Galatians 1

I have taught the churches of the believers to reverence one almighty, invisible, and incomprehensible God. And this teaching has been given me, not from men, nor through men, but through Jesus Christ,

The one sent "from men" is a liar; the one sent "through man" tells the truth, as God too, who is truthful, may send truth through men. The one, therefore, who is sent not from men or through man but "through God" derives his truthfulness from the One who makes truthful even those sent through men.

When he calls himself an apostle not of human making but through Christ Jesus, he does away with those who had only human authority for styling themselves apostles. The churches at that time were being thrown into turmoil by false preachers. He greets these churches with all the brethren who are with him. In that greeting he also blesses them, so that their fitness to receive the word of the Lord may be established.

His reason for saying "through Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead" is that what God does he does through Christ. And so that people would not say, "How did you learn from Christ?" since Paul had not previously been a follower of Christ and Christ was dead, he said that God raised Christ from the dead. By this he implies that it is Christ himself, who taught him, who has been raised from the dead—raised, that is, by the power of God the Father.

And the expression, "he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lion's whelp," refers to the three days' sleep (death, couching) of Christ; as also Isaiah says, "How is faithful Sion become an harlot! it was full of judgment; in which righteousness lodged (couched); but now murderers." And David says to the same effect, "I laid me down (couched) and slept; I awaked: for the Lord will sustain me;" in which words he points to the fact of his sleep and rising again. And Jacob says, "Who shall rouse him up?" And that is just what David and Paul both refer to, as when Paul says, "and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead."

Having beheld your bishop, I know that he was not selected to undertake the ministry which pertains to the common [weal], either by himself or by men, or out of vainglory, but by the love of Jesus Christ, and of God the Father, who raised Him from the dead; at whose meekness I am struck with admiration, and who by His silence is able to accomplish more than they who talk a great deal. For he is in harmony with the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, even as the strings are with the harp, and is no less blameless than was Zacharias the priest. Wherefore my soul declares his mind towards God a happy one, knowing it to be virtuous and perfect, and that his stability as well as freedom from all anger is after the example of the infinite meekness of the living God.

Very few days have passed since, having interpreted Paul's epistle to Philemon, I had gone on to the Galatians, passing over many epistles in between, going backward; and behold, suddenly letters were brought to me from the City, announcing both that Albina, the venerable old woman, had been returned to the presence of the Lord, and that the holy Marcella, bereft of her mother's companionship, now more than ever begs for your consolation, O Paula and Eustochium. And since this cannot be done for the present, because of the great expanses of sea and land between us, I would wish at least to heal the wound so suddenly inflicted with the medicine of the Scriptures. I know, indeed, her ardor; I know her faith, what a flame she always has in her breast, how she rises above her sex, forgets the human, and, with the timbrel of the divine volumes sounding, crosses the Red Sea of this age. Certainly, when I was at Rome, she was never in such haste when she saw me that she did not ask me something about the Scriptures. Nor indeed, in the Pythagorean manner, did she think that whatever I had answered was right; nor did prejudged authority carry weight with her without reason; but she examined everything, and weighed all things with a shrewd mind, so that I felt I had not so much a disciple as a judge. Therefore, since I judge that it will be most welcome to her in her absence, and useful to you who are present, I shall undertake a work not attempted before me by the writers of our language, and taken up even by the Greeks themselves by scarcely a few, in the way the dignity of the subject demanded. Not that I am unaware that Gaius Marius Victorinus, who taught rhetoric at Rome when I was a boy, published Commentaries on the Apostle; but because he, occupied with the learning of secular letters, was wholly ignorant of the holy Scriptures; and no one, however eloquent, can discuss well what he does not know. What then, am I foolish or rash, who promise what he could not do? By no means. Rather, in this, as it seems to me, I am more cautious and more timid, in that, feeling the weakness of my powers, I have followed the Commentaries of Origen. For that man wrote five volumes properly on Paul's epistle to the Galatians, and filled the tenth book of his Stromata with a commatic discourse on its explanation; he also composed various Treatises and Excerpts, which even by themselves could suffice. I pass over Didymus, my seer, and the Laodicean (Apollinaris), who has lately gone out from the Church, and Alexander, the old heretic, and also Eusebius of Emesa and Theodore of Heraclea, who likewise left some little commentaries on this matter. If I were to pluck even a few things from these, something would result that would not be utterly despised. And so, to confess it plainly, I have read all these things, and, heaping up a great many of them in my mind, I summoned a secretary and dictated either my own thoughts or those of others, retaining a memory sometimes neither of the order, nor of the words, nor of the meanings. It now rests only with the Lord's mercy that the things others have said well should not perish through our unskillfulness, and that what pleases among its own people should not fail to please among strangers. Therefore, briefly summarizing the argument of this Epistle, I remind you by this preface, so that you may know that the subject matter of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians and of the one written to the Romans is the same. But the difference between the two is this: that in the latter he used a loftier sense and deeper arguments, while here, as though writing to those of whom he says in what follows, "O senseless Galatians", and, "So unwise are you", he tempered himself to such a style that he rebuked rather than taught, and used a style which even the foolish could understand, so as to clothe common thoughts in common speech, and so that authority might call back those whom reason could not persuade. There is indeed no discourse of the Apostle, whether by letter or in person, in which he does not labor to teach that the burdens of the ancient Law have been laid aside, and that all those things which went before in types and images, that is, the rest of the sabbath, the injury of circumcision, the recurrences of the Kalends and of the three solemn feasts in the year, the scrupulousness about foods, and the washings day after day that were to be soiled again, have ceased as the grace of the Gospel stole in, which not the blood of victims but the faith of the believing soul fulfills. But elsewhere this is discussed in part, and from the side, as this question presented itself to him while he was dealing with something else, and it is barely touched upon. In these two Epistles, however, as I have said, the cessation of the ancient law and the introduction of the new are specifically contained. But the Epistle to the Galatians has this peculiar to it, that he does not write to those who had believed in Christ from among the Jews and thought that their fathers' ceremonies ought to be observed, but to those who had received the faith of the Gospel from among the Gentiles and, having slipped back again, had been frightened off by the authority of certain men who asserted that Peter too, and James, and the whole churches of Judaea had mixed the Gospel of Christ with the old law; that Paul himself also did one thing in Judaea and preached another to the nations; and that they believed in the Crucified in vain if they thought that what the chiefs of the apostles observed should be neglected. For this reason he walks so cautiously between the two, and down the middle, that he neither betrays the grace of the Gospel, pressed by the weight and authority of his elders, nor does injury to his predecessors while he is the champion of grace; but going obliquely and as if secretly through tunnels, so as to teach that Peter did this for the sake of the people of the circumcision entrusted to him, lest, suddenly departing from their ancient way of life, they should be caused to stumble and not believe in the Cross; and that he himself, to whom the preaching to the Gentiles had been entrusted, judged it right to defend for the sake of truth what the other pretended for the sake of dispensation. Not understanding this at all, the Batanean, that wicked Porphyry, in the first book of his work against us, objected that Peter had been rebuked by Paul because he did not walk with a straight foot in preaching the gospel, wishing to brand the one with the stain of error and the other with that of insolence, and to accuse both in common of the falsehood of a fabricated doctrine, since the chiefs of the Churches disagree among themselves. These things, in what sense they were said, we touch on lightly even now at your prayers, and we will treat them more fully in their proper places. But it is now time to set down the words of the Apostle himself and to unfold each of them one by one.

Paul an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.

Not out of pride, as some think, but out of necessity, he declares that he is an Apostle neither from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, so that by this authority he might confound those who were bandying Paul about as being outside the twelve apostles, and were alleging that he had burst forth suddenly from I know not where, or had been ordained by those senior to him. It can also be taken as said obliquely against Peter and the rest, that the Gospel was not handed down to him by the apostles but by Jesus Christ himself, who had also chosen those apostles. All this, moreover, is prepared for this reason: that no one might be able to object to him, as he argues against the burdens of the Law on behalf of the grace of the Gospel: "But Peter said this," "But the apostles decreed this," "But your predecessors decided otherwise." This, which he now preludes as if in veiled language, he makes more plain in what follows, when he reports that nothing was conferred upon him by those who seemed to be something, and writes that he withstood Peter himself to his face, saying that he was compelled by no necessity to yield to the hypocrisy of the Jews. But if it seems rash to some that he should have spoken against the apostles, however covertly, he who went to Jerusalem for this very purpose, to confer with them about the Gospel, lest perhaps he should run or had run in vain, let us transfer the understanding to this: that to this day apostles are sent out by the patriarchs of the Jews, and by such men, I think, the Galatians were even then corrupted and began to observe the Law; or at any rate that others from among the Jews who believed in Christ went to Galatia, asserting that Peter too, the chief of the apostles, and James the brother of the Lord, kept the ceremonies of the Law. So, to distinguish between those who are sent by men and himself, who was sent by Christ, he made this his opening: Paul an apostle, not from men, nor through man. Now "apostle," that is, "sent," is properly a word of the Hebrews, and Silas also has this sound, he to whom the name "sent" was given from sending. The Hebrews say that among the prophets themselves and the holy men there are some who are both prophets and apostles, but others who are only prophets. Thus Moses, to whom it is said: "And I will send you to Pharaoh" (Exod. 3:10, 11); and who answers: "Provide another whom you may send"; and Isaiah, to whom God speaks: "Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people" (Isa. 6:8)? are both apostles and prophets. Hence we too can understand that John the Baptist also should be called both prophet and apostle, since indeed Scripture says: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John" (John 1:6). And we can understand that in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 3) Paul, contrary to his usual custom, set at its head neither his own name nor the title of apostle for this reason, that he was going to say of Christ: "Having therefore the chief of priests and the apostle of our confession, Jesus"; and that it was not fitting that where Christ was to be called an apostle, Paul should also be set down there as an apostle. Now there are four kinds of apostles. One, which is neither from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father; another, which is indeed from God, but through man; a third, which is from man and not from God; a fourth, which is neither from God, nor through man, nor from man, but from oneself. Of the first kind can be Isaiah and the other prophets, and the apostle Paul himself, who was sent neither from men nor through man, but by God the Father and Christ. Of the second, Joshua the son of Nun, who was indeed appointed an apostle by God, but through a man, Moses. The third kind is when someone is ordained by the favor and zeal of men, as we now see very many put into the priesthood not by the judgment of God but by the purchased favor of the crowd. The fourth is that of the false prophets and false apostles, of whom the apostle says: "Such men", he says, "false apostles, workers of iniquity, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ, who say: Thus says the Lord; and the Lord has not sent them" (2 Cor. 11:13). But the apostle Paul is not such a one, he who was sent neither from men nor through man, but from God the Father through Jesus Christ. From this it is proved that the heresy of Ebion and Photinus is to be beaten back from this place too, because our Lord Jesus Christ is God: since the Apostle, because he was sent by Christ to preach the Gospel, denies that he was sent by a man. At this place the other heresies creep in, which, claiming for Christ a putative flesh, say that Christ is God and not man; and also the new heresy, which asserts a halved dispensation of Christ. And so the faith of the Church is set amid such great shipwrecks of false doctrines: if it confesses Christ to be man, Ebion and Photinus creep in; if it contends that he is God, Manichaeus and Marcion, the author of a novel doctrine, bubble up. Let them therefore hear in common that Christ is both God and man: not that God is one and man another, but that he who was always God deigned to become man for our salvation. It should also be known that in Marcion's Apostle the words and through God the Father are not written, since he wished to explain that Christ was raised not by God the Father but by himself, as in that saying: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19); and also elsewhere: "No one takes my soul from me; but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and again I have power to take it up" (ibid., 10:18).

How then does he himself say, "Not from men, nor by man?" Because it was not man that called or brought him over: this is why he says, "Not from men. Neither by man," that is, that he was not sent by this man, but by the Spirit.

Since Paul then saw the whole Galatian people in a state of excitement, a flame kindled against their Church, and the edifice shaken and tottering to its fall, filled with the mixed feelings of just anger and despondency, he writes the Epistle as an answer to these charges. This is his aim from the very commencement, for the underminers of his reputation had said, The others were disciples of Christ but this man of the Apostles. Wherefore he begins thus, "Paul, an Apostle not from men, neither through man." For, these deceivers, as I was saying before, had said that this man was the last of all the Apostles and was taught by them, for Peter, James, and John, were both first called, and held a primacy among the disciples, and had also received their doctrines from Christ Himself; and that it was therefore fitting to obey them rather than this man; and that they forbad not circumcision nor the observance of the Law. By this and similar language and by depreciating Paul, and exalting the honor of the other Apostles, though not spoken for the sake of praising them, but of deceiving the Galatians, they induced them to adhere unseasonably to the Law. Hence the propriety of his commencement.

As they disparaged his doctrine, saying it came from men, while that of Peter came from Christ, he immediately addresses himself to this point, declaring himself an apostle "not from men, neither through man." It was Ananias who baptized him, but it was not he who delivered him from the way of error and initiated him into the faith; but Christ Himself sent from on high that wondrous voice, whereby He inclosed him in his net. For Peter and his brother, and John and his brother, He called when walking by the seaside, but Paul after His ascension into heaven. And just as these did not require a second call, but straightway left their nets and all that they had, and followed Him, so this man at his first vocation pressed vigorously forward, waging, as soon as he was baptized, an implacable war with the Jews. In this respect he chiefly excelled the other Apostles, as he says, "I labored more abundantly than they all;" at present, however, he makes no such claim, but is content to be placed on a level with them. Indeed his great object was, not to establish any superiority for himself, but, to overthrow the foundation of their error.

The not being "from men" has reference to all alike for the Gospel's root and origin is divine, but the not being "through man" is peculiar to the Apostles; for He called them not by men's agency, but by His own.

But why does he not speak of his vocation rather than his apostolate, and say, "Paul" called "not by man?" Because here lay the whole question; for they said that the office of a teacher had been committed to him by men, namely by the Apostles, whom therefore it behooved him to obey. But that it was not entrusted to him by men, Luke declares in the words, "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul."

From this passage it is manifest that the power of the Son and Spirit is one, for being commissioned by the Spirit, he says that he was commissioned by Christ. This appears in another place, from his ascription of the things of God to the Spirit, in the words which he addresses to the elders at Miletus: "Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops." Yet in another Epistle he says, "And God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers." Thus he ascribes indifferently the things of the Spirit to God, and the things of God to the Spirit. Here too he stops the mouths of heretics, by the words "through Jesus Christ and God the Father;" for, inasmuch as they said this term "through" was applied to the Son as importing inferiority, see what he does. He ascribes it to the Father, thus teaching us not to prescribe laws to the ineffable Nature, nor define the degrees of Godhead which belong to the Father and Son. For to the words "through Jesus Christ" he has added, "and God the Father;" for if at the mention of the Father alone he had introduced the phrase "through whom," they might have argued sophistically that it was peculiarly applicable to the Father, in that the acts of the Son were to be referred to Him. But he leaves no opening for this cavil, by mentioning at once both the Son and the Father, and making his language apply to both. This he does, not as referring the acts of the Son to the Father, but to show that the expression implies no distinction of Essence.

"Who raised Him from the dead."

Wherefore is it, O Paul, that, wishing to bring these Judaizers to the faith, you introduce none of those great and illustrious topics which occur in your Epistle to the Philippians, as, "Who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God," or which you afterwards declared in that to the Hebrews, "the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of His substance;" or again, what in the opening of his Gospel the son of thunder sounded forth, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" or what Jesus Himself oftentimes declared to the Jews, "that His power and authority was equal to the Father's?" Do you omit all these, and make mention of the economy of His Incarnation only, bringing forward His cross and dying? "Yes," would Paul answer. For had this discourse been addressed to those who had unworthy conceptions of Christ, it would have been well to mention those things; but, inasmuch as the disturbance comes from persons who fear to incur punishment should they abandon the Law, he therefore mentions that whereby all need of the Law is excluded, I mean the benefit conferred on all through the Cross and the Resurrection. To have said that "in the beginning was the Word," and that "He was in the form of God, and made Himself equal with God," and the like, would have declared the divinity of the Word, but would have contributed nothing to the matter in hand. Whereas it was highly pertinent thereto to add, "Who raised Him from the dead," for our chiefest benefit was thus brought to remembrance, and men in general are less interested by discourses concerning the majesty of God, than by those which set forth the benefits which come to mankind. Wherefore, omitting the former topic, he discourses of the benefits which had been conferred on us.

But here the heretics insultingly exclaim, "Lo, the Father raises the Son!" For when once infected, they are wilfully deaf to all sublimer doctrines; and taking by itself and insisting on what is of a less exalted nature, and expressed in less exalted terms, either on account of the Son's humanity, or in honor of the Father, or for some other temporary purpose, they outrage, I will not say the Scripture, but themselves. I would fain ask such persons, why they say this? do they hope to prove the Son weak and powerless to raise one body? Nay, verily, faith in Him enabled the very shadows of those who believed in Him to effect the resurrection of the dead. Then believers in Him, though mortal, yet by the very shadows of their earthly bodies, and by the garments which had touched these bodies, could raise the dead, but He could not raise Himself? Is not this manifest madness, a great stretch of folly? Hast thou not heard His saying, "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up?" and again, "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again?" Wherefore then is the Father said to have raised Him up, as also to have done other things which the Son Himself did? It is in honor of the Father, and in compassion to the weakness of the hearers.

The exordium is full of a vehement and lofty spirit, and not the exordium only, but also, so to speak, the whole Epistle. For always to address one's disciples with mildness, even when they need severity is not the part of a teacher but it would be the part of a corrupter and enemy. Wherefore our Lord too, though He generally spoke gently to His disciples, here and there uses sterner language, and at one time pronounces a blessing, at another a rebuke. Thus, having said to Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona," (Matt. xvi: 17.) and having promised to lay the foundation of the Church upon his confession, shortly afterwards He says, "Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a stumbling block unto Me." (Matt. xvi: 23.) Again, on another occasion, "Are ye also even yet without understanding?" (Matt. xv: 16.) And what awe He inspired them with appears from John's saying, that, when they beheld Him conversing with the Samaritan woman, though they reminded Him to take food, no one ventured to say, "What seekest Thou, or why speakest thou with her?" (John iv: 27.) Thus taught, and walking in the steps of his Master, Paul hath varied his discourse according to the need of his disciples, at one time using knife and cautery, at another, applying mild remedies. To the Corinthians he says, "What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in a spirit of meekness?" (I Cor. vi: 21.) but to the Galatians, "O foolish Galatians." (Gal. iii: 1.) And not once only, but a second time, also he has employed this reproof, and towards the conclusion he says with a reproachful allusion to them, "Let no man trouble me;" (Gal. vi: 17.) but he soothes them again with the words, "My little children, of whom I am again in travail:" (Gal. iv: 19): and so in many other instances.

Now that this Epistle breathes an indignant spirit, is obvious to every one even on the first perusal; but I must explain the cause of his anger against the disciples. Slight and unimportant it could not be, or he would not have used such vehemence. For to be exasperated by common matters is the part of the little-minded, morose, and peevish; just as it is that of the more redolent and sluggish to lose heart in weighty ones. Such a one was not Paul, What then was the offence which roused him? it was grave and momentous, one which was estranging them all from Christ, as he himself says further on, "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing;" (Gal. v: 2.) and again, "Ye who would be justified by the Law, ye are fallen away from Grace." (Gal. v: 4.) What then is this? For it must be explained more clearly. Some of the Jews who believed, being held down by the preposessions of Judaism, and at the same time intoxicated by vain-glory, and desirous of obtaining for themselves the dignity of teachers, came to the Galatians, and taught them that the observance of circumcision, sabbaths, and new-moons, was necessary, and that Paul in abolishing these things was not to be borne. For, said they, Peter and James and John, the chiefs of the Apostles and the companions of Christ, forbade them not. Now in fact they did not forbid these things, but this was not by way of delivering positive doctrine, but in condescension to the weakness of the Jewish believers, which condescension Paul had no need of when preaching to the Gentiles; but when he was in Judaea, he employed it himself also. But these deceivers, by withholding the causes both of Paul's condescension and that of his brethren, misled the simpler ones, saying that he was not to be tolerated, for he appeared but yesterday, while Peter and his colleagues were from the first,-that he was a disciple of the Apostles, but they of Christ,-that he was single, but they were many, and pillars of the Church. They accused him too of acting a part; saying, that this very man who forbids circumcision observes the rite elsewhere, and preaches one way to you and another way to others.

Those from among the Jews who had believed, being on the one hand possessed by the prejudice to Judaism and on the other hand, drunk with vainglory, wishing also to ascribe to themselves the authority of teachers, came to the nation of the Galatians and taught the necessity of being circumcised, of keeping Sabbaths and new moons and of being intolerant of Paul who abolishes these. They argued that those around Peter and James and John, who are the first of the Apostles, do not prohibit these things. Indeed Paul appeared yesterday and today, whereas those around Peter were first. He is the disciple of the Apostles, whereas they are disciples of Christ. He is alone, whereas they are many and pillars of the Church. Seeing, then, in front of him an entire nation and a fire to have been lit, starting from the Church of the Galatians, he writes this Letter to everybody offering a word of apology and right at the start he takes up what they were saying undermining his reputation — namely, that the others were disciples of Christ whereas he became the disciple of the Apostles.

Why did he not start with what befits the Godhead of Christ, but with the very passion? He did so because they rebelled against him as those who would be punished if they deviated from the law; and so he mentions that thing through which every need of the law has been thrown out. I mean, of course, the cross and the resurrection, which provided the cause for the salvation of all.

Immediately the being of a disciple of men is destroyed. For he says, "I am an apostle, not having been commissioned by men, nor through a man, but through Christ himself I came to this work."

"but through Jesus Christ and God the Father." Notice here the preposition διὰ, that is, through, is applied to the Father and the Son, and the Son is named first.

"who raised him." This has been said concerning the honor given to the Father, and because of the weakness of those who hear.

"from the dead." At the opportune time he remembered the Lord's economy [οἰκονομίας] and death, so that, having reminded of the benefits of Christ, he might in that way persuade them no longer to cling to the law but to Christ.

We are clearly given to understand that Jesus Christ was not a [mere] man but was of divine nature.… Because he knew him to be of a more sublime nature, he therefore said that he was not appointed by a man.

For I trust that ye are well versed in the Sacred Scriptures, and that nothing is hid from you; but to me this privilege is not yet granted. It is declared then in these Scriptures, "Be ye angry, and sin not," and, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." Happy is he who remembers this, which I believe to be the case with you. But may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Son of God, and our everlasting High Priest, build you up in faith and truth, and in all meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, forbearance, and purity; and may He bestow on you a lot and portion among His saints, and on us with you, and on all that are under heaven, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His Father, who "raised Him from the dead." Pray for all the saints. Pray also for kings, and potentates, and princes, and for those that persecute and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross, that your fruit may be manifest to all, and that ye may be perfect in Him.

