(a) Both Jews and Gentiles are justified by faith (2:15-21) 136

(a) Both Jews and Gentiles are justified by faith (2:15-21) 136

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 6 olrrwg orn G 1 al

XQLotou P51 K A B tI' byz latf`'g syr-'' copbo / Irioou Xptotou D 326 syrhd' / Orou 7 327 Orig'a' /om p46t."' G Wd latabVCod Mcion Tert Cypr Ambst Pelag Ephr

v 9 neoEtgxaµev / neoELerlxa K* pc 1at° syrpesn

1:6 Oavµa~w xtX. In most of Paul's letters the introductory salutation is followed by words of thanksgiving to God for some feature of the recipients' life or faith, usually with EvXa(JLOtEW-`I (we) thank God ..: (Rom. 1:4; 1 Cor. 1:4; Phil. 1:3; Col. 1:3; 1 Thes. 1:2; 2 Thes. 1:3, 'we are bound to thank God'; Phm. 4; cf. 2 Tim. 1:3)-and twice with the verbal adjective eXoyrJtoc, `Blessed be God ..: (2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3). Galatians is the solitary exception; it plunges at once into words of remonstrance.

See P. Schubert, Form and Function of the Pauline Thanksgivings (Berlin, 1939); P. T. O'Brien, Introductory Thanksgivings in the Letters of Paul (Leiden, 1977); also G. P. Wiles, Paul's Intercessory Prayers (Cambridge, 1974).

If Galatians is indeed Paul's first extant letter, it might be said that it was written before he had established his practice of following his salutation with an expression of thanks to God. But the thanksgiving formula after the salutation was common form in Greek letter-writing, although Paul developed it in his own distinctive way. The most probable account of the omission of any thanksgiving here is that Paul was impelled by a sense of overmastering urgency to come straight to the point. Evidently he had just received the news of his Galatian converts' abandonment of the gospel of free grace which he had preached to them, and he reacts to that news on the spot. The replacement of words of gratitude or joy by an expression of astonishment or indignation at news just received (or at the addressee's failure to send news), often introduced by Oauµa~w, is amply paralleled in the papyri (cf. J.L. White, The Body of the Greek Letter [Missoula, 1972], 18f., 49f.). Paul wishes he were present with his Galatian friends, to have the matter out with them face to face (4:20), but as this cannot be, he sends them this letter.

P. T. O'Brien points out that, just as no thanksgiving period in the other Pauline letters omits a reference to the gospel, so in Gal. 1:6-9 the theme of the gospel is raised in the expression of astonishment which here replaces the normal thanksgiving. `Because the Galatians have departed from the gospel of Christ there can be no thanksgiving; instead, a curse is pronounced on anyone who brings another message' (Introductory Thanksgivings, 141 n. 1).

ovtws taXtwg. This expression does not afford any precise indication of the interval between the Galatians' conversion and Paul's reception of the disquieting news about them; he is emphasizing his astonishment, but the shorter the interval, the more pointed would his `so soon' be.

µEtaTLOEoO. The passive of ltEtat(OTlµt is used (inter alia) of a change of position-either geographically, as in the removal of the patriarchs' bones from Egypt to Shechem (Acts 7:16) or Enoch's translation from earth (Heb. 11:5), or in religious belief and practice, as here (cf. 2 Macc. 7:24, µEta6EµEvov &it0 tcuv natp(wv, `turning from the ways of one's fathers').

&Jro toy xaXeoavtos vµas, i.e. from God (cf. 5:8). The verb xaX>rw is part of Paul's vocabulary for emphasizing the divine initiative in salvation (cf. 5:13; Rom. 8:30; 9:11; 1 Cor. 1:9). What he says of the Galatian believers here he says of himself in v 15, where xaXeoas is followed by Eta tf1 Xa@Lto; avtov as toy xaX> oavtog vµas is followed by Ev XaetTt [Xetotov] here. In v 15 the grace is God's, and so it may be here (the textual evidence is rather evenly divided between the addition or absence of the genitive Xptotov).

Whatever the reading may be, the grace of which Paul speaks is not simply a benevolent attitude on the part of God or Christ (see on v 3); it is demonstrated in God's saving act in the death of Christ, by which the undeserving, the 'ungodly' (Rom. 5:6), are redeemed, justified and reconciled. Grace and law are mutually exclusive as means of justification (cf. 5:4): `if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of [legal] works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace' (Rom. 11:6). Cf. J. Moffatt, Grace in the NT (London, 1931).

1:6f. e[s eTepov e,ayyeXtov, 8 ovx :otty &XXo. Here the conventional distinction between EtEQoc (of a different kind) and 6,XXoc (another of the same kind) may be recognized; see R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the NT (London, ['j1876] 1961), § xiv, 334-337; E. D. Burton, Galatians, 420-422. On the other hand, BDF 306 (4) sees no essential distinction: `a?Xo is used pleonastically to a certain extent in order to introduce Ei µrl ... (cf. nihil aliud nisi) "not that there is any other, except that .... '

The message which the Galatian Christians are disposed to accept in place of that which they received from Paul is so different from Paul's message that it constitutes £tE(JOV Evay?XLov, `a different "gospel" '-and therefore, in fact, no gospel at all, since there can be no `other gospel' (6.?J,o 6ayy9kLov) in the proper sense of the word `gospel' than the proclamation of justification by faith, apart from works of the law.

Probably Paul did not maintain a rigid distinction between ihEpos and kkoc: in 2 Cor. 11:4 he speaks of interlopers in the Corinthian church who proclaim 6.XXov 'Irloovv... rvgvµa etEpov... EvayyEXtov ihEeov, where 6kkov seems to be used synonymously with i tEeov, perhaps because it is used with 'Irloovv, for in the nature of things no `other Jesus' can be proclaimed as Saviour than the Jesus who died for his people's sins and was raised from the dead: any 6kkos 'ITlaovs must inevitably be Etceos 'Irlaovs.

In the NT the Evayyel,,Lov is (a) the proclamation by Jesus that the kingdom of God has drawn near; (b) the proclamation by the disciples that in Jesus the kingdom of God is fully manifested, that he by his humiliation and exaltation is set forth as Messiah, Lord, Son of God. The second phase of the EvayyEXLov arises necessarily out of the first: the passion and triumph of Jesus, which formed the basis of the apostolic preaching, crowned his ministry and embodied and confirmed all that he had taught about the kingdom of God. 0. A. Piper has distinguished `two patterns in which the good news is presented, namely the Kingdom type and the Resurrection type'. The difference between them lies `in perspective rather than in substance' ('Change of Perspective', Int. 16 [1962], 402-417, especially 416f.).

The background of the substantive Evayye7,,tov and its related verb Evayyekt'ioµat, as used in the NT, must be sought here and there in Is. 40-66. The good news of Zion's liberation and restoration, celebrated in Is. 40:9, 6 EvayyFkLl6µevoc Eetty, `O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion' (cf. Is. 60:6 LXX, to owtrlptov xupiou EuayyEXtovvtat), is interpreted in the NT as adumbrating the good news of a greater liberation and restoration-the salvation procured by Christ. The words of Is. 52:7, Cog noSEg EvayyE7`tl;oµevou axoily EIQiVgc, caws EvayyEX1?6µEvos &ya0a, are applied by Paul in Rom. 10:15 to preachers of the Christian gospel. In Is. 40-66 it is Yahweh himself who is ultimately proclaimed in the good news: the herald is told to `say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" ' (Is. 40:9). So in the NT the bearers of the gospel summarize their commission in words such as these: `what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord' (2 Cor. 4:5). This comes close to the Hellenistic usage of the word-group, which has to do with `the God-Emperor who is venerated in the cult and the Euayy>Xtov which proclaims him' (J. Schniewind, Euangelion, II [Giitersloh, 1931], 183).

Most important of all texts in Is. 40-66 for the NT usage is Is. 61:1, where an unnamed speaker introduces himself by saying, `The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, because Yahweh has anointed me to bring good tidings to the poor' (LXX evayyEX(oaoOat ATwxois). In Lk. 4:17-19 Jesus is depicted as reading this scripture in the Nazareth synagogue and applying it to himselfnewly anointed, `made Messiah', for the proclamation of this gospel. Not only so, but in the earlier `Q' incident of Jesus' reply to John the Baptist's message from prison (Lk. 7:22; Mt. 11:5) the fact that `the poor have good news preached to them' (wtrwxoi EvayyE),,i~ovtat) is emphasized as the conclusive proof that Jesus is indeed the `coming one' to whom John had pointed forward.

1:7 d µrl here has the sense of nkily otL (cf. Acts 20:23), `except that'. No one would think of calling this substitute message a `gospel', Paul implies, except with the intention of confusing the minds of believers. Gospel it is not; it is a message of bondage, not of freedom. It is a form of the doctrine of salvation by law-keeping from which Paul himself had been liberated by the true gospel which he received on the Damascus road `by revelation of Jesus Christ' (v 12). That was the gospel which he preached to others, including the Galatians, and there could be no other. It might be expressed in a variety of ways: its presentation to Jews no doubt differed from its presentation to Gentiles (cf. 2:7), but its touchstone was the proclamation of salvation and life through the grace of God, to be appropriated by `the hearing of faith' (cf. 3:2, 5).

The preachers of this substitute message are called of Tap&ooovtEg, `the disturbers' of the peace which the true gospel had brought to the Galatians. Far from bearing any positive relation to the true gospel, their message is a counterfeit, calculated `to pervert (tetaoteeWat) the gospel of Christ.' With tae&ooovtes here may be compared the even stronger participle &vaotatovvteg in 5:12. The nature of their Tapaxr) or &vaOT&Twotg appears more clearly in the sequel: among other things, they were pressing the necessity of circumcision on the male converts in the Galatian churches: circumcision, they maintained, was an indispensable condition for justification before God. The identity of these trouble-makers is not immediately apparent: since Paul always refers to them in the third person, while he addresses his Galatian converts in the second person, it is unlikely that they emerged within the Galatian churches (as was argued by J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, ETr [London, 1959], 87ff.). They themselves may have been subject to pressures which can only be guessed at; Paul says nothing about this. What is clear is that he understood their insistence on circumcision-a rite which in itself, he held, was of no moment (5:6; 6:15)- to involve a retrogression from justification by grace to justification by lawkeeping, a retrogression from the liberty of the Spirit to religious slavery. Such an insistence undermined the authentic gospel, substituting a false foundation for that which God had laid (cf. 1 Cor. 3:11).

Paul himself had for long sought justification before God by his observance of the Jewish law, until his Damascus-road experience taught him the fruitlessness of such a quest and the bankruptcy of the way of law-keeping as a means of getting right with God. The assurance of ultimate acceptance by God, which could never be his while he lived under law, he received on the spot when he yielded submission to the risen Christ. On the spot, too, he realized that the law, to which he had devoted all his gifts and resources, had not been able to prevent him from pursuing the sinful course (as he now knew it to be) of persecuting the church of God (cf. v 13); the law had not even been able to show him that the course was sinful. The law, he says later, `was added because of transgressions' (3:19), i.e. to bring transgressions into the open and even to stimulate their commission; and in his personal experience this was true in a special sense: it was his devotion to the law that led him into the sin of sins-persecuting the followers of Christ. He himself knew the joyful sense of release from legal bondage when he placed his faith in Christ, and he desired the same release for his fellow-Jews; but that Gentiles, who had come to faith in Christ and experienced his saving grace without ever having lived under Jewish law, should now wish to assume the yoke of that law was a perversion of all reasonable order.

1:8 &XXi xal eav 1jiE XT?. It is the message, not the messenger, that ultimately matters. The gospel preached by Paul is not the true gospel because it is Paul who preaches it; it is the true gospel because the risen Christ gave it to Paul to preach. If Paul himself, or any other apostle, or even an angel were to bring a different message from that which had proved its saving power to the Galatians when they heard and believed it, both the messenger and his counterfeit message should be rejected. The authority and character of the preacher are important, no doubt, but their importance is secondary: more important is the content of what is preached. Luther expressed the idea in his own paradoxical style: `That which does not teach Christ is not apostolic, even if Peter and Paul be the teachers. On the other hand, that which does teach Christ is apostolic, even if Judas, Annas, Pilate or Herod should propound it' (Preface to Epistle of James, WA, Die deutsche Bibel, 7.384f.). By `teaching Christ' Luther meant nothing other than preaching the gospel of justification by faith alone.

nae' 6 (also in v 9), `beyond that which', `other than' (cf. 1 Cor. 3:11, naQ& iov xe(µevov, `other than that which has been laid down').

&va9Eµa iatw (also in v 9). This is a more solemn formula than the imprecation of Rev. 22:18f. (echoing Dt. 4:2; 29:19f.) on amplifying or diminishing the text of the Apocalypse. &va9Eµa is the regular LXX rendering of Heb. herem, `ban'. In a holy war the herem involved in practice the destruction of everyone and everything that fell under it. In theory whatever was under the herem was completely devoted to Yahweh-that is why it was sacrilege for Achan to take for himself some of the spoils of Jericho (Jos. 7:1, 20f.). But while that was the original sense of herem and of &v68Eµa (a derivative of &vat(Atlµu, `dedicate'), it is not the sense here. The sense here is, `May the divine curse rest on him' (cf. Rom. 9:3, where Paul says he could pray to be himself &v66Eto... &Tt0 tov Xptatov, `accursed from Christ', if his Jewish kinsfolk could be saved thereby).

But why should he express himself so vehemently against those who preached a different message from his own? Partly because he held the preaching of salvation by law-keeping to be a snare and a delusion, which put the souls of men and women in jeopardy; partly, also, because of its adverse implications for the authenticity of Christ. In Paul's eyes, the acknowledgement of Jesus as Messiah logically implied the abrogation of the law (see note on 3:19 below). If Christ displaced the law as the activating centre of Paul's own life, he equally displaced the law in the economy of God, in the ordering of salvation-history. Therefore, if the law was still in force as the way of salvation and life, the messianic age had not yet dawned, and Jesus accordingly was not the Messiah. In that case Jesus had been rightly convicted and sentenced because his messianic claims were false. Any teaching which logically led to such a conclusion was, for Paul, self-evidently perverse: any one who implied by such teaching that Jesus was anathema (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3) was himself anathema.

1:9 So seriously does Paul mean this that, after the rather rhetorical language of v 8, he repeats it more soberly (etti;...) but none the less emphatically.

(bs neoetpijxaµev probably refers to his having said so in v 8. He repeats it in order to impress it the more forcibly on his readers' minds. It is less likely that he had found it necessary to give them this warning by word of mouth when he was with them (so W. Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, ETr [Nashville/New York, 1972], 18f.); the issue of legalism had not arisen then. With JL6X6v 4Y(0 cf. 5:3, µaptvpoµat SE 7t6EXiv.

JtceXa(3ete, `you received'. In this kind of context JtaeaXaµ.(3avw (like Heb. gibbel) is the correlative of Jtapa6(Swµu (like Heb. masar), `deliver'; the two words are used of the receiving and handing on of tradition. The Galatians `received' from Paul the gospel which he in turn had received directly `by revelation of Jesus Christ', as he claims in v 12 (see note ad loc.).

(b) Paul is no men-pleaser (1:10)

Is it human beings or God that I am trying to persuade now? Or am I seeking to please human beings? If 1 were still pleasing human beings, I should not be Christ's bondslave.

1:10 'Ari...EZL...; it appears from the content of these two questions, especially from the force of the temporal adverbs &QTL ('now') and Eti (`still'), that Paul's consistency had been called in question. Whatever he might do or teach now, it was suggested, he had acted and taught differently at one time. He was suspected, in fact, of adapting his practice and preaching to please his changing company from one time or place to another.

One can well understand how Paul, whose settled policy it was to `become all things to all men' (1 Cor. 9:22), was charged with vacillation. It was easier for some people to take note of his changing conduct-exercising his liberty at one time and voluntarily restricting it at another-without appreciating his overriding consistency: `I do it all for the sake of the gospel' (1 Cor. 9:23). (See H. Chadwick, `All Things to All Men', NTS 1 [1954-55], 261-275; D. Daube, The NT and Rabbinic Judaism [London, 1956], 336-361.)

Persuading men and women was Paul's constant business, according to the only other occurrence of the transitive nEiOw in his writings: &v0p6tnovs 1tEC0otcv (2 Cor. 5:11). The content of this persuasion is summed up in the same context: `Be reconciled to God' (2 Cor. 5:20)-an appeal entrusted to Paul in his role as ambassador for Christ. Pleasing men and women was not what he was called to do. He was called to serve Christ: he could not make that his business, and aim to please his hearers at the same time. Thus in 1 Cor. 4:3f. he is not concerned about other people's assessment of him: `it is the Lord who judges me', he says, so he makes it his business to please the Lord. 'Menpleasers' (av0pw3T6t9EOxoL) were opportunists, rendering 'eye-service' (Col. 3:22; Eph. 6:6). As for his own apostolic duty, `we speak', he said, `not to please men, but to please God, who tests our hearts. For', he adds, `we never used words of flattery.'.. (1 Thes. 2:4f.)-which men-pleasers would naturally do. (If, in 1 Cor. 10:33, he speaks of his endeavour `to please all men in everything I do', the context makes it plain that it is a question of subordinating his own interests to the interests of others, with a view to their salvation. Similarly in Rom. 15:1-3 he insists, with an appeal to the example of Christ, that it is the duty of each Christian, and especially of one who is `strong', to `please his neighbour for his good, to edify him', instead of pleasing oneself.)

The implied answer to the question, `Is it human beings or God that I am trying to persuade now?' seems therefore to be `Human beings'. Persuading God was a concept entirely foreign to Paul's mind: it was the kind of thing that religious charlatans and practitioners of magic thought they could do. It was a common superstition, denounced by Hebrew prophets and by the higher paganism alike, that the deity could be persuaded by gifts: bCoQa 9covs ateI6et (Hesiod, quoted in Plato, Rep. 3.390E); ateiOcLv &upa xal Oeovg Xoyos (Eur. Medea 964). The present relevance of `persuading God' may lie in the anathema which Paul has just pronounced: it was all very well for him to anathematize the trouble-makers, but his anathema would be ineffective, it was implied, unless he could persuade God to endorse it.

W. Schmithals (Paul and the Gnostics, 56-58) takes the emphasis in the former question to lie on ie(9w-`Am I persuading men?' Paul's opponents, he suggests, charged him with making converts by the use of rhetorical devices, such as would be appropriate to teaching which was xata &v0pwrov but not to the communication of spiritual truth (cf. 1 Cor. 2:1-13). But according to Schmithals, Paul's repudiation of the charge that he used such persuasion implies that he understood it (wrongly) in the sense of dishonest methods, whereas later he understood it better and countered it with the claim that he used the persuasion of sober reasoning (2 Cor. 5:11-15). There is no good reason to suppose that Paul misunderstood the charge: he was frequently obliged to rebut the insinuation that he used underhand methods (2 Cor. 2:17; 4:1-3; 1 Thes. 2:9-12). Schmithals further suggests that Paul's alleged misunderstanding is responsible for the addition of rl T6V OE6v-which, says W. Bousset, `one would prefer to dispense with entirely' (Galater, 34)-Paul, by this account, replies to the charge by saying that he uses persuasion on no one at all, neither men nor God. It is much more satisfactory to take him to mean that he persuades men, not God, and pleases God, not men; indeed, he pleases God by persuading men. Cf. R. Bultmann's second thoughts in TDNT VI, 2 (s.v. nE(O(o): `hence &v0pwnots oxcLv&ps is materially identical with 'toy OEOV (7te(OELV)'-the implied charge being that, by preaching a law-free gospel, Paul was pleasing men by making the way of salvation easier for them and trying to persuade God to accept them on less arduous terms than those laid down in the law.

The question of pleasing men might have more specific reference to his care to preserve good relations with the Jerusalem church leaders on the one hand while asserting his independence of them on the other, or to his countenancing circumcision on some occasions (cf. 5:11) and prohibiting it on others (cf. 5:2). C. H. Talbert sees the indirect occasion of the letter in Acts 16:1-4, which presents two instances of Paul's so-called `men-pleasing'-his circumci sion of Timothy and his delivery of the Jerusalem decree to the recently planted churches of South Galatia ('Again: Paul's Visits to Jerusalem', NovT 9 [1967], 26-40). These incidents do at least illustrate what some of Paul's friends saw as his disconcerting adaptability. See also J. Jeremias, Abba (Gottingen, 1966), 285f.; H. Schlier, Galater, 41f.; P. Richardson, `Pauline Inconsistency', NTS 26 (1979-80), 347-362, especially 358-360.

There may be an echo of the charge of men-pleasing in Clem. Hom. 18.10, where Peter accuses Simon Magus (often a Clementine disguise for Paul) of speaking aeEoxoviws TOIg 3Taeovow ox?otc, `so as to please the multitudes who are present'.

EL ETL ... ovx &v rlµrly, a good example of the classical unfulfilled condition, referring to the present. Paul repeatedly calls himself a `slave' (Soiog) of Christ (Rom. 1:1, etc.), implying that he was unreservedly at Christ's disposal; for Christ's sake he is also the slave of others (2 Cor. 4:5), implying that he is unreservedly at their disposal in the service of Christ. But a slave cannot afford to aim at pleasing any one other than his master. (For EL eiL... cf. 5: 11, EL nepttoµrly ErL xrlpvoow, which would indeed be an example of `pleasing men'.)

