Galatians 4:19-30

D. Confirmation of the freedom of Christians, from the narrative of the Scripture concerning the two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, by means of an interpretation referring it to the Jewish and the Christian Church

Galatians 4:19-30

(Galatians 4:21-31. The Epistle for the 4th Sunday in Lent.)

19My little children22 of whom I travail in birth again [with whom I am again in 20travail] until Christ be formed in you, I desire [I could wish indeed] to be present with you now, and to change my voice [tone];23 for I stand in doubt of you 21 [am perplexed about you].24 Tell me ye that desire to be under the Jaw, do ye not hear25 the law? 22For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman [one by the bondmaid, and one by the free woman 23]. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise [through the26 promise]. 24Which things are an allegory [are allegorical]:27 for these are the [omit the]28 two covenants; the one from the [omit the] mount Sinai, which gendereth to [bearing children unto] bondage, which is Agar [Hagar].29 25For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia [(For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia), or For the word Agar means in Arabia mount Sinai; or For this Hagar represents mount Sinai in Arabia], and answereth to [she ranks30 with] Jerusalem which now is [the present Jerusalem], and is [for31 she is] in bondage with her children. 26But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all [and she is our32 mother]. 27For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children [many are the children of the desolate more] 28than she which [who] hath a husband. Now we [But ye],33 brethren, as Isaac was, 29are the [omit the] children of promise. But [still] as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. 30Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir [shall in no wise34 be heir] with the son35 of the free woman.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Galatians 4:19. My little children.—[Lightfoot: “A mode of address common in St. John, but not found elsewhere in St. Paul. Here the diminutive expresses both the tenderness of the Apostle and the feebleness of his converts. It is a term at once of affection and rebuke.”—R.] It is more natural to make a break here (the very suddenness of the appeal implies this) and to join “my little children” with “tell me” (Galatians 4:21). It cannot at all events be connected with the preceding context, but the connection with Galatians 4:20 is only possible on the assumption of an interruption of the discourse (comp, δέ). [The presence of δέ in Galatians 4:20 is urged as a reason for connecting our verse very closely with Galatians 4:18, as is done by many commentators. The course of the thought would then be: “I have a right to ask for constancy in your affections. I have a greater claim on you than these new teachers. They speak but as strangers to strangers; I as a mother to her children with whom she has travailed” (Lightfoot). But there is something so sudden in the address, that it is better to separate the verses (so Meyer, Alford, Ellicott).—R.] On the other hand the contents of Galatians 4:20 fit very well into the discourse as a parenthetical remark. In the “am again in travail” the wish presses itself upon him, rather to be present with them—and this he then expresses—before going on, in Galatians 4:21, to attempt to change the minds of his readers, as being his children, and to bring them back. It is true “tell me,” after this interruption, does not connect immediately with Galatians 4:19; the “little children” receives a particular definition in “ye that desire to be under the law,” but this only indicates how far a travailing again is necessary, in order to prepare for a continuance of this ὠδίνειν through the following exposition, as indeed all that precedes had been nothing else than such a travail.

[This view of the connection of the passage is open to serious objection. Two vocatives are joined together, which are separated both in position and in tone. Galatians 4:20 which contains the wish to be present is sundered from Galatians 4:18, where the thought of his presence is introduced. The idea of travailing is joined to a passage of argument by illustration, and separated from the more personal part of the discourse. If there be a difficulty about. δέ (Galatians 4:20) as introducing an “opposition,” and hence a parenthesis be deemed necessary, this “opposition” may be found (Meyer) “in the tacit contrast between the subject of his wish to be present with them, and his actual absence and separation.” It seems best then to connect Galatians 4:19-20 together—detaching them as a burst of tenderness from both the preceding and subsequent context, though joined in thought more closely with the I former.—R.]

With whom I am again in travail.—i. e., the second time.—The labor of his spirit on the hearts of the readers he here compares with the travail of a mother (elsewhere with the begetting of the father), in which the point of comparison I is the activity directed to the coming of a child into the world; with the mother—of a natural child; here with the Apostle—of a spiritual child. This image is continued with the expression until Christ be formed in you.—It is a ripe, completely developed child that is in contemplation=in which the life has come to perfect manifestation. Such a child, and only such a one, renders a mother’s pangs of labor effectual, for only such a child lives, and therefore only in such a one has she a child. So long as the birth is not that of a perfect child, so long must she ever look forward to new pangs of labor, before she can have this, her wish granted. [Ellicott: “The idea is not so much of the pain, as of the long and continuous effort of the travail.”—R.]—With justice therefore is the complete formation of the child represented as the aim of the labor, and there is here nothing like an inversion of the physiological process, in which the formatio takes place ante partum. This is not here the point in question. The natural child is completely developed, in that the natural life, as it were the spirit of life, comes in it to perfect manifestion, gains an actual, corresponding form. What this natural spirit of life is in the natural child, Christ is in the spiritual child, as the principle of spiritual life, and hence the expression of the Apostle: Christ is μορφωθῆναι in them=the inward principle is to come with them to manifestation to gain a form in an established, assured, evangelical conviction of faith; only when this takes place, has Paul as spiritual mother actually a spiritual child. But since this is wanting, as is shown by their apostacy, he is therefore now bearing them once again, in the hope that this perfect formation may come to pass. (If it had not, he would have needed to travail in birth still again, but here, as is natural, he only speaks of a second travail.) That in nature a completely developed child is not hoped for from a second bearing of the same child, is a self-evident incongruity between the fact and the image, but it answers the purpose that the activity is the same—in both cases there is a travail of birth.36—Wieseler incorrectly finds in πάλιν ὠδίνειν the doctrinal conception of the new birth, and takes πάλιν therefore as antithetical to the natural birth. In the first place the Apostle’s lamentation over the alteration that had taken place in the readers, brings almost necessarily to our thoughts the probability of a renewed activity among them; and secondly he could well designate the labor bestowed by him upon the Galatians as a bearing of spiritual children, but not as a regeneration in the doctrinal sense, for this appertains to God alone. Paul’s travailing in birth with them, it is true, had as its end, their becoming regenerate children of God, but the one is not therefore to be identified with the other.

Galatians 4:20. I could wish indeed to be present with you.—[This rendering, though not literal, brings out the force of the passage, and the “tacit contrast” in δέ. See above.—&.]—And to change my tone.—This, in its immediate connection with a wish to be present with them, appears to signify: I should be glad to give my language such a form as suits with oral intercourse; from the written style, with its more formal, unpliable character, less suited to make an impression on the heart, I should be glad to pass over into oral discourse. But φωνὴν does not on this account mean: to interchange discourse with any one=to converse together, as Wieseler singularly assumes. Why he should like to be with them, and to vary his discourse, he then expressly declares: For I am perplexed about you.—Ἐν, the perplexity has its ground chiefly in them, in their state of mind.37 He knows not with what arguments he can find access to them and dispose them to a return. Therefore he thinks now he could more easily accomplish something by oral discourse with them. Meyer understands φωνὴν of a wish of Paul, instead of the rigorous tone used in his last visit, to essay a milder tone. But this is far from evident.—Rieger justly remarks that in a certain sense Paul does immediately after in Galatians 4:21 what he wishes in Galatians 4:20, namely, varies the form of his language, and speaks as if he were present with them: λέγετέμοι κ. τ. λ. [For the various interpretations of the phrase “change my voice” see Meyer in loco. The view given above seems tame, but the reference to the tone during his second visit is doubtful. So also the interpretation: “to modify my language from time to time as occasion demands.” Certainly it is improper to think of a desire to change his tone to a more severe one (in contrast with the mild τεκνία). On the whole it seems best to conclude 1) that the desired change was from the severe to the milder address; 2) that the severe tone referred to is that of the present Epistle (so Ellicott and many others).—R.]

Galatians 4:21. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?—“Hear” is hardly to be taken precisely as implying that the law was publicly read by the pseudo-apostles among them, but generally: Do you not give heed to what is written in the Law? The second time νόμος, according to the Jewish use of תוֹרָה= the Pentateuch. From the law itself, on which you lay so much stress, you might discover that you are not, and are not meant to be under the law. [Meyer:—“At the close of the theoretical part of his Epistle, Paul now appends a very peculiar allegoric argument from the law itself, intended to destroy the influence of the false Apostles with their own weapons, and to root it up out of its own proper soil.”—R.]

Galatians 4:22. For it is written.—Γάρ=I must inquire: do ye not hear the Law; for if you really heard the law, you would find in it that which might convince you how unsound and dangerous it is to “desire to be under the law.” That to which Paul refers the Galatians, as being found in the law, is the narrative in Genesis, of the two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, the one by the bondmaid, Hagar, and the other by the free woman, Sarah. As is known, he had Ishmael first, and he is therefore mentioned first. They were therefore indeed both Abraham’s sons, but they had not merely different mothers, but mothers also of entirely different conditions; the one was the son of a bondmaid, the other of a free woman.

Galatians 4:23. Yet even with that they might have been begotten in like manner, but (ἀλλά) this was far from being the case, the son of the bondmaid was begotten after the flesh, and the son of the free woman through the promise.—Κατὰ σάρκα = entirely in the ordinary way of natural generation, of carnal intercourse; διὰτῆς ἐπαγγελίας = formally also, it is true, in this way, but materially (by the side of which the other is a vanishing factor), by virtue of the divine promise, which Abraham had received, inasmuch as God in a miraculous manner, restored the long-lost capacity of Sarah to conceive, so that in truth the efficient factor was God. [The preposition διά denoting the causa medians (Ellicott).—R.]

