some indeed affirm that Paul paid 
only one visit to the Galatian province. Thus Grotius inter- 



CHAP. IV. 13. 321 

prets against the true construction nempe cum prcesens essem, 
nam et absens eos docet ; but a simple docet falls short of that 
oral teaching which is expressed by the verb evay^/e\iara^v. 
The phrase St dcrdeveiav T?}? crap/cos, literally rendered, can 
have only one meaning " on account of infirmity of the 
flesh," that is, on account of bodily weakness. Winer, 49, c. 
This meaning of a-dpj; is found in Acts ii. 26, 31, Col. i. 22, 
and such is the regular sense of Bid with the accusative. On 
account of bodily infirmity the apostle preached during his 
first visit to Galatia. We cannot explain it. Either, travelling 
through the country, he was seized with sickness, and being 
unable to prosecute his journey, he employed his leisure in 
preaching ; or, some malady detaining him longer in the pro 
vince than he had intended or expected, he devoted what 
strength he had, or what strength was returning to him, to 
a hearty and successful proclamation of the good tidings. This 
strictly grammatical sense given to the clause is in complete 
harmony with the context, as the exegesis of the following verse 
will show ; and to suppose a change of case is contrary to any 
real example in the New Testament. It is wrong, therefore, 
to evade this literal and only admissible meaning by giving the 
preposition the meaning of " under," as is done by not a few 
commentators. Thus Chrysostom : " While I preached to you, 
I was scourged, I suffered a thousand deaths ; yet ye thought 
no scorn of me." CEcumenius and Theophylact explain it as 
/tier dcrOeveias, and the Vulgate, per infirmitatem. Luther, 
too, Olshausen, Matthies, follow this exegesis ; and Brown says 
it is equivalent to ev daOeveia. Jowett s explanation is similar, 
and also that of Turner. In such a case bid would require the 
genitive, for such a phrase as &ia VVKTCL belongs to poetry. 
Bernhardy, p. 236. Some dilute the meaning, as Calvin : 
abjectus et in hominum conspectu nullius pretii ; and similarly 
Rosenmuller, Koppe, and Borger. Others understand the 
phrase of persecutions. Thus Grotius : per varios casus, per 
mille pericula rerum perrexi, ut vos instituerem. Jatho, going 
still beyond this, and taking adpj; as denoting sinful humanity, 
gives the weakness of humanity to save itself as the ground of 
all Paul s preaching. Bengel gets clear of the supposed diffi 
culty by the allegation that sickness was not the cause of the 
preaching, sed adjumentum cur Paulus efficacius prvedicaret. 



322 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Similarly Schott that the apostle continuing to preach assidue 
et alacriter, notwithstanding his sickness, had a great effect on 
the minds of the Galatians. Semler thinks that the phrase 
refers to timidity, which kept the apostle from openly with 
standing the supporters of Judaism ! Baumgarten-Crusius 
takes the allusion to be to some Befangenlieit und Verlegenheit 
perplexity and dilemma occasioned by the antipathy to him 
of the Jewish element in those communities. Lastly, Jerome 
propounds this strange explanation : Per wfirmitatem autem 
non sucft sed audientium, qui non poterant carnem subjicere 
verbo Dei. Estius, Hug, and Kettig follow him. But there 
wants some qualifying particle to bring out such a meaning, 
and the JJLOV of the following verse seems to decide that the 
reference is to himself. Gwynne denies that the gramma 
tical sense suits the context, and suggests that it would have 
fitted the apostle, instead of saying " on account of," to say 
"in spite of,- my weakness in the flesh." Peile also calls the 
proper translation " utterly irreconcilable" with the context, 
adding, " we would gladly read Si aa-Oevetas" Jowett thus de 
fends his view : " In the interpretation of Bid we have to choose 
between ordinary Greek usage and the sense of the passage ;" 
but how, except through the Greek usage, can the sense of 
this or any Greek passage be ascertained ? Nor have the pre 
positions such " uncertainty of usage" as he ascribes to Paul. 
Classical precision may not be uniformly predicated of them, 
but their generic sense is always preserved even in rhetorical 
accumulations. The plain meaning then, without resort to 
grammatical torture, undue dilution, or remote reference, is, 
that in some way or other unknown to us, but quite known to 
the Galatians, bodily weakness led the apostle to preach, or 
to continue to preach, in Galatia at his first visit ; and he goes 
on to say, that in spite of this, he met with a most cordial 
welcome, and with great success. It is needless to allege that 
if he had been sick or ill, he could not have preached. For 
what know we of the real nature of the malady ? It might be 
so severe or of such a character as to prevent him from tra 
velling, but not from preaching. What know we of his bodily 
infirmities, caught by infection or brought on by persecution? 
for " he was in stripes above measure, in prisons more fre 
quent/ or created by numerous causes, for he was " in weari- 






CHAP. IV. 14. 323 

ness and palnfulness, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, 
in cold and nakedness." What know we of the maladies and 
sudden attacks incident to a constitution which had been so 
tried and enfeebled, and into which had been sent also a thorn 
in the flesh ? (Suicer, sub voce dadeveta.} 

Ver. 14. Kal rov jreipacr/jLov vftwv ev rrj vapid JJLOV OVK eov- 
Oevricrare ouSe e^errrvaare " And your temptation in my flesh 
ye despised not nor loathed" " abhorred," Tyndale and the 
Genevan. The reading of the first part of this clause is involved 
in difficulty, whether it should be rov Treipacr/uLov VJAWV, or rov 
fjiov rov of the Received Text. The first reading, 
is found in A, B, C 2 , D, F, s 1 , 17, 39, 67 2 (C 2 having 
rov, N 3 rov). It is also found in the Coptic and Latin 
versions, and among the fathers in Jerome, Augustine, Ambro- 
siaster, Sedulius. Mill in his appendix adopts it, and so does 
Lachmann. On the other hand, the received reading pov 
rov is found in D 2 3 , E, K, L, the great majority of MSS., in 
the Syriac and Gothic versions, and in Chrysostom, Theodoret, 
CEcumenius, Basil, etc. It is adopted by Tischendorf, Gries- 
back, Hahn, and Reiche. Diplomatic or uncial authority and 
that of versions is in favour of vfjiwv. This pronoun VJAMV, in 
the interpretation of the Greek fathers, would appear to them 
unintelligible; for they understand the trial of dangers and 
persecutions, and there was thus a temptation to omit it or 
change it. Lachmann wrongly places a colon after ev ry 
crapKi ftov. The reading with vpwv is the more difficult, and 
was therefore more liable to be altered. There is no occasion 
to render /cal, et tamen, as Winer does ; it simply connects the 
clauses. The two compound verbs rise in emphasis. The first 
verb e^ovdeveo} (ovOev being a later form of ov&ev, Phrynichus, 
ed. Lobeck, p. 181) is " to set at nought," "to despise." The 
second verb eKTrrvco means " to spit out," as in Homer aro- 
/iaro? 8 e^eTrrvaev aXfi^v Trttcp^v, Od. v. 322 ; and this, as well 
as the compound with ev, is used only in the natural sense. 
Then it means to spit as if in disgust to loathe. Some of 
the other compounds are treated in Phrynichtw, ed. Lobeck, p. 
17. The simple verb is used in the earlier Greek, Soph. Antig. 
649, and airorcrvew would have been the more correct form 
here ; but apparently the preposition of the first verb is repeated 
in the alliteration. The absolute ov is followed by the relative 



324 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

ouSe, the second clause not beinc; intended when the first was 

/ o 

formed in the mind of the writer. Jelf, 776, 1, b. The 
verb describes a feeling excited by what is revolting;. See 

o ^ o 

Kypke in loc. The Vulgate has non reprolastis aut respuistis. 
By Treipacr/bios the apostle characterizes something which had 
a distinct tendency to produce those feelings something 
in the physical malady or in his appearance under it which 
subjected the Galatians to the temptation of contemning and 
loathing him. Either the disease of itself had a tendency to 
produce this disgust and revulsion, or it may be that there was 
a temptation to set at nought and nauseate a professed teacher 
of a new religion so afflicted and disabled, reject his claims, 
and turn a deaf ear to his teaching. The words ev rfj crap/cl 
IJLOV define the seat of the Treipaa-^os, and being without the 
article, form with it one conception. Winer, 20, 2. It has 
also been shown that ireipd^eiv ev occurs, as in Plato, Phil. p. 
21, A. The expression is elliptical. " Your trial you did not 
reject" = that which originated or caused the trial. For nouns 
in /io?, see Lobeck, Plirynichus, p. 511. So far from his weak 
ness in the flesh tempting them to cherish any such feeling 
toward him, he adds in very graphic phrase 

A\\ &>9 ayye\.ov Seov eSe^aaOe /ze, 0)9 Xpiarov Irjcrovv 
" but ye received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus." 
The vivid contrast in a\\d is, that so far from in any sense 
contemning him, they honoured him with an eager and intense 
welcome they received him as an angel of God. Of course, 
in both clauses the apostle speaks in accordance with their 
present knowledge of divine revelation, not according to any 
knowledge they had possessed before he preached to them, for 
that would imply that he found them in possession of the gos 
pel on his first visit to them. He therefore speaks of angels 
and Christ, as they understood them now, since their conver 
sion. They received him as an angel. 1 Sam. xxix. 9; 2 Sam. 
xiv. 17, xix. 27. The angel is the highest and most glorious 
among creatures, and many appearances and visits of angels 
are recorded in the Old Testament. They received him not 
only as a " legate of the skies," but as Christ Jesus, the Lord 
of the angels. As you would receive an angel, nay, as you 
would receive Christ Jesus, did you receive me. Compare 
Luke x. 16, 2 Cor. ii. 10, v. 10, 11. The apostle, in spite of 



CHAP. IV. 15. 325 

bodily malady, was most enthusiastically welcomed and revered. 
He says this to their credit, and he affectionately recalls it. 
How lovingly they greeted him, and how studiously they con 
sulted his welfare, untempted by what might have produced a 
very opposite result ! 

Ver. 15. Mournfully but sharply does he now turn round 
and ask 

T/9 ovv 6 /Aafcapicr/jibs V/AWV ; This reading has D, K, L 
in its favour, with the majority of MSS. and fathers. Another 
reading TTOV ovv o f^afcapicr/j,o^ is found in A, B, C, F, G, 
N, and in the Vulgate and Syriac versions. The Greek fathers 
refer to the various reading. Theodoret says, 6 <yap TI<? dvrl 
rov TTOV Te&qtcej and he and Theodore Mops, and Severianus 
explain rt <? by TTOV. The particle irov, though well supported, 
has the aspect of an emendation in that it appears to simplify 
the question Where has it all gone to ? " Where is the blessed 
ness ye spake of?" With T/<?, r\v must be supplied, as it is 
written in D, E, K ; F (G having 77) : " Of what sort or nature 
was your boasted blessedness ? " The adjective refers to quality, 
as it usually does, not to quantity, though this last sense is 
given to it by Luther, Beza, Borger, Hilgenfeld, Reich e, 
Wieseler, and Brown. The question has more point if rt? 
bear its common significance. The ovv is simply retrospective, 
implying here no logical inference. Donaldson, 548, 31. 
The noun fj,a/capi,cr/ji6$ not fiaKapiorr]^, blessedness means 
pronouncing blessed, as does the allied verb ^aKapi^w. Rom. 
iv. 6, 9 ; Luke i. 48 ; James v. 11 ; Sept. Gen. xxx. 13 ; 
Ast, Lexicon Platon. sub voce. Bengel gives another mean 
ing to Tt<> : quce causa what was the ground of this gratu- 
lation ? and he is followed by Jatho, Matthies, Schott, and 
to some extent Alford "worth what?" "of what weight or 
value?" That the yaa/captoyio? was by Paul on the Gala- 
tians, is on the one hand the opinion of Jerome, who says, 
vos eo tempore quo euangelium juxta carnem susceperatis 
beatos dicerem, of Theodoret and the Greek fathers. Qn 
the other hand, Estius, Locke, and Wordsworth understand 
that the apostle himself is the object of the congratulation 
on the part of the Galatians. Locke s paraphrase is, " What 
benedictions did you then pour out upon me!" and his note 
is, " The context makes this sense of the words so necessary 



326 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

and visible, that it is to be wondered how any one could 
overlook it." If the apostle had meant felicitation upon him 
self, he would have stated it in some distinct way, but V/JLWV 
stands without any addition. They had felicitated themselves 
on the apostle s ministry among them, even though they 
knew that it was what might be called an accident of illness 
which kept him so long in their province, apparently in oppo 
sition to his original plan of travel. Amidst their earnest 
self-congratulations, they forgot not the instrument of the 
blessedness which they boasted of. They pronounced them 
selves happy in enjoying such a ministry, and they vied with 
one another in kindness to the minister ; for in proof he says 

Maprvpa) <yap vp2v on el Bvvarov rou9 o<p0a\[Aov$ vfjb&v 
e^opv^ai>Te<i eSw/care fjioi " for I bear you record, that if it 
had been possible, ye would have plucked out your eyes and 
have given them to me." The verb papTvpw is here followed 
by the dative of person in favour of whom the p-aprvpla is 
given, and also, as frequently, by the demonstrative 6 rt, equi 
valent to an accusative with the infinitive. 

