Fragments on the Letter to the Galatians · §1 · Gennadius of Constantinople

Christ alone mediates for all nations

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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.

So 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

Gal 3, Λέγει τοίνυν ὅτι Μωϋσῆς μὲν ἐμεσίτευσε πρὸς τὴν δόσιν τοῦ νόμου,

ἀλλ' ἑνὶ μόνον ἐμεσίτευσεν ἔθνει· δεῖ δὲ τὸν ὡς ἀληθῶς μέλλοντα μεσιτεύειν πρὸς

τὸν τῶν ἁπάντων ἐθνῶν ἕνα θεόν, οὐχ ὑπὲρ ἑνὸς ἔθνους ἀλλ' ὑπὲρ πάντων κοινῇ

τὴν μεσιτείαν ποιήσασθαι, ἐπειδὴ καὶ πάντων ἐθνῶν εἷς ἐστι θεός. εἴη δ' ἂν οὗτος οὐ

ψιλὸς ἄνθρωπος οἷος ὁ Μωϋσῆς, ἀλλὰ Χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, θεός τε ὢν ἀληθῶς ὁ

αὐτὸς ἅμα καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἀληθῶς, καὶ τῇ συγγενείᾳ τῇ πρὸς ἑκάτερον εἰς ἓν συνάγων

ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὰ ἑκάτερα· αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστιν ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν, ὁ ποιήσας τὰ ἀμφότερα ἕν.

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.

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

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)

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