(i) From slavery to sonship (4:1-7) 191

(i) From slavery to sonship (4:1-7) 191

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 26 tic om P46 P Clem.Alex Cyr

Ev XeLatw / Xg(atov P46 1739 pc

v 28 oux Evt ... oux Evt ... ovx EVL / ovxEtt ... ovxEtL (vid)... (lacuna) P46 oubE EXEuOEgog / 1 EXEVOEpos D"

xaL 9714, / 1 oilkv Chr

Efc / ev G 33 lat

ELS EQtE EV Xeto'r(A / EotE XQLOtov P' M A

3:26 Jtavtcs yap vioi 6EOV EotE. Those addressed as 'you' in v 26 are identical with those indicated by the inclusive `we' in vv 23-25: Gentile and Jewish believers are together in view. In v 7 those who are >ix nkatews are 'sons of Abraham'; here an even higher status is accorded them, for Sta tfg atiotews ('through the faith' mentioned repeatedly in the foregoing verses) they are 'sons of God'-'sons of God in Christ Jesus', who is himself the Son of God par excellence (cf. 1:16; 2:20; 4:4). If it is 'through faith' that they have entered into this relationship, then it is not by legal works (cf. 2:16, etc.). The phrase iv XQLaicu 'Irloov is probably not governed by JrtotEws, as though the meaning were `faith in Christ Jesus'-this idea is usually expressed by Paul with the objective genitive, which indeed is exhibited here in p46, by assimilation with (e.g.) v 22. (For n((JtLg followed by Ev cf. Eph. 1:15; Col. 1:4; 1 Tim. 3:13; 2 Tim. 1:13; followed by elS, Col. 2:5.) Believers in Christ are united with him, participate in him, are incorporated into him, and as he is God's Son inherently, so in him they become God's sons and daughters by adoption, anticipating now by the Spirit what is to be fully manifested in the coming glory (for further exposition of vlo6co(a see notes on 4:4-7 below).

The distinctively Pauline expressions `in Christ', `in Christ Jesus', `in the Lord', are by no means mere theologoumena; they express an early and widespread Christian experience: `the religious experience of the Christian is not merely experience like that of Jesus, it is experience which at all characteristic and distinctive points is derived from Jesus the Lord, and which only makes sense when this derivative and dependent character is recognized' (J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit [London, 1975], 342). It is not peculiar to Paul; it is closely akin to, if not identical with, the Johannine insistence on mutual `abiding', illustrated by the parable of the vine and the branches (Jn. 15:4-10). The concept is that which in I Cor. 6:15-17; 12:12-27 (cf. Rom. 12:4f.) Paul expresses in terms of the body of Christ, that body of which the people of Christ are members. It is difficult to find an adequate precedent for this idea of an `inclusive' Christ: it is different, for example, from the alleged Hebrew concept of `corporate personality'. The idea is sometimes spoken of as an instance of `Pauline mysticism' (cf. A. Schweitzer, Mysticism, 116ff., 270ff.), though 'mysticism' is not the aptest term to apply to it. Even less apt is the attempt to depict the idea by means of geometrical diagrams, as in A. Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History, ETr (London, 1926), 293-299. One of the most satisfying treatments of the subject is the chapter `The Corporate Christ' in C. F. D. Moule, Christology, 47-96; cf. a chapter with the same title in his The Phenomenon of the NT (London, 1967), 21-42.

The body of Christ (the believing community as a whole), together with its members one by one, is vitalized by the life of the risen Christ and energized by his Spirit. Incorporation into this body is effected by personal faith in Christ and sacramentally sealed in baptism (cf. v 27). Membership in the body of Christ has a far-reaching effect on each one who is so incorporated as well as on the community as such. Thus Paul knew himself to be 'a man in Christ' (2 Cor. 12:2); he had been 'crucified with Christ' and henceforth lived as one united by faith to the risen Son of God (2:20 above). His personal appropriation of the love manifested to mankind in the self-giving of Christ was as real as his awareness of faith-union with Christ as the source of his new life. For him in a special way this involved sharing the sufferings of Christ in the course of his apostolic service (see 6:17 below with notes). But each individual believer was a man or woman `in Christ', in whom Christ lived, and this inclusive relationship with Christ was to be shown forth in the ordinary life of each.

The relation of life `in Christ' to justification by faith is repeatedly debated. Thus, arguing that `righteousness by faith and participation in Christ ultimately amount to the same thing', E. P. Sanders speaks of Gal. 3:24-27 `as reflecting better the way Paul thought and Rom. 5:1 as being an unusually schematic presentation which he does not systematically maintain' (PPJ, 506 with n. 68). He contrasts this position of his with that of D. 0. Via ('Justification and Deliverance: Existential Dialectic', SR 1 [1971], 204-212), which views Rom. 5:1 as Paul's exact thought and Gal. 3:24-27 as an instance in which Paul `uses language inexactly and juxtaposes the two'-justification (in the sense of acquittal) and deliverance (freedom from the power of sin)-`in an unclear way', whereas Paul's `dominant tendency' was to distinguish the two. In fact, we shall understand both justification and participation (or incorporation) better if we maintain a distinction between them in our thinking. Paul was justified by faith and incorporated into Christ simultaneously and instantaneously on the Damascus road, but he did not confuse the two realities. In Phil. 3:8-11, for example, it is because he no longer had `a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ', that he could make it his settled purpose in life to advance in the knowledge of Christ, `and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings'.

3:27 6ooL yap Eig XpLotbv e(3a?tt(oOTE, XpLotov evrn)oao6E. To be `baptized into Christ' is to be incorporated into him by baptism, and hence to be `in Christ'. A fuller statement is given in Rom. 6:3-11, although there the theme of `baptism into Christ Jesus' is developed as a disincentive to continuing in sin, which is not Paul's point in this immediate context.

This is the only reference to baptism in Galatians, and it is difficult to suppose that the readers would not have understood it as a statement about their initiatory baptism in water `into the name of the Lord Jesus' (that Paul's converts were so baptized is a reasonable inference from 1 Cor. 1:13: `was it into Paul's name that you were baptized?'). J. D. G. Dunn, however, expresses the opinion that `(3w7tiiteoOaL Els XQLozov is simply a metaphor drawn from the rite of baptism to describe the entry of the believer into Christian experience-or, more precisely, the entry of the believer into the spiritual relationship of the Christian with Christ, which takes place in conversion-initiation' (Baptism in the Holy Spirit [London, 1970], 109).

Christian baptism took over from the baptism of John its connexion with repentance and remission of sins and its significance as a pointer to the new age. But it was now administered specifically in Jesus' name and was the outward and visible sign of admission to the new community: `in one Spirit', says Paul to the Corinthians, `we were all baptized into one body' (1 Cor. 12:13).

The question arises here: if Paul makes baptism the gateway to `being-inChrist', is he not attaching soteriological efficacy to a rite which in itself is as external or `material' as circumcision? With reference to the `creative act of justification', E. P. Sanders says that its Sitz im Leben `is baptism, and the gift of the Spirit the means. For Paul, baptism, justification of the sinner, and [new] creation are inseparable' (PPJ, 533n.). This may be true, but Paul, who had learned so clearly the religious inadequacy of the old circumcision, was not the man to ascribe ex opere operato efficacy to another external rite. If he were asked where and when he received justification by faith, he would have pointed to the Damascus road at the moment when the Lord appeared to him; his baptism, which took place some days later, could have been no more than a seal of what had happened there and then. (Even in Acts 9:17f. it is implied that his baptism followed his filling with the Spirit.) If it is remembered that repentance and faith, with baptism in water and reception of the Spirit, followed by first communion, constituted one complex experience of Christian initiation, then what is true of the experience as a whole can in practice be predicated of any element in it. The creative agency, however, is the Spirit. Baptism in water per se is no guarantee of salvation (cf. 1 Cor. 10:1-12) as the indwelling presence of the Spirit is (cf. 4:6 below; Rom. 8:9).

On baptism in Paul see also O. Cullmann, Baptism in the NT, ETr (London, 1950), 23ff.; G. W. H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit (London, 1951), 3ff.; G. R. BeasleyMurray, Baptism in the NT (London, 1962), 127ff.; D. E. H. Whiteley, The Theology of St. Paul (Oxford, 1964), 166ff.; R. Schnackenburg, Baptism in the Thought of St. Paul, ETr (Oxford, 1964); G. Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries, ETr (Edinburgh, 1967); K. Barth, CD IV/4, ETr (Edinburgh, 1969), 32ff. (on the relation and distinction between water baptism and Spirit baptism); H. Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of his Theology, ETr (Grand Rapids, 1975), 396ff.; J. D. G. Dunn, Unity, 158ff.

To `put on Christ' is for Paul another way of expressing incorporation into him. The closest parallel to Xptarbv EveSvaaade here is Rom. 13:14, axvS6oaa8e iov xvetov 'Irloovv XptorOv, but there believers are exhorted to do what they are here said to have done already. This indicative /imperative oscillation is not unparalleled in Paul. `Be what you are', he says in effect, meaning `Be in ordinary practice what God's grace has made you.' So in Rom. 6:11f. those who are said to have `died to sin' in Rom. 6:2 are urged to consider themselves `dead to sin'; as regards the use of the `putting on' figure, believers are said in Col. 3:9f. to `have put off the old man' [the one they formerly were in their unregenerate state]... and put on the new man', whereas in Eph. 4:22ff. (if ato0eo0at and f;vSvoaa0at are infinitives in an indirect command) they are exhorted to `put off the old man... and put on the new man'. But in Col. 3:10 and Eph. 4:24 putting on the new man implies the assumption of a new way of life (which indeed is the point of the exhortation to `put on the Lord Jesus Christ' in Rom. 13:14), whereas in Gal. 3:27 the ethical aspect is not primarily in view (it is introduced in due course, in 5:13ff.). Here it is the new status, the new order of existence `in Christ Jesus', that is emphasized.

The metaphorical sense of `putting on' may have been suggested by the converts' divesting themselves of their clothes before baptism and being reclothed afterwards (cf. C. F. D. Moule, Worship in the NT [London, 1961], 52f.). Certainly ' "to put on Christ" is simply a figurative usage to describe more expressively the spiritual transformation which makes one a Christian' (J. D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 110; cf. his Unity, 159); but this still leaves open the question of the origin of this particular figurative usage. S. J. Mikolaski, saying that `we strip off the clothes of the old life to be clothed with the garments of Christ's righteousness through faith-baptism', points to OT precedents in Ps. 132:9; Is. 61:10; 64:6; Zc. 3:3 (NBCR, 1099). The OT background is much more convincing than the attempt to find a pagan background. In some forms of religious initiation known in the Graeco-Roman world the donning of a new garment appears to have symbolized the conferment of immortality or even participation in the divine nature (cf. J. Leipoldt, Die urchristliche Taufe im Licht der Religionsgeschichte [Leipzig, 1928], 60; H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 112f.; cf. G. Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries, 29 n. 102 et passim, for a critique of theories accounting for Pauline baptismal imagery in such terms). While Paul was not influenced by such ideas or practices, they could certainly have influenced some of his Gentile converts in their understanding of his teaching. (For gnostic usage see H. D. Betz, Galatians, 188 n. 61.)

3:28 ovx evi. In origin, Evi is a strengthened form of the preposition Ev, but in classical usage it became a variant of ev&oa(v) (cf. 1 Cor. 6:5). Here, however (as in Col. 3:11; Jas. 1:17, where also it is negatived by ovx), it is an emphatic equivalent of eoiw.

We have parallels to such open religious fellowship elsewhere in antiquity; for example, in SIG3 111.985 there is an account of a private cult-group in Philadelphia, founded in the first or second century BC by one Dionysius in pursuance of directions received from Zeus in a dream, which was explicitly open to `men and women, free persons and household slaves', and in which ethical probity was insisted on.

The first stipulation here, however, is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek (for "EXXrly in the sense of `Gentile' see on 2:3); the breaking down of the middle wall of partition between these two was fundamental to Paul's gospel (Eph. 2:14f.). By similarly excluding the religious distinction between slaves and the freeborn, and between male and female, Paul makes a threefold affirmation which corresponds to a number of Jewish formulas in which the threefold distinction is maintained, as in the morning prayer in which the male Jew thanks God that he was not made a Gentile, a slave or a woman (S. Singer, The Authorised Daily Prayer Book [London, 1939], 5f.). This threefold thanksgiving can be traced back as far as R. Judah b. Elai, c. AD 150 (t. Ber. 7.18), or his contemporary R. Me'ir (b. Men. 43b)-both with `brutish man' [bor] instead of `slave'. The reason for the threefold thanksgiving was not any positive disparagement of Gentiles, slaves or women as persons but the fact that they were disqualified from several religious privileges which were open to free Jewish males.

The formula may be even earlier, for it seems to have been modelled on a Greek formula going back as far as Thales (6th century BC), who is reported by Hermippus to have said that there were three things for which he was grateful to fortune: that he was born a human being and not a beast, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a barbarian (Diog. Laert., Vit. Phil. 1.33). Substantially the same saying is attributed to Socrates (Diog. Laert., ibid.) and Plato (Plut., Marius 46.1; Lactantius, Inst. 3.19.17). A comparable saying from a Zoroastrian source is mentioned by H. D. Betz, Galatians, 185 n. 26 (quoting J. Darmesteter, Une priere jud~o-persane [Paris, 1891]).

It is not unlikely that Paul himself had been brought up to thank God that he was born a Jew and not a Gentile, a freeman and not a slave, a man and not a woman. If so, he takes up each of these three distinctions which had considerable importance in Judaism and affirms that in Christ they are all irrelevant. He may here express an insight of his own, arising out of his sure grasp of what was involved in the attitude and achievement of Jesus. Another view is that he is quoting `what is almost surely a fragment of an early baptismal formula' (R. Scroggs, IDBSup 966, s.v. `Woman in the NT'; he cites the parallel structures of I Cor. 12:12f. and Col. 3:9-11); if so, it may be asked if the formula was not based on Paul's own teaching and practice.

Paul makes some reference to these three dual categories in 1 Cor. 7 where he exhorts the circumcised and uncircumcised to remain as they were in this regard at the time of their conversion (vv 18f.), the slave and the free person to be content with their respective stations in life and not try to change them (vv 21-23), and married and unmarried persons to continue so, in the one way or the other: `in whatever state each was called, there let him/her remain with God' (v 24). Either way, it can make no difference to one's status in Christ.

ovx Evt 'IouSuios oiS "EkkTIv. The cleavage between Jew and Gentile was for Judaism the most radical within the human race. It was indeed possible for a Gentile to become a Jewish proselyte; some Jewish teachers indeed thought that the greatest kindness they could show to Gentiles was to win them: `love your fellow-creatures', said Hillel, `and bring them near to the Torah' (m. Ab. 1.12). But a Gentile who became a proselyte crossed over to the Jewish side of the gulf; the gulf remained. It is clear both from Paul's letters and from the record of Acts that the gospel principle of complete equality of Jew and Gentile before God was not accepted in the early church without a struggle. There were influential voices in the church which maintained that Gentiles could be admitted into its membership on a similar footing to the admission of proselytes into the Jewish community: they must be circumcised (if males) and conform in some degree to Jewish law and custom. Some who took this line probably regarded the indiscriminate evangelization of Gentiles as unwise; they could well have taken up and appropriated the logion: `Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs' (Mk. 7:27).

This attitude seems to have hardened in the interval between the Jerusalem conference of Gal. 2:1-10 and the development of the crisis which called forth the present letter: on the former occasion, no voice was apparently raised to demand that the Gentile Titus should be circumcised, but now (in part, perhaps, because of external pressure) circumcision was being urged upon the Gentile members of the Galatian churches.

Paul's position was clear-cut: had the law shown itself able to impart life, this would have given the Jews an overwhelming advantage; but since the law's inability to do any such thing had been demonstrated, there was now no distinction between Jews and Gentiles before God in respect either of their moral bankruptcy or of their need to receive his pardoning grace. The law-free gospel put both communities on one and the same level before God, so that `in Christ' there was `neither Jew nor Greek' (cf. also Rom. 1:16; 3:22f.; 10:12; 15:8f.; 1 Cor. 1:24; Eph. 2:13-22; 3:6; Col. 3:11).

ovx evi SovXos ov eXc iOeeoc. The social inferiority of slaves was marked enough in Jewish society, but still more so in Mediterranean society generally and most of all in Roman law.

Paul's general attitude to the status of Christian slaves is shown in 1 Cor. 7:22, `he who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freedman (a.atEX60e(?os); likewise he who was free when called is Christ's slave'. Christian slaves should not chafe at their underprivileged status in the world; 'in Christ'-and on the practical level that meant in the church-they were entitled to enjoy equal rank with their free brothers and sisters. This could mean, for example, that someone who was a slave in the outside world might be entrusted with spiritual leadership in the church, and if the owner of the slave was a member of the same church, he would submit to that spiritual leadership. There is sufficient evidence that this was not merely a theoretical possibility.

