This only would I learn of you, Received you the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
All Commentaries on Galatians 3:2 Go To Galatians 3
John Chrysostom
AD 407
As you do not attend, says he, to long discourses, nor are willing to contemplate the magnitude of this Economy, I am desirous, (seeing your extreme ignorance,) to convince you by concise arguments and a summary method of proof. Before, he had convinced them by what he said to Peter; now, he encounters them entirely with arguments, drawn not from what had occurred elsewhere, but from what had happened among themselves. And his persuasives and proofs are adduced, not merely from what was given them in common with others, but from what was especially conferred on themselves. Therefore he says, This only would I learn from you, Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith. You have received, he says, the Holy Spirit, you have done many mighty works, you have effected miracles in raising the dead, in cleansing lepers, in prophesying, in speaking with tongues,— did the Law confer this great power upon you? Was it not rather Faith, seeing that, before, you could do no such things? Is it not then the height of madness for these who have received such benefits from Faith, to abandon it, and desert back to the Law which can offer you nothing of the same kind?
