Charles Ellicott Commentary Galatians 1:2

"and all the brethren that are with me, unto the churches of Galatia:" — Galatians 1:2 (ASV)

All the brethren which are with me—that is, all his traveling companions. We are unable to say exactly who these were, especially since we do not know with any certainty the place from where St. Paul was writing. He may have had in his company most of those who are mentioned in Acts 20:4 as accompanying him back into Asia: Sopater, son of Pyrrhus (according to an amended reading); Aristarchus and Secundus, of Thessalonica; Gaius, of Derbe; Tychicus and Trophimus, of Asia; in any case, probably Timothy, and perhaps Titus.

It was usual for St. Paul to join with his own name that of one or another of his companions in the address of his Epistles. Thus, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians he associates Sosthenes with himself; in the Second Epistle to Corinth, and in those to the Philippians and Colossians, Timothy and Silvanus. In writing to the Galatians, St. Paul includes all his companions in his greeting, hardly with the intention of fortifying himself with their authority, for he is quite ready to take the whole defense of his own cause upon himself, but perhaps not entirely without the idea that he possessed their sympathy.

The churches of Galatia.—See the Introduction to this Epistle.

This opening salutation is intentionally abrupt and bare. Usually it was the Apostle’s custom to begin with words of commendation. He praises all that he can find to praise even in a Church that had offended so seriously as the Corinthians. (See 1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 1:4–7.) But the errors of the Galatians, he feels, go more to the root of things. The Corinthians had failed in the practical application of Christian principles; the Galatians (so far as they listened to their Judaizing teachers) could hardly be said to have Christian principles at all. The Apostle is angry with them with a righteous indignation, and his anger is seen in the naked severity of this address.