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Translation
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"See with how large letters I have written unto you with mine own hand. As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they compel you to be circumcised." Observe what grief posesses his blessed soul. As those who are oppressed with some sorrow, who have lost one of their own kindred, and suffered an unexpected calamity, rest neither by night nor day, because their grief besieges their soul, so the blessed Paul, after a short moral discourse, returns again to that former subject which chiefly disturbed his mind, saying as …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Having spoken a little in a moral spirit, he again returns to the former matter that troubled his heart, and shows that he himself, with his own hand, wrote this entire epistle, not only to show his love for them, but also to destroy an evil suspicion. Since they slandered him, saying that he preaches one thing to some and another thing to others, he was therefore compelled to give a written testimony of his preaching. The other epistles were written by others, and he himself would only sign the greeting. …
Oecumenius
The word "large" [πηλίκοις] does not indicate size, but rather the irregularity of the letters. As if he said: And although I know how to write these things well, nevertheless I have been forced to write the letter with my own hand, because, he says, my confession is set down in my own hand, that I do not preach circumcision as those who slanderously say.
Western Saints
Jerome
See with what letters I have written to you with my own hand. Those who wanted the Galatians to be circumcised had spread the rumor that Paul was doing one thing and preaching something else, and by his own actions, he was destroying the message. They claimed that anyone who asserted that the Law was abolished would themselves be found to be within the Law. Paul was unable to personally refute this belief with everyone present because he was restrained by the chains he bore for the sake of Christ's martyrdom. …
Thomas Aquinas
After admonishing the Galatians how to behave towards men who are upright and just, the Apostle here teaches them how to act toward heretics and the perverse. First, he insinuates the way he is writing the admonition; Secondly, he sets forth the admonition (v. 12). As to the first, it should be noted that heretics were wont to distort and falsify the canonical scriptures and append things that savored of heresy. …
Translation