III

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

PAUL'S INDEPENDENT GOSPEL

(1:11-2:14)

Emphasizing afresh that he received his gospel when Christ was revealed to him on the Damascus road, Paul reviews his early training in Judaism, his persecution of the church, the radical change wrought in him by the revelation of the Son of God, and his immediate obedience to the commission then laid on him to preach Christ in the Gentile world. He insists that he had begun this work before ever he met the leaders of the Jerusalem church, and that on the two occasions when he did meet them, separated by many years, they conferred no authority on him but acknowledged the validity of the commission which he was already discharging. They agreed that this commission was to Gentiles, as theirs was to Jews, and the only charge they gave him was a plea to remember the poor of the Jerusalem church.

When, not long afterwards, there was a confrontation at Antioch between Cephas (Peter) and himself, it was because a temporizing course of action on the part of Cephas threatened to compromise the gospel principle that justification before God, for Jews and Gentiles alike, comes only through faith in Christ.

(a) Paul's gospel received by revelation (1:11-12)

Let me assure you, brothers, that the gospel which was preached by me is no gospel according to man. It was from no human being that I received it, or learned it; it was by a revelation of Jesus Christ.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 11 yae B D* G pc lat cops / Se P46 tt* A byz syr coph°

v 12 mute (before EBLSaXOrly) P96 B byz / ovbE K A D* G q 33 81 at

Paul here begins an autobiographical summary which continues to 2:14; it occupies nearly one-fifth of the whole letter. It therefore constitutes a substantial part of his argument, and should help the modern reader to reconstruct at least one element in the situation to which Paul addresses himself. That element took the form of a denial of Paul's independent standing as an apostle. He is at pains, therefore, to rebut that denial, and to emphasize, with all the solemnity of which he is capable, that the gospel which he preaches, together with his commission to preach it, was received by him directly from the risen Christ, without any intermediary.

1:11 What Paul calls here to EvayyEXtov T6 EvayyEXtoOev iit' ~tov (cf. to EvayyeXtov tov, Rom. 2:16) is elsewhere called `the gospel of God' (1 Thes. 2:8f.; 2 Cor. 11:7), because God is its author, `the gospel of Christ' (1 Thes. 3:2; 2 Cor. 2:12; Rom. 15:9), because Christ is its subject-matter, or, more comprehensively, `the gospel of God concerning his Son' (Rom. 1:1-3). Other words or phrases used as the object of EvayyEX(l;oµat, or of its near-synonyms xr1etioow and xatayy,r),Xw (Paul usually treats EvayyE),.l~oµat as intransitive except with its cognate accusative EvayyEXtov), indicate the content or substance of the gospel: `Christ' (cf. avtOv, v 16), `Christ crucified' (1 Cor. 1:23), `Christ Jesus our Lord' (2 Cor. 4:5), `the faith', i.e. the message of salvation by faith (v 23), `peace' (Eph. 2:17), `the unsearchable riches of Christ' (Eph. 3:8).

But the gospel preached by Paul was the law-free gospel, the gospel to which anything like the obligation to be circumcised was completely alien. And this law-free gospel, he insists, is the gospel which he received by divine revelation on the Damascus road and which he was commissioned to make known among the Gentiles. It was no gospel xa'ra avOpwJiov, for no earthly authority had imparted it to him, neither was it the product of his own reasoning.

1:12 ov8>r yap Eyw ataea &vOewltov JtaQEXa(30v avtb. There may seem to be a formal contradiction between this assertion and other statements in which Paul uses naeakaµ(3&vw and naea&6(0[tt of himself according to the usual terminology of transmission-receiving (from predecessors) and delivering (to successors), as in 1 Cor. 11:23 (with regard to the actions and words of Jesus at the Last Supper) and 15:3 (with regard to the saving events of Christ's death, burial, resurrection and subsequent appearances). But there is no material contradiction. Paul was indebted for his gospel to no human being-not even to those who were `in Christ' before him. His language (cf. v 1) should not be pressed to imply that he denied &vOewnotr)S to the risen Christ; his readers knew quite well what he meant in denying all human origin or basis to his gospel. Paul's gospel-Jesus Christ is the Son of God; Jesus Christ is the risen Lord-was revealed to him on the Damascus road. No doubt he had heard such claims made for Jesus in the days of his persecuting zeal, but it was not the witness of the persecuted disciples that convinced him. He rejected their witness as blasphemous until he learned the truth by unmediated disclosure from heaven. On the other hand, facts about the life and teaching of Jesus, about his death, burial and resurrection appearances, were imparted to him after his conversion by those who had prior knowledge of them (see on vv 18f.).

J. D. G. Dunn suggests convincingly that `Paul regarded the kerygmatic tradition' which he received from the Jerusalem leaders as confirming his own convictions about Jesus which stemmed immediately from his conversion and commissioning on the Damascus road, and also as providing an invaluable way of expressing what was his gospel anyway, because it was a widely accepted formulation and not just his own idiosyncratic mode of expression' (Unity, 66).

W. Schmithals infers from Paul's language that his opponents claimed immediate divine revelation as the authority for their version of the gospel; he takes Paul to mean: `If they did not receive their gospel from man, as they claim, but by revelation, then neither did I receive mine from man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ' (Paul and the Gnostics, 20, 103f.). But they more probably claimed to have received the gospel in its purity from those who themselves received it directly from the Lord.

ovTE ML6d)Orly, sc. Hasa av0p6o7[ov. There is little difference here between 1taeActoov and iS&S&x011v (cf. Phil 4:9, & xai %RdOETE xai napeXBETE ...). Paul himself taught the Christian way to others (cf. 1 Cor. 4:17), but his only teacher was the Lord by the Spirit.

&Xk&86' &noxakvipEws 'ITioov XpLozov. That 'IrIoov X@Loiov here is an objective genitive is rendered most probable by the wording of vv 15f.: God `was pleased to reveal his Son (&noxaXl5aLibv vidv avzov) in me'. That is to say, God the Father was the revealer; it was Jesus Christ who was revealed, and in that revelation Paul received his gospel, together with the command to make it known in the Gentile world. The gospel and the risen Christ were inseparable; both were revealed to Paul in the same moment. To preach the gospel (v 11) was to preach Christ (v 16).

It is plain throughout Paul's letters (cf. Phil. 3:7-10) that what happened on the Damascus road was no isolated mystical experience, no mere `flash of insight or intellectual conviction, but a personal encounter, the beginning of a personal relationship which became the dominating passion of his life... . Religious experience for Paul is basically experience of union with Christ' (J. D. G. Dunn, Unity, 190, 195).

See P. H. Menoud, `Revelation and Tradition: The Influence of Paul's Conversion on his Theology', Int. 7 (1953), 131-141; J. Dupont, `The Conversion of Paul and its Influence on his Understanding of Salvation by Faith', Bruce FS, 176-194; G. Bornkamm, `The Revelation of Christ to Paul on the Damascus Road and Paul's Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation', Morris FS, 90-103; S. Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel (Tubingen, 1981).

It has been suggested that the criticisms of Paul's gospel, to which he makes reference in vv 11- 12, have controlled the structure of most of the letter. In v 11 his gospel is accused of being xai& dv0pw3Tov, while in v 12 it is said to be derived napes &v806nov. Both these criticisms, it is suggested, are now to receive detailed rebuttal, but in reverse order: in 1:13-2:21 Paul shows that his gospel was not derived napes &vOQ6)nov, and in 3:1-6:10 he argues that it is not xata dtvOpwnov. The bulk of the letter could then be viewed as an elaborate chiasmus (see BDF 477 [2] summarizing J. Jeremias, `Chiasmus in den Paulusbriefen', ZNW 49 [1958], 145-156, especially 152f.).

(b) Paul's earlier career (1:13-14)

You have heard about my former course of life in Judaism, how beyond all measure I persecuted the church of God and laid it waste. I forged ahead in Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my nation, being more exceedingly zealous for my ancestral traditions.

1:13 'Hxovoate. Paul's converts might have heard something about his former career as a persecutor from his own lips, but it is plain from the sequel that others were circulating reports about him-reports which he regards as deliberately disparaging and which he rebuts from his own first-hand testimony. While he himself might speak of his persecuting career in order to magnify the grace of God which rescued him from it, others might draw attention to it in order to insinuate that Paul was a doubtful character who could not be fully trusted. See v 20.

&vavtpocp~, conduct, course of life, occurs in this sense elsewhere in the Pauline corpus in Eph. 4:22 and I Tim. 4:12 (there are six occurrences in 1 Peter). The verb &vaotpecpoµaL (middle) is similarly used ('behave', `conduct oneself') in 2 Cor. 1:12; Eph. 2:3; 1 Tim. 3:15.

'Ioubcio[Og occurs in the NT only here and in v 14. The verb iovbailw, of which it is a derivative, is found in 2:14, but there it is used of Gentiles `judaizing', living like Jews (loubaixcugt~v), as in Est. 8:17 LXX; Josephus, War 2.454, 463. Here 'Iou&aiaµos means simply `Judaism', Jewish faith and life (as in 2 Macc. 2:21; 8:1; 14:38; 4 Macc. 4:26). xa0' vnEp(3oXrly, 'excessively', `beyond all measure'. Paul is the only NT writer to use this (quite classical) phrase (cf. Rom. 7:13; 1 Cor. 12:31; 2 Cor. 1:8; 4:17).

>Stwxov rrly ExxXTla(av tov OEov. Paul refers to his persecuting activity in much the same language in Phil. 3:6 where, as here, it is the outstanding token of his one-time zeal for the law (xat& ~r1Xo5 SLwxwv Trio exxX11o(av); 1 Cor. 15:9, where it should have disqualified him, even after his conversion, from being an apostle, but for the divine grace which nevertheless commissioned him (cf. 1 Tim. 1:13). He does not explicitly say that he carried on his persecuting activity in Jerusalem, but where else would he have found `the church of God' at that early date? To be sure, he `persecuted them even to foreign cities' (Acts 26:11), but Jerusalem was the disciples' main centre; it would have been pointless to persecute them elsewhere and leave their headquarters unscathed (see note on v 22). In this respect the evidence of Acts (8:3; 26:10) is in no way contrary to that of Paul's letters. Reading between the lines of Acts one may conclude that, among the disciples, the Hellenists were the principal targets for his attack, but Paul makes no distinction between `Hebrews' and `Hellenists' when he speaks of `persecuting the church'. Even so, if the Hellenists who were associated with Stephen not only maintained that Jesus was the Messiah but also proclaimed the abrogation of the customs delivered by Moses (Acts 6:14), they might well have incurred Paul's double detestation.

Luke expressly represents the apostles as remaining in Jerusalem during the persecution, from which, because of the popular good will they enjoyed, they may well have been exempt (nkivtcuv &nooto?,(ov, Acts 8:1), by contrast with the later persecution under Herod Agrippa I, after Peter had begun to fraternize with Gentiles; then the attack was directed particularly against the apostles (Acts 12:1-4). Perhaps in the earlier persecution `local Hebrew Christians still loyal to temple and law would be relatively secure' (Dunn, Unity, 274). Paul adds EJt6p0ovv as a stronger synonym of Eblwxov. The verb nop0ew, used of the sacking of cities (cf. v 23), was an apt one to use in the light of Luke's fuller description in Acts 8:3.

1:14 The verb Jtgox6Jttw ('advance', `increase') is used of Jesus' 'advancing' in wisdom, stature and grace in Luke 2:52. Josephus (Life, 8) describes how as a boy he `made great progress in education' (dg [tEy6Xtiv JtatSEias Jt(Joxosttov EJr(Sootv); this is a common Hellenistic use of the word (cf. G. Stahlin, TDNT VI, 705f., 709ff., s.v. 3tpox6Jttw).

avvriXtxtwiag, a Hellenistic term fora member of the same age-group (h7,,txia, `age').

Ev ttn yEvEi .tov. For yevos ('class', `race', `family') in reference to the Jewish nation cf. 2 Cor. 11:26; Phil. 3:5 (also Acts 7:19; 13:26).

7tE(JLoootE(JwS, `more exceedingly', `more abundantly' (cf. 2 Cor. 1:12; 7:13, 15; 12:15), used by Paul in the sense of v7tEp(3aXX6vtwg (2 Cor. 11:23).

It is best to give ~r)),,wt~s the general sense of `zealous' here. The word appears in a specialized sense of the party of the Zealots who emerge by that name in AD 66, perpetuating the ideals of Judas the Galilaean and his `fourth philosophy' (Jos., War 2.441, 651; 4.160f.). This may be the force of the sobriquet of Simon the Zealot (Lk. 6:15; Acts 1:13; cf. `Cananaean', from Aram. gan'ana', in Mk. 3:18; Mt. 10:4), but we do not know enough to be certain about this. Elsewhere in the NT the word has the more general force, as when James and his fellow-elders speak of the thousands of `zealots for the law' in the Jerusalem church (Acts 21:20; cf. Acts 22:3; 1 Cor. 14:12; Tit. 2:14; 1 Pet. 3:13). Paul's `zeal' was shown pre-eminently in his attempt to exterminate the church: to use language which he employs in another connexion in Rom. 10:2, it was a religious zeal (~~Xog9Eov) but an uninstructed zeal (ov xar' >?n(yv(Oatv). There is an ambivalence about lkog-it may be good or bad, not only in respect of its object but also in respect of the spirit in which it is cherished (see on 5:20, where it is listed as a `work of the flesh'). The Corinthians' zeal for the Jerusalem relief fund is praised in 2 Cor. 9:2, but in 2 Cor. 12:20 ~i1Xog (the same word) stands in a list of vices against which they are warned.

The `ancestral traditions' (Jtatptxai JtapaS6oEts; cf the compound adjective JtateoJtaeOSotog used of the former idolatrous practices of Gentile converts in 1 Pet. 1:18) comprise the ancestral tenets and customs to which Paul had been brought up in his father's house and in the school which he attendedaccording to Acts 22:3, the school of Gamaliel I in Jerusalem, where he was trained according to the exactitude of `the ancestral law' (tov Jtatp(bov v6µov), `being a zealot for God' (~riXwtils vJtaexwv tov 9Eov). His claim is amplified in Phil. 3:5f., where he describes himself as `a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee,... as to righteousness under the law blameless' (cf. Acts 23:6; 26:5). The `traditions' would be more particularly those enshrined in the oral law (torah se-be`al peh) or halakhah handed down in Pharisaic schools.

(c) Paul becomes an apostle (1:15-17)

But when he who set me apart while I was as yet unborn and called me by his grace saw fit to reveal his Son in me, that I should make his good news known among the Gentiles, immediately-without conferring with any human being, or going up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me-I set out for Arabia, and came back again to Damascus.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 15 ethoxrloev Pas B G 629 pc lat syr"~h IrenlAl Euseb / add o Oro; iZ A D IF byz syrhC1** cop

xat xaXEaaS Sca tTIS xagLtoc autou om P46 6 1739 1881 pc

v 17 avrlX9ov / anrlXOov PS' B D G pc 1 r1X6ov P46

1:15 `God' [6 9E6S] was probably added to the text for the sake of explicitness: `he who set me apart... and called me by his grace' is, of course, God, the implied subject of Ev86xr1oev ('was well pleased', `resolved', `saw fit').

wpop(oac, in the same sense as in Rom. 1:1, where Paul speaks of himself as `set apart (&(Poweto.thvos) for the gospel of God'. It is just conceivable that Paul has at the back of his mind the basic sense of `Pharisee' (Heb. pdrus, Aram. pens, `separated'): now he is, so to speak, a `separated person' in quite a different sense from formerly. But such a play on words, even if it was present to Paul's own mind, would not have been appreciated by his readers. ex xoiXias µrltpos .tov, a Septuagintalism (Heb. mibbeten 'immi), lit. `from my mother's womb' (cf. Jdg. 13:5; Ps. 22 [LXX 21]:10; 58 [LXX 57]:3; 71 [LXX 70]:6); it may mean either `since my birth' or `since before my birth' (here the latter would be apposite). Before ever he was born, Paul means, God had his eye on him and set him apart for his apostolic ministry.

This language is strongly reminiscent of that in which some of the OT prophets relate their calls. Cf. Je. 1:5, `Before I formed you in the womb (ev xoLXia) I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Eis 96vr1)'; Is. 49:1-6, where the Servant says, `Yahweh called me from the womb (>rx xoLXias ll?Itrc tov ExaXEoE), from the body of my mother he named my name', not only to minister to Israel but to be `a light to the nations ((pcus eOvcuv), that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.' It is not by chance that in Acts 13:47 these last words are quoted by Paul and Barnabas in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch as their authority for taking the gospel to the Gentiles. In Paul's view, it was for others to take up the Servant's mission to Israel, but he knew himself called to fulfil that part of the Servant's vocation which involved the spreading of God's saving light among the Gentiles, near and far, as he indicates in the words which follow.

See J. Munck, Paul, 24ff.

xai xaXeoac 8u tf; X6QITos aviov. Cf. v 5, where God is the one `who called you in grace'. There the general call of God to all his people is in view; here that is included, but it involves also the special call of God to Paul for his personal life-work. For `grace' in this connexion cf. Rom. 1:5.

1:16 &toxaXpat tov vlov avtov Ev ito(. This is the &nox&A.uWts 'ITloov Xptotov mentioned above in v 12. The reference is to Paul's Damascusroad experience in which, as he puts it elsewhere, `I have seen Jesus our Lord' (1 Cor. 9:1), `last of all he appeared [in resurrection] also to me' (1 Cor. 15:8), `I was apprehended by Christ Jesus' (Phil. 3:12). The prepositional phrase iv £to( could be a substitute for the simple dative (cf. cpavepov iotiv eV avtot;, Rom. 1:19; iv tots &JTOkkUµevots Eotiv xexakvµµevov, 2 Cor. 4:3), but here it probably points to the inwardness of the experience. For Paul the outward vision and the inward illumination coincided: Jesus, whom he persecuted, was revealed as the Son of God, and the revelation was the act of God himself.

See BDF 220 (1); A. Fridrichsen, Apostle, 12, 22 n. 23.

When Paul speaks in 2 Cor. 4:4 of `seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God', and goes on to say that God `has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ' (2 Cor. 4:6), his choice of language is most probably based on his Damascus-road vision. If so, he saw `Jesus our Lord' then in a form which identified him not only as the Son of God but also as the image of God, the reflexion of the divine glory.

We may compare the experience of Isaiah, who was both cleansed and commissioned in the course of his vision of the glory of God (Is. 6:1-9a), or of Ezekiel, whose call came in the course of a similar vision (Ezk. 1:4-3:11). For Ezekiel the divine glory was perceptible in `a likeness as it were of a human form' (Ezk. 1:26); for Paul the human form manifested the lineaments of a particular person: `the face of Christ'. The appearance of the risen Christ to him was an objective experience, in which Christ took the initiative: the repeated c;xpOrl of 1 Cor. 15:5-8 ('he let himself be seen') means that the appearance of the risen Christ to him was as real as his earlier appearances to Peter, James and others, not that their experiences were as `visionary' as Paul's.

Attempts which have been made, since C.Holsten, `Die Christus-Vision des Paulus and die Genesis des paulinischen Evangeliums', ZWT 4 (1861), 223-284, to present a psychological analysis of Paul's experience have failed to account for all the data.

Perhaps Paul's making toy viov aviov the object of attoxaX,vpat implies that it was specifically as the Son of God that the risen Christ appeared to him. Luke may preserve a reminiscence of this when he summarizes Paul's first preaching of Christ in the words: `He is the Son of God' (Acts 9:20).

See S. Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel, 100-233. On `the Son of God' see O. Cullmann, Christology, 270-305; W. Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of God, 108-128, 183-194; G. Bornkamm, paid, 249; M. Hengel, The Son of God; C. F. D. Moule, Christology, 22-31; 1. H. Marshall, Christology, 111-123; W. G. Kammel, Theology, 151-154, 160-165.

Na evayye7,,i~wtat avtov Ev Wig E6veoiv. The purpose of the revelation, that Paul should proclaim the gospel of Christ among the Gentiles, was part of the revelation itself: conversion and commission came together. It was then that he received from the risen Lord `grace and apostleship [perhaps a hendiadys for `grace of apostleship'], to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations' (Rom. 1:5). Indeed, the logic of `the gospel according to Paul' was implicit in his Damascus-road experience. Paul grasped this in essence there and then, although the fuller implications of the experience became plain to him more gradually. But the bankruptcy of the law and the all sufficiency of Christ came home to him at once. Knowledge of the law was the prerogative of Jews, but if salvation was bestowed by grace (as it was now bestowed on Paul) and not on the ground of law-keeping, then it was accessible to Gentiles equally with Jews. There is no good reason to hold with A. Fridrichsen (Apostle, 13, 23 n. 26) that this element in the revelation was first imparted to Paul in a subsequent vision (cf. Acts 22:21, together with O. Betz, `Die Vision des Paulus im Tempel von Jerusalem', Stahlin FS, 113-123). See further on Gal. 2:7.

Neither can it necessarily be inferred from Paul's language here that before his conversion he was engaged in a proselytizing mission among the Gentiles, however probable this may be on other grounds (see further on 5:11).

The adverb Ev0s wg modifies not so much the two immediately following negative clauses (ov rrpooavEOeµrly... ovSE &vfX0ov...) as the affirmative clause to which they lead up (&],X' &JriXOov ...

ovjtpoaavaOetrlv, `I did not consult'. In 2:16 the same verb has the sense `contribute', `confer'; see also &ve6>µrly, `I laid before', in 2:2.

oapxi xai aisatL, `flesh and blood', i.e. mortal humanity; cf. Mt. 16:17, `flesh and blood has not revealed (&ncx&XuEv) this to you', i.e. `no human being has told you this'; 1 Cor. 15:50, `flesh and blood [i.e. the mortal body] cannot inherit the kingdom of God'. For the reverse order atµa xai o&p~ cf. Eph. 6:12; Heb. 2:14. Similar phrases occur in Euripides, frag. 687.If.; Polyaenus, Strategica 3.11.1 (aiµa xai o&pxas); Wis. 12:5 xai adsatos); (oapxwv... Sir. 14:18 (oapxos xai atµatos, rendering Heb. 17:31. bdsdr wadam); Heb. basar waddm occurs passim in rabbinical literature.

1:17 oiSE &vfOov els `IeQoooXvµa. In the NT one regularly `goes up' to Jerusalem, more or less as in England one `goes up to town' (i.e. to London). The verb used is commonly &vctci(vo) (almost a technical term for going up to Jerusalem; see J. Schneider, TDNT I, 519, s.v. (3aivw), as in 2:1 (cf. Mk. 10:32f.; Lk. 2:42; in. 2:13; 5:1; Acts 21:15; also 2 Sa. [LXX 2 Ki.] 8:7; 1 Esd. 2:5; Ezr. 1:3; 7:7; 1 Macc. 4:36f.; 3 Macc. 3:16). Here and in v 18 Paul uses &vrXOov, which is synonymous with &v>43rly (2:1); it should not be rendered `I went back', `I returned' (for which the appropriate compound would be E3tavi17,,0ov; cf. Lk. 10:35; 19:15). Cf. Jn. 6:3, &vi1X0ev els to opos ('he went up into the hill country').

Only in vv 17f. and 2:1 does Paul use the hellenized neuter plural `IEpoooXvµa for Jerusalem; in the seven other places where he refers to the city by name (including Gal. 4:25f; see p. 220) he uses the Septuagintal 'IEpovoaX7[L.

epos tovs Jt(JO Eµov &atoatOXovs, among whom (pace Schmithals) he includes not only Peter and, presumably, the eleven, but also (most probably) James the Lord's brother (cf v 19) and possibly others. Apostleship for Paul is mission, with the implication of direct commissioning. npo E tov is temporal; it does not denote precedence in status.

In 1 Cor. 9:1 Paul's claim to be an apostle is closely bound up with his claim to have `seen Jesus our Lord'-i.e. in resurrection. It seems to follow that others to whom the risen Lord appeared should similarly be recognized as apostles-the twelve as a whole (including Cephas/Peter) as well as James and `all the apostles' (1 Cor. 15:5, 7). It may well have been to their seeing the risen Lord that James and 'all the apostles' of I Cor. 15:7 owed their apostolic title. If the five hundred of 1 Cor. 15:6 should be included, then the apostles were a numerous body indeed. Probably, however, there is the additional implication of special commissioning by the risen Lord. This might cover such 6n60toXot as Andronicus and Junia(s) (Rom. 16:7).

W. Schmithals (Office of Apostle, 1971) introduced a new hypothesis into the long debate about apostleship. The NT use of the term, he argued, is gnostic in origin. Evidence for gnostic &ltootoXot at a later date is provided, perhaps, by Rev. 2:2 (&7too't6Xovs... pEvbris) and more certainly by Tert. De praesc. 30.13 (probent se nouos apostolos esse); cf. Heges. ap. Euseb. HE 4.22.6 (ipEVbantoaTo?.ot), Dion. Cor. ap. Euseb. HE 4.23.12 (ol tov bta(36xov &ttb(jtoa,ot); but their existence in Paul's day is not proven (the VEu6aat6otokot of 2 Cor. 11:13, [tEtaoxYjµatt~oµevot EIS &atocroXoug Xetatov, are not obviously gnostics). According to Schmithals the twelve (a post-Easter conception read back into the pre-Easter situation) were not originally apostles; it is Luke who makes this equation and indeed confines the apostolate to the twelve. Paul, he holds, does not refer to the twelve as apostles; even Peter is not counted an apostle in 1 Cor. 9:5; 15:5, although the designation is conceded to him in Gal. 1:18f. (by implication) and 2:8 (Eig &3rootoM1v rug JTcQL'to tfs).

But whatever be the textual status of the clause ovg xa'L 6noat6?.ous wv6taoev 67tOOTekew referring to the twelve in Mk. 3:14, they are the objects of Christ's (cf. Mk. 6:7); and it is from their first being sent out No Svo in the course of the Galilaean ministry that they were originally called 6at6otokoL, even if they had to be re-established and re-commissioned by their Lord after he rose again. The twelve must have been pre-eminent among those in Jerusalem who were `apostles' already at the time of Paul's conversion.

In emphasizing his independence of the Jerusalem leaders, Paul has regard to the demands of his present apologia. As appears in 2:2, he was well aware of the importance of maintaining fellowship with those leaders if his own apostolic ministry was to be effective. Elsewhere he insists that his gospel was based on the same saving events as theirs, since the risen Lord who appeared to him had already appeared to them: `whether therefore it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed' (1 Cor. 15:11). But here he is rebutting the account which had evidently won wide circulation, that the Jerusalem leaders instructed him soon after his conversion in the principles of the gospel (including, it may have been said, the continuing requirement of circumcision), but that he broke loose from their tutelage and pursued a line of his own with his circumcisionfree gospel-a line which lacked any recognizable authority. Paul has already denied this account of the matter in v 12; now he says in effect: `That is impossible, for I had begun to preach the gospel in response to the Lord's Damascus-road commission before ever I met the leaders of the Jerusalem church; and when at last I did meet them, it was for too short a time for them to impart much in the way of instruction. Many more years elapsed, in fact, before I had an opportunity of setting my law-free gospel before them, and when I did so they acknowledged it to be the valid gospel for the Gentiles, to whom I had been manifestly sent to preach it.'

6nfiX6ov elc 'Apa(3iav-a reference, probably, to the Nabataean kingdom, founded in the 2nd century BC with its capital at Petra; at this time it stretched from the neighbourhood of Damascus south into the Hijaz. The Na bataean king at the time of Paul's conversion was Aretas IV (9 BC - AD 40), at present embroiled with his western neighbour Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea (4 BC - AD 39), because of the insult offered to his family some years earlier when Antipas divorced Aretas's daughter so as to be free to marry Herodias (Jos., Ant. 18.109-115).

It is possible that in `Arabia' Paul communed with God in the wilderness where Moses and Elijah had communed with him centuries before; but in the present context the primary purpose of his Arabian visit appears to have been the immediate fulfilment of his commission to preach the Son of God `among the Gentiles'. There were Gentiles in abundance in the Nabataean realm, both settled population and Bedouin. Nothing is said of the planting of any church, but a beginning in preaching the gospel is indicated. Paul's argument at this point is: `As soon as I was converted, I began my apostolic service, and had been thus engaged for three years before ever I saw the leaders of the Jerusalem church' That his visit to `Arabia' was not undertaken solely for the purpose of a contemplative retreat in the desert is confirmed by the incident which he recalls in 2 Cor. 11:32f.: `In Damascus the ethnarch of King Aretas was guarding the city of the Damascenes to arrest me, and I was let down through a window in a basket and escaped his hands.' He had evidently done something to attract the hostile attention of the Nabataean authorities if the Nabataean king's representative in Damascus attempted to kidnap him as he left the city. His attempt, and Paul's escape, presumably took place after Paul `returned to Damascus', as he says here.

The mention of his return to Damascus (xal JT&Xiv 'U7LEOTQEVa Eis Aaµaoxov) confirms the record of Acts (9:3; 22:6; 26:12f.) that it was at or near Damascus that he was confronted by the risen Christ.

Damascus, one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world (cf. Gn. 14:5; 15:2), was an Amorite centre in patriarchal times, but later became the capital of an Aramaean kingdom. It was captured and annexed by the Assyrians in 732 BC and was thereafter controlled by the successive empires which dominated that part of the Near East. In 66 BC it fell into the hands of the Romans, in whose power it thereafter remained (apart from a brief occupation by the Parthians in 40-39 BC) as one of the cities of the Decapolis, under the general supervision of the imperial legate of Syria. Under the Seleucids Damascus had become hellenized and rebuilt on the grid pattern, with the various installations characteristic of a Hellenistic city. Arguments that it was controlled by the Nabataean kings from AD 37 to 61 (based on the absence of Roman coins from its coin record between those years) are not conclusive (see Schiirer, HJP, I, 581f.). R. Jewett, Dating Paul's Life (London, 1979), 30-33, suggests that the principate of Gaius (AD 37-41), who re-established a system of client-kings in that part of the world, provides a setting in which Aretas could have acquired control of Damascus; this is possible, but a change of government in Damascus need not be postulated on the basis of 2 Cor. 11:32f. alone. However, the Nabataean territory certainly adjoined the environs of Damascus closely on the southeast, and there was doubtless a considerable Nabataean community in the city, whose interests were looked after by the king's ethnarch. The Jewish community in Damascus was also large, even if its numbers did not come up to Josephus's estimate of 10,500 (War 2.561) or 18,000 (War 7.368).

We cannot be sure if the disciples of Jesus within the Jewish community of Damascus had any links with the `covenanters' of Damascus attested in the Zadokite Work (if indeed we are right in putting a literal interpretation on 'Damascus' in that work). Nor is there any cogency in E. Lohmeyer's theory that members of the family of Jesus had settled in Damascus because they expected to witness the parousia there (Galilaa, 54ff.; cf. H.-J. Schoeps, Judenchristentum, 270ff.). In any case, while it was with the disciples in Damascus that Paul first enjoyed Christian fellowship, it was not from them that he derived his gospel (see Bruce, Paul, 76-82).

(d) Paul meets the Jerusalem church leaders (1:18-20)

Next, after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas, and stayed with him for fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles, except James, the Lord's brother. Look: in what I am writing to you, as God is my witness, I am telling no lie.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v18Krlcpav p46' 51 Ka, A B pc syrpesh hcl.mg cop / llEtpov K2 D G W byz ]at syrhII

1:18 "EncLta, `then', `next'. This is the first of three successive occurrences of E7tE6ta (cf. v 21; 2:1). The force of Paul's argument here depends on his giving a consecutive account of his career since his conversion, with special reference to his visits to Jerusalem. His case would be weakened if his readers were given reason to suspect that he had omitted any material detail-it would be particularly suspicious if he omitted a visit to Jerusalem.

pETa tpta etrl, perhaps by inclusive reckoning; if so, we should say `in the third year' (cf. the explanation of µEta tQEts iithas in Mk. 8:31; 10:34 as try tp(trl ~µepa or t itµgPt t(Jtt~ in the parallel passages Lk. 9:22; 18:33). But Paul emphasizes the interval which elapsed between his conversion and his first subsequent visit to Jerusalem, implying that in this interval he had already begun his apostolic ministry without any authorization or even recognition on the part of the Jerusalem leaders.

&vfj,Oov E[S `IEpoooXvµa. Cf. v 17, with notes ad loc. Despite disparities between the two accounts (see note on v 20), this must be the visit of Acts 9:26-30 (pace P. Parker, `Once More, Acts and Galatians', JBL 86 [1967], 175ff., who denies that the visit of Acts 9:26-30 took place and equates this visit with that of Acts 11:30).

iatop7loat KiIcpav. Krlcpac is Aram. kepd' ('rock', `stone') supplied with a Greek case-ending. By this form Paul regularly designates the apostle who is more commonly called Peter (IIstpos), the Greek rendering of the Aramaic term. Outside Paul's letters, K1I(pag occurs (with the explanation S EeLvcVEtat H t(?ns) only in Jn. 1:42, where Jesus hails Simon, Andrew's brother, thus. Paul uses the Greek form Ilftpos only in Gal. 2:7f. (see note ad be, for a possible explanation).

Aram. kepd' should no doubt be discerned behind both HI teoc and netpa in Mt. 16:18 where Jesus says, `You are Peter (HItpog), and on this rock (1t9TQa) I will build my church.' Like Heb. kep (Jb. 30:6; Je. 4:29), the Aramaic word means `rock'. In IIQtgJob it is used twice (Jb. 39:1, 28) as the rendering of Heb. seta` ('crag'), and it seems to have the same sense in several places in 4QEnaram (e.g. 1 Enoch 4; 89:29, 32). It appears once as a personal name in the Elephantine papyri of the 5th century BC; cf. E. G. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (New Haven, 1953), 227 (text 8, line 10). See J. A. Fitzmyer, `Aramaic Kepha' and Peter's Name in the NT', Black FS (2), 121-132.

If iotoe7loat is used here with its classical force, it means that Paul went up to Jerusalem to interview Cephas, to make inquiry of him. We may be sure in any case that this is what Paul did. But there is substantial evidence in Hellenistic usage for iotopaw in the sense of `making someone's acquaintance' (cf. Jos., War 6.81; Plut., Theseus 30, Pompey 40, Lucullus 2, De curiositate 2; Epict., Diss. 2.14.28; 3.7.1), and this may be the sense in which Paul uses it here. (The verb occurs three times in the LXX-in 1 Esd. 1:33 bis, 42-but with the sense `record', `report', which is irrelevant to the present instance.) It was important for Paul to get to know the leader of the original apostles, who was also at this time the unchallenged leader of the Jerusalem church. That Cephas could at the same time give him information which it was important for him to know-first-hand information about Jesus' life and teaching, death and resurrection-appearances-should go without saying, were it not that it has seemed to some scholars to be ruled out of court by Paul's disclaimer in v 12 and his expressed resolution in 2 Cor. 5:16 not `to know Christ after the flesh' (cf. R. Bultmann, `The Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul' [1929], ETr in Faith and Understanding, I [London, 1966], 241; H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 52, 72, 79). But to know Christ `after the flesh' (xat& o&pxa) is to make a worldly and negative assessment of him, by contrast with that acquaintance with him through the Spirit which began for Paul on the Damascus road; it does not exclude an interest in the `historical' Jesus-in what Jesus did and said during his Palestinian ministry.

One piece of information which he most probably received during this visit was that Jesus, having been raised from death on the third day, `appeared to Cephas' (1 Cor. 15:5). That Jesus in resurrection appeared personally to Simon Peter is attested independently in Lk. 24:34 and may be implied elsewhere in the resurrection narratives of the Gospels (cf. R. H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives [London, 1972], 34f.). It may also have been from Cephas that Paul learned how, after his appearance to Cephas, Jesus appeared `then to the twelve, then... to more than five hundred brethren at one time' (the further statement, at the end of I Cor. 15:6, that most of these brethren were still alive is Paul's addition, twenty years after he originally received the information).

xal euEsriva Jtp6g avtbv iµepas 8Ex6E7tEVtE. Fifteen days would Paul give ample opportunity to learn as much of the story of Jesus as Cephas could tell him. The preposition ,npos in the sense of `with' (as in Mk. 6:3) is probably a colloquial Hellenistic usage (in Jn. l:lf. it is taken up and applied to the relation of the Logos with God; cf. 1 Jn. 1:2). But whatever took place between Paul and Cephas during these two weeks, nothing took place which could modify the absoluteness of Paul's affirmation that he received his gospel direct from the risen Christ, through no intermediary. That affirmation (v 12) is the major premise of the argument implicit in the whole autobiographical outline which follows it. `A late catechumenate and a crash course in missionary work with Peter are thus ruled out' (G. Bornkamm, Paul, 28).

1:19 EtEpov SE uuv &rooroXwv ovx etSov. Precisely whom Paul reckoned among the apostles at that time (cf. v 17) may be uncertain, but W. Schmithal's argument, noted above, that they did not include the `twelve' (apart from Cephas, so far as our present context is concerned) is quite unacceptable. If Paul's language here leaves open the possibility that he did see others of the `twelve' in addition to Cephas-if, in fact, `it is hardly believable that during a fourteen-day stay in Jerusalem Paul could remain unknown to the restricted number of the "Twelve"' (Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, 22 n. 26)-those against whom he is arguing would have seized on what they recognized as a damaging admission, inadequately camouflaged by his failure to make explicit mention of the rest of the `twelve'.

EL µi) 'I6xcu(3ov toy &&upov tov xvp(ov. Paul was anxious both then and throughout his apostolic career to establish and maintain bonds of fellowship with the Jerusalem church and its leaders. There was another of those leaders in Jerusalem at this time whom he made a point of meeting-James, the Lord's brother. He should in all probability be identified with the James who is named as the first of four brothers of Jesus in Mk. 6:3 (cf. Mt. 13:55) in a context which suggests that they, with an unspecified number of unnamed sisters, were, like Jesus himself, children of Mary. The Lord's `brothers' are mentioned by Paul in 1 Cor. 9:5 as well-known Christian figures in the mid-fifties.

There is disagreement among early Christian writers about the exact relation which those `brothers' bore to Jesus. Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 4.19; De Car. 7) appears to have regarded them as uterine brothers, the sons of Joseph and Mary; others, like the author of the Protevangelium of James (9:2), took them to be sons of Joseph by a previous marriage. This latter view was defended by Epiphanius in a letter subsequently incorporated in Haer. 78. The view that they were uterine brothers was explicitly affirmed about AD 380 by Helvidius of Rome, who disapproved of the prevalent tendency to exalt virginity above marriage and child-rearing. Helvidius was answered in 383 by Jerome (Adversus Helvidium de perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae), who propounded a third viewthat the Lord's &SEXcpot were actually his first cousins, the sons of Alphaeus by `Mary of Clopas', whom he inferred from Jn. 19:25 to be the Virgin's sister (cf. Mk. 15:40). This view, as Jerome claimed, safeguarded the perpetual virginity not only of Mary but also of Joseph. It is plain that the controversy was occasioned rather by considerations of theological propriety than by a concern for historical fact. J. B. Lightfoot conveniently distinguishes the three principal views just listed as the Epiphanian, the Helvidian and the Hieronymian ('The Brethren of the Lord', Galatians, 252-291). See also R. E. Brown, K. P. Donfried, J. A. Fitzmyer, J. Reumann (ed.), Mary in the NT (London, 1978), 65-72, 270-278.

James was perhaps already the leader of one group in the Jerusalem church. About nine years later 'James and the brethren' seem to form a distinct group from those associated with Peter (Acts 12:17). James's influence was destined to increase rapidly until he became the acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem church as a whole, taking precedence even over Cephas/Peter (see 2:9, 12 below, with notes ad loc.). This is the more remarkable because the references to Jesus' family in the gospel tradition (both Markan and Johannine) imply that they were far from being followers of his during his ministry. `Even his brothers', says the fourth Evangelist, `did not believe in him' (Jn. 7:5), and we should gather as much from Mk. 3:21, 31-35. But according to Paul (1 Cor. 9:5) and Luke (Acts 1:14) they had a distinct place among his followers from the early postresurrection period onwards. If it be asked how this change in their attitude came about, at a time when Jesus' shameful death might well have confirmed in their minds the misgivings which they had felt about him all along, Paul's statement in 1 Cor. 15:7, that Christ in resurrection `appeared to James', points to the answer.

A. Harnack, `Die Verklarungsgeschichte Jesu, der Bericht des Paulus (I Kor 15, 3ff.) and die beiden Christusvisionen des Petrus' (SAB, phil.-hist. Kl., 1922, 62-80), argued that the accounts of the resurrection appearances to Cephas and James were originally rival accounts, derived from two separate groups-the Petrine and the Jacobean. The Petrine ('he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then... to more than five hundred brethren at one time') was the earlier, but was displaced by a later one in which the first appearance was granted to James ('he appeared to James, then to all the apostles'). Paul in that case would have put the two rival accounts together in sequence, with his repeated E3Tetta or $Lta, giving priority to the Petrine one, so that both accounts led up to the later appearance granted to himself.

On the other hand, Paul is our only near-contemporary authority for the appearance to James, and he explicitly dates it later (iJtELta) than the appearance to Cephas. Moreover, here in Gal. 1:18f. he provides evidence of an occasion, early in his Christian career, when he had an opportunity to hear both accounts direct from the principals themselves, and presumably to conclude which of the two saw the risen Christ first. That is to say, if it was during Paul's present visit to Jerusalem that he learned of the risen Lord's appearance to Cephas, it was no doubt during the same visit that he learned of his subsequent (ErrEiTa) appearance to James, while he himself would be able to add his personal testimony: `Last of all... he appeared also to me' (1 Cor. 15:8). The appearance of the risen Christ evidently produced in James a revolutionary effect comparable to that which it later produced in Paul.

There is no other canonical mention of the appearance to James (as there is of the appearance to Cephas); an imaginatively embellished account from Gos. Heb. is quoted by Jerome, De viris illustribus 2: `Now when the Lord had given his linen garment to the priest's servant, he went to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn that he would eat no bread from that hour when he had drunk the cup of the Lord until he saw him rising from the dead. [And again, a little later:] "Bring a table and bread", said the Lord; [and immediately it continues:] He took bread and gave thanks and broke it, and thereafter he gave it to James the Just and said to him, "My brother, eat your bread, because the Son of Man has risen from those who sleep".'

