Exceptions to the passage Galatians 1:8.
Exceptions to the passage Galatians 1:8.
§ 373. Regarding the apostle’s statement in Gal. 1:8 they make these exceptions: (1) “The apostle is not speaking about the written Word but about every word either written or handed down, because he does not say ‘besides that which we wrote’ but ‘besides that which we preached.’ “We respond. One should not look for apostolic teaching outside of apostolic Scripture after the publishing of the canon of the New Testament, just as one should not look for prophetic teaching outside of prophetic Scripture after the publishing of the Old Testament canon. Paul writes in Rom. 1:[1-]2 that he preached the Gospel “which God promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures.” Therefore one should not look for that Gospel, aside from which nothing is to be preached, outside of the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures. In accordance with this, Chrysostom, in his commentary on this passage (vol. 4, col. 895), interprets clearly the apostle’s statement about the Scriptures and says, “The Scriptures are to be preferred to angels descending from heaven.” Augustine says the same thing: “If anyone declares to you something about Christ or about His Church or about any other matter that pertains to our faith and life, I do not say ‘if we’ but what Paul has included, ‘if an angel from heaven’ does this, declaring something beyond that which you have received in the legal and evangelical Scriptures, let him be accursed” (Contra liter. Petiliani, bk. 3, c. 6). Let Bellarmine, then, first prove that the apostles consigned to writing only certain chief points of doctrine that one must know but passed by the rest, which are no less necessary, for the Church to propagate orally.
(2) “We must take the ‘besides’ to mean ‘opposed to.’ Consequently, new doctrines and commandments are not being forbidden, provided they are not opposed to what has already been handed down. Rather, what is being prohibited are only opposing doctrines and mandates [for these reasons:] Because the apostle himself later taught many other things. Because he was arguing against those who were teaching that the matters of the Law must be kept. Because this is how the word ‘besides’ is taken in Rom. 16:17: ‘Take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, besides the doctrine that you have been taught.’ Because, finally, Ambrose, Jerome, and other ancients explain it that way.” We respond. There is no need for doubtful guesses as to what the apostle wanted understood by the word 
[“besides”], because he has explained it clearly with the words 
[“different”] and 
[“other”]. We concede that those things are being prohibited that are set forth in opposition to apostolic instruction. But one cannot infer from this that only those things are being prohibited, because these things, too, are being forbidden that are set forth besides that instruction, as the text witnesses so clearly. In his commentary on this passage, Theophylact writes: “He did not bring forward only ‘if they preached contrary things,’ but ‘if they preached a Gospel besides that which we ourselves preached,’ if they added any little addition to it.” The false apostles against whom the apostle is arguing here were contending that their teaching was not contrary to the apostle’s Gospel but that it filled in the gaps and completed it. Thus they, too, were appealing to the authority of the greatest apostles (Gal. 2:6). As for what the apostle taught and wrote after the Epistle to the Galatians, this was completely in harmony with the teaching he had done either orally or in writing, for he taught “nothing outside of Moses and the prophets” (Acts [2]6:22). Therefore they cannot apply the argument to their traditions that are of a different genus, which, if not opposed to Scripture, are diverse from it. You see, though the traditions (which the Papists force the Church to receive “with equal affection of piety”63 with those things that have been written) do not always conflict with specific passages of Scripture, nevertheless they do conflict with the general mandates about “not adding.”