Galatians 4:24. Which things are allegorical, ἅτινά ἐστιν .—Paul thus introduces his interpretation of the narrative which he quotes. He states what the Galatians might learn from it. [Ellicott has a valuable note on the distinction between ὅς and ὅστις. His view of ἅτινα is thus expressed: “all which things viewed in their most general light.” This wider meaning will guard against the assumption that the narrative itself was a mere allegory and not historical.—R.]—Ἀλληγορεῖν = ἄλλο : to say something else than is expressed by the letter, to say something in figures; passively: to have a tropical sense, ἀλληγορούμενον εἶναι = to be something that has such a sense. That Paul understands what is related in Genesis of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, etc., as history also, needs I no proof: but undoubtedly at the same time he sees in the history an intimation of something else, something higher, than the simple history relates. In what sense, see below, in the Doctrinal Notes. [The precise meaning of ἀλληγορεῖν must be noted. It may be made to cover the thought: to be treated as having an allegorical sense, but here we must insist on the more definite and strict meaning: to have an allegorical sense. “Which things viewed in their most general light have an allegorical meaning;” this interpretation will guard against the assumptions and errors which are based upon a looser view. See Doctrinal Notes.—R.]

To what the history points is then stated: for these are two covenants.—Αὐται seems not to refer immediately, i. e., grammatically, to the women, but, according to ordinary Greek usage, to stand for ταῦτα; it would be somewhat different if in Galatians 4:23 the women were the subjects. Substantially no doubt it refers to the two women, in whom he sees types of the two covenants—not however in the twofold marriage covenant of Abraham with Hagar and Sarah (as Jatho assumes, who, in order to sustain this view, is obliged to give an exceedingly forced interpretation of “which is Agar”). It is peculiar, and renders the understanding of this passage somewhat difficult, that Paul, in the first place, designates the women and not the sons themselves as symbols, more particularly as prophetic symbols of the two covenants; and in the second place, it even more perplexes the matter, that he finds in them the two covenants == of God with men, which were typified or prophesied (that is, in general, the Old and the New Covenant), and takes these themselves as mothers, and then from these first passes over to the two diverse churches, whose motherhood appears more clearly when viewed in connection with their members. Of course, however, the covenants stand in intimate relation to the churches; it is not only they that confer on them their peculiar character, but also that properly constitute them; without the covenants the churches would not exist.—The one from Mount Sinai, etc.—A pregnant expression = the first covenant is that which originates from mount Sinai and bears unto bondage. Γεννῶσα, feminine, because it corresponds to the mother Hagar. The expression εἰς δουλείαν γεννῶσα is itself to be supplemented so that it=bearing, sc. children, as it were into bondage = and translating them into bondage, of course by subjection to the law, for the covenant from Sinai is the covenant of law.—Which is Hagar.—This is = this covenant is typified by Hagar, for she too as “bondmaid” bore children “unto bondage.” This is of course primarily the ground why he compares the Sinaitic covenant with Hagar; of both alike the bearing children unto bondage” was an attribute. But this abrupt assertion: the Sinaitic covenant is Hagar, or, Hagar signifies the Sinaitic covenant, because it as well as she “bore unto bondage,” is of itself too bold and startling, and Paul therefore in a parenthesis intimates that Sinai and Hagar, far apart as they might seem to be, yet even independently of this “bearing,” stand of themselves related to one another.

Galatians 4:25. The words setting forth this relation are, according to one reading: τὸ γὰρ Σινᾶ ὄροςἐσὶν ἐν τῇ Ἀραβίᾳ: according to the other: τὸ δὲ [or γάρͅ] Ἄγαρ Σινᾶ ὄρος, &c. Accepting the first reading, Paul points to the fact that Mount Sinai is situated in Arabia—that therefore the Sinaitic covenant has one home with Hagar, and so far a relation to her. Both originate from Arabia—are not at home in the Holy Land; while yet they both came in near relation to the people of God; Hagar to Abraham, bearing him a son; the Sinaitic covenant to Abraham’s posterity, raising up children to this; for Israel by the Sinaitic covenant first became an organized theocratic people, possessing the principle of self-preservation and hereditary continuance.—Accepting the reading: τὸ δὲ Ἄγαρ, κ. τ. λ. in which δέ is exceedingly well suited to introduce an elucidation, which indeed it properly is, rather than a demonstration [γάρ being however the more probable reading, on critical grounds, see critical note.—R.], the Apostle points out that even as to name there exists a relation between Hagar and the Sinaitic covenant,—that it is not therefore so arbitrary as might seem on his part, to interpret the former as a type of the latter; for that among the Arabians, Mount Sinai has just this name of Hagar, and that—as Paul undoubtedly assumes—after Hagar. It is true we have no other proof of Sinai’s having this appellation, and it would have to be assumed that Paul had learned, perhaps from his sojourn in Arabia, that Sinai bore this name also among the Arabs, which he referred back to Hagar. It is certainly probable, that the Arabs named Sinai Ἄγαρ; for this is = Rock, and so corresponds precisely to the character of this mountain chain, and probably also to the signification of the ancient name “Sinai” itself, which etymology renders by “Rock.”—Paul would then, only err in the reference of this name Ἄγαρ to the Hagar of the Old Testament, but at all events the name would be the same, and this, in the first instance would be the main thing. Yet this circumstance will always make this reading suspicious.

[In addition to these interpretations, which may be distinguished as I., II., another (III.) must be considered, viz., that of Calvin, Beza, Estius, Wordsworth (and Lightfoot, if the correctness of the Recepta be established): “For this Hagar (is) represents Mount Sinai in Arabia.”—I. is comparatively free from grammatical difficulty, forming a parenthesis, which introduces a geographical remark, the point of which is obvious, though on the whole it seems much tamer than the other views. Besides the critical grounds for preferring the longer reading (not the least strong being this absence of grammatical difficulties), it may be objected 1. That since a mere geographical remark would be unnecessary, the emphasis must lie on ἐν τῇ Ἀραβ.; but to convey such an emphasis, the Greek order should be ἐν τῇ Ἀρ. ἐστίν (Alford). 2. Meyer intimates that this view must press as the essential point, the fact that the mountain was “outside of the land of Canaan,” and yet this essential point is only implied. Still there is not much force in this objection, since the positive statement “is in Arabia,” the land of bondsmen, is after all the main thought, the other being a negative antitheses, that may well be omitted.—II. is adopted by Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, and many older commentators (Chrysostom, Luther, et al). This may be called the etymological view. Here the grammatical difficulties are not great, for it may readily be conceded, that τὸ Ἄγαρ means “the word Agar,” ἐστίν, “means”—and ἐν τῇ Αρ. either “among the Arabians” or “in the Arabian (supply διαλέκτῳ) dialect,” and the objection that “the word Agar” cannot properly be the subject of συστοιχεῖ is met by putting a semicolon at the end of this clause, or throwing it into a parenthesis. The real difficulties are far graGal Galatians 4:1. It is extremely doubtful whether “Agar” did mean “in Arabia, Mount Sinai.” The testimony of travellers is not strong, that of philology even less so. Granting that the Arabic word for “rock” is similar in sound, we are far from settling the question of identity of name. 2. “If in writing to a half-Greek, half-Celtic people, he ventured to argue from an Arabic word at all, he would at all events be careful to make his drift intelligible” (“Lightfoot). Was it likely to be intelligible to them, when in these days of philological and geographical research, this interpretation is still doubtful? 3. The argument or illustration seems fanciful when resting on this identity of name, especially as Hagar had a meaning in Hebrew, and Sarah also, which meanings could well have been used here, were it a question of names.—III. “For this Hagar represents,” etc. This may be called the typical or allegorical interpretation, and for that very reason more likely to be correct in this connection. It avoids the objections against I. on the score of emphasis, and tameness; with II. follows the reading which seams more correct, but avoids the fanciful and doubtful features of that view. Meyer considers the neuter article an insuperable objection. But this may be met 1) as is done by Wordsworth, by joining the article with Σινᾶ ὄρος not with Ἄγαρ. He contends that this is allowable and that no other order was admissible. Still this seems unnatural. Or 2) by understanding τὸ Ἄγαρ, “the thing Hagar,” not the woman, for Galatians 4:24 passes over into allegory, but the allegorical Hagar,—her position as set forth in Galatians 4:24. This is less objectionable. As this is the only real difficulty (ἐστίν, “represents,” is of course admissible), we may adopt III. as perhaps the safest view, seemingly that of E. V. As regards punctuation, a comma then suffices after this clause, and Ἄγαρ is the grammatical subject of συστοιχεῖ.—R.]

Ranks with.—Συστοιχεῖ δέ might be connected with ἤτις (Galatians 4:24) or back of that with μία, sc. διαθήκη. [So De Wette, Lightfoot.—R.] “For she is in bondage” is given as the proof of “ranks with,” and this evidently refers to “bearing children unto bondage” (Galatians 4:24). The covenant “bearing children unto bondage” “ranks with the present Jerusalem, for she is in bondage with her children.” Συστοιχεῖν, to stand in one row with something else, to belong to the same species, to belong together with anything. The Sinaitic covenant, says Paul, and the present Jerusalem, although separated in time and place, yet belong essentially together; the former brought into “bondage,” the latter is in that very bondage. The object is to show that an internal relation exists between the Sinaitic covenant and the present Jerusalem. [This is certainly preferable to the view of Chrysostom and most of the Fathers, Luther et al., which takes Σινᾶ as the subject, and renders the verb either “is contiguous to” or “joined in a continuous (mountain) range” with Jerusalem. The thought is irrelevant, and we should then have Mt. Zion, rather than Jerusalem, following the verb. Lightfoot thus shows the exact meaning of the verb: “In military language συστοιχία denotes a, file, as συζυγία does a rank of soldiers; comp. Polyb. X. 21, 7. The allegory of the text may be represented by συστοιχίαι thus:

Hagar, the bond woman.Ishmael. the child after the flesh.The Old Covenant.The earthly Jerusalem, etc.Sarah, the free woman.Isaac, the child of promise.The New Covenant.

