We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
All Commentaries on Galatians 2:15 Go To Galatians 2
Jerome
AD 420
A Jew by nature is one of Abraham’s stock, who has been circumcised by his parents on the eighth day. One who is a Jew “not by nature” is one of Gentile origin who has been subsequently made so. That I may embrace the whole argument in a brief discourse, the sense of the text is as follows: “We are Jews by nature, doing those things that were precepts of the law. We are not sinners who come from the Gentiles—either in the sense of those who are sinners generically because they worship idols or those whom Jews now regard as unclean. Yet we know that we cannot be saved by the works of the law but rather by faith in Christ. We have believed in Christ that what the law had not given us our faith would guarantee to us. Seceding from the law in which we could not be saved, we have gone over to faith, in which not the circumcision of the flesh but the devotion of a pure heart is demanded. But what if we now belatedly declare by seceding from the Gentiles that whoever is uncircumcised is unclean? In that case faith in Christ—by which we previously thought we were saved—would rather become a minister of sin than of righteousness. For faith would under that assumption take away the circumcision without which one is unclean.” .
