Augustine of Hippo : "So that I should not run or have run in vain" we should understand to be addressed as if in a question, not to those with whom he compared his gospel in private but to those to whom he was writing, so that it might appear that he was not running and had not run in vain from the fact that by the testimony of the others he was certified not to dissent from the truth of the gospel. — EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 10 [1B.2.1-2] Gaius Marius Victorinus : That is, those through whom the commandments and gospel of God were being handed down, such as apostles and the rest. "To these men," he says, "I privately explained my gospel, which I preach among the Gentiles, so that if there was anything that they were handing on otherwise, they could correct it or could emend anything that I myself was handing on otherwise. This therefore was the cause of my going up to Jerusalem, and for this reason it was revealed to me that I should go up, so that it might be more readily known that my gospel to the Gentiles and their gospel to the Jews were the same." Now the purpose of his expounding it privately was that shame might be taken from among them, and they might communicate to one another the mysteries that they knew. Since they all shared one opinion and one gospel, what was it that he labored to persuade them of? That they should not add anything new or join anything to it. That is the cause of the present sin of the Galatians in following Judaism and the practice of circumcision, the sabbath and other things. — EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 1.2.2 Gaius Marius Victorinus : "So that I should not run or have run in vain." That is [he says], "lest I should fail to preach a full gospel. For if I have preached anything less, I have run in vain or I now run in vain." — EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 1.2.2 Jerome : What he says [about meeting privately] could be understood as meaning that the grace of evangelical liberty and the obsolescence of the law that was now abolished was discussed in confidence with the apostles on account of the many Jewish believers who were not yet able to hear that Christ was the fulfillment and end of the law. And these men, when Paul was absent, had boasted in Jerusalem that he was running and had run in vain when he supposed that the old law was not to be followed. — EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 1.2.1-2 John Cassian : Who could be so presumptuous and blind as to dare to trust his own judgment and discretion, when the vessel of election bears witness that he needs the partnership of his coapostles? — CONFERENCES 2.15 John Damascene : At the beginning, when he received the Gospel, he did not go up, nor did he put this to the Apostles. For, having learned from Christ, he did not need their teaching. As the time went by, however, and while he was teaching the nations the Gospel without circumcision, some became scandalized, since those around Peter did not dismiss circumcision, whereas he was alone in dismissing it. Thus, because the Holy Spirit wished to cut out this scandal of the others, ordered him to come up with witnesses and to put it to the Apostles that he preaches without circumcision, so that they too may join him and this scandal for human beings might be dissolved. Oecumenius : "I went up by revelation." And why, for that reason, did he not entrust them at the outset, but only after so many years? Since many, seeing those around Peter permitting circumcision while Paul did not permit it, were scandalized as though there were disagreement in the preaching, the Holy Spirit revealed to him his ascent to Jerusalem, so that those who were being scandalized might be persuaded that there was no disagreement in the preaching, but rather a dispensation in favor of permitting circumcision. "and I laid before them the gospel." This is, I have shared, I have taken counsel with them. "which I preach." Apart from circumcision. "but privately." Since those of the Jews who had believed in Jerusalem were being offended if anyone forbade circumcision, and Paul's preaching removed it, so that it might keep them from being scandalized, he entrusted the preaching to them privately. [PHOTIUS] Why privately? So that, without drawing attention first of all, I might not scandalize those newly converted by circumcision, and therefore absolutely prepare them to fall away from the faith of Christ, and destroy my course, and show my struggle and my zeal to have been in vain. For how is it not vain to run and have run, when, running to save, I again destroy others through thoughtless exactness? How then now, and publicly I am convicted; that it was progress, and that even certain principles dared to shape the administration. Or the "for fear that" may also be said as a question, as a confirmation of the fact that I do not run or have run in vain, but that I acted in all things with safety and foresight. [end of the excerpt by Photius] "To those who seemed." The phrase, "to those who seemed," does not deny the existence of the leading men around Peter, but rather, as one might say, to those who are something, to those who are foremost. "in case I might be running or had run in vain." For not that I might learn, "in case I might be running or had run in vain," or that I ran (for I knew from the revelation of Christ the exactness of the preaching); but that those who cause rebellion, implying the men around Peter, might learn that I do not run or have run in vain. — Commentary on Galatians Polycarp of Smyrna : I exhort you all, therefore, to yield obedience to the word of righteousness, and to exercise all patience, such as ye have seen [set] before your eyes, not only in the case of the blessed Ignatius, and Zosimus, and Rufus, but also in others among yourselves, and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles. [This do] in the assurance that all these have not run in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and that they are [now] in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered. For they loved not this present world, but Him who died for us, and for our sakes was raised again by God from the dead. — Epistle to the Philippians 9 Tertullian : There would be still wanted that Gospel which St. Paul found in existence, to which he yielded his belief, and with which he so earnestly wished his own to agree, that he actually on that account went up to Jerusalem to know and consult the apostles, "lest he should run, or had been running in vain; " in other words, that the faith which he had learned, and the gospel which he was preaching, might be in accordance with theirs. — Against Marcion Book IV Tertullian : For their rudimentary belief, which was still in suspense about the observance of the law, deserved this concessive treatment, when even the apostle himself had some suspicion that he might have run, and be still running, in vain. Accordingly, the false brethren who were the spies of their Christian liberty must be thwarted in their efforts to bring it under the yoke of their own Judaism before that Paul discovered whether his labour had been in vain, before that those who preceded him in the apostolate gave him their right hands of fellowship, before that he entered on the office of preaching to the Gentiles, according to their arrangement with him. — Against Marcion Book V