CHAPTER V.

VERSE I.

"With freedom did Christ set us free; stand fast there- what we can ourselves as to how Christ shall fore.1"

profit nothing them who are circumcised.

HAVE ye wrought your own deliverance, that He that is circumcised is circumcised for fear ye run back again to the dominion ye were under of the Law, and he who fears the Law, distrusts before? It is Another who hath redeemed you, the power of grace, and he who distrusts can it is Another who hath paid the ransom for you. receive no benefit from that which is distrusted. Observe in how many ways he leads them Or again thus, he that is circumcised makes the away from the error of Judaism; by showing, Law of force; but thus considering it to be of first, that it was the extreme of folly for those, force and yet transgressing it in the greater part who had become free instead of slaves, to desire while keeping it in the lesser, he puts himself to become slaves instead of free; secondly, that again under the curse. But how can he be they would be convicted of neglect and ingratitude saved who submits himself to the curse, and to their Benefactor, in despising Him who had repels the liberty which is of Faith? If one may delivered, and loving him who had enslaved say what seems a paradox, such an one believes them; thirdly, that it was impossible. For neither Christ nor the Law, but stands between Another having once for all redeemed all of us them, desiring to benefit both by one and the from it, the Law ceases to have any sway. By other, whereas he will reap fruit from neither. the word, "stand fast," he indicates their Having said that Christ shall profit them nothing, vacillation. he lays down the proof of it shortly and sententiously, thus:

Ver. 1. "And be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.'

By the word "yoke" he signifies to them the burdensomeness of such a course, and by the word " again " he points out their utter senselessness. Had ye never experienced this burden, ye would not have deserved so severe a censure, but for you who by trial have learnt how irksome this yoke is, again to subject yourself to it, is justly unpardonable.

Ver. 2. "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing."

Lo, what a threat! reasonably then did he anathematize even angels. How then shall Christ profit them nothing? for he has not supported this by argument, but only declared it, the credence due to his authority, compensating, as it were, for all subsequent proof. Wherefore he sets out by saying, "Behold, I Paul say unto you, "which is the expression of one who has confidence in what he asserts. We will subjoin

[The text of this verse is not settled. The textus receptus has τῇ ἐλευθερία οὖν ᾗ χριστὸς ἡμᾶς ἠλευθέρωσε στήκετε, etc. Chry sostom has τῇ γὰρ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἡ χριστὸς ὑμᾶς ἐξηγόρασε, στήκετε, etc. w. & H. have τῇ ἐλευθερία ἡμᾶς χριστὸς ἠλευθέρωσεν OTÝKеTE OVν Kai, etc., with Aleph, A. B. C. Rev. Ver.

But W. & H. suspect there is some primitive error. Lightfoot joins Teλev@epia with Ts éλev@épas of the preceding verse and retains the relative, making it read; We are sons of the free woman with the freedom wherewith Christ freed us. Com, in loc. and Excursus p. 371.

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Ver. 3. Yea, I testify again3 to every man that receiveth circumcision that he is a debtor to do the whole Law."

That you may not suppose that this is spoken from ill-will, I say not to you alone, he says, but to every one who receiveth circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole Law. The parts of the Law are linked one to the other. As he who from being free has enrolled himself as a slave, no longer does what he pleases, but is bound by all the laws of slavery, so in the case of the Law, if you take upon you a small portion of it, and submit to the yoke, you draw down upon yourself its whole domination. And so it is in a worldly inheritance: he who touches no part of it, is free from all matters which are consequent on the heirship to the deceased, but if he takes a small portion, though not the whole, yet by that part he has rendered himself liable for every thing. And this occurs in the Law,

[The following verse does not introduce proof that Christ shall profit them nothing, but leads on to more detailed information and so is introduced by δέ, autem, So Meyer; though Lightfoot makes δέ adversative to the idea of ὠφελήσει, and so Ellicott. Rev. Ver. agrees with Meyer's view.-G. A.]

["Again refers to 'I say' in preceding sentences." Schaff, Lightfoot, Ellicott. Meyer says, "It calls to the remembrance of his readers his last presence,' (second visit.)-G. A.]

