Chapter 5

Theophylact of Ohrid, Exposition of the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians — Chapter Five

¹ Chapter Five. Stand fast, therefore, in the freedom with which Christ has set us free.[1] For it was not you yourselves, he says, who set yourselves free, but he who gave the price on your behalf. How, then, do you subject yourselves to the lordship of the law, against the mind of Christ, who set you free? And by saying Stand fast, he showed that they were being shaken.

² And do not be entangled again in a yoke of slavery. In speaking of a “yoke,” he indicates the heaviness of the slavery under the law. And the word again charges them with insensibility, seeing that, having learned by experience how burdensome the slavery is, they nevertheless desert back to it.

³ Behold, I Paul say to you, that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. He sets down the trustworthiness of his own person in the place of every proof. And Christ does not profit the one who is circumcised, because such a man sets aside grace, and runs to the law as to his benefactor, while he utterly disbelieves Christ, as though he had conferred no benefit on him; and the one who disbelieves gains nothing from the one he disbelieves.

⁴ And I testify again to every man who is circumcised, that he is a debtor to fulfill the whole law. Lest they suppose that these things are said against them alone: I say it, he says, not to you only, but to every man who is circumcised, that he lays a great burden upon himself; for the ordinances of the law hang together with one another. And when you take up some small part of the law and subject yourself to the yoke, you have drawn the whole lordship upon yourself. For circumcision both demands a sacrifice and observes a particular day; and the sacrifice demands a pattern and a manner, and purifications; for the unclean man does not sacrifice. The purifications, in turn, have other observances. Do you see how the one who has apostatized from Christ not only gains no profit from him, but has also subjected himself to ten thousand burdens? For if the law is lord, fulfill the whole of it; but if it is not lord, do not submit to it even in part.

⁵ You have been severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. That is: You have no fellowship at all with Christ; you who, as you suppose, are justified by the law have fallen away from grace, which truly justifies. Great indeed is the shipwreck, when you neither uphold the things of the law and yet cast away the things of grace.

⁶ For we through the Spirit, by faith, wait for the hope of righteousness. We who are faithful, he says, hope to be justified not by the law, but by the Holy Spirit. How? By faith. For faith must come first, and then, by the visitation of the Holy Spirit, one receives the forgiveness of sins and is justified in baptism.

⁷ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love. And yet he was saying that circumcision is harmful; how, then, does he now make it a matter of indifference? We say, then, that he means the circumcision that precedes faith—as if he said that those who are enrolled under the New Covenant are neither profited if they have been circumcised, nor harmed if they are uncircumcised. For faith is everything, working through love—that is, faith that ought always to show itself active and living through love toward Christ. And he hints that they had indeed believed, but had not grown fervent in their love toward Christ, and for this reason had deserted to the law; or else he is also setting them right with regard to love toward their neighbor. And at the same time he shows that those who were leading them astray, had they but had love toward them, would not have dared to do these things. Learn, then, that faith is made active through love—that is, it is shown to be living; but when it does not have love, it is inactive. It is like the saying, Faith without works is dead.

⁸ You were running well; who hindered you, that you should not obey the truth? This is not the language of one asking a question, but of one lamenting and saying: You had reached perfection; what has happened? Who has prevailed so far as to hinder you, that you should not obey the truth of the Gospel, but the law, which has been abolished and is but a shadow?

⁹ This persuasion is not from him who calls you. That is, this obeying of those who deceive you is not from Christ; for he did not call you in order that you should obey those who counsel you to Judaize.

¹⁰ A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Lest they should say: Why have you laid hold of us so vehemently (for we have set aside but one commandment of the law), and magnify the charge?—he says that this thing, which seems small, does harm in matters of vital importance. For just as the leaven, though it is small, leavens to its own likeness and transforms the whole lump, so also circumcision, though it is a single commandment, summons you over to a complete Judaism.

¹¹ I have confidence in you in the Lord, that you will be of no other mind. I take courage, he says, concerning you; for I know my own disciples; I know how easily you may be set right. I take courage, then, concerning you, as being able to be corrected; and I take courage also in the Lord, who does not will that even a single one should perish. He urges them, therefore, both to bring in what is from themselves and to hope in the Lord. For there is no other way to attain the things that are from God, unless, he says, you also bring in the diligence that is from yourselves.

¹² But he who troubles you shall bear the judgment, whoever he may be. You indeed, he says, shall be set right; yet not for this reason shall those who deceived you be freed from punishment, but they shall pay the penalty, even if some of them seem great and worthy of credit. For this is the meaning of whoever he may be. And he says this so that others, in turn, may not again set upon them.

