Brief Analysis of Galatians 3:13 in Patristic Literature
Since Galatians 3:13 remains the focal point of this work, and given the
understanding that we will derive from it, it will be apt for us to examine
this passage separately. For the most part, any brief analysis will demonstrate
most patristic theologies who analyzed his text focused on what Christ became
instead of the way in which he used what he became. Tertullian used 3:13 several
times in his defense against Marcion to show the connection between Jesus and
the Hebrew deity, suggesting for example, that Deuteronomy 21:13 was a prophecy
about Jesus. (Tertullian, adv. Marc. 5.3) using this fact, he attempted
to trap Marcion logically by comparing his god against Tertullian’s in applying
the curse to Jesus.
Athanasius, writing in the middle of the fourth century, regularly sued
3:13 as a defense of a high, non-Arian Christology. In one instance, Athanasius
equated the curse of Galatians 3:13 with death (Athanasius, De inc. 25)
while in another, he likened the curse to flesh. (Athanasius, Contra Ar.
2.47) Gregory of Nazianzus suggested that Jesus only underwent an application of
the curse, (Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep. 101.61) which resembles the view John
Chrysostom gave in his Homily on this verse. In it, he suggested Jesus took a
curse so that he could then lift it. Ambrose would have agreed with Chrysostom.
(See De fide 5.14.178; Ep. 46.13; Contra Aux 25)
Of the first commentators, Victorinus is the only one who did not cover
3:13 other than in passing. He moved directly from 3:10 to 3:20, treating the “curse
of the Law” in 3:13 as pertaining only to ceremonial rituals. However, at 2:20-21,
Victorinus understood plainly that Jesus chose to hand himself over on our
behalf in doing so liberated us from the Law, which yielded a different life
for the Christian. He saw the believer’s obedience to Christ as the only right
response due Christ; to do otherwise would be an ungrateful response “to the
one who did so much for me, who for my sake would put himself in the line of
fire in order to liberate me from my sins by taking their penalties upon
himself.” (I have chosen to borrow Cooper’s translation here given his use of
the idiom. See Cooper, Marius Victorinus, 285) Ambrosiaster went further
by saying that the death of Jesus was a voluntary death, an in doing so became
the curse needed to break the Law. He ended his commentary on that section by
reemphasizing the role that the element of free will played in Christ’s death,
by giving it the purpose of placing Jesus on our side against the devil.
The words Jerome used in this Galatians 3:13 showed a great and faithful
mind working to lay bare the authentic meaning of the Apostle—something he
plainly found difficult given Paul’s use of the LXX, a canonical interpretation
almost forbidding the usual Christian interpretation, and the abhorrent suggestions
established by Marcion. The amount of time and literary support he placed into
this section causes the reader to consider how much Jerome struggled internally
to determine the plain-sense reading of this single verse. Jerome split 3:13
into two sections, attaching the second clause to verse 14 in his examination.
For 3:13a, he recognized Marcion’s point but suggested Marcion held to this
view precisely because he did not understand the original meaning of εξαγοραζω and thus only saw the
vengeful demiurge, with the need to separate Jesus from this. Jerome went on to
explain that the curse the Law brought on us was not God’s doing, but was
spoken of in a prophetic manner, that the curse was God’s doing, but was spoken
of in a prophetic manner, that the curse was really a consequence of our
repeating what we have sown (Gal 6:7). Jerome, somewhat following contemporary
commentators, suggested Jesus became a curse (or a consequence) in order to
alleviate the curse (or consequence) of not following the Law. (This understanding
of curse as consequence fits into Jerome’s total theology of heaven as reward.
See O’Connell, Eschatology of Saint Jerome, 102-18)
While Jerome skillfully handled the first half of Galatians 3:13, it was
in 3:13b-14 where Jerome struggled to make ends meet. He began by acknowledging
the discrepancy between Galatians 3:13’s use of Deuteronomy and the various
Greek translations of Deuteronomy 21:22-23, namely the translation traditionally
ascribed to the seventy, one to Aquila, another Symmachus, and other to
Theodotion. (Later in the section, Jerome derides Symmachus’s translation,
seeing in it a chance for Jews to slander Christians. Jerome is not content
with this allusion in that particular translation of having blasphemy as the cause
of the execution and goes far into proving, via canonical examples [often times
creating logical pitfalls], that a mere hanging does not prove guilt) He
examined the differences in translations, attempting to reconcile them to the
original Hebrew. In one instance, Jerome quoted from a work no longer extant (Debate
of Jason and Papiscus) in attempting to understand why Paul left off a
phrase (“cursed by God”) that appeared in many of the Greek
translations, not to mention the Hebrew he know so well as a Pharisee. (This is
one of the many times Jerome uses Origen as a source. See Harnack, Der
kirchengeschichtliche Ertrag, 149. Given Jerome’s use of Origen, often
times without citation, the entire section could simply have as Origen the Alexandrian
teacher) Jerome seemed to acknowledge that this phrase was original to
Deuteronomy, but he followed his Jewish instructor in understanding the phrase
to mean the one hanged was to be viewed as if it were God hanging on the pole.
(Scheck, Jerome, 139) In the end, he surmised only two possibilities,
one that Paul wrote the sense of the words rather than the actual translation or
that “by God” was added to the original by the Jews intent on discrediting
Christianity. In the eyes of those who would investigate Jerome while so far
removed by the passage of time from the author, it would seem his struggle was
never fully satisfied, for in the end he simply justified the absence of “by
God” in Paul’s quote by referring to the appearance of stupidity of the entire
episode.
Augustine approached 3:13 plainly, seeing in this verse a suggestion
Jesus did not uphold the law entirely, leading him to be the “curse.” He wrote,
“For this reason, while close to granting freedom to believers, the Lord Jesus
Christ follow certain observances of the letter . . . and in doing so, incurred
the hatred of worldly people and received the punishment for those who did not
observe them so that he might set free all those who believe in himself.”
Augustine called this the sacramentum est libertatis, noting this verse
was received differently among Jews, pagans, and heretics—and even among
Christians, he contended, believe this was referring to Judas. The bishop of
Hipo then moved to read this verse through the lens of other Pauline passages
(such as Rom 6:6; 8:3). Unlike Jerome, who wrestled with textual issues,
Augustine has no time for such quibbles, and instead used his pastoral and
theological expertise to prove Jesus was lifted up as the culmination of the
events began by Moses in Numbers 21:9. For him, Jesus became a curse to end
curses, death, and sin, “Non igitur mirum, si de maledicto uicit maledictum,
qui uicit de morte mortem et de peccato peccatum, de perpente serpentem.
Maledicta autem mors, maledictum peccatum, maledictus serpens, et haec omnia in
cruce triupmphata sunt.” (Joel L. Watts, Jesus as Divine Suicide: The
Death of the Messiah in Galatians [Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications,
2019], 16-19)
