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CHAPTERS 13–14.

First Missionary Journey of St. Paul.—On the unity of 13 and 14 with the rest of the book see additional note at end of chap. 14.

Acts 13:1. κατὰ τὴν οὖσας ἐκκ.: the word οὖσαν may well be used here, as the participle of εἰμί is often used in Acts to introduce some technical phrase, or some term marked out as having a technical force, cf. Acts 5:17, Acts 14:13, Acts 28:17, so that a new stage in the history of the Christians at Antioch is marked—no longer a mere congregation, but “the Church that was there” (Ramsay, Church in the R. E., p. 52). So also Weiss, in loco; οὖσαν stands in contrast to Acts 11:21-26 : there was no longer a mere company of believers at Antioch, but a Church.—ἐν Ἀ.: Blass maintains that the order of words as compared with the mention of the Church in Jerusalem, Acts 11:22, emphasises the fact that Antioch is the starting-point of the succeeding missionary enterprise, and is named first, and so distinctively set before men’s eyes.—προφῆται καὶ διδάσκαλοι, see above on Acts 11:27. From 1 Corinthians 12:28 it would seem that in Corinth at all events not all teachers were prophets, although in a sense all prophets were teachers, in so far as they edified the Church. The two gifts might be united in the same person as in Paul himself, Galatians 2:2, 2 Corinthians 12:1 (Zöckler). In Ephesians 4:11, as in 1 Corinthians 12:28, Apostles stand first in the Church, Prophets next, and after them Teachers. But whilst it is quite possible to regard the account of the gift of προφητεία in 1 Corinthians 12-14 as expressing “inspiration” rather than “official character,” this does not detract from the pre-eminent honour and importance assigned to the prophets and teachers at Antioch. Their position is such and their powers are such in the description before us that they might fairly be described as “presbyters,” whose official position was enhanced by the possession of a special gift, “the prophecy” of the New Testament, “presbyters” who like those in 1 Timothy 5:17 might also be described as κοπιῶντες ἐν διδασκαλίᾳ, Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, pp. 159, 160, 166, 208. See further on the relation of the prophets and teachers in the Didaché “Church,” Hastings’ B.D., i. 436, Bigg, Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, p. 27; and on the relation of prophecy and teaching in the N.T., McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 528, Zöckler, in loco.—τε … καὶ: a difficulty arises as to the force of these particles. It is urged that two groups are thus represented, the first three names forming one group (prophets), and the last two another group (teachers), so Ramsay (p. 65), Weiss, Holtzmann, Zöckler, Harnack, Knabenbauer, and amongst older commentators Meyer and Alford; but on the other hand Wendt, so Nösgen, Felten, Hilgenfeld think that there is no such separation intended, as Paul himself later claims the prophetic gift (1 Corinthians 14:6), to which Zöckler would reply that at this time Paul might well be described as a teacher, his prophetic gift being more developed at a later date. Amongst recent English writers both Hort and Gore regard the term “prophets and teachers” as applying to all the five (so Page).—Συμεὼν: nothing is known of him. Spitta would identify him with Simon of Cyrene, Matthew 27:32, but the epithet Niger may have been given to distinguish him from others of the same name, and possibly from the Simon to whom Spitta refers.—Λούκιος ὁ Κ.: Zöckler describes as “quite absurd” the attempt to identify him with Luke of the Acts. The names are quite different, and the identification has been supported on the ground that Cyrene was a famous school of medicine. This Lucius may have been one of the men of Cyrene, Acts 11:20, who first preached the Gospel at Antioch. Others have proposed to identify him with the Lucius of Romans 16:21.—Μαναήν: of the three names, as distinct from Barnabas and Paul, Blass says ignoti reliqui, and we cannot say more than this. For although Mark is described as σύντροφος of Herod the Tetrarch (Antipas), the description is still very indefinite. A.V. “brought up with,” R.V. “foster-brother,” collactaneus, Vulgate. For an ingenious study on the name and the man see Plumptre, in loco, cf. also Wetstein and Zöckler. The name occurs in 1Ma 1:6, but the reading must apparently give place to συνέκτροφοι. It is also found in 2Ma 9:29, and once in the N.T. in the present passage. Deissmann, from the evidence of the inscriptions, regards it as a court title, and quotes amongst other places an inscription in Delos of the first half of the second century B.C., where Heliodorus is described as σύντροφος τοῦ βασιλέως Σελεύκου φιλοπάτορος. So Manaen also might be described as a confidential friend of Herod Antipas, Bibelstudien, pp. 173, 178–181.—Σαῦλος, placed last probably because the others were older members of the Church. The position certainly does not mark the list as unhistorical; if the account came from the Apostle himself, the lowest place was eminently characteristic of him.