When Paul sent Onesimus back to his master Philemon, `no longer as a slave but better than a slave, as a beloved brother' (Phm. 16), we do not know if Philemon responded to the apostle's hint and sent Onesimus back to continue serving him or retained Onesimus in much the same kind of household service as formerly. But Onesimus was now a fellow-member with Philemon in the church of Colossae (Col. 4:9). The church provided a setting in which the master-slave relationship (or, if Philemon emancipated Onesimus, the patronfreedman relationship) was irrelevant. If it could be established that Philemon's slave was the Onesimus who was bishop of Ephesus half-a-century later (Ign. Eph. 1:3; cf. J. Knox, Philemon among the Letters of Paul [London, 21960], 88-92), this would provide sufficient evidence that former servile status was no bar to church leadership. Callixtus, bishop of Rome early in the 3rd century (AD 217-222), was an ex-slave, if Hippolytus is to be believed (Haer. 9.1If.), and Pius I, an earlier occupant of the same see, was, if not a slave himself, at least the brother of a slave (Hermas, author of the Shepherd), according to the compiler of the Muratorian canon (lines 73-77).

On the general subject see M. I. Finley (ed.), Slavery in Classical Antiquity (New York, 11968), and in relation to Christianity, S. S. Bartchy, MAAAON XPHXAI: FirstCentury Slavery and 1 Corinthians 7:21 (Missoula, 1973).

ovx z`vt apacv xat 071?cu. There is a slight change of construction here (with no substantial change in meaning): Paul does not say, following the precedent of the two companion clauses, ovx Evt apaev oOSi 0~Xv. The reason for the change is probably the influence of Gn. 1:27, t.poev xai "kv EJtoii1aEv avio5g, `he made them male and female' (cf. Mk. 10:6). In Christ, on the contrary, `there is no "male and female".' Paul's statement was echoed later in those gnostic circles which held that, in the new age, man would no longer be separated into `male and female' but would revert to a (supposedly) pristine androgynous state (cf. Gos. Egy., quoted by Clem. Alex., Strom. 3.45, 63ff., 91, where Jesus is recorded as foretelling the day `when the two become one and the male with the female neither male nor female'). W. A. Meeks, `The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity', History of Religions 13 (1973-74), 165-208 (cited favourably by H. D. Betz, Galatians, 196 n. 122), thinks that Paul is here quoting a `baptismal reunification formula' which envisaged the restoration of a pristine androgynous image. But Paul himself is not concerned with any such fantasy; he is concerned with practical church life in which men and women (like Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free persons) are here and now fellow-members. It is not their distinctiveness, but their inequality of religious role, that is abolished `in Christ Jesus'.

Whereas Paul's ban on discrimination on racial or social grounds has been fairly widely accepted au pied de la lettre, there has been a tendency to restrict the degree to which `there is no "male and female" '. Thus it has been argued that these words relate only to the common access of men and women to baptism, with its introduction to their new existence `in Christ'. True, Paul may have had in mind that circumcision involved a form of discrimination between men and women which was removed when circumcision was demoted from its position as religious law, whereas baptism was open to both sexes indiscriminately. But the denial of discrimination which is sacramentally affirmed in baptism holds good for the new existence `in Christ' in its entirety. No more restriction is implied in Paul's equalizing of the status of male and female in Christ than in his equalizing of the status of Jew and Gentile, or of slave and free person. If in ordinary life existence in Christ is manifested openly in church fellowship, then, if a Gentile may exercise spiritual leadership in church as freely as a Jew, or a slave as freely as a citizen, why not a woman as freely as a man?

In other spheres, indeed, the distinctions which ceased to be relevant in church fellowship might continue to be observed. In Roman law the distinction between slave and free person remained; in the family the cooperation of husband and wife, or father and mother, depended (as it still does) on the distinction between them. But superiority and inferiority of status or esteem could have no place in the society whose Founder laid it down that among his followers `whoever would be first... must be slave of all' (Mk. 10:44).

How Paul allowed the principle of `no "male and female" ' to operate in practice may be seen, for example, in his appreciation of the Philippian women who `laboured side by side' with him in the gospel (Phil. 4:3) or his recognition of the right of women to pray and prophesy in church-the veil being the symbol of their authority (e~ova(a) to do so (1 Cor. 11:10; cf. M. D. Hooker, `Authority on her head: an examination of 1 Cor. xi.10', NTS 10 [1963-64], 410-416; A. Jaubert, `La voile des femmes (I Cor. xi.2-16)', NTS 18 [1971-72], 419-430). Paul states the basic principle here; if restrictions on it are found elsewhere in the Pauline corpus, as in 1 Cor. 14:34f. (on the text of which see G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles [London, 1953], 17) or 1 Tim. 2:llf., they are to be understood in relation to Gal. 3:28, and not vice versa. Attempts to find canon law in Paul, or to base canon law on Paul, should be forestalled by a consideration of Paul's probable reaction to the very idea of canon law.

See J. Leipoldt, Die Frau in der antiken Welt and im Urchristentum (Leipzig, 21962); K. Stendahl, The Bible and the Role of Women (Philadelphia, 1966); P. K. Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids, 1975); S. B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ (Ann Arbor, 1980); A. Cameron, ` "Neither Male nor Female" ', Greece and Rome, series 2, 27 (1980), 60-68.

JtavTEs yap vµEls ets GTE eV Xptotcu 'Irloov, `you are all one by being in Christ Jesus' (M. J. Harris, NIDNTT 3, 1192). For ev Xptatw 'Irlaov see note on v 26. Although Paul does not use `body' language in Galatians, his present statement is practically equivalent to Ev ahµa eal.1EV Ev XetaiCO (Rom. 12:5), Ev ahµa of 7roUo(i asev (1 Cor. 10:17). Here, however, there is special emphasis on Jews and Gentiles (not to speak of free persons and slaves, males and females) being one in Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 2:15).

3:29 Ei SE vµEis XQLotov. Those who are iv X@Lotcu are also `Christ's' (XQLotov), not only in the sense that they belong to Christ or follow Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 10:7) but even more in the sense that they participate in him by the Spirit; cf. Rom. 8:9b (E1 Se ns JCVEVµa XpLotov ovx ExEL, ovtog ovx i (3tiv avtov); also Rom. 14:8 (tov xvplov Eoµav).

a .ea 'tov 'A(3pa6µ o7tepµa Ease. If Christ is Abraham's offspring, according to the promise (cf v 16), then those who are Christ's, participating in him by faith, whether Gentiles or Jews, are likewise Abraham's offspring (cf. v 7). If the agitators had insisted to the Galatians that it was desirable, and indeed necessary for salvation, to become sons of Abraham (by circumcision), Paul counters their arguments by insisting that union with Christ by faith is the only way of becoming Abraham's children in the sense that matters with God.

xat' s;nayyEX(av xkTlpovoµot. Because `there is neither Jew nor Greek', Gentile as well as Jewish believers are Abraham's offspring in Christ, heirs with him of the blessing promised to Abraham. The idea of inheritance here is on all fours with that expressed later in Eph. 1:13f.; 3:6, where Gentiles are fellowheirs (ovyx.rlpovoµa) and have received the Spirit as the guarantee and initial instalment (&ppa(36)v) of their inheritance, equally with Jewish believers P. (pace L. Hammer, `A comparison of kleronomia in Paul and Ephesians', JBL 79 [1960], 267-272, who argues that the sense of xXrlpovoµ(a in Ephesians is different from that in the Pauline homologoumena, since in the latter it is orientated to the past, but in Ephesians to the future). According to Rom. 8:18-25, believers enter upon their full heritage when they receive their public investiture as sons of God on the day of final redemption (see 4:6f. below, with notes). Cf. also J. D. Hester, Paul's Conception of Inheritance (Edinburgh, 1968).

The principles enunciated in this paragraph (vv 26-29) were revolutionary enough even within the fellowship of small local groups here and there throughout the Graeco-Roman world. But when these groups and their members multiplied until they formed a significant segment of society, there was a real possibility that such revolutionary principles would infect society at large, and the imperial authorities in the second and third centuries saw the spread of Christianity as a disintegrating ferment in the body politic. In historical fact, however, influences worked in two directions: if the church increasingly influenced pagan society, pagan society in some degree at least influenced the church.

(i) From slavery to sonship (4:1-7)

Let me put it this way: so long as the heir is an infant, he is no different from a slave, though he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and stewards until the time fixed by his father. So it was with us: when we were infants, we were enslaved under the elemental forces of the world. But when the appointed time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those who were under law, in order that we might receive our instatement as sons. Now, because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba, Father!' So then, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then also an heir through God.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 3 Tllte0a P46 t't D* G 33 a/ / rlp.EV cett

v 6 o Oros om B 1739 lat' cop" Tert

Toy viov om P46 Mcion Aug

rIµwv / vµcov Dz K L W al latvg.c dd syr copbo

v 7 SLa OEOV P46 tt* A B C* lat cop"', Clem Ambst / bta Irloov 431 / bLa X@LOTOV 81 cops8 Hier / OEOV bta XQLazov ?Z2 D byz / OEov bLa Irloov 326 a/ syr / bLa 6eov G pe / OEov eth arm / iev OEOV avvxXtlpovo toy 6E Xpcatov P pc (cf. Rom. 8:17)

4:1 Asyw 8, 'I mean', 'let me put it this way'. Paul takes up a different analogy from those used in 3:22-26 to set forth the contrast between the previous period of spiritual immaturity and the new life of full-grown freedom, bringing it up to date by including the theme of inheritance, introduced in 3:29. The law has been compared to a prison-warden and a slave-attendant; now its role is compared to that of the guardians and trustees appointed to take care of a minor and his property.

hp, oaov y,ovov o xXrlpovoltoc vrlntos eaity. The xXrlgovoµog is the son to whom the patrimony is to come in due course. While he is a vtntos, an `infant' in the legal sense-one who has not yet come of age-he is not given his freedom, he is hedged about with restrictions. He is `no different from a slave' (GO&V Sta#QEt SovXov) in this sense, that he is not his own master. The patrimony is legally his, yet he has no power to dispose of it.

4:2 &XX& vJto eJtttpoJtovs eativ xai oixovdµovs. Here it is i;JtftpoJtot and otxovoµot, guardians and stewards or trustees, who correspond to the Jta16aywy6s in 3:24, and like the JtaiSaywyos they represent the law.

In Roman law the heir, until he came of age at fourteen, was under the control of a tutor, nominated by the father in his will; then, until he reached the age of twenty-five, he was under a curator, appointed by the praetor urbanus (Justinian, Inst. 1.22, 23). In some parts of the empire at least, the father was permitted to appoint by will the curator as well as the tutor; thus the fifthcentury Syro-Latin law-book (see note on 3:15) allows him to nominate both an >rat(TQO tos and a xovpazwp (the Latin term transliterated) for his children who are under age (ed. K. G. Bruns and E. Sachau, 12). However, Paul's E t(teo)Tot and otxovol.tot need not be taken to correspond respectively to the tutores and curatores of Roman law in any strict sense; if there is any distinction between the two terms he uses, it might be suggested that the s t(T onog is in personal charge of the minor while the oixovoµos looks after his property.

&xpt ti1S JtpoO&Jt(as tov Jtatpos. In Roman law the time at which the son came of age and became a free agent (namely, at the completion of fourteen years) was fixed by statute. Yet some discretion was reserved to the father; cf. Justinian, Inst. 1.14.3: 'ad certum tempus, uel ex certo tempore, uel sub condicione, uel ante heredis institutionem, posse dari tutorem non dubitatur' ('Beyond question, a tutor may be appointed until a fixed time, or from a fixed time, or conditionally, or before the institution of an heir'). The certwn tempus could be what Paul means by the Jtpo0e0µ(a tov Jtatpos (so A. Halmel, Ober romisches Recht im Galaterbrief, summarized by D. Walker, 'The Legal Terminology in the Epistle to the Galatians', 118-120).

Paul's expression in this kind of context is illustrated by P. OxY. 491.8-10, in the will of one Eudaemon of Oxyrhynchus (AD 126), relating to two of his sons who were minors: `If I die before the said Horus and Eudaemon have completed twenty years, their brother Thonis and their maternal grandfather Harpaesis, also called Horus, son of Thonis, shall be guardian (s;niiponos) of each of them until he completes twenty years.' Here the twentieth birthday anniversary is the npo0ws(a rov na'rpos.

The word JtpoOet(a is used from classical times onwards of a `fixed term' in a variety of legal contexts, e.g. of the appointed day for the repayment of a loan, as in P. Oxy. 485.20, 27.

See E. D. Burton, Galatians, 212-215, for a detailed discussion.

4:3 ovtws xai i1tets, ore iiiv SESouxwli v>1Jttot, vJto to ototxeia tov xooµov illEOa vol. The juxtaposition of the two forms of the 1st plural imperfect of Elµl-7ltev (classical) and ilpe0a (Hellenistic)-is to be noted. While the textual evidence is divided, the natural tendency towards assimilation of the two forms speaks in favour of the UBS3 and Nestle-Aland26 reading. The periphrastic construction of the pluperfect passive, ~teOa SESoukwµevot (cf. BDF 352), emphasizes the state in which `we' were `when we were infants' more than eSESouW[tE a would have done; in any case, many of the straight pluperfect forms were falling into disuse.

The question arises whether the emphatic ij tets is inclusive ('we Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles by birth') or exclusive, distinguishing Paul and his fellow-believers of Jewish birth from his Galatian converts of Gentile origin ('we Jews by birth as well as you Gentiles'). It is true, as v 9 indicates, that the latter also were enslaved to the crrotxEia, but probably Paul is making his point here with primary reference to the Jewish law; in v 8 he makes it with reference to the pagan worship of unreal gods.

He moves from the institution of guardians and stewards in ordinary life to the analogical situation in spiritual experience: when we were in our religious `infancy', he says, we were enslaved under the ototxeia of the world; they were our controllers or custodians. Whatever else may be said of these ototxeta, they plainly include the law, in the sense of 3:23 (which refers to the same situation): `Before faith came, we were guarded bitb voµov:

The word otOLXEia means primarily things placed side by side in a row; it is used of the letters of the alphabet, the ABCs, and then, because the learning of the ABCs is the first lesson in a literary education, it comes to mean 'rudiments', `first principles' (as in Heb. 5:12). Again, since the letters of the alphabet were regarded as the `elements' of which words and sentences are built up, crrotxeta comes to be used of the `elements' which make up the material world (cf. 2 Pet. 3:10, 12). This would be the natural sense of to atotxEta 'tov xooµov unless the context dictated otherwise; the exact phrase is used in this sense by Philo (Aet. Mund. -109).--

Elsewhere (Vit. Cont. 3) Philo speaks of the Greeks who revere the four elements (ototxEia)-earth, water, air, fire-and give them the names of divinities (respectively Demeter, Poseidon, Hera, Hephaestus); in yet another place (Decal. 53) he says that `some have deified the four elements (ctotXcia), earth, water, air and fire; others the sun and moon and the other planets and fixed stars; others again the heaven alone; others the whole world', and he mentions not only the names by which the elements are worshipped but those given to the luminaries and so forth. Cf. Wis. 13:2, where the various elements are mentioned as receiving worship from those who are ignorant of God, but are not called 6rotxEia but rather JtpvtavEts xooµov ('rulers of the world').

Ps. -Call isthenes (Alexander Romance, 1.1) says that the royal enchanter Nectanebo `subjected to himself all the cosmic ototxcia, including the aseta atveuµaia xai of xaiax06vtot &iiLoves (the spirits of the air and the demons of the underworld)' and later (1.12) Nectanebo is said to observe sous ovpaviovs 8p6µovs twv xouiixwv atoiiwv ('the heavenly courses of the cosmic elements').

If Paul had been referring only to the former paganism of the Galatians, the otoLxEta tov xooµov might have had the same kind of meaning as in those quotations from Philo and Ps.-Callisthenes, but in the immediate context existence vato Ta otoLx,Eia Tov xooµov is equated with existence vJto voµov (vv 4f.). He speaks of the time during which the people of God lived `under law' as the time they spent in the infant class learning their ABCs-which for them amounted to `the rudimentary notions of the world' (B. M. Metzger, The New Oxford Annotated Bible [New York, 1977], 1413). But this was not merely a time of elementary education; it was a time of bondage. Two further questions have to be asked about the atotXEta, although the attempt to answer them is best postponed to the further occurrence of the word in v 9: (i) Why are they called the otoLXEta of the world? and (ii) In what sense could it be said that the Galatian Christians in their pagan days were under the same atoLxEta as had controlled Paul and his fellow-Jews? For the present stage of Paul's argument it suffices to observe that the law ranks as one of the otoLXEta.

In arguing that Paul's reasoning proceeds back from his conviction of the universal solution (salvation by grace) to the human plight, E. P. Sanders (PPJ, 474 with n. 2) points to the variety of expressions used by Paul to describe the human plight, of which universal enslavement to the stoicheia of the world is one-others being universal sin (Rom. 3:22) and universal death in Adam (Rom. 5:18; 1 Cor. 15:22).

