Commentary on Galatians 4.4–4.24

“But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman.” As there is fullness in things, so also in times: for each has its own fullness. Christ is the abundant, full, and copious perfection and fullness of things in all things; the fullness of times is the consummation of liberation. And as Christ, so that the fullness may be whole and perfect, gathers the members that are scattered, and fullness comes about; so in the same way the fullness of times was then brought about, when all things were ripe for faith, and with sins rising to the highest point a remedy was necessarily sought against the death of all things: whence Christ came to help, the fullness of times being complete. And it is said that he sent his Christ: his, I say, let us understand, before he sent him, but afterward “born of a woman.” But “he sent his Son,” that is, one who was his Son: but he sent him. How did he send him? “Born of a woman.” For so by his mystery Christ, the Son of God, came to the aid of the world and of us all: for we are the world. Since he himself, putting on flesh, that is, born of a woman, was to fulfill all the things that had to be done in the mystery, that is, to be seen, heard, to suffer, die, and rise again, therefore he sent him born of a woman: him who had been his Son, born of a woman. Some say it thus: “born of a wife” [ex muliere]; and they themselves, because of the word they have put, have a question: since Mary is or was a virgin, why did he say “born of a wife”? In ordinary usage we say “woman” [femina] for what the Greeks call gynē. Then, since she bore Christ, why should he not say “wife”? For every woman who bears anything is called a wife. But the power of the mystery, though it is both hidden and holy, must yet, so that it may be recognized meanwhile in passing, be attended to thus: all things that are perfect are called “man”; all that are imperfect, “woman.” So when all have been perfected, sanctified, and justified, we find that they come together “into a man.” So it may be understood to have been said: since the world, or we placed in the world, not being most perfect, lead our life in the manner of women and wives. So that Christ, bestowing or about to bestow salvation on us, might come to us, he was born of a woman, that is, he took also that part which would render him imperfect and make him equal with us, that is, either the flesh or the world; and having been born in that world or in that flesh, surely of a woman, that is, of the imperfect, when the mystery was completed, sanctified also after the passion and after the resurrection, he became a man, that is, having and receiving the perfect spirit, so that he might give us a likeness, that we too might rise into a man from the woman, that is, from this life, which, since it is corrupt, is rightly called woman or wife. For hence evil comes from woman: for in the first man too there was sin only from the woman. “Made.” Under this word very much error arises, so that people understand from it that the Son was not born but made, because he said, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, made under the law.” But it makes a great difference whether he said that the Son was made, or made under the law. For it is one thing that the Son was sent, who already was the Son, and surely when born the Son; but now, when he was born of a woman, he can be said to have been made in this respect, that he was under the law. And what is it that he said, “made under the law”? That he was not born among the Gentiles, but among the Jews, and in the discipline and law of Moses. For all correction could be there; for in Israel was the people called God’s, for whom Moses received the law from God and gave it to them, who certainly understood the law badly; and therefore he had to come to the aid of one who sinned and take away its sins; if only that same people would recognize the Son of God. For if he had been born elsewhere, that is, among the Gentiles, Israel could for that reason not have recognized him, because he would not have seemed to be born in their own nation. But from this that people committed greater sins: that, though he was born in their own nation, that is, in the law of Moses, among Israel, he was not recognized, although it was said to that very nation, that is, to David too, that the inheritance and eternity would be given to his seed. So since David is father of Israel, he was born there, so that they might recognize him. Hence the greater sin, that they did not recognize him “made under the law.” Many things can be said about why he was made under the law: either