The Letter to the Galatians

Galatia and its people. About 278 BC, bands of Celts (Gauls) crossed into Asia Minor and settled in the central highlands around Ancyra, today's Ankara. Their land took the name Galatia. After their last king, Amyntas, was killed in 25 BC, Augustus made his kingdom a Roman province, and it reached further south than the old Celtic lands.

North or south? So "Galatians" could mean two things. The traditional view takes it as the Celtic people of the north, whom Paul seems to have visited on his later journeys (Acts 16:6; 18:23). Another view takes it as the southern cities of the province, Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, which he visited on his first journey (Acts 13 to 14). The USCCB introduction thinks the north more likely, and the older Catholic Encyclopedia reports that the southern view was gaining ground. The date of the letter partly depends on this. Nothing in the teaching depends on it.

How they came to believe. Paul came to them because of an illness, and they received him "as an angel of God" (4:13 to 14). They would have torn out their eyes for him (4:15). They received the Spirit by believing what they heard (3:2). That is why the change hurts him so much.

The new teachers. After Paul left, others came. They were Christians, it seems Jewish Christians, sincere in their way. They taught that Gentile believers must accept circumcision and keep the Law, including its days and seasons (4:10; 5:2 to 3; 6:12 to 13). They may have said too that Paul was only a second-hand apostle who had watered down the message to please people (1:10). They are sometimes called "Judaizers", a later label that the letter does not use. We hear them only through Paul, in the heat of a quarrel.

The great question of the first generation. The first believers were all Jews. Then Gentiles came to faith. Must they become Jews in order to be Christians? This was a dispute among Christians, within the first family of the Church. It was not a dispute between the Church and the Jewish people, and the letter must not be read as an attack on them. Paul himself remained a Jew and speaks elsewhere of his people with love and hope (Rom 9 to 11). The Church teaches that God does not take back his gifts and calling, and that the Jewish people must not be presented as rejected or accursed (Nostra Aetate 4; Catechism 839 to 840).

Jerusalem and Antioch. Benedict XVI devoted a whole catechesis to these scenes (1 October 2008). Paul went to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus, and the "pillars", James, Cephas and John, gave them "the right hand of fellowship" and asked only that they remember the poor (2:1 to 10). Later, at Antioch, Peter stopped eating with Gentile believers when people came from James, and Paul opposed him to his face (2:11 to 14). The Pope explains that each had his own concern: Peter did not wish to offend Jewish believers, and Paul feared for the universal reach of salvation. Only sincere dialogue, he says, open to the truth of the Gospel, could guide the Church on her journey. Whether Galatians 2:1 to 10 is the same meeting as the council of Acts 15 is much discussed. Benedict XVI treats it as such.

The Church's tradition. The letter names Paul (1:1; 5:2), and the Council of Trent lists it among his fourteen letters. Its witness is very early. St Polycarp of Smyrna, in the first half of the second century, echoes it (To the Philippians 3 and 5). St Irenaeus cites "the Epistle to the Galatians" by name (Against Heresies 3.7.2). Marcion, whose teaching the Church did not accept, placed it first in his own list. The New Testament letters are written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Dei Verbum 20; see 11).

A scholarly note. Scholars of nearly every kind agree that Paul wrote it; hardly a letter is more surely his. The debate is about where it went and when, and how it stands in order among his other letters. These questions do not touch its inspiration.

Paul's own life. Chapters 1 and 2 are the fullest account Paul gives of himself. He tells of his zeal and his persecution of the Church (1:13 to 14; Catechism 752), the call by which God "was pleased to reveal his Son" to him (1:15 to 16; Catechism 442, 659), three years in Arabia and Damascus, and then fifteen days with Cephas in Jerusalem (1:17 to 18). Benedict XVI draws on this scene: Paul went to Peter, and he also knew James and John (24 September 2008).

"James the Lord's brother" (1:19). The Catechism names this verse among the passages on "brothers" of Jesus. The Church has always understood them as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. They are close relations of Jesus, in an expression found in the Old Testament too (Catechism 500).

The letter has three parts: Paul's story (1 to 2), the argument from Scripture (3 to 4), and life in the Spirit (5 to 6). It is the only one of Paul's letters to a Church that has no thanksgiving at the start: he moves straight from the greeting to "I am astonished" (1:6). The outline follows the USCCB introduction, with detail added.

