[189] 4. THE DATE OF THE GALATIAN EPISTLE, though out of chronological order, may be considered here. The defection of the Galatians occurred shortly after Paul's second visit (not shortly after his first visit, as Lightfoot strangely takes it, I 6, p. 42). He spent the summer of 50 among them; and the Judaie emissaries may have come in the summer of 51 or 52. But, amid the sudden changes of plan on his journey, Paul could not receive many letters from Galatia. Moreover, his epistle seems to imply the possession of full knowledge, such as could not be gained [190] from a mere letter: if the Galatians wrote to him, it is most improbable that they explained their changed attitude and all the reasons for it. No! Paul's information comes from the personal report of a trusty messenger; and the obvious suitability of Timothy for the duty occurs at once to one's mind. Further, it is clear that Timothy was with Paul during a considerable part of the stay in Corinth, for he joined in the greeting at the opening of both letters to Thessalonica. It is therefore hardly possible that he could have gone home, visited his friends, satisfied himself as to the condition of the Churches, and returned to Corinth before Paul left that city. Moreover, if Paul heard at that time, it is not probable that he would have spent so much time on a voyage to Jerusalem and a visit to Syrian Antioch before visiting personally the wavering Churches.

We conclude, then, that Timothy went to pay a visit to his friends, not before the latter part of Paul's stay in Corinth; and, when he found out the real state of affairs in South Galatia, he went to meet Paul with the news. Owing to Paul's movements, there are only two places where Timothy could have met him,-Ephesus and Syrian Antioch. The former is most unlikely, for, if Timothy left Corinth some months before Paul, he could have no assurance of meeting him there, where he merely called in passing. It is probable, then, that he brought his report to Paul at Syrian Antioch after the fourth visit to Jerusalem (p. 265). With the entire want of definite evidence, we cannot get beyond this estimate of probabilities; and it is most likely that Timothy stayed with Paul during the whole of his residence at Corinth, sailed with him as far as Ephesus, and landed there in order to go home on [191] a visit to his friends, while Paul went on to Jerusalem. We shall at a later stage find that Paul often sent deputies to inspect his Churches; and their reports often drew forth an Epistle to correct an erring Church (pp. 275, 284).

In this way, when Paul reached Syrian Antioch, or immediately after he reached it, at the end of his visit to Caesareia and Jerusalem, he found Timothy waiting with the disheartening news, in the summer of 53: and at once he sat down and wrote the letter which has been preserved to us.

One question remains. Why was Paul content with writing? Why did he not start at once himself? Personal intervention is always more effective in such cases. But, in the first place, a letter would certainly travel faster than Paul could get over the ground; and he would not lose a moment in letting the Galatians hear what he thought. In the second place, he could hardly sacrifice the opportunity of reviewing the Churches in Syria and Cilicia that lay on his way: everywhere he would be besieged with entrearies to stay for a little, and he could not well hurry past them without at least a brief stay of one or two days in each. Finally there are frequently reasons which make it impossible to hurry away on a serious journey like that from Syria to South Galatia. Paul was only human.

When Paul wrote the letter he must, on our view, have been intending to arrive very soon after his letter. It may be asked why he makes no reference to this intention. But we should rather ask, if, according to the ordinary view, he were not coming immediately, why he did not make some explanatory statement of the reasons that compelled him at such a crisis to be content with a letter and to do without a visit (p. 275 f.). The messenger who [192] carried the letter carried also the news that Paul was following close after, as fast as his necessary detentions at Antioch and other cities on the way permitted; and part of the effect of the letter lay in the fact that the writer was going to be present in person very soon.

The Epistle to the Galatians, therefore, belongs to A.D. 53, and was written just when he was starting on his third journey, but before he had begun that scheme of a general contribution among all his new Churches which is so prominent in the three following letters, I, II Cor. and Rom.

To this date one objection may perhaps be urged: in IV 10, Paul asks, "Are ye observing days and months and seasons and years?" It has been urged that this implies that the Sabbatical year 54-55 was observed by the Galatians when the letter was written. But Lightfoot has rightly rejected this argument: Paul asks in sarcasm: "Are ye observing the whole series of institutions? are ye taking up anew a ritual like that of paganism from which you were set free?"