He professes himself to be "an apostle"-to use his own, words-"not of men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ." Of course, any one may make a profession concerning himself; but his profession is only rendered valid by the authority of a second person.

Should you, however, disapprove of these types, the Acts of the Apostles, at all events, have handed down to me this career of Paul, which you must not refuse to accept. Thence I demonstrate that from a persecutor he became "an apostle, not of men, neither by man; " thence am I led to believe the Apostle himself; thence do I find reason for rejecting your defence of him, and for bearing fearlessly your taunt.

To the Galatians he declares himself to be "an apostle not of men, neither by man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father." You possess indeed all his writings, which testify plainly to the same effect, and set forth Two-God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.

So that no one might suppose the Son to be a mere ancillary to the Father, finding the word through in this passage, he immediately adds "but through God the Father, who raised him from the dead." For he has applied the word through to both persons, teaching that this usage does not imply any difference of nature. And the phrase "the one who raised him from the dead" does not hint at any defect in the Son's divinity, for the suffering did not happen to the Godhead but illustrates the concord of the gospel, because it was not the Son alone who bestowed the mystery of the divine incarnation, but the Father himself is a sharer in this dispensation.

Immediately he also rejects that he is a disciple of men. For it was not men, but from above and from heaven that he was called, and not through a man, but through Christ Himself. For although Ananias baptized him, it was not he who called him to the faith, but Christ from heaven. Why then did he not say: Paul the called, but "apostle"? Because that was the whole point of the discussion: they were saying that he was chosen as an apostle by men. It is against this that he rises up, showing that this is untrue.

And the book of Acts says further that by the Spirit he was chosen for apostleship (Acts 13:2). So then, it is clear that one is the will of the Son, and of the Spirit, and of the Father. Note also that the preposition "through" (δια) applies to the word "Father" as well, and that the Son is named first — this is on account of the heretics, who were very preoccupied with this matter. Very fittingly he mentions the death and resurrection, in order to persuade them henceforth not to hold to the law, which brought them nothing, but to Christ, who died and rose for them, and that therefore to depart from such a Benefactor is great folly. He says that the Father raised Him, on the one hand, because of the weakness of his listeners, and on the other, because everything that the Son does is referred to the Father. For He who even gave those who believed in Him the power to raise the dead by the mere shadow of their bodies was not powerless to raise Himself.

The Apostle therefore writes the Galatians this epistle in which he shows that with the coming of the grace of the New Testament, the Old Testament should be cast out, so that with the fulfillment of the truth, the figure may be abandoned, and with the attainment of these two, namely, grace and truth, one may arrive at the truth of justice and glory. And these two are acquired, if, abandoning the observance of the "legalia" [i.e., the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law], we concentrate fervently on observing the Gospel of Christ.

The order of this epistle is fitting in that, after the two epistles to the Corinthians, in the first of which it is a question of the sacraments of the Church, and in the second, of the ministers of these sacraments, there should necessarily follow the epistle to the Galatians, treating of the termination of the sacraments of the Old Testament.

This epistle is divided into two parts: namely, into a greeting, and the setting forth of the epistle (v. 6): "I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel." In the greeting, however:

First, the person who sends the greeting is mentioned;

Secondly, the persons greeted are mentioned (v. 2): "To the Churches of Galatia;"

Thirdly, the good he wishes them (v. 3).

As to the first, mention is made first of the person principally sending the greeting; and he is described by his name and his authority. By his name, indeed, when he says "Paul" which, because it means "humble," accords with his humility. Hence it is said in 1 Corinthians (15:9): "I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle." Furthermore, it accords with his office, because in another sense it means "the mouth of the trumpet," in which the office of preaching is specially signified. "Lift up thy voice like a trumpet and announce to my people their sins" (Is 58:1). He is described by his authority, when he says, "an apostle." Here two things are mentioned, namely, his authority and its source. Authority, because he says "apostle," which is the same as "sent."

Now it should be noted that the Apostle in some epistles calls himself "Servant," thereby showing a spirit of humility, as in the Epistle to the Romans; in others he calls himself "apostle," thereby showing his authority. The reason for this is that the Romans being proud, the Apostle, in order to induce them to humility, calls himself a servant as an example of humility. But to the Galatians, who were stupid and proud, he calls himself an apostle in order to break them down; hence he here sets forth his authority.

He describes the source of his authority when he says, "not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father."

First, he removes what is, according to their opinion, the source;

Secondly, he presents the true source (v. 1): "but by Jesus Christ and God the Father."

The source of his authority in their opinion was in keeping with the fact that the Galatians had been so deceived by false teachers as to believe that the Apostle did not enjoy the same authority as the other apostles, as having neither been taught by Christ nor lived with Him, but sent by them as their minister. He therefore removes this opinion when he says, "not of men, neither by man." For some had been sent by the whole college of apostles and disciples; hence, to show that he had not been sent by them, he says, "not of men." Others had been sent by some particular apostle, as Paul now and then sent Luke and Titus. Therefore, to show that he had not been sent in that manner, he says, "neither by man," i.e., not by any apostle in particular, but by the Holy Spirit, Who says: "Separate me Saul and Barnabas, for the work whereunto I have taken them" (Acts 13:2).

But because the true cause of the origin of this authority is Christ Jesus, he says, "but by Jesus Christ and God the Father." Now the distinction expressed when he says, "by Jesus Christ and God the Father," can be taken with respect to the person of the Father and the person of the Son; and then God the Father is one person and Jesus Christ another. For the Blessed Apostle Paul was sent to preach by both, and indeed, by the whole Trinity, because the works of the Trinity are inseparable. Yet no mention is made of the person of the Holy Spirit, because, since there is a union and joining of two, by mentioning two persons, namely, Father and Son, the Holy Spirit too is understood. Or, the aforesaid distinction can be taken with respect to the assumed nature, i.e., the human, because according to the divine nature there is not a distinction between God the Father and Jesus Christ. In this sense, then, Paul was sent by God the Father as by the chief sender, and by Jesus Christ as by a minister. "For I say that Christ Jesus was minister of the circumcision" (Rom 15:8).

But because the Galatians belittled the Apostle for having neither lived with Christ, as did the others, nor been sent by Him, he extols himself on this very point, because they had been sent by Christ yet living in mortal flesh, whereas he had been sent by Christ now glorified. This is why he says, "who," namely, God the Father, "raised him," namely, Jesus Christ as man, "from the dead." As though to say: I am an apostle not of men, i.e., not by the college of apostles, "neither by man," namely, Christ living in mortal flesh, but I am an apostle through Christ now risen and glorified. "Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more" (Rom 6:9). And because the present life is signified by the left side and the future life by the right, inasmuch as the latter is heavenly and spiritual, and the former temporal, Peter, who was called while Christ was yet in mortal flesh, appears in papal bulls on the left side, but Paul, who was called by Christ now glorified, is set on the right side.

Whereas he was accustomed to call himself simply Paul the apostle to the Romans and Corinthians, in order to startle the Galatians and reprove them for a grave error he has joined with himself all the brothers who were with him, saying that they themselves were writing to the Galatians, making them feel the shame of thinking contrary to everyone, so as to give more weight to his own injunctions and the gospel that he preaches.

And all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia.

In the other Epistles Sosthenes and Silvanus, and sometimes Timothy as well, are placed first in the opening; in this one alone, because the authority of a great many was needed, the name of all the brothers is taken up. These too were perhaps of the circumcision, and were not held in contempt by the Galatians. For the judgment and agreement of many on one matter does a very great deal toward correcting a people. But as to his saying, to the churches of Galatia: this too is to be noted, that here alone he writes in general terms, not to one church of one city, but to the churches of a whole province, and that he calls churches those which he afterwards accuses of having been corrupted by error. From this we are to learn that the Church can be spoken of in two ways: both as that which has no spot or wrinkle and is truly the body of Christ, and as that which is gathered in the name of Christ without full and perfect virtues (Eph. 5). In the same way the wise are named in two senses: both those who are of full and perfect virtue, and those who are beginning and are set on the way of progress. Of the perfect it is said: "I will send wise men to you" (Luke 11:49). Of the unwise: "Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you" (Prov. 9:8). For he who is of full and consummate virtue does not need reproof. According to this sense the other virtues too are to be understood: namely, that brave and prudent, pious, chaste, righteous and temperate are taken sometimes in the full sense, sometimes loosely.

"And all the brethren which are with me."

Why is it that he has on no other occasion in sending an epistle added this phrase? For either he puts his own name only or that of two or three others, but here has mentioned the whole number and so has mentioned no one by name.

On what account then does he this?

They made the slanderous charge that he was singular in his preaching, and desired to introduce novelty in Christian teaching. Wishing therefore to remove their suspicion, and to show he had many to support him in his doctrine, he has associated with himself "the brethren," to show that what he wrote he wrote with their accord.

"Unto the Churches of Galatia."

Thus it appears, that the flame of error had spread over not one or two cities merely, but the whole Galatian people. Consider too the grave indignation contained in the phrase, "unto the Churches of Galatia:" he does not say, "to the beloved" or "to the sanctified," and this omission of all names of affection or respect, and this speaking of them as a society merely, without the addition "Churches of God," for it is simply "Churches of Galatia," is strongly expressive of deep concern and sorrow. Here at the outset, as well as elsewhere, he attacks their irregularities, and therefore gives them the name of "Churches," in order to shame them, and reduce them to unity. For persons split into many parties cannot properly claim this appellation, for the name of "Church" is a name of harmony and concord.

He indicates by this the necessity of the Letter; for it was not only one Church that prompted him to such a diligent action, but a multitude of Churches.

Again he takes up the point they made, namely, that Paul is one, and the Apostles, many. Thus he brought in with him a whole multitude, and not as in other Letters, only Paul, or Paul and Timothy, or Silvanus as well.

"and all the brothers with me." For what reason does he now mention all the brothers together? Because those who were accusing him said that Paul alone was now forbidding circumcision; therefore he wishes to show that there are many allies to him in such a teaching.

"to the Churches of Galatia." See the mark of anger. For he did not say, as was customary, "to the Beloved," or "to the Sanctified," or at least "to the Churches of God," but "of Galatia."

The epistle to the Galatians was written from Rome. The divine apostle had already seen and taught them.

So since they slandered him saying that he alone preaches this, he now shows that many others also share his opinion.

I pay attention to his indignation and sorrow. For he did not say: to the beloved, to the sanctified, or to the churches of God, but simply "to the churches of Galatia." And since they were in disagreement among themselves, he quite justly calls them many churches, and at the same time, to awaken shame in them, he unites them into one by means of this name (church). For those who disagree among themselves in many things cannot be called by this name, which signifies concord.

Then when he says, "and all the brethren who are with me," he refers to the persons who join with him in sending the greeting. These he describes in terms of sweet familiarity, because they "are with me," namely, for consolation and help. "A brother that is helped by his brother is like a strong city" (Prov 18:19). "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity" (Ps 132:1). And in terms of inseparable charity, when he says, "brethren." "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another" (Jn 13:35). And universality, when he says, "all." He adds this because they might be so deceived as not to respect the words of Paul. Hence he says, "all who are with me," to show them as witnesses to his truthfulness and make it easy for them to understand that they are wrong, when they are rebuked by everyone else. "To him who is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient which is given by many" (2 Cor 2:6).

He mentions the persons greeted when he says, "to the churches of Galatia." Here it should be noted that, as is mentioned in a Gloss, Brennus, leader of the Senones, once gathered an army, and having entered Italy through which he passed, came into Greece before the time of Alexander the Great. There some of the invaders remained in a certain district of Greece and intermarried with the Greeks. For this reason that province came to be called "Gallic Greece" and the inhabitants "Galatians," as it were, "white." But whereas the Greeks are natively intelligent, those Galatians were stupid and inconstant and slow to understand, as the indocile Gauls from whom they descended. This is why he later says, "O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?" (3:1). To these people, therefore, he writes this epistle, and they are the ones greeted.

He shows that the human race is sustained by the goodness of both, as much Father as Son. Nor does he indicate that the Son is less than the Father when he calls him our Lord, nor that the Father is greater when he calls him our God. He will not be a true Father unless he is also Lord, nor will the Son be a true Lord unless he is also God.

The grace of God, by which our sins are forgiven, is the condition of our being reconciled to him, whereas peace is that wherein we are reconciled.

Grace to you, and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not as in the other Epistles does he set down the grace and the peace of God the Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which, without the merit of works, both our former sins have been forgiven us and peace has been granted after pardon; but he is now prudently pleading the case against those who had been forestalled by the Law and thought that they could be justified by works, so that they might know that they had been saved by grace and ought to persevere in that which they had begun.

"Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ."

This he always mentions as indispensible, and in this Epistle to the Galatians especially; for since they were in danger of falling from grace he prays that they may recover it again, and since they had come to be at war with God, he beseeches God to restore them to the same peace.

"God the Father."

Here again is a plain confutation of the heretics, who say that John in the opening of his Gospel, where he says "the Word was God," used the word "Theos" without the article, to imply an inferiority in the Son's Godhead; and that Paul, where he says that the Son was "in the form of God," did not mean the Father, because the word "Theos" was without the article. For what can they say here, where Paul says, "apo Theou Patros," and not "apo tou Theou"? And it is in no indulgent mood towards them that he calls God, "Father," but by way of severe rebuke, and suggestion of the source whence they became sons, for the honor was vouchsafed to them not through the Law, but through the washing of regeneration. Thus everywhere, even in his exordium, he scatters traces of the goodness of God, and we may conceive him speaking thus: "O ye who were lately slaves, enemies and aliens, what right have ye suddenly acquired to call God your Father? it was not the Law which conferred upon you this relationship; why do ye therefore desert Him who brought you so near to God, and return to your tutor?"

But the Name of the Son, as well as that of the Father, had been sufficient to declare to them these blessings. This will appear, if we consider the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ with attention; for it is said, "thou shalt call His Name Jesus; for it is He that shall save His people from their sins;" and the appellation of "Christ" calls to mind the unction of the Spirit.

He lays this down everywhere, and especially now he writes to the Galatians, because they were running the risk of falling away from grace, and returning to circumcision.

— [CHRYSOSTOM] "grace to you." For since they were in danger of falling from grace because of the circumcision, he prays this for them.

He also says, "and peace." For they had been at war with God, by the observance of the ritual precepts.

"from God the Father." Where do you have, he says, the right to call God Father?" Is it not from baptism? Why then do you oppose the law?

Since they were in danger of losing grace out of attachment to the law, he wishes it for them; and since they were warring against God by establishing what was under the law, which He had abolished, he calls them to peace.

God became your Father. In what way? Through the law, to which you are inclined, or through the baptism of Christ? How then can you reject the Benefactor? And note: "from God the Father" (από θεού Πατρός) is written without the article, for the sake of those who placed the Son below the Father on the grounds that John says: "and the Word was God" ("και θεός...") (Jn. 1:1) without the article.

Our master is not the law, but Christ Jesus. And the very names themselves point to His benefactions. For He is called Jesus as the One who delivered the people from sins, and Christ — from the anointing of the Spirit, with which He was anointed for our sake, having sanctified our nature by His incarnation and giving us the right to be so called.

Then when he says, "grace be to you and peace," he mentions the good things he wishes them.

First, he mentions the goods he wishes;

Secondly, the author of these goods (v. 3): "from God the Father and our Lord."

The goods he wishes them are twofold, but in them are included all spiritual goods. The first is grace, which is the beginning of the spiritual life, and to it is ascribed in a Gloss the remission of sins, which is first in the spiritual life. For no one can be in the true spiritual life, unless he first dies to sin. The second is peace, which is the settling down of the mind in its end, and which in a Gloss is said to be reconciliation with God. Thus in wishing them the beginning and the end of all spiritual goods, the Apostle includes, as it were, between the two extremes, the wish that every good come to them. "The Lord will give grace and glory" (Ps 83:12). "The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the communication of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Cor 13:13).

The author of these goods is God the Father, and so he says, "from God the Father." Here are mentioned:

First, the cause of the goods;

Secondly, the manner of causing (v. 4);

Thirdly, thanksgiving for these goods (v. 5).

The cause and source of good is God the Father as originator, precisely as God, and the entire Trinity, the God of all through creation. "But Thou, O Father, governest it" (Wis 14:3). Hence he says, "from God the Father." Again, the originator is the Lord Jesus Christ as minister; and this insofar as He is man. "For I say that Jesus Christ was a minister" (Rom 15:8). But that grace comes to us through Christ is plain from John (1:17): "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." "Being justified freely by His grace" (Rom 3:24). Peace, too, comes to us through Him. "My peace I give unto you" (Jn 14:27).

For when the human race was held in the dominion of the devil, the Savior offered himself to the willing devil, so that deceiving him by the power of his virtue—for the devil wanted to take possession of one whom he was unable to hold—he could carry off those whom the devil was detaining by a false right.

Now Christ by atoning for our transgressions not only gave us life but also made us his own, so that we might be called children of God, made so through faith. What a great error it is, therefore, to go under the law again after receiving grace.

Who gave himself for our sins, to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of God and our Father, to whom is glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Neither did the Son give himself for our sins without the will of the Father, nor did the Father hand over the Son without the Son's will; rather, this is the will of the Son: to fulfill the will of the Father, as he himself says in the psalm: "That I might do your will, my God, I have willed" (Ps. 39:9). Now the Son gave himself in order that he, Righteousness, might overthrow the unrighteousness that was in us. Wisdom handed itself over to conquer foolishness. Holiness and strength offered itself to blot out filth and weakness. And so he has delivered us not only in the age to come, according to the promised hope by which we believe, but also here, from the present age: while, having died together with Christ, we are transfigured into newness of mind, and are not of this world, by which, deservedly, we are not loved either. It is asked how the present age has been called evil. For heretics are accustomed to seize occasions from this passage to assert that there is one creator of light and of the age to come, and another of darkness and of the present age. We, however, say that it is not so much the age itself, which runs on by day and night, by years and months, that is called evil, as, homonymously (ὁμωνύμως), the things that are done in the age: just as the day is said to have enough of its own evil (Matt. 6), and the days of Jacob are written to be few and very evil (Gen. 47). Not that the span of time in which Jacob lived was evil, but that the things he endured exercised him through various trials. Indeed, at the very time when he was serving for his wives and was struggling with many hardships (Gen. 29), Esau was at rest; and so the same span of time was good for one and evil for the other. Nor would it have been written in Ecclesiastes: "Do not say that my former days were good beyond these" (Eccles. 7:11), except with a view to the difference of evils. Hence John says: "The whole world is set in the wicked one" (1 John 5:19). Not that the world itself is evil, but that evils are done in the world by men who say, "Let us eat and drink", "for tomorrow we shall die" (Isa. 22:13). And the Apostle himself: "Redeeming", he says, "the time, because the days are evil" (Eph. 5:16). Woodlands too are given a bad name when they are full of robberies, not because the earth and the forests sin, but because the places too have drawn upon themselves the infamy of murder. We also detest the sword by which human blood has been shed, and the cup in which poison has been mixed, not for any sin of the sword or of the cup, but because those who have used them ill deserve hatred. So also the age, which is a span of times, is not in itself either good or evil, but is called good or evil through those who are in it. For this reason the ravings and fables of Valentinus are to be despised, who fabricated his thirty aeons (αἰῶνας) from the fact that "ages" are read of in the Scriptures, saying that they are living beings, and that by tetrads and ogdoads, and also decads and dodecads, they produced as many numbers of ages as the young that the sow of Aeneas brought forth.

"Who gave himself for our sins."

Thus it appears, that the ministry which He undertook was free and uncompelled; that He was delivered up by Himself, not by another. Let not therefore the words of John, "that the Father gave His only-begotten Son" for us, lead you to derogate from the dignity of the Only-begotten, or to infer therefrom that He is only human. For the Father is said to have given Him, not as implying that the Son's ministry was a servile one, but to teach us that it seemed good to the Father, as Paul too has shown in the immediate context: "according to the will of our God, and Father." He says not "by the command," but "according to the will," for inasmuch as there is an unity of will in the Father and the Son, that which the Son wills, the Father wills also.

"For our sins," says the Apostle; we had pierced ourselves with ten thousand evils, and had deserved the gravest punishment; and the Law not only did not deliver us, but it even condemned us, making sin more manifest, without the power to release us from it, or to stay the anger of God. But the Son of God made this impossibility possible for he remitted our sins, He restored us from enmity to the condition of friends, He freely bestowed on us numberless other blessings.

"That He might deliver us out of this present evil world."

Another class of heretics seize upon these words of Paul, and pervert his testimony to an accusation of the present life. Lo, say they, he has called this present world evil, and pray tell me what does "world" mean but time measured by days and seasons? Is then the distinction of days and the course of the sun evil? no one would assert this even if he be carried away to the extreme of unreasonableness. "But" they say, "it is not the 'time,' but the present 'life,' which he hath called evil." Now the words themselves do not in fact say this; but the heretics do not rest in the words, and frame their charge from them, but propose to themselves a new mode of interpretation. At least therefore they must allow us to produce our interpretation, and the rather in that it is both pious and rational. We assert then that evil cannot be the cause of good, yet that the present life is productive of a thousand prizes and rewards.

Miserable, wretched man! what is it thou sayest? Is this life evil, wherein we have learnt to know God, and meditate on things to come, and have become angels instead of men, and take part in the choirs of the heavenly powers? What other proof do we need of an evil and depraved mind?

"Why then," they say, "does Paul call the present life evil?" In calling the present world evil, he has accommodated himself to our usage, who are wont to say, "I have had a bad day," thereby complaining not of the time itself, but of actions or circumstances. And so Paul in complaining of evil principles of action has used these customary forms of speech; and he shows that Christ hath both delivered us from our offences, and secured us for the future. The first he has declared in the words, "Who gave Himself for our sins;" and by adding, "that He might deliver us out of this present evil world," he has pronounced our future safety. For neither of these did the Law avail, but grace was sufficient for both.

"According to the will of our God and Father."

Since they were terrified by their notion that by deserting that old Law and adhering to the new, they should disobey God, who gave the Law, he corrects their error, and says, that this seemed good to the Father also: and not simply "the Father," but "our Father," which he does in order to affect them by showing that Christ has made His Father our Father.

He did not speak about the time, but pronounced the present life to be evil.

We have incurred innumerable evils, and have become responsible for the last punishment; for the law not only has not led anyone to reconciliation, but, to condemnation, and besides, it is incapable of emancipating anyone, or putting an end to God's wrath, when it reveals sin; whereas the Son of God, not only has made possible what was impossible, but also has remitted sins and has placed enemies to the position of friends.

"who gave himself." Behold, he gave himself; therefore, when you hear that he has been given by the Father, perceive the Father's good pleasure.

"to deliver us from." He gave Himself for our sins, blotting out the former things and preserving for the future.

