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  • From: Yonder Gillihan <ymgillih AT midway.uchicago.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul as apostate (was Paul obligated to Torah?)
  • Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 21:18:51 -0600


Dear Mark,

I think that this issue has been covered in the past, but I have not
followed past exchanges so closely. Can you explain how your following
assertion matches up with Paul's argument in Gal 4:31-5:6? You write,

"I see no evidence that Paul did not consider himself, as a circumcised
worshipper of the One God, indebted to observe the whole Law, as he puts it
in Gal. 5:3. . ."

Yet Paul includes himself among the children of the free woman in 4:31 (ouk
esmen paidiskes tekna alla tes eleutheras); his appropriation of the story
of Sarah and Hagar is intended to illuminate the crisis at Galatia, and
tensions in the early "Christian" communities in general: the children of
Hagar the slave are those bound to the law, while the children of Sarah are
those enslaved to Christ, and consequently justified apart from the law
through faith in Christ. Paul absolutely identifies himself with the latter
in 4:31. Can this be contested?

In 5:1 Paul reemphasizes the freedom for which Christ has set "us" free
(tei eleutheriai hemas X. eleutherosen), by which he re-identifies himself
among those who are free from the law; adherence to the law is slavery. In
v. 2 Paul urges the Galatians not to become circumcised, since then
"Christos humas ouden ophelhsei"; in this immediate context he sets forth
the consequence of their clamoring after the law: "I testify (marturomai)
again to every man who is circumcised that he is one obligated (opheiletes)
to perform the entire law." This statement should be read, I believe, as
the consequence of 4:31-5:2 so that Paul says, "Be warned: if any man
becomes circumcised he will be obligated to observe the entire law." In
other words, if members of the Galatian community think that eschatological
salvation depends upon observance of aspects of the Torah, they should
recall that the Torah stipulates that righteousness depends upon observing
all of its commandments. Do they wish to pursue the entire law? Do they not
realize that picking up the obligation of circumcision implies becoming
indebted to the entire Torah?

In v. 5 Paul describes the state of those who accept the obligation to be
circumcised: "you have been abolished from Christ, you who would be
justified by the Law--you have fallen away from grace!" Does Paul think
that he and all other circumcised Jews are required to obey the law, in
light of this verse? Does he think that he and other Jewish Christians are
obligated to observe the Law, while Gentiles who attempt to do so are
accursed? Such would be enormously bad for communal identity, to say the
least, since the community supposedly defined by unity through faith in
Christ is radically divided into those who are free from the Torah and
those who remain obligated to fulfill its requirements. Division between
Jew and Greek, slave and free remain--the very categories which Paul
declared annulled in 3:23-29. Again in v. 5 he emphasizes that "we," those
who approach God through faith, await the hope of righteousness. How can
this "I" be at once one indebted to perform the entire law, as your
interpretation of 5:3 goes, and one set free, an heir of the free woman, a
citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem?

A better interpretation, it seems to me at this point, is that Paul
considers Jewish Law a matter of indifference as regards righteousness: it
is a cultural convention without eschatological significance, now that God
has given the gift of justification through faith in Christ. Indeed 2:16
seems to suggest that Paul does not see any hope for justification apart
from faith in Christ; why, then, would he think of himself as obligated to
fulfill the law? In 6:14 Paul announces that he should never boast of
anything except the cross of "our Lord Jesus Christ," an attitude opposing
that which he describes of the "Judaizers" in v. 13.

Finally, 6:16 does not seem to allow for division between those obligated
to observe the law and those obligated to avoid obligation to observe the law:

kai hosoi twi kanoni toutwi stochesousin, eirene ep' autous kai eleos epi
ton Israel tou theou

"Israel" here is the eschatological community defined by the freedom
described in the letter, inclusive of Jews and Gentiles; God's grace and
mercy are upon "us," to use Paul's frequent description of the
community--upon those who follow "this rule," namely, that of seeking
justification through faith and not through performance of the entire Torah.

If you've the inclination and time, would you mind (re-)describing your
reasons for thinking that Paul considers himself to be "indebted to observe
the whole Law," in your words, when the plainest sense of the letter (so
says one raised in Protestant 20th century America) seems to suggest
otherwise, and as scholarship of the past century and a half seems to have
thought?

With warm regards,

Yonder Gillihan
Ph.D. student, New Testament and Early Christian Literature
The University of Chicago





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