Certain which went out from us. — The reference is obviously to the teachers (their names are wisely and charitably suppressed) who had appeared at Antioch, as in Acts 15:1. St. John, who was present at the Council (Galatians 2:9), and who, though he took no part in the debate, may well have had a share in drawing up the letter, uses a like mode of speech, “They went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:19).
Subverting your souls. — The Greek verb, literally, turning upside down, implies throwing into a state of excitement and agitation. The Gentiles had been “unsettled” by the teaching of the Judaisers.
And keep the law. — Assuming the Epistle of St. James to have been already written, there is something almost like a touch of irony in his repeating the phrase of James 2:10. The teachers who bade the Gentiles keep the Law were reminded in that Epistle that they, in their servile respect of persons, were breaking the Law deliberately in one point, and were therefore guilty of all. Putting the two passages together, they bring St. James before us as speaking in the very accents of St. Paul, “Thou, therefore, which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?” (Romans 2:21.)
To whom we gave no such commandment. — The word “such” is a needless interpolation. What St. James declares is that the teachers had had no commission of any kind from him. The passage is important as throwing light on the nature of a later claim set up by the same party (Galatians 2:12).