4:4 orE SE iXOEv to n),,ijpcoµa tov xpovov. The itX~pwto Tov xpovov in the divine act of adoption corresponds to the 1tpo6Eaµ(a in the adoptive procedure envisaged in v 2. Here, it may be said, we have the npoOEO!(a of the heavenly Father-the time fixed `for us to receive the vioOco(a'. The vtoOEa(a is the subject in the forefront of Paul's mind at this point in his argument: the sending of God's Son and his redemption of those who were `under law', important as these are in their own right, are here means to an end, the end being the uio6Eo(a of believers.

That the sending of God's Son took place at the nodal point of salvationhistory Paul both believed and affirmed. It is for this reason that the people of Christ are those `upon whom the ends of the ages (ta t£XTJ tcov aitvwv) have met' (1 Cor. 10:11). Cf. Mk. 1:15, AEatXrlpwtaL o xaLeos (see H. N. Ridderbos, When the Time had Fully Come [Grand Rapids, 1957], 48, 68f., et passim). But what is emphasized here is that the nodal point of salvation-history, marked by the coming of Christ (cf. 3:24, e[s Xpt(Jtov) or the coming of `faith' (cf. 3:23, 25), constitutes the divinely ordained epoch for the people of God to enter into their inheritance as his mature and responsible sons and daughters. It is the coming of Christ that makes this particular epoch the rXr1ewto tov xpovov. Here it is the `realized' aspect of Christian eschatology that Paul presents, the `already' rather than the `not yet'. The Galatians must understand that the period of tutelage is past; their spiritual majority has arrived. See G. Bornkamm, Paul, 196-200.

ei;aneotEiXEV o OE6g Tov vlov avtov. R. H. Fuller, `The Conception /Birth of Jesus as a Christological Moment', JSNT, Issue 1 (1978), 37-52 (especially 40f.), developing a suggestion of E. Schweizer (TDNT VIII, 374-376, s.v. vios), discerns here the beginning of a prePauline summary, perhaps of the kind described as a `baptismal anamnesis' by N. A. Dahl (`Anamnesis: Memoire et commemoration dans le christianisme primitif', ST 1 [1947], 69-95, especially 74f.), which Paul amplifies in vv 4-6. A tentative reconstruction of the summary, in six cola, would be:

Here the first three cola speak of God's sending of his Son, the second three of his sending of the Spirit.

Does the `sending' of the Son imply his pre-existence? If the Spirit was the Spirit before God sent him, the Son was presumably the Son before God sent him. Moreover, it seems clear that Paul believed in the pre-existence of Christ as the wisdom of God, his agent in the work of creation (1 Cor. 1:24, 30; 8:6b; cf. Col. 1:15-17), and as one who accompanied the people of Israel in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:4, r`l JTetpa SE 'v o XpL6t6s, an instance of the `real presence' of Christ in the OT; cf. A. T. Hanson, Jesus Christ in the OT [London, 1965], 10ff.). If, then, Paul thought of Christ as in some sense pre-existent, this idea may well have been in his mind when he spoke of God as sending his Son, even if the Son's pre-existence would not be necessarily inferred from his present language (cf. Rom. 8:3, 6 0e6s toy eavtov vlov 71eµas iv oµoLcbµatL oapxos aµapt(as xtX, where pre-existence certainly seems to be in Paul's mind). But if we have to do with a pre-Pauline summary here, would preexistence have been in the minds of those responsible for the summary? Probably it would, for the identification of Christ with the divine wisdom through which the worlds were made was not peculiar to Paul and does not appear to have originated with him (cf. Jn. 1:2f.; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 3:14). However, pre-existence is irrelevant to the present argument.

yevoµevov Ex yvvatxog, `born of a woman'; for this well-attested use of y(voµat as a quasi-passive of yevvaw cf. 1 Esd. 4:16; Tob. 8:6; Wis. 7:3; Sir. 44:9; Jn. 8:58. The expression echoes Heb. y'lisd 'issah, `born of a woman' (cf. Jb. 14:1; 15:14; 25:4; 1QH 13:14; 1QS 11:21). The plural sv yevvrltolg yvvatxwv is found in Jesus' appraisal of John the Baptist in Mt. 11:11 // Lk. 7:28. Nothing can be made of Paul's use of yevoµevov rather than yevvrltov. In this kind of context they are synonyms (but see C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, 59, on Rom. 1:3, iov yevoµevov Ex wJt£pµatos DaveiS). Paul's wording is applicable to any one of woman born; it throws no light on the question whether he knew of Jesus' virginal conception or not.

See J. G. Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ (London, 21932), 259f.; E. de Roover, 'La maternite virginale de Marie dans l'interpretation de Gal 4, 4', Studiorum paulinorum congressus internationalis catholicus 1961 = AnBib 17-18 (Rome, 1963), 17-37; R. E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, N.Y., 1977), 518f.; R. E. Brown etc. (ed.), Mary in the NT (London, 1978), 42-44.

The aorist participle yev6trvov is probably to be understood as 'simultaneous' or 'coincident' (see MHT I, 130-134); cf. Phil. 2:7, iv &vOptuncov oµoLwµacL yEv6µevos, where also yrv6µrvos seems to mean 'born': 'he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, by being born in human likeness'. Here, then, God's sending his Son coincides with his birth from a woman. We may compare how in the OT the missions of the Servant of Yahweh and of Jeremiah are dated from their conception and birth (Is. 49:1, 5; Je. 1:5, 7); cf. also what Paul has said of himself in 1:15f.

yevoµevov vrro voµov. If the context is taken over from a pre-Pauline summary, this could be Paul's contribution. By being born of a Jewish mother, Jesus was born a Jew and, as such, vno voµov. He entered into the prisonhouse where his people were held in bondage so as to set them free. It is implied that he himself was not enslaved to the bondage in which they were held, and while Paul does not say so here explicitly, the reason must be that he remained free from sin-while vjro voµov, he was nevertheless not 'ro &µapr(av (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21, toy µ7l yvovta &µaeiiav). He himself had no need of slaveattendant, guardian or steward, and he came to bring his people to the point where they too could dispense with their services.

Christ entered by birth into an inherited obligation to obey the law of God, but to him such obedience was no mere obligation but a spontaneous joy. Paul might have put on the lips of Christ the language of Ps. 40:8, 'I delight to do thy will, 0 my God; thy law is within my heart' (as the LXX version of the former clause [LXX 39:9a] is put on his lips in Heb. 10:7, 9); but when he speaks here of Christ having been born under law he bears in mind what he has already said about the curse of the law (3:10, 13). In Paul's thinking, for the Son of God to be born under that law which he rejoiced to fulfil involved his voluntarily taking on himself the curse which others, by their failure to fulfil it, had incurred. Only so could he accomplish the purpose of redeeming those who were 'under law' (v 5). 'He not only became man, bound to obedience...; but He became curse for us. He made our doom His own. He took on Him not only the calling of a man, but our responsibility as sinful men; it is in this that His work as our Redeemer lies, for it is in this that the measure, or rather the immensity, of His love is seen' (J. Denney, The Death of Christ, 156).

4:5 i;va tons vlto voµov e~ayog&arl, `to redeem those who were under law', bound, guarded and enslaved (3:23f.; 4:1-3). To be redeemed from existence `under law' is to be redeemed from `the curse of the law' (3:13). This redemption, according to 3:13f., was effected by Christ's enduring the death on which a curse was pronounced; thus God's sending his Son (v 4) is immediately associated with the death of his Son. Similarly in Rom. 8:3 God's sending his Son `in the likeness of sinful flesh' is immediately associated with the Son's selfoffering 7tepi &µaptias, by which God `condemned sin in the flesh'.

Even if Paul begins this section (vv 3-7) by thinking in particular of Jewish Christians (xai fijwts), who had lived more directly Uno v6µov, it is plain now that the beneficiaries of Christ's redeeming work (as in 3:13f.) include Gentiles as well as Jews. The oscillation between 'we' (Na ... &no?,wtrv, v 5; cf. rig tag xaebfag ijµwv, v 6), 'you' (ott SE EocE viol, v 6) and 'thou' (ovxett Ei Soiko;, v 7), attests the inclusive emphasis of Paul's wording and argument (as in 3:23-26).

The two Na clauses in v 5 are formally parallel, like the two Not clauses in 3:14, but this time the latter clause is materially dependent on the former, or at least carries on the thought to a point beyond that reached by the former. Those who have been redeemed by Christ from their former life `under law' are the `we' who through him receive their instatement as sons; indeed, it may be said that the purpose of Christ's redeeming them was that they-both Jews and (quite emphatically) Gentiles-should receive this instatement.

Lva rv v[o6EOfav &Jto?.,l3cutEV, `that we might receive the adoption'- i.e. instatement as sons. v[o6Ea(a (doJto6Tla6S in Attic law) is the equivalent of Lat. adoptio.

It is frequently said that adoption was not a practice known to Hebrew law or custom. The nearest institution to it-the levitate marriage by which a dead man might receive by proxy a posthumous son who would perpetuate his name and inheritance in Israel-is nowhere referred to in terms of adoption. It may be that in the patriarchal age adoption was practised in a manner similar to that attested in the Nuzu documents-cf. Eliezer's potential relation to Abraham (Gn. 15:2f.) and Jacob's to Laban (Gn. 29:14ff.)-but there is no trace of it in postsettlement times. Neither vto0e(Aa nor the verb ViOOetew occurs in the LXX. Cf. R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, ETr (London, 21965), 21f., 37f., 42, 51f.

On the other hand, although the term is unknown in the OT, something very like adoption is implied in Yahweh's relation to Israel, his `first-born son' (Ex. 4:22). Cf. Ho. 11:1, `When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son', with the comment by G. A. Smith: `God's eyes, passing the princes of the world, fell upon this slave boy, and He loved him and gave him a career' (The Book of the Twelve Prophets, II [London, 21928], 317). `Paul's metaphor of adoption ... might even have been derived from Israel's deliverance out of bondage in Egypt' (D. J. Theron, ' "Adoption" in the Pauline Corpus', EQ 28 [1956], 14). And this is rendered the more probable by Paul's own reference to `Israelites, to whom belongs the vio9Eo(a' (Rom. 9:4).

But while the OT may have provided Paul with the theological background of his adoption terminology, contemporary practice is more likely to have provided him with some of his analogies (like the atpoOe(y.La of v 1). By contrast with Jewish law, Greek and (especially) Roman law were well acquainted with the institution of adoption. In Paul's day it played an increasingly important part in Roman life; for example, from the late first century to the mid-second century AD and beyond successive Roman emperors adopted men not related to them by blood with the intention that they should succeed them in the principate.

If the son to be adopted was not yet of age, his original father conveyed him into the potestas of his adoptive father by a pretended sale. Once adopted into the new family, the son was in all legal respects on a level with those born into that family. If the son to be adopted was of age, he was adopted by his new father in the ceremony of adrogatio, in which the pontifex maximus and the augurs were involved. It was also possible, later, for a testator to adopt some one in his will.

The Roman process of adoption required the presence of seven witnesses. Their testimony was crucial if, after the adoptive father's death, his `natural' heirs contested the validity of the adoption: the witnesses had to testify that a valid adoption had taken place in their presence. We may compare the twofold testimony confirming the divine adoption of believers in Rom. 8:15f.

Apart, then, from the theological background, there is justification for F. Lyall's statement that `Roman law is the only source of reference for Paul' ('Roman Law in the Writings of Paul-Adoption', JBL 88 [1969], 459).

See also (in addition to literature cited in the preceding paragraphs) W. M. Calder, 'Adoption and Inheritance in Galatia', JTS 31 (1930), 372-374, W. H. Rossell, 'New Testament Adoption: Graeco-Roman or Semitic?' JBL 71 (1952), 233f.; J. I. Cook, 'The Concept of Adoption in the Theology of Paul', Oudersluvs FS, 133-144.

M. D. Hooker finds here a further instance of the 'interchange' principle (see note on 3:14): `It is because Christ is acknowledged as righteous, that believers are "justified"; because he is declared to be Son of God that we, too, receive sonship; because he is glorified that mankind is restored to glory' ('Interchange and Atonement', 479).

4:6 "OnL Se Eonr UiO(. It is through faith that the Galatian Christians have become `sons of God' in Christ Jesus (3:26), just as it is through faith that they have received the Spirit (3:2, 14) and through faith that they have been justified (2:16; 3:6-9, 11). Their instatement as sons and their receiving the Spirit would thus appear to be simultaneous. If, however, ott be translated `because' (and this is the most natural way to understand it), then it is implied that logically, if not chronologically, the receiving of the Spirit is the sequel to their instatement as sons. But Paul generally presents the Spirit as the &ppaP6)v or initial downpayment of the ultimate inheritance, in which the u[oOso(a (the final investiture as sons, in the sense of Rom. 8:19-23) is included. An attempt is made to accommodate the present statement to Paul's general presentation by such a rendering as that of the NEB: `To prove that you are sons, God has sent ...'- but this is a precariously free translation. One might suggest `As for your being sons...' (cf. otL Sa in Acts 13:34), but even this may not be necessary. `The presence of the Spirit is... a witness of their sonship' (J. B. Lightfoot, Galatians, 169). `The purpose of the Son's mission was to give the rights of sonship; the purpose of the Spirit's mission, to give the power of using them' (H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the NT [London, 1909], 204). Cf. H. Schlier (Galater, 197): `God bestows on us not only the status of sons [through the sending of his Son] but also the character and knowledge of sons [through the sending of the Spirit]. And he bestows on us the character and knowledge of sons because we are already in the status of sons'. H. D. Betz (Galatians, 209f.) wisely warns against trying to settle such questions of construction and interpretation by the importation of `dogmatic and philosophical categories'. And statements in Galatians should not be assimilated to later Pauline statements on the same subject if this cannot be done without violating the natural sense of the language in Galatians.

> l;aneaTeL).ev o Oros to nvevµa tov utoi, avrov El; tas xapbias 7lµwv. The 2nd person pronoun vµtwv would be expected after i=oTS in the preceding clause (hence, no doubt, its wide attestation as a variant reading); ijµtwv has patently the inclusive force: `yours and ours'. The heart, as in the OT (e.g. Pr. 4:23), is the seat of the will; the Spirit therefore takes up residence there.

The Spirit is here called the Spirit of God's Son, `crying "Abba, Father!" The fact that Christians call God `Abba', using the same word as Jesus used, is a token that they are indwelt by the same Spirit as indwelt him; `Abba', the ipsissima vox lesu (on his own lips), is the voice of the Spirit of Jesus (on the lips of his people). In Rom. 8:14-17 this Spirit is called the Spirit of v1o6EO(a, the Spirit `who imparts the assurance of sonship and enables believers to call God their Father' (F. Davidson and R. P. Martin, NBCR, 1031), so that they realize and express their new status as sons of God, anticipating their full manifestation as such at the parousia (Rom. 8:23). There, as here, the Spirit attests his presence by the invocation &(3(36 o Jtatip. `When we cry "Abba! Father!" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God' (Rom. 8:15f.).

Two sure signs of the indwelling Spirit, for Paul, are the spontaneous invocation of God as `Abba' and the spontaneous acknowledgement of Jesus as xvptoc, `Lord' (1 Cor. 12:3).

xpal;ov, 'A(3(3& o JrctT1e. In Aramaic and post-biblical Hebrew 'abba is freely used as a hypocoristic for `father' (cf. 'imma, `mother'). Thus in the Palestinian Targums on Gn. 22:6, 10 Isaac addresses Abraham as 'abba. So far as can be ascertained, Jesus was unique in applying this designation to Godnot the 'abinu CourFather') of synagogue prayers nor yet the more personal 'abi ('myFather'), but the domestic term by which a father was called in the affectionate intimacy of the family circle. The one apparent exception to the avoidance of 'abba in reference to God comes in a prayer of Hanin ha-nehba (late 1st century BC) who, in a time of drought, was mobbed by schoolchildren who cried, `Abba, Abba, give us rain!' Thereupon he prayed, `Lord of the universe, do it for the sake of these children, who cannot yet distinguish between an abba who can give rain and an 'abba who cannot give rain' (b. Ta'an. 23b). But 'abba is applied here to God ('the 'abba who can give rain') only because the children called Hanin `Abba': Hanin's own preferred mode of address to God was evidently `Lord of the universe' (ribbon Jel `olam).

Jesus addressed God as Abba: in one place (Mk. 14:36) the term is taken over as a loanword in the Greek gospel narrative: &(3(3a o JMr~p (in Mt. 26:39 716ETEQ µov correctly translates abba). It is reasonably certain that Abba lies behind the vocative fIatEp with which the Lord's Prayer opens (Lk. 11:2; the fuller IlatEp huiv 6 s;v rots ovpavots of Mt. 6:9 seems to be an adaptation to liturgical usage). Jesus also spoke of God to others as Abba, thus expressing his sense of loving nearness to God and his implicit trust in him. In addition, he taught his disciples similarly to call God Abba and to look to him with the same trustful expectation as children show when they look to their fathers to provide them with food and clothes.

