Acts 14:11

Acts 14:11. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices. The whole incident was of so strange a nature that it at once took by storm the hearts of these impulsive Lycaonians. A well-known helpless cripple, as he ‘at doubtless in a spot where he had often sat before in a public thoroughfare of the city, at the bidding of the stranger sojourning among them, in a moment was able to cast off his lifelong infirmity, and moved at once among them like any other strong and healthy man. This was no mortal's act. Surely the men who could speak the beautiful solemn words these strangers had been speaking, and do such mighty works as the restoring to health and strength such poor afflicted beings as the man before them, were no mere men, but were Divine.

Saying in the speech of Lycaonia. Hitherto the intercourse between the missionary apostles and the people of Lystra had been carried on in the Greek tongue, the ordinary language of commerce in the cities of Asia Minor; but now, surprised and excited, the Lystrians naturally returned to their native dialect, and in their hurried preparations to do honour to their supposed Divine visitors, they spoke one to another in their own familiar speech of Lycaonia. Scholars are divided in opinion respecting this language. Some think it was an Assyrian dialect, others suppose it was merely a corrupt Greek, others assume it was a Galatian dialect. Stephen of Byzantium (fifth century) mentions this language as still existing.

The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. The scene of the beautiful legend of Baucis and Philemon, who entertained Zeus (Jupiter) and Hermes (Mercury) when they came down to visit the homes of men, was in that very region, in the interior of Asia Minor. The story of the visit of the gods to Lycaonia was as follows. In return for the kind and hospitable welcome they had received from these two poor peasants, who unawares entertained the two immortals Jupiter and Mercury, these deities, while punishing the churlish and inhospitable inhabitants of the land who had refused to receive the strangers, by overwhelming them and their homes in a terrible inundation, rewarded their kind hosts by changing their little lowly hut into a proud temple, at the altars of which Baucis and Philemon were appointed to minister to the chief of the gods whom they had received disguised as a pool stranger into their humble cottage home.

Ovid tells the story well and simply:

‘Here Jove with Hermes came; but in disguise

Of mortal men concealed their deities:

One laid aside his thunder, one his rod:

And many toilsome steps together trod;

For harbour at a thousand doors they knocked,

Not one of all the thousand but was locked;

At last a hospitable house they found

An homely shed; the roof not far from ground,

Was thatched with reeds and straw together bound.

There Baucis and Philemon lived.

From lofty roofs the gods repulsed before,

Now stooping, entered through the little door,

The man (their hearty welcome first express'd)

A common settle drew for either guest.'

The churlish neighbours were subsequently punished by a terrible flood which overwhelmed the surrounding country, while the hospitable kindly couple were amazed to see the strange change which befell their humble cottage:

‘Their little shed, scarce large enough for two,

Seems from the ground increased, in height and bulk to grow.

A stately temple shoots within the skies:

The crotchets of their cot in columns rise:

The pavement polished marble they behold,

The gates with sculpture graced, the spires and tiles of gold.'

Metamorphosis, Book viii., Dryden's Translation.

In this temple the favoured pair were appointed to minister before the altars of their Divine guest. Before the gates of Lystra stood a temple of Zeus (Jupiter), and perhaps, as Ewald suggests, the legend of the appearance of the gods, somewhat as above related, was recited year by year at the great festival in this temple; and thus the credolous people readily supposed the gods they worshipped, and who they fancied loved their land with a peculiar love, had visited once more the scenes of their former wandering.