06-CHAPTER 6. THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
CHAPTER 6. THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
1. ARGUMENTS FOUNDED ON THE EPISTLE.
I HAVE intentionally refrained from mentioning any of the general arguments which have been advanced by previous advocates of the South-Galatian theory. They vary in value. Some have very little value, while others at least corroborate the theory. The real proof must depend on the interpretation of Acts, and the theory stands or falls thereby; but a brief summary of these arguments, as they are given by Lipsius, may properly find a place here, and his counter-arguments may be noticed, where they seem to require it.
1. St. Paul habitually uses district names in the Roman sense; and Lycaonia was in Roman Galatia. This we have already discussed and put more accurately.
2. St. Paul uses the Greek language to the Christians whom he addresses, and apparently calls them Greeks; whereas the North-Galatians spoke Celtic. This argument, put in this bare way, has no real value; its proper character has already been discussed. (See p. 82)
3. He mentions (Galatians 2:13) Barnabas as a person known to his readers; Barnabas was not personally known to the North-Galatians. I can see no great value in this argument. Barnabas is alluded to, and his views on the question of evangelizing the Gentiles are assumed to be familiar to the readers; but the same assumption is made about Peter and some of the other apostles. It is, however, true that Barnabas was not such a prominent figure, and acquaintance with his views is more remarkable than knowledge of what Peter thought. Paul’s companions, when he was returning from Corinth to Jerusalem, seem to represent the different churches, and bear their contributions. Among them are Gaius of Derbe and Timothy of Lystra, but none from North Galatia. This argument has very little value; Timothy at least might be with Paul as his traveling companion, and several other churches have no representatives.
4. There is no record in Acts of the foundation of churches in North Galatia. This depends entirely on the interpretation of the narrative in Acts xvi. and xviii.
5. The presence of Jewish emissaries, which is presupposed in the epistle, is natural in South Galatia and improbable in North Galatia. This is an important piece of corroborative evidence, and requires more careful attention, as it is connected with a general law observable in the development of the country.
6. The change in the feeling of the Galatians was due to the action of a definite individual, a person of some consequence and standing, who had beguiled them into an exaggerated devotion to the Jewish law and practices. [Note: SeeGalatians 5:7andGalatians 5:10, with the notes of Lipsius. I accept his interpretation in preference to other views.] St. Paul knows him, but does not name him in writing to the Galatians. This visit of several strangers (the great man and his companions), taken in connection with St. Paul’s two passages across the Galatian territory, makes it probable that a frequented and common route from Syria led through it. [Note: Lipsius replies by quoting proof that Ancyra and Tavium (the latter he identifies with Gordium, which was 100 miles distant) were on an important trade route, but he does not prove (and could not prove) that they were on a route of Syrian trade. His remarks about the situation of Iconium, etc., show such erroneous views of the country and its antiquities that I need not mention them. (See Hand Kommentar, II. 2, p.3.)] It is hardly probable that they went forth for the express purpose of counteracting Paul; rather they would be traveling with the general intention of preaching in the most populous and frequented districts of Asia, along a familiar and important road. This consideration suits the South-Galatian, but not the North-Galatian territory. Elsewhere I have shown at length [Note: Hist. Geogr., chaps. G, H, J, K.] that the development and the importance of the territory on the northern side of the plateau--i.e., Northern Galatia and Northern Phrygia-belong to the period following after 292, and result from the transference of the centre of government first to Nicomedeia and afterwards to Constantinople. Under the earlier Roman Empire, the southern side of the plateau was far more important than the northern side. It would be easy, but is here unnecessary and unsuitable, to strengthen this proof by quoting many facts which confirm the view that North Galatia as a whole was slow in adopting the Graeco-Roman civilization, [Note: See one fact mentioned on pp. 146-7.] that it was not as a country so familiar to strangers from Syria as South Galatia, that except in Ancyra and Pessinus and Germa [Note: Germa was a colony, though not one of much importance. It struck coins. See p.82.] there was probably no Greek-speaking population in North Galatia to which St. Paul could address himself, and no Jewish congregations with which he could make a beginning. Why then did the Roman governor reside at Ancyra, and not in Southern Galatia? Ancyra was the capital of the province, because it was a city of great importance and wealth (beyond Iconium or Antioch), commanding a fertile country; and because the problems of Roman policy in the north of Asia Minor were very serious, and required an official of high rank there. The absorption of the neighbouring countries into the Empire was going on in that quarter with great rapidity during the first century, and each new addition to the Empire was incorporated in the province Galatia.
