Chapter VII

THE GOSPEL FOR GENTILES AS WELL AS JEWS. FIRST
MISSIONARY TOUR OF PAUL AND BARNABAS.

=1. It is a remarkable fact= that, although the apostles were so fully persuaded of the verity and power of the gospel, they had not yet learned the intent and universality of its application to the Gentiles and to all the human race, and though commissioned by their Master to preach it “to all the world,” still held that the Jewish people were the only chosen race and all others were unclean, and that it was unlawful to associate, or eat, and commune freely with any but that race. Hence up to this time the gospel had been preached with the intent of converting only Jews to the Christian faith.

=2. In view of these strong prejudices= a remarkable “vision in a trance,” Acts 11:5, on the housetop, at Joppa, was granted Peter, whereby for the first time he was led to comprehend the fact that hereafter spiritual cleanliness should, in the divine sight and purposes, for ever cancel all obligations to the merely ceremonial, and he was then directed to immediately proceed to the house and to the Gentile company awaiting him at Cæsarea. The history is recorded in Acts 10.

=3. On his return to Jerusalem= he communicated the new order, that now the gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, and he narrated his vision and the consequent visit to Cæsarea. All of which was accepted without discussion and with very evident satisfaction.

Saul however, having been forced to leave Palestine, travelled throughout Cilicia and Syria, Gal. 1:21, until he was invited back to Jerusalem.

=4. At this time=, about A. D. 41, Antioch was a city of large population and many Jews inhabited the place, who became strong adherents to the new faith, and it was now that, at this place, the name Christian was applied to all who were followers of Christ, although at first they themselves did not accept the name.

THE TWO ANTIOCHS.

=Antioch in Syria= was 300 miles north of Jerusalem and about fifteen miles from the Mediterranean shore, where was its port, then called Seleucia. It was the most beautiful city of Syria and at that time the most important.

=Antioch in Pisidia=, however, which is now called Yalobatch, is 500 miles northwest of Jerusalem and 100 north of the coast of the Mediterranean. This Antioch is partly on the southern declivity of a long range of mountains and owes its ancient name to the same king who gave name to the Syrian Antioch. This king was Seleucus, king of Syria, whose father’s name, Antiochus, he gave to these cities and his own to Seleucia, fifteen miles off, on the coast, of which we have already spoken.

Antioch was at this time the adopted city of a very active community of Christians, many of whom were Grecians and others Gentiles. Paul, whose special talents and education admirably fitted him for this class of converts, being now at Tarsus, was sent for, and he remained in Antioch for about a year; when he, with others, began a series of missionary tours whereby the gospel was not only extended throughout Western Asia but introduced into Europe, as we shall soon see.

=5.= A. D. 42. =About this period there came= to Antioch a prophet, by name Agabus, one of a number who not only foretold events but seemed endowed with extraordinary powers of exposition of the divine word.[187] This prophet announced that a great famine would soon call for generosity on the part of the church at Antioch towards the poorer members of the community in Judæa, Acts 11:28.

This announcement was made during the reign of Claudius, A. D. 41‒54, of which reign Tacitus says that it was distinguished for earthquakes, bad harvests, and general scarcity.[188] The Christians in Antioch, therefore, sent contributions to Jerusalem and commissioned Saul and Barnabas for the purpose of conveying these gifts, Acts 11:29.

For the first time we now read of the term “presbyters” in the Greek, or seniores in the Vulgate translation, and called “elders” in the English version, Acts 11:30.

=6. At this time= Herod Agrippa (see table page 229) ruled in Judæa. Claudius had known him as an earnest advocate of his rule before his succession to the empire, and he therefore rewarded Herod with the addition of Samaria and Judæa to those possessions of Philip Antipas which he before possessed. Herod had been imprisoned by Tiberius, but Caligula restored him to liberty and presented him with a golden chain of the same weight as the iron one he had worn in prison, and this chain he dedicated to the Temple when, A. D. 42, he arrived in Jerusalem. This Herod courted the favor of the Jews by many public acts. In his time the northern section of Jerusalem, now inclosed with a wall, was a suburb; and he inclosed it and, had not the prefect of Syria compelled him to stop, he would have strengthened all the fortifications of the city.

=7. It was evidently, therefore=, because it pleased the Jews, and probably at their instigation, that he wilfully put to death James, the son of Zebedee, with the sword and proceeded to perpetrate the same atrocity with Peter, having imprisoned him for that purpose. The history of this act of Herod and of the escape of Peter is given in Acts 12. Herod, being not only disappointed, but evidently alarmed, at the mystery of Peter’s escape, retired immediately from Jerusalem to Cæsarea and there met his sudden death, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, after seven years’ reign in Palestine.

