Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Argument
The Galatians were Gentiles who migrated from Gaul into Greece; whence they were called Gallo-Greeks. Suidas thinks that these Gauls were the Senones, who under the leadership of Brennus invaded Rome, but, repelled by Camillus, crossed over into Greece, and when they tried to plunder Delphi, were overwhelmed by rain and hail: but the few, he says, who escaped, were called Gallo-Greeks, or Galatians. But Justinus in book XXV, St. Jerome, and others give a different account. The Galatians have on the east Cappadocia, on the west Bithynia, on the south Pamphylia, on the north the Euxine Sea; and they had three most noble cities, Tavium, Pessinus, and Ancyra, says Pliny, book V, last chapter. As to their language, "The Galatians," says Jerome (placed at the end of the Proem in book II of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians), "except for the Greek tongue which all the East speaks, have a language of their own almost the same as that of the Treviri," namely Germanic. Whence some opine that the Gauls of old (for from them the Galatians derived this language, as well as their origin) spoke German: and they assert that the Franks came forth from Franconia in Germany, and received their name from there. Indeed, even Clovis, the first Christian king of the Franks in Gaul, is called a Sicambrian. For thus St. Remigius addressed him as he came forward for baptism: "Bow your neck meekly, Sicambrian; adore what you burned, burn what you adored," as Gregory of Tours relates, book II On the Deeds of the Franks, chapter 31; and it is established that the Sicambrians were Germans, especially the people of Gelderland. Finally, St. Jerome, Josephus, and Isidore hand down that the Galatians sprang from Gomer, that is, from the Gomarites or Cimbrians, who were either Germans or akin to the Germans.
Some converts from the Jews to Christ had stirred up these Galatians to receive Judaism along with the Gospel, alleging for this the example of Peter and the other Apostles, who observed the Law of Moses. The Apostle here recalls them with sharp rebuke, and teaches that Christians are free from the bondage of the old Law, and cannot be subjected to it: for although the Jews could observe their Law for a time, that they might bury it with honor, yet the Gentiles, such as the Galatians were, had neither this nor any other just cause for embracing the Law of Moses. Whence if they had embraced it, they would have been judged to do so for this reason, that the Law seemed necessary together with the Gospel for salvation; especially since the Judeo-Christians at that time held this opinion, and wished to compel the Gentiles to Judaism, equally as to Christianity: which is a manifest error; for this profession of Judaism is the overthrow of Christianity: for the Christian religion teaches that Judaism has been abrogated, and no other religion is to be admitted besides that of Christ, for it professes that this alone is both necessary and sufficient for salvation. Therefore the Apostle here keenly attacks this error. Hence the Apostle has the same argument in view in this Epistle as in the Epistle to the Romans, so that this is, as it were, an epitome and compendium of that to the Romans, and has many of the same opinions, arguments, phrases, and discourses with it. So Jerome, Anselm, Theophylact, Chrysostom; except that in the Epistle to the Romans he reproves both Jews and Gentiles, in this only the Gentiles; there he rejects the works both of the Law and of nature, here only of the Law, that he may establish faith in Christ and the works of faith. This therefore he does in the former part of the Epistle from chapter I to chapter V. Then in the latter part, namely from chapter V, verse 12, to the end, he instructs them in morals.
It is held to have been written at Rome, at the end, by the Syriac version, the Greek copies, Jerome on chapter V, Athanasius in the Synopsis, Theodoret in the preface to Paul's epistles, and others. Chrysostom and Baronius (vol. I, p. 657) deny this, because he makes no mention of his chains, as he is wont to do in other letters written from Rome. They therefore hold that it was written before the Epistle to the Romans, and that either at Ephesus or in some other city of Greece. But concerning the time and place of the writing of this Epistle, nothing certain can be determined either from itself or from elsewhere, and in this respect it is the most uncertain of all Paul's epistles. There exists on this Epistle a genuine and full commentary by St. Jerome, as also by St. Augustine.