The heavenly Jerusalem, etc.”Accepting this meaning, it is necessary to take exception to embracing the idea of type in the word. Those in each list are σύστοιχοι with each other, but ἀντίστοιχοι to those in the opposite list.—R.]—It seems however more accordant with the context to make Ἄγαρ (Galatians 4:25) the subject. For Hagar is a type of the present Jerusalem, “ranks with”—stands in the same row with it, or better, fits as a type to the antitype [?] Moreover Hagar was “in bondage with her children, just as the present Jerusalem.” Besides in this connection there is significant reference to the fact that “the present Jerusalem” corresponds to Hagar alone—and not to Sarah: the special proof of which is, what is affirmed of “the present Jerusalem,” viz.: “for she is in bondage with her children.” [So that not only the proximity of the word Ἄγαρ, but the closer correspondence also, supports the view that “Hagar” is the logical subject of the verb. See Meyer.—R.]

The present Jerusalem.—Jerusalem represents here as it always did in the Old Testament, the Jewish people; but this as a collective personality, and moreover a maternal one, the individual members of the people being viewed as children of this mother. Ἡ νῦν Ἱερουσ. is the present Jerusalem in contrast with the μελλ. Ἱερουσ. as it shall become through the Messiah, i. e., through faith in Him, the Jerusalem, which has not, and so long as it has not, received the Messiah. “The present Jerusalem” meaning thus the historical Israel, the Jewish people, its children are of course “born after the flesh” and Paul presupposes this as self-evident.—Is in bondage.—This cannot apply to the yoke of the Romans, for this has nothing at all to do with the Sinaitic covenant, but applies to the being in bondage under the Mosaic law. A state of bondage in this sense Paul predicates of the existing Jewish church without further proof, as something which the readers after the preceding exposition of the nature of the law (comp. Galatians 3:23; Galatians 4:3-7), must concede, and indeed that the Jews were strenuous observers of the law was a matter beyond doubt.

Galatians 4:26. But Jerusalem which is above is free.—Paul does not continue the course of thought begun in Galatians 4:24 with “for these are two covenants.” He names the first covenant only, not the second one also, but to make the contrast more palpable, opposes at once to the present Jerusalem, which is in bondage, another Jerusalem which is free. Now the present Jerusalem is in a condition of bondage because the first covenant, which is a covenant of bondage, came in her to manifestation. So the freedom, of the other Jerusalem would have its ground also in the character of the Second covenant, which comes into manifestation in her, and we have a right to find implied a second covenant bearing children unto freedom, which is typified prophetically by Sarah, just as the covenant of bondage by Hagar. If we inquire what this second covenant is, according to the previous context, the answer cannot be doubtful; over against the covenant of law stands a covenant of grace or promise. Wieseler’s parallelism goes too far, where he wishes to supply: δευτέρα δὲ (διαθήκη) ἀπὸ ὄρους Σιὼν, εἰς ἐλευθερίαν γεννῶσα, ἥτις ἐστὶ Σάῤῥα. τὸ γὰρ Σιὼν, εἰν ὄρος ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ γῇ τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, συστοιχεῖ δὲ τῇ ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήμ. ἐλευθέρη γάρ ἐστι μετὰ τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς. [“The second covenant from Mount Zion, bearing children unto freedom, which is Sarah. For Zion is a mountain in the land of promise, and ranks with Jerusalem above, for she is free with her children.” This follows from his view of Galatians 4:25, and is objectionable besides for the reason that it forces an allegory beyond the point to which it has been carried by the Apostle himself.—R.] Somewhat too definite also is Meyer’s view: The other covenant is the one established in Christ (see afterwards on ἡ ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήμ). Paul has not waited till now to give the proof that the covenant of grace is a covenant of promise, and that on this account Jerusalem above is also free. This is in part clear from what precedes and in part results from the nature of the case, since a covenant of promise given of grace, because it has nothing to do with any law, can have no connection with “bondage” either. In addition he now demonstrates to the Galatians this only, that they are children of that Jerusalem which is free, and that therefore it would be preposterous for them to wish to be under the law. “Free” of course =not being under the law.

The main question is, what ἡ ἄνω Ἱερουσ. signifies. “Jerusalem” here also means a church taken as a collective personality, her individual members being conceived as her children. But ἡ ἄνω Ἱερουσ. is of course not the “ancient” Jerusalem, the Salem of Melchisedek, nor yet the mountain of Zion, which in Josephus is called ἡ ἄνω πόλις. [Lightfoot: “The Apostle instinctively prefers the Hebrew form Ἱερουσαλὴμ here for the typical city, as elsewhere in this Epistle (Galatians 1:17-18; Galatians 2:1) he employs the Græcised form Ἱερόσόλυμα for the actual city. ‘Ἱερουσαλὴμ est appellatio Hebraica, originaria et sanctior: Ιεροσόλυμα, deinceps obvia, Græca, magis politico,’ says Bengel on Revelation 21:2, accounting for the usage of St. John (in the Gospel the latter; in the Apocalypse the former), and referring to this passage in illustration.”—R.] On the other hand Luther is right in his decided protest against the reference to the ecclesia triumphans, for the Christians of this world are here designated by Paul as children of this ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήμ. (Only so much is correct, that with the παρουσία it is no other than this very ἄνω Ἱερουσ. that comes to perfection, so that the Church after the παρουσία is essentially identical with that before it. But the eye is not at all directed here to the παρουσία; and the very reason why the expression ἡ μέλλουσα Ἱερουσ. is not chosen is, that after Christ had appeared upon earth this must be referred to the παρουσἱα. Wieseler is therefore also incorrect in asserting not only that the church of the perfected is meant, but in insisting as he does that these are expressly comprehended.)—But ἡ ἄνω Ἱερουσ. must at all events signify a Jerusalem that is above, an upper Jerusalem, and this “above” can only refer to Heaven. Here again Luther has a right understanding of it, in the main point at all events, when he remarks that this “above” is to be understood not of place but of character: “when St. Paul speaks of a Jerusalem above and the other here below upon earth, he means that the one Jerusalem is spiritual, but the other earthly. For there is a great distinction between spiritual and corporeal or earthly things. What is spiritual, that is above, but what is earthly, that is here below. Therefore says he then, that the spiritual Jerusalem is above, not that in respect to space or place it is higher than the earthly here below, but in that it is spiritual.” The upper Jerusalem would therefore = the spiritual Jerusalem. This explanation, it is true, does not appear to do full justice to the material idea “above,” but it leads in. the right direction for this, and needs only to be completed by including also the conception of space which is contained in ἄνω. That is, ἡ ἄνω Ἱερουσ. is not= the Jerusalem that is localiter, externally situated above (this is refuted by Luther), but the Jerusalem, that as to its essential character is an upper, heavenly one, and therefore neither originates from earth nor belongs to earth, but originates from Heaven and belongs to Heaven, lot it be situated where it may, of which nothing is expressly said. (In reality Luther also means this and nothing else by his spiritual Jerusalem, and his explanation, therefore, only apparently incurs the reproach of spiritualizing.) Whether the expression is immediately founded upon the rabbinical doctrine of the ירוּשׁלים שׁל מעלה “which according to Jewish teaching is the archetype existing in Heaven of the earthly Jerusalem, and at the establishment of the Messianic kingdom will be let down from Heaven to earth, in order, as the earthly Jerusalem is the central point and the capital of the old theocracy, to be the same for the Messianic theocracy” (Meyer), cannot be affirmed with certainty; that Paul did not share the crude and sensuous rabbinical conceptions of this heavenly Jerusalem, but had a scripturally purified idea of it, is in any case clear; so that from the Jewish schools he only derives the expression rather than the substance of the idea. At the most he had only the fundamental conception, which was then essentially modified. [Lightfoot: “With them,” i. e., the rabbinical teachers, “it is an actual city, the exact counterpart of the earthly Jerusalem in its topography and furniture: with him it is a symbol or image, representing that spiritual city of which the Christian is even now a denizen (Philippians 3:20). The contrast between the two scene?, as they appeared to the eye, would enhance, if it did not suggest the imagery of St. Paul here. On the one hand, Mount Zion, of old the joy of the whole earth, now more beautiful than ever in the fresh glories of the Herodian renaissance, glittering in gold and marble; on the other, Sinai with its rugged peaks and barren sides, bleak and desolate, the oppressive power of which the Apostle himself had felt during his sojourn there—these scenes fitly represented the contrast between the glorious hopes of the new covenant and the blank despair of the old. Comp. Hebrews 12:18-22.”—R.]

