lands uncultivated for a whole year, though the law of Mofes on this article could not poffibly extend to Galatia. At the beginning of the fecond chapter, there is a date, from which fome commentators have attempted to fix the year, in which this Epiftle was written. Namely, St. Paul fays, ch. ii. 1. επειτα δια δεκατεσσάρων ετών παλιν ανέβην εις Ιεροσολυμα. But the difficulty is to determine from what period St. Paul reckoned thefe fourteen years. Some reckon from the time of his converfion: others from that journey to Jerufalem, which he mentions ch. i. 18. and thus make St. Paul's arrival in Jerufalem ch. ii. 1. to have happened feventeen years after his converfion. And even if this point were fettled, the year of St. Paul's converfion will fill remain to be decided. Some commentators conjecture, that St. Paul was converted in the year 35. On this hypothefis the Epiftle to the Galatians, which was evidently written foon after the council in Jerufalem, muft be referred to the year 49 or the year 52, according as we add 14, or 14+3 to 35. Other commentators place St. Paul's converfion in the year 38. On this latter hypothefis therefore the Epiftle to the Galatians will be referred, either to 52 or to 55. But it could not be written fo late as 55, because St. Paul's imprisonment in Jerufalem took place in the year 60, and I have already thewn, that between his first journey into Macedonia, on which he wrote his Epiftle to the Galatians, and his imprisonment in Jerufalem, there must have elapfed an interval of more than five years. Since therefore neither the year of St. Paul's converfion can be determined with any precifion, nor the period decided, from which he counted the fourteen. years, which he has mentioned Gal. ii, 1. we' fhall not be able from this date to fix the time, when the Epiftle was written.

I have obferved in the beginning of the preceding paragraph, that the Galatians, when St. Paul wrote his Epiftle to them, were on the point of celebrating the Jewish fabbatical If therefore this fabbatical year, could

year,

See above, Ch. viii. Sect. 4.

? Ib.

could be determined, we might fettle at once the date of our Epistle. But here again a difficulty prefents itfelf; for we are not certain in what manner the Jews reckoned 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 ftate of general cultivation. In the firft book of the Maccabees, ch. vi. 53. mention is made of a fabbatical year, the only one on record in the Jewish hiftory. 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 fhall find that the year 50 after Chrift 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 harveft 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 circumftance 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 hot 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 shall mention only what the various opinions are.. 1. The firft is, that it was written during St. Paul's visit 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 Ephefis, Acts xviii. 23. 24. 3dly. At the fame time, that the Epiftle to the Romans was written, Acts xx. 2. 4. 4thly. That it was written at Rome. This laft opinion is the most 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 subfcriptions annexed to the Epiftles are entitled to no credit.

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,

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 fpoke 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 Auguftus to Amyntas, King of Galatia. But fince St. Paul preached the Gospel in Galatia itself, 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 leaft 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. r 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 leaft have given fome hint in his Epiftle, that what he then wrote to them he had formerly delivered in perfon.

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 fpeak's 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 ábftinence in their prefence from whatever they imagined to be unlawful. Thefe weak brethren anxioufly abftained 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. 1 Cor. viii. x. to recommend the fame abftinence, whenever fuch perfons were prefent. Befide these two articles, it does not appear that they infifted on any other of the Mofaic inftitutions, except the obfervance of the Jewish fabbath,

in

To these objections Schmidt has replied in a Programma published 1754 with the following title, Prolufionem fuam de Galatisab objectionibus doctiffimorum virorum vindicare conatur: which the reader may confult, if he wishes to determine, whether the objections are fully answered.