Commentary on Galatians

The Letter to the Galatians is said to have been sent by the Apostle from the city of Ephesus; and for that reason some put that letter first and arrange this one to follow it. The sum of this letter is this: that the Galatians err in adding Judaism to the gospel of faith which is in Christ, observing with a bodily understanding the sabbath and circumcision, and likewise the other works which they had received from the law. Moved by these things, Paul writes this letter, wishing to correct them and call them back from Judaism, so that they may keep faith in Christ alone and have from Christ the hope of salvation and of his promises: namely, that no one is saved by the works of the law. To refute, then, what they are adding, he wishes to confirm his gospel. And to give authority to his gospel, he sets down first principles, saying that he is an apostle not from men nor through man. By these divisions—that he received the gospel by revelation while a Jew, and a zealous Jew; that after three years he came to Jerusalem to Peter; that he was with him fifteen days; that he returned to Jerusalem after fourteen years—by all these he shows that he learned nothing from them, whether because of his brief presence or because of his long absence. Having confirmed his authority, then, that he received the gospel from God, our Lord Jesus Christ, he adds the precepts themselves, that is, that the bodily understanding of Judaism must not be joined to it; and he says that he showed and did this long ago, when he acted even against Peter. Then he follows out this very point, asserting that the gospel he taught is one, and that those who add the precepts and observance of Judaism are far astray. How he treats these matters we shall divide in their place; meanwhile let us return to the beginning of the letter.

“Paul, an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia.” The order at the beginning of the sentence is this: “Paul, an apostle, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia.” And here the apostle commends himself as sent not from men nor through man, but through the Lord Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead; showing who writes, with whom, and to whom; and although Paul the apostle usually speaks only of himself to the Romans and the Corinthians, to weigh upon the Galatians and mark them as in grave error he has joined with himself also all the brothers who were with him, as though they too were writing to them, making them ashamed that they think contrary to all. “Not from men nor through man,” to give greater force to his precepts and to the gospel he proclaims. For, being about to correct the Galatians, he says that he is not an apostle either from men or through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. So I am to be believed and trusted, and the gospel I bring forth is true, since it is through Jesus Christ and God the Father. An apostle, then, he says, not from men nor through men; since not through the apostles, of whom he says both that he was with them a few days and that they gave him their right hands: so he learned nothing from them. “Nor through man,” whether through some prophet, so as to be ambiguous; nor through Christ as man, but through the Christ who was in a man: for Christ is both God and man. “Not from men nor through man.” When he says “from men,” he seems to point to Matthias, who learned from men: for he was put in the place of the traitor; so he learned from men. And when he said “nor through man,” he means that he was not sent or taught by a man, but through Jesus Christ, that is, God. So in saying “not from men” he hints at the apostles; since the apostle Paul, as he proved, learned nothing from any apostle who had been with Christ. Likewise, so that he would not seem, though he learned through Christ, to deny, like a certain blasphemous heretic, that Christ was a man, having added “not through man,” he adds what it is, saying, “but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.” Since he denied “through man” and added “through Christ,” one may understand “through Christ as God.” But since he added “through God the Father,” some therefore say that Christ is scarcely ever called God by Paul. But we have proved in many places that he is called God by Paul too. Here too it may be understood: for if it is said “not through man,” and added “but through Christ,” it must be understood that Christ too is God. Yet since whatever God does he does through Christ, as we have shown in many places, it is therefore said “through Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead.” Surely so that it would not be said, “How did you learn through Christ, you who did not follow Christ, and Christ is dead?” he added that God raised Christ from the dead. So Christ taught me, who was raised from the dead; raised by the power of God the Father. What this mystery of the Son raised from the dead is we have often explained; we will often speak of it when there is occasion. “And all the brothers who are with me”: the apostle Paul has already shown above the order of this thought: “Paul, an apostle, and all the brothers who are with me.” What is added? “To the churches of Galatia.”

Keeping the custom by which we add a greeting or something of that kind: “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, to free us from the present evil age, according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory to the ages of ages.” Let us remember what the Apostle is doing in this letter: since he rebukes the Galatians and wishes to correct them, so that they may have faith in Christ and expect from him alone the hope of salvation, the hope of eternity, the forgiveness of sins; and that they may not at all believe that the works of the law, or sabbaths, or circumcision profit them. So at the beginning he prays for peace and grace for them from God, and then added “from Christ,” because in Christ are all our goods; and he proves that all things are in Christ, and all through Christ, when he says, “who gave himself for our sins, to free us from the present evil age.” So by his benefit, by his grace—from God the Father, indeed, but by his passion—we are freed from the present wicked age; and freed through Christ, but by the power of God, of God, namely, to whom is glory through all eternity. If, then, God is eternal, his glory too is forever. And since by the will of God Christ carried out the mystery and gave himself for our sins to free us all, liberation is by the will of God through Christ. And if it is through Christ, nothing further is to be sought, and the things the Galatians add are vain: that is, Judaism, the works of the law, the observance of the sabbath, and circumcision.

“I marvel that you are so quickly being transferred from him who called you into grace to another gospel.” Since the gospel which the apostle Paul proclaims is certain, namely Christ, the Son of God, the power of God for salvation to all who believe, whether Greeks or Jews, and nothing besides; but all hope of salvation and of God’s grace toward us lies in faith concerning Christ, so that when we believe that he is the Son of God, that he suffered for us, that he rose again, from this we too rise again, with the forgiveness of sins; since this is the true gospel which Paul proclaims, whoever adds anything else, that is, Judaism and circumcision and the observance of the sabbath and the rest, sins in this way and is a stranger to the truth. Since, then, the Galatians thought Judaism should be added to the Apostle’s gospel, therefore, he says, “I marvel that you are so quickly being transferred.” For the first sin is to be transferred quickly; for there is no reason when something is transferred quickly; and then that one is transferred, since one is transferred from someone. Let us see, then, from whom: “from him,” he says, “who called you into grace.” For Christ, who suffered for us all, has called us into grace, if we believe in him; for it is no great thing to obtain his grace, if only we follow him, believing that by his mystery he has bestowed these things; and that freely, and without labor, and without great works. Since he has bestowed this on us, to be quickly transferred from him is a great cause for wonder, that they preferred to be transferred to another gospel, joining to it the discipline of Judaism. But the gospel is one, and only one: to believe that Christ is the Son of God, that Christ by his passion and coming in the flesh and resurrection and passion has loosed all sins, conquered death, and destroyed all corruption: this alone is the gospel. Therefore he adds:

“Which is not another”: for that alone is the gospel which we spoke of above; for there is no other; neither meriting salvation from works, nor from the observance of the sabbath, nor from circumcision is the gospel, that is, our salvation. “Unless there are some who trouble you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ.” He says, then, that the works of certain people are not done from the truth, as when they wish to trouble you and, as though you were less learned, to teach you. They pervert the gospel of Christ, though there is no gospel except Christ’s. But what is from works or from circumcision is not Christ’s: for these things understood in a fleshly way are not Christ’s; but if they are understood spiritually, so that circumcision is of the heart, and all things that are in the flesh are understood spiritually, these, I say, are the gospel of Christ. But those who go down to works and to fleshly things do not have the gospel of Christ. So those who want and command you to observe the sabbath, or new moons, or circumcision, or the other things that are done by works, do not have the gospel of Christ: hence they want to turn you from the gospel of Christ. And whereas you had believed in Christ, and that all things are to be hoped for in Christ, they wish to trouble you by urging something else.

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you other than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” He has joined, more sharply and forcefully, a compressed thought: that all err if they proclaim anything besides the gospel of Christ; if we ourselves, whom you have already believed, or even more an angel, even an angel from heaven, should preach to you otherwise—otherwise, that is, beyond the gospel of Christ, which we indeed have preached—let him be anathema; for this is what he said: “other than what we have preached to you.” So to me also, if I preach otherwise, and to an angel from heaven, if, he says, he proclaims otherwise than we once proclaimed to you, let there be anathema; that is, as we explained above, let him be rejected; and let him be without reward, rather with the punishment of his evil deed.

“As we have said before.” It may seem that he had said something of the kind earlier too, that those who preach the gospel otherwise should be anathema; but he said “as we have said before” in order to add, “and now I say again,” so that it may be understood of what he has just said: as we said before, and now again I warn. What? What was said above: “if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than what you received, let him be anathema”: that is, whether I preach and proclaim the gospel otherwise, or an angel, or anyone else, let him be anathema. And he adds a stronger reason: that what he does he does not do in order to persuade men, but to complete the mystery entrusted to him. For so he adds:

“For am I now persuading men, or God?” For what I do, he says, I do not do in order to persuade men, but I persuade before the Lord God, whom I wish to please, so that I may carry out what has been commanded. The Greek has it otherwise: “For am I now persuading men, or God?” That is, I do not preach men, nor the things of men, but God. For I wish to persuade not of men, but of God, Christ. So I have both the necessity and the fear of speaking the truth, and of not saying now one thing and now another. “Or do I seek to please men?” For I do not do what is for men’s advantage, in order to please men, but in order to please God, in that I render obedience and fulfill his commands. And he adds more strongly what he says: “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” For to please men, as is shown by many things, is not to merit the grace of God. Whoever thinks that life is to be led by works pleases men, and does not yet merit grace. “But if I were pleasing men.” So if I wished, he says, to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ, that is, I would not have been redeemed by Christ. For this is to be a servant of Christ: that, redeemed through his passion and freed from the world and from the lords of the world and of the flesh, I now have Christ as Lord and am his servant. And so whoever wishes to please men has not been redeemed by Christ, and serves the lords of the world when he pleases men; but he becomes a servant of Christ who has been redeemed from slavery into freedom: for this is to be a servant of Christ, to be free from worldly slavery: he is a servant of Christ who, redeemed, as we said, knows nothing of that slavery; which is full freedom.

“For I make known to you the gospel that was preached by me, that it is not according to man.” Either, as he said above, that he is an apostle not from men nor through man, and now he has said this, “not according to man.” For the apostle announces, that is, preaches the gospel, which is that he proclaims Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of all, through whom all things were made: and this I say not according to man, that is, not received from man. Or because that Savior himself is not a man, as some think; nor is he a man because he was sent into a man; but God, taking flesh in the mystery to conquer the flesh, as has been said and treated by many, became man. Not, then, he says, according to man have I preached the gospel to you. I make known, then, brothers, you who err and are carried off and transported toward man by thinking in a fleshly way, observing sabbaths, circumcision, and the rest: my gospel is not according to man, that is, so as to deal with man, that is, with the flesh, but according to the power of the soul. For the whole mystery was done so that we would not think in the way some think according to man, taking everything in a fleshly way; but he himself added what he wishes to be understood: “that it is not according to man.”

“For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” So I did not preach the gospel according to man, because I did not receive it from man. So if receiving from man is one thing, “according to man” will be another; and likewise if “I did not receive it from man” is one thing, “not according to man” will be another: from which one may understand “according to man” as thinking in a bodily way; since he takes as his argument for it, “I did not receive it from man.” For if a man had handed these things to me, I would receive them according to man, so as to understand everything according to the flesh; but now what I preach is not to be taken according to man, that is, not in a fleshly way but spiritually, since the argument is that I did not receive it so. For if I received it from the spirit and was taught by the spirit, I ought to understand it spiritually; and this will be “not according to man.” Then what does he add? “But it was revealed to me,” he says, “by Christ Jesus.” Saying “revealed” carries more credibility than if he were taught. For men teach, and assert something as if by reasons; but revelation is the sight of the things themselves, which is surely more. And who revealed it? Jesus Christ. For those who already follow Christ ought not to take it as if they understood it to have been received from man, since it had been said, “Jesus Christ revealed it,” and the Galatians have already received both God and the Son of God. The rest that they add is from man, either from those who persuaded them, or from Moses himself, who gave the law. He indeed received it from God, but they, understanding too little, take everything in a fleshly way. So great is the evil! For Moses received this law and believed; but the apostle said that it was revealed to him, and he explains it.

