You Were Running Well: Who Hindered You? (Galatians 5:7–12)

The inevitability of a certain kind of action compels one to decide on it, however difficult it may be. But if it is shown that it is very easy and manageable for us, then the determination to do it becomes all the more prompt and lively. This manageability of the deed, in moral necessities, must necessarily be clarified, because moral necessity, though it may be understood, does not act so decisively and irresistibly as physical necessity. With it there still remains room for deliberation. Holy Paul now turns to this method. He speaks here as though: see how necessary it is for you to reject the Law and not touch it anymore: decide then. Decide all the more readily because in this there is not nearly any sacrifice ahead for you. You began life in Christ without connection to the Law; consequently, you know this life free from the Law. What does it cost you to return to it, restoring your former convictions? (verses 7–8). You have not yet managed to become entangled much. You have only accepted something. But this something is as dangerous to leave – for it spoils everything – as it is easy to cast off, by the very fact that there is little of it and it is insignificant (verse 9). Besides, I indeed know you, I know the liveliness of your moral and religious feelings and your readiness for all that is true and good. It is only necessary to point out to you the straight path, and you are already ready for it. Therefore I am confident that you will cast off false thoughts and strictly hold to the truths I have set forth (verse 10). They are leading you astray, assuring you that I preach circumcision. I do not preach it; for otherwise why am I persecuted? Oh, if only these troublemakers were cut off from you! (verses 11–12). In this is the final means to their peace and security for the future time.

Gal. 5:7. You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

The proper course of life in Christ Jesus has been indicated above. In this way, he says, you proceeded, and not only proceeded, but ran—you walked swiftly—which signifies zeal and earnestness toward the divinely prescribed order of life, and at the same time showed real and visible progress in it. “You worshipped the Father in spirit and in truth, and having received from the fullness of Christ, you knew that the Law was given only to the people through Moses, but was not fulfilled. Grace and truth were not merely given, but were perfected by Jesus Christ. So when you were running so well, serving the truth rather than the shadows of truth, how is it that, corrupted by such perverted teachers, you have begun to follow the shadow of the Law and have abandoned the truth of the Gospel?” (Blessed Jerome).

“Who hindered you?” He expresses wonder, as he marveled at the beginning that they are turning away so quickly (Gal. 1:6–7). “Hindered”, ενεκοψε, means cut off your path, or undermined you as you were running. “Not to obey the truth”, τη αληθεια μη πειθεσθαι, means not to believe the truth any longer, not to hold to your former convictions in it, not to stand in it with firm and unshakeable steadfastness. “These are the words not of one questioning, but of one in bewilderment and sorrow. How has such a course been abandoned? Who had such power? You, who were above all and stood in the place of teachers, have not even remained in the place of learners. How did this happen? Who was so powerful? This is the voice of one more bewildered and grieving, which he expressed earlier in similar words: ‘who bewitched you?’ (Gal. 3:1).” (Saint Chrysostom).

The word “who hindered you” may convey not only this one thought of the Apostle’s wonder. Ambrosiaster sees in it an exhortation, that they should repent and believe no longer in any of those who will seek to draw them toward works of the Law, contrary to the truth of the Gospel. Indeed, the Apostle knew who hindered; the Galatians surely knew as well. Why then the question? To instill the thought of the worthlessness of these hinderers. What important persons are they? Was it worth listening to them and on account of them changing the convictions you had received and put into practice? But if it was not worth it, then understanding the matter by my explanation, you ought to turn away from them and restore your former convictions: which surely will present no difficulty for you.

It seems that the more direct sense of this question is the same as in the common expression among us: but who is guilty? Who is guilty that you stopped—that you changed or confused your former convictions and went against the truth? No one is guilty. You yourselves became convinced of the truth, you yourselves departed from those convictions. It is for you yourselves now to return to them. For conviction cannot be forced upon anyone by compulsion. Those who seek to persuade propose, explain, and incline, but the conviction itself and the inclination do not come from them. It is a work of freedom. Was your former conviction not from him who called you (Gal. 5:8)? No, he called; you became convinced and agreed to follow the truth. And then you became unconvinced and went elsewhere. If everything in this matter depends on you, then what can hold you back in falsehood? Cast it off and return to the truth. Restore your former convictions, and begin again to run the same course, already proven. You ran well: what prevents you from entering again into that same good running?

Gal. 5:8. The persuasion is not from him who called you.

