The Galatians are Greeks: these first received the word of truth from the Apostle, but after his departure they were tempted by false apostles, so as to be overthrown into the Law and circumcision: these the Apostle recalls to the faith of the truth, writing to them from Ephesus. As appears from this argument, the Galatians had been persuaded and seduced by the false apostles, because they heard that Paul, through whom they had believed the true Gospel, was not an apostle — namely, because he was neither of the twelve elect, nor had he ever followed Christ as Peter and the rest had done: which detraction it is necessary to refute by true arguments from the authority of the Holy Spirit; and in order they prove that he was sent neither from men, nor through man:
but through Him who chose both him and the rest into the order of the apostolate. CHAPTER ONE. 'Paul an apostle.' As has often been said, 'Paul' is 'little,' from humility. 'Not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ' — not from human presumption, nor through apostles, as Aaron through Moses; but through God Himself and the Lord, as Moses and the apostles and prophets. Very many are ordained from men, by the favour of the people, being unworthy, despising the patience of the Lord; and, in order to show his own greater authority, he added: 'Through Jesus Christ; and God the Father, who raised Him up.' Because there is one operation of both the Son and the Father:
and that you may know that Christ is God, by whom he was made an apostle, diligently observe that he named the Son before the Father, against the calumnies of the Arians. 'From the dead' — according to that whereby He was able to die, namely in the flesh. 'And all the brethren who are with me, to the Churches of Galatia.' Lest, if he were alone, it should be thought that he took it ill that his doctrine was trampled upon. 'Grace to you' — because you are saved by faith alone through the grace of God. 'And peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ' — because, all offences being remitted, you had been reconciled to God. 'Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us.' He shows the benefits of Christ, toward which they are ungrateful, wishing to live under the Law, which was given to sinners, to whom all sins are forgiven.
'From this present evil world' — from the evil works of the world, which are done in it. 'According to the will of God and our Father, to whom is glory' — not according to our merits. 'For ever and ever' — to infinite benefits, infinite glory is owed. 'Amen.' Because he concludes his prologue with his own 'Amen,' in the Hebrew tongue. The Septuagint translated 'Amen' as 'so be it'; Aquila as 'truly,' or 'faithfully'; which even in the Gospel is always assumed by the Saviour, confirming His words by His own 'Amen.' 'I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you.' The benefits having been enumerated, he says he marvels that they could be drawn away by mere words from Him, from whom they ought to have been separated by no torments. Ungrateful to Christ, 'unto another Gospel' — not unto the Law.
This is nothing other than that there are certain men who are troubling you. There cannot be another Gospel. And they wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ. By a perverse order, whereas the Law ought to advance toward the Gospel, they strive rather to call the Gospel back to the Law. 'But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you besides that which we have preached to you.' In brief he has prejudged every person, since he permitted neither the apostles to be heard against what he had once preached, nor the voice of an angel speaking from heaven. And this he does against all heretics who attempt to alter the apostolic traditions. 'Let him be anathema'—let him be abominable to you. 'As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone preach to you besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.'
He repeats it, that he may commend it more strongly. 'For do I now.' He wishes to show that, fearing no man's hatred, he ought freely to preach the truth. Do I win over men, as I once did on account of the traditions of the Jews? 'Do I persuade men? I give satisfaction. Or God?' But God. 'Or do I seek to please men?' Wherever men are named without any addition, it is most often taken in a bad sense, as in that saying: 'Every man is a liar,' and, 'Whom do men say that I am?' and, 'Are you not men?' Therefore whoever wishes to please such persons must needs do their will; but the saints please God alone and those who love God, who are now said to be more than men. 'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.'
For they hate me, because I am the servant of Christ. 'For I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel which was preached by me, that it is not according to man.' He wishes to clear away the charges of usurpation and of human tradition. 'For neither did I from man.' It neither flowed from myself, nor did I receive from another this teaching, that the Gentiles are saved by faith alone. At the same time it is to be noted that here he calls Him God, from whom he received the Gospel. 'I received it, nor did I learn it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ.' Between receiving and learning there is this difference: he receives the Gospel to whom it is first imparted and who is brought to faith in it, so that he believes to be true the things that are written; but he learns who comes to know explained and expounded the things which in it are figured under riddles and parables.
