ga'-al (ga`al, "rejection," or "loathing"; according to Wellhausen, "beetle," HPN, 110): A man of whose antecedents nothing is known, except that his father's name was Ebed. He undertook to foment and lead a rebellion on the part of the inhabitants of Shechem against Abimelech, son of Gideon, and his rebellion failed (Jdg 9:26-45).
See also ABIMELECH .
ga'-ash (ga`-ash): First mentioned in connection with the burial place of Joshua "in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north (side) of the mountain of Gaash" (Josh 24:30; compare Jdg 2:9); See TIMNATH-HERES . The "brooks," or rather the wadies or "watercourses" of Gaash are mentioned as the native place of Hiddai (2 Sam 23:30), or Hurai (1 Ch 11:32), one of David's heroes. No likely identification has been suggested.
ga'-ba (gabha' (in pause)).
See GEBA .
gab'-a-el (Gabael; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) "Gabelus"):
(1) An ancestor of Tobit (Tobit 1:1).
(2) A poor Jew of Rages, a city of Media, to whom Tobit lent ten talents of silver (1:14). The money was restored to Tobit in the time of his distress through his son Tobias, whom the angel Raphael led to Gabael at Rages (1:14; 4:1,20; 5:6; 6:9; 10:2).
gab'-a-tha (Gabatha): A eunuch of Mardocheus (Additions to Esther 12:1).
gab'-a-i (gabbay, "collector"): One of the chiefs of the Benjamites in Jerusalem after the return from the Babylonian captivity (Neh 11:8).
gab'-a-tha: Given (Jn 19:13) as the name of a special pavement (to lithostroton), and is probably a transcription in Greek of the Aramaic gabhetha', meaning "height" or "ridge." Tradition which now locates the Pretorium at the Antonia and associates the triple Roman arch near there with the "Ecce Homo" scene, naturally identifies an extensive area of massive Roman pavement, with blocks 4 ft. x 3 1/2 ft. and 2 ft. thick, near the "Ecce Homo Arch," as the Gabbatha. This paved area is in places roughened for a roadway, and in other places is marked with incised designs for Roman games of chance. The site is a lofty one, the ground falling away rapidly to the East and West, and it must have been close to, or perhaps included in, the Antonia. But apart from the fact that it is quite improbable that the Pretorium was here (See PRAETORIUM ), it is almost certain that the lithostroton was a mosaic pavement (compare Est 1:6), such as was very common in those days, and the site is irretrievably lost.
E. W. G. Masterman
gab'-e (Gabbe; the King James Version Gabdes (1 Esdras 5:20)): Called Geba in Ezr 2:26.
ga'-bri-as (Gabrias): Brother of GABAEL (which see). In Tobit 4:20 he is described as his father. The readings are uncertain.
ga'-bri-el (gabhri'-el, "Man of God"; Gabriel): The name of the angel commissioned to explain to Daniel the vision of the ram and the he-goat, and to give the prediction of the 70 weeks (Dan 8:16; 9:21). In the New Testament he is the angel of the annunciation to Zacharias of the birth of John the Baptist, and to Mary of the birth of Jesus (Lk 1:19,26). Though commonly spoken of as an archangel, he is not so called in Scripture. He appears in the Book of Enoch (chapters 9, 20, 40) as one of 4 (or 6) chief angels. He is "set over all powers," presents, with the others, the cry of departed souls for vengeance, is "set over the serpents, and over Paradise, and over the cherubim." He is prominent in the Jewish Targums, etc.
See ANGEL .
James Orr
(gadh, "fortune"; Gad):
The seventh son of Jacob, whose mother was Zilpah (Gen 30:11), and whose birth was welcomed by Leah with the cry, "Fortunate!" Some have sought to connect the name with that of the heathen deity Gad, of which traces are found in Baal-gad, Migdal-gad, etc. In the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:19) there is a play upon the name, as if it meant "troop," or "marauding band." "Gad, a troop shall press upon him; but he shall press upon their heel" (Hebrew gadh, gedhudh, yeghudhennu, wehu yaghudh `aqebh). Here there is doubtless a reference to the high spirit and valor that characterized the descendants of Gad. The enemy who attacked them exposed himself to grave peril. In the blessing of Moses again (Dt 33:20 ff) it is said that Gad "dwelleth as lioness, and teareth the arm, yea, the crown of the head." Leonine qualities are ascribed to the Gadites, mighty men of valor, who joined David (1 Ch 12:8,14). Their "faces were like the faces of lions, and they were as swift as the roes upon the mountain." Among their captains "he that was least was equal to a hundred, and the greatest to a thousand."
Of the patriarch Gad almost nothing is recorded. Seven sons went down with him into Egypt, when Jacob accepted Joseph s invitation (Gen 46:16). At the beginning of the desert march Gad numbered 45,650 "from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war" (Nu 1:24). In the plains of Moab the number had fallen to 40,500 (Nu 26:18). The place of Gad was with the standard of the camp of Reuben on the South side of the tabernacle (Nu 2:14). The prince of the tribe was Eliasaph, son of Deuel (Nu 1:14), or Reuel (Nu 2:14). Among the spies Gad was represented by Geuel son of Machi (Nu 13:15).
See NUMBERS .
From time immemorial the dwellers East of the Jordan have followed the pastoral life. When Moses had completed the conquest of these lands, the spacious uplands, with their wide pastures, attracted the great flock-masters of Reuben and Gad. In response to their appeal Moses assigned them their tribal portions here: only on condition, however, that their men of war should go over with their brethren, and take their share alike in the hardship and in the glory of the conquest of Western Palestine (Nu 32). When the victorious campaigns of Joshua were completed, the warriors of Reuben and Gad returned to their possessions in the East. They halted, however, in the Jordan valley to build the mighty altar of Ed. They feared lest the gorge of the Jordan should in time become all too effective a barrier between them and their brethren on the West. This altar should be for all time a "witness" to their unity in race and faith (Josh 22). The building of the altar was at first misunderstood by the western tribes, but the explanation given entirely satisfied them.
It is impossible to indicate with any certainty the boundaries of the territory of Gad. Reuben lay on the South, and the half-tribe of Manasseh on the North. These three occupied the whole of Eastern Palestine. The South border of Gad is given as the Arnon in Nu 32:34; but six cities to the North of the Arnon are assigned in 32:16 ff to Reuben. Again, Josh 13:26 makes Wady Chesban the southern boundary of Gad. Mesha, however (MS), says that the men of Gad dwelt in Ataroth from old time. This is far South of Wady Chesban. The writer of Nu 32 may have regarded the Jabbok as the northern frontier of Gad; but Josh 13:27 extends it to the Sea of Chinnereth, making the Jordan the western boundary. It included Rabbath-ammon in the East. We have not now the information necessary to explain this apparent confusion. There can be no doubt that, as a consequence of strifes with neighboring peoples, the boundaries were often changed (1 Ch 5:18 f). For the Biblical writers the center of interest was in Western Palestine, and the details given regarding the eastern tribes are very meager. We may take it, however, that, roughly, the land of Gilead fell to the tribe of Gad. In Jdg 5:17 Gilead appears where we should naturally expect Gad, for which it seems to stand. The city of refuge, Ramoth in Gilead, was in the territory of Gad (Josh 20:8). For description of the country See GILEAD .
Reuben and Gad were absent from the muster against Sisera (Jdg 5:15 ff); but they united with their brethren in taking vengeance on Benjamin, Jabesh-gilead, from which no contingent was sent, being destroyed (20 f). Jephthah is probably to be reckoned to this tribe, his house, Mizpah (Jdg 11:34), being apparently within its territory (Josh 13:26). Gad furnished a refuge for some of the Hebrews during the Philistine oppression (1 Sam 13:7). To David, while he avoided Saul at Ziklag, certain Gadites attached themselves (1 Ch 12:8 ff). A company of them also joined in making him king at Hebron (1 Ch 12:38). In Gad the adherents of the house of Saul gathered round Ish-bosheth (2 Sam 2:8 ff). Hither David came in his flight from Absalom (2 Sam 17:24). Gad fell to Jeroboam at the disruption of the kingdom, and Penuel, apparently within its borders, Jeroboam fortified at first (1 Ki 12:25). It appears from the Moabite Stone that part of the territory afterward passed into the hands of Moab. Under Omri this was recovered; but Moab again asserted its supremacy. Elijah probably belonged to this district; and the brook Cherith must be sought in one of its wild secluded glens.
Gad formed the main theater of the long struggle between Israel and the Syrians. At Ramoth-gilead Ahab received his death wound (1 Ki 22). Under Jeroboam II, this country was once more an integral part of the land of Israel. In 734 BC, however, Tiglath-pileser appeared, and conquered all Eastern Palestine, carrying its inhabitants captive (2 Ki 15:29; 1 Ch 5:26). This seems to have furnished occasion for the children of Ammon to occupy the country (Jer 49:1). In Ezekiel's ideal picture (Ezek 48:27,34), a place is found for the tribe of Gad. Obadiah seems to have forgotten the tribe, and their territory is assigned to Benjamin (1:19). Gad, however, has his place among the tribes of Israel in Rev 7.
W. Ewing
(gadh, "fortunate"): David's seer (chozeh, 1 Ch 21:9; 29:29; 2 Ch 29:25), or prophet (nabhi'; compare 1 Sam 22:5; 2 Sam 24:11). He appears (1) to advise David while an outlaw fleeing before Saul to return to the land of Judah (1 Sam 22:5); (2) to rebuke David and give him his choice of punishments when, in spite of the advice of Joab and the traditional objections (compare Ex 30:11 ff), he had counted the children of Israel (2 Sam 24:11; 1 Ch 21:9 ff); (3) to instruct David to erect an altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah when the plague that had descended on Israel ceased (2 Sam 24:18; 1 Ch 21:18); and (4) to assist in the arrangement of Levitical music with cymbals, psalteries and harps (compare 2 Ch 29:25). Of his writings none are known, though he is said to have written a history of a part of David's reign (1 Ch 29:29).
