TWO points have already been established with regard to the Galatians and the letter which Paul wrote to them. The Galatians in question were members of the Celtic tribes in the area of Pessinus (modern Balahissar),1 and the most probable date of the letter is the spring of AD 53.2 The task now is to explore Paul’s relations with these people, and the contribution they unwittingly made to the maturation of his thought by forcing him to deal with a problem that he had not hitherto encountered. Believers with a different vision of Christianity were bidding for the allegiance of members of a community which he had founded.
Epigraphical studies in central Anatolia, the area settled by the Galatians, reveal that Celtic, Greek, Roman, and Phrygian types of names appear in the one family.3 It would be difficult to find a more graphic illustration of the complex ethnic background of the members of the churches of Galatia.
The Celts or Galatians—the names are used interchangeably by the classical sources—who moved into Asia Minor in 278 BC were not the usual type of mercenaries. Warriors made up only half the 20,000 who crossed the Bosphorus; they brought their wives and children in addition to aged parents.4 They were a nation on the move, searching for a homeland.5 With admirable brevity Strabo summarizes,
The Galatians are to the south of the Paphlagonians. … This country was occupied by the Galatae after they had wandered about for a long time, and after they had overrun the country that was subject to the Attalic and the Bithynian kings, until by voluntary cession they received the present Galatia or Gallo-Graecia as it is called. (Geography 12. 5. 1; trans. Jones)
This settlement took place about 232 BC under Attalus I of Pergamum, and the Galatians were then concentrated in the area of Ancyra (modern Ankara). After the death of this strong king in 197 BC, the Galatians recommenced their westward raids into Asia. They were decimated in the vicious Roman reaction of 189 BC,6 but their lands were not confiscated, and they subsequently became committed allies of Rome.7 Some 25 years later, they had peacefully penetrated the region around the future city of Pessinus (see Fig. 4).8
Inevitably they brought into Asia Minor the customs which made them distinctive in the west, and which Athenaeus (floruit c. AD 200) found worthy of citation from Poseidonius (135–50 BC):
The Celts place hay on the ground when they serve their meals, which they take on wooden tables raised only slightly from the ground. Their food consists of a few loaves of bread, but of large quantities of meat prepared in water or roasted over coals or on spits. This they eat in a cleanly fashion, to be sure, but with a lion-like appetite, grasping whole joints with both hands and biting them off the bone. If, however, any piece proves hard to tear away, they slice it off with a small knife which lies at hand in its sheath in a special box. …
When several dine together, they sit in a circle; but the mightiest among them, distinguished above the others for skill in war, or family connections or wealth, sits in the middle, like a chorus-leader. Beside him is the host, and next on either side the others according to their respective ranks. Men-at-arms, carrying oblong shields, stand close behind them, while their bodyguards, seated in a circle directly opposite, share in the feast like their masters. The attendants serve the drink in vessels resembling our spouted cups, either of clay or of silver. Similar also are the platters which they have for serving food; but others use bronze platters, others still, baskets of wood or plaited wicker. (Deipnosophistae 4.151e-152b; trans. Gulick)
The Celts sometimes have gladiatorial contests during dinner. Having assembled under arms, they indulge in sham fights and practise feints with one another; sometimes they proceed even to the point of wounding each other, and then, exasperated by this, if the company does not intervene, they go so far as to kill. (Deipnosophistae 4. 154b; trans. Gulick)
FIG. 4 Paul’s Galatia (Sources: Richard Kiepert, Karte von Kleinasien, B III (Angora, 1907); PW VIII)
The Celts, even when they go to war, carry round with them living-companions whom they call hangers-on. These persons recite their praises before men when they are gathered in large companies as well as before any individual who listens to them in private. And their entertainments are furnished by the so called Bards; these are poets, as it happens, who recite praises in song.
(Deipnosophistae 6. 246d; trans. Gulick)
Among the barbarians, the Celts also, though they have very beautiful women, enjoy boys more; so that some of them often have two lovers to sleep with on their beds of animal skins. (Deipnosophistae 13. 603a; trans. Gulick)
An equally vivid portrait is painted by Didorus Siculus (80–20 BC). He is speaking of the Celts of France, but the validity of his description for the Galatians is attested by both monument9 and text.10 Unfortunately it is too long to be quoted in its entirety:
The Gauls are tall of body, with rippling muscles, and white of skin, and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so, but they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. … Some of them shave the beard, but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks, but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth. Consequently, when they are eating, their moustaches become entangled in the food, and when they are drinking, the beverage passes, as it were, through a kind of strainer.…
They invite strangers to their feasts, and do not inquire until after the meal who they are and of what things they stand in need. And it is their custom, even during the course of the meal, to seize upon any trival matter as an occasion for keen disputation, and then to challenge one another to single combat without any regard for their lives.…
The clothing they wear is striking—shirts which have been dyed and embroidered in varied colours, and breeches, which they call in their tongue bracae, and they wear striped coats, fastened by a buckle on the shoulder, heavy for winter wear and light for summer, in which are set checks, close together and of varied hues….11
The Gauls are terrifying in aspect and their voices are deep and altogether harsh; when they meet together they converse with few words and in riddles, hinting darkly at things for the most part, and using one word when they mean another; and they like to talk in superlatives, to the end they may extol themselves and depreciate all others. They are also boasters and threateners and are fond of pompous language, and yet they have sharp wits and are not without cleverness at learning. Among them are found lyric poets whom they call Bards.
(The Library of History 5. 28–31; trans. Oldfather)
As the conquerers, the Galatians were an aristocratic caste, but this did not make them immune to their environment.12 The extent of intermarriage with the indigenous population is underlined by Livy’s characterization of the Galatians ‘a mixed race’.13 They adopted the local Phrygian religion. Not only was it more prudent to propitiate the local gods, but the Celtic nobility gained access to indigenous power through membership in the immensely influential priesthood of Pessinus.14 In addition to Celtic, which continued to be spoken into the Byzantine period,15 Greek was adopted as a second language. It was the indispensable medium of communication throughout the area, and anyone who travelled had to be bilingual.16 None the less, the Galatians themselves were not Hellenized. ‘About AD 50 Galatia was essentially un-Hellenic. Roman ideas [particularly of administration] were there super-induced directly on a Galatian system, which had passed through no intermediate stage of transformation to the Hellenic type.’17 This is particularly evident in the continuing prominence in Galatia of tribal structures.
