Galatians 3:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For there it is not simply said, “Whoever calls his brother a fool,” but “whoever calls him so without cause.” Some of the Galatians justly deserved this name.

After so many and such great benefits, they did not cease clinging to former customs, as though nothing extraordinary had happened to them.

If for this you call Paul abusive, then you must call Peter a murderer because of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). But if the first is madness, the latter is still more mad.

Notice also that he did not use such severity at the very beginning. He used it after reproofs and proofs, when they received this censure as though not from him, but as the necessary consequence of the very reproofs.

Indeed, only after he had proved that they were rejecting the faith and making the death of Christ superfluous did he add this censure. Even then, it was milder than they deserved, for they were worthy of still harsher words.

Yet see how, as soon as he rebukes them, he softens his speech. He did not say, “Who deceived you? Who abused your simplicity? Who led you astray?” Rather, he says, “Who has bewitched you?”

Thus he does not make the censure entirely devoid of some measure of praise. By this he shows that their former conduct was worthy of envy, and that what happened to them was the work of the devil’s malice.

The devil was greatly vexed at their prosperity. When you hear here the word “envy,” or in the Gospel the words “evil eye” (Mt 6:23), which mean the same thing, do not think that a mere gaze can harm those upon whom it looks.

The eye, as a bodily member, cannot be envious in itself. Rather, Christ gives this name to envy. The work of the eyes is simply to see. To see wickedly belongs to a corrupt heart.

Through the sense of sight, knowledge of the things we look upon enters our soul. For example, wealth often stirs up envy in us, and we see wealth with the eyes, as we also see rulers and their retinues.

For this reason He called such an eye evil, not because it simply sees, but because it looks with envy and malice of soul.

When he says, “Who has bewitched you?” he shows that those who envy act thus not from reverence, nor to supply what is lacking, but to destroy what already exists.

For envy does not supply what is lacking. It takes something away even from what is already full, so that afterward it may deprive it of everything.

He says this not because envy has power in itself to harm, but because those who taught these things undertook them out of envy.

“Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed among you as crucified.” Yet He was not crucified in the land of Galatia, but in Jerusalem. Why then does he say, “among you”?

By this he wishes to indicate the power of faith, which can see even what is far away. He did not say simply “crucified,” but “publicly portrayed as crucified.”

By this he clearly shows that, with the eyes of faith, they saw this far better than some who were present and looked upon what was being done before them.

Many of those who saw all this with their bodily eyes received no benefit. But these, although they did not see it with bodily eyes, saw it still more clearly by the power of faith.

Saying this, he both rebukes and praises them. He praises them because they received all that had taken place with full assurance of its truth.

He rebukes them because they abandoned Him whom they had seen stripped for their sake, bound to the pillar, nailed to the Cross, spat upon, mocked, given vinegar to drink, reviled by thieves, and pierced by the spear.

All this he embraced in the words, “Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed among you as crucified.” Yet after abandoning Him, they turned to the law and felt no shame before these sufferings of His.

Notice also how, leaving aside heaven, earth, sea, and everything else, he preached the power of Christ, everywhere glorifying the Cross alone. This was the summit of the divine providence for us.

Εβάσκανεν means “he cast the evil eye,” or “he deceived under the impulse of envy.”

Notice that after the proofs he proceeds to rebuke, and at once brings the rebuke to an end. He did not say, "Who deceived you?" but, "Who bewitched you?" Who envied you?

By this he shows that in the beginning they did deeds worthy of envy. He also shows that those who incline them to this act not from care for them, nor to supply what is lacking.

They act to destroy what already exists. Such is envy. He says this not because envy by itself has power to harm, but because those who teach this have come to it through envy.

"Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was portrayed among you as crucified?"

But He was crucified in Jerusalem. How, then, does he say, "before your eyes" and "among you"? Because through the eyes of faith they saw the Cross much more clearly than those present then who saw it.

Many who saw bodily drew no benefit for themselves. But the Galatians, though they did not see with their eyes, saw very clearly through faith.

Thus Christ was portrayed, that is, vividly depicted through the preaching. Believing the preaching, you saw Him as present.

This is both praise and reproach: praise, because they accepted this with such full assurance; reproach, because they abandoned Him Whom they saw naked, crucified, and dying, and turned to the law.

Notice how, leaving everything else aside, he speaks of the Cross of Christ alone.

Their faith in the Crucified One had been so strong that they seemed to see Him before them on the Cross with their own eyes.

In these words the Holy Church sees both the historical basis and the proof of the proper use of the Cross, and of the image upon it of the crucified Christ.

Together with this, she sees the basis for the general use of sacred images, that is, icons.

In exactly the same way, we now portray Jesus Christ before our eyes in the sacred images of the Crucifixion. He Who suffered crucifixion for the salvation of all generations is presented as crucified among us.

Whether the Apostle depicted the Crucifixion with such details as are now used, or perhaps only drew the form of the Cross, we do not know.

But it is beyond doubt that, for the visual clarity of his preaching, he used a drawing before their eyes. He did so in order to impress upon souls the visible image of the saving event.