Ella Davis Isaacs
(gadh, "fortune"): A god of Good Luck, possibly the Hyades. The writer in Isa 65:11 (margin) pronounces a curse against such as are lured away to idolatry. The warning here, according to Cheyne, is specifically against the Samaritans, whom with their religion the Jews held in especial abhorrence. The charge would, however, apply just as well to superstitious and semi-pagan Jews. "But ye that forsake Yahweh, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for Fortune, and that fill up mingled wine unto Destiny; I will destine you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter." There is a play upon words here: "Fill up mingled wine unto Destiny" (meni) and "I will destine manithi, i.e. portion out) you for the sword" (Isa 65:11,12). Gad and Meni mentioned here are two Syrian-deities (Cheyne, Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 198). Schurer (Gesch. d. jud. Volkes, II, 34 note, and bibliography) disputes the reference of the Greek (Tuche) cult to the Semitic Gad, tracing it rather to the Syrian "Astarte" worship. The custom was quite common among heathen peoples of spreading before the gods tables laden with food (compare Herod. i. 181, 183; Smith, Rel. of Semites, Lect X).
Nothing is known of a Babylonian deity named Gad, but there are Aramean and Arabic equivalents. The origin may have been a personification of fortune and destiny, i.e. equivalent to the Fates. The Nabatean inscriptions give, in plural, form, the name of Meni. Achimenidean coins (Persian) are thought by some to bear the name of Meni. How widely spread these Syrian cults became, may be seen in a number of ways, e.g. an altar from Vaison in Southern France bearing an inscription:
"Belus Fortunae rector, Menisque Magister."
Belus, signifying the Syrian Bel of Apamaea (Driver). Canaanitish place-names also attest the prevalence of the cult, as Baal-gad, at the foot of Hermen (Josh 11:17; 12:7; 13:5); Migdal-gad, possibly Mejdel near Askalon (Josh 15:37); Gaddi and Gaddiel (Nu 13:10 f). In Talmudic literature the name of Gad is frequently invoked (compare McCurdy in Jewish Encyclopedia, V, 544). Indeed the words of Leah in Gen 30:11 may refer not to good fortune or luck but to the deity who was especially regarded as the patron god of Good Fortune (compare Kent, Student's Old Testament, I, 111). Similar beliefs were held among the Greeks and Romans, e.g. Hor. Sat. ii.8, 61:
".... Fortuna, quis est crudelior in nos te deus?"
Cic. N.D. iii.24, 61:
"Quo in genere vel maxime est Fortuna numeranda."
The question has also an astronomical interest. Arabic tradition styled the planet Jupiter the greater fortune, and Venus the lesser fortune. Jewish tradition identified Gad with the planet Jupiter, and it has been conjectured that Meni is to be identified with the planet Venus.
See, however, ASTROLOGY, 10.
W. N. Stearns
('azal, "to go about"): Used once in Jer 2:36, "Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way?" of going after Egypt and Assyria.
(nachal ha-gadh; the King James Version River of Gad): In 2 Sam 24:5 we read that Joab and the captains of the host passed over Jordan and pitched in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the midst of the valley of Gad. If we refer to Josh 13:25 f, this might seem to indicate a valley near Rabbath-ammon. According to a generally accepted emendation suggested by Wellhausen, however, we should read, "They began from Aroer, and from the city that is in the middle of the torrent valley, toward Gad." See AR . The valley is evidently the Arnon.
W. Ewing
gad'-a-ra (Gadara):
This city is not named in Scripture, but the territory belonging to it is spoken of as chora ton Gadarenon, "country of the Gadarenes" (Mt 8:28). In the parallel passages (Mk 5:1; Lk 8:26,37) we read: chora ton Gerasenon "country of the Gerasenes." There is no good reason, however, to question the accuracy of the text in either case. The city of Gadara is represented today by the ruins of Umm Qeis on the heights south of el-Chummeh--the hot springs in the Yarmuk valley--about 6 miles Southeast of the Sea of Galilee. It maybe taken as certain that the jurisdiction of Gadara, as the chief city in these regions, extended over the country East of the Sea, including the lands of the subordinate town, GERASA (which see). The figure of a ship frequently appears on its coins: conclusive. proof that its territory reached the sea. The place might therefore be called with propriety, either "land of the Gerasenes," with reference to the local center, or "land of the Gadarenes," with reference to the superior city.
(NOTE.--The Textus Receptus of the New Testament reading. ton Gergesenon, "of the Gergesenes," must be rejected (Westcott-Hort, II. App., 11).)
The name Gadara appears to be Semitic It is still heard in Jedur, which attaches to the ancient rock tombs, with sarcophagi, to the East of the present ruins. They are closed by carved stone doors, and are used as storehouses for grain, and also as dwellings by the inhabitants. The place is not mentioned till later times. It was taken by Antiochus the Great when in 218 BC he first invaded Palestine (Polyb. v.71). Alexander Janneus invested the place, and reduced it after a ten months' siege (Ant., XIII, iii, 3; BJ, I, iv, 2). Pompey is said to have restored it, 63 BC (Ant., XIV, iv, 4; BJ, I, vii, 7); from which it would appear to have declined in Jewish hands. He gave it a free constitution. From this date the era of the city was reckoned. It was the seat of one of the councils instituted by Gabinius for the government of the Jews (Ant., XIV, v, 4; BJ, I, viii, 5). It was given by Augustus to Herod the Great in 30 BC (Ant., XV, vii, 3; BJ, I, xx, 3). The emperor would not listen to the accusations of the inhabitants against Herod for oppressive conduct (Ant., XV, x, 2 f). After Herod's death it was joined to the province of Syria, 4 BC (Ant., XVII, xi, 4; BJ, II, vi, 3). At the beginning of the Jewish revolt the country around Gadara was laid waste (BJ, II, xviii, 1). The Gadarenes captured some of the boldest of the Jews, of whom several were put to death, and others imprisoned (ibid., 5). A party in the city surrendered it to Vespasian, who placed a garrison there (BJ, IV, vii, 3). It continued to be a great and important city, and was long the seat of a bishop (Reland, Palestine, 776). With the conquest of the Moslems it passed under eclipse, and is now an utter ruin.
3. Identification and Description:
Umm Cheis answers the description given of Gadara by ancient writers. It was a strong fortress (Ant., XIII, iii, 3), near the Hieromax--i.e. Yarmuk (Pliny N H, xvi)--East of Tiberias and Scythopolis, on the top of a hill, 3 Roman miles from hot springs and baths called Amatha, on the bank of the Hieromax (Onomasticon, under the word). The narrow ridge on which the ruins lie runs out toward the Jordan from the uplands of Gilead, with the deep gorge of Wady Yarmuk--Hieromax--on the North, and Wady el `Arab on the South. The hot springs, as noted above, are in the bottom of the valley to the North. The ridge sinks gradually to the East, and falls steeply on the other three sides, so that the position was one of great strength. The ancient walls may be traced in almost their entire circuit of 2 miles. One of the great Roman roads ran eastward to Der`ah; and an aqueduct has been traced to the pool of el Khab, about 20 miles to the North of Der`ah. The ruins include those of two theaters, a basilica, a temple, and many important buildings, telling of a once great and splendid city. A paved street, with double colonnade, ran from East to West. The ruts worn in the pavement by the chariot wheels are still to be seen.
That there was a second Gadara seems certain, and it may be intended in some of the passages referred to above. It is probably represented by the modern Jedur, not far from es-Salt (Buhl, Buhl, Geographic des alten Palastina, 255; Guthe). Josephus gives Pella as the northern boundary of Peraea (BJ, III, iii, 3). This would exclude Gadara on the Hieromax. The southern city, therefore, should be understood as "the capital of Peraea" in BJ, IV; vii, 3.
Gadara was a member of the DECAPOLIS (which see).
W. Ewing
gad-a-renz'. See preceding article.
gad'-i (gaddi, "my fortune"): One of the twelve spies, son of Susi, and a chief of Manasseh (Nu 13:11).
gad'-i-el (gaddi'el, "blest of God"): One of the twelve men sent by Moses from the wilderness of Paran to spy out the land of Canaan. He represented the tribe of Zebulun (Nu 13:10).
gad'-is (A Gaddis; Kaddis; the King James Version Caddis): Surname of John, the eldest brother of Judas Maccabeus (1 Macc 2:2).
ga'-di (gadhi, "fortunate"): The father of Menahem, one of the kings of Israel who reached the throne through blood (2 Ki 15:14,17).
gad'-its: Members of the tribe of Gad (Dt 3:12, etc.).
ga'-ham (gacham): A son of Nahor, brother of Abraham, by his concubine Reumah (Gen 22:24).
ga'-har (gachar): A family name of the Nethinim who came up with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem (Ezr 2:47; Neh 7:49); in 1 Esdras 5:30 called Geddur.
ga'-i (gay'): In the Revised Version (British and American) of 1 Sam 17:52 for the King James Version "valleys." the Revised Version, margin notes: "The Syriac and some editions of the Septuagint have Gath" (thus also Wellhausen, Budde, Driver, etc.).
gan: In the Old Testament the translation of three Hebrew substantives, betsa`, "unjust gain," "any gain" (Jdg 5:19; Job 22:3; Prov 1:19; 15:27; Isa 33:15; 56:11; Ezek 22:13,17; Mic 4:13); mechir, "price" for which a thing is sold (Dan 11:39, the only place where the Hebrew word is translated "gain" in the King James Version, though it occurs in other places translated "price"); tebhu'ah, "produce," "profits," "fruit" (Prov 3:14). It is the translation of one Hebrew verb, batsa`, "to gain dishonestly" (Job 27:8); of one Aramaic verb, zebhan, "to buy," "procure for oneself" (Dan 2:8, here used of buying time, i.e. "seeking delay" (Gesenius)).
