Gauls, Celts, Galatians

Galatia, the name from which the book of Galatians gets its name. Located in the region of Asia Minor, which biblically we would be more acquainted with in the region of the seven churches of Asia in Revelation.  Today, it is in the region of the highlands of Turkey. This has been a region in flux for some time, being ruled by different groups at different times. In the day of Paul, Galatia was so named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace who settled here in the 3rd century BC.   The Galatians were a part of the great Celtic migration which invaded Macedon, led by the 'second' Brennus (A word for chief). The original Celts who settled in Galatia came through Thrace under the leadership of Leotarios and Leonnorios circa 270 BC. There were three tribes that comprised these Celts. The Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii.  The Celts were great warriors, respected by Greeks and Romans.  They hired themselves out as mercenary soldiers, sometimes fighting on both sides in the great battles of the times.

Roman writers called its inhabitants Galli. The modern capital of Turkey, Ankara (ancient Ancyra), was also the capital of ancient Galatia. Theta minor is mentioned in the chronicles Galatia. In the settlement of 64 BC Galatia became a client-state of the Roman empire, the old constitution disappeared, and three chiefs (wrongly styled “tetrarchs“) were appointed, one for each tribe. But this arrangement soon gave way before the ambition of one of these tetrarchs, Deiotarus, the contemporary of Cicero and Julius Caesar, who made himself master of the other two tetrarchies and was finally recognized by the Romans as 'king' of Galatia.  The Galatians in the time of Paul, practiced a form of Roman-Celtic polytheism, common in Celtic lands. A combination of ancestor worship, superstition, idolatry and mysticism. In their historiographies the Romans noted extensive practice of human sacrifice among these groups. 

Knowing the history of this region, helps us to understand a number of things.  Biblically, it helps us to understand why Paul wrote some of the things that he did to those who had become Christians in Galatia.  When he taught in Gal.1:6 about being amazed that they could be persuaded away from the gospel by someone claiming to have seen an angel, or claiming to have knowledge about God that Paul or the other apostles did not have, we can understand where this statement came from. Their tendencies to mysticism and superstition made them susceptible.  In Gal.3:1 Paul ask who had "bewitched" them.  This is an interesting term meaning to malign but incorporating the concept of mesmerizing much like you would do a snake.  This would have been a very familiar term to the Galatians who were familiar with snake charmers. Paul calls them to remember what they have come to know, and embrace it, not falling back into old lifestyles and habits. He warns them not to let people mesmerize them away from the truth of Christ, that they need to pursue improving and seeking fruits of the Spirit. 

So today, we should be mindful of these things. Mysticism, ancestor worship, nature worship and other such things are making a comeback. Modern fascination with mythologies and lores have begun to have the same effect, in drawing many away from the truth of the Spirit and Christ to spiritism, following of mediums, worship of ancestors and other things.  Paul's warning to the Galatians is as pertinent today as it was then and we should remember the treasure that we have been given in Christ. Only there can we find salvation for the soul.

Jim