obscurity hanging about the precise nature of the perversion which St. Paul is encountering in this Epistle, thus mnch is certain : like certain members of another Church in that peninsula four or five years later, they no longer were "holding fast the Head;" "vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind," they were urging their brethren to "subject themselves to ordinances," arbitrarily selected, of outward observances; hoping to find in these mere "shadows" that satisfaction for the requirements of man's sinful soul which was to be found only in Christ (Col. ii. 16-23). Theosophic speculations, such as were rife at Colossre, are not, however, spoken of by St. Paul in connection with Galatia.. In the next two or three centuries a great number of incongruous and monstrous forms of religious teaching and practice flourished with rank luxuriance in the peninsula of Asia Minor, Galatia holding a sad pre-eminence, as well as in neighbouring countries to the east and south-east ; schemes of heresy evolved out of end- lessly varied intermixtures of cabalistic Judaism and Oriental theosophy with elements of Christian doctrine. The Epistle to the Colossians and the pastoral letters afford indications of some such as already emergent; but the prophetic spirit gave the apostle forebodings of far worse than these to come. li the Head were not held fast, there would be no security against the incursion very quickly of the direst delusions. With trembling anxiety, therefore, the apostle hastens to check at once any tendency to depart from the gospel once for all proclaimed to the world. The apostle distinguishes the deceivers from the deceived. The apostle makes a distinguishable difference between the seducers and their victims. The latter he warns-with stern severity, indeed, but with severity alternating with expressions of yearning affectionateness-that they are falling away .from the God who called them to be in the grace of Christ; that they are foolishly yielding themselves to illusive spells; that they are on the eve of falling from grace; that they are being driven away from country and home ; that the mother of us all is demanding that the sons of the bond- woman-and such they are becoming-shall be cast out. But those who are subverting the gospel he denounces as anathema; they shall bear their judgment, whosoever they be; as witting maligners of Christ's servants they deserve no better fate than to rank with priests of devils; practising the works of heresy, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
THE EFFECT PRODUCED DY THE LETTER.
We have no direct evidence to show what consequences ensued from the sending of this letter. It would be hard to believe that it failed of success. Indeed, its preservation to be enrolled among the volumes of the sacred canon would seem to be of itself evidence that it had proved its effective- ness as an arrow of the Messiah's quiver sharp in tho heart of his enemies whereby the people had fallen under him. But the present writer ventures to think that the fact that it was successful may be come at in an indirect way. xvi INTRODUCTION 'l'O
The apostle, in both of his letters to the Corinthians, mentiom,, and in the Second especially urges, that a collection should be made on behalf of tho poor of Judrea. In the former letter he writes thus: "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I gave order to the Churches of Galatia, so also do ye. Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come. And when I arrive," etc. (1 Cor. xvi. 1-3). Now, when was it that he had thus given order to the Churches of Galatia P In the present Epistle he adverts to the relief of the poor of Judlll8. as a matter which he was wont to make an especial point of promoting. In the second chapter, when giving an account of the recognition which at J ernsalem " those accounted to be pillars " had accorded to himself and Barnabas as ministers of the gospel to the Gentiles, he adds (ver. 10), "Only they would that we should remember the poor; the very thing this which I was even of myself zealons to do." But he makes neither directly nor indirectly any request to the Galatians, that they should make a col- lection for the poor of Judma. Again, in the sixth chapter he enjoins upon them that they should share with their teachers whatever good things they themselves possess; adding, as if addressing persons who were proving themselves backward in the practice of this duty, a solemn a:ud affecting exhortation to works of beneficence, both towards men in general and especially towards such as are of Faith's household. But here, again, there is no word respecting any collection for the J udrean poor. In the Second Epistle which he sent to the Corinthians he informs them that he had told the Churches of Macedonia, from whose midst he was then writing, that " .A.chaia had been prepared for a year past" (2 Cor. ix. 2 ; viii. 10). This statement needs not to be insisted upon as 'one of literal exactness; neither the apostle himself as is evident, nor the Macedonian brethren to whom that was said, would be likely to regard it as other than an utterance of warm feeling, expressing rather the speaker's general sensation of the length of the interval than the result of an exact retrospect. If six or eight months had elapsed since the brethren in Achaia had signified their hearty response to the apostle's proposal to them to make such a colle0tion, the apostle might now, in the sanguineness of his heart, have E'poken to those then about him in the way that he here describes. That signification of their hearty response to his application had been coeval probably with their sending to ask him, as 1 Cor. xvi. 1 implies that they had done, in what way he wished them to set about making and forwarding the collection. Now, an interval of (say) eight months would bring us back to the closing portion of his stay at Ephesus. When from Ephesus he signified to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xvi. 8) that he purposed continuing in that city till Pentecost, he was probably writing about the time of Easter (1 Cor. v. 7) ; and some such interval seems required for the important work which he then anticipated to be lying before him there (1 Cor. xvi. 9). I would next put it to the reader, whether, in pondering 1 Cor. xvi. 2, he THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. xvil