In the New Testament, the translation of three Greek substantives, ergasia, "gain gotten by work," "profit" (Acts 16:16,19; 19:24 (the King James Version)); kerdos, "gain," "advantage" (Phil 12:1; 3:7, in the former, Paul asserting that to him to die was a personal advantage, because then he would "be with Christ"; in the latter, he counts as "loss" his personal privileges in the flesh, when compared with "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ"); porismos, "gain," "a source of gain" (1 Tim 6:5,6, where the apostle asserts, not "gain" (earthly) is godliness, but godliness is "gain" (real, abiding)). It is the translation of three Greek vbs., kerdaino, "to gain," "acquire," in Mt 16:26, where Jesus teaches that the soul, or life in its highest sense ("his own self," Lk 9:25), is worth more than the "gaining" of the whole (material) world; Mt 18:15, concerning the winning of a sinning brother by private interview; Mt 25:17,22, the parable of the Talents; Acts 27:21 the King James Version, injury "gained," sustained, by sailing from Crete; 1 Cor 9:19,20 bis, 21,22, all referring to Paul's life-principle of accommodation to others to "gain," win, them to Christ; in Jas 4:13 used in a commercial sense; poieo, "to make," "make gain" (Lk 19:18 the King James Version, the parable of the Pounds); prosergazomai, "to gain by trading" (Lk 19:16, commercial use, in the same parallel).
Charles B. Williams
gan-sa, gan'-sa (anteipon, antilego, "to say or speak against"): Occurs as anteipon, "not .... able to withstand or to gainsay" (Lk 21:15); as antilego, "a disobedient and gainsaying people" (Rom 10:21); 2 Esdras 5:29, contradicebant; Judith 8:28, anthistemi; 12:14, antero; Additions to Esther 13:9, antitasso; 1 Macc 14:44, anteipon.
Gainsayer, antilego (Tit 1:9, "exhort and convince (the Revised Version (British and American) "convict") the gainsayers").
Gainsaying, antilogia (Jude 1:11, "the gain-saying of Korah"); antilogia is Septuagint for meribhah (Nu 20:13); anantirrhetos, "without contradiction" (Acts 10:29, "without gainsaying").
The Revised Version (British and American) has "gainsaid" for "spoken against" (Acts 19:36); "not gainsaying" for "not answering again" (Tit 2:9); "gainsaying" for "contradiction" (Heb 12:3).
W. L. Walker
ga'-yus (Gaios; Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, Gaios):
(1) The Gaius to whom 3 Jn is addressed. He is spoken of as "the beloved" (3 Jn 1:1,2,5,11), "walking in the truth" (3 Jn 1:3,4), and doing "a faithful work" "toward them that are brethren and strangers withal" (3 Jn 1:5,6). He has been identified by some with the Gaius mentioned in the Apostolical Constitutions (VII, 46), as having been appointed bishop of Pergamum by John.
(2) Gaius of Macedonia, a "companion in travel" of Paul (Acts 19:29). He was one of those who were seized by Demetrius and the other silversmiths in the riot at Ephesus, during Paul's third missionary journey.
(3) Gaius of Derbe, who was among those who accompanied Paul from Greece "as far as Asia," during his third missionary journey (Acts 20:4). In the corresponding list given in the "Contendings of Paul" (compare Budge, Contendings of the Twelve Apostles,II , 592), the name of this Gaius is given as "Gallius."
(4) Gaius, the host of Paul when he wrote the Epistle to the Roman, and who joined in sending his salutations (Rom 16:23). As Paul wrote this epistle from Corinth, it is probable that this Gaius is identical with (5).
(5) Gaius, whom Paul baptized at Corinth (1 Cor 1:14).
C. M. Kerr
gal'-a-ad (Galaad, Greek form of Gilead (1 Macc 5:9,55; Judith 1:8)).
ga'-lal (galal): The name of two Levites, one mentioned in 1 Ch 9:15, the other in 1 Ch 9:16 and Neh 11:17.
ga-la'-shi-a, ga-la'-sha (Galatia):
1. Stages of Evangelization of Province
"Galatia" was a name used in two different senses during the 1st century after Christ:
(1) Geographical
To designate a country in the north part of the central plateau of Asia Minor, touching Paphlagonia and Bithynia North, Phrygia West and South, Cappadocia and Pontus Southeast and East, about the headwaters of the Sangarios and the middle course of the Halys;
(2) Political
To designate a large province of the Roman empire, including not merely the country Galatia, but also Paphlagonia and parts of Pontus, Phrygia, Pisidia, Lycaonia and Isauria. The name occurs in 1 Cor 16:1; Gal 1:2; 1 Pet 1:1, and perhaps 2 Tim 4:10. Some writers assume that Galatia is also mentioned in Acts 16:6; 18:23; but the Greek there has the phrase "Galatic region" or "territory," though the English Versions of the Bible has "Galatia"; and it must not be assumed without proof that "Galatic region" is synonymous with "Galatia." If e.g. a modern narrative mentioned that a traveler crossed British territory, we know that this means something quite different from crossing Britain. "Galatic region" has a different connotation from "Galatia"; and, even if we should find that geographically it was equivalent, the writer had some reason for using that special form.
The questions that have to be answered are: (a) In which of the two senses is "Galatia" used by Paul and Peter? (b) What did Luke mean by Galatic region or territory? These questions have not merely geographical import; they bear most closely, and exercise determining influence, on many points in the biography, chronology, missionary work and methods of Paul.
II. Origin of the Name "Galatia."
The name was introduced into Asia after 278-277 BC, when a large body of migrating Gauls (Galatai in Greek) crossed over from Europe at the invitation of Nikomedes, king of Bithynia; after ravaging a great part of Western Asia Minor they were gradually confined to a district, and boundaries were fixed for them after 232 BC. Thus, originated the independent state of Galatia, inhabited by three Gaulish tribes, Tolistobogioi, Tektosages and Trokmoi, with three city-centers, Pessinus, Ankyra and Tavia (Tavion in Strabo), who had brought their wives and families with them, and therefore continued to be a distinct Gaulish race and stock (which would have been impossible if they had come as simple warriors who took wives from the conquered inhabitants). The Gaulish language was apparently imposed on all the old inhabitants, who remained in the country as an inferior caste. The Galatai soon adopted the country religion, alongside of their own; the latter they retained at least as late as the 2nd century after Christ, but it was politically important for them to maintain and exercise the powers of the old priesthood, as at Pessinus, where the Galatai shared the office with the old priestly families.
The Galatian state of the Three Tribes lasted till 25 BC, governed first by a council and by tetrarchs, or chiefs of the twelve divisions (four to each tribe) of the people, then, after 63 BC, by three kings. Of these, Deiotaros succeeded in establishing himself as sole king, by murdering the two other tribal kings; and after his death in 40 BC his power passed to Castor and then to Amyntas, 36-25 BC. Amyntas bequeathed his kingdom to Rome; and it was made a Roman province (Dion Cass. 48, 33, 5; Strabo, 567, omits Castor). Amyntas had ruled also parts of Phrygia, Pisidia, Lycaonia and Isauria. The new province included these parts, and to it were added Paphlagonia 6 BC, part of Pontus 2 BC (called Pontus Galaticus in distinction from Eastern Pontus, which was governed by King Polemon and styled Polemoniacus), and in 64 also Pontus Polemoniacus. Part of Lycaonia was non-Roman and was governed by King Antiochus; from 41 to 72 AD Laranda belonged to this district, which was distinguished as Antiochiana regio from the Roman region Lycaonia called Galatica.
This large province was divided into regiones for administrative purposes; and the regiones coincided roughly with the old national divisions Pisidia, Phrygia (including Antioch, Iconium, Apollonia), Lycaonia (including Derbe, Lystra and a district organized on the village-system), etc. See Calder in Journal of Roman Studies, 1912. This province was called by the Romans Galatia, as being the kingdom of Amyntas (just like the province Asia, which also consisted of a number of different countries as diverse and alien as those of province Galatia, and was so called because the Romans popularly and loosely spoke of the kings of that congeries of countries as kings of Asia). The extent of both names, Asia and Galatia, in Roman language, varied with the varying bounds of each province. The name "Galatia" is used to indicate the province, as it was at the moment, by Ptolemy, Pliny v.146, Tacitus Hist. ii.9; Ann. xiii. 35; later chroniclers, Syncellus, Eutropius, and Hist. Aug. Max. et Balb. 7 (who derived it from earlier authorities, and used it in the old sense, not the sense customary in their own time); and in inscriptions CIL, III, 254, 272 (Eph. Ep. v.51); VI, 1408, 1409, 332; VIII, 11028 (Mommsen rightly, not Schmidt), 18270, etc. It will be observed that these are almost all Roman sources, and (as we shall see) express a purely Roman view. If Paul used the name "Galatia" to indicate the province, this would show that he consistently and naturally took a Roman view, used names in a Roman connotation, and grouped his churches according to Roman provincial divisions; but that is characteristic of the apostle, who looked forward from Asia to Rome (Acts 19:21), aimed at imperial conquest and marched across the Empire from province to province (Macedonia, Achaia, Asia are always provinces to Paul). On the other hand, in the East and the Greco-Asiatic world, the tendency was to speak of the province either as the Galatic Eparchia (as at Iconium in 54 AD, CIG, 3991), or by enumeration of its regiones (or a selection of the regiones). The latter method is followed in a number of inscriptions found in the province (CIL, III, passim). Now let us apply these contemporary facts to the interpretation of the narrative of Luke.
1. Stages of Evangelization of Province:
The evangelization of the province began in Acts 13:14. The stages are: (1) the audience in the synagogue, Acts 13:42 f; (2) almost the whole city, 13:44; (3) the whole region, i.e. a large district which was affected from the capital (as the whole of Asia was affected from Ephesus 19:10); (4) Iconium another city of this region: in 13:51 no boundary is mentioned; (5) a new region Lycaonia with two cities and surrounding district (14:6); (6) return journey to organize the churches in (a) Lystra, (b) Iconium and Antioch (the secondary reading of Westcott and Hort, (kai eis Ikonion kai Antiocheleian), is right, distinguishing the two regions (a) Lycaonia, (b) that of Iconium and Antioch); (7) progress across the region Pisidia, where no churches were founded (Pisidian Antioch is not in this region, which lies between Antioch and Pamphylia).
