Acts 18:28

εὐτόνως : “powerfully,” only in Luke, cf. Luke 23:10, “vehemently,” like Latin, intente, acriter, Joshua 6 (7):8 (- νος, 2Ma 12:23, 4Ma 7:10, A R); found also in classical Greek, and may be one of the “colloquial” words common to the N.T. and Aristophanes, cf. Plutus, 1096 (Kennedy, p. 78). But as the word is used only by St. Luke, it may be noted that it is very frequently employed by medical writers, opposed to ἄτονος. διακατηλέγχετο : “powerfully confuted,” R.V. The word does not prove that Apollos convinced them (A.V. “mightily convinced”), lit [327], he argued them down; but to confute is not of necessity to convince. The double compound, a very strong word, is not found elsewhere, but in classical Greek διελέγχω, to refute utterly (in LXX, middle, to dispute), κατελέγχω, to convict of falsehood, to belie. ἐπιδεικνὺς : only once elsewhere in N.T., Hebrews 6:17, and in classical Greek as in Plato, to prove, to demonstrate.

[327] literal, literally.

Additional note on Acts 18:23 (see on Acts 16:6).

In a brief attempt to refer to a few difficulties connected with this verse, it is well to bear in mind at the outset that St. Luke never uses the noun Γαλατία (which is twice used by St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 16:1; Galatians 1:2), but the adjective Γαλατικός, Acts 18:23 and Acts 16:6, in both cases with the noun χώρα; St. Paul in each case is speaking of the “Churches of Galatia”; St. Luke in each case is speaking of the Apostle's journeys. How may we account for this different phraseology? If St. Luke had meant Galatia proper, we may believe that he would have used the word Γαλατία, but as he says Γαλατικὴ χώρα he speaks as a Greek and indicates the Roman province Galatia, or the Galatic province; a name by which the Greek-speaking natives called it, whilst sometimes they enumerated its parts, e.g., Pontus Galaticus, Phrygia Galatica, Expositor, pp. 126, 127, August, 1898 (Ramsay), and Hastings' B.D., “Galatia” (Ramsay), pp. 87 89, 1899; cf. the form of the derived adjective in - ικός in the pair Λακωνικὴ γῆ and Λακωνία. St. Paul on the other hand, speaking as a Roman citizen, used the word Γαλατία as = the Roman province, for not only is there evidence that Γαλ. could be so employed in current official usage (the contrary hypothesis is now abandoned by Schürer, one of its former staunch supporters, see Expositor, u. s., p. 128, and Hastings' B.D., ii., 86), but it seems beyond all dispute that St. Paul in other cases classified his Churches in accordance with the Roman provinces, Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, Expositor, u. s., p. 125; Zahn, Einleitung, i., 124; Renan, Saint Paul, p. 51; Hausrath, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, iii., p. 135; Clemen, Chron. der Paulinischen Briefe, p. 121. Why then should the Churches of Galatia be interpreted otherwise? Ramsay (“Questions,” Expositor, January, 1899) may well appeal to Dr. Hort's decisive acceptance of the view that in 1 Peter 1:1 (First Epistle of St. Peter, pp. 17, 158) the Churches are named according to the provinces of the Roman empire (a point emphasised by Hausrath, u. s., in advocating the South-Galatian theory), and that in provincial Galatia St. Peter included at least the Churches founded by St. Paul in Galatia proper, i.e., in Phrygia and Lycaonia, although it must be remembered that Dr. Hort still followed Lightfoot in maintaining that the Galatians of St. Paul's Epistle were true Galatians, and not the inhabitants of the Roman province. “But if St. Peter, as Hort declares, classed Antioch, Iconium, Derbe and Lystra among the Churches of Galatia, must not Paul have done the same thing? Is it likely that 1 Peter, a letter so penetrated with the Pauline spirit, so much influenced by at least two Pauline Epistles, composed in such close relations with two of Paul's coadjutors, Silas and Mark, should class the Pauline Churches after a method that Paul would not employ?” (Ramsay, Expositor, January, 1899.) The Churches which in this view are thus included in the province Galatia, viz., Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, would be fitly addressed as Galatians by a Roman citizen writing to provincials proud of Roman names and titles (although Wendt (1899) urges this mode of address, Galatians 3:1, as one of two decisive points against the South Galatian theory). For we must not forget that two of the four Churches in South Galatia were Roman coloniæ, Antioch and Lystra, whilst the two others mentioned in Acts 14 bore an emperor s name, Claudio-Iconium, Claudio-Derbe. That the title “Galatians” might be so applied to the people of Roman “Galatia” has been sufficiently illustrated by Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 130, and Ramsay, Expositor, August, 1898, cf. Tac., Ann., xiii., 35, xv., 6; Hist., ii., 9; and it is very noteworthy that in Philippians 4:15 St. Paul in addressing the inhabitants of a Roman colonia addresses them by a Latin and not a Greek form of their name, φιλιππήσιοι = Latin, Philippenses, so that in addressing the four Churches of South Galatia, so closely connected with Rome as we have seen, St. Paul would naturally address them by the one title common to them all as belonging to a Roman province, Galatæ, Galatians; Ramsay, Expositor, August, 1898; McGiffert, Apostolic Age, pp. 177 179.

