Galatians 6:11

Autograph postscript and Benediction

11. Ye see Better, imperative, - see ".

how large a letter Lit. - in how large letters ". Many ancient and most modern expositors take this to refer not to the length of the Epistle which is certainly not -large" as compared with those to the Romans and Corinthians but to the nature of the characters employed. It is curious that the exact meaning of this word rendered -how large" should have been so far overlooked as to suggest the explanation, -in how rude characters," as though the Apostle called attention to his want of skill in writing Greek. This view might have been left unnoticed, but for the distinguished name of Chrysostom, who among others maintains it. A second explanation supposes that St Paul, in calling attention to the large characters which he used, intended to hint at the cause, either general bodily ill-health, or local infirmity, such as weak eyesight. If this latter suggestion be adopted, it will confirm the hypothesis mentioned in the note on ch. Galatians 4:13. But it is on the whole more probable that the largeness of the letters was intended to express the importance of the message to be conveyed. To those who have studied carefully the character of the great Apostle this view, suggested by the ablest of his early commentators and adopted by the greatest of modern expositors of his Epistles, will commend itself as in keeping with what we know of the man, and as congruous with any just estimate of the scope of the Epistle itself. In the verses which follow St Paul sums up the whole argument of the Epistle, a weighty argument on a cardinal doctrine, gathered up in a summary, weighty and powerful, and emphasised by the very characters in which it was written, -Golden words, proportionately transcribed."

But do the words, -See in what large letters I write unto you with mine own hand," apply to the whole Epistle, or only to this concluding paragraph? It may be admitted that so far as the words employed in this verse are concerned, either alternative may be adopted. Alford is of opinion that -on account of the peculiar character of this Epistle, St Paul wrote it all with his own hand, as he did the Pastoral Epistles," and he finds -confirmation of this, in the partial resemblance of its style to those Epistles." Others with more probability regard the Apostle as having employed an amanuensis thus far, and at this verse to have taken the pen into his own hand. The reasons assigned for this conclusion are drawn from what we know of his practice in other Epistles. It seems from an expression in 2 Thessalonians 2:2, where he cautions his converts against being unsettled -by epistle as from us," that letters had been forged purporting to have been written by him such forgeries were not uncommon in the subsequent history of the early Church and as a mark of genuineness he adopted the practice of adding at the end of his Epistles a few lines in his own hand, the rest having been written by Tertius, or some other amanuensis. Thus, 2 Thessalonians 3:17, -The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every Epistle: so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Comp. Romans 16:22 foll.; 1 Corinthians 16:21-24; Colossians 4:18.