Galatians 2:1

ἔπειτα (Galatians 1:18; Galatians 1:21) διὰ δεκατεσσάρων ἐτῶν, “after fourteen years.” διά (which had originally the local idea of “interval between,” see A. T. Robertson, Short Grammar of the Greek N.T., 1908, p. 119), here marks the time between one event and the next as already passed through before this arrives. Mark 2:1; Acts 24:17; Polyb. XXII. 23 (26) 22 διʼ ἐτῶν τριῶν ἄλλους�: cf. the classical διὰ χρόνου. The ἔπειτα strongly suggests that the fourteen years date from the last matter of interest, viz. the commencement of the journey to Syria etc. Galatians 1:21, which took place at the end of the first visit to Jerusalem, Galatians 1:18-19. So Lightfoot and Zahn. But for chronological reasons some (e.g. Ramsay, Turner) date it from his conversion.

πάλιν, “again,” but not necessarily only a second time. It appears to have been absent from the text of Marcion and Irenaeus.

ἀνέβην. The ἀνά may be used because of the geographical position of Jerusalem, or more probably because of its religious superiority. Compare ὁ στρατηγὸς�(ει) αὔριον εἰς τὸ Σαραπιῆν in a papyrus of the 2nd cent. B.C. (Moulton and Milligan, Expositor, VII. 5, 1908, p. 184, cf. p. 271). This visit is doubtless to be identified with that recorded in Acts 15. On the relation of the two accounts, see Appendix Note B.

μετὰ Βαρνάβα. Therefore certainly before the separation in Acts 15:39. But in itself the fact that Barnabas went with him does not help us to identify the visit, for they were together in all the three visits, Acts 9:27; Acts 11:30 with Acts 12:25; Acts 15:2. Barnabas is mentioned here to show that not only St Paul went up, but also one whose orthodoxy no Hebrew-Christian doubted. On the inference drawn from his name here by upholders of the South Galatian theory see the Introduction, pp. xxvii. sq.

συνπαραλαβὼν. Acts 12:25; Acts 15:37-38[62] of John Mark. The verb thus signifies taking a dependent, as in LXX. Job 1:4, Job’s sons take their sisters, and 3Ma 1:1, Philopator takes his sister Arsinoe. Ramsay (Gal. p. 294) objects to the translation “taking … with me,” as though it connoted superiority to Barnabas, but it really only implies that Titus was dependent on St Paul not on Barnabas.

[62] Is affixed to a word it means that all the passages are mentioned where that word occurs in the New Testament.

καὶ Τίτον. We know of him only from St Paul’s writings, Galatians 2:3 2Cor. (nine times); 2 Timothy 4:10; Titus 1:4[63]: mentioned here because being a full-born Gentile (Galatians 2:3) and uncircumcised, his was a crucial case. For this very reason also, as we may suppose, St Paul took him with him to Jerusalem. See Galatians 2:3 note.

[63] Is affixed to a word it means that all the passages are mentioned where that word occurs in the New Testament.