Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Galatians 1:21-23

About ten years of the life of Paul, between his flight from Jerusalem to Tarsus and his return to Jerusalem for the Apostolic Council, are here passed over. They were spent, partly in and around Tarsus and Antioch, partly in the joint mission with Barnabas to Cyprus and Asia Minor. The Galatians were already acquainted with the leading facts of that period, and it was needless to refer to them here: enough that he spent those years, like those at Damascus, in an independent ministry at a distance from Jerusalem. He did indeed repair thither once with Barnabas to carry alms from Antioch to the Elders; but circumstances prevented any intercourse with the Twelve at that time: for before they reached the city the Herodian persecution had begun, and the leading Christians were in peril of death at the hands of Herod. Paul himself can only have paid a secret and hurried visit to the city, and thought it needless apparently to mention it in this place. κλίματα. This word denotes the fringes of coastland sloping down from the mountains to the sea in north-western Syria and eastern, i.e. Roman, Cilicia. It is applied in 2 Corinthians 11:10 to the coastlands of Achaia.

The name Syria is placed before Cilicia, though the ministry at Tarsus preceded that at Antioch: for the latter was by far the more important and prolonged ministry. A further reason for placing Syria first was the subordinate position of Cilicia: for Roman Cilicia was, like Judæa, only a district of the great province of Syria, separately administered by an imperial procurator at Tarsus.

In Acts 15:41 Syria and Cilicia are coupled together as forming a single region (τὴν Συρίαν καὶ Κιλικίαν), no article being inserted before Κιλικίαν; not so here, for the first ministry at Tarsus was distinct from that at Antioch.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Galatians 1:21-23

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