Gal 3:19

“From many other instances also, we may discover that the apostle frequently uses a transposed order in his sentences, due to the rapidity of his discourses, and the impetus of the Spirit which is in him. An example occurs in the [Epistle] to the Galatians, where he expresses himself as follows: "Wherefore then the law of works? It was added, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; [and it was] ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator." For the order of the words runs thus: "Wherefore then the law of works? Ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator, it was added until the seed should come to whom the promise was made,"-man thus asking the question, and the Spirit making answer.”

“He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as thou canst perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for (observabit) thy head, and thou on the watch for His heel." For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, "that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made." This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks: "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man's opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned (ex quo ea quae secundum mulierem est plasmatio facta est), in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.”

“Whence the law was rightly said to have been given by Moses, being a rule of right and wrong; and we may call it with accuracy the divine ordinance, inasmuch as it was given by God through Moses. It accordingly conducts to the divine. Paul says: "The law was instituted because of transgressions, till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made." Then, as if in explanation of his meaning, he adds: "But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up," manifestly through fear, in consequence of sins, "unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed; so that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we should be justified by faith."”

“Marcion, adopting these sentiments, rejected altogether the generation of our Saviour. He considered it to be absurd that under the (category of a) creature fashioned by destructive Discord should have been the Logos that was an auxiliary to Friendship-that is, the Good Deity. (His doctrine,) however, was that, independent of birth, (the Logos) Himself descended from above in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and that, as being intermediate between the good and bad Deity, He proceeded to give instruction in the synagogues. For if He is a Mediator, He has been, he says, liberated from the entire nature of the Evil Deity. Now, as he affirms, the Demiurge is evil, and his works. For this reason, he affirms, Jesus came down unbegotten, in order that He might be liberated from all (admixture of) evil. And He has, he says, been liberated from the nature of the Good One likewise, in order that He may be a Mediator, as Paul states, and as Himself acknowledges: "Why call ye me good? there is one good." These, then, are the opinions of Marcion, by means of which he made many his dupes, employing the conclusions of Empedocles. And he transferred the philosophy invented by that (ancient speculator) into his own system of thought, and (out of Empedocles) constructed his (own) impious heresy.”

“This remark again is not superfluous; observe too how he glances round at every thing, as if he had an hundred eyes. Having exalted Faith, and proved its elder claims, that the Law may not be considered superfluous, he sets right this side of the doctrine also, and proves that the Law was not given without a view, but altogether profitably. "Because of transgressions;" that is to say, that the Jews might not be let live carelessly, and plunge into the depth of wickedness, but that the Law might be placed upon them as a bridle, guiding, regulating, and checking them from transgressing, if not all, at least some of the commandments. Not slight then was the advantage of the Law; but for how long? "Till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made." This is said of Christ; if then it was given until His advent, why do you protract it beyond its natural period? "And it was ordained through Angels by the hand of a Mediator." He either calls the priests Angels, or he declares that the Angels themselves ministered to the delivery of the Law. By Mediator here he means Christ, and shows that He was before it, and Himself the Giver of it.”

“(Verse 19, 20.) What then? The law was added because of transgressions until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. For indeed the law was not given for the righteous but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners (I Tim. II, 9): and to go deeper, after the idolatry to which they were enslaved in Egypt, so that they forgot the God of their fathers, and subsequently said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt'; the ritual of worshiping God and the punishment of sinners was established by the hand of the mediator Christ Jesus, for all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made: not only the heavens, earth, sea, and all that we see, but also those things which were imposed on the stubborn people as the yoke of the Law through Moses (John I). And it is written to Timothy: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (I Tim. II, 5). After He deigned to be born for our salvation from the Virgin's womb, He is called mediator of God and men, being a separate person. But before He assumed a human body, and when He was with the Father in the beginning, He is called the Word of God made flesh, to all the holy ones to whom the word of God was made, namely Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and later Moses and all the Prophets, whom Scripture relates, without the addition of man whom He had not yet assumed, He is called only mediator. But when he says: The law was ordained by angels, this is to be understood, that in every Old Testament, where an angel is first seen and afterwards introduced as speaking as God: The angel indeed among the many ministers who may have been seen truly, but it is in this mediator that he speaks who says: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exodus 3:6). And it is not surprising if God speaks in angels, since He also speaks through angels who are in human beings, as Zechariah says. And the angel who was speaking with me said (Zech. II, 3); and afterwards adding: Thus saith the Lord almighty. For the angel who was said to be in the prophet did not dare to speak in his own person: Thus saith the Lord almighty. The hand of the mediator, we must understand, is the power and might of him. He, being one with the Father according to his Godhood, is understood to be distinct from him according to his office as mediator. But since the order of the reading is confused and disordered by a hyperbaton, it seems that it should be rendered to us thus: The Law was given through angels into the hand of the mediator, ordained by angels because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made. But there is no doubt that the seed signifies Christ, who is also proven to be the son of Abraham from the beginning of Matthew, as Scripture testifies: The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

