The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 156

,l1Cij ; •1"t• Heil •l1eij) ; did ye suffwr all those he further ge.thered from eh. v. 11 ; vi. 12 trouble, for 11011,ght 1 if indeed really for (on which see Exposition). Those Jewish nought. The nmbiguity of ToO'civT<i, which lege.liats hated both St. Paul and his con- menns either "so many" or "so great," is verts, becanae they alike walked in " the preserved by the rendering all thoBe, The Spirit," that is, in the element of Christian Revisers put ao many in the text, and "or so spirituality emancipated from the bondage great" in the margin. In respect to l1rde •.,,, of the Law, and not in" the flesh" of Mosaic the leading of the context in which the ceremonialism. Hence it is that the men- verse is embedded might incline us to take tion in ver. 3 of the Galatian brethren the nrb in the sense in which it frequently having "begun with the Spirit,'' leads him occurs in Greek writers, that of being on to the thought of the sufferings which subjects of such and such treatment, good just on that very account had been brought a, well as bad; as, for example, in Josephus, upon them. "For nought." This adverb 'Ant.,' iii. 15, 1, •oa-a 1ra6dvns i~ ab-roii ,cul ,l1eij sometimes means, prospectively, "to no fr'ff/\llCWII •v•P"I"""'" ,,,..a>..a/3&11-r,s, "What good," as in eh. iv. 11 1 "bestowed labour treatment having received from him (,c. upon you in 'Dain," and probably in 1 Cor. God], and what huge benefits having par- xv. 2; sometimes, retrospectively, "for no taken of"-the character of the treatment jnst cause," as in Col. ii. 18, "vainly pnffed b!=ling sufficiently indicated by the context up." The English phrase, "for nought," as being that of kindness. But it is a fat.al hBil just a similar ambiguity. The apostle objection to this view of the passage that, may, therefore, mean either this-Did ye in the forty passages or more in which the suffer all these troubles to rer1p after all no verb 1rdo-xw is used in tbe New Testament, benefit from your suffering them, forfeiting it never is used of good treatment, but as you do (eh. v. 4) the reward which you al ways of bad; and so also always in the might else have expected from the great Septuagint. We are, therefore, shut up to Retributor (2 These. i. 6, 7) through your the sense of "suffering ills," and must en- forsaking that ground of faith on which ye deavour to find, if we can, some circum- then stood, if indeed ye have forsaken it? stances marking the troubles referred to or this-Did ye provoke all that persecution which might serve to explain the seemingly without just co.use ?-if, indeed, there Wl!.8 abrupt mention of them here. And the no just cause as ye seem now to think. probable explanation is this : those suffer- According to the former view, the Galatians ings were brought upon the Galatian con- were now nullifying the benefit which verts, not only through the influence of J ewe, might have accrued to them from their but also in consequence of the bitter enmity former endurance of persecution; according with which the Jews regarded St. Paul, as to the latter, they were now stultifying bringing converts over from among the their former conduct in provoking these Gentiles to the service of the one true God persecutions. 'l'he first seems somewhat apart from any regard to the ceremonial the easiest. Er "t•, na in Col. i. 23. The Law of Moses. That Jews in general did concluding clause has been !Jere regarded th ne regard St. Paul is shown by the sus- e.s a reaching forth of the apostle's soul picion whioh even Christian Jews felt towe.rda the hope that better thoughts towards him (Acts xxi. 21). For this no might yet prevail with the Galatian wa- doubt, it was that the Jews in Asia Minor verera, so that they would not lose the, persecuted him from oity to city e.s they reward of having anffered for Christ-o. did, their animosity against him extending hope which he thus glances at, if so be he itself also to those who had attached them- might thus lure them to its realization. But ael ves to him as his disciples. That it did another view of the words has commended extend itself to his disciples as euch appears, itself to not a few eminent critics, namely, ns from the nature of the case, so also from that the apostle glaucea at the darker pro- Acts xiv. 22, "That through many tribule.- spect; as if he had said, •• If it be, indeed, tions wo must enter into the kingdom of merely for nought, and not for far worse God;" as also it is ovinced by the strongly than that! By falling away from the gospel, indignant tone in which he speaks of the ye not only lose the crown of coufessorship: persecuting Jews in his two Epistles to the ye forfeit also your hope of your heavenly 'fheasalonians, written near the very time inheritance" (cf. eh. v, 4). Tile conjunction to which hehore alludes (1 'l'hess. ii.14-16; 1eal is, confessedly, sometimes almost equiva- 2 Theas. i. 8, 9)-this indignation being lent to" merely," "only," as e.g. in Homer, beat accounted for by the supposition that • Odyssey,' i. 58, 'l<µ.<11os 1<al 1ea1r,1>11 a.1ro8p01• it was roused by hie sympathy with the o-1eo11-ra voija-a, ~• "1"''11•, "Longing if only but similarly ol'igiuo.ted sufferings of the Mace- to see the smoke leaping upwo.rd from his donio.n brethron to whom ho was writing. native land." But in the present case ,r "/@ 'fho.t the troubles here reforred to emo.nated does not so readily suggest the last proposed from the hostility of J swish legaliats m11y auppletion of thought us it does the other.  122 THF, EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. [ou:. lII, 1-29,