The most natural way to understand Paul's construction ... itrpov ovx ElbovE'lµrl... is: `The only other apostle I saw [apart from Cephas] was James the Lord's brother.' It is less natural to take it to mean `I saw none of the other apostles, but I did see James the Lord's brother' (cf. J. G. Machen, Galatians, 76-80). It would be difficult to improve on J. B. Lightfoot's observation that El Rfl has (as always) exceptive force, the question here being `whether the exception refers to the whole clause or to the verb alone'. In the present construction `the sense of 1TEpov naturally links it with El µ7l, from which it cannot be separated without harshness, and ETE(JOV carries T6V &7toot6Xwv with it' (Galatians, 84f.). L. P. Trudinger, `Heteron de ton apostolon ouk eidon, ei me Ia- kobon...: A Note on Galatians i. 19', NovT 17 (1975), 200-202, argues for the rendering: `Apart from the apostles I saw no one but James, the Lord's brother'. But, as was pointed out in a reply to him by G. Howard, `Was James an Apostle? A Reflection on a New Proposal for Gal i 19', NovT 19 (1977), 63f., if Paul had wished to say this, he would have expressed himself differently, saying perhaps > tEpov (rl tons &noat6Xovc ... (or ttae& tovs &toat6l,.ovc ... or Extoc Twv &7toot6Xwv ...). Trudinger's rendering provides a closer harmonization with Acts 9:27, where Barnabas is said to have used his good offices and brought Paul atpbs Tovc &rtoar6Xovc ('to the apostles'). But it is best to take tovc &JnooT6Xovc in Acts 9:27 as an instance of the generalizing plural.

A good parallel to the present construction, with the pronoun in the negative clause qualified by a genitive, is I Cor. 1:14, oTSEVa vµcuv £(3aatttoa ei A Kpioatov xal Fafov, `I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius' (where Crispus and Gaius are included in iuv). Where the exception relates to the negatived verb only, this is made plain by the context, as in 2:16, ov StxaLOfJTaL av8pwatos >;~ Epywv voµov el µ7l WC at(cTewg..., `one is not justified by legal works but [one is justified] through faith'. There is nothing in the present context to suggest that here the exception relates to ovx dSov only.

Probably few would have questioned the rendering here preferred but for misgivings about the designation of James as an apostle. But there is nothing anomalous in the designation, so far as Paul's usage of &jt6otoXos is concerned. He clearly did not restrict the designation to the twelve. If, in the summary of resurrection appearances in 1 Cor. 15:5-7 he links the appearance to Cephas with a following appearance to `the twelve' (to whose number Cephas belonged), his linking of the appearance to James with a following appearance to `all the apostles' suggests that he included James among `all the apostles'.

According to C. Marius Victorinus Afer, In epistulam Pauli ad Galatas ... (on 1:19), the Symmachians (Ebionites) regarded this James as the twelfth apostle (ed. A. Locher [Leipzig, 1972], 14).

At any rate, during that first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem, Paul had only a limited opportunity of conferring with `flesh and blood'; should any one suppose that he met the whole apostolic college at that time, he would be mistaken, as Paul asserts most solemnly.

1:20 tSov iV6)JTLOV Tov 6eov ott ov ytev8otat. Paul's oath that he is telling the truth may be based on (Roman) judicial procedure. He is defending himself against the charge that he proclaims a man-made, second-hand gospel and that his commission to proclaim it was derived from men. There may be the further implied charge that he has not been faithful even to that human commission-that he has abridged or adulterated the message which was delivered to him by others.

To this compound accusation Paul replies with a twofold line of defence: (i) his gospel was not derived from mortal man but from God; it was part and parcel of that `revelation of Jesus Christ' which God imparted to him; (ii) even if this claim of his were (per impossibile) disproved, then, wherever his gospel came from, it could not have come from Jerusalem. J. P. Sampley, ` "Before God, I do not lie" (Gal. 1.20: Paul's Self-Defence in the Light of Roman Legal Praxis', NTS 23 (1976-77), 477-482, points out that the proffering of oaths in court was generally discouraged, `unless it is absolutely necessary' (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 9.2.98). Paul did consider it absolutely necessary at this point, where the independence of his gospel and of his apostleship was at stake. His readers might find it unlikely that he met only two men of apostolic standing during the two weeks of this Jerusalem visit, and these two, perhaps, the leaders of distinct groups in the mother-church. It might have been expected that more of the apostles would have been present in Jerusalem; possibly Paul himself had expected to meet more of them, but in the event he could congratulate himself (for the sake of his present defence) that he had met so few.

The vehement solemnity with which Paul calls God to witness that he is not lying implies that another account of the matter was current and might have reached his Galatian converts-an account which represented him as having gone to Jerusalem to receive from those who were apostles before him the authority to exercise his own ministry.

0. Linton, `The Third Aspect: A Neglected Point of View', ST 3 (1949), 79-95, has argued that this variant account is the one on which Luke drew for the narrative of Acts 9:1-30. But although Luke has Paul meeting more church leaders and engaging in more public activity on this first visit to Jerusalem than Paul's present account allows, he does not imply Paul's indebtedness to the Jerusalem apostles for his gospel or his commission to preach it: on the contrary, according to Luke, `immediately' upon Paul's baptism (three days after his conversion) he was proclaiming Jesus in Damascus as `the Son of God', with no commission save that of the risen Lord (Acts 9:20). (The risen Lord may have used Ananias of Damascus as his mouthpiece, as reported in Acts 22:12-16, but Ananias had self-evidently no commissioning authority in his own right.)

(e) Paul in Syria and Cilicia (1:21-24)

Then I came into the territories of Syria and Cilicia. I remained unknown by face to the churches of Judaea which are in Christ; they only kept on hearing, 'Our former persecutor is now preaching the faith which he once laid waste', and they glorified God on my account.

1:21 EJ[ELta jX6ov E(S to xX(µara tfs Zvp(as xal r7 KLALx(as. Paul continues, by means of a further 9JLE6ta, to assure his readers that no suspicious gaps are left in his narrative. Between the two Jerusalem visits of 1:18f. and 2:1-10 he had no opportunity for contact with the mother-church and its leaders, for after the former visit he set off at once for Syria and Cilicia, and remained in those parts for several years.

x?rata, sometimes used by geographers in the sense of `latitudes', has no technical sense here. W. M. Ramsay, in a discussion of its present context (Galatians, 278-280), deprecates the rendering `regions', preferring to keep `region' as the rendering of xwpa when it is used with the precise force of Lat. regio, the administrative subdivision of a province (as in Acts 16:6; 18:23). Paul uses the word again in 2 Cor. 11:10 (>;v rots xxtµa(Jly rrls 'Axatac) and Rom. 15:23 (Ev rots xXisaoL rovroLs), in the same general sense as here ('territories', `districts').

At this time Syria and Eastern Cilicia (Cilicia Pedias) constituted one Roman province. Both areas had been reduced to provincial status under PompeyCilicia after his victory over the pirates in 67 BC and Syria after his victory over Mithridates in 64 BC. From c. 25 BC Eastern Cilicia (including Tarsus) was united administratively with Syria to form one imperial province (SyriaCilicia), governed by a legatus pro praetore with his headquarters in Syrian Antioch. This arrangement lasted until AD 72, when Eastern Cilicia was detached from Syria and united with Western Cilicia (Cilicia Tracheia) to form the province of Cilicia.

Paul's brief statement here is in agreement with the narrative of Acts 9:30; 11:25f., according to which his Jerusalem friends took him down to Caesarea and put him on board a ship bound for Tarsus, from which he was fetched by Barnabas some years later to join him in caring for the church in Antioch. It is probably implied that Paul's apostolic work during this period in Syria and Cilicia was more fruitful than his witness in Nabataean Arabia had been; at any rate enough was happening for news of Paul's activity to get back to Judaea.

1:22 7jµrjv Se &yvoovµevos. This periphrastic construction of the imperfect tense of 6[d with the present participle emphasizes the continuity of the state or action indicated by the main verb; cf. &xovovieg rloav, v 23. See G. Bjorck, HN DIAAEKQN: Die periphrastischen Konstruktionen im Griechischen (Uppsala, 1940).

rats ExxXT1otaLs ris 'IouSatas rats eV XOLarc3. The `churches of Judaea' comprised groups of believers who had been forced to leave Jerusalem in the persecution that followed Stephen's death, together with others which had been formed through the evangelistic outreach of Jerusalem disciples even before that. If, as the record of Acts implies, the `disciples at Damascus' at the time of Paul's conversion included Damascene residents as well as refugees from the persecution in Judaea (rove exEtoE ovras, Acts 22:5), the same situation could have been found in Palestine itself.

These churches are here described in terms remarkably similar to those of 1 Thes. 2:14, where `the churches of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus' are said to have suffered persecution at the hands of their fellow-countrymen. At the time when both epistles were written, the Roman province of Judaea included Galilee as well as Judaea (in the narrower sense) and Samaria (as it had done since the death of Herod Agrippa I in AD 44); `Judaea' may then denote here the whole of Palestine. If so, `the churches of Judaea which are in Christ' would be identical with `the church throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria' (Acts 9:31). Paul regularly speaks of the `church' (singular) in a city but the `churches' (plural) in a province or more extensive area. When he recalls his persecution of `the church of God' (v 13) he means, in the first instance, the church in Jerusalem; thanks to the scattering of its members in the persecution, that church had now become `the churches of Judaea'. Neither here nor in 1 Thes. 2:14 can the Judaean churches be exclusive of the Jerusalem church. That is to say, Paul does not mean: `I was known, of course, by face to the church of Jerusalem but not to the Judaean churches outside Jerusalem' (as is maintained in A. Ehrhardt, Acts, 63). The whole thrust of his present argument emphasizes the fewness of his contacts with the Jerusalem church in particular, and only then with the Judaean churches in general. There would have been little value in his insisting that he remained unknown by face to the churches of Judaea if his readers had been free to infer that he was known to the Jerusalem church at large: that was the very impression which he was concerned to remove.

It may be, indeed, that at the time of Paul's first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem most of the believers had left the city because of the recent persecution and had not yet begun to return. Luke says that in the first intensity of the persecution `they were all scattered throughout the region of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles' (Acts 8:1), no distinction being made between `Hebrews' and Hellenists. It took some time for the dispersed church to reconstitute itself in Jerusalem. After some years it had done so, in greater numbers than before, but when Paul visited the city about AD 35 even the apostles appear to have been absent for the most part-at least Paul saw none but Cephas and James.

But if `the churches of Judaea' consisted in large degree of refugees from Jerusalem, driven from the city by a persecution in which Paul played a leading part, is it likely that he was `unknown by face' to so many of them? Does not this statement of his support the argument that Jerusalem was not the centre of his persecuting activity? (Cf., e.g., E. Haenchen, Acts, 297ff., for the view that the persecution was carried on in and around Damascus.) It is possible that, as a leader, he had underlings to do the day-to-day and house-to-house harrying of believers for him, so that he had no direct dealings with the rank and file. But here he is speaking of himself as a Christian: in this new role he remained `unknown by face', or `unknown personally' (t6 A00067M) to the churches of Judaea, who nevertheless knew of him as their `former persecutor' (v 23).

The phrase Ev Xpt(rtcu, by which the churches of Judaea are qualified (cf. av XptatciO 'Irloov, 1 Thes. 2:14; also Phil. 1:1), is an `incorporative' locution, characteristically Pauline, denoting the people of Christ as members of his `body', sharers in his risen life. Its full incorporative force is apparent in 3:26-28 (see notes ad loc.), but sometimes it is used more generally, much as we use the adjective `Christian' (Gk. XQLarLavos is used in the NT only by non-Christians, directly or by implication; cf. its three occurrences: Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16). Thus the NEB renders the present instance `Christ's congregations in Judaea', whereas Ev Xetotw 'Irlaov in 2:4 is rendered `in the fellowship of Christ Jesus'. C. F. D. Moule includes our text among a few passages where `Christ (or the Lord) seems to be the "place", the locus, where believers are found' (Christology, 56).

1:23 µovov SE &xovovtes vlaav, `Only they kept on hearing'-as in v 22 the periphrastic construction emphasizes the continuous (or repeated) character of the action. The participle refers back to tail ExxXrlalats (v 22); the masculine &xovovtes (instead of the feminine &xovovaat) is a construction ad sensum, implying that it was the members of those churches that heard the reports.

ott is recitativum; the words which it introduces do not convey the direct speech of those from whom the reports ultimately emanated, but the direct speech of those in Judaea who received and disseminated the reports. It was not the new converts in Syria and Cilicia that referred to Paul as `our former persecutor'; it was the Judaean churches. As some of the members of those churches received the news, they would pass it on to others: 'Have you heard? Our former persecutor (o 6L6XWv i sµ g 7toTE) is preaching the gospel which he once tried to destroy.'

vvv evayyeX(l;eiaL t71v Jrioiw. Jr(otLg is here practically synonymous with £vayyEXLov (the gospel of salvation by faith). `It is striking proof of the large space occupied by "faith" in the mind of the infant Church, that it should so soon have passed into a synonym for the Gospel.... Here its meaning seems to hover between the Gospel and the Church' (J. B. Lightfoot, Galatians, 86). On `faith' see further on 2:16; 3:6-9, 23-26. For constructions with evayyeVfoµat see note on v 11.

71v tote en6QOEi, the same verb as was used in v 13. There the object was `the church of God'; here it is the faith which the church professed and the message in which that faith was proclaimed.

No account is made of any difference in emphasis or content between the gospel as Paul was proclaiming it and the gospel as the Judaeans understood it. They probably knew nothing of any such difference: what they knew was that Paul was now proclaiming the same faith in Christ as they themselves had embraced-the faith for which they had once been persecuted by him.

1:24 xai WSa~ov Ev Eµol tov OEOv, 'they glorified God on my account'-every time they heard such news (imperfect tense)-because of the transforming grace that had been manifested 'in me'. J. B. Lightfoot compares Is. 49:3 LXX: s?v ool Ev8o~ao0tiioosai (Galatians, 86).

E. Bammel, `Galater 1, 23', ZNW 59 (1968), 108-112, sees features of a martyr aretalogy in vv 23, 24. But whereas such aretalogies frequently portray the miserable end of the persecutor (e.g. Antiochus IV in 2 Macc. 9:5-12, 28; Galerius in Euseb., HE 8.16.3-5; cf. Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum), here it is the conversion and apostolic witness of the persecutor that brings glory and praise to God. The agitators may have denounced Paul to the Galatian churches as one who (whether they knew it or not) formerly persecuted the saints; the reply to such denunciations is to tell how the persecuted saints came to glorify God for what he had wrought in and through the former persecutor.

Thus, during the years which followed Paul's brief visit to Jerusalem, as in the shorter interval which preceded it, he was actively engaged in preaching the gospel, without requiring or receiving any authorization to do so from the leaders of the mother-church.

(f) Conference in Jerusalem (2:1-10)

Then, after the lapse of fourteen years, I went up to Jerusalem again, together with Barnabas, and I took Titus along too. I went up in accordance with revelation, and I set before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentilesprivately, I mean, before the 'men of repute', lest perchance I should prove to be running, or to have run, in vain. (But not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, Greek though he was. It was because of the false brethren who had been smuggled in [that this question later arose]. They infiltrated into our company to spy out the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. But to them we made no submission, not even for an hour.- our purpose was that the truth of the gospel should remain unimpaired with you.) But as for the 'men of some repute'-it makes no difference to me what sort of people they once were, for God has no favourites-those 'men of repute', I say, conferred no additional authority on me. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcision, just as Peter had been entrusted with it for the circumcisionfor the same Lord who had empowered Peter for his apostleship among the circumcised had also empowered me for my apostleship to the Gentiles. So then, James, Cephas and John, the men of repute as `pillars' among them, recognized the grace that had been bestowed on me, and they shook hands with Barnabas and me as a token of fellowship, agreeing that we should [go] to the Gentiles and they themselves to the circumcision. `Only', they said, `continue to remember the "poor"'-alai in fact I had taken the initiative in attending to this very matter.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 1 nakty ave(3rjv / avE(3r1y naXty D G / avE(3rly lat'' cop'"' Mcion lren'at Tert Ambst Chr / naXty avrlX9ov C

v 4 or / om latf Mcion

cva add ni G

xataSovl\.woovoty 9 A B" C D E p1 / xataSo'Xwowoty B2 G / xataSovXwowvtat TR

v 5 oi5 ovOe P46 t't B Dc G byz vg / oubE Mcion Ephr Graeci ap. Ambst / om D' Irenhat Tert Ambst Pelag

tr) vwtotayq om Pas

v 6 oP46Kallom B C D G byz

v 9 Iaxwoos xat Ki)cpac / om xat Krlcpas A / Iaxw(3oc xat IHEteoc p46 lat' / IHEteos xat Iaxwpos D G lat"r,vg.codd Mcion Ambst

2:1 "Enetza, `then', `next', as in 1:18, 21, implies that Paul is omitting nothing material to his argument-in particular, that he is omitting no visit to Jerusalem or other contact with the church there or its leaders. Had he been suspected of leaving out (however innocently) any such visit or contact, the question would have been asked: `But what happened on that occasion which you have suppressed?' The conference which he is about to describe was his first meeting with the Jerusalem leaders after the end of the fifteen days of 1:18f. Many interesting and important events had no doubt taken place during that interval, but nothing relevant to his present argument.

&t 8exateoo6tewv ittuv. For this temporal use of bta with the genitive cf. Mk. 2:1 (St' flµeetwv, `in the course of some days'); Acts 24:17 (St' Ettuv ... nXetovwv, `after the lapse of several years'); 27:5 v.1. (St'ht6Exa3EVtE,iv `in the course of fifteen days'). The variation of preposition here from 1:18 (µeta 9tt1 te(a) may be purely stylistic; it cannot in itself decide the question whether the fourteen years are to be reckoned from the preceding Jerusalem visit or (like that visit) from Paul's conversion. For the latter interpretation see G. Ogg, Chronology, 56f.; for the former, R. Jewett, Dating, 52-54.

The relation between the time-note here and 2 Cor. 12:2 (`fourteen years ago') is fortuitous. J. Knox, `Fourteen Years Later', JR 16 (1936), 341-349; `The Pauline Chronology', JBL 58 (1939), 15-30, argued that the two notes referred to the same interval, and that the experience of 2 Cor. 12:1ff. was coincident with Paul's conversion, but later, in view of `objections from many critics' and `after no little vacillation', he abandoned this view (Chapters, 78 n. 3). There is this to be said about the two notes: the experience which took place fourteen years before Paul wrote 2 Cor. 12:1ff. probably took place within the fourteen years of Gal. 2:1, during his ministry in Syria and Cilicia.

Jt&Xiv &ve4i1v eis `IEpoookvµa. Here at&~ty, if it is part of the original text (H. Lietzmann, An die Galater, 9, thought not), means `a second time', whereas in 1:17 (n&Xiv vTEatpe1a Els Aaµaoxov) it means 'back'. Paul does not name the starting-point of this second journey to Jerusalem, but it was evidently from 'the territories of Syria and Cilicia' (1:21) and most probably from Antioch. On &va(3a(vw see note on 1:17.

seta Bagva(3a. Barnabas, according to Acts 11:25f., was Paul's senior colleague in the leadership of the church of Antioch, from which they both visited Jerusalem together on the occasions mentioned in Acts 11:27-30 (cf. 12:25) and 15:1-5. Paul mentions Barnabas in Gal. 2:1-13 and again in 1 Cor. 9:6 in terms which mark the two men out as close associates. The references to Barnabas in Acts and in the Pauline letters supplement and confirm each other.

According to Luke, Barnabas was a Levite from Cyprus whose personal name was Joseph. He was an associate of the twelve in the early days of the Jerusalem church, and it was they who gave him the sobriquet Barnabas, explained as meaning `son of encouragement' (vies AapaxXi)oews, Acts 4:36). When Paul paid his first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem, it was Barnabas, says Luke, who first introduced him to 'the apostles' (described on p. 101 above as a generalizing plural) and presumably vouched for his bona fides (Acts 9:27). Later, when Gentile evangelization began in Antioch, it was Barnabas who was sent there by the church of Jerusalem to supervise and direct the work; he fetched Paul from Tarsus to join him in this ministry, and he and Paul were sent to Jerusalem by the Antiochene Christians a year or two later with financial aid for the mother-church (Acts 11:22-30).

See R. J. Bauckham, 'Barnabas in Galatians', JSNT, Issue 2 (1979), 61-70.

ovsnapaXa(36)v xai T(TOV. Titus, a Gentile Christian (v 3), evidently from Antioch, had already manifested qualities which prompted Paul to take him along with him and give him some experience in responsible negotiations. These qualities later commended him to Paul as a reliable and acceptable representative in his delicate dealings with the Corinthian church, both in the matter of Paul's personal relationship with that church (2 Cor. 2:12f.; 7:5-16) and in that of the Jerusalem relief fund (2 Cor. 8:6-24; 9:3-5; 12:18). Titus later appears as addressee of one of the Pastoral Letters; it is doubtless on the basis of Tit. 1:5 that he is traditionally claimed as the first bishop of the Cretan church.

The singular participle ovµrtapaXa(36v (for this verb cf. Acts 15:37f.) may imply that Paul took the initiative in bringing Titus along. Luther suggested that Paul regarded Titus as a test case: `he took him along then, in order to prove that grace was equally sufficient for Gentiles and Jews, whether in circumcision or without circumcision' (Vorlesung, ad be., quoted by H. Schlier, Galater, 65 n. 5).

The absence of Titus's name from Acts is a problem with no certain solution. It was suggested by W. M. Ramsay that he was Luke's brother, and that the absence of his name is on a par with the absence of Luke's (Luke being identified with the author of Acts); cf. SPT, 390; A. Souter, `A Suggested Relationship between Titus and Luke', Exp Tim 18 (1906-7), 285; `The Relationship between Titus and Luke', ibid., 335f. See also T. Zahn, Urausgabe der Apostelgeschichte des Lucas (Leipzig, 1916), 146, for the text of an African compendium of biblical prophecy (early 4th century) which includes in the names of Acts 13:1 Lucius Cirenensis, qui manet usque adhuc, et Ticius conlactaneus- were the compilers thinking of Luke the physician and Titus? (Zahn found this work helpful for his reconstruction of the Western text of Acts.) C. K. Barrett points out that, in view of the very guarded allusion to the Jerusalem relief fund in Acts (cf. Acts 24:17), Titus's close association with that fund could be considered as a reason for the omission of his name from Acts ('Titus', Black FS [1], 2).

