Levend Water
The Apostle of the Reconciliation - Charles H. Welch
Index - Page 53 of 159
THE APOSTLE OF THE RECONCILIATION 53
1.  Asterius, Bishop of Amaseia in Pontus, A.D. 401, in dealing with Acts 18:23 explains it in direct
contradiction of what was true in his own day. Lycaonia was not included in Galatia in A.D. 401.
`No conceivable interpretation could get Lycaonia out of Galatiken choran except deliberate adhesion to the
South Galatian view'.
2.  Dr. Schurer retracted his criticism of Professor Ramsay's position after consulting Pliny and Ptolemy.
Ptolemy arranged his chapters according to the Roman Proconsular divisions:
v.
1.
Pontou kai Bithunias Thesis.
v.
2.
Tes idias Asias Thesis.
v.
3.
Lukias Thesis.
v.
4.
Galatias Thesis.
He states that Galatia is bounded on the South by Pamphylia, and on the North by the Euxine Sea, including in it
Pisidia in the South, and Paphlagonia in the North. He enumerates parts of which it consisted, and mentions
Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra as cities of Galatia. This one reference lifts the South Galatia view from the plane of
a theory to one of established historical fact. We will, however, have the testimony of more than one witness. As
evidence that Galatia was correctly used as the name of a Roman Province, we cite:
3.
Tacitus Hist. ii. 9 Galatiam et Pamphyliam, provincias.
4.
In Paul's time the people of Iconium called their country Galatike eparcheia (C.I.G. 3991).
5.  In a Greek dedicatory inscription dated A.D. 56 (and so in the very period under discussion) the writer
describes his patris, Apollonia, to be in the land of the Galatians. Apollonia is about 40 miles west of Antioch in
Pisidia. See map.
To the Roman mind, Provincial division outweighed all other considerations of blood or descent. An utter
disregard for racial frontiers is evidenced in the making up of these Provinces.
6.  Strabo, p. 629, complains of the difficulty caused to the geographer by the Roman disregard for national
distinctions. For example, the Phoenicians of Carthage despised the Africans; yet they were all called Afri. The
Greeks of Sicily pointedly distinguished themselves from the Siculi; yet the Romans classed them all as Siculi.
When Paul therefore addressed the converts at Iconium as Galatae, he addressed them as a Roman citizen
speaking to other members of the Roman Empire. The status of each non-Roman person in the Empire was that of a
`provincial', and he was designated as a member of the Roman Empire not by his nation, but by his province. So
long as a person is described as a Phrygian or a Lycaonian, he is thereby described as outside of the Empire. A slave
would be called a Phrygian; but a free man would seek to drop the title of bondage, and assume the more honourable
one of Galatian.
The Empire was popular in the highest degree as a giver of peace and prosperity. People were glad to belong to
it, and they belonged to it only by virtue of being members of a Province, and entitled to be addressed by a Roman
official under the name of `Galatae'. To be a Phrygian was to be rude, ignorant, unintelligent, slavish. To say that
the Antiochians would be addressed by Paul as `Phrygians' rather than as `Men of the Province of Galatia' is to
betray fundamental ignorance.  Imagine a politician wishing to secure the sympathy of a Scottish audience
continually saying `English' when he should say `British'. The comparison suffers in that the modern example is not
so keen.
Further, the apostle when thinking and speaking of places and people, always thought of them and spoke of them
as viewed from the stand-point of the Roman Empire. Thus, when speaking of Achaia, Asia, Macedonia, Galatia,
Illyricum, he uses in each case the Roman name of the Province, not the Greek name of the Country. Illyricum is a
particularly good example. The Greeks used the name Illuris to correspond to the Roman Illyricum, and employed
Illyrikos only as an adjective. None but a person absolutely Roman in his point of view could have employed the
term Illyrikon, and he could mean by it nothing but `Provincia Illyricum'.