In Galatians 1:1 Paul uses two ways to express that he has not been made an apostle by men. He uses “ἀπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων” and “δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου” .
Could anyone explain the difference between the two expressions? Here is the full verse:
ΠΑΥΛΟΣ ἀπόστολος, οὐκ ἀπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν,
Paul has a lot to say about this in the letter. Here’s 11,12 (With 2 more prepositions!)
γνωρίζω γὰρ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτό, οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, ἀλλὰ δι’ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
Also 15,16
Ὅτε δὲ εὐδόκησεν ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἀφορίσας με ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου καὶ καλέσας διὰ τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοὶ ἵνα εὐαγγελίζωμαι αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν
So my understanding of verse 1 is that no man commissioned him as an apostle. And he’s not an emissary from human beings. He received an ἀποκάλυψις, and that’s his message for the nations.
I think in this case “ἀπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων” expresses that the source and ultimate cause of him being an ἀπόστολος does not lie in men and that “δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου” expresses that (a) man was not the means through which he became an ἀπόστολος.
Looking through Liddell & Scott, I gather that ἀπό can imply source and cause and “came to be used like ὑπό, but implying a less direct agency,” e.g.:
οὐδεν μέγα ἔργον ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο (No great work came about from/by/out of him).
This phrase could apply to an architect who has no great buildings to their credit, even though having hundreds of trades people to call on to accomplish the direct work of construction.
On the other hand, it seems that διά does not imply cause or origin, but rather means. The two most relevant examples in Liddell & Scott seem to be:
“δι’ ἀγγέλων by the mouth of messengers”
δι’ ἑρμηνέως λέγων (to speak through an interpreter)
The messengers are not the origin of the message, just the means by which it is delivered. An interpreter simply changes the speech of others rather than originating it.
In plain English, I understand Paul to be saying that it was not men that sent him as an envoy of the gospel and it was not by means of any man’s power that he became such an envoy.
Paul is his own commentator on this. All you need to do is read all of his conversion narratives in this epistle plus the Corinthian letters and else where. In Galatians he devotes a long section to this starting in Gal 1:11 and proceeding well into chapter two. Paul is obsessed with is apostolic authority. They very fact that he harps on it incessantly implies that some in the early church questioned his status since he was a late comer who never walked with Jesus in his lifetime on earth. So we have all these conversion narratives in his epistles and Acts which tell us that Paul got the substance of his gospel directly from the post-resurrection Jesus by means of visions. Paul had his critics and he demonstrates a defensive stance which you don’t find in the epistles of Peter or John or even James and Jude.