“For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it, and advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation, being more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers.” The sum of this narrative about himself is this: to teach that he did not learn from men nor through man, but from God and from Jesus Christ; and this serves the purpose that the Galatians should not think otherwise, nor think anything must be added to the gospel which Paul proclaimed to them: that faith in Christ must be taken up, and that it must be believed that he gives salvation and no other; that salvation is not given from works, nor is this gospel from circumcision or the observance of the sabbath, nor should anything else be accepted besides what the Galatians received. To prove this easily, he adds, as I said, the narrative about himself: what he was, how he was converted; what he did after he was converted from Judaism and began to believe in Christ; and that he did not learn all these things from men; since I saw neither Peter, except when I was already prepared and taught, nor any of the apostles. For first, he says, I was a Jew; so I was opposed; nor did I learn from them, since what is said in the gospel about Christ is against them. So I was a Jew, doing much against the church; so I learned nothing from the Jews. But after I was converted, and God by his grace began to reveal his Son in me, I began, he says, to preach the gospel among the Gentiles. Then he shows that he did not spare himself, nor did he come to Jerusalem, lest perhaps he should have learned there from the apostles. But I withdrew, he says, into Arabia; from there I returned to Damascus; then after three years I came to Jerusalem. See, he is already preaching the gospel and teaching Christ. So he did not learn these things from men: for he came to Jerusalem after three years. Then he saw Peter, and was with him fifteen days. When, then, did he learn, or could he have learned, from Peter? Then, he says, I saw none of the apostles except James, the brother of the Lord. In this he surely shows that he learned from no one, since he was with Peter only a few days; and seeing James, the brother of the Lord, he confirmed all the more that he could not have learned from James; since Paul holds these things in the gospel, whereas James does not hold them, as we shall show later. Then he says he went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia; yet he was already known to all the churches and to the Jews: that, though he had been a Jew, he was following the gospel and preaching it. After this he narrates that after fourteen years he came to Jerusalem. From where, then, did he learn what he preaches? Not from men nor through man, but through revelation. I set out to them all, he says, the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. Then, too, it was I rather who told the gospel to the apostles; they did not teach me. There he teaches where and how far he acted by dissimulation in order to keep the gospel: since he accepted a small part of Judaism out of necessity, so that the truth of the gospel might remain; what this is we shall teach in its place. Hence he says that both Peter and he have one gospel; but Peter to preach it to the Jews, he to the Gentiles; and that this was given him by revelation; and that these offices were divided by God and our Lord Jesus Christ: for he worked in both. This Peter and John confirmed, that their view was the same as that of the apostle Paul and of Barnabas; and they agreed that these should preach to the Gentiles, those to the Jews. And he adds and records the greatest proof of his confidence, knowledge, revelation, and gospel: that he says Peter acted soundly before certain men came from James; then, after they came, he changed; and that Paul rebuked this very thing and refuted him. He had changed so that he would not eat with the Gentiles, and used Jewish foods. This he says he rebuked, since before they came from James he lived with the Gentiles; afterward, fearing, as it were, James’s envoys, he lived with the Jews; for James preached Christ with Judaism mixed in, which Paul denies should be done. If, then, this was already rebuked, and in Peter, when he acted so, reproached, overcome, and settled, surely these Galatians too, since they have begun to do this, must be corrected and changed: namely, so that these, believing through faith in Jesus Christ, may be justified by faith, not by the works of the law. So far the account of himself; then there is an admonition and exposition, quite useful and fitting for what he wishes to do, to correct the Galatians, lest, following Judaism, they not follow the gospel; which is one: to have true faith in Christ and to be justified by him, not by the works of the law. After this he gives other arguments that justification comes from Christ, not from the law nor from works; and this is the whole reading I spoke of above, up to that place which begins thus: “But if, seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin?” and the rest. But now let us return to the narrative about his own person (we have said why it was undertaken). “You have heard,” he says, “of my former way of life in Judaism.” So that he would not seem to be telling something new about himself, he says, “you have heard of my life”: for this is what he called “way of life”: you know the conduct of life which I once had when I was in Judaism, and how I acted, “how beyond measure I persecuted the church of God.” Not only, he says, was I a Jew and followed the law, but on the other side I persecuted the church and attacked it. So I, who was such as to persecute the church, cannot today, having been converted from Judaism, persecute the church which I persecuted; I cannot, I say, approve both following Judaism and persecuting the church; and at the same time, as I said above, in Judaism I understood and received nothing that belonged to the church. So I was not taught by men. So I tried to destroy the church. “Tried to destroy” is too little; what did he add? “And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation more abundantly”: and though I had colleagues, I surpassed them all equally in zeal and in profession of Judaism; and I acted “more abundantly,” that is, I was stronger and more vehement in asserting Judaism: “being a zealot for the traditions of my fathers,” so that I expounded and handed on in the same way the traditions of the fathers, that is, the readings of Judaism and of the law. “Zealot,” that is, imitator, and as it were in a kind of rivalry; one who wished to be the same as my fathers were, or as the traditions themselves were.

Since this, then, had been his life, where did so great a conversion come from? He adds: “But when it pleased him who set me apart from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” The order is: “but when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me.” What is “it pleased God to reveal his Son in me”? That is, that I should know Christ: for first one must know, then preach. So, he says, he “who set me apart from my mother’s womb,” that is, who caused me to be born. Likewise “and called me through his grace”; that is, he called me out so that I might come to his grace and know God: for no one knows God except one who has been called. So he called me, and it pleased him to reveal his Son in me; so that I, he says, might know, and so then that I might preach him among the Gentiles. After this pleased him, what followed? “Immediately I did not consult flesh and blood.” So, he says, what I preach was revealed to me. And I did not labor at all in a fleshly way [?]. For this is not labor. For if one announces divine things and things that have the grace of God, there is no labor for the soul, but the labor of flesh and blood, that is, to run about, to bear the labor of travel, to traverse provinces and nations. But “I did not consult,” he says, “flesh and blood.” For flesh and blood is the whole outer man. “Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.” For from this it could have seemed that he learned from men or through men, if he had gone to Jerusalem and lived long with his elders and predecessors. I did not, he says, go to the apostles my predecessors; I did not learn from them; “but I went away into Arabia, and again returned to Damascus.” This is what he received by revelation from God, that he should preach among the Gentiles. “I went away,” he says, “into Arabia.” What a long journey! And when he returns to Damascus, how different a direction! “Then after three years I came to Jerusalem to see Peter.” So for three years he had already been preaching among the Gentiles. What, surely, but what he had received from God, to preach to the Gentiles the Christ revealed to him? After three years, he says, I came to Jerusalem. Then he adds the reason: “to see Peter.” For if the foundation of the church was laid in Peter, as is said in the gospel, Paul, to whom all things had been revealed, knew that he ought to see Peter, as one to whom so great an authority had been given by Christ, not so as to learn anything from him. Then what does he add? “And I stayed with him fifteen days.” So I only stayed. Could I in a few days, in so short a time, have learned from Peter so great a knowledge of God? “But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the brother of the Lord.” This too he added with great learning and great skill: first, in that he said, “I saw no other of the apostles”: for the Symmachians make James an apostle, as it were the twelfth; and those follow him who add to our Lord Jesus Christ the observance of Judaism; although they also confess Jesus Christ; for they say that he is Adam himself, and that he is the universal soul, and other blasphemies of this kind. So here Paul denied that James is an apostle, by saying, “I saw none of the other apostles,” since he said he had seen no other of the apostles, except James. And the reason why James is added: “the brother of the Lord,” who was regarded as his brother according to the flesh. When he said “brother,” he denied him the title of apostle. But he had to be seen, for honor’s sake. But he could learn nothing from James either, since James thinks otherwise. Nor from Peter, either because he stayed only a few days with Peter, or because James is not an apostle and is in heresy. But he added James too. So I saw by name what James teaches and preaches; and yet, since this blasphemy is known to me, it has been rejected by me, as it must be rejected by you also, O Galatians. For you cannot say, “You deny James, and therefore you reject what we follow, because you did not see James.” So he added, “I saw James too.” Nor is it an error: this James, he says, the brother of the Lord, that is, the author of your opinion. So he counted for nothing with me. And although I did not follow him, I also know his opinion. Since, then, nothing is unknown to me, and he could not persuade me, you follow him in vain.

“What I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie.” Credibility had to be secured even by an oath. For to those who have already strayed from the faith he says, what I write to you, I do not lie; behold, before God I declare that I narrate everything as it happened.

“Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,” that is, to preach the gospel among the Gentiles.

“But I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which are in Christ.” That is, the gospel which I proclaimed was already known to almost all the churches of Judea (but a Judea that is in Christ, not in the Judaism of the Jews). And there are many churches in Christ, to all of which the gospel he holds about Christ was known. Yet he himself was unknown by face. By all this, then, what does he show? That he had already persuaded all of his gospel even while he was absent.

“They only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith.” He says this was a marvel to all, as it surely ought to be a marvel: all heard, he says, that I, who had been a Jew, who once persecuted the Christians and the churches, now preached the faith, that is, that all should have faith in Christ: the faith which he had formerly denied, which he once tried to destroy. So it was a marvel that he who had once tried to destroy it should now preach the faith; which he himself had done.

“And in me,” he says, “they glorified the Lord.” Because all now grasped the power of God and called God magnificent because I had been converted; and I who had been an attacker was now a preacher. So it came about that they glorified God in me; that is, they called him great, since with a mind suddenly turned I preached the Lord Christ, whom I had formerly attacked. For what is so magnificent as for a mind to be conquered, to take up the contrary, and to preach the faith which you had formerly attacked? If this is so, then you too ought to follow nothing else but what preaches to you the faith of Christ. “Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also.” For once before, after three years; now after fourteen years, he says, I went up again. So the gospel proclaimed by me to the Gentiles I received by revelation; I did not learn it from men nor through man. “With Barnabas, and taking Titus.” These he has as witnesses, by whom he proves that his gospel was given him by revelation; since Barnabas, he says, went up with me; he also took Titus; whose faith and gospel were approved by all.

“And I went up according to revelation, and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles.” With great arguments he strives to prove that the gospel given him by revelation, which he preached among the Gentiles, is from God: for “I went up,” he says, to Jerusalem “according to revelation”; so as also to teach all, even the Jews themselves; I set before all, he says, “the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles.” In this it is understood, from the fact that no one contradicted, no one resisted, that this is the true and one gospel; since what I preach, he says, among the Gentiles I set out in Jerusalem. But the people could have been ignorant. What did he add? “But privately to those who seemed to be pillars.” That is, those through whom the commandments of God and the gospel were handed down, such as the apostles and the rest; to these, he says, privately I set out the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, so that if there was anything they handed down otherwise, they might correct it, or if I handed something down otherwise, they might amend it. This, then, was the reason why I went up to Jerusalem; and therefore it was revealed to me that I should go up, so that the good gospel might more easily be recognized, both mine among the Gentiles and theirs among the Jews. And that he showed it to them privately was so that they might remove the Jews from their midst, and those who knew might share the mysteries among themselves. Since all these had one view and one gospel, what does he strive to persuade? That nothing new ought to be added, nothing joined to it. Hence the Galatians sin today by following Judaism and the discipline of circumcision or of the sabbath or of other things. “Lest perhaps I should run or had run in vain.” That is, lest I should not preach the gospel wholly: for if I preached anything less, I ran in vain, or even now run in vain. For if circumcision, the observance of the sabbath, and the other things profit, salvation will not be from the grace of Christ, and one runs in vain.

“But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.” He explains that nothing at all was achieved by those who are false apostles, that is, by those who think that to Paul’s gospel—that is, the message about the Son of God, Christ, through whom there is faith and sure salvation—to this gospel, I say, must be added being circumcised, observing the sabbath, and the rest; these, I say, he says, did not prevail; nor was Titus persuaded, who, he says, was certainly a Greek, that is, a pagan, to be compelled to be circumcised; and therefore he was not persuaded, nor did they even dare to compel him. So there was agreement with the apostle concerning the gospel on the part of all who were at Jerusalem. Hence the Galatians sin, who think this novelty must be added.

“But because of false brothers brought in secretly, who slipped in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ, so as to bring us into slavery, we yielded in subjection for an hour.” Some read it thus: “Nor did we yield in subjection even for an hour”; and the sense is complete with what goes before: that neither was Titus the Greek compelled to be circumcised, nor yet did we yield in subjection even for an hour, that is, so as to give way in some things. But since in very many manuscripts, both Latin and Greek, the sentence is “we yielded in subjection for an hour,” that is, we bore what seemed to them should be done, but not so as always to follow it, it is proved in many ways that it should be read thus, “we yielded in subjection for an hour.” First, because he truly yielded: for he even circumcised Timothy because of the Jews, as he says in the Acts of the Apostles. So the apostle ought not to have lied. Then, no one would say “not even for an hour” if it had been necessary to deny that it was done at all. And certainly, if he withstood Peter, what is “not even for an hour we yielded” here? Likewise if it was said above, “not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised,” then it was not in all things, nor always, nor much; finally, it was “because of the brothers brought in,” who were mixing Judaism with Christianity. And from here, because of the Jews, he certainly always declared his plan: to give way at times, even in these things which are true. For hence comes that thought, “to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews,” and the rest of this kind. So now “because of false brothers brought in secretly” (since there are many false apostles, whom he calls false brothers), certain people began to add things, to slip in with their persuasions, and to spy out the freedom of the apostolic words; that is, they wanted to get inside us. Were they true apostles of Christ, after all? Or were they testing “our freedom which we have in Christ”? So when we saw their plan, to lead us into slavery, “we yielded in subjection,” indeed, “for an hour,” that is, for a short time, so as to do certain things. We must understand that this is permitted not to just anyone, but to one who is perfect and strengthened in faith: that for Christ’s sake he may do some things that are outside the rule, provided that what he does benefits the law, that is, that souls are freed. And we shall show that this is proved in many places and was done by Paul: that he yields to what is not the true rule, and then corrects and leads many to the true rule. Hence too it is that he concedes second marriages, and marriage itself, and also foods, and all foods; and although he forbids food offered to idols, yet he concedes it to confidence and sure faith. For since Christ is in the mind, and Christ is nourished in us through faith, to yield for a time to a rule that is not true is no danger; provided only that we do this in order that by this very first fellowship we may lead them to the true rule. Then he adds thus: “we yielded in subjection,” but “for an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you”; with you who were instructed by us. O Galatians, we did not yield so that you too should do it, but so that they might be satisfied and led to the true rule, and so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.

