Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, he exhorts to good works, especially of mercy and beneficence toward Christians, particularly toward teachers and catechists, and that they should not seek the praises and glory of men, but should be eager to sow good works by which they may reap eternal life.
Secondly, in verse 12, he opposes the glorying of the Jews in circumcision with his own glorying in the Cross of Christ, saying: God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
Vulgate Text: Galatians 6:1-18
1. Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any offense, you, who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2. Bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ. 3. For if any man think himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 4. But let every one prove his own work, and so he shall have glory in himself only, and not in another. 5. For every one shall bear his own burden. 6. And let him who is instructed in the word communicate to him who instructeth him, in all good things. 7. Be not deceived: God is not mocked. 8. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he who soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption: but he who soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting. 9. And in doing good, let us not fail: for in due time we shall reap, not failing. 10. Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of the faith. 11. See what a letter I have written to you with my own hand. 12. For as many as desire to please in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer the persecution of the cross of Christ. 13. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law: but they will have you to be circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. 14. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. 15. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. 16. And whosoever shall follow this rule, peace shall be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. 17. From henceforth let no man be troublesome to me: for I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body. 18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.
Verse 1: Brethren, Even If a Man Be Overtaken in Any Offense, Instruct Such a One in the Spirit of Meekness
1. Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any offense, you, who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness. — Note: Here the Apostle prescribes fraternal correction of any offense whatever (for that is what he means when he says, in any offense); however, as Jerome rightly noted, he chiefly aims at the offense which the whole epistle has attacked, namely Judaism; therefore he commands that the Judaizers be corrected, but mildly. He commanded the same thing in Romans 14:1; for he whom there he calls "weak in the faith," here he calls "overtaken in some offense"; the one there he commands to be received, the one here to be instructed: for this epistle is like an epitome and compendium of the Epistle to the Romans, with which it agrees strongly in sentences, reasons, and progression of thought, as I said in the proem. Whence, just as in the first chapters of the Epistle to the Romans he attacked Judaism sharply, so also here; and just as in the last, that is chapters 14 and 15 of Romans, he tempers that bitterness and orders the Judaizers to be tolerated, so also here he orders them to be mildly instructed.
Note: He does not speak of those obstinate in evil: for these, as St. Gregory teaches, since they sin from settled malice and will, are to be sharply reproved: for hardness, says Tertullian, must be broken and vanquished, not coaxed; but he speaks of those overtaken, who, fragile in faith and morals, recent and weak, have been seduced by the false persuasion of the Jews and driven into Judaism and other vices: for these are said to be overtaken, that is, anticipated, before they could perceive or guard against their fall. Whence for "delictum" the Greek is παράπτωμα, which signifies not a deliberate fall but an accidental one, when someone, looking elsewhere or not paying attention, strikes against a stone or falls into a ditch and tumbles down.
Instruct, — καταρτίζετε, that is, as the Syriac has it, set upright; or, as Vatablus more genuinely renders it, restore, reintegrate, re-establish, as if to say: Just as the limbs and members of a man dislocated by a fall are restored, so restore the dislocated faith and morals of your neighbors. Hence Erasmus thinks that our Interpreter translated "instaurate" (restore), but that the reading is now corrupted to "instruite" (instruct), in place of "instaurate." But this is not likely: for all the manuscripts have "instruite"; therefore the Interpreter rightly translates, not word-for-word but with a clearer sense; for the restoration of faith and morals is nothing other than the instruction of the fallen in those same things.
In the spirit of meekness, — that is, with gentleness, kindly, mildly. Note: He calls the Spirit the inner affection of meekness, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, says Chrysostom, and which is said to breathe and as it were inhale by admonitory words its own meekness and sweetness, so that the very words and gestures may breathe a certain inward meekness and gentleness of the one correcting; for correction is like a pill bitter in itself, because it discloses and accuses the vice of the one corrected; hence it must be coated with the sugar and sweetness of the voice, and with apt insinuation, or even with extenuation of the fault, and its bitterness must be sweetened.
Beautifully and truly does St. Chrysostom, in homily 52 to the People, assert that our tongue becomes as it were the tongue of Christ, if in speaking, teaching, and correcting we imitate Christ's meekness. And St. Dionysius, epistle 8 to Demophilus, which is on benignity, teaches that Moses, on account of his meekness (for, by the testimony of Scripture, he was the meekest of mortals), merited so great a colloquy and familiarity with God, that he was called the servant of God κατ' ἐξοχήν (par excellence), with whom, beyond the other Prophets, God spoke mouth to mouth, face to face, as a friend with a friend. And immediately he adds: Christ takes this as a sign of extraordinary love toward Himself, if we feed His flock with the most modest governance. And at the end he adds the beautiful example of a certain vision shown to St. Carpus, in which Christ, rebuking Carpus's indignation and desire for vengeance against certain Gentiles who had drawn two men from the faith of Christ, said to him: "Strike against Me, for I am ready to suffer again for the salvation of men: that is pleasing to Me, so that other men may not sin."
Hence also St. Augustine in this place in practice prescribes this most useful method of correction: "Never," he says, "is the business of rebuking another's sin to be undertaken, except when, examining our conscience by inner interrogations, we have clearly answered before God that we are doing it from love," that is, that we are moved to correct him by love of neighbor alone, and he adds: "Love, and say what you wish; in no way will it be evilly spoken, even though it sound like the appearance of a curse, if you remember and feel that by the sword of the word of God you wish to be the liberator of a man from the siege of vices." But if any movement of impatience steals upon us, and it happens that we grow angry while our good admonitions are resisted, let us consider, he says, "how we ought not to be proud over the sins of others, since we ourselves sin in their very rebuking, since the anger of the sinner more easily makes us angry than his misery makes us merciful." And St. Basil in his more extensive Rules, Rule 51, teaches Superiors and others who strive to cure the diseases of souls, that they ought to imitate good physicians, namely "that they should not be angry with the sick, but should fight against the disease itself."
Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. — There is an enallage of number: for he passes from the plural number to the singular; consequently he ought to have said: "Considering yourselves, lest you also be tempted"; but because the plural here distributes, and stands for the individuals (for "you," that is, each of you), hence aptly he explains this distribution by speaking in the singular: "Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Especially because this is said more gently: for it is more harshly said to the whole community, "Consider yourselves, lest you also be tempted"; because this is to admonish the whole Church or community, and in admonishing tacitly to blame and accuse. This is an effective reason persuading to mercy and to merciful and gentle correction, if you consider that you are a sharer in and subject to the same temptation and misery, and that God is wont to permit those to be tempted who are harsh and unmerciful toward the fallen. Hence we often read in the Lives of the Fathers that elders who had harshly accused their disciples tempted by lust or some other vice were soon themselves struck by the same temptation, that they might learn to have mercy and to compassionate the tempted, and to console and encourage them.
Cassian relates, in book V of De Institutis renuntiantium, ch. 30, that Abbot Machetes said: "In three things I judged my brothers, and into the same three faults I fell, 'that the nations may know that they are men.'" Another of the ancient Fathers, as often as he heard that someone had fallen, used to weep bitterly, saying: "He today, and I tomorrow." So let everyone say when he sees the fall of his neighbor: "I am a man, and I count nothing human alien from me." For, as St. Gregory says in homily 34 on the Gospels: "True justice has compassion, false justice has disdain." Cassian relates, in conference 2, ch. 13, that a certain younger monk, gravely tempted by the spirit of fornication, went to a certain elder, but a rough and indiscreet one; and when he had declared the temptation to him, having been harshly received and rebuked by him, in despair he resolved to return to the world and take a wife. Abbot Apollo perceived the matter from the monk's countenance; therefore, sweetly soothing him, he consoled him and strengthened him in his purpose: and presently going to the cell of the elder who had so harshly received the young man, he prayed God to send the young man's temptation upon the elder, that in old age, he said, he might learn to compassionate the younger when they are tempted. Soon the temptation invaded the elder, to such a degree that he ran here and there as if mad. Apollo was watching the matter from a distance, and going to the elder, said: "Know that God has permitted you to be struck by this temptation, that by experience you may learn to compassionate the young in temptation, and not to repel them austerely and drive them into despair, as you nearly drove this young man, since you now see yourself so agitated by a small temptation and almost overcome; but receive them kindly, console and strengthen them, according to that of Isaiah 50:4: 'The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary.'" For thus did Christ act, of whom Isaiah foretold in chapter 42, verse 3: "The bruised reed He shall not break, and the smoking flax He shall not quench;" and that Christ performed this in deed Matthew 12:20 reports.
