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Gal_6:13. They have no other design than merely that stated in Gal_6:12 ( ἵνα τῷ σταυρῷ κ . τ . λ .). For so far from its being their aim, by the enforcement of circumcision, to re-establish the observance of the law among you, not even the circumcised (who are in question) themselves, for their own part, keep the law, but διʼ ἀνθρωπίνην φιλοτιμίαν ταῦτα πάντα γίνεται ὑπὲρ ἀρεσκείας τῶν ἀπίστων , Chrysostom.
οἱ περιτετμημένοι ] is said contemptuously, and with indignation, of the fraternity of the false apostles, of whom it might at least have been expected that they themselves would combine obedience to the law with their being circumcised.1[267] Comp. Stallbaum, ad Euthyphr. p. 12; Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 613. But the ground for their non-observance of the Mosaic law is conceived by Paul to be, neither their distance from Jerusalem (Theodoret and others; also Schott), nor the general impossibility of a complete fulfilment of the law (Jerome, Estius; comp. Usteri),—both of which would be exculpatory, and wholly unsuited to the idea of the worthlessness of the persons concerned,—but the hypocritical badness of these people (comp. Gal_6:12). It is true that, amongst the Jews generally, notwithstanding their self-conceit, there was a deficiency in their obedience to the law (Rom_2:17-23); but an observance of the law might have been expected at all events from these περιτετμημένοι , who were such champions for circumcision and insisted on it so much (Gal_6:12). Yet not even they themselves, etc.
ἵνα ἐν τῇ ὑμετ . σαρκί καυχ .] The σάρξ is not to be here taken again in an ethical sense, as in Gal_6:12 (Wieseler, comp. Ewald); but, according to the close and definite connection with περιτέμνεσθαι , it must be taken as referring to the corporeal nature, so far as it is in it that circumcision takes place (Eph_2:11; Col_2:13). The emphasis is, however, on ὑμετέρᾳ ;[268] hence Olshausen is the more wrong in finding a contrast—which is quite out of place here—to the souls, which those false teachers ought to have sought after. The antithetic element of τῇ ὑμετ . lies in the conceit of the περιτετμημένοι as to their own circumcision, as the correlate of which the circumcision of the Galatian Gentile Christians, to be effected by them, was to be the subject of their boasting. But this sentence of purpose is parallel to the ἵνα τῷ σταυρῷ κ . τ . λ . contained in Gal_6:12, seeing that the pseudo-apostles in fact by this intended boasting—of their diffusion of theocratic Judaism by the circumcision of Gentile Christians which they procured—thought to avert the persecutions of the Jews; Theophylact: ἵνα ἐν τῷ κατακόπτειν τὴν ὑμετέραν σάρκα καυχήσωνται ὡς διδάσκαλοι ὑμῶν καὶ μαθητὰς ὑμᾶς ἔχοντες . It is a καυχάσθαι , in the face not of heathenism (Holsten), but of the non-Christian Judaism, from whose side the persecution on account of the cross of Christ (Gal_6:12) was threatened.
[267] 1 As at any rate the false teachers are meant, and these were Jewish Christians, the reading περιτεμνόμενοι is plainly absurd. They were, in fact, not subjected to circumcision (Reithmayr), but circumcised, and could not therefore be designated, “according to their quality as Jews” (Moeller on de Wette), as περιτεμνόμενοι (present). See especially Reiche, p. 93. The idea that these people were formerly Gentiles, part of whom were still on the point of accepting circumcision, and that their adherents are included (de Wette), is quite as unhistorical (see Act_15:1; Act_15:5; 2Co_11:22; Act_11:20-22) as the makeshift of Hilgenfeld is groundless: that among those false teachers (“the circumcision-people”) the act of circumcision had still continued, not merely outwardly in the reception of the newly-born and proselytes (in that case Paul must have said οἱ περιτέμνοντες ), but also inwardly, by virtue of the significance ascribed to it. In his Zeitschr. 1860, p. 220, Hilgenfeld appeals to οἱ περιτεμνόμενοι in the Act. Petr. et Pauli, 63; but wrongly, because there (see the sequel) the subject is moral circumcision. The view of Neander is also mistaken, p. 366. According to Wieseler and Matthias, who likewise read περιτεμνόμενοι , the περιτεμνόμενοι were those among the Galatian Gentile Christians, who, led away by the pseudo-apostles, allowed themselves to be circumcised. In that case we must with these expositors make the seducers themselves, the pseudo-apostles, the subject of θέλουσιν . But this view is intolerable; how could Paul enable the reader to guess this change of subject? The subject of φυλάσσ . must also be the subject of θέλουσιν , or else Paul must have written as awkwardly as possible. Consequently the subject of both the verbs can only be the false apostles, who, however, were περιτετμημένοι , and not περιτεμνόμενοι .—Hofmann and Holsten are of opinion that the present participle is intended to denote the Jews generally, inasmuch as circumcision was in use among them. Against this view it may be decisively urged, that the subjects of the following θέλουσιν can be no other than οἱ περιτεμνόμενοι , and thus likewise the Israelites generally (as Hofmann consistently explains it); nevertheless these θέλοντες (ver. 13) must necessarily be the very same as those to whom the θέλουσιν in ver. 12 applies, and therefore not the Jews generally, but the Judaistic adversaries. Moreover, to these only is the οὐδέ , not even, suitable, which presupposes in those concerned a higher degree of obligation than in the case of others who were bound to obey the law. The forced expedient of Holsten is highly arbitrary: that Paul included the false teachers (consequently, according to our reading and interpretation, the περιτετμημένοι ) in the category of those circumcising themselves (and therefore the περιτεμνόμενοι ).
[268] Not on σαρκί (Matthias, Holsten), as if Paul had written τῇ σαρκὶ ὑμῶν . Comp. 2Co_8:8, Rom_11:31, 1Co_15:31, where the pronoun, rarely used by Paul, is likewise emphatic.