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Bible Dictionaries
Galatia
American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
or A province of Asia Minor, lying south and southeast of Bithynia and Paphlagonia, west of Pontus, north and northwest of Cappadocia, and north and northwest of Cappadocia, and north and northeast of Lycaonia and Phrygia. Its name was derived from the Gauls; of whom two tribes, (Trocmi and Tolistoboii,) migrated thither after the sacking of Rome by Brennus; and mingling with the former inhabitants, the whole were called Gallogracci, B. C. 280. The Celtic language continued to be spoken by their descendants at least until the time of Jerome, six hundred years after the migration; and these Gauls of Asia also retained much of the mercurial and impulsive disposition of the Gallic race. Compare Galatians 1:6 4:15 5:7 . Under Augustus, about B. C. 26, this country was reduced to the form of a Roman province, and was governed by a proprietor. Galatia was distinguished for the fertility of its soil and the flourishing state of its trade. It was also the seat of colonies from various nations, among whom were many Jews; and from all of these Paul appears to have made many converts to Christianity, 1 Corinthians 16:1 . His first visit, Acts 16:6 , probably took place about A. D. 51-2; and the second, Acts 18:28 , after which his epistle to the Galatians appears to have been written, was several years later. At his first visit he was sick; yet they received him "as an angel of God," and most heartily embraced the gospel. Four or five years afterwards Jewish teachers, professing Christianity, came among them; they denied Paul's apostolic authority, exalted the works of the law, and perverted the true gospel by intermixing with it the rites of Judaism. Paul, learning their state, probably at Corinth, A. D. 57-8, wrote his epistle to the Galatians. He indignantly rebukes his children in Christ for their sudden alienation from him and from the truth; vindicates his authority and his teachings as an apostle, by showing that he received them from Christ himself; and forcibly presents the great doctrine of Christianity, justification by faith, with its relations to the law on the one hand, and to holy living on the other. The general subject of the epistle is the same as of the epistle to the Romans, and it appears to have been written at about the same time with that. The churches of Galatia are mentioned in ecclesiastical history for about nine hundred years.
These files are public domain and are a derivative of the topics are from American Tract Society Bible Dictionary published in 1859.
Rand, W. W. Entry for 'Galatia'. American Tract Society Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ats/g/galatia.html. 1859.
