Galatians, Epistle To The (continued) – Galilean

Galatians, Epistle To The (continued)

Zahn's position is peculiar (Intro to New Testament, I, 164-202). Rejecting Ramsay's explanation of Acts 16:6, and of 18:23 (where Ramsay sees Paul a third time crossing South Galatia), and maintaining that Luke credits the apostle with successful work in North Galatia, he holds, notwithstanding, the South Galatian view of the epistle. This involves the paradox that Paul in writing to "the churches of Galatia" ignored those of North Galatia to whom the title properly belonged--an incongruence which Ramsay escapes by denying that Paul had set foot in Old Galatia. In the 1st edition of the Einleitung Zahn had supposed North and South Galatia together included in the address; this supposition is contrary to the fact that the readers form a homogeneous body, the fruit of a single mission (4:13), and are affected simultaneously by the same disturbance (1:6; 5:7-9). Associating the letter in 2nd edition with South Galatians alone, Zahn suggests that while Paul had labored in North Galatia and found "disciples" there on his return, these were too few and scattered to form "churches"--an estimate scarcely in keeping with Luke's phrase Acts 5:7–9 "all the disciples" (18:23), and raising a distinction between "disciples" and "churches" foreign to the historian's usage (see Acts 6:2; Acts 9:19; Acts 14:20). We must choose between North and South Galatia; and if churches existed among the people of the north at the time of writing, then the northerners claim this title by right of use and wont--and the epistle with it. The reversal of "Galatian and Phrygia(n)" in Acts 18:23, as compared with 16:6, implies that the apostle on the 3rd tour struck "the Galatian country" first, traveling this time directly North from Syrian Antioch, and turned westward toward Phrygia when he had reached Old Galatia; whereas his previous route had brought him westward along the highroad traversing South Galatia, until he turned northward at a point not far distant from Pisidian Antioch, to reach North Galatia through Phrygia from the southwest. See the Map of Asia Minor.

(4) Notes of Time in the Epistle.

The "3 years" of Galatians 1:18 and the "14 years" of 2:1 are both seemingly counted from Paul's conversion.

(a) The synchronism of the conversion with the murder of Stephen and the free action of the high priest against the Nazarenes (Acts 9:2, etc.), and of Saul's visit to Jerusalem in the 3rd year thereafter with Aretas' rule in Damascus (2 Corinthians 11:32,2 Corinthians 11:33), forbid our placing these two events further back than 36 and 38--at furthest, 35 and 37 AD (see Turner on "Chronology of the NT" in HDB, as against the earlier dating).

(b) This calculation brings us to 48-49 as the year of the conference of Galatians 2:1–10--a date precluding the association of that meeting with the errand to Jerusalem related in Acts 11:30 and 12:25, while it suits the identification of the former with the council of Acts 15:1–41. Other indications converge on this as the critical epoch of Paul's apostleship. The expedition to Cyprus and South Galatia (Acts 13:1–52; Acts 14:1–28) had revealed in Paul `signs of the apostle' which the chiefs of the Judean church now recognized (Galatians 2:7–9; compare Acts 15:12), and gave him the ascendancy which he exercised at this crisis; up to the time of Acts 13:1 "Saul" was known but as an old persecutor turned preacher (Galatians 1:23), one of the band of "prophets and teachers" gathered round Barnabas at Antioch. The previous visit of Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem (Acts 11:1–30; Acts 12:1–25) had no ostensible object beyond that of famine-relief. From Acts 12:1–25 we learn that the mother church just then was suffering deadly persecution; Peter certainly was out of the way. There was no opportunity for the negotiation described in Galatians 2:1–10, and it would have been premature for Paul to raise the question of his apostleship at this stage. In all likelihood, he saw few Judean Christians then beyond "the elders," who received the Antiochene charity (Acts 11:30). Nothing transpired in connection with this remittance, important as it was from Luke's standpoint, to affect the question of Galatians 1:1–24; Galatians 2:1–21; it would have been idle for Paul to refer to it. On the other hand, no real contradiction exists between Acts 15:1–41 and Galatians 2:1–21 "The two accounts admirably complete each other" (Pfleiderer; compare Cambr. Greek Test., 145, 146; Steinmann, Die Abfassungszeit d. Gal.-Briefes, section 7); in matters of complicated dispute involving personal considerations, attempts at a private understanding naturally precede the public settlement. It would be strange indeed if the same question of the circumcision of Gentilebelievers had twice within a few years been raised at Antioch, to be twice carried to Jerusalem and twice over decided there by the same parties--Barnabas and Paul, Peter and James--and with no reference made in the second discussion (that of Acts, ex hyp.) to the previous compact (Galatians 2:1–21). Granting the epistle written after the council, as both Ramsay and Zahn suppose, we infer that Paul has given his more intimate account of the crisis, about which the readers were already informed in the sense of Acts 15:1–41, with a view to bring out its essential bearing on the situation.