["To every man' stands in a climactic relation to foregoing viv remorselessly embracing all that no one may think himself excluded. Hence Chrysostom's view is wrong."-Meyer.-G. A.]

not only in the way I have mentioned, but in had it previously to the Faith, but not as to another also, for Legal observances are linked those who are circumcised after the Faith was together. For example; Circumcision has given. Observe too the view in which he sacrifice connected with it, and the observance places it, by setting it by the side of Uncircumof days; sacrifice again has the observance cision; it is Faith that makes the difference. both of day and of place; place has the details As in the selection of wrestlers, whether they be of endless purifications; purifications involve a hook-nosed or flat-nosed, black or white, is of perfect swarm of manifold observances. For it no importance in their trial, it is only necessary is unlawful for the unclean to sacrifice, to enter to seek that they be strong and skilful; so all the holy shrines, to do any other such act. these bodily accidents do not injure one who is Thus the Law introduces many things even by to be enrolled under the New Covenant, nor the one commandment. If then thou art cir- does their presence assist him. cumcised, but not on the eighth day, or on the eighth day, but no sacrifice is offered, or a sacrifice is offered, but not in the prescribed place, or in the prescribed place, but not the accustomed objects, or if the accustomed objects, but thou be unclean, or if clean yet not purified by proper rules, every thing is frustrated. Wherefore he says, "that he is a debtor to the the whole Law." Fulfil not a part, but the whole, if the Law is of force; but if it be not of force, not even a part.

Ver. 4. "Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the Law; ye are fallen away from grace."

What is the meaning of "working through love?" Here he gives them a hard blow, by showing that this error had crept in because the love of Christ had not been rooted within them. For to believe is not all that is required, but also to abide in love. It is as if he had said, Had ye loved Christ as ye ought, ye would not have deserted to bondage, nor abandoned Him who redeemed you, nor treated with contumely Him who gave you freedom. Here he also hints at those who have plotted against them, implying that they would not have dared to do so, had they felt affection towards them. He wishes too by these words to correct their course of life. Ver. 7. "Ye were running well; who did

Having established his point, he at length. declares their danger of the severest punish-hinder you ?5 ment. When a man recurs to the Law, which cannot save him, and falls from grace, what remains but an inexorable retribution, the Law being powerless, and grace rejecting him?

This is not an interrogation, but an expression of doubt and soroow. How hath such a course been cut short? who hath been able to do this? ye who were superior to all and in the Thus having aggravated their alarm, and dis- rank of teachers, have not even continued in the quieted their mind, and shown them all the position of disciples. What has happened? shipwreck they were about to suffer, he opens to who could do this? these are rather the words them the haven of grace which was near at of one who is exclaiming and lamenting, as he hand. This is ever his wont, and he shows that | said before, "Who did bewitch you?" (Gal. in this quarter salvation is easy and secure, sub-iii: 1.) joining the words,

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Ver. 5. For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness."2

We need none of those legal observances, he says; faith suffices to obtain for us the Spirit, and by Him righteousness, and many and great benefits.

[Perhaps Paul's reason for his statement that every one who suffers himself to be circumcised is a debtor to keep the whole Law is this Scripture which he quotes in iii: 10: Cursed is he that continueth not in all the things that are written etc.-G. A.j

["The Holy Spirit is the divine' agent and faith is the subjective source of our expectation."-Meyer.-G. A.] ["Circumcision and uncircumsion are circumstances of no effect or avail in Christianity; and yet they were in Galatia the points on which the disturbance turned,"-Meyer,-G. A.]

Ver. 8. "This persuasion came not of him that calleth you."

He who called you, called you not to such fluctuations, he did not lay down a Law, that you should judaize. Then, that no one might object, "Why do you thus magnify and aggravate the matter by your words; one commandment only of the Law have we kept, and yet you make this great outcry?" hear how he terrifies them, not by things present but future in these words:

Ver. 7. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole

lump.

And thus this slight error, he says, if not cor

eous.

["How necessary it was for the Galatians that prominence should be given to the activity of faith in love' may be seen from verses 15, 20, 26. The passive view of eveрyovμern (wrought through love) as held by some Fathers and by Catholics is erronIn New Test, évepyeioba is always middle :' faith' which is operative through love."--Meyer.-G. A.] Lightfoot says: "The words &i àɣánns eveрyovμévn bridge over the gulf which seems to separate the language of St. Paul and St. James. Both assert a principle of practical energy as opposed to a barren theory."-G. A]

[The words ἀληθεία μὴ πείθεσθαι are wanting in Chysostom's text.-G. A.]

rected, will have power (as the leaven has with the lump) to lead you into complete Judaism.

Ver. 1o. "I have confidence to you-ward in the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded."

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were disturbed. What then! did he not preach
circumcision? did he not circumcise Timothy?
Truly he did. How then can he say, “I preach
it not?" Here observe his accuracy; he says
not, "I do not perform circumcision," but, "I
preach it not," that is, I do not bid men so to
believe. Do not therefore consider it any con-
firmation of your doctrine, for though I circum-
dised, I did not preach circumcision.
Ver. II "Then hath the stumbling block
of the cross been done away.”