because there God was already worshiped as one, or because they had already received oracles and precepts from God, or because Moses was an image and type of Christ; or because he himself, though he was what those under the law are, yet taught in another way and departed from the law for salvation, by not observing the sabbath and the rest; so that from this they might know not to hope for salvation in the works of the law nor from the law. Hence the Galatians too might understand that they had slipped into error, since the Savior himself, in whom they believed, though made under the law, yet did not serve the law. But these and many other reasons why he was made under the law need not be gathered, since he himself added the reason why he was made under the law: “that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” This, he says, is the reason why God sent his Son: and he sent one who was already Son, but now born of a woman; and he sent him made under the law. What is the reason why under the law? “That he might redeem those who were under the law.” So if he was sent in order to redeem, we are bound all the more if we are redeemed from the law. And he himself speaks so in another place too, when he speaks of a woman: that while her husband lives she is bound to her husband; but if he dies, she is freed from her husband. So since the law, by its precepts, held people as it were bound, only for integrity of life, not also for hope of liberation and eternity, God sent his Son, and sent him under the law, that is, into Israel, to redeem those who were there and lived under the law. And this is a great thing: that he did not provide them a way of living, nor rouse them toward eternity by precepts alone, but, he says, “that he might redeem.” For this was done by the mystery, that he might redeem all who believe in him, so that all who believe in him may become sons of adoption. Since, then, so great a benefit, the whole benefit, is from Christ, nothing besides must be added, nor must one serve the law: for we have been redeemed, redeemed from the law, and redeemed from this world, so that we may be sons of God, but sons by adoption. For we are not sons as he himself is Son, but sons through the Son. This, then, is the adoption; to receive which, he says, God sent his Son. “But since you are sons of God, God sent the spirit of his Son into your hearts.” See the whole order of these three powers through one power and one deity. For, he says, he who is Father sent his Son, who is Christ. And again Christ himself, who is the power of God and is himself God—“God sent,” he says; for there is now a Trinity. And Christ, especially after the mystery, being sanctified, sent, he says, “the spirit of his Son,” who is the Holy Spirit, who, descending into our hearts, easily knows the Father. So Jesus Christ, the Son, was sent by God, in whom those who believe believe, and they become sons of God; and the spirit of the Son, that is, the Holy Spirit, is sent into them by God, so that they now hasten, hurry to the Father, cry out in a way by an inner sanctification and an inner voice. What they cry he himself adds: they cry, “Abba, Father.” The spirit has words, and has them the more when they grasp knowledge of the Father. And this knowledge of the Father, that is, when we know the Father, is itself the voice of our spirit to God, the spirit God gave us: knowledge in accord with what it knows is as it were a voice toward what it knows. So since both through God and through Christ we know God, we too become sons of God, and by that knowledge we have a voice toward the Father. For as Christ alone is the one who knows God, and from his knowing has knowledge, so he calls him and names him, because he knows him. Therefore Christ is the Word of God: for I said that every act of knowing, since it makes us understand, designate, grasp, and conceive what we understand, is as it were our naming by knowledge of what it is like; for we receive, toward the one we know, from the one we know, a word, when we name what it is, because we know these things: which is all the knowledge of the thing we know. So Christ, because he knows God, is the Word of God; and the spirit, since Christ is given to us, gives us knowledge of God through himself; hence it comes about that we too are a word, toward both Christ and God; and therefore we cry out as knowers. And since the knower is of the known, it follows that the Father is the known, the Son the knower. If this is so, rightly, when we know the Father through Jesus, from that knowledge we become his word; and therefore, as sons, we cry from there, “Abba, Father.”

