Lys'tra. This place has two points of interest in connection, respectively, with
St. Paul's first and second missionary Journeys:
(1) as the place where divine honors were offered to him, and where he
was presently stoned, Act_14:1;
(2) as the home of his chosen companion and fellow missionary Timotheus.
Act_16:1.
Lystra was in the eastern part of the great plain of Lycaonia, and its
site may be identified with the ruins called Bin-bir-Kilisseh, at the
base of a conical mountain of volcanic structure, named the Karadagh.
Lystra
lis´tra: The forms Λύστραν,
Lústran, and Λύστροις,
Lústrois, occur. Such variation in the gender of Anatolian
city-names is common (see Harnack, Apostelgeschichte, 86; Ramsay, St.
Paul the Traveler, 128). Lystra was visited by Paul 4 times (Act_14:6, Act_14:21;
Act_16:1; Act_18:23
- the last according to the “South Galatian” theory), and is mentioned in 2Ti_3:10 f as one of the places where Paul
suffered persecution. Timothy resided in Lystra (Act_16:1).
1. Character and Site:
Lystra owed its importance, and the attention which Paul paid to it, to
the fact that it had been made a Roman colonia by Augustus (see
ANTIOCH), and was therefore, in the time of Paul, a center of education and
enlightenment. Nothing is known of its earlier, and little of its later,
history. The site of Lystra was placed by Leake (1820) at a hill near Khatyn
Serai, 18 miles South-Southwest from Iconium; this identification was
proved correct by an inscription found by Sterrett in 1885. The boundary
between Phrygia and Lycaonia passed between Iconium and Lystra. (Act_14:6) (see ICONIUM).
The population of Lystra consisted of the local aristocracy of Roman
soldiers who formed the garrison of the colonia, of Greeks and Jews (Act_16:1, Act_16:3),
and of native Lycaonians (Act_14:11).
2. Worship of Paul and Barnabas:
After Paul had healed a life-long cripple at Lystra, the native
population (the “multitude” of Act_14:11)
regarded him and Barnabas as pagan gods come down to them in likeness of men,
and called Barnabas “Zeus” and Paul “Hermes.” Commentators on this incident
usually point out that the same pair of divinities appeared to Baucis and
Philemon in Ovid's well-known story, which he locates in the neighboring
Phrygia. The accuracy in detail of this part of the narrative in Acts has been
strikingly confirmed by recent epigraphic discovery. Two inscriptions found in
the neighborhood of Lystra in 1909 run as follows: (1) “Kakkan and Maramoas and
Iman Licinius priests of Zeus”; (2) “Toues Macrinus also called Abascantus and
Batasis son of Bretasis having made in accordance with a vow at their own
expense (a statue of) Hermes Most Great along with a sun-dial dedicated it to
Zeus the sun-god.”
Now it is evident from the narrative in Acts that the people who were prepared
to worship Paul and Barnabas as gods were not Greeks or Romans, but native
Lycaonians. This is conclusively brought out by the use of the phrase “in the
speech of Lycaonia” (Act_14:11). The
language in ordinary use among the educated classes in Central Anatolian cities
under the Roman Empire was Greek; in some of those cities, and especially of
course, in Roman colonies, Latin also was understood, and it was used at this
period in official documents. But the Anatolian element in the population of those
cities continued for a long time to use the native language (e.g. Phrygian was
in use at Iconium till the 3rd century of our era; see ICONIUM). In the story
in Acts a fast distinction is implied, and in fact existed, between the ideas
and practices of the Greeks and the Roman colonists and those of the natives.
This distinction would naturally maintain itself most vigorously in so
conservative an institution as religious ritual and legend. We should therefore
expect to find that the association between Zeus and Hermes indicated in Acts
belonged to the religious system of the native population, rather than to that
of the educated society of the colony. And this is precisely the character of
the cult illustrated in our two inscriptions. It is essentially a native cult,
under a thin Greek disguise. The names in those inscriptions can only have been
the names of natives; the Zeus and Hermes of Acts and of our inscriptions were
a graecized version of the Father-god and Son-god of the native Anatolian
system. The college of priests which appears in inscription number 1
(supporting the Bezan variant “priests” for “priest” in Act_14:13) was a regular Anatolian institution.
The miracle performed by Paul, and his companionship with Barnabas would
naturally suggest to the natives who used the “speech of Lycaonia” a pair of
gods commonly associated by them in a local cult. The two gods whose names rose
to their lips are now known to have been associated by the dedication of a
statue of one in a temple, of the other in the neighborhood of Lystra.
Literature.
Ramsay, Cities of Paul, 407 ff. On the new inscriptions, see
Calder, The Expositor, 1910, 1 ff, 148 ff; id, Classical Review, 1910,
67 ff. Inscriptions of Lystra are published in Sterrett, Wolfe Expedition,
and in Jour. Hell. Stud., 1904 (Cronin).
Source:
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Lystra
A town of Lycaonia, in Asia Minor, in a wild district and among a rude
population. Here Paul preached the gospel after he had been driven by
persecution from Iconium (Act_14:2-7).
Here also he healed a lame man (Act_14:8),
and thus so impressed the ignorant and superstitious people that they took him
for Mercury, because he was the “chief speaker,” and his companion Barnabas for
Jupiter, probably in consequence of his stately, venerable appearance; and were
proceeding to offer sacrifices to them (Act_14:13),
when Paul earnestly addressed them and turned their attention to the true
source of all blessings. But soon after, through the influence of the Jews from
Antioch in Pisidia and Iconium, they stoned Paul and left him for dead (Act_14:19). On recovering, Paul left for Derbe;
but soon returned again, through Lystra, encouraging the disciples there to
steadfastness. He in all likelihood visited this city again on his third
missionary tour (Act_18:23). Timothy,
who was probably born here (2Ti_3:10, 2Ti_3:11), was no doubt one of those who were on
this occasion witnesses of Paul's persecution and his courage in Lystra.
Source:
Easton’s Bible Dictionary