Galatians 4

"Since, when we were children," says the same apostle, "we were kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world. And the child, though heir, differeth nothing from a servant, till the time appointed of the father." Philosophers, then, are children, unless they have been made men by Christ. "For if the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free," at least he is the seed of Abraham, though not of promise, receiving what belongs to him by free gift.

Now I say, as long as the heir is a little child, he differs nothing from a slave, though he is Lord of all, but he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed beforehand by the father.

This little heir, who differs nothing from a slave though he is Lord of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed beforehand by the father, signifies the whole human race up to the coming of Christ, and, to say more, up to the consummation of the world. For just as all die in Adam, the first-formed man, though not yet born, so also all, even those who were born before the coming of Christ, are made alive in the second Adam. And so it comes about both that we served the Law in the fathers, and that they are saved by grace in the sons. This understanding accords with the Catholic Church, which asserts one providence of both the Old and the New Testament, and does not separate in time those whom it has joined in condition. We are all built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ our Lord, the cornerstone, holding us together, who made both one, and, breaking down the middle wall, destroyed in his flesh the enmity of both peoples, and changed the difficulty of the ancient Law by the integrity of the Gospel doctrines (Eph. 2:20). Truly in Christ we are all one bread, and we two have agreed upon earth. And just as we are founded upon the prophets, so too the patriarchs have stood upon the foundation of the apostles. Now the guardians and stewards can also be taken to be the prophets, by whose words we were daily instructed toward the coming of the Savior, just as the Law of Moses was discussed above as a pedagogue; and the angels of the little ones, who daily see the face of the Father and intercede for them. Of these it was said: "He will send the angels of the Lord round about those who fear him, and will deliver them" (Ps. 33:8). The priests and princes too can be understood, who then ruled over the people and are now held to provide a pattern. And rightly are those said to be under guardians and stewards who, having the spirit of fear, have not yet deserved to receive the spirit of freedom and adoption. For the age of infancy trembles at sins, fears the pedagogue, and does not trust that it is free, although by nature it is mistress. And according to both understandings, by which we have said that the guardians and stewards are either the prophets or the angels, this little one is under stewards and guardians for as long as it takes him to complete the lawful time of the perfect man. Now just as the lawful time under the Roman laws is bounded by a span of twenty-five years, so for the perfection of the human race the coming of Christ is reckoned as that time. As soon as he has come, and we have all grown up into the perfect man, the pedagogue and guardian depart from us. Then we shall fully enjoy the authority of the Lord and the possession of the inheritance, in which we, born earlier, were in a manner regarded as strangers.

The word "child" in this place denotes not age but understanding; meaning that God had from the beginning designed for us these gifts, but, as we yet continued childish, He let us be under the elements of the world, that is, new moons and sabbaths, for these days are regulated by the course of sun and moon. If then also now they bring you under law they do nothing else but lead you backward now in the time of your perfect age and maturity. And see what is the consequence of observing days; the Lord, the Master of the house, the Sovereign Ruler, is thereby reduced to the rank of a servant.

For what reason? Because it was decided by the father that he should manage nothing until the lawful age. And he rightly produced the example of the infant. For just as that child, though master of all things, is prevented by his infancy from exercising control over his possessions, so we too, because our mind has long been youthful, are hindered from being deemed worthy of adoption as children of God.

"when we were children." He says "children" not in respect of age but of knowledge of God, indicating that God had willed to grant these things from the beginning, that is, adoption as sons, but that we are responsible for the delay, being children in our minds. Having then been permitted, by God's patience, to be enslaved to the elements, that is, to the course of the sun and the moon. For being enslaved to Sabbaths and new moons and observances of days, which were prescribed by the law, he says that for the most part we were subject to the sun and the moon, from which come the days and the months and the Sabbaths. Very desirous indeed to reduce those things in the law, he stops and says, "Under the law we were in bondage," he said "under the elemental principles."

— [THEODORET] When, he says, we were infants and immature, the law acted as a sort of guardian and steward over us. (For he spoke of the basic elements of the world, judicial observations.) Since night and day are named after the sun and moon, and from days weeks and months and years are formed, the law ordered that Sabbaths and new moons and annual festivals and the weeks of years be observed; for this reason he said: "under the elemental principles," since time is also constituted from these. [end of the excerpt by Theodoret] —

— [GENNADIUS] "under the elemental principles of the world." With the oversight of guardians and managers who, for the benefit of the young, guide those not yet mature, he received the elements of the world, with which we were enslaved because our knowledge was incomplete. Therefore, I do not think he took the sun and the moon as part of the order of guardians, because submission to those would be harmful; rather he calls them the elements of the world, or the elementary and introductory law. (For he was also writing to those faithful from the Jews, and here indicates the slightly aforementioned things, and that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.) He calls them elements: day, water, fire, which were observations of the law that brought into slavery. Days, namely Sabbaths and new moons and circumcisions. Water, in bodily purifications and baptisms. Fire, in not kindling fire on the Sabbaths, but in eating unseasoned food. See what Eusebius said about this as a foreigner in the fourth discourse of the Proof of the Gospel. [end of the excerpt by Gennadius] —

After pointing out the shortcoming of the Law, the Apostle then shows here the dignity of grace. First, with a human example; secondly, with an example from Scripture (v. 21).

Regarding the first he does three things:

First, he shows the pre-eminence of grace over the primitive state of the Old Law by a simile taken from human law;

Secondly, he shows that they have been made partakers of this pre-eminence through faith (v. 6);

Thirdly, he censures them for disdaining this pre-eminence (v. 8).

As to the first, he does two things:

First, he lays down the simile;

Secondly, he adapts it to his proposition (v. 3).

It should be noted that the Apostle touches four things in the simile he proposes. First of all, eminence, because he speaks not of a servant but of an heir. Hence he says, As "long as the heir is a child." This is applied and referred both to the Jewish people—who were the heirs of the promise to Abraham: "For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself; Israel for his own possession" (Ps 134:4)—and to Christ, Who is the heir of all things: "whom he hath appointed heir of all things" (Heb 1:2).

Secondly, smallness; hence he says, "is a child," because the Jews were children according to the state of the Law: "Who shall raise up Jacob, for he is a little one?" (Am 7:5). Similarly, Christ, too, was become a child through the Incarnation: "For a child is born to us and a son is given to us" (Is 9:6). But note that the Apostle sometimes compares the state of the Law to a child, as he does here, and sometimes the state of the present life: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child" (1 Cor 13:11). The reason for this is that the state of the Old Law, because of the imperfection of knowledge, is as a child, compared to the state of grace and truth which came through Christ. In like manner, the state of the present life, in which we see through a mirror in a dark manner, is as a child, compared to the state of the future life, in which there is perfect knowledge of God, because He is seen as He is.

Thirdly, subjection, when he says, "he differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all: but is under tutors and governors." For a servant is one who is subject to a lord. But a boy, as long as he is a child, because he does not have fulness of knowledge and use of free will through lack of years, is committed to the care of others who defend his possessions—and these are called tutors—and who handle his affairs—and these are called governors. Therefore, though he be lord of all his things, yet, in so far as he is subject to others, he differs nothing from a servant, because he does not have free will but is in fact constrained. And this is applied to the Jewish people: "And now hear, O Jacob, my servant" (Is 44:1).

Here it should be noted that among the Jewish people some were servants in the strict sense; those, namely, who observed the Law through fear of punishment and through a desire for the temporal things which the Law promised. But there were others who were not servants in the strict sense, but living as servants, were really sons and heirs. These, although outwardly attending to temporal things and avoiding punishments, did not place their end in them but took them as a figure of spiritual goods. Hence, even though on the surface they seemed to differ nothing from servants, inasmuch as they observed the ceremonies and other commandments of the Law, they were, nevertheless, lords, because they did not use them with the same frame of mind as servants; for they used them for love of the spiritual goods they prefigured, whereas servants used them chiefly through fear of punishment and with a desire for earthly convenience. Christ, too was like a servant, because although He is the Lord of all things according to Psalm (109:1): "The Lord said to my Lord," nevertheless outwardly, as man, He seemed to differ nothing from a servant: "He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man" (Phil 2:7). Furthermore, he was under tutors and governors, because He was made under the Law, as is said below: made under the law (v. 4); He was also subject to men, as is said in Luke (2:51): "He was subject to them."

Fourthly, he touches on the correspondence of time, when he says, "until the time appointed by the father", because just as the heir is under tutors for a definite period of time fixed by the father, so the Law had a time fixed by God determining how long it was to endure and how long the heir, i.e., the Jewish people, where to be under it. Similarly, there was a time fixed by the Father during which Christ was not to perform miracles or show the Lordship of His divine power: "My hour is not yet come" (Jn 2:4).

That is, the father determined that he should manage nothing until the legally appointed age, which he must also obey.

Fourthly, he touches on the correspondence of time, when he says, "until the time appointed by the father," because just as the heir is under tutors for a definite period of time fixed by the father, so the Law had a time fixed by God determining how long it was to endure and how long the heir, i.e., the Jewish people, were to be under it. Similarly, there was a time fixed by the Father during which Christ was not to perform miracles or show the Lordship of His divine power: "My hour is not yet come" (Jn. 2:4).

By the "elements" he means new moons and the sabbath. New moons are the lunar days that the Jews observe, while the sabbath is the day of rest. Therefore, before the promise came (that is, the gift of God's grace) and justified believers by purifying them, we were subject, like those who are infants and imperfect, to our fellow servants as though to custodians. Our pernicious freedom was the matrix of sin.

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THE PAGANS ARE SUBJECT TO THE ELEMENTS; WHAT, THEN, DOES THE APOSTLE MEAN WHEN HE SAYS, “WE TOO WERE IN BONDAGE UNDER THE ELEMENTS OF THIS WORLD”? (Gal. 4:3). IF, THEREFORE, THE JEWS ALSO WERE SERVING UNDER THE ELEMENTS, HOW WERE THEY DIFFERENT FROM THE PAGANS? — It is clear that by the addition, omission, or alteration of a single syllable the sense is distorted. Therefore it is known to all that the pagans worship the elements; but the Jews did not worship the elements, rather they served God under the elements, on account of the new moons, and the sabbaths, and circumcision, and such things; for these are carnal. For whatever is visible is carnal and belongs to the elements. But because it was by the command of God, they were serving God, so that from the visible they might come to the invisible, and for this reason make progress to the reception of greater things, so that by meditating on these they might become worthy of spiritual promises. From that aspect, therefore, which I mentioned above, the Jews served under the elements; from another aspect they had a spiritual law, which both forbids sin and exhorts to the love of the Lord God, who was promised to come to them for the forgiveness of sins.

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT PAGANS ARE UNDER THE ELEMENTS. WHAT THEN DID THE APOSTLE MEAN WHEN HE SAID, “WE TOO WERE SERVING UNDER THE ELEMENTS OF THIS WORLD”? (Gal. 4:3) IF THEREFORE THE JEWS ALSO WERE UNDER THE ELEMENTS, HOW DO THEY DIFFER FROM THE PAGANS? — The pagans do not serve under the elements, but the elements themselves. For they worship the stars, the sun, the moon, and the constellations in the firmament; and among the lower things, the earth and the water; in the sea, Neptune; in the underworld, Pluto: they openly worship the created world, while passing over the Creator. Now the Jews in this way served under the elements, yet they served God, who had given these very commands. For they observed the new moons, the sabbaths, the sacrifices of cattle; at the beginning of the seventh month they blow the trumpet, and on the fifteenth day of the seventh month they carry about palm-marrow and thick branches of trees and branches of willows, and dwell in booths for seven days. Therefore, as they observed these things, they are rightly said to have served under the elements; for these things are from the elements. Christians, however, do not serve under the elements, but above the elements they serve God, hurrying toward the heavenly Jerusalem; they adore God in spirit, not in visible and worldly things, but having the worship of God in the mind, serving the invisible in an invisible manner, as the Lord says in the Gospel: “The hour is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:23). This, then, is the truth: to serve God in spirit, in mind rather than in body, so that, because God is spirit, he may be worshiped spiritually. From this side he says that the Jews were subject under the elements, as I mentioned above; but from another side, the principle of the Law was spiritual, by which he both forbade sin and commanded that the Lord be loved with all the heart, and that hope be placed in Christ. But when the Apostles preached these things, they clung more strongly to what had been given carnally. The Apostle recalls these matters in order to stun the Jews, who, disapproving the spiritual Law, were subject to visible things; and to show that these are truly weak in comparison with the law of faith, he also indicates this by introducing his own person, who had once been their zealous imitator. But once he had come to know Christ, he judged these things to be worthy of contempt, because the grace of God through Christ differs greatly from the Law of works.

Why does Paul include his own character in this description? He says not "When you were small, you were subject to the elements of this world" but "When we were small we were in servitude under the elements of this world." This does not have any reference to the Jews, from whom Paul derived his origin. Rather it refers to his identification with the Gentiles in this place at least, since he can properly join himself with the character of those whom he was sent to evangelize.

The elements of the world were thought to have in themselves at the same time their own motions and, as it were, certain necessary consequences of the motion of other beings, such as stars, by whose revolution human life was brought under necessity. And so humans served the elements as the stars ordained and the course of the world required.

So we also, when we were little children, were in bondage under the elements of this world.

He has called the elements of the world the same ones whom above he had called guardians and stewards: because, set first under these very overseers, since we could not yet grasp the coming of the Son of God to us, we were being instructed in the meantime. Some think that they are angels who preside over the four elements of the world, namely earth, water, fire and air, and that it is necessary that, before anyone believes in Christ, he be governed by those as his overseers. Many think that heaven and earth, and the things that are within them, are called the elements of the world: because, namely, the wise men of Greece, and the barbarian nations, and the Romans, the cesspool of all superstitions, worship the sun, the moon, the seas, and the gods of the forests and the mountains; from which we are set free when Christ has come, understanding that they are creatures, not divinities. Others interpret the elements of the world as the Law of Moses and the utterances of the prophets: because through these, as through the beginnings and first rudiments of letters, we take up the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom. Finally, to those who ought already to have been perfect, and who, having neglected the truth, still clung to the first principles of instruction, the Apostle writes in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "For when by reason of the time you ought to be teachers, you have need again to be taught what are the elements of the beginning of the words of God" (Heb. 5:12). On the contrary, it can be objected to us that Paul the apostle, writing to the Colossians, has named other things the elements of the world: "See", he says, "that no one plunder you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ" (Col. 2:8). But from what he added, "according to the tradition of men, and empty deceit", he shows that the same elements are not named to the Colossians and to the Galatians. For from these elements, after the fullness of time has come, we are redeemed, and, advancing to greater things, we receive the adoption of sons. But of those nothing of the kind is said as something that follows; rather, the elements are taken simply for letters. Therefore, as we have said, the Law of Moses and the prophets can be taken for the elements of letters, because through them syllables and names are joined, and they are learned not so much for their own usefulness as for that of something else: so that we may be able to read connected discourse, in which the sense and the order of the words, rather than the first principles of the letters, are considered. And as for our having interpreted the Law and the prophets as the elements of the world, the world is commonly taken for those who are in the world, as the same Paul says: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor. 5:19). And in the Gospel: "And the world was made through him, and the world does not receive him" (John 1:10). Some, moreover, range more freely in this matter: so that, since the Law has a shadow of good things to come, they inquire whether in another world, of which the Savior says: "I am not of this world" (John 8:23), we are first little children and, set under the elements of the beginnings, advance little by little to the highest point, and receive again the place of adoption which we once lost.

"when we were children." He says " children " not in respect of age but of knowledge of God, indicating that God had willed to grant these things from the beginning, that is, adoption as sons, but that we are responsible for the delay, being children in our minds. Having then been permitted, by God's patience, to be enslaved to the elements, that is, to the course of the sun and the moon. For being enslaved to Sabbaths and new moons and observances of days, which were prescribed by the law, he says that for the most part we were subject to the sun and the moon, from which come the days and the months and the Sabbaths. Very desirous indeed to reduce those things in the law, he stops and says, "Under the law we were in bondage," he said "under the elemental principles."

— [THEODORET] When, he says, we were infants and immature, the law acted as a sort of guardian and steward over us. (For he spoke of the basic elements of the world, judicial observations.) Since night and day are named after the sun and moon, and from days weeks and months and years are formed, the law ordered that Sabbaths and new moons and annual festivals and the weeks of years be observed; for this reason he said: "under the elemental principles," since time is also constituted from these. [end of the excerpt by Theodoret] —

— [GENNADIUS] "under the elemental principles of the world." With the oversight of guardians and managers who, for the benefit of the young, guide those not yet mature, he received the elements of the world, with which we were enslaved because our knowledge was incomplete. Therefore, I do not think he took the sun and the moon as part of the order of guardians, because submission to those would be harmful; rather he calls them the elements of the world, or the elementary and introductory law. (For he was also writing to those faithful from the Jews, and here indicates the slightly aforementioned things, and that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.) He calls them elements: day, water, fire, which were observations of the law that brought into slavery. Days, namely Sabbaths and new moons and circumcisions. Water, in bodily purifications and baptisms. Fire, in not kindling fire on the Sabbaths, but in eating unseasoned food. See what Eusebius said about this as a foreigner in the fourth discourse of the Proof of the Gospel. [end of the excerpt by Gennadius] —

"In childhood" not by age, but by knowledge of God. And by "elemental principles" of the world he means new moons and sabbaths, because these days come to us from the course of the moon and the sun. Therefore those who now subject us to the law thereby make us children and enslave us to the elements of the world, even though we have already become perfect men, and sons of God, and stewards, and lords. We also learn that God from the beginning desired to give this adoption (for in this the inheritance consists), but our immaturity hindered Him. Wishing to completely abolish the law, he did not say "we were enslaved to days," but "to the elemental principles of the world," in order to more strongly shame those who still incline toward obedience to the law. But do not be troubled that in the flow of the discourse the "elements" are conceived as masters and overseers. For, in the first place, you must understand the law as the master, just as also the pedagogue, and not them (the elements); therefore he called the new moons and sabbaths elements. Moreover, he expressed himself this way in order to completely draw them away from the law and to shame them, as he will reveal even more clearly further on. Some, however, understood by elements the natural, preparatory law.

He applies this simile when he says, "So we also, when we were children, were serving under the elements of the world."

First, he applies it as touching the Jews;

Secondly, as touching Christ (v. 4).

He says therefore: I say that as long as the heir is a child he differeth nothing from a servant; so, we Jews also, when we were children in the state of the Old Law, were serving under the elements of the world, i.e., under the Law which promised temporal things—"If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land" (Is 1:19)—and threatened temporal punishments.

Or the Old Law is called "element," because just as boys who are to be trained in a science are first taught the elements of that science and through them are brought to the fulness of science, so to the Jews was proposed the Old Law through which they would be brought to faith and justice: "the law was our pedagogue in Christ" (3:24). Or, under the elements, i.e., the corporeo-religious usages which they observed, such as days of the moon, new moons and the Sabbath. But one should not object that on this account they differed nothing from the pagans who served the elements of this world, for the Jews did not serve them or pay them worship; but under them they served and worshipped God, whereas the pagans in serving the elements rendered them divine worship: "They worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever" (Rom 1:25). Furthermore, it was necessary that the Jews serve God under the elements of this world, because such an order is in harmony with human nature which is led from sensible to intelligible things.

He says "his Son," not one of many, not "a Son" but his own. When he says "his own" he confirms that he has the property of eternal generation. This is the one whom he subsequently declares to have been born from a woman, so as to ascribe the fact of being born not to the Godhead but to the assumed body. He was made from a woman by assuming flesh and made under the law by observing the law. But that heavenly birth of his is prior to the law, while the incarnation happens later.

"The fullness of time" is the completed time which had been foreordained by God the Father for the sending of his Son, so that, made from a virgin, he might be born like a man, subjecting himself to the law up to the time of his baptism, so that he might provide a way by which sinners, washed and snatched away from the yoke of the law, might be adopted as God's sons by his condescension, as he had promised to those redeemed by the blood of his Son. It was necessary, indeed, that the Savior should be made subject to the law, as a son of Abraham according to the flesh, so that, having been circumcised, he could be seen as the one promised to Abraham, who had come to justify the Gentiles through faith, since he bore the sign of the one to whom the promise had been made.

If salvation and true and perfect knowledge are through Christ, why did he not come earlier, so that our predecessors who were in ignorance might learn the truth? Indeed, after the coming of Christ many have been saved more than before; whereas, if he had come earlier, far more would have been saved. If this is so, it appears open to criticism. — If help is given beforehand to someone upon whom necessity is about to press, he will indeed be grateful, yet he will not be very able to recognize what has been done for him. But if you bring help to someone placed in the very midst of necessity, he will know what kind of benefit he has obtained. For one who is delivered from tribulation gives greater thanks; just as when you offer bread to one who is hungry: but if you offer it to one who is not hungry, what thanks will there be? Therefore it was rightly arranged that the Lord did not come earlier. First, he allowed the human race to use its own free will, yet not without a witness of himself: for from the very structure of the world, through the yearly gifts which he decreed should be supplied for human use by the ministry of the elements, he willed that his divinity be known and feared. Later, however, when the knowledge of God on earth grew dim and morals were changed, he consented to visit the human race, so that by giving the Law, or rather renewing it (for it existed in nature, but had begun to be neglected), he might restore both the knowledge of himself and the authority of the Law; so that, having recognized God and recalled the Law, they might begin to fear: being certain that the one who gave the Law would be the judge of human deeds. And because, after receiving the Law, they were unable to restrain themselves from sins, although they could have done so, and after being long admonished even through the Prophets, God, moved by mercy, sent his Son, who, offering himself for them and destroying death, granted them the remission of sins, that he might present them, justified, to God the Father; so that, knowing from what danger they have been rescued, they may give thanks to God without ceasing; so that even if necessity should require that they pour out their blood for him, they may still profess that they do not thereby repay him in kind. How pleasing and precious, then, do they deem that benefit which they do not think can be repaid even by death? But perhaps it will be argued on the other side: If many before the Law, and after the Law, weighed down by sins, gave themselves wholly over to the flesh, there were without doubt some who, devoted to God the Creator, restrained themselves from vices. Come, did these, once removed from life, not descend into hell? But if Christ had come immediately after the death of Adam, and, having freed Adam, who was held by his own sin, from death, had made a way to heaven for the rest who believed, so that, because they had lived well here, they might be received after death into heaven by their gracious Creator and Restorer. Therefore, is it a loss because Christ did not come earlier? It is clearly a loss. But ask whether it is just or unjust. For losses are often just. When a thief is caught and condemned to pay fourfold according to the Law, does he not suffer loss? Yet it is just; and therefore what the human race has suffered, having come about justly, is therefore permitted. For this reason the Savior ought not to have come at the very beginning. For when the Devil grew proud, and man, made by God, was set up as his enemy, so that, strengthened by God's help, for he was unequal in strength, he might resist him by the command that he had received, being the image of the one God on earth to remove error, by the fact that one was made by the One, from whom the others came, he might show this. But the Devil, with his usual subtlety, pretended not to know what had been commanded by God, and found Eve unpredictable; then, promising them that if they tasted what was forbidden they would become gods, he deceived them. Therefore the Devil, having conquered man, triumphed; the defeated man sold his race to sin. It was therefore not just to snatch away the spoils from the victor by force at once, because whatever God does, he does justly. Moreover, since man had sinned grievously, for by consenting to become a god he committed idolatry, that is, he sinned against God, he ought not at once to have been helped, since he did not even repent. Later, however, Satan brought many evils upon the righteous: upon Job, Joseph, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Zechariah, and the other prophets and righteous ones. Therefore Christ was entrusted by God his Father to overcome him and to reveal himself, taking away his kingdom by reason, not by sheer power; although God can do all things, yet he does what is in harmony with reason, so that he may remain above blame.

AS WE CONFESS THAT THE SAVIOR WAS BORN, WHAT DOES IT MEAN THAT THE APOSTLE SAYS HE WAS MADE FROM THE SEED OF DAVID (Rom. 1:3), SINCE TO BE MADE IS ONE THING AND TO BE BORN ANOTHER? — Although in this place “making” can be understood as “birth”: for “making” does indeed differ from “generation,” but only in other contexts, not where the matter concerns flesh and body. Yet the Apostle did not use such words without reason; for in another place he says, “made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). Therefore he meant something by this expression. For the flesh of the Lord in the Virgin’s womb was not formed and the body brought into being by human seed, but by the operation and power of the Holy Spirit; that is why the Apostle spoke in this way. It is one thing to thicken blood with mingled seed and therefore to generate, and another to bring forth, not by mixture, but by power. Therefore he said “made” rather than “begotten.”

IF SALVATION AND TRUE AND PERFECT KNOWLEDGE ARE THROUGH CHRIST, WHY DID HE NOT COME EARLIER, SO THAT OUR PREDECESSORS WHO WERE IN IGNORANCE MIGHT LEARN THE TRUTH? INDEED, AFTER THE COMING OF CHRIST MANY HAVE BEEN SAVED, MORE THAN BEFORE. WHENCE, IF HE HAD COME EARLIER, MANY MORE WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. IF THIS IS SO, IT SEEMS BLAMEWORTHY. — Yet no one who shows mercy ought to be slandered. For it is in the power of the giver when and how much he wishes to have mercy. Such a one must be encouraged and moved by prayers, not drawn back from a good work by disagreement. Perhaps there would be no objection if some return were made to Him in exchange for this mercy. Will anyone accuse a physician who bestows his remedies and his service freely? Or will his slowness be blamed by those who did not ask for him? We have said this according to reason, but the kindness of the Savior does not regard such calculations because of human weakness: He follows His own nature in showing mercy. Therefore He came when He ought to have come, following the counsel of His own will, not our merits. For if you weigh our merits, He ought not to have come. He came, then, when He knew both that help was needed, and that the benefit would be welcomed. If someone in danger is helped beforehand, the benefit will indeed be welcome; yet he will not be able to recognize very clearly what has been granted to him. But if you bring help to one when he is in the very midst of necessity, he will know what kind of benefit he has obtained. Being delivered from tribulation, he will give greater thanks, just as if you offer bread to a hungry man; if you offer it when he is not hungry, it will certainly not be as welcome. Therefore it was rightly done that the Lord did not come earlier. First He allowed the human race to use its own will, yet not without testimony of Himself; for from the very structure of the world, through the yearly gifts which He decreed should be supplied to human use by the ministry of the elements, He wished His divinity to be understood and feared. Indeed, from the stock of the first man, and then in Enoch and Noah, His knowledge was on earth. But when, through a kind of sickness of the human race, the knowledge of God among men began to fade, and morals were being changed, He agreed to choose Abraham, in whom there might be a pattern of renewed knowledge of God and of conduct. And when reverence was still sluggish, afterward through Moses He gave the Law in writing, which neither could fade away and which inspired greater fear. For fear is greater where authority is revealed. And because the nations rejected the Law they had received, not subjecting themselves to it, and even those who received it did not keep it, the Lord, moved by mercy, sent His Son, who, offering Himself for them, destroying death, and granting remission of sins to all, might present them justified to God the Father. For He could not descend to the lower regions except through death. Neither order nor reason demanded that one who had not died should enter the gates of Tartarus. If someone wishes to deceive barbarians in his own land, does he not change his appearance to match theirs, so that he may be thought one of them, and therefore find out how to overthrow them? So it was with the Devil: because he had overthrown man by evil cunning, so that man would not remain in death, a remedy was found by which he might lose those whom he held unjustly, and be taken unawares; and the one whom he thought he had killed as a mere man, he found to be God in the lower regions. When this happened, found guilty, he lost all those whom he held, and thereafter the way to heaven was opened. See how greatly the coming of the Savior has profited, so that men, knowing from what peril they have been freed, might unceasingly give Him thanks. But perhaps it may be said on the contrary: If many before the Law and after the Law, pressed down by sins, gave themselves entirely to the flesh and were worthy to remain in Tartarus, surely there were also those who, by devotion and reverence for the Creator, restrained their lives by the law of nature: were not these too, stripped of this life, detained in the lower regions? If He had come earlier, after the death of Adam, having freed Adam who first sinned, would He not have opened the way to heaven for the others, so that those who had lived well, having known the Creator, might be received into heaven after their death? Is it then a loss because Christ did not come earlier? It is clearly a loss; but ask whether it is just or unjust. For losses are often just, and about these one may not complain. Has a thief caught in the act and condemned fourfold according to the law ever dared to complain? Therefore the loss which the human race has suffered was justly done, and therefore was allowed. For this reason too the Savior ought not to have come at the very beginning. For when the Devil was exalting himself, man made by God was set as his enemy, that, strengthened by the help of God, for he was not his equal, he might resist him after receiving a command. But the Devil, with his usual subtlety, pretended not to know what had been commanded by God, and he found Eve unstable; then, promising her that if they touched what was forbidden it would confer divinity on them, he deceived them. Then the Devil, having overcome man, triumphed; the conquered man subjected his race to sin. Therefore it would have been unjust to take the spoils from the victor by force, since whatever God does He does justly. Moreover, since man grievously sinned by consenting to him, against the command of the Creator, to make himself God, he committed idolatry, by which he sinned against God; therefore help ought not to have been granted him at once; for neither would he have repented, nor would mercy have been welcome to him, if he had not known what he deserved. Although God can do all things, He does what is in harmony with reason, so that He may remain beyond blame.

