Galatians 3:28Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thus one thing is the absence of this distinction in the unity of faith. Another thing is the path of this life, which must be walked so as not to defile the name of God and His teaching.

We wish to avoid offending people not only because of wrath, but also from the awareness that we do this not for show, but from pure love for God.

And God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The first tyrannically seizes understanding and drives thought beyond the boundaries of the law of nature. The second makes what is beneath the One, sole, desired, passionless Cause of all beings, and the Nature of those beings, more desirable than Her.

Therefore it prefers flesh to spirit. It makes enjoyment of visible things more pleasant than the glory and radiance of intelligible blessings. By the pleasure of sensual delights, it holds the mind back from the divine and kindred apprehension of intelligible things.

In this image there is only one reason. Through the superabundance of virtue, it is stripped even of that love and inclination toward the body which is wholly passionless, yet still natural.

For the Spirit finally overcomes nature. He compels the mind no longer to occupy itself with moral philosophy, since it must now be united to the Word beyond essence by simple and undivided contemplation.

In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female. There is only a Godlike reason, formed by divine knowledge, and a single movement of the will, choosing virtue alone.

Likewise in Christ Jesus there is no longer Jew nor Gentile. By these words is indicated a different, or more precisely, an opposed way of thinking about God.

One way of thinking about God, namely the Hellenic, senselessly introduces the idea of many first principles. It divides the one Principle into opposed activities and powers. It invents polytheistic worship, which, through the multitude of worshiped gods, introduces discord and disgraces itself through varied forms of worship.

The other way, that of the Jews, does teach one Principle. Yet it conceives Him as narrow, imperfect, and almost nonexistent, deprived of Word and Life. Through this opposite extreme it falls into the same evil as the former teaching, namely godlessness.

For it confines the one Principle to a single Person, existing either wholly without Word and Spirit, or possessing Word and Spirit as attributes. This teaching fails to see that God, deprived of Word and Spirit, is no longer God.

Nor will He be God if He is endowed with Word and Spirit as accidental attributes by participation. That would make Him like rational created beings, subject to the laws of generation.

Both these teachings about God are absent in Christ. In Him there is the single doctrine of true piety and the immovable law of mystical theology. They reject the extension of the Godhead in the first teaching and do not accept Its contraction in the second.

The Godhead must not be imagined, because of Its natural plurality, as internally divided against Itself. That is the Hellenic error.

Nor must It be imagined, because of single-hypostasis, as subject to passions, being deprived of Word and Spirit, or endowed with Word and Spirit as accidental attributes. That is the Jewish error.

Therefore the law of mystical theology teaches us, through the calling of grace, to know the truth as adopted sons by faith. It teaches us to apprehend the one nature and power of the Godhead, the One God, contemplated in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

That is, we come to know the single, uncaused Mind, Who subsists essentially and is the Begetter of the single Word, Who exists without beginning according to essence. We also come to know the Source of the one ever-existing Life, essentially subsisting as the Holy Spirit.

By the teaching of Christ, I mean the new proclamation of truth. In it there is neither male nor female, that is, no marks of the weakness of a nature standing under the law of corruption and generation.

There is no longer Jew nor Gentile, that is, no opposed teachings about the Godhead. There is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, that is, no forms of service corresponding to those teachings.

For one of them, the Jewish service, reproaches visible creation through the symbols of the law. It slanders the Fashioner as though He were the Creator of evil.

The other, the Gentile service, deifies creation for the satisfaction of the passions and sets that creation in revolt against the Creator. In this way both services lead to one evil, blasphemy.

There is neither barbarian nor Scythian, that is, no division of the one human nature, rebelling by its own will against itself. From this, contrary to nature, the destructive law of mutual murder invaded mankind.

There is neither slave nor free, that is, no involuntary division of human nature. Such division dishonors one who is equal in honor by nature. It has as its helper a law reflecting the mind of those who rule and tyrannically trampling upon the dignity of the image of God.

But Christ is all and in all. Through what is above nature and law, He creates in the Spirit the image of the beginningless Kingdom. As has been shown, this image is inscribed in the soul by humility of heart and meekness. Their union reveals the man perfect in Christ (Col 1:28).

He did this contrary to the general view of antiquity regarding the position of woman as an inferior and rightless being. He shows that a wife also has her honor in the eyes of God.

"You are all one in Christ Jesus." Having prefaced his words with a remark about the absence of distinction among all in the Christian Church before the face of Christ, the Apostle exposes the falsehood of the Judaizers.

They asserted the superiority of Jews in the Kingdom of Christ and the rightlessness of the Gentiles. Now he affirms that all must be one in Christ, composing with Him and with one another one body.

They are different organs of this body. If even the least of them were harmed or absent, the whole organism would painfully feel it.

By this same statement the Apostle also wants the Galatians to feel their folly. It appeared in their inclination to keep Judaism as something obligatory and in some way superior.

Yet neither the one quality nor the other can any longer be acknowledged in it.

"So also in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek. The Jew is not better because he is circumcised, nor is the Greek worse because he is uncircumcised.

"But both Jew and Greek, if they are better or worse, are so by the quality and strength of their faith. It happens that a wife saves her husband, and that a husband precedes his wife in faith.

"When every distinction of kinds, condition, and body is thus abolished through Christ's baptism and putting on Christ, then we are all one in Christ.

"So also the Lord prayed that, as He and the Father are one, we may be one in Them" (Jn 17:21).

The measure of these dispositions determines in the soul the measure of its receptivity to the powers of grace, by which it is built up. Hence one may see that a slave and a simple man sometimes stands incomparably higher than the wise and kings.

So also a weak woman may stand higher than men. Blessed Jerome writes: "When someone has put on Christ and is embraced by the fire of the Holy Spirit, you cannot distinguish whether he is gold or silver.

"When fire penetrates and embraces the whole mass, then all becomes one fiery light. Every distinction of kind and bodily condition disappears beneath such a garment.

"So also in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek. The Jew is not better because he is circumcised, nor is the Greek worse because he is uncircumcised.

"Whether Jew or Greek, if they are better or worse, they are so by the quality and strength of their faith. Likewise, slave and free may differ even in Christianity, but not by condition; they differ by faith.

"A slave may be higher than a free man, and a free man may surpass a slave, but all by faith. In the same way, man and woman differ in bodily strength and weakness.

"Yet faith is determined by the disposition of the heart. It often happens that a wife saves her husband, and a husband precedes his wife in faith.

"When every distinction of race, condition, and body is thus abolished through Christ's baptism and the putting on of Christ, then we are all one in Christ.

"So the Lord prayed that, as He and the Father are one, we also may be one in Them"; see Jn 17:21.

"You are all one in Christ Jesus." In Greek, "one" is εις, that is, one person. The thought is that you are all as one, or that what one is, another also is.

What is given to one is given to another. Because of outward distinctions, no one is deprived of anything that belongs to him as a Christian.