Even an Angel from Heaven

So certain people of this kind, wandering through provinces and cities and carrying their errors about for sale, had made their way to Galatia. When the Galatians heard them, they grew sick of the truth, vomited up the manna of apostolic and catholic doctrine, and took delight in the garbage of heretical novelty. Then the apostle exercised the authority of his office and delivered his sentence with the utmost severity: “Even if we,” he says, “or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any gospel other than the one we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” [a]

Why does he say “we”? Why not rather “I”? He means: “Even if Peter, even if Andrew, even if John, in a word, even if the whole company of the apostles should preach to you something other than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” Tremendous severity! He spares neither himself nor his fellow apostles, so that he may keep unaltered the faith that was first delivered. Nor is that all. He goes on: “Even if an angel from heaven should preach to you any gospel other than the one we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” To preserve the faith once delivered, it was not enough to have spoken of men; he had to take in angels as well. “Even if we,” he says, “or an angel from heaven.” Not that the holy angels of heaven are now capable of sinning. What he means is this: even if what cannot happen were to happen, if anyone, whoever he may be, tries to alter the faith delivered once for all, let him be accursed.

But perhaps he spoke this way at first without thinking, giving vent to human impulsiveness rather than speaking under divine guidance? Far from it. He follows up what he had said and presses it home with intense and repeated earnestness: “As we said before, so I say now again: if anyone preaches to you any gospel other than the one you received, let him be accursed.” He does not say, “If anyone delivers to you a message other than the one you received, let him be blessed, praised, welcomed.” No; he says, “let him be accursed,” anathema, that is, separated, set apart, shut out, so that the dreadful contagion of a single sheep may not, by mixing its poison among them, contaminate the innocent flock of Christ. [b]