THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

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I. INTRODUCTION (1:1-10)

1. Salutation, including the assertion of the writer’s apostolic commission (1:1-5)

The apostle Paul, writing to the churches of Galatia (who had received the gospel from him, but were already, under the influence of preachers who held a different type of Christian thought, on the point of abandoning the gospel as Paul had taught it to them to accept the teachings of these other preachers), affirms in the very salutation of the letter his direct commission as an apostle from Jesus Christ and God the Father, making mention also in this connection, doubtless as against the declaration or insinuation of his opponents that only a personal follower of Jesus could be an apostle, of the fact that the Christ still lives, having been raised from the dead by the Father. Invoking upon them grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, he adds to this usual element of his epistolary salutation a characterisation of Jesus Christ, emphasising his mission of Saviour of men from their sins, as against the conception of law as the means of salvation, which the preachers who had succeeded him in Galatia held.

Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, 2and all the brethren that are with me, to the churches of Galatia: 3grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5to whom be the glory for ever. Amen.

1. Παῦλος ἀπόστολος, “Paul an apostle.” By the addition of the word ἀπόστολος to his name, at the very opening of the epistle Paul claims to be one who is divinely commissioned to preach the gospel of Christ and authorised to plant Christianity. The apostleship as conceived by him involved the idea of the church œcumenical, Christianity as an organic whole, not simply isolated centres of effort, and of divine appointment in relation to it. To the apostles was committed the task of laying the foundations of the church (1 Corinthians 3:6, 1 Corinthians 3:10, Ephesians 3:20) and among those who were endowed with the gifts of the Spirit for the building up of the church they constituted the highest rank (1 Cor., chap. 12, esp. v. 28; cf. Ephesians 4:11, Ephesians 4:12). These facts gave to them a responsibility and right above that of any other class in the church. While this was apparently generally recognised there was much controversy over the question to whom this responsibility and right belonged. In Paul’s view they belonged neither exclusively to any individual nor to a college of apostles as such. The function of the apostle, neither limited on the one side to a local church, nor extended on the other to the whole world, was defined as respects each apostle or group of apostles by the divine commission which made them apostles. See Romans 1:1, Romans 1:5, in which S. and H. rightly translate ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν “among all the Gentiles”; 1 Corinthians 9:2; but esp. Galatians 2:8. Respecting the origin of the apostolic order or class, the qualifications, rights, and responsibilities of an apostle, and the limitations of his authority, see detached note on Ἀπόστολος, p. 363. It is evident from what follows in the epistle both that Paul’s representation of the content of the gospel had been declared to be incorrect by those who had visited Galatia since Paul was there, and that they had denied his right to assume the function or claim the rights of an apostle. This denial Paul meets, in the very salutation with which the letter opens, by the affirmation of his apostleship, which he claims to possess not to the exclusion of others, but along with others; note the absence of the article before ἀπόστολος and cf. 1:17, 2:8. The title is certainly not here, and probably not in the salutation of any of his letters, a mere title of dignity, but involves an assertion, the maintenance of which is essential to the purpose of the letter. Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 1:1, Romans 1:1, 1 Thessalonians 2:6, etc.

οὐκ ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου “not from men nor through man.” The first phrase denies that Paul’s apostleship had a human source, the second that it had come to him through a human channel, by human agency. Paul claims not only to be an apostle, but to have an apostleship which is in no sense indirect, dependent, or secondary. This fact is important for the understanding of the whole personal portion of the letter. It is evident that his opponents were substantially in agreement with Paul himself in holding that the right of self-directed presentation of the gospel, and the laying of foundations, belonged to the apostles as a definite class in the church. Apparently, also, they held respecting apostles much the same view which Acts 1:21, Acts 1:22 represents Peter as holding respecting the Eleven, viz.: that authority to add to the number lay with the Jerusalem church. With this idea of the basis on which additions to the Eleven were to be made they apparently associated the view that any one whose teaching differed from that of the Jerusalem church, in which the influence of James and the Twelve was dominant, was either an altogether unauthorised and false teacher, or a renegade associate or representative of the Twelve and a perverter of the true teaching; in either case no true apostle. It is not wholly clear in which class Paul’s critics had placed him. But the nature of his reply, in which he denies with emphasis any kind of dependence on men in general (1:1, 11), or the apostles in particular (1:16, 17), combined with the facts mentioned in 1:18-24 in themselves considered, makes it probable that his opponents looked upon him, not indeed as having been commissioned as an apostle by the Twelve, but as one who having received instruction from them had perverted their teaching, and thereby deprived himself of all right as a Christian teacher. His claim to be an apostle they would doubtless have treated as wholly groundless. This denial of authority he answers, not as Barnabas or Mark might have done, with the assertion that he was true to the teaching of the Twelve, but by affirming that he possessed an independent apostleship, neither derived from a human source nor through a human channel.

The preposition ἀπό expresses source in its simplest and most general form; hence it is the most natural preposition to use to express clearly the idea of source as distinguished from that of agency expressed by διά. By οὐχ ἀπʼ … ἀνθρώπου the apostle denies definitely and specifically that either the source or the agency of his apostleship was human.

The phrase οὐχ ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπωυ is evidently qualitative, denying human origin in the broadest possible way without of itself directing the mind to any particular persons. Even the generic plural with the article, οἱ ἄνθρωποι, is used very freely in N. T., not to denote the totality of the race, but in reference to any group of men thought of as actually existing, though unnamed and unidentified. See Matthew 5:13, Matthew 5:16, Matthew 5:19, Matthew 5:6:1, Matthew 5:15, Romans 14:13, 1 Corinthians 1:25, Colossians 2:8, Colossians 2:22. But the noun without the article is more clearly and emphatically qualitative, being nearly equivalent in the genitive to the adjective “human,” or with ἐξ or ἀπό to the phrase “of human origin.” See Romans 1:13, πᾶσαν … ἀδιχίαν ἀνθρώπων, “every form of human iniquity”; 1 Corinthians 2:5, μὴ … ἐν σοφίᾳ ἀνθρώπων ἀλλʼ ἐν δυνάμει θεοῦ, “not in human wisdom but in divine power”; also Php 2:7, Matthew 15:9, Matthew 15:21:25, Matthew 15:26. It is in this broad sense that Paul uses the phrase here. Yet vv. 16, 17 leave no doubt that in using it he has especially in mind the primitive apostles, or the Christian church in Jerusalem, in which they were the dominant influence, it being from this source that his opponents would hold that he ought to have derived his apostleship in order to make it valid. In like manner, although the singular is much less commonly used with qualitative force than the plural, οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου is probably to be taken simply as denying human agency, and is better translated “through man” than “through a man.” Cf. Acts 17:29, Romans 1:23, Romans 3:5, Galatians 1:11, Galatians 1:12, Galatians 1:2:6.

Though it is evidently no part of the apostle’s purpose in this verse to set forth his conception of the nature or mission of Christ, yet his language indirectly and partially reflects his thought on that subject. The antithesis between οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου and διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, even though to the latter is joined χαὶ θεοῦ πατρός, and the very fact of the close association of Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ with θεοῦ πατρός after the one preposition διά, combine to indicate that Paul distinguished Jesus Christ from men; not indeed in the sense that he denied that he was man (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:21), but that this term did not state the whole, or even the most important truth about him. Even had Paul believed that his apostleship came from God through his fellow apostles, he could never have written οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων χαὶ θεοῦ πατρός, or even ἀλλὰ διὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων χαὶ ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρός. See detached note on Πατήρ as applied to God, p. 384, and on The Titles and Predicates of Jesus, p. 392. The change from the plural, ἀνθρώπων, to the singular, ἀνθρώπου, is probably purely stylistic, it being natural to think of a possible human source of authority as composed of a group of men, and of the agent of its transmission as a single person. The plural may, indeed, be in some measure due to the fact that the source of authority which he had particularly in mind to deny was a group, the apostles. But there is no corresponding explanation of the singular. Zahn interprets οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου as a denial of a charge that he had received his apostleship through a certain unnamed person, most probably Barnabas. But this view overlooks the fact that Paul is here denying, not that he received his apostleship in the way in which they alleged he had, but that he had obtained it as they alleged he (not having been one of the original group) must have received it if it were genuine. They did not say, “You received your apostleship from men, and through a man, therefore it is not genuine,” but “You should thus have received it,” and Paul’s answer is that he received it in a way far above this, which made human source and human agency wholly superfluous.

ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρός “but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.” Three facts are specially noticeable in reference to this expression: (1) the use of διά rather than ἀπό, indicating that the apostle is speaking not simply of a source of his apostleship between which and himself there intervenes an agent, but of the channel through which it came to him, or of the immediate source of it (see on meanings of διά below); (2) the addition of καὶ θεοῦ πατρός to Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, showing that he is not thinking simply of the agency through which his apostleship came to him, but also of the source, than which, being ultimate, there can be no higher; (3) the governing of both substantives by the one preposition but once expressed, showing that Jesus Christ and God the Father are not separated in his mind as sustaining different relations to his apostleship, but are conceived of jointly and as sustaining one relation. Taken together, therefore, the whole expression bears the meaning “directly from Jesus Christ and God the Father.” Had he thought of Christ as the agent and God as the source he must have written διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρός; if of God and Christ, as jointly source only, ἀπὸ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρός, which, however, would not have furnished a proper antithesis to διʼ ἀνθρώπου, since it would have left open the possibility of a human channel.

Διά with the genitive, in addition to its use with reference to spatial and temporal relations, expresses means or instrument, which with a personal object merges into the idea of agency; but in three ways: (a) Expressing mediate agency. This use of the preposition grows naturally and most directly out of the spatial sense of the preposition “through,” the governed substantive being thought of as standing between the source of power and the person or thing affected, and as transmitting the power. See, e. g., Romans 1:2, Romans 1:5:1, 1 Corinthians 2:10 et freq. (b) The idea of mediateness falling into the background or disappearing, διά is used with a word denoting that which is at the same time source and agent; in such cases, while the preposition itself perhaps expresses only agency, the conception of mediateness implying something behind the agent is lost, and the fact that the agent is also source is separately expressed or implied in the nature of the case. See Th. s. v. A. III 1 and such passages as Romans 11:36, 1 Corinthians 1:9. (c) The idea of agency merging into that of conditioning cause (viz. that which, though not the instrument of the action, or its ultimate source, is necessary to its accomplishment), διά is used with reference to that which, so to speak, stands behind the action and renders it possible. So, e. g., Acts 1:2, Romans 1:2, Romans 1:15:30, 1 Thessalonians 4:2.

In the phrase διʼ ἀνθρώπου, διά evidently expresses mediate agency, since source is separately expressed by ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπων, and the thought of man as a conditioning cause standing behind and rendering possible the action by which Paul became an apostle is excluded by the obvious nature of the facts. But the διά with Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, though evidently suggested by the use of διά with ἀνθρώπου, is used rather with the second meaning (b). The idea of mediateness is not required by any antithetical ἀπό, and in respect to θεοῦ πατρός, which is also governed by this same διά, the idea of mediateness is excluded, since it can not be supposed that the apostle thinks of a more ultimate source than God of which God is the agent.* Nor is it probable that the idea of mediateness is present even in respect to Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, since neither is ἀπό used with θεοῦ πατρός nor is διά even repeated before it; instead the two substantives are closely bound together under the government of one preposition, which probably therefore has the same force with both of them. The whole phrase διὰ Ἰησοῦ … πατρός is accordingly antithetical not to διʼ ἀνθρώπου only, but to ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπων and διʼ ἀνθρώπου, being the positive correlative of the negative οὐκ … ἀνθρώπου.

τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν, “who raised him from the dead.” By this characterisation of God Paul reminds his readers, who may have been told that Paul could not be an apostle because he was not a follower of Jesus in the flesh, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that it was the risen Christ who had given him his commission.

Of the apostle’s motive for adding this expression there have been many theories. See a considerable number of them in Sief. That of Wies., who regards the reference to the resurrection as intended to substantiate on the one hand the superhuman nature and divine sonship of Jesus, which is implied in οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου and in the association of Jesus with the Father, and on the other hand the fatherhood of God, intrudes into the sentence a Christological and theological interest which is quite foreign to its purpose. The words οὐδὲ … πατρός undoubtedly reflect incidentally the apostle’s conception of God and Christ, but they are themselves introduced for the purpose of establishing the main point, Paul’s independent apostleship, and it is wholly improbable that the added words, τοῦ ἐγείραντος, etc., were injected to confirm the incidentally reflected thought. Sief. himself, taking in general the same view, goes beyond probability in supposing that the phrase conveys a reference to the resurrection of Christ as that through which God manifested his paternal love to the Son in the highest degree and established him in the full status of Son, this fact being in turn the basis on which Paul’s call into the apostleship is made possible. The evident emphasis of the sentence upon Paul’s apostleship, its independence and its validity, makes it improbable that there underlay it, unexpressed, any such elaborate and indirect reasoning. Nor is the fact that τοῦ ἐγείραντος limits θεοῦ πατρός sufficient to set this objection aside. Having, according to his usual custom (enforced in this case by special reasons) joined the names of Christ and God closely together, the only way in which he could then make reference to the fact of the resurrection without inconvenient circumlocution was by a phrase limiting θεοῦ πατρός. A similar objection holds against most of the interpretations enumerated by Sief., and against that of Beet, who introduces the thought that the Father, when raising Jesus from the dead, with a view to the proclamation of the gospel throughout the world, was himself taking part personally in the mission of the apostles.

The word ἐγείρω is Paul’s regular term for the raising from the dead. He uses it in this sense 35 times, in 10 instances in the active, in 25 in the passive (exclusive of Eph. and the pastorals), only twice in any other sense (Romans 13:11, Php 1:17). He employs ἀνίστημι of rising from the dead in 1 Thessalonians 4:14, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 only. In the gospels and Acts both terms are used with approximately equal frequency, except that Mt. has a decided preference for ἐγείρω (pass.), using ἀνίστημι but once, though it appears as a variant in three other passages also. There is apparently little or no distinction in thought between the two terms. The general usage of ἐγείρω suggests a waking out of sleep, that of ἀνίστημι a rising up from a recumbent position, but this distinction affects the terms as used of the resurrection from the dead at most merely in the outward form of the thought. Both verbs are frequently followed by ἐκ νεκρῶν. For ἐγείρω (act.), see Romans 4:24, Romans 4:8:11, Romans 4:10:2; (pass.), Romans 6:4, Romans 6:9, 1 Corinthians 15:12, 1 Corinthians 15:20. Only rarely do ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν (see 1 Thessalonians 1:10, where, however, AC omit τῶν and WH. bracket it, and Ephesians 5:14, a quotation from some unidentified source) and ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν (Matthew 14:2) occur. The omission of the article is probably due to the expression being a fixed prepositional phrase. See Slaten, Qualitative Nouns in the Pauline Epistles, p. 25, Chicago, 1918.

2. καὶ οἱ σὺν ἐμοὶ πάντες ἀδελφοί, “and all the brethren that are with me.” The term “brethren” is one which according to Paul’s usage and that of the early Christians generally (1 Thessalonians 1:4, 1 Thessalonians 1:2:1, 1 Corinthians 5:11, 1 Corinthians 6:5-8, 1 Corinthians 8:12, et freq. in Paul; Jam 1:2, 1 Peter 5:12, 1 John 3:13, Revelation 12:10; Clem. Romans 1:1; Ign. Philad. 5:1—much less frequent in the early fathers than in N. T.) usually meant “fellow-Christians.” See below on v. 11. The fact that it is Paul’s usual habit to join with himself in the address of a letter one or two of his closest companions and fellow-labourers (see esp. 1 Corinthians 1:1 and cf. 16:20; 2 Corinthians 1:1 and cf. 13:11, 12; Php 1:1, and cf. 4:21, 22; Colossians 1:1 and cf. 4:10, 12, 14), the distinction which he apparently makes in Php 4:21, Php 4:22 between “the brethren with him” and the resident Christians, and the fact that a temporary sojourner in a place would more naturally refer to the residents of the place as “those with whom I am staying” or more generally as “the brethren of such a place,” than “the brethren that are with me,” makes it probable that the phrase here designates not the Christians of the place in general (as Wies., Zahn, and Bous. maintain), but his fellow-missionaries (so Hilg., Ltft., Ell., Sief., Beet).

The purpose of this association of his companions with himself in the writing of the letter does not clearly appear. If the persons thus named took any part in the composition of the letter, we are unable now to detect their part, or even that they had any such. Even in 1 Thes. where Paul uses the first person plural in the first two chapters and part of the third (cf. Frame on 1. 1) it is probable that while the pronoun at first includes the companions named at the beginning, they took no actual part in the composition of the letter, being only in the background of his thought, as 2:18 itself shows. But in Gal. the almost uniform use of the first person singular for the author, not only in narrative passages (such as 1:12-19,21, 22, 2:1-14, 4:13-15) and in those in which the pronoun might be supposed to be rhetorically used for the Christian believer as such (2:18-21), but in those in which the writer speaks of himself as such, referring to what he is at the moment saying (1:6, 10, 11, 20, 3:2, 15, 17, 4:1,12, 16-21, 5:2, 3, 10-12, 16, 6:17), practically excludes the possibility of any partnership in the writing of the letter. The first person plural is usually “we Jews,” or “we Christians.” Only in 1:3, 9 can it be taken as an epistolary plural referring to Paul himself (see Dick, Der schriftstellerische Plural bei Paulus, 1900), and even here more probably (see on those vv.) as a designation of the apostle and his companions. But in 1:9, at least, these are apparently referred to, not as with him at the moment of writing, but when he was preaching in Galatia; and that “the brethren with me” here referred to were his companions in Galatia is rather improbable, since had those who shared with him in the preaching of the gospel in Galatia been with the apostle at the moment of writing it is likely that, instead of there being no other reference to them in the letter than this obscure one, they would have received at least as much recognition as in 1 Thes. Paul gives to Timothy and Silas. Nor does it seem likely that the brethren here referred to are intended to be understood as indorsing the apostle’s statements. The mention of them seems rather, as in Paul’s salutations generally, mainly at least, an act of courtesy, though doubtless carrying with it the implication that the brethren were aware of his writing the letter, and were not averse to being mentioned in it.

The question who these brethren were is, of course, inseparably connected with the question where and when the letter was written. If it was written to the churches of southern Galatia from Corinth on the second missionary journey (see Introd., pp. xlvii ff.) we can name none who were more probably included than Silas and Timothy, who were with Paul in Macedonia and Achaia on this journey, his first into that region (1 Thessalonians 1:1, 1 Thessalonians 1:3:1, 1 Thessalonians 1:2, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 2 Thessalonians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 1:19, Acts 17:10, Acts 17:14, Acts 17:18:5). If it was written from Antioch between the second and third journeys, Timothy or Titus was very likely among those referred to. Both were with Paul on the latter journey (2 Corinthians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 2:13). Titus had been with Paul in Antioch before the writing of this letter (Galatians 2:1), perhaps about three years before, and was sent by him to Corinth in connection with the trouble in the Corinthian church (2 Corinthians 2:12, 2 Corinthians 2:13, 2 Corinthians 2:7:6, 2 Corinthians 2:12:18), probably about three years after the writing of the letter to the Galatians, if it was written at Antioch; but his movements in the interval we can not trace. If it was sent from Ephesus or Macedonia, there is a still wider range of possibilities (1 Corinthians 1:1, 1 Corinthians 1:11, 16:1 Corinthians 1:10-12, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 2 Corinthians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 2:13, 2 Corinthians 8:16-24. That the Galatians knew who were referred to, or would be informed by those who bore the letter, is rendered probable by the very omission of the names. On the use of the term ἀδελφός, see on 1:11.

ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Γαλατίας· “to the churches of Galatia.” On the location of these churches see Introd., p. xxi. On the use of the word ἐκκλησία in N. T. see detached note, p. 417. The most notable characteristic of this salutation is the total lack of such commendatory words as are found in the address of all other Pauline letters (see below). This is commonly and doubtless rightly explained as reflecting the apostle’s perturbation of mind mingled with indignation against the fickle Galatians. Cf. on θαυμάζω, v. 6.

1 and 2 Thes. are addressed τῆ ἐκκλησίᾳ Θεσσαλονικέων ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ καὶ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῶ, with ἡμῶν after πατρί in 2 Thes. In 1 and 2 Cor. the address is τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ οὔση ἐν Κορίνθῳ, the first letter adding ἡγιασμένοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις etc., the second adding σὺν τοῖς ἁγίοις πᾶσιν, etc. None of the later Pauline letters, from Rom. on, have the term ἐκκλησία in the address, but all those addressed to communities have a phrase designating the members of the community and always including the word ἅγιος.

3. χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη “grace to you and peace.” These words form a part of the benediction which in every Pauline letter is included in the opening salutation, usually forming the last words of it. The first word is perhaps connected with the common Greek salutation χαίρειν, with which also the Ep. of Jas. begins (Jam 1:1, cf. Mayor, The Epistle of St. James, pp. 30, 31; Acts 15:23, Acts 23:26), but, if so, is a decidedly Christian version of it. εἰρήνη is the Greek word which represents the Semitic salutation, Hebrew, שָׁלוֹם, Aramaic, שְׁלָם, used both in personal greeting (Luke 10:6, Luke 24:36) and at the beginning of a letter (Ezra 4:17, Ezra 5:7). Yet this term also takes on a deeper religious significance than it commonly bore as a salutation among the Hebrews. χάρις is a comprehensive term for that favour of God towards men which is the basis of their salvation. It includes the ideas of love, forbearance, desire to save. εἰρήνη denotes the blessed state of well-being into which men are brought and in which they are kept by the divine χάρις. For a fuller discussion, see detached notes, pp. 423 and 424. The words stand without the article because the thought of the sentence calls for a qualitative not an individualising representation of grace and peace. Cf., on the other hand, Galatians 6:18.

ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” These words also, or a phrase but slightly different from them, are found in the salutation of every Pauline letter except 1 Thes. and Col. They are undoubtedly to be taken as limiting both χάρις and εἰρήνη. It is characteristic of the apostle’s method of thought that he joins together God the Father and Christ the Lord as jointly source of grace and peace. Any attempt to discriminate sharply their respective shares in the bestowment of these blessings would lead us away from the apostle’s thought. The entire sentence constitutes in effect a prayer for the Galatians that God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ may be gracious to them, may look upon them not in wrath, but in favour that brings salvation, and that (as a consequence) they may be in a state of spiritual well-being.

Concerning θεοῦ πατρός, see detached note, on Πατήρ as applied to God pp. 384 ff., and on κυρίου as applied to Christ, see detached note on the Titles and Predicates of Jesus, pp. 399 ff.

Ἡμὤν stands after πατρός in אAP 33 al plu. 20 fu. demid. Chr. Ambrst.; after κυρίου in BDFGHKL, 31, 1908, Rev_20 fere d e f g Vg. Syr. (psh. harcl. pal.) Arm. Goth. Victorin. Hier.; in Boh. Aeth. in both places. The external evidence is indecisive; the reading of אAp, etc., may be regarded as non-Western and its rival as Western, or it may be Alexandrian and its rival non-Alexandrian. Intrinsic probability favours the reading of אAp (after πατρός); see Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Ephesians 1:2, Php 1:2, Colossians 1:2, Philemon 1:3 (contra Ephesians 6:23, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, 1 Timothy 1:2, 2 Timothy 1:2, Titus 1:4), and transcriptional probability is certainly not against it. On the whole the preponderance of probability is slightly on the side of πατρὸς ἡμῶν.

4. τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν “who gave himself for our sins.” In itself the expression τὸ δοῦναι ἑαυτόν may perfectly well refer to a devotion of one’s self in service, but the general usage of Paul so associates the death of Christ with deliverance from sin as to leave no reasonable doubt that he here refers especially if not exclusively to Jesus’ voluntary surrender of himself in his death. See Romans 5:6, Romans 5:8, 1 Corinthians 15:3, Galatians 2:20. Similarly ὑπὲρ τ. ἁμ. ἡμ. in itself means (to achieve something) “in relation to our sins.” But Paul’s conception of sin and its effects on men and the relation of Jesus’ death to it, as elsewhere expressed, and the following expression, ὅπως … πονηροῦ, leave no doubt that in his thought deliverance from sins is that which is to be achieved in respect to them. Since the apostle elsewhere associates the death of Jesus with deliverance both from the power of sin over one’s life (Romans 6:1-11) and from the condemnation under which it brings men (chap. 3:13, 14, Romans 3:23-26, Romans 3:5:9, Romans 3:10), either of these aspects of salvation may be in mind here. But as the association of the death with the forensic aspect is somewhat more frequent in Paul, and as it is this phase which is prominent in this epistle, it is probably this that the apostle has chiefly in mind here. On the meaning of ἁμαρτία, see detached note, pp. 436 ff.

On the usage of δοῦναι ἑαυτόν, see Polyb. 8.18:11: οὕτως ἔφη δώσειν ὁ Βῶλις ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὴν χρεῖαν: “So Bolis said he would give himself to the matter”; 10. 6:10: ἐπὶ πράξεις αὑτὸν ἔδωκε τελέως παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς ἀπηλπισμένας: “He undertook affairs regarded by most as perfectly hopeless”; 1 Mac. 2:50 f. and exx. from papyri and inscriptions referred to by Nägeli, Wortschatz, p. 50, in none of which does it seem to mean to lay down one’s life. On the other hand, see Jos. Ant. 2. 144 (6:8). For a discussion of δοῦναι τὴν ψυκὴν αὐτοῦ in Mark 10:45, Matthew 20:23, and of τὴν ψυκὴν θεῖναι in John 10:15, see Burton, Smith, and Smith, Biblical Ideas of Atonement, pp. 114 ff.

The preposition ὑπέρ primarily signifies “over” in a local sense, but it is not so used in N. T. Its common use there is in the sense “on behalf of,” “for the benefit of,” followed by a personal term. See, e. g., chap. 2:20, 1 Corinthians 1:13, Romans 5:6 ff. The modification of this meaning which the preposition necessarily undergoes when used with an abstract noun gives it a telic force, “to accomplish something for, or in respect to,” the thing to be accomplished being in each case implied in the nature of the thing which stands as the object of the preposition. With most abstract nouns the meaning is approximately “for the promotion of”: thus in John 11:4, ὑπὲρ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ, “for the promotion or manifestation of the glory of God”; 2 Corinthians 1:6, ὑπὲρ τῆς ἡμῶν παρακλήσεως, “for your comfort, that you may be comforted”; and Php 2:13, καὶ τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοκίας. “both the willing and the working for the accomplishment of that which is well pleasing (to God).” Cf. also John 6:51, Romans 15:8, Romans 15:16:4, 2 Corinthians 13:8, Ephesians 6:20, 2 Thessalonians 1:5, Hebrews 13:17. With ὰμαρτιῶν and words of similar import, the meaning “on behalf of” naturally becomes not “for the promotion of,” but “for the deliverance from,” or with the genitive ἡμῶν following, “to deliver us from our sins.” The possibility that the apostle had in mind a still more definite meaning can for reasons given above neither be excluded nor established.

אcBH 33,424:2 al. read ὑπέρ. א*ADFGKLP al. 50 fere read περί. The latter testimony is apparently Western and Syrian. Cf. Introd. p. lxxx. Intrinsic probability is in favour of ὑπέρ; for though Paul uses both prepositions with both meanings, “concerning” and “on behalf of,” he employs περί much more commonly in the former sense and ὑπέρ in the latter.

ὅπως ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ “that he might deliver us out of the present evil age.” On αἰών and ἐνεστώς see detached notes pp. 426, 432. The phrase ὁ αἰὼν ὁ ἐνεστώς, here only in N. T., but manifestly the equivalent of the more usual ὁ αἰὼν οὗτος, is primarily a phrase of time denoting the (then) present period of the world’s history as distinguished from the coming age, ὁ αἰὼν ὁ μέλλων. Its evil character is implied in 1 Corinthians 1:20 and Romans 12:2, and apparently always assumed, but here only is the adjective πονηρός directly attached to αἰών. Its position here gives it special emphasis.* ἐξέληται denotes not a removal from, but a rescue from the power of. Cf. Acts 7:10, Acts 7:34, Acts 7:12:11, Acts 7:23:27, Acts 7:26:17, in all which cases the emphasis of the word is upon the idea of rescue. It occurs in Paul’s epistles here only. Cf. John 17:15. The whole clause expresses the purpose for which the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins, and thus presents from a different point of view the thought of ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν.

The very presence of these words (v. 4) at this point is itself a significant fact. In all the other Pauline letters the salutation closes with the benediction, though not always in exactly the same form, and the next paragraph is introduced by an expression of thanksgiving or an ascription of praise to God. The addition of this verse with its reference to the death of Christ for the salvation of men is undoubtedly occasioned by the nature of the erroneous teaching which was propagated among the Galatians by the judaising opponents of Paul, and which this letter was written to combat. As in opposition to their personal attack on him he affirmed his independent apostleship (v. 1), so here against their legalistic conception of the value of works of law, he sets forth even in the salutation the divine way of deliverance provided in Christ’s gift of himself for us according to the will of God.

It remains to be considered whether the deliverance here referred to is (a) ethical, having reference to emancipation from the moral influence of this present evil age (cf. Romans 8:2), or (b) present judicial, consisting essentially in justification, through the death of Christ (cf. Romans 5:9 a, Romans 5:10), or (c) eschatological, being deliverance from the wrath of God which will fall upon the wicked at the coming of the Lord (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Romans 5:9b). There is no doubt that Paul held the current Jewish doctrine of the two ages (see detached note on Αἰών, p. 426), and though he never definitely places the coming of the Lord in judgment on the wicked and salvation for believers at the boundary-line between the two ages, his language is most naturally understood as implying this, and there is in any case no doubt that in his thought salvation was achieved in the full sense not before but at the coming of the Lord (cf. Romans 5:9, Romans 13:11 Romans 13:1 Thes. loc. cit.). The associations of the phrase are therefore eschatological. Nor can it be urged against the interpretation of the whole expression as eschatological that the thought of the future salvation distinctly as such is usually associated by Paul not with the death of Jesus but with his resurrection (so Zahn; cf. Romans 5:10, Romans 5:6:5, 1 Corinthians 15:12ff. Php 3:10). For though this is true, it is also true that in several of the passages the death is closely associated with the resurrection, and in 1 Thessalonians 5:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:10, the deliverance from wrath at the coming of the Lord (cf. v. 23) is definitely made to result from the death of Christ. There are, however, two valid objections to the supposition that the reference of the phrase is chiefly eschatological. The first is the use of the word ἐξέληται. The present age is to end at the coming of the Lord. Salvation at that time consists not in deliverance from this age, but from the wrath of God. Had the apostle’s thought at this point been, as it is in Romans 5:10, Romans 5:11, definitely eschatological, he would naturally have written ὅπως ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν τῆ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ κυρίου. The second reason is found in the general atmosphere and purpose of the epistle. Its thought is concentrated on the way of acceptance with God in the present life; eschatological references are few and indirect; it is improbable, therefore, that in the salutation, which bears clear marks of being written under the influence of the controversial situation with which the epistle deals, the idea of the salvation achieved at the coming of the Lord should fill a prominent place. As between the judicial and the ethical conceptions, it is doubtful whether we should exclude either (cf. on ὑπὲρ τ. ἁμ. ἡμ. above).* To limit the reference to the ethical phase would be to exclude that aspect of the significance of Christ’s death which the apostle usually emphasises (see Romans 3:24, Romans 3:25, 5:Romans 3:6-10, Galatians 3:13), and which precisely in this epistle, which deals so largely with justification, we should least expect to be forgotten. But, on the other hand, the appropriateness of the words to describe the ethical aspect, and the absence of any phraseology expressly limiting the thought to the judicial aspect (as, e. g., in Romans 8:1 and Galatians 3:13), seem to forbid the exclusion of the former. That Paul sometimes associated the morally transforming power of Christ with his death clearly appears from Galatians 2:20, Galatians 2:21 and Romans 6:10, Romans 6:11 (cf. also a clear expression of this idea in 1 Peter 1:18, 1 Peter 1:19). Probably, therefore, we must include the judicial aspect, and not exclude the ethical. That the apostle has the law chiefly in mind as an element of the present evil age from which the Christ by his death is to deliver men (see Bous. ad loc.) is improbable, not indeed because the thought itself is un-Pauline (see Romans 10:4), but because the phrase “present evil age” is too general and inclusive to suggest a single element of that age so little characteristic of it as a whole as was the law.

κατὰ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡμῶν, “according to the will of our God and Father.” Whether these words are to be taken as limiting (a) δόντος or (b) ἐξέληται, or (c), the whole complex idea expressed by τοῦ δόντος … πονηροῦ (πονηροῦ alone is manifestly out of the question), can not be decisively determined. Most probably, however, the third construction is the true one. Twice before in this paragraph the apostle has closely associated together Jesus Christ and God the Father, first as the source of his own apostleship (v. 1) and then as the source of grace and peace to those to whom he is writing. The present phrase emphasises once more essentially the same thought, affirming that in the salvation provided for us (the pronouns ἡμῶν and ἡμᾶς in v. 4 include both the apostle and his readers) through Christ’s gift of himself for us, God our Father also participates, the gift and its purpose being according to his will. Concerning the construction of ἡμῶν and the translation of τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡμῶν, see detached note on Πατήρ as applied to God, pp. 388 f.

5. ᾧ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων· ἀμήν. “to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.” An ascription of praise to God for the gift of Christ and the deliverance accomplished through it. δόξα (here only in Gal.) is frequent in Paul, with considerable variation of meaning. See Th. s. v. and Kennedy, St. Paul’s Conception of the Last Things, pp. 229 ff. Its sense here, “praise,” comes down from the classic times, and is frequent in N. T. The article, when occurring, seems almost invariably to convey a reference to something which has just been mentioned; in this case, no doubt, the redeeming work of Christ. Cf. Romans 11:36, Romans 16:27, Ephesians 3:21, Php 4:20, 2 Timothy 4:18, Hebrews 13:21, 1 Peter 4:11. Contrast Luke 2:14 (where, however, the poetic form may rather be the cause of the omission of the article); Romans 15:7, Php 2:11. The generic (or intensive) force of the article, such as apparently occurs in Revelation 7:12 and perhaps in 2 Peter 3:18, is possible but less probable than the demonstrative force suggested above. On εἰς τ. αἰ. τ. αἰώνων, see detached note on Αἰών, p. 426.

Ἀμήν (Heb. אָמֵן, an adverb derived from אָמֵן “to be firm,” Hiphil, “to believe,” “to trust”) is carried over into the N. T. vocabulary from the Hebrew. It is used in O. T. as confirming an oath (Numbers 5:22 et al.), as the solemn conclusion and confirmation of a doxology (Nehemiah 8:6, Ps. 41:14, etc.), and otherwise. The Lxx usually translate it by γένοιτο, but occasionally transliterate (1 Chronicles 16:36, Nehemiah 5:13, Nehemiah 5:8:6, Nehemiah 5:1 Esd. 9:47, Tob. 8:8, 14:15), but none of these instances are at the end of a doxology or benediction. This usage, of which 3 Mac. 7:23 (see also 4 Mac. 18:24) apparently furnishes the earliest example, may have arisen from the custom of the congregation responding “Amen” to the prayer offered by the leader. Cf. Nehemiah 8:6, 1 Corinthians 14:16, and Frame on 1 Thessalonians 3:13, also M. and M. Voc. s. v.

On the relation between the salutations of the Pauline and other N. T. letters, and the methods of beginning letters current among Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian writers, see extended and instructive note in Hilgenfeld, Der Galaterbrief, 1852, pp. 99 ff.; also respecting the classical Greek and Latin forms, Fritzsche on Romans 1:1; Wendland, Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, III 3, Beilage 15, pp. 411 ff.; Ziemann, De Epistularum graecarum formulis, in Diss. phil. Hal. XVIII 4, 1910. Respecting the evidence of the papyri, see Lietzmann, Griechische Papyri, 1905; Witkowski, Epistulae graecae privatae, 1906, and Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri, 1910. Cf. Frame on 1 Thessalonians 1:1. See also Mayor, The Epistle of St. James, pp. 30, 31. The following are typical examples: Πλάτων Ἀρχύτᾳ Ταραντίνῳ εὐ πράττειν (Epistle IX, Ed. Hermann, p. 58). M. Cicero salutem dicit P. Lentulo Procos. (Ed. Mueller, IV 1, pp. 1 ff.); לְדָֽרְיָ֥וֶשׁ מַֽלְכָּ֖א שְׁלָמָ֥א כֹלָּא (Ezra 5:7); τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς τοῖς κατʼ Αἴγυπτον Ἰουδαίοις χαίρειν οἱ ἀδελφοὶ οἱ ἐν Ἰεροσολύμοις Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ οἱ ἐν τῆ χώρᾳ τῆς Ἰουδαίας, εἰρήνην ἀγαθήν (2 Malachi 1:1). καὶ οἱ ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ καὶ ἡ γερουσία καὶ Ἰοῦδας Ἀριστοβούλῳ … χαίρειν καὶ ὑγιαίνειν (2 Malachi 1:10). Κλαύδιος Λυσίας τῷ κρατίστῳ ἡγεμόνι Φιλίκι χαίρειν (Acts 23:26; cf. Acts 15:23). Ἰωάνης ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἔκκλησίαις ταῖς ἐν τῆ Ἀσίᾳ. χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη (Revelation 1:4). Πολύκαρπος … τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῆ παροικούση Φιλίπποις· ἔλεος ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη παρὰ θεοῦ (Polyc. Phil.). The following, from Milligan’s Selections, show the usage of the papyri: Πολυκράτης τῶι πατρὶ χαίρειν. Ἀπολλώνιος Πτολεμαίωι τῶ πατρὶ χαίρειν. Ἰλαρίων [α] Ἄλιτι τῆι ἀδελφῇι πλεῖστα χαίρειν. Θέων Τυράννωι τῶι τιμιωτάτωι πλεῖστα χαίρειν.

