GALATIA, a Province in Asia the less, having Cappadocia to the east, Bithynia to the west, Pamphylia to the south, and the Euxine-sea to the north. Some troops of the Gauls having invaded Asia minor, made a conquest of this country, settled in it, and called it Galatia, which in Greek signifies Gaul.
He preached there first of all in the year of J.C. 51. Acts xvi. 6. and afterwards in the year 54. Acts xviii. 23. 1 Pet. i. 1.The Galatians, to whom St. Paul wrote one of his Epistles, were descended from these ancient Gauls. St. Paul preached several times in their country, and formed a considerable Church there. It is credible that he was the first, who preached there to the Gentiles; but there is room to presume, that St. Peter had before preached there to the Jews, since his first Epistle is directed to the Jews scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, &c. And the Jews who had been converted by St. Peter, were they, in all probability, who occasioned those disturbances among the Gentile Converts of the same nation; which gave St. Paul an opportunity of writing his Epistle, wherein he takes pains principally to establish his character of an Apostle, which was by some disputed, with an intention to place him below St. Peter, who preached generally to the Jews only, and observed the ceremonies of the Law. He shews afterwards the unprofitableness of these ceremonies, and of circumcision: he stands up with great resolution against those false teachers, who endeavoured to disparage him, and to destroy his authority: lastly, he gives them some excellent precepts for the regulation of their manners, and the better maintaining the purity of Chri- Christianity. The subscriptions which we read in the Greek editions of this Epistle, shew that it was written from Rome. Theodoret thinks it was the first of those, Theodoret. in Paul. Proleg. p. 5. Hieronym. in Galat. vi. 11.which St. Paul wrote from this City; and St. Jerom will have it, that he penned it, while he was a prisoner. But we chuse rather to follow that opinion, which asserts it to have been written from Ephesus in the year of Jesus Christ 55.
2 Macc. viii. 20.In the books of the Maccabees, it is said, that Judas Maccabæus exhorting his people to fight valiantly against the Syrians, related to them several examples of God’s protection of the Hebrews; and among others, that which they experienced in a battle fought in Babylonia, wherein six thousand Jews killed an hundred and twenty thousand Galatians. The Greek is more circumstantial; that tells us, that the Galatians coming to attack the army of the Jews in Babylonia, which consisted but of eight thousand men, assisted by four thousand Macedonians, and these last wanting resolution to engage the enemy, the Jews alone, tho’ their numbers were so inconsiderable, defeated an hundred and twenty thousand Galatians. The Scripture giving us no particulars of the time or other circumstances of this defeat, we can say nothing certain of them. It is very probable, that in this place the Galatians were not meant, who were settled in Galatia, but the Gauls, who at that time over-run Asia. The Greek, Galatai, is taken equally for one and t’other.