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The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
In a 2007 article in NTS, Martinus de Boer carefully examines Paul’s argument in Galatians 4, armed with the assumption that stoicheia somehow retains its original meaning, referring to the four elements of ancient Greek physics.
His conclusion is: “the phrase ta stoicheia tou kosmou in 4.3, a technical expression referring specifically to the four constituent elements of the physical universe, is being used by Paul as a summary designation for a complex of Galatian religious beliefs and practices at the center of whichwere the four elements of the physical cosmos to which the phrase concretely refers. In Paul’s usage, then, the phrase is an instance of metonymy whereby a trait or characteristic stands for a larger whole of which it is a part. In this case ta stoicheia tou kosmou – the four elements of physical reality – stand for the religion ofthe Galatians prior to them becoming believers in Christ. Calendrical observancesand the physical phenomena associated with such observances – the movements of the sun, moon, planets, and stars – were an integral part of these religious beliefs and practices. The gods the Galatians worshiped were closely linked to the four stoicheia so that worship of these gods could be regarded as tantamount tothe worship of ta stoicheia themselves.”
De Boer also suggests that the use of this phrase plays a strong rhetorical role in Paul’s argument, associating embrace of Torah with a reversion to the paganism from which the Galatians had so recently converted. Conversely, liberation from ta stoicheia is, Paul argues, liberation from Torah. He emphasizes, though, that the only practical point of contact between paganism and Torah in Galatians 4 his that both are bound up with calendrical observances. As J. Louis Martyn puts it, the central question in Galatians is What time is it? Paul’s answer is that “God’s own (apocalyptic) ‘time-keeping scheme’ as revealed in Christ . . . has brought an end to the ‘time-keeping schemes’ associated with ta stoicheia tou kosmou, whether by Jews or by Gentiles.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 12:55 pm
In the aforementioned article, Arnold notes that “in the Greek Magical Papyri, the term stoicheia is used most commonly in connection witht he stars and/or the spirit entities, or gods, they represent. In a related sense, stoicheia was also used to refer to the 36 astral decans that rule over every 10 degrees of the heavens. . . . Each of these astral decans could also be represented by a magical letter. Given one of the common usages of stoicheia as letters of the alphabet, it is easy to see how this usage could have arisen.” He argues that “it is quite probably that the term stoicheia was used of astral decans in the first century A.D. or prior.”
In his commentary on Revelation (Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 11:21 am
In a 1996 article in Novum Testamentum, Clinton Arnold argues that the stoicheia (“elementary principles,” Galatians 4:3 and elsewhere) are demons. His arguments in favor of a personal understanding of the stoicheia are strong if not entirely persuasive, but his argument that Paul portrays the stoicheia as entirely malevolent powers are weaker.
He notes the “Second Exodus” imagery of Galatians 4; the stoicheia are lords that enslave, lords from which Jesus and the Spirit liberate Jews and Gentiles. But in context slavery is a condition of childhood (Galatians 4:1); slavery is the condition of minority and immaturity. Calling the elemental things “weak and poor” (v. 9) doesn’t necessarily imply that they are evil, any more than saying that pre-resurrection human flesh is “weak” (1 Corinthians 15) implies that the flesh is evil. Paul says that the Galatians were slaves to what are not gods (v. 8), but that is not necessarily the fault of the idols that the Galatians worshiped. If they gave honor to guardian angels that should have been reserved for God, that’s not the angels’ fault.
Arnold is on stronger ground when he points out that the stoicheia are on the side of flesh and world in Paul’s schematization of history. The stoicheia belong to the old order of things. But so too does the Torah, and Paul thinks that the Torah, in itself, is righteous, holy, and good.
Even if Arnold is correct that the stoicheia are equivalent to personal “principalities and powers,” I’m inclined to see them in the light of the creation, fall, redemption scheme that Yoder and Walter Wink use when talking about the powers: Created by Christ, they turned against Him, but have been subjected and restored through Christ’s death and resurrection.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 11:04 am
I’ve posted a paper by a student, Lisa Beyeler, that traces out connections between Jeremiah and Galatians. Click on “Downloads” at the top of the page, and you’ll find it.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:03 am
Galatians 6 is roughly organized as a chiasm:
A. Bear one another’s burdens
B. Boasting in oneself and not another
C. Sowing and reaping; flesh
D. Do good
C’. Judaizers want good show in flesh/boast in flesh
B’. Boasting only in Christ Jesus: crucified to world
A’. I bear stigmata
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 8:49 am
What did the Judaizers want? According to Galatians 6:12, they wanted to make a “good show” in the flesh. The verb for “making a good show” (euprosopeo) is a hapax in the NT and very rare elsewhere, but we might make a go at translating and interpreting through etymology. The word is clearly linked with prosopon, “face,” and the idea is perhaps that the Judaizers want to have “good face” through insisting that Gentiles observe circumcision and other Jewish customs. They are “saving face,” and from there you can plug into Paul’s comment all we’ve learned about honor in the ancient world from Jerome Neyrey and others.
