iv. 10) that Crescens was gone to Galatia, the word was commonly, and perhaps rightly, taken by Greek commentators, as referring to a European Gaul, and not to that in Asia Minor. Galat has very much the appearance of being the very word Kelt slightly varied in its utterance; but it is not quite certain that it is so; it may rather be the case (Bishop Lightfoot thinks) that Galat and Kelt were diverging forms of the same word, applied to different branches of the Celtic race. It has been surmised that both exhibit the same root as Gall, with a Celtic suffix. It is interesting to observe that the Ganis embosomed in Asia Minor retained with " Celtic tenacity" their own original tongne to so great an extent that their language is declared by Jerome, in the Introduction to his Commentary on the Epistles, to be in his own time, which was more than three centuries later than St. Paul, very much the same ( eadem f ere) a.a he had heard spoken by the Gauls at Treves. They used, however, the Greek language as well, for which reason they were at times called by the Romans Gallo-Grmci. Indeed, the Greek tongue, which under the empire got to be used even in Rome itself more CllStomarily than Latin, was in vogue, as Jerome likewise observes, all over the East. They were thus bilinguals at least-not a few also, no doubt, being acquainted with the language of their Roman masters as well. Such was beyond question the case of many of the countries subject to the Roman empire (comp. John xi.x. 20). Thus when Paul and Barnabas were visiting the neighbouring country of Lycaonia, they no doubt addressed the people in Greek, assured of being understood by them; while they themselves failed to catch the import of the cries uttered by the Lycaonian populace, who in their excitement reverted quite naturally to their own more native speech (Acts xiv. 11-14). The Galatic Land. It is noticeable that St. Luke does not use the word " Galatia" at all. He twice finds occasion to specify the district, and in both instances he names it "the Galatic Land" (Acts xvi. 6; xviii. 23). No doubt he found this designation of it already in use, though no instance of its occurrence elsewhere has been produced, and chose to employ it in preference to" Galatia," in order to make it more immediately obvious to the Roman readers to whom he was addressing his narrative, that it was not the entire Roman province of the name that he was now referring to. So also then he uses the term " Phrygia" in both cases in close connection with "the Galatic Land," there being no Roman province so called. He thus conjoins the two, as being linked together by a certain measure of identity in their populations ; for in all probability not a few of the original Phrygian inhabitants still dwelt in the country, though now forming a stratum of population subordinate to that of their Gallic conquerors. At all events, " the Galatio " had originally formed a. part of the country of the Phrygians. fy IN'l'RODUC'l'lON TO
RELIGION OF THE GALATIANS. The Gallic invaders do not appear to have at once adopted the worship of Cybele; for when, in the third generation after the conquest, they were attacked by the Romans, the Phrygian priests of Cybele met the Roman general, clad in the robes of their office, and chanting wild strains of prophecy, in which they announced to him that the goddess approved of his enterprise, and would make him the master of the country (Lightfoot, quoting Livy, xxxviii. 18; Polybius, xxii. 20). Perhaps this prediction had later the effect of making the Gauls, through its accomplishment, more ready to submit to the claims made on behalf of the goddess to their homage. At all events, they appear subsequently to have embraced her worship most cordially. The fervid fanaticism of her rites would naturally present a great attraction to the temperament of a people so excitable as they were. Among the inscriptions found at Pessinus, as also at Comana (Toka,t), there are several, Bishop Lightfoot observes, specifying priests of Cybele by names which are evidently Gaulish. Her worship lingered long in this its old home : the Emperor Julian found it still subsisting there, and tried hard to revive this, as well as other Gentile cults, into renewed vigour. The Galatians, however, served other gods as well ( eh. iv. 8). At Tavium the principal object of worship was a colossal bronze statue of Zeus. At A.ncyra. there was a magnificent temple of .Augustus in white marble, still subsisting in ruins. .As their Lycaonian neighbours recognized Hermes as one of their divinities as well as Zeus, we may well believe that his cult also was accepted by these Gauls ; both were adopted from the Phrygians, the former possessors of the soil, together with probably much, at least, of their other idolatrous worship. .As being a less civilized race than that which they dispossessed, they might have been on that account the more ready to lend an ear to their religious teaching, especially since these idola- trous cults were very commonly localized, and consequently claimed to be taken on by the new-comers along with the places to which they were at- tached. They had besides brought with them forms of religious or idolatrous observance of their own, which, after the manner of idolaters, they would more or less amalgamate with those others ; bat of these we know nothing.
JEWS IN GALATIA .
.Amongst these idolatrous nation8 there was scattered far and wide a large diffusion of J ewe, forming, in respect to the spread of the gospel, a most important element of the population. In addition to circumstances tending, here as elsewhere, to their diffusion, it appears that there were some which in A.Bia Minor were especially operative. .A.ntiochus the Great, King of Syria, before he was compelled towards the close of his long reign to give way in the year n.c. 191 before the advancing power of Rome, held sway over a wide belt of country reaching from the shores of the .Angeitn 'HIE EPISTLE TO TIIE GALATIAJ\:S.