1. 1. The reason the Apostle writes to the Galatians is this: that they may understand that the grace of God brings it about that they are no longer under the law. For when the grace of the gospel had been preached to them, there were some from the circumcision who, although they bore the name of Christian, did not yet hold to that very gift of grace and still wished to be under the burdens of the law, which the Lord God had imposed not on those who serve righteousness but on those who serve sin—giving a just law, that is, to unjust men in order to expose their sins, not to take them away; for it is only the grace of faith, which works through love, that takes away sins. The Galatians, then, had already been established under this grace, and these men wanted to place them under the burdens of the law, asserting that the gospel was of no profit to them unless they were circumcised and undertook the rest of the carnal observances of the Jewish rite. And for this reason they had begun to regard the apostle Paul, by whom the gospel had been preached to them, with suspicion, as one who did not hold to the discipline of the rest of the apostles, who were compelling the Gentiles to live as Jews. For the apostle Peter had given way to the offense taken by such men and had been led into pretense, as though he too held the view that the gospel was of no profit to the Gentiles unless they fulfilled the burdens of the law; and from this pretense the same apostle Paul calls him back, as he teaches in this very letter. A similar question arises also in the Letter to the Romans; yet there seems to be some difference, in that there he settles the dispute and composes the quarrel that had arisen between those who had come to believe from among the Jews and those who had come to believe from among the Gentiles, since the former supposed that the reward of the gospel was rendered to them as if from the merits of the works of the law—a reward they were unwilling to have given to the uncircumcised as undeserving—while the latter, on the contrary, were eager to set themselves above the Jews as the slayers of the Lord. In this letter, however, he writes to those who had already been disturbed by the authority of those who were of the Jews and who were compelling them to the observances of the law; for they had begun to believe these men, as though the apostle Paul had not preached the truth in not wanting them to be circumcised. And so he began thus: I marvel that you are so quickly removed from him who called you into the glory of Christ, unto another gospel (Gal 1:6). By this opening, then, he briefly introduced the question of the case. And indeed by the very salutation, when he says that he is an apostle not from men, neither by man (Gal 1:1)—which he is found to have said in no other letter—he shows well enough both that those who were urging such things are not from God but from men, and that, as far as the authority of the gospel testimony is concerned, he ought not to be held inferior to the rest of the apostles, seeing that he knows himself to be an apostle not from men, neither by man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. With the Lord's permission and his help to our study, then, we have undertaken to consider and treat each point in this way, beginning from the very threshold of the letter.

2. 2. Paul an apostle, not from men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia (Gal 1:1-2). He who is sent from men is a liar; he who is sent by a man can be truthful, since even a truthful God can send by a man; therefore he who is sent neither from men nor by man, but by God, is made truthful by him who also makes those truthful who are sent by a man. The earlier apostles, then, were truthful, for they were sent not from men but from God by a man—namely, by Jesus Christ while he was still mortal. The latest apostle is also truthful, for he was sent by Jesus Christ now wholly God after his resurrection. The rest of the apostles are earlier, sent by Christ while he was still in part man, that is, mortal; the apostle Paul is the latest, sent by Christ now wholly God, that is, in every part immortal. Let the authority of his testimony, then, be equal, since in his honor the glorification of the Lord supplies whatever the order of time might lack. For this reason, when he had said, and God the Father (Gal 1:1), he added, who raised him from the dead (Gal 1:1), so that even in this way he might briefly recall that he was sent by one already glorified.

3. 3. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 1:3). The grace of God is that by which our sins are forgiven, so that we may be reconciled to God; peace is that by which we are reconciled to God. Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from the present evil age (Gal 1:4). The present age is to be understood as evil because of the evil men who are in it, just as we also call a house evil because of the evil ones dwelling in it. According to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Gal 1:4-5). How much more, then, ought men not arrogantly to refer to themselves whatever good they do, when even the Son of God himself in the gospel said that he did not seek his own glory and that he had come not to do his own will but the will of him who sent him? This will and glory of the Father the Apostle has now recalled, so that he too, after the example of the Lord by whom he was sent, might indicate that he was not seeking his own glory nor doing his own will in the preaching of the gospel, as he says a little later: If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ (Gal 1:10).

4. 4. I marvel that you are so quickly removed from him who called you into the glory of Christ, unto another gospel, which is not another (Gal 1:6-7). For if there is another gospel besides the one the Lord gave, whether through himself or through someone else, it can no longer rightly be called a gospel. And carefully, when he had said, You are removed from him who called you (Gal 1:6), he added, into the glory of Christ (Gal 1:6), which those men wanted to make void, as though Christ had come in vain if now the circumcision of the flesh and works of the law of this kind had such force that through them men might be saved. Unless there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ (Gal 1:7). They do not pervert the gospel of Christ in the way they trouble these people, since it remains utterly firm; yet they do want to pervert it, who call back the attention of believers from spiritual things to carnal ones. For when these people are turned to such things, the gospel remains unturned. And so when he had said, troubling you (Gal 1:7), he did not say, "and perverting it," but, wanting, he says, to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel besides that which we preached to you, let him be anathema (Gal 1:7-8). The truth is to be loved for its own sake, not for the sake of the man or the angel through whom it is announced. For whoever loves it for the sake of those who announce it can also love lies, if perhaps they should bring forth lies of their own. As we said before, so now I say again, if anyone preach to you a gospel besides that which you received, let him be anathema (Gal 1:9). Either he had said this when present, or, because he repeated what he had said, for that reason he meant to say, as we said before (Gal 1:9). Yet the very repetition most wholesomely moves the attention to hold firmly the faith that is so commended.

5. 5. Do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I still pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). No one persuades God, since all things are plain to him; but he persuades men well who wishes not to please them himself, but wishes the very truth that he urges to please them. For he who pleases men, not seeking his own glory from them but God's, that they may be saved, no longer pleases men but God; or surely, when he pleases both God and men at once, he does not really please men. For it is one thing to please men, and another to please both God and men. Likewise, he who pleases men for the sake of the truth—it is no longer he himself who pleases them, but the truth. He said please as far as it lies in himself, that is, as far as it concerns his will, as if he said, "I would wish to please." For if, without his acting to bring it about, he should please someone as though for his own sake and not for the sake of God and the gospel he announces, this is to be attributed to that person's pride rather than to the error of the one who is perversely pleased. So the sense is this: "Do I now persuade men or God? Or, because I persuade men, do I seek to please men? If I still sought to please men, I should not be the servant of Christ." For Christ commands his servants to learn from him to be meek and humble of heart, which can in no way be done by one who, for his own sake—that is, for the sake of his own private and personal glory, as it were—seeks to please men. But he also says elsewhere: We persuade men, but we are made manifest to God (2 Cor 5:11), so that you may understand what he here says, Do I persuade men or God? (Gal 1:10)—certainly not God, but men, are to be persuaded. Nor let it disturb you that he said elsewhere, just as I also please all men in all things (1 Cor 10:33), for he added, not seeking what is profitable to myself, but to the many, that they may be saved (1 Cor 10:33). But it profits no one, that he may be saved, if a man pleases him for his own sake; for no one pleases profitably except when he pleases for the sake of God—that is, that God may please and be glorified when his gifts are regarded in a man or are received through a man's ministry; and when a man pleases in this way, it is no longer the man but God who pleases. Both, then, can rightly be said: "I also please," and "I do not please." For if there is present a good interpreter and a devout knocker, both will lie open, and no contradiction between them will repel the one who enters.

6. 6. For I make known to you, brethren, the gospel that was preached by me, that it is not according to man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal 1:11-12). The gospel that is according to man is a lie. For every man is a liar (Ps 116:11 (115:2)), since whatever truth is found in a man is not from man but from God through man. Therefore what is according to man is no longer to be called a gospel—such as those men brought who were dragging back into slavery, out of liberty, those whom God was calling out of slavery into liberty.

7. 7. For you have heard of my manner of life in time past in Judaism, that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and laid it waste, and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age in my nation, being more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers (Gal 1:13-14). If by persecuting and laying waste the church of God he was advancing in Judaism, it is clear that Judaism is opposed to the church of God—not through that spiritual law which the Jews received, but through the carnal manner of life of their slavery. And if, as a zealot, that is, an imitator of the traditions of his fathers, Paul persecuted the church of God, then the traditions of his fathers are opposed to the church of God; the fault, however, is not the law's. For the law is spiritual and does not compel itself to be understood in a carnal way; rather, it is the fault of those who both perceive in a carnal way the things they received and have also handed down many things of their own, dissolving, as the Lord says, the commandment of God for the sake of their traditions.

8. 8. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately I did not give in to flesh and blood (Gal 1:15-16). He is in a sense separated from his mother's womb whoever is separated from the blind habit of his carnal parents; but he gives in to flesh and blood whoever assents to his carnal relatives and kinsmen as they urge him in a carnal way. Neither did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and again returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I remained with him fifteen days (Gal 1:17-18). If, after Paul had preached the gospel in Arabia, he afterward saw Peter, it was not in order to learn the gospel through Peter himself—for he had surely seen it before this—but in order to crown brotherly love with bodily acquaintance as well. But another of the apostles I did not see, except James the brother of the Lord (Gal 1:19). James the brother of the Lord is to be understood either as from the sons of Joseph by another wife or as from the kinship of Mary his mother.

9. 9. Now the things that I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie (Gal 1:20). He who says, Behold, before God, I do not lie (Gal 1:20), certainly swears an oath. And what is holier than this oath? But an oath is not against the precept; the oath that comes from evil (Matt 5:37) comes not from the one swearing but from the unbelief of the one to whom he is compelled to swear. For from this it is understood that the Lord forbade swearing in such a way that each person, as far as it lies in himself, should not swear—as many do, having an oath in their mouth as though it were something great or pleasant. For the Apostle certainly knew the Lord's precept, and yet he swore. For those are not to be heeded who think these are not oaths. What will they do with this: I die daily, by your glory, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord (1 Cor 15:31)? The Greek copies prove this to be a most manifest oath. As far as it lies in himself, then, the Apostle does not swear; for he does not seek an oath out of a craving for or a delight in swearing. For it is more than Yes, yes; No, no (Matt 5:37), and therefore comes from evil (Matt 5:37)—but from the weakness or unbelief of those who are not otherwise moved to faith. Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which are in Christ (Gal 1:21-22). It should be noted that it was not in Jerusalem alone that the Jews believed in Christ, nor were they so few that they were mingled into the churches of the Gentiles, but they were so many that churches were formed from them. But they had only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith that he once laid waste; and they glorified God in me (Gal 1:23-24). This is what he was saying—that he was not pleasing men for his own sake, but that God might be glorified in him; this is also what the Lord says: Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (See Matt 5:16).

10. 10. Then after fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus with me also (Gal 2:1)—he proceeds, as it were, with several witnesses, when he names these men too. And I went up according to revelation (Gal 2:2), so as not to make them wonder why he went up then, when for so long he had not gone up. Therefore, if he went up by revelation, then it was profitable for him to go up. And I laid before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who seemed to be something (Gal 2:2). That he laid the gospel privately before those who were eminent in the church, when he had already laid it before all, was not done because he had said anything false in order to say something true privately to a few, but because he had been silent about some things that the little ones could not yet bear—just as he says he gave the Corinthians milk, not solid food. For it is never permitted to say anything false, but it is sometimes useful to be silent about something true. It was necessary that the rest of the apostles should know his perfection. For it did not follow that, if he were faithful and held the true and right faith, he therefore ought also to be an apostle. But what he adds, lest perhaps I run or had run in vain (Gal 2:2), is to be understood as said by way of a question, not to those with whom he conferred the gospel privately, but to those to whom he writes; so that from it it might appear that he is not running or had not run in vain, since now, by the attestation of the rest as well, he is approved as dissenting in nothing from the truth of the gospel.

11. 11. But not even Titus, who was with me, he says, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised (Gal 2:3). Although Titus was a Greek, and no custom or kinship of parents compelled him to be circumcised as it did Timothy, the Apostle would nevertheless easily have permitted even this man to be circumcised. For he did not teach that salvation was taken away by such a circumcision; rather, he showed that, if the hope of salvation were placed in it, this was against salvation. He could therefore tolerate it with an even mind as superfluous, according to the opinion he expressed elsewhere: Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God (1 Cor 7:19). It was on account of the false brethren secretly brought in (Gal 2:4) that Titus was not compelled to be circumcised—that is, it could not be wrung from them that he be circumcised, because those who came in secretly, he says, to spy out their liberty (Gal 2:4) were keeping strict watch and desired that Titus be circumcised, so that they might then proclaim circumcision—by the attestation and consent of Paul himself—as necessary to salvation, and might thus, as he says, bring them into slavery (Gal 2:4), that is, call them back under the servile burdens of the law. To these, he says, he did not give in even for an hour, that is, not even for a time, in submission, that the truth of the gospel might remain for the Gentiles (See Gal 2:5).

