Fragments on Galatians

The Proclamation to the Gentiles§1

1Regarding the proclamation to the nations, some departing from circumcision were persuading the nations to Judaize, and first a search regarding this seems to have occurred in Antioch, that the apostles wrote not to be under the law, but to abstain from idol-sacrifices, and from blood, and from strangled things, and from sexual immorality; for so it seemed to the Holy Spirit. This sickness took hold of the Galatians, in agreement with those desiring to Judaize. They were persuaded by those perverting the truth, saying that the rest of the apostles do not forbid those wishing to keep the law. Galatians 1:4 shows that neither Moses died for the world, nor any other of the prophets. Therefore, one ought not to be defeated by the one who did not save, but by the one who died for us.

Galatians 1:6–7: He says, 'Into a different gospel, which is not another'; for your gospel and that of the apostles is intended to be outside of you by means of the law. Galatians 1:8–10: 'Let him be an anathema, why then is it with us?; when we were preaching, by the power of the Holy Spirit we preached; and the Holy Spirit does not repent. If therefore we say other things, we have abandoned the things of the Spirit. Let him be an anathema, then, even the preacher, in rejecting the preaching. According to what you received. I did not preach, he says, but you did not receive; but I also preached, and you received. Nor do I repent having preached, and you have observed what you received. For am I now persuading men or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a slave of Christ.'

In intending to remind them of his own gospel, he beforehand secures himself so that they might not think that he heals by submitting; for he rebukes. Having said 'if still', he showed that he once pleased men. But what did he please? Those from whom the faithful ones to Damascus received letters to afflict. If therefore, he says, he still pleased the Jews, he would not have believed in Christ. Galatians 1:13: What is the need of a turning in Judaism, but that he might show that he does not serve by presumption but in truth; for not having hated the law did he run to grace—for he was persecuting it—but having found the perfection, he departed from the law. Now he shows that he has something more than that concerning Peter; for those did not zeal for Judaism while disobeying Christianity as I do. Do not therefore think that having hated the law I came to grace—for they were persecuting the law—but I found the perfection, and I will not abolish the law by perfect grace.

Galatians 1:16: And he says he is not slandering the apostles, but that he did not run in step with fleshly flesh. Galatians 2:16: For if no one is justified from works, bearing the toil, but from faith where the greatness of ease and of righteousness is, how does he say it is not necessary for the law to suffice for grace? He says not to be justified from works of law, but not from commandments; for the commandment justifies when heard, but the work was the difficult thing. Galatians 2:18: The word toward Peter: 'You destroyed those things by a doctrine which was sent from you to the...'

Commentary on Galatians§2

2To Antioch and to the whole inhabited world. Therefore, it is improper to teach these things to others, from whose care you have turned away and to which you have devoted yourself with your own dogma. Regarding Galatians 2:19– The law of bodily things possesses the work and the enjoyment: this eat and that do not eat, keep the Sabbath, circumcision. Grace does not wish to be pleased in you through these things. It was crucified, he says, by these. What need have I of law? I live no longer, but Christ lives in me. What I was living to myself, I was under law. But since Christ lives in me—he who is no longer under law but is in the heavens at the right hands of the Father—I do not nullify the one living in me. But what I now live in the flesh, in faith I live. For I believe into the Son of God. And if the Son of God whom I believe is at the right hand of the Father, in the heavens I live as a citizen; but the law in those on earth had the observances. Therefore I am not subject to law. Regarding Galatians 3:19–22 The law was more burdensome, and a ministry of death because of this it is named. How then, for the sake of the transgressions, was it added, he says? In a short word it is such: before the law, the mind of men with the flesh labored toward sin and cherished the evil; once the law was given, the mind was disciplined, but the flesh was still held captive. Since, therefore, the one not knowing the sin, treating impiety as piety and more eagerly attending to it, but the one having known that it is evil, this indeed gains the conscience that it transgresses and desires to obey God. Because of this the law was given, the one capable of giving life, rather than 'if a law was given, it was not given,' he says, according to the promises of God, but it was not even able to hold on to all. Regarding Galatians 3:23 Even if the law restrained nothing else, it provided the knowing of God. And that knowing of God it made ready for the reception of grace. Regarding Galatians 3:27–28 Not the keeping of the law, he says, makes the believers better, the ones from the Gentiles than the Jews, but the power of baptism, providing to clothe oneself with Christ, makes the grace common to all together: barbarians, Greeks, Jews, female, male. And not simply did the female and the male mix—insofar as one sought by the word toward what was set before him—but if the male and the female, differing, the baptism brings together into one grace, how much more the Greek and the Jew. Regarding Galatians 4:8–10 Now it wishes to show that after the grace has come, even if someone seems to keep the Sabbath and new moons and feasts according to law, just as if an idolater worships the elements while being a Gentile, he is serving otherwise. And not...

