as the Prophet had foretold; and is therefore called, and, CHAP. II. faith Strabo, continued defert. For the city built by Conftantine, and called by the name of Gaza, is nearer to the sea than the old one was, as St. Jerom informs us. Near the place of Old Gaza, or Gaza the Desert, it was, that Philip baptized the Eunuch. 7. This Eunuch was, we are informed, a man of Ethiopia, of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethio-Of Ethiopia. pians where by Ethiopia is to be understood, not the Afiatic Ethiopia, or part of Arabia fo ftyled in the Old Teftament, but the African Ethiopia, lying below Egypt, in the fouth part of Afric, where Candace had been long the name of the Queens, as we learn from Pliny, Strabo, and Dio. As foon as Philip and the Eunuch came out of the water, we read that the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the Eunuch faw him no more; but that Philip was found at Azotus, the fame which is called in the Old Teftament Afhdod, memorable therein for the temple of Dagon. It lies near the shore between Gaza and Joppa. In the times that Chriftianity flourished in these parts it was made an epifcopal fee, and continued a fair village till the days of St. Jerom. The Evangelist Philip being brought to Azotus, we are informed that from thence he preached in all the cities lying in that tract, till he came to Cæfarea; where we left St. Paul, whom now we shall follow in his voyage to Tarfus. For we read " that the brethren brought him down to Cæfarea, and thence fent him forth to Tarfus. 8. Of Azotus 9. goes from Tarfus is the fame which in Hebrew is called Tarshish, from whence the Heathens derived the common name St. Paul Tarfus. It took the original name from * Tarshish, one Cæfarea to of the fons of Javan, who fettled in these parts, afterwards Tarfus, his called Cilicia, being the fouth-east country of Afia Minor, place, in and lying on the northern coast, at the east end of the r Acts viii. 26. 38. s Acts viii. 39, 40. 1 Sam. v. 1, 2. " Acts ix. 30. x Gen. x. 4. Jofeph. Antiq. of the Jews, book i. chap. 7. native Cilicia. PART II. the Mediterranean Sea. By nature and art it was fortified even to admiration; it was adorned in former times with many sumptuous palaces and magnificent temples, answerable to the reputation of so great a city. But being taken by the Saracens, and afterwards by the Turks, it began to grow into decay, and is now in fo defolate and ruinous a condition, that the Patriarch has long fince removed his dwelling to Damafcus. We read that St. Paul and Barnabas ftaid preaching in Antioch a whole year. And about this time there happened a terrible famine, foretold by Agabus, which afflicted several parts of the Roman empire, but especially Judea. The confideration hereof made the Chriftians at Antioch commiferate the cafe of their suffering brethren, and to raise confiderable contributions for the relief and fuccour of them that dwelt in Judea, which they sent by St. Paul and Barnabas to Jerufalem. e Acts xi. 26. 30. CHAP. CHAP. III. Of St. Paul's Travels and Voyages to Cyprus, Pamphylia, Pifidia, Lycaonia, &c. till his third Return to Jerufalem after his Converfion. a 1. turns to An to Seleucia ST. PAUL and St. Barnabas having dispatched the errand they were fent about, leave Jerufalem and return to St. Paul reAntioch: where, while they were joining in the public exercises of religion, the Holy Ghoft, by special direction, goes thence ordered, that these two should be fet apart to preach the in Syria. Gospel in other places. Which being accordingly done, A. D. 42. by prayer, fafting, and impofition of hands, they departed to Seleucia. This city lay to the weft, or rather a little north-west, of Antioch, upon the Mediterranean Sea, and was fo named from the founder of it, Seleucus, before mentioned under Antioch, and reputed to be the greatest builder in the world: for he is faid to have founded nine cities called by his own name, fixteen in memory of his father Antiochus, fix by the name of Laodice his mother, and three in honour of Apamia his first wife; befides many others of great note in Greece and Afia, either new built, or beautified and repaired by him. From this Seleucia, the adjacent part of Syria had formerly the name of Seleucia. St. Paul From Seleucia St. Paul fet fail with St. Barnabas for 2. Cyprus, an island of the Mediterranean Sea, lying over-fails from against Seleucia to the weft. It is reputed to be diftant Seleucia over to Cyfrom the main land of Syria about an hundred miles, prus. and about fixty miles from Cilicia; to be extended in A. D. 42. length from eaft to weft about two hundred miles, in breadth fixty; and therefore to be one of the largest ifles in the Mediterranean. The first inhabitants of it a Acts xii. 25. Acts xiii. 1. 