The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 29

nuthorized to sta.nd upon our dignity, and to throw the burden of our maintenance entirely upon you." 1 Now, there are two distinct propositions implied in the last clause of this verse, namely, that Christ's apostles were entitled to claim maintenance at the hands of those who received their teaching; and that the persons recited by the pronoun "we" were apostles of Christ. With respect to the latter proposition, it Is supposed by some that St. Paul, in the phrase," apostles of Christ," was at bottom pointing to his own individual person as "apostle" in the highest sense of the term; and that he was led to use the plural pronoun" we" in applying thereto this lofty predicate, partly by an instinctive shrinking from egotism and self-obtrusion, and partly by a gracious and sympathetic brotherly 'kindness which would fain share predicates, which in actual truth were applicable only to himself, with those who in Christ's service were closely associated with him. There can be no doubt that St. Paul does sometimes thus write. It is impossible, for instance, to understand in any other sense much that we read in the long passage, 2 Cor. iv. 7-vi. 10. But this method of interpretation cannot be satisfactorily applied in the present case. It is difficult to imagine how it could be possible for St. Paul to use the plural number,'' Christ's apostles," if he alone of the party was an "apostle of Christ" in that sense in which the term is supposed to be used. As well might a colonel, when speaking of himself in conjunction with even the highest subordinate officers of his regiment, extend to them the title of " colonels in her Majesty's army." Besides, there is nothing to warrant the notion that it was any peculiar prerogative of those who in the highest sense of the designation were "apostles of Christ" to expect to be maintained by their converts. The seventy, who never, so far as appears, were styled "apostles," were yet authorized by Christ to consider themselves, while discharging the service he had enjoined upon them, as entitled to the benefit of the maxim, "The workman deserves bis wages" (Luke x. 7); and the apostle himself, in 1 Tim. v. 17, 18, puts it among the fundamental maxims of Church order, that those who labour in speaking and teaching had a claim to be paid by the Church. So also we read in 1 Cor. ix. 7-14. These considerations warrant the conclusion that St. Paul, in the passage under consideration, uses the term " apostles" in the same sense as that in which it has been above shown (pp. xxxi., xxxii.) to be used by St. Luke in Acts xiv. 4, 14, and in which the designation, "apostles of Christ," is employed by St. Paul in 2 Cor. xi. 6 (comp. p. xxix.); that is, he uses the expression with reference to the delegation or authorization which both he and Silas had received, not only from the Antiochian Church, but also from the supreme leadership of the mother Church at Jerusalem. Timothy regarded in the lighl of a Church envoy. The case of Timothy, however, claims to be here considered. The addition of Timothy's name in the greeting prefixed to both the Epistles to the Thessalonians-" Paul and Silvanus and 'fimotheus "-may possibly not of itself prove a.particularly close partnership in official standing between the three persons named; 1 In the apostle's mind there was an affinity between the two words, 3c!{a and J3c/.pos-an affinity so olose as to lead him (2 Cor. iv. 17) to construct the strange phrase, /3d.pos 6&{11s• This association of ideas was doubtless due to the fact that in the Hebrew i::i::i denotes both heavy and glorioUIJ, It is very supposable that the apostle uses the words ,;,~ap,jaa,, ,caru- /311,p,jaa,,· &./311.p,j, in the passages cited above as comprising, eaoh in one woril, the doublt Bense of burdening others in supporting one's own dignitv.  xiii THE EPISTLE TO THE G;ALATIANS,