Persuasion, πεισμονη, means conviction, corresponding directly to the preceding μη πειθεσθαι, not to hold to one’s conviction, not to continue to maintain conviction; the thought is: the persuasion is not from him who called you, not from God, who called you into his grace. Blessed Jerome writes: “(in conversion) one thing is the work of God, and another the work of men themselves. God’s work is to call; the work of men is to believe or not to believe. Whether we incline in a good or bad direction, the cause is neither God nor the devil. Our persuasion always comes not from the one who calls, but from us, who by ourselves agree or disagree with the one calling us.”

Since persuasion is placed here in relation to God who calls, we must understand by it persuasion concerning the truth of the Gospel; and not the false persuasion that came afterward regarding the significance of the Law in salvation—this the Apostle wishes to impress upon the Galatians: were you not convinced of the truth of the Gospel? It was not forced upon you by violence—God sent me to you, I preached the Gospel to you, you heard, considered, and were convinced. This was a work of your freedom. The persuasion does not come from him who called you.

What then followed from this? This: you yourselves became convinced of the truth, you yourselves wavered in this conviction; you yourselves now must return to it. There is no difficulty, no obstacle to this. Cast off the new lie, take up your former truth completely, as it is and was taught to you; it is known to you, and you have been convinced of it. The turning is easy. This thought appears in Saint Chrysostom, who says: “he who called you did not call you for this, that you might waver so—he did not give you a commandment to judaize.”

Gal. 5:9. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

To the Apostle’s reproach—you were indeed convinced, why did you change your convictions? return to the former—the Galatians could have said: but we are still convinced, and the fact that, having listened to others, we have adopted something Jewish, is it such a big thing? So little that it is not even worth mentioning. The Apostle answers this: a little leaven leavens the whole mass. You adopted little of Judaism, but it has leavened everything with Judaism, corrupted the integrity of the faith, and now it cannot bear its full saving power for you. Moreover, this little will lead to more and will draw you into Judaism in all its breadth. Evil is contagious. Saint Chrysostom says this: “lest anyone say: why do you make such a big deal and present the matter so gravely? From the Law we kept only one commandment, and you are making such a fuss?—then listen, as he frightens them not with their present action, but with the consequences that will follow from it: ‘a little leaven,’ he says, ‘leavens the whole mass.’ So this small transgression of yours, left uncorrected, can completely overcome you and draw you into Judaism, just as leaven leavens all the dough.” So also all the Eastern Fathers; so also the Western. Ambrosiaster says: “the Apostle added this so that they would not think that the faith of grace will suffer no harm if they observe some small part of the Law.” Blessed Jerome first expresses the same thought, saying “the Apostle teaches by this parable that the spiritual bread of the Church, come down from heaven, should not be corrupted by Jewish subtleties. The Lord himself commanded his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the Evangelist, in explaining this, added that he said this to them about avoiding the teaching of the Pharisees (see Mt. 16:12). And what is this teaching of the Pharisees but insistence on the observation of the carnal law?” But he also mentions how a few people with false teaching can damage the whole local Church, when first two or three, then tens, and so on begin to become infected with their teaching. This evil works like a spark fallen on combustible material, like gangrene that has found nourishment. A clear example of this is Arius.

But this thought about the number of those seducing and seduced can only be subsidiary to the main idea, according to which Jewish teaching is understood here. But placing this thought in connection with the following words “I trust in you”, we must admit that the Apostle was hinting at the ease with which they could rid themselves of Judaism. He speaks as though: did you adopt little? That makes it all the easier for you to cast it off. So cast it off, and I trust that you will do so.

Gal. 5:10. I am confident in the Lord concerning you, that you will think nothing otherwise; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is.

This kind of hope both inspires and obligates one to correction. It is the usual practice among people, whose power, when it comes from a sincere heart, everyone experiences. Saint Paul employed it at the end as an all-conquering instrument of his word. The force of the word lies in the expression of hope for them. Commentators occupy themselves chiefly with this. But what he hopes for from them has not been the object of their attention. It is enough to note that the words “nothing otherwise you will think” cannot be limited to what immediately precedes, that is, that you too judge as I do, that a little leaven leavens the whole lump, and therefore hasten to remove this leaven. But from this we must ascend to all the rest that the Apostle explained. He tells them: I trust that you will think as I do, that you will adopt my way of regarding Judaism and act accordingly.