Although God could have become incarnate from the beginning, He nevertheless willed not to do so until the end of the ages, after the law of nature and the law of figure had preceded, after the Patriarchs and the Prophets, to whom and through whom the Incarnation was promised. After these He deigned to become incarnate as at the end of times and in their fullness, according to what the Apostle says: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem those who were under the Law."

The Incarnation is the work of the first principle restoring, according to what is fitting and suitable with respect to the freedom of the will, with respect to the sublimity of the remedy, and with respect to the integrity of the universe.

Since freedom of the will requires that it be drawn to nothing against its will, God ought to have restored the human race in such a way that he who wished to seek the Savior would find salvation, while he who did not wish to seek the Savior would consequently not find salvation either. Now no one seeks a physician unless he recognizes his disease; no one seeks a teacher unless he recognizes himself to be ignorant; no one seeks a helper unless he recognizes himself to be powerless. Since, therefore, man at the beginning of his fall was still proud of his knowledge and strength, God first allowed the time of the law of nature, in which he would be convicted of ignorance; and afterwards, when ignorance was recognized but pride in his own strength remained, He added the Law, instructing through moral precepts and burdening through ceremonial ones, so that, having obtained knowledge and having recognized his powerlessness, man might take refuge in divine mercy and petition for grace, which was given to us in the coming of Christ.

Since the integrity and perfection of the universe requires that all things be ordered with respect to places and times, and this work of the incarnation was the most perfect among all divine works, and the process must be from the imperfect to the perfect, and not the reverse: hence it is that this work had to be accomplished in the end of times, so that, just as the first man, who was the adornment of the entire sensible world, had been created last, namely on the sixth day, for the completion of the whole world, so the second man, the complement of the entire restored world, in whom the first principle is joined with the last, namely "God with clay," would come to be in the end of times, that is, in the sixth age.

In the coming of the Son of God there is said to be the fullness of times, not because time comes to an end in his coming, but because the temporal mysteries are fulfilled.

Let us see, therefore, how the other illuminations of knowledge are to be reduced to the light of sacred Scripture. And first let us consider the illumination of sensitive cognition, which is wholly concerned with the cognition of sensible things, where three things are to be considered: the medium of cognition, the exercise of cognition, and the delight of cognition.

If we consider the medium of cognition, we shall behold therein the Word eternally generated and incarnate in time. For no sensible thing moves the cognitive power except through a likeness which proceeds from the object, as offspring from a parent; and this is necessary, whether generally, really, or exemplarily, in every sense. But that likeness does not bring about the completion of the act of sensing unless it is united with the organ and the power: and when it is united, a new perception arises, and through that perception a reduction to the object is effected by means of that likeness. And although the object is not always sensed, nevertheless it always, insofar as it is in itself, generates a likeness, when it is in its completeness.

In this same way understand that from the supreme Mind, which is knowable by the interior senses of our mind, there eternally emanated a Likeness, Image, and Offspring: and He afterwards, when the fullness of time came, was united to a mind and flesh and received the form of man, which He had never been before: and through Him all our minds which receive that Likeness of the Father through faith in the heart are reduced to God.

For if you are a Cherub contemplating the essential attributes of God, and you wonder that the divine being is at once the first and the last, eternal and most present, most simple and greatest, that is, uncircumscribed, wholly everywhere and nowhere comprehended, most actual and never moved, most perfect and having nothing superfluous nor diminished, and yet immense and infinite without limit, supremely one, and yet all-inclusive, as having all things in itself, as all power, all truth, all good: look upon the mercy seat and wonder that in it the first beginning is joined with the last, God with man formed on the sixth day, the eternal is joined with temporal man, born of the Virgin in the fullness of time, the most simple with the supremely composite, the most actual with one who supremely suffered and died, the most perfect and immense with the small, the supremely one and all-inclusive with a composite individual distinct from all others, namely the man Jesus Christ.

That although from the beginning He had been the Son of God, yet He had to be begotten again according to the flesh. In the second Psalm: "The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance, and the bounds of the earth for Thy possession." Also in the Gospel according to Luke: "And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and she was filled with the Holy Ghost, and she cried out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? " Also Paul to the Galatians: "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son, horn of a woman." Also in the Epistle of John: "Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. But whosoever denies that He is come in the flesh is not of God, but is of the spirit of Antichrist."

As there is a fullness in things, so there is in times. For each thing has its fullness in a full and copious perfection that abounds in everything. Christ is the fullness of things. The fullness of times is the consummation of freedom. So that his fullness may be whole and perfect Christ collects his members who are scattered, and in this way his fullness is achieved. So in the same way the fullness of times was achieved when all had become ripe for faith and sins had increased to the utmost, so that a remedy was necessarily sought in the judgment of all things. Hence Christ came when the fullness of time was completed.

Because he is brought forth from a woman he can be said to be made, but made for this temporary purpose: to be subject to the law.… The Galatians were to understand from this that they had fallen into error, for the Savior himself, in whom they believed, was made subject to the law though he remained the Lord of the law.

Paul, when writing to the Romans, has explained this very point: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, predestinated unto the Gospel of God, which He had promised by His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son of God with power through the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ." And again, writing to the Romans about Israel, he says: "Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever." And again, in his Epistle to the Galatians, he says: "But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption;" plainly indicating one God, who did by the prophets make promise of the Son, and one Jesus Christ our Lord, who was of the seed of David according to His birth from Mary; and that Jesus Christ was appointed the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, as being the first begotten in all the creation; the Son of God being made the Son of man, that through Him we may receive the adoption,-humanity sustaining, and receiving, and embracing the Son of God.

With Him is nothing incomplete or out of due season, just as with the Father there is nothing incongruous. For all these things were foreknown by the Father; but the Son works them out at the proper time in perfect order and sequence. This was the reason why, when Mary was urging [Him] on to [perform] the wonderful miracle of the wine, and was desirous before the time to partake of the cup of emblematic significance, the Lord, checking her untimely haste, said, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come"-waiting for that hour which was foreknown by the Father. This is also the reason why, when men were often desirous to take Him, it is said, "No man laid hands upon Him, for the hour of His being taken was not yet come;" nor the time of His passion, which had been foreknown by the Father; as also says the prophet Habakkuk, "By this Thou shalt be known when the years have drawn nigh; Thou shalt be set forth when the time comes; because my soul is disturbed by anger, Thou shalt remember Thy mercy." Paul also says: "But when the fulness of time came, God sent forth His Son." By which is made manifest, that all things which had been foreknown of the Father, our Lord did accomplish in their order, season, and hour, foreknown and fitting, being indeed one and the same, but rich and great. For He fulfils the bountiful and comprehensive will of His Father, inasmuch as He is Himself the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Lord of those who are under authority, and the God of all those things which have been formed, the only-begotten of the Father, Christ who was announced, and the Word of God, who became incarnate when the fulness of time had come, at which the Son of God had to become the Son of man.

Those, therefore, who allege that He took nothing from the Virgin do greatly err, [since,] in order that they may cast away the inheritance of the flesh, they also reject the analogy [between Him and Adam]. For if the one [who sprang] from the earth had indeed formation and substance from both the hand and workmanship of God, but the other not from the hand and workmanship of God, then He who was made after the image and likeness of the former did not, in that case, preserve the analogy of man, and He must seem an inconsistent piece of work, not having wherewith He may show His wisdom. But this is to say, that He also appeared putatively as man when He was not man, and that He was made man while taking nothing from man. For if He did not receive the substance of flesh from a human being, He neither was made man nor the Son of man; and if He was not made what we were, He did no great thing in what He suffered and endured. But every one will allow that we are [composed of] a body taken from the earth, and a soul receiving spirit from God. This, therefore, the Word of God was made, recapitulating in Himself His own handiwork; and on this account does He confess Himself the Son of man, and blesses "the meek, because they shall inherit the earth." The Apostle Paul, moreover, in the Epistle to the Galatians, declares plainly, "God sent His Son, made of a woman." And again, in that to the Romans, he says, "Concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated as the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord."

He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as thou canst perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for (observabit) thy head, and thou on the watch for His heel." For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, "that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made." This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks: "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man's opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned (ex quo ea quae secundum mulierem est plasmatio facta est), in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.

But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive back the adoption of sons.

Pay careful attention to the fact that he did not say made through a woman, as Marcion and the other heresies would have it, which pretend that the flesh of Christ was merely apparent, but of a woman, so that he may be believed to have been born not through her but of her. And as for his calling the holy and blessed Mother of the Lord woman (mulierem), not Virgin (Virginem), this same thing is written also in the Gospel κατὰ Ματθαῖον (according to Matthew), where she is called the wife of Joseph (Luke 2), and where she is rebuked by the Lord himself as a woman (John 2). For it was not necessary always to say Virgin, as if cautiously and timidly, since woman (mulier) signifies the sex rather than union with a man; and according to the sense of the Greek language, γυνή can be translated as either wife or woman. But to pass over all this: just as he was made under the law that he might redeem those who were under the law, so for the sake of those who had been born of a woman he willed to be born of a woman. For this is also why he received baptism in the stream of the Jordan as if he were a penitent, though he was free from sins: to teach the rest that they must be cleansed through baptism and be begotten as sons by the new adoption of the Spirit. John the Baptist, by no means understanding this, tried to keep him from coming to the washing, saying: "I ought to be baptized by you" (Matt. 3:14). And at once the mystery is taught: "Permit it now; for thus it befits us to fulfill all righteousness", so that he who had come for the salvation of men should not pass over anything of the manner of life of men. Someone may ask and say: If he was made under the Law for this reason, that he might redeem those who were under the Law (since, evidently, it would have been impossible for those who were under the Law to be redeemed unless he himself had been made under the Law), then either he was made without the Law, that he might redeem those who were not under the Law; or, if he himself was not made without the Law, he does not redeem those who had not been under the Law. But if it was possible for those who were without the Law to be redeemed in such a way that he himself did not become without the Law, then he was made under the Law superfluously in order to redeem those who were under the Law. One will resolve this question briefly if one uses that example: "and he was reckoned with those who were without the Law". For although in the Latin manuscripts, owing to the simplicity of the translators, it has been badly rendered: "And he was reckoned with the iniquitous" (Luke 22:37), yet one must know that among the Greeks ἄνομον, which is written here, means one thing, and ἄδικον, which is found in the Latin volumes, another. For ἄνομος is said of one who is without law and is bound by no right, whereas ἄδικος means iniquitous, or unjust. Hence the Apostle himself too, in another place: "since I was not", he says, "without the Law of God, but was in the Law of Christ" (1 Cor. 9); and certainly in this testimony also ἄνομος is written in the Greek; and he who translated well here could have translated the same word likewise there too, had the ambiguity not deceived him.

But what shall we do about that passage of Paul, where he says: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law" (above)? For if Christ was under the Law, and not as if under the Law, that whole preceding discussion will become empty. But this objection too will be resolved from its own passage. For he who was made under the Law for this reason, that he might redeem those who were under the Law, surely, since he was free from the Law, subjected himself to the Law of his own will; and he was far freer than Paul, who testified that he had been not under the Law but as if under the Law. And just as he went down into the mire and abyss of death for our sake, who were praying and saying: "Who will deliver me from the body of this death" (Rom. 7:24)? so too he willed to be born of a woman and to be under the Law, that he might save those who had been born of a woman and under the Law. And certainly he was not born of a woman, that is, of a married woman, but of a virgin. But the virgin was called a woman by a loose use of the word, on account of those who did not know that she had been a virgin. So, then, just as "woman" was put for "virgin" on account of those who thought that holy Mary had a husband, so, on account of those who supposed that Christ was under the Law, not knowing that to those who were under the Law he had become as if under the Law, he too is said to have been made under the Law.

Here he states two objects and effects of the Incarnation, deliverance from evil and supply of good, things which none could compass but Christ. They are these; deliverance from the curse of the Law, and promotion to sonship. Fitly does he say, that we might "receive," "[be paid,]" implying that it was due; for the promise was of old time made for these objects to Abraham, as the Apostle has himself shown at great length. And how does it appear that we have become sons? he has told us one mode, in that we have put on Christ who is the Son; and now he mentions another, in that we have received the Spirit of adoption.

He is God in that "all things were made through him and nothing was made without him." He is human in that he was "made from a woman, made under the law." The nativity of his flesh shows his human nature. The virgin birth is an indicator of his divine nature.

But when He says, "As the years draw nigh, thou shalt be recognised "He means, as has been said before, that glorious recognition of our Saviour, God in the flesh, who is otherwise invisible to mortal eye; as somewhere Paul, that great interpreter of sacred mysteries, says: "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."

"But when the fullness of time had come," namely the time which it was necessary, he says, for Christ to come. For Daniel the prophet assigned the time of Christ's coming, which reached its accomplishment in the reign of Caesar Augustus, when also the incarnate economy of Christ began. (Dan. 9:24-27)

"born of a woman." Therefore he did not say "by a woman," so that you would not suppose his coming to have been by way of the Mother of God [Θεοτόκου], but "of a woman," showing that from her the Lord took his body.

— [PHOTIUS] "born under the law." For he became under the law, having also been circumcised, in order, he says, to redeem those who were under the law and under the curse, by the cross, and to be altogether made under the law. [end of the excerpt by Photius] —

But it must be examined what is the fullness of the times; and beside this lies the fullness of the time spoken by the same Paul, "but when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son". And just as the time for the heir, having come to be at the stature of a man, to receive the paternal possession might in some way be named the fullness of his time or of his season, so a man would come to be in the fullness of the times who, through the ways and advancements that bear toward perfection, has arrived at being able to receive the things predestined and purposed by God for the saints.

But if someone clever should come up against us and say that Mary too is named "a woman" in the Scriptures — for so the Apostle says: "But when the fullness of the times was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law" — we shall answer him that in this the Apostle named her "a woman" not for corruption, but as an indication of sex; so that, since he was saying that "God's Son was sent," he might at the same time also set forth that he had come into this world by the common entrance of all. Moreover, this word is also one of age — namely, of that age at which the female sex passes beyond the years of puberty and crosses over to that time at which she seems fit for a man.

Although in this place the "making" might be understood of his nativity, for there is indeed a distinction between making and generation, … the apostle spoke in this way since the flesh of the Lord was not produced from a human seed in the virgin's womb and made into a body but by the efficacy and power of the Holy Spirit. For it is one thing for blood to come together with an admixture of seed and cause birth, another to procreate by divine power.

A certain person thought that he had cleverly solved this question: that Mary was called a woman by the angel and the apostle because she was already betrothed. For a betrothed is in some sense a bride. Yet between "in some sense" and "truly" there is a great distance.… He spoke of one who was a virgin and was called woman according to a proper usage of this term with respect to the basic quality of a virgin, which is therefore vindicated by the generic term woman.

"But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son" -the God, of course, who is the Lord of that very succession of times which constitutes an age; who also ordained, as "signs" of time, suns and moons and constellations and stars; who furthermore both predetermined and predicted that the revelation of His Son should be postponed to the end of the times.

Since, then, the Creator promised the gift of His Spirit in the latter days; and since Christ has in these last days appeared as the dispenser of spiritual gifts (as the apostle says, "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son; " and again, "This I say, brethren, that the time is short" ), it evidently follows in connection with this prediction of the last days, that this gift of the Spirit belongs to Him who is the Christ of the predicters.

But Paul, too, silences these critics when he says, "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." Does he mean through a woman, or in a woman? Nay more, for the sake of greater emphasis, he uses the word "made" rather than born, although the use of the latter expression would have been simpler.

"Still," He said, "I have many things to say to you, but ye are not yet able to bear them: when that Spirit of truth shall have come, He will conduct you into all truth, and will report to you the supervening (things).

It is right to point out that he has linked the sending of the eternal Son with the incarnation. For he does not say "he sent him to come into being as Godhead from a woman," so that we would misunderstand the sending to be the sending of the Godhead. Instead only the Son, not the Godhead, is born of a woman. Now this is peculiar to the incarnation.

While we were young, we were subject to new moons and sabbaths, but when the appointed time of Christ's incarnation came, when the human race, having passed through every form of evil, needed healing, then "God sent His Son" (that is, He was pleased to come), "Who was born" (γενόμενον), He did not say: "through a woman," so as not to give justification to those who say that the Lord passed through the Virgin as through a channel, in a completely phantasmal way, but: "of a woman," that is, He received a body from Her very substance and was the fruit of Her womb.

Here the Apostle applies to Christ the simile he has proposed.

First, he makes the application;

Secondly, he discloses the purpose of the reality that corresponds to the simile (v. 5).

It should be noted that above, in the simile he proposed, there were four items pointed out in order, as has been said. But now, in applying them to Christ, he begins with the last, namely, the fixing of a time. The reason for this is that the time in which Christ was humiliated and in which the faithful were exalted turns out to be the same. Hence he says: "But, when the fulness of the time was come," i.e., after the time fixed by God the Father for sending His Son had been accomplished. This is how it is taken in Luke (2:6): "Her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered." This time is called "full" because of the fulness of the graces that are given in it, according to Psalm (64:10): "The river of God is filled with water; thou hast prepared their food: for so is its preparation." Also because of the fulfillment of the figures of the Old Law: "I am not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Mt 5:17). And because of the fulfillment of the promises: "And he shall confirm the covenant with many, in one week" (Dan. 9:27). However, the fact that he likewise says, "But, when the fulness of time was come," in other places of Scripture where the time respecting Christ is said to be accomplished, should not be explained in terms of a necessity imposed by fate, but in terms of a divine ordinance, concerning which Psalm (118:91) states: "By thy ordinance the day goeth on; for all things serve thee."

Two reasons are given why that time was pre-ordained for the coming of Christ. One is taken from His greatness: for since He that was to come was great, it was fitting that men be made ready for His coming by many indications and many preparations. "God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by his Son" (Heb 1:1). The other is taken from the role of the one coming: for since a physician was to come, it was fitting that before his coming, men should be keenly aware of their infirmity, both as to their lack of knowledge during the Law of nature and as to their lack of virtue during the written Law. Therefore it was fitting that both, namely, the Law of nature and the written Law, precede the coming of Christ.

Secondly, he applies it as to His dignity as heir, when he says, "God sent his Son," namely, His own natural Son; and if a son, then an heir also. He says, "his Son," i.e., His own, natural, only begotten but not adopted, Son: "God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son" (Jn 3:16). He sent Him, I say, without His being separated from Him, for He was sent by assuming human nature, and yet He was in the bosom of the Father: "The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father" eternally (Jn 1:18); "And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven," Who, although He descended by assuming flesh is, nevertheless, in heaven (Jn 3:13). Again, He sent Him, not to be where before He was not; because, although He came unto His own by His presence in the flesh, yet by the presence of His Godhead, He was in the world, as is said in John (1:14). Furthermore, He did not send Him as a minister, because His mission was the assuming of flesh, not the putting off of majesty. God, therefore, sent His Son, I say, to heal the errantry of the concupiscible part and to illumine the ignorance of the rational part: "He sent his word and healed them: and delivered them from their destructions" (Ps 106:20). He sent Him also to deliver them from the power of the devil against the infirmity of the irascible part: "He shall send them a Savior and defender to deliver them" (Is 19:20). Also as a deliverer from the chains of eternal death: "I will deliver them out of the hand of death. I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy death" (Hos. 13:14). Also to save them from their sins: "For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world but that the world may be saved by him" (Jn 3:17).

Thirdly, he applies the simile as to smallness, when he says, "made of a woman": "For a child is born to us" (Is 9:6); "He emptied himself taking the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7). He made Himself small not by putting off greatness, but by taking on smallness.

In interpreting the passage, "made of woman," two errors must be avoided; namely, that of Photinus, who said that Christ was solely man and received the beginning of His existence from the Virgin; in other words, that Christ was made of a woman as though deriving his beginning entirely from her. But this is false, because it contradicts what is said in Romans (1:3): "Who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh"; he does not say "according to His person," which exists from eternity, namely, the hypostasis of the Son of God. Hence, just as when a shield newly comes to be white, it is not proper to say that the very substance of the shield newly came to be, but that the whiteness newly accrued to it; so from the fact that the Son of God newly assumed flesh, it is not proper to say that the person of Christ newly came to be, but that a human nature newly accrued to that person, as when certain things affect a body without that body itself being changed. For certain items affect a thing and change it, such as forms and absolute qualities; but certain other items affect it without changing it. Of this sort is the assuming of flesh precisely as bespeaking a relationship. Hence the person of the Word is in no way changed by it. That is why in divine matters we employ in a temporal sense terms that signify a relationship; thus, we say in Psalm (89:1): "Lord, thou hast been our refuge"; or we say that God became man. But we do not thus use forms and absolute qualities, so as to say: God was made good or wise and so on.

Secondly, one must avoid the error of Ebion, who said that Christ was born of the seed of Joseph, and who was led to this by the saying, born of a woman. For according to him the word "woman" always implies defloration. But this is erroneous, for in Sacred Scripture "woman" also denotes the natural sex, according to Genesis (3:12): "Adam said: The woman who thou gavest me to be my companion gave me of the tree." Here he calls her a woman while she was still a virgin.

Furthermore, by saying "made of a woman" two errors are destroyed, namely, that of Nestorius saying that Christ did not take His body of the Virgin but of the heavens and that He passed through the Blessed Virgin as through a corridor or channel. But this is false, for if it were true, He would not, as the Apostle says, have been made of a woman. By the preposition "of" [ex] the material cause is denoted. Likewise, the error of Nestorius saying that the Blessed Virgin is not the mother of the Son of God but of the son of a man. But this is shown to be false by the words of the Apostle here, that God sent his Son made of a woman. Now one who is made of a woman is her son. Therefore, if the Son of God was made of a woman, namely, of the Blessed Virgin, it is obvious that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of the Son of God.

Moreover, although he might have said "born of a woman," he distinctly says "made," and not "born." Indeed, for something to be born it must not only be produced of a principle conjoined to it but be made from a principle separate from it. Thus a wooden chest is made by an artisan, but fruit is born from a tree. Now the principle of human generation is twofold, namely, material—and as to this, Christ proceeded from a conjoined principle, because He took the matter of His body from the Virgin; and it is according to this that He is said to be born of her: "Of whom [Mary] was born Jesus Who is called Christ" (Mt 1:16).—The other is the active principle, which in the case of Christ, so far as He had a principle, i.e., as to the forming of the body, was not conjoined but separate, because the power of the Holy Spirit formed it. And with respect to this He is not said to have been born of a woman, but made, as it were, from an extrinsic principle. From this it is obvious that the saying, "of a woman," does not denote a defloration; otherwise he would have said "born" and not "made."

Fourthly, he applies the simile as to its aspect of subjection when he says, "made under the law." But here a difficulty comes to mind from what is said below, namely: "If you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law" (5:18). Hence if Christ is not only spiritual but the giver of the Spirit, it seems unbecoming to say that He was made under the Law. I answer that "to be under the Law" can be taken in two ways: in one way so that "under" denotes the mere observance of the Law, and in this sense Christ was made under the Law, because He was circumcised and presented in the temple: "I am not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Mt 5:17). In another way so that "under" denotes oppression. And in this way one is said to be under the Law if he is oppressed by fear of the Law. But neither Christ nor spiritual men are said to be under the Law in this way.

He says "adoption" so that we may clearly understand that the Son of God is unique. For we are sons of God through his generosity and the condescension of his mercy, whereas he is Son by nature, sharing the same divinity with the Father.

Although God could have become incarnate from the beginning, He nevertheless willed not to do so until the end of the ages. After these He deigned to become incarnate as at the end of times and in their fullness, according to what the Apostle says: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem those who were under the Law."

Since freedom of the will requires that it be drawn to nothing against its will, God ought to have restored the human race in such a way that he who wished to seek the Savior would find salvation. Now no one seeks a physician unless he recognizes his disease; no one seeks a teacher unless he recognizes himself to be ignorant; no one seeks a helper unless he recognizes himself to be powerless. Since, therefore, man at the beginning of his fall was still proud of his knowledge and strength, God first allowed the time of the law of nature, in which he would be convicted of ignorance; and afterwards, when ignorance was recognized but pride in his own strength remained, He added the Law, instructing through moral precepts and burdening through ceremonial ones, so that, having obtained knowledge and having recognized his powerlessness, man might take refuge in divine mercy and petition for grace, which was given to us in the coming of Christ.

Since the law by its precepts held people bound, as it were, only to decency of life but not to the hope of deliverance and eternity, God sent his own Son. He sent him subject to the law, that is, the law of Israel, that he might redeem those who were there and lived under the law. Now this is a great thing, that he says [Christ came] not merely to show them the way of life or to stir them up toward eternity with harsh commands but to redeem them. This is the mystery of what he performed, the redemption of all who believed in him, that they might become sons by adoption. When, therefore, such a great benefit came from Christ, nothing was to be added beside this. The law was no longer a matter of servitude.

Another, however, will look more keenly at the very word might redeem, and will say that those are signified as redeemed who were first on God's side and afterwards ceased to be so, while those who had not been under the Law are not so much redeemed as bought. Hence to the Corinthians too, among whom fornication was heard of, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles (ibid. 5), it is written: "You have been bought at a price", not redeemed; for they had not been under the Law. We therefore receive back the adoption of the sons of God, and, redeemed by Christ, we cease to be under the slavery of the elements of the world and the power of guardians. And just as we have shown what difference there is between redeeming (redimere) and buying (emere), so let us consider what difference there is between receiving (accipere) and receiving back (recipere) the adoption of sons.

"so that we might receive adoption as sons." For he not only freed us from evil, having removed the curse of the law, but also bestowed adoption. And by saying "we might receive" he showed it to be appointed from above, and that we are not able to receive it because of the childishness of our understanding.

But as for that idle god, who has neither any work nor any prophecy, nor accordingly any time, to show for himself, what has he ever done to bring about the fulness of time, or to wait patiently its completion? If nothing, what an impotent state to have to wait for the Creator's time, in servility to the Creator! But for what end did He send His Son? "To redeem them that were under the law," in other words, to "make the crooked ways straight, and the rough places smooth," as Isaiah says -in order that old things might pass away, and a new course begin, even "the new law out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," and "that we might receive the adoption of sons," that is, the Gentiles, who once were not sons.

And He was under the law, received circumcision, and fulfilled everything, in order to deliver us from the curse to which He Himself was not subject. And he points to two saving effects in the incarnation of Christ: our liberation from the curse of the law and the granting of adoption. And he said "receive" in order to show that adoption was destined for us from of old by promise, although on account of our immaturity it was not given to us. For the inheritance promised to Abraham was adoption. Because a son inherits.

Then when he says, "that he might redeem them who were under the law," he sets down the fruit of the reality in which the simile is applied, namely, that the reason why He willed they be subject during that time was that they might become heirs great and free. And he mentions both of these things. First, the fruit of freedom as against subjection; hence he says, "that he might redeem them who were under the law," i.e., under the curse and burden of the Law; "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (3:13). Secondly, the fruit of being made great, inasmuch as we are adopted as sons of God by receiving the Spirit of God and being conformed to Him: "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom 8:9). This adoption belongs in a special way to Christ, because we cannot become adopted sons unless we are conformed to the natural son: "For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son" (Rom 8:29). With this in mind, he says, "that we might receive the adoption of sons," i.e., that through the natural Son of God we might be made adopted sons according to grace through Christ.

