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[July 17th, 1519]
Itinerant as the King of the Romans was, Charles (unfortunately, he thought to himself,) found himself in Innsbruck. His presence had been required to resolve an issue regarding a tax in Tyrol and the resulting payments inflicted on the populace - an issue quickly resolved by only mild maneuvering - and now he laid over in the Kaiserliche Hofburg awaiting the day to break so he may set off on the road once more to his next task.
Charles had no love for Innsbruck. Not even a fraction of the love his grandfather held for the city. It was beautiful, certainly, the air crisp and clear, the hunting and fishing bountiful, but it could not be home. Too many bitter memories remained in this place for it to be a comfort to Charles. It was certainly no Burgundy, no Mechelen. Mechelen perhaps remained the only place in the Empire the young King could feel at peace. He was the King and yet it did not feel as if this was his Kingdom. Perhaps it was the language they spoke, brutish and unforgiving in its nature. Perhaps it was simply that he had not lived in Germany really at any point in his life - perhaps it was simply his grandfathers ire, so easily drawn, that spoiled the land for him so.
These ruminations continued for some time. Lost in thought, Charles was taken aback by what seemed to be the sudden appearance of Henry Tudor.
"A word, King Charles?"
"If one must be spoken."
The exiled Prince gave a short laugh. "No surprise to me that you wouldn't desire my company. Actually, that is precisely what I want to talk to you about." Henry, brash as he was, disregarded formality and took a seat near to Charles. "I cannot blame you for how you must think of me. I've heard how your grandfather treated you - I wish I could bestow upon you a morsel of his care he gave to me."
Charles stayed silent but looked at Henry with tepid interest. Where exactly was this going?
"It's only natural such a situation has given us ample reason to hate each other, but I came to you to offer an alternative." Henry extended his hand. "We have the same goals. We both wish to see my family restored to England, and we both wish for the Empire to be strong and for her enemies to be defeated." Henry paused, hand still outstretched. "My father and your grandfather were not dissimilar men. My father seemed to hate me - no ill towards my niece, yet had my father chosen me as heir, would England be lost to us? I think not."
Charles, reluctant for a moment, took Henry's hand and shook it. "You are right. We cannot allow the problems of the father to become the problems of the son. You were never the problem.. It was always him."
Henry gave Charles a smile, then dramatically leapt from his chair and knelt to the King. "As my liege and friend, then, I pledge to serve you faithfully and loyally until my time on this Earth is done, or my duty calls me to England." He rose to his feet, and gave Charles a salute. "If you need me, you know where I am."
With that, the Prince left the room and Charles to his thoughts, which turned now towards the positive; if nothing else in Innsbruck, he could find comfort in a friend.

