A decorative woodcut headpiece featuring symmetrical scrolling foliage, two grotesque human faces in the center, and rabbits at the far ends.

ON THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

Prolegomena.

Who the Galatians were.

An ornamental drop cap "G" containing a small scene of a bearded figure, likely a saint or scholar, seated and reading.
Origin of the Galatians.

The Galatians were an Asiatic people, tracing their origin from the European Gauls, whom the Greeks called both Galatas Galatians and Keltas Celts. They obtained the name apo tou galaktos from milk, that is, from milk, because they had white bodies, not dark like the Italians and Spaniards, or swarthy like the Asiatics. Concerning how they crossed from Europe into Asia, and obtained seats there between Bithynia and Cappadocia, see Strabo, book 12; Justin, book 25, from the beginning; Livy, book 8, decade 4; and Pliny, book 5, chapter 32.

The Apostle was among these Galatians or Gallo-Greeks twice. Once in Acts 16, at which time the Spirit prohibited him from speaking there because he was being called elsewhere. Then he came to them again in chapter 18 of Acts, at which time he explained to them the faith in Christ, teaching that we are made safe by the grace of God through the merits of Christ, without the observance of circumcision, legal works, and times.