Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/615

 tetrarch; who also imprisoned Peter, but was unable to keep him on account of the angelic intervention mention above. The death of this monarch from a painful internal diaease, is curiously perverted by the writer into a sudden judgment of God, inflicted upon him because he accepted divine honors at the hands of his flatterers (Acts xi. xii).

The history now proceeds to follow the fortunes of Paul. It is stated that there were at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, who were inspired by the Holy Ghost to appoint Barnabas and Saul to the work whereunto they were called. Having laid their hands upon them, they sent them away. Paul now began to travel from place to place, making converts among the heathen. At Paphos he met with a Jewish sorcerer named Elymas, who he caused to be blind for a season, thereby inducing the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus to believe in Christianity, which had thus shown itself able to produce more powerful sorcerers than the rival creed (Acts xiii. 1-12).

It is a striking proof of the liberality of the Jews at this period that when Paul and his companions had gone into the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia, the rulers of the synagogue invited them to speak; a freedom which even in the present day would scarcely be granted in any Christian Church to those who were regarded as heretics. Paul took advantage of the proffered opportunity to deliver a speech which ended in the conversion of some of the Jews. On the following Sabbath great crowds came to hear Paul, but the Jews, as was natural, opposed him and contradicted him. After this they stirred up pious women and the principal men of the city against Paul and Barnabas, and (it is stated) expelled them from their coasts (Acts xiii. 50). These apostles having already determined to go (Acts xiii. 46), it was not a severe treatment that was thus inflicted on them. They, however, left Antioch in no very charitable frame of mind, for they shook off the dust of their feet against its inhabitants (Acts xiii. 14-52),

The cure of an impotent man at Lystra led the multitude of that place to adore Paul and Barnabas as gods. Paul, as the orator, they called Hermes, and Barnabas, Zeus. The priest of Zeus brought oxen and garlands, and intended to sacrifice to them, an intention which the people were barely prevented, by