NOTES ON PASSAGES
1.1 omit οὐδὲ δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου
The denial that the apostleship was απ’ ανθρώπων puts Paul in a special category apart from the apostles who had been commissioned by human mediation (2 Cor. 8.23; Phil. 2.25). But it is difficult to understand the force of οὐδὲ δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου. Rhetoric will not explain the change from από to διά (Lietzmann), because the διά is repeated in the next phrase, διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, which would seem to give some special unrhetorical distinction to the twice repeated διά in contrast to από. Such distinction does not exist, however, since the prepositions in the phrases “from men” and “through Jesus Christ” have exactly the same force. A further difficulty is the change from the plural ανθρώπων to the singular ανθρώπου. The meaning is not at all obvious. Probably the writer wishes to exclude the suggestion that Barnabas (Acts n.25f; Zahn) or Ananias (Acts 9.10-19; 22.10-16; Chrysostom) had bestowed the apostleship. But this suggestion has already been excluded by the previous phrase. The difficulty seems more likely to be one that would arise from a reading of Acts by a commen¬tator than that would arise from Paul’s own need to guard specifically against a possible misunderstanding. When the words are put aside, the sense is clear and the change of prepositions straightforward (cf. Rom. 3.30; 1 Cor. 12.8; 2 Cor. 3.11). The gloss was first observed by Cramer.
1.4 omit πονηροῦ
This verse offers a good example of how a gloss can set off a chain of textual variants. The evidence I wish to discuss is as follows.
(i) ἐκ τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος αἰῶνος πονηροῦ
אc D F G (Η) K L P Ψ 69 1908
(ii) ἐκ τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος αἰῶνος τοῦ πονηροῦ
206 330 635*
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(iii) ἐκ τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ αἰῶνος
489 1873
(iv) ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ
ρ46 א* A Β 33 326
(v) ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ πονηροῦ
927 sah
(vi) ἐκ τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος αἰῶνος
1955 (Lambeth Palace 1186, acc. to Scrivener)
The most awkward text is (i), in which the adjective πονηροῦ sits outside the closed phrase τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ. Some minuscules show rather clumsy attempts to remedy the text with the minimum of disruption; (ii) provides an article for the hanging adjective, and (iii) brings the adjective into the phrase. The Alexandrian text (iv) is a sophisticated emendation designed to protect what the editors took to be a likely difficult phrase that seemed to be firmly part of the text in the order: τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ while remedying the grammar. Many of the versions seem to have simply played down the force of ἐνεστῶτος, and this tendency was taken to a logical extreme in the omission of the word by one minuscule and the Sahidic (v).
If the story I have tried to reconstruct is right, the disruptive word was not, however, ἐνεστῶτος, but πονηροῦ. The fact that the present age is evil was assumed by Paul, and a glossator added the idea in the margin. From there the word was copied into the text, first of all in the wrong place (i). One minuscule, 1955, seems to have preserved the original text (vi).
1.6 omit Χριστοῦ
The precise relation of Χριστοῦ to the rest of the sentence is puzzling. Jerome and Bengel construed the word with ἀπό, which is certainly possible, but it seems easier to take Χριστοῦ with ἐν χάριτι. Yet to specify the grace is to rob the sentence of its force, for the issue between Paul and those who are trying to make the Galatians change their mind is not whether they should be Christ’s, but how. The word Χριστοῦ is read by ρ51 א Α Β Κ Ρ Ψ 33 81 1739 (D 326 read Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ), but three minuscules, 7 327 336, read θεοΰ, and p46vld F* G Marc Tert Cypr Ambst Victorin Pelag omit all additions to χάριτι. The shortest text is here the original (Zahn, Lietzmann, Oepke).
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1.6 omit ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος ὑμᾶς ἐν χάριτι
If the shorter text argued for in the previous note is original, the possibility arises that by the one who called the Galatians Paul this time means himself rather than God or Christ. Of course he would understand that his call was the means by which God’s call came to the Galatians (cf. 2 Thess. 2.14), but he could hardly mean that the defection or threatened defection of the Galatians from his teaching, serious as it was, was complete defection from God. He regarded Jews who failed to acknowledge Jesus Christ as still worshipping God, even if they did not wholly obey him (Rom. 10.2; cf. 9-4f). Bruno Bauer adduced the idea that defection from Paul’s position was defection from God as evidence that the true author of Galatians was far removed from the time and circumstances of Paul.1 I cite in support of the possibility that Paul here refers to his own preaching the sentence in Gal. 5.8: ἡ πεισμονὴ οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦντος ὑμᾶς where it is possible that Paul referred to himself.2 If Paul had meant in 1.6 that the Galatians were defecting from God, he would hardly have called that to which they were defecting εὐαγγέλιον, in however qualified a sense.