¹³ But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Since those who slandered him said that he was a hypocrite, in one place preaching circumcision and in another not, he says: You are witnesses that I am persecuted by the Jews. If, then, I preach circumcision, for what else am I persecuted? For it is plain that they persecute me because I overthrow their ancestral customs. But if I am introducing circumcision, why then do they persecute me? “What of this,” they say; “did he not circumcise Timothy?” Yes—but by way of dispensation.

¹⁴ But to circumcise is one thing, and to preach circumcision is another. For he did not say, If I performed circumcision, but, If I preach it. For the one who preaches it lays down as a doctrine that this must always be done, as being simply good; whereas the one who has done something even by way of dispensation does not do it as a thing simply good, but as serviceable for a particular occasion.

¹⁵ Then is the stumbling block of the cross abolished. If I preach circumcision, he says, then the stumbling block has ceased at which the Jews take offense in the cross. For at the preaching of the cross they take offense, and do not receive it, for no other reason than that through it circumcision and the law are abolished. So that, if circumcision were preached by me, the conflict of the Jews against the cross, and the stumbling block at which they take offense in it, would be abolished and would cease.

¹⁶ Would that those who are unsettling you would even mutilate themselves! Those who had been deceived he called foolish at the beginning, rebuking them as nothing more than children; but upon those who had done the deceiving, as men incurably diseased, he calls down a curse, saying this: Would that they would not only be circumcised, but would even cut themselves off entirely, mutilating their own parts! And observe, too, how he said unsettling, which is the word we use of those who take men captive. For these men too were taking away their freedom, and, raising them in revolt against the Jerusalem that is above, were removing them, like exiles, over to the law and to Jewish pettiness. And note, against those who mutilate themselves, that they draw the Apostle’s curse upon their own heads.

¹⁷ For you were called unto freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom for an occasion to the flesh.

¹⁸ It was not, he says, that we should be slaves to the law that we were called by God, but that we should be set free from the yoke of the legal slavery. Then, lest anyone suspect that, because we are free, it is therefore permitted us henceforth to do whatever we wish, he corrects this and says that we should not hold our freedom for an occasion to the flesh, that is, to the desires of the flesh. For it was not for this that we were loosed from the yoke of the law—that we should be flung headlong over a cliff—but that we should walk straight even without a yoke, as men already rightly trained. For it is not that we should transgress the things of the law that we are set free, but that we should even surpass the law itself.

¹⁹ But through love be servants to one another. Since he has taken away the yoke of the law, he lays on another yoke, that of love, both lighter and safer than the former. And he hints that it was out of love of rule that the deceivers had broken in upon them; for this is the mother of the heresies. Since, then, love of rule has divided you, through love be servants to one another—showing the intensity of the love by the word be servants. And turning now to the moral discourse, he shows the way by which it may be brought about that one not be a slave to the desires of the flesh.

²⁰ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. If, then, he says, you wish to fulfill the law, fulfill it not in being circumcised, but in love; for this is the fullness of the law. And observe how, even while going through the moral discourse, he does not forget the doctrinal one—so exceedingly was he grieved over the matter in which they had been led astray.

²¹ But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed by one another. What he knows to be truly happening, he sets down as though in doubt; and likewise what follows, that you be not consumed by one another—for this is the language of one warning and putting on guard, not of one condemning. And he did not say bite only (which belongs to wrath), but also devour, which belongs to the utmost savagery. These things he says, on the one hand, concerning the corrupted doctrines; but they are understood also of the plots against one another, and the acts of plunder, and the acts of greed. And since those who do wrong and lay snares seem to be catching others, he says: Take heed lest the thing be turned back upon yourselves.

²² I say, then: Walk by the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the desire of the flesh. Since he said that biting and devouring is destructive, he states also the remedy for this, which both preserves love and is preserved by it—I mean, the being spiritual. For if we are spiritual, we love the more; and if we love, we become spiritual, and thereafter we do not fulfill the desire of the flesh.

²³ For the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are opposed to one another, so that you may not do the things that you would. Here the Manichaeans fasten on, and all heretics of that sort, saying that man is composed of two contrary substances, and that the Apostle bears witness to this by what he now says. But it is not so; for he is not discoursing about substance, but by “flesh” he means the earthly reasoning, the slothful and the negligent, not the body; and by “spirit,” the spiritual reasoning, not the soul. The earthly reasoning, then, he says, is opposed to the spiritual, and the spiritual reasoning to the earthly. He therefore introduces a battle of evil and good thoughts, not of body and soul. For the willing and the not willing belong to the soul, which reasons. For he adds: so that you may not do the things that you would; since the body is a fellow worker with the soul, not its adversary; and the soul clings to the body, and suffers all things so as not to leave it, and grieves when it is torn away from it. How, then, are things contrary that have so great an affinity for one another?