The titles of the three administrative regions set up by Augustus in 22 or 21 BC were the Sebasteni Tolistobogii Pessinuntii, the Sebasteni Textosages Ancyrani, and the Sebasteni Trocmi Taviani. The population of the three Galatian tribes was considered to be identical with the three villages transformed by imperial fiat into cities. The territory of Pessinus, however, with which we are concerned, stretched only from Mount Dindymus (modern Günyüzü Dag) to the source of the river Sangarios.18 Elsewhere in the tribal territory there were only unfortified villages.19
The quick-witted, enterprising Greeks of the province of Asia looked on those who dwelt in the middle of Asia Minor with contempt. The Phrygians had a reputation for being ‘slow, apathetic, contented, and unutterably ignorant, incapable of being roused or excited by any cause except their vulgar and degrading superstitious rites’.20 Understandably, then, there was nobody more despicable than a Phrygian,21 and to be a slave among them was the nadir of human existence.22 The Galatians for their part were considered to be large, unpredictable simpletons, ferocious and highly dangerous when angry, but without stamina and easy to trick.23 They were the archetypal barbarians. It would be hard to find a more charitable comment on the mixture of Galatians and Phrygians than that of Livy, ‘a degenerate, mongrel race’.24
The land in which this race dwelt was hardly more interesting than its people and perhaps contributed to their lassitude. Ramsay’s description has never been bettered,
It consists of a vast series of bare, bleak up-lands and sloping hillsides. It is almost devoid of trees,25 except, perhaps, in some places on the north frontiers; and the want of shade makes the heat of summer more trying, while the climate in winter is severe. The hills often reach a considerable altitude,26 but have never the character of mountains. They are commonly clad with a slight growth of grass to the summit on at least one side. The scenery is uninteresting. There are hardly any striking features; and one part is singularly like another. The cities are far from one another, separated by long stretches of the same fatiguing country, dusty and hot and arid in summer, covered with snow in winter.… In ancient times the aspect of most of the land away from the few great cities was much the same as it is at the present day—bleak stretches of pastoral country, few villages, sparse population, little evidence of civilization.27
The heavy rains and snow of winter usually begin in November and last until April. The temperature can drop to −20 °C and long periods of frost are normal. The ground remains soft and muddy into June when the hot dry season begins.28 Roman roads certainly traversed Galatia in the time of Paul, even though the great construction effort which gave Asia Minor its 9,000 km. (5, 400 miles) of graded roads is dated between AD 80 and 122.29
The staple products of Galatia are revealed by its unique artistic creation, carved tombstones.30 The most common motif is a distaff and spindle,31 which highlights the importance of wool in the economy of the province. Strabo noted that, ‘although the country is unwatered, it is remarkably productive of sheep; but the wool is coarse, and yet some persons have acquired very great wealth from this alone. Amyntas had over three hundred flocks in this region’ (Geography 12.6.1; trans. Jones). Strabo’s judgement on the quality of the wool was not shared by Pliny who considered it among the finest in the world.32 In many tombstones the distaff and spindle is associated with a mattock and pruning hook.33 The hint that viticulture was important is confirmed by representations of a vine34 or bunches of grapes.35 Wine may have made life in that desolate area more bearable, but it is unlikely to have made the same contribution to the economy as the cultivation of cereals. Ears of wheat36 and a yoke of oxen pulling a plough37 are depicted on many tombstones. The economic situation is perfectly summarized by Mitchell, ‘Grain kept the province alive, wool brought it wealth.’38
Jewett mentions the towns of Pessinus, Germa, and Ancyra as the area of Paul’s ministry in Galatia.39 No justification is offered, and one may presume that he simply listed the three known cities in order to justify the plural ‘churches’ in the address of Galatians.
Paul does use ‘church’ in the sense of all the believers in a town or city (1 Thess. 1: 1; 2 Thess. 1: 1; 1 Cor. 1: 2; 2 Cor. 1: 1), but he can also use it to mean a subgroup, those who assemble in a particular home (1 Cor. 16: 19; Col. 4: 15; Philem. 2; contrast Rom. 16: 23). In the latter instances ‘church’ is never qualified, whereas in the former it is always specified, ‘in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Thess. 1: 1; 2 Thess. 1: 1), ‘of God’ (1 Cor. 1: 2; 2 Cor. 1: 1). The fact that Galatians is addressed simply to ‘the churches of Galatia’ might imply that Paul is thinking of a number of house-churches within a rather restricted area. It seems more probable, however, that Paul’s disappointment at the backsliding of the Galatians was so intense that he decided to treat the Galatian town communities as if they were mere secular ‘assemblies’, in which case we can deduce nothing about the extent of his mission field in Galatia.
If Paul reached Abassiom (modern Jüzgad Ören) on the border of Galatia,40he could have marched east keeping the Sangarios river on his left as did the Roman general C. Manlius. The advantage would have been to use the bridge which Manlius had built over the river. But that route would have brought him along the edge of the desolate desert of the Treeless Land,41 and it would have been out of character for Paul to waste his energy in an area of widely scattered villages whose inhabitants—shepherds and field workers—spoke a Greek so corrupt as to be virtually unintelligible to someone like Paul.42
Paul, however, probably had little choice where he went. He was ill (Gal. 4: 13), and if consulted, his preference would certainly have been for the sort of urban environment in which he felt most at home and worked most effectively, and in which he could receive whatever medical care was available. The easiest way to cover the 40 km. to the Sangarios would have been by boat down the Ak Tsha’yr, which flowed into the Alander, a tributary of the Sangarios. From the latter it was only 12 km. to Pessinus. According to Strabo,
Pessinus is the greatest commercial centre in that part of the world, containing a temple of the Mother of the gods, which is an object of great veneration. They call her Agdistis. The priests were in ancient times powerful and reaped the fruits of a great priesthood, but at present their prerogatives have been much reduced, though the market still endures. The sacred precinct was built up by the Attalid kings in a manner befitting a holy place, with a sanctuary and also with porticoes of white marble. The Romans made the temple famous when, in accordance with oracles of the Sibyl, they sent for the statue of the goddess there, just as they did in the case of that of Asclepius at Epidaurus.
