. The fact that at Lystra the natives
styled Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, while suggesting that Barnabas was
the man of nobler mien, proves that Paul was the chief speaker (xiv. 12);
and the notices in the Pauline epistles fully bear out the view that "the
gospel of the Gentiles" which they preached was in conception Paul's (Gal.
ii. 1-9). Indeed, Barnabas's vacillation at Antioch, as recorded in Gal.
ii. 11 ff. (whether it preceded or followed their mission in Acts
xiii.-xiv.), shows that, while gifted with true intuitions, he was not
strong in thinking out his position to all its issues on principle, and
that it was here that Paul was so immensely his superior. But what Barnabas
did see with full reasoned conviction, he was staunch in upholding; thus he
upheld the general cause of Gentile freedom from the obligation of
circumcision (as distinct from perfect religious equality with Jewish
believers) at the Jerusalem conference (Acts xv.). With this stand for
principle, however, his main work, as a great link in the transition of the
Gospel from its Jewish to its universal mission, reached its climax; and
Acts transfers its attention wholly to Paul, after explaining how their
roads parted under rather painful circumstances (xv. 37 ff.).

When Barnabas sails away with Mark to resume work in Cyprus, the mists of
history hide him from our sight. Only now and again do we catch fugitive
and increasingly doubtful glimpses of him and his work. We learn from 1
Cor. ix. 6 that he adhered to Paul's principle of self-support in his
mission work, and from Col. iv. 10 that his name was well known and
respected at Colossae about A.D. 60. Tradition, which early regards him as
one of the seventy (Clem. Alex.), carries him, plausibly enough, to
Alexandria (_Clem. Hom._ i. 8, ii. 4; cf. the ascription to him of the
Alexandrine _Epistle of Barnabas_). But the evidence for his having visited
Rome (later tradition says also Milan) is stronger because more varied
(_Clem. Recog._ i. 7, cf. _Hom._ i. 7; the early _Actus Petri
Vercellenses_; and the late Cypriot _Encomium_), especially if we might
trust the Western ascription to him of the epistle to the Hebrews, which
begins with Tertullian (_De Pud._ 20). But this may itself be mere
inference from its self-description (xiii. 22), as a "word of exhortation,"
to the "son of exhortation" (Acts iv. 36) as its author. The legend of his
missionary labours in Cyprus, including martyrdom at Salami