On reaching Caesareia, he went up and saluted the Church. Dr. Blass considers that he went up from the harbour to the city of Caesareia and saluted the Church there, and then " went down " to Antioch. That inter- pretation is impossible for several reasons. (1) It is impossible to use the term " went down " of a journey from the coast-town Caesareia to the inland city Antioch. On the contrary, one regularly " goes down " to a coast-town (XIII 4, XIV 25, XVI 8, etc.). (2) The terms " going up " and " going down " are used so frequently of the journey to and from Jerusalem as to establish this usage. Usually the phrase is given in full, " they went up to Jerusalem " ; but Dr. Blass accepts as Lukan a reading in XV 6, in which " to go
Sec. i. The Syrian Voyage. 265
up to the Elders " is used in the sense of " to go up to Jerusalem to the Elders ". If he admits that sense in XV 6, why not also in XVIII 22? Conversely, the phrase "to go down" is used XXIV 22, where the reader has to understand " from Jerusalem to Caesareia ". Now, the aim of Paul's journey to Jerusalem, having been put in the reader's mind by the words of v. 21, is readily and naturally supplied in v. 22.
The shipload of pilgrims to Jerusalem, with Paul among them, landed at Caesareia, and went up to Jerusalem to the Passover in regular course. Paul ex- changed greetings with the Church (this phrase implies that he made only a brief stay), and went down to Antioch. There he received serious news about the Galatian Churches (p. 190) ; and with all convenient speed he went by the land route through Cilicia, to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch. With the shortest stay that can be supposed, when he was seeing old and loved friends after years of absence, Paul can hardly have reached Derbe before July 53. We cannot allow less than two months for confirming the wavering Churches of Galatia, especially as on this visit (I Cor. XVI 1) he probably planned the collection for the poor in Jerusalem, which was made universal throughout his new Churches during the following three years. Thus he would have completed his work in Galatia by the beginning of September. Then he went on to Ephesus, taking the higher-lying and more direct route, not the regular trade route on the lower level down the Lycus and Mseander valleys. As he made a missionary progress through the upper lands, he can hardly have reached Ephesus before the end of Sep-
266 The Church in Asia. Chap. XI I.
tember, A.D. 53, and October is a more probable time. Such a journey must have occupied much time, even if we cut it down to the shortest possible limits. The distances are very great, and progression was very slow; and even on a rapid journey many interruptions must be allowed for (as any one who travels in these countries knows only too well).
In interpreting v. 22, we had to understand that the thought of Jerusalem as Paul's aim had been suggested to the reader's mind by v. 21. That is the case when the longer form of v. 21 is accepted ; but with, the shorter text it becomes too harsh and difficult to supply the un- expressed thought in v. 22. We conclude that the longer form is the original text, and the shorter form is a corruption. But how did the corruption originate ? A curious error appears in Asterius (c. 400, A.D.), and in Euthalius (probably c. 468), and therefore was probably part of the early tradition, according to which Pisidian Antioch, not Syrian Antioch, was alluded to in v. 22. By that misconception the whole journey is obscured, and especially a visit to Jerusalem in v. 22 becomes impossible. Two ways of curing the difficulty were tried. The Bezan Text retained the allusion to Jerusalem and the feast in v. 22, and explained the supposed failure to pay the visit by interpolating in XIX 1 the statement, "now when Paul wished according to his own plan to go to Jerusalem, the Spirit bade him turn away into Asia ". On the other hand, in the text of the great MSS., the reference to the intended visit to Jerusalem is cut out of o. 21. Each of these seems a deliberate and conscious effort made by some editor to eliminate a difficulty from the passage as it stood originally