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Gal_5:11. But I, on my part. The Judaistic teachers, whom the apostle thus confronts, had (see Chrysostom), as is evident from our passage—with the view of weakening the hindrance, which among Pauline churches they could not but encounter in the authority of the apostle opposing them—alleged (perhaps making use of Timothy’s circumcision, Act_16:3, for this purpose) that Paul himself still (in other churches) preached circumcision; that is, that, when Gentiles went over to Christianity, they should allow themselves to be circumcised. This calumny (comp. also Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschr. 1860, p. 216 ff.) was sufficiently absurd to admit of his dismissing it, as he does here, with all brevity, and with what a striking experimental proof! But if I am still preaching circumcision, wherefore am I still persecuted? For the persecution on the part of the Jews was based on the very fact of the antagonism to the law, which characterized his preaching of the Crucified One. See the sequel.
εἰ περιτομὴν ἔτι κηρύσσω ] Paul might also have said, εἰ π . ἐ . ἐκήρυσσον , τ . ἐ . ἐ̓ διωκόμην ἄν , for he means what objectively is not a real matter of fact. But he transfers himself directly into the thought of his opponents, and just as directly shows its absurdity; he assumes the reality of what his opponents asserted, and then by the apodosis annuls it as preposterous: hence the sense cannot be, as it is defined by Holsten, that his persecution on account of no longer preaching circumcision had not, possibly, the alleged pretext of making the Gentiles complete members of the theocracy, but only the one motive of national vanity and selfishness, to annul the offence of the cross.[230]
The emphasis is laid on περιτομήν ; but ἜΤΙ , still (see Schneider, ad Plat. Rep. p. 449 C), does not convey the idea that Paul, as apostle, had formerly preached circumcision. For although the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit produced in none of the apostles at once and absolutely the laying aside of all religious error previously cherished, but led them forward by gradual and individual development into the whole truth (see Lücke’s apt remarks on John ii. 10, p. 501); yet in the case of Paul especially, just because he was converted in the midst of his zealotry for the law, the assumption that he had still preached the necessity of circumcision for salvation, and had thus done direct homage to the fundamental error opposed to the revelation of God in him (Gal_1:15), and to His gospel which had been revealed to him (Gal_1:11 f.), would be quite unpsychological. And in a historical point of view it would be at variance with the decidedly antinomistic character of his whole apostolic labours as known to us (comp. Act_21:21), as well as with the circumstance that the requirement of circumcision in the case of the Gentile Christians, Acts 15, came upon the apostolical church as something quite new and unheard of, and therefore produced so much excitement, and in fact occasioned the apostolic conference. In a purely exegetical point of view, moreover, such an assumption is not compatible with τι ἔτι διώκομαι , because we should thereby be led to the inference that, so long as Paul preached circumcision, he had not been persecuted; and yet at the very beginning of his Christian labours he was persecuted by the Jews (Act_9:24 f.; 2Co_11:32 f.). Rückert (comp. Baumgarten-Crusius and de Wette) is of opinion that in using ἔτι they only mean to say that Paul, although he preached Christ, required that, notwithstanding this, they should still allow themselves to he circumcised. Comp. Olshausen, who refers ἔτι to the inferiority of the tendency. But in Olshausen’s view, the reference to an earlier κηρύττειν περιτομήν still remains unremoved; and in that of Rückert, the ἜΤΙ is unwarrantably withdrawn from the apostle and passed over to the side of those to whom he preached. Even if (with Hofmann[231]) we understand the ἔτι as in contradistinction to the earlier time, when the preaching of circumcision had been of general occurrence and had been in its due place, the reference of this ἔτι is transferred to a general practice of the earlier time, although, according to the words of the apostle, it clearly and distinctly assumes his own previous κήρυσσειν περιτ . The correct view is the usual one, adopted also by Winer, Usteri, Matthies, Schott, Hilgenfeld, Ewald, Wieseler, that ἔτι points back to the period before the conversion of the apostle. Certainly the objection is made (see Reithmayr and Hofmann), that Paul at that time, as a Jew among Jews, and coming in contact with Jewish Christians only, had no occasion at all to preach circumcision. But looking at our slight acquaintance with the circumstances of the apostle’s pre-Christian life, this conclusion is formed much too rashly. For, as ζηλωτής for God and the law (Act_22:3; comp. Gal_1:14; Php_3:5), Saul, who was an energetic and (comp. Act_22:4-5) esteemed Pharisaic Rabbi, might often have had occasion enough to preach and to defend circumcision, partly in the interest of proselytizing, and partly also in polemic conflict with Christians in and beyond Judaea, who maintained that their faith, and not their circumcision, was the cause of salvation.
