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New Testament Studieshttp://journals.cambridge.org/NTS

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Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul's Letter to the

Galatians

J. Louis Martyn

New Testament Studies / Volume 31 / Issue 03 / July 1985, pp 410 - 424

DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500013941, Published online: 05 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0028688500013941

How to cite this article:J. Louis Martyn (1985). Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul's Letter to the Galatians. NewTestament Studies, 31, pp 410-424 doi:10.1017/S0028688500013941

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New Test.Stud.vol. 31, 198 5, pp. 410-424

J. LOUIS MARTYN

APOCALYPTIC ANTINOM IES IN P AU L S

LETTER TO THE GALATIANS*

At several junctures in the history of its interpretation Paul's letter to the

Galatians has been seen as the embarrassing member of the Pauline letter-

family, the one refusing to be brought into line with the others, and even,

in some

regards,

the one threatening the unity and good-natured comradery

of the family. Luther, to be sure, called on the familial image in an entirely

positive sense, when he confessed himself to be happily betrothed to the

letter. Others have considered that betrothal the prelude to an unfortunate

marriage, in which Luther was led astray, or led further astray, by this in-

tractable and regrettable letter.

1

In our own century the dominant cause of the letter's being regretted is

the obvious fact that, when Paul wrote it, he was in a state of white-hot

anger. More is involved here than merely the enlightened preference for

equanimity, and thus for the Apostle's happy words in the final chapter

of Philippians. There is notably the matter of Paul's stance toward the

Law of Moses. Christian exegetes have been repeatedly embarrassed when

their Jewish colleagues cite Paul's intemperate and quasi-gnostic com ments

about the Law in Galatians. In the state of embarrassment more than one

Christian interpreterhasturned to the seventh chapter of Romans, in order

to remind the Jewish colleagues that when Paul was in his reasonable and

balanced mind, he characterized the Law as holy, just, and good. Similarly,

made uneasy by Paul's tendentious account of the Jerusalem meeting in

Galatians

2,

interpretershavefrequently repaired, in one regard or another,

to Luke's more even-handed account in Acts 15. And while all are pleased

with the letter's characteristic celebration of freedom, some interpreters

feel somewhat embarrassed that Paul should have written the letter in a

state of unrepentance for the inflexible and even hostile words he spoke

to Peter in the presence of the entire church of Antioch (Gal 2. 11-14).

All of these factors, and others as well, have led a number of interpreters

to a degree of regret that Paul should have written such an angry, un-

balanced, and unrepentant letter.

Recent decades have seen the emergence of a new reason for regretting

* Paper delivered at the 39th General Meeting of SNTS, August 1984.
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APOCALYPTIC ANTINOMIES IN GALAT IANS 4 1 1

Galatians: to a growing number of interpreters the letter is the unco-

operative maverick, not because of its belligerent tone, but because it

does not support the thesis of a Pauline gospel consistently focused on

what is being called an apocalyptic view of the future. In two seminal

essays of 1960 and 1962 Ernst Kasemann set the cat among thn pigeons

by identifying apocalyptic as the mother of Christian theology, and by

taking Paul as his crowning witness.

2

Now, a number of years later, one

would have to admit that the pigeons are still circling, continuing their

disturbance of the peace; and as regards Galatians the scene is particularly

unsettled. Kasemann wrote his articles without explicit reference to the

theology of Galatians (Gal 3. 28 is taken as the slogan of the pre-Pauline

hellenistic community), and when his critics succeeded in eliciting from

him a definition of apocalyptic, it proved to be 'the expectation of an

imminent Parousia',

3

a definition that threatened to exclude Galatians

from the apocalyptic form of the Pauline canon by default.

4

As Pauline

exegetes have taken sides for and against Kasemann's apocalyptic Paul,

the letter has sometimes been allowed its voice, but precisely as the mem-

ber of the family who does not fit in. If one was opposed to the picture of

Paul as a thoroughgoing apocalyptic theologian, surely one could refute

that picture by citing the letter that contains no reference to an imminent

Parousia.

s

If one supported the picture of Paul as the consistent apocalyptic

thinker, one had to admit that Galatians was an embarrassment, to which

one would have to respond by questioning its right to be a bona fide mem-

ber of the Pauline canon.

The chief witness to this new form of Galatian embarrassment lay before

us recently in the first edition of J. Christiaan Beker'sPaulthe Apostle,

the Triumph of God in Life and Thought (1980). This book is monumen-

tal on a number of counts, mainly because it is thus far the thoroughgoing

exploration

of

the thesis that apocalyptic

is the

heart

of

Paul's gospel.

What, then, could be said of Galatians? That letter does not support the

thesis,

but Beker demonstrated a certain patience with its uncooperative

character, considering it to have been written in a situation tha t suppressed

'the apocalyptic theme of the gospel' (x).

It may be well to return thanks for instruction received at the hands of

Kasemann and Beker by suggesting another route. The thesis advanced and

powerfully developed by these two colleagues may be essentially correct:

Paul's theology is thoroughly apocalyptic, and is different from the the-

ology of early Christian enthusiasm primarily in its insistence a) that the

world is not yet fully subject to God, even though b) the eschatological

subjection of the world has already begun, causing its end to be in sight.