The participle e^opv^avres is often employed in this idiorn 
perhaps more frequently than other terms. The imperative eeA,e 
is used in Matt. v. 29, and e/c/3a\6 in Mark ix. 47. Compare 
Judg. xvi. 21 ; 1 Sam. xi. 2 : Joseph. Aniiq. vi. 5, 1 ; Herod, 
viii. 116. The phrase TOU<? ocfrBaX^ovs V/JLWV is not "your own 
eyes," as Ellicott remarks, but simply " your eyes." No em 
phasis is intended. Compare John iv. 35. " Ye would have 
given them to me." The av before e S&Ware in the Received 
Text is rejected on the authority of A, 13, C, D 1 , F, G, K. 
The use of av would have indicated hypothetical reality, but 
without av it is more rhetorically emphatic, and means that 
the act would have been done if the restriction in el Swarov 
had not intervened. John ix. 33, xv. 22. Hermann, de Par- 
ticula av, Opuscula, vol. iv. cap. xi. p. 57 ; Jelf, 858, 1. The 
phrase el Svvarov is not to be pressed as meaning an abso 
lute impossibility, but in a popular sense that such a token of 
love was impracticable pro evangelico lumine sua lumina tra- 
didissent. What higher expression of self-denied and ardent 
attachment to himself could the apostle describe ? As Alford 
remarks, " The position of the words TOI"? 6<b0a\fAovs vp,wv 
strongly supports the idea that the apostle uses the clause 



CHAP. IV. 1G. 327 

proverbially." And the expression is a common one based on 
nature, and found in a great variety of authors. Compare 
Deut. xxxii. 10, Ps. xvii. 8, Prov. vii. 2, Zech. ii. 8 ; Callim. in 
Dion. p. 21, ed. Blomfield ; in Latin, Horace, Sat. ii. 5, 33; 
Terence, Adelph. v. 7-5 ; Catullus, iii. xiv. See Wetstein in 
loc. The meaning then is, that they would have parted with 
anything, even the most precious have endured no common 
self-torment in the depth of their professed attachment to him. 

But some give the phrase a more literal significance, or 
rather suppose a more literal reason for the use of the figure. 
They suppose that the dcrdeveia was some kind of ophthalmic 
disorder. The meaning in that case is, the Galatians would 
have parted with their eyes to him, could the gift have relieved 
the apostle. Lomler, lliickert, Schott, and others advocate this 
view, which is favoured also by Conybeare. We would not, how 
ever, call it with Schmoller abgesclimackt, nor say with Bisping 
fast Idcherlich ist es ; for some form of it may have been mixed 
up with his malady. But, as has been remarked, the emphasis 
is neither on vprnv nor /W. Nor is there any distinct proof in 
the apostle s language at any time, or in the record of his life, 
that he was vexed with any eye-illness. See Essay at end of 
this section. 

Ver. 1G. " Qcrre e%0pos I>IJLU>V yeyova a\r)0evo)v vplv ; " So 
then, have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" 
By wcrre an interrogative inference is made " so then," or 
" as matters now are." Ergo is so used in the Latin versions. 
Plato, Phcedrm, 231, B ; Klotz-Devarius, vol. ii. 776. Meyer 
connects coo-re directly with Tt <? ovv o //,a/ca/3toyio<? V/JLWV, but the 
connection is better taken with the entire verse or paragraph 
not a direct conclusion, as the result of the previous statement. 
The term e^Opo? is taken in a passive sense by Estius, Koppe, 
Ilosenmiiller, Trana, and Meyer in his second edition. The 
context agrees with such a sense. Their feeling toward him 
had been that of extreme kindness and indulgence, and he 
might ask, Have I, who once was the object of your intense 
affection, become the object of your hatred ? the two states 
being brought into distinct contrast. The genitive is probably 
used because e^#po? is a virtual substantive Am I become the 
hated of you ? But we prefer the active sense, with many of 
the ancient versions, and with Bengel, Beza, Grotius, Riickert, 



328 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

Schott, Hilgenfeld, Meyer, and Ellicott. Such is tlie prevail 
ing meaning of the word, adjective and substantive, in the 
New Testament ; and it is followed here, as usually, by the 
genitive of person (Sophocles, Aja.v, 500 ; Demosthenes, de 
Legat. 439, 19, p. 279, vol. i. Opera, ed. Schaefer), whereas in 
the passive sense it takes the dative. The perfect <yeyova ex 
presses the change as over, and as resulting in a permanent 
state Am I become your enemy ? Nor is this meaning out 
of harmony with the context. There had been mutual ascrip 
tions of blessedness because they enjoyed the labours of such a 
benefactor. Have I then, from being esteemed and welcomed 
as your best benefactor, come to be regarded as your enemy 1 
There is no ground for Olshausen s supplement, " and can 
those be your friends ?" as there is no 670; expressed. At a 
later period, as we have seen, the Judaizers called him 6 e)(6po? 
. Clement. Horn. p. 4, ed. Dressel. The participle 
has a causal force " because I tell the truth to you ;" 
the use of the present not confining it to the moment of writ 
ing ; nor is it " because I have told you the truth," though the 
idea of the past is not excluded. The state is expressed in its 
whole duration. Winer, 40, 2, c, 45, 1 ; Schmalfeld, pp. 91, 
92, 405 ; Acts xix. 24; 1 Pet. iii. 5. The participle probably 
means simply " speaking the truth" referring to oral address, 
and not to upright conduct. Matthias, as his wont is, would 
alter the punctuation, and connect a\.r)0eucov with the next verse. 
To what period, then, does the apostle refer? Not (1) 
to the letter he is writing, as he could not know of its 
result, though this is the view of Jerome, Luther, Koppe, and 
others ; nor (2) to his first visit, for they received him then 
as an angel, nay, as Christ Jesus Himself ; nor then could 
the Judaizing teachers have had any scope for labour. Some 
time had elapsed before they made their appearance, as is im 
plied in iii. 2-5, and expressly stated in v. 7 : " Ye did run 
well." So that (3) the probability is that he refers to what 
took place on his second visit, when the evil was fermenting 
which speedily developed into 1 such pernicious results. That 
the speaking of unwelcome truth creates enmity has passed 
into a proverb. Terent. Andr. i. 1, 40. While the apostle 
could go far in the way of accommodation to prejudice, and 
in matters indifferent, he would on no account sacrifice any 



NOTE ON THE "INFIRMITY IN THE FLESH. 4 329 

element of truth. Whatever on any pretence or to any degree 
endangered truth met at once from him with vehement and 
persistent opposition, no matter what hostility, misapprehension, 
or prejudice his fidelity might create against himself. The 
truth was Christ s, and he dares not compromise it; himself 
was Christ s, and in Christ s spirit he " endures all things for 
the elect s sake." And as the truth endangered in Galatia was 
truth alike precious and prominent in the gospel truth resting 
on the perfection of Christ s work, and involving the freeness 
of His salvation it must be upheld at all hazards. Still the 
apostle must have keenly felt this revulsion of sentiment toward 
himself ; for his was not an impassible nature, with nerves that 
never tingled and a surface that no w r eapon could pierce. On 
the contrary, with a woman s tenderness, his sympathies were 
acute, profound, and ever active : " Who is weak, and I am 
not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?" Had the change 
of feeling toward him been only characteristic caprice, he would 
have cared less ; but it involved a departure from the gospel 
which he had proclaimed, and which was divine alike in origin, 
substance, and results. 



NOTE ON PAUL S " INFIRMITY IN THE FLESH" "THE THORN 
IN THE FLESH." 

GAL. IV. 13, 14, 15. Oi Sare 8e on 81 da~6eveiav TTJS aapKos evrjyye\i- 
0-dp.rjv vfuv TO Trporepov, Kai TOV 7rtpacr/i6i/ vp.>i> ei> rfi <rapKi fj.ov OVK 
f^ov6evr]crare ov8f e^fTrrvcraTe dXX o>s iiyye\ov Qeov t8ea(rdf p.e, ais 
Xpicrrbv irjcrovv. Tt s ovv rjv 6 ^aapt(r/j.o? vfiiav , paprvpS) yap vfiiv on ei 
vvarov TOVS o<pdaXfj,ovs vjj.S>v fopvavres e 8a>Kare p,oi " Ye kllOW I10W, 

on account of infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you 
at the first. And your temptation which was in my flesh ye despised 
not, nor loathed ; but received me as an angel of God, even as 
Christ Jesus. What then was the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear 
you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out 
your eyes, and have given them to me." 

2 COR. XII. 7. Kat rfj virfpfioXii TWI> dnoKaXv^futv tva /xr; inrepaipufjiai, 
[lot cr/coAo\|/- TTJ (rapid, ayyeXos Sarai/ iva p.f KoXcKpi^r}, !va p.r) vnepai- 

i " And lest I should be* exalted above measure through the 



330 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the 
flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted 
above measure." 

According to one probable hypothesis, the Epistle to the 
Galatians and the second Epistle to the Corinthians were 
written about the same period, and it is a natural conclusion 
that the reference in the two preceding paragraphs is to the 
same sharp distressing visitation. But surmises as to the 
nature of the malady so referred to in both epistles in these 
strong and significant terms, have been numerous and conflict 
ing. Plainly it was no merely inner disease, the effects or 
concomitants of which were either not visible, or, if perceptible, 
affected no one with disgust e^eTTTva-are. But it was an 
infirmity which could not be concealed, which obtruded itself 
on all with whom the apostle came into contact, and was so 
revolting in its nature as to excite nausea in spectators, and 
tempt them to reject his preaching. The apostle does not dis 
guise its tendency, though he does not unfold its nature or 
give it any specific name. The Galatians knew it so well that 
the merest allusion was sufficient for them. Their perfect 
knowledge of it is thus the cause of our ignorance of it. But 
there are allusions to some sickness or other peculiar malady in 
other portions of the second Epistle to the Corinthians so strik 
ing and peculiar, that there is every probability of their identity 
with this da-Oeveia. Thus 2 Cor. i. 8-10 " For we would not, 
brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us 
in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, 
insomuch that we despaired even of life : but we had the sen 
tence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in our 
selves, but in God which raiseth the dead; who delivered us 
from so great a death, and doth deliver ; in whom we trust 
that He will yet deliver us." These remarkable words have 
been referred by many, as Neander and Wieseler, to the 
tumult at Ephesus, as told in Acts xix. The objection, that 
Paul would have written " in Ephesus," and not vaguely " in 
Asia," if he had alluded to that city, is without real force, 
though he generally so names it, as in the first epistle, 1 Cor. 
xv. 32, xvi. 8. But the life of the apostle does not seem to 
have been in peril at Ephesus ; the tumult was stupid and aim- 



THE APOSTLE S WEAKNESS. 331 

less, and did not last long ; and if he had been martyred, it 
would have been in the sudden confusion and excitement. 
Hours of dreadful anticipation would in that case have been 
spared him. Nay, so far as the record tells, it could not be 
said of him, that during the riot he was in anguish or felt 
himself in danger. But in the verses quoted he speaks of 
being " weighed down beyond strength, so that we despaired 
even of life." These terms certainly are inapplicable to such 
a sudden or momentary terror as the swift gathering of a mob 
might produce ; they rather describe the result of sore personal 
sickness, so long, heavy, oppressive, and continuous, that " we 
utterly despaired even of life." That sickness was Ka& inrep- 
ftdXrjv in itself grievous, and on this account inrep &vvafAiv, 
beyond our power of endurance. The visitation so character 
ized must have a load of unwonted pressure, for the apostle is 
of all men least prone to exaggerate in personal matters. To 
" despair even of life," implies a period of suffering so tedious 
and heavy that it gradually extinguished all hope of recovery. 
The expression, to " have the sentence of death in ourselves," 
inclines us again to the same view : the malady was felt to 
be a deadly one ; the prospect of restoration to health was so 
wholly gone, that his trust was not in God for it, but for a 
blessed resurrection " in God which raiseth the dead ; " 
and his unexpected recovery was signally due to Him " who 
rescued us from so great a death." Such is a probable 
meaning of the paragraph. In ver. 4 the apostle speaks gene 
rally of tribulations, and, viewed in a special aspect, they 
are called " the sufferings of Christ," as Pie still endures 

O / 

them in His members. But in ver. 8 he passes from the 
general reference to a specific instance, which indeed might be 
aggravated by surrounding persecution, and by his deepening 
anxiety for the welfare of the churches " affliction, anguish 
of heart, and many tears," 2 Cor. ii. 4. In 2 Cor. x. 10 
the apostle quotes a bitter criticism of his opponents on himself 
and his writings, in which occurs the phrase, 77 Se irapovcria 
TOV crco^aro? acrOevrjs a sentence referring not to stature 
or physical constitution, but to the impressions of frailty and 
sickness which his appearance indicated. Nay, he had said 
to the same church, 1 Cor. ii. 3, " I was with you in weak 
ness, and in fear, and in much trembling :" the weakness was 



332 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

probably physical weakness, nervous susceptibility increased 
by his intense anxiety as to the results of his preaching. He 
could not indeed be what Jowett calls him, " a poor decrepid 
being afflicted with palsy;" for surely in such a case he could 
not have done the work which so few could have done, or borne 
the trials which so few could have faced. One may remark, 
too, the specialty of emphasis in the phrase, " Luke the beloved 
physician," as if he had endeared himself to the apostle, who 
stood in need so often of his medical sympathy and skill. lie 
might not be unlike what Luther calls him, ein armes dilrres 
Mannlein ivie Magister Philippics (Melancthon) ; for there is 
throughout his epistles a deep current of allusion to weakness, 
to mental depression, to nervous apprehension, to hindrances in 
his labours which distressed him, and a consequent sense of 
humiliation which always chastened him. These were morti 
fying drawbacks to his eagerness and success. 