(c) The encounter of Paul and Cephas at Antioch (Galatians 2:11–21) is undated. The time of its occurrence bears on the date of the epistle. As hitherto, the order of narration presumably follows the order of events, the "but" of Galatians 2:11 appears to contrast Cephas' present attitude with his action in Jerusalem just described. Two possible opportunities present themselves for a meeting of Paul and Cephas in Antioch subsequently to the council--the time of Paul's and Barnabas' sojourn there on their return from Jerusalem (Acts 15:35,Acts 15:36), or the occasion of Paul's later visit, occupying "some time," between the 2nd and 3rd tours (Acts 18:22,Acts 18:23), when for aught we know Barnabas and Peter may both have been in the Syrian capital.

The former dating assumes that Peter yielded to the Judaizers on the morrow of the council, that "Barnabas too was carried away" while still in colleagueship with Paul and when the cause of Gentilefreedom, which he had championed, was in the flush of victory. It assumes that the legalists had no sooner been defeated than they opened a new attack on the same ground, and presented themselves as "from James" when James only the other day had repudiated their agitation (Acts 15:19,Acts 15:24). All this is very unlikely. We must allow the legalists time to recover from their discomfiture and to lay new plans (see II 2, (2), (3), (4). Moreover, Luke's detailed narrative in Acts 15:30–36, which makes much of the visit of Judas and Silas, gives no hint of any coming of Peter to Antioch at that time, and leaves little room for this; he gives an impression of settled peace and satisfaction following on the Jerusalem concordat, with which the strife of Galatians 2:11 ff would ill accord. Through the course of the 2nd missionary tour, so far as the Thessalonian epistles indicate, Paul's mind remained undisturbed by legalistic troubles. "The apostle had quitted Jerusalem (after his understanding with the pillars) and proceeded to his 2nd missionary journey full of satisfaction at the victory he had gained and free from anxiety for the future .... The decisive moment of the crisis necessarily falls between the Thessalonian and Galatian epistles .... A new situation suddenly presents itself to him on his return" to Antioch (A. Sabatier, The Apostle Paul, English translation, 10, 11, also 124-36).

(5) Paul's Renewed Struggle with Legalism.

The new situation arose through the vacillation of Peter; and the "certain from James" who made mischief at Antioch, were the forerunners of "troublers" who agitated the churches far and wide, appearing simultaneously in Corinth and North Galatia. The attempt to set up a separate church- table for the circumcised at Antioch was the first movement in a crafty and persistent campaign against Gentileliberties engineered from Jerusalem. The Epistle to the Romans signalized Paul's conclusive victory in this struggle, which covered the period of the 3rd missionary tour. On his revisitation of the Galatians (1:9; 5:3 parallel Acts 18:23), fresh from the contention with Cephas and aware of the wide conspiracy on foot, Paul gave warning of the coming of "another gospel"; it had arrived, fulfilling his worst fears. Upon this view of the course of affairs (see Neander, Planting and Training of the Christian Church, III, vii; Godet's Introduction to the New Testament, Epistles of Paul, 200-201; Sabatier, as above), the mistake of Peter at Antioch was the proximate antecedent of the trouble in Galatia; hence, Ga 2:11-24 leads up to 3:1 and the main argument. Now, if the Antiochene collision befell so late as this, then the epistle is subsequent to the date of Acts 18:22,Acts 18:23; from which it follows, once more, that Ga belongs to the 3rd missionary tour and the Corinthians-Romans group of letters.