(Geography 12. 5. 3; trans. Jones)
Agdistis is better known as Cybele,43 the Great Mother, whose cult was recognized officially by Rome in 204 BC. She was the supreme divine being of Phrygia, and the male god, Attis, was merely her inferior companion and servant.44 Naturally the cult was especially favoured by women. Cybele was responsible for all aspects of the well-being of her people, ensuring fertility, curing disease, giving oracles, and protecting her adherents. Ecstatic states accompanied by insensibility to pain and/or the gift of prophecy were characteristic of her worship.45
We must presume that Paul’s initial preaching in Pessinus took the form of conversations with those generous enough to give him hospitality (Gal. 4: 13–14). They were pagans; he could not have said ‘formerly you did not know God’ (Gal. 4: 8) to Jews. As his strength returned, he became more energetic, and his influence increased. The presence in Pessinus of pilgrims to the shrine of Cybele might explain why he stayed on in Galatia after his recovery. They offered him something which he was later to see more fully realized in Corinth and Ephesus. He saw in such visitors the possibility of reaching out into the vast hinterland which he could never hope to cover. Returning to their homes they could carry his message to places to which he could not go, and whose names he may not even have known. Perhaps this is why the address of the letter is so vague.
The problems which developed among the Christians of Galatia were not intrinsic tensions which increased until they reached flash-point. They were caused by outsiders, who attempted to persuade the Galatians to adopt a vision of Christianity which was radically different from that of Paul.
In the letter which he wrote to the Galatians, Paul consistently differentiates between his converts, whom he addresses as ‘you’ (e.g. Gal. 3: 1–5), and others to whom he disdainfully refers as ‘some people’ (Gal. 1: 7), ‘anyone’ (Gal. 1: 9), ‘they’ (Gal. 4: 17; 6: 13). In antiquity adversaries were never given free publicity! The clear hint that these latter were outsiders is confirmed by the verb he uses of their activity; ‘to disturb, unsettle, throw into confusion’ (Gal. 1: 7; 5: 10) belongs to the political language of the period and describes the work of agitators who move in to destroy a previously peaceful situation.46
In addition to identifying his adversaries as intruders, Paul gives us just enough information to specify further that they were not pagan philosophers (cf. Col. 2: 8) or Jews, but Christians of Jewish origin, either by birth or by conversion. They belonged to ‘the circumcision’ (Gal. 6: 13),47 but considered their message to the Galatians as ‘a gospel’ (Gal. 1: 6).48
Where did these people come from? The vast majority of scholars opt for Jerusalem, but differ on the relationship of the intruders to the authorities of the church in the Holy City.49 It is much more likely, however, that the intruders came from Antioch.50 When Paul founded the churches of Galatia, he had been acting as an agent of Antioch. Under pressure from Jerusalem, however, the Antiochean community had opted subsequently for a completely Judaized version of Christianity, which Paul could not accept (Gal. 2: 11–21). His failure to persuade those who had once sponsored his missionary drive into Europe that they were being unjust to Gentile members of the church led to a complete break.
If Paul could no longer be a member of such a community, still less could he propagate its vision of Christianity. There were many, however, who not only were prepared to do so, but believed that they had an obligation to extend to the churches founded under the aegis of Antioch the new practices adopted by the mother church.51 The daughter communities, which naturally reflected the generous tolerance and openness of Antioch, now had to be brought into line with its new ethos. Presumably this measure was not directed exclusively at the Pauline churches; it affected those founded by Barnabas and others as well.52
In Jerusalem and on his return to Antioch, Paul had spoken freely of the successes with which God had blessed his ministry. This made it easy for those now sent out by Antioch to retrace his steps; they knew exactly where he had been. The group need not have been made up exclusively of Jewish Christians. The inclusion of a few Gentile Christians who had willingly accepted Judaization would have strengthened the claim that what Paul had once preached in Galatia had been superseded by subsequent developments in Christianity.
As far as Paul was concerned, the Judaizers were intruders who had no business interfering with his converts. For their part, the representatives of Antioch believed that Paul had lost his rights in the churches of Galatia. These were Antiochean foundations and the delegates felt that by repudiating his commission Paul had abdicated from any position of authority in Galatia. The delegates now wore the mantel of legitimacy; they were the official link with the authentic roots of Christianity. It is not necessary to postulate any personal animosity towards Paul. The identity of the Antiochean missionaries, as we shall see, was not rooted in an anti-Paul polemic. Perhaps they even experienced a certain sense of loss that a wonderful missionary had sidelined himself because of his tragically mistaken conviction that he alone possessed the truth. They too were convinced that they had the best interests of the Gentiles deeply at heart.
When they arrived in Galatia, the Judaizers had two tasks. First, they had to undermine the authority of Paul. It was not enough to say that they were now taking over. They had to discredit him. Secondly, they had to put across their version of Christianity with clarity and power. They could not simply say that Paul was wrong. They had to propose a viable alternative.
Unfortunately they did not leave the notes of their speeches, which means that their teaching has to be reconstructed from Paul’s reaction. This technique of mirror reading involves rather obvious dangers.53 The intruders, for example, may not have said exactly the opposite of Paul’s response. He may have exaggerated their positions in order to facilitate his own counter-attack. Moreover, it must also be kept in mind that Paul was not confronted personally by his opponents. He had no direct knowledge of their accusations. He became aware of what was going on in Galatia only through the reports of his partisans among the Galatians.
The opacity of this filter, however, should not be exaggerated. If, as I have argued above,54 the intruders spent the winter of AD 52–53 in Galatia, there was plenty of time for Paul’s supporters to learn exactly what his rivals were saying. It is unlikely that some of those who had truly committed themselves to the Pauline gospel took very long to realize how different was the vision of Christianity now being proposed to them. Lacking the theological background necessary to develop a counter-argument, they could offer only passive resistance. Concern enhanced their concentration. They recognized the need to retain everything that they were hearing with a view to reporting to Paul in Ephesus as soon as the roads opened to travel in the spring.
