fested itself in their proceedings. Paul and his Company (as they are designated in Acts xiii. 13), crossing to the mainland, struck at once across Pamphylia and the Pisidian highlands into the interior. The desertion of John Mark at this critical moment is significant. He was warmly attached to his cousin Barnabas, and had under- taken the office of minister to the Apostles; yet so reluctant was he to embark with them on their new enterprise that he did not hesitate to incur a well-grounded charge of disloyalty by withdrawing from the mission immediately on touching the coast of Pamphylia, and leaving them to pursue their way without him to the Pisidian Antioch. This faint-hearted desertion serves by way of contrast to bring out in stronger relief the resolution with which the Apostles pressed forward from the coast. But on their arrival in Galatia their journey was arrested and came to an apparently premature termination. For many months they settled down permanently— first in Antioch, then in Iconium—with an absolute determination not to depart until they were either expelled by authority or driven to flight by imminent peril of life. Even then they did but take refuge in neighbouring cities for a while until the storm had passed, and eventually revisited the scenes of their former ministry, and so retraced their steps to the coast from which they had started, after firmly planting the faith of Christ in the region of Southern Galatia. The narrative does not explain this sudden arrest of the onward movement which had carried them with such determined energy into the interior, it simply records the fact that they stopped short in Antioch, without any intimation that a change had occurred in the apostolic policy. The reader might well gather from it the impres- sion that Galatia had been all along their destined sphere of labour. This, however, could hardly be: it can scarcely be conceived that they contemplated the cities of Galatia as their final objective when they started with such resolute purpose from Paphos; for those cities had neither ancient fame nor present importance to attract special attention. Nor, again, would Mark have found that brief expedition into the interior so alarming as to desert his post if he had known how short a distance they were about to travel. What then, were the subsequent circumstances that prompted Paul and Barnabas to abandon their more ambitious designs and take up their residence at Antioch? The history and character of Paul quite
their mutual relations to each other: they recognised the superior dignity of Bar- nabas by identifying him with Jupiter, but called Paul Mercury because he was the chief speaker,