2:2 &va3rly Se xaia &JLOX&XUWLV. We may have no other reference to this `revelation'. Some have related it to the prophecy of Agabus (Acts 11:27-30), in pursuance of which the Christians of Antioch contributed a sum of money to help their Jerusalem brethren in time of famine, and sent it to them by the hand of Barnabas and Paul: so W. M. Ramsay, SPT, 57; C. W. Emmet, Galatians, 13, and BC, 1.2, 279; cf. also S. G. Wilson, Gentiles, 183. But Paul's language suggests rather a revelation received by himself, from which he gathered that he should visit Jerusalem. Perhaps Barnabas was going there in any case, and the revelation persuaded Paul that he should go with him. T. W. Manson was disposed to identify the `revelation' with the Spirit's command to the five leading teachers of the Antiochene church (one of whom was Paul) that Barnabas and Paul should be released for missionary service farther afield (Acts 13: if.); a visit to Jerusalem on the eve of such a `big new missionary enterprise' he judged to be eminently suitable, even if it is not recorded in Acts (Studies, 177). (Cf. W. Schmithals, Paul and James, 52.) If the famine-relief visit of Acts 11:30 took place before this, as Manson accepted, we are faced with the difficulty that Paul omitted one Jerusalem visit from his present narrative of events.

Is this visit identical with one of Paul's Jerusalem visits mentioned in Acts or is it (as Manson suggested) a visit passed over in silence by Luke? Two visits to Jerusalem by Barnabas and Paul together are recorded by Luke-the faminerelief visit of Acts 11:30 (12:25) and the visit to the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:2ff. It has been held that these two were originally variant accounts, drawn from two separate sources, of one and the same visit, of which Gal. 2:1-10 presents a first-hand account: so J. Welihausen, `Noten zur Apostelgeschichte', Nachrichten von der koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, phil.-hist. Kl. (1907), 1ff.; E. Schwartz, `Zur Chronologie des Paulus', ibid., 263ff.; K. Lake, BC, 1.5, 199ff. Otherwise the majority view is that the visit of Gal. 2:1-10 is identical with that of Acts 15:2ff. The view taken here is that it is to be identified with the visit of Acts 11:30, in the fourteenth year after Paul's conversion. Yet others (e.g. J. Knox, Chapters, 68f.; J. van Bruggen, `Na Veertien Jaren' [Kampen, 1973], 40-43, 223-225) have identified it with Paul's Jerusalem visit briefly mentioned in Acts 18:22.

xal &ve6Eµrly avrol,s. The only other NT occurrence of &vat(Orlµr, also in the 2nd aorist middle, is in Acts 25:14, where Festus `communicated' (&vE6eto) to the younger Agrippa the facts of Paul's case; cf. 2 Macc. 3:9, where Heliodorus `communicated' (&veOeto) to the high priest the information he had received about the wealth stored in the temple treasury; also Mi. 7:5 LXX: `beware of communicating (&vaOeoOaL) anything to your wife.' This meaning, though not classical, is well attested in Hellenistic Greek. MM (38) cite a papyrus of AD 233 for the sense `communicate with a view to consultation'. It is most unlikely that Paul would have modified his gospel had the Jerusalem leaders not approved of it-he had higher authority than theirs for maintaining it unchanged, and `no one is likely to want the independence of his gospel to be confirmed' (W. Schmithals, Paul and James, 43). But the approval of those leaders made his task less difficult and (as here) could serve his apologetic purpose. At the beginning of his apostolic career Paul did not communicate or submit his gospel to any one (ov npooave6Eµrjv) before proceeding to preach it forthwith (1:16); now the time had come to share it with the Jerusalem leaders, and indeed direction to do so may have been the substance of the revelation in accordance with which he paid his present visit.

io EvayyEXLov o xrlpvoow av Wig i0veoty has already been mentioned in 1:llf., 16. The burden of this gospel is Christ crucified and risen, presented to Gentiles (as well as to Jews) as the object of their faith (cf. v 16).

xat' tS(av SE tots Soxovow. Those to whom (avtots) Paul communicated the terms of his Gentile kerygma are more specifically defined as tots SoxovcLv, `the men of repute'. Later in the paragraph the expression is amplified: TwV Soxovvtwv chat TL (v 6a), of Soxovvteg GTUOL e$vaL (v 9). Their identity is stated in v 9: James, Cephas and John. But whether of Soxovvtes is amplified or stands alone (as here and in v 6b), it carries no insinuation of sarcasm or irony, as though they only seemed to be leaders but were not really so. Josephus uses of npovxerv Soxovvtes (literally, `those who seemed to excel') of the men highly (and properly) esteemed in a community (cf. War 3.453; 4.141, 159).

If Paul meant that he submitted his gospel to these leaders for their authorization, he would be going far to undermine his preceding argument, with its claim that he was independent of Jerusalem. He set it before them: `this', he said, `is what I preach among the Gentiles' (the present tense of xrJpvoa(o implies that he was still preaching it at the time he sent this letter). In the light of v 7 we may conclude that he gave them an account of his gospel ministry to date (cf. Acts 15:12). The Jerusalem leaders could see that it was basically the same gospel as they themselves preached among the Jews-the gospel summarized in 1 Cor. 15:3-7, of which Paul could say a few years later, `Whether then it was I or they [Cephas, James, etc.], so we preach and so you believed' (1 Cor. 15:11). The circumcision-free emphasis in Paul's proclamation of it to the Gentiles had naturally no counterpart in its proclamation to Jews, who were already circumcised.

Paul mentions that he communicated his gospel not to the Jerusalem church as a whole but privately (xat' [S(av) to its leaders. Against the view that this was a private session convened to reach an agreement which could then be set before a larger body (the rXf0os of Acts 15:12) W. L. Knox's remark is apposite: `We have no reason for supposing that the Church had by this date reached that stage of democracy in which the public meeting registers its assent to a decision reached in advance by its leading members' (The Acts of the Apostles [Cambridge, 1948], 42).

A. S. Geyser suggests that the meeting was held in private because the leaders were in hiding on account of the persecution under Herod Agrippa I ('Paul, the Apostolic Decree and the Liberals in Corinth', De Zwaan FS, 131). But on any dating of this visit, Agrippa's death (AD 44) must have taken place some time before it, and the implication of Acts 12:17 is that James the Lord's brother was not affected by the persecution (he had not forfeited public good will by fraternizing with Gentiles, as Peter had done).

It is more likely that Paul and Barnabas met the Jerusalem leaders privately in the first instance because they might hope to get a more sympathetic hearing from them, away from the pressure of the rank and file, than they might have received had they communicated the law-free gospel to a general meeting of the mother-church.

Had Paul not communicated his gospel to Cephas and James on his previous visit? `Can it be assumed that during Paul's first visit to Jerusalem (Gal. 1: WE) the question of the relation of the Pauline mission to the Jews and the Jewish Christians had remained unanswered or had actually not been discussed? Impossible!' (W. Schmithals, Paul and James, 50). The impossibility is not so great as Schmithals supposes. It may well be, indeed, that the subject was ventilated on that earlier occasion. But whereas now the main purpose of Paul's visit appears to have been to communicate his gospel to the Jerusalem leaders, then the main purpose of his visit had been to get to know Cephas. Now, with fourteen years' experience of Gentile evangelization, he could adduce solid evidence to the effectiveness of his preaching.

G. Howard (Crisis, 21ff.) argues that this second visit was absolutely the first occasion on which Paul told the Jerusalem leaders of the uniqueness of his apostolic call and law-free message. In his view, the `revelation' in accordance with which Paul now went up to Jerusalem was his inaugural Damascus-road `revelation of Jesus Christ' (cf. xata anoxaXuWLv in Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:3). The delay between the revelation and the visit could be explained by Paul's resolve to wait until `his apostolic position and his Gentile mission had grown strong enough to convince them of his divine approval' (ibid., 39).

[01 nws rig xEVOV tpexw r1 ibpaµov, `lest I should run (present tive), subjuncor should [prove to] have run (aorist indicative), in vain'. For the construction cf. 4:11 below and 1 Thes. 3:5, µr1 nwg EJLE(QaoEV vµas o oatavag xad rig xcvov yarvrltai o xotog 7jµwv, `lest Satan should [prove to] have tempted (aorist indicative) you and our labour should become (aorist subjunctive) fruitless'. For the sense cf. Phil. 2:16, where Paul will rejoice on `the day of Christ' if his converts maintain their faithful testimony, for then he will have the evidence that he has not `run in vain or laboured in vain' (oie ovx rig xevov i•Spaµov ovb% rig xcvov xexott(axa). The last clause in Phil. 2:16 recalls Is. 49:4, where the Servant says, `I have laboured in vain (xevc;)s £xo c(a(Ya), I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity'-and the same LXX passage may underlie Paul's thought here and elsewhere. Athletic imagery came readily to Paul's mind.

But his language gives one pause. On the face of it, the meaning seems to be that, in default of a recognition by the Jerusalem leaders that his message was the authentic gospel, his apostolic service would have been, and would continue to be, fruitless. The substance of his gospel, indeed, was not to be changed out of deference to any earthly authority, not even the authority of those who were apostles before him. What Paul was concerned about was not the validity of his gospel (of which he had divine assurance) but its practicability. His commission was not derived from Jerusalem, but it could not be executed effectively except in fellowship with Jerusalem. A cleavage between his Gentile mission and the mother-church would be disastrous: Christ would be divided, and all the energy which Paul had devoted, and hoped to devote, to the evangelizing of the Gentile world would be frustrated.

On Paul's attitude to the Jerusalem church see B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript (Lund, 1961), 274-280.

2:3 &XX' ovbe Tiros 6 ovv £µoi, "E7Xivthy, r'lvayx&oOrl itepLrµrrOrlvat. The account of Paul's laying his gospel before the men of repute is taken up again in v 6; vv 3-5 form a digression in his narrative; see BDF 448 (6), where &XX' o,6& Tiros xtX is said to be `probably an afterthought'. The reference to Titus reminds Paul of something to which, perhaps, no importance was attached at the time but which provided a helpful precedent in the light of later events. "EXXrly in the NT always means a Greek of Gentile origin-it can indeed be used over against 'Iov&aios in the sense of `Gentile' (cf. Rom. 1:16; 2:9f.)- whereas `EXXrlvLorrjs usually means a Greek-speaking Jew. The antithesis Jew/Greek for a hellenized Jew like Paul corresponded to the antithesis Jew/Aramaean in Mishnaic Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic. In the Old Syriac Gospels, in Christian Palestinian Syriac and in the Peshitta (as here) "E?JTIv in this sense is rendered 'arami, `Aramaean'.

E. H. Askwith, Galatians, 117, takes °EXX1iv 6v closely with 6 avv Eto(, ,not even Titus, who was accompanying me as a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised' This would imply that Paul deliberately took this Gentile Christian along with him (cf. the quotation from Luther on p. 108 above). Titus was a Gentile Christian, not only one of Paul's converts but his chosen and trusted `partner and fellow-worker' (2 Cor. 8:23). If any one was disposed to argue that Gentile converts should be circumcised, Titus was a test case. Probably Paul did not take him along to be a test case-the circumcision of Gentile converts had not become an issue at that time, we gather-but in retrospect Titus could be cited as a test case.

To us, Paul's statement that `not even Titus was compelled to be circumcised' is formally ambiguous. It was presumably not ambiguous to the Galatians, who would have been informed already if Titus had actually been circumcised; but Paul could presuppose knowledge on their part which his modern readers do not share. The meaning of the statement might be:

(i) Far from their requiring the circumcision of Gentile believers, not even Titus was compelled to be circumcised; or

(ii) Not even Titus was compelled to be circumcised; he was circumcised indeed, but on his own initiative (or on Paul's).

As the sentence stands, the placing of `not even' (o) before `Titus' imports an emphasis which is more appropriate to the former than to the latter alternative. But the sentence is to be taken closely with the following words of vv 4 and 5, and a decision about its meaning cannot be reached except in relation to them-although their text, construction and significance are themselves so ambiguous that complete certainty is unattainable.

2:4 Sta SE tons naQEtaaxtovc VEuba&kgovc. One important question is whether these `false brothers' intruded into the conference which Paul has begun to describe or into some Gentile Christian circle at a later date. The definite article tons suggests that the Galatians knew of them. These VEVS&bEkcpoc, as in 2 Cor. 11:26, `were at least persons who passed as Christians'(C. K. Barrett, `WEYDAIIOITOAOI [2 Cor. 11.13]', Rigaux FS, 379), and in the eyes of some, perhaps most, Jewish Christians they were genuine believers. Paul, however, does not acknowledge them as genuine believers; in his eyes they are counterfeits, for whom true gospel liberty means nothing. Their purpose is to bring believers-more particularly, preachers and converts of the Gentile mission-`into bondage', and in the context of this letter `into bondage' means `under law'. Whoever they were, their outlook and aims were the same as those of the people who were now trying to impose a legal yoke on the churches of Galatia.

The verb 7tapELoayw, with transitive force, appears in 2 Pet. 2:1 in reference to `false teachers (pEV6o618&axaXot) who will secretly bring in (naeEto&covoLv) destructive heresies'. As with itaeEtof)X6ov in the following clause and several other compounds of 3taQELa-, there is a sense of furtive or at least intrusive action. The passive force of the verbal adjective itaeEioaxzos should not be pressed to the point where it could be said (as by T. Zahn, Galater, 85) that more blame attaches to those who smuggled these intruders in than to the intruders themselves. Paul does not encourage us to ask who smuggled them in; his language suggests that the initiative and the responsibility were their own, when he goes on to say that `they infiltrated (naeELafXeov) into our company to spy out the freedom (EXEVOEQ(a) which we have in Christ Jesus'. This freedom characterizes the life which springs from the gospel of free grace; in this atmosphere of freedom a Gentile believer can associate with Jewish believers, even in Jerusalem, without any one's raising the question of circumcision: Jewish and Gentile believers can enjoy table-fellowship together without any mention of restrictive food-laws. The freedom which we have `in Christ Jesus'-'in the fellowship of Christ Jesus' (NEB); see notes on 3:26-28-is the freedom with which `Christ has set us free' (5:1).

With ra@EtafkOov we may compare Rom. 5:19, `law intruded' (na(?ELa71X6Ev), i.e. came on to the main highway of salvation-history by a side road. See note on 3:19 below.

The `spying' (xazaoxorioaL) of the false brothers had no friendly purpose, in Paul's judgment: they wished to put an end to this freedom, to make those who enjoyed it exchange it for bondage. More particularly, those who now lived in a fellowship where `neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision' (6:15; cf. 5:6) were to be compelled to accept circumcision. It may be that the WeuSaEXcpor claimed the right to exercise `supervision' (entoxonrl), but Paul defines their activity not as authorized intoxon~ but as unauthorized xataoxonij, `spying' (see E. Fuchs, s.v. xataoxon£w, TDNT VII, 417 with n. 1).

We have to consider the relation, if any, between the WEVSMSeXcpoL mentioned here and certain other groups who are met elsewhere in the NT. It is possible that these people were associated, if not identical, with the visitors from Jerusalem who, according to Acts 15:1, taught the `disciples' (i.e. the Gentile Christians) at Antioch that they could not be saved unless they were circumcised. `The opponents of Paul whom we meet in Gal. 2, II Cor. 10-13 and Acts 21 are in the end of the day not easy to differentiate from the later Ebionites' (J. D. G. Dunn, Unity, 263). The Ebionites probably did perpetuate in later generations the attitudes of the more legally minded Jewish Christians whom we come across here and there in the apostolic writings. The Ebionites opposed the sacrificial cultus, but there is no evidence that the `Judaizers' of the apostolic age were at all attached to it. (The discharge of a Nazirite vow, of the kind mentioned in Acts 21:23f., was not part of the regular cultus.) The Ebionites' attitude, however, was probably a development (aided perhaps by Essene influence) after the fall of the temple in AD 70 had come to be recognized as God's judgment on the building and everything associated with it. See H.-J. Schoeps, Judenchristentum, passim.

tva rlµas xataSouXtuoovoty. As the gospel of grace liberates (cf. 4:26; 5:1a), so legalism (see note on v 16) enslaves (cf. 4:24f.; 5:1b, 3). The textual variation between xatatovXtuoovaty (future indicative) and xataSovXcbowoty (aorist subjunctive) makes no difference to the meaning. The weaker variant xatatovXwowvtat (aorist subjunctive middle, a classicism) suggests that the false brothers wished to bring them into bondage to themselves.

The clause beginning 86a Se tows JnaeeLo6xtous VeuSaSEXcpous is not completed by a principal verb (unless we adopt the Western reading of v 5); it may be easier to supply one when the significance of v 5 has been considered.

2:5 ors ovSi epos wpav Ef aµev tf vnotayf, `to whom we did not yield in submission even for an hour.' The Western text omits ots o,&, and thus presents the opposite sense: `but because of the false brethren who had been smuggled in,... we yielded in submission for an hour' (i.e. for a short time). The Western omission of the negative ovSe might be accidental, but more probably it reflects the understanding of v 3 according to which Titus was circumcised-not by compulsion but on his own initiative (cf. A. D. Nock, St. Paul [London, 1938], 109) or else as a concession on Paul's part (on the principle, presumably, of reculer pour mieux sauter). But it is difficult to see a logical connexion between this reading of the situation and the following statement of purpose: `in order that the truth of the gospel might remain [unimpaired] with you'. How the circumcision of a Gentile Christian could have been supposed by any one, especially by Paul, to help to maintain the gospel of free grace for Gentile Christians in general, passes understanding. F. C. Burkitt might ask, `who can doubt that it was the knife which really did circumcise Titus that has cut the syntax of Galatians ii.3-5 to pieces?' (Christian Beginnings [London, 1924], 118); but there are many who can and do doubt it, and with good reason. `If he was circumcised, the fact would be well advertised in Galatia by Paul's opponents, and the involved and stumbling verbiage of these verses would be worse than useless as a camouflage for that nasty fact' (T. W. Manson, Studies, 175f.).

The Western reading, with its omission of the negative, is attested and accepted by Irenaeus (Haer. 3.13.3) and Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 5.3.3). Tertullian indeed knows and quotes the negative form, but cannot approve of it, and charges Marcion with this `falsification of scripture'. (Marcion, of course, could not have tolerated the idea that Paul submitted to any kind of Jewish-Christian authority, `even for an hour'.) Paul and his associates, says Tertullian, `did yield because there were people on whose behalf it was expedient to yield', and he adduces as examples of such yielding not the circumcision of Titus (he takes Paul to mean that Titus was not circumcised) but Paul's circumcision of Timothy (Acts 16:3) and his later association with Nazirites in the temple (Acts 21:23ff.). These Tertullian takes to be instances of Paul's policy of accommodating himself `to those under law... as one under law' (1 Cor. 9:20). Marius Victorinus (In Gal., ad loc.) endeavours to reconcile the two readings-the negative reading indicating Paul's regular policy, as when he refused to have Titus circumcised, the Western reading indicating those occasions when he compromised from expediency, as in the circumcision of Timothy. Ambrosiaster (In Gal., ad loc.) takes a similar line to Tertullian: Paul denies that Titus was circumcised; `but lest it should be cast up to him that he himself had circumcised Timothy, he sets forth his reasons for doing what he said should not be done: "It was because of the false brethren who had been smuggled in that we yielded in submission for an hour":

It may be interpolated here that there may have been good cause, in Paul's eyes, why Titus, a Gentile ("EXXrly cub), should not be circumcised, whereas Timothy, the son of a Jewish mother (to this day a primary criterion of Jewishness), should be circumcised (cf. H. D. Betz, Galatians, 89). The study of the contrast between Sta iobs 'IouScdov; tobs ovtas t;v tots t6nots ixE(vots (Acts 16:3) and Sta... tons Jtct ctoaxtovs VEU8a eXcpovs (in our present context) would be illuminating, but belongs more to the exegesis of Acts than to that of Galatians.

Jerome knows both readings (the Vulgate renders o'Ls ov& by quibus neque): `Either', he says, `we should read, according to the Greek codices, "to whom we did not yield in submission even for an hour", in order that the following clause, "that the truth of the gospel might remain with you", can be understood; or, if we are to trust a certain Latin copy, we should accept the sense to be that the yielding in submission was not the circumcising of Titus but the going to Jerusalem' (In Gal., ad loc.). But there is too great a distance between & 43rly Eig `IEgoo&u[ta (v 1) and Et~aµev (v 5) for this exegesis of the Western reading to be at all credible.

If the omission of ots took place independently of the omission of obbE, it was probably an attempt to improve the style by producing a coherent sentence: Sta S£ tons 7tapEtaaxtovs VEVbaSEXcpovs ... [oboe] n(?os cupav Eri%LEv. ... But on the principle praestat lectio ardua the relative oLs should be retained, and the verb to be understood with Sta SE robs 7rapcta6Extovs pEVSaSEXcpovs should be inferred from the context. Let the discussion of the textual problem be concluded with the reminder that the negative reading (ots ovU ...) is attested by all Greek witnesses except the first hand in D.

