EARTH
In this chapter we consider some of the remarkable wonders characterising various forms of life on Earth, starting from the simplest organisms, to those involving complex structures and organisations. Earth is the only planet (or even celestial body) known, thus far, to definitely have life in all types of environments, and in extremely diverse forms. But when did the earliest forms of life occur on Earth? Recent work in the area will direct our attention to the Naica crystal caves. Their origin has been dated back to more than 3.5 billion years. For the first four billion years, life on Earth was mainly populated by microbes. However, many thrived in hostile environments, such as the tardigrades. Terrestrial terraforming by algae could have transformed life on Earth into more complex forms. Meanwhile, increasing oxygen levels could have led to the Cambrian ‘biological Big Bang’ 550 million years ago. The Carboniferous era saw the domination of broad-leaved plants using photosynthesis to increase atmospheric oxygen. Trees continue to be the most dominant life form on Earth, contributing significantly to the biomass. We explore some of the incredible features of terrestrial life, both past and present.
Human organs, such as our eyes and ears, are optimal by the laws of physics. The eyes of an insect, wings of birds and flying insects, metabolism, heat production, etc., along with heart and brain power, demonstrate Nature’s meticulous and optimal design. This paved the way for the inclusion below of discussions focusing on the fastest flying animals, universal bioluminescence, and whether or not dinosaurs were ectotherms. Intriguing coincidences, such as large numbers in biology, and the universality of mass to area ratio (underlying both biological and astronomical systems) are revealed. Damuth’s law, continental drift and its impact on life, and Earth’s weakening magnetic field are among other topics discussed.
Advanced technology practiced by ‘primitive’ biological systems
Even with our ever-growing technological prowess, we have a lot to learn from the advanced survival techniques adopted by several primitive biological life forms. We present here two recent examples, one of which has inspired a new technology adopted by NASA in its design of more sophisticated spacecraft for use in flights to Mars.
The only known animal to have bifocal lenses is apparently the larvae of the sunburst diving beetle. The larvae have a complicated eye structure that enables them to catch prey at a distance of less than half a centimetre. They have six pairs of eyes, including two pairs of bifocals that focus light on two slightly different planes. This, combined with a second retina, helps them to accurately judge distance to the prey. However, when the larvae mature the beetle loses this optical arsenal, returning to the normal compound eyes characteristic of insects. This could well inspire new optical devices for detection and close ranging.
Another example, which has already inspired a new design for a Martian spacecraft, is the behaviour of the Hawaiian puffer-fish which, in spite of being a poor swimmer, can quickly intake large quantities of water in order to convert themselves into virtually inedible balls several times larger than their usual size: thus confounding chasing predators. This is only a defence mechanism for the Hawaiian puffer-fish, but NASA has incorporated this ‘trick’ in their LSPD vehicle, i.e. low-density supersonic decelerator, being test flown, coincidentally, on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. This technique will make it possible to land heavier spacecraft on Mars. It is a saucer-shaped experimental vehicle that uses a six metre diameter, solid rocket powered balloon-like vessel, designated as a Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD). It aims to reach an altitude of forty thousand metres, using a helium filled scientific balloon that, when fully deployed, will swell to about one million cubic metres, thus displacing a thousand tons of air at ground level, i.e. a lifting capacity of this order. The design, to repeat, will enable heavier spacecraft to be used on Mars.
Thus we witness the remarkable ingenuity, manifested by several living organisms, necessary to survive the vagaries and hostilities of the environment found on Earth. One can only conjecture how life would have adapted to survive on other worlds with a more hostile environment.
Subterranean life
The presence of deep microbial biomes thriving on hydrogen compounds such as H2S, indicate that Earth’s deep crust could host living systems. In 2006, microbes residing four kilometres below the Witwatersrand Basin in South Africa, and existing on hydrogen, were discovered. The possible presence of such novel living systems raises the possibility of Martian microbial life (below the surface permafrost). These sub-surface bio-systems are not dependent on photosynthesis. Hydrogen production from several boreholes indicate that the oldest rocks of the preCambrian continental lithosphere produce about one hundred times more gas than was previously estimated.
Sites having primordial water (trapped for one billion years) in Finland, Iceland, etc., and having high hydrogen levels, suggest, apart from the Witwatersrand Basin, that there may be other sub-surface places hospitable to microbial life. The Miller-Urey experiment made the ‘primordial soup’ hypothesis popular: the original ‘warm little pond’ of Charles Darwin. However, alternative theories (concerning the presence of sub-surface life) suggest that the primeval assembly of self-reproducing molecules might have occurred in the interiors of tiny rock pores located in the vicinity of deep sea vents (e.g. tubeworms feeding at the base of hydrothermal vents). In this scenario, the first cells need not have had membranes to shield them from hostile environments. However, these theories would only apply to planets having plate tectonics leading to deep-sea vents. Among the terrestrial planets, Earth is the only one known to have active plate tectonics. The presence of vast amounts of water (maintained by geysers and volcanic vents) in the rocky interior seems an essential prerequisite for plate tectonics, which is also crucial for creating and maintaining the oceans and atmosphere that are essential for life.
Recent studies show that plate tectonics on Earth began a billion years earlier than thought. For example, M. Hopkins et al. (Nature, 456, 493, 2008) found evidence of plate tectonics in zircon deposits that were formed about four billion years ago. These zircon crystals have formed in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate plunges below another. This seems to indicate the existence of active plate tectonics nearly four billion years ago, something that is consistent with the estimated ages of the oldest known fossils.
How early did life begin on Earth?
Based on fossil records, it is generally thought that life on Earth began 3.8 billion years ago in the form of single-celled creatures. However, an ancient zircon crystal, collected in Australia (by Jack Hills), is believed to contain a carbon deposit 4.1 billion years old. It is completely enclosed in the undisturbed (and crack free) zircon crystal, suggesting that a more recent geological process has not contaminated it. The collection involves some ten thousand ancient zircon cells dated as several billion years old (E. Bell et al., PNAS, 112, 14518, 2015).
Thus it appears that life originated on Earth barely half a billion years after its formation: 4.6 billion years ago. In this context, it is interesting to note that the earliest stars (and primeval galaxies) formed in the Universe less than half a billion years after the Big Bang (hot dense phase): A remarkable coincidence, perhaps?