These and other examples cited by the writers above referred to show (1) that both Greeks and Romans, if not also the Hebrews, frequently began a letter with the writer’s name; (2) that the naming of the person or persons addressed, usually in the dative, but sometimes in the vocative, was the general custom among Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews; (3) that to these two it was customary among the Hebrews to add the word שָׁלוֹם, or if writing in Greek, εἰρήνη, among the Greeks χαίρειν, with or without the addition of λέγει, and among the Romans salutem with or without dicit; (4) that the early Christian writers followed in general the usages then current in the Roman world, but in the exercise of that liberty which these usages themselves sanctioned, combined elements derived on the one side from the Greek custom and on the other from the Hebrew, and introduced also distinctly Christian elements. As a result there seems to have been created almost a standard Christian form (note the resemblance between the salutation of the Pauline letters, those ascribed to Peter, 2 and 3 Jn., the salutation of Revelation 1:4, and those used by Clem. Rom. and Polycarp), yet one which was freely modified by each writer in adaptation to the particular occasion and persons addressed. Note the variations from the usual form in Jas. and the Ignatian letters, and the lack of salutation in 1 Jn. and Heb., though these latter are perhaps rather literary epistles than letters in the stricter sense. See Deissmann, Bible Studies, chap. 1. In the creation of this general Christian form for beginning letters, the dates of the literature would suggest that Paul exerted a special influence, though there can hardly have been any slavish, perhaps not even a conscious, copying of his form by others.

2. Expression of indignant surprise at the threatened abandonment of his teaching by the Galatians, in which is disclosed the occasion of the letter (1:6-10)

In place of the expression of thanksgiving or of praise to God with which in all the letters that bear Paul’s name, except 1 Tim. and Titus, the paragraph immediately following the address and salutation opens, there stands in this letter an expression of surprise and indignation; surprise that the Galatians are so quickly abandoning the gospel as they had received it from the apostle, and are on the point of accepting from others a perversion of it; indignation at those who are troubling them and seeking to pervert the gospel of the Christ. In this expression there is disclosed, as usually in the second paragraph of the apostle’s letters, the occasion of the epistle.

6I marvel that ye are so quickly turning away from him who called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel, 7which is not another except in the sense that there are some who are troubling you and desire to pervert the gospel of the Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven shall preach unto you a gospel not in accordance with that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9As we said before, so now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel not in accordance with that which ye received, let him be accursed. 10For am I now seeking the favour of men, or of God? Or am I now seeking to please men? If I were still pleasing men I should not be a servant of Christ.

6. Θαυμάζω ὅτι οὕτως ταχέως μετατίθεσθε ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος ὑμᾶς ἐν χάριτι Χριστοῦ “I marvel that ye are so quickly turning away from him who called you in the grace of Christ.” The present tense of the verb μετατίθεσθε indicates clearly that when the apostle wrote the apostasy of the Galatians was as yet only in process. They were, so to speak, on the point, or more exactly in the very act, of turning. The mind of the apostle wavers while he writes between hope and fear as to the outcome (4:20, 5:10). The word ταχέως might conceivably refer to the rapid development of the apostatising movement after it was once begun. But it is equally suitable to the usage of the word to take it in the sense of “soon” (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:19, Php 2:19, Php 2:24, Matthew 5:25, Mark 9:39), and it is certainly far more probable that the apostle is here speaking of the brevity of the interval than of the rapidity of the process. The point from which this interval, which seems to the apostle so brief, is reckoned is left unstated, but that of which one most naturally thinks in speaking of an apostasy is the time of the original acceptance of that which is now abandoned—in this case the gospel—and this is also suggested by ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος and εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον.

Little help is afforded by this expression towards the determination of the date of the letter, since such a change as is here spoken of would doubtless seem to the apostle to have been quickly made if it took place at any time within a few years after the conversion of the Galatians.

It is grammatically possible to take τοῦ καλέσαντος as limiting Χριστοῦ and so to render “from the Christ who called you in grace.” On this order of words see BMT 427; Gild. Synt- 622, and cf. Galatians 3:17. The thought thus yielded would moreover be wholly appropriate to this situation, since the apostasy of the Galatians was from Christ and his grace. But Paul’s general use of the verb καλέω (see below) must be regarded as a decisive objection to referring the phrase to Christ (as is done by Hier. Luth. Calv. Beng. et al.; cf. Wies. and Sief. ad loc.) or to Paul (as by Paulus, cited by Wies.), and as a convincing reason for here referring it to God (so Chrys. Wies. Mey. Sief. Ell. Ltft.).

The verb μετατίθημι, meaning in the active, “to transfer,” “to remove” (see, e. g., Hebrews 11:5) or “to alter,” “to pervert” (Judges 1:4), is used in the middle or pass. with various constructions in the sense “to change [one’s opinion]”. Hdt. 7:18: ἐγὼ μὲν καὶ αὐτὸς τράπομαι καὶ τὴν γνώμην μετατίθεμαι: “I myself am changing and altering my opinion;” Plato, Rep. 345 B: φανερῶς μετατίθεσο καὶ ἡμᾶς μὴ ἐξαπάτα: “Change your mind openly, and do not [attempt to] deceive us.” Followed by ἀπό, as here, in 2 Mac. 7:24, it means “to turn from,” “to apostatise from,” μεταθέμενον ἀπὸ τῶν πατρίων, “on condition of having apostatised from the ancestral [laws].” With πρός, instead of εἰς as here, “to turn to” in Polyb. 26. 2:6.

For various interpretations of οὕτως ταχέως, see Sief. who himself takes it to mean “rapidly,” “swiftly since it began.”

In fifteen passages in the letters ascribed to Paul the writer attributes “calling” to God (Romans 4:17, Romans 4:8:30, Romans 4:9:11, Romans 4:24, 1 Corinthians 1:9, 1 Corinthians 1:7:15, 1 Corinthians 1:17, Galatians 1:15, 1 Thessalonians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 2:4:7, 1 Thessalonians 2:5:24, 2 Timothy 1:9, using the verb καλέω; Romans 11:29, 1 Corinthians 1:26, Ephesians 1:18, Php 3:14, 2 Timothy 1:9, using κλῆσις), and never, except in the sense of “naming” or “inviting to a feast,” to any one else. The main features of the apostle’s conception of this divine act appear clearly in the passages cited. It is in execution of his predetermined purpose (Romans 8:28-30, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Thessalonians 2:14; cf. 2 Timothy 1:9); an act of grace, not in accordance with men’s deserts (Galatians 1:15; cf. 2 Timothy 1:9); it is the divine initiative of the Christian life (1 Corinthians 7:17-22), by which God summons men into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:9; cf. Romans 8:29, Romans 8:30), to live in sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:7), and peace (1 Corinthians 7:15, Colossians 3:15), and to attain unto salvation (2 Thessalonians 2:14), God’s kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:12; cf. also 1 Timothy 6:12). Though always spoken of as God’s act, it may take place through the preaching of the gospel by men (2 Thessalonians 2:14), and it is doubtless to the divine call, brought to the Galatians through his own preaching, that the apostle here refers.

Paul’s use of the terms “call” and “calling” is in general such as to suggest that he thought of those only as called who obeyed the divine summons (see esp. Romans 8:28-30); of a rejected call at least he never speaks. Yet the present passage evidently speaks of the Galatians as on the point or in the act of turning from him who had called them. This apostasy, moreover, the apostle evidently regarded as a most serious matter, vitally affecting their relation to Christ (see esp. 5:2-4). It can not therefore be unqualifiedly affirmed that Paul always conceived of “calling” as effectual in the sense that all who were called were surely destined unto eternal life.

On the meaning of χάρις. see on v. 3. Modern commentators have generally given to the preposition ἐν either its instrumental force (see Th. ἐν, I 5d), or its causal and basal sense (see Th. 16c). In either case the grace of Christ is that which is manifested in his gift of himself for men, and is conceived of specially in its relation to their entrance into the kingdom of God; in the latter case, it is that on the ground of which, by virtue of which, men are called; in the former case, it is that by which the calling takes place. To these views there is no decisive objection either in the usage of the phrase “grace of Christ” (see 2 Corinthians 8:9, Romans 5:15) or in the use of the preposition ἐν (see Th. u. s. ). But (a) the grace of Christ is more commonly spoken of by Paul in its relation to the Christian in his Christian life (see Romans 16:20, 2 Corinthians 12:9, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Galatians 6:18, Php 4:23, 1 Thessalonians 5:28, 2 Thessalonians 3:18; cf. also Romans 5:2, and the benedictions in connection with the salutation of all the letters). (b) In the expression καλέω ἐν as used elsewhere by Paul (Romans 9:7 does not properly come into account, being from the Lxx, and καλέω not being used in its special Pauline sense of the divine call into the kingdom), ἐν is never either instrumental or causal, except possibly in 1 Corinthians 7:22, but almost uniformly marks its object as the state or sphere in which the one called is, either (1) when he is called (1 Corinthians 7:18, 1 Corinthians 7:20, 1 Corinthians 7:24), or (2) as the result of his call. In this latter case the phrase is pregnant and bears the meaning “call to be in” (1 Thessalonians 4:7, 1 Corinthians 7:15, Colossians 3:15 (ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι) Ephesians 4:4; cf. Th. ἐν 17, and εἰς in 1 Corinthians 1:9, Colossians 3:15, 2 Thessalonians 2:14). Usage evidently favours the metaphorical local sense of the preposition, and, since κάριτι is evidently not the sphere in which the Galatians were when they were called, the pregnant use of the phrase is the more probable. (c) The sense yielded for this passage by taking κάριτι as referring to the state in which the Galatians were called to be is much more suitable to the connection than that given by either of the other constructions. In speaking of a change of position on their part, it is more natural to refer to the state in which by God’s call they are or should be than to emphasise the basis or instrument of God’s call. The remarkable and surprising fact about their apostasy was that they were abandoning the position of grace, i. e., the relation towards God which made them the objects of the grace of Christ and participators in its benefits, to put themselves under law, which could only award them their sad deserts. On Paul’s view of the nature of the change cf. 5:4, 3:10-14. It is a further objection to the view that ἐν is basal that while redemption is conceived of by Paul as based on the work of Christ (Romans 3:24), it is difficult to suppose that he would speak of God’s call as being on the ground of the grace of Christ. It is rather his thought that the work of Christ has its basis in the love of God. See Romans 5:8ff., Nor is the thought that the call of God is by means of Christ’s grace materially easier, for the expansion of this into “the announcement of the grace of Christ” is unwarranted by the language.

The absence of the article before χάριτι has the effect, and is doubtless due to the intention, of giving the word qualitative rather than individualising force. This in turn emphasises the folly of the conduct of the Galatians. This shade of meaning can not well be expressed in English (which requires a definite article before “grace” because of the phrase that follows it) except by some such periphrasis as, “I marvel that ye are so quickly turning away from grace, that of Christ.”

εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον, “unto a different gospel.” On the meaning of the word ἕτερον, see detached note, p. 420. On εὐαγγέλιον, see detached note, p. 422. It is evident that in the present passage, as indeed generally in this epistle, it is the doctrinal aspect of the gospel that the apostle has specially in mind. The questions at issue between Paul and his judaistic opponents did not at all concern the historical facts of the life of Jesus, nor did they so far as known have to do with the methods of carrying on the gospel work. They pertained rather to the way of acceptance with God and the significance of the Christ in relation to such acceptance. They were thus distinctly doctrinal questions.

The preposition εἰς denotes mental direction (cf. Acts 26:18, Romans 2:4, 1 Timothy 1:6) and in view of the meaning and tense of μετατίθεσθε signifies “towards, with inclination to accept.” That Paul calls the teaching of his opponents in Galatia a different “gospel” doubtless reflects the fact that they claimed for it the name “gospel,” “good tidings”; they may even have described it in contrast with Paul’s preaching, as a different gospel, ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον. In what sense Paul was willing to apply to it the term “gospel” appears in what follows.

7. ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο, εἰ μή “which is not another except in the sense that.” The relative ὅ should undoubtedly be taken as referring neither to εὐαγγέλιον alone, nor to the whole statement μετατίθεσθε … εὐαγγέλιον (reasons given below), but, as the manifest emphasis upon ἕτερον in the preceding clause and the use of the partly antithetical ἄλλο in this clause suggests, to ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον taken as a single term and designating the erroneous teaching of the judaisers. The clause is thus a qualification of the preceding statement, intended to exclude the possible implication that that which the Galatians were urged to accept was really a gospel which might legitimately be substituted for that which Paul preached. On εἰ μή meaning “except” and introducing not a protasis but an exception, see Th. εἰ, III 8 c; BMT 274, 471. On εἰ μή meaning “except that,” see Mark 6:5, Romans 14:14, and cf. Th. εἰ, III 8 b.

Οὐκ ἄλλο εἰ μή is taken in the sense “nothing else than” by Winer (Com. ad loc.), Grot., Rück.. as also by Grimm (Th. εί III 8 c ε), ARV. marg., and Ram. (first choice; see also below), ὅ being in this case referred not to ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον, but to the fact related in μετατίθεσθε … εὐαγγέλιον. To this construction there are several objections: (1) It makes the antithesis between ἕτερον and ἄλλο only seeming and accidental, which is in view of Paul’s usage rather improbable. See below on N. T. usage of these words. (2) It necessitates the supposition that Paul left the application of the term εὐαγγέλιον to the teaching of the judaisers unretracted. (3) The reference of ὅ to the whole preceding sentence is awkward and improbable. Following immediately upon ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον, and agreeing with it in gender and number, ὅ could scarcely be taken by the reader otherwise than as referring to this expression. If Paul had intended ὅ to refer to the entire preceding clause he would naturally have written ἅ (cf. 4:24) or τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν or τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν.* (4) It gives to οὐκ ἄλλο εἰ μή the sense “not other than” (denying qualitative distinction), which is unsustained by usage. See for classical writers Jelf, 773, 5 860. 7; Kühner-Gerth, 597 m. For this idea the Lxx use οὐκ ἄλλʼ ἤ (Genesis 28:17), τί ( = οὐκ) ἅλλο ἤ (Malachi 2:15), οὐκ εἰ μή (Nehemiah 2:2); N. T. writers use οὐκ ἅλλος ἀλλʼ ἤ (2 Corinthians 1:13), οὐκ εἰ μή (1 Corinthians 10:13), τίς ( = οὐκ) εἰ μή (Romans 11:15, Ephesians 4:9), but neither Lxx nor N. T. use οὐκ ἄλλος εἰ μή.†

By a still older view (Chrys., Thdrt., Luth., Beza, Beng., Koppe, de W., and Hilg., cited by Sief. ad loc.) ὅ is referred to εὐαγγέλιον in the sense of the true gospel, the relative clause is taken as equivalent to οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἄλλο, and the εἰ μή clause is taken as adversative. This view is now generally recognised to be erroneous, and requires no extended discussion. Each element of it is in itself impossible: ὅ cannot refer to εὐαγγέλιον alone in the sense of the (true) gospel, since this would involve an abrupt dropping from the mind of the emphatic element in the antecedent clause, and the mental substitution of a word (τό) having practically the opposite force; ὁ οὐκ ἔστιν might possibly mean “for it is not,” but can not mean, as this interpretation requires, “there is not,” since the substantive element of ὅ in this case altogether disappears; nor can εἰ μή be merely adversative in force (see on 1:19).

Ram., as stated above, prefers the first of these views, but as his second choice translates “another gospel, which is not different (from mine), except in so far as certain persons pervert the gospel of Christ.” ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον he refers to the teaching of the Twelve, which Paul affirms to be not really different from his own; the perverters of this gospel, which is common to Paul and the Twelve, he supposes to be the judaisers. Aside from the question whether Paul could by this language convey so complex an idea, and whether Paul really regarded his gospel as quite so closely identical with that of the Twelve as this interpretation supposes, the crucial question is whether it does justice to the relative meanings of ἕτερος and ἄλλος, and to this question it seems necessary to return a negative answer, and consequently to reject Ram.’s interpretation of the passage. See detached note on Ἕτερος and Ἄλλος, p. 420.

The balance of evidence therefore seems to require taking ἕτερον as meaning “different,” ἅλλο in the sense “another” (additional) and translating ὅ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο εἰ μή as above, “which is not another except in the sense that.” The only alternative is not, with Ram., to reverse this distinction between ἕτερος and ἄλλος, but to suppose that the two terms are entirely synonymous, the change being simply for variety of expression. In the latter case both words might consistently with Greek usage in general mean either “another” (second) numerically distinct, or “different.” But the interpretation advocated above is more probable than either of these latter. In any case εἰ μή retains its exceptive force, meaning here “except (in the sense that).”

τινές εἰσιν οἱ ταράσσοντες ὑμᾶς καὶ θέλοντες μεταστρέψαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ. “there are some who are troubling you and desire to pervert the gospel of the Christ.” This is the first mention of those who were preaching the other gospel among the Galatians. The present tense of the verb indicates that they are still in Galatia, and that this letter is intended to combat them while they are in the very midst of their work. The verb ταράσσω, prop. “to agitate physically” (John 5:7), much more frequently in N. T. means “to disturb mentally,” with excitement, perplexity, or fear (3 John 1:14:1, Acts 15:24). Concerning the participle, or other attributive, with the article after an indefinite word like τινές or a noun without the article, see W. XVIII 3; XX 4 (WM pp. 136, 174), BMT 424, Bl. § 412 (73:2), Rad. p. 93, Gild.Syn. p. 283, Rob. p. 277. W. implies that τινές is here subject and οἱ ταρ. pred.; but the attributive construction is more probable; cf. chaps. 2:20, 3:21. Observe in the use of θέλοντες another indication that the Galatians have not yet succumbed to the influence of the judaising missionaries. The troubling is a present fact. The perversion is as yet only a wish of the disturbers.

Μεταστρέφω (in N. T. Acts 2:20, here, and Jam 4:9 only) means (1) “to turn,” “to transfer,” (2) “to change from one thing into another or from one state to another”; whether for better or for worse is not involved in the meaning of the word (Deuteronomy 23:5, Sir. 11:31 [33]); yet when the thing changed is right and good, to change it is naturally thought of as being to pervert it.

On the meaning of χριστός, see detached note on The Titles and Predicates of Jesus, III, pp. 395 ff. Note that we should here translate “the gospel of the Christ,” χριστός with the article being here, as usually, and always after τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, not a proper name but a descriptive title, with tacit identification of the person referred to; as one would say “the Governor” or “the President,” leaving the hearer to supply the personal identification.

8. ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐὰν ἡμεῖς ἢ ἄγγελος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ εὐαγγελίζηται ὑμῖν παρʼ ὃ εὐηγγελισάμεθα ὑμῖν, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω. “But even if we or an angel from heaven shall preach unto you a gospel not in accordance with that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.” This strong language shows how serious Paul considered the differences between his gospel and that which the Jewish Christian preachers were promulgating in Galatia. Contrast the language of Php 1:15-18. The antithesis expressed by ἀλλά is probably between the disposition, which he suspects some of his readers may feel, to regard the gospel of Paul and that of the judaisers as, after all, not so very different, and his own strong sense of the serious difference between them. The clause, so far as ἡμεῖς ἢ ἄγγελος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ is concerned, is concessive, being unfavourable to the fulfilment of the apodosis, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω, and the καὶ is intensive, marking the extreme nature of the supposition. It is, of course, only rhetorically a possibility. In respect to the following words, παρʼ ὅ, etc., the clause is causally conditional. See BMT 278, 281, 285 b. On the meaning of ἄγγελος, see on 4:14.