Not rl 6tk,OEta 'tov Evayye?(ov btate(v-q apos vµas. Had Paul and his colleagues given way on this issue, even temporarily, the `truth' or integrity of the gospel would have been compromised. The true gospel proclaimed that justification and the reception of the Spirit were gifts of God's grace, bestowed on all who believed in Jesus, Jews and Gentiles alike, regardless of legal requirements. To have yielded an inch to those who were demanding the circumcision of Gentile converts would have denied the law-free character of the Paul gospel. was determined then to preserve the law-free gospel for his Gentile converts, to resist those who in effect were requiring that they should become Jews in order to become Christians; and he was determined now that the law-free gospel should remain unimpaired for his Gentile converts in Galatia (7tp6s vt&g).

The phrase, `the truth of the gospel', is repeated below in v 14, where those who, in Paul's judgment, were compromising on a similar matter of principle at a somewhat later date are charged with not `pursuing a straight course in accordance with the truth of the gospel'. D. W. B. Robinson, `The Circumcision of Titus, and Paul's "Liberty" ', ABR 12 (1964), 24-42, points out the relation of `the truth of the gospel' and the verb avuyxal;co in both contexts: in the former the truth of the gospel would have been subverted if Titus had been compelled to be circumcised; in the latter it was being subverted because of those who were `compelling Gentiles to live like Jews'. (Robinson, however, holds that Paul did circumcise Titus-not under compulsion but in the exercise of his Christian liberty.)

We may now survey vv 3-5 and ask when the infiltration of the `false brethren' took place. The majority view is that it took place during the Jerusalem visit that is described in vv 1-10. That is to say, while Paul and Barnabas were engaged in discussions with the `men of repute' in the Jerusalem church, those intruders wormed their way into the discussions and demanded that Gentile converts-in particular Titus, who was present-should be circumcised.

But this infiltration, `to spy out the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus', may have taken place elsewhere, and on another occasion. Paul's language suggests that the `false brethren' intruded into the headquarters of the Gentile mission-and where else but in Antioch? If it was indeed to Antioch that they came, we are bound to think of the arrival in Antioch of men from Judaea who, according to Luke, insisted on the circumcision of Gentile converts, but without any mandate from the leaders of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:1, 24). The identification of the VevbaSEXcpot with those Judaeans who came down to Antioch has been supported by J. Weiss, Earliest Christianity, I, 263ff.; H. Lietzmann, An die Galater, 11; H. Schlier, Galater, 39; A. Oepke, Galaterbrief, 47; F. Hahn, Mission in the NT (London, 1963), 78. These scholars, identifying the present conference in Jerusalem with that of Acts 15:2ff., supposed that Paul was referring to an infiltration that had taken place (at Antioch) before he and Barnabas paid this visit to Jerusalem.

But if this visit to Jerusalem took place some time before that of Acts 15:2ff., then it may have preceded the infiltration. In that case Paul implies that the question of requiring the circumcision of Gentile converts was not even raised during the Jerusalem conference which he is here describing. Had any one been disposed to raise it, there was an obvious opportunity of doing so: Titus was with them. Yet, so far from any pressure being brought to bear for the circumcision of Titus, that issue did not arise until later, when the `false brethren' (of whom the Galatians had apparently heard) wormed their way into the church of Antioch. And did they receive any countenance from Paul and his colleagues? Not for a moment!

This understanding of the passage involves taking vv 4 and 5 as a parenthesis within the digression vv 3-5. For the parenthetic nature of vv 4 and 5 cf. T. W. Manson, Studies, 175f.; also A. S. Geyser, `Paul, the Apostolic Decree and the Liberals in Corinth', De Zwaan FS, 132, who suggests that by means of this parenthesis `Paul for a moment breaks the account of the proceedings at Jerusalem during the famine visit, to cast a glance at the proceedings in the churches of Galatia at the time of writing his letter to the Galatians'. But the proceedings at which Paul casts a glance in vv 4 and 5 were past when Paul wrote to the Galatians and took place outside Galatia: Paul appears to have been absent when the Galatian churches were invaded by the `agitators'; hence he had to write to the churches instead of dealing with the trouble on the spot.

Special attention has been paid to vv 3-5 in a series of papers by B. Orchard. He recognizes the three verses as a parenthesis (vv 4 and 5 constituting a secondary parenthesis within the larger one). Paul, he says, mentions the noncircumcision of Titus parenthetically because, while he was dictating the letter, `it suddenly struck him as a forcible argument with which to refute the Judaizers of Galatia that the fact that the Apostles did nothing about the Gentile Titus ... on that occasion showed that they agreed with him in recognizing "the freedom of the Gentiles" from the burden of the Mosaic Law. And so, forsaking all of a sudden the train of thought he has pursued in verses 1 and 2, he breaks in with this new debating point against his Judaizing opponents, for all the world as if he were afraid he would forget it if he did not set it down there and then' ('A New Solution of the Galatians Problem', BJRL 28 [1944], 154-174, especially 165-167); cf. also his `A Note on the Meaning of Galatians ii.3-5', JTS 43 (1942), 173-177; 'The Ellipsis between Galatians 2,3 and 2,4', Bib 54 (1973), 469-481, with `reaction' by A. C. M. Blommerde, `Is there an Ellipsis between Galatians 2,3 and 2,4?' Bib 56 (1975), 100-102, and reply by B. Orchard, `Once again the Ellipsis between Gal. 2,3 and 2,4', Bib 57 (1976), 254f.; `Ellipsis and Parenthesis in Ga 2:1-10 and 2 Th 2:1-12', Paul de Tarse: Apotre de notre Temps, ed. L. de Lorenzi (Rome, 1979), 249-258. His proposed filling of the ellipsis at the end of v 3 is: `because of false brethren... the liberty of the Gentiles is now in danger' ('A New Solution..',167) or 'this question has now arisen' ('Ellipsis and Parenthesis...',251). This account of the matter seems most satisfactory, except that (on the assumption that it was into the Antiochene church that the 'false brethren' first intruded) I should prefer to fill the ellipsis with `the question of circumcising Gentile converts was first raised'.

The suggested course of events, then, would be as follows. When Paul and Barnabas visited Jerusalem on the occasion referred to in v 1, nothing was said about requiring Gentile converts to be circumcised, although Titus was with them and would have constituted a test case had any one been minded to raise the question. The question was not raised until later, when certain `false brethren' infiltrated the church of Antioch, the headquarters of Gentile Christianity, and tried to insist on circumcision. Paul and his colleagues made no concession to those men-whatever rumours to the contrary may have been spread abroadfor a concession on this issue would have jeopardized the integrity of the gospel. And the position which Paul and his colleagues took then is the position which Paul takes now towards the crisis in the churches of Galatia.

2:6 &no bE tc;;v Soxotivtwv Elva( TL. Paul now resumes the main thread of his narrative from the point where he broke off at the end of v 2. He had set his gospel before the men of repute at Jerusalem, but (as he now says) from those `men of some repute' he received no supplement to his gospel, nothing that could have given him greater authority to preach it than he already possessed.

Does the addition of Ewa( tt after ni)v Soxovvtwv (cf. Plato, Grg. 472A, Soxovvtwv Ewa( tt, `people of repute') convey some difference of nuance from the simpler tots Soxovow of v 2? A nuance of disparagement might be inferred from the similar wording of 6:3, ci yap 80XEt ttg Elvot TL [U]&V 6V, (PpEVarrata a~avtov. But in 6:3 it is the man himself who thinks he is something, and he is self-deceived, for what he thinks himself to be is at odds with the fact of the matter: he is a mere nonentity (µr]Sev hv). The Jerusalem leaders are held in repute by their fellow-Christians, not by themselves; and there is no hint that their repute lacks foundation: they are far from being nonentities.

If, however, a certain `dismissive' tone can be detected in Paul's wording here and in v 9 (cf. J. D. G. Dunn, Unity, 408 n. 49), we may compare the similarly dismissive references to the bJTeQ<Lav &jtoatokOL (probably the same men) in 2 Cor. 11:5; 12:11. Paul does not question the Jerusalem leaders' personal status and prestige; what he does object to is the appeal made in some quarters to their status and prestige to diminish his own-in particular, the argument that their authority is so much superior to his that, if he acts or teaches in independence of them, his action and teaching lack all validity. That an appeal was indeed being made to their superior authority to the detriment of Paul's apostolic liberty is implied still more clearly in the following parenthesis: ojtotoi notE 1001V oiSv .tot btacp>Qc1. jtpoowxtov [o] OE6g &v0Qt7tov ov Xa43&vci.

We must decide whether the enclitic Jrote simply adds indefiniteness to the pronoun oltotot (like the English suffix `-ever' in `whatever', etc.; cf. BDF 303) or has temporal force, `formerly', `once upon a time' (as in 1:13, 23; cf. aliquando in the Latin versions). If it has temporal force, it must be further decided whether the time referred to is that of the conference, on which Paul, at the date of writing, looks back (so F. Sieffert, Galater, 119; T. Zahn, Galater, 98; A. Oepke, Galaterbrief, 48), or an earlier period. If it had reference to the time of the conference, one might have expected Paul to say tote, `then', since he is writing about the conference at this point in his narrative. Much more probably tote refers to an earlier period. If the superiority of the Jerusalem leaders was being emphasized in such a way as to diminish Paul's, the argument would lean heavily on the admitted fact that two of those leaders (Cephas and John) had been close associates of Jesus during his ministry, members of the 'twelve', that the other (James) was a member of the holy family, and that all three of them were foundation-members of the original church, whereas Paul was a relative latecomer. So when Paul says, `whatever they once were makes no difference to me', he most probably has in mind their connexion with the historical Jesus and their role in the foundation of the church. Whatever advantages those experiences gave them, they did not give them superior authority to his, for his authority was derived by direct commission from the exalted Lord, and there could be no higher authorization than that. See C. K. Barrett as quoted on p. 123.

One unusual interpretation of oJtoioi JLOTE ioav is that put forward confidently, but implausibly, by K. Heussi, `Galater 2 and der Lebensausgang der jerusalemischen Urapostel', TLZ 77 (1952), 67-72, and Die r5mische Petrustradition in kritischer Sicht (Tubingen, 1955), 3f., etc., that Paul refers to the `men of repute' in the past tense because by the time this letter was written all three of them had died: James (not the Lord's brother but the son of Zebedee!) and his brother John in the persecution under Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12: If.) and Cephas/Peter in the brief interval between 1 Corinthians (1:12; 3:22; 9:5) and Galatians, which he dated after 1 Corinthians. So far as Paul's language goes, it implies that all three leaders were alive at the time of writing: if any of them had died since the conference, it would probably have been indicated, as it certainly is not by oJtoto( notE 71oav. See K. Aland, `Wann starb Petrus?', NTS 2 (1955-56), 267-275.

The expression npoownov A.aµ(3avw is a literal rendering of Heb. nasa' panim, `lift the face' (e.g. of a suppliant) and thus `show favour'. While the Hebrew phrase is ethically neutral-e.g. on the one hand God says to Lot in On. 19:21 nasa'tI paneka (LXX E6avµao6 oov to n(?oownov), `I grant you (this) favour', but on the other hand he is described in Dt. 10:17 as one who lo' yissa' panim (LXX ov 9authet npoownov), `is not partial'-Gk. ;TQoownov Xaµ(36tvw is regularly used in malam partem, of showing not favour but favouritism. This phrase (cf. Lk. 20:21) or a compound, such as npoawJTOkl[ntrls (Acts 10:34), npoownoXrlµn(a (Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; Jas. 2:1) or &JtpoowJOkX[ntwc (1 Pet. 1:17), appears repeatedly in the NT to convey the consistent biblical insight that God shows no partiality. Here it means that God does not favour companions or relatives of the historical Jesus over someone, like Paul, who received his apostolic commission later-although, in a different context (1 Cor. 15:9), Paul can speak of himself as `the least of the apostles, unfit to be an apostle', by contrast, presumably, with other apostles and witnesses who, unlike him, had not `persecuted the church of God'.

stol yap of boxovvTE; ovbev JtpooaveOEVto, `to me (I say) the men of repute contributed nothing.' Had Paul completed the clause beginning aJtb bar TCOV boxovvTCUV, he would have said something like ovbav Jtae? ka(3ov or ovbi=v £8tb&X0rly (cf. 1:12). But he breaks off with a parenthesis, after which he changes the construction by making of boxovvTE; the subject. This is one of his `numerous and flagrant' anacolutha; he has `either forgotten the opening clause, or deemed it convenient to replace it with a new form' (BDF 467). It would not be too fanciful to see in the anacolutha of vv 3-10 evidence of the emotional stress under which Paul laboured as he rebutted attacks on his apostolic liberty. After this anacoluthon Paul returns (by means of the resumptive yae) and completes the sense, if not the construction, of the clause which was broken off.

The pronoun £µo( comes in an emphatic position: others might derive some form of authorization from the Jerusalem leaders (as, according to Acts 11:22, Barnabas did on an earlier occasion), but Paul derived none. They contributed (Jtpo(YavEOEVto, `communicated in addition') nothing to him. They found nothing defective in the gospel which he communicated (&veO>iniv) to them (v 2). It is not necessary to take Apooavat(OEµaL here in the sense which it bears in 1:16; it may be material to observe that in 1:16 the aorist middle is used intransitively whereas here it has an object (ovSev). No question was raised, apparently, about the comparative contents of Paul's gospel and theirs, any more than the question was raised about Paul's authority to preach his gospel. His gospel was unexceptionable; his commission was undisputed: the agenda, we gather, concentrated on the demarcation of the respective spheres of service of the parties to the discussion.

2:7-8 &X?, Tovvavtiov, `But on the contrary'-far from adding anything to my gospel, the `men of repute' acknowledged it as the gospel for the uncircumcised (t~s &xpo(3v0`t(ag) with which I had been entrusted as surely as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised (t~s nEQLtosfg). Paul here uses &xp0(3vXT(a (used in the LXX, e.g. Gn. 34:16, etc., as the equivalent of Heb. `orlah, and probably a disguised form of the etymologically transparent &xponoaOia, attested in Hippocrates, Aphorisms 6.19, and Aristotle, Hist. An. 493.a.29) and rcEpLtou as collective nouns for `Gentiles' and `Jews' respectively (cf. Rom. 2:26f.; 3:30; Eph. 2:11). For nLoteVOµaL in the sense `be entrusted' (with the gospel) cf. 1 Cor. 9:17; 1 Thes. 2:4; 1 Tim. 1:11; Tit. 1:3. Paul was initially entrusted with the gospel for the Gentiles at his conversion (1:15), and since then he had been continuously engaged in discharging that trust. This was now recognized by the `men of repute' not only on the basis of distant hearsay (1:23) but on the basis of Paul's own communication (v 2): as they received a first-hand account of his activity thus far, they could not deny that God had worked effectively in him (s;v~pyrlocv xal eso() as he fulfilled his Gentile mission.

But a remarkable parallel is drawn between Paul's divinely empowered mission to the Gentiles and Peter's to the Jews-a parallel discerned not only by Paul himself but also (it appears) by the `men of repute'. That Peter had already evangelized his own people very effectively, not only in Jerusalem but elsewhere in Judaea, is attested in Luke's record (e.g. Acts 2:14ff.; 3:12ff.; 9:32ff.). To be sure, Luke records one occasion when he evangelized Gentilesin the house of Cornelius at Caesarea (Acts 10:1-11:18; 15:7-9)-but that occasion, epoch-making as it was, was exceptional. Similarly, Luke gives Paul a limited mission to Jews (Acts 9:15; 26:20), but makes it plain that his distinctive mission was to Gentiles (Acts 22:21). In Paul's account, however, the demarcation of the Jewish and Gentile mission-fields was based on the recognition that his own Gentile mission and Peter's Jewish mission were equally attended by signs of divine power which set the seal of divine approval on the one as on the other.

Peter's mission is described as his &nooToXil tfg nEpLto.71 just as Paul's own mission is an &3ToaTOX1 (Rom. 1:5; 1 Cor. 9:2). Even if James is referred to as an apostle in 1:19, it appears that, where &JtooioXi in the sense of mission was concerned, Peter retained the primacy among the original apostles and other church leaders (cf. 1 Cor. 9:5). It may be that there was an official, Jerusalembased element in Peter's apostolate that was absent from Paul's own unfettered pioneer ministry (Rom. 15:20). See C. K. Barrett, `Shaliah and Apostle', Daube FS, 100f. Nevertheless the two ministries are practically placed on a level here, and it is indicated that this situation was accepted by both sides.

Peter's gospel for the Jews may have had different emphases and nuances from Paul's gospel for the Gentiles, but plainly these did not make it in Paul's eyes a `different gospel' in the sense of 1:6-9. It was based on the same recital of saving events as Paul's and, like Paul's, it proclaimed the grace of God brought near in Christ for men and women's acceptance by faith (1 Cor. 15:11).

The agitators in the Galatian churches might well have said that they too believed the gospel which Peter and Paul preached in common, but that they disagreed with Paul's particular interpretation of it-in particular, with his insistence that it abrogated the requirement of circumcision for membership in the people of God. Paul's interpretation was completely controlled by his Damascusroad experience, although he would have called it not `interpretation' but 'revelation' (1:12, 16). We have no comparable first-hand account from Peter, but we may be sure that the Evayy>Xtov... zrls Jteetzon1c with which he was entrusted was a gospel for the `circumcision' (i.e. for the Jews) but not in any sense a gospel of circumcision. There was, of course, no reason why circumcision should figure at all in the preaching of the gospel to Jews. But the message to which the Galatian Christians were disposed to submit could indeed be called a `gospel of circumcision' and therefore in Paul's sight a perversion of the true gospel and completely inadmissible, whereas the gospel preached by Peter was acceptable.

A further point that calls for comment in vv 7f. is the twofold use of the name I19tpos for the apostle whom Paul normally calls KrIcpas. The Western reading IIEtpos for Kilcpas in 1:18; 2:9, 11, 14 is secondary, and there is no textual basis for the view-propounded by A. Merx, Das Evangelium des Matthdus (Berlin, 1902), 161ff., and K. Holl, `Der Kirchenbegriff des Paulus in seinem Verhaltnis zu dem der Urgemeinde' (1921), Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Kirchengeschichte, II (Tubingen, 1928), 45 n. 3-that K1cpa; originally stood in vv 7f.

It may indeed be that Paul `used "Cephas" and "Peter" indifferently, and on no fixed principle' (K. Lake, EEP, 116), but the exceptional use of `Peter' in vv 7f. may be related to the fact that the substance of these two verses is recapitulated at the beginning of v 9. In view of this, one favoured explanation of the change of name is that put forward by E. Dinkier, `Der Brief an die Galater', Verkiindigung and Forschung, 1-3 (1953-55), 182f. (cf his `Die Petrus- Rom Frage', TRu NF 25 [1959], 198; 0. Cullmann, Peter: Disciple-ApostleMartyr, ETr [London, 1953], 18, and TDNT VI, 100 n. 6, s.i'. IIEteos; G. Klein, Rekonstruktion, 106), that the clauses containing IIe'teos are extracted from a more or less official record of the conference, the reference to Paul being changed to the pronoun of the first person singular so as to integrate the extract into the construction of its autobiographical context. Dinkier tentatively reconstructed the original minute: ... oit IZav),,og tLGTEi)ETat [why not JLEJt(oTEVTat?] To Evay'Xtov flETpcu tfls &xpo(3uatlac xa0bg IIetpos tfls JTEpttoµfls• o EvEpyoag yae This Els &aroatoXrly trls Ev1Qyrloey xai flavXw rig to E0vri. nEertotfs proposal has the relative merit of being less improbable than most of the rival explanations, including that of J. Munck (Paul, 62 n. 2), according to which v 9 is the citation and vv 7f. Paul's reconstruction (which leaves the exceptional use of FUTpog unaccounted for). It would be wisest to follow H. D. Betz (Galatians, 97), who finds Dinkler's proposal unacceptable as a whole, since v 7 is in the main Paul's construction, but agrees that `the nonPauline notions of the "gospel of circumcision" and "of uncircumcision" as well as the name "Peter" may very well come from an underlying official statement'.

Other, less convincing, suggestions are that Htpos was the personal name and K-qcpas the official name (P. Gaechter, Petrus and seine Zeit [Wien/ Munchen, 1958], 385) or that HItpos was the title (not yet a personal name) which Cephas bore `in his capacity as God's apostolic mandatory for the world of Israel' (E Stuhlmacher, Das paulinische Evangelium, I. Vorgeschichte [Gottingen, 1968], 94).

More radical are the solutions proffered by E. Barnikol, who cut the knot by treating vv 7f. as a later gloss (Der nichtpaulinische Ursprung des Parallelismus der Apostel Paulus and Petrus = Forschungen zur Entstehung des Urchristentums, des Neuen Testaments and der Kirche, 5 [Kiel, 1931]), or by D. Warner, who argues that the whole section, vv 3-8, was interpolated by a Greek Christian ,of Paul's way of thought, though even more critical of the position of Peter and the other Apostles'-possibly by Titus, acting as Paul's amanuensis and inserting this section in his master's name and in the hope of furthering his cause ('Galatians ii.3-8: As an Interpolation', Exp Tim 62 [1950-51], 380).

See also T. Zahn, Galater, 68 n. 77, on the textual evidence for Ki1cpas/IIEtpoc in vv 7f. and elsewhere.

2:9 xcd yvovTE; rv x&erv ThV 8o0606Ev tor, `and having recognized the grace given to me'. V 9 repeats the substance of vv 7 and 8, with significant additions. The participle yvovTEg catches up the 'LSovTEg of v 7. The `grace' given to Paul is his apostleship to the Gentiles; cf. 1:16 above (also Rom. 1:5; 12:3; 15:15; 1 Cor. 3:10; Eph. 3:8; Phil. 1:7).