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[←Chapter 52] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 54→]
Efrain woke, and with consciousness reasserting itself came a pain unlike any he’d ever experienced. It was a lugubrious sensation that stretched over the entirety of his body like a giant bruise. It took a further moment to remember that this was not normal, and in fact was quite alarming. He tried to gauge where he was, but found only blackness to greet him.
So I’m blind as well? He thought, with all the dispassionate annoyance of a man finding a favoured tool lost.
He could still feel his feet and fingers, wrapped in cloth as they were, so that was a comfort. Reaching for his head, he found the cold stone of the mask still there, though it lacked a lot of the curse that gave it its ‘hungry’ quality. Tugging it, he felt it resettle into a more natural position, and with it light came in to show his surroundings.
There was canvas arcing over a ribcage of wood, which rocked with every turn and bump in the rode. A gentle sunlight managed to penetrate the cloth, flickering with the passage of leaves. Efrain gripped the wooden frame and drew himself up to sit, trying to remember how he’d gotten here. His groan at the effort attracted the attention of Innie, who was sitting by the open slit near the front.
“Efrain?” she asked, hesitatingly.
“Yes, yes. It’s me,” he said, the words feeling foreign and slippery on his non-existent tongue.
“Efrain?” she asked again.
“Yes! Yes. It’s me. Here, somehow. What the hell happened?”
“You… you absolute fool!” she half-screamed, “you nearly got yourself killed!”
“I-” he said, the phrase ‘got yourself killed’ stirring something of a memory within. It was very distant, without much cohesion, like a memory of childhood. Still, there was enough there to remember some definite sensations, a sight and sound or two-
“You know what,” he said slowly, “I think I might’ve actually been dead, at least for a little bit,” he said, pulling at his hood.
“What?!” she gasped, “how could you possibly know that?”
“I was… somewhere else. I can barely remember, but it was so strange. I had my body again, I think, and it was…” he started trying to piece together the fragments flitting about the edge of recollection.
Her expression suggested that she was actively considering the potential that her partner had gone completely insane.
“It was someplace I don’t think I’ve ever been before, but it was still familiar,” he said, “I think I met somewhere there. Or multiple people. I definitely saw- there was something that-”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“It was- it was very strange,” he said, further efforts to find other words failing him, “well, in any case, I’m back. I think so, anyway.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been dashed against a cliffside,” he laughed, “I thought I wasn’t supposed to feel pain in this form. That was supposed to be one of the advantages.”
“You scared me. The only reason I didn’t think you were fully dead was that your bones retained their shape, even though you were unconscious.”
“Huh…” Efrain murmured, raising an arm to inspect it, “that shouldn’t be possible. The enchantments holding me together should’ve fallen apart as soon as I went under.”
After a cursory inspection to verify all of his limbs were present and more-or-less correct, he looked over at the cat.
“However it happened, it would appear that I’m not done yet,” he said slowly, only half-sure in the conviction.
There was something different about how he experienced himself, just in the background, but definitely there. It was a sense of disconnection, like he was floating just behind or above his body, experiencing what he did from an outside perspective.
“Well, I suppose that’s… good,” said Innie.
“Don’t cry too much for me,” he said, “anyways what happened? I don’t remember anything after the crypt, other than the fire.”
“We did it,” she said, “more-or-less, the creatures were largely incinerated, good riddance. Unfortunately a defender or two got caught up in the blaze, as well.”
“Oh dear,” Efrain said.
“Are you really surprised? It wasn’t our power, and we certainly didn’t know how to control it. I’m surprised we didn’t burn ourselves in the process.”
“Not an experience I would care to undergo again, that’s for sure.”
Innie’s shiver indicated that she thought much the same.
“Right, right,” he continued, “so then, how did we get from there to here, then? And where is here?”
“A wagon, travelling with the train of troops, heading south for Karkos. The commander offered you a slot, unconscious as you were.”
“I would’ve thought burning a few villagers would’ve soured his disposition.”
“Apparently not. Efrain, I don’t know this man, but he’s clearly playing his own game, and it involves you.”
“I see,” he said, tugging at his robe so that it hung around his shoulder more naturally, “I assume you acted on my behalf while I was… gone, for lack of a better word.”
“I did what I could, which wasn’t much. I was fully expecting them to fall upon us after that, especially you, defenceless. But no, he came to me and proposed that we come with him.”
“He… treated with you?”
“He said that we probably wouldn’t find much welcome among the villagers, and the paladins were not inclined to let us go either. His soldiers, on the other hand, would follow his orders, and he could personally guarantee our safety all the way to Karkos if we chose to come.”
“And you went with him,” Efriain sighed.
“What else was I supposed to do?” None of your ‘friends’ were nearby, and Naia was right about the villagers, to say nothing about the paladins. I don’t use money, nor would most treat a cat given the choice. Did you want me to drag you out into the wilderness and run into a wildling looking for a chew toy, or worse?”
“All right, allright,” he said, raising his hands to placate the wisp mother, “I don’t begrudge you anything. It sounds like you made the right choice.”
There was a silence, in which Efrain clearly perceived that Innialysia was apprehensive.
“Efrain he… and I want you to understand, even with all the things I said earlier, I was still going to refuse him. I didn’t and don’t trust him still but he told me that… that the River had told him that he needed us.”
The revelation was one that ran along his spine, and threw the captain into an entirely different light. Using the River’s words as a bargaining chip, or even just reassurance spoke to a knowledge of the magical world that far surpassed most in his lands. He must’ve known that Innie was loath to speak to the ignorant, and tempered his speech accordingly.
“Well, we’re at his mercy, for better or worse,” Efrain said, “where on the trail are we and how long have I been out?”
“Three nights, so roughly four days of travel,” she said, cocking her head, “I think that puts us two or three days from the city proper. I’m not sure, I’ve rarely come down this way.”
Efrain tried to recall the geography of the region, without much success. After a few minutes though, the aimless maps he drew in his head began to resolve with some clarity. They would be reaching the edge of the forests in a day or two, and entering the outlying highlands of the coast. From there, they’d rapidly come across the farmlands owned by the city that flanked its outskirts. The pain was beginning to subside now that he had started to move his limbs cautiously. To his joy, he could find no fault in them or their function, as far as he could tell.
“Well then,” he said “I guess I should meet with the commander and get a read on what he wants. Do you know where Tykhon is?”
“I think I saw it wandering behind the train, a far distance. It doesn’t want to get too close.”
The wagons had begun to slow, the light outside taking on a reddish hue as the sun began to dip. Obviously they were breaking for camp, which suited Efrain just fine. When they’d come to a full stop and Efrain drew himself up to go outside, he was taken aback by the sudden appearance of a face through the flap.
“Oh!” Aya said, in a half-squeak, “You’re awake!”
“I forgot to mention,” said Innie, “she’s been coming around every now and then.”
“Right, then, yes,” Efrain said, straightening, “how can I help you?”
“Well, I was just coming to chat with the madam,” she said.
“Madam?” Efrain said, looking at the cat who was conspicuously staring elsewhere.
“I didn’t realise that you were awake, I- I’ll just go and come back later. You probably have a lot on your mind,” said Aya, withdrawing through the break in the fabric.
“Well, that was a way to wake up,” said Efrain, listening to her footfalls fading into the distance, “right so… commander! Yes. Just need to get my bearings.”
Outside was slightly foggy, although Efrain gave much praise to gods he didn’t believe in that it wasn’t the unnatural, fear-laced apparition that had plagued them. The trees were less large and intimidating than the ancient northern conifers, the bowes of them dense and green. The breeze that wafted through them was noticeably warmer as well, though it still carried a northern chill.
“Right then,” Efrain said as he clambered down past the hitchings to the ground.
It didn’t take long to find a spirited young man, riding along behind them.
“Would you happen to know where your commander is?” Efrain said, erring on the side of politeness.
“Good evening lord Efrain,” he said, “the commander ordered you to be sent when you awoke. You’ll likely find him near the top of the line, or at the centre of camp, depending on how set up he is.”
He pointed up through the line of horses and various pages and servants. Most were beginning to set up tents and firepits, or leading the mounts to be tied off. Efrain thanked the man and set off in the direction he indicated, weaving between the various groups that were forming. It didn’t take long for him to find Naia’s small tent, the standard bearer in front alerting the commander within.
Naia sat before a small table, furiously scribbling at a scrap of parchment. At his left was Damafelce, still in her riding gear, though she was currently attacking a bowl of something creamy with vigour. Efrain stood in silence for a few moments, watching as the knight pointed out something to the commander and murmured a correction. Both of them looked up as he cleared his throat, and Naia issued one of his sly smiles.