He says, "to deliver us from the present evil age," that is, from evil actions and a corrupted life: for he calls this an evil age, not the time itself or the day: Not at all. For we also are accustomed to speak accordingly when something unexpected has happened to us: "I endured an evil day." "of the evil age." By saying "the present evil age," he showed that evil is not uncreated, nor eternal, but temporary.

"according to the will of God and our Father." For since they said that one ought not to abandon the law which had been given by God, he likewise showed that it was the Father's will that they should believe in Christ. For according to the will of the Father the Christ gave himself. You see that there is nowhere a command of the Father to the Son, but only harmony. Again, having said "our Father," he reminds us of baptism. What then do you have of the law?

What is it to walk according to the age of this world, and not according to the age of the better world toward which the saints hasten? Now one person will, more simply, hold the age of this world to be the time coextensive with the constitution of this world from beginning to end. But another, from what follows, will suspect whether perhaps the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, is the same as the age of this world, since all these things are set down as though of one entity, Paul saying, in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit; and in the letter to the Galatians he will think that the phrase "that he might deliver us out of the present evil age" shows that the "present age" is an "evil" living being, being the same as the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit (except that the saying from the letter to the Galatians admits of a counter-argument, since something similar is said also concerning days, which are agreed not to be ensouled: "buying up the time, because the days are evil," and "few and evil are the days that I have sojourned" upon the earth, says Jacob). And the passage "through whom he made the ages" will seem to call the ages a created thing, of which one is able to have become apostately "evil" and to be called the age of this world and the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also once conducted ourselves.

By "the evil age" he does not mean the elements, as the Manichaeans portentously assert, but the present life, that is, this secular human way of living, in which sin has made a home. For, being enveloped in a mortal nature, some of us venture on the greater sins, some on the lesser. But when we make the transition to that immortal life, and are free from our present corruption and have put on incorruption, we shall be made able to conquer sin.… Yet the present age as such is not vile, but vileness is the enterprise of some who live in it.

Behold, He gave Himself up. So then, He did not render service as a slave. Therefore, when you hear that He was delivered up by the Father, understand it as the consent and will of the Father. And He gave Himself up in order to free us from sins, from which the law was not able to deliver us. How then, after this, having abandoned the One who freed you, do you submit to the law, which rendered no benefit?

The Manichaeans rely on this saying, claiming that he called the present age evil, that is, our life. But this is not so. For the days are not evil in themselves (for what is evil about the movement of the sun or the succession of days), nor is our life bad in itself — and how could it be, when in this life we come to know God and philosophize about the future life? But by the evil age he means wicked actions and a corrupted will. Just as we too are accustomed to say: I had a terrible day, blaming not the time but the circumstances and actions. For Christ did not die in order to put us to death and remove us from the present life, but in order to deliver us for the remaining time from evil actions. Since he said above that He gave Himself for our sins, that is, freed us from previously committed transgressions, he then adds that for the future as well He gave certain proof that He will deliver us from an evil way of life. But the law neither cleansed former sins nor has any power against future ones.

Since they thought that by leaving the law they were not obeying God, he corrects this assumption of theirs, showing that the will of the Father is to set them free through the Son. Notice, he did not say: by the command of the Father, but by the will, that is, by good pleasure. And by calling God our Father, he again reminds them of the Benefactor Christ, who made His own Father our Father as well. How then after this do you reject Him?

The manner in which these goods are caused is also mentioned when he says, "who gave himself for our sins." Here is mentioned, first of all, the efficient cause, which is the death of Christ. Referring to this, he says "who gave himself for our sins." As if to say: Christ is the author of grace and peace, because He gave Himself to death and endured the cross. Hence the very death of Christ is the efficient cause of grace: "You have been justified freely by his grace" (Rom 3:24); "Making peace as to the things that are in heaven" (Col 1:20). And he says, first of all, "who gave himself," i.e., offered Himself voluntarily. "Christ also hath loved us and hath delivered Himself for us" (Eph 5:2); "That He might taste death for all" (Heb 2:9); "Who gave Himself for us" (Tit 2:14). From this, the Apostle plainly is arguing against them that if the death of Christ is the sufficient cause of our salvation, and if grace is conferred in the sacraments of the New Testament, which have their efficacy from the passion of Christ, then it is superfluous to observe, along with the New Testament, the rituals of the Old Law in which grace is not conferred nor salvation acquired, because the Law has led no one to perfection, as is had in Hebrews (7:19).

Secondly, the end and utility of those goods is mentioned—in other words, the final cause. And it is twofold; one is that we be set free of past sins; and as to this he says, "for our sins," namely, that past sins be removed and atoned for, which is the beginning of our salvation. "He loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood" (Rev 1:5). The other end is that He might free us from the power of death; and as to this he says, "that he might deliver us from this present wicked world." "He delivered us from the power of darkness" (Col 1:13). Herein he mentions three things: namely, to deliver us from the present, and the world, and wicked. To deliver us from the present by drawing us to eternal things through desire and hope; from the world, i.e., from being conformed to this world which allures us: "And be not conformed to this world" (Rom 12:2); wicked, leading us back to the truth of justice. And it is called a wicked world, not because of its nature, for it was created good by God, but because of the evils perpetrated in it, as is said in Ephesians (5:16): "The days are evil." And "Jacob said: the days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few and evil" (Gen 47:9).

Now although these things come to us through Christ, God the Father is not excluded. Hence there is mentioned in the third place, acceptance of the divine will. Therefore he says, "according to the will of God and our Father." Of the Father by nature, I say, of Christ Who proceeds from eternity as the Word: "This day have I begotten Thee" (Ps 2:7); "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1). Also of our Father by adoption: "He gave them power to be made the sons of God" (Jn 1:12). In the first rendering, "God the Father" is taken for the sole person of the Father; in the second, for the whole Trinity.

How much more, therefore, ought men not to claim the credit for themselves if they perform any good work, when the very Son of God in the Gospel said that he sought not his own glory. Nor had he come to do his own will but the will of him who sent him! This will and glory of the Father the apostle now commemorates, that he also, by the example of the Lord who sent him, may indicate that he seeks not his own glory or the performance of his own will in the preaching of the gospel, just as he says a little later, "if I were to please men, I should not be a servant of Christ."

We must also inquire what difference there is between "age" and "age of the age," or "ages of ages," and where it is used for a short span of time, and where for eternity: for in Hebrew "age," that is, OLAM (עלם), when it has the letter VAV placed in it, signifies eternity, but when it is written without VAV, the fiftieth year, which they call the Jubilee. For this reason too that Hebrew who, because of his wife and children, loving his master, is subjected to servitude with his ear pierced, is ordered to serve "for ever" (in sæculum) (Exod. 21), that is, up to the fiftieth year. And the Moabites and Ammonites (Deut. 23) do not enter the church of the Lord up to the fifteenth generation, and "for ever": because every hard condition was dissolved at the coming of the Jubilee. Some say that there is the same sense in "ages of ages" as in "holy of holies," in "heavens of heavens," in "works of works," in "Song of Songs": and that the difference the heavens have with respect to those whose heavens they are, and the holy things which, in comparison with holy things, are holier, and the works which, preferred above works, are better, and the Songs which excel among all songs, the age too has the same difference with respect to those which, in comparison with ages, are ages. Accordingly they explain the present age by saying that it is to be counted from the time when heaven and earth were founded, and that it runs up to the consummation of the world, when Christ is to judge all things. They also go back beyond this and advance their step into earlier things, disputing about past and future ages, whether they were or will be good or evil: and they fall into such deep questions that they have even composed books and endless volumes on this discussion. As for the fact that Paul's prologue concludes with AMEN, a word of the Hebrew tongue: AMEN (אמן) the Seventy translated γένοιτο, that is, "let it be"; Aquila πεπιστωμένος, "truly" or "faithfully." This the Savior too always uses in the Gospel, confirming his own words by AMEN.

"To whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen."

This too is new and unusual, for we never find the word, "Amen" placed at the beginning of an Epistle, but a good way on; here, however he has it in his beginning, to show that what he had already said contained a sufficient charge against the Galatians, and that his argument was complete, for a manifest offence does not require an elaborate crimination. Having spoken of the Cross, and Resurrection, of redemption from sin and security for the future, of the purpose of the Father, and the will of the Son, of grace and peace and His whole gift, he concludes with an ascription of praise.

Another reason for it is the exceeding astonishment into which he was thrown by the magnitude of the gift, the superabundance of the grace, the consideration who we were, and what God had wrought, and that at once and in a single moment of time. Unable to express this in words, he breaks out into a doxology, sending up for the whole world an eulogium, not indeed worthy of the subject, but such as was possible to him. Hence too he proceeds to use more vehement language; as if greatly kindled by a sense of the Divine benefits, for having said, "To whom be the glory for ever and ever, Amen," he commences with a more severe reproof.

He refers to the evil deeds, to the distorted free choice.

"to whom be the glory forever and ever." Reflecting on the indescribable benefits of God through the things said, he finished his speech in doxology. For he could not express them.

Not using the word "amen" anywhere in the introduction, he placed it here, showing that this speech of his is finished and that what has been said is sufficient for the accusation of the Galatians. And having reminded them of the ineffable benefactions of God, in which is already contained the condemnation of them as those who abandoned their Benefactor Christ; then, filled with amazement before this Benefactor and finding nothing more to say about them, he concludes his speech with a doxology.

And because it is from God our Father, namely, from the whole Trinity, that all things come to us through Christ, therefore to it, i.e., to the whole Trinity, glory in itself, honor from others, be or is, "forever and ever," i.e., always. "Amen." This is a mark of corroboration.

You have therefore, in summary, in the above greeting, the Apostle's authority by which he breaks their pride; the power of the grace by which he exhorts them to observe the Gospel; and the insufficiency of the ceremonies of the Law, in order to call them away from them.

What is it that the Apostle says to the Galatians: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in grace, for another gospel, which is not another” (Gal. 1:6–7)? If it is “another,” surely it is not the same; if it is not the same, how is it not “another”? — Therefore he calls it “another gospel” in relation to the gospel to which they had been called, because it is not the one that the Galatians later began to follow. For, led away from the Gospel of Christ, they had been drawn into Judaism under the name of Christ, as though that were what should be followed; and they affirmed something different from what the Apostle preached. Therefore the phrase is understood, “As they persuade you.” For false apostles, when they were deceiving the believing Gentiles, claimed that what they themselves taught had been handed down by the Savior, as is contained in the Acts of the Apostles: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). Moved by grief at their downfall, the Apostle writes to them, saying: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in grace, for another gospel, which is not another.” (Gal. 1:6-7) He is amazed because, after something light and less burdensome, they were striving after harshness and burden: that is, that after the simplicity of faith they allowed themselves to be circumcised for the sake of the elements, that they observed new moons and the sabbath; they were subjected and driven by the elements, that is, to grace, not to the works of the Law. And lest he seem to have given the false apostles an opening, by allowing them to say that what the Galatians had received was different from what the tradition of truth holds, he immediately adds: “Which is not another, except that there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” (Gal. 1:7) So, the gospel to which they had been called by the Apostle was different from what they began to follow under the influence of the false apostles; yet it was not different from what Christ had handed down, so that by this they might recognize that they had been led into error, and follow faith alone, confessing Christ as God and that he is sufficient to grant salvation, through whom they had obtained the remission of sins, and not through the Law: for without the Law, the grace of God forgives sins.

If it were another gospel other than the one that the Lord has given through himself or through some other, it would not be a gospel.

What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call "Christianity And". You know--Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.

Finally, this seditious practice has already begun to appear; for in our province, through some of its cities, an attack has been made by the multitude upon their rulers, and they have compelled that peace to be given to them immediately which they all cried out had been once given to them by the martyrs and confessors. Their rulers, being frightened and subdued, were of little avail to resist them, either by vigour of mind or by strength of faith. With us, moreover, some turbulent spirits, who in time past were with difficulty governed by me, and were delayed till my coming, were inflamed by this letter as if by a firebrand, and began to be more violent, and to extort the peace granted to them. I have sent a copy to you of the letters that I wrote to my clergy about these matters, and, moreover, what Caldonius, my colleague, of his integrity and faithfulness wrote, and what I replied to him. I have sent both to you to read. Copies also of the letter of Celerinus, the good and stout confessor, which he wrote to Lucian the same confessor-also what Lucian replied to him,-I have sent to you; that you may know both my labour in respect of everything, and my diligence, and might learn the truth itself, how moderate and cautious is Celerinus the confessor, and how reverent both in his humility and fear for our faith; while Lucian, as I have said, is less skilful concerning the understanding of the Lord's word, and by his facility, is mischievous on account of the dislike that he causes for my reverential dealing. For while the Lord has said that the nations are to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and their past sins are to be done away in baptism; this man, ignorant of the precept and of the law, commands peace to be granted and sins to be done away in the name of Paulus; and he says that this was commanded him by Paulus, as you will observe in the letter sent by the same Lucian to Celerinus, in which he very little considered that it is not martyrs that make the Gospel, but that martyrs are made by the Gospel; since Paul also, the apostle whom the Lord called a chosen vessel unto Him, laid down in his epistle: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."

I marvel that you are so quickly transferred from him who called you into the grace of Christ Jesus, to another Gospel which is not another, unless there are some who trouble you and wish to overturn the Gospel of Christ.

We first read the word "transfer" in Genesis (Gen. 5), where "God transferred Enoch, and he was not found". And afterwards in the books of Kingdoms (1 Kings 21), when his wife Jezebel transferred Ahab from the worship of God to the veneration of idols, so that he did according to all that the Amorite did, whom the Lord destroyed from before the face of the children of Israel. But although each is a transfer, the one is God's, the other the devil's. He who is transferred by God is not found by his enemies, nor can the one who lies in wait creep up on him. This indeed is what I judge "and he was not found" to signify. But he who is transferred by the devil is transferred into that which seems to be, but is not. The wise men of the age, too, call those who are transferred from one doctrine to another "transferred": thus that Dionysius (whose opinion had formerly been that pain is not an evil, but who, after he was overwhelmed by calamities and tormented by pain, began to affirm that pain was the greatest of all evils) was called by them the Transposed (Transpositus), or the Transferred (Translatus), because, namely, departing from his former tenet, he had fallen back into its contrary. Paul therefore marvels: first, that they have been transferred from the freedom of the Gospel into the slavery of legal works; next, that they were transferred so quickly, since it is not the same guilt to be transferred by someone with difficulty and to be transferred quickly; just as in martyrdom he who without struggle and torments leapt forward at once to deny is not punished with the same penalty as he who, twisted amid the rack, the cords and the fires, was compelled to deny what he believed. The preaching of the Gospel was still recent; no great time lay in between since the Apostle had brought the Galatians over from idols to Christ. He marvels therefore how they had so quickly departed from him in whose name they had lately been made Christians. The passage itself also has a ὑπέρβατον (hyperbaton, a transposition of word order), which can be read in its proper order thus: I marvel that you are so quickly transferred from Christ Jesus, who called you into grace, saying: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" to repentance (Mark 2:17). For by grace we have been saved, and not through the law (Eph. 2:8).

And this too is fitting, that the word "transfer" has been fitted to the Galatians: for Galatia in our language means "transfer".

"I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from Him that called you in the grace of Christ, unto a different Gospel."

Like the Jews who persecuted Christ, they imagined their observance of the Law was acceptable to the Father, and he therefore shows that in doing this they displeased not only Christ, but the Father also, for that they fell away thereby not from Christ only, but from the Father also. As the old covenant was given not by the Father only, but also by the Son, so the covenant of grace proceeded from the Father as well as the Son, and Their every act is common: "All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine." By saying that they had fallen off from the Father, he brings a twofold charge against them, of an apostasy, and of an immediate apostasy. The opposite extreme, a late apostasy, is also blameworthy, but he who falls away at the first onset, and in the very skirmishing, displays an example of the most extreme cowardice, of which very thing he accuses them also saying: "How is this that your seducers need not even time for their designs, but the first approaches suffice for your overthrow and capture? And what excuse can ye have? If this is a crime among friends, and he who deserts old and useful associates is to be condemned, consider what punishment he is obnoxious to who revolts from God that called him."

He says, "I marvel," not only by way of reproof, that after such bounty, such a remission of their sins, such overflowing kindness, they had deserted to the yoke of servitude, but also in order to show, that the opinion he had had of them was a favorable and exalted one. For, had he ranked them among ordinary and easily deceived persons, he would not have felt surprise. "But since you," he says, "are of the noble sort and have suffered much, I do marvel." Surely this was enough to recover and lead them back to their first expressions. He alludes to it also in the middle of the Epistle, "Did ye suffer so many things in vain? if it be indeed in vain." "Ye are removing;" he says not, "ye are removed," that is, "I will not believe or suppose that your seduction is complete;" this is the language of one about to recover them, which further on he expresses yet more clearly in the words, "I have confidence to you-ward in the Lord that ye will be none otherwise minded."

"From Him that called you in the grace of Christ."

The calling is from the Father, but the cause of it is the Son. He it is who hath brought about reconciliation and bestowed it as a gift, for we were not saved by works in righteousness: or I should rather say that these blessings proceed from Both; as He says, "Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine." He says not "ye are removing from the Gospel" but "from God who called you," a more frightful expression, and more likely to affect them. Their seducers did not act abruptly but gradually, and while they removed them from the faith in fact, left names unchanged. It is the policy of Satan not to set his snares in open view; had they urged them to fall away from Christ, they would have been shunned as deceivers and corrupters, but suffering them so far to continue in the faith, and putting upon their error the name of the Gospel, without fear they undermined the building employing the terms which they used as a sort of curtain to conceal the destroyers themselves. As therefore they gave the name of Gospel to this their imposture, he contends against the very name, and boldly says, "unto a different Gospel."

This, he says, has raised within me much surprise, because those who were taught the mystery of grace in such a way that they could become teachers of others, were so easily persuaded by deceivers.

Just as Peter says, that "there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Two sins: transferring blame, and doing so quickly, as if deceivers needed no time. Observe carefully. Since they thought to appease the Father by holding to the law, he showed that one who departs from Christ and the Gospel also departs from the Father. For the Father himself, he says, has called us to the grace of his Son. For the Son bestows remission by his blood, by grace and not by merit, for the Father calls to this; truly the Spirit consents. Indeed, it is a common benefit toward us of the holy and blessed Trinity.

"to a different gospel." For they called their deception a "gospel", persuading the Galatians to observe things like Sabbaths and circumcision, using the name as bait.

They bear in mind how the churches were rebuked by the apostle: "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? " and, "Ye did run so well; who hath hindered you? " and how the epistle actually begins: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him, who hath called you as His own in grace, to another gospel." That they likewise (remember), what was written to the Corinthians, that they "were yet carnal," who "required to be fed with milk," being as yet "unable to bear strong meat; " who also "thought that they knew somewhat, whereas they knew not yet anything, as they ought to know.

When, again, he mentioned "certain false brethren as having crept in unawares," who wished to remove the Galatians into another gospel, he himself shows that that adulteration of the gospel was not meant to transfer them to the faith of another god and christ, but rather to perpetuate the teaching of the law; because he blames them for maintaining circumcision, and observing times, and days, and months, and years, according to those Jewish ceremonies which they ought to have known were now abrogated, according to the new dispensation purposed by the Creator Himself, who of old foretold this very thing by His prophets.

Since also he makes mention of no other god (and he could have found no other opportunity of doing so, more suitable than when his purpose was to set forth the reason for the abolition of the law-especially as the prescription of a new god would have afforded a singularly good and most sufficient reason), it is clear enough in what sense he writes, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him who hath called you to His grace to another gospel" -He means) "another" as to the conduct it prescribes, not in respect of its worship; "another" as to the discipline it teaches, not in respect of its divinity; because it is the office of Christ's gospel to call men from the law to grace, not from the Creator to another god.

Is he then the same God as He who gave Satan power over the person of Job that his "strength might be made perfect in weakness? " How is it that the censurer of the Galatians still retains the very formula of the law: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established? " How again is it that he threatens sinners "that he will not spare" them -he, the preacher of a most gentle god? Yea, he even declares that "the Lord hath given to him the power of using sharpness in their presence!" Deny now, O heretic, (at your cost, ) that your god is an object to be feared, when his apostle was for making himself so formidable!

He is saying, "You have not departed from this teaching to that but from the one who called you.… The very Father who gave the law is the one who called you to this gospel.… And if you desert this gospel, you will not find another. For the Lord does not preach some things through us and others through the other apostles."

He shows that he had a high opinion of them. For I marvel, he says, that you who have labored so much in the faith are so quickly turning aside. Here there are two faults: "you are turning" and "quickly," so that the deceivers did not even need time, which testifies to the fickleness of those accepting their teaching. And he did not say "you have turned," but "you are turning," that is, I still do not believe and do not think that the deception has already been accomplished. Understand his wisdom. Since they, holding to the law, thought they were serving the Father, he says that those who hold to the law are distancing themselves from the Father: for he says "from Him who called you," that is, from the Father. "By the grace of Christ," that is, they were justified by Christ, not for works, but by grace. For although the Son grants the forgiveness of sins by grace, it is the Father who calls them to it.

The greeting given, it is followed by the epistle message, in which the Apostle refutes their error; secondly, he admonishes them with a view to their correction (5:1): "Stand fast and be not held again under the yoke of bondage." He refutes their error two ways: namely, on the authority of the Gospel teaching; and by reason, using the Old Testament (3:1): "O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you?"

He refutes their error by showing the authority of the Gospel teaching:

First, by showing their fickleness in lightly dismissing the Gospel teaching;

Secondly, by commending the authority of the Gospel teaching, as he intimates that in view of the precious value of that which they so lightly regard, their error is seen to be so much the greater (v. 11).

Regarding the first he does two things:

First, he enlarges upon their guilt;

Secondly, he inflicts a punishment (v. 8).

Concerning the first, he enlarges upon the guilt both of the seduced and of those who seduced them (v. 7): "only there are some that trouble you." As to the first he does three things:

First, he enlarges upon the guilt of those who were misled for their fickleness of mind. Hence he says, "I wonder." As if to say: Although you are aware of the many good things already mentioned that come to you through Christ, and although I instructed you well, nevertheless you are "thus," i.e., so far and so completely removed [transferred], that you seem already to have forgotten; "so soon," i.e., in such a short time, are you removed [transferred]. With this word he alludes to their name, for Galatia means "transferred." As if to say: You are Galatians, because you are so quickly transferred. "He that is hasty to give credit is light of heart" (Sir 19:4).

Secondly, he amplifies their guilt on the part of that which they have abandoned. For if reason withdraws and is removed from evil, it is worthy of praise and does well; but when it departs from the good, it is culpable. And this is how they were removed from good. So he says to them: Although it is amazing that you are so quickly and so far removed, there is additional reason for wonder, namely, because you have removed yourselves "from him," i.e., from God, and from faith in Him "that called you into the grace of Christ," i.e., into the sharing of the eternal good which we have through Christ: "Giving thanks to God who hath called you into his marvelous light" (1 Pet 2:9). Again: "For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice than, after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them" (2 Pet 2:21).

