Galatians 1:7
Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quod non est aliud, nisi sunt aliqui qui vos conturbant, et volunt convertere Evangelium Christi.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο· εἰ μή τινές εἰσιν οἱ ταράσσοντες ὑμᾶς καὶ θέλοντες μεταστρέψαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ.
Haydock's commentary
On verses 6 to 7
This was about three or four years after their conversion. The apostle knowing very well how to suit his discourse to his auditors, in this epistle makes use of a more severe and harsh address than is observable in his other epistles. The reason is, the Galatians were a less civilized people, and had already shewn the little attachment they had to their spiritual father. (Calmet)
To another gospel: which is not2 another. That is, it is not properly another, because they pretended to be Christians, and teach the faith: and yet it was in some measure another, because changed by such teachers with a mixture of errors, particularly that all converted Gentiles were to observe the Jewish law: and in this sense, they are said to subvert, or destroy the gospel of Christ: so that the apostle hesitates not to pronounce and repeat an anathema, a curse upon all that preach any thing besides, that is, in point of religion, not agreeing with what he had taught. I cannot omit here a reflection, which St. Chrysostom makes on the 7th verse. Where are they, saith he, who condemn us (Catholics) for the differences we have with heretics? and who pretend there is no such essential difference betwixt us and them, so as to judge them excluded from the communion of the Catholic Church, out of which there is no salvation, unless perhaps through ignorance.
Let them hear what St. Paul says, that they destroyed the gospel who made any such innovations: to wit, by introducing again as necessary some of the Jewish ceremonies, even at a time when the Christians, who had been Jews, might lawfully use them, and even they who had been Gentiles. St. Paul says, this is to change and destroy the gospel; he repeats anathema against them. Let them hear, and take notice of this, who pretend that the unity of the one Catholic faith is sufficiently maintained by all Christian societies, that agreeing, as they say, in fundamentals, their faith is a saving faith: that the council of Trent, without reason, pronounced such anathemas against them: that all Catholics are uncharitable for denying them to be in the way to salvation, when they make Scripture alone, as interpreted by their private judgment, the only rule of their faith. They may as well accuse not only St. Chrysostom but also St. Paul, of uncharitableness, &c. (Witham)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion, Marcion, Justifying His Antithesis Between the Law and the Gospel by the Contention of St. Paul with St. Peter, Shown to Have Mistaken St. Paul's Position and Argument. Marcion's Doctrine Confuted Out of St. Paul's Teaching, Which Agrees Wholly with the Creator's Decrees
This most patent conclusion requires to be defended by us against the clamours of the opposite side. For they allege that Marcion did not so much innovate on the rule (of faith) by his separation of the law and the gospel, as restore it after it had been previously adulterated. O Christ, most enduring Lord, who didst bear so many years with this interference with Thy revelation, until Marcion forsooth came to Thy rescue! Now they adduce the case of Peter himself, and the others, who were pillars of the apostolate, as having been blamed by Paul for not walking uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, that very Paul indeed, who, being yet in the mere rudiments of grace, and trembling, in short, lest he should have run or were still running in vain, then for the first time held intercourse with those who were apostles before himself. …
Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion, On the Epistle to the Galatians. The Abolition of the Ordinances of the Mosaic Law No Proof of Another God. The Divine Lawgiver, the Creator Himself, Was the Abrogator. The Apostle's Doctrine in the First Chapter Shown to Accord with the Teaching of the Old Testament. The Acts of the Apostles Shown to Be Genuine Against Marcion. This Book Agrees with the Pauline Epistles
The epistle which we also allow to be the most decisive against Judaism, is that wherein the apostle instructs the Galatians. For the abolition of the ancient law we fully admit, and hold that it actually proceeds from the dispensation of the Creator, a point which we have already often treated in the course of our discussion, when we showed that the innovation was foretold by the prophets of our God. Now, if the Creator indeed promised that “the ancient things should pass away,” to be superseded by a new course of things which should arise, whilst Christ marks the period of the separation when He says, “The law and the prophets were until John”, thus making the Baptist the limit between the two dispensations of the old things then terminating, and the new things then beginning, the apostle cannot of course do otherwise, (coming as he does) in Christ, who was revealed after John, than in …
Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion, The Eternal Home in Heaven. Beautiful Exposition by Tertullian of the Apostle's Consolatory Teaching Against the Fear of Death, So Apt to Arise Under Anti-Christian Oppression. The Judgment-Seat of Christ--The Idea, Anti-Marcionite. Paradise. Judicial Characteristics of Christ Which are Inconsistent with the Heretical Views About Him; The Apostle's Sharpness, or Severity, Shows Him to Be a Fit Preacher of the Creator's Christ
As to the house of this our earthly dwelling-place, when he says that “we have an eternal home in heaven, not made with hands,” he by no means would imply that, because it was built by the Creator’s hand, it must perish in a perpetual dissolution after death. He treats of this subject in order to offer consolation against the fear of death and the dread of this very dissolution, as is even more manifest from what follows, when he adds, that “in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven, if so be, that having been unclothed, we shall not be found naked;” in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. …
St Cyprian The Epistles of Cyprian, Epistle LXII
10. Moreover, the blessed Apostle Paul, chosen and sent by the Lord, and appointed a preacher of the Gospel truth, lays down these very things in his epistle, saying, “The Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This is my body, which shall be given for you: do this in remembrance of me. After the same manner also He took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. …
Archelaus The Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes, Chapter 35
35. These things, moreover, he has said with the view of showing us that all others who may come after him will be false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed, like an angel of light. What great thing therefore is it, if his ministers also be transformed into the ministers of righteousness? whose end shall be according to their works. He indicates, further, what manner of men these were, and points out by whom they were being circumvented. And when the Galatians are minded to turn away from the Gospel, he says to them: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would turn you away from the Gospel of Christ. …
St John Chrysostom The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians, Galatians 1:1--3
Ver. 7 . “Only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ.” That is to say, ye will not recognize another Gospel, so long as your mind is sane, so long as your vision remains healthy, and free from distorted and imaginary phantoms. For as the disordered eye mistakes the object presented to it, so does the mind when made turbid by the confusion of evil thoughts. Thus the madman confounds objects; but this insanity is more dangerous than a physical malady, for it works injury not in the regions of sense, but of the mind; it creates confusion not in the organ of bodily vision, but in the eye of the understanding.