“So now you are no longer a slave, but a son.” For whoever says “Abba, Father” surely names God as Father. If he names him Father, he is a son: so no longer a slave. If this is so, in Christ there is neither slave nor free, neither male nor female: for we are all one. But where does all this lead? “And if a son, also an heir through God.” So if he is called son, he will also be heir: but heir not by deeds, not by his own works, but by God’s mercy and God’s grace. This is what he said: “but through God.” As has been proved in many places, “it is not of him who runs, but of him who has mercy”; and all things are through God’s grace.

“But formerly, not knowing God, you served those who are not gods.” I have often said and warned that not to know God is not to know Christ; for he is known through Christ. But now that Christ has appeared, who taught me, and showed God through himself, and himself as God, and the Father through himself, it is not permitted not to know God. But before, when you did not know God, he says, O Galatians, you served those who are not gods. I have often warned that “gods” are spoken of, in the plural, and in the law too: but God is one; the others honored by this name are angels and the other powers, as it is said, “God of gods.” And would that they had served them! But in fact you served those who are not gods, namely all the worldly and other false, imaginary powers, invented and feigned by the devil.

“But now that you have known God, or rather have been known by God, how do you turn again to the weak and needy elements of this world?” He seems to add another charge against the Galatians, that they had also gone over to the Gentile discipline; or he persists in the same accusation as at first, that they were adding to Christianity the Jewish law about circumcision, the sabbath, and food: and from this he accuses them, so as to say: after you knew God through the gospel given by me, how do you turn again to weak things, which they surely are? Understand it either of turning to the Jewish discipline or to the pagans, who are themselves weak too. But when he added “needy elements of this world,” he touches the pagans rather, who even make gods for themselves from the elements of this world, or worship those very elements, so as to worship fire, water, earth, air. For there is no doubt that they call each of these gods—on which the discussion is long—provided it is certain that the pagans call each of the elements gods, or call the discoverers of the elements gods, or make gods for themselves from the elements, so that they make gods of earth, but make gods through fire; then also they call certain demons aerial, others empyrean, others enhydrous, others genii, that is, earthly, watery, airy, fiery. If, then, the pagans do these things, he seems to rebuke this too, that they had also turned to paganism, especially since he said, “before you knew God and when you did not know God, you served those who are not gods.” Which surely is to be understood of the pagans above as well. But since the whole order and this whole treatment was taken up to rebuke those Galatians for having turned to Judaism, and all these things are to be understood of the Jews, we understand: “how do you turn again to weak things?” So when he said “needy elements of this world,” let us understand that they, understanding the law in a fleshly way, seem to have turned to elements that are needy; for the flesh is always in need and desires to be sustained by food and drink and desires, all of which are weak. So when he says, “you turn to weak and needy elements,” that is, those that are always in need—for soul and spirit need nothing and desire nothing but what is their own. And when he said, “you have known God, or rather have been known by God,” he keeps the force of his teaching: that those come to Christ whom God sends and whom God calls, and those know the Lord whom God has known; on which subject we said much above. For those known by God receive the spirit by which they know God. But surely, to be known by God and be known to God, they are already moved by that principal spirit which was given so that the soul might be subject to those divine precepts of its Father; and when the soul rouses itself, God knows it, and so the soul knows God. And as to his saying “needy elements of this world,” not because there are other elements, therefore “needy of this world,” and elements that are needy: although we can speak of elements in the higher realm too; but this is far removed from common usage. “To which you wish to serve again.” Namely, as he said above, before you knew God you served those who are not gods; now, then, you wish to serve them again: “you wish,” he says, so that it is of their will, not of necessity. And so that he may seem to say these things to the Jews and about the Jews, that is, to the Galatians who join to themselves the discipline of the Jews, he adds thus:

“You observe days, and months, and times, and years.” Since “times” is the genus covering all, why are days and months and years put in? As something different, which indeed can be: for it is one thing to observe days, as resting on the sabbath; another to observe months, as observing the new moon, when the moon ends or begins; another to observe years; and another times, such as the fast, the Passover, unleavened bread, and the other things of this kind which are many among the Jews. For years or months or days do not come round [as feasts], but times do.

“I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain”: that is, I greatly fear that all my labor in the gospel by which I instructed you to have faith in Christ—lest this labor, he says, come to nothing. For what I taught you will be in vain when you have begun to keep the discipline and observances of the Jews.

“Be as I am, since I too am as you are.” For as I, he says, passed over from the discipline of the Jews and believed in Christ, and serve him, and do otherwise, and taught you this, and became such as I made you: live, then, as I live; and if you live, I live.

“Brothers, I beseech you; you have done me no wrong: you know that through weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you long ago.” This, which is inserted, belongs to persuasion, so that we may follow Christ in all things. To persuade them more easily, he repeats the beginnings of his gospel. First he commends his labors: that, though he was already weak in the flesh and suffering, he yet laid labor on himself and preached the gospel to the Galatians; he added also “long ago,” that is, formerly; from which your love toward me and your faith toward Christ ought to have been made firm, since it is a long time. I did not spare, he says, my flesh; but through weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you, and preached it long ago: why, then, do you add other things which I did not preach to you? And when he said, “you have done me no wrong,” he added that: I withheld nothing from you, I said nothing less, as one does who has been wronged; and so that they would not think they had been a burden to him when he preached while weak in the flesh, he therefore says, “you have done me no wrong,” and I, though I was weak in the flesh for your sake, preached the gospel to you long ago; and this you surely know.

