reading in this place. There seems no doubt that the correct form is "your temptation which was in my flesh." As to manuscript authority, this is one of the cases where the Sinaitic MS. turns the balance. Moreover this is at first sight the more difficult reading, while on close examination it turns out to be the most in harmony with the general spirit of the passage.

As regards the nature of this suffering and humiliation of St Paul, which involved "temptation," in a certain sense, to the Galatians themselves, there is no difficulty in identifying it with the "thorn in the flesh, named with so much feeling in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

The precise form of the malady it will never be possible to ascertain (one theory is touched below in the note on v. 15), and perhaps it is for the advantage of the Christian Church, that each sufferer will think of his own case, in reading St Paul's language. It is clear that it was some bodily suffering, which hindered his work, and which he deeply felt to be humiliating. It may in some way have disfigured his appearance; and from the language in 2 Cor. xii. 7, where "stake in the

flesh" would be more accurate than "thorn in the flesh," it is natural to conclude that it involved great pain. See the note there.

As to that other Epistle, to which reference has just been made, it is important to observe that it was contemporary, and that it is bound together by various subtle links with that which is before us. See the Introduction. In these very passages, thus put closely together, we have a very affecting part of the connection. We seem to see the Apostle through and through when we study them in this way. It is highly probable that he was at this very time suffering from a recurrence of his painful and depressing malady.

A reference may be allowed here to the Hulsean Lectures' for 1860 on "The Character of St Paul," 3rd ed. p. 89. There the cases of St Bernard and of Alfred the Great are brought forward in comparison and illustration. Of King Alfred it is said by Asser, his biographer, "He entreated of God's mercy that in His boundless clemency He would exchange these torments for some lighter disease; but with this condition, that it should not show itself outwardly, lest he should be an object of contempt, and less able to benefit mankind; for he had a great dread of any such complaint as makes men useless or contemptible." ye despised not, nor rejected]

We see here

have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.

16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? 17 They zealously affect you, but

the fitness of the reading, "your temptation." The Galatians might under such circumstances have been tempted to look upon St Paul with some kind of loathing; or at all events he imagined that they might be so tempted; and it is part of his gratitude that they did not yield to any such "temptation."

15. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of?] It is very doubtful whether we ought

to read "where then?" or "what then?" If the former, the meaning will be "what is which was so conspicuous when I was with become of that felicitation of yourselves, you?" If the latter, then the Apostle says— "What was that demonstrative enthusiasm on my account worth, if it is so soon passed In any case we may justly see in away?" this fickleness an indication of the Galatian character. See the Introduction.

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ye would have plucked out your own eyes] There is nothing in the original to justify the Version. The phrase used by St Paul is emphatic your own" in the Authorised simply a proverbial mode of expressing the utmost devotion. Wetstein gives several examples. "Your very eyes" would give the meaning of the phrase correctly.

With this criticism there falls to the ground one of the chief arguments for identifying St Paul's "thorn in the flesh" with some dis

tressing defect in his eyesight. Another argument for this theory drawn from this Epistle (vi. 11) in connection with some supposed peculiarity of his handwriting is a pure assumption, as we shall see below.

16. Am I therefore become your enemy] He is going to say, "So then I am become your enemy;" but he turns the sentence into the gentler form of a question.

because I tell you the truth] It is best to adhere to the participial form of the original, in speaking the truth to you. Otherwise the words might seem to refer to the effect of the present letter, which St Paul could not possibly know. It is probable that he refers to what he had observed on his second visit, when giving them warnings similar to the present.

17-20. THEIR BETRAYERS HAD NO REAL LOVE FOR THEM, SUCH AS HE HAD.

He exposes the hollow and insincere motives of those who are paying court to them, and gives expression once more to his own intense yearning over them.

17. They zealously affect you, but not avell]

They manifest the utmost interest in you, the utmost regard for you; but their motive is a bad one; they make themselves your partizans, that you may attach yourselves to their party. This is the force of what concludes the verse -"that ye might affect them."

they would exclude you] Their wish is to Isolate you from the general body of sound Christian believers, that they may glory in having you identified with their clique.