Wherefore prudently and aptly St. Augustine, in book II of De Sermone Domini in monte, ch. 20, in particular assigns these three rules for correcting the neighbor: "Piously," he says, "and cautiously must we be vigilant, that, when necessity has compelled us to reprehend or rebuke someone, first, let us consider whether the vice is such that we have never had, or that we have already been free from; and if we have never had it, let us consider that we too are men, and could have had it. Secondly, if indeed we have had it and do not have it, let common fragility touch our memory, so that not hatred but mercy may precede that reprehension or rebuke: so that, whether it avails to the correction of him on whose account we do it, or to perversion (for the outcome is uncertain), we ourselves may be secure of the simplicity of our eye. Thirdly, if however, considering ourselves, we find ourselves to be in that vice in which he is whom we were preparing to reprehend, let us not reprehend, nor rebuke: but rather let us groan together, and let us invite him not to obey us, but equally to beware along with us."
Verse 2: Bear One Another's Burdens, and So You Shall Fulfill the Law of Christ
2. Bear one another's burdens. — In Greek ἀλλήλων τὰ βάρη βαστάζετε, that is, carry one another's burdens in turn, as Chrysostom, Anselm, and Theophylact say: Bear the weights of mutual infirmities by tolerating them in turn and by compassionating them: for example, do you bear your neighbor's bile and bilious words, let him bear your melancholy and phlegmatic ways; "so that he who is quick and irascible," says Theophylact from Chrysostom, "may bear the sluggish and slow, but the sluggish may bear the vehement impulse of the other," namely let him consider that it is a burden which weighs upon his neighbor more than upon himself, and let him compassionate him.
Secondly and more generally, "burdens," or, as the Greek is, βάρη, that is, whatever burdens weigh upon the neighbor, whether vices, or diseases, or cares, or melancholy, or anything else weighing him down, bear them with him by compassionating him, helping him, strengthening him, sustaining him, and as it were carrying the burdens with him on your shoulders, so that you may be hope to the lame, eye to the blind, staff to the old. On this matter see St. Augustine on Psalm 126.
Thirdly, and genuinely according to the mind of the Apostle, Basil, in the Shorter Rules, Rule 278: "Sin," he says, "is a heavy burden pressing down the soul, indeed depressing it and dragging it down to hell;" for just as a beast of burden carrying too heavy a load, unequal to its strength, collapses under it: so under sin as under a burden the soul collapses into the guilt of hell, and groans under the burden, nor can it raise itself or rise from it. That sin is treated of here is clear from the preceding verse, where he called this burden a "delict" (offense), and from what he adds in verse 5: "For every one shall bear his own burden," namely, the burden of his own sins.
From which it is clear that every sin is indeed here called a burden; but the Apostle properly directs his attention to the sin of apostasy and of Judaism; for to this he properly looked in verse 1. Hence he aptly calls Judaism a burden, just as in chapter 5, verse 1, he calls the same a yoke of servitude, because Judaism imposed onerous laws and ceremonies upon its subjects, as if to say: If anyone has been overtaken by some offense, especially of infidelity or Judaism, so that having collapsed under it he groans as under a burden, do not harshly rebuke, prick, or goad him; but gently instruct and relieve him, and as it were carry the burden with him by your doctrine, counsel, consolation, and comfort, so that he may rise up from sin and Judaism and be restored to himself, to the Church, and to Christ; for he is explaining what he said in verse 1: "Instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness," as if to say: This meekness ought to be so great that, as it were with him whom you are correcting, you carry and bear his burden and offense, or rather you roll this burden off from him, and by rolling it off you take it as it were upon yourselves, that he who has fallen may be able to rise from sin; just as one who lifts up an ass that has fallen under a burden rolls the burden off from it, and takes it between his arms as if upon himself, so that the ass, relieved of this burden, may be able to rise.
Hence St. Basil above: "This burden," he says, "we lift from one another in turn among ourselves (and by lifting we as it were take it upon ourselves), as often as we strive that those who have sinned and fallen may come to their senses." Thus Christ, says Isaiah in chapter 53, verse 4, "truly bore our infirmities, and Himself carried our sorrows," because He took upon Himself our sins and the punishments of sinners, bore them, and by bearing them paid them and expiated them.
Therefore we carry the burden, that is, the sins of our neighbor, and we lift him with this burden: first, by compassion and meekness, and by gentle instruction and correction; and this is what the Apostle properly intends here. Secondly, by prayer, if we pray for him, that God may lift this burden from him. Thirdly, and most perfectly, by penances, if after Christ's example we undertake to atone and expiate our neighbor's sins by voluntary fasts, hairshirts, and other penances.
Note that here sins are and are called burdens, and indeed the greatest and heaviest. "See," says St. Augustine, in homily 22 on these words of the Apostle, vol. X, "a man burdened with the pack of avarice, see him sweating, panting, thirsting under this pack, and by his labor adding to the pack. What do you expect, O avaricious one, embracing your burden and pack under your shoulders? What do you expect? Why do you labor? Why do you gape? Why do you covet? namely, to satisfy your avarice: it can press you, you cannot satisfy it. Or perhaps it is not heavy? Have you so far under this pack lost even your sense? Is avarice not heavy? Why then does it rouse you from sleep, which sometimes does not even allow you to sleep? And perhaps with it you have another burden of sloth, and these two are the wickedest burdens, and warring with each other they press you and tear you apart. For they do not command equally, for they do not bid the same things. Sloth says: Sleep; avarice says: Rise; sloth says: Do not endure cold days; avarice says: Endure even storms at sea; sloth says: Be still; avarice does not allow stillness, it commands not only: Go forward, but also: Sail across the sea, seek lands which you do not know."
St. Augustine adds that Christ shakes off from us this pack of cupidity and imposes His own pack of charity, which does not weigh down but lifts up, just as wings do not weigh down a bird but lift it up.
Note secondly, how we ought to bear these burdens of one another, and that this is the proper office of charity, St. Augustine teaches with a beautiful similitude of deer in the same place, homily 21, and in book LXXXIII Quaestionum, Quaestio LXXI, where he says: "It is the office of love to bear one another's burdens. For as some have written about deer, when they cross a strait to an island for the sake of pasture, they so arrange themselves that the burdens of their heads, which they carry on their horns, they bear upon one another, so that the rear deer places its head upon the front, with neck stretched out. And because it is necessary that there be one who, going before the others, has none before himself on whom to lean his head, they are said to do this in turns; so that, wearied by the burden of his own head, he who goes ahead returns behind all the others, and succeeds the one whose head he was bearing when he himself was going first. Thus bearing one another's burdens, they cross the strait, until they come to that stability of the land. Perhaps Solomon had the nature of deer in mind when he said: Let the deer of friendship and the fawn of thy graces converse with thee; for nothing so proves a friend as the bearing of a friend's burden, e.g., you will then bear your brother's anger, when you yourself are not angry against him, so that again, at that time when anger has overtaken you, he by his tranquility may support you. And likewise if anyone has overcome talkativeness in himself, and has not yet overcome obstinacy; while another is still talkative, but is not now obstinate: the one ought to bear in charity the latter's talkativeness, and the latter the former's obstinacy, until that be healed in the one, and this in the other." Then by the example of Paul and Christ he demonstrates the same thing, when he adds: "And Paul said: Let no one seek what is his own, but what is another's. To which sentence he joined: Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; only to this end, that just as in that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and although He was without sin, He took up our sins, not regarding His own but ours: so also let us willingly, in imitation of Him, bear one another's burdens; let us therefore show this to him whose infirmity we wish to bear, what we would wish to be shown by him, if perchance we were in it and he were not. I became all things to all men, that I might gain all, says Paul. He became all things to all men, namely by considering that he too might have been in that vice from which he desired to free the other."
