Acts 13:13

Ἀναχθέντες, “set sail,” R.V. So in classical use, here in its technical nautical sense so too, in opposite sense, κατάγεσθαι. In this sense thirteen times in Acts, and once in Luke's Gospel, Acts 8:22, but not in the other Gospels at all; it is only used once, in another sense, by St. Matthew among the Evangelists, cf. Acts 4:1. ἄγειν and its compounds with ἀνά, κατά, εἰς, are characteristic of Luke's writings, Friedrich, p. 7. οἱ περὶ τὸν Π.: Paul now taking the first place as the leader of the company, see Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 84, the order henceforth is Paul and Barnabas, with two significant exceptions, Acts 15:12; Acts 15:25, and Acts 14:12, see in loco. Ἰ. δὲ … ὑπέστρεψεν : Ramsay refers St. Mark's withdrawal to the above circumstances, inasmuch as he disapproved of St. Paul's change of place, which he regarded as an abandonment of the work. But the withdrawal on the part of Mark is still more difficult to understand, if we are to suppose that he withdrew because Paul and Barnabas made, as it were, a trip to Antioch for the recovery of the former; and Acts 15:38 seems to imply something different from this. Various reasons may have contributed to the desertion of Mark, perhaps the fact that his cousin Barnabas was no longer the leader, or Paul's preaching to the Gentiles may have been too liberal for him, or lack of courage to face the dangers of the mountain passes and missionary work inland, or affection for his home at Jerusalem and anxiety for the coming famine (he withdrew, says Holtzmann, “zu seinem Mutter”). See Deissmann's striking note, Bibelstudien, p. 185, on the fact that here, where John Mark leaves Paul for Jerusalem, he is simply “John,” his Jewish name; in Acts 15:39 he goes with Barnabas to Cyprus, and on that occasion only he is described by his Gentile name “Mark” alone. On the “perils of rivers, and perils of robbers,” see Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 23, and in connection with the above, pp. 62, 65, also C. and H. (smaller edition), p. 129, Hausrath, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, iii., 133.