“Here arises a rather pertinent question: if faith justifies and even the former saints, who were justified before God, were justified through it, what need was there for the law to be given?… The law was given to a proud people, but the grace of love cannot be received by any but the humble. Without this grace the precepts of the law cannot possibly be fulfilled. Israel was rendered humble by transgression, so that it might seek grace and might not arrogantly suppose itself to be saved by its own merits; and so it would be righteous, not in its own power and might but by the hand of the Mediator who justifies the ungodly.”

“Now every dispensation of the Old Testament was given through angels, the Holy Spirit working in them and in the very Word of truth, though not yet incarnate, yet never departing from some true ordering of providence. This law was given through angels, sometimes acting in their own person, sometimes in that of God, as was also the way of the prophets.… The children [of Abraham] were put in the hand of [Christ] the Mediator so that he himself might liberate them from sin when they were forced by their transgression of the law to admit that they needed grace and mercy from the Lord.”

“Since he had exalted faith and pointed out that it is more ancient than the law, an objection arose: why then was the law given, if faith was more ancient and itself conferred the blessing? Not in vain, he says, was the law given, but for the sake of transgressions, to serve as a bridle for the Jews, preventing the violation of if not all, then at least some of the commandments. It is also beautifully said: "it was added afterwards," to show that the law was not given as a primary institution, like the promises, but was given, as it were, as a supplement, on account of the many transgressions, so as to prevent at least a few. However, the law was not given forever, but until the time of the coming of Christ, to Whom the promise pertained, that through Him the nations would be blessed. But if the law was given until the appearing of Christ, why then do you extend its significance further? The Law, he says, was given through the mediation of Angels – either priests, or actual Angels, because indeed Angels produced those trumpet sounds, thunders, and signs. "By the hand of a mediator," that is, Christ. He shows that Christ also gave the Law, and therefore He is free to abolish it as well.”

“We are also led by the hand through the reformed powers of the soul itself, and this by gratuitous virtues, spiritual senses, and mental ecstasies, as is evident from the fourth step. We are led by the hand no less through hierarchical operations, namely of purgation, illumination, and perfection of human minds, through the hierarchical revelations of sacred Scriptures given to us through Angels, according to that saying of the Apostle, that the Law was given through Angels by the hand of a Mediator.”

