Galatians 1:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What could be more modest than such a soul? Indeed, everything that served as an accusation against him, such as his persecution and ravaging of the Church, he set forth with special force and detail, revealing his former life.

But what could have shown him in a bright light he passes over in silence. If he had wished, he could have recounted all his labors. Yet he speaks of none of them.

With one word he passed over an immeasurable sea and said: 'I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.' And again: 'They heard that he who once persecuted them now preaches the faith which he formerly destroyed.' He added nothing more.

But they had only heard that he who once persecuted us has now come and preaches the faith which he once despised and ravaged.

Paul quietly returns to this main point, affirming that he labored in Judea for so short a time that the believers did not even know him by sight. By this he shows that neither Peter, nor James, nor John were his teachers, but Christ, who revealed the Gospel to him.

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

The churches in Judea knew Paul only by report. Many of them saw in him a persecutor rather than an Apostle. But Syria, parts of Cilicia, Arabia, and Damascus happened to know him also in person, because the teacher of the Gentiles preached the Gospel of Christ not to Jews, but to Gentiles.

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, that is, about three years, the Apostle Paul remained little known, especially because he spent most of that time in Arabia.

Since this fact was little known, the assurance of the truth of what the Apostle says partly applies here. Yet it chiefly 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. They glorified Him also for His mercy to the Church of God, which had gained in its persecutor a zealous champion.

'He who was formerly a persecutor, afterwards a radiant teacher,' says one encomium to Paul.

Yesterday a persecutor of Christ, and today an Apostle of Christ. "He who once persecuted us," the faithful say, "now preaches the faith which he once ravaged" (Gal 1:23). Behold the greatness of Paul!

The report reached them also from Christians, who said: our persecutor now preaches our faith. Later they themselves repeated this. This filled them with joy and stirred them to glorify God.

What should the Galatians have concluded from these words? First of all, they should have thought: how could our new teachers say of Saint Paul that he permits circumcision among the Jews, when he had not even seen the Christians there?

Thus Saint Chrysostom says: 'What did he mean by the words, I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea? He meant that he was so far from preaching circumcision to them that they did not even know him by sight.'