These bearers of the burdens and infirmities of their neighbor St. Basil elegantly compares to bones, on Psalm 33 at those words, "The Lord keepeth all their bones": "Just as," he says, "bones with their innate force support and more closely contract the very tender softness of the flesh: so are there in the Church certain ones who can support and bear the weakness of the weak by their own constant firmness. And as bones are connected with one another by the joinings of the joints, and these connections by sinews are strengthened, and by ligaments which adhere to the bones: exactly the same will happen, if the bond of charity and peace in the Church of God will form, as it were, a certain kinship of spiritual bones, conspiring into one. Of such bones, removed and loosened from the harmonious concord of the parts, and as it were dislocated from their joints and limbs, the Prophet says: 'Our bones are scattered along the grave.' And indeed these bones, if any disturbance meanwhile, if any shaking has seized them, let him pray: 'Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.' But where they have preserved their proper harmony, kept by the Lord, he says: 'Not even one of these shall be broken.' Since indeed they are worthy to ascribe and refer the glory to God, he says: 'All my bones shall say: Lord, who is like unto thee?' You have seen, then, the nature of bones endowed with reason."
From this it follows, thirdly, that those who carry the burdens of others, who grieve with and compassionate the infirmities of others, are bony and robust in virtue, and consequently that this compassion is a sign of Christian perfection; just as on the contrary not to compassionate, but rigidly to accuse and condemn the sinning neighbor is a sign of some hidden vice and imperfection. Cassian teaches this, Conference 41, chapter 11: "It is," he says, "an evident sign of a soul not yet purged of the dregs of vices, not to grieve with the affection of mercy in the crimes of others, but to maintain the rigid censure of one judging. For how shall he be able to obtain the perfection of heart, who has not that which the Apostle indicated as the consummation of the fullness of the law? mutually, he says, bear your burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ; nor does he possess that virtue of charity, which is not provoked, is not puffed up, does not think evil, which bears all things, endures all things, believes all things. For the just man has mercy on the souls of his beasts, but the bowels of the wicked are without mercy; and therefore it is most certain that the monk lies under the same vices which he condemns in another with unmerciful and inhuman severity. For a rigid king shall fall into evils, and he who shuts his ears that he may not hear the weak, he too shall call out, and there shall be none who will hear him." Cassian quotes these words from Proverbs chapter 21, according to the Septuagint. Examples of those compassionating and supporting others I have brought forward at Numbers chapter 11, verse 12.
And so you shall fulfill the law of Christ. — Our Interpreter reads ἀναπληρώσετε with an ε (epsilon), that is, "you shall fulfill"; the Greek now has ἀναπληρώσατε in the imperative, that is, "fulfill ye"; but the sense is the same: namely, if we tolerate, bear, and lift up one another's defects and sins, we shall fulfill the law of Christ, which commands: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
Where note: The law of Christ is love. "In this," He says, "shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another," John 13:35; and 15:12: "This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you." But in this mutual love the most difficult thing, and what Christ chiefly demands of us, is that we bear one another's burdens; so that if we fulfill this, we shall fulfill the law of love of neighbor, and consequently the law of Christ — which is a great spur to make us do this very thing; for he does not say: You will do, but plainly: "You shall fulfill the law of Christ."
Chrysostom and Theophylact note secondly that the Apostle does not say πληρώσατε, that is, "fulfill," but ἀναπληρώσατε, that is, "refulfill," "fill up again," or "all together and in common fulfill," that is, that what was diminished in the observance of the law by another's bile or offense, the charity of others may make up; so that each may supply by his own tolerance and charity what is lacking to his neighbor in fulfilling the law, fulfilling the law thereby, e.g., He who offends his neighbor with harsh and bilious words violates the law which says: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor." If the neighbor patiently bears this vice, forgives, compassionates, he will supply what the other lacked, and for him will fulfill the law which says: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor." Again, and more in line with the mind of the Apostle: he who bears, instructs, corrects the Judaizer and sinner, fulfills his defect in the law, because he removes and emends it, and restores the man to faith and to the law, so that he may again do and fulfill it.
Thus St. Bernard, in the treatise On Precept and Dispensation, a little after the beginning, teaches that he who by sinning has violated the law, by repenting, by asking pardon, and by praying, "Forgive us our debts," again repairs and fulfills this fall and violation of the law: "Him," he says, "I call safe, who, although sometimes he transgresses the limit of obedience, does not reject the counsel of penance: for part of the rule (of the monastic law) is regular correction, and in it is found not only the instruction of a good life, but also the emendation of a perverse one."
Verse 3: If Anyone Think Himself to Be Something, Whereas He Is Nothing, He Deceiveth Himself
3. For if anyone think himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself, — if anyone think himself spiritual, distinguished, great, and perfect in virtue and in Christianity, and therefore proudly, harshly, and contemptuously rebuke and reproach the sinning neighbor, and especially the Judaizer: this man is nothing, because by his haughtiness, arrogance, harshness, contempt, he shows himself to be of no virtue. So St. Jerome (otherwise Anselm: "He is nothing, namely, of himself: because whatever he has, he has from God;" but the former sense has more force and connection); and therefore such a one deceives himself, in Greek φρεναπατᾷ, that is, as Jerome says, deceives his own mind; which deception is the greatest and most perverse, when, namely, anyone, blindly flattering himself, imposes upon himself, persuading himself that he is what he in reality is not.
Verse 4: But Let Each One Prove His Own Work
4. But let each one prove his own work, — as if to say: Let each one examine not the fall, life, morals, and works of another, so as, like the Pharisee considering the Publican's life, to think himself holy in comparison to him; but rather let each one prove and exactly examine his own work, that is, his individual works, whether they are done from vainglory, from simulation, from hatred and envy, or truly purely to please God: for so he will see many defects, so that he will not think himself to be anything. But if he sees none or few, and his work seems to be pure and perfect, he will have glory, that is, in the Greek καύχημα, glorying, in himself, that is, that in conscience he may be able to glory in himself and in his own works; "but in the Lord and in the grace of the Lord, by whose power he did them, and not in another," that is, not in respect to another, in Greek οὐκ εἰς τὸν ἕτερον, not into another: which Chrysostom explains as "not against another," as if to say: He will not glory while looking at another grievously fallen, that he may be better than him, as the Pharisee gloried against the Publican by despising him and praising himself in comparison; but he will modestly glory in himself and in his conscience in works done by the grace of God. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, Anselm.
And beautifully Jerome: "This," he says, "is the sense: You who esteem yourself spiritual, and are stronger than the infirmity of another, ought not to consider the weakness of the prostrate one, but your own strength; for it is not because another cannot perfectly pass from Judaism to Christianity that you therefore are a perfect Christian; but if your own conscience does not gnaw at you, you have glory in yourself, and not in another. The athlete is not therefore strong, because he conquered a weak man, and overcame the languid limbs of his adversary; but if he is robust, he glories in his own strength, not in the infirmity of another. It can also be understood differently: He who has the conscience of a good work, and considering himself, does not reprehend his work, ought not to glory of this with another, and pour out his praise abroad and share it with all, and seek boasting from the favor of men; but let him have glory in himself, and say: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world." But the former sense is the genuine one, and intimately connected with what precedes.