Concerning the hope, some think that it naturally arose in the Apostle, knowing as he did the Galatians’ love of truth and that they had been led astray by deception, having accepted in simplicity of heart what was not true for what was true. After the explanations he made to them, he had no doubt that they would abandon the falsehood and return to the truth. Others believe that this hope of the Apostle proceeded from his firm trust in God, who desires all to come into the knowledge of the truth. Still others ascend higher: that the Apostle spoke thus in a prophetic spirit. The Spirit of God granted him to see the sobering of the Galatians, and he expresses this in his hope for them.

So Ambrosiaster writes: “the Apostle hopes this of them because they did not themselves deliberately choose the path of delusion, but were deceived. Therefore, having shown them the true path, he expects that they will easily return to it.” Saint Chrysostom says: “he did not say: you understand, but ‘you will think’, that is, if you correct yourselves. How do you know this? But again he did not say: I know, but: I trust God, he says, and with firm confidence I call upon him to aid your correction. With boldness and not simply did he say ‘I am confident in you’; but he added ‘in the Lord’ (he everywhere loves to temper reproaches with praise); as if he said: I know my disciples, I know your readiness to be corrected, but nevertheless I trust in this through the Lord, who desires the destruction of no one; and through him I trust also in you, who can easily return to your former state. But at the same time he persuades you to apply your own effort, since it is impossible to receive anything from God if we bring nothing on our part.” Blessed Jerome reasons thus: “not by supposition, but in a prophetic spirit did Saint Paul pronounce that the Galatians would return to the truth which they had abandoned. Foreseeing in the spirit that they would not otherwise believe except as he teaches them in the Epistle, he says ‘I am confident.’ And the addition of the name ‘Lord’ indicates the same thing. For if he were only supposing this, he would have said: I am confident in you. But having added ‘in the Lord,’ he showed that he prophesied of that which, being led by the Spirit of God, he knew would come to pass.”

How does the second half of this text relate to the first? “He who troubles you shall bear his judgment”. By the usual course of our speech, we might expect a threat against the Galatians themselves, something like: I am confident that you will correct yourselves, but if you do not, expect no mercy. Saint Paul turns this threat not on the deceived Galatians, but on the seducers: for these knew the truth, while those in simplicity of heart took their false interpretation for the truth, suspecting no deceit. They are guilty only in that they did not turn to Saint Paul, their teacher and spiritual father, who had been with them twice and had brought them to spiritual life in Christ. But even this could have happened through inexperience, without any diminishment of their love of the truth. Saint Paul does not turn his threat toward them. But at the same time he makes it understood that if they remain obstinate in error, together with the false teachers they will bear the same punishment. Until now they were innocent; but after such a full explanation of the truth as Saint Paul has given them, they will no longer be innocent, but will be grouped with their new teachers.

Our commentators, however, dwell primarily on the direct sense of these words, without making application to the Galatians themselves. Thus Saint Chrysostom says: “on both sides Saint Paul urges them to reform—both by hope for them and by threat, or prediction of punishment for the disturbers. But observe that he did not name any one of the evildoers by name, so as not to make them even more shameless. And the sense of his words is this: although you will not think otherwise, nevertheless this will not spare from punishment the authors of the deception; they will be condemned. For it is impossible that the piety of some should alleviate the fate of others who are wicked. He speaks thus to prevent the false teachers from making another assault on others. And he did not simply say ‘he who troubles,’ but strengthened the expression by adding ‘whoever he is.’”

This last addition gives the thought that among the false teachers there may have been persons of weight and influence. It makes known that neither wealth, nor nobility, nor any other visible distinction will spare them from deserved punishment, as he said at the beginning: whether we or an angel from heaven preach otherwise, let him be accursed.

“What did the threat consist of? He shall bear judgment—in Greek: κριμα—judgment. To bear judgment means not only to be condemned, but to bear the punishment assigned for it. ‘He shall bear judgment’ is the same as in another place: each one shall bear his own burden” (Blessed Jerome). What then is this burden, or what is the nature of the punishment? Perhaps it threatens punishment from God, as it were: God will not leave him without punishment. Such a threat was previously uttered by the Saviour himself, so that in his Kingdom, just as he who turns another away saves his own soul from death and covers a multitude of sins (Jas. 5:20), so conversely, woe to him through whom offense comes. “Whoever troubles and leads astray anyone in the Church, it would be better for him to have a millstone hung about his neck and to be drowned in the sea, than to lead astray any of those small ones, to whom the Saviour points (Lk 7:1–2).” (Blessed Jerome).

