The Epistle To The Galatians.
The changes in this brief Epistle need not occupy us long. In chapter 1: 6 the present force is properly given, “ye are so quickly removing” (not “removed"), and “in” (not “into”) the grace of Christ, and of course, “unto a different [not “another”] gospel” a very considerable correction of mere renderings, and long known to be necessary, for a single verse. So also the slight shade of distinction between “should preach” in verse 8 and “preacheth” in verse 9 is due to truth. The revision of verse 13 seems more cumbrous and less Pauline than as it stands in the Authorized Version.
In chapter 2:2-4 we have to complain of the same defect in catching and conveying the scope, which we saw so conspicuously in 2 Cor. 3 and 8, reproduced here also in a punctuation which quite destroys the true, and insinuates a false, connection. It is the more striking because the Company show no disinclination to avail themselves of parenthetical signs for verse 8, to which nobody demurs, though these are less required there than here: they were guided in both by their predecessors, who so marked verse 8 but not verse 3. There is strictly another insertion in verse 6; but there is perhaps less necessity there to indicate it, though there be parenthesis within parenthesis. The late Mr. Bagge was more right than Dean Alford or the Bishops of Bristol and Durham.—But the rendering of verse 16 in the text is really strange, “save” being here most inadequate to convey the strongly oppositive exception conveyed by ἐὰν μή. The margin “but only” is much better, for it excludes works of law, whereas “save” admits of them conjointly with faith in Jesus Christ. Now the entire argument, and especially this verse, contradicts any such combination. Justification is not by law-work; it is through faith. We believed on Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Him, and not by law-works, because by law-works shall no flesh be justified. Hence every shade of orthodoxy concurs in giving a stronger opposition to the phrase than the Company convey in their singularly mild version. Law-works are excluded from being put with faith in Christ in order to justification. It is really stronger than ἀλλά, whatever the common point implied besides the contrast.
Here we see, too, how little the Revisers estimated the force of the anarthrous construction. They put in the margin “works of law,” and “law,” where their text gives “the works of the law,” and “the law;” and they do not always mark this, as twice in the latter part of verse 16. It is as opposed to fact as to philological principle that the article was inserted or omitted arbitrarily. Prepositions are no exceptions, though from their nature they suit with peculiar facility the anarthrous usage; but the presence or the absence of the article depends on its general principle. Thus in Rom. 3:1919Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19) the article is twice required with νόμος, and once with a preposition; in verse 20 it is twice left out just as correctly, and in verse 21 it is once both omitted and inserted with ν., and in each with a preposition; in the last verse of the chapter it is twice anarthrous, and in both the object of verbs. It is bad grammar and perhaps feeble theology to confound νόμον with τὸν ν. The apostle generalizes, though no doubt “the” law falls under the expressly characteristic term. So it is often in Romans, as in Galatians and elsewhere; but there is not the least backwardness or laxity in giving the article with this word or any other where its presence is really wanted. The indefinite article of our tongue would be quite improper in all or most of these cases; nor does English idiom forbid the exact representation of its anarthrous usage in at least very many instances like these cited, and Gal. 2:19, 21; 3:2, 519For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. (Galatians 2:19)
21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. (Galatians 2:21)
2This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Galatians 3:2)
5He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Galatians 3:5). Verses 10-13 are valuable in confirming the refutation of the too prevalent fallacy, where we have the broad, principle in its characteristic and therefore anarthrous form, and then the article for the particular matter of fact; see again the principle in verse 11, and the fact in verses 12, 13. If the Company had understood the true force of the anarthrous usage, they never would in my opinion have agreed to consign to the margin what ought to have been unhesitatingly set out in the text.
In chapter 3:1 They have rightly struck out the addition (from the end of chap. 5: 7), though it has no little ancient support in manuscripts, versions, and Fathers, also at the end of the verse. In verse 12 it is rightly “he” (not “the man”); but “upon” in verse 14 goes beyond εἰς (unto). It is not Paul, but his translators and commentators who fail in the force of the preposition. In verse 17 the gloss “unto Christ” rightly vanishes. In verse 20 the article is no doubt generic; but why should we not say “the” Mediator, though we only speak of one descriptive of the class? Perhaps in this particular instance it was desirable to avoid the equivoque of mere previous mention, which is not at all the reason of its insertion here. Again, it seems to me that the italic insertion here is needless, and rather enfeebles the apostle's idea that it “is not of one” (that is, it supposes at least two parties, whilst God is one), promising and accomplishing Himself. Nor is there any need of inserting “to bring us” in verse 24, where “up to,” or “unto,” is better than “until,” as expressive of the object in view, and not of a temporal limit only. Nor does the severance of “faith” from “in Christ Jesus,” here insinuated by the punctuation, seem warranted.—Our being one in Christ Jesus follows in verse 28; but here it is not one in Christ, nor Abraham's seed, that is being urged, but that the Galatian saints were God's sons through faith in Christ Jesus. Drs. Alford and Ellicott were right, not the Bishop of Durham. In verse 28 they translate ἔνι by the more forcible “there can be,” and omit the copulative in verse 29.
In chapter 4:7 the critical reading which rests on superior authority is adopted, for the comma softening down the sense in Text. Rec. and the Authorized Version. But do the Revisers really understand the import of verse 12? The apostle exhorts the Galatians to be as he is, free from law, “for I [am] as ye.” To say “as ye are” seems to spoil the thought, for at that time they were affecting the law, and from this he is earnestly dissuading them. They did him no wrong in affirming that he taught or practiced freedom from the law in virtue of Christ's death; for such is the doctrine and the life of the Christian, as Romans, Galatians, and Colossians clearly prove. Are the Revisers justified in treating δἰ ἀσθένειαν as “because of infirmity"? No one, of course, questions that διά with the accusative ordinarily means “on account of;” but the question is, whether this narrow view which yields so strange a sense be here intended, when in poetry at least such a form was notoriously used to express a state in which one might be, The Greek fathers saw no difficulty in thus interpreting the Pauline phrase, and never thought of confounding it with the phrase in Thuc. vi. 102; and it appears to me that Nicias would have startled his audience beyond measure if he had said δἰ ἀσθένειαν ἔσωσα τὸν κύκλον, in the sense of “on account of an infirmity I saved, &c.” though he might very simply be left behind on that account. Again, the version of verse 18 seems hazardous, and little agreeing with the context, though one can readily admit the difficulty of the passive form, which some believe to be a true middle. But the passive sense makes sad havoc in the verse and its connection.
Chapter 5: 1 is an entangled question as to text and translation: whether the Revisers were wise in giving us so awkward a result seems doubtful. Is the rendering of verse 10 English? “I have confidence to your word in the Lord” —confidence to, or toward a person! Who ever heard of such language save among youths whose mother-tongue got spoiled by Greek idiom? On the other hand the “in” of the Authorized Version goes beyond εἰς, which in this connection should be translated “as to.” Verse 12 appears to be fairly given. The rendering of verse 17 is uncompromisingly accurate.
In chapter 6 there is nothing specially calling for remark beyond the correct rendering of verse 11, and the omission of “the Lord” in verse 17.