Probable
Churches

of Galatia.

Lycaonia',' while he no less distinctly assigns Antioch to Pisidia2; a convincing proof that in the language of the day they were not regarded as Galatian towns. Lastly, the expression used in the Acts of St Paul's visit to these parts, 'the Phrygian and Galatian country, shows that the district intended was not Lycaonia and Pisidia, but some region which might be said to belong either to Phrygia or Galatia, or the parts of each contiguous to the other.

It is most probable therefore that we should search for the Churches of Galatia within narrower limits. In the absence of all direct testimony, we may conjecture that it was at Ancyra, now the capital of the Roman province as formerly of the Gaulish settlement, 'the most illustrious metropolis,' as it is styled in formal documents'; at Pessinus, under the shadow of Mount Dindymus, the cradle of the worship of the great goddess, and one of the principal commercial towns of the district'; at Tavium, at once a strong fortress and a great emporium, situated at the point of convergence of several important roads"; perhaps also at Juliopolis, the ancient Gordium, formerly the capital of Phrygia, almost equidistant from the three seas, and from its central position a busy mart'; at these, or some of these places, that St Paul founded the earliest 'Churches of Galatia.' The ecclesiastical geography of Galatia two or three centuries later is no safe guide in settling questions relating to the apostolic age, but it is worth while to

1 Acts xiv. 6.

2 Acts xiii. 14.

Acts xvi. 6. See below, p. 22, note 3. • Boeckh Corp. Inscr. no. 4015 βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος τῆς λαμπροτάτης μητροπόλεως 'Αγκύρας. It is frequently styled the 'metropolis' in inscriptions and on coins.

Strabo xii. p. 567.

• Strabo 1. c. See Hamilton's Asia Minor p. 395. Perhaps however Tavium lay too much to the eastward of St Paul's route, which would take him more directly to the western parts of

Galatia.

7 Pliny v. 42 'Caputque quondam ejus (i.e. Phrygiae) Gordium.' Comp. Livy xxxviii. 18 'Haud magnum quidem oppidum est, sed plusquam mediterraneum, celebre et frequens emporium: tria maria pari ferme distantia intervallo habet.' See Ritter Erdkunde XVIII. p. 561. The identity of Gordium and Juliopolis however, though assumed by Ritter, Forbiger, Kiepert, and others, is perhaps a mistake: see Mordtmann in Sitzungsber. der Königl. bayer. Akad. 1860, p. 169 sq.

observe that these are among the earliest episcopal sees on record in this country'.

St Paul

In Galatia the Gospel would find itself in conflict with two distinct types of worship, which then divided the allegiance of civilised heathendom. At Pessinus the service of Cybele, the most widely revered of all pagan deities, represented, perhaps more adequately than any other service, the genuine spirit of the old popular religion. At Ancyra the pile dedicated to the divinities of Augustus and Rome was one of the earliest and most striking embodiments of the new political worship which imperial statecraft had devised to secure the respect of its subject peoples. We should gladly have learnt Silence of how the great Apostle advocated the cause of the truth against and St either form of error. Our curiosity however is here disappointed. Luke. It is strange that while we have more or less acquaintance with all the other important Churches of St Paul's founding, with Corinth and Ephesus, with Philippi and Thessalonica, not a single name of a person or place, scarcely a single incident of any kind, connected with the Apostle's preaching in Galatia, should be preserved in either the history or the epistle. The reticence of the Apostle himself indeed may be partly accounted for by the circumstances of the Galatian Church. The same delicacy, which has concealed from us the name of the Corinthian offender, may have led him to avoid all special allusions in addressing a community to which he wrote in a strain of the severest censure. Yet even the slight knowledge we do possess of the early Galatian Church is gathered from the epistle, with scarcely any aid from the history. Can it be that the historian gladly drew a veil over the infancy of a Church which swerved so soon and so widely from the purity of the Gospel?

to Galatia.

St Luke mentions two visits to Galatia, but beyond the bare Two visits fact he adds nothing to our knowledge. The first occasion was during the Apostle's second missionary journey, probably in the year 51 or 52. The second visit took place a few years later, perhaps in the year 54, in the course of his third missionary

1 Le Quien Oriens Christ. 1. p. 456 sq.

2 Acts xvi. 6.

First visit,
A.D. 51 or

52.

journey, and immediately before his long residence in Ephesus1. The epistle contains allusions, as will be seen, to both visits; and combining these two sources of information, we arrive at the following scanty facts.

I. After the Apostolic congress St Paul starting from Antioch with Silas revisited the churches he had founded in Syria, Cilicia, and Lycaonia. At Lystra they fell in with Timotheus, who also accompanied them on their journey. Hitherto the Apostle had been travelling over old ground. He now entered upon a new mission-field, 'the region of Phrygia and Galatia. The form of the Greek expression implies that Phrygia and Galatia here are not to be regarded as separate districts. The country which was now evangelized might be called indifferently Phrygia or Galatia. It was in fact the land originally inhabited by Phrygians, but subsequently occupied by Gauls: or so far as he travelled beyond the limits of the Gallic settlement, it was still in the neighbouring parts of Phrygia that he preached, which might fairly be included under one general expression".