*/ o o 

Still farther, there is a very strong probability that in the 
apostle s malady there was some prominent characteristic, to 
which passing allusions are thus made, and of which a more 
formal account is given by himself in 2 Cor. xii. 1. Even there 
the result is dwelt upon, but the nature of the infliction is not 
clearly described. He had been describing many of his outer 
sufferings, and the last of them, referred to so solemnly and 
under an adjuration, must have made an indelible impression 
on him the kind of ignominy and humiliation attaching to 
his undignified mode of escape from Damascus " through a 
window, in a basket was I let down by the wall." He almost 
shrinks from telling the adventure: such is its nature that he is 

O 

afraid that his sober statement may not be credited, and there 
fore it is prefaced, " The God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not." 
Perhaps, however, these words belong to the previous catalogue 
of sufferings, or they form a preface to some other statements, 
which after all have been withheld. He then comes at length 
to his inner experiences, connected with his highest glory and 
with his deepest and most trying weaknesses. In these infir 
mities would he glory, as they were either coincident with or 
resulted from the noblest privilege which he had enjoyed. He 
proposes to give them for he was forced to it a specimen of 
his glories and his infirmities, his enjoyments of visions and 



THE RAPTURE. 333 

revelations those states of spiritual ecstasy in which, with a 
partial or total cessation of self-consciousness, he was brought 
into immediate communing with the Master, beheld His glory, 
and listened to His voice ; in which truth in its beauty and 
power was flashed upon him, and glimpses into the glories and 
mysteries of the spiritual world were suddenly vouchsafed to 
him. Both forms of ecstasy combined (for the vision included 
the revelation) had already been enjoyed by him. The person 
of Christ w r as usually the object of the vision, and the disclosure 
of His will the theme of the revelation. And the amazing 

O 

incident is told by him as of a third person while he unfolds 
the exalted and perilous honour, but he resumes the first person 
when he comes to speak of the resulting infirmity. " I know a 
man in Christ, fourteen years before, whether in the body I 
know not, or out of the body I know not, God knoweth, (I 
know) such an one snatched up as far as the third heaven. 
And I know such a man, whether in the body or without the 
body I cannot tell, God knoweth, that was caught up to para 
dise, and heard unutterable utterances, which it is not lawful 
for a man to speak." This repetition with a difference refers 
apparently to two raptures ; and we may almost infer from the 
construction, broken and resumed, asserted and repeated, that 
the remembrance of the indescribable glory, and his untraceable 
translation into it, produced a momentary maze or mental be 
wilderment like that which preceded or followed the mysterious 
ascensions. The " third heaven" is evidently the highest heaven 
it was no common honour ; and paradise may not be a dis 
tinct, loftier, or remoter region, but perhaps a portion of the 
same glorious abode. Probably, as this name was given to the 
garden of Eden, the scene of original innocence, it was trans 
ferred to that peculiar sphere of the third heaven where human 
spirits are gathered together in restored purity and felicity, in 
the immediate presence of God on His throne that paradise 
where the Saviour unveils His glory, and admission into which 
He promised to the penitent thief on the cross. That the apostle 
saw the divine essence is maintained by Augustine, Anselm, 
Aquinas; but what he saw he tells not, what he heard could not 
be disclosed. If we were even allowed to repeat the songs and 
voices, still language would be wholly inadequate as a vehicle, 
for words want power to bear on them a description of the 



334 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

u far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." But how 
he reached the third heaven he knew not, only it was under a 
swift and sudden spell he was snatched away, and by no self- 
analysis could he unravel the psychological mystery. So con 
trary was it to all experience, so little was he under the guidance 
of ordinary consciousness, and of the common influences of 
space and time, that he could not tell whether he was in the 
body or out of the body. Yet he speaks of himself as a man 
caught up, of passing from one region to another, and of hear 
ing words. His whole inner nature was under the influence of 
the divine charm, in whatever way it was effected, though 
hearing in the ordinary sense implies organs of sensation. " Of 
such a one will I glory" one so strangely honoured as to be for 
a season among the blessed in their exalted sphere, of such an 
one so singled out would he glory, but he would not glory of 
himself; not denying the identity of " such an one" with himself, 
but drawing probably this distinction, that in enjoying the 
translation he was not himself, but in some way beyond him 
self. Still he would boast of his infirmities, for these were 
himself, elements of continuous consciousness, struggle, and 
depression. Nay more, if he did glory, he should not be "a fool ; 
for .in referring to visions and revelations he was only speaking 
the truth without exaggeration ; but he forbears, for this reason, 
that he does not wish to be judged by such an abnormal 
standard this enjoyment of ecstasies which they could not 
comprehend. He would not be the object of any idolatrous 
veneration because access had been given to the light inacces 
sible ; but he would be judged by the common criterion what 
they saw him to be, what they heard of him, that is, by their 
own experience of him, in his daily life, and by his work which 
was ever patent and palpable to them. Pie would glory in his 
infirmities ; and he adds, " And for this purpose, that through 
the excessive abundance of the revelations I might not be un 
duly exalted, there was given unto me a thorn in the flesh, a 
messenger of Satan, that he may buffet me, that I might not 
be unduly exalted." The language implies that the aKoKoty 
rfj crapKl was produced by the excess of the revelations, or it 
was so connected with them in time and circumstance that it 
was felt to have resulted from their excess rfj V7rep/3o\f}, 
they were so many and so grand, that while the spirit might 



THE THORN. 335 

enjoy them, the flesh was so weak that it was worn out by 
them. This conscious link between the thorn and the revela 
tion was the appointed means of keeping the apostle humble : 
what he had enjoyed might have elated him, but it had a sting 
left behind it which ever abased and tortured him. That the 
visitation had wrought out its purpose is apparent from many 
allusions, and from this late record of his unprecedented honours, 
for he does not seem to have told them before. The words 
imply that there might have been undue elation, but that it 
was most surely prevented. It may be added that Lucian 
sneers at the apostle s rapture, calling him avafyaXavrtas, eVt/5- 
pivos, depoflarija-as, Pldlopat. 12, p. 249, Opera, vol. ix. Bipont. 
The visions are also mocked in the Clementines, xvii. 19. 

The term ovcoXo-vlr occurs only here in the New Testament, 
and originally signifies a pointed stake, defined by Hesychius 
j;v\ov Q^VJ for fixing heads on; as in Homer, II. xviii. 177, 
K(f)a\rjv . . . Trrfeai, ava <jKo\o7nrecrcrL, or for impaling a person, 
Eurip. JBacchae, 983 ; 77 cr/co/Vo-v^t 7rjj^(o/j,ev Se/ua?, Iph. in Taur. 
1431. Lucian calls Jesus TOV ev rfi TlaXaicnivr] avaaKo\o- 
TrtcrOevra, De Morte Peregrini, 12, p. 279, vol. viii. Bipont. In 
the Septuagint it seems to be employed to denote a sharp- 
pointed stake, but one not so large as that a head could be set 
on it or a body impaled on it a stake in miniature, virtually a 
thorn : o-/coXo7re9 eV TCH? o<#aX/iot? V/AWV, " thorns in your eyes," 
Num. xxxiii. 55 ; similarly Ezek. xxviii. 24, and in Hos. ii. 6, 
where it represents the Hebrew "Vlp, spina. "AKavOai ical 
ovcoAoTre? oSum? cnyftalvovcn $ia TO ou, Artemidorus, Oneiro- 
critica, iii. 33, p. 280, vol. i. Opera, ed. Reiff. The Syriac 



renders by . ..m^V ]__i_, " a thorn in my flesh." It is 



therefore extreme in Dean Stanley to take the image as that 
of impaling or crucifying, or at all analogous to the phrase, "I 
am crucified with Christ." Impalement would scarcely be a 
congruous image for physical suffering in one who travelled and 
laboured like the apostle. The references to crucifixion and 
its agonies are of a different nature. But he might bear about 
a sharp-pointed stake in his flesh which no power could extract, 
and which was producing a rankling festering wound and tor 
ture. Now the rf) aapKt here appears to be parallel to the eV 
of Gal. iv. 13 something which had its origin in 



336 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

those superabundant revelations, which vexed and humiliated 
the apostle, and was of a nature so visibly painful, and withal 
so offensive, that it became a trial to spectators and listeners. 
The thorn was " given him " by God, and was also " an angel 
of Satan that he may buffet me" the last clause describing 
the action not of the thorn, but of the angel of Satan. It is a 
superficial and unbiblical supposition of Turner, that this clause 
may have no more real meaning in it than the popular expres 
sions, " St. Titus dance" or " St. Anthony s fire," in which 
there is not the least idea of supernatural agency. Scripture 
does not so sport with the awful names and agencies of the 
fallen spirit-world. " The devil and his angels" is a phrase 
found in Matt. xxv. 41. The thorn was employed by this evil 
spirit as a means of buffeting him. That he might be humble 
was God s purpose ; that he might be humiliated was the pur 
pose of Satan s angel, that is, brought into contempt, and 
restrained in his work, his influence lessened, and himself 
harassed and agonized. May not this help to explain the 
allusion in 1 Thess. ii. 18, " We would have come unto you, 
but Satan hindered us ?" This buffeting might produce ner 
vous tremors, apprehensions, and a chronic lowness of spirits. 
Amid all his enthusiasm and chivalry, he needed frequent 
comfort and assurance ; so that we find the voice saying to him 
at Corinth, "Be not afraid;" in his confinement in Jeru 
salem, "Be of good cheer;" and during the voyage to Home, 
"Fear not." Acts xviii. 9, xxiii. 11, xxvii. 24. Another result 
in such circumstances might be, that strong craving for human 
sympathy which is often manifested by him. See Howson, 
Lectures on St. Paul, p. 72, 2d edition. 

It is difficult to say at what period these revelations were 
given. It was fourteen years before he wrote his second epistle 
to the Corinthians. The period could not therefore be that of 
his conversion, as is thought by Damasus, Thomas Aquinas, 
(Eder, Keil, and Ileiche, for considerably more than fourteen 
years must have elapsed since that turning-point in his life. 
Others identify the rapture with the trance in the temple, and 
the vision and commission connected with it, which himself 
describes in Acts xxii. 17-20, as Spanheim, Lightfoot, Rinck, 
Schrader, Osiander, Wieseler. If this vision took place at his 
first visit to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, the 



PERIOD OF THE INFLICTION. 337 

dates are more in harmony, though the chronology of the 
apostle s life is very uncertain. The year of his conversion 
cannot be definitely fixed, opinions varying from the years 33 
to 42 A.D. But if it happened, as there is strong probabilitv 
for believing, in the end of 37 or in 38, and the 2d Epistle to the 
Corinthians was written in 57 or 58, then the "three years after" 
of Gal. i. 18, the date of his first visit to Jerusalem, would be 
in 40 or 41 more than fourteen years before this allusion in 
2 Cor. xii. 2. There are other ways, however, of manipulating 
these dates : Wieseler, for example, places the conversion in the 
year 40. Still, though on such a computation the dates might 
thus be brought to correspond, the two accounts are by no means 
in unison ; for the apostle " utters " what he saw in the temple, 
and recounts also what he " heard." Wieseler argues, indeed, 
that as the description of the rapture follows close on the refer 
ence to the escape from Damascus, its date must naturally be 
assigned to the first visit to Jerusalem : Gal. i. 18. But, as 
Meyer remarks, the apostle in the beginning of 2 Cor. xii. goes 
on to tell something distinctly new, and quite different from the 
incidents of previous rehearsal. Wieseler also labours hard to 
prove against Ebrard and Meyer, that the apprjra p^ara are 
not things impossible, but only unlawful for a man to utter : 
die nicht gesagt werden durfen, quce non licet homini loqui. 
But apprjra prj^ara is a phrase not to be identified with akd- 
\rjroi o-revay/bLol, Rom. viii. 26, for those groanings are often 
inarticulate suspiria de profundis. Nor does this interpretation 
much help him; for certainly the apostle felt at liberty to record 
what was said to him in the temple ecstasy, though it is pos 
sible that some other portion of that revelation may come under 
the category of "unutterable utterances." At all events, the two 
accounts do not present any palpable data for their identifica 
tion ; so that the period and place of the " visions and revela 
tions" are unmarked as an epoch in the history of the Acts of 
the Apostles. He did not so glory in the honour as to be often 
alluding to it ; it had left him a broken and shattered man. 

