THE
PULPIT COMMENTARY, BDITED BY TIIE
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., DEAN o• GLOUOES'l'EB;
AND BY THB
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.
GA LAT I ANS. ~xpositfon BY THE REV. PREBENDARY E. HUXTABLE, M.A., LATB BUD-DEAN OF WELLS .A.ND VICB-PBINCirAL Oi' WELLS TBEOLO':iICAL COLLEGE.
lt1omiletfcs BY REV. PROFESSOR T. CROSKERY, D.D.
~omilfes by 1:Tatfous ~utbors. REV. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. REV. R. M. EDGAR, M.A. REV. R. FINLAYSON, B.A.
NEW EDITION.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND NEW YORK 1907 'l'HE EPISTLE OF
PAUL TO THE GALATIANS. INTRODUCTION.
GALATI!.
GALATIA was a tract of country lying on the northward part of that elevated tableland which forms the central portion of the great peninsula we call Asia Minor. On the south, those uplands rest upon the long range of the Taurian Mountains running more or less parallel with the coast. On the north, they are upreared, first by the Olympus range, which, commencing in the neighbourhood 0£ Prusa (now Brusa), pursue a generally eastward direction, until, after being pierced by the river Ancharias (Akaria), which rises in those highlands, they are continued by the Aladag and mgaz Mountains as far as the Halys (Kizil-Irmak). Anciently these lands were to a considerable extent occupied by the Phrygians, then deemed, according to Homer (' Iliad,' iii. 185-190), one of the finest races of mankind. But in the earlier part 0£ the third century before Christ, hordes of Gauls, after a detachment of their hosts had been repulsed in an attempt to swarm into Greece, had managed to cross the Hellespont (B.c. 279), and had poured themselves upon tlie western districts of Asia Minor, carrying havoc and rapine in every direction. With the details of their ensuing history we need not trouble om·selves. It is sufficient to remark that at length these wild tribes got bounded in within the limits of that country to which they gave their own name, being a district which they had wrested from its former Phrygian occupants. In the year B.c. 189 they were con- quered by the Roman general, Cn. Manlius Vulso. The Romans, however, found it advisable to allow them for a long time to remain to a considerable degree independent, under princes of their own. One of these was the Deiotarus whose name is familiar to the readers of Cicero as a. friend and a useful ally of his when Proconsul of Cilicia, and as afterwards defended by him, in his 'Oratio pro Rege Deiotaro,' when arraigned before Julius Crnsar on the charge of attempting to assp,ssim~te him. This Deiotarus, GALATIANS, n ii lN'l'llODUCTION TO
n.c. 65, first united the Galatians under one sovereign. On the death of a successor of his, Amynt.as, n.c. 25, Galatia, with the addition of somo neighbouring districts, was constituted into a Roman province under a go-.ernor. In consequence of this it came to pass that the term Galatia is used in a wider and in a narrower sense. It sometimes designates the country properly so called; sometimes, the Roman province made up of this Ga.latia and other districts added thereto, which were different at different times. At the period we are now concerned with, these additional districts were Lycaonia, Isauria, and a portion of Pisidia; all lying to the south-west and south of Galatia proper. If the term as used by St. Paul denotes the country which was coextensive with the Roman province of that name, we might reckon the Churches of Antioch of Pisidia (now Yalobatch), as well as those of Iconiam (Konieh), Derbe, and Lystra, cities of Lycaonia, as among " the Churches of Galatia." This hypothesis, however, is shown by Bishop Lightfoot ('Galatians: the ·churches of Galatia '), as well as by others, to be untenable. It is the prevailing opi.Ii.ion of critics, ·and may be confidently assumed as the fact, that the word "Galatia." is used by the apostle with reference to this country in its stricter and more proper sense. At this time the Galatians were divided into three septs. (1) The Trocmi, occupying the easternmost position, on the right bank of the Halys, their capital being Tavi.um. Not far beyond their eastern border lay Com.ana (now Tokat), consecrated by being the sleeping-place of St. Chrysost-0m and of Henry Martyn. (2) Next came the Tectosages, whose capital city, .Ancyra (.Angora), the capital also of the Roman province, lay a little north of the very midmost part of the peninsula of Asia Minor; it was famous in ancient times, as it is now, for the soft camlet fabrics woven from the fine hair of its goats. (3) Westernmost were situated the Tolistoboii, or Tolistobogii, whose capital, Pessinus, situated south-westward from Ancyra, lay under Mount Dindymus, and was world-famed as being the chief centre of the worship of Cybele, the mother of the gods ; " Dindymene" (Horace) ; "cni Dindyma curm " (Virgil); the worship the report of which was blazed abroad everywhere by reason of the hideous self-mutilation of some of its priests, " Galli," or " Corybantes," and for the frenzy of its devotees, excited by hautboys and bronzen timbrels(" Cory~ bantia rera "). It has been stated that the Ganis gave the district which they occupied their own name. In explanation of this, we must observe .that Galat is the form under which the name, which in Latin is Gall, commonly appears in Greek authors after the time of Herodotus, in whose 'Histories ' it appears as Kelt. The Gallire of Europe, both Cisalpine (Lombardy) and France, were each of them by the Greeks called Galatia. In fact, the " Galatia" now before us was a third Gaul. It is to be fw-ther observed that when St. Paul, writing at the close of his life from Rome, tells Timothy (2 Tim. Tlrn EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. iii