(6) Ephesus or Corinth?

Chiefly because of the words, "you are removing so quickly," in Galatians 1:6, the epistle is by many referred to the earlier part of the above period, the time of Paul's protracted sojourn in Ephesus (Acts 19:8,Acts 19:10 54-56 AD); "so quickly," however, signifies not "so soon after my leaving you," but "so suddenly" and "with such slight persuasion" (Galatians 5:7,Galatians 5:8). From Ephesus, had the apostle been there when the trouble arose, he might as easily have visited Galatia as he did Corinth under like circumstances (so much is implied in 2 Corinthians 13:1): he is longing to go to Galatia, but cannot (Galatians 4:19,Galatians 4:20). A more distant situation, such as Macedonia or Corinth (Acts 20:1–3), where Paul found himself in the last months of this tour (56-57 AD), and where, in churches of some standing, he was surrounded by a body of sympathetic "brethren" (Galatians 1:1) whose support gave weight to his remonstrance with the Galatians, suits the epistle better on every account.

(7) Paul's First Coming to Galatia.

In Galatians 4:13–15 the apostle recalls, in words surcharged with emotion, his introduction to the readers. His "preaching the good news" to them was due to "weakness of the flesh"--to some sickness, it seems, which arrested his steps and led him to minister in a locality that otherwise he would have "passed over," as he did Mysia a little later (Acts 16:8). So we understand the obscure language of Galatians 4:13. The South Galatian theorists, in default of any reference to illness as affecting the apostle's movements in Acts 13:13,Acts 13:14, favor Ramsay's conjecture that Paul fell a victim to malaria on the Pamphylian coast, and that he and Barnabas made for Pisidian Antioch by way of seeking the cooler uplands. The former explanation lies nearer to the apostle's language: he says "I preached to you," not "I came to you, because of illness." The journey of a hundred miles from Perga to Antioch was one of the least likely to be undertaken by a fever- stricken patient (see the description in Conybeare and Howson's Life of Paul, or in Ramsay's Paul the Traveler). Besides, if this motive had brought Paul to Antioch, quite different reasons are stated by Luke for his proceeding to the other South Galatian towns (see Acts 13:50,Acts 13:51; Acts 14:6,Acts 14:19,Acts 14:20). Reading Galatians 4:13–15, one imagines the missionary hastening forward to some further goal (perhaps the important cities of Bithynia, Acts 16:7), when he is prostrated by a malady the physical effects of which were such as to excite extreme aversion. As strength returns, he begins to offer his gospel in the neighborhood where the unwilling halt has been made. There was much to prejudice the hearers against a preacher addressing them under these conditions; but the Galatians welcomed him as a heaven-sent messenger. Their faith was prompt and eager, their gratitude boundless.

The deification of Barnabas and Paul by the Lycaonians (Acts 14:11–18) is the one incident of Luke's narrative of which the apostle's description reminds us. To this the latter is thought to be alluding when he writes, "You received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus!" But could he speak thus of his reception--hateful at the time--in the character of a heathen god, and of a reception that ended in his stoning? The "welcome" of the messenger implies faith in his message (compare Galatians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 6:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; Matthew 10:40,Matthew 10:41, where the same Greek verb is used).