“My, lord Efrain, a delightful surprise,” he said, “in truth, I was beginning to worry we’d lost you for good. It would be an ill thing to carry a rotting body around all the way down to Karkos. Damafelce, you are excused, although I would like you to have that talk with Lethsoco. He’s been getting too eager recently.”
She nodded, and draining the last of her bowl, departed from the room. Efrain was offered a small stool, which he gratefully sank into before the commander.
“I’m sorry if jumping into business immediately might not be to your tastes,” said Naia with a genuine note of regret in his voice, “but there’s some conflicting reports I simply must sort out.”
Efrain laid his elbows on the table and laced his fingers, waiting for the commander to begin.
“Some are from my own soldiers, some are from the paladins, some are from others. I personally have my own beliefs, but I think it’s better to hear it from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Would you mind telling me what happened after I rode away from the village?”
Efrain took a moment to gather himself, and piece together what spare memories he could, before beginning to relay the general account of what had happened. Over the course of the next half-hour, Naia interrupted him constantly, asking clarifying questions, or for more detail on this incident and that.
“Lillian told me that you attempted to burn down the church,” he said, “is that true?”
Efrain caught a distinct impression that the captain already suspected the truth, yet was encouraging him to proffer a lie.
“Well, I can understand why she might believe that,” he began diplomatically, “but no, that wasn’t my intent. The magic I was using was difficult to control, and I had to improvise quite a bit. Desperate times, desperate measures.”
“So the damage to the church was merely incidental,” Naia said, his eyes settling, “would that you could convince the paladins otherwise. They seem quite intent that you were trying to kill all of them.”
“I’m not holding out hope to curry favour with those two.”
“Implying that you might wish to do so elsewhere,” Naia said, the glimmer returning, “although I’ve had my fair share of headaches with those two, they’re more reasonable compared to others. They’re still young, they’ll probably settle with time and the right guidance.”
“They’ll have to learn not to be afraid of things they can’t control, if the children are any metric,” Efrain said, not interested in mincing words.
At that, Naia leaned forward, regarding Efrain with such intensity that the older man felt uncomfortable.
“‘Something they can’t control’...” he said, repeating the words with purpose, “but I do imagine you have some things to ask me, don’t you?”
“Several things,” Efrain said, “but I’ll stick with one for now. Why did you save me? Do you need me for something?”
Naia’s silence was full of purpose, cast in the shadows that flickering candles cast on his face. Without a word, he got up, and left through the front of the tent, exchanging words with the standard bearer outside. Efrain heard footsteps receding as Naia reappeared, sat down, and leaned in to lower his voice.
“I would say I believe I owe you a debt, or at least, that’s what I would say if you were stupid enough to believe that,” he said, “given I’ve already used that justification, I wouldn’t blame you if you were suspicious.”
Efrain leaned in himself, wondering where this apparent candidness had come from.
“If you really want to know, then the truth is simple,” he said, “I was taught from my earliest days that only a fool dismisses talent based on superstition. You might notice that many of my own ranks would be dismissed, if not outright laughed at by others. Damafelce, a knight, and what’s more a right-hand? A woman from the barbarous jungle of Nieth?”
He began to tap his quill on the desk.
“Tools, lord Efrain. I want, and have great need of them. I am not the paladins - my words on this parchment could command a garrison to be built, or a man to be cut down in his home. Creation, destruction, good, evil, all dependent on the whims of the wielder. Magic is the same.”
“And which variety would you prefer me to be?” Efrain asked.
“Both, as the need may take it. I did not get this far without being flexible, and neither will you,” said Naia, “and while we’re on the subject, let me offer you something.”
Efrain would’ve held his breath, but settled for stiffening to attention.
“I want you to come with me, to Karkos and beyond. I want you to serve under me, with all the obligations, and privileges, that implies.”
Efrain was struck genuinely speechless. He had, somewhere in the back of his mind, idly conjured the vision of such an offer, but it was a silly fantasy, not something to be believed, let alone desired.
“I understand if you are hesitant,” Naia said, spreading his hands, “but fate has dropped one opportunity into my lap, and I’m inclined to see if I can secure another. Call me greedy if you wish, but I was also taught to not let such things slip by.”
“I don’t- why would you-” Efrain began, trying to form a sentence to describe the whirlwind of shock within him.
“Consider this, Efrain - a young, up-and-coming commander with a good record. Rather unorthodox in his choices of subordinates, enough for some to whisper in the dark, enough even perhaps, to close off some opportunities for promotion.”
A smile flickered at the edge of his lips - he was clearly enjoying this pantomime.
“Now consider, that the man returns, safely bearing a paragon of the church, who’s been sought for over sixty years, through trial and tumult. His warriors and he are lauded for their ability and leadership, despite their odd origins. What could be in store for such a person? Respect, certainly, but what about promotion?”
“So, you want to be a general,” said Efrain.
Naia smiled and bowed his head, humbly presenting himself.
“And you need me because… why? Please don’t think I believe this whole screed on ‘talent’. You’re doing that to appeal to my own sensibilities about the church.”
Naia laughed openly at that, though it wasn’t the most pleasant sound.
“I see you’ll need more cajoling than that. There are other reasons a mage would be valuable to me, this is true. But I wasn’t lying about talent being valuable to me. All I ask is that you think about this offer, and if you’ll accept it, I’ll tell you the rest.”
Efrain sat in silence for a while, wondering at the strange offer. Listening to the wind whistling through the trees, his hand unconsciously crept up to scratch at his forehead. Naia was looking at him expectantly, perhaps hoping he’d jump into it impulsively to reveal the mystery, but Efrain was intent on gauging the motives of this man.
“You do know,” Efrain began, “that inferno up on the roof. It would be difficult, probably impossible to do it again. And, if I tried, there’s no guarantee it wouldn’t cause significant damage to your own side.”
“I guessed as much, and no, I wouldn’t expect a display like that,” Naia said with a wry smile, “you wouldn’t be of much use to me dead, Efrain.”
So he wants me alive to do something, something with magic? Or something else? Efrain thought. He began to think about what else had changed throughout the last few days, and tried to recall what exactly Naia would know from his reports.
Certainly he would probably have at least a neutral appraisal from his soldiers, but that couldn’t be it. And mages could be found to do all sorts of magical tasks, even in Angorrah, if one was willing to seek them out. So was it for some unique power or ability then? He had shown him the River, but that was also an accident. And he didn’t expect him to use the flames of the Wisp Matriarch, or so he said.
What did Efrain offer to Naia, something that he only, or at least only a few others, could offer him? What had changed the offer of cooperation from simple guidance to something more long-term and involved? Efrain furiously reflected over the last few days, and suddenly he had it.
And with that, a whole web opened up before him, glistening with many unknown strands.
“Commander, before I say anything, I would like to ask just three questions. Quick ones, I would think.”
“Please.”
“You are a commander, aren’t you? I was given to understand that they managed much larger forces than this company. Over whole regions, in fact. That would normally be your duties, no?
The man nodded.
“Usually up to a thousand, though circumstances demand otherwise on occasion. Still, this is the smallest force I’ve wielded for a while now. My trusted and favoured.”
“And tell me, the children, they’re usually guarded by a retinue of paladins, I would assume, back in the holy city?”
“Indeed. Dozens of them.”
Naia’s eyes were glittering.
“And you were heading to do what all that way up north?”
Efrain of course knew the answer to this question, but he needed the cover if he could get it.
“Subjugating a castle, filled with undead, or so the tales go,” he said, “they made quite a big deal of it, back in the castle.”
Efrain sat, slotting pieces into place as he studied the man’s face.
“There’s indeed something you’re not telling me, commander.”
“Oh?” Naia said.
It was a game to him, Efrain was sure of it. A game of guesses and knives in the dark.
“So,” he began, “the church talks up a mission to the far north, all the way across the continent. Some terrible beast, holed up in some old castle. Well, of course, they couldn’t finance a full contingent. Only a hundred measly men. No one wants to take the deal, I assume, so they offer something to sweeten the pot, a crusade, with the two most sacred figures of the church at the head.”
Naia offered the slightest nod and opened his mouth to speak.
“Only, that’s not the real reason,” Efrain quickly interjected, deciding to take his chances, “I was there at the Frozen Vale, laying to rest the evil spirit you claim. And there were undead, weak, of poor craft, but numerous. Enough to man the battlements effectively if the spirit so chose.”
The momentum of the lie carried him onwards to his conclusion.
“So, tell me, why did you have few men, no siege equipment, and little stores? And why were the two most important people in the faith there with two bodyguards between them?”
The darkness of Naia’s eyes reflected the candle, twin flickers of flame and serpentine consideration.
[←Chapter 52] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 54→]