Nevertheless, it remains difficult to think that Paul would have written ἐν χάριτι if he himself were the one who called (cf. 1.15; Rom. 3.24 δικαιούμενοι δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι). If God is meant, then I do not see how to avoid Bruno Bauer’s objection, except by supposing either that the whole clause is an interpolation, or that the words ἐν χάριτι are an interpolation, or that the words ἐν χάριτι mean “to a situation of grace” (Lietzmann’s first possi¬bility, cf. 1 Cor. 7.15). The textual evidence in favour of the first hypothesis is that Ambrose (Psalm 40.38) omits the clause: miror quod sic tam cito transferimini in aliud euangelium, quod non est aliud, nisi aliqui sunt qui vos peruertunt. In favour of the third hypothesis is that Marcion and the Vulgate read εις χάριν. I am inclined to trust that Ambrose has preserved a genuine variant, and to argue that the whole clause was originally a gloss, modelled on 1.15, written by a scribe who understood the Galatians’ defection as a defection from God.
1. Kritik der paulinischen Briefe, Erste Abtheilung: Der Ursprung des Galaterbriefs (Berlin
1850), p. 9.
2. See the comment on 5.11 below and the note. Henry Owen (1716-95) in W.
Bowyer, Critical Conjectures and Observations on the New Testament, Collected from
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Various Authors, As well in regard Words as Pointing: With the Reasons on which both are founded (3rd edn, much enlarged, ed. J. Nichols, with the help of Dr Owen, 1782), p. 365: “That τοῦ καλέσαντος ὑμᾶς must refer to the Apostle, and not to Christ, is evident from the 11th verse. And indeed, otherwise I known not well how the 8th and 9th could be inserted with any propriety.”
1.7 omit ἄλλο
In what sense does ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο qualify ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον? No doubt ἄλλο refers back to the preceding phrase and not on to the next clause, but how? If ἕτερος and ἄλλος were taken strictly so that ἕτερος meant a second of the same kind and ἄλλος another qualitatively different, we might expect ὃ ἔστιν ἄλλο which is a different gospel altogether, not simply a second of the same kind. That is, if the two words are to be given their strict sense — and their closeness suggests that they must — Paul should have used ἄλλο the first time instead of ἕτερον. If, however, the strict distinction cannot be pressed, the contrast must turn on the word εὐαγγέλιον. In that case we might expect ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο εὐαγγέλιον: which is not a different gospel at all because it is not the gospel. This is the interpretation most commentators adopt.
Unfortunately the contrast ends with άλλο. The emphasis must then lie on άλλο, and the meaning would be: which is not really different, because the gospel, in whatever form it comes, is always the same. Paul himself can scarcely have inserted such an irenic comment at this point, and the whole clause could be regarded as a gloss, as Baljon and Cramer regard it. However, I find difficulty in seeing why even a glossator would be so irrelevant.
The true solution seems to be that ἄλλο was originally a gloss against ἕτερον. The glossator was pointing out that Paul would have expressed his sentiments more clearly, in saying that the other gospel they had turned to was not really gospel at all, if he had used ἄλλο for ἕτερον. Paul seems to have appreciated the difference (cf. Gal. 5.10 and 2 Cor. 11.4: ἄλλον Ἰησοῦν ... ἢ πνεῦμα ἕτερον ... ἢ εὐαγγέλιον ἕτερον), but his point would have been spoilt, not made, if he had used ἄλλο for ἕτερον in this context. The good news now being preached to the Galatians seemed to be a variant of the good news they had accepted, but Paul begs leave to doubt whether it was as good as it sounded. He ends the next sentence (which loosely depends on θαυμάζω) by charging the trouble-makers with perverting the good news of Christ. The glossator was encouraged to make his point by supposing that
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εὐαγγέλιον was a technical term denoting the agreed preaching of the Church, but Paul is not arguing on the grounds that these teachers were perverting what was standardized. He uses εὐαγγέλιον to mean good news, and argues that the news about Christ the others were bringing was not as good as they hoped to persuade the Galatians it was. When εὐαγγέλιον means “good news”, ἕτερον fits beautifully, while leaving the way open for Paul to make the further point that the so-called “good news” is not what it seems, and is even a perversion of the good news of Christ.
Verses 6 and 7 as amended may be paraphrased like this. “I marvel that you are changing over so quickly to some other good news — which is not really good news at all. I would marvel, had there not been people who are disturbing you and wanting to pervert the good news of Christ.”
