Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, he rebukes the Galatians because they allowed themselves to be led away from the Gospel preached by him to Judaism by the Innovators and others preaching differently, on whom he pronounces anathema.
Secondly, at verse 11, he shows the certainty of his Gospel from the fact that he himself received it immediately from Christ.
Thirdly, at verse 13, he relates how he was converted from Judaism, which he was most fiercely defending, to Christ, and how, set apart by Him to preach the Gospel, he traveled through Arabia, Damascus, Syria, and Cilicia.
Vulgate Text: Galatians 1:1-24
1. Paul, an Apostle, not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead: 2. and all the brethren who are with me, to the Churches of Galatia. 3. Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, 4. who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God and our Father, 5. to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen. 6. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him who called you into the grace of Christ, unto another Gospel: 7. which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. 8. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. 9. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a Gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. 10. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. 11. For I give you to understand, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man: 12. for neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. 13. For you have heard of my manner of life in time past in Judaism: how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the Church of God, and wasted it, 14. and made progress in Judaism above many of my equals in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15. But when it pleased Him who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, 16. to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles: immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; 17. neither went I to Jerusalem to the apostles who were before me, but I went into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. 18. Then, after three years, I went to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I tarried with him fifteen days: 19. but other of the apostles I saw none, save James, the brother of the Lord. 20. Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie. 21. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22. And I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ: 23. but they had heard only: He who persecuted us in times past, now preaches the faith which once he impugned: 24. and they glorified God in me.
Verse 1: Paul an Apostle Not from Men
1. Paul an Apostle not from men. — Namely because the other Apostles were sent by Christ while He was still a mortal man, but Paul was sent by Christ already, as it were, wholly deified, that is, in every part immortal. So St. Augustine. But you may take it more simply: "Not from men," namely mere men, but from Christ both man and God.
There is a fourfold mission, says Jerome. Some are sent by God alone, as Paul; others by God through man, as Joshua through Moses; others through man alone, as those who today are promoted by friends to abbeys, deaneries, bishoprics; others by themselves, as the heretics. Therefore the preposition "from" here signifies the principal cause, but "through" the instrumental cause. He wishes to say that he was called not from man, nor from God through man, but immediately by God Himself.
Verse 4: Who Gave Himself for Our Sins
4. Who gave Himself, — as an expiatory victim, as the ransom and price of our redemption, unto death and the cross. For our sins. — "That," says Jerome, "He Himself, [being] justice, might overthrow the injustice that was in us; wisdom delivered itself up, that it might conquer foolishness; sanctity and fortitude offered themselves, that they might destroy filthiness and weakness."
From this present wicked world. — Why does He call "the world" "wicked?" The Manichaeans answer: because this corporeal world is evil and created by the devil. But this is foolish. "The wicked world" therefore is the worldly and carnal life and manner of living, such as this world leads and invites to, and worldly men, who pursue only the goods of this world, namely riches, honors, and pleasures, by fair means and foul. It is a metonymy: "the world" is put for the things which are and are done in the world: for this is in Hebrew עולם olam, and in Greek αἰών, that is, age or world. Thus, says Jerome, St. John in his First Epistle, chapter V, says: "The whole world is seated in wickedness: not that the world itself is evil, but that evils are done in the world by men." And the Apostle himself says: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." The forests too are defamed when they are full of robberies — not that the earth or the woods sin, but because the places have drawn the disgrace of murder upon themselves: so too the world, which is a space of times, is not through itself either good or evil, but through those who are in it is called either good or evil. So Jerome, Anselm, Theophylact.
Note: For "wicked," the Greek has πονηροῦ, which St. Jerome translates as "evil"; Augustine, "malignant"; Erasmus, "cunning," or "wretched and laborious"; Vatablus, "toilsome," especially on account of the sins which we commit in the present life, which has so many occasions of sinning, while the future life and age, to which Christ leads us, is immune to sin and impeccable.
Hence Valentinus invented his "aeons," that is, ages, saying that these aeons are living beings, and that by tetrads, ogdoads, decads, and duodecads they put forth as many numbers of ages as the Aeneian sow brought forth piglets, says Jerome.
Verse 6: I Marvel That You Are So Soon Removed
6. I marvel that you are so quickly transferred. — In Greek it is μετατίθεσθε, which literally means "you are transposed," namely from Christianity to Judaism, from the liberty of the Gospel to the bondage of legal ceremonies, from the Church to the Synagogue. Jerome says he alludes to the Hebrew root גלה gala, that is, "he migrated," and גלל galal, that is, "he rolled, rolled around," as a ball or wheel, as if to say: You are Galatians, that is, migrants and rolling like balls and wheels, in that you so quickly allow yourselves to be transferred and transposed from the Gospel of Christ to the Law of Moses. Otherwise the same Jerome, in the preface of book II of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, [cites] from Lactantius: "The Gauls," he says, "were of old called Galatians from the whiteness of their body (for the Greeks call milk γάλα, whence Galli and Galatæ, as if 'milky'), which the Poet wished to signify when he said: 'Then milky necks are entwined with gold.' For when he could have said 'White,' he preferred to say 'Milky,' to suggest that they were Gauls or Galatians."
