Acts 14:1

Acts 14:1. Preaching at Iconium. The Apostles forced to flee

1. they went both together, &c. These words probably refer not to one special visit, but to repeated occasions on which Paul and Barnabas appeared as fellow-labourers before the Jewish congregation in Iconium.

and so spake on various occasions, on some of which not only Jews but Gentiles were hearers of the word.

also of the Greeks Here the word in the original is Hellenes, used in other places by St Luke to signify Gentiles, in contradistinction to Hellenistæ, by which he means Greek-Jews. It has been thought that here Greek-Jews can only be intended, and that the word must therefore be used in a sense different from that which it has in other places in the Acts. But clearly the visit of the Apostles to Iconium lasted a considerable time, and it is not to be supposed that, while there, they refrained from speaking the word in any place but in the solitary synagogue. They went, as their wont was, to the synagogue first, that was the scene of their joint labours on many occasions, and there many of the Jews were won to the faith. But they spake elsewhere the same glad tidings which they published to the Circumcision, and thus many Gentiles also were converted. This seems a simpler explanation than to make St Luke say Helleneshere, when he means Hellenistæ. The verse condenses the account of the Apostolic labours, marks that their commencement was at the synagogue, that Jews became believers, and then without further specification of a place of preaching adds "and of the Gentiles," to describe the whole result.