By Prof. A. Lopukhin
It has not yet been fully established where the readers of this epistle should be sought – the Christians of the Galatian churches. According to the long-established opinion, Galatia, to which the Apostle Paul addresses his epistle, is the country in the central part of Asia Minor, which received its name from the Gallic (Celtic) tribes that settled there (about 277 BC), whose main cities were Ancyra and Pessinus. Supporters of this opinion believe that Paul visited this country for the first time during the journey mentioned in Acts 16:6, and then preached the Gospel there. Later he visited Galatia again (Acts 18:23; cf. Gal. 4:13).
Other scholars believe that by Galatia we should understand not only the country inhabited by the Galatians, but the entire Roman province of Galatia, which included, in addition to Galatia itself, the regions of Phrygia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia, i.e. the lands that the apostle Paul and Barnabas visited during their first apostolic journey (Acts 13:14), with the cities of Antioch (in Pisidia), Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Under this assumption, the apostle’s first stay in Galatia coincides with the journey described in Acts 13 and 14, and the second – with that in Acts 16:6. Of these two assumptions, we consider the first to be more correct, i.e. that the apostle Paul understood by Galatia precisely the country of the Galatians or the northern part of the Roman province of Galatia. We have the following considerations for this. According to Gal. 4:13 et seq. Paul founded the churches in Galatia because he was detained there due to illness. In Acts 13 and 14, however, there is no hint of such an illness. On the contrary, the description in these chapters shows that the apostle Paul was extremely active and moved quickly from one place to another. It is much more likely that the illness that befell Paul in Galatia is meant in Acts 16:6 et seq., where it is said that “the Spirit” prevented Paul from going to Asia, i.e. to the coast of Asia Minor, which is why the apostle remained to preach the Gospel in the interior of Asia Minor (in Phrygia and Galatia). If then the apostle first came to the “Galatians,” obviously by “Galatians” we should understand not the Christian communities mentioned in Acts 13 and 14, but those that existed in Galatia in the narrow sense of the word.
By the time of the apostle Paul, the Galatians were already – at least in the cities – under the influence of Greek culture and had replaced their Celtic language with Greek. However, their character – lively, receptive and fickle – remained. In addition, they were superstitious, arrogant and prone to mutual discord, but at the same time hospitable and cordial. Among them lived Jews, who attracted many Galatians to the Mosaic Law.
So, the apostle Paul founded the church in Galatia during his second apostolic journey, after he had already founded (on his first journey) churches in Pisidia and Lycaonia. He began his preaching in Galatia under unfavorable circumstances – sick, but despite this his work was successful and the Galatians received him as an Angel of God, like Christ himself (Gal. 4:14–15). The new life was manifested in various spiritual gifts among the Galatians. On his third apostolic journey, the apostle visited Galatia again, but he had already noticed among the Galatians a tendency towards the Judaism that had spread there and denounced them for this (Acts 18:22–23; Gal. 1:9). The Galatian church undoubtedly consisted mainly of the Gentiles converted by Paul (Gal. 4:9), but there were also Jews and proselytes among them.
After the apostle Paul left Galatia, Judaizing Christians, opponents of the apostle, infiltrated the Galatian churches. Paul spoke out against them with extreme severity: he called them troublemakers of the Church and perverters of the Gospel of Christ (Gal. 1:7; Gal. 5:10) and reproached them for opportunism, hypocrisy and vanity (Gal. 6:12 et seq.).
These Judaizing teachers preached to the Galatians that, although they were Christians, they were obliged to observe the Mosaic Law. They claimed that it was through them that the Galatians could know the “true” Gospel (Gal. 1:6), because the teaching brought by Paul was incomplete (Gal. 3:3). According to them, Paul had not said the most important thing – that only through the fulfillment of the law and through circumcision could the Gentiles become descendants of Abraham and heirs of the divine promises and eternal life (Gal. 3:6 et seq.). At the same time, they did not insist on observing the entire law, but only its basic prescriptions – circumcision and the festive calendar (Gal. 5:2; Gal. 4:10). Along with the praise of this “new gospel” in a Judaizing form, there was also an effort to discredit the apostle Paul before the Galatians. They pointed out that Paul was not a direct disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, while behind them stood the apostles, called personally by Christ – the “pillars” of the Church (Gal. 2:2, Gal. 6:9). Everything good in Paul’s teaching, they said, was borrowed from them, and the rest was the fruit of human invention (Gal. 1:12). His apostleship, according to them, was secondary and received through the mediation of the first apostles (Gal. 1:1), which he himself supposedly admitted when he was presented his teaching for approval in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:2). He was also accused of misleading his listeners through his oratory skills (Gal. 1:10), of seeking popularity, and even sometimes of preaching the necessity of circumcision himself when it was convenient for him (Gal. 5:11).