From Him that called you. — As if to say: You apostatize from the Gospel, indeed from God and Christ Jesus, and that to the highest injury and contempt of God and Christ: who called you without your merits, indeed with your demerits, out of liberal love, unto grace, reconciliation, friendship with God, and salvation. Whence in place of what we have, "from him that called you into the grace of Christ," the Greek is ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος ὑμᾶς ἐν χάριτι Χριστοῦ. St. Jerome and Vatablus translate this more pressingly and orderly by inverting it thus: "I marvel that from Christ, who called you by grace" (namely from pure love and gratuitous benevolence), "you are so quickly transferred into another Gospel," as if to say: I marvel that you so easily apostatize from God and from Christ, who called you so graciously and lovingly, that you are so ungrateful and forgetful of His grace, and despise it.
Into another Gospel, — into another doctrine concerning the salvation of Christ and Christ the Savior, as if mine were not sufficient, nor Christ's; but as if Moses were to be added to Christ, and the ceremonial law joined to the Gospel: although therefore these Judaizers preached that the Gospel was to be embraced together with the Law of Moses, by this very fact they preached another Gospel, and destroyed the true Gospel of Paul, as he says in the next verse. For the doctrine of the Gospel of Paul and of Christ was this: The Gospel, or the law of Christ, is necessary and sufficient for salvation, and no other law is to be admitted; whoever introduces or admits another is injurious to Christ and to Christ's law, as if it were insufficient, and so deprives Christ of His unique dignity as Redeemer, and introduces another Savior. The Judaizers preached the contrary, namely: The law of Christ is not sufficient, the Law of Moses must be added to it, without which you cannot be saved or made blessed; therefore they brought another, indeed a contrary Gospel, and overturned the Gospel of Paul and of Christ. Whence follows:
Verse 7: Which Is Not Another
7. Which is not another. — St. Jerome and the Syriac read "which is not," as if to say: You are transferred to another Gospel, which truly is not a Gospel. The Greek and our Vulgate, however, read "which is not another," so that it is a Hebraism in which the antecedent is added to the relative, as if to say: You are transferred to another Gospel, but no such other exists; for no true Gospel is other than that which I have preached to you. The Syriac adds: "But as there are some," that is, [referring to] them, as if to say: As are the teachers — namely apostates, Judaizers, liars, deceivers — such also is their Gospel, namely apostatic, Judaizing, lying, and deceitful. If the Judaizers, who left the Gospel and doctrine of Paul and of the Church intact, merely adding to it the Law of Moses, were overturning the Gospel and the Church of Christ; far more do the Innovators, who bring forth new dogmas contrary to the Catholic Church, overthrow it.
Except there are some. — Refer this back to "I marvel," as if to say: I marvel that you so quickly fall away from the Gospel, except that there are some who trouble you: which when I consider, I in part cease to wonder, and impute this defection not so much to you as to them: for you would not have fallen away, had you not been enticed and deceived by them.
Who trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. — "To pervert," that is, to subvert, so that the Greek μεταστρέψαι is used for καταστρέψαι. So Chrysostom. Secondly, properly "to pervert," that is, to invert, just as a worn-out garment is "turned" when it is inverted, so that the inner and more whole side may become the outer; or, as Jerome says, when that which is in front is placed behind, and the things that are behind are turned to the front. So the Church is, as it were, a single garment, of which the front, or outermost and now worn-out part, was the old Church, or the Synagogue with its Law of Moses: the back part, or inner and more whole part, was the new Church and the Gospel of Christ. Christ therefore transposed it, so as to place the outermost — being worn — under the inner, and to make the back, or inner part, namely the Gospel, the front and outermost, and to set this forth to all as the garment, as it were, of righteousness and salvation, to be looked upon and embraced. These false teachers wished to convert again this garment which had been inverted by Christ, and to prefer the Law and place the Gospel beneath it, and finally to invert the spirit of piety which the Gospel breathes into Jewish ceremonies. Thus therefore the Judaizers were perverting, that is, inverting, the Gospel of Christ, while they substituted the Law of Moses for it, preferring it to the Gospel, and consequently bringing in another Gospel. So Jerome.
Verse 8: But Though We, or an Angel from Heaven
8. But though we or an angel from heaven preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. — Supply: "if this could happen," for in fact this is impossible: for the angels, just as they are confirmed in blessedness, so are they confirmed in all truth. It is a hyperbole similar to that in 1 Corinthians 13:1: "If I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels." Hence, as Jerome says, Tertullian elegantly says against Apelles and his virgin Philumena, whom a certain perverse angel of diabolical spirit had filled, that this is the angel against whom, long before Apelles was born, anathema was prophesied through the Apostle by the foretelling of the Holy Spirit.
Such was the angel who taught Luther, and who instructed Zwingli concerning the Eucharist, of whom Zwingli himself in his book On the Supplement of the Eucharist writes that he does not know whether it was white or black: but from this it is certain that it was black, and that against him as bringer of, as it were, a new Gospel, a new faith, new dogmas contrary to the received faith, anathema has been pronounced by the Apostle.
Note how great is the certainty of the faith handed down by the Apostles, confirmed by God with so many signs, so many miracles, and transmitted to us by the continual tradition of so many centuries already, and how firm and constant we ought to be in it; namely, we should rather deny what the senses, what reason, what demonstration, what the authority of all men and angels (even if they were to work miracles to prove it — which however is impossible) might suggest, than deny what faith teaches: because faith rests on the primal revelation of God, who is the first and immutable truth; all other things can both deceive and be deceived. Indeed, if by an impossibility God were to reveal something contrary to our faith, which He has already first revealed, the first revelation of His ought to be believed, not the second: for if He revealed the contrary, He would be changed, and consequently would cease to be God and the first and infallible truth; and since all these things are impossible, it follows that God cannot reveal the contrary, and consequently those who bring forward a contrary doctrine have not received it from God, but from the revelation of their own brain, or of the demon.
