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Gal 5:8. Ἡ πεισμονὴ) Most commentators interpret it persuasion, also with the addition of this, that, or your [hæc, ista, vestra], according to the testimony of Lubinus on this passage. Comp. Chrysost. This word very rarely occurs, and Eustathius alone, as I can find, has it at Odyss. χ., where he shows that “πεῖσμα and πεισμονὴ are said respecting those that start difficulties and set themselves in the way [ἐπὶ τῶν ἐνστατικῶν-stubborn, obstinate persons], and are figuratively taken from the cables [πεισμάτων], that is, the hawsers used in ships.” But a pertinacious and obstinate man is given to starting difficulties [is ἐνστατικὸς]; and therefore that man has πεισμονὴν, self-confidence, who, having left off running, ἐνέχεται, holds fast to [the law] obstinately, and who persuades and trusts to himself alone, and does not obey [πείθεται] another, Gal 5:1; Gal 5:7; and in this way μὴ πείθεσθαι, and ἡ πεισμονὴ, and πέποιθα, form an Antanaclasis,[46] a figure, which is frequently used both by Paul, as many constantly observe, and by the other sacred writers, as Glassius well demonstrates. Whether it be a metaphor or not, at least this verbal noun, like other nouns in-ονὴ, is intransitive[47] [not a persuading of others, but a persuasion in one’s self].-οὐκ, not) supply is; is not of (God), who called you, but from a power truly hostile; and there is subjoined a metonymy of the abstract for the concrete, as appears from the previous word, who, not what.-καλοῦντος) who called you; comp. Gal 5:13, you have been called. So 1Th 5:24; comp. Php 3:14. The calling is the rule of the whole race.
[46] See App. When a word is put twice in the same passage in a double sense.
[47] Wahl notices the paronomasia in the words πείθεσθαι and πεισμονή. He gives the latter word a transitive meaning, Studium persuadendi aliis ea quæ nobis placent et probantur-The desire to persuade others of what pleases ourselves and meets our approval. ‘Ueberredungskunst.’-ED.