gardens and fertile fields. Iconium was not, however, a city of great ancient importance, or of any historical renown. It rose to greatness in far later times, when, under the name of Konieh, it became the residence of the Seljukian sultans of Roum, who rebuilt the walls, and enriched it with numerous public buildings--reigning here in great splendour, till their power was broken by the irruptions of Genghiz Khan and his grandson Hulokoo. Since the reign of Bayazid, it has belonged to the Osmanli Turks; and under them it flourished for a long time as the capital of the extensive province of Karamania, and the seat of one of the most powerful pashalics of the empire. But in recent times it has suffered much decline, and shows an aspect of decay and desolation. The city has indeed still an imposing appearance, from the number and size of its mosques, colleges, and other public buildings. But these stately evidences of Seljukian splendour are seen, on the nearer view, to be crumbling into ruins; while the actual dwellings of a large proportion of the inhabitants consist of a number of small buildings of sun-dried bricks, and wretched hovels thatched with reeds. The wall of the city, which is thirty feet high, with a circumference of nearly three miles, has eighty gates, and is strengthened by upwards of a hundred square towers, which are now, however, suffered to moulder away, without any attempt to arrest their ruin. Although so much declined, Konieh is still one of the most considerable inland cities of Asia Minor, the population rather exceeding 40,000 souls. Of Greek and Roman Iconium, there are scarcely any traces, unless in the inscribed stones and fragments of sculptures which are built into the walls.

At Iconium, nearly the same course was taken by Paul and Barnabas, and nearly the same incidents occurred, as at Antioch. They began their labours in the Jewish synagogue; and their preaching was so blessed of the Spirit, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.' The Jews who did not believe, however, now excited the minds of the Gentiles against the converts; and it was natural enough that attention should be paid to their calumnies, since the Jews

might be supposed to know something of the designs and objects of a religion which was connected with and grew out of their own. The result was the formation of two parties in the city, the one for and the other against the apostles and their doctrine. The post had thus become one of danger; but reluctant to quit it, seeing that so much good might be done, and that they were greatly sustained by the miracles which attested the truth of their mission, the apostles lingered for some time, and only retired when they had certain information of a conspiracy being laid to destroy them.

They then proceeded to 'Lystra and Derbe'-Lystra first, and Derbe after. The sites of both these places are unknown; but Colonel Leake1 was inclined to think that the vestiges of Lystra may be sought for, with the greatest probability of success, at or near Wiran Khatoun, or Khatoun Serai, about thirty miles to the southward of Iconium.' Mr. Hamilton, however, prefers to find Lystra in a site of extensive ruins, called by the Turks Bin-bir-Kilissek (a thousand and one churches), at the northern base and side of a remarkable insulated mountain called Kara-Dagh (Black Mountain).

This

is about forty-three miles south-east of Konieh. Some fifteen miles east of this is a site called Devli; and from the resemblance of names, together with the presence of some ruins, Mr. Hamilton thinks this may have been Derbe.2

Lystra is the first place the apostles visit, at which we hear nothing of resident Jews, or of any synagogue. The transactions are with the heathen, until certain Jews come from Antioch and Iconium, purposely to stir up the people against them. There were probably, however, some Jews, if not many; and it is doubtless because the principal transaction commemorated in this visit was with the Gentiles, that the presence of Jews is not conspicuously denoted.

Here Paul and Barnabas seem to have addressed the people in the places of public resort, or in those open spaces where a fit audience could be found or gathered. On one of these

1 Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, p. 102.

2

Journal of Geographical Society, viii. pt. ii.

London 1824.