And she is our mother.—If we seek to define still more distinctly the idea of the ἄνω Ἱερουσ., we shall find that here also Luther had the right sense of it, when he peremptorily declares, and in opposition to the transcendental fantasies, which overlooked the actually operative heavenly forces in the word and sacraments, so strongly insists that: “the heavenly Jerusalem, which is above, is nothing else than the dear church or Christendom, that arc in the whole world here and there dispersed, who all together have one gospel, one manner of faith in Christ, one Holy Ghost, and one manner of sacrament.” Only here again he makes the idea too special. The upper Jerusalem, which essentially springs from Heaven and not from earth, and belongs to Heaven and not to earth, is in the first instance nothing else than the true Church and people of God in its entire generality; for this has its constitution not in the covenant of law, but in the covenant of grace or promise, and its essential character may therefore with full right, nay must be denominated by Paul a heavenly one.—As certainly now as Paul dated back the covenant of grace as far back beyond the covenant of law as Abraham’s time, so certainly did this “upper Jerusalem” properly begin with Abraham himself, although at first indeed rather in the way of promise, in idea, as it were, but yet realiter, as certainly as God’s covenant of grace was one really concluded. This “upper Jerusalem” then, it is true, first came to full manifestation with the advent of the Messiah, as with this God’s covenant of grace first found its true actualization; and so far is the upper Jerusalem=Christendom, but yet even now it must not be identified with it. It is a higher, more general idea, precisely=God’s congregation [Gottesgemeinde] which the idea of the church does not altogether exhaust, but which continues to rise above it, lying at the foundation of the church, which is its concrete manifestation, but yet to be distinguished from it; and indeed this idea of the congregation of God will never attain its completely adequate expression in the church of this dispensation, but only with the παρουσία will such a complete coincidence of ideas and phenomenon be realized (as indeed on the other hand the present Jerusalem which is in bondage was also not absolutely coincident with the Jewish community, but many members of it raised themselves above this bondage, although no doubt in this case the coincidence was far more nearly complete). [Meyer’s interpretation: “the Messianic theocracy, which before the παρουσία is the church, and after it Christ’s kingdom of glory” is substantially correct, provided we sufficiently extend the meaning of 

the word “Church.” Our conceptions of her, “who is our mother,” must here be large enough to include all her children, in the Old and the New Dispensations, as militant and triumphant. See Doctrinal Notes.—R.] What Paul now wishes to show is, that Christians are children of this true congregation of God, that is grounded upon the covenant of grace, and therefore of course is free, and not merely that they are children of the Christian community, which certainly would have needed no proof.—From the foregoing we see still more evidently (what has already been touched upon above), that the expression ἡ μέλλουσα Ἱερουσ., although it would have corresponded with ἡ νῦν Ἱερουσ., would not have been suitable here. On the other hand nothing stood in the way of designating the natural Israel as ἡ νῦν Ἱερουσ., inasmuch as every one would refer this expression to the right object; in this sense a κάτω Ἱερουσ. would have sounded strange, and would have been less intelligible, so that the want of correspondence in the expressions is not at all surprising.

Galatians 4:27-28 contain the proof of the proposition that “Jerusalem which is above” is the mother of Christians,—in syllogistic form, only not quite exact, since ὑμεῖς is the more probable reading in Galatians 4:28. Galatians 4:27, major premise: To the “Jerusalem which is above,” although she does not bear, there are many children promised, who therefore, as Isaac, must have been born purely in virtue of Divine promise.

Galatians 4:28, minor premise: But now are we, or rather, says the Apostle, with definite application to the readers, for whom particularly the proof is intended, ye are the children of promise, after the analogy of Isaac;—therefore (conclusion) ye are children of the Jerusalem above.

For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, etc.—For the major premise Paul appeals to Isaiah 54:1. The theocratic nation is addressed during the Babylonian exile, and told that though aforetime in the bloom of Israel’s prosperity she was like a woman “who hath a husband,” who had by her husband numerous children, she now resembled a woman that is “desolate” = without a husband (for it had been repudiated by God), and in consequence—for στεῖρα is here to be taken in this sense—is “barren,” “not bearing,” “not travailing,” bears no children. (God is to be conceived as the husband, if this part of the figure is also to be interpreted, according to the familiar Biblical image of God’s marriage covenant with Israel.) But yet is she to rejoice, and loudly to express her joy (ῥῆξον sc. φωνήν, rumpe vocem, let loose the voice), for she shall become richer in children than before! This therefore not in the way of natural generation, but through the immediate extraordinary operation of God: they are therefore children not “after the flesh,” but born “through the promise.” (Only, so to speak, the natural, carnal relation of God to the people as begetting natural posterity, was dissolved; God yet remained, in the exercise of a higher energy, devoted to the people as His people, for the very end of bringing in something higher than before.) Evidently in this the image of Sarah hovers before the prophet, of that barren one who was “desolate,” that is, at least as “barren” could have no conjugal intercourse with her husband, and therefore was so far without husband, and who yet became a mother of a numerous progeny in virtue of the Divine energy. Thus even the prophet sees in Sarah a type of the theocratic nation—not, it is true, in her condition of freedom, but at least in her becoming a mother by promise, and therefore is she a type of the theocratic people, inasmuch as this increases not in the natural way=through natural descent, but through the addition of spiritual children.—Herein also is found Paul’s justification for referring this passage immediately to “Jerusalem which is above.” Primarily, indeed, it applies to the theocratic people as a whole. But even here, to the natural children,=to such as become members of the theocratic people by natural descent, are opposed spiritual children=such as become such in virtue of Divine operation, without natural consanguinity. The sense therefore cannot be merely: The now depopulated Israel shall again become populous, yea, even more than before, by renewal of the now interrupted conjugal intimacy; but from that people of God which increased by natural descent, there is distinguished the people of God in the higher, completely true sense, whose existence does not depend on natural descent, but on Divine operation, that is of course, the operation of the Spirit, inasmuch as God through His Spirit produces faith, and so raises up children to His people, regarded as mother, or to Abraham their first ancestor. There is thus contrasted with the natural, empirical people of God, the one ἔχουσα τὸν ἄνδρα, which is now continued in the present Jerusalem, a higher spiritual one, the one which is “barren, bearing not,”=not naturally maintaining and increasing itself, i. e., in short the “Jerusalem which is above.”—The fulfilment of the promise then, took place, i. e., numerous children, without being naturally begotten by the theocratic people, were born to it, in particular, through the appearance of the Messiah, for all, who came to believe on Him, became thereby, and not by natural descent, members of God’s people (comp. Galatians 4:28).—But it must here be remarked in addition, that Paul’s design is not strictly to declare positively of the Jerusalem above (as even Meyer assumes), that it had first been barren, therefore first unpopulated, childless, and had then become the mother of children (with the origin of the Christian people of God); but he means thereby only to distinguish it from the theocratic people that is maintained and continued by natural means. In distinction from this the Jerusalem above is in its nature—and remains therefore barren, not bearing, not travailing, desolate, for she obtains children indeed, but by no means through becoming fertile, τίκτειν, ὠδίνειν = not by such natural processes, as if these had only failed for awhile, and had then again become operative; on the other hand the children are given to her in a way not to be naturally explained, not as bodily offspring, but spiritually by Divine operation; for she is and remains not “having a husband” (=who does not stand to God in this natural and carnal relation). [Alford:—The “husband” of the E. V. may mislead “by pointing at the one husband (Abraham) who was common to Sara and Agar, which might do in this passage, but not in Isaiah: whereas ἔχ. τὸν ἄνδρα means, ‘her (of the two) who has (the) husband,’ the other having none: a fineness of meaning which we cannot give in English.” This goes to sustain the view of Schmoller.—R.] We need not be perplexed because this would create a divergence from the type of Sarah, with whom certainly, after her barrenness, a bearing and travailing took place. But although Paul undoubtedly knew this well, he yet (Galatians 4:23; Galatians 4:29) denies explicitly and roundly that Isaac was born after the flesh and vindicates to him only a being born through the promise, after the Spirit; and he can very well apprehend the contrast thus absolutely, because he looks only at the essential thing, the determining, generative principle, and this was purely “the promise,” “the spirit,” even though the act did not proceed without the medium of the “flesh.” Sarah, is his meaning, did not obtain her son Isaac, because from a naturally unfruitful woman she had become a naturally fruitful one; her obtaining the son was therefore only, as it were, formally, not essentially, a τίκτειν, &c. (see on Galatians 4:23). But if Paul expresses himself thus even respecting Sarah, with whom nevertheless in a certain sense a τίκτειν, and the like, did take place, the same of course holds good in its full sense of the antitype, the true people of God, as Jerusalem above. This is precisely its specific quality, that it obtains children without “bearing” as “barren,” and in this very way approves itself as the true people of God, for which God begets children; therefore we have only: “many are the children of the desolate,” not: she will bear many children. Of course “barren” varies a little; at first it is one who cannot bear, because she is deprived of the husband; but from that it becomes one, who does not bear and is to bear, i. e., does not in this way obtain children, and is to obtain them, but in another way. But this variation is already implied in the original sense of the passage, which as it were says: “Barren hast thou become, that cannot bear; well, so shalt thou be and remain, but not to thy hurt, but to thy good,” &c.—Many are the children of the desolate more, etc.—Meyer rightly explains: not=πλείονα ἤ, which would leave the numerousness of the children wholly undetermined, but it expresses, that both have many children, but the solitary one, more=numerous are the children of the solitary, far more, than of her who hath her husband.

Galatians 4:28 places the Galatians, as Christians, among the children of the Jerusalem above, promised her in Galatians 4:27. As Isaac was.—Κατὰ Ἰσαάκ, in conformity with, according to the type of, even as Isaac. The antitype of the mother, Sarah, was named Galatians 4:26; even so are Christians antitypes of her son, Isaac.—Children of Promise,—opposed to σαρκὸς τέκνα, therefore properly children whom the promise has born=who are born in virtue of the promise of God, not through carnal generation.—So was it with Isaac; he was born to Abraham as son in this way. Even so is it with you: you have in this way been born, i. e., become member’s of God’s people. This needs no proof, for on one side, it was certain that they as Christians were members of God’s people, and on the other side also, that they were not so by nature, by carnal descent, but in a spiritual manner, namely, through their knowledge of Christ, to which God had led them by His Spirit, thereby fulfilling His promise. It therefore follows from this, that they belong, because members of the theocratic people, and yet not such by natural descent, to “the children of the desolate” (Galatians 4:27)=have her (to whom, although desolate, children are promised by God) as their mother, as was affirmed in Galatians 4:26.