We can only form an inferential judgment as to the nature 
of this stake in the flesh, and can more easily assert what it was 
not than define what it really was. But 

I. The reference in Galatians cannot be to the carnal style 
of his preaching, the first of four interpretations given by 



338 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Jerome Quasi parvulis vobis atque lactentibus per infirmitatem 
carnis vestrce jam pridem evangelizavi . . . apud vos pene bal- 
butiens. This notion is wholly unwarranted by the pointed 
words. 

II. Nor can the thorn be anything external to him, such as 
persecution, or any form of fierce and malignant opposition on 
the part of enemies, or of one singled out as 61776X09 2arav, 
like Alexander the coppersmith, or Hymengeus, or Philetus, 
who are instanced by Chrysostom. Thus Chrysostom explains 
" my temptation in the flesh :" " While I preached unto yon, I 
was driven about, I was scourged, I suffered a thousand deaths, 
yet ye thought no scorn of me." Similarly Eusebius of Emesa, 
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, QEcumenius, Theophylact, 
Ambrosiast. ; and also Calvin, Beza, Fritzsche, Schrader, 
Hammond, Ileiche. Augustine, on the verse in Galatians, 
says, Neque respuistis, ut non susdperetis communionem peri- 
culi mei. It was very natural in those days, when the gospel 
everywhere encountered fanatical opposition and numbered 
its martyrs by hundreds, to suppose that the eager apostle, so 
often thwarted and maligned, so often suffering and maltreated, 
summed up all elements of antagonism into the figure of a 
thorn in the flesh, and personified them as a messenger of Satan 
buffeting him. The Canaanites, the ancient and irritating 

o / o 

enemies of the chosen, are called " thorns." But this opinion is 
baseless. For, 1. His -weakness is identified with himself : it 
clung to him, and he could not part with it ; it was a stake in 
his flesh. But he might occasionally avoid persecution, as when 
he escaped from Damascus and when he left Ephesus. 2. Such 
persecution could not load him with a sense of humiliation in 
presence of others, or produce that loathing to which he refers. 
o. These persecutions, whether from Judaizers or other foes, 
were so bound up with his work, that he could scarcely seek 
in this special and conclusive form to be delivered from them, 
vers. 8-10. 

III. A third theory refers the thorn to some inner tempta 
tion \vhich fretted and distracted him. And, 

1. Some describe those trials as temptations to unbelief, the 
stirring up of remaining sin, or as pangs of sorrow on account 
of his own past persecuting life. So generally Gerson, Luther, 
Calvin, Osiander, Calovius. Gerson describes it as consisting 



ITS NATURE. 339 

de liorrendis cogitationibus per solam suggestionem inimici phan- 
tasiam turbantis obtingentibus. Luther supposed them to be 
blasphemous suggestions of the devil, as if they had been a 
parallel to his past experience and conflicts. Calvin says, more 
distinctly, Ego sub hoc vocabido comprehendi arbitror omne genus 
tentationis quo Paulus exercebatur. Nam caro hie, meo judicio, 
non corpus, sed partem animce nondum regeneratam aignificat. 
Now no statement of such a nature occurs in any other part 
of the apostle s letters; and though the second descriptive clause, 
" a messenger of Satan," may correspond so far with the hypo 
thesis, the first phrase, " thorn in the flesh," indicates something 
not in his mind, but acting from without or from his physical 
organism upon it. And it is called aaOeveia daOeveia <rapic6<i. 
2. Not a few, perhaps led by the stimulus carnis of the 
Vulgate, take the phrase to mean temptation to incontinence. 
It is not to be wondered at that such should be the opinion of 
celibates and of monks who fled from the world and from duty, 
but felt to their vexation that they could not flee from them 
selves. There seems to have been an early impulse to this 
view. Augustine s words tend in that direction accepit stirnu- 
lum carnis. Quis nostrum hoc dicere auderet, nisi ille confiteri 
non erubesceret? Enarrat. in Ps. Iviii. p. 816, vol. v. Opera, 
Gaume. Jerome, too, says : Si apostolus . . . ob carnis aculeos 
et incentive, vitiorum reprimit corpus suum. Epist. ad Eustocli. 
p. 91, vol. i. Opera, ed. Vallars. Primasius gives it as an alter 
native, alii dicunt titillatione carnis stimulatum. Gregory the 
Great describes the apostle after his rapture thus : Ad semet- 
ipsum rediens contra carnis bellum laborat. Moral, lib. viii. c. 
29, p. 832, vol. i. Opera, ed. Migne. In mediaeval times this 
was the current opinion, as of Salvian, Thomas Aquinas, Bede, 
Lyra, Bellarmine, and the Catholic Estius, a Lapide, and 
Bisping. Cardinal Hugo condescended to the time of the 
temptation, viz. after the apostle s intercourse with the charm 
ing Thecla, as related in the legendary Acts. Zeschius de 
stimulo carnis, in the Sylloge JDissertationum of Hasasus and 
Ikenius, vol. ii. 895. See Ada Apost. Apocrypha, Tischen- 
dorf s edition, p. 40. Thecla s heathen mother complains of her 
as wholly absorbed in Paul s preaching, and waiting on it "like 
a cobweb fastened to the window" in which she sat; and it is in 
this legend, so old that Tertullian refers to it, that the apostle s 



340 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

appearance is described avSpa fjUKpov rfj jj.e<yedei, tyi\ov rfj 
KetyaXfj., ayKv\ov rais tfi^/iat?, eve/cn/cov, crvvofypvv, /Ltf/cpw? eVi- 
pivov, %dpiTo<; 7r\i)pTj. Ada Apostolorum Apocrypha, p. 41, 
ed. Tischendorf. The words of Estius are : Apostolum per 
carnis stimulum indicare voluisse incentivum libidinis quod in 
came patiebatur, adducing in proof 1 Cor. ix. 27 and Rom. vii. 
23, neither of which places refers to sensuality. And a Lapide 
claims something like infallibility for this opinion, insisting on 
it as an instance of the vox populi, vox Dei. 

The objections to this view are many and convincing. For, 

(1.) Such a stimulus could not be said to be given him by 
God as a special means of humbling him, and in coincidence 
with superabundant visions and revelations. 

(2.) Nor could the apostle have gloried in this temptation, 
ver. 9. 

(3.) Nor would it have exposed him to scorn or aversion ; 
the struggle would have been within, and could not have been 
described as in this passage of Galatians. 

(4.) And lastly, the apostle declares his perfect freedom 
from all such temptations. "I would," he affirms, referring 
to incontinency and to marriage, "I would that all men were 
even as I." 1 Cor. vii. 7. " Ah ! no, dear Paul," Luther says, 
u it was no such trial that afflicted thee." 

IV. The trial and the thorn in the flesh seem to be rightly 

C? / 

referred to some painful and acute corporeal malady which 
could not be concealed, but had a tendency to induce loathing 
in those with whom he had intercourse, which he felt to be 
humbling and mortifying to him as a minister of Christ, and 
which seems to have been connected with the many visions and 
revelations having a tendency to elate him. Generally, that 
is the view of Flatt, Billroth, Emmerling, Riickert, Meyer, 
De Wette, Professor Lightfoot, Alford, Howson, Chandler. 
Bottger, who regards Galatia as comprising Lystra and Derbe, 
thinks that the illness w r as caused by the stoning in the former 
of those places. But from that stoning there was an imme 
diate recovery, and it could scarcely be the " thorn in the 
flesh." See Introduction. 

One hypothesis on this point, viz. that feeble or defective 
utterance is meant, has been suggested by the statement of the 
apostle, when he says that, in the judgment of his opponents, 



NOT DEFECTIVE VISION. 341 

his " speech was contemptible." This adverse criticism, how 
ever, does not refer to articulation, but to argument ; for he 
" came not with the enticing words of man s wisdom." Still the 
words may imply that his oratory had some drawbacks, winch 
made it inferior in power to his epistolary compositions. 

Others, again, take the malady to be defective vision, 1 and 
the opinion is based to a large extent on what he says in the 
verses prefixed to this Essay : " I bear you record, that if it 
had been possible, ye would have plucked out your eyes and 
have given them to me." The theory is plausible, but it wholly 
wants proof, unless some unauthorized additions be made to the 
inspired statements. For 

1. The translation of the verse on which such stress is laid 
is wrong : it is not " your own eyes," but simply your eyes, uri- 
emphatic. See on the verse. 

2. The mere defect of vision could not of itself induce that 
contempt and loathing which his trial implies, as in ver. 14. 

3. The thorn in the flesh was given him fourteen years 
before he wrote his second Epistle to the Corinthians ; but his 
conversion, accompanied by the blinding glory of Christ s ap 
pearance, to which his ophthalmic weakness has been traced, 
happened at a considerably earlier period. 

4. The arguments adduced to prove that the apostle s eye 
sight was permanently injured by the light u which shone from 
heaven above the brightness of the sun" at mid-day are not 
trustworthy. That he was blinded at the moment is true, but 
he recovered his sight when there " fell from his eyes as it were 
scales." All miracles appear to be perfect healings, and resto 
rations of vision are surely no exceptions. The verb arevi^w^ 
which is referred to in proof, will not bear out this conjecture. 
For in Acts xxiii. 1 areviaa^ characterizes the apostle s act 
before he began his address, and describes naturally a sweep 
ing and attentive scrutiny, but with no implied defect of vision. 
In Luke iv. 20 the same verb describes the eager gaze of the 
synagogue of Nazareth upon Jesus about to address them ol 
6(f)da\fjiol fjcrav aTev$ovTS avrw. In Luke xxii. 56 it depicts 
the searching survey of the damsel in the act of detecting 
Peter as one of the twelve KCU arevlcraa-a avrut. In Acts 

1 See an ingenious paper in Dr. John Brown s Hone Subsecivee, written 
by one of his relatives. 



342 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

i. 10 it paints the long and wondering look of the eleven after 
their ascending Lord &>? arevifyvres fja-av. In Acts iii. 4 it 
marks the fixed vision of Peter on the man whom he was 
about to heal ; in vi. 15 it represents the rapt stare of the 
audience on Stephen, " when his face shone as the face of an 
angel ;" in vii. 55, the intense vision of Stephen himself, when 
he " looked up and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing 
at the right hand of God ;" and in x. 4, the awestruck look 
of Cornelius at the angel. See also Acts xiv. 9. In these 
examples from Luke and twice the reference is to Paul, 
xiii. 9, xxiii. 1 the look is one of earnest and strong vision, 
and therefore the occurrence of the same verb in xxiii. 1 can 
not form any ground for the opinion which we are controvert 
ing ; for in making a virtual apology the apostle does not say, 
"Pardon me, I did not see," but "I wist not" perhaps = I 
forgot at the moment " that he was the high priest." The 
allusion also to the "lame letters" in which he wrote the 

o 

Galatian Epistle, and to the marks of the Lord Jesus which he 
bore, admit of a different and satisfactory interpretation. 

5. Nor can the interpretation of Si acrBeveiav in the paper 
referred to be sustained. The writer gives it this sense : " By 
the infirmity of my flesh I proclaimed to you the good news ; 
that is, his defective vision was a lasting proof of his conver 
sion and of the truth of Christ s resurrection and glory, and 
such evidence so adduced they did not despise nor reject. But 
" reject" is not the rendering of the last verb, and Si uade- 
veiav can only mean " on account of" certainly not " by 
means of." See on the verse. 

6. Lastly, if the thorn in the flesh be identified with de 
fective vision produced by the light which blinded him at his 
conversion, then, as we have said, the proposed identification is 
contradicted by the apostle s own chronology in 2 Cor. xii. 2. 

