Introduction 139

verses of the Epistle throw a clear light on the motive which prompted it. In i. 1 he vindicates his own apostolic commission, in i. 6-9 the truth of his Gospel, against an attack which was troubling the peace of the Galatian Churches in his absence. The move- ment was not spontaneous, but due to an intrigue set on foot by foreign emissaries. Alarming tidings had, however, reached the Apostle as to the progress of the agitation. Its nature becomes apparent from the whole tenor of the Epistle ; it was an attempt of the Pharisaic party to revive Judaism within the Church. For this purpose it was necessary for its authors to impugn the truth of the Apostle’s doctrine, and they sought accordingly to undermine his personal influence and depreciate his apostolic authority. Some had even ventured to impeach the sincerity and the consistency of his teaching by accusing him of an inordinate desire to please (i. 10). He had perhaps given specious occasion for this charge by his avowed principle of becoming all things to all men, but he dismisses it lightly with scorn, for the friends and converts to whom he was writing knew well that his real motive had always been to win men to Christ. He does not apparently feel it needful to defend his motives, but concentrates attention on two points, the truth of his Gospel, and the reality of his commission from God. He begins with an indignant denunciation of the new heresy, which he declares to be a spurious perversion of the one true Gospel. But he perceives the necessity for vindicating his own right to speak in the name of Christ before grappling with the main issue and developing the fundamental divergence of the Gospel in its essential basis and spirit from the Law. For the result of the conflict depended practically more on the personal than the doctrinal factor. He had been himself the foremost champion of Gentile freedom in Christ ; the doctrine of free grace in Him had won its way mainly through the advocacy of Paul and owed its triumph in Galatia, at Antioch, and in Jerusalem, to his eloquent support. This was why his antagonists had endeavoured to depreciate his position in the Church, and to set up the Twelve as the real interpreters of Christ on earth, that they might thereby discredit his authority as a teacher. The circumstances of his life furnished opponents with plausible ground for questioning the soundness of his doctrine. He had neither listened to the voice, nor seen the face, of Christ on earth; he had not attended on His ministry like the Twelve, nor been sent forth like them by His express command. He was, in short, to use his own words, an Apostle born out of due time. This made it easy for them to contend that he had not received