Thomas Aquinas

Above, the Apostle refuted the vanity and inconstancy of the Galatians by the authority of the evangelical teaching, showing that his teaching was authenticated by the other apostles; but here he shows this same thing by reason and authority, namely, that the precepts of the law are not to be observed. And this in two ways. First, from the insufficiency of the law; second, from the dignity of those who have been converted to Christ; and this in chapter 4, where he says: "Now I say: as long as," etc. Concerning the first he does two things. First he prefaces a rebuke; second he pursues his proof, where he says: "This only I wish from you," etc. Concerning the first he does two things: first he rebukes them, showing their foolishness; second he assigns the reason for the rebuke, where he says: "before whose eyes," etc.

First, therefore, he rebukes them for their foolishness, calling them senseless. Hence he says: "O senseless," etc. Now one is properly called senseless who lacks sense. But spiritual sense is the knowledge of truth; therefore whoever lacks truth is properly called senseless. Matthew 5: "And you are without understanding." Wisdom 5:4: "we senseless ones, their life," etc. But on the contrary, it is said in Matthew 5:22: "Whoever shall say to his brother: Fool," etc.; but "fool" is the same as "senseless"; therefore the Apostle is guilty of the fire of Gehenna. But it must be said, as Augustine says, that this is to be understood of one who says it without cause, and with the intention of reviling; but the Apostle said it for a cause, and with the intention of correcting. Hence it is said in the Gloss: he says this out of sorrow.

Second, when he says "Who has bewitched you," etc., he shows the manner in which they had been made senseless. Here it must first be noted that one becomes senseless in many ways. Either because no truth is proposed to him which he could know; or because, although it is proposed to him, he never accepts it; or because he abandons the truth proposed and accepted, withdrawing from the way of truth; and such were these Galatians, who, abandoning the truth of the faith which they had received, refused the truth proposed to them. Above, 1:6: "I wonder that you are so soon," etc. And therefore he reproves in them this degree of senselessness, saying: "Who has bewitched you," etc.

Now to know what fascination is, it must be known that according to the Gloss, fascination is properly called a deluding of the sense, which is wont to come about through magical arts; as, for instance, when it makes a man appear to the sight of others as a lion, or horned, and the like. And this can also happen through demons, who have the power of moving phantasms, and of tracing them back to the principles of the senses, by altering the senses themselves. And according to this understanding, the Apostle quite properly says: "Who has bewitched you?" As if to say: you are like a man who has been deluded, who takes manifest things otherwise than they are in the truth of the matter; because, namely, you have been deluded by deceptions and sophisms, "not to obey the truth," that is, you do not see the manifest truth received by you, nor do you receive it by obeying. Wisdom 4:12: "The bewitching of vanity obscures good things." Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to them that call good evil," etc.

Fascination is taken in another way, according as someone is harmed by a malevolent gaze, and this especially in old women, who by a burning look and an envious gaze bewitch children, who from this become sick and vomit their food. Wishing to assign the cause of this, Avicenna, in his book On the Soul, says that bodily matter obeys intellectual substance more than it obeys the active and passive qualities in nature. And therefore he holds that, at the apprehension of intellectual substances (which he calls souls or movers of the spheres), many things come about outside the order of the motion of the heavens and of all corporeal agents. In the same way he says that when a holy soul has been purified from affections for earthly things, and from carnal vices, it approaches the likeness of the aforesaid substances, and nature obeys it. And hence it is that some holy men work certain wonders outside the course of nature; and likewise, because the soul of someone defiled by carnal passions has a strong apprehension in malice, nature obeys it for the transmutation of matter, especially in those in whom the matter is apt for this, as happens in tender children. And thus it happens, according to him, that from the strong apprehension of old women, a child is changed into a state of malice and is bewitched.

