Galatians 1:10

Do I now persuade men, or God? Theophylact, Vatablus, and Erasmus explain this to mean: " Am I now persuading you to human things or to Divine?" as though the Apostle were showing, not the persons he was addressing, but his subject-matter, i.e., what he is putting forward to be believed. For the Judaisers were boasting that they followed Peter, John, James, who, by their example, seemed to teach the observance of the Old Law. In contrast to them Paul exclaims that he follows not men, or the doctrine of men, but God and His doctrine, and persuades others to do the same. It is from God that I have received what I have preached, and therefore I preach not human things, but Divine.

There is a second interpretation, which is not amiss, whatever Beza may say, which has S. Chrysostom's support. " Am I pleading a cause before men or before God?" For the word persuade (πείθειν) is a forensic term, and implies a cause pleaded before judges. Hence S. Augustine interprets it here to mean, " I desire to render myself approved," and S. Ambrose renders it by I satisfy. When this Greek term is used in the sense of persuade, it is, as Beza admits, followed by an accusative of the person. Persuade is then here used in the sense of an inchoate act, "I try to persuade," according to my canon 32.

That this sense is the more apt appears: (1.) Because to persuade God and men is a phrase referring rather to the men persuaded than to the subject-matter this last interpretation would make the sentence obscure and involved. (2.) Because the next clause illustrates this when it says, " Or do I seek to please men?" which implies that as he does not seek to please men, so he does not seek to persuade them. So S. Jerome says that "any one is said to persuade when he tries to instil into others what he has himself imbibed and still keeps."

The sense then is this: I, Paul, speak so boldly and sincerely, and denounce a curse on Judaisers and all who preach another Gospel, because, although I once contended vigorously against the Gospel on behalf of Jews and their religion, yet now, illuminated by the Gospel-light, it is not to men, least of all to Jews, that I do my best to approve myself and my Gospel, but to God, whom alone I seek to please, that I may give a true and good account before His tribunal. In other words, I do not care what the Jews or others think of me, as being too bigoted, or an enemy of my country and its religion, for I seek to please God alone. Formerly I pleased them but displeased Him; and if I wished now to please them, I should again displease Him, for I should be establishing the law of Moses and destroying the grace of Christ.

If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. S. Jerome and Anselm remark that the desire to please men is a vice whereby a man so yields to others, so seeks their favour and good-will, that he is prepared to break the law of God and offend Him. But whoever seeks to please men, in such a way and with such an end in view as to lead them to God and His service, seeks not so much to please men as God. S. Augustine says: " A man does not please others to any useful end, save when he is pleasing for God's sake; i.e., when it is God in him that pleases and is glorified, as when it is His gifts in a man that are regarded, or that are received through man's instrumentality. For when a man is pleasing in this way, it is not now man that is pleasing but God." So S. Paul says, in 1 Cor. ix. 19-22, that he is made all things to all men, that he might gain all to Christ, S. Chrysostom, in his Hom. 29 in Epist. 2 ad. Corin., remarks how useless and contemptible are the favour and good report of this world; and S. Jerome devoutly and stoutly wrote to Asella, that he thanked God for being worthy of the world's hatred.