Who painted St Paul and St Barnabas at Lystra?

Willem De Poorter painted St Paul and St Barnabas at Lystra in 1636.

What Bible passage does St Paul and St Barnabas at Lystra depict?

St Paul and St Barnabas at Lystra depicts the biblical scene from Acts 14:8-20.

St Paul and St Barnabas at Lystra by Willem De Poorter

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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).

Details

Artist: Willem De Poorter
Created: 1636
Medium: oil on panel
Dimension: 80cm × 55cm
Passage: Acts 14:8-20

Found in: Acts, Acts 14, 17th century

Acts 14:8-20

8 At Lystra a certain man sat, impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked.

9 He was listening to Paul speaking, who, fastening eyes on him, and seeing that he had faith to be made whole,

10 said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet!” He leaped up and walked.

11 When the multitude saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voice, saying in the language of Lycaonia, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!”

12 They called Barnabas “Jupiter”, and Paul “Mercury”, because he was the chief speaker.

13 The priest of Jupiter, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and would have made a sacrifice along with the multitudes.

14 But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their clothes, and sprang into the multitude, crying out,

15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

16 who in the generations gone by allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.

17 Yet he didn’t leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

18 Even saying these things, they hardly stopped the multitudes from making a sacrifice to them.

19 But some Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

20 But as the disciples stood around him, he rose up, and entered into the city. On the next day he went out with Barnabas to Derbe.

Acts 14:8-20 · World English Bible

The artist

Willem De Poorter

1608 - 1648

Haarlem, Netherland

The son of a Flemish émigré, Willem de Poorter was likely born in Haarlem in 1608. The circumstances of his training are not clear. It is often proposed that he studied with Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) in Leiden, about 1629–30. That training, however, may have occurred in Amsterdam as late as the mid-1630s, thereby constituting not a student-pupil relationship so much as a mid-career supervision. By 1633 De Poorter’s name appears in the Haarlem city archives, where he is listed…