Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Galatians 5:7 - 5:9
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gal_5:7-9. How naturally—and, in conformity with the apostle’s lively emotion, asyndetically—the utterance of this axiom of the Christian character and life, which the readers had formerly obeyed, is followed by disapproving surprise at the fact that they had not remained faithful to it (Gal_5:7), and then by renewed warning against the false teachers, based on the ungodly nature (Gal_5:8) and the destructive influence (Gal_5:9) of their operations!
ἐτρέχετε καλῶς ] that is, your Christian behaviour—your Christian life and effort—was in course of excellent development. A figurative mode of presenting the activity of spiritual life very frequently used by the apostle. Comp. Gal_2:2; Php_3:11.
τίς ὑμᾶς ἐνέκοψε ] A question of surprise (comp. Gal_3:1): who hindered you? Comp. 1Th_2:18; Rom_15:22; 1Pe_3:7. In Polyb. xxi. 1. 12 it is used with the dative. So also Hippocr. pp. 28, 35; for it means properly: to make an incision.
τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι ] from obeying the truth, that is, the true gospel, according to which faith alone is that which justifies, μή is employed, as usual, after verbs of hindering. See Hermann, ad Viger. p. 810 f.; Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec. 867; Winer, p. 561 [E. T. 755]. The infinitive with μή denotes that which, so far as the will of the hinderer is concerned, shall not take place.
ἡ πεισμονὴ κ . τ . λ .] After the surprise comes the warning. ἡ πεισμονή occurs again only in Apoll. Synt. p. 195. 10, in Eustath. (Il. ι , p. 637. 5, a, pp. 21, 26, et al.; see Wetstein), and in the Fathers (Ignat. ad Romans 3 interpol.; Just. Mart. Ap. I. 53, p. 87; Epiph. Haer. xxx. 21; Chrysostom, ad 1 Thess. i. 4). Whether, however, the word is to be understood actively, as persuasion, or passively, as compliance, is a point which must be decided in the several passages by the context. In this passage it is understood as persuasion by MSS. of the Itala (suasio), Vulgate (persuasio), Erasmus, Castalio, Calvin, Beza, Cornelius a Lapide, Wolf, Michaelis, Zachariae, Koppe, Borger, Flatt, Paulus, Usteri, Schott, Hilgenfeld, Wieseler, Matthias, Holsten, and others; on the other hand, Chrysostom ( οὐκ ἐπὶ τούτοις ἐκάλεσεν ὑμᾶς ὁ καλῶν , ὥστε οὕτω σαλεύεσθαι ), Oecumenius ( τὸ πεισθῆναι τοῖς λέγουσιν ὑμῖν περιτέμνεσθαι ), Theophylact ( τὸ πείθεσθαι τοῖς ἀπατῶσιν ), Luther (1519 and 1524; but in 1538, and in his translation: such persuasion), and others, including Morus, Winer, Rückert, Matthies, Olshausen, Reiche, Hofmann, Reithmayr, explain it as compliance,[227] which, however, does not fit the word used absolutely. The latter rather yields the thought: The persuasion is not of your caller, is not a thing proceeding from God (see, on the contrary, 2Co_11:15). Paul would have this applied to the mode of operation of the pseudo-apostles, who worked upon the Galatians by persuasion (talking over), so that they did not remain obedient to the truth, but turned ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος αὐτοὺς ἐν χάριτι Χριστοῦ to an ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον (Gal_1:6). If it were to be taken as compliance, some more precise definition must have been appended;[228] because compliance is ungodly not in itself, but only according to the nature of the demand, the motive, and the moral circumstances generally. Some have made it to mean credulitas (Estius, Winer, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others), but the sense of the word is thus altered. The talking over, however, did not need anything added, since it is of itself, in matters of faith at any rate, objectionable; hence it was very superfluous in Luther, Grotius, and many others, to take the article as demonstrative. Moreover, the active sense is excellently adapted to the designation of God by ὁ καλῶν ὑμᾶς , inasmuch as the talking over is a mode of operating on men characteristically different from the divine calling: the former not befitting the divine dignity like the latter; the former bound up with human premeditation, art, and importunity, taking place ἐν πειθοῖς σαφίας λόγοις (1Co_2:4), counteracting free self-determination, and so forth. Comp. Soph. Fragm. 744, Dind.: δεῖνον τὸ τᾶς Πειθοῦς πρόσωπον . Aesch. Agam. 385: βιᾶται δʼ ἁ τάλαινα πειθώ . Bengel, Morus, and de Wette understand it as obstinacy (the “clinging to prejudices,” de Wette), making it correspond with the foregoing τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μή πείθεσθαι . So also Ewald, although translating it as self-confidence, and comparing πίσυνος . But the passages cited above from Eustathius do not make good this signification; and, in particular, Od. x. p. 785. 22, is quite improperly adduced in its favour (see Reiche, p. 79 f.). Reiche, preferring the signification compliance, takes the sentence as asking indignantly: “Annon assensus, obsequium veritati praestandum e Deo est, qui vos vocavit?” But why should Paul have expressed this by the singular word πεισμονή not used by him elsewhere, and not by the current and unambiguous πίστις or ὑπακοὴ τῆς πίστεως ? By employing the latter, he would, in fact, have also suited the foregoing πείθεσθαι .