If the law did not change the conditions of justification by faith, why was it given (Gal 3:19-29)?

Third, in the doctrinal part of his epistle, the holy Apostle Paul exhorts the Galatians to accept the proven truth that the law is unnecessary.

He directs his persuasion sometimes chiefly to the mind (Gal 4:1-10), and sometimes chiefly to the will (Gal 4:21-5:12).

The first point of the doctrinal part concerns the uselessness of the Mosaic law for the Galatians (Gal 3:1-14).

Saint Paul takes the first proof of this uselessness from the visible experience of the Galatians themselves (Gal 3:1-5). They received the Holy Spirit and the grace-filled gifts of miracles in no way from works of the law.

Gal 3:1. "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?" According to a literal translation from Greek, this properly means, "Who has envied you?" (εβάσκανε).

Saint Chrysostom says: "By saying 'envied,' the Apostle joins praise to rebuke."

"Who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth?"

Certainly no contempt or anger at the foolishness of the Galatians is heard in the apostolic word. Rather, it is the fatherly agitation of love, zealous for the salvation of its spiritual children.

"Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was portrayed among you as crucified?"

The Apostle directs his astonishment not so much to the power of his preaching among the Galatians, for it was equally powerful everywhere. He marvels at how well they had understood the meaning of the Lord's death.

According to Bishop Theophan, "he softens the fatherly rebuke by ascribing their deviation from the truth not so much to their will as to the alluring deceit of the false teachers."

Concerning this bewitching, blessed Jerome says: "He bewitched, enchanted, cast the evil eye."

He did not say this because he acknowledged charms as anything real. Rather, he used a common expression to show that, as the saying goes, the evil eye harms tender children.

So the Galatians, newly born by faith in Christ and still fed with milk rather than solid food, suffered harm as though someone had cast the evil eye upon them.

On the words, "before whose eyes Christ was portrayed," and what follows, Saint John Chrysostom says: "He both reproaches them and praises them.

"He praises them because they accepted everything told about Christ with full assurance of its truth. He reproaches them because they abandoned Him Whom they saw stripped for their sake, bound to the pillar, nailed to the Cross, spat upon, mocked, given drink, reviled, and pierced.

"Having abandoned Him, they turned to the law, without being in the least ashamed by those sufferings of His."

"Above, he instructed the Galatians by a discourse addressed to Peter. Now he turns his speech to them, and takes everything that serves to persuade them from what happened among them.

"He persuades and assures them not only from those gifts which they had in common with others, but from those communicated precisely to them.

"You, he says, received the Holy Spirit and worked many miracles. Did the law give you such power? No. Faith alone granted this to you.

"Therefore, is it not an act of extreme madness to abandon the faith that gave you such great blessings, and to turn to the law, which gave you nothing of the kind?"

"For he first proved that they reject faith and consider the death of Christ superfluous. Only then does he make this reproach, which is still small and light, for they deserved even harsher rebukes."

Blessed Jerome attributes the Galatians’ imprudence to their natural qualities. "Cretans," he says, "are liars, Dalmatians are hardhearted, Phrygians are timid, Greeks are vainglorious and frivolous, and Galatians are unreasonable. As soon as something seems even slightly plausible, they rush toward it without properly considering it."

The present case justifies such an opinion. With what enthusiasm they received the preaching of Christ the Savior! And suddenly they turned their backs on Him.

But in the holy Apostle one must not see the indignation of contempt and revulsion. Rather, it is the indignation of love and zeal for their salvation. It is a fatherly lament of pity for them, and the voice of an intense desire to lead them quickly to self-correction.

Parents act this way when they wish to correct their children. This fatherly tenderness is heard in the question: "Who has bewitched you?" He does not say directly, "Why have you done this?" Instead, he turns to outside persons who acted wickedly toward them.

By this he softens the fatherly reproach, attributing their departure from the truth not so much to their own will as to the captivating deception of the false teachers. Such is the word of a father full of love.

He reproves, and within the very reproof inserts expressions that in some way excuse the guilty one. He does this not to wound, but to heal and encourage a return to the truth. He points out that their departure from it was the work of hostile and malicious men.

This is why he used such a verb: "Who has bewitched you?" To bewitch means to make others begin to see things not as they are, to see what is not there, and not to see what everyone sees.

The Greek word ebaskane, from baskaino, means to look at something with an envious and ill-disposed eye, with the desire to harm. Then it means to injure by the eye, or, as people commonly say, to cast the evil eye.

The Apostle seems to have wished to say: your change is so incomprehensible that I am ready to attribute it to some enchantment. Of course, the Apostle had no such thought. He only wished to soften the reproach.

He indicates that their corruption depended more on the intrigues and cunning of the corrupters than on themselves. They envied your good success in Christianity and arranged such snares for you that you were led astray and are losing what you had acquired in such abundance.

Blessed Jerome dwells somewhat on the meaning just given. "He says, 'bewitched,' enchanted, struck by the evil eye. Yet these words must be interpreted in a manner worthy of the Apostle.

