FRAMING FREEDOM: GALATIANS 4:1-7 AND PAULINE RHETORIC

Paul displays his rhetoric and cultural mastery in Galatians 4:1-2. With a few plain words, he is able to allude both to one of the most profound aspirations of Greek culture and philosophy - that is the thirst for true freedom - and to the most important experience of the Jewish faith, the core of Biblical tradition, the Exodus or the creation of a people of sons called to freedom. The two cultural backgrounds, Roman-Greek and biblical-Jewish, should not be opposed but rather taken together.