The child's guardian

The guardians were slaves who saw boys safely to and from school (the cultural backgrounds notes). Keener writes that the guardian was respected by the child and taught him manners, but was not himself a teacher. Wright and Bird list child guardians among the many jobs slaves did; the paidagogos kept a son out of mischief until he grew up. Wright calls him a baby-sitter, usually a resident slave who watched the children while the parents were out and tried, often in vain, to keep them out of trouble. Bailey describes him as a well-known figure in Greek culture with much responsibility for shaping a child's character, though the father naturally mattered more. Students could fondly call a teacher father, and fathers were responsible for their sons' education. So a teacher who claimed to be the father placed the other teachers among the slave attendants. Children sometimes resented their guardians but often grew fond of them and later freed them. Guardians were usually better educated than the free masses, so the image was not demeaning in itself. Jewish teachers, though, called the law Israel's teacher, and calling it a guardian would have shocked them (Keener). In most Mediterranean cultures a boy came of age at about thirteen or fourteen, and then no longer needed the guardian. A Roman boy came of age at about sixteen, when he traded the toga of childhood for the all-white toga of a man. Wright calls the paidagogos "neither parent nor teacher but the person in charge for certain purposes."

The guardian was a slave with charge of a child for a time, so setting ten thousand guardians against one father, as in 1 Corinthians 4:15, ranks the other teachers well below the founder. In Galatians 3:24-25 the law is such a guardian until faith comes, a role that ends when the heir grows up.