St. Paul’s Roman Point of View

When he uses the terms Galatia and Galatians, Paul speaks as no mere Greek spoke: he speaks as the Roman. If so, we must look to find this view ruling both in this Epistle and through his whole policy. That principle I have attempted to illustrate throughout St. Paul the Traveller. He was at once Roman, Greek, and Jew: in political geography the Roman speaks.

Elsewhere, I hope to illustrate the principle in a more special way, and to show that Paul’s career cannot be properly understood, unless his Roman point of view and his imperial statesmanship is fully taken into account. Throughout his life in the Provinces and in Rome “it is not the mere Jew that speaks; it is the educated citizen of the Roman world” (St. Paul the Trav., p. 149).

The use of Galatae in the Roman sense may be illustrated by the term Φιλιππήσιοι. The commentators on Php 4:15 do not observe that this form is not Greek, but Latin. It is the Greek representative of the Latin Philippensis, according to a rule familiar to archaeologists: thus, e.g., Mutinensis becomes Μουτουνήσιος. So thoroughly does Paul take the Roman view that he avoids the Greek ethnic, which was Φιλιππεύς or Φιλιππηνός. He would not address the inhabitants of a Roman colony by a Greek name, but only by the Latin name written in Greek form. See § XIV.