But perhaps Saint Paul was hinting at such a judgment as he, not long after, employed in Corinth, that is, ecclesiastical judgment, excommunication, anathema, as he had already pronounced at the beginning of the Epistle. It seems as if he is saying: I will come and deal with them.

Gal. 5:11. But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the offense of the cross is done away.

These words clear the path and remove the last obstacles to the operation of the convictions that Saint Paul has presented to the Galatians. The path could have been blocked by slanders against the Apostle, that he himself keeps the Law and even circumcises. Lodging in their memory, this accusation could rob of force both the threats and the hopes and all the exhortations of Paul. At least anyone, thinking: but what are you yourself binding yourself to the Law for?—might be held in doubt. Saint Paul dispels this light fog with a single question: for what am I being persecuted? That the Jews persecuted the Apostle was known to all. It was also not difficult for everyone to understand that if he were favorably disposed toward circumcision and the Law, no one would say a word against him. But if they insult him, dishonor him, persecute him everywhere, then it is a clear sign that the teaching he set forth about the cessation of the power of circumcision and the Law, and their needfulness no more for believers, is the constant and universal subject of his preaching. Having heard slanders against Saint Paul, the Galatians might have wondered: what then is the Apostle doing? But having read his question, they ought to have exclaimed: indeed it is so; what then have they told us? It is they who deceived us. What is the wisdom of the Apostle! He does not send them to investigate by following the tracks of his preaching, but by one clear fact he quiets their minds, confused by the slanders against him.

Saint Chrysostom says on this passage: “since they spoke of him, that he often himself observes Jewish rites and preaches the unnecessary nature of circumcision insincerely; see how he showed himself pure from this slander, calling them themselves as witnesses. You yourselves know, he says, that the cause of my persecution is that I taught you to abandon the Law. But if I were preaching circumcision, for what reason would they persecute me? The Judaizers, moreover, can accuse me of nothing else. And if I allowed them to believe according to the ancestral customs, then neither those who believed nor those who did not believe among them would have plotted against me, as against one who rejects nothing from their customs. But what then? Did he not preach circumcision, did he not circumcise Timothy? He did. How then does he say ‘I do not preach’? Note his carefulness here as well. He did not say: I do not perform circumcision, but I do not preach it, that is, I do not teach people to believe thus. And you, he says, should not take my action as the foundation of doctrine; for although I did circumcise (Timothy), nevertheless I did not preach circumcision.”

“Then the offense of the cross is done away.” If it were so, if I were preaching circumcision, then the cross would not present offense to the Jews. The circumcision is so precious to them that if I did not touch it, they would see no offense in the cross, but now they see it because the cross abolishes circumcision and the whole Law. Ambrosiaster writes: “the preaching of the cross was an offense to the Jews because by it the Sabbath and circumcision were done away. If it allowed circumcision, there would be no offense and the Jews would be at peace with us. And concerning the Saviour they said: ‘this man is not of God, because he does not keep the Sabbath’ (Jn. 9:16).” Saint Chrysostom sets forth the same thing at greater length. “If what you say is true, then the barrier and enmity that divide us are removed. For the Jews are not so much offended by the cross as by the teaching not to follow the ancestral customs. When they brought Stephen before the Sanhedrin, they did not say that he honors the Crucified, but that ‘he speaks against this holy place and the Law’ (Acts 6:13). And they themselves accused the Lord Jesus of breaking the Law (Jn. 5:18). Why Paul says: if we allow circumcision, then your struggle with us has ceased, there is no more enmity against the cross and its preaching. But if we are killed daily, is this not for a reason? You yourselves see that nothing provokes such enmity against us as circumcision. Would I have been so unwise as to subject myself to suffering and lead others into offense without any reason? He said: ‘the offense of the cross’ because the teaching about the cross commands us to abandon the ancestral customs, which especially offended the Jews and kept them from accepting the cross.”

Gal. 5:12. Oh, that those who trouble you would cut themselves off.

“Cut themselves off” means completely separated (Blessed Theodoret), so that there is no more fellowship between you and them, and between them and you. “Those who trouble you”, αναστατουντες, those who incite you against the truth, those who stir you up to rebel against the truth. The Apostle has proved that you must no longer bind yourselves to the Law, he has convinced you that all fellowship with it must cease, and he firmly hopes that the Galatians will do so. But the Apostle’s concern for them extends also to the future. He is anxious as long as false teachers are among them, and he expresses the wish that they be cut off. In the Greek it reads οφελον και αποκοψονται, “oh that they would also be cut off”. You are convinced, you will correct the error; but if you drive away the false teachers from among you, then I would be completely at rest concerning you. As long as they are with you, I will not cease to fear for you.