Thirdly, he amplifies their guilt on the part of that to which they have turned, because they have been turned not to good but to evil. Hence he says, "unto another gospel," i.e., of the Old Law, which is a good message only insofar as it does announce some good things, namely, temporal and carnal: "If you be willing and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land" (Is 1:19). Yet it is not completely perfect as is the Gospel, because it does not announce the perfect and loftiest goods, but small and slight ones. But the New Law is perfectly and in the full sense a Gospel, i.e., a good message, because it announces the greatest goods, namely, heavenly, spiritual and eternal. And although it is another gospel according to the tradition of the deceivers, yet according to my preaching it is not. For it is different in the promises, but not in the figure, because the same thing is contained in the Old Testament and in the New: in the Old, indeed, as in a figure, but in the New as in the express reality. Therefore it is another gospel if you consider the outward appearances; but as to the things that are contained and exist within, it is not another gospel.

"But you have been transferred," he says, "to another Gospel, which is not another": because everything that is false does not subsist, and what is contrary to the truth is not, as in that verse: "Give not, O Lord, your scepter to those who are not" (Esther 14:11). And God called the things which were not, so as to make to be that which was not. Now if this is said of those who believed in the same God and had the same Scriptures, that they were transferred to another Gospel which is not a Gospel, what ought we to think of Marcion and the other heretics, who reject the Creator and feign a Christ of another God? They do not slip and fall in the interpretation of the law and the letter, or in the struggle of flesh and spirit, but they are at variance with the whole order of the Church. And he says finely: Unless there are some who trouble you, and wish to overturn the Gospel of Christ. "They wish," he says, "to change, to overturn, to disturb the Gospel of Christ": but they are not able. For its nature is such that it cannot be other than what is true. Everyone who interprets the Gospel in another spirit and mind than it was written troubles believers and overturns the Gospel of Christ, so as to put behind the back what is in front, and to turn into the front what is behind the back. If anyone follows only the letter, he puts the hinder parts in front. If anyone acquiesces in the interpretations of the Jews, he casts behind his back the things which by their own nature were set in front.

"Which is not another Gospel."

And justly, for there is not another. Nevertheless the Marcionites are misled by this phrase, as diseased persons are injured even by healthy food, for they have seized upon it, and exclaim, "So Paul himself has declared there is no other Gospel." For they do not allow all the Evangelists, but one only, and him mutilated and confused according to their pleasure. Their explanation of the words, "according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ," is sufficiently ridiculous; nevertheless, for the sake of those who are easily seduced, it is necessary to refute it. We assert, therefore, that, although a thousand Gospels were written, if the contents of all were the same, they would still be one, and their unity no wise infringed by the number of writers. So, on the other hand, if there were one writer only, but he were to contradict himself, the unity of the things written would be destroyed. For the oneness of a work depends not on the number of its authors, but on the agreement or contradictoriness of its contents. Whence it is clear that the four Gospels are one Gospel; for, as the four say the same thing, its oneness is preserved by the harmony of the contents, and not impaired by the difference of persons.

"Only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ."

That is to say, ye will not recognize another Gospel, so long as your mind is sane, so long as your vision remains healthy, and free from distorted and imaginary phantoms. For as the disordered eye mistakes the object presented to it, so does the mind when made turbid by the confusion of evil thoughts. Thus the madman confounds objects; but this insanity is more dangerous than a physical malady, for it works injury not in the regions of sense, but of the mind; it creates confusion not in the organ of bodily vision, but in the eye of the understanding.

"And would pervert the Gospel of Christ." They had, in fact, only introduced one or two commandments, circumcision and the observance of days, but he says that the Gospel was subverted, in order to show that a slight adulteration vitiates the whole. For as he who but partially pares away the image on a royal coin renders the whole spurious, so he who swerves ever so little from the pure faith, soon proceeds from this to graver errors, and becomes entirely corrupted.

Where then are those who charge us with being contentious in separating from heretics, and say that there is no real difference between us except what arises from our ambition? Let them hear Paul's assertion, that those who had but slightly innovated, subverted the Gospel. Not to say that the Son of God is a created Being, is a small matter. Know you not that even under the elder covenant, a man who gathered sticks on the sabbath, and transgressed a single commandment, and that not a great one, was punished with death? and that Uzzah, who supported the Ark when on the point of being overturned, was struck suddenly dead, because he had intruded upon an office which did not pertain to him? Wherefore if to transgress the sabbath, and to touch the falling Ark, drew down the wrath of God so signally as to deprive the offender of even a momentary respite, shall he who corrupts unutterably awful doctrines find excuse and pardon? Assuredly not. A want of zeal in small matters is the cause of all our calamities; and because slight errors escape fitting correction, greater ones creep in.

He rightly said, "those who disturb," and not "those who teach," or "those who persuade," so as to show that the whole case was entirely one of deceit."

"Not that there is another gospel." Which is to say, he declares, only one thing, and there is no other besides this. Unless, then, some of you are troubled, wishing to pervert you and to distort the gospel of Christ.

For nobody had induced them to apostatize from the Creator, that they should seem to "be removed to another gospel," simply when they return again to the Creator. When he adds, too, the words, "which is not another," he confirms the fact that the gospel which he maintains is the Creator's.

So that there are two gospels for two gods; and the apostle made a great mistake when he said that "there is not another" gospel, since there is (on the hypothesis) another; and so he might have made a better defence of his gospel, by rather demonstrating this, than by insisting on its being but one.

Just as with royal currency—anyone who cuts off a little from the impress has debased the whole currency—so one who makes even the smallest change in sound faith adulterates the whole.

Since the deceivers called their error a gospel, he objects to this designation as well, saying that there is no other Gospel besides the one you received. For there is one Gospel, containing the correct teaching, which I preached to you, if only some were not confusing your spiritual eyes and making you see one thing instead of another, wishing to pervert the Gospel of Christ. True, they did not overthrow the entire Gospel, but only introduced the commandment about the Sabbath and circumcision; however, he shows that even a small corruption overthrows the entire Gospel — just as one who cuts off a small part of a royal coin renders the whole coin worthless. Note, this is said for those who say that this is a trifle and not worth attention. And the Marcionites, seizing upon this saying, claim that on this basis one should accept not four, but one Gospel, which they composed, accepting some things and rejecting others. See, they say, even Paul affirms that there is one Gospel. But what does this mean? Just as we say that the four Gospels constitute one, of course by their agreement, so Paul speaks here not of number but of disagreement. Since, he says, the preaching of these deceivers is not in agreement, therefore it is not a Gospel; but if it were in agreement, it would be a Gospel, that is, an apostolic preaching. Thus, the opinion of Marcion is idle chatter.

Yet though it is not in itself another gospel, it can be another, if you consider the guilt of the others, i.e., of the deceivers. Hence in enlarging upon the guilt of the latter he says, "only there are some," namely, the seducers, "that trouble you," i.e., sully the purity of your understanding with which you were imbued with the truth of faith. Because although the same thing is contained, so far as the inward understanding is concerned, in the Old and New Testament, as has been said, yet if the Old is embraced after accepting the New, that is seen to show that the New is not perfect, and that the one is different from the other. Hence he says, "which is not another, only there are some that trouble you," because those deceivers were compelling them to be circumcised after professing faith in the Gospel, showing thereby that circumcision is something different from Baptism and does something that Baptism cannot do, and for that reason they are troubling you. "I would that they were even cut off who trouble you" (5:12).

And they do indeed bring you trouble, because they "would pervert the gospel of Christ," i.e., the truth of the Gospel teaching, into the figure of the Law—which is absurd and the greatest of troubles. For a thing ought to be converted into that to which it is ordained. But the New Testament and the Gospel of Christ are not ordained to the Old, but contrariwise, the Old Law is ordained to the New Law, as a figure to the truth. Consequently the figure ought to be converted into the truth, and the Old Law to the Gospel of Christ, not the truth into the figure, or the Gospel of Christ into the Old Law. This is plain from the way we ordinarily speak; for we do not say that a man resembles the image of a man, but contrariwise, that the image resembles the man: "They shall be turned to thee and thou shalt not be turned to them" (Jer 15:19); "The new coming on, you shall cast away the old" (Lev 26:10).

These are the apostolic doctrines of the Church, for which also we die, esteeming those but little who would compel us to forswear them, even if they would force us by tortures, and not casting away our hope in them. To these Arius and Achilles opposing themselves, and those who with them are the enemies of the truth, have been expelled from the Church, as being aliens from our holy doctrine, according to the blessed Paul, who says, "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed; even though he feign himself an angel from heaven."

Let no one be surprised that the apostle, when quieting ferocious characters, was so annoyed. He is indignant, for the sake of the Galatians' salvation, with the enemies of the Christian way of life. For this indignation shows that it is no light sin to transfer allegiance to the law after receiving faith.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach the gospel to you other than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, and now I say again: if anyone has preached the gospel to you other than what you have received, let him be anathema.

It can also be taken as said hyperbolically: not that either an apostle or an angel could have preached otherwise than they had once spoken, but that, even if it could come about that both apostles and angels were changed, still one must not depart from what had once been received; especially since the Apostle himself in another place shows the firmness of his faith, saying: "I know that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor strength, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38). "I speak the truth, I do not lie, my conscience bearing me witness" (Rom. 9:1). These indeed are not the words of one who could at some time depart from the faith and love of Christ. But those who will not have this said καθ᾽ ὑπόθεσιν (hypothetically), but in earnest, namely that both apostles and angels can be turned to worse things, object that Paul himself also knew that he could fall if he acted too slackly, saying: "But I subdue my body and bring it into slavery, lest, while preaching to others, I myself be found reprobate" (1 Cor. 9:27); that angels too are changeable, who did not keep their principality but, leaving their own dwelling, are reserved under darkness in eternal chains for the judgment of the great day (Jude 6); that the nature of God alone is unchangeable, of whom it is written: "But you are the same" (Ps. 101:28). And he says of himself: "I am your God, and I do not change" (Mal. 3:6). That Lucifer fell, who rose in the morning, and that he who once sent to all the nations was crushed upon the earth. Elegantly, on this passage, that most learned man Tertullian, writing against Apelles and his virgin Philumene, whom a certain perverse angel of a devilish spirit had filled, writes that this is the angel on whom, long before Apelles was born, anathema was prophesied by the Apostle through the foretelling of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, ἀνάθεμα is properly a word of the Jews, and it is set down both in Joshua son of Nun (Josh. 6:17) and in Numbers (Num. 21), when the Lord commanded that all the things that were in Jericho, and those of the Midianites, be held as objects of detestation and anathema. Let us ask those who assert that Christ and the apostle Paul are respectively the son and the slave of the good God, who was unknown until that time, a God who does not know how to curse and has never learned to condemn anyone: how is it that his Apostle now uses a word of the Jews, that is, of the Creator, and wishes either an angel or an apostle to perish, when he himself is not accustomed to take vengeance?

And for this reason he pronounced anathema both on himself, whom they accused of doing one thing in Judea and teaching another among the Gentiles, and on an angel, who was admittedly greater even than the apostles who preceded him: so that the authority of Peter and John might not be thought great, since neither he himself, who had taught them before, nor an angel was permitted to preach otherwise than they had once learned. So he named himself and the angel expressly, but the others without a name: If anyone, he says, has preached the gospel to you, so that by a general term he might do no injury to his predecessors, and yet might covertly point to their names.

"But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema."

See the Apostle's wisdom; to obviate the objection that he was prompted by vainglory to applaud his own doctrine, he includes himself also in his anathema; and as they betook themselves to authority, that of James and John, he mentions angels also saying, "Tell me not of James and John; if one of the most exalted angels of heaven corrupt the Gospel, let him be anathema." The phrase "of heaven" is purposely added, because priests are also called angels. "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger [angel] of the Lord of hosts." Lest therefore it should be thought that priests are here meant, by the term "angels," he points out the celestial intelligences by the addition, "from heaven." And he says not, if they preach a contrary Gospel, or subvert the whole of the true one, let them be anathema; but, if they even slightly vary, or incidentally disturb, my doctrine. "As we have said before, so say I now again." That his words might not seem to be spoken in anger, or with exaggeration, or with recklessness he now repeats them. Sentiments may perhaps change, when an expression has been called forth by anger, but to repeat it a second time proves that it is spoken advisedly, and was previously approved by the judgment.

When Abraham was requested to send Lazarus, he replied, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them: if they hear them not, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead." And Christ introduces Abraham thus speaking, to show that He would have the Scriptures accounted more worthy of credence, even than one raised from the dead: Paul too, (and when I say Paul, I mean Christ, who directed his mind,) prefers them before an angel come down from heaven. And justly, for the angels, though mighty, are but servants and ministers, but the Scriptures were all written and sent, not by servants, but by God the Lord of all. He says, if "any man" preach another Gospel to you than that which we have preached,-not "if this or that man:" and herein appears his prudence, and care of giving offence, for what needed there still any mention of names, when he had used such extensive terms as to embrace all, both in heaven and earth? In that he anathemized evangelists and angels, he included every dignity, and his mention of himself included every intimacy and affinity. "Tell me not," he exclaims, "that my fellow-apostles and colleagues have so spoken; I spare not myself if I preach such doctrine." And he says this not as condemning the Apostles for swerving from the message they were commissioned to deliver; far from it, (for he says, whether we or they thus preach;) but to show, that in the discussion of truth the dignity of persons is not to be considered.

See the apostolic prudence! He includes himself in the anathema, so that no one might say that he constructs his own dogmas on account of vainglory; and he mentioned the angels because they took refuge in authorities, i.e. James and John. Do not tell me, he says, about James and John, for even one of the angels, who are first, should be anathema in corrupting the Gospel.

"But even if we or." So that no one may say that he composes his own preaching out of vainglory, he first accurses himself, if indeed he were willing to alter anything in the Gospel.

"an angel from heaven." Do not say to me, he says, Peter and John and James, but even if the powers above were to pervert the Gospel, let them be accursed. And these things, he says, not as if something different from what others proclaim about Peter (for neither are the powers above) but wishing to stop the mouths of the deceivers who, by means of the office surrounding Peter, were deceiving them.

"contrary to what we preached." The phrase "to what" indicates the extent, however small, of the preaching.

If, therefore, even "an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel" (than theirs), he would be called accursed by us.

To be sure, an amender of that Gospel, which had been all topsy-turvy from the days of Tiberius to those of Antoninus, first presented himself in Marcion alone-so long looked for by Christ, who was all along regretting that he had been in so great a hurry to send out his apostles without the support of Marcion! But for all that, heresy, which is for ever mending the Gospels, and corrupting them in the act, is an affair of man's audacity, not of God's authority; and if Marcion be even a disciple, he is yet not "above his master; " if Marcion be an apostle, still as Paul says, "Whether it be I or they, so we preach; " if Marcion be a prophet, even "the spirits of the prophets will be subject to the prophets," for they are not the authors of confusion, but of peace; or if Marcion be actually an angel, he must rather be designated "as anathema than as a preacher of the gospel," because it is a strange gospel which he has preached.

But perhaps, to avoid this difficulty, you will say that he therefore added just afterwards, "Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed," because he was aware that the Creator was going to introduce a gospel! But you thus entangle yourself still more.

His meaning, however, is clear, for he has mentioned himself first (in the anathema): "But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel." It is by way of an example that he has expressed himself.

To this angel, indeed, of Philumene, the apostle will reply in tones like those in which he even then predicted him, saying, "Although an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." To the arguments, however, which have been indicated just above, we have now to show our resistance.

In like manner, in the passage, "If even an angel of heaven preach unto you any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema," he calls attention to the artful influence of Philumene, the virgin friend of Apelles.

He mentioned the angels, not speculating that any of the holy angels would say something contrary to the divine gospel, for he knew this to be impossible. But through this he reprehended every novelty of humanity.

Lest anyone should say that he praises his own teaching out of ambition, he anathematizes even himself. And since they were appealing to authority and referring to Peter and James, he therefore mentioned the angels as well. He added the words "from heaven" because priests were also called angels. So, lest you think he is speaking of priests, by the indication of heaven he designated the heavenly powers. And he did not say: if they will preach the opposite, but — if they will proclaim to you anything small beyond what we have proclaimed to you. So then, by subjecting to anathema the angels and himself, he rejects all authority and human friendship in the matter of faith. Do not tell me that your apostles preach something different; I will not spare even myself if I do not preach the Gospel. And he says this not to disparage the apostles, but wishing to shut the mouths of deceivers and to show that he does not recognize authority when it comes to matters of doctrine.

Then after enlarging upon their guilt, the inflicting of the penalty is set forth when he says, "But though we, or an angel from heaven." And with respect to this he does two things:

First, he promulgates the sentence;

Secondly, he gives a reason for the sentence (v. 10).

As to the first he does two things:

First, he presents authority for his sentence;

Secondly, he passes sentence (v. 9).

He shows that his authority for passing sentence is great on the ground that it would affect not only the perverters and seducers, who are subject to him, but also his own equals, as the other apostles, and even those above him, as the angels, were they guilty of this crime, namely, of turning the Gospel into the Old Law. Hence he says: Because the authority behind the sentence which we pass (which is excommunication) has efficacy, not only over those who are doing these things, then "though we," namely, the apostles, or an angel, good or evil, coming "from heaven, preach a gospel besides that which we have preached, let him be anathema," i.e., subject to this sentence that we pass.

To elucidate the foregoing, three things should be investigated. First, the meaning of this word, "anathema." Apropos of this it should be noted that anathema is a Greek word composed of ana, which means above, and thesis, i.e., a placing; hence a placing above. The word arose from an old custom. For the ancients, when they waged war, sometimes took from their enemies certain booty which they were unwilling to turn to their own use, but hung it in the temple or other public place of the city, as though to separate it from the common use of men. Everything so hung up, the Greeks called anathema. And from this arose the custom of declaring anathematized anything excluded from common use. Hence in Joshua (6:17) it is said of Jericho and of everything in it, that Joshua once anathematized it. Consequently, even in the Church the practice arose of declaring anathema those who are excluded from the common society of the Church and from partaking of the sacraments of the Church.

Secondly, we must look for an explanation of his statement, "though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." Here it should be noted that there are three kinds of teachings: the first is that of the philosophers who have arrived at a knowledge of their doctrine with their own reason guiding them. Another is that which has been delivered by angels, as the Old Law. For the Old Law was not issued by a human will but by angels in the hand of a mediator (Gal 3:19). But the third teaching was given immediately by God Himself, as the teaching of the Gospel: "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (Jn 1:18); "In these days He hath spoken to us by his Son" (Heb 1:2); "Which, having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard him" (Heb 2:3).

Now, a teaching passed on by a man can be changed and revoked by another man who knows better, as one philosopher refutes the sayings of another, or by an angel who has a more penetrating knowledge of the truth. Even a teaching handed down by one angel could be supplanted by that of a higher angel or by God. But a teaching that comes directly from God can be nullified neither by man nor angel. Hence if a man or an angel were to state anything contrary to what has been taught by God, such a statement would not contradict God's teaching, so as to void or destroy it; rather, God's teaching would be against him, because one who speaks thus should be expelled and prevented from sharing his teaching. Hence the Apostle says that the dignity of the Gospel teaching, which has come directly from God, is so great that if a man or even an angel preached another Gospel besides that which he has preached among them, he is anathema, i.e., must be rejected and expelled.

Thirdly, we must solve the objections which arise on this point. The first is that, since an equal has no authority over his peers and much less over his superiors, it seems that the Apostle has no power to excommunicate the apostles, who are his peers, and less so, angels who are superior. "He that is the lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matt 11:11). Therefore the anathema is invalid. The answer to this is that the Apostle passed this sentence not on his own authority, but on the authority of the Gospel teaching, of which he was the minister, and the authority of which teaches that whoever says aught contrary to it must be expelled and cast out. "The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (Jn 14:48).

A second question arises from the words, "a gospel besides that which we have preached to you." Therefore no one may teach or preach anything but what is written in the epistles and Gospels. But this is false, because it is said in 1 Thessalonians (3:10): "Praying that we may accomplish those things that are wanting to your faith." I answer that nothing is to be taught except what is contained, either implicitly or explicitly, in the Gospels and epistles and Sacred Scripture. For Sacred Scripture and the Gospels announce that Christ must be believed explicitly. Hence whatever is contained therein implicitly and fosters its teaching and faith in Christ can be preached and taught. Therefore, when he says, "besides that which you have received," he means by adding something completely alien: "If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book" (Rev 22:18). And "Neither add anything," i.e., contrary or alien, "nor diminish" (Deut 12:32).

But in adding as we said before, and now I say again, he shows that at the beginning too, guarding against this very thing, he had pronounced anathema on those who were going to preach otherwise, and that now, after the preaching has been done, he decrees the anathema which he had foretold before.

So that they may not think I have said these things out of anger, as if not truly believing them, he adds the verb second.

So that they would not think he said this in anger and carried away by emotion, he repeats the same thing again, showing that he spoke not thoughtlessly, but having firmly and unwaveringly resolved this within himself.

Then when he says, "As we said before, so now I say it again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema," he pronounces his sentence on the evil person and says: As I have said of angels and apostles, so I say of the seducers. If any seducer "shall preach a gospel besides that which you have received from me, let him be anathema," i.e., excommunicated. And this is the sentence he passes.

Now it may be asked whether all heretics are thereby excommunicated. And it seems not, because it is said: "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid" (Tit 3:10). I answer that a person might be called a heretic either because he errs solely from ignorance, and then he is not on that account excommunicated; or because he errs through obstinacy and tries to subvert others, and then he falls under the canon of the sentence passed. But whether he was then and there passing sentence on heretics by these words is open to question, since sentence was later passed against heretics in the Councils. Yet it can be said that perhaps he was showing that they deserved to be excommunicated.

No one persuades God, for all things are manifest to him. But a person does well in wishing to persuade others when it is not himself that he wishes them to like but the truth that he persuades them of.… When one pleases others on account of truth, it is not the proclaimer himself but the truth that pleases.… Thus the sense is, "Do I then persuade men or God? And since it is men that I persuade, do I seek to please them? If I still sought to please men, I should not be Christ's servant. For he bids his servants to learn from him to be meek and lowly of heart, which is utterly impossible for one who seeks to please men on his own account, for his own private and special glory." … Both then can be rightly said: "I please" and "I do not please."

[On how the desire to please men — specifically the desire to be admitted to an "Inner Ring" of insiders — will draw even otherwise decent men into wrongdoing, not by appetite or gain, but by the sheer fear of being cast back into the cold outer world of those who are left out]

To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink or a cup of coffee, disguised as a triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naif or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which is not quite in accordance with the technical rules of fair play: something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which "we always do". And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. Of all passions the passion for the Inner Ring is most skilful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.