1.10 omit ἢ τὸν θεόν
The verb πείθω always implies, as far as I can see, an effort by the subject to change the mind of the person in the object, and this even in cases where God is the object (Josephus, Ant. 4.123; 8.255, Ps. Clem. Hom. 3.64). No doubt, striving to persuade some¬one involves trying to please him, but the verb does not seem to mean this. As the question stands, it must mean, then, that Paul is asking himself whether he will persuade men to change their mind and follow his teaching, or whether he will persuade God to change his mind (as it were) and curse the men he had previously blessed; that is, Paul is asking himself whether or not to invoke the anathema he has been talking about in verses 8 and 9.
However, the context of the question is chiefly governed by what follows, not by what precedes. In the context of a further question, ἢ ζητῶ ἀνθρώποις ἀρέσκειν, the verb πείθω must be used in a bad sense: Am I now to cajole men? (Ἄρτι refers to a possible future change of policy, γὰρ is designed to emphasize how ridicu¬lous it would be to suppose — as he has for the sake of the argument supposed in the previous two verses — that he would ever change his mind; for that would mean trying to please men rather than serve Christ; cf. γὰρ in 1 Cor. 11.22, Oepke). But this interpretation leaves no room for a question about whether or not to persuade God. Any persuasion of God would be as a suppliant,
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not as a cajoler (cf. 2 Cor. 5.11; 1 Thess. 2.4). The same verb could hardly govern such different objects in such different senses.
I therefore follow Weisse in taking the words ἢ τὸν θεόν as a gloss. The glossator possibly thought that Paul was wondering whether or not to continue with his appeal to the Galatians to hold back from heresy, and supposed that the alternative course of action was for Paul to appeal to God to reject them by invoking the anathema. He would have understood the next question as a third possibility, to give in to men and abandon his position. He read, “Shall I now persuade men (by continuing my appeals), or seek to please men (by giving up my position)?” and added after the first verb, “or shall I appeal to God (by calling down a curse) ?” This interpretation of the two questions is unlikely to be right, not least because the “men” in each case would be different, in the first case the Galatians, and in the second the troublemakers. But it is a plausible enough interpretation to suggest how the gloss came to be there at all. Whatever the reason for the gloss, the words are far easier to understand as a gloss than as part of the text.
The words
aut deo are omitted by the twelfth or thirteenth- century Latin Codex Colbertinus (c), and this counts as slight textual evidence in favour of the conjecture.
omit 1.13, 14, 22-4
These verses have been interpolated into Paul’s argument by a later writer who wished to glorify the apostle. The argument is irrelevant and anachronistic, the concepts differ from Paul’s concepts, and the vocabulary and style are not his.
Paul is arguing that he was directly commissioned by God, through a revelation of his Son, to spread the good news among the Gentiles. Although he visited Jerusalem to get information from Cephas,1 and there saw James, the Lord’s brother, he was not indebted to them for his special commission. That visit was three years after his call, and his first reaction to the call had not been to go to Jerusalem but to go to Arabia. What is at stake is his right to serve Christ as he has been called to serve him. The astounding reversal of roles he underwent, from a fierce persecutor of the Church to an evangelist of the faith, and from a precociously zealous Jew to an opponent of Jewish customs, is no argument in
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favour of Paul’s position. His position stands or falls on the revela¬tion he has received and the recognition accorded him by the “pillars” in Jerusalem.
E. Bammel2 has suggested that the trouble-makers in Galatia had attacked Paul because he had once been a persecutor of the Church, and that Paul was defending himself by admitting all, and then citing the praise of him that was used in the Judean churches:
ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε
νῦν εὐαγγελίζεταιι
τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει
It is hard to imagine the men who visited Galatia finding ammunition to use against Paul in his activities before he was called. Even if this were brought up against Paul, it is even harder to imagine that Paul would cite the approval of the Judean churches as support for his case. His case rested solely on the com-mission from God and the subsequent approval he received from the authorities who might otherwise have been thought of as his commissioners. What the Judean churches thought was neither here nor there. Paul had asked the Galatians ironically in verse 10 whether he should now try to please men, and he is not likely, a few sentences later, to quote the men he had pleased.
The interpolation is anachronistic because it regards Judaism as an entity distinct from Christianity.3 Jews at the time used the term 'Ἰουδαϊσμός to describe their faith in opposition to heathenism (2 Macc. 2.21; 8.1; 14.38; 4 Macc. 4.26; synagogue inscription in Frey, C.I.J. 1.694), but the use of the term in a Christian context seems to imply that Christianity is a system completely distinct from Judaism. Paul was well aware of the tragic gulf that had opened up between those Jews who believed in Jesus Christ and those who refused to believe, but he still held fast to the fact that “theirs were the fathers” (Rom. 9.5), that the fathers of those who believed in Christ were also the fathers of the unbelieving Jews. But this interpolation speaks in the terms to be found in the Apostolic Fathers of the second century, when Judaism had become a foreign entity (Ignatius Magn. 8.1; 10.3; Philad. 6.1).