Verse 5: For Every One Shall Bear His Own Burden
5. For every one shall bear his own burden. — Ambrose: his own pack; for the Greek is ἕκαστος τὸ ἴδιον φορτίον βαστάσει, that is, as Vatablus translates, each one will carry his own pack.
You will say: This sentence seems contrary to what was already said in verse 2: "Bear one another's burdens."
Jerome answers that the verse 2 speaks of the present age, this verse 5 of the future, and of the day of judgment; because in this age we are able to help one another by counsels and prayers; but when we shall have come before the tribunal of Christ, neither Job, nor Daniel, nor Noah will be able to deliver the souls of their sons, as is said in Ezekiel 14:14; but each one will bear and carry the burden of his own works and sins, that is, the deserved punishments and rewards of his works, as if to say: On the day of judgment Christ will not examine you about the fall or offense of your neighbor, or whether you have lived better or less badly than he, but he will compare you to yourself, set you before your own face, will demand, judge, punish, or reward your works according to the law of your own mind and reason. See therefore that you do not think yourself to be something compared to him who has fallen into sin or Judaism, but prove your own work, and compare it to yourself and to the divine law, that you may explore whether before God it is such, so pure and perfect, as Christ will demand in His tribunal.
Wrongly therefore do the Innovators twist this against Purgatory, and against the suffrages which we make for those who are in Purgatory: for the Apostle is not speaking of Purgatory, but of the day of judgment, on which day each will bear this his own burden, and will be able to be defended or helped by no one: for before the day of judgment we are able to help one another by prayers and merits, both the living and the dead existing in Purgatory; for this is what the communion of Saints requires, which is in the Church, to which certainly belong those who are in Purgatory.
Note: When each one departs from this life and world, he carries nothing with him except his works. Whence works are as it were the pack of travelers proceeding to the tribunal of Christ, that there they may be laid bare, examined, and may show the bearer to be worthy either of heaven or of hell; for such as the pack will be, such will be esteemed to be also its bearer, indeed its maker — the man who made this pack for himself, that is, the burden of his works, and consequently the burden of punishments or rewards, that is, the burden of penalty proportionate and owed to the burden of guilt, as it were a pack he has made and imposed upon himself.
Verse 6: Let Him Who Is Catechized in the Word Communicate to Him Who Catechizes Him, in All Good Things
6. Let him who is catechized in the word communicate to him who catechizes him, in all good things. — Note first, "is catechized in the word," that is, through the word, voice, and doctrine of the catechizer, or teacher, which the catechumen or disciple imbibes and receives. So St. Ambrose.
Secondly, the phrase "in all good things" refer not to the immediately preceding "who catechizes you," but more remotely to "let him communicate": for he does not wish the catechist, but the catechumen, to communicate his goods, sustenance, and wealth with his catechist. So Jerome, Theophylact, and others.
Ambrose, however, refers it to "who catechizes him," as if to say: Let the catechumen communicate his wealth with the catechist, provided, that is, that he catechize him in all good things; namely, in disciplines and morals; for if he should catechize him in the contrary, he will hear what follows: "Be not deceived, God is not mocked."
Again Marcion, says Jerome, used to explain it thus: In prayer, in good morals, and in all spiritual goods let the catechumen communicate with his catechist and master, that he may imitate his doctrine and morals, and express them in himself; but the first sense is plainer and more common.
Is catechized. — "Catechizo" is a Greek word from ἠχέω, that is, to sound with the voice; whence the word "Echo." Hence κατηχέω is the same as "to instruct by voice," because formerly the mysteries of religion were handed down by living voice, and it was unlawful to commit them to writings, lest they come into the hands and notice of unbelievers, be made public, would be profaned and ridiculed. Hence he is called a catechist who teaches these mysteries; a catechumen, who hears and learns them; the catechism, the doctrine and instruction itself. Hence is plain the antiquity of the catechism and of catechizing: for in Paul's time this catechesis was practised, and Paul here commands the catechumens to share all their goods with their catechists; nay, the sermons of the Apostles were almost only catecheses. Such a catechist was Paul, 1 Corinthians 14:19: "In the Church," he says, "I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may instruct others also;" in Greek it is κατηχήσω, that I may catechize. After the Apostles, the Fathers followed in this, as Cyril of Jerusalem whose Catecheses are extant, and Augustine who wrote a book On Catechizing the Uninstructed, Gregory of Nyssa who issued a catechetical oration which is called the Great Catechesis, and others. Whence it is plain that the office of catechizing is primitive in the Church and Apostolic; so that with good reason Master John Gerson, although Chancellor of Paris, fulfilled it as a truly honourable and Christian office, and was willing himself to instruct children, and to hear their confessions assiduously, just as outstanding and Religious men, and even doctors, still do, with how great a benefit and fruit to the Church! For this is a necessary office in the Church: for many even now are so simple and ignorant that they know nothing of the mysteries of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation, and of the Redemption of Christ, do not understand the Creed but recite it like a parrot its "hail"; for whom catechesis is surely more useful and necessary than any other sermon. Wherefore Bishops and Parish-priests, according to the precept of the Council of Trent, session XXIV, chapters 4 and 7, are bound necessarily to teach and catechize these things, either themselves or through others: otherwise, woe to them. For if the simple perish and are damned through ignorance, much more certainly will the parish-priests be damned who refused or neglected to teach them.
Master Gerson, just cited, wrote a treatise On Drawing Children to Christ, which is extant in Part II of his works, where he has much on this subject, and defends himself and his action concerning the catechizing of children, and among other things says thus: "So unworthy does it now seem to many, if anyone from among theologians, or men famous in letters, or one endowed with ecclesiastical dignity, has stooped to this work, especially with regard to little children, that it has turned for me into a fable and a reproach. But the example of Christ refutes them, who said, 'Suffer the little ones to come unto Me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' O most loving Jesus, who, after Thee, will any longer be ashamed to be humble with little children, when Thou, who art God, dost gently incline and clasp Thy arms even to the most chaste embraces of children! Give me one who is spiritual, who seeks not the things that are his own, but the things of Jesus Christ, whom charity, humility and piety have wholly filled, in whom vanity and cupidity find no place, whose conversation is in heaven, who, like one of the angels of God, is moved neither by blessing nor by cursing, who is stirred or attracted by no shape of bodies, but, abstracted in the lofty citadel of reason, dwells only in the keen-sighted quality of souls; and he will understand these things." Then he answers the objections of his detractors thus: "But they say my employment (as Chancellor) ought to be in greater things. I really do not know whether anything can be greater than to snatch souls from the very gates of hell, and as it were to plant or water souls of children — no unworthy portion of the ecclesiastical garden. But they assert that I would do these things more magnificently in public sermons. That perhaps would be more pompous, but in my judgment not more efficacious nor more fruitful: for the jar will long preserve the odour with which it was once newly imbued. Come therefore unto me, little ones, I shall give you doctrine, and you shall give me prayer: thus shall we mutually rejoice our angels." Thus far Gerson, scattered passages and more in the cited tract. For more on catechesis see Antonius Possevinus, book IV of the Sacred Library, chapters 6, 7, 8, 9.
Verse 7: Be Not Deceived: God Is Not Mocked
Be not deceived, — that is, in this sharing of your goods, says Anselm, so as to excuse yourselves from the maintenance of catechists on the pretext of poverty, of the necessity of family and of children: for although you may put forward these excuses to men, yet see that you do not deceive yourselves, and offer them falsely: for you cannot deceive and mock God who sees all things. So Jerome, Theophylact, Anselm.
Secondly, more generally and better, these words after the Hebrew manner are to be inserted somewhat higher up, referring to what he said above, verse 4: "But let every one prove his own work," as if to say: Let each prove his own works sincerely and before God, in this matter let him not err; because, although he may impose upon men, yet he cannot mock God. For that these are to be taken generally of any work whatever, is plain from the following verse: "For what a man shall sow, these things shall he also reap: because he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption."
God is not mocked. — For "is mocked" the Greek is μυκτηρίζεται, which signifies to turn up the nose, to mock by turning up the nose, as those do who, after they have deceived others, behind their backs stick out their tongue, nose, or finger at them in sign of derision.
Verse 8: For What a Man Shall Sow, These Also Shall He Reap
8. For what a man shall sow, these also shall he reap. — Note the metaphor. Our life is as it were husbandry and a time for sowing; the life to come is the time of reaping, that is, of receiving the reward according to the measure of the seed, that is, of merit. So it is commonly said:
What each man sows for himself in the time of this present life, / This shall be his harvest, when they shall say: Go, come;
namely, when Christ and the Apostles shall say to the elect: "Come, ye blessed, possess the kingdom;" but to the reprobate: "Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."
He that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption (as if to say: He who works carnal things and casts them as it were as seed into his own flesh — as the Greek has it — namely, that he may feed and delight his flesh, this man "of the flesh," that is, by carnal work and pleasure, "shall reap corruption" and death, both present and eternal. He alludes to the carnal pleasures of gluttony and lust, whose harvest and end is corruption: for they are turned into phlegm, filth, menstrual flow, gore, and every corruption. On the contrary), they who sow in the spirit (that is, who work spiritual things, by which they nurture and sharpen the spirit, these) of the Spirit (that is, from this spiritual work) shall reap life everlasting. — Secondly, although the saying of the Apostle is general, yet, as I have said, he fixes his eyes especially on the seed and work of beneficence, and chiefly of almsgiving, by which the catechumen feeds his catechist, as if to say: He who pours out his wealth on his flesh, that he may splendidly clothe, feed, and stuff it, this man of the flesh shall reap corruption; but he who sows and pours out his wealth in pious and spiritual works, especially in alms, that he may feed his catechists and masters, this man, from this almsgiving and spiritual work, shall reap life everlasting. So Jerome and Theophylact.
Verse 9: But Doing Good, Let Us Not Faint
9. But doing good. — "Good," that is, good works, especially of almsgiving and liberality, chiefly toward the catechists and heralds of the Gospel. For with all these words he speaks in general of good work, yet his mind is chiefly borne toward, and looks to, this good by which one instructs and confirms another who is wavering in the faith, and conversely by which he who is instructed in the faith shares his goods with his instructor, that the latter may live thereby, lest he be forced to abandon teaching to seek and procure his own livelihood.
Let us not faint. — In Greek οὐκ ἐκκακῶμεν, let us not be wearied, not grow tired, not slacken.
In due season (namely, in the day of judgment and of the final retribution) we shall reap, fainting not. — Οὐκ ἐκλυσμένα, that is, as Theophylact, indefatigable, as if Theophylact would say: Let us not be wearied here in well-working and sowing, that for our reward we may attain perfect rest, in which there shall be no weariness, in the heavenly and eternal harvest: for in this life, in the bodily harvest, e.g., of wheat or grain, there is much labour and weariness; but nothing such will there be in the heavenly harvest. Or more clearly and elegantly, "we shall reap, fainting not," that is, we shall reap unceasingly and without end: because, as we did not fail in this life in sowing, says Anselm, so we shall not fail in the other in reaping the fruits of eternal life and glory. For this is the fitting, equal, and just reward, that they who here, without cessation, have laboured perpetually unwearied, there, without cessation, may feast unsatiated, and abound in all good things forever.
It might secondly, not amiss, be taken thus: "Not fainting," that is, if we shall not have failed. In Greek οὐκ ἐκλυόμενοι, not dissolved, not languishing, that is, if we have not grown faint, but have steadfastly persevered in well-doing: for only perseverance is crowned, and the end crowns the work.
Verse 10: Therefore While We Have Time, Let Us Work Good Unto All, Especially to the Household of the Faith
10. Therefore while we have time (of sowing, of doing good, of meriting in this life), let us work good unto all (that is, to all, not only to the catechists, as I said in verse 6, but to absolutely all, even to the Gentiles), but especially to the household of the faith — that is, let us do good to Christians, who dwell with us in the house of God, that is, the Church, as members of the household; let us show them charity, help them with all aid and effort, whether by teaching, or admonishing, or counselling, or giving alms, or by any other way of assisting. A beautiful example on this matter from St. John the Apostle is here related by St. Jerome: "The blessed John the Evangelist," he says, "when he stayed at Ephesus to extreme old age, and could scarcely be carried into the church between his disciples' hands, and was not able to weave his voice into many words, used to say nothing else through each separate collect than this: 'Little children, love one another.' At length the disciples and brethren who were present, wearied because they always heard the same thing, said: Master, why do you always say this? He answered with a saying worthy of John: Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone be done, it suffices." St. Jerome adds that all are here admonished to spend their time well: "Brief," he says, "is the course of this life. Titus, son of Vespasian, when one night late at supper he remembered that he had done nothing good that day, said to his friends: Today I have lost a day; we do not think that we lose an hour, a day, a moment, a time, an age, when we speak an idle word, for which we shall render account on the day of judgment."
Καιρόν, that is, time or occasion, Posidippus beautifully describes, and from him Blessed Thomas More and Giraldus, Syntagma 1:
..... Who art thou? — Καιρός (Opportunity); I, the tamer of all. / Why dost thou stand upon the tips of thy feet? I am ever spinning. Wings, / Why dost thou wear on thy soles? I am borne as a light breeze. / Why is a razor set in thy right hand? This is a sign to man: / That none can compete with me in keenness. / Why does thy hair fall over thy brow? That, coming, thou mayest seize me. / Why is the back of thy head bald? / Because, when on light wings I have headlong fled, / He who would call me back from behind cannot prevail.
Oh! if we would consider well how short is the time of our struggle and our course, how time is irrevocable as it flies, how upon this moment hangs eternity: how fervent and assiduous would we be in every good work! For what we now neglect, throughout all eternity it will not be allowed us to recover, because in a short time will end all time of living, of acting, of meriting. "The angel swore," says John, Apocalypse 10:6, "by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no more," but eternity, and the eternal retribution of those things which we do in this time. St. Chrysostom, homily 17 on John: "Short," he says, "is the time granted to us in the present life: which if we use not in necessary things, what shall we do when we migrate thither?" Therefore time must be given to eternal and holy things, not to evil things, not to vain things, not to idle things. The Ethnic Seneca urges this on Lucilius, Epistle 1: "The most shameful," he says, "is the loss of time which comes through negligence; and if you will pay attention, a great part of life slips away from those acting badly, the greatest part from those doing nothing, the whole from those doing something else."
Hence St. Gregory Nazianzen in his Iambics says that this life is a market, in which we may obtain all wealth, namely the virtues; that being ended, no place for buying and procuring is left. This market lasts but one day, namely our life, which is but a single day, nay, only a point in comparison with eternity. See therefore that on this day you trade plentifully, and increase your gains, which shall endure forever.
