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GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
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but the Galatian churches owed their origin to a mission of Paul undertaken some time before he crossed from Asia to Europe. When he composed this letter, he had visited the churches twice. On the former of these visits (iv. 13 τὸ πρότερον), though broken down by illness (2 Cor. xii. 7-9?) he had been enthusiastically welcomed, and the immediate result of his mission was an outburst of religious fervour (iii. 1-5, iv. 14 f.). The local Christians made a most promising start (v. 7). But they failed to maintain their ardour. On his second visit (iv. 13, i. 7, v. 21) the apostle found in many of them a disheartening slackness, due to discord and incipient legalism. His plain-speaking gave offence in some quarters (iv. 16), though it was not wholly ineffective. Otherwise, this second visit is left in the shadow.[1] So far as it was accompanied by warnings, these were evidently general rather than elicited by any definite and imminent peril to the churches. Not long afterwards, however, some judaizing opponents of the apostle (note the contemptuous anonymity of the τινες in i. 7, as in Col. ii. 4 f.), headed by one prominent and influential individual (v. 10), made their appearance among the Galatians, promulgating a “gospel” which meant fidelity to, not freedom from, the Law (i. 6–10). Arguing from the Old Testament, they represented Paul’s gospel as an imperfect creed which required to be supplemented by legal exactitude,[2] including ritual observance (iv. 10) and even circumcision,[3] while at the same time they sought to undermine his authority[4] by pointing out that it was derived from the apostles at Jerusalem and therefore that his teaching must be open to the checks and tests of that orthodox primitive standard which they themselves claimed to embody. The sole valid charter to Messianic privileges was observance of the Mosaic law, which remained obligatory upon pagan converts (iii. 6-9, 16).

When the news of this relapse reached Paul, matters had evidently not yet gone too far. Only a few had been circumcised. It was not too late to arrest the Galatians on their downward plane, and the apostle, unable or unwilling to re-visit them, despatched this epistle. How or when the information came to him, we do not know. But the gravity of the situation renders it unlikely that he would delay for any length of time in writing to counteract the intrigues of his opponents; to judge from allusions like those in i. 6 (ταχέως and μετατίθεσθε—the lapse still in progress), we may conclude that the interval between the reception of the news and the composition of the letter must have been comparatively brief.

After a short introduction[5] (i. 1-5), instead of giving his usual word of commendation, he plunges into a personal and historical vindication[6] of his apostolic independence, which, developed negatively and positively, forms the first of the three main sections in the epistle (i. 6–ii. 21). In the closing passage he drifts over from an account of this interview with Peter into a sort of monologue upon the incompatibility of the Mosaic law with the Christian gospel (ii. 15-21),[7] and this starts him afresh upon a trenchant expostulation and appeal (iii. 1–v. 12) regarding the alternatives of law and spirit. Faith dominates this section; faith in its historical career and as the vantage-ground of Christianity. The much-vaunted law is shown to be merely a provisional episode[8] culminating in the gospel (iii. 7-28) as a message of filial confidence and freedom (iii. 29–iv. 11). The genuine “sons of Abraham” are not legalistic Jewish Christians but those who simply possess faith in Jesus Christ. A passionate outburst then follows (iv. 12 f.), and, harping still on Abraham, the apostle essays, with fresh rabbinic dialectic, to establish Christianity over legalism as the free and final religion for men, applying this to the moral situation of the Galatians themselves (v. 1-12). This conception of freedom then leads him to define the moral responsibilities of the faith (v. 13–vi. 10), in order to prevent misconception and to enforce the claims of the gospel upon the individual and social life of the Galatians. The epilogue (vi. 11-21) reiterates, in a handful of abrupt, emphatic sentences, the main points of the epistle.

The allusion in vi. 11 (ἴδετε πηλίκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί) is to the large bold size[9] of the letters in Paul’s handwriting, but the object and scope of the reference are matters of dispute. It is “a sensational heading” (Findlay), but it may either refer[10] to the whole epistle (so Augustine, Chrysostom, &c., followed by Zahn) or, as most hold (with Jerome) to the postscript (vi. 11-18). Paul commonly dictated his letters. His use of the autograph here may have been to prevent any suspicion of a forgery or to mark the personal emphasis of his message. In any case it is assumed that the Galatians knew his handwriting. It is unlikely that he inserted this postscript from a feeling of ironical playfulness, to make the Galatians realize that, after the sternness of the early chapters, he was now treating them like children, “playfully hinting that surely the large letters will touch their hearts” (so Deissmann, Bible-Studies (1901), 346 f.).

