Galatians 1:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

These were needed as means of livelihood and for the development of labor and knowledge. Among the Jews there was a saying: “He who does not teach his son some craft or art teaches him to steal.” What an intelligent and true saying! It is drawn from the experience of life. Happy is the people and the state in which all, and each one, care not only about literacy and intellectual education. They also strive for the simultaneous development of crafts, arts, and industry. In such a state there are fewer idlers and fewer loiterers. There are fewer people who do not know and cannot find where to apply their hands and all their bodily strength, because they have not been taught a craft or art. A man who worked in clerical writing loses his position. He has no means of livelihood, knows no craft, and has not practiced agriculture. Then the poor man must live and get by under the name of Christ. Such people are pitiable. Saul was taught to make tents, felt, and coverings from the wool of goats. This craft proved useful to him in Christianity also. By it he fed himself and his companions, sometimes working whole days at a time. Saul received excellent abilities from God. Therefore, in the school of the famous teacher, the Pharisee Gamaliel, he surpassed all his companions in learning. Having by nature a good heart, Saul tried to lead a blameless life (2 Tim 1:3). He did this despite his young years, when people usually prefer to learn, and even to be distracted, rather than to fulfill what they have learned. By nature ardent and resolute, he was a Pharisee of a strict direction and a strong zealot for the law of the fathers (Gal 1:13-14). He acted according to conscience, with full conviction that by this he was pleasing God. With this feeling he rose up against the new Christian teachers, who condemned the Pharisees, their hypocrisy, their sanctimony, and their ruinous influence on the people. He made it his life's task to destroy the new sect, that is, the Christians, who were hostile to Pharisaism. He helped others kill Christians in Jerusalem. Then he undertook on his own to seize Christians in various places and deliver them to Jerusalem for a death sentence. In Jerusalem he burst into houses, dragged out men and women, handed them over for trial, and shut them in prison (Acts 8:3-4; 22:4). More than this, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, Saul received authority from the Jewish rulers to seize Christians north of Palestine, in Damascus, and bring them to Jerusalem. He had already set out for Damascus. But man proposes, and God disposes. On the road, not far from Damascus, Saul, or Paul, was instructed by a wondrous light and a voice from heaven. In Damascus he became a Christian. Then all his excellent abilities, his broad and solid education, and his natural zeal and fervor received a wholly beneficial ministry and purpose, for the good of the Gospel and the Church of Christ.

What, then, should we do, who became Christians directly from the Gentiles? And his words are excellent: "I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure." From this too arises admiration for him. Not every one of those who had even been minor persecutors of the Church of God was converted to the faith. Rather, the one who surpassed the others in persecution was converted. And he wisely conveys in his narrative that he served not so much the Law of God as paternal traditions, that is, Pharisaic traditions. These teach doctrines and commandments of men, Mt 15:9 and Mk 7:7-9. How excellent is the choice and meaning of the expressions. "You have heard," he says, "of my former life in Judaism." He says "life," not "grace." He says "former," not "now." He says "in Judaism," not "in the Law of God." "How I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure and laid it waste." He was a persecutor not like the others. But "beyond measure." And as though not satisfied with fierce persecution, he laid waste the Church as though he were a raider or robber. Likewise, he does not say "the Church of Christ," as he himself then considered it, or as it was considered to be. That would mean as proceeding from the One whom he despised and persecuted. Rather, he says, "the Church of God," according to his present faith. By this he either indicates God in Christ, or says that it is the Church of the same God who once gave the Law. "And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, being more exceedingly zealous than was fitting for the traditions of my fathers." Again he calls himself advanced not in the Law of God, but in Judaism. He surpassed not all, but very many. He surpassed not those older than himself, but those of his own age. Thus he points to his zealous labors while also avoiding the possibility of being accused of boasting. By speaking of paternal traditions, and not of the commandments of God, he shows himself to be a Pharisee of Pharisees. He also shows himself as having zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, non secundum scientiam. Even to the present day, people who understand Holy Scripture in a Jewish manner persecute the Church of Christ and lay it waste. They have been corrupted not by the Law of God, but by human traditions.