For you have heard. Nor is it hidden from you what I say. 'My manner of life in time past in Judaism.' Here he recounts how firmly he held Judaism, and how for the sake of the traditions of the fathers he assailed the Church, so as to show that he could not have been separated therefrom by human counsel, but only by divine revelation and mercy. 'For beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God and laid it waste.' He sets forth his own example: so that, if I who was born a Jew and there educated do not follow the ceremonies of the Law, what ought you to do? 'And I advanced in Judaism.' Not in the law of God, but in the tradition of the fathers. 'Above many of my equals in my own nation.' He did not say 'above all,' lest it seem an occasion for boasting.
Being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. He recalls the traditions of the fathers, not the commandments of the Lord. 'But when it pleased Him who separated me from my mother's womb.' He who had already separated me beforehand from the womb, when He willed, did what He knew was to come. The womb of his mother can also be understood as the Synagogue. 'And called me by His grace.' Not by my own merits. 'That He might reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.' Through me, or in me. And He revealed Him not only on the road, but also in other places. 'Immediately I did not consent.' Immediately I was not unbelieving toward the heavenly vision, because I heard not the voice of flesh and blood, but of the Lord, nor did I confer with flesh and blood.
With flesh and blood, that is, with my own kindred. 'Neither did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.' So as to learn anything from them; but from Damascus I went away into Arabia, that I might teach what had been revealed to me. 'Then after three years I came to Jerusalem.' Therefore after three years, that we may understand that he had no need of instruction, since he had already been teaching for three years. And he goes to see Peter, when it is related that he had tried to join himself to the disciples. 'To see Peter'—for the sake of seeing, not of learning. 'And I remained with him fifteen days.' To show that he was received by him in charity, and that in so short a time he could learn nothing. 'But other of the apostles I saw none.'
Lest, if he had not learned from Peter, he should seem to have learned from others. 'Except James the Lord's brother.' Of the kindred of Mary. 'Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, that I lie not. Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was unknown.' It is to be noted that after three years he saw men who did not know him. 'By face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ. But they had only heard, that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once assailed.' They who then had their churches apart from the believing Jews, and did not mingle with those who were of the Gentiles. 'And they glorified God in me.' Concerning a difficult matter it is a great miracle. 'God'—who alone is able to make of a persecutor an Apostle, and of an evil man a good one.
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. When the question about the burdens of the Law was raised. 'And I went up according to revelation.' Not according to my own will. 'And I conferred with them the Gospel.' I did not learn from them, but conferred with them. To confer is one thing, to learn another: among those conferring there is equality; between the teacher and the learner, he who learns is the lesser. 'Which I preach among the Gentiles.' That they are saved by grace and faith alone. 'But privately.' Lest the disciples should think that they doubted. 'To those who seemed to be something'—the more eminent. 'Lest perhaps I should run, or had run, in vain.' This is not the language of one doubting, but of one confirming.
But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Gentile, was compelled to be circumcised. Nor does 'neither' always carry a denial with it. 'But because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily.' He gives the reasons why, according to the Latin copies, he circumcised Titus: not because circumcision profited him, but that scandal might be avoided—'to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.' The liberty by which we are free from the yoke of the Law. 'To whom we yielded not in subjection, no not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you.' The Latin has: 'To whom we yielded for an hour, that we might avoid danger, and that there might be some to confirm among you the truth of the Gospel'—not having completed the sense he had begun, he introduced another;
and when that is finished, he returns to what he began. 'But from those who seemed to be something, I received nothing.' If therefore we, amid so many Jews, with brethren pressing on either side and partly conniving, could by no force or reasoning be compelled to observe circumcision, which we knew to be ended, will you of the Gentiles, you in Galatia, you on whom no force can be brought to bear, of your own accord withdraw from grace and pass over to the antiquity of a Law already abolished, and observe ceremonies now no longer necessary? 'Whatsoever they once were, it makes no matter to me.' It is no care of mine, that they conversed with the Lord. For God accepts not the person of man. 'But those who seemed to be something conferred nothing on me.'