12. 12. The envious wanted the apostle Paul to be marked out and held in suspicion because he had once been a persecutor of the churches, and so he says: But concerning those who seem to be something, whatever they once were, it is no concern of mine (Gal 2:6). For even those who seem to be something seem so to carnal men, since they are not themselves anything. For even if they are good ministers of God, it is Christ in them who is something, not they themselves of themselves. For if they were themselves something of themselves, they would always have been something. Whatever they once were (Gal 2:6)—that is, because they too were sinners—he says is no concern of his, since God does not accept the person of man (Gal 2:6), that is, without acceptance of persons he called all to salvation, not reckoning their offenses against them. And so, in the absence of those who had been made apostles before him, Paul was perfected by the Lord, so that when he conferred with them there was nothing they might add to his perfection, but rather they might see that the same Lord Jesus Christ, who without acceptance of persons makes men whole, had given to Paul to minister to the Gentiles what he had also given to Peter to minister to the Jews. They were found, then, to dissent from him in nothing, so that, when he said that he had received the perfect gospel, they would not deny it and want to add something to it as to something imperfect; but, on the contrary, instead of reprovers of his imperfection they were approvers of his perfection. And they gave the right hands of fellowship (Gal 2:9), that is, they consented to fellowship and obeyed, consenting to the will of the Lord, that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Gentiles, but they to the circumcision (Gal 2:9), which seems to be opposed to the uncircumcision, that is, to the Gentiles. For what he says, on the contrary (Gal 2:7), can also be understood in this way, so that the order is this: those who seem to be something added nothing to me, but on the contrary, so that we should go to the Gentiles, who are opposed to the circumcision, while they should go to the circumcision, they consented with me and Barnabas; that is, they gave us the right hands of fellowship (Gal 2:9).

13. 13. Nor let anyone think it was said by him to the dishonor of his predecessors: Those who seem to be something, whatever they once were, it is no concern of mine (Gal 2:6). For they too, as spiritual men, wanted resistance offered to the carnal, who thought that they themselves were something and not rather Christ in them; and they greatly rejoiced when men were persuaded that they themselves, Paul's predecessors, just like Paul, had been justified out of sinners by the Lord, who does not accept the person of man—because they sought the glory of God, not their own. But because carnal and proud men grow angry and take it as an insult if anything is said about their past life, they judge the apostles from their own minds. Now Peter and James and John were more honored among the apostles, because the Lord showed himself to these three on the mountain in token of his kingdom, when six days before he had said: There are some of those standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of man in the kingdom of his Father (See Matt 16:28; 17:1). Nor were they themselves pillars, but they seemed to be. For Paul knew that Wisdom had built herself a house and had set up not three pillars but seven—a number that is referred either to the unity of the churches (for it is usually put for the whole, as it is said in the gospel, He shall receive in this age sevenfold (See Mark 10:30), as if he said, as having nothing and possessing all things (2 Cor 6:10); whence also John writes to seven churches, which surely bear the person of the universal Church), or rather the sevenfold number of pillars is referred to the sevenfold operation of the Holy Spirit—of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and fortitude, of knowledge and piety and the fear of God—by which operations the house of the Son of God, that is, the Church, is held together.

14. 14. As for what he says, only that we should be mindful of the poor, which very thing I was also eager to do (Gal 2:10), there was a common care among all the apostles for the poor of the saints who were in Judea, who had laid the prices of their sold goods at the feet of the apostles. Paul and Barnabas, then, were sent to the Gentiles in such a way that the churches of the Gentiles, which had not done this, might by their exhortation minister to those who had done it, as he says to the Romans: But now I will go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints who are at Jerusalem. For it pleased them, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal things (Rom 15:25-27).

15. 15. Paul, then, had fallen into no pretense, since everywhere he kept what he saw to be fitting, whether for the churches of the Gentiles or of the Jews, so that nowhere did he take away a custom which, when kept, did not hinder the obtaining of the kingdom of God—only warning that no one should place the hope of salvation in superfluous things, even if he wished to keep a custom in them for the sake of not offending the weak. As he says to the Corinthians: Was anyone called being circumcised? Let him not draw on uncircumcision. Was anyone called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called (1 Cor 7:18-20). For he referred this to those customs or conditions of life that in no way harm faith and good morals. For if anyone was a robber when he was called, he ought not to remain in robbery. Now Peter, when he had come to Antioch, was rebuked by Paul, not because he was keeping the custom of the Jews in which he had been born and brought up—although he did not keep it among the Gentiles—but he was rebuked because he wanted to impose it on the Gentiles, when he had seen that certain men had come from James, that is, from Judea; for James presided over the church of Jerusalem. Fearing, then, those who still thought that salvation was established in those observances, he separated himself from the Gentiles and in pretense consented with them to imposing on the Gentiles those burdens of slavery—which appears clearly enough in the very words of the rebuke. For he does not say: If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of the Gentiles and not in the manner of the Jews (Gal 2:14), how do you return again to the custom of the Jews? But he says: How do you compel the Gentiles to live as Jews? (Gal 2:14) And that he said this to him before all (Gal 2:14), necessity compelled, so that all might be healed by his rebuke. For it was not useful to correct in secret an error that did harm openly. To this is added that the firmness and love of Peter—to whom it was said three times by the Lord, Do you love me? Feed my sheep (See John 21:15-17)—most willingly bore such a rebuke from a later shepherd for the welfare of the flock. For the one who was rebuked was himself more admirable than his rebuker and harder to imitate. For it is easier to see what you would correct in another, and to correct it by blaming or rebuking, than to see what is to be corrected in yourself, and willingly to be corrected, whether by yourself, let alone by another; add that he was a later man, add before all (Gal 2:14). But this avails as a great example of humility, which is the greatest Christian discipline, for by humility love is preserved; for nothing violates it more quickly than pride. And therefore the Lord did not say, "Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I raise four-day-old corpses from their tombs and drive out all demons and diseases from the bodies of men, and other things of this kind," but he said, Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:29). For those are signs of spiritual things, but to be meek and humble, the preserver of love, are themselves the spiritual things to which men are led through those signs—men who, given over to the eyes of the body, seek faith in invisible things, since they cannot derive it from things known and familiar, from new and sudden visible things. If, then, even those who were compelling the Gentiles to live as Jews had learned to be meek and humble of heart, as Peter had learned from the Lord, they would at least, when so great a man was corrected, be invited to imitate him, and would not think the gospel of Christ rendered to their own righteousness as something owed, but knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through the faith of Jesus Christ (Gal 2:16), so that he might fulfill the works of the law by the aid given to his weakness, not by his own merit but by the grace of God; they would not exact carnal observances of the law from the Gentiles, but would recognize that through that very grace of faith they could fulfill the spiritual works of the law. For from the works of the law, when anyone attributes them to his own powers and not to the grace of the merciful God, no flesh will be justified (Gal 2:16), that is, no man, or all who perceive in a carnal way. And so those who, being already under the law, believed in Christ, came to the grace of faith not because they were righteous but in order to be justified.

16. 16. The Jews had imposed the name of sinners on the Gentiles, out of a certain old pride, as though they themselves were righteous, seeing the straw in another's eye and not the beam in their own. Speaking according to their custom, the Apostle says: We are Jews by nature, and not sinners from among the Gentiles (Gal 2:15)—that is, those whom they call sinners, although they too are sinners. We, then, he says, being Jews by nature, since we were not Gentiles, whom they call sinners, nevertheless we too, being sinners, have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ (Gal 2:16). They would not seek to be justified unless they were sinners. Or did they perhaps sin because they wanted to be justified in Christ? For if they were already righteous, then surely they sinned by seeking something else; but if it is so, he says, then Christ is a minister of sin (Gal 2:17). This they certainly cannot say, since even those who did not want the gospel delivered to the Gentiles unless they were circumcised had believed in Christ. And so when he says, God forbid! (Gal 2:17), he says it not alone but together with them. But he overthrew the pride that boasts of the works of the law, a pride that both ought to be and could be overthrown, lest the grace of faith should seem unnecessary, if the works of the law were believed to justify even without it. And so a man is a transgressor if he builds that pride up again by saying that the works of the law justify even without grace, so that Christ is found to be a minister of sin. It could therefore be objected to him as he says: For if I build up again the very things I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor (Gal 2:18)—"What then, since you formerly attacked the faith of Christ which you now build up, do you make yourself a transgressor?" But he did not destroy that faith, since it cannot be destroyed. This pride, however, he had truly destroyed and was steadfastly destroying, since it could be destroyed. And so he is not a transgressor who, when he tried to destroy something true and afterward recognized that it was true and could not be destroyed, held onto it so that he might be built up in it; rather, he is a transgressor who, when he has destroyed something false, since it can be destroyed, builds it up again.

17. 17. He says that he is dead to the law (Gal 2:19), so that he is no longer under the law, yet nevertheless through the law (Gal 2:19)—either because he was a Jew and had received the law as a kind of tutor, as he afterward makes clear (and this is brought about through the tutor, that the tutor become unnecessary, just as an infant is nourished by the breasts so that it may no longer need the breasts, and one reaches one's homeland by ship so that the ship is no longer needed)—or because, through the law spiritually understood, he is dead to the law, so as not to live under it in a carnal way. For in this way he wanted them to die to the law through the law, when a little later he says to them: Tell me, you who want to be under the law, have you not read the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons (Gal 4:21-22), and so on, so that through the same law spiritually understood they might die to the carnal observances of the law. But what he adds, that I may live to God (Gal 2:19)—he lives to God who is under God; but he lives to the law who is under the law, and he lives under the law insofar as anyone is a sinner, that is, insofar as he has not been changed from the old man. For he lives by his own life, and therefore the law is above him, since whoever does not fulfill it is beneath it. For the law is not laid down for the righteous man (1 Tim 1:9), that is, imposed so as to be above him. For he is in the law rather than under it, since he does not live by his own life, the life that has the law imposed on it to be restrained. For so to speak, he in a manner lives the law itself who lives justly with a love of righteousness, rejoicing not in his own transitory good but in the common and stable good. And therefore the law was not to be imposed on Paul, who says: It is now no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). Who, then, would dare to impose the law on Christ, who lives in Paul? For no one dares to say that Christ does not live rightly, so that the law should be imposed on him to restrain him. But that I now live, he says, in the flesh (Gal 2:20)—since he could not say that Christ still lives mortally, for life in the flesh is mortal—I live, he says, in the faith of the Son of God (Gal 2:20), so that in this way too Christ may live in the believer, dwelling in the inner man through faith, until afterward he may fill him through sight, when what is mortal has been swallowed up by life. But to show that Christ lives in him, and that, living in the flesh, he lives in the faith of the Son of God, by no merit of his own but by his grace, he says: Who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20). For whom, surely, but for a sinner, that he might justify him? And this is said by one who was born and brought up a Jew and had been more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of his fathers. Therefore, even if Christ gave himself for such men, they too were sinners. Let them not say, then, that it was given to the merits of their righteousness, what there was no need to give to the righteous. For I have not come to call the righteous, says the Lord, but sinners (Matt 9:13)—to this end, surely, that they may no longer be sinners. If, then, Christ loved me and gave himself for me, I do not make void the grace of God (Gal 2:21) by saying that righteousness is through the law. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain (Gal 2:21), that is, he died without cause, if through the law—that is, through the works of the law, in which the Jews trusted—there could be righteousness in men. But not even those whom he refutes say that Christ died in vain, since they wanted to be regarded as Christians. They were not, then, rightly urging that Christians be justified through those works of the law.

18. 18. To them he rightly says: O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? (Gal 3:1) This would not rightly be said of those who had never made progress, but of those who had fallen back from their progress. Before whose eyes Christ Jesus was proscribed, crucified (Gal 3:1)—that is, those in whose sight Christ Jesus lost his inheritance and his possession; those, surely, who took it away and expelled the Lord from it, who from the grace of faith, through which Christ possesses the Gentiles, were calling back to the works of the law those who had believed in Christ, taking away from him his possession, that is, those in whom he dwelt by the right of grace and faith. The Apostle wants it to be seen that this happened in the Galatians themselves, for to this pertains what he says, before whose eyes (Gal 3:1). For what so happened before their eyes as what happened in them? And when he had said, Jesus Christ was proscribed (Gal 3:1), he added, crucified (Gal 3:1), so that he might most of all move them by this, when they considered at what price he had bought the possession he was losing in them—so that it was a small thing that he died in vain, as he had said above. For that earlier statement sounds as though he had not reached the possession for which he gave his blood. But from one who is proscribed, even the things he holds are taken away; yet this proscription does no harm to Christ, who even so is, through his divinity, Lord of all, but it harms the possession itself, which lacks the cultivation of this grace.

