Galatians 3:5
He therefore who giveth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you; doth he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of the faith?
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Qui ergo tribuit vobis Spiritum, et operatur virtutes in vobis : ex operibus legis, an ex auditu fidei ?
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ὁ οὖν ἐπιχορηγῶν ὑμῖν τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ ἐνεργῶν δυνάμεις ἐν ὑμῖν ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἢ ἐξ ἀκοῆς πίστεως;
Haydock's commentary
On verses 4 to 5
If yet in vain: i.e. I have still good hopes, that what you have already suffered by persecutions and self-denials, since your conversion, will not be in vain; as they would be, if you sought to be justified by the works and ceremonies of the law of Moses, and not by the faith and law of Christ, by which only you can be truly sanctified. (Witham)
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and others, suppose that the power of working miracles still remained in the Galatians, notwithstanding what had passed; but St. Chrysostom and several others, explain it of a power they had formerly possessed. (Calmet)
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
St Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book IV, Chapter XXI. Abraham’s faith was
1. But that our faith was also prefigured in Abraham, and that he was the patriarch of our faith, and, as it were, the prophet of it, the apostle has very fully taught, when he says in the Epistle to the Galatians: “He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, [doeth he it] by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. But the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, announced beforehand unto Abraham, that in him all nations should be blessed. …
St Augustine A Treatise on Nature and Grace, Paul Asserts that the Flesh is Contrary Even in the Baptized
Now let us see whether we anywhere read about the flesh being contrary in the baptized also. And here, I ask, to whom did the apostle say, “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye do not the things that ye would?” He wrote this, I apprehend, to the Galatians, to whom he also says, “He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?” It appears, therefore, that it is to Christians that he speaks, to whom, too, God had given His Spirit: therefore, too, to the baptized. Observe, therefore, that even in baptized persons the flesh is found to be contrary; so that they have not that capacity which, our author says, is inseparably implanted in nature. …
St John Chrysostom An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall, Letter I
But now hear how this has actually occurred in real instances. Amongst the Corinthians some man of mark committed a sin such as was not named even among the Gentiles. This man was a believer and belonged to the household of Christ; and some say that he was actually a member of the priesthood. What then? Did Paul cut him off from the communion of those who were in the way of salvation. By no means: for he himself it is who rebukes the Corinthians countless times, backwards and forwards, because they did not bring the man to a state of repentance: but, desiring to prove to us that there is no sin which cannot be healed, he said again concerning the man who had transgressed more grievously than the Gentiles: “Deliver such an one to Satan for destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now this was prior to repentance: but after he had repented …
St John Chrysostom The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians, Galatians 3:1
Ver. 5 . “He therefore that supplieth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”