154.

occasions, Paul perceived among the auditors a poor cripple listening with eager attention to his discourse. This man had an infirmity of the feet from his birth, and had never walked. Such persons are usually well known in the localities which they inhabit, and anything that happened to him would attract the more attention. Paul, therefore, feeling probably that it was desirable some signal and intelligible miracle should in such a place as this avouch the authority-not of men, nor by men-by which they spoke, and being also moved with compassion for this poor creature's state, looked stedfastly upon him, and perceiving by his own spiritual gifts, or by the answering look of the cripple's eyes, or by both, that 'he had faith to be healed,' he called to him with a loud voice, 'Stand upright on thy feet!' and instantly the man sprung to his feet, and leaped, and walked. This miracle is parallel to those of the same kind wrought by our Lord himself, and to the one wrought by Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate; and the remarks which were offered with respect to them apply equally here.

The prodigy attracted fully as much attention as might have been expected; but the admiration it excited led to a result upon which the apostles had not calculated. It centred in their own persons; and it may be that some little occasion was given for this, by the remarkable fact that Paul, for some reason or other, or perhaps without any particular reason, omitted the usual formula, expressive of agency merely, as, 'In the name of Jesus; 'Jesus maketh thee whole.' If this was an oversight, they were soon painfully reminded of it. For the people, in the first burst of their enthusiasm, took them to be gods visiting the earth in human form: "They lifted up their voices, saying, in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.' By this pointed reference to the speech or dialect of Lycaonia, it seems probable that, in these rude outlying districts, a kind of low Greek was spoken, greatly changed by pronunciation, and by the intermixture of old native words, from the more correct and polished language of the large cities nearer the coast.

The notion that these wonder-workers were gods-that they were gods who had taken upon them human shape in visiting the earth was one that would be naturally enough suggested under the older and more credulous forms of Gentile belief, which still held their ground in remote quarters like this, though nearly obsolete in the more refined and sceptical circles of heathendom. That the gods did often visit earth in the likeness of men, was a cherished belief; and, indeed, the popular mythology abounded in instances of such visits, not all of them, nor, indeed, many of them, creditable to the gods themselves.

Taking Paul and Barnabas to be gods, the Lystrians soon settled what gods they were. Jupiter (Zeus) was the tutelary god of their city, and they had a temple, or at least a statue, dedicated to him. It was natural, therefore, to suppose that

one of the two was Jupiter, who had come to visit and bless his own place. It might be imagined that, since Paul was the more active and prominent person of the two, and since it was at his word the cripple had been healed, they would have selected him for Jupiter. They did, however, fix on Barnabas, perhaps because he was of large athletic person and venerable

presence, answering better than Paul to that idea of 'the father of gods and men,' which the sculptors had embodied in marble. The curious cut here introduced represents Zeus under that aspect―as tutelary or guardian deity (Jupiter Custos)-in which he was worshipped by the Lystrians. Their image of him, to which they found a resemblance in Barnabas, must have been like this. Having concluded that Barnabas was Jupiter, it was easy to conceive that Paul was 'Mercurius,' the Hermes of the Greeks. And the reason is, in this instance, given. It is, 'because he was the chief speaker;' and probably also because, as Mercury was the messenger of the gods, and particularly of Jupiter, it might be naturally concluded that it was he who now appeared in his company. In fact, notwithstanding the active prominence of his friend, these

Lystrians seem throughout to assign the superior place to Barnabas, probably not only on account of Paul's comparatively insignificant bodily presence, but from conceiving that he, as Mercury, was acting and speaking instrumentally for Jupiter, as it was often his vocation to do. Mercury, as every one knows, was, in his higher quality, the god of eloquence; and, in his lower quality, was the frequent companion of Jupiter in his rambles upon the earth. It is in that capacity, as the

attendant or messenger of Jove, that he is represented in the fine intaglio from which the cut we introduce is taken.

When the news had spread that Zeus and Hermes had honoured Lystra with their presence, the priest of Jupiter hastened to take his part in the proceedings. Soon he and his attendants appeared, with oxen and garlands,' to lead the sacrificial devotions of the people to the descended gods. The use of the 'garlands' has been considered uncertain. From the sculptures, however, it appears that, on the occasion of a sacrifice, the party of sacrificers were usually crowned with garlands, and the altar hung with festoons of flowers, and that

VOL. VIII.