Acts 13:2. λειτουργούντων: “as they ministered to the Lord,” A. and R. V., ministrantibus Domino, Vulgate. It would be difficult to find a more appropriate rendering. On the one hand the word is habitually used in the LXX of the service of the priests and Levites (cf. Hebrews 8:2; Hebrews 10:11), although it has a wider meaning as, e.g., when used to describe the service of Samuel to God, 1 Samuel 2:18; 1 Samuel 3:1, or of service to man, 1 Kings 1:4; 1 Kings 1:15, 2 Chronicles 17:19, Sir 10:25. So too in the N.T. it is used in the widest sense of those who aid others in their poverty, Romans 15:27 (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:12), Php 2:25; Php 2:27, and also λειτουργία τῆς πίστεως ὑμῶν, Php 2:17, of the whole life of the Christian Society. But here the context, see on Acts 13:3 (cf. Acts 14:23), seems to point to some special public religious service (Hort, Ecclesia, p. 63, but see also Ramsay’s rendering of the words, and Zöckler, in loco). In this early period λειτουργία could of course not be applied to the Eucharist alone, and the Romanist commentator Felten only goes so far as to say that a reference to it cannot be excluded in the passage before us, and in this we may agree with him. At all events it seems somewhat arbitrary to explain Didaché, xv. 1, where we have a parallel phrase, of the service of public worship, whilst in the passage before us the words are explained of serving Christ whether by prayer or by instructing others concerning the way of salvation; so Grimm-Thayer. In each passage the verb should certainly be taken as referring to the ministry of public worship. In the N.T. the whole group of words, λειτουργέω, λειτουργία, λειτουργός, λειτουργικός, is found only in St. Luke, St. Paul, and Hebrews. See further on the classical and Biblical usage Westcott, Hebrews, additional note on Acts 8:2. Deissmann, Bibelstudien, p. 137, from pre-Christian papyri points out that λειτουργία and λειτουργέω were used by the Egyptians of the sacred service of the priests, and sometimes of a wider religious service.—αὐτῶν: not the whole Ecclesia, but the prophets and teachers: “prophetarum doctorumque qui quasi arctius sunt concilium,” Blass.—νηστευόντων, cf. Acts 10:30, Acts 14:23, Acts 27:9, and in O.T. 1 Samuel 7:5-6, Daniel 9:3, on the union of fasting and prayer. In Didaché, viii. 1, while the fasts of the “hypocrites” are condemned, fasting is enjoined on the fourth day of the week, and on Friday, i.e., the day of the Betrayal and the Crucifixion. But Didaché, vii., 4, lays it down that before baptism the baptiser and the candidate should fast. The conduct therefore of the prophets and teachers at Antioch before the solemn mission of Barnabas and Saul to their work is exactly what might have been expected, cf. Edersheim, Temple and its Services, p. 66.—εἶπε τὸ Π.: we may reasonably infer by one of the prophets; it may have been at a solemn meeting of the whole Ecclesia held expressly with reference to a project for carrying the Gospel to the heathen (Hort, Felten, Hackett). Felten sees in δή an indication of an answer to a special prayer. But it does not follow that the “liturgical” functions should be assigned to the whole Ecclesia.—Ἀφορίσατε, cf. the same word used by St. Paul of himself, Romans 1:1, Galatians 1:15, LXX, Leviticus 20:26, Numbers 8:11. μοι. Such words and acts indicate the personality of the Holy Ghost, cf. δή emphatic, signifying the urgency of the command (cf. use of the word in classical Greek). A. and R.V. omit altogether in translation. In Luke 2:15 both render it “now,” in Matthew 13:23, R.V. “verily,” Acts 15:36, “now,” 1 Corinthians 6:20, A. and R.V. “therefore,” to emphasise a demand as here. With this force the word is thus peculiar to Luke and Paul (in other passages, reading contested). The translation of the word may have been omitted here, since the rendering “now” would have been taken in a temporal sense which δή need not suggest.—ὃ for εἰς ὃ, cf. Acts 1:21, Luke 1:25; Luke 12:46. Grimm-Thayer, Winer-Moulton, l., 7 b, so in Greek writers generally.—προσκέκλημαι, cf. Acts 2:39, Acts 16:10. Grimm-Thayer, sub v. b. Winer-Moulton, xxxix. 3.