18. it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing] All this manifestation of warm feeling is good. It is by no means to be blamed or despised. It is good too to be the object of such feeling, if only the cause is good, and if only there is consistency. This seems to carry us on correctly along the Apostle's line of thought to what he says at the end of the verse, "not only when I am present with you." Once he had been the object of such manifestation of warm feeling, when he was among them. Now all is changed. Others are become the object of this feeling, and the cause is no longer a good one. As to the grammar, it is to be observed that Inλovoda is passive, and denotes "to be zealously courted."

19. My little children] It seems for a moment as if St John were speaking. See his first Epistle. The language is quite unique in St Paul; but it precisely fits the metaphor in the sentence, and it presents to them an argument of immense force. He was, spiritually, in a parental relation to them, which could be shared by no one else. Cp. 1 Cor. iv. 15, "Though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel."

of whom I travail in birth again] The parental relation is expressed under the tenderest form. He writes not as their father, but as their mother. The same imagery is found in 1 Thess. ii. 7, "Even as a nurse cherisheth her own children."

until Christ be formed in you] Until ye come to the full maturity of Christian birth.

20. I desire to be present with you] I wish

21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free

woman.

23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

we were once more face to face. This is tc be carefully set side by side with what we finc at the end of v. 18.

to change my voice] He longs to find it unnecessary to speak with this severity; and he is sanguine enough to hope that it would not be necessary if he could be with them

once more.

for I stand in doubt of you] This is full of feeling. He is absent from them; and he is them and what he ought to say to them. perplexed as to what he ought to think of

21-31. THE HISTORY OF ABRAHAM IS LIKEWISE AN ALLEGORY STRICTLY APPLICABLE TO THE CASE IN HAND.

The Apostle's thought reverts to Abraham, but in a new form. He sees in the incidents of the Patriarch's tent anticipations of Gospel principles, and a rehearsal of the unkindness to which they who thoroughly accept the Gospel are exposed.

21. ye that desire to be under the law] Ye that are so eager to take Law for the principle of your religious life. There is no article in the original.

do ye not hear the law?] Will ye not listen to what the Law itself says? Here the original has the article. The Hebrew law is, of course, in such an argument, the great embodiment of the principle of Law. Moreover it had a Divine sanction which belongs this clause we restrict the word "law" to the to none other. It is immaterial whether in Pentateuch, or regard it as synonymous with the Old Testament generally.

22. it is written] He takes the Judaizers on their own ground, and boldly refers to the Hebrew Scriptures allegorically interpreted.

a bondmaid...a freewoman] Strictly, "the bondmaid-the freewoman"-the well-known bondmaid (Hagar)-the well-known freewoman (Sarah). In the next verse the translation in the Authorised Version is exact.

23. after the flesh] According to the usual course of nature.

by promise] Through the instrumentality of the Promise, which was given when birth

ents.

he same

the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

25 For this Agar is mount Sinai Or, is in in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusaink with. lem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

26 But Jerusalem which is above

according to the course of nature was impossible. The emphasis involved in this word "promise" is powerfully unfolded in Rom. iv. 17-22. See also Rom. ix. 7-9. Isaac and Ishmael had one father; but they were children of Abraham in two very different senses.

24. Which things are an allegory]

all.

does not seem that the Authorised Version here could be improved. "Which things" denotes the whole range of the subject (see Col. ii. 23). St Paul, of course, accepts the Patriarchal narrative as literally and historically true. But he says that it is capable also of an allegorical interpretation. A mystical meaning lies hid under this literal history; and the spiritually-instructed mind can see in it an expression of principles deeper than that which lies on the surface. What Calvin says very well here is, in substance, as follows: "Just as the house of Abraham was then the true Church, so there is no doubt that the principal and most memorable events that happened therein were types for us; just as there was allegory in circumcision, in the sacrifices, in the whole Levitical priesthood, so likewise was there allegory in the house of Abraham."

these are the two covenants] When the subject is treated allegorically, these two women, Agar and Sara, represent the two covenants, the former being the mother of slaves, the latter the mother of freemen, Bishop Lightfoot illustrates the form of language by referring to Matt. xiii. 39, xxvi. 26-28; 1 Cor. x. 4.

the one from the mount Sinai] It was there that the Mosaic covenant was given.

which gendereth to bondage] The children of this covenant, like the children of Agar, can be only slaves.

which is Agar] For this is the covenant which corresponds with Agar-which in the allegory is represented by Agar.

25. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia] This is one of the cases in which modern

criticism has removed a great amount of the difficulty felt by commentators. The discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript has settled a point which was previously doubtful, and it appears that the true reading is simply this, "for Mount

ie, the covenant of Mount Sinai, represented and answereth to Jerusalem which now is] by Agar, corresponds with the earthly temporary Jerusalem. The first clause of v. 25 is parenthetic, and the full stop ought to be removed from the end of v. 24.

26. Jerusalem which is above is free] The heavenly Jerusalem finds its counterpart in the condition of Sara, just as the earthly Jerusalem finds its counterpart in that of Agar. The phrase Jerusalem which is above" can be illustrated copiously from other parts of the New Testament. See Phil. iii. 20; Heb. xii. 2; Rev. iii. 12, xxi. 2.

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27. For it is written] The quotation is from Isai. liv. I. In order to see the force of this quotation, the whole range of the contiguous prophecies of Isaiah should be carefully examined, and especially li. 2, where is a distinct reference to Abraham and Sara.

many more children than] Literally, many children, many more than. Each woman has many children, but the barren woman has more than the other.

she which hath an husband] She to whom for the time the husband of the two women the order of nature became the mother of was given. Sarah was barren when Agar after Ishmael,

28 Now awe, brethren] The true reading

is ye; and it is much more emphatic. We have had above (iii. 25, 26) a marked instance of such sudden change of person.

as Isaac was] After the manner of Isaac. See Rom. ix. 7—9.

29. persecuted] The Apostle regards the incident described in Gen. xxi. 9 as inclusive of mockery and unkindness; and this was the opinion also of Rabbinical authorities. We must bear in mind that his view ranges over the whole history, which certainly does represent Agar and Ishmael as suffering persecu

ARABIA AND AGAR.

(i. 17, iv. 25.)

That Arabia should be mentioned twice in this short Epistle and nowhere else in the New Testament, except indeed that we find Arabian Jews at Jerusalem (Acts ii. 11) among the mixed crowd at Pentecost, as of course we should expect, is very remarkable. It is evident that the associations connected with this region were strongly impressed on the Apostle's mind. His remembrance of his experience there harmonizes with his state of feeling, as he writes this letter, and mingles with his train of thought in two very different passages.

In i. 17, where he is pointing out that in his earliest Christian days he had no instruction in Christianity from the other Apostles, he says that on his conversion he did not go to Jerusalem at all, but "went into Arabia,' where certainly he could not meet them, "and returned again to Damascus." There is no inconsistency here with what we read in Acts ix. 20, where St Luke says that St Paul, on his conversion, "preached Christ in the synagogues" at Damascus. We have simply here additional information regarding St Paul's life, which we should not have possessed but for the exigencies of his argument in this Epistle -information, too, of the greatest interest, and made more interesting because of the strong feeling with which he records his visit to Arabia.

Two questions arise here, to which some answer must be given. First we must decide, if possible, on the geographical range which is to be assigned to the term “ Arabia," and secondly we must decide, as well as we can,

on the causes which took St Paul to the region so defined. At first sight these seem to be two very different questions, but perhaps the one is really connected with the other.

As to the meaning of the geographical term "Arabia," it is very vague, and remained very vague through a long period of history: nor is it at all probable that St Paul had regard to any very precise divisions of territory, whether physical or political. He doubtless used the term quite popularly. Herodotus speaks of Syria as the coast of Arabia. Xenophon includes under this designation a district of Mesopotamia. Pliny and Plutarch extend the range of this appellation to the borders of Cilicia. Justin Martyr and Tertullian say that Damascus itself was reckoned to be in Arabia. Hence it is evident that the mere geographical conditions of the case are satisfied, if we suppose St Paul to have gone, on this occasion, to some district in the immediate neighbourhood of Damascus. If his purpose was merely to obtain a safe refuge, during a temporary persecution, this would have sufficed. The manner, however, in which the subject is mentioned, seems to point to something more deliberate and serious. This too was a most momentous crisis in his life. Thus we are brought to consider the second question.