=8. The dominion of these districts=, Judæa, Samaria, and Galilee, now reverted to the prefect of Syria, and they were fully incorporated with the Roman Empire.[189]

JUDÆA, SAMARIA, AND GALILEE.

=The boundaries of these districts= cannot be exactly traced. Judæa was the most important; and its north border began at the Jordan and probably ran up the valley of the Farah to the Jewish city Akrabeh, thence westward along the course of the valley of the present river Ballut, coming out at the city Antipatris; and although the plain of Sharon was politically a part of Judæa, Herod having possession of the maritime towns, yet strictly the line followed the river out to the sea.

This line formed the north boundary of Judæa and the south boundary of Samaria, in the strictly Jewish sense.

Of Galilee, the south boundary began at the Jordan east of Beth-shean, which was a Samaritan city. It ran along, probably, south of Mt. Gilboa, westward and just north of Jenin, the ancient En-gannim, which was within the Samaritan border, and probably along the ridge of Carmel. At the end of the ridge, near the sea, Galilee seems to have claimed the modern Haifa, a village then called Sycaminon, and in this vicinity the seashore was in Galilee. The border line of Galilee thence retired inland, the coast plain belonging to Phœnicia. It then ran northeasterly to the angle formed by the Leontes River, now called the Kasimiyeh, then northward a short distance, and then east by south to Banias, thence southward, including some towns east of the upper Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, forming that part of Galilee called “Galilee beyond Jordan.”

The extreme southern boundary of Judæa, in the political sense, is mentioned in one of the rabbinical writings as from Petra to Ascalon, but Ascalon itself did not belong to Judæa.[190]

The apostles now seem to have “left Jerusalem for wider fields of action.”[191]

=9.= After a special religious consecration (Acts 13:3), Barnabas and Saul, accompanied by John Mark, a nephew of Barnabas, set out from Antioch on the first missionary tour to foreign countries.

=Seleucia= was nearly four miles north of the mouth of the Orontes, upon which river the city of Antioch was built. From this port the missionaries set sail for Cyprus, 130 miles distant.

=Salamis= at this time was a populous city on the southeastern shore of Cyprus. In this city there was a colony of Jews, and Barnabas was a native of Cyprus, and therefore the visitors did not feel themselves entirely strangers. But they passed along the southern coast road until Paphos, 100 miles distant, was reached. Here the apostle Paul met with the proconsul Sergius Paulus.

A PROCONSUL.

=10.= From the time of Augustus, B. C. 27, the provinces were of two kinds, Senatorial and Imperial. The former were governed by a proconsul, who was appointed by lot and had no military power, and was in office for one year only.

The latter, or imperial provinces, were governed by a legate or commissioner chosen directly by the emperor, and he served so long as the emperor wished. He always went out to his province with military pomp as a commander.

=11. Syria= was an =imperial province=, and was governed by a legate or commissioner of the emperor stationed at Antioch. Judæa, however, was a special province, and its distance from Antioch and its peculiar people required a special officer under the commissioner at Antioch, and this officer was called a procurator. He had his headquarters at Cæsarea, Acts 23:23, wore the military dress, and had a cohort as a body-guard, Matt. 27:27, called in this passage “the soldiers of the governor;” moreover, he had the power of life and death, Matt. 27:26, in his own province.

=12. At the interview which Saul had= with the proconsul, called here the “deputy,” there was one of the class known at that day as sorcerers. This man greatly interfered with the apostle’s effort to explain the new faith to the proconsul, who had requested instruction.

=13. Peter had encountered= one of this class before, Acts 8:9. The apostle now addressed the so-called sorcerer in terrible rebuke, foretelling his immediate blindness for a season, and thereby showing that behind the earnest and reasonable presentation of the great truths of the new faith which had fully persuaded the proconsul there lay the reserved authority of so great supernatural power to attest the divinity of the doctrine.[192] That this is the meaning of the verse in Acts 13:12 is evident from a verse in Luke 4:32, which shows that it was the method of confirming the doctrine, and not the doctrine itself, which caused the astonishment spoken of in the verse.

=14. From this time Saul’s name= is changed into Paul, and the other name never occurs again in Scripture. The apostle and his companions now sailed from Paphos to the city of Perga in Pamphylia, 175 miles northwest. Mark left them at Perga and returned to Jerusalem for reasons not explained in the text.