This therefore is the canon of faith which the Apostle hands down here: If a new dogma arises anywhere, let it be examined whether it agrees with the received and ancient faith of the Catholic Church, which Paul and the Apostles first preached: and if it be found to dissent from this, let it be held as heretical and anathema. All the Fathers follow this canon.
Blessed Irenaeus, book III, chapter IV: "If a dispute should arise concerning some small question, will it not be necessary to have recourse to the most ancient Churches, and to take from them what is certain and clear concerning the present question?"
Tertullian, On the Prescription [of Heretics], chapter XXI: "What the Apostles preached, what Christ revealed to them, I shall here prescribe ought not to be proved otherwise than through those same Churches which the Apostles themselves founded. If these things are so, it follows that every doctrine which agrees in faith with those Apostolic and original mother-Churches is to be reckoned as truth, but every other doctrine to be prejudged as falsehood." And chapter XXXI: "From the very order it is shown that that is the Lord's and true which was handed down earlier; but that that is foreign and false which was introduced later."
Origen, Homily 19 on Matthew: "Every man is to be held a heretic who professes indeed to believe in Christ, but yet believes something different concerning the truth of the faith from what the definition of the tradition of the Church holds."
St. Jerome, Epistle to Pammachius and Oceanus: "Whoever you are who assert new dogmas, I beg you, spare human ears, spare the faith which has been praised by Apostolic mouth. Why after four hundred years (let us say, Why after one thousand five hundred years, O Luther, O Calvin, O Menno) do you strive to teach us what we did not know before? Up to this day, without that doctrine of yours, the Christian world existed."
Vincent of Lérins, in that golden little book of Prescriptions against the profane novelties of heresies, does nothing else than to sanction this rule: Antiquity is to be retained, novelty is to be rejected. "When certain such men (the Innovators, he says in chapter XII, 1) going about the provinces and cities, and carrying about their errors for sale, had also come to the Galatians; and when, having heard them, the Galatians, affected by a certain nausea of the truth, vomiting up the manna of Apostolic and Catholic doctrine, were taking delight in the filth of heretical novelty, the authority of Apostolic power so exerted itself as to decree with the highest severity: But though we, he says, or an angel from heaven preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached, let him be anathema. What is the meaning of his saying, But though we? why not rather, But though I? That is: even though Peter, even though Andrew, even though John, finally even though the whole choir of Apostles should preach to you besides what we have preached, let him be anathema. A terrible severity: in order to assert the tenacity of the first faith, he spared neither himself nor his fellow Apostles. Even though an angel, he says, from heaven preach to you besides that which we have preached, let him be anathema. It was not enough to mention the nature of the human condition for the safekeeping of the faith once delivered, unless he had also included angelic excellence. Though we, he says, or an angel from heaven. Not because the holy and heavenly angels are now able to sin; but this is what he says: Even if, he says, that should happen which cannot happen, whoever he be that shall have attempted to change the faith once delivered, let him be anathema."
St. John Damascene, as a roaring lion against Leo the Isaurian, the Iconoclast Emperor, in Oration 2 On Images, says: "Hear, peoples, tribes, tongues, men, women, boys, old men, youths, infants, holy nation of Christians: If anyone preach to you besides that which the Catholic Church has received from the holy Apostles, from the Fathers and Councils, and has preserved to this very day, do not listen to him, nor receive the counsel of the serpent, as Eve did, by which she obtained death. Though an angel, though a king, preach to you besides that which you have received, close your ears. For I am afraid to go so far as Paul went, saying: Let him be anathema." He says this for this reason, because he knew that it belonged to bishops, not to monks (such as he himself was) to inflict anathema, as Cardinal Baronius learnedly observed at the end of the year of Christ 730.
St. Augustine, book II Against Cresconius, chapters XXXI and XXXII: "I do not accept what Blessed Cyprian thought concerning the baptizing of heretics: because the Church does not accept this, for which Blessed Cyprian shed his blood." So too the other Fathers, and the reason is evident, because "the Church, as the Apostle says in 1 Timothy 3:15, is the pillar and ground of truth."
Whoever therefore devises anything new against her opinion and dogmas departs and strays from the house of truth, and from truth itself, as St. Augustine concludes with a forceful dilemma in book II Against Gaudentius, chapter VIII: "Answer, he says, whether the Church (when Donatus arose) perished or did not perish? Choose what you will. If it had then perished, what gave birth to Donatus? If however with so many gathered into it without baptism it could not perish, answer, I beg you, what madness persuaded the party of Donatus to surpass it by separating itself from it, as if avoiding the communion of evil men?"