The καλῶν ὑμᾶς is neither Christ (Theophylact, Erasmus, Michaelis, and others) nor the apostle (Locke, Paulus), but God. See on Gal_1:6. The present participle is not to be understood of a continuing call “ad resipiscentiam” (Beza),—a view at variance with the constant use of the absolute καλεῖν (Gal_1:6, Gal_5:13; Rom_8:30, et al.); nor does it represent the calling as lasting up to the time of their yielding compliance against the truth (Hofmann), which would be an idea foreign to the N.T. (Gal_1:6; Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 386 f.); but it is to be taken substantivally, your caller, the definition of the time being left out of view. Comp. 1Th_5:24; Winer, p. 331 [E. T. 444]. God, the caller to everlasting salvation, has assigned to every one, by calling him at his conversion (Php_3:14), the “normam totius cursus” (Bengel).
μικρὰ ζύμη κ . τ . λ .] The meaning of this proverbial warning (see on 1Co_5:6) is: “If the false apostles have, by means of their persuasion, succeeded in making even but a small beginning in the work of imparting to you erroneous doctrines or false principles, this will develope itself to the corruption of your whole Christian faith and life.” So, taking the figure with reference to doctrine, in substance also Chrysostom, Theophylact (who, however, explain μικρὰ ζύμη too specially of circumcision), Luther, Calvin, Cornelius a Lapide, and many others, including Flatt and Matthies. It is true that the dogma of his opponents was in itself fundamentally subversive (as Wieseler objects); but its influence had not yet so far developed itself, that the ζύμη might not have been still designated relatively as μικρά . Others interpret it as referring to persons: “vel pauci homines perperam docentes possunt omnem coetum corrumpere,” Winer (comp. Theodoret, Jerome, Augustine, Erasmus, Grotius, Estius, Locke, Bengel, Borger, Paulus, Usteri, Schott, de Wette, Hilgenfeld, Wieseler, Hofmann, Windischmann, Reithmayr, and others); but against this it may be urged that the number of the false teachers, as it is in itself a matter of indifference, and does not acquire greater significance through their having intruded themselves from without, remains also unnoticed throughout the epistle, and the point in question was solely the influence of their teaching (comp. πεισμονή ), which was the leaven threatening to spread destructively. Comp. Gal_1:7 ff., Gal_3:1.
[227] This view serves to explain the omission of the οὐκ in D*, min., Cod. lat. in Jer. and Sedul. Clar. Germ. Or. (once), Lucifer. Theodoret also appears not to have read it, as he gives the explanation: ἴδιον Θεοῦ τὸ καλεῖν , τὸ δὲ πείθεσθαι τῶν ἀκουόντων .
[228] At least ὑμῶν , which is actually read by Syr. Erp. codd. in Jer. Lucif. Aug. Ambrosiast. Sedul. Arm. has αὕτη γὰρ πεισμονή . Vömel and Hofmann seek to remove the indefiniteness by reading instead of the article the relative ἥ : which obedience. But, according to this view, ἣ πεισμ . must have been correlative to the foregoing πείθεσθαι (comp. Wis_16:2), and this consequently must have been defined not negatively, but positively, somewhat as if Paul, instead of τῇ ἀληθ . μὴ πείθεσθαι , had written ἑτέρῳ εὐαγγελίῳ πείθεσθαι . But having written τ . ἀληθ . μὴ πείθεσθαι , he must, in correlation with μὴ πείθισθαι , have continued relatively with ἣ ἀπείθεια .