Galatians

by Cardinal Albert Vanhoye

  [4:18]

  This verse begins with what may be a proverb: Now it is good to be shown interest for good reason at all times. In other words, it is always fine to be courted for a good purpose. But then the Apostle gets personal: and not only when I am with you. Despite the acceptance implied by his words, Paul may be hinting, like a wounded lover, that his beloved Galatians have been unfaithful in his absence. Or, if his words are taken at face value, Paul is saying that he does not object to the Galatians receiving the attention of others in his absence, provided that the reason, the goal, is positive—but in the case of the †Judaizing teachers, it is not.

  [4:19]

  The tone changes again, however, in verse 19, where Paul’s affection resembles that of a mother (see 1 Thess 2:7–8), rather than a father or a lover: My children, for whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you! In a sublime expression of generous love, Paul places in a positive light the pain he suffers at the inconstancy and personal disloyalty of the Galatians. He wants his suffering to be for the benefit of their spiritual life, a means to their having a deeper union with Christ. Paul intends and believes that all the suffering he endures in his ministry is for the benefit of those entrusted to his care—a continuation of Christ’s suffering for the sake of the Church (2 Cor 1:3–7; 4:11–12; Col 1:24).

  [4:20]

  Paul concludes this section by expressing the spontaneous desire of anyone who loves, the desire to be physically present to his loved ones: I would like to be with you now (see 1 Thess 2:17; 3:6–10). He wants to find a solution: and to change my tone. He senses that a letter will not be enough. A dialogue in person is needed to fully resolve the crisis in their relationship. Paul feels at a loss and says so: I am perplexed because of you. This poignant admission reveals his sincerity and deep affection.

  Reflection and Application (4:12–20)

  The Apostle’s intense affection for the members of his churches, expressed in this heated correction of the Galatians, shines through in several of Paul’s letters.4 Although the mutual love between a pastor and his people, like every other affection, can assume unhealthy forms, it also has great potential for good. Receiving the †gospel cannot be detached from the people who communicate that message to us. For good or for ill, they represent what they teach. So when Paul is encouraging Timothy to hold fast to the message he has heard, he says, “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it” (2 Tim 3:14), referring both to himself and to Timothy’s grandmother, Lois, and mother, Eunice (1:5; 3:14–15). Leading people to †faith and forming them in it establishes a spiritual family relationship. Paul writes to the Corinthians,

  Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you, be imitators of me. For this reason I am sending you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord; he will remind you of my ways in Christ [Jesus], just as I teach them everywhere in every church. (1 Cor 4:15–17)

  Familial love is fitting for the Church. As human beings we don’t want the truth to be packaged in mere propositions, but incarnated in people who believe and live what they speak about,5 people who love us and whom we can love in return.

  LIVING TRADITION

  Diverse Insights into Paul’s Change of Tone

  It is interesting to see how two Church Fathers interpret what Paul says about changing his tone (Gal 4:20). St. John Chrysostom thinks Paul wants to express his grief more explicitly:

  Let me show you how impatient, how incensed he is, how he cannot bear these things. For such is love: it is not content with words but seeks also to be personally present. . . . To change my tone, he says, that is, to cry out and to make mournful noise and tears and to turn everything into lamentation. For in a letter it was not possible to show his tears and mourning.a

  St. Jerome thinks that Paul desires the greater effectiveness of personal presentation and that love makes him want to be more severe:

  Holy Scripture edifies even when read but is much more profitable if one passes from written characters to the voice. . . . Knowing, then, that speech has more force when addressed to those who are present, the apostle longs to turn the epistolary voice, the voice confined within written characters, into actual presence.

  I used coaxing words to you just now, . . . but for the sake of that love which prevents me from allowing my sons to perish and stray forever I wish that I were now present—if the bonds of my ministry did not prevent me—and change my coaxing tone to one of castigation. It is not because of fickleness that I am now coaxing, now irate. I am impelled to speak by love, by grief, by diverse emotions.b

  a. John Chrysostom, Homily on Galatians 4.20, in ACCS VIII:65.

  b. Jerome, Epistle to the Galatians 2.4.20, in ACCS VIII:65–66.

  We who are teachers need to remember that our relationship with those we lead is as much about love as it is about knowledge. We must remember that the family is the paradigm for relationships in the Church, as Paul’s advice to Timothy illustrates: “Do not rebuke an older man, but appeal to him as a father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with complete purity” (1 Tim 5:1–2).

  Leadership entails a responsibility not to let our conduct or teaching be the cause of any of the †Lord’s little ones stumbling (Matt 18:6). While working on this chapter, Peter Williamson spoke with a young man who had recently withdrawn from a very fruitful role in youth ministry. The reason? The pastor whose ministry had powerfully influenced this man’s life for good and who had contributed greatly to his growth as a lay minister changed his position regarding the morality of homosexual acts. This led to a split in the community and left the young man torn and confused. The person who had been truth’s best witness in his life now stood opposed to a truth taught by Scripture, Tradition, and the Church. The fact that the gospel produces bonds of affection and trust obliges leaders to conduct themselves as fathers and mothers, older sisters and older brothers, who are trustworthy, constant both in teaching and in right conduct.