19. 19. From here he now begins to show how the grace of faith suffices for justification without the works of the law, lest anyone say that he attributes the whole justification of man not, indeed, to the works of the law alone, but not to the grace of faith alone either, and that salvation is accomplished from both. But that this question may be carefully treated, lest anyone be deceived by an ambiguity, he must first know that the works of the law are of two kinds. For they are taken partly as sacraments, partly as morals. To the sacraments pertain the circumcision of the flesh, the temporal sabbath, the new moons, the sacrifices, and all the innumerable observances of this kind. To morals pertain: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not bear false witness (See Exod 20:13-16), and other things of this sort. Can the Apostle, then, be so unconcerned whether a Christian be a murderer or an adulterer, or chaste and innocent, as he is unconcerned whether he be circumcised in the flesh or uncircumcised? Now, then, he treats chiefly of those works that are among the sacraments, although he indicates that those other works are sometimes mingled in. But near the end of the letter he treated separately of those that are among morals; the former briefly, the latter at greater length. For he wanted these burdens rather not to be imposed on the Gentiles, whose usefulness lies in understanding; for all these things are set forth to Christians so that they may only understand what they signify, and are not compelled even to perform them. But in the observances, if they are not understood, there is slavery alone, such as there was among the people of the Jews and is even to this day. But if they are both observed and understood, they not only do no harm but even do some good, if they suit the time; just as they were observed by Moses himself, and by the prophets too, suiting that people, for whom such slavery was still useful, that they might be kept under fear. For nothing so devoutly frightens the soul as a sacrament not understood; but a sacrament understood begets devout joy and is freely celebrated, if there is need at the time; but if there is no need, it is only read and treated with spiritual sweetness. Now every sacrament, when it is understood, is referred either to the contemplation of truth or to good morals. The contemplation of truth is founded on the love of God alone; good morals on the love of God and neighbor, on which two commandments the whole Law and the Prophets depend (Matt 22:40). Now, then, let us see how the circumcision of the flesh and the rest of the works of the law of this kind are not necessary where the grace of faith already is.

20. 20. This only, he says, I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit from the works of the law or from the hearing of faith? (Gal 3:2) The answer is: surely from the hearing of faith. For the faith was preached to them by the Apostle, and in that preaching they had surely felt the coming and presence of the Holy Spirit, just as at that time, in the newness of the invitation to faith, the presence of the Holy Spirit also appeared in sensible miracles, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles. And this had happened among the Galatians before those men came to pervert and circumcise them. So the sense is this: if your salvation were in those works of the law, the Holy Spirit would be given to you only if you were circumcised. Then he added: Are you so foolish that, having begun with the Spirit, you are now made perfect in the flesh? (Gal 3:3) This is what he had said above in the opening: Unless there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ (Gal 1:7). For trouble is contrary to order, and the order is to rise from carnal things to spiritual ones, not to fall from spiritual things to carnal ones, as had happened to these men. And this is the gospel turned backward, which, because it is not good, is not the gospel, when this is announced. But as for what he says, Have you suffered so many things? (Gal 3:4)—they had already endured many things for the faith, not out of fear, as though placed under the law, but rather in those very sufferings they had overcome fear by love, since the love of God was poured out in their hearts through the Holy Spirit whom they had received. Have you suffered so many things in vain (Gal 3:4), he says, you who out of the love that endured so much in you want to slip back to fear—if indeed it was in vain (Gal 3:4). For what is said to be done in vain is superfluous; and what is superfluous neither profits nor harms; but here it must be seen lest it avail to ruin. For not to rise is not the same as to fall, although these men had not yet fallen but were already inclining so as to fall. For surely the Holy Spirit still worked in them, as he says next: He, then, who gives you the Spirit and works miracles among you, does he do it from the works of the law or from the hearing of faith? (Gal 3:5) The answer is: surely from the hearing of faith, as was treated above. Then he brings forward the example of father Abraham, about whom there is a fuller and clearer discussion in the Letter to the Romans. For this is especially victorious in him, that before he was circumcised his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness; and to this is most rightly referred what was said to him: For in you all the Gentiles shall be blessed (Gal 3:8)—surely by imitation of his faith, by which he was justified, even before the sacrament of circumcision, which he received as a seal of faith, and before all the slavery of the law, which was given much later.

21. 21. But as for what he says, For all who are of the works of the law are under the curse of the law (Gal 3:10), he wants it understood as under fear, not in liberty—so that, namely, a bodily and present punishment would be inflicted on those who did not remain in all the things written in the book of the law to do them. To this would be added that, in the very punishment of their bodies, they would also dread the disgrace of the curse. But that man is justified before God who worships him freely, not, that is, out of a craving to obtain something from him besides himself, or out of fear of losing something. For in him alone is our true and perfect blessedness; and since he is invisible to the eyes of the flesh, he is worshiped by faith as long as we live in this flesh, as he said above: But that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God (Gal 2:20)—and this is righteousness. To this pertains what was said: For the righteous lives by faith (Gal 3:11). For from this he wanted to show that in the law no one is justified, because it is written that the righteous lives by faith. Hence it must be understood that what he now says, in the works of the law, was meant by "in the law," and was said to these men who are held in the circumcision of the flesh and observances of this kind, in which whoever lives is in the law in such a way that he lives under the law. But, as has been said, he now put "law" for the very works of the law, which is made clear in what follows. For he says: But the law is not of faith, but he who does these things shall live in them (Gal 3:12). He does not say, "He who does it shall live in it," so that you may understand that "law" in this place is put for the very works of the law. But those who lived in these works surely feared that, if they did not do them, they would suffer stoning or the cross or something of this kind. Therefore he who does these things, he says, shall live in them (Gal 3:12), that is, he shall have the reward of not being punished by this death. Not, then, before God—for whoever has lived in this life by faith, his, when he departs from here, shall then rather have a most present reward. So he does not live by faith whoever either craves or fears the present things that are seen, since the faith of God pertains to invisible things, which were to be given afterward. For there is a certain righteousness in the works of the law, since it is not left without its own reward, so that he who does them shall live in them. Hence also he says to the Romans: For if Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God (Rom 4:2). It is one thing, then, not to be justified, and another not to be justified before God. He who is not justified at all keeps neither those things that have a temporal reward nor those that have an eternal one; but he who is justified in the works of the law is not justified before God, since from them he expects a temporal and visible reward. But nevertheless there is even this, as I said, a kind of, so to speak, earthly and carnal righteousness; for the Apostle himself calls it righteousness when he says elsewhere: As to the righteousness that is in the law, having lived blamelessly (See Phil 3:6).

22. 22. For this reason the Lord Jesus Christ, now about to give liberty to believers, did not keep certain of those observances to the letter. Hence too, when his disciples, being hungry, plucked ears of grain on the sabbath, he answered those who were indignant that the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath. And so, by not observing those things in a carnal way, he kindled the envy of the carnal; and he indeed took upon himself the punishment appointed for those who did not observe them, but in order to free believers in him from the fear of such punishment; to which pertains what he adds: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree (Gal 3:13). To those who understand spiritually, this sentence is a sacrament of liberty; but to those who perceive in a carnal way, if they are Jews, it is a yoke of slavery, if they are pagans or heretics, it is a veil of blindness. For as to the fact that certain of our own, less learned in the Scriptures, fearing this sentence too much and approving the old Scriptures with due piety, think that it was said not of the Lord but of Judas his betrayer—for they say that for this reason it was not said, Cursed is everyone who is fixed to a tree, but, who hangs upon a tree, since here not the Lord was signified but the one who hanged himself with a noose—they err too greatly and do not notice that they are disputing against the Apostle, who says: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree (Gal 3:13). He, then, who was made a curse for us is surely the one who hung upon the tree, that is, Christ, who freed us from the curse of the law, so that we might be justified no longer by fear in the works of the law, but by faith before God, which works not through fear but through love. For the Holy Spirit, who said this through Moses, provided for both: that they who could not yet live by faith in invisible things might be kept by the fear of visible punishment, and that he himself might dissolve that fear by taking on what was feared—he who, when fear was removed, could give the gift of love. Nor in this, that he was called cursed who hangs upon a tree, is an insult to the Lord to be supposed. For it was in the mortal part that he hung upon the tree; and where mortality comes from is known to believers. For it is from the punishment and the curse of the first man's sin, which the Lord took on and bore—our sins in his body upon the tree. If, then, it were said, "Death is cursed," no one would be horrified; but what hung upon the tree but the death of the Lord, that by dying he might overcome death? The same death, therefore, that was conquered was cursed. Likewise, if it were said, "Sin is cursed," no one would marvel. But what hung upon the tree but the sin of the old man, which the Lord took on for us in that very mortality of the flesh? Hence the Apostle neither blushed nor feared to say that he was made sin for us, adding: That from sin he might condemn sin (Rom 8:3). For our old man would not be crucified together with him, as the same Apostle says elsewhere, unless in that death of the Lord there hung the figure of our sin, so that the body of sin might be emptied, that we might no longer be slaves to sin. In the figure of this sin and death, Moses too lifted up the serpent upon a tree in the wilderness. For by the persuasion of the serpent man fell into the condemnation of death. And so the serpent was fittingly lifted up on a tree to signify that very death; for in that figure the death of the Lord hung upon the tree. But who would shrink back if it were said, "Cursed is the serpent who hangs upon the tree"? And yet, prefiguring the death of the Lord's flesh, the serpent hung upon the tree—a sacrament to which the Lord himself bore witness, saying: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up above the earth (See John 3:14). For no one would say that Moses did even this to the dishonor of the Lord, since he recognized that there was such great salvation of men in that cross, that for no other reason did he command, at the Lord's judgment, that the serpent be set up, except that those bitten by serpents, who were going to die, might at once be healed by looking upon it. Nor was that bronze serpent made for any other reason than to signify the faith, abiding forever, of the Lord's passion. For things are commonly called "of bronze" whose number remains. For if men had forgotten, and it had been blotted from the memory of time, that Christ died for men, they would truly die. But now, as though of bronze, the faith of the cross remains, so that, while some die and others are born, they may nevertheless find it remaining lifted on high, by looking upon which they may be healed. It is no marvel, then, if he conquered the curse out of a curse, who conquered death out of death and sin out of sin and the serpent out of the serpent. But death was cursed, sin was cursed, the serpent was cursed, and all these were triumphed over on the cross. Cursed, then, is everyone who hangs upon a tree (Gal 3:13). Therefore, because Christ justifies those who believe in him not by the works of the law but by faith, the fear of the curse of the cross has been taken away, and the love of the blessing of Abraham, on account of the example of his faith, remains for the Gentiles. That we may receive, he says, the announcement of the Spirit through faith (See Gal 3:14), that is, that there may be announced to those about to believe not what is feared in the flesh, but what is loved in the spirit.

23. 23. Hence he also makes mention of a human testament, which is surely much weaker than the divine. Yet no one annuls or adds to a man's testament once it has been confirmed (See Gal 3:15), he says. For when a testator changes his testament, he does not change one that has been confirmed, since it is confirmed by the death of the testator. And just as the death of the testator avails to confirm his testament, since he can no longer change his decision, so the immutability of God's promise avails to confirm the inheritance of Abraham, whose faith was reckoned as righteousness. And therefore the seed of Abraham, to whom the promises were spoken (Gal 3:16), the Apostle says is Christ—that is, all Christians who by faith imitate Abraham; which he reduces to singularity, pointing out that it was not said, "And to seeds," but, To your seed (Gal 3:16), since the faith is one and those who live from works in a carnal way cannot be justified in the same way as those who live from faith in a spiritual way. But what he draws as an unanswerable conclusion is that the law had not yet been given, nor could it be given so many years later in such a way as to make void the ancient promises to Abraham. For if the law justifies, then Abraham, who lived long before the law, was not justified. And because they cannot say this, they are forced to confess that a man is justified not by the works of the law but by faith. At the same time it also forces us to understand that all the ancients who were justified were justified from that same faith. For just as we are made whole by believing what is for us partly past, that is, the first coming of the Lord, and partly future, that is, the second coming of the Lord, so all of that—that is, both comings as future—they believed, the Holy Spirit revealing it to them, so that they might be made whole. Hence too is that saying: Abraham desired to see my day, and he saw it and was glad (John 8:56).