It is probable, therefore, that Paul received very accurate information regarding the tactics of the intruders, and there is in fact a rather high degree of agreement on the nature of the problems which he had to confront. F. F. Bruce vividly summarizes a large consensus when he puts the following words into the mouths of the Judaizers:
The Jerusalem leaders are the only persons with authority to say what the true gospel is, and this authority they received direct from Christ. Paul has no comparable authority: any commission he exercises was derived by him from the Jerusalem leaders, and if he differs from them on the content or implications of the gospel, he is acting and teaching quite arbitrarily. In fact Paul went up to Jerusalem shortly after his conversion and spent some time with the apostles there. They instructed him in the first principles of the gospel and, seeing that he was a man of uncommon intellect, magnanimously wiped out from their minds his record as a persecutor and authorized him to preach to others the gospel which he had learned from them. But when he left Jerusalem for Syria and Cilicia he began to adapt the gospel to make it palatable to Gentiles. The Jerusalem leaders practiced circumcision and observed the law and the customs, but Paul struck out on a line of his own, omitting circumcision and other ancient observances from the gospel he preached, and thus he betrayed his ancestral heritage. This law-free gospel has no authority but his own; he certainly did not receive it from the apostles, who disapproved of his course of action. Their disapproval was publicly shown on one occasion at Antioch, when there was a direct confrontation between Peter and him on the necessity of maintaining the Jewish food-laws.55
Hearing such an attack on Paul, the obvious question that his supporters asked concerned the nature of the so-called authentic gospel. In what precisely did it consist, and how was it justified? The most detailed, and carefully argued, reconstruction is that of J. Louis Martyn:
Listen now. It all began with Abraham. He was the first human being to discern that there is but one God. Because of that perception he turned from the service of dumb idols to the worship of the true God [Jub. 12]. There God made him the father of our great nation; but that was only the beginning, for God made to Abraham a solemn utterance which through our mission has begun to find its fulfillment in the present time. Speaking through a glorious angel, God said to Abraham:
In you shall all the nations of the world be blessed [Gen. 12: 3] … for I shall multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven [Gen. 22: 17].… Come outside, and look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able … So shall your descendants be [Gen. 15: 5] … for I speak this blessing to you and to your descendants.
What is the meaning of this blessing which God gave to Abraham? Pay attention to these things: Abraham was the first proselyte. As we have said, he discerned the true God and turned to him. God therefore made an unshakable covenant with Abraham [Gen. 17: 7], and as a sign of this covenant he gave to Abraham the commandment of circumcision [Gen. 17: 10]. He also revealed to Abraham the heavenly calendar, so that in his own lifetime our father was in fact obedient to the Law, not only keeping the commandment of circumcision [Gen. 17: 23], but also observing the holy feasts on the correct days [Jub. 15: 1–2].
Later, when God actually handed down the Law at Sinai, he spoke once again in the mouths of his glorious angels who pass the Law through the hand of the mediator, Moses (Galatians 3: 19). And now the Messiah has come, confirming for eternity God’s blessed Law, revealed to Abraham and spoken through Moses (6: 2).
And what does this mean for you Gentiles? We know from the scriptures that Abraham had two sons: Isaac and Ishmael (4: 22). On the day of the feast of the first fruits Isaac was born of Sarah the freewoman [Gen. 21: 1–7], and through him have come we Jews, who are descendants of Abraham. Ishmael was born of Hagar the slave girl [Gen. 16], and through him have come you Gentiles. Thus you also are descendants of the patriarch. We are in fact brothers!
We also know from the scripture we have just quoted that God made his indelible promise to both Abraham and his descendants, saying ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed. The inheritance of salvation is to your children’s children! [Sir. 44: 21]’. That fact faces us all with the crucial question: Who is it who are the true and therefore blessed descendants of Abraham (3: 7, 29)? And the answer is equally clear from the scriptures: Abraham himself turned from idols to the observance of the Law, circumcising himself and Isaac. As we have said, he even kept the holy feasts at their precisely appointed times. And not least, by keeping God’s commandments [Jub. 21. 2], he avoided walking in the power of the Evil Impulse (5: 16; cf. Genesis 6: 5). It follows that the true descendants are clearly those who are faithfully obedient to the Law with faithful Abraham (Galatians 3: 6–9). At the present holy time God has been pleased to extend this line of true descent through the community in Jerusalem, the community which lives by the Law of Christ (6: 2), the community of James, Cephas and John, and through the community which we represent (2: 1–10).
What are you to do, therefore, as Abraham’s descendants through Ishmael, the child of Hagar, the slave-girl? The gate of conversion stands open (4: 17; 4: 9)! You are to cast off your enslavement to the Evil Impulse by turning in repentance and conversion to God’s righteous Law as it is confirmed by his Christ. Follow Abraham in the holy and liberating rite of circumcision (6: 13); observe the feasts at their appointed times (4: 10); keep the sacred dietary requirements (2: 11–14); and abstain from idolatry and from the passions of the flesh (5: 19–21). Then you will be true descendants of Abraham, heirs of salvation according to the blessing which God solemnly uttered to Abraham and his descendants (3: 7, 8).
You say that you have already been converted by Paul? We say that you are still in a darkness entirely similar to the darkness in which not long ago you were serving the elements, supposing them, as Abraham once did, to be gods that rule the world (4: 3, 9). In fact the fights and contentions in your communities show that you have not really been converted, that Paul did not give you God’s holy guidance. Paul left you, a group of sailors on the treacherous high seas in nothing more than a small and poorly equipped boat. He gave you no provisions for the trip, no map, no compass, no rudder, and no anchor. In a word, he failed to pass on to you God’s greatest gift, the Law. But that is exactly the mission to which God has called us. Through our work the good news of God’s Law is invading the world of Gentile sin. We adjure you, therefore, to claim the inheritance of the blessing of Abraham, and thus to escape the curse of the Evil Impulse and sin (5: 16). For, be assured, those who follow the path of the Evil Impulse and sin will not inherit the Kingdom of God (5: 21). It is entirely possible for you to be shut out (4: 17). You will do well to consider this possibility and to tremble with fear. For you will certainly be shut out unless you are truly incorporated into Abraham (3: 29) by observing the glorious and angelic Law of the Messiah. Turn therefore in true repentance, and come under the wings of the Divine Presence, so that with us you shall be saved as true descendants of our common father Abraham.56
Even though this reconstruction contains what Martyn himself terms ‘a pinch of fantasy’,57 its value is to make explicit the persuasive power of the case the Judaizers were capable of making.
Against such logic, however, one must set the practical consequences for the Galatians of adopting the views of the intruders. Circumcision was an extremely painful operation for an adult, and obedience to the multifarious demands of the Law would be burdensome. Why then were the Galatians attracted to the message of the intruders? The answer must lie in their psychological make-up.
