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Gal_3:1. O irrational Galatians! With this address of severe censure Paul turns again to his readers, after the account of his meeting with Peter; for his reprimand to the latter (Gal_2:15-21) had indeed so pithily and forcibly presented the intermixture of Judaism with faith as absurd, that the excited apostle, in re-addressing readers who had allowed themselves to be carried away to that same incongruous intermingling, could not have seized on any predicate more suitable or more naturally suggested. The more inappropriate, therefore, is the idea of Jerome (comp. also Erasmus, and Spanheim ad Callim. H. in Del. 184, p. 439), who discovered in this expression a natural weakness of understanding peculiar to the nation. But the testimony borne on the other hand by Themist. Or. 23 (in Wetstein, on Gal_1:6) to the Galatian readiness to learn, and acuteness of understanding—the consciousness of which would make the reproach all the more keenly felt—is also (notwithstanding Hofmann) to be set aside as irrelevant. Comp. Luk_24:25; Tit_3:3
τίς ὑμᾶς ἐβάσκανε ] τίς conveys his astonishment at the great ascendency which the perversion had succeeded in attaining, and by way of emphatic contrast the words τίς ὑμᾶς are placed together: Who hath bewitched you, before whose eyes, etc.? Comp. v. Gal_5:7.
βασκαίνω (from βάζω , to speak) means here to cast a spell upon (mala lingua nocere, Virg. Ecl. vii. 28), to bewitch by words, to enchant (Bos, Exercitatt. p. 173 f., and Wetstein),—a strong mode of describing the perversion, quite in keeping with the indignant feeling which could hardly conceive it possible. Comp. βασκανία , fascinatio, Plat. Phaed. p. 95 B; βάσκανος , Plut. Symp. Gal_5:7; ἀβάσκαντος , unenchanted. Hence the word is not to be explained, with Chrysostom and his followers: who has envied you, that is, your previous happy condition?—although this signification is of very frequent occurrence, usually indeed with the dative (Kühner, II. p. 247; Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 462; Piers. ad Herodian. p. 470 f.), but also with the accusative in Sir_14:6, Herodian. ii. 4. 11.
οἷς κατʼ ὀφθαλμοὺς Ἰησ . Χρ . προεγράφη ἐν ὑμῖν ἐσταυρωμένος ] This fact, which ought to have guarded the Galatians from being led away to a Judaism opposed to the doctrine of atonement, and which makes their apostasy the more culpable, justifies the question of surprise, of which the words themselves form part; hence the mark of interrogation is to be placed after ἐσταυρ .
κατʼ ὀφθαλμούς ] before the eyes. See examples in Wetstein. Comp. κατʼ ὄμματα , Soph. Ant. 756, and on ii. 11.
προεγράφη ] is explained by most expositors, either as antea (previously) depictus est (Chrysostom, Luther, Erasmus, Castalio, Beza, Cornelius a Lapide, and others; also Hilgenfeld, Reithmayr), or palam depictus est (most modern expositors, following Calvin; including Winer, Paulus, Rückert, Usteri, Matthies, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Reiche, Ewald, Wieseler, Hofmann, Holsten), with which Hofmann compares the brazen serpent in the wilderness, and Caspari (in the Strassb. Beitr. 1854, p. 211 f.) even mixes up a stigmatization with the marks of Christ’s wounds, which Paul, according to Gal_6:17, is supposed to have borne on his own body. But these interpretations are opposed not only by the words ἐν ὑμῖν (see below), but also by the usus loquendi. For, however frequent may be the occurrence of γράφειν in the sense of to paint, this signification can by no means be proved as to προγράφειν , not even in Arist. Av. 450 (see Rettig in Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 97). The Greek expression for showing how to paint, tracing out, in the sense of a picture given to copy, is ὑπογράφειν . Following Elsner and others, Morus, Flatt, and Schott understand it as palam scriptus est (1Ma_10:36; Lucian, Tim. 51; Plut. Mor. p. 408 D, Demetr. 46, Camill. 11 et al.[112]): “ita Christus vobis est oboculos palam descriptus, quasi in tabula vobis praescriptus,” Morus. This is inconsistent with ἐν ὑμῖν , for these words cannot be joined with ἐσταυρωμένος (see below); and Schott’s interpretation: in animis vestris—so that what was said figuratively by οἷς … προεγρ . is now more exactly defined sermone proprio by ἐν ὑμῖν —makes the ἐν ὑμῖν appear simply as something quite foreign and unsuitable in the connection, by which the figure is marred. In the two other passages where Paul uses προγράφειν (Rom_15:4; Eph_3:3) it means to write beforehand, so that πρό has a temporal and not a local signification (comp. Ptol. viii. 25. 15, and see Hermann on our passage); nor is the meaning different in Jud_1:4 (see Huther). And so it is to be taken here.[113] Paul represents his previous preaching of Christ as crucified to the Galatians figuratively as a writing, which he had previously written ( προεγράφη ) in their hearts ( ἐν ὑμῖν ). Comp. 2Co_3:2 f. In this view κατʼ ὀφθαλμούς is that trait of the figure, by which the personal oral instruction is characterized: Paul formerly wrote Christ before their eyes in their hearts, when he stood before them and preached the word of the cross, which through his preaching impressed itself on their hearts. By his vivid illustration he recalls the fact to his readers, who had just been so misled by a preaching altogether different (Gal_1:6). With no greater boldness than in 2Co_3:2 f., he has moulded the figure according to the circumstances of the case, as he is wont to do in figurative language (comp. Gal_4:19); but this does not warrant a pressing of the figure to prove traits physically imcompatible (an objection urged by Reiche). Jerome and others, also Hermann, Bretschneider, and Rettig, l.c. p. 98 ff., have indeed correctly kept to the meaning olim scribere (Rettig, however, remarking undecidedly, that it may also mean palam scribere), but have quite inappropriately referred it to the prophecies of the O.T.: “quibus ante oculos praedictio fuit Christi in crucem sublati,” Hermann. Apart from the circumstance that the precise mode of death by crucifixion is not mentioned in the prophetical utterances, this would constitute a ground for surprise on the part of the apostle of a nature much too general, not founded on the personal relation of Paul to his readers, and therefore by no means adequate as a motive; and, in fact, Gal_3:2-4 carry back their memory to the time, when Paul was at work among them.
