But now, after you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?
All Commentaries on Galatians 4:9 Go To Galatians 4
Jerome
AD 420
Now these same elements that he has now styled “weak and beggarly” he called above merely the “elements of the world.” … And so I think that so long as someone is an infant … he is subject to the elements, namely, the law of Moses. But when after [receiving] the freedom due to an heir he reverts again to the law, desiring to be circumcised and to follow the whole letter of Jewish legal illusions, then those things that were merely the elements of the world to him before are now said to be “weak and beggarly elements.” … The law of Moses, which before was rich, affluent and illustrious, became after Christ’s advent and in comparison with him “weak and beggarly.” … The “weak and beggarly elements” are those unworthy traditions of the Jews, which interpret according to the letter. They were poor excuses for interpretations and “commandments that were not good.” –.
