Acts 14:11

And when the people saw what Paul had done,.... In curing the lame man in so marvellous a manner, and concluding it to be a divine work, and what a mere creature could never perform: they lift up

And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. No JFB commentary on this verse.

In the speech of Lycaonia; which was a dialect of the Greek tongue, that language being in the Lesser Asia ordinarily spoken. The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men; the heathens (especially their poets) did frequently believe such kind of apparitions; probably at first from the appearing of angels unto the patriarchs and others, which by tradition they might have heard of.

11 And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. Ver. 11. The gods are come down] See the force of an evil custom, and of a vain conversation, received by tradition from the fathers, 1 Peter 1:18 : these Lycaonians had heard out of the fables of their poets that Jupiter and Mercury came down of old to visit Lycaon their progenitor, and that for the discourtesy he offered them, they transformed him into a wolf. Hereupon they used to offer sacrifice to those dunghill deities, and now they suppose they have them in human shape among them.

(11) Saying in the speech of Lycaonia.—The fact is clearly recorded with a definite purpose, and no explanation seems so natural as that which assumes it to be given as accounting for the passive attitude of the Apostles till what was then said had borne its fruit in acts. It will be admitted by all who are not under the influence of a theory that this serves almost as a crucial instance, showing that the “gift of tongues,” which St. Paul possessed so largely (1 Corinthians 14:18), did not consist in a supernatural knowledge of every provincial patois with which he came in contact. (See Note on Acts 2:4.) It is clear that he might easily have learnt afterwards, from those who knew both languages, the meaning of what at the time was unintelligible. To suppose, as some have done, that the Apostles, understanding what was said, acquiesced in the preparations for sacrifice in order that they might afterwards make their protest as with a greater dramatic effect, is at variance with the natural impression made by the narrative, and, it need scarcely be said, with any worthy conception of St. Paul’s character. The diglottic character of the people, here and in other Asiatic provinces of the empire, would make it perfectly natural that they should speak to one another in their own dialect, while Greek served for their intercourse with strangers. The “speech of Lycaonia” is said to have had affinities with Assyrian. The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.—Literally, the gods, made like unto men, are come down to us. The belief which the words expressed was characteristic of the rude simplicity of the Lycaonians. No such cry would have been possible in the great cities where the confluence of a debased polytheism and philosophical speculation had ended in utter scepticism. And the form which the belief took was in accordance with the old legends of the district. There, according to the Myth which Ovid had recently revived and adorned (Metam. viii. 625-724), Zeus and Hermes (Jupiter and Mercury) had come in human guise, and been received by Baucis and Philemon (St. Paul’s Epistle to Philemon shows that the name lingered in that region), and left tokens of their favour. We find from the poem just referred to that the place where they had dwelt was looked on as a shrine to which devout worshippers made their pilgrimages, and where they left their votive offerings.

Verse 11. Saying, in the speech of Lycaonia] What this language was has puzzled the learned not a little. Calmet thinks it was a corrupt Greek dialect; as Greek was the general language of Asia Minor. Mr. Paul Ernest Jablonski, who has written a dissertation expressly on the subject, thinks it was the same language with that of the Cappadocians, which was mingled with Syriac. That it was no dialect of the Greek must be evident from the circumstance of its being here distinguished from it. We have sufficient proofs from ancient authors that most of these provinces used different languages; and it is correctly remarked, by Dr. Lightfoot, that the Carians, who dwelt much nearer Greece than the Lycaonians, are called by Homer, βαρβαροφωνοι, people of a barbarous or strange language; and Pausanias also called them Barbari. That the language of Pisidia was distinct from the Greek we have already seen, Clarke's note on "Acts 13:15". We have no light to determine this point; and every search after the language of Lycaonia must be, at this distance of time, fruitless. The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.] From this, and from all heathen antiquity, it is evident: 1. That the heathen did not consider the Divine nature, how low soever they rated it, to be like the human nature. 2. That they imagined that these celestial beings often assumed human forms to visit men, in order to punish the evil and reward the good. The Metamorphoses of Ovid are full of such visitations; and so are Homer, Virgil, and other poets. The angels visiting Abraham, Jacob, Lot, c., might have been the foundation on which most of these heathen fictions were built. The following passage in HOMER will cast some light upon the point:- ΚαιτεΘεοι, ξεινοισινεοικοτεςαλλοδαποισι, Παντοιοιτελεθοντες, επιστρωφωσιποληας, Ανθρωπωνὑβριντεκαιευνομιηνεφορωντες. Hom. Odyss. xvii. ver. 485. For in similitude of strangers oft, The gods, who can with ease all shapes assume, Repair to populous cities, where they mark The outrageous and the righteous deeds of men. COWPER. OVID had a similar notion, where he represents Jupiter coming down to visit the earth, which seems to be copied from Genesis, Genesis 18:20-21: And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me: and if not, I will know. Contigerat nostras infamia temporis aures: Quam cupiens falsam, summo delabor Olympo. Et deus humana lustro sub imagine terras. Longa mora est, quantum noxae sit ubique repertum, Enamerare: minor fuit ipsa infamia vero. Metam. lib. i. ver. 211. The clamours of this vile, degenerate age, The cries of orphans, and the oppressor's rage, Had reached the stars: "I will descend," said I, In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie. Disguised in human shape, I travelled round The world, and more than what I heard, I found. DRYDEN.

11. in the speech of Lycaonia] Which would come more naturally to their lips than any other. The people were bilingual, and St Paul had been speaking to them in Greek. This fact may give us some additional light on the question of what the gift of tongues was, which was bestowed upon the Apostles. Clearly, from what we see here, it was not such a power as enabled them at once to understand and converse in the various dialects of all the people into whose countries they might be brought in their missionary labours. For it is manifest that neither Paul nor Barnabas understood the cry of these Lycaonians. If they had, we cannot suppose that they would have allowed a moment to elapse before they corrected the false impression which the words conveyed, and at which, when they came to know its purport, they expressed such horror. They, however, left the place where the multitude of listeners had been assembled, and departed to their own lodgings without any knowledge of what the mistaken people were about to do.The gods are come down to us] Nothing was more familiar to the heathen mind than the thought of the gods assuming human shape and going about among mankind, and it has often been noticed that the scene of the legend of Baucis and Philemon related by Ovid (Metam. viii. 611 seqq.), and in which Jupiter and Mercury are said to have wandered on earth and to have been received as guests by Baucis and Philemon, is laid in Phrygia, which province was close to Lycaonia.

They lifted up their voices - They spoke with astonishment, such as might be expected when it was supposed that the gods had come down. In the speech of Lycaonia - What this language was has much perplexed commentators.

11. Speech of Lycaonia—What this dialect precisely was there is no record to inform us.