“But from those who seem to be something (what they once were makes no difference to me; God does not accept a man’s face).” It is put thus: “from those,” as if from among those who seem to be something, or from the false apostles who came forth from them, if yet they should be something, that is, should change and now follow the gospel. Whoever, then, now seem to be something and have sprung from these, so that before they were such, but now are sound (for this is to be something): “what they were before,” that is, once, “makes no difference to me,” he says; for it is enough for me what one is, and I do not care what one was before. And he adds the reason: “for God does not accept a man’s face,” but his mind, his faith: whether he was a Greek, whether a Jew, whether he was anything, this God does not accept, but what he is, and whether he has taken up the faith and the gospel: for God does not accept a person to the prejudice of the truth; nor did I accept those who were said to be pillars. This, then, is what he says: “for those who are reckoned to be something contributed nothing to me,” that is, taught me nothing, added nothing, but approved my gospel. So nothing ought to have been added for you either to the gospel which I proclaimed to you.

“But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision had been entrusted to me, as to Peter that of the circumcision—for he who worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcision worked in me among the Gentiles—and knowing the grace that was given to me, Peter and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave right hands.” The order: those leading men, Peter and John and James, who seemed to be pillars, gave me their right hands; that is, they lent their agreement, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision had been entrusted to me, that is, entrusted in the same way for the Gentiles, as the gospel of the circumcision was entrusted to Peter, to preach it among the Jews. And why it was entrusted to me as to them is added: “for he who worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcision worked also in me among the Gentiles”: that is, one and the same God himself worked so that Peter should preach the gospel to the Jews, and in me so that I should preach it to the Gentiles. Knowing this grace that was given to me, that I too in like manner was made an apostle to the Gentiles by God’s grace, Peter and James and John, who seemed to be pillars, that is, who supported the church as columns support roofs and so on—these, I say, such and so great, gave me their right hands; that is, they joined friendship and peace and firmness, and declared that they had one gospel. So you, Galatians, sin; and you follow neither my gospel nor that of Peter, James, and John, who are pillars of the church, while you add things approved by no one. For this is what he aims at in this whole narrative: that the Galatians sin by adding to faith in Christ the observance of the Jewish law and of the sabbath and of circumcision. “And of Barnabas, of fellowship.” They gave the right hands of fellowship not to me only but also to Barnabas, who was my companion. He added more, so that it would not seem entrusted to him alone. But Paul’s gospel is proved true if it was approved also for Barnabas, who was Paul’s companion; to whom fellowship was given by right hands by those who exercised the apostleship in Jerusalem and proclaimed the gospel to the Jews. He proves that the one true gospel is held by all, and that the Galatians err. “That we should preach among the Gentiles, and they among the circumcision.” For this they gave right hands, lending agreement in the gospel to me and to Barnabas, that we should preach among the Gentiles, and they should preach the gospel to the Jews, that is, among the circumcision.

“Only that we should be mindful of the poor.” So if anything needed correcting, they would correct it and admonish; indeed, if they had thought something should be added, I would have added it. What, though, is that “that we should be mindful of the poor”? In every letter of his Paul acts so. When, then, Paul and Barnabas discussed these matters with John and Peter and James, the gospel was admitted in the same way as Paul hands it on, and was confirmed. Only on this point of the discussion, that works are not admitted for salvation, they did not listen willingly; yet they admonished that we should only be mindful of the poor. So they too agree that the hope of salvation does not lie there, if we do works for the poor; but they only admonish that we should be mindful of the poor; not that we should spend all our activity on it, but that we should supply to those who do not have what we can have. Only that we be mindful of the poor. Let us not set our care and anxiety on this, and the whole strength of keeping our salvation. So he was almost corrected in this and admonished, yet he does not admit it: “that we should be mindful,” he says, not that we should do this, but that we should keep it in memory; which is less than putting our effort into it and fulfilling this alone. “Which also I was eager to do, this very thing.” He added more: that besides the gospel he preached he was also concerned about this, to be mindful of the poor and to supply whatever he could. Even though in truth no one is poor, if only, keeping faith and believing in God, he awaits the riches of his salvation. For present sustenance is both small and sufficient, and costs little to the giver or the receiver.

“But when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he had been rebuked.” Not only, he says, was my gospel approved by those apostles who were in Jerusalem, and not only was I admonished to be mindful of the poor—which is indeed a good duty, yet a necessary one, and one we have fulfilled, and I was eager to do this very thing—but also, he says, I did not keep silent about Peter’s sin. In this he shows his freedom and his confidence about his gospel, since he rebuked what was done otherwise by Peter. And again, Peter, rebuked, would surely all the more have burst out to rebuke me if there were any fault in me; and if I were not acting rightly in the gospel he would have exposed me, and, wounded, would not have spared me. When Peter, he says, had come to Antioch, I did not speak through the church and before the people, but “I withstood him to his face,” that is, I contradicted him openly. And where did his confidence come from? He did not rebuke him himself, but reproves and accuses one rebuked by all: “because he had been rebuked.” So he too sinned by the people’s judgment and was accused; and the people, if there were any sin in me, would rebuke me in like manner, as they rebuked him. “For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the other Jews also agreed with him, so that Barnabas agreed with their pretense.” He explains openly the sin itself, what he had done. That sin which he says he rebuked in Peter he might perhaps now have kept quiet about: for it had been enough that Peter was corrected by the people’s rebuke and by his open accusation. But since it is useful, and most necessary for the letter, it is therefore narrated. There he does two things: first, since his own gospel was not rebuked, and he himself, when he rebuked Peter, heard no rebuke from Peter; then, what I said is most necessary: since the Galatians, having left the first gospel, thought something must be added to the rule of the gospel, so as to observe the sabbath and circumcision and to live in the same way as the Jews; since the Galatians do this, this letter is therefore written to them. Hence it is narrated very well that this very thing was rebuked by Paul in Peter, and the people rebuked it; from which it is gathered that these too sin. And how and what Peter committed he adds by narration: for before, he says, “before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles,” holding the gospel whole and its rule: that Christ be announced equally to Jews and Gentiles, and that the food of the Jews not be observed, but that one live simply in the manner of the Gentiles. This, he says, Peter did before certain men came from James. For James, the brother of the Lord, who is the founder for the Symmachians, was the first at Jerusalem to think he should take this on himself: both to preach Christ and to live as the Jews, doing all that the law of the Jews commands, that is, what the Jews understood was to be observed by them. So when certain men had come from James to Peter, he was afraid, he says, and fearing, withdrew himself so as not to eat with the Gentiles. But this he rebukes: that formerly he ate with the Gentiles, and now he withdrew, “fearing those who were of the circumcision,” that is, the men coming from James. And what he himself did was a small thing; the great sin came from this, that others agreed with him. “And the other Jews also agreed with him.” Let us take “Jews” here as those who had nonetheless already received Christ, so that they agreed with him, both receiving Christ and the Jewish discipline and observance; for unless we take it so, what will “they agreed with him” mean, if they, living in their own way, acted according to the Jewish discipline? But those who had already received the gospel by believing Christ, just as he himself formerly ate with the Gentiles, afterward, when he withdrew and feared those who had come from James (whom he feared, namely, as men of the circumcision), so the rest agreed, so as not to live with the Gentiles but with the circumcision, that is, with the Jews, they who had themselves been Jews before. “So that Barnabas too agreed with their pretense.” So badly, he says, had they pretended to live with the Jews, dismissing the Gentiles, that Barnabas agreed with them: of whom it was said above that he is Paul’s companion and holds the gospel whole; yet he agreed with them and with their pretense. What, then, do we understand by pretense? For Peter too, and Barnabas, and the other Jews had truly gone over to this, to lead their life by the Jewish discipline, but for a time, because of those present, and they pretended; and therefore, he says, Barnabas too agreed with their pretense. It must be taken so: for neither Peter nor the rest had gone over to the Jewish discipline, but had agreed for a time; which indeed sometimes happens by a feigned agreement. Yet why did Peter sin? Because he had not feigned these things in order to win the Jews, so as to agree with them—which Paul himself did, and boasts that he did, agreeing with the Jews, but so as to win them; but because Peter did feign, yet sinned in this, that “he withdrew himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.” Since, then, out of fear he pretended and kept himself from the Gentiles, and Barnabas agreed with this pretense, therefore, he says, I withstood him openly and accused him, that he had not rightly pretended so out of that fear. Then thus: “But when I saw that they were not walking straight toward the truth of the gospel.” They held the gospel, and held it whole, and understood that one should not live as those of the circumcision live; but since they pretended, they therefore both interpreted the gospel badly and, not by a straight way, went badly toward the truth of the gospel. When I saw this, then, “I said to Peter before all”: that is, what he said above, “I withstood him to his face”; I both spoke openly and spoke before all: “If you, though you are a Jew, live like a Gentile, how do you compel the Gentiles to judaize?” Surely Paul too understood that Peter had pretended out of fear, so as not to live with the Gentiles. So he does not reproach him with this, because Peter could have said, “I pretended.” What, then, did he reproach him with? You lived with the Gentiles, and you live with the Gentiles: for if you agree for a time, without doubt you live like a Gentile; since pretense deceives many, you sin: for you compel the Gentiles to judaize. So he shows that he understood that Peter agreed with the Jews, but by pretense; and yet that he sinned, first because he feared those who had come; then because the rest were deceived and compelled to judaize, not understanding that he was pretending. This, then, he gathers, and records that he said: “If you, Peter, though you are a Jew, live like a Gentile,” that is, live with the Gentiles, “how do you compel the Gentiles themselves to judaize?” that is, to follow the Jewish discipline both in foods and in observances?

“We are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles; knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, except through faith in Christ Jesus: we too believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith and not by the works of the law; since by works no flesh is justified.” This is still part of the speech of Paul himself, accusing Peter and speaking to him because he did not rightly agree with Judaism and so led the Gentiles to judaize. We, he says, Jews, that is, I and you, Peter, and the rest who are sinners, yet not from the Gentiles, but are Jews, we take up faith in Christ; and on what ground, since we were Jews? Namely because we know that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but justified through faith, and faith in Jesus Christ. Since, then, we breathe this, we, he says, believed in Christ Jesus, and believe, so that we may be justified by faith, not by the works of the law; because by the works of the law no flesh is justified, that is, a man who is in the flesh. So if, knowing this, we believed that justification comes through faith, surely we err if we now return to Judaism, from which we passed over so as to be justified not by works but by faith, and faith in Christ: for faith alone gives justification and sanctification. So any flesh, whether of the Jews or from the Gentiles, is justified not by works, nor by observance of the law of the Jews, but by faith.

“But if, seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin?” For since the Jews are sinners, and sinners not from the Gentiles, and since, having received faith in Christ, we do what the Jews do—we who took up faith in Christ precisely because we understood that a man is not justified by the works of the law, in which faith we wish to be justified in Christ—by observing the works of the law we become sinners: so that now Christ would be a minister of sin; whom we received for this reason, that we might not sin; now, having received him, if we return to sins, that is, if we judaize, has Christ become a minister of sin? But, he says, “God forbid”: that is, one must not think so, nor act so, that Christ should be a minister of sin, who suffered for this reason, that sin might perish.

“For if I build again the things I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” For when I, a Jew, believed in Christ, I destroyed the law and the works of the law; but now, after belief in Christ, if I turn back and do the works of the law, I build what I destroyed, and I am now a transgressor, I who act contrary to what advantage, virtue, and reason demand. And a transgressor of what? Not of the law, but of Christ; for I drag the commandments of Christ into transgression if I return to Judaism and begin to observe the things I condemned as to be observed; because I understood that a man is justified not by them, but by Christ.

“For through the law I died to the law, that I might live to God.” Paul may seem to have spoken of two laws, one of Christ, the other of Moses, so that he says he died to that law which was given to the Jews, through the law given by Christ; so that this is “through the law I died to the law”: that is, through the law of Christ I died to the law of the Jews given before. But it may also seem—as Paul often says, and the Savior himself too—that he named two laws because that same law is, as it were, double: one when it is understood in a fleshly way, the other when spiritually. Before, it was understood in a fleshly way; and one served the law by works, by circumcision, and by the other observances understood in a fleshly way; but after the Savior appeared as the true and spiritual light, the law began to be understood spiritually, having become as it were another, though it is the same law. So the sense will be: for through the law which is now understood spiritually I died to the law, to that law, namely, which was understood in a fleshly way. And since this is so, because I understand the law spiritually, I died to the fleshly law, “that I might live to God.” For one lives to God thus, when he understands those precepts placed in the law not in a fleshly way but spiritually: that is, what it is to be truly circumcised, what the true sabbath is, what the rest are, which have been handed down in many places and will be treated. “I have been crucified with Christ.” This is to have received now another law: that the old man is now fixed to the cross, that is, the whole flesh, that is, the whole old man and the desires of the flesh. For Christ did this by his mystery, and did it for me. So we have been fixed to the cross with Christ.

