Steven Carr

Was Paul blind?

Galatians 4:15 I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.

Why would Paul want anybody else's eyes, even if they were willing to have torn them out and have given them to him?

What is the standard commentary on this verse?

Ben C Smith

Have you forgotten the previous exchange on the thorn in the flesh? Commentators have suggested some sort of eye affliction as both the thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians and the weakness of the flesh in Galatians 4.13. I have also seen malaria suggested (which can apparently cause eye troubles), as well as other maladies not associated with the eyes (with 4.15 taken as mere hyperbole unrelated to the actual disease or whatever it may have been).

Ben.

Steven Carr

I probably did forget that passage about 'thorn in the flesh'

It can't be mere hyperbole surely. Unless the idea of giving others your eyes was some sort of idiom like we might say 'give you the shirt of my back'

But I can't see that as probable.

Ben C Smith

Nor do I, though I admit it is possible. I incline toward some kind of eye trouble, but would not be surprised if it turned out to be something completely different that I have not thought of. Paul clearly thinks that the Galatians already know about it, and so is not spelling it out for us. So we may never know.

Ben.

show_no_mercy

At the end of Galatians, Paul writes "see what large letters I write with my own hand!". One commentary I read said that he wrote in big letters at this point because he had eye trouble.

John Kesler

Paul may also have had epilepsy:

aa5874

Spiritually? Perhaps. Physically? Well if he was really blinded by some kind of bright light as found in Acts, maybe he never got his sight back.

Paul seems to have some kind of visual problem or problem with reality in Corinthians too.

2Cor 12:2 - Now, Paul can't talk?

I think you are on to something. Paul may have been blind in every way, even to the truth.

Solo

I do not think it was epilepsy even though complex partial seizures in the temporal lobe were likely involved. I think the problem of diagnosing Paul comes from taking the repeated descriptions of the Acts of Saul's comeuppance on the road to Damascus as an actual event from Paul's life. It is not and a careful reading of Paul's letters shows that the nearest "event" to the conversion experience of Saul comes in 2 Cor 12 :

2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.

3 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows--

4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

If you compare the Damascus road legend and Paul's own description of his experience 'in Christ' you will find a huge difference in phrasing. The ambush of Saul in Acts is definitely a traumatic episode. Christ is menacing, and intent on getting even with Saul for his misdeeds. He blinds him and presses him into service under extreme duress. This sort of episode of a sudden seizure as a result of a rapidly built up high stress is indeed typical of temporal lobe epilepsy. The post-seizure loss of sight is not normally a feature of a grand mal, but could be indicative of an unrelated issue.

In contrast, the experience Paul describes in 2 Cor is initially hugely pleasurable and produces visionary material as he ascends through the euphoric buildup. Gal 1:15 also supports the view that Paul's introduction to Christ was a pleasurable and satisfying event. A sudden arrival of grandiose, unprecedented, unprovoked euphoria in an adult, would in most cases point to manic excitement. So how would we ascertain that this was the case with Paul ? What should we be expecting Paul to tell us ?

First, mania has a counterpart in depression. The euphoria exhausts itself typically through a persecutory psychosis, in which the individual acts typically in a bizarre, erratical and chaotic manner, becoming completely disorganized. He or she is also grossly impaired cognitively. Some people in this state are completely helpless and dependent on care of others for survival. (For a good insight into the condition, try a biography of Virgina Woolf). So Paul, if he were frank about his experiences would be telling us something about the downhill trip from heaven. And he does: immediately after describing his elation as going to heaven, in 2 Cor 12:7 Paul announces:

And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated.

I have parsed Paul's letters for what the shrinks call 'bipolar' articulations, which either describe immediate extreme pleasure/grandeur or distress/anxiety/depression. I found many, so many in fact that I think I can comfortably defend my view that Paul and his band of brothers were bipolars.

Paul's dependency in his psychoses was pronounced and helped him build intimacy with his friends. He makes no excuses for his behaviour at Corinth or the origin of his gospel or his gnosis:

1 Cr 2:1- 5When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

When making his first contact at Corinth Paul was going through a psychotic episode with akinesia, and terror attacks. Please do note that Paul does not relate his 'fear and trembling' not to any external source of danger, but to his visionary experience, the presentation of psychosis being evidently the proof of its veracity. Now, please think - if his audience was not familiar with that something that Paul 'had', what would have been the chances Paul would have been dismissed as a fool and a blasphemer ?

Same thing in Galatia: Paul came preaching his gospel because of an illness. Was it malaria ? Would people with malaria be scorned or despised ? What kind of disease was and is scorned and despised ? Any ideas ?

No, Paul made himself sick again through Christ in what in his time would have been diagnosed by a competent physician of his time as excess of black bile. The Greeks called the condition 'melankholia'.

Paul was not blind either. He was aware and if not in control then accounting for his spells of madness and its side effects.

2 Cr 5:13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

So, in the context of Gal 4, Paul's remark about the Galatians plucking their eyes for him I read simply as a hyperbole for the bond he believes he has with them : have you forgotten ? I was sick and you would have given me a piece of your healthy selves to nurse me back to health.

Jiri