3. c Acts xiii. 4. d Ibid. were PART II. were in probability the pofterity of Kittim, the brother of Tarfhish and fon of Javan, the city called Citium by the Romans preferving the name of the first planter for many ages after. And hence it is that we find Tarfhifh and Chittim mentioned together by the prophet Isaiah, chap. xxiii. and both reprefented as places well known to the Tyrians, the former being Tarfus in Cilicia, the latter Citium in this island, or the island itfelf. The name Cyprus, whereby it is called by the. Greeks, is faid to be taken from the cypress tree, which grows in great abundance here. Though fome tell us, that the Greek word does not truly denote the tree called by us the cypress, but that which we call the privet, being a fhrub, which bears a white flower with a very pleasant finell. 3. St. Paul lands at Salamis. But from whatever tree this ifle took itself the name of Cyprus, it is certain that it gave the name of Cypris or Cypria to Venus, who was the chief goddess of it in the time of Heathenism, the inhabitants being mightily addicted to venery. Since the times of Christianity, it has been famous for being the native country of St. Barnabas, who accompanied St. Paul over hither, and with him here firft planted the Gospel. The first place in Cyprus, to which the Apostles St. Paul and St. Barnabas are related to have come, is Salamis, then one of the four most confiderable cities in the isle, giving name to the whole eastern tract thereof, wherein it lay, and fo oppofite to the Syrian coast, and particularly to Seleucia, whence the Apostles fet fail from the main land to the inland. So that it came naturally first in their way. And being thus the first place in the ifle, where the Gospel was preached, hence it was afterwards made the fee of the Primate or Metropolitan of the whole ifle in the primitive times. It was destroyed by the Jews in the reign of Trajan, and rebuilt; but being after that taken, facked, and razed unto the Jof. Jewish Antiq. book i. chap. 7. f Acts xiii. 5. ground ground by the Saracens in the time of Herodius, it could CHAP. III. never recover, the metropolitan fee being after that reinoved to Nicofia. Out of the ruins of Salamis is faid to have arifen Famagufta, the chief place of the isle, when it was taken from the Venetians by the Turks in the year 1570, in whose hands the whole isle still continues. 4. St. Paul ifle unto St. Paul, with his companion St. Barnabas, having) preached the Gospel at Salamis, went quite s through goes the isle unto Paphos, the chief town of the western tract through the of the isle, (as Salamis was of the eastern,) and accordingly Paphos giving name to the faid tract. In this city Venus had her moft ancient and celebrated temple, whence the took the name of Paphia. It was alfo under the Romans the feat of the Proconful, who was at the time of St. Paul and Barnabas coming hither, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for the Apofiles, and defired to hear the word of God, and upon St. Paul's fimiting Elymas the forcerer blind for withstanding the Gospel, was converted to the faith. 5. fails from Now when Paul and his company loofed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia. This Pamphylia is St. Paul a province or country of Afia the Leffer, lying to the Cyprus to north, over-against the western part of Cyprus; the part Pamphylia. of the Mediterranean Sea running between these being peculiarly ftyled from this country the Sea of Pamphylia. And as it is thus bounded to the fouth with that part of the Mediterranean Sea which is denominated from it; fo on the land to the east it joins on to Cilicia, the native country of St. Paul. From the etymology of the name, fome think it to have been fo called, because inhabited by a mixture of many nations; for fo the word Pamphylia does exprefsly fignify in the Greek tongue. And probable enough it is, that lying near unto the fea, with an open fhore, partly oppofite to Acts xiii. 6. h Acts xiii. 7. 12. i Acts xiii. 13. |