²⁴ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The one who has the Spirit quenches the evil desires. And the one who has been delivered from these has no need of the counsel of the law, nor is he under it. For the one who is not even angered, how does he need the precept that forbids murder? And the one who does not even lust, how does he need the counsel that forbids fornication? Which is what he also said elsewhere: The law is not laid down for a righteous man. And he seems also to be speaking in praise of the law, seeing that it stood in the place of the Spirit, training men according to its own power, when it had its season. How, then, do you again come under a tutor, having let go the Spirit that makes you perfect? It is as if some man who is a philosopher should need a tutor.

²⁵ Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication and adultery. These, he says, are the works of the corrupted and fleshly choice, by which fornication and adultery are also recognized. And it is plain how fornication differs from adultery.

²⁶ Uncleanness, licentiousness. He hints here at shameful practices, which he could not bear even to name.

²⁷ Idolatry, sorceries, enmities, strifes, jealousies, fits of wrath, factions, dissensions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and the like; of which I forewarn you, just as I also foretold, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Let those who disparage the flesh tell us: granted that licentiousness and fornication are sins of the body—but enmities, and heresies, and the like, how could they belong to the flesh? So that it is plain that they all belong to the corrupted choice. And if they were of the flesh, belonging to us by nature, how could they cast us out of the kingdom of God? For it is not of nature, but of choice, that both the punishments and the crowns come. And in another way: if the passions were of nature, he would not have said doing, but, suffering; for “doing” makes manifest a choice.

²⁸ By “enmities” understand the unjust ones; for there are also just enmities—those, namely, that arise for the sake of the faith, and those against all who swerve from what is right. And by “jealousies” he means envious rivalries; for there is also a good zeal, when one imitates the man who does what is noble. And rightly has he placed the heresies after the dissensions and the factions; for every heresy arises from contentiousness, since the contentious man wishes to set up his own will, and for this reason establishes a heresy. And murder, too, comes from envy, and the revelings from drunkenness. For revelings are the songs of drunken men, attended with insolence; and therefore he has placed first the things that beget, and then the things begotten of them.

²⁹ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. The evil works arise from ourselves alone; therefore he called them works of the flesh, and at the same time as things having toil and heaviness. But the good ones need not only our own diligence, but also the working-together from above; therefore he called them the fruit of the Spirit—since the seed, that is, the purpose, is given by us, while the becoming of fruit lies in God. And he sets down love first as the root of all good things, then joy. For the one who loves always rejoices, even when he suffers ill; for he regards the one who does him ill as a benefactor. And he rejoices also in God, as one who does and suffers all things for his sake, and therefore is gladdened by a good conscience. And out of love and joy he is at peace both in soul, not being troubled by his thoughts, and toward all those who are outside. For even if he seems to be at enmity with some, it is not with them, but with the evil that is in them, that he is at enmity—loving those men as brothers, and showing this enmity for their benefit, that they may be set right.

³⁰ Long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Long-suffering seems in this respect to differ from gentleness in Scripture: that the long-suffering man, being abundant in prudence, lays the fitting penalty upon the offender not quickly, but at leisure; whereas the gentle man lets it go altogether—as Moses, who, forgiving Miriam and Aaron, was called gentle above all who dwelt upon the earth. And kindness is something more general than goodness. For the Lord is kind to all alike; but goodness benefits only those who are worthy, according to the saying, Do good, O Lord, to those who are good. And by “faith” he means not the simple faith, but that which even removes mountains, which believes without wavering that the things impossible with men are possible with God; and above all, self-control—not of foods only, but of every evil thing.

³¹ Against such there is no law. For the soul that accomplishes these things from the Spirit has no need of the admonition that comes from the law, being itself loftier than it—just as horses that are by nature spirited have no need of the whip. And neither here does he cast out the law as evil, but as inferior to the philosophy that is given by the Spirit.

³² And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. As though someone had said, Who is it that accomplishes these things that you have spoken of?—he says that those who are Christ’s, that is, those who are of Christ’s portion, have crucified the flesh, that is, they have put to death the fleshly mind. For they did not, of course, destroy themselves—so that you may understand by “flesh” not the substance of the flesh, but the earthly reasoning—so that neither the passions of wrath live on in them, nor the desires, but both these and those are crucified and put to death. Or by “passions” he simply means the impassioned actions, whether they be from wrath or from desire. He says, then, that not only the actions are put to death, but also the very beginnings of these, namely the desires.

³³ If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Since, he says, so great is the strength of the Spirit, let us live by him, let us be governed by him. For this is the meaning of let us walk—that is, Let us be governed by the power of the Spirit, and not seek for the addition that comes from the law.

³⁴ Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another. He hints here that those who led them astray came to this out of vainglory (for this is the cause of all evils), provoking one another, that is, to contentiousness and strife—as when someone says to his rival: If you are able, come, let us do such-and-such a thing. And since envy comes from vainglory, he forbids this also.