7. St. Paul had been twice in Galatia before he wrote the epistle; if North Galatia is the country in question, he had visited Jerusalem at least three times before he wrote, whereas in the epistle he speaks only of two visits to Jerusalem. This is an important subject; but it is so difficult, and opens up so many disputed points, that it has no value as a piece of corroborative evidence. It is, of course, in any case difficult to reconcile the two visits of the epistle with the account given in the earlier part of Acts, which seems to necessitate the recognition of more visits; and the difficulty is greatly increased if the epistle is placed after the third journey, when an additional visit to Jerusalem has to be reckoned with. On the South-Galatian theory, the epistle might have been written soon after St. Paul crossed into Europe. It would thus be one of the earliest of the extant epistles; and the oldest authority on the subject, Marcion, about a century later, placed it actually first in his edition of the epistles. This fact is far from conclusive, for it is not proved that Marcion arranged his collection according to what he believed to be chronological order; but his order must be allowed to have a certain value [Note: Wieseler argues that his order was in a rough way chronological.] in regard to the opening epistle. There is, however, no doubt that the Epistle to the Galatians has far closer analogies with 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans (which were composed on the third journey), than with 1 and 2 Thessalonians (which were written during the second journey). But it is a question whether the difference of tone in the latter may not be quite explicable by the peculiar circumstances of the church at Thessalonica; and, even if Paul wrote to the Galatians from Corinth, there seems no reason why his views and thoughts should not be very similar to those he expressed to the Romans and Corinthians on his third journey a little later. There can be no doubt that a date during the second journey would suit several passages in Galatians well; and this date is consistent with the South-Galatian, but not with the North-Galatian, theory. But so long as the well-known problem connected with St. Paul’s visits to Jerusalem remains unsolved, nothing final can be said on this point.
8. The dispute which took place during St. Paul’s visit to Jerusalem ( Galatians 2:5) concerned those whom Paul addresses (υ + ̓μα + ̑ς) ; but the visit took place before the second journey, and he is not supposed by any one to have visited North Galatia on his first journey. This is not an important point.
9. Another argument is mentioned by Lightfoot as strong but not convincing. At Lystra St. Paul was taken for an impersonation of the Divine power, and similarly the Galatians of the epistle received him as an angel of God (Galatians 4:14) ; and this idea dwells in the writer’s mind, and suggests his expression in Galatians 1:8 "though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel." The extraordinary effect produced by Paul in Antioch, etc., is shown in Acts xiii., xiv.; we cannot say that anything quite similar to it is related of any other part of his missionary work. Precisely such extraordinary effect is implied in the epistle; and the coincidence between the two documents is acknowledged by Lightfoot to be striking.
10. It is implied that the opponents of St. Paul quoted his own action and misrepresented him as preaching circumcision (v. 11). [Note: Die eingedrungenen Sendlinge . . . vorwerfen dem Paulus, er Predike ja selbst die Reschneidung.] The reference to his action in the case of Timothy is here unmistakable, and is fully admitted by Lightfoot in his commentary on the verse. Such an argument would appeal with peculiarly strong effect to the South-Galatian churches after what is related in Acts 16:3:2.
