xvi. 1-6 implies a distinction between such towns as Lystra, Derbe and

Iconium on the one hand and the Galatian [Greek: chora] with Phrygia upon the other.[1] A further visit to the latter country is mentioned, upon this view, in Acts xviii. 23. The Christians to whom the epistle was addressed were thus inhabitants, for the most part (iv. 8) of pagan birth, belonging to the northern section of the province, perhaps mainly in its south-western district adjoining Bithynia and the province of Asia. The scanty allusions to this mission in Acts cannot be taken as any objection to the theory. Nor is there any valid geographical difficulty. The country was quite accessible from Antioch. Least of all does the historical evidence at our disposal justify the inference that the civilization of north Galatia, during the 1st century A.D., was Romano-Gallic rather than Hellenic; for, as the coins and inscriptions indicate, the Anatolian culture which predominated throughout the province did not exclude the infusion either of Greek religious conceptions or of the Greek language. The degree of elementary Greek culture needful for the understanding of Galatians cannot be shown to have been foreign to the inhabitants of north Galatia. So far as any trustworthy evidence is available, such Hellenic notions as are presupposed in this epistle might well have been intelligible to the Galatians of the northern provinces. Still less does the acquaintance with Roman jurisprudence in iii. 15-iv. 2 imply, as Halmel contends (_Uber rom. Recht im Galaterbrief_, 1895), not merely that Paul must have acquired such knowledge in Italy but that he wrote the epistle there. A popular acquaintance with the outstanding features of Roman law was widely diffused by this time in Asia Minor.

The epistle can hardly have been written therefore until after the period described in Acts xviii. 22, but the _terminus ad quem_ is more difficult to fix.[2] The composition may be placed (cf. the present writer's _Historical New Testament_, pp. 124 f. for details) either during the earlier part of Paul's residence at Ephesus (Acts xix. 1, 10, so most editors and scholars), or on his way from Ephesus to Corinth, or at Corinth itself (so Lightfoot, Bleek, Salmon).

The epistle was not written until Paul had visited Thessalonica, but the Galatian churches owed their origin to a mission of Paul undertaken some time before he crossed from Asia to Europe. When he composed this letter, he had visited the churches twice. On the former of these visits (iv. 13 [Greek: to proteron]), though broken down by illness (2 Cor. xii. 7-9?) he had been enthusiastically welcomed, and the immediate result of his mission was an outburst of religious fervour (iii. 1-5, iv. 14 f.). The local Christians made a most promising start (v. 7). But they failed to maintain their ardour. On his second visit (iv. 13, i. 7,