τί ἔτι διώκομαι ;] This ἔτι also, which by most (including de Wette and Wieseler) is taken as logical, as in Rom_3:7; Rom_9:19, cannot without arbitrary procedure be understood otherwise than as temporal: “Why am I yet always persecuted?” Why have they not yet ceased to persecute me? They could not but in fact have seen how groundless this διώκειν was!
ἄρα κατήργηται κ . τ . λ .] ἄρα is, as always, igitur, rebus sic se habentibus (if, namely, I still preach circumcision). Paul gives information concerning the foregoing question,—how far, namely, there no longer existed any cause, etc.: thus therefore is the offence of the cross done away, that is, the occasion for the rejection of the gospel, which is afforded by the circumstance that the death of Christ on the cross is preached as the only ground of salvation (1Co_1:23; Php_3:18). If Paul had at the same time preached circumcision also as necessary to salvation, then would the Jew have seen his law upheld, and the cross would have been inoffensive to him; but when, according to his decisive principle, Gal_2:21, he preached the death of the cross as the end of the law (Gal_3:13; Rom_10:3, et al.), and rejected all legal righteousness—then the Jew took offence at the cross, and rejected the faith. Comp. Chrysostom and Theophylact. To take it as an interrogation (Syr., Bengel on Gal_5:12, Usteri, Ewald, and others)—with which the accentuation might have been ἆρα (comp. on Gal_2:17)—appears logically not inappropriate after τί ἔτι διώκομαι , but yields a less striking continuation of the discourse.
[230] Holsten has, in a special excursus (z. Evang. d. Paul. u. Petr. p. 337 ff.), acutely explained his interpretation, and endeavoured to vindicate it. At the close he puts it in this shape: “Paul wishes to denounce to the Galatians the secret, unexpressed ground of his persecution on the part of his opponents: ‘I, dear brethren, am only persecuted because I no longer preach circumcision; for, if I still preach it as the divine will, why am I still persecuted?—Thus indeed is the offence of the cross annulled!’ ” But still Paul must have had some special inducement for positing, in εἰ κ . τ . λ ., a notoriously non-real case as a logical reality; and this inducement could only be found in the corresponding accusation of his opponents. Otherwise it would be difficult to see why he should not have thrown his language into such a form, that the protasis should have begun either with εἰ and the imperfect or with ὅτι (because), and the expression of the apodoses should have undergone corresponding modification. According to Holsten’s view, the words have a dialectic enigmatical obscurity, which, looking at the simplicity of the underlying idea, would be without motive.
[231] According to Hofmann, the apostle’s meaning is, “that they would have no longer any cause for persecuting him, so soon as his preaching of Jesus Christ should be that, which it is not—a continuance of the preaching of circumcision at the present time.” This is also unsuitable, because εἰ would introduce a sumtio ficti, and that indeed in the view of Paul himself. Certainly εἰ with the present indicative might be so put; but in the apodosis the optative with ἄν must have been used, as is the case in the passages compared by Hofmann himself (Xen. Anab. vii. 6. 15, v. 6. 12. See also Memor ii. 2. 3; Bornemann, ad Sympos. 4. 10, 5. 7; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 487).