24. 24. There follows a rather necessary question. For if faith justifies, and the earlier saints who were justified before God were justified by it, what need was there for the law to be given? This question, to be treated, he introduced by asking and saying: What then? (Gal 3:19) The question goes only this far, and then the answer is given: The law was set forth on account of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made, ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one, but God is one (Gal 3:19-20). That the mediator Jesus Christ is so called according to his humanity becomes plainer from that other saying of the same Apostle, when he says: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). A mediator, then, could not be between God and God, since God is one; but a mediator is not of one (Gal 3:20), since he is in the middle between some parties. The angels, moreover, who have not fallen from the sight of God, have no need of a mediator through whom they might be reconciled. Likewise the angels who, with no one persuading them, fell by a spontaneous transgression, are not reconciled through a mediator. It remains, then, that he who was cast down by a proud mediator, the devil, persuading pride, should be raised up by a humble mediator, Christ, persuading humility. For if the Son of God had wished to remain in natural equality with the Father and had not emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, he would not be the mediator of God and men, since the Trinity itself is one God, the same in three—Father and Son and Holy Spirit—established in the eternity and equality of deity. And so the only Son of God was made the mediator of God and men, when the Word of God, God with God, both laid down his majesty as far as to human things and raised up human humility as far as to divine things, so that he might be a mediator between God and men, a man, through God beyond men. For he himself is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (See Ps 45:2 (44:3)), and anointed with the oil of gladness beyond his fellows. Healed, then, of the impiety of pride, that they might be reconciled to God, are all the men who, by believing, loved the humility of Christ—both through revelation, before it came to be, and through the gospel, after it had come to be—and by loving it imitated it. But this righteousness of faith, because it was given to men not for merit but for the mercy and grace of God, was not popular before the Lord was born a man among men. But the seed to whom the promise was made (Gal 3:19) signifies a people, not those very few who, perceiving these future things by revelations, although they were made whole by the same faith, nevertheless could not make a people whole. This people, indeed, if it is considered throughout the whole world (for from the whole world the Church gathers the heavenly Jerusalem), is few, since the narrow way belongs to the few; yet gathered into one, however many were able to exist from the time the gospel was preached, and however many will be able to exist until the end of the age throughout all nations—with those also joined to them, however few, who from the faith of the Lord, by prophetic faith before both his comings, received the salvation of grace—they fill out the most blessed state of the saints in the everlasting city. To the proud people, then, the law was set down, so that, since they could not receive the grace of love except when humbled, and without this grace could in no way fulfill the precepts of the law, they might be humbled by transgression, that they might seek grace and not suppose—which is proud—that they were made whole by their own merits, so that they might be righteous not in their own power and strength, but in the hand of the mediator who justifies the impious. Now the whole dispensation of the Old Testament was administered through angels, the Holy Spirit acting in them, and the Word of truth itself, not yet incarnate but never withdrawing from any truthful administration. Because that dispensation of the law was ordained through angels, who acted now in their own person, now in the person of God, as is also the custom of the prophets—and through that law, which showed the diseases but did not take them away—pride was crushed even by the charge of transgression. The seed was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator (See Gal 3:19), so that he himself might free from their sins those who were already compelled, through the transgression of the law, to confess that they had need of the grace and mercy of the Lord, so that their sins might be forgiven them and they might be reconciled to God in a new life, through him who had poured out his blood for them.

25. 25. For in these men, pride was to be broken through the transgression of the law—men who, boasting of their father Abraham, vaunted themselves as having righteousness, as it were, by nature, and who set their merits, in their circumcision, above the rest of the nations the more perniciously the more arrogantly; whereas the Gentiles could most easily be humbled even without a transgression of the law of this kind. For evangelical grace found, even as slaves of idols, men who foresaw that they drew no origin of righteousness from their parents. For just as it could not be said to these, as to the Jews, that there had not been that righteousness of their parents in worshiping idols, which they supposed there to be, so it could not be said to the Jews that the righteousness of father Abraham was false. And so it is said to those: Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance, and do not say to yourselves: We have Abraham for our father. For God is able from these stones to raise up sons to Abraham (Matt 3:8-9). But to these it is said: Wherefore be mindful that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh, made by hand, were at that time without Christ, alienated from the fellowship of Israel, and strangers to the testaments and the promise, having no hope, and without God in this world (Eph 2:11-12). In short, in that place the unbelievers are shown broken off from their own olive tree, but here the believers are shown grafted from the wild olive into their olive tree. It was their pride, then, that was to be worn down by the transgression of the law, as he says to the Romans, when with the words of the Scriptures he had heaped up their sins: But we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are in the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God (Rom 3:19)—the Jews, that is, from the transgression of the law, and the Gentiles from impiety without the law. Hence too he says again: For God has shut up all things in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all (Rom 11:32). This he also now says, reopening the question itself: Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would altogether be from the law. But the Scripture has shut up all things under sin, that the promise from the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe (Gal 3:21-22). The law, then, was not given to take away sin but to shut up all things under sin. For the law showed that it was sin which they, blinded by habit, might think to be righteousness, so that in this way, being humbled, they might recognize that their salvation was not in their own hand but in the hand of the mediator. For humility especially calls back whence pride cast us down. And humility itself is fitted to receive the grace of Christ, who is the singular example of humility.

26. 26. Nor let anyone here so inexpertly say: Why then did it not profit the Jews that, ministering the law through angels, they were ordained in the hand of a mediator? For it profited more than can be said. For what other churches of the Gentiles laid the prices of their sold goods at the feet of the apostles, as so many thousands of men did so suddenly? Nor are the crowds of unbelievers to be considered, for every threshing floor has many times more chaff than wheat. And from where come those words of the same Apostle to the Romans except concerning the sanctification of the Jews? What then? Has God cast away his people? God forbid! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people, whom he foreknew (Rom 11:1-2). And when he praised the church of the Thessalonians above the rest of the churches of the Gentiles, he said that they had been made like the churches of Judea, since they had suffered many things from their fellow countrymen for the faith, just as those churches had from the Jews. From here too is that which I recalled a little before, where he says to the Romans: For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal things (Rom 15:27). Concerning these same Jews, then, he consequently says: But before the faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto that faith which was afterward revealed (Gal 3:23). For that they might be found so near, and from so close at hand come to God by selling their goods—which the Lord commanded those to do who wished to be perfect—was brought about by the very law under which they were kept shut up unto that faith (Gal 3:23), that is, unto the coming of that faith which was afterward revealed (Gal 3:23); for their being shut up was the fear of one God. And that they were found transgressors of that very law availed not to ruin but to the benefit of those who believed; for the knowledge of a greater sickness both made the physician more vehemently desired and more ardently loved. For to whom most is forgiven, he loves most.

27. 27. And so the law, he says, was our tutor in Christ (Gal 3:24)—this is what he says: We were kept under the law, shut up in it (Gal 3:23). But after faith came, we are no longer under a tutor (Gal 3:25). He now therefore rebukes those who make void the grace of Christ; for as though he who was to call into liberty had not yet come, so they still wish to be under a tutor. But that he says all are sons of God through faith, since whoever have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ, avails to this end: that the Gentiles should not despair of themselves, because they were not kept under a tutor, and therefore should not think themselves not to be sons; but by faith, putting on Christ, all become sons—not by nature, like the only Son, who is also the Wisdom of God; nor by a preeminence and singularity of assumption, so as to have and act naturally the person of Wisdom, as the mediator himself was made one with that very Wisdom which assumed him, without the interposition of any mediator; but they become sons by participation in wisdom, the faith of the mediator preparing and bestowing it. This grace of faith he now calls a garment, so that those who have believed in him have put on Christ and have therefore been made sons of God and brothers of the mediator himself.

28. 28. In which faith there is no distinction of Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male and female; for insofar as all are believers, all are one in Christ Jesus. And if faith, through which one walks justly in this life, does this, how much more perfectly and abundantly will sight itself do it, when we shall see face to face? For now, although we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, which is life, on account of the righteousness of faith, yet because the body is still dead on account of sin, that difference of nation or condition or sex has indeed already been taken away from the unity of faith, but it remains in our mortal manner of life; and the apostles command that its order be kept on the journey of this life, and they hand down most wholesome rules for how they should live among themselves according to the difference of nation, Jew and Greek, and the difference of condition, master and slave, and the difference of sex, husbands and wives, or whatever other such things occur—as did the Lord himself first, who says: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's (Matt 22:21). For there are some things that we keep in the unity of faith without any distinction, and others in the order of this life as on a road, lest the name of God and his teaching be blasphemed. And this not only on account of wrath, that we may escape the offense of men, but also on account of conscience, that we may do these things not feignedly, as before the eyes of men, but with a pure conscience of love for the sake of God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). All of you, then, he says, are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28), and he added: But if, so that here a subdivision may be made and there may be understood, you are one in Christ Jesus, and then there be inferred: Therefore you are the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:28-29), so that this is the sense: All of you, then, are one in Christ Jesus; but if you are one in Christ Jesus, then you are the seed of Abraham. For he had said above: It does not say, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ (Gal 3:16). Here, then, he shows that the one seed, Christ, is to be understood not only as the mediator himself but also as the Church, of whose body he is the head, so that all may be one in Christ and may receive according to the promise the inheritance through faith, into which the people was shut up—that is, unto whose coming the people was kept as under a tutor until the fitting time of maturity, in which those were to be called into liberty who in that same people were called according to the purpose, that is, who were found in that threshing floor to be wheat.

29. 29. For to this he adds: But I say: As long as the heir is a child, he differs in nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all, but he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father; so we too, when we were children, were enslaved under the elements of this world (Gal 4:1-3). It can be asked, however, how, according to this likeness, the Jews were under the elements of this world, since the one God who made heaven and earth was commended to them, to be worshiped, through the law that they received. But there can be another outcome of this passage: that, since above he made the law a tutor, under whom that people of the Jews was, he now calls the guardians and stewards the elements of the world, under which the Gentiles were enslaved—so that that child son, that is, the people belonging, on account of one faith, to the one seed of Abraham (since it is gathered from both Jews and Gentiles), was partly under the tutor of the law, in the time of its childhood, that is, from that part by which it was gathered from the Jews, and partly under the elements of this world, to which, as to guardians and stewards, it was enslaved from that part by which it was gathered from the Gentiles; so that the fact that the Apostle mingles in his own person—not saying, "When you were children, you were under the elements of this world," but saying, When we were children, we were enslaved under the elements of this world (Gal 4:3)—pertains not to the signification of the Jews, from whom Paul draws his origin, but rather to that of the Gentiles, at least in this place, since their person too he can fittingly attach to himself, to whom he was sent to preach the gospel.

30. 30. Then he now says that, when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son to free the child heir, enslaved partly to the law as to a tutor, partly to the elements of this world as to guardians and stewards. God sent, he says, his Son, made of a woman (Gal 4:4). He put "woman" for "female," after the manner of speech of the Hebrews. For it was not because it was said of Eve, He formed her into a woman (See Gen 2:22), that she had then suffered intercourse with a man, which she is not written to have suffered except after they were dismissed from paradise. He said "made" on account of the assumption of a creature, since those who are born of women are not then born of God, yet God makes them, so that they can be born as he makes every creature. And he said made under the law (Gal 4:4), since he was both circumcised and a lawful sacrifice was offered for him. Nor is it any wonder if he also bore those works of the law from which he was to free those who were held by them in servile fashion—he who also bore death in order to free from it those who were held by mortality. That we might receive, he says, the adoption of sons (Gal 4:5). He says "adoption" so that we may understand the only Son of God as distinct. For we are sons of God by his kindness and the condescension of his mercy; he is Son by nature, who is the same as the Father is. Nor did he say, "that we may obtain," but, that we may receive again (Gal 4:5), to signify that we lost this in Adam, from whom we are mortal. So what he says, that he might redeem those who were under the law (Gal 4:5), both pertains to freeing that people which, as a child under a tutor, was enslaved, and is referred to what he said, made under the law (Gal 4:4). But what he says, that we may receive again the adoption of sons (Gal 4:5), is referred to what he said, made of a woman (Gal 4:4). For from this we receive adoption, that that Only-begotten did not disdain participation in our nature, being made of a woman, so that he might be not only the Only-begotten, where he has no brothers, but might also become the Firstborn among many brothers. For he set forth two things: made of a woman, made under the law (Gal 4:4), but he answered them in reversed order.