Galatians 4:29. Still as then he that was born after the flesh.—Why will you nevertheless be under the law, and so in the condition of bondage? Paul had brought home to his hearers, You are like Isaac, not like Ishmael. This he had deduced from the manner of the birth of each. But now he adds—looking at the subsequent lot of each—a warning, that it is dangerous to place themselves in a position like Ishmael’s, for he had been shut out of the inheritance. Even so will it fare—Paul gives them to understand, with those that are like Ishmael=those that are under the law. Ἀλλά: for the thought which Paul first expresses, is in opposition to that in the foregoing verse, where he had described Christians as having a possession, as children of the free woman, because children of the promise. Yet Paul does not affirm this in order to frighten them back from the condition of freedom, as one of persecution, but on the contrary (ἀλλά, Galatians 4:30) in order to set forth immediately after the evil lot of the children of the bondwoman, as persecutors, and thus to hinder the Christians from placing themselves, through bondage to the law, in a like position with them.

Persecuted.—In Genesis 21:9, Ishmael is mentioned only as a scoffer: Paul here then either uses διώκειν in a more general sense, or he follows a more developed tradition, traces of which are found in the Rabbins. [Διώκειν is a strong word, and we are not justified in altering or extending its meaning to meet a difficulty, arising from the interpretation of another passage. The question then is: Is this statement of the Apostle based only upon the Scriptural narrative (Genesis 21:9), or also upon some other reliable source of information, supplementing the Old Testament narrative. The chief objection urged by most modern commentators against the former of these views is, that there is no thought of “persecution” either expressed or implied in the passage referred to. It tells us of Ishmael’s “laughing” (מֵצַחֵק: which the LXX. expands into παίζοντα μετὰ Ἰσαὰκ τοῦ αυτῆς”); this has been interpreted as in play awakening Sarah’s jealousy, and as in mockery, arousing her anger. Obviously the latter is more in accordance with the context and is a legitimate rendering of the Hebrew (see Lange’s Com. Gen. in loco). But is it said that even this view of the narrative will not justify the assertion “persecuted.” Wordsworth, accepting the meaning “playing,” remarks: “The temper in which Ishmael played with Isaac, may best be inferred from the comment which Isaac’s mother made upon it. Sarah’s words interpret Ishmael’s act. If his play had been loving play, she would not have been displeased by it. It must have been the spirit of spiteful malice, made more offensive by its pretence to sportiveness and love,38 which extorted from Sarah the words which the Holy Spirit, speaking by St. Paul, here calls a verdict of Scripture. And Almighty God Himself vouchsafed to confirm Sarah’s interpretation of Ishmael’s play, by commanding Abraham, although reluctant, to hearken to Sarah’s voice in that matter.” It would seem that an inspired Apostle, reading the Old Testament narrative in the full gospel light, could interpret the spirit of that occurrence, without relying on tradition. If however the objection urged by Meyer, De Wette, Jowett, and others, be deemed valid, as even Ellicott admits them to be, the following remarks of Lightfoot may well be taken into account. “1) This incident which is so lightly sketched in the original narrative had been drawn out in detail in later traditions, and thus a prominence was given to it, which would add force to the Apostle’s allusion, without his endorsing these traditions himself. 2) The relations between the two brothers were reproduced in their descendants. The aggressions of the Arab tribes on the Israelites were the antitype to Ishmael’s mockery of Isaac. Thus in Ishmael the Apostle may have indirectly contemplated Ishmael’s progeny; and he would therefore be appealing to the national history of the Jews in saying ‘he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit.’ ”—R.]

After the Spirit.—The one born according to the Spirit. The Spirit of God was the power by which the generation of Isaac took place. The Spirit however is here conceived not as the power, but as the norm, according to which the generation took place=he was begotten in the way and manner in which the Spirit begets. “After the flesh” is to be interpreted in the same way.

Even so now.—Those born after the Spirit =“the children of promise” are persecuted by those born after the flesh=the natural members of the theocratic people, the Jews. But the main point is not the suffering of persecution by the one, although the thought of it occasions the ἀλλά, but the persecution of the others. See Galatians 4:30.—To what this specially refers, is hard to say: that there was no lack of persecutions on the part of the Jews, is indeed well known. That the plotting of the Judaizers against the Christians are also meant, is probable; for these Judaizers believed themselves to have a preëminence, precisely as those born after the flesh, and, as our whole Epistle shows, took a position, which though professedly in the interest of others’ salvation, was nevertheless really hostile towards those who were only “born after the Spirit,” or only set a value on this, and denied to them a title to membership among the people of God. A similar self-exaltation over others and a disposition to suppress them, took place also, he says, in the case of Ishmael with respect to Isaac. But it turned out the other way.

[Wordsworth: “St. Paul’s comparison here is peculiarly apposite and relevant to the subject before him. The Judaizers, with whom he is dealing in this Epistle, were like Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman Agar, the representative of the Old Covenant not spiritually understood. They professed friendship for the Galatian Christians, who were the spiritual Isaac. In semblance they were playing with the offspring of the free woman, but in reality they were persecuting him. The Judaizers were endeavoring to rob the Galatian Christians of their Evangelical inheritance derived from Abraham. Thus Ishmael pretended to be playing with Isaac, but was in fact persecuting him. The Apostle, therefore, who had just been comparing himself to an affectionate mother, comes forward as a vigilant. Sarah, and interferes to part, the Jewish Ishmael from the Christian Isaac; and to rescue the children of the promise and of freedom from the treacherous flattery and tyrannical sport of the children of the flesh and of bondage.” This beautiful comparison is of course marred by any reference to tradition in our verse.—R.]

Galatians 4:30. Cast out the bondwoman and her son, etc—Paul here cites the words of Sarah Genesis 21:10 according to the LXX. only instead of μετὰ του υἱοῦ μου Ἰσαάκ, he substitutes, because the expression is severed from the context, μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἐλευθερας; therewith stating expressly the meaning of Sarah; for it is from this very point of view, namely, that her son is the son of the free woman, that she comes forward so decidedly against Ishmael, as the son of the bondmaid, declares that he is not entitled to be co-heir with her son, and demands his expulsion. It is not the personal behavior of Ishmael therefore which she urges against him, but his position, although, it is true, she is moved to do it by his behavior. As he is in himself not entitled to be co-heir, this right possessed against him is now urged—and as the narrative shows, made good. The application with an “even so now,” Paul leaves to the readers as being obvious, because through the whole argument he desires that they themselves may see the perverseness of the position which they are on the point of assuming. It would be thus supplied: Even so now—will it fare with the children of the bondmaid; they have as little right of inheritance as the son of the bondmaid had then, and this want of title will be brought into force against them on account of their persecution (so that in this particular also they will prove themselves antitypes of Hagar and Ishmael). The reference, to the expulsion of these does not as yet apply immediately to the readers, but if they suffer themselves to be made children of the bondmaid—and what that signifies is clear—by going over to the legal Jewish position, they lose at all events their right of inheritance, and are on the way to lose also the inheritance itself. Paul specifies the persecution primarily because the Divine exclusion from the inheritance was historically occasioned by that. A searching admonition, “to hoar the law better” (Galatians 4:21)=to take better note of the intimations which are contained therein—and therefore not to place themselves under the law.

[Lightfoot: “Shall in nowise inherit! The Law and the Gospel cannot coexist; the Law must disappear before the Gospel. It is scarcely possible to estimate the strength of conviction and depth of prophetic insight which this declaration implies. The Apostle thus confidently sounds the death-knell of Judaism at a time when one-half of Christendom clung to the Mosaic law with a jealous affection little short of frenzy, and while the Judaic party seemed to be growing in influence and was strong enough, even in the Gentile churches of his own founding, to undermine his influence and endanger his life. The truth which to us appears a truism must then have been regarded as a paradox.”—R.]

The course of thought begun in Galatians 4:21, concludes therefore with our verse in a complete and satisfactory way: Take heed then to the law, and learn from it: (1) that ye are free as Christians and (2) that ye, if ye do not persevere in this freedom, forfeit the inheritance—so that necessarily the conclusion must be drawn with Galatians 4:30, and Galatians 4:31 cannot be viewed as an immediate deduction from what precedes, nor as a conclusion, but only as a sentence summing up once more the foregoing result and introducing a transition to what follows, on which account it is to be joined with it.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The personal relation between teacher and congregation. The significance which attaches to the personal relation between teacher and congregation (see on the former section, the first remark), comes most evidently to view in this, that the teacher must regard it as his commission, to beget spiritual children (and that truly living ones)—as father, nay, yet more: to bear them also—as mother. There is thus of necessity constituted an inner bond of personal fellowship between him and the souls on which he labors; but it is true, the existence of such a bond is not to be presupposed as a matter of course, or demanded even where the condition of such a loving labor of spiritual begetting and bearing is wanting.

2. “Christ is formed (1) in the understanding of man, when he receives a truly living and spiritual knowledge of Christ’s person, offices, and benefits; (2) in the will of man, when (a) in regeneration faith in Christ is not only kindled, but also attains to its fit form, so that he hangs simply and solely on Christ, which faith then in justification apprehends and puts on Christ, and unites itself inwardly with Him; (b) in renewal, when Christ’s Divine mind is daily more and more formed in men, so that the lineaments of Christ’s image become ever more discernible.—It reads moreover: Till Christ be formed in you, not, Till you or I form Him in you, because regeneration is no human work.”—Starke.