Verse 11: See What Manner of Letters I Have Written to You With My Own Hand
11. See what manner of letters I have written to you with my own hand. — "What manner of," that is, how deformed, as if to say: Although I draw inelegantly and unskilfully, yet out of love for you I have written this epistle with my own hand and in this, however ill-shaped, character. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact. Secondly, Augustine: "what manner of," that is, with how open, with how free letters, fearing nothing from the Judaizers, have I written these things. Thirdly: "what manner of," that is, with how lofty letters. So some, from St. Hilary on the Psalms. Fourthly, St. Jerome supposes that St. Paul wrote this epistle thus far in chains by another's hand: but from here to the end he writes with his own hand, lest the Jews should say (as they had said elsewhere) that this epistle of Paul was supposititious. Fifthly and best: "what manner of," in Greek πηλίκοις, that is, how great, with how long letters I have written to you with my own hand; as if to say: I, Paul, who am wont to write by another's hand and at the end to subscribe with my own, have written this entire epistle to you (as St. Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theophylact admit), although a fairly long one, with my own hand, to show how much your salvation is my care — namely, your faith and religion — that I may bring you back from Judaism to Christianity.
Verse 12: Whosoever Will Please in the Flesh, These Compel You to Be Circumcised
12. Whosoever will please in the flesh. — For "please" the Greek is εὐπροσωπῆσαι, that is, to present a good face, a good countenance, to appear comely, to please according to outward face and appearance; as if to say: The Judaizers, who wish to show a good face and appearance, and by these to please "in the flesh." It is a Hebraism, that is, to the flesh, that is, to the carnal Jews, their kinsmen according to the flesh. So Chrysostom and Theophylact; and so Paul explains himself in the following verse. Secondly, others not amiss take "in the flesh" as in the observance of carnal circumcision and of the other carnal ceremonies. For so τὸ in carne is taken in the following verse when he says: "That they may glory in your flesh;" but it is not necessary here to take it as it is taken there, especially since here there is no person to whom one is to please; unless you explain "in the flesh" here otherwise, namely so that it be the same as "to carnal Jews," as I have explained.
These compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer the persecution of the cross of Christ, — namely, from the Jews, who fight on behalf of their Moses and the law, and persecute the cross of Christ and the heralds and defenders of the cross of Christ. The Greek is ἵνα μὴ τῷ σταυρῷ τοῦ Χριστοῦ διώκωνται, that they might not by the cross of Christ — that is, on account of the crosses of Christ — suffer persecution, lest the cross bring them into persecution.
Verse 13: Neither They Themselves Who Are Circumcised Keep the Law, but They Wish You to Be Circumcised That They May Glory in Your Flesh
13. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law (as if to say: when the Judaizers want to draw you to Judaism, they do not do this from zeal for the law and for Judaism: for not even they themselves, though circumcised, keep the law); but they only want you to be circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh, — namely, that they may glory among the Jews concerning your circumcision in the flesh, namely that they have brought you over to circumcision and to Judaism. So Theophylact, Anselm and others. So today also many try to draw others to their heresy and sect, not from zeal for their salvation, but that they may boast of having many followers, of having drawn many over to their opinion. Thus they gamble and cast dice over another's hide — nay, soul — with unatonable rashness and fraud.
Verse 14: God Forbid That I Should Glory, Save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ
14. But as for me (note the adversative conjunction "but," as if to say: The Judaizers wish to glory before the Jews "in the flesh" and in your carnal circumcision, boasting that they have led you over to Judaism: "but as for me") God forbid that I should glory (that is, far be it that I should glory "in the flesh" or in any other thing) save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, — that is, in faith, grateful remembrance, meditation, and preaching of the benefit of the Cross, inasmuch as through it we have been redeemed and justified, from which we have received the grace of living piously and holily, and of aspiring to beatitude. In the Cross, therefore, is plain the greatness of our sin, and the immense love of God toward us. Hence in it alone do I glory. So Chrysostom. See Augustine, sermon 20 On the Words of the Apostle: "The Apostle could have gloried in the wisdom of Christ," he says, "and would have spoken truly; he could have gloried in His majesty, could have gloried in His power, and would have spoken truly: but he said, in the cross. Where the philosopher of this world blushed, there the Apostle found the treasure, that he who glorieth may glory in the Lord. In what Lord? In Christ crucified; where humility, there majesty; where infirmity, there power; where death, there life; if you wish to come to that, scorn not these things, blush not; therefore on your forehead, as in the seat of shame, you have received the sign of the cross." Thus far Augustine.
And St. Bernard, sermon 25 on the Canticle: "He thinks nothing," he says, "more glorious to him than to bear the reproach of Christ. Welcome is the ignominy of the cross to him who is not ungrateful to the Crucified." And sermon 1 On St. Andrew: "The Cross," he says, "is precious, and the Cross can be loved, and the Cross has exultation. So it is, my brethren. If there be one who gathers, the wood of the Cross ever buds forth life, fructifies with delight, drops the oil of gladness, sweats out the balsam of temporal graces. It is no woodland tree; it is the tree of life to those who lay hold on it. It is a fruitful tree, a saving tree; otherwise how would the Lord's occupy the land? That most precious clod, I mean, into whose roots the nails are fixed." And in epistle 190 to Pope Innocent: "Three things," he says, "I chiefly behold in this work of our salvation (in the Cross of Christ): the form of humility, in which God emptied Himself; the measure of charity, which He expended even unto death, and the death of the Cross; the sacrament of redemption, by which He took away the very death which He bore."
Through whom the world is crucified to me. — As if to say: As the world shrinks in horror from the cross, or from some crucified corpse, so it also abhors me; and conversely, the delights and pomps of the world are to me a cross, and I turn from them and shrink as he does from the cross. So St. Thomas. And St. Bernard: "Whatever," he says, "the world reckons a cross, I reckon delights; and what the world reckons delights, I reckon a cross."
Secondly, more simply, "crucified" means dead, by metalepsis: for from the cross and crucifixion necessarily follows the death of him who was crucified; yet the Apostle says "crucified" rather than "dead," that he may abide in the cross of Christ, from which all this change came to him; as if to say: I, having been co-crucified with Christ, have begun to be a new creature, a new man, and to suck a new life of grace and mortification from the tree of the Cross of Christ. Whence I am "crucified to the world," that is, dead, that is, I am not held, not delighted, not touched by the worldly things of the Jews (for it is to them properly that He refers, as is clear from what precedes) and the opinions, favours, hatreds, riches, delights, glory of any others whatever, as those Judaizers are touched. And consequently, the other way around, "the world is crucified to me," that is, is dead, because those very worldly things do not touch me, do not hold me, do not delight me, as if they were dead. "The world," he says, "is crucified to me, that it may not hold me; and I to the world, that I may not hold it; that is, that neither can the world harm me, nor do I desire anything of the world." So Augustine; so also Ambrose, Theophylact, Anselm, St. Thomas, Haymo, and St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans: "My Love," he says, "has been crucified, the food of corruption pleases me not, nor the pleasure of this life; I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, which is the flesh of Christ; I have been co-crucified with Christ."
Beautifully does Abbot Pinufius, in Cassian, book IV On the Institutions of Renunciants, chapters 34 and 35, when instructing a novice whom he was admitting to his monastery, set before him this idea of the monastic life, namely, Christ crucified, saying: "Renunciation is nothing else than the token of the cross and of mortification. Therefore know that this day you have died to this world, and to its acts and desires, and that, according to the Apostle, you have been crucified to this world, and this world to you. Consider therefore the conditions of the cross, under whose sacrament henceforth you must dwell in this light: for now you live not, but He lives in you who was crucified for you. In that habit and figure, then, in which He was hung for us upon the gibbet, it is necessary for us also to live in this life, namely, that according to David fastening our flesh with the fear of the Lord, we may have all our wills and desires fastened, not as serving our own concupiscence, but as nailed to His mortification: for thus we shall fulfil the Lord's command, saying: He who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me."
