Their commer cial the Great had settled two thousand Jewish families in Lydia and Phrygia1; and even if we suppose that these settlements did not extend to Galatia properly so called, the Jewish colonists must in course of time have overflowed into a neighbouring country which possessed so many attractions for them. Those commercial instincts, which achieved a wide renown in the instincts, neighbouring Phoenician race, and which in the Jews themselves made rapid progress during the palmy days of their national life under Solomon, had begun to develope afresh. The innate energy of the race sought this new outlet, now that their national hopes were crushed and their political existence was well-nigh extinct. The country of Galatia afforded great facilities for attracted commercial enterprise. With fertile plains rich in agricultural by the natural produce, with extensive pastures for flocks, with a temperate advanclimate and copious rivers, it abounded in all those resources tages of Galatia, out of which a commerce is created'. It was moreover conveniently situated for mercantile transactions, being traversed by a great high road between the East and the shores of the Ægean, along which caravans were constantly passing, and among its towns it numbered not a few which are mentioned as great centres of commerce. We read especially of a considerable traffic in cloth mentioned in the following verse, their 1 Joseph. Ant. xii. 3. 4. 2 An anonymous geographer (Geogr. Min. Müller, I. p. 521) describes Galatia as provincia optima, sibi sufficiens.' Other ancient writers also speak of the natural advantages of this country; see Wernsdorff p. 199 sq. A modern traveller writes as follows: 'Malgré tant de ravages et de guerres désastreuses, la Galatie, par la fertilité de son sol et la richesse de ses produits agricoles, est encore une des provinces les plus heureuses de l'Asie Mineure.' And again: 'Malgré tous ses malheurs, la ville moderne d'Angora est une des plus peuplées de l'Asie Mineure. Elle doit la prospérité relative dont elle n'a cessé de jouir à son heureuse situation, à un climat admirablement sain, à un sol fertile, et surtout à ses innombrables troupeaux de chèvres, etc.' Texier, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1. c. pp. 597, бог. 8 Strabo, xii. p. 567, especially mentions Tavium and Pessinus, describing the latter as έμπορεῖον τῶν ταύτῃ μέγι Livy, xxxviii. 18, calls Gordium 'celebre et frequens emporium.' στον. fluence. goods; but whether these were of home or foreign manufacture we are not expressly told'. With these attractions it is not difficult to explain the vast increase of the Jewish population in Galatia, and it is a significant fact that in the generation before St Paul Augustus directed a decree granting especial privileges to the Jews to be inscribed in his temple at Ancyra, the Galatian metropolis, doubtless because this was a principal seat of the dispersion in these parts of Asia Minor. Other testimony to Their inthe same effect is afforded by the inscriptions found in Galatia, which present here and there Jewish names and symbols3 amidst a strange confusion of Phrygian and Celtic, Roman and Greek. At the time of St Paul they probably boasted a large number of proselytes and may even have infused a beneficial leaven into the religion of the mass of the heathen population. Some accidental points of resemblance in the Mosaic ritual may perhaps have secured for the inspired teaching of the Old Testament a welcome which would have been denied to its lofty theology and pure code of morals'. 1 Müller's Geogr. Min. 1. c. ‘negotia. tur plurimam vestem.' It is interesting to find that at the present day a very large trade is carried on at Angora, the ancient Ancyra, in the fabric manufactured from the fine hair of the peculiar breed of goats reared in the neighbourhood. See Hamilton Asia Minor, 1. p. 418, Texier, 1. c. p. 602 sq., and especially Ritter's Erdkunde XVIII. p. 505. It is to this probably that the ancient geographer refers. 2 Joseph. Antiq. xvi. 6. 