For our own part, it befits our conscience, dearest brother, to strive that none should perish going out of the Church by our fault; but if any one, of his own accord and by his own sin, should perish, and should be unwilling to repent and to return to the Church, that we who are anxious for their well-being should be blameless in the day of judgment, and that they alone should remain in punishment who refused to be healed by the wholesomeness of our advice. Nor ought the reproaches of the lost to move us in any degree to depart from the right path and from the sure rule, since also the apostle instructs us, saying, "If I should please men, I should not be the servant of Christ." There is a great difference whether one desires to deserve well of men or of God. If we seek to please men, the Lord is offended. But if we strive and labour that we may please God, we ought to contemn human reproaches and abuse.

Therefore, dearest brother, endeavour that the undisciplined should not be consumed and perish, that as much as you can, by your salutary counsels, you should rule the brotherhood, and take counsel of each one with a view to his salvation. Strait and narrow is the way through which we enter into life, but excellent and great is the reward when we enter into glory. Let those who have once made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven please God in all things, and not offend God's priests nor the Lord's Church by the scandal of their wickedness. And if, for the present, certain of our brethren seem to be made sorry by us, let us nevertheless remain in our wholesome persuasion, knowing that an apostle also has said, "Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? " But if they shall obey us, we have gained our brethren, and have formed them as well to salvation as to dignity by our address. But if some of the perverse persons refuse to obey, let us follow the same apostle, who says, "If I please men, I should not be the servant of Christ." If we cannot please some, so as to make them please Christ, let us assuredly, as far as we can, please Christ our Lord and God, by observing His precepts.

But the discipline of all religion and truth is overturned, unless what is spiritually prescribed be faithfully observed; unless indeed any one should fear in the morning sacrifices, lest by the taste of wine he should be redolent of the blood of Christ. Therefore thus the brotherhood is beginning even to be kept back from the passion of Christ in persecutions, by learning in the offerings to be disturbed concerning His blood and His blood-shedding. Moreover, however, the Lord says in the Gospel, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed." And the apostle also speaks, saying, "If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." But how can we shed our blood for Christ, who blush to drink the blood of Christ?

But if continency follows Christ, and virginity is destined for the kingdom of God, what have they to do with earthly dress, and with ornaments, wherewith while they are striving to please men they offend God? Not considering that it is declared, "They who please men are put to confusion, because God hath despised them; " and that Paul also has gloriously and sublimely uttered, "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." But continence and modesty consist not alone in purity of the flesh, but also in seemliness, as well as in modesty of dress and adornment; so that, according to the apostle, she who is unmarried may be holy both in body and in spirit. Paul instructs and teaches us, saying, "He that is unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please God: but he who has contracted marriage careth for the things which are of this world, how he may please his wife. So both the virgin and the unmarried woman consider those things which are the Lord's, that they may be holy both in body and spirit." A virgin ought not only to be so, but also to be perceived and believed to be so: no one on seeing a virgin should be in any doubt as to whether she is one. Perfectness should show itself equal in all things; nor should the dress of the body discredit the good of the mind. Why should she walk out adorned? Why with dressed hair, as if she either had or sought for a husband? Rather let her dread to please if she is a virgin; and let her not invite her own risk, if she is keeping herself for better and divine things. They who have not a husband whom they profess that they please, should persevere, sound and pure not only in body, but also in spirit. For it is not right that a virgin should have her hair braided for the appearance of her beauty, or boast of her flesh and of its beauty, when she has no struggle greater than that against her flesh, and no contest more obstinate than that of conquering and subduing the body.

That we must not please men, but God. In the fifty-second Psalm: "They that please men are confounded, because God hath made them nothing." Also in the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians: "If I wished to please men, I should not be the servant of Christ."

For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I would not be the slave of Christ.

Let us not suppose that we are being taught by the Apostle to despise the judgments of men after his example, since in another place he said: "Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men; but to God we are manifest" (2 Cor. 5:11); and this: "Be without offense to the Jews, and to the Gentiles, and to the Church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking what is useful to me, but what is useful to many, that they may be saved" (1 Cor. 10). But if it can be that we please God and men alike, men too must be pleased. If, however, we do not please men otherwise than by displeasing God, we ought to please God rather than men. Besides, he himself also adds why he pleases all men in all things: "Not seeking", he says, "what is useful to me, but what is useful to many, that they may be saved". Now he who, out of that love which does not seek the things that are its own but the things that are another's, pleases all men that they may be saved, certainly pleases God first, to whom the salvation of men is a care. Moreover, the word that has been specially added here, now, also implies that men are either to be pleased or to be displeased according to the time: so that he who now does not please on account of the truth of the Gospel may once have pleased for the salvation of very many. Paul had at one time pleased the Jews, when, being a zealot for the ancestral traditions, he had formerly lived in the law without reproach; and he had so much ardor and faith in the ceremonies of the forefathers that he was a partaker in the killing of Stephen, and went on to Damascus to bind those who had fallen away from the law (Acts 9). But after he was transferred from a persecutor into a vessel of election and began to preach the faith which he had once fought against, he began likewise to displease the Jews whom he had pleased before. This, then, is what he says: Do I seek to please the Jews, by displeasing whom I have pleased God? For if I were pleasing them, I would still not be the slave of Christ. For I would be upholding the law and destroying the grace of the Gospel. But now, for this reason, I am not induced even into a pretense of observing the law: because I am not able to please God and the Jews alike; for whoever pleases them displeases God. The very word to persuade, too, is taken from human usage, when someone tries to implant in others as well what he himself holds and has once imbibed; and it is read in very many places of the Scriptures, among which is this: "The persuasion is not from him who called you" (Gal. 5:8). And also in the Acts of the Apostles: "So many Jews came to him at his lodging, to whom he expounded, testifying to them the kingdom of God, and persuading them concerning Jesus from the Law of Moses and the Prophets until evening". Now all this was because it had been disseminated concerning him that he secretly kept the Law, and that at Jerusalem he had entered into fellowship with those who were Judaizing.

"For am I now persuading men: or God?" or am I seeking to please men? if I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ."

Granting, says he, that I might deceive you by these doctrines, could I deceive God, who knows my yet unuttered thoughts, and to please whom is my unceasing endeavor? See here the Apostolical spirit, the Evangelical loftiness! So too he writes to the Corinthians, "For we are not again commending ourselves unto you, but speak as giving you occasion of glorying;" and again, "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment." For since he is compelled to justify himself to his disciples, being their teacher, he submits to it; but he is grieved at it, not on account of chagrin, far from it, but on account of the instability of the minds of those led away and on account of not being fully trusted by them.

Wherefore Paul now speaks, as it were, thus:-Is my account to be rendered to you? Shall I be judged by men? My account is to God, and all my acts are with a view to that inquisition, nor am I so miserably abandoned as to pervert my doctrine, seeing that I am to justify what I preach before the Lord of all.

He thus expressed himself, as much with a view of withstanding their opinions, as in self-defence; for it becomes disciples to obey, not to judge, their master. But now, says he, that the order is reversed, and ye sit as judges, know that I am but little concerned to defend myself before you; all I do for God's sake, and in order that I may answer to Him concerning my doctrine. He who wishes to persuade men, is led to act tortuously and insincerely, and to employ deceit and falsehood, in order to engage the assent of his hearers. But he who addresses himself to God, and desires to please Him, needs simplicity and purity of mind, for God cannot be deceived. Whence it is plain that I have thus written to you not from the love of rule, or to gain disciples, or to receive honor at your hands. My endeavor has been to please God, not man. Were it otherwise, I should still consort with the Jews, still persecute the Church, I who have cast off my country altogether, my companions, my friends, my kindred, and all my reputation, and taken in exchange for these, persecution, enmity, strife, and daily-impending death, have given a signal proof that I speak not from love of human applause.

If, he says, I was trying to deceive you in saying these things, am I perhaps able to distort God's thought, who knows the secrets of one's mind, and whom I take every care to please in all things?

"For am I now persuading," as if this has been judged and established with him. "am I now persuading people, or God?" Then, that they may not suppose that he wishes to persuade them and proclaim different things to others (for those who deceive him accused him, that to some he proclaims circumcision, to others something else) and that they might fall away as if being flattered, he says: "Or am I seeking to please people?" I do not say these things to flatter and please you, he says. For if I were seeking to please people, I would also be opposing the Judaism, and friends and kinsmen, and would not have run to Christ abandoning all.

Oh blasphemy, bordering on martyrdom, which now attests me to be a Christian, while for that very account it detests me! The cursing of well-maintained Discipline is a blessing of the Name. "If," says he, "I wished to please men, I should not be Christ's servant." But the same apostle elsewhere bids us take care to please all: "As I," he says, "please all by all means.

He intends to defend himself against that of which he is accused. However, lest they become proud, as judges of their teacher, he says: do not think that I am defending myself before you or trying to convince you; no, all my thought and speech are directed toward God. Therefore I write this not with the aim of gaining glory from you and having disciples, but in order to be right before God concerning the dogmas, and not out of a desire to please people. Or thus: since they slandered him, saying that to some he preaches one thing and to others another, and that he adapts himself to people, he asks them: am I trying to persuade men and please them, or God? For if I wished to please men, I would certainly do what you say.

He proves that he does not care about pleasing people — and why would he either flatter them or preach one thing to some and another thing to others? For if he cared about this, he would not have departed from Judaism and would not have turned to Christ; he would not have disregarded relatives, friends, such glory, and would not have chosen persecution, dangers, and dishonor.

Then when he says, "For do I now persuade men, or God?", he gives the reason for his sentence.

First, he gives the reason for his sentence;

Secondly, he discloses here his purpose (v. 10): "Or do I seek to please men?"

For someone might say: Why do you excommunicate in this manner? Perhaps some are your friends or men of some authority. Therefore you ought not act in this way. But the Apostle says in answer: Indeed, one should act in this way, because the things I say now are not to gain the favor of men but to please God, and this is what he means by "do I now," i.e., after my conversion, or in this epistle, "persuade men," i.e., is it my intention to please men "or God?" As if to say: The things I do, I do to please God alone: "We speak, not as pleasing men, but God" (1 Thes 2:4); nor do we speak on the authority of men, but of God. That I do not seek to please men is plain from my intention and purpose. For "I do not seek to please men," i.e., it is not my intention in converting men to please men alone, but for the honor of God. And this is plain, because if I yet sought to please men, as I formerly pleased them, "I should not be the servant of Christ." The reason is that the two are opposed. More precisely, if I were to please men for the sake of men without referring it to God; for if I intend now and then to please men so that I might draw them to God, I do not sin. But if in the first way, I am not the servant of Christ: "For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short covering cannot cover both" (Is 28:20); "No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other; or he will sustain the one and despise the other" (Mt 6:24); "They have been confounded that please men" (Ps 52:6).

The gospel that is "according to men" is a lie, for every person is a liar, seeing that whatever truth is found in a man is not from the man but through the man from God.

Possibly because the Savior himself is not a man [merely], as some think. Nor because he is sent in the form of a man is he therefore a man but God in a mystery taking flesh to overcome the flesh.… If "from a man" means one thing, "after the manner of man" will mean another. And again if "I did not receive from a man" is one thing. "not after the manner of man" will be another. Therefore "after the manner of man" can be understood to mean "so that you may understand in a corporeal manner," seeing that the argument received is that "which I did not receive from man."

For I make known to you, brothers, the Gospel which was preached by me: that it is not according to man; for neither did I receive it from man, nor did I learn it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

By this passage the doctrine of Ebion and Photinus is crushed, in that Christ is God, and not only a man. For if the Gospel of Paul is not according to man, and he neither received it from man nor learned it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ, who revealed the Gospel to Paul, is certainly not a man. And if he is not a man, it follows that he is God. Not that we deny that a man was assumed, but that we reject that he is only a man. It is asked whether the Churches of the whole world have received the Gospel of God, or that of man: for how few of us have learned through the revelation of Christ, and have not come to know it through a man preaching? To this we shall answer that those who can say: "Do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ" (2 Cor. 13:3)? and: "But I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20), are not so much themselves the ones teaching as God in them, who says to the saints: "I have said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High" (Ps. 81:6); and at once, of sinners: "But you shall die like men, and shall fall like one of the princes". Since, then, Paul speaks, and Peter, who do not die like men nor fall like one of the princes, it is manifest that they are gods. And those who are gods hand on the Gospel of God, and not of man. Marcion and Basilides and the other plagues of the heretics do not have the Gospel of God, because they do not have the Holy Spirit, without whom the Gospel that is taught becomes human. Nor let us think that the Gospel lies in the words of the Scriptures, but in the sense; not on the surface, but in the marrow; not in the leaves of the words, but in the root of the meaning. It is said in the prophet concerning God: "His words are good with him" (Mic. 2:7). Scripture is profitable to those who hear it only when it is not spoken without Christ, when it is not brought forward without the Father, when he who preaches does not instill it without the Spirit. Otherwise both the devil, who speaks from the Scriptures, and all the heresies, according to Ezekiel (ch. 13), sew for themselves from them pillows to place under the elbow of every age. I too, who am speaking, if I have Christ in me, do not have the Gospel of man; but if I am a sinner, it is said to me: "To the sinner God said: Why do you declare my righteous deeds, and take my Testament upon your lips? But you have hated discipline, and have cast my words behind you" (Ps. 49:16, 17), and the rest that follows. It is a great danger to speak in the Church, lest by a perverse interpretation the Gospel of Christ should become the gospel of man, or, what is worse, of the devil.

"For I make known to you, brethren, as touching the Gospel which was preached by me that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ."

You observe how sedulously he affirms that he was taught of Christ, who Himself, without human intervention, condescended to reveal to him all knowledge. And if he were asked for his proof that God Himself thus immediately revealed to him these ineffable mysteries, he would instance his former manner of life, arguing that his conversion would not have been so sudden, had it not been by Divine revelation. For when men have been vehement and eager on the contrary side, their conviction, if it is effected by human means, requires much time and ingenuity. It is clear therefore that he, whose conversion is sudden, and who has been sobered in the very height of his madness, must have been vouchsafed a Divine revelation and teaching, and so have at once arrived at complete sanity. On this account he is obliged to relate his former life, and to call the Galatians as witnesses of past events. That the Only-Begotten Son of God had Himself from heaven vouchsafed to call me, says he, you who were not present, could not know, but that I was a persecutor you do know. For my violence even reached your ears, and the distance between Palestine and Galatia is so great, that the report would not have extended thither, had not my acts exceeded all bounds and endurance.

If I wanted to please men, he says, I would still be with the Jews and would contest against the Church. If, however, I have treated with contempt an entire nation and relatives and glory, and have exchanged these with persecutions, and fights, and daily deaths, it should be obvious that even in saying these things I am not relying on the glory, which is from men. In fact he has said this because he is about to speak of his previous life. However, to prevent them from being elated in thinking that he does this as one who is apologizing to them, he says: "For am I still seeking to persuade men?"

Paul wishes to show them that he did not receive the preaching from men, but from Christ himself. "is not according to men." For it is according to God, that is, according to a revelation from God.

He then cursorily touches on his own conversion from a persecutor to an apostle-confirming thereby the Acts of the Apostles, in which book may be found the very subject of this epistle, how that certain persons interposed, and said that men ought to be circumcised, and that the law of Moses was to be observed; and how the apostles, when consulted, determined, by the authority of the Holy Ghost, that "a yoke should not be put upon men's necks which their fathers even had not been able to bear." Now, since the Acts of the Apostles thus agree with Paul, it becomes apparent why you reject them.

He wants to show them that he has truly departed from the law, and for this he reminds them of his former life and of the sharp change, showing that he would not have suddenly crossed over from Judaism if he had not had some divine assurance. Therefore he also says: "The gospel which I preached is not human," that is, I did not have a man as my teacher, but was a disciple of Christ Himself.

In the foregoing the Apostle rebuked the Galatians for their fickleness of mind in so quickly setting aside the Gospel teaching; now he shows the dignity of the Gospel teaching. And concerning this he does two things:

First, he commends the authority of the Gospel teaching according to itself;

Secondly, on the part both of the other apostles and himself (2:1): "Then, after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas."

The first part is further divided into two others, because:

First, he presents his intention;

Secondly, he manifests his purpose (v. 13).

Regarding the first he does two things:

First, he proposes what he intends;

Secondly, he proves what he proposes (v. 12).

Intending, therefore, to commend the truth of the Gospel teaching, he says, "For I give you to understand, brethren..." As if to say: So certain am I of the Gospel's authority, that I would disbelieve not only men but even angels saying the contrary; so that if they were contrary, I would say anathema to them. And I have this certainty, because one must believe God rather than men or angels. Therefore, since I have this Gospel from God, I should and do have the greatest of certainty. Hence he says, "For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me" to you and to the other Churches "is not according to man," i.e., not according to human nature out of tune with the divine rule or divine revelation. In this sense, "according to man" implies something evil: "For whereas there is among you envying and contention, are you not carnal, and walk according to man?" (1 Cor 3:3). And this is the sense the Apostle takes here; hence he says, "not according to man" teaching me or sending me. As if to say: Not at all can this Gospel be had from men but from God.

Between receiving and learning, moreover, there is this difference: he receives the Gospel to whom it is first instilled and who is led to faith in it, so that he believes that the things written are yours. But he learns who comes to know, explained and set out in discourse, the things which are figured in it through enigmas and parables; and he comes to know them not by a man revealing them, but by Christ, who revealed them to Paul, or through Paul, in whom Christ speaks. The very word ἀποκαλύψεως, that is, of revelation, also belongs properly to the Scriptures, and was used by none of the wise men of the world among the Greeks. Hence it seems to me that, as with other words which the Seventy translators carried over from Hebrew into Greek, so with this one too they took great pains to express the proper character of a foreign tongue, fashioning new words for new things; and that it signifies when something covered and veiled, its covering taken off from above, is shown and brought forth into the light. That this may become plainer, take an example. Moses used to speak with God with face revealed and open (Exod. 33, 34), that is, without a veil; but when speaking to the people, because they were not able to look upon his face, he put a veil on his face (Num. 4). Before the Ark of the Testament, too, a veil had been spread: and when it had been drawn back, the things which before had been hidden were brought forth, and, to use the very word, were revealed. If, therefore, those who are accustomed to read the eloquent writers of the world begin to mock us for the novelty and meanness of our language, let us send them to the books of Cicero which are entitled On Questions of Philosophy, and let them see by how great a necessity he was compelled there to bring forth such monstrous words as the ear of a Latin man never heard; and this when he was translating into our tongue from Greek, which is a neighboring language. What do they endure who try to express the proper sense of Hebrew difficulties? And yet in such great volumes of the Scriptures there are far fewer things that have a ring of novelty than those which he gathered together in one small work. It can also be taken, as we said at the beginning when we were expounding "Paul an apostle, not from men, nor through man", so in the present passage too, as aimed obliquely at Peter and the others who preceded him: that he who has Christ alone as the teacher of the Gospel is moved by no one as by Law and authority. Moreover, he means that revelation when, going to Damascus, he was found worthy to hear the voice of Christ on the way, and with his eyes blinded beheld the true light of the world.

Do you see how he constantly affirms that he became God's disciple, in contrast to the claim of those who imposed the circumcision upon the Galatians, arguing that those who become disciples of Christ, i.e. Peter and James and John, permit the circumcision, whereas he is a disciple of the disciples and, therefore, they should not pay attention to them rather than to him?

He says, "For I neither received it from man." For this is what his slanderers were saying about him: that Paul received the preaching from men, not, as those supporting Peter claimed, from Christ. Therefore they said: He ought not to be trusted.

Therefore he shows plainly that Jesus was not a [mere] man; and if he is not a man then without doubt he is God.

It was very shrewd of him to mention revelation, for the Lord Jesus had been taken up and was no longer seen equally of all. But to Paul he had appeared on the road and made him worthy of the ministry of proclamation. And this again he sets against their slanders, showing that in this too he did not fall short of the apostles. For just as the Galatians received the gospel from him, so likewise he had Christ himself as a teacher.

For since the slanderers were saying that he was not, like the rest of the apostles, a direct hearer of Christ, but received everything from men, he says that the One Who taught Peter and the others revealed the Gospel to me Himself.

That is why he adds, "For neither did I receive it of man; nor did I learn it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ," whereby he precludes two ways of receiving. First, that he did not receive from man the authority to preach. As to this he says, "nor of man," i.e., purely man, "did I receive it," i.e., the authority to preach the Gospel, but of Christ: "And how shall they preach unless they be sent?" (Rom 10:15); "I have given thee for a light of the Gentiles, for a covenant of the people" (Is 42:6); "This man is to me a vessel of election, to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel" (Acts 9:15). Secondly, that he did not receive the science of the Gospel from man. Hence he says, "nor did I learn it," namely, the Gospel, from mere man, "but by the revelation of Jesus Christ," i.e., by Jesus Christ showing everything clearly. "But to us, God hath revealed them" (1 Cor 2:10); "The Lord hath opened my ear, and I do not resist" (Is 50:5), and "The Lord has given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary" (Is 50:4). Now this revelation was made to the Apostle when he was rapt into paradise, where "he heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter" (2 Cor 12:4).

If therefore he showed prowess in Judaism by persecuting and wasting God's church, it is obvious that Judaism is contrary to the church of God, not through that spiritual law which the Jews had received but through their carnal habit of servitude. And if Paul as a zealot—that is, an imitator of late Judaic traditions—persecuted the church of God, his paternal traditions are contrary to God's church, but the blame does not belong to the law itself. For the law is spiritual and does not allow itself to be interpreted carnally. That is the fault of those who understand carnally the things that they have received and who also have handed down many things of their own, undermining, as the Lord said, the command of God through their traditions.

The point of telling this about himself is to show that he did not learn from a man or through man but from God and Jesus Christ. The aim of this is to prevent the Galatians from entertaining another opinion or supposing that anything needs to be added to the gospel.

And he fittingly added: Beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, so that from this too admiration might arise, because it was not just anyone of those who persecuted the Church lightly, but he who outdid the rest in persecution, who was converted to the faith.

And how fine is the observation and the weight of the words: You have heard, he says, of my conduct formerly in Judaism: conduct, not grace; formerly, not now; in Judaism, not in the law of God. That beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and laid waste to it. He did not persecute as the others did, but beyond measure. Nor was a persecution, however vehement, enough for him: but like some brigand and robber he ravaged the Church. Nor does he say the Church of Christ, as he then thought, Christ whom he held in contempt, whom he persecuted; but, as he now believes, the Church of God: signifying either that Christ himself is God, or that the Church belongs to the same God who was once the giver of the Law.

For you have heard of my conduct formerly in Judaism: that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and fought against it; and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my race, being more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers.