Indeed, time prejudges nothing against the faith. 'But on the contrary, when they had seen that the Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me, as the Gospel of the circumcision was to Peter.' That I should preach to the Gentiles, as Peter to the Jews. 'For He who wrought in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcision, wrought also in me among the Gentiles.' I am not inferior to him, since we are both of One, ordained to one ministry. 'And when they had known the grace that was given to me: James, and Cephas, and John.' Here he gives the reason, and the names, and who they were of whom he had spoken above. 'Who seemed to be pillars.' The support of the Church, and those on whom it rested. 'Gave to me the right hands.' They consented that we ought so to teach. 'And of fellowship to Barnabas.'
For we were both sent together by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. That we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision. 'That they should be,' is to be understood. 'Only that we should be mindful of the poor.' Those who, selling their goods, had laid them at the apostles' feet; or those whose property had been seized by the Jews, as it is said to the Hebrews: 'And you took with joy the spoiling of your goods.' 'Which same thing also I was careful to do.' In every epistle he does this. 'But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face.' The weakness of the Galatians compelled him to relate that he did not even spare Peter himself, when he did not freely defend the truth of the Gospel—just as, for the profit of the Corinthians, he made manifest the vision which he had concealed for fourteen years.
And all this he does to show that he was never a favorer of circumcision, as the false apostles boasted concerning him. 'Because he was to be blamed.' By the Gentiles, because he compelled them to Judaize. 'For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles.' He ate with those who were of the Gentiles, knowing that it had been said to him by the Lord, that he should call no man common. 'But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision, and the rest of the Jews consented to his dissimulation.' He is blamed not because he ate with them, but because he afterward withdrew himself. 'So that Barnabas also was led by them into that pretense.'
He who had been sent with me to the Gentiles had preached that there was no difference between Jew and Gentile. 'But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel.' Although Peter did this because of the scandal of the Jews, nevertheless I confronted him publicly, that both the pride might be taken from the Jews and despair from the Gentiles. 'I said to Cephas before them all.' A public scandal could not be healed privately. 'If thou, being a Jew.' He gave a reason, he did not do an injury: if thou dost not hold what thou wast born, how dost thou make them hold what they were not born? 'Livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as the Jews do.' Not by works, but by faith alone through grace thou knowest that thou hast life. 'How compellest thou the Gentiles to Judaize? We by nature Jews, and not of the Gentiles.'
By withdrawing thyself as from those who have (this is the evil) something. 'Sinners.' Yet sinners, because the Scripture hath concluded all things under sin. 'Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law.' Of the Law, not of the works of righteousness. Now the works of the Law are circumcision, the Sabbath, the days of rest, baptisms and the rest, which were commanded not for the sake of righteousness, but for the sake of occupying the people. 'But by the faith of Jesus Christ: and we in Christ Jesus believe, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law'—that is, faith given by Christ. 'Because by the works of the Law no flesh shall be justified.' At this present time.
According to the simple understanding, some were once justified by the Law—not all flesh, but only those men who were in Palestine. But now by the faith of Jesus Christ all flesh is justified, since His Church is founded throughout the whole world. 'But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners.' For if faith alone did not save the Gentiles, neither does it save us, since by works no one shall be justified. Therefore we are still sinners, and Christ is the minister of sinners, as though unable to forgive sins. 'Is Christ then the minister of sin? God forbid.' He ministers to sinners, as Moses did, because through Moses—that is, through the Law—sins were increased, not taken away.
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. I destroyed that the Jew has anything more; if I build this again, as they say, I am found to be a contradictor of my own opinion. 'For I through the Law am dead to the Law.' Through the Law of Christ I am dead to the old law, or through the very old law itself I am dead to it, because it foretold that it would cease. 'That I may live unto God.' Not to the world. 'With Christ I am nailed to the cross.' I am dead to all sins, on account of which the Law was given; therefore the Law is in no way necessary to me. 'And I live, now not I.' The old man does not live, he who once lived under the Law, who persecuted the Church;
but Christ lives in him—wisdom, strength, word, peace, joy, and the other virtues, which whoever has not, cannot say: 'But Christ lives in me.' And all this he argues under his own person against Peter, concerning Peter. 'But Christ lives in me.' In him Christ lives, in whom His virtues live. 'And that I now live in the flesh.' To be in the flesh is one thing, to live in the flesh another: for they who are in the flesh cannot please God; whence it is said to those who live well: 'But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.' 'I live in the faith of the Son of God.' In faith alone: because I owe nothing to the Law. 'Who loved me, and delivered Himself for me.' That He might do the will of His Father and His own. 'Himself for me,' not anything else.