Abba was so distinctively a locution of Jesus and, after him, of his disciples that it passed without change into the vocabulary of Greek-speaking Christiansfollowed by the Greek rendering o JraTi!p which accompanies it in each of its three NT occurrences. Whether &(3(3L o Jratr1Q was current as an invocation in pre-Pauline Hellenistic churches is uncertain; what is certain is that Paul assumes its currency among the Gentile Christians of Rome, who were not converts of his (Rom. 8:15), as confidently as he knows it to be current among those of Galatia, who were his converts. Among these (and presumably other) Gentile Christians &(3(36t 6 JraTi!p seems to have been used as a free-standing invocation; when they said the Lord's Prayer, on the other hand, they evidently began with Gk. J16TEQ (ilµwv).

See J. Jeremias, Abba: Studien zur neutesta,nentlichen Theologie and Zeitgeschichte (Gottingen, 1966), 15-67; `The Lord's Prayer in Modern Research', Exp Tin 71 (1959-60), 141-146; The Central Message of the NT (London, 1965), 9-30; The Prayers of'Jesus (London, 1967), 11-65; C. F. D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the NT (London, 1967), 47-55; G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew (London, 1973), 210-213 (he points out that Abba was used of God by charismatic Jews of later times).

It is noteworthy that both here and in Rom. 8:15 the verb used for the pronouncing of Abba is xpai;w. E. Bammel compares Mk. 14:36, where Abba on Jesus' lips `is there not as a simple matter of course, but a cri de coeur, which summons God, practically compels him-one is tempted to say-to be Father' ('The Jesus of History in the Theology of Adolf von Harnack', Modern Churchman n.s. 19 [1975-76], 100 with n. 25). He thinks particularly of the victim of persecution crying out loud: Rom. 8:12-39 in particular, he finds, expresses a martyr-theology. Persecution would certainly provide one occasion, but xeai;ov suggests the spontaneous ejaculation of `Abba' in any situation not only of external compulsion but also of inward impulsion; it might, for instance, suggest a Spirit-inspired prophetic utterance (cf. Rom. 9:27, 'Hoatas S£ xpatEL

Whereas here it is the Spirit in `our hearts' that cries `Abba, Father!', in Rom. 8:15f. it is `we' who by the Spirit cry `Abba, Father!'-the same act is expressed either way.

4:7 dotE ovxett El bobkog &7,,),,a vlos. Instead of being imprisoned under law (or enslaved by the ototxEta of the world), instead of being under the control of a slave-attendant or in care of guardians or stewards, believers are now full-grown sons and daughters of God; they have been given their freedom and the power to use it responsibly.

The transition from leading-strings to liberty is crucial for religious development, although there are some who never attain it but prefer to live indefinitely under spiritual direction. John Wesley, looking back in spiritual maturity on his Christian career before the crisis which is commonly called his conversion, said very aptly, `I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son' (Journal [London, 1872], I, 76n.).

`The soteriological significance of Christ's sonship with God... comes out in the fact that sonship of the believers is based on the sending of the "Son" and attested to them by his Spirit. He does not call them to be "Christs" and "Kyrioi", but "sons" and "heirs" ' (G. Bornkamm, Paul, 249).

El 8% v[6g, xal xXrlpovoµoc (as in Roman law). See 3:29, with note on the xXrlgovoµla. The wording is practically identical with Rom. 8:17, El Se z>xva, xal xXrlpovoµot (there is no theological difference in Pauline usage between u[o( and tiExva). If Paul does not add ovyxXrl[?ovoµot SE Xptoiov here, as he does in Rom. 8:17 (from which the phrase is added here in W), he implies it.

Sta 6Eov. The many variants indicate that this lectio ardua presented scribes and editors with a problem: the use of St& with the genitive might suggest that God was the agent through whom believers were made heirs; `heirs of God', `heirs through Christ', `heirs of God through Christ' are felt to express the truth better. But an original bLa 6EOV will account satisfactorily for the variants, as none of them will account for SLa 6sov. The preposition Sta is implied before 6sov in 1:1, but there the preceding 866 'Irloov XQLotov provides a sufficient explanation. Here the force appears to be `through God who adopted you' (J. B. Lightfoot) or `made so by God' (E. D. Burton).

(j) No turning back! (4:8- 11)

Now at that time when you did not know God you were enslaved to those beings which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back to the weak and beggarly elemental forces, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You are observing days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid for you, in case I have laboured over you in vain.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 8 aXXa TOTE [tEV ovx EL6orFs OEOV / Et lLEv Tert Iren'at (pvaEL om K latbd Iren'a` M.Vict Ambst

v 9 SoukEUEw / boukEuoa6 K B

v 10 ataeatrl@ELOOE / JtapatrlpovvtEg Pa''

v 11 xexonLaxa / Exon1aoa P46 1739 1881

4:8 'AX T6TE µiv ovx d66TEs 6s6v. Here Paul addresses his Gentile converts more particularly. Like the Thessalonian Christians, it was only through Christ as proclaimed in the gospel that they had come to know and serve the `living and true God' (1 Thes. 1:9; cf. the exhortation to the people of Lystra in Acts 14:15 to `turn from these vain things [&ULO TO.6TCOV 'twv tataiwv] to a living God'). ovx etS tes is a rare instance of the classical use of ov with the participle; in Hellenistic Greek there is a steady drift towards the use of µ7j, as in the following tot; qoEL µth ovoLV 6EOts (although there pn would be quite classical, since the sense is generic).

ebovXEVaate tots (pvoei µ7l ovoty OEois. The beings which they had served in their pagan days were at that time reckoned by them to be gods, but they were not really so. They were among the many `so-called gods' of I Cor. 8:5. Cf. 1 Cor. 10:22, `what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God' (from Dt. 32:17, iOuoav Satµov(ots xcti ov &6), Orois ots ovx h&Eto(Xv). The deuteronomic Song of Moses provides further precedent for this kind of language, e.g. Dt. 32:21, according to which Israel in the wilderness provoked Yahweh to anger by worshipping a `no-god' (arat' ov 066); therefore he provoked them to anger by means of a `no-people' (ht' ovx EOvE1, cf. Rom. 10:19). This form of words appears to have become commonplace in Jewish polemic; cf. Is. 37:19; Je. 2:11; 5:7; 16:20; Bar. 6 (=Ep. Je.): 24, 28, 49-53, 64, 68, 71. The application of such language to Israel in Dt. 32:17, 21 warns us against assuming in advance that it could not embrace Jews as well as Gentiles here; however, Paul has dealt with Jews like himself in v 3 (xai iwEig), and for the moment he is now addressing former pagans. Here, then, we have a further description of the enslavement from which Christ has liberated his people: they were in bondage to counterfeit gods, `dumb idols' (t& EZ&ACt t& 6y(ova), as they are called in 1 Cor. 12:2.

In Paul's mind these so-called gods were thoroughly `demythologized'; they were nonentities, as the `men of knowledge' in the Corinthian church recognized (1 Cor. 8:4). But what those `men of knowledge' did not sufficiently recognize was that, on people who still believed, or even half-believed, in them, these idols continued to exercise a sinister, indeed demonic, influence (1 Cor. 8:7).

4:9 vvv bE yvdvtEg OEOV, `but now, having come to know God' (the aorist participle is ingressive). This phrase is the antithesis to ovx EWTEs OEOV (v 8); o1ba and ytvtaxw are thus used interchangeably (not that they are exact synonyms, but they share a considerable area of a wide semantic field).

Paul's swift correction, µaXXov Se yvwoOs vtEg vJro OEOV (`or rather having come to be known by God'), may be calculated not only to stress the divine initiative in this reciprocal knowledge, but also to exclude any gnostic inference from his words. Cf. 1 Cor. 8:3, `if one loves God, he is known (Eyvwotat) by him', where Paul overcomes the antithesis between yvwots and &y&,nTI which he has drawn in v lb; also 1 Cor. 13:12b, where God's perfect knowledge of his people is expressed by the aorist (ettEyvhoOrlv), while their perfect knowledge of him is expressed by the future (Errtyvt)ooµat). For µakkov S£ introducing an epidiorthosis cf. Rom. 8:34, `Christ Jesus who died, yes (µakkov Se), who was raised from the dead'.

A. D. Nock (Essays, 128) points out a verbal (though not material) parallel in Corp. Herm. 1.15, 21 where man, being `subject to destiny' (vnoxE(µrvos tit ElµaQµevrl), can be released from this subjection only by selfknowledge: o evvovs &VOflwnos &VayVWQLO&tw eavtov. Yet even to Paul's epidiorthosis, he goes on to point out, there is a Hermetic parallel: `God is not ignorant of man; he knows him thoroughly and would be known by him, for it is only knowledge of God (h yvthoLS tov OEou) that brings salvation to man' (Corp. Herm. 10.15).

For Paul, there is no real distinction between being known by God and being chosen by him (Rom. 8:29).

71COS e7LIOTQkPFTE n&Xtv bnl, T&, &OOEV1 xai nTwx& UTO6xE6a 01; n&XLV avwOEV bouXeiciV OEAETE; Those who behaved in the preposterous way contemplated by the Galatian Christians had manifestly no conception of the new order into which faith in Christ had brought them.

The ototxEia (see on v 3), it is now made plain, not only regulated the Jewish way of life under law; they also regulated the pagan way of life in the service of gods that were no gods. To be enslaved to such counterfeit deities was to be enslaved to the ototxeia, and the Galatians would be enslaved to the ototxEua all over again if they `reverted' not to their former paganism but to Jewish religious practices. That, as Paul saw it, his Gentile readers were tending to revert to a form of religion which they had practised before their conversion to Christianity is emphasized by his repeated at&Xtv... t&Xv avw6EV. For all the basic differences between Judaism and paganism, both involved subjection to the same elemental forces. This is an astonishing statement for a former Pharisee to make; yet Paul makes it-not as an exaggeration in the heat of argument but as the deliberate expression of a carefully thought out position.

The otoLXEta to which the Galatians had been in bondage were the counterfeit gods of v 8; the bondage to which they were now disposed to turn back was that of the law. But in our discussion of 3:13f. and 4:4f. we concluded that Gentile as well as Jewish believers are reckoned to have been redeemed from existence `under law'-not, so far as Gentiles are concerned, explicitly under the Mosaic law, in relation to which they were avotot (cf. 1 Cor. 9:21; Rom. 2:12ff.), but under legalism as a principle of life. `The demonic forces of legalism, then, both Jewish and Gentile, can be called "principalities and powers" or "elemental spirits of the world" ' (G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers [Oxford, 1956], 51).

Similarly B. Reicke, `The Law and this World according to Paul: Some Thoughts concerning Gal 4:1-11', JBL 70 (1951), 259-276, recognizes that Gentiles and Jews alike were subject to the law and the ototxEta. The Galatian Christians are, he finds, expected to know about the ototxEla to which Paul refers; they did not know, however, that by submitting to the law they were reverting to the service of those ocolxEia by which they had formerly been enslaved, the entities of v 8 which received divine honours to which they were not entitled. Reicke further equates the OTOLXEIU with the `angels' of 3:19 through whom the law was administered, considering that by that reference Paul has already prepared his readers for what he now says about the ototxEta and that the Galatians probably thought already of angels as founders and guardians of the law. But Paul's reference to the angels in 3:19 is too incidental for us to be sure of this. The ototxE6a of Col. 2:8, 20 may well (as that context suggests) be identified with angels (possibly with the rulers of the planetary spheres), but only with caution may the argument of Colossians be allowed to influence the exegesis of Galatians. (Much greater caution is called for in admitting as evidence the teaching of Simon Magus, who justified his antinomianism, according to Iren. Haer. 1. 16.2, by representing moral conventions as the arbitrary decrees of the angels who made the world and whose purpose was to bring people into bondage to them.)

Even if we distinguish, then, between Jewish converts, who had lived under lawful guardians and stewards, and Gentile converts, who had lived under beings that by nature were no gods, it could be said of both groups alike that they had lived in bondage to the elemental forces of the world until Christ released them from their bondage and disabled the elemental forces.

According to G. Howard, Paul looked on the Judaizers' religion as no better than paganism since it made Yahweh in effect the God of the Israelites only and not the God of the Gentiles also (cf. Rom. 3:29f.): `For the Galatians to accept circumcision was for them to return to the concept of local deities and to be enslaved once again to the elemental spirits of the universe' (Crisis, 78).

D. E. H. Whiteley (The Theology of St. Paul [Oxford, 1964], 25) explains Paul's words on the ground that some Jews practised astrology. But the practice of astrology is not in view here; life under law is bondage, says Paul, and he equates bondage to the law with bondage to the ototxEta.

A. J. Bandstra (The Law and the Elements of the World [Kampen, 1964]) identifies the ototxcia with the law and the flesh. Law, in the sense of legalism, is certainly prominent among the ototxE%a, but the `flesh' (human nature in its unregenerate weakness) is scarcely one of the ototxEta, but is rather in bondage to them. Law, working on flesh, stimulates sin, and sin leads to death (cf. Rom. 7:7-11). It is because of the inadequacy of the flesh that to be `under law' (3:23) is in practice to be `under sin' (3:22), whereas to be dead to law (2:19) is in practice to be dead to sin (Rom. 6:2, 11). (Cf. further P. Benoit, `La loi et la croix d'apres Saint Paul', RB 47 [1938], 488-509, especially 502 n. 3.)

The otoLxeta were powerful enough to enslave those under their control; if now they are described as `weak and beggarly', that is in relation to those who have been liberated from their control. Christ, the liberator of his people, is stronger than all elemental forces. Against those who enjoy `the liberty of the glory of the children of God' (Rom. 8:21) the ototxeict are powerless; they cannot reassert their authority over them unless these deliberately put themselves back under their power. That any should be so foolish as to do so Paul finds scarcely credible; yet this is what he feared some of his Galatian friends were actually in process of doing. This suggests that the otoLxeta are demonic forces which hold in thrall the minds of men and women who follow their dictates, but lose their potency as soon as those minds are emancipated, as they are by the grace of God and the power of his Spirit. If we think of modern counterparts to the otoLxeia, one of the most potent is the current climate of opinion (which, incidentally, might serve as a free paraphrase of `the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience' of Eph. 2:2). The description of the OTOIXCLa as &oOev►l xai ntwxa is similar to the description of the `rulers (&pxovtec) of this age' in 1 Cor. 2:6, 8 as 'on the way out' (xatapyovµevoL).

Although no connective particle links v 10 with v 9, it is most probable that the Galatians' observance of the cultic calendar (v 10) is adduced as evidence of reversion to the service of the ototxE ct. The otoLXEt,a, therefore, include the forces by which the calendar is regulated, and since the calendrical divisions are for the most part controlled by the movements of the planets, the planets may well be included among the ototXEta. Pagans had their sacred calendars, as the Jews had theirs, although they tended to ascribe divinity to the planets as the Jews did not. Paul is not thinking of any conscious reversion to planetworship on the Galatians' part; he means that by treating the sacred calendar as a matter of religious obligation they are in effect putting themselves in bondage to the forces that control the calendar. It is not a valid argument against this interpretation that there is no example of the use of ototxet,ov in the sense of `star' or `heavenly body' before the second century AD (Justin, Apol. 11.5.2; Dial. 23.3) and no example of its use in the sense of `spiritual power' before the fourth-century Testament of Solomon (G. Delling,,TDNT VII, 681 n. 74, 683 n. 85, s.v. ototxEZov); the phrase ototxeta tov xootov seems to be Paul's own contribution to religious vocabulary (Delling, ibid., 685), and the sense which he put on it must be gathered from the context in which he used it. From the context it may be gathered that the atotxe%a tov xoo.tov 'cover all the things in which man places his trust apart from the living God; they become his gods, and he becomes their slave' (H. H. Esser, NIDNTT II, 453, s.v. `Law').

See also J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians, 180, 202; E. D. Burton, Galatians, 510-518; E. Percy, Die Probleme der Kolosser- and Epheserbriefe (Lund, 1946), 156-167; H. N. Ridderbos, `Vrijheid en Wet volgens Paulus' Brief aan de Galaten', Grosheide FS, 89-103; E. Schweizer, `Die Elemente der Welt Gal 4, 3.9; Col 2, 8.20', Stdhlin FS, 245-259, reprinted in Beitrage zur Theologie des NT (Zurich, 1970), 147-163; P. Vielhauer, 'Gesetzesdienst and Stoicheiadienst im Galaterbrief, Kdsemann FS, 543-555.