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Allegory and Prophecy§3

3He keeps the law; for it has ceased. Regarding the weak elements, having said this, he did not accuse them as evil, but as those unable to grow rich and sufficient for piety.

In Galatians 4:12, he says, 'Do not think that I have a different kind of grief toward you and because of this I rebuke you'; for the passion of pain constantly forces the form of the word to change, now to rebuke and now to exhort, and sometimes to accuse and sometimes to lament. Thus, he teaches there what he writes: that he writes through fatherly affection—for he says, 'I have not been wronged by you'—but also for healing, because I was most worthy.

In Galatians 4:15–18: What then is the blessedness? Instead of 'no one.' Or thus: to keep the law or to live by faith? And since he said that those others desire you not out of zeal, so that they might have perfection for themselves by not keeping the law, but they zeal for you, he brought forward that I say these things not out of envy toward them; for it would have been better if they also had been perfected by using faith, and it would have been permitted for them to zeal for and imitate us. And you therefore do such things which make you zealots, so that all may imitate you, and not when I come you become ashamed of such people, but even in my absence you correct yourselves.

In Galatians 4:23–24, he used the name now, not the power of allegory. For allegory does not consist in spoken words, but introduces certain other things appearing from the sequence of meanings according to the substance, such as 'love me from the mouth of loves' in the Song of Songs; for there is neither love nor hair nor belly nor testicles nor anything else, but others are introduced through others, and this is the principal kind of allegory. There also the history is confessed, and it has been demonstrated that it is a type of what is to come. Thus, prophecy through works is now called allegory. For of the prophecies, some are through words only, such as 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb,' some are through works only, such as 'Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,' and some are through both works and words, such as that which was said toward Jeremiah: 'Take a new girdle and put it on; then bury it by the Euphrates, and when it has leaked through time and become worn out, take it from there.' For until this point, the prophecy is through works, but from then on through words; for in this way I also girded the sons of Israel, and in this way I helped them, and in this way I lead them away to Babylon as captives, and from there I bring back and restore them, having been made mad and destroyed. Now then, the prophecy through...

Allegory and the Law§4

4He named the works an allegory of prophecy. Regarding Galatians 4:25, he did not mention Mount Sinai simply, but because the Hagarenes, who have the desert extending to Mount Sinai, are from Ishmael. And at Sinai the law was given for the slavery of offspring, and the tablets given from Mount Sinai were brought among Israel, and often having been carried from place to place, they were finally established in Jerusalem. For this reason he drew the comparison; it corresponds to the present Jerusalem, and it enslaves its children along with itself. Where there is the promise of land, and possession, and marriage, and human things, slavery follows; but where there is deliverance from earthly cares and from bonds, and in the heavens is the citizenship, from that citizenship comes freedom.

Regarding Galatians 5:17, why is it sought that he who pulls away through the law remembers sin? Because the law commanded luxury, and because of this desire is divided and, being uncontainable toward sin, it leads on. For this reason, when there was a memory of the law, he remembers also sin. For indeed, in the one addressing the Romans, he brought up both the law and the correction through the Lord, for those living according to the flesh cannot please God. And why was luxury and eating permitted? Because the abstention from the acknowledged evils would not have progressed, unless eating and drinking were given to them. For the lawgiver knew that it is impossible to restrain those enjoying luxury from pleasures. Finally, he wished to discipline the mind, so that one might know what is good and what is bad and what is pious; for he foresaw that he who adds to what is lacking in the law—I mean to say, not walking according to the flesh, as Paul says—was to come.

Regarding Galatians 6:7–8, he showed from this that many were consuming unseasonably, providing for those who keep the law and who are exhorting, but providing nothing for those who preach the teaching of Paul. Therefore he says: he who sows into his flesh; for he who is subject to the law lives in fleshly things. He who therefore provides for the flesh while teaching these things sows only into the flesh.

Regarding Galatians 6:14–15, so that it might not be thought that he is making a substitute for circumcision, and that he gives a pretext of not circumcision but of reproach to the opponents, he most beautifully drew the conclusion: that neither circumcision avails nor uncircumcision, but he spoke of a new creation. Concerning which he says elsewhere: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. If it is new, he says, a creation, let him not become under the law; for he who lives according to the law lives in the world, but he who lives in Christ lives as a citizen in the heavens. Therefore the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.