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UNIV. OF

TORNIA

THE GALATIAN PEOPLE.

W

tians an

HEN St Paul carried the Gospel into Galatia, he was The Galathrown for the first time among an alien people differing alien race. widely in character and habits from the surrounding nations. A race whose home was in the far West, they had been torn from their parent rock by some great social convulsion, and after drifting over wide tracts of country, had settled down at length on a strange soil in the very heart of Asia Minor. Without attempting here to establish the Celtic affinities of this boulder people by the fossil remains of its language and institutions, or to trace the path of its migration by the scores imprinted on its passage across the continent of Europe, it will yet be useful, by way of introduction to St Paul's Epistle, to sketch as briefly as possible its previous history and actual condition. There is a certain distinctness of feature in the portrait which the Apostle has left of his Galatian converts. It is clear at once that he is dealing with a type of character strongly contrasted for instance with the vicious refinements of the dissolute and polished Corinthians, perhaps the truest surviving representatives of ancient Greece, or again with the dreamy speculative mysticism which disfigured the halforiental Churches of Ephesus and Colossæ. We may expect to have light thrown upon the broad features of national character which thus confront us, by the circumstances of the descent and previous history of the race, while at the same time such a sketch will prepare the way for the solution

RO VIMU

The

names

Celta, Ga

late, and

Galli.

of some questions of interest, which start up in connexion with this epistle.

The great subdivision of the human family which at the dawn of European history occupied a large portion of the continent west of the Rhine with the outlying islands, and which modern philologers have agreed to call Celtic, was known to the classical writers of antiquity by three several names, Celta, Galatæ, and Galli'. Of these, Celta, which is the most ancient, being found in the earliest Greek historians Hecatæus and Herodotus', was probably introduced into the Greek language by the colonists of Marseilles, who were first brought in contact with this race. The term Galata is of late introduction, occurring first in Timæus, a writer of the third century B.C.' This latter form was generally adopted by the Greeks when their knowledge was extended by more direct and frequent intercourse with these barbarians, whether in their earlier home in the West or in their later settlement in Asia Minor. Either it was intended as a more exact representation of the same barbarian sound, or, as seems more probable, the two are diverging but closely allied forms of the same word, derived by the Greeks from different branches of the Celtic race with which at different times they came in contact. On the other hand, the Romans generally designated

1 On these terms see Diefenbach Celtica II. p. 6 sq., Ukert Geogr. der Griech. u. Röm. Th. 1. Abth. 2, p. 183 sq., Zeuss die Deutschen u. die Nachbarstämme p. 6 sq., Thierry Histoire des Gaulois 1. p. 28.

2 Hecat. Fragm. 19, 21, 22, ed. Müller; Herod. ii. 33, iv. 49. Both forms Κελτοί and Κέλται occur.

3 Diod. v. 32, quoted in note 5.

Timæus Fragm. 37, ed. Müller. Pausanias says (i. 3. 5) ὀψὲ δέ ποτε αὐτ τοὺς καλεῖσθαι Γαλάτας ἐξενίκησε· Κελτοὶ γὰρ κατά τε σφᾶς τὸ ἀρχαῖον καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὠνομάζοντο. See also the passages in Diefenbach Celt. I. p. 8.

This seems the most probable in

ference from the confused notices in ancient writers. The most important passage is Diod. v. 32, τοὺς γὰρ ὑπὲρ Μασσαλίαν κατοικοῦντας ἐν τῷ μεσογείῳ καὶ τοὺς παρὰ τὰς ̓́Αλπεις ἔτι δὲ τοὺς ἐπὶ τάδε τῶν Πυρηναίων ὁρῶν Κελτοὺς ὀνομάζουσι· τοὺς δ ̓ ὑπὲρ ταύτης τῆς Κελ τικῆς εἰς τὰ πρὸς νότον νεύοντα μέρη, παρά τε τὸν ὠκεανὸν καὶ τὸ ̔Ερκύνιον ὄρος καθιδρυμένους καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἑξῆς μέχρι τῆς Σκυθίας, Γαλάτας προσαγορεύουσι K.T.A. See also Strabo iv. p. 189, and other passages cited in Ukert II. 2, p. 197 sq., Diefenbach Celt. II. p. 10 sq. At all events it seems certain that the Gauls in the neighbourhood of Marseilles called themselves Celta.

this people Galli. Whether this word exhibits the same root as Celtæ and Galatæ, omitting however the Celtic suffix', or whether some other account of its origin is more probable, it is needless to enquire. The term Galli is sometimes adopted Usage of by later Greek writers, but, as a general rule, until some time Roman after the Christian era they prefer Galatæ, whether speaking writers. of the people of Gaul properly so called or of the Asiatic colony'. The Romans in turn sometimes borrow Galatæ from

