Duncan - Reid - Robertson
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Duncan - Reid - Robertson
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The Galatians
There are several schools of thought as to where the proto-Celts originated, but we will pick up the story about 500 BC. The Celts were spread across Central Europe from modern day France to Hungary. One has to remember that this was a time when Europe’s population was much smaller than today, so that settlement was sparse. The proto-Germans were still in Scandinavia and the western Baltic region, and the central Italian peoples had not yet amalgamated into the Latins, let alone the Italians of which they were a part. The Celts were strong enough by the 5th century BC to sack the then small city state of Rome. By the first century BC, the Celts were located in modern France, Belgium, western Germany, northern Spain and nearby areas – and the British Isles. This is where the now impressive Romans found them during the time of Julius Caesar, middle of the 1st century BC.
Diachronic
distribution of Celtic peoples: (Galatia is the light green area at the extreme lower right of the map. So-called Insular Celts are in Britain, Ireland, Brittany (darker green area of France), and Spain and Portugal {Celt-Iberians}.)
Between the sacking of Rome and the time of Caesar, the bulk of the Celts moved west as outlined above; but some went there own way toward the East. This led to sporadic Celtic settlements across modern day Hungary and the Balkans, which were later absorbed by other peoples in the area at the time and by later arrivals that absorbed both. One group, which came to be called the Galatians, made it all the way to modern central Turkey. These are the people mentioned in the Book of Galatians and visited by Paul. They settled in the third century BC in lands contested by the Hellenic states ruled by the successors to Alexander the Great. Alexander of Macedon (in Greece) conquered what is modern day Turkey. When he died, his generals split his Empire amongst themselves, and what became Galatia fell into the area controlled by Seleucus.
The Celts invaded Seleucus’ territory in the third century BC, but were defeated by the army of the Seleucid Empire. The survivors were allowed to remain in what became Galatia, and essentially became a source for mercenaries for the Seleucid Army. By the second century BC, the Seleucid Empire was on the decline and losing territory, including Galatia, which came under control of some neighboring states such as Phrygia and Pergamum, but asserted its independence by the 1st century BC. Originally, the Galatians consisted of three tribes, but these were consolidated under the control of one king. This did not last for long, because Galatia first became a client state of the expanding Roman Empire, and then in 25 BC became a Roman province.
Under Alexander and his successors, Galatia was Hellenized. It was the policy of the Macedonians and the Seleucids to introduce Greek culture and language to the areas they conquered. In practical terms, this meant that local culture was synthesized with Greek culture to form a new culture largely Greek in nature, but incorporating much of the local culture. When the Romans came, they likewise Latinized the Galatian culture. Keep in mind that the Romans had previously absorbed much of Greek religion and culture back in Italy (Southern Italy was in fact occupied by Greeks, not Italians, and the Romans called Southern Italy, including Sicily, Magna Graecia, or Great Greece), so there were already many similarities between Roman and Hellenized Galatian culture. This is how Paul found it.
Excerpt from the Celtic Language page of Wikipedia: Proto-Celtic divided into sub-families: Continental Celtic · Gaulish and its close relatives Lepontic, Noric, and Galatian. These languages were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from Belgium to northern Italy. They are now all extinct. · Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula, in the areas of modern Northern Portugal, and Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Aragón, and León in Spain. Lusitanian may also have been a Celtic language. These are now also extinct. Insular Celtic · Goidelic (Q Celtic), including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. At one time there were Irish on the coast of southwest England and on the coast of north and south Wales. · Brythonic (also called British or Brittonic) (P-Celtic), including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, the hypothetical Ivernic, and possibly also Pictish though this may be a sister language rather than a daughter of Common Brythonic. Before the arrival of Scoti on the Isle of Man in the 9th century there may have been a Brythonic language in the Isle of Man. Kenneth Jackson used the term "Brittonic" for the form of the British language after the changes in the 6th century. What you see in terms of language seems also to be true about culture and history: Scots and Galatians separated from each other long before the Scots moved from Ireland (Ulster) to Scotland in the 5th and 6th centuries AD to expand the Kingdom of Dal Riada in the Argyll region of western Scotland. As is generally known, the Irish of Dal Riada combined with the (probably) Brythonic Picts to form the Scottish nation. Scot comes from Scoti, a Roman name for the Irish who raided the coastal areas of Roman Britain.
Map of Dál Riata at its height (green), c. 580–600. Pictish regions are marked in yellow.
Hibernia was the Roman name for the island of Ireland, and apparently originated from a Celtic name for the Island.
In a round about way, it appears that the Galatians are distantly related to the Scots of Scotland, but the split began well before 500 BC, and the Scots did not arrive in Scotland until the 5th century AD. Another way to say this is that the Scots are very distant cousins of the Galatians, having a common origin in antiquity. In the sense that both are Celtic, it is fair to say that Celts, but not Scots, were mentioned in the Bible.
Most Historians believe that the Galatians melted into the larger Greek population of the Eastern Roman Empire that later morphed into the Greek Byzantine Empire, and essentially their language and culture disappeared into the melting pot.
********************************************************************************* Notes on sources:
Maps taken from Wikipedia, with legends modified. Wikipedia pages on Celts, Celtic Language, Galatia, Gauls, Gomer, Seleucid Empire Personal travel in Turkey Personal knowledge from history study
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This site was last updated 02/16/12
