Tacitus {Hist. ii. 9) mentions 'Galatiam ac Pamphyliam pro- vincias' ; in Anii. xiii. 35 he says, ' et habiti per Galatiam Cap- padociamque dilectus' ; and in Ann. xv. 6 he has ' Galatarum Cappadocunique auxilia.' An Iconian inscription to an Imperial officer (CIG 3991) designates his administrative district PoAa- TiKij en-apxeia, or ' Galatic province '. Pliny frequently uses 'Galatia' as designating the province {HN v. 27, 95, etc.). For other instances see T. Zahn, Introd. to the NT, 1909, i. 184 f.
The crucial question is whether St. Paul assumed the Imperial standpoint and wrote like a Roman. Zahn {op. cit. i. 175) holds that ' he never u.ses any but the provincial name for districts under Roman rule, and never employs territorial names which are not also names of Roman provinces.' The Apostle's employment of the terms Achaia, ISIace- donia, Dalmatia, Judsea, Arabia, Syria, and Cilicia is regarded as consistently Imperial. Of the divi- sions of Asia Minor he names only Asia and Galatia, and ' it is unlikely that he meant by these anything else than the Roman provinces so called, for the very reason that he mentions no districts of Asia Minor whose names do not at the same time denote such provinces ' {op. cit. i. 186). Ramsay similarly maintains that St. Paul always thinks .and speaks Avith his eye on the Roman divisions of the Empire, i.e. the Pi"Ovinces, in accordance with his station as a Roman citizen and with his invariable and oft- announced principle of accepting and obeying the existing government. This view is contested by the South Galatian theorists. Mommsen, e.g. , held that 'it is inadmissible to take the "Galatians" of Paul in anything except the distinct and narrower sense of the term ' (quoted in Moffatt, LNT, p. 96), and P. W. Schmiedel contends that 'it is quite un- l)ermissible to say of Paul that he invariable' con- lined himself to the official usage' {EBi ii. 1604). Poth the old, or North Galatian, h,ypothesis and the new, or South Galatian, are championed by an apparently equal number of distinguished scholars. *
It is certain that St. Paul's first mission north of Taurus was conducted in the Greek-s]ieaking cities of Antioch and Iconium (which were Phrygian),
* Among the North Galatian theorists are Lightfoot, Jowett, n. J. Holtzmann, Wendt, Godet, Blass, Holsten, Lipsius, Sieffert, Zockler, Schiirer, von Dobschiitz, Jiilicher, l?ousset, Salmon, Gilbert, Findlay, Chase, Moffatt, Steinmann ; among the South Galatians are Perrot (who first popularized the theory in his de Galatia Provincia Romana, 1867), Renan, Hausrath, Pfleiderer, Weizsiicker, O. Holtzmann, von Soden, J. Weiss, Clemen, Belser, Gilford, Barllet, Bacon, Askwith, Kendall, Weber.
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Lystra and Derbe (which were Lycaonian) — all in the Provmcia Galatia, but far from Galatia proper. The liistorian gives a graphic account of the found- ing of churches in these four cities (Ac 13''*-14-^), and from these churches St. Paul got some of his fellow- workers (16' 20^). What more natural, ask the South Galatian theorists, than that this much- frequented district should become the storm-centre of a Judai.stic controversy, and that the Apostle sliould write the most militant and impassioned of all his letters in defence of the spiritual liberty of the converts of his pioneer mission ? On the North Galatian theory, the founding of churclies, .say in Pessinus, Ancj-ra, and Tavium, and their subse- quent development, had much more to do with the extension and triumph of apostolic Christianity among the Gentiles — whicli was St. Luke's theme — than the planting of the South Galatian churches, and the historian who manifests no interest in North Galatia stands convicted of shifting the centre of gravity to the wrong place. It is diffi- cult, however, to believe that the mission in which the Apostle was welcomed ' as an angel from heaven, as Christ Jesus' (Gal 4"), and the thrilling exj^eri- ences whicli must have lilled his mind and heart at the moment when he joined St. Luke in Troas (Ac 16"), are alluded to in no more than a single ambiguous sentence (16"), which Ramsay character- izes as ' perhaps the most difficult (certainly the most disputed) passage' in the wiiole of Acts (C'/twrc-A in the Roman Empire, 1893, p. 74 tl".).
The North Galatian school accounts for the his- torian's neglect of Galatia proper, and for the curt- ness of his narrative at this vital point (Ac 16°"*), by his desire ' to get Paul across to Europe ' (Motiatt, LNT, p. 94) ; but another explanation seems more natural.
' I would rather say that the writer passed on rapidl.v, because the journey itself was direct, and uninterrupted by any import- ant incident such as the supposed preachin*^ and founding of churclies in Northern Galatia. St. Paul's mission to Europe was, according to the indications given in the narrative, the divinely appointed purpose of the whole journey. Twice he is forbidden to turn aside from the direct route between Antioch and Troas. " To speak the word in Asia," " to go into Bithynia," would each have Vjeen a cause of much delay ; and in each case the Apostle found himself constrained by tlie Spirit's guidance to go straight forward on his appointed way. One of these Divine interpositions occurred before, and one after the supposed digression into Northern Galatia. Do they not make ati intermediate sojourn in that district, which must, have been of long duration, and of which the writer gives no hint whatever, quite inconceivable?' (E. H. Gifford, in Expositor, 4th ser., x. [1894] 15).