Acts 11:26

Acts 11:26. When he had found him. This, coupled with the strong expression used above concerning the ‘searching for' Saul, seems to imply that he was not actually in Tarsus when Barnabas arrived there. Probably he was on some mission in Cilicia.

He brought him to Antioch. No reluctance is to be imagined on the part of St. Paul. On the contrary, he was probably overjoyed in the prospect of a wider field of work under providential encouragement. The whole credit, however, of this transaction belongs to Barnabas.

A whole year. T his is one of the definite indications of time, which help us to put together the relative chronology of St. Paul's life. Other instances are found in Acts 18:11; Acts 19:10; Acts 20:3; Acts 20:31; Acts 24:27, and Acts 28:3.

Taught much people. Doubtless with success. See notes on Acts 11:21; Acts 11:24.

And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. On two words in this sentence our attention cannot be too closely fastened.

The name ‘CHRISTIAN' marked the arrival of a new fact in the world. This new fact was the formation of a self-existent, self-conscious Church of Christ, independent of Judaism. This, too, was only ten years after the crucifixion of Christ. How the history of the world has been coloured, how mankind has been blessed by the mere existence of this word, it is not necessary to state at large. As to the origin of this new name, it certainly was not given by Jews to the followers of our Lord. The Jews would never have been willing even to seem to sanction the opinion that Jesus of Nazareth was Christ or the Messiah. Nor was the name assumed by the followers of our Lord as a chosen designation for themselves. They were content with such titles as ‘the disciples,' ‘the brethren,' ‘the saints.' This new term came from without, and from the Pagans. Its form, too, seems to show that it had a Latin origin. We are familiar in history with such terms as Pompeians and Vitellians; and the New Testament itself (Matthew 22:16) supplies us with a similar term in the word Herodians. It is most probable that this new term at Antioch originated with the public authorities, who gave the designation to the community which began then to make its existence felt, and which was bound together by allegiance (however strange this might seem) to one ‘Christus.' It is possible, however, that the name was given by the populace in derision. Antioch was famous for its love of nicknames; and such may have been the beginning of the noblest name which any community ever bore. In the two other places of the New Testament where the name occurs (Acts 26:28; 1 Peter 4:16), reference is clearly made to the fact that it was viewed as expressive of contempt and dislike. St. Paul and St. Peter, however, clearly saw, and strongly felt, that it was a title of honour. To which we must add the words of St. James (Acts 2:7), ‘Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by which ye are called?' The whole subject is summed up in some simple words used by Tacitus (Ann. xv. 44), though in a sense very different from that which he intended, ‘ Autor nominis cjus Christus.'

And the place where this name was given seems to fit the occurrence in a remarkable manner. Antioch, the most important city of all Roman Asia, and the third in rank among the cities of the whole Roman world, had a character peculiarly cosmopolitan. Less distinguished for general culture than Alexandria, it was even more important than that city in the military and political sense. The situation of Antioch had much to do with its history. It stood ‘near the abrupt angle formed by the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor, and in the opening where the Orontes passes between the ranges of Lebanon and Taurus. By its harbour of Seleucia it was in connection with all the trade of the Mediterranean; and, through the open country behind Lebanon, it was conveniently approached by the caravans from Mesopotamia and Arabia. It was almost an Oriental Rome, in which all the forms of the civilised life of the Empire found a representative' (Life and Epistles of St. Paul, i. p. 149). Founded by Seleucus Nicator, and named by him after his father Antiochus, it had retained all its old elements, and had received new elements when it became the capital of the Roman province of Syria. It was famous for the beauty of its position and the splendour of its buildings, and infamous for the profligacy and fraud, sorcery and effeminacy of its people. Renan, with a true instinct (Les Apotres, chap. 12), revels in his description of its external features and of its strange and varied life. Its Christian history was subsequently very eminent; for it became the seat of one of the five patriarchates of the Church. Here, with the Acts of the Apostles before us, we are called to notice that Antioch was the mother of Christian missions, and the author of the Christian name. Chrysostom, its great preacher, claims what we read in this verse as one of the grounds why Antioch is a metropolis.