He says of the Gentiles who believed in Christ, "You are sons," having previously been enemies. There can be no doubt that believing Jews were also said to be sons of God, since they had long been called by that name. They had received the name of sons at one time as though by anticipation in order that this sonship might subsequently be understood in Christ, being incomplete without the Spirit.

But this is God's kindness to man, that of whom He is Maker, of them according to grace He afterwards becomes Father also; becomes, that is, when men, His creatures, receive into their hearts, as the Apostle says, 'the Spirit of His Son, crying, Abba, Father.' And these are they who, having received the Word, gained power from Him to become sons of God; for they could not become sons, being by nature creatures, otherwise than by receiving the Spirit of the natural and true Son. Wherefore, that this might be, 'The Word became flesh,' that He might make man capable of Godhead. This same meaning may be gained also from the Prophet Malachi, who says, 'Hath not One God created us? Have we not all one Father?' for first he puts 'created,' next 'Father,' to shew, as the other writers, that from the beginning we were creatures by nature, and God is our Creator through the Word; but afterwards we were made sons, and thenceforward God the Creator becomes our Father also. Therefore 'Father' is proper to the Son; and not 'creature,' but 'Son' is proper to the Father. Accordingly this passage also proves, that we are not sons by nature, but the Son who is in us; and again, that God is not our Father by nature, but of that Word in us, in whom and because of whom we 'cry, Abba, Father.' And so in like manner, the Father calls them sons in whomsoever He sees His own Son, and says, 'I begat;' since begetting is significant of a Son, and making is indicative of the works. And thus it is that we are not begotten first, but made; for it is written, 'Let Us make man;' but afterwards, on receiving the grace of the Spirit, we are said thenceforth to be begotten also; just as the great Moses in his Song with an apposite meaning says first 'He bought,' and afterwards 'He begat;' lest, hearing 'He begat,' they might forget their own original nature; but that they might know that from the beginning they are creatures, but when according to grace they are said to be begotten, as sons, still no less than before are men works according to nature.

There are two words that he has set down so that the former may be interpreted by the latter, "for Abba" means the same as "Father." Now we see that he has elegantly, and not without reason, put together words from two languages signifying the same thing because of the whole people, which has been called from Jews and Gentiles into the unity of faith.

Felicitous, however, is this kiss of participation that enables us not only to know God but to love the Father, who is never fully known until he is perfectly loved. Are there not surely some among you who at certain times perceive deep within their hearts the Spirit of the Son exclaiming: "Abba, Father"? Let that man who feels that he is moved by the same Spirit as the Son, let him know that he too is loved by the Father. Whoever he be let him be of good heart, let his confidence never waver. Living in the Spirit of the Son, let such a soul recognize herself as a daughter of the Father, a bride or even a sister of the Son, for you will find that the soul who enjoys this privilege is called by either of these names.

Behold the whole array of those three powers through one power and one Godhead. For God, he says, who is the Father, sent his own Son, who is Christ, and again Christ, who himself being the power of God is God, … sent the spirit of his Son, who is the Holy Spirit.

And because you are sons of God, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

The apostle Paul plainly names three spirits: the Spirit of the Son of God, as in the present passage, "God sent the Spirit of the Son into our hearts" (Rom. 8:14); and the Spirit of God, as in that passage: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God"; and the Holy Spirit, as there: "Your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you" (1 Cor. 6:19). That the Holy Spirit is other than the Son of God is plainly proved in the Gospel as well: "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither here nor in the age to come" (Luke 12:10). I say this for the following reason: because many, through ignorance of the Scriptures (as Firmianus also does in the eighth book of his Letters to Demetrianus), assert that the Holy Spirit is often named the Father, often the Son. And although we clearly believe in the Trinity, they take away the third Person and will have him to be not a substance but a name. But not to be long (for it is a commentary, not a dialogue, that is being written), I shall show briefly from the fiftieth psalm that three spirits are named, the prophet saying: "Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit in my inward parts. Do not cast me away from your face, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a princely spirit". By the princely spirit he means the Father, because the Son is from the Father, and not the Father from the Son. But by the right spirit, the spirit of truth and righteousness, he signifies Christ the Lord: "For the Father has given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22), as David says: "O God, give your judgment to the king, and your power to the king's son" (Ps. 71:1). Further, he calls the Holy Spirit by his open name. And though these differ in names and persons, they are joined in substance and nature; and, because of the fellowship of nature, the same Spirit is said without distinction to be now of the Father, now of the Son. Now the argument by which he is trying to assert that we are no longer under the Law but under the grace of the Lord Jesus, he concludes with an ending of this kind. Above he had said, "that we might receive the adoption of sons"; now he proves that we are sons of God from the spirit which we have within us. For we should never dare, he says, to say: "Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name", except from the consciousness of the Spirit dwelling in us and crying with a great voice of understanding and of doctrines: "Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:15). Abba is Hebrew, meaning the very same thing as Father. And Scripture keeps this custom in many places, setting a Hebrew word together with its interpretation: Bartimaeus, "son of Timaeus"; Asher, "riches"; Tabitha, "Dorcas" (Acts 9); and in Genesis, Mesech, "home-born slave" (Gen. 15), and other things like these. But since Abba means Father in the Hebrew and Syriac tongue, and our Lord in the Gospel commands that no one is to be called father except God (Matt. 23), I do not know by what license in the monasteries we either call others by this name or consent to be called by it ourselves. And certainly he gave this command who had said that one must not swear (Matt. 5). If we do not swear, let us not name anyone father either. If we interpret the saying about a father otherwise, we shall be compelled to think otherwise about swearing as well. It should be noted also that in the Scriptures a cry is to be understood not as the emitting of a loud voice but as the greatness of knowledge and of doctrines. For in Exodus too the Lord answered Moses: "Why do you cry to me" (Exod. 14:15)? although no voice of Moses at all had gone before. But Scripture called a cry his heart, pierced with compunction and groaning tearfully for the people. Just as, therefore, he who has the Spirit of the Son of God is a son of God, so conversely he who does not have the spirit of the Son of God cannot be called a son of God.

Had not we been first made sons, we could not have called Him Father. If then grace hath made us freemen instead of slaves, men instead of children, heirs and sons instead of aliens, is it not utter absurdity and stupidity to desert this grace, and to turn away backwards?

"For you are sons." And from where, he says, have we been deemed worthy of adoption as sons? From where? From the adoption by the Spirit who descended to prepare us and to teach (for this the One Crying indicates): to call God Father; which would not have been, if we had not been deemed worthy of adoption. And therefore have courage, O man, that you are no longer a slave, but a son of God and his heir. Because of the Son by nature having been incarnate and having taken on our whole humanity, you are no longer a slave and under the yoke of the law. How then is it not absurd for those who have become sons of God, through Christ and through the Spirit, to turn back again to the law? And behold the emphasis of the holy Trinity. The Father sent, the Son became incarnate, and the Spirit cooperated, who also having come into our hearts, teaches to say, Abba, Father. "also an heir through God by Christ Jesus." Through his cross.

I would like to know how the saints cry out to God without a voice. The Apostle teaches that: "God gave the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father!" And he adds: "the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings." And again: "but he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he asks for the saints according to God." Thus, then, when the Holy Spirit intercedes with God, through the silence of the saints a cry is heard.

That we may have, therefore the assurance that we are the children of God, "He hath sent forth His Spirit into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." For "in the last days," saith He," I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.

From where is it evident, he says, that we have been deemed worthy of adoption? Although he showed this before as well, when he declared that we have put on Christ, Who is the Son, he also proves it now by the fact that we have received the Spirit, Who, divinely and extraordinarily touching our hearts, teaches us to call God Father. And this could not be so if we had not been deemed worthy of adoption.

Above, the Apostle revealed the gift bestowed on the Jews; here he shows that this gift pertains also to the Gentiles.

First, he mentions the gift;

Secondly, the means of obtaining it (v. 6);

Thirdly, he discloses the fruit of this gift (v. 7).

He says therefore that the gift of adoption of sons pertains not only to those who were under the Law but to the Gentiles as well. Hence he says: "because you are sons of God," i.e., you are the sons of God, because not only the Jews but all others who believe in the Son of God are adopted as sons: "He gave them power to be made sons of God, to them that believe in his name" (Jn 1:12). The manner in which that gift is obtained is by the sending of the Spirit of the Son of God into your hearts.

Augustine says, however, that Christ, existing in the flesh, preached in a principal manner to the Jews, but to the Gentiles as a matter of course: "For I say that Christ Jesus was minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers" (Rom 15:8). Accordingly, whatever pertains to the condition of the Jews is fittingly adapted to Christ.

And because they might have said that the Galatians had not been adopted as sons of God, since Christ did not assume flesh from them or preach to them, for that reason the Apostle, elucidating the manner of this adoption, says that although they were not related to Christ according to the flesh, i.e., according to race, or by reason of preaching, yet they were united to him through the Spirit and thereby adopted and made sons of God. Hence the conversion of the Gentiles is in a special way attributed to the Holy Spirit. Consequently, Peter, when he was blamed by the Jews for going to preach to the Gentiles, excused himself through the Holy Spirit, saying (Acts 11) that he could not resist the Holy Spirit by Whose inspiration he had done this. And so, because God the Father sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, i.e., the hearts of the Jews and Gentiles, we are united to Christ and by that fact are adopted as sons of God.

But it should be noted that if in certain passages of Scripture the Holy Spirit is said to be sent by the Father—"But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name" (Jn 14:26)—and in others to be sent by the Son—"But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father" (Jn 15:26)—the Holy Spirit is none the less common to Father and Son and proceeds from Both and is sent by Both. Accordingly, wherever it is said that the Father sends the Holy Spirit, mention is made of the Son, as in the aforesaid passage: "Whom the Father will send in my name"; and where He is said to be sent by the Son, mention is made of the Father; hence He says, "Whom I will send to you from the Father." Even here, when he says, God the Father hath sent the Holy Spirit, mention is made at once of the Son, for he adds, "of his Son." Nor does it matter that at times the Holy Spirit is only said to proceed from the Father, for the fact that the Son sends Him shows that He proceeds from Him. Accordingly, the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son as of the One sending and as of the One from Whom He proceeds, as well as of the One from Whom the Holy Spirit has whatever He has, just as of the Father: "He shall glorify me, because He shall receive of mine" (Jn 16:14).

But he says, "into your hearts," because there is a twofold generation: one is carnal and comes about through fleshly seed sent to the place of generation. This seed, small as it is, contains in effect the whole. The other is spiritual, which comes about by spiritual seed transmitted to the place of spiritual generation, i.e., man's mind or heart, because they are born sons of God through a renewal of the mind. Furthermore, the spiritual seed is the grace of the Holy Spirit: "Whosoever is born of God sinneth not: but the generation of God preserveth him and the wicked one toucheth him not" (1 Jn 5:18). This seed contains, in effect, the whole perfection of beatitude; hence it is called the pledge and earnest of beatitude (Eph 1:14); "I will put a new spirit within you" (Ez 36:26).

"Crying," i.e., making us cry, "Abba, Father," not with a loudness of voice but with a great fervor of love. For we cry, "Abba, Father," when our affections are kindled by the warmth of the Holy Spirit to desire God: "You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba (Father)" (Rom 8:15). "Abba" in Hebrew and "Pater" in Greek have the same meaning of "father." And he makes mention of both to show that the grace of the Holy Spirit, as such, is related in a common way to both.

There is no doubt that one adopts a son in order to leave him an heir; but inheritance depends on the death of someone. How then can mortals be called the heirs of him who lives forever? The fact is that Scripture speaks in our own manner so that we may understand. In order to show that the Father will give from his goods those things that he is going to give his sons, it calls this "inheritance."

To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself--creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.

"So also we, when we were children, were in bondage under the rudiments of the world: but when the fulness of the time was came, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" by Him. See how He has admitted those to be children who are under fear and sins; but has conferred manhood on those who are under faith, by calling them sons, in contradistinction from the children that are under the law: "For thou art no more a servant," he says, "but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God." What, then, is lacking to the son after inheritance?

Therefore he is now not a slave, but a son. And if a son, an heir also through Christ.

Having, he says, the spirit of the Son of God in you crying, Abba, Father, you have begun to be not slaves but sons. For before, you differed in nothing from a slave, although you were indeed God's by nature; but you lived as little ones under guardians and stewards. But if you are sons, the inheritance is consequently owed to you, so that, just as by receiving the spirit of the Son of God you have been made sons of God, so, changed from slavery into freedom, you may be heirs with the Father's heir, Christ Jesus, who speaks in the psalm in the person of the man he assumed: "The Lord said to me, You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession" (Ps. 2:7, 8). Now what we say in this place we ought to observe in the other places as well: that the whole human race is being discussed in the singular number. For all of us who believe are one in Christ Jesus, and members of his body, and, brought to a perfect man, we have him as our head, because the head of the man is Christ (1 Cor. 11:3).

Therefore, when we are children and heirs not of a simple inheritance, but of a divine one, and co-heirs with the Only-Begotten, why then do we again become slaves and, holding to the law, reject the faith that granted us adoption?

Then when he says, "Therefore, now he is not a servant, but a son," he mentions the fruit of this gift. First, as to removing all evil, from which we are freed through adoption by the Holy Spirit. This is freedom from bondage. With respect to this he says: "Therefore," i.e., because the Spirit cries "Father" in us, "now," from the time of grace, "he," i.e., each one of us who believes in Christ, "is not a servant," i.e., serving in fear—"I will not now call you servants but friends" (Jn 15:15); "You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear: but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons" (Rom 8:15)—"but a son": "For the Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God" (Rom 8:16). For although we be in the condition of servants (because it is said in Luke (17:10): "When you shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants"), we are not ill-disposed servants, i.e., serving in fear—for such a servant is deserving of torture and chains—but we are good and faithful servants, serving out of love. For that reason we obtain freedom through the Son: "If, therefore, the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed" (Jn 8:36).

Secondly, he mentions the fruit as to its effect of attaining every good. With regard to this he says: "And, if a son, an heir also through God": "And if sons, heirs also: heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom 8:17). Now this inheritance is the fulness of all good, for it is nothing other than God Himself, according to Psalm (15:5): "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance." He said to Abraham: "I am thy reward exceeding great" (Gen 15:1). He says, "through God," because as the Jews obtained the inheritance through the promise and justice of God, so the Gentiles too received it through God, i.e., through the mercy of God: "But the Gentiles are to glorify God for his mercy" (Rom 15:9). Or, "through God," i.e., through the working of God: "Thou hast wrought all our works for us, O Lord" (Is 26:12).

When, however, he says, "you were in servitude to those who are by nature no gods," he sufficiently proves that one true God is God by nature, by whose name the triune God is received in the most faithful and catholic bosom of the heart. "Those who are by nature no gods" are described by him as governors and overseers. There is no creature, whether it abides in truth by giving glory to God or fails to abide in truth by seeking its own glory—there is, I say, no creature that does not willy-nilly serve divine providence.… But, just as the magistrate under the imperial law does nothing but what is permitted to him, so the governors and overseers of this world do nothing but whatever God allows.

Not to know God is not to know Christ, for God is known through Christ. But now, since Christ has appeared, who has taught me and has revealed God through himself—both himself as God and the Father through himself—it is no longer permitted not to know God.

These [heretics now referred to], being the disciples of those mentioned, render such as assent to them worse than the heathen. For the former "serve the creature rather than the Creator," and "those which are not gods," notwithstanding that they ascribe the first place in Deity to that God who was the Maker of this universe. But the latter maintain that He, [i.e., the Creator of this world,] is the fruit of a defect, and describe Him as being of an animal nature, and as not knowing that Power which is above Him, while He also exclaims, "I am God, and besides Me there is no other God." Affirming that He lies, they are themselves liars, attributing all sorts of wickedness to Him; and conceiving of one who is not above this Being as really having an existence, they are thus convicted by their own views of blasphemy against that God who really exists, while they conjure into existence a god who has no existence, to their own condemnation. And thus those who declare themselves "perfect," and as being possessed of the knowledge of all things, are found to be worse than the heathen, and to entertain more blasphemous opinions even against their own Creator.

And the Apostle Paul also, saying, "For though ye have served them which are no gods; ye now know God, or rather, are known of God," has made a separation between those that were not [gods] and Him who is God. And again, speaking of Antichrist, he says, "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped." He points out here those who are called gods, by such as know not God, that is, idols. For the Father of all is called God, and is so; and Antichrist shall be lifted up, not above Him, but above those which are indeed called gods, but are not. And Paul himself says that this is true: "We know that an idol is nothing, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth; yet to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we through Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." For he has made a distinction, and separated those which are indeed called gods, but which are none, from the one God the Father, from whom are all things, and, he has confessed in the most decided manner in his own person, one Lord Jesus Christ.

But then indeed, not knowing God, you served those who by nature were not gods. But now, knowing God, or rather being known by him, how is it that you turn again to the weak and needy elements, which you wish to serve once more?

He rebukes the Galatians, whom they had brought over from the worship of idols to faith in the true God: how is it that, having abandoned the idols, which by nature were not gods, and knowing God, or rather being known by him, and having also received the spirit of adoption, they are once more, as if they were little children, and desiring to be under guardians and a pedagogue, going back to the weak and poor elements, which were given in the desert to the people for this reason, because of its weak and poor understanding, since it could not receive and bear greater things.

Here turning to the Gentile believers he says that it is an idolatry, this rigid observance of days, and now incurs a severe punishment. To enforce this, and inspire them with a deeper anxiety, he calls the elements "not by nature Gods." And his meaning is,-Then indeed, as being benighted and bewildered, ye lay grovelling upon the earth, but now that ye have known God or rather are known of Him, how great and bitter will be the chastisement ye draw upon you, if, after such a treatment, ye relapse into the same disease. It was not by your own pains that ye found out God, but while ye continued in error, He drew you to Himself. He says "weak and beggarly rudiments," in that they avail nothing towards the good things held out to us.

For the Jews say, that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His works which He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said to the People: "Remember the day of the sabbaths, to sanctify it: every servile work ye shall not do therein, except what pertaineth unto life." Whence we (Christians) understand that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all "servile work" always, and not only every seventh day, but through all time.

He did not therefore seek, by any depreciation of the mundane elements, to turn them away from their god, although, when he said just before, "Howbeit, then, ye serve them which by nature are no gods," he censured the error of that physical or natural superstition which holds the elements to be god; but at the God of those elements he aimed not in this censure.

Here he addresses those who believed from among the Gentiles, showing that the observance of days is idolatry and that they sin more than before. Previously, he says, you at least did not know God, since you lived in darkness and error and because of this served the sun and the moon, which by nature are not gods, but now, after coming to know the truth, if you were to observe days, this would be nothing other than service to the elements — an impiety even worse.

Having disclosed the pre-eminence of the gift of grace and explained it with a human example, the Apostle here censures the Galatians, who scorned this grace, for being ungrateful for so great a gift.

First, he censures them for ingratitude;

Secondly, he excuses himself, explaining that he does not do this out of hatred or spite (v. 12b).

As to the first he does three things:

First, he calls to mind their earlier state;

Secondly, he extols and commends the gift they have received (v. 9);

Thirdly, he amplifies the sin committed (v. 9): "how turn you again to the weak and needy elements?"

He says therefore: "But then indeed, not knowing God, you served them who, by nature, are not gods." As if to say: You are now sons and heirs through God; but then indeed, when you were heathens—"You were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord" (Eph 5:8)—not knowing God, through lack of faith, you served with the worship of latria, them who by nature are not gods, but by the opinion of men: "You know that when you were heathens, you went to dumb idols, according as you were led" (1 Cor 12:2); "They served the creature rather than the Creator." (Rom 1:25). His statement, "who by nature are not gods," serves to refute the Arians who said that Christ, the Son of God, is not God by nature. For if this were true, it would not be right to render Him latria, and whoever rendered it would be an idolater.

But someone might object that we adore the flesh and humanity of Christ; consequently, we are idolaters. I answer that even though we adore the flesh or humanity of Christ, we adore it as united to the person of the divine Word, Who is a divine hypostasis. Hence, since adoration is due to a person of the divine nature, whatever is adored in Christ is done without error.

Wherefore knowledge was taken from them, because seeing they overlooked, and hearing they heard not. But to you, the converted of the Gentiles, is the kingdom given, because you, who knew not God, have believed by preaching, and "have known Him, or rather are known of Him," through Jesus, the Saviour and Redeemer of those that hope in Him. For ye are translated from your former vain and tedious mode of life and have contemned the lifeless idols, and despised the demons, which are in darkness, and have run to the "true light," and by it have "known the one and only true God and Father," and so are owned to be heirs of His kingdom.

What follows, as it were, reintroduces a question that has already been explored. Through the whole letter he has shown that no one has disturbed the faith of the Galatians except those who were of the circumcision, who wished to lead them into carnal observations of the law as though salvation were in them. In this place alone he seems to speak to those who were attempting to return to Gentile superstitions.… For in saying "you have reverted," since he is speaking not to the circumcised but to Gentiles, as appears in the whole letter, he does not say at all that they have reverted to circumcision, in which they had never been, but he says "to the weak and beggarly elements," which you wish to serve again as before.

[Responding to the question "If it is true that one has only to want God enough in order to find Him, how can I make myself want Him enough to enable myself to find Him?"]

If you don't want God, why are you so anxious to want to want Him? I think that in reality the want is a real one, and I should say that this person has in fact found God, although it may not be fully recognized yet. We are not always aware of things at the time they happen. At any rate, what is more important is that God has found this person, and that is the main thing.

He preserves the essence of his own teaching, that those who come to Christ are the ones whom God sends and God calls, and those who know God are the ones that God knows.… For those who are known of God receive the Spirit by which they know God.

When he introduces the "beggarly elements of this world," this seems rather to concern the pagans, who make gods for themselves even from the elements of this world.… Since, however, the whole of his discourse and the whole of this treatise were undertaken to reprimand the Galatians for their conversion to Judaism, and all these things are to be understood of the Jews, how do we understand "you are turned again to the weak"? When therefore he says "the beggarly elements" of this world, he means those who, understanding the law carnally, have clung to the contingent elements of this world. For the flesh is always hungering. It yearns for the sustenance of food and drink and objects of desire, all of which, however, are weak.

For as one who has been thought worthy of a divine and desirable name, in those bonds which I bear about, I commend the Churches, in which I pray for a union both of the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ, "who is the Saviour of all men, but specially of them that believe;" by whose blood ye were redeemed; by whom ye have known God, or rather have been known by Him; in whom enduring, ye shall escape all the assaults of this world: for "He is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are able."

Now the same elements which he has now called weak and needy he set down above simply as the elements of the world. And where they were called elements of the world, weak and needy was not added there. Here again, where they are called weak, the name "of the world", as we said above, is passed over in silence. I think, therefore, that as long as someone is a little child and has not completed the time fixed by the father, so that he can be called son and heir, he is under the elements of the world, that is to say, the Law of Moses. But when, after the freedom owed to the son, he has gone back again to the Law, wishing to be circumcised and to follow the whole letter of the Jewish superstition, then the things which before had been for him only the elements of the world are also called weak and needy beginnings. For they are of so little profit to their worshippers that they cannot even offer them what they had provided before, since Jerusalem, the temple and the altar have been destroyed. Someone may answer and say: If the law and the precepts written in the Law are weak and needy elements, and those who have known God, or rather have been known by him, ought not to observe the Law (lest they begin not so much to worship the God by whom they have been known as to go back to those who by nature are not gods), then either Moses and the prophets observed the Law and did not know God, nor were known by him; or, if they knew God, they did not at all fulfill the commandments of the Law. Either of these is dangerous to say: either that they did not do the things of the Law, and so knew God; or that they did not know God, while they kept the weak and needy elements of the Law. This can indeed be resolved in this way, by saying that, just as Paul became a Jew to the Jews in order to win the Jews (1 Cor. 9), and at Cenchreae cut his hair in fulfillment of a vow (Acts 18), and at Jerusalem in the temple practiced the going barefoot and the shaving of the head, in order to calm the ill will of those who had been instructed about him that he was acting against the Law of Moses and the God of the prophets: so also the holy men did indeed do the things that belonged to the Law, but followed the sense of the Law rather than the letter. They, no less than Abraham, with the veil taken from their face, desired to see the day of Christ, and they saw it and were glad: they became weak to a weak people, in order to win the weak (1 Cor. 9), and to those who were under the Law as though they themselves were under the Law, in order to separate them from the idols to which they had grown accustomed in Egypt. For it is absurd that Moses and the others who conversed with God should have been in such a condition that we do not believe that for them too the time fixed by the Father had come, and that they were redeemed from legal slavery, and obtained the adoption of sons, and received the inheritance with Christ. For whatever the wisdom of God has granted to the whole human race as to one Son, this same it has always bestowed on each of the saints in his own order and dispensation. When we call the Law of Moses weak and needy elements, the heretics find an occasion to disparage the Creator, because he founded the world and established the Law. To them we shall answer what we said above: that the elements are weak and needy for those who go back to them after the grace of the Gospel. But before the time fixed by the Father came, the elements were called not so much weak and needy as elements of the world. In short, before the Gospel of Christ shone out in the whole world, the precepts of the Law had their own brightness; but after the greater light of the grace of the Gospel shone forth, and the sun of righteousness showed itself to the whole world, the light of the stars was hidden and their rays grew dim, so that the Apostle says in another place: "For what was glorified in this respect was not glorified, because of the surpassing glory" (2 Cor. 3). This he now says in other words, meaning that the Law of Moses, which before the Gospel was rich and wealthy and splendid, after the coming of Christ, by comparison with him, as being weak and needy, has been diminished and destroyed by him who was greater than Solomon, and the temple, and Jonah. For what is written, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30), I think was said not so much in the person of John as in the person of the Law, because lesser things always give way to greater, and perfect things are set before beginnings. In another way, however, we shall affirm that the weak and needy elements are the traditions of the Jews and the base understanding according to the letter, which are statutes that are not good and precepts that are not good. For the spiritual understanding of the Law is strong and rich (Ezek. 20), so that either it ought not to be called an element at all, or it is indeed an element by comparison with the age to come and with the life in Christ Jesus, by which the angels and the heavenly powers now live. But compared with the Jewish sense, it should be called not so much an element, that is, a beginning, as perfection. And when he says: But now, knowing God, or rather being known by him, this shows that after the worship of idols the Galatians came to understand God, or rather that they themselves were judged worthy of his knowledge. Not that God, the Creator of all things, is ignorant of anything; but that he is said to know only those who have exchanged error for piety. "The Lord knows those who are his" (2 Tim. 2:19). And the Savior in the Gospel: "I am", he says, "the good shepherd, and I know mine, and mine know me" (John 10:14). On the contrary, to the ungodly: "I do not know you; depart from me, workers of iniquity" (Luke 13:27). And to the foolish virgins: "I do not know who you are" (Matt. 25:12).

"But now, having known God." For it is not you, he says, who find God by your own work, but He himself, while you were wandering in error, seized you.

"how do you turn back again to," He discusses again concerning the sun and the moon and the stars, from which are the observations of the days. But he calls them poor and weak, as having no strength at all. The word "again" has much emphasis; after adoption, he says, and being known by God.

— [CYRIL] Elements of the world, the particles of the entire cosmos. [end of the excerpt by Cyril] —

— [OECUMENIUS] He calls them weak and poor, not because of their insignificance. (For what is more magnificent than heaven and earth? What more honorable than sun and moon and stars?) But because they are deprived of mind and life and sensation. [end of the excerpt by Oecumenius] —

From these primary eight ten other ¦ons after them spring, and then the twelve others arise with their wonderful names, to complete the mere story of the thirty ¦ons. The same apostle, when disapproving of those who are "in bondage to elements," points us to some dogma of Hermogenes, who introduces matter as having no beginning, and then compares it with God, who has no beginning.

Now, from whom comes this grace, but from Him who proclaimed the promise thereof? Who is (our) Father, but He who is also our Maker? Therefore, after such affluence (of grace), they should not have returned "to weak and beggarly elements." By the Romans, however, the rudiments of learning are wont to be called elements.

But now, he says, you have come to know God, or rather, it was not you who by your own effort found and came to know God (since you were not seeking at all), but He found you, living in darkness, and accepted you. For "you have been known" is said instead of "you have been accepted by God." How then do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements, that is, those having no power to obtain the promised blessings and unable to bring any spiritual benefit? And at the same time he calls them weak and beggarly because they are devoid of mind, sense, and life, even if the Greeks would not be pleased by this. So then, the false apostles, as defenders of the law, were introducing the observance of days, and he very wisely calls this practice idolatry, which even the law itself forbids. So that those who taught this were actually opponents of the law.

