(Acts 18:23). After which of these visits
the present epistle was written is a question that has been much
discussed, and answered in different ways. The most natural
interpretation, however, of chapter 4:13-16 leads to the conclusion that
it was after his _second_ visit. The course of the events seems to have
been as follows: He was suffering from an infirmity of the flesh when he
preached the gospel to the Galatians "_at the first_," that is, upon the
first visit (verse 13). Then they received him "as an angel of God, even
as Jesus Christ," and were filled with holy joy through simple faith in
Christ's name (verses 14, 15). Upon his _second_ visit he found it
necessary to warn them in very plain terms against the seductions of
false teachers, who were seeking to draw them away from the simplicity
of the gospel to faith in a system of works. But after his departure
these false teachers had great success; and the result was that the
affections of the Galatians were alienated from Paul, who was their
spiritual father. In view of this fact he asks (as we may render v. 16,
after Ellicott, in perfect accordance with the idiom of the Greek): "So
then, am I become your enemy, by speaking to you the truth?" that is
because in my recent visit I told you the truth. According to this view
the epistle belongs to the second group, and was written about A.D. 56
or 57. Farther than this we cannot go in determining the time. The
_place_ is uncertain. It may have been Ephesus, or Corinth, which cities
Paul visited in his third and last missionary journey, but it cannot
have been Rome, as the subscription erroneously gives it.

The subscriptions are of no authority. That to the present
epistle probably had its ground mainly in chapter 6:17, where
the writer was erroneously supposed to allude to the bodily
sufferings that he endured in connection with his last recorded
imprisonment.

17. The _occasion_ of this epistle, which gives also its _design_, was
very specific. The Galatian churches had begun well (chap. 5:7); but
soon after Paul's departure Judaizing teachers had drawn them away to
the very form of error noticed in the Acts of the Apostles (chap. 15:1);
"Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved."
They sought to impose on all the Gentile converts circumcision as
essential to salvation. Thus they placed justification on a _legal_
ground, and made faith in Christ a subordinate matter