Acts 13:13

13. Without pausing to give more detailed accounts of the success of the gospel in Cyprus, our historian now hurries us away with the two apostles upon the further prosecution of their tour. (13) "Now those about Paul set sail from Paphos, and went to Perga of Pamphylia. But John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem." So completely has Paul now become the central figure on the pages of Luke, that here, instead of following his former phraseology, and saying that "Barnabas and Saul" set sail from Paphos, the whole company are described as "those about Paul."

Why they chose the regions north of Pamphylia, in Asia Minor, as their next field of labor, we are not informed. Luke is equally silent in reference to the reason why John Mark, at this particular juncture, departed from them, and returned to Jerusalem. He informs us, however, at a later period, that Paul censured him for so doing. It is very plausibly suggested by Mr. Howson, that he was influenced by fear of the dangers which lay in their way, the mountains before them being commonly infested with robbers. He remarks that "No population, through the midst of which he ever traveled, abounded more in those 'perils of robbers' of which he himself speaks, than the wild and lawless clans of the Pisidian highlanders."