In like manner I now conclude: When Luther, Calvin, Menno, or any other Innovator arose, either the Church and the true faith perished, or it did not perish: for these two are necessarily connected, the true faith and the true Church, so that if the Church should err from the true faith on even one point — for example, that the Saints are to be invoked — it must be heretical, and not the Church of God, but of Satan: just as any private person who maintains even one heresy, though he believe rightly in the rest of the articles and agree with other orthodox, is not orthodox, but a heretic. I say therefore: When Calvin arose, either the Church perished or did not perish; if it perished, and indeed perished from the time of Gregory the Great, as the Innovators say: therefore for 900 years the Church was extinct; therefore the world for 900 years was without the true faith, religion, Sacraments, Church, and salvation; therefore Christ for 900 years deserted His own bride; therefore the eternal kingdom of Christ has fallen (for Christ reigns in the Church); therefore the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church; therefore Calvin was born outside the Church, and was not a member of the Church, but an infidel, heretic, or pagan; therefore he ought not to have been received and heard by the people and the world as a faithful man; but ought to have been despised and rejected as an infidel not belonging to the Church. If it did not perish, but Calvin was born, baptized, educated, and instructed in the true faith and Church: therefore since he was born, baptized, educated, and instructed in the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, that surely was the true Church, having the true faith; therefore when Calvin departed from it, and separated himself from it through new dogmas, he separated himself from the true faith and Church, and apostatized from it; therefore when he established another "reformed" Church, he established not a true and Apostolic, but an apostatic, schismatic, heretical [Church], not of faith, but a school and mistress of new dogmas, of heresies. Let the equitable reader, who sincerely seeks the true faith, outside of which one cannot be saved, and is wavering, consider and weigh this dilemma: do not these things rightly follow? does not this argument conclude and convince? is not this rule the Lydian stone of true dogma and true faith?
Besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. — The Innovators infer: therefore the decrees of the Councils and the canons of the Pontiffs are anathema, because they bring forward many things which are not contained in the Gospel, and consequently are besides the Gospel.
I answer: "Besides" here is the same as what is contrary to the faith received and accepted, such things as heretics bring forward. This is clear first because Paul speaks against the Judaizers, who wanted to introduce Judaism alongside, that is, contrary to, the Gospel: just as if someone wished to bring Calvinism or Turkism into Christianity, he would, alongside Christianity (that is, contrary to Christianity), introduce a new law and sect. Hence in verse 6 he calls this another Gospel, and its preachers, in verse 7, he says are "turning," that is, as Chrysostom puts it, overthrowing, "the Gospel of Christ." Secondly, because the Judaizers, against whom he is here properly contending, were introducing Judaism alongside the Gospel — the Jewish sacred rites and Sacraments — which, by that very fact, were against the Gospel and the new law of Christ, as I said. We have evangelized — namely by word or in writing: he does not therefore exclude, but includes, traditions handed down by word alone, which he expressly commands to be kept in II Thessalonians 2:14, and elsewhere. Thus the Apostle, in I Corinthians 3:11, takes παρά, that is "besides," for "contrary to," when he says: "No one can lay another foundation besides (that is, contrary to) that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus;" for whoever would introduce another Christ would introduce an Antichrist: just as whoever introduces another Pope introduces an antipope; whoever introduces another king into the kingdom introduces an enemy and tyrant of the true king. So at Romans 11:24: "If you, being cut from a wild olive tree, contrary to nature," in Greek παρά φύσιν, that is besides nature, "have been grafted into a good olive tree." Indeed, in Latin we often speak this way by meiosis, with Terence in the Andria: "Besides (Praeter) the custom and law of the citizens," that is, contrary to the custom and law. So too the Greeks, as Aristotle, Book I De Caelo, ch. 1, speak of παρὰ φύσιν, besides, that is contrary to, nature; παρὰ νόμον, besides, that is contrary to, the law. In a similar way, Deuteronomy 4:2, the Lord says: "You shall not add to the word which I speak to you, nor take away from it," that is, to the precepts which I am about to give, you shall not add anything repugnant to them, especially anything introducing the worship and religion of a new deity or of an idol; for He intends to exclude these throughout that whole chapter, and frequently in Deuteronomy. Secondly, "you shall not add," so as to say that what is your own is My word; for it is lawful for no one to peddle his own writings or precepts as precepts given by God, or as Sacred Scripture. Similar is the phrasing of Apocalypse, last chapter, verse 18: "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone shall add to these things, God shall add upon him the plagues written in this book. And if anyone shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life." Otherwise, indeed, the Prophets and Apostles added many things to this Scripture and precept. Moreover, Moses would contradict himself: for below, in chapter 17, verse 10, he commands under penalty of death that the priest's decree be obeyed. Therefore, more clearly St. Augustine, Tractate 99 on John, explains this passage thus: "He did not say (the Apostle): More than you have received, but besides what you have received. For if he said that, he would prejudge himself, who desired to come to the Thessalonians in order to supply what was lacking in their faith. But he who supplies what was wanting, adds; he does not take away what was already there: but he who oversteps the rule of faith does not advance on the way, but departs from the way."
You will say: Why then does the Apostle not say "Contrary," but "besides?" Chrysostom answers, that he might show that he is anathema who, even indirectly, undermines the smallest dogma of the Gospel. Secondly, because it is clear and certain that not only an angel, but Paul as well, knew more, and consequently could have evangelized more, than he did, as is evident from II Cor. 12:1 and 6. Thirdly, because Paul throughout, as Christ also did, commands that the precepts of the Apostles and of Superiors be observed, Acts 16:4; Hebrews 13:17, and elsewhere. Finally, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Oecumenius explain this passage in this way.
Anathema. — The Syriac, cherem, concerning which see what is said on Romans 9:3.
