Why S. Paul speaks of Christ's humiliation. 5 Father; for if at the mention of the Father alone he had introduced the phrase by whom, they might have argued sophistically that it was peculiarly applicable to the Father, in that the acts of the Son were to be referred to Him. But he leaves no opening for this cavil, by mentioning at once both the Son and the Father, and making his language apply to both. This he does, not in order to ascribe the acts of the Son to the Father, but to shew that the expression implies no distinction of Essence. Further, what can now be said by those, who have gathered a notion of inferiority from the Baptismal formula, from our being baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? For if the Son be inferior because He is here named after the Father, (where the Apostle beginning at Christ proceeds to mention the Father,) what will they say— but let us not even utter such a blasphemy, let us not swerve from the truth in our contention with them; rather let us preserve, rave they never so often, the due measures of reverence. Since then it would be the height of madness and impiety to argue that the Son was greater than the Father because Christ was first named, so dare we not hold that the Son is inferior to the Father, because He is placed after Him. Who raised Him from the dead. Wherefore is it, O Paul, that, wishing to bring these Judaizers to the faith, you introduce none of those great and illustrious topics which occur in your Epistle to the Philippians, as, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not Philip. robbery to be equal with God, or which you declared in 2, 6. that to the Hebrews, the brightness of His glory, and the Heb. 1, express image of His person; or again, what in the opening 1. of his Gospel the son of thunder sounded forth, In the begin- John 1, ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the1. Word was God; or what Jesus Himself oftentimes declared to the Jews, that His power and authority was equal to the John 5, Father's? Wherefore is it that you omit all these, and make 19. 27, mention of the economy of His Incarnation, bringing forward His cross and dying? Yea, would Paul answer, had this discourse been addressed to those who had unworthy conceptions of Christ, it would have been well to mention these things; but, inasmuch as the disturbance comes from those who fear to incur punishment should they abandon the Law, &c. 6 The Son of God raised Himself from the dead. GALAT. he therefore doth mention that whereby all need of the Law is I. 1-3. excluded, I mean the benefit conferred on all through the Cross and the Resurrection. To have said that in the beginning was the Word, and that He was in the form of God, and made Himself equal with God, and the like, would have declared the divinity of the Word, but would have contributed nothing to the matter in hand. Whereas it was highly pertinent thereto to say, Who raised Him from the dead, for our chiefest benefit was thus brought to remembrance, and men in general are less interested by discourses concerning the majesty of God, than by those which set forth His mercy towards mankind. Wherefore, omitting the former topic, he discourses of the benefits which had been conferred on us. λην τινά οίκονο μίας. 15. But here the heretics insultingly exclaim, "Lo, the Father raises the Son!" For when once infected, they are wilfully deaf to all sublimer doctrines; and taking by itself and insisting on what is of a less exalted nature, and expressed in less exalted terms, on account of the Son's humanity, or in honour of the "H di' ax-Father, or for some other temporary purpose, they outrage, I Any vd will not say the Scripture, but themselves. I would fain ask such persons, why they say this? do they hope to prove the Son weak and powerless to raise one body, when faith in Acts 5, Him enabled the very shadows of those who believed in Him to effect the resurrection of the dead? If then believers in Him, though mortal, yet by the very shadow of their earthly bodies, and by the garments which had touched these bodies, could raise the dead, is it not a stretch of folly, a manifest insanity, to affirm, that He could not raise Himself? Hast John 2, thou not heard His saying, Destroy this Temple, and in three John 10, days I will raise it up? and again, I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again? Wherefore then is the Father said to have raised Him up, as also to have done other things which the Son Himself did? It is in honour of the Father, and in compassion to the weakness of the hearers. 19. 18. And all the brethren which are with me. How does it happen, that, contrary to his usual practice of giving his own name only, or that of two or three of the brethren, he here mentions the whole number, and no one The title of the Father conveyed a reproof of the Galatians. 7 individually by name? They made the slanderous charge that he was singular in his preaching, and desired to introduce novelty in Christian teaching. Wishing therefore to remove their, suspicion, and to shew he had many to support him in his doctrine, he has associated with himself the brethren, to shew that they agreed with what he wrote. Unto the Churches of Galatia. Thus it appears, that the flame of error had reached not one or two cities merely, but the whole Galatian people. Consider too the grave indignation contained in the phrase, unto the Churches of Galatia: he does not say to the beloved or to the saints, and this omission of all names of affection or respect, and this speaking of them as a society merely, without the addition Churches of God, for it is simply Churches of Galatia, is strongly expressive of deep concern and sorrow. Here at the outset, as well as elsewhere, he attacks their