Galatians  

The Gospel of Paul  

Paul can be forgiven for equating the destruction of Israel with the end of the world. Everyone who loves Israel wants to save her, the controversy between the Judaizers and Paul was over how to do it.  
From The Interpreters’ Bible:  
"Introduction  
-1. Occasion and Purpose  
Conservative preachers were persuading the Galatians that faith was not enough to make sure of God’s kingdom. Besides believing that Jesus was the Messiah, one must join the Jewish nation, observe the laws and customs of Moses, and refuse to eat with the Gentiles (2:11-14, 4:10). One must have Christ and Moses, faith and law. Paul insisted that it must be either Moses or Christ. (5:2-6). [Mind you, the congregations were literally segregated at meals according to whether the male members’ foreskins were circumcised; compare with the trouble regarding the allocations between the two groups of widows reported in Acts.]  
Not content with raising doubts concerning the sufficiency of Christ, the Judaizers attacked Paul’s credentials. They said that he had not been one of the original apostles, and that he was distorting the gospel which Peter and John and James the Lord’s brother were preaching. They declared that his proposal to abandon the law of Moses was contrary to the teaching of Jesus, and they insinuated that he had taken this radical step to please men with the specious promise of cheap admission to God’s kingdom (1:10). If he were allowed to have his way, men would believe and be baptized but keep on sinning, deluding themselves that the Christian sacraments would save them. Claiming to rise above Moses and the prophets, they would debase faith into magic, liberty into license, making Christ the abettor of sin (2:17). The Judaizers were alarmed lest Paul bring down God’s wrath and delay the kingdom. They had not shared the emotion of a catastrophic conversion like Paul’s, and they found it hard to understand when he talked about a new power which overcame sin and brought righteousness better than the best that the law could produce.  
Another party attacked Paul from the opposite side. Influenced by the pagan notion that religion transcends ethics and is separable from morality, they wanted to abandon the Old Testament and its prophetic insights. They could not see how Paul’s demand to crucify one’s old sinful nature and produce the fruit of the Spirit could be anything but a new form of slavery to law (2:19-20, 5:14, 2-24). They accused him of rebuilding the old legalism, and some said that he was still preaching circumcision (2:18; 5:11). Whereas the Judaizers rejected Paul’s gospel because they believed it contrary to the teaching of the original apostles, these antilegalists felt that he was so subservient to the apostles as to endanger the freedom of the Christian Movement.  
Actually Paul had risen above both legalism and sacramentarianism ... his faith was qualitatively different from mere assent to a creed (5:6). He was living on the plateau of the Spirit, where life was so free that men needed no law to say ‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Thou shalt not’ (5:22-24). But this rarefied atmosphere was hard to breathe, and neither side could understand him. The conservatives were watching for moral lapses… and the radicals blamed him for slowing the progress of Christianity by refusing to cut it loose from Judaism and its nationalistic religious imperialism.” (Stamm, TIB 1953, vol. X pp. 430)  
Paul’s defense of his gospel and apostleship was the more difficult because he had to maintain his right to go directly to Christ without the mediation of Peter and the rest, but had to do it in such a way as not to split the church and break the continuity of his gospel with the Old Testament and the apostolic traditions about Jesus and his teaching. …  
To this end Paul gave an account of his relations with the Jerusalem church during the seventeen years that followed his conversion (1:11-2:14). Instead of going to Jerusalem he went to Arabia, presumably to preach (1:17). After a time he returned to Damascus, and only three years later did he go to see Peter. Even then he stayed only fifteen days and saw no other apostle except James the Lord’s brother (1:18-20). Then he left for Syria and Cilicia, and not until another fourteen years had passed did he visit Jerusalem again. This time it was in response to a revelation from his Lord, and not to a summons by the authorities in the Hoy City.  
Paul emphasizes that neither visit implied an admission that his gospel needed the apostolic stamp to make it valid. His purpose was to get the apostles to treat the uncircumcised Gentile Christians as their equals in the church (2:2). Making a test case of Titus, he won his point (2:3-5). The apostles agreed that a Gentile could join the church by faith without first becoming a member of the synagogue by circumcision. … They … recognize[d] that his mission to the Gentiles was on the same footing as theirs to the Jews – only he was to remember the poor (2:7-10). So far was Paul from being subordinated that when Peter came to Antioch and wavered on eating with the Gentile Christians, Paul did not hesitate to rebuke him in public (2:11-14). (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X pp. 430-431)  
Paul’s defense of his apostolic commission involved the question: What is the seat of authority in religion? A Jewish rabbi debating the application of the kosher laws would quote the authority of Moses and the fathers in support of his view. Jewish tradition declared that God delivered the law to Moses, and Moses to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the men of the Great Synagogue, and that they had handed it down through an unbroken rabbinical succession to the present. If Paul had been a Christian rabbi, he could have treated the Sermon on the Mount as a new law from a new Sinai, which God had delivered to Jesus, and Jesus to Peter, and Peter to Paul, and Paul to Timothy and Titus, and so on through an unbroken apostolic succession until the second coming of Christ. Instead of taking his problems directly to this Lord in prayer, he would ask, ‘What does Peter say that Jesus did and said about it?’ And if Peter or the other apostles happened not to have a pronouncement from Jesus on a given subject, they would need to apply some other saying to his by reasoning from analogy. This would turn the gospel into a system of legalism, with casuistry for its guide, making Jesus a second Moses – a prophet who lived and died in a dim and distant past and left only a written code to guide the future. Jesus would not have been the living Lord, personally present in his church in every age as the daily companion of his members. That is why Paul insisted that Christ must not be confused or combined with Moses, but must be all in all.  
The Judaizers assumed that God had revealed to Moses all of his will, and nothing but this will, for all time, changeless and unchangeable; and that death was the penalty for tampering with it. The rest of the scriptures and the oral tradition which developed and applied them were believed to be implicit in the Pentateuch as an oak in an acorn. The first duty of the teacher was to transmit the Torah exactly as he had received it from the men of old. Only then might he give his own opinion, which must never contradict but always be validated by the authority of the past. When authorities differed, the teacher must labor to reconcile them. Elaborate rules of interpretation were devised to help decide cases not covered by specific provision in the scripture. These rules made it possible to apply a changeless revelation to changing conditions, but they also presented a dilemma. The interpreter might modernize by reading into his Bible ideas that were not in the minds of its writers, or he might quench his own creative insights by fearing to go beyond what was written. Those who modernized the Old Testament were beset with the perils of incipient Gnosticism, while those who, like the Sadducees, accepted nothing but the written Torah could misuse it to obstruct social and religious progress. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 431-432)  
To submit to circumcision would have betrayed the truth of the gospel because it contradicted the principle that all is of grace and grace is for all (2:5). Perpetuated in the church of Christ, the kosher code and other Jewish customs would have destroyed the fellowship. Few things could have hurt the feelings and heaped more indignity upon the Gentiles than the spiritual snobbery of refusing to eat with them.  
The tragedy of division was proportional to the sincerity of men’s scruples. The Jews were brought up to believe that eating with Gentiles was a flagrant violation of God’s revealed will which would bring down his terrible wrath. How strongly both sides felt appears in Paul’s account of the stormy conference at Jerusalem and the angry dispute that followed it at Antioch (2:1-14). Paul claimed that refusal to eat with a Gentile brother would deny that the grace of Christ was sufficient to make him worthy of the kingdom. If all men were sons of God through Christ, there could be no classes of Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (3:26-28). What mattered was neither circumcision not uncircumcision, but only faith and a new act of creation by the Spirit (5:6; 6”15). (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 433)  
Church unity was essential to the success of Christian missions. Friction between Aramaic and Greek-speaking Jewish Christians in Palestine had to be eliminated (Acts 6:1). The death of Stephen and a special vision to Peter were required to convince the conservatives of the propriety of admitting the Gentiles on an equality with the Jews; and even Peter was amazed that God had given them the same gift of the Spirit (Act 11: 1-18). This hesitation was potentially fatal to the spread of Christianity beyond Palestine. Many Gentiles had been attracted by the pure monotheism and high morality of Judaism but were not willing to break with their native culture by submitting to the painful initiatory rite and social stigma of being a Jew…. Had the church kept circumcision as a requirement for membership, it could not have freed itself from Jewish nationalism.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 433)  
III. Some Characteristics of Paul’s Thinking  
… “the law” of which Paul is speaking does not coincide with “law” in a twentieth-century state with representative government. His Greek word was νομος [nomos], an inadequate translation of the Hebrew “Torah,” which included much more than “law” as we use the term. [When “תורה ThORaH” appears in the text I translate it as “Instruction” – its literal definition - capitalized.] Torah was teaching on any subject concerning the will of God as revealed in the Scriptures. Since the Jews did not divide life into two compartments labeled “religious” and “secular,” their law covered both their spiritual and their civil life. Nor did Paul and his fellow Jews think in terms of “nature” and the “natural law.” They believed that everything that happened was God’s doing, directly or by his permission. The messiah was expected to restore the ancient theocracy with its power over both civil and religious affairs.  
The Gentiles too were accustomed to state regulation of religion and priestly control of civil affairs. The Greek city-states had always managed the relations of their citizens with the gods, and Alexander the Great prepared the way for religious imperialism. When he invaded Asia, he consolidated his power by the ancient Oriental idea that the ruler was a god or a son of God. His successors, in their endless wars over the fragments of his empire, adopted the same device. Posing as “savior-gods,” they liberated their victims by enslaving them. The Romans did likewise, believing that the safety of their empire depended upon correct legal relations with the gods who had founded it. … Each city had its temple dedicated to the emperor, and its patriotic priests to see that everyone burned incense before his statue. Having done this, the worshiper was free under Roman ‘tolerance’ to adopt any other legal religion. … Whether salvation was offered in the name of the ancient gods of the Orient, or of Greece, or of the emperor of Rome, or of Yahweh the theocratic king of the Jews, the favor of the deity was thought to depend upon obedience to his law.  
One did not therefore have to be a Jew to be a legalist in religion. … Since Paul’s first converts were drawn from Gentiles who had been attending the synagogues, it is easy to see how Gentile Christians could be a zealous to add Moses to Christ as the most conservative Jew.  
This is what gave the Judaizers their hold in Galatia. The rivalry between the synagogue, which was engaged in winning men to worship the God of Moses, and the church, which was preaching the God who had revealed himself in Christ Jesus, was bound to raise the issue of legalism and stir up doubts about the sufficiency of Christ.  
Gentile and Jewish Christians alike would regard Paul’s preaching of salvation apart from the merit acquired by obedience to law as a violently revolutionary doctrine. Fidelity to his declaration of religious independence from all mediating rulers and priesthoods required a spiritual maturity of which most who heard his preaching were not yet capable. … Paul’s gospel has always been in danger of being stifled by those who would treat the teachings of Jesus as laws to be enforced by a hierarchy. (Stamm, TIB 1953, X pp. 434-435)  
V. Environment of Paul’s Churches in Galatia  
The conclusion concerning the destination of the epistle does not involve the essentials of its religious message, but it does affect our understanding of certain passages, such as 3:1 and 41:12, 20.  