To cite Kasemann, 'No perspective could be more apocalyptic.'

6

One may

ask, however,asBeker nowsees- with characteristic openness - in the

pref-

ace for his second edition (1984), whether that thesis is to be maintained

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4 1 2 J. LOUIS MARTYN

at the expense of Galatians, indeed whether it can be maintained without

the support of Galatians. And asking that question leads us to give the

uncooperative letter another hearing. Could Galatians perhaps be allowed

to play its own role in showing us precisely what the nature of Paul's

apocalyptic was?

7

II

The question can be honestly posed if we are willing to begin with a cer-

tain amount of ignorance as to the definition of apocalyptic, and of Paul's

apocalyptic in particular. One may be reminded of the Socratic dictum of

H.-G. Gadamer:

Urn fragen zu konnen,

muss man wissen wollen, d.h.

aber: wissen dass man nicht weiss.

8

In a state of some ignorance, then, we turn to the text of the letter, taking

our bearings initially from its closing paragraph.

In that paragraph Paul draws a final contrast between himself and the

circumcising Teachers who are now active among his Galatian congre-

gations.

9

He draws the contrast as though he intended to place before the

Galatians a choice between two mystagogues, and thus a choice between

two ways of life:

Gal 6.13 f.

. . .

theywishyou to be circumcised, in order that they might boast with regard to your

flesh. I, on the contrary, boast in one thing only, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...

In the next breath, however, Paul does not speak of two alternatives be-

tween which the Galatians might make a choice. He speaks, rather, of two

different worlds:

. . . the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

by which the world has been crucified to me,

and I to the world.

For neither is circumcision anything,

nor is uncircumcision anything,

but rather what is something

is the New Creation.

Here Paul speaks, as Ihavejust said, of two different

worlds.

He speaks of

an old world, from which he

has

been painfully separated, by Christ's dea th,

by the death of that world, and by his own death; and he speaks of a new

world, which he grasps under the arresting expression, New Creation.

10

These statements are of the kind to make the head swim. One might

even wonder whether they do not constitute a flight from reality. To be

sure, Paul seems to bring these cosmic announcements into relationship

with some sort of realism, by placing between them a statement directed

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POC LYPTIC NTINOMIES IN G L TI NS 4 1 3

to what many interpreters consider to be the specific issue of the letter,

circumcision as the sign par excellence of observance of the Law. To say

that some sort of realism is involved only makes it possible, however, to

define the major problem of Paul's closing paragraph. Exactly what sort of

realism is involved? New Creation, after all, is the kind of expression that

easily trails off into the nebulous realm of pious rhetoric.Wehave, then ,

to ask Paul precisely how he understands his two cosmic announcements

to be related to the specific negation of circumcision and uncircumcision.

We begin to deal with that question by attending to the form of the

negation

itself,

for what is striking about the negation is exactly its form

(cf. Gal 5. 6 and Cor 7. 19). In the immediate context, as we have noted ,

Paul has jus t referred to the circumcising Teachers. One is prepared, there-

fore,

to find him striking a final blow, directly and simply, against obser-

vance of the Law. Paul should say

Neither circumcision,

nor the rules of kashrut,

nor the keeping of the sabbath

is anything.

As is so often the case, however, Paul says the unexpected. He surprises

his readers by negating not merely Law-observance, but also its opposite,

non-Law observance. In a word that to which Paul denies real existence is,

in the technical sense of the expression,

a pairofopposites,

what Aristotle

might have called an instance of

Tdvavria.

11

This observation may prove to be of considerable help in our efforts to

hear the text as the Galatians themselves heard it. For when we note that

Paul speaks about a pair of opposites, and that he does so between the

making of two cosmic announcements, we may recall how widespread in

the ancient world was the thought that the fundamental building blocks

of the cosmos are pairs of opposites. In one form or another we find that

thought in Greece, from Anaximander, to the Pythagoreans, to Aristotle;

in Persia, from Zoroaster to the magi; in Egypt, from the Pythagorean tra-

ditions to

Philo;

and in Palestine

itself,

from the Second Isaiah to Qoheleth,

to Ben Sira, to the Teacher of Righteousness, to some of the rabbis.

12

One might indeed pause to note the formula in Ben Sira, in which cos-

mic duality is attributed, of course, to the creative hand of God.

. . .Trdfra

ra gpya

TOV

V^LOTOV,

5i5o 6uo ,

. . . all the works of the Most High,

are in pairs,

one the opposite of the other (Ben Sira 33:15).

13

This text is one of numerous witnesses to the theory that from creation

thearchaiof the cosmos have been pairs of opposites. We can say that in

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the world of Paul's day, the thought of archaic, cosmic polarity was very

nearly ubiquitous. The Galatians, then, are almost certain to have known,

in some form, the thought that thestructure

of

the

cosmos

lies inpairs

o f

opposites;

and that is precisely the pattern of thought which Paul presup-

poses in our text.

He is making use of tha t theory, however, in a very peculiar fashion. He

is

denying

real existence to a pair of opposites, in order to show what it

means to say that the old cosmos has suffered its

death.

