Tutor The word ‘tutor,’ which has taken the place of ‘schoolmaster’ (q.v. [Note: .v. quod vide, which see.]) in the RV [Note: V Revised Version.] of Galatians 3:24, and of ‘instructed’ in 1 Corinthians 4:15, has itself given place to ‘guardian’ in the only passage of Scripture where it formerly appeared- Galatians 4:2 . It has in this passage, however, not an educational but a strictly legal connotation, rendering the word ἐ πιτρό π ους, in close connexion with ο ἰ κονόμους -‘guardians and stewards.’ The ἐ πίτρο π ος is here employed to describe the guardian of the child under the will of the father, potentially if the father is still alive, actually if he is dead. Bengel calls the ἐ πίτρο π ος tutor heredis, the ο ἰ κονόμος curator bonorum . Under Roman law a minor came of age at twenty-five, and was under a tutor till fourteen and a curator till his minority ceased. This was ‘the day appointed of the father,’ and St. Paul here compares the state of the world, both Jewish and Gentile, before Christ came to an heir in his minority. Then ‘when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Galatians 4:4).
Literature.-W. M. Ramsay, Historical Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, London, 1899, pp. 381 ff., 392 f.
Thomas Nicol.