אA Dial808 Ath. Cyhr Euthal. al. read εὐαγγελίσηται; BDFGHL al. pler. Bas. read εὐαγγελίζηται; Eus. Chr. Thdrt. Dam. have both -σηται and -ζηται; KP 442, 460, 1908 al. read -ζεται. External evidence is indecisive as between -σηται and -ζηται. Intrinsically it is a little more probable that Paul would write -ζηται, implying a continuous propagandism, rather than -σηται, which might suggest a single occasion of preaching, contrary to the apostle’s doctrine. Transcriptional probability also favours -ζηται as more easily than either of the other forms, accounting for all the readings, each of the others arising from -ζηται by the change of a single letter. It is also more probable that scribes would give to the apostle’s anathema a harsher form by changing -ζηται to -σηται than that they would soften it by the reverse change. Ln. (mg.) Tdf. WH. read -σηται. Ln. (txt.) Tr. Alf. Ell. Ltft. Weiss, Sief. Sd. read -ζηται.

אcADcKLP al. pler. d f Vg. Syr. (psh. harcl. pal.) Boh. read ὑμῖν after εὐαγγελ.; BH have it before the verb; א*Fgr. G g omit it; D* Ath. Cyrhr read ὑμᾶς after εὐαγγελ. The reading ὑμᾶς may be set aside as weakly attested and probably due to the influence of ὑμᾶς in v. 9, yet it bears a certain testimony to the presence of a pronoun at this point. The witnesses to ὑμῖν before the verb and those to ὑμῖν after it furnish strong testimony to its presence in one place or the other, with a probability in favour of the latter position.

Εὐαγγελίζομαι occurs first so far as observed in Aristoph. Eq. 643, λόγους ἀγαθοὺς εὐαγγελίσασθαι τινι (see Dalman, Words of Jesus, pp. 102 ff.). The active occurs first apparently in the Lxx, but is found also in secular writers after N. T. In the Lxx it is a translation of בָּשַׂר, “to bring tidings,” “to bring good news.” In N. T. it is found in the active (Revelation 10:7, Revelation 14:6 only), in the middle frequently, and in the passive. The middle is accompanied by an accusative of content, with or without a dative of indirect object (Luke 4:43, Luke 8:1), or by a dative (Romans 1:15) or accusative (Acts 8:40) of the person to whom the message is delivered without an accusative of content, or is used absolutely (1 Corinthians 1:17). Except in Luke 1:19 and 1 Thessalonians 3:6 the accusative of content refers to the “gospel” message of salvation or to some phase of it. When used absolutely or in the passive the reference is to the proclamation of the gospel in the N. T. sense of the word. See note on εὐαγγέλιον, p. 422. Paul uses the word in the middle only, both with and without accusative of content (see Romans 1:15, Romans 1:15:20, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 1 Corinthians 1:9:16, 1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 1:15:1, 1 Corinthians 1:2, 2 Corinthians 10:16, 2 Corinthians 11:7, Galatians 1:8, Galatians 1:9, Galatians 1:11, Galatians 1:16, Galatians 1:23, Galatians 1:4:13), and always, except in 1 Thessalonians 3:6, Romans 10:15 and this verse and the next, with reference to the preaching of his gospel. By the addition of παρʼ ὅ, etc., here and in v. 8, the word is given a more general reference than to Paul’s gospel in particular, yet doubtless still refers to the preaching of the Christian gospel, not to the announcement of good tidings in general. It is equivalent to εὐαγγέλιον κηρύσσειν, with εὐαγγέλιον in the same breadth of meaning which is implied in ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον of v. 6. On other ways of expressing substantially the same idea as that of this v., see 1 Corinthians 3:11, 2 Corinthians 11:4.

It has been much disputed whether παρά in παρʼ ὅ signifies “contrary to,” or “besides.” But the room for dispute which usage permits is very narrow. The metaphorical uses of παρά in the New Testament are as follows:

1. Beyond, passing a certain limit. (a) Beyond the measure or limit of: (i) in excess of (Romans 12:3, 2 Corinthians 8:3, Hebrews 11:11 also Hebrews 2:7, Hebrews 2:9); (ii) in greater degree than (Luke 13:2, Luke 13:4, Romans 1:25, Romans 14:5, Hebrews 1:9); (iii) in transgression of, contrary to (Acts 18:13, Romans 1:26, Romans 4:18, Romans 11:24, Romans 16:17); (b) after comparatives, than (Luke 3:13, Hebrews 1:4, Hebrews 3:3, Hebrews 9:23, Hebrews 11:4, Hebrews 12:24); (c) after ἄλλος, than, except (1 Corinthians 3:11 and freq. in Greek writers).

2. Aside from, except, lacking, used with a numeral, 2 Corinthians 11:24, and in Greek writers with other expressions suggesting number or quantity.

3. Because of (1 Corinthians 12:15, 1 Corinthians 12:16).

The use in the present passage evidently falls neither under 2 nor 3; nor under 1 (a) (i) or (ii); nor, because of the absence of a comparative or ἄλλος, under (b) or (c). The meaning “beside, in addition to,” does not exist in N. T., nor have instances of it been pointed out in the Lxx or Greek writers. The nearest approach to it is that which is illustrated in 1 Corinthians 3:11; but this sense apparently occurs only after ἄλλος, which is not found in the present passage. It remains therefore to take παρά in this verse, and the following, in the sense common in classical writers and in N. T., “contrary to,” 1, (a) (iii) above. It should be observed, however, that the fundamental meaning of παρά is “by the side of,” then “beyond,” and that it acquires the meaning “contrary to” from the conception of that which goes beyond (and so transgresses) the limits of the object. This fundamental idea seems usually at least to linger in the word, suggesting not so much direct contradiction or denial, or on the other side merely addition, as exceeding the limits of a thing, e. g., a law or teaching—and so non-accordance with it. Cf. Rob., p. 616. This meaning suggested by the original sense of the preposition and by its usage is entirely appropriate to the present passage. The evidence of the letter as a whole indicates that the teachings of the judaisers, which Paul evidently has in mind here, were neither, on the one side, additions to his own teaching in the same spirit as his, nor, on the other side, direct contradictions and denials of his, but additions which were actually subversive in effect. The translation “other than” (RV., cf. Weizsäcker) is not quite accurate, because it suggests any variation whatever from Paul’s message. “Contrary to” (RV. mg.) slightly exaggerates this idea of contrariety, suggesting direct contradiction. “Not in accordance with” or “at variance with” seems to come nearest to expressing the idea of the Greek.

The words ἀνάθεμα and ἀνάθημα were originally simply variant spellings of the same word. The latter word meant in Homer “an ornament,” in Herodotus, et al., “votive offering” set up in a temple. “Votive offering” is perhaps in fact the older sense. In this sense ἀνάθεμα appears in Greek writers from Theocritus down. In the Lxx, however, it is used to translate חֵרִם, a thing devoted to God for destruction, a thing accursed. In the mss. of the Lxx and Apocr. ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα are for the most part consistently distinguished, the former signifying “a votive offering,” the latter “a thing accursed, devoted to destruction” (Leviticus 27:28, Deuteronomy 13:17 [18]), etc., or “a curse” (Deuteronomy 13:15 [16], 20:17). But variant readings appear in Deuteronomy 7:26 bis Judges 1:16:19 [23], 3 Malachi 3:17. In N. T. ἀνάθημα, found only in Luke 21:5 (even here אADX read ἀνάθεμα), means “a votive offering”; ἀνάθεμα in Romans 9:3, 1 Corinthians 12:3, 1 Corinthians 16:22 means “a thing (or rather a person) accursed”; in Acts 23:14 “a curse,” a vow taken with an oath, a meaning found also in an Attic inscription of the first or second century A. D. (see Deissmann in ZntW. II 342), and hence doubtless a current use of the term in Common Greek, as it is also in modern Grk. Cf. M. and M. Voc. s. v. The former of these two meanings differs from the common Lxx sense of ἀνάθεμα in that it denotes not so much a thing devoted to God to be destroyed (see, e. g., Joshua 6:17-25) as one under the curse of God. See esp. Romans 9:3. In this sense the word must be taken in the present passage. How this condemnation of God would express itself is not conveyed in this word. Taken in their literal sense the words ἀνάθεμα ἔστω (on the use of the imper. see Rob. p. 939) are the opposite of the benediction in v. 3; they are a petition that the person referred to may be deprived of God’s grace, and instead be the object of his disapproval. Precisely what thought the expression represented in Paul’s mind is difficult to determine, because it is impossible to know precisely how largely the hyperbole of impassioned feeling entered into the words. For the evidence that ἀνάθεμα does not here or in N. T. generally refer to excommunication, as some older interpreters maintained, see Wieseler’s extended note on this passage.

9. ὡς προειρήκαμεν, καὶ ἄρτι πάλιν λέγω, “As we said before so now I say again.” The προ- in προειρήκαμεν may mean “before” either in the sense “on a former occasion,” as, e. g., in 2 Corinthians 7:3, Hebrews 4:7, or in a predictive sense “before the event spoken of,” as in Mark 13:23, Romans 9:29, 2 Corinthians 13:2. The two ideas are indeed not mutually exclusive. But the fact that v. 9 b, which is distinctly said to be a repetition of the utterance referred to in προειρήκαμεν, is not a prediction shows that προ- refers to a previous utterance of these words. This previous utterance, however, is not that of v. 8, but something said on a previous occasion, as e. g., on a visit to Galatia, orin a previous letter. Paul does, indeed, not infrequently use a plural in speaking of himself alone, and even change abruptly from plural to singular (see 1 Thessalonians 2:18, 1 Thessalonians 2:3:1, 1 Thessalonians 2:6, 2 Corinthians 1:13 f., 2 Corinthians 1:23, 2 Corinthians 1:10:2, 2 Corinthians 1:11:21, and Dick, Der schriftstellerische Plural bei Paulus, pp. 143 ff.), and προειρήκαμεν could in itself refer to something just said in the letter (see 2 Corinthians 7:3). But the use of ἄρτι here implying difference of time between the two utterances excludes the supposition that he is here referring to words just written down. Since we know of no previous letter to the Galatians, the previous utterance was probably made by Paul (or by Paul and his companions—on this point the plural can not in view of 2 Corinthians 1:13 f. and other passages cited above be said to be decisive) when he was in Galatia. On which of the two occasions on which he had probably already visited the Galatians (4:13) this warning was given, depends somewhat on the question of the chronology of these visits, itself turning in large part on the location of the churches. See Introd., p. xxi. The very fact that he felt it necessary to utter such a warning as this suggests an already existing danger. If the churches, being in northern Galatia, were founded on his second missionary journey, there might easily have been occasion for such a warning on his first visit to them. If, on the other hand, the churches were in southern Galatia, and hence founded on the first missionary journey, it is less probable that he had occasion at that time to utter so pointed a warning, and more likely that he refers to something said on the occasion of his second visit.

The perfect tense of προειρήκαμεν marks this saying as not simply a past fact, but as one of which the result remains, doubtless in that they remember (or may be assumed to remember) the utterance of the saying. BMT 74, 85. The tense therefore conveys an appeal to their memory of the utterance. This reference to the existing result of the saying can not be expressed in English except by an interjected clause, “as we told you and you remember,” and inasmuch as the use of the English perfect in such a connection suggests a recent action—in this case most naturally an utterance just made in the preceding sentence—the best translation is the simple past, which though it leaves unexpressed a part of the meaning of the Greek, has at least the advantage of not expressing anything not conveyed by the Greek. BMT 82.

The strict force of καί before ἄρτι is doubtless adverbial, “also,” but English idiom in such a case prefers the simple “so.” Cf. John 6:57, John 6:13:33, 1 Corinthians 15:49. The fuller and more definitely comparative expression οὕτως καί occurs 1 Corinthians 15:22, Galatians 4:29, etc. ἄρτι, frequent in papyri, of strictly present time (M. and M. Voc. s. v.), is cited by Nägeli, Wortschatz, p. 78, as a word of the unliterary Κοινή; yet see numerous classical exx. in L. & S.

εἴ τις ὑμᾶς εὐαγγελίζεται παρʼ ὃ παρελάβετε, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω. “If any one is preaching to you a gospel not in accordance with that which ye received, let him be accursed.” This sentence differs from that of v. 8 in two respects which affect the thought: (1) the element of concession and improbability disappears in the omission of ἡμεῖς ἢ ἄγγελος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ; (2) the form of the condition that suggests future possibility is displaced by that which expresses simple present supposition, and which is often used when the condition is known to be actually fulfilled. The result is to bring the supposition closer home to the actual case, and since it was known both to Paul and his readers that the condition εἴ τις … παρελάβετε was at that very time in process of fulfilment, to apply the ἀνάθεμα ἔστω directly to those who were then preaching in Galatia.

10. ἄρτι γὰρ ἀνθρώπους πείθω ἢ τὸν θεόν; “For am I now seeking the favour of men, or of God?” ἄρτι, now, i. e., in these utterances. The apostle evidently refers to a charge that on previous occasions or in other utterances he had shaped his words so as to win the favour of men. A similar charge was made by his opponents at Corinth, 2 Corinthians 10:1. πείθω means “to win the favour of,” “to conciliate,” as in 2 Mac. 4:45, Matthew 28:14, Acts 12:20. The present tense, by reason simply of the meaning of the word and the idea of action in progress suggested by the tense, has the meaning, “to seek the favour of.” BMT 11; GMT 25.

The force of γάρ is difficult to determine. If, indeed, as Win. Th. Preusch. et al. affirm, γάρ has a conclusive or illative force (derived, as some maintain, from its etymological sense as compounded of γέ and ἄρα), this meaning would be most suitable. The apostle would in that case draw from his preceding sentence the inference, expressed in a rhetorical question, that he is not pleasing men (as has been charged against him), but God. Or if it had the asseverative force attributed to it by Hoogeveen et al. (see Misener, The Meaning of Γάρ, Baltimore, 1904), this would also yield a suitable meaning: “Surely I am not now pleasing men, am I?” But most of the N. T. passages cited by Th. et al. as examples of the illative sense are as well or better explained as in some sense causal, and though there remain a very few which it is difficult to account for except on the assumption of an asseverative or illative force, whether primitive or derived (see Acts 16:37, Php 1:3), yet in view of the preponderance of evidence and judgment that all the uses of γάρ are to be explained from its causal force (see Misener, op. cit.), and the fact that the only two N. T. cases that obstinately refuse to be reduced to this category are in condensed exclamatory phrases, we do not seem to be justified in assuming any other than a causal force here. In that case it must be either confirmatory—“and I mean what I say, for am I now?” etc.—or, explanatory and defensive, justifying the use of the strong and harsh language of vv. 8, 9— “and this I am justified in saying, for am I now?” etc. Of these two explanations the second is the more probable, since the preceding expression is already sufficiently strong and would naturally call for justification rather than confirmation. To this as to any form of the view that makes γάρ causal, it is indeed an objection that the clause introduced by γάρ ought naturally to be either a positive assertion, or a question the answer to which is to the opponent in argument so evident and unquestionable that it has the value of a proved assertion. See, e. g., John 7:41, Acts 8:31, Acts 8:19:35, 1 Corinthians 11:22. But this latter is precisely what this question does not furnish. To those to whom Paul is addressing himself it is by no means self-evident and unquestionable that he is concerned to win the favour of God and not of men. But ἄρτι with its backward reference to the strong language of the preceding sentences suggests that this language itself is appealed to as evidence that the apostle is not now seeking to please men but God, which fact, as γάρ shows, he in turn employs to justify the language. It is as if one reproved for undue severity should reply, “My language at least proves that I am no flatterer,” the answer tacitly implying that this fact justified the severity. Such a mode of expression is not impossible to one writing under strong emotion, and this interpretation furnishes the most probable explanation of both ἄρτι and γάρ.

ἢ ζητῶ ἀνθρώποις ἀρέσκειν; “Or am I seeking to please men?” These words only repeat a little more distinctly the thought of the preceding clause, ζητῶ ἀρέσκειν taking the place of πείθω and expressing the idea of attempt more definitely.

εἰ ἔτι ἀνθρώποις ἤρεσκον, Χριστοῦ δοῦλος οὐκ ἂν ἤμην. “If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ.” A supposition contrary to fact (BMT 248), implying that he is no longer pleasing men, and that he is a servant of Christ. The imperfect ἤρεσκον is doubtless like the πείθω above, conative, not resultative. This is the usual force of the progressive tenses in verbs of pleasing, persuading, and the like, which by their meaning suggest effort, and there is no occasion to regard the present instance as exceptional. That which the apostle says would prove him not to be a servant of Christ is, not a being pleasing to men, but an endeavour to please men. The expression is moreover comparative rather than absolute, signifying not the intention under any circumstances or in any degree to please men, but to please men in preference to God, as is implied in the preceding ἀνθρώπους … ἢ τὸν θεόν, and for his own advantage and convenience as the whole context suggests. There is no contradiction, therefore, between this assertion and that of 1 Corinthians 10:33: πάντα πᾶσιν ἀρέσκω, μὴ ζητῶν τὸ ἐμαυτοῦ σύμφορον ἀλλὰ τὸ τῶν πολλῶν, ἵνα σωθῶσιν. The meaning ascribed to the sentence by some of the Greek expositors and by a few moderns, according to which it expresses the course which the apostle would voluntarily have pursued if he had been seeking to win the approval of men, “I would not have entered the service of Christ but would have remained a Pharisee,” would almost of necessity have been expressed by οὐκ ἂν ἐγενόμην “I should not have become.” On Χριστοῦ without the article, as a proper name, cf. on τοῦ χριστοῦ in v. 7, and detached note on The Titles and Predicates of Jesus, III, p. 396. The whole sentence εἰ ἔτι … ἤμην is doubtless, though its relation to the preceding is not marked by any conjunction (the γάρ of TR. having no sufficient authority), a confirmation of the implied answer to the questions of the first part of the verse. The appeal, however, is not to the fact that he was a servant of Christ—this his opponents to whose criticisms he is at this moment addressing himself, would not have conceded—but to his own consciousness of the incongruity of men-pleasing and the service of Christ. It is as if he should say: “Surely I am not now a men-pleaser, for I myself recognise that that would make me no longer a servant of Christ.”

The connection of this verse with v. 9 is so obviously close, and vv. 11, 12 so clearly enter upon a new phase of the letter, that it is difficult to see how WH. could have made the paragraph begin at v. 10. RV. is obviously right in beginning it at v. 11.

It has been urged against taking ἤρεσκον as conative that the closely preceding ἀρέσκειν is evidently not conative, since the idea of attempt is separately expressed in ζητῶ. The objection, however, is of little force. The Greek verb ἀρέσκω in the present system means either “to be pleasing to” or (as nearly as it can be expressed in English) “to seek to please.” With a verb which by its tense suggests the idea of attempt, but only suggests it, the conative idea may be separately expressed, as in ζητῶ ἀρέσκειν, or may be left to be conveyed by the tense only, as in ἤρεσκον.

