the Hermes (i.e., "the speaker") of the Greeks (Ac 14:12), a heathen God represented as the constant attendant of Jupiter, and the god of eloquence. The inhabitants of Lystra took Paul for this god because he was the "chief speaker."

Ac 14:12. Mythology represented Mercurius as having once visited Phrygia with Jupiter his father, and having been refused hospitality by all except Baucis and Philemon, two old peasants (Ovid, Metam. 8:620). Hence the simple people of Lystra supposed, from the miracle on the cripple, that Paul and Barnabas were Mercurius and Jupiter once more visiting the earth "in the likeness of men." Mercurius being the god of eloquence, they called Paul Mercurius, the herald of the gods. Mercurius was usually figured a beardless youth, but there was an old Pelasgic figure of him bearded. Barnabas, the more stately and majestic in mien, they called Jupiter (2Co 10:10).

Mercu'rius

?????. The god Hermes of the Greeks, identified with Mercurius of the Romans. When a miracle had been wrought by Paul at Lystra the heathen inhabitants supposed this god was visiting them in the person of Paul, and the priest would have sacrificed to him. Ac 14:12.

Mercu'rius

(herald of the gods), properly Hermes, the Greek deity, whom the Romans identified with their Mercury, the god of commerce and bargains. Hermes was the son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Maia the daughter of Atals, and is constantly represented as the companion of his father in his wandering upon earth. The episode of Baucis and Philemon, Ovid, Metam. viii. 620-724, appears to have formed part of the folk-lore of Asia Minor, and strikingly illustrates the readiness with which the simple people of Lystra recognized in Barnabas the Paul the gods who, according to their wont, had come down in the likeness of men.

Ac 14:11