“After showing by the authority of scripture and by a human custom that the Law was unable to make one just, the Apostle now raises two questions and solves them. The second of these begins at (v. 21). With respect to the first, he does three things: First, he raises the question; Secondly, he solves it (v. 19): "It was set because of transgressions;" Thirdly, he elucidates something he presupposed in the course of his solution (v. 20). The question which might arise from the foregoing is this: If the Law was unable to justify, was the Law without purpose? This question he raises when he says, "Why then was the law?" i.e., what purpose did it serve? This is the punctuation which, as a Gloss says, Augustine favors, although earlier he approved the reading, "What then?" followed by, "The law was set up because of transgressions." In Romans (3:1), a similar question is raised: "What advantage then hath the Jew; or what is the profit of circumcision?" Then when he says, "It was set because of transgressions," he solves the question. Here he does four things: First, he sets down the purpose of the Law; Secondly, the fruit of the Law (v. 19): "until the seed should come to whom he made the promise;" Thirdly, the ministers of the Law (v. 19): "being ordained by angels;" Fourthly, the Lord of the Law (v. 19): "in the hand of a mediator." With respect to the first, it should be noted that the Old Law was given for a fourfold purpose, corresponding to the four consequences of sin enumerated by Bede, namely, because of wickedness, weakness, passion, and ignorance. Hence the Law was given first of all to suppress wickedness, since by forbidding sin and by punishing, it restrained men from sin. This he touches on when he says, "The law was set because of transgressions," i.e., to prevent them. On this point it is said: "The law is not made for the just man but for the unjust" (1 Tim 1:9). The reason for this can be taken from Ethics IV of the Philosopher. For men who are well disposed, are inclined to act well of themselves, so that fatherly admonitions are enough for them: hence they do not need a law; indeed, as it is said, "They are a law to themselves who show the work of the law written in their hearts" (Rom 2:14). But men who are ill disposed need to be kept from sin by penalties. Hence with respect to such men it was necessary to set down a law which has power to constrain. Secondly, the Law was set down in order to disclose human weakness. For men gloried in two things: First, in their knowledge; and secondly, in their power. Hence God left men without the instruction of the Law during the period of the Law of nature, during which time, as they fell into errors, their pride was convinced of its lack of knowledge, even though they still presumed on their powers. For they said, "Many are willing and able, but there is no one to lead," as a Gloss says on Exodus (24:8): "All things that the Lord hath spoken we will do. We will be obedient." And therefore the Law was given which would cause a knowledge of sin, "for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom 3:20). But it did not give the help of grace to avoid sin, so that man, bound by the Law, might test his strength and recognize his infirmity. Finding that without grace he was unable to avoid sin, he would more ardently yearn for grace. And this cause can also be derived from these words, if they are taken to mean that the Law was set for the sake of filling up transgressions, in the sense in which the Apostle speaks when he says: "Now the law entered in that sin might abound" (Rom 5:20). This is to be taken not in a causal but in a sequential sense; for after the Law entered in, sin abounded and transgressions multiplied, because concupiscence, not yet healed by grace, lusted after that which was forbidden, with the result that sin became more grievous, being now a violation of a written law. But God permitted this in order that men, recognizing their own imperfection, might seek the grace of a mediator. Hence he says significantly, It was set, i.e., interposed, as it were, between the Law of nature and the Law of grace. Thirdly, the Law was given in order to tame the concupiscence of a wanton people, so that, worn out by various ceremonies, they would not fall into idolatry or lewdness. Hence Peter says: "This is a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear" (Acts 15:10). Fourthly, the Law was given as a figure of future grace in order to instruct the ignorant, according to Hebrews (10:1): "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come." Then he sets forth the fruit of the Law when he says, "until the seed should come," i.e., Christ, of Whom God had promised that through Him all nations would be blessed: "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John" (Mt 11:13); "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen 22:18). The ministers of the Law are mentioned when he says, "ordained," i.e., given in good order, "by angels," i.e., the messengers of God, namely, Moses and Aaron: "They shall seek the law at his mouth: because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts" (Mal 2:7). Or: "by angels," i.e., by the ministry of angels: "You have received the law by the disposition of angels" (Acts 7:53). And it was given by angels, because it was not fitting that it be given by the Son, Who is greater: "For if the word spoken by angels became steadfast... how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Which, having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard him" (Heb 2:2). Furthermore, he says ordained, because it was given in proper sequence, namely, between the time of the Law of nature (during which men were convinced they could not help themselves) and the time of grace. For before they should receive grace, they had to be convinced by the Law. The Lord of the Law is Christ; hence he says, "in the hand of a mediator," i.e., in the power of Christ: "In his right hand a fiery law" (Deut 33:2); "There is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5). This mediator was represented by Moses in whose hand the Law was given: "I was the mediator, and stood between the Lord and you at that time" (Deut 5:5).”

“By "angels" he means God's messengers—that is, Moses, [Joshua] son of Nun and the other prophets up to John the Baptist. … Through these, therefore, the Law and Prophets are ordained and disposed by God in the hand, that is, the power, of the Savior. For he is the Mediator, the reconciler of God and humanity, so that he may save whom he will out of those who have received the law from the angels.”

“as if in answer to the question What then is the law? meaning, Why was the law given? he at once replies and says: It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made; and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator; whereby he means, that the reason why the law was added was this, that by means of it and of the priesthood the people which had received the promise should be under safe guardianship—the people, namely, sprung from Abraham—and that there should be no intermixture of this people with any other; so that thereby he who had been foretold might be recognisable by all—he, by whom the world is being renovated, and by whom also the purpose and economy which God had from the first designed is being fulfilled.”

“"What then is the law?" As it was said by way of contrast to it. Why then was the law given, he says, if it cannot save? "It was added because of transgressions." It was not given in vain, he says, but in order that what appears to be from God may not be transgressed, so that even small faults may be prevented. "added." He rightly says "added" to show that the law is not original, as the promises are, but was given as something following arising from what preceded. "until the seed to whom the promise referred should come." But the law was not given for eternity, he says, but until Christ comes, to whom it has been promised that all the nations will be blessed. "administered through angels." The law was given, that is, enjoined, served and commanded through the intervention of messengers, whether of the priests or indeed of angels. It is said to have been given into the hand of a mediator, that is, of Christ. For he wishes to show that the law was given under Christ, so that he might also be the Lord to abolish it. For the one who gives also has power to abolish. He calls Christ a mediator because he mediates to the Father and to men, as it were toward friendship, and reconciles us to God, to whom we were at enmity. — [CHRYSOSTOM] "by the hand of a mediator." Here he calls Christ the Mediator, showing that he also gave the law beforehand.”