The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 293

others, doctrine whioll should vita.Uy deprave frnitleas, he wail thenceforward t6 decline the truth which God had revea.led? Any ho.ving anything to do with him (,rapa,.,.o&); dootrilie which thus tampered with the .gos• for that he might be sure that, being such, pol would, of course, be a a'lp«m-views of he was already completel:r wrenched off men'11 own devising aud "choosing." The from vital union with the body of Christ term, a.a ha.a been seen; might also describe (lfeo-Tpa1m1.,), and was doing w~at was a body of adheren ta to such false doctrine. wrong, "self-condemned;" eithe'f' (that is) But in the pa11eage before us, in whieh the condemned by tbe very nature of hie pro- works or the• flesh are recited, and• not the ceeding, or condemned in his own conscious- doers of sucil works, the term must describe, neSIJ. It seems that the apostle regardd not persons, but aote-,-acte, that is, of con- the simple ,fact of his giving himself to a ceiving or propouudiug in the Church views "heresy" as proving all this; for he makes subversive of the gospel, and gatheriflg no reference to any other pravity shown by adherents to such views;· such •adherents the offender; he has an eye, evidently, to the would, nmong Christiane, form a a.1p,u,s consideration that the man who forsakes antagonistic to the ·doctrine of Christ received the teaching of Christ, given through his in the Church. "Ca.ba.llinge" and "divi- accredited organs, to • follow a aTp«ns, sions,'' lp,9eia., and l'i,xou,-aula.,, might arise knoo,s that he does so; knows that he is no 11,mong Christiane who still held fast to the longer" holding the Head" (Col. ii. 19), but substance of the gospel; fatal to the spiritual is following a mere" tradition of men" (ibid., life, it.might be, of those indulging in them; 8). With such a one Titus had no com- but yet essentially different from" heresies," mon ground. It is of prime importance in because not: iii vol ving departure from the estimating the nature of this "work of the faith once for,all delivered to the saints, or flesh,"with a practical view to our present cir- conscious rebellion against the iiccredited cumstances, that we bear in mind this feature orga.ns of revelation. Here the apostle has of it-that it is a. relinquishment, a conscious in view the more hateful phenomena, of man- relinquishment of the teaching of Christ, a. conceived dogwas ta.king the place of God's breaking off from "the Head." The aborn gospel--,dogma.e ,so alien to the gospel that view is precisely that given by Tertullian, adherents to them would be marked • De Prmscriptionibus Hmreticorum,' 6. among Christiane. as forming" sects," which Bishop Lightfoot, in:his Introduction to his in. their. spiritual genesis were ape.rt from Commentary on this Epistle, pp. SO, 31, the Church and incapnble of being nmalga- writes thus: "It is not idle, as it might mated witli it. For the Church is the pro- seem at first sight, to follow the stream of duct of the truth, "the Word of God" (1 history .beyond the horizon of the apostolic Pot. ,i. 23-25; J,,s. i. 18); whilst these age. The fragmentary notices of its subse- '·'sects" are. ·-products of merely human qnent career reflect some light on the tem- notions or even of '' doctrines of devils " ( 1 per and disposition of the Galatian Church Tim. iv. 1; cf. Col. ii. 8, 19). Thnt same in St. Paul's day. To Catholic writers of a Jud11.izing spirit which was now working later date, indeed, the failings of its infancy among the Churches of Galatia proved, seemed to be so faithfully reprodnced in its very early indeed, largely prolific of such mature age, that they invested the apostle's " heresies," especially in Asia Minor ; those rebuke with a prophetic import. Asia Minor " heresies" in particular which a.re known· was the nursery of heresy: and of all the by the name of Grnostic. The apostle knew, Asiatic Churches it was nowhere so rife as lihat such, evils were coming, and it is cer- in Galatia. The Galatian cnpit,i.l [ Anoyra] toin that he anticipated their development wo,g the stronghold of the Mon tanist revival, witll dread {see the later First Epistle to which lingered on for more than two cen- Timothy (iv.); the contemporaneous First turies, splitting into diverse sects, each Epistle .to -Corinth (x.i. 18); the earlier distinguished by some fantastio or minute Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (ii.); ritual observance. Her1,, too, were to be also ~ts xx. 29, 30); not without cause, as found Ophites, Manioheans, sectarians of history shows; for in truth it was only all kinds." t1fter e, terrible,. indeed an internecine con- Ver. 21.-Envyings, murden (,p8&vo, [Re- tliot, that the Church in the second and ceptus adds <1>dro&, rejected by most third. centuries succeeded in treading this editors]). These belong properly to the sttrpent-brood underfoot. By the time that third group, and should have been placed St. .Paul ,deputed Titus to take the over- in the same verse with them. We have the sight of the Churches of Crete,'' heresiesn like alliterative combination of the Greek were so f&.l'. developed that he is oareful to words in Rom. i. 29, ,p8tl,ov, ,p&vou. Judging direct Titus. (iii. 10, 11) how- to deal with from the evidence of mnnuscripis, the any man who attached himself to them genuinenes., of ,p&vo, is extremely doubtful. (if,,9ponrov aip,..-,,.,&v). He is to admonish Regard being ha,d to the particulu.r oiroum- him once and age.in;. if tho warning proved stauces of th(> Galati an Churohes, which the 260 THE EPISTLE 1'0 1'HE GALA'l'IANS. [olI. V. 1-26,