I do not cast away the grace of God. I ought not to be ungrateful to Him who loved me so greatly that He refused not to die for me. For I cast away His grace, if this alone does not suffice me. 'For if righteousness be by the Law.' If the Law could justify, then Christ died in vain. Let those blush who say that the Law led to the kingdom. 'Then Christ died in vain.' Thus far against Peter, or against the Jews: now he returns to the Galatians. 'O foolish Galatians.' This is not contrary to the Savior, who forbids a brother to be called a fool, for it is not said without cause. He calls them foolish because they cannot discern the spirit and the letter of the Law. 'Who has bewitched you?' Who has envied you? as Solomon says: 'The envious eye tortures the house it envies.'
Has bewitched you not to believe the truth? What among us is called 'envious' is in the Greek more significantly rendered 'bewitcher.' A bewitchment is properly said to harm those of ill repute, and tender little ones, and those who do not yet plant their step with firm footing. Whence is that saying: 'What eye bewitches for me my tender lambs?' Just as tender age is said to be harmed by bewitchment, so also the Galatians, newly born and nourished in the faith of Christ, were harmed by a certain bewitcher, and, nauseated in the stomach of faith, vomited up the food of the Holy Spirit. 'Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was proscribed.' To whom His Passion was made so manifest by my preaching, that you seemed to see Him hanging before your eyes. 'And crucified among you.' He received sentence;
or, whom you hold as one condemned, even now cheap. 'This only would I learn from you.' This one thing I ask you, whether the works of the Law gave you the Holy Spirit, or the hearing of faith. Did you receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith? If you received the Spirit by faith, what more will the Law confer on you? 'Are you so foolish, that, having begun in the Spirit.' Since the Jews receive the Spirit in no other way except through faith, do you on the contrary think that the Spirit does not suffice you unless you also submit to the Law? 'You are now made perfect by the flesh.' You have suffered so many things without cause. Note that he who follows the Scripture according to the letter is said to be made perfect by the flesh. 'If yet without cause.' If you have suffered for Christ, yet it is not without reward.
Here 'if yet' is not the language of one doubting, but of one confirming; as is that saying: 'If yet it is a righteous thing with God to repay tribulation to those who trouble you, and to you who are troubled rest with us.' 'He therefore who bestows on you the Spirit and works powers in you.' You received the Holy Spirit by power alone, which is received only by the just. It is therefore established that you were just without the works of the Law. 'Is it by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith?' The works of the Law are the leisure of the Sabbath, the observance of circumcision, and the superstition of the ceremonies. 'As it is written: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto righteousness.' So also to you faith alone suffices unto righteousness. 'Know therefore that they who are of faith.' Whether Jews or Greeks.
These are the sons of Abraham. Not those who are carnally circumcised. 'And the Scripture, foreseeing.' Seeing beforehand. 'That God justifies the Gentiles by faith, foretold to Abraham.' Not by works, but by the faith which His grace inspires in him. 'That in thee shall all nations be blessed.' Not the Israelites alone. 'Therefore they who are of faith shall be blessed with the faithful Abraham.' For not all nations have been circumcised, that they might be blessed by works. 'For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse.' Because the custom of sinning so prevailed that no one now keeps the Law, and therefore they lie under the curse not without cause. 'For it is written: Cursed is everyone.'
The question is asked, whether faith alone suffices for the Christian, and whether he is not cursed who does not keep the evangelical precepts. Faith suffices to make one who first believes both righteous, if he thereafter remains in that justification; but otherwise without works it is dead—yet the works of faith, not of the Law. He who does not believe God does not heed the commandments, and that those who despise the precepts of the Gospel are cursed the Savior also taught, saying: 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.' And the Apostle James: 'He who is a transgressor of one commandment has shown himself guilty of all.' But that one transgressed commandment the learned understand to be charity, on which hangs all the Law and the prophets.
For certain men say that faith without works profits, because even if one baptized should depart this state, or truly if the means be lacking whereby he might work, faith without works suffices; for works without faith are nothing. 'Who does not continue in all the things that are written in the book of the Law, to do them.' That is, who has not kept all the commandments of the Law even unto the end. 'But that in the Law no man is justified before God, it is manifest.' At this time the Law justifies no one, just as before it did not profit without faith. 'Because the just man lives by faith.' Faith is perfect not only to believe Christ, but also to believe in Christ. 'Lives.' Has life. 'But the Law is not of faith.' Because it does not justify. Therefore the just man lives by faith, and it is not added 'in these' or 'in those.'