He does not say, "ye are not minded," but, "ye will not be minded;" that is, you will be set right. And how does he know this? he says not "I know," but "I trust in God, and invoking His aid in order to your correction, I am in hopes; " and he says, not merely, "I have confidence in the Lord," but, "I have con- That is, if this which ye assert be true, the fidence towards you in the Lord." Every where obstacle, the hindrance, is removed; for not he connects complaint with his praises; here it even the Cross was so great an offence to the is as if he had said, I know my disciples, I Jews, as the doctrine that their father's customs know your readiness to be set right. I have ought not to be obeyed. When they brought good hopes, partly because of the Lord who Stephen before the council, they said not that suffers nothing, however trival, to perish, partly this man adores the Crucified, but that he speaks because of you who are quickly to recover your-"against this holy place and the Law." (Acts selves. At the same time he exhorts them to vi: 13.) And it was of this they accused Jesus, use diligence on their own parts, it not being that He broke the Law. Wherefore Paul says, possible to obtain aid from God, if our own ef- If Circumcision be conceded, the strife you are forts are not contributed. involved in is appeased; hereafter no enmity to the Cross and our preaching remains. But why do they bring this charge against us, while waiting day after day to murder us? it is because I brought an uncircumcised man into the Temple (Acts xxi: 29.) that they fell upon me. Am I then, he says, so senseless, after giving up the point of Circumcision, vainly and idly to expose myself to such injuries, and to place such a stumbling-block before the Cross? For ye observe, that they attack us for nothing with such vehemence as about Circumcision. Am I then so senseless as to suffer affliction for nothing at all, and to give offence to others? He calls it the offence of the Cross, because it was enjoined by the doctrine of the Cross; and it was this which principally offended the Jews, and hindered their reception of the Cross, namely, the command to abandon the usages of their fathers.

Ver. 10. "But he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.' Not only by words of encouragement, but by uttering a curse or a prophecy against their teachers, he applies to them an incentive. And observe that he never mentions the name of these plotters, that they might not become more shameless. His meaning is as follows. Not because "ye will be none otherwise minded," are the authors of your seduction relieved from punishment. They shall be punished; for it is not proper that the good conduct of the one should become an encouragement to the evil disposition of the other. This is said that they might not make a second attempt upon others. And he says not merely, "he that troubleth," but, "whosoever he be," in the way of aggravation. Ver. 11.

Ver. 12. "I would that they which unsettle you, would even cut themselves off."

"But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?" Observe how clearly he exonerates himself from the charge,1 that in every place he judaized and played the hypocrite in his preaching. Of Observe how bitterly he speaks here against this he calls them as witnesses; for ye know, he their deceivers.2 At the outset he directed his says, that my command to abandon the Law | charge against those who were deceived, and was made the pretext for persecuting me. "If called them foolish, once and again. Now, havI still preach circumcision, why am I still per- ing sufficiently corrected and instructed them, secuted? for this is the only charge which they he turns to their deceivers. And you should of the Jewish descent have to bring against me. remark his wisdom in the manner in which he Had I permitted them to receive the Faith, still retaining the customs of their fathers, neither believers nor unbelievers would have laid snares-Meyer. for me, seeing that none of their own usages cision but go beyond it to mutilation (make themselves eunuchs)

["The false teachers had spread the malicious report that Paul himself preached circumcision because he practiced it in the case of Timothy. But this was a measure of expediency and charity and not a surrender of principle."-Schaff.

This calumny was sufficiently absurd to admit of his dismissing it, as he does here, with all brevity and with what a striking experimental proof!"-Meyer.-G. A.]

["The vivid realization of the doings of his opponents, who were not ashamed to resort even to such falsehood, now wrings from his soul a strong and bitterly sarcastic wish of holy indignation." Paul wishes that the circumcisers would not stop with circumlike the priests of Cybele. A severe irony and similar to the one in Phil. iii: 2, 3, where Paul calls the boasters of circumcision "the Concision." Self mutilation was a recognized form of heathen worship especially in Pessinus in Galatia and therefore quite familiar to the readers. Thus by their glorying in the flesh the Galatians relapsed into their former heathenism,-Schaff and Lightfoot, The Revised Version here has, "would even cut themselves off," the American Committee has, "would go beyond circumcision -G. A.]

