COMMENTARIES have lately undergone a change that can almost be called complete. In former times they were wholly theological, and, except when they were enlivened by such fresh vigour as that of Augustine and Luther, they were put aside by the generality, who preferred reading the Bible without the doubtful aid of dissertations, that rather darkened than elucidated the sacred text. Thus they came to be exclusively studied by the clergy, who, at least in England, not unfrequently expanded a diffuse page or two into the far more diffuse sermon of an hour. The criticism of the last sixty years brought to the aid of commentators the results of modern philology, and all those historical and archæological discoveries that have made the age as remarkable as that of the Revival of Letters; and the trenchant criticism of not a few of the Germans threw abundant light upon many of the difficulties of Scripture. It was long before English theologians, with characteristic conservatism, ventured to make use of the materials thus rendered accessible. For some time they had a natural fear of weapons which had been not unskilfully used against the side of orthodoxy. At length, one by one, our scholars discovered that these weapons were as useful on one side as on the other, and that a commentary, after the new method, was likely to be of more service to religion than the endless repetitions of their predecessors. Hence a wonderful gain to the lay reader as well as to the lay hearer. Commentaries are learned, without being also painful (to pervert a good old phrase), and are by no means the sole property of the clergy; while every country parson, who has Smith's

1 St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. A revised text, &c. By J. B. Lightfoot, D.D.

Dictionary, Archbishop Trench's works, and such commentaries proper as that of Dean Alford, is likely rather to illustrate Scripture than to weary his hearers by unscholarlike amplification, or perpetual controversy. The change, indeed, from the controversial to the critical point of view may not tend to bring about an entire disuse of the attack and defence which must always characterize the revolutionary and the conservative parties in religion, but to change with some, and these the most useful commentators, the warlike sword and spear for the peaceful ploughshare and pruning-hook. Even the Church militant might for a time refrain from polemics.

To introduce to the general reader a good commentary of the new school, in which every available source of information is judiciously used by a writer who is liberal without being a latitudinarian, and learned without being either pedantic or dry, one cannot do better than choose Professor Lightfoot's edition of the Epistle to the Galatians; which has this advantage, that it goes over the same ground that has been traversed by Dean Alford in his edition of the New Testament, and by Professor Jowett and Bishop Ellicott in lesser works. The comparison with three such eminent representatives of the three sections into which English churchmen are now divided is a trying ordeal, but it is one Professor Lightfoot has no need to fear. The subject is peculiarly well calculatedto bring out the powers of a largelyread student, and to shew whether he can take a broad view of questions which will always be among the most interesting that theology offers, and which at the present time are, perhaps, more debated by thinking men than any others of their whole class.

This Epistle, as it treats of the great

primitive controversy as to the authority of the ceremonial law, requires not merely a knowledge of Hebrew, but an acquaintance with Semitic turns of thought; and thus an editor should be not alone able to examine citations and parallel passages in the original language, but he should know how the Jews and their learned men, at the Apostolic age, would have understood the epistle. St. Paul not merely frees the Gentile but he also refutes the Jew; and, as he speaks to the Gentile in language he could comprehend, so also he does to the Jew. Then, again, the controversy is one which timid and narrow thinkers either ignore or misunderstand. There could be no better proof that it needs a brave and bold intellect than that Luther, whose commentary upon the Galatians 66 was written and rewritten," and esteemed by him above all his other works, found in this Epistle the most powerful arguments in support of the great principles for which he fought. But the very same controversy is again foremost in men's thoughts, and must be handled with the courage of those who are not afraid of their cause, and the breadth of those who believe that the Gospel is for all ages, and differs only from the Law in being a complete revelation. And, as Luther found in this great Epistle the keystone of Christian liberty, so may we find in it the main support of the bridge between earth and heaven. Nowhere is the truth more clearly defined than here, where an erroneous view of it is opposed.