The hypothesis of some severe physical malady was among 
the earliest started on the subject. The language of Irenceus 
is vague indeed, yet it seems to refer to corporeal ailment ; for 
in illustrating the infirmities of the apostle, he adds, as given in 
the Latin version, homo, quoniam ipse infirmus et natura mor- 
ttdis, v. 3, 1. 

But of the precise form of the malady there are very 
various opinions. Hypochondriacal melancholy is supposed by 



OPINIONS CONCERNING IT. 343 

some (Bartholinus, Wedel). Haemorrhoids is the conjecture 
of Bertholdt. Thomas Aquinas gives as one opinion, not his 
own, morbus Iliacus, sen viscerwn dolor. 1 Basil held the 
opinion that the thorn was some disease ; for, treating of the 
use of medicine, he speaks of it in connection with, or under 
the same category as, the healing of the impotent man at 
Bethesda, Job s affliction, and the ulcered beggar Lazarus. 
Regulce Fusius Tractates, Opera, vol. ii. 564, Gaume, Paris 
1839. Gregory of Nazianzus, at the end of his twentieth 
Oration, solemnly appeals to his departed brother w 6ela KOL 
lepa KefjjaXi] to arrest some malady in him which he calls by 
Paul s words, cr/coXoTra r^ crap/cos. His annotator Nicetas de 
scribes it as a disease of the kidneys or of the joints TroSdypa, 
adding that some explained Paul s thorn in the same way. 
Greg. Naz. Opera, ii. p. 785, ed. Paris 1630. Baxter thought 
the disease may have been stone his own torment ; his tor 
mentor is preserved in the British Museum. An old and pre 
vailing opinion refers it to some affection of the head. This 
opinion is alluded to by Chrysostom Tives fiev ovv icefya- 
\a\yiav riva etyaaav. Primasius gives as an alternative : 
Quidam enim dicunt eum frequenti dolore capitis laborasse : ad 
2 Cor. xii. Patrolog. vol. Ixxviii. p. 581, Migne. Tertullian 
says : Sed et ipse datum sibi ait sudem . . . per dolorem, ut 
aiunt, auricula; vel capitis (De Pud. cap. v.), and his editor 
Rigalt wonders at the opinion. In another allusion, in a 
passage where he is discussing the power of Satan, he simply 
says : In sanctos humiliandos per carnis vexationem. De Fuga 
in Persecutione, cap. ii. Pelagius, while recording the opinion 
that persecutions are meant persecutions aut dolores adds : 
Quidam enim dicunt eum frequenter dolore capitis laborasse : 
ad 2 Cor. xii. Jerome, too, in giving other conjectures, 
speaks in general terms : Aut certe suspicari possumus, apos- 
tolum eo tempore quo primum venit ad Galatas cegrotasse . . . 
nam tradunt eum gravissimum capitis dolorem scc.pe perpes- 
sum. This ancient and traditionary notion of some physical 
ailment is the correct one, though of its special character we 
are necessarily ignorant. But mere headache, grievous and 
overpowering, could scarcely have produced such an effect as 
1 The ax.6^0-^/ in this case was supposed probably to refer to impale 
ment : adactum per medium hominem qui per os emergat stipitem. 



344 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

is implied in the verbs " despised not nor loathed." Its ac 
companiments or results might, however, have this tendency. 
Ewald makes it fallende Sucht, or something similar, and also 
Ziegler, Holsten, and Professor Lightfoot. This opinion has 
several points in its favour. If mental excitement, intense or 
prolonged, produces instant and overpowering effect on the 
body, how much more the ecstasy which accompanies visions 
and revelations! An "horror of great darkness" fell upon 
Abraham when a vision was disclosed to him (Gen. xv. 13). 
The prophet Daniel " fainted, and was sick many days," after a 
revelation from the angel Gabriel ; and after a " great vision," 
he says, " There remained no strength in me : for my comeli 
ness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no 
strength" " straightway there remained no strength in me, 
neither is there breath left in me." Dan. viii. 27, x. 8, 17. 
The beloved disciple who had lain in His bosom says, " When 
I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." Kev. i. 17. If com 
munications of the more common kind, like those vouchsafed 
to Daniel, produced such debility and reaction, what would be 
the result of such a bewildering rapture into paradise, and the 
visions which followed it ? If his nervous system had been 
weakened by previous manifestations, might not this last and 
grandest honour bring on cerebral exhaustion, paralysis, or 
epileptic seizure, with all those results on eye, feature, tongue, 
and limb which are so often and so shockingly associated with 
it ? And the infliction was a chronic one, as may be inferred ; 
it was a stake in his flesh, hindering his work as directly as 
Satan might wish, exposing him to the contemptuous taunts of 
Jews and Judaists, and to loathing on the part of his friends. 
This theory appears to suit all the conditions of this myste 
rious malady. Its paroxysms seem to have recurred at in 
tervals, the first attack being fourteen years before the writing 
of the second Epistle to the Corinthians that is, perhaps, 
about the year 44 ; another at his first visit to Galatia, pro 
bably in 52 ; and then when he was writing the second Epistle 
to the Corinthians and this to the Galatians, perhaps about 58, 
according to the view we have given in the commencement of 
this paper. 

One is amazed at the work which men with a strong will 
can brace themselves up to do in the midst of extreme suffering 



OTHER EXAMPLES. 345 

and weakness. Chrysostom, King Alfred, 1 William the 
Third, Pascal, Richard Baxter, Robert Hall, and Robertson 
of Brighton are examples of " strength made perfect in weak 
ness." 

1 Asser s Life of Alfred, p. 66, etc. A mysterious disease a ; sudden 
and overwhelming pain," which from childhood had seized him, and re 
curred in another form with frightful, severity at his marriage-feast 
" tormented him day and night from the twentieth to the forty-fourth 
year of his life. If even by God s mercy he was relieved from this infir 
mity for a single day or night, yet the fear and dread of that dreadful 
malady never left him, but rendered him almost useless, as he thought, for 
every duty, whether human or divine." Bonn s Antiquarian Series: Six 
old English Chronicles. In describing the battle of Landen, Macaulay 
characterizes the two great leaders, William and Luxemburg, as "two 
sickly beings, who in a rude state of society would have been regarded as 
too puny to bear any part in combats. In some heathen countries they 
would have been exposed while infants. ... It is probable that among the 
hundred and twenty thousand soldiers who were marshalled round Neer- 
winden under all the standards of Western Europe, the two feeblest in 
body were the hunchbacked dwarf who urged forward the fiery onset of 
France, and the asthmatic skeleton who covered the slow retreat of Eng 
land." History of England, vol. iv. pp. 409, 410. 



CHAPTER IV. 17-31. 

AWARE by what means this alienation of feeling had been 
produced, he now reverts to those by whose seductive 
arts and errors it had been occasioned 

Ver. 17. ZrjKovaiv vpas ov /caXco? "They are paying 
court to you, not honestly." I may be reckoned your enemy 
because I have told you the truth ; but these men, who so 
zealously court you, and profess such intense regard for you, 
are not actuated by honourable motives, their purpose is 
selfish and sinister. Hofmann connects this verse with the 
preceding one, as if it were the result fy]\ova-iv v/^as. But 
the connection is unnatural, and coo-re in such a case would pro 
bably be followed by an accusative with the infinite. A. Butt- 
mann, p. 210. The verb, like others in o<a, seems to have a 
factitive sense to show or display T}\O? ; but it may be shown 
in various ways, and from a variety of motives for one or 
against one. Matthias translates it eifern maclien sie euch 
they create zeal in you a meaning improved. Followed by 
an accusative of person or thing, it may mean to desire him 
or it ardently, to be eager for: 1 Cor. xii. 31, Soph. Ajax, 
552 ; and sometimes in a bad sense it denotes to be jealous or 
envious of : Acts vii. 9, James iv. 2, Sept. 2 Sam. xxi. 2. 
Calvin, Beza, and others give the meaning, " they are jealous 
of you ;" but the same verb in the next clause cannot bear this 
signification. Some of the fathers assume the sense of envy or 
emulation ; Chrysostom explaining it thus : " They wish that 
they may occupy the rank of teachers, and degrade you who 
now stand higher than they to the position of disciples." See 
Plutarch, Mor. p. 831, vol. iv. Opera, ed. Wittenbach. Their 
obsequious attentions were ov /caXco? in no honourable way, 
but insincerely, and for their own unworthy ends : Jas. ii. 3 ; 
and e$## ov /caXw? describes the manner of Agamemnon s 

346 



CHAP. IV. 17. 347 

death, JEschylus, Eumenides, 461. The apostle gives no 
formal nominative to the verb : who the persons so stigma 
tized were, all parties knew in the Galatian churches, and he 
does not condescend even to name them. This wooino- of 
their converts is one of the elements of that witchery re 
ferred to in iii. 1. The word "affect" in the Authorized 
Version, from the Latin affeciare^ is used in its older sense, 
as in Shakspeare 

" In brief, sir, study what you most affect ;" 
And in Blair s Grave 

" While some affect the sun, and some the shade." 

The apostle explains ov /eaXw<? in the next clause, or rather 
gives one illustration of it 

A\\a eKK\eicrai, tyza<? 6e\ovcnv " nay> they desire to ex 
clude you." A\\a here has a limiting or corrective power. 
Kiihner, 322, 6. It introduces a different idea, yet not one 
directly opposite. Klotz-Devarius, ii. 23. Instead of u/m?, 
Beza conjectured 77/^9 ; but the reading has no support. De 
Wette, however, advocates it on account of the easy sense 
which it suggests " they wish to exclude us from all fellow 
ship with you and influence over you." For the same reason 
Macknight says, " I suppose it to be the true reading." Beza 
suggested it ex ingenio. The Syriac translator seems to have 

t\ X -X T 

read eytcXeio-cu, as the rendering is v > *~i* 001 ^O "? m n KK!O A 

" they wish to include " or " shut you up." 

The reference in e /c/cXeiOYu has been understood in various 
ways they desire to exclude you, from what or whom ? 

1. Erasmus, followed by a Lapide, supposes the exclusion 
to be from Christian liberty, the former giving it as a liber- 
tate Christi, and the latter a Christo et Christiana lilertate. 
So Estius, and Bagge who explains " from gospel truth and 
liberty." Prof. Lightfoot has "from Christ." This does not 
tally, however, with the design alleged in the next clause. 

2. Wieseler and Ewald suppose the exclusion to be from 
salvation aus dem Himmelreiche. from the kingdom of heaven, 

7 f 

according to the former, vom dchten Christenthume according 

O 7 O 

to the latter ; and the notion of Borger, Flatt, and Jatho is not 
dissimilar "from the Christian community." But though such 



EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 

might be the feared result, it is not alleged. The Judaists 
made it their distinctive dogma that salvation was to be had 
through faith in Christ, but only on compliance with the Mosaic 
law, so that a church of circumcised believers would be to them 
a true object of desire. The next clause suggests also a sepa 
ration of persons. 

3. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and GEcumenius suppose the 
exclusion to be " from perfect knowledge, having had imparted 
to them what is mutilated and spurious." Thus Theophylact : 
K/3aX\eci> T?}9 TeA,eioraT?79 zv Xpicrru) /craracrrao-ea)? KCU rywwcreco?. 

4. Some take it to mean exclusion from the apostle him 
self, as Luther, Calvin, Bengel, Olshausen, Winer, Gwynne, 
and Trana. Reiche has ab apostolo ej usque coinmunione. But 
with a meaning so definite, pointed, and personal, one would 
have expected the genitive pronoun to be expressed. 

