could be determined, we might fettle at once the date of our Epiftle. But here again a difficulty prefents, it felf; for we are not certain in what manner the Jews teckoned their fabbatical years': whether they constantly adhered to the feventh year, and thus made the eighth fabbatical year fall in the 56th year from the time they began to count; or whether, when they began a new reckoning with the year of Jubilee, or the 50th year, and placed the next fabbatical year in the 57th. Further we know not with what year the Jews began their new feries after their return from the captivity: whether they began to reckon immediately from the time of their arrival in Palestine, or whether they waited till their lands were in a state of general cultivation. In the first book of the Maccabees, ch. vi. 53. mention is made of a fabbatical year, the only one on record in the Jewish history. This fabbatical year correfponds to the year 150 of the Greeks, and 161 before Chrift. Now if we begin to reckon with 160 before Chrift, and adopt the opinion that the Jews conftantly adhered to the feventh year, we shall find that the year 50 after Christ was a fabbatical year: for 160 and 50 make 210 which is exactly 30 times 7. But in fact we fhould begin to reckon a year earlier: for the paffage in the book of the Maccabees relates to the latter half of the fabbatical year, when the want of a harvest occafioned a famine. Confequently this fabbatical year began in the year 162 before Chrift: and therefore the year 49 after Chrift is properly the thirtieth fabbatical year from that time. Now the date 49 agrees with another calculation of the year when the Epiftle to the Galatians was written, as appears from the preceding paragraph: and the coincidence of these two calculations is a circumstance in favour of both. The preceding calculation from fabbatical years will indeed fall to the ground, if it be true that the Jews began a new reckoning with each Jubilee but as our prefent queftion does not admit perhaps of See the Orient. Bib, Vol. X. p. 17-25. an an abfolute decifion, the year 49 may be propofed, as the most probable date of the Epiftle to the Galatians'. I will not tire the reader with an examination of what other critics have advanced on this fubject, fince the task has been already performed by Lardner: but fhall mention only what the various opinions are. 1. The firit is, that it was written during St. Paul's vifit in Corinth, Acts xviii. 1. and (as is affumed without authority) in the year 51 or 52. This is the opinion, which Lardner adopts. 2dly. That it was written at Ephesus, Acts xviii. 23. 24. 3dly. At the fame time, that the Epistle to the Romans was written, Acts xx. 2. 4. 4thly. That it was written at Rome. This laft opinion is the moft improbable of any for if St. Paul had deferred it till his arrival at Rome, he could not have complained in the Epiftle, that the Galatians had fo foon wavered in their faith, nor would he have been filent on his bonds in Rome, of which we find no traces in the whole Epiftle. Yet this opinion, ftrange as it is, is advanced in the fubfcription to this Epiftle in the Greek manuscripts", and in the Syriac and Arabic verfions. From this example alone we may learn, that the fubfcriptions annexed to the Epiftles are entitled to no credit. T SECT. II. Of the Galatian Chriftians, and their feducers. HE Galatians were defcended from a tribe of Gauls who had formerly invaded Greece, and afterwards fettled in the leffer Afia. Their original Gaulish language they retained even fo late as the fifth century, as appears Probably likewife in the autumn, or at the time, when in other years, the land was tilled; but in the fabbatical year remained fallow. "Supplement, Vol. II. ch. xii. appears from the teftimony of Jerom, who relates that their dialect was nearly the fame with that of the Treviri. At the fame time they spoke the Greek language, in common with almost all the inhabitants of the leffer Afia: and therefore St. Paul's Greek Epiftle was perfectly intelligible to them. John Joachim Schmidt, mafter of the grammar fchool at Ilfeld, has endeavoured, in his Prolufio de Galatis, ad quos Paulus literas mifit, to fupport the extraordinary opinion, that the Galatians to whom St. Paul wrote, did not refide within the limits of the country of Galatia, but were the inhabitants of Derbe and Lyftra, which, though really cities of Lycaonia, were confidered as an appendage to Galatia, because they had been prefented by Augustus to Amyntas, King of Galatia. But fince St. Paul preached the Gospel in Galatia itfelf, as well as at Derbe and Lyftra, I can fee no reafon for taking the term Galatians' in St. Paul's Epiftle, in any other than its proper acceptation. Schmidt indeed contends', not only that St. Paul was never-in Galatia before the council at Jerufalem, which I readily grant, but likewife that the perfons, whom St. Paul calls Galatians were already converted to Chriftianity, when that council was held. This pofition he endeavours to prove from Gal. ii. 5. where St. Paul fays, To whom