St. Paul then uses the term Galatia as a Roman citizen would use it, while St. Luke employs the phraseology common in the Ægean land amongst his contemporaries; he does not speak of Galatia, by which term he would as a Greek mean North Galatia, but of the “Galatic territory” or of the region or regions with which he was concerned; see on this Expositor, August, 1898, pp. 126, 127, and Hastings' B.D., “Galatia”. In Acts 16:6 he writes of a missionary tour (see on διῆλθον, note, l. c.) through the Phrygo-Galatic region; in Acts 18:23 he speaks of a missionary tour through the Galatic region (Derbe and Lystra) and the Phrygian (Iconium and Antioch). It is, moreover, important to note that whether we take φρυγία, Acts 18:23, as an adjective, χώρα being understood, or as a noun, the same sense prevails, for we have evidence from inscriptions of Antioch that Galatic Phrygia was often designated by the noun, “and St. Luke may be allowed to speak as the people of Antioch wrote,” Ramsay, Hastings' B.D., ii., p. 90, 1899. See further the same writer's reference to the testimony of Asterius, Bishop of Amasia in Pontus Galaticus, A.D. 400, in favour of the above view, who paraphrases Acts 18:23, τὴν Λυκαονίαν καὶ τὰς τῆς φρυγίας πόλεις, and places the journey through Lycaonia and Phrygia immediately before the visit to Asia, Acts 19:1; see especially Ramsay, Studia Biblica, iv., p. 16 ff. and p. 90; Hastings' B.D., u. s., as against Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 136.

But further: if the Phrygo-Galatic district thus lay on the road to Ephesus, it is difficult to see how St. Paul could be conceived of as going to a distance of some 300 miles out of his route to Galatia in the narrower ethnical sense of the word; and this is one of the many points which influences Mr. Turner to regard the South Galatia view as almost demonstrably true, Chron. of the N.T.; Hastings' B.D., i., 422 (see also to the same effect, Renan, Saint Paul, p. 52; and Rendall, Acts, p. 275; Salmon, Introd., p. 377). McGiffert (so too Renan, Hausrath) maintains that if the North Galatian theory is correct, and St. Paul is not addressing the Churches founded on his first missionary journey, but only those founded, as we must suppose, during a period of missionary labour in North Galatia, a period inserted without a hint from St. Luke in Acts 16:6, it seems incomprehensible why Barnabas should be mentioned in the Galatian Epistle. The Churches in North Galatia could scarcely have known anything about him, especially as ex hypothesi they had been evangelised after the rupture between Paul and Barnabas, Acts 15:36 ff. If, however, the Churches of the Epistle = the Churches founded in Acts 13:14, then we can at once understand the mention of Barnabas. But Mr. Askwith has lately pointed out with much force (Epistle to the Galatians, p. 77, 1899) that this argument must not be pressed too far. The introduction of Barnabas in the Galatian Epistle does not prove that he was known personally to the Galatians (although it may reasonably warrant the inference that he was known by name) any more than the allusion to him, 1 Corinthians 9:6, proves that he was personally known to the Corinthians, cf. also Lightfoot, Colossians, p. 28.