One can bring the

matter into sharp focus, if one can imagine, for a moment, that Paul is a

Pythagorean, who has been compelled by some turn of events to say about

the Table of Opposites, the OVOTOVXJLCUTCJV

evavTtdrojv:

Neither limit nor unlimited is anything;

straight is not the opposite of crooked:

and odd and even do not really exist.

For a Pythagorean to say such things would certainly be grounds for him

to announce that the cosmos had suffered its death.

M utatis mutandis

for

Paul the Pharisee to say that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is

anything is for him to make a cosmic statement no less radical. In making

that statement Paul speaks in specific terms about the horrifying death of

the cosmos. With tha t observation we have come far enough to advance an

hypothesis:

Perhaps in this final paragraph

Paul

is telling the Galatians that the whole

of his epistle is not about the better of two mystagogues, or even about

the better of two ways, and certainly not about the failure of Judaism.

He is saying rather, that the letter is about the death of one world, and

the advent of another. With regard to the former, the death of the cos-

mos,

perhaps Paul is telling the Galatians that one knows the old world

to have died, because one knows that its fundamental structures are

gone, that those fundamental structures of the cosmos

were

certain

identifiable pairs of opposites, and that, given the situation among

their congregations in Galatia, the pair of opposites whose departure

calls for emphasis is that of circumcision and uncircumcision.

Obviously one tests this hypothesis by re-reading the entire letter, and, in

the course of doing so, one sees that in Galatians Paul speaks of pairs of

opposites with astonishing frequency.

15

Of the numerous references, three

further texts lend themselves to comment within the scope of the present

essay.

The first is also the most obvious, the famous baptismal formula of

Gal 3. 27-28, with its three pairs of opposites,

Jew / Greek

slave / freeman

male / female.

To re-read this text in the light of our hypothesis is to see how thoroughly

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APOCALYPTIC ANTINOMIES IN GALATIANS 4 1 5

harmonious it is with those cosmic announcements of the closing para-

graph. Does Paul speak at the end of the letter of the death of the cosmos?

So also here in 3. 27-2 8. Therewasa world whose fundamental structures

werecertain pairs of opposites:

circumcision / uncircumcision

Jew / Gentile

slave / freeman

male / female.

Thales, Socrates, and Plato - not to mention the later Rabbi Judah -

finding themselves insuch a world, may give thanks that theyexist on the

preferable side of the divide.

16

Those who have been baptized into Christ,

however, know that, in Christ, that world does not any longer have real

existence.

And what of the second of those cosmic announcements in the letter's

closing paragraph, that of the New Creation? Clearly Paul has it in mind as

he writes the second half of3.28. For, corresponding to the departure of

the old world, with its divisive pairs of opposites, there is the advent of

anthropological unity in Christ:

You are, all of you,

one in Christ Jesus.

The old world had pairs of opposites. The New Creation, marked by

anthropological unity in Christ, does not have pairs of opposites.

A moment's thought will tell us that, important as this anthropological

pattern may be, it presents only part of the picture. One thinks, for

example, of passages in which Paul refers to the Spirit and the Flesh. Paul

speaks of these two cosmic powers as one would speak of a pair of oppo-

sites;

and yet he clearly does not think of

them

as a pair of opposites that

has departed, to be replaced by some kind of unity.

We turn, then, to a second text, one of the major points in the letter at

which Paul speaks of the Spirit and the Flesh, Gal 5. 16-17. For the sake

of brevity I give this text in a distinctly interpretive paraphrase:

Galatians

5. 16-17

But - in contradistinction to the circumcising Teachers -

I, Paul, say to you:

Walk by the Spirit,

and I promise you tha t, doing so,

you will not carry to full completion

the Inclination of the Flesh.

For the Flesh is actively inclined against the Spirit,

and the Spirit against the Flesh.

Indeed, these two powers

constitute a pair of opposites.. .

(Tcwra

yap

dXX^Xotc

ivrinenai..

.)

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In this polemical passage several points are pertinent to our subject: There

is Paul's use of the technical term

avrineLnai,

by which he defines the

Spirit and the Flesh as a pair of opposites. It seems highly probable that

Paul gives this emphatic definition in order to correct something the

Teachers are saying about a pair of opposites. The Teachers are apparently

using the term 'flesh' in order to speak of the Evil Impulse, and in order to

instruct the Galatians about what they take to be a crucial pair of opposites,

namely the fleshy Impulse and the Law. For the Teachers, the fleshy Im-

pulse and the Law constitute a pair of opposites in the sense that the Law

is the God-given antidote to the fleshy Impulse.

17

In the face of this teaching, what does Paul do? He implies clearly

enough that the fleshy Impulse and the Law form a pair of opposites

characteristic of the

old

cosmos, the cosmos that met its death in the

cross of Christ. To this extent one may be reminded of the pattern we

have seen in the baptismal formula of

3.

27-28: pairs of opposites charac-

teristic of the old cosmos have disappeared.