I6xw(3oc xal Ki1cpas xal 'Iodvvr1s. Here for the first time the `men of repute' are named. The identity of the sequence of names with the traditional order of the catholic epistles of James, Peter and John in the NT canon may be nothing more than a coincidence. The primacy given to James is noteworthy. This James is, of course, the Lord's brother (as in 1:19; 2:12) and not the Zebedaean, despite K. Heussi's theory mentioned in the notes on v 6. Apart from the fact that James the Zebedaean is excluded by the present context, he is chronologically excluded. It is uncertain whether Herod Agrippa I died before or after Passovertide in AD 44 (see K. Lake, BC, 1.5, 446-452), so it is uncertain whether the execution of James should be dated in the spring of AD 43 or 44 (cf. Acts 12:1-3); either way, it would be difficult to fit the chronological data of Gal. 1:18 and 2:1, even on the shortest reckoning, into the interval between Paul's conversion and James's execution.

On Paul's earlier visit to Jerusalem Cephas was the most important man in the church; Paul went up specifically to meet him, and adds that he also saw James. But all our evidence (scanty as it is) indicates that James became in creasingly influential in the Jerusalem church. An opportunity to increase his influence at the expense of Cephas/Peter came with the latter's departure from Jerusalem after his escape from Herod Agrippa's prison (Acts 12:17). By the time of the present conference Cephas/Peter had returned to Jerusalem, but not for long. From about mid-century onwards he and the remaining survivors of the eleven appear to have embarked on a wider ministry in the eastern Mediterranean world; James was left to guide the mother-church with a council of elders among whom he was primus inter pares. It is clear from v 12 that even Cephas took James's directives seriously.

G. Klein (Rekonstruktion, 107-115) takes the view that at the time of the conference Peter was still the dominant figure, and therefore he is mentioned alone in vv. 7-8, but that by the time this letter was written James had moved into the position of supremacy, hence the order of precedence in v 9. Against this see W. Schmithals, Paul and James, 49 n. 31.

The `John' who is named as one of the three is most probably John the son of Zebedee; this is the only place where he (or any other John) is mentioned in Paul's writings. John appears in the earlier chapters of Acts as an associate of Peter on a couple of important occasions (Acts 3:1-4:22; 8:14-25), although he plays a silent part alongside his vocal colleague. The idea that John was executed at the same time as his brother James (cf. E. Schwartz, `Ober den Tod der Sohne Zebedaei', AkGWG 7.5 [1907], 266ff., and `Nock einmal der Tod der Sohne Zebedaei', ZNW 11 [1910], 89-104; J. Moffatt, INT, 603-613) is a `critical myth' based on such flimsy evidence that it `would have provoked derision if it had been adduced in favour of a conservative conclusion' (A. S. Peake, Holborn Review 19 [1928], 394; cf. J. H. Bernard, Studia Sacra [London, 1917], 260ff.).

It would be difficult not to identify of Soxovvtes arUXoL Etval t6 with of SoxovvtEs of vv 2 and 6. In saying that the three men just named are `reputed to be pillars' Paul does not deny this assessment of their importance but does not commit himself to acceptance of it. The word MUM, `pillars', used in this figurative sense, implies that those so described provide support and defence for their fellows, like A. E. Housman's `army of mercenaries':

In some such sense Abraham and Moses are referred to in later rabbinical literature as `pillars of the world' (Ex. Rab. 2:13 on Ex. 3:4). Similar language is used of the mother and her seven sons who were martyred under Antiochus IV (4 Macc. 17:3), of Peter and Paul who `contended unto death' (1 Clem. 5:2; cf. K. Beyschlag, Clemens Romanus and der Friihkatholizismus [Tubingen, 1966], 334), of Alexandrian confessors under persecution (Dionysius of Alexandria apud Euseb. HE 6.41.14). But the present meaning is more likely to be in line with that of the apocalyptic letter to the church of Philadelphia: `He who conquers, I will make him a pillar (oTU.os) in the sanctuary (vabs) of my God' (Rev. 3:12). The thought of the believing community as God's sanctuary (vans) is found in Paul's letters (e.g. I Cor. 3:16f.; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21), and elsewhere in the NT oLxos is used similarly (e.g. Heb. 3:6; 10:21; 1 Pet. 2:5). The `pillars' of this sanctuary would be its leaders, and possibly its foundation members, like the `twelve men and three priests' with whom the council of the Qumran community was well and truly founded as `a holy house for Israel and a most holy council (sod) for Aaron' (1QS 8:1-6). C. K. Barrett ('Paul and the "Pillar" Apostles', De Zwaan FS, 15ff.) suggests that originally the term OrUXot as applied to James, Cephas and John was `strictly eschatological' in meaning, marking them out as `the basis of the new people' of God. Out of this eschatological assessment, he thinks, there soon developed `an institutional view of their position'-a development of which Paul may have disapproved. It is in this light that Barrett understands Paul's remark in v 6: `What they once were makes no difference to me now; God has no special favour for them as men'-in other words, `They have their special place in the last days, but this gives them no exclusive rights in the Church' (19).

In the gospel tradition, from the twelve men who were to be rulers of Israel in the new age (Mt. 19:28; Lk. 22:29f.) three appear to have been selected by Jesus to enjoy special access to the purpose of his ministry-Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John (cf. Mk. 5:37; 9:2; 14:33; in Mk. 13:3 Peter's brother Andrew makes a fourth with them). Of these three, James the son of Zebedee had by now been executed by Herod Agrippa I. It is conceivable that these three were at first regarded as the `pillars' and that, on the death of one James, his namesake was co-opted to take his place as a `pillar' (not, of course, to take his place as member of the twelve). It is possible on the other hand, though perhaps less likely, that James the Lord's brother had been co-opted earlier, so that before the death of James the Zebedaean there were four pillars.

As the ministry to the Jews, entrusted to Peter in vv 7 and 8, is allotted to all three `pillars' in v 9, so the ministry to the Gentiles, entrusted to Paul in vv 7 and 8, is allotted to Paul and Barnabas together in v 9. This is an argument against G. Klein's thesis that a diminution in Peter's status may be discerned between vv 7f. and 9. No parallel diminution of Paul's status in favour of Barnabas is implied in the transition from vv 7f. to 9: what was said of Paul in vv 7f., it appears from v 9, applied also to Barnabas, and correspondingly what was said of Peter in vv 7f. applied also to James and John. Now the three men on the one side exchange `right hands of fellowship' with the two men on the other side, in token of their agreement about the two spheres of ministry.

Until the phrase ato! xad Bapva(36c here there has been no mention of Barnabas since v 1; the reader might be pardoned for forgetting that he was a participant in the conference. But the failure to mention him in the main account of the conference is easily explained: it was Paul's commission, not Barnabas's, that was being questioned in the churches of Galatia, so Paul concentrates on his own relations with the Jerusalem leaders. Barnabas's commission, in any case, was on a different footing from Paul's. It is nowhere suggested that Barnabas claimed to have been directly called by the risen Christ; there is nothing in Paul's references to him inconsistent with Luke's statement that Barnabas's first contact with the Gentile mission was when he was sent by the Jerusalem church to supervise the gospel outreach in Syrian Antioch (Acts 11:22). In Antioch, if not earlier, Barnabas quickly realized his vocation to Gentile evangelization, and he and Paul seem to have shared certain distinctive features of missionary policy, such as maintaining themselves and declining to live at their converts' expense (1 Cor. 9:6).

But Barnabas is so closely associated here with Paul's &atootokr that it would probably be wrong to deny him the designation &JrootoXos in the wider Pauline sense. It is a matter of interest, though not directly relevant to Pauline usage, that in the two places where Luke calls Paul an `apostle' he uses the noun in the plural, speaking of Paul and Barnabas as oI &arootoXoL (Acts 14:4, 14)but this may refer to them as `sent out' (ExTE[t(pevtEs) by the Holy Spirit from Antioch (Acts 13:4).

Na rlµrLs EIS T6 E6vrl, avtoi SE Eig t71v JLE(Jttoµrly. For the ellipsis of the verb cf. the second clause of 5:13. Here some such verb as noeEV9wµcv ... no(JEV&uoty ('go') or EvayyEXithtc6a... Evay?rXUwvtat ('preach the gospel') may be understood (for EvayycX(l;oµat construed with EIS cf. 2 Cor. 10:16). The conjunction Na here fulfils the function of classical ecp' crtE ('on condition that', `on the understanding that'). In classical Greek rltcig would have been followed by µ9v, balancing the 69 after avtol.

Was the pillars' agreement to confine their apostolic ministry henceforth to the Jews a limitation of an original wider commission? There is another strand of early Christian tradition in which Peter and his colleagues had a mission to the nations conferred on them by the risen Christ. In Mt. 28:19 the eleven are charged by him to `go and make disciples of all the nations'; in Acts 1:8 they are to be his witnesses `to the end of the earth' (cf. Lk. 24:47f.); in Jn. 17:18 (cf. 20:21) they are sent into `the world'; in I Pet. l:lff. Peter's constituency is envisaged as comprising Gentile Christians in Asia Minor; the Didache is so called because it presents `the Lord's teaching to the Gentiles through the twelve apostles' (the apostle to the Gentiles par excellence being rather pointedly left out of the picture). None of this impairs the trustworthiness of Paul's account of the Jerusalem agreement, but plainly other interpretations of the role of the twelve and their associates were current.

No understanding of the agreement is probable which implies that Paul, provided his liberty to preach a circumcision-free gospel to Gentiles was safeguarded, would have been quite happy for a circumcision-bound gospel to be preached to Jews by the Jerusalem authorities. In Paul's eyes the compelling logic of the Christ-event pointed to the supersession of the age of law by the age of the Spirit (3:13f); it was because there was now but one way of justification for Jews and Gentiles alike-justification by faith (cf. Rom. 3:29f.)-that `in Christ Jesus' there was `neither Jew nor Greek' (Gal. 3:28). Indeed, the following narrative of Paul's dispute with Cephas at Antioch makes it evident that for Paul (and, in principle, for Cephas too) those who were born Jews could find justification only `by faith in Christ and not by works of law' as much as `sinners of the Gentiles' (vv 15f.).

As it was, the conference appeared to have a happy and friendly outcome. The demarcation of the two mission-fields was agreed upon by both parties. But the agreement may have concealed some ambiguities, which came to light later and led to tension between Paul and church leaders in Judaea. If only the Jerusalem leaders' record of the conference and the agreement had been preserved to us, we should know if their interpretation of the issues was identical with Paul's.

For example, was the demarcation to be interpreted in territorial or in communal terms? In territorial terms, says E. D. Burton (Galatians, 96-99); in communal terms, says W. Schmithals (Paul and James, 45): `it is hard to understand the attempt to explain the distinction between to Wvrl and 7l otherwise than ethnographically.' But perhaps the issue JLEQLTOfl was not defined so precisely; in either case, it must have been difficult to define the boundaries of the two mission-fields. There were Jewish colonies in most of the great cities of the eastern Mediterranean world: were the Jerusalem leaders debarred from evangelizing the Jews of Ephesus, Corinth or Rome? Almost certainly not. But since the churches founded in those cities comprised both Jewish and Gentile converts, some overlapping of the two spheres was inevitable. Again, was Paul debarred from visiting synagogues in Gentile cities, if only to evangelize the Gentile Godfearers who attended the services? (That he did so as a matter of regular policy is explicitly stated in Acts.) With Rom. 11:13f. in mind, E. Best asks, `did Paul preach to Jews at all after his agreement with the Jerusalem pillars?' (Thessalonians, 6). W. Schmithals had answered this question in advance with an unhesitating No: `If Paul had preached to the Jews in his world-wide mission area a gospel free from the control of the Law, and had incorporated them into his churches which disregarded the Law in their daily life, he would have made the position of the Christian churches in Judea untenable-assuming the unity of Christendom' (Paul and James, 48). But the diversity of Christendom has to be recognized as well as its unity, and whatever may be concluded today about the logic of the first-century situation, those who were involved in the situation saw it differently. God-fearing Gentiles, who provided the nucleus of the church in many cities, were more conveniently found in synagogues, but Paul could not preach to them there without preaching to Jews at the same time.

Where there was full mutual confidence (as there was, apparently, between Paul and Apollos), charges of building on another's foundation (1 Cor. 3:1Off.; Rom. 15:20) or invading someone else's xavhv or `field' (2 Cor. 10:13-16) would not arise. But in the absence of such confidence-and the confidence between the parties to the Jerusalem agreement was to be shaken very soon afterwards-misunderstandings, not to say recriminations, were bound to develop.

On receiving Paul's account of the conference and agreement, some might have said to him, `So you did receive the recognition of the Jerusalem leaders!' To this, his reply would probably have been: `I did not receive their recognition as though my commission had been defective without it; they recognized that I had already been called to this ministry, but they did not in any sense bestow on me the right to exercise it.' The nature of the recognition which Paul received could easily have been misunderstood or misrepresented. Perhaps the Jerusalem leaders would not have given exactly the same account of the matter as Paul does. According to E. Haenchen, what they said to him was: `You may waive circumcision in the mission to the Gentiles'-but if Paul had reproduced their decision in these terms, it `would have made Jerusalem appear still the superior authority, which had simply thought fit to make a gracious concession' (Acts, 467). In our more sophisticated days we are familiar with the device of calculated ambiguity in ecclesiastical as in other agreements; but such ambiguity as inhered in this agreement was not deliberate but inadvertent. Nevertheless, a study of Paul's Corinthian correspondence illustrates the difficulties to which it led.

2:10 µovov t(llv Jttwx6v'a tvrltovevwµev, 'Only, we were to remember 8:7; the poor': a good example of the imperatival use of Na (cf. Mk. 5:23; 2 Cor. Eph. 5:33); see C. F. D. Moule, Idiom-Book, 144f., with other literature cited there. In direct speech, the 'pillars' said something like 'Please remember ... or, if we remembering..'. give full force to the present tense of the verb, 'Please go on By µovov Paul implies that the 'pillars' imposed no conditions, made no stipulations, apart from the request for Christian aid (which could in no way be construed as an 'addition' to Paul's gospel). With that exception they 'laid upon them no further burden'. These last words are taken from the apostolic letter of Acts 15:23-29, but it is not suggested that Paul had that letter in mind, or even knew of it at this stage. It is not as though he imagined someone saying, 'But did they not require you to observe the "necessary things" laid down in the Jerusalem decree?' and answered, 'No, they did not; they "only" asked us to remember the poor.' The social decree of Acts 15:28f. had probably not been promulgated even when Paul sent his letter to the Galatians, let alone when the conference of vv 1-10 took place. (Had it been already promulgated, some reference might have been made to it in the ensuing dispute between Paul and Cephas at Antioch.)

The Jrrwxo( are primarily the poorer members of the Jerusalem church; cf. Rom. 15:26 where, some years later, the churches of Macedonia and Achaia are said to have agreed `to make some contribution for the poor (cis tons arrwxovs) among the saints at Jerusalem'. There is some evidence, however, that the Jerusalem church referred to its membership collectively as `the poor'; hence the later designation of an important Jewish-Christian community as `Ebionites' (Heb. ha'ebyonim, `the poor').

Marcion omitted vv 6-9a from his apostolic text, and omitted xal Baevat3a and xotvwvias from v 9b, so that the 'we' in tvrlµovevwtev refers to Paul on the one side and to the Jerusalem leaders on the other: he was to remember the poor among the Gentiles and they were to remember the poor among the Jews. Cf. Tert., Adv. Marc. 5.3; A. Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott' = TU 45 (Leipzig, 1924), 45.

o xai earrovbaoa avto tovto rrorfloar, `indeed, I showed eagerness to do this very thing'. `Since avto in this sense ("very") cannot be joined to the relative' it `must be supported by tovto' (BDF 297).

The energy with which, in the following years, Paul organized a relief fund in his Gentile churches for their brethren in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1-4; 2 Cor. 8:1-9:15; Rom. 15:25-28) is an eloquent commentary on this statement. But the aorist > anot5Saaa is noteworthy: it does not refer only, or even chiefly, to that relief fund. Paul means not only that he henceforth adopted this policy, but that he had already done so-he thinks of the famine relief which he and Barnabas brought to Jerusalem from Antioch, according to Acts 11:30. 'The aorist eorrovSaoa fits in well with the fact that Paul had actually just brought alms to Jerusalem: it is almost a pluperfect' (C. W. Emmet, BC, 1.2, 279).

Paul's language not only indicates his spontaneous consent to the Jerusalem leaders' request; it emphasizes that this was a matter in which he had taken the initiative-it was not to be supposed that he was a mere agent or emissary of the Jerusalem authorities for the collecting of funds for the mother-church, a s''liah siyyon ('messenger of Zion'), as J. Klausner suggested (From Jesus to Paul, ETr [London, 1944], 364f.; cf. H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 69). See D. R. Hall, `St. Paul and Famine Relief: A Study in Galatians 210', Exp Tim 82 (1970-71), 309-311. Similarly Paul emphasizes in Rom. 15:26f. that the donations to the later relief fund are made spontaneously by the contributing Gentile churches`not as an exaction but as a willing gift', as he puts it in 2 Cor. 9:5. But we are not told if the Jerusalem leaders regarded the donations in this way. It might be argued that their present stipulation about remembering the poor was not a request but a command. K. Holl ('Der Kirchenbegriff', 44-67) argued that they looked on the Gentile churches' contributions as a legally required tribute. This cannot be proved. Still less can it be proved that (as Holl further suggested) Paul's reference to `the poor among the saints at Jerusalem' (Rom. 15:26) conceals his embarrassment over the fact that the collection was destined for the church of Jerusalem as a whole; he often enough speaks of the collection (or ministry) `for the saints' (1 Cor. 16:1; 2 Cor. 8:4; 9:1; Rom. 15:26) with no hint of embarrassment. On the present occasion the Jerusalem leaders, being sensible men, no doubt knew that monetary gifts are more likely to be made generously if one says `Please' when asking for them.

But how did the churches of Galatia view the matter? Paul has, throughout this autobiographical sketch, emphasized his independence of the Jerusalem authorities; now, he says, they did ask him (and Barnabas) to `remember the poor', and he consented to do so. He points out, indeed, that he had already taken some initiative along this line: he did not raise money for the Jerusalem church simply because the `pillars' had asked him to do so, but as an important element in his own apostolic policy. If the Galatians chose not to accept his assurance on this point, or to prefer another interpretation of the facts than his, there was little he could do about it.

When this letter was sent, Paul had not yet launched the great Jerusalem relief fund to which he refers in his Corinthian and Roman correspondence. The instructions given to the churches of Galatia which were substantially repeated in 1 Cor. 16:1-4 were certainly not given in this letter. The general admonitions of Gal. 6:2, 6-10 (see notes ad loc.) could cover such a fund, but they include no practical directions about its collection and administration.

After I Cor. 16:1 Paul's references to the Jerusalem relief fund make no mention of Galatian participation. Macedonia and Achaia alone figure in 2 Cor. 8:1-9:15 and Rom. 15:25-28. It would be precarious to infer from this that the churches of Galatia withdrew from the enterprise: members of these churches were among Paul's companions on his last journey to Jerusalem (Acts 20:7)- Gaius of Derbe and Timothy (of Lystra). (To this it may be replied that Timothy was there as Paul's aide-de-camp, not as representing the church in Lystra, which is not named by Luke in this context; and that the Western text brings Gaius from Doberus, identifying him with the Macedonian Gaius of Acts 19:29; but see p. 13 n. 55.) L. W. Hurtado, `The Jerusalem Collection and the Book of Galatians', JSNT, Issue 5 (Oct. 1979), 46-62, suggests that questions had been raised in the Galatian churches about the Jerusalem fund, and Paul had to make it plain that the fund was his own responsibility, not something imposed on him as a duty by higher authority in Jerusalem. (If he uses the language of authority when dealing with it in 2 Cor. 8:1-9:15, that authority derives from his own apostolic vocation, not from Jerusalem; but even his own apostolic authority must be combined with the Gentile churches' spontaneous generosity if the fund is to accomplish its purpose.) This reading of the text, however, implies a later date for Galatians than that accepted as probable in this commentary.

(g) Conflict at Antioch (2:11-14)

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was in the wrong. Before certain people came from James, he ate along with the Gentiles, but when those people came, he proceeded to draw back and separate himself, through fear of the circumcision party. The rest of the Jews also joined him in his play-acting, to the point where even Barnabas was carried away with them in their play-acting. But when I saw that they were not following the right road in accordance with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, 'If you, Jew as you are, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?'

TEXTUAL NOTES

vII Krlcpas K A B III a/ lat°6 syr°tsh h`I.mg / Iletpos D G byz latr syrh,,l Mcion Ambst

v 12 itvas / itva Pay ]at' 9` '*

o11vTloOLEV / c uvr)oOtov P" lat" g(F)

r1X9ovACD2HWbyzlat/r1X6evP46 B D6 G a! Or

v 13 xat of Xotnot / of Xotnot P's B 1739 lat°g Or

v14Krlcpa K A B C H ip pc lat"" syrpesh hcl.mg cop / Ilrrpw D G byz syr"' Ambst xat ovxt (ovx) IoiBatxwg l om P4" 917 1881 lat"" `"g.`'°`' Ambst

2:11 Peter's coming to Antioch is not introduced by 9Jretia as are the preceding stages in this autobiographical sketch: there was not the same apologetic need to emphasize the consecutive flow of events on this occasion. But it is most natural to take this as an incident that followed the conference of vv 1-10. There has indeed been a sequence of commentators and others, from Augustine (Ep. 82.11) onwards, who have placed this incident before the conference; cf. T. Zahn, Galater, I10; J. Munck, Paul, 100-103; H. M. Feret, Pierre et Paula Antioche eta Jerusalem (Paris, 1955), with reply by J. Dupont, `Pierre et Paul a Antioche et a Jerusalem', RSR 45 (1957), 225-239. The case for regarding the order of narration as the chronological order (vv 11-14 relating to a later occasion than vv 1-10) is presented cogently by G. Ogg (Chronology, 89-98). But, whereas most commentators identify the conference of vv 1-10 with the council described in Acts 15:6-29, the view taken in this commentary is that the conference of vv 1-10 was earlier than the council at which the apostolic decree of Acts 15:28f. was promulgated, and that the confrontation between the two apostles at Antioch took place between these two meetings. Indeed, the purpose of the decree was in large measure to solve the social problem which arose during Cephas's visit to Antioch.