The earliest allusion to the epistle[11] is the notice of its inclusion in Marcion’s canon, but almost verbal echoes of iii. 10–13 are to be heard in Justin Martyr’s Dial. xciv.-xcv.; it was certainly known to Polycarp, and as the 2nd century advances the evidence of its popularity multiplies on all sides, from Ptolemaeus and the Ophites to Irenaeus and the Muratorian canon (cf. Gregory’s Canon and Text of N.T., 1907, pp. 201-203). It is no longer necessary for serious criticism to refute the objections to its authenticity raised during the 19th century in certain quarters;[12] as Macaulay said of the authenticity of Caesar’s commentaries, “to doubt on that subject is the mere rage of scepticism.”

  1. It is not quite clear whether traces of the Judaistic agitation were already found by Paul on this visit (so especially Holsten, Lipsius, Sieffert, Pfleiderer, Weiss and Weizsäcker) or whether they are to be dated subsequent to his departure (so Philippi, Renan and Hofmann, among others). The tone of surprise which marks the opening of the epistle tells in favour of the latter theory. Paul seems to have been taken aback by the news of the Galatians’ defection.
  2. Apparently they were clever enough to keep the Galatians in ignorance that the entire law would require to be obeyed (v. 3).
  3. The critical dubiety about οὐδέ in ii. 5 (cf. Zahn’s excursus and Prof. Lake in Expositor, March 1906, p. 236 f.) throws a slight doubt on the interpretation of ii. 3, but it is clear that the agitators had quoted Paul’s practice as an authoritative sanction of the rite.
  4. This depreciation is voiced in their catch-word οἱ δοκοῦντες (“those of repute,” ii. 6), while other echoes of their talk can be overheard in such phrases as “we are Abraham’s seed” (iii. 16), “sinners of Gentiles” (ii. 15) and “Jerusalem which is our mother” (iv. 26), as well as in their charges against Paul of “seeking to please men” (i. 10) and “preaching circumcision” (v. 11).
  5. Not only is the address “to the churches of Galatia” unusually bare, but Paul associates no one with himself, either because he was on a journey or because, as the attacked party, he desired to concentrate attention upon his personal commission. Yet the ἡμεῖς of i. 8 indicates colleagues like Silas and Timothy.
  6. Cf. Hausrath’s History of the N.T. Times (iii. pp. 181-199), with the fine remarks, on vi. 17, that “Paul stands before us like an ancient general who bares his breast before his mutinous legions, and shows them the scars of the wounds that proclaim him not unworthy to be called Imperator.”
  7. Cf. T. H. Green’s Works, iii. 186 f. Verses 15-17 are the indirect abstract of the speech’s argument, but in verses 18-21 the apostle, carried away by the thought and barrier of the moment as he dictates to his amanuensis, forgets the original situation.
  8. Thus Paul reverses the ordinary rabbinic doctrine which taught (cf. Kiddushim, 30, b) that the law was given as the divine remedy for the evil yezer of man. So far from being a remedy, he argues, it is an aggravation.
  9. According to Plutarch, Cato the elder wrote histories for the use of his son, ἰδίᾳ χειρὶ καὶ μεγάλοις γράμμασιν (cf. Field’s Notes on Translation of the New Testament, p. 191). If the point of Gal. vi. 11 lies in the size of the letters, Paul cannot have contemplated copies of the epistle being made. He must have assumed that the autograph would reach all the local churches (cf. 2 Thess. iii. 17, with E. A. Abbott, Johannine Grammar, pp. 530-532).
  10. For ἔγραψα, the epistolary aorist, at the close of a letter, cf. Xen. Anab. i. 9. 25, Thuc. i. 129. 3, Ezra iv. 14 (LXX) and Lucian, Dial. Meretr. x.
  11. Hermann Schulze’s attempt to bring out the filiation of the later N.T. literature to Galatians (Die Ursprünglichkeit des Galaterbriefes, Leipzig, 1903) involves repeated exaggerations of the literary evidence.
  12. Cf. especially J. Gloe’s Die jüngste Kritik des Galaterbriefes (Leipzig, 1890) and Baljon’s reply to Steck and Loman (Exeg.-kritische verhandeling over den Brief van P. aan de Gal., 1889). The English reader may consult Schmiedel’s article (already referred to) and Dr R. J. Knowling’s The Testimony of St Paul to Christ (1905), 28 f.