《The Biblical Illustrator – Galatians (Ch.0~2)》(A Compilation)
General Introduction
Over 34,000 pages in its original 56 volume printing, the Biblical Illustrator is a massive compilation of treatments on 10,000 passages of Scripture. It is arranged in commentary form for ease of use in personal study and devotion, as well as sermon preparation.
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While this commentary is not known for its Greek or Hebrew exposition, the New Testament includes hundreds of references to, and explanations of, Greek words.
Joseph S. Exell edited and compiled the 56 volume Biblical Illustrator commentary. You will recognize him as the co-editor of the famous Pulpit Commentary (this commentary is even larger than the Pulpit Commentary). This remarkable work is the triumph of a life devoted to Biblical research and study. Assisted by a small army of students, the Exell draws on the rich stores of great minds since the beginning of New Testament times.
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00 Overview
GALATIANS
INTRODUCTION
The Galatian People
An Alien Race. When St. Paul carried the gospel into Galatia, he was thrown for the first time among an alien people differing widely in character and habits from the surrounding nations. A race, whose home was in the far west, they had been torn from their parent rock by some great social convulsion, and after drifting over wide tracts of country, had settled down at length on a strange soil in the very heart of Asia Minor. (Bishop Lightfoot.)
Their History
The Galatians, in the strict sense, were the remains of a body of Gauls, who, after being repulsed in an attack on Delphi, B.C. 279, invaded Asia Minor. At first they carried all before them, but suffered a severe defeat from Attalus I. king of Pergamus, about B.C. 230, and were thus confined to the district which afterwards went by their name. Here they were conquered by the Romans under the Consul Manlius in 189, but allowed to retain their native princes until the death of Amyntas in B.C. 25, when Galatia was formally annexed to Rome. Shortly before the death of Amyntas, Galatia had been enlarged by extensive grants of territory in the south, and the greater part of this enlarged territory went to form the Roman province. (Professor Sanday.)
Their Nationality
It is commonly assumed that the Galatians were Celts. Some, however, have held them to be Germans. The arguments are--
Other Elements in their Population
Attention has hitherto been directed solely to the barbarian settlers. These, however, did not form by any means the whole population of the district. The Galatians whom Manlius subdued by the arms of Rome, and St. Paul by the sword of the Spirit, were a very mixed race. The substratum of society consisted of the original inhabitants of the invaded country, chiefly Phrygians, of whose language not much is known, but whose strongly-marked religious system has a prominent place in ancient history. The upper layer was composed of the Gaulish conquerors: while scattered irregularly through the social mass were Greek settlers, many of whom doubtless had followed the successors of Alexander thither and were already in the country when the Gauls took possession of it. To the country thus peopled the Romans, ignoring the old Phrygian population, gave the name of Gallograecia. At the time when Manlius invaded it, the victorious Gauls had not amalgamated with their Phrygian subjects, and the Roman consul on opening his campaign was met by a troop of the Phrygian priests of Cybele, who, clad in the robes of their order, and chanting a wild strain of prophecy, declared to him that the goddess approved of the war, and would make him master of the country. The great work of the Roman conquest was the fusion of the dominant with the conquered race--the result chiefly, it would appear, of that natural process by which all minor distinctions are levelled in the presence of a superior power. From this time forward the amalgamation began, and it was not long before the Gauls adopted even the religion of their Phrygian subjects. But before St. Paul visited the country, two new elements had been added to this already heterogeneous population. The establishment of the province must have drawn thither a considerable number of Romans, not very widely spread in all probability, but gathered about the centres of government, either holding official positions themselves, or connected more or less with those who did …. A large influx of Jews must also have invaded Galatia. Antiochus the Great had settled two thousand Jewish families in Lydia and Phrygia, and even if we suppose that these settlements did not extend to Galatia properly so called, the Jewish colonists must in course of time have overflowed into a neighbouring country which possessed so many attractions for them. Those commercial instincts, which achieved a wide renown in the closely-allied Phoenician race, and which in the Jews themselves made rapid progress during the palmy days of their national life under Solomon, had begun to develop afresh. The innate energy of the race sought this new outlet, now that their national hopes were crushed, and their political existence was well nigh extinct. The country of Galatia afforded great facilities for commercial enterprise. With fertile plains rich in agricultural produce, with extensive pasture for flecks, with a temperate clime and copious rivers, it abounded in all those resources out of which a commerce is created. It was moreover conveniently situated for mercantile transactions, being traversed by a great highroad between the East and the shores of the Aegean, along which caravans were constantly passing, and among its towns it numbered not a few which are mentioned as great centres of commerce. We read especially of a considerable traffic in cloth goods, but whether these were of home or foreign manufacture we are not expressly told …. Still, with all this foreign admixture, it was the Celtic blood which gave its distinct colour to the Galatian character, and separated them by so broad a line even from their near neighbours. The tough vitality of the Celtic character maintained itself in Asia comparatively unimpaired among Phrygians and Greeks, as it has done in our own islands among Saxons, and Danes, and Normans, retaining its individuality of type after the lapse of ages and under conditions the most adverse. (Bishop Lightfoot.)
