The authenticity of
Paul’s letter to the
church at Galatia is attested to by the typical Pauline dichotomy that
is the overriding characteristic of the text. From a technical
standpoint, the letter poses more questions than it answers.
There is a wide range of debate as to not only who but also where the
Galatians were, when the letter was written and where it
originated. Thematically, the content is vintage Paul and is most
often compared to his letter to the Romans. While Romans develops
the same themes in greater depth, Galatians, due to the fact that it is
in answer to a specific controversy, has an immediacy and emotion that
is uniquely its own.
History
The
Galatians (or Gauls) had had a 400-year history of intrigues with Roman
authority by the time of Paul in the first Christian century. In
the year 390 BCE, these western Gauls had moved southward into Italy
and sacked and overran the as yet under fortified city of Rome.
The Romans were able to retake the city and drove the attackers back to
the Po River valley. In what is now northern Italy, they
established “Cisalpine Gaul” meaning the Gaul on “this side of the
Alps” as opposed to their traditional territory, which comprised the
area of modern day France. As Rome grew towards empire, the Gauls
grew weaker and were dealt a devastating blow by Roman armies in 295
BCE. By 222 BCE they had been driven from the region and Roman
power was again extended to the Alps.
The name “Galatia” was introduced into Asia after 278 BCE, when a large
body of Gauls migrating away from this Roman military activity crossed
into the region from Europe at the invitation of King Nikomedes of
Bithynia. The generosity of Nikomedes was rewarded with the
ravaging of a greater part of Western Asia Minor for a generation; with
boundaries for an independent Galatian state eventually established
around 232 BCE. Three tribes of Gauls, the Tolistobogioi,
Tektosages and Trokmoi inhabited this new Asian Galatia, with city
centers established in Pessinus, Ankyra and Tavia, respectively.
The Gaulish language was imposed upon the original inhabitants, who
were treated as an inferior caste. Religiously and politically
they outwardly embraced Hellenism as a matter of practical expediency,
while maintaining their own Celtic pagan religion and culture at the
same time. Vestiges of this cultural dualism survived in this
region into the second century of the Christian era.
The
Galatian state of the three tribes survived until the first century
BCE, at which point it was annexed as a Roman province.
Originally governed by a council of twelve chiefs, the tribes were
ruled by three kings after 63 BCE. One of these, Deiotaros,
established himself as soul monarch by murdering the other two, and
this united kingdom was passed unto his successor, Amyntas, in about 36
BCE. Amyntas bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, which assumed
control of the region upon his death in 25 BCE. Rome added parts
of Phrygia, Pisidia, Lycaonia and Isauria to the original Galatian
territories at this time, and by 2 BCE had added Paphlagonia and Pontus
as well. Thus, by the time of Paul it was common practice to use
the term “Galatia” to refer to either the original tribal lands or
peoples of Gaul, or in a larger sense to the entirety of the greater
Roman province.
While
it is impossible to determine exactly to whom Paul was addressing his
letter, W. M. Ramsay, writing in the early 20th century, takes the
insightful approach of demonstrating who the recipients were not:
All
attempts to find in Paul’s letter to the Galatians any allusions that
specially suit the character of the Gauls or Galatae have failed.
The Gauls were an aristocracy in a land which they had conquered.
They clung stubbornly to their own Celtic religion long after the time
of Paul, even though they also acknowledged the power of the old
goddess of the country. They spoke their own Celtic tongue.
They were proud, even boastful and independent. They kept their
native law under the Empire.
Whether Paul was referring to a greater or lesser geographic area
remains unknown. However, it is obvious that the people that he
refers to as “Galatians” were not the dominant Celtic inhabitants of
the central “old” Galatia, but were instead a social and cultural
substrata that could have belonged to either the lesser or greater
geographic area:
The “Galatians” to whom Paul wrote had
changed very quickly to a new
form of religion, not from fickleness, but from a certain proneness to
a more oriental form of religion which exacted of them more sacrifice
of a ritual type. They needed to be called to freedom; they were
submissive rather than arrogant. They spoke Greek.
Dating Paul’s letter to the Galatians is also a difficult proposition
and has a direct bearing on the determination of the geographic
location of the various local churches that he refers to collectively
as “Galatian,” as well as the letter’s point of origin. If he is
writing to the churches of southern Galatia, then he is addressing
congregations founded on his “first missionary journey” as described by
Luke in Acts 13 and 14. Should he be writing to the churches of
northern Galatia, he is addressing churches founded on his “second
missionary journey” as documented in Acts 15 through 18. If the
former is the case, then this letter must be dated very earlier;
perhaps the earliest of Paul’s extant letters, with a date in the late
40’s. This would place the authorship at Syrian Antioch as
referenced in Acts 14: 26-28 just prior to the Jerusalem Council as
recorded in Acts 15, though many argue that this council is referenced
by Paul in chapter two, which would render this theory
impossible. There are those that opt for a very late date that
places authorship of the letter during Paul’s imprisonment from 57 to
62, and which locates its origin to either Caesarea or Rome. Most
scholars prefer the years when Paul was working in the Aegean area
(50-56), which would place authorship at Corinth, Ephesus, or, perhaps,
Macedonia.