“But I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.” That is, I have now become spirit, by understanding the commandments of God spiritually. Before, I presented myself wholly in relation to the flesh, and either served its desires or commanded them, understanding nothing spiritually. Now, then, since I myself live spiritually, Christ lives in me. “And what I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God and Christ.” This is truly to live spiritually: that when one lives in the flesh, he does not live for the flesh nor from the flesh, but lives to God and Christ in faith in them; which is to live spiritually: to think of him, to speak him, to believe him, to strive toward him with desire, to flee the world, to put off from the mind all things that are in the world: this is to live by faith, to hope for good from no one else than from Christ and from God: this is to live in the faith of God and of Christ, “who loved me and gave” so great a benefit, giving himself for us to death and the cross, and so freeing us from sins. Then he goes on thus: “I am not ungrateful to the grace of God”: so that, since he has made me heir through Christ, and Christ gave himself up for me, I should abandon all the hope I have in Christ and return to the hope of the law, so as to believe that I am justified by the works of the law. This is to be ungrateful to him who bestowed so much on me that he put himself forward for me and freed me from sins through sins punished in himself. “For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” A full conclusion regarding the errors of the Galatians and of those who add Judaism to Christianity: for, he says, if righteousness is through the law, Christ died in vain. For if Christ died because justification did not come from the law, I ought to follow Christ; but if even after Christ’s coming I believe I am justified through the law, Christ did not die for me, and he died for nothing, that is, he died without cause. It is self-contradictory and opposed to itself to believe in Christ and to follow the works of the law; for since the law did not justify man by its works, Christ therefore came, so that by his death justification might come to man; now, if there is a return to the law after faith in Christ, Christ will seem to have died for nothing, so that he bestowed nothing on us, since the law already bestowed it. But the law did not bestow it; and therefore Christ came, so that he himself might bestow it: so Christ did not die for nothing; but through him justification came to us: and if this is so, righteousness is not from the works of the law.

“O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Christ Jesus was proscribed, and crucified in you?” Only those suffer bewitchment who are strong in some good, and they suffer it from the malicious and envious; and since they had received good from the true gospel, and believed in Christ, and hoped for his promises, now that they have begun to add also the discipline of Judaism, “who,” he says, “has bewitched you,” so that you withdrew from your good? You are therefore foolish, that is, not understanding. And what did they commit, from which they are foolish? That they were persuaded to practice Judaism. So Christ was proscribed, that is, his goods, which were surely in us, were broken up and sold, and by the persuasion of Judaism were proscribed, sold, and lost. So you are foolish, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was proscribed, so that those goods perished in you while you were present, as things perish that are proscribed: because you did not resist, did not fight back, and therefore you are foolish. Then in this sentence there is also this: that Christ was crucified in you; for those Jews who persuaded you to follow Judaism did in you too what they did to Christ when they raised him on the cross: so by persuading you to the discipline of Judaism they crucified Christ in you too. Foolish, then, you Galatians, you have lost Christ and his goods from your souls. I do not know who, then, has bewitched you in your goods.

“This only I wish to learn from you.” I will raise nothing, I will rebuke nothing; this only, he says, I wish to learn, and to learn from you: “did you receive the spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith,” by which you began to be better toward the knowledge of God? From where, he says, did it come to you to receive the spirit, from the works of the law, or from the hearing of faith? When I preached the gospel to you, you received the spirit from the hearing of faith: so not from the works of the law. Or, if not from the works of the law, why do you now add the Jewish discipline, so as to believe that you receive the spirit from the works of the law, and think rightly of God, and hope in God, when you have already received the spirit from the hearing of faith? that is, that you heard that faith in Christ must be followed? And if from hearing, it is against faith when you believe that you receive the spirit from the works of the law, since by this faith alone in Christ the spirit is given and was given to you.

“Are you so foolish that, having begun in the spirit, you are now being finished in the flesh?” He has expressed what “from the works of the law” is and what “from the hearing of faith” is: for the works of the law do nothing else but satisfy the flesh, suffer affection from the flesh, come to the aid of the flesh. So one is wise according to the flesh who believes he is justified by the works of the law. You, then, he says, are so foolish, so lacking in understanding, while you add works for your justification—which is to be wise according to the flesh—that, having begun in the spirit through the gospel given by me, having received the spirit from the hearing of faith in Christ, you will now finish the end of your conduct and life in the flesh; that is, with works taken up for the flesh and according to the flesh?

“Have you suffered so much without cause?” Such speech easily leads to patience, which rebukes and admonishes, and yet rebukes its own rebuke in turn: for he rebukes what he said, “have you suffered so much without cause,” adding, “if indeed without cause.” He admonishes when he says, “you have suffered so much,” since they had bravely endured much when they received the faith, so as also to live spiritually; for necessarily one who begins to live spiritually, while he casts off worldly things, while with his new man he bears the envy of the Greeks and ignorant Gentiles, must suffer many things, which he says the Galatians surely suffered. But since you have suffered so much, this is all the more to be grieved: that, having suffered without cause, you have not reached the reward from faith, for which you suffered so much. Yet so that he would not seem to despair in saying “without cause,” he corrected his rebuke by saying, “if indeed without cause”: for they can be corrected, so that what they suffered is not without cause, but they have, as cause of persevering in faith, the reward and the confirmation of the promises from faith in Christ.

“He, then, who supplies the spirit to you and works powers in you, does he work by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Since he said above, “you have suffered so much,” and set out what they seemed to have suffered, or such things and of that kind, yet in that they endured they surely had powers for endurance; he therefore joins: “he who supplies the spirit to you works powers in you,” by which powers you suffered and endured so much. From this he surely makes them understand that God worked very many powers in them: and if he worked powers, he supplied them the spirit. So, having confirmed that the spirit was given to them, the question rightly proceeds whether God worked the powers in them by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Surely not by works; for no works came forth from you, but you heard the faith and obeyed the faith; and therefore God worked powers in you: and if he worked them, he supplied you the spirit: and he did work, and supplied the spirit, since you suffered so many and such great things. And this without reason? Without cause? Which, however, he corrected, that it was not without cause: for he hopes they can be corrected. He returns, then, to the confirmation that all these things came to them from the hearing of faith: and he proves this, that nothing marvelous and incredible ever happens unless the faith of the gospel is obeyed. He gives, then, a likeness from the reading which contains marvels of sufferings, which the Galatians suffered and endured through faith, and therefore through the spirit given and the power worked in them by God.

“Just as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” In Genesis (chapter 15:6) this is set down, that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness; so God works powers when faith has arisen in human souls, and faith that they should believe in God. It was reckoned, he says, to Abraham as righteousness, because he believed God. So you too have suffered and endured so much and conquered, and God has worked and works powers in you, because through the hearing of faith you believed God. “Understand, then, that those who are of faith, these are sons of Abraham.” For many things were promised to Abraham’s seed; and he himself was accepted for righteousness from faith. So whoever are of faith, these are sons of Abraham, as we have often reminded. The whole mystery that was done by our Lord Jesus Christ seeks faith alone: for it was done for us, and done for our resurrection and liberation, if we have faith in the mystery of Christ and in Christ. For the divinity prefigured and sent ahead this, that man should be justified by faith. As, then, it was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness because he had faith, so we too, if we have faith in Christ and his mystery, shall be sons of Abraham, that is, our whole life will be reckoned to us as righteousness. Then he adds thus: and the mystery concerning Abraham was done for this reason, that people should be justified by faith, by faith, namely, in Christ.

“But Scripture, foreseeing that God justifies the Gentiles by faith, foretold to Abraham,” that is, to the prophet, so that what was being done concerning one should be proclaimed concerning others for future ages. “Scripture foreseeing,” he says, that is, seeing what is to come; “Scripture,” that is, the prophecy that was written. Foreseeing what? That God was to justify the Gentiles by faith; therefore the same Scripture foretold it to Abraham. And what did it foretell? That the Gentiles are justified by faith. Then he adds the example from Scripture, that they will be blessed; that is, in that in which Abraham was reckoned for righteousness, namely, from faith. This example is from Genesis. So those who are of faith will be blessed, which means it will be reckoned to them as righteousness, and they will be blessed by God; and they will be blessed by God as justified; and to be justified is to be freed from the law of slavery. So those who are of faith will be blessed, because Abraham was blessed from faith. Faith, then, is everything. How is this brought back to the Galatians? Namely, since blessing and justification come only from faith, not from works. They, then, erred who thought that besides the faith they had received in Jesus Christ our Lord, the law and the precepts of the law must also be added, that is, so as to believe in justification from works. Then he adds, so as also to teach the contrary, what comes from works; lest the Galatians think so, and believe they keep faith in Christ and yet that it can profit them more if they do something also from works. But on the contrary the Apostle denies that blessing comes from works; but, what is even graver and contrary to blessing, that those who act from works are under a curse.

“For whoever are of the works of the law are under a curse.” He added forcefully, then, that not only are those who are of works not blessed, but those who are of the works of the law are even under a curse. And as to his saying “of the works of the law,” let us understand that there are also works of Christianity, above all those which the Apostle often commands, as he says it was commanded him, that “we be mindful of the poor,” and the other precepts for living that are kept in this Apostle, and the works which the Apostle commands every Christian to fulfill. Let us understand, then, that the works of the law are other: namely observances, sacrifices of the lamb, when the Passover has already been fulfilled through Christ, and the other works which they also do concerning circumcision and foods, whether to be kept or to be offered. Since, then, we do not know the works of the law, Christ, who is in the heavens and came down even to the flesh, couples and joins both churches. He is, then, the mediator, and by his mystery arranged through angels, as mediator he frees this church, that is, the members of the church, and calls them back to the higher church. So, since Christ is mediator.

“But a mediator is not of one; but God is one.” It is Christ who calls back and joins his members to the church. Does the law, then, do this? Is the law a mediator? If, then, the law is not a mediator—for since it is a law of deeds, it does not join things that are separated; it judges only of deeds—it was therefore interposed, he says, until Christ should come, that is, the seed to whom the inheritance was promised, in whose hand was arranged what was arranged through angels, who is the mediator, and a mediator surely between two. I said two; but God is one: so the mediator cannot be of God alone, because God is one. So in no way does the law justify, in no way does the law of deeds obtain the inheritance: because the heirs are those who draw their origin from there, and receive the spirit from there, whence the inheritance will come; namely with Christ joining what is separated, and freeing the part of the church that is held here by the errors of the world, and calling it back to the heavenly church: for he alone is the mediator. And the mediator, as we have taught, is not of one: for the rest, after God, are not one: God alone is one: so whatever is outside God is many things, which can be joined, because they are from there, or are separated, because so the mystery was, and so it is even now, that they should be joined; because they are far different and divided and hostile and perishing. Since, then, God alone is, besides God there is the mediator, who yet is not the mediator of one. He, the mediator, reconciles and joins by a certain mystery other things which by a certain mystery are separated from each other. And we are those who were separated through our ancestors, and joined again through ancestors indeed, but according to Christ, that is, according to faith: from which it appears that without a mediator we cannot be freed. If this is so, it is a vain hope to believe in justification and salvation from the law of deeds, which, as we said, is not a mediator. For Christ alone is mediator, who joins those between whom he is mediator. So justification and liberation are through Christ, not through the law of deeds. The whole of this letter to the Galatians, as we said, works at this and attacks this: what the Galatians thought they should take on, so as to keep the faith of Christ and guard the gospel together with the Jewish discipline and observance. The Apostle teaches that this is not so, nor did he command it so, and that what is hoped for from the law, justification and salvation, is altogether in vain. For all things come from faith: for the promise of liberation, justification, and inheritance in heaven and above heaven was given to Abraham from faith, and so to his seed. If this is so, he teaches that from the law and from its works fulfilled according to the precepts no justification, no liberation, no inheritance comes; and since for this reason he seems to attack the law, a question is rightly put forward.

“What, then,” he says, “is the law against the promises?” For if the law does nothing by its works, and it is later—for the promises were made earlier to Abraham (since the law given through Moses holds the righteousness of deeds)—the law seems in a way either to have been given in vain or to be contrary to the promise. For if the works from the law accomplish nothing and bestow nothing, the law is against the promises: for since the promises pledge an inheritance and justification, this law, which is from works, while it calls away from faith, while it keeps souls occupied in something else, so that the promises are expected not from faith but from something else, that is, from works, is against the promises. But it is not likely that, when God gave the law, that same law should seem to have been given against the promises: which it surely is, if it occupies us in something else, namely in fulfilling the precepts from the law as works, and not expecting from faith what is promised, that we should obtain the inheritance of the heavens by faith in God. But what he answers to this we shall take thus: for he says first generally, “God forbid”; that is, it is not fitting that God should seem to have done this, and that it should be against the promises that he gave the law, which, when it keeps man occupied in other things, empties the promise and makes it merit, not faith; that is, that we should obtain justification by merit, having done all works, not by faith alone. So “God forbid,” he says; then he supplies the reason: “For if a law had been given that could give life, righteousness would truly be from the law.” We have said that the law given by Moses teaches nothing else than the sins that have been committed, and warns how they are to be avoided, and Scripture concluded nothing else but to place all the precepts under sin and concerning sin. This law, he says, was not given as one that could give life: for if it had been so given, righteousness would truly be from the law; but now it was not so given, that life should be sought from it, but it was given so that, as written, it should both teach all its sins and show that they must be avoided. So righteousness is not from the law, that is, justification and salvation do not come from there, but from faith, as was promised. Then he adds thus: “But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise might be given by the faith of Jesus Christ to those who believe.” This, he says, was done through Moses: that he himself should establish a law about sin, and all Scripture should be shut up about sin and the things under sin; so that what it would promise should come about from faith, and the inheritance should be given by the faith of Jesus Christ to those who believe. So by all these things what does he do or has he done? That faith alone in Jesus Christ suffices for our justification and liberation.