Naica crystal caves host long dormant life
Recently, bacteria and archaea were detected buried deep in the caves of Naica (in Mexico), beneath Limestone Mountains used by miners in search of silver a century ago. The director of NASA’s new astrobiology institute in Moffett Field, California, Dr Penelope Boston, reported this discovery at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The organisms were encased in shafts of gypsum, possibly as old as 50000 years. They were able to revive them in the laboratory.
Microbes were isolated from outsized needles of gypsum grown over the years (crystals metres long). They were, presumably, a class of extremophiles, thriving in extreme conditions of heat (700C), humidity and an acidic environment. At those depths no light can penetrate, implying that microbes must obtain heat from processing rock minerals and use chemosynthesis (rather than photosynthesis) to thrive. Defects in the long gypsum needles (like voids) collected fluids and encased the microbes.
Thus it appears that the famous giant crystals of Naica Mine host dormant life, making them very relevant to the search for similar life forms beyond Earth (maybe below Martian surface). There have been previous claims connected with the revival of bugs supposedly dormant for millions of years, trapped inside salt or ice crystals, as well as insects trapped in amber. However, such claims have been controversial. Perhaps the first life forms to be detected outside Earth (including Mars) could well be such dormant entities.
The gypsum cave organisms are apparently not related closely to anything in known genetic databases. At least, terrestrial life has the ability to cope and adapt to most hostile environments.
Tardigrades could exist in hostile alien environments
As astronomers eagerly search for water-dominant exoplanets, and look for planets in the habitable zones of their parent stars (where water can exist as a liquid) as suitable abodes for ET life, we should bear in mind the existence of tardigrades on Earth: considered the world’s toughest creatures with incredible survival abilities. These miniscule creatures (also called water bears) can survive intense radiation, freezing cold, extreme dehydration and even the vacuum of space. The DNA of two species of tardigrades has now been decoded, thus revealing the genes that enable them to be revived even after desiccation.
Recent studies have indicated that these, the toughest terrestrial creatures, could survive almost any cosmic disaster likely to befall planetary worlds. They can survive extreme dehydration and are capable of springing back to life after several years when placed in the presence of water. Their key to survival is genetic. Extreme dry conditions trigger the organism’s genes to produce proteins in their cells. When water is available, it refills these cells, dissolving the proteins. An understanding of this survival skill could have spin-offs, such as vaccines being stored and transported without refrigeration.
Most animals have ten so-called HOX genes, but tardigrades have only five. Most roundworms lack the same five, so tardigrades may be closely related to worms. In any case, their ability to survive extremely dry (waterless) conditions and be successfully revived many years later, shows that even dry exoplanets could host such life.
Did terrestrial terraforming by algae transform life on Earth?
A strange aspect of terrestrial life, not yet adequately explained, pertains to the fact that, although our planet has had long-life-sustaining oceans (and benign climates) for over three billion years — for 3.8 billion years according to current estimates — all life on Earth was initially single-celled, mostly bacteria. Hardly any evolutionary innovation had taken place for three billion years. Algae, more complex than bacteria but still single-celled, had been in existence for one billion years (some
biologists call it the ‘boring billion’) without causing much ecological change.
However, large complex organisms appear in fossil records from about 600 million years ago, with their DNA tightly and safely enclosed inside a nucleus. These are eukaryotes, which like all plants and animals today had an evolutionary advantage over bacteria. Recent work suggests that it was the planetary takeover by oceanic algae, about 650 million years ago, which initiated the transformation of terrestrial life. The events leading up to this apparently took place 100 million years before the Cambrian explosion, describing an eruption of complex life, recorded all over the world, that puzzled even evolutionary pioneers such as Darwin. This suggests some ‘biological prehistory.’
The evidence for this ecological kick comes from the work of Jochen Brocks and his team (at the Australian National University) who drilled sediments into the bedrock below the Australian desert, digging up tiny traces of biomolecules, which have been traced to the molecular remnants of algae cell walls. These molecules are related to cholesterol and appear very stable in organisms (nanogram traces of pre-Cambrian oil picked out from the fog of contaminants measured). It turns out that these fat molecules were absorbed into sediments, and over geological periods, became embedded into the bedrock only to be now drilled up and analysed 600 million years later. These molecules mark the explosion of oceanic algae, with their population perhaps increasing by a factor of one thousand. The diversity shot up in one biological Big Bang and never shrank again.
Remarkably, this evolutionary flip occurred after one of the greatest environmental catastrophes the Earth underwent (the so-called ’snowball Earth’), when ice covered the planet pole to pole, with equatorial temperatures plunging to –600C (C. Sivaram and A. Sastry, Introduction to Astrobiology, Universities Press, 2004). The build-up and eventual eruption of volcanic CO2, causing a ’super greenhouse’ effect, ended this episode after 50 million years. According to Brocks, the glacial action released nutrient phosphates, which were washed away into the oceans as thawing progressed. The contemporary agricultural green revolution is dependent on phosphates (excavated in mines all over the world) and perhaps the pre-Cambrian biological evolution was similarly powered. At a recent Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Paris, Brocks and Butterfield debated whether the explosion of algae drove the rise of animals or, rather, that the rise of animals, like sponges, paved the way for algae.
Trees as a dominant form of life
A recent estimate, made by a global group of 38 researchers (T.W. Crowther, et al., Nature, 525, 201, 2015), puts the total number of trees on our planet at a colossal three trillion (more precisely 3040 billion). This implies that there are more than 420 trees for every person on Earth (the world human population having exceeded seven billion). So the largest amount of biomass on Earth is in the trees (estimated to be about 1.5 trillion tons). The total mass of human population would be a mere three hundred million tons (five thousand times less). The quadrillions of insects and worms are estimated to have a biomass of fifty billion tons (about two hundred times more than humans). Thus, with all of the congestion and pollution we face in our grossly overcrowded cities (especially in third world countries), our total biomass is trivial when compared to green vegetation and lowly insects.
How many trees are there in Bangalore? According to a report published by the Indian Institute of Science (May 2014), there are 14.58 lakh trees for a city populated by nearly a hundred lakh (10 million) people. This means that there is only one tree for every seven people, 3000 times less than the global average (in July 2014 about ten thousand trees were axed for development). As is well known, there is a symbiotic relationship between trees and animals. We intake (inhale) oxygen, the waste product of plants, and emit (exhale) carbon dioxide as waste, which is consumed by plants and converted into oxygen through photosynthesis, which builds up starches and sugars for our food consumption. Ecological equilibrium is maintained as long as this input and output remains balanced.