Beyond that, the LXX uses euprosopos in Genesis 12:11 in Abram’s compliment to Sarai’s beauty. Might Paul have known that? Might the Judaizers seek “good face” by trying to claim Sarai as mother?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 8:21 am
Philip Esler draws on the anthropological work of Anthony Cohen to suggest that Paul’s reference to “biting” and “devouring” may describe the actual internal life of Paul’s churches: “Anthony Cohen’s argument about the persistence of liminality among persons once they have crossed a boundary to join a new group raises the prospect that the members of the congregations had not yet internalized the values expected of them and continued to treat one another in the fiercely competitive way typical of unrelated persons in this culture. We should expect that the process of acquiring a new identity to be a a very difficult one.”
This line of argument has several advantages: First, it helps to show the coherence of Galatians. Paul hasn’t changed the subject once he gets to the beginning of chapter 5. Second, more specifically, he hasn’t changed the meaning of his terms. ”Flesh” still refers to adherents of Torah and Judaizers and those who remain under the managers and guardians; it hasn’t changed meaning to “sinful nature.” Paul’s list of “works of the flesh” describes the way of life among the false teachers.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 9:05 am
Paul contrasts fulfilling the law of loving neighbor with biting, devouring, and consuming. Love for neighbor is human behavior; anything else is feral.
The verb “bite” (dakno) is used only in Galatians 5:15 in the NT, and only twice in the LXX (Genesis 49:17; Deuteronomy 8:15), both references to biting snakes. Failing to fulfill the law of love is not only bestial but Satanic. Of course, he still has the Judaizers in mind, and is hinting that they are what Revelation calls a synagogue of Satan.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 7:59 am
Galatians 5-6 turns a number of Pauline terms inside out. After spending most of the letter polemicizing against seeking justification form the “works of the law,” Paul rehabilitates both “work” (5:6) and “law” (5:14; 6:2). After announcing that in Christ we have been freed from the Egypt of Judaic managers and tutors, he instructs us to use our freedom to become slaves to one another (5:13). He doesn’t quite rehabilitate flesh, though he has told us early on that life in the flesh can be life by faith in the Son of God, that is, life in the flesh can be lived out as life in the Spirit (2:20).
He even rehabilitates the stoicheia. ”If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us stoichomen” (5:25). The NASB translates this as “walk,” but it’s a different verb than 5:16 (peripateo). ”Keep in step” is better. However it is translated, it is a deliberate play on the “elementary principles” from which Paul says we have been freed (as is the related verb sustoichei in 4:25).
Paul is showing us that the entire old covenant is resurrected in the new. It is not the same; law is no longer the Mosaic law, work is the working of love and of the Spirit, slavery is willing service, the stoicheic pattern is now set by the Spirit and not by under-guardians. It’s not the same but it’s all there, dead and risen in Christ Jesus and his body.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 7:48 am
Galatians 5-6 is organized as a chiasm, with the exhortation to bear one another’s burdens, and fulfill the law of Christ, at the center. The structure suggests that that the freedom that the Spirit grants is precisely freedom to bear the burdens of others as Christ as done for us.
A. 5:1-15: focus on issues of freedom, circumcision, and the law
B. 5:16-26: flesh and Spirit; circumcision isn’t mentioned
C. 6:1-5: bearing burdens and fulfilling law of Christ
B’. 6:6-10: sowing and reaping, with emphasis on flesh-Spirit contrast
A’. 6:11-18: circumcision and law; circumcision mentioned for the first time since beginning of ch 5
The A section is also chiastically arranged:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 5:21 am
Paul expresses amazement that the Galatians could return to the “weak and poor elements” after being liberated by Christ (Galatians 4:9).
But were the elements always so weak and beggarly? It seems not. They were powerful enough to enslave (4:3). To be sure, they enslaved children, but that does take some power. Further, Paul describes the former life of the Galatians as a life under (hupo) the stoicheia, an expression that parallels Paul’s talk of enslavement under the law (3:23) and under guardians and managers (4:2). Again, this suggests that the stoicheia have some power.
Or, they did. God sent His Son and then His Spirit to redeem from the stoicheia and elevate us to sons (4:4-6). Paul is drawing on the exodus story, placing the stoicheia and the law in the position of defeated Pharaoh. Once Pharaoh was powerful; but after the plagues and the exodus he was “weak and beggarly.” So too the “elements.”
But this means, of course, that the elements exercised some genuine power prior to the missions of the Son and Spirit. Plutarch was right: Once the oracles spoke, but now, mysteriously, they’ve gone silent.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:07 am
Galatians 3-4 is constructed with a fairly neat chiasm:
A. Abraham, Spirit, faith, 3:1-14
B. The Law is not mediator of one, 3:15-22
C. We were under tutors, 3:23-26
D. Baptism, 3:27-29
C’. Under stoicheia, 4:1-11
B’. Personal appeal, 4:12-20
A’. Abraham’s two sons, one by the Spirit, 4:21-31
The B sections don’t seem to fit. But they do:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:19 am
Paul begs the Galatians to become as he is (Galatians 4:12). In context, this means, “Give up circumcision, the Jewish food laws, observance of days, months and seasons.” Why should they?