Then when he says, "But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known by God," he reminds them of the gift received. As if to say: If you had been ignorant and sinned, it could have been tolerated; for other things being equal, sin in a Christian is more grievous than in a pagan. But now, since you have known God, i.e., were brought to a knowledge of God, you sin more gravely than of old by serving and setting your hope on things you ought not: "All shall know me, from the least of them even to the greatest" (Jer 31:34).

But the statement, "after you are known by God," seems to cause a difficulty, for God has known all things from eternity: "All things were known to the Lord God before they were created" (Sir 23:29). I answer that this is said causally, so that the sense is: you are known by God, i.e., God has caused you to know Him. In this way, God is said to know inasmuch as He is the cause of our knowledge. Hence, because he had previously said, "after that you have known God," which was a true statement, he immediately amends and explains it with a figure of speech by intimating that we cannot know God of ourselves save by Him: "No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him" (Jn 1:18).

Then he upbraids them for the sin committed, saying: "how turn you again to the weak and needy elements?"

It should be pointed out that this passage is interpreted in two ways: in one way, that those Galatians had turned from the faith to idolatry. For this reason he says, "how turn you" from the faith "again," i.e., a second time. "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); "They are turned back" (Is 42:17). "To the elements," namely, of the world, which are "weak," unable by themselves to subsist, because they would lapse into nothingness unless upheld by the hand which rules all things—"Upholding all things by the word of his power" (Heb 1:3)—"and needy," because they need God and one another to fill out the universe, "which," namely, the elements, "you desire to serve" with the service of latria "again," i.e., for a second time.

But although this interpretation might be upheld, it does not accord with the Apostle's intention. For since in the entire section preceding this passage, as well as in all that follows it, he is censuring the Galatians for removing themselves from the faith and turning to the observances of the Law, it is more in keeping with his intention to expound it as referring to their turning to the legal observances. Hence he says: "After that you have known God" through faith, "how turn you" from the faith "to the elements," i.e., to the literal observance of the Law? It is called an element, because the Law was the prime institution of divine worship. "To elements," I say, that are weak, because they do not bring to perfection by justifying: "For the law brought nothing to perfection" (Heb 7:19), and needy, because they do not confer virtues and grace or offer any help of themselves.

But what does he mean by "are you turned?" For to say this, as well as to say, again, seems inappropriate, for they neither were Jews nor had they formerly observed the Law. I answer that the Jewish worship is midway between the worship of the Christians and that of the Gentiles: for the Gentiles worshipped the elements as though they were living things; the Jews, on the other hand, did not serve the elements but served God under the elements, inasmuch as they rendered worship to God by the observances of bodily elements: "We were serving under the elements of the world" (v. 3); but Christians serve God under Christ, i.e., in the faith of Christ. Now when a person reaches a terminus after passing through the middle, if he then decides to return to the middle, it seems to be the same as returning to the very beginning. Therefore, because they had already reached the terminus, namely, faith in Christ, and then returned to the middle, i.e., to the Jewish worship, then because of a resemblance of middle to beginning, the Apostle says that they are turned to the elements and are serving them again.

The observers of days are those who say, for example, "Tomorrow there must be no setting out on a journey." … The observers of months are those who watch the course of the moon, saying, for example, "Contracts must not be sealed in the seventh month." … Seasons are observed when people say, "Today is the first day of spring, it is a festival and after tomorrow is the feast of Vulcan." … People pay respect to the year when they say, "The first day of January is the new year," as though a year were not completed every day.… For if God is loved with the whole heart, there ought not to be any dread or suspicion of these phenomena so long as he is near.

So that he may be seen to say this to Jews and about Jews—that is, to the Galatians, who combine the Jews' way of life with theirs—he adds, "You observe days and months and seasons and years." … For it is one thing to observe days, as for example to rest on the sabbath, another to observe months, as for example to observe new moons, … another to observe years, another again [to observe] seasons such as fasting, the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread and other things of this kind.

You observe days, and months, and times, and years; I fear you, lest perhaps I have labored in vain among you.

He who does not worship the Father in spirit and truth does not know the sabbath rest laid up for the saints, of which God speaks: "If they shall enter into my rest" (Ps. 94:11); and he does not remember those times of which it is written: "Remember the days of the age" (Isa. 46:9). And elsewhere: "I remembered the ancient days, and I had the eternal years in mind" (Ps. 76:6). He observes Jewish days, and months, and times, and years. Days, such as those of the sabbath and of the new moon, and from the tenth of the first month to the fourteenth, on which the bodily lamb is kept for sacrifice, and from the fourteenth to the twenty-first of the same month, when unleavened bread is eaten, not that of sincerity and truth, but in the old leaven of the malice and wickedness of the Pharisees. He too who, by the Jewish rite, counts seven weeks after the unleavened bread keeps the days of the Israelite Pentecost; and likewise the blast of trumpets in the seventh month, on the first of the month. Those too who keep the tenth of the same month, the expiation and the fast, and who pitch the booths of the Feast of Tabernacles according to custom, observe Jewish days. And they keep months who observe the first and the seventh month, not understanding the mystery of the truth. They also keep times who, coming to Jerusalem three times every year, think they are fulfilling the precept of the Lord, who says: "Three times in the year you shall keep a feast day to me: the solemnity of unleavened bread, and the solemnity of the harvest of the firstfruits, and the solemnity of the completion at the going out of the year" (Exod. 23:14 ff.). And elsewhere: "Three times in the year your male shall appear in the sight of the Lord your God" (Exod. 23:17). But as for his saying and years, I think it is said of the seventh year, that of remission, and of the fiftieth, which they call the Jubilee. The Apostle explains this passage more fully to the Colossians, saying: "Let no one therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or in part of a feast day, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come" (Col. 2:16). He put "part of a feast day" here to distinguish it from the perpetual festival, so that we may hold not a brief one and, so to speak, some small particle of the whole body, but the whole span of our life as a perpetual solemnity in Christ. And, to connect the earlier with the later, what he thinks of the law of Moses and of superfluous fussiness about foods in this same Epistle he at once adds, saying: "For if you have died with Christ from the elements of this world, why do you still, as though living in this world, lay down decrees? Do not touch, nor taste, nor handle, which things all are for destruction by the very use, according to the precepts and doctrines of men". Someone may say: If it is not permitted to observe days, and months, and times, and years, we too incur a similar charge when we observe the fourth day of the week, and the Preparation, and the Lord's day, and the fast of Lent, and the festival of the Pasch, and the gladness of Pentecost, and the various times appointed, according to the variety of regions, in honor of the martyrs. He who answers this simply will say that the days of the Jewish observance are not the same as ours. For we do not celebrate a pasch of unleavened bread, but of the resurrection and of the cross. Nor do we number seven weeks at Pentecost after the custom of Israel, but we venerate the coming of the Holy Spirit. And lest a disorderly gathering of the people should diminish faith in Christ, for that reason certain days have been appointed, so that we might all come together into one place. Not that the day on which we assemble is more festive, but that, on whatever day we are to assemble, a greater joy may arise from the sight of one another. He, however, who tries to answer the opposing question more acutely affirms this: that all days are equal, and that Christ is not crucified only on the Preparation and does not rise only on the Lord's day, but that it is always the holy day of the resurrection and always one may feed on the Lord's flesh; and that fasts and assemblies on days in between were appointed by prudent men on account of those who are more free for the world than for God, and who cannot, or rather will not, gather in the church through the whole time of their life and, before their human business, offer to God the sacrifice of their prayers. For how many are there who always practice even these few things that have been appointed, the times either of praying or of fasting? And so, just as it is permitted to us either to fast always or always to pray, and, rejoicing, to celebrate the Lord's day unceasingly, having received the Lord's body, it is not likewise lawful for the Jews to sacrifice the lamb at all times, to keep Pentecost, to pitch tabernacles, to fast daily.

Hence is plain that their teachers were preaching to them not only circumcision, but also the feast-days and new-moons.

Paul argues with those from the Jews, showing that the observance of days and months and seasons and years and whatever in the law is observance is idolatry. For this, he says, is nothing else than worshiping the moon and the sun, by which the days have their observance. He said this about property, wanting to depart from the law. For those who preach circumcision also proclaimed such observances.

You observe days. From this it is clear that the false apostles proclaimed not only circumcision, but also observances of these, having taken their origin from the law, yet having deviated from the law.

For they ought to reflect, that as a season has been fixed suitable for planting and sowing, so days have been appointed as appropriate for cohabitation, which are carefully to be observed. Accordingly some one well instructed in the doctrines taught by Moses, finding fault with the people for their sins, called them sons of the new moons and the sabbaths. Yet in the beginning of the world men lived long, and had no diseases. But when through carelessness they neglected the observation of the proper times, then the sons in succession cohabiting through ignorance at times when they ought not, place their children under innumerable afflictions.

He tells us himself clearly enough what he means by "elements," even the rudiments of the law: "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years" -the sabbaths, I suppose, and "the preparations," and the fasts, and the "high days.

(Inburnt?) With what fires, prithee? The fires, I ween, which lead us to repeated contracting of nuptials and daily cooking of dinners! Thus, too, they affirm that we share with the Galatians the piercing rebuke (of the apostle), as "observers of days, and of months, and of years." Meantime they huff in our teeth the fact that Isaiah withal has authoritatively declared, "Not such a fast hath the Lord elected," that is, not abstinence from food, but the works of righteousness, which he there appends: and that the Lord Himself in the Gospel has given a compendious answer to every kind of scrupulousness in regard to food; "that not by such things as are introduced into the mouth is a man defiled, but by such as are produced out of the mouth; " while Himself withal was wont to eat and drink till He made Himself noted thus; "Behold, a gormandizer and a drinker: " (finally), that so, too, does the apostle teach that "food commendeth us not to God; since we neither abound if we eat, nor lack if we eat not.

Being, therefore, observers of "seasons" for these things, and of "days, and months, and years," we Galaticize.

From this it is evident that the false apostles preached not only circumcision, but also the observance of feasts and new moons.

And the proof of this is obvious, because "You observe days," auspicious and inauspicious, "and months and times, and years," i.e., the constellations and the course of the heavenly bodies, all of which observances spring from idolatry, against which Jeremias (10:2) says: "Be not afraid of the signs of heaven which the heathens fear."

That observances of this sort are evil and contrary to the worship of the Christian religion is plain, because the distinction of days, months, years and times is based on the course of the sun and moon. Therefore, those who observe such distinctions of times are venerating heavenly bodies and arranging their activities according to the evidence of the stars, which have no direct influence on the human will or on things that depend on free will. By this practice they are put in grave danger. Therefore the faithful must avoid observing such things. Indeed, no suggestion of these things should be found among them, for whatever is done simply out of devotion to God can turn out prosperously.

But is it never lawful to look for the influence of the stars on certain things? I answer that heavenly bodies are the cause of certain effects, namely, bodily. In such things it is lawful to consider their influence. But they are not the cause of certain other things, i.e., of things that depend on free will or on good and bad fortune. Hence in such cases to look for the influence of the stars pertains to idolatry.

That this is so, he proves when he says: "You observe the days" of the Jewish rite, namely, Sabbaths and the tenth day of the month and such things, which are mentioned in a Gloss, "and months," i.e., new moons, as the first and seventh month, as is had in Leviticus (Ch. 25), "and times," namely, of the exodus from Egypt, and the practice of going to Jerusalem three times a year, "and years" of jubilee and the seventh year of remission.

So, let the reader choose whichever interpretation he wishes, so long as he understands that such superstitious observances of times bring great peril to the soul, so much so that the apostle adds, "I am afraid, lest perhaps I should have labored in you in vain." … And yet if someone, even a catechumen, is caught observing the sabbath by the Jewish rite, the church is confused. As it is, innumerable members of the church say with great complacency in open view of us, "I do not travel on the day after the first." … Alas for human sinfulness, that we only denounce what is unfamiliar, but with familiar things we tolerate them, although they may be great and cause the kingdom of heaven to be shut against them absolutely. It is for them that the Son of God shed his blood. We come to tolerate them through frequent acquaintance with them, and through increased toleration we share in them.

Quite cautiously, however, has he tempered his words between the authority of the Apostle and the gentleness of a holy man, adding: I fear you, lest perhaps I have labored in vain among you. For had he wished to condemn them abruptly, he would certainly have said: I fear you: for I have labored in vain among you. But now, seeing that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, he neither wholly despaired of the salvation of those who had been deceived by a pious error, nor, on the other hand, did he leave them unreproved, lest he should give both to them an occasion of persevering in error and to the rest likewise an occasion of erring. But I fear you, he set down in place of I fear for you. A teacher labors in vain when he himself calls his disciples on to greater things, and they, slipping back, roll down again to lesser and lowly things.

Observe the tender compassion of the Apostle; they were shaken and he trembles and fears. And hence he has put it so as thoroughly to shame them, "I have bestowed labor upon you," saying, as it were, make not vain the labors which have cost me sweat and pain. By saying "I fear," and subjoining the word "lest," he both inspires alarm, and encourages good hope. He says not "I have labored in vain," but "lest," which is as much as to say, the wreck has not happened, but I see the storm big with it; so I am in fear, yet not in despair; ye have the power to set all right, and to return into your former calm...

"I am afraid." See, their insides are in turmoil, and Paul is afraid. The phrase "for fear that" still indicates those standing and not yet fully shipwrecked. And it gives them hope that if they are willing to recover, their labor will not be in vain for them; as he said, Remember my toil and sweat for you, and do not frustrate my anguish.

See what a sensitive heart: they waver and Paul is afraid. The expression "lest somehow" (μή πως) shows that they were still intact and had not yet suffered complete shipwreck. And he gives them hope that if they wish to come to their senses, then the labor spent on them was not in vain. He is as if saying to them: remember my efforts for you and do not make my labors futile.

By this practice they are put in grave danger. Hence he says: "I am afraid lest perhaps it was in vain," i.e., fruitlessly, "that I labored" among you. Therefore the faithful must avoid observing such things. Indeed, no suggestion of these things should be found among them, for whatever is done simply out of devotion to God can turn out prosperously.

From this arises a danger because faith in Christ profits nothing from it. Hence he says: "I am afraid of you, lest perhaps I have labored in vain among you"; and further on: "If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing" (5:2).

When the Apostle says to the Galatians, whom he rebukes and reproves throughout the whole epistle, Be as I am, because I am as you are (Gal. 4:12): if therefore he had made himself such as they were, it was unnecessary to say, Be as I am. Or perhaps in some things he had begun to be an imitator of them, and in others he wishes them to become like him? — What of theirs could the Apostle imitate? Or what was lacking to the teacher of the Gentiles? Rather, he exhorts them to be his imitators; and since it is not impossible, he reproves them in this way when he says, Because I am what you are: for you are human, just as I am; therefore do what I do. It can also be referred to that statement where he says that he became all things to all by agreeing with them in those points where they did not differ from the truth, especially the Gentiles (1 Cor. 9:22). For there was nothing of theirs, which ought no longer to be done, that had not previously been rightly done, such as circumcision, the observance of sabbaths, new moons, foods. But if he approved anything of the Gentiles, he did not show that it should still continue. For they say that the world was made by God and by men: this always stands. If therefore in these matters, by consenting to them, he was made as they were, he exhorts them that in a similar way they too should become as he is, agreeing with his doctrine.

Be as I also am, because I also am as you.

What he says is this: just as I became weak to you who were weak, and could not speak to you as to spiritual men but as to carnal men and little ones in Christ, and, because you were not yet able to feed on solid food, gave you only the milk of the Gospel to drink, not wishing you to remain forever in the age of infancy but to lead you little by little on to adolescence and youth, so that you might be able to take solid food: so you too ought to be as I also am, namely to have a taste for more perfect things and, leaving milk behind, to pass on to stronger foods and to greater pastures. And he says this as an imitator of the Savior, who did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave; and was found in habit as a man, so that we might become gods from men and no longer die; but, rising together with Christ, might be called his friends and brothers, and so that the disciple might be as the teacher, and the slave as the master. But it can also be understood thus: I beseech you, he says, brothers, that, despising the Jewish observance of days, months, seasons and years, which are shadows of things to come, you imitate me, who, having lived without reproach in the Law, counted all things as refuse and rubbish, that I might gain Christ. For I too was as you now are, when I was held bound by the same observances, and, because the Church of Christ did not do these things, I persecuted it and laid it waste.

Brothers, I beseech you, you have done me no injury. And you know that through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel to you some time ago.

Join what follows to the preceding sentence; and to make this clearer, let the order be the one we construct: I beseech you, brothers, be as I am, because I also am as you are. Like this is that saying: "We entreat on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:20). And elsewhere too: "I beseech that first of all supplications, prayers, petitions, thanksgivings be made" (1 Tim. 2:1). So also the words of Peter, who says: "The elders among you I entreat, who am myself a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ" (1 Pet. 5:1). These words indeed both summon us to humility and strike down the haughty brow of bishops who, as though set upon some lofty watchtower, scarcely deign to look at mortals and to speak to their fellow slaves. Let them learn from the Apostle that the erring and unwise Galatians are called brothers. Let them learn from him who, after rebuke, speaks gentle words: "I beseech you" (1 Cor. 11). And what he beseeches is this, that they be imitators of him, as he himself is of Christ; or rather, to keep to the present passage, what he asks is nothing great: that just as he himself for their sake was made lesser from greater, so they should climb up from lesser things to greater. In nothing, he says, have you injured me. A disciple injures his master if through his own negligence he wastes his precepts and his labor. The Galatians had not injured the Apostle, since up to the present time they were keeping his Gospel and his commandments. Or certainly thus: When I first announced the Gospel to you, and on account of the infirmity of your flesh, because you could not receive the greater mysteries, I preached to you as to little children, and pretended that I myself was weak, so that I might gain you who were weak: did you not receive me as an angel, as Christ Jesus? Since, then, you did me no injury in anything at that time, and thought me, humble and cast down for your sake, like the Son of God, how is it that, when I summon you to greater things, I am injured by you, through the waste of my labor, and that you now mourn, with the work made void, that dispensation by which I had pretended to be a little one?

This is addressed to his Jewish disciples, and he brings his own example forward, to induce them thereby to abandon their old customs. Though you had none other for a pattern, he says, to look at me only would have sufficed for such a change, and for your taking courage. Therefore gaze on me; I too was once in your state of mind, especially so; I had a burning zeal for the Law; yet afterwards I feared not to abandon the Law, to withdraw from that rule of life. And this ye know full well how obstinately I clung hold of Judaism, and how with yet greater force I let it go. He does well to place this last in order: for most men, though they are given a thousand reasons, and those just ones, are more readily influenced by that which is like their own case, and more firmly hold to that which they see done by others.

Observe how he again addresses them by a title of honor, which was a reminder moreover of the doctrine of grace. Having chid them seriously, and brought things together from all quarters, and shown their violations of the Law, and hit them on many sides, he gives in and conciliates them speaking more tenderly. For as to do nothing but conciliate causes negligence, so to be constantly talked at with sharpness sours a man; so that it is proper to observe due proportion everywhere. See then how he excuses to them what he has said, and shows that it proceeded not simply because he did not like them, but from anxiety. After giving them a deep cut, he pours in this encouragement like oil; and, showing that his words were not words of hate or enmity, he reminds them of the love which they had evinced toward him, mixing his self-vindication with praises. Therefore he says, "ye did me no wrong."

O trumpet of peace to the soul that is at war! O weapon that puttest to flight terrible passions! O instruction that quenches the innate fire of the soul! The Word exercises an influence which does not make poets: it does not equip philosophers nor skilled orators, but by its instruction it makes mortals immortal, mortals gods; and from the earth transports them to the realms above Olympus. Come, be taught; become as I am, for I, too, was as ye are.

"Become as I am." Yet the words are addressed to those from Judea. Become as I am. "Be imitators of me," Paul says, "for I also, having set aside the law, ran to faith." For even I, he says, was as you are, observing the law and carefully practicing it in many respects.

"for I also am as you are." I longed intensely for the law as well, but see how I have been changed. "You also," he says, "envy that change."

— [PHOTIUS] He appeals to them, considering their salvation as his own. He passes through their acts of gratitude, and the honors by which they honored him, and how greatly they regarded him, wishing to set this right, namely, that the insults now uttered against them by him were not spoken out of any dislike or hatred (for how, he says, could he have been hostile toward you, having treated you with great consideration?); but that what was said came from a mind that was anxious and loving.

To the believers from among the Jews he speaks thus: imitate me. For I too was very devoted to the law, as you are, but I left it and now contend for Christ and the faith. Be such as these yourselves. He expressed this beautifully in conclusion. For people are more readily drawn by kindred examples than by arguments.

After strong reproaches, he again displays gentleness. For harsh censure is no more beneficial than extreme leniency. Therefore he calls them brethren, reminding them at the same time of the grace of baptism, by which we all became brethren, as born of one Father – God. He also justifies the reproaches he has expressed, namely that they did not arise from hatred. For you have done me no injustice that I should become hostile toward you, but rather, you have shown me countless signs of honor and affection. How then, after this, could I be saying these things out of hatred? But I speak, without doubt, out of concern for you and out of deep gratitude toward you.

Then when he says, "Be ye as I, because I also am as you," he guides them back to the state of salvation. As if to say: I am afraid for you, lest I have labored in vain among you. But lest this be so, "Be ye as I." In a Gloss this is taken in three ways. In the first way thus: "Be ye as I," namely, abandon the Law as I have abandoned it. In a second way thus: "Be ye as I," namely, correcting the old error, as I have corrected mine. And this you can do, because I am as you, and yet I have been corrected of my error. In the third way thus: "Be ye as I," i.e., live without the Law, "because I," who had the Law and was born in the Law, "am now as you" formerly were, namely, without the Law.

After censuring the Galatians, the Apostle here shows that he did not do so out of hatred.

First, he shows that he has no true cause of hatred toward them;

Secondly, that he has no supposed cause (v. 16);

Thirdly, he tells precisely why he rebuked them (v. 19).

As to the first, he does two things:

First, he shows that he has no reason for hating them;

Secondly, that contrariwise he has reason for loving them (v. 13).

With respect to the first it should be noted that it is customary for a good pastor in correcting his subjects to mingle gentleness with severity, lest they be discouraged by too great severity. For it is written in Luke (10) that the Samaritan in caring for the wounded man poured in oil and wine. On the other hand, it is written of evil pastors in Ezechiel (34:4): "You ruled over them with vigor." Therefore, as a good prelate, the Apostle shows that he does not rebuke them in a spirit of hatred, for his words are gentle in three respects. First, as to the charitable name he uses, for he says, "Brethren": "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity" (Ps 132:1). Secondly, as to his suppliant language, when he says: "I beseech you": "The poor will speak with supplications" (Prov 18:28). Thirdly, as to freeing them of blame; hence he says, "You have not injured me at all," and I am not the type of person who hates those who do not offend me.

Now Paul announces the Gospel to the Galatians through the infirmity of the flesh, not his own but that of his hearers, who could not subject the flesh to the word of God, but, being as it were fleshly, received nothing of spiritual understanding. To make this more evident, let us set out an example. He teaches through the infirmity of the flesh who says: "If they do not contain themselves, let them marry". And: "A woman, if her husband has died, is free: let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord" (1 Cor. 7:9, 39). But he by no means teaches through the infirmity of the flesh when he records these things: "You are loosed from a wife: do not seek a wife". And: "It is time that those who have wives be as though they had none" (ibid. 27, 29). For some precepts are given to the spiritual, others to the fleshly. And it is one thing that is commanded by way of command, another by way of indulgence.

Not to have injured one is indeed no great thing, for no man whatever would choose to hurt wantonly and without object to annoy another who had never injured him. But for you, not only have ye not injured me, but ye have shown me great and inexpressible kindness, and it is impossible that one who has been treated with such attention should speak thus from any malevolent motive. My language then cannot be caused by ill-will; it follows, that it proceeds from affection and solicitude. "Ye did me no wrong; ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you." What can be gentler than this holy soul, what sweeter, or more affectionate! And the words he had already used, arose not from an unreasoning anger, nor from a passionate emotion, but from much solicitude. And why do I say, ye have not injured me? Rather have ye evinced a great and sincere regard for me. For "ye know," he says, "that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you; and that which was a temptation to you in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected." What does he mean? While I preached to you, I was driven about, I was scourged, I suffered a thousand deaths, yet ye thought no scorn of me; for this is meant by that which was a temptation to you in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected." Observe his spiritual skill; in the midst of his self-vindication, he again appeals to their feelings by showing what he had suffered for their sakes. This however, says he, did not at all offend you, nor did ye reject me on account of my sufferings and persecutions; or, as he now calls them, his infirmity and temptation.

But ye received me as an Angel of God. Was it not then absurd in them to receive him as an Angel of God, when he was persecuted and driven about, and then not to receive him when pressing on them what was fitting?

"But you know that because of weakness." That is, because of bodily weakness, namely, after bonds and blows and imprisonments, which I endured at the hands of those opposed to the preaching.

"I once preached the gospel." What do I say, Paul says, did you not wrong me? Therefore you showed me great honor. For even while being flogged and persecuted (for he says this was a weakness of the flesh), I was proclaiming the gospel to you. And yet seeing me suffer these things, you neither were scandalized at me nor spat upon me. For you did not despise, he says, my trial in my flesh, a trial of good things again: the wounds, the imprisonments, the persecutions.

You know, he says, that in bodily weakness, that is, amid persecutions and dangers, I preached the gospel to you.

Secondly, he shows that he has reason to love them, when he says: "you know how, through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel to you heretofore." Here he touches on three things that usually cause men to love one another. The first is the mutual help of fellowship, and this is also the cause of love being consolidated among men, according to Luke (22:28): "And you are they who have continued with me in my temptations; and I dispose to you as my Father hath disposed to me, a kingdom." Touching this he says: "And you know how, through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel to you heretofore." Herein he does two things:

First, he recalls the tribulation he suffered among them;

Secondly, he shows how they stood by him (v. 13).

He says, therefore, with respect to the first: I say that "You have not injured me at all"; rather you have come to my aid. "For you know," i.e., are able to recall, "that I preached the gospel to you heretofore," i.e., in times past, "through infirmity of the flesh," i.e., with infirmity and affliction in my flesh, or with the many tribulations I suffered from the Jews who are of my flesh and persecuted me: "And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much tribulation" (1 Cor 2:3); "Power is made perfect in infirmity" (2 Cor 12:9). And although this infirmity might have been reason for scorning me and a cause of temptation for you, according to Zacharias (13:7): "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered": nevertheless, "your temptation," which was "in my flesh," i.e., my tribulation, which was a source of temptation for you, "you despised not": "Despise not a man for his look" (Sir 11:2) because as the Lord says in Luke (10:16): "He that despiseth you, despiseth me." "Neither did you reject me" and my teaching, but you were willing to share my tribulations: "Woe to you that despisest, shall you not also be despised?" (Is 33:1).

The ailment of the apostle was a temptation to the Galatians. But they were found constant, not doubting as to his faith. For they could have stumbled and said, "What virtue or hope is there in this faith when its minister is so humiliated?" But when he had inspired their minds with future hopes, they did not fear present death for the sake of Christ's name.… This caused them later to blush, because after these laudable acts they became again entrapped so as to deserve reproach.

The weakness in my body was no obstacle for you, but you received me as an angel of God, that is, as a messenger, a preacher sent from God (for that is an angel of God); and you received me like Christ Jesus, whom I was preaching to you. And so you truly received Christ Jesus, if you received me as an angel of God, in the same way you received Christ Jesus.