2. The influence of Judaism on St Paul's converts here does not derive the same illustration from the statistics of the existing population as it does in some other places, Thessalonica for instance, where the Jews are said to form at least one half of the inhabitants. In 1836 Hamilton was informed that out of about 11,000 houses in Ancyra only 150 were Jewish, the majority of the population being Turks or Catholic Armenians, Asia Minor, 1. p. 419. 8 See Boeckh Corp. Inscr. Vol. III. P. xviii. In no. 4129 the name 'Hoaĵos occurs with a symbol which Boeckh conjectures to be the seven-branched candlestick. We have also 'Iwávvov 4045, Σάβατος 4074, Ματατᾶς 4088, Θαδεὺς 4092. ̓Ακίλας or Ακύλας a name commonly borne by Jews in these parts occurs several times. It is possible however that some of these may be Christian; nor is it always easy to pronounce on the Hebrew origin of a name in the confusion of nations which these inscriptions exhibit. 4 Pausanias (vii. 17. 5) mentions that the people of Pessinus abstained from swine's flesh (vŵν оvX ÅπтÓμEVOL), a statement which has given rise to much discussion. See Wernsdorff p. 324 sq. Some have attributed this abstinence to Jewish influence, but the aversion to swine's flesh was common to several Eastern peoples. Instances are given The Celtic type predominates. The Galatians re Still with all this foreign admixture, it was the Celtic blood which gave its distinctive colour to the Galatian character and separated them by so broad a line even from their near neighbours. To this cause must be attributed that marked contrast in religious temperament which distinguished St Paul's disciples in Galatia from the Christian converts of Colossæ, though educated in the same Phrygian worship and subjected to the same Jewish influences. The tough vitality of the Celtic character maintained itself in Asia comparatively unimpaired among Phrygians and Greeks, as it has done in our own islands among Saxons and Danes and Normans, retaining its individuality of type after the lapse of ages and under conditions the most adverse1. A very striking instance of the permanence of Celtic institain their tutions is the retention of their language by these Gauls of Asia language Minor. More than six centuries after their original settlement in this distant land, a language might be heard on the banks of the Sangarius and the Halys, which though slightly corrupted was the same in all essential respects with that spoken in the district watered by the Moselle and the Rhine. St Jerome, who had himself visited both the Gaul of the West and the Gaul of Asia Minor, illustrates the relation of the two forms of speech by the connexion existing between the language of the Phoenicians and their African colonies, or between the different dialects of Latin". in Milman's Hist. of the Jews I. p. 177 1 Modern travellers have seen, or les yeux bleux rappellent le caractère des populations de l'ouest de la France.' 2 Hieron. in Epist. ad Gal. lib. II. præf. 'Galatas excepto sermone Graeco, quo omnis Oriens loquitur, propriam linguam eandem pene habere quam Treveros, nec referre si aliqua exinde corruperint, quum et Afri Phoenicum linguam nonnulla ex parte mutaverint, et ipsa Latinitas et regionibus quotidie mutetur et tempore' (vII. P. I. p. 430, ed. Vallarsi). By 'excepto sermone Graeco' he means that they spoke Greek in common with the rest of the character With the knowledge of this remarkable fact, it will not be and their thought idle to look for traces of the Celtic character in the essentially Galatians of St Paul's Epistle, for in general the character of unchanged. a nation even outlives its language. No doubt it had undergone many changes. They were no longer that fierce hardy race with which Rome and Greece successively had grappled in a struggle of life and death. After centuries of intercourse with Greeks and Phrygians, with the latter especially who were reputed among the most effeminate and worthless of Asiatics, the ancient valour of the Gauls must have been largely diluted. Like the Celts of Western Europe, they had gradually deteriorated under the enervating influence of a premature or forced civilisation'. Nevertheless beneath the surface the Celtic character remains still the same, whether manifested