Now this position seems true enough according to the opinion of Avicenna. For he himself held that all corporeal forms in these lower things are infused by separate incorporeal substances, and that natural agents contribute to this only as disposing causes. But this indeed is disproved by the Philosopher. For an agent must be like its subject. Now it is not form alone that comes to be, nor matter alone, but the composite of matter and form. Therefore that which acts toward the being of corporeal things must have matter and form. Hence he says that nothing can transmute matter and form except that which has matter and form, and this indeed either virtually, as God, who is the author of form and matter; or actually, as a corporeal agent. And therefore corporeal matter, as regards forms of this kind, obeys neither angels nor any pure creature at a nod, but God alone, as Augustine says. Hence what Avicenna says about fascination of this kind is not true.

And therefore it must be said that, at the imagination or apprehension of a man, when it is strong, the sense, or the sensitive appetite, is changed; and this change is not without an alteration of the body and of the spirits of the body, just as we see that at the apprehension of something delightful the sensitive appetite is moved to concupiscence, and from this the body grows warm. Likewise, from the apprehension of something fearful, it grows cold. Now the alteration of the spirits especially infects the eyes, which, once infected, infect a thing by their gaze, as is evident in a clean mirror, which is tainted by the gaze of a menstruating woman. So, then, because old women are obstinate and hardened in malice, from their strong apprehension the sensitive appetite is altered, and from this, as has been said, the infection passes especially from the veins to the eyes, and from the eyes to the thing looked upon. Hence, because the flesh of a child is soft, it is infected and bewitched by their envious gaze. And sometimes, indeed, demons work toward this effect.

He says, then: "Who has bewitched you not to obey the truth?" As if to say: you at one time obeyed the truth of the faith, but now you do not; therefore you are like children who, infected by some envious gaze, vomit the food you had received.

Now he assigns the reason for the rebuke, saying: "before whose eyes," etc. This can be read in three ways.

In one way, according to Jerome, so that it corresponds to the first understanding of fascination; as if to say: I say you are bewitched, because "before whose eyes," etc., that is, the proscription of Christ, who was condemned to death, was so manifest to you that it was as if it had been before your eyes, and "crucified among you," that is, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was in your understandings, so that you knew how it had been done; hence, if you do not see it now, nor obey it, this happens because you have been deluded and bewitched. Against which it is said in the last chapter of the Song of Songs: "Put me as a seal upon your heart," etc.

In another way, according to Augustine; as if to say: you are rightly bewitched, because the truth which you received, namely Christ, through faith, in your hearts, you vomit up like children. And this because "before your eyes," that is, in your presence, "Jesus Christ was proscribed," that is, he is expelled and cast out of his inheritance, which ought to be grievous to you; because he whom you ought not to suffer to be proscribed and expelled by others has been proscribed in you, that is, he has lost his inheritance in you, that is, in your very selves. And then what follows, namely "crucified," ought to be read with weight and a show of grief, because he added this so that they might consider at what price Christ had bought the possession which he was losing in them, and might be moved the more by this. As if to say: Christ has been proscribed in you, namely, he who was crucified, that is, who acquired this inheritance by his own cross and blood. 1 Corinthians 6:20: "For you are bought with a great price," etc. 1 Peter 1:18: "Not with corruptible things, gold or silver," etc.

In a third way, according to Ambrose, as if to say: you are truly bewitched, "before whose eyes," that is, in whose estimation, namely according to your judgment, "Jesus Christ was proscribed," that is, condemned, not saving others. And "crucified among you," that is, according as you understand it, that is, he only died, but did not justify others, although it is said of him, 2 Corinthians, last chapter, that "if he died from our weakness, yet he lives from the power of God."

It can also, in a fourth way, be expounded according to the Gloss, so that by this the Apostle designates the gravity of their fault, because in this — that, observing the law, they abandon Christ — they were sinning in a certain way equally with Pilate, who proscribed Christ, that is, condemned him. So that, while believing Christ insufficient for saving, they are like the crucifiers of Christ in sinning, who hung him upon the wood, condemning and afflicting him with a most shameful death. The equality, however, is to be taken on the part of him against whom the sin is committed, because the Galatians were sinning against Christ, just as Pilate and the crucifiers of Christ.