And your temptation, which was in my flesh, you did not despise nor reject; but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

An obscure passage, and one to be attended to more keenly. I, he says, long ago preached the Gospel to you as to little ones and sucklings, because of the weakness of your flesh, beginning from the lesser things and (so to speak) almost stammering among you. This dispensation and pretense of a weak preaching was indeed my management; but it was your temptation, to see whether those things would please you and seem great which in their own condition were lesser, and were brought forth by me as if lowly. And you, taking them not as small but as great, admired them so much that you welcomed me, who spoke them, as an angel and, to say more, as the Son of God. This temptation of yours, then, by which I was tempting you in the carnal proclamation of my discourse, was not despised, nor was it held cheap; but it had more dignity than I reckoned. This passage can also be explained thus: when I came to you, I did not come in the word of wisdom, but as a lowly and despised man, bringing nothing great: the Crucified. When, therefore, you saw me placed in a body subject to infirmities, promising the heavenly kingdoms, you did not laugh at me, nor did you reckon me worthy of contempt: for you understood that the lowliness of my flesh and the meanness of my very bearing came about for your temptation, namely, whether you would despise him who was thought pitiable by unbelievers; but on the contrary you welcomed that lowly, mean and despised man as an angel, and more than an angel. Or surely we can suspect that the Apostle, at the time when he first came to the Galatians, was sick; and that, though held back by some infirmity of his poor body, he nevertheless did not cease nor hold back his voice in silence from preaching the Gospel he had begun. For they relate that he often suffered a most severe pain of the head, and that this is the angel of Satan who was set upon him to buffet him in the flesh, lest he be lifted up. This infirmity and this sickness of the body was a temptation for those to whom the Gospel was proclaimed: whether they would despise him who promised sublime things, whom they saw subject to the sicknesses of the body. It can also be said that at the beginning of his coming to the Galatians he endured insults and persecutions and blows on his body from those who opposed the Gospel; and that this was the very greatest temptation for the Galatians, seeing the Apostle of Christ beaten. But when he says, as an angel, as Christ Jesus you welcomed me, he both shows that Christ is greater than an angel, Christ whom the Psalmist had sung as lesser according to the dispensation of the body, saying: "You have made him a little less than the angels" (Ps. 8:6); and he demonstrates that his own words at the beginning had such force that they were thought to be those of an angel and of Christ.

"Rather you received me as an angel of God." How then is it not unreasonable, he says, that one who is being persecuted and driven away should be received by you as an angel, and even as the Lord himself? Yet he is spat upon while he counsels and exhorts those things that lead to salvation.

And you, however, did not turn away from me; these trials of mine, that is, persecutions, wounds, and the like, did not lead you into temptation and did not cause you to despise and abhor me. And at the same time, in a subtle way, he also shames them, showing how much he endured for their sake from his opponents.

You so honored me, he says, as if I were more than a man. Is it not strange that at the time when I was being persecuted and driven out, you received me as an angel and as Christ, and were not offended, but now, when I counsel what is proper, you consider me an enemy and do not accept me?

The second thing that strengthens love among men is mutual love and affection toward one another, according to Proverbs (8:17): "I love them that love me." As to this he says: "but you received me as an angel of God," i.e., with the honor accorded to a messenger announcing God's words: "When you received of us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men but (as it is indeed) the word of God" (1 Thes 2:13). For this reason preachers are called angels: "They shall seek the law at the priest's mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts" (Mal 2:7). And not only as an angel did you receive me, but "even as Christ Jesus," i.e., as though Christ Himself had come, Who, indeed, had come to them in him and spoke in him, according to 2 Corinthians (13:3): "Do you seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in me?" "He that receiveth you receiveth me" (Mt 10:40).

You were satisfied at the time when you received the gospel, because you were zealous at the outset. Yet now, since I do not see the finishing of the edifice, I am forced to say, "where is your satisfaction?"

Where then is your blessedness? For I bear you witness that, if it could have been done, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy, telling you the truth?

Blessed is he who walks in the way of the virtues, but only if he arrives all the way to the virtues. Nor does it profit to have withdrawn from vices unless you lay hold of the best things. For in good pursuits it is not so much the beginnings that are to be praised as the end. For just as in the vineyard there are many stages of the grape up to the press: first the vine must bud into leafy shoots and hold out hope in its blossoms; then, once the flower has fallen, the form of the future cluster is shaped, and little by little the grape, swelling, comes to its birth, so that, pressed in the winepresses, it may sweat out sweet must. So also in teaching there are single advances of blessedness: that someone hears the word of God, that he conceives it, that it grows in the womb of his soul and comes all the way to birth; that, when he has brought it forth, he nourishes it with milk and leads it through infancy, boyhood, adolescence and youth all the way to the perfect man. Since, then, the single stages, as we have said, have their blessedness according to their advances, if the end, and, so to speak, the finishing hand is lacking to the work, all the labor will become void; and it will be said: Where then is your blessedness? Although, he says, at the time when you received the Gospel according to the flesh I called you blessed because you were fervent in the beginnings, yet now, because I do not see the roof set upon the building, and the foundations hardly laid at all, I am compelled to say: Where then is your blessedness, for which, judging you blessed, I used to praise you before? For truly I myself also confess that you so loved me in the beginning, when I preached lowly things to you and was beset by persecutions, that, if it could have been done (and what he says is to be taken as hyperbole), you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me, so that I might see more with the lights of all of you. For you wished to be blind yourselves through an ineffable love toward me, so that the light of the Gospel might rise more fully in my heart; you wished my gain to grow by your losses: and this at that time when, whether because of the weakness of your flesh I announced small and lowly things to you as to little ones and sucklings, or because of the injuries of my own flesh, I did not seem worthy of belief.

Here he shows perplexity and amazement, and desires to learn of themselves the reason of their change. Who, says he, hath deceived you, and caused a difference in your disposition towards me? Are ye not the same who attended and ministered to me, counting me more precious than your own eyes? what then has happened? whence this dislike? whence this suspicion? Is it because I have told you the truth? You ought on this very account to pay me increased honor and attention; instead of which "I am become your enemy, because I tell you the truth,"-for I can find no other reason but this. Observe too what humbleness of mind appears in his defence of himself; he proves not by his conduct to them, but by theirs to him that his language could not possibly have proceeded from unkind feeling. For he says not; How is it supposable that one, who has been scourged and driven about, and ill-treated a thousand things for your sakes, should now have schemes against you? But he argues from what they had reason to boast of, saying, How can one who has been honored by you, and received as an Angel, repay you by conduct the very opposite?

— [PHOTIUS] "Who then was the blessing to you?" He was someone, not asked as a question, but as if marveling and lifting up their former faith and the blessing upon that faith. What it was, how great it was, wondrous, he says: from what great blessedness you have fallen. Or by interrogation, What was it? Remember, he says, how great your blessedness was: for I was blessing you very greatly; but now what? I reproach; therefore I am held in hatred. But why do I reproach? For your salvation. For if this were not so, how could I, without offering any other pretext of yours, the one who praises and blesses, have come to reproach?" [end of the excerpt by Photius] —

"the blessing to you." Who was, he says, the blessing to you, whom I and many others blessed you for, concerning obedience and submission to the Gospel? Who then was he? he says; for now I do not see him. Where, he says, are the zealously accomplished works of faith? for he has put the who instead of where.

"your eyes." I know, Paul says, that you regard me as more precious than your own eyes because of my long-standing preaching.

In bewilderment and amazement he says: what has become of your former blessedness? That is, where has all that gone for which everyone called you blessed, as those devoted to your teacher? What is it now? What has your former blessedness turned into? Now I do not see it, since you are hostile toward me.

Previously, on account of my preaching, you considered me dearer even than your own eyes; so what has happened now that you suspect me as an enemy? For it would be strange if the one whom you so honored were to say these things to you with hostile intent.

But he then rebukes them for their change of heart; hence he says, "Where is then your blessedness?" As if to say: Did not men think you blessed for honoring me and accepting my preaching? "Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience and the perfection of thy ways?" (Job 4:6).

The third thing that strengthens love is doing good to one another. As to this he says: "For I bear you witness that, if it could be done," i.e., had been just to do so (for that can be done which it is just to do) or had been to the advantage of the Church, "you would have plucked out your own eyes and would have given them to me." As if to say: You loved me so much that you would have given me not only your external goods but your very eyes.

He says this as to imply: "It is not possible that I should become an enemy to those from whom I received such services. But because no one wants to be exposed when he errs, I seem to be your enemy when I justly reprimand you."

Wherefore the apostle himself also in every case uses stringent language to the Churches, after the Lord's example; and conscious of his own boldness, and of the weakness of his hearers, he says to the Galatians: "Am I your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" Thus also people in health do not require a physician, do not require him as long as they are strong; but those who are ill need his skill. Thus also we who in our lives are ill of shameful lusts and reprehensible excesses, and other inflammatory effects of the passions, need the Saviour. And He administers not only mild, but also stringent medicines. The bitter roots of fear then arrest the eating sores of our sins. Wherefore also fear is salutary, if bitter.

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 now, because I have begun to call you on from the elements and syllables and the reading of boys to greater studies, so that you may hold books in your hands and may learn words full of learning and of meanings, you kick back, you are angry, the perfection of teachings seems burdensome to you; and you are changed to other feelings to such a degree that me, whom you had received as an angel and as Christ, to whom you wished to hand over your eyes, you now hold as an enemy, because I announce to you the full truth. And he has elegantly ended the sentence, saying: Have I then become your enemy, telling you the truth? in order to show that the beginnings of the preaching were not so much the truth as the shadow and image of the truth. Like this is that famous sentence of the poet among the Romans (Terence, Andria 1.1): Compliance begets friends, truth hatred. But see how much better the one here is than that one; for the Apostle tempered this sentence for those whom he had called foolish, whom he had named little ones, and made it particular, since he directed it properly to the persons and to the Galatians. But that one, declaring it both general and as holding so among all men, erred badly. For compliance, by which he thought friends are made, once truth is taken away, is not so much compliance as flattery and fawning; and it is plain that these ought to be called hidden enmities rather than friendships. At the same time this too must be considered, that today also, so long as we explain the Scriptures according to the letter to little ones and sucklings, and to those in whose hearts Christ never grows up nor advances in age and wisdom and grace with God and men, we are praised, looked up to, held in admiration. But when we have begun a little to call them on to pass over to greater things, from being our heralds they become enemies, and they would rather follow the Jews than the apostles, who, withdrawing from the teaching and traditions of the Pharisees, entered into Christ himself, the propitiatory, and the perfection of the Law; nor do they deign to accept the divine word, which bids the teachers of the Church to climb to loftier doctrines, to raise the voice with all their strength, and not to fear the clamor of the little ones barking around them, saying: "Go up on a lofty mountain, you who bring good tidings to Sion. Lift up your voice in strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem. Lift it up, do not fear" (Isa. 40:9).

"So I have become your enemy." Elsewhere, he says, I do not know any cause for enmity other than that I deliver to you truths and teachings that lead to salvation, by which it would even have been fitting for you to increase your love toward me.

I know of no other reason for the enmity, he says, except that I told you the truth and exposed those who were in error regarding the dogmas. But for this you ought rather to love me even more, as one who has fulfilled the duty of a guardian.

Then when he says: "Am I then become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?", he states the cause of a supposed hatred.

First, the cause on the part of the Apostle;

Secondly, on the part of the false brethren (v. 17).

He says therefore: If you have done me so much good, are you to believe that "I am become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" The word "enemy" used here can be interpreted in two ways: in one way as meaning that he hates them; in this case the interpretation is "have I become your enemy," i.e., hate you? Hence what follows, namely, "because I tell you the truth," can be taken as an indication of hatred, even though telling the truth at the proper time and place is a sign of love. In another way, the word "enemy" can be taken in a passive sense, i.e., so that he is hated by them; then "have I become your enemy" is interpreted as "Do you hate me?" and this because I tell you the truth, so that telling the truth is set down as the cause of hatred. For men who tell the truth are hated by evil men, since the truth engenders hatred: "They have hated him that rebuketh in the gate: and I have abhorred him that speaketh perfectly" (Am 5:10).

But on the other hand, it is said in Proverbs (28:23): "He that rebuketh a man shall afterward find favor with him more than he that by a flattering tongue deceiveth him." I answer that the solution to this can be gathered from what is said in Proverbs (9:9): "Rebuke not a scorner, lest he hate thee. Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee." For if the one corrected loves the corrector, it is a sign of virtue; conversely, it is a sign of malice, if he should hate him. For since a man naturally hates what is contrary to what he loves, then if you hate one who corrects you for evil, it is obvious that you love the evil; but if you love him, you indicate that you hate sin. For at first, when men are corrected, they are attached to their sins—that is why a sinner's first reaction is to hate the one correcting him; but after the correction he puts aside his attachment to sin and loves the one correcting him. And therefore the passage from Proverbs expressly says that later he will find favor with him.

Since emulate signifies two things—one when someone emulates what he finds pleasing because it is good and another when people are emulators because they feel envy—these people, he says, emulate you in a bad way, by which he means that they are imitators through envy.… When he adds the phrase "so that you may emulate them" [meaning] "that you may follow them," he has thus used the double sense of emulation in different places, since emulation is imitation, and especially when it is also directed to what is good.… [He continues: ] "Emulate therefore better gifts—not those of Jewish law, which are not gifts and are not better; but emulate those things which are good and better gifts. That is, whatever belongs to faith and love, emulate that with regard to Christ and follow it. It is always good to emulate better things. Emulation as such is not good, but the emulation of better things is always good, and not only when I am present."

This is said of that zeal and perverse emulation of which it is also said elsewhere: "Do not emulate among the evildoers" (Ps. 36:1); and here: They emulate you not well. But we find also another zeal, with which the sons of Jacob were zealous against their brother Joseph (Gen. 37 ff.), and Miriam and Aaron against Moses, the friend of the Lord (Num. 12). For neither the former nor the latter were stirred to zeal in order to become better than Joseph and Moses, but because they grieved that those men were better. This zeal is a near neighbor of envy. It would be a long task if I wished to bring forth from the treasury of the Scriptures all the kinds of zeal, whether good or bad. We read of the good zeal of Phinehas (Num. 25), of Elijah (1 Kings 19), of Mattathias (1 Macc. 2), and of the apostle Judas (but not the traitor), who on account of the remarkable power of zeal in him received also the name of Zealot (Acts 1). And bad zeal, as that of Cain against Abel (Gen. 4), and of others against others. And the zeal of a husband, of which it is written: "And the spirit of zeal come upon him" (Num. 5). Unless perhaps this zeal is intermediate, and can be taken neither in a good nor in a bad sense, but, standing between the two, is rather called jealousy. Otherwise: those who were of the circumcision, seeing that the Galatians from the Gentiles abounded in the powers of the Holy Spirit, while they themselves did not speak in tongues, did not have gifts of healings, nor the grace of prophecy, were spurred on by the goads of zeal and desired to bring them over to the burdens of the Law, so that they too might begin to become like them.

They emulate you not well: but they wish to shut you out, that you may emulate them. But emulate the good in a good thing always: and not only when I am present with you.

They emulate well who, when they see graces, gifts and powers in certain people, themselves desire to be such: and they strive to imitate the faith, life and diligence of those people, through which they merited those things, so that they too may be able to attain the things that are good and worthy of emulation. Of these the Apostle also says: "Emulate spiritual things: but rather that you may prophesy". And next: "So you also, since you are emulators of spiritual things, seek to abound for the edification of the Church". And again: "Therefore, brothers, emulate to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues". But they emulate not well who do not so much desire to be better themselves, by imitating those who are worthy of emulation, as wish to make those very people worse, and to drag them backward by a perverse emulation. Let it be said by way of example: someone is a Christian; he reads Moses and the prophets; he knows that all things went before for that people in shadow and in image, but were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come down. He understands circumcision not so much of the foreskin as of the ears and of the heart. He has risen with Christ: he seeks the things that are above. He has been freed from the burden and slavery of the Law, which commands: touch not, taste not, defile not. If anyone should wish to persuade this man by the words of the Scriptures to receive the things that are written not through tropology but according to the killing letter, so that he becomes a Jew outwardly, not inwardly, that person emulates him not well: rather he hastens to drag back one who is advancing at a swift pace toward greater things, so that the other may instead emulate him who is going backward; or at the least he keeps him from advancing much further. He speaks, therefore, to the Galatians, who had been induced by the champions of the Law to imitate them, when those men ought rather to have imitated the Galatians.

It is a wholesome emulation which leads to an imitation of virtue, but an evil one, which seduces from virtue him who is in the right path. And this is the object of those persons, who would deprive you of perfect knowledge, and impart to you that which is mutilated and spurious, and this for no other purpose than that they may occupy the rank of teachers, and degrade you, who now stand higher than themselves, to the position of disciples. For this is the meaning of the words "that ye may seek them." But I, says he, desire the reverse, that ye may become a model for them, and a pattern of a higher perfection: a thing which actually happened when I was present with you...

— [OECUMENIUS] "They envy you." He says they do not welcome the same faith in Christ for your benefit, but in order to exclude you from it and persuade themselves to follow, because such a plan has been formulated against your deception. [end of the excerpt by Oecumenius] —

"not rightly." For there is also good envy, when someone so envies that he imitates virtue. And there is also bad envy, when someone envies in such a way as to drive the virtuous person out of virtue.

"but they desire to exclude you." Paul says, They wish to shut you off and to carry you away from the true knowledge, so that having become your teachers themselves, they may lead you to the same envy and imitation. For this reason they carry you away from true knowledge and bring you to the law.

He says this with reference to those evil teachers. "For seeing your conspicuous faith," he says, "they are grieved and all try by every means to rob you of those goods and subject you to their own authority." For that is what he means by writing "that you may emulate them."

Zeal is a praiseworthy thing when someone imitates the virtue of another, but it becomes bad when someone strives to remove the virtuous person from perfection. And these people are trying to exclude you, that is, to deprive you of the more perfect state and knowledge in Christ and to cast you into the less perfect, which consists in the law, so that you would regard them as teachers, be zealous for and imitate them as disciples. But I wished that you would be guides to perfection both for them and for all. And so it was when I was with you. He points to this very same thing below as well.

Then when he says, "They are zealous in your regard not well," he states another supposed cause, namely, on the part of the false brethren.

First, he states it;

Secondly, he refutes it (v. 18).

As to the first it should be noted that, as has been said above, certain false brethren, converted from Judaism, went about the churches of the Gentiles, preaching the observance of the Law. Because Paul opposed them, they slandered him. They did this not so much with an eye to their salvation as to get rid of Paul. Hence the Apostle says, "They are zealous in your regard," i.e., they do not allow you (whom they love with a love not of friendship but of self-interest) to associate with us. For jealous rivalry is zeal that arises from any love whatsoever and does not brook what is loved to be shared. But because their love for them was not good: first of all, because they did not love them so as to advantage them but for their own gain—and this is obvious from the fact that they wanted to keep the Apostle away from them as one opposed to their own advantage—and secondly, because this was a source of harm to the Gentiles—for they sought from them an advantage by which the latter would suffer harm; for these reasons he says, "They are zealous in your regard but not well," because they are not interested in your welfare. And this is obvious, because "they would exclude you that you might be zealous for them," i.e., that you might admit none but them: "Envy not the unjust man and do not follow his ways" (Prov 3:31); "Let not thy heart envy sinners" (Prov 23:17).

And since it is natural that the greater should be made from the lesser, not the lesser from the greater, he also says: Emulate the good in a good thing, that is, do not imitate the champions of Jewish observance, but imitate the things that are good. For just as one who imitates someone's riches, power and rank emulates not so much good things as things that ought to be shunned, so you, on the contrary, emulate the good in a good thing, seeking spiritual things rather than carnal ones, so that it is not they who teach you to be Jews, but you who teach them to be Christians. And do this always, so that with persevering step you may be able to reach the end of the good work. For indeed you emulated the good in a good thing formerly, when I was with you; but after I departed from you, you lost everything I had handed on to you, drawn away from a sure anchorage and a trusty harbor out again into the deep by the ebbing wave. Nor is it any wonder if, when the Apostle departed, the vessel of election, in whom Christ the Lord spoke, the Galatians were changed, since even now we see the very same thing happen in the churches too. For if ever there happens to be in a church a teacher adorned in speech and in life, who rouses his hearers to virtues as if with certain goads, we see the whole people hasten, burn with fervor and run to and fro over almsgiving, fasting, chastity, the receiving of the poor, the burial of the dead and other such things. But when he has departed, we see it little by little wither away, and, its food withdrawn, grow thin, turn pale and languish, and the ruin follow of everything that had flourished before. Wherefore, since the harvest is great but the laborers are few (Matt. 9:37), let us pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers to reap, who may reap and gather the ears of the Christian people that stand in the Church, made ready to be the wheat to come, and, carrying them into the barns, may by no means allow them to perish.

Here he hints that his absence had been the cause of this, and that the true blessing was for disciples to hold right opinions not only in the presence but also in the absence of their master. But as they had not arrived at this point of perfection, he makes every effort to place them there.

He wishes to show that those who now are overturning them, and persuading them to observe to the law, and by this preparing them to become zealous imitators of it, had long ago envied them in the knowledge of the Gospel, when Paul was present and was teaching them.

"It is good, however," he says, "to strive enthusiastically in what is good always, and not only when I am present with you." And he shows that they have been deceived during his absence.

Do you not see, he hints at the fact that they rivaled everyone in perfection when Paul was among them? And he also gives to understand that his absence gave rise to this evil. It would be excellent, he therefore says, if not only in the presence of the teacher, but also in his absence, the disciples thought what was proper.

But he rejects this when he says, "But be zealous for that which is good in a good thing always." As if to say: You ought not to be zealous for them in their teaching; but be zealous for a good teacher, i.e., for me and those like me: "And who is he that can hurt you if you be zealous of the good?" (1 Pet. 3:13). But because there can be evil in a good teacher, he adds, "be zealous of the good" teacher, yet say "in a good thing," i.e., in that which is good: "Follow after charity and be zealous for spiritual goods" (1 Cor 14:1).

Now, although the Apostle speaks of himself, according to a Gloss, when he says, "be zealous of the good," yet he adds "in a good thing," because as he says: "I am not conscious of any thing, yet I am not hereby justified" (1 Cor 4:4). But because some are zealous for a good teacher in his presence alone, he adds: "always, and not only when I am present with you"; because zeal for the good, if it continues even when the teacher is absent, is an indication that it proceeds from love and fear of God Who sees all: "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not serving to the eye, as pleasing men, but in simplicity of heart, fearing God" (Col 3:22).

Humans are conceived in their mother's womb in order to be formed, yet only when fully formed do they go into labor. One might be surprised by his statement: "You with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you." We are to understand this travail to stand for the agonies of concern that they might be born in Christ. Then he labors for them once again because of the dangers of their seduction, by which he sees them being disturbed.

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to 'inject' His kind of life and thought, His Zoe, into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.

"Little children," says our teacher, "a little while longer I am with you." That is why Paul also instructs the Galatians in these words: "My little children, with whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." And again he writes to the Corinthians: "For though you may have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. For in Christ I have begotten you through the gospel." On this account "a eunuch shall not enter into God's assembly," that is, the man who is unproductive and unfruitful both in conduct and in word; but blessed are those who have made themselves eunuchs, free from all sin, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven by their abstinence from the world.

Christ is "formed in you" by nothing else but irreproachable faith and the way of gospel.

Sons are spoken of in many senses, sometimes as by love, sometimes as by nature, sometimes as by blood, sometimes even as by religion. This is what Paul means now by "my sons," either because when the new birth occurs through faithful baptism, he who guides the baptized toward maturity or receives them when fully ready is called their father, or because when he calls them back into Christ he makes them his own sons.

My little children, of whom I travail again, until Christ be formed in you.

With what great difficulties and pain offspring are brought forth from the womb, the first curse declares, saying: "In sorrow you shall bear children" (Gen. 3:16). Wishing therefore to show the solicitude of teachers for their disciples, and what feelings they suffer lest their followers fall away from salvation, Paul says: My little children, of whom I travail again. For he who in another place had said as a father: "Though you have ten thousand pedagogues in Christ, yet not many fathers" (1 Cor. 4:15), now speaks in Christ no longer as a father but as a mother, so that they may recognize in him the anxiety and the tender devotion of both parents. Something of the sort Moses too said of the people: "Did I receive all this people in my womb" (Num. 11:12)? Which of us, do you think, is so anxious for the salvation of his disciples that he is tormented not for a few hours, or at most for two or three days, but for the whole time of his life, until Christ is formed in them? The example he has taken of a pregnant woman, conceiving and forming the seed within herself, must be carefully held to, so that we may understand what is said. Nature is not to be blushed at, but revered. For just as the seed is first cast without form into a woman's womb, so that it clings to its furrows and floor as if with a kind of glue (and the prophet too, remembering his own beginning, says of it: "Your eyes saw my unformed state" (Ps. 138:16)); then through nine months, the blood being held back, the future man is curdled, given a body, nourished and articulated into parts; so that, after it has stirred in the womb, at the appointed time it is poured forth into the light, and is born with as great difficulties as those with which it is afterwards nursed lest it perish: so too the seed of the word of Christ, when it has fallen into the soul of the hearer, grows by its own stages, and, to pass over many things (for we can easily transfer the bodily description to the spiritual understanding), it remains in a precarious state for as long as it takes until he who conceived gives birth. Nor is the end of the effort reached at once in having brought forth; rather, then comes the beginning of another labor: to lead the suckling infancy, with diligent nourishment and pains, up to the full age of Christ. And just as in marriage the husband's seed is often the cause that children are not begotten, sometimes a barren wife does not retain the seed, frequently neither is fit for begetting, and on the contrary both are fruitful: so too among those who sow the word of God this fourfold division holds: either the teacher indeed fulfills his office, but the hearer is barren; or the hearer is of good disposition, but through the teacher's want of skill the seed of the word perishes; or surely the one who is taught is as senseless as the one who instructs; and rarely does it happen that master and disciple are in accord with each other, namely that the one teaches as much as the other can draw in, or that the one taught takes in as much as the teacher pours in. But now we are all judges. We do not know what number a psalm is, what part of prophecy, what chapter of the Law, and by mere facility of speech we boldly interpret what we in no way understand. It is no concern of ours that Christ be formed in the people, that each one, returning to his own home, may have the seed of the word of God, so that when he has conceived it he may say with the prophet: "From fear of you, O Lord, we have conceived and brought forth; we have made children of your salvation upon the earth" (Isa. 26:17, 18). Such people pass over into the apostles, and deserve to hear from the Savior: "Whoever shall do the will of my Father, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matt. 12:50): the diversity of their progress being shown in the different names. Christ is also formed in the heart of believers when all mysteries are laid open to them, and the things that seemed obscure become clear. But this too must be observed: that he who through sin had in a certain manner ceased to be a man is conceived by the master through penitence, and the forming of Christ in him is promised once again. This is against the Novatians, who will not have those whom sins have once crushed formed anew.

Let us give an example, so that what is commanded to the daughter of Zion, when it is said: Be in pain, and act manfully, like a woman giving birth, we may refer not to her punishment but to her benefit. Paul says to the Galatians: My little children, with whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you. And he was in pain so long, and in labor so long, until he begot again through repentance those who had perished through sin.

Observe his perplexity and perturbation, "Brethren, I beseech you:" "My little children, of whom I am again in travail:" He resembles a mother trembling for her children. "Until Christ be formed in you." Behold his paternal tenderness, behold this despondency worthy of an Apostle. Observe what a wail he utters, far more piercing than of a woman in travail;-Ye have defaced the likeness, ye have destroyed the kinship, ye have changed the form, ye need another regeneration and refashioning; nevertheless I call you children, abortions and monsters though ye be. However, he does not express himself in this way, but spares them, unwilling to strike, and to inflict wound upon wound. Wise physicians do not cure those who have fallen into a long sickness all at once, but little by little, lest they should faint and die. And so is it with this blessed man; for these pangs were more severe in proportion as the force of his affection was stronger. And the offense was of no trivial kind. And as I have ever said and ever will say, even a slight fault mars the appearance and distorts the figure of the whole.

For he says, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you; ". Receive the features, and the image, and the manliness of Christ, the likeness of the form of the Word being stamped upon them, and begotten in them by a true knowledge and faith, so that in each one Christ is spiritually born. And, therefore, the Church swells and travails in birth until Christ is formed in us,

"My little children." Even if, Paul says, you have corrupted the form of Christ and the image upon you, yet you are still my little children. And he says "little children," those small and unbegotten, or aborted infants, and lacking birth. For this reason he did not say "children," but "my little children."

"until Christ be formed in you." You have corrupted, he says, the image of Christ in you, which you wore through baptism. As many as were baptized into Christ, you have clothed yourselves with Christ, and you have lost his form, and his being as members. There is therefore need of another birth, which will again imprint upon you the divine form of Christ. What then? Again I labor you by teaching. Again I beget, through catechesis, until you are again imprinted with the divine form of Christ. What then do the Novatians say in response to these things? For behold, I write these things plainly to the faithful.

— [CYRIL] Those whom I labor, until the great and excellent characters of the divinity of Christ be formed into your minds. [end of the excerpt from Cyril of Alexandria] —

That there are also some souls that conceive offspring, the prophet made clear when he said: "from fear of you, Lord, we conceived in the womb and travailed and gave birth to a spirit of salvation which you made upon the earth". For just as in those who are pregnant the seed is formed and shaped, so also in the soul that receives the word, the conception of the word is gradually formed and shaped within it. And this I think is what Paul says to the Galatians: "my children, whom I again bring forth in travail until Christ be formed in you", which is as though he were to say: until the word be formed and made manifest in you. In the epistle to Timothy he says likewise that a woman shall be saved "through the bearing of children, if she abide in faith and love and holiness with chastity". But who is this woman, if not the soul that conceives the word of God and of truth, and gives birth to good works like to Christ? But it is irrational to suppose that what he says was said of a bodily bearing: "the woman, being seduced, fell into transgression; but she shall be saved through the bearing of children, if she abide in faith and love and holiness with chastity". Therefore the souls that have newly received the word and, being still established as pregnant, have not yet borne fruit in it, having it intelligibly in the womb, cannot endure the discourse that stands "in the holy place" opposing the truth, nor stand firm so as not to be seduced by its persuasions.

And by "sight" we mean the sight of the Word and of wisdom and of truth and of righteousness and of peace and of everything whatsoever that is the only-begotten of God. And you will understand the sight of the Word and the sight of wisdom when you have understood what the Apostle says: "my children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you". For understanding Christ formed in someone, you will consequently, according to a formation of this kind, see also the sight of Christ.

The pregnant woman is said to be the soul which has recently conceived the word of God. Now concerning such a conception we read it written also in another place: "from fear of you, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and we have given birth." Those, therefore, who conceive and immediately give birth—these are to be reckoned not as women, but as men, and perfect men. Hear, finally, also the prophet saying: "if the earth has given birth in one day, and a nation has been born at once." This is the generation of the perfect, which is born immediately, on the same day, as soon as it has been conceived. But lest it seem new to you that we have said men give birth, we have already long since set forth how you ought to take the names of the members, that you may withdraw from bodily senses and grasp the understanding of the inner man. But if you wish that I satisfy you still further in this also from the Scriptures, hear the Apostle saying: "my little children, whom I again bring forth in travail, until Christ be formed in you." Perfect, therefore, and strong men are those who immediately, as soon as they conceive, give birth—that is, those who bring the conceived word of faith forth into works. But the soul which conceives and retains in the womb and does not give birth, this one is called a woman, just as the prophet also says: "the pains of childbirth have come upon her, and the power of giving birth is not in her." This soul, then, which now on account of its weakness is called a woman, when two men are quarreling with one another and in the contest bringing forth stumbling-blocks—which the contention of words is always wont to have—is struck and scandalized, so that it casts out and loses the word of faith which it had faintly conceived; and this is the quarrel and contention "unto the subversion of the hearers." If, therefore, the soul which has been scandalized casts out the word not yet formed, he who scandalized it is said to suffer loss. Do you wish to know that in some the word is formed, in some not yet formed? The word of the Apostle plainly teaches us, which we recalled above, when he says: "until Christ be formed in you"; but Christ is the Word of God. By this he shows that at the time when he was writing, the Word of God was not yet formed in them; if, therefore, it comes forth not yet formed, he shall suffer loss.

Let teachers therefore hear, lest perhaps they entrust the words of God to a "defiled" soul, to a "harlot" soul, to an unfaithful soul, lest perhaps they cast "what is holy to the dogs and pearls before swine", but let them choose clean souls, "virgins" "in the simplicity of the faith which is in Christ", let them commit to them the secret mysteries, let them speak forth to them the word of God and the hidden things of faith, that in them "Christ may be formed" through faith. Or do you not know that from this seed of the word of God which is sown, Christ is born in the heart of the hearers? For the Apostle too says this: "until Christ be formed in us". The soul therefore conceives from this seed of the word and forms the conceived word within itself, until it brings forth the spirit of the fear of God.

"For," says he, "I have begotten you through the gospel; " and "Ye are my children, of whom I travail again in birth." Now was absolutely fulfilled that promise of the Spirit which was given by the word of Joel: "In the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy; and upon my servants and upon my handmaids will I pour out of my Spirit.

But so did circumstances require him to "become all things to all, in order to gain all; " "travailing in birth with them until Christ should be formed in them; " and "cherishing, as it were a nurse," the little ones of faith, by teaching them some things "by way of indulgence, not by way of command"-for it is one thing to indulge, another to bid-permitting a temporary licence of re-marriage on account of the "weakness of the flesh," just as Moses of divorcing on account of "the hardness of the heart.

He imitates a mother trembling for her children. You, he says, have distorted the image of Christ which you had within you from baptism, and you require a new rebirth and re-creation, so that the image of Christ may again appear in you and His character be imprinted upon you. Again I am in the pangs of birth, again I am regenerating you through teaching. But I do not despair. Therefore I also call you children, so that you too would not lose hope. And this is against the Novatians: Paul regenerates and renews the Galatians, but they (the Novatians) do not accept correction through repentance.

Above, the Apostle dismissed the false cause of his correcting the Galatians; here he discloses the true cause, which is sorrow for their imperfection.

First, he expresses the heartfelt sorrow of which he spoke;

Secondly, a desire to manifest this sorrow (v. 20);

Thirdly, he gives the cause of the sorrow (v. 20): "because I am ashamed for you."

This sorrow proceeded from charity, because he grieved for their sins: "I beheld the transgressors and I pined away; because they kept not thy word" (Ps 118:158). And so he addresses them in words of charity, saying, "My little children." He purposely does not call them sons, but little children, to indicate the imperfection whereby they had become small: "As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat" (1 Cor 3:1).

It should be noted that during parturition a child is called a little one. And this is what they were, because they needed to be born again, even though parents according to the flesh bring forth their child only once. Accordingly he says to them, "of whom I am in labor again." For he was in labor of them during their first conversion; but since they had now turned from the one who called them, to another gospel, they needed to be brought forth anew. Hence he says, "I am in labor," i.e., with labor and pain I bring them forth into the light of faith. In these words the Apostle bares his grief. Hence a man's conversion is called a birth: "They bow themselves to bring forth young" (Job 39:3); "And being with child she cried, travailing in birth and was in pain to be delivered" (Rev 12:2). Therefore it is because of his pain that he rebukes them so sharply, as a woman cries aloud because of the pains of childbirth: "I will speak now as a woman in labor" (Is 42:14).

The reason for the iterated travail is that you are not perfectly formed. Hence he says: "until Christ be formed in you," i.e., until you receive His likeness, which you have lost through your sin. He does not say, "That you may be formed in Christ," but "until Christ be formed in you," to make it resound more terrifyingly on their ears. For Christ is formed in the heart by "formed faith": "That Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith" (Eph 3:17). But when one does not have "formed faith," Christ has already died in him: "Until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts" (2 Pet. 1:19). Thus Christ grows in a man according to his progress in the faith; conversely, as it diminishes, He recedes. Therefore, when the faith of a man is rendered "unformed" by sin, Christ is not formed in him; and so, because there was not a formed faith in them, they needed to be brought forth in the womb again until Christ be formed in them through faith, i.e., "formed faith," which works through love. Or, "until Christ be formed in you," i.e., through you Christ appear finely formed to others.

But I would wish to be with you now, and to change my voice, because I am confounded in you.

Divine Scripture edifies even when it is read; but it profits much more if it is turned from letters into voice, so that he who had taught through the Epistle may, being present, instruct his hearers. For the living voice has great force: a voice resounding from the mouth of its author, which is uttered and articulated with the very delivery with which it was generated in its own man's heart. The Apostle, therefore, knowing that speech addressed to those who are present has greater force, desires to change the epistolary voice, the voice confined in letters, into presence: and, because this was more expedient for those who had been perverted in error, to draw them back to the truth by living speech. And this for the reason that he was confounded in them: which indeed is said more properly in Greek. For Ἀποροῦμαι signifies not so much confusion, which among them is called αἰσχύνη or σύγχυσις, as need and want. This, then, is the sense: I would wish to be with you now, and to utter in person, being present myself, the voice of my letters, because I am in need in you. For I do not have the fruits that teachers are accustomed to have from their disciples; and the seed of teachings has been sown in vain, since I suffer utter destitution in you: so that I could break out in the words of Jeremiah: "I have not profited, nor has anyone profited me" (Jer. 15:10). This passage can also be interpreted another way: Paul the apostle, who had become a Jew to the Jews, that he might gain the Jews (1 Cor. 9), and to those who were under the Law as though he himself were under the Law, and weak to the weak, that he might gain the weak: according to the character of those whom he desired to save, he would change his voice, and, in the manner of actors (for indeed he was made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men [1 Cor. 4]), he would turn his bearing and his voices into various shapes. Not that he was what he pretended to be; but that he only seemed to be what was of profit to the others. He perceives that the Galatians need another teaching, that they must be saved by another way, not by that by which they had first been brought over from heathenism to the faith of Christ: and he is compelled to say: I would wish now to be with you, and to change my voice, because I am confounded in you. I do not see, he says, that I am of profit if I speak the things that I spoke before; because of which, not knowing what to do, and drawn in different directions, I am torn, confounded and rent apart. And just as physicians, when they have seen that the force of their art does not prevail with the first remedy, pass on to another, and go on trying for so long which of several may help, until they arrive at a cure, so that what could by no means be healed by the softness of some plaster may be healed by a more biting powder and a harsher treatment: so I too, because I am confounded in you and am drawn hither and thither by not knowing, would wish, being present, to utter the voice of my letters from my own mouth, so that I myself might rebuke you more severely than usual; since a letter cannot express the voice of one who rebukes; it cannot make the outcry of one who is angry resound, nor unfold the pain of the breast in strokes of the pen. But it can also be understood more simply: I have just now used gentle words with you, saying: "Brothers, I beseech you". And: "My little children, of whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you"; but I, gentle and mild, who spoke to you as a father, out of that love by which I do not suffer my sons to perish and to wander perpetually, would wish now to be present, if the chains of my confession did not confine me, and to change my gentle voice into the words of one who rebukes. Nor is it fickleness if I now coax, now grow angry; love impels me, sorrow impels me, to speak with differing feelings. For I do not know into what words I should first break out, and with what remedy I ought to heal you, because I am confounded in you.

Observe his warmth, his inability to refrain himself, and to conceal these his feelings; such is the nature of love; nor is he satisfied with words, but desires to be present with them, and so, as he says, to change his voice, that is, to change to lamentation, to shed tears, to turn every thing into mourning. For he could not by letter show his tears or cries of grief, and therefore he ardently desires to be present with them.

I know not, says he, what to say, or what to think. How is it, that ye who by dangers, which ye endured for the faith's sake, and by miracles, which ye performed through faith, had ascended to the highest heaven, should suddenly be brought to such a depth of degradation as to be drawn aside to circumcision or sabbaths, and should rely wholly upon Judaizers? Hence in the beginning he says, "I marvel that ye are so quickly removing," and here, "I am perplexed about you," as if he said, What am I to speak? What am I to utter? What am I to think? I am bitterly perplexed. And so he must needs weep, as the prophets do when in perplexity; for not only admonition but mourning also is a form in which solicitous attention is often manifested. And what he said in his speech to those at Miletus, "By the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one with tears, he says here also, "and to change my voice." (Acts 20:31.) When we find ourselves overcome by perplexity and helplessness which come contrary to expectation, we are driven to tears; and so Paul admonished them sharply, and endeavored to shame them, then in turn soothed them, and lastly he wept. And this weeping is not only a reproof but a blandishment; it does not exasperate like reproof, nor relax like indulgent treatment, but is a mixed remedy, and of great efficacy in the way of exhortation. Having thus softened and powerfully engaged their hearts by his tears, he again advances to the contest, and lays down a larger proposition, proving that the Law itself was opposed to its being kept. Before, he produced the example of Abraham, but now (what is more cogent) he brings forward the Law itself enjoining them not to keep itself, but to leave off. So that, says he, you must abandon the Law, if you would obey it, for this is its own wish: this however he does not say expressly, but enforces it in another mode, mixing up with it an account of facts.

"I would indeed be present with you now." — [OECUMENIUS] See love. "I am not content," he says, with letters; I sought to be present with you, and to exchange weeping and mourning for teaching delivered in words, so that, he says, I taught you with weeping. For I too am at a loss what to say about you. How is it that you who were exalted by the knowledge of the Gospel have been cast down and dragged to the ground, again held by the law? [end of the excerpt by Oecumenius] —

"and to change my tone." For some, to turn it into weeping; for others, to marvel at the certainty.

I am not satisfied with letters, but would wish to be with you and to change my voice, that is, to turn it into lamentation and weeping. I am at a loss what to say about you, how you who had risen so high that you even underwent dangers for the faith and performed signs through it, are now retreating to the weakness of the law. Therefore I would wish to lament over you in your presence. For when he found himself in difficult circumstances, he would usually give himself over to tears.

Here someone might say: "Away from us you say these things, but if you were with us, you would not say them," according to 2 Corinthians (10:10): "His bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible." Therefore, he expresses a desire to manifest his grief more vividly, saying, "I would willingly be present with you now and change my voice." As if to say: I use gentle language now, calling you friends and sons, in my absence; but if I were present among you, I would correct you more sharply. For if I were present and speaking the things I am now writing in a letter, the correction would be more severe; because I would then be able to express the scolding tones of my rebuke and the cries of my anger and the pain in my heart, much better than I can convey them by letter. And a living voice would more effectively stir your hearts to shame for your error and my anxiety.

And the cause of this sorrow is that "I am ashamed for you," i.e., I blush for you in the presence of others; for as it is said in Sirach (22:3): "A son ill taught is the confusion of the father." For since a son is a thing of the father, and a disciple as such is a thing of his master, a master rejoices in the good he sees reflected in him and glories in it as though it were his own. Conversely, he is pained at evil and is ashamed. Hence because they had been turned from good to evil, for that reason the Apostle is ashamed.

People might suppose that in the case of Hagar Abraham acted [merely from human desire for procreation]. But the apostle makes the reverse clear, viewing this in relation to prophecy.

But because in it was prefigured the new testament, the men of God who at that time understood this according to the ordering of the times, were indeed the stewards and bearers of the old testament, but are shown to be the heirs of the new. Shall we deny that he belongs to the new testament who says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me"?

Nay, verily, the Holy Spirit is not given by measure, but is poured out altogether on the believer. For if the day rises alike to all, and if the sun is diffused with like and equal light over all, how much more does Christ, who is the true sun and the true day, bestow in His Church the light of eternal life with the like equality! Of which equality we see the sacrament celebrated in Exodus, when the manna flowed down from heaven, and, prefiguring the things to come, showed forth the nourishment of the heavenly bread and the food of the coming Christ. For there, without distinction either of sex or of age, an omer was collected equally by each one. Whence it appeared that the mercy of Christ, and the heavenly grace that would subsequently follow, was equally divided among all; without difference of sex, without distinction of years, without accepting of persons, upon all the people of God the gift of spiritual grace was shed. Assuredly the same spiritual grace which is equally received in baptism by believers, is subsequently either increased or diminished in our conversation and conduct; as in the Gospel the Lord's seed is equally sown, but, according to the variety of the soil, some is wasted, and some is increased into a large variety of plenty, with an exuberant fruit of either thirty or sixty or a hundred fold. But, once more, when each was called to receive a penny, wherefore should what is distributed equally by God be diminished by human interpretation?

Tell me, you who wish to be under the Law, have you not heard the Law?

It must be noted that here the history of Genesis is called the Law: not, as people commonly suppose, the things that are to be done or are to be avoided, but the whole account that is woven together about Abraham and his wives and children is called law (John 15). We read in another place too that the Prophets are also called the Law. He therefore hears the Law who, according to Paul, looks not into its surface but into its marrow. He does not hear the Law who, like the Galatians, follows only the outer bark.

He says rightly, "ye that desire," for the matter was not one of a proper and orderly succession of things but of their own unseasonable contentiousness. It is the Book of Creation which he here calls the Law, which name he often gives to the whole Old Testament.

"Tell me," Paul says, "you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law." But "desire" is fitting; for the matter was one of ill-timed quarrelsomeness on their part.

"do you not hear the law." What, he says, does he say about himself? and furthermore he brings testimony from Genesis. For it is his habit to call the entire Old Testament "the law." "do you not hear the law," that is, the book of Genesis? and see how he constructs his argument. "you who desire," he says, "to be under the law, do you not hear the law." For therefore you will be convinced by him. The law itself, he says (if you know what is in it), advises that you depart from it. If then you are persuaded by it, withdraw from it. But observe the construction.

"For (it is written) that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free woman; but he who was of the bond maid was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise: which things are allegorized" (that is to say, they presaged something besides the literal history); "for these are the two covenants," or the two exhibitions (of the divine plans), as we have found the word interpreted," the one from the Mount Sinai," in relation to the synagogue of the Jews, according to the law, "which gendereth to bondage"-"the other gendereth" (to liberty, being raised) above all principality, and power, and dominion, and every name that is l named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come, "which is the mother of us all," in which we have the promise of (Christ's) holy church; by reason of which he adds in conclusion: "So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond woman, but of the free." In this passage he has undoubtedly shown that Christianity had a noble birth, being sprung, as the mystery of the allegory indicates, from that son of Abraham who was born of the free woman; whereas from the son of the bond maid came the legal bondage of Judaism.

Images prophesy: statutes govern. What that digamy of Abraham portends, the same apostle fully teaches, the interpreter of each testament, just as he likewise lays it down that our "seed" is called in Isaac.

After he had already sufficiently softened them and drawn them to himself, he again enters into dispute, pointing out that the law itself does not wish to be observed: answer me, he says. He also said beautifully: "those who desire," because such a situation depended not on the demand of things, but on their inappropriate passion for disputes. And by the law he means the book of Genesis, since it is his custom to call the entire Old Testament the law.

Above, the Apostle showed the pre-eminence of grace by a human example; here he proves it on the authority of the Scripture.

First, he proposes a fact;

Secondly, he expounds its mystery (v. 24);

Thirdly, he concludes his proposition (v. 31).

As to the first, he does two things:

First, he elicits their attention;

Secondly, he sets forth his intention (v. 22).

He says therefore: "Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, have you not read the law?" As if to say: If you are wise, consider my objections; if you cannot answer them, yield: "Answer, I beseech you, without contention: and speaking that which is just, answer me" (Job 6:29). Now I raise this objection to you. You have either read the Law or not. If you have read it, you ought to know the things written in it. But those things prove that it should be abandoned. If you have not read it, you ought not accept what you do not know: "Let thy eyelids go before thy steps" (Prov 4:25). He says "under the law," i.e., under the burden of the Law. For to shoulder something light is not a feat; but to assume a heavy burden, such as the burden of the Law, seems to be a mark of exceeding stupidity: "This is a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear" (Acts 15:10); which is to be understood of those who wish to live according to the flesh under the Law.

And concerning the allegory of the body: "It is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a slave-girl and the other by a free woman. And the son of the slave-girl was born according to the flesh, but the son of the free woman in virtue of the promise. This is said by way of allegory. For these are the two covenants." There is no need for further explanations, for two peoples are understood here.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But he who was by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he who was by the free woman, through the promise.

It is a matter of very great difficulty to show that only Isaac, who was born of Sarah, was begotten by promise, and not Ishmael too, who sprang from Hagar, the Egyptian bondwoman. For Scripture relates that when, with Sarah persecuting her, Hagar had fled while with child, and an angel had come to her in the desert and was warning her to submit herself to her mistress's authority, that same angel also spoke these words: "Multiplying I will multiply your seed, and it shall not be numbered for multitude" (Gen. 16:10). And afterward, concerning Ishmael (and no one would doubt that these are certainly words of promise): "He shall be a rustic man, his hand over all, and the hands of all over him, and he shall dwell over against the face of all his brothers". But it can be answered that the promise of an angel is of lesser authority than that of God himself. For just as a star does not glow when the sun has risen, so too the words of the angel, in comparison with the promise of God, are obscured, and vanish, and are counted as nothing. This answer does indeed seem to have some weight; but it is at once crushed by the authority of the Scripture that follows. For it is written: "But Abraham said to God: Let this Ishmael live in your sight" (ibid., 17:18 ff.); and God answered him thus: "Behold, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my testament with him, for an everlasting testament, and with his seed after him. But concerning Ishmael: Behold, I have heard you, and behold, I have blessed him, and I will increase him, and I will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve nations, and I will make him a great nation; but my testament I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time, in the coming year". From these words it is evident, by the very speech of God as well, that Ishmael was begotten according to promise. But this too is resolved thus: the promise is properly fulfilled in the giving of the testament, and it is one thing to bless, to increase, to multiply exceedingly, which is written of Ishmael, and another to make an heir through a testament, which is said of Isaac: "I will establish my testament with him, for an everlasting testament, and with his seed after him". And in what follows: "But my testament I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you" (Gen. 17:19). And just as gifts are one thing and the substance another, legacies one thing and the inheritance another (for we read that gifts were handed over to the sons of Abraham's concubines, but to the son of Sarah was left the inheritance of the whole substance), so, as we have said, blessing and legacies are one thing, the testament another. And this too can be said: that concerning Ishmael either the angel or God spoke after he had been conceived, whereas concerning Isaac God made the promise before he was conceived in Sarah's womb. Let this be said for the present, as far as the mediocrity of our talent allows. But if anyone can find something greater, as to how Ishmael, who was born of the bondwoman, is not the son of promise, but Isaac, who was born of the free woman, is, he should rather be listened to. "And if", says the Apostle, "you think anything otherwise, God has revealed this also to you". Now we must briefly reach toward higher things, so as to say that each one of us is at first not born according to promise, as long as he is instructed by the simple words of the Scriptures and still delights in Jewish expositions; but when he has crossed over to more sublime things and has understood the Law as spiritual, then he is begotten of promise; and, to speak more plainly, those who do the works of Abraham are born of Abraham daily. But those who have the spirit of slavery again in fear are begotten of the Egyptian bondwoman, while those who have received the spirit of adoption are begotten of Sarah, the free woman: the freedom with which we have been endowed by Christ. The Lord speaks to the Jews, who still preferred to be sons of the bondwoman: "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31, 32). Hence they too, not knowing that what was said was mystical, say: "We are the seed of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to anyone: how do you say, You will be free? Jesus answered them: Amen, amen I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. But the slave does not remain in the house forever; but the son remains forever". If we are slaves of sin, Hagar the Egyptian has begotten us; if sin does not reign in our mortal body, we are truly sons of God.

He returns again to Abraham, not in the way of repetition, but, inasmuch as the Patriarch's fame was great among the Jews, to show that the types had their origin from thence, and that present events were pictured aforetime in him. Having previously shown that the Galatians were sons of Abraham, now, in that the Patriarch's sons were not of equal dignity, one being by a bondwoman, the other by a free-woman, he shows that they were not only his sons, but sons in the same sense as he that was freeborn and noble. Such is the power of Faith.

"Abraham had two sons." He wishes to show that those who are Abraham's offspring by physical kinship, that is, the Jews, are related by flesh, while those who are brought into Abraham's offspring by faith, that is, the Christians, are offspring of Abraham by promise. But even then, he says, the son according to the flesh, Ishmael, was cast out, just as now his fleshly kin, the Jews, have been. And he calls the son according to the promise, Isaac, who remained inside, just as now, he says, the kin according to the promise, the Christians. Do you see that the law knows how to expel those who belong to it alone, that is, the Jews?

But why enlarge on such a subject? When the very apostle whom our heretics adopt, interprets the law which allows an unmuzzled mouth to the oxen that tread out the corn, not of cattle, but of ourselves; and also alleges that the rock which followed (the Israelites) and supplied them with drink was Christ; teaching the Galatians, moreover, that the two narratives of the sons of Abraham had an allegorical meaning in their course; and to the Ephesians giving an intimation that, when it was declared in the beginning that a man should leave his father and mother and become one flesh with his wife, he applied this to Christ and the church.

Above he said that you are children of Abraham. But since the sons of the patriarch were not of equal dignity, but one was from the slave woman and the other from the free woman, he now shows that you are not only children, but are such as the free and noble one was. Thus has faith ennobled you.

Then when he says, "It is written that Abraham had two sons," he sets forth his intention, saying: The reason I ask whether you have read the Law is that it contains certain things which clearly indicate that the Law must not be retained. And the Apostle mentions specifically the two sons of Abraham. First, he states one point in which they are alike. Secondly, two points in which they differ.

They are alike in having the same father. Hence he says, "It is written that Abraham had two sons." In fact he had more than two, because after Sara's death, he fathered other sons of Cetura, as is stated in Genesis (Ch. 25). But the Apostle does not mention them because they have no role in this allegory. Now two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles, can be signified by those two, i.e., the son of the bondwoman and the son of the free woman—and by the other sons of Cetura, schismatics and heretics. These two peoples are alike in having one father, for the Jews are the children of Abraham according to the flesh, but the Gentiles, by imitating him in faith. Or, they are the sons of Abraham, i.e., of God, Who is the Father of all: "Have we not all one father?" (Mal 2:10); "Is he the God of the Jews only?" (Rom 3:29).

But they differ in two respects: namely, in the condition of their mother, because one is of a bondwoman, as is said in Genesis (Ch. 21) (yet Abraham did not sin by lying with her, because he approached her in conjugal affection and under God's ordinance); the other, namely, Isaac, whom Sara, his wife, begot unto him was born of a free woman: "I will return and come to thee at this time, life accompanying, and Sara thy wife shall have a son" (Gen 18:10).

Now the fact that Isaac was born of a free wife is not enough to make him signify the people who inherit the New Covenant. What is more important is that he was born according to the promise. For he could have been born according to nature's norms from a slave and in the same way from a free woman, just as Abraham received from Katurah, whom he subsequently married, sons not according to a promise but according to nature.

What is the meaning of "after the flesh?" Having said that Faith united us to Abraham, and it having seemed incredible to his hearers, that those who were not begotten by Abraham should be called his sons, he proves that this paradox had actually happened long ago; for that Isaac, born not according to the order of nature, nor the law of marriage, nor the power of the flesh, was yet truly his own son. He was the issue of bodies that were dead, and of a womb that was dead; his conception was not by the flesh, nor his birth by the seed, but the Word of God fashioned Him. Not so in the case of the bondman; He came by virtue of the laws of nature, and after the manner of marriage. Nevertheless, he that was not according to the flesh was more honorable than he that was born after the flesh. Therefore let it not disturb you that ye are not born after the flesh; for from the very reason that ye are not so born, are ye most of all Abraham's kindred. The being born after the flesh renders one not more honorable, but less so, for a birth not after the flesh is more marvellous and more spiritual. And this is plain from the case of those who were born of old time; Ishmael, for instance, who was born according to the flesh, was not only a bondman, but was cast out of his father's house; but Isaac, who was born according to the promise, being a true son and free, was lord of all.

"But the one of the bondwoman." Properly he speaks of Ishmael according to the flesh. For by the law of nature he was born of the flesh; for Isaac was not by the law of the flesh (How could a hundred-year-old man beget?) but by the individual promise.

— [PHOTIUS] Therefore do not assume that being related to Abraham according to the flesh is enough; let this be corrected and let it be believed that unless you are born as children by the promise of Abraham, that is, members and fellow-body of Christ (for he is, by promise, the seed of Abraham), you are outside the promise. [end of the excerpt by Photius] —

Since his words that they are sons of Abraham seemed incredible — whether those who were not born from him according to the flesh are truly children of Abraham — Paul says that even Isaac, Abraham's own son, was not born from him according to the flesh — for how could this be, when nature had become dead? — but the word of God and the promise formed him. Ishmael, on the other hand, was born according to the natural order. This is precisely what the expression "according to the flesh" means. But despite this, the one born according to the flesh is a slave and excluded from the inheritance, while the one born not according to the flesh is the master and heir. What then prevents you, even though you were not born from Abraham according to the flesh, from being his sons? For you too received a new form of existence through the pronouncement of words at the baptismal font.