There are, however, significant differences. Here, in 5. 16-17, the old

pair of opposites does not completely disappear, in order to be replaced

by unity. The individualmembersof this old pair of opposites - the fleshy

Impulse and the Law - continue to exist. They are thrown, however, into

new patterns. They are radically realigned, by getting new and surprising

opposites. The fleshy Impulse is not effectively opposed by the Law. In-

deed the Law proves to be an ally of the Flesh The effective opposite to

the fleshy Impulse is the Spirit of God's Son.

18

Moreover, as the context shows, the Spirit and the Flesh are not only a

pair of opposites. They are a pair of warriors, locked in combat with one

another (note especially Paul's use of the term d0oppiT? in 5. 13). And this

warfare has been started by the Spirit, sent by God into the realm of the

Flesh. Thus, the warfare of the Spirit versus the Flesh is a major character-

istic of the scene in which the Galatians - together with all other human

beings - now find themselves.

in

It is by inquiring further into that picture of the human scene that we can

now return to the question whether Paul's message to the Galatians is best

understood to be non-apocalyptic. On the one side it must be said tha t we

have encountered none of the apocalyptic motifs of 1 Thess4,

Cor 15,

and Rom 8. On the other, however, we have seen that Paul speaks of the

emergence ofanew and strange pair of opposites, and when we probe more

deeply into the nature of this pair, we find ourselves dealing with motifs

clearly apocalyptic.

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APOCALYPTIC ANTINOMIES IN GALAT IANS 4 1 7

1.

There is first the connection of this pair of opposites with the dawn

of God's New Creation, an expression at home in apocalyptic texts.

19

The

Spirit and its opposite, the Flesh, are not the timeless first principles (con-

trast the theory of the Pythagoreans mentioned above), nor do they inhere

in the cosmos as a result of their having been created by God at the begin-

ning (contrast not only Ben Sira 33. 15, but also 1QS 3. 13-4. 26). As a

pair of opposites they have come newly on the scene.

2.

This pair of opposites owes its birth, therefore, not to God's creative

act, but rather to God's new-creative act. It is born of the new event, God's

sending both his Son and the Spirit of his Son.

3.The advent of the Son and of his Spirit is also the coming of faith, an

event that Paul explicitly calls an apocalypse (note the parallel expressions

'to come' and 'to be apocalypsed' in 3. 23). Indeed it is precisely

the

Paul

of

Galatianswhosayswith emphasis that the cosmos in which he previously

lived met its end in God's apocalypse of Jesus Christ

(1.

12, 16; 6. 14). It

is this same Paul who identifies that apocalypse as the birth ofhisgospel-

mission (1. 16), and who speaks of the battles he has to wage for the truth

of the gospel as events to be understood under the banner of apocalypse

(2 .

2, 5, 14). It is also clear that Paul brings this apocalyptic frame of ref-

erence to his remarks about the Spirit and the Flesh. There was a 'before',

and there is now an 'after'; and it is at the point at which the 'after' meets

the 'before' that the Spirit and the Flesh have become a pair of opposites.

We will do well, therefore, to refer to the Spirit and the Flesh not as an

archaic pair of opposites inhering in the cosmos from creation, but rather

as an

apocalyptic antinomy

characteristic of the dawn of G od's New

Creation.

4. The dynamism of this apocalyptic antinomy is given not only in its

being born of an event, but also in its being a matter of warfare begun with

that event.

20

The motif of warfare between pairs of opposites could remind

one of the philosophy of Heraclitus (TrdXe/xo?irdvToov

nev

irarrip

ion;

Fr.

53) or, perhaps closer to Paul, of the theology of Qumran, in which there

is strife (y)) between the two Spirits. But in both of these views the

struggle is thought to inhere in the cosmos; indeed in the perspective of

Qumran the warring antinomy of the Spirit of Truth versus the Spirit of

Falsehood, stemming as it does from the original creation, will find in the

New Creation not its birth, but rather its termination (1 QS 4. 16, 25).

For Paul the picture is quite different; the Spirit and the Flesh constitute

an apocalyptic antinomy in the sense that they are two opposed orbs of

power, actively at war with one another

since

the apocalyptic advent of

Christ and of his Spirit. The space in which human beings now live is a

newly invaded space, and that means that its structures cannot remain

unchanged.

5.

It follows tha t Christians who are tempted to live as though the

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4 1 8

J. LOUIS MARTYN

effective opposite of the fleshy Impulse were the Law are in fact persons

who are tempted to abandon life in the Creation that has now been made

what it is by the advent of Christ and of his Spirit. It is they who are not

living in the real world. For the true war of liberation has been initiated

not at Sinai, but rather in the apocalypse of the crucified one and in the

coming of his Spirit.

6. All of the preceding motifs come together in the question that Paul

causes to be the crucial issue of the entire letter: What time is it? One

hardly needs to point out that the matter of discerning the time lies at

the very heart of apocalyptic; and as the preceding motifs show, in none

of his letters does Paul address that issue in term s more clearly apocalyptic

than in Galatians. What time is it? It is the time after the apocalypse of the

faith of Christ, the time therefore of rectification by that faith, the time

of the presence of the Spirit, and thus the time of the war of liberation

commenced by the Spirit.