Again (in Acts 16:1-6) Paul revisited the two regiones: (1) Derbe and Lystra, i.e. regio Lycaonia Galatica, (2) the Phrygian and Galatic region, i.e. the region which was racially Phrygian and politically Galatic. Paul traversed both regions, making no new churches but only strengthening the existing disciples and churches. In Acts 18:23 he again revisited the two regiones, and they are briefly enumerated: (1) the Galatic region (so called briefly by a traveler, who had just traversed Antiochiana and distinguished Galatica from it); (2) Phrygia. On this occasion he specially appealed, not to churches as in 16:6, but to disciples; it was a final visit and intended to reach personally every individual, before Paul went away to Rome and the West. On this occasion the contribution to the poor of Jerusalem was instituted, and the proceeds later were carried by Timothy and Gaius of Derbe (Acts 20:4; 24:17; 1 Cor 16:1); this was a device to bind the new churches to the original center of the faith.
These four churches are mentioned by Luke always as belonging to two regiones, Phrygia and Lycaoma; and each region is in one case described as Galatic, i.e. part of the province Galatia. Luke did not follow the Roman custom, as Paul did; he kept the custom of the Greeks and Asiatic peoples, and styled the province by enumerating its regiones, using the expression Galatic (as in Pontus Galaticus and at Iconium, CIG, 3991) to indicate the supreme unity of the province. By using this adjective about both regiones he marked his point of view that all four churches are included in the provincial unity.
From Paul's references we gather that he regarded the churches of Galatia as one group, converted together (Gal 4:13), exposed to the same influences and changing together (Gal 1:6,8; 3:1; 4:9), naturally visited at one time by a traveler (Gal 1:8; 4:14). He never thinks of churches of Phrygia or of Lycaonia; only of province Galatia (as of provinces Asia, Macedonia, Achaia). Paul did not include in one class all the churches of one journey: he went direct from Macedonia to Athens and Corinth, but classes the churches of Macedonia separate from those of Achaia. Troas and Laodicea and Colosse he classed with Asia (as Luke did Troas Acts 20:4), Philippi with Macedonia, Corinth with Achaia. These classifications are true only of the Roman usage, not of early Greek usage. The custom of classifying according to provinces, universal in the fully formed church of the Christian age, was derived from the usage of the apostles (as Theodore Mopsuestia expressly asserts in his Commentary on First Timothy (Swete, II, 121); Harnack accepts this part of the statement (Verbreitung, 2nd edition, I, 387; Expansion, II, 96)). His churches then belonged to the four provinces, Asia, Galatia, Achaia, Macedonia. There were no other Pauline churches; all united in the gift of money which was carried to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4; 24:17).
IV. Paul's Use of "Galatians."
The people of the province of Galatia, consisting of many diverse races, when summed up together, were called Galatai, by Tacitus, Ann. xv.6; Syncellus, when he says (Augoustos Galatais phorous etheto), follows an older historian describing the imposing of taxes on the province; and an inscription of Apollonia Phrygiae calls the people of the city Galatae (Lebas-Waddington, 1192). If Paul spoke to Philippi or Corinth or Antioch singly, he addressed them as Philippians, Corinthians, Antiochians (Phil 4:15; 2 Cor 6:11), not as Macedonians or Achaians; but when he had to address a group of several churches (as Antioch, Iconium, Derbe and Lystra) he could use only the provincial unity, Galatae.
All attempts to find in Paul's letter to the Galatians any allusions that specially suit the character of the Gauls or Galatae have failed. The Gauls were an aristocracy in a land which they had conquered. They clung stubbornly to their own Celtic religion long after the time of Paul, even though they also acknowledged the power of the old goddess of the country. They spoke their own Celtic tongue. They were proud, even boastful, and independent. They kept their native law under the Empire. The "Galatians" to whom Paul wrote had Changed very quickly to a new form of religion, not from fickleness, but from a certain proneness to a more oriental form of religion which exacted of them more sacrifice of a ritual type. They needed to be called to freedom; they were submissive rather than arrogant. They spoke Greek. They were accustomed to the Greco-Asiatic law: the law of adoption and inheritance which Paul mentions in his letter is not Roman, but Greco-Asiatic, which in these departments was similar, with some differences; on this see the writer's Historical Commentary on Galatians.
W. M. Ramsay
ga-la'-shanz. See preceding article.
1. Position of the Dutch School
A) Summary of Contents
2. Personal History (Galatians 1:11 through 2:21 (4:12-20; 6:17))
Paul's Independent Apostleship
3. The Doctrinal Polemic (Galatians 3:1 through 5:12)
4. The Ethical Application (Galatians 5:12 through 6:10)
Law of the Spirit of Life
5. The Epilogue (Galatians 6:11-18)
B) Salient Points
2. Present Stage of the Controversy
3. Paul's Depreciation of the Law
C) Characteristics
1. Idiosyncrasy of the Epistle
III. RELATIONS TO OTHER EPISTLES
2. Links with 1 and 2 Corinthians
3. With the Corinthians-Romans Group
4. With Other Groups of Epistles
1. Place and Time Interdependent
(2) Prima facie Sense of Acts 16:6
(4) Notes of Time in the Epistle
(5) Paul's Renewed Struggle with Legalism
(7) Paul's First Coming to Galatia
(8) Barnabas and the Galatians
(10) Wider Bearings of the Problem
LITERATURE
When and to whom, precisely, this letter was written, it is difficult to say; its authorship and purpose are unmistakable. One might conceive it addressed by the apostle Paul, in its main tenor, to almost any church of his Gentilemission attracted to Judaism, at any point within the years circa 45-60 AD. Some plausibly argue that it was the earliest, others place it among the later, of the Pauline Epistles. This consideration dictates the order of our inquiry, which proceeds from the plainer to the more involved and disputable parts of the subject.
1. Position of the Dutch School:
The Tubingen criticism of the last century recognized the four major epistles of Paul as fully authentic, and made them the corner-stone of its construction of New Testament history. Only Bruno Bauer (Kritik. d. paulin. Briefe, 1850-52) attacked them in this sense, while several other critics accused them of serious interpolations; but these attempts made little impression. Subsequently, a group of Dutch scholars, beginning with Loman in his Quaestiones Paulinae (1882) and represented by Van Manen in the Encyclopedia Biblica (art. "Paul"), have denied all the canonical epistles to the genuine Paul. They postulate a gradual development in New Testament ideas covering the first century and a half after Christ, and treat the existing letters as "catholic adaptations" of fragmentary pieces from the apostle's hand, produced by a school of "Paulinists" who carried their master's principles far beyond his own intentions. On this theory, Galatians, with its advanced polemic against the law, approaching the position of Marcion (140 AD), was work of the early 2nd century. Edwin Johnson in England (Antiqua Mater, 1887), and Steck in Germany (Galaterbrief, 1888), are the only considerable scholars outside of Holland who have adopted this hypothesis; it is rejected by critics so radical as Scholten and Schmiedel (see the article of the latter on "Galatians" in EB ). Knowling has searchingly examined the position of the Dutch school in his Witness of the Epistles (1892)--it is altogether too arbitrary and uncontrolled by historical fact to be entertained; see Julicher's or Zahn's Introduction to New Testament (English translation), to the same effect. Attempts to dismember this writing, and to appropriate it for other hands and later times than those of the apostle Paul, are idle in view of its vital coherence and the passionate force with which the author's personality has stamped itself upon his work; the Paulinum pectus speaks in every line. The two contentions on which the letter turns--concerning Paul's apostleship, and the circumcision of GentileChristians--belonged to the apostle's lifetime: in the fifth and sixth decades these were burning questions; by the 2nd century the church had left them far behind.
Early Christianity gives clear and ample testimony to this document. Marcion placed it at the head of his Apostolikon (140 AD); Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Melito, quoted it about the same time. It is echoed by Ignatius (Philad., i) and Polycarp (Philip., iii and v) a generation earlier, and seems to have been used by contemporary Gnostic teachers. It stands in line with the other epistles of Paul in the oldest Latin, Syriac and Egyptian translations, and in the Muratorian (Roman) Canon of the 2nd century. It comes full into view as an integral part of the new Scripture in Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian at the close of this period. No breath of suspicion as to the authorship, integrity or apostolic authority of the Ep. to the Gal has reached us from ancient times.
A) Summary of Contents:
A double note of war sounds in the address and greeting (Gal 1:1,4). Astonishment replaces the customary thanksgiving (Gal 1:6-10): The Galatians are listening to preachers of "another gospel" (1:6,7) and traducers of the apostle (1:8,10), whom he declares "anathema." Paul has therefore two objects in writing--to vindicate himself, and to clear and reinforce his doctrine. The first he pursues from 1:11 to 2:21; the second from 3:1 to 5:12. Appropriate: moral exhortations follow in 5:13 through 6:10. The closing paragraph (6:11-17) resumes incisively the purport of the letter. Personal, argumentative, and hortatory matter interchange with the freedom natural in a letter to old friends.
2. Personal History (Galatians 1:11 through 2:21 (4:12-20; 6:17)):
Paul's Independent Apostleship.
Paul asserts himself for his gospel's sake, by showing that his commission was God-given and complete (Gal 1:11,12). On four decisive moments in his course he dwells for this purpose--as regards the second manifestly (Gal 1:20), as to others probably, in correction of misstatements:
(1) A thorough-paced Judaist and persecutor (Gal 1:13,14), Paul was supernaturally converted to Christ (Gal 1:15), and received at conversion his charge for the Gentiles, about which he consulted no one (Gal 1:16,17).
(2) Three years later he "made acquaintance with Cephas" in Jerusalem and saw James besides, but no "other of the apostles" (Gal 1:18,19). For long he was known only by report to "the churches of Judea" (Gal 1:21-24).
