[141] 2. THE JEWS IN ASIA AND SOUTH GALATIA. In Cyprus, Barnabas and Saul had confined themselves within thecircle of the synagogue, until Paul stepped forth from it to address the Roman proconsul. In entering Galatia Paul was passing from Semitic surroundings into a province where Greek was the language of all even moderately educated persons, and where Græco-Roman manners and ideas were being actively disseminated and eagerly assimilated by all active and progressive and thoughtful persons. How then did Paul, with his versatility and adaptability, appear among the Galatians, and in what tone did he address them?

At first he adhered to his invariable custom of addressing such audience as was found within the synagogue. There was a large Jewish population in the Phrygian district of Galatia, as well as in Asian Phrygia (which Paul entered and traversed at a later date XIX 1). According to Dr. [142] Neubauer (Géographie du Talmud, p. 315), these Jews had to a considerable extent lost connection with their country, and forgotten their language; and they did not participate in the educated philosophy of the Alexandrian Jews: the baths of Phrygia and its wine had separated the Ten Tribes from their brethren, as the Talmud expresses it: hence they were much more readily converted to Christianity; and the Talmud alludes to the numerous converts.

It is much to be desired that this distinguished scholar should discuss more fully this subject, which he has merely touched on incidentally. The impression which he conveys is different from that which one is apt to take from the narrative in Acts; and one would be glad to have the evidence on which he relies stated in detail. But my own epigraphic studies in Phrygia lead me to think that there is much in what Dr. Neubauer has said; and that we must estimate Luke's account from the proper point. Luke was profoundly interested in the conflict between Paul and the Judaising party; and he recounts with great detail the stages in that conflict. That point of view is natural in one who had lived through the conflict, before the knot was cut by the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70; but, though short, the struggle was far more severe than later scholars, who see how complete was Paul's triumph, are apt to imagine. Even to a writer of the second century, the conflict with the Judaisers could not have bulked largely in Church history. But to Luke that conflict is the great feature in the development of the Church. Hence he emphasises every point in the antagonism between Paul and the Judaisers; and his readers are apt to leave out of notice other aspects of the case. The Jews of Pisidian [143] Antioch are not represented as opposed to Paul's doctrines, but only to his placing the Gentiles on an equality with themselves (p. 101, XIII 45). A great multitude of the Iconian Jews believed (XIV 1). The few Jews of Philippi seem to have been entirely on Paul's side: they were probably to a great extent settlers who had come, like Lydia, in the course of trade with Asia Minor. In Berea the Jews in a body were deeply impressed by Paul's preaching. In Thessalonica, however, the Jews were almost entirely opposed to him; and in Corinth it was nearly as bad, though the archisynagogos followed him. In Corinth the Jewish colony would certainly be in close and direct communication with Syria and Palestine by sea, more than with the Phrygian Jews of the land road; and it is probable that the same was the case in Thessalonica, though no facts are known to prove it.

From the recorded facts, therefore, it would appear that the Jews in central Asia Minor were less strongly opposed to Pauline Christianity than they were in Palestine. Further, the Asian and Galatian Jews had certainly declined from the high and exclusive standard of the Palestinian Jews, and probably forgotten Hebrew. In Lystra we find a Jewess married to a Greek, who cannot have come into communion with the Jews, for the son of the marriage was not submitted to the Jewish law (XVI 1-3). The marriage of a Jewess to a Gentile is a more serious thing than that of a Jew, and can hardly have come to pass except through a marked assimilation of these Jews to their Gentile neighbours. In Ephesus the sons even of distinguished priests practised magic, and exorcised demons in the name of Jesus (XIX 14); and Dr. Schürer has shown that [144] gross superstitions were practised by the Jews of Thyatira. There seems, therefore, to be no real discrepancy between the evidence of Luke and Dr. Neubauer's inference about the Phrygian Jews from the Talmud.

Naturally the approximation between Jews and Gentiles in Phrygia had not been all on one side. An active, intelligent, and prosperous minority like the Jews must have exercised a strong influence on their neighbours. Evidence to that effect is not wanting in inscriptions (see Cities and Bishoprics, Chap. XIV); and we may compare the readiness with which the Antiochians flocked to the synagogue, XIII 43-44, and at a later time yielded to the first emissaries of the Judaising party in the Church (Gal. I 6). The history of the Galatian Churches is in the closest relation to their surroundings (p. 183).