GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE.— i. Author- ship.— The Pauline origin of this Epistle has never been called in question by a critic of lirst-rate importance, and until recently has never been questioned at all. In the early part of the 2nd cent, it formed a part of Marcion's Apostolicon. A little later it was included in the Syr. and Old Lat. VSS, and was recognized by the Muratorian Canon. It is cited as tlie work of St. Paul by Iren.-eus (III. vi. 5, III. xvi. 3, v. xxi. 1), by Cle- ment of Alexandria (Strom, iii. 16) ; and it is qucitud by Justin Martyr (£ljV(/. c. 95; 0 ratio, 5) and by Aihenagoras [Legatio, c. 16). And while ihe eelioes of its language which have been detected in Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Hermas, are somewhat dull and doubtful, a clear reference to the Ep. occurs in Polycarp (Phil. 5), elSSrei oti> Sti 6 Oeds ov ii.vKTripiieTa.1. (Gal 6'), and almost cer- tainly in the words (c. 3), tjtis iarlv ^-fiTJjp irivTuv ilfxQf (cf. Gal 42«).
The internal evidence is irresistible. It has been felt that it is a real person who speaks in the Ep., a person engaged with earnestness and vehemence in a critical conflict. A Paulinist of the •2nd cent, would not be likely to dwell upon the fact that his master's apostleship had been called in question, or to represent some of his earliest and most highly prized conquests from heathenism as slipping through his fingers. Esp. does the subject discussed in the Ep. speak for its early date. It is a polemical tract, a contribution to a controversy which was raging at the time of its appearance. As Gloel says, it is not a sermon, it is not a treatise, it is a sword-cut, delivered in the hour of
fieatest danger by a combatant who is assaulted y determined foes. The question, then, is. When was there any risk of Gentile Christians being compelled to submit to circumcision ? It is idle to look for such a danger in any generation subse- quent to the year A.D. 70. Before that time there already existed throughout the empire strong Gentile clmrches of uncircumci.sed members. And if this letter is part of a conflict against real and not imaginary dangers, a place must be found for it in the earliest j'ears of Gentile admission to the Christian Church. It can surprise no one that this nchnission should have been won onlj' by conflict. To discard Mosaism might well seem to the Jews to be equivalent to discarding religion. The sur- prising thing is that the Gentiles were led to liberty by a Hebrew of the Hebrews. But what brought St. Paul to the front was not merely that he had been appointed Ap )9tle and Defender of
the Faith to the Gentiles, but much more that he perceived that this was a conflict involving the very existence of Christianity. Was Christ sulli- cient for salvation, or must other things be auJed ! This was the question which St. Paul sav to be involved in the question of circumcision. To hia eye it was an alternative. Circumcision or the Cross. And this Ep. bears upon it the marks of h.aving been written in the very heat of this con- flict. But if so, then it can have proceeded frcm no other hand than that of the man whose life was spent in the service and defence of the Gentiles.
The first assault upon its authenticity was made by Bruno Bauer in 18.10 (Kritih der Paul. Brie/e). This critic mainuined that it was a compilation from Ro and Co, intended to correct the false imi)ression of St. Paul conveyed by the Acts. In 1886 Pierson and Naber published their Vervdmitia. Laceram condi- tioncm XT €x*'mplis iUustrat-mit et ab orOjine rfpctierunt (Amstelodami), which h.as been well rendered 'The NT in Tatters.' They allege that the Epistles known as Pauline were really compiled by Paulus Episcopus (Paul the Bishop), who made use of letters or parts of letters which had already been a<idressed to Gentile churches by a missionary of reformed and spiritualized Judaism. This theorj- discre'dited its authoi-a rather than the Epp. of Paul. (See" Steck, Der Galaterbriff ; Kuenen, ThT, x.\. (ISSO) 491 ff., included in the GemmmeMe AhhandliLnfjcn, tr** by Budde, 1S94, pp. 330-369 ; Van Maneii in the Jahrhui-lier fur Frotext. Theol. 1SS7 ; Zahn in Zcilnchhlt f. Kirchlietie Wi-^sefucha/t, 1SS9). Loman (Qutentioiies I'atU'iii'.e, Amsterdam, 1SS2-86) supposed that the four great Epistles of St. Paul were wTitten in his name to recommend universalistic Christianity in opp. to the original Christianity, which had been a Jewish Messianic movement centring in a mythical Jesus. Paul was not wholly m\-thical, but the canonical Paul was.
Scarcely more serious or plausible than those a&iaults was that of Rudolf Steck of Bern, who, in ISSS, published at Berlin his small volume, entitled Der Gataterbriej nach neiiier Ec/itfteit untersucht nebst kritiscbeii Bemerkungen zu den pauUniitchen Hauptbrie/en. In this i>ubIication Steck aimed at proving that the sketch of primitive church liistory offered by the Tiibingen school was as little in correspondence with fact as the outline given in the Bk of .\c, and that the four principal Epp. of St. Paul are as little entitled to be considered genuine fus the smaller Epp. Baur h.ad contented himself with s;tyjng, 'There has never been the slightest suspicion (xist upon these lour Epp. They bear on themselves so iucontestably the character of Pauline originality that it is not possible for critical doubt to be e.\er- ciseii upon them with any show of reitson.' Very good, says Steck, but where does Baur learn the marks of ' Pauline origin- ality '? Is he not perilously nuar & petitio prindpii't He rejects Ac as a true picture of Paul's character : whence, then, dties he receive the true irajiression? Accordingly, Steck applies lo t;al the Tubingen method, and finds that it is not gcnume. .Much has been derived from Ro, but it betrays a more fully developed Paulinism ; and the borrowed expressions appear in CJal as stones from an old house built into a new wall. The date must be subsequent to A.D. 70, because Jerus. is said to be in bondage (I). The inviting of attention to the large letters in which Paul writes is a manifest attempt to palm off tlie Ep. aa Pauline. This criticism was answered from the Tubingen side by Ilolsten and Holtzmann ; but by far the most effective reply is to be found in iilocV8 DU jungste Kritik des Galaterbrifjt-s au/ihre Berechtigutui ifephift (Erlangen, isyu). See also Lindeniaim's Die Echtheit der Paulinijsfhen Ilanptbrie/e grgen Steck'g Cin- sturzmrinick vertheidint. Steck was followed by Volter, who attempted to show (Die Koinposition d. Paul, llaxiptbriefe, Tubingen, 1S90) that Gal is spurious and dependent on Ro and 1 and 2 Co. (A full account of these a.ssaults upon the genuineness and integrity of Gal is given by Knowling in hia \Vitnegg of the KpUtle*, pp. 133-2-13. See al.so Clemen, Oi> EinhrilHchkeit der Paid. Brieje (Gottingen, ISSM), pp. 100- 1'26 ; and, on the other Bide, van Manen in Expot. Timet, Feb., March, April, 1898).