Why does the Apostle act as though so weakly? He does not cut off the seducers, but only expresses the wish that they be cut off by the Galatians themselves. Saint Paul perhaps expected their conversion to the truth, and for that reason spoke thus irresolute; in case of their stubbornness and continuation in seducing, perhaps he reserved for himself the freedom to issue a directive about it later. Or perhaps he was convinced that the Galatians themselves would do it, would drive them away from themselves, would cease communion with them, would not allow them to approach them; but by his exclamation “oh that!” he wished only to show that this was not contrary to his desire, that there was also his apostolic prayer for this. In every way one cannot fail to see here the law of the life of the body of the Church—to reject and cast out those who do not obey the truth and teach contrary to it.

Saint Chrysostom sees in these words the apostolic severity: “observe what severity the Apostle expresses here even toward their seducers. At first he rebuked those who were seduced, more than once calling them senseless. But having sufficiently instructed and made them understand, he now turns to their seducers. And you too should note the wisdom of the Apostle here. The Galatians he makes understand and persuades, as his children, as those still capable of correction; but their seducers he cuts off, as foreigners and hopelessly diseased. To the latter he points when he says ‘he shall bear his judgment, whoever he is’; and to the former when he threatens them, saying ‘oh that those who trouble you would be cut off’. And he rightly said: ‘those who trouble you’ (that is, those who incite you to abandon the order and structure of Christ’s Church, which is a new fatherland to your spirit). For they forced you, abandoning your own fatherland and freedom and heavenly kindred, to seek a strange and unknown fatherland, and having driven you from the Jerusalem above and free, they made you wander as captives and exiles. For this reason the Apostle rises against them. The sense of his words is this: I do not concern myself with them at all: ‘reject a heretic after the first and second warning’ (Tit. 3:10).”

In the time of Saint Chrysostom there were people who endeavored to justify castration by the Apostle’s word “cut themselves off.” For the Castrators were called αποκοποι; but in the Apostle stands οφελον και αποκοψονται. Saint Chrysostom does not make efforts to refute such an interpretation, because its falseness is evident in itself after the opinion he expressed before. But he uses this opportunity to rebuke the Castrators in prevention of castration, which has no sense. There appears in him the thought that even if one were to see in the Apostle an indication of castration, still it is a punishment, a condemnation, a curse; and those who dare to mutilate themselves incur the Apostle’s curse upon themselves. Then he says: “the Manichaeans alone say that the body is malicious and composed of evil matter, but these by their very deeds give occasion for the absurd interpretations of the Manichaeans, cutting off a member as though it were hostile and malicious. It would be far better to put out the eyes, because through them lust enters the soul. But neither the eyes nor any other member is guilty in this; the sole culprit is the evil will. And if you cannot restrain yourself, why do you not cut off the tongue for blasphemy, the hand for theft, the feet for their inclination toward evil, and why not, so to speak, cut off the whole body? For hearing at the sound of the flute often loosens the soul, and the nostrils in the perception of fragrance allure the heart and draw it toward pleasure. So let us cut off everything: ears, hands, nostrils. But this is the height of impiety and satanic instigation. One needs only to correct the disordered inclination of the soul. The evil demon, who always takes delight in murders, he alone could have suggested that one should destroy the organ itself, as though a great artist had made an error. How does it happen, someone might say, that from the fattening of the body lust is kindled? But in this too the sin is of the soul. The fattening of the flesh depends not on lust, but on the soul. If it wishes to reduce it, it has full power to do so. But you act as if someone, seeing one laying a fire and setting a house ablaze, were to blame the fire for the conflagration, not the arsonist, because the fire had supposedly grown so intense from the fact that it had itself seized many beams of the house. The culprit is not the fire, but the arsonist. Fire is given for the cooking of food, for lighting, and for many other needs, not for burning houses. Similarly, desire is given for childbearing and the preservation of the race, not for adultery, fornication, and lust; it is given so that you might be a father, not an adulterer; adultery depends not on natural desire, but on unnatural excess.”

It has been considered not unnecessary to quote this passage because these tares grow also among us.

Blessed Theophylact

Blessed Theophylact