Question: What two Greek gods did the people of Lystra think Paul and Barnabas were?
Answer: Mercury and Jupiter. (Acts 14:12)
Comments: On Paul’s “first missionary journey,” the people of Lystra (in Asia Minor) mistook he and Barnabas for Hermes (Mercury) and Zeus (Jupiter) respectively after a healing miracle. (For whatever reason, this card labels the Greek gods by their Roman names.)
The people identified Barnabas as Zeus, the superior (“father”) deity. In the wider Hellenistic world, as the messenger of Zeus, Hermes is the paradigmatic angel. As Paul was the “chief speaker,” he was selected as Hermes.
The miscalculation was natural as the two deities were linked in their mythology. In Ovid (43 BCE-17 BCE)’s Metamorphoses (viii.611-724), the poet relays a well-known story of these two deities anonymously descending to earth and eventually receiving hospitality from the elderly couple Philemon and Baucis. The two are subsequently rewarded for their cordiality. This myth was common and the locals’ analysis may have drawn from it.
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