However, as we continue to burn large amounts of fossil fuels and chop down twenty billion trees every year to construct more building spaces, we destroy a natural source of carbon dioxide consumption (the trees) and add to global warming by pumping at least a billion tons of excess CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Indeed, the earliest plants and trees (formed in the carboniferous era, 400 million years ago) changed the atmospheric composition to one-fifth oxygen, leading to advanced animal life, and culminating in humans. We are undoing this legacy through deforestation. Would trees dominate Earth-like planets, especially if oxygen is crucial for advanced life?
Biological Big Bang and oxygen levels
About 600 million years ago, there was an explosive increase in the number of animal species and living systems. It is now considered likely that this was kick-started by increased amounts of oxygen. More than 700 million years ago, the oxygen level of the Earth’s atmosphere was hardly one per cent of today’s levels. A recent study, involving the measuring of selenium isotopes, shows that in one hundred million years the oxygen level rose to over ten per cent of today’s levels. This ushered in the age of animal life.
Hitherto, it was not known how quickly the Earth’s oceans (atmosphere) became oxygenated. Oceanic microorganisms such as phytoplankton are also currently responsible for releasing much of the Earth’s oxygen. But it is estimated that global warming is already reducing their population, thus posing a risk to future oxygen levels in the atmosphere, which could, in turn, affect advanced animal life.
The ‘biological dark matter’ problem
The so-called dark matter (DM) problem is well known in cosmology. We do not know the makeup of at least 95% of the Universe. Our type of matter (baryonic), consisting of familiar atoms and molecules, many crucial for life, supposedly constitutes barely 4% of the total matter in the Universe. At least 70% is in the form of a mysterious dark energy (DE), which exerts negative pressure and causes gravity to become repulsive, thus accelerating the expansion of the Universe at the present cosmic epoch. The remaining 25% or so comprises of the dark matter that dominates the masses and clusters of galaxies. There are several dozen postulated candidates for DM, ranging from axions, WIMPS, MACHOS, gluinos, Q-balls, neutralinos, etc., with several on-going experiments making dedicated searches without arriving at any positive result so far (K. Arun et al., Advances in Space Research, 60, 166, 2017). Moreover, the problem is growing more acute, as recent observations have indicated the presence of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDG) with more than 98% DM. Indeed, there is a galaxy with 99.96% DM, with the DM mass several thousand times the combined masses of the stars (Beasley et al., Astrophysical Journal Letters, 819, 2, 2016). There are many such galaxies almost wholly made up of DM.
Biologists have recently come up with their own version of Dark Biological Matter (DBM), i.e. completely unknown species. Earth is suspected to be home to at least one trillion species, but hardly six million
are catalogued. Thus, this indicates that 99.999% of the species on our own planet are unknown: we are in the dark about them. They are not identified, but we know they exist. When biologists at Indiana University (Kenneth Locey and others) compiled microbial, plant, and animal community data from all sources, it totalled only 5.6 million species on land, sea and air. Research shows that the world is teeming with undiscovered species, many thousands more than those identified and classified. Thousands of new species are being discovered every year (frogs, toads, insects, etc.) but the number of unknown (dark) biological species is far greater.
The identification of these unknown species is a challenge for biologists, just as the identification of the true nature of dark matter and dark energy (DE) are for cosmologists. Earlier, the total mass of insects and bacteria microbes (so-called low forms) was estimated to be several quadrillion tons, compared to a puny two hundred million tons for all humanity. We have of course exterminated thousands of species, including several million of our own. We just do not have the resources (manpower, financial, or technical) to identify most of the species on our own planet in the near future. As astrobiologists keenly look for life forms in faraway worlds — even beyond the solar system — it should be humbly borne in mind that we are still unaware of most of the different life forms (many exotic and thriving in extreme conditions) lurking and living under our own feet. This lack of awareness is similar to our limited comprehension of the DM in our solar neighbourhood.
The humble dung beetle, like Earth, may well be sustained and nurtured by these trillions of unknown species, perhaps long after mankind has ceased to exist. The International Day for Biological Diversity (22 May) is a reminder of how little we understand the ubiquitous diversity of living systems on our own planet. Again, while decoding the human genome with its billions of nucleotides, it turns out that 98% or more of our DNA genetic material has no known function and is dubbed junk DNA. This can be thought of as ‘dark’ genetic material or dark DNA. Perhaps the very use of the adjective ‘dark’ to describe all unknown constituents, either in cosmology or biology, is synonymous with our ignorance of actual reality despite the vast accumulation of knowledge and data.
Our optimal organs
The idea that biological structures are ‘optimal’ is finding support. It has long been known that the human eye is close to the diffraction limit.
This can be easily shown. The resolution of the eye is about one arc minute. Thus /D where is the wavelength at which the eye is most sensitive, i.e. 550 nm. Coincidently, the Sun also emits its peak radiation at this wavelength. D is the diameter of the pupil of the eye and is 0.2 cm. Thus:
The eye can also receive individual photons. The threshold of vision is about a billionth of a candle power. From a sixth magnitude star (naked eye threshold), the eye receives six visible photons (as a rule of thumb). For a planet orbiting a red dwarf, what should be the pupil diameter to get the same resolution? It would have to be twice as large. Such organisms (humans) would have bigger eyes, in fact twice our size.
While the human visual system operates at a single photon level, our auditory system (threshold 10-16 W/cm2) is limited by thermal noise. Sea sponges develop single mode optical fibres that rival current technology (V. Sundar et al., Nature, 424, 899, 2003), while micro-cavities in the brittle star skeleton act as perfect lenses (J. Aizenberg et al., Nature, 412, 819, 2001).
The fluid-filled semi-circular canals of the vestibular system are essentially of the same size for all mammals from mice to whales. The semi-circular vestibular canals of fish, reptiles, amphibians, and birds are of similar size, pointing to an underlying natural optimal design (G.M. Jones et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 157, 403, 1963). We should try to understand the optimality of biological structures on Earth and then attempt to explore similar possibilities on other worlds.
