Paul and the victims of his persecution: the opponents in Galatia

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2002 by Richard B. Cook

Abstract

Shortly after he had organized churches in Galatia and left the region, Paul was confronted by the accusations of victims of his earlier persecution, who denounced him to his new converts. In response, Paul devised an idiosyncratic reading of the Scriptures. His argument was that Torah was an interim mechanism and a cause of sin, intended by God to regulate transgressions. The lawful execution of the Messiah caused Torah to be rescinded. It could be re-imposed only at the cost of making meaningless the death of the Messiah. Thus, Paul argued, he should be acquitted of any condemnation as a transgressor.

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The Apostle Paul was known as a persecutor of Christian Jews before his conversion to the very faith he attempted to suppress. (Gal 1:13; 1 Cor 15:9; Phil 3:6)

What happened to Paul's Victims?

The comments that follow are focused on what can be learned and inferred about the victims from Paul's own statements in the document he dictated (Gal 6:11) and which he directed "to the churches in Galatia" (Gal 1:1). "Galatia" is understood by this writer to refer to Anatolian Celtica, that is, the Celtic-populated region of Turkey, whose center is present day Ankara.

Paul's Critics Were His Victims.

The thesis here proposed is that Paul was confronted in Galatia with accusations brought against him by some of his own victims. Paul's opponents were not competing missionaries affiliated with respected Judean believers (Betz: 7; Dunn: 9-11) or competing "teachers" (Aquinas: 160 ["false teachers"], Luther: 47 ["teacher of works"], Wrede: 32 ["Jewish Christian teachers"], Burton: liv ["teachers" and also "judaisers"]), Martyn 1997a: 117-26. Nor should Paul's opponents in Galatia be identified as "innovators" (Lightfoot: 27) or "false apostles" (Luther: 47,341; Calvin: 3, 4, 6, 13) or as some of his own Gentile converts, who veered into "heresy" (Munck: 134). Nor were his adversaries "restorers" of Christian "orthodoxy" (Raisanen: 258, 264) or figures in local synagogues who wished either to "influence" (Nanos: 6) or pressure (Esler: 51) Paul's recruits to get themselves circumcised.

For two millennia, the fate of Paul's victims and their possible denunciation of him in Galatia has escaped inquiry by commentators and scholars. It has been acknowledged that there is in this letter a "personal element" more likely than any doctrinal controversy to "cause embitterment" (Burton: liv). But Burton's insight has not been enlarged upon with Paul's victims in mind. To put the present proposal as clearly as possible: Paul was confronted in the churches in Galatia by the credible accusations of victims of his earlier persecution of Christian Jews.

In his letter, Paul responded to accusations by a brief admission (Gal 1:13) followed by a defense (the balance of the letter). Because of his allegiance to the executed Messiah (also a victim of persecution, Gal 3:1; 6:17) Paul argues that he now partakes of a final, cosmic victory. Emblems of this victory include the abrogation of the dictates of Torah (Gal 2:16; 5:11) and all other legal strictures (Gal 4:8-9; 5:1). Paul asserts that he will not permit himself to be subjected to judgment for his past conduct (Gal 2:18). Paul's argument is, in effect, an argument for impunity from legal censure (Gal 2:21). Significantly, any persons in Galatia who stand in opposition to him are to be "cast out" (Gal 4:29-30).

Paul's generalized derogation of "law" suggests that his victims may not have charged him with any specific violation(s) of Torah. Instead, Paul may have been accused of failing to live up to the high moral standards and an attendant humane code of conduct which Judaism of this period was thought to uphold in the Gentile world. (Collins: 273) The suffering of victims, the reaction of their persecutors to the victims' accusations, and the empathy that victims can elicit from bystanders cannot be seen from only one angle. Paul's response was to focus his defense on "the law" which, he insisted, can no longer be applied to his conduct. That Paul erected this particular defense does not mean he successfully or even directly came to grips with the denunciations raised against him in Galatia.

By tradition and then by formal designation, Paul's letter has been taken as Scripture. In this role, the document has achieved a pre-eminent authority, by which it has brought solace to uncounted generations of believers. But an essential task of the historian-commentator is to achieve transparency of the pre-literary situation. This procedure must include an awareness that the text can have differing meanings for its creator, its intended audiences, and of course for later readers who were not in view when the text was created. The transition from discourse to document is a dynamic process, as the hearer(s) and subsequent readers of the letter bring forth their own perspectives and expectations.

Propositional statements should not be center stage before interpretative tendencies have been identified (Grondin: 93). This idea achieved status as a theory of understanding in the 20th century, primarily through the influence of Heidegger and those theologians (e.g., Bultmann) and philosophers (e.g., Gadamer) who followed him. Their search was for the structure ("fore-structure") of understanding as a method of identifying the inner meaning of a text, as opposed to its explicit meaning. Excellent summaries of the philosophical and theological aspects of these developments may be found in Grondin (91-123) and Macquarrie (105-10, 166-70) respectively.