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who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever! Amen.

Occasion of the Letter

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one[a] who called you by the grace of Christ[b] and are following[c] a different[d] gospel—

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Footnotes

  1. Galatians 1:6 sn The one who called you is a reference to God the Father (note the mention of Christ in the following prepositional phrase and the mention of God the Father in 1:1).
  2. Galatians 1:6 tc Although the majority of witnesses, including some of the most important ones (P51 א A B Fc Ψ 33 1175 1505 1739 1881 2464 M f vg syp bo), read “by the grace of Christ” (χάριτι Χριστοῦ, chariti Christou) here, this reading is not without variables. Besides alternate readings such as χάριτι ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (chariti Iēsou Christou, “by the grace of Jesus Christ”; D 326 1241s syh**) and χάριτι θεοῦ (chariti theou, “by the grace of God”; 327 Thretlem), a few mss and other witnesses (P46vid F* G Hvid ar b Tert Cyp Ambst Pel) have simply χάριτι with no modifier. Internally, the reading that seems best to explain the rise of the others is the shortest reading, χάριτι. Indeed, the fact that three different adjuncts are found in the mss seems to be a natural expansion on the simple “grace.” At the same time, the witnesses for the shortest reading are not particularly impressive, being that they largely represent one textual strand (Western), and a less-than-reliable one at that. Further, nowhere else in the corpus Paulinum do we see the construction χάρις (charis, “grace”) followed by Χριστοῦ without some other name (such as κυρίου [kuriou, “Lord”] or ᾿Ιησοῦ). The construction χάρις θεοῦ is likewise frequent in Paul. Thus, upon closer inspection it seems that the autographic wording here was χάριτι Χριστοῦ (for it is difficult to explain how this particular reading could have arisen from the simple χάριτι, in light of Paul’s normal idioms), with the other readings intentionally or accidentally arising from it.
  3. Galatians 1:6 tn Grk “deserting [turning away] to” a different gospel, implying the idea of “following.”
  4. Galatians 1:6 tn Grk “another.”