Galatians 1:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Since the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous (Ps 33:16), while He turns His face away from the face of the ungodly, what is now written is before the face of God because I write without using falsehood. If I lied, this would not be before the face of God.

What he now writes to the Galatians can be understood not only concerning what he writes to them, but also concerning all his epistles in general. What he writes is not false, and his words and heart are not in disagreement with each other.

"Paul began his preaching five years after the death of the Savior on the Cross." But after how many years following His death and His rising could Christ no longer appear to men?

On the contrary, He can appear always, since He said, "I will love the one who is loved by My Father, and I will manifest Myself to him" (Jn 14:21). And above, "You will see Me, because I live, and you will live" (v. 19).

"Saul, the cruel persecutor of the first disciples of Jesus." This is precisely what is wondrous, and precisely what requires the miraculous appearance of Christ, which alone could transform Saul from a cruel persecutor into an apostle.

"He renamed himself Paul and began his preaching with the assertion that he had been personally authorized for this by Jesus in a revelation and vision on the road to Damascus."

As though Paul preached more, and above all, about himself, and not about Jesus, "that He is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). That he was Christ's "chosen vessel" people first learned not from him, but from Christ Himself, in the manifestation that came to Ananias (v. 15).

"He did not know the spiritual essence of the teaching from the immediate disciples of Christ." But he knew it through the revelations given to him.

"The beginning of Paul's preaching corresponds to the year 38 after the Nativity of Christ, and only in the year 41 did he come to see the Apostle Peter."

We know this from the Apostle Paul himself (Gal 1:18). But it confirms only that he did not receive the Gospel from man and was not taught it by man, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

"Fourteen years after this first visit, Paul once more arrived in Jerusalem, but now in order to impose his teaching on the apostles."

This was the teaching that the ceremonial Law of Moses was not obligatory for Christians from the nations. Does Tolstoy then think that it would have been more consistent with the spiritual essence of Christianity to preach the opposite?

Thus Tolstoy boldly denies the divinely revealed dignity of the preaching of the Apostle Paul. But the Apostle, who gave his very life for the Word of God, assures us of it with an oath, saying, "What I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie" (Gal 1:20). Whom, then, should we believe?

The Apostle Paul passed through the regions of Syria and Cilicia this time as though in transit, going to Caesarea and Tarsus, where the faithful from Jerusalem sent him when many there rose up against him.

But he mentions Syria and Cilicia because they were dear places to him after his conversion, and because of the success of the preaching. He came there to strengthen that preaching during his second apostolic journey (Acts 15:41).

This mention also has the significance that the Apostle did not go through Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, where churches had been founded by other apostles. He did not try to enter into their labors, but went by an independent path, chiefly to places where the Gospel preaching had been little heard or not heard at all.

Bishop Theophan, noting that the faithful glorified God because of Paul's conversion, says: "By this St. Paul gives us to understand that the believers from the Jews are not against him, but are of one spirit and one foundation with him. Consequently, those false teachers who disagree with him disagree with all the faithful."

Therefore there was no need then to speak about such events, from which it is evident that he was sent from above. But now, when the false teachers had suggested doubts about this to the Galatians, he explains to them by his own history that there is no ground for doubting his apostleship.

What has already been said was sufficient to confirm this truth. Yet in order to erase every trace of doubt and guard them from wavering in the future, he confirms his word with an oath: "Behold, before God, I do not lie."

This is the same as in other places: "God is my witness" (cf. Rom 1:9); "I call God as witness upon my soul" (cf. 2 Cor 1:23); "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows that I do not lie" (cf. 2 Cor 11:31).

It is evident that St. Paul often had to struggle with distrust toward him, even among those who had already believed. St. John Chrysostom marvels on this occasion at St. Paul's humility: "Do you see the humility of this soul, shining everywhere alike? For he was as though standing before a tribunal and preparing to undergo examination, so carefully did he defend himself."

Blessed Jerome first sets forth the meaning of the text: "What I write to you is true. God is witness that I conceal no lie under my words." Then he draws a general conclusion: "This may be referred not only to what he now writes to the Galatians, but also to all his epistles in general. Everything written by him is not false. His heart and his words are not at variance."