this allusion might be as true with respect to the Galatians, as natural and just in the writer; and we have shewn that, though it could not have been written before A. U. 807. yet there is nothing in what has hitherto been said to prevent but that it might have been written in A. U. 808.

For, fourthly, in all the First Epistle to the Corinthians from first to last, I can discover not one distinct allusion to the existence of Judaizing teachers, or to the prevalence of Judaizing principles, in that Church; whereas, in the Second Epistle, written about a year after the First, they are to be met with in every page y. They appear also, sufficiently clearly, in the Epistle to the Romans, written after both the former 2. I cannot help inferring from this distinction, which is very glaring, and equally remarkable, that these teachers, and their principles, were not yet got into Corinth when the First Epistle was written, but were so when the Second was written. They must have come thither, consequently, in the interval between the Epistles: and, herein, we may observe a critical coincidence between the Epistle to the Galatians, and the Second to the Corinthians. These teachers, we may presume, would arrive in Galatia before they arrived in Corinth; yet they were only just come among that Church, when the Epistle was written: I marvel that ye are so soon beginning (of yourselves) to depart from him who called you in Christ's grace, to another gospel, (which is not another, or, as to which, there is not another,)-of yourselves, I say, unless there be some who are troubling you, and desiring to pervert the Gospel of Christ a—and again, Ye were running well; who hath hindered you? or rather, tripped you up? b—and, But he who is troubling you shall bear the condemnation (of so doing), whosoever he may be c—and again, öpsλov naì àñoxófovтaι oi åvασтaToüvtes úμãs d—and again, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, not to obey the truth e— and again, Are ye so foolish? having begun in spirit, are ye now making an end in flesh? Have ye suffered so much

y 2 Cor. ii. 17. v. 12. X. 2. 7. 10. xi. 4. 17-20. a i. 6.

bv. 7.

e v. IO.

13-15. 22. 23.

2 Rom. xvi.

e iii. 1.

d v. 12.

fall

to no purpose? if, indeed, it be even to no purpose which are clear intimations that these teachers, whether many or one, with the leaven of their principles, were only just come among the Galatians: and St. Paul, as yet, did not know even who they were. Now this is exactly the way in which he speaks of them in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians; the tenth chapter of that Epistle is a case in point throughout and at the fourth verse of the eleventh, he applies to some one of these teachers in particular the indefinite description of ó épxóuevos; which implies that, though he might be expected to come soon, he was not yet come to Corinth.

Fifthly, the coincidence between the general argument, reasonings, and sentiments, and partially even the expressions, of the Epistle to the Galatians, and of that to the Romans, is a presumptive proof that they were written about the same time, or with a view to the same purposes, arising in part from the same juncture of circumstances, or the same kind of occasion. In order to establish this coincidence we may compare the passages in the margin 8. There are other Epistles, as those to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, and those to Titus and the First to Timothy, respectively, of which a similar conformity is perceptible, and which were certainly written together. I cannot, indeed, contend that the coincidence in the present instance is such, as would lead to the inference that one Epistle was

written while the other was still fresh in the mind of the writer; but I think it is such even here as, among other arguments, to prove that both were written within a short time of each other; in which case the Epistle to the Galatians, as neither so elaborate, nor so regular, nor in all respects so deliberate and premeditated, a composition as that to the Romans, but manifestly written on the spur of the moment, in the first excitement of feeling produced by an unexpected and disagreeable piece of information, that of the defalcation of any of the writer's converts from the sound and sober form of the faith, which they had received from him, we may perhaps conclude was written by St. Paul first.

Lastly, if it is reasonable to suppose that the Judaizing teachers would not leave Judæa, to make converts professedly among the Gentiles, before the last of the Apostles, St. Peter, was himself set out upon his great Evangelical circuit, then if the progress of that circuit did not bring even him to Corinth, before the beginning of A. U. 807. it is not extraordinary that those teachers also should not have arrived there, or even in Galatia, before A. U. 808. Again, Galatians v. 11. is clearly incompatible with an early date, but very much in unison with Acts xx. 3. and Rom. xv. 30. 31. which are synchronous facts and allusions. Again, it is a very ancient tradition, and attested by the subscription of the Epistle itself, that the Epistle to the Galatians was written from Rome; and though the subscriptions to the Epistles in general are entitled to little consideration, yet, if the Epistle was actually written when St. Paul was on his way to Rome, the tradition may so far have been correct. There is no intimation in any part of the Epistle that he intended to revisit the Galatians in person, but rather the contrary h; and, consequently, that at the time when he was writing to them he had no means of addressing them, or of correcting their error, except by letter. This too, I think, would be the case after the point of time specified at Acts xix. 21. and from thenceforward,

h Gal. iv. 18. 19. 20.