The concepts employed are rarely found in Paul, or are entirely absent. In verse 23 πίστις is used of the Christian religion, as in Acts 6.7, and the only possible parallels in Paul are at 3.23-5, 6.10, and Rom. 1.5, all passages that are of doubtful authenticity.4
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When verse 13 is read in conjunction with verse 23, it seems likely that ἐκκλησία is used in the first instance as the word for the Church as a whole; either the universal Church, or the Church of the Judean provinces. Although Paul was active as a persecutor only in Jerusalem, he planned to persecute Christians in Damascus; the destruction of Christian congregations everywhere is what is contemplated in the phrase καὶ ἐπόρθουν αὐτήν. The Judean churches which did not know him by sight regarded him as persecuting them.
But Paul almost always uses the word to refer to a local congre¬gation.5 He had an ideal opportunity to use the singular in 1.2, if that was his custom, but there he wrote ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Γαλατίας. In 1 Thess. 2.14 he spoke of “the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus”.6
The vocabulary of this section is unusual. The word αναστροφή occurs only in Ephesians and 1 Timothy among the books of the Pauline corpus, and Ἰουδαϊσμός, πορθέω, συνηλικιώτης, and πατρικός are not found elsewhere in that corpus. The enclitic ποτέ occurs three times here, once more in Galatians (at 2.6), and only nine times elsewhere in the Pauline corpus, excluding Ephesians and the Pastorals (where it occurs seven times).
The style of the section is even and steady, unlike the style of Paul. The sentences consist of 20, 19, 12, and 20 words respectively. καί joins distinct clauses with verbs in the indicative three times (1.13, 14, 24), which is rather frequent in comparison with the five times in the rest of the epistle (1.17, 18; 3.6 O.T.; 5.1; 6.2). The imperfect occurs seven times in this section, and only eight times elsewhere in the epistle (1.10 twice; 2.6; 2.12 twice; 3.23; 4.3, 29). Two of the imperfects are periphrastic, and we are told that the periphrastic construction was on the increase.7
The case for regarding 1.13, 14, 22, 23, 24 as an interpolation is a strong one as it stands, but to complete the case I must try to explain why anyone should wish to add this sort of note to Paul’s text. E. Bammel has already shown that verse 23 probably con¬tains a citation from a Judean church tradition, and I think it likely that this thesis can be extended to cover the whole of the section I have isolated. The author possessed Judean traditions about Paul, the persecutor who became the champion of the faith, and he inserted them into Galatians at the appropriate points in the story. His source was Judean as opposed to Jerusalemite,8 so that he has to explain that, although they used to
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say “He who once persecuted us”, they did not know him by sight.
Because he was employing old traditions, the interpolator did not regard his additions as illegitimate. He saw himself as enriching a treasured epistle by an edifying reminiscence of the con¬version of St Paul, which could appropriately be put onto his lips.
1. G. D. Kilpatrick, “Galatians i: 18 ΙΣΤΟΡΗΣΑΙ ΚΗΦΑΝ”, New Testament Essays: Studies in Memory of Thomas Walter Manson, ed. A. J. B. Higgins (1959), pp. 144-9•
2. E. Bammel, “Galater 1.23”, ZNW 59 (1968), pp. 108-12 at p. 111. The germ of the idea was first put forward by E. Barnikol, Die vorchristliche und frühchristliche Zeit des Paulus, Forschungen zur Entstehung des Urchristentums des N.T. und der Kirche I (Kiel 1929), p. 50.
3. Cf. Bruno Bauer, op. cit., p. 13.
4. Cf. E. Bammel, op. cit., p. 108, n. 1.
5. J. Y. Campbell, “The Origin and Meaning of the Christian Use of the word ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΑ", JTS XLIX (1948), pp. 130-42; reprinted in Three New Testament Studies (Leiden 1965), pp. 41—54. Excluding Ephesians, he argues that only in Col. 1.18, 24 it is beyond question that the word has a wider significance; in eight other instances that is more or less likely.
6. The phrase ἐδίωξα τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ in 1 Cor. 15.9 is parallel to our phrase in Gal. 1.13. It is possible that “God’s church” in 1 Corinthians could refer to the congregation in Jerusalem, but the true solution seems to be that 1 Cor. 15.1-11 is a later credal summary not written by Paul.
7. Blass-Debrunner-Funk, §65(4).
8. Judea in v. 22 must exclude Jerusalem (Lightfoot against Lipsius; T. Mommsen, ZNW 2 (1901), p. 85; W. Heitmüller, ZNW 13 (1912), pp. 320ff).
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