Ἔτι “still” (1) primarily a temporal particle marking action as continuing, “then as before,” or “now as heretofore,” is also used (2) to denote quantitative or numerical addition (ἔτι ἕνα ἢ δύο, “one or two more,” Matthew 18:16), and (3) logical opposition (τί ἔτι κἀγὼ ὡς ἁμαρτωλὸς κρίνομαι: “why am I nevertheless judged as a sinner?” Romans 3:7). The second and third uses, of course, spring from the first, and occasional instances occur in which one or the other of these derived ideas is associated with the temporal idea and modifies it. See, e. g., Hebrews 11:4. In the present passage ἔτι might be (a) purely temporal, the comparison being with his pre-Christian life when he was not a servant of Christ; (b) purely temporal, the comparison being with a previous period of his Christian life when he was seeking to please men and, consequently, was not a servant of Christ; (c) purely temporal, the comparison being with a previous period of his Christian life, when, as alleged by his opponents, he was seeking to please men; or (d) temporal and adversative, ἔτι, meaning “still, despite all that I have passed through.” The interpretation (b) is excluded by the practical impossibility that Paul could characterise any part of his Christian life as one in which he was not a servant of Christ. The adversative rendering (d) is rendered improbable by the fact that his recent experiences were not such as to be specially calculated to eradicate the tendency to men-pleasing; rather, if anything, there was in them a temptation to seek to please men, a temptation to which his opponents alleged he had yielded. The interpretation (c) probably is correct to this extent, that the apostle has in mind the charges that have been made against him respecting his recent conduct as a Christian apostle, and means to say that whatever may have been alleged respecting that past conduct, now at least it cannot be charged that he is still seeking to please men. Yet it is doubtful whether the reference is solely to an alleged pleasing of men, and in so far as ἔτι implies a comparison with anything actual in the past, it must be with the days of his Phariseeism. For though Paul was perhaps less affected by the desire for the praise of men (Matthew 6:2, Matthew 6:5, Matthew 6:16, Matthew 6:23:5 ff.), having more desire for righteousness and divine approval, than most of his fellow Pharisees (Galatians 1:14, Php 3:5), yet he would doubtless not hesitate to characterise that period of his life as one of men-pleasing as compared with his Christian life. The thought is therefore probably: “If I were still pleasing men, as was the case in the days of my Phariseeism, and as my opponents allege has been recently the case, I should not be a servant of Christ.”

Δοῦλος, properly “a slave, a bondservant,” is frequently used by N. T. writers to express their relation and that of believers in general to Christ and to God. The fundamental idea of the word is subjection, subservience, with which are associated more or less constantly the ideas of proprietorship by a master and service to him. The δοῦλος is subject to his master (κύριος, δεσπότης), belongs to him as his property, and renders him service. As applied to the Christian and describing his relation to Christ or God the word carries with it all three of these ideas, with varying degrees of emphasis in different cases, the fundamental idea of subjection, obedience, on the whole predominating. At the same time the conception of the slave as one who serves unintelligently and obeys from fear, is definitely excluded from the idea of the δοῦλος Χριστοῦ as held by Paul and other N. T. writers; δουλεία in this sense is denied, and υἱοθεσία affirmed in its place (Galatians 4:1-7, Romans 8:15, Romans 8:16; cf. also John 15:15, Ephesians 6:5-8). The statement of Cremer correctly represents the thought of N. T. in general: “The normal moral relation of man to God is that of a δοῦλος τοῦ θεοῦ, whose own will though perfectly free is bound to God.” It is evidently such a full but free service of Christ that Paul has in mind here in the use of the term δοῦλος Χριστοῦ. The effort to please men conflicts with and excludes unreserved obedience to Christ. Cf. Deissmann, New Light from the Ancient East, p. 381.

II. PERSONAL PORTION OF THE LETTER

THE GENERAL THEME ESTABLISHED BY PROVING THE APOSTLE’S INDEPENDENCE OF ALL HUMAN AUTHORITY AND DIRECT RELATION TO CHRIST (1:11-2:21).

1. Proposition: Paul received the gospel not from men, but immediately from God (1:11, 12)

Beginning with these verses, the apostle addresses himself to the refutation of the charges and criticisms of the judaising teachers, and to the re-establishment of himself and his gospel in the confidence of the Galatians; and first of all, doubtless as against an assertion of his opponents that he had never received (from Jerusalem) a commission authorising him to set himself up as a teacher of the religion of Jesus, he affirms his entire independence of all human authority or commission, and his possession of his gospel by virtue of a divine revelation of Jesus Christ.

11For I declare to you, brethren, that the gospel that was preached by me is not according to man; 12for neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.

11. Γνωρίζω γὰρ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, “For I declare to you, brethren.” The verb γνωρίζω suggests a somewhat formal or solemn assertion. Cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3, 1 Corinthians 12:15:1, 2 Corinthians 8:1, Ephesians 1:9, the similar expression οὐ θέλω ἀγνοεῖν in Romans 1:13, Romans 1:11:25, 1 Corinthians 10:1, 1 Corinthians 10:12:1, 2 Corinthians 1:8, 1 Thessalonians 4:13, and M. and M. Voc. on γνωρίζω and γινώσκω. The assertion that follows is in effect the proposition to the proving of which the whole argument of 1:13-2:21 is directed. This relation of vv. 11, 12 to what follows remains the same whether we read δέ or γάρ. Only in the latter case the apostle (as in Romans 1:16) has attached his leading proposition to a preceding statement as a justification of it, not, however, of v. 10, which is itself a mere appendix to vv. 6-9 and almost parenthetical, but of the whole passage, vv. 6-9, as an expression of his surprise at their apostasy and his stern denunciation of those who are leading them astray. See a somewhat similar use of γάρ at the beginning of a new division of the argument in Romans 1:18; cf. also Romans 1:16, Romans 1:17. The word “brethren,” ἀδελφοί, doubtless here, as almost invariably in Paul’s epistles, signifies fellow-Christians. See more fully in fine print below, and on v. 2.

Γάρ after γνωρίζω is the reading of אaBD*FG 33 d f g Vg. Dam. Victorin. Hier. Aug.; δέ: א*ADb et c KLP, the major portion of the cursives. Syr. (psh. harcl. pal.) Boh. Orint. Chr. Euthal. Cyr. Thdrt. al. The preponderance of evidence for γάρ is very slight. Both readings must be very ancient. γάρ is the reading of the distinctively Western authorities, and δέ apparently of the Alexandrian text. But which in this case diverged from the original can not be decided by genealogical evidence. The group BDFG supporting γάρ, and that supporting δέ, viz., אAP al., each support readings well attested by internal evidence. See Introd., p. lxxx. The addition of 33 to the former group in this case somewhat strengthens it, and throws the balance of evidence slightly in favour of γάρ. Internal evidence gives no decided ground of preference for either against the other, and the question must apparently be left about as it is by WH., γάρ in the text as a little more probably right, δέ on the margin as almost equally well attested. If δέ is the true reading, it is probably resumptive in force (Th. s. v. 7; W. LIII. 7 b; Rob. p. 1185 init.), marking a return to the main thought of the superhuman authority of the gospel after the partial digression of v. 10.

Among the Jews it was customary to recognise as brethren all the members of a given family or tribe (Leviticus 25:25, Numbers 16:10), and indeed all members of the nation (Leviticus 19:17, Deuteronomy 1:16, Deuteronomy 1:2 Malachi 1:1, Acts 7:2, Romans 9:3). Papyri of the second century BC show that members of the same religious community were called ἀδελφοί. See M. and M. Voc. s. v. The habit of the Christians to call one another brethren may have been the product in part of both these older usages. In the Christian usage the basis of the relation is purely religious, family and national lines, as well as lines of merely personal friendship, being disregarded. Thus while the brethren mentioned in v. 2 were presumably Jews, those who are here addressed as brethren were Gentiles. Cf. also Acts 15:23. According to the gospels Jesus had taught that they are his brethren who do God’s will, and they brethren to one another who unite in recognising Jesus himself as Master. Mark 3:31-34, Matthew 23:8. In Paul the emphasis of the term is upon the fraternal, affectionate, mutually regardful attitude of Christians to one another (1 Corinthians 5:11, 6:1 Corinthians 5:5-8, 8:1 Corinthians 5:11-13, 15:58, 2 Corinthians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 2:13, Romans 14:10, Romans 14:13, Romans 14:15), though the suggestion of a common relationship to Christ and God is not wholly lacking (see Romans 8:16, Romans 8:17, Romans 8:29), and the use of it constitutes an appeal to all those relations of affection and fellowship which Christians sustain to one another by virtue of their common faith, and membership in one body (1 Corinthians 12:1ff.). On later Christian usage, see Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity, 2 I 405 f.

τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπʼ ἐμοῦ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον· “that the gospel that was preached by me is not according to man.” τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, logically the subject of ἔστιν, is, by a species of attraction common both in classical writers and N. T. (Jelf 898. 2; W. LXVI 5 a) introduced as the object of γνωρίζω. On the meaning of εὐαγγέλιον, see detached note, p. 422, and on εὐαγγελισθέν see on v. 8. On the use of the verb with an accusative of content, or in the passive with a subject denoting the gospel or its content, see vv. 16, 23, Luke 8:1, Luke 8:16:16, 1 Corinthians 15:1, 2 Corinthians 11:7. The aorist tense, εὐαγγελισθέν, is probably used in preference to the present because Paul has in mind at this moment the gospel not as that which he is wont to preach, or is now preaching, but as that which was preached by him to the Galatians. That the gospel preached by him is always the same is at once suggested, however, by the use of the present tense, ἔστιν. A converse use of aorist and present occurs with similar effect in 2:2, ἀνεθέμην αὐτοῖς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ὃ κηρύσσω.

Κατὰ ἄνθρωπον, a phrase used by Greek writers from Aeschyl. down (see Wetst. on Romans 3:5), but in N. T. by Paul only, is of very general significance, the noun being neither on the one hand generic (which would require τὸν ἄνθρωπον) nor individually indefinite, “a man,” but merely qualitative. The preposition signifies “according to,” “agreeably to,” “according to the will or thought of,” or “after the manner of” (see it used similarly in the phrases κατὰ θεόν, Romans 8:27, 2 Corinthians 7:9, 2 Corinthians 7:11, κατὰ κύριον, 2 Corinthians 11:7, and κατὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, Romans 15:5), and the whole phrase means “human” or “humanly,” “from a human point of view,” “according to human will or thought”: Romans 3:5, 1 Corinthians 3:3, 1 Corinthians 9:8, 1 Corinthians 15:22, Galatians 3:15. Respecting its precise force here there are three possibilities: (a) As in 1 Corinthians 9:8 it may signify “according to the thought of man,” i. e., of human authority; (b) under the influence of the idea of a message in εὐαγγέλιον it may mean “of human origin”; (c) it may convey simply the general idea “human” without more exact discrimination. There is no decisive ground of choice among these, but the last seems more consistent both with the usage of the phrase and with the context; notice that v. 12 covers both source and method of origin, and does not specifically mention authority. The suggestion of Bous. (SNT.) that it means “self-originated,” “eigene Phantasie,” is not sustained by usage, and is excluded by the next two clauses, οὐδέ … ἐδιδάχθην, in which it is in effect defined.

12. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτό, “for neither did I receive it from man.” This is the first step of the proof of the preceding general statement that his gospel is not a human message. Like the proposition itself it is negative, denying human source. οὐδέ coupled with γάρ may (1) serve to introduce a statement of what is at the same time a fact additional to the one already stated and an evidence for it, as is the case especially in arguments from analogy (see Luke 20:36, John 5:22, Acts 4:12, Romans 8:7), or (2) οὐδέ may throw its force upon a single term of the sentence, suggesting a comparison of the case mentioned with some other case previously mentioned or in mind. On this latter view the comparison would doubtless be with the Twelve, who, it is taken for granted, received the gospel otherwise than from man. This comparison itself, however, may be of either one of two kinds: (a) It may be comparison simply and, so to speak, on equal terms, “For neither did I any more than they receive it, etc.” (Cf. John 7:5, as interpreted in AV., “for neither did his brethren believe on him.” See also a similar use of οὐδέ without γάρ in Mark 11:26; or (b) it may be ascensive comparison: “For not even I, of whom, not being of the Twelve, it might have been supposed that I must have received the gospel from men, received it thus” (cf. Galatians 6:13). Of these three views the first (maintained by Sief.) is most in accord with N. T. usage of οὐδὲ γάρ (see exx. above), but is objectionable because the statement here made can not easily be thought of as a co-ordinate addition to the preceding, and because the presence of ἐγώ, emphatic by the mere fact of its insertion, almost requires that οὐδέ shall be interpreted as throwing its force upon it. The second view, 2(a), is more probable than the third, 2(b); the implication of the latter that his receiving his gospel otherwise than from man is in a sense an extreme case seems foreign to the state of mind of the apostle as it appears in this chapter. The objection that there is no ground for assuming a comparison with the Twelve is without force; the whole tenor of this chapter and the following goes to show that Paul’s commission had been declared to be inferior to that of the Twelve, and that he has this in mind throughout his defence; when, therefore, by the use of ἐγώ he indicates that he is comparing himself with some one else as respects the source of his gospel, we scarcely need to be informed that the unexpressed term of the comparison is the Twelve.

The verb παραλαμβάνω bears in N. T. two meanings: (1) “To take to or along with one’s self,” “to accept.” (2) “To receive something transmitted to one.” The latter is the uniform or all but uniform use in Paul. 1 Corinthians 11:23, 1 Corinthians 11:15:1, 1 Corinthians 11:3, Galatians 1:9, Php 4:9, Colossians 2:6 (?) 4:17 (?) 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Thessalonians 2:4:1, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, and is the undoubted meaning here.

παρὰ ἀνθρώπου. The original force of παρά with the genitive is “from beside,” denoting procession from a position beside or with some one. In N. T. precisely this sense is rare (John 15:26, John 16:27), but in the majority of instances the meaning is one which is derived from this. Thus both in Greek writers and in N. T. it is used after verbs of learning, hearing, inquiring, issuing, receiving, yet often in a sense scarcely distinguishable from that of ἀπό. With Mark 5:35 cf. Luke 8:49, and with Matthew 12:38 cf. Luke 11:16. When used after a verb which implies transmission, especially a compound of παρά, παρά before the noun apparently acquires by association the sense “along from,” marking its object as source, but at the same time as transmitter from a more ultimate source. Such seems to be the force of the preposition in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Thessalonians 2:4:1, 2 Thessalonians 3:6; it is also entirely appropriate to the first instance of its occurrence in Php 4:18; its use the second time may be due either to the fact that Paul avoided the suggestion of a different relation in the two cases which a change to ἀπό would have conveyed, or even to a desire delicately to hint a divine source back of the Philippians themselves, making them also transmitters. This latter instance seems in any case to be strongly against the view of Winer (WM. p. 463 f. n.) and Mey. on 1 Corinthians 11:23 that παρά means “directly from.” On the other hand, Ltft.’s view that “where the idea of transmission is prominent παρά will be used in preference to ἀπό, ” whether the object be the immediate or the remote source, is not sustained by the evidence as a whole. Not only is παρά often used of ultimate source, with no suggestion of transmission, but ἀπό is used, in 1 Corinthians 11:23 at least, when the idea of transmission is suggested by the verb, and in every instance where παρά is used before a transmitting source, the idea of transmission is suggested by the verb or context, and the object is the mediate source. To this rule Php 4:18 is, as remarked above, probably no exception. The force of παρά accordingly in the present phrase παρά ἀνθρώπου, joined with παρέλαβον, which distinctly suggests receiving by transmission, is probably “along from,” and taken with οὐδέ the phrase denies that the gospel which Paul preached was received by him from men as the intermediate source. This, of course, carries with it, also, the denial of man as the ultimate source, since the supposition of an ultimate human source with a divine mediate source is excluded by its own absurdity. In effect, therefore, παρά in the present phrase covers the ground more specifically covered in v. 1 by ἀπό and διά.

Ἀνθρώπου is probably to be taken as in διʼ ἀνθρώπου in v. 1 in the most general qualitative sense, not as having reference to any individual; it is hence to be translated “from man,” rather than “from a man.” Cf. on v. 1, and see John 5:34.

οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, “nor was I taught it.” To the denial of man as the source from which he received his gospel the apostle adds as a correlative statement a denial of instruction as the method by which he obtained it. This was, of course, precisely the method by which the great majority of the Christians and even of the Christian teachers of that day had received the gospel. It had been communicated to them by other men. Cf. the case of Apollos, Acts 18:25, Acts 18:26, of Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:14, and the frequent use of the word “teach” in reference to the work of apostles and preachers in general: Acts 4:18, Acts 4:5:28, Acts 4:20:20, 1 Corinthians 4:17, Colossians 1:28, etc. The apostle characterises his as an exceptional case. As a pupil of the Pharisees he had been taught something very different from the gospel, but he had had no connection with those who at the beginning were the teachers of the gospel. See the reference to these facts in vv. 13-17.

Οὐδέ before ἐδιδ. is read by אAD*FGP 31, 104, 326, 436, 442 Boh. Eus. Chr. Euthal. Cyr. Thdrt. Dam.; οὔτε by BDcKL Oec. al. Since the latter evidence proves that οὔτε is not simply an idiosyncrasy of B., and the Western authorities are almost unanimously on the side of οὐδέ, the probability is that οὐδέ is a Western digression from the original reading οὔτε, produced either by accidental assimilation to the preceding οὐδέ or by correction of the unusual combination οὐδέ … οὔτε. Cf. WM. pp. 617 f.

The οὔτε before ἐδιδ. can not be regarded as strictly correlative to οὐδέ at the beginning of the verse, since οὐδέ and οὔτε are not correlative conjunctions (WM. p. 617), the “neither … nor” of the English translation by its suggestion of this relation to that extent misrepresenting the Greek. Nor would the clauses be correlative if οὐδέ be read instead of οὔτε here (see below), since οὐδέ … οὐδέ express not correlation—the first looking forward to the second and the second back to the first—but successive negation, each οὐδέ looking backward and adding a negation to one already in mind. With the reading οὔτε, however, the second clause is introduced as correlative to the first, though the first had been expressed with a backward look to the preceding sentence, not with a forward look to the present clause.

ἀλλὰ διʼ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. “but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.” A verb such as is suggested by παρέλαβον and ἐδιδάχθην is of necessity to be supplied in thought with διʼ ἀποκαλύψεως, yet not ἐδιδάξθην itself, since there is a manifest contrast between instruction and revelation, the first being denied and the latter affirmed, as the method by which the apostle obtained his gospel. On the meaning of ἀποκάλυψις, see detached note on Ἀποκαλύπτω and Ἀποκάλύψις, p. 433. It is evident that the apostle is here using the term in its third sense, viz., a divine disclosure of a person or truth, involving also perception of that which is revealed by the person to whom the disclosure is made. He is speaking neither of an epiphany of Jesus as a world event, nor of a disclosure of him which, being made to men at large, as, e. g., through his life and death, might be perceived by some and fall ineffectual upon others, but of a personal experience, divine in its origin (cf. οὐδὲ … παρὰ ἀνθρώπου), personal to himself and effectual.

