The life and work of St. Paul

220 THE LIFE ANI> WORK OF ST, PAUL.
So ended the first mission journey of the Apostle Paul the first flight as
it were of the eagle, which was soon to soar with yet bolder wing, in yet wider
circles, among yet more raging storms. We have followed him by the brief
notices of St. Luke, but we have no means of deciding either the exact date
of the journey, or its exact duration. It is only when the crises in the history
of the early Church synchronise with events of secular history, that we can
ever with certainty ascertain the date to which they should be assigned. 1
We have seen that Paul and Barnabas visited Jerusalem about the time of
Herod Agrippa's death, and this took place in April A.D. 44. After this
they returned to Antioch, and the next thing wo are told about them is theii*
obedience to the spiritual intimation which marked them out as Evangelists to
the heathen. It is reasonable to believe, therefore, that they spent about a
year at Antioch, since they could not easily find vessels to convoy them from
place to place except in tho months during which the sea was regarded as
open. Now navigation with the ancients began with the rising of the
Pleiades, that is, in the mouth of March; and we may assume with fair
probability that March, A.D. 45, is the date at which they began their
evangelising labours. Beyond this all must be conjecture. They do not seem
2
at Antioch in Pisidia
to have spent more than a mouth or two in Cyprus ;
their stay was certainly brief. At Iconium they remained "a considerable
"
but at Lystra again, and at Derbe, and on their return tour, and at
tmie ;
Perga and Attaleia, the narrative implies no long residence. Taking into
account the time consumed in travelling, we are hardly at liberty to suppose
that the first circuit occupied much more than a year, and they may have
returned to the Syrian Antioch in the late spring of A.D. 46. 3
1 See Chronological Excursus, infra, p. 753.
* Acts xiv. 3, Ixavov xpw- This ma7 mean anything, from a month or two, up to a
year or more. It is a phrase of frequent occurrence in St. Luke (see Acts viii. 11 ; xxvii.
9 ; Luke viii. 27 ; xx. 9).
3 That Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra were not the churches of
Galatia, as has been suggested by Boitger (Eeiti-agc, i. 28, sq.), Renan, Hausrath, and
others, is surely demonstrable. Galatia had two meanings the first ethnographical, the
second political. The ethnographic use was the popular and the all but universal one.
It meant that small central district of Asia Minor, about 200 miles in length, which was
occupied by the three Gallic tribes the Trocmi, the Tolistobogii, the Tectosages with
the three capitals, Tavium, Pessinus, and Ancyra. Politically it meant a "department,"
an "administrative group," a mere agglomeration of districts thrown into loose cohesion
by political accidents. In this political meaning the Roman province of Galatia was
based on the kingdom of Amyntas (Dion Cass. liii. 26), a wealthy grazier and freebooter,
who had received from Mark Antony the kingdom of Pisidia, and by subsequent additions
had become possessed of Galatia Proper, Lycaonia, parts of Pamphytta, and Cilicia
Aspera. On his death various changes occurred, but when Paul and Barnabas were on
their first journey Pamphylia was under a propraetor ; Iconium was a separate tetrarchy ;
Lystra and Derbe belonged to Antiochus IV. of Commageno. Galatia, Pisidia north of
the Paroreia, and the greater part of Lycaonia formed the Roman province of Galatia.
But even if we grant that St. Paul and St. Luke might have used the word Galatia in
its artificial sense, even then Antioch in Pisidia appears to be the only town mentioned
in this circuit which is actually in the Roman province. This alone seems sufficient to
disprove the hypothesis that in the first journey we have a narrative of the founding of
the Galatian Church. Further, a far as St. Luke is concerned, it would be a confused
method, unlike his careful accuracy, to use the words Pisidia, Lycaonia, Pamphylia, and
later in his narrative Mysia, and other districts in their geographical sense, and then