Heart power and brain power
At each contraction of the ventricle, about 75cc of blood per second flows out and the average blood pressure is about 100 mm of mercury. This implies that the power exerted by an average heart is about one watt.
Thus with a population of about ten billion, the total heart power is ten gigawatts (ten thousand megawatts) or about 0.1 per cent of the total installed power plant capacity in the world. On different habitable planets, would the power consumed by a heart pumping blood be different? Could a higher ambient atmospheric pressure increase the power required? What about the surface gravity of planets?
A bird’s heart beats several times faster than man’s (as it does for smaller mammals like mice) but their lifetime is shorter. Therefore, the total number of heartbeats in a lifetime is roughly a constant for all mammals (about 3x109). What, then, would be the power required for dinosaurs as tall as buildings (if the blood is to be pumped to such a height)? These are points to ponder.
The human brain consumes an average of around thirty watts of power. Although the brain has only about three per cent of body mass, it consumes about a fifth of the power. The brain carries out at least a hundred quadrillion operations every second, well above current state-ofthe-art computing machines. So a population of ten billion would expend around 300 gigawatts (0.3 TW), i.e. three per cent of the installed power capacity in the world of around 10 TW.
For a power consumption of 30W, what is the theoretical maximum processing rate? How close is the brain to this? Is there an upper limit to brain size? One has to account for the heat produced by the brain, which will have to dissipate it through its highly convoluted surface while maintaining body temperature. These questions are relevant when discussing ‘brains’ of highly ‘advanced’ ETs or their robotic substitutes or counterparts.
Fastest flying animals: some interesting features
The flight characteristics of birds are still the unparalleled models for aeronautical design. Migratory birds such as swifts can reach 120 km/h in horizontal flight. When diving for their prey from a great height some falcons can reach speeds of 300 km/h. They follow the shortest cycloid path.
Recently, Brazilian free-tailed bats have been recorded flying at over 160 km/h in horizontal flight, making them the fastest flyers among the animal species. These nocturnal creatures literally shoot through the night skies at this speed. The study was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. Their longer than average wings, and aerodynamic projectile-like body shape, along with their low body weight (special bone structure) are the main factors contributing to their record-breaking flight speed.
Long and narrow wings enable faster flight than shorter and wider wings. The bats weigh around 12 grams. At 160 km/h, their kinetic energy in flight is:
The power required or consumed during the flight is, Weight x v = mgv = 5 Watts.
For an athlete running 100m in 10s, an average horizontal speed is 10m/s. For a 70 kg athlete, the kinetic energy is ~3500 Joules and the power consumed by the athlete is: mg x v = 7 kilowatts ~10HP.
Mass for mass we are much brighter than the Sun (i.e. in infrared), we generate 120W. This is the steady power emitted by our body as a warmblooded animal, related to basal metabolic rate. The ratio of the peak power of the athlete (running the 100m dash) to the steady power emitted is thus ~50. We might also draw attention to the curious coincidence that for smaller mammals, like rats (and also bats), the power emitted per gram is the same as the Eddington luminosity for stars (i.e. ). For the 10 g bat mentioned above, this works out to 0.1 W, and the power expended by it in flight is 5 W.
Thus, for the Brazilian bat (the fastest flying animal), the ratio of the peak power required during flight to the steady power emitted (in IR) as heat over its surface is also 50/0.1 = 50, the same as that for the fastest human athlete.
Dinosaurs: endotherms or ectotherms?
There has been a lot of discussion and debate as to whether or not the colossal beings dubbed dinosaurs were warm-blooded (like modern mammals) or cold-blooded creatures. Warm-blooded terrestrial denizens seem to follow Kleiber’s law, which relates the basal metabolic rate (BMR) to the mammal mass M. Thus: where k is more or less a constant value measured around 90 kg3/4 Kcals.
Thus a human (weighing about 70 kg) has a BMR of 3000 Kcals, whereas a 5 ton elephant has B ~70000 kilocalories. A 5 g mouse would expend energy of 3 kilocalories to maintain its body temperature and thus has to constantly imbue nutrients (gnawing) to generate this heat. Furthermore, each of us humans emits infrared power of a few microns wavelength; appropriate to our body temperature of about 120 watts. Kleiber’s law seems to hold over a wide range of warm-blooded creatures,
from shrews to African elephants, (perhaps even blue whales which generate 200 W/m2) i.e. over ten orders of magnitude.
So if dinosaurs were indeed endotherms, for a 50-ton gargantuan the BMR would have been six hundred thousand kilocalories, i.e. the equivalent of 30 kilowatts of power (glowing in the IR). This would imply that they would have been consuming several hundred kilograms of food every day (about one hundred tons per year).
How this would affect the ecology, or whether Damuth’s law would hold, is to be studied. There has been recent work by J. Grady et al. (Science, 344,1268, 2014), whereby plotting (in a mass independent way) the growth rate as a function of the metabolic rate for 400 living and extinct animals shows that dinosaurs lie between endotherms and exotherms.
It is proposed that they are more like ‘mesotherms,’ a class of species that can raise body temperature (if required) but need not maintain it at any specific level. This could have restricted endotherms from becoming bigger (and dominating the planet) while competing with sluggish exotherms. In any case, the body temperature should not reflect much difference (compared to mammals), as the surface area scales as M2/3, demonstrating a very insensitive dependence of temperature on mass.
We estimated that if dinosaurs were indeed endotherms, a 50-ton gargantuan, the BMR would have been a hundred thousand kcal, i.e. equivalent to 30 kW of power (glowing in the IR). This would imply that they would have been consuming about a hundred tons of food per year. So, our total world food production may not have been able to support more than a million dinosaurs worldwide.
We also suggested how Damuth’s law, which holds in this context, is to be studied. The work of Grady et al. implied that dinosaurs lie between endotherms and exotherms. More recent work by R. Eagle et al. (Nature Communications, 6, 8296, 2015) appears to support this. They basically evolved a new method to chemically analyse dinosaur eggshells and gauge their body temperatures.
While the body temperature differed between different dinosaur species, the measured temperatures suggested that at least some dinosaurs were not fully endotherms. They could have been intermediate between crocodiles and modern birds. Endotherms have to eat a great deal to stay warm. For herbivorous dinosaurs (like Diplodocus) this implies eating a ton of vegetation daily.
