Paul and the victims of his persecution: the opponents in Galatia.

Abstract

Shortly after he had organized churches in Galatia and left the region, Paul was confronted by the accusations of victims of his earlier persecution, who denounced him to his new converts. In response, Paul devised an idiosyncratic reading of the Scriptures. His argument was that Torah was an interim mechanism and a cause of sin, intended by God to regulate transgressions. The lawful execution of the Messiah caused Torah to be rescinded. It could be re-imposed only at the cost of making meaningless the death of the Messiah. Thus, Paul argued, he should be acquitted of any condemnation as a transgressor.

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The Apostle Paul was known as a persecutor of Christian Jews before his conversion to the very faith he attempted to suppress. (Gal 1:13; 1 Cor 15:9; Phil 3:6)

What happened to Paul's Victims?

The comments that follow are focused on what can be learned and inferred about the victims from Paul's own statements in the document he dictated (Gal 6:11) and which he directed "to the churches in Galatia" (Gal 1:1). "Galatia" is understood by this writer to refer to Anatolian Celtica, that is, the Celtic-populated region of Turkey, whose center is present day Ankara.

Paul's Critics Were His Victims.

The thesis here proposed is that Paul was confronted in Galatia with accusations brought against him by some of his own victims. Paul's opponents were not competing missionaries affiliated with respected Judean believers (Betz: 7; Dunn: 9-11) or competing "teachers" (Aquinas: 160 ["false teachers"], Luther: 47 ["teacher of works"], Wrede: 32 ["Jewish Christian teachers"], Burton: liv ["teachers" and also "judaisers"]), Martyn 1997a: 117-26. Nor should Paul's opponents in Galatia be identified as "innovators" (Lightfoot: 27) or "false apostles" (Luther: 47,341; Calvin: 3, 4, 6, 13) or as some of his own Gentile converts, who veered into "heresy" (Munck: 134). Nor were his adversaries "restorers" of Christian "orthodoxy" (Raisanen: 258, 264) or figures in local synagogues who wished either to "influence" (Nanos: 6) or pressure (Esler: 51) Paul's recruits to get themselves circumcised.

For two millennia, the fate of Paul's victims and their possible denunciation of him in Galatia has escaped inquiry by commentators and scholars. It has been acknowledged that there is in this letter a "personal element" more likely than any doctrinal controversy to "cause embitterment" (Burton: liv). But Burton's insight has not been enlarged upon with Paul's victims in mind. To put the present proposal as clearly as possible: Paul was confronted in the churches in Galatia by the credible accusations of victims of his earlier persecution of Christian Jews.

In his letter, Paul responded to accusations by a brief admission (Gal 1:13) followed by a defense (the balance of the letter). Because of his allegiance to the executed Messiah (also a victim of persecution, Gal 3:1; 6:17) Paul argues that he now partakes of a final, cosmic victory. Emblems of this victory include the abrogation of the dictates of Torah (Gal 2:16; 5:11) and all other legal strictures (Gal 4:8-9; 5:1). Paul asserts that he will not permit himself to be subjected to judgment for his past conduct (Gal 2:18). Paul's argument is, in effect, an argument for impunity from legal censure (Gal 2:21). Significantly, any persons in Galatia who stand in opposition to him are to be "cast out" (Gal 4:29-30).

Paul's generalized derogation of "law" suggests that his victims may not have charged him with any specific violation(s) of Torah. Instead, Paul may have been accused of failing to live up to the high moral standards and an attendant humane code of conduct which Judaism of this period was thought to uphold in the Gentile world. (Collins: 273) The suffering of victims, the reaction of their persecutors to the victims' accusations, and the empathy that victims can elicit from bystanders cannot be seen from only one angle. Paul's response was to focus his defense on "the law" which, he insisted, can no longer be applied to his conduct. That Paul erected this particular defense does not mean he successfully or even directly came to grips with the denunciations raised against him in Galatia.

By tradition and then by formal designation, Paul's letter has been taken as Scripture. In this role, the document has achieved a pre-eminent authority, by which it has brought solace to uncounted generations of believers. But an essential task of the historian-commentator is to achieve transparency of the pre-literary situation. This procedure must include an awareness that the text can have differing meanings for its creator, its intended audiences, and of course for later readers who were not in view when the text was created. The transition from discourse to document is a dynamic process, as the hearer(s) and subsequent readers of the letter bring forth their own perspectives and expectations.

Propositional statements should not be center stage before interpretative tendencies have been identified (Grondin: 93). This idea achieved status as a theory of understanding in the 20th century, primarily through the influence of Heidegger and those theologians (e.g., Bultmann) and philosophers (e.g., Gadamer) who followed him. Their search was for the structure ("fore-structure") of understanding as a method of identifying the inner meaning of a text, as opposed to its explicit meaning. Excellent summaries of the philosophical and theological aspects of these developments may be found in Grondin (91-123) and Macquarrie (105-10, 166-70) respectively.