kindled it; for it was given for the purpose of dressing food, affording light, and other like ministries, not for burning houses. In like manner desire is implanted for the rearing of families and the ensuring of life, not for adultery, or fornication, or lasciviousness; that a man may become a father, not an adulterer; a lawful husband, not a seducer; leaving heirs after him, not doing damage to another man's. For adultery arises not from nature, but from wantonness against nature, which prescribes the use not the misuse. These remarks I have not made at random, but as a prelude to a dispute, as skirmishing against those who assert that the workmanship of God is evil, and who neglecting the sloth of the soul, madly inveigh against the body, and traduce our flesh, whereof Paul afterwards discourses, accusing not the flesh, but dev

Ver. 13. "For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh."

admonishes and chastens the former as his own would attach not to the fire but to the one who children, and as capable of receiving correction, but their deceivers he cuts off, as aliens and incurably depraved. And this he does, partly, when he says, "he shall bear his judgment whosoever he be;" partly when he utters the imprecation against them, "I would that they which unsettle you would even cut themselves off." And he says well "that unsettle you." For they had compelled them to abandon their own fatherland, their liberty, and their heavenly kindred, and to seek an alien and foreign one; they had cast them out of Jerusalem which is above and free, and compelled them to wander forth as captives and emigrants. On this account he curses them; and his meaning is as follows, For them I have no concern, "A man that is heretical after the first and second admonition refuse." (Tit. iii: 10) If they will, let them not only be circumcised, but muti-ilish thoughts. lated. Where then are those who dare to mutilate themselves; seeing that they draw down the Apostolic curse, and accuse the workmanship of God, and take part with the Manichees? For the latter call the body a treacherous thing, and from the evil principle; and the former by their acts give countenance to these wretched doctrines, cutting off the member as being hostile and treacherous. Ought they not much rather to put out the eyes, for it is through the eyes that desire enters the soul? But in truth neither the eye nor any other part of us is to blame, but the depraved will only. But if you will not allow this, why do you not mutilate the tongue for blasphemy, the hands for rapine, the feet for their evil courses, in short, the whole body? For the ear enchanted by the sound of a flute hath often enervated the soul; and the perception of a sweet perfume by the nostrils hath bewitched the mind, and made it frantic for pleasure. Yet this would be extreme wickedness and satanic madness. The evil spirit, ever delighting in slaughter, hath seduced them to crush the instrument, as if its Maker had erred, whereas it was only necessary to correct the unruly passion of the soul. How then does it happen, one may say, that when the body is pampered, lust is inflamed? Observe here too that it is the sin of the soul, for to pamper the flesh is not an act of the flesh but of the soul, for if the soul choose to mortify it, it would possess absolute power over it. But what you do is just the same as if one seeing a man lighting a fire, and the other is elevated to the better; the one heaping on fuel, and setting fire to a house, were to blame the fire, instead of him who kindled it, because it had caught this heap of fuel, and risen to a great height. Yet the blame

['ATOKOTTELY davrovs. Chrysostom here, as often, "goes off at a word" into a digression on a subject which is only remotely suggested by the passage in hand.-G. A.]

Henceforward he appears to digress2 into a moral discourse, but in a new manner, which does not occur in any other of his Epistles. For all of them are divided into two parts, and in the first he discusses doctrine, in the last the rule of life, but here, after having entered upon the moral discourse, he again unites with it the doctrinal part. For this passage has reference to doctrine in the controversy with the Manichees.3 What is the meaning of, "Use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh?" Christ hath delivered us, he says, from the yoke of bondage, He hath left us free to act as we will, not that we may use our liberty for evil, but that we may have ground for receiving a higher reward, advancing to a higher philosophy. Lest any one should suspect, from his calling the Law over and over again a yoke of bondage, and a bringing on of the curse, that his object in enjoining an abandonment of the Law, was that one might live lawlessly, he corrects this notion, and states his object to be, not that our course of life might be lawless, but that our philosophy might surpass the Law. For the bonds of the Law are broken, and I say this not that our standard may be lowered, but that it may be exalted. For both he who commits fornication, and he who leads a virgin life, pass the bounds of the Law, but not in the same direction; the one is led away to the worse,

transgresses the Law, the other transcends it.

[This is not a digression. It is in strict continuity with the of the foregoing sentence.

preceeding context and gives a reason for the indignant expression

3

"They are defeating the very purpose of your calling: ye were called for liberty and not for bondage."-Lightfoot.-G. A.] [On the doctrine of the Manichees see Schaff Church History vol. ii. p. 498-508, where a full account of the literature is given also.-G. A.]

heed that ye be not consumed one of another," and this is the language of apprehension and warning, not of condemnation. And the words which he uses are expressly significant; he says not merely, "ye bite," which one might do in a passion, but also "ye devour," which implies Ver. 13. "But through love be servants one a bearing of malice. To bite is to satisfy the feelto another." 1