“But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up for the faith that was to be revealed”: lest the law should become empty, or opposed to the promises. How does he call it necessary? Because the expectation was of faith to come, and the promise was through faith. Before, he says, faith came, “we were kept,” that is, in a way, with the law as guide and guard, we cultivated an upright life by sin avoided and recognized; so that when Christ should come, we, as it were shut up for that faith which was to come, might await his coming: believing in faith in him, prepared by the law, since we avoided sins and did the works of the law, we could easily have what was promised from his coming, namely faith in Christ. So we ought not to have faith in the law but in his coming: for we were shut up, he says, through faith; “for that faith,” he says, “which was to come,” that is, Christ’s; so that this same faith might be revealed when he came. “So the law was our pedagogue in Christ.” For as those who teach boys point out the way of living, as far as they can, and show it, yet they themselves are not masters of the full life: so the law too was like a pedagogue, but not … nor a full pedagogue for teaching life: but “in Christ,” he says, that is, until Christ: and so the law kept us by warning about sins, so that we might have all hope of salvation and life in Christ, so that we might be justified by faith. Not from the law, but from faith, he says, so that we may be freed, that is, justified, and take the inheritance and the promise.

“But when faith came,” that is, Christ himself (for then faith arose, that is, the time began for there to be faith and for us to believe in him, in whom is all salvation; and contrary to the Jews, who did not believe), “we are no longer under a pedagogue,” that is, we no longer live under the law, because we kept the precepts of the law that look toward faith itself, we who were being prepared by the pedagogue of the law. Now that Christ himself has come, that is, faith itself, we no longer live under a pedagogue, but live, or shall live, by faith.

“For you are all sons of God, by faith in Christ Jesus.” For this is the inheritance, that we obtain eternal life: for then we are sons of God. But from where does this come? “By faith in Christ Jesus.” We have faith in Jesus Christ when we believe in him, that he is the Son of God, that he himself saves us, that he did that mystery for us, and all the things we spoke of in the gospel. But here this must be noted: that while he was speaking of things, he turned to persons, where he shows a gentleness by which he might persuade more easily. “You are all,” he says, “sons.” Above, “we are under a pedagogue”; now he turns, as it were, in an apostrophe to them: “you are,” he says, “sons of God”; but sons by faith in Jesus Christ.

“For whoever of you have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ”: that is, in Christ you are sons of God. What is that “in Christ”? Since whoever is baptized in Christ is now a son of God: for whoever is baptized is baptized into Christ; and baptized in Christ, he puts on Christ. For whoever is baptized has Christ; and he is now in Christ while he has Christ: while he has Christ, he is a son of God, because Christ is the Son of God.

“For in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He removes, then, the other distinctions of persons among human beings, which can arise either from condition, or from human nature, or from nation. For by these we can be separated among ourselves, so that one is a Jew, another a Greek, one a slave, another free. These by condition or law; but that by nature: “there is neither male,” he says, “nor female.” What, then? All these removed, “you are all one,” he says, “in Christ Jesus”: since you are one, having received the spirit from Christ, you are Christ. So you are sons of God in Christ.

“Then you are the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.” If this is so, what was promised to Abraham’s seed has been fulfilled; hence you too are the seed of Abraham, according to faith; and you are in Christ, and therefore you are the seed of Abraham: you are “heirs according to the promise,” because the inheritance was promised to Abraham’s seed. And you, baptized in Christ Jesus, have received Christ, and are Christ; so you are the seed of Abraham. If the inheritance was promised to the seed, the inheritance will be given to you too, and you are heirs according to the promise.

“But I say: as long as the heir is a little child, he differs nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all.” He continues with an added likeness, to teach what we were before the coming of Christ, under the law, and what after he came. For, solving that question, whether the law was against the promises, he says that the law was given for a time, to keep us in custody, and by handing down precepts to guard us from sins, until the time came for the coming of Christ, so that we could be heirs of the promises. So, he says, when heirs are little children—which is the time under the law before the coming of Christ—when, I say, heirs are little children, they differ nothing from slaves: for although they are to be lords of all, since they are to be heirs, yet while the time has not come at which they may exercise the full name of lord, they are held as it were in a kind of servile duty; but not forever: until they are of their own age and freedom, and can fulfill both the name and the power of an heir. This is what he adds.

“But he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.” Every heir, he says, while he is a little child, is under guardians. That law of Moses kept the future heirs, or those who already were heirs but were not full heirs because of their age, as if under a guardian and steward; since they cannot act by themselves, nor take possession or the full name of heir. Yet at that time they are not slaves in such a way as truly to serve, but they live under custody, so as to be slaves until the time appointed by the father. For so the steward, or guardian, or tutor has force by the father’s arrangement, so that when the heir has come of age he may act by his own right, by free will, and govern the inheritance he has received. This likeness, as I said, refers to those to whom the law was given.

“So we too, when we were little children, were serving under the elements of this world. But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son.” The question was about one thing; and in returning to the likeness, he adds another, that is, something more than what had been set down before. For when the subject was the law, which had been given as if interposed after the promises, and it was being said that the law was inserted before the coming of Christ because we were still little children and placed under the custody of the law—as he himself said, “we were kept under the law,” and the law was our pedagogue; although, he says, the law was a pedagogue, but in Christ (the whole previous discourse had been about the law, until the time should come for us to be heirs according to the promise)—this, as I said, he pursued with a consistent sense while he was speaking of the law and adding a likeness. But now, in the conclusion, he has drawn it back not to the law but to the elements: “and we,” he says, “when we were little children.” What should have followed? “We lived under the law.” But this was not added; rather, “we were serving under the elements of this world.” This is either something other than what precedes, or it depends on what precedes. We must ask how it is not foreign. Without doubt it is what was said above, that “whoever of us were baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” And we who have put on Christ are neither Jews nor Greeks. And if we who have put on Christ are neither Greeks nor Jews, we are no longer of the world: for before the coming of Christ the world had a man either as a Jew or as a Greek. Whether Jew or Greek, while he acted by his own laws, his life was led under the elements of the world. For among the Jews the sacrilegious, the thief, the false witness, and the rest are punished. In the same way among the Greeks too, that is, among the pagans, these things were and are punished by laws. But the elements of the world carry with them both their own motions and, as it were, certain necessities arising from those motions; as in the stars, by whose revolution human life is led into necessity: and so people serve the elements, as the stars have ordered, as the course of the world has commanded. From all these is freed whoever, having faith in Christ, has received from Christ the spirit as lord of his life, so that he flees and avoids every necessity of the world and the force of the elements, and does not serve the world, but, serving the Lord Christ, has freedom in his actions with the spirit ruling. More than was expected, then, has been brought in, so that the Galatians may understand that the Jewish law, with its precepts, observances, and works, must be abandoned in every way, since they see that even the law of the world itself and of the elements has been overturned and has no force under Christ, and that the force of the world’s revolution is utterly overthrown.

“But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman.” As there is fullness in things, so also in times: for each has its own fullness. Christ is the abundant, full, and copious perfection and fullness of things in all things; the fullness of times is the consummation of liberation. And as Christ, so that the fullness may be whole and perfect, gathers the members that are scattered, and fullness comes about; so in the same way the fullness of times was then brought about, when all things were ripe for faith, and with sins rising to the highest point a remedy was necessarily sought against the death of all things: whence Christ came to help, the fullness of times being complete. And it is said that he sent his Christ: his, I say, let us understand, before he sent him, but afterward “born of a woman.” But “he sent his Son,” that is, one who was his Son: but he sent him. How did he send him? “Born of a woman.” For so by his mystery Christ, the Son of God, came to the aid of the world and of us all: for we are the world. Since he himself, putting on flesh, that is, born of a woman, was to fulfill all the things that had to be done in the mystery, that is, to be seen, heard, to suffer, die, and rise again, therefore he sent him born of a woman: him who had been his Son, born of a woman. Some say it thus: “born of a wife” [ex muliere]; and they themselves, because of the word they have put, have a question: since Mary is or was a virgin, why did he say “born of a wife”? In ordinary usage we say “woman” [femina] for what the Greeks call gynē. Then, since she bore Christ, why should he not say “wife”? For every woman who bears anything is called a wife. But the power of the mystery, though it is both hidden and holy, must yet, so that it may be recognized meanwhile in passing, be attended to thus: all things that are perfect are called “man”; all that are imperfect, “woman.” So when all have been perfected, sanctified, and justified, we find that they come together “into a man.” So it may be understood to have been said: since the world, or we placed in the world, not being most perfect, lead our life in the manner of women and wives. So that Christ, bestowing or about to bestow salvation on us, might come to us, he was born of a woman, that is, he took also that part which would render him imperfect and make him equal with us, that is, either the flesh or the world; and having been born in that world or in that flesh, surely of a woman, that is, of the imperfect, when the mystery was completed, sanctified also after the passion and after the resurrection, he became a man, that is, having and receiving the perfect spirit, so that he might give us a likeness, that we too might rise into a man from the woman, that is, from this life, which, since it is corrupt, is rightly called woman or wife. For hence evil comes from woman: for in the first man too there was sin only from the woman. “Made.” Under this word very much error arises, so that people understand from it that the Son was not born but made, because he said, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, made under the law.” But it makes a great difference whether he said that the Son was made, or made under the law. For it is one thing that the Son was sent, who already was the Son, and surely when born the Son; but now, when he was born of a woman, he can be said to have been made in this respect, that he was under the law. And what is it that he said, “made under the law”? That he was not born among the Gentiles, but among the Jews, and in the discipline and law of Moses. For all correction could be there; for in Israel was the people called God’s, for whom Moses received the law from God and gave it to them, who certainly understood the law badly; and therefore he had to come to the aid of one who sinned and take away its sins; if only that same people would recognize the Son of God. For if he had been born elsewhere, that is, among the Gentiles, Israel could for that reason not have recognized him, because he would not have seemed to be born in their own nation. But from this that people committed greater sins: that, though he was born in their own nation, that is, in the law of Moses, among Israel, he was not recognized, although it was said to that very nation, that is, to David too, that the inheritance and eternity would be given to his seed. So since David is father of Israel, he was born there, so that they might recognize him. Hence the greater sin, that they did not recognize him “made under the law.” Many things can be said about why he was made under the law: either because there God was already worshiped as one, or because they had already received oracles and precepts from God, or because Moses was an image and type of Christ; or because he himself, though he was what those under the law are, yet taught in another way and departed from the law for salvation, by not observing the sabbath and the rest; so that from this they might know not to hope for salvation in the works of the law nor from the law. Hence the Galatians too might understand that they had slipped into error, since the Savior himself, in whom they believed, though made under the law, yet did not serve the law. But these and many other reasons why he was made under the law need not be gathered, since he himself added the reason why he was made under the law: “that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” This, he says, is the reason why God sent his Son: and he sent one who was already Son, but now born of a woman; and he sent him made under the law. What is the reason why under the law? “That he might redeem those who were under the law.” So if he was sent in order to redeem, we are bound all the more if we are redeemed from the law. And he himself speaks so in another place too, when he speaks of a woman: that while her husband lives she is bound to her husband; but if he dies, she is freed from her husband. So since the law, by its precepts, held people as it were bound, only for integrity of life, not also for hope of liberation and eternity, God sent his Son, and sent him under the law, that is, into Israel, to redeem those who were there and lived under the law. And this is a great thing: that he did not provide them a way of living, nor rouse them toward eternity by precepts alone, but, he says, “that he might redeem.” For this was done by the mystery, that he might redeem all who believe in him, so that all who believe in him may become sons of adoption. Since, then, so great a benefit, the whole benefit, is from Christ, nothing besides must be added, nor must one serve the law: for we have been redeemed, redeemed from the law, and redeemed from this world, so that we may be sons of God, but sons by adoption. For we are not sons as he himself is Son, but sons through the Son. This, then, is the adoption; to receive which, he says, God sent his Son. “But since you are sons of God, God sent the spirit of his Son into your hearts.” See the whole order of these three powers through one power and one deity. For, he says, he who is Father sent his Son, who is Christ. And again Christ himself, who is the power of God and is himself God—“God sent,” he says; for there is now a Trinity. And Christ, especially after the mystery, being sanctified, sent, he says, “the spirit of his Son,” who is the Holy Spirit, who, descending into our hearts, easily knows the Father. So Jesus Christ, the Son, was sent by God, in whom those who believe believe, and they become sons of God; and the spirit of the Son, that is, the Holy Spirit, is sent into them by God, so that they now hasten, hurry to the Father, cry out in a way by an inner sanctification and an inner voice. What they cry he himself adds: they cry, “Abba, Father.” The spirit has words, and has them the more when they grasp knowledge of the Father. And this knowledge of the Father, that is, when we know the Father, is itself the voice of our spirit to God, the spirit God gave us: knowledge in accord with what it knows is as it were a voice toward what it knows. So since both through God and through Christ we know God, we too become sons of God, and by that knowledge we have a voice toward the Father. For as Christ alone is the one who knows God, and from his knowing has knowledge, so he calls him and names him, because he knows him. Therefore Christ is the Word of God: for I said that every act of knowing, since it makes us understand, designate, grasp, and conceive what we understand, is as it were our naming by knowledge of what it is like; for we receive, toward the one we know, from the one we know, a word, when we name what it is, because we know these things: which is all the knowledge of the thing we know. So Christ, because he knows God, is the Word of God; and the spirit, since Christ is given to us, gives us knowledge of God through himself; hence it comes about that we too are a word, toward both Christ and God; and therefore we cry out as knowers. And since the knower is of the known, it follows that the Father is the known, the Son the knower. If this is so, rightly, when we know the Father through Jesus, from that knowledge we become his word; and therefore, as sons, we cry from there, “Abba, Father.”

