Acts 14:11

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, 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, etc., 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: -

Και τε Θεοι, ξεινοισιν εοικοτες αλλοδαποισι,

Παντοιοι τελεθοντες, επιϚρωφωσι ποληας,

Ανθρωπων ὑβριν τε και ευνομιην εφορωντες.

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.

continued...

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. It was probably a mixture of the Greek and Syriac. In that region generally the Greek was usually spoken with more or less purity; and from the fact that it was not far from the regions of Syria, it is probable that the Greek language was corrupted with this foreign admixture.

The gods ... - All the region was idolatrous. The gods which were worshipped there were those which were worshipped throughout Greece.

Are come down - The miracle which Paul had performed led them to suppose this. It was evidently beyond human ability, and they had no other way of accounting for it than by supposing that their gods had personally appeared.

In the likeness of men - Many of their gods were heroes, whom they worshipped after they were dead. It was a common belief among them that the gods appeared to people in human form. The poems of Homer, of Virgil, etc., are filled with accounts of such appearances, and the only way in which they supposed the gods to take knowledge of human affairs, and to help people, was by their personally appearing in this form. See Homer's Odyssey, xvii. 485; Catullus, 64, 384; Ovid's Metamorph., i. 212 (Kuinoel). Thus, Homer says:

"For in similitude of strangers oft.

The gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,

Repair to populous cities, where they mark.

Th' outrageous and the righteous deeds of men."

Cowper.

14:11 The gods are come down - Which the heathens supposed they frequently did; Jupiter especially. But how amazingly does the prince of darkness blind the minds of them that believe not!The Jews would not own Christ's Godhead, though they saw him work numberless miracles. On the other hand, the heathens seeing mere men work one miracle, were for deifying them immediately.