As we know from the Thessalonian correspondence, it was Paul’s practice in establishing a community to give a number of general guidelines whose function was to indicate to the new believers that a different lifestyle was now expected of them (1 Thess. 4: 1–12). He expected them to work out for themselves what such incarnation of the gospel meant in practice.
The majority of his converts accepted the challenge, some with greater enthusiasm than others, and Paul intervened to refine their perception of what the following of Christ demanded only when he saw that mistakes were being made. Believers made the decisions; he acted as a sounding-board. The Galatians alone rejected the challenge. To them the few directives Paul gave (Gal. 5: 21)58 were but feeble flickering flames which, rather than illuminating, served only to accentuate the surrounding darkness, which hid a myriad of land mines. To put a foot wrong meant death. With unusual insight Betz wrote,
The Galatians had been given the ‘Spirit’ and ‘freedom,’ but they were left to that Spirit and freedom. There was no law to tell them what was right or wrong. There were no more rituals to correct transgressions. Under these circumstances their daily life came to be a dance on a tightrope.59
To those frightened by freedom, and paralysed by incertitude, the Law appeared a blessing. It was a balancing pole permitting those on the tightrope to advance confidently. Its 613 precepts were a multitude of tall steady flames, which dissipated the darkness completely. The burden and the pain, it seemed to some in Galatia, were a small price to pay for the security offered by the Law.
On his long journey across Asia Minor, after his break with the church at Antioch, Paul had time to reflect on his altered situation and on the changes sweeping through the churches in Judaea. It is unlikely that he spent his time formulating contingency plans to deal with similar problems in his own communities. His Jewish converts were few in number, and it would have been reasonable to think that the further west he went the less likely they were to be influenced by the Jewish nationalism which had worked to his advantage in Jerusalem, but to his disadvantage in Antioch. The east had surrendered to those with a different vision of Christianity, but the west was his. It is unlikely, therefore, that on his second visit he said anything to the Galatians about what had taken place since his previous stay among them. On the contrary, he probably insisted on the unity of the Christian movement and the reciprocity of its various parts in order to dispose the Galatians to contribute to the collection for the poor of Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16: 1).
It is easy to imagine the shock produced on Paul by the totally unexpected information that people from Antioch were bent on taking over his foundations in Galatia, and that his converts were proving receptive to a totally different vision of Christianity. The sense of bewilderment (Gal. 5: 7), almost of despair (Gal. 4: 11), comes through very clearly in his response, but the dominant emotion is restrained anger. The contrast between the venemous bluster of 2 Corinthians 10–13 and the cold fury of Galatians is striking. In both cases Judaizers are the problem, but Paul’s bitter disappointment with the Corinthians finds relief in recrimination, whereas in Galatians it is channelled into an argument of icy precision.
One might have expected the opposite to be the case, since control comes with age and experience. The Corinthians, however, had disappointed Paul many times. Whatever provoked the outburst of 2 Corinthians 10–13 was the last straw. Moreover, it came just at the moment when the Apostle thought that he was free of maintenance, and could return to founding new churches. When he wrote Galatians, Paul had experienced misunderstanding on the part of the Thessalonians, but that was an accident, and he was not the target of any personal animosity. The deliberate opposition revealed by the report from Galatia was an entirely different matter. And there was the very real possibility that it would be systematically extended to the other churches he had founded under the aegis of Antioch. Paul realized that his credibility was at stake. His gospel was threatened. His whole future was endangered.
It was clear to Paul that the situation was much too serious for an outburst which would only serve to relieve his feelings. To vent his spleen on already bewildered Galatians would play into the hands of his adversaries; expostulation is often a sign of guilt (cf. 2 Cor. 11: 7–11). He realized that he had to produce a carefully crafted response to each detail of the arguments urged against him. It was not merely a question of reassuring the Galatians that his gospel was the truth. The intruders were still in Galatia (Gal. 1: 7; 5: 10),60 and it was much more important to persuade them that their perspective on the gospel was not at all as well-founded as they imagined.
Although addressed to the Galatians (Gal. 1: 2; 3: 1), the letter could not be kept from the intruders, particularly if it was read in public (cf. Col. 4: 16), and Paul was certainly aware of this. In fact it became the basis of his strategy. Inevitably he speaks directly to the Galatians, but the intruders are its real audience.61 If their presence in Galatia was but the first step in an effort by Antioch to recover what it considered its daughter churches, Paul could not content himself with dealing with the symptoms by detaching the Galatians from the Judaizers. He had to go to the root of the problem by developing a long-term solution. The only way to deter any further advance into his territory, and to secure permanently the future of the Galatians was to undermine the convictions of the Judaizers. Thus he made the crucial decision to focus on the Judaizers, leaving the Galatians in the background. The recovery of the latter was to be a by-product of the defeat of the former.
Paul could not have expected the Galatians, who were converts from paganism (Gal. 4: 8), to grasp the force of arguments which depended on a detailed knowledge of Jewish tradition.62 Such carefully calculated thrusts were designed to throw the intruders into disarray. The ensuing consternation, Paul hoped, would be the most persuasive argument as far as the Galatians were concerned. He counted on re-establishing his authority among them by reducing the Judaizers to silence. Of course, if the Galatians caught the drift of his arguments, so much the better. Moreover, his evocation of their conversion experience kept them in the picture. They could understand the thrust of such an appeal, but so could the intruders, whose conversion to Christianity was in no way related to the Law.
The sophistication of this approach to a dangerously volatile situation both confirms what was said above regarding the detailed information that Paul had of his opponents’ arguments, and at the same time underlines his mental capacity and intellectual formation. Only someone totally convinced of the quality of his rhetorical ability, and literary skill, would have attempted to carry out such a delicate strategy by letter. It would have been much easier in person. If Paul did not take this latter option, it can only be because something made a visit to Galatia impossible (Gal. 4: 20). Perhaps the moves which led to his imprisonment in Ephesus had already begun; in which case flight might be taken as evidence of guilt. Or there may have been sensitive problems within the Ephesian community, about which we have hints in Philippians,63 and which made it necessary for him to stay there.
The attack on his personal status as a missionary forced Paul to give form to reflections, which must have been maturing since he left Antioch. He knew the strength of his opponents’ case. He had in fact accepted a commission from the Antiochean church, and his participation in its delegation to Jerusalem (Gal. 2: 1–10) was at least implicit recognition of the authority of the mother church. Now it became imperative for him to justify the independence, which had been thrust upon him by the changes at Antioch.
