The Acts of the Apostles

LANDS, NATIONS, CITIES, AND HOUSES 93
Paulus). The mission in Cyprus—taken up again
some years later by St. Barnabas and St. Mark— is
immediately followed (xiii. 14) by the mission in
Antioch of Pisidia (the seaport Attalia is first men-
tioned in xiv. 25 on the return journey, when the
mission in Perga is also recorded ; Perga is only men-
tioned in xiii. 13 because St. Mark here separated
himself from St. Paul).^ The choice of a place of
only moderate importance as the base of the mission,
and generally the decision to start the mission to
Asia Minor in Pisidia and Galatian Phrygia—
country that could be reached from the Pamphylian
coast only by a long and dangerous journey—imply
on the one hand the foregoing of a ministry to
Hellenes, and on the other hand a decided purpose
to minister to the Barbarians.^ The large number of
*
Jews in those regions does not explain this decision ;
St. Paul could have found just as many large colonies
of Jews on the coast. Wendt gives the correct ex-
planation when he says : " It required at a later
time special Divine intimations to induce St. Paul
to approach genuine Hellenes as a missionary." The
author shows in xiii. 49 how the success of the mission
in the city extended to the whole surrounding country.
The use of the word "Xjjopa here is perhaps not acci-
dental. An inscription has been found in Antioch
which speaks of a eKarovToip-^t]^ peyewvdpio^} But it
1 Ramsay, *« St. Paul," p. 89/., thinks otherwise.
' So we must judge— if the route was as St. Luke describes.
3 This is the opinion of Blass ; Ramsay gives a noteworthy
explanation of the decision to go to Antioch in Pisidia {loc. cit.
p. 92/.).
* Ramsay, loc. cit. p. 103.
a