ἐν ὑμῖν ] is not, with Grotius, Usteri, and others, to be set aside as a Hebrew pleonasm ( àÂùÑÆø áÌÈëÆí ), but is to be understood as in animis vestris (comp. 2Co_3:2; Soph. Phil. 1309: γράφου φρενῶν ἔσω ; Aesch. Prom. 791, Suppl. 991, Choeph. 450), and belongs to ΠΡΟΕΓΡΆΦΗ ; in which case, however, the latter cannot mean either palam pictus or palam scriptus est, because then ἘΝ ὙΜῖΝ would involve a contradictio in adjecto, and would not be a fitting epexegesis of οἷς (Winer, comp. Schott), for the depicting and the placarding cannot take place otherwise than on something external. To take ἐν ὑμῖν as among you and connect it with ΠΡΟΕΓΡ ., would yield not a strengthening of οἷς (as de Wette holds), but an empty addition, from which Reiche and Wieseler also obtain nothing more than a purport obvious of itself.[114] On the other hand, Hofmann hits upon the expedient of dividing the words οἷς … ἐσταυρ . into two independent sentences: (1) Before whose eyes is Jesus Christ; (2) as the Crucified One, He has been freely and publicly delineated among you. But, apart from the linguistically incorrect view of προεγράφη , this dismemberment would give to the language of the passage a violently abrupt form, which is the more intolerable, as Paul does not dwell further on the asyndetically introduced προεγρ . ἐν ὑμῖν ἐσταυρ . or subjoin to it any more particular statement, but, on the contrary, in Gal_3:2 brings forward asyndetically a new thought. Instead of introducing it abruptly in a way so liable to misapprehension, he would have subjoined προεγράφη —if it was not intended to belong to οἷς —in some simple form by γάρ or ὅτι or ὅς or ὅσγε . Without any impropriety, he might, on the other hand, figuratively represent that he who preaches Christ to others writes (not placards or depicts) Christ before their eyes in their hearts. Most expositors connect ἐν ὑμῖν with ἐσταυρ ., and explain either as propter vos (Koppe), contrary to the use of ἐν with persons (see on Gal_1:24); or, unsuitably to the figurative idea κατʼ ὀφθαλμοὺς κ . τ . λ ., in animis vestris;[115] or (as usually) inter vos: “so clearly, so evidently … just as if crucified among you,” Rückert. But the latter must have been expressed by ὡς ἐν ὑμῖν ἐσταυρ ., and would also presuppose that the apostle’s preaching of the cross had embodied a vivid and detailed description of the crucifixion. It was not this however, but the fact itself (as the ἱλαστήριον ), which formed the sum and substance of the preaching of the cross; as is certain from the apostle’s letters. Lastly, Luther’s peculiar interpretation, justly rejected by Calovius, but nevertheless again adopted in substance by Matthias,—that ἐν ὑμῖν ἐσταυρ . is a severe censure, “quod Christus (namely, after the rejection of grace) non vivit, sed mortuus in eis est (Heb_6:6),” which Paul had laid before them argumentis praedictis,—is as far-fetched, as alien from the usual Pauline mode of expression, and as unsuitable to the context as the view of Cajetanus, that, according to the idea “Christ suffers in His members” (Col_1:24), ἐν ὑμ . ἐσταυρ . is equivalent to for the sake of whom ye have suffered so much.
ἐσταυρ .] as the Crucified One, is with great emphasis moved on to the end. Comp. 1Co_2:2; 1Co_1:23.
[112] On this meaning is based the interpretation of Ambrose, Augustine, and Lyra, “He was proscribed, that is, condemned,” which is indeed admissible so far as usage goes (Polyb. xxxii. 21, 12, xxxii. 22, 1; Plut. Brut. 27), but quite unsuitable to the context. Comp. Vulgate: proscriptus est, instead of which, however, Lachmann has praescriptus est.
[113] So taken correctly also by Matthias, who, however, explains the expression from the idea of an amulet used against the enchantment. But this idea would presuppose some secret writing, the very opposite of which is conveyed by the expression.
[114] Reiche, “id factum esse a se, gentium apostolo, inter eos praesente” (not, it might be, alio loco or per homines sublestae fidei, not clanculum, but cunctis, publico eorum conventu, etc.). Wieseler: “not merely from a distance by means of an epistle.”
[115] To this category belongs Bengel’s mystical interpretation, “forma crucis ejus in corde vestro per fidem expressa, ut jam vos etiam cum illo crucefigeremini.” Thus the expression would signify the killing of the old man which had taken place through ethical fellowship in the death of Christ, to which ἐν ὑμ . ἐσταυρ . is referred by Storr also. A similar view is taken by Jatho, Br. an d. Gal. p. 24: that ἐν ὑμῖν is proleptic, “so that He, as the atoning One, came into and abode in you;” comp. Ewald, “to paint clearly before the eyes that Christ is now really crucified in them, and, since they have Him in them, He has not been crucified for them in vain;” also Windischmann.