It has been much disputed whether Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is an objective or subjective genitive, whether Christ is the revealed or the revealer. According to the former interpretation, Paul in effect affirms that Jesus Christ had been revealed to him, and in such way that that revelation carried with it the substance of the gospel. If Christ is the revealer, it is doubtless the gospel that is revealed. It is in favour of the former view (1) that Paul is wont to speak of God as the author of revelations; and of Christ as the one revealed, not as the revealer: see for the former usage 1 Corinthians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 12:1, and for the latter 1 Corinthians 1:7, 2 Thessalonians 1:7, Galatians 1:16; (2) that this latter usage occurs in this very context (v. 16) where Paul, apparently speaking of the same fact to which he here refers, uses the phrase ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοί, in which Jesus is unambiguously represented as the one revealed. It may be urged in favour of the second interpretation (1) that the phrase thus understood furnishes the proper antithesis to παρὰ ἀνθρώπου and ἐδιδάχθην, affirming Christ as the source and revelation as the method over against man as the source and instruction as the method; (2) that the gospel, especially the gospel of Paul as distinguished from the Jewish-Christian conception of the gospel, requires as its source a revelation of larger and more definite content than is implied when the genitive is taken as objective. But these arguments are by no means decisive. Paul is not wont to preserve his antitheses perfect in form, and the first view as truly as the second preserves it substantially, since it is self-evident that if Christ was revealed to him (or in him) God was the revealer. As to whether a revelation of which Christ was the content was adequate to be the source of his gospel, there is much reason to believe that in his conception of Jesus obtained by the revelation of him there were virtually involved for Paul all the essential and distinctive features of his gospel. Thus it certainly included the resurrection of Jesus, and as an inference from it his divine sonship (Romans 1:4); these in view of Paul’s previous attitude towards the law might, probably did, lead him to recognise the futility of righteousness by law, this in turn preparing the way at least for the recognition of faith as the true principle of the religious life; this accepted may have led to the conviction that the Gentile could be justified without circumcision. While it can not perhaps be proved that precisely this was the order of Paul’s thought, his various references to his experience find their most natural explanation in this view, that the new conception of Jesus which Paul gained by the revelation of Christ in him furnished the premise from which the essential elements of his gospel were derived. See Php 3:4-9, Galatians 2:19, Romans 7:25, Romans 7:3:29, 30, and v. 16 of this chap., where he closely connects the two extremes of the experience attributed to him, viz., the revelation of Christ and the mission to the Gentiles. See also Acts 26:16, Acts 26:17, where a similar connection occurs. It seems, therefore, more probable that the genitive Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is objective, and that the apostle refers to a divinely given revelation of Jesus Christ which carried with it the conviction that he was the Son of God. See further on v. 16.

Ἀποκαλύψεως, being without the article, may be either indefinite, “a revelation” or qualitative, “revelation.” In the former case the reference is to a single specific though unidentified experience. In the latter case the phrase simply describes the method by which the gospel was received without reference to singleness or multiplicity of experience. The reference in the apostle’s mind may be to the Damascus experience only (cf. vv. 16, 17) or may include any revelations by which Christ was made known to him. In the absence of evidence of specific reference “by revelation” is preferable to “by a revelation” as a translation of the phrase.

2. Evidence substantiating the preceding assertion of his independence of human authority (vv. 11, 12) drawn from various periods of his life (1:13-2:21)

(a) Evidence drawn from his life before his conversion (1:13, 14)

To substantiate the statement of vv. 11, 12 the apostle appeals to the facts of his life, some of them at least already known to his readers; he begins with his life before his conversion to faith in Jesus. The evidence in the nature of the case is directed towards the negative part of the proposition. That which sustained the positive assertion he could affirm, but could not appeal to as known to others.

13For ye have heard of my manner of life formerly in the religion of the Jews, that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and ravaged it. 14And I was advancing in the religion of the Jews beyond many who were of equal age with me in my nation, being more exceedingly zealous than they of the traditions of my fathers.

13. Ἠκούσατε γὰρ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ, “For ye have heard of my manner of life formerly in the religion of the Jews.” With this sentence Paul introduces the evidence which his own career furnished that he had not received the gospel from man or by instruction. The force of γάρ in the present sentence extends in effect into, if not through, the second chapter. The argument is cumulative in character. Its first step is to the effect that he was not, previous to his conversion, under Christian influence at all, but was, on the contrary, a violent opposer of the Christian church. From whom the Galatians had heard (ἠκούσατε) the story of his pre-Christian life Paul does not say; most probably it was from himself. If so, this reflects in an interesting way his probable habit of making use of his own experience in presenting the gospel. Cf. Acts, chap. 22, and esp. chap. 26. On the tense of ἠκούσατε, see BMT 46, 52.

Ἀναστροφή, meaning in classical writers “return,” etc., first appears in the second century BC in the sense “manner of life,” “conduct” (Polyb. 4. 82:1), which sense it also has in the very few instances in which it is found in the Apocr.: Tob. 4:14, 2 Mac. 3:23 (it is not found in the Lxx, canonical books, and though it stands in the Roman edition at 2 Mac. 5:3 it is without the support of either of the uncials which contain the passage, viz. AV.); this is also its regular meaning in N. T. (Ephesians 4:22, 1 Timothy 4:12, Hebrews 13:7, Jam 3:13, 1 Peter 1:15, 1 Peter 1:18, 1 Peter 1:2:12, 1 Peter 1:3:1, 1 Peter 1:2, 1 Peter 1:16, 2 Peter 2:7, 2 Peter 3:11).

On the position of ποτέ see Butt. p. 91, and cf. Php 4:10, 1 Corinthians 9:7; also (cited by Sief. ad loc.), Plato, Legg. III 685 D, ἡ τῆς Τροίας ἅλωσις τὸ δεύτερον, “the capture of Troy the second time”; Soph. O. T. 1043, τοῦ τυράννου τῆσδε γῆς πάλαι ποτέ, “the long-ago ruler of this land.”

Ἰουδαϊσμός, “the Jews’ religion,” occurs in N. T. only in this and the following verse; for exx. outside N. T. see 2 Mac. 2:21, 8:1, 14:38 bis 4 Mac. 4:26. In the passages in Mac. it denotes the Jewish religion in contrast with the Hellenism which the Syrian kings were endeavouring to force upon the Jews; here, of course, the prevalent Judaism with its rejection of Jesus in contrast with the faith of the followers of Jesus as the Messiah. The very use of the term in this way is significant of the apostle’s conception of the relation between his former and his present faith, indicating that he held the latter, and had presented it to the Galatians, not as a type of Judaism, but as an independent religion distinct from that of the Jews. Though the word Christianity was probably not yet in use, the fact was in existence.

ὅτι καθʼ ὑπερβολὴν ἐδίωκον τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐπόρθουν αὐτήν, “that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and ravaged it.” This whole clause and the following one are epexegetic of τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν, not, however, defining in full the content of that phrase, but setting forth that element of it which the apostle has in mind as bearing on his argument. That he stood thus in intense hostility to the church is evidence that he was not of those who through the influence of association with Christians, and as a result of instruction (cf. οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, v. 12) were led to receive the gospel.

The word ὐπερβολή and the specific phrase καθʼ ὑπερβολήν are classical, but are used in N. T. only by Paul. The phrase occurs in Romans 7:13, 1 Corinthians 12:31, 2 Corinthians 1:8, 2 Corinthians 4:17, always in the sense “exceeding(ly),” “superior.”

The imperfects, ἐδίωκον and ἐπόρθουν, representing the actions denoted by them as in progress, bring out clearly the continuance of the persecuting activity. The latter verb, meaning in itself not simply “to injure,” but “to destroy,” “to ruin,” has here, as commonly in the progressive tenses, a conative force. See L.&S. s. v. and BMT 23, and compare on πείθω and ἤρεσκον in v. 10. διώκω, used from Homer down, meaning “to pursue,” frequently carries the associated idea of hostile purpose, and so comes in classical writers to mean “to prosecute” (ὁ διώκων is “the prosecutor,” ὁ φεύγων, “the defendant”), and in the Lxx (Jeremiah 17:18) and N. T. “to persecute” (Romans 12:14, 1 Corinthians 4:12 et freq.). πορθέω, used from Homer down as a military term, meaning “to destroy,” “to ravage” (cities), and from Æschylus, of violence to persons, is not found in the Lxx (canonical books) or Apocr., but occurs in 4 Mac. 4:23, 11:4 of persons. In N. T. it is found in this epistle here and v. 23 and in Acts 9:21, always of Paul.

On ἐκκλησία in N. T. see detached note, p. 417. Two facts are notable about the expression employed here, ἡ ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ: (1) the use of the singular to denote not a local body but the Christian community at large. Cf. the different use of the word in vv. 2, 22, 1 Corinthians 1:2, 2 Corinthians 1:1; and for the evidence that the phrase has this œcumenical meaning here, see the detached note referred to above. (2) the characterisation of this community as the church of God. The first of these facts shows that Paul had not only formed the conception of churches as local assemblies and communities of Christians (vv. 2, 22), but had already united these local communities in his thought into one entity—the church. The second fact shows that this body already stood in his mind as the chosen people of God, and indicates how fully, in his thought, the Christian church had succeeded to the position once occupied by Israel. Paul’s employment of this phrase in this particular place was probably due to his sense of the wrongfulness of his persecution as directed against the church of God. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9. Incidentally it may be noticed that inasmuch as the church which Paul persecuted was a Jewish church, not only in that it was composed of Jews, but probably mainly of those who still observed the Jewish law, his characterisation of it as the church of God shows how far he was from denying the legitimacy of Jewish Christianity in itself. Cf. also 1 Thessalonians 2:14, and see Introd., pp. lxii f.

14. καὶ προέκοπτον ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαίσμῷ ὑπὲρ πολλοὺς συνηλικιώτας ἐν τῷ γένει μου, “and I was advancing in the religion of the Jews beyond many who were of equal age with me in my nation.” As in the preceding part of the sentence, so here the action is presented not as a mere fact but as continuing. Cf. Luke 2:52. The nature of this advance in Judaism is not defined. Cf. below on ὑπάρχων. Increasing knowledge of those things which constituted the learning of the Jewish schools, a more perfect realisation of the Jewish (in his case specifically the Pharisaic) ideal of conduct, higher standing and official position in the Pharisaic order, may all have been included in the experience, and in his thought as here expressed; but, as Php 3:5, Php 3:6 would suggest, especially the achievement of righteousness according to the standards and ideals of Pharisaism. His progress, he adds, not only carried him beyond his own former attainments, but by it he outstripped many of his contemporaries, making more rapid progress than they.

On ἐν τῷ γένει μου, cf. 2 Corinthians 11:26, Php 3:5. Though γένος varies in inclusiveness from family to race in the largest sense, yet the etymological sense (cf. γίνομαι, γεννάω, etc.) is so far retained that the word almost invariably refers to what is determined by origin, not by choice. In Jos. Ant. 13. 297 (10:5) we find indeed the phrase τὸ Σαδδουκαίων γένος. Yet this is not N. T. usage, and in view of the use of the term Ἰουδαισμός, indicating that to his Gentile readers Paul is describing his life from the general national point of view, without reference to distinction of sects, and in the absence of any qualifying phrase giving to it a narrower sense than usual, it can not be understood to have specific reference to the sect of the Pharisees.

περισσοτέρως ζηλωτὴς ὑπάρχων τῶν πατρικῶν μου παραδόσεων. “being more exceedingly zealous than they of the traditions of my fathers.” περισσοτέρως is in form and force a comparative; the unexpressed member of the comparison is doubtless to be supplied from the πολλοὺς συνηλικιώτας. The participle ὑπάρχων is probably causal, though not emphatically so, “because I was more exceedingly zealous than they.” See a similar use of ὑπάρχων in similar position in Acts 19:40, 1 Corinthians 11:7, 2 Corinthians 8:17. Ell. and Sief. take it as a participle of closer definition, defining that in which the action of προέκοπτον takes place. But this interpretation mistakes either the meaning or the tense-force of προέκοπτον, taking it in a sense impossible to it, “I was in advance of.” The whole phrase accounts for his extraordinary advancement as compared with his fellows. Though ὑπάρχων is grammatically subordinate to προέκοπτον the fact expressed by it is, even more emphatically than that conveyed by the verb, an evidence of that which the apostle is here endeavouring to establish, viz., that he was not at the time referred to under such influences or in such frame of mind as to make reception of the gospel by him from human hands or by instruction possible. The limitation of ζηλωτής by τῶν πατρικῶν παραδόσεων makes it probable that it is not to be taken as a class name meaning a Zealot, a member of the Zealot party (see Th. s. v. and Dict. Bib.), but rather as an adjective meaning “zealous for,” “zealously devoted to.” Aside from the question whether the Zealots and Pharisees were so related to one another that one could be a member of both parties (Php 3:5 shows that Paul was a Pharisee), there is no clear or even probable N. T. instance of ζηλωτής used as a class name, and at the same time limited by an objective genitive, and the passages cited by Ltft. do not at all prove that Paul belonged to this party. As an adjective the word does not define the exact relation to that which is expressed by the genitive, but is general enough to refer to zeal to acquire, to observe, to defend, according to the nature of the case. In the present instance it evidently includes the two latter ideas. Cf. Acts 21:20, Acts 21:22:3; the sense is slightly different in Titus 2:14, 1 Peter 3:13.

παράδοσις itself signifies an act of transmission or that which is transmitted (in N. T. always in the latter sense and with reference to instruction or information), without indicating the method of transmission, or implying any lapse of time such as is usually associated with the English word tradition. Thus Paul uses it of his own instructions, both oral and written, 1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (though possibly referring to elements of his teaching received from others), and Josephus of his own written narrative, Con. Ap. 1. 50 (9), 53 (10). Here, however, the addition of πατρικῶν μου distinctly describes the παράδοσις as transmitted from previous generations, and the similarity of the phrase to παράδοσις τῶν πρεσβυτέρων (Matthew 15:2, Mark 7:3, Mark 7:5 where it is contrasted with the laws of Moses), and to τὰ ἐκ παραδόσεως τῶν πατέρων, Jos. Ant. 13. 297 (10:6),* where the things derived by tradition from the fathers and not written in the laws of Moses are contrasted with those which are thus written, makes it clear that Paul refers to the well-known orally transmitted traditions which were observed by the Pharisees. There is no reason, however, especially in view of the fact that Paul is writing to Gentiles, to take πατρικῶν μου otherwise than simply in the national sense (cf. ἐν τῷ γένει μου above), describing the traditions as derived from his national ancestors, not from his (Pharisaic) fathers in contrast with those of other Jews, or of the Sadducees. Cf. the passage cited above from Josephus, in which the traditions observed by the Pharisees are described not as coming from the Pharisees, but from the fathers, and criticised not on the ground of their Pharisaic origin, but as being observed by the Pharisees as authoritative. Cf. also Mark 7:3, Mark 7:5.

(b) Evidence of his independent apostleship drawn from the circumstances of his conversion and his conduct immediately thereafter (1:15-17)

Passing from the evidence of his pre-Christian life, the apostle now draws evidence from the conversion-experience and his conduct immediately thereafter.

15And when it pleased him who from my mother’s womb had set me apart, and who called me through his grace, 16 to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately I communicated not with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those that were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia and again I returned to Damascus.

15. Ὅτε δὲ εὐδόκησεν ὁ ἀφορίσας με ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου καὶ καλέσας διὰ τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ (16) ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοί “And when it pleased him who from my mother’s womb had set me apart, and who called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me.” The affirmation of this sentence that after his conversion, as before, the apostle kept himself apart from the Twelve is not antithetical to that of the preceding, but continues his argument; δέ should, therefore, be translated “and,” rather than “but” (RV.). For the purposes of his argument the central element of the statement of vv. 15-17 is in v. 16b: “immediately I communicated not with flesh and blood.” For this statement, however, pertaining to his conduct immediately after his conversion to faith in Jesus, he prepares the way in vv. 15, 16a by referring to certain antecedents of his conversion. All these he ascribes to God; for that ὁ ἀφορίσας…καὶ καλέσας refers to God, and ἀποκαλύψαι to a divine act, is evident from the nature of the acts referred to. See esp. on the Pauline usage of καλέω, v. 6, and detached note on Ἀποκαλύπτω and Ἀποκάλυψις, p. 433. Of the three antecedents here named the first and second, expressed by ἀφορίσας and καλέσας are associated together grammatically, the participles being under one article and joined by καί. But it is the second and third that are most closely associated in time, ἀφορίσας being dated from his birth, while the events denoted by καλέσας and ἀποκαλύψαι, as the usage of the word καλέω shows, are elements or immediate antecedents of the conversion-experience.

By the emphasis which in his references to these antecedents of his conversion he throws upon the divine activity and grace (note ἐν χάριτι) and by dating the first of these back to the very beginning of his life he incidentally strengthens his argument for his own independent divine commission. He whom God himself from his birth set apart to be a preacher of the gospel to the Gentiles and whom by his grace he called into that service can not be dependent on men for his commission or subject to their control.

The question whether the phrase ἀποκαλύψαι…ἐν ἐμοί refers to a subjective revelation in and for the apostle or to an objective manifestation of Christ in and through him to others (on which Ell., e. g., holds the former, and Ltft. the latter view) can not be answered simply by an appeal to the meaning or usage of the preposition ἐν. ἐν ἐμοί can of itself mean nothing else than “in me.” But it may equally well represent in the mind of the writer the thought “within me,” with no reference to any effect upon any one else (cf. Romans 1:19, Galatians 2:20), or “in my case” and thus (impliedly) “by means of me to others” (cf. v. 24, 1 Corinthians 4:6, 1 Timothy 1:16). Which of these two represents the apostle’s thought must be decided by other evidence than the mere force of the preposition. (a) The meaning of the verb ἀποκαλύπτω. As pointed out in the detached note on this word, p. 433, with rare exceptions, if any, ἀποκαλύπτω denotes a disclosure of something by the removal of that which hitherto concealed it, and, especially, a subjective revelation to an individual mind. Now it is evident that only the revelation of Christ to Paul, not the public manifestation or presentation of him to the world in and through Paul, could be thought of either in general as a disclosure of what was previously hidden (since Christ had already been preached in the world but had been hidden in his true character from Paul), or specifically as a subjective revelation. The choice of the word ἀποκαλύπτω, therefore, is favourable to the former of the two views named above. (b) Such being the case as respects the meaning of ἀποκαλύπτω, it is evident that the idea of a manifestation of Christ in and through Paul to others could hardly have been expressed simply by ἐν ἐμοί, but would require διὰ ἐμοῦ or some such addition as τῳ κόσμῳ. (c) The connection with ἵνα εὐαγγελίζωμαι also favours the reference to an experience in itself affecting Paul only. This revelation is defined by the passage as the third stage of the apostle’s preparation for his public proclamation of Christ (not, as Ltft. makes it, an integral part of his entrance on that ministry; εὐαγγελίζωμαι αὐτόν defines his ministry, to which the divine ἀποκαλύψαι, equally with the ἀφορίσαι and the καλέσαι, were preparatory). For this preaching an inward revelation to Paul of the Son of God, whom he was to preach, was a natural and necessary preparation; a manifestation of Christ in and through him to others is too nearly identical with the preaching itself to be spoken of as having that preaching for its purpose. (d) V. 12 clearly speaks of a revelation of Christ to Paul by which he received his gospel. The similarity of the terms used here and the close connection of the thought—Paul is here proving what he there affirmed—make it probable that the terms mean the same and the fact referred to is the same here as there. (e) Even aside from any similarity of terminology it is evident that the whole subject of discourse in this paragraph is not how Paul made known his gospel, but how he received it; the reference of the central term of this sentence to the presentation of Christ to others involves an impossible digression from the theme of the whole passage.