One more significant and weighty fact deserves mention. In St. Paul's collection for the poor Saints (on the importance of which see Acts 24:17) there is every reason to believe that all the Pauline Churches shared; in 1 Corinthians 16:1 appeal is made to the Churches of Galatia and Achaia, and the Churches of Macedonia and Asia subsequently contributed to the fund. If by Galatia we understand Galatia proper, and not the Roman province, then the four South Galatian Churches are not included in the list of subscribers, and they are not even asked to contribute. This appears inconceivable; whereas, if we look at the list of delegates, Acts 20:4, whilst Macedonia and Asia are represented, and Gaius and Timothy represent the Churches of South Galatia, no delegate is mentioned from any North Galatian community (see Rendall: “Pauline collection for the Saints,” Expositor, Nov., 1898, and “The Galatians of St. Paul,” Expositor, April, 1894; also Weizsäcker, Apostolic Age, i., 272, E.T., and McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 180, Askwith, Epistle to the Galatians, p. 88 ff. (1899)). For the literature of the question see Ramsay, “Galatia,” Hastings' B.D., ii., p. 89, 1899; Zahn, Einleitung, i., pp. 129, 130; Wendt (1899), p. 276, and “Galatians, Epistle to the,” Marcus Dods, Hastings' B.D., ii., 94. To the list given in the last reference may be added the names of Wendt, O. Holtzmann, Clemen.V. Weber (Würsburg), Page, Rendall, McGiffert, in favour of the South Galatian view, and most recently Askwith, Epistle to the Galatians (1899); whilst to the other side may be added Volkmar, Schürer, Holsten, who has examined the whole subject closely in his Das Evangelium des Paulus, p. 35 ff. (chiefly in reply to Hausrath's strong support of the opposing view), Zöckler, Jülicher, Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., p. 186 ff. and p. 353, 1896, Schmiedel, and amongst English writers, Findlay, Epistles of St. Paul, p. 288 ff., and very fully Dr. Chase, Expositor, 1893, 1894.

We can only make a passing allusion to the date or possible date of the Galatian Epistle. Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 189 ff., places it at the close of the Apostle's second missionary journey during his stay at Antioch, Acts 18:22 (A.D. 55), whilst McGiffert also places it at Antioch, but before the Apostle started on this same journey, not at its close, Apostolic Age, p. 226. Rendall, Expositor, April, 1894, has assigned it an earlier date, 51, 52, and places it amongst the earliest of St. Paul's Epistles, and more recently Zahn has dated it almost equally early in the beginning of 53, and upon somewhat similar grounds, Einleitung, i., p. 139 (the three oldest Epistles of St. Paul according to him being the group of Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, all written in the same year). But on the other hand, Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 43 ff., and Salmon, Introd., p. 376, not only place the Epistle later than any of the dates suggested above, but assign it a place between 2 Corinthians and Romans, arguing from the similarity of subject and style between the three Epistles. Most of the continental critics would place it in the same group, but as the earliest of the four great Epistles written in the earlier period of the Apostle's long residence at Ephesus, Acts 19:1.

Lightfoot places it apparently on the journey between Macedonia and Achaia, Acts 20:2; Acts 20:2 Corinthians having been previously written during the Apostle's residence in Macedonia (so Zahn), Romans being dated a little later whilst St. Paul stayed in Corinth, Acts 20:2-3 (Galatians, pp. 39, 55). Dr. Clemen has since defended at great length his view, first put forward in Chronol. der Paul. Briefe, p. 199 ff., that Romans preceded Galatians, in Studien und Kritiken, 1897, 2, pp. 219 270; but see as against Clemen, Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 142; Zöckler, Die Briefe an die Thess. und Galater, p. 71; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. xxxviii. Mr. Askwith has recently discussed the points at issue between Ramsay and Lightfoot as to the date of Galatians, and in accepting the latter's position as his own, he has shown that this is not incompatible with a firm recognition of the South Galatian theory, Epistle to the Galatians, p. 98 ff. Harnack, Chronol., p. 239, declines to commit himself to any definite date for Galatians, and perhaps this conclusion is not surprising in relation to an Epistle of which it may be truly said that it has been placed by different critics in the beginning, in the close, and in every intermediate stage of St. Paul's epistolary activity, cf. Dr. Marcus Dods, “Galatians,” Hastings' B.D.