"He did not say this because he recognized charms as anything real, but used a common expression. People say that the eye of an envious man harms the one he envies, especially children. Whether this is so or not, God knows. Perhaps demons serve this sin.

"But what is evident to us is that the Apostle took the word from common popular speech. He wished to show that, just as tender children are harmed by the evil eye according to the common saying, so the Galatians suffered harm as though someone had cast an evil eye on them.

"They had recently been born anew by faith in Christ and were still nourished with milk, not solid food."

But the Eastern interpreters understand envy directly here. St. Chrysostom says: "Having said ebaskane, meaning 'envied,' the Apostle joins praise to reproach. By this he shows that their former deeds and conduct were worthy of envy.

"He also shows that what happened to them came from the cunning of the devil, who was greatly vexed at their prosperity. When you hear here the expression 'envious eye,' and likewise in the Gospel 'evil eye' (cf. Mt 20:15), which means the same thing, do not think that the mere gaze of the eyes can harm those upon whom we look.

"Rather, as Christ the Lord in the Gospel called envy by this name, so here the Apostle means those who envied. The work of envy is to harm. He says this not because envy by itself has the power to harm, but because those who led them astray did this out of envy."

Blessed Theodoret writes in the same sense: "He joins reproach with praise. For people envy the rich, not the poor; the prosperous, not the miserable. Therefore the apostolic word shows their former zeal for piety.

"It also shows the Apostle’s fatherly love, because he grieves over them as over those who have lost the wealth they had gathered. What envious and evil-wishing demon, says the Apostle, has stolen your wondrous wealth?"

"That you should not obey the truth." They had already obeyed, but did not stand firm. The Greek word peithesthai means both to be persuaded and to stand firmly in one’s conviction.

The Apostle expresses his astonishment: how did it happen that they did not remain firm in the conviction once received? How did they fail to remain obedient to the evangelical truth handed down to them? How did they abandon it and yield to the false assurances of teachers who did not know the truth?

This is especially astonishing because the work of salvation through the Cross had been presented to them so clearly and had been received by them so vividly.

"Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed among you as crucified." "He was portrayed beforehand by the stylus of preaching. The preaching painted the Cross for you, and you saw it with the eyes of faith as present" (Oecumenius).

He expresses a twofold action: how powerful the preaching was, and how vividly they had made its power their own. Faith raised them to the contemplation in the mind of the crucified Lord and of the work of salvation accomplished by Him.

The words "among you" mean either in your midst, as though the Lord had been crucified among you and each of you had seen Him crucified before your eyes, or within you, in your hearts and feeling. In this latter sense, they entered into sympathy with the Lord’s sufferings and suffered with Him in their hearts.

The force of the speech is this: therefore you understood the power of the Lord’s death. You knew that it is the sacrifice of propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and therefore for yours. At that time, the legal sacrifices did not even come into your thought.

How, then, has it happened that you now wish to rely on them? The death of the Lord on the Cross is the center of the divine economy of our salvation and the support of all the hopes of those being saved.

Hence departure from faith, or from life according to faith, is always the result of inattention to the Lord’s death on the Cross and of an improper relation to it. But the Galatians sinned directly against this death, for by accepting the law they diminished its value.

From this comes a very important lesson for everyone: do not turn away from the Cross, not only by faith, but even in thought. Always contemplate the crucified Lord, and by this nourish your faith and zeal for life according to faith.

St. Chrysostom depicts the meaning of these words, "before whose eyes," in this way: "But He was not crucified in the land of Galatia, but in Jerusalem. Why then does he say, 'among you'? By this he points to the power of faith, which can see even what is far away.

"Therefore he did not say simply 'crucified,' but 'publicly portrayed as crucified.' By this he shows that they saw the events with the eyes of faith better than some who saw them with bodily eyes.

"For many of those who saw them with their eyes received no benefit. But these, though they did not see them with their eyes, saw them still more clearly by the power of faith.

"In saying this, he both reproaches them and praises them. He praises them because they accepted everything narrated about Christ with full certainty of its truth. He reproaches them because they abandoned Him Whom they saw stripped for their sake, bound to the pillar, nailed to the Cross, spat upon, mocked, given vinegar to drink, reviled by the thief, and pierced.

"For he embraced all this in the words, 'He was publicly portrayed among you as crucified.' Having abandoned Him, they turned to the law, not being at all ashamed before His sufferings.

"Notice also how he left aside heaven, earth, sea, and everything else, and preached the power of Christ, carrying everywhere the one Cross of Christ. For this is the summit of the Lord’s providential care for us."

If the word "portrayed beforehand" is taken apart from the Galatians, then for us Christians Christ is portrayed beforehand in the Old Testament. Blessed Jerome expressed this thought.

"For us also," he says, "Christ is portrayed beforehand, because the whole choir of the Prophets foretells His sufferings, spittings, and blows. Thus we learn of His Cross not only from the Gospel, which narrates His crucifixion, but also from what was written in divine Scripture before He was pleased to descend to earth and assume man, in order to be crucified in him."