(3) At the end of "fourteen years" he "went up to Jerusalem," with Barnabas, to confer about the "liberty" of Gentilebelievers, which was endangered by "false brethren" (Gal 2:1-5). Instead of supporting the demand for the circumcision of the "Greek" Titus (Gal 2:3), the "pillars" there recognized the sufficiency and completeness of Paul's "gospel of the uncircumcision" and the validity of his apostleship (Gal 2:6-8). They gave "right hands of fellowship" to himself and Barnabas on this understanding (Gal 2:9,10). The freedom of GentileChristianity was secured, and Paul had not "run in vain."
(4) At Antioch, however, Paul and Cephas differed (Gal 2:11). Cephas was induced to withdraw from the common church-table, and carried "the rest of the Jews," including Barnabas, with him (Gal 2:12,13). "The truth of the gospel," with Cephas' own sincerity, was compromised by this "separation," which in effect "compelled the Gentiles to Judaize" (Gal 2:13,14). Paul therefore reproved Cephas publicly in the speech reproduced by Gal 2:14-21, the report of which clearly states the evangelical position and the ruinous consequences (2:18,21) of reestablishing "the law."
3. Doctrinal Polemic (Galatians 3:1 through 5:12):
The doctrinal polemic was rehearsed in the autobiography (Gal 2:3-5,11-12). In Gal 2:16 is laid down thesis of the epistle: "A man is not justified by the works of law but through faith in Jesus Christ." This proposition is (a) demonstrated from experience and history in 3:1-4:7; then (b) enforced by 4:8-5:12.
(a1) From his own experience (Gal 2:19-21) Paul passes to that of the readers, who are "bewitched" to forget "Christ crucified" (Gal 3:1)! Had their life in "the Spirit" come through "works of the law" or the "hearing of faith"? Will the flesh consummate what the Spirit began (Gal 3:2-5)? (a2) Abraham, they are told, is the father of God's people; but `the men of faith' are Abraham's true heirs (Gal 3:6-9). "The law" curses every transgressor; Scripture promised righteousness through faith for the very reason that justification by legal "doing" is impossible (Gal 3:10-12). "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law" in dying the death it declared "accursed" (Gal 3:13). Thus He conveyed to the nations "the promise of the Spirit," pledged to them through believing Abraham (Gal 3:7,14). (a3) The "testament" God gave to "Abraham and his seed" (a single "seed," observe) is unalterable. The Mosaic law, enacted 430 years later, could not nullify this instrument (Gal 3:15-17 the King James Version). Nullified it wound have been, had its fulfillment turned on legal performance instead of Divine "grace" (Gal 3:18). (a4) "Why then the law?" Sin required it, pending the accomplishment of "the promise." Its promulgation through intermediaries marks its inferiority (Gal 3:19,20). With no power `to give life,' it served the part of a jailer guarding us till "faith came," of "the paedagogus" training us `for Christ' (Gal 3:21-25). (a5) But now "in Christ," Jew and Greek alike, "ye are all sons of God through faith"; being such, "you are Abraham's seed" and `heirs in terms of the promise' (Gal 3:26-29). The `infant' heirs, in tutelage, were `subject to the elements of the world,' until "God sent forth his Son," placed in the like condition, to "redeem" them (Gal 4:1-5). Today the "cry" of "the Spirit of his Son" in your "hearts" proves this redemption accomplished (Gal 4:6,7).
The demonstration is complete; Gal 3:1-4:7 forms the core of the epistle. The growth of the Christian consciousness has been traced from its germ in Abraham to its flower in the church of all nations. The Mosaic law formed a disciplinary interlude in the process, which has been all along a life of faith. Paul concludes where he began (3:2), by claiming the Spirit as witness to the full salvation of the Gentiles; compare Rom 8:1-27; 2 Cor 3:4-18; Eph 1:13,14. From Gal 4:8 onward to 5:12, the argument is pressed home by appeal, illustration and warning.
(b1) After "knowing God," would the Galatians return to the bondage in which ignorantly they served as gods "the elements" of Nature? (4:8,9). Their adoption of Jewish "seasons" points to this backsliding (4:10,11). (b2) Paul's anxiety prompts the entreaty of 4:12-20, in which he recalls his fervent reception by his readers, deplores their present alienation, and confesses his perplexity. (b3) Observe that Abraham had two sons--"after the flesh" and "through promise" (4:21-23); those who want to be under law are choosing the part of Ishmael: "Hagar" stands for `the present Jerusalem' in her bondage; `the Jerusalem above is free--she is our mother!' (4:24-28,31). The fate of Hagar and Ishmael pictures the issue of legal subjection (4:29,30): "Stand fast therefore" (5:1). (b4) The crucial moment comes at 5:2: the Galatians are half-persuaded (5:7,8); they will fatally commit themselves, if they consent to `be circumcised.' This will sever them from Christ, and bind them to complete observance of Moses' law: law or grace--by one or the other they must stand (5:3-5). "Circumcision, uncircumcision"--these "count for nothing in Christ Jesus" (5:6). Paul will not believe in the defection of those who `ran' so "well"; "judgment" will fall on their `disturber' (5:7-10,12). Persecution marks himself as no circumcisionist (5:11)!
4. The Ethical Application (Galatians 5:13-6:10):
Law of the Spirit of Life
The ethical application is contained in the phrase of Rom 8:2, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." (1) Love guards Christian liberty from license; it `fulfills the whole law in a single word' (Gal 5:13-15). (2) The Spirit, who imparts freedom, guides the free man's "walk." Flesh and spirit are, opposing principles: deliverance from "the flesh" and its "works" is found in possession by "the Spirit," who bears in those He rules His proper "fruit." `Crucified with Christ' and `living in the Spirit,' the Christian man keeps God's law without bondage under it (Gal 5:16-26). (3) In cases of unwary fall, `men of the Spirit' will know how to "restore" the lapsed, `fulfilling Christ's law' and mindful of their own weakness (Gal 6:1-5). (4) Teachers have a peculiar claim on the taught; to ignore this is to `mock God.' Men will "reap corruption" or "eternal life," as in such matters they `sow to the flesh' or `to the Spirit.' Be patient till the harvest! (Gal 6:6-10).
5. The Epilogue (Galatians 6:11-18):
The autograph conclusion (Gal 6:11) exposes the sinister motive of the circumcisionists, who are ashamed of the cross, the Christian's only boast (Gal 6:12-15). Such men are none of "the Israel of God!" (Gal 6:16). "The brand of Jesus" is now on Paul's body; at their peril "henceforth" will men trouble him! (Gal 6:17). The benediction follows (Gal 6:18).
B) Salient Points:
The postscript reveals the inwardness of the legalists' agitation. They advocated circumcision from policy more than from conviction, hoping to conciliate Judaism and atone for accepting the Nazarene--to hide the shame of the cross--by capturing for the Law the Gentilechurches. They attack Paul because he stands in the way of this attempt. Their policy is treason; it surrenders to the world that cross of Christ, to which the world for its salvation must unconditionally submit. The grace of God the one source of salvation Gal (1:3; 2:21; 5:4), the cross of Christ its sole ground (1:4; 2:19-21; 3:13; 6:14), faith in the Good News its all-sufficient means (2:16,20; 3:2,5-9,23-26; 5:5), the Spirit its effectuating power (3:2-5; 4:6,7; 5:5,16-25; 6:8)--hence, emancipation from the Jewish law, and the full status of sons of God open to the Gentiles (2:4,5,15-19; 3:10-14; 3:28-4:9,26-31; 5:18; 6:15): these connected principles are at stake in the contention; they make up the doctrine of the epistle.
2. Present Stage of the Controversy:
Circumcision is now proposed by the Judaists as a supplement to faith in Christ, as the qualification for sonship to Abraham and communion with the apostolic church (Gal 3:7,29). After the Council at Jerusalem, they no longer say outright, "Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1). Paul's Galatian converts, they admit, "have begun in the Spirit"; they bid them "be perfected" and attain the full Christian status by conforming to Moses--"Christ will profit" them much more, if they add to their faith circumcision (Gal 3:3; 5:2; compare Rom 3:1). This insidious proposal might seem to be in keeping with the findings of the Council; Peter's action at Antioch lent color to it. Such a grading of the Circumcision and Uncircumcision within the church offered a tempting solution of the legalist controversy; for it appeared to reconcile the universal destination of the gospel with the inalienable prerogatives of the sons of Abraham. Paul's reply is, that believing Gentiles are already Abraham's "seed"--nay, sons and heirs of God; instead of adding anything, circumcision would rob them of everything they have won in Christ; instead of going on to perfection by its aid, they would draw back unto perdition.
3. Paul's Depreciation of the Law:
Paul carries the war into the enemies' camp, when he argues, (a) that the law of Moses brought condemnation, not blessing, on its subjects (Gal 3:10-24); and (b) that instead of completing the work of faith, its part in the Divine economy was subordinate (Gal 3:19-25). It was a temporary provision, due to man's sinful unripeness for the original covenant (Gal 3:19,24; 4:4). The Spirit of sonship, now manifested in the Gentiles, is the infallible sign that the promise made to mankind in Abraham has been fulfilled. The whole position of the legalists is undermined by the use the apostle makes of the Abrahamic covenant.
