The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the Epistle to the Galatians
( Orat . 2 de Imagin ). He ends thus because he knew that it was the prerogative of Bishops, not of monks, of whom he was one, to pronounce anathema, as Baronius acutely notes ( Ann. a.d. 730, in fine). So S. Augustine : “ I do not accept what the Blessed Cyprian held on the baptism of heretics , because the Church, for whom Cyprian shed his blood, does not accept it” (contra Cresconium , lib. ii. c. 31, 32). And the other Fathers follow him, and the reason they do so is clear. It is because the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. iii. 15). Whoever, therefore, following his own imaginations, teaches any new thing against her mind and doctrines, errs and strays from the home of truth and from truth itself, as S. Augustine urges in a fine dilemma. “ Answer ,” he says — “Did the Church come to an end or not?” (i.e., when Donatus arose). “ Choose which you like . If she had come to an end, who was the mother who bore Donatus? If on the other hand, she could not have come to an end while so many had been gathered into her without your baptism, tell me, I pray you, what madness was it which induced the followers of Donatus to withdraw themselves from her, as if they were so avoiding communion with the wicked” ( contra Gaudentium, lib. ii. c. 8).
In the same way I will now conclude as follows : On the rise of Luther, Calvin, Menno, and other Protestants, either the Church and the true faith came to an end or they did not. For these two — the true Church and the true faith — are necessarily connected, so much so that if in a single point, say the Invocation of Saints, the Church were to leave the track of the true faith, she must become heretical, and the Church, not of God but of Satan ; just as any individual who maintains a single heresy, even though he be otherwise orthodox, is a heretic. I repeat, therefore, when Calvin arose, either the Church came to an end or she did not ; if she did, and had not existed since the time of Gregory the Great, as the Protestants say, then the Church had been extinct for 900 years, that is to say, the world for 900 years was without true faith, true religion, sacraments, Church, and salvation ; therefore for 900 years Christ deserted His Bride; therefore the Eternal Kingdom of Christ had fallen, for Christ reigns in His Church ; therefore the gates of hell had prevailed against His Church ; therefore Calvin was born outside the Church, was no member of the Church, but an unbeliever, a heretic, or a pagan ; therefore he had no claim to be received by the people, by the world, and listened to as one of the faithful, but he should have been despised and rejected as an unbeliever not belonging to the Church. If, however, the Church had not come to an end, and Calvin was born, baptized, educated, brought up in the true Church— then, since he was born, baptized, educated, and brought up in the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, that Church was clearly a true Church, holding the true faith. Therefore, when he withdrew from her, and shut himself up in his new dogmas, he separated himself from the true faith and from the Church, and became an apostate. Therefore, when he established another and a reformed Church, it was not a true, apostolic, but an apostate, schismatical, heretical Church that he founded — a mistress and school, not of the faith, but of new doctrines and heresies. Let a fair-minded reader, who sincerely seeks in ignorance the true faith, outside which no one can be saved, consider and weigh the force of this dilemma, and ask himself whether there is any escape from its conclusions, whether the rule here given is not a touchstone of what is true in doctrine and in faith.
Any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you , let him be accursed. The Protestants hence conclude: Therefore the decrees of councils and the canons of pontiffs are accursed, because they contain many things not in the Gospel, and are consequently a Gospel other than that preached.
I reply: Other (praterquam ) is here what is contrary to the accepted faith, such as are the doctrines of heretics.
1. This appears, firstly, because Paul is writing against the Judaisers, who were trying to introduce Judaism beside (præter), that is, against the Gospel. It was just as if any one were to try to add Calvinism or Mohammedanism to Christianity. He would be introducing a new law and society beside, i.e., against Christianity. Accordingly, in ver. 6, he calls this another Gospel, and in ver. 7 he says that the preachers of it pervert, or, as Chrysostom styles it, overturn the Gospel of Christ.
2. It is clear and certain that not only an angel but Paul himself knew more, and consequently might have preached more truths than
3. Paul constantly orders, as Christ did, the commands of Apostles and superiors to be obeyed (Acts xvi. 4 ; Heb. xiii. 17).