• One Gospel. There is no other (1:6 to 9). Paul's Gospel comes from Christ (1:11 to 12), and he still lays it before the Apostles in Jerusalem, "in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain" (2:2). So he holds together personal call and communion with the Church.
• Justified through faith in Christ. "A person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" (2:16). No one earns the first grace of forgiveness (Catechism 2010). It is the gift of God who first loves us (Catechism 1996).
• What "works of the law" means here. In this letter Paul has in view above all circumcision, food rules and holy days, the marks that set Israel apart. Benedict XVI explains them as observances that protected Israel's identity, "a wall of distinction", no longer needed now that Christ has opened the way to all (19 November 2008). This does not mean that good works do not matter, or that the Commandments are set aside: 5:14 and 6:2 say the opposite.
• Faith working through love. This is the key to the whole letter (5:6; Catechism 162, 1814). Benedict XVI says that "faith alone" is true only if it is not opposed to faith in charity, and that faith without charity would be dead (19 and 26 November 2008). He shows that Paul and James do not contradict each other. Paul is primarily concerned to show that faith in Christ is necessary and sufficient, and James stresses how works follow from faith. For both, he says, faith that is active in love testifies to the gift of justification in Christ.
• What the Church teaches on justification. The Council of Trent (Session 6, 1547) teaches that faith is the beginning of salvation, and that no one can merit the first grace. The Catechism gathers this up: justification is God's work, merited for us by the Passion of Christ and conferred in Baptism (1992). It both forgives and renews the inner person (1989). It joins God's grace to our human freedom, which is itself moved by grace (1993, 2001). Our merits before God are God's own gifts crowned; the initiative is always his (2008 to 2011). A Christian must keep faith alive, since "faith apart from works is dead" (Catechism 1815, quoting James). In 1999, Catholics and the Lutheran World Federation signed a Joint Declaration stating a consensus on basic truths of this doctrine, while naming differences that remain.
• The Law was good, and it had its time. The Law is holy (Rom 7:12), and here Paul asks why it was given (3:19). It was a disciplinarian, the slave who walked a child to school, until Christ came (3:24; Catechism 582, 708, 1963). The Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel (Catechism 1964). Christ, born under the Law (4:4), took on its curse for us (3:13; Catechism 578, 580). He himself was not cursed by God: he carried what weighed on us, out of love.
• Baptism: clothed with Christ. "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (3:27; Catechism 1227, 1243). In him there are no ranks of worth, Jew or Greek, slave or not, male or female (3:28; Catechism 791). This is not the removal of all differences. It is one dignity and one sonship in Christ.
• Children of God. God sent his Son to make us children by adoption, and sent the Spirit of his Son, so that we can cry "Abba! Father!" (4:4 to 7; Catechism 683, 689, 1265, 2766, 2777).
• Hagar and Sarah. Paul reads the two mothers as a figure of two ways of relating to God (4:21 to 31). Here too "the Jerusalem above" is our mother (4:26; Catechism 723, 757). This is an argument aimed at the Christians of Galatia, and it must not be turned against Jews. The Church's mind on Israel is Romans 9 to 11, Nostra Aetate 4 and Catechism 839: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
• Freedom is for love. "For freedom Christ has set us free" (5:1; Catechism 1741). But Benedict XVI warns that Christian freedom is not libertinism: "through love become slaves to one another" (5:13). The whole Law is summed up in love of neighbour (5:14). The New Law is a law of love, of grace and of freedom (Catechism 1972).
• Flesh and Spirit. "Flesh" here does not mean the body as bad. It means human life turned in on itself against God. The works of the flesh are listed in 5:19 to 21, and those who do them will not inherit the kingdom (Catechism 1852). The fruit of the Spirit grows in those who keep in step with the Spirit (5:22 to 25; Catechism 736, 1832, 2515, 2543). The Catechism lists twelve fruits, following the Latin tradition of the text.
• Church life. Restore a sinner gently (6:1). Bear one another's burdens (6:2; Catechism 1642). Share with your teacher (6:6). "Let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith" (6:10). Remember the poor (2:10; Catechism 886).
• The Cross. Paul's only boast is the Cross (6:14; Catechism 1460). It is the measure of everything else, and it ends with a new creation (6:15; Catechism 1214).

Mary in this letter. Galatians contains one of the earliest words on the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament, though it does not name her: "God sent his Son, born of a woman" (4:4). The Second Vatican Council opens its teaching on Our Lady with this verse (Lumen Gentium 52), and the Catechism returns to it (484, 488, 531). The Latin Church reads Galatians 4:4 to 7 on the solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, on 1 January.

