Corpus-Paul

["rabbisaul" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>]



>Gal 3:24 is often quoted here, so I have a question.

 

>Why is paidagōgos translated as schoolmaster or tutor in most translations when Strong and Thayer and every other greek dictionary I can find, list the first definition as "boy leader".  The boy leader's role and thereby goal was to get the children to school safely.  Once the children were mature, there was no longer a need for the boy leader to take them to school, but they were still expected to go there (by the best route).

 

Well, in my reading that would be a little bit limited. The paidagogos was generally the household slave who was a sort of caregiver to minor children. That caregiving usually involved some basic life-instructions (e.g. in good manners) and knuckle rapping. Probably the best translation would be "child custodian." (See e.g. Linda Belleville, "'Under law': Structural Analysis and the Pauline Concept of Law in Galatians 3.21-4.11" in JSNT 26.53-78 [1986], esp p 59; T. David Gordon, "A Note on paidagogos in Galatians 3.24-25" in NTS 35/1:150-154 [1989]; A. T. Hanson, "The Origin of Paul's Use of paidagogos for the Law," in JSNT 34:71-76 [1988]; David J. Lull, "'The Law was Our Pedagogue': A Study in Galatians 3:19-25," in JBL 105/3:481-498 [1986], as well as socio-rhetorical commentaries such as Witherington's Grace in Galatia.)

 

>So if the Law was the paidagōgos (boy leader) wasn't its role or goal therefore to get us to Christ?  And isn't that what Rom 10:4 is saying?  The Goal of the Law is Christ.

 

Not in the sense of "boy leader," as if the law was taking us to school, which is Christ, I don't think.

 

It seems to me that Paul answers most of our important questions about his usage of the paidagogos in the same context where he brings it up. A paidagogos was only in charge of minors. In Gal 3.26-29, Paul says that those who are in Christ are "sons of God" (note that huios frequently has the identity of a child who has reached his majority). Why? Because they have "put on Christ" (3.27), who is the mature Son.

 

Ignore the chapter division! Paul is continuing to talk about the same thing on into chapter 4. He says that the child differs nothing from a slave when he remains a minor, even though he is destined to receive the inheritance (4.1). Paul has, of course, spoken of the inheritance through promise back in 3.15-18. Then he adds that this minor is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father (4.2). It seems to me that there can be little doubt that Paul is here alluding to the paidagogos.

 

Paul says what "we" were "in bondage under the stoicheia of the wolrd while "we" were minors (4.3). By "bondage" he is referring primarily to this situation of being a minor and thus differing nothing from a slave on a certain functional level. The situation is resolved in 4.4 when God sends His huios; He is born under the law to redeem those under the law "so that we might receive the adoption as huioi." Paul seems to be mixing his metaphors a little bit there, but I think his point is clear enough: those in Christ have full (mature) sonship; they may now inherit.

 

Paul then goes on to mix Jews and Gentiles together in 4.6ff, so that things get a bit confusing. The general sense of Paul's analogies, I believe, are rooted in a classic Jewish dichotomy between "this age" and "the age to come," but he obviously has given it some new twists. I point to two in particular:

 

(1) The "age to come" has already begun in Christ, which is why inheritance has arrived.

 

(2) Torah is placed on the side of "this age," rather than the age to come. That is what underlies Paul's use of stoicheia in 4.3 to refer to the law (if not exclusively, then certainly inclusively), when by implication he uses the same term in 4.9 to refer to idolatry. Or more precisely: in 4.9 it looks like he almost collapses Torah into idolatry. The "looks like" is very important here! Paul's point is not - and could not be - that Torah and the idols are pretty much the same thing, and that all through history Jews had no more access to salvation than anyone else. I say "could not be," because of what Paul has just said about the heir differing nothing from a slave. The point is not that the heir was a slave, period, but that both heir and slave share something fundamentally similar in life-condition. And (to move back from the analogy to Paul's point) that life-condition is that both are bound to "this age," of necessity - the age of "minor-hood," if you will. And that is the reason that Paul can shift from idols to the law in one breath in 4.9; he is not denying that Torah was God-given, or that it was "against the promises" (which he has denied in 3.21). He is simply saying that it was a child-custodian fitting for the time of "this age." Thus, the Gentiles who have been liberated from the stoicheia when they abandoned idolatry would in fact be stepping back under the authority of the stoicheia were they to come under Torah. (N.B. Paul employs nomos in two senses: Torah as Israel's Scripture, and Torah as the Mosaic covenant as a governing administration. He uses these side by side in 4.21 to make a sort of play on words. It is important to stress that Paul never repudiates Torah in the former sense in any way, and further that his "repudiation" of Torah in the second sense is of a particular sort: this covenant was intended for a given time and people, but it finds its intended purpose, function and fulfillment in Israel's own Messiah.)

 

In light of the above, in terms of Galatians 3.24-25 I would say that eis probably means something very close to a simple "until": the law was a pedagogue until Christ.

 

tim

 

Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church

 

http://www.timgallant.org
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