4:10 r`lµepac atapatrlWEfoOE xtX. It is possible to treat this sentence as a question, but there seems to be no good reason for doing so. It would in any case not make much material difference: `Are you actually observing... ?' is a more rhetorical way of saying, `You are actually observing .. '. P's, by reading atapaTrlpovvTEc instead of ragatrlge o0E, attaches the clause to the preceding question: `how can you turn back to the weak and beggarly elemental forces, ... by observing ?' H. D. Betz (Galatians, 217) thinks that Paul days... is not describing what the Galatians were actually doing, but rather 'the typical behavior of religiously scrupulous people', in which the Galatians would find themselves involved `once they took up Torah and circumcision'. He cites for this view J. Eckert, Die urchristliche Verkiindigung im Streit Zwischen Paulus and seinen Gegnern nach dem Galaterbrief (Regensburg, 1971), 92f., 126ff. (where incidentally the sentence is construed as a question), followed by F. Mussner, Galaterbrief, 301f. But it is more likely that Paul is referring to news which he has just received, to the effect that the Galatians were actually adopting the Jewish calendar. The suggestion that they were making a point of observing special times and seasons characteristic of some strands of sectarian Judaism (so H. Schlier, Galater, 206f.) has little in the context to commend it; the same may be said of the attempt to find a parallel to their scrupulous observance in the practices mentioned in Clem. Hom. 19.22.2-9 (cf. H. Riesenfeld, TDNT VIII, 148, s.v JtapaTrlpe(o).

Perhaps the compound middle atapatrlpEoµat is used not simply in the sense of observing special days and other seasons (in the sense of Rom. 14:6, o (ppovtuv rrly ijtµav) but in the sense of watching for them, calculating their arrival (cf. the noun napatrlprlats in Lk. 17:20). A. Strobel, `Die Passa- Erwartung als urchristliches Problem', ZNW 49 (1958), 163f., says that `the verb 7tapairlp6v in Gal. 4:10 indicates the fixing of the calendar, obtained by observation of the sky..., and involving the thought of punctual observance as a religious obligation'.

Many Jewish Christians continued to observe the sacred occasions as a matter of course. Paul himself appears to have regarded some of them at least as convenient punctuation-marks in his apostolic schedule (cf. 1 Cor. 16:8; Acts 20:16). But for Gentile Christians to adopt them de novo as matters of legal obligation was quite another matter.

tilµEpas ... xai µ'vas xal xatpovs xai Evtavtovs. Cf. Gn. 1:14, where the heavenly luminaries are, among other things, to serve `for signs and seasons and days and years' (ens orlµefa xai 1g xateovs xai ens r`lµepas xal ens Evtaviovs). (The omission of `months' from the Genesis list, despite the mention of the moon as one of the two great luminaries in v 16, may have provided theological justification for the author of Jubilees and his school to delete the moon from the luminaries appointed `for signs' on the fourth day [Jub. 4:9] and to ignore it in their divisions of time; in Jubilees the month, as well as the other divisions of time, is regulated by the sun.) The similarity between Paul's wording and that of Gn. 1:14 is too close for us to agree with W. Schmithals that Paul is simply `employing a current familiar list which was not widespread in Jewish orthodoxy but frequently occurs above all in the apocryphal and Gnostic or gnosticizing literature' (Paul and the Gnostics, 44).

With the list here we may compare the later Col. 2:16, `let no one sit in judgment on with respect to festival or new moon or sabbath' (eoQT g fl you... veonv(as i (Ja(3(36tcuv)-in which eoptij corresponds to xaLpoi here, veoµ,qvia to ls1v, and o6(3(3ata, perhaps, to itµat. In the Galatians list there is a progression from shorter to longer divisions of time: this is clearly so with the days, months and years, and 'seasons' are probably the OT festivals or XkTlxa) &yLat (cf. Lv. 23:2).

The observance of `days'-i.e. specially sacred days-can scarcely exclude sabbath observance (cf. Col. 2:16); see, however, J. Murray, `Romans 14:5 and the Weekly Sabbath', Romans, II, 257-259.

There is a relaxed attitude in Rom. 14:5f. ('Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind. He who regards the day regards it "to the Lord" ') which presents a marked contrast to Gal. 4:10. Is this (like the contrast in tone between Gal. 1:8f. and Phil. 1:15-18) an indication of gradual mellowing on Paul's part? Or is a difference in principle involved? Paul sees `a world of difference' between `error in preaching (which, though harmful, might be committed in good faith)' and `intended deception'-between `theological error' and `moral fault'. `Where divergent opinion exists Paul is content to think and let think (Rom 14.5 )', but elsewhere `Paul is not content to disagree, but accuses his opponents of deceitfulness, not only of error but of moral perversity' (C. K. Barrett, `WEYDAHOETOAOI [2 Cor. 11.13]', Rigaux FS, 383). Such opponents are the people whom he calls `false apostles' or (as in Gal. 2:4) `false brethren'. He is far from reckoning his Galatian converts among these opponents, but he does so reckon the men who were upsetting them, under whose influence they were being persuaded to accept circumcision and keep the sacred calendar: hence his peremptory tone here.

J. C. Kirby (Ephesians: Baptism and Pentecost [London, 1964], 79) thinks that the tolerant note in Rom. 14:5f. has to do with fast-days (stationes); in Gal. 4:10 (as in Col. 2:16), he suggests, Paul `is not forbidding Christians to have any festivals whatever, but forbidding only those which have lost their meaning' and have become a mere `shadow' (Col. 2:17). If so, the Galatians could be pardoned for failing to catch his meaning, as most commentators and other readers have failed to do. Agreed: he is not forbidding the Galatians to have any festivals whatever, he is deprecating their scrupulous Jragatrlpr)ats as something imposed by law.

The `months', as has been said, are probably the new moons (cf. Nu. 28:11-15), and the `seasons' may be equated with the religious festivals and holy convocations (cf. Lv. 23:1ff.). As for the `years', it has been held (e.g. by J. Eckert, Die urchristliche Verkiindigung, 92) that, in the short time since their evangelization, the Galatians could scarcely have got around to the observance of special years; but W. M. Ramsay, after his conversion to an earlier dating of the epistle than that which he had adopted in his Historical Commentary, made the attractive suggestion that a report had newly reached Paul that they were observing the sabbatical year AD 47/48 (SPT'4, xxxi).

The traditions of Judaism, when accepted as ritually binding, were in Paul's eyes fetters which impeded faith and excluded liberty (cf. Col. 2:20-23). More over, if former pagans accepted the Jewish calendar, old astral associations could easily reassert themselves.

4:11 po(3ovtat vµ.as, `I am afraid for you', not `I am afraid of you'. Something like the oiba oc T(; t:I construction is to be recognized here, except that it is not the subject of the subordinate clause, but another element in it, that has been attracted into the principal clause as object of the main verb. Winer- Moulton3 compares Sophocles, O.T. 767f.:

(`I am afraid for myself, lady, lest too much may have been said by me; it is for this reason that I wish to see him'.)

µ7j nwg ENx xrxonlaxa etc vµag, a more specific expression of the cautionary µrl nws EI,S XEVOV teeyo ti KbQaµov of 2:2. For similar language involving xonos and xontaw cf. 1 Cor. 15:58; Phil. 2:16; 1 Thes. 3:5; the Servant's words in Is. 49:4, xevwg Exon(aoa, may have influenced Paul's phraseology in all these passages. Paul would indeed have laboured over the Galatians in vain if they had really reverted to legalism, just as his Corinthian converts would show that they had received the grace of God etc xevov (2 Cor. 6:1) if they lapsed either into legalism on the one hand or into libertinism on the other (see on 2:21).

(k) Personal appeal (4:12-20)

I beg you, my brothers, become as I am, because I am as you are. You have done me no wrong. You know that it was on account of a bodily infirmity that I first preached the gospel to you, and you did not despise me or reject me with abhorrence because of the trial that my bodily condition must have caused you. Instead, you received me as a messenger of God, as Christ Jesus (in person). (You counted yourselves happy then.) Where is that sense of happiness now? I bear you witness that, had it been possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.

So then, have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth? It is from no honourable motive that they court your favour; they want to exclude you from other influences so that you may court theirs. It is always good to be courted from honourable motives (as you are by me), and not only when I am present with you, my children! (My children indeed)-4 am enduring birth-pangs for you all over again, until Christ is formed in you. I could wish I were present with you right now, and change my tone of voice, because I do not know what to do about you.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 14 vµwv K° A B C2 D` IP G 33 1739 lat / [LOU P46 C' D2 IF byz syrhe' copsa / om 69 al ev rrl aapxt µou praem tov M' 81 1739 al

ov&E s~EntvoatE om Pas

v 15 .nov / TLs D byz lat°r syr''c'

ovv / add rev D G byz / add softy 103 latvg

v 17 i;rlXoutr / add ~TlXoute Se to xQ iTtcu XaeLaµaia D* G Ambst (cf. 1 Cor. 12:31)

v 18 ~rlkovo0at A al / to ~riXovoOat D G byz / ~rlXovo0e K B pc lat`'R Orig

v19texvait`BD`Gpm ItexvtaitACWbyz

4:12 Paul tries to make it plain that he is not speaking as he does out of a sense of personal resentment, as though he were offended by their giving up his teaching in favour of someone else's. He has already protested that even if he himself were to bring them a different gospel from that which he originally preached to them he would fall under the divine curse. Even in a situation where he appears to have been personally attacked in one of his churches, he is not the man to harbour a grudge: speaking as 6 &&xrlOE(c he forgives the offence, d tt xE7,,6Eptoµat, `if I have had anything to forgive' (2 Cor. 2:10; cf. 7:12). His concern is for his converts' well-being and ultimate salvation, not for his own reputation or esteem.

He is anxious that they should enjoy the same open feelings of friendship and confidence towards him as he cherishes for them. The plea y(vEa6E u)s ~yw might in another context be taken as an instance of the imitatio Pauli theme (cf. 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 3:17, etc.; see W. P. De Boer, The Imitation of Paul [Kampen, 1962]), but here it must be understood in the light of the following ott x&yw wg i teis (sc. yEyova), `I (have become) as you are', `I have come to regard myself as one of you'-more particularly, I am your father and you are my children (cf. v 19). The situation is quite similar to that in 2 Cor. 6:11-13, where he appeals to his disaffected Corinthian converts as a father to his children: `My heart is wide open to you; let yours be wide open to me.' He assures the Corinthians there that he has done none of them any wrong (2 Cor. 7:2), as he assures the Galatians here that they have done him no wrong: among friends there should be no suspicion of wrongdoing on either side.

4:13 He now reminds them of the circumstances in which he paid them his first missionary visit: it was, he says, `on account of a bodily infirmity' (St' &oOsvEtavtfg oaexos). They knew exactly what he meant, so he had no need to go into details; his modern readers have not their advantage. It is natural to link this bodily infirmity with the `splinter in the flesh' (oxoXoip TTI oapxi) to which he refers in 2 Cor. 12:7-10, but we are too ill-informed to identify the two outright. Paul experienced the first attack of the `splinter' about AD 43 (cf. the `fourteen years' of 2 Cor. 12:2), and he was apparently still subject to its attacks when 2 Corinthians was written (c. AD 56). Whatever be the date of Galatians, it falls within these limits. (Both here and in 2 Cor. 12:7 o&p~ means `body'; by contrast, Sta Tiv 6Co0evEtav t71S oapx6g in Rom. 6:19 apparently means mental incapacity.)

If, then, Paul's first visit to the cities of Galatia coincided with an attack of this ailment, it might be hoped that his present language about it would provide a clue to its nature. Unfortunately, quite different inferences have been drawn: no certainty is possible.

(i) W. M.1Ramsay (SPT, 94-97), rightly taking 8t' &o0evEtav to mean `because of an infirmity' (cf. MHT 1, 172; BDF 223.3; E. Schweizer, TDNT VII, 125 n. 216, s.v. oae~), supposed that Paul contracted malaria in the lowlying territory of Pamphylia and made his way up to the high country around Pisidian Antioch, c. 3600 feet above sea-level, to recuperate.

(ii) The words ov8e ii~Ent)oatE (v 14) have been taken literally, `you did not spit out', and related to the practice of spitting to avert the evil eye or to exorcize an evil spirit believed to be the cause of certain afflictions, including epilepsy. This has then been used to support other arguments identifying Paul's ailment with epilepsy: so W. Wrede, Paul, ETr (London, 1907), 22f.; J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, ETr (London, 1944), 325-330, etc.

(iii) The statement of v 15, `if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me', has been taken to show that Paul suffered from ophthalmia or some other affection of the eyes, as though he meant that, had eye transplants been a possibility, they would have given him their own healthy eyes to replace his diseased ones: so J. T. Brown, `St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh', in Horae Subsecivae, ed. J. Brown (Edinburgh, 1858).

The fact that such diverse ailments as malaria, epilepsy, ophthalmia (to mention no others) have been suggested on the basis of this passage indicates that there can be no certain diagnosis. The infirmity may have been one of these three, or it may have been something quite different; it may have been identical with the `splinter' of 2 Cor. 12:7, or it may not.

If to np6tEpov in Evr)yyEXLo&xgv vµly to np6tEpov is interpreted strictly to mean `on the former occasion', Paul would have paid two visits to the cities where these Galatians lived. On the `North Galatian' view these could be the visits of Acts 16:6 and 18:23 respectively; on the `South Galatian' view there is the further possibility that they could be the eastward journey from Pisidian Antioch to Derbe (Acts 13:14-14:20), followed by the westward retracing of the same route (Acts 14:21). But it is not necessary to render to np6TEpov so strictly. In Hellenistic Greek `np6tEpog has surrendered the meaning "the first of two" to npcutos and now means only "earlier" ' (BDF 62); for to np6tEpov cf. Jn. 6:62; 7:50; 9:8; 1 Tim. 1:13.

E. H. Askwith, The Epistle to the Galatians (London, 1902), 73ff., has argued persuasively that to npoTEpov must be understood in relation to the implied `now' of v 16: `Formerly (to npotrQov) you congratulated yourselves on my coming to you; now you seem to regard me as your enemy.'

4:14 There seems to have been something repulsive in Paul's appearance at the time of his first visit to them: they might well have found it a trial (toy JtELpaoµov vµwv means `the trial which you experienced'; the variant toy JtEtpaaµ6v tov would mean `the trial which I caused'). It might indeed have proved a nELpaot6s to them in a fuller sense: they might have been tempted to treat both himself and his message with contempt and loathing. Like some of his critical converts in Corinth, they might have said, `his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account' (2 Cor. 10:10). The verb Exntvw might have its literal sense `spit out' (see note on v 13), but it may simply express a feeling or reaction of disgust and disdain. In fact, the Galatians did the opposite of what they might well have been tempted to do: far from despising Paul (ovx e~ovOrv oatE) because of his bodily condition, they welcomed him and his message with joy. They received him as a messenger of God (which indeed he was), as Christ himself (whom he represented).

When he says that they received him 6)g ayyEXov 6Eov he may, of course, mean that he was given a welcome worthy of an angel; cf. 2 Sa. (LXX 2 Ki.) 14:17 (xa&.)s ayyEXos 6Eov ovtws 6 xv0ios µov 6 (3aoLXe)c); Ad. Est. 15:13 (LXX 5:2), E~Sov or, xufttE, tits &yyE)ov OsoU. But it is out of the question to relate this simile to the incident in Acts 14:11-13, where Barnabas and Paul were hailed at Lystra as gods who had `come down ... in the likeness of men'.

J. de Zwaan saw in this language the implication that the Galatians welcomed Paul as an angel whereas they might have been tempted to shun him as demon-possessed ('Gal 4,14 aus dem Neugriechischen erklart', ZNW 10 [1909], 246-250).

Much less cogently W. Schmithals maintains that Paul's opponents accused him to the Galatians as being a man of the flesh ((3&ftxtvos), not a `spiritual' man (i.e. a gnostic), and that Paul replies ironically: `You did not find any objection in my "flesh" when I first came to you, so it cannot be because I am said to be a "man of the flesh" that you object to me now and regard me as an enemy; it must be because I am telling you the truth' (Paul and the Gnostics, 50f.). Apart from the implausible transition from one meaning of a&p~ to another, there is no evidence in the letter that Paul's opponents accused him of being o&Qxtvos-it is an inference from Schmithals's assumption that the trouble-makers were themselves gnostics.

According to G. Howard (Crisis, 9-11), the judaizing visitors, hearing of the painful circumstances in which Paul had first preached to the Galatians, supposed that he had misgivings about his acceptance among them and had therefore refrained from saying anything about circumcision and other aspects of his message which he feared might be unacceptable to them. This is obviously untrue, says Paul; you remember that you were not at all put off by my repugnant presence but welcomed me as a messenger of God, and if I had wished to include circumcision in my message there was no reason why I should not. But this reading of Paul's words depends on the doubtful premise that his opponents believed that in his heart of hearts he still held to circumcision. (They charged him rather with having no firm convictions about it, so that he taught it or kept silent about it as he judged expedient; see 5:11.)

4:15 The Galatians rejoiced at Paul's arrival among them: they congratulated (taxaft(i;(t) themselves that this messenger of God had come with such good news. This was their taxaetoµos (a substantive derived from the verb taxap(l;w, `congratulate', `count happy'; cf. Acts 26:2, where >jyrlµat Etavtov taxd tov, `I count myself happy', might equally well have been expressed taxap(t(O Eµavtov, `I congratulate myself'). Where was that sense of congratulation now? Had it entirely evaporated?

to tupw yae vµly, `I bear you witness', is in origin a forensic form of words ('I am ready to go into the witness-box and swear..:), amounting to a solemn declaration. It is not quite so emphatic as the expression in 1:20-no one is disputing Paul's narrative of events in the present passage.