4. Moreover, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Œcumenius explain the phrase as I have done. In 1 Cor. ii. the Apostle uses παρά (præter) in the sense of against , when he writes : “ Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ;” for he would set up another Christ, just as one who makes another Pope sets up an anti-Pope, or he who invites another king into a kingdom sets up an enemy of the true king and a tyrant. Similarly , in Rom xi. 24: “ If thou wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive-tree ” — contrary to nature is παρὰ φύσιν (præter naturam). Even in Latin we often use the same meiosis. For example , Terence (Andria) says, “ Præter civium morem atque legem,” i.e., against law and custom. So, too, in Greek, as, e.g., Aristotle (de Cœlo , lib. i. c. 1) says παρὰ φύσιν, beside, i.e., against nature; παρὰ νόμον , beside, i.e., against law.
With this compare Deut. iv. 2 : “ Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you , neither shall ye diminish aught from it.” Ye shall not add to the precepts which I shall give you anything contradictory of them, especially, ye shall not add the worship of some new deity, for this the whole chapter, and indeed the whole Book of Deuteronomy, intends to forbid. Nor shall ye add, in the sense of saying that your words are mine ; for to no one is it allowed to put forth his own writings or commands, as the commands of God or as the Holy Scriptures.
There is a similar phrase in Rev. xxii. 18 : “ I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.” As a matter of fact, prophets and Apostles have added many things to this Scripture. Nay, Moses, in Deut. iv. 2, would contradict himself in Deut. xvii. 12, where he orders the words of the priest to be obeyed. Accordingly S. Augustine excellently explains this passage : “ The Apostle does not say, ‘ More than you have received,’ but ‘ Beside that which you have received.’ For if he had used the former phrase , he would condemn himself for saying that he wished to come to the Thessalonians to supply what was wanting to their faith. But he who supplies what is lacking merely adds , he does not take away what is already there . He, however, who oversteps the rule of faith does not approach the goal in the road, but departs from the road” (Tract, in Joan . 99).
You will say perhaps: “Why, then, did the Apostle not say against instead of beside ? ” Chrysostom’s answer is that he wanted to make it clear that any is accursed who even indirectly undermines the least important doctrine of the Gospel. But there is another reason, and that is, the Judaisers, against whom this passage is primarily directed, were introducing their Judaism beside the Gospel, i.e., their Jewish rites and sacraments, which by this very attempt became contrary to the Gospel and the New Law of Christ, as I said before.
We preach. I.e., by word or by writing. He does not, therefore, exclude, but rather includes traditions given by word of mouth only, for these he expressly orders to be observed in 2 Thess. ii. 14.
Accursed. Heb. cherem . See comment on this word under
Ver. 10. — Do I now persuade men, or God ? Theophylact, Vatablus, and Erasmus explain this to mean : “Am I now persuading you to human things or to Divine ? ” — as though the Apostle were showing, not the persons he was addressing, but his subject-matter , i.e., what he is putting forward to be believed. For the Judaisers were boasting that they followed Peter, John, James, who, for example, seemed to teach the observance of the Old Law. In contrast to them Paul exclaims that he follows not men, or the doctrine of men, but God and His doctrine, and persuades others to do the same. It is from God that I have received what I have preached, and therefore I preach not human things, but Divine.
There is a second interpretation, which is not amiss, whatever Beza may say, which has S. Chrysostom’s support : “ Am I pleading a cause before men or before God ? ” For the word persuade (πείθειν) is a forensic term, and implies a cause pleaded before judges. Hence S. Augustine interprets it here to mean, “ I desire to render myself approved,” and S. Ambrose renders it by I satisfy. When this Greek term is used in the sense of persuade, it is, as Beza admits, followed by an accusative of the person. Persuade is then here used in the sense of an inchoate act, “ I try to persuade,” according to my canon 32.
That this sense is the more apt appears: (1.) Because to persuade God and men is a phrase referring rather to the men persuaded than to the subject-matter — this last interpretation would make the sentence obscure and involved. (2.) Because the next clause illustrates this when it says, “ Or do I seek to please men?” which implies that as he does not seek to please men, so he does not seek to persuade them. So S. Jerome says that “any one is said to persuade when he tries to instil into others what he has himself imbibed and still keeps.”