The above team used a pioneering procedure to measure the internal temperatures of dinosaur mothers living 80 million years ago. The team found that the Titanosaur mother’s temperature was about 38 degrees Celsius, close to a healthy human temperature of 37 degrees Celsius.
Titanosaurs are one of the largest dinosaurs (Tyrannosaurus is closely related to modern birds). The fossilised eggs were unearthed in Argentina and the Gobi Desert.
If warm-blooded, what, then, would have been the heartbeat rate of such dinosaurs? Small birds like canaries (literally hot-blooded) can have heart rates of more than a thousand beats per minute. For elephants it is twenty per minute. The scaling of heartbeat rate goes as: (Mass)-1/4, or inverse the fourth power of mass. So a 50-ton dinosaur could have had a heart beat rate of a very slow 5-10 beats per minute. How much heart power would they generate? For long-necked dinosaurs the heart must pump blood to the height of a building.
Universal bioluminescence
Ever since the first bathyscaph (pioneered by Piccard) descended into the depths of the ocean, it has been known that, devoid of sunlight, the benthic life (kilometres down) shine by their own light. The ocean depths are chock-full of bioluminescent life. New research at the MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) has now revealed that at least three quarters of the denizens of the deep, up to four kilometres beneath the surface, emit their own light, thus revealing their large numbers and amazingly diverse existence.
Over 350,000 such individual animals were identified by MBARI video technicians utilising the VARS database, which contains at least five million observations of these benthic creatures. It seems that the vast majority of deep-sea creatures have evolved to produce bioluminescence, which involves the production and emission of light by biological systems (including fireflies and glow-worms on land). The mechanism for producing the light involves luciferin, luciferase, and ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is the universal molecule on Earth to generate cellular energy (via the Krebs cycle, etc.). If there is benthic life on Europa or Enceladus, are they likely to be bioluminescent? Could this serve as a beacon for future landers on these worlds?
Universality of mass to area ratio: from biological to astronomical structures
Astronomical structures ranging from super clusters of galaxies, to globular clusters, follow more or less a mass to radius squared ratio, i.e. of the same numerical magnitude given by, . Curiously, this also holds for the Universe as a whole
. We interpreted this in terms of the universality of dark energy dominating the Universe and, as current observations suggest, it could be nothing other than Einstein’s cosmological constant . We had the universal relation:
(Here c is velocity of light and G is Newton’s Gravitational constant). It could be understood as a balance pressure of dark energy density , balanced by the gravitational force pressure energy density , thus giving the above relation (for the observed ). It was also of interest that even the electron and a typical hadron follows the same value (e.g. for electron again implying ). Several other examples for other particles are also given in Sivaram (Astrophysics and Space Science, 215, 185, 1994). It is remarkable that the typical mass and radius of ancient (primordial) galaxies also seem to satisfy, the relation (M, R being the mass and radius of the galaxy). This ancient galaxy is found to be relatively small, about a tenth of the Milky Way, i.e. about one kiloparsec across. Also, its mass turns out to be about one per cent of that of our galaxy.
This ratio is more or less of the same value and holds for biological structures. The body mass index given by e.g. M ~50 kg, L ~2 m, is typically again . This also holds for important individual structures in the body like the brain and skin. For instance, the typical brain mass is 1500 grams and the surface area of the brain (with the convolutions ironed-out) is about 2000 cm2. This gives . The total mass of skin is 5kg, covering one square metre, this gives 0.5gm/cm2. The same value holds for other structures including elephants and trees (a hundred metre tree weighs 200 tons, for instance). A mouse of 5 grams mass and 2 cm length gives .
It is difficult to find a general physical basis for biological structures similar to the balance exhibited between repulsive dark energy and gravitational force for large astronomical structures.
It turns out that in the case of underwater behemoths like whales and other cetaceans it could be somewhat different, although within an order of magnitude. For cetaceans submerged in fluids (e.g. water), we have the drag force, ( is the area, is the density of water, is
the velocity with which the organism can move on average), and the weight Mg (g is the acceleration due to gravity). Balancing these gives:
If , g = 980 cm/s2, CD = 0.1 – 0.2, then we have,
It is interesting to conjecture whether cetaceans existing below the surface of oceans on either Europa or Titan (their gravity being 1/7) have a similar . If we assume does not vary much, on a lower planet would be higher (since is a constant). A lighter fluid would produce a higher velocity, etc.
There is another curious coincidence: the densities of most biological entities are close to that of water. This is understandable, as most biological structures are predominantly composed of water; humans are seventy per cent water by weight, and blood plasma is ninety per cent water, as are many vegetables, fruits, etc. Curiously enough, the average density of main-sequence stars like the Sun and Sirius, as well as giant planets like Jupiter, etc. is again close to water density.
Even terrestrial planets have densities a few times that of water. Here the explanation (i.e. for stellar bodies) is quite straightforward. The average distance between atoms is the Bohr radius, i.e. 10-8 cm. So in a volume of 10-24 cm3, we have a mass of 10-24 g (i.e. the proton mass since the electron mass is negligible). This gives 1 gcm-3, i.e. water density. The radius of the Sun is N1/3 x Bohr radius, N being the total number of atoms (mainly hydrogen) in the Sun. N = 1057 for the Sun. This gives us the solar radius as just observed. N1/3 just implies that the average separation is the Bohr radius. For heavier elements, constituting planets (rocky material), the density would be a few times higher. If we take the total number of atoms, say 1028 in a person, this implies a linear dimension of ~102 cm, which is the observed value.
When a star evolves, the core is compressed and the atoms are squeezed much closer together, so the densities now become higher. In a neutron star, the separation between neutrons is the nuclear radius of a fermi, so for N = 1057 (a solar mass) we get a radius of ten kilometres, which is the neutron star radius. The density is a hundred trillion times that of water. For white dwarfs, the separation between squeezed ‘atoms’ is the electron Compton length, and this multiplied by N1/3 gives the white dwarf a radius similar to that of Earth. The density now is a million times that of water.
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him with the fate of Stephen, had not the disciples heard of the danger which threatened the life of their new brother, and provided for his escape by means not less efficient than those before used in his behalf, at Damascus. Before the plans for his destruction could be completed, they privately withdrew him from Jerusalem, and had him safely conducted down to Caesarea, on the coast, whence, with little delay, he was shipped for some of the northern parts of Syria, from which he found his way to Tarsus, whether by land or sea, is unknown.