The religious and the personal questions of the epistle are bound up together; this Gal 5:2 clearly indicates. The latter naturally emerges first (1:1,11 ff). Paul's authority must be overthrown, if his disciples are to be Judaized. Hence, the campaign of detraction against him (compare 2 Cor 10 through 12). The line of defense indicates the nature of the attack. Paul was said to be a second-hand, second-rate apostle, whose knowledge of Christ and title to preach Him came from Cephas and the mother church. In proof of this, an account was given of his career, which he corrects in Gal 1:13 through 2:21. "Cephas" was held up (compare 1 Cor 1:12) as the chief of the apostles, whose primacy Paul had repeatedly acknowledged; and "the pillars" at Jerusalem were quoted as maintainers of Mosaic rule and authorities for the additions to be made to Paul's imperfect gospel. Paul himself, it was insinuated, "preaches circumcision" where it suits him; he is a plausible time-server (Gal 1:10; 5:11; compare Acts 16:3; 1 Cor 9:19-21). The apostle's object in his self-defense is not to sketch his own life, nor in particular to recount his visits to Jerusalem, but to prove his independent apostleship and his consistent maintenance of Gentilerights. He states, therefore, what really happened on the critical occasions of his contact with Peter and the Jerusalem church. To begin with, he received his gospel and apostolic office from Jesus Christ directly, and apart from Peter (Gal 1:13-20); he was subsequently recognized by "the pillars" as apostle, on equality with Peter (Gal 2:6-9); he had finally vindicated his doctrine when it was assailed, in spite of Peter (Gal 2:11-12). The adjustment of Paul's recollections with Luke's narrative is a matter of dispute, in regard both to the conference of Gal 2:1-10 and the encounter of 2:11-21; to these points we shall return, iv.3 (4), (5).
C) Characteristics:
1. Idiosyncrasy of the Epistle:
This is a letter of expostulation. Passion and argument are blended in it. Hot indignation and righteous scorn (Gal 1:7-9; 4:17; 5:10,12; 6:12,13), tender, wounded affection (Gal 4:11-20), deep sincerity and manly integrity united with the loftiest consciousness of spiritual authority (Gal 1:10-12,20; 2:4-6,14; 5:2; 6:17), above all a consuming devotion to the person and cross of the Redeemer, fill these few pages with an incomparable wealth and glow of Christian emotion. The power of mind the epistle exhibits matches its largeness of heart. Roman indeed carries out the argument with greater breadth and theoretic completeness; but Gal excels in pungency, incisiveness, and debating force. The style is that of Paul at the summit of his powers. Its spiritual elevation, its vigor and resource, its subtlety and irony, poignancy and pathos, the vis vivida that animates the whole, have made this letter a classic of religious controversy. The blemishes of Paul's composition, which contribute to his mastery of effect, are conspicuous here--his abrupt turns and apostrophes, and sometimes difficult ellipses (Gal 2:4-10,20; 4:16-20; 5:13), awkward parentheses and entangled periods (Gal 2:1-10,18; 3:16,20; 4:25), and outburst of excessive vehemence (Gal 1:8,9; 5:12).
The anti-legalist polemic gives a special Old Testament coloring to the epistle; the apostle meets his adversaries on their own ground. In Gal 3:16,19-20; 4:21-31, we have examples of the rabbinical exegesis Paul had learned from his Jewish masters. These texts should be read in part as argumenta ad hominem; however peculiar in form such Pauline passages may be, they always contain sound reasoning.
III. Relations to Other Epistles.
(1) The connection of Galatians with Romans is patent; it is not sufficiently understood how pervasive that connection is and into what manifold detail it extends. The similarity of doctrine and doctrinal vocabulary manifest in Gal 2:13-6:16 and Rom 1:16-8:39 is accounted for by the Judaistic controversy on which Paul was engaged for so long, and by the fact that this discussion touched the heart of his gospel and raised questions in regard to which his mind was made up from the beginning (1:15,16), on which he would therefore always express himself in much the same way. Broadly speaking, the difference is that Romans is didactic and abstract, where Galatians is personal and polemical; that the former presents, a measured and rounded development of conceptions projected rapidly in the latter under the stress of controversy. The emphasis lies in Romans on justification by faith; in Galatians on the freedom of the Christian man. The contrast of tone is symptomatic of a calmer mood in the writer--the lull which follows the storm; it suits the different address of the two epistles.
Besides the correspondence of purport, there is a verbal resemblance to Romans pervading the tissue of Galatians, and traceable in its mannerisms and incidental expressions. Outside of the identical quotations, we find more than 40 Greek locutions, some of them rare in the language, common to these two and occurring in these only of Paul's epistles--including the words rendered "bear" (Rom 11:18 and Gal 5:10, etc.); "blessing" or "gratulation" (makarismos), "divisions" (Rom 16:17; Gal 5:20); "fail" or "fall from" (ekpipto); "labor on" or "upon" (of persons), "passions" (pathemata, in this sense); "set free" or "deliver" (eleutheroo); "shut up" or "conclude," and "shut out" or "exclude"; "travail (together)," and such phrases as "die to" (with dative), "hearing of faith," "if possible," "put on (the Lord Jesus) Christ," "those who do such things," "what saith the Scripture?" "where then?" (rhetorical), "why any longer?" The list would be greatly extended by adding expressions distinctive of this pair of letters that occur sporadically elsewhere in Paul. The kinship of Galatians-Romans in vocabulary and vein of expression resembles that existing between Colossians-Ephesians or 1 and 2 Thessalonians; it is twice as strong proportionately as that of 1 and 2 Corinthians. Not only the same current of thought, but with it, much the same stream of language was running through Paul's mind in writing these two epistles.
The association of Galatians with the two Corinthian letters, though less intimate than that of Galatians-Romans, is unmistakable.
2. Links with 1 and 2 Corinthians:
We count 23 distinct locations shared by 2 Corinthians alone (in its 13 chapters) with Galatians, and 20 such shared with 1 Corinthians (16 chapters)--a larger proportion for the former. Among the Galatians-1 Corinthians peculiarities are the sayings, "A little leaven," etc., "circumcision is nothing," etc., and the phrases, "be not deceived," "it is manifest" (delon as predicate to a sentence), "known by God," "profit nothing" and "to be something," "scandal of the cross," "the spiritual" (of persons), "they that are Christ's (of Christ Jesus)." Peculiar to Gal through 2 Cor are "another gospel" and "false brethren," "brings into bondage," "devour" and "zealously seek" or "am jealous over" (of persons); "a new creation," "confirm" or "ratify" (kuroo); "I am perplexed," the antithesis of "sowing" and "reaping" (figuratively); the phrase "on the contrary" or "contrariwise" (t'ounantion), etc. The conception of the "two covenants" (or "testaments") is conspicuous in both epistles (Gal 3:17-21; 4:21-31; 2 Cor 3:8-18), and does not recur in Paul; in each case the ideas of "law" (or "letter"), "bondage," "death," are associated with the one, diatheke, of "spirit," "freedom," "life," with the other. Gal 3:13 ("Christ .... made a curse for us") is matched by 2 Cor 5:21 ("made sin for us"); in Gal 2:19 and 6:14 we find Paul "crucified to the world" in the cross of his Master and "Christ" alone "living in" him; in 2 Cor 5:14,15 this experience becomes a universal law for Christians; and where in Gal 6:17 the apostle appears as `from hence-forth .... bearing in' his `body the brand of Jesus,' in 2 Cor 4:10 he is "always bearing about in" his "body the dying of Jesus."
These identical or closely congruous trains of thought and turns of phrase, varied and dominant as they are, speak for some near connection between the two writings. By its list of vices in Gal 5:19,20 Galatians curiously, and somewhat intricately, links itself at once with 2 Corinthians and Roman (See 2 Cor 12:20; Rom 13:13; 16:17). Galatians is allied by argument and doctrine with Romans, and by temper and sentiment with 2 Corinthians. The storm of feeling agitating our epistle blows from the same quarter, reaches the same height, and engages the same emotions with those which animate 2 Corinthians 10 through 13.
3. With the Corinthians-Romans Group:
If we add to the 43 locutions confined in the Pauline Epistles to Galatians-Romans the 23 such of Galatians-2 Corinthians, the 20 of Galatians-1 Corinthians, the 14 that range over Galatians-Romans-2 Corinthians, the 15 of Galatians-Romans-1 Corinthians, the 7 of Galatians-1-2 Corinthians, and the 11 running through all four, we get a total of 133 words or phrases (apart from Old Testament quotations) specific to Galatians in common with one or more of the Corinthians-Romans group--an average, that is, of close upon 3 for each chapter of those other epistles.
With the other groups of Pauline letters Galatians is associated by ties less numerous and strong, yet marked enough to suggest, in conjunction with the general style, a common authorship.
4. With Other Groups of Epistles:
The proportion of locutions peculiar to Gal and the 3rd group (Colossians-Philemon-Ephesians-Philippians) is 1 to each of their 15 chapters. The more noticeable of these are in Galatians-Colossians: "elements of the world," and the maxim, "There is no Jew nor Greek," etc., associated with the "putting on of Christ" ("the new man"); "fullness of the time" (or "seasons") and "householders of faith (of God)," also "Christ loved me (the church) and gave up himself for me (her)," in Galatians-Ephesians; "he that supplieth (your supplying of, epichoregia) the Spirit," and "vain-glory" (kenodoxia), in Galatians-Philippians; "redeem" (exagorazo) and "inheritance" are peculiar to Gal with Colossians-Ephesians together; the association of the believer's "inheritance" with "the Spirit" in Galatians-Ephesians is a significant point of doctrinal identity.
The Thessalonians and Timothy-Titus (1st and 4th) groups are outliers in relation to Galatians, judged by vocabulary. There is little to associate our epistle with either of these combinations, apart from pervasive Corinthians-Romans phrases and the Pauline complexion. There are 5 such expressions registered for the 8 chapters of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 7 for the 13 of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus--just over one to two chapters for each group. While the verbal coincidences in these two cases are, proportionately, but one-half so many as those connecting Galatians with the 3rd group of epistles and one-fifth or one-sixth of those linking it to the 2nd group, they are also less characteristic; the most striking is the contrast of "well-doing" (kalopoieo) with "fainting" or "wearying" (egkakeo) in Gal 6:9 and 2 Thess 3:13.