An approach to textual interpretation built upon Heidegger's constructions may be helpful but is not essential to the investigator of the pre-literary situation. There may not always be a distinct "inner meaning" ("verbum interius" Grondin: 119). The challenge may be to identify, not a hidden meaning but rather the motive of the writer in saying what s/he said.

It is telling that Bultmann had difficulty fitting Galatians into his attempt to systematize Paul. Focusing on Gal 1:7, 4:21, 6:12-13, and 5:17, Bultmann discovered (224) a failure by both Paul's addressees and his adversaries "to perceive an exclusive antinomy" between law and grace. Bultmann described (223-24) this failure as "a hidden tendency of the self" and a kind of willing which was "hidden even from themselves." But Bultmann's suggestion that the principals in Galatia did not know what they were doing is a modernizing of the pre-literary situation. This modernizing of the letter is in keeping with Bultmann's system, in which the individual, acting for self, is invited to understand life as a decision for or against authentic existence. It is questionable that this system can be traced back to Paul, whose own "inner tendencies" (Wrede: 124) attain the necessary sharpened focus only when Paul's victims and their accusations are brought front and center.

In the letter, Paul engaged in a self-defensive polemic (Gal 1:1; 1:20; 2:6, 6:17). The recognition of a polemic prompts a search for the pre-literary context of the letter. If pre-literary inquiry is overlooked, however, commentary risks becoming simply a vindication of the text and its creator. A vindicative embrace of the text is warranted by devotional and ecclesiastical concerns as well as by the fact that Paul was overwhelmed by the mystic presence in his life of the executed and risen Messiah. This fact unquestionably shaped Paul's motives in writing as he did. But a worshipful attitude towards the text may hinder the historian's attempt to identify other important aspects of the situation that gave rise to the text.

Paul, writing in defensive reaction to credible denunciations by some of his victims, asserted (Gal 2:21b; 3:19-26) that Torah observance is toxic to both Jews and Gentiles. This being so, then the failure to consider and perhaps even to hear the voices of Paul's victims has permitted Paul's idiosyncratic antinomian polemic in Galatians to be seen not as an aspect of self-defense but rather as the lynch pin of a theology that stresses "faith" against "works." Wrede (122-31) and more recently Raisanen (14, 254-69) and his student, Kuula (90-95, 130-33, 151,162-67, 193-97) have pointed out both how sharply Paul's polemic separates him from Judaism and how aspects of Paul's argumentation are internally inconsistent. Kuula's arguments in particular must be met by those who want to see coherence in the letter or continuity with the letter to the Romans.

The Silencing of Victims as a Motif of Interpretation

Survivors of persecution are often silenced. Indeed, persecution victims often silence themselves. Upon their bodies, they document violence, weakness, terror, hypocrisy, and failure. Their very presence is an embarrassment to those who encounter them (Herman: 8) and a scandal to those who abused and hurt them, and who frequently are in a position to inflict further harm (Herman: 8). This means that traumatic memories, first consigned to inarticulate silence, may be allowed to incubate and even strengthen over time, but may then be triggered into articulation by a subsequent event (Herman: 185). This triggering event (e.g., the arrival in the community of the persecutor) can bring vivid memories to greater consciousness and may even cause the victim to relive the trauma (Herman: 13). As a lawyer who has represented many victims of persecution, I can affirm that, when finally given a hearing, victims of persecution are hard to discredit.

Confronted by the truthful allegations of his victims, Paul's belletristic intention was to move quickly past the allegations by way of a truncated and perfunctory admission (Gal 1:13) and focus his rhetorical skills on a defense that emphasized his freedom from any judgment whatsoever. In asserting that Paul's pre-literary situation (and therefore his motives in writing the letter) has been generally misinterpreted, this writer invites the reader to consider Paul in his pre-literary consciousness. Look upon Paul as an ambitious, impassioned man, desiring to reassert his influence with people who had moved away from their allegiance to him. Consider why Paul wrote this letter before trying to understand what he wrote.

If the letter is read aloud, one can fairly quickly see that Paul intends to avoid the burden of self-elucidation while discharging the burden of self-defense. Paul's propositions are designed to call attention to themselves while undermining counter-propositions. This approach is intended to mischaracterize the pre-literary situation--that is, Paul wants to win an argument. Specifically, Paul's hope is to garner support by misstatements (by making arguments) about his relations with interlocutors (both friends and enemies) in Anatolian Celtica, whom he addresses and characterizes in the document in question.

