This is the middle stretch of the vice-catalogue announced at v. 19 (τὰ ἔργα τῆς σαρκός, ‘the works of the flesh’). Verse 19 gave three sexual items; v. 20 gives two cultic ones and then, abruptly, seven items of social fracture; v. 21 adds envy and drunken revelry and closes with the warning. The proportions are the point. Of the roughly fifteen items in the whole list, eight concern a community tearing itself apart — and Paul is writing to congregations he has just described as biting and devouring one another (5:15) and will warn about mutual provocation and envy (5:26).

So the catalogue is not a generic list of pagan sins transcribed from a Hellenistic-Jewish source and dropped in. It has been weighted. ἔχθραι, ἔρις, ζῆλος, θυμοί, ἐριθεῖαι, διχοστασίαι, αἱρέσεις name, in escalating sequence, the process by which a church becomes two churches: hostility → open quarrel → jealous rivalry → flares of temper → canvassing for support → the body standing in two places → hardened parties. That the sequence sits under the heading ‘works of the flesh’ is Paul’s sharpest move in the chapter: the Galatians’ factionalism over circumcision is not a doctrinal disagreement conducted in the Spirit. It is σάρξ.

The translation problems here are almost all lexical, and three of them are genuinely hard: φαρμακεία (sorcery, or poisoning, or both), ζῆλος (a word Paul uses of himself approvingly at 4:17-18 and Phil 3:6), and αἱρέσεις (a word later Christian usage has irreversibly loaded). A fourth is grammatical rather than lexical: the alternation of singular and plural across the list is not random and should not be levelled.

Proposed — pending reviewF. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982

The list alternates: εἰδωλολατρία (sg), φαρμακεία (sg), ἔχθραι (pl), ἔρις (sg), ζῆλος (sg), θυμοί (pl), ἐριθεῖαι (pl), διχοστασίαι (pl), αἱρέσεις (pl).

The pattern is intelligible. The singulars name a practice or disposition considered as such — idolatry, sorcery, strife, jealousy. The plurals individuate instances: particular outbreaks of hostility, particular flare-ups of temper, particular rivalries and splits and parties. This is the same distinction already fixed in the corpus for ἀσέλγεια (‘acts of debauchery’ where plural) and for οἰκτιρμοί (Hebrew plural of intensity reproduced mechanically).

The policy consequence: English must not regularize. ‘Enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, rivalry, dissension, faction’ reads more smoothly and destroys a feature of the text. The literal tier keeps ‘enmities … wraths,’ awkward as that is; the reading text carries the plurality by other means (‘hostilities,’ ‘outbursts of rage’).

One caution: the manuscript tradition wobbles on several of these numbers precisely because scribes felt the same pull toward uniformity. See the textual note.

Built onbdf · na28

Proposed — pending reviewHans Conzelmann and Andreas Lindemann, Interpreting the New Testament: An Introduction to the Principles and Methods of N.T. Exegesis, trans. Siegfried S. Schatzmann, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1988

Already fixed in the corpus glossary (at 1 Pet 4:3, where it stands in the plural): a Jewish-Christian coinage from εἴδωλον + λατρεία, with no currency in pagan Greek — unsurprisingly, since it takes an outsider’s standpoint to call one’s own cult ‘image-service.’ Rendered idolatry; there is no serious alternative.

The number differs from 1 Pet 4:3 (εἰδωλολατρίαις, discrete cult acts). Here the singular names the practice as such, and the rendering follows: ‘idolatry,’ not ‘idolatries.’

What is worth noting is its placement. In a letter arguing that Gentiles need not adopt Jewish identity markers, Paul opens the social half of his vice list with the two charges Hellenistic Judaism levelled at Gentiles above all others — idolatry and magic. He is not softening the pagan past of his readers (cf. 4:8, ‘you were slaves to those which by nature are not gods’). But neither is the list aimed only backward: what follows makes clear that the σάρξ Paul has in view is operating inside the assembly, now.