5. Some suppose the exclusion to be from the sounder 
portion of the church. Hilgenfeld writes : cms deui Pauli- 
nischen Gemeindeverbande. Meyer includes the apostle also. 
This generally seems to be the idea. Their desire was to re 
move these Galatian converts from the sounder portion of the 
church, adhering of course to the apostle in person and doc 
trine, and form them into a separate clique. The emphasis 
from position lies on the verb, and the avrovs of the next 
clause suggests a personal contrast. The allusion is thus left 
general ; the antithesis to the avrovs is only understood 
" they" as a party naturally stand opposed to the party who 
hold the Pauline doctrine, and bear no altered relation to 
the apostle. The idea of compulsion found in the verb by 
Kaphelius, Wolf, and Zacharia3, does not belong to it ; the 
examples quoted for the purpose fail to prove it (Meyer). 
And their desicm was 

O 

Iva avrovs ^rjXovre " in order that ye may zealously affect 
them." They attach themselves to you, that by drawing you 
off from those who are of sound opinion, ye may attach your 
selves to them. The verb must have the same sense in the last 
clause as in the first. The syntax is somewhat solecistic. The 
verb ^Xoure, though preceded by iva } is in the present indica 
tive not the Attic future, as Jatho says ; for the instances 
adduced by him from Thucydides are presents, and not futures. 
There is no difference worthy of the name among the MSS., 



CHAP. IV. 18. 349 



though Fritzsche lays stress on MS. 219 2 , which reads t 
So also in 1 Cor. iv. 6 "va is followed by the present indicative. 
The connection is illogical in thought design implying some 
thing future, possible, etc. Some therefore are disposed to 
take "va as an adverb ; Meyer, followed by Matthias, rendering 
it ubi, quo in statu, and he rests his interpretation on gramma 
tical necessity. There is no instance, however, of such an ad 
verbial usage in the New Testament, for the passages sometimes 
adduced will not support the conjecture. Mullach, Grammatik 
der Griechischen Vulgar-sprache, p. 373. The idiom is English, 
however: "now is the hour come that" Iva or "when," "the 
Son-of man should be glorified;" but iva has its usual telic 
significance in the original text. Far rather may it be admitted 
that the construction is one of the negligences of the later 
Greek, or it may be traced to some peculiarity in the concep 
tion of the apostle. Winer, 41, 5, 1. In both instances 
found in the New Testament the verbs end in oca. A. Butt- 
mann, p. 202. The usage of iva with the indicative present is 
found in later Greek, of which Winer has given instances 
as from the apocryphal books : Acta Petri et Pauli 15, but 
Tischendorf s text reads aTroX^rac ; Acta Pauli et Theclce 11, 
and there too various readings are noted by Tischendorf, A eta 
Apocrypha, Lipsias 1851. An additional clause, tyjXovTe Se TO, 
Kpeirrw papier fiara, taken from 1 Cor. xii. 3, is here inserted 
by D 1 , F, and is found in Victorinus, the Ambrosian Hilary, 
and in Sedulius. 

Ver. 18. KdXov 8e fy]\ova6ai ev KO\K> Trdvrore " But 
it is good to be courted fairly at all times." The reading TO 
%r)\ov(r0ai is found in D, F, G, K, L, and almost all MSS. A, 
B, C omit TO; B and K read fyrj\ov<r6e (with the Vulgate 
cemulamini and Jerome), which from the Itacism was the same 
in sound with fyf\.ov<jdat ; tyft^ovaOai without TO is the reading 
of A, C, D, F, K, L, and is preferable. The Be is, as usual, 
adversative. The interpretation given of the previous verse 
rules that of the present one. They display zealous attentions 
toward you, and desire to form you into a clique that you 
may display zealous attentions toward them. It is not the 
mere zealousness I object to. To have zealous attentions 
shown toward one in a good cause always is a good thing. 
Such seems the natural order of thought : the words are re- 



350 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

peated from the previous verse. Such paronomasia, or rather 
annominations, are not unfrequent, and are very common in 
the Old Testament. Winer, 68, 2 ; Lobeck, Parallp. p. 501. 
The previous /caA,&>? suggests KO\.OV and ev KO\.OJ ; Qrj\ovcnv and 
^rjXovre suggest ty]\ov(r6cu,. This last word is to be taken in a 
passive sense, for no instance of a middle voice sense has been 
adduced. The infinitive has more force with the article. 
Winer, 44, 2, a. The use of ev fca\a> for /caXco? is sugges 
tive : the exchange implies a difference of meaning; and we 
agree with Meyer, that it refers not to manner, like the adverb, 
but to sphere " in a good thing." Nor does this, as Ellicott 
objects, alter the meaning of the verb from " amlh i" to adrni- 
rari; for surely one may say it is good to be courted in a good 
way, or to be courted in a good cause, though we do not hold 
to the sense of the Greek fathers, as if the phrase pointed out 
that which excited the fyfkovv. The reference is not to that 
which draws forth the &\ovv, but to that in which it operates, 
implying also the motives of those who feel it. Such seems 
the most natural construction of the words. The goodness of 
the ?;A,o<? depends upon its sphere, the emphasis being on KaXov 
a;ood it is to be courted in a cood thing, as when the gospel 

o o O? O I 

in its simple truth is earnestly urged upon you. The apostle 
does not object to the mere fact of zealous attention being 
shown to the Galatians, but first to its way ov /caX9, that 
it was dishonourable ; and then to the sphere of it, that it was 
not in a good thing ev /caXw, for it was pressing on them a 
subverted gospel, and endangering their soul s salvation. The 
statement is a general one a species of maxim ; but to the 
Galatians, as the objects of the verb, the apostle plainly refers. 
The phrase ev Kdkw does not refer to purpose (Reiche), nor is 
the meaning so vague as lona est amlitio in re lona (Wahl, 
Schott). ndvrore, " always," a word refused by purists. 
Phrynichus, p. 105, says, that instead of it e/cao-rore and Bia- 
TTCLVTOS are to be used ; similarly Zonaras, Lex. p. 1526. It is 
added 

Kal fir] /uLovov ev ru> irapelvai p^e TT^O? u/wa? (l and not only 
when I am present along with you." In Trpos ty^a?, as in later 
usage, the idea of direction is almost wholly dropped. John 
i. 1. The infinitive again has the article, giving it force and 
vividness. The language plainly implies that the tyxe?? are 



CHAP. IV. 18. 351 

supposed to be the objects of the previous t,rj\ova-Qai, and the 
meaning is : The being paid court to in a good cause is praise 
worthy, not only at all times, but by every one ; in my absence 
from you, in my presence with you: I claim no monopoly of it. 
I do not wish to have you all to myself. Whoever in my 
absence shows you zealous attentions, if his zeal be in a good 
thing, does what I cannot but commend. 

But there are other interpretations which cannot be enter 
tained. Locke gives ev Kdkw a personal reference " it is good 
to be well and warmly attached to a good man," that is, him 
self the apostle " I am the good man you took me to be." 
Estius writes, Ut cemulemini magistros vestros, qualis ego im 
primis sum, id enim intelligi vult. He is followed by Chandler, 
whose words are, " I am still worthy of the same share of your 
affection, though I am absent from you ; therefore it is neither 
honourable nor decent for you to renounce my friendship," etc. 
Macknight s paraphrase is, " Ye should consider that it is comely 
and commendable for you to be ardently in love with me, a 
good man, at all times." But this surely is not the apostle s 
usual mode of self-reference. 

Some again regard the apostle himself as the object of 
%rjX.ovcr0at, (Reiche, Hofmann) ; and Usteri gives this sense : 
" How much was I the object of your 77X09 when I was with 
you ! As it has so soon ceased in my absence, it must have lost 
much of its worth." But this takes off the ede;e of the state 
ment, and its consecutive harmony with the preceding verse ; 
and in such a case, as Meyer says, you would expect /ue to have 
been expressed. 

Others, as Bengel, take r)\ova-0ai in the middle zelare inter 
se to be zealous for one another ; but we have no example of 
such a meaning. Others, taking the word in a passive sense, 
bring out nearly the same meaning, referring to what is said 
in vers. 13-15 their warm reception of the apostle and his 
doctrine when he was present, and their revolution of feeling 
as soon as he was absent. 

Some adopt the meaning of the middle or active voice. 
Thus Olshausen generally, but away from the context, " Zeal 
is good when it arises in a good cause, ^\ovo-0at being equiva 
lent to fyjXovv ," Luther, Bonum quidem est imitari et cetnulari 
alias, sed hoc prcestate in re bona semper. While Beza makes the 



352 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

apostle the subject of the verb dbsens absentes vehementissime 
conplector, Morus makes him the object : L/audabile autem est 
sectari prceceptorem in re bona semper. Koppe thus writes : Optem 
vero ut hanc istorum hominum erga vos invidiam concitetis semper 
constanter sequendo doctrinam meam. He is virtually followed 
by Paulus, Riickert, and Brown who thus renders Koppe s 
thought : " Ye were once the subject of their envy, and I 
would God ye were the subject of their envy still. I wish 
your place in their estimation had been the same in my absence 
that it was when I was present with you." But this sense, 
allowing the verb to have the meaning " to envy," does not 
tally with the same interpretation of the previous verse; for, as 
Meyer hints, they had not been the objects of such envy in the 
apostle s presence, as the last clause of this verse with such an 
interpretation would plainly intimate. Lastly, Bagge strangely 
gives this translation : " It is good to call one s self blessed 
in the truth at all times." 

The. apostle suddenly changes his tone ; his mood softens 
into tenderness, like the mother beginning with rebuke and 
ending in tears and embraces. 

Ver. 19. 2Wa /w "My little children." B, D 1 , F 1 , N, 
read refcva, a reading which Lachmann adopts, though it is an 
evident emendation. Te/cvla has in its favour A, C, D, K, L, N :i , 
with Chrysostom and Theodoret among the Greek fathers, and 
also the Vulgate. The apostle is not in the habit of using the 
diminutive ; its use here is therefore on purpose : 1 Cor. iv. 14, 
17 ; 2 Cor. vi. 13, xii. 14; Phil. ii. 22. But the Apostle John 
employs it frequently : John xiii. 33 ; 1 John ii. 1, 12, 28, iii. 
7, 18, iv. 4, v. 21; though with the genitive Qeov he uses re/cva. 
This clause is joined, or, as one might say, is tacked on, to the 
previous one by Bengel, Riickert, Usteri, and Schott ; and such 
is the punctuation in the text of Knapp, Scholz, and Lachmann. 
See Hofmann. But such a connection is exceedingly unsatis- 

factorv, as there is no direct address. The Se of the f olio win o- 

<j o 

verse (20) has led some to this mode of division, as if it began 
a new thought. 

O&9 TtaXiv u>$tv(0 " whom I travail in birth with a<rain." 

O 

This change of gender according to the sense is frequent. 
Matt, xxviii. 19; Rom. ix. 22, 24^ Winer, 24, 3. The verb 
is spoken of the mother, not of the father parturio, 



CHAP. IV. 19. 353 

Vulgate. It does not mean in utero gesture, as is the opinion 
of Heinsius, Grotius, Koppe, Riickert ; but is "to travail," to be 
in the throes of parturition. Rev. xii. 2. Compare Num. xi. 
2 ; Ps. vii. 14 ; Cant. viii. 15 ; Isa. xxxiii. 4, xxvi. 17, 18, liii. 
11, Ixvi. 7, 8 ; Rom. viii. 22, 23. The image of paternity is 
the usual one with the apostle : 1 Cor. iv. 15 ; Philem. 10. 
There does not seem to be any foundation for Wieseler s idea, 
that in iraKiv the allusion is to Trakvyyevecrta : it is simply to 
the previous agonies of spiritual birth when he was present 
with them. At the first he had travailed in birth with them ; 
and now the process, with all its pain and sorrow, was being 
repeated. The sense of the verb in such a context is not mere 
sorrow, but also enduring anxietv and toil. No wonder that 

O t/ 

those who had cost him so much were so dear to him re/cvla 
p.ov whom he had begotten in the gospel. See Suicer, Thesaur. 
sub voce. 

"A-^pis ov fj.op^utdrj Xpi(TTos ev vpJiv " until Christ be 
formed in you." The words a%pt and f^e^pi are distinguished 
by Tittmann, as if the first had in prominence the idea of ante, 
the entire previous time, and the second that of usque ad, the 
end of the time specially regarded a hypothesis which Fritzsche 
on Rom. v. 14 has overthrown. Klotz-Devarius, ii. p. 224. 
The passive ftoptycoOf) with the stress upon it, not used else 
where, expresses the complete development of the ftopcj>r) the 
form of Christ. Sept. Isa. xliv. 13. The metaphor is slightly 
changed, and the phrase does not probably refer to regene 
ration (it is not till Christ be born in you), but to its fully 
formed and visible results. The Galatian churches might be 
regenerate, for they had enjoyed the Spirit : the apostle s 
anguish and effort were, that perfect spiritual manhood might 
be developed in them. The figure is therefore so far changed; 
for they were not as an embryo waiting for birth, the child is 
formed ere the pangs of maternal child-bearing are felt. The 
apostle s maternal pain was not because a full-formed child was 
to be born, but because his little children were dwarfing and not 
rising up to manhood were still reKvla. See under Eph. iv. 13. 
These earlier pangs he had felt already when they became his 
little children ; but, now that they were born, he was in labour 
a second time, TraXiv, that they might come to manhood, and 
be Christians so fully matured that indwelling truth should be 

z 



354 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

their complete safeguard against seduction and error. It is no 
argument against giving TraXiv a reference to his first visit that 
he describes it as joyful ; for his spiritual anxiety was none 
the less deep, and his agony of earnestness none the less in 
tense, till the truth of the gospel should take hold on them 
and Christ be formed in them their life. Besides, the mere 
pain of parturition is not the only point of comparison. The 
formation of Christ within them is the purpose of his travail of 
soul. For " Christ" is the one principle of life and holiness, 
not Christ contemplated as without, but Christ dwelling within 
by His Spirit; not speculation about His person or His doctrine, 
nor the vehement defence of orthodox belief, not the knowledge 
of His character and work, nor profession of faith in Him with 
an external submission to the ordinances of His church. Very 
different Christ in them, and abiding in them : His li<iht in 

/ O O 

their minds, His love in their hearts, His law in their con 
science, His Spirit their formative impulse and power, His 
presence filling and assimilating their entire inner nature, and 
His image in visible shape and symmetry reproducing itself in 
their lives. Rom. viii. 29. What Christian pastor would not 
toil, and pray, and yearn for such a result, to " present every 
man perfect in Christ Jesus ?" Col. i. 28; Eph. iv. 13. Calvin 
says well : " If ministers wish to do any good, let them labour 
to form Christ, not to form themselves in their hearers." The 
figure is virtually reproduced in describing the fruits of mar 
tyrdom, as Prof. Lightfoot remarks, in the Epistle of the 
Churches of Vienne and Lyons; but there is this difference, 
that in that epistle it is the church, the "virgin mother," who 
brings forth. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. 1, 53, etc. The notion 
of a second conversion urged by Boardman cannot be based 
on this verse: Iliyher Christian Life, pt. iii. See AVaterland, vol. 
iv. p. 445. Yet Calvin writes, and Gwynne calls him " drowsy 
and oblivious" for so writing : Scmel prius et concepti et editi 
fuerant, jam secundo procreandi erant post defectionem ; but he 
adds, Non enim altolet priorem partum, sed dicit iterum fovendos 
utero esse, tanquam immaturos foetus et in formes. Augustine 
says: Formatur Christus in eo, qui formam accipit Christi. 

