Fragmenta in epistulam ad Galatas

When the preaching to the Gentiles was accepted, some of those from the circumcision who went out persuaded the Gentiles to judaize, and the first inquiry concerning this appears to have taken place in Antioch, because the apostles wrote that they should not be subject to the law, but should abstain from meat offered to idols, from blood, from strangled meat, and from fornication; for thus it seemed good to the Holy Spirit. This malady prevailed when some agreed to judaize in concert. They were persuaded by those who perverted the truth, saying that the other apostles do not prevent those who wish to keep the law. He shows that neither Moses died for the world, nor any other of the prophets. Therefore one ought not to be subject to the one who did not save, but to the one who died for us. As for another gospel which is not another, he says: for our gospel and that of the apostles wishes you to be outside the law. Let it be an angel, but why also we? When we preached, we preached by the power of the Holy Spirit; but the Holy Spirit does not repent. If therefore we say other things, we have abandoned the things of the Spirit. Let therefore the herald also be anathema, if he rejects the proclamation. Contrary to what you received. I did not preach, he says, but you did not receive; but both I preached and you received. Neither do I repent of having preached, and you keep what you have received. For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I still pleased men, I would not be a servant of Christ. About to remind them of his own gospel, he first secures himself so that they might not think that he flatters them by yielding; for he rebukes while admonishing. And by saying "if still," he indicated that he once pleased men. Whom then did he please?

from whom he received letters to harm the faithful in Damascus. Therefore, he says, if I were still pleasing the Jews, I would not have believed in Christ. What need is there of his conduct in Judaism except to show that he does not serve prejudice but truth? For he did not, having hated the law, run to grace—for he was defending it—but having found the perfect, he departed from the law. Now he shows that he has something more than those around Peter; for they did not emulate him in zeal for Judaism by disobeying Christianity as I did. Do not therefore suppose that I came to grace having hated the law—for I was defending the law—but I found the perfect, and I do not equate the law with perfect grace. He does not say this to slander the apostles, but that I did not conform to mortal flesh. For if no one is justified by works that bring toil, but by faith where both ease and great righteousness lie, how is it not necessary, he says, to leave the law and be content with grace? He says that one is not justified by works of the law, not by commandments; for the commandment justifies when heard, but the work was what was difficult to accomplish. The argument is directed to Peter: you abolished these things by a decree that was sent from you to the Antiochenes and to the whole world. It is therefore unbecoming to teach others these things, from the care of which you have withdrawn and which you have abolished by your own decree. The law has the practice and enjoyment of bodily things: eat this and do not eat that, keep the Sabbath, circumcision. Grace does not want you to be approved through these. I was therefore dead, he says, to these things. What need have I of the law? I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. What I lived for myself, I was under the law.

Since Christ lives in me, who is no longer under the law but in the heavens at the right hand of the Father, I do not reject the one living in me. But now I live in the flesh, I live in faith. For I believe in the Son of God. And if the Son of God, in whom I believe, is at the right hand of the Father, I dwell in the heavens; but the law had its observances among those on earth. Therefore I am not subject to the law. The law was burdensome, and it has been called a ministry of death for this reason. How then, he says, was it added for the sake of transgressions? In brief, it is something like this: before the law, the mind of men, together with the flesh, served sin and was content with evil; when the law was given, the mind was educated, but the flesh was still held fast. Since, on the one hand, one who is ignorant that sin is sin pursues impiety as piety and attends to it more zealously, while, on the other hand, one who knows that it is evil will at least gain this, that he is aware he is transgressing, and desires to obey God. For this reason the law was given, which is able to give life; that is to say, if the law was given, it was not given, he says, against the promises of God, nor could it prevail forever. Even if the law accomplished nothing else, it at least provided knowledge of God. And knowledge of God prepared one for the reception of grace. It is not the observance of the law, he says, that makes believers from among the Gentiles better than the Jews, but the power of baptism, which provides the putting on of Christ, makes the grace common to all alike—barbarians, Greeks, Jews, female, male.