To probe deeply into the nature of Paul's antinomies is, then, to see

that Galatians, far from threatening the picture of Paul the apocalyptic

evangelist, enriches and expands that picture. Indeed the picture is further

enriched when we ask whether, in addition to the Spirit and the Flesh,

there are yet other apocalyptic antinomies that have now emerged with

the dawn of the New Creation.

That question takes us to our final text, Galatians 4. 21-5. 1, Paul's

interpretation of the traditions about Abraham's two sons. Here again we

Can bebrief,not least because we already have the keenly crafted study of

this passage by C. K. Barrett.

21

First, as in the preceding text, so also here, Paul is almost certainly

following, to a large degree, in the steps of the circumcising Teachers. He

has learned that the Teachers are using the scriptural traditions about

Abraham's two sons, and for his own reasons he decides to use the same

traditions.

Second, neither the Teachers nor Paul will have needed to be taught

that the traditions about Abraham's

tw o

sons are made to order, so to

speak, for interpretation focused on pairs of opposites. Indeed, at a crucial

point in

his

own interpretation Paul employs the technical term

ovoroixei*),

thus telling the Galatians that he himself intends to speak of a

Table

of

paired Opposites.

22

There are two sons, two mothers, two covenants, and

a number of otherpairsof opposites as well, not least the pair we have just

now discussed, the Spirit and the Flesh. In the proper sense Paul speaks

here of the OVOTOLXUIL of the New Creation, the two parallel columns of

opposites characteristic of that New Creation. There are, as I have said,

two sons, two women, and under these two women the two columns run

as follows:

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APOCALYPTIC ANTINOMIES IN GALATIANS

419

Hagar

slave

the covenant from

Mt. Sinai

the present Jerusalem

[i.e.

the False Brothers in the

Jerusalem church, as sponsors

of the Law-observant mission to

Gentiles]

23

children of the slave woman,

born into slavery

one born in accordance

with the Flesh

the slave woman and her son

[i.e.the Teachers, who are

to be expelled]

[Sarah]

free

the covenant of God's promise

to Abraham (3. 17)

the Jerusalem above, our m other

[an apocalyptic expression in

Rev 3. 12;21.2]

children of the

free woman

one born in accordance with the

Spirit, i.e. the promise of God

the son of the free woman

[i.e.the Galatians as those born

of the promised Spirit]

Moreover, at several points the way in which Paul presents these columns

of opposites seems clearly to imply that he is correcting a similar table of

opposites propounded explicitly or implicitly by the Teachers:

Hagar Sarah

slave free

Gentiles Jews

[cf. Jubilees 16. 17-18]

The Nations the church of the circumcised

[i.e.

the ruling powers of the

Jerusalem church and the Law-observant

mission sponsored by them]

Given the Teachers' Table of Opposites, one comes back to Paul's view of

things by noting that Paul makes in verse 25 an explicit correction:

Now Hagar, by name, stands for Mt. Sinai in Arabia;

she is also

located in the same oppositional column

with the present Jerusalem

(ovomixel

8e777

wv 'lepovodkrm),

for like it she is in a state of slavery with her children.

In a word, Paul says that when one seeks to interpret the traditions about

Abraham 's two sons, the major exegetical issue is the true identification of

the two oppositional columns. To the Galatians Paul says, in effect,

The Teachers have indeed shared with you the traditions, from the Law,

about Abraham's two sons; and they are right to interpret these tra-

ditions allegorically, that is to say by noting columnar correspondences.

They have told you that Hagar is in the same column with slavery, and

so she is. But they have not caused you really to hear the Law; for they

have not told you the astonishing truth, that Hagar the slave woman, is

also in the same column with Mt. Sinai, the locus of the genesis of the

Law, and that Hagar theslave woman is in the same column with the

present Jerusalem itself Whoever sees the oppositonal columns, the

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4 2 0

J. LOUIS MARTYN

ovoTOixiai

TCJV

ivaunoTcov, as they actually stand in the dawning of

the New Creation of the Spirit, will see that the present Jerusalem is

connected with Mt. Sinai

by being connected with slavery,

and, that,

beingsoconnected, the present Jerusalemisbearing children into slavery.

Paul's polemic is unmistakable. What is important for our present concern

is the nature of that polemic. It is crucial to see that the polemic is not

focused on Judaism, but rather on pairs of opposites. The advent of the

Spirit has brought into being a new set of oppositional columns, a new

set of antinomies, so that these antinomies have in fact replaced the oppo-

sitional columns characteristic of the old cosmos.

Moreover, the motif of struggle, two opposing powers being presently

locked in combat with one another, is apparent throughout the passage.

Indeed, the motif of combat finds its climax with great specificity in 4. 30,

where Paul says that the Galatians, perceiving theovoTOi\Lai of the New

Creation, are to act out these OVOTOIXLCLI in everyday life by expelling the

circumcising Teachers from their congregations. The New Creation

has

dawned;

but in true apocalyptic fashion its Jerusalem is, as yet, above.

The

freedom

of those born of the Spirit is altogether real; but, given the

continuing presence of the present Jerusalem, the threat of slavery is still

at hand, and there are still battles to be fought, in the power of the Spirit.

These motifs give us every reason to say about the theology of Galatians,

'No perspective could be more apocalyptic.'