Also, they differ as to the manner of procreation, because the son of the bondwoman, i.e., Ishmael, was born according to the flesh, but the one of the free woman, i.e., Isaac, according to the promise.

Here a twofold misinterpretation must be avoided. The first is lest we understand "born according to the flesh" as though "flesh" refers here to an act of sin, as it does in Romans (8:13): "If you live according to the flesh, you shall die," and 2 Corinthians (10:3): "For although we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh"—as though Abraham sinned in begetting Ishmael. The other is lest we suppose, when it is said, "by promise," that Isaac was not born according to the flesh, i.e., through a carnal union, but by the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, it must be said that Ishmael was born according to the flesh, i.e., according to the nature of the flesh. For it is natural among men that from a fertile young woman, such as Hagar was, and a man advanced in years a son be born. But that Isaac be born according to promise is beyond the nature of the flesh: for the nature of the flesh cannot achieve that a son be born of an old man and a barren old woman, as Sara was. In Ishmael are signified the Jewish people, who were born according to the flesh; in Isaac are signified the Gentiles, who were born according to the promise, in which Abraham was promised that he would be the father of many nations: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen 22:18).

These women represent the two covenants. Moses, taking the blood of a calf in a vessel, sprinkled the people, saying "this is the blood of the covenant, etc." … The law was given on Mount Sinai. In reciting it to the people, Moses called this the book of the testament. He then sprinkled the people with blood, as I have said. This law held sinners as offenders. They soon began to be slaves of sin, as if they had been made sons of Hagar, as if returning to slavery.

Under the sure guidance of the apostle we see how clearly he shows that these two are to be taken allegorically. One may also consider the sons of Keturah under some figure of things to come. The fact that such people did these things is recorded not without purpose but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We will perhaps find that heresies and schisms are signified in this allegory. For these are sons of the free woman, that is, of the church, and yet they again revert to life according to the flesh, not spiritually according to a promise.

And concerning the allegory of the body: "It is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a slave-girl and the other by a free woman. And the son of the slave-girl was born according to the flesh, but the son of the free woman in virtue of the promise. This is said by way of allegory. For these are the two covenants." There is no need for further explanations, for two peoples are understood here.

Thus, after their simplicity and innocence, did these daughters [of Lot] so speak, imagining that all mankind had perished, even as the Sodomites had done, and that the anger of God had come down upon the whole earth. Wherefore also they are to be held excusable, since they supposed that they only, along with their father, were left for the preservation of the human race; and for this reason it was that they deceived their father. Moreover, by the words they used this fact was pointed out-that there is no other one who can confer upon the elder and younger church the [power of] giving birth to children, besides our Father. Now the father of the human race is the Word of God, as Moses points out when he says, "Is not He thy father who hath obtained thee [by generation], and formed thee, and created thee?" At what time, then, did He pour out upon the human race the life-giving seed-that is, the Spirit of the remission of sins, through means of whom we are quickened? Was it not then, when He was eating with men, and drinking wine upon the earth? For it is said, "The Son of man came eating and drinking;" and when He had lain down, He fell asleep, and took repose. As He does Himself say in David, "I slept, and took repose." And because He used thus to act while He dwelt and lived among us, He says again, "And my sleep became sweet unto me." Now this whole matter was indicated through Lot, that the seed of the Father of all-that is, of the Spirit of God, by whom all things were made-was commingled and united with flesh-that is, with His own workmanship; by which commixture and unity the two synagogues-that is, the two churches-produced from their own father living sons to the living God.

Which things are said through allegory.

Allegory belongs properly to the art of grammar, and how it differs from metaphor or the other tropes, we learn as little children in the schools. It puts forward one thing in the words and signifies another in the sense. The books of the orators (supply: of allegories) and of the poets are full of it. Divine Scripture too is woven together through it in no small part. Understanding this, Paul the apostle (since he had touched secular letters to some extent) used the very word of the figure, so as to call it allegory, as it is called among his own people: namely, so that by this sense he might show more fully the loose use (abusionem) of the Greek word in this place. That Paul knew secular letters, though not to perfection, his own words testify: "One of them, a prophet of their own, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies" (Titus 1:12). This heroic verse is by the poet Epimenides, whom both Plato and the other ancient writers recall. Among the Athenians also, when he was making his defense in the Areopagus, he added this: "As also certain of your poets have said: For we are also his offspring" (Acts 17:28). This half-line is found in Aratus, who wrote about the heaven and the stars. And also this: "Very evil conversations corrupt good morals" (1 Cor. 15:33); it is an iambic trimeter taken from a comedy of Menander. From these and other passages it is evident that Paul was not ignorant of secular letters, and that what he here called allegory he elsewhere called spiritual understanding. As there: "For we know that the Law is spiritual" (Rom. 7:14), in place of saying allegory, or figured allegorically. And elsewhere: "All ate the same spiritual food, and drank the same spiritual drink. And they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:3-4). There is no one who doubts that the manna here, and the eruption of the sudden spring, and the rock itself that follows, are to be taken allegorically. I know what can be objected on the contrary: "Brothers, if a man has been overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of gentleness" (below, 6:1). And in another place: "But the spiritual man judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one" (1 Cor. 2:15): namely, that the word spiritual sounds something other than what we said above. But we call that man spiritual, in that he judges all things and is himself judged by no one, who, knowing all the mysteries of the Scriptures, understands them in a lofty way, and, seeing Christ in the divine books, admits in them nothing of Jewish tradition.

For these are the two testaments, one indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which borders on that which is now Jerusalem, and is in slavery with her sons. But that Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

The explanation of nearly everyone on this passage is this: they interpret Hagar, the slave woman, as the Law and the people of the Jews, but Sarah, the free woman, as the Church, which has been gathered from the Gentiles and which is the mother of the saints, as Paul says: Which is the mother of us all. She did not give birth for a long time, before Christ was born of the Virgin, and she was barren, since Isaac, the laughter of the world, was not yet resounding from the chosen father with the voice of sublime doctrines; for indeed Abraham too is rendered in our language "chosen father with sound." But Hagar, which means παροικία, that is, "sojourning," or "pilgrimage," or "tarrying," begets Ishmael, who only hears the precepts of God and does not do them, a rustic man, bloodthirsty, haunting the deserts, who is an enemy to all his brothers born of the free woman and resists them with a hostile front. Nor is it any wonder that the Old Testament, which was established and written down on Mount Sinai, which is in Arabia and borders on that which is now Jerusalem, is not perpetual: since sojourning, too, is different from perpetual possession, and the name of Mount Sinai sounds "temptation," and Arabia signifies "setting"; and, on the contrary, that Jerusalem which is above, which is free and the mother of the saints, shows that this Jerusalem which exists at present is below, and sunk in what is low and lowest. There are some who understand the two Testaments in another way as well: so that they interpret divine Scripture, the old as well as the new, either as the slave woman or as the free woman, according to the diversity of understanding and the judgment of those who read it; and they would have those who still serve the letter and have the spirit of fear unto slavery be begotten of Hagar the Egyptian, but those who ascend to higher things and are willing to understand allegorically what is written be the sons of Sarah, whose name in our language means ἄρχουσα, that is, "princess," in the feminine gender. And they assert that they adopt this view out of the following necessity: because it would be unjust to understand Moses and all the prophets as born of the slave woman, but any of the Gentiles whatever as born of the free woman. Hence, they say, it is better that we should judge not only, concerning those who are in the Church, some to be slaves and others free according to the diversity of their understandings (as we said above), but also, concerning one and the same man, that as long as he follows the history he is the son of the slave woman; but when, as Jesus opens the Scriptures, his heart has been set on fire, and in the breaking of the bread he has looked upon him whom before he did not see (Luke 24), then he too is called a son of Sarah. Marcion and Manichaeus were unwilling to remove from their codex this passage in which the Apostle said: "Which things indeed are allegorical", and the rest that follows, thinking that it was left there against us: namely, that the Law is to be understood otherwise than it is written; whereas, certainly, even if it is to be taken allegorically (which we too confess, and Paul teaches), it was so composed not at the will of the reader, but by the authority of the writer; and by the very thing which they seemed to keep against us they are crushed: that Moses, the servant of God the Creator, wrote spiritual things, their Apostle too teaching that very thing, he whom they themselves assert to be the preacher of another Christ and of a better God.

Contrary to usage, he calls a type an allegory; his meaning is as follows; this history not only declares that which appears on the face of it, but announces somewhat farther, whence it is called an allegory. And what hath it announced? no less than all the things now present.

For these women are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar. "These:" who? the mothers of those children, Sarah and Hagar; and what are they? Two covenants, two laws. As the names of the women were given in the history, he abides by this designation of the two races, showing how much follows from the very names. How from the names?

"which things are spoken allegorically." That is, they were types of the future covenants: the births of these two children. For not only the visible things, but also other matters are signified by the births. "which things are spoken allegorically." Instead of what is otherwise meant. For it does not recount the history, but teaches the things foreshadowed in the history. For he introduces:

"She is born into slavery." That of the law.

"or is someone named Hagar." He says: "someone" is a covenant, which has the form of Hagar. And therefore: for the mountain Sinai in the language of the Arabs is called Hagar.

Those who are at great pains to pervert the meaning of the divine Scriptures … abuse this saying of the apostle's, as though they thought that they could derive from it the power to suppress the entire sense of holy Scripture in their aspirations to speak "allegorically," as if in the manner of the apostle. They fail to see how great a difference there is between their own position and that of the apostle in this passage. For the apostle does not deny the history or pick apart the events of the distant past, but he has stated them as they happened at the time, while using for his own purpose the interpretation of these events.… He would not have said "referred to one who was born" if he had not believed that person had really existed. There cannot be a simile if one takes away the historical reality itself.

That is, this history not only narrates about this, but points to something else as well. Therefore it is also called an allegory. That was a figure of the present. These two wives allegorically represent the New and Old Testaments. In what way? Hagar represents the Old Testament. For the law was given from Mount Sinai.

Then he discloses the mystery when he says, "Which things are said by an allegory."

First, he tells what sort of mystery it is;

Secondly, he explains it (v. 24).

He says therefore: These things which are written about the two sons "are said by an allegory," i.e., the understanding of one thing under the image of another. For an allegory is a figure of speech or a manner of narrating, in which one thing is said and something else is understood. Hence "allegory" is derived from "alos" (alien) and "goge" (a leading), leading, as it were, to a different understanding.

Here it should be noted that "allegory" is sometimes taken for any mystical meaning: sometimes for only one of the four, which are the historical, allegorical, mystical and the anagogical, which are the four senses of Sacred Scripture, all of which differ in signification. For signification is twofold: one is through words; the other through the things signified by the words. And this is peculiar to the sacred writings and no others, since their author is God in Whose power it lies not only to employ words to signify (which man can also do), but things as well. Consequently, in the other sciences handed down by men, in which only words can be employed to signify, the words alone signify. But it is peculiar to Scripture that words and the very things signified by them signify something. Consequently this science can have many senses. For that signification by which the words signify something pertains to the literal or historical sense. But the signification whereby the things signified by the words further signify other things pertains to the mystical sense.

There are two ways in which something can be signified by the literal sense: either according to the usual construction, as when I say, "the man smiles"; or according to a likeness or metaphor, as when I say, "the meadow smiles." Both of these are used in Sacred Scripture; as when we say, according to the first, that Jesus ascended, and when we say according to the second, that He sits at the right hand of God. Therefore, under the literal sense is included the parabolic or metaphorical.

However, the mystical or spiritual sense is divided into three types. First, as when the Apostle says that the Old Law is the figure of the New Law. Hence, insofar as the things of the Old Law signify things of the New Law, it is the allegorical sense. Then, according to Dionysius in the book On The Heavenly Hierarchy, the New Law is a figure of future glory; accordingly, insofar as things in the New Law and in Christ signify things which are in heaven, it is the anagogical sense. Furthermore, in the New Law the things performed by the Head are examples of things we ought to do—because "What things soever were written were written for our learning" (Rom 15:3)—accordingly insofar as the things which in the New Law were done in Christ and done in things that signify Christ are signs of things we ought to do, it is the moral sense. Examples will clarify each of these. For when I say, "Let there be light," referring literally to corporeal light, it is the literal sense. But if it be taken to mean "Let Christ be born in the Church," it pertains to the allegorical sense. But if one says, "Let there be light," i.e., "Let us be conducted to glory through Christ," it pertains to the anagogical sense. Finally, if it is said "Let there be light," i.e., "Let us be illumined in mind and inflamed in heart through Christ," it pertains to the moral sense.

Above, the Apostle spoke of the mystical sense; here he discloses the mystery:

First, as to the mothers;

Secondly, as to the sons (v. 28).

By the two mothers he understands the two testaments. He says therefore, "These," i.e., the two wives, the bondwoman and the free woman, "are the two testaments," the Old and the New: "I will make with the house of Israel a new covenant" (behold, the New Testament), "not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers" (behold the Old Testament) (Jer 31:31). For the free woman signifies the New Testament and the bondwoman the Old.

To understand what a testament is, we should consider that a testament is a pact or agreement dealing with matters which are confirmed by witnesses. Hence in Scripture in many places in lieu of testament is put pact or agreement. Now, whenever a pact or agreement is struck, a promise is made. Therefore, according to the diversity of promises there is a diversity of testaments. But two things have been promised to us: temporal things in the Old Law, and eternal things in the New: "Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven" (Mt 5:12). Hence these two promises are the two testaments. Hence the Apostle, when he says, "The one from mount Sinai, engendering unto bondage," explains them.

To understand this text, it must be noted with respect to the first that a citizen of a city is called its son, and the city itself his mother: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me" (Lk 23:28); "The noble sons of Sion" (Lam 4:2). Therefore, by the fact that certain ones become citizens of a city, they are made its sons. Now there is a twofold city of God: the one of earth, called the earthly Jerusalem, and the other of Heaven, called the heavenly Jerusalem. Furthermore, men were made citizens of the earthly city through the Old Testament, but of the heavenly through the New.

He says therefore first: I say that it signifies the two Testaments, namely, the Old and the New. And with respect to this he says: "The one from mount Sinai, engendering unto bondage." Wherein is mentioned first of all the place in which it was given, namely, on Mount Sinai, as is recorded in Exodus (Ch. 20). According to a Gloss the mystical rendition of this is that Sinai is interpreted "Commandment." Hence in Ephesians (Ch. 2) the Old Law is called by the Apostle the law of the Commandments. Now a mountain signifies pride: "Before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains" (Jer. 13:16). Hence by this mountain on which the Law was given a twofold pride of the Jews is signified: one by which they were arrogant against God: "I know thy obstinacy and thy most stiff neck" (Deut 31:27); the other by which they boasted at the expense of other nations, thus perverting what is said in Psalm (147:20): "He hath not done in like manner to every nation; and his judgments he hath not made manifest to them."

Secondly, he explains the end for which it was given, namely, not to make them free, but to make them children of a bondwoman, "engendering unto bondage, which is Hagar," i.e., which is signified by Hagar, who engenders unto bondage, namely, the Old Testament. And this it does with respect to three things; namely, feeling, understanding and fruit. As to understanding, indeed, according to knowledge: because in man is a twofold knowledge. One is free, when he knows the truth of things according to themselves; the other is servile, i.e., veiled under figures, as was the knowledge of the Old Testament. As to feeling, the New Law engenders the feeling of love, which pertains to freedom: for one who loves is moved by his own initiative. The Old, on the other hand, engenders the feeling of fear in which is servitude; for one who fears is moved not by his own initiative but by that of another: "You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons" (Rom 8:15). But as to the fruit, the New Law begets sons to whom is owed the inheritance, whereas to those whom the Old Law engenders are owed small presents as to servants: "The servant abideth not in the house forever; but the son abideth forever" (Jn 8:35).

The bond-woman was called Hagar, and "Hagar" is the word for Mount Sinai in the language of that country. So that it is necessary that all who are born of the Old Covenant should be bondmen, for that mountain where the Old Covenant was delivered hath a name in common with the bondwoman. And it includes Jerusalem, for this is the meaning of, "And answereth to Jerusalem that now is." That is, it borders on, and is contiguous to it. "For she is in bondage with her children." What follows from hence? Not only that she was in bondage and brought forth bondmen, but that this Covenant is so too, whereof the bondwoman was a type. For Jerusalem is adjacent to the mountain of the same name with the bondwoman, and in this mountain the Covenant was delivered. Now where is the type of Sarah?

Mount Sinai is in Arabia. There the law was given to Moses. It is near Jerusalem. That mountain Sinai itself, in the language of the Arabs, is called Hagar. And, it is said, therefore: Hagar and Sarah were types of the two covenants. The slave-girl was a type of the Old Covenant, for she begets servants of the law. The free woman is a type of the New Covenant, for she bears those freed from the yoke of the law. For, it is said, Mount Sinai, where the law was given, is neighboring to Jerusalem, and in the Arabs' tongue it has the same name as Hagar the slave, Hagar herself being likewise called, as from the name, the type becoming near to the truth:

"corresponds to," that is, it touches, it borders.

— [PHOTIUS] "to Jerusalem." That is, to the one here on earth. So the upper and the free one, both stand apart. [end of the excerpt by Photius] —

"And she serves." This, he says, is the old covenant given on Mount Sinai; it serves with her children, the Jews. It serves under the law.

And Sinai is located in Arabia, and in the Arabic language it is called "Hagar." It corresponds to Jerusalem, that is, it is in the vicinity of, borders upon, or is likened to the earthly Jerusalem; it is compared with it, is transferred to it, since there is a resemblance between the two. Just as Hagar was a slave and bore children into slavery, so also the law, given from Mount Sinai, which is called Hagar and is likened to Jerusalem, bears into slavery those who hold to it. For in the law there is much that is unfree and slavish, because virtue too was grounded upon perishable reward — upon earthly blessings, I say — and the avoidance of evil was instilled through punishments and fear.

Then he gives the explanation of the mystery when he says: "Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which hath affinity to that Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children." But here a difficulty arises: for since Sinai is almost twenty days journey from Jerusalem, it seems false that Sinai has affinity to [borders on] Jerusalem, as the Apostle says here. To this a Gloss responds in a mystical manner that Sinai is in Arabia, which stands for the abjection or affliction under which the Old Testament was given, because the men under it were oppressed by carnal observances after the manner of slaves and foreigners: "This is a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear" (Acts 15:10). This mountain neighbors on Jerusalem not by a spatial continuity but by a likeness "to that Jerusalem which now is," i.e., to the Jewish people, because just as they love earthly things and for the sake of temporal things are under the bondage of sin, so that mountain engendered unto bondage.

But this does not seem to be the Apostle's intention. For he wants to bring out that from the very place of bondage the Old Testament, which was given on Mount Sinai, engenders unto bondage, because it was given on Sinai not as a place where the children of Israel were to remain, but as a stage in their journey to the promised land. For Jerusalem, too, engenders sons unto bondage. Hence it is with respect to this that Mount Sinai is continuous with her. And this is what he says: which hath affinity to that (i.e., by being part of the continuous route followed by those going to Jerusalem) "Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children," i.e., the bondage of legal observances (from which Christ redeemed us) and of various sins—"He that commits sins is the servant of sin" (Jn 8:34)—and, literally, from bondage under the Romans who were their masters.

Jerusalem, which he calls our mother, represents the Lord's mystery, through which we are reborn into freedom, just as she is free. And she is called heavenly because heaven is her seat. Those to whom she gives birth will be there with her.

WHAT DOES THE PROPHET MEAN WHEN HE SAYS, “REJOICE, O BARREN ONE WHO DOES NOT BEAR; BREAK FORTH AND CRY ALOUD, YOU WHO DO NOT LABOR, BECAUSE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE ARE MORE THAN THOSE OF HER WHO HAS A HUSBAND." — Since the children of earthly Jerusalem have fallen away from God, joy cannot be ascribed to her, but rather sorrow. Therefore, as a criticism to this Jerusalem, the prophet says that that higher Jerusalem should rejoice, the one the Apostle calls “our mother” (Gal. 4:26): because without groaning and pains she has far more children than this Jerusalem, which in tears gives birth carnally, namely, the Jews, whereas the other gives birth to Christians spiritually through faith. He calls her “desolate” because she is the life that Adam, the first man, abandoned when he followed death. So when people are reborn, they return to the life they had deserted. This life is Christ, because he says, “I am the life” (Jn. 14:6). And God the Father is also life, because the Lord says, “As the Father has life, so he has given the Son to have life” (Jn. 5:26). Without doubt the Holy Spirit is life as well, since the Lord says, “He will receive from what is mine” (Jn. 16:15). Whoever receives from life is necessarily life. Therefore the three are one life. This is the life by faith in whom we are reborn. She is our mother, as we read in Genesis, because she, namely, Life, is the mother of all the living (Gen. 3:20). And who are the living, if not those who believe?

WHAT IS IT THAT THE PROPHET SAYS: REJOICE, BARREN WOMAN, YOU WHO DO NOT GIVE BIRTH; BREAK FORTH AND CRY OUT, YOU WHO DO NOT LABOR IN CHILDBIRTH, BECAUSE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE ARE MORE NUMEROUS THAN THOSE OF HER WHO HAS A HUSBAND? — In this passage we understand two mothers: the heavenly and the earthly, that is, the free Jerusalem, of which the Apostle says that she is our mother, and this Jerusalem which he says is in slavery with her children, that is, the Jews. For the prophet, proclaiming the coming of the Lord and seriously calling out in joyful voice for the time of grace, exhorts the heavenly Jerusalem, called “desolate” because she did not yet have dwelling in her the children generated through faith, to rejoice. For the time had come when she should have the children foretold long ago, and many more than those of this Jerusalem, because Christians have surpassed the number of Jews. She is therefore called barren because she is a virgin, who does not bring forth a son through physical union and embrace, but spiritually through faith alone. Therefore she is not said to be in labor; for one who is in labor suffers pains. This one cries out instead in the joy of human salvation. But earthly Jerusalem is said to have a husband because she gave birth carnally. For the city is presented as a kind of mother, just as that heavenly dwelling to which we are called is called our mother.

As the moon is the daughter of the sun and receives its light from it, likewise the Church Militant receives hers from that Jerusalem which is above. Wherefore the Apostle calls her our mother, for she is the mother of those influences by which we are made to be the sons of God. The heavenly hierarchy is a model of the Church Militant. It is fitting, then, that the Church Militant have orders corresponding to the model hierarchy.

The image of our mind must therefore be clothed with the three theological virtues, by which the soul is purified, illuminated, and perfected, and thus the image is reformed and made conformable to the supernal Jerusalem and becomes a part of the Church militant, which is the offspring, according to the Apostle, of the heavenly Jerusalem. For he says: That Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother.

"If ye hasten to fly out of Egypt, and repair beyond the Red Sea into the wilderness," that is, from earthly intercourse to the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of the living; "If, moreover, again you return into Egypt," that is, into earthly intercourse, "ye shall die as men." For mortal, he says, is every generation below, but immortal that which is begotten above, for it is born of water only, and of spirit, being spiritual, not carnal. But what (is born) below is carnal, that is, he says, what is written. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." This, according to them, is the spiritual generation.

Now all these things being such as they are, cannot be understood in reference to super-celestial matters; "for God," it is said, "will show to the whole earth that is under heaven thy glory." But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition], and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above, of which the prophet Isaiah says, "Behold, I have depicted thy walls upon my hands, and thou art always in my sight," And the apostle, too, writing to the Galatians, says in like manner, "But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." He does not say this with any thought of an erratic Aeon, or of any other power which departed from the Pleroma, or of Prunicus, but of the Jerusalem which has been delineated on [God's] hands. And in the Apocalypse John saw this new [Jerusalem] descending upon the new earth.

One and the same Jerusalem can be understood in a fourfold way: historically as the city of the Jews, allegorically as the church of Christ, anagogically as the heavenly city of God, which is the mother of all, and tropologically as the human soul, which is often upbraided or praised under this name by the Lord.

Those therefore, who are born of her are not bondmen. Thus the type of the Jerusalem below was Hagar, as is plain from the mountain being so called; but of that which is above is the Church. Nevertheless he is not content with these types, but adds the testimony of Isaiah to what he has spoken...

"the upper Jerusalem." The one is the figure of Hagar; in these things, behold also the figure of Sarah. The figure of her is the upper Jerusalem, that is, the heavenly. For that city of the faithful is free from the observances of the law, and is our mother, he says. Therefore Hagar fulfills the figure of the Old Covenant and of the Jews. But Sarah of the New Covenant and of us. And he called the upper Jerusalem also the Church.

Hear also the Apostle proclaiming concerning these things "according to the wisdom which had been given to him in his ministry": "but the Jerusalem" he says "which is above is free, which is the mother of us all". Just as, therefore, Egypt, that earthly region, is called for the children of Israel a "house of bondage" in comparison with Judaea and Jerusalem, which are made for them a house of liberty, so in comparison with the heavenly Jerusalem, which is, so to speak, the mother of liberty, this whole world and all things that are in this world are a "house of bondage".

The temples of our houses of prayer are of the world because the buildings thereof are derived from the world and constructed therein; but they are spiritual things above the world, because they are types of that Church of the firstborn, whose names are inscribed in heaven, which is Jerusalem the free, the mother of us all. And all the altars and all the other vessels of the service of the Mysteries, and everything with which we perform the Mysteries which have been delivered to us, according to natural origin are of the world; but by reason of the greatness of those things which are administered in them they are exalted and most high, and are esteemed by us as being above nature, for they are the likeness of the living and spiritual powers which are in heaven, in which the service of the hidden Mysteries of God and of His will are perfected.

These things, brethren, I write to you concerning righteousness, not because I take anything upon myself, but because ye have invited me to do so. For neither I, nor any other such one, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul. He, when among you, accurately and stedfastly taught the word of truth in the presence of those who were then alive. And when absent from you, he wrote you a letter, which, if you carefully study, you will find to be the means of building you up in that faith which has been given you, and which, being followed by hope, and preceded by love towards God, and Christ, and our neighbour, "is the mother of us all." For if any one be inwardly possessed of these graces, he hath fulfilled the command of righteousness, since he that hath love is far from all sin.

Do you know how, like a man, to enter "lawfully" upon this contest and "strive," [2 Timothy 2:5] that, in the might of the Holy Spirit, you choose this for yourself, that you may be crowned with a crown of light, and that they may lead you about in triumph through "the Jerusalem above"? [Galatians 4:26] If so be, then, that you long for all these things, conquer the body; conquer the appetites of the flesh; conquer the world in the Spirit of God; conquer these vain things of time, which pass away and grow old, and decay, and come to an end; conquer the dragon; [Revelation 12:7] conquer the lion; [1 Peter 5:8] conquer the serpent; [2 Corinthians 11:3] conquer Satan — through Jesus Christ, who does strengthen you by the hearing of His words and the divine Eucharist.

But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem, "let down from heaven," [Revelation 21:2] which the apostle also calls "our mother from above;" [Galatians 4:26] and, while declaring that our πολίτευμα, or citizenship, is in heaven, he predicates of it that it is really a city in heaven. This both Ezekiel had knowledge of [Ezekiel 48:30-35] and the Apostle John beheld. [Revelation 21:10-23] And the word of the new prophecy which is a part of our belief, attests how it foretold that there would be for a sign a picture of this very city exhibited to view previous to its manifestation. This prophecy, indeed, has been very lately fulfilled in an expedition to the East. For it is evident from the testimony of even heathen witnesses, that in Judæa there was suspended in the sky a city early every morning for forty days. As the day advanced, the entire figure of its walls would wane gradually, and sometimes it would vanish instantly. We say that this city has been provided by God for receiving the saints on their resurrection, and refreshing them with the abundance of all really spiritual blessings, as a recompense for those which in the world we have either despised or lost; since it is both just and God-worthy that His servants should have their joy in the place where they have also suffered affliction for His name's sake. Of the heavenly kingdom this is the process. After its thousand years are over, within which period is completed the resurrection of the saints, who rise sooner or later according to their deserts there will ensue the destruction of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgment: we shall then be changed in a moment into the substance of angels, even by the investiture of an incorruptible nature, and so be removed to that kingdom in heaven of which we have now been treating, just as if it had not been predicted by the Creator, and as if it were proving Christ to belong to the other god and as if he were the first and sole revealer of it.

But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem, "let down from heaven," which the apostle also calls "our mother from above; " and, while declaring that our poli/teuma, or citizenship, is in heaven, he predicates of it that it is really a city in heaven.

