Barnabas and Paul’s First Mission

Acts of the Apostles 13 & 14

Works of art by Ambrosius Francken I, Willem de Poorter and Unknown English after Raphael

God, not Gods

At Lystra, Paul has healed a man crippled from birth, and the residents have hailed him and Barnabas as gods. Willem de Poorter (1608–68) depicts what ensues; we can see the two bearded apostles just to the right of the altar.

There may be a literary reference here to a story (recorded, for instance, by Ovid in Metamorphoses 8.611–724) in which the same pair of gods for whom Paul and Barnabas are mistaken—Mercury and Zeus—visit nearby Phrygia, where they are treated with hospitality by only a single elderly couple, Philemon and Baucis (offering a pagan story with a moral parallel to Hebrews 13:2).

This incident at Lystra became a remarkably popular theme in seventeenth-century Northern European painting. Often, as here, one apostle objects to the attribution of deity with a hand gesture, and the other by rending his clothes. Luke’s account refers to the priest of Zeus bringing ‘oxen and garlands’ (v.13). Those garlands were probably meant for dressing the beasts before sacrifice, but here de Poorter has painted them upon the brow of the priest and his assistants.

Although the identification of Paul with Mercury rested in part on Paul’s easy way with words, the people’s acclamation of Barnabas as Zeus may also offer a flicker of visual information about the two apostles’ appearance relative to each other: perhaps that Barnabas was older, or of more imposing stature than Paul.

Later, the apostles contrast ‘these worthless things’ with ‘the living God’ (Acts 14:15) in a way that may pick up Old Testament polemic against idols (1 Samuel 12:21; Jeremiah 51:18). Thus, they offer a theological critique of the way that artistic image-making may lend itself to the worship of false gods.

The rest of the speech deserves recognition, alongside the better known address at the Areopagus in Acts 17, for directing its hearers to God by pointing to nature and its bounty: alerting them that God has given them ‘rains from heaven and fruitful seasons … filling you with food and your hearts with joy’ (v.17). As Jaroslav Pelikan has pointed out, such recognition and celebration lies behind the development of a great deal of Western art, not least of forms not always seen as religious in inspiration, such as landscape and still life (2006: 165–67).

References

Pelikan, Jaroslav. 2006. Acts (London: SCM Press)

New Apostles

Commentary by Andrew Davison

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The Call of the Holy Spirit in Acts 13 is an unusual subject for this painting by Ambrosius Francken I (1544–1618). It is the left-hand part of an altarpiece with three portions (a triptych) all of which have related themes. The larger central panel shows the Last Supper, with the Supper at Emmaus in the right-hand panel.

How are we to make sense of the artist placing the events of Acts 13 alongside these other episodes? The chapter opens with a gathering, with those present ‘worshipping the Lord and fasting’ (v.2). Francken has interpreted this as a Eucharist—a priest to the right of centre stands at an altar wearing a chasuble (the Western Eucharistic vestment). The link is established; this eucharistic gathering is in continuity with the last meal before Christ’s arrest and crucifixion (which every Eucharist recalls), and with the first meal of his risen life.

The appearance of the Holy Spirit is not shown using the motifs of a dove or flame, as are common in depictions of the Baptism of Christ and Pentecost, but rather with the Divine Name from Exodus (3:14–15) written in Hebrew: the Tetragrammaton, or ‘Name of Four Letters’. This is a strong affirmation of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit, ‘of one being’ with the Father and the Son.

Rays of light rest on Paul and Barnabas in the foreground of the painting, representing both their call and empowerment for the coming mission. The text of Acts 13:2 is written at the bottom right, taken from the Latin Vulgate.

Paul has been placed nearest to the viewer, probably because he features more prominently in later Christian tradition, although the text of Acts 13–14 starts with Barnabas in the leading role. Barnabas is the figure in red, holding a book that is likely to be the Gospel of Matthew, with which he is said by legend to have performed miracles, and to have been buried (Kollmann & Deuse 2007).

This painting shows the choosing of Paul and Barnabas as a form of consecration, mirroring the priest’s gesture of blessing and invocation over the material elements on the altar. As bread and wine are transformed into Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist, so Barnabas and Paul are here transformed into his ‘light’ and the bearers of his ‘salvation’ (Acts 13:47).

References

Kollmann, Bernd and W. Deuse (eds). 2007. Alexander Monachus: Laudatio Barnabae / Lobrede auf Barnabas (Turnhout: Brepols)

Paul’s First Miracle

Commentary by Andrew Davison

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In 1515, Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael (1483–1520) to design ten tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, with scenes from the book of Acts. Four relate to Peter and six to Paul. Further sets were later woven from these designs, including ones for Francis I of France, and the English king, Henry VIII.

Between 1626 and 1642, King Charles I of England also had his own set woven at Mortlake following Raphael’s original paper templates (‘cartoons’), seven of which he had succeeded in purchasing in 1623. Raphael’s designs for the borders of the original papal tapestries are not part of the cartoons, so elaborate new borders were devised for Charles by Francis Clein (1582–1658), along with a replacement design for the vertical strip at the right of the tapestry, which is missing from the cartoon. The effects of folding, and bleaching by the sun, have made parts of the tapestry initially difficult to make out, but the power of the composition is undeniable. Clein’s right-hand strip adds extra piquancy as (beneath the statue of a female figure—possibly the pagan goddess Aphrodite) a low-relief scene prefigures Paul’s future martyrdom.

This scene features in the cycle of tapestries both because it shows Paul’s first recorded miracle, and because of the significance of the conversion of a senior Roman political official. It takes place in Paphos, the capital of Barnabas’s home of Cyprus, and centre of the cult of Aphrodite.

