Thomas Aquinas Commentary Galatians 3:1

"O foolish Galatians, who did bewitch you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth crucified?" — Galatians 3:1 (ASV)

Previously, the Apostle rebuked the Galatians for their vanity and fickleness by the authority of the gospel’s teaching, showing that his doctrine was approved by the other apostles. Now, through reason and authority, he proves the same thing: that the works of the Law must not be observed.

He proves this in two ways:

1. From the insufficiency of the Law. Concerning this, he does two things:
   1. He utters the rebuke. Regarding this, he does two things:
      1. He rebukes them by showing that they are foolish.
      2. He gives the reason for his rebuke: before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been publicly portrayed (Galatians 3:1).
   2. He begins his proof (Galatians 3:2).
2. From the dignity of those who have been converted to Christ (Galatians 4:1).

First, therefore, he rebukes them for their folly, calling them senseless. Hence he says, O senseless Galatians. Now, “senseless” is properly said of one who lacks sense, and the spiritual sense is knowledge of the truth. Therefore, anyone who lacks the truth is appropriately called senseless: Are you also still without understanding? (Matthew 15:16); We fools considered their life madness .

Against this, however, it is said in Matthew 5:22: Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire. Now, a “fool” is the same as “senseless.” Therefore, the Apostle was in danger of hell-fire. But it must be said, as Augustine suggests, that this applies only if it is said without reason and with the intention to disparage. The Apostle, however, said it with reason and with an intention to correct. Hence a Gloss says, “He says this in sorrow.”

Secondly, when he says, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, he shows how they had become senseless. Here it is to be noted, first of all, that someone becomes senseless in a number of ways: either because a truth he could know is not presented to him, or because he departs from a truth that had been presented and accepted, as when he abandons the way of truth.

Such were these Galatians, who rejected the truth presented to them and abandoned the truth of the faith they had accepted: I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you into the grace of Christ, for a different gospel (Galatians 1:6). This, therefore, is the type of senselessness for which he rebukes them when he says, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?

To understand what bewitchment is, it should be noted that according to a Gloss, bewitchment is, properly speaking, a delusion of the senses usually produced by magical arts; for example, making a man appear to onlookers as a lion or as having horns. This can also be brought about by demons, who have the power to set phantasms in motion and to produce in the senses the very alterations that real objects usually produce.

According to this meaning, the Apostle asks, appropriately enough, who has bewitched you? It is as if to say: You are like deluded men who take obvious things to be other than they are in reality. This is because you are deluded by deceptions and sophistries, so as not to obey the truth—that is, you neither see the obvious truth you have received nor embrace it by obeying it. For the bewitching of vanity obscures good things ; Woe to you who call evil good, and good evil! (Isaiah 5:20).

In another way, bewitchment is taken to mean that someone is harmed by an evil look, particularly when cast by sorcerers whose inflamed eyes and hostile glance cast a spell on children, who grow faint from it and vomit their food.

Avicenna, attempting to explain this phenomenon in his book On the Soul, says that corporeal matter obeys an intellectual substance more than it obeys the active and passive qualities at work in nature. Accordingly, he supposes that through the mental activity of an intellectual substance (which he calls the souls or movers of the heavenly spheres), many things occur outside the order of heavenly movements and of all corporeal forces. Along the same lines, he says that when a holy soul is purged of all earthly affection and carnal vice, it acquires a likeness to the previously mentioned substances, so that nature obeys it. This is why certain holy men achieve wonders that transcend the course of nature.

Similarly, because the soul of someone defiled by carnal passions has a vigorous apprehension of malice, nature obeys it to the point of affecting matter, particularly in those in whom the matter is pliable, as in the case of tender children. Thus it happens, according to him, that from the vigorous apprehension exercised by sorcerers, a child can be evilly affected and bewitched. This position seems true enough according to Avicenna’s tenets, for he postulates that all material forms in sublunar bodies are influenced by the separated incorporeal substances and that natural agents can be no more than dispositive causes in such matter.