From the earliest times that part of the world had been swept by the cross tides of migration and struggle for empire. The third millennium found the Hittites in possession. In the second millennium the Greeks and Phrygians came spilling over from Europe, and in the first millennium the remaining power of the Hittites was swept away by Babylon and Persia. Then came the turn of the Asiatic tide into Europe, only to be swept back again by Alexander the Great. But the Greek cities with which he and his successors dotted the map of Asia were like anthills destined to be leveled by Oriental reaction.  
About 278 B.C. new turmoil came with the Gauls, who were shunted from Greece and crossed into Asia to overrun Phrygia. Gradually the Greek kings succeeded in pushing them up into the central highlands, where they established themselves in the region of Ancyra. Thus located, they constituted a perpetually disturbing element, raiding the Greek cities and furnishing soldiers now to one, and now to another of the rival kings. Then in 121 B.C. came the Romans to 'set free' Galatia by making it a part of their own Empire. By 40 B.C. there were three kingdoms, with capitals at Ancyra, Pisidian Antioch, and Iconium. Four years later Lycaonia and Galatia were given to Amyntas the king of Pisidia. He added Pamphylia and part of Cilicia to his kingdom. But he was killed in 25 B.C., and the Romans made his dominion into the province of Galatia, which was thus much larger than the territory inhabited by the Gauls. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 437-438)  
War and slavery, poverty, disease, and famine made life hard and uncertain. In religion and philosophy men were confused by this meeting of East and West. But man’s extremity was Paul’s opportunity. The soil of the centuries had been plowed and harrowed for his new, revolutionary gospel of grace and freedom.  
Not all, however, were ready for this freedom. The old religions with prestige and authority seemed safer. Most Jews preferred Moses, and among the Gentiles the hold of the Great Mother Cybele of Phrygia was not easily shaken. Paul’s converts, bringing their former ideas and customs with them, were all too ready to reshape his gospel into a combination of Christ with their ancient laws and rituals. The old religions were especially tenacious in the small villages, whose inhabitants spoke the native languages and were inaccessible to the Greek-speaking Paul. To this gravitational attraction of the indigenous cults was added the more sophisticated syncretism of the city dwellers, pulling Paul’s churches away from his gospel when the moral demands of his faith and the responsibilities of his freedom became irksome. This was the root of the trouble in Galatia. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 438)  
VI. Date and Place of Writing  
Some consider it the earliest of Paul’s extant letters and place it in 49 … In support of this date it is said that Paul, who had come from Perga by boat, was met by messengers from Galatia, who had taken the shorter route by land. They reported the disturbance which had arisen in his churches soon after his departure. He could not go back immediately to straighten things out in person, because he saw that he would have to settle the matter first in Jerusalem, whence the troublemakers had come. So he wrote a letter.  
But … [w]e do not know that the trouble in Galatia was stirred up by emissaries from the church in Jerusalem … Moreover, this solution overlooks the crux of the issue between Paul and the legalists. His contention was that neither circumcision nor the observance of any other law was the basis of salvation, but only faith in God’s grace through Christ. … On the matter of kosher customs, as on every other question, he directed men to the mind and Spirit of Christ, and not to law, either Mosaic or apostolic. That mind was a Spirit of edification which abstained voluntarily from all that defiled or offended.  
We may say that the situation [in Galatia] was different – that in Macedonia it was persecution from outside by Jews who were trying to prevent Paul’s preaching, whereas in Galatia it was trouble inside the church created by legalistic Christians who were proposing to change his teaching; that in one case the issue was justification by faith, and in the other faithfulness while waiting for the day of the Lord.  
The letter to the Romans, written during the three months in Greece mentioned in Acts 20:2-3, is our earliest commentary on Galatians. In it the relation between the law and the gospel is set forth in the perspective of Paul’s further experience. The brevity and storminess of Galatians gives way to a more complete and calmly reasoned presentation of his gospel. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 438 - 439)  
At Corinth, as in Galatia, Paul had to defend his right to be an apostle against opponents heartless enough to turn against him the cruel belief that physical illness was a sign of God’s disfavor … and they charged him with being a crafty man-pleaser … He exhorts his converts to put away childish things and grow up in faith, hope and love…  
Most childish of all were the factions incipient in Galatia, and actual in Corinth … He abandoned the kosher customs and all other artificial distinctions between Jews and Gentiles and laid the emphasis where it belonged – upon the necessity for God’s people to establish and maintain a higher morality and spiritual life… He substituted a catholic spirit for partisan loyalties ... (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 440-441)  
VII. Authorship and Attestation  
If Paul wrote anything that goes under his name, it was Galatians, Romans, and the letters to Corinth. … F.C. Baur and his followers tried to show that the letters ascribed to Paul were the product of a second-century conflict between a Judaist party and the liberals in the church, and that they were written by Paulinists who used his name and authority to promote their own ideas.  
[But] the earliest mention of the epistle by name occurs in the canon of the Gnostic heretic Marcion (ca. [approximately] 144). He put it first in his list of ten letters of Paul. A generation later the orthodox Muratorian canon (ca. 185) listed it as the sixth of Paul’s letters. … While the first explicit reference to Galatians as a letter of Paul is as late as the middle of the second century … the authors of Ephesians and the Gospel of John knew it; and Polycarp in his letter to the Philippians quoted it. Revelation, I Peter, Hebrew, I Clement, and Ignatius show acquaintance with it; and there is evidence that the writer of the Epistle of James knew Galatians, as did the authors of II Peter and the Pastoral epistle, and Justin Martyr and Athenagoras. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 441-442)  
VIII. Text and Transmission  
Although the epistle was composed neither carelessly nor hastily, the anxiety and emotional stress under which Paul dictated his cascading thoughts have produced some involved and obscure sentences … and a number of abrupt transitions… These have been a standing invitation to scribal clarification. … Paul’s debate with his critics takes the form of a diatribe, which is characterized by quotations from past or anticipated objectors and rapid-fire answers to them. Paul did not use quotation marks, and this accounts for the difficulty in 2:14-15 of deciding where his speech to Peter ends. The numerous allusions to person and places, events and teachings, with which Paul assumed his readers to be acquainted, are another source of difficulty. All theses factors operated to produce the numerous variations in the text of Galatians." (Stamm, 1953, TIB p. 442)  
From Adam Clarke’s Commentaryⁱ :  
"The authenticity of this epistle is ably vindicated by Dr. Paley: the principal part of his arguments I shall here introduce …  
'Section I.  
As Judea was the scene of the Christian history; as the author and preachers of Christianity were Jews; as the religion itself acknowledged and was founded upon the Jewish religion, in contra distinction to every other religion, then professed among mankind: it was not to be wondered at, that some its teachers should carry it out in the world rather as a sect and modification of Judaism, than as a separate original revelation; or that they should invite their proselytes to those observances in which they lived themselves. ... I … think that those pretensions of Judaism were much more likely to be insisted upon, whilst the Jews continued a nation, than after their fall and dispersion; while Jerusalem and the temple stood, than after the destruction brought upon them by the Roman arms, the fatal cessation of the sacrifice and the priesthood, the humiliating loss of their country, and, with it, of the great rites and symbols of their institution. It should seem, therefore, from the nature of the subject and the situation of the parties, that this controversy was carried on in the interval between the preaching of Christianity to the Gentiles, and the invasion of Titus: and that our present epistle ... must be referred to the same period.  
… the epistle supposes that certain designing adherents of the Jewish law had crept into the churches of Galatia; and had been endeavouring, and but too successfully, to persuade the Galatic converts, that they had been taught the new religion imperfectly, and at second hand; that the founder of their church himself possessed only an inferior and disputed commission, the seat of truth and authority being in the apostles and elders of Jerusalem; moreover, that whatever he might profess among them, he had himself, at other times and in other places, given way to the doctrine of circumcision. The epistle is unintelligible without supposing all this. (Clarke, 1831, vol. II p. 361)  
Section VII.  
This epistle goes farther than any of St. Paul’s epistles; for it avows in direct terms the supersession of the Jewish law, as an instrument of salvation, even to the Jews themselves. Not only were the Gentiles exempt from its authority, but even the Jews were no longer either to place any dependency upon it, or consider themselves as subject to it on a religious account. "Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto faith which should afterward be revealed: wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but, after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Chap. [chapter] iii. 23-25) This was undoubtedly spoken of Jews, and to Jews. … What then should be the conduct of a Jew (for such St. Paul was) who preached this doctrine? To be consistent with himself, either he would no longer comply, in his own person, with the directions of the law; or, if he did comply, it would be some other reason than any confidence which he placed in its efficacy, as a religious institution. (Clarke, 1831, vol. II pp. 366-367)  
Preface  
The religion of the ancient Galatae was extremely corrupt and superstitious: and they are said to have worshipped the mother of the gods, under the name of Agdistis; and to have offered human sacrifices of the prisoners they took in war.  
They are mentioned by historians as a tall and valiant people, who went nearly naked; and used for arms only a sword and buckler. The impetuosity of their attack is stated to have been irresistible…’” (Clarke, 1831, vol. II p. 369)  
From The New Jerome Biblical Commentaryⁱⁱ  
"Introduction  
The Galatai, originally an Indo-Aryan tribe of Asia, were related to the Celts or Gauls (“who in their own language are called Keltae, but in ours Galli”) ... About 279 BC some of them invaded the lower Danube area and Macedonia, descending even into the Gk [Greek] peninsula. After they were stopped by the Aetolians in 278, a remnant fled across the Hellespont into Asia Minor …  
Occasion and Purpose  
… He … stoutly maintained that the gospel he had preached, without the observance of the Mosaic practices, was the only correct view of Christianity … Gal [Galatians] thus became the first expose` of Paul’s teaching about justification by grace through faith apart from deeds prescribed by the law; it is Paul’s manifesto about Christian freedom.  
... Who were the agitators in Galatia? … they are best identified as Jewish Christians of Palestine, of an even stricter Jewish background than Peter, Paul, or James, or even of the ‘false brethren' (2:4) of Jerusalem, whom Paul had encountered there. (The account in Acts 15:5 would identify the latter as ‘believers who had belonged to the sect of the Pharisees.’) … The agitators in Galatia were Judaizers, who insisted not on the observance of the whole Mosaic law, but at least on circumcision and the observance of some other Jewish practices. Paul for this reason warned the Gentile Christians of Galatia that their fascination with ‘circumcision’ would oblige them to keep ‘the whole law’ (5:3). The agitators may have been syncretists of some sort: Christians of Jewish perhaps Essene, background, affected by some Anatolian influences. … (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 1990, TNJBC pp. 780-781)   END NOTES
ⁱ The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The text carefully printed from the most correct copies of the present Authorized Version. Including the marginal readings and parallel texts. With a Commentary and Critical Notes. Designed as a help to a better understanding of the sacred writings. By Adam Clarke, LL.D. F.S.A. M.R.I.A. With a complete alphabetical index. Royal Octavo Stereotype Edition. Vol. II. [Vol. VI together with the O.T.] New York, Published by J. Emory and B. Waugh, for the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the conference office, 13 Crosby-Street. J. Collord, Printer. 1831.  
ⁱⁱ The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Edited by Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Union Theological Seminary, New York; NY, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. (emeritus) Catholic University of America, Washington, DC; Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm. (emeritus) The Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, NC, with a foreword by His Eminence Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, S.J.; Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1990  
  Chapter One  
…  

