[6] This depreciation is voiced in their catch-word οἱ δοκοῦντες (“those of repute,” ii. 6), while other echoes of their talk can be overheard in such phrases as “we are Abraham’s seed” (iii. 16), “sinners of Gentiles” (ii. 15) and “Jerusalem which is our mother” (iv. 26), as well as in their charges against Paul of “seeking to please men” (i. 10) and “preaching circumcision” (v. 11).
[7] Not only is the address “to the churches of Galatia” unusually bare, but Paul associates no one with himself, either because he was on a journey or because, as the attacked party, he desired to concentrate attention upon his personal commission. Yet the ἡμεῖς of i. 8 indicates colleagues like Silas and Timothy.
[8] Cf. Hausrath’s History of the N.T. Times (iii. pp. 181-199), with the fine remarks, on vi. 17, that “Paul stands before us like an ancient general who bares his breast before his mutinous legions, and shows them the scars of the wounds that proclaim him not unworthy to be called Imperator.”
[9] Cf. T.H. Green’s Works, iii. 186 f. Verses 15-17 are the indirect abstract of the speech’s argument, but in verses 18-21 the apostle, carried away by the thought and barrier of the moment as he dictates to his amanuensis, forgets the original situation.
[10] Thus Paul reverses the ordinary rabbinic doctrine which taught (cf. Kiddushim, 30, b) that the law was given as the divine remedy for the evil yezer of man. So far from being a remedy, he argues, it is an aggravation.
[11] According to Plutarch, Cato the elder wrote histories for the use of his son, ἰδίᾳ χειρὶ καὶ μεγάλοις γράμμασιν (cf. Field’s Notes on Translation of the New Testament, p. 191). If the point of Gal. vi. 11 lies in the size of the letters, Paul cannot have contemplated copies of the epistle being made. He must have assumed that the autograph would reach all the local churches (cf. 2 Thess. iii. 17, with E.A. Abbott, Johannine Grammar, pp. 530-532).
[12] For ἔγραψα, the epistolary aorist, at the close of a letter, cf. Xen. Anab. i. 9. 25, Thuc. i. 129. 3, Ezra iv. 14 (LXX) and Lucian, Dial. Meretr. x.
[13] Hermann Schulze’s attempt to bring out the filiation of the later N.T. literature to Galatians (Die Ursprünglichkeit des Galaterbriefes, Leipzig, 1903) involves repeated exaggerations of the literary evidence.
[14] Cf. especially J. Gloe’s Die jüngste Kritik des Galaterbriefes (Leipzig, 1890) and Baljon’s reply to Steck and Loman (Exeg.-kritische verhandeling over den Brief van P. aan de Gal., 1889). The English reader may consult Schmiedel’s article (already referred to) and Dr R.J. Knowling’s The Testimony of St Paul to Christ (1905), 28 f.
[15] Compare the minute analysis of the whole epistle in F. Blass, Die Rhythmen der asianischen und römischen Kunstprosa (1905), pp. 43-53, 204-216, where, however, this feature is exaggerated into unreality. The comic trimeter in Philipp. iii. 1 (ἐμοὶ μὲν ουκ ὀκνηρόν, ὑμῖν δ᾽ ἀσφαλές) may well be, like that in 1 Cor. xv. 33, a reminiscence of Menander.