Ver. 20. "L6e\ov Se Trapelvai Trpo? tym? apn " I could 
wish indeed to be present with you now." The Be is not re 
dundant (Scholefield), but is used after an address, as often 



CHAP. IV. 20. 355 

after questions, and after a vocative with a personal pronoun. 
Bernhardy ; A. Buttmann, p. 331. There is a subadversative 
idea in the transition. He had spoken of his being present 
with them ; in his memory a chord is struck ; it vibrates for a 
moment while he calls them little children, for whom he is 
suffering birth-pangs ; and then he gives expression to his feel 
ing, " I could wish, yea, to be present with you." Hilgenfeld s 
separation of this verse from the one before it, as if it began a 
new sentence, is unnatural. His absence stands out in con 
trast to his ideal presence. The imperfect ij0e\ov is rightly 
rendered "I could wish," a wish imperfectly realized, but still 
felt ; for there underlies the idea, " if it were possible," si 
possim, or icenn die Sadie thunlieh icdre. Acts xxv. 22 ; Rom. 
ix. 3. It is the true sense of the imperfect, the act being un 
finished, some obstacle having interposed. Bernhardy, p. 373; 
Kiilmer, 438, 3 ; Hermann, Sophocles, Ajax, p. 140, Lipsiac 
1851. The particle av is not understood (Jowett); for the use 
of av, as Hermann remarks, would have brought in a different 
thought altogether " but I will not." Opuscula, iv. p. 56. See 
Fritzsche on Horn. ix. 3. For TT^O? u/Aa<?, see under ver. 18, 
and for apn, see under i. 9. 

Kal a\Xaat ryv (frwvrjv fJiov " and to change my voice." 
The tense of the verb is altered, and such an alteration is not 
infrequent. Winer, 40, 2. Could we lay any stress upon 
the alteration here, it might point out that the change of voice 
was the effect of the realized wish to be present with them. 
$a)VTj may refer more to the tone than the contents of speech, 
for it would still be a\r)0ev(ov. But of what nature is the 
change expressed by the verb ? 

1. The change seems to be in oral address tywvtf, and not 
in allusion to anything which he was writing, for he could 
easily change the tone of the epistle. He supposes himself 
present, and may allude to strong and indignant declara 
tions and warnings made during his second visit. 2. The 
change is not from milder to sterner words, as is wrongly held 
by Wetstein, Michaelis, Rosenmiiller, Riickert, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Webster and Wilkinson, for hard words are not 
written by him now, but his soul is filled with love and longing 
reKvia pov. 3. According to Halm, the change is from 
argument to accommodation and the allegory of the following 



356 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

paragraph. Biblical Repository, vol. i. p. 133. But such an 
explanation is artificial and unnatural. 4. The change, as 
Meyer and others think, is to a milder tone than that which he 
had just been employing. Such appears to be the dictate of 
his present mood of mind as he pens this sentence. His soul 
is softened toward them molliter scribit, sed molUus loqui 
vellet (Bengel). 5. A variety of changes are supposed to 
lurk in the word by many expositors, for they imagine the 
change to be suited to changing circumstances. Such is the 

O o O 

view of Theodoret, Luther, Winer, De Wette, Schott, 
Brown, Estius, and Bisping. Thus Luther : " That he 
might temper and change his voice, as he saw it needful." 
Thus, too, a Lapide : Ut quasi mater nunc blandirer nunc 
gemerem nunc obsecrarem nunc objurgarem vos. But the simple 
verb a\\dai will not bear such a variety of implied meanings, 
and, as Meyer suggests, such a clause would have been added 
as vr/30? T>)i> xpeiav 7 Acts xxviii. 10. Fritzsche s notion is un 
tenable in its extravagant emphasis : Vel severius, vel lenius 
cum Us agere, prout eorum indoles poposcerit. In the two ex 
amples of the phrase cited by AVetstein, the first, referring to 
the croak of the raven, has vroXXa/a? qualifying the verb, and 
the second is precise and simple in meaning. Artemidorus, 
Oneiro. ii. 20, p. 173, vol. i. ed. Reiff ; Dio Chrysostom, 
Oral. 59, p. 662, vol. ii., Opera, ed. Emperius, 1854. Lastly, 
the meaning assigned by Wieseler to the verb cannot be sus 
tained ; for, according to him, a\\dcraeiv means austauschen, 
to exchange, not simply to change, as if the apostle longed to 
exchange words or to converse freely with them. It is true 
that uXkdaaeiv and /ieraXXacrcreiy, both followed by eV, are 
used in Horn. i. 23 and 25 in senses not very different, save 
that the compound is the more emphatic, and the latter in ver. 
26 is followed more distinctly by e/9, though avri is a common 
classical usage, or a genitive TL, TLVO^. In order to bear out 
the sense given by Wieseler, some supplementary clause with 
a preposition is therefore indispensable. The passages quoted 
from the Septuagint will not bear him out, as there is only 
the accusative here ; in Lev. xxvii. 3, 33 there is also a dative, 
Ka\ov Trovr/pa) ; in Ps. cv. 20 the preposition ev follows the verb 
as in Romans; and in Ex. xiii. 13 there occurs the simple dative. 
Comp. Jer. ii. 11, xiii. 23; Gen. xxxi. 7; Esdras vi. 11, etc. 



CHAP. IV. 21. 357 

The apostle adds the reason 

"On a7ropov/J<ai ev vfilv " for I am perplexed in you." 
Hof mann unnaturally connects ev vpJiv with the previous clause, 
and Matthias, with as little reason, joins the whole clause 
to the following verse, as the ground of the question which 
it contains. The verb airopiw (ajropos, impassable, as applied 
to hills or rivers) signifies " to be without means," to be in 
difficulty or in perplexity. In the New Testament it is con 
strued with et?, referring to a thing, Acts xxv. 20, and also 
with Treplj Luke xxiv. 4, as well as ev. The verb is here 
passive with a deponent sense. Grammatically, in the purely 
passive sense it might mean, " I am the object of perplexity," 
as the passive of an intransitive .verb. Bernhardy, p. 341 ; 
Jelf, 367. The meaning would then be that assigned by 
Fritzsche, Nam hceretis quo me loco Jiabeatis, nam sum vobis 
suspectus; and this meaning coalesces with his interpretation of 
the previous clause. But the usage of the New Testament is 
different, as may be seen in John xiii. 22, Acts xxv. 20, 2 Cor. 
iv. 8. Gen. xxxii. 7 ; Sirach xviii. 7 ; also, Thucydides, 
ii. 20 ; Xen. Anab. vii. 3, 29 ; Schoemann, Isceus, p. 192. The 
phrase ev vfjuv points to the sphere of his perplexity. Winer, 
48, a; 2 Cor. vii. 16. The doubts of the apostle were not 
merely what to think of them or of their condition, but how to 
reclaim them. How to win them back he was at a loss ; and 
therefore he desired if possible to be present with them, and if 
possible to adopt a milder tone, if so be they could be recovered 
from incipient apostasy. The ev is not propter (Bagge), but 
has its usual meaning, denoting the sphere in which the emo 
tion of the verb takes place. Such is apparently the spirit of 
the verse. 

Ver. 21. Aejere JJLOL, ol VTTO vofiov deXovres elvat, rov vopov 
OVK a/covere ; " Tell me, ye who desire to be under the law, 
do ye not hear the law ?" The appeal is abrupt urget quasi 
prcesens (Bengel). The parties addressed are not persons of 
heathen birth (Flatt, Riickert), nor specially of Jewish birth 
(Schott, De Wette), but those who had a strong desire to placa 
themselves under the law, in whom the Judaistic teaching had 
stirred up this untoward impulse, which Chrysostom says came 
from their arcatpov <fH\oveuela<;. The phrase, " Do ye not hear 
the law?" is supposed by Meyer and others to mean, "Do ye 



358 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

not hear the law read?" But the plain meaning of the terms 
is the hest. The verb dtcovere is not to be take/i as signifying 
"do ye understand?" (Jerome, Borger, Olshausen, Kiittner, 
and others), nor as denoting, " Do ye not submit to the law ?" 
(Gwynne), which is utterly wrong, or as having any modifi 
cation of that sense ; but it is, " Ye who would submit to the 
law, give ear to its statements." The reading ava^ivuxTKere is 
an old gloss found in D, F, found also in the Latin version 
(legistis) and in several of the fathers, and may have been 
suggested by the reading of the law in the synagogues, or by 
a wish to give a more palpable form to the question. The 
repetition of w/xo? is emphatic : in the first clause it is the legal 
institute ; in the second with the article it is the book of the 
law. Luke xxiv. 44 ; Rom. iii. 21. Hofmann needlessly takes 
the whole verse as one thought " Tell me (01 relative), ye 
who desiring to be under the law do not hear the law ;" but 
this view does not harmonize with the beginning of the next 
verse. The apostle now sets before them a striking lesson of 
the law, so presented and interpreted as to be specially intel 
ligible to them, as being also quite in harmony with their 
modes of interpretation 

Ver. 22. reypaTrrai, yap, on A/Bpadp >vo vlovs ea^ev eva 
ex T??9 7rcuc)/a7c?7<?, /ecu eva e/c TTJS eXevOepas " For it is written 
that Abraham had two sons ; one by the bond-woman, and one 
by the free woman." The ydp introduces illustrative proof. 
It tacitly takes for granted a negative reply to the previous 
question, and thus vindicates the propriety of putting it : 
Klotz-Devarius, ii. 234 ; or it may mean profecto dock wohl : 
Ellendt, Lex. Soph. i. 332. The two mothers Ilagar and Sarah 
are particularized by the article as well known : Gen. xvi. and 
xxi. Ha&ia-Kr) sometimes, however, means a free-born maiden, 
as in Ruth iv. 12, Xen. Anab. iv. 3, 11. But in Gen. xxi. 10 
it represents in the Sept. the Hebrew nips, and in Gen. xvi. 
1 the Hebrew ""ins^ , and in the New Testament it is used 
only in the sense of slave. Nedvis was the earlier Greek term. 
PhrynichuS) ed. Lobeck, 239 ; Oremer s Lex. sub voce e Xeu- 
Oepos. 

The apostle refers to some very remarkable points in 
Abraham s domestic history with which they must all have 
been well acquainted 



CHAP. IV. 23, 24. 359 



Ver. 23. ^4X\ o fiev etc r^9 TratSiW???, Kara adp/ca yeyev- 
VIJTCU- 6 Be etc TJJS e\v6epa<$, Sea -7-779 eVaYyeTu a? "Howbeit 
lie of the bond-maid was born after the flesh, but he of the 
free woman by the promise." A\\d " howbeit " (though 
both were sons of the same father) introduces the difference 
between the two sons in their birth, probably with the under 
lying idea of difference, too, in their character and destiny. 
Kara (rdpfca (Rom. ix. 7-10) means that Ishmael was born in 
the usual course of nature, and implies that Isaac was not; for 
he was born " by virtue of the promise," as is recorded in Gen. 
xviii. 10. There was a promise also connected with Ishmael s 
birth, though that birth in itself implied nothing out of the ordi 
nary course of nature; whereas in Isaac s case there was miracle, 
when Sarah, " past age," gave birth to a son in fulfilment of 
the promise. Gen. xvii. 15, 16, xviii. 10, 11, 14; Rom. ix. 9. 
But for the promise, there would have been no such birth. 