“And your temptation in my flesh you did not despise nor reject.” What we should take “your temptation” to mean is unclear to me: that you tempted me, or that I tempted you? That you tempted me makes no sense; for they did not tempt him. But again, did Paul himself tempt them, he who spoke the truth and preached Christ? For to preach the gospel is not to tempt. What, then, since there is no third option? Do we understand that, when Paul had come to the Galatians, they wished to test him, that is, to question him and inquire something about Christ, whether he knew: which indeed could seem a temptation, since the Galatians saw Paul a weak man, weak in the flesh: namely, that though he serves God and preaches God, he is weak in the flesh; and the Galatians had this thought: let us question him, let us see what this man who is weak in the flesh answers about Christ. This, he says, you did not despise in my flesh, and you tested me, and did not scorn your temptation in my flesh: they would have scorned it, that is, not questioned him, and thought they could hear something false in what they sought, that is, what they asked, which is what they tested: believing, I say, that a false answer would be given them by one who was weak in the flesh. But you persevered, and did not scorn your testing in my flesh; but you came to me to see whether I was in my faith and persevered in the gospel. So you tested one weak in the flesh, asking whether my resolve in preaching the gospel was persevering, though I was weak in the flesh; that is, you did not reject me as weak in the flesh, less fit to answer, or as one who could change his view, being weak in the flesh: in which he also gave the reason why it could not happen, or did not happen, that his resolve in preaching would be other: for I was weak in the flesh, not in mind, not in spirit: so he said that they too considered that I was weak in the flesh, not also in spirit; and therefore they persevered in testing him, and neither rejected him nor failed to test him: that is, you did not scorn, you did not despise your testing. Then he shows from what follows that they too understood that Paul was weak in the flesh, not in the spirit: “but you received me as an angel, as Christ Jesus.” So far was it from being a hindrance to you that I was weak in the flesh that you received me as an angel of God, that is, a messenger, a preacher sent by God; for this is an angel of God; and you received me as Christ Jesus, whom I was preaching to you: so you truly received Christ Jesus. If you received me as an angel of God, how you received Christ Jesus!

“What, then, was your blessedness?” He now shows them to be wretched, since before they had had blessedness, because they had received Jesus Christ, and Paul as an angel of God. Great, he says, was your blessedness: “was,” he says: now surely it is the opposite, while you add things I did not teach, did not instill, which are outside the gospel, namely those I spoke of above. “I bear you witness that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.” So you received me, and had such a mind toward me, such a will, that, since nothing is dearer to a human being than the eyes, you would have wished to pluck out even your eyes and give them to me. So since you loved me so, and loved me because of the gospel, where does this opinion of yours come from, that you add to the discipline things I did not preach? That is, that besides Christ you do something from the law, and do not, as I handed on simply, having hope, faith, and belief in Christ, hope for everything and believe you can obtain everything: the forgiveness of sins, sanctification, and the glory of God?

“Have I, then, become your enemy by preaching the truth to you?” For if you have begun to do other things, I have become your enemy. But since I foretold and preached to you Christ and the gospel, which is that Christ is truly the one Son of God, that all things are through him, and all things in Christ, and he before all things; since this is true, and is the truth itself, why have I become your enemy? For he ought to be an enemy who, when asked what is true, teaches what is false: but since I have spoken the truth (for he speaks the truth who preaches Christ), it is not fitting that I should have become your enemy.

“They are zealous for you not well; and they wish to shut you out, so that you may be zealous for them: but be zealous for the better gifts.” He warns them, as he often does, to beware of snares, because those who persuade the Galatians to follow the Jewish law too, “are zealous,” he says, “for you”; that is, they envy you; for “to be zealous” signifies two things: one, when someone is zealous for something because it pleases, because it is good; the other, by which people are zealous because they envy. These, he says, “are zealous for you not well,” to show that they are rivals from envy. Then he added, “they wish to shut you out,” that is, from this happiness and blessedness; because by knowing Christ you have the hope of salvation and heavenly glory: but from this they desire to shut you out. And as to his adding “so that you may be zealous for them,” so that you too follow them, he has thus set this double meaning of zeal in different places, since zeal is imitation, especially when it is toward good. This is what he says here, “so that you may be zealous for them,” that is, so that you may follow their supposed good. But as to his saying “they are zealous for you,” to show that the zeal is set toward envy, he adds “not well.” “But be zealous for the better gifts”: not those which the Jews have, which are not good and not better; but be zealous for what is good, and for the better gifts, that is, be zealous for whatever is in faith and love concerning Christ, and follow this. “It is good to be zealous for better things always.” Not that being zealous is good; but to be zealous for better things, and always, is good. “And not only when I am present with you.”

