Galatians 1:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What did he wish to say by the words, "I was unknown by face to the churches in Judea"? He wanted you to know that he was so far from preaching circumcision to them that he was not even known to them by face.

And this was so that he would not undertake building on another man's foundation. Therefore, he says, the Christians in Judea did not know me by face. How then could I have preached circumcision to them, when they did not even know me by face? For they slandered him, saying that in Judea he preached circumcision.

It should be noted that the Jews believed in Christ not only in Jerusalem, and that they were not so few as to be absorbed into the churches of the Gentiles. They were so numerous that churches arose from them.

I was not even known to the churches in Christ that were from the circumcision, because after the revelation I did not travel there.

Paul imperceptibly returns to this fundamental point, affirming that he labored in Judea for so short a time that he was unknown by face even to the believers. By this he shows that neither Peter, nor James, nor John were his teachers, but Christ, who revealed the Gospel to him.

"But I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ Jesus. They had only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy, and they glorified God in me."

For when they learned of the sudden change, that the wolf was doing what belongs to shepherds, they made what had happened to me an occasion for glorifying God.

"I was unknown by face to the churches of Christ in Judea, but they only heard... and they glorified God because of me." The aim of these words of the Apostle is always the same. "I did not learn from Peter, but only saw him," as though the Apostle were saying. "I did not learn from James either, and only saw him. Nor did I learn from anyone else lower than they, some less renowned person. Was it possible for me to learn from those who had not even seen my face?" (Photius in Oecumenius).

For quite a long time, about three years, the Apostle Paul was little known, especially because he spent the greater part of this time in Arabia. Since this fact was little known, the Apostle's assurance of the truth of what he says partly concerns this.

But chiefly it concerns his undoubted fidelity to the true teaching of Christ and his independence from the other apostles. They had heard of his wondrous conversion and, together with all the faithful, glorified God for His mercy to Paul and at the same time to the Church of God, which had gained a zealot in its persecutor. "He who was formerly a persecutor, afterward became a radiant teacher," as one praise of Paul says.

The churches of Judea are those which, apart from Jerusalem, had been planted in Judea. "Those who believed in Christ were not in Jerusalem alone. There were many throughout Judea, so that whole churches were formed from them" (blessed Augustine). We must suppose that the holy Apostles, before they dispersed into different lands, called to faith the Jews who lived in Palestine. Having planted churches there and confirmed them, they then turned to other peoples. These churches did not know St. Paul by face, but had only heard of his conversion and of his labors in preaching the Gospel.