A tactical mistake on the part of the intruders made Paul’s about-face a little easier. In order to strengthen their position they had insisted on Paul’s dependence on Jerusalem which, they claimed, was the source of the authentic gospel. Things would have been very different had they dwelt on the long association of Paul with the church of Antioch. Not only had he lived there for considerable periods, but he had been co-opted into missionary work by Barnabas. It would have been impossible for Paul, who insisted so strongly on the importance of community, to deny having belonged to Antioch. And such belonging, from his perspective, implied dependence.
It was relatively easy, however, for Paul to document how little time he had in fact spent in Jerusalem as a Christian. The italicized words are important because, of course, he had spent some ten to fifteen years there as a Pharisee.64 If the Judaizers had not mentioned this, Paul was not going to complicate matters by bringing it up. The situation demanded a certain economy with the truth. And it was a basic rhetorical rule, with respect to the statement of facts in a speech for the defence, that while anything that might be disadvantageous to the defendant should not be omitted, it did not have to be emphasized.65 Thus as regards his first contacts with Christians Paul speaks only of having persecuted ‘the church of God’ (Gal. 1: 13) and ‘the churches of Christ in Judaea’ (Gal. 1: 22). The Holy City is not mentioned.
Subsequent to his conversion Paul had made only two visits to Jerusalem, both very brief. Some three years after his conversion, he had spent fifteen days in Jerusalem, and his contacts had been limited to Cephas and James (Gal. 1: 17–19). The second was fourteen years later (Gal. 2: 1). Syria and Cilicia (Gal. 1: 21) are mentioned as his mission fields in the interval, but we know that he went much further.66 In this silence we catch a glimpse of Paul’s rhetorical skill. Quintilian had advised orators, ‘Whenever a conclusion gives a sufficiently clear idea of the premisses, we must be content with having given a hint which will enable our audience to understand what we have left unsaid.’67 It is precisely because Paul had been to the Galatians, and was heading west when he left them, that he could afford not to mention his movements. Such discretion would have made his presentation all the more convincing, because it betrayed a confidence that carried its own persuasive power. To have given details which, from the point of view of the Galatians, were unnecessary, might have created an impression of anxiety. The assumption of shared knowledge flattered his readers.
Although nothing had been said about his relationship to the church of Antioch, Paul had to pre-empt the option by asserting from the outset that his apostolic mandate did not come ‘from men or through a man’ (Gal. 1: 1). His commission did not derive from any community, nor from any church leader, but came directly from Jesus Christ, whose authority was guaranteed by his resurrection. The unstated implication was that Jesus alone had the right to judge whether Paul was a faithful envoy. The miraculous character of Paul’s conversion was not something that his opponents could deny; the Galatians were aware that his first contacts with Christians had been as a persecutor (Gal. 1: 13).
But his opponents could assert that for the content of his gospel he was dependent on the Christian tradition most authoritatively represented by Jerusalem. Foreseeing this objection, Paul insisted that ‘the gospel preached by me is not worked out by man;68 for I did not receive it from anyone nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 1: 11). Here it would be easy to charge Paul with being somewhat less than honest, because he had learnt much from the Christian communities of Damascus, Jerusalem, and Antioch in which he had lived. He was thinking, however, of the core of his law-free gospel which, as we have seen, flowed directly from the rearrangement of his ideas caused by his encounter with the Risen Lord.69 What he absorbed from believers in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Antioch was so thoroughly sifted through his mental filters that it became merely the confirmation and elaboration of his intensely personal fundamental insight.
It is doubtful that Paul was conscious of the selectivity operative in his appropriation of the embryonic Christian tradition. That which harmonized with his perspective was integrated, but that which did not fit was ignored without being repudiated. Thus, for example, at the beginning, he had no objection to Jewish converts continuing to observe the Law even in his own communities. He was content as long as they did not impose it on converts from paganism. It was much later when he recognized the dangers of this unreflecting concession, and only then did he repudiate it.
Not unnaturally Paul got a reputation for being erratic, which surprised and angered him. He was consistent, however, only in what he positively chose from the Christian tradition; what he accepted or permitted, however important it might be to others, was to him irrelevant and implied no commitment on his part. His focus on what he considered the essential was from another angle tunnel vision. What he saw was clear but severely limited. The obscure periphery ever retained its capacity to surprise him.
In the Thessalonian correspondence Paul had not gone beyond the traditional formulations concerning the saving death of Jesus and his anticipated return in glory. In Galatians, on the contrary, we find the beginnings of his distinctive Christology. His need to develop a response to the prominence given to Abraham by the Judaizers forced him to reflect more deeply on Jesus Christ. Paul had always recognized him as the divinely appointed agent of salvation, but now he is forced to explore Jesus’ individual humanity, a quest which led him to unexpected insights regarding the nature of the Christian community.
The intruders had conceded the Messianic character of Jesus. His inauguration of the eschaton was the justification of their mission to Gentiles. Although Jews took it for granted that the Messiah would be a human being,70 his attributes and achievements were not those of an ordinary man.71 The stress on universal dominion, for example, could easily be misunderstood as according him divine stature. Paul, in consequence, had to ensure that the Galatians understood, and that the intruders were reminded, that Jesus was ‘born of woman’ (Gal. 4: 4), the standard Jewish expression to indicate a normal member of the human race.72
The dimension of Jesus’ life that Paul highlights is his pistis. In this epistle mention is made of pistis lêsou Christou (2: 16; 3: 22; cf. Rom. 3: 22), of pistis Christou (2: 16; cf. Phil. 3: 9), and of pistis tou hyiou tou theou (2: 20); in Romans we find pistis lêsou (3: 26). The problems of interpretation are manifest because pistis can mean ‘belief or ‘fidelity/faithfulness’, and the genitive ‘of Jesus’ can be either objective or subjective. The older commentators took it for granted that Paul intended ‘belief coupled with an objective genitive (‘faith in Christ’) but from the beginning of the twentieth century eminent voices have been raised in favour of the subjective genitive (‘Christ’s faith’).73
The polarized debate has been given a new dimension by the observations of S. K. Williams,
First, in these four texts (Rom. 3: 22; Gal. 2: 16; 3: 22; Phil. 3: 9), each instance of pistis Christou occurs in a prepositional phrase indicating means or basis. Second, each of these prepositional phrases expresses the means by which God effects salvation. Third, it is striking that in each case we find, in addition to ek (or dia) pisteôs [Iêsou] Christou, another word or phrase which refers explicitly to the believer’s faith.74
The implication of these observations is that the faith/fidelity of Christ75 is evoked, not in and for itself, but because it is both the cause and exemplar of the the faith/fidelity of Christians. Their active commitment is both enabled by, and modelled on, that of Christ.
