[150] For a good many years I have, so far as possible, avoided making any reference to the controversy about the "Churches of Galatia". In writing on "The Cities of St. Paul," it was of course inevitable that an account of the great Galatian cities must take up an attitude on this matter. In fact, the mere omission of all North Galatian cities in such a book presupposes the opinion that the Apostle did not visit that country. It was, however, my purpose to state only what appeared to be most important for the right understanding of the history and character of each city, Iconium, Antioch, Lystra and Derbe, and tacitly to omit contrary opinions except on two or three matters where wrong views had been advocated not long previously by distinguished scholars, as for example that Iconium was a Roman colony in the time of [151] St. Paul, and that it was detached from the Province Galatia and incorporated in the new Province of Cilicia-Isauria-Lycaoma by the Emperor Hadrian about the end of his reign, A.D. 130 to 137. 1

I was perfectly content to wait the progress of discovery. There is abundant evidence in the country which will gradually be found by exploration. Had I been able to spend the needed money and time purely on a systematic exploration of the Pauline country, the amount of evidence bearing on this subject would have long ago been largely increased in amount. Its character would not have changed. The new evidence will not contradict, but confirm, the old; and the old evidence was sufficient to settle all the subsidiary questions relating to the Galatian churches for any one who is willing to study it sufficiently, and not merely to glance over it for the purpose of finding weapons to [152] destroy his opponent's position. The evidence, however, had only an indirect bearing on Pauline questions. It settled the main questions regarding the history of the South Galatian cities. It showed them as important cities of the Province, proud of their Roman character, some as colonies, some as Hellenic States of the Empire, of which they formed a part in virtue of their position in the Province. They were only indirectly and not directly Roman States: they were units in the fabric of the Province, and the Province was part of the Empire. But there existed no evidence bearing directly on Pauline questions; and no such evidence is to be expected. It is in the last degree improbable that any proof will ever be found in the soil of South Galatia that Paul traversed that country on his third missionary journey (Acts xviii. 23). Still less can proof be expected that he did not go through North Galatia on that journey or on his second journey; and nothing less than such a negative proof is likely ever to convince the old North Galatian theorists. They can always find some new way [153] of evading the indirect evidence; and, though they are proved wrong in every objection they make to the South Galatian view so far as external history, antiquities and geography are concerned, yet ingenious manipulation of the Lucan and Pauline references easily provides a stronghold where they can feel themselves safe.

But though no direct proof of the route followed by St. Paul in his second and third journeys is to be expected, the indirect proof will be greatly increased both in amount and in clearness. It has been made an argument against me that several of my positions depended on one single piece of evidence. One single inscription is really as strong as a score on matters of administration and bounds and political arrangement; but the argument will be more convincing to the world, when a score of inscriptions attest the same fact. The Province Galatia was so little known that many details regarding it depended on one witness, and much was unattested and unknown, a matter of conjecture and analogy.

Moreover, the increase in the amount of [154] evidence will also make the attestation more clear and simple. When facts of organization in a Province like Galatia, of which very little is known, depend on a single witness, the testimony needs commentary and elucidation; and the complicacy of the explanation makes those who have not carefully studied the subject feel some doubt about the force of reasoning which has to be so elaborate. When there are twenty attestations, these elucidate one another, and produce a simpler, more complete and more convincing picture.

These reflections were roused in my mind by reading the few paragraphs in which Dr. Moffatt, page 95 ff., dismisses the Galatian question. A more extraordinary caricature of a historical theory it would be difficult to find than his statement of the arguments for the South Galatian theory. I do not mean that Dr. Moffatt intentionally caricatured the South Galatian arguments. His strong desire to be strictly fair and accurate in stating views from which he dissents is conspicuous throughout his book; but he has evidently only dipped lightly into the [155] subject, and has never studied the history of Anatolian society and the geography of the country sufficiently to understand the arguments on the opposite side, or to reproduce them accurately. 2 Moreover, he has the type of mind which feels so strongly on one side that it is hardly able to state without disparagement the opposite side.

The question will solve itself in the progress of discovery; and therefore I need not go further into wearisome detail, or discuss Dr. Moffatt's counter-arguments; but I will simply mention some fresh evidence, most of which was found in 1911, when we were able to spend several days continuously at Pisidian Antioch: see Sections XXIV - XXVII.

FOOTNOTES:

1 As it chanced, the most eminent champion of the former opinion held the South Galatian view, and the principal advocate of the latter was a distinguished numismatist.

2 See footnote, p.73.