This narrative is of very great profit to the Galatians: how Paul, once the ravager of the Church and the fiercest defender of Judaism, was suddenly converted to the faith of Christ. And this at the time when the Crucified was first being proclaimed in the world, when the new doctrine was being driven from the bounds of the whole earth by both the Gentiles and the Jews. For they could say: If he who from an early age was trained in the disciplines of the Pharisees, who surpassed all his contemporaries in the Jewish tradition, now defends the Church which he once persecuted most vehemently, and would rather have the grace and newness of Christ with the ill will of all than the oldness of the Law with the praise of many, what ought we to do, who have begun to be Christians out of heathenism?

But to this very day those who understand the Scriptures in a Jewish sense persecute the Church of Christ and lay it waste, corrupted not by zeal for the Law of God but by the traditions of men.

"For ye have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and made havoc of it."

Observe how he shrinks not from aggravating each point; not saying simply that he "persecuted" but "beyond measure," and not only "persecuted" but "made havoc of it," which signifies an attempt to extinguish, to pull down, to destroy, to annihilate, the Church.

The whole construction is a demonstration that he did not receive the mystery from a man; for such an abrupt conversion could not possibly have taken place through a man. The teaching of men makes progress little by little. But there is also another underlying construction, in that he gently teaches them not to do the things of law; for he says, if he who showed such a great diligence in connection with the law, abandoned the things of law and turned to the salvation which is from faith, it is obvious that he abandoned the law as being unable to lead to perfection. How much more fitting, then, should it be for those who have turned to the faith not to seek to follow what is unable to lead to perfection!

"For you have heard." Then since the Galatians did not know of the revelation which had been given to Paul by Christ, he wishes, in order to show that he was formerly a persecutor and now suddenly transformed, which, unless some divine vision had been granted to him, he would by no means have been so suddenly transformed; so that, having been convinced by this, they would not despise him as a disciple of Christ.

"my former way of life." They would not, however, have heard from Palestine to Galatia, unless he was a very great persecutor.

— [SEVERIAN] "in Judaism." What need is there for conduct within Judaism? But let him show one thing, that it works not by deception but by truth. For not having rejected the law did he flee from grace (for he vindicated it), having found that which was more perfect, he departed from the law. —

"tried to destroy it." I was not only pursuing it, he says, but also resolved to overthrow and annihilate it. For this is the meaning of, "tried to destroy it."

I may here say to those who reject The Acts of the Apostles: "It is first necessary that you shows us who this Paul was,-both what he was before he was an apostle, and how he became an apostle,"-so very great is the use which they make of him in respect of other questions also. It is true that he tells us himself that he was a persecutor before he became an apostle, still this is not enough for any man who examines before he believes, since even the Lord Himself did not bear witness of Himself.

From what is it evident that I received the Gospel through divine revelation? From my former life. For being such a persecutor, how could I have suddenly changed if some divine manifestation had not drawn me out? And that I was a zealous persecutor is evident from the fact that even you, Galatians, living so far from Judea, had heard about it.

Note how strongly he expresses himself. For he did not say "persecuted," but "persecuted beyond measure." And not only this, but even "wasted," that is, he tried to destroy to the foundation and annihilate — for this is the work of a devastator.

Then when he says, "For you have heard of my conversation in time past," he shows that he did not receive the Gospel from men, either before his conversion or after his conversion to Christ (v. 15). That he did not receive it from man before his conversion he shows both by the hatred he bore toward the faith of Christ and toward Christians, and by the zeal he had for Judaism: "And I made progress in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation" (v. 14).

He says therefore: I say that I did not receive it of man, and this is true of the time before my conversion. This, indeed, is obvious from my actions at that time and from the hatred I bore toward the faith. "For you yourselves have heard"—"But they had heard only: He who persecuted us in times past doth now preach the faith which once he impugned" (v. 23)—"of my conversation in time past," when I was an unbeliever, "in the Jews' religion," when I lived as a Jew. And he says, "my," because the evil we do is from ourselves, but from God is whatever good we do: "Destruction is thy own, O Israel: thy help is only in me" (Hos 13:9).

This you have heard, "how that, beyond measure," i.e., more than others, because he bestirred not only himself to this but rulers as well. For others, when they persecuted, were to it by the rulers, but he urged even them: "Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest" (Acts 9:1). Also because he did this not only in Jerusalem but in the entire region. Hence "he received letters to Damascus, that if he found any men and women of this way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." Therefore what is said in Genesis (49:27): "Benjamin a ravenous wolf, in the morning shall eat the prey, and in the evening shall divide the spoil," can be understood as applying to him.

"I persecuted the church of God," i.e., 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 I 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); "Often have they fought against me" (Ps 128:1).

It is plain, therefore, from the hatred he bore toward the faith of Christ before his conversion, that he did not receive the Gospel from man.

And prudently, while narrating something else, he inserts that he had served not so much the Law of God as the ancestral traditions, that is, those of the Pharisees, who teach the doctrines and commandments of men (Matt. 15; Mark 7) and reject the Law of God in order to establish their own traditions.

And I advanced, he says, in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my race, being more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers. Again he calls it an advance not in the Law of God, but in Judaism. And not beyond all, but beyond very many; and not beyond the old, but beyond his contemporaries; so as both to relate his zeal in the Law and to avoid boasting. And in mentioning the traditions of the fathers, not the commandments of the Lord, he showed both that he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, and that he had indeed had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

"And I advanced in the Jews' religion beyond many of mine own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers."

To obviate the notion that his persecution arose from passion, vain-glory, or enmity, he shows that he was actuated by zeal, not indeed "according to knowledge," still by a zealous admiration of the traditions of his fathers. This is his argument;-if my efforts against the Church sprung not from human motives, but from religious though mistaken zeal, why should I be actuated by vain-glory, now that I am contending for the Church, and have embraced the truth? If it was not this motive, but a godly zeal, which possessed me when I was in error, much more now that I have come to know the truth, ought I to be free from such a suspicion. As soon as I passed over to the doctrines of the Church I shook off my Jewish prejudices, manifesting on that side a zeal still more ardent; and this is a proof that my conversion is sincere, and that the zeal which possesses me is from above. What other inducement could I have to make such a change, and to barter honor for contempt, repose for peril, security for distress? none surely but the love of truth.

"And I advanced." I advanced in the persecution of the churches, that is, I continually strove to make it more severe. I advanced and was honorable on that account among the Jews. What then is the reason that they suddenly took up arms against me, those who honored and loved me? Nothing else, he says, but the revelation of Christ.

"being more exceedingly zealous." I advanced, since I had once been exceedingly zealous for my ancestral traditions. Therefore, he says, I never did the things I did from boastfulness, but from zeal for God, even though mistaken. If then I did not even then act from boastfulness, how could I now, after coming to the knowledge of the truth, preach falsehood to please men rather than those things I received from Christ?

"When I was a child," he says, "as a child I spake, as a child I understood; but when I became a man, those (things) which had been the child's I abandoned: " so truly did he turn away from his early opinions: nor did he sin by becoming an emulator not of ancestral but of Christian traditions, wishing even the precision of them who advised the retention of circumcision.

All my contemporaries, he says, I surpassed in zeal, and in the war against the Church I went ahead; in other words: I was held in honor among the Jews. But do not think that this was a matter of vainglory or anger, but of zeal. So then, if I fought against the Church not out of any human calculations, but out of zeal for God, even though I was in error, then how now, having come to know the truth, would I preach out of love for human glory something other than what the truth commands and what Christ taught me.

It is plain also from the love and burning zeal he had for Judaism, as to outward progress. Hence he says, "And I made progress in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation:" wherein he mentions three things that indicate how great was his progress. For he progressed not above a few but "above many," not above old men incapable of progress in learning, but "my equals," i.e., young men who were intelligent and capable of progress: "It is good for a man, when he has borne the yoke from his youth" (Lam 3:27). Furthermore, not above equals who were foreigners and ignorant of the language, but equals "of my own nation," i.e., Jews: "I am a Jew, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the truth of the law of the fathers, zealous for the law, as also all you are this day" (Acts 22:3).

Finally, as to the inward zeal he had for the Law. Hence he says, "being more abundantly zealous," not only for the Law, but "for the traditions of my fathers," namely, those traditions which the Jews lawfully kept and "which the good fathers added," as is said in a Gloss. He calls these traditions his own because he treasured them as though they were his: "According to the Law, a Pharisee; according to zeal, persecuting the church of God" (Phil 3:5).

But a question arises from the fact that the aforesaid Gloss says: "The good fathers added." For it seems that they were not good, because, it is said in Deuteronomy (4:2): "You shall not add to the word I speak to you." Hence in adding traditions they acted against the command of God and so were not good. To this one may answer that this word of the Lord is taken to mean that you shall not add anything contrary or alien to the words which I shall speak. But to add certain things not contrary was lawful for them, namely, certain solemn days and the like, as was done in the time of Mordechai and of Judith, in memory of the blessings they received from God.

But against this is the rebuke addressed to them by our Lord, when He says: "You have made void the command of the Lord for the traditions of men" (Mt 15:16). Hence those traditions were not lawful. I answer that they are not rebuked for holding the traditions of men, but because for the sake of the traditions of men, they neglect the commands of God.

Just as he said to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you," so, knowing what Paul would be, God called him because he was able to serve.

The use of grace ought to be faithful with respect to God. Whence the Apostle: "But when it pleased him who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, I did not immediately acquiesce to flesh and blood." Faithful is he who does not diminish the gift which he receives on behalf of another. But when you seek something more principally than God, you are not faithful. Therefore the Apostle says: "I did not acquiesce to flesh and blood," that is, I did not seek carnal glory, but only divine glory. The experts in optics say that if a ray falls perpendicularly upon a smooth and polished body, it must necessarily be reflected back along the same path. The influx of grace is like a perpendicular ray — I speak of sanctifying grace, because gratuitous grace is like a ray of incidence; it is therefore necessary that whoever truly receives the grace of God should render glory back to God. Whence if you preach for your own glory, it profits you nothing.

The God who caused me to be born, who separated me from my mother's womb, also called me through his grace. For no one knows God except one who has been called.

And that he, the apostle, was the very same person who had been born from the womb, that is, of the ancient substance of flesh, he does himself declare in the Epistle to the Galatians: "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles," it was not, as I have already observed, one person who had been born from the womb, and another who preached the Gospel of the Son of God; but that same individual who formerly was ignorant, and used to persecute the Church, when the revelation was made to him from heaven, and the Lord conferred with him, as I have pointed out in the third book, preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, his former ignorance being driven out by his subsequent knowledge.

Now, that the Word of God forms us in the womb, He says to Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee; and before thou wentest forth from the belly, I sanctified thee, and appointed thee a prophet among the nations." And Paul, too, says in like manner, "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, that I might declare Him among the nations." As, therefore, we are by the Word formed in the womb, this very same Word formed the visual power in him who had been blind from his birth; showing openly who it is that fashions us in secret, since the Word Himself had been made manifest to men...

But when it pleased him who set me apart from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

Not only in this place, but also in writing to the Romans, Paul says that he was set apart for the Gospel of God. And Jeremiah, before he was formed in the womb and conceived in his mother's belly, is said to have been known to God and sanctified (Jer. 1). And in the person of the righteous man, or, as some think, in the person of the Savior, it is said (Ps. 21:11): "Upon you I was cast from the womb: from my mother's womb you are my God". On the other hand, David sings of sinners: "For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother conceived me" (Ps. 50:7). And in another place: "Sinners are estranged from the womb" (Ps. 57:4). And in both directions, before the little ones were born: "God loved Jacob, but Esau he held in hatred" (Mal. 1:1, 2). Here the heretics find an opening, who claim that there are diverse natures, namely the spiritual and the animal and the χοϊκὴν (earthy), and that one is saved, another perishes, and another stands between the two; for, they say, neither would the righteous man ever be chosen before he had done anything good, nor the sinner be hated before his sin, unless the nature of those who perish and of those who are to be saved were different. To this it can be answered simply that this comes about from the foreknowledge of God: that the one whom he knows will be righteous he loves before he comes forth from the womb, and the one whom he knows will be a sinner he hates before he sins; not that there is injustice in God, either in his love or in his hatred, but that he ought not to regard them otherwise, because he knows that they will be either sinners or righteous; we, as men, judge only of present things, whereas he, for whom future things are already done, passes sentence on the end of things, not on their beginnings. And these things indeed have been said rather simply, and without a loftier discussion they can in some measure satisfy the reader. But those who strive to assert that God is unjust, after the words we set down a little earlier, "sinners are estranged from the womb", also bring in the rest that follows: "They have gone astray from the womb, they have spoken falsehoods". And they say: how did sinners go astray straight from the womb and speak falsehoods, when they could have neither speech nor understanding? Or what is this righteousness of the foreknowledge of God, to love and guard one before he is born, and to detest another? And they refer the causes of this to a former life, holding that each one, according to his merit, is assigned from his very first birth to good or to evil angels. And that whole passage about Jacob and Esau, which we have just mentioned, as it is written to the Romans (Rom. 9), they toss about in such a way that they cannot be answered without sweat, and even the hellebore of Chrysippus.

"But when it was the good pleasure of God, Who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."

Here his object is to show, that it was by some secret providence that he was left for a time to himself. For if he was set apart from his mother's womb to be an Apostle and to be called to that ministry, yet was not actually called till that juncture, which summons he instantly obeyed, it is evident that God had some hidden reason for this delay. What this purpose was, you are perhaps eager to learn from me, and primarily, why he was not called with the twelve. But in order not to protract this discourse by digressing from that which is more pressing, I must entreat your love not to require all things from me, but to search for it by yourselves, and to beg of God to reveal it to you. Moreover I partly discussed this subject when I discoursed before you on the change of his name from Saul to Paul; which, if you have forgotten, you will fully gather from a perusal of that volume. At present let us pursue the thread of our discourse, and consider the proof he now adduces that no natural event had befallen him,-that God Himself had providentially ordered the occurrence.

"And called me through His grace."

God indeed says that He called him on account of his excellent capacity, as He said to Ananias, "for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings," that is to say, capable of service, and the accomplishment of great deeds. God gives this as the reason for his call. But he himself everywhere ascribes it to grace, and to God's inexpressible mercy, as in the words, "Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy," not that I was sufficient or even serviceable, but "that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all His long-suffering, for an ensample of them which should hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life." Behold his overflowing humility; I obtained mercy, says he, that no one might despair, when the worst of men had shared His bounty. For this is the force of the words, "that He might show forth all His long-suffering for an ensample of them which should hereafter believe on Him."

"To reveal His Son in me."

Christ says in another place, "No one knoweth who the Son is, save the Father; and who the Father is, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him." You observe that the Father reveals the Son, and the Son the Father; so it is as to Their glory, the Son glorifies the Father, and the Father the Son; "glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee," and, "as I have glorified Thee." But why does he say, "to reveal His Son in me," and not "to me?" it is to signify, that he had not only been instructed in the faith by words, but that he was richly endowed with the Spirit;-that the revelation had enlightened his whole soul, and that he had Christ speaking within him.

"That I might preach Him among the Gentiles." For not only his faith, but his election to the Apostolic office proceeded from God. The object, says he, of His thus specially revealing Himself to me, was not only that I might myself behold Him, but that I might also manifest Him to others. And he says not merely, "others," but, "that I might 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.

"Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."

Here he alludes to the Apostles, naming them after their physical nature; however, that he may have meant to include all mankind, I shall not deny.

If he were indeed called to the mission from the mother's belly, how did he become a persecutor? He has indeed solved this inextricable difficulty in another place, in saying: "So that Christ might first demonstrate in me his entire long-suffering, providing a type for those who were to believe in him unto eternal life" (I Tim. 1:16).

If from his mother's womb he was restricted against preaching and was restrained, for some entirely divine privilege the intervening time was allowed, so that his sudden change might strengthen many.

"and, having called me by his grace." He was indeed called as a vessel of election; yet he says that he was called by grace, as if to say: the Lord has called me by grace, though I am unworthy and unsuitable.

If from his mother's womb he was destined for the proclamation of the Gospel and chosen by God, then, of course, by a certain divine arrangement he remained for some time in Judaism, undoubtedly so that such a dramatic change in him would attract many to the faith and strengthen them in it. God chose him not by lot, but by foreknowledge that he was worthy.

Called by grace, not by merit, but by mercy — although God called him for his virtue, for it is said: "he is My chosen vessel" (Acts 9:15), he humbly says that he was called by grace not according to worthiness, but according to mercy.

After showing that he did not receive the Gospel from man before his conversion, the Apostle now proves that he did not receive it from man after his conversion. About this he does two things:

First, he shows that he did not receive the Gospel from man at the time of his conversion;

Secondly, nor after his conversion (v. 18).

Regarding the first he does two things:

First, he shows that he did not receive or learn the Gospel from the apostles;

Secondly, nor from any other believer (v. 17): "I went into Arabia, and again I returned to Damascus."

As to the first he does three things:

First, he shows the efficient cause of his conversion;

Secondly, the end (v. 16);

Thirdly, the manner (v. 16): "immediately I condescended not to flesh and blood."

In regard to the first point, he notes the twofold cause of his conversion, namely, the good pleasure of God, which is divine election, and the call of the one converting. Regarding the first he says, "when it pleased him," namely, God: not when I willed, but when it pleased Him, because "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy" (Rom 9:16); "The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him" (Ps 146:11); "For it is God who worketh in us, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will" (Phil 2:13). "Who," namely, God, "separated me," i.e., rebellious: "I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God" (1 Cor 15:9); "Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings" (Acts 9:1); and a persecutor: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" (Acts 9:4); "Who before was a blasphemer" (1 Tim 1:13). "Me," and such a one, I say, he "separated from my mother's womb." Or, literally: who made me to be born from my mother's womb.

It is indeed true to say that God separates one from the womb, even though it is a work of nature, which is, as it were, an instrument of God, because even our own works are attributed to God as to their principal author: "For thou hast wrought all our works for us" (Is 26:12), as any effect is attributed to the principal agent; hence Job (10:11): "Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh." And he was separated from this womb to be justified, for the same one justifies who makes: "From my mother's womb thou art my God" (Ps 22:11). Or: "from my mother's womb," i.e., the synagogue, whose womb is the college of Pharisees who trained him in Judaism: "You go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte" (Mt 23:15). Thus, therefore, was the synagogue his mother: "The sons of my mother have fought against me" (Cant 1:5). Its womb are the Pharisees. And from this womb he was separated by the Holy Spirit unto faith in the Gospel: "Separated unto the Gospel of God" (Rom 1:1).

Or his mother is the Church of Christ, and the womb, the college of apostles. Hence God separated him from the womb of the Church, i.e., from the college of apostles, for the office of apostleship and preacher to the Gentiles, when He said to the apostles: "Separate me Saul and Barnabas" (Acts 13:2).

Again, he calls the synagogue his mother, because he was a Pharisee and an outstanding one, for which reason he is called a Pharisee and of the Pharisees, because he was zealous for the Law: "being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers" (v. 14).

Now as regards the other cause, he says, "and called me by his grace." But there are two kinds of call. One is exterior, and so he says: He called me with a voice from heaven. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me... Go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do" (Acts 9:4). In a similar fashion He called the other apostles. The other call is interior, and in this way He calls through a certain interior instinct, whereby God touches the heart to be turned to Him, as when He calls one from the path of evil to good; and this by His grace and not our own merits: "And whom he predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified" (Rom 8:30); "I have raised him up to justice" (Is 45:13); "That calleth the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name" (Am 5:8).

When he had faith in the law, not knowing that it was not the time for observance of the law, and was intensely striving to resist the gospel of Christ, he thought that he acted by God's will. God, seeing that his zeal was good, though he lacked knowledge, chose to summon him into his grace. He knew that this man was suitable to preach his gospel to the Gentiles. For if he was so swift and faithful in so poor a cause through boldness of conscience, not through adulation of anyone, how much more constant would he be in preaching the gift of God through the hope of the promised reward?

The use of grace ought to be faithful with respect to God. Whence the Apostle: "But when it pleased him who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, I did not immediately acquiesce to flesh and blood." Faithful is he who does not diminish the gift which he receives on behalf of another. But when you seek something more principally than God, you are not faithful. Therefore the Apostle says: "I did not acquiesce to flesh and blood," that is, I did not seek carnal glory, but only divine glory. The experts in optics say that if a ray falls perpendicularly upon a smooth and polished body, it must necessarily be reflected back along the same path. The influx of grace is like a perpendicular ray — I speak of sanctifying grace, because gratuitous grace is like a ray of incidence; it is therefore necessary that whoever truly receives the grace of God should render glory back to God. Whence if you preach for your own glory, it profits you nothing.

But to reveal his Son in me is not the same as if he were to say to reveal his Son to me. For to whom something is revealed, to him that can be revealed which was not in him before. But in whom something is revealed, that is revealed which was in him before and afterwards has been revealed. Similar is that saying in the Gospel: "He stands in the midst of you, whom you do not know" (John 1:26). And elsewhere: "That was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world" (ibid., 9). From this it becomes clear that the knowledge of God is present in all by nature, and that no one is born without Christ and without having in himself the seeds of wisdom and of righteousness and of the other virtues. Hence many, without faith and the Gospel of Christ, do some things either wisely or in a holy manner, such as obeying their parents, stretching out a hand to the needy, not oppressing their neighbors, not plundering what belongs to others; and they become all the more liable to the judgment of God, because, having in themselves the beginnings of the virtues and the seeds of God, they do not believe in him without whom they cannot exist. The Son of God revealed in Paul can also be understood otherwise: that, through his preaching, he was recognized by the Gentiles, who had not known him before.

Immediately I did not acquiesce in flesh and blood.

Or, as it stands better in the Greek: "I did not confer with flesh and blood". I know that most people think this was said of the apostles. For Porphyry too raises the objection that after the revelation of Christ he did not deign to go to men and confer in discourse with them, lest, that is to say, after being taught by God he should be instructed by flesh and blood. But far be it from me to think Peter, John and James flesh and blood, which cannot possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50). If the spiritual apostles are flesh and blood, what are we to think of the earthy (χοϊκοῖς)? Plainly, Paul did not confer with flesh and blood after the revelation of Christ, because he did not wish to cast pearls before swine, nor to give what is holy to dogs (Matt. 7). See what is written of sinners: "My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh" (Gen. 6:3). With such as were flesh and blood, which also did not reveal the Son of God to Peter (Matt. 16), the Apostle did not confer the Gospel that had been revealed to him, but little by little he turned them from flesh and blood into spirit, and only then did he entrust to them the hidden mysteries of the Gospel. Someone may say: If he did not immediately confer the Gospel with flesh and blood, yet it is understood by implication that he conferred with blood and flesh afterward; and this sense, by which the apostles are excused from being flesh and blood, will not be able to stand, since he who at the beginning did not confer with flesh and blood nonetheless afterward, as I said, conferred with flesh and blood. This placing of the word before constrains us to divide the sentence so that we do not join at once (statim), or immediately (continuo), with flesh and blood, but make it cling to what precedes, and it is read: "But when it pleased him who set me apart from my mother's womb"; and then: "To reveal his Son in me"; and finally: "That I might preach him among the Gentiles immediately"; so that "I did not confer with flesh and blood" begins from its own opening. And we should rather judge that the sense stands thus: that he who had been sent immediately after the revelation of Christ to announce the Gospel to the Gentiles did not stand still, nor drag out the time with certain delays by going to the apostles and conferring the Lord's revelation with men, but went away into Arabia, and having returned again to Damascus, preached the Gospel after three years, and only then, coming to Jerusalem, saw Peter, John and James.