Paul's intentional neglect of his actual pre-literary situation is replaced in the document by his claim to sovereignty over his own history. Like others before and after him accused of serious misconduct, Paul wishes to control how he is portrayed to people he cares about. Unable to deny the accusations, he wishes to be seen as a reformed persecutor, without any responsibilities or consequences for having been a persecutor. He therefore mischaracterizes the position(s) of those who have denounced him by asserting that their accusations are of no real importance.

What happened to Paul's victims?

Those who suffered persecution by Paul were probably few in number. After making pilgrimage to Jerusalem, becoming associated with Judean believers in the Messiah Jesus, abused by a temple militia and/or brought before religious authorities for corporal punishment and finally evicted, deported or "voluntarily" removed from Jerusalem, the survivors went back to their homes in the Diaspora, where they were waiting, as it were, for Paul. Thus in Anatolian Celtica, i.e., Galatia, Paul was confronted by the living testimony of his own victims--one or two would have been enough--not by "teachers" of circumcision or Judean-Christian missionaries or "Judaizers."

"You have heard about me"--the Key to the Pre-literary Situation

In Gal 1:13, Paul writes (rather, dictates), "You heard [ekusate] about my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God to the extreme [oti kath uperbolen] and tried to destroy it."

This statement, which is an important key to the pre-literary situation, is taken here as an admission that Paul did not first bring up his past activities as a persecutor. If Paul, when first in Galatia, had already made known his past to his recruits, there would have been little reason for him further to defend his pre-Christian career in the letter before us. The construction "you heard" (2nd person plural, aorist, active indicative) does not require an information source other than Paul, but already Paul has distinguished for his readers what he has told them, over against what others have said; see Gal 1:8 ("the gospel we did proclaim"), 1:11 ("the gospel which was proclaimed by me"), and 1:23 ("they heard"). The construction of Galatians 1:13 indicates that Paul is acknowledging what others have said about him--not reminding his readers of what he himself had already told them.

Concerning his activities as a persecutor of Christian Jews, Lightfoot (81) wants Paul to say "I told you when I was with you." But Paul says no such thing. Burton (44), implicitly acknowledging Paul's desire for sovereignty over his pre-literary situation, speculates that Paul had already told the Galatians "the .story of his pre-Christian life," including an admission of his role as a persecutor. Dunn (55) theorizes that Paul may have told his converts of his former life. Or, possibly, that Paul's adversaries ("incoming missionaries," according to Dunn) might have "informed" Paul's converts of his "previous way of life" and then tried to use this information "as a weapon against Paul." Dunn does not ask how the impact of this information in Galatia might have been used as a weapon against Paul in the pre-literary situation, nor does he consider Paul's motives in mounting his defense, were he responding to the denunciations of his own victims. Martyn (1997a: 153) states that Paul's adversaries in Galatia "may have made remarks to the Galatians about Paul's pre-Christian activity, accentuating perhaps his persecution of the church." Betz speaks (67, n. 103) of "rumors" circulating about Paul. However, like Dunn and other commentators, Betz and Martyn simply leave the matter there, without further inquiry into the fate of Paul's victims or whether Paul had to answer their accusations within the churches he had established.

Bornkamm (14-15), interestingly, thinks that Paul discussed his past violence "with no bad conscience whatsoever" and "not as a past wrong, whose memory still torments him." But Bornkamm remains incurious about the silence and the fate of the victims of this "orthodox Jew." Like other investigators, Bornkamm takes up Paul's propositions as a subject of theological and exegetical inquiry without considering the apparent absence of a "bad conscience" as central to Paul's polemical strategy in dealing with the denunciations of his victims.

The Answer of the Persecutor: Vilify the Victim

In his introductory dictation (Gal 1:4) Paul declares that the Messiah Jesus "gave himself for our sins, so that we might be freed from this present evil age." Paul excludes from these solicitous considerations only those who were causing him so much difficulty in Galatia. He speaks of them as rank strangers and, indeed, probably did not know their names. Consigned to anonymity, they are simply dismissed as:

Gal 1:7: "those who are terrifying you"
Gal 1:9: "some one"
Gal 5: 7: "whoever"
Gal 5: 10: "whoever he is"
Gal 6:12: "those who compel you"
Gal 6:13: "they"

No "Different Gospel"--but a Personal Attack

Paul acknowledges that his antagonists in Galatia did not propose a `different gospel' (Gal 1:6). Rather he is confronted (Gal 1:7) with a highly personal criticism of himself. In Galatia, Paul's former victims would have avoided all contact with him but come forward after he left the area. Their motivation would have been to discredit him by denouncing him to his new recruits. They are likely to have denounced Paul the Persecutor as one and the same Paul who had recently arrived to organize assemblies of believers among the Celtic population of the region.