E[ Svvatov... EScitxate [tot is another unfulfilled condition (cf. 1:10; 3:21), this time without av in the apodosis (its inclusion was no longer felt as obligatory). The ellipsis of 71v with d 6uvatov is comparable to Eng. `if possible' for `if it were possible'.

`You would have given me your most precious possessions; you would have given me the very eyes out of your heads', says Paul, emphasizing their readiness at that time to do anything at all for him. It is precarious to take the mention of `eyes' too literally, especially to suppose that the language implies Paul's own eye trouble. The most that can be said is that, if it could be established otherwise that he suffered from some eye-affliction, there would be special force in his choice of words here.

What Paul's language does bring out is not only his own exceptional capacity for affection (cf. v 19) but also his capacity for inspiring a responsive affection in others. There is no sacrifice, it is implied, which one will not make for a friend. H. D. Betz, who sees the whole paragraph vv 12-20 as devoted to the topos of friendship, adduces at this point the story of the Scythian friends Dandamis and Amizoces in Lucian, Toxaris 40f.: Dandamis sacrificed his eyes to ransom Amizoces from captivity, and when Amizoces was then set free he blinded himself because he could not bear to see his friend's blindness (Galatians, 228).

4:16 It was natural that a certain uneasy reserve should begin to mark the Galatian Christians' attitude to Paul. They knew that the teaching to which they were now giving ear could not commend itself to him, and that he would disapprove of their accepting it. This reserve would be reinforced if they entertained suggestions tending to discredit him, or to diminish his standing in their eyes. When he heard of what was happening, he could be trusted to tell them they were wrong, and such plain speaking was bound to be unpalatable.

bats is used here to introduce a rhetorical question.

It is hazardous to find in Paul's use of ixOeos here the source of his later designation among the Ebionites as ExOpos avOQWItos (Epistle of Peter to James, 2; Clem. Recog. 1.70f.), as is done by H.-J. Schoeps, Judenchristentum, 120, 474; Paul, 82; a much more probable source is the s;xOpos avOpwnoc of Mt. 13:28 (cf. Schoeps, Judenchristentum, 127).

&kTJ0Eiwv vµfv. In telling them the truth Paul is their friend. The truth he is now telling them is the same as what he told them when first he came among them, and on that occasion it won their friendship for him. For this `truth' is nothing other than the good news of divine grace. If it is true, then the `other gospel' brought by the trouble-makers is self-evidently false. It is reading an alien idea into the text to say with W. Schmithals, `Precisely this argument of Paul shows that in truth people in Galatia were declaiming against Paul on account of the apostle's fleshly ["sarkic"] weakness' (Paul and the Gnostics, 50 n. 107).

The situation, in fact, is not unlike that in which Paul was later involved with the Corinthian church, when it was visited by interlopers who brought a `different gospel' and tried to disparage Paul in his converts' eyes; Paul protests his unchanging love for his friends, even while he remonstrates vigorously with them: `If I love you the more, am Ito be loved the less?' (2 Cor. 12:15).

4:17 In that same context of 2 Corinthians, Paul expresses his `divine jealousy' (~rl],.co yap vµas 6soi ~rkcp) over his converts (2 Cor. 11:2), and something of the same sense attaches to his use of the verb trlXow here. Even if some Zealot-like pressure lay behind the action of the trouble-makers in Galatia, ~r11<,ow in this context has nothing to do with that. It is used rather in the sense of paying court to someone. This may be done with honourable (xaMog) or dishonourable intentions, and the intentions of the trouble-makers, says Paul, are dishonourable (l;rlkoboty vµas ov xaXtus); they want to gain adherents for themselves and to shut them off (ExXWOUL) from fellowship with Paul and, in effect, from fellowship with the Christ whose apostle Paul is. In Paul's eyes, to seek justi fication by legal works, as the Galatians were being urged to do by the troublemakers, was to be `severed from Christ' (5:4). Paul has no desire to gain adherents for himself-in the Galatian cities as at Corinth he would have repudiated the suggestion that any of his converts should say, `I belong to Paul' (1 Cor. 1:12)-his ardent desire was to betroth his converts, so to speak, to Christ, to whom their undivided allegiance was to be given (cf. 2 Cor. 11:2).

Na avtovs r;rlkovtE (present subjunctive). The verb ~rlXow may be used not only of the quest for adherents but also of the adherents' attachment to their leaders or teachers, and such is the sense of tTJXoUTE in this clause. J. B. Lightfoot (Galatians, 176f.) adduces a passage from Plutarch (De Virtute Morali 448E) where, after a reference to the mutual esteem between husband and wife (in an arranged marriage) developing into love, he goes on: `so again, when young men happen upon cultivated teachers, they follow them and emulate (lrlXovaty) them..:-but there ~rlXow is used of a less ardent attachment than that which develops when they become s;paata( of their teachers. Those people, says Paul to his converts, want you to count yourselves as exclusively their followers, enrolled members of their school.

4:18 It is always good, he goes on, to be courted with honourable intentions, as you were `courted' by me when I was present with you; but as it is, no sooner has my back been turned than you let someone else come and `court' you with dishonourable intentions!

4:19 texva [LOU, ovs na),,ty tS(vw. The masculine relative pronoun after the neuter antecedent is an instance of constructio ad sensum.

`Christ lives in me' (2:20) was true not only of Paul but (potentially at least) of all believers. Paul longs to see Christ visibly living in the Galatians-to see the likeness of Christ manifested in their lives. Cf. 2 Cor. 3:18 where believers in Christ are described as `being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another' through the inward operation of `the Lord who is the Spirit'. Here he expresses the same thought in terms of the embryo being formed in the mother's womb until it reaches maturity and is ready to be born. So Calvin ad loc.: nascitur in nobis, ut vivamus eius vitam ('he is born in us, that we may live his life'). This birth involves birth-pangs, but it is Paul himself who endures them on his converts' behalf. He is enduring them, in fact, for a second time (raXIV); the first time was when he preached the gospel to them and they came to faith in Christ. Cf. I Cor. 4:15, where he is the father who has begotten his converts through the gospel, and I Thes. 2:7, where he cherishes them like a nurse (zpo(pos); here he plays a mother's part. The language vividly expresses the intensity of his love and concern for them.

H. Lietzmann (An die Galater, 28) renders the µexpts ov clause as `until Christ has become incarnate in you' (bis Christus in euch Mensch geworden ist). H. Schlier (Galater, 214 with n. 2) understands the language not of the formation of Christ in each individual among them but of the formation of the body of Christ in their community as a whole. But `the community is born through the growth of Christ in individuals' (A. Wikenhauser, Pauline Mysticism, ETr [Edinburgh, 1960], 44).

Paul's thought here is not essentially different from his language about the daily renewal of the inner man (2 Cor. 4:16), about the putting on of the new man, who 'is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his creator' (Col. 3:10; cf. Eph. 4:23), or even about `putting on the Lord Jesus Christ' (Rom. 13:14). But the thought is more vividly expressed here, and certainly the metaphor of birth is more effective than the catechetical formula of `putting on'. (It is unlikely that any substantial analogy can be discerned between this passage and the description in 1QH 3.13 of the pangs preceding the birth of a `wonder of a counsellor' [pele' yb'es] in the covenant community, even if the Messiah is meant (on this cf. H. Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran, ETr [Philadelphia, 1963], 191-194).

It is not that Paul sees two stages in Christian experience-being justified by faith and having Christ formed within one-it is rather that the one implies the other and reliance on law for salvation negates both. It should not have been necessary for him to endure birth-pangs all over again on their behalf, but if they put themselves under law, then they are not justified by faith in Christ and Christ is not `in them': they have not yet been transferred from slavery to sonship (v 7) or from the old creation to the new (6:15). (Cf. E. P. Sanders, PPJ, 469.) The classic treatment of Christ's being formed within the believer is H. Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man, published about 1672-73 (reprinted London, 1961), from which G. Whitefield learned `that they who know anything of religion know it is a vital union with the Son of God-Christ formed in the heart' (Sermon preached in 1769, quoted in the foreword to the 1961 reprint of Scougal, op. cit., 12; cf. G. Whitefield, Journals I [reprinted London, 1960], 46f.).

4:20 Paul's written words in his letters when he was absent from his friends were substitutes for his spoken words when he was in their company-and, in his view, inadequate substitutes. There are situations in which the tone of voice and even the look on the face convey nearly as much as the words that are said, but when one is writing from a distance only the words can be conveyed. True, when the writer is well known one can, with no great effort of imagination, hear him speaking and see his facial expression, but in matters of delicate personal relationship such imagination is insufficient. It is evident from 2 Cor. 10:10 that some of Paul's converts contrasted the power and severity of his letters with the unimpressive way he spoke when he was present with them. Paul may be afraid here that his Galatian friends will concentrate on the uncompromising severity of his language and overlook the underlying concern and affection: if only he could be with them he could adapt his tone of voice to his deep-seated emotions. He is at a loss to know how best to approach them: the arguments which he might expect to be most compelling could leave them cold, or even confirm them in the course which he so much deplored.

fj6EXov Se 7rapelvau epos vµas &QTL. J. Knox ('Galatians', IDB II, 343) infers from Paul's language that he would certainly have visited them, or at least promised (or threatened) a visit, had he not been prevented by force majeure, and thinks it possible that Paul may have been in prison at the time-in which case he argues further that Galatians was written after Romans. But we are too scantily informed about Paul's circumstances to know why he could not pay a personal visit to Galatia just then.

(1) A lesson from scripture (4:21-5:1)

Tell me, you who wish to be under law, do you not listen to the law? Scripture tells us that Abraham got two sons, one by the slavegirl and one by the freewoman. The son of the slavegirl was born according to the flesh, but the son of the freewoman was born through promise.

Now these are allegorical entities. These women represent two covenantsone deriving from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery: that is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But Jerusalem above is free: she is our mother. Scripture says:

Now you, my brothers, are children of promise, as Isaac was. But just as then the son that was born according to the flesh persecuted the son that was born according to the Spirit, so it is even now. But what does the scripture say? 'Drive out the slavegirl and her son, for the slavegirl's son shall not share the inheritance with the son of the freewoman.' So then, my brothers, we are children, not of the slavegirl but of the freewoman.

With freedom Christ has set us free: stand firm, therefore, and do not be encumbered again with a yoke of slavery.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 21 axovEtE / avayLVWOXETE D G pc lat cops '"""O arm

v 23 µcv / om P16 B latvK

SL'P46XAal /btaticBDGbyz

Eva om lat'

Eotty om 1739 pc Orig

GU(v)OT0LXEL Se / 11 (om D'') avvorotXovoa D' 1739 pc Orig G lat

v 26 Tlµwv P's X* B D G W 1739 pc lat syrpesn hCI.mg / navtcov rlµwv K2 A byz 1at"R'3) syrnci

v 28 VµEts... Fare P46 B D* G 1739 at cops Iren'at / rl[tEts ... Eo[tEv K A W byz latrvK syr cop"

v 30 tic EXEVOE(Jag / µov Ioaax D" G latPe' Ambst

v I TYJ EXEVoEpta rlµasXecaios EXEVOEpwaev oirlxEZEovv (omovvD' 614pc) K A B P at/ EXEVOEpca rlµag Xecaios rlXEVOEpcooev, OTTIXETE (addouvG Orig) G lat Mcion Orig Ephr / Trl E) Ev9Eeia (add ovv TR) ~1 XPcotos 71µa5 r1XEVOEpu7oEV, a>:71xetE K L byz

4:21 Paul now endeavours to reinforce his argument by means of an allegorical interpretation of the Genesis story of Hagar and Sarah, with their respective sons Ishmael and Isaac. Paul himself calls his interpretation 'allegorical' (v 24)-that is to say, the entities in the story stand for something other than their prima facie sense, whether that 'something other' was intended by the orig final author (as, say, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress) or is the contribution of the interpreter (and even when it is the contribution of the interpreter, the interpreter frequently thinks that he is bringing out the intention of the original author).

Paul was not the first to allegorize the story of Abraham's two sons: Philo had done so already, although there is no relation between Philo's interpretation and Paul's. According to Philo, Abraham is the virtue-loving soul in its quest for the true God; Sarah is virtue and her son Isaac is the higher wisdom, whereas Hagar is the lower learning of the schools and her son Ishmael is sophistry, shooting his arguments as an archer (Gn. 21:20) shoots arrows from his bow (Abr. 68; Fug. 128, 209f.; Mut. 255, etc.). In other words, Philo finds set forth in the patriarchal narrative the philosophy which to his mind constituted ultimate truth; Paul finds set forth in it the gospel of free grace which he was commissioned to proclaim and which he had already seen to be summed up in the statement that Abraham's faith was counted to him for righteousness (cf. 3:6).

4yETE [Wt, of vrtb voµov 9£XovTEs Eivat, toy vbµov ovx axo5EtE; We note the transition in this sentence from voµos in the strict sense of `law'-`you who wish to be under law' (as in 3:23; 4:4f.)-to voµos in the general sense of the Pentateuch. The patriarchal narrative does not belong to any of the lawcodes of the Torah, but it is part of the Torah, and it is doubtful if Paul and his contemporaries made the explicit distinction in their minds between the narrower and wider senses of the term that modern students readily make. Similarly in Rom. 3:19, after a catena of quotations drawn mainly from the Psalter, Paul applies them particularly to Jews because `whatever the law (o voµos) says, it says to those who are under the law (toffs Ev t4 voµ(p)'-where ev t4 voµco has much the same sense as vno voµov here, whereas 6 voµos is used in its widest sense to include all the sacred scriptures.

Paul reminds his readers of a phase in the patriarchal narrative, which he treats in such a way as to emphasize the incompatibility of life under law and life under promise. If you insist on the priority in the inheritance of Abraham's descendants xata aapxa, he says in effect, remember this: Abraham indeed had a son xata oapxa, of whom it is expressly stated that he was not to share the inheritance.

4:22 yeypa7tiaL, `it is written', `scripture tells us' (as in 3:10, 13).

'A(3paaµ Svo vlovs ioxcv, `Abraham acquired (soxEv, aorist) two sons'Ishmael, the elder, and Isaac, his junior by fourteen years.

When Sarah, Abraham's wife, had given him no child, and had now reached an age at which she was unlikely ever to have one, she decided to give him one by proxy through Hagar, her Egyptian slave-a practice which appears to have been socially acceptable in their culture (cf. On. 30:3-13). Hagar became pregnant immediately, and did not conceal her sense of superiority over her mistress, who felt correspondingly humiliated. Relations between the two women were thenceforth strained. Hagar in due course gave birth to Ishmael, who was his aged father's pride and joy (Gn. 16:1-16; 17:18). But some years later Abraham and Sarah received the divine promise that Sarah herself would have a son, and the promise was fulfilled the following year in the birth of Isaac (yishaq)-so called because of the laughter (shq), first of incredulity and then of exultation, which attended his annunciation and birth (Gn. 17:17; 18:10-15; 21:1-7).

The status of Ishmael and his mother now suffered a radical change: the security they had enjoyed so long as Hagar was the mother of Abraham's one and only son was imperilled. Matters came to a head at the festivities which marked the weaning of Isaac: `Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac" ' (Gn. 21:9f.).

Abraham's affection for Ishmael made him unwilling to do any such thing; he yielded only when God told him to do as his wife said and promised that Ishmael would become the ancestor of a great nation, `because he is your offspring' (Gn. 21:11-13; cf. v 18). (A parallel and expanded form of this promise, in Gn. 17:20, speaks of Ishmael as destined to become `the father of twelve princes', who are doubtless to be identified with the twelve sons of Ishmael listed in Gn. 25:13-18, eponymous ancestors of the Arab tribes which occupied the territory `from Havilah to Shur'-that is, in the Syrian desert, between the Euphrates and the Egyptian frontier.)

This narrative lends itself to interpretation at various levels, but most of these would be irrelevant to Paul's treatment. Source analysis of the narrative would be beside the point, for Paul's treatment views the narrative as a whole, within Genesis as a completed literary unit. Equally unhelpful here would be a study of the narrative in its dramatic setting, as compared with contemporary Near Eastern practice. According to the code of Hammurabi, for example, `the children of the wife shall divide the property of the father's house equally with the sons of the bondmaid; the son and heir, the son of the wife, shall choose a share (first) and take it' (paragraph 170). As for the case of a childless wife (as Sarah was for long), it is stipulated in marriage contracts from Nuzu that if a wife proves to be childless she shall provide her husband with a slave wife and that the son of such a slave wife shall not be expelled (cf. E. A. Speiser, `New Kirkuk Documents relating to Family Laws', AASOR 10 [1930], 1-73, especially 31-33). It may be that Sarah, in refusing to let Ishmael have a share of the inheritance and in insisting on his expulsion, was in breach of established usage; if so, Abraham would have been the more reluctant to accede to her demand, until he was divinely directed to do so.

