Gentile converts were not to keep the law, how were they to escape from the unmoralities in which they had been brought up? And who was this Paul who taught them to neglect the law ? What claim had he to be considered an apostle? He did not keep company with Christ wliile on earth, as the others had done ; he was not called, as they had been, to the apostolate by the Lord in His lifetime; he had no external authentication of himself, like their letters of commendation from the mother-church at Jerusalem. The Judaizers did not scruple even to speak slightingly of his appearance, and to insinuate that his motives were impure and his conduct inconsistent with Ids teaching. When it suited him he practised circum- cision, as in the case of Timothy. If, therefore, he had not enjoined it on the Galatians, it was through a desire to please men (5" 1'").
All j)ersonal abuse and calumny St. Paul could no doubt have overlooked ; what he could not overlook was the Judaizin" adulteration or sub- version of the gospel of Christ. And the very speciousness of the arguments used, and the char- acteristic zeal for the law displayed by the Judaizers, all the more emiihatically inspired St. Paul with the feeling that the crisis was of tre- mendous moment, and that his life-work among the Gentiles hung in the balance. For not only was he aware that to demand circumcision and impose the whole Mosaic law on the Gentile world, was to undertake a lioi)eless task, but also he perceived that it would oljscure the gospel of Christ. He saw, as apparently no other man of influence saw, that to represent anything else than the cross of Christ as essential to salva- tion, was reallj' to affirm that the cross alone was not sufficient. St. Paul recognized that it was cither the law or Christ ; that a man could not be justilied by both. ' Behold, I Paul saj' unto you, that if ye receive circumcision, Christ will proht you nothing' (5-); 'ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justilied by the law : ye are fallen away from grace ' (5* KaTripyridiirf CLTrb SpicrroL/ oXriPfS iv yofjUft SiKaioOatfe, Tjji x'^P^'^os dieir^uaTe). The importance of the crisis cannot be over-estimated. ' It really seemed as if the mighty enthusiasm of Pentecost might sink into respectable legalism, as if Cliristianity might be strangled in its cradle by the iron hand of the law, as if it might sink into an obscure Jewish sect, and disappear in the national ruin, instead of breaking its fetters, spreading its mi'dity spiritual pinions, and claiming the universal heaven as its home' (Lishop Moorhouse, Dangers of the Apos- tolic A(/i:, p. 21).
Date of the Epistle.— The date of the Ep. has been, and still is, contested. It has been assigned by dillerent critics to the beginning, to the close, and to every intermediate stage of its author's euistolary activity. It stands lirst in the canon of Marcion ; but there is reason to believe that this canon was not arranged in chronological order (Tertul. adv. Marcion. v. 2). One or two modern scholars, as Michaelis, Koppe, Zahn, have placed it earliest among the Epp. of St. I'anl ; while Koehler and Schrader consider it the latest. (Davidson, Intrml. i. 73). Calvin held that it wa.s written before the Council at Jems., and that the visit to Jerus., which St. Paul relates in Gal "2, is the same as that which is mentioned in Ac ll*, and is not that of Ac 15. This view has received the powerful advocacy of Prof. Rara.-yiy (AV/kwiVo;-, Aug. IS'.lj), who argues that the account of the journey in Ac 11. 12 is 'in the most singular agreement' with the narrative of C!al 2. Hausratli dogmatically pronounces that the Ki>. was written in the autumn of 53, and on the following ingeni- ously discovered ground : ' As the Gal. are on the
s6 GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
point of joining with the synagogue in celebrating tiie beginning of the sabbatical year (Gal 4"'), lasting from Sept. 53 to Sept. 54, the Ep. must date from the autumn of 53, in which St. Paul cros.sed into Macedonia' (Time of tlie Apostles, iii. 188. Hausrath, of course, holds the S. Gal. theory). Benan, again, places the Ep. between the second and third missionary journeys, and dates it from Antioch.
The majority of continental critics, however, such as Weiss, Holtzuiann, Sietlert, Lipsius, and Godet, place it very early in the Ephesian resi- dence, and consetiuently first of the four great Epp. In this finding they are considerably mflu- euced by the oCtus tox^ws of 1'. This expression, it is supposed, involves that no long tune can have elapsed between St. Paul's second visit to the Gal. churches and this letter. Lightfoot, however, has shown (Gal. pp. 41, 42) that this con- clusion rests on two erroneous assumptions: (1) that 'so soon' means 'so soon after I left you'; whereas it rather refers to the time of their con- version ; and (2) that a period so indicated cannot embrace more than a few months ; whereas ' quickness and slowness are relative terms,' and the expression might have been used ' though a w hole decade of years had passed since they were first brought to the knowledge of Christianity.' ^^'arfield, irrespective of the oCtms raxiu^, linds reasons for placing the Ep. before the other three w hich belong to this period, ' only a few weeks at most before 1 Co,' i.e. ' about or somewhat earlier than the passover time of the year a.d. 57.' His strongest argument is drawn from 1 Co 9- ' If to others I am not an apostle, yet to you at least I am,' in which he finds an allusion to the recent disparagement of St. Paul's ajjostleship among the Galatians. (Joum. of Exegetical Soc. Paper read in Dec. 1884).