Explicit confirmation of this interpretation is furnished by a literal translation of Galatians 2: 20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I live in the flesh I live by faith, that of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ This text also allows us to go a step further because it identifies the pistis of Christ as love expressed in self-sacrifice for others;76 this is ‘faith working through love’ (Gal. 5: 6). The magnitude of the love is revealed by the form of the self-sacrifice, the horrible death by crucifixion. That love, however, is not merely a fact; it is the power whereby Paul has been raised from ‘death’ to ‘life’.
Christ’s self-giving is the creative act, which is the essence of authentic humanity. Paul already has in mind a thought he will formulate only sometime later, ‘without love I am nothing’ (1 Cor. 13: 2). Creative love is what makes a person both human and Christian; it is the law of the believer’s being. Thence Paul is led to the conclusion that the law is Christ, ‘Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ’ (Gal. 6: 2).77 Christ’s comportment exemplifies authentic behaviour. This is the true answer to the Galatians’ question: how do we know what to do?
The life of Christ revealed to Paul that the one essential command of the Law is to love one’s neighbour (Gal. 5: 14). Thus, in opposition to the intruders, who saw the Messiah as affirming and interpreting the Law, and thereby subordinating himself to it, Paul saw the Law as subsumed in Christ. The perfection of his love (Gal. 2: 20) was all that the Law could possibly demand. Christ, then, was the Law in the most radical sense. At one stroke Paul replaces obedience by faith/fidelity, and instead of describing faith/fidelity, which risked creating a new Law, he illustrated it by the behaviour of Christ. It was up to each believer to discern how in any given set of circumstances the creative, self-sacrificing love demonstrated by Christ should be given reality.
Only in this perspective can we understand what Paul means when he says ‘I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal. 2: 20). The egocentricity of ‘death’ has been replaced by the creative altruism of ‘life’. Not only is his new being created by Christ, but his comportment is modelled on that of Christ. In the act of loving, Paul is Christ, in so far as he makes present in the world the essence of Christ’s being. But this is true of all committed believers. Hence, they are together Christ. They have ‘put on Christ’ and are ‘one person in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3: 27–8). In opposition to those under the Law, who acquire a functional unity through obedience to commandments, the Christian community is an organic unity; its members are the integral parts of a living being (Gal. 5: 4).
In this insight we have the seeds of two further developments in Paul’s Christology, the giving of the name ‘Christ’ to this new reality the believing community (e.g. 1 Cor. 6: 15), and the clarification of its nature as ‘the body of Christ’ (e.g. 1 Cor. 12: 12). It will take another crisis, however, to force them to the surface of his mind. In Paul’s character a certain intellectual lethargy was the enemy of progressive logic. He never pursued a line of thought for its own sake. He functioned most effectively in reaction, but only to the limit of the concrete problem. He had a tenacious mind, however, and was instinctively consistent. Each new problem, in consequence, stimulated greater profundity; it did not lead to fragmentation. His Christology grew as a coherent whole, and what at first might appear to be ad hoc solutions can always be traced back to basic interrelated insights.78
As we have seen, the argument of the Judaizing intruders was essentially a review of the history of salvation starting with Abraham and moving via his covenant and circumcision to the centrality of the Law. The story was not only familiar to Paul, it was the founding narrative of his people. His acceptance of Christ, however, enabled him to see it from a new and different perspective. He now knew that the true story was the life of Christ. All that had gone before was merely a preface. Given the directness of Paul’s character, we can be sure that in his preaching he ignored the preparatory stages in order to concentrate on the essential, the revelation brought by Christ. It is most unlikely, therefore, that he had worked out an alternative version of the history of salvation, which he could now produce in order to counter the intruders.
The fundamental insight which enabled Paul to begin to unravel the apparently seamless argument of his adversaries came from the observation that the Galatians had been graced by the Spirit and had experienced the power of God simply because they had accepted Paul’s preaching.79 This demonstrated the irrelevance of the Law, of whose demands the Galatians heard only long after their conversion (Gal. 3: 1–5). It also directed Paul’s attention to the fact that, in precisely the same way (Gal. 3: 6), Abraham had responded to God’s word and had been blessed for it (Gen. 12: 1–2; 15: 1). This act of faith was the basis of all that followed, first the covenant (Gen. 15: 18) and then the additional requirement of circumcision (Gen. 17: 10). Faith, therefore, is fundamental, and all else is secondary (Gal. 3: 11).
Having established faith, not obedience to the Law, as the essential characteristic of Abraham, Paul takes up the question of his descendants, on which the intruders had laid so much weight. Capitalizing on the fact that the singular ‘to the seed’ is used in the promise to Abraham (Gen. 13: 15; 17: 7–8), Paul identifies Christ as the descendant of Abraham (Gal. 3: 16). Hence, it is those who are ‘of Christ’—who are brought into being by him, and who reproduce his faith/fidelity in their comportment—who are the genuine descendants of Abraham (Gal. 3: 26–9). The intruders, of course, correctly understood ‘seed’ as a collective, but Paul’s bold and unprecedented insistence on taking the singular literally cut the ground from under them. It is a perfect debater’s argument, simple, unambiguous, impossible to refute. And if pressed Paul could always allow the collective sense, because he knew it to be verified by those who had put on Christ!
Such legalistic aggressivity, which unconsiously reveals something of the quality of Paul’s education, is accentuated by his treatment of circumcision. With magnificent aplomb he simply ignores the fact that Abraham had been circumcised (Gen. 17: 23), and deflects attention from the problem by speaking of ‘the circumcision’ (Gal. 2: 7–9). This unprecedented way of referring to the Jewish people80 had two advantages. It caused the recipients to focus on the present rather than on the past, and capitalized on the repugnance with which the Greco-Roman world viewed circumcision.
The notion of covenant could not be dismissed quite so easily, not least because the words ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood’ (1 Cor. 11: 25) were part of the eucharistic liturgy, which Paul had inherited from Antioch, and which he had passed on to the Galatians. The intruders exploited the intrinsic connection between covenant and Law, and insisted that a new covenant carried the connotation of a new law. They could claim the support of Jeremiah, ‘This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts, and I will be their God and they will be my people’ (31: 33). The internalization of the Law, in the view of the intruders, implied its continuing validity.