we gave place by fubjection, no not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you.' But by the term 'you' St. Paul might mean the Heathens'in general, whofe caufe he pleaded at Jerufalem, in oppofition to thofe, who wifhed to enforce the Levitical law: at least he has frequently used the term in this fenfe, and if this may be afcribed to it in the place in queftion, the argument will * Galatas, excepto fermone Græco, quo omnis loquitur Oriens, propriam linguam eandem pene habere, quam Treviri: nec referre, fi aliqua exinde corruperint, quum et Aphri Phoenicum linguam nonnulla ex parte mutaverint, et ipfa Latinitas et regionibus quotidie, mutetur, et tempore. T. IV. p. 256. ed. Benedict. On this fubject Jerom is very good authority: for he had spent fome time at Treves, and therefore was well able to judge of the language of the Treviri. y Sect. 6. will prove nothing of any one community in particular. Further, that by the term 'you' St. Paul meant the inhabitants of Derbe and Lyftra is highly improbable;. because it appears from Acts xvi. 1. that he not only vifited thofe cities foon after the council at Jerufalem, but informed them verbally of the refult of this council: confequently, he was under no neceffity of giving them written information. On the other hand, if he had judged it neceffary to write to them, after verbal information, he would at least have given fome hint in his Epiftle, that what he then wrote to them he had formerly delivered in person 2. The feducers, against whom St. Paul writes in his Epiftle to the Galatians, were men of a very different defcription from the weak brethren, of whom he speaks in his Epistle to the Romans ch. xiv. xv. and other places; and whofe errors he cenfures in fo gentle a manner, as even to recommend an abftinence in their prefence from whatever they imagined to be unlawful. These weak brethren anxiously abstained from meats offered to idols, and from blood: confidering a participation of the former as a violation of natural, as well as of the Mofaic religion, and a participation of the latter, as an infringement on the command given not only to the Jews in particular, but to the defcendants of Noah in general, Gen. ix. 4. It was out of tenderness to these weak brethren, that the council in Jerufalem had commanded an abftinence from meats offered to idols, and from blood and it was the fame motive, which induced St. Paul in feveral paffages, for inftance, Rom. xiv. xv. I Cor. viii. x. to recommend the fame abftinence, when ever such persons were prefent. Befide these two articles, it does not appear that they infifted on any other of the Mofaic institutions, except the obfervance of the Jewish fabbath, : To thefe objections Schmidt has replied in a Programma published in 1754 with the following title; Prolufionem fuam de Galatis-ab objectionibus doctiffimorum virorum vindicare conatur: which the reader may confult, if he wishes to determine, whether the objections are fully answered, fabbath, which however, as far as we have any knowledge of this matter, they did not confider as indifpenfably neceffary for the converts from Heathenifm. But the feducers or difturbers of the Galatians went much greater lengths, and maintained the neceffity of obferving the whole of the Levitical law, including not only circumcifion, and an abftinence from all meats deemed unclean, but also an obfervance of all the Jewish feftivals, and even of the fabbatical year, which was never defigned to be observed in any other country than Paleftine. It appears that they began their reformation with exercifing the rite of circumcifion: and therefore St. Paul warns the Galatians, ch. v. 2. 3. not to fubmit to it, because by this ceremony they would profefs themfelves to be Jews, and therefore lay themselves under the obligations of the Jewish law. Perfons of a fimilar defcription with thofe, who difturbed the Galatians, had difquieted the Chriftians in Antioch, till they were filenced by the Apostles and Elders in Jerufalem. They were Jews of the New Pharifaic feet, founded by Judas Galilæus, a fect which in various points differed from the ancient Pharifees. The Apoftle fpeaks of them not only in the Epiftle to the Galatians, ch. ii. 4. V. 10. 11. vi. 12. 13. but likewife in his Epiftle to the Philippians, ch. i. 16. iii. 2. 18. 19. and he defcribes them as men of really bad characters, whose principal object was to enrich themselves at the expence of thofe, whom they pretended to convert. Nor is the picture which St. Paul has drawn of them in the leaft exaggerated: for it appears from the accounts of Jofephus, that he might have juftly reprefented them in a still more odious light. It was in fact this fect, which involved the Jewish nation in that war, which ended with the deftruction of Jerufalem, for they incited their countrymen to difobedience against the Roman Emperor, and to a refufal of the accustomed tribute. Under the mask of piety they committed • Rom. xiv. 4. 5. See the Mofaic Law, § 184, where I have given an extract from Jofephus, relative to this fect. |