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Gal_1:13. Now begins the historical proof that he was indebted for his gospel to the ἀποκάλυψις he had mentioned, and not to human communication and instruction. In the first place, in Gal_1:13-14, he calls to their remembrance his well-known conduct whilst a Jew; for, as a persecutor of the Christians and a Pharisaic zealot, he could not but be the less fitted for human instruction in the gospel, which must, on the contrary, have come to him in that superhuman mode.
ἠκούσατε ] emphatically prefixed, indicates that what is contained in Gal_1:13-14, is something already well known to his readers, which therefore required only to be recalled, not to be proved.
τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ ] my previous course of life in Judaism, how I formerly behaved myself as a Jew. Ἰουδαϊσμός is not Judaistic zeal and activity (Matthies, “when I was still out and out a Jew;” comp. Schott), but just simply Judaism, as his national religious condition: see 2Ma_2:21; 2Ma_8:1; 2Ma_14:38; 4Ma_4:26. It forms the historical contrast to the present Χριστιανισμός of the apostle. Comp. Ignat. ad Magnes. 8, 10, Philad. 6.
ἀναστροφή in the sense of course of life, behaviour, is found, in addition to the N.T. (Eph_4:22; 1Ti_4:12, et al.) and the Apocrypha (Tob_4:14; 2Ma_5:8), only in later Greek, such as Polyb. iv. 82. 1. See Wetstein.
ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδ .] a definition of time attached to τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν , in which the repetition of τήν was not necessary. Comp. Plat. Legg. iii. p. 685 D, ἡ τῆς Τροίας ἅλωσις τὸ δεύτερον . Soph. O. R. 1043, τοῦ τυράννου τῆσδε γῆς πάλαι ποτέ . Php_1:26. Comp. also on 1Co_8:7 and on 2Co_11:23
ὅτι καθʼ ὑπερβολὴν κ . τ . λ .] a more precise definition of the object of ἠκούσατε , that I, namely, beyond measure persecuted, etc. On καθʼ ὑπερβολήν , the sense of which bears a superlative relation to σφόδρα , comp. Rom_7:13; 1Co_12:31; 2Co_1:8; 2Co_4:17; Bernhardy, p. 241.
τοῦ Θεοῦ ] added in the painful consciousness of the wickedness and guilt of such doings. Comp. 1Co_15:9; 1Ti_1:13
ἐπόρθουν ] is not to be understood de conatu (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Menochius, and others); Paul was then actually engaged in the work of destruction (Act_22:4, comp. Act_9:1, Act_26:10-11), and therefore it is not to be understood (with Beza, Piscator, Estius, Winer, Usteri, and Schott) merely as vastavi, depopulatus sum (Hom. Od. xiv. 264, ἀγροὺς πόρθεον , et al.). Paul wished to be not a mere devastator, not a mere disturber (see Luther’s translation), but a destroyer[26] of the church; and as such he was active (Hom. Il. iv. 308, πόλιας καὶ τείχεʼ ἐπόρθουν , et al.). Moreover, in the classic authors also πορθεῖν and ΠΈΡΘΕΙΝ are applied not only to things, but also to men (comp. Act_9:21) in the sense of bringing to ruin and the like. See Heindorf, ad Plat. Prot. p. 340 A; Lobeck, ad Soph. Aj. 1187; Jacobs, Del. epigr. i. 80.
[26] [Nicht bloss Verstörer, sondern Zerstörer.]