Paul's greeting to the Galatians 1 Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, 2 And all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia. 3 Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present wicked age, according to the will of God and our Father: 5 To whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen.
He rebukes them for unfaithfulness 6 I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. 7 Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. 9 As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
The things he teaches comes from God 11 For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion: how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it. 14 And I made progress in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when it pleased him, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, 16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately I condescended not to flesh and blood. 17 Neither did I go to Jerusalem, to the apostles who were before me: but I went into Arabia, and again I returned to Damascus.
He visits several Apostles in his travels 18 Then, after three years, I went to Jerusalem, to see Peter, and I tarried with him fifteen days. 19 But other of the apostles I saw none, except for James the brother of the Lord. 20 Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I lie not. 21 Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ: 23 But they had heard only: He, who persecuted us in times past, does now preach the faith which once he impugned: 24 And they glorified God in me.
Commentary on Galatians 1
1:1 From the outset Paul refutes the slander leveled, claiming he was to be considered worthy of the apostolic grace, human beings not having given him this gift: none of the apostles took him captive- instead, the Lord himself called him from heaven, employing no human being go-between. (Theodoret of Cyrus) In this "self-apology" he definitely stresses that he is a true witness of the Risen One, that he has received his own mission directly from the Risen One. (Pope Benedict XVI St. Paul 3)
1:2 all the brethren: Why did he not mention people specifically but speaks of groups generally? Perhaps he did it so that this epistle would be of greater authority. (Haimo of Auxerre) churches of Galatia: He writes, not to a single city but to a whole people. (Theodoret of Cyrus)
1:4 present wicked age: An age cannot really be evil or bad since it always preserves its order and course in keeping with God’s due arrangement with alternating days and nights. Yet just as a home is called evil, not because it is evil in and of itself but rather because it has wicked inhabitants, so an age or time is called evil, not because it is evil in and of itself but because it contains the lowest and most wicked people in it. (Haimo of Auxerre)
1:6-7 unto another gospel: from Christianity to Judaism, from the liberty of the Gospel to the slavery of legal ceremonies, from the Church to the synagogue. (Cornelius a Lapide) there are some that trouble you: These were the same people who questioned Paul and Barnabas about this matter in Acts 15:1-29. They taught that Gentile believers could not be saved unless they were circumcised according to the law of Moses and become Jews. It is clear that they were doing this in order to pervert the Gospel of Christ by changing what had been taught and under cover of the name of Christ turning the Galatians into Jews. (Ambrosiaster)
1:8 or an angel from heaven: It is impossible, for the angels are established as in bliss so in all truth. It is figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, like that in 1 Cor.13:1 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels.” (Cornelius a Lapide) anathema: The word anathema has various meanings. Sometimes it refers to being killed as we see in Rom 9:3. At other times it can be taken to mean a curse, as found in the canons: If people were to do this or that, let them be anathema, meaning let them be accursed. Elsewhere it refers to being separated from the Church, as it does here. (Haimo of Auxerre)
1:9 The repetition of the same strong form of expression, shows the deliberate earnestness of the Apostle. (Bishop John McEvilly)
1:12 revelation of Jesus Christ: The Church’s teachers tell us that Paul learned the fullness of evangelical teaching during that three-day period when the Holy Spirit was revealing it to him. When he remained in Damascus for three days, he saw neither light of the sun nor day, and took neither food nor drink (Acts 9:8-9). Or perhaps he received it at that time when, as he himself says, he was in the temple one day caught up in a state of ecstasy 2 Cor 12:1-5. (Haimo of Auxerre)
1:13 I persecuted the church of God: by hunting down Christians and discomfiting them: “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor 15:9); and I wasted it: not indeed spiritually, because he was unable to turn the hearts of the faithful from their faith, but physically by inflicting bodily punishment on them and casting them into prison: “Is not this he who persecuted in Jerusalem those that called upon this name?” Acts 9:21; (St. Thomas Aquinas)
1:14 Paul was advanced in the teaching of the Law according to the tradition of the Pharisees. (Haimo of Auxerre) |
1:15 separated me from my mothers womb: St. Jerome remarks that the same thing is said of Jeremiah in Jer. 1:5: “Before I found you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained thee a prophet to the nations.“Paul here alludes to this, for Jeremiah was a type of Paul... So Paul was separated by God’s predestination from his mother’s womb, and consecrated to the Gospel, to be a prophet and teacher of the Gentiles. (Cornelius a Lapide)
1:16 preach him among the Gentiles: thus touching beforehand on that great ground of his defence which lay in the respective characters of the disciples; for it was necessary to preach differently to the Jews and to the heathen. (St. John Chrysostom)
1:17 Luke in Acts 9:26 does not mention Paul's stay at Arabia. St. Bede, in his commentary on Acts said "Luke seems to have disregarded Arabia because Paul preached very little there." And St. John Chrysostom (Hm. 21) makes a great point by saying "For the historian, for conciseness, often omits incidents and condenses the times." Paul went to Arabia, where there were no apostles, in order to found churches and prevent sowing the seeds of Judaism. (Ambrosiaster) This Arabia is the place of Mount Sinai, properly speaking, in the Egyptian desert. (St. Bruno)
1:18 He went to see Peter, not for instruction but as an expression of love. The Apostle also did this to provide others an example of humility as he gave due honor to the chief apostle. (Haimo of Auxerre) Or Paul went to consult Peter in order to learn about the earthly life of the Risen One. (Pope Benedict XVI St. Paul 5) Thus we can see that the two sources, the Acts of the Apostles 9 and the Letters of St Paul, converge and agree on the fundamental point: the Risen One spoke to Paul, called him to the apostolate and made him a true Apostle, a witness of the Resurrection, with the specific task of proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles, to the Greco-Roman world. And at the same time, Paul learned that despite the immediacy of his relationship with the Risen One, he had to enter into communion with the Church, he himself had to be baptized, he had to live in harmony with the other Apostles. Only in such communion with everyone could he have been a true apostle. (Pope Benedict XVI St. Paul 3)
1:19 James: Regarding James, it should be known that he was the Bishop of Jerusalem and named James the Less, because he had been called after another James. Many things are recorded of him in Acts 15. He also wrote a canonical epistle. brother of the Lord: Some say that before the Blessed Virgin, Joseph had another wife of whom he had James and other children, and that after she died, he took unto wife the Blessed Virgin, from whom Christ was born… But this is false, because if the Lord did not want as mother anyone but a virgin entrusted to the care of a virgin, how would He have allowed her husband not to be a virgin and still endure it?… Therefore others say (and this is mentioned in a Gloss) that James was the son of Mary of Cleophas, who was a sister of the Virgin… But this opinion is denied on two counts by Jerome… According to Jerome, this James is singled out from his other brothers and called the brother of the Lord for two reasons: first, because of a likeness in appearance, for he had a facial resemblance to Christ; and because of a likeness in their lives, for he imitated the manners of Christ. Or he is called the brother of Christ, because Alpheus, his father, was related to Joseph. brother: Brother is taken here in the sense of kinsman. For in the Scriptures some are called brothers, who are so by nature: (Mt 1:2). Others, who are kinsmen, such as blood relations, are brothers: (Gen 13:8). Others who are so by race; hence all who speak the same tongue are called brothers: (Deut 17:15). Others who are so by affection; hence all who are friends and who have the same love are called brothers: (2 Cor 2:13). Others who are so by religion; hence all Christians who have one rule of life are called brothers: (Mt 23:8); (Ps 132:1). And in general, all men are called brothers, because they are ruled and protected by one God: (Mal 2:10).
(St. Thomas Aquinas) |
Catechism Cross- reference
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