By the child, in this place, the apostles understands all the Jewish people, who, as long as they were under the childhood of the law, were subject to numerous restrictions, although they were the favorite children of God. But when the fulness of time came, they received the adoption of children, an... [ Continue Reading ]
_Under the elements of the world. St. John Chrysostom understands the exterior ceremonies and precepts of the law of Moses, with an allusion to the first elements or rudiments which children are taught. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_The fulness of the time. That is, the time decreed by Divine Providence. --- God sent his Son made of a woman, who took a true human body of his virgin Mother. --- Under the law, as he was man, because he was pleased to make himself so. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Crying, Abba. That is, Father; Christ taught us in prayer to call God our Father, he having made us his adoptive sons by his grace, and heirs of heaven. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_You served them, who by nature are no gods. These words are to be understood of the converts, who had been Gentiles. --- Known of God. That is, approved and loved by him. (Witham) --- The language of the apostle in this verse is not perhaps strictly precise. The Galatians, whom he addresses, had be... [ Continue Reading ]
[BIBLIOGRAPHY] St. Jerome on this verse, p. 271, dicat aliquis, nos simile crimen in[]urrimus....observantes diem dominicam....Pascha festivitatem, & Pentecostes []ætitiam, & pro varietate regionum, diversa in honore martyrum tempora consti[]uta, &c.... [ Continue Reading ]
You observe [1] days, &c. These false teachers were for obliging all Christians to observe all the Jewish feasts, fasts, ceremonies, &c. Some of the later reformers find here an occasion to blame the fasts and holydays kept by Catholics. St. Jerome, in his commentary on these words, tells us that so... [ Continue Reading ]
_Be ye as I, for I also am as you. I add no word in the translation, because it is uncertain what is to be understood: some give this construction, be you as I am, because I also was, as you now are; and they expound them thus: lay aside your zeal for the Jewish ceremonies as I have done, who was on... [ Continue Reading ]
_Through infirmity of the flesh....and your temptation in my flesh. St. Jerome thinks the apostle had some bodily infirmity upon him. St. John Chrysostom understands his poverty, and want, and persecutions, and that some were inclined to contemn him and his preaching on these accounts. Yet others am... [ Continue Reading ]
He tells them this change come from the false teachers among them, who with a false _zeal would exclude them from a friendship and a submission to St. Paul, and deprive them again of that Christian liberty by which Christ, and the faith of Christ, had freed them from the yoke of the Mosaical law. On... [ Continue Reading ]
[BIBLIOGRAPHY] Confundor in vobis, _Greek: aporoumai. See 2 Corinthians iv. 8. &c._... [ Continue Reading ]
It is written in the law, that is, in Genesis, (chap. xvi. and chap. xxi.) that Abraham had two sons, &c. that his two sons, Ismael, born of his servant, Agar, and Isaac of his wife, Sara, in an allegorical sense, represent the two testaments or covenants, which God made with his people: that by Ism... [ Continue Reading ]
[BIBLIOGRAPHY] Qui conjunctus est ei, quæ nunc est Jerusalem, _Greek: sustoichei te nun Ierousalem. See Budæus, Estius, Mr. Legh, &c._... [ Continue Reading ]
St. Paul makes another observation upon this example of Ismael and Isaac: that as Ismael was troublesome to Isaac, for which he and his mother were turned out of the family, _so also now the Jews insulted and persecuted the Christians, who had been Gentiles; but God will protect them as heirs of the... [ Continue Reading ]