Professor Lightfoot does not give us a life of St. Paul; it would not have entered into his plan to do so; yet there is one point that might well have been discussed at the very outset, as it touches upon the style of the Apostle's Epistles. Almost at the close occur the words, probably not well rendered in the authorized version, which Professor Lightfoot would thus translate, "Look

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own handwriting. It was his wont "to add a few words at the close of "his Epistles, either to vouch for their authorship, or to impress some truth more strongly on his readers. Here "the urgency of the case leads him to do more. In a few eager rugged sentences "he gives an epitome of the contents of "the Epistle" (pp. 62, 63). Here, and in the note to vi. 11, the editor does not appear to see that St. Paul seems to call attention to his handwriting, for in no Epistle so much as this would it be necessary to attest his authorship, and it is not difficult to understand how the Galatians could have been well acquainted with his autograph. This too explains the "large letters." St. Paul, like most men of strong character and love of action, may have written a large hand, and it is needless to look for an explanation in the idea that the "thorn in the flesh" was weakness of sight; but here the change from dictation to writing would be well marked by a change in the size of the letters. If, then, there is any reason to suppose that this, like other Epistles, was dictated, we find in the circumstance an explanation of their long sentences and more or less parenthetic style, and those who doubt the Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews may well consider whether the difference between a dictated and a written composition is not sufficient to explain the difference of style. The dissertation that one regrets Professor Lightfoot did not undertake in the introductory portion of his first volume, is upon the traces of dictation in St. Paul's Epistles, and the difference of style between the dictated and the written portions. The style of dictation throws the foot-notes into the text; the style of composition may avoid foot-notes altogether; and many of the difficulties of St. Paul's writings may depend upon the addition, at the close of a long dictated argument, of something of advantage for the illustration of a part of that argument, removed by several clauses or even sentences.

The value of ethnology in illustrating Scripture is especially evident in the

case of this Epistle. The Galatians, it must be remarked, were Celts, not Teutons-a matter which Professor Lightfoot satisfactorily determines. In the Epistle we can see how well they had retained their character amidst the powerful conflicting ethnic influences of that home of mixed populations, Asia Minor. This very tenacity, be it remembered, is a Celtic characteristic. So, in the details of their disposition, we find that the Galatians addressed by St. Paul were thorough Celts-affectionate yet wilful; believing yet credulous; ready to receive new truths, yet unable to retain them uncorrupted by hostile influences; "senseless Galatians," yet "brethren;" first welcoming the Apostle, yet "quickly turning renegades." St. Paul writes with the vexation of one who sees his heartiest converts running into extremes of folly of which the colder Greeks would have been incapable, and uses indignant remonstrances rather than argument. No wonder Luther saw how great an engine this Epistle offered him in the overthrow of those errors which had their stronghold among the Celtic and Latin populations; the former of which is governed by a system that affects to be the same, yet is ever changing, with a force that can only be explained by its fortunate agreement with their character. St. Paul sees what pleases the Galatians, but resolutely sets himself to eradicate the corruptions of their early Church. When we observe how remarkably different is his tone in addressing the neighbouring citizens of Colossæ, we may ask those who would imagine him to be a mere human teacher, how it was that he shewed a discrimination that Alexander or Cæsar might have envied, and yet, instead of moulding his views to suit the peculiarities he so well saw, unflinchingly threw away the very opportunity of easy success which thus offered itself, and told the Galatians that their corruption of the faith was not Christianity.

It is a common mistake to suppose that the Primitive Church was free from those corruptions of which St. Paul complains to the Galatians and the No. 74.-VOL. XIII.

Corinthians, and of which he foresaw the increase, and which give to St. John's letter to the Seven Churches the sombre colour of the rest of the Revelation. It is but a fond imagination that these are the exceptions-Churches under exceptional temptations, or times of exceptional falling away. Whenever we know the history of a Church we find that in the Apostolic times it was subject to the greatest inward conflicts and to the greatest outward sufferings. Yet the love of an ideal is always making mankind imagine that somewhere among the Churches without a history during this age, the Apostolic purity must have been preserved and handed down to a later age, of which, having the history, it requires a still greater force of imagination to picture the ideal. Rome is, perhaps, the most favourite home of an uncorrupt Church in the early centuries. "Omne ignotum pro magnifico." fessor Lightfoot, unusually well-read in the oldest Church literature, thinks otherwise." Her early history, indeed, "is wrapt in obscurity. If the veil were "raised, the spectacle would probably "not be very edifying." "Rome was the "meeting-point of all heretical creeds. "and philosophies. If the presence of "Simon Magus in the metropolis be "not a historical fact, it is still a carry"ing out of the typical character with "which he is invested in early tradition, as the father of heresy. Most of the