Tiding of [בשורת, BeSOoRahTh, Gospel] one
[verses 6-10]  

…  

…………………………………………  
How [כיצד, KaYTsahD] was [היה, HahYaH] Shah`OoL [“Lender”, Saul, Paul] to become a Sent Forth [Apostle]
[verses 11 to end of chapter]  

…  
Chapter Two  

Sending forth of Shah’OoL required upon hands of the Sent Forth
[verses 1-10]  

…  

…………………………………………  
The YeHOo-DeeYM [“YHVH-ites”, Judeans] and the nations, righteous from inside belief
[verses 11 to end of chapter]  

...
-16. And since [וכיון, VeKhayVahN] that know, we, that [כי, KeeY] the ’ahDahM [“man”, Adam] is not made righteous in realizing commandments [of] the Instruction [Torah, law],
rather in belief of the Anointed [המשיח, HahMahSheeY-ahH, the Messiah, the Christ] YayShOo`ah [“Savior”, Jesus],
believe, also we, in Anointed YayShOo`ah,
to sake we are made righteous from inside belief in Anointed,
and not in realizing commandments [of] the Instruction,
that yes, in realizing commandments [of] the Instruction is not made righteous any [כל, KahL] flesh.  

“As a Pharisee, Paul had been taught that works of law were deeds done in obedience to the Torah, contrasted with things done according to one’s own will. The object of this obedience was to render oneself acceptable to God – to ‘justify’ oneself. Having found this impossible, Paul reinforced the evidence from his own experience by Ps. [Psalm] 143:2, where the sinner prays God not to enter into judgment with him because in God’s sight no man living is righteous. Into this passage from the LXX [The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible] Paul inserted ‘by works of law,’ and wrote σαρξ [sarx], ‘flesh,’ instead of ζων [zon], ‘one living.’ This quotation warns us against setting Paul’s salvation by grace over against Judaism in such a way as to obscure the fact that the Jews depended also upon God’s lovingkindness and tender mercies (I Kings 8:46; Job 10:14-15; 14:3-4; Prov. [Proverbs] 20:9; Eccl. [Ecclesiasticus] 7:20; Mal. [Malachi] 3:2; Dan. [Daniel] 9:18).” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 483)  
“Justified is a metaphor from the law court. The Greek verb is δικαιοω [dikaioo], the noun δικαιοσουνη [dikaiosoune’], the adjective δικαιος [dikaios]. The common root is δικ [dik] as in δεικνυμι [deiknumi], ‘point out,’ ‘show.’ The words formed on this root point to a norm or standard to which persons and things must conform in order to be ‘right.’ The English ‘right’ expresses the same idea, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘richt,’ which means ‘straight,’ not crooked, ‘upright,’ not oblique. The verb δικαιοω means ‘I think it right.’ A man is δικαιος, ‘right’ when he conforms to the standard of acceptable character and conduct, and δικαιοσυνη, ‘righteousness,’ ‘justice,’ is the state or quality of this conformity. In the LXX these Greek words translate a group of Hebrew words formed on the root צדק [TsehDehQ], and in Latin the corresponding terms are justifico, justus, and justificatio. In all four languages the common idea is the norm by which persons and things are to be tested. Thus in Hebrew a wall is ‘righteous’ when it conforms to the plumb line, a man when he does God’s will.  
From earliest boyhood Paul had tried to be righteous. But there came a terrible day when he said ‘I will covet’ to the law’s ‘Thou shalt not,’ and in that defiance he had fallen out of right relation to God and into the ‘wrath,’ where he ‘died’ spiritually… Thenceforth all his efforts, however strenuous, to get ‘right’ with God were thwarted by the weakness of his sinful human nature, the ‘flesh’ (σαρξ) [sarx]. That experience of futility led him to say that a man is not justified by works ‘of law.’” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 483)  

[Actually Paul changed his point of view as a result of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, not as a result of intellectual contemplation. His many failures hitherto had not led him to this conclusion. The description of Paul in the preceding paragraph is a fiction.]  

“In the eyes of the psalmists and rabbis this was blasphemously revolutionary. Resting on God’s covenant with Abraham, they held it axiomatic that the ‘righteous’ man who had conscientiously done his part deserved to be vindicated before a wicked world; otherwise God could not be righteous. … In Judaism God was thought of as forgiving only repentant sinners who followed their repentance with right living …  
The theological expression for this conception of salvation is ‘justification by faith.’ Unfortunately this Latin word does not make plain Paul’s underlying religious experience, which was a change of status through faith from a wrong to a ‘right’ relationship with God… It conceals from the English reader the fact that the Greek word also means ‘righteousness.’ … (observe the ASV [American Standard Version] mg. [marginal note], ‘accounted righteous’).  
But ‘reckoned’ and ‘accounted’ expose Paul’s thought to misinterpretation by suggesting a legal fiction which God adopted to escape the contradiction between his acceptance of sinners and his own righteousness and justice.  
On the other hand, Paul’s term, in the passive, cannot be translated by ‘made righteous’ without misrepresenting him. In baptism he had ‘died with Christ’ to sin. By this definition the Christian is a person who does not sin! And yet Paul does not say that he is sinless, but that he must not sin. … This laid him open to a charge of self contradiction; sinless and yet not sinless, righteous and unrighteous, just and unjust at the same time. Some interpreters have labeled it ‘paradox,’ but such a superficial dismissal of the problem is religiously barren and worse than useless.  
The extreme difficulty of understanding Paul on this matter has led to a distinction between ‘justification’ and ‘sanctification,’ which obscures Paul’s urgency to be now, at this very moment, what God in accepting him says he is: a righteous man in Christ Jesus. Justification is reduced to a forensic declaration by which God acquits and accepts the guilty criminal, and sanctification is viewed as a leisurely process of becoming the kind of person posited by that declaration. This makes perfection seem far less urgent than Paul conceived it, and permits the spiritual inertia of human nature to continue its habit of separating religion from ethics. To prevent this misunderstanding it is necessary to keep in mind the root meaning of ‘righteousness’ in δικαιοω and its cognates.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 484-485)  

-19. I died according to [לגבי, LeGahBaY] the Instruction, because of [בגלל, BeeGLahL] the Instruction, in order [כדי, KeDaY] that I will live to God.  

