Thursday in the 27th Week of Ordinary Time, October 6, 2022

Galatians 3, 1-5

O stupid Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? I want to learn only this from you: did you receive the Spirit from works of the law, or from faith in what you heard? Are you so stupid? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain?– if indeed it was in vain. Does, then, the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you do so from works of the law or from faith in what you heard?

St. Paul, having established his credentials as receiving the Gospel by a special Revelation of Christ, proved his preference for the Gentile converts while walking away from the Jewish traditions in which he was raised.  Now he assails his Galatian readers for accepting the various practices he had shown himself to have forsaken, as one initiated into the new Faith by the Lord Jesus.  The lectionary translation for reading has Paul calling them “stupid”, which is not quite what Paul said.  The word “stupid” originally meant “slow to understand”, but it nearly always is used nowadays as an insult.  It was not Paul’s intention to insult these people, and so he tells them that they are being “thoughtless”, that is, unreasoning.  They had already been catechized and baptized and thus been made full members of the Body of Christ.  Why then did they think they needed to listen to the teachings of these Jewish Christians who had come to them and had no authorization from the Apostles to teach what they did?  “Who has bewitched you?”  Paul shows the strength of his shock at their behavior by wondering aloud if they had been overcome by other supernatural forces, for their faith had been so solid.  “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?”  On its face, this verse seems to state that the Galatians had received a vision of Christ crucified near the time of their conversion, but the Fathers did not reach that conclusion.  They understood the Greek word translated here as “publicly portrayed” in its more narrow sense, as “vividly depicted”.  In this case, Paul is saying that they had been so affected by a vivid description of the Lord’s crucifixion that they became Christians in great numbers afterwards, and held tightly to the Faith that the Lord had suffered so much to bequeath them.  This description could have been provided by Peter, who had it from John, who saw it all.  By this time too, St. Matthew’s Gospel was circulating in a Greek translation and it’s Passion narrative could have been read out to them.  Then again, it is not out of the question that Christ did appear crucified to them.  The Fathers had it in their minds that no one would see the Lord again in any way until the Second Coming, and so they discounted the possibility of a vision in this case.

“Did you receive the Spirit from works of the law, or from faith in what you heard?”  This question is at the heart of some of Paul’s other Letters, and it is the main theme of his Letter to the Romans.  The works of the Law, here, are practices such as circumcision.  Paul is not speaking of works of charity, as Luther will later claim.  “After beginning with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?”  In other words, you converted from the worship of the pagan gods and were baptized, but now you want to regress to the ways of the Jews?  “Did you experience so many things in vain?– if indeed it was in vain.”  The verb here is not “experienced” but “suffered”.  The sentence should be translated, “Did you suffer such great torments?” or, “Did you endure such great sufferings?”  Paul indicates that the Galilean Christians paid a price for their conversion, even beyond the necessity of withdrawing from certain aspects of daily pagan life.  “Does, then, the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you do so from works of the law or from faith in what you heard?”  In the early Church, baptism and the reception of the Holy Spirit often brought about wonderful experiences such as speaking in tongues and prophesy.  The “mighty deeds” performed among them means healings.  The Law did not deliver these — if it could do this, why would the Jews follow Christ?  

“Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.”  Paul came to realize that the knowledge of what the Lord Jesus underwent for us causes us to love him, and so, in coming to the city of Corinth to preach the Gospel he resolved, as he later wrote to them,  “to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2, 2).  Let us so devote ourselves to his Passion and Death that we may overflow with love for him and hatred for sin.