For you have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:
All Commentaries on Galatians 1:13 Go To Galatians 1
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
If therefore he showed prowess in Judaism by persecuting and wasting God’s church, it is obvious that Judaism is contrary to the church of God, not through that spiritual law which the Jews had received but through their carnal habit of servitude. And if Paul as a zealot—that is, an imitator of late Judaic traditions—persecuted the church of God, his paternal traditions are contrary to God’s church, but the blame does not belong to the law itself. For the law is spiritual and does not allow itself to be interpreted carnally. That is the fault of those who understand carnally the things that they have received and who also have handed down many things of their own, undermining, as the Lord said, the command of God through their traditions.
