The question, however, still remains, which of the two visits of Paul to Galatia mentioned in the Acts was it after wliich this epistle was written? In reply to this, Michaelis and some others maintain that it was the fi7-st; but in coming to this conclusion they appear to have unaccountably overlooked the apostle's phra- seology (iv, 13), where he speaks of circumstances connected v.ith his preaching the Gospel among the Galatians, ro T^QurtooT, the former time, an expression which clearly indicates that at the period this epistle was written, Paul had been at least twice in Galatia. On these gromids it is probable that the apostle wrote and dispatched this epistle not long after he had left Galatia for the second time, and perhaps whilst he was residing at Ephesus (comp. Acts xviii, 23; xix, 1 scj.), i. e. A.D. 51. Tlie apostle would in that city have been easily able to receive tidings of his Gala- tian converts; the dangers of Judaism, against which he personallj' warned them, ^ould have been fresh in his thoughts ; and when he found that these warnings were proving unavailing, and that even his apostolic authorit}' was becoming undermined by a fresh arrival of Judaizing teachers, it is then that he would have written, as it were on the spur of the mcment, in those terms of earnest and almost impassioned warning that so noticeably mark this epistle. Tlie reasons which Jlichaelis urges for an earlier date are of no weight. He appeals, in the first place, to chap, i, 2, and asks whether Paul would have used the vague express-ion, "all the brethren," without naming them, had it not been that the parties in question were those by whom he had been accompairied on his first visit to Galatia, viz. Silas and Timothj% and, " perhaps, some others." The answer to this obviously is that, had Paul refer- red in this expression to these individuals, Avho were known to the Galatians, he was much more likely, on that very account, to have named them than otherwise ; and besides, the expression "all the brethren that are with me" is much more naturalh' understood of a con- siderable number of persons, such as the elders of the church at Ephesus, than of two persons, and '■'■perhaps some others." Again, he urges the fact that, about the time of Paul's first visit to Galatia, Asia Minor was full of zealots for the law, and that consequently it is easier to account for the seduction of the Gala- tians at this period than at a later. Put the passage to whicii Michaelis refers in support of this assertion (Acts XV, 1) simply informs us that certain Judaizing teachers visited Antioch, and gives us no information whatever as to the time when such zealots entered Asia Minor. In fine, he laj's great stress on the cir- cumstance that Paul, in recapitulating the history of his own life in the first and second chapters, brings the narrative dowli only to the period of the confer- ence at Jerusalem, the reason of which is to be found, lie thinks, in the fact tlvU this epistle was written so soon after that event that nothing of moment had sub-
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sequently occurred in the apostle's historj'. But, even admitting that the period referred to in tliis second chapter was that of the conference mentioned Acts xv (though this is much doubted bj- many writers of note), the reason assigned by Micliaelis for Paul's carrying the narrative of his life no fuither than this cannot be admitted ; for it overlooks the design of the apostle in furnishing that narrative, which was ccrtainh' not to deliver himself of a piece of mere autobiographical de- tail, but to show from certain leading incidents in his early apostolic life how from the first he had claimed and exercised an independent apostolic authority, and how his rights in this respect had been admitted by the pillars of the Church, Peter, James, and John. For this purpose it was not necessary that the narra- tive should be brought down to a lower date than the period when Paul went forth as the apostle of the Gentiles, formally recognised as such by the other apostles of Christ.
Some of the advocates of a date earlier than A.D. 50 suppose that the persons addressed under the name of Galatians were not the inhabitants of Galutia proper, but of Lystra and Darbe (Acts xiv, C), since among the seven districts into which Asia Minor was divided by the Romans the name of Lj'caonia does not occur ; the latter therefore, witli its cities of Derbe and Lys- tra, must have been included in the province of Gala- tia, as indeed Pliny {Hist. Nat. v, 21) makes it a part thereof. (See Schmidt, Ds Galalis, etc., Hefeld. 1748.) It is urged, in addition, that, while copious details are given in Acts xiv respecting the founding of the Ly- caonian churches, the first mention of Galatia (Acts xvi, 6) is merely to the effect that Paul passed through that country. On these grounds Paulus, U Irich (^Stud. und Krit. 183G), Bottger, and others hold that under the term Tnttixwpov, ''the region round about" (Acts xiv, 6), Galatia must be included : and therefore they put back the composition of the epistle to a date ante- rior to the apostolic council (Acts xv). It is certain, however, that Luke did not follow the Eonian divi- sion into provinces (which, moreover, was frequently changed), because he speciallj' mentions Lycaonia, which was no province, and distinguishes it from Ga- latia. As to the latter point, no valid inferences can be drawn from the comparative silence of the inspired history upon the details of Paul's labors in particular places, provided his presence there is clearly record- ed, although in brief terms. There seems, therefore, no reason to depart from the common opinion that the apostle'sy«r6< visit is recorded in Acts xvi, G ; and con- sequently the epistle must have been written suljse- quently to the council (Acts xv). With this, too, the references in the epistle itself best agree. The visit to Jerusalem alluded to in chap, ii, 1-10, is, on the best grounds, supposed to be identical with that of Acts xv (A.D. 47) ; and the apostle speaks of it as a thing of the past. See Paul.