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The hard one. φάρμακον is a drug — remedy, potion, or poison, with no built-in moral charge; φαρμακεία is the practice of administering or compounding them. Three senses are live in the first century:

1. Sorcery, magic — the dominant biblical sense. In the LXX the φαρμακ- family renders the Hebrew vocabulary of the forbidden arts: Exod 7:11, 22 and 8:7 of the Egyptian magicians; Exod 22:17 (18) φαρμακούς οὐ περιποιήσετε; Isa 47:9, 12 of Babylon’s spells; Wis 12:4 and 18:13. Rev 9:21, 18:23, and 21:8 and 22:15 (φάρμακοι) keep the magical sense.
2. Poisoning — well attested in Greek legal and medical prose, and the Latin tradition preserves it: the Vulgate reads veneficia at Gal 5:20, a word that spans both poisoning and witchcraft.
3. Amulets, love-charms, drug-craft generally — the everyday practice documented abundantly in the magical papyri, which is where most first-century people would have encountered it.

Decision: render sorcery, on the strength of the LXX field and the pairing with εἰδωλολατρία immediately before, which sets a cultic frame. The study tier carries ‘(drug-craft)’ so the drug-root stays visible; the note records the poisoning reading rather than resolving it away. Reject ‘witchcraft’ outside declared liturgical register: modern English has attached it to early-modern European trial narratives and to contemporary self-designation, neither of which is the referent (§9). Reject ‘magic arts,’ which loses the concrete drug.

Built onbdag · muraoka-lxx

ἔχθραι — plural of ἔχθρα, the abstract noun to ἐχθρός (‘enemy,’ already fixed in the corpus glossary at Phil 3:18). Not merely a feeling of dislike but a standing state of hostility, the condition Christ’s cross abolishes at Eph 2:14-16 and which Rom 8:7 predicates of the σάρκινον φρόνημα toward God. The plural individuates: particular hostilities, not hostility in the abstract. Render enmities in the literal tier, hostilities in the reading text; avoid ‘hatred,’ which relocates the word from a relational state to an emotion (μῖσος).

ἔρις — the open quarrel, and already fixed in the glossary at Phil 1:15: strictly the fighting, kept lexically distinct from ἐριθεία (the factionalism behind it), which stands four words later in this same verse. The two are etymologically unrelated — ἔρις from the root of ‘quarrel,’ ἐριθεία from ἔριθος, a hired canvasser — and Paul’s placing them in one list within a few words makes the distinction load-bearing. Render strife.

ζῆλος — the genuinely awkward member. The corpus glossary already fixes it as zeal, object-determined and polarity-neutral: positive of Phinehas-style covenant zeal (Phil 3:6; Gal 1:14; Acts 22:3), negative of factional jealousy (1 Cor 3:3; 2 Cor 12:20; Jas 3:14, 16). Paul has just used the verb ζηλόω twice, at Gal 4:17-18, in a sense he does not condemn.

Decision: jealousy in the reading text, zeal retained in the literal tier, with the concordance link to 4:17-18 flagged. This is a declared deviation from the standing gloss, made on the ground that the list position is decisive and that the alternative renders the item unintelligible in English. Keep distinct from φθόνος (‘envy,’ fixed at Phil 1:15), which stands in the very next verse (φθόνοι, v. 21): ζῆλος wants what another has; φθόνος wants the other not to have it. If the two are collapsed in English, Paul’s stacking of them across vv. 20-21 becomes redundancy.

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θυμός in classical usage is the seat of passion generally; by the Koine period the dominant sense is hot anger, the flare that rises and passes. It must be kept lexically distinct from ὀργή, the settled and often judicial wrath — a distinction visible where the two stand together (Rom 2:8; Eph 4:31; Col 3:8; Rev 16:19; and abundantly in the LXX, e.g. Ps 77:49).

The plural here is instantial and should be rendered as such: outbursts of rage, not ‘anger.’ The corpus policy on instantial plurals (ἀσέλγειαι, εἰδωλολατρίαι) applies directly. ‘Fits of anger’ is acceptable in modern register; ‘wrath’ is reserved for ὀργή and belongs to liturgical register only. Avoid ‘passion,’ which retrojects the classical sense and in modern English suggests desire (that is ἐπιθυμία, v. 16, 24).