3. The allegory. What view are we to hold of the interpretation of the two wives and sons of Abraham in this section? Is Paul a representative of that allegorical interpretation which presupposing a double, yes, multiplex sense of the Biblical text, long prevailed in the church, to the prejudice of the sound historical understanding of the contents of Scripture? The appearance is strongly for it, but in truth it is not so. Paul to be sure allegorizes here, for he says so himself. But with the very fact of his saying this himself, the gravity of the hermeneutical difficulty disappears. He means therefore to give an allegory, not an exposition; he does not proceed as an exegete, and does not mean to say—after the manner of the allegorizing exegetes—that only what he now says is the true sense of the narrative, conceded in the letter, the only sense really worthy of God’s word. The question then is only (1) whether this allegorical interpretation is merely a subjective fancy of the Apostle, or whether it is grounded in the actual facts; (2) what use he makes of this allegory. Commonly these two questions are not kept distinct from each other. Respecting the first, no one can speak of a mere arbitrary fancy (of a play of allegorical sharp-wittedness, rabbinism, and the like), who pays the least attention to the typical significance which according to Paul appertains to Abraham and his history,—and who allows any justice whatever in this the Apostle’s view of Abraham. We well know that for Paul Abraham himself is typical by his faith, and in immediate connection with that, Isaac is typical by his birth through the power of the Divine promise, and not of the flesh; he is the type of the true children of Abraham, i. e., of the true theocratic people, whose origin is not that of natural birth alone (comp. Romans 9:16 sq.). This of itself then gives on the other hand the converse, namely, the typical character of the carnal son, Ishmael. But now, in this section, Paul goes yet a step further. To him not only the manner of birth of the two sons of Abraham is typical, but also the condition in which they were born: the bondage of the one and the freedom of the other. Isaac is thus the type of a theocratic people, that (1) does not become such by natural birth, but by Divine operation; (2) and is also in possession of freedom, is the spiritual and free Israel; on the contrary Ishmael is the type of a merely natural and enslaved theocratic people: that is, the natural people of God is enslaved by its being under the law, something which is not true of the spiritual, genuine Israel. Respecting the warrant for a typological apprehension of the Old Testament generally, Wieseler justly remarks: “Since the whole of the Old Covenant is a σκιά of the New Testament dispensation, the single facts, persons and truths have therefore a prefigurative character, according to the measure in which each has within this whole and in relation to the New Covenant, a conspicuous and central significance.” That this applies to the person of Abraham is clear, and equally to the manner in which children were born to him, for through Abraham’s children the progress of the history of redemption is determined. But if even with an Isaac it is primarily only the manner of his birth to which this signification attached, yet the condition in which he was born, was an inseparable element of that; for from the legitimate, and therefore free, wife of Abraham, came naturally also the legitimate son, the son of promise; the freedom of Isaac was therefore not an accidental but an essential quality of him who was born in virtue of a Divine promise, and so Paul has a right to attribute to the fact of his freedom also, a typical importance, and to attribute the same to the opposite condition of Ishmael. If this prefigurative character of Abraham and his sons is acknowledged, it is clear, that the Apostle’s allegory is not arbitrary or accidental, but that it has a point of attachment in the actual history. But—and this is commonly overlooked—the allegory is not on this account eliminated from the passage; the allegory has its ground in the typical relation of Abraham’s two children to the two congregations of God, but yet for all this it is in form allegory. For αὖται γάρ εἰσι δύο διαθῆκαι is allegory, not typology; the two women were certainly not prophetic types of the two covenants. Something like this might be said, that the two women are, as mothers of the two diverse children of Abraham, types of the two churches of God, the external and the spiritual, conceived as collective personalities, as mothers of their members, although even this would be strained; but to say outright that the two mothers are prophetic types of two covenants, yields no rational sense. Only by allegorizing can Paul see in the two mothers two covenants, but the allegory is taken from the facts themselves, inasmuch as it is the covenants by which the character of the antitypes of the sons of those mothers is determined. It is necessary to acknowledge this mingling of Type and Allegory, or the passage will not be rightly apprehended. We feel that it is not merely allegory, and look for the type, and again we feel that it is not purely type; the two, in truth, are interwoven with each other.

If we could venture to draw from our section a general conclusion, it would be this: (1) that allegorizing portions of Scripture is not forbidden, provided only that it is acknowledged as such, and not given forth as exegesis proper; (2) that it is warranted in proportion as it has a typological basis which itself is authorized. What this is may be judged by the remarks above.—While we should acknowledge, therefore, that our allegory has an objective foundation, that Paul does not interpolate something into the narrative of Genesis at his own fancy, it is not on the other hand (to coma to the second inquiry, as to the use he makes of it), correct to say that “he ascribes to it an objective value as proof.” For that he is too sober-minded, for he undoubtedly is, as was remarked, far removed from that allegorizing exegesis which bona fide declares: This and this is meant in the passage besides the letter [? See below.—R.]. and which therefore upon this assumption proves the “higher truth” by means of allegorical explanation from a Scripture passage. If we look more closely, we find moreover, that he does not at all argue his proposition of the freedom of Christians from the narrative of Genesis; he does not infer any thing like this: Sarah signifies the upper Jerusalem, Isaac the Christians, therefore Christians are the children of the upper Jerusalem; moreover Sarah is free, therefore the upper Jerusalem is free, and Christians are children of the free congregation, and therefore likewise free. On the other hand he asserts the freedom of the Jerusalem above as self-evident, and resulting from the previously assumed ground of the covenant of grace, on which it rests, as opposed to the covenant of works, and then first expressly demonstrates from a prophetical passage that Christians are children of the Jerusalem above, and so comes to the conclusion that they are free (see the exegesis above). If it is inquired: Why then is the narrative of Genesis adduced, a narrative of type interwoven with allegory? the answer is simple: in order, by reference to the simple relations of things in the beginning of the theocratic people, to illustrate the higher relations of the present, or better: in order to furnish a confirmation of the latter by pointing out the relation between type and antitype = see, at the very beginning it was the same! For that typology may serve, with or without the application of allegory, which of course makes no difference, but not for strict proof; and still less bare allegory, when and where it is acknowledged as such.—We cannot draw a different conclusion from the remark, Galatians 4:21 : Do ye not hear the law? The sense is simply: Do ye not then see that matters stood just the same with the ancient typical personages? The spiritually begotten Son was born in the condition of freedom and that should dispose you to give credit to my previous argument! Here the expression sounds, it is true, as if every reader of the law would be constrained to deduce this from the narrative in Genesis, as if this therefore simply signified the higher truth which is now under discussion, and merely expressed it under the veil of history; still whoever gives even cursory attention will not be tempted to press these words, but will recognize in them a rhetorical drapery.

4. [Paul’s treatment of the Old Testament narrative. A reference to the exegesis of Galatians 4:24 will justify the following conclusions: 1) Paul does not regard the Old Testament narrative as in itself an allegory. He is careful to use a subject (ἅτινα) which is general enough to prevent our making such an unwarranted assumption. 2) His interpretation is not “subjective, fanciful or rabbinical.”39 The predicate ἀλληγορούμενα means “to have an allegorical meaning.” Hence the meaning inheres in the nature of the “things,” and does not depend on his acute speculation respecting them. On exegetical grounds, Schmoller is not warranted in affirming that Paul does not imply: “This and this is meant in the passage besides the letter.” In his proper anxiety to guard against “allegorizing exegesis” he gives some room for assumptions respecting the “subjective” character of this allegory of the Apostle. Against such attempts to represent the interpretation of St. Paul as subjective, i. e., to speak plainly erroneous, Ellicott properly remarks: “It would be well for such writers to remember that St. Paul is here declaring, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, that the passage he has cited has a second and a deeper meaning than it appears to have; that it has that meaning, then, is a positive, objective and indisputable truth.”—3) This passage gives no countenance to “allegorizing exegesis” of the Scriptures. This error, once so common, may have a different origin from attempts to make the Bible narrative a mere allegory, but it tends in the same direction, destroys the true knowledge and perverts the true use of the Scriptures. He may properly allegorize, who has the inspiration Paul had, but only when that inspiration shows him that “these things have an allegorical meaning.” On this point Calvin says: “As the Apostle declares that these things are allegorized, Origen and many others along with him, have seized the occasion of torturing Scripture, in every possible manner, away from the true sense. They concluded that the literal sense is too mean and poor, and that, under the outward bark of the letter, there lurk deeper mysteries, which cannot be extracted but by beating out allegories. And this they had no difficulty in accomplishing; for speculations which appear to be ingenious have always been preferred, and always will be preferred by the world to sound doctrine. For many centuries no man was considered to be ingenious, who had not the skill and daring necessary for changing into a variety of curious shapes the sacred word of God. This was undoubtedly a contrivance of Satan to undermine the authority of Scripture, and to take away from the reading of it the true advantage. God visited this profanation by a just judgment, when He suffered the pure meaning of the Scripture to be buried under false interpretations. I acknowledge that Scripture is a most rich and inexhaustible fountain of all wisdom; but I deny that its fertility consists in the various meanings which any man, at his pleasure, may assign. Let us know, then, that the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning; and let us embrace and abide by it resolutely.”40—R.]

