ers; preaching circumcision to those who were inclined to accept it, and uncircumcision to such as wished to refuse it (vs 11). |
These intruders were not proselytes, but born Jews, Jewish Christians, with a Pharisaic tendency like that of those who, in Antioch and Jerusalem, sought to impose circumcision and legal observance upon Gentile Christians (Acts xv. 1,5; Gal. ii. 4). They demanded that the Gentile Christians should be incorporated by circumcision with the community of Israel, and should observe the leading requirements of the Mosaic law (vy. 2,11; vi. 12). They laid great stress on the observance of sacred seasons (iv. 10). ‘They prescribed a cultus with holy days and festivals, which contained a more seductive charm than the exposition of the word; for it offered compensation for the heathenism they had aban- doned, and the old disposition once revived might easily have found in it a congenial home.” * They did not em- phasise the solemn duties which followed circumcision, and which Paul himself forcibly stated (v. 3; comp. ili. 10); but they recommended circumcision as an easy way of attaining salvation through mere formal incorporation with the true people of God, and also as a protection against persecution Gis compass LL).
These efforts bore fruit among the Galatians. Having thrown off the corruptions of their heathen faith and wor- ship, they again came into bondage to “the weak and beg- garly elements” which they had outgrown (iv. 9). The slightest tendency to such a lapse was met and fostered by the daily appeal of the pagan cult amid which they lived, an elaborate and impressive system, fortified with a code of rules and administered by a powerful hierarchy, the whole presenting a striking external resemblance to the Jewish ceremonial system. As Professor Ramsay. observes: “It is not until this is properly apprehended that Gal. iv. 3-11 becomes clear and natural. Paul in that passage implies that the Judaising movement of the Christian Galatians is a
* Weizsicker.