Verse 10: For Do I Now Persuade Men, or God?
10. For do I now persuade men, or God? — In Greek ἄρτι γὰρ ἀνθρώπους πείθω ἢ τὸν Θεόν, do I persuade men, or God? — that is, as Theophylact, Vatablus, and Erasmus take it, do I urge human or divine things? as if the Apostle wished to show that he is speaking not of whom he persuades, but what he persuades, that is, what he proposes for belief, and not concerning the hearers, but concerning the doctrine itself: for the Judaizers boasted that they were following Peter, John, James, who seemed by their own example to teach that the old law was to be observed. Against this Paul cries out that he follows not men, nor the doctrine of men, but God and God's doctrine, and persuades others to do likewise, as if to say: I have received from God what I have evangelized; God revealed to me my Gospel; I preach the dogmas of God, not of men; I teach not human things, but divine.
Secondly, however much Beza may protest, Our Translator [the Vulgate] not badly — indeed, better — translates: "Now (that is, at present) do I persuade men, or God?" that is, as Chrysostom translates, "am I pleading my cause before men, or before God?" For the Greek word πείθω (that is, "I persuade," as Erasmus also noted) is a forensic word, used by advocates, who are said πείθειν κριτάς, that is, to persuade the judges, in the accusative of the person, while they strive to persuade them of their own cause and their own right. Hence St. Augustine here interprets suadeo as meaning the same as "I desire to render myself approved." And St. Ambrose interprets suadeo as "I make satisfaction." Thus Xenophon, Hellenica VI: Καὶ μάλα... τοὺς περὶ τὸν Ἀγησίλαον — there were, he says, those who were persuading Agesilaus. Hence Henricus Stephanus in his Lexicon teaches that πείθω, when it means "I persuade," takes and governs the accusative of the person. Add this: the Greek πείθω, as the Greeks teach and Beza confesses, when it means "persuade," is constructed with the accusative not of the thing but of the person. Here, however, πείθω ἀνθρώπους — that is, "I persuade men" — is the same as "I persuade," that is, "I attempt to persuade," namely in the inchoate act, according to Canon 32. But this is the same as "I persuade," as Our Translator renders it. This sense is more apt, first, because "to persuade God and men" signifies not the thing which is persuaded (for thus the phrase would be very obscure and intricate), but properly the persons, whom one persuades. Secondly, because explaining it he adds: "Or do I seek to please men?" as if to say: As I do not seek to please men, so neither do I seek to persuade them. Hence St. Jerome: "One is said to persuade," he says, "when he tries to instill in others what he himself holds and once imbibed."
The sense, then, is: I, Paul, speak so boldly and sincerely, and pronounce anathema upon the Judaizers and those preaching another gospel, because, although formerly I most fiercely attacked the Gospel for the Jews and Judaism, yet now, that is at present, illumined by the light of the Gospel, I am not striving to commend myself and my cause and this Gospel of mine to men, especially to the Jews, but to God, whom alone I strive to please: that at His tribunal I may sincerely and confidently render account to Him; as if to say: I do not care what the Jews or other men think of me, as if I were too rigid, or an enemy of my country and Judaism: for I seek to please God alone; for when I once pleased them, I displeased God: and if I still wished to please them, I would displease God, because I would be establishing the Law of Moses and destroying the grace of Christ.
If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. — Saints Jerome and Anselm note that ἀνθρωπαρέσκεια, that is, the eagerness to please men, is a vice by which a person so flatters men and seizes after their favor and glory that he is ready to violate God's law and offend God: for one who strives to please men in this manner and to this end — namely to draw them to God and the worship of God — does not so much study to please men as to please God. "A man," says St. Augustine here, "is not pleased usefully unless he is pleased on account of God, that is, that God may be pleased and glorified, when His gifts are looked upon in the man, or are received through the ministry of the man. But when a man is thus pleased, no longer is the man pleased, but God." So Paul, in I Cor. 9:21, became all things to all, that he might gain all to Christ. See Chrysostom in his moral Homily 29 on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, on how shadowy and contemptible the favor and glory of this world are. Piously and wisely St. Jerome says to Asella: "I give thanks," he says, "to God that I am worthy that the world should hate me."
Verse 11: Because It Is Not According to Man
11. Because it is not according to man. — As if to say: My Gospel is not human but divine; it is not of man but of God, and, as the Syriac has it, it is not from man: that is, it has not proceeded from the opinion or invention of men, but of God; whence, explaining, he adds:
Verse 12: For Neither Did I Receive It from Man
12. For neither did I receive it from man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. — That is, when I was caught up by Him into the third heaven, as I said in II Corinthians 12:1.
Verse 13: I Persecuted the Church of God
13. I persecuted the Church of God, and laid waste to it. — That is, I was striving to overpower and overthrow it, or I was attacking it in the inchoate act, that is, I was assaulting it, according to Canon 32. So in Psalm 128 it is said: "Often have they fought against me from my youth," that is, often have they assailed me, but they did not actually overpower me; for it follows: "For they could not (that is, did not prevail) against me." St. Jerome and the Syriac translate, "I was laying it waste," or "I was devastating it," as it were like some marauder and robber, says St. Jerome. Hence the Greek ἐπόρθουν comes from πέρθω, which is akin, and, as some hold, is derived by metathesis from πρήθω, that is, "I burn," because an enemy storming cities and laying waste fields ravages everything around with fires: although others, says Erasmus, would have πέρθω derived as it were from πορθέω, that is, "I run around," as an enemy does laying waste to everything: thus also Paul was running about through the cities and synagogues to seize, bind, and kill the Christians. Paul says these things to remove from himself the suspicion of hatred toward the Jews, as if to say: They charge me with being an enemy of the Jews and of Judaism, but falsely, as is plain from my prior life. For I myself am a Jew, and I fought for Judaism more fiercely than they themselves did, until God by His call changed my heart and illumined it with the faith and light of Christ.