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This return to his native city was probably the first visit which he had made to it, since the day when he departed from his father’s house, to go to Jerusalem as a student of Jewish theology. It must therefore have been the occasion of many interesting reflections and reminiscences. What changes had the events of that interval wrought in him, in his faith, his hopes, his views, his purposes for life and for death! The objects which were then to him as idols,――the aims and ends of his being,――had now no place in his reverence or his affection; but in their stead was now placed a name and a theme, of which he could hardly have heard before he first left Tarsus,――and a cause whose triumph would be the overthrow of all those traditions of the Fathers, of which he had been taught to be so exceeding zealous. To this new cause he now devoted himself, and probably at this time labored “in the regions of Cilicia,” until a new apostolic summons called him to a distant field. He was yet “personally unknown to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ; and they had only heard, that he who persecuted them in times past, now preached the faith which once he destroyed; they therefore glorified God on his account.” The very beginnings of his apostolic duties were therefore in a foreign field, and not within the original premises of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, where indeed he was not even known but by fame, except to a few in Jerusalem. In this he showed the great scope and direction of his future labors, among the Gentiles, not among the Jews; leaving
the latter to the sole care of the original apostles, while he turned to a vast field for which they were in no way fitted, by nature, or by apostolic education, nor were destined in the great scheme of salvation.
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During this retirement of Saul to his native home, the first great call of the Gentiles had been made through the summons of Simon Peter to Cornelius There was manifest wisdom in this arrangement of events. Though the original apostles were plainly never intended, by providence, to labor to any great extent in the Gentile field, yet it was most manifestly proper that the first opening of this new field should be made by those directly and personally commissioned by Jesus himself, and who, from having enjoyed his bodily presence for so long a time, would be considered best qualified to judge of the propriety of a movement so novel and unprecedented in its character. The great apostolic chief was therefore made the first minister of grace to the Gentiles; and the violent opposition with which this innovation on Judaical sanctity was received by the more bigoted, could of course be much more efficiently met, and disarmed, by the apostle specially commissioned as the keeper of the keys of the heavenly kingdom, than by one who had been but lately a persecutor of the faithful, and who, by his birth and partial education in a Grecian city, had acquired such a familiarity with Gentile usages, as to be reasonably liable to suspicion, in regard to an innovation which so remarkably favored them. This great movement having been thus made by the highest Christian authority on earth, and the controversy immediately resulting having been thus decided,――the way was now fully open for the complete extension of the gospel to the heathen, and Saul was therefore immediately called, in providence, from his retirement, to take up the work of evangelizing Syria, which had already been partially begun at Antioch, by some of the Hellenistic refugees from the persecution at the time of Stephen’s martyrdom. The apostles at Jerusalem, hearing of the success which attended these incidental efforts,
dispatched their trusty brother Barnabas, to confirm the good work, under the direct commission of apostolic authority. He, having come to Antioch, rejoiced his heart with the sight of the success which had crowned the work of those who, in the midst of the personal distress of a malignant persecution, that had driven them from Jerusalem, had there sown a seed that was already bringing forth glorious fruits. Perceiving the immense importance of the field there opened, he immediately felt the want of some person of different qualifications from the original apostles, and one whose education and habits would fit him not only to labor among the professors of the Jewish faith, but also to communicate the doctrines of Christ to the Grecians In this crisis he bethought himself of the wonderful young convert with whom he had become acquainted, under such remarkable circumstances, a few years before, in Jerusalem, whose daring zeal and masterly learning had been so signally manifested among the Hellenists, with whom he had formerly been associated as an equally active persecutor. Inspired both by considerations of personal regard, and by wise convictions of the peculiar fitness of this zealous disciple for the field now opened in Syria, Barnabas immediately left his apostolic charge at Antioch, and went over to Tarsus, to invite Saul to this great labor. The journey was but a short one, the distance by water being not more than one hundred miles, and by land, around through the “Syrian gates,” about one hundred and fifty. He therefore soon arrived at Saul’s home, and found him ready and willing to undertake the proposed apostolic duty. They immediately returned together to Antioch, and earnestly devoted themselves to their interesting labors.
“Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, was built, according to some authors, by Antiochus Epiphanes; others affirm, by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of Syria after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and was the ‘royal seat of the kings of Syria.’ For power and dignity, Strabo, (lib. xvi. p. 517,) says it was not much inferior to Seleucia, or Alexandria. Josephus, (lib. iii. cap. 3,) says, it was the third great city of all that belonged to the Roman provinces. It was frequently called Antiochia Epidaphne, from its neighborhood to Daphne, a village where the temple of Daphne stood, to distinguish it from other fourteen of the same name mentioned by Stephanus de Urbibus, and by Eustathius in Dionysius p. 170; or as Appianus (in Syriacis,) and others, sixteen cities in Syria, and elsewhere, which bore that name. It was celebrated among the Jews for ‘Jus civitatis,’ which Seleucus
Nicanor had given them in that city with the Grecians and Macedonians, and which, says Josephus, they still retain, Antiquities, lib. xii. cap. 13; and for the wars of the Maccabeans with those kings. Among Christians, for being the place where they first received that name, and where Saul and Barnabas began their apostolic labors together In the flourishing times of the Roman empire, it was the ordinary residence of the prefect or governor of the eastern provinces, and also honored with the residence of many of the Roman emperors, especially of Verus and Valens, who spent here the greatest part of their time. It lay on both sides of the river Orontes, about twelve miles from the Mediterranean sea.” (Wells’s Geography New Testament――Whitby’s Table.) (J. M. Williams’s Notes on Pearson’s Annales Paulinae.)
Having arrived at Antioch, Saul gave himself, with Barnabas, zealously to the work for which he had been summoned, and labored among the people to good purpose, assembling the church and imparting to all that would hear, the knowledge of the Christian doctrine. Under these active exertions the professors of the faith of Jesus became so numerous and so generally known in Antioch, that the heathen inhabitants found it convenient to designate them by a distinct appellation, which they derived from the great founder and object of their religion,――calling them Christians, because the heathen inhabitants of Syria were not acquainted with the terms, “Nazarene” and “Galilean,” which had been applied to the followers of Christ by the Jews, partly from the places where they first appeared, and partly in opprobium for their low provincial origin.