Commentary
While lacking knowledge of the specific details surrounding Paul’s
letter to the Galatians, we do possess a knowledge of all that is truly
important. We find a people that were oppressed by conquest long
before the Roman Empire subjected their conquerors; a people longing
for Christ long before he arrived; a people ripe for the gospel when
delivered by Paul and a people susceptible to “another” gospel preached
by those whom Paul declares “anathema.” While Galatians may be
lacking in solid knowledge pertaining to its background and the
technicalities of its authorship, there are no such doubts concerning
its message and its meaning. In fact, it is the very timelessness
and universality of this message that makes the technical details so
hard to grasp.
The central theme of the letter to the Galatians is that the gospel
that has been preached to them by Paul is unalterable and that Paul’s
authority to proclaim this gospel is unassailable. This is
stressed in no uncertain terms at the outset of Paul’s remarks and the
balance of the work revolves around this idea like planets around the
sun. Galatians is an emotional, near diatribe in which Paul finds
it necessary to defend not only the authority of the gospel but his own
as well. It is highly personal in both the tack that it takes in
addressing its recipients and in the “baring of the soul” of its
author; as if to cut to the core of the issues confronting the churches
of Galatia requires the apostle to cut himself to the quick to reach
them.
From the first words of his greeting, Paul stresses that he is “an
apostle not from human beings nor through a human being but through
Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead…” (Gal.
1:1). He addresses his remarks to the “churches of Galatia,” and
while we have already dealt with the difficulty of who and where these
Galatians were, it is clear that the problems encountered center around
not merely one congregation but with a regional group of
churches.
Paul
wastes no time in getting to the heart of the matter stating “I am
amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by
[the] grace [of Christ] for a different gospel (not that there is
another). But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to
pervert the gospel of Christ.” (Gal 1:6-7). With these words,
Paul prefaces his statement of the unalterable gospel: “But even if we
or an angel from heaven should preach [to you] a gospel other than the
one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed!” (Gal
1:8). In the first eight verses of the text, Paul has not only
stated his position in no uncertain terms but has thrown down the
gauntlet to both those that would preach this false gospel and those
that would accept it.
From here through the balance of chapter two, Paul defends the
authority of his gospel and his apostolate with an autobiographical
sketch that stresses that the gospel that he teaches “…is not of human
origin. For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I
taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Gal
1:11b-12). With his authority thus established at the highest
level possible, he proceeds to tell the story of his conversion, the
early days of his ministry, his encounters with the Jerusalem church,
his approval to take the gospel to the “uncircumcised” and even his
debate with Peter that won equal status for the gentile church.
This historical brief not only establishes his authority but it sets a
tone of shame for those that would turn their backs on one that had
worked so diligently and sincerely on their behalf to conquer the law
and so reveal the power of the faith taught and shared with them:
For
through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God.
I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ
lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the
Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me. (Gal. 2:19-20)
The interlopers that have vexed Paul to the point of this resulting
epistle have instructed his Galatian converts in observances of the
above stated Jewish law, including the rite of circumcision. It
is fascinating to contemplate the reality of an alternative to the
apostolic gospel and more so the identity of the missionaries that are
spreading such a gospel, generally categorized together as
“Judaizers.” It would seem that from the day of Pentecost to the
present the church has always had its heresies and apostasies to deal
with. For Paul, it is the height of apostasy and hypocrisy to
trade the freedom of faith in Christ for the slavery of submission to
the law. Not that the law was nullified by Christ; to the
contrary, it was fulfilled in him and thus to resubmit to it is to
submit to a form of spiritual slavery that denies that sacrifice of the
cross. The cross, therefore, becomes a stumbling block to those
that do not understand this liberating aspect, and such are those that
are perverting the teaching of Paul by adjuring his Galatians to place
themselves again under this bondage that Christ has freed them
from. All, therefore, are equal and free under God; heirs of both
the covenant through Abraham and as fulfilled in Christ:
There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person,
there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s
descendant, heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 3:28-29)
The crux of Paul’s message is to hold to the original faith as taught
by him, for it is a faith that brings all that adhere to it into a
familial relationship with God as “Abba Father” rather than subjects
under tribute to a king. Heirs as opposed to slaves. And so
he appeals to this bond of family to exhort his Galatian brothers to
return to the same kind of loyalty and fidelity as they showed him when
he was received initially; a reception apparently all the more poignant
to Paul because of a physical illness that brought him under their
care. It is at this point, with his anger vented, that a softer
Paul emerges that argues from the heart that it is his love for them
that is true and that the others have taken interest in the Galatians
out of their own selfishness:
So
now have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? They
show interest in you, but not in a good way; they want to isolate you,
so that you may show interest in them. Now it is good to be shown
interest for good reason at all times, and not only when I am with
you. My children, for who I am again in labor until Christ be
formed in you! I would like to be with you now and to change my
tone, for I am perplexed because of you.