in the rude and fiery barbarians who were crushed by the arms of Cæsar, or the impetuous and fickle converts who call down the indignant rebuke of the Apostle of the Gentiles. incidences Paul's St Paul's language indeed will suggest many coincidences, Minor cowhich perhaps we may be tempted to press unduly. His de- in St nunciation of 'drunkenness and revellings',' falling in with the epistle. taunts of ancient writers, will appear to point to a darling sin of the Celtic people. His condemnation of the niggardly East, as well as Celtic. Thierry (1. p. 415) strangely mistakes the meaning, 'les Galates étaient les seuls, entre tous les peuples asiatiques, qui ne se servissent point de la langue grecque.' It is probable that they understood St Paul's epistle as well as if it had been written in their original tongue. None of the Galatian inscriptions are in the Celtic language. The people of Ancyra were perhaps 'trilingues' like the Celts of Marseilles. 1 Livy, xxxviii. 17, represents Manlius as saying 'Et illis majoribus nostris cum haud dubiis Gallis in terra sua genitis res erat. Hi jam degeneres sunt, mixti et Gallograeci vere, quod appellantur.' This language is proba bly an anachronism in the mouth of 2 Gal. v. 21. 3 Diod. Sic. v. 26 KáтOLOL DE ÖVTES καθ ̓ ὑπερβολὴν τὸν εἰσαγόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμπόρων οἶνον ἄκρατον ἐμφοροῦνται καὶ διὰ τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν λάβρῳ χρώμενοι τῷ ποτῷ καὶ μεθυσθέντες εἰς ὕπνον ἢ μανιώ δεις διαθέσεις τρέπονται κ.τ.λ. ; Epictet. Dissert. ii. 20. 17, referred to in the note p. 3. Compare also the jest, 'Gallos post haec dilutius esse poturos,' quoted from Cicero by Ammian. Marc. xv. 12, and the account Ammianus himself Broader features of resemblance. 1. Gene ral temperament of the Gauls. spirit with which they had doled out their alms, as a 'mockery of God',' will remind us that the race is constantly reproached with its greed of wealth, so that Gaulish avarice passed almost into a proverb'. His reiterated warning against strife and vainglory' will seem directed against a vice of the old Celtic blood still boiling in their veins and breaking out in fierce and rancorous self-assertion. His very expression, 'if ye bite and devour one another,' will recall the angry gesticulations and menacing tones of this excitable people. But without laying too much stress on these points of resemblance, which however plausible do not afford ground enough for a safe inference, we may confidently appeal to the broader features of the Galatian character, as they appear in this Epistle. In two important points especially, in the general temperament and the religious bias of his converts, light is shed on the language of St Paul by the notices of the Gauls found in classical authors. I. The main features of the Gaulish character are traced with great distinctness by the Roman writers. Quickness of apprehension, promptitude in action, great impressibility, an eager craving after knowledge, this is the brighter aspect of the Celtic character. Inconstant and quarrelsome, treacherous in their dealings, incapable of sustained effort, easily disheartened by failure, such they appear when viewed on their darker side. It is curious to note the same eager inquisitive temper revealing itself under widely different circumstances, at opposite limits both of time and space, in their early barbarism in the West and their worn-out civilisation in the East. The great Roman captain relates gives of the intemperance of the 1 Gal. vi. 6, 7. 9 Diod. Sic. v. 27 ὄντων τῶν Κελτῶν φιλαργύρων καθ ̓ ὑπερβολήν. Livy, Xxxviii. 27, calls the Galatians ‘avidissima rapiendi gens.' Compare Labb. Conc. v. 49 (ed. Colet) pwpálnσav τινὲς κατὰ τῶν Γαλατῶν ὀλιγωροῦντες καὶ παραβαίνοντες δι' αἰσχροκέρδειαν καὶ φιλο αργυρίαν κ.τ.λ., in the encyclical letter against simony, A.D. 459. 3 Gal. v. 15, 26; comp. v. 20, 21, vi. 3. • Ammian. 1. c. ‘avidi jurgiorum et sublatius insolescentes,' Diod. Sic. v. 28. 5 Diod. Sic. v. 31 ἀπειληταὶ δὲ καὶ ἀνατατικοὶ καὶ τετραγῳδημένοι ὑπάρχουσ, Ammian. 1. c. Metuendae voces complurium et minaces, placatorum juxta et irascentium.' |