The victims would have identified Paul as a fanatical leader of enforcers (in Judea? Damascus? See discussion infra) who singled out Diaspora Jews for abuse, for proclaiming Jesus as Messiah. Acts, (7:54-8:1) places Paul in Jerusalem, when the believer Stephen was murdered by a mob of stone throwers. Acts implies that the Judean believers escaped persecution, while believing Jews from the Diaspora were hounded out of town. This persecution, according to Acts 8:1, touched all of the believers "except the apostles." Acts, therefore, offers support for the conclusion that official (i.e. lawful) persecution was directed not at Judean believers, but at Hellenic, Jewish pilgrims. That Luke-Acts arises from a later pre-literary situation does not require the conclusion that Acts is inherently unreliable as a record of certain events in Paul's career.

Trust is Shattered After Paul's Integrity Is Brought into Question

As suggested, Paul needed to defend himself against truthful accusations of his brutal mistreatment of members of a sect in which he now claimed a leading role. This state of affairs would have been confusing, provocative and frightening to Paul's new recruits in Galatia. Paul had not informed them that he had come among them by agreement with leading Christian Jews in Judea (Gal 2:9). He continues to stress that his presence was the result of the happenstance of illness (Gal 4:13).

The reaction of the new recruits would have varied. With Paul's earlier misconduct as well as his credentials and even his motives brought into question, some of them would have distrusted his sincerity (Gal 1:20). Others may have announced their return to their earlier Celtic religious practices (Gal 4:9-10) or (in the case of a few) their intention to identify more closely with Judaism (Gal 5:2), even to the extent of becoming proselytes and submitting to circumcision (4:21). Some may have let it be known they wished to have nothing more to do with Paul (Gal 1:6; 4:16). These varied reactions have the ring of truth; when a church splinters, people scatter. They do not all depart in the same direction.

Paul Responds by Characterizing Torah as a Displaced Guardian

In light of the denunciations made against him, Paul perceived that he must (1) defend himself against his victims' truthful accusations and at the same time (2) try to clarify why the Galatians must not suffer any loss of faith in Messiah Jesus. Facing the quandary, Paul hit upon a line of reasoning which (he believed) offered him both a personal defense and a ground for continued belief in the Messiah: he asserted that Torah observance had been abrogated for everyone by the arrival in history of the Messiah Jesus. Thus, he could no longer be subjected to judgment for his misconduct because no one was any longer subject to such judgment. Paul's employment of the unfortunate Hagar-Sinai analogy concludes with this very assertion (Gal 5:1): "Into freedom, then, Christ has freed us. Then, stand firm! And do not allow yourselves again to be placed in a yoke of slavery."

This resounding summation does not obscure the unsettling aspects of the analogy, which Paul employs to direct a further threat against defenseless innocents, as Hagar and Ishmael are depicted. Gal 4:3: "For what does the written word say: `Cast out the slave woman and her son for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.'" Curiously, Martyn (1997b: 201) identifies Paul's targets, not as Jews, but rather as "representatives" of a competing "Gentile mission." In fact, Martyn asserts (1997b: 82-83), unconvincingly in my view, that there were "no former Jews in the Galatian churches, so no Jews are addressed in the Galatian letter and no Jews are being spoken about in the letter." Taking Galatians 3:28 ("neither Jew nor Greek ...") as descriptive rather than aspirational, one winds up with a problematic reading of references to Abraham (Gal 3:6-18, 29, 4:22), Sarah, and Isaac (Gal 4:21-31) as other than Jews. Are Peter, James, Barnabas, and Paul himself then to be seen as "former Jews"? Paul's harsh instructions to his converts should be seen for what they are, a call to renew the persecution of his adversaries.

In the letter, Paul restates variously the principle of the believer's (and therefore his own) liberation from judgment. He offers, for example, the analogy to family relations, with God as father and Messiah Jesus as son, who shows the way of obedience to the believers, who are themselves, by virtue of the faithfulness of the Messiah-son, accorded adopted status (Gal 4:1-7). Because of the generous behavior of the natural child the adopted children are acknowledged as having the same status as the natural child. The taking in of the erstwhile orphaned children is accomplished by the natural child, who accepts and then transcends his own enslavement to cosmic forces. All the children, together, then, become children of God and are freed from the control of interim guardians and managers. The guardians and managers are specifically described as "rank upon rank of cosmic spirits" and as "the law" (Gal 4:3, 4).

Paul argues that God undertook the adoption, commissioned the guardians of the minor child (children) and in due time sent the natural son to liberate the minor children by assuming their lowly status. His point is, the arrival of the heir, the natural son, has made possible the entrance into their inheritance of those who formerly were enslaved to cosmic powers. These enslaving powers, including the law, are no longer controlling in the lives of the believers.