The narrative was naturally of great religious and ethnic interest to Jews. They were the descendants of Isaac, the promised son; they were therefore the chosen people, the heirs of the promise, the true children of Abraham, to whom the divine oracle said, `through Isaac shall your offspring be named' (Gn. 21:12). (It could not be denied that Isaac was the ancestor of the Edomites also, but the Edomites were not joint-heirs of the promise, for reasons which Paul points out in Rom. 9:10-13.) The Israelites were acquainted with their Ishmaelite neighbours who lived beyond the confines of the cultivated land, and they may have been familiar with some of their customs, such as the circumcision of boys at puberty, after the example of Ishmael himself (Gn. 17:25), and in contrast to their own custom of circumcision at eight days old, following the precedent of Isaac (Gn. 21:4). But as time went on, the Ishmaelites would readily rank as representatives of Gentiles in general, excluded from the special covenant which God made with Abraham and with his descendants through Isaac (and Jacob).

4:23 a?X' 6 REV i=x tf; atai6i6x'qS xata aagxa yeyevvrltal, o Se Ex iris EXEVOE(Jug St' iatayyWag. The perfect yeyi;vvgTat may imply that the reference is not only to the historical event of Ishmael's birth but also to the abiding truth that `what is born (to yEyevvt evov) of the flesh is flesh' (Jn. 3:6). Alternatively, the reference may be to the abiding record in scripture: ycyEVVrhat `approximately' ='Eypaniat oit >'EVVij0r1 (BDF 342 [5]).

xata aapxa means `in the ordinary course of nature'. No moral censure is implied: unlike Philo (Sob. 8), Paul does not call Ishmael illegitimate (v60os). It is simply recognized that there was nothing exceptional about Ishmael's birth. Nor is anything in the nature of a virgin birth implied for Isaac (so, e.g., Marius Victorinus ad loc.: `non ex copulatione'). Abraham's real paternity of Isaac is implied in v 22, as it is, if anything, more clearly in Rom. 4:18-21. There is nothing here comparable to Philo's allegorical statement that Isaac was born not as a human being but as `a most pure thought (v&gta xa0ct )Tatov), beautiful by nature rather than by practice' (Fug. 167).

Yet the birth of Isaac was certainly contrary to the ordinary course of nature, in view of the advanced age of Abraham, and more particularly of Sarah, at the time of his conception: it took place by the enabling word of God, in direct fulfilment of his promise (cf. Gn. 17:19; 18:9-15).

4:24 &TLva EotLV &7,,X1yopovµeva. The compound &TLva (cf. 5:19) has taken over the function of the simple neuter plural a (so also iTLg for f in vv 24b, 26).

`This is an allegory', says Paul, or `these are allegorical entities', each of them corresponding to a reality in the new situation (cf. NIV: `these things may be taken figuratively'). He is not thinking of allegory in the Philonic sense (allegory in the Philonic sense was introduced into Christian interpretation with Origen and his successors); he has in mind that form of allegory which is commonly called typology: a narrative from OT history is interpreted in terms of the new covenant, or (to put it the other way round) an aspect of the new covenant is presented in terms of an OT narrative. Typology presupposes that salvationhistory displays a recurring pattern of divine action: thus the exilic prophets portrayed their people's return from Babylon in terms of a second Exodus, and the NT writers portray the Christian redemption in terms both of the Exodus and of the return from Babylon. Paul supplies simple examples of such typology when he says that `Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed' (I Cor. 5:7) or shows how the people of Christ in this age experience their own counterparts of the Red Sea passage, the manna, the water from the rock and the vicissitudes of the wilderness wanderings (1 Cor. 10:1-11). The Exodus typology in particular was widespread in the NT period (cf. Heb. 3:7-4:11; Jude 5).

The one rather clear instance of non-typological allegory in Paul is his treatment of the command not to muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain (Dt. 25:4) as the authorization of those who preach the gospel to live by the gospel (1 Cor. 9:8-10).

See A. T. Hanson, Studies in Paul's Technique and Theology (London, 1974); R. N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids, 1975); F. P. Ramos, `Alegoria o tipologia en Gal 4, 21-31', Est Bib 34 (1975), 113-119, and La Libertad en la Carta a los Galatas (Madrid, 1977), 100-121; R. J. Kepple, `An Analysis of Antiochene Exegesis of Galatians 4:24-26', WTJ 39 (1976-77), 239-249.

Paul presents a more elaborate example of biblical interpretation in 2 Cor. 3:7-4:6, in his midrash on Ex. 34:29-35. There the fading reflection of the divine glory on Moses' face is contrasted with the permanent glory in the face of Christ. But the argument is thoroughly typological in the sense that the distinctiveness of the new covenant is brought out by comparison and contrast with the old. The old covenant is the administration of law, meting out death to the transgressor, whereas the new covenant is the administration of the Spirit, imparting life to the believer. Since `where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom' (2 Cor. 3:17), the contrast between law and Spirit is identical with the contrast between legal bondage and spiritual freedom which Paul illustrates by his present 'allegory'.

In the present `allegory', however, there is a forcible inversion of the analogy which is unparalleled elsewhere in Paul. Whereas in other typological passages the OT account is left intact, the argument here is up against the historical fact that Isaac was the ancestor of the Jews, whereas Ishmael's descendants were Gentiles. This unique clash between type and antitype demands an explanation, and a highly probable explanation has been put forward by C. K. Barrett ('The Allegory of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in the Argument of Galatians', Kdsemann FS, 1-16)-namely, that the incident of the two sons of Abraham had been adduced by Paul's opponents in Galatia in support of their case, and that Paul felt obliged to refute their argument by inverting it and showing that the incident, properly understood, supported the gospel of free grace, with its antithesis between flesh and spirit.

avtaL y$Q EkJLV no SLaOrlxau. The copula here means `stand for' or `signify'; cf. 2 Cor. 3:17, o Se x5tog to itvEVµa iatiV, ' "the Lord" [in the particular context of 34:34 LXX] means "the Spirit" ', and for a typological parallel 1 Cor. 10:4, Ex. neTpa SE 7lv 6 XpLotos, `and the rock was Christ' (see on v 4).-

If the one SLaOixq is the Sinaitic covenant, as is here stated, the other is the covenant with Abraham (cf. 3:15-17), which was characterized by `promise'. The initial fulfilment of the covenant-promise to Abraham was the birth of Isaac, who (with his mother) is presented by Paul as the embodiment or symbol of that promise.

A parallel to Paul's OT exegesis here has been recognized in CD 6.3-11 (J. D. G. Dunn, who mentions it in Unity, 396 n. 19, acknowledges indebtedness to G. I. Davies for drawing his attention to it): the Song of the Well (Nu. 21:18) is so interpreted that the `well' is the law, the `princes' who dig it are the members of the faithful community who left the land of Judah, the `sceptre' or `staff' with which it is dug is the `expositor of the law', and the `nobles of the people' are those who carry out his ordinances. But this exegesis, allegorical as it is, does not involve the reversal of historical actuality implicit in Paul's allegory; it probably has more in common with the treatment that Paul's opponents would have given to the story of Isaac and Ishmael.

If Paul, in the elementary class of his rabbinical school, had been set an exegetical exercise on the text, `Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman', the outline of his exegesis would have been predictable: Isaac was the ancestor of the chosen people; the Ishmaelites are Gentiles. The Jews are the children of the free woman; the Gentiles are children of the slave woman. The Jews have received the liberating knowledge of the law; the Gentiles are in bondage to ignorance and sin. The Jews are the people of the covenant; such blessings as the Gentiles enjoy (like the promise that Ishmael would become a great nation) are uncovenanted mercies.

If the trouble-makers in Galatia appealed to the story of Isaac and Ishmael, that is very much how they would have applied it. True, they would have conceded, the Gentiles of Galatia could not be sons of Abraham by natural descent, as Isaac was; yet there was hope for them: they could be adopted into Abraham's family by circumcision and so enjoy the covenant mercies promised to Abraham and his descendants. By accepting circumcision they would align themselves with the church of the circumcised in Jerusalem, the mother-church of the true followers of Christ.

Paul now inverts the exegesis which would have commended itself to him in earlier days. Now it is the people of the law who are the offspring of the slave woman; the children of the free woman are those who embrace the gospel of justification by faith, comprising a minority of Jews and a rapidly increasing preponderance of Gentiles. To Jews this exegesis must have seemed preposterous. It was crystal clear that they were Sarah's offspring, while Hagar's descendants were Gentiles. One could envisage a group like the Qumran community claiming that its members alone, because of their special devotion to the law, were sons of the promise, while the apostate majority of Israel deserved to be ranked with the Ishmaelites; but that bears no resemblance to Paul's argument. For Paul, law and promise are antithetical. His own experience had convinced him that the law brought men and women into bondage, while the gospel was a message of liberation. Therefore, he argues, the people of the law belong to Hagar's family, for she `is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery'; those who believe the gospel are the children of Sarah, the free woman. We cannot know how convincing Paul's Gentile readers found his argument; much would depend on the degree to which they had assimilated his principles of OT interpretation.

What Paul had learned from his personal experience corresponded with his reading of the history of God's dealings with mankind. The gospel is the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham that in him and his offspring all nations would be blessed (cf. 3:8, 16). The law, which was given later, was a parenthetical dispensation introduced by God for a limited purpose; its validity continued only until the promise to Abraham was fulfilled in Christ, and even while it was valid it did not modify the terms of the promise (cf. 3:17-25).

4:25 to 8e `Ayap X6va opos Eoti.v eV r 'Apa(3(a. This reading (the longer one) is preferable on intrinsic grounds; there would be little point in the shorter reading: `For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia'. Of course it is, but why would Paul make such a bald statement of geographical fact? The copula once more means `signifies' or `represents': `Hagar corresponds to Mount Sinai in Arabia' (from which the law was promulgated). It is probably irrelevant in this context that Hagar (Heb. hagar) is similar (but not identical) to a Semitic word meaning `rock' or `crag' (Heb. hagar, Aram. hagra', Arab. hagar): Paul certainly is not saying `Hagar means "mountain" in Arabia' (pace W. Bousset, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, II [Gottingen, 31917], 66). Nor is there much substance in the attempt of H. Gese (`to Se `Ayap Itva opos eotiv eV ru 'Aec4(a', Rost FS, 81-94 = Vom Sinai zum Zion [Munchen, 1974], 49- 62) to see a reference here to el-Hekra (Medain Salih, 200 miles north of Medina) on the basis of Gn. 16:7, Tg. Onq., where Hagar takes the way to Hagra'; there, as elsewhere in Tg. Onq., hagra' is the regular (updated) Aram. equivalent of Shur, on the way to Egypt (cf. G. I. Davies, `Hagar, el-Hegra, and the Location of Mount Sinai', VT 22 [1972], 152-163).

(The earliest witness to the traditional identification of Mount Sinai with Jebel Musa comes in Egeria's Peregrinatio [AD 383/4]; she was assured of the identification by local monks. The `Hagrites' [Heb. hagrtm, hagrt'im] are referred to as an Arab group in I Ch. 5:10, 19f.; 27:31; Ps. 83:6.)

The identification of Hagar with Sinai means simply that she and her descendants represent the law, which holds men and women in bondage. If she also corresponds to the present Jerusalem ovorroLXsi (SE tIj vvv 'Iepovoa?&), it is not so much the literal city that is meant as the whole legal system of Judaism, which had its world-centre in Jerusalem. If Paul's opponents were trying to bring his Galatian converts into subjection to the church of Jerusalem and its leadership, that would add point to Paul's reference to `the present Jerusalem'. The leaders of the Jerusalem church had reached an accommodation with Paul about the gospel which he preached and his commission to propagate it in the Gentile world (2:1-9); if they were now going back on that agreement, if they were a party to the attempt to impose the yoke of the law on the Gentile churches of Galatia (a charge against them to which Paul does not commit himself), then they would be making common cause with the community which is still `in slavery with her children'.

In vv 25 and 26 Paul uses the form 'IEpouoaXip. (a fairly close transliteration of the Hebrew), whereas in 1:17f. and 2:1 he has used the hellenized plural `IEpoooXvµa. In those earlier references he has the geographical site in view; here the emphasis is more on the religious significance of the city.

A. Harnack thought that `we can without difficulty discern the rule which guides his use of the respective names: where Jerusalem has religious significance (Gal. iv.25, 26), and in passages of special solemnity where the Apostle thinks of the "saints" in Jerusalem (Rom. xv.25, 26, 31; here Jerusalem is everywhere combined with of a?LoL) he writes [t, i.e. he chooses the Hebrew name, elsewhere he writes `Iepoo6Xvµa''Iepouoak, (The Acts of the Apostles, ETr [London, 1909], 76). He notes that Rom. 15:19 and 1 Cor. 16:3 (in both of which 'IepovoaXrlµ appears) seem to be exceptions to this rule, but considers that in the latter place Paul is thinking of the saints in Jerusalem, though he does not actually say of aYlol, and that in the former `his feeling of reverent wonder at the grandeur of the work that had been accomplished through him may have led him to write the name 'IepovoaX>1µ' (ibid., 77).

4:26 f1 SE avw 'IEpovoaki)t iXEVOEpa sor(v. `Jerusalem above' is the antithesis to `the present Jerusalem'. No explicit antithesis to Mount Sinai is mentioned, but `Jerusalem above' probably fills this role as well as that of antithesis to the present Jerusalem. The antithesis between Sinai and Jerusalem (or Zion) was early taken up and developed in a number of directions, as may be seen in Heb. 12:18-24 and later in the pseudo-Cyprianic anti-Jewish treatise De montibus Sina et Sion (PL IV.991-1000).

The idea of two Jerusalems, the lower and the upper, the earthly and the heavenly, is not peculiar to Paul. Two other NT writers make use of it (cf. Heb. 12:22, with 11:10, 16; Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 9ff.). Paul's use of the idea here is probably the earliest literary reference to it, although the way in which he introduces it suggests that it was no new idea to him nor, it seems, to the Galatians.

As the wilderness tabernacle was to be constructed according to the pattern shown to Moses on Sinai (Ex. 25:40), so the temple and city of Jerusalem were regarded as material copies of eternal and heavenly archetypes. In 1 Ch. 28:19 the plan of the temple which Solomon received from David is said to have been `made clear by the writing from the hand of Yahweh concerning it'. More precisely, in Wis. 9:8 Solomon, in prayer to God, describes his temple as `a copy of the holy tent which thou didst prepare from the beginning'-the `holy tent' being God's heavenly dwelling-place. The existence of the heavenly Jerusalem was later inferred from Ps. 122:3 ('Jerusalem, built as a city which is bound firmly together'), rendered `Jerusalem, built like the city which is its fellow' (with vocalization h°berah for MT hubberah; cf. Tg. and Midr. Tehillim, ad loc.). R. Me'ir (c. AD 140) said that, of the seven heavens, the fourth was called z%l, `in which are Jerusalem and the temple, and an altar is set up, at which Michael the great prince stands and offers sacrifice' (b. Hag. 12b). In the Apocalypse of Baruch, written shortly after the catastrophe of AD 70, Baruch is told that the earthly Jerusalem is not the true city of God: the true city was revealed to Adam before his fall, to Abraham when God made a covenant with him, and to Moses at the time when he was shown the plan of the tabernacle on Sinai (2 Bar. 4:2ff.).

In our present text, just as fl vvv 'Ie@ovaock,s is not primarily the geographical site, so 7j avw 'IEQovaak7jtis not spatially elevated but is the community of the new covenant.

TIuLS 17 Early tiirrlp iijuiv. Cf. Ps. 87 (LXX 86):5, pt1it1e Xicuv, E9EI its, "Zion is my mother", one will say' (i.e. `I was born in Zion'); cf. C. Gore, The Holy Spirit in the Church (London, 1924), 150 = The Reconstruction of Belief (London, 1926), 770; C. F. D. Moule, The Birth of the NT (London, 31981), 60. A later parallel is 2 Esd. 10:7, `Zion, the mother of us all, is in deep grief...' (where again, as in Ps. 87, it is the earthly Jerusalem that is in view, after the disaster of AD 70). For the picture of Zion/Jerusalem as the mother of her citizens cf. also Is. 49:20f.; 54:1-13 (see quotation in v 27 below). For Paul it is the heavenly Jerusalem that is the counterpart of Sarah, the mother of the free-born people of God; cf. `the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God', prepared by him for men and women of faith (Heb. 11:10, 16).

In Cyprian's Testimonia (1.20) the argument of Gal. 4:22ff. is summarized and then amplified with the inclusion of Jacob's two wives-the weak-eyed Leah representing the synagogue and Rachel, the mother of Joseph ('a type of Christ', he says), representing the church. He finds the same twofold analogy later in Elkanah's two wives, the church being represented by Hannah, the mother of Samuel (another `type of Christ'). The motif of the sterile wife ultimately getting the better of her fertile rival is recurrent in the OT narrative, as a demonstration of the grace and power of God (cf. Ps. 113 [LXX 112]:9 and, for a NT parallel, Lk. 1:36f.).