(Gal. 4:17-20)
Paul
finishes this teaching on the interrelatedness of faith, liberty and
fidelity with an allegory that compares the sons of Abraham to those
bound by law and those free in Christ. In this allegory, Hagar is
equated with Mt. Sinai and thus the law, and so Isaac, freeborn of
Sarah and heir of the promise, supercedes her son, Ishmael, and assumes
full possession of the covenant. In short, Paul’s lesson is that
there is no middle ground and no choice save that of freeborn or
slave. Christ supercedes the law as Isaac did Ishmael.
The
letter now begins to draw towards its conclusion, as Paul restates and
summarizes his case by urging the Galatians to maintain their faith
first and foremost:
For
through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of
righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through
love. (Gal. 5:5-6)
He adjures them again to not be misled by his opponents, upon whom he
wishes a more specific fate than that of “being accursed” as he stated
at the outset: “Would that those who are upsetting you might also
castrate themselves!” (Gal. 5:12)
Paul then urges them to use the freedom that Christ has won for them
and that he has brought to them to live by the Spirit and to not think
of this freedom as license to indulge the passions of the flesh, but
rather as freedom from such desires:
Now
those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified their flesh with
its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also
follow the Spirit. Let us not be conceited, provoking one
another, envious of one another.
(Gal. 5:25-26)
Life in Christ is life in community, and Paul teaches that the
Galatians should bear each other’s burdens so that, in the end, each
will be able to bear his own load. He ends this call to community
with words that have been, with good reason, the subject of sermons too
numerous to count:
Make
no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he
sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from
the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life
from the spirit. Let us not grow tired of doing good, for
in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So
then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, but
especially to those that belong to the family of faith. (Gal. 6:7-10)
Paul’s final conclusion, written in his own hand, is merely a quick
summation of the circumcision argument as detailed above with a
blessing of peace and mercy to those who follow this rule and to the
“Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16b), an intimation of the fullness of the
adoption of this formerly pagan people into the family of God. A
remark that most surely would have Paul’s Judaizing opponents renting
their garments and lamenting such a thing as blasphemy, yet it provides
final confirmation of Paul’s contention that through Christ one has
more claim to God’s family than would result from circumcision.
This would be lost on neither the Galatians nor his opponents.
Finally, Paul closes with this remarkable statement: “From now on, let
no one make troubles for me; for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.”
(Gal 6:17) The “marks of Jesus,” which we know as stigmata,
originates with the practice of branding slaves. Devotees of
pagan gods were often marked in this way. Paul’s implication here
is that rather than circumcision, it is the scars of his apostolic
labors, the result of stonings, floggings and other abuses, that marks
him as Christ’s. His teaching has now come full circle to make
the point that the truth is the opposite of that supposed by the
renegade Galatians: Circumcision is not the mark of a free
citizen of Israel but the scar of slavery to the law. True
freedom is found only in slavery to Christ, and until one bears this
brand he makes no trouble for Paul.
Bibliography
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Asimov’s Guide to the
Bible: Two Volumes in One.
New York, NY: Weathervane, 1981.
Eiselen, Frederick
Carl, Lewis, Edwin, Downey, David G. (editors). The Abingdon Bible
Commentary. New
York, NY: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1929.
Laymon, Charles M.
(editor). The Interpreter’s
One-Volume Commentary on the Bible. Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Press, 1971.
New
American Bible. Iowa
Falls, IA: World Bible Publishers, 1970.
Nicoll, Sir W.
Robertson, Stoddart, Janet T., Moffat, James (editors). The Expositor’s
Dictionary of Texts. In Two
Volumes. New York, NY: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910.
Orr, James, Nuelsen,
John L., Mullins, Edgar Y., Evans, Morris O. (editors). The International
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Chicago, IL: Howard-Severance Company, 1915.
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