The proconsul, Sergius Paulus, is seated in the centre. ‘An intelligent man’ (Acts 13:7), he has summoned the apostles to hear their message. A Jewish magician, Elymas or Bar-Jesus, has opposed them. ‘Filled with the Holy Spirit’, Paul has denounced Elymas and told him that he will be blinded for a period. Paul is shown prominently at the front of the design, with his hand extended towards Elymas. Elymas, in turn, is seen ‘groping for someone to lead him by the hand’ (v.11). Barnabas is not clearly indicated. He may be immediately to the right of Paul, partly obscured by a column.

Paul, who earlier in the sequence of Raphael’s designs had himself been struck blind, is now the clear-sighted counterpoint to the sorcerer who tried to blind others to the truth of the apostle’s preaching.

A king like Charles might have related to the proconsul at the centre of the composition: a man of authority, charged with the responsibilities of high office, who is able to discern and embrace the true faith. Yet he, like Paul, will one day face martyrdom.

Willem de Poorter :

St Paul and St Barnabas at Lystra, 1636 , Oil on panel

Ambrosius Francken I :

Paul and Barnabas of Cyprus Chosen as Apostles by the Holy Spirit, 17th century , Oil on panel

Unknown English after Raphael :

The Blinding of Elymas the Sorcerer, c.1626–36 , Woven silk and wool tapestry with gilt-metal and silver-wrapped thread

Of Sermons, Saints, and the Spirit

Comparative commentary by Andrew Davison

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Artists have responded to those episodes in the Acts of the Apostles that have obvious drama (while tending to focus more on the first half of the book than on the further missionary journeys of Paul in the second). The portions of Acts that recount preaching, however, seem on the face of it to be less amenable to depiction in art. It is difficult to make the depiction of a sermon visually gripping—although there are some notable paintings of apostles in full homiletic flow: of Peter by Masolino and Filippino Lippi at Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, for instance, and of Paul at Athens by Raphael in the same Acts of the Apostles series as the Blinding of Elymas.

If we examine the content of the preaching recorded in Acts, however, we find that much of it is easily visualized. The apostles did not mainly preach about ideas, but about events—about happenings and history—and that we can show in art. A good example is a passage from Acts 13–14 not otherwise covered in this exhibition: Paul’s sermon in the synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia (13:16–43). The events and characters he invokes there all find their place in visual culture: the Exodus, and David the Son of Jesse, for instance, as well as the figure of John the Baptist. And pride of place in Paul’s sermon (as in all the preaching in Acts) goes to the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, which is a yet more central theme in Christian art.

One of the chief features of Acts 13–14 is the prominence of Barnabas. However, he is not so significant a figure in the history of art as he is in this crucial early period of the Church’s development. In the two chapters treated here, Barnabas begins as the main protagonist, listed ahead of Paul in Acts 13:1, 2, 7. Over the course of these two chapters, the balance in the story shifts towards Paul (as does the order of names, for the most part) but, even then, Barnabas is given credit for Paul’s growing stature. It was Barnabas who had vouched for Paul to apprehensive Christians, whose knowledge of Paul (or Saul) was as their persecutor (Acts 9:26–27), and it was Barnabas who had sought Paul out and brought him to Antioch (Acts 11:25–26).

In a recent survey of biblical scholarship on Barnabas, Bernd Kollmann has made the entirely plausible case that, ‘at the time of the Apostolic Council [in Acts 15], Barnabas unquestionably belonged among the five most important figures in early Christianity, who determined the fate of the Church’ (Kollmann 2004: 41). Here Kollmann is simply repeating Galatians 2:9, in which Paul himself, James (called the brother of the Lord), Peter (called Cephas), John (probably John the Son of Zebedee), and Barnabas are all singled out for special mention. Of these, Peter and Paul were to feature centrally in Christian art, as was John; this particular James, however, and Barnabas, have received far less attention.

When it comes to which figures artists have most often been commissioned to depict, much seems to turn on contingencies: the way Christian history has been told, where someone was buried (Peter in Rome, at the centre of the Western Church, or Barnabas in Cyprus, a less prominent location), even whether someone picked up a useful reputation as a heavenly patron. Invocation against the plague catapulted St Sebastian and St Roch to artistic prominence; patronage of hat-making did less for St James, or protection against hailstorms for St Barnabas. So, like the tapestry of the Blinding of Elymas, where Barnabas is partially concealed by a column and Paul commands the scene, we see Barnabas ‘decrease’ as Paul ‘increases’ (cf. John the Baptist’s relation to Jesus in John 3:30).

Such processes are not irreversible, however. Barnabas would have a new moment of artistic and architectural recognition in England with the missions and church building of the Victorians. Dedication of churches to this Apostle—as Son of Encouragement (Acts 4:36)—was popular for Oxford Movement (or Anglo-Catholic) work in slums and other areas of deprivation. This overlooked apostle came back into favour as a subject of art in churches.

The ultimate protagonist in the life of the Church, however, is the Holy Spirit, as is clearly seen in the book of Acts. Unlike the pagan gods whose statues lurk in the Mortlake tapestry and de Poorter’s painting, the Holy Spirit is made ‘visible’ indirectly, not in graven images but in the living words and deeds of those whom that Spirit animates and empowers. In that power, working through Barnabas and Paul, the world finds itself being transformed.

References

Kollmann, Bernd. 2004. Joseph Barnabas: His Life and Legacy, trans. by Miranda Henry (Collegeville: Michael Glazier Inc)

Kollmann, Bernd and W. Deuse (eds). 2007. Alexander Monachus: Laudatio Barnabae / Lobrede auf Barnabas (Turnhout: Brepols)

Next exhibition: Acts of the Apostles 19