24

IV

We come now to the conclusion by returning to the twin announcements

at the close of the letter, the announcement of the horrifying death of the

cosmos, and the announcement of the surprising dawn of the New Creation.

If the interpretive lines we have followed are generally valid, Paul is far

from allowing those announcements to be lodged in the hazy mists of

piety, or even, properly speaking, in the realm of religion. The letter, to

say it yet again, is not an attack on Judaism; nor is it even an apologetic

letter, in the sense of its being designed to convert its readers from one

religion to another.

25

Interpreted in the light of Paul's frequent recourse

to the form of the apocalyptic antinomy, the two cosmic announcements

stand at the conclusion of a letter fully as apocalyptic as are the other

Paulines.

26

The motif of the triple crucifixion - that of Christ, that of the

cosmos, that of Paul - reflects the fact that through the whole of Galatians

the focus of Paul's apocalyptic lies not on Christ's parousia, but rather on

his death .

27

There are references to the future triumph of God ( 5 .5 , 24; 6.

8),

but the accent lies on the advent of Christ and his Spirit, and especially

on the central facet of that advent: the crucifixion of Christ, the event

that has caused the time to be what it is by snatching us out of the grasp

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APOCALYPTIC ANTINOMIES IN GALATIANS 4 21

of the presentevil age

(1.

4). Paul's perception of Jesus' death is, then, fully

as apocalyptic as is his hope for Jesus' parousia (cf. Cor 2. 8). Thus the

subject of his letter to the Galatians is precisely an apocalypse, the apoca-

lypse of Jesus Christ, and specifically the apocalypse of his cross.

Paul writes the letter, confident that by hearing it the Galatians will

once again be seized by that apocalypse, will once again be known by God

(4. 9). So known, they will themselves know what time it is, thereby

coming once again to live in the real world.

28

For, knowing what time it is,

they will perceive that they are in fact former Gentiles who, in Christ, are

united with former Jews. They will know that although they are united

in Christ, the advent of the Spirit has caused the world in which they are

living to be the scene of antinomous warfare on a cosmic scale. They will

learn once again where the front line of that cosmic warfare actually lies.

And they will be summoned back to their place on that battle front, per-

ceiving experientially the pairs of opposites, the apocalyptic antinomies,

tha t are its hall-mark.

For a congregation that is living in accordance with the antinomies that

find their genesis in the

old

world is like a company of soldiers who are

armed with the wrong weapons, and who are fighting on the wrong front.

In the first instance such soldiers do not need exhortation about choosing

the better of two ways. They need once again to be seized by the apoca-

lypse of Jesus Christ, that

invasive

disclosure of the antinomous structure

of the New Creation.

29

Paul writes a letter, therefore, that is designed to

function as a witness to the dawn of the New Creation, and, specifically,

as a witness to the apocalyptic antinomies by which the battles of that

New Creation are both perceived and won.

NOTES

[1] See Eric W. Gritsch,

Martin

-

God's Court Jester

(1983), chap 7, 'The Gospel and Israel', and

literature cited there. In his lectures on Galatians Luther often spoke in one breath of the Jews, the

Turks,

and the

papists.

No careful reader of Luther's lectures can fail, however, to learn m uch abou t

Galatians.

[2] E. Kasemann, 'Die Anfange christlicher Theologie',

ZThK

57 (1960) 162 -85 ;ET 'The Begin-

nings of Christian Theology', 82-107 in

New Testament

Questions

of

Today(1969) ; 'Zum Thema

der urchristlichen Apokalyptik',Z77i 59 (1962) 267-84; ET 'On the Subject of Primitive Christian

Apocalyptic', 108-37 in

New TestamentQuestionsof Today.

[3]

New TestamentQuestionsof Today,

109 n 1.

[4] It is importan t, however, to see that Kasemann himself found 'the relics of apocalyptic the-

ology . . .

everywhere

in the Pauline Epistles'

(NTQT

131;

emphasis added). An appreciative ana-

lysis and critique of Kasemann 's views are given in M artinus C. de Boer, 'The Defeat of Dea th:

Paul's Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5. 12-21* (Dissertation, Union

Theological Seminary, 1983).

[5] I have encountered this argument several times in oral discussions.

[6] Kasemann,

New TestamentQuestionsof Today,

133.

[7] J. Louis Martyn, review of J. C. Beker,Paul

the Apostle,

inWord

an d

World2 (1982) 19 4-8,

p.196.

[8] H.-G. Gadamer,Wahrheit

undM ethode

(

3

l972) 345.

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4 2 2 J . LOUIS MARTYN

[9] On th e Teachers see Martyn, 'A Law-Observant Mission to Gentiles: the Background of Gal-

atians',

Michigan Quarterly

Review

22 (1983) 221-36, reprinted in

SJ T

38 (1985); E. E. Ellis, Th e

Circumcision Party and the Early Christian Mission', chap 7 inProphecy

a nd Hermeneutic in

Early

Christianity

(1978).

