When he calls himself an apostle not of human making but through Christ Jesus, he does away with those who had only human authority for styling themselves apostles. The churches at that time were being thrown into turmoil by false preachers. He greets these churches with all the brethren who are with him. In that greeting he also blesses them, so that their fitness to receive the word of the Lord may be established.

[The first verse] is full of great passion and strong sentiment; and not the prologue only but, as it were, the whole letter. For always to speak mildly to those who are being taught, even when they need vehemence, is not the part of a teacher but of a corrupter and an enemy.

Not in pride, as some suppose, but by necessity, he said that he was not an apostle from men or through man . . . so that by this he might confound those who were alleging that Paul was not one of the twelve apostles or ordained by his elders. This might also be taken as aimed obliquely at Peter and the others, because the gospel was committed to him not by the apostles but by the same Jesus Christ who had chosen those apostles.

The one sent from men is a liar; the one sent through man tells the truth, as God too, who is truthful, may send truth through men. The one, therefore, who is sent not from men or through man but through God derives his truthfulness from the One who makes truthful even those sent through men.

We are clearly given to understand that Jesus Christ was not a [mere] man but was of divine nature. . . . Because he knew him to be of a more sublime nature, he therefore said that he was not appointed by a man.

So that no one might suppose the Son to be a mere ancillary to the Father, finding the word through in this passage, he immediately adds but through God the Father, who raised him from the dead. For he has applied the word through to both persons, teaching that this usage does not imply any difference of nature. And the phrase the one who raised him from the dead does not hint at any defect in the Son’s divinity, for the suffering did not happen to the Godhead but illustrates the concord of the gospel, because it was not the Son alone who bestowed the mystery of the divine incarnation, but the Father himself is a sharer in this dispensation.

His reason for saying through Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead is that what God does he does through Christ. And so that people would not say, How did you learn from Christ? since Paul had not previously been a follower of Christ and Christ was dead, he said that God raised Christ from the dead. By this he implies that it is Christ himself, who taught him, who has been raised from the dead—raised, that is, by the power of God the Father.

To say who raised him from the dead is to encapsulate the essence of God’s beneficence toward us, which coincides in no small part with his present purpose. For the majority are much less apt to listen to words that establish the majesty of God than to those which demonstrate his good will to humanity.

Whereas he was accustomed to call himself simply Paul the apostle to the Romans and Corinthians,^[1] in order to startle the Galatians and reprove them for a grave error he has joined with himself all the brothers who were with him, saying that they themselves were writing to the Galatians, making them feel the shame of thinking contrary to everyone, so as to give more weight to his own injunctions and the gospel that he preaches.

Why does he nowhere else add this in his letters? For he puts his own name alone, or names two or three;^[1] but here he speaks of the whole community and therefore mentions no one’s name. Why then does he do this? Because their slander against him was that he was the only person proclaiming this and was introducing novelty to doctrine. So as to destroy their calumny, therefore, and to show that his opinions are shared by many, he adds on the brothers, showing that what he writes he writes with their consent.

This fire had overtaken not one city, or two or three, but the whole Galatian people. And let me point out here his extreme irritation. He does not write to the beloved or to the sanctified but to the churches of Galatia. This is the act of one who is intensely displeased and showing his pain, that he addresses them not with love nor with the names of honor but only by that of the congregation. He does not even say to the churches of God but to the churches of Galatia.^[1]

The epistle to the Galatians was written from Rome. The divine apostle had already seen and taught them.

The grace of God, by which our sins are forgiven, is the condition of our being reconciled to him, whereas peace is that wherein we are reconciled.

He calls God Father here not to flatter them but vehemently reproving them and reminding them how it was that they became sons. For it was not through the law but through the bath of regeneration that they were deemed worthy of this honor. . . . You slaves and enemies and aliens, [he says], why are you so quick to call God your Father? Surely it was not the law that gave you this kinship? So why do you desert the one who was leading you to this sense of affiliation and return to your previous mentor?