Paul's mishandling at Lystra (Acts 14:19,Acts 14:20) has suggested a correspondence in the opposite sense between the epistle and the story of the South Galatian mission. The Lystran stones left their print on Paul's body; in these disfiguring scars one might see "the marks of Jesus" to which he points in Galatians 6:17, were it not for the note of time, "from henceforth," which distinguishes these stigmata as a fresh infliction, identifying the servant now more than ever with his Master. The true parallel to Galatians 6:17 is 2 Corinthians 4:10 (see the context in 4:7-5:4, also 18), which we quoted above (III, 2). When he wrote 2 Cor, the apostle was emerging from an experience of crucial anguish, which gave him an aspect imaging the dying Saviour whom he preached; to this new consecration the appeal of our epistle seems to refer.

(8) Barnabas and the Galatians.

The references to Barnabas in Galatians 2:1,Galatians 2:9,Galatians 2:13, at first sight suggest the South Galatian destination of the letter. For Barnabas and Paul were companions on the first only of the three tours, and Barnabas is named thrice here and but twice in the rest of the epistles. Yet these very references awaken misgiving. Barnabas was Paul's full partner in the South Galatian mission; he was senior in service, and had introduced Saul to the apostles at Jerusalem; he was the leader at the outset of this journey (Acts 9:27; Acts 11:22–26; Acts 13:1–3; Acts 15:25)--Barnabas was taken for "Zeus" by the heathen of Lystra, while the eloquent Paul was identified with "Hermes" (Acts 14:12). The churches of South Galatia had two founders, and owed allegiance to Barnabas along with Paul. Yet Paul deals with the readers as though he alone were their father in Christ. Referring to Barnabas conspicuously in the letter and as differing from himself on a point affecting the question at issue (Galatians 2:13), Paul was the more bound to give his old comrade his due and to justify his assumption of sole authority, if he were in truth addressing communities which owed their Christianity to the two men in conjunction. On the South Galatian hypothesis, the apostle appears ungenerously to have elbowed his colleague out of the partnership. The apostle Paul, it is to be noted, was particularly sensitive on matters of this kind (see 1 Corinthians 4:15; 2 Corinthians 10:13–16). The name of Barnabas was known through the whole church (see 1 Corinthians 9:6; Colossians 4:10); there is no more difficulty in supposing the North Galatians to be familiar with it than with the names of James and John (Galatians 2:9). Possibly Paul, as his responsibilities extended, had left the care of South Galatia to Barnabas, who could readily superintend this district from Antioch in Syria; Paul refers to him in 1 Corinthians 9:6, long after the separation of Acts 15:39, as a fellow- worker. This would account for his making direct for North Galatia on the 3rd tour; see IV, 3 (3).

(9) The Two Antiochs.

In Galatians 2:11 Paul refers to "Antioch,". the famous city on the Orontes. To South Galatians "Antioch" meant, as in 2 Timothy 3:11, the Pisidian city of that name. Had Paul been addressing South Galatians, and Antiochenes imprimis, he could not without singular inadvertence have failed to make the distinction. The gaucherie would have been as marked as if, in writing to a circle of West-of-England towns including Bradford-on-Avon, one should mention "Bradford" without qualification, meaning the Yorkshire Bradford.

The arguments drawn from local difference in legal usage--in the matters of adoption, testament, etc.--in favor of the South Galatian destination (see Schmiedel's examination of Ramsay's views in EB, coll. 1608-9), and from the temperament of Paul's "Galatians" in favor of North Galatia (Lightfoot), are too precarious to build upon.

(10) Wider Bearings of the Problem.

