Galatians 5:8
This persuasion is not from him that calleth you.
Open Galatians 5:8 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- persuasio hæc non est ex eo, qui vocat vos.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ἡ πεισμονὴ οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦντος ὑμᾶς.
Haydock's commentary
On verses 8 to 12
This persuasion of yours is not from him who calleth you; is not from God: and I hope you will be shortly again of no other mind than what I taught you. (Witham)
This was a Jewish proverb, and alluded to the time of the Pasch, when it was not permitted to eat of any but unleavened bread; during which time the least leaven made the whole mass unclean to a Jew....Some Greek copies read, mikra zume olon to phurama zumoi, when the sense will be, "a little leaven causes the whole mass to rise." (Calmet)
Hence the introduction of any, however small, share of the ceremonial and Jewish rites, will greatly disfigure the purity and simplicity of the Christian institute.
As for me, my adversaries misrepresent me, when they say I preach circumcision; which if I did, I should not be persecuted as I am by the Jews. I never preach it necessary for Gentiles converted, though I have not condemned the use of it in the Jewish converts, provided they do not oblige other converts to it.
The scandal of the cross is therefore made void. The sense is, according to St. Jerome, that the Jews' greatest objection against St. Paul used to be, because he preached that circumcision and the law of Moses need not be observed: another objection against him was, that he preached Jesus, who was crucified on an infamous cross, to be their great Messias. He reasons then in this manner, that if the Jews think he again preacheth the necessity of circumcision and the precepts of the old law, they will no longer be offended that he preacheth Christ crucified, because they were not so much offended with the latter as with the first. Thus also St. Chrysostom on this verse. Others expound it thus: If I preach circumcision and the ceremonies of the law, therefore according to my doctrine, the cross of Christ, and justification by the merits of Christ crucified, is abolished, because justification is still to be sought for by the works of the law.
Read on
I would they were even cut off: separated from your communion by excommunication. This seems the true sense; so that I need not mention any other exposition. See Cornelius a Lapide. (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
Origen Origen De Principiis, Chapter I. translated from the Greek: On the Freedom of the Will, With an Explanation and Interpretation of Those Statements of Scripture Which Appear to Nullify It
7. But, since certain declarations of the Old Testament and of the New lead to the opposite conclusion, namely, that it does not depend on ourselves to keep the commandments and to be saved, or to transgress them and to be lost, let us adduce them one by one, and see the explanations of them, in order that from those which we adduce, any one selecting in a similar way all the passages that seem to nullify free-will, may consider what is said about them by way of explanation. And now, the statements regarding Pharaoh have troubled many, respecting whom God declared several times, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” For if he is hardened by God, and commits sin in consequence of being hardened, he is not the cause of sin to himself; and if so, then neither does Pharaoh possess free-will. …
St Augustine Letter CCXI
3. When I reflect on these good things, these gifts of God in you, my heart, amid the many storms by which it is agitated through evils elsewhere, is wont to find perfect rest. “Ye did run well; who did hinder you, that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of Him that calleth you.” “A little leaven ”, I am unwilling to complete the sentence, for I rather desire, entreat, and exhort that the leaven itself be transformed into something better, lest it change the whole lump for the worse, as it has already almost done. If, therefore, you have begun to put forth again the buddings of a sound discernment as to your duty, pray that you enter not into temptation, nor fall again into strifes, emulations, animosities, divisions, evil speaking, seditions, whisperings. …
St John Chrysostom The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians, Galatians 5:1
Ver. 8 . “This persuasion came not of him that calleth you.” He who called you, called you not to such fluctuations, he did not lay down a Law, that you should judaize. Then, that no one might object, “Why do you thus magnify and aggravate the matter by your words; one commandment only of the Law have we kept, and yet you make this great outcry?” hear how he terrifies them, not by things present but future in these words: