The Acts of the Apostles

88 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
view formed a single ecclesiastical district.^ It is
the first great Gentile Christian district ; in its centre
stands Antioch and the church in that city. The
foundation of this church forms the goal towards
which the narrative tends even from vi. 1 ff}
Luke shows himself well informed concerning this
community,^ and regards it as, after Jerusalem, the
second capital of Christendom.* He relates that
^ This answers to the development in succeeding times, but also
to the political situation in the time of St. Luke. Cilicia is yet
again mentioned as the native country of St. Paul (xxi. 39 ; xxii.
3 ; xxiii. 34). In vi. 9 it stands together with Asia (Jews of
Cilicia and Asia resident in Jerusalem), in xxvii. 5 with geo-
graphical propriety together with Pamphylia (t6 7rAa7os rb Karb.
T^v KiXiKiap Kal Ua/ji(f>v\lav). Even in such small points St. Luke
exhibits knowledge and conscientious care. This variation in
the /coupling of the province with other provinces is highly char-
acteristic.
2 In this connection it is also most significant, that the native
place of only one of "the Seven" is mentioned (vi. 5: NtxiXaor
"Trpoa-rjXvTos 'Avtiox^vs).
^ St. Luke knows nothing, or at least has told us nothing, of the
Christian community in Tarsus. He only says that St. Paul came
from that city and possessed the right of citizenship (Tapa-evs) there
(ix. 11 ; xxi. 89 ; xxii. 3), that the brethren of Jerusalem dispatched
him thither by way of Csesarea (ix. 30), and that after a seemingly
long ministry St. Barnabas brought him thence to Antioch. Tht
statement agrees admirably with Gal. i. 21.
* Of other Syrian cities St. Luke mentions only Seleucia, the
haven of Antioch (xiii. 4), and that casually, without stating
whether it possessed a Christian community. It is part of the
author's literary custom to give the names of the havens, cf. the
mention of Attalia (xiv. 25) of Neapolis (xvi. 11), of Cenchreae
(xviii. 18). In xvii. 14 we read i^airiareCKav ol aSeXipol iropeveadai ?«?
iirl T7}v BdXaaaav. It may well be that St. Paul, in order to guard
against plots, embarked at a point of the coast that lay out of the
way (Ramsay, " St. Paul the Traveller " [1897], p. 70, 233, explains
otherwise).
St.