The basis for Paul’s exhortation is the fact that he has become as they are: “Become as I, because I also as you.” He became as a Gentile among the Gentiles, as weak among the weak.
Behind this is Paul’s consciousness that his ministry must be conformed to Christ’s. Christ above all says to us: “Become as I, because I also [became] as you.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:00 am
Galatians 4 is clearly about the law’s role as guardian and steward in charge of Israel during her minority. But Paul’s description of Israel applies just as well to Adam. Adam was created a minor son, an infant, but was promised an inheritance. Paul hints at the Adamic dimensions of Israel’s history under the law by saying that the minor child is treated like a slave thought he is “lord of all” (4:1). That’s Adam: under command, though created to have dominion over all other creatures.
The law, then, is in this sense a perpetuation of the Adamic “covenant of works”: The law is a continuation of the minority covenant for a son who has proved rebellious.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 7:54 am
Following up an earlier post: How are we to understand the connection of the reception of the Spirit and being counted as righteous in Galatians 3:5-6? Some alternatives suggest themselves:
1) Righteousness is a status and the Spirit is the gift that God gives to those whom He counts righteous.
2) Righteousness is a status and the Spirit grants faith that is the instrument by which we accept that status. Or, following Wright, the Spirit grants the faith that marks us as those whom God will regard as righteous (regeneration before justification).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:49 am
Faith in Protestant theology is instrumental, the passive human means by which we appropriate the righteousness of Christ, by which we stand righteous before God.
In Galatians at least, Paul’s characteristic construction doesn’t use the usual prepositions of instrumentality – en and dia. Rather, he uses ek, which has the basic connotation of exit from, separation from, or source. ek can have an instrumental sense, and even seems to be used in place of en at times. So, “by faith” is not necessarily wrong.
But have we spend enough time considering the alternatives? Might ek pisteos mean source, origin, or cause in some contexts? And, might pistis here be shorthand for pistis Christou, perhaps understood in Hays’s sense of “the faith(fulness) of Christ?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:40 am
What did God promise Abraham? Paul says that Abraham and his seed were promised an inheritance (Galatians 3:18, 29), and that inheritance includes the blessing of the nations (Galatians 3:8), the gift of the Spirit (Galatians 3:14), and righteousness (Galatians 3:6).
These are not discrete gifts in Paul’s mind. The transition from Galatians 3:5 to 3:6 makes this clear. 3:5 says that the Galatians received the Spirit by hearing with faith, and Paul compares this (kathos, “just as”) to Abram being reckoned righteous by faith. The analogy is: Galatians:Abraham; faith:faith; reception of Spirit:righteousness.
Likewise, the inheritance of righteousness is linked to the Abrahamic blessing of the nations in verse 8: Scripture foresees that the nations will be justified by faith when it promises that Abram will be a blessing to the nations. Blessing is eulogeo, etymologically, “good-word.” The blessing that Yahweh pronounces over the nations is evidently the blessing of being counted righteous; “you are just” is the good word that God speaks to those who believe in Christ.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:29 am
Transgression in Paul’s terminology refers to violation of specific commandments. Mostly. But Galatians 2:17 has a radical redefinition of transgression. J. Louis Martyn says, when Paul says that re-erecting the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile makes him a transgressor, he implies that “the Law can play a role leading not to the defining and vanquishing of transgression, but rather to transgression itself! . . .whoever reerects the Law’s distinction between Jew and Gentile, as thought God were making things right through observance of the Law, rather than in Christ, has thereby shown himself to be a transgressor.”
Transgression is usually boundary-crossing. But Paul says that in the new covenant transgression can take the form of erecting boundaries. And he is also implying that transgression is not judged by timeless moral standards, but is redemptive-historically qualified.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 9:37 am
There does appear to be a positive connection between justification and nature in Galatians 2. It’s elusive, but it seems to be there.
In verse 17, Paul argues that those who seek justification in Christ cannot be found sinners without implying that Christ Himself is a minister of sin. Me genoito!
“We” in verse 17 is, I suggest, “we Jews,” the same identified as “Jews by nature” in verse 15.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 8:44 am
What is the logic of Paul’s argument in Galatians 2:15-16? This breaks down into several questions: Where does “justification” come from? How does Paul move from Jews-by-nature as opposed to Gentile-sinners to justification by the faith of Christ rather than the works of the law? And, of course, verse 16 has two of the most controverted phrases in recent Pauline studies: What does Paul mean by “faith of Christ”? And what are the “works of the law”?
Let’s take the first questions first.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 8:24 am
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