Despite his idiosyncratic approach to the covenantal history of the Jewish people, Paul would expect any Jewish readers of his letter to understand Torah as the displaced guardian (Gal 3:17-18). Likewise Paul would expect non-Jewish believers (a great majority, no doubt, in the churches in Anatolian Celtica) to understand they have been liberated from the plethora of cultic practices commonly observed in their communities (Gal 4:8-9).

Note that if "the law" is no longer binding upon the Celts, neither is Paul to be subjected to the law of the Jews. Paul thereby manages to include himself in the manifesto he articulates for the newly converted: "All are freed from the law--for we have been adopted" (Gal 4:5). "Because you are children, God sent the Spirit into our hearts" (Gal 4:6). Here, Paul implies what he states frequently elsewhere (Gal 2:15-21; 3:10-14, 18-19, 21-25): his past conduct should not cause him to be judged under the now defunct law of the custodial epoch.

The Transitory Purpose of Torah Observance: to Regulate and Condemn Misconduct

On three occasions in this letter, Paul contrasts the law's condemnation of misconduct with the transcendent status of the believer.

To accept condemnation is to question God's grace. Gal 2:18-21

   But if I build up again that [the system of observances--Gal 3:2, 5] which
   has been taken down, I truly am a transgressor! For through the law, I am
   dead to the law. I have been crucified with Christ! I no longer even live;
   rather Christ lives in me. Although I live on in the flesh, I live in the
   faith of the son of God who loved me! And who gave himself for me! I dare
   not question God's grace! If through the law one can be vindicated, then
   Christ died for nothing!

Dictating (and probably gesticulating rather dramatically), Paul rejects the idea that he might be subjected to judgment for his past misconduct. Indeed, to permit himself to be judged would recreate the very conditions which could cause him to become "a transgressor."

   The purpose of the Law was to restrain misconduct--but only until the
   arrival of the Messiah. Gal 3:19

   Why, then, the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the Seed
   should come concerning whom the promise had been made.

Paul asks and answers the question: why was the law instituted at all? His answer: The law was appended (to the cosmic design) to regulate transgressions in the interim between the bequest made to Abraham and the execution of the bequest upon the advent of the Messiah-heir. Paul even specifies the exact period of time in which the law is operative, from 430 years after Abraham until the death of Messiah Jesus (Gal 3:17, 19).

   The transgressor must be "restored." Gal 6:1

   Brothers [and sisters]: if any person is discovered in some transgression,
   those of you who are spiritual restore him with a gentle spirit, watching
   out for your own selves that you are not tempted as well.

Paul concludes the letter with admonitions to good behavior and to harmony within the assemblies. In these concluding remarks he employs the same term, "transgression" ("paraptomati"), that he had applied to himself (Gal 2:18) as well as to the fundamental but temporally limited role of the law (Gal 3:19). By speaking of an anonymous "transgressor" he hopes the believers' assemblies in Galatia will accept him as they did once before, restoring him to his (now lost) status as teacher and guide. It is noteworthy that the Vulgate obscures Paul's self-defensive purpose by variations in the translation of transgressor/transgressions. At 2:18, the transgressor is a "praevicator"; at 3:19, transgressions are "transgressiones"; at 6:1 a transgression is a "delictum" (NOVUM TESTAMENTUM ...)

From these three statements, it is apparent the term, "transgressor" ties Paul's central propositions together as his primary defense: The law existed for a time to restrain transgressions (Gal 3:19). But that time has expired, and so Paul will not again submit to the law and permit himself to be judged as a transgressor (Gal 2:18). At Gal 6:1 Paul concludes his appeal with one final attempt to win back the good will of his recruits.

Is the Issue Circumcision?

A number of passages in the Galatians letter seem to point towards circumcision as the central dispute. Three passages in particular need to be addressed if the victim theory is to be maintained. These passages are Gal 2:12, 5:2-12, and 6:11-13.

   "The circumcised" who came from James. Gal 2:12

   For before some from James had come, Peter ate with the Gentiles
   [non-Jewish believers]; however, after they came, he withdrew and held
   himself apart, fearing the circumcision [the Jewish believers].

At Gal 2:12, Paul focuses his attention on an incident that becomes the point of departure for the balance of his comments to the Galatian believers. When Peter visited the assembly in Antioch, he ate with all of the believers, Jews and Gentiles alike. However, on the arrival of some believers from Judea, allied with James on the issue of table fellowship, Peter declined to eat with Gentiles on the grounds of ritual impurity. Peter's withdrawal caused the other Jewish believers present likewise to decline communion with Gentiles. Even Barnabas, Paul's Jewish colleague, held back.

What motivated Peter and even Barnabas to decline communion with non-Jewish believers? Probably a quest for compromise. Confronted with demands from some arriving Judean believers that ritually observant Jews (the circumcised) and unclean Gentiles (the uncircumcised) be separated at table, Peter, Barnabas and the others may have concluded that, on this occasion, while there are Jewish visitors unexpectedly present from Judea who are offended, we will agree to their demands and not eat the same food as the Gentile believers.