Then he sets forth in particular the manner in which one ought to be co-crucified with Christ, thus: "But perhaps you may say: How can a man carry his cross continually, or how, while living, can anyone be crucified? Hear the reason briefly: our cross is the fear of the Lord; therefore, just as one who is crucified no longer has the power of moving or turning his limbs in any direction at the impulse of his own mind: so also we ought to apply our wills and desires not according to that which is sweet and gives present pleasure, but according to the law of the Lord, where He has bound them. And just as he who is fixed to the gibbet of the cross no longer contemplates present things, nor thinks about his own affections, is not stretched with anxiety and care for the morrow, is moved by no concupiscence of possessing, is kindled by no pride, by no contention, by no emulation, does not grieve over present injuries, no longer remembers past ones, and while still he breathes in the body believes himself dead to all the elements, sending forward the gaze of his heart whither he doubts not he shall straightway pass: so we also, crucified by the fear of the Lord, must be dead to all these things — that is, not only to carnal vices but even to the very elements themselves — having the eyes of our soul fixed there whither we ought to hope to migrate at every moment." Thus far Pinufius in Cassian.
Note here that the Apostle is not speaking only to Religious, but is setting himself up as an example to the Galatians, and consequently to all Christians who renounced the pomps of the world in baptism; and so they ought to be dead to the world, so as to take no heed — as not pertaining to them — of the worldly laws of hypocrisy, of political dissimulation, of luxury, of honour, of vengeance, and other similar laws repugnant to Christ and to His cross. For example, the law of the world says: Use the marketplace, accommodate yourself to all; with heretics feign yourself a heretic, with politicians a politician; if you sit at table with them, even on a forbidden day, eat meats. But the Christian will answer that he is dead to this law, that he lives bound to the law, the religion, the obedience of Christ; let him be called Papist, hypocrite, Jesuit, he will not care, will not feel, as if he were dead. Again, the world and the law of the world says: Unless you accept a duel offered by a rival, you will be held a coward, vile, inglorious. The Christian, if a duel is offered him, will answer that he is dead to this law, by the law of Christ, which forbids duels, and will say that he cares not at all, nay, contemns the foolish judgments of a foolish world: but that he follows the wisest judgment of God, of Christ, and of Christian men, who show that the duel is a thing infamous, rash, foolish, most harmful to soul and body, and to the very commonwealth, which is drained by duels and despoiled of its bravest and noblest men: but that true Christian fortitude is to be looked for in the bearing of injuries, of death, of martyrdom; and in the brave defence of one's country, commonwealth, faith — and even of one's own person; so that he can rebut and throw back at one who insults him and challenges him to a duel: If you attack me, you shall feel my strength, my spirit, my industry in fighting.
Morally St. Bernard, sermon 7 in Lent, which is on the pilgrim, the dead man, and the crucified, hands down three degrees by which a Christian who aspires to perfection must die to the world and to the flesh. The first is that he conduct himself as a pilgrim, who, he says, if perhaps he sees men quarrelling, pays no heed; if he sees men reaching maturity, or leading dances, or doing anything else whatever, nevertheless passes by, because he is a pilgrim, and such things do not pertain to him. He sighs for his fatherland, he tends to his fatherland, having raiment and food he does not wish to burden others. The second is that he conduct himself as a dead man, who does not feel, but hears those reproaching him as those praising, hears those flattering as those slandering: nay rather, he does not even hear, because he is dead. Wholly blessed is that death which thus keeps him unspotted, nay makes him utterly alien to this world. But it is necessary that he who lives not in himself, Christ should live in him. For this is what the Apostle says: I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me, as if to say: To all other things indeed I am dead, I do not feel, I do not heed, I do not care; but if there be any things of Christ, these find me alive and ready. The third is, if he be not only dead, but also crucified, so that he may say: To me the world is crucified, and I to the world. All that the world loves are a cross to me; for instance, the delight of the flesh, honours, riches, vain praises of men; but those things which the world reckons a cross, to those I am fixed, to those I cleave, those I embrace with all my heart.
Then Bernard adds another explanation of this passage and of "crucified," not literal but accommodated: "Although," he says, "in these words of the Apostle it might not unfitly be understood that the world is crucified to him by reckoning, but he himself crucified to the world by compassion: for he saw the world crucified by the bonds of vices, and he himself was being crucified to it by the affection of compassion."
And I to the world. — Blessed Dorotheus, in tome III of the Library of the Holy Fathers, doctrine 1, which is on renunciation, asks: "In what way is the world crucified to a man?" and answers that it is done "when a man renounces the world, deserts the world, and thereafter becomes solitary, leaving parents, possessions, fields, businesses, abundance of things." He asks then: "In what way is a man crucified to the world?" and answers that it is done "by renunciation, namely, when a man, after he has departed from the things of the world, contends against the concupiscences of the world, against pleasures, against his own will, and subdues the inborn passions and vices." And he adds, exhorting his Religious to this renunciation: "We," he says, "seem to ourselves indeed to have crucified the world, because we have left it and turned aside to the monastery: yet we are unwilling to crucify ourselves to the world. For its allurements still flourish in our soul, still in ourselves we hide affection for it, we feel compassion for its glory, we feel compassion for its delights and pleasures, we feel compassion for its ornaments and garments, and on account of vile and empty things we for the most part slip back into its former passions. Which surely arises from no other cause than great folly, that we, having left precious and great things, are most often troubled by the smallest things; and this is done by us most ill: for as we renounced the world and its things, so we ought also to renounce its former passions."
But this is too narrow an exposition: for the Apostle is speaking not to Religious only, but to all the Galatian Christians, and proposes himself to them as an example, that they all, with him, may crucify themselves to the world and the world in turn be crucified to them: for these are not diverse, as Blessed Dorotheus seems to wish, but the same and set over against themselves in the same person, as I have already explained.
Verse 15: In Christ Jesus Neither Circumcision Availeth Anything, Nor Uncircumcision, but a New Creature
15. In Christ (in the faith, religion, Church of Christ — that is, in Christianity, in Christian life, and namely in the Christian way of living well and blessedly) neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision (that is, gentilism and Judaism are irrelevant, so that you are not the more fit, not the more worthy in Christianity and Christian life if you are a Jew; not the more unfit, not the more unworthy, if a Gentile), but a new creature, — that is, the soul regenerated and reborn by baptism and the grace of Christ, nay re-created, and made as it were a new spiritual creature, having received a new life of grace, that henceforth it may walk in newness of life; this, namely, avails very much for entering upon and continuing the Christian life. Hence in Apocalypse 3:14, Christ is called "the beginning of the creation of God;" and in Isaiah 9:6, "the Father of the world to come": because from Christ began a new race, a new world; and, as the Cumæan Sibyl sings in Virgil, eclogue 4, who flatteringly transferred the Sibylline verses (which speak openly of the birth of Christ) to Salonius, the newly born son of Asinius Pollio the Roman Consul:
Do thou but favour, chaste Lucina, the boy now being born, with whom first the iron race shall cease, and a golden race shall arise throughout all the world.
He calls the golden race the race of Christians, shining and glittering like gold with the golden virtues, graces, and gifts received from Christ.
Verse 16: Whosoever Shall Follow This Rule, Peace Be Upon Them, and Mercy, and Upon the Israel of God
16. And whosoever shall follow this rule. — The Greek καὶ ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν, that is, as Vatablus, whosoever shall walk according to this rule, namely the rule which I have handed down concerning justification, liberty, doctrine, and Christian life, that outside this rule and beaten path they may not stray, nor turn aside to the law and standard of Judaism, nor desire to walk by both ways, or rather to run hither and thither and wander without order and pathway from Christianity to Judaism; for this is what the Greek στοιχῶ signifies, namely, to walk in order, by the right way and track, as I said in chapter IV, verse 25.