Their Language
A very striking instance of the permanence of Celtic institutions is the retention of their language by these Gauls of Asia Minor. More than six centuries after their original settlement in this distant land, a language might be heard on the banks of the Sangarius and the Halys, which though slightly corrupted, was the same in all essential respects with that spoken in the district watered by the Moselle and the Rhine. St. Jerome, who had himself visited both the Gaul of the West, and the Gaul of Asia Minor, illustrates the relation of the two forms of speech by the connection existing between the language of the Phoenicians and their African colonies, or between the different dialects of Latin. (Bishop Lightfoot.)
Their Character
The Celtic characteristics are not unknown to us. It may be sufficient here to quote one early and one recent writer on this subject, and then to note how far their remarks find any illustration in the Epistle to the Galatians. Caesar, in his “Bellum Gallicum” (4:5), speaks of the “infirmitas” of the Gauls, or their unsteadiness of purpose, adding that “they are very changeable in their counsels and fond of novelties,” and hence “he thought that nothing should be entrusted to them.” Thierry, in his “Histoire des Gaulois,” sums up as follows those characteristics of the Gaulish family, which in his opinion differentiate it from other sections of the human race:--“A personal courage which has no equal in ancient nations; a frank, impetuous spirit, open to every impression, eminently intelligent; but, along with this, an extreme fickleness, no constancy, a marked repugnance to the ideas of discipline and order so strong in the Germanic races, much ostentation, in short a perpetual disunion, the fruit of excessive vanity." We find all the features of this picture very definitely reflected in this Epistle; in the eager welcome which they gave to St. Paul’s doctrine at the first; in their enthusiastic affection towards him personally; in their readiness “so soon” to take new impressions, to throw off the apostolic yoke and to adopt “another gospel” in their readiness to “bite and devour”one another; in the warnings given by St. Paul against vanity and self-conceit. It is possible also that in the strong mention of “drunkenness and revellings” (Galatians 5:21), there is an implied reference to the fault of intemperance, which is said by Greek and Latin writers to have been prevalent among the ancient Gauls. (Speaker’s Commentary.)
It would be hard to abstain wholly from connecting the character of the Galatians with the style and subject of the Epistle. Several circumstances suggest such a connection:--First, the tone of the apostle seemingly adapted to a half-barbarous people, who were to be intimidated and overpowered rather than conciliated, and were more likely to listen if he asserted than if, “becoming all things to all men,” he withdrew his claim. Secondly, the fickleness of their conduct towards him, who first “received him as an angel of God,” and then affected others who were his enemies, instead of him. Thirdly, the definite manner in which the question between Jew and Gentile is reduced to the single point of circumcision; and the positiveness with which it is insisted upon, that they should not be circumcised. There were two views which might have been maintained, and two practices certainly seem to have been adopted by the apostle himself. “The Jewish law is indifferent, therefore let it be observed; the Jewish law is not indifferent, therefore let it not be observed.” But to a rude and ignorant people it was impossible that the outward sign of Judaism could be indifferent; the badge which they bore, sealed them for the law, and not for Christ. To suppose that circumcision could have been made to them the mere symbol of circumcision of the heart, or could be understood as a mere counsel of expediency to avoid giving offence to the Jews, would be as unreasonable as to suppose that South Sea Islanders, if permitted by a missionary to retain the use of idols, would attain by means of them the knowledge of the true God. (B. Jowett, M.A.)