He shows that the human race is sustained by the goodness of both, as much Father as Son. Nor does he indicate that the Son is less than the Father when he calls him our Lord, nor that the Father is greater when he calls him our God. He will not be a true Father unless he is also Lord, nor will the Son be a true Lord unless he is also God.

For when the human race was held in the dominion of the devil, the Savior offered himself to the willing devil, so that deceiving him by the power of his virtue—for the devil wanted to take possession of one whom he was unable to hold—he could carry off those whom the devil was detaining by a false right.

Now Christ by atoning for our transgressions not only gave us life but also made us his own, so that we might be called children of God, made so through faith. What a great error it is, therefore, to go under the law again after receiving grace.

By the evil age he does not mean the elements, as the Manichaeans^[1] portentously assert, but the present life, that is, this secular human way of living, in which sin has made a home. For, being enveloped in a mortal nature, some of us venture on the greater sins, some on the lesser. But when we make the transition to that immortal life, and are free from our present corruption and have put on incorruption, we shall be made able to conquer sin. . . . Yet the present age as such is not vile, but vileness is the enterprise of some who live in it.

Neither did the Son give himself without the Father’s will, nor did the Father give up the Son without the Son’s will. . . . The Son gave himself, that he himself, as righteousness, might do away with the unrighteousness in us. Wisdom gave itself that it might oust foolishness.

Since they thought that they were disobeying God, as the giver of the law, and were afraid to forsake the old and pass to the new, he corrects this reasoning of theirs, saying that this also pleased the Father. And he said not simply of the Father but of your Father. He adds this immediately, exhorting them by showing that Christ made his Father our Father.

How much more, therefore, ought men not to claim the credit for themselves if they perform any good work, when the very Son of God in the Gospel said that he sought not his own glory. Nor had he come to do his own will but the will of him who sent him! This will and glory of the Father the apostle now commemorates, that he also, by the example of the Lord who sent him, may indicate that he seeks not his own glory or the performance of his own will in the preaching of the gospel, just as he says a little later, if I were to please men, I should not be a servant of Christ.^[1]

We nowhere find the word amen placed at the beginning or in the prologue of his letters but after many words. But here, showing that what he has said is a sufficient accusation of the Galatians and that the argument is closed, he made this the prologue. For it does not take long to establish charges that are patently true. . . . But not only for this reason does he do it but because he is exceedingly astonished by the magnitude of the gift, the excess of grace and what God did at once in a tiny space of time for those in such a state. Unable to express this in words, Paul breaks into a doxology. He holds up for the whole world a blessing, not indeed worthy of the subject but such as was possible to him.

The word for being carried away^[1] is first found in Genesis where God carries Enoch away and he is not found.^[2] . . . The one whom God carries away is not found by his enemies . . . but he whom the devil carries away is carried into that which appears to be but is not.

The one who is carried away after a long time is worthy of blame, but the one who falls at the first attack and in the initial skirmish has furnished an example of the greatest weakness. And with this he charges them also, saying What is this, that those who deceive you do not even need time, but the first assault suffices to rout and capture you? . . . At the same time he shows in what great and high estimation he holds them. For if he had thought them mere nobodies and easily deceived, he would not have been surprised by what occurred.

And he did not say from the gospel but from God, for he used terms that were more horrifying and more likely to astound them. For those who wished to deceive them did not do so all at once but gently estranged them from the faith in fact, leaving the names unchanged. For such are the wiles of the devil, not to make apparent the instruments of his hunt. For if they had said, Depart from Christ, the Galatians would have shunned them as deceivers and corrupters. As it was, the deceivers allowed them still to remain in the faith while they were undermining the whole edifice with impunity. The language these tunnelers used was covered with these familiar names as with awnings.

He is saying, You have not departed from this teaching to that but from the one who called you. . . . The very Father who gave the law is the one who called you to this gospel. . . . And if you desert this gospel, you will not find another. For the Lord does not preach some things through us and others through the other apostles.

If it were another gospel other than the one that the Lord has given through himself or through some other, it would not be a gospel.

