Fragments on the Letter to the Galatians

Name: Fragments on the Letter to the Galatians
Author: Gennadius of Constantinople

Fragmenta in epistulam ad Galatas

Gennadius of Constantinople (d. 471 AD) · written c. 458–471 AD · PG 85/160

Gennadius of Constantinople (d. 471) was patriarch from 458. This file holds his fragments on the Letter to the Galatians, not a full commentary.

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Contents4 passages

1Christ alone mediates for all nations
2The law as a protective wall until justification by faith
3The elemental principles as guardians, not sun and moon
4The elemental principles as observances of days, water, and fire

Author

Gennadius of Constantinople (d. 471 AD) — Patriarch of Constantinople from 458 to 471. Earlier he had written against Cyril of Alexandria's Twelve Chapters; as patriarch he worked to raise the standard of the clergy. His notes on Paul's letters survive in Bible commentary chains.

All works by Gennadius of Constantinople

About this text

A few notes on Galatians: Christ as the one mediator for all nations, the Law as a wall until faith came, and what the "elemental principles" are.

Moses mediated the law for one nation. The mediator for every nation is Christ, truly God and truly human, who makes the two one. The law was not given to cancel the promise. It walled people in until justification by faith.

Paul's elemental principles are not the sun and the moon. They are the first lessons of the law, or the observances of days, water, and fire. Gennadius notes a strange remark of Eusebius in the fourth book of the Proof of the Gospel, then Paul's warning that some welcome the Galatians only to shut them out.

Printed text used

Translated from PG 85 (Greek)

This work has passed this project's source check. This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.

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Christ alone mediates for all nations§1

Gennadius opens his remarks on Galatians 3 by explaining why Moses could not be the mediator for all peoples, since he mediated the law to only one nation.

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1So Paul says that Moses mediated the giving of the law, but he mediated for only one nation. Yet the one who was truly going to mediate before the one God of all nations had to carry out his mediation not for one nation but for all in common, since there is also one God of all nations. And this one would not be a mere human being like Moses, but Christ the Son of God, who is at once truly God and truly human, and by his kinship toward each side he gathers the things of each side together into one in himself. For he himself is our peace, the one who made both things one (Galatians 3).

Greek · §1

The Greek is on each section page: §1

The law as a protective wall until justification by faith§2

Gennadius is explaining why the law was given, arguing that it was not meant to nullify the blessings but to restrain sin until the justification by faith was revealed.

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2It is not possible, then, nor even reasonable, to say that the law was given to nullify the blessings (Galatians 3:21). Since it was not from the beginning but later that God saw fit for us to enjoy justification by grace, Paul says, our nature was for a time being walled around by laws, hindered and held back from every activity of sin, so that, fit and ready, we might be released from the fortress of the law for the justification being opened up through faith (Galatians 3:23).

Greek · §2

The Greek is on each section page: §2

The elemental principles as guardians, not sun and moon§3

Gennadius is explaining Galatians 4:3, arguing that Paul's 'elemental principles of the world' are not the heavenly bodies but the introductory law given to the Jews.

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3Paul took the elemental principles of the world in the rank of guardians and stewards who tutor the immature in age toward what is beneficial—principles to which we were, because of our immature knowledge, beneficially enslaved (Galatians 4:3). He would not, I think, have taken sun and moon into the rank of guardians, because subjection to them would be unprofitable. Rather, by the elemental principles of the world he means either the elementary introductory law—for he was writing to believers from among the Jews, and both what he said a little earlier and the statement “if you are circumcised, Christ will benefit you nothing” (Galatians 5:2) make this clear.

Greek · §3

The Greek is on each section page: §3

The elemental principles as observances of days, water, and fire§4

Gennadius is explaining what Paul meant by the elemental principles of the world, offering an alternative interpretation to the introductory law.

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4Or he calls the elemental principles days, water, and fire. The observances of these came from the law that led into slavery: days in sabbaths, new moons, and circumcisions; water in bodily purifications and baptisms; fire in not kindling fire on the sabbaths but eating stale food. But see what a strange thing Eusebius said about this in the fourth book of his Proof of the Gospel. "It is not for your good," Paul says, "that they welcome your same faith in Christ, but so that, having shut you out of it, they may persuade you to follow themselves. This has been contrived by them for your deception."

Greek · §4

The Greek is on each section page: §4

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