Their Religious Tendencies
The Phrygian religion, adopted by the Gauls, was a demonstrative nature-worship, both sensuous and startling. The cultus was orgiastic, with wild music and dances led by the Corybantes--not without the usual accompaniments of impurities and other abominations, though it might have mystic initiations and secret teachings. Rhea, or Cybele, the mother of the gods, was the chief object of adoration, and derived a surname from the places where her service was established. The great Mother appears on the coins of all the cities, and many coins found in the ruins of the Wall of Hadrian have her effigy. At Pessinus her image was supposed to have fallen from heaven, and there she was called Agdistes. Though the statue was taken to Rome during the war with Hannibal, the city retained a sacred pre-eminence. Strabo says that her priests were a sort of sovereigns endowed with large revenues, and that the Attalian kings built for her a magnificent temple. The Gauls are supposed to have been accustomed to somewhat similar religious ordinances in their national so-called Druidism. But the Druidical system, long supposed to be so especially characteristic of the Celtic races, has been greatly exaggerated in its character and results. The well-known description in Caesar was based on reports which he harmonized and compacted; and the value of those reports may be tested by others which follow in the same book as to the existence of a unicorn in the Hercynian Forest, and as to another animal found there like a goat, which had no knee-joints, and which was caught by sawing through the tree on which it leaned when asleep, for it could not rise when it had been thrown down (Bell. Gall. vi. 12-18,25.) The statement of Caesar, based on mere unsifted rumour, was amplified by succeeding writers, some of whom only altered and recast it, while others added some new touches. If the Druids held the high and mysterious rank assigned to them in popular imagination,--if they dispensed laws, taught youth, offered sacrifices, possessed esoteric science, and held great conventions,--how comes it that they never appear in actual history, but are only seen dimly in the picturesque descriptions of these Greek and Roman authors, not one of whom ever saw a Druid? If the Druids had possessed the authority claimed for them, how is it that we never find them in flesh and blood confronting the first Christian missionaries? The early Church makes no mention of them, though there was a continuous battle with heathenism from the second century to the age of Charlemagne. It is remarkable that in no classic author occurs the term Druid as a masculine noun and in the singular number; and the only living members of the Druidical caste that we meet with are women ….These Druidesses appear in a character quite on a level with that of a Scottish spaewife …. The Druids were probably a sacerdotal caste of both sexes, that dealt chiefly in divination. Suetonius says that Druidism, condemned by Augustus, was put down by Claudius. An extirpation so easily accomplished argues great feebleness of power and numbers on the part of the Druids …. So little is really known of the teaching of the Druids, that all attempts to form a system rest on a very precarious foundation. They served in some idolatrous worship, and they taught immortality in the shape of transmigration, though they seem to have had also a Flaith-innis or Isle of the Blessed. Their system might find some parallel in the Phrygian worship, and be absorbed into it. But there is no foundation whatever for what is sometimes surmised, that the so-called Druidical teaching might have disposed the Galatians to that immediate reception of the truth which is described in this Epistle …. The Phrygian system of religion was one of terror,--Paul’s was one of confidence and love; dark, dismal, and bloody had been the rites of their fathers,--the new economy was light, joy, hope. Perhaps the friendless, solitary stranger, unhelped by any outer insignia, nervous and shattered, yet unearthly in his zeal, and transported beyond himself in floods of tenderness and bursts of yearning eloquence on topics which had never greeted their ears or entered their imagination, might suggest one of the olden sages who spoke by authority of the gods, and before whose prophesying their fathers trembled and bowed. But apart from all these auxiliary influences, there was the grace of God giving power to the word in numerous instances; for though with so many--perhaps with the majority--the early impressions were so soon effaced, because profound and lasting convictions had not been wrought within them, yet in the hearts of not a few the gospel triumphed, and the fruit of the Spirit was manifest in their lives. The Christianity planted in Galatia held its place, in spite of numerous out-croppings of the national character, and in spite of the cruelties of Diocletian, and the bribes and tortures of Julian. (John Eadie, D.D.)