Verse 14: More Abundantly Zealous in My Own Nation
14. In my own nation (in my own people, that is, among the Jews; the Syriac has "in my kindred") more abundantly zealous, — that is, a more ardent lover and imitator. Secondly, and better, as if to say: I was a more ardent zealot for the ancestral institutions handed down to me by my forefathers; for in Greek it is ζηλωτής; he therefore calls himself a zealot of the Law, because, as the Syriac translates, he was zealous for the doctrine of his fathers in the highest degree: assuredly, just as he was a zealot of the Law through ignorance, thinking he was acting rightly, so much more, when the truth was known, he was a zealot of the Gospel, and atoned for false zeal with true zeal, and that more ardent. Hence Paul seems to have been by nature and disposition keener than other Jews of his age, and this was a handmaid and whetstone of virtue to him: for a fervid nature does not creep on the ground, but rises up to great things like fire, and undertakes arduous deeds.
Beautifully and skillfully St. Augustine, Book XXII Against Faustus, ch. LXX: "Souls," he says, "that are capable of and fertile for virtue often emit beforehand vices, by which they show in advance to which virtue they are most particularly suited, if they be cultivated by precepts. Thus that movement of mind by which Moses did not endure that a foreign brother suffering injury from a wicked citizen should be unavenged — though he did not observe the order of authority — gave forth signs that were vicious, indeed, but of great fertility. So when Saul was persecuting the Church, God called him from heaven, prostrated him, raised him up, enwrapped him, as it were struck him, pruned him, grafted him in, and made him fruitful: for that ferocity of Paul, when according to the emulation of the paternal traditions he was persecuting the Church, thinking himself to be doing service to God, was as it were a wild vice, but an indication of great fertility." Thus far Augustine.
Verse 15: When It Pleased Him
15. When however it pleased Him. — ὅτε εὐδόκησεν ὁ Θεός. Vatablus: "when it seemed good to God": but εὐδοκία signifies more, namely the benevolence, love, and good pleasure of God, by which God was well pleased in us, that He might call us freely and graciously to His grace and salvation. For this is what the Hebrew חפץ chapets signifies, which the Septuagint translates as εὐδόκησεν. Whence he adds:
15 and 16. Who separated me from my mother's womb (God, namely, who, by His said benevolence, in separating me from the womb of my mother, caused me to be born into this world, and brought me forth into this light, with this end, namely) that He might reveal His Son in me, — as is said in the following verse; for the whole preceding verse here is referred to this, as the Greek shows, namely that it pleased God, and that God separated me from the womb, and that He called me with this end, namely, "that He might reveal His Son in me," as if to say: God, before any merit of mine, predestined me when not yet born, and the predestined one He separated from the womb, caused to be born, and after birth called him, "that He might reveal His Son in me," that is, that He might bring me to the recognition of Christ and the Gospel, and consequently to the apostolate, that I might evangelize Christ among the Gentiles. So Ambrose, Anselm, Theophylact. So concerning Jeremiah, says Jerome, it is said in chapter 1: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you: and before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you, and made you a prophet to the Gentiles" — and Paul here alludes to that: for Jeremiah was a type of Paul. Hence for "I sanctified" the word is קדשתי cadasti, which means both "I sanctified" and "I separated"; for a thing is called "holy" as if separated from father, mother, and earthly things, that it may be dedicated and consecrated to God. Thus Paul from the womb, by God's predestination, was as it were separated to God and consecrated to the Gospel, that he might be a Prophet and teacher of the Gentiles.
Mystically, says Anselm, "from my mother's womb," that is, from the blindness of the Synagogue, "God separated me," that, called by Him, I might gaze upon the light of the Gospel. Note: One is called "separated" because he is selected from the flock. Thus the predestined are selected by God from the flock of mankind: so much the more is the Apostle and herald of God's word separated from the common people, and so he ought to excel them as a shepherd excels the whole flock, says Chrysostom elsewhere. For this reason the prophet Isaiah, ch. 6, verse 5, exclaims with groaning: "Woe is me, because I am a man of polluted lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people having polluted lips," as if to say: Wretched am I, who am no holier than my fellow citizens, since they themselves are utterly profane. Paul here alludes to the etymology of his own name פלא pele, that is "excellent, eminent, wonderful," and therefore "separated from the common," as I said in Romans 1:1.
Verse 16: That He Might Reveal His Son in Me
16. That He might reveal His Son in me. — "In me," that is, to me, in my soul. It is a Hebraism: for the Hebrew bet (ב) is adhesive. Note: He says rather "in me" than "to me," to signify that he received the revelation not bare with his ears or eyes, but that he had drunk in Christ and Christ's doctrine and Spirit with his innermost and whole heart, so that Christ was in him, and spoke through him. So Theophylact. Hence, secondly, Jerome and Vatablus aptly translate, "that He might reveal His Son through me." He adds, thirdly — St. Jerome — that it is not said "to me," but "in me," because Christ was already in Paul: for in him there were the principles of virtues and the seeds of God and faith; but Paul did not recognize these, nor did he believe them, until God revealed them in him and in his heart. This is more subtle than germane.