=Perga= exists as a ruin six or seven miles from the seacoast and about 15 miles northeast of a seaport called Adalia by the Turks, the ancient Attalia, built by Attalus, the king of Pergamos, 159‒138 B. C., and hence its name. It has at present about 8,000 inhabitants, and surrounds the port as an amphitheatre, the streets rising one above another.

=15. From Perga= the apostle proceeded to Antioch, now called Yalobatch, about 90 miles north of Perga. The plain upon which Perga is situated is about 20 miles wide on the seacoast, and stretches eastward for about 30 miles. East of Perga the Eurymedon River comes down through the plain into the sea, and its sources are high in the ridges north of Perga. It is probable that up the valley of this river the apostles passed to the high table-land of Pisidia upon which Antioch is placed.

=16. When they had arrived at Antioch= they awaited the Sabbath-gathering at the synagogue, and being, as the custom was, invited to speak to the assembled Jews and strangers, the apostle Paul presented the connection between the promises of the Old Testament and the fulfilment of these promises in the coming and the teachings of Christ.

The impression made was so important and favorable that another gathering of a great crowd assembled on the following Sabbath. At this time, however, the Jews and Jewish women created so great and so public opposition that the apostle was led to announce that hereafter he should devote his labors to the conversion of the Gentiles and leave the Jews to the consequences of their bitter opposition to the gospel he was called to preach.

But a church was planted here in spite of the opposition, which caused the departure of the apostles across the country to Iconium, about 85 miles southeast.

ICONIUM.

=17. This city= is located upon the large plain which stretches eastward 80 or 90 miles with little interruption. On the southeast a solitary mountain rises at a distance of about 30 miles, “like a lofty island in the midst of the sea.”[193] The height of this mountain is nearly 4,000 feet above the plain. In March its top is generally covered with snow. Here are the ruins of many tombs, churches, and other apparently public buildings, and these ruins have given rise to the Turkish name Bin-bir-ka-lessi, or the “thousand-and-one churches.” With general consent this place is supposed to mark the site of Lystra, which became the next place of visit by the apostles after leaving Iconium. The name of this singular mountain in the Turkish is Kara-dagh, or Black Mountain.

The plain upon which Iconium is located is supposed to be 3,900 feet above the Mediterranean. Iconium was a Greek city, if we may judge from the large number of Greek ruins and inscriptions yet remaining, many of which are built into the walls of the town.

Here Barnabas and Saul proceeded to work as at Antioch, and addressed the Jews gathered at the synagogue in that place. But although their success was great a division of opinion resulted, and the Jews made preparations to assault their visitors, but they fled to Lystra.

=18. The identification of Lystra= with Bin-bir-ka-lessi has not been proved, but the supposed position at the ruins above mentioned is on a large depression on the north side of the Kara-dagh Mountain. The village, not far off, is inhabited by Greeks.

At Lystra the two missionaries found no synagogue, and addressed the citizens in some public place. Here Paul restored a man who had been born lame, and the consequent amazement produced by this miracle induced the priest of Jupiter to bring oxen and garlands to the gates of the temple with the intent of offering sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, who, despite their most earnest protestations, found it difficult to prevent the sacrifices.

But the Jewish enmity was apparent again. Some of the members of the synagogues in Antioch and Iconium followed the apostle and Barnabas across the plain, and so bitterly prejudiced the inhabitants that they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. Under the care of the disciples he revived, and the next day departed for Derbe.

=Derbe= has not yet been identified, but it is supposed to be at a ruin about 25 miles east of Kara-dagh, called Divle.

=19. There Barnabas and Paul= made apparently a short visit, during which they preached to many; but nothing more is stated than that they now returned upon the same line of travel, revisiting and encouraging their converts at Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, and thence returning to Perga.

Here they remained and preached, and then departed for Attalia, the seaport, distant about 15 miles southwest, whence they sailed on return to Antioch in Syria.

=20.= But =the old question= of observance of the Law of Moses, which had been agitated before and had never been satisfactorily quieted, now reappeared under such conditions that it demanded immediate and most serious attention. Some troublesome Jewish converts visiting Antioch proclaimed, as if charged with the authority of the elders at Jerusalem, that the Greek and other Gentile converts must submit to the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic Law or they could not be saved. The discussion became so unpleasant at Antioch that a delegation, consisting of the apostle Paul, Barnabas, and others, went to Jerusalem to present the subject to a general council for decision.

=21. After the discussion= in this general council, it was decided that nothing should be required of the new Gentile converts except abstinence “from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication.” With this, the only concession to the Law of Moses, they returned to Antioch and announced to the assembled multitudes the decision of the council, which now and for ever set the question at rest. Henceforward all Christian converts were free from the restrictions and rites of the Mosaic Ceremonial Law.