With such arguments, Paul’s opponents succeeded in influencing the Galatian Christians. When Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians, they were already ready to side with legalistic Judaism (Gal. 1:6), to accept circumcision (Gal. 5:2ff.), and even to celebrate the Jewish festivals (Gal. 4:10). In short, an extraordinary metamorphosis had taken place among the Galatians, and Paul was deeply struck by this (Gal. 3:1; Gal. 5:7).
The situation of Paul’s gospel was extremely critical. The question was being decided whether the young Christian religion should bind itself to the dying forms of external Judaism, or continue its eagle flight over the world with the power of the new spirit inherent in it. Galatia was becoming an arena of struggle, on the outcome of which the fate of the whole world depended.
What later happened in Corinth and Rome was only the conclusion of this great struggle, only its echo. In the Epistle to the Romans one no longer feels the same fighting spirit that reigns in the Epistle to the Galatians: there one hears the calm voice of a man who has achieved victory over the Judaizers. And in the Epistle to the Galatians the Apostle Paul appears with all the passion of a fighter for his idea.
Therefore, the purpose of the Apostle in writing the Epistle to the Galatians was: first, to defend and restore his apostolic authority; and secondly, to establish in the minds of the Galatians the idea that the Mosaic Law and circumcision were not necessary for the Gentile who had accepted Christianity, and that even without them he became an heir of all the promises made to Abraham.
Time and place of writing
His third apostolic journey, during which the apostle Paul also visited Galatia (Acts 18:23), he concluded with a long stay in Ephesus (from 54 to 56 AD). As can be seen from the Epistle to the Galatians, it could not have been written long after leaving Galatia. The apostle is surprised (Gal. 1:6) that the Galatians were “so soon” going over to the side of his opponents – it is clear that the separation from them was recent. Therefore, it can be assumed that the Epistle to the Galatians was written soon after his arrival in Ephesus – namely at the end of 54 or the beginning of 55.
Content division of the epistle
In its content, the entire Epistle to the Galatians is an unfolding of the idea that for pagans who have believed in Christ, the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law is not necessary at all. In this respect, it resembles the Epistle to the Romans, with the difference that there it speaks of the unsuitability of the law in general as a means of justifying man, and here – of its uselessness for the Christian.
The content of the epistle can be divided into three main parts:
• Apologetic (chapters 1–2), where the apostle refutes the accusations of the Judaizers and restores his apostolic authority;
• Dogmatic-polemical (from Gal. 3 to Gal. 5:13), in which he proves that Christians are not required to observe the Mosaic law in order to become heirs of the Abrahamic promises;
• Moral, containing instructions for proper Christian living.
The detailed consideration of each part is made when interpreting the epistle itself.
Authenticity of the epistle
Excerpts from the Epistle to the Galatians are found in the earliest works of Christian writing – in the writings of the apostolic men, although not as exact quotations, but as a retelling or repetition of his ideas. Over time, these borrowings become clearer. In the Muratorian Canon and in the Peshitta, the epistle is already included as a writing of the Apostle Paul. However, from the middle of the 19th century, some representatives of the so-called Baur school began to reject its authenticity. In 1888, Professor Steck published a work on the Epistle to the Galatians, in which he tried to prove that it borrowed its content from the Epistles to the Corinthians and to the Romans and that it arose later – at the beginning of the 2nd century, during a time of heightened struggle with the Judaizers. The fact that few scholars accept this thesis shows the weakness of its arguments. Steck’s main consideration – that the polemic against the Judaizers testifies to a later origin – is untenable. On the contrary, such opposition is completely understandable precisely in the 1st century, when the first Christian communities of pagans were being created. In the 2nd century, such a conflict would be difficult to explain, since by then the question of the attitude towards the law had already been resolved in the spirit of the teachings of the Apostle Paul. The similarity between the Epistle to the Galatians and those to the Corinthians and Romans is also quite natural, if they were written at approximately the same time. The remaining objections to its authenticity essentially represent subjective difficulties in interpreting some more complex passages in the text rather than serious scientific arguments.
Among the patristic interpretations of the Epistle to the Galatians, the interpretations of St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Augustine, Blessed Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, Blessed Theodoret and Blaze. Theophylact.
Source in Russian: The Holy Bible or Commentaries on all the books of St. Writings of the Old and New Testaments: In 7 items / Ed. Prof. A.P. Lopukhina. – Ed. 4th. – Moscow: Daru, 2009. / T. 7
