The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 340

briefly as he ie able. The int.errogative writing." In ordinar7 Greek it eomctimCB .,..,,;,,Joro, means "how great," as in Zech. ii. 2 denotes a p&lllle.ge o a treatise .or book (Septuagint); Heh. vii. 4. Aooordingly,..-&,ra (Liddell nnd Scott, under the word, ii. 4), o,al -rni;>,.i1ra in Polyb., i. 2, 8 ( cit.ed in Liddell Next (1) the verb f-ypr&lj,11 (" I have and &-ott's •Lexicon') moons " how many written") may be understood, e.a in Rom, xv, and ho"· lBrge." Many, RB e.g. Chrysoetom, 15, " I have written the more boldly unto hRve supposed that the word includes a. you,'' eto., with referonoA to the entire lettor,' rerer!lnce t.o clumsiness, ungainliness, ae now nearly complete, BS it lies before him. Atta<'hing t.o the apostle's handwriting In the.t ce.se the apostle's words may ho (" with ,vhat big letters I"). Bat no exa.mple rendered, " See, with whe.t long writings of the word hc-ing used in this sense of [or, 'pieces of writing'] I have written unto "nngainlinees" has been adduced ; e.nd it you with mine own hand." Through some eeem·e safer not to import int.o its rendering oause or other, we know not what the cause this additional shooe of meaning. The we.a, writing with hie own hand was not dative v,,.,v Bishop Lightfoot proposes t.o a welcome employment to him ; so for connrot <'losely with n,;>,.(,ro,s e.e ,,.ol and unwelcome thnt he generally devolved the o-ol a.re often used in familiar style, with the e.ctuo.l penning of hie letters upon an amonu- eenee mark you J But there is no instance eneis, merely authenticating ea.eh letter 68 of this nee of the dative pronoun in the hie own by e. postscript added in his .own Greek Testament (see Winer, • Gre.m. N. T.,' hand (see 2 These. iii. fin.). Perhaps ~ 22, 7, Anm. 2, p. 140); e.nd here surely Philemon forms the only exception (see it more natura.lly connects itself with (-ypa,j,a. ver. 19), ape.rt from this letter to . the lt is not nncommon with St. Pe.nl t.o insert Galatians. We me.y, therefore, imagine the some word or words between a substantive apostle ae painfully and laboriously penning e.nd its adjective or dependent genitive, BS one portion after e.nother of the Epistle; here between .,,...,,1,.(,,0,s and -yp&.,,.,,ao-111 (see often pausing wea.riedly in the .work as.he eh. ii. 9; iii. 15; Phil. iv. 15, etc.). In the came t.o the end of each -ypa,u,,,., that ie, t,o instances now cit,ed there appears no more the .end of ea.eh section of hie iµ-gument, logical oooe.sion for such a seeming dis- each seeming t.o him e. long and toilsome arrangement of the words the.n there does effort. And now e.t last he exclaims," Look, here. The verb fypalj,r& ie used with no what long, laborious perfomie.nnes of he.o,d- objective accusative following, BB in Bom. writing I have achieved in writing to you) xv. 15 ; 1 Pet. v. 12 ; the substantive And from that learn ho,w deeply. I .am -ypd.,,_,,,.ao-,11 being in the dative, because the concerned on yoi;u- behalf, e.nd how grave apostle ie referring merely t.o the form of your present l!Piritual peril appears to me the medium of communication, and not to to be I ''. Ordinarily .it was oi;uy .a brief the substance of the communication itself. " piece of writing " that he wrote .with his The rendering of the Authorized Version, own hand ; here, long pieces, added one " how large e. letter I have written," cannot after another with painful. effort. Or (2) be defended BS e. literal translation, though the verb " I have wi;itten " may be re- it may be allowed on one view of the pas- ferred to whe.t the apostle. ie now beginning sage t.o give the eenee rightly. But though to pen, not merely because the epistolary the plural noun -yp4ffa:ro., in ordina.ry Greek, style of the ancients, Greek and Roman, like literlE in Latin, sometimes occn.m in the was wont to place the writer of a letter fo eenee of e. single epistle or letter, it is never the temporal standing-point of its recipie;nt, so used bv St. Paul. who always employs as when Cicero dates hie letters scribebam the word ·,..-10--rol\.~ t.o express this notion, Id., etc., but because under some circum- which .he does no lees than seventeel!. times. stances it is nature.I that the writer should In Acts :u:viii. 21 it ie rendered "letters,'' thus refer himself to the view of, his cor- in the plural number; being properly "com- respondent. Thus in Plri.leln. 1.9, " I Paul munications in writinii:." The noun -yp&.,,.,,a have written it ((-ypa,j,a) with mine own be.n4, we.e the word ordinarily employed in Greek I will repay it." H would be quite o.bvioue to designate a letter of the alphab~t. lt t.o ourselves to express our meaning in the also denotes "e. writing," BB when in the same manner. So far, then,. 68 such coµ- plnr.i.l we read in John v. 47, "if ye believe sidemtions reach, it appears qµite suppos- not his writings," and in 2 Tim. iii 15, " the able that the apostle, having employed .. aq. sacrc-d writings," or Scriptures. In Luke amanuensis BB usual 68 far BS the. end of xvi. 6, 7 " te.ke thy bill" is literally, " take ver. 10, then himself took up the pen· for thy writings" (-ypa./.',,_...,,,. beuJ.g the DOW the customary addition of an authenticating e.ccepted reading in the Greek text). In postscript ; and that, for the purpose of .2 Cor. iii 7, "the miDiatration of death in addfog e,specie.l emphasis to the postscript writings," the word probably refers to the ten which he here ihouglit advisable to add, commandments, each forming one" writing;" he made hie handwriting most unusually tiwllP'll it ma,tJ ~ "in c~teJB of large, a.~d that U is t.o this emphe.Uo etylP OH, VI, 1-18,J ·rHE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 307