5. The two covenants and their children. The fact that the Apostle recognizes a significance in the Scripture narrative of the twofold character of the wives and sons of Abraham, is a sign of his clear-minded way of viewing the Scripture; by the less reminded of the greater, in the germ already seeing the fruit. It is at the same time a sign of his pedagogic wisdom, that to those who boasted themselves of their descent from Abraham, he so simply discovers the insufficiency, and particularly the perversity of this boast, by referring to the twofold relation of sonship to Abraham, of which the one is so entirely destitute of ground for boasting. On the other hand, he shows here also again, as in chap. 3, his deep and clear view into the economy of salvation, and its guiding principles, in the first place by definitely distinguishing the two covenants in the history of redemption, and then by the way in which he characterizes them. There is a covenant of law and a covenant of grace; and both are mothers, that bear children, only in different wise and with different consequences. The first covenant bears children in the way of natural generation, for it finds its concrete manifestation in the carnal Israel and its members. All the natural children of Israel have part in this covenant; but it is simply a covenant which brings to the participants in it bondage and only that, for it imposes on them the law. It is widely different with the covenant of grace. This also has children, yea a great number of them, but these children God Himself brings to it through the operation of the Spirit (it does not obtain them, as it were, of itself), for this covenant finds its concrete manifestation in the spiritual Israel, which obtains its children in a spiritual way, and not by outward descent. This is the first covenant which brings to its members freedom, and does not transfer them into bondage under a law; for it does not make the attainment of God’s blessing dependent on the keeping of legal commandments and prohibitions, but secures it to its members as a pure bestowment of Divine grace. Intimately related therefore as Paul knows these two covenants and communities to stand to each other (for they are still like children of the one father), yet again he keep them sharply and clearly apart.—Especially noticeable is the conception of the upper Jerusalem, the signification of which has been explained above. In the first place, therefore, Paul distinguishes the spiritual from the carnal Israel, the ideal from the empirical. With the external Israel the idea of the theocratic people was as yet by no means realized as to its true substance; on the contrary this was a conception of much higher range. Therefore all vaunting by the Jews of their nationality, as alone entitled to be reckoned God’s people, is ungrounded. Above the theocratic people in its national manifestation within the Jewish community stood yet again the true people of God, that even in this community already found individual members, for under the Old Testament all were not children of Ishmael’s, and under the New Testament all are not children of Israel’s sort. And indeed from Abraham down, the true people of God was never quite extinct, but yet, so long as the covenant of law, and therewith the carnal Israel were in the ascendant, it could not yet come to developed existence. This it attained only through Christ. It is noticeable, secondly, that Paul in this conception of the Jerusalem above, has a conception, which stands still higher than that of the Christian body; the Jerusalem above is the mother, Christians are only the children. Unquestionably, however, they are actually the children, and so far even in this expression their rank is declared=they are children of no lesser one, and should therefore not forget what they owe to themselves and their rank, should not unworthily lower themselves. But on the other hand, they are only children, and are what they are, only through their mother. The Christian community is not of itself in its empirical manifestation already=the spiritual Israel, but has continually in this its spiritualis nutrix. We see how that which Paul expresses with his “Jerusalem above” is what dogmatic theology has endeavored to embody in its conception of an ecclesia invisibilis, by which it strives to guard the church against a false emphasizing of her empirical manifestation, and as it were to preserve to her her ideality. Only that the conception of the ecclesia invisibilis is in the first place a narrower one, limited more to the church since Christ, and still more, it is a secondary and negative one, first formed by abstraction from the mixed condition of the church on earth, while the idea of the Jerusalem above is a positive, primary one, grounded in the biblical economy of salvation itself.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Galatians 4:19. Luther:—The Apostles, all devout preachers and also schoolmasters, are (in their peculiar way) also our parents. For like as we from our natural birth have from our parents the form of our bodies, so do these men help thereto, that our heart and conscience attain within us to a perfect form. Now the perfect form which a Christian heart should have, is faith, whereby we lay hold on Christ, cleave to Him alone and to no other thing besides.—Berlenb. Bible:—In nothing do more pangs of travail come to pass, than in the ministration of the gospel. The ministration of the law is a mere nothing compared with it. Evangelical preaching excludes all works accomplished in a merely outward way to which men nevertheless cleave.—“Until” points to a troublesome delay, that falls between the beginning and the accomplishment of a matter; not as if God would not at once proceed to the formation of us, but because on the side of man a bolt is interposed, and yet God does not give over.—Lange:—Even, as in many men, especially in their outward habit, gestures, words and actions, we find such a fashion of the world, that as it were we see in them even personally the vanity, wantonness and folly of the world, and are inwardly troubled at it; so on the other hand, in believers who come to their proper vigor, the new birth from God appears in all about them, saving their yet remaining weaknesses, in such a manner, that we see in them a true form of Christ in their weakness, humility, simplicity and uprightness, and are moved to inward joy thereby.

Galatians 4:20. Luther:—The living voice is to be counted as an empress. For this can amplify or condense the matter, and suit itself to all occasions of time, place, persons and the requirement of any necessity.

Galatians 4:21. Rieger:—The will has very great influence in the belief and unbelief of men. Even in falling back under the law, the will of the flesh seeks its advantage. The law is indeed the world’s crafty covering, under which it slinks away from the truth of Christ; which covering must be withdrawn from it.—Frantz:—In the law there is contained more than the commandments; more than the ways and usages, ceremonies and ordinances enjoined in the worship of the Jews. There is also more contained therein, than many after the letter read therein. There is contained therein also a revelation of the ways of God, which God hath chosen, to carry out His everlasting purpose among men. There is contained therein a history, which has come to pass from its beginning to its accomplishment on earth, that therein, as in a mirror, should be made known the thoughts of peace and salvation, which God has towards men and which in due time He will carry into execution.

Galatians 4:23.—Nature assists us not to salvation, but grace alone. We are all according to our natural birth born flesh of flesh; but according to His promise hath God regenerated us through the bath of holy baptism.

Galatians 4:24. Rieger:—This example serves to guard us against dealing too slightingly with the history of the Old Testament.—Berlenb. Bible:—All that Moses has described are figures of the inner spiritual and genuine life in Christ.—Spener:—“Bringeth forth unto bondage.” Those that will be saved by the law and its works and therefore reject the gospel, are not God’s children, nor heirs of eternal life, but at their highest are only servants and therefore under sin and the curse.

Galatians 4:26. Luther:—The holy church bears and genders children continually, even to the last day, in that she exercises the ministry, that is, teaches and diffuses the gospel which is her manner of bearing. Now the gospel teaches that we are redeemed and become free from the curse of the law, from sin, death and all manner of ill, not through the law and works, but through Christ. Therefore is the holy church not subjected to the law or works, but free is she, a mother without law, without sin and death. But what she is as a mother, so are also her children.—“Free.”—Even the ten commandments have no right to accuse, nor to terrify the conscience, wherein Christ rules by His grace and moreover outwardly: the civil laws of Moses concern us no longer. Yet the gospel does not therewith make us free from all other civil laws, for so long as we are in this natural life, the gospel subjects us to the civil laws which the government of each land has. But since our mortal life must forsooth have some ceremonies, we can by no means dispense with them. Therefore the gospel admits that we may make in the Christian Church some special ordinances concerning holy days, times, places, etc.—but not in the thought that those who observe such order, should thereby merit forgiveness of sins.

Galatians 4:27. Although the little flock, i. e., the dear Christian Church, that receives the doctrine of the gospel, and earnestly cleaves thereto, appears altogether unfruitful, forsaken, weak and despicable, and moreover outwardly suffers persecution, and is constrained to hear herself accused of teaching heretical and seditious things, she is nevertheless alone fruitful before God, and brings forth through the ministry innumerably many children, who are heirs of eternal life.

Galatians 4:28. In Starke:—Natural birth has with God no preëminence; He chooses Abel before Cain, Jacob before Esau, Ephraim before Manasses, etc.; whoever feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him, and whoever cleaves in true faith to the promise, is a child of one promise, and shall attain to the promised everlasting inheritance.—If we are like Isaac in his birth, let us also become like him in his virtues.

Galatians 4:29. Lange:—Whatever church oppresses and persecutes another in matters of faith, such an one is not the true apostolic church; therefore also she neither stands in the true filial relation to God, nor has part in the inheritance of eternal life.—Luther:—It is ever thus, that Ishmael persecutes Isaac, but on the contrary the good Isaac leaves Ishmael in peace. Whoever will be unpersecuted by Ishmael, let him profess that he is no Christian.—Spener:—The church’s condition is in some particulars ever the same; it may always be said: As it was at that time so is it now.

Galatians 4:30.—Spener:—Persecutions harm in fact not the persecuted but the persecutors. To the persecuted there remains yet God’s grace, love and heaven, but the persecutors load themselves with God’s wrath.—Berlenb. Bible:—The whole natural man must, as a scoffer and wild man such as Ishmael was, be set aside from all righteousness of birth, and devices of his own through a renewed obedient will. And although that involves a dying and giving up, inasmuch as the false nature sinks into the death of its own desires and so becomes powerless, yet the new awakened sense makes no account of that, because it has a hatred against the old man, and renounces therefore courageously all impulses of nature, let them have as holy a seeming as they may. Thereby the scoffer becomes in his turn a scoffing before the new man.

Galatians 4:21-30. Two sorts of children of Abraham: to which dost thou belong? To the children of the bondwoman or of the freewoman? Law or grace? Either–or? 1. The two stand indeed in relation to each other (one Father), but yet are 2. essentially distinct (two widely different mothers). a. Law–Flesh (= the lawman still the carnal man), Grace–Spirit (=the carnal man has no part in it); b. Law–Bondage, Grace–Freedom.—Christians are children, not of the bondwoman, but of the free woman. 1. Rejoice! 2. Consider well!—The Jerusalem above 1. a mother, 2. a mother through promise, 3. a free mother.—The covenant of law a fruitful mother. (Many depend on it, because the natural man remains thereby natural), but yet the covenant of grace has the promise of God.—Christians are children of the Jerusalem above. 1. How? Because children of the promise. 2. What do they obtain thereby? They participate in her condition of freedom.—The Jerusalem above free: 1) not bound to the law = not held to obtaining salvation by works of the law; 2) not obnoxious to its curse. The children of the promise, i. e., 1. They are members of God’s people not by nature but only through promise; 2. they attain heavenly inheritance‚ only in consequence of promise, not by their own works.—Christians have their type in Isaac; 1. Born as he through promise (see above); 2. Persecuted like him, by Ishmael, 3. but for all that children of the freewoman and therefore alone heirs.—Who obtains the inheritance? 1) not the natural man, but the spiritual; 2) not the son of the bondwoman but of the freewoman.—Human self-will (Hagar, Ishmael), divine counsel; 1) The latter permits the former, 2) but still gains the victory.