At first sight it seems probable that he went into Arabia, in the fresh burst of his missionary zeal, to preach the Gospel. On this theory we should most naturally find the scene of his labours in the city of Petra, the capital of Aretas, whom he names in a contemporary Epistle (2 Cor. xi. 32), where he would certainly find Jews, and possibly some of the

very Jews who heard Peter preach at Pentecost. Close consideration, however, will lead many minds to a different conclusion. It is no wonder if St Paul, after so great a shock to his whole moral nature, with the new and awful responsibility of a Divine commission resting upon him, and with a world-wide revolution in religion opening out before him, felt the need of solitude, self-searching and secret illumination. Such a pause, before the commencement of public work, is quite according to the sacred analogy of Scripture. We may with reverence call to mind the solitary retirement and spiritual conflict of our Lord, when He was led by the Spirit" into the wilderness. And if this was the import of St Paul's going to Arabia, what scene could be so fitted for solemn contemplation and austere preparatory self-discipline as that which had previously been thus associated with the biographies of Moses and Elijah? St Paul's imagination had been familiar, from his childhood, with the history of Sinai: and its awful silence, its majestic and dreary desolation, must have been in harmony with his deepest feelings at this time. These thoughts lead us to connect the passage before us with that region which is, in a special sense, the true Arabia1.

The second mention of Arabia in this Epistle (iv. 25) is in a very different connection, and might, at first sight, appear to have no link with the former. He is contrasting the covenant of bondage with the covenant of freedom; and he connects the former with "Mount Sinai in Arabia." There the Mosaic Law was given. How much additional force, however, is given to this, if we suppose that his own personal recollection had something to do with his use of this language! Having had Arabia in his thoughts when writing an earlier part of this letter, it is most natural that he should recur to it here: and in fancying we can trace such links of mental association we do no dishonour to Divine Inspiration; for the Holy Spirit operates through the natural laws of the mind. We have seen in the notes on the text that the true reading of the passage is probably much more simple than that which we find in the Authorised Version. With

the disappearance of the word "Agar" from the sentence, there vanishes also a great amount of difficulty in interpretation. We have no need at all to occupy ourselves with a verbal link of connection which, after all, is very

1 Bede remarks in his commentary that St Paul, in Acts xxvi. 20, where he says that he proclaimed Christ "first to them of Damascus," seems to shew that he did not go to Arabia for this purpose.

precarious1. What St Paul says may perhaps be unfolded thus:-Hagar, the bondwoman, represents the covenant of the Law; and even the very place where the Law was given was in Arabia, far away from Jerusalem and the Promised Land. Arabia, bleak, barren, waterless and desolate, where "the outcast Hagar trod Lone paths of grief 2," is the land of bondsmen, a land, too, of perpetual enmity against Israel. It will not be thought unreasonable to see all this meaning in St Paul's words, if we bear in mind not only his strong conviction of the allegorical significance of this part of Hebrew history, but the fact that he himself had been among the solitudes of Arabia.

In connection with this subject, the reference in 2 Cor. xi. 32 to Aretas, the Arabian King of Petra, ought not to be overlooked. This prince, probably in consequence of some temporary Roman favour, had been made ethnarch of Damascus: and St Paul says that his escape was effected when "the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison desirous to apprehend him." Just as Damascus was strongly impressed on the Apostle's mind when he wrote these two contemporary letters (see 2 Cor. xi. 32 and Gal. i. 17), so does a vivid reminiscence of Arabia appear in both. If a coincidence of this kind were alone, it would not amount to much: but taken in conjunction with other coincidences, it has some cousiderable evidential value.

Another evidential remark may conclude this note. If the Acts of the Apostles were a partisan treatise written, as Zeller supposes, at a late period, when the Epistle to the Galatians was familiarly known to the Church, it is inconceivable that no allusion to Arabia should have occurred in it. This is one illustration among many of the fact that the History was written independently of the Epistle. Whatever coincidences can be traced between the two documents, and they are many, such coincidences are undesigned. See some general remarks on this subject from the point of view of the Acts of the Apostles in the Introduction to that book, p. 344.

1 The word yàp might very easily cause the introduction of the word "Ayap through the hand of a careless copyist: and this may have been the beginning of the difficulty. Bentley went so far as to regard the whole phrase "Mount Sinai is in Arabia" as a gloss. "Mons iste Arabiæ omnibus machinis loco movendus" is one of his vigorous expressions: but the manuscripts refuse to consent. See Bentleii Critica Sacra,' ed. A. A. Ellis (1862), pp. 45-47;

Oxford Prize Poem on 'Ishmael' (1878), by R. J. Alexander.