That also which he says: Because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, compare with the Apostle's narrative, in which he says: Immediately I did not acquiesce to flesh and blood, there signifying the Jews by flesh and blood; so that here too, under another sense, it is shown that Christ the Son of God was revealed to him not through the teaching of the Pharisees but through the grace of God.

Another construction, demonstrating that he did not receive the teaching of Christ from men. Indeed, how could one, who was worthy of a teaching from above, confer with men?

"reveal his Son." The Father, he says, called me to the revealing of his Son.

He said, "in me," wishing to show that he had learned not only by word but also by mind and heart, as into the inner person in whom knowledge has taken up residence.

"that I might preach him." Do you see that the Father who called and revealed his Son to him himself ordained Paul to be a preacher and apostle?

— [PHOTIUS] How then, he says, did I receive and learn the preaching from men? Immediately I did not turn aside to ease and luxury, nor, thinking myself to have achieved something great, fall into slackness and neglect, but I made the course of the Gospel demanding.

Therefore, it was. I no longer valued seeing relatives, or a house, or acquaintances, or homeland, but leaving all behind (for in these matters I am not inferior to those concerning Peter and John), I immediately ran into Arabia and to Damascus and to the preaching.

"I did not immediately accord with flesh and blood." Paul says that he did not go into discussions with the apostles about the preaching, being satisfied with the divine revelation. But he says this to show that he had not learned preaching from the disciples, but from Christ himself. For those who slandered him were saying that he was a disciple of men, not of Christ.

This means that he showed him the meaning of the Law and the Prophets.

He did not say: to reveal to me, but – "in me," showing by this that he received instruction not merely verbal, but his heart was also filled with much of the Spirit, since this knowledge was sealed in the inner man and Christ speaks in him.

God revealed His Son to me not only so that I might know Him, but also so that I might preach Him to others. Because not only his coming to faith, but also his being chosen for preaching, was from God. How then can you say that people taught me? And not simply "that I should preach Him," but "to the Gentiles." So how could I preach circumcision to the Gentiles?

That is, he did not go to consult with the apostles, for he calls them flesh and blood, naming them thus by nature; or he says this generally about all people, because in the matter of faith no man was his teacher.

The end of his conversion is stated when he says, "to reveal his Son in me." Hence Christ is the end. Now his conversion is ordained to Christ in two ways: First of all, by his works. Hence he says, "to reveal his Son," i.e., by what He did in my regard, by converting me and forgiving my sins, He revealed what a great act of mercy was bestowed on me: "Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief" (1 Tim 1:15); "But I obtained the mercy of God, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief" (1 Tim 1:13). Thus, therefore, in his conversion he revealed His Son in the sense that the Son is called the grace of God. Likewise, he revealed Him in his action; hence he says: "For I dare not speak of any of those things which Christ worketh not by me, for the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, by virtue of signs and wonders" (Rom 15:18). And this inasmuch as the Son is the power of God. Furthermore, he revealed Him in his preaching. Hence he said: "We preach Christ crucified; unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:23). And this inasmuch as the Son is called the wisdom of God.

Secondly, his conversion is ordained to Christ by his words. Hence he says, "that I might preach him among the Gentiles," because, whereas the other apostles preached the Gospel of Christ to the Jews, Paul, on the Lord's command, went to convert the Gentiles: "It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to convert the dregs of Israel. Behold, I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles" (Is 49:6); "For so the Lord has commanded us: that thou mayest be for salvation unto the utmost part of the earth" (Acts 13:47); "Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, for a leader and a master to the Gentiles" (Is 55:4).

The manner of his conversion is perfect, both as to its effect—hence he says, "immediately I condescended not to flesh and blood," i.e., at once I was so completely converted that all carnal affection left me: "It is easy in the eyes of God on a sudden to make the poor man rich" (Sir 11:23). "Flesh and blood" are here taken for vices of the flesh: "Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 15:50). "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit" (5:17)—or for the affection and love borne toward blood relatives. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee" (Mt 16:17). Thus the Apostle overcame his own vices and scorned his fellow Jews.

He set out from Damascus to Arabia, therefore, to preach where none of the apostles had been and where Judaizing had not been promoted through the intrigues of pseudoapostles. And from there he returned again to Damascus so that he could attend to those who were still immature when he preached to them the gospel of God's grace.

Nor did I come to Jerusalem to the apostles, my predecessors.

If he had said of the apostles, "I did not confer with flesh and blood", what need had there been to repeat the very same thing by saying: Nor did I come to Jerusalem to the apostles, my predecessors? So the sense that we set out above must be held.

But I went away into Arabia: and again I returned to Damascus. The order of the history does not seem to agree with itself, since Luke relates in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 9) that when Paul, after his faith in Christ, had for many days been speaking the Gospel boldly at Damascus, a plot was laid against him, and he was let down through the wall by night in a basket, and came to Jerusalem trying to join himself to the disciples; and that, when they avoided him and were afraid to approach him, he was brought by Barnabas to the apostles, and there related how he had seen the Lord on the road, and how he had acted with confidence at Damascus in the name of the Lord. "He was", he says, "with them, going in and going out in Jerusalem, acting with confidence in the name of the Lord. He also spoke and disputed with the Greeks: but they sought to kill him. And when the brothers had learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him off to Tarsus" (Acts 9:28-30). Here, however, he says that he first went into Arabia; and that, having returned again to Damascus, he came after three years to Jerusalem, saw Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days, and met no one else besides James, the brother of the Lord. And so that these things may be believed true (for they could seem doubtful to those who were absent), he confirms them under oath, saying: "But the things that I say to you, behold, before God, I do not lie." We can therefore judge that Paul was indeed at Jerusalem, according to Luke's history, not as though going to the apostles who were his predecessors in order to learn something from them, but in order to escape the onslaught of persecution that had been stirred up against him at Damascus on account of the Gospel of Christ; and that he thus came to Jerusalem as he would to any other city. That from there he at once withdrew because of the plots, and came to Arabia, or to Damascus; and from there, after three years, returned to Jerusalem to see Peter. Or certainly thus: that as soon as he was baptized, and strengthened by taking food, he was with the disciples who were at Damascus for some days; and, while all were astonished, he at once preached in the synagogues of the Jews that Jesus was the Son of God; and that he then went into Arabia, and returned from Arabia to Damascus, and spent three years there: and these are the many days to which Scripture testifies, saying: "But when many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him" (Acts 9:23). But their plot became known to Saul: and they watched the gates day and night, in order to kill him. So his disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall, lowering him in a basket. And when he had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples. And that Luke passed over Arabia for this reason, because perhaps he had accomplished nothing worthy of his apostleship in Arabia; and that he chose rather to tell, in a concise narrative, those things that seemed worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Nor is it to be counted as sloth on the Apostle's part if he was in Arabia to no purpose: rather, there was some dispensation and a command of God that he should keep silent. For afterward too we read that Paul, having set out with Silas, was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia (Acts 16). Otherwise: "But I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus." What does this account profit me, if I read that Paul, after the revelation of Christ, at once went into Arabia, and from Arabia at once returned to Damascus, and yet I do not know what he did there, or what usefulness the going and the returning had? The Apostle himself, in this same Epistle, gives me occasion for a higher understanding, when, disputing about Abraham, Hagar and Sarah: "These things indeed", he says, "are spoken through allegory. For these are the two Testaments: the one from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is joined to that which is now Jerusalem" (Gal. 4:24, 25). And he teaches that the Old Testament, that is, the son of the handmaid, is set in Arabia (which means "humble and setting"). As soon, then, as Paul believed, he turned to the Law, to the Prophets, to the mysteries of the Old Testament, already placed in its setting, and sought Christ in them, whom he had been commanded to preach among the Gentiles: and having found him, he did not stay there longer, but returned to Damascus, that is, to the blood and passion of Christ; and from there, strengthened by the reading of the prophets, he goes on to Jerusalem, the place of vision and of peace, not so much to learn something from the apostles as to confer with them about the Gospel that he had taught.

"Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me."

These words weighed by themselves seem to breath an arrogant spirit, and to be foreign to the Apostolic temper. For to give one's suffrage for one's self, and to admit no man to share one's counsel, is a sign of folly. It is said, "Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him;" and, "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" and Paul himself in another place, "Be not wise in your own conceits." Surely one who had been thus taught, and had thus admonished others, would not fall into such an error, even were he an ordinary man; much less then Paul himself. Nevertheless, as I said, this expression nakedly considered may easily prove a snare and offence to many hearers. But if the cause of it is subjoined, all will applaud and admire the speaker.

Let us then inquire into the intention of Paul in thus writing, let us consider his scope, and general deportment towards the Apostles, that we may arrive at his present meaning. Neither formerly, nor in this case, did he speak with a view of disparaging the Apostles or of extolling himself, (how so? when he included himself under his anathema?) but always in order to guard the integrity of the Gospel. Since the troublers of the Church said that they ought to obey the Apostles who suffered these observances, and not Paul who forbade them, and hence the Judaizing heresy had gradually crept in, it was necessary for him manfully to resist them, from a desire of repressing the arrogance of those who improperly exalted themselves, and not of speaking ill of the Apostles. And therefore he says, "I conferred not with flesh and blood;" for it would have been extremely absurd for one who had been taught by God, afterwards to refer himself to men. For it is right that he who learns from men should in turn take men as his counsellors. But he to whom that divine and blessed voice had been vouchsafed, and who had been fully instructed by Him that possesses all the treasures of wisdom, wherefore should he afterwards confer with men? It were meet that he should teach, not be taught by them.

Therefore he thus spoke, not arrogantly, but to exhibit the dignity of his own commission. "Neither went I up," says he, "to them." Because they were continually repeating that the Apostles were before him, and were called before him, he says, "I went not up to them." Had it been needful for him to communicate with them, He, who revealed to him his commission, would have given him this injunction. Is it true, however, that he did not go up thither? nay, he went up, and not merely so, but in order to learn somewhat of them. When a question arose on our present subject in the city of Antioch, in the Church which had from the beginning shown so much zeal, and it was discussed whether the Gentile believers ought to be circumcised, or were under no necessity to undergo the rite, this very Paul himself and Silas went up. How is it then that he says, I went not up, nor conferred? First, because he went not up of his own accord, but was sent by others; next, because he came not to learn, but to bring others over. For he was from the first of that opinion, which the Apostles subsequently ratified, that circumcision was unnecessary. But when these persons deemed him unworthy of credit and applied to those at Jerusalem he went up not to be farther instructed, but to convince the gainsayers that those at Jerusalem agreed with him.

"But I went away into Arabia."

Behold a fervent soul! he longed to occupy regions not yet tilled, but lying in a wild state. Had he remained with the Apostles, as he had nothing to learn, his preaching would have been straitened, for it behooved them to spread the word every where. Thus this blessed man, fervent in spirit, straightway undertook to teach wild barbarians, choosing a life full of battle and labor. Having said, "I went into Arabia," he adds, "and again I returned unto Damascus." Here observe his humility; he speaks not of his successes, nor of whom or of how many he instructed. Yet such was his zeal immediately on his baptism, that he confounded the Jews, and so exasperated them, that they and the Greeks lay in wait for him with a view to kill him. This would not have been the case, had he not greatly added to the numbers of the faithful; since they were vanquished in doctrine, they had recourse to murder, which was a manifest sign of Paul's superiority. But Christ suffered him not to be put to death, preserving him for his mission. Of these successes, however, he says nothing, and so in all his discourses, his motive is not ambition, nor to be honored more highly than the Apostles, nor because he is mortified at being lightly esteemed, but it is a fear lest any detriment should accrue to his mission.

For he calls himself, "one born out of due time," and "the first of sinners," and "the last of the Apostles," and, "not meet to be called an Apostle." And this he said, who had labored more than all of them; which is real humility; for he who, conscious of no excellence, speaks humbly of himself, is candid but not humble; but to say so after such trophies, is to be practised in self-control.

"And again I returned unto Damascus."

But what great things did he not probably achieve in this city? for he tells us that the governor under Aretas the king set guards about the whole of it, hoping to entrap this blessed man. Which is a proof of the strongest kind that he was violently persecuted by the Jews. Here, however, he says nothing of this, but mentioning his arrival and departure is silent concerning the events which there occurred, nor would he have mentioned them in the place I have referred to, had not circumstances required their narration.

[PHOTIUS] Paul said this more clearly, showing that he was not taught by the apostles but by Christ himself. He did not, he says, go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles before me and to learn anything from them. For he did go up to Jerusalem from Damascus, as the Acts indicate, (Acts 9:2) but not to be instructed, rather to preach Christ himself and to teach the faith. For just as he says he went into Arabia preaching and then again into Damascus, so likewise to Jerusalem.

"but I went into Arabia." When it was recounted concerning the towns to which he had gone, the remarkable deeds that had been done there by him fell silent, because they were of great modesty of spirit.

In what way could the apostle have said this? Had he become so proud that he considered himself self-sufficient and having no need of advisors? And had he not heard the saying: "Be not wise in your own eyes" (Prov. 3:7); and: "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes" (Isa. 5:21)? Not at all. But since his detractors were saying that one should listen to the apostles and not to him, and that they were apostles before him, he was compelled to say this in order to silence the deceivers. And indeed it would have been unreasonable for one taught by God to then heed men. Thus, he says this not out of arrogance, but to show the dignity of his preaching. True, he did come to Jerusalem as well, but not in order to learn, rather in order to convince others that those living in Jerusalem thought the same way. Then he did not come immediately, that is, at the beginning, but later; and even then for the sake of convincing others.

He went through uncultivated and wild places, for if he had remained among the apostles, his preaching would have met with obstacles and would not have spread so quickly. Therefore he went to the wildest nations. But pay attention to his humility: in listing the cities, he nowhere said how many he converted, although in Damascus he threw the Jews into such confusion that he was subjected to persecution by the ethnarch. So if it seems that he speaks much about himself, he does so not for the sake of vainglory, but so that his preaching would not suffer harm if people did not believe him, regarding him as a simple man and a disciple of disciples.

Furthermore, his conversion was perfect with respect to his understanding, because he was so instructed by Christ that there was no need to be instructed by the apostles; hence he says, "Neither went I to Jerusalem," i.e., to be instructed by them.

Again, it was not necessary for him to be instructed by any other of the faithful; hence he says, "but I went into Arabia." As if to say: I did not go to places where there were believers who might instruct me, but I went to Arabia where they were not instructed in the faith but were unbelievers. "And again I returned to Damascus," i.e., to his parents: "Who gave a course to violent showers, or a way for noisy thunder?" (Job 38:25).

But someone might object that it is said in Acts (9:25): "In Damascus they let him down in a basket... and when he was come into Jerusalem, he essayed to join himself to the disciples." Therefore, according to this, he went to Jerusalem. To this I answer that he did go, but not to be instructed. Or, better still, he did not go at once but after some time. Hence he says in the next verse, "Then, after three years I went to Jerusalem" (v. 18).

If, when Paul had evangelized Arabia, he subsequently saw Peter, it was not so that he might learn the gospel from Peter himself (for then he would have seen him before) but so that he might enhance familial love by being with the apostles.

For if the foundation of the church was laid in Peter, to whom all was revealed, as the gospel says, Paul knew that he ought to see Peter. When he speaks of seeing Peter, it is as one to whom Christ had committed so much authority, not as one from whom he was to learn anything.… "How," [he implies], "could I learn this great knowledge of God from Peter in such a short time?"

Then after three years I came to Jerusalem to see Peter.

Not to look at his eyes, his cheeks and his face, whether he was lean or stout, whether his nose was hooked or straight, and whether hair covered his forehead or (as Clement relates in the Periodi of Peter) he had a bald head. Nor do I think it would have befitted apostolic gravity that, after so great a preparation of three years, he should have wished to look at something human in Peter. But he looked at him with those eyes with which he too is now seen in his Epistles. With those eyes Paul saw Cephas with which Paul himself is now beheld by all the wise. But if anyone does not see it so, let him join all these things with the earlier sense: that the apostles conferred nothing on him. For the fact that he appears to have gone to Jerusalem means that he went there in order to see the apostle, not from a desire to learn, since he himself had the same author of his preaching, but to pay honor to the earlier apostle.

And I remained with him fifteen days. He who had prepared himself for so long a time to see Peter did not need much instruction. And although to some it may seem superfluous to observe even the numbers that are in the Scriptures, yet I think it not beside the point that the fifteen days during which Paul stayed with Peter signify full knowledge and perfected doctrine. For there are fifteen songs in the Psalter, and fifteen steps by which they go up to sing to God, and by which the righteous man goes up to stand in his courts. Hezekiah too, when a span of fifteen years of life was granted him, deserves to receive a sign on the steps (Isa. 38); and the solemn feasts of God begin from the fifteenth day (Exod. 12). Moreover (since we follow a twofold understanding), he sets down fifteen days for this reason: to show that it was not a long time in which he could have learned anything from Peter, so that everything may be referred back to the sense with which he began: that he was taught not by man but by God.

"Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas."

What can be more lowly than such a soul? After such successes, wanting nothing of Peter, not even his assent, but being of equal dignity with him, (for at present I will say no more,) he comes to him as his elder and superior. And the only object of this journey was to visit Peter; thus he pays due respect to the Apostles, and esteems himself not only not their better but not their equal. Which is plain from this journey, for Paul was induced to visit Peter by the same feeling from which many of our brethren sojourn with holy men: or rather by a humbler feeling for they do so for their own benefit, but this blessed man, not for his own instruction or correction, but merely for the sake of beholding and honoring Peter by his presence. He says, "to visit Peter;" he does not say to see, but to visit and survey, a word which those, who seek to become acquainted with great and splendid cities, apply to themselves.

Worthy of such trouble did he consider the very sight of Peter; and this appears from the Acts of the Apostles also. For on his arrival at Jerusalem, on another occasion, after having converted many Gentiles, and, with labors far surpassing the rest, reformed and brought to Christ Pamphylia, Lycaonia, Cilicia, and all nations in that quarter of the world, he first addresses himself with great humility to James, as to his elder and superior. Next he submits to his counsel, and that counsel contrary to this Epistle. "Thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of them which have believed; therefore shave thy head, and purify thyself." Accordingly he shaved his head, and observed all the Jewish ceremonies; for where the Gospel was not affected, he was the humblest of all men. But where by such humility he saw any injured, he gave up that undue exercise of it, for that was no longer to be humble but to outrage and destroy the disciples.

"And tarried with him fifteen days."

To take a journey on account of him was a mark of respect; but to remain so many days, of friendship and the most earnest affection.

After three years, however, from the beginning of my preaching and teaching I returned to see Peter, I went up to see Peter, not to learn anything from him. For I was then preaching and proclaiming the gospel.

"to visit Peter." See the humility. After so many and such great struggles he withdrew so that he might seem to be inferior to Peter. But so that he might remain honored as well, it was done on account of the honor which he conferred upon Peter.

He said, "I stayed with him," yet I was not taught."

But the fact is, having been converted from a persecutor to a preacher, he is introduced as one of the brethren to brethren, by brethren-to them, indeed, by men who had put on faith from the apostles' hands. Afterwards, as he himself narrates, he "went up to Jerusalem for the purpose of seeing Peter," because of his office, no doubt, and by right of a common belief and preaching.

And this is proof of humility: having accomplished so much, he went to Peter not for any benefit, but for the sake of a simple meeting, honoring him as a superior. Therefore he did not say "to see Peter" (ἰδεῖν), but "to visit" (ἱστορῆσαι), as those who study great and beautiful cities would express it; just as we too go to holy men, but we do so more for benefit, while he did so solely out of honor.

A visit is an expression of honor, while a stay is an expression of friendship and ardent love. And he did not say that he studied, but "remained with him," instead of "with him."

After showing above that he did not receive the Gospel from man before his conversion nor at the time of his conversion, the Apostle now proves that neither after his conversion did he receive it from man; but he shows, rather, how his teaching was approved by men. About this he does two things:

First, he shows how his teaching was approved by the apostles;

Secondly, he shows how it was approved by the rest of the faithful (v. 21).

First, he states the fact;

Secondly, he confirms the truth of his statement (v. 20): "before God, I lie not."

He says therefore: Although I did not go to the apostles to be instructed by them in the beginning of my conversion, because I had already been instructed by Christ, yet, being moved by a feeling of charity, "after three years," i.e., after my conversion, I went to Jerusalem, because I had long desired to see Peter, not to be taught by him but to visit him; "And visiting thy beauty thou shalt not sin" (Job 5:24). "And I tarried with him fifteen days," because that number is the sum of eight and seven. Eight is the number of the New Testament, in which the eighth day of those who will rise is awaited; but seven is the number of the Old Testament, because it celebrates the seventh day. And so he stayed with Peter fifteen days, conversing with him on the mysteries of the Old and New Testament.

Let us pray for every episcopacy which is under the whole heaven, of those that rightly divide the word of Thy truth. And let us pray for our bishop James, and his parishes; let us pray for our bishop Clement, and his parishes; let us pray for our bishop Euodius, and his parishes; let us pray for our bishop Annianus, and his parishes: that the compassionate God may grant them to continue in His holy churches in health, honour, and long life, and afford them an honourable old age in godliness and righteousness.

For they say that Peter and James and John after the ascension of our Saviour, as if also preferred by our Lord, strove not after honor, but chose James the Just bishop of Jerusalem...

The Lord after his resurrection imparted knowledge to James the Just and to John and Peter, and they imparted it to the rest of the apostles, and the rest of the apostles to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one. But there were two Jameses: one called the Just, who was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple and was beaten to death with a club by a fuller, and another who was beheaded.

Then James, whom the ancients surnamed the Just on account of the excellence of his virtue, is recorded to have been the first to be made bishop of the church of Jerusalem. This James was called the brother of the Lord because he was known as a son of Joseph, and Joseph was supposed to be the father of Christ, because the Virgin, being betrothed to him, "was found with child by the Holy Ghost before they came together," as the account of the holy Gospels shows.

But Clement in the sixth book of his Hypotyposes writes thus: "For they say that Peter and James and John after the ascension of our Saviour, as if also preferred by our Lord, strove not after honor, but chose James the Just bishop of Jerusalem."