I conferred not with flesh and blood. — As if to say: I did not attach myself to any man, I did not confer about this calling and revelation of mine and the manner of carrying it out, nor did I take into counsel my kindred or any man; but knowing for certain that I was called and taught by God, I followed God alone as my teacher and leader. In Greek it is προσανεθέμην, which Our Translator, in chapter 2, verses 2 and 6, renders "they conferred not"; προσανατίθεσθαι, says Budaeus, is to communicate counsels and secrets, and to pour them out into the bosom of friends, that they, as it were as counselors and sincere judges, may approve, disapprove, add, take away, urge, or dissuade them, as it shall seem to them to bear upon our affair. So also St. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, and the Syriac, who translates, "He did not disclose to flesh and blood," that is, to any man. Note: "Flesh and blood" signify by synecdoche a man composed of flesh and blood. Thus Matthew 16:17: "Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you," that is, no man, "but My Father who is in heaven," as if to say: From a man I was not taught the Gospel, because I conferred about it with no man, but I received it from God alone by revelation. Beware, therefore, O Galatians, lest by repelling it, and by contaminating it with the admixture of Judaism, you contaminate and repel the word of God, and God Himself, who revealed it to me and entrusted it to me to be preached.
You will say: Why then did Paul afterwards come to Jerusalem to see Peter, verse 18, and indeed confer the Gospel with him, ch. 2, verse 2? I answer, that he conferred not as one in doubt, or insufficiently instructed, that he might be more fully and certainly instructed, but in order that the faithful whom he was teaching might see him communicating in faith and doctrine and agreeing with Peter and the other Apostles, and thus might give greater credence to his Gospel. Jerome answers differently, that the word "immediately" is to be referred to the preceding clauses; and is thus to be punctuated: "That I might reveal Him among the Gentiles immediately, I did not confer with flesh and blood," as if to say: When I was at once commanded by God to evangelize the Gentiles, I at once consented, in such wise that I conferred or took counsel with no mortal, though afterward I did confer with Peter, James, and John. But the former solution is more solid. Again, "I did not confer with flesh and blood" can be expounded thus, as if to say: I did not visit, did not attach myself to, my fleshly parents and kindred, but, leaving them, I followed God who called me. So Augustine and Oecumenius.
Morally, let him follow this example of St. Paul who is called by God to the apostolate, to religious life, to evangelical perfection, to heroic works, that he may not consult flesh and blood, but immediately go off to that to which he feels himself called. Let him hear St. Jerome to Heliodorus: "What are you doing," he says, "in the house of your father, you delicate soldier? Where is the rampart? where the trench? where the winter spent under skins? Remember the day of your enlistment, when, buried with Christ in baptism, you swore upon the words of the sacrament that for His name's sake you would not spare father nor mother. Behold, the adversary is trying to slay Christ in your breast. Behold, the donative which you received as one going to fight, the enemy camps yearn after. Though the little nephew hang from your neck, though with disheveled hair and torn garments your mother show the breasts that nursed you, though your father lie on the threshold, trample over your father and go forth, with dry eyes fly to the standard of the Cross. The only kind of piety in this matter is to be cruel." And below: "Easily does the love of God and the fear of hell break these bonds. If they believe in Christ, let them favor me as I am about to fight for His name: if they do not believe, let the dead bury their dead."
The same to Furia, a most noble widow: "The father will be saddened, but Christ will rejoice; the family will mourn, but the angels will rejoice. Let the father do what he wishes with his substance: you are not his to whom you were born, but His to whom you were born again, who redeemed you with His own blood at a great price. Beware of nurses and bearers, and venomous animals of that sort which long to fill their bellies from your hide: they urge what is profitable not to you, but to themselves."
Let him also hear St. Bernard, sermon Ecce nos reliquimus omnia: "How many," he says, "does the cursed wisdom of the world supplant, and quench in them the conceived spirit which the Lord had wished to be vehemently kindled? Do not act precipitately, it says, consider for a long time, what you propose is great, try out what you can do, consult friends, lest after the act it should turn out that you regret it. This is the wisdom of the world, earthly, animal, diabolical, hostile to salvation, suffocator of life, mother of tepidity, which is wont to provoke the Lord to vomit."
Verse 17: Neither Went I to Jerusalem
17. Neither did I come to Jerusalem. — You will say: Acts 9:26 says that immediately after his conversion, when Paul fled from Damascus, he came to Jerusalem. Jerome and Lorinus in Acts 9 reply that he came to Jerusalem at once after his conversion compelled by the necessity of flight, but not in order to see Peter and to confer with him about the Gospel; for he denies only this here. Baronius answers differently, that in Acts 9 it is not said that Paul came to Jerusalem immediately upon his conversion, but after many days: namely after a triennium, spent partly in Arabia and partly in Damascus; when, that is, he came thither to see Peter, as he says here in verse 18, and from there came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, as he says here in verse 21, which Luke in Acts 9 declares saying in verse 30: "They brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus," which is the metropolis of Cilicia. Thus Luke, in Acts 9, is silent about Paul's journey into Arabia, because nothing memorable happened therein. Both opinions are probable. The former is favored by what Luke adds: "All feared him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and led him to the Apostles, and related to them how on the way he had seen the Lord." For so miraculous a conversion of Paul does not seem to have been able to lie hidden from the Apostles and other faithful at Jerusalem for three years; but if it is so, then see and admire with Chrysostom the grace of God which suddenly out of Paul the persecutor made so great a teacher, that immediately after his conversion he began publicly to teach and dispute with the Jews.