[10] Taken by itself the expression New Creation scarcely decides the issue we are addressing, but

itispertinent to note tha t th e expressionisat home in apocalyptic. See P. Stuhlmacher, 'Erwagungen

zum ontologischen Charakter der

kaine ktisis

bei Paulus',

EvTh

27 (1967) 1-35; cf. also G. Schnei-

der, 'Die Idee der Neuschopfung beim Apostel Paulus und ihr religionsgeschichtlicher Hintergrund',

TrThZ

68 (1959) 257-70. On the triple death in Gal 6.14 see P. S. Minear, 'The Crucified World:

The Enigma of Galatians 6,14 ', 395-4 07 in C. Andersen and G. Klein (eds.), Theologia Crucis

-

Signum

Crucis(1979).

[11] Aristotle spoke of

riu/avria,

'the contraries', as one of the modes of opposition,Metaphysics

1018a; cf. 1004b and 986a. He also spoke of pairs that admit an intermediate, such as black, grey,

white (MTO{u;dvd.

niaov).

Gal 5. 3 shows that Paul does not understand Law-observance and non-

Law-observance to admit the intermediate phenomenon of partial Law-observance. Nor in 6. 15

does Paul think of complementarity in the sense that circumcision and uncircumcision encompass

the whole of humanity (contrast Gal 2. 7-9 and the

captatio benevolentiae

of Gal 2.15; contrast

also the Greek expression

E\\rive

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APOCALYPTIC ANTINOMIES IN GALATIANS 4 2 3

solymitana 4 (1965) 88-100); the pertinent rabbinic data, fully collected and arranged, wherever

possible, by date, would make a study in themselves; it will suffice to mention the continuation of

the use of pairs of opposites to serve the doctrine of th e Two

Ways;Aboth

2. 9; 5. 7; 5. 19 ; and the

sometimes philosophical discussions of the flljlt in which the accent generally lies on complemen-

tarity rather than on opposition, e.g.Midrash

Rabba

11.8, where the Sabbath asks God for a part-

ner (JIT), andisgiven Israel as a partn er; (cf.Pesikta

Rabbati

23.6 ); Ecc 7. 14 is taken up in several

places, e.g.

Hagigah

15a, where, however, under the name of Akiba, the motif of opposition is

added to that of cosmic complementarity (cf.Midrash Bahir129 andMidrash Temurah2). It is

well known that the so-called doctrine of the syzygies was a favourite of the gnostics and also plays

an importan t role in Jewish-Christian traditions now found in the Pseudo-Clementine lite rature ; see

e.g. G. S trecker,

DasJudenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen

(

3

1981).

[13] The formula is also cited in the

Testaments of the TwelvePatriarchs

(Asher 1. 4; 5. 1); cf.

further Judah 19. 4; 20. 1; Levi 19. 1; Naph 2. 10 ; 3. 5; Joseph 2 0. 2; Benj 5. 3. In Ben Si ra42 .

24-25 the formula is used to express complementarity rather than opposition, a tendency to some

degree characteristic of the interpretation of duality in wisdom traditions and in rabbinic literature

(see preceding note), not to mention the important role complementary duality plays in Greek

philosophy (e.g. Heraclitus) and in the history of medicine from the Hippocratic corpus to the

writings ofC.G. Jung.

[14] See especially Aristotle,

Metaphysics

986a, where the ten principles of the Pythagoreans are

listed in two columns of opposites(OVOTOIXUU)-

[15] The le tter opens with the ancient pair of God/hum an being, and closes with the strange pair

of flesh/cross

(6.13-14).

Some of the pairs of opposites involve the expressions

OVK

. . . &\\a; ov...

avJ177;

TJ;

aiinin Si;

others appear simply by opposed datives (e.g. 2. 19) or adverbs (e.g. 2. 14).

[16] The traditions connecting the famous three reasons for gratitude to Thales, Plato, and Rabbi

Judah (active ca. 130-160 C.E.) are conveniently cited in W. A. Meeks, The Image of the Andro-

gyne', HR 13 (1973/4) 167-8. The two major interpretive alternatives for Gal 3. 28 arise from

taking its background to be gnosis, on the one hand, and apocalyptic, on the oth er. Meeks' learned

article travels the former route; the present essay the latter. Nothing in the text or context of Gal

3.

28 indicates that the thought is that of re-unification. See also 1 Cor 15. 46 .

[17] The conviction that the Law is the antidote to the Evil Impulse is very old and very wide-

spread, stretching a t least from Ben Sira (e.g. 15. 14-15) and the Qumran literature (e.g. CD 2.

14-16) to the Epistle of James (e.g. 1. 22-25) and rabbinic traditions [F . C. Porter, The Yecer

hara', Biblicaland S emitic Studies (1901) 128]. That Christian Jews held this conviction is clear

from the Epistle of James; see Joel Marcus, The Evil Inclination in the Epistle of James',

CBQ

44

(1982) 606-21,and the article by Martyn cited in note 9 above.

[18] By giving the identity of the true opposite to the fleshy Impulse, Paul exposes the power of

God that makes certain the promise of Gal 5.16. Thus Paul does not speak of an anthropological

doctrine in the proper sense (H. D. Betz,Galatians,1979, 278), but rather of the advent ofChrist's

Spirit. Cf. J. S. Vos,

Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur

Paulinischen

Pneumatologie

(1973),

76 -84 ; Paul W. Meyer, Th e Holy Spirit in the Pauline L etters ',

Interpretation

33 (1979)

3-18, especially 11 ;D. J. Lull,Th e Spirit inGalatia (1980).