I find it was in their foresight of all this, that the heavenly intelligences gazed with admiration on "the Jerusalem which is above," and by the mouth of Isaiah said long ago: "Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves with their young ones, unto me? " Now, as Christ has prepared for us this ascension into heaven, He must be the Christ of whom Amos spoke: "It is He who builds His ascent up to the heavens," even for Himself and His people.

In that is the type of Hagar. Look also at the type of Sarah; for she prefigured the heavenly Jerusalem. It is the city of believers, from which our law also comes: for the Gospel is from heaven. This city is free from the observances of the law, and everything in it is ordered freely and with noble dignity. For nothing among us is done for the sake of a visible reward, nor are we threatened with bodily punishments, but both the promises are more divine, and the punishments are befitting the noble — namely, excommunication from the mystical table and penances.

Then when he says, "But that Jerusalem which is above is free," he discloses the mystery of the free woman.

First, he discloses the mystery;

Secondly, he refers to a prophecy (v. 27).

The first can be understood in two ways, accordingly as we understand this mother to be the one by whom we are engendered, which is the Church Militant, or the mother whose sons we become, which is the Church Triumphant: "He hath regenerated us unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet. 1:3). Hence we are so generated in the present Church Militant as to arrive at the Triumphant. Therefore in explaining it thus, our mother is described by four things: by her sublimity, when he says, "above"; secondly, by name, when he says, "Jerusalem"; thirdly by her freedom, when he says, "is free"; fourthly, by her fecundity when he says, "our mother."

She is sublime on account of the face to face vision of God and the perfect enjoyment of God; and this, as to the Church Triumphant: "Then shalt thou see, and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged" (Is 60:5); "Mind the things that are above" (Col 3:2). Again she is sublime through faith and hope as to the Church Militant: "Our conversation is in heaven" (Phil 3:20); "Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights?" (Cant 8:5). Further, she is a peacemaker, because she is Jerusalem, i.e., vision of peace. This belongs to the Church Triumphant as having perfect peace: "Who hath placed peace in thy borders" (Ps 147:14); "My people shall sit in the beauty of peace" (Is 32:18). Likewise it pertains to the Church Militant which possesses the peace of resting in Christ: "In me you shall have peace" (Jn 16:33). Furthermore, she is free: "Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption" (Rom 8:21). And this both as to the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant according to Apocalypse (21:2): "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God." Finally, she is fruitful, because she is our mother: Militant as engendering; Triumphant as the one whose sons we become: "Shall Sion say: This man and that man is born of her" (Ps 86:5); "Thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side" (Is 60:4).

Sarah signifies the heavenly Jerusalem, having been deserted for a long time by her husband's embraces because of her perceived sterility. For men such as Abraham did not use women to satisfy lust but for the procreation of offspring. Now to her sterility age had also been added.… The age of Isaac's parents serves to signify that, new though the people of the New Covenant are, their predestination lies nonetheless with God and is that heavenly Jerusalem of old.

He is not undone, he says, but revolves as it were, and goes round himself. Moreover, also, cities in which we dwell, because we turn and go round in them, are denominated "Poleis." In this manner, he says, the Phrygians call this one "Aipolis," inasmuch as he everywhere ceaselessly turns all things, and changes them into their own peculiar (functions). And the Phrygians style him, he says, "very fruitful" likewise, "because," says he, "more numerous are the children of the desolate one, than those of her which hath an husband; " that is, things by being born again become immortal and abide for ever in great numbers, even though the things that are produced may be few; whereas things carnal, he says, are all corruptible, even though very many things (of this type) are produced. For this reason, he says, "Rachel wept for her children, and would not," says (the prophet), "be comforted; sorrowing for them, for she knew," says he, "that they are not." But Jeremiah likewise utters lamentation for Jerusalem below, not the city in Phoenicia, but the corruptible generation below. For Jeremiah likewise, he says, was aware of the Perfect Man, of him that is born again-of water and the Spirit not carnal. At least Jeremiah himself remarked: "He is a man, and who shall know him? " In this manner, (the Naassene) says, the knowledge of the Perfect Man is exceedingly profound, and difficult of comprehension. For, he says, the beginning of perfection is a knowledge of man, whereas knowledge of God is absolute perfection.

Wherefore the Church beareth much fruit of the redeemed: because no longer Moses (as) mediator nor Elijah (as) messenger, but the Lord Himself has redeemed us, granting many more children to the Church than to the first Synagogue; as Isaiah declared, saying: "Rejoice thou barren, that didst not bear." The barren is the Church, which never at all in former times presented sons to God. "Cry out and call, thou that didst not travail: for the children of the desolate are more than of her which hath an husband." Now the first Synagogue had as husband the Law.

For it is written: Rejoice, barren one, you who do not bear; break forth and cry out, you who do not travail: for many more are the children of the desolate than of her who has a husband (Isa. 54:1.)

The synagogue had the Law as her husband; and, according also to the prophecy of Hannah, she was once fruitful in children (1 Sam. 1). But the barren Church, without Christ as husband, without any address of the Bridegroom's word, lay long in the desert. But after the synagogue received the bill of divorce into her hands, and turned all her husband's ornaments into the ornament of an idol, then the husband, his former girdle rotting, wove another belt for his loins, another loincloth out of the Gentiles; and she, as soon as she was joined to her husband, conceived and gave birth. And in Isaac the Lord cries out through the prophet: "Is a nation born all at once?" (Isa. 66:8): when in a single day, in the Acts of the Apostles, three thousand and five thousand men believed (Acts 3 ff.). Nor do I think it necessary for us to speak of the Christian multitude and of the fewness of the Jews, since the banners of the cross shine forth in the whole world, and a Jew scarcely appears in the cities, rare and conspicuous.

Who is this who before was "barren," and "desolate?" Clearly it is the Church of the Gentiles, that was before deprived of the knowledge of God? Who, "she which hath the husband?" plainly the Synagogue. Yet the barren woman surpassed her in the number of her children, for the other embraces one nation, but the children of the Church have filled the country of the Greeks and of the Barbarians, the earth and sea, the whole habitable world. Observe how Sarah by acts, and the Prophet by words, have described the events about to befal us. Observe too, that he whom Isaiah called barren, Paul hath proved to have many children, which also happened typically in the case of Sarah. For she too, although barren, became the mother of a numerous progeny. This however does not suffice Paul, but he carefully follows out the mode whereby the barren woman became a mother, that in this particular likewise the type might harmonize with the truth. ...

"For it is written." And therefore, he says, Sarah was a type of the Jerusalem above, that is, of the Church, because she too being barren and without children, like the church once from the Gentiles, triumphed in offspring over Hagar; and the Church triumphed over the synagogue. And Isaiah is witness to these things: "Rejoice, you barren, who do not bear." (Isa. 54:1) Is Isaiah speaking to the Church composed of Gentiles? He commands her to cry out with joy. "Break forth now," either the barrenness into fruitfulness, or break forth the voice of gladness.

"because many are the children of the desert." He calls the Church from among the nations a desert and barren. For it was a desert of every good thing before they believed in Christ.

"more than of her who has a husband." He called him a man having or directing, governing and providing for the synagogue of the Jews: or as formerly enjoying the providence of God.

"Rejoice, you barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, you that travailest not; for she that is desolate has many more children than she that has an husband." In that He said, "Rejoice, you barren that bearest not," He referred to us, for our church was barren before that children were given to her. But when He said, "Cry out, you that travailest not," He means this, that we should sincerely offer up our prayers to God, and should not, like women in travail, show signs of weakness. And in that He said, "For she that is desolate has many more children than she that has an husband," [He means] that our people seemed to be outcast from God, but now, through believing, have become more numerous than those who are reckoned to possess God.

He is not satisfied with these prefigurations, but refers to the testimony of Isaiah, who calls the church from the Gentiles barren and not having a husband; and indeed, she was deprived of the knowledge of God and childless, since she produced not a single prophet of God or teacher. And the Jewish synagogue he calls the one having a husband, either because she had the law, which guided her actions, or because she had God Himself.

"Shout" is used instead of "shout with a voice of joy," because you now have a multitude of children: both prophets and teachers and sons of God have come from you; you have given birth to the whole world, and not just one nation, like the Jewish synagogue.

"For it is written," namely in Isaiah (54:1) according to the Septuagint. Here is mentioned the prophecy through which is proved, first of all, that the mother referred to is free, and secondly, that she is fruitful. With respect to the first, it should be noted that in a fertile woman there is first sorrow in giving birth, but this is followed by joy in beholding the child: "A woman when she is in labor hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth no more her anguish for joy that a man is born into the world" (Jn 16:21). But a barren woman neither suffers the pangs of birth nor has joy in a child. Again there is a difference between bearing and travailing. For the latter refers to the effort to bear, whereas the former refers to the releasing of the foetus now formed. Therefore the fertile woman experiences pain in travail but joy in bearing; the sterile woman, on the other hand, experiences neither the pain of travail nor the joy of bearing.

But these are the two things which the prophet announces to the barren woman: "Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not: break forth and cry, thou that travailest not." Herein he speaks of Jerusalem, which he calls free and is signified by the barren Sara. For the Church was barren, namely, the Church Militant, of the Gentiles before their conversion when they offered their sons not to God but to the devil. Hence it is said to Babylon: "Barrenness and widowhood will come upon thee, because of the multitude of thy sorceries" (Is 47:9). The Church Triumphant, too, was barren before the passion of Christ, because to her were born no sons who entered into glory, save in hope. For a mighty engine of war blocked the entrance to Paradise, so that no one might enter. To this barren one he says: "Rejoice thou that bearest not." As if to say: The barren, as has been said, are sorrowful, not because they bear, but because they bear not: "As Anna had her heart full of grief, she prayed to the Lord, shedding many tears" (1 Kg. 1:10). But you shall rejoice in the great number of your children: "Then shall thy heart wonder and be enlarged," i.e., you will show the joy in your soul outwardly (Is 60:5). For there are two things in childbirth: the pain from the rupturing of the membrane enclosing the child in the womb, and the crying from pain. Hence he says, "thou that travailest not," i.e., the Church Militant, that makes no effort to bear through desire, and the Church Triumphant, that does not cry for travail; or because the time for having sons has not yet come, "break forth," i.e., show outwardly the joy you have within and cry with sounds of praise: "Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet" (Is 58:1). These two things, namely, to cry and to break forth, pertain to freedom.—Thus the freedom of the mother is made manifest.

He follows with the fruitfulness: "for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband." But since it was said above that the free Church is signified by Sara, there seems to be some doubt whether Sara was desolate. I answer that she was made desolate by Abraham, as it is said here, not by a divorce but with respect to the work of the flesh. For Abraham resorted to the work of the flesh not for the pleasure but to obtain a child. Therefore when he learned that Sara was barren, he abandoned her; not by forsaking the marriage bed, but by not resorting to her from precisely the time that Sara introduced the bondwoman to him. By this we are given to understand that the Church of the Gentiles was left desolate by Christ, because Christ had not yet come; and that the Church Triumphant was desolate of men, for whom no means of entry was open. Of this desolate woman, i.e., the Church of the Gentiles, there are many children, i.e., "more than of her," namely, the synagogue, "that hath a husband," namely, Moses: "The barren hath borne many: and she that had many children is weakened" (1 Kg. 2:5). And this is due to the coming of the spouse, namely, Christ, by Whom she had been left desolate not by want of love, but because the bearing of children had been delayed.

For not alone upon Abraham's account did He say these things, but also that He might point out how all who have known God from the beginning, and have foretold the advent of Christ, have received the revelation from the Son Himself; who also in the last times was made visible and passable, and spake with the human race, that He might from the stones raise up children unto Abraham, and fulfil the promise which God had given him, and that He might make his seed as the stars of heaven, as John the Baptist says: "For God is able from these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." Now, this Jesus did by drawing us off from the religion of stones, and bringing us over from hard and fruitless cogitations, and establishing in us a faith like to Abraham. As Paul does also testify, saying that we are children of Abraham because of the similarity of our faith, and the promise of inheritance.

If, then, God promised him the inheritance of the land, yet he did not receive it during all the time of his sojourn there, it must be, that together with his seed, that is, those who fear God and believe in Him, he shall receive it at the resurrection of the just. For his seed is the Church, which receives the adoption to God through the Lord, as John the Baptist said: "For God is able from the stones to raise up children to Abraham." Thus also the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians: "But ye, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of the promise." And again, in the same Epistle, he plainly declares that they who have believed in Christ do receive Christ, the promise to Abraham thus saying, "The promises were spoken to Abraham, and to his seed. Now He does not say, And of seeds, as if [He spake] of many, but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." And again, confirming his former words, he says, "Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham. But the Scripture, fore-seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, declared to Abraham beforehand, That in thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which are of faith shall be blessed with faithful Abraham." Thus, then, they who are of faith shall be blessed with faithful Abraham, and these are the children of Abraham. Now God made promise of the earth to Abraham and his seed; yet neither Abraham nor his seed, that is, those who are justified by faith, do now receive any inheritance in it; but they shall receive it at the resurrection of the just. For God is true and faithful; and on this account He said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

But we, brothers, are children of promise according to Isaac.

That the Apostle and those like him are children of promise according to Isaac presents no difficulty of understanding. But since Origen, in expounding this passage, set down the Apostle's text thus: "But you, brothers, are children of promise according to Isaac", the question is raised how he now calls the Galatians, whom he had called senseless, and of whom he had said that they had begun in the spirit and were finishing in the flesh, children of the promise according to Isaac. We say, therefore, that the Apostle calls them children of the promise according to Isaac for this reason: because he does not utterly despair of their salvation, and he reckons that they will once more return to the spirit in which they had begun, and become children of the free woman. But if they are brought to completion in the flesh, they are children of the slave woman.

It is not merely that the Church was barren like Sarah, or became a mother of many children like her, but she bore them in the way Sarah did. As it was not nature but the promise of God which rendered Sarah a mother, [for the word of God which said, "At the time appointed I will return unto thee, and Sarah shall have a son," (Gen. 18:14.) this entered into the womb and formed the babe,] so also in our regeneration it is not nature, but the Words of God spoken by the Priest, (the faithful know them,) which in the Bath of water as in a sort of womb, form and regenerate him who is baptized.

Wherefore if we are sons of the barren woman, then are we free. But what kind of freedom, it might be objected, is this, when the Jews seize and scourge the believers, and those who have this pretence of liberty are persecuted? for these things then occurred, in the persecution of the faithful. Neither let this disturb you, he replies, this also is anticipated in the type, for Isaac, who was free, was persecuted by Ishmael the bondman. ...

Not only was the Church barren as Sarah was, nor afterwards did she have much offspring like her, but it was begotten in the same manner. For Sarah did not bear Isaac by the law of nature, but by divine grace. Nor does the Church give birth by the law of nature in the baptismal font, but by divine grace. Do you see how the type in every respect agrees with the truth?

"according to Isaac." For we were not begotten according to nature, but according to grace, as Isaac through the promise.

He says, "But we, brothers, are children of the promise according to Isaac." Therefore being free, we ought not to be enslaved under the law of Moses.

We were born not according to nature but according to grace. For, just as in Isaac's case, it was not the law of nature but that of the gospel that fashioned us. Thus the promise given to Abraham engendered us.

The Church, he says, being barren like Sarah, not only became the mother of many children, as she did, but also gave birth in the same manner as she. Just as it was not nature but the promise that made her a mother (for He Who said, "I will return to you at this same time" (Gen. 18:10) entered the womb and formed the fruit), so also with us, as was said above, the divine words pronounced at baptism accomplish a new creation.

Having disclosed the mystery as to the mothers, he now discloses it as to the sons.

First, he differentiates between the sons;

Secondly, he sets down the main conclusion (v. 31).

He distinguishes the sons on three counts:

First, as to the manner of origin;

Secondly, as to the feeling of love (v. 29).

Thirdly, as to their right to the inheritance (v. 30).

The manner of origin, according to which the sons of Abraham are born, is twofold: one is by origin according to the flesh, as Ishmael, of the bondwoman; the other not according to the flesh, as Isaac, of the free woman—not because he was not born in the way of nature, but because, as has been said, it was beyond the natural power of the flesh for a son to be born of a barren old woman. Two people are understood by these two sons: by Ishmael is understood the Jewish people, who derived from Abraham by carnal propagation; but by Isaac, the people of the Gentiles, who descended from Abraham by imitation of his faith. Hence he says: "Now we, brethren," i.e., the faithful, both Jew and Gentile, as Isaac was, i.e., in the line of Isaac, "are the children of the promise" that was made to Abraham: "They that are the children of the promise are accounted for the seed" (Gen 21; Rom 9:8). But note that the children of Abraham according to the flesh are, literally, the Jewish people; but, mystically, the ones who come to the faith for the sake of carnal and temporal goods.

But as then the one who had been born according to the flesh persecuted the one according to the spirit, so it is now also. But what does the Scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac. Therefore, brothers, we are not sons of the bondwoman, but of the free woman. With which freedom Christ has made us free.

I do not think that we can find where Ishmael persecuted Isaac, but only this: that when the son of the Egyptian woman, who was the elder by birth, was playing with Isaac, Sarah was indignant and said to Abraham: "Cast out the bondwoman and her son: For the son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with my son Isaac" (Gen. 21:10). And surely simple play among infants does not deserve expulsion and disinheritance. But the Apostle, as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and taught at the feet of the master Gamaliel (who once restrained in council the Pharisees raging against the Lord), understood from the words of Sarah, who said: "for the son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with my son Isaac", that that play had not been simple. But because perhaps Ishmael, as the elder by birth, and circumcised at a time when he could already understand and feel what he suffered, was claiming the birthright for himself, Scripture called the quarrel of the little ones play. Hence Sarah too, not bearing these words, and not enduring the habit of the bondwoman's son, who from an early age claimed the birthright for himself, broke out in speech: "Cast out the bondwoman with her son: For the son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with my son Isaac". And when it seemed hard to Abraham (for more is always owed to the firstborn) that Ishmael should not only cease to be the first, but should not even receive an equal portion with his younger brother, God, who willed that the free woman be within and the bondwoman be driven out of doors, confirms Sarah's words and speaks to Abraham: "Let it not be hard in your sight concerning the boy and the bondwoman. In all that Sarah shall say to you, hear her voice: for in Isaac shall your seed be called". As then, therefore, the elder brother Ishmael persecuted Isaac, who was still nursing and little, claiming for himself the prerogative of circumcision, claiming for himself the birthright: so now also Israel according to the flesh is raised up, is puffed up, is exalted against the younger brother, the Christian people from the Gentiles. Let us consider the madness of the Jews, who killed both the Lord and the prophets, and persecuted the apostles, and oppose the will of God: and we shall see that far greater persecutions, as histories also teach us, have been stirred up by the Jews against the Christians than by the Gentiles. Do we wonder at the Jews? Today also those who are little ones in Christ and live carnally persecute those who have been born of water and the spirit, and who, rising with Christ, seek the things that are above, not below. Let them do what they will: let them with Ishmael persecute Isaac: they will be cast out of doors with their mother, the Egyptian bondwoman, nor will they receive the inheritance, which he alone who was born of the promise shall obtain. And elegant too is this, that he who was born according to the flesh persecutes the spiritual one. For the spiritual man never persecutes the carnal, but pardons him as a rustic brother: he knows that he can make progress in time. And if ever he sees the son of the Egyptian woman angry, he remembers the one father, who created light, oxen and the gnat, and that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware.

What! does all this consolation consist in showing that freemen are persecuted by bond-men? By no means, he says, I do not stop here, listen to what follows, and then, if you be not pusillanimous under persecution, you will be sufficiently comforted. And what is it that follows? "Cast out the son of the handmaid, for he shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman." Behold the reward of tyranny for a season, and of recklessness out of season! the son is cast out of his father's house, and becomes, together with his mother, an exile and a wanderer. And consider too the wisdom of the remark; for he says not that he was cast forth merely because he persecuted, but that he should not be heir. For this punishment was not exacted from him on account of his temporary persecution, (for that would have been of little moment, and nothing to the point,) but he was not suffered to participate in the inheritance provided for the son. And this proves that, putting the persecution aside, this very thing had been typified from the beginning, and did not originate in the persecution, but in the purpose of God. Nor does he say, "the son of Abraham shall not be heir," but, "the son of the handmaid," distinguishing him by his inferior descent. Now Sarah was barren, and so is the Gentile Church; observe how the type is preserved in every particular, as the former, through all the by-gone years, conceived not, and in extreme old age became a mother, so the latter, when the fulness of time is come, brings forth. And this the prophets have proclaimed, saying, "Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for more are the children of the desolate than of her which hath the husband." And hereby they intend the Church; for she knew not God, but as soon as she knew Him, she surpassed the fruitful synagogue.

— [THEODORET] Let this not trouble us either, that those entrusted are driven out by the unbelievers. For we find something of this kind also in the type, but it in no way prevailed against Isaac. [end of the excerpt by Theodoret] —

"Yet as at that time." And from that very fact that the faithful were persecuted by the Jews (for they were then persecuted), he shows the pattern to be true. For even Ishmael, who was born according to the flesh, persecuted Isaac, who was born according to the Spirit and the promise. ...

Then, lest someone say: what kind of freedom is this, when the Jews scourge the believers, and those who think themselves free are subjected to persecution? — he says that it was the same way back then too. Ishmael persecuted Isaac, but nevertheless this in no way prevented the one being persecuted from being the lawful son of Abraham and the master of the one persecuting. Thus, from this very persecution of us by the Jews, our likeness to Isaac and our kinship with Abraham is revealed.

Secondly, they are distinguished according to affection, because "he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was after the spirit." But this raises a difficulty. First, because it is not recorded that Ishmael persecuted Isaac, but only that they played together: "When Sara had seen the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, playing with Isaac her son, she said to Abraham: Cast out this bondwoman and her son" (Gen 21:9). I answer that the Apostle calls this playing a persecution, because there is deception when an older person plays with a younger one; since the older person, in playing with the younger, intends to deceive him. Or, as some say, Ishmael compelled Isaac to adore the clay images he fashioned. By this he was teaching him to be turned from the worship of the one God; and this was a considerable persecution, since it is a greater evil to cause spiritual death than bodily. Furthermore, in Genesis this is called a game because he did this under the guise of a game.

There is another difficulty, namely, how the children according to the flesh persecuted and do persecute the children according to the spirit? The answer is that from the beginning of the early Church the Jews persecuted Christians, as is obvious in the Acts of the Apostles, and they would do the same even now, if they were able. Now, however, those who are carnal persecute spiritual men in the Church even as to the body; those, namely, who seek glory and temporal gain in the Church. Hence a Gloss says that "all who seek from the Lord earthly aggrandizement in the Church pertain to this Ishmael. They are the ones who oppose those who are making spiritual progress and slander them. They have iniquity in their mouth, and craft and deceit on their tongues." But the ones who spiritually persecute the spiritual sons are the haughty and the hypocrites. For sometimes they who are plainly carnal and evil recognize their guilt and humble themselves before the good; but the foolish persecute in others the goodness they themselves lack.

A further question arises from the fact that heretics whom we persecute say that they are the ones born according to the spirit and we according to the flesh. I answer that there are two kinds of persecution: the good one is that in which a person persecutes another to lead him back to good. And this is what just men do to evil men, and spiritual men to carnal men; either to correct them, if they want to be converted, or, if they are obstinate, to destroy them, lest they contaminate the flock of the Lord. The other type of persecution is evil, namely, when a person persecutes another in order to pervert him; and this is what those who are born according to the flesh do to those who are born according to the spirit.

"Since, when we were children," says the same apostle, "we were kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world. And the child, though heir, differeth nothing from a servant, till the time appointed of the father." Philosophers, then, are children, unless they have been made men by Christ. "For if the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free," at least he is the seed of Abraham, though not of promise, receiving what belongs to him by free gift. "But strong meat belongeth to those that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." "For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe," and not yet acquainted with the word, according to which he has believed and works, and not able to give a reason in himself.

Above, where the chapter was being interpreted, that: "you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law," (Gal. 4:21) we said this was contrived concerning Paul, namely that even the law itself, that is the old covenant, seemed to need to permit the law and Judaism, and behold it has been demonstrated. For when Hagar was a type of the Jews and of the old law, and Sarah and Isaac of the faithful and of the new covenant, in that very old covenant Hagar and Ishmael were cast out (for, he says, she cast out the bondwoman and her son), plainly in that very old one the expulsion of the Jews was foreshadowed. Do you see that one ought not to hold to the law? Because those who trusted in it were cast out? Behold then that even the old covenant in its power counseled not to hold to the law, to cast out those who adhere only to it, that is, the Jews. For if one must always conform to the law and the old covenant, Hagar and her child, who were a type of the Jews, would not have been cast out. Isaac alone inherited, who was a type of those who trust in Christ. And again, she was not cast out merely because she was persecuted, but that she might not become a sharer of the inheritance.

By "the words of Scripture" he means those spoken of Sarah explaining the goal of the Scripture, for the sake of which he has written these things afresh, so that after the truth the type also may be explained.

Lest someone say: so what of it? Is it consoling for believers, who are now being persecuted by the Jews, that Isaac too was persecuted back then? – he says: listen to what Scripture says, and you will receive instruction: for the temporary persecution that Ishmael inflicted on Isaac, he is completely cast out. And as punishment he not only suffers banishment, but much more – he is deprived of participation in what has been prepared for the son. And this punishment is all the more severe because it has its origin not in the persecution, but in the decision and decree of God. Note also that the one who was not deemed worthy of the inheritance he called the son not of Abraham, but of the bondwoman, indicating that he is also of very lowly origin. So then, look, he has proven that the law itself points to its own abolition, since everything that was said, being a foreshadowing of what is now taking place, is written in the law, that is, in the books of the Old Testament.

Finally, as to their right to the inheritance, they are distinguished by the authority of Scripture: "Cast out the bondwoman and her son" (Gen 21:10). By this we are given to understand that the Jews and persecutors of the Christian religion, as well as carnal and evil Christians, will be cast out from the kingdom of heaven: "Many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 8:11); "Without are dogs and sorcerers" (Rev 22:15). Furthermore, the bondwoman, i.e., vice and sin itself, will be cast out: "Every work that is corruptible shall fail in the end" (Sir 14:20). The reason for all this is added, "because the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman." For in this world the good are mingled with the wicked and the wicked with the good: "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters" (Cant 2:2). But in the eternal fatherland there will be only the good. In Judges (11:2) it is said to Jephtah: "Thou canst not inherit in the house of our father, because thou art born of a harlot."

We were therefore sons of the slave woman when we were liable for our sins. But, having received the remission of sins from Christ, we have been made free.

Let us, therefore, choose whether to call the righteous men of old the children of the bondwoman or of the free. Be it far from us to say, of the bondwoman; therefore if of the free, they pertain to the new testament in the Holy Spirit, whom, as making alive, the apostle opposes to the killing letter. For on what ground do they not belong to the grace of the new testament, from whose words and looks we convict and rebut such most frantic and ungrateful enemies of the same grace as these?

Therefore let us say with the apostle Paul: We are not sons of the bondwoman, but of the free woman (2 Tim. 2); and, renewed in Christ, let us hear the words of the Lord speaking to the Jews: "If you abide in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31, 32). Made free by this freedom, the Apostle too said: For though I am free from all. "He who commits sin is the slave of sin" (1 Cor. 9:19). He, because he knew himself free from all vices and a stranger to all concupiscence and error, rightly rejoiced in the freedom of Christ, saying: We are not sons of the bondwoman, but of the free woman: with which freedom Christ has made us free (John 8:34).

He turns and discusses this on all sides, desiring to prove that what had taken place was no novelty, but had been before typified many ages ago. How then can it be otherwise than absurd for those who had been set apart so long and who had obtained freedom, willingly to subject themselves to the yoke of bondage?

"Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the bondwoman." If then we are not children of a bondwoman, nor of slaves, how do we submit ourselves to the servitude of the law? We are not, since Hagar is not our example, but of the Jews. For Sarah is our example.

Nay, rather banish quite away from your "free" head all this slavery of ornamentation.

All of this is directed toward showing that everything that has now happened to us was prefigured many years before. How then, after this, is it not strange, having received freedom so many years before, to voluntarily become slaves again?

This freedom we obtain from Christ; hence he says, "by the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free": "If therefore the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed" (Jn 8:36).