Paul does not state how the non-Jewish believers in Antioch reacted. One would think that if they, like Paul, were offended by the Judean withdrawal, Paul might have said so. He does not. In the retelling, he launches an attack on a position he hopes the Galatian believers must support him in: the Messiah assemblies are open to all without any requirement that the adherents be Torah observant.

   Circumcision, that is Torah observance, removes "the scandal of the cross."
   Gal 5:2-11

In Galatians 5:2-6, Paul addresses those (not all) in the Galatian churches who have indicated they are inclined to seal their allegiance to the crucified Messiah by submitting to circumcision. Their announcement is probably in reaction to the victims' truthful accusation that Paul has failed to mention both that he had persecuted believers (Gal 1:13) and that, unlike Diaspora pilgrims (Acts 8:1), observant Judean believers avoided persecution. Paul sees this is an opening to shift the focus away from himself. He therefore argues, quite peculiarly and idiosyncratically, that the seal of allegiance to Torah must require full compliance with all the dictates of the law (5:3) and must also "sever" the law-observant believer from the Messiah (5:4). This argument calls to mind Paul's neoteric assertion (Gal 3:10-11) that the law is in fact a curse to those who observe it. By attacking Torah in this manner, Paul is not addressing "the typical Jewish mind-set" (contra Dunn: 266). Nor is he suggesting that the keeping of the law is tolerable as long as it is seen by members of "mixed churches" as "a matter of no consequence" (contra Martyn: 471). By denigrating circumcision, and indeed the whole law, as contrary to allegiance to the Messiah, Paul's rhetoric has carried him far from the actual issue at hand, which is his own status as a sound guide in religious matters.

"And what about me, sisters and brothers? If I still preached circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?" This question appears in a disputatious passage (Gal 5:7-12) in which phrases alternate from attack to appeal to attack again. Paul blasts away in utter frustration. When read aloud, it is clear (to this reader, at least) that Paul senses he has lost his credibility in Galatia beyond all hope of recovery. Too many of the believers have indicated they no longer have confidence in him. Paul has been abandoned by those whom he himself had organized. Astonished and furious, Paul simply cannot believe he has lost ground because of accusations from people who are complete strangers to his mission.

The "small leaven" (v 9) remaining in Galatia is Paul's own point of view, expressed in the letter itself. Knowing that this final appeal is not enough to recover what has been lost, Paul threatens punishment once again--this time nothing less than the holy wrath of the Messiah. No sooner does he issue the threat--against one who already has been a victim--than he catches himself and states that he also is a victim of persecution.

Paul asserts that he has drawn hostility because he has invited Gentiles to faith in Jesus the martyred Messiah. He has not limited his appeals to "the circumcision" i.e., to those who observe Torah. Paul probably means that he met a hostile reaction in or around Diaspora synagogues, where he announces to Gentiles and to Jews the arrival upon the earth of the Messiah, who suffered death by execution. If Paul stated such convictions as he sought recruits within earshot of the synagogues of the Diaspora, it is no wonder that he met with violence. Inevitably, if not frequently, Paul would have encountered a "Saul" who, just as he himself had done years before, took furious exception to efforts to combine both Gentiles and Jews in the sect of a martyred messiah.

In this passage, Paul attempts another line of argument, which goes beyond his former preaching: the law has forfeited its interim authority by authorizing the execution of the Messiah. In Paul's words, the lawful execution of the Messiah is scandalous, and a return to observance of the law would remove the scandal. The reassertion of the power of the law to judge would make pointless the historical significance of the Messiah Jesus. Paul here repeats a point he had made with a more directly personal application in Gal 2:18-21: if he were to submit again to the chastening authority of the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Paul now claims victimhood for himself. Gal 6:11-17

Having reached the conclusion of this angry, defensive letter, Paul takes the pen from his secretary and scratches out one more assault on the opposition. "Look with what large letters I write to you in my own hand! As many as want to make a favorable impression in the flesh, these same ones compel you to become circumcised--but only so they will not be persecuted on account of the cross of Christ! Those who are circumcised--they do not even observe the law--but they want you to be circumcised so they can boast in your flesh!" (Gal 6:11-13).