31. 31. Now joining that people which, as a child, was enslaved to guardians and stewards, that is, to the elements of this world, lest they think themselves not to be sons because they were not under a tutor: But because you are sons, he says, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father! (Gal 4:6) There are two words that he put, so that by the latter he might interpret the former, for Abba is the same as Father. And it is elegantly understood that he put words of two languages, signifying the same thing, not in vain, but on account of the whole people, which is called from Jews and Gentiles into the unity of faith—so that the Hebrew word pertains to the Jews, the Greek to the Gentiles, while the same signification of both words pertains to the unity of the same faith and Spirit. For to the Romans too, where a similar question about the peace of Jews and Gentiles in Christ is treated, he says this: For you have not received the spirit of slavery again in fear, but you have received the Spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry: Abba, Father! (Rom 8:15) And rightly did he want to prove to the Gentiles, from the presence and gift of the Holy Spirit, that they belong to the promise of the inheritance. For the gospel was not preached to the Gentiles except after the ascension of the Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit. For the Jews had already begun to believe while the Son of God still bore mortal manhood on earth, as is written in the gospel; where, although he himself praised the faith of the Canaanite woman, and that of the centurion, of whom he said that he had not found such faith in Israel, yet that the gospel was then preached properly to the Jews is clear enough from the words of the Lord himself, when even at the Canaanite woman's entreaty he said that he was not sent except to the sheep that had perished of the house of Israel, and when he sent his disciples he said: Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter the cities of the Samaritans, but go first to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel (Matt 10:5-6). But he called the Gentiles another sheepfold, when he said: I have other sheep that are not of this fold (John 10:16), which nevertheless he said he would bring, so that there might be one flock and one shepherd—but when, if not after his glorification? After his resurrection, however, he sent his disciples even to the Gentiles, when he had meanwhile bidden them remain at Jerusalem until, according to his promise, he should send them the Holy Spirit. When, therefore, the Apostle had said, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we may receive the adoption of sons (Gal 4:4-5), it remained for him to show that the Gentiles too, who were not under the law, belong nevertheless to that same adoption of sons; which he teaches from the gift of the Holy Spirit, who was given to all. Hence Peter too defended himself among the believing Jews concerning the baptized uncircumcised centurion Cornelius, saying that he could not deny water to those who, as it had become clear, had already received the Holy Spirit. For Paul used that same weightiest proof above, when he said: This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit from the works of the law or from the hearing of faith? (Gal 3:2) And a little after: He, then, who gives you the Spirit and works miracles among you, does he do it from the works of the law or from the hearing of faith? (Gal 3:5) So also here: Because, he says, you are sons of God, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father! (Gal 4:6)

32. 32. Then he shows most plainly that he is speaking also of those who had come to the faith from among the Gentiles, to whom too he writes the letter. And so now, he says, he is no longer a slave but a son (Gal 4:7), on account of what he had said: As long as the heir is a child, he differs in nothing from a slave. But if a son, he says, then also an heir through God (Gal 4:7)—that is, through the mercy of God, not through the promises of the fathers, from whom he was not born in a carnal way as the Jews were, but is nevertheless a son of Abraham according to the imitation of faith, the grace of which faith he merited through the mercy of the Lord. But then indeed, he says, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are not gods (Gal 4:8). Now certainly, because he is writing not to Jews but to Gentiles, and does not say, "we served," but, you served (Gal 4:8), it is probable enough that what was said above—that they were enslaved under the elements of this world as under guardians and stewards—was also said of the Gentiles. For the elements themselves are surely not by nature gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, but for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him (1 Cor 8:5-6). But when he says, You served those who by nature are not gods (Gal 4:8), he shows well enough that the one true God is by nature God—by which name the Trinity is received in the most faithful and catholic bosom of the heart. But those who are by nature not gods he calls above guardians and stewards for this reason: that there is no creature, whether one that remains in the truth giving glory to God, or one that has not stood in the truth, seeking its own glory. There is, I say, no creature that does not, willing or unwilling, serve the divine providence; but the willing one does with it what is good, while of the one that does not will this is done what is just. For if even the transgressor angels with their prince the devil were not rightly called guardians or stewards of the divine providence, the Lord would not call the devil the magistrate of this world, nor would the apostolic power use him for the correction of men, the same Paul saying elsewhere: Whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme (1 Tim 1:20), and in another place unto salvation. For he says: I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged, as though present, him who has so acted, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to hand over such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 5:3-5). But even a magistrate under an appointed emperor does only as much as is permitted to him, and the guardians and stewards of this world do nothing except as much as the Lord allows. For nothing escapes him as it does a man, nor is he in anything less powerful, so that guardians and stewards, who are in his power, might accomplish anything in the things subject to them according to their rank, without his either permitting or knowing it. Yet what is justly done concerning them is not repaid to them, but rather the mind with which they themselves act; for God neither denied free will to his rational creature, and yet retained for himself the power by which he justly orders even the unjust—a topic we have often treated more amply and fully in other books. Whether, then, the Gentiles worshiped the sun and moon and stars and heaven and earth and the rest of this kind, or worshiped demons, they are rightly understood to have been under guardians and stewards.

33. 33. Nevertheless, the things that follow now, as it were, entangle again a question already unraveled. For although throughout the whole letter he shows that the faith of the Galatians was solicited by no others than those who were of the circumcision and who desired to draw them to the carnal observances of the law, as though salvation were in them, in this one place he seems to speak to those who were trying to return to the superstitions of the Gentiles. For he says: But now, knowing God, or rather being known by God, how do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements, which you wish to serve again as before? (Gal 4:9) For in that he says, you turn back (Gal 4:9), when he is speaking not to the circumcised but to the Gentiles, as appears throughout the whole letter, he certainly does not say that they turn back to circumcision, in which they never were, but to the weak, he says, and beggarly elements, which you wish to serve again as before (Gal 4:9). This we are compelled to understand of the Gentiles, for to these he had said above: But then indeed, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are not gods (Gal 4:8); to which slavery he signifies that they wish to return, when he says: How do you turn back to the weak and beggarly elements, which you wish to serve again as before? (Gal 4:9)

34. 34. But what he adds, You observe days and months and seasons and years; I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain! (Gal 4:10-11), can seem rather to confirm this opinion. For that error of the Gentiles is most common, that whether in things to be done or in awaiting the outcomes of their life and affairs, they observe the days and months and years and seasons marked out by astrologers and Chaldeans. Yet perhaps there is no need that we understand this of the error of the Gentiles, lest we seem to want suddenly and rashly to twist into something else the purpose of the case which he carries through from the beginning to the end; but rather of those things which it appears, throughout the whole letter, that he is concerned to have them avoid. For the Jews too in servile fashion observe days and months and years and seasons in the carnal observance of the sabbath and of the new moon and of the month of new fruits and of every seventh year, which they call the Sabbath of sabbaths. Because these were shadows of things to come, now that Christ has come they have remained in superstition, since they were observed as though salutary by those who did not know to what they should be referred. So that it is as though the Apostle said to the Gentiles: What does it profit you to have escaped the slavery by which you were held when you served the elements of the world, when you return again to such things, seduced by those who, not yet recognizing the time of their liberty, among the rest of the works of the law that they perceive in a carnal way, are also enslaved to seasons—to whom you too wish to be enslaved again as before, and to observe with them days and months and years and seasons, to which you were enslaved even before you believed in Christ? For it is manifest that the courses of the seasons are administered through the elements of this world, that is, heaven and earth and the motion and order of the stars. These he calls weak from the fact that they are varied with a weak and unstable appearance, and beggarly from the fact that they have need of the supreme and stable form of the Creator, that they may be able to be in the way they are.

35. 35. Let the reader, then, choose whichever opinion he will, provided he understands that superstitious observances of seasons pertain to so great a peril of the soul that the Apostle subjoined to this place: I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain (Gal 4:11). Though this is read with such great frequency and authority throughout the world in the churches, our assemblies are full of men who take the times for doing their affairs from the astrologers. Indeed, lest anything be begun—either of buildings or of any works of this kind—on the days they call Egyptian, they often do not hesitate to warn even us, not knowing, as it is said, where they walk. But if this passage is to be understood of the superstitious observance of the Jews, what hope have they who, while they want to be called Christians, govern their shipwrecked lives by an ephemeris, when, concerning the divine Books which God gave to a people still carnal, if they observed seasons in the manner of the Jews, the Apostle would say to them: I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain? (Gal 4:11) And yet, if anyone, even a catechumen, is caught observing the sabbath by the Jewish rite, the Church is in an uproar. But now innumerable men from the number of the faithful say to our face with great confidence: "I will not set out on the day after the Kalends." And we scarcely, gently, forbid these things, smiling, lest they grow angry, and fearing lest they marvel as at something new. Woe to the sins of men, at which we shudder only when they are unusual! But the usual ones, for the washing away of which the blood of the Son of God was poured out—however great they may be, and altogether such as to shut the kingdom of God against themselves—by often seeing them we are compelled to tolerate all things, and by often tolerating them, even to do some of them! And would, O Lord, that we did not do all the things we have been unable to forbid!

36. 36. But let us now see what follows. We had indeed passed over what was said: But now, knowing God, or rather being known by God (Gal 4:9). For certainly in this place too the apostolic manner of speech seems to wish to accommodate itself to the weakness of men, lest the manner of divine speech seem to have descended down to the earthly thoughts of men only in the books of the Old Testament. For the fact that he corrected what he had said, knowing God (Gal 4:9), ought to disturb us in no way. For it is manifest that, as long as we walk by faith, not by sight, we have not yet known God, but are purified by that faith, so that at the fitting time we may be able to know him. But as for the fact that in the very correction he says, or rather being known by God (Gal 4:9), if it is taken properly, God will be thought to know something, as it were, in time, which he did not know before. It was therefore said by transference, so that we take the eyes of God to be that very love of his, which he commended by sending his only Son to be slain for the impious; for of those who are loved we are accustomed to say that they are held before one's eyes. This, then, is the meaning of knowing God, or rather being known by God (Gal 4:9), which John too said: Not that we have loved God, but that he himself loved us (See 1 John 4:10).

37. 37. He says: Be as I am (Gal 4:12), who, surely, though I was born a Jew, now despise these carnal things by a spiritual discernment. For I too am as you are (Gal 4:12), that is, I am a man. Then opportunely and becomingly he makes them recall his love, lest they reckon him as an enemy. For he says: Brethren, I beseech you, you have in no way wronged me (Gal 4:12), as if he said: Do not, then, think that I desire to wrong you. You know that through the weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you long ago (Gal 4:13), that is, when I was suffering persecution. And your temptation in my flesh you did not despise nor reject (Gal 4:14). For they were tempted, when the Apostle was suffering persecution, whether out of fear they would desert him or out of love embrace him. And you did not despise it, he says, as a useless temptation, nor reject it (Gal 4:14), so as not to take up fellowship in my peril. But you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus (Gal 4:14). Then, marveling, he commends their spiritual work, so that, looking upon it, they may not fall down into carnal fear. What then was, he says, your blessedness? For I bear you witness that, if it could be done, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? (Gal 4:15-16) The answer surely is: No. But what truth, except that they should not be circumcised? And so see what he adds: They are zealous for you, but not for good (Gal 4:17), that is, they envy you, who want to make you carnal out of spiritual—this is: They are zealous, but not for good. But they want, he says, to shut you out, that you may be zealous for them (Gal 4:17), that is, that you may imitate them; how, except that you may be held under the yoke of slavery, just as they themselves are held? But it is good, he says, always to be zealous in a good thing (Gal 4:18). For he wants them to imitate himself. On this account he added: And not only when I am present with you (Gal 4:18). For when they wanted to give their eyes to him while present, they were surely trying to imitate him whom they so loved.

38. 38. To this he also says: My little children (Gal 4:19), so that, as a parent, they may surely imitate him. Of whom I am again, he says, in travail, until Christ be formed in you (Gal 4:19). He said this rather in the person of mother Church, for elsewhere too he says: I became a little one in your midst, as a nurse cherishing her children (See 1 Thess 2:7). Now Christ is formed in the believer through faith in the inner man, called into the liberty of grace, meek and humble of heart, not boasting of the merits of works, which are nothing, but with grace itself beginning some merit—the man whom he can call his least one, that is, himself, who says: For when you did it to one of my least ones, you did it to me (See Matt 25:40). For Christ is formed in him who receives the form of Christ; and he receives the form of Christ who clings to Christ by spiritual love. From this it comes about that by imitating him he is what Christ is, as far as is allowed in his own degree: For he who says he abides in Christ, says John, ought himself also to walk as he walked (1 John 2:6). But since men are conceived by mothers in order to be formed, and once formed are brought to birth in order to be born, it can be disturbing that it was said: Of whom I am again in travail, until Christ be formed in you (Gal 4:19). Unless we understand this travail to be put for the anguish of cares with which he traveled to give them birth in Christ, and travails again on account of the perils of seduction by which he sees them troubled. But such men's anxiety of cares over them, by which he says he is in a manner in travail, can last as long as until they come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that they are no longer moved by every wind of doctrine. It was said, then, not on account of the beginning of faith, by which they had already been born, but on account of the strength and perfection: Of whom I am again in travail, until Christ be formed in you (Gal 4:19). This travail he commends in other words elsewhere too, where he says: My daily pressure, the anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn? (2 Cor 11:28-29)

39. 39. But as for what he subjoined, I could wish to be present with you now and to change my voice, because I am confounded in you (Gal 4:20), what else is to be understood except that, because he had called them his sons, he was perhaps sparing them in his letter, lest, moved by a sterner rebuke, they be easily turned to hatred of him by those deceivers, whom, being absent, he could not resist? I could wish, then, he says, to be present with you now and to change my voice (Gal 4:20), that is, to deny that you are sons, because I am confounded in you (Gal 4:20). For even parents are accustomed to disown wicked sons, lest they be put to shame by them.