On a broad view of the scope of Paul's missionary work and of the relation of his letters to Acts, there is much to commend the South Galatian theory. It simplifies the situation by connecting this cardinal writing of Paul with churches of cardinal importance in Luke's narrative. The South Galatian cities lay along the main route of the apostle's travels, and in the mid-stream of the church's life. The epistle, when associated with the Christian communities of this region, gains a definite setting and a firm point of attachment in New Testament history; whereas the founding of North Galatian Christianity is indicated by Luke, if at all, in the most cursory fashion, and it held an obscure place in the early church. How, it is asked, could Paul's intimate friend have been (on the North Galatian theory) so uninterested in churches by which Paul himself set such store? And how can Paul have ignored, apart from the allusion of 2 Timothy 3:11, the South Galatians who formed the first-fruits of his wider labors and supplied a vital link in his chain of churches? In reply, we must point out: (1) that for anything we know Paul wrote many letters to South Galatia; we possess but a selection from his correspondence; the choice of the canonical epistles was not governed by the importance of the parties addressed in them--witness Colossians and Philemon; nor were Paul's concern for his churches, and the empressement with which he wrote, determined by their magnitude and position, but by their needs and their hold on his affections (see Galatians 1:6, etc.; 4:12-20). (2) The North Galatian mission lay off the central line of Paul's journeyings and of the advance of GentileChristianity; this is probably the reason why Luke, who was compelled to a strict economy of space, just ignores this field, though he shows himself aware of its existence. The apostle's confession that he preached to the readers, in the first instance, not from choice but necessity (Galatians 4:13), accords with the neglect of North Galatia in Acts; the evangelizing of the North Galatians was an aside in Paul's work--an incident beyond the scope of his plans, from which at this period he was compelled again and again to deviate (Acts 16:6–10).

After all, though less important during the 1st century than South Galatia North Galatia was not an unimportant or inaccessible region. It was traversed by the ancient "Royal Road" from the East to the Hellespont, which the apostle probably followed as far as Phrygia in the journey of Acts 18:22,Acts 18:23. Planted by Paul in Old Galatia, the gospel would spread to Bithynia and Pontus farther north, as it certainly had done by the time Peter wrote to the churches of Asia Minor (1 Peter 1:1). It is observable that "Galatia" stands between "Pontus and Cappadocia" in Peter's enumeration of the provinces--an order indicating that Christians of North Galatia were particularly in the writer's mind. Had Paul never set foot in North Galatia, had he not worked along the Royal Road and put his message in the Way of reaching the northern provinces of Asia Minor, the claim of Romans 15:19 is difficult to sustain, that "from Jerusalem, and in a circle as far as Illyricum, he had fulfilled the gospel of Christ." On the whole, we find the external evidence in accord with the testimony given by the internal character and affinities of the epistle: we judge that this epistle was written circa the autumn or winter of 56-57 AD, from Macedonia or Corinth, toward the end of Paul's third missionary tour; that it was addressed to a circle of churches situated in Galatia proper or North Galatia, probably in the western part of this country contiguous to (or overlapping) Phrygia (Acts 16:6); and that its place lies between the two Corinthian and the Roman letters among the epistles of the second group.

LITERATURE.