ST. PAUL’S FEELINGS TOWARDS THE GALATIAN CHURCHES. The churches of Antioch, etc., were the first fruits of St. Paul’s wider activity, and the narrative in Acts shows that his experiences among them on his first journey were most encouraging for the initiator of a new departure in the guidance of missionary effort. Moreover, they gave him his most faithful and devoted companion throughout his subsequent life, Timothy. We should certainly suppose from his general character, and from the personal affection which he often shows for his converts, that he would retain a warm interest in his earliest Gentile churches. The Philippians, the first of his European hearers, were regarded by himself with special love. He refers to his earliest converts in Greece and in Asia as the first fruits of Achaia and of Asia. Surely we should find in his epistles some proof of interest in Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra. The narrative in Acts proves that he did retain such an interest in this South-Galatian group of churches, for he visited Derbe at least twice, Lystra and Iconium and Antioch at least three times; while, on our theory, he visited them all once more on his third missionary journey. Yet, on the usual theory, we find throughout St. Paul’s writings no single word to show that he retained a kindly recollection of them or an interest in them. Once he does refer to them, but only to recall his sufferings and persecution among them (2 Timothy 3:2); in no other way, at no other time, does he make any allusion to them.
Even when he orders a contribution for the sufferers by the famine in Palestine (1 Corinthians 15:1), he thinks of the Galatian churches, but not (according to the dominant theory) about the churches of Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra. It would be impossible to conceive a more direct contradiction in tone and emotional feeling than exists, on this theory, between Acts and Galatians, as regards St Paul’s attitude to the South-Galatian churches. Such a contradiction is inexplicable, except on the supposition that Acts belongs to a different period and to different surroundings from the Epistles; the Epistles give the real tone and feeling that ruled in the actual circumstances, Acts gives the later memory that survived among the Christians of the second century, and its composition would have to be dated in that period. I can see no escape from this conclusion, if we admit that the contradiction exists; and in opposition to it my aim is to show that both accounts belong to the same period, and are instinct with the same emotion.
Moreover, we might ask how a later age, to which the composition of Acts is relegated on this supposition, came to attach so much more importance to these churches than Paul himself did? It is certain that the South-Galatian churches did not in later time play a very prominent part in Christian history; they had for a short time, during St. Paul’s own life, the interest naturally attaching to the first Gentile churches, and they never again held the same position. The account given in Acts is historically true to the period 48-64 A.D., and not to later time. Thus, on every ground, the inconsistency and self-contradiction involved in the dominant North-Galatian theory become clear. The conclusion is plain. That theory is wrong; and the interpretation which restores consistency to the documents, and reality to the history contained in them, must be accepted. As to the discrepancy which exists, on the North-Galatian theory, between the silence of Acts about the North-Galatian churches, and the importance which the epistle implies them to possess, it is no defence to quote the fact that St. Paul wrote to the Colossians, yet they are never mentioned in Acts. In the letter he expressly says that they had never seen him, and hence in Acts there was no opportunity of mentioning them; but yet a clear and admitted allusion to Colossæ and Laodiceia occurs in Acts 19:10, "all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word."
3. ARGUMENTS FOR THE NORTH-GALATIAN THEORY.
If we ask for positive arguments in favour of the North-Galatian theory, none are offered. All arguments in its favour take the form of pointing out difficulties in the other theory. There are undoubtedly difficulties in the other theory; but the history of the Apostolic period is full of difficulties, in comparison to which those involved in the South-Galatian theory are trifles. The North-Galatian theory avoids the difficulties by creating an unknown set of churches, to which the epistle was addressed, as the Greek mythologists explained the contradictions in their fables by creating two or five or ten persons bearing the same name; but in one case alone did we find that it solved a difficulty in which the South-Galatian theory was involved. Hence no positive argument can be brought forward in its favour, for the North-Galatian churches are an unknown factor; and it cannot be either proved or disproved that the facts alluded to in the epistle suit them. One single argument which looks like a positive reason may detain our attention for a moment. The North Galatians were a Celtic race who had invaded Asia Minor in the third century B.C. It has been argued with much unanimity and strength of assertion that the character, conduct, and emotions of the Galatians to whom the epistle is addressed are those of a Celtic people. It is certainly a sound principle to compare the qualities implied in St. Paul’s epistles with the national character of the persons addressed; but national character is a very delicate subject to deal with, and the Celtic faults and qualities are certainly overstated by some of the commentators. The climax of imaginative insight into national character is reached by some Germans, who consider the population of North Galatia to be not Celtic but Germanic, and discover in the Galatians of the epistle the qualities of their own nation.
