Commenting on similar word plays one finds in Galatians as one does in 2 Cor 1:21-22, Matthew Novenson wrote that Paul
does something
similar with the root εργον, “work,” in Gal 3:5: ὁ οὖν ἐπιχορηγῶν ὑμῖν τὸ
πνεῦμα καὶ ἐνεργῶν δυνάμεις ἐν ὑμῖν, ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἢ ἐξ ἀκοῆς πίστεως;
“Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you
do so from works of the law or from the hearing of faith?” (and cf. the
same root in Phil 2:12-13). It may be that πιστις in Gal 2:16
is another example: εἰδότες ὅτι οὐ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἐὰν μὴ διὰ
πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐπιστεύσαμεν,
ἵνα δικαιωθῶμεν ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, “We know that
a person is not justified from works of the law, except through the faith
of Jesus Christ, and we had faith in Christ, in order that we might be
justified from the faith of Christ and not from works of the law.” On
the objective-genitive hypothesis, the middle clause is a play on what comes
before and after: “Because a person is justified form Christ’s faith, we put our
faith in Christ.” (Matthew V. Novenson, Christ Among the Messiahs: Christ Language
in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012], 148 n. 44)