The South Galatian destination was proposed by the Danish Mynster (Einltg. in d. Brief an d. Gal, 1825; M. however included North Galatia), and adopted by the French Perrot (De Galatia Provincia Romana, 1867) and Renan (S. Paul); by the German Clemen (Chronologie d. paulin. Briefe, 1893; Die Adressaten d. Gal.-Briefes; Paulus: sein Leben u. Wirken, 1904), Hausrath (NT Zeitgeschichte, 1873, English Translation), Pfleiderer (Paulinismus, 1873, English translation; Paulinismus2, much altered; Urchristenthum, 1902), Steck (as above), Weizsacker (Das apost. Zeitalter3, 1902, English Translation); after Ramsay (see under GALATIA), by Belser (Beitrage z. Erklarung d. AG, etc.), O. Holtzmann (Zeitschrift f. KG, 1894), von Soden (Hist of Early Christian Lit., ET; he includes South with North Galatia), Weber (Die Adressaten d. Gal.-Briefes), J. Weiss (RE3, article "Kleinasien"), in Germany; by Askwith (Ep. to Gal: An Essay on Its Destination and Date), Bacon (Expos, V, vii, 123-36; x, 351-67), Bartlet (Expos, V, x, 263-80), Gifford (Expos, IV, x, 1-20), Maclean (1-vol HDB), Rendall (Expos, IV, ix, 254-64; EGT, Introduction to "Galatians"), Round (as above), Sanday (with hesitation, The Expositor, IV, vii, 491-95), Woodhouse (EB, article "Galatia"). The N. Galatian destination, held by earlier scholars up to Lightfoot and Salmon (DB2, an illuminating discussion), is reasserted, in view of Ramsay's findings, by Chase (Expos, IV, viii, 401-19; ix, 331-42), Cheetham (Class. Review, 1894), Dods (HDB, article "Galatians"), Williams (Cambr. Greek Testament., 1910), in this country; by Sabatier (L'Apotre Paul2, English translation, 1891); by Gheorghiu (Adressatii epistle c. Galateni, Cernauti, 1904, praised by Steinmann); and by the German critics Blass (Acta Apost.), yon Dobschutz (Die urchr. Gemeinden, 1902, and Probleme d. apost. Zeitalters), Harnack (Apostelgeschichte, 1908, 87-90), H. Holtzmann (Handcomm. z. New Testament, "AG"), Julicher (NT Intro, English Translation), Lipsius (Handcomm. z. New Testament, "Galater") Lietzmann (doubtfully, Handbuch z. N T, III, i, "Galaterbrief"), Mommsen (ZNTW, 1901, 81-96), Schmiedel (Encyclopedia Biblica), Schurer (Jahrbuch f. prot. Theologie, XVIII, 460- 74), Sieffert (Meyer's Kommentar), Steinmann (as above), Zockler (a full and masterly discussion: Studien u. Kritiken, 1895, 51-102). Mommsen's verdict is thus expressed: "To apprehend `the Galatians' of Paul otherwise than in the strict and narrower sense of the term, is unallowable. The Provinces associated with Galatia under the rule of a single legate, as e.g. Lycaonia certainly was as early as the time of Claudius, were in no way incorporated in that region; the official inscriptions simply set Galatia at the head of the combined regions. Still less could the inhabitants of Iconium and Lystra be named `Galatians' in common speech."

Apart from the aforesaid controversy, besides the standard Commentary on Paul's Epistles, Luther's Ad Galatas is of unique historical interest; the interpretations of Usteri (1833), Hilgenfeld (1852), Winer (18594), Holsten (Das Evangel. d. Paulus, 1880), Philippi (1884), in German; Baljon (1889), in Dutch; and of B. Jowett, Ellicott, Beet, are specially serviceable, from different points of view; see also CGT and EB.

George G. Findlay

Galbanum

gal'-ba-num (chelbenah; chalbdne):

A gum-resin which occurs in small, round, semitranslucent tears or in brownish yellow masses; has a pleasant aromatic odor and a bitter taste; and is today, at any rate, imported from Persia.

It is derived from certain umbelliferous plants, Ferula galbaniflua and F. rubricaulis. It is mentioned in Exodus 30:34 as an ingredient of the holy incense, and also in /APC Sirach 24:15: "a pleasant odor .... as galbanum."

Galeed

gal'-e-ed (gal`edh): Derived from the Hebrew gal, "a heap of stones," and `edh, "witness." The meaning therefore is "cairn" or "heap of witness," corresponding to yeghar-sahddhutha' in Aramaic (Genesis 31:47). It is applied to the cairn raised by Jacob and Laban, beside which they sealed their covenant in a common meal, the memory of which they appealed to the silent cairn to preserve. The ancient custom of associating events with inanimate objects as witnesses is often illustrated in Hebrew history (Joshua 4:4 ff, etc.). There may be in this narrative a suggestion of how the name "Gilead" came to be applied to that country.

W. Ewing

Galgala

gal'-gal-a (Gallgala):

Greek equivalent for Gilgal. The word occurs in /APC 1Macc 9:2 in connection with Arbela, in Galilee--"The way to Galgala"--but it is doubtful which Gilgal is meant. Compare Josephus, Ant, XII, xi, 1

see GILGAL.

Galilean

gal-i-le'-an.

See GALILEE.