• The Son of God sent by the Father. He is sent in the fullness of time, truly born of a woman, truly a son of Israel under the Law (4:4; Catechism 422, 527, 580).
• The Lord who gives himself. From the first lines: he "gave himself for our sins" (1:4). St John Chrysostom, commenting on 2:20, asks why Paul says "me", when Christ died for all. In substance: each one should feel as if Christ had come for him alone, for his love for each person is as great as his love for the world (the Catechism uses this verse at 616, 1380 and 2666).
• The crucified one. Paul had "publicly exhibited" him as crucified before their eyes (3:1). To go back to other securities is to say that "Christ died for nothing" (2:21).
• Christ who lives in me. Faith is not only an idea. Benedict XVI says that being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And so Paul can long for Christ to be "formed" in his people (4:19; Catechism 526, 562, 793).
• The offspring of Abraham. In him the promise is fulfilled and the blessing reaches all peoples (3:8, 14, 16; Catechism 59, 706).
• The one whose marks Paul bears. "I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body" (6:17).

The Catechism draws on it often: the fullness of time, 422, 484, 527; the Law as tutor, 708, 1963; Baptism, 1227, 1243; the Spirit of the Son and "Abba", 683, 689, 2766; faith working through love, 162, 1814; freedom, 1741; the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, 736, 1832, 1852; justification and grace in general, 1987 to 2029.

The Fathers, in substance. Commentaries on Galatians came from Ambrosiaster, St Jerome, St Augustine and St John Chrysostom. St Ephrem also commented on Paul's letters; that commentary survives in Armenian and is known through a Latin translation published in Venice in 1893. The Fathers argued over the scene at Antioch. St Chrysostom took the rebuke as a plan agreed between the two Apostles, for teaching's sake. St Jerome had read it in a similar way. St Augustine objected in a letter to him (Letter 82), holding that Peter was truly at fault and that Paul truly corrected him, and he praised Peter's holy humility in taking correction from a junior. The Church has not ruled on this. Benedict XVI speaks of it as a real clash, and as much of a lesson for Peter as for Paul.

The Popes. Benedict XVI treats Galatians especially in his catecheses on the Jerusalem meeting and Antioch (1 October 2008), and on justification and works (19 and 26 November 2008). Pope Francis gave fifteen catecheses on this letter, from 23 June to 10 November 2021.

In the liturgy.

• Syro-Malabar. In the calendars of readings from 2025 to 2027, at the Holy Qurbana: Gal 3:15 to 4:6 on Christmas (Yalda); Gal 4:12 to 20 on Palm Sunday; Gal 5:16 to 26 on the Seventh Sunday of the Apostles; Gal 6:11 to 18 on the Sunday that opens the season of the Cross. Calendars vary by year.
• Syro-Malankara. In the calendar of readings for 2026 to 2027, as Epistle at the Holy Qurbono: Gal 4:1 to 7 on the Sunday of the Annunciation to Mary; Gal 4:21 to 31 on the Sunday of the Birth of John the Baptist; Gal 1:11 to 24 on the Sunday of the Apparition to St Joseph; Gal 5:16 to 26 on the First Sunday after Pentecost; Gal 3:1 to 14 on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 14 September; and Gal 1:13 to 24 on the Conversion of St Paul, 25 January.
• Latin. The Sunday second reading from the Ninth to the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year C. Gal 4:4 to 7 on Mary, the Holy Mother of God, every 1 January. Gal 5:16 to 25 as a choice at Pentecost, Year B. On weekdays it is read in the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Weeks of Ordinary Time, Year II.

It can be read in twenty minutes. Do that first, and listen for the tone: it is a letter from someone who cares desperately. Then take it slowly over a week:

• Day 1: 1:1 to 2:10. Note how God calls, and how Paul still goes to Peter.
• Day 2: 2:11 to 21. Read 2:20 aloud with "me" in it. Make it your own.
• Day 3: chapter 3. Read Genesis 15:1 to 6 alongside it.
• Day 4: chapter 4. On 4:4 to 7, pause and pray the "Our Father" slowly.
• Day 5: 5:1 to 15. What is my freedom for?
• Day 6: 5:16 to 26. Use the two lists as an examination of conscience.
• Day 7: chapter 6. Whose burden can I carry this week?

If you read Romans too, this letter is the short and fiery form of what Romans sets out at length. Read them with James, and let each throw light on the other.