He did not simply mix the feminine and the masculine—for to the extent that he sought in the expression what was pertinent to the matter at hand—but if the masculine and the feminine, though different, are brought together into one grace by baptism, how much more so the Greek and the Jew. Now he wishes to show that after grace has come, even if someone seems to keep the Sabbath according to the law, and the new moons and festivals, he is as if worshipping idols with the elements he revered while being a pagan, serving in another way. And he does not keep the law; for it has ceased. And by calling the elements poor, he did not accuse them as evil, but as unable to enrich and suffice for piety. Do not think, he says, that I had some other grievance against you and for that reason I rebuke; for the experience of pain continually compels him to change the form of his speech, and now to rebuke, now to exhort, and sometimes to accuse, sometimes to lament. Here, then, he teaches that what he writes, he writes out of affection—for, he says, I have suffered no wrong from you—but also out of care, because I have been deemed worthy of the greatest attention. What then is the blessing? Instead of nothing. Or is it this: keeping the law or living by faith? And since he said that they wish not that you envy them, so that they themselves may have the perfection of faith without keeping the law, but that you envy them, he added that I say these things not begrudging them; for I wish that they too were perfect, having used faith, and that it were unhindered for them to be envied and imitated by us. And you, therefore, do such things as make you enviable, so that all may imitate you, and not that when I come you become such out of shame before me, but that even in my absence you correct yourselves.

Now he has used the name improperly, not the power of allegory. For allegory does not adhere to the literal expressions, but introduces certain other things indicated by the sequence of thoughts according to the texture, such as is the phrase “Let him kiss me from the kisses of his mouth” in the Song of Songs. For there neither kiss nor hair nor belly nor thighs nor anything else, but one thing is introduced through another, and this is the proper form of allegory. Here, however, both the history is acknowledged and that it is a type of the future has been demonstrated. So prophecy through actions has now been called allegory. For of prophecies, some are only through words, as “Behold, the virgin will conceive in her womb”; others only through actions, as when Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness; others both through actions and through words, as the saying to Jeremiah: “Take a new linen girdle and put it on; then bury it by the Euphrates, and as it decays with time and is eaten away, take it from there.” For up to this point the prophecy is through actions, but what follows is also through words: that thus I also put on the sons of Israel and thus I helped them, and thus I lead them away captive to Babylon, and when they have become rotten and corrupted, I bring them back from there and restore them. Now, therefore, he has called prophecy through actions allegory. He did not simply mention the

of Mount Sinai, but because the Hagarenes, those from Ishmael, hold the desert that extends as far as Mount Sinai. On Sinai the law was given, generating servitude, and from Mount Sinai the tablets, once given, were carried into Israel, and after being moved many times from place to place, were finally established in Jerusalem. For this reason he added: it corresponds to the present Jerusalem, and she serves along with her children. Where there is a promise of land, and possession and marriage and human affairs, servitude follows; but where there is release from earthly cares and bonds, and the citizenship is in the heavens, freedom comes from that citizenship itself. It is asked why, when drawing away from the law, he mentions sin. Because the law commanded indulgence, and through this, desire is provoked and, being uncontrollable, leads to sin. For this reason, when there was mention of the law, he also mentions sin. For in the Epistle to the Romans, when recalling the law, he also introduced the correction through the Lord, saying, "For those who live according to the flesh cannot please God." Why was indulgence in eating and drinking permitted? Because abstinence from acknowledged evils would not have advanced unless eating and drinking were allowed to them; for the lawgiver knew that it is impossible for those who indulge to control pleasures. For the time being, he wished to educate the mind, so that it might know what is good and what is evil and what is pious; for he foresaw that one would come who would supply what the law lacked, namely, not to walk according to the flesh, as Paul says.

He made clear from this that many were spending wastefully, providing for those who were commanded to keep the law, but providing nothing for those who proclaimed the teaching of Paul. Therefore he says: "he who sows into his own flesh"; for the one subject to the law lives in fleshly things. So he who provides for the one teaching these things sows only into the flesh. Lest it be thought that he was advocating for the uncircumcised, and not for circumcision, and that he might give a pretext for slander to those who contradict, he very well added the final point, that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any force, but he spoke of a new creation. Concerning this, elsewhere: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." If it is a new creation, he says, do not be under the law; for the one who lives according to the law lives in the world, but the one who lives in Christ has his citizenship in the heavens. Therefore the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.