“So now you are no longer a slave, but a son.” For whoever says “Abba, Father” surely names God as Father. If he names him Father, he is a son: so no longer a slave. If this is so, in Christ there is neither slave nor free, neither male nor female: for we are all one. But where does all this lead? “And if a son, also an heir through God.” So if he is called son, he will also be heir: but heir not by deeds, not by his own works, but by God’s mercy and God’s grace. This is what he said: “but through God.” As has been proved in many places, “it is not of him who runs, but of him who has mercy”; and all things are through God’s grace.

“But formerly, not knowing God, you served those who are not gods.” I have often said and warned that not to know God is not to know Christ; for he is known through Christ. But now that Christ has appeared, who taught me, and showed God through himself, and himself as God, and the Father through himself, it is not permitted not to know God. But before, when you did not know God, he says, O Galatians, you served those who are not gods. I have often warned that “gods” are spoken of, in the plural, and in the law too: but God is one; the others honored by this name are angels and the other powers, as it is said, “God of gods.” And would that they had served them! But in fact you served those who are not gods, namely all the worldly and other false, imaginary powers, invented and feigned by the devil.

“But now that you have known God, or rather have been known by God, how do you turn again to the weak and needy elements of this world?” He seems to add another charge against the Galatians, that they had also gone over to the Gentile discipline; or he persists in the same accusation as at first, that they were adding to Christianity the Jewish law about circumcision, the sabbath, and food: and from this he accuses them, so as to say: after you knew God through the gospel given by me, how do you turn again to weak things, which they surely are? Understand it either of turning to the Jewish discipline or to the pagans, who are themselves weak too. But when he added “needy elements of this world,” he touches the pagans rather, who even make gods for themselves from the elements of this world, or worship those very elements, so as to worship fire, water, earth, air. For there is no doubt that they call each of these gods—on which the discussion is long—provided it is certain that the pagans call each of the elements gods, or call the discoverers of the elements gods, or make gods for themselves from the elements, so that they make gods of earth, but make gods through fire; then also they call certain demons aerial, others empyrean, others enhydrous, others genii, that is, earthly, watery, airy, fiery. If, then, the pagans do these things, he seems to rebuke this too, that they had also turned to paganism, especially since he said, “before you knew God and when you did not know God, you served those who are not gods.” Which surely is to be understood of the pagans above as well. But since the whole order and this whole treatment was taken up to rebuke those Galatians for having turned to Judaism, and all these things are to be understood of the Jews, we understand: “how do you turn again to weak things?” So when he said “needy elements of this world,” let us understand that they, understanding the law in a fleshly way, seem to have turned to elements that are needy; for the flesh is always in need and desires to be sustained by food and drink and desires, all of which are weak. So when he says, “you turn to weak and needy elements,” that is, those that are always in need—for soul and spirit need nothing and desire nothing but what is their own. And when he said, “you have known God, or rather have been known by God,” he keeps the force of his teaching: that those come to Christ whom God sends and whom God calls, and those know the Lord whom God has known; on which subject we said much above. For those known by God receive the spirit by which they know God. But surely, to be known by God and be known to God, they are already moved by that principal spirit which was given so that the soul might be subject to those divine precepts of its Father; and when the soul rouses itself, God knows it, and so the soul knows God. And as to his saying “needy elements of this world,” not because there are other elements, therefore “needy of this world,” and elements that are needy: although we can speak of elements in the higher realm too; but this is far removed from common usage. “To which you wish to serve again.” Namely, as he said above, before you knew God you served those who are not gods; now, then, you wish to serve them again: “you wish,” he says, so that it is of their will, not of necessity. And so that he may seem to say these things to the Jews and about the Jews, that is, to the Galatians who join to themselves the discipline of the Jews, he adds thus:

“You observe days, and months, and times, and years.” Since “times” is the genus covering all, why are days and months and years put in? As something different, which indeed can be: for it is one thing to observe days, as resting on the sabbath; another to observe months, as observing the new moon, when the moon ends or begins; another to observe years; and another times, such as the fast, the Passover, unleavened bread, and the other things of this kind which are many among the Jews. For years or months or days do not come round [as feasts], but times do.

“I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain”: that is, I greatly fear that all my labor in the gospel by which I instructed you to have faith in Christ—lest this labor, he says, come to nothing. For what I taught you will be in vain when you have begun to keep the discipline and observances of the Jews.

“Be as I am, since I too am as you are.” For as I, he says, passed over from the discipline of the Jews and believed in Christ, and serve him, and do otherwise, and taught you this, and became such as I made you: live, then, as I live; and if you live, I live.

“Brothers, I beseech you; you have done me no wrong: you know that through weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you long ago.” This, which is inserted, belongs to persuasion, so that we may follow Christ in all things. To persuade them more easily, he repeats the beginnings of his gospel. First he commends his labors: that, though he was already weak in the flesh and suffering, he yet laid labor on himself and preached the gospel to the Galatians; he added also “long ago,” that is, formerly; from which your love toward me and your faith toward Christ ought to have been made firm, since it is a long time. I did not spare, he says, my flesh; but through weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you, and preached it long ago: why, then, do you add other things which I did not preach to you? And when he said, “you have done me no wrong,” he added that: I withheld nothing from you, I said nothing less, as one does who has been wronged; and so that they would not think they had been a burden to him when he preached while weak in the flesh, he therefore says, “you have done me no wrong,” and I, though I was weak in the flesh for your sake, preached the gospel to you long ago; and this you surely know.

“And your temptation in my flesh you did not despise nor reject.” What we should take “your temptation” to mean is unclear to me: that you tempted me, or that I tempted you? That you tempted me makes no sense; for they did not tempt him. But again, did Paul himself tempt them, he who spoke the truth and preached Christ? For to preach the gospel is not to tempt. What, then, since there is no third option? Do we understand that, when Paul had come to the Galatians, they wished to test him, that is, to question him and inquire something about Christ, whether he knew: which indeed could seem a temptation, since the Galatians saw Paul a weak man, weak in the flesh: namely, that though he serves God and preaches God, he is weak in the flesh; and the Galatians had this thought: let us question him, let us see what this man who is weak in the flesh answers about Christ. This, he says, you did not despise in my flesh, and you tested me, and did not scorn your temptation in my flesh: they would have scorned it, that is, not questioned him, and thought they could hear something false in what they sought, that is, what they asked, which is what they tested: believing, I say, that a false answer would be given them by one who was weak in the flesh. But you persevered, and did not scorn your testing in my flesh; but you came to me to see whether I was in my faith and persevered in the gospel. So you tested one weak in the flesh, asking whether my resolve in preaching the gospel was persevering, though I was weak in the flesh; that is, you did not reject me as weak in the flesh, less fit to answer, or as one who could change his view, being weak in the flesh: in which he also gave the reason why it could not happen, or did not happen, that his resolve in preaching would be other: for I was weak in the flesh, not in mind, not in spirit: so he said that they too considered that I was weak in the flesh, not also in spirit; and therefore they persevered in testing him, and neither rejected him nor failed to test him: that is, you did not scorn, you did not despise your testing. Then he shows from what follows that they too understood that Paul was weak in the flesh, not in the spirit: “but you received me as an angel, as Christ Jesus.” So far was it from being a hindrance to you that I was weak in the flesh that you received me as an angel of God, that is, a messenger, a preacher sent by God; for this is an angel of God; and you received me as Christ Jesus, whom I was preaching to you: so you truly received Christ Jesus. If you received me as an angel of God, how you received Christ Jesus!

“What, then, was your blessedness?” He now shows them to be wretched, since before they had had blessedness, because they had received Jesus Christ, and Paul as an angel of God. Great, he says, was your blessedness: “was,” he says: now surely it is the opposite, while you add things I did not teach, did not instill, which are outside the gospel, namely those I spoke of above. “I bear you witness that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.” So you received me, and had such a mind toward me, such a will, that, since nothing is dearer to a human being than the eyes, you would have wished to pluck out even your eyes and give them to me. So since you loved me so, and loved me because of the gospel, where does this opinion of yours come from, that you add to the discipline things I did not preach? That is, that besides Christ you do something from the law, and do not, as I handed on simply, having hope, faith, and belief in Christ, hope for everything and believe you can obtain everything: the forgiveness of sins, sanctification, and the glory of God?

“Have I, then, become your enemy by preaching the truth to you?” For if you have begun to do other things, I have become your enemy. But since I foretold and preached to you Christ and the gospel, which is that Christ is truly the one Son of God, that all things are through him, and all things in Christ, and he before all things; since this is true, and is the truth itself, why have I become your enemy? For he ought to be an enemy who, when asked what is true, teaches what is false: but since I have spoken the truth (for he speaks the truth who preaches Christ), it is not fitting that I should have become your enemy.

“They are zealous for you not well; and they wish to shut you out, so that you may be zealous for them: but be zealous for the better gifts.” He warns them, as he often does, to beware of snares, because those who persuade the Galatians to follow the Jewish law too, “are zealous,” he says, “for you”; that is, they envy you; for “to be zealous” signifies two things: one, when someone is zealous for something because it pleases, because it is good; the other, by which people are zealous because they envy. These, he says, “are zealous for you not well,” to show that they are rivals from envy. Then he added, “they wish to shut you out,” that is, from this happiness and blessedness; because by knowing Christ you have the hope of salvation and heavenly glory: but from this they desire to shut you out. And as to his adding “so that you may be zealous for them,” so that you too follow them, he has thus set this double meaning of zeal in different places, since zeal is imitation, especially when it is toward good. This is what he says here, “so that you may be zealous for them,” that is, so that you may follow their supposed good. But as to his saying “they are zealous for you,” to show that the zeal is set toward envy, he adds “not well.” “But be zealous for the better gifts”: not those which the Jews have, which are not good and not better; but be zealous for what is good, and for the better gifts, that is, be zealous for whatever is in faith and love concerning Christ, and follow this. “It is good to be zealous for better things always.” Not that being zealous is good; but to be zealous for better things, and always, is good. “And not only when I am present with you.”

“My children, whom I am again in labor with, until Christ be formed in you.” Not only, he says, in my presence ought you to be zealous, but always. To what he put, “always,” then, he added, “and not only when I am present with you.” And as to his adding “my children”: since people are called children in many ways, now by love, now by nature, now by blood, now also by religion, by which Paul now says “my children”: either because through baptism, when regeneration takes place, he who completes the baptized, or receives him completed, is called father; or because when he renews them into Christ, he makes them his children; therefore he added, “whom I am in labor with,” that is, whom I desire to bring forth into light, whom with great pains of my soul I desire to be born to life and salvation: for this is what he says, “until Christ be formed in you.” For every soul can receive Christ: the soul, I say, of a human being, if it uses reason, if it recognizes the world as not its own, if it discerns all things in the world, if it recognizes its creator, can receive Christ; indeed in that very soul Christ is formed, that is, the spirit; and when it is implanted and grows through belief, the soul is freed, reaches the heavenly kingdoms, and obtains the salvation of eternal light. And there is great force and power in what he says, “until Christ be formed in you.” But this discourse of ours holds a simple exposition of the words; hence we have said above as much as we believe is enough. What Christ is, or what it is for Christ to be formed, and formed in a man, a deeper and truer exposition sets out and explains elsewhere.

“But I would like to be present with you now and to change my voice, since I am confounded in you.” These precepts, as we see, are given through a letter. With great indignation this was taken up, so that he should say: would that I were with you now and could change my voice! not so as to proclaim the gospel otherwise, but to express it in anger. Now he admonishes through the letter he sends; and he added the cause of his just anger, since he said, “I am confounded in you,” that is, I am tormented with shame, because you have quickly turned, you who lose so great a faith, who do not hold fast to the labor and the gospel and the truth instilled in you. For from this great confusion comes to me because of you. Then, angrily indeed, yet with testing, he added:

“Tell me, you who wish to be under the law, have you not read the law?” He desires to persuade them from the law itself, to which they have gone over: if only they read the law itself, he strives, I say, to persuade them from that very law, so that they may understand that it is written so that Christ may be believed, and that belief taken up in Christ is the whole liberation, and the whole salvation, and all blessedness. With what indignation, then, he says, “tell me”! I do not admonish you, but you yourselves answer me: surely you have gone over to the law, and wish to be under the law, and yet you have not read the law, in which it is written thus. And he adds that by which he proves what the law of the Jews and its discipline is, and what hope and what faith it has, and what faith in Christ is, and what hope and blessedness.

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman, one by a free woman.” This example is from Genesis: he wants to prove by it that the law, which is the Jews’, and the whole people are like the son of the slave woman; but the church and the Christians are the son of the free woman. For this is written: that Abraham, who is the father of faith, has one son by a slave woman, that is, by Hagar; and another by the free woman, that is, Isaac by Sarah: surely signifying two peoples, but this one the better, which is of the free woman: for Isaac is a figure of Christ. Then he adds thus:

“But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh; but the one by the free woman, through promise.” For the one born of the slave woman is a fleshly son; but the one of the free woman is spiritual, because he was promised by God. For God promised the believer that, when both he and his wife were nearly a hundred years old, they would have a son. So when they came together, with seed already dead and womb already dead, they begot the son they begot no longer from the flesh but from the spirit; and this was the promise, that they would have him. But we will compare these two sons, and at the same time the mothers, as peoples, with the churches of the Jews and of the Christians. Paul, however, interpreting otherwise, adds thus:

“These things are said by allegory ...” So we have surely interpreted it, as if by allegory. When one thing is said and another signified, this is allegory; yet Paul interprets the allegory himself, as he adds: “For these are the two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing into slavery, which is Hagar; for Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is joined to, and which is now near, Jerusalem.” The people of the Jews, he says, or the old covenant, signifies the son of the slave woman; and the slave woman was the one who was from Mount Sinai. And since the slave woman was in slavery, so this people too is in slavery. And since Mount Sinai was joined to that city which is Jerusalem, he meant the city to be understood from the mountain itself, and through the city the Jews; and through the mountain, she who was from that same Mount Sinai was a slave woman and bore into slavery; therefore Jerusalem too, that is, the people of that city, and the covenant written about that city, is in slavery with her children.

