a virgin life, pass the bounds of the Law, but not in the same direction; the one is led away to the worse, the other is elevated to the better; the one transgresses the Law, the other 40 transcends it. Thus Paul says that Christ hath removed the yoke from you, not that ye may prance and kick, but that though without the yoke ye may proceed at a well-measured pace. And next he shows the mode whereby this may be readily effected; and what is this mode? he says, Ver. 13. “But through love be servants one to another.”133 Here again he hints that strife and party-spirit, love of rule and presumptousness, had been the causes of their error, for the desire of rule is the mother of heresies. By saying, “Be servants one to another,” he shows that the evil had arisen from this presumptuous and ar- rogant spirit, and therefore he applies a corresponding remedy. As your divisions arose from your desire to domineer over each other, “serve one another;” thus will ye be reconciled again. However, he does not openly express their fault, but he openly tells them its corrective, that through this they may become aware of that; as if one were not to tell an immodest person of his immodesty, but were continually to exhort him to chastity. He that loves his neighbor as he ought, declines not to be servant to him more humbly than any servant. As fire, brought into contact with wax, easily softens it, so does the warmth of love dissolve all arrogance and presumption more powerfully than fire. Wherefore he says not, “love one another,” merely, but, “be servants one to another,” thus signifying the intensity of the affec- tion. When the yoke of the Law was taken off them that they might not caper off and away another was laid on, that of love, stronger than the former, yet far lighter and pleasanter; and, to point out the way to obey it, he adds; Ver. 14. “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Seeing that they made so much of the Law, he says, “If you wish to fulfill it, do not be circumcised, for it is fulfilled not in circumcision but in love.” Observe how he cannot forget his grief, but constantly touches upon what troubled him, even when launched into his moral discourse. Ver. 15. “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” That he may not distress them, he does not assert this, though he knew it was the case,134 but mentions it ambiguously. For he does not say, “Inasmuch as ye bite one another,” nor again does he assert, in the clause following, that they shall be consumed by each other; but “take heed that ye be not consumed one of another,” and this is the language of apprehension 133 [“An ingenious juxtaposition of ‘freedom’ and brotherly ‘service’ in that freedom,”—Meyer. “Ye were called for ‘freedom,’ but through love make yourselves willing ‘bond-servants’ to each other.”—G.A.] 134 [See Lightfoot, Introduction, p. 39. Note 3.—G.A.] 79 Galatians 5:1