Note the trajectory this word sits in: ἔχθραι (a state) → ἔρις (a quarrel) → ζῆλος (a motive) → θυμοί (the flare-ups the quarrel produces) → ἐριθεῖαι (organized self-promotion) → διχοστασίαι, αἱρέσεις (the split, hardened). Paul is describing a mechanism, not shuffling synonyms.

Built onbdag · muraoka-lxx

The terminal three, and together they name the endpoint: a divided assembly.

ἐριθεῖαι — already fixed in the corpus glossary at Phil 2:3: rivalry / selfish ambition (factional self-seeking), from ἔριθος (‘hired canvasser’) and ἐριθεύομαι (‘canvass for office’), not from ἔρις. The word names self-seeking that generates party-spirit, which is why in a corporate-unity context the ‘rivalry’ pole is foregrounded. Plural: particular rivalries. Do not render ‘strife’ — that is ἔρις, five words earlier, and the reader must be able to see two different words.

διχοστασίαι — from δίς (‘twice’) + στάσις (‘standing’): a body standing in two places. NT only here, Rom 16:17, and (as a variant) 1 Cor 3:3. The image is live enough to keep, and dissensions preserves the standing-apart sense. Avoid ‘divisions’ as base gloss, which belongs to σχίσματα (1 Cor 1:10; 11:18) and would erase Paul’s choice of a different word.

αἱρέσεις — from αἱρέομαι, ‘choose for oneself’ (the middle already fixed at Phil 1:22). In first-century usage the noun names a party, school, or chosen position: Josephus uses it of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes as the three αἱρέσεις of Judaism, and Acts uses it of the Sadducees (5:17), the Pharisees (15:5; 26:5), and — on the lips of opponents — of the Christians themselves (24:5, 14; 28:22). It is sociological, not yet doctrinal.

Decision: factions, with ‘parties’ as an acceptable alternate and ‘heresies’ retained only in declared liturgical register with the anachronism flagged. Note also that αἵρεσις is the harder word of the pair: διχοστασία names the split as an event, αἵρεσις names the resulting group as an institution. The list ends where a divided church ends — with two organizations.

Built onbdag · bdf

Nine items, no connectives — asyndeton throughout, until καί joins the summarizing τὰ ὅμοια τούτοις at the end of v. 21. The corpus policy is already fixed (Phil 3:2; 4:8; Gal 4:10 for the contrasting polysyndeton): where Greek supplies no connective, English supplies none. Punctuate with commas.

The rhetorical effect is accumulation without ranking. Paul is not building an argument through the list; he is piling it up so that its weight — and specifically the weight of its social half — is felt. The later insertion of connectives in some witnesses and the smoothing habits of translators run against this, and both should be resisted.

Note also that the verse has no verb of its own. It continues the predicate of v. 19 (ἅτινά ἐστιν), and the verse division should not be allowed to turn one sentence into two. Any English rendering of v. 20 standing alone is a fragment, and correctly so.

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Proposed — pending reviewHans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia, Hermeneia, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979

NA28 prints the verse without a diamond, and no variant here affects the sense materially. Three points are worth recording, because all three show scribes pulling in the same direction — toward uniformity of number.

• εἰδωλολατρία: the plural εἰδωλολατρίαι appears in part of the tradition, assimilating to the surrounding plurals (and to 1 Pet 4:3). The singular is well supported and original.
• ἔχθραι: the singular ἔχθρα is read by some witnesses, again levelling.
• ζῆλος: the plural ζῆλοι is a substantial and widely attested variant, adopted by the Byzantine tradition and reflected in the older English translation tradition (‘emulations’). NA28 prints the singular. Internal evidence favors it: a scribe surrounded by θυμοί, ἐριθεῖαι, διχοστασίαι, αἱρέσεις had every reason to pluralize, and none to reduce a plural to a singular.

The convergent direction of all three variants is itself the argument for the printed text: the alternation of singular and plural is the harder reading and the one the transmission tried to smooth. §4 requires that the seam be shown rather than hidden — hence the retention of the awkward ‘enmities … strife … zeal … wraths’ in the literal tier.