  1. See, e.g., 1 Cor 4:16; Phil 3:17; 1 Thess 2:7–12.

  2. Paul invokes reciprocity in personal relationships in other texts, such as 2 Cor 6:11–13.

  3. This fact is of interest for reconstructing Paul’s journeys and supports the hypothesis that locates the addressees of the letter in what is commonly called north Galatia, a region populated mainly by immigrants from Gaul (see “Who Were the Galatians?” in the introduction, pp. 20–25). Acts describes Paul passing through Phrygia and Galatia without planning to evangelize there (Acts 16:6; 18:23), while his earlier evangelizing in south Galatia—in Pisidia and Lycaonia—was intentional (Acts 13:14–14:22).

  4. E.g., 2 Cor 2:2–4; 6:11–13; 7:2–7; Phil 1:3–4; 4:1; 1 Thess 2:7–12, 17–20; 3:8–10.

  5. Pope Paul VI wrote, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (Evangelii Nuntiandi [Evangelization in the Modern World] 41).

  Another Argument from Scripture

  Galatians 4:21–31

  At this point, not knowing what else to say to convince the Galatians (4:20), Paul quite possibly stopped dictating the letter for a while. Soon, however, his inventive mind found yet another argument from Scripture. Perhaps his mention of labor pains (4:19) led him to think about motherhood. Reflecting on the story of Abraham (Gen 16–22), Paul considers the significant difference between the situation of Sarah, a mother who was free, and Hagar, a mother who was a slave. Paul returns to the theme of Abraham’s descendants (see Gal 3:7, 16, 29) and of Christian freedom (see 4:1, 9), but from a new angle.

  Two Sons, Two Covenants, and Two Mothers (4:21–27)

  21Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the freeborn woman. 23The so
n of the slave woman was born naturally, the son of the freeborn through a promise. 24Now this is an allegory. These women represent two covenants. One was from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar. 25Hagar represents Sinai, a mountain in Arabia; it corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery along with her children. 26But the Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother. 27For it is written:

  “Rejoice, you barren one who bore no children;

  break forth and shout, you who were not in labor;

  for more numerous are the children of the deserted one

  than of her who has a husband.”

  OT: Gen 16:1–6, 15; 17:3–8, 15–19; 18:10–14; Exod 24:7–9; Ps 87; Isa 54; 66:7–13

  NT: Rom 6:14

  Catechism: the Church and the Jerusalem above, 757

  The way Paul interprets the Old Testament in the light of Christ shows both insight and a wonderful creativity. Paul sees in Ishmael’s slave mother and in Isaac’s freeborn mother a prefiguring of two contrasting religious situations, one of subjection to the †law of Sinai and one of Christian freedom. This kind of †typological exegesis is very different from historical-critical exegesis—which aims exclusively at the literal sense, the meaning that the human author was expressing—yet it is very important for the Christian tradition, which approaches Scripture as God’s inexhaustible word and recognizes the Bible’s multilayered richness.

  [4:21]

  Paul’s opening words draw his readers into the discussion: Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? His question plays with two biblical meanings of the word “law,” legislation and divine revelation. The Galatians wanted to submit to Mosaic legislation, but they should have been more attentive to the †law as divine revelation. Paul is saying that if they had done so, they would have understood that there was no reason to renounce their Christian freedom, since the law or †Torah, as a revelation of God’s plan, announces its own termination as a legal system. Paul discerns this prophetic meaning through some features of the story of Abraham that concern his descendants, as set forth in Gen 16–21.1

  [4:22–23]

  Here the Apostle sets forth what he considers the relevant facts and then gives a †typological commentary on them in verses 24–28. Paul’s presentation of the facts is straightforward: Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Paul’s focus, however, is on the contrasting descriptions of the mothers—one a slave woman (Hagar) and one a freeborn woman (Sarah)—and on the difference in the two sons’ births. One son was born naturally (Ishmael), without any special intervention by God (see Gen 16:3–4), but the other was born through a promise, since the birth of Isaac depended on God’s miraculously overcoming Sarah’s infertility (see Gen 17:16–19; 18:10–14).

  Paul’s description of Isaac’s mother corresponds to the biblical account: Sarah (earlier named Sarai, Gen 17:15) was a free woman, and Hagar was her slave (see Gen 16:1–2, 6). The word “freeborn” is not found in the Genesis account, but Paul adds it because it is very important for his argument, which is based on the contrast between “slave” and “free.” The second contrast, between being born “naturally” and being born “through a promise,” accurately reflects the biblical account, but again Paul introduces language that is not found in Genesis to help him make his point clear.