The victims probably told the Galatians that Paul's abuse was directed against believers who proclaimed Messiah Jesus not only to Jews but also to Gentiles. "Might Paul turn on you one day, you who are not `circumcised'? Might he even attack us again if given the chance?" Paul's rebuttal (v 12) is to assert that the victims point to their own past physical suffering to impress ("a good showing in the flesh") and to inspire fear ("persecuted for the cross of the Messiah"). Paul further contends (v 13) that the victims are hypocrites, who claim the status of an elite, "those who receive circumcision," yet do not themselves "keep the law." The victims now appear from nowhere to demean the Celtic believers ("boast in your flesh"). Having once suffered for their participation in Messianic assemblies that welcomed ritually impure Gentiles, the victims, asserts Paul, want nothing more than to humiliate the Celts, who are not Jews like themselves. Paul's arguments are directed at undermining the credibility of the victims by accusing them of elitism and cowardice.

"They compel you...." Paul is using the identical verb that he used to describe Peter's actions in Antioch when Peter withdrew from the table of those believers who were not circumcised ("you compel Gentiles to adopt Judaism"--Gal 2:14). Of course, Peter was not in a position to compel any particular conduct; he could only withdraw if he did-not approve, which is what he did. Paul employs the same word in his triumphant announcement (Gal 2:3) of Titus' entrance into the assembly in Jerusalem without being "compelled" to submit to circumcision.

Paul emphasizes the Jewish initiatory rite of circumcision in order to try one more time to win back his estranged recruits, who have been influenced against him. But by asserting their intent to "compel" the Galatians to become circumcised, Paul is distorting the motives of his victims. More than likely, they have not tried to compel circumcision of these Gentiles, most of whom, but not all (Gal 5:2), would have been offended if not disgusted at this humiliating and painful procedure.

Paul's accusers probably went no further than to point out that Paul, a Jew himself, no longer was Torah observant, and that this failing, combined with his earlier persecution of the very group he now purported to lead, casts doubt upon his reliability as a guide in religious matters. Responding to this personal attack, Paul's comments are a sarcastic rebuttal of the denunciations of his victims.

Paul's arguments, here, as elsewhere in Galatians, fit the range of stratagems employed by the Persecutor to deflect the credible accusations of the Victim. These stratagems have been well described by Herman (8) as follows:

   In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does
   everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the
   perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator
   attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely,
   he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end he marshals an
   impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most
   sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can
   expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the
   victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself;
   and in any case, it is time to forget the past and move on.

Paul concludes by taking up the theme of his own status as a victim of persecution: "As for the rest of it, let no one attempt to trouble me for I am carrying the signs of the Lord Jesus upon my body!" (Gal 6:17). Paul looks to marks upon his body as his final argument against his victims: `Don't bother me about that. I have myself become one of the persecuted!' This reference not to the spirit but to the flesh may have accomplished no more than to remind the believers of the denunciations of his accusers. If Paul lost these assemblies, he lost them, not to another Gospel oriented to some form of Torah observance, but to his own history.

The Victim Theory: Ambiguities and Issues

This attempt to recover the pre-literary situation in Anatolian Celtica is an effort to address certain ambiguities present in the text, which include the following. (1) In his letter to these churches, Paul takes a defensive, personal tone. (2) He is not opposing a coherent theological position. (3) He is ambivalent about his opponents, who appear to be (former) adherents themselves. (4) His attitude towards his recruits alternates between fury and solicitousness. (5) Paul's assertion that observance of the law causes sin is without precedent in Judaism. (6) In Romans Paul has subsequently expressed more moderate views about the Law. A theory of victims-as-opponents does much to clarify these ambiguities. But a victim theory must come to terms with at least four issues.

Paul's motivation as a persecutor

The inclusion of Gentiles in worship and in common meals without purification requirements probably was the activity that stimulated Paul to violence against Christian Jews. But this does not mean anyone before Paul had asserted the death-dealing aspect of "the Law" for Jews. Why must we invent an attitude that already, before Paul, identified the crucifixion of the Messiah as a Torah-abrogating scandal for Jews? Where is the rationale for this attitude?

To hypothesize an antinomian pre-Paul Paul is to compress the time available to devise such an assertion, without identifying a better motive for its invention by Paul than the herein proposed victim theory. It seems unhelpful to resolve certain historical questions related to Paul at the cost of creating unknown and unknowable pre-Pauline evangelists, who took an anti-Torah tack as applied to Jews. Fredriksen has concluded (154) that the basis for the persecution of Christian Jews by Paul was the "excited and vocal" proclamation of the Messiah Jesus as (1) executed, (2) promptly to return and (3) proclaimed also to Gentiles. These conclusions are probably correct. Thus, the crucifixion was proclaimed, for the first time by Paul in this letter, as both a Torah-inspired and a Torah-terminating event for Jews as well as for Gentiles.

Where did Paul's persecution of the believers take place?