One further note: φαρμακεία is spelled φαρμακία in a number of witnesses, an orthographic variation of the ει/ι type with no semantic weight.

Built onna28 · metzger-tc

The Latin tradition is instructive at two points and misleading at one.

Vulgate: idolorum servitus, veneficia, inimicitiae, contentiones, aemulationes, irae, rixae, dissensiones, sectae.

• idolorum servitus — ‘service of idols,’ an analytical rendering that unpacks the Greek compound rather than transliterating. Useful confirmation that εἰδωλολατρία was heard as λατρεία-toward-εἴδωλα.
• veneficia — holds both poisoning and witchcraft, and so preserves the φαρμακεία ambiguity better than any single English word. Named as evidence of an early translator’s judgment, not as decisive (§11).
• aemulationes for ζῆλος — ‘emulations, rivalrous imitations,’ and note that Jerome has a plural where the critical Greek text has a singular. This is the source of the older English ‘emulations,’ now opaque.
• sectae for αἱρέσεις — correctly sociological. The later English ‘heresies’ is a reception development, not a translation of Jerome.

The Syriac tradition likewise renders the last three items with words of party and division rather than of doctrinal error, which is further evidence that the doctrinal narrowing of αἵρεσις postdates the first century.

Built onmuraoka-lxx

Proposed — pending reviewBiblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, ed. Robert Weber and Roger Gryson, 5th ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007

The Greek commentators noticed the weighting of the list and drew the pastoral conclusion Paul intended.

Chrysostom, on Galatians, observes that Paul does not confine the ‘works of the flesh’ to bodily sins: he ranges anger, jealousy, and faction under the same heading, because σάρξ names not the body but a mode of willing that opposes the Spirit. That reading matters for translation: it blocks the drift toward rendering σάρξ as ‘body’ or ‘the physical’ (a drift the corpus glossary already forbids), and it explains why eight of the fifteen items concern the tongue and the assembly rather than the appetite.

Jerome, commenting on the same passage, takes sectae in the sense of chosen parties within the church and notes the connection to the Corinthian divisions — again, no doctrinal narrowing.

Both read the catalogue as addressed to the church rather than as an ethnography of paganism. This is the strongest external check on the exegetical decision taken above: the vices of v. 20 are what the Galatian congregations were doing, not merely what they had left behind.

Proposed — pending reviewJohn Chrysostom, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 13, ed. Philip Schaff, Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1889 · Jerome, Commentariorum in Epistolam ad Galatas Libri Tres, Patrologia Latina 26, ed. J.-P. Migne, Paris, 1845

The verse’s theological force is entirely a matter of its placement. Paul has spent four chapters arguing that circumcision is not required, and one paragraph (5:13-15) warning that freedom is not a licence for the flesh. Now, listing the ‘works of the flesh,’ he devotes the bulk of the list to the sins of a congregation in conflict.

The implication is severe and should not be softened. The Galatian dispute over Torah-observance was, in the participants’ own eyes, a matter of covenant fidelity — of ζῆλος in the honorable sense Paul once claimed for himself (Gal 1:14; Phil 3:6). Paul reclassifies it. Party-formation over the question, however theologically motivated, belongs on the same list as idolatry and sorcery, because it issues from σάρξ and not from πνεῦμα.

Two guardrails follow for the rendering. First, per §5, the list is translated at face value — neither softened (‘disagreements,’ ‘tensions’) nor sharpened (‘hatred,’ ‘heresies’). Second, per §9, αἵρεσις must not be given its later doctrinal sense: a text that condemns forming parties has been made to condemn believing wrongly, and the reversal is exactly backwards for a passage whose whole point is that the theologically confident faction is the one in danger.

The counterweight arrives two verses later in the singular καρπός of the Spirit (v. 22) — one fruit, listed in nine facets, over against the plural, fragmenting ἔργα of the flesh. The number contrast between ἔργα (pl.) and καρπός (sg.) is deliberate and is itself an argument about what unity is.

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Proposed — pending reviewJ. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 33A, New York: Doubleday, 1997