“My children, whom I am again in labor with, until Christ be formed in you.” Not only, he says, in my presence ought you to be zealous, but always. To what he put, “always,” then, he added, “and not only when I am present with you.” And as to his adding “my children”: since people are called children in many ways, now by love, now by nature, now by blood, now also by religion, by which Paul now says “my children”: either because through baptism, when regeneration takes place, he who completes the baptized, or receives him completed, is called father; or because when he renews them into Christ, he makes them his children; therefore he added, “whom I am in labor with,” that is, whom I desire to bring forth into light, whom with great pains of my soul I desire to be born to life and salvation: for this is what he says, “until Christ be formed in you.” For every soul can receive Christ: the soul, I say, of a human being, if it uses reason, if it recognizes the world as not its own, if it discerns all things in the world, if it recognizes its creator, can receive Christ; indeed in that very soul Christ is formed, that is, the spirit; and when it is implanted and grows through belief, the soul is freed, reaches the heavenly kingdoms, and obtains the salvation of eternal light. And there is great force and power in what he says, “until Christ be formed in you.” But this discourse of ours holds a simple exposition of the words; hence we have said above as much as we believe is enough. What Christ is, or what it is for Christ to be formed, and formed in a man, a deeper and truer exposition sets out and explains elsewhere.

“But I would like to be present with you now and to change my voice, since I am confounded in you.” These precepts, as we see, are given through a letter. With great indignation this was taken up, so that he should say: would that I were with you now and could change my voice! not so as to proclaim the gospel otherwise, but to express it in anger. Now he admonishes through the letter he sends; and he added the cause of his just anger, since he said, “I am confounded in you,” that is, I am tormented with shame, because you have quickly turned, you who lose so great a faith, who do not hold fast to the labor and the gospel and the truth instilled in you. For from this great confusion comes to me because of you. Then, angrily indeed, yet with testing, he added:

“Tell me, you who wish to be under the law, have you not read the law?” He desires to persuade them from the law itself, to which they have gone over: if only they read the law itself, he strives, I say, to persuade them from that very law, so that they may understand that it is written so that Christ may be believed, and that belief taken up in Christ is the whole liberation, and the whole salvation, and all blessedness. With what indignation, then, he says, “tell me”! I do not admonish you, but you yourselves answer me: surely you have gone over to the law, and wish to be under the law, and yet you have not read the law, in which it is written thus. And he adds that by which he proves what the law of the Jews and its discipline is, and what hope and what faith it has, and what faith in Christ is, and what hope and blessedness.

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman, one by a free woman.” This example is from Genesis: he wants to prove by it that the law, which is the Jews’, and the whole people are like the son of the slave woman; but the church and the Christians are the son of the free woman. For this is written: that Abraham, who is the father of faith, has one son by a slave woman, that is, by Hagar; and another by the free woman, that is, Isaac by Sarah: surely signifying two peoples, but this one the better, which is of the free woman: for Isaac is a figure of Christ. Then he adds thus:

“But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh; but the one by the free woman, through promise.” For the one born of the slave woman is a fleshly son; but the one of the free woman is spiritual, because he was promised by God. For God promised the believer that, when both he and his wife were nearly a hundred years old, they would have a son. So when they came together, with seed already dead and womb already dead, they begot the son they begot no longer from the flesh but from the spirit; and this was the promise, that they would have him. But we will compare these two sons, and at the same time the mothers, as peoples, with the churches of the Jews and of the Christians. Paul, however, interpreting otherwise, adds thus:

“These things are said by allegory ...” So we have surely interpreted it, as if by allegory. When one thing is said and another signified, this is allegory; yet Paul interprets the allegory himself, as he adds: “For these are the two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing into slavery, which is Hagar; for Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is joined to, and which is now near, Jerusalem.” The people of the Jews, he says, or the old covenant, signifies the son of the slave woman; and the slave woman was the one who was from Mount Sinai. And since the slave woman was in slavery, so this people too is in slavery. And since Mount Sinai was joined to that city which is Jerusalem, he meant the city to be understood from the mountain itself, and through the city the Jews; and through the mountain, she who was from that same Mount Sinai was a slave woman and bore into slavery; therefore Jerusalem too, that is, the people of that city, and the covenant written about that city, is in slavery with her children.