St Paul does not appear to have had any intention of preaching the Gospel here. He was perhaps anxious at once to bear his message to the more important and promising district of Proconsular Asia. But he was detained by a return

1 Acts xviii. 23.

2 Acts xv. 40-xvi. 5.

3 Acts xvi. 6 διῆλθον δὲ τὴν Φρυ γίαν καὶ [τὴν] Γαλατικὴν χώραν. The second Thy of the received reading ought to be omitted with the best мss, in which case Ppuylav becomes an adjective. This variety of reading has escaped the notice of commentators, though it solves more than one difficulty. On the occasion of the second visit the words are (xviii. 23), διερχόμενος καθεξῆς τὴν Γαλατικὴν χώραν καὶ Φρυγίαν. The general direction of St Paul's route on both occasions was rather westward than eastward, and this is expressed in the second passage by naming Ga

latia before Phrygia, but it is quite consistent with the expression in the first, where the two districts are not separated. If we retain the received reading, we must suppose that St Paul went from west to east on the first occasion, and from east to west on the second.

4 Colosso would thus lie beyond the scene of the Apostle's labours, and the passage correctly read does not present even a seeming contradiction to Col.i.4, 6, 7, ii. 1. See on the whole subject Colossians p. 23 sq.

5 I see no reason for departing from the strictly grammatical interpretation of Gal. iv. 13, δι' ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκύς. 6 Acts xvi. 6.

illness and

Galatia.

of his old malady, 'the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of St Paul's Satan sent to buffet him',' some sharp and violent attack, it hearty rewould appear, which humiliated him and prostrated his physical ception in strength. To this the Galatians owed their knowledge of Christ. Though a homeless stricken wanderer might seem but a feeble advocate of a cause so momentous, yet it was the divine order that in the preaching of the Gospel strength should be made perfect in weakness. The zeal of the preacher and the enthusiasm of the hearers triumphed over all impediments. They did not despise nor loathe the temptation in his flesh. They received him as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. They would have plucked out their very eyes, if they could, and have given them to him". Such was the impression left on his heart by their first affectionate welcome, painfully embittered by contrast with their later apostasy.

the Gala

It can scarcely have been any predisposing religious sym- Attitude of pathy which attracted them so powerfully, though so transi- tians toently, to the Gospel. They may indeed have held the doctrine wards the Gospel. of the immortality of the soul, which is said to have formed part of the Druidical teaching in European Gaul'. It is possible too that there lingered, even in Galatia, the old Celtic conviction, so cruelly expressed in their barbarous sacrifices, that only by man's blood can man be redeemed. But with these doubtful exceptions, the Gospel, as a message of mercy and a spiritual faith, stood in direct contrast to the gross and material religions in which the race had been nurtured, whether the cruel ritualism of their old Celtic creed, or the frightful orgies of their adopted worship of the mother of the gods. Yet though the whole spirit of Christianity was so alien to their habits of thought, we may well imagine how the fervour of the Apostle's preaching may have fired their religious enthusiasm. The very image under which he describes his work brings

1 2 Cor. xii. 7.

Gal. iv. 14, 15.

They believed also in its transmigration. See Cæsar Bell. Gall. vi. 14, Diod. Sic. v. 28.

4 Bell. Gall. vi. 16 'Pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur, non posse aliter deorum immortalium numen placari arbitrantur.'

ness of the

his

Earnest vividly before us the energy and force with which he delivered Apostle's message. He placarded Christ crucified before their eyes', preaching. arresting the gaze of the spiritual loiterer, and riveting it on this proclamation of his Sovereign. If we picture to ourselves the Apostle as he appeared before the Galatians, a friendless outcast, writhing under the tortures of a painful malady, yet instant in season and out of season, by turns denouncing and entreating, appealing to the agonies of a crucified Saviour, perhaps also, as at Lystra, enforcing this appeal by some striking miracle, we shall be at no loss to conceive how the fervid temperament of the Gaul might have been aroused, while yet only the surface of his spiritual consciousness was ruffled. For the time indeed all seemed to be going on well. 'Ye were running bravely,' says the Apostle', alluding to his favourite image of the foot-race. But the very eagerness with which they had embraced the Gospel was in itself a dangerous symptom. A material so easily moulded soon loses the impression it has taken. The passionate current of their Celtic blood, which flowed in this direction now, might only too easily be diverted into a fresh channel by some new religious impulse. Their reception of the Gospel was not built on a deeply-rooted conviction of its truth, or a genuine appreciation of its spiritual power.

His departure.

Second visit,

A.D. 54.

This visit to Galatia, we may suppose, was not very protracted. Having been detained by illness, he would be anxious to continue his journey as soon as he was convalescent. He was pressing forward under a higher guidance towards a new field of missionary labour in the hitherto unexplored continent of Europe.

2. An interval of nearly three years must have elapsed before his second visit. He was now on his third missionary journey; and according to his wont, before entering upon a new field of labour, his first care was to revisit and 'confirm' the churches he had already founded. This brought him to 'the Galatian country and Phrygia.' From the language used in 1 Gal. iii. 1, роeуpápη. See the note.

2 Gal. V. 7.