and Galatia, both vague and indeterminate districts, which he had visited once,' and through which, as before, we cannot venture to lay down a route.' Though the visitation of the Churches was systematic, we need not conclude that the same exact course was followed. Since the order in which the two districts are mentioned is different from that in the former instance, we are at liberty to suppose that he travelled first from Lycaonia through Cappadocia into Galatia, and then by Western Phrygia to the coast of the Egean. In this last part of his progress we are in still greater doubt as to the route, and one question of interest is involved in our opinion concerning it. The great road from Ephesus by Iconium to the Euphrates passed along the valley of the Mæander, and near the cities of Laodicea, Colossæ and Hierapolis; and we should naturally suppose that the Apostle would approach the capital of Asia along this well-travelled line." But the arguments are so strong for believing that St. Paul was never personally at Colossæ, that it is safer to imagine him following some road farther to the north, such as that, for instance, which, after passing near Thyatira, entered the valley of the Hermus at Sardis."

10

8

Thus, then, we may conceive the Apostle arrived at that region, where he was formerly in hesitation concerning his future progress, - the frontier district of Asia and Phrygia, the mountains which contain the upper waters of the Hermus and Mæander. And now our attention is suddenly called away to another preacher of the Gospel, whose name, next to that of the Apostles, is perhaps the most important in the early history of the Church. There came at this time to Ephesus, either directly from Egypt by sea, as Aquila or Priscilla from Corinth, or by

of Hamilton's travels. See especially ch. viii. -x., xxviii.-xl.; also li., lii., and especially vol. i. pp. 135, 149. We may observe that, on one of his journeys, nearly in the direction in which St. Paul was moving, he crossed the mountains from near Afium Kara Hissar (Synnada) to visit Yalobatch (Antioch in Pisidia). The Apostle might easily do the same. 8 Acts xvi. 6-8.

See description of this district on p. 239. 10 This part of the table-land of the interior is what is meant by "the higher districts," Acts xix. 1. It is needless to say that the word "coasts" in the Authorized Version has no reference to the sea. Herodotus uses a similar expression of this region, i. 177. Even Paley makes a curious mistake here, y taking "upper" in the sense of "northern." Hor. Paul. 1 Cor. No. 5.

some route through the intermediate countries, like that of St. Paul himself, a "disciple" named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. This visit occurred at a critical time, and led to grave consequences in reference to the establishment of Christian truth, and the growth of parties in the Church; while the religious community (if so it may be called) to which he belonged at the time of his arrival, furnishes us with one of the most interesting links between the Gospels and the Acts.'

5

Apollos, along with twelve others, who are soon afterwards mentioned at Ephesus, was acquainted with Christianity only so far as it had been made known by John the Baptist. They "knew only the baptism of John." From the great part which was acted by the forerunner of Christ in the first announcement of the Gospel, and from the effect produced on the Jewish nation by his appearance, and the number of disciples who came to receive at his hands the baptism of repentance, we should expect some traces of his influence to appear in the subsequent period, during which the Gospel was spreading beyond Judæa. Many Jews from other countries received from the Baptist their knowledge of the Messiah, and carried with them this knowledge on their return from Palestine. We read of an heretical sect, at a much later period, who held John the Baptist to have been himself the Messiah. But in a position intermediate between this deluded party, and those who were travelling as teachers of the full and perfect Gospel, there were doubtless many, among the floating Jewish population of the Empire, whose knowledge of Christ extended only to that which had been preached on the banks of the Jordan. That such persons should be found at Ephesus, the natural meeting-place of all religious sects and opinions, is what we might have supposed à priori. Their own connection with Judæa, or the connection of their teachers with Judæa, had been broken before the day of Pentecost. Thus their Christianity was at the same point at which it had stood at the commencement of our Lord's ministry. They were ignorant of the full meaning of the death of Christ; possibly they did not even know the fact of His resurrection; and they were certainly ignorant of the mission of the Comforter. But they knew that the times of the Messiah were come, and that one had appeared in whom the prophecies were

1 See the excellent remarks of Olshausen on the whole narrative concerning Apollos and the other disciples of John the Baptist.

2 Winer remarks that this abbreviated form of the name Apollonius is found in Sozomen. It is, however, very rare; and it is worth observing that among the terra-cottas discovered at Tarsus (described p. 221, n. 4) is a circular disk which has the name ΑΠΟΛΛΩΣ inscribed on it in cursive Greek.

See Acts xix. 1-7.

• Acts xviii. 25. Compare xix. 3.

5 The Zabeans. So in the Clementine Recognitions are mentioned some "of John's disciples, who preached their master as though he were Christ."

6 Acts xix. 2.

7 Kuinoel thinks they were not even aware of Christ's appearance.

fulfilled. That voice had reached them, which cried, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" (Is. xl. 3). They felt that the axe was laid to the root of the tree, that "the kingdom of Heaven was at hand," that "the knowledge of salvation was come to those that sit in darkness" (Luke i. 77), and that the children of Israel were everywhere called to "repent." Such as were in this religious condition were evidently prepared for the full reception of Christianity, so soon as it was presented to them; and we see that they were welcomed by St. Paul and the Christians at Ephesus as fellow-disciples of the same Lord and Master.

In some respects Apollos was distinguished from the other disciples of John the Baptist, who are alluded to at the same place, and nearly at the same time. There is much significance in the first fact that is stated, that he was "born at Alexandria." Something has been said by us already concerning the Jews of Alexandria, and their theological influence in the age of the Apostles. In the establishment of a religion which was intended to be the complete fulfilment of Judaism, and to be universally supreme in the Gentile world, we should expect Alexandria to bear her part, as well as Jerusalem. The Hellenistic learning fostered by the foundations of the Ptolemies might be made the handmaid of the truth, no less than the older learning of Judæa and the schools of the Hebrews. As regards Apollos, he was not only an Alexandrian Jew by birth, but he had a high reputation for an eloquent and forcible power of speaking, and had probably been well trained in the rhetorical schools on the banks of the Nile. But though he was endued with the eloquence of a Greek orator, the subject of his study and teaching was the Scriptures of his forefathers. The character which he bore in the Synagogues was that of a man "mighty in the Scriptures." In addition to these advantages of birth and education, he seems to have had the most complete and systematic instruction in the Gospel which a disciple of John could possibly receive. Whether from the Baptist himself, or from some of those who travelled into other lands with his teaching as their possession, Apollos had received full and accurate instruction in the "way of the Lord." We are further told that his character was marked by a fervent zeal for spreading the truth. Thus we may conceive of him as travelling, like a second Baptist, beyond the frontiers of Judæa, expounding the prophecies of the Old Testament, announcing that the times of the Messiah were come, and calling the Jews to repentance in the spirit of

"learned," inasmuch as in the same verse he is called "mighty in the Scriptures."

Literally, "he was catechetically in

structed in the way of the Lord"

Acts xviii. 25.