Acts 13:3. τότε probably indicating a new and special act of fasting and prayer. But is the subject of the sentence the whole Ecclesia, or only the prophets and teachers mentioned before? Ramsay maintains that it cannot be the officials just mentioned, because they cannot be said to lay hands on two of themselves, so that he considers some awkward change of subject takes place, and that the simplest interpretation is that the Church as a whole held a meeting for this solemn purpose (cf. πάντες in ). But if the whole Church was present, it does not follow that they took part in every detail of the service, just as they may have been present in the public service of worship in Acts 13:2 (see above) without λειτουργ. τῷ Κ. equally with the prophets and teachers (cf. Felten and also Wendt). There is therefore no reason to assume that the laying on of hands was performed by the whole Church, or that St. Luke could have been ignorant that this function was one which belonged specifically to the officers of the Church. The change of subject is not more awkward than in Acts 6:6. Dr. Hort is evidently conscious of the difficulty, see especially Ecclesia, p. 64. No doubt, on the return of the two missionaries, they report their doings to the whole Church, Acts 14:27, but this is no proof that the laying on of hands for their consecration to their mission was the act of the whole Church. That prophets and teachers should thus perform what is represented in Acts as an Apostolic function need not surprise us, see Gore, u. s., pp. 241, 260, 261. A further question arises as to whether this passage conflicts with the fact that St. Paul was already an Apostle, and that his Apostleship was based not upon his appointment by man, or upon human teaching, but upon a revelation from God, and upon the fact that he had seen the Lord. It is certainly remarkable that both Barnabas and Saul are called Apostles by St. Luke in connection with this first missionary journey, and that under no other circumstance does he apply the term to either, Acts 14:4; Acts 14:14, and it is possible that the title may have been given here in a limited sense with reference to their special mission; see Hort, Ecclesia, pp. 28, 64, 65. But at the same time we must remember that in the N.T. the term ἀπόστολος is never applied to any one who may not very well have satisfied the primary qualification of Apostleship, viz., to have seen the Lord, and to bear witness to His Resurrection, see Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 95 ff. (as against the recent statements of McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 653): “We have no reason to suppose that this condition was ever waived, unless we throw forward the Teaching into the second century,” Gwatkin, “Apostle,” Hastings’ B.D.: see further, Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 350, additional note on the Didaché. This we may accept, except in so far as it bears upon the Didaché, in which the Apostles (only mentioned in one passage, Acts 11:3-6) may be contrasted rather than compared with the Apostles of the N.T., inasmuch as they are represented as wandering missionaries, itinerating from place to place, in days of corruption and gross imposture, and inasmuch as the picture which the Didaché reveals is apparently characteristic of a corner of Church life rather than of the whole of it; Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. 176; Bright, Some Aspects of Primitive Church Life, p. 34, and the strictures of Bigg, Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, pp. 27, 40 ff. It may of course be urged that we know nothing of Barnabas and of the others, to whom Lightfoot and Gwatkin refer as to their special call from Christ, whilst in the case of St. Paul we have his own positive assertion. But even in his case the laying on of hands recognised, if it did not bestow, his Apostolic commission, and “the ceremony of Ordination when it was not the channel of the grace was its recognition,” Gore, u. s., pp. 257–267, 383, 395, etc., and see especially the striking passage in Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, pp. 107, 108.