until he arrived at Jerusalem. It was not, indeed, in the nature of things impossible that he might write the Epistle after this, when he was at Cæsarea; but the first words of

....

the exordium, Παῦλος . . . . καὶ οἱ σὺν ἐμοὶ πάντες ἀδελφοὶ, imply that he was somewhere at large, and in the society of his usual companions and fellow-labourers, when he wrote it. He makes use of similar language at Acts xx. 34. speaking of those who had been his companions at Ephesus. Had the Epistle been written while he was any where in confinement, some allusion would have occurred in it to his bonds; whereas there is nothing of the kind. Nor do I consider the declaration, ἐγὼ γὰρ τὰ στίγματα τοῦ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματί μου βαστάζω, to be any exception to the contrary. It is proved by 2 Cor. x. 10. xii. 7. 8. 9. Gal. iv. 13. 14. that this allusion to the prints of the Lord Jesus, is an allusion to his thorn in the flesh. The principle of the allusion is illustrated by Philo Judæusk. Ενιοι δὲ . . . ἵενται πρὸς δουλείαν τῶν χειροκμήτων, γράμμασιν αὐτὴν ὁμολογοῦντες, οὐκ ἐν χαρτιδίοις, ὡς ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνδραπόδων ἔθος, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν τοῖς σώμασι καταστίζοντες αὐτὴν σιδήρῳ πεπυρωμένῳ, πρὸς ἀνεξάλειπτον διαμονήν. This custom was of great antiquity in Egypt; for Herodotus alludes to it in his own timel—ἐς τὸ ἢν καταφυγὼν οἰκέτης ὅτεῳ ἀνθρώπων ἐπιβάληται στίγματα ἱρὰ, ἑωυτὸν διδοὺς τῷ Θεῷ, οὐκ ἔξεστι τούτου ἅψασθαι. And the practice of so branding themselves was expressly forbidden the Jewsm, St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, whatsoever it was, did as plainly denote whose servant he was-by whose grace, notwithstanding this infirmity, his ministerial labours were crowned with success, and whose strength was made perfect in his weakness-as if the name of the Master whom he served, and whose property he was, had been branded or printed on his body.

The result of these reasonings is to confirm my original proposition, that the Epistle to the Galatians was not written before A. U. 807. nor after A. U. 809. and, therefore, most probably in A. U. 808. but whether before the Second

i vi. 17.

De Monarchia. 819.

ii. 113.

m Lev. xix. 28.

to the Corinthians, or after the Epistle to the Romans, or between the two, I cannot undertake to determine; nor in fact is it of any importance to do so. The same uncertainty must always exist with regard to the place where it was written, further than simply thus much; that if it was written in A. U. 808. it was written from some one or other of those quarters, in which St. Paul spent the whole of this year; that is, the first part he spent in Asia, but the rest, and the chief part, perhaps, in Macedonia, if not in Achaia: and having arrived at this conclusion, I shall resume the course of the subject, which is the continuance of St. Paul's last journey, from Greece to Jerusalem, A. U. 809.

It will appear from the Table of Passovers in Diss. V. of vol. I. that the Passover was celebrated A. U. 809. on March 19. and the Pentecost on May 9. It was by the time of this feast that St. Paul proposed to arrive in Jerusalem; and that he accomplished this purpose in the interval between leaving Philippi, and being apprehended in the temple, is evident from the presence of the Jews of Asia in Jerusalem, at the time of the latter evento. But the same Jews were not present at Cæsarea also, when he was soon after examined by Felix. We may infer, then, that Pentecost was over by this time, and those Jews were returned to their homes. As St. Paul had to travel from Corinth, as far as Philippi, by land, and as he spent at Philippi the Paschal week, which would fall, according to the reckoning above made, between March 19. and March 26. inclusive, it is probable that he set out from Corinth about the end of February, and arrived at Philippi about the third week in March. His three months' residence in Greece, then, would terminate about the end of February, A. U. 809. and began, consequently, about the middle or the beginning of December, A. U. 808. which is entirely agreeable to what we had before concluded of the length of his stay in Macedonia.

Between the time of the arrival in Jerusalem, and the

n Acts xx. 16.

• xxi. 27. xxiv. 18.