Since Paul could not reject outright the concept of a new covenant he had to ensure that it could not be used as a premiss in the way the intruders found so convenient. What he did was to divorce law from covenant in an intellectual tour de force, which highlights the extraordinary flexibility and power of his mind.
First, he associates covenant with freedom. Christians are the children of the Jerusalem above (Gal. 4: 26), which is identified with Sara, and thus belong to the covenant of the free woman (Gal. 4: 31). This is the antithesis of the covenant of the slave woman associated with Mount Sinai (immediately evocative of the Law), and with the present Jerusalem (Gal. 4: 22–5). This covenant of freedom is the covenant of Abraham (Gal. 3: 17) which, Paul insists, is essentially promise (Gal. 3: 16–18, 21; 4: 28) not legislation.
Secondly, Paul points out that covenant and Law are not indissolubly linked. The Law cannot have been part of God’s original plan because it appeared only 430 years after the covenant/promise (Gal. 3: 17). Moreover, the Law was ordained, not by God, but by angels (Gal. 3: 19). Hence it cannot modify in any way the covenant/testament drawn up by God. Finally, the Law does not enjoy the permanency of the covenant/promise, because it was given only for a limited time (Gal. 3: 19). Its role ceased once the promise to Abraham had been fulfilled in Christ (Gal. 3: 14). Believers, in consequence, could see themselves as partners in a new covenant without in any way being bound by the Law.81
A feature of the vocabulary of Galatians is the frequency of ‘slave’ (i: 10; 3: 28; 4: 1) and its cognates ‘to perform the duties of a slave’ (4: 8, 9, 25; 5: 13), ‘to enslave’ (4: 3), and ‘slavery’ (4: 24; 5: 1). Previously Paul had used only the first verb, and then in the sense of freely chosen service of God (1 Thess. 1: 9). The irruption of slave language into his lexicon when dealing with the crisis in Galatia is related no doubt to his awareness of the constraint imposed by the Law (Gal. 2: 23), but this is not the whole explanation. The Law was not the only slave-master. It served as the trigger which brought into focus Paul’s experience as a traveller.82 Society itself imposed a certain comportment on its members, which Paul knew to be inimical to authentic human development. He recalled the times when he was obliged to behave selfishly merely in order to survive and realized that the Galatians had been subject to the same pressures.
In order to convey this idea to them as economically as possible, he said that they ‘had been enslaved to ta stoicheia tou kosmou’ (Gal. 4: 3, 9). Unfortunately he was too sparing with words. The variety of translations of the Greek formula—‘the elemental spirits of the world’ (NRSV), ‘the elemental principles of this world’ (NJB), ‘the elements of the world’ (NAB)—highlights the inconclusive character of the debate, which is due to the fact that nine diverse meanings are attested for stoicheon.83 Dunn is probably correct in seeing the phrase as Paul’s ‘way of referring to the common understanding of the time that human beings lived their lives under the influence or sway of primal and cosmic forces’.84 The real question however is: how did they experience such pressure? Evidently, through the circumstances of their daily lives. What Paul wanted to get across was that society in its most basic elements, the very structure of society, was oppressive.
He uses the same enigmatic formula twice in Colossians, and there the allusion to society is made unambiguous by the apposition of ‘human tradition’ (Col. 2: 8) and ‘belonging to the world’ (Col. 2: 20). By the time he comes to write to the Romans he will express the same idea by saying that ‘all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of Sin’ (Rom. 3: 9). In all cases he is thinking of the total control over the individual exercised by the false value system of society.85
One such false value was the blind obedience the Jews gave the Law. Just as those living in polluted environments have no alternative but to breathe in toxins, so those born into the world are automatically infected by its attitudes and standards, its root principles. They can no more offer opposition than wood chips tossed into a fast flowing river. Paul deliberately evokes enslavement in order to underline that no resistance is possible. The echos of his own experience, both religious and secular, are unmistakable.
Freedom becomes a reality only ‘in Christ’, namely, in and through the Christian community. But Paul was not so naïve as to believe that the deeply ingrained habits of a lifetime were automatically eradicated by the act of conversion. Much more than nominal membership was necessary. Thus he warns the Galatians that if the victory of ‘the desires of the spirit’ over ‘the desires of the flesh’ (Gal. 5: 17) is a victory only in principle, then their freedom will exist solely in theory. Only those who have in fact ‘crucified the flesh with its passions and desires belong to Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 5: 24). In other words, the Galatians have only been ‘set free for freedom’ (Gal. 5: 1).86 A possibility has been offered them; it is up to them to make it real. How?
Paul’s answer is unambiguous. ‘You have been called to freedom; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another’ (Gal. 5: 13). The choice is theirs. If their behaviour reflects the egocentricity of the ‘works of the flesh’ (Gal. 5: 19–21), they accept again ‘the yoke of slavery’ (Gal. 5: 1). Free service of others in love, on the contrary, is the only authentic response to the summons to freedom; what this involved in practice is outlined in Galatians 5: 22–3.
Here we catch a glimpse of the principle underlying Paul’s understanding of enslavement and freedom. What promotes community generates freedom, whereas what militates against community destroys freedom. In the last analysis, therefore, freedom is a property of the community, not a possession of the individual. Only those believers who belong to an authentic community are free. Those who belong to a nominal community are not. The only protection against the all-pervasive power of the false value system of the world is afforded by the support and inspiration offered by the lived authentic values of fellow-Christians.
Painful as the experience must have been, the crisis provoked by the Judaizing intruders in Galatia was of crucial significance in Paul’s intellectual development. In reaction to the prominence given Abraham, Paul was obliged to explore more profoundly than ever before the faith/fidelity of Christ, and its relation to that of Christians. This led him to a critical new insight into the relationship between Christ and the believing community. Reflection on the constraint imposed by the Law brought to mind the pressures of society and obliged him to define more clearly than hitherto the difference between life in the world and life in the Christian church. For the first time he grasped the nature of authentic freedom.
In Galatians these seminal ideas appear in their embryonic form. Their formulation is not as clear as one would wish, and it appears that Paul is not fully aware of their implications. Fortunately there would be other crises to stimulate their exploitation.