  LIVING TRADITION

  The Fourfold Meaning of Jerusalem

  St. John Cassian (360–435), monk and theologian, taught the fourfold sense of Scripture using the example of Jerusalem:

  One and the same Jerusalem can be understood in a fourfold way: historically as the city of the Jews, allegorically as the church of Christ, †anagogically as the heavenly city of God, which is the mother of all, and †tropologically as the human soul, which is often upbraided or praised under this name by the Lord.a

  So a Christian might pray for “the peace of Jerusalem” (Ps 122:6) on behalf of the Church, of which Jerusalem is a †type, or look forward in hope for the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:2), or accept exhortations to Jerusalem in Isa 52 or 54 as words of personal encouragement.

  a. John Cassian, Conferences 14.8.4, in ACCS VIII:69–70. Cassian, like Paul in Gal 4:24, uses “allegory” to mean “type.”

  [4:24–26]

  Paul began this section with two symmetrical sentences that contrasted Abraham’s sons—born of a slave versus born of a free woman, and born naturally versus born through a promise (vv. 22–23). However, when it comes time for his †typological explanation, which he refers to as allegory,2 he shifts his focus. The attention is no longer on the two sons but on the two mothers (vv. 24–27). In addition, the symmetry that is clear-cut in verses 22–23 becomes less precise. After mentioning two covenants, Paul refers only to one, which he characterizes as from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. We would expect Paul to describe the other †covenant, the one that comes from Calvary and bears children for freedom. However, Paul moves in another direction because he wants to clarify immediately what stands in contrast to the present Jerusalem, which he has just mentioned.

  Paul contrasts the Jerusalem above, which is freeborn, to “the present Jerusalem” in slavery. Paul’s thought here, as is often the case, is highly original. He parallels the covenant3 at Sinai with the slave woman Hagar, because this covenant imposed submission to the †law (see Exod 24:7–8), which Paul criticized above as a kind of slavery (see Gal 4:3). The idea that the law brought slavery stands in contrast to the Jewish traditions, some expressed in Scripture (Ps 119:45, 96), that presented law as a safeguard of true freedom, a perspective shared with Greek thought. While Paul may be exaggerating to make a point, what brought him to his innovative position of depicting the law as a kind of slavery was the discovery of something much better—namely, the wonderful spiritual freedom that comes through a loving relationship with Christ (see Gal 2:19–20). Whoever enters this relationship is guided by the Spirit and no longer needs the law. Such a person is “not under the law but under grace” (Rom 6:14; see commentary on Gal 5:18, 22–23).4

  To support his claim about the typological correspondence between the covenant at Sinai and the biblical Hagar, Paul adds a geographical fact: Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, the country of Hagar’s descendants. Such a detail obviously provides not logical proof but symbolic confirmation of the connection of Mount Sinai with Hagar.

  Paul links the covenant of Sinai to “the present Jerusalem,” which consists of the Jews who do not believe in Christ and †Judaizing Christians whose †faith lacks consistency because they consider the law of Sinai as foundational for Christian life.

  In contrast to “the present Jerusalem,” one would expect “the future Jerusalem.” Instead Paul says “the Jerusalem above,” indicating a contrast of level, not simply of time—a qualitative rather than a chronological contrast. By its unbelief, the present Jerusalem, which symbolizes the part of Judaism that did not accept Jesus,5 belongs to “the present evil age” (1:4) and is still a slave to “the †elemental powers” of the world (4:3, 9). In contrast, the other Jerusalem, established by Christ’s resurrection, belongs to the “new creation” (6:15) that lies in the future but is already present, that belongs not to the world here below but to the world above. Since it is located “above,” the new Jerusalem is not subject to the limitations of this world: Christ “gave himself for our sins that he might rescue us from the present evil age” (1:4). As for the earthly Jerusalem, it is natural for it to be subject to a particular legal system because it is an earthly city located in the world below and belonging to this age. On the other hand, the Jerusalem above, in line with its nature, is independent of any earthly ties to a particular nation and is characterized by openness to all (3:28). Christians belong to this new Jerusalem; they are her children, conceived through her preaching and born in her through baptism.

  Figure 14. Jebel Musa, the traditional location of Mount Sinai. [Studio31, CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons]

  What is the connec
tion between “the Jerusalem above” and the Church? Paul does not explicitly say, leaving the matter open for discussion. The fact that the Church exists as an earthly reality argues against her being simply identical to the Jerusalem above. One could say that “the Jerusalem above” refers to the transcendent dimension of the Church; it is a way of expressing the fact that, while the Church is in the world, it is not of it (see John 17:15–16). Her children already possess heavenly citizenship due to their union with the risen Christ, who has ascended into heaven (Eph 2:6; Phil 3:20; Col 3:1–4).

  By saying that the heavenly Jerusalem is our mother, Paul includes believers of every national origin, Jews like himself, the Galatian Christians who are not Jews, and so many others.

  BIBLICAL BACKGROUND

  Jerusalem, Mother of All Nations

  Besides Isa 54, from which Paul quotes, two other Old Testament texts speak strongly of Jerusalem as the “mother” or origin of God’s people, and both refer to the future inclusion of †Gentiles among God’s people. Isaiah 66 speaks of the miraculous birth to Zion (another name for Jerusalem) of a son, of a nation, and of children in a single moment (Isa 66:7–8), and then speaks of God gathering all †nations to himself (66:18–23).