The apostle’s use of the phrase “Son of God” and v. 12 are either alone sufficient to make it clear that by τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ he means Jesus, while the time of the event of which he speaks and the phrase ἐν ἐμοί make it certain that it is the risen Jesus of whom he speaks. Though grammatically the direct object of ἀποκαλύψαι, τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ is undoubtedly to be taken as expressing the conception of Jesus which he obtained in the revelation; it is thus in effect equivalent to Ἰησοῦν ὡς (or εἶναι) τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ. On the question, which is very important for the understanding of the genesis of Paul’s gospel, especially his Christology, what aspect of the divine sonship of Jesus he has chiefly in mind as having been revealed to him in the Damascus experience, and for the evidence that he refers especially to sonship as involving moral likeness to God and hence revelation of God, see detached note on The Titles and Predicates of Jesus, V, p. 408, and cf. esp. 2 Corinthians 4:6.

TR. with אADKL P al. pler. d Boh. Arm. Eth. Or. Dial. Eus. Epiph. ps-Ath. Chr. Cyr. Euthal. Severian Thdrt. Dam. Irint. Aug. al. insert ὁ θεός after εὐδόκησεν. The text as above, without ὁ θεός is attested by BFG 1905 f g Vg. Syr. (psh. harcl.) Eus. Epiph. Chr. Thdrt. Irint. Victorin. Ambrst. Hier. al. Transcriptional probability strongly favours the text without ὁ θεός as the original, since there is an obvious motive for the (correct) interpretative gloss, but none for its omission. In view of the indecisive character of the external evidence the internal evidence must be regarded as decisive for the omission.

The verb εὐδοκέω (the earliest extant instances of which are found in the Lxx, where it stands most often as the translation of the Hebrew verb רָצָה, “to accept,” “approve,” “delight in,” “be pleased,” and which is found in secular writers from Polybius down) has two general uses: (1) “to accept,” “to be pleased with,” “to take delight in,” followed by an acc., dat., or εἰς with the acc., or ἐν with the dat.: Genesis 33:10, Psalm 51:16, 1 Chronicles 29:3, Psalm 77:7, Sir. 9:12, 1 Mac. 8:1, Matthew 3:17, Matthew 3:12:18, 2 Thessalonians 2:12; (2) “to see fit,” “to

consent,” “to choose,” followed by an infinitive, or with an infinitive understood. Psalm 40:13 (only Lxx instance); 1 Mac. 6:23, 14:41, 46, 47, Luke 12:32, Romans 15:26, 1 Corinthians 1:21, 2 Corinthians 5:8, Colossians 1:19, 1 Thessalonians 2:8, 1 Thessalonians 3:1. In this latter sense and construction the verb seems often to convey the subsidiary implication that the purpose referred to is kindly or gracious towards those affected by the action expressed by the infinitive; especially is this true when the verb is used of God. See Psalm 40:13, Psalm 40:2 Mac. 14:35, Luke 12:32, Colossians 1:19; cf. the use of εὐδοκία (which had clearly acquired as one of its senses “good-will,” “favour”) in Psalm 51:18, Sir. 32(35):14, Ps.Sol. 8:39, Luke 2:14, Php 2:15, and see S. and H. on Romans 10:1: “In this sense it came to be used almost technically of the good-will of God to man.” It is doubtless with such an implication of the gracious character of the divine act that Paul uses the verb in this place. The clause emphasises at the same time the fact that he owed his “call” to God and that the call itself was an act of divine grace.

Ἀφορίζειν signifies not “to remove from a place,” but “to mark off from something else,” “to separate or set apart from others” (Matthew 13:49, Matthew 25:32, Luke 6:22, Acts 19:9, 2 Corinthians 6:17, Galatians 2:12, Leviticus 13:4, Leviticus 13:5, Leviticus 13:54 et freq. in Lxx and in classical writers); esp. to set apart for a particular service, this latter occurring in Aristot., Pol. 6. 8:11 (1322 b26); Lxx (Exodus 13:12, Deuteronomy 4:41, etc.); and N. T. (Acts 13:2, Romans 1:1). In view of this meaning of ἀφορίζειν, ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου must be taken, according to what is in any case its usual sense, as a phrase of time meaning “from birth.” See Jdg 16:17, Psalm 22:10, Psalm 71:6, Isaiah 49:1 (Job 1:21, Job 38:3 only otherwise); Luke 1:15, John 9:1, Acts 3:2, Acts 14:3 (Matthew 19:12 only otherwise). Cf. also Jeremiah 1:5.

On the Pauline usage of the word καλέω, see on v. 6 and on the meaning of χάρις, see detached note, p. 423. διά is manifestly instrumental, but not in the stricter and more usual sense of the term. It marks its object not as that which, standing, so to speak, between the doer of the action and its effect, is the instrument through which the action is accomplished (as, e. g., Romans 15:18, Galatians 3:19, Galatians 5:13 et freq.), but rather as that which standing behind the action renders it possible; so, e. g., Acts 1:2, Romans 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 4:2. Cf. note on διά instrumental under v. 1. The phrase διὰ χάριτος αὐτοῦ may be rendered, “by virtue of his grace,” “in the exercise of his grace.”

ἵνα εὐαγγελίζωμαι αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, “that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” The verb εὐαγγ. itself characterises the message as glad tidings, or perhaps rather as the glad message, the gospel (cf. on v. 8), while αὐτόν (acc. of content; cf. for this construction v. 23, 1 Corinthians 15:1, 2 Corinthians 11:7, Ephesians 2:17 and Delbrück, Vergleichende Syntax, § 179), referring to τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ defines its substance. A similar thought of the content of the gospel as summed up in Christ himself is expressed in Romans 15:19, Romans 15:20, 1 Corinthians 1:23, 2 Corinthians 1:19, Php 1:15. The use of the present tense εὐαγγελίζωμαι, following the aorists ἀφορίσας, καλέσας, and ἀποκαλύψαι indicates that the apostle has distinctly in mind that these definite events had for their purpose a continued preaching of the gospel. Cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:12, Php 2:19, Ephesians 4:28. Accurately but somewhat awkwardly rendered into English the clause would read, “that I might continue to preach him, as glad tidings (or as the good news) among the Gentiles.”

In a few instances, chiefly in the phrases πολλὰ ἔθνη and πάντα τὰ ἔθνη as they occur in O. T. quotations, the word ἕθνη is used by Paul in the general sense meaning “nations.” But otherwise and almost uniformly it means “Gentiles” as distinguished from Jews. This is most clearly the sense in this letter, except perhaps in 3:8b; see 2:2, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 3:8a, 14. Undoubtedly then Paul means here to define the divinely intended sphere of his preaching as among the Gentiles. Whether he recognised this fact at the time of the revelation which had this preaching as its purpose, or whether the perception of this definition of his work came later, this passage does not decide. According to Acts 26:17 it came in connection with his conversion. The preposition ἐν is important, indicating that the scope of his mission as conceived by him was not simply the Gentiles (for this he must have written εὐαγγελίζωμαι αὐτὸν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν) but among the Gentiles, and by implication included all who were in Gentile lands. Cf. on 2:2, 3.

εὐθέως οὐ προσανεθέμην σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι, “immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” The negative οὐ limits προσανεθέμην, not εὐθέως, which in that case it must have preceded, as in Luke 21:9; and this being so, εὐθέως must be taken with the whole sentence as far as Ἀραβίαν, not simply οὐ προσανεθέμην, since by its meaning εὐθέως calls for an affirmation, not simply a statement of non-action. Zahn’s contention that the time of the departure to Arabia is not fixed except as within the three years of v. 18 is therefore without ground. Place for the events of Acts 9:19-22 must be found not at this point but after v. 17. Ltft. gives the sense correctly: “Forthwith instead of conferring with flesh and blood…I departed,” etc.

Σαρκί καὶ αἵματι, primarily denoting the parts of a living physical body (Hebrews 2:14) is here used by metonymy, as σάρξ alone more frequently is, for a being having such a body, i.e., for a corporeally conditioned living being, in contrast with beings of a higher order, especially with God. Cf. Sir. 14:13, 17:31, Ephesians 6:12 and esp. Matthew 16:17. See detached note on πνεῦμα and Σάρξ, p. 492. προσανεθέμην (here and 2:6 only in N. T.) signifies “to betake one’s self to,” “to hold conference with,” “to communicate” whether for receiving or imparting. (See Chrysipp. ap. Suid. s. v. νεόττος [Bernhardy, 959]: ὄναρ γὰρ τινά φησι θεασάμενον … προσαναθέσθαι ὀνειροκρίτη: “For he says that a certain man having had a dream conferred with the interpreter of dreams”; Luc. Jup. Trag. 1; Diod. Sic. 17. 116:4, τοῖς μάντεσι προσαναθέμενος περὶ τοῦ σημείου, “conferring with the soothsayer concerning the sign.” See extended note in Zahn ad loc. pp. 64 f. In 2:6, where the verb is limited by an acc. and dat., impartation is apparently what is in mind; here, primarily at least, receiving, as is indicated by the general subject of discourse, viz., the source of his gospel; yet note the double aspect of the act referred to in the passages quoted above, involving narrating the dream or the sign and receiving advice concerning it.

17. οὐδὲ ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα πρὸς τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους, “nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those that were apostles before me.” The reference is, of course, particularly to the Twelve, yet would include any, such as James, who had been recognised as apostles before Paul himself received the apostolic office. The preposition πρό is evidently used in its temporal sense. The reference to Jerusalem indicates that at this time Jerusalem was the headquarters of the Christian movement as conducted by the Twelve, and that they or the leaders among them still resided there. The use of the phrase τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους involves the recognition of the apostleship of the Twelve, and implies that Paul regarded his apostleship and that of the Twelve as of essentially the same character. Cf. detached note on Ἀπόστολος, p. 363. It possibly suggests that he regarded himself as already at the time referred to, an apostle, but does not necessarily involve this.

οὐδὲ ἀνῆλθον: אAKLp al. pler. It. Vg. Syr. (harcl-txt.) Arm. Aeth. Boh. Chr. Euthal. Cyr. Thrdt. Dam. Victorin. Ambrst. Aug. Hier.; οὐδὲ ἀπῆλθον: BDFG 103, 181, 429, 462, Syr. (psh. harcl-mg.) Bas. Thphl. The attestation of ἀπ seems to be Western, that of ἀν- Alexandrian and Syrian. Either reading might arise by assimilation, ἀνῆλθον under the influence of v. 18, ἀπῆλθον under that of 17b, but the former more easily because of the εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα. Because it was common usage to speak of going up to Jerusalem (as in v. 18; cf. M. and M. Voc. s. v.) ἀπῆλθον would be more likely to be changed to ἀνῆλθον than the reverse, but for the same reason intrinsic probability is on the side of ἀνῆλθον, and the latter is in this case perhaps of greater weight. The preponderance of evidence is but slightly in favour of ἀνῆλθον. So Tdf. WH. Ltft. Sief. Sd. et al. Contra Zahn.

ἀλλὰ ἀπῆλθον εἰς Ἀραβίαν, “but I went away into Arabia.” The purpose of this visit to Arabia, though not specifically stated, is clearly implied in οὐ προσανεθέμην σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι above. By that phrase the apostle denies not only that he sought instruction from the Twelve in particular, but that he put himself in communication with men at all, excluding not only the receiving of instruction, but the imparting of it. The only natural, almost the only possible, implication is that he sought communion with God, a thought sufficiently indicated on the one side by the antithesis of “flesh and blood” and on the other by the mention of the relatively desert land to which he went. The view of some of the early fathers (adopted substantially by Bous.) that he sought no instruction from men, but having received his message hastened to Arabia to preach the gospel to the “barbarous and savage people” of this foreign land (for fuller statement of the early views see Ltft., p. 90) is not sustained by the language. He must in that case have written not προσανεθέμην, but some such expression as οὐκ ἐζήτησε διδασκαλίαν. Nor is it in accordance with psychological probability. The revelation of Jesus as the Son of God must at once have undermined that structure of Pharisaic thought which he had hitherto accepted, and, no doubt, furnished also the premises of an entirely new system of thought. But the replacement of the ruined structure with a new one built on the new premises and as complete as the materials and his power of thought enabled him to make it, however urgent the necessity for it, could not have been the work of an hour or a day. The process would have been simpler had the acceptance of Jesus as the Christ been, as it was to some of his fellow Jews, the mere addition to Judaism of the belief that Jesus was the long-expected Messiah; it would have been simpler if the acceptance of Jesus had been to him what it doubtless was to many of his Gentile converts, the acceptance of a new religion with an almost total displacement of former religious views and practices. To Paul the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God meant neither of these, but a revolutionary revision of his former beliefs, which issued in a conception of religion which differed from the primitive Christian faith as commonly held by Jewish Christians perhaps even more than the latter differed from current Judaism. Only prolonged thought could enable him to see just how much of the old was to be abandoned, how much revised, how much retained unchanged. Many days would be needed to construct out of the material new and old even so much of a new system as would enable him to begin his work as a preacher of the new faith. A period of retirement in which he should in some measure accomplish this necessary task is both more consistent with his language and in itself more probable than an impetuous plunging into evangelism. Particularly improbable is the selection of Arabia (see below on the meaning of the word) as a place of preaching. Aside from the question whether there were Jews in Arabia, and whether Paul at this early period recognised with sufficient clearness his mission to the Gentiles to lead him to seek at once a Gentile field of effort, it is clear alike from his letters and from the narrative of Acts that Paul had a strong preference for work in the centres of population and of civilised life. A withdrawal to a region like that of Arabia, sparsely inhabited and comparatively untouched by either Jewish or Roman civilisation is almost certainly, unless Paul’s disposition in this respect underwent a radical change, not a missionary enterprise but a withdrawal from contact with men.

The term Ἀραβία (Heb. ערב, originally simply “desert”) is applied by Greek writers from Herodotus down to the whole or various portions of that vast peninsula that lies between the Red Sea on the southwest and the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates River on the northeast, and extends to the ocean on the southeast. See Hdt. 2:11 3:107-113 4:39 (Encyc. Bib.). Its northwestern boundary was somewhat vague, but the term generally included the Sinaitic peninsula, and excluded Palestine and Phœnicia. Within this great territory, inhabited doubtless by many nomad tribes, the kingdom of the Nabateans established itself some time previous to 312 b.c. (see Encyc. Bib. art. “Nabateans”). In Jos. Ant. 14. 15 ff. (1:4), which refers to the time of Hyrcanus II and Antipater, father of Herod, Aretas, known from other sources to be king of the Nabateans, is spoken of as king of the Arabians (cf. also 2 Mac. 5:8); his country is said to border upon Judea and its capital to be Petra. 2 Corinthians 11:32 has been interpreted as showing that at the time to which our present passage refers the Nabatean dominion included Damascus. See Schürer, Gesch. des jüd. Volkes,3 vol. I, pp. 726 ff. In that case Paul would seem to say that he went from a city of Arabia into Arabia, which would be like saying that one went from London into England. But it is known that Pompey gave Damascus to Syria, and the coins of Damascus show that down to 34 A. D. (between 34 and 62 A. D. evidence is lacking) it was under Rome; while a passage which Josephus (Ant. 14. 117 [7:2]) quotes from Strabo refers to an ethnarch of the Jews in Alexandria, and thus indicates that the title ethnarch might be applied to one who acted as governor of the people of a given nationality residing in a foreign city. It is probable, therefore, that at the time of which Paul is speaking, though there was an ethnarch of the Nabateans in the city, Damascus was not under Nabatean rule, hence not in Arabia. This both removes all difficulty from this sentence, and makes it practically certain that by Ἀραβία Paul means the Nabatean kingdom. See Clemen, Paulus, 183; Lake, Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 321 ff.*

Into what portion of the kingdom Paul went the sentence does not, of course, indicate. That the Sinaitic peninsula was sometimes included in Arabia is shown in 4:25, which, if the clause is a genuine part of the epistle, shows also that Paul so included it. But this does not prove that it was to this peninsula that Paul went. If it is necessary to suppose that he went to a city, Petra in the south and Bostra in the north are among the possibilities. There is nothing to necessitate the supposition that he went far from Damascus, nor anything to exclude a far-distant journey except that if he had gone far to the south a return to Damascus would perhaps have been improbable.

καὶ πάλιν ὑπέστρεψα εἰς Δαμασκόν. “and again I returned to Damascus.” An indirect assertion that the experience described above (ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοί) occurred at Damascus (cf. Acts 9:1-22 and parallels); from which, however, it neither follows that the ἀποκάλυψις here spoken of must because of Acts 9:3, Acts 9:4 be interpreted as an external appearance of Jesus, nor that the narrative in Acts is to be interpreted as referring to an experience wholly subjective. The identity of place, Damascus, and the evident fact that both passages refer to the experience by which Paul was led to abandon his opposition to Jesus and accept him as the Christ, require us to refer both statements to the same general occasion; but not (nor are we permitted), to govern the interpretation of one expression by the other. As shown above our present passage deals only with the subjective element of the experience. For the apostle’s own interpretation of the character of the event viewed objectively, cf. 1 Corinthians 9:1, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8.

(c) Evidence of his independent apostleship drawn from a visit to Jerusalem three years after his conversion (1:18-20)

The apostle now takes up the circumstances of his first visit to Jerusalem after his Damascus experience, finding in it evidence that he was conscious of a source of truth independent of men.

18Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and I remained with him fifteen days, 19and no other of the apostles did I see except James the brother of the Lord. 20Now as respects the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I am not lying.

18. Ἔπειτα μετὰ τρία ἔτη ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα ἱστορῆσαι Κηφᾶν, “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas.” The phrase “after three years” is argumentative in purpose, not merely chronological. The mention of the period subsequent to his conversion during which he voluntarily abstained from contact with the apostles at Jerusalem tends to show his entire independence of them. The three years are therefore doubtless to be reckoned not from his return to Damascus, but from the crisis of his life which preceded his departure from Damascus. The exact length of the interval can not be determined from this phrase, which is probably a round number (cf. Acts 20:31, and with it Acts 19:8, Acts 19:10, Acts 19:22). In reckoning the years of their kings the later Jews apparently counted the years from one New Year’s Day, the 1st of Abib (or Nisan) to another, and the fraction of a year on either side as a year. See Wieseler, Chronological Synopsis of the Four Gospels, pp. 53 ff. But we do not know that Paul would have followed the same method in a statement such as this. It is not possible in any case to determine how large a part of the three years was spent in Arabia.

Κηφᾶν is the reading of א*AB 33, 424:2, 1912, Syr. (psh. hcl-mg. pal.) Boh. Aeth. The Western and Syrian authorities generally read Πέτρον, which is evidently the substitution of the more familiar for the less familiar name of the apostle.