Ver. 24. " ATIVO, ecmv d\\T]yopov/j,eva " which things," 
" which class of things," or " all those things are allegorized" 
quoe sunt per allegoriam dicta, Vulgate. The meaning of the 
clause is not, " which things have been allegorized" already 
namely, by the prophet Isaiah in the quotation made afterwards 
from Isa. liv. 1 (Brown after Vitringa, Peirce, and Macknight). 
For the quotation comes in as part of the illustration, not as an 
instance or example. A formal reference to an allegory framed 
by Isaiah, or to one found in his prophecies, would have neces 
sitated a past participle ; but the use of the present participle 
describes the allegory as at the moment under his hand. " ATIVO, 
brings together not the persons simply, but in their peculiar 
relations ; not the births merely, but their attendant circum 
stances. The verb a\\o dyopevew is to express another sense 
than the words in themselves convey. Wycliffe renders: "the 
whiche thingis ben seide bi anothir understondinge." Suidas 
thus defines aXk^/opia : rj /jLerafopd, d\\o \eyov TO ypd^f^a KOL 
aXko TO vorjfia. The verb signifies either to speak in an alle 
gory (Joseph. Ant. Introcl. iv.), or to interpret an allegory. 
Plutarch, Op. Mor. p. 489, D, vol. iv. ed. Wittenbach ; Clem. 
Alex. Strom, v. 11, p. 563. An allegory is not, as it has been 
sometimes defined, a continued metaphor; for a metaphor as 
serts one thing to be another, whereas an allegory only implies 
it. To be allegorized, then, is to be interpreted in another than 



3GO EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

the literal sense. The simple historical facts are not explained 
away as if they had been portions of a mere allegory, like the 
persons and events in Banyan s Pilgrim ; but these facts are 
invested with a new meaning as portraying great spiritual 
truths, and such truths they were intended and moulded to 
symbolize. But to say that a portion of early history is alle 
gorized is very different from affirming that it is an allegory, or 
without any true historical basis. Lutlier says that Paul was 
" a marvellous cunning workman in the handling of allegories," 

O O O 

and he admits that " to use allegories is often a very dangerous 
thing," adding: "Allegories do not strongly persuade in divi 
nity ; but, like pictures, they beautify and set out the matter. 
... It is a seemly thing to add an allegory when the foundation 
is well laid and the matter thoroughly proved." The allegory 
used by the apostle here is quite distinct from the TUTTO? in 
1 Cor. x. 11, where certain historical events are adduced as 
fraught with example and warning to other men and ages 

-_> JL O O 

which might fall into parallel temptations. Yet Chrysostom 
says, " Contrary to usage, he calls a type an allegory ;" but 
adds correctly : KaTa^prjcmKa) ; TOV TVTTOV a\\i]yoplav eKaXecrev ; 
" This history not only declares what appears on the face of it, 
but announces somewhat further, whence it is called an alle 
gory." 

The allegory is here adduced not as a formal or a pro 
minent proof, but as an illustrative argument in favour of 
what had been already proved, and one fitted to tell upon 
those whose modes of interpreting Scripture were in harmony 
with it. " Ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear 
the law?" Prefaced by this personal appeal, it starts up as 
a vindication on their own principles, the justness of which 
would be recognised by the apostle s Judaistic opponents. His 
early rabbinical education, and some familiarity, too, with the 
peculiarities of the Alexandrian school of thought and theo- 
sophy, may have suggested to him this form of discussion as 
an artjumentum ad hominem ; but it would be rash to say that 
the apostle invented this allegory to suit his purpose. It is not 
as if lie had said, Those things may be turned to good account 
in a discussion of this nature ; but his inspiration being ad 
mitted, his meaning is, they were intended to convey those 
spiritual lessons. Such an allegorical interpretation is therefore 



CHAP. IV. 24. 3G1 

warranted, apart from his employment of it in the present in 
stance. It is not wholly the fruit of subjective ingenuity ein 
blosses Spiel seiner Phantasie (Baur) or an accommodation to 
rabbinical prepossession. The history by itself, indeed, affords 
no glimpse into such hidden meanings. But Abraham and his 
household bore a close historical and typical connection with 
the church of all lands and ao;es, and God s dealino-s with them 

O O 

in their various relations foreshadowed His dealings with their 

O 

successors, as well the children by natural descent and under 
bondage to the law Hagar, Ishmael as those after the 
Spirit and in the possession of spiritual freedom believers 
blessed in Abraham, along with believing Abraham, and heirs 
through promise. Faith and not blood is the bond of genetic 
union ; but the natural progeny still hates and persecutes the 
spiritual seed, as at that time in Galatia. God repeats among 
the posterity what He did among their ancestors ; the earlier 
divine procedure becomes a picture of the later, and may there 
fore on this true basis be allegorized. To take out the lasting 

O O 

lessons from the history of Abraham s family, and the divine 
actings in it and toward it, is to say in the apostle s words, 
" which things are an allegory." The migration from Ur is 
somewhat similarly treated, though not in the same form, in 
Heb. xi. 14, 15, 16. If the outlines of such allegorical treat 
ment were current in the apostle s days, if it was an acknow 
ledged method of exposition, then one may conjecture that 
the favourite allegory among Jewish teachers would be to pic 
ture Isaac as the Jewish church, and Ishmael as the Gentiles ; 
but the apostle affirms the reverse, and makes Hagar s child 
the Jewish representative. 

Pliilo allegorizes those points in Abraham s history which 
are selected here for the same purpose by the apostle. But 
a comparison will show that the process and aim of the two 
writers are widely different. According to various assertions 
met with in Philo s Treatises, Abram is the soul in its advance 
toward divine knowledge ; the very name, which means " high 
father," being suggestive, for the soul reaches higher and 
higher, through various spheres of study, to the investigation 
of God Himself. Salvation implies change of abode ; there 
fore Abraham left his native country, kindred, and father s 
house, that country being the symbol of the body, his kindred 



3G2 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

of the outward senses, and his father s house denoting speech. 
A somewhat different explanation is given in his De Mat. 
Nom. Abram signifies high father, but Abraham elect-father 
of sound, sound being equivalent to speech, father the same 
as mind, and elect a special quality of the wise man s soul. 
Sarai, signifying "my princess," stands for "the virtue which 
rules over niy soul ;" but she does not as yet bring forth for 
Abraham divine virtue is barren to him for a time. He 
must first cohabit with Hagar ; there must be a preparatory 
connection with the handmaiden ; and she represents the en 
cyclical knowledge of wisdom and logic, grammar and geo 
graphy, rhetoric and astronomy, all of which are mastered by 
an initiatory course of mental discipline. 1 Philo describes at 
length the various elements of this intermediate instruction. 
Hagar, in her race, name, and social position, is profoundly 
symbolic ; for she is of Egypt, the land of science, her name 
means emigration, and she is slave to the princess. The same 
relation that a mistress has to her handmaidens, or a wife to a 
concubine, Sarah or wisdom has to Hagar or worldly educa 
tion. Hagar at once bears a son ; that son is Ishmael, who re 
presents sophistry. Abraham then returns to Sarah, and she 
too at length bears a son : her son is Isaac, who tvpifies wis- 

O t< 1 

dom; and this is happiness, for the name Isaac signifies laughter. 
That is to say, the mind, after previous initiation and discipline, 
enters profitably on higher prolific study ; or when Sarai, " my 
authority," is changed into Sarah, "my princess" generic 
and imperishable virtue, then will arise happiness or Isaac. 
Then, too, the rudimentary branches of instruction, which bear 
the name of Ilagar and her sophistical child called Ishmael, 
will be cast out. " And they shall suffer eternal exile ; God 
Himself confirming their expulsion, when He orders the wise 
man to obey the word spoken by Sarah." " It is good to be 
guided by virtue when it teaches such lessons as this." De 
Cherul. p. 2, vol. ii. Op. ed. Pfeiffer. Thus Philo and Paul have 
in their allegory little in common, save the selection of the same 
historical points. In the hands of Philo the incidents become 
fantastic, unreal, and shadowy fragments of a dim and blurred 

1 Xot unlike the studies of the Trivium and Quadrivium, thus expressed 
in a mediaeval line : 

"Lingua, tropus, ratio, numerus, toniis, angula, astra. 1 



CHAP. IV. 24. 363 

outline of spiritual and intellectual elevation and progress. The 
allegory of Clement is similar to that of Philo. Strom, p. 284, 
ed. Sylburg. But the apostle s treatment, on the other hand, 
is distinct and historical, without any tinge of metaphysical 
mysticism. In a word, the difference between Paul s allegoriz 
ing and that of Philo and of the Christian fathers, such as 
Clement and Origen, is greatly more than Jowett asserts it to 
be is greatly more than a difference " of degree." For there 
is on the part of the apostle a difference of style and principle 
in the structure of it, and there is a cautious and exceptional 
use of it. It never resembles the ttnio of the Jewish doctors, 
or the dreamy theosophy of the Cabbala. See Maimonides, 
Moreh Nevochim, iii. 43. See Professor Lightfoot s note. 

The Old Testament has many historical facts which surely 
involve spiritual lessons, and pre-intimate them as distinctly, 
though not so uniformly, as the Aaronic ritual typifies the 
great facts of redemption, it being avrirvrra, uvroSet7/u,a, cr/aa. 
The prospective connection of the old economy with the new 
is its great characteristic the connection of what is outer and 
material with what is inner and spiritual in nature. But this 
connection must be of divine arrangement and forecast, other 
wise it could not furnish such illustrations as are presented in 
this paragraph. While this is the case, every one knows that 
allegorization has been a prevailing vice in biblical exposition 
that the discovery of occult meanings, and of typical persons and 
things, has done vast damage to sound commentary. There is 
scarcely an event, person, or act, that has not been charged with 
some hidden sense, often obscure and often ludicrous, the ana 
logy being frequently so faint that one wonders how it could ever 
have been suggested. Amidst such confusion and absurdity 
which defy hermeneutical canons and apostolical example, it is 
surely extreme in Dean Alford to characterize as " a shallow 
and indolent dictum, that no ancient history is to be considered 
allegorical but that which inspired persons have treated allego- 
rically." We may at least be content with the unfoldings of 
the New Testament ; and he who " reads, marks, learns, and 
inwardly digests" the Scriptures will be under little impulse to 
handle the word of God so fancifully as to be accused of hand 
ling it deceitfully. 

The apostle now unfolds the allegory 



364 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 

Avrai jap elcnv Svo &Ladrjtcai " for these women are two 
covenants." The article al before the last noun is omitted on 
the preponderant authority of all the uncials, though it occurs 
in K 1 , but not in tf 3 . The av-rai are the two mothers Hagar 
and Sarah, not Ishmael and Isaac (Jowett), nor is avrai for 
ravra (Balduin, Schmoller) ; and in the allegory they repre 
sent two covenants, not revelations (Ustei i). The construction 
is as in Matt. xiii. 39, xxvi. 26-28, 1 Cor. x. 4, Rev. i. 20. 

Mia jjuev CLTTO opovs ^iva, et? $ov\elav yevvwaa, 7/T9 ecrrlv 
"Ayap " one indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children into 
bondage, which," or, " and this is Hagar." The local CLTTO 
indicates place or origin this covenant originated or took its 
rise from Mount Sinai. The particle ^iv, solitarium, is followed 
by no corresponding Se, as the other point of the comparison is 
not brought into immediate prominence, but passes away into 
the general statement. Winer, 63, 2. For yevvwcra, see 
Luke i. 13, 57 ; Xen. De Rep. Lac. i. 3. The last words are 
" for bondage," or " into a state of bondage ;" the children of 
the bond-mother according to law inherit her condition. Hof- 
mann connects the words " from Mount Sinai" closely with 
the participle " bearing children." The. pronoun ^rt?, quippe 
qua dam, is a contextual reference. The Sinaitic covenant is 
thus represented by Hagar. 

What the apostle says in the following verse has given rise 
to numerous differences of opinion, and there is also conflict 
about its various readings. The Received Text has 

\er. 25. To yap "Ayap ^iva opo$ ecrriv ev rfj ^Apafiiq 
"For Hagar (not the person, but the name) is Mount Sinai 
in Arabia" the neuter TO with the feminine "Ajap in its 
abstract form specifying the thing itself in thought or speech. 
Kiihner, vol. ii. 492; Winer, 18; Eph. iv. 9. In the 
Clementine Homilies, xvi. 18, occurs TO 0eo9 ; TO S u/ieZ? 
orav eiTra) TIJV TTO\IV Aeyo), Dem. Pro Corona, p. 162, vol. i. 
Op. ed. Schaefer. 

But the reading has been disputed. To Se "Ayap has 
the authority of A, B, D, E, and of one version, the Mem- 
phitic ; but yap ha