Acts 13:4. μὲν οὖν answered by δέ in Acts 13:5, so Weiss and Rendall, Appendix on μὲν οὖν, p. 161. Page takes διελ. δέ in Acts 13:6 as the antithesis, see his note on Acts 2:41.—ἐκπεμφ., cf. Acts 13:2; only in N.T. in Acts 17:10, cf. 2 Samuel 19:31, where it denotes personal conduct. Mr. Rendall’s note takes the verb here also of the personal presence of the Holy Spirit conducting the Apostles on their way.—κατῆλθον: “went down,” R.V., of a journey from the interior to the coast, cf. Acts 15:30; Vulgate, abierunt, and so A.V. “departed,” which fails to give the full force of the word.—Σελεύκειαν: the port of Antioch, built by the first Seleucus, about sixteen miles from the city on the Orontes; Seleucia ad mare and ἡ ἐν Πιερίᾳ to distinguish it from other places bearing the same name, see Wetstein for references to it. On its mention here and St. Luke’s custom see Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 70.—Κύπρον, cf. Acts 4:36. Although not expressly stated, we may well believe that the place was divinely intimated. But it was natural for more reasons than one that the missionaries should make for Cyprus. Barnabas was a Cypriote, and the nearness of Cyprus to Syria and its productive copper mines had attracted a large settlement of Jews, cf. also Acts 11:19-20, and the Church at Antioch moreover owed its birth in part to the Cypriotes, Acts 11:20 (Acts 21:16).

Acts 13:5. Σαλαμῖνι: the nearest place to Seleucia on the eastern coast of Cyprus. A few hours’ sail in favourable weather would bring the traveller to a harbour convenient and capacious. The Jewish colony must have been considerable since mention is made of synagogues.—κατήγγελλον: “they began to proclaim” … ἐν ταῖς συν., it was St. Paul’s habitual custom to go to the synagogues first, cf. Acts 9:20, Acts 14:1, etc.—Ἰωάννην: the marked silence about him previously seems to emphasise the fact that he was not selected by the Holy Ghost in the same solemn way as Barnabas and Saul.—ὑπηρέτην, cf. Luke 4:20, and many writers give it here a kind of official sense (although the word may be used of any kind of service), “velut ad baptizandum,” cf. Acts 10:48 (1 Corinthians 1:14), Blass; so Alford, Felten, Overbeck, Weiss. But the word may express the fact that John Mark was able to set the Apostles more free for their work of evangelising.

Acts 13:6. διελθόντες δὲ (ὅλην) τὴν ν.: “and they made a missionary progress through the whole island,” Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 72 and 384, and “Words demoting Missionary Travel in Acts,” Expositor, May, 1896; on ὅλην, see critical notes. Ramsay gives nine examples in Acts of this use of διέρχεσθαι or διελθεῖν with the accusative of the region traversed, the only other instance in the N.T. being 1 Corinthians 16:5. In each of these ten cases the verb implies the process of going over a country as a missionary, and it is remarkable that in 1–12 this construction of διέρχομαι never occurs, though there are cases in which the idea of a missionary tour requires expression. Ramsay therefore sees in the use of the word in the second part of the book a quasi technical term which the writer had caught from St. Paul himself, by whom alone it is also employed.—Πάφου: Nea Paphos—the chief town and the place of residence of the Roman governor—some little distance from the old Paphos (Παλαίπαφος, Strabo) celebrated for its Venus temple. The place still bears the name of Baffa, Renan, St. Paul, p. 14; O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 101; C. and H., smaller edition, p. 125.—μάγον, cf. Acts 8:9; “sorcerer,” A. and R.V. margin, cf. Matthew 2:1, but word used here as among the Greeks and Romans in a bad sense. Wycl. has “witch,” and this in its masculine form “wizard” has been suggested as an appropriate rendering here. On the absurd attempt to show that the whole narrative is merely introduced as a parallel to St. Peter’s encounter with Simon, chap. 8, see Nösgen, p. 427; Zöckler, in loco, and Salmon, Introduction, p. 310. The parallel really amounts to this, that both Peter and Paul encountered a person described under the same title, a magician—an encounter surely not improbable in the social circumstances of the time (see below)! For other views see Holtzmann, who still holds that the narrative is influenced by Acts 8:14 ff. The word is entirely omitted by Jüngst, p. 120, without any authority whatever. Elymas, according to the narrative, says Jüngst, was either a magician or a false prophet. But the proconsul is styled ἀνὴρ συνετός, and this could not have been consistent with his relation with a magician: Elymas was therefore a kind of Jewish confessor. But neither supposition does much to establish the wisdom of Sergius Paulus.—ψευδοπροφήτην like ψευδόμαντις in classical writers, here only in Acts; and Luke 6:26, by St. Luke. But frequently used elsewhere in N.T., and in the LXX, and several times in Didaché, xi. On the “Triple beat,” Magian, false prophet, Jew, see Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 415.—Βαρϊησοῦς, on the name see critical notes.

