[116 - 117] 8. THE APOSTLES AS GODS. (11) AND THE MULTITUDE, SEEING WHAT PAUL DID, LIFTED UP THEIR LIFTED IP THEIR VOICE IN THE LYCAONIAN TONGUE, SAYING, "THE GODS HAVE TAKEN THE FORM OF MEN AND HAVE COME DOWN TO US"; (12) AND THEY CALLED BARNABAS ZEUS, AND PAUL HERMES.

(16) WHO IN THE BYGONE GENERATIONS LEFT ALL NATIONS TO GO IN THEIR OWN WAYS. (17) AND YET HE LEFT NOT HIMSELF WITHOUT WITNESS, IN THAT HE DID GOOD, GIVING YOU FROM HEAVEN RAINS AND FRUITFUL SEASONS, FILLING YOUR HEARTS WITH FOOD AND GLADNESS."(18) AND, SAYING THIS, THEY SCARCE RESTRAINED THE MULTITUDES FROM DOING SACRIFICE UNTO THEM.

In v. 12 the Accepted Text contains a gloss, which is rightly omitted in one old Latin Version (Fl.).

Paul is here the Messenger of the Supreme God (p. 84): he says in Gal. IV 14, "ye received me as a Messenger of [118] God". The coincidence, as Prof. Rendel Harris points out, is interesting.

The Bezan Text has in several details the advantage of local accuracy -- the plural "priests,"the title "Zeus before the city,"the phrase "the God,"the "extra-sacrifice". Dr. Blass rejects the Bezan reading "priests"on the ground that there was only one priest of a single god; but there was regularly a college of priests at each of the great temples of Asia Minor. The "God before the city"had in almost every case been seated in his temple when there was no city; and he remained in his own sacred place after civilisation progressed and a Greek or Roman city was rounded in the neighbourhood. According to the Bezan Text the proposed sacrifice was an extra beyond the ordinary ritual which the priests performed to the God. This sense of ejpiquvein does not occur elsewhere, but seems to lie fairly within the meaning of the compound.

Dr. Blass, who is usually so enthusiastic a supporter of the Western Text, rejects these three variations; but they add so much to the vividness of the scene, that one cannot, with him, regard them as mere corruptions.

In Asia Minor the great God was regularly termed by his worshippers "the God"; and Paul, who introduces the Christian God to his Athenian audience as "the Unknown God,"whom they have been worshipping, might be expected to use the familiar term "the God"to the Lystran crowd. Here, probability favours the originality of the Bezan Text.

There remain some serious difficulties in this episode: Dr. Blass rejects the idea of some commentators that the sacrifice was prepared at the gates of the temple; and explains that the priests came from the temple before the city to the gates of the city. But in that case Lukan usage [119] would lead us to expect {pulê} (cp. IX 24, XVI 13), rather than {pulõn} (cp. X 17, XII 13, 14). Another difficulty occurs in v. 14. Dr. Blass's explanation is that the Apostles had gone home after healing the lame man, and there heard what was going on and hurried forth from their house. This explanation is not convincing. Probably a better knowledge of the localities might make the narrative clearer:it has been for years a dream of mine to make some excavations at Lystra, in the hope of illustrating this interesting episode. One suggestion, however, may be made. The college of priests probably prepared their sacrifice at the outer gateway of the temple-grounds, because, being no part of the ordinary ritual, it could not be performed on one of the usual places, and because they wished the multitudes to take part; whereas sacrifice at the city-gates seems improbable for many reasons. Then as the day advanced, the Apostles, who were continuing their missionary work, heard that the priests and people were getting ready to celebrate the Epiphany of the Gods; and they hurried forth from the city to the temple.

The use of the Lycaonian language shows that the worshippers were not the Roman coloni, the aristocracy of the colony, but the natives, the less educated and more superstitious part of the population (incolæ, p. 218).