“But the Jerusalem above is free, the mother of us all.” He returns to that people, that is, to the sons of Abraham who are from the free woman, and says that this Jerusalem too, which he calls free, is in the heavens. This is what he says: “but the Jerusalem above,” which is above the heavens, surely because it is not in the world, is not a slave. This Jerusalem, then, with its peoples, is free, and he says she is the mother of us all, that is, of Christians; but the other of the Jews. What is this, that Jerusalem is above the heavens, and that there is also a Jerusalem on earth? From which one may understand that there is land here and land there above the heavens: for Jerusalem, which is a city, is not without land. So what this is, I say—that there is land both here and there, and a city both here and there, but that one free, this one a slave—is another long treatise: for now let us hold that that one is ours, that we must hasten to it. For I advise now, meanwhile, that the higher one is spiritual, and this lower one fleshly.

“For it is written: Rejoice, barren one, who do not bear; break forth and cry, you who do not travail; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband.” This example is from Isaiah, to exclude what they most desired to persuade, namely, that the Galatians should keep the Jewish discipline as well as the discipline they had taken up with the veneration of Christ and faith in Christ. To exclude this, I say, so that they would reject it and hold only the gospel about Christ, he had taken up the earlier example, by which he taught that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman, the other by the free woman. But that free woman, who was truly the wife, was barren, nor would she have given birth if God had not by his promise supplied a son too. From this it is understood that Abraham had a son not from the mingling of bodies with each other, but from God’s promise; since this son of the free woman, who was Isaac, was born of a barren woman, conceived rather by a kind of spirit than by intercourse. This barren woman, then, who produced Isaac, who was born in the image and type of Christ—he it is who freed the people. So when he says, “rejoice, barren one, who do not bear,” because God makes children for you; likewise when he says, “break forth, you who do not travail,” for children are created for you without pain; for to travail is to be in pain, when the birth is poured forth: which surely is not the same with the church, which holds the image, or of which that free wife of Abraham was the image; it is the church, I say, which has many children, whom it has as sons of God and sons of the spirit with joy rather than with pain. These, then, he calls “many children of the desolate.” For that slave woman, even if she had a son, had him from pain, had him from a man. So when he said “many are the children of the desolate,” he referred it to the church, whose image and type he set out above. Then when he said, “many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband,” he showed what he said above: that she had a son without a man, but spiritually. … And certainly, he says, “many are the children of the desolate.” Surely, since Sarah had one son, it is to be referred not to Sarah but to the church, which has many children: so that she who has a husband is the law and the church of the Jews, which, consenting bodily, when it is joined bodily, cannot have a son spiritually.

“But you, brothers, are children of promise according to Isaac.” He separates plainly enough by this comparison, so that the Jews seem to be sons of the slave woman, but Christians sons of the free woman. For as the son promised to Sarah is spiritual, so you too, who are sons of faith, are sons of the free woman according to Isaac: that is, he had Isaac as a son according to faith. So every son is made who is according to faith: for according to faith one receives a son spiritually, and Isaac was a spiritual son.

“But as then, the one born according to the flesh persecuted him who was according to the spirit, so also now.” He shows by a full exposition that he who was born according to the flesh, that is, of the slave woman, persecuted him, namely Isaac, who was according to the spirit, as is read in Genesis: and now those who have a fleshly understanding persecute those who live according to the spirit, that is, Christians. Then, to show the force of the whole argument he has conceived, he adds this.

“But what does Scripture say? Cast out the slave woman and her son; for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” He declares plainly enough from this example, which is in Genesis, that whoever thinks so, and takes the law of the Jews so as to take it in a fleshly way, is a son according to the flesh, of whom the law too pronounced and gave sentence, “let the slave woman and her son be cast out,” because the son of the slave woman cannot be heir with the son who is of the free woman, who is Isaac. So you too, since you have added the observance of the law according to the flesh, so that you may more easily be heirs, be sons of the free woman, that is, take up Christianity alone, the law of Christ and the gospel in Christ, and have nothing as if from the son of the slave woman, that is, do not follow the Jewish discipline.

“Brothers, let us not be sons of the slave woman, but of the free.” He himself declares this more fittingly by adding that you who have now received Christ and my faith are not sons of the slave woman, that is, you do not think in a fleshly way, since the son of the slave woman is fleshly; but you are sons of the free woman, that is, sons of faith. For this is what Isaac was according to faith and promise, a spiritual son. “With which freedom Christ has freed us”: namely with that freedom by which our mother is free, she who is free, namely by faith: for this is true freedom, to keep faith in God, and to believe God and all God’s promises. So Christ has brought us back to freedom according to faith, and freed us with the freedom of faith.

“Stand, then, and do not again be held by the yoke of slavery.” The exhortation had to be added, that they should persevere in what they had received from him through the gospel, and not return again to the slavery of the law. “Stand,” he says; which is not allowed to one who is under a yoke; for he lowers his neck in submission: so he does not stand. You, then, he says, stand; which is to hold the body upright with free limbs. “Do not,” he says, “again be held by the yoke of slavery,” because before you served either the law or paganism. Therefore he says “again,” so that we may not return to the same.

“Behold, I Paul say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.” He shows plainly that Christ does not profit if anyone places his hope in circumcision, and in fleshly circumcision. So when you join the custom, precepts, and discipline of the Jews, if you place salvation and liberation in them, I say, he says, to you, and I, Paul, say it, namely he who promised you before when he called you into the gospel of God; I, Paul, he says, deny that Christ profits you or brings any help at all, if you are circumcised, if you place all hope in circumcision. Although the Galatians seem both to have received Christ and to join the Jewish discipline, yet he affirmed it and as it were pledged his own person to what he says, saying: Christ will profit you nothing if you are circumcised. Something hidden, then, may seem to be here: since the Galatians follow Christ, and following Christ place the hope of salvation in him, how did Paul confirm that Christ will profit nothing if the Galatians are circumcised? Keeping their mind and faith regarding Christ, they do something more; yet they do not abandon Christ, nor fail to place faith in Christ. But let us return to their mind, purpose, and will. When they had received Christ from Paul, and taken up faith in Christ, and this is the true gospel, surely they thought they would receive too little from Christ—which already belongs to blasphemy and to those who have no faith—from the fact that after receiving Christ they wished to be circumcised and to serve the law and its works. If this is so, there is no faith in Christ: from the fact that something else that might profit is added, rightly Christ will profit you nothing.

“And I testify to every man who circumcises himself that he is a debtor to do the whole law.” So that the Galatians would not think that only certain things were to be taken up from the law of the Jews, such as circumcision, while they despised the rest—whether in foods, or in the observance of days, or in marriage unions, of what kind and in what matters is contained in the law, among all of which some things are superfluous, some as it were unspeakable, and so are left behind by the true and most chaste Christian. I will mention just one: when, for the sake of raising up seed, a brother’s wife is joined to the brother; and the rest of this kind are either done or read as having been done; likewise the other things I spoke of, about foods, then about observances, and many other matters: these too, he says, must be taken up also by one who circumcises himself. If you do not do the other things, you have applied circumcision in vain. For I testify that for every man who circumcises himself there arises a necessity, that he is a debtor to do all the things that belong to the law. So he makes them sinners also in that law which they took up, because they do not do everything, and choose what to do; and again, with regard to the law which is Christ’s and with regard to the gospel, they stray altogether, and will stray more if they do everything that belongs to the law. Then he adds, from this side—in which they do certain things the Jews do—from this side, I say, that they seem to be strangers to Christ.

“You have been emptied from Christ, you who are justified in the law; you have fallen from grace.” For the whole power of one who believes in Christ lies in the grace of God. And grace is not from merits, but from God’s goodness: so you have now fallen from grace if you place your justification in the law; so that because you serve works, because you observe the sabbath, because you are circumcised, you have fallen from grace, and have been emptied from Christ. For you no longer have hope from Christ, nor do you hope that grace comes to you according to his passion and resurrection, if you believe that justification comes from the law.

“For we in the spirit and by faith await the hope of righteousness.” We Christians, he says, who follow Christ, both in the spirit and in faith have hope, and in God’s justification, not from works. For the whole power of the mystery has worked this: that through grace and the goodness of God forgiveness of sins should come to us and eternal life be bestowed, as we have often taught, from God’s grace, not from works or merits. And this comes about through the spirit. But when justification is hoped for from works, the hope is not from the spirit. This we await, and this is to follow the gospel of Christ.

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which works through love.” Everywhere he sets down, concerning faith in the gospel of Christ, that neither circumcision avails, nor deeds concerning the body, or done from the body, or for the body’s sake, such as circumcision, such as works, such as the rest of this kind: none of these, he says, avails in Christ; circumcision is in vain. Nor do we avail anything in Christ because we are uncircumcised; but because we have taken up faith in him, and because we believe his promises, and because from his resurrection we too rise again, and have suffered all things with him, and with him—yet through him—rise to life; sure is our faith, through which faith the working toward salvation comes about, and we ought to receive through love, which we have toward Christ and toward God, and from there toward every human being. For these two above all correct the whole of life and fulfill the whole force of the law, and contain all those things that are commanded in the Decalogue. If one keeps faith, it follows that he keeps love; and these two fulfill all that the law of Christ commanded. On these matters I have treated very often: that faith frees, and love builds up.

“You were running well; who hindered you?” That is, you had good faith regarding the gospel; why have you changed? Why have you been called back from a sound course, as if by some bewitchment? For what I taught you through the gospel was sound and true; this is both false and contrary, and will profit nothing. This is what he adds: “Not to obey the truth.” Who, he says, hindered you, so that you do not obey the truth? For the truth is in us: this you ought to have obeyed, so as to observe nothing else. So first he as it were wonders when he said, “who hindered you.” Afterward he now admonishes what is to be done: agree with no one. In every way he fights so that they will not change their mind and add anything beyond what was commanded them through the gospel by Paul. Do not, he says, lend agreement to others.

“Your persuasion is from God, who called us.” That is, what was either persuaded to you by me, or what you yourselves already hold as persuaded, is from God, who called you, as was said above: “those whom he called and predestined”; and the rest were said in order.

“Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump?” All leaven is a corruption of bread, and corrupted bread is flour, and a lump of flour, when left, turns sour, and from this leaven is made. And a little leaven, when it is put into a lump, the lump is corrupted. You ought, he says, to be unleavened. So what you think is a little thing you have added, that is, to observe circumcision, this little thing, which is corrupt, corrupts the lump of our gospel, so that you do not have full hope in Christ, nor does Christ look upon you as his own and as those who have hope from him: for faith frees; and, as we said, one does not have faith who hopes for help in any way besides Christ, even together with Christ.

“I am confident of you in the Lord that you will think nothing else.” I am now confident, he says, about the future, that you will have nothing else in your heart and wisdom but to have faith only in Christ according to my gospel. “But he who troubles you will bear judgment, whoever he may be.” He has frightened both those who led astray and these by threats of the judgment to come: he who troubles you, he says, will bear judgment. It is enough to have named judgment, in which it ought surely not to be said that they will suffer punishment, but only judgment. Then he set down first that the judgment to come is from him. But he expressed the fear of punishment by saying “will bear.”

“But I, brothers, if I preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution?” He proves in every way that he is a stranger to the precept which they thought should be added. He suffers persecution from the Jews. For what cause? Only because I do not preach circumcision. So I did not preach circumcision to you in the gospel: as is clear from the fact that the Jews persecute me. He adds another argument as well, to show that he does not preach circumcision: “Then the scandal of the cross has been made void?” It is in vain, then, that those who raised Christ onto the cross deserve punishment, and what was wickedly done has been made void. For this is the scandal of the cross, by which the Jews too were troubled. He has now referred this not only to his own preaching but to the force of the matter itself. For this is why I do not preach it: because the scandal of the cross remains and has not been made void. They therefore owe punishment. And if the Jews, who brought about the scandal of the cross, owe it, it remains that I do not preach circumcision and that you ought not to follow it.

“Would that those who trouble you were cut off!” He has pursued with a curse those who throw new persuasions at them and trouble them. Let them be cut off from the truth of the gospel, he says, or be separated from themselves, or be torn by punishments. And with great confidence he heaped a curse on them, to show that he does not fear those from whom, as he said above, he suffers persecution. So I do not fear persecution, because I preach the truth and do not preach circumcision, nor do I fear to suffer persecution. “Would that those who trouble you were cut off!” Not only circumcised around, but cut off as well: so that this word too is set so as to pertain to circumcision, so that there is also a cutting off.