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early heresiarchs-among others Va"lentinus, Marcion, Praxeas, Theodotus, "Sabellius-taught in Rome" (pp. 313, 314). There is an evident reason, if we can once dismiss from our minds the common idea of the Apostolic Church, why the earlier centuries should have witnessed great corruptions. The very same reason explains the exceptional phenomenon of a Protestant persecution under Queen Elizabeth. Those whom the Apostles and their disciples. had converted from Judaism and from Paganism would often have retained some of their old opinions; and, as soon as the first teachers were removed to a distance, still more when they were all removed by death, such converts would

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to whom he writes had been heathens. It may then seem surprising that, having been admitted to the freedom of the New Dispensation, they should have been persuaded into the bondage of the Old. But it must be remembered that not only was there the considerable Jewish population already mentioned in Galatia, but that heathenism was virtually dead.

In meeting the decline of true religion the Apostle had one especial difficulty. It has been often said that the arguments of objectors are never new. This is certainly true of the favourite attack on St. Paul, that he differed from the other Apostles, the constant cry of detractors who questioned his authority, and perverted his teaching, and whose enmity has lasted through these ages, and found an echo in the newest follower of Julian. No doubt the teaching of the great cosmopolite Paulus Saul, of pure Hebrew descent, yet a Roman citizen, probably taken into the illustrious family of the conqueror of Macedon,' equally skilled in Jewish and Greek philosophy, by whom the services of the Temple and the Isthmian Games were alike used for illustration, is still formidable to all who wish to prove Christianity narrow, in order that they may broaden their own system, if system it may be called. But the unflinching Apostle who, whether by his own hand, or by that of a teacher of his school, wrote over the gateway made for the Jews into the temple of Christianity, Touμepuç πολυμερῶς Kai Tоλντрów, who could "be all things to all men," refuted all such charges, and in this very Epistle, where a narrow man would have written narrowly, rises above the Jewish controversy, and preaches not a Pauline religion, nor an anti-Jewish belief, but Christ, "in whom "there is no place for Jew nor Greek, "slave nor free, male nor female; for ye "all are one man in Christ Jesus; and, if

We know not the effect of St. Paul's remonstrance. Had it been without effect, Christianity would scarcely have remained among the Galatians. It is true that we know that in after times their country abounded in heresy. But we also know that it bore witness to the truth during the later persecutions. The oldest Church at Ancyra bears the name of the Bishop Clement martyred under Diocletian, as Professor Lightfoot finds from the archæologist Texier, with whose valuable "Asie Mineure" he is acquainted. Julian, who, notwithstanding his philosophy, persecuted with a keenness that had not the excuse of mistaken zeal whenever he was out of the reach of the public opinion of his educated and fastidious subjects, made a great effort to restore idolatry in Galatia, and once more proof was given of the vitality of the Churches St. Paul had founded. After this, the unhappy centralization of Rome and Constantinople destroyed the individuality of provincial Churches, and, placed as it was at the boundary of the contracting empire, the country of the Galatians fell into the power of successive invaders, until its Christianity was left to struggle against the oppression of Turkish misrule; and we can only now find a small and unenlightened remnant of this ancient Church, although the traveller can scarcely fail to see, in the manly virtues of the peasantry of all Asia Minor, some traces of the early influence of the religion that once prevailed throughout this country of many changes, now in its lowest and saddest condition.

The exact time at which St. Paul wrote to the Galatians is not easy to determine, and it would be difficult to make this question interesting in the space that could here be given to it. Professor Lightfoot, in an essay deserving of careful study, supposes, but without speaking positively, that the date of this Epistle is after that of the Second to the Corinthians, and before that to the Romans, in the winter or spring of the years 57-58.

It would be beyond the purpose of the present article, which is to shew the L 2