You heard how I lived when I was bound to the traditions of the Jewish law. You heard that I persecuted the Church of God exceedingly, that is, those who believed in Christ. You heard that I laid it waste, that is, I destroyed and exterminated them. And since I was zealous for the traditions of my fathers, my progress in the Jewish law surpassed that of many of my fellow-countrymen and peers in age. How zealous Paul was for Judaism was clearly revealed by Luke, who spoke by God, saying, "Saul was ravaging the Church, entering house after house. Dragging off men and women, he committed them to prison. But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus. If he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem" (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2). But how did Paul prove by these words that he learned the Gospel through revelation? He prepared and set forth the material for proof, leaving each person to draw the conclusion from it. The man who exceedingly persecutes and destroys Christians becomes an Apostle and champion of the Church of Jesus Christ. The man who, more than all the Jews of that time, is zealous for Jewish traditions and defends the Jewish laws becomes a teacher of the Gospel. He preaches everywhere that the Jewish rites have been abolished. What is this? Whence comes such a wondrous change in a single instant? Whence does the man who, like a savage beast, was "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9:1), and was going to Damascus to destroy all Christians, change his intention on the road? Why, after arriving in Damascus, does he fall like a meek lamb at the feet of Ananias and receive baptism from him? Whence does one who does not know the mysteries of the faith immediately after baptism become a teacher? Why does he preach those mysteries first there in Damascus, and then in Arabia? Whence comes such an incomprehensible change? Whence comes such great knowledge of the mysteries of the faith? "This is the change wrought by the right hand of the Most High" (Ps 77:10). Therefore God Himself, who turned his thoughts from error to truth, revealed the Gospel to him. This means all the dogmas and laws of the Christian faith. Paul's following words confirm this: "But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood" (Gal 1:15-16).

They presented Him not so much as Savior from sin and curse, but as deliverer from the slavery of conquerors, and even as subjugator of other nations to the Jews. "One apostolic word alone would have been enough to assure us that he received the Gospel from above. But he is not satisfied with this. He presents the most tangible proof of it in his change. One must marvel at this, as the believers from Judea did, and glorify God (Gal 1:23-24). At the same time, one must recognize that St. Paul's work and preaching come from God. Therefore one must listen to him and submit to his directives" (Theophan). By saying "you have heard," the Apostle shows that the report about him reached the Galatians, and that he himself did not tell them. "The report about him would not have spread in this way," says St. John Chrysostom, "if the cruelty of his persecution had not been exceedingly great and intolerable to all." Concerning the "paternal traditions," blessed Jerome says: "St. Paul acted wisely when he introduced into his narrative the indication that he served not so much the Law of God as paternal traditions. According to these, they taught doctrines and commandments of men, Mt 15 and Mk 7, and rejected the Law of God in order to uphold their traditions. In this sense he also said above that he advanced not in the law, but in Judaism." St. John Chrysostom gives special attention to the fact that Paul did everything "out of zeal" and love for the Lord. Out of zeal he persecuted the Church of God, and out of zeal he now serves it. This proves that he has none of the other motives which the false teachers ascribe to him.

"Formerly" implies some considerable time before. More than twenty years had already passed from St. Paul's conversion to the time when he wrote this epistle. "How I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure and laid it waste." "Beyond measure," kath' hyperbolen, means excessively, more than was fitting. In this word one hears his awareness of his former wrong and his unreasonable youthful impulse. Then he did not see this excess. Now, looking back, he sees that he acted from blind zeal. He thought that he was defending the work of God, but it turned out that he was going against God. "I persecuted beyond measure" means that he was not one of the mild persecutors, but one whose cruelties had no measure, cf. blessed Jerome. "The Church of God." "He did not say, the Church of Christ, as he formerly thought when he despised Christ, considering Him a man. Rather, as he now believes, he says, the Church of God. By this he shows either that Christ is God, or that the Church belongs to the same God who once gave the law" (blessed Jerome). "And laid it waste." As a building is destroyed by casting down stone after stone, so he strove to destroy the Church. He oppressed those who confessed faith in Christ and brought them one after another to slaughter. The Church of God is laid waste inwardly when its dogmas and statutes are damaged, as false teachers and founders of heresies do. It is laid waste outwardly when believers are destroyed. St. Paul laid it waste in this latter way. The Church would have ceased to exist if no one had remained to confess the name of Christ. "St. Paul persecuted the Church not like others, but excessively. Not satisfied even with excessive persecution, he attacked and ravaged it like some robber" (blessed Jerome). "Do you see with what force he expresses every word, and is not ashamed? For he did not simply persecute, but persecuted with every cruelty. And he not only persecuted, but laid waste, that is, he tried to destroy, ruin, overthrow, and annihilate the Church of God. For this is what a destroyer does" (St. Chrysostom).