“… The Pharisees taught that the Torah was the life element of the Jews; all who obeyed would live, those who did not would die (Deut. [Deuteronomy] 30:11-20).” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 488-489)  

-20. With the Anointed I was crucified, and no more I live, rather the Anointed lives in me.
The life that I live now in flesh, I live them in the belief of Son [of] the Gods that loved me and delivered up [ומסר, OoMahÇahR] himself in my behalf [בעדי, Bah`ahDeeY].  

“The danger was that Paul’s Gentile converts might claim freedom in Christ but reject the cross-bearing that made it possible. Lacking the momentum of moral discipline under Moses, which prepared Paul to make right use of his freedom, they might imagine that his dying and rising with Christ was a magical way of immortalizing themselves by sacramental absorption of Christ’s divine substance in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The church has always been tempted to take Paul’s crucifixion with Christ in a symbolic sense only, or as an experience at baptism which is sacramentally automatic. It has also been tempted to reduce Paul’s ‘faith’ to bare belief and assent to his doctrine, and to equate his ‘righteousness’ with a fictitious imputation by a Judge made lenient by Christ’s death.  
Against these caricatures of ‘justification by faith,’ Paul’s whole life and all his letters are a standing protest. He never allows us to forget that to be crucified with Christ is to share the motives, the purposes, and the way of life that led Jesus to the Cross; to take up vicariously the burden of the sins of others, forgiving and loving instead of condemning them; to make oneself the slave of every man; to create unity and harmony by reconciling man to God and man to his fellow men; to pray without ceasing ‘Thy will be done’; to consign one’s life to God, walking by faith where one cannot see; and finally to leave this earth with the prayer ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’  
… When Christ the Spirit came to live in Paul … Paul was guided at each step, in each new circumstance, to answer for himself the question: What would Jesus have me do? And the answer was always this: Rely solely on God’s grace through Christ, count others better than yourself, and make yourself everybody’s slave after the manner of the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.  
… The phrase εν σαρκι [en sarki] … means, lit. [literally], in the flesh. Someday – Paul hoped it would be soon – this would be changed into a body like that of the risen Christ, which belonged to the realm of Spirit.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 490-493)  
“Christ lives in me: The perfection of Christian life is expressed here … it reshapes human beings anew, supplying them with a new principle of activity on the ontological¹ level of their very beings.” (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 1990, TNJBC p. 785)  

-21. I do not nullify [מבטל, MeBahTayL] [את, ’ehTh (indicator of direct object; no English equivalent)] mercy [of] Gods;
is not if [it] is possible to become righteous upon hand of the Instruction, see, that the Anointed died to nothing [לשוא, LahShahVe’]?  

“It is not I, he says, who am nullifying the grace of God by abandoning the law which is his grace-gift to Israel, but those who insist on retaining that law in addition to the grace which he has now manifested in Christ.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 495)

  Footnotes   ¹ Ontological - relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being  
An Amateur's Journey Through the Bible

Hi guys, I have stumbled across Insurgency this week as I’ve been looking for alternatives to Call of Duty (finding it a bit boring now) and insurgency looks like the one. I have a PS5 and I’m based in the UK. Is there enough players at the moment to warrant buying the game? I don’t want to buy it and find there’s not many online! Thanks

Hello,
So for context, I was medically retired in the navy after 8 years of active duty. Since I am under 20 years of service I am only entitled to my VA compensation and not my retirement pay as my VA compensation is the higher of the two. All was fine for the first couple months and I got my VA payments as normal.
Now yesterday, I received $7,000 from DFAS for back pay of my “retirement pay”. Okay I call DFAS, they say they have no issues on their end even when I tell them im getting VA compensation. They tell me to maybe call the VA.
I then call the VA, the send me a letter of proof that DFAS was notified 3 months ago that I am receiving VA compensation. I then call back DFAS, and they said they still see no issues.
Knowing DFAS I feel as though this will go on for a while and I will get some debt letter in like 2 years owing 10s of thousands.
I will not spend the money. I documented all of my calls with both agencies and have the letter that the VA notified DFAS. Would I be protected if they come after me since I made attempts to fix an issue and they said they see no problems?

Hi guys, I have stumbled across Insurgency this week as I’ve been looking for alternatives to Call of Duty (finding it a bit boring now) and insurgency looks like the one. I have a PS5 and I’m based in the UK. Is there enough players at the moment to warrant buying the game? I don’t want to buy it and find there’s not many online! Thanks

Hello,
So for context, I was medically retired in the navy after 8 years of active duty. Since I am under 20 years of service I am only entitled to my VA compensation and not my retirement pay as my VA compensation is the higher of the two. All was fine for the first couple months and I got my VA payments as normal.
Now yesterday, I received $7,000 from DFAS for back pay of my “retirement pay”. Okay I call DFAS, they say they have no issues on there end even when I tell them im getting VA compensation. They tell me to maybe call the VA.
I then call the VA, the send me a letter of proof that DFAS was notified 3 months ago that I am receiving VA compensation. I then call back DFAS, and they said they still see no issues.
Knowing DFAS I feel as though this will go on for a while and I will get some debt letter in like 2 years owing 10s of thousands.
I will not spend the money. I documented all of my calls with both agencies and have the letter that the VA notified DFAS. Would I be protected if they come after me since I made attempts to fix an issue and they said they see no problems?

I think both these rappers are incredibly talented, like top-tier lyricists, and also both are extremely arrogant in their own ways.
If I remember this correctly, it started when Royce called out Lupe's name in Line in the Sand (Bar Exam 4.) For a long time, Lupe was in Royce's IG comments hinting at wanting to collaborate. He even asked to be a part of Slaughterhouse after Joe left, if I remember correctly (maybe someone can confirm.)
Anyway, fast forward to their Youtube show together and I feel like Lupe was plotting this revenge for a while now. As for the beef, I'm not picking sides in terms of whose fault it is, but Royce clearly didn't want to battle, and Lupe's been itching to battle someone for years (like when he agreed to battle Mos Def for fun.)
With that said, IMO Lupe's track was a better diss record, but I listen to Royce's song more often.

As the title states The last 8 years of my 12 years of employment with this company the verbal expectation was set on me that even if I am on lunch I should be available to work, take calls, answer emails, etc while I was clocked out for my duty free meal period.
I am hourly and my former manager was the one who initially started abusing this by coming out while I was on lunch and talking shop or literally asking me to do something while I was clocked out. When I mentioned that this was abusive I was verbally reprimanded and told that this was the expectation of working here. I started leaving company property for my meals and started receiving phone calls to discuss work from my former manager.
The manager retired from the company but the expectation from the rest of the company has remained. I dont have any written communications of these expectations as proof, however at least once a year i am verbally reminded of this “going above and beyond” expectation.
My question is if i were to quit/ be terminated what sort of proof would be needed to discuss a case with a lawyer? The only physical proof was back in 2012 i filled a complaint with HR about this exact same issue from a different manager.

In 1996, I began volunteering to help those who had been raped in the Military file claims to get VA benefits. These claims were different than other VA claims since the majority of the Evidence (if any) had been sanitized, and the vast majority of Veteran Service Officers were not trained in how to do these claims correctly.
As much as I disliked veterans and military groups, these were the best venues to find people who needed my services.
I worked closely with Senator Patty Murray's office, and called to see if I could get tickets to the Army Birthday Ball in Washington DC. They said that they were unable to get one for me, and offered other venues to contact to see if I could get one. None were available.
Our local Goodwill has a special day in November called the Glitter Sale. All party dresses and accompanying accoutrement were out for this sale. I carefully spent $19.99 on a long silk beaded gown.
Since I was in D.C. for a Women Veterans conference, I packed that puppy in my suitcase for my off duty adventure.
The conference had some much paperwork, I ended up bringing my suitcase and filled it up. During lunch break, I crafted my "propaganda" as I loved to call it, "Raped in the Military? Do you know you can be compensated for PTSD if you have it? Contact our website."
Others had commented at the conference that they actually wanted to go to the Army Ball, but heard that they entire facility was surrounded by busses and armed guards, and there was absolutely no way to get in. Friends warned me to not even try.
At the end of the day, I put on my "costume" and found out that I needed, unfortunately, to lug my suitcase with me. Not a good look, since security was at an all time high in Washington DC.
I arrived at the venue, saw the wagon train of busses and armed guards, said hello to them and broke the perimeter. I needed to go up the two escalators to the Security Checkpoint, to hand over my ticket, and found it unmanned. Check. Got inside, and while I am no fashionista, I did cringe at the yellow gingham tiered and ruffled dress with bouffant hair, micro miniskirts on 50+year old women and many styles of dress I had seen since the 70's and 80's. To prove that I got in, I had one of the Formal Photos taken, the only one I had in the military since Basic Training.
I continued my mission of placing information to help those who had been sexually assaulted in the phone booths, restrooms and more private areas in the facility filled with about 5,000 men and women.
Once my suitcase was empty, I left via the front door, never to be seen at another Military Birthday Ball.