Not another gospel, because all that is false is insubstantial, and that which is contrary to truth finally has no existence.

They wish, he says, to disturb the gospel of Christ but cannot prevail, because it is of such a nature that it cannot be other than the truth.

Just as with royal currency—anyone who cuts off a little from the impress has debased the whole currency—so one who makes even the smallest change in sound faith adulterates the whole.

This could be understood as a hyperbolic statement, not meaning that an apostle or an angel could preach otherwise than they had spoken. . . . [Yet] angels are also mutable if they have not held fast to their ground. . . . Lucifer, who rose in the morning, also fell. He who dispensed deceit to all nations is to be trampled on the earth.

He mentioned the angels, not speculating that any of the holy angels would say something contrary to the divine gospel, for he knew this to be impossible. But through this he reprehended every novelty of humanity.

Lest you should think that the words came from passion or were spoken hyperbolically or through a loss of self-control, he says the same things over again.

He indicates that he initially, fearing this very thing, denounced an anathema on those who would preach in this way. Now, after it has been preached, he decrees the anathema that he formerly predicted.

Let us not suppose that the apostle is teaching us by his example to despise the judgments of others . . . but if it can happen that we can please God and others equally, let us also please others. . . . The word now is inserted specially here, to show that people are to be pleased or displeased according to the circumstances, so that he who is now displeasing for the sake of gospel truth was at one time pleasing for the sake of people’s salvation.

No one persuades God, for all things are manifest to him. But a person does well in wishing to persuade others when it is not himself that he wishes them to like but the truth that he persuades them of. . . . When one pleases others on account of truth, it is not the proclaimer himself but the truth that pleases. . . . Thus the sense is, Do I then persuade men or God? And since it is men that I persuade, do I seek to please them? If I still sought to please men, I should not be Christ’s servant. For he bids his servants to learn from him to be meek and lowly of heart, which is utterly impossible for one who seeks to please men on his own account, for his own private and special glory. . . . Both then can be rightly said: I please and I do not please.

He has said this because he is about to rehearse his previous life and his sudden conversion and to show through manifest proofs that there was truth in his conversion, lest [his opponents] should imagine that he was saying this to defend himself against them and be elated. . . . For he knew the proper season for the correction of his pupils and how to say something sublime and grand. Now, there was a time to demonstrate the truth of his preaching in another way: from signs, from wonders, from dangers, from imprisonments, from daily deaths, from hunger and thirst and nakedness, and from other things of the kind. But since his argument now was not with pseudoapostles but with apostles, and since they had been partakers of these dangers, he employs a different method of argument.

Possibly because the Savior himself is not a man [merely], as some think. Nor because he is sent in the form of a man is he therefore a man but God in a mystery taking flesh to overcome the flesh. . . . If from a man means one thing, after the manner of man will mean another. And again if I did not receive from a man is one thing. not after the manner of man will be another. Therefore after the manner of man can be understood to mean so that you may understand in a corporeal manner, seeing that the argument received is that which I did not receive from man.

The gospel that is according to men is a lie, for every person is a liar,^[1] seeing that whatever truth is found in a man is not from the man but through the man from God.

Therefore he shows plainly that Jesus was not a [mere] man; and if he is not a man then without doubt he is God.

Those who are taught by men, when they have been vehement and hot in the opposite cause, require time and much ingenuity for their conversion. But he who was so suddenly converted and was rendered clean and sober at the very peak of his madness had obviously received a divine vision and teaching.

It was very shrewd of him to mention revelation, for the Lord Jesus had been taken up and was no longer seen equally of all.^[1] But to Paul he had appeared on the road and made him worthy of the ministry of proclamation.^[2] And this again he sets against their slanders, showing that in this too he did not fall short of the apostles. For just as the Galatians received the gospel from him, so likewise he had Christ himself as a teacher.

The point of telling this about himself is to show that he did not learn from a man or through man but from God and Jesus Christ. The aim of this is to prevent the Galatians from entertaining another opinion or supposing that anything needs to be added to the gospel.