“For you have been called into freedom, brothers: only do not abuse freedom as an occasion for the flesh.” For the law of Christ, which is spiritual, gives freedom, by which we may go out from the world and return to the Father and to our origin. But since we are still in the world, that is, in the flesh, we ought not to exercise this freedom which we have received so as to walk according to the flesh; and as if it were an occasion for us to act also in the flesh, since he confirms that we are free by faith concerning Christ. “Through the love of the spirit serve one another.” We have received the freedom given, yet we ought to serve one another through love, and the love of the spirit, not of the flesh.

“For the whole law is fulfilled in you in one word.” He has often set down this thought, and we have treated it: that the whole law, and every working of the law, is fulfilled in this word, that is, of love: for whoever loves another neither commits adultery nor steals: and this is also to love Christ; and the things the Decalogue shows are in a way fulfilled in this one precept, as we said above. And he himself adds an example from Exodus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We ought to take every human being as neighbor; and then we shall also have Christ as neighbor. So you too, love one another, but in the spirit. From here he now seems, as though the earlier question and treatment were set aside, to give a precept by way of exhortation, that they should not love discord but love one another. And this can come about if you love one another, and love in the spirit, not in the flesh, nor in the works of the flesh, nor in the observance of the flesh. For one who loves another cheats in nothing, snatches nothing from another, neither harms, nor despises, nor rebukes.

“But if you bite and accuse one another, see that you are not consumed by one another.” The exhortation to concord comes from this, while it is taught what evil discord does: for if you accuse and bite one another, that is, wish to harm or do harm, you will consume one another. So love yourselves and love one another, and you will fulfill the law by love alone: not, as you think, by circumcision or works and the other things that pertain to it. So this about love has been placed beside the earlier treatment, by which he taught them, apart from the gospel which had been proclaimed to them by Paul himself, that they thought they were keeping the law in circumcision and works; whereas the law is full by this alone, if they love one another.

“But I say to you, walk in the spirit, and you will not fulfill the desire of the flesh.” The whole power of the gospel is this: to live according to the spirit, to believe according to the spirit, to have nothing of the flesh in mind, act, or life; that is, not even to take up hope from the flesh. Walk, then, he says, in the spirit, that is, lead your life so: if you do this, you will not fulfill the desire of the flesh; that is, you will commit no sin that is born from the flesh: for there is no other desire except from the flesh. Therefore he adds:

“For the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” So that they may understand altogether that they ought to think nothing of the flesh, which is in circumcision and the other observances of the Jewish discipline, since he teaches that these are opposed to each other: not only does the flesh desire, but it desires against the spirit. For the flesh has its own motions and has senses, and they are not only stirred up by the soul: which may be understood also in things that have no soul; as in water, which has its own impulses and powers, whether in taste, or in motion, or in quality or quantity; likewise fire, and likewise earth and the other elements, from which there is as it were a kind of mixture, and flesh has been made from moist things ...

“You who are spiritual.” As if to one of those who are spiritual, he set this forth so that each of them may consider, lest he too be tempted; and therefore he ought to help and instruct such a man; and, the spirit being given, to call him back by discussion to modesty and equality.

“Bear one another’s burdens.” He has returned to the plural, so that every man bears the ills of others; and what another suffers, he bears, sustains, and corrects, as far as he can: for this is to bear burdens, to bear patiently another’s fault and correct it. “And so you will fulfill the law of Christ.” For so he himself patiently bore our ills and endured for our ills. You will fulfill, he says, the law of Christ, not simply the law.

“For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” He now proves by reason that one who boasts out of desire for glory must be corrected and instructed in the spirit, since he is wretched who leads himself astray, deceives, and beguiles himself, thinking he is something when he is nothing. For if this is the sum of the law, that one be humble, cast down, lowest—for so God chooses from the lowest those whom he lifts up and makes high—every man who claims something for himself and thinks he is something is without doubt nothing. For what is something in the world, when there is nothing in the world? And to act as though one were nothing in the world, this is to be something before God. But if anyone thinks he is something in the world, whether wise or intelligent, or a lord, or a king, or rich, or any of these, whether in riches, or in mind, or in art, or in virtue, he, since the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, he, I say, is nothing; and since he is nothing, he deceives and beguiles himself.

“But let each one test his own work, and then he will have glory in himself alone, and not in another.” Great exhortations, great discipline too! Let no one, he says, claim anything for himself, nor hold the opinion that he is something: let him only test his own work; but let each one test his own work by his own judgment, lest, using a bad judge, he approve himself as having done well when perhaps he has not done well. So let him test, and make his work approved: and when his work has been approved, then he will have glory in himself alone, not in another. For one who thinks he is something boasts and seeks glory from another; but one who either himself approves his work or proves it to others has glory from himself, and with himself, and does not expect it from another. For I do not, he says, wish to be praised by man, nor approved by men, but by God.

“For each one will bear his own burden.” A burden is set in the middle, whether good or bad. So all, he says, will bear their own burden, each one his own.

“Let him who is catechized in the word share with him who catechizes in all good things.” The sense is this: katēchein is to sound around or to sound beside, which happens when someone at the beginning starts to be a Christian, and God and Christ are sounded to him, and it is spoken into his ears and sent into his mind: this is “who is catechized in the word”: that is, if anyone is catechized through the word, so that he is also sounded upon through invocation. He, then, who is catechized in the word, let him share in all good things with him who catechizes; that is, let him not be without sharing in anything; yet let him be in common in all things with him who catechizes in the word, so that he has all things in communion with him, but all things that are good. For since it was said above, “Instruct such a man in the spirit of gentleness,” surely what he catechizes is good; and he who catechizes in this word, so good, catechizes in good things. So let him who is catechized in the word share with him who catechizes.

“Do not be deceived; God is not mocked.” He adds another precept, which is general for all things, yet pertains to what was dealt with above, that they should not follow anything besides the gospel; that is, that they should not add the discipline and works of the Jews too. “Do not,” he says, “be deceived”; for all these things taken up outside the gospel are errors. And he added the force of necessity to the precept: “God,” he says, “is not mocked.” He did not say, “for God knows all things,” lest they hope for pardon for their error or that it could be hidden: “he is not mocked,” he says. And he adds what will happen to those who keep their life on earth.

“For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” That is, whoever sows wheat will have a harvest of wheat; but if he sows tares, that too he will reap: whoever is a reaper of evil sows evil. Does he sow good? He will receive fruit from good: so the harvest is as the seed. “For he who sows in his flesh will from the flesh also reap corruption; but he who sows in the spirit will from the spirit also reap eternal life.” The Galatians, who thought they should take up the discipline of the Jews, so as to observe sabbaths and take up circumcision, and knowingly to do other such things in a fleshly way, had hope in the flesh and from the flesh. Whoever, then, has hope in the flesh and sows his hope regarding the flesh will have a harvest from the flesh; and that fruit, he says, is corruption. For the flesh is corrupted, and this is its end, to be corrupted, to rot, to perish, to die. All things, then, that are from the flesh rot and have corruption: no one ought to hope from the flesh, nor to sow in the flesh, that is, to place hope in the flesh. For if he places his hope there, he will have fruit from the flesh. What fruit? Death, corruption. For this is the fruit of the flesh. So it is better to place hope in the spirit, so that we may have hope from the spirit: which hope is from the spirit, and which fruit is from the spirit; this is to sow in the spirit, that is, eternal life. For this life is not eternal life. But whoever lives here in the spirit and acts according to the spirit, and does nothing in a fleshly way, sows eternal life for himself, and this will be his harvest: that, departing hence, he receives eternal life.

“But in doing good let us not grow weary.” It is too little that we do good, for our merit is not straightway acceptable to God if we do good, but if, doing it, we do not grow weary. For many begin, many as it were persevere, yet afterward stop, either wearied or led astray: rightly he warned that we should not grow weary in any way, lest by growing weary we abandon what we began, when we have begun to do good. “For in due time we shall reap, if we do not grow weary.” Beautifully added. For many in this kind of life which is called good, if they suffer something bad, think they act without cause when they do good, and, wearied, stop doing good. What, then, did he add? Let us not grow weary, because although today we do not obtain the fruit of doing well, afterward, he says, we shall reap; that is, we shall have the harvest of our good deeds, if we do not grow weary in doing well.

“So while we have time, let us work.” He has given the greatest necessity for doing good: time is pressing, life is quickly finished, the end of the world is now at hand. While, he says, we have time, either of our life or of this life in the world, let us work good, and work it toward all, so that there is no exception of persons, no other action; but let us work good, and work good toward all. For if love builds up, and we ought to hold every man dear, all the good we work, we work toward all. “But especially toward those of the household of faith.” He said, “let us work good toward all”; yet he makes a gradation, so that of the good we work toward all, we work good especially toward those who are of the household of faith, that is, who have taken up faith in Christ and in God. With a great conclusion he set in his exhortation what pertained above all to the Galatians: for they, adding certain things from Judaism, did not act from faith, but believed that from works and from fleshly observance they would have fruit; therefore he added, “let us work good especially toward those of the household of faith,” who have taken up faith alone in the gospel, that is, in Christ and God.

“See with what large letters I have written to you with my own hand!” To show familiarity, and so that it might not shame them that others know they either sin or are being corrected, “with my own hand,” he says, “I have written to you,” and he gave a sign of love. And for you the change of life is easy when it is corrected by me, since you owe your conscience to me alone.

“Whoever wish to make a good showing in the flesh, these compel you to be circumcised.” He openly sets out in its particular form the very thing he was charging against the Galatians, that they transgressed the command of the gospel: that they wished to circumcise themselves. All, he says, who wish to please in the flesh persuade you to be circumcised, which lies only in the work itself of being circumcised, not in any help toward salvation. “Only so that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.” Thinking, he says, that they will not pay the penalty for having raised Christ onto the cross and persecuted him, if to the gospel, that is, to the confession of Christ, you add, or they themselves add, circumcision too. But they sin in this too, that, though all hope is from Christ and rather from his cross, we should think it also from circumcision, or they think it; and therefore they persuade, as though they would not have to suffer the persecution of the cross of Christ, that is, for having raised Christ onto the cross.

“For not even those who are circumcised keep the law.” For in Christ neither uncircumcision nor circumcision avails. What law, then, did he mean? Either that which is to be understood spiritually, or that which Christ gave, which without doubt is both spiritual and teaches spiritual things and is to be carried out spiritually. “But they want you to be circumcised, so that they may glory in your flesh.” He shows the cunning of those who persuade, so that they may seem to have persuaded you, so that they may glory in your flesh, though circumcision profits nothing; but they seek only glory for themselves, so that they think they obtain, by what is done in your flesh, that without it there is no hope; so that they may now seem to have won, that hope is not from Christ alone unless the discipline of the Jewish law in circumcision is added too.

“But far be it from me to glory in anything.” Earlier he rebuked their glorying: for their glory is to glory in the flesh: but I, he says, glory in nothing, neither in the flesh, nor in man, nor in any of these, nor in myself. And it has already been said and often advised that everyone who glories should glory in God, on which we treated above. “Except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is, so that all hope may be placed there, and from there come glory and joy: because there, in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, our salvation and eternity have been won. “Through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” This is the glory, namely the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, because by that mystery, when he hung the flesh on the cross and on it triumphed over the power of this world, the whole world was crucified through him. But since he had a catholic body for every man, he made all that he suffered catholic; that is, so that all flesh was crucified in him. So I too have been crucified, and fixed to the world. I, he says, that fleshly man, who thought from the flesh, have been fixed to the world, that is, subjected to punishment with the world.

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision is anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” What we touched on above: although this thought is everywhere, he reminds us what the mystery has done: that in Christ Jesus there is no person, no distinction; all who follow Christ equally merit eternal life: for it is not because there is circumcision that one is something in Christ, nor because there is uncircumcision that one is something in Christ; but in whichever of these, whoever he may be, if only he is reborn and becomes a new man by the mystery, all will avail in Christ.

“And whoever follow this rule, peace be upon them, and upon the Israel of the Lord.” He has concluded that this alone is the rule: to hope in Christ, and not to distinguish the power of Christ by uncircumcision from circumcision, but a new creation, whoever it may be; through Christ and in Christ is full hope of salvation, eternity, and glory. This rule, he says (not as you, Galatians, wished to hold), this glory—peace be upon those who follow it. And he added, “upon the Israel of the Lord”: not upon every Israel, any Jew, but the Israel of the Lord. For Israel is truly the Lord’s if it follows the Lord, so as not to hope for its salvation from elsewhere. “From now on let no one cause me trouble.” That is, let no one any longer make me anxious, sad, and burdened with troubles by their sins. For so we said at the beginning that he took it hard and grieved that they had sinned. So at the end of the letter he warns that they should not turn to any sins, lest they cause him trouble. “For I bear the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ in my body.” That is, all the suffering, and what he endured on the cross, with the nails piercing, the body, or the wound of the spear through the side, and the rest: the marks, he says, of Jesus Christ our Lord I bear in my body; that is, I too have suffered, and in the mystery I serve together with Christ, I suffer the mystery of Christ; hence you too ought to endure many, indeed all, adversities: since he will be with Christ who suffers with Christ, both what Christ suffered, and when by his own action he has begun to suffer at the hands of hostile adversaries; from which he shows both what he himself suffers, how much he merits from Christ, and what we too ought to suffer, if we wish to be with Christ. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers.” The conclusion of the letter is made: it is a prayer and blessing that there be grace; but “with your spirit,” he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; so that, since you live in Christ, the grace of Christ may be with your spirit.