Cosmas Indicopleustes

In his own words on Galatians

• Galatians 3:19

  as if in answer to the question What then is the law? meaning, Why was the law given? he at once replies and says: It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made; and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator; whereby he means, that the reason why the law was added was this, that by means of it and of the priesthood the people which had received the promise should be under safe guardianship—the people, namely, sprung from Abraham—and that there should be no intermixture of this people with any other; so that thereby he who had been foretold might be recognisable by all—he, by whom the world is being renovated, and by whom also the purpose and economy which God had from the first designed is being fulfilled.

  The Christian Topography, Book 5

• Galatians 3:24

  Yet one nation after another made a gradual advance to a fixed and authoritative code of laws, not imposed from the beginning like that of Moses of old, who educated his nation in the knowledge of letters and of fixed law, being the first who showed both by word and deed the firm and permanent nature of the law and of letters, until, after a long course of time, he conducted the nations, guided and guarded by the firm nature of the law, to the predicted Lord Christ and his teaching.

  The Christian Topography, Book 12