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"Now when they had gone throughout the country which is Phrygian and Galatic"
(Acts 16: 6).
This is Sir William Ramsay's rendering, to which he adds the note "A single district to
which both adjectives apply"--"the country which, according to one way of speaking, is
Phrygian, but which is also called Galatic." If we turn back to Acts 14: we find that the
Apostles fled from Iconium to Lystra and Derbe, and so apparently crossed a boundary.
In Acts 18: 23 we find the order of the names is reversed, and we now read:
" `He went over all the country which is Galatic and Phrygia'. The country denoted
by the phrase in 16: 6 is that which was traversed by Paul after leaving Lystra: it is
therefore the territory about Iconium and Antioch, and is rightly called Phrygo-Galatic,
`the part of Phrygia that was attached to Galatia'. But the country which is meant in
18: 23 includes Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, and could not rightly be called
`Phrygo-Galatic'."
A glance at a map showing the political divisions of Asia Minor between the years
A.D.40 and 63, explains the ground of Sir William Ramsay's objection quoted above.
The Galatian province had taken within its borders a part of Phrygia on the west, and as
Derbe, Lystra and Iconium had originally belonged to Lycaonia, which had been
absorbed on the east, the exactness of Luke's description "All the country which is
Galatic and Phrygian" is striking. No one who was acquainted with the geography of
Great Britain would use the term "The London Scottish and Midland Railway", and no
one acquainted with the geography of the period covered by the Acts would expect any
other description in Acts 18: 23 than that used by Luke.
The reader may not be keenly interested in the arguments that prove that when Paul
speaks of "Galatia" he means the Roman Province of that name, and not the smaller
Northern Kingdom. We therefore take it as proven that Anticoh, Lystra, and Derbe are
the cities of Galatia wherein the churches of Galatia were formed, and to which the
Apostle addressed his epistle. Should any readers wish for the complete array of facts
and arguments, we must refer them to the writings of Sir William Ramsay as the matter is
technical and would occupy far more space than we can spare.
Our main object in this article has been to introduce the new departure, and to set out
the structure. We are now ready for the exposition of these epoch-making journeys--
journeys which penetrated into Europe, and so brought the history of our own
evangelizing a step nearer.
We append a rough map of this second missionary journey and hope that it will enable
the reader to follow more closely the footsteps of these missionaries of grace as they
break up new ground for the gospel message.