40. 40. Then he subjoins: Tell me, you who want to be under the law, have you not heard the law? (Gal 4:21) And what he says concerning the two sons of Abraham is easily understood, for he himself interprets this allegory. For Abraham had these two sons when the two testaments were signified. But after the death of Sarah, those whom he begot of another wife do not pertain to this signification. And so many who read the Apostle but are ignorant of the book of Genesis think that Abraham had only two sons. These alone, then, the Apostle recalls, since he still had only these when the things were signified which he consequently sets forth: that the one of the slave woman, who was called Hagar, signifies the Old Testament, that is, the people of the Old Testament, on account of the servile yoke of carnal observances and the earthly promises by which they are ensnared, and which, hoping only for these from God, they are not admitted to the spiritual inheritance of the heavenly patrimony. But it is not sufficient that Isaac was born of the free wife to signify the people who are heir of the New Testament; rather, this avails more, that he was born according to promise. The other, however, could be born both of the slave woman according to the flesh and of the free woman according to the flesh, just as of Keturah, whom Abraham afterward married, he received sons not according to promise but according to the flesh. For Isaac was born wonderfully through the promise, when both parents had grown old. But if, by the assurance given through the Apostle, by which he most plainly shows that those two are to be taken allegorically, anyone should wish to look also at the sons of Keturah as a figure of some future things (for it was not in vain that, by the administration of the Holy Spirit, these things done by such persons were written down), he will perhaps find heresies and schisms signified. These are sons of the free woman, indeed, as those others are of the Church, but nevertheless born according to the flesh, not spiritually through promise. But if it is so, neither are they found to pertain to the inheritance, that is, to the heavenly Jerusalem, which the Scripture calls barren (See Isa 54:1), because for a long time it did not bring forth sons on earth. It was also called deserted, since men, deserting the heavenly righteousness, follow earthly things, as though that earthly Jerusalem had a husband, because it had received the law. And Sarah signifies the same heavenly Jerusalem, who was for a long time deserted from intercourse with her husband on account of her known barrenness. For such men as Abraham was did not use women to satisfy lust, but for the succession of offspring. To barrenness, moreover, was added old age, so that out of all despair the divine promise might give a great merit to believers. Certain, then, of the promise of God, he came to the office of begetting in an age already heavy, which in more vigorous years he had abandoned in bodily union. For it is not for any other reason that the Apostle, having joined the figure of those women, interprets what was said through the prophet: For the sons of the deserted are more than of her who has a husband (See Isa 54:1; Gal 4:27), since Sarah both died before her husband and no divorce ever occurred between them. Whence, then, was she deserted, or that other one having a husband, except that Abraham had transferred the work of propagating offspring from the barrenness of his wife Sarah to the fruitfulness of the slave woman Hagar? Yet with Sarah herself permitting and freely offering that her husband should receive sons of the slave woman. For there is an ancient rule of righteousness which the same Apostle commends to the Corinthians: The woman does not have power over her own body, but the man; and likewise the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman (1 Cor 7:4). For debts of this kind, like the rest, consist in the power of those to whom they are owed. He who does not commit fraud against this power keeps the rights of conjugal chastity. But the old age of Isaac's parents avails to this signification, that the people of the New Testament, although it is new, yet its predestination with God and the heavenly Jerusalem itself is ancient. Hence John too says to the Parthians: I write to you, fathers, because you have known what was from the beginning (1 John 2:13). But the carnal who are in the Church, from whom heresies and schisms arise, received indeed the occasion of being born from the gospel, but the carnal error by which they were conceived and which they drag with them is not referred to the antiquity of truth; and therefore they were born of a youthful mother and an old father without promise. For the Lord too, only on account of the antiquity of truth, appeared in the Apocalypse with a white head. Such men, then, were born from the occasion of the ancient truth in a novel and temporal lie. The Apostle, therefore, says that we are, according to Isaac, sons of promise, and that Isaac thus suffered persecution from Ishmael, just as those who had begun to live spiritually were suffering persecution from the carnal Jews—in vain, however, since according to the Scripture the slave woman and her son are cast out and cannot be heir with the son of the free woman. But we, brethren, he says, are not sons of the slave woman but of the free (Gal 4:31). For that liberty is now especially to be set against the yoke of slavery by which those were held in the works of the law who were drawing these men to circumcision.

41. 41. But when he says, Stand fast, then (Gal 5:1), he signifies that they had not yet fallen, for he would more aptly say, "Rise." But as for what he added, And do not be held again under the yoke of slavery (Gal 5:1)—since here no other yoke can be understood under which he does not want them held except that of circumcision and such Jewish observances; for thus too it follows: Behold, I Paul say to you that, if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Gal 5:2)—how are we to take what he says, Do not be held again under the yoke of slavery (Gal 5:1), when he writes to those who had never been Jews? For he is surely acting to keep them from being circumcised. But here, doubtless, that opinion is declared and confirmed of which we disputed above. For I find nothing else that he says to the Gentiles in this place except that it profits them that they have been freed, through the faith of Christ, from the slavery of their superstition, lest they wish to be slaves again under the yoke of carnal observances which, although under the law of God, nevertheless bind a carnal people in servile fashion. And he says that Christ will profit them nothing if they be circumcised—but in that manner in which these men wanted them circumcised, that is, so as to place the hope of salvation in the circumcision of the flesh. For Christ did not fail to profit Timothy, since Paul himself circumcised him as a young Christian; but he did this on account of the offense of his own people, in no way pretending anything at all, but out of that indifference by which he says: Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing (1 Cor 7:19). For that circumcision does no harm to one who does not believe salvation to be in it. According to this opinion he also added: I testify to every man who circumcises himself (Gal 5:3), that is, who seeks this circumcision as though salutary, that he is a debtor to do the whole law (Gal 5:3). He says this for this reason: that, by the very terror of so innumerable observances which are written in the works of the law—lest they be compelled to fulfill all of them, which neither the Jews themselves nor their parents were able to fulfill, as Peter says in the Acts of the Apostles—a person might abstain from those things under which these men desired to subjugate them.

42. 42. You are emptied, he says, of Christ, you who are justified in the law (Gal 5:4). This is that proscription by which he had said above that Christ was proscribed, so that when these men were emptied of Christ—that is, Christ withdrew from them as from a possession that he held—the works of the law might be brought into that possession as into an empty one. And because this harms not Christ but them, he added: You have fallen from grace (Gal 5:4). For although the grace of Christ acts to free from this debt those who were debtors of the works of the law, these men, ungrateful to so great a grace, want to be debtors to do the whole law. But it had not yet been done; yet because the will had begun to be moved, he speaks in most passages as though it had been done. For we, he says, by the Spirit from faith await the hope of righteousness (Gal 5:5). In which he shows that those things pertain to the faith of Christ which are spiritually awaited, not those which are carnally desired, by promises of which that slavery was held; as he says in another place: We not looking at the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor 4:18). Then he subjoined: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision is worth anything nor uncircumcision (Gal 5:6), so that he might declare that indifference and show that there is nothing pernicious in this circumcision except to hope for salvation from it. He says, then, that in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is worth anything, but faith, which works through love (Gal 5:6). And here he touched on this, that under the law slavery works through fear. You were running well, he says; who hindered you from obeying the truth? (Gal 5:7) This is what he says above: Who has bewitched you? (Gal 3:1) This persuasion, he says, is not from him who called you (Gal 5:8). For this persuasion is carnal, but he called into liberty. He called it "their persuasion" because it was being urged on them. But those few who came to them to urge these things—because in comparison with the multitude of believing Galatians they were small in number—he calls leaven. These will receive the leaven, and the whole lump, that is, their whole church, will in a manner be leavened in the corruption of carnal slavery, if, receiving such persuaders as righteous and faithful, they have honored them. I, he says, have confidence in you in the Lord, that you will think nothing else (Gal 5:10). From this it is surely manifest that they had not yet been possessed by such men. But he who troubles you, he says, shall bear the judgment, whoever he may be (Gal 5:10). This is that troubling contrary to order, that they become carnal out of spiritual. And since it must be understood that there were certain men who, when they wanted to persuade them of that slavery and saw that they were being called back by the authority of the apostle Paul, said that even Paul himself held that view but had not wanted easily to disclose his opinion to them, he most opportunely subjoined: But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? (Gal 5:11) For he was suffering persecution even from those very men who were striving to urge such things, although they seemed already to have received the gospel. These he touches on in another place where he says: In perils among false brethren (2 Cor 11:26), and here at the head of the letter where he says: But on account of the false brethren secretly brought in, who came in secretly to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into slavery (Gal 2:4). Therefore, if he preached circumcision, they would cease to persecute him. Yet lest these men be feared by those to whom Christian liberty was announced, or be thought to be feared by the Apostle himself, for that reason he above, full of free confidence, even professed his own name, saying: Behold, I Paul say to you that, if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Gal 5:2), as if he said: Behold, imitate me, so that you may not fear, or lay the cause on me, if you fear. But as for what he says, Then the scandal of the cross is made void (Gal 5:11), he repeats that opinion: If righteousness is from the law, then Christ died in vain (Gal 2:21). But here, since he names a scandal, he recalls to memory that the Jews were most of all scandalized in Christ for this reason, that they often noticed him passing by and despising those carnal observances which they thought they held for salvation itself. He therefore said this as if he said: In vain, then, did the Jews, scandalized because he despised these things, crucify Christ, if such things are still urged on those for whom he was crucified. And he added, with most elegant ambiguity, as it were under the appearance of a curse, a blessing, saying: I would that those who trouble you were even cut off! (Gal 5:12) Not only, he says, let them be circumcised, but let them be cut off. For thus they will become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven and will cease to sow carnal things.

43. 43. For you, he says, have been called to liberty, brethren (Gal 5:13), since that troubling, calling back from spiritual things to carnal ones, was dragging them into slavery. But now from here he begins to treat those works of the law about which I said above that he would treat at the end of the letter—works which no one doubts pertain also to the New Testament, but with another end, the end with which it befits free men to do them, that is, the end of a love hoping hence for eternal rewards and awaiting them from faith. Not as the Jews, who were compelled by fear to fulfill these things—not that chaste fear that endures forever, but the fear by which they feared for their present life; and so they fulfilled certain works of the law that are among the sacraments, but those that pertain to good morals they could not fulfill at all. For nothing fulfills these except love. For even if someone does not kill a man for fear that he himself be killed, he does not fulfill the precept of righteousness; but if he does not kill because it is unjust, even if he could do it with impunity—not only before men but also before God. Just as David, when he had received by divine gift King Saul into his power, would surely have killed him with impunity, with no men avenging it on him, since the same David was much loved by them, nor God, who had said he had given this very power so that he might do to him entirely what he wished. He spared, then, loving his neighbor as himself—not only one who had persecuted but one who would persecute him—he who preferred that the man be corrected rather than killed, a man in the Old Testament but not a man of the Old Testament, whom the faith of the future inheritance of Christ, revealed and rendered, made whole and called to imitation. Therefore the Apostle now says: You have been called to liberty, brethren, only do not give liberty as an occasion to the flesh (Gal 5:13), that is, do not, having heard the name of liberty, think that you may sin with impunity. But through love, he says, serve one another (Gal 5:13). For he who serves through love serves freely and without misery, obeying God by doing with love what he is taught, not with fear what he is compelled to do.

44. 44. For the whole law, he says, is fulfilled in one word, in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Gal 5:14). He now speaks of the whole law in terms of those works that pertain to good morals, since even those that are among the sacraments, when they are well understood by free men and not observed in a carnal way by slaves, must necessarily be referred to those two precepts, of the love of God and of neighbor. And so it is rightly understood that to this pertains what the Lord too says: I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matt 5:17), since he was to take away carnal fear and to give spiritual love, by which alone the law can be fulfilled. For the fullness of the law is love (Rom 13:10); and since faith obtains the Holy Spirit, through whom the love of God is poured out in the hearts of those who work righteousness, let no one in any way, before the grace of faith, boast of good works. Wherefore the Apostle thus refutes those boasting of the works of the law, while he shows that the old works of the sacraments were shadows of things to come, which he shows to be no longer necessary, by the coming of the Lord, to the free heir; but the works pertaining to good morals are not fulfilled except by the love through which faith works. Hence, if certain works of the law are after faith superfluous, and certain ones before faith are nothing, let the righteous live by faith, so that he may both cast off the heavy burden of slavery, invigorated by the light load of Christ, and not transgress the bounds of righteousness, obeying the gentle yoke of love.