To my Apostolic predecessors. — πρὸς τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους, to those who were Apostles before me, that is, who before me were called by Christ to the apostolate.
Verse 18: After Three Years I Came to Jerusalem to See Peter
18. Then after three years I came to Jerusalem to see Peter. — In Greek, say Chrysostom and Theophylact, it is not ἰδεῖν but ἱστορῆσαι, which is said of those who visit and survey splendid cities — for example, Rome — and with attention behold its relics, the Pope, the Cardinals, the clergy, and holy men. As if Paul said: I came to Jerusalem to "see Peter," not that I might learn anything from him (although Erasmus would have ἱστορῆσαι signify that too in Greek), since I had been divinely instructed; but that I might see and honor so great a man, namely the prince of the Apostles. So Theodoret, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome.
The Apostle gives also another reason for his journey to Jerusalem in chapter 2, verse 2: "Peter," says Chrysostom, Homily 87 on John, "was the mouth of the Apostles and their prince, and therefore Paul went up to see him in particular before the others." And Jerome here: "Paul came to see Peter, not to behold his eyes, his cheeks, his face — whether he was lean or fat, whether his nose was hooked or straight, and whether hair clothed his forehead, or (as Clement reports in his Periodi) he had a baldness on his head. Nor do I think it was suited to Apostolic gravity that, after so great a triennial preparation, he should have wished to look upon something human in Peter. With these eyes Paul beheld Cephas, with which now Paul himself is beheld by every prudent person. But if this does not seem so to anyone, let him join all this with the preceding sense, namely that the Apostles conferred nothing on him. For as to the fact that he is seen to have gone to Jerusalem, he went for this purpose, that he might see the Apostle; not from any zeal for learning — since he himself had the same Author of his preaching — but to show honor to the prior Apostle." Hence it is plain that Paul did not see Peter in order to be taught by him, as Erasmus and Vatablus would have it, for he denies this in chapter 2, verse 6: "To me," he says, "they conferred nothing." And here in verses 11 and 12 he expressly asserts that he was taught not by man but by God alone.
Verse 19: Save James, the Brother of the Lord
19. But other of the Apostles saw I none, except James the Lord's brother, — that is, Christ's cousin or kinsman; for the Hebrews call kinsmen brothers. St. Jerome adds that, more than other Apostles who were also kinsmen of Christ, James is called the Lord's brother on account of his outstanding manner of life, his incomparable faith and wisdom, by which he seemed similar to Christ as it were as a brother. Whence this James was also called by surname "the Just." Secondly, because Christ, going to the Father, commended to this James as it were as a brother the sons of His mother — that is, the first believers in Judaea, says Jerome. For this James was James the son of Alphaeus, the son of Mary the wife of Cleophas, one of the twelve Apostles, first bishop of Jerusalem. Hence in the first Council of Jerusalem he was the first to give sentence after Peter, Acts 15:13. The Canonical Epistle of this James is extant. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, Anselm.
Nevertheless, St. Jerome implies, both here and in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, in his entry on James, that this James was not one of the twelve Apostles, but is here called "Apostle" because he had seen Christ and had preached Him. So that there were three Jameses: the first, the brother of John, whom Herod slew; the second, the son of Alphaeus, both Apostles; the third, this brother of the Lord. But since this brother of the Lord is called Apostle, nothing forces us to make him a different person from James son of Alphaeus the Apostle; indeed, many things, and many authors, urge that he is the same; for these reasons the former opinion seems truer.
Verse 20: Before God, I Do Not Lie
20. Before God (supply: "I affirm and assert"), that (that is, "because") I lie not. — Hence Vatablus translates more briefly and plainly: "but the things which I write to you, behold, before God I write, I lie not": for the Greek ὅτι alone has the force of asserting, but not so the Latin quia; whence with quia omitted this bare asseveration is more easily understood by Latin speakers. So Theophylact. Yet Ambrose and Augustine think it is a formula of one swearing: "before God," that is, "I call God to witness." Note: He so seriously and gravely asserts that he did not see the other Apostles, lest anyone say that Paul went to them in secret and was instructed by them, not by God. So Jerome.
Verse 22: I Was Unknown by Face
22. And I was unknown by face, — In their face the Christians who were in Judaea had not seen me. He says this, says Chrysostom, to prove that he had not taught in Judaea, nor preached circumcision and the old Law, as those Judaizers were objecting.
Verse 23: Which Were in Christ
23. Which were in Christ, — in the faith and religion of Christ, that is, who were Christians. See Canon 37.
They had heard, — they had a report; in Greek ἀκούοντες ἦσαν, "they were hearing," a report from them was had, that is, they had heard.
Verse 24: They Glorified God in Me
24. He was destroying, — he was attacking. See what is said on verse 13.
They glorified. — The Greek ἐδόξαζον, "they glorified"; Ambrose reads "they magnified."