GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE. This epistle was written by the apostle Paul during his residence at Ephesus, probably about the year 56 A.D., and is generally reckoned the third or fourth of the Pauline epistles in the order of time. The circumstance which called it forth was the diffusion, throughout the Galatian churches, of Judaistic prac tices and notions, chief among which stood the famous rite of circumcision, regarded by Paul as the symbol of all that was exclusive, external, merely ethnical, and therefore thoroughly antagonistic to the universality of the gospel. Paul had himself been the first to preach Christ in this region, and as the majority of his converts were Gentiles, it would naturally vex him all the more keenly to see them lapsing into practices incon sistent with their new faith, and for which they had not even the excuse that Might have been proffered for the Jews, viz., that antiquity had made such customs venerable. It would also appear that the Judaizing adversaries of Paul had been circulating injuri ous reports concerning himself, hinting that he was no divinely appointed apostle, but at best a mere messenger of the church of Jerusalem, that he had quarreled with Peter, the great apostle of the circumcision, and that he could play "fast and loose" on this very question of circumcision itself. In his reply to the underhand attacks of his calumnia
tors, Paul asserts the truth of his gospel, passionately declaring that he would pro nounce a curse on the very angels from heaven, if they would dare to preach another, vindicates his apostleship, and gives the true version of the story of his variance with Peter. He thenproceeds to relation of Judaism to Christianity, and closes with a series of exhortations and admonitions, the first of which is the well-known "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ bath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage " (v 1). The commentaries on Galatians are very numerous; among others may be mentioned those of Luther, Winer, Bilckert, De Wette, Meyer, Ellicott, and Alford.
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