Respecting the time when and the place where this epistle was written, great diversity of opinion prevails. Marcion held this to be the earliest of Paul's epistles (Epiphanius, Adv. Hares. xlii. 9) ; and Tertullian is generally supposed to favour the same opinion, from his speaking of Paul's zeal against Judaism displayed in this epistle as charac teristic of his being yet a neophyte (Adv. Marc.
20); though, to us, it does not appear that in this passage Tertullian is referring at all to the writing- of this epistle, but only to Paul's personal intercourse with Peter and other of the apostles mentioned by him in the epistle (ii. 9-14). Michaelis also has given his suffrage in favour of a date earlier than that of the apostle's second visit to Galatia, and very shortly after that of his first. Koppe's view (Nov. Test., vol. vi. p. 7) is the same, though he supposes the apostle to have preached in Galatia before the visit mentioned by Luke in Acts xvi. 6, and which is usually reckoned his first visit to that district. Others, again, such as Mill (Proleg. in Nov. Test., p. 4), Calovius (Biblia Illust., t. iv, p. 529), and, more recently, Schrader (Der. Ap. Paulus, th. s. 226), place the date of this epistle at a late period of the apostle's life : the last, in deed, advocates the date assigned in the Greek MSS. and in the Syriac and Arabic versions, which announce that it was written from Rome' during the apostle's imprisonment there. The majority, however, concur in a medium view be tween these extremes, and fix the date of this epistle at some time shortly after the apostle's second visit to Galatia. This opinion appears to us to be the only one that has any decided support from the epistle itself. From the apostle's abrupt exclamation in chap. i. 6, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you,' etc., it seems just to infer that he wrote this epistle not very long after he had left Galatia. It is true, as has been urged, that olivo raxews in this verse may mean so quickly' as well as so soon;' but the abruptness of the apostle's statement appears to us rather to favour the latter rendering : for, as a complaint of the quickness of their change re spected the manner in which it had been made, and as the apostle could be aware of that only by report, and as it was a matter on which there might be a difference of opinion between him and them, it would seem necessary that the grounds of such a charge should be stated ; whereas if the complaint merely related to the shortness of time during which, after the apostle had been among them, they- had remained steadfast in the faith, a mere allusion to it was sufficient, as it was a matter not admitting of any diversity of opinion. We infer, then, from this expression, that this epistle was written not long after Paul had been in Galatia. The question, however, still remains, which of the two visits of Paul to Galatia mentioned in the Acts was it after which this epistle was written ? In reply to this Michaelis and some others maintain that it was the first ; but in coming to this conclu sion they appear to have unaccountably overlooked the apostle's phraseology (iv. 13), where he speaks of circumstances connected with his preaching the Gospel among the Galatians, rb Irpbrepor, the for mer time, an expression which clearly indicates that at the period this epistle was written, Paul had been at least twice in Galatia.* On these grounds it is probable that the apostle wrote and despatched this epistle not long alter he had left Galatia for the second time, and, perhaps, whilst he was residing at Ephesus (comp. Acts xviii. 23 ; xix. 1, syy.) The reasons which Michaelis urges for an earlier date are of no weight. He appeals, in the first place, to chap. i. 2, and asks whether Paul would have used the vague expression, all the brethren,' without naming them, had it not been that the parties in question were those by whom he had been accompanied on his first visit to Galatia, viz., Silas and Timothy, and, perhaps,
some others.' The answer to this obviously is, that had Paul referred in this expression to these individuals, who were known to the Galatians, he was much more likely on that very account to have named them than otherwise ; and besides, the ex pression all the brethren that are with me' is much more naturally understood of a considerable number of persons, such as the elders of the church at Ephesus, than of two persons, and, perhaps, some others.' Again, he urges the fact that, about the time of Paul's first visit to Galatia, Asia Minor was full of zealots for the law, and that conse quently it is easier to account for the seduction of the Galatians at this period than at a later. But the passage to which Michaelis refers in support of this assertion (Acts xv. i) simply informs us that certain Judaizing teachers visited Antioch, and gives us no information whatever as to the time when such zealots entered Asia Minor. In fine, he lays great stress on the circumstance that Paul, in recapitulating, the history of his own life in the first and second chapters, brings the narrative down only to the period of the conference at Jerusalem. the reason of which is to be found, he thinks, in the fact that this epistle was written so soon after that event that nothing of moment had subsequently occurred in the apostle's history. But even ad mitting that the period referred to in this second chapter was that of the conference mentioned Acts xv. (though this is much doubted by many writers of note). the reason assigned by Michaelis for Paul's carrying the narrative of his life no further than this cannot be admitted : for it over looks the design of the apostle in furnishing that narrative, which was not certainly to deliver him self of a piece of mere autobiog,raphical detail ; but to shew from certain leading; incidents in his early apostolic life how from the first he had claimed and exercised an independent apostolic authority, and how his rights in this respect had been ad mitted by the pillars of the church, Peter, James, and John. For this purpose it was not necessary that the narrative should be brought down to a lower date than the period when Paul went forth as the apostle of the Gentiles, formally recognised as such by the other apostles of Christ. This fact, then, is as little in favour of Michaelis's theory as any of his other arguments. Conybeare and How. son have advocated the opinion that this epistle was written from Corinth at the same time as the Epistle to the Romans ; but as they rest this almost exclusively on the improbability that two epistles so closely resembling each other in subject should have been written at a long interval from each other, their suggestion cannot be allowed to have much weight, in opposition to the reasons which sustain the commonly received opinion. There is certainly no reason in the nature of things why Paul should not have written twice on the same subject at distant periods ; and when the Epistle to the Galatians is compared with that to the Romans, the similarity between the two is such as rather to sug. gest that the latter is the development, at a latet period, and in a more systematic form, of thoughts more hastily thrown out to meet a pressing emer gency, in the former.
Commentaries.—Augustine (Opp., ed. Benedict., tom. iii. ; ed. Erasin. tom. iv. p. 1210 ; Jerome copp., ed. Vallars., tom. vii., ed. Franca. ad Moen. 1684, tom. ix., p. 28o) ; Luther (Opp. Jen. tom. i. iii.); Baumgarten, 1767 ; Semler, 1779 ; Koppe (Nov. Test. Kopp. vol. vi.) 1791, 2d ed. ; Moms, 1795 ; Borger, 1807 ; Winer, 1821, 3d ed. 1829 ; von Flatt, t828; Ruckert, 1833 ; teri, 1833 ; Matthies, 1833; Brown, 1853 ; Elli cott, 1854, 2d ed. 859 ; Bagge, 1856 ; besides the more general commentaries of De Wette, Ols• hausen, Meyer, Bloomfield, and Alford.—W. L. A.