But the same writer, in the seventh book of the same work, relates also the following things concerning him: "The Lord after his resurrection imparted knowledge to James the Just and to John and Peter, and they imparted it to the rest of the apostles, and the rest of the apostles to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one. But there were two Jameses: one called the Just, who was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple and was beaten to death with a club by a fuller, and another who was beheaded." Paul also makes mention of the same James the Just, where he writes, "Other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother."

But the Lord, after he had given his grave clothes to the servant of the priest, appeared to James (for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he drank the cup of the Lord until he should see him rising again from among those that sleep)... 'Bring a table and bread,' said the Lord... He brought bread and blessed and broke and gave to James the Just and said to him, 'my brother eat your bread, for the son of man is risen from among those that sleep.'

James, the brother of the Lord, succeeded to the government of the Church in conjunction with the apostles. He has been called the Just by all from the time of our Saviour to the present day; for there were many that bore the name of James.

He was holy from his mother's womb; and he drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. No razor came upon his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, and he did not use the bath.

He alone was permitted to enter into the holy place; for he wore not woolen but linen garments. And he was in the habit of entering alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his knees begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like those of a camel, in consequence of his constantly bending them in his worship of God, and asking forgiveness for the people.

Because of his exceeding great justice he was called the Just, and Oblias, which signifies in Greek, 'Bulwark of the people' and 'Justice,' in accordance with what the prophets declare concerning him.

Now some of the seven sects, which existed among the people and which have been mentioned by me in the Memoirs, asked him, 'What is the gate of Jesus?' and he replied that he was the Saviour.

On account of these words some believed that Jesus is the Christ. But the sects mentioned above did not believe either in a resurrection or in one's coming to give to every man according to his works. But as many as believed did so on account of James.

Therefore when many even of the rulers believed, there was a commotion among the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, who said that there was danger that the whole people would be looking for Jesus as the Christ. Coming therefore in a body to James they said, 'We entreat you, restrain the people; for they are gone astray in regard to Jesus, as if he were the Christ. We entreat you to persuade all that have come to the feast of the Passover concerning Jesus; for we all have confidence in you. For we bear you witness, as do all the people, that you are just, and do not respect persons. [Matthew 22:16]

Therefore, persuade the multitude not to be led astray concerning Jesus. For the whole people, and all of us also, have confidence in you. Stand therefore upon the pinnacle of the temple, that from that high position you may be clearly seen, and that your words may be readily heard by all the people. For all the tribes, with the Gentiles also, have come together on account of the Passover.'

The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees therefore placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and cried out to him and said: 'You just one, in whom we ought all to have confidence, forasmuch as the people are led astray after Jesus, the crucified one, declare to us, what is the gate of Jesus.'

And he answered with a loud voice, 'Why do you ask me concerning Jesus, the Son of Man? He himself sits in heaven at the right hand of the great Power, and is about to come upon the clouds of heaven.'

And when many were fully convinced and gloried in the testimony of James, and said, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' these same Scribes and Pharisees said again to one another, 'We have done badly in supplying such testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, in order that they may be afraid to believe him.'

And they cried out, saying, 'Oh! Oh! The just man is also in error.' And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, 'Let us take away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings.' [Isaiah 3:10 LXX]

So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, 'Let us stone James the Just.' And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, 'I entreat you, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' [Luke 23:34]

And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, 'Stop. What are you doing? The just one prays for you.'

And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus he suffered martyrdom. And they buried him on the spot, by the temple, and his monument still remains by the temple. He became a true witness, both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ. And immediately Vespasian besieged them.

James, who is called the brother of the Lord, surnamed the Just, the son of Joseph by another wife, as some think, but, as appears to me, the son of Mary sister of the mother of our Lord of whom John makes mention in his book, after our Lord's passion at once ordained by the apostles bishop of Jerusalem, wrote a single epistle, which is reckoned among the seven Catholic Epistles and even this is claimed by some to have been published by some one else under his name, and gradually, as time went on, to have gained authority. Hegesippus, who lived near the apostolic age, in the fifth book of his Commentaries, writing of James, says

"After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies, since indeed he did not use woolen vestments but linen and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels' knees."

He says also many other things, too numerous to mention. Josephus also in the 20th book of his Antiquities, and Clement in the 7th of his Outlines mention that on the death of Festus who reigned over Judea, Albinus was sent by Nero as his successor. Before he had reached his province, Ananias the high priest, the youthful son of Ananus of the priestly class, taking advantage of the state of anarchy, assembled a council and publicly tried to force James to deny that Christ is the son of God. When he refused Ananius ordered him to be stoned. Cast down from a pinnacle of the temple, his legs broken, but still half alive, raising his hands to heaven he said, "Lord forgive them for they know not what they do." Then struck on the head by the club of a fuller such a club as fullers are accustomed to wring out garments with — he died. This same Josephus records the tradition that this James was of so great sanctity and reputation among the people that the downfall of Jerusalem was believed to be on account of his death. He it is of whom the apostle Paul writes to the Galatians that "No one else of the apostles did I see except James the brother of the Lord," and shortly after the event the Acts of the apostles bear witness to the matter. The Gospel also which is called the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and which I have recently translated into Greek and Latin and which also Origen often makes use of, after the account of the resurrection of the Saviour says, "but the Lord, after he had given his grave clothes to the servant of the priest, appeared to James (for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he drank the cup of the Lord until he should see him rising again from among those that sleep)" and again, a little later, it says "'Bring a table and bread,' said the Lord." And immediately it is added, "He brought bread and blessed and broke and gave to James the Just and said to him, 'my brother eat your bread, for the son of man is risen from among those that sleep.'" And so he ruled the church of Jerusalem thirty years, that is until the seventh year of Nero, and was buried near the temple from which he had been cast down. His tombstone with its inscription was well known until the siege of Titus and the end of Hadrian's reign. Some of our writers think he was buried in Mount Olivet, but they are mistaken.

But of the other apostles I saw none, except James the brother of the Lord.

I remember that while I was at Rome, at the urging of the brothers, I published a book on the perpetual virginity of holy Mary. In it I had to argue at some length about those who are called the brothers of the Lord. Hence, whatever the things we wrote there are worth, we ought to be content with them. For now let this suffice: that because of his excellent character, his incomparable faith and his uncommon wisdom he was called the brother of the Lord; and because he was the first to preside over the Church which, the first to believe in Christ, had been gathered from the Jews. The other apostles too are indeed called brothers of the Lord, as in the Gospel: "Go, tell my brothers: I go to my Father and to your Father, and to my God and to your God" (John 20:17). And in the psalm: "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the Church I will sing to you" (Ps. 21:22). But this man is called brother in a special way, to whom the Lord, as he was going to the Father, had entrusted the sons of his mother. And just as Job and the other patriarchs were indeed called servants of God, yet Moses had something as it were outstanding, so that it was written of him, "But not as Moses my servant" (Heb. 3:5): so too blessed James was specially called the brother of the Lord (as we said before). As for the fact that, apart from the twelve, certain men are called apostles, the reason is this: all who had seen the Lord and afterwards preached him were called apostles, as is written to the Corinthians: "That he was seen by Cephas, after this by the eleven; then he was seen by more than five hundred brothers at once, of whom many remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then he was seen by James, then by all the apostles" (1 Cor. 15:5 ff.). But gradually, as time went on, and elsewhere, by those whom the Lord had chosen, apostles were ordained; as that passage to the Philippians declares, saying: "But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, but your apostle and the minister of my need" (Phil. 2:25). And to the Corinthians it is written of such men: "Or the apostles of the churches, the glory of God" (2 Cor. 8:23). Silas also and Judas were named apostles by the apostles. Hence he erred greatly who thought that this James was the one in the Gospel, the apostle, the brother of John, who, it is agreed, shed his blood for Christ after Stephen, according to the testimony of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 12). This James, however, was the first bishop of Jerusalem, surnamed the Just: a man of such holiness and of such renown among the people that they vied with one another in their eagerness to touch the fringe of his garment. He too was afterwards thrown down from the temple by the Jews, and had as his successor Simon, who also, they relate, was crucified for the Lord. He therefore denies that he met any of the apostles besides these, lest a hidden objection should arise: "Even if you were not taught by Peter, you had other apostles as your teachers." And he did not see them, not because he held them in contempt, but because they had been scattered over the whole world to preach the Gospel.

"But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother."

See what great friends he was with Peter especially; on his account he left his home, and with him he tarried. This I frequently repeat, and desire you to remember, that no one, when he hears what this Apostle seems to have spoken against Peter, may conceive a suspicion of him. He premises this, that when he says, "I resisted Peter," no one may suppose that these words imply enmity and contention; for he honored and loved his person more than all and took this journey for his sake only, not for any of the others. "But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James." "I saw him merely, I did not learn from him," he means. But observe how honorably he mentions him, he says not "James" merely, but adds this illustrious title, so free is he from all envy. Had he only wished to point out whom he meant, he might have shown this by another appellation, and called him the son of Cleophas, as the Evangelist does. But as he considered that he had a share in the august titles of the Apostles, he exalts himself by honoring James; and this he does by calling him "the Lord's brother," although he was not by birth His brother, but only so reputed. Yet this did not deter him from giving the title; and in many other instances he displays towards all the Apostles that noble disposition, which beseemed him.

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent.

"I did not see any other of the apostles." How could one who had not seen anyone have learned from them?

"the brother of the Lord." James was not the brother of the Lord, but he was thought to be, yet in order to lift him up he calls him the brother of the Lord.

Now this writer [Josephus], although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless—being, although against his will, not far from the truth—that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),—the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice. Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine.

And depreciating the whole of what appeared to be His nearest kindred, they said, "Is not His mother called Mary? And His brethren, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?" [Matthew 13:55-56] They thought, then, that He was the son of Joseph and Mary. But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or "The Book of James," that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end, so that that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word which said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you," [Luke 1:35] might not know intercourse with a man after that the Holy Ghost came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first-fruit among men of the purity which consists in chastity, and Mary among women; for it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first-fruit of virginity. And James is he whom Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians that he saw, "But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." [Galatians 1:19] And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews" in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James. And Jude, who wrote a letter of few lines, it is true, but filled with the healthful words of heavenly grace, said in the preface, "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James." [Jude 1]

He was called "the brother of the Lord" but was not so by nature. For he was not, as some suppose, the son of Joseph by a previous marriage but the son of Clopas and cousin of the Lord. For his mother was the sister of the Lord's mother. … He was thought by others to be the Lord's brother, both because their mothers had the same names and because the families shared one house. And he was so called even by believers, both because of the extreme virtue that he possessed (for he was called "the Just") and because of the kinship. For the sacred story of the Gospels tells us that the Blessed Virgin had no other son. For seeing her by the cross, the Lord gave her to the most divine John, but he would not have committed her to another if the blessed James, a man possessed of extreme virtue, had been her son.

Although he came for the sake of Peter – so much did he honor and love him – he also saw James, and he mentions him too with respect, calling him "the brother of the Lord" – so far was he from envy! And indeed, if he had wanted to distinguish him, he would have called him the son of Cleopas. For he was not a brother of the Lord according to the flesh, but was only considered so. How then was he the son of Cleopas, listen: Cleopas and Joseph were brothers; when Cleopas died childless, Joseph raised up seed for him and begot him and his other brothers, and Mary, whom, although she was the daughter of Cleopas, the Gospel calls the sister of the Mother of the Lord, since Joseph maintained toward the Most Holy Virgin the care of a father rather than the affection of a husband.

But lest anyone suppose that, although he was not instructed by Peter, he might have been instructed by others, he adds that he was not instructed by others. Hence he says, "But other of the apostles," by whom I might be instructed, "I saw none," i.e., no one, "saving James, the brother of the Lord." For I saw him in Jerusalem.

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 (15:13 ff). He also wrote a canonical epistle. Now there are various explanations why he is called the brother of the Lord. Elvidius says that it was because he was the son of the Blessed Virgin. For according to him, the Blessed Virgin conceived and gave birth to Christ, and after the birth of Christ she conceived of Joseph and brought forth other sons. But this error is condemned and refuted. Furthermore, it is false for the simple reason that James was not the son of Joseph but of Alpheus.

Others 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, although she was not known by Joseph, but, as it is said in the Gospel, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. But because progeny are named after their father, and Joseph was considered the father of Christ, for that reason, James, too, although he was not the son of the Virgin, was nevertheless called the brother of the Lord. 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. For they say that Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin, first married Joachim, of whom was born Mary, the mother of the Lord; but when Joachim died, she married Joachim's brother, Cleophas, from whom she bore Mary of Cleophas, and from her were born James the Less, Jude and Simon. Then after Cleophas died, she married a third man who was called Salome, of whom she conceived and bore another Mary, called Salome, from whom were born James the Great and his brother John.

But this opinion is denied on two counts by Jerome: first of all, because Salome is not a man's name, as is plain in Greek, but the name of the woman who was the sister of the Blessed Virgin and who begot James the Great and John, of Zebedee, just as Mary Cleophas begot James the Less, Jude and Simon, of Alpheus. Now 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. Accordingly, because the Jews were accustomed to draw up the lines of ancestry on the father's side, and Christ was considered the son of Joseph, as is said in Luke (3:23), he, rather than the others, was called the brother of the Lord, because they were related to him only on His mother's side.

Furthermore, "brother" is taken here in the sense of kinsman. For in the Scriptures some are called brothers, who are so by nature: "Jacob begot Judas and his brethren" (Mt 1:2). Others, who are kinsmen, such as blood relations, are brothers: "Let there be no quarrel, I beseech thee, between me and thee... for we are brethren" (Gen 13:8). Others who are so by race; hence all who speak the same tongue are called brothers: "Thou mayest not make a man of another nation king, that is not thy brother" (Deut 17:15). Others who are so by affection; hence all who are friends and who have the same love are called brothers: "Because I found not Titus my brother" (2 Cor 2:13). Others who are so by religion; hence all Christians who have one rule of life are called brothers: "For one is your master; and all you are brethren" (Mt 23:8); "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity" (Ps 132:1). And in general, all men are called brothers, because they are ruled and protected by one God: "Have we not all one father?" (Mal 2:10).

He certainly swears, and what oath could be more sacred? But an oath is not against the commandment when the "evil cause" is not in the swearer but in the incredulity of him to whom he is forced to swear. For we understand from this that what the Lord meant in prohibiting oaths was that everyone, so far as in him it lies, should not swear the oaths that many do, having the oath on their lips as though it were something lofty and elegant.

But the things I write to you: behold, before God, I do not lie.

This may be taken either simply, so that the sense is: The things I write to you are true, and I confirm with God as witness that they are colored by no art of words and by no falsehood. Or more deeply, so that it is read: The things I write to you are before God, that is, worthy of God's sight. But why worthy of God's sight? Because, namely, I do not lie. And just as the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous (Ps. 33), but he turns away his face from the sight of the ungodly, so now the things that are written are before the Lord, since I who write do not lie; they would not be before the Lord if I were lying. Now this can be taken not only of the things he now writes to the Galatians, but also generally of all his Epistles: since the things he writes are not false, and his heart and his words do not disagree.

"Now touching the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not."

Observe throughout the transparent humility of this holy soul; his earnestness in his own vindication is as great as if he had to render an account of his deeds, and was pleading for his life in a court of justice.

"I tell you before the Lord that I am not lying." Do you see how he strives with this statement? For he even risked not being credible with regard to the proclamation, as being a follower of men and not of Christ.

As if intending to give testimony before a court, he resorts to these words in order to appear most worthy of trust.

Then when he says, "Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God I lie not," he confirms his statements with an oath. As if to say: The things I now write to you about myself, behold, are so well known that it is obvious I lie not. And this I say before God, i.e., with God as my witness. The Apostle here takes an oath not for a slight reason, but for the sake of those for whom it was necessary, that they might believe. For had he not sworn, they would not have believed him. "Before God, in Christ we speak" (2 Cor 2:17); "God is my witness" (Rom 1:9).

But what does the Lord say in Matthew (5:37)? "Let your speech be: Yea, Yea; No, No. And that which is over and above these is of evil." The answer to this is that it is of the evil of him who does not believe, or of the evil of punishment which compels one to swear.

What does he prove by all this? That his gospel had persuaded everyone, even in his absence.

Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

After seeing Jerusalem he came to Syria, which in our tongue is called "lofty and sublime." And from there he passed over to Cilicia, which he desired to take up into the faith of Christ, proclaiming to it the calling of repentance: for Cilicia means "taken up," or "lamentable calling."

"Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia."

After his interview with Peter, he resumes his preaching and the task which lay before him, avoiding Judaea, both because of his mission being to the Gentiles, and of his unwillingness to "build upon another man's foundation." Wherefore there was not even a chance meeting, as appears from what follows.

"into the regions of Syria." After seeing Peter, the way to the Gentiles was again kept. He says toward the regions of Syria and Cilicia; for he had been sent to those places.

Only for the sake of meeting with Peter having appeared in Judea, he again leaves it for the reason that he was sent to preach to the Gentiles and in order not to undertake building on another's foundation.

Then when he says, "Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia," he shows how he was approved by the other churches of Judea. Here he does three things: first he shows where he lived, namely in Cilicia. Hence he says, "then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia," i.e., his native land. (Here he was caught up into paradise.) Because it is said in Acts (22:3): "Paul was born at Tarsus in Cilicia." Secondly, how he was known by the others, namely, not by sight but by report and reputation. Hence he says, "I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ," i.e., in the faith of Christ: "As unknown and yet known" (2 Cor 6:8). Hence it is evident that the churches of Judea did not teach me. "But they had heard only," i.e., of me, from reports that "he who persecuted us in times past, doth now preach the faith which once he impugned." Thirdly, how he was approved by them, because "they glorified God in me," i.e., in my conversion they glorified Him Who converted me by His grace: "The beast of the field shall glorify me" (Is 43:20).

It should be observed that Jews had believed in Christ not only in Jerusalem, nor were they so few that they had been absorbed into the Gentile churches, but they were so numerous that churches came into being from them.

But I was unknown by face to the churches of Judaea which were in Christ Jesus. But they had only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he formerly fought against; and they glorified God in me.

The churches that were in Judaea had known Paul only by report. Of these, most had seen him as a persecutor rather than as an apostle. But Syria and the regions of Cilicia, Arabia and Damascus had perhaps known him by face as well, because the Teacher of the Gentiles was preaching the Gospel of Christ not to the Jews but to the Gentiles. Now the whole of what he is doing is this: to teach that he could never, from being a persecutor, have become glorious among those very people whom he had previously persecuted, unless his preaching had been approved by the judgment even of those who had earlier known him as a wicked man. And he covertly returns to his purpose, confirming that he had spent so short a time in Judaea that he was unknown even by face to the believers. From this he shows that he had not had Peter, not James, not John as his teachers, but Christ, who had revealed the Gospel to him. At the same time it should be noted that above he is said to have fought against the Church, here against the faith: there men, here a thing; so that now it might more fittingly be added: "He preaches the faith which he once fought against." For the words could not have sounded the same way of the Church.

"And I was still unknown by face unto the Churches of Judaea; but they only heard say, he that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith of which he once made havoc."

What modesty in thus again mentioning the facts of his persecuting and laying waste the Church, and in thus making infamous his former life, while he passes over the illustrious deeds he was about to achieve! He might have told, had he wished it, all his successes, but he mentions none of these and stepping with one word over a vast expanse, he says merely, "I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia;" and, "they had heard, that he, which once persecuted us, now preacheth the faith of which he once made havoc." The purpose of the words, "I was unknown to the Churches of Judaea," is to show, that so far from preaching to them the necessity of circumcision, he was not known to them even by sight.

"I was unknown." Therefore, he says, I did not preach to those who had believed from the circumcision that they must be circumcised (for this is what the slanderers said, that he proclaimed circumcision to those who believed from the Jews); therefore I did not preach, he said, since they did not know from the beginning.

Or therefore. — [PHOTIUS] From Peter I did not learn; I only saw him. From James I did not learn; for I only saw him as well. I did not see any other of the apostles. But not from some other humbler and not so prominent person? And how does it stand that I learned this from those who have not even seen my face? For I was unknown in appearance to the churches in Judea. For the others were in need of instruction, but they did not teach. Therefore, I did not learn it from a man. —

"to the Churches of Judea." To the Churches around Syria and Cilicia, to those of the Jews who have turned back to the Lord. For this is what "in Christ" signifies.

Therefore, he says, the Christians in Judea did not even know me by face. So how could I have preached circumcision to them, when they did not even know me by face? For they slandered him, saying that in Judea he preached circumcision.

Secondly, how he was known by the others, namely, not by sight but by report and reputation. Hence he says, "I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ," i.e., in the faith of Christ: "As unknown and yet known" (2 Cor 6:8). Hence it is evident that the churches of Judea did not teach me.

But they had only heard about me that I had turned to Christ and was preaching the Gospel about Him.

Then when he says, "Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia," he shows how he was approved by the other churches of Judea. Here he does three things: first he shows where he lived, namely in Cilicia. Hence he says, "then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia," i.e., his native land. (Here he was caught up into paradise.) Because it is said in Acts (22:3): "Paul was born at Tarsus in Cilicia." Secondly, how he was known by the others, namely, not by sight but by report and reputation. Hence he says, "I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ," i.e., in the faith of Christ: "As unknown and yet known" (2 Cor 6:8). Hence it is evident that the churches of Judea did not teach me. "But they had heard only," i.e., of me, from reports that "he who persecuted us in times past, doth now preach the faith which once he impugned." Thirdly, how he was approved by them, because "they glorified God in me," i.e., in my conversion they glorified Him Who converted me by His grace: "The beast of the field shall glorify me" (Is 43:20).

By "glorified God in me" he means they called him great. For what is so magnificent as to have your own opinion turned around and receive the one whom you previously assailed? This being so, you also should follow nothing else than the gospel preached to you by the one who is a miracle among the Gentiles, because he preaches the faith of Christ.

"And they glorified God in me."

See here again how accurately he observes the rule of his humility; he says not, they admired me, they applauded or were astonished at me, but ascribes all to Divine grace by the words, "they glorified God in me."

— [PHOTIUS] "and they glorified God in me." He did not say, "They praised me," or "They glorified me," but, "they glorified God," he says. For all that which was in me, he says, was of God's grace.

"in me," that is, on account of me.

"glorified God in me," not this or that teacher, but God himself. He was the one who revealed to me and taught the preaching.

And this is a sign of modesty. For he did not say: they marveled at me, they admired me, but ascribed everything that happened to the action of grace. For "they glorified God because of me," who truly does all things.

Thirdly, how he was approved by them, because "they glorified God in me," i.e., in my conversion they glorified Him Who converted me by His grace: "The beast of the field shall glorify me" (Is 43:20).