Galatians 1:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Indeed, as soon as I turned to the dogmas of the Church and renounced all Jewish errors, I showed even greater zeal here than there. This serves as proof that I truly changed and am seized by divine zeal. If not this, then tell me, what else could have disposed me to such a change? What else could have made me exchange honor for reproach, rest for dangers, safety for suffering? There was no other cause except love of the truth alone.

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.

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.

By saying that he was so devoted to the law, Saint Paul left this thought with them: such a lover of the law abandoned it, and this cannot be without cause.

‘I advanced in Judaism.’ This is not the same as the earlier phrase, ‘my way of life in Judaism.’ There only outward belonging to Judaism is signified. Here his inner relation to it is indicated.

Judaism means the faith, morals, and customs of every kind by which the Jews were distinguished.

Advancement in it, of course, consisted in studying all this, following it, being devoted to it, and forming himself according to Jewish principles. Thus it was obvious to all that he was a true Jew in soul and body.

Seeing him as such, others undoubtedly treated him with honor and nourished great hopes for him.

In this respect, ‘I advanced’ means: I rose upward, and had already become one of the active men in whom the authorities themselves placed much trust.

‘Beyond many of my contemporaries.’ I was not among the ordinary members of our younger generation. I surpassed many, or all of them.

It is as though he says: I had many contemporaries, but I surpassed them all both in knowledge of Judaism and in zeal for it.

Perhaps Saint Paul wished to express something more than this. In every age the younger generation presents zealots for what belongs to the homeland, for what is regarded as its distinction and adorns it.

Saint Paul places himself among them and assures us that he was more zealous for Judaism than all such zealots.

He does not compare himself with the indifferent and sluggish, but with the living and active. He says that he surpassed all such men.

This was precisely what he needed to set before the Galatians. Then his estrangement from Judaism would appear all the more striking, and his change would point more decisively to the participation of a supernatural power.

‘In my nation’ does not mean the Pharisaic sect, but the Jewish nation, among the Jews in general.

‘Being exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.’ ‘Exceedingly’ is not the same as the earlier ‘beyond measure.’ There excess is signified. Here only superiority over others is meant.

In Greek, there it is kath' hyperbolen, while here it is perissoteros. He not only advanced in Judaism more than all, but also surpassed all in zeal for it.

He advanced only beyond his contemporaries. But concerning zeal he hints that he was more zealous than all, not only than his contemporaries, but also than those older than he.

From the Acts of the Apostles it is indeed evident that he was the mover and inflamer of the persecution.

By ‘ancestral traditions’ Saint Paul embraces the whole totality of views, rules of life, morals, and customs that then constituted Judaism. He means all Judaism as it had been formed up to his time and handed down from elders to the younger.

At the same time, he gives us to understand that in this formation the guide and determiner was not so much Scripture as the tradition of the elders.

Consequently, distorted Judaism is meant. In it the chief concept of Judaism was distorted, namely, that Judaism was supposedly an eternal and unchangeable religion, obligatory for all.

Much had also been introduced into life that was extremely constricting yet useless. Nevertheless, it was considered a condition of pleasing God and of salvation.

Blessed Jerome writes: ‘Saint Paul acted wisely by inserting into his narrative the indication that he served not so much the law of God as the traditions of the fathers.

According to these traditions they taught doctrines and commandments of men (see Mt 15; Mk 7), and rejected the law of God in order to uphold their traditions.

In this same sense he said above that he advanced not in the law, but in Judaism.’

The same thought is found in blessed Augustine: ‘If Paul, being zealous for his ancestral traditions, persecuted the Church of God, then it is evident that his ancestral traditions are contrary to the Church of God.

But the law cannot be such. It is not responsible for the persecution raised among the Jews against the Church.

The guilty ones are the fleshly Jews. Even what they received as spiritual they understood fleshly, and in addition they added much of their own.

Thus, as the Lord says, they destroyed the commandment of God for the sake of their traditions (see Mt 15:3).’

The holy Fathers perceived what impression this simple narrative must have produced in the souls of the Galatians. In this respect they draw various inferences, corresponding to the aim Saint Paul had in recalling his former life and his conversion.

He persecuted the faith, and now he spreads it. He was wholeheartedly devoted to Judaism, with great hopes for himself, and now he has turned away from it, undergoing deprivations of every kind.

Such a turn in life is unthinkable without instruction from above.

Jerome writes: ‘It is marvelous that not some slight persecutor, but one who surpassed the others in persecution, turned to the faith.’

Oecumenius continues: ‘Since the Galatians did not know of the revelation from Christ that came to him, the Apostle wishes, by pointing out that he was formerly a persecutor and then suddenly changed, to instill in them this thought.

If there had not been some divine revelation to him, he would not have changed so quickly. Thus, being convinced that he is Christ’s disciple, they should no longer despise him.’

Saint John of Damascus draws the same thought from Saint Paul’s sudden change and adds: ‘Another thing is also suggested here covertly, namely that one should no longer hold to the works of the law.

For if one who showed such zeal for the law abandoned it and passed over to the way of salvation by faith, it is clear that he abandoned it from the conviction that it could not lead to perfection.

If such a zealot for the law abandons it, much more should those who have directly fled to the faith not follow this weak law.’

Ambrosiaster carries through the same thought: ‘I, he says, was more zealous for the law than all. But when, after revelation, I learned that it had already lost its force, I wholly gave myself to faith and grace.

From this it followed: if this Israelite, a disciple of the famous Gamaliel, connected with all the best men among the Jews, abandoned the law, much more should those who were outside the law not subject themselves to it.

If he rejoices that he has come out from under the yoke of bondage, why should they bind their freedom with the bonds of the law?’

Oecumenius again understands Paul’s advancement in Judaism in a worldly sense. That is, he became more and more honorable in the eyes of the Jews.

He speaks in Saint Paul’s person: ‘What then is the reason that I suddenly raised war against those who honored and loved me? Nothing else but the appearing of Christ.’

Saint Chrysostom directs everything chiefly toward showing in Saint Paul a zeal for God and love for truth, detached from every earthly calculation.

These are his thoughts on verse 14: ‘Lest you think that he acted thus, that is, persecuted the Church, in anger and malice, he adds that he did all this from zeal, though in ignorance.

He persecuted not from vainglory and not from enmity, but because he was zealous for his ancestral traditions.

These words mean the following. If what I did against the Church I did not do for man, but from divine zeal, though mistaken, yet still from zeal, then how can I now contend for the Church and know the truth from vainglory?

If, during my error, such a passion did not possess me, but zeal for God moved me to my former course of action, then much more, after I have come to know the truth, is it unjust to suspect vainglory in me.

As soon as I turned to the dogmas of Christ’s Church and renounced all Jewish errors, I showed even greater zeal here than there.

This proves that I truly changed and am seized by divine zeal. If not this, tell me, what else disposed me to such a change?

What made me exchange honor for reproach, rest for dangers, and safety for sufferings? Nothing else but love for the truth.’