The verb ἱστορέω (cognate with ἴστωρ, ἴδρις, οἱδα) is found in Greek writers from Herodotus down, meaning “to inquire”; in Aristotle and later writers in the sense “to narrate,” “to report”; it has this sense also in 1 Esdr. 1:31 (33), 40 (42), the only passages in biblical Greek beside the present one in which the word occurs at all; it occurs in Plut. Thes. 30:4; Pomp. 40:1; Polyb. 3. 48:12, with the meaning “to visit” (places), and in Jos. (Ant. 8. 46 [2:5] Bell. 6. 81 [1:8]); Clem. Rom. (8:24) meaning “to visit” (persons). See Hilg. and Ell. ad loc. The sense in the present passage is evidently that which is found also in Josephus. By the use of this word Paul characterises his journey as having had for its purpose personal acquaintance with Peter, rather than the receiving of instruction. Cf. v. 12, and see below on πρὸς αὐτόν.

καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμέρας δεκαπέντε· “And I remained with him fifteen days.” The use of the phrase πρὸς αὐτόν, with its personal pronoun in the singular, referring definitely to Peter, rather than πρός with a plural pronoun or an adverb of place, emphasises the purely personal character of the visit. On the preposition πρός with the accusative after a verb not expressing motion, cf. Th. s. v. I 2 b, and for exx. in Paul see 1 Thessalonians 3:4, Galatians 2:5, Galatians 2:4:18, Galatians 2:20, etc. The mention of the brief duration of the stay is intended, especially in contrast with the three years of absence from Jerusalem, to show how impossible it was to regard him as a disciple of the Twelve, learning all that he knew of the gospel from them. Cf. οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, v. 12.

19. ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον, εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου. “and no other of the apostles did I see except James the brother of the Lord.” On the use of ἕτερον, see detached note, p. 420. It is evidently used here in its closest approximation to ἄλλος, denoting merely numerical non-identity, not qualitative distinction. εἰ μή means here, as always before a noun, “except.” The only question is whether εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον, etc., is an exception to the whole of the preceding statement ἕτερον … οὐκ εἶδον, or only a part of it, οὐκ εἶδον. Either is in accordance with usage (see Th. εἰ, III 8 c β, and such cases as Luke 4:26, Luke 4:27, Romans 11:15, etc.). In this passage, however, the view which would make the exception apply to a part only of the preceding assertion is excluded, since Paul certainly can not mean to say that he saw no one in Jerusalem except Peter and James, or even, according at least to Acts 9:27, no person of importance. The phrase must probably be taken as stating an exception to the whole of the preceding assertion, and as implying that James was an apostle. The assumption that the term ἀπόστολος is applied to James in a broad and loose sense only (so Sief., e. g.) is without good ground in usage and is especially unjustified in view of the fact that the term ἀποστόλων under which James is by the exceptive phrase included, refers primarily to the Twelve. Cf. detached note on Ἀπόστολος, p. 363.

James, here designated the brother of the Lord, is doubtless the same who is similarly spoken of in Mark 6:3, and simply as James in Galatians 2:9, Galatians 2:12, 1 Corinthians 15:7, Acts 15:13, Acts 15:21:18; cf. also John 7:5, 1 Corinthians 9:5. He is never mentioned as one of the Twelve; it is rather to be supposed that he was brought to believe in Jesus by the vision recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:7. He early took a prominent place in the church at Jerusalem (Galatians 2:9, Galatians 2:12, Acts 15:13ff.), and was known in later tradition as the first bishop of that church (Eus. Hist. Eccl. II 1). The view of Jerome which identifies James the brother of the Lord with James the son of Alphæus (see defence of it by Meyrick in Smith,DB art. “James,” and criticism by Mayor in HDB art. “Brethren of the Lord”) rests on no good evidence. Nor is there any positive evidence for the theory that he was older than Jesus, being the son of Joseph and a wife previous to Mary. See Ltft.’s defence of this (Epiphanian) view in Dissertation II, appended to his Galatians, and reprinted as Dissertation I, in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age; and Farrar’s argument for the (Helvidian) view that the brothers of the Lord were sons of Joseph and Mary, in Early Days of Christianity, chap. XIX, and in Smith,DB art. “Brothers of the Lord”; also Mayor, op. cit., and Cone, art. “James” in Encyc. Bib. Matthew 1:25 and Luke 1:7 naturally imply that the early church knew of children of Mary younger than Jesus. It does not indeed follow that all the six children named in Mark 6:3 were borne by her. But neither is there any direct evidence that there were children of Joseph by a former marriage. John 19:26, John 19:27 might suggest it (cf. Ltft. u. s. ) but its late date and the uncertainty whether the statement is in intent historical or symbolic diminish its value for historical purposes. On the other hand the implication of the infancy narrative of Mt. and Lk. that Joseph was not the father of Jesus and hence that his sons by a former marriage were not brothers of Jesus, can not be cited against the Epiphanian view; for not only does this presuppose a strictness in the use of the term brother which is unsustained by usage, but the evidence of this passage as to the time at which the title “brother of the Lord” was given to James, and the evidence of the Pauline letters in general (cf. on 4:4) as to the time when the theory of the virgin birth of Jesus became current, make it nearly certain that the former much preceded the latter.

20. ἃ δὲ γράφω ὑμῖν, ἰδοὺ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ ὅτι οὐ ψεύδομαι. “Now as respects the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I am not lying.” For similar affirmations of Paul that in the presence of God he is speaking truly, see 1 Thessalonians 2:5, 2 Corinthians 1:23, 2 Corinthians 11:31. Its use here shows clearly that the facts just stated are given not simply for their historical value, but as evidence of what he has before asserted, his independence of the Twelve. ἃ γράφω doubtless refers to all that precedes, from v. 13 (or 15) on. Even so one can not but wonder why Paul should use such very strong language unless he had been charged with misstating the facts about his visits to the other apostles.

(d) Evidence of his independent apostleship drawn from the period of his stay in Syria and Cilicia (1:21-24)

The apostle now turns to a period, which 2:1 compared with 1:18 shows to have been eleven or even fourteen years, during which he was out of Judea and not in touch with the other apostles, yet was carrying on his work as a preacher of the gospel.

21Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22and I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23only they heard (kept hearing), Our former persecutor is now preaching the faith which formerly he ravaged; and they glorified God in me.

21. Ἔπειτα ἦλθον εἰς τὰ κλίματα τῆς Συρίας καὶ τῆς Κιλικίας. “Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.” That this was a period of preaching, not, like that in Arabia, of retirement, is implied in v. 23, εὐαγγελίζεται. On the question whether he had yet begun to work distinctively for the Gentiles in these regions, see below on v. 24.

The repetition of the article before Κιλικίας is very unusual. The two regions being adjacent and both nouns limiting κλίματα, one would expect a single article, standing before the first one. See, e. g., Acts 1:8, Acts 1:8:1, Acts 1:9:35, Acts 1:15:23, 41, 27:5; Jos. Ant. 8. 36 (2:3), 12. 154 (4:1); Bell. 2. 95 (6:3), 2. 247 (12:8), which reflect the all but uniform usage of N. T. and Josephus, to which Ant. 13. 175 (4:4) and 12. 233 (4:11) are not really exceptions. Note especially Acts 15:23, κατὰ τὴν Ἀντιόχειαν καὶ Συρίαν καὶ Κιλικίαν. In Acts 15:41, where Συρίαν and Κιλικίαν occur in the same order, the article is inserted before Κιλικίαν by BD cat260 Thphylb only. This strong preponderance of usage makes the second article in the present passage a very difficult reading, but even more strongly points to the secondary character of the reading without it, sustained by א* 33, 241, 1908. That some mss. should have omitted it in conformity with common usage is not strange; that all the rest should have inserted it, departing thereby both from usage and the original text, is almost impossible.

22. ἤμην δὲ ἀγνοούμενος τῷ προσώπῳ ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Ἰουδαίας ταῖς ἐν Χριστῷ, “and I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.” The periphrastic form of the imperfect tends to emphasise the continuance of the state, “I remained unknown.” The motive of these statements of the apostle respecting his departure into Syria and Cilicia and the non-acquaintance of the Judean churches with him is doubtless to show that his work during this period was not in that region in which it would have been if he had placed himself under the direction of the Twelve, but that, on the contrary, he began at once an independent mission. This, rather than, e. g., the intention to show that he was not under the influence or instruction of these churches, is what is required by the nature of the argument, which has to do not with his contact with Christians in general, but with his subjection to the influence of the leaders of primitive Christianity. On the expression ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις … ἐν Χριστῷ, cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:1, 1 Thessalonians 1:2:14, 2 Thessalonians 1:1, Php 1:1. On the force of the preposition as meaning “in fellowship with,” see Th. s. v. 16 b, and cf. 5:6. The expression characterises the churches referred to as Christian as distinguished from Jewish, but reflects also the apostle’s conception of the intimacy of the fellowship between these communities and the risen Jesus.

In itself the phrase “churches of Judea” of course includes that of Jerusalem. Nor is that church excluded by the fact of Paul’s persecution of it, since this would not necessarily involve his meeting face to face those whom he persecuted, and, moreover, some years elapsed between the events referred to in v. 13 and those here recorded; nor by the visit of Paul to Jerusalem, as recorded in vv. 18, 19, since the statement that he was unknown can hardly be taken so literally as to mean that no member of the church had ever seen him. In favour of the more inclusive use of the term is also 1 Thessalonians 2:14, where a similar phrase is employed without the exclusion of Jerusalem. Nor can Acts 9:25-29 be regarded as a serious argument against the more inclusive sense of the term. For, though v. 29 manifestly implies such an acquaintance of Paul with the Christians of Jerusalem as to contradict his statement here if it includes Jerusalem, and though v. 29 itself might be accepted as not directly contradicted by vv. 18, 19 of the present passage, yet the conflict between the first-hand testimony of the latter and vv. 27, 28 of the Acts passage is such as to call in question the accuracy in details of the whole section in Acts. Acts 26:20 is even more at variance with Paul’s statement here, unless it refers to a period subsequent to the period covered by Galatians 1:18-24. Nor can John 3:22 be cited as evidence that Ἰουδαία can mean Judea exclusive of Jerusalem, the language there being ἡ Ἰουδαία γῆ, not ἡ Ἰουδαία alone; nor Matthew 3:5, Ἰεροσόλυμα καὶ πᾶσα ἡ Ἰουδαία (cf. Paris and all France); nor Jos. Ant. 10. 184 (9:7): ἔρημος πᾶσα ἡ Ἰουδαία καὶ Ἱεροσόλυμα καὶ ὁ ναός διέμεινεν, since as the temple is in Jerusalem, so may Jerusalem be in Judea. On the other hand it can not justly be urged, as is done by Bous., that a statement pertaining to the churches of Judea exclusive of Jerusalem would be without force, since, as pointed out above, the reference is in any case probably not to these churches as a source of instruction, but as those among whom he would probably have been working if he had put himself under the guidance of the Twelve. While, therefore, in speaking of “the churches of Judea” Paul may have had chiefly in mind those outside of Jerusalem, the word Judea can not apparently designate the territory outside Jerusalem as distinguished from the city. Of the location of the churches of Judea outside of Jerusalem we have no exact knowledge. On the extent of the territory covered by the term, see detached note on Ἰουδαία, pp. 435 f.

23. μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτὲ νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει, “only they heard (kept hearing), Our former persecutor is now preaching the faith which formerly he ravaged.” μόνον doubtless limits the whole statement, indicating that it constitutes the only exception to the ignorance of him referred to in the preceding clause. The logical subject of the sentence is the members of the churches mentioned in v. 22; note the gender of the participle ἀκούοντες. ὅτι is recitative, the following words being shown by the pronoun ἡμᾶς to be a direct quotation. The present participle διώκων describes the persecution as a thing in progress, assigning it to the past, in contrast with the present νῦν. The aorist would have presented it simply as a (past) fact. Cf. GMT 140, BMT 127. ἡμᾶς refers, of course, not directly to those to whom he was unknown by face, but to Christians in general. On εὐαγγελίζεται see v. 8. πίστιν is not the body of Christian doctrine, in which sense the word is never used by Paul, but the faith in Christ which the preachers of the gospel bade men exercise. Concerning its nature see more fully under 2:20. On ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει cf. v. 13. What is there described as a ravaging of the church is here called a ravaging of the faith, which is the principle of the church’s life; the aim of Paul’s persecution was the extermination of the church and its faith in Jesus as the Christ. The tense is here, as there, conative.

24. καὶ ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν. “and they glorified God in me,” i. e., found in me occasion and reason for praising God. On this use of ἐν of that which constitutes the ground or basis of an action (derived from the use of the preposition to denote the sphere within which the action takes place) see Th. 16 c, though the classification at this point is far from satisfactory; W. XLVIII a (3) c; Ell. ad loc., though here also the matter is stated with unnecessary obscurity; and such passages as Matthew 6:7, Acts 7:29, Romans 2:17, Romans 2:23, Romans 2:5:9, Galatians 3:11, Galatians 3:14. The satisfaction which the churches of Judea found in Paul’s missionary activity in this period is in sharp contrast with the opposition to him which later developed in Jerusalem. See 2:1-10. Of the several explanations that might be given of the more friendly attitude of the early period, (a) that Paul had not yet begun to preach the gospel of freedom from the law, or (b) that though he was doing so the Christians of Judea were not aware of this aspect of his work, or (c) that the strenuous opposition to the offering of the gospel to the Gentiles apart from the law had not yet developed in the churches of Judea, the first is probably true in the sense and to the extent that Paul had not yet had occasion to assume a polemic attitude in the matter; but in any other sense seems excluded by his repeated implication that the gospel which he now preached he had preached from the beginning (see 1:11, 2:2 and comment). But in that case there is little room for the second. The third is, moreover, the one most consistent with the testimony of this letter; see especially 2:4, with its distinct implication that the opponents of Paul’s liberalism were a recent and pernicious addition to the Jerusalem church. And this in turn suggests that the apostle’s reason for adding the statement καὶ ἐδόξαζον … ἐμοί was incidentally to give strength to his contention for the legitimacy of his mission by intimating, what 2:4 says more clearly, that the opposition to him was a recent matter, and did not represent the original attitude of the Judean Christians. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that his main contention throughout this chapter and the next is not that he had been approved by the Judean Christians, but that he had from the first acted independently. The whole sentence μόνον … ἐν ἐμοί is a momentary digression from that point of view.

S. and H. Sanday, Wm., and Headlam, A. C.. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Edinburgh and New York, 1895.

Cf. Confer, compare.

Th. Thayer, Joseph Henry, A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament. New York, 1886. Rev. edition, 1889.

* Cf. Philo, Leg. Alleg. I 41 (13): τὰ μὲν καὶ ὑπὸ θεοῦ γίνεται καὶ διʼ αὐτοῦ, τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ θεοῦ μέν, οὐ δι῾ αὐτοῦ δέ. He illustrates this general statement by the assertion that the mind of man is created both by and through God, the irrational parts of the soul by God but not through God, being produced through the reasoning power that rules in the soul.

Sief. Sieffert, F. Galatien und seine ersten Christengemeinden, in Zeitschrift für nistorische Theologie., vol. XLI, 1871.

Wies. Wieseler, Karl, Commentar über den Brief Pauli an die Galater. Göttingen, 1859.

WH. Westcott, B. F., and Hort, F. J. A., The New Testament in the original Greek. London, 1881. Vol. I, Text; vol. II, Introduction and Appendix.

Bous. Bousset, Wilhelm, in Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments. Göttingen, 1907. 2te Aufl., 1908.

Hilg. Hilgenfeld, Adolph, Der Galaterbrief übersetzt, in seinen geschichtlichen Bezie-hungen untersucht und erklärt. Leipzig, 1852.

Ltft. Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. London, 1865. 2d ed., revised, 1866. Various later editions.

Ell. Ellicott, Charles John, A Critical and Grammatical Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. London, 1854. Various subsequent editions.

Introd. Introduction.

אԠא. Codex Sinaiticus. Fourth century. In Imperial Library, Petrograd. Edited by Tischendorf, 1862; photographic reproduction by H. and K. Lake, Oxford, 1911.

A A. Codex Alexandrinus. Fifth century. In British Museum, London. Edited by Woide, 1786; N. T. portion by Cowper, 1860; Hansell, 1864; in photographic facsimile, by E. Maunde Thompson, 1879; and again in photographic simile by F. G. Kenyon in 1909.

33 33 (Tischendorf, Constantin, Novum Testamentum Grœce. 17). Ninth or tenth century. In National Library, Paris. Called by Eichhorn “the queen of the cursives.” Cited by Tischendorf in Galatians more frequently than any other cursive. Contains the Prophets as well as Gospels, Acts, Cath. Epp. and Paul.

Ambrst. Ambrosiaster. Ca. 305 a.d. See Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. London, 1865. 2d ed., revised, 1866. Various later editions., p. 232; Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines. Edited by Wm. Smith and Henry Wace. 4 vols. London 1877-87.

B B. Codex Vaticanus. Fourth century. In Vatican Library, Rome. Photographic facsimile by Cozza-Luzi, 1889; and a second issued by the Hoepli publishing house, 1904.

D D. Codex Claromontanus. Sixth century. In National Library, Paris. Greek-Latin. Edited by Tischendorf, 1852.

F F. Codex Augiensis. Ninth century. In Trinity College, Cambridge. Greek-Latin. Edited by Scrivener, 1859. Closely related to Codex Bærnerianus. See Gregory, Textkritik des Neuen Testaments, vol. II, Leipzig, 1902, pp. 113 f.

G G. Codex Bærnerianus. Ninth century. In Royal Library, Dresden. Greek-Latin. Edited by Matthæi, 1791; photographic reproduction issued by the Hiersemann publishing house, Leipzig, 1909.

H H. Sixth century. The fragments of this ms. are scattered in six European libraries. The portion at Athos contains Galatians 1:1-4 2:Galatians 1:14-17; that in the Imperial Library at Petrograd Galatians 1:4-10 2:Galatians 1:9-14; that in the National Library in Paris Gal_4:30-5. The portions known at that time were published by Tischendorf in Mon. Sac. Ined. Bd. VIII; Duchesne published the Athos and Paris fragments in Archives des Missons sc. et lit. Ser. III, vol. 3, pp. 420-429, Paris, 1876; and H. Omont published the entire ms. as then known (forty-one leaves) in Notice sur un très ancien manuscrit grec en onciales des èpîtres de Saint Paul, conservé à la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1889; which is republished in Notices et Extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, vol. 33, pp. 145-192, Paris, 1890. From the offset on opposite leaves J. A. Robinson published sixteen pages of the ms., including Galatians 4:27-30 5:Galatians 4:6-10, in Texts and Studies, vol. III, No. 3, Cambridge, 1895. Kirsopp Lake reproduced the Athos fragments in facsimile and a transcribed text in Facsimiles of the Athos Fragment of Codex H of the Pauline Epistles, Oxford, 1905. The citations of the text in this commentary are made from the publications of Omont, Robinson, and Lake.

K K. Codex Mosquensis. Ninth century. In Moscow.

31 31 (Tischendorf, Constantin, Novum Testamentum Grœce. 37) the so-called Leicester Codex. Fifteenth century. At Leicester, England. Described by J. Rendel Harris in The Origin of the Leicester Codex of the New Testament, London, 1887.

Vg. Vulgate, text of the Latin Bible.

Victorin. C. Marius Victorinus. Ca. 360 a.d. See Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. London, 1865. 2d ed., revised, 1866. Various later editions., p. 231; Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines. Edited by Wm. Smith and Henry Wace. 4 vols. London 1877-87