Hello Tony (
@tonychanyt), while much of your OP is excellent (IMHO
), I'm not sure that "
guardian" is the best translation in this context (at least, not in our modern understanding of the word anyway).
I was going to post excerpts from several commentaries, but they all seem to basically say the same thing about the meaning of
παιδαγωγός (
paidagogos) in v24, so here is an excerpt from one of them instead.
The Law Disciplines That It Might Set Free. Galatians 3:24 Paul now shifted his image of the law from that of a surly sergeant keeping watch over prisoners to that of the paidagōgos, a slave charged with the rearing and discipline of children. I have chosen to transliterate this word because none of the English equivalents adequately conveys what Paul had in mind. “Disciplinarian” (NAB, NRSV) comes closer than “custodian” (RSV), “tutor” (NEB), “schoolmaster” (KJV), “teacher and guide” (TLB). What was there about a paidagōgos that led Paul to use it as a metaphor for the law?
In ancient Greece and Rome wealthy parents often placed their newborn babies under the care of a wet-nurse who in turn would pass them on to an older woman, a nanny who would care for their basic needs until about the age of six. At that time they came under the supervision of another household servant, the paidagōgos, who remained in charge of their upbringing until late adolescence. The pedagogue took over where the nanny left off in terms of offering menial care and completing the process of socialization for his charge. For example, one of the functions of the pedagogue was to offer instruction in the basics of manners as this description from Plutarch reveals: “And yet what do tutors [hoi paidagōgoi] teach? To walk in the public streets with lowered head; to touch salt-fish but with one finger, but fresh fish, bread, and meat with two; to sit in such and such a posture; in such and such a way to wear their cloaks.” The pedagogues also offered round-the-clock supervision and protection to those under their care. In this regard Libanius described the pedagogues as guardians of young teenage boys who warded off unsolicited homosexual advances their charges regularly encountered in the public baths, thus becoming “like barking dogs to wolves".
No doubt there were many pedagogues who were known for their kindness and held in affection by their wards, but the dominant image was that of a ~harsh disciplinarian~ who frequently resorted to physical force and corporal punishment as a way of keeping his children in line. For example, a certain pedagogue named Socicrines was described as a “fierce and mean old man” because of his physically breaking up a rowdy party. He then dragged away his young man, Charicles, “like the lowest slave” and delivered the other troublemakers to the jailer with instructions that they should be handed over to “the public executioner.” The ancient Christian writer Theodoret of Cyrrhus observed that “students are scared of their pedagogues.” And well they might have been because pedagogues frequently accomplished their task by tweaking the ear, cuffing the hands, whipping, caning, pinching, and other unpleasant means of applied correction.
Thus, the metaphor of the law as pedagogue is colored by the preceding image of the prison guard. The unfortunate translation of paidagōgos as “schoolmaster” (KJV) has misled many preachers and exegetes to interpret this metaphor in terms of educational advance or moral improvement. As we shall see in Galatians 5–6, the law continues to have a vital role for every believer in the process of sanctification. However, that function is clearly not within the scope of Paul’s meaning here. The fundamental error of Pelagius was to see the law, and for that matter Christ himself, as an external standard given to human beings as an incentive for self-improvement. Paul has already shown the utter folly of this approach to justification. No, in Galatians 3 the law is a stern disciplinarian, a harsh taskmaster. Yet in its very harshness there is a note of grace, for the function of discipline, as opposed to mere torture, is always remedial.
“With its whippings,” Luther said, “the law draws us to Christ.”
This brings us to the primary purpose of the paidagōgos motif in Paul’s analogy. The law was “a strict governess” (Phillips), a stern baby-sitter (Dunn)—eis Christon. The preposition eis can have either a purposive, “unto Christ,” or a temporal, “until Christ,” meaning. The NIV opts for the former in its rendering of this text: “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ.” As we have just shown, this statement does ring true to the theological purpose of the law as Paul unfolded it in Galatians 3, so long as we do not misunderstand the “leading unto Christ” as a kind of gradual moral or educational development by which one was brought into right standing with God. In a proper sense the law does lead us to Christ not by weaning us from our sins but rather revealing them clearly and even causing them to be multiplied and increased to the point where we stand before God utterly void of any hope of self-reclamation. Yet this convicting, condemning, killing function of the law is not an end in itself but rather, as A. Schlatter once put it, “the silent preparation for the revelation of faith". ~New American Commentary, George, Timothy. (1994). Galatians (Vol. 30, p. 265). Broadman & Holman Publishers.
God bless you!!
--David
p.s. - you also spoke of the law having temporal limitations. I'd like to ask you a question or two about that, as well, but that will have to wait until my next post.