45. 45. It can be asked, however, why the Apostle both here recalled only the love of neighbor, by which he said the law is fulfilled, and to the Romans, when he was dealing with the same question, says: For he who loves another has fulfilled the law, for: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet—and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The love of neighbor works no evil. But the fullness of the law is love (Rom 13:8-10). Since, then, love is perfect only in the two precepts of the love of God and of neighbor, why does the Apostle, both in this and in that letter, recall only the love of neighbor—except because men can lie about the love of God, since rarer temptations test it, but in the love of neighbor they are more easily convicted of not having it, when they deal unjustly with men? But it follows that he who loves God with his whole heart, with his whole soul, with his whole mind, loves his neighbor also as himself, since this is commanded by him whom he loves with his whole heart, with his whole soul, with his whole mind. Likewise, who can love his neighbor, that is, every man, as himself, unless he loves God, by whose precept and gift he may be able to fulfill the love of neighbor? Since, then, each precept is such that neither can be held without the other, it is for the most part sufficient to recall even one of them, when good works of righteousness are at issue—but more opportunely the one of which a person is more easily convicted. Hence John too says: For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? (1 John 4:20) For certain men were lying that they had the love of God, and from their hatred of their brother they were convicted of not having it—about which it is easy to judge in daily life and morals. But if you bite, he says, and devour one another, take heed lest you be consumed by one another (Gal 5:15); for especially by this vice of contention and envy were pernicious disputes nourished among them, by speaking ill of one another and each seeking his own glory and a vain victory—pursuits by which the fellowship of a people is consumed, while it is cut into factions. But how can they avoid these things, unless they walk by the Spirit and do not accomplish the desires of the flesh? For the first and great gift of the Spirit is humility and meekness. Hence that which I have already recalled, the Lord cries out: Learn from me, because I am meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:29), and that of the prophet: Upon whom does my Spirit rest but upon the humble and quiet and the one who trembles at my words? (See Isa 66:2)

46. 46. But as for what he says, For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish (Gal 5:17), men here think that the Apostle denies that we have free choice of the will, and they do not understand that this was said to them if they refuse to hold the received grace of faith, through which alone they can walk by the Spirit and not accomplish the desires of the flesh; if, then, they refuse to hold it, they will not be able to do the things they wish. For they wish to do the works of righteousness that are in the law, but they are overcome by the desire of the flesh, by following which they desert the grace of faith. Hence too he says to the Romans: The prudence of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be (Rom 8:7). For since love fulfills the law, but the prudence of the flesh, by pursuing temporal advantages, is opposed to spiritual love, how can it be subject to the law of God, that is, willingly and obediently fulfill righteousness and not be opposed to it—when even while it tries, it must necessarily be overcome, where it has found that it can obtain a greater temporal advantage from iniquity than if it should keep equity? For just as the first life of man is before the law, when he is restrained by no wickedness and malice, nor does he in any part resist depraved desires, since there is no one to restrain; so the second is under the law before grace, when he is indeed restrained and tries to abstain from sin, but is overcome, since he does not yet love righteousness for the sake of God and for the sake of righteousness itself, but wants it to serve him for acquiring earthly things. And so, when he sees on one side righteousness itself, on the other a temporal advantage, he is drawn by the weight of temporal craving, and so abandons the righteousness which he was trying to hold for the sake of having that which he now sees himself losing if he should hold it. The third is the life under grace, when nothing of temporal advantage is preferred to righteousness—which cannot come to pass except by the spiritual love which the Lord taught by his example and gave by grace. For in this life, even if desires of the flesh arise from the mortality of the body, yet they do not subject the mind to consent to sin. So now sin does not reign in our mortal body, although it cannot but dwell in it as long as the body is mortal. For first it does not reign, when with the mind we serve the law of God, although with the flesh the law of sin—that is, the penal habit—since from it arise desires, which nevertheless we do not obey. But afterward it is extinguished in every part. For if the Spirit of Jesus, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, dwells in us, he will also give life to our mortal bodies on account of the Spirit who dwells in us (See Rom 8:11). Now, then, the degree under grace is to be fulfilled, so that we may do what we wish by the spirit, even if by the flesh we cannot—that is, that we may not obey the desires of sin so as to offer it our members as weapons of iniquity, even if we are not able to bring it about that those same desires do not arise; so that, although we are not yet in that eternal peace perfect in every part of man, we may nevertheless now cease to be under the law, where the mind is held guilty of transgression, while the desire of the flesh leads it captive into consent to sin, but may be under grace, where there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, since punishment follows not the one who fights but the one who is overcome.

47. 47. And so most orderly he subjoins: But if you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under the law (Gal 5:18), so that we may understand those to be under the law whose spirit so lusts against the flesh that they do not do the things they wish—that is, they do not hold themselves unconquered in the love of righteousness, but are overcome by the flesh lusting against them, which not only fights against the law of their mind but also takes them captive under the law of sin, which is in their mortal members. For those who are not led by the Spirit, it follows, are led by the flesh. But it is not the suffering of the adversity of the flesh, but being led by the flesh, that is condemnation. And therefore: But if, he says, you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under the law (Gal 5:18). For above too he did not say, Walk by the Spirit, and you will not have the desires of the flesh, but, Do not accomplish them (Gal 5:16). For not to have them at all is no longer the contest but the prize of the contest, if we obtain victory by persevering under grace. For only the change of the body into an immortal state will not have the desires of the flesh.

48. 48. Then he begins to enumerate the works of the flesh, so that they may understand that, if they consent to carnal desires in order to perform these things, they are then led by the flesh, not by the Spirit. Now manifest, he says, are the works of the flesh, which are fornications, impurities, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkenness, carousings, and the like; which I tell you beforehand, as I have told you before, that those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21). But they do these things who, consenting to carnal cravings, resolve that they are to be done, even if the means to carry them out is not given. Otherwise, those who are touched by motions of this kind and stand unmoved in greater love—not only not offering them the members of the body for evil working, but not even consenting by a nod of consent to offer them—do not do these things, and therefore they shall possess the kingdom of God. For sin no longer reigns in their mortal body so as to obey its desires, although sin dwells in that same mortal body, the impulse of natural habit not yet being extinguished—since we were born mortal—and of our own life, since we ourselves too, by sinning, increased what we drew from the origin of human sin and condemnation. For it is one thing not to sin, another not to have sin. For in whom sin does not reign, he does not sin, that is, he does not obey its desires; but in whom these desires do not arise at all, he not only does not sin but also does not have sin. And although this can be brought about in many parts in this life, yet in every part it is to be hoped for only in the resurrection of the flesh and its change. But it can be disturbing, what he says, which I tell you beforehand, as I have told you before, that those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:21), if it be asked where he told this before, for it is not found in this letter. Therefore either, when he was present, he had told this before, or he had learned that the Letter which was sent to the Corinthians had reached them. For there he says thus: Do not err: neither fornicators nor those who serve idols nor adulterers nor the effeminate nor liers with males nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor robbers shall possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10).

49. 49. Here, then, when he had enumerated the works of the flesh, by which the kingdom of God is shut, he also subjoined the works of the spirit, which he calls the fruit of the spirit. But the fruit of the spirit is, he says, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continence (Gal 5:22-23), and he added: Against such things there is no law (Gal 5:23), so that we may understand those to be placed under the law in whom these things do not reign. For in whom these reign, they themselves use the law lawfully, since the law is not laid down to restrain them; for their delight in righteousness is greater and more prevailing. So too he says to Timothy: For we know that the law is good, if anyone use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not laid down for the righteous man, but for the unrighteous and the unruly and the impious and sinners, the wicked and the defiled, parricides and matricides, murderers, fornicators, liers with males, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine (1 Tim 1:8-10)—understood: for these the law is laid down. These spiritual fruits, then, reign in the man in whom sins do not reign. But these good things reign if they so delight that they alone hold the mind in temptations, lest it rush into consent to sin. For according to what delights us more, we must necessarily act—as, for example, the form of a beautiful woman presents itself and moves to the delight of fornication; but if that inner and sincere beauty, the form of chastity, delights more through the grace that is in the faith of Christ, we live according to this and act according to this: so that, with sin not reigning in us to obey its desires, but righteousness reigning through love with great delight, we do whatever we recognize in it to please God. But what I have said of chastity and fornication, this I wished to be understood of the rest.

50. 50. Nor let it disturb anyone either that he did not enumerate the works of the flesh in this letter in exactly the same number and order as in that to the Corinthians, or that he set fewer spiritual goods against more numerous carnal vices, and not even so in such a way, on the contrary, that chastity should meet fornications, purity impurities, and so the rest the rest. For he did not undertake this, to teach how many they are, but in what kind those are to be avoided and these to be sought; since, under the names of flesh and spirit, he was foretelling that we ought to be turned from the punishment of sin and from sin to the grace of the Lord and to righteousness, lest by deserting the temporal grace by which the Lord died for us, we fail to reach the eternal rest in which the Lord lives for us; nor, by not understanding the temporal punishment by which the Lord deigned to subdue us through the mortality of the flesh, fall into the everlasting punishment which is prepared for the pride that perseveres against the Lord. For when, having recalled many works of the flesh, he added, and the like (Gal 5:21), he showed well enough that he had not set these down by a more exact count but had placed them in a freer manner of speech. This he did also with the spiritual fruits. For he did not say, "Against these there is no law," but, Against such things (Gal 5:23), that is, whether these or also others of the same kind.

51. 51. Yet to those who consider carefully, the opposition of carnal and spiritual works is not here in every respect disordered and confused. It lies hidden for this reason: that fewer, or single, things are set against certain more numerous ones. For from the fact that he placed fornications at the head of the carnal vices, and love at the head of the spiritual virtues, who that is studious of the divine letters would not be made intent on examining the rest? For if fornication is a love loosed from lawful wedlock and wandering, pursuing license to satisfy lust, what is so lawfully joined to spiritual fruitfulness as the soul to God? To whom the more fixedly it clings, the more incorrupt it is. And it clings by love. Rightly, then, love is set against fornication, in which alone is the keeping of chastity. But the impurities are all the disturbances conceived from that fornication, to which the joy of tranquility is opposed. And idolatry is the ultimate fornication of the soul, on account of which a most furious war was waged against the gospel and against those reconciled to God—the remnants of which, though lukewarm, nevertheless for a long time yet grow warm again. To this, therefore, peace is contrary, by which we are reconciled to God; and by that same peace, kept also with men, the vices of sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, and dissensions are healed in us; but that they may be dealt with by a just moderation in others, among whom we live, long-suffering serves for enduring, kindness for healing, and goodness for forgiving. And now faith struggles against heresies, meekness against envy, continence against drunkenness and carousings.

52. 52. Let no one indeed suppose that envy is the same as jealousy, for they are near one another, and on account of that very nearness either of them is for the most part put for the other—either jealousy for envy or envy for jealousy. But because both are here spoken of in their own places, they surely demand a distinction from us. For jealousy is a grief of mind when another attains a thing which two or more were seeking, and which cannot be had except by one. This peace heals, by which we seek that which all who seek it, if they attain it, become one in it. But envy is a grief of mind when someone seems unworthy to attain even something which you were not seeking. This meekness heals, when a person, recalling it to the judgment of God, does not resist his will and rather believes that it was rightly done than that he himself was right in what he thought unworthy.

53. 53. And they have crucified their flesh with its passions and concupiscences (Gal 5:24), as he says next: those who are in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:24). But whence have they crucified it except by that chaste fear which endures forever, by which we are wary of offending him whom we love with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind? For it is not with this fear that the adulteress fears lest she be watched by her husband, with which the chaste woman fears lest she be deserted; for to the one the husband's presence is sad, to the other his absence. And therefore that fear is corrupt and does not want this age to pass away, but this chaste fear endures forever. By this fear the prophet desires to be crucified, when he says: Pierce my flesh with nails from the fear of you (Ps 119:120 (118:120)). This is the cross of which the Lord says: Take up your cross and follow me (See Matt 16:24).

54. 54. If we live by the Spirit, he says, let us also follow the Spirit (Gal 5:25). It is certainly manifest that we live according to that which we have followed; but we shall follow that which we have loved. And so, if two things arise in opposition—the precept of righteousness and carnal habit—and both are loved, we shall follow that which we have loved more; if both are loved equally, we shall follow neither of them, but shall be drawn into one part or the other either by fear or unwillingly; or, if we equally fear both, we shall without doubt remain in peril, tossed by the alternating wave of delight and fear. But let the peace of Christ conquer in our hearts. For then prayers and groans, and the right hand of God's mercy invoked for aid, do not despise the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and rouse a fuller love of God by the recollection of the peril from which he freed us. But in this they were deceived: that they could not indeed deny that they ought to follow the Holy Spirit, the asserter and leader of their liberty, but, turned in a carnal way to servile works, they did not understand that they were striving backward. For this reason he did not say, "If we live by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit," but, Let us follow the Spirit (Gal 5:25), he says. For they confessed that they ought to serve the Holy Spirit, and they wanted to follow him not by their spirit but by the flesh; not obtaining the grace of God spiritually, but placing the hope of salvation in carnal circumcision and the rest of this kind.

55. 55. Let us not become, he says, desirous of vainglory, envying one another and provoking one another (Gal 5:26). Magnificently indeed, and altogether by a divine order, after he had instructed them against those by whom they were being seduced into the slavery of the law, he guards against this in them: lest, having been made more instructed and now wanting to answer the calumnies of the carnal, they should be eager for contentions and, by appetite for vainglory not serving the burdens of the law, should serve vain cravings.