No other writing of Paul reflects the whole man so fully as this--his spiritual, emotional, intellectual, practical, and even physical, idiosyncrasy. We see less of the apostle's tenderness, but more of his strength than in Philippians; less of his inner, mystic experiences, more of the critical turns of his career; less of his "fears," more of his "fightings," than in 2 Corinthians. While the 2nd letter to Timothy lifts the curtain from the closing stage of the apostle's ministry, Gal throws a powerful light upon its beginning. The Pauline theology opens to us its heart in this document. The apostle's message of deliverance from sin through faith in the crucified Redeemer, and of the new life in the Spirit growing from this root, lives and speaks; we see it in Galatians as a working and fighting theology, while in Romans it peacefully expands into an ordered system. The immediately saving truth of Christianity, the gospel of the Gospel, finds its most trenchant utterance in this epistle; here we learn "the word of the cross" as Paul received it from the living Saviour, and defended it at the crisis of his work.
1. Place and Time Interdependent:
The question of the people to whom, is bound up with that of the time at which, the Epistle to the Galatians was written. Each goes to determine the other. The expression "the first time" (to proteron) of Gal 4:13 presumes Paul to have been twice with the readers previously--for the first occasion, See 4:13-15; for the second, 1:9; 5:3. The explanation of Round (Date of the Epistle to Galatians, 1906), that the apostle intended to distinguish his first arrival at the several (South) Galatian cities from his return in the course of the same journey (Acts 14:21-23), cannot be accepted: Derbe, the limit of the expedition, received Paul and Barnabas but once on that round, and in retracing their steps the missionaries were completing an interrupted work, whereas Gal 4:13 implies a second, distinct visitation of the churches concerned as a whole; in Acts 15:36 Paul looks back to the journey of Acts 13:14-14:26 as one event.
Now the apostle revisited the South Galatian churches in starting on the 2nd missionary tour (Acts 16:1-5). Consequently, if his "Galatians" were Christians of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe (the South Galatian hypothesis), the letter was written in the further course of the 2nd tour--from Macedonia or Corinth about the time of 1 and 2 Thess (so Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, I, English translation), or from Antioch in the interval between the 2nd and 3rd journeys (so Ramsay); for on this latter journey (Acts 18:23) Paul (ex hyp.) traversed `the (South) Galatian country' a third time. On the other hand, if they were people of Galatia proper, i.e. of North (Old) Galatia, the epistle cannot be earlier than the occasion of Acts 18:23, when Paul touched a second time "the Galatian country," which, on this supposition, he had evangelized in traveling from South Galatia to Troas during the previous tour (Acts 16:6-8). On the North Galatian hypothesis, the letter was dispatched from Ephesus during Paul's long residence there (Acts 19; so most interpreters, ancient and modern), in which case it heads the 2nd group of the epistles; or later, from Macedonia or Corinth, and shortly before the writing of the Epistle to the Romans (thus Lightfoot, Salmon, A. L. Williams and others).
Per contra, the earlier date, if proved independently, carries with it the South Galatian, the later date the North Galatian theory. The subscription of the Textus Receptus of the New Testament "written from Rome," rests on inferior manuscript authority and late Patristic tradition. Clemen, with no suggestion as to place of origin, assigns to the writing a date subsequent to the termination of the 3rd missionary tour (55 or 57 AD), inasmuch as the epistle reflects the controversy about the Law, which in Romans is comparatively mild, at an acute, and, therefore (he supposes), an advanced stage.
Lightfoot (chapter iii of Introduction to Commentary) placed Galatians in the 2nd group of the epistles between 2 Corinthians and Romans, upon considerations drawn from "the style and character" of the epistle. His argument might be strengthened by a detailed linguistic analysis (see III , 1-3, above). The more minutely one compares Galatians with Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians, the more these four are seen to form a continuous web, the product of the same experience in the writer's mind and the same situation in the church. This presumption, based on internal evidence, must be tested by examination of the topographical and chronological data.
(1) Galatia and the Galatians.
The double sense of these terms obtaining in current use has been shown in the article on GALATIA; Steinmann sets out the evidence at large in his essay on Der Leserkreis des Galaterbriefes, 61-76 (1908); see also A. L. Williams' Introduction to Galatians in Cambr. Greek Test. (1910). Roman authors of the period in using these expressions commonly thought of provincial Galatia (NOTE: Schurer seems to be right, however, in maintaining that "Galatia" was only the abbreviated designation for the province, named a parte potiori, and that in more formal description it was styled "Galatia, Pisidia, Phrygia," etc.) which then embraced in addition to Galatia proper a large tract of Southern Phrygia and Lycaonia, reaching from Pisidian Antioch in the west to Derbe in the east; but writers of Asia Minor leaned to the older local and national usage, according to which "Galatia" signified the north-central highlands of the peninsula, on both sides of the river Halys, in which the invading Galatae had settled long before this time. (On their history see the previous article) It is asserted that Paul strictly followed the official, as against the popular, usus loquendi in these matters--a questionable dictum (see A. L. Williams, op. cit., xix, xx, or Steinmann's Leserkreis, 78-104), in view of Gal 1:21,22 (note the Greek double article), to go no farther. There was nothing in Paul's Roman citizenship to make him a precisian in a point like this. Ramsay has proved that all four cities of Acts 13:14-14:23 were by this time included in provincial Galatia. Their inhabitants might therefore, officially, be styled "Galatians" (Galatae); it does not follow that this was a fit or likely compilation for Paul to use. Julicher says this would have been a piece of "bad taste" on his part. The attachment of the southern districts (Phrygian, Pisidian, Lycaonian) to Galatia was recent--Derbe had been annexed so late as the year 41--and artificial. Supposing that their Roman "colonial" rank made the designation "Galatians" agreeable to citizens of Antioch or Lystra, there was little in it to appeal to Iconians or Derbeans (compare Schmiedel, in EB , col. 1604).
(2) Prima Facie Sense of Acts 16:6.
The "Galatian country" (Galatike chora) is mentioned by Luke, with careful repetition, in Acts 16:6 and 18:23. Luke at any rate was not tied to imperial usage; he distinguishes "Phrygia" from "Asia" in Acts 2:9,10, although Phrygia was administratively parceled out between Asia and Galatia. When therefore "Asia" is opposed in 16:6 to "the Phrygian and Galatian country" (or "Phrygia and Galatian country," Zahn), we presume that the three terms of locality bear alike a non-official sense, so that the "Galatian country" means Old Galatia (or some part of it) lying to the Northeast, as "Asia" means the narrower Asia west of "Phrygia." On this presumption we understand that Paul and Silas, after completing their visitation of "the cities" of the former tour (Acts 16:4,5; compare 15:36, in conjunction with 13:14 through 14:23), since they were forbidden to proceed westward and "speak the word in Asia," turned their faces to the region--first Phrygian, then Galatian--that stretched northward into new territory, through which they traveled toward "Mysia" and "Bithynia" (Acts 16:7). Thus Acts 16:6 fills in the space between the South Galatia covered by 16:4 and 5, and the Mysian-Bithynian border where we find the travelers in 16:7. Upon this, the ordinary construction of Luke's somewhat involved sentence, North Galatia was entered by Paul on his 2nd tour; he retraversed, more completely, "the Galatian region" at the commencement of the 3rd tour, when he found "disciples" there (Acts 18:23) whom he had gathered on the previous visit.
In the interpretation of the Lukan passages proposed by Ramsay, Acts 16:16a, detached from 16b, is read as the completion of 16:1-5 (`And they went through the Phrygian .... region. They were forbidden by the Holy Ghost .... in Asia, and came over against Mysia,' etc.); and "the Phrygian and Galatian region" means the southwestern division of Provincia Galatia, a district at once Phrygian (ethnically) and Galatian (politically). The combination of two local adjectives., under a common article, to denote the same country in different respects, if exceptional in Greek idiom (15:41 and 27:5 illustrate the usual force of this collocation), is clearly possible--the one strictly parallel geographical expression, "the Iturean and Trachonite country" in Lk 3:1, unfortunately, is also ambiguous. But the other difficulty of grammar involved in the new rendering of Acts 16:6 is insuperable: the severance of the participle, "having been forbidden" (koluthentes), from the introductory verb, "they went through" (diel-thon), wrenches the sentence to dislocation; the aorist participle in such connection "must contain, if not something antecedent to `they went,' at least something synchronous with it, in no case a thing subsequent to it, if all the rules of grammar and all sure understanding of language are not to be given up" (Schmiedel, EB, col. 1599; endorsed in Moulton's Prolegomena to the Grammar of New Testament Greek, 134; see also Chase in The Expositor,IV , viii, 404-11, and ix, 339-42). Acts 10:29 ("I came .... when I was sent for") affords a grammatical parallel to 16:6 (`They went through .... since they were hindered').
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; 9:19; 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 Gal 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 Cor 11:32,33), 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 Gal 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. Other indications converge on this as the critical epoch of Paul's apostleship. The expedition to Cyprus and South Galatia (Acts 13; 14) had revealed in Paul `signs of the apostle' which the chiefs of the Judean church now recognized (Gal 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 (Gal 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; 12) had no ostensible object beyond that of famine-relief. From Acts 12 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 Gal 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 Gal 1; 2; it would have been idle for Paul to refer to it. On the other hand, no real contradiction exists between Acts 15 and Gal 2 "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 (Gal 2). 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, with a view to bring out its essential bearing on the situation.
(c) The encounter of Paul and Cephas at Antioch (Gal 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 Gal 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 15:35,36), or the occasion of Paul's later visit, occupying "some time," between the 2nd and 3rd tours (Acts 18:22,23), 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 15:19,24). 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 Gal 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, Gal 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 18:22,23; from which it follows, once more, that Gal belongs to the 3rd missionary tour and the Corinthians-Romans group of letters.
Chiefly because of the words, "you are removing so quickly," in Gal 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 19:8,10:54-56 AD); "so quickly," however, signifies not "so soon after my leaving you," but "so suddenly" and "with such slight persuasion" (Gal 5:7,8). 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 Cor 13:1): he is longing to go to Galatia, but cannot (Gal 4:19,20). 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" (Gal 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 Gal 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 Gal 4:13. The South Galatian theorists, in default of any reference to illness as affecting the apostle's movements in Acts 13:13,14, 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 13:50,51; 14:6,19,20). Reading Gal 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 Gal 4:14; 2 Cor 6:1; 1 Thess 1:6; Mt 10:40,41, where the same Greek verb is used).
