The Law as "Schoolmaster"

Gal. 3:24 (KJV) Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

On the "Interactive Bible's" web site we are informed that this is an "undisputable" error in translation, and that the proper rendering is "attendant" because "the law was the one who brought us to Christ, not taught us about Christ." The foundation of this objection is not very clearly stated, but from other sources we can piece it together; a footnote in the New Berkeley Version states that the Greek word paidagogos (which is in Strong's Concordance as G3807) signifies "a man, usually a slave, who guided a boy to and from school."

However, the following expositors explain the passage in a manner that supports the KJV's rendering, understanding the law as having to do with teaching us, not only with bringing us to Christ:

"It [the law] was designed to train us up for Christ. And this it did both by its commands, which showed the need we had of his atonement; and its ceremonies, which all pointed us to him." (--John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on the New Testament.)
"It was the design and effect of the law to kill. This is true, so far as the work of salvation is concerned, of the law in all its forms, whether the moral law as revealed in the Scriptures, or as written in the heart, or as the Mosaic law. In all these forms it was designed to bring men to the knowledge of sin and helplessness; to produce a sense of guilt and misery, and a longing for redemption, and thus be a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. Galatians 3:24. This was a necessary office, and therefore glorious. But how can it compare with the gospel?" (--Charles Hodge, Commentary on 2 Corinthians, re: 3:7-8.)
" . . . the church, considered as a complex body, was in a state of pupilage and minority under the old dispensation; and the law served as a 'schoolmaster,' or tutor, to instruct it in the introductory lessons of religious knowledge, by many hard tasks and burdensome restraints, imposed with much salutary severity . . . . As therefore, children are glad to be released from the confinement and discipline of a school; so believers should welcome the liberty and privileges of the gospel . . . ." (--Thomas Scott's Commentary.)

Some other translations seem closer to supporting the KJV's "schoolmaster" than the rendering "attendant":

"The Law was used to lead us to Christ. It was our teacher, and so we were made right with God by putting our trust in Christ." (Gal. 3:24, Gleason Ledyard's "New Life Version.")
"The Law was like a strict tutor in charge of us until we went to the school of Christ and learned to be justified by faith in him. Once we have that faith we are completely free from the tutor's authority." (Gal. 3:24-25, Phillips.)

Also, Darby, RV/ASV, NAS, NKJV all give "tutor." (Mention of a couple of other interesting translations will be made below.) In fact, the same Gk. word is at 1 Cor. 4:15, translated "instructors" in the KJV.

Elsewhere in the Bible we find that the law gives a "shadow of good things to come" (Heb. 10:1; Col. 2:17); was "not made for a righteous man," but for the sinful, and is good if used lawfully (1 Tim. 1:8-9); and that the law points to Christ but says "the man which doeth those things [commands of the law] shall live by them," while righteousness from faith says believe on Christ (Rom. 10:4-11). This sounds very much consistent with the KJV's description of the law as a "schoolmaster."

Consider also that several of the Church Fathers agree with the teaching role of the law:

"Now the Tutor is not opposed to the Preceptor, but cooperates with him, ridding the youth from all vice, and having all leisure to fit him for receiving instructions from his Preceptor. But when the youth's habits are formed, then the Tutor leaves him, as Paul says." (--Chrysostom, Commentary on Galatians.)
"To Moses himself also was the injunction given, 'Look that thou make them after the form and pattern which were showed thee on the mount.' From which it appears to me, that as on this earth the law was a sort of schoolmaster to those who by it were to be conducted to Christ, in order that, being instructed and trained by it, they might more easily, after the training of the law, receive the more perfect principles of Christ . . . ." (--Origen, De Principiis, Book 3, ch. 6.)
"The unrighteous man therefore lawfully uses the law, that he may become righteous; but when he has become so, he must no longer use it as a chariot, for he has arrived at his journey's end,--or rather (that I may employ the apostle's own simile, which has been already mentioned) as a schoolmaster, seeing that he is now fully learned." (--Augustine, Treatise on the Spirit and Letter, ch. 16.)
"Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring 'the Hellenic mind,' as the law, the Hebrews, 'to Christ.' Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ." (--Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Bk. 1 ch. 5.)

The most that one could say in arguable critique of the KJV's translation here (which is actually Tyndale's and was carried over into the Great, Geneva, and Bishops' Bibles) is that the paidagogos was a somewhat different figure in antiquity from the "schoolmaster," which for most of us probably evokes images of Washington Irving's character Ichabod Crane. But in fact the very Greek word used here also includes connotations which are not at all suited to the context. Just after defining the paidagogos as "a slave who served as tutor, guardian, and servant of the child put in his care," and who taught him the "alphabet and simple reading," Jerome Carcopino in his informative book Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Yale University Press, 1940, p. 104) observes that "The spoiled son of a wealthy family had a splendid time putting his so-called 'master' in his place, the place suited to a servant, whether he called himself a tutor or not," citing Plautus' Bacchides by way of illustration. But clearly Paul is not suggesting that the one bringing us to Christ was a servant who could be put in his place!

One should also bear in mind that at the time when the KJV was translated, only scholars trained in the classical languages would have appreciated the subtle distinctions between the Greek term paidagogos and the English word "schoolmaster." Indeed, even some more recent versions suggest difficulty among contemporary translators; Young's Literal invents a term, "child-conductor"; NIV delves into paraphrase ("So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ...Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law"); and the Holman Christian Standard Bible gives "guardian" with a footnote including the comment that "In our culture, we do not have a slave who takes a child to and from school, protecting the child from harm or corruption." (HCSB's further remark that the paidagogos "was not a teacher" is, as clearly demonstrated above, not entirely accurate but shows that even learned men struggle with explaining the exact connotations to English readers.) It seems clear that the best way of rendering paidagogos into English in the 16th and 17th centuries was to use a functional equivalent, "schoolmaster," just as it made sense to use the word "candlestick" in passages like Matt. 5:15 because that was more intelligible in 1611 than it would have been to coin a neologism like "lamp-stand." And since the above quotations clearly demonstrate the teaching role of the paidagogos, the choice of the word "schoolmaster" seems to have been a judicious one.

In short, something that seems consistent with the interpretation of so many expositors, both in antiquity and our own times, and which is not even contradicted by a plurality of modern versions, cannot reasonably be construed as an "error."

Return Home