The incident of vv 11-14 should probably be dated in the period following Barnabas and Paul's return to Antioch after their mission in Cyprus and South Galatia (Acts 14:26-28). If the demarcation of the two spheres of evangelism in vv 8f. had been envisaged as hard and fast, whether territorially or communally, one would have to ask what Cephas was doing in Antioch, the headquarters of Gentile Christianity. He was not confining himself to missionary work among the Jews of the city; he was enjoying table-fellowship with Gentiles-Gentile Christians, presumably. The Jerusalem agreement was flexible enough to accommodate such friendly fellowship as this. It was Cephas's volte-face that made Paul speak out so bluntly, `because he was in the wrong'-literally `condemned' (xaTEyvwoµEVOg), not by any external authority but (as Paul saw it) by the inconsistency of his own conduct. For this use of xaTEyvwot>vos cf. Josephus, War 2.135, where the Essenes (like the Friends of today) avoid oaths because `he who is not believed unless he invokes God is condemned already' (tjn ... xacEyvwoOaL). See F. W. Mozley, `Two Words in Galatians', Expositor, series 8, 4 (1912), 143-146. U. Wilckens takes the sense to be `condemned in the sight of God' (TDNT VIII, 568 n. 51, s.v. vnoxe(vosat).

There may be a late echo of this confrontation in Clem. Hom. 17.19, where Peter debates with Simon Magus (a thin disguise for Paul), denying that Christ had appeared to the latter, as he claims (x&v ort tixpOrl Got; cf. 1 Cor. 15:8), and protesting, `You have opposed (&vOeot1xas) me..., as though I stood condemned' (xateyvwoµhvos).

2:12 This picture of Cephas enjoying unreserved table-fellowship (which included participation in the memorial breaking of bread) with the Gentile members of the Antiochene church is in complete accord with the picture given of him in Acts, where, after learning on Simon the tanner's roof-top in Joppa not to call any one unclean whom God had cleansed, he is happy to visit Cornelius in Caesarea and eat with him and his family (Acts 10:28; 11:3). `The figure of a Judaizing St. Peter is a figment of the Tubingen critics with no basis in history' (K. Lake, EEP, 116).

This free and easy fellowship with Gentiles, then, was practised by Cephas at Antioch as a matter of course ((jvvijoOtev, imperfect) until some people (ttvas) came from James. For Ttvag a few witnesses have the singular Ttva, a reading which probably originated in an attempt to harmonize with the singular i1XOEv exhibited by several normally reliable witnesses in the next clause. It would make little material difference whether one messenger or several came from James (T. W. Manson, Studies, 178, prefers the two singular readings). But D. W. B. Robinson ('The Circumcision of Titus, and Paul's Liberty', 40f.), accepting Ttva, treats it as the neuter plural ('certain things') referring to the xQ(ata or Soyµata promulgated by the Council of Jerusalem at James's instance (Acts 15:19; 16:4); when these were brought to Antioch, he suggests, Cephas felt himself obliged by them `to eat, from now on, only with the ritually "clean" '. Apart from the unlikelihood that Paul would have referred to the Jerusalem resolutions so vaguely, if any credence is to be given to the record of Acts 15 (as Robinson's interpretation requires) Cephas/Peter was one of the `apostles' by whose authority the letter embodying the resolutions was sent to the church of Antioch and her daughter churches. D. R. Catchpole, `Paul, James and the Apostolic Decree', NTS 23 (1976-77), 428-444, similarly argues that Cephas at Antioch tried to impose the Jerusalem decree on Gentile Christians. But the decree appears to have been promulgated in order to facilitate social fellowship between Jewish and Gentile Christians. The present confrontation at Antioch underlined the importance of drafting some policy for the acceptable regulation of such fellowship. It was resolved at the ensuing council, against some opposition, that circumcision must not be required of Gentile Christians (this question does not appear to have arisen at the earlier conference of vv 1-10, described above), but that they should undertake to conform to the most important Jewish food-restrictions (in particular, the avoidance of the flesh of pagan sacrifices and of flesh from which the blood had not been drained) and the Jewish code of relations between the sexes (any breach of this code being `fornication', atopvc(a, in the sense of Acts 15:20, 29). If Paul makes no mention of this decree in Galatians, the reason may be that it had not yet been promulgated; his failure to mention it in I Corinthians, where relations between the sexes and the eating of the flesh of pagan sacrifices are specifically discussed, is to be explained otherwise; cf. C. K. Barrett, `Things Sacrificed to Idols', NTS 11 (1964-65), 138-153, especially 149f.

It would be unwise to identify the `certain people' who came from James with the `certain people' (rLvE;) of Acts 15:1 who came down to Antioch from Judaea and insisted that circumcision was necessary for salvation. These men are disowned by the authors of the apostolic letter (Acts 15:24); it is more likely that they were connected with the `false brethren' of v 4. The ttvas mentioned here were simply messengers from James.

What was their message? It may have been something like this: `news is reaching us in Jerusalem that you are habitually practising table-fellowship with Gentiles. This is causing grave scandal to our more conservative brethren here. Not only so: it is becoming common knowledge outside the church, so that our attempts to evangelize our fellow-Jews are being seriously hampered' (cf. T. W. Manson, Studies, 178-181).

It may have had even graver import. The mid-forties witnessed a revival of militancy among Jewish freedom fighters, adherents of the `fourth philosophy', as Josephus calls it (War 2.118; Ant. 18.23). Repressive action was taken against them by Tiberius Julius Alexander, procurator of Judaea (c. AD 46-48). who crucified two of their leaders, Jacob and Simon, sons of that Judas the Galilaean who led the revolt against the provincial census of AD 6 (Jos. Ant. 20.102). B. Reicke ('Der geschichtliche Hintergrund des Apostelkonzils and der Anti- ochia-Episode, Gal 2,1-14', De Zwaan FS, 172-187) thinks rather of the period beginning AD 52, when the insurgency was intensified, and dates this `Antioch episode' during Paul's visit to Antioch mentioned in Acts 18:22f. In the eyes of such militants, Jews who fraternized with Gentiles and adopted Gentile ways were traitors, and the leaders of the Jerusalem church may have felt themselves endangered by their colleague's free-and-easy conduct at Antioch (see on 6:12).

In spite of the impressive attestation of the singular 71),.0ev, the plural is probably to be preferred (otE Se r~XOov, `but when they came'). The singular may have been influenced by the occurrence of o'CE SE i1kOEV, `but when (Cephas) came', at the beginning of v 11. It would indeed be just possible to retain otE S% i1X0Ev here and translate `and when he (Cephas) came' (in the same sense as at the beginning of vII, recapitulating the earlier occurrence of the three words), but this would be intolerably awkward; the verb here rather catches up the preceding ekOEiv.

UJLEatEXXEV xat &cpthQll;EV eavtov, `he drew back and separated himself': the double imperfect suggests that he did not make an abrupt break with his former practice, but proceeded to change it gradually. bJtEateX.ev is probably intransitive; it might be construed as transitive, with iravt6v as its object as well as object to &cpc.5pttev. If it is intransitive, we might render `he retreated' (as though for shelter); if transitive, `he drew himself back'. K. H. Rengstorf takes this action as the antithesis to opOoJtoSew Jt(Jdg t7ly &Xrl8gtav tov evayyc7,,l0v in v 14 (TDNT VII, 598, s.v. vntoatEX(O).

cpo(3o6µevos tons irx ttEQttoµ7ls, `fearing those of the circumcision'. of Ex 7tepttoµtjs may have various meanings according to the context: `the circumcision party', i.e. Judaizers within the church (Acts 11:2; Tit. 1:10); the circumcised members of the church, i.e. Jewish Christians in a non-partisan sense (Acts 10:45; Col. 4:11); circumcised people, i.e. Jews (Rom. 4:12b). Of whom was Peter afraid on this occasion? Not of his fellow-Jewish Christians in Antioch; they with him had been sharing table-fellowship with their Gentile brethren (cf. v 13, oL Xotnot 'IovBalot); not even of James's messengers (there is no reason for equating tons Ex nEpttoµ1s with ttvas &716 'laX6POU) nor of James himself-he may have respected James's authority, but why should he be afraid of him? The people who inspired fear were the Jewish militants to whom James's message possibly referred. See for various views G. Dix, Jew and Greek (London, 1953), 43ff.; J. Munck, Paul, 106-109 (he thinks that oL N Jteettoµrls were Gentile Christians); W. Schmithals, Paul and James, 66-68. Schmithals points out that `Paul utters no word of criticism against either James's messengers or James himself' (68), although his interpretation of this fact is open to doubt.

C. K. Barrett (WEYAAIIOETOAOI', 387) regards tons ex neettod7 as the Jewish Christian party in Jerusalem, who frightened Cephas `presumably by threats of breaking off fellowship'-although more forceful measures may be implied in Paul's reference to `dangers from false brethren' in 2 Cor. 11:26.

See also E. E. Ellis, `The Circumcision Party and the Early Christian Mission', TU 102 (1968), 390-399, reprinted in Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity (Tubingen/Grand Rapids, 1978), 116-128.

2:13 xal avvv3Tsx(?(6rloav avtw [xal] of Xotnol Iovbaiot, `the other Jews [also] joined in his play-acting'. The `other Jews' here are the Jewish Christians of Antioch-`Jews by birth' (cpvaet 'Ioubaiot), to borrow a phrase from v 15. If they were normally happy to share social fellowship with their fellow-Christians of Gentile birth, they may have felt on this occasion that courtesy dictated some conformity to the stricter practice of the visitors from Jerusalem, so they followed the example of Cephas. Paul calls their action bnoxptots, `play-acting', because it did not spring from inner conviction (vnoxpivoµat was used distinctively in classical Greek of the role of the actor on the Attic stage). He would not have approved of Jewish Christians who abstained on principle from eating with Gentile Christians, but he would not have stigmatized their abstention as vn6xptots. He applied the term to Cephas's abstention because it sprang from expediency, not principle: hitherto Cephas had eaten in Gentile company with a good conscience.

But that Barnabas-'even Barnabas'-should have been `led away' with the others (ovv(xutrlx9Ti) to join this charade of separate tables was for Paul the last straw. He probably felt Barnabas's action more keenly than any one else's, because he and Barnabas had enjoyed mutual confidence as colleagues for so long. If it is to the churches of South Galatia that this letter is addressed, then the readers knew Barnabas: their churches came into being as a result of the preaching of Barnabas and Paul together. R. J. Bauckham (`Barnabas in Galatians') ascribes Paul's reticence about Barnabas in Galatians to his feeling of desertion and isolation over what he regarded as Barnabas's defection, which had taken place very shortly before this letter was written. Barnabas was the last man of whom such action would have been expected. This was effectively the end of their close association: the personal dispute over John Mark which Luke records in Acts 15:36-39 would not have caused a parting of their ways had it not been for this more serious difference. Yet in this context it is Cephas's action on which Paul concentrates, not only because the initiative was his but also because it was Paul's relation to Cephas that was being made an issue in the Galatian churches. The Galatians had no doubt heard of Barnabas's part in the Antioch episode, but Cephas's authority was greater than Barnabas's, and Cephas's authority, as they heard the story, had been exercised against Paul's policy: Paul, it appeared, had been put in his place by the prince of the apostles. What had Paul to say to this?

2:14 &XX' ote eiBov otL oix 6p0oJto6ovaLv rtpos riv &krOEtav tov EvayyeX(ov, `But when I saw that they were not on the right road towards the truth of the gospel': so G. D. Kilpatrick, `Gal 2, 14 oQOoJtoBEtv', Studien fur Bultmann, 269-274. He mentions two other possible meanings of the verb: (i) `walk straight or upright' (as opposed to limping), (ii) `make straight for the goal'-but considers that `be on the right road' is most appropriate in the present context. In Paul's eyes, they were taking the wrong road, which was leading them astray from gospel truth. We might take 3T06s to mean `according to' rather than `towards'. On 6p0otto8>w cf. also J. G. Winter, `Another instance of o120oato8Etv', HTR 34 (1941), 161f.; C. H. Roberts, `A Note on Galatians 2:14', JTS 40 (1939), 55f.

The phrase `the truth of the gospel' has occurred in v 5; see note there on the parallels between the two contexts.

ELJrov tcu KgTa eµ3Tpoo0Ev it&vtwv. The rebuke was thus public as well as personal ('to his face'). It has been asked why Paul did not follow the injunction of Mt. 18:15, `If your brother sins, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone' (where Els oe after &µaptrlorl may be an addition to the original text). Paul may or may not have known this injunction in its Matthaean form, but he certainly knew the spirit of it, for he reproduces it in 6:1 below. For aught we know, he may have remonstrated with Cephas privately before rebuking him publicly. But perhaps he would have said that, since the offence was public, the rebuke had also to be public. Even Augustine confessed, in another connexion, that he had difficulty at times in deciding whether to follow Mt. 18:15 or 1 Tim. 5:20, `Those who sin (or who persist in sinning, tons &µaptavovtas) rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest may stand in fear' (Ep. 95.3).

E1 av 'Ioubaios iJr&pxwv iOvlxws xai ovxi 'IouSaixdw ~~5, JrcuS T& E9vrl &vayxai;ELg 'IouBatlEly; `If you, Jew as you are (by birth and upbringing), live in the Gentile and not in the Jewish way (as Cephas had been doing habitually in Antioch, and presumably in other Gentile communities in which he found himself from time to time), how do you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?' 'Ioubat eiv and 'lovSaixws ~f1v are here synonymous (see note on 'Ioubaioµos, 1:13); if a single verb were used as a synonym for E9vixws ~rlv, it might well be E7,,),,r)v(ttv. Having been happy to live like a Gentile among Gentiles, Cephas had now turned around and begun to practise Jewishstyle social separation. This in effect amounted to saying to Gentile Christians, `Unless you conform to the Jewish way of life we cannot have social relations with you.' This was practically compelling them to judaize'. Some Jewish Christians might have complained that they were being compelled to `hellenize' (against their most poignant ancestral traditions) in order to maintain table-fellowship with Gentile Christians. Cephas, however, could not make this complaint: he `hellenized' voluntarily, until the messengers from James came. Paul's mature policy, where there were conflicting convictions of this kind, was that one side should consider the other, and especially that the stronger should consider the weaker, in a spirit of Christian charity (Rom. 14:1ff.), but anything that smacked of compulsion was abhorrent to him.

We find ourselves wishing, as with the agreement reached at the recent Jerusalem conference, that we had more than one account of this confrontation- Cephas's, for instance, or, perhaps better still, Barnabas's (since we already have Paul's). But in fact it is not difficult to imagine how Cephas would have defended his action. He would have claimed that he acted out of consideration for weaker brethren-the weaker brethren on this occasion being those back home in Jerusalem. Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 1.20) read his motives thus, and put Paul's critical reaction down to his immaturity: later on, he points out, Paul `was to become in practice all things to all men-to those under law, as under law' (1 Cor. 9:20). The trouble was, however, that Cephas's concern for the weaker brethren in Jerusalem conflicted with Paul's concern for the Gentile brethren in Antioch, who were being made to feel like second-class citizens.

Again, Tertullian suggests that, `since Paul himself became "all things to all men in order to win them all", Peter too may well have had this policy in mind in acting differently from what he was accustomed to teach' (Adv. Marc. 4.3). That Cephas had some reason on his side was acknowledged by Barnabas, who followed his example. But for Paul the liberty of the Gentiles was endangered by their action as surely as it was by the intrusion of the false brethren mentioned in v 4. If Gentile Christians were not fit company for Jewish Christians, it must be because their Christianity was defective: faith in Christ and baptism into his name were insufficient and must be supplemented by something else. And that `something else' could only be a measure of conformity to Jewish law or custom: they must, in other words, judaize'.

This controversy between the two apostles was so painfully unedifying to some later fathers of the church that they tried to remove the offence which it presented. Clem. Alex., Hvp. (apud Euseb. HE 1.12), distinguished the Cephas of this episode from the apostle. Towards the end of the fourth century there was an interesting exchange of correspondence between Jerome and Augustine on the subject. Jerome, in his commentary on Galatians, said that Paul actually believed that Peter's action was justified, but opposed it at Antioch `in order to soothe the minds of trouble-makers' (ut quasi animos tumultuantium deliniret); Augustine took him to task for this, and gave his own more reasonable account of the matter. Jerome claimed the authority of others, especially Origen, for his interpretation. (See Augustine, Epp. 28.3; 40.3f.; 82.4ff.; Jerome, Ep. 112.4ff.) Had Jerome been right, Paul would have been at least as guilty of `play-acting' as those whom he criticizes on this score.

If the dispute had been amicably resolved by the time Paul sent this letter, we might have expected him to say so. We might also have expected him to say whether the church of Antioch as a whole supported him or Cephas, but he does not. Perhaps it goes without saying that a Gentile church would follow the apostle who asserted the liberty of the Gentiles-but when the course currently being pursued by the Gentile churches of Galatia is considered, one cannot be sure. Certainly Antioch ceased shortly after this to be Paul's missionary base, but as he carried the gospel farther west other bases, nearer the scene of apostolic activity, would in any case have proved more suitable than Antioch. (His stay there in AD 52, mentioned in Acts 18:22f., does not imply that Antioch was still his base.)

Whatever loss of mutual confidence may have been occasioned by the dispute between the two apostles, it did not lead to a breach between the Gentile mission and Jerusalem: Paul continued to `remember the poor' as the `pillars' had asked him to do.

G. Howard (Crisis, 42-45) suggests that Peter had so recently been introduced to the full freedom of the gospel as Paul understood it that he `took some time to work out its practical implications'; however, he `soon incorporated it into his own preaching and allowed himself to become a foundation for unity in the church'. Similarly J. D. G. Dunn concludes that Peter broadened his own outlook `as Christianity broadened its outreach and character..., at the cost to be sure of losing his leading role in Jerusalem, but with the result that he became the most hopeful symbol of unity for that growing Christianity which more and more came to think of itself as the Church Catholic'-the bridge-man (pontifex) `who did more than any other to hold together the diversity of firstcentury Christianity' (Unity, 385f.).

IV

FAITH RECEIVES THE PROMISE

(2:15-5:1)

Mention of the incident at Antioch leads Paul on to assert plainly that Jews and Gentiles alike are justified by faith in Christ and not by legal works. It is preposterous, he adds, for those who by faith have received the Spirit to go back to reliance on keeping the law.

The gospel proclaims the fulfilment of the promise made by God to Abraham. All the nations were to be blessed with him, and since it was by faith that he received the blessing, so it is with them. The law, far from conveying a blessing, pronounces a curse on the law-breaker. From this curse Christ has redeemed his people by absorbing it in himself through his death by crucifixion. Thus they receive the blessing promised to Abraham-that is, they receive the Spirit through faith.

The superiority of the gospel over the law is shown also in the fact that Abraham received the promise centuries before the law was given. A testamentary disposition, once validated, cannot be invalidated by any subsequent provision; so the promise, confirmed by God, cannot be set aside by the law. The law was given not to impart life but to increase the sum-total of sin; the promise, with the righteousness and life which it secures, is obtained not through keeping the law but through faith in Christ.

The law, in fact, is like a slave-attendant placed in charge of a freeborn child until he attains his majority. The people of God have attained their majority through faith in Christ; in him they have entered a new order of existence, in which distinctions of the old order become irrelevant. Until the child comes of age, although he is potentially heir to a rich estate, he is not given his liberty but is treated like a slave, So we remained under the control of the law until the coming of Christ. He has redeemed us from legal bondage and given us a new status as mature and responsible sons and daughters of God. It is sons and daughters, not slaves, who receive the Spirit and are enabled by him to call God 'Abba, Father', as Jesus himself did. How can any one who has come of age desire to be restricted all over again by the leading-strings of infancy?

Paul then appeals to the Galatians to give him the same confidence and affection as they did when first he came to them. They are indeed his dear chil dren, but they have been misled by trouble-makers who simply wish to swell the number of their personal followers.

He next recalls the Genesis story of the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael in favour of Sarah and Isaac, to show that it is those who enjoy the freedom of the Spirit, not those who are enslaved to the law, that are the trueborn children of God. The Galatians have been set free by Christ: let them not turn back the clock and submit to bondage again.

(a) Both Jews and Gentiles are justified by faith (2:15-21)

As for us who are Jews by birth and not 'sinners of the Gentiles', knowing that it is not by legal works that any human being is justified but only by faith in Jesus Christ, we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified through faith in Christ and not by legal works, because by legal works 'no living person will be justified'. But if seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? Far from it! For if I build again the things which I broke down I make myself a transgressor. Through the law I died in relation to law in order to live in relation to God. I have-been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in mortal body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not make the grace of God null and void, for if it is through law that righteousness comes, then Christ died to no purpose.

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