However, this is refuted by the Philosopher. For an agent should be similar to what is subject to it. Now, what comes into being is not a form alone or matter alone, but the composite of matter and form. Consequently, that which acts to produce the existence of corporeal things should have matter and form—either virtually, as God, who is the maker of form and matter, or actually, as a bodily agent. Therefore, with respect to forms of this kind, corporeal matter obeys the command neither of angels nor of any mere creature, but of God alone, as Augustine says. Hence, what Avicenna says about this matter of bewitchment is not true.

Therefore, it is better to say that when a person’s act of imagining or apprehending is strong, the senses are affected, or at least the sense appetite is. Now, such an affection does not occur without some alteration taking place in the body and the bodily spirits. For example, we see that when something pleasant is apprehended, the sense appetite is moved to desire, and as a result, the body becomes warm. Similarly, as a result of apprehending something horrible, the body grows cold.

When the spirits are moved in this way, they mainly infect the eyes, which in turn infect certain things through their glance, as is plain in the case of a clean mirror that becomes defiled when looked into by a woman in her monthly purification. Therefore, because sorcerers are obstinate and hardened in evil, their sense appetite is affected by the vigor of their apprehension. As a result, as has been said, the infection moves from the veins to the eyes and from there to the object upon which they look. Accordingly, because the flesh of children is soft, it is influenced and charmed by their hostile glance. And demons, too, can sometimes produce this effect.

He says, therefore, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? It is as if to say: You once obeyed the truth of the faith, but now you do not. Therefore, you are like children infected by some hostile glance who vomit the food they have eaten.

Then he tells why he rebukes them, when he says, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been publicly portrayed, crucified among you. This can be interpreted in three ways. One way, Jerome’s, corresponds to the first meaning of “bewitchment.” It is as if he says: I say that you are bewitched because before your eyes Christ has been publicly portrayed—that is, the proscription of Christ, who was condemned to death, is as vivid to your eyes as if it were being enacted before you, and He was being crucified among you. In other words, the crucifixion of Christ was as clear in your understanding as though it were taking place there. Hence, if you no longer see it, it is because you have been deluded and bewitched. Against such a change of heart, it is said in Song of Solomon 8:6: Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm.

Another way, Augustine’s, is as if he said: You are justifiably bewitched, because like children, you vomit out the truth you have received, namely, Christ by faith in your hearts. And you do this because before your eyes—that is, in your presence—Jesus Christ is proscribed, meaning expelled and refused His inheritance. This should trouble you, because the very one whom you should not allow to be proscribed and expelled by others has been proscribed among you—that is, has lost His inheritance, namely, yourselves. Then that which follows, namely, “crucified,” should be read “with a heavy burden and obvious pain,” because he adds this to make them consider the great price Christ paid for the inheritance He lost among them, and thus move them more deeply. It is as if to say: Christ has been proscribed among you, He Who was crucified—that is, Who with His cross and His own blood purchased this inheritance: You are bought with a great price (1 Corinthians 6:20); Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled (1 Peter 1:18).

The third way, Ambrose’s, is as though he says: Yes, you are bewitched—you, before whose eyes (that is, in whose opinion, according to your judgment) Jesus Christ is proscribed, meaning condemned without saving others. And among you (that is, so far as you understand) He was crucified, meaning He merely died but justified no one, in spite of the fact that it is said of Him, Although he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God (2 Corinthians 13:4).

It can also be explained in a fourth way according to a Gloss, to the effect that by these words the Apostle proclaims the gravity of their guilt. Because in deserting Christ by observing the Law, they sin in a way somewhat parallel to Pilate who proscribed Christ, that is, condemned him. For in believing that Christ does not suffice to save them, they are made to be sinners similar to Christ’s executioners who hung Him on the cross, condemning Him to a most shameful death and killing Him. The parallel is taken from the one against whom they sinned, because the Galatians sinned against Christ Jesus just as Pilate and those who crucified Christ did.