Much might be said in the way of arguing that the action of the Galatians was due, not to the peculiarities of Celts, but to the nature of an Oriental people like the Phrygians and Lycaonians, who had a strong natural affinity for the Hebraic type of Christianity ( v. p. 57 n.). But it will be readily granted that this line of argument has no force in the decision of the question; the nationality of the persons addressed must be settled on other considerations, and then it will be time to search for indications of their national character in the traits and acts recorded of them. Wendt, in his last edition of "Meyer’s Commentary," appears to take a sort of middle view, if I rightly understand him. He expressly admits that St. Paul uses the term Galatia, like all provincial names, in the Roman sense, and that it would be quite in accordance with his style to use the expression "churches of Galatia," indicating the churches of Antioch, Iconium, etc. [Note: Commentary on xvi. 6 - 10, footnote to pp. 353, 354.] He quotes the reference to Galatia, 1 Corinthians 16:1, as an example of St. Paul’s custom of using such terms in the Roman sense. [Note: Commentary on xiii. 9.] He therefore considers that in 1 Corinthians 16:1 ’the churches of Galatia" includes the South Galatian churches. Yet he proceeds to deny that the Epistle to the Galatians could possibly be written to the South-Galatians, and asserts that it must be written to the North-Galatian churches alone. This view appears to imply utter confusion of thought in Paul, and to attribute to him a carelessness in the use of terms which no accurate writer could be guilty of. To justify this view Wendt adduces one single argument, which he considers decisive. It is as follows. In Galatians 1:21 St. Paul says that he spent in Syria and Cilicia the interval of fourteen years between his first and second visits [Note: I do not intend to prejudge the question whether the interval is between the first and second visits, or between the conversion and the second visit. Both interpretations are possible in the Greek, and only a complete chronological system can determine which of the two is meant.] to Jerusalem, and does not mention that he was in Galatia during that time. It was unnecessary for him to mention to North-Galatian Christians that he had been in South Galatia during the interval; but it appears to Wendt "psychologically impossible" that Paul should not have mentioned the visit to South Galatia, if he had been writing to the South-Galatian Christians.
It might be a sufficient answer that the reconciliation of the account given in the epistle of St. Paul’s visits to Jerusalem with the narrative in Acts is the greatest historical problem in his life; and that no argument founded on that account has any great value until the whole problem is solved. But, further, I think that Wendt’s argument does not take the simplest way of treating the difficulty which he has touched. The view which I shall suggest seems easier; and for that reason I mention it, though I feel that it does not solve the difficulty fully. The best way to test this argument is to carry into effect the "psychological" necessity. Let us still suppose that the letter was addressed to the South Galatians, and let us add the words which, according to Wendt, would in that case be so necessary. Let any one read over Galatians 1:18-24; Galatians 2:1, making verse 21 into "Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and, as you are aware, I preached among you," (who dwell in the Roman province adjoining Cilicia). Does this add to the effect of the narrative as a piece of impassioned argument? Is it inconceivable or inconsistent with Paul’s style, rapid, disjointed, leaving much to the intelligence of his readers, that he should assume that the churches of Iconium, etc., knew his history during those years well enough to fill in for themselves the details which, as we know, are concealed in the expression "the regions of Syria and Cilicia"? It is precisely because he was writing to persons among whom he had spent a long time, during the interval of fourteen years about which he is writing, precisely because he can assume that they had the knowledge needed to fill in the details, that he contents himself with the hurried words, "the regions of Syria and Cilicia." During those years he had always been in Syria, or in Cilicia, or near the Cilician frontier and in regions closely connected with Cilicia. [Note: The road through the Cilician Gates by Iconium to the west was one of the great routes of history; and a considerable connection between Iconium and Tarsus is certain, though not so close as that between Syria and Cyprus or Pamphylia. Cilicia Tracheia reached nearly to Derbe; and the name Cilicia is several times used by Appian in a very wide sense to include the southern parts of Lycaonia.] This was familiar at Iconium, but we have no reason to think that Paul could have presumed upon its being familiar at Ancyra and Pessinus, which he is not supposed to have seen until after the fourteen years had expired.