4:27 The ultimate triumph of the formerly childless wife over the other is celebrated in Is. 54:1, quoted here by Paul not only because it is a locus classicus for this theme but also because the mother here congratulated is Zion/Jerusalem. The derelict (Eprlµog) city of Jerusalem, bereft of her children who have been carried into exile in Babylon, is destined to be restored and to be blessed with returning children more numerous than those whom she lost. The prophet is not contrasting two distinct `women': he is rather contrasting the desolate Jerusalem, widowed and robbed of her children, with Jerusalem as she was in the days of her earlier prosperity and as she will be in days to come when she will be more abundantly compensated for her losses.

Moreover, Is. 54:1 is part of Is. 40-66, which in the NT is one of the most fertile fields of testimonia, from the `voice' of Is. 40:3 (cf. Mk. 1:3 par.; Jn. 1:23) to the `new heavens and new earth' of Is. 65:17 and 66:22 (cf. 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1). By the NT writers, and especially by Paul, this whole corpus of prophecy is given a gospel interpretation. For such a fresh interpretation the early Christians (whether they were aware of it or not) had pre-Christian precedent, as has been shown by the Qumran texts. The `voice' of Is. 40:3 ('In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God') provided the Qumran sectaries with authority for their wilderness retreat (IQS 8.13f.); and in a fragmentary commentary on Isaiah from Cave 4 (4Q Is") parts of Is. 54 are referred to the elect community forming the nucleus of the restored Israel of the new age. The promise to the widowed city, `I will lay your foundations in lapis lazuli' (Is. 54:11), is explained thus: `Its interpretation is that they have founded the council of the community, the priests and the peo[ple, to be] a congregation of his elect, like a stone of lapis lazuli among the stones.'

So by Paul the promises of Is. 54 are understood as addressed to the church of the new age, Jerusalem above. But for Paul the contemporary church was a predominantly Gentile community. Formerly the Gentiles were spiritually sterile, producing no fruit for God, but now their response to the gospel has made them more fruitful than the synagogue: the new Jerusalem has more children than ever the old Jerusalem had. The two women of Is. 54:1 have now become two distinct entities.

This is not the only place where an OT situation within the bounds of the chosen family is applied in the NT on a more comprehensive scale, embracing Gentiles as well as Jews. More NT writers than one, for example, interpret Hosea's Lo-ammi and Lo-ruhamah (Ho. 1:6-9) not of temporarily apostate Israel but of the Gentiles who were formerly unrelated to God but have now been brought into his family (cf. Rom. 9:25f.; 1 Pet. 2:10). The principle of divine action is the same, but in the Gentile mission it is exhibited on a broader canvas.

The Christian application of Is. 54:1 was probably not peculiar to Paul; it may well have belonged to the common exegetical stock of the church. But, if it lay ready to Paul's hand, he found it specially appropriate to his handling of the patriarchal narrative. Sarah, who `was barren (`"garah, (Jte%pa, as in Is. 54:1) and had no child' (Gn. 11:30), certainly did exult when she gave birth to Isaac (Gn. 21:6f.). Even if Paul was moved to take up the Ishmael-Isaac analogy because of the use that was being made of it by his opponents in Galatia, he was able to turn it to his own purpose by tying it in with his insistence that Abraham's true offspring comprises all believers and with the unquestioned fact that Isaac's birth fulfilled the divine promise, belief in which had procured Abraham's justification.

Philo (Praem. 158-160) treats Is. 54:1 (in conjunction with the words of Hannah in 1 Sa. [LXX 1 Ki.] 2:5) as an ethical allegory of the history of the soul-the children of the married woman being vices and those of the barren woman (the virgin impregnated by divine seed) virtues (cf. Migr. Abr. 224f.). But, however congenial to Philonism this allegorization is, it is an aberration from the main line of biblical interpretation.

4:28 xata 'Ioaax E.nayyeX(as texva iot£. If the story of Abraham's two sons is to be allegorized at all in terms of the gospel order, it follows as the night the day that the analogy of Isaac, the son of promise, is maintained by those (Gentiles though they are) who in Christ Jesus have received `the blessing of Abraham,... the promise of the Spirit through faith' (3:14).

4:29 o xata aaexa ycvvrl6Els E&wxev toy xata ltvevµa. xara atVEVµa is the natural antithesis to xata oapxa, which in v 23 is set in opposition to St' e7tayyeX(as. We can distinguish two antithetic pairs: xata a&exa/xata nvEVlta and iJto voµov/St' snayyrXlas. But in the present context the two pairs correspond so exactly that one element in one of them (xata nvrVlia) can be replaced by the corresponding element in the other (St'lrtayyWas), as in v 23. For the antithetic xata oapxa/xata nvevµa cf. Rom. 1:3f., where the force of aae~ is less `theological' than it is here.

Biblical substantiation for the statement that Ishmael persecuted Isaac is not forthcoming, so far as the two individuals are concerned; there could be a reference to occasions when the descendants of Ishmael committed aggression against the Israelites, Isaac's descendants (cf. Jdg. 8:24; Ps. 83:6). But rabbinical tradition makes mention of rivalry between the two brothers, especially with regard to the inheritance. According to Gen. Rab. 55:4 (on On. 22:1), Ishmael claimed the inheritance because he had accepted circumcision willingly, at the age of thirteen (Gn. 17:25), whereas Isaac received it involuntarily when he was eight days old (Gn. 21:4).

More particularly, attention has been drawn to the statement that during the weaning festivities Sarah saw Hagar's son `playing with her son Isaac' (Gn. 21:9). The words `with her son Isaac' are absent from the MT, but as they appear in the LXX and in some Vg codices they may well have been present in the Vorlage of these versions. The MT as it stands says that Sarah saw Ishmael `playing' or `laughing' (me'saheq). The `laughing' motif is so prominent in the account of Isaac's conception and birth that it is hardly surprising that Ishmael should have joined in the universal laughter. Had not Sarah said, `God has made laughter (s`'hoq) for me; every one who hears will laugh (yishaq) over me' (Gn. 21:6)? What was the nature of Ishmael's laughter? According to Jub. 17:4, `Sarah saw Ishmael playing and dancing, and Abraham rejoicing with great joy, and she became jealous of Ishmael' and demanded his expulsion. But AV preserves a tradition that Ishmael's laughter was unfriendly: `Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian ... mocking: But even `mocking' is hardly tantamount to `persecuting'.

Some rabbis suspected a more sinister implication beneath the innocent participle m'saheq (`laughing', `playing'), and adduced texts where the verb denotes sinful or violent action (cf. Gen. Rab. 53:11 on Gn. 21:9). R. Ishmael (c. AD 100) charged Ishmael with pagan worship, on the strength of Ex. 32:6, where `to play' (11'saheq) is used in connexion with Israel's worship of the golden calf: more specifically, he said that Ishmael caught locusts and offered them in sacrifice (being a child, he could not catch larger animals). (Similarly Tg. Neof. [in loco] says that Sarah saw Ishmael `doing unseemly things', and an added gloss explains these things as actions pertaining to a foreign cult.) R. Ishmael's contemporary, R. Aqiba, identified Ishmael's conduct as sexual immorality, on the strength of Gn. 39:17, where Potiphar's wife complains that Joseph came `to insult me' (lishoq bi, literally `to play with me'). But R. Azariah, in the name of R. Levi, recalled the use of the same verb with a connotation of bloodshed in 2 Sa. 2:14, `Let the young men arise and play (yish"qu) before us', and expounded the situation thus: `Ishmael said to Isaac, "Let us go and see our portions in the field" [based perhaps on Cain's words to Abel in the original text of Gn. 4:8]; then Ishmael would take a bow and arrows [cf. Gn. 21:20] and shoot them in Isaac's direction, while pretending to be playing.' These observations are all later than Paul's day; whether there were earlier forms of any, specially of the last, which he knew we cannot say.

oiitws xat vvv. For Jewish persecution of Christians (whether of Jewish or Gentile stock) cf. 1 Thes. 2:14-16; on the genuineness of that passage see K. G. Eckart, `Der zweite echte Brief des Apostels Paulus an die Thessalonicher', ZTK 58 (1961), 33f.; W. G. KUmmel, `Das literarische and geschichtliche Problem des ersten Thessalonicherbriefes', 0. Cullmann FS (1), 213-227; B. A. Pearson, `1 Thessalonians 2:13-16: A Deutero-Pauline Interpolation', HTR 64 (1971), 79-94; E. Best, Thessalonians, BNTC, 122f.; H. Boers, `The Form-Critical Study of Paul's Letters: I Thessalonians as a Case Study', NTS 22 (1975-76), 140-158 (especially 151f., 158). R. Jewett finds both in Galatians (cf. also 3:4, tooavta £Jr60EtE, and 5:11, ErL &thxotai) and in I Thessalonians evidence for his view `that Jewish Christians in Judea were stimulated by Zealotic pressure into a nomistic campaign among their fellow Christians in the late forties and early fifties' (`The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation', NTS 17 [1970-711, 205). This is probably true. But, if the Galatian churches in this letter include those of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, then, according to the record of Acts (13:50; 14:2-5, 19), the Christians of those cities had firsthand experience of opposition stirred up by Phrygian Jews.

4:30 Uk6 T( AEyEL T 'l For a similar question cf. Rom. 4:3; 11:2. It is a rhetorical way of putting the point that `the scripture says' (cf. Rom. 9:17; 10:11; 1 Tim. 5:18); but it is not a rhetorical question in the usual sense, for the answer follows immediately, in the form of a text of scripture.

"Ex(3aXE t71v 3rarbloxr1v xai toy viov avtf1. The original point of this quotation (Gn. 21:10) was simple enough: the sight of Ishmael playing with her baby son reminded Sarah that Isaac had this older brother who had been since his birth the apple of his father's eye and she felt that Isaac's position was insecure so long as Ishmael was around. There is no reason to look for a further motive, as Josephus does when he credits her with the suspicion that, after Abraham's death, Ishmael might do Isaac an injury (Ant. 1.215).

It is, however, noteworthy that Sarah's uncharitable demand, `Drive out the slavegirl and her son...', is treated here not simply as something which scrip ture records but as something which scripture says (cf. the use of rl ypacpi as subject in 3:8). Whatever moral or legal issues might be raised by Sarah's demand in its historical setting, Paul treats it as the word of scripture-in effect, as the word of God. The reason for his doing so is not far to seek: apart from God's underwriting Sarah's demand (Gn. 21:12), the words ov yap µ7l xXr1eovo.tioEL o vlos tf1 naLSioxrlg teta tov vlov ills EXEVOEQas (the end of the quotation is adapted to the present context by the substitution of tov vlov tf1 E),,EU09(Qas for tov viov [LOU 'Ioaax) enshrine the basic gospel truth: legal bondage and spiritual freedom cannot coexist. The inheritance promised to Abraham belongs to the children of the promise who, being believers themselves, are blessed with believing Abraham (3:9). It does not belong to those who, being `under law', are still in bondage. If it was Paul's opponents who compelled him to take up the story of Ishmael and Isaac, they unintentionally provided him with a wonderful text to undergird the argument of this whole letter.

J. Bligh (Galatians, 390 et passim) regards Paul's appeal to the story of Ishmael and Isaac as the climax of his reply to Cephas at Antioch (which, he holds, runs, with occasional interruptions, from 2:14b to 5:13a)-as `the final demonstration from Scripture that the law of Moses has no place in the Gentile churches and must be excluded from them'. So the demand `Drive out the slavegirl...' requires as a practical measure to be enforced forthwith that those who continue to observe the law, Christians though they may be, must be banished from the Gentile churches. This, however, is contrary to Paul's policy elsewhere (cf. Rom. 11:13-21; 14:1-15:13) and is not a necessary inference from his language here. More convincingly C. K. Barrett argues that the quotation of v 30 is the 'next step' which logically follows when once it has been 'confirmed that the Jewish Christians are, theologically, Ishmaels, and the lawfree Christians Isaacs'; it is not (pace Bligh) a call to the Gentile Christians in the Church of Antioch to rise up and expel their Jewish Christian brethren; it is rather the command of God to his (angelic) agents'-the singular imperative being presumably addressed to each of them individually-and `expresses what the fate of each party [oL >;~ ipywv voµov and oL >x Jtiotsws] is to be' ('The Allegory of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar ...', 13).

4:31 bt6. C. K. Barrett (ibid.) says that `it is the fact of persecution that leads Paul' to the conclusion now stated. It was a matter of experience that Gentile Christians had not persecuted Jews or Jewish Christians (that was to come later); `therefore' those who suffered persecution corresponded to Isaac and those who inflicted it to Ishmael.

ovx eo t v JtaLSioxrls T xva &XX, tfg EXruOpag. The summing up of the point of the 'allegory' repeats the sense of v 28 in slightly different words. Those who by faith belong to Christ `are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise' (3:29), answering to the son of the free woman.

Paul's later, non-allegorical (but still in intention typological) reference to Abraham's sons in Rom. 9:7-9 comes to mind. There, emphasizing the sovereignty of the divine election, he insists that it is spiritual, not natural, descent that matters: `Not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but "Through Isaac shall your descendants be named" [Gn. 21:12]. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants'-the `word of promise' being that spoken by God to Sarah in Gn. 17:21, confirming that she would give birth to a son.

5:1 i71 EXEuOEQ(a r`lµ&S Xptoios TlXEVOE(lwoEV. In 5:1 Paul sums up and applies, in non-allegorical language, the lesson of the preceding allegory and indeed the lesson of all his preceding argument from 2:14 on.

The dative r EXEVOEpla is best taken as instrumental. It is not simply intensive before 71Xc0> pwocv (like Lk. 22:15, itrL9vµ(a >;ttEBvµrlaa, or Jas. 5:17, ttpoaEvXii trpoarlvl;ato) because the article specifies a particular liberty-the liberty held out in the gospel. It is with this liberty that Christ has liberated his people. The dative is less likely to be a dative of design or destination (as though the sense were `for liberty Christ has liberated us'). The dative tots LµaaLV (Acts 22:25), sometimes adduced as an analogy for this usage, is more probably instrumental also (cf. RSV `when they had tied him up with the thongs'). When, in v 13 below, Paul wishes to say `for liberty', i.e. `with a view to liberty', he says bT' ikEVOEp(a. (It is a matter of interest that F. J.A. Hort [WH App., 122] conjectured, quite unnecessarily, that tit in 5:1 'is a primitive corruption of EJt".)

This freedom is enjoyed by the `children of the free woman', the heirs of Goa's promise to Abraham. There is no hint that `freedom' was a watchword of the trouble-makers. The context provides no warrant for the view which W. Schmithals thinks `very probable', though not certain, that `Paul consciously is referring to the expressions of the Galatian opponents' when he speaks of true freedom here (Paul and the Gnostics, 51). Here standing fast in their freedom will safeguard the Galatians against submission to legal bondage; in v 13 it will safeguard them against danger from the opposite direction.

atrlxstE ovv, 'stand fast therefore'. GTrlxw is a Hellenistic present formed from the classical perfect £arrlxa, 'I stand'. Paul repeatedly urges his readers to stand fast-in the faith (1 Cor. 16:13), in one spirit (Phil. 1:27), in the Lord (Phil. 4:1; cf. 1 Thes. 3:8).

xai µl1 itaXty ~vycu 8ovXElas arvarXEOOE, `do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery'. The passive of evsxw is well attested with the dative in the sense `be involved in', `be subject to'.

The word `yoke' (~vy6s, Heb. 'ol) was current in an honourable sense of the obligation to keep the law of Moses (cf. Nehunya b. Haqqanah in m. Ab. 3.5, kol hammegabbel 'claw '61 torah, `every one who takes on himself the yoke of the law'; Yohanan b. Zakkai in j. Qidd. 1.2 (59d), '61 male'kut Jamayim, `the yoke of the kingdom of heaven'; Joshua b. Qarha in m. Ber. 2.2, k1dI Jeyegabbel 'claw '61 mal'kut Jamayim tehillah wP'ahar kak y"qabbel 'alaw '61 rniswot, 'in order that he may first take on himself the yoke of the kingdom of heaven [by reciting the Shema'] and then the yoke of the commandments [by obeying them]'). The words of Jesus in Mt. 11:29f. (6 yap l vy65 tov xprlat6s) are probably not related to this use of 'yoke' but to enrolment in the school of wisdom (cf. Sir. 51:26, toy tp&xrlXov vµwv vtr6eETE vitro ~vy6v). (It is to the words of Jesus that the paradox of 1 Clem. 16:17 is due: 'we who through him have come under the yoke of his grace', vtto toy ~vyov Tfls x&pttos avtov.) But 'yoke' can also be used in malam partem of a disagreeable burden, unwillingly tolerated, like slavery (cf. treos oia SovXElas i;vya xwgoi.v, Soph. Aj. 944f.; vitro ~vyov SoUXor, 1 Tim. 6:1). There is a hint of this in Peter's description of the law in Acts 15:10 as `a yoke ... which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear'; he criticizes the policy of imposing it on Gentile Christians as a tempting of God (cf. his use of similar language in Acts 5:9). By submitting to the legal obligation which was being pressed upon them, Paul warns the Galatians, they would be enslaving themselves to the atolxeta all over again (cf. 4:9).

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