Acts 14:5

when there was an assault made The noun does not necessarily imply that any direct attack had been made, which, from what follows, we can see was not the case. It rather applies to the excitement, urging, and instigation which the Jews were applying to their heathen companions, and which was likely to end in violence.

with their rulers The word is of the most general character, and it is impossible to form any conjecture from it what these authorities were.

and to stone them From this we see that the prompting came from the Jews. Stoning was their mode of punishment for blasphemy, and such they would represent the teaching of the Apostles to be. We need not suppose that any regular legal stoning like that of Stephen was intended, or that to accomplish that object the rulers here mentioned were such Jewish authorities as could be gathered together in Iconium, and that they are indicated by a vague term because they had no very settled position. The previous verb "to use them despitefully" rather points to the opposite conclusion, and marks the intended proceeding as a piece of mob-outrage, for which the countenance of any authority was gladly welcomed.

In connection with St Paul's residence at Iconium, there exists a story of the conversion of a maiden named Thecla, of which the apocryphal "Acts of Paul and Thecla" represents the form into which the legend had grown in the fourth century. Thecla, who was espoused to Thamyris, is said to have been deeply affected by the preaching of the Apostle, which she accidentally heard, and when the Apostle was put in prison on the accusation of being a magician, she bribed the gaoler and visited the prisoner, and was fully instructed by him in the Christian faith. The Apostle was punished and sent away from Iconium. Thecla was condemned to die for her refusal to marry Thamyris, but was miraculously saved, and after many troubles joined St Paul in his missionary travels, and ultimately made her home in the neighbourhood of Seleucia, where she led the life of a nun till her death, which took place when she was ninety years old.

This story may at first have had some basis of truth to rest on, but it has been so distorted with inconsistent details, that it is impossible now to judge what the foundation of it may have been.