irregularities, and therefore gives them the name of Churches, in order to impress them, and reduce them to unity. For persons split into many parties cannot properly claim this appellation, for the name of "Church" is a name of harmony and concord. Grace and peace be to you from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. This he always mentions as indispensable; and in this Epistle to the Galatians especially, he prays that they may recover that grace which they had well nigh fallen from; he implores God, with whom they were at enmity, to restore them to His peace. God the Father. Here is a plain confutation of the heretics, who say that John in the opening of his Gospel, where he says the Word was God, used the word eds without the article, to imply an inferiority in the Son's Godhead; and that Paul, where he says that the Son was in the form of God, did not mean the Father, because the word eos is without the article. For what can they say here, where Paul says, άò Оεоũ Пlaτgòs, and not άrò TO OU? And it is in no indulgent mood towards them that he says God the Father, but by way of severe rebuke, and suggestion of the source whence they became sons, for the honour was vouchsafed to them not through the Law, but I. 4. 8 Christ suffered by the will, not by the command of the Father. GALAT. through the Bath of regeneration. Thus every where, even in his exordium, he scatters traces of the mercy of God, and we may conceive him speaking thus: "O ye who were lately slaves, enemies and aliens, what right have ye suddenly acquired to call God your Father? it was not the Law which conferred upon you this affinity; why do ye therefore desert Him who brought you so near to God, and return to your schoolmaster? for were ye not subject to a schoolmaster?" But the Name of the Son, as well as that of the Father, had been sufficient to declare to them these blessings. This will appear, if we consider the Name of the Lord Mat. 1, Jesus Christ with attention; for it is said, thou shalt call His Name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins; and the appellation of "Christ" calls to mind the unction of the Spirit. 21. 16. Ver. 4. Who gave Himself for our sins. Thus it appears, that the ministry which He undertook was free and uncompelled; that He was delivered up by Himself, John 3, not by another. Let not therefore the words of John, that the Father gave His only-begotten Son for us, lead you to derogate from the dignity of the Only-begotten, or conceive any thing of earth in Him. For the Father is said to have given Him, not as implying that the Son's ministry was a servile one, but to teach us that it was willed by the Father, Gal. 1, as Paul too has shewn here, according to the will of God, and our Father. He says not "by the command,” but "according to the will," for inasmuch as there is an unity of will in the Father and the Son, that which the Son wills, the Father wills also. 4. For our sins, says the Apostle; we had pierced ourselves with a thousand evils, and had deserved the gravest punishment; the Law not only could not deliver us, but in that it had rendered sin more manifest, without the power to release us from it, or to stay the anger of God, it condemned us. But the Son of God overcame this impossibility, for He remitted our sins, He restored us from enmity to the condition of friends, He bestowed on us numberless other blessings. The world not intrinsically evil, but made evil by sin. Ver. 4. That He might deliver us from this present evil world. Another class of heretics seize upon these words of Paul, and pervert his testimony to an accusation of the present life. Lo, say they, he has called this present world evil, and what ▲‰». does "world" [age] mean but time measured by days and seasons? Is then the distinction of days and the course of the sun evil? it were the height of folly to assert it. But it will be said that it is not the time, but the present life, which he hath called evil. Now the words themselves do not in fact say this; but the heretics do not rest in them, and frame their charge therefrom, but propose to themselves a new mode of interpretation. At least therefore they must allow us to produce our interpretation, and the rather in that it is both pious and rational. We assert then that evil cannot be the cause of good, and that the present life is productive of a thousand prizes and rewards. The blessed Paul himself Phil. 1, extols it abundantly in the words, But if I live in the flesh,22. this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not; and then placing before himself the alternative of living upon earth, and departing and being with Christ, he decides for the former. But were this life evil, he would not have thus spoken of it, nor could any one, however strenuous his endeavour, draw it aside into the service of virtue. For it is impossible for man to use vice for good purposes, fornication for chastity, envy for benevolence. And so, when he says, Rom. 8, that the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither 7. indeed can it be, he means that vice, as such, cannot become virtue; and the expression, evil world, must be understood to mean evil actions, and a depraved moral principle. Again, Christ came not to put us to death and deliver us from the present life, but to leave us in the world, and prepare us for a worthy participation of our heavenly abode. Wherefore John 17, He saith to the Father, But these are in the world, and I11.15. come to Thee; I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil, i. e. from sin. Further, those who will not allow this, but insist that the present life is evil, should not blame those who That is, the Manichees, who considered matter intrinsically evil, and paid divine honours to the sun, moon, |