But he who lives in the Law, whoever does these things, lives in them—that is, in the things he has done, which he supposed good, having the reward of his labor, only in those works which he did in the present life; whether length of life, as the Jews think, or the averting of present punishment, by which the transgressor of the Law is put to death. 'But he who does these things shall live in them.' By his own labor he lives; under fear he was living in it, as long as Christ flourished. He who was not under a curse, because He alone fulfilled the Law in all things, and therefore by His undeserved curse our curse was compensated, so that, passing freely to the faith, we should not care for the works of the Law. 'He redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us.' He who buys, buys what belongs to another;
but he who redeems, properly buys back that which was his own and had ceased to be his. Therefore Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, which was appointed for sinners, as He says: 'Behold, for your sins you are sold,' and the rest. 'Because it is written: Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.' It is to be considered that not everyone who has hung on a tree is cursed before God, but he who has sinned and has been adjudged to death for his crime. He is not cursed because whatever wicked man is crucified, but because he has deserved to be crucified for his guilt; for it is not the punishment that makes one guilty, but the cause.
For thus it is written: 'If a man has committed a crime worthy of death, thou shalt hang him on a tree, and his body shall not remain upon the tree, for cursed is everyone that hangs upon a tree.' He is not cursed because he hung, but he hung because he was cursed. Christ therefore, for whom there was no judgment of death, nor any cause of the cross and of the curse, underwent the curse for us, because we were all guilty of death and owed to the tree, since we were cursed—inasmuch as we did not continue in all the things that were written in the book of the Law; for the same Law had decreed both to be cursed. 'That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles in Christ Jesus.' That by faith alone the Gentiles might be blessed in Christ, as had been promised to Abraham. 'That we may receive the promise of the Spirit.'
Who was promised through Joel to all flesh, that is, to every kind of men—from a part the whole, according to synecdoche. 'Through faith.' Faith alone. 'Brethren, I speak after the manner of men.' I speak by a human comparison: for human things can be compared to divine things for the sake of clearer understanding, though they cannot be made equal. 'Yet a man's confirmed testament no one despises, or adds to.' That is, a lawfully drawn-up testament is not said to be without weight. 'To Abraham were the promises made.' The promises to Abraham he calls the New Testament. 'And to his seed.' By God. 'He said not, And to his seeds, as of many, but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.' The seed of Abraham he interprets as Christ.
And this I say: the testament confirmed by God, the Law which was made after four hundred and thirty years, cannot annul it. The Law, which was given after so long a time, cannot make void that testament which God confirmed to Abraham in Christ. If here we should ask whether this Testament, which he says was confirmed by God and not weakened by the Law—which was made after four hundred and thirty years—is Old or New, there is no doubt but that it is New, though hidden in prophetic recesses until the time should come when it would be revealed in Christ. To the Old Testament belong those who, having received the Law holy and just, think that the letter can suffice them unto life, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, are not subject to the righteousness of God.
But someone will say: How is that called old which was made through Moses after 430 years, and that called new which was made to Abraham so many years before? Let him who is moved by this not contentiously but studiously understand: first, that it is called old from the earlier time, and new from the later; their revelations are considered in these names, not their institutions. For through Moses came the Old Testament, through whom the Law was given, holy and good, through which came not the abolition of sin but the knowledge of sin; through which the proud were convicted. For this law was hidden from the beginning, when nature itself convicted iniquitous men, doing to others what they would not wish done to themselves.
But the revelation of the New Testament was made in Christ, when He was manifested in the flesh, in whom appeared the righteousness of God, that is, that which is to men from God. For thus he says: 'But now without the Law the righteousness of God is made manifest.' Behold the reason why that is called the Old Testament: because it was revealed in the earlier time. Then, because the Old Testament pertains to the old man, from whom man must needs begin; but the New to the new man, into which man ought to pass out of his old state: because in the former are earthly promises, in the latter heavenly. 'It does not make void, so as to annul the promise. For if the inheritance be of the Law, it is now no more of promise.'