If therefore he showed prowess in Judaism by persecuting and wasting God’s church, it is obvious that Judaism is contrary to the church of God, not through that spiritual law which the Jews had received but through their carnal habit of servitude. And if Paul as a zealot—that is, an imitator of late Judaic traditions—persecuted the church of God, his paternal traditions are contrary to God’s church, but the blame does not belong to the law itself. For the law is spiritual and does not allow itself to be interpreted carnally.^[1] That is the fault of those who understand carnally the things that they have re-ceived and who also have handed down many things of their own, undermining, as the Lord said, the command of God through their traditions.

What he is saying is, If what I then did against the church was done not on man’s account but through zeal for God—mistaken but zeal nonetheless—how can I now be acting for vainglory when I operate on behalf of the church and know the truth?

He prudently inserts the statement that he served not so much God’s law as the paternal traditions—that is, those of the Pharisees, who teach doctrines and precepts of men^[1] and reject the law of God to set up their own traditions.

Just as he said to Jeremiah, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,^[1] so, knowing what Paul would be, God called him because he was able to serve.

The God who caused me to be born, who separated me from my mother’s womb, also called me through his grace. For no one knows God except one who has been called.

If something is revealed to someone, that may be revealed to him which was not in him before; but if it is revealed in him, that is revealed which was previously in him and had been subsequently revealed . . . from which it clearly appears that there is natural knowledge of God in all.

This means that he showed him the meaning of the Law and the Prophets.

When he had faith in the law, not knowing that it was not the time for observance of the law, and was intensely striving to resist the gospel of Christ, he thought that he acted by God’s will. God, seeing that his zeal was good, though he lacked knowledge, chose to summon him into his grace. He knew that this man was suitable to preach his gospel to the Gentiles. For if he was so swift and faithful in so poor a cause through boldness of conscience, not through adulation of anyone, how much more constant would he be in preaching the gift of God through the hope of the promised reward?

I did not confer with flesh and blood. Here he is hinting at the apostles, describing them by their human nature. Yet if he means to refer here to all people we shall not contradict him.

I know that many think that this was said of the apostles . . . but far be it from me to reckon Peter, John and James as flesh and blood, which cannot possess the kingdom of God.^[1] . . . It is obvious that Paul did not confer with flesh and blood after the revelation of Christ because he would not throw pearls before swine or that which is holy to the dogs.^[2]

If one interprets these words by themselves, they seem suggestive of some great conceit or a sentiment not worthy of an apostle. To rely on one’s own choice and have no one else to share one’s estimate seems a mark of folly. . . . But we should not interpret bare words, or many absurdities follow. . . . Let us now interpret the mind of Paul when he wrote these words. Let us consider his aim and his whole attitude to the apostles, and then we shall know his intention in saying this. . . . For since those who plunder the church were saying that one should follow the apostles, who did not forbid these things, he is forced to withstand them stoutly, not wishing to disparage the apostles but to restrain the folly of those who were falsely puffed up.

He set out from Damascus to Arabia, therefore, to preach where none of the apostles had been and where Judaizing had not been promoted through the intrigues of pseudoapostles. And from there he returned again to Damascus so that he could attend to those who were still immature when he preached to them the gospel of God’s grace.

And let me point out to you his humility. For, having said I went up to Arabia, he has added and I returned to Damascus. He does not recount his conversions or what people and how many he instructed, even though he showed such zeal after his baptism that the Jews were enraged against him, and their animosity became so intense that they laid an ambush for him and wanted to kill him, along with the Greeks.^[1] . . . But he says nothing of these things here, nor would he have spoken of them in that place had he not seen that the occasion demanded that he recount his own history.

How are we to explain this narrative, if we read later that Paul went immediately to Arabia after the revelation of Christ?^[1] . . . He teaches that the Old Testament, that is, the son of the bondwoman, was established in Arabia. And so, as soon as Paul believed, he turned to the Law, the Prophets and the symbols of the Old Testament that were then lying in obscurity and sought in them the Christ whom he was commanded to preach to the Gentiles.