56. 56. Now nothing so proves a spiritual man as the handling of another's sin, when he meditates his deliverance rather than insult, and aid rather than abuse, and, as far as the means is given, takes it up. And therefore he says: Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one (Gal 6:1). Then, lest anyone seem to himself to instruct even when he insolently harasses and mocks the sinner, or proudly detests him as incurable: in the spirit, he says, of meekness, considering yourself, lest you too be tempted (Gal 6:1). For nothing so inclines to mercy as the thought of one's own peril. Thus he wanted them neither to be lacking in the correction of the brethren nor to be eager for strife. For many men, when they are awakened from sleep, want to quarrel; or again to sleep, when they are forbidden to quarrel. Let peace, therefore, and love be kept in the heart by the thought of common peril; but the manner of speech, whether it be uttered more sharply or more gently, is to be moderated as the welfare of the one you are correcting seems to demand. For in another place too he says: The servant of the Lord ought not to quarrel, but to be gentle to all, teachable, patient (2 Tim 2:24). And lest anyone think from this that he ought to cease from correcting another's error, see what he adds: in modesty, he says, correcting those who think differently (2 Tim 2:25). How in modesty, how correcting, except when we retain gentleness in the heart and sprinkle some sharpness of medicine on the word of correction? Nor do I see how to take otherwise what is set down in the same letter: Preach the word, be urgent in season, out of season, reprove, exhort, rebuke with all long-suffering and teaching (2 Tim 4:2). For importunity is surely contrary to opportunity, and no medicine at all heals except what you have applied opportunely. Although, therefore, it can also be distinguished thus: Be urgent in season, so that there is another sense, out of season reprove, and then the rest is woven on: exhort, rebuke with all long-suffering and teaching, so that you are felt to be opportune when you build these men up, but when you destroy by reproving you do not care, even if you seem importunate, if this is importunate to such men; so that the two that follow can be referred singly to the two above: exhort, when you are urgent in season, rebuke, when out of season you reprove; then the other two likewise, but in reversed order, are referred: with all long-suffering, to bearing the indignations of those you destroy, and teaching, to instructing the studies of those you build up. Yet even if it is distinguished in that more usual way, Be urgent in season, but if in this way you do not profit, out of season, it is to be understood so that you in no way desert opportunity, and that you take what was said, out of season, to mean that you seem importunate to him who does not willingly hear the things said against him; yet you know that this is opportune for him, and you keep in mind the love and care of his health with a meek and modest and brotherly mind. For many men, afterward considering what they have heard and how just were the things they heard, themselves rebuked themselves more heavily and severely, and, although they seemed to depart from the physician rather disturbed, were healed little by little, the force of the word penetrating into the marrow. This would not happen if we always waited for the one in peril, with his members rotting, to free us to burn or to cut. This not even the physicians of the body attend to, who heal with a view to earthly reward. For how rare is the one to be found who has not experienced their iron or fire except bound, since they too are rarer who have willingly been bound? For most men, resisting and crying out that they would rather die than be cured in that way, the physicians have bound in all their members, leaving scarcely their tongue free—not at their own discretion nor at that of the resisting patient, but at the discretion of the art itself; yet by the cries and reproaches of those in pain the mind of the one healing is neither moved nor does his hand rest. But the ministers of the heavenly medicine either, through the beam of hatreds, want to see the straw in their brother's eye, or more tolerably see the death of the sinner than hear the word of one indignant; which would not so happen if we applied a mind so healthy to the healing of another's mind as those physicians, with healthy hands, handle the limbs of others.

57. 57. The business of rebuking another's sin, therefore, is never to be undertaken except when, examining our conscience by inner interrogations, we have answered clearly to ourselves before God that we do it out of love. But if the abuse or threats or even persecutions of the one you reprove have wounded your mind—if he still seems able to be healed by you—answer nothing until you yourself are healed first, lest perhaps by your carnal motions you consent to do harm and offer your tongue as a weapon of iniquity to sin, to render evil for evil or curse for curse. For whatever you say with a wounded mind is the impulse of one punishing, not the love of one correcting. Love, and say what you will: in no way will it be a curse, what may sound under the appearance of a curse, if you remember and feel that, with the sword of the word of God, you wish to be the deliverer of a man from the siege of vices. But if perhaps, as often happens, you take up such an action out of love and approach it with a heart of love, but in the doing something creeps in, while you are resisted, that draws you away from striking the man's vice and makes you hostile to the man himself, you ought afterward, washing away such dust with tears, much more wholesomely to remember that we ought not to be proud over the sins of others, when in the very rebuke of them we sin, since anger more easily makes us angry at the sinner than misery makes us merciful.

58. 58. Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal 6:2)—surely the law of love. But if he fulfills the law who loves his neighbor, and the love of neighbor is especially commended even in the old Scriptures, in which love the same Apostle says in another place that all the commandments of the law are summed up; it is manifest that even that Scripture which was given to the earlier people is the law of Christ, which he came to fulfill by love, which was not fulfilled by fear. The same Scripture, then, and the same commandment, when it presses as slaves those gaping after earthly goods, is called the Old Testament; when it raises up as free men those burning for eternal goods, it is called the New Testament.

59. 59. For if anyone, he says, thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself (Gal 6:3). For it is not his praisers who deceive him, but rather he himself, since, being more present to himself than they are, he prefers to seek himself in them rather than in himself. But what does the Apostle say? But let each one prove his own work, and then he will have glory in himself alone and not in another (Gal 6:4)—that is, within, in his own conscience, and not in another, that is, when another praises him. For each one, he says, will bear his own burden (Gal 6:5). Our praisers, then, do not diminish the burdens of our conscience; and would that they did not even pile them up, when for the most part, lest they be offended and our praise be diminished, we either neglect to heal them by rebuke or boastfully show off something of ours rather than steadfastly display it. I pass over the things that men feign and lie about themselves for the sake of men's praises. For what is darker than this blindness, to hunt after a man's error in order to obtain the most empty glory, and to despise God as witness in the heart? As though the error of him who thinks you good were in any way to be compared with your own error, you who are eager to please a man with a false good and displease God with a true evil.

60. 60. Now the rest I judge to be very plain. For that too is a familiar precept, that he to whom the word of God is preached should provide what is necessary to the preacher of the word of God. For they were to be exhorted to good works, that they might minister even to Christ in his need, as those who will stand at the right hand with the lambs—that the love of faith might work more in them than the fear of the law could. Nor ought anyone to enjoin this with greater confidence than this Apostle, who, getting his living by his own hands, did not want these things to be done for himself, so that with greater weight he might show to all that he was admonishing more for the benefit of those who would offer these things than for the benefit of those to whom they would be offered.

61. 61. But as for what he then subjoins, Do not err: God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he shall also reap (Gal 6:7), he knows amid what words those lost men labor who are established in the faith of those things which they do not see. For they see the sowing of their works, but they do not see the harvest. Nor is such a harvest promised them as is usually rendered here, since the righteous lives by faith (Gal 3:11). For he who sows, he says, in his flesh shall reap corruption from the flesh (Gal 6:8). He says this of lovers of pleasures more than of God. For he sows in his flesh who does all that he does—even if it seems good—nevertheless for this reason, that it may go well with him in a carnal way. But he who sows in the spirit shall reap from the spirit eternal life (Gal 6:8). To sow in the spirit is, out of faith with love, to serve righteousness and not to hearken to the desires of sin, although they arise from the mortal flesh. But the harvest of eternal life is when the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed, and what is mortal shall be swallowed up by life, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption. In this third degree, then, in which we are under grace, we sow in tears, when desires arise from the animal body, which by not consenting we resist, that we may reap in joy, when even the reforming of the body shall trouble us with no annoyance in any part of man, nor with any peril of temptation. For the animal body itself too is reckoned among the seed. For the animal body is sown, he says in another place, so that to the harvest may pertain what he added, the spiritual body shall rise (1 Cor 15:44). To this sentence, then, the prophet sings in harmony, saying: He who sows in tears shall reap in joy (Ps 126:5 (125:5)). But to sow well, that is, to work well, is easier than to persevere in it. For the fruit is wont to console the labor, but our harvest is promised at the end, and therefore there is need of perseverance. For he who shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved (Matt 10:22). And the prophet cries out: Wait for the Lord, act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord (Ps 27:14 (26:14)). This the Apostle now says: But let us not grow weary in doing good, he says; for in due season we shall reap, not fainting. And so, while we have time, let us work good toward all, but especially toward those of the household of faith (Gal 6:9-10). Whom must we believe him to signify but Christians? For eternal life is to be wished for all with equal love, but the same offices of love cannot be shown to all.

62. 62. Then, when he had taught that the very works of the law which are salutary and pertain to good morals can be fulfilled only by the love of faith and not by servile fear, he returns to that with which the whole case is concerned. You see, he says, with what kind of letters I have written to you with my own hand (Gal 6:11). He guards against anyone deceiving the unwary under the name of a letter of his. Those who want, he says, to please in the flesh, these compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ (Gal 6:12). For the Jews greatly persecuted those who seemed to desert the handed-down observances of this kind; and how little he himself fears these men, he shows well enough, since he was willing to write such a letter even with his own hand. He teaches, then, that fear still works in these men, as in those established under the law, who were compelling the Gentiles to circumcision. For neither do those who are circumcised themselves keep the law (Gal 6:13). For he calls that the keeping of the law—not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to bear false witness, and whatever of this kind it is manifest pertains to good morals, which, it has already been said, cannot be fulfilled except by love and the hope of eternal goods that are received through faith. But they want you to be circumcised, he says, that they may glory in your flesh (Gal 6:13), that is, that they may not only not suffer persecution from the Jews, who in no way bore the law being betrayed to the uncircumcised, but may even glory among them that they make so many proselytes. For the Lord said that the Jews were accustomed to go around sea and land to make one proselyte. But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world (Gal 6:14). The world is crucified to me, he says, 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 crave anything of the world. But he who glories in the cross of Christ does not want to please in the flesh, since he does not fear the persecutions of the carnal, which that one first endured, that he might be crucified, in order to offer an example to those who follow his footsteps.

63. 63. For neither circumcision is anything nor uncircumcision (Gal 6:15). He keeps to the end that indifference, lest anyone think that he acted in pretense either in the circumcision of Timothy or would act in anyone's case, if perhaps some such cause should arise. For he shows that it is not the circumcision itself that harms believers, but the hope of salvation placed in such observances. For in the Acts of the Apostles too those men are found to urge circumcision in such a way as to deny that those who had believed from among the Gentiles could otherwise be saved. The Apostle, then, refutes not the harm of the work itself but of this error. Neither circumcision, then, is anything nor uncircumcision, but a new, he says, creature (Gal 6:15). He calls a new life through faith in Jesus Christ a new creature, and the word is to be noted. For you would scarcely find those called a creature who have already by believing come into the adoption of sons. Yet he says also in another place: If, then, there is any new creature in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new, but all things are from God (2 Cor 5:17-18). But where he says: And the creature itself shall be freed from the slavery of destruction (Rom 8:21), and afterward says: And not only so, but we ourselves too, having the firstfruits of the Spirit (Rom 8:23), he distinguishes those who have believed from the name of creature—just as he calls the same men now men, now not men. For reproaching them, he objected to the Corinthians in a certain place that they were still men, where he says: Are you not men, and do you not walk according to man? (1 Cor 3:3-4) Just as he calls the same Lord, even after the resurrection, in one place not man, as at the beginning of this letter, when he says: Not from men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ (Gal 1:1), but in another place man, as in that place where he says: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). And whoever, he says, follow this rule, peace upon them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God (Gal 6:16)—that is, upon those who are truly prepared for the vision of God, not those who are called by this name and, in carnal blindness, refuse to see the Lord, when, spurning his grace, they crave to be slaves of the seasons.

64. 64. For the rest, he says, let no one cause me trouble (Gal 6:17). He does not want weariness to be caused him through turbulent contentions about a matter expounded as fully as was sufficient, both in the Letter he wrote to the Romans and in this very one. For I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ in my body (Gal 6:17), that is: I have other conflicts and contests with my flesh, which fight against me in the persecutions that I suffer. For marks are called certain signs of servile punishments, so that if, for example, a slave has been in fetters on account of an offense, that is, on account of a fault, or has suffered something of this kind, he is said to have marks; and for this reason in the law of manumission he is of a lower order. Now therefore the Apostle wished to call "marks" the signs, as it were, of the punishments from the persecutions that he was suffering. For on account of the fault of persecution, by which he had persecuted the churches of Christ, he had recognized that these things were repaid to him; as was said by the Lord himself to Ananias, when the same Ananias dreaded him as a persecutor of Christians. I will show him, he said, what he must suffer for my name (Acts 9:16). Yet on account of the remission of sins in which he had been baptized, all those tribulations availed him not to ruin but were profiting toward the crown of victory.

65. 65. The conclusion of the letter is, as it were, a manifest subscription, for he uses it in some other letters too: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen! (Gal 6:18)