St. Barnabas 11. Events Leading Up to Assignment to Antioch.
Our series on the life of St. Barnabas has
also brought us through the history of the Early Church. We are now up to about
35 AD, five years since Christ’s death and resurrection.
Luke sums up the next few years (probably
36-38 AD) as follows: “So the Church throughout all Judea and Galilee and
Samaria had peace and was built up; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in
the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied” (Ac 9:31). Years of rest and
growth for the Church.
Barnabas undoubtedly continued
evangelizing over the next few years, but whether in Palestine or Antioch or
elsewhere, we are not given the specifics.
In regards to Saul (not yet called Paul),
now in his home town of Tarsus (modern day eastern Turkey), it may be about
38/39 AD when he had a visionary experience of being “caught up to the third
heaven,” to Paradise, and “heard things that cannot be told” (2 Cor 12:2-4).
This may be the same time that, “to keep me from being too elated by the
abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of
Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated” (2 Cor 12:7). This
“thorn” may have been a physical malady, possibly involving his eyes (Gal 4:13-16), in which case it would indicate that during this time frame was the
“first” time that Saul “preached the Gospel” to the people of Galatia (Gal 4:13).
Now a little more history to set a context
for our continuing story of St. Barnabas.
Caligula became Emperor in 37 AD.
Alexandria in Egypt had an exceedingly large Jewish community, and from 37-38
AD, weeks and weeks of riots by Egyptians against the Jews in Alexandria
destroyed Jewish homes and businesses. The Jews suffered greatly but chose not
to fight back initially. However, when word came that Caligula had proclaimed
himself a god and commanded all peoples to place his image in their temples and
to offer him sacrifice, and the Alexandrian mob approached the great Alexandrian
synagogue intending to place an image of Caligula therein, the Jews
counter-attacked the idolaters and drove them out of the Jewish quarter.
Now in 40 AD, Caligula gave the same
instructions to Petronius, governor of Syria, which included Palestine. Petronius
had made a statute of the Emperor (a rather hideous depiction) to be placed in
the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple. However, when it was unloaded at
the port city of Akko in Phoenicia, thousands and thousands of Jews arrived
there to protest and prevent transfer of the statute to Jerusalem – literally
over their dead bodies if necessary. It is reasonable to assume that believers
in Jesus as the Messiah stood right beside their fellow Jews in protesting this
idolatrous evil. Eventually Petronius backed down. The following year Caligula
was murdered. End of his deity. Caligula’s successor, Claudius, issued a letter
in 41 AD affirming the rights of the Alexandrian Jews, stopping that
persecution.
What a wonderful lesson for all of us:
there is a time to suffer and wait for God to act; and there are
non-negotiables when God’s will is clear and a stand must be made “over my dead
body.” Pray that we all have such clear discernment!
Now back to the Acts of the
Apostles. We have already seen that disciples who were from Cyprus and Cyrene
preached about the Lord Jesus at Antioch both to Jews and to Greeks (Ac 11:19-20), and we are also given the name of Manaen who was brought up with, or
member of the court of, Herod the Tetrarch (Ac 13:1). We have previously
referred to the 1940's visions of Maria Voltorta, and in her visions it is this
Manaen who is evangelizing in Syria from 36 AD on, and it is because his
evangelization was doing so well that Barnabas was sent to help him (Ac 11:22). [1] It probably was around 41 AD when Barnabas was sent to Antioch, and next week
we will pick up St. Barnabas’ story from there.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.