Paul's mishandling at Lystra (Acts 14:19,20) 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 Gal 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 Gal 6:17 is 2 Cor 4:10 (see the context in 4:7 through 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 Gal 2:1,9,13, 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; 11:22-26; 13:1-3; 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 (Gal 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 Cor 4:15; 2 Cor 10:13-16). The name of Barnabas was known through the whole church (See 1 Cor 9:6; Col 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 (Gal 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 Cor 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).
In Gal 2:11 Paul refers to "Antioch,". the famous city on the Orontes. To South Galatians "Antioch" meant, as in 2 Tim 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 Tim 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 Gal 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 (Gal 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 18:22,23. 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 Pet 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 Rom 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 underGALATIA ), 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
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 Ex 30:34 as an ingredient of the holy incense, and also in Sirach 24:15: "a pleasant odor .... as galbanum."
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 (Gen 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 (Josh 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
gal'-gal-a (Gallgala): Greek equivalent for Gilgal. The word occurs in 1 Macc 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; and seeGILGAL .
gal-i-le'-an.
See GALILEE .
gal'-i-le (ha-galil, hagelilah, literally, "the circuit" or "district"; he Galilaia):
Kedesh, the city of refuge, is described as lying in Galilee, in Mt. Naphtali (Josh 20:7; compare 21:32). The name seems originally to have referred to the territory of Naphtali. Joshua's victorious campaign in the north (Josh 11), and, subsequently, the triumph of the northern tribes under Deborah and Barak (Jdg 4 f) gave Israel supremacy; yet the tribe of Naphtali was not able to drive out all the former inhabitants of the land (Jdg 1:33). In the time of Solomon the name applied to a much wider region, including the territory of Asher. In this land lay the cities given by Solomon to Hiram (1 Ki 9:11). Cabul here named must be identical with that of Josh 19:27. The Asherites also failed to possess certain cities in their allotted portion, so that the heathen continued to dwell among them. To this state of things, probably, is due the name given in Isa 9:1 to this region, "Galilee of the nations," i.e. a district occupied by a mixed population of Jews and heathen. It may also be referred to in Josh 12:23, where possibly we should read "king of the nations of Galilee" (legalil), instead of "Gilgal" (begilgal). Yet it was within this territory that, according to 2 Sam 20:18 (Septuagint) lay the two cities noted for their preservation of ancient Israelite religious customs in their purity--Abel-bethmaacah and Dan.
There is nothing to guide us as to the northern boundary of Galilee in the earliest times. On the East it was bounded by the upper Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, and on the South by the plain of el-BaTTauf. That all within these limits belonged to Galilee we may be sure. Possibly, however, it included Zebulun, which seems to be reckoned to it in Isa 9:1. In this territory also there were unconquered Canaanite cities (Jdg 1,30).
At the instigation of Asa, king of Judah, Benhadad, son of Tabrimmon of Damascus, moved against Israel, and the cities which he smote all lay within the circle of Galilee (1 Ki 15:20). Galilee must have been the arena of conflict between Jehoahaz and Hazael, king of Syria. The cities which the latter captured were recovered from his son Benhadad by Joash, who defeated him three times (2 Ki 10:32; 13:22 ff). The affliction of Israel nevertheless continued "very bitter," and God saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash, the great warrior monarch of the Northern Kingdom, under whom Galilee passed completely into the hands of Israel (2 Ki 14:25 ff). But the days of Israel's supremacy in Northern Palestine were nearly over. The beginning of the end came with the invasion of Tiglath-pileser III, who took the chief cities in Galilee, and sent their inhabitants captive to Assyria (2 Ki 14:29). Probably, as in the case of the Southern Kingdom, the poorest of the land were left as husbandmen. At any rate there still remained Israelites in the district (2 Ch 30:10 f); but the measures taken by the conqueror must have made for the rapid increase of the heathen element.
In post-exilie times Galilee is the name given to the most northerly of the three divisions of Western Palestine. The boundaries are indicated by Josephus (BJ, III, iii, 1). It was divided into Lower and Upper Galilee, and was encompassed by Phoenicia and Syria. It marched with Ptolemais and Mt. Carmel on the West. The mountain, formerly Galliean, now belonged to the Syrians. On the South it adjoined Samaria and Scythopolis (Beisan) as far as the river Jordan. It was bounded on the East by Hippene, Gadara, Gaulonitis and the borders of the kingdom of Agrippa, while the northern frontier was marked by Tyre and the country of the Tyrians. The northern limit of Samaria was Ginea, the modern Jenin, on the south border of Esdraelon. Lower Galilee, therefore, included the great plain, and stretched northward to the plain of er-Rameh--Ramah of Josh 19:36. Josephus mentions Bersabe, the modern Abu-Sheba, and the Talmud, Kephar Chananyah, the modern Kefr `Anan, as the northern border; the former being about a mile North of the latter. The plain reaches to the foot of the mountain chain, which, running East and West, forms a natural line of division. Upper Galilee may have included the land as far as the gorge of the LiTany, which, again, would have formed a natural boundary to the N. Josephus, however, speaks of Kedesh as belonging to the Syrians (BJ, II, xviii, 1), situated "between the land of the Tyrians and Galilee" (Ant., XIII, v, 6). This gives a point on the northern frontier in his time; but the rest is left indefinite. Guthe, Sunday and others, followed by Cheyne (EB, under the word), on quite inadequate grounds conclude that certain localities on the East of the Sea of Galilee were reckoned as Galilean.
5. Character of the Galileans:
In the mixed population after the exile the purely Jewish element must have been relatively small. In 165 BC Simon Maccabeus was able to rescue them from their threatening neighbors by carrying the whole community away to Judea (1 Macc 5:14 ff). Josephus tells of the conquest by Aristobulus I of Ituraea (Ant., XIII, xi, 3). He compelled many of them to adopt Jewish religious customs, and to obey the Jewish law. There can be little doubt that Galilee and its people were treated in the same way. While Jewish in their religion, and in their patriotism too, as subsequent history showed, the population of Galilee was composed of strangely mingled elements--Aramaean, Iturean, Phoenician and Greek In the circumstances they could not be expected to prove such sticklers for high orthodoxy as the Judeans. Their mixed origin explains the differences in speech which distinguished them from their brethren in the South, who regarded Galilee and the Galileans with a certain proud contempt (Jn 1:46; 7:52). But a fine type of manhood was developed among the peasant farmers of the two Galilees which, according to Josephus (BJ, III, iii, 2), were "always able to make a strong resistance on all occasions of war; for the Galileans are inured to war from their infancy .... nor hath the country ever been destitute of men of courage." Josephus, himself a Galilean, knew his countrymen well, and on them he mainly relied in the war with Rome. In Galilee also the Messianic hope was cherished with the deepest intensity. When the Messiah appeared, with His own Galilean upbringing, it was from the north-countrymen that He received the warmest welcome, and among them His appeal elicited the most gratifying response.
In 47 BC, Herod the Great, then a youth of 25, was made military commander of Galilee, and won great applause by the fashion in which he suppressed a band of robbers who had long vexed the country (Ant., XIV, ix, 2). When Herod came to the throne, 37 BC, a period of peace and prosperity for Galilee began, which lasted till the banishment of his son Antipas in 40 AD. The tetrarchy of Galilee was given to the latter at his father's death, 4 BC. His reign, therefore, covered the whole life of Jesus, with the exception of His infancy. After the banishment of Antipas, Galilee was added to the dominions of Agrippa I, who ruled it till his death in 44 AD. Then followed a period of Roman administration, after which it was given to Agrippa II, who sided with the Romans in the subsequent wars, and held his position till 100 AD. The patriotic people, however, by no means submitted to his guidance. In their heroic struggle for independence, the command of the two Galilees, with Gamala, was entrusted to Josephus, who has left a vivid narrative, well illustrating the splendid courage of his freedom-loving countrymen. But against such an adversary as Rome even their wild bravery could not prevail; and the country soon lay at the feet of the victorious Vespasian, 67 AD. There is no certain knowledge of the part played by Galilee in the rebellion under Hadrian, 132-35 AD.
At the beginning of the Roman period Sepphoris (Cafuriyeh), about 3 miles North of Nazareth, took the leading place. Herod Antipas, however, built a new city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, which, in honor of the reigning emperor, he called Tiberias. Here he reared his "golden house," and made the city the capital of his tetrarchy. See TIBERIAS . After the fall of Jerusalem, Galilee, which had formerly been held in contempt, became the home of Jewish learning, and its chief seat was found in Tiberias where the Mishna was committed to writing, and the Jerusalem Talmud was composed. Thus a city into which at first no pious Jew would enter, in a province which had long been despised by the leaders of the nation, became the main center of their national and religious life.
Among the more notable cities in Galilee were Kedesh Naphtali, the city of refuge, the ruins of which lie on the heights West of el-Chuleh; Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, North of the Sea of Galilee; Nazareth, the city of the Savior's youth and young manhood; Jotapata, the scene of Josephus' heroic defense against the Romans, which stood at Tell Jefat, North of the plain of Asochis (BJ, III, vii, viii); Cana of Galilee; and Nain, on the northern slope of the mountain now called Little Hermon.
In physical features Galilee is the most richly diversified and picturesque district in Western Palestine; while in beauty and fertility it is strongly contrasted with the barren uplands of Judah. Cut off from Mt. Lebanon in the North by the tremendous gorge of the Litany, it forms a broad and high plateau, sinking gradually southward until it approaches Cafed, when again it rises, culminating in Jebel Jermuk, the highest summit on the West of the Jordan. From Cafed there is a rapid descent by stony slope and rocky precipice to the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The mountains of which Jebel Jermuk is the Northeast outrunner stretch westward across the country, and drop upon the plain of er-Rameh to the South. Irregular hills and valleys, with breadths of shady woodlands, lie