The name now first created by the Syrians to distinguish the sect, is remarkable, because being derived from a Greek word, Christos, it has a Latin adjective termination, Christianus, and is therefore incontestably shown to have been applied by the Roman inhabitants of Antioch; for no Grecian would ever have been guilty of such a barbarism, in the derivation of one word from another in his own language. The proper Greek form of the derivation would have been Christicos, or Christenos, and the substantive would have been, not Christianity, but Christicism, or Christenism,――a word so awkward in sound, however, that it is very well for all Christendom, that the Roman barbarism took the place of the pure Greek termination. And since the Latin form of the first derivative has prevailed, and Christian thus been made the name of “a believer in Christ,” it is evident to any classical scholar, that Christianity is the only proper form of the substantive secondarily derived. For though the appending of a Latin termination upon a Greek word, as in the case of Christianus, was unquestionably a blunder and a barbarism in the first place, it yet can not compare, for absurdity, with the notion of deriving from this Latin form, the substantive Christianismus, with a Greek termination foolishly pinned to a Latin one,――a folly of which the French are nevertheless guilty The error, of course, can not now be corrected in that language; but those who stupidly copy the barbarism from them, and try to introduce the monstrous word, Christian , into English, deserve the reprobation of every man of taste.
“Before this they were called ‘disciples,’ as in this place――‘believers,’ Acts v. 14――‘men of the church,’ Acts xii. 1――‘men of the way,’ Acts ix. 2――‘the saints,’ Acts ix.
13――‘those that called on the name of Christ,’ verse 14――and by their enemies, Nazarenes and Galileans, and ‘men of the sect;’――but now, by the conversion of so many heathens, both in Caesarea and Antioch, the believing Jews and Gentiles being made all one church, this new name was given them, as more expressive of their common relation to their Master, Christ. Whitby slightly alludes to the prophecy, Isaiah lxv ” (J. M. Williams’s Notes on Pearson.)
While Saul was thus effectually laboring in Antioch, there came down to that city, from Jerusalem, certain persons, indued with the spirit of prophecy, among whom was one, named Agabus, who, under the influence of inspiration, made known that there would be a great famine throughout the world;――a prediction which was verified by the actual occurrence of this calamity in the days of Claudius Caesar, during whose reign, as appears on the impartial testimony of the historians of those times, both Roman and Jewish,――the Roman empire suffered at different periods in all its parts, from the capital to Jerusalem, and at this latter city, more especially, in the sixth year of Claudius, (A. D. 46,) as is testified by Josephus, who narrates very particularly some circumstances connected with the prevalence of this famine in Jerusalem. The disciples at Antioch, availing themselves of this information, determined to send relief to their brethren in Judea, before the famine should come on; and having contributed, each one according to his ability, they made Barnabas and Saul the messengers of their charity, who were accordingly dispatched to Jerusalem, on this noble errand. They remained in Jerusalem through the period of Agrippa’s attack upon the apostles by murdering James, and imprisoning Peter; but they do not seem to have been any way immediately concerned in these events; and when Peter had escaped, they returned to Antioch. How long they remained here, is not recorded; but the date of subsequent events seems to imply that it was a space of some years, during which they labored at Antioch in company with several other eminent prophets and teachers, of whom are mentioned Simeon, who had the Roman surname of Niger, Lucius, the Cyrenian, and Manaen, a foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch. During their common ministrations, at a season of fasting, they received a direction from the spirit of truth which guided
them, to set apart Saul and Barnabas for the special work to which the Lord had called them. This work was of course understood to be that for which Saul in particular, had, at his conversion, been so remarkably commissioned, “to open the eyes of the G , to turn them from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan to God.” His brethren in the ministry therefore, understanding at once the nature and object of the summons, now specially consecrated both him and Barnabas for their missionary work; and after fasting and praying, they invoked on them the blessing of God, in the usual oriental form of laying their hands on them, and then bade them farewell.
“That this famine was felt chiefly in Judea may be conjectured with great reason from the nature of the context, for we find that the disciples are resolving to send relief to the elders in Judea; consequently they must have understood that those in Judea would suffer more than themselves. Josephus declared that this famine raged so much there, πολλῶν ὑπό
, ‘so that many perished for want of victuals.’”
“‘Throughout the whole world,’ πᾶσαν
, is first to be understood, orbis terrarum habitabilis: Demosthenes in Corona, Æschines contra Ctesiphon Scapula Then the Roman and other empires were styled οικουμένη, ‘the world.’ Thus Isaiah xiv 17, 26, the counsel of God against the empire of Babylon, is called his counsel, ἐπὶ τὴν ὅλην οἰκουμένην, ‘against all the earth.’――(Elsley, Whitby.) Accordingly Eusebius says of this famine, that it oppressed almost the whole empire. And as for the truth of the prophecy, this dearth is recorded by historians most averse to our religion, viz., by Suetonius in the life of Claudius, chapter 18, who informs us that it happened ‘ob assiduas sterilitates;’ and Dion Cassius History lib. lx. p. 146, that it was λιμὸς ἰσχυρὸς, ‘a very great famine.’ Whitby’s Annotations, Doddridge enumerates nine famines in various years, and parts of the empire, in the reign of Claudius; but the first was the most severe, and affected particularly Judea, and is that here meant.” (J. M. Williams’s notes on Pearson.)
