The Acts of the Apostles

96 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
perhaps implied a change in his original plan ; but
we can never arrive at certainty on this point.
The decisive turn had been taken in the journey
from Pisidian Antioch to Iconium
—
i.e. towards the
south-east, i.e. towards Tarsus (and Syrian Antioch)
St. Paul simply continues in this direction. That he
did not follow this road to the end, but turned back
upon his route, is strange and does not admit of
—
further explanation. Did he shrink from making his
way into the wild territory of Isauria ? The people
with whom the Apostle had to do in Lystra spoke the
language of Lycaonia (xiv. 11)
; they did not there-
fore belong to the Greek or Latin ^ upper classes, but
to the native and probably poorer classes. Derbe
forms the turning-point of this journey of the Apostle.
He returns by the same route (vide suprd)^ and now
the mission in Pamphylia (Perga) is first mentioned
procedure of the writer. We must perhaps assume that it is a case
of irregular declension of a foreign proper noun, though there is
here no special attestation, yet see Kiihner-Blass, I. (1890), s.
492/. ;
Moulton, "A Grammar of New Testament Greek" (1906),
p. 48 ; Eamsay {loc. cit. p. 129) who refers to Mvpa, ace. -av and
genit. -uv. The Isaurian cities with unusual names were treated as
neuter plurals {vide e.g. the subscriptions to the decree of the
Council of Nicaea) ; at the same time it might easily happen that a
name like Lystra, which had a Greek sound, was declined in the
accusative, seemingly like a noun of the first declension. Examples
of such mixture are by no means wanting, indeed the addition of
an irregular v has actual attestation. In ix. 32, 35 the best codices
treat Av58a as neuter plural (but C E H L P, &c., read Ai/55o;'), yet
in ix. 38 Av85as occurs as genitive singular. In ix. 35 we read in
gome authorities top Sapwva, in others tov Zapuvav ; and in xxi. 1
cis TTJv Kw and e^s rrjv KQv.
^ Ramsay {Expositor, September, 1905) remarks that the most
ancient graves in Lystra bear Latin inscriptions, while in Iconium
Greek is the rule.