Beyond Paul's motivation in persecuting believers, a second issue which the victim theory must resolve is the locus of Paul's persecutorial activities. If these activities were confined to the Diaspora, it is not as likely (though not impossible) that persecuted Christian Jews moved from, say, Damascus to central Anatolia, there to dehounce Paul to newly minted believers. It seems likely that Paul's persecution of Messiah-believing Jews took place in Jerusalem. Even though, on his own admission (Gal 1:22), Paul was not known personally to the Judean believers, this does not rule out the possibility that he was involved in their persecution. Or, that he made this statement in order to emphasize his independence from the church leadership in Jerusalem (Riesner: 72). Paul also states (Gal 1:23) that these same believers felt themselves targeted by him ("the one who persecuted us"). Whether the locus of this persecution was Judea or elsewhere, we should keep in mind that the testimony of but a few victims would have been enough to damage Paul.

When was the letter written?

A third question has to do with the dating of the letter. A late date for the composition of Galatians would undermine the victim theory, as Paul, in subsequent letters remarks (1 Cor 15:9; Phil 3:6) about his persecution of believers and advances (Rom 2:12-3:31, 6:14-8:4)--a very much modified antinomian position. An early date for a letter intended to answer charges that Paul is an unfit and untrustworthy guide provides a context for these later developments. On the grounds of the history of collections for the Jerusalem believers, Martyn (1997a: 19-20) has demonstrated the letter is most likely an early composition: after 1 Thessalonians but before all the other undisputed letters.

Where did the Galatians live?

As stated, "Galatia" is understood by this writer to refer to central Turkey, the region inhabited by the ancient Celts and referred to above as Anatolian Celtica. Recent uncertainty about the location of "the churches in Galatia" (Gal 1:1) seems to have arisen because recent interpreters (with the notable exceptions of Betz: 1-3 and Esler: 29-36) do not take into consideration information available in both classical and medieval sources. Doomed attempts to reconcile Paul's letters with the chronology of his activities found in Acts have also contributed to confusion, as Meeks (42) observed. A decision for central Anatolia as the region occupied by Paul's addressees excludes the possibility that Paul was referring to the Roman province also know as "Galatia." This administrative jurisdiction encompassed a larger region, which included both the Celtic population and other tribal groupings to the south, all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. But the letter itself confirms the ethnic identity of the intended recipients. It is unlikely Paul could have referred to the "southern" non-Galatian tribes as "stupid Celts" (Gal 3:1, my translation) (Martyn 1997a: 282, contra Dunn: 151).

Lightfoot, quoting Jerome, states that the region in question was known as "Gallo Grecia," reflecting Celtic settlements in Asia Minor in the third century BCE. In addition to confirming the settlement of the Celts in Asia Minor, Jerome (cited by Lightfoot: 242), stated that the Celts/Galatians spoke Greek as well as a language akin to that of the Trevari, a Celtic clan, who had settled centuries earlier in Roman Gaul. As Luther observed (123), Paul "calls them by the name that was proper to their country." Although Calvin (v) apparently believed the Galatians of Anatolia were probably "Belgae" and not Celts, Calvin looks to Pliny and follows Luther in support of his conclusion that "the Galatians inhabited that part of Asia named after them.... "The Celts of Asia minor, maintaining their identity for centuries after Paul, were the addressees of this letter.

Conclusion

Paul, a devout but volatile Jew of the Diaspora, devised an idiosyncratic reading of the Scriptures in defense of his persecution of other Jews. These, his victims, were also Diaspora Jews who had frequented one or another of the Messiah Jesus assemblies, probably in Jerusalem. Some of the victims survived Paul's persecution of them, and as few as perhaps one or two, either relocated or returned to their homes in Anatolian Celtica, whereupon they denounced Paul to his new converts.

In his defensive letter to the Galatian assemblies, Paul endeavored to define his prior conduct as a persecutor as not subject to censure and thereby deflect his victims' accusations. Such accusations were not relevant because law--specifically, Torah, the agent of the death of the Messiah by execution and the cause of sin--possessed only interim jurisdiction, and was no longer applicable to Paul or to any Christian Jew. Paul insisted he was not to be judged as dangerous and unreliable in religious matters. Although he may have failed to win back his proselytes in Galatia with these arguments, Paul did succeed in silencing his victims throughout the history of the church down to the present. His letter of self-defense was preserved; their accusations and denunciations were not.

Works Cited

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NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE ET LATINE. 1984. Edited by Eberhard Nestle, Erwin Nestle, Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, et al. Stuttgart, Germany: Deutche Bibelgesellshaft/Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1986).

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Richard B. Cook J.D. (Loyola Law School, New Orleans, Louisiana); M. Div, (Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY) is an attorney licensed to practice law in Hawaii (inactive), Louisiana and Maryland. His e-mail address is Richardbcook @msn.com. He is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). His publications include articles in FAITH AND MISSION,MISSIOLOGY, THE BIBLE TRANSLATOR, THE EXPOSITORY TIMES, and PULPIT DIGEST.