'Totairiku' is a new Worldbuilding project that seeks to combine Indian, Japanese, and other Asian cultures in a Medieval Fantasy Game of Thrones styled world.
Introducing the Nerabudi Clan!
As vassals to the Ulara Clan (The Archipelago Daimyo), the Nerabudi Clan resides in the Serpent Tower. Their founding story is one of love & duty.
Motto: “Shields in the Darkness” and “Always Watching”
Residence: The Serpent Tower by the Wanryu Straits leading into Wanryu Lagoon, protecting Shuri City and the Red Serpent Palace of the Ulara Clan (Daimyo of the Archipelago)
History: The Nerabudi Clan is known to be an offshoot of the Ulara Clan, related by the blood of a male ancestor. The son of the Queen of the Archipelago at the time, Jomo Ulara, had expressed his desire to marry a common girl of Shuri City. His parents disapproved of this due to their plans to marry him to a princess of the Timura Clan. Thus, they gave him the ultimatum of either fulfilling his duties to the family or being disowned if he were to go through with the marriage. He was heartbroken in having to decide between duty and love, but ultimately chose love. Knowing of his responsibilities, he decided to begin his own vassal-house called ‘Nerabudi’ (the Heballian-Goghullian word for ‘Balance’), and erected a castle tower on an island in the center of the Wanryu straits. Doing his best to fulfill his duties, this castle tower protected the inhabitants of the lagoon (including his relatives of the Ulara Clan) from the region’s infamous pirates by keeping a watchful eye day and night.
Entry through the straits is limited to the gates in the two thick walls connecting the Serpent Tower to the edges of the lagoon. The Nerabudi Clan has repelled invaders and protected the Wanryu Lagoon for centuries.
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Greetings all!
Just dive right into this, I’m not sure what I’m looking for outside of a fun conversation maybe some flirting? Whatever comes organically from that I’m all for!
About me;
I did the whole typical American dream thing I was told. I got good grades, I played sports, I went to college, I got the degree and now I have the desk job of my dreams and I make a comfortable living. Im realizing every day that I’d much rather work for myself and start my own business which is a goal I hope to attain this year.
Im an avid gamer, I grew up on Call of Duty in my teens/early 20s (no I don’t shout obscenities constantly at random people). As I got older I transitioned to MMOs and sports games to relax. I’ve played WoW for years, I currently play FFXIV and I’ve tried a few others that never held my interest.
I love being outdoors as well, which is an oxymoron for most gamers but I do enjoy it. I love nature and taking it in. As long as it doesn’t involved running I’m all for it. I am in decent shape but I’m not like a body builder or anything.
I love to laugh and not take life too seriously, I feel like there’s already enough of that in the world so I try to be carefree and laidback whenever possible.
I drink socially, I don’t smoke and I’ve never done any drugs. Pretty boring huh? Lol.
As far as attraction goes, because let’s face it that’s part of this; I’ve mainly dated outside my race my entire life (Caucasian). Not saying it’s an automatic no or anything because beauty is in the eye of the beholder yeah? Or something like that. That’s just how my relationships have gone throughout my life.
If any of this sounds appealing to you, feel free to reach out! I’ll reply to everyone who takes the effort to reach out as I know that’s not easy for some people, myself included. That’s why I’m making this post and not looking through the posts lol.
Have a great day!

Greetings all!
Just dive right into this, I’m not sure what I’m looking for outside of a fun conversation maybe some flirting? Whatever comes organically from that I’m all for!
About me;
I did the whole typical American dream thing I was told. I got good grades, I played sports, I went to college, I got the degree and now I have the desk job of my dreams and I make a comfortable living. Im realizing every day that I’d much rather work for myself and start my own business which is a goal I hope to attain this year.
Im an avid gamer, I grew up on Call of Duty in my teens/early 20s (no I don’t shout obscenities constantly at random people). As I got older I transitioned to MMOs and sports games to relax. I’ve played WoW for years, I currently play FFXIV and I’ve tried a few others that never held my interest.
I love being outdoors as well, which is an oxymoron for most gamers but I do enjoy it. I love nature and taking it in. As long as it doesn’t involved running I’m all for it. I am in decent shape but I’m not like a body builder or anything.
I love to laugh and not take life too seriously, I feel like there’s already enough of that in the world so I try to be carefree and laidback whenever possible.
I drink socially, I don’t smoke and I’ve never done any drugs. Pretty boring huh? Lol.
As far as attraction goes, because let’s face it that’s part of this; I’ve mainly dated outside my race my entire life (Caucasian). Not saying it’s an automatic no or anything because beauty is in the eye of the beholder yeah? Or something like that. That’s just how my relationships have gone throughout my life.
If any of this sounds appealing to you, feel free to reach out! I’ll reply to everyone who takes the effort to reach out as I know that’s not easy for some people, myself included. That’s why I’m making this post and not looking through the posts lol.
Have a great day!

Taking various increments of surged VET wasn’t good enough for our modern day slave drivers.
Our site is now calling for full shift MET, which is very draconian of our Sr.Ops, all at the stroke of a mouse click; Forcing every one of us to be here while they’re in the cozy comfort of their homes and families, far detached from the frontlines of the Fulfillment Center.
We are more than just numbers; We are relied upon by our families and we have duties to upkeep outside of Amazon. We all have our lives to live and responsibilities to uphold, my time and energy is far more valuable to me than to be ripped away at the hands of an L7+ at a moments notice without consent.
Mandatory Extra Time isn’t right, it’s actually an awful concept and we should never have to put up with it being imposed. If Amazon actually cared about us as people, it should have been abolished when Flex/Surges came into play.
With a union backing us, overtime would always be voluntary and surged. We need to speak up against the corporation and current practices. We need to unify together now more than ever.

Background: I have been at my company for nearly 5 years; company size is less than 100 people. I came in as an experienced Mechanical claims adjuster, moved up to claims supervisor, then to claims Manager over that department. About 6mo in I was taking over the IT duties for that dept. At the time we were going like a weed so it was simply setting up new workstations and registering the system on the domain, nothing hard. In 2021 they fired the guy that was handling their IT support. They have an MSP that handles 1 firewall, MS partner, and endpoint AV.
I took over IT support duties late 2021 + being Claims manager (over 50 people). My IT duties included everything from user support to reviewing/approving IT related service bills. I am even reviewing vendor contracts as our needs grow or shrink. My pay contract was structured as 35hrs Claims + 5 hrs IT = 40hrs for a base salary of $56k, I could pull up to 12hrs per week for additional IT time at a different hourly rate. I pulled over $62k for 2022 under this pay scale.
After March 2023, that claims department is no longer, our partner was going a different direction for claims adjudication and did not renew our contract.
I have been in limbo since March as to what the company wants to do with me. Right now it looks like they are wanting me to stay in my seat to take claim calls (as a claims supervisor) plus IT manager at the base pay of $56k (salary), no option for OT or additional IT pay like last contract.
Reality check: I see this is I am performing the job of IT Manager, as a one man shop. I do not want to do claims anymore. I feel that $56k is low pay for IT Manager, am I smoking crack thinking this?

People who refuse to talk are killing this game. The whole point of hll in the beginning was a hard-core milsim style shooter. Not call of duty. So sick of every squad no one is talking. Leadership chat is dead 80% of the time. It is killing the game off, slowly but none the less killing it.