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Gal_1:22. But I was so completely a stranger to the land of Judaea, that at the time of my sojourn in Syria and Cilicia I was personally unknown to the churches, etc. These statements (Gal_1:22-24) likewise go to prove that Paul had not been a disciple of the apostles, which is indeed the object aimed at in the whole of the context. As a pupil of the apostles, he would have remained in communication with Jerusalem; and thence issuing, he would first of all have exercised his ministry in the churches of Judaea, and would have become well known to them. According to Hofmann, the end at which Paul aims in Gal_1:22 f. is conveyed by καὶ ἐδόξαζον κ . τ . λ . in Gal_1:24, so that Gal_1:22-23 are only related to this as the protasis to the apodosis. This idea is at variance with the independent and important nature of the two affirmations in Gal_1:22-23; if Paul had intended to give them so subordinate a position as that which Hofmann supposes, he would have done it by a participial construction ( ἀγνοοῦντες δὲ … μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες , ὅτι κ . τ . λ ., ἐδόξαζον κ . τ . λ .), perhaps also with the addition of καίπερ , or in some other marked way. In the form in which the apostle has written it, his report introduced by ἔπειτα in Gal_1:21 is composed of propositions quite as independent as those following ἔπειτα in Gal_1:18, and Gal_1:22-23 cannot be intended merely to introduce Gal_1:24. Hofmann is therefore the more incorrect in asserting that Paul, from Gal_1:21 onwards, is not continuing the proof of his apostolic independence in contradistinction to the other apostles, but is exhibiting the harmony of his preaching with the faith of the mother-church at Jerusalem and its apostles. Others, inconsistently with the context, suppose that Paul desired to refute the allegation that he had been a learner from the churches of Judaea (Oecumenius, Gomarus, Olshausen), or that he himself had taught judaistically in Judaea (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Grotius; comp. Usteri), or that he had visited Syria and Cilicia as the deputy of the churches of Judaea (Michaelis).
τῷ προσώπῳ ] as regards the (my) countenance, that is, personally. Comp. 1Th_2:17.
ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Ἰουδ .] This is meant to refer to the churches out of Jerusalem, consequently in the Ἰουδαία γῆ , Joh_3:22. For that he was known to the church in the capital is not only a matter of inference from his pre-Christian activity, but is certain from that fifteen days’ visit (Gal_1:18), and is attested by Act_9:26-30. Neither in Act_9:26-30 nor in Act_26:19 f. (see on these passages) is there any such inconsistency with the passage before us, as has been urged against the historical character of the Acts, especially by Hilgenfeld, Baur, and Zeller.