To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
All Commentaries on Galatians 1:16 Go To Galatians 1
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
To reveal His Son in me. In my soul. The phrase is a Hebraism. He says in me rather than to me, to denote that he had received no bare revelation by ear or eye, but that in his inmost heart he had so entirely drunk in Christ and His teaching and Spirit that Christ was in him and spoke by him (Theophylact). Secondly, Jerome and Vatablus understand it, "To reveal His Son through me." Thirdly, Jerome has another interpretation more subtle than literal: "He does not say to me but in me, because Christ was already in Paul. For there were in him the principle of all virtues and of God, and the seeds of faith. These, however, he did not recognise, nor believe in them till God revealed them in him as being in his heart."
I conferred not with flesh and blood. I joined myself to no one; I conferred with no one about my vocation, or the Revelation , or the way to act on it; I called into counsel no relations or any one else; but, knowing of a certainty that I had been called and taught by God, I followed God as my only teacher and leader. The word rendered confer denotes, says Budus, to communicate secrets and counsels, to go to one"s friends as counsellors and upright Judges , that they may approve or disapprove, advise or dissuade, as they see fit.
Flesh and blood denotes, by synecdoche, the whole man consisting of these two elements. Cf. S. Matt. xvi17. I was not taught the Gospel, says S. Paul, by any Prayer of Manasseh , for I conferred with none, but by revelation from God alone. See, then, 0 Galatians , how by rejecting it, and tainting it with an admixture of Judaism, you are tainting and rejecting the word of God, and even God Himself, who revealed it to me, that I might go and preach it.
It may be said: Why, then, did Paul afterwards go to Jerusalem to see Peter (ver18), and what is more, confer with him about the Gospel? I reply. He did not confer with him as though in doubt or imperfectly instructed, but that the faithful whom he taught might know him to be in communion with Peter and the other Apostles, to hold the same faith as they, that so they might give more credence to his preaching of the Gospel.
Jerome, however, refers the word immediately to the preceding clause, thus: "To reveal him immediately in the Gentiles I conferred not with flesh and blood." "Since I was ordered by God immediately to preach to the Gentiles, I immediately obeyed, so that I took no counsel with any man. Afterwards, however, I did confer with Peter, James , and John." The first explanation, however, is better. Or it may be rendered: I did not see, I did not cling to my earthly parents and relations, but, loving them, I followed the call of God (Augustine and Å’cumenius).
Morally, he follows S. Paul"s example who is called by God to the apostleship, to religion, to evangelical perfection, to heroic works, and does not yield to flesh and blood, but at once departs to gain that to which he feels himself called. S. Jerome writes to Heliodorus: "0 delicate soldier, what do you in your father"s house? Where is the rampart, the fosse, the winter spent under tents? Call to mind the day of your enlistment, when you were buried with Christ in baptism, when you took your military oath that for His name you would spare neither father nor mother. Lo! the adversary is trying to slay Christ in your breast. Lo! the camp of the enemy is thirsting for the donative which you received when you started on your warfare. What, though a little grandson hang an your neck; though your mother, with dishevelled hair and garments rent, bare the breasts which suckled you; though your father lie on the threshold: go forth, trampling on his body, and with dry eyes hasten to the banner of the Cross. Filial piety demands that in this you be cruel. . . . The love of God and the fear of hell will easily break your fetters. If they believe in Christ, let them assist me who am about to fight for His name. If they do not, let the dead bury their dead."
Again, he writes to that noble widow, Furia: "The father will be sorrowful, but Christ will rejoice; the family will mourn, but there will be joy among the angels. Let your father do what he will with your goods. It is not he for whom you were born, but Christ, for whom you have been born again, who has redeemed you at a great price, even His own blood, of whom you have to think. Beware of nurses and bearers and venomous animals of that sort, who seek to fill their bellies with your husks. They advise not what is for your good but their own."
S. Bernard too, preaching on the text, "Lo, we have left all," says: "How many does the accursed wisdom of the world overcome, and extinguish the fire kindled in them, which the Lord had wished to see burn fiercely! Do nothing, it says, in a hurry: take plenty of time to think over it; it is an important step that you are proposing to take; you had better try first what you can do, and consult your friends, lest you come afterwards to be sorry for your action. This wisdom of the world is earthly, sensual, devilish, the foe of salvation, the destroyer of life, the mother of lust, and abominable unto the Lord."