1 See Zeuss Gramm. Celt. p. 758. 2 Owing to the bearing of this fact, which has not been sufficiently noticed, on such passages as 2 Tim. iv. 10, I have thought it worth while to collect the following particulars. (1) Before the Christian era, and for two centuries afterwards, the form Galatia (Galatæ) is almost universally used by Greek writers to the exclusion of Gallia (Galli), when they do not employ Celtice (Celta). It occurs on the Monumentum Ancyranum (Boeckh Corp. Inscr. 1. pp. 89, 90) erected by Augustus in the capital of Asiatic Gaul, where to avoid confusion the other form would naturally have been preferred, if it had been in use. It is current in Polybius, Diodorus, Strabo, Josephus, Plutarch, Appian, Pausanias, and Dion Cassius. It appears also in Athen. p. 333 D, Clem. Alex. Strom. I. p. 359 (Potter), and Origen c. Cels. p. 335 B. Even Elian (Nat. An. xvii. 19, referring however to an earlier writer) when speaking of the Asiatic people is obliged to distinguish them as гaλáras TOUS WOús. On the other hand St Basil (Op. 1. p. 28, Garnier) describes the European Gauls as τοὺς ἑσπερίους Γαλά τας καὶ Κελτούς. In Boeckh C. I. no. 9764 the Asiatic country is called μxpà Talaría, 'Little Gaul.' (2) The first instance of Gallia (Galli) which I have found in any Greek author is in Epictetus (or rather Arrian), Dissert. ii. 20. 17, ὥσπερ τοὺς Γαλλοὺς ἡ μανία καὶ ὁ οἶνος (probably not before A.D. 100). It occurs

indeed in the present text of Dioscorides (Ι. 92, ἀπὸ Γαλλίας καὶ Τυρρηνίας), perhaps an earlier writer, but the reading is suspicious, since immediately afterwards he has ἀπὸ Γαλατίας τῆς πρὸς ταῖς "Αλπεσιν. Later transcribers were sorely tempted to substitute the form with which they were most familiar, as is done in 2 Tim. iv. 10 in several мss. See below, p. 31, note 1. The substitution is so natural that it is sometimes erroneously made where the eastern country is plainly meant: e.g. PseudoDoroth. Chron. Pasch. II. p. 136, ed. Dind. The form Taλía occurs again in the Ep. of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons (Euseb. V. I) A.D. 177, and in Theophil. ad Autol. ii. 32 ràs xaλovμÉVAS Talas. It is also common in Herodian. (3) In the 4th and 5th centuries the form Gallia' had to a very great extent displaced Galatia. See Agathem. ii. 4, Ρ. 37, τῶν Γαλλιῶν ἂς πρότερον Γαλατίας λeyov, and Theod. Mops. on 2 Tim. iv. 10, τὰς νῦν καλουμένας Γαλλίας· οὕτως γὰρ (i.e. Γαλατίαν) αὐτὰς πάντες ἐκάλουν οἱ παλαιοί. Accordingly Athanasius (Apol. c. Arian. § 1, pp. 97, 98) in the same passage uses Taλarla of Asiatic Gaul, Talia of the European provinces. At a much earlier date than this Galen says (XIV. p. 80, Kuhn), kaλoûσi γοῦν αὐτοὺς ἔνιοι μὲν Γαλάτας ἔνιοι δὲ Γαλλούς, συνηθέστερον δὲ τὸ τῶν Κελτῶν bvoua, but he must be referring in the first two classes to the usage of the Greek and Roman writers respectively.

Greek and

Celtic mi

grations.

the Greeks, but when they do so it is applied exclusively to the Celts of Asia Minor, that is, to the Galatians in the modern sense of the term. The word Celtæ still remains in common use side by side with the Galata of the Greek and Galli of the Roman writers, being employed in some cases as coextensive with these, and in others to denote a particular branch of the Celtic race1.

The rare and fitful glimpses which we obtain of the Celtic peoples in the early twilight of history reveal the same restless, fickle temperament, so familiar to us in St Paul's epistle. They appear in a ferment of busy turmoil and ceaseless migration'. They are already in possession of considerable tracts of country to the south and east of their proper limits. They have overflowed the barrier of the Alps and poured into Northern Italy. They have crossed the Rhine and established themselves here and there in that vague and ill-defined region known to the ancients as the Hercynian forest and on the banks of the Danube. It is possible that some of these were fragments sundered from the original mass of the Celtic people, and dropped on the way as they migrated westward from the common home of the Aryan races in central Asia: but more probable and more in accordance with tradition is the view that their course being obstructed by the ocean, they had retraced their steps and turned towards the East again. At all events,

See similar notices in Strabo iv. p. 195,
Appian Bell. Hisp. § 1. The form l'a-
Maria of European Gaul still continued
to be used occasionally, when гala
had usurped its place. It is found for
instance in Julian Epist. lxxiii, and in
Libanius frequently: comp. Cureton
Corp. Ign.p.351. Ammianus (xv.9) can
still say, 'Galatas dictos, ita enim Gal-
los sermo Graecus appellat.' Even later
writers, who use Taíaι of the Roman
provinces of Gaul, nevertheless seem to
prefer Talaria when speaking of the
western country as a whole, e.g. Ioann.
Lydus Ostent. pp. 52, 54 (Wachsmuth),
Hierocl. Synecd. app. p. 313 (Parthey).

1 e.g. in Cæsar Bell. Gall. i. 1. See on the main subject of the preceding paragraph a good paper by M. D'Arbois de Jubainville, Les Celtes, Les Galates, Les Gaulois, from the Revue Archéologique, Paris 1875.

2 For the migrations of the Celts see the well-known work of Thierry Histoire des Gaulois (4th ed. 1857), or Contzen Wanderungen der Kelten (Leipz. 1861). They are considered more in their philological aspect in Diefenbach's Celtica, and in Prichard's Celtic Nations edited by Latham. The article Galli' by Baumstark in Pauly's Real-Encyclopä-' die is a careful abstract of all that

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