EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANTv 80 



their iall and dispersion— while Jerusalem and the tempki 

 stood, than after the destruction brought upon them by the 

 Roman arms, the fatal cessation of the sacrifice and the 

 priesthood, the humiliating loss of their country, and, witL 

 it, of the great rites and symbols of their institution. It 

 should seem, therefore, from the nature of the subject and 

 the situation of the parties, that this controversy was carried 

 on in the interval between the preaching of Christianity to 

 the Gentiles and the invasion of Titus ; and that our present 

 epistle, M^hich was undoubtedly intended to bear a part in 

 this controversy, must be referred to the same period. 



But, again, the epistle supposes that certain designing 

 adherents of the Jewish law had crept into the churches of 

 Galatia, and had been endeavoring, and but too successfully, 

 to persuade the Galatic converts that they had been taught 

 the new religion imperfectly and at second hand — that the 

 founder of their church himself possessed only an inferior and 

 deputed commission, the seat of truth and authority being 

 in the apostles and elders of Jerusalem ; moreover, that 

 whatever he might profess among them, he had himself, at 

 other times and in other places, given way to the doctrine of 

 circumcision. The epistle is unintelligible without suppos- 

 ing all this. Keferring therefore to this, as to what had 

 actually passed, we find St. Paul treating so unjust an 

 attempt to undermine his credit, and to introduce among his 

 converts a doctrine which he had uniformly reprobated, in 

 terms of great asperity and indignation. And in order to 

 refute the suspicions which had been raised concerning the 

 fidelity of his teaching, as well as to assert the independency 

 and divine original of his mission, we find him appealing to 

 the history of his conversion, to his conduct under .t, to the 

 manner in which he had conferred with the apostles when 

 he met with them at Jerusalem : alleging, that so far was 

 his doctrine from being derived from them, or they from exer- 

 cising any superiority over him, that they had simply assent- 

 ed to what he had already preached among the Gentiles, and 