[19] See note 10 above, and John Koenig, The Motif of Transformation in the Pauline Epistles'

(Dissertation, Union Theological Seminary, 1970) 38-43.

[20] Itisworth noting tha t Geo Widengren identifiesasthe two main motifs of apocalyptic thought

(1) cosmic changes and catastrophies and (2) the war-like final struggle in the cosmos, David Hell-

holm (ed.),

Apocalypticism in the

Mediterranean World

and the

Near East(1983 ), 150. See B. Bar-

bara Hall, 'Battle Imagery in Paul's Letters' (Dissertation, Union Theological Seminary, 1973).

[21] C. K. Barrett, T he Allegory of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in the Argument of Galatians',

1-16 in J. Friederich, W. Pohlmann, P. Stuhlmacher (eds.),

Rechtfertigung,

Festschrift Kasemann

(1976).

[22] See e.g. Aristotle,Metaphysics986a. Paul's method of interpreta tion, especially because of

his explicit reference to allegory (4. 24), has often been compared with allegorical exegesis in Philo.

More pertinent may be Philo's interest in a series of paired opp osites; see note 12 above.

[23] See note 9 above. [24] See note 6 above.

[25] To a considerable extent Paul causes the letter to be focused on the issue whether the advent

of Christ has introduced a new religion, as the circumcising Teachers think, or whether that event

marks the end of all religion by terminating holy times (4. 10), food laws (2. 11-14) etc. Note the

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4 2 4 J . LOUIS MARTYN

sharp irony with which Paul employs in a polemical fashion the terminology of religious conversion

in 4. 9 (D . Georgi inThEH70 ,1 95 9, 111 ff.). Our analysis of pairs of opposites in Galatians shows

that Paul's use of this pattern does not fall in the line of wisdom tradition, w ith its marraige of the

pairs to the doctrine of the Two Ways, but rather in the line of apocalyptic, in which the pairs are

seen to be at war with one another. Gal 5. 19-23 does not present a list of vices to be avoided,

matched by a list of virtues to be followed, as though the letter offered a new edition of the doc-

trine of the Two Ways. Paul speaks, rather, of the activities of two warriors, the Flesh and the

Spirit.

[26] We have noted above that in composing Galatians Paul employs at crucial points the noun

dnoK \v\l>i(;

and the verb

diroicaKviTTLJ.

It is strange that in the investigation of apocalyptic p atterns

in Paul's thought relatively little attention has been given to the Apostle's use of these vocables;

but see now Richard E. Sturm, 'An exegetical study of the Apostle Paul's use of the words

apo-

kalypto /apokalypsis.'(Dissertation, Union Theological Seminary, 1984).

[27] In Galatians the cross repeatedly forms an apocalyptic antinomy with circumcision (e.g. 5.

11),

just as Christ's death forms an apocalyptic antinomy with the Law (e.g. 2. 21): Beverly R.

Gaventa, "The Purpose of the Law: Paul and Rabbinic Judaism' (M.Div. Thesis, Union Theological

Seminary, 1973).

[28 ] Epistemology is a central concern in all apocalyptic, because the genesis of apocalyptic

involves a) developments that have rendered the hum an story hopelessly enigmatic, when perceived

in human terms, b) the conviction that God has now given to the elect true perception both of

present developments (the real world) and of a wondrous transformation in the near future, c) the

birth of a new way of knowing both present and future, and d) the certainty that neither the future

transformation, nor the new way of seeing both it and present developments, can be thought to

grow out of the conditions in the human scene. For Paul the developments that have rendered the

human scene inscrutable are the enigma of a Messiah who was crucified as a criminal and the in-

comprehensible emergence of the community of the Spirit, born in the faith of this crucified

Messiah. The new way of knowing, granted by God, is focused first of all on the cross, and also on

the parousia, these two being, then, the parents of that new manner of perception. Galatians is a

strong w itness to the epistemological dimension of apocalyptic, as that dimension bears on the

cross.

See J. Louis Martyn, 'Epistemology at th e Turn of the Ages: 2 Corinthians 5. 16', W. R.

Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, R. R. Niebuhr (eds.),Christian History

and Interpretation: Studies Presen-

ted to John Knox

(1967) 269-87; L. E. Keck, 'Paul and Apocalyptic Theology',

Interpretation

38

(1984) 234 n 17.

[29] Galatians provides one of the clearest indications in the corpus that Paul's understanding of

apocalyptic is focused primarily not on God'suncoveringof something hidden from the beginning

of time (1 Cor 2. 10), but rather on God's new act of

invading

the human orb, thus restructuring

the force field in which human beings

live.

In other words, more important than the etymology of

the verb

diroKaMrtrtJ

is Paul's using it in parallel with the verb

\8eu>

(Gal 3. 23). Faith is apoca-

lypsed by coming newly on the scene. Thus the knowledge spoken of in the preceding note is

knowledge of an invaded cosmos.

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