Footnotes:

Galatians 4:19; Galatians 4:19.—א. τέκνα [So B. F. G., Lachmann; but א.3 A. C. K. L. read τεκνία, adopted by Tischendorf and most recent Editors. Occurs nowhere else in Paul’s writings.—R.]

Galatians 4:20; Galatians 4:20.—[Φωνήν, literally “voice,” but “tone” is a more intelligible rendering—R.]

Galatians 4:20; Galatians 4:20.—[“Am perplexed”; so Ellicott, Alford, Lightfoot. Schmolier (with doubtful propriety) throws this verse into a parenthesis.—R.]

Galatians 4:21; Galatians 4:21.—Ἀναγινωσκετε, an ancient gloss, [followed by the Vulgate, but rejected by all modern Editors.—R.]

Galatians 4:23; Galatians 4:23.—א. omits τῆς. [Undoubtedly to be retained, and preserved in the English translation.—R.]

Galatians 4:24; Galatians 4:24.—[Ἀλληγορούμενα, “allegorical” (Alford, Ellicott). Older English versions vary greatly. Against the meaning “allegorized.” see Exeg. Notes.—R.]

Galatians 4:21; Galatians 4:21.—Eiz. reads αἱ δυό, against decisive authorities. א.1 inserts, א.3 omits αἱ.

Galatians 4:25; Galatians 4:25.—The Rec. reads: τὸ γὰρ ̓ìΑγαρ Σινᾶ ὄρος ἐστὶν ἐν τῆ Ἀραβία Besides this we find these readings: 1. τὸ γὰρ Σινᾶ ὄρος—2. τὸ γὰρ Ἄγαρ ὄρος—3. τὸ Ἄγαρ Σινᾶ ὄρος—4. τὸ δὲ Ἄγαρ Σινᾶ ὄρος κ. τ. λ. It is difficult to decide which is the correct reading, since the weight of authority is about equal for some of these readings. The Rec. is supported mostly by cursives. 1. is decidedly better sustained; א. has it, but with, an addition found in no other MSS. (ὂν before ἐν τῆ Αρ). 2. and 3. are very weakly supported; but 4. is well sustained. The choice then seems to be between 1. and 4.: τὸ γὰρ Σινᾶ and τὸ δὲ Ἄγαρ Σινᾶ; and between these it is scarcely possible to make a positive decision. [It may be remarked that the readings Rec. and 4, differ only in the substitution of δέ for γάρ; since this can readily be accounted for (γάρ first, omitted because of the closely following Ἄγαρ, then δέ inserted for connection, or to correspond with μέν Galatians 4:24), it is perhaps better to regard the choice as lying between Rec. and 1. The former is adopted by Tischendorf. Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, Wordsworth; 1. by Lachmann and Lightfoot among others. In favor of each, see the above-named commentators. Lightfoot has two valuable notes. p. 189 sq. 1. is certainly lectio brevior; Rec, lectio difficilior; Ἄγαρ may have been Carelessly inserted from ver 24, but it was even more likely to have been carelessly omitted after γάρ.—The exegetical difficulty is as great as the critical. Of the three English renderings given above, I. follows reading I., II. and III., the Rec. See Exeg. Notes.—R.]

Galatians 4:25; Galatians 4:25.—The readings συστοιχοῦσα and ἡ συστοιχοῦσα are not weakly supported, but still must be regarded as exegetical glosses; not without value in the exposition of the passage.—[If a comma be put after “Arabia,” it is unnecessary to supply “she.”—R.]

[31]Ver 25.—[Rec. δέ followed by Vulgate, E. V., but weakly supported. א. A. B. C. F. read γάρ; so modern Editors.—R.]

Galatians 4:26; Galatians 4:26.—The better attested reading, μήτηρ ἡμῶν, is to be preferred, on internal grounds also to μήτηρ πάντων ἡμῶν. “Πάντων has come into the text, partly because of such parallel passages as Romans 4:16; Galatians 3:26; Galatians 3:28; partly because of the multitude of τέκνα in the quotation Galatians 4:27 (Wieseler). [Πάντων Rec. א.3 A. C.3 K. L., many fathers, Wordsworth. Bracketted by Lachmann. Omitted in א.1 B. D. F. many versions and cursives; rejected by Tischendorf. Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot.—The E. V. “which is” is perhaps more literal, but Ellicott’s rendering, given above, is more forcible, and allowable with ἥτις.—R.]

Galatians 4:28; Galatians 4:28.—“The reading ὑμεῖς—ἐστε is, with Lachmann, Tischendorf and others, to be preferred to the common text ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν, since the latter appears to be a correction from ἡμῶν (Galatians 4:26) and ὑμεῖς is more lively on account of its application to the readers” (Wieseler). א. however has ἡμεῖς. [Both are well supported, but ὑμεῖς is adopted by most Editors on internal grounds.—R.]

Galatians 4:30; Galatians 4:30.—[Lightfoot follows א. B. D. in reading κληρονομή σει (apparently a correction from LXX).—The double negative οὐ μή is rendered by Ellicott, “in no wise.”—R.]

Galatians 4:30; Galatians 4:30.—Τοῦ υἱοῦ is omitted in א, but inserted by the corrector. [Instead of τῆς ἐλευθέρας we find also μου Ἰσαάκ (from the LXX).—R.]

[36][Wordsworth mentions a curious exposition and extension of this metaphor in the Epistle of the primitive churches of Gaul “who say that by means of the martyrs much joy accrued to the holy Virgin Mother, the Church of Christ, receiving back alive those whom she has lost as abortions, and also because through means of the martyrs, very many of her children who had fallen away by apostasy, were again conceived in her womb, and were being brought forth again to life.”—R.]

[37][Hence ἀποροῦμαι is to be taken, not as passive, with deponent sense (Ellicott), nor middle (Lightfoot), but middle with passive signification (Meyer, Alford); “the condition of perplexity is conceived of as wrought upon, suffered by the subject.”—R.]

[38][Augustine: Sed lusum Paulus persecutionem vocat‚ quia lusio illa illusio erat.—R.]

[39] [Every proper theory of inspiration roust admit that Paul’s early education had its influence on his character as teacher. But the word “rabbinical” contains a moral or rather immoral implication, which cannot be allowed.—R.]

[40] [Lightfoot gives Philo’s allegory of this same passage, and compares it with Paul’s: “Philo’s allegory is as follows. Abraham—the human soul progressing towards the knowledge of God—unites himself first with Sarah and then with Hagar. These two alliances stand in direct opposition the one to the other. Sarah, the princess—for such is the interpretation of the word—is divine wisdom. To her therefore Abraham is bidden to listen in all that she says. On the other hand Hagar, whose name signifies ‘sojourning‚’ and points therefore to something transient and unsatisfying‚ is a preparatory or intermediate training—the instruction of the schools—secular learning, as it might be termed in modern phrase. Hence she is fitly described as an Egyptian, as Sarah’s handmaid. Abraham’s alliance with Sarah is at first premature. He is not sufficiently advanced in his moral and spiritual development to profit thereby. As yet he begets no son by her. She therefore directs him to go in to her handmaid, to apply himself to the learning of the schools. This inferior alliance proves fruitful at once. At a later date and after this preliminary training he again unites himself to Sarah; and this time his union with divine wisdom is fertile. Not only does Sarah bear him a son, but she is pointed out as the mother of a countless offspring. Thus is realized the strange paradox that the barren woman is most fruitful. Thus in the progress of the human soul are verified the words of the prophet‚ spoken in an allegory‚ that ‘the desolate hath many children.’

But the allegory does not end here. The contrast between the mothers is reproduced in the contrast between the sons. Isaac represents the wisdom of the wise man; Ishmael the sophistry of the sophist. Sophistry must in the end give place to wisdom. The son of the bondwoman must be cast out and flee before the son of the princess.Such is the ingenious application of Philo—most like and yet most unlike that of St. Paul. They both allegorize, and in so doing they touch upon the same points in the narrative, they use the same text by way of illustration. Yet in their whole tone and method they stand in direct contrast, and their results have nothing in common. Philo is, as usual, wholly unhistorical. With St. Paul, on the other hand, Hagar’s career is an allegory, because it is a history. The symbol and the thing symbolized are the same in kind. This simple passage of patriarchal life represents in miniature the workings of God’s Providence hereafter to be exhibited in grander proportions in the history of the Christian church. The Christian Apostle and the philosophic Jew move in parallel lines, or as it were, keeping side by side, and yet never once crossing each other’s path.And there is still another point in which the contrast between the two is great. With Philo the allegory is the whole substance of his teaching; with Paul it is but an accessory, He uses it rather as an illustration than an argument, as a means of representing in a lively form the lessons before enforced on other grounds. It is, to use Luther’s comparison, the painting which decorates the house already built.”The very pleasing character of Philo’s allegory is a warning against such interpretations. They always aim to be as captivating as his, and often succeed, only to be most unlike Paul’s “in tone and method.”—R.]