Another objection may be noticed. It has been stated by some commentators that at Apollonia, a town which in many respects occupied a similar position to Antioch (for it was originally Phrygian and afterwards Pisidian, and moreover was included in the province Galatia from 25 B.C. onwards), the Lydo-Phrygian era of the organization by Sulla 85-4 B.C. was employed. [Note: Corpus Inscript. Græc., No. 3973; Le Bas and Waddington, No. 1192.] The use of this era implies that the people of Apollonia did not set great store by their connexion with the province Galatia; otherwise they would have reckoned their chronology from the incorporation of that province. When it has been proved that the Lydo-Phrygian era was employed in Apollonia, some historical inferences of a different character will be deducible; but up to the present it has not been proved. The commentators refer to an inscription dated in the year 247; but it is quite uncertain from what era this number is reckoned.
M. Waddington indeed, who is perhaps the highest authority on the antiquities of Asia Minor, says in his commentary that the date ought perhaps to be reckoned according to the Lydo-Phrygian era; but it is just as easily reckoned from the Galatian era, and, until other dated inscriptions are found to decide, nothing can be inferred from this one. [Note: Franz on C.I.G. 3973 suggests the era 49 B.C. The suggestion has no antecedent probability, but cannot be proved to be false.] A via media, which perhaps might be thought to reconcile the two opposite theories,--viz., that the epistle is written to both North and South Galatian churches,--is decisively to be rejected. The churches addressed in the epistle were converted at one time (Galatians 4:13), whereas the South-Galatians were converted on the first journey, and the North-Galatians were, according to the theory, converted on the second journey. Moreover, if these chapters have succeeded in proving anything, they have proved that the narrative in Acts is inconsistent with the theory that St. Paul was thought by the writer to have ever been in North Galatia.
4. ANALOGY OF FIRST PETER.
Another objection may be urged: why is it that these churches are called Galatian only in the epistle, and nowhere else? But they are elsewhere referred to as Galatian. The superscription of I. Peter to the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, beyond a doubt employs these terms in the Roman sense. It sums up the whole of Asia Minor north of the Taurus range. The fringe of coast-land south of Taurus is excluded; but Cilicia goes with Syria, not with Asia Minor, [Note: The governor of Syria had a certain military charge over Cilicia, and Marquardt thinks he even governed it. In the system of the Christian Empire the Cilician churches were subject to Antioch.] and Pamphylia and Lycia seem not to have had important Christian communities in early times. If, on the other hand, we take these terms in the popular sense in which they were employed by some writers, what an amorphous and haphazard enumeration it is! Mysia, Phrygia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, are omitted, some of the most important and many of the earliest Christian churches are excluded, and precisely the countries where evidence of the strength and numbers of the Jews is strongest are left out.
Why then did this writer use the Roman nomenclature? For much the same reason as Paul. He was writing from Rome, and he also had the mind of an organizer, and had caught a glimpse of the great conception of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire.
He saw the immense importance of the churches of Asia Minor, he foresaw the situation in which they were about to be placed, and hence he writes to them as a body. Lightfoot fully admits this interpretation in the case of I. Peter; but explains it as "not unnatural in one who was writing from a distance and perhaps had never visited the district." This seems to me to explain nothing: Paul also, according to Lightfoot, wrote from a distance--viz., from Macedonia. But why a person writing from a distance should prefer the Roman term, he has not explained. As we contemplate the facts, the reason lies in the writer’s
habit of thought.
5. CHANGE IN THE MEANING OF THE NAME GALATIA.
Why, then, was an interpretation, which is so natural and so necessary, lost for so many centuries and recovered only in the beginning of the present century? It was lost because, during the second century, the term Galatia ceased to bear the sense which it had to a Roman in the first century. The whole of central and southern Lycaonia was, before the middle of the second century, separated from Galatia, and formed into a province Lycaonia, which was united with Isauria and Cilicia under the title of "the three Eparchies," and put under the command of a governor of the highest rank. From this time onwards the true sense of the term Galatia in St. Paul’s time was lost; and the misconception has lasted unchallenged till this century and dominant to the present day. Among French scholars alone [Note: See, eg., Renan, or Perrot in his treatise de Galatia Provincia Romana. In Germany Weizsäcker rejects the dominant view.] is the true view generally accepted.