Galatians 6:11

πηλίκοις. ἡλίκοις is read by B* 17, Jerome, W. H. margin.

11. ἴδετε (1 John 3:1) πηλίκοις. See notes on Textual Criticism. “See, with what large letters.” πηλ. Here in its strict sense of magnitude in dimension, Zechariah 2:2 (6) bis; contrast its metaphorical use in Hebrews 7:4; 4Ma 15:22[166]. The marginal ἡλίκοις appears to be less definite. But why does St Paul call attention to the size of his letters?

[166] Is affixed it means that all the passages are mentioned where the word occurs in the Greek Bible.

(a) Presumably to show the emphasis with which he writes and the importance of what he is saying. For larger letters were used in his day, as sometimes in our own, to lay stress on important parts of a document, especially in a public inscription. Ramsay (Gal. p. 466) refers to examples at Pisidian Antioch, and at Pompeii. So according to a papyrus of 265 B.C. a notice is to be put on a board μεγάλοις γράμμασιν (Moulton and Milligan, Expositor, VII. 6, 1908, p. 383). The verses from here to the end of the Epistle are so important a summary of St Paul’s statements that they would justify the use of large letters. Galatians 1:1 to Galatians 6:10 may have been in cursive hand. If so the papyrus of July 24, 66 A.D., in the Cambridge University Library, Add. 4052 (reproduced in Grenfell and Hunt’s Oxyrhynchus Papyri II. no. 246, and in Deissmann’s Licht vom Osten, p. 112) gives the reverse case. Officials certify in cursive hand to the accuracy of the statements made in uncial by the writer of the letter.

(b) There is no connotation of ill-shapen letters (Chrysostom), either in πηλίκοις or the context, for it is not in τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί (vide infra) nor even in στίγματα, Galatians 6:17. Hence it is unnecessary to see in the word a suggestion either of St Paul’s disregard of elegance, or of a reference to injury to his hand and so of suffering endured for Christ.

(c) Deissmann’s explanation (still repeated in Licht vom Osten, pp. 105, 110) that St Paul says in playful irony, my large letters are for you children, belongs, as Ramsay rightly says, “to the region of pure comedy” (Gal. p. 466).

ὑμῖν. Probably the position is due to euphony, and ὑμῖν is still to be taken with ἔγραψα. Lightfoot, however, thinks that it is placed here to emphasize πηλίκοις, and translates: “how large, mark you.”

γράμμασιν, (a) γράμματα does sometimes mean ἐπιστολή (“how large a letter,” A.V.), see Acts 28:21; 1Ma 5:10; cf. Luke 16:6-7; 2 Timothy 3:15. In this case St Paul would be calling attention to the fact that he has written the whole of this Epistle with his own hand, as a proof of the trouble that he has taken for them. But then the dative is almost inexplicable. (b) Translate “letters” (2 Corinthians 3:7), referring to the form of writing.

ἓγραψα. Epistolary aorist as in Philemon 1:19; Philemon 1:21.

τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί Philemon 1:19. Even in Phm. it probably does not refer to the whole letter; much less here. For St Paul’s practice of writing closing salutations, and brief summary statements, with his own hand, as evidence of authenticity, see 2 Thessalonians 3:17; 1 Corinthians 16:21; Colossians 4:18. Milligan on the passage in 2 Thess. (Appendix, Note A, p. 130) compares “the σεσημείωμαι (generally contracted into σεση), with which so many of the Egyptian papyrus-letters and ostraca close.” See also Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, p. 105. In our Epistle there is no salutation, strictly speaking, and the summary statements are larger than elsewhere. But Galatians 6:12-16 are a recapitulation of the whole Epistle. It seems unlikely that St Paul would write a whole Epistle in large letters, especially as he had others with him who could write for him (Galatians 1:2).