recurrence to their old heathen type.” Paul describes them as arrested in a course of obedience to the truth which they had been running well (v. 7): as soon removed into a differ- ent gospel Gi. 6): as bewitched by an evil eye (iii. 1): as pervaded with an evil leaven (v. 9). They were beginning, in part at least, to observe the Jewish ceremonial law: they were depending upon the law for justification: they were declining from a spiritual to a fleshly economy: they were beginning to regard as an enemy the friend and teacher whom, not so long ago, they had received as an angel of God, and for whom they would have plucked out their own eyes (iv. 14, 15).
To what extent the Galatian Christians had been prevailed on to accept circumcision, we do not know. ‘The writing of this letter, however, implies that Paul did not regard this evil as past arresting.
The letter itself is marked by unity of purpose, cohesion of thought, and force and picturesqueness of diction. Like 2d Corinthians and Philippians it is intensely personal. Like the former of those Epistles it reveals the apostle’s keen sensitiveness to the attitude of his readers toward himself. It is indignant and severe, with dashes of bitterness, yet it contains touches of affectionate reminiscence. It is pervaded and controlled by the one purpose of meeting and correcting the Galatian apostasy in its twofold form of repudiating his apostolic right and the doctrine of salvation by faith. The letter falls into three parts: chs.i., 1i., maintaining the inde- pendence and authority of his apostleship, and the divine origin of his gospel. Chs. iii., iv., defending the intrinsic truth of his gospel. Chs. v., vi., exhibiting the moral conse- quences which legitimately and logically result from his gospel.
The relationship of the Epistle to the Roman letter is marked, yet it has its special characteristics as distinct from Romans. It bears the character of a letter more distinctly than Romans, which is a treatise. It lays amore distinct em- phasis upon the person and apostolic authority of Paul, and its dominant conception is the freedom of the Christian, as