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Going from Antioch directly eastward to the sea, they came to Seleucia, the nearest port, only twelve miles from Antioch, and there embarked for the island of Cyprus, the eastern end of which is not more than eighty miles from the coast of Syria. The circumstance that more particularly directed them first to this island, was probably that it was the native home of Barnabas, and with this region therefore he would feel so much acquainted as to know its peculiar wants, and the facilities which it afforded for the advancement of the
Christian cause; and he would also know where he might look for the most favorable reception. Landing at Salamis, on the south-eastern part of the island, they first preached in the synagogues of the Jews, who were very numerous in Cyprus, and constituted so large a part of the population of the island, that some years afterwards they attempted to get complete possession of it, and were put down only by the massacre of many thousands. Directing their efforts first to these wandering sheep of the house of Israel, the apostles everywhere preached the gospel in the synagogues, never forsaking the Jews for the Gentiles, until they had been driven away by insult and injury, that thus the ruin of their nation might lie, not upon the apostles, but upon them only, for their rejection of the repeated offers of salvation. Here, it would seem, they were joined by John Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, who was probably staying upon the island at that time, and who now accompanied them as an assistant in their apostolic ministry. Traversing the whole island from east to west, they came to Paphos, a splendid city near the western end, famed for the magnificent temple and lascivious worship of the Paphian Venus, a deity to whom all Cyprus was consecrated; and from it she derived one of her numerous appellatives, Cypris being a name under which she was frequently worshipped; and the females of the island generally, were so completely devoted to her service, not merely in temple-worship, but in life and manners, that throughout the world, the name Cyprian woman, even to this day, is but a polite expression for one abandoned to wantonness and pleasure. The worship of this lascivious goddess, the apostles now came to exterminate, and to plant in its stead the dominion of a faith, whose essence is purity of heart and action. At this place, preaching the gospel with openness, they soon attracted such general notice, that the report of their remarkable character soon reached the ears of the proconsul of Cyprus, then resident in Paphos. This great Roman governor, by name Sergius Paulus, was a man of intelligence and probity, and hearing of the apostles, soon summoned them to his presence, that he might have the satisfaction of hearing from them, in his own hall, a full exposition of the doctrine which they called the word of God. This they did with such energy and efficiency, that they
won his attention and regard; and he was about to profess his faith in Jesus, when a new obstacle to the success of the gospel was presented in the conduct of one of those present at the discourse. This was an impostor, called Elymas, a name which seems to be a Greek form of the Oriental “Alim” meaning “a magician,” who had, by his tricks, gained a great renown throughout that region, and was received into high favor by the proconsul himself, with whom he was then staying. The rogue, apprehending the nature of the doctrines taught by the apostles to be no way agreeable to the schemes of self-advancement which he was so successfully pursuing, was not a little alarmed when he saw that they were taking hold of the mind of the proconsul, and therefore undertook to resist the preaching of the apostles; and attempted to argue the noble convert into a contempt of these new teachers. At this, Saul, (now first called Paul,) fixing his eyes on the miserable impostor, in a burst of inspired indignation, denounced on him an awful punishment for his resistance of the truth. “O, full of all guile and all tricks! son of the devil! enemy of all honesty! wilt thou not stop perverting the ways of the Lord? And now, lo! the hand of the Lord is on thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a time.” And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and turning around, he sought some persons to lead him by the hand. At the sight of this manifest and appalling miracle, thus following the denunciation of the apostle, the proconsul was so struck, that he no longer delayed for a moment his profession of faith in the religion whose power was thus attested, but believed in the doctrine of Jesus, as communicated by his apostles
“Seleucia was a little north-west of Antioch, upon the Mediterranean sea, named from its founder, Seleucus.――Cyprus, so called from the flower of the Cypress-trees growing there.――Pliny, lib. xii. cap. 24.――Eustathius. In Dionysius p. 110. It was an island, having on the east the Syrian, on the west the Pamphylian, on the south the Phoenician, on the north the Cilician sea. It was celebrated among the heathens for its fertility as being sufficiently provided with all things within itself. Strabo, lib. xiv. 468, 469. It was very infamous for the worship of Venus, who had thence her name Κύπρις. It was memorable among the Jews as being an island in which they so much abounded; and among Christians for being the place where Joses, called Barnabas, had the land he sold, Acts iv 36; and where Mnason, an old disciple, lived; Acts xxi. 16.――(Whitby’s Table.) Salamis was once a famous city of Cyprus, opposite to Seleucia, on the Syrian coast.――(Wells.) It
was in the eastern part of Cyprus. It was famous among the Greek writers for the story of the Dragon killed by Chycreas, their king; and for the death of Anaxarchus, whom Nicocreon, the tyrant of that island, pounded to death with iron pestles.”――(Bochart, Canaan, lib. i. c. 2――Laert, lib. ix. p. 579.) Williams’s Pearson.
Proconsul.――The Greek title Ανθυπατος, was applied only to those governors of provinces who were invested with proconsular dignity ‘And on the supposition that Cyprus was not a province of this description, it has been inferred that the title given to Sergius Paulus in this place, was a title that did not properly belong to him. A passage has indeed been quoted from Dion Cassius, (History of Rome, lib. liv. p. 523, edited by Hanoviae, 1690,) who, speaking of the governors of Cyprus and some other Roman provinces, applies to them the same title which is applied to Sergius Paulus. But, as Dion Cassius is speaking of several Roman provinces at the same time, one of which was certainly governed by a proconsul, it has been supposed, that for the sake of brevity, he used one term for all of them, whether it applied to all of them or not. That Cyprus, however, ought to be excluded, and that the title which he employed, as well as St. Luke, really did belong to the Roman governors of Cyprus, appears from the inscription on a coin belonging to Cyprus itself. It belonged to the people of that island as appears from the word ΚΥΠΡΙΩΝ on the reverse: and, though not struck while Sergius Paulus himself was governor, it was struck, as appears from the inscription on the reverse, in the time of Proclus, who was next to Sergius Paulus in the government of Cyprus. And, on this coin the same title ΑΝΘΥΠΑΤΟΣ, is given to Proclus, which St. Luke gives Sergius Paulus.’ (Bishop Marsh’s Lecture part v. pp. 85, 86.) That Cyprus was a proconsulate, is also evident ♦from an ancient inscription of Caligula’s reign, in which Aquius Scaura is called the proconsul of Cyprus. (Gruteri Corpus Inscriptionem, tom. i. part ii. p, cccix. No. 3, edited by Graevii Amsterdam, 1707.) Horne’s Introd.
♦ “lrom” replaced with “from”
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In connection with this first miracle of the apostle of Tarsus, it is mentioned by the historian of the Acts of the Apostles, that Saul thenceforth bore the name of Paul, and the reader is thence fairly led to suppose, that the name was taken from that of Sergius Paul, who is the most important personage concerned in the event; and being the first eminent man who is specified as having been converted by the apostle, seems therefore to deserve, in this case, the honor of conferring a new name on the wonder-working Saul. This coincidence between the name and the occasion, may be justly esteemed sufficient ground for assuming this as the true origin of the name by which the apostle was ever after designated, which he applies to himself in his writings, and by which he is always mentioned throughout the Christian world, in all ages. With the name of “Saul of Tarsus,” there were too many evil associations already inseparably connected, in the minds of all the Jewish inhabitants of the