Acts 13:7. ὃς ἦν σὺν τῷ ἀ., cf. Acts 4:13. Nothing was more in accordance with what we know of the personnel of the strange groups which often followed the Roman governors as comites, and it is quite possible that Sergius Paulus may have been keenly interested in the powers or assumed powers of the Magian, and in gaining a knowledge of the strange religions which dominated the East. If the Roman had been completely under the influence of the false prophet, it is difficult to believe that St. Luke would have described him as συνετός (a title in which Zöckler sees a distinction between Sergius Paulus and another Roman, Felix, over whom a Jewish Magian gained such influence, Jos., Ant., xx., 7, 2), although magicians of all kinds found a welcome in unexpected quarters in Roman society, even at the hands of otherwise discerning and clear-sighted personages, as the pages of Roman writers from Horace to Lucian testify. It was not the first time in the world’s history that credulity and scepticism had gone hand in hand: Wetstein, in loco; Farrar, St. Paul, i., pp. 351, 352; Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 74 ff.—ἐπεζήτησεν; perhaps means, as in classical Greek, “put questions to them”. The typical Roman is again marked by the fact that he was thus desirous to hear what the travellers would say, and it is also indicated that he was not inclined to submit himself entirely to the Magian.—τῷ ἀνθυπάτῳ: “the proconsul,” R.V., “deputy,” A.V. In the reign of James I. the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was called “the deputy” (cf. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, i., 2, 161). Under Augustus, B.C. 27, the Roman provinces had been divided into two classes: (1) imperial and (2) senatorial, the former being governed by proprætors or generals, and the latter by proconsuls. But as the first kind of government would often be required when a province was unruly, it frequently happened that the same province might be at one time classed under (1) and at another time under (2). Cyprus had been originally an imperial province, Strabo, xiv., but in 22 B.C. it had been transferred by Augustus to the Senate, and was accordingly, as Luke describes it, under a proconsul, Dio Cassius, liii., 12, liv., 4. Under Hadrian it appears to have been under a proprætor; under Severus it was again under a proconsul. At Soloi, a town on the north coast of Cyprus, an inscription was discovered by General Cesnola, Cyprus, 1877, p. 425 (cf. Hogarth, Devia Cypria, 1889, p. 114), dated ἐπὶ Παύλου (ἀνθ) υπάτου, and the probable identification with Sergius Paulus is accepted by Lightfoot, Zöckler, Ramsay, Knabenbauer, etc.; see especially amongst recent writers Zahn, Einleitung, ii., Excurs. ii., p. 632, for a similar view, and also for information as to date, and as to another and more recent inscription (1887), bearing upon the connnection of the Gens Sergia with Cyprus; see also McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 175, note, and Wendt, edition 1899.—συνετῷ: R.V., “a man of understanding,” cf. Matthew 11:25. A.V. and other E.V[255] translate “prudent,” Vulgate, prudens, but see Genevan Version on Matt., u. s.; frequent in LXX in various significations: σύνεσις, practical discernment, intelligence, so συνετός, one who can “put things together” (συνιέναι): σοφία, the wisdom of culture (Grimm-Thayer); on “prudent,” see Humphry, Commentary on R.V., p. 28.

[255] English Version.