Peace be upon them (the Gentiles, namely), and upon Israel, — that is, and upon the Jews believing in Christ, says Ambrose. Secondly and better, here too, as also in Ephesians 1:1; Colossians 2:8, and elsewhere often, the meaning is "peace be upon them, and" that is, "upon the Israel of God," as if to say: Those who shall follow this rule of Christianity which I have prescribed, these have peace — that is, tranquillity of conscience — and also mercy, namely of God, so that God may be merciful and bountiful toward them, and may mercifully pour His grace and consolation upon them; and these, namely, are the Israel of God, that is, they are the Israelite people, not those descending according to the flesh from Israel, that is, from the patriarch Jacob, as the Jews are and are called Israel, that is, the children of Israel or of Jacob: but they are Israel, that is, the people of God, who descend from Israel, that is, from Jacob, and consequently from Abraham, according to faith and spirit, because they imitate the faith and holiness of Jacob and Abraham.
Again the Apostle alludes to the meaning of the Hebrew word Israel: for Israel in Hebrew signifies one seeing God, says Theophylact. He says therefore: Those who follow this law and rule of Christ, these are Israel, that is, seeing God by faith, and in heaven about to see God by sight; as if to say, says Augustine: These are they who are prepared, and who rightly contend, for the vision of God in heaven. Secondly and better, Israel in Hebrew is said as it were ישרה אל yisra-el, that is, he who has dominion, or prevails over God: for when the patriarch Jacob, fearing and fleeing his brother Esau who was pursuing him, had seen the angel (who represented God) strengthening him, and wrestled with him, and prevailed over him, refusing to let Him go, and held Him until He should bless him, the angel allowed himself to be conquered, and blessing Jacob, said: "By no means shall thy name be called Jacob, but Israel; for if thou hast been strong against God, how much more shalt thou prevail against men?" Genesis 32:28; as if to say, Fear not thy brother Esau, O Jacob; for by thy violent prayers thou hast obtained from God, though He resisted, that against Esau and any other foes thou shalt be of unbroken courage, insuperable and victorious: for this is the blessing asked by Jacob and given by the angel. The Apostle therefore says: Those who follow this rule of Christ, these are the Israel of God, that is, the people of God, having dominion over the vices, the world, the Jews and Judaism (whom Esau, the carnal brother of Jacob, represented), nay even over God Himself, that they may obtain from Him whatever they desire and ask of Him. So St. Thomas, Haymo, and others.
Verse 17: From Henceforth Let No Man Be Troublesome to Me: For I Bear the Stigmata of the Lord Jesus in My Body
17. From henceforth let no man be troublesome to me. — "No man," namely of the Jews, by asking me whether I am a servant of Christ or of Moses, may trouble me; for whose servant I am is plain from my stigma: I do not bear the stigma of circumcision, as the servants of the law do, but the stigmata of Christ. Maldonatus in his manuscript Notes thus translates: let no one bring suit against me on account of my apostolate; for my apostolate is sufficiently proved by the stigmata branded upon me for Christ.
For I bear the stigmata of the Lord Jesus in my body. — Note: Stigmata are called by the Greeks marks branded upon someone, such as masters brand upon their servants, so that if they run away, by these marks they may be recognized as servants of such a master. Secondly, stigmata are called scars, e.g. of wounded soldiers. Paul therefore here calls "the stigmata of Christ" the wounds and scars from beatings, wounds, and afflictions undertaken for Christ, impressed upon his body — concerning which see 2 Corinthians 11:23; which stigmata are not disgraces before God, but the highest praises. Whence, as soldiers, standard-bearers, and captains display their wounds and scars as signs of their fortitude and military glory: so I, Paul, not only have these stigmata, these wounds, as it were trophies of the warfare of Christ, but I "bear" them, he says, and display them. So Jerome, Chrysostom, Anselm, St. Thomas, Haymo, Theophylact.
Excellently does St. Ambrose on Psalm 118 [Vulgate], 120 ("Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear"), sermon 15: "With these nails," he says, "is he pierced who bears the mortification of Jesus in his body. With these nails is he pierced who deserves to hear Jesus saying: 'Set Me as a signet upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm.' Fix therefore upon thy breast and upon thy heart this signet of the Crucified; fix it also upon thine arm, that thy works may be dead to sin. Perhaps they fasten this image with the nail not only of fear but also of charity: because love is strong as death, zeal as hard as hell. With these nails of charity let our soul be transfixed, that it too may say: 'I am wounded with charity.'"
In a like manner did Blessed Theodore the Studite glory in his weals and stigmata received in defence of the holy images, in the year of the Lord 824. For when Leo the Armenian, the Iconoclast Emperor, ordered him scourged for resisting him, he straightway of his own accord loosed his belt and, having laid aside his garment, offered his naked body to the strokes; "For it is a delight to me," he says, "that this poor body of mine be scourged, and that this be at last its final laying-aside, that the more swiftly my naked soul may fly to Him whom I desire." Sharply scourged then, after the beating, exulting, he wrote to Naucratius: "Is it not," he says, "more wonderful than the glory of those who wear the diadem, to bear the stigmata of Christ, His life-giving sufferings or crowns?" So Michael the Studite in his Life, and from him Baronius.
Morally, says Jerome, those bear the stigmata of Christ in their body who macerate and afflict their body for the love of Christ, and that they may to the cross of Christ be configured and conformed. Likewise those also who are afflicted by God with diseases and tribulations, that they may be conformed to Christ here on the cross, and after this life in glory. Thus St. Francis, as Bonaventure relates in chapter XIV of the Life of St. Francis, received from a Seraphic angel holding a crucified figure with its wings the stigmata of Christ crucified — that is, nails through his feet and hands, and a wound in his side after the manner of Christ — because he wholly desired to pass over into the love, imitation, and service of Christ crucified. These nails were not of iron, but of dead flesh formed into calluses in the manner of nails, namely with a thicker head protruding outward and a sharp point bent inward, which so tortured the holy man that he could scarcely walk: just as the calluses formed of dead flesh on our feet torment us in walking — those which the Flemish call exteren ooghen, and the French nids d'agache. "There had grown up in Francis," says St. Bonaventure, "an unconquerable conflagration of love for the good Jesus in lamps of fire and flames, so that he was driven by Seraphic ardors of desire, and through the Seraph imprinting the stigmata upon him he knew that he was to be wholly transformed into the likeness of Christ crucified, not through the martyrdom of the flesh, but through the burning of the mind."
Pope Alexander IV testified that he had seen these stigmata with his own eyes on the dead body of St. Francis, and from his lips St. Bonaventure himself heard this. Let the impious blasphemy of Beza therefore be silenced, who in this passage calls St. Francis, marked with these stigmata, a horrid stigmatic idol, and that fictitious and counterfeit. But Paul is not speaking here of such stigmata, nor does it stand established that such stigmata as St. Francis had were present in Paul: indeed, they would have greatly impeded those journeys and labors of his. For this reason the most ancient images of Paul also do not display them to us. Furthermore, Sixtus IV in a certain bull, which Henricus Sedulius reports in his Notes on the Life of St. Francis, forbade under penalty of excommunication that anyone should depict any saint other than St. Francis with the five stigmata; yet those who lately, of the family of St. Dominic, published the Life of St. Catherine of Siena set forth in images, assert that Pius V afterwards conceded that St. Catherine of Siena likewise might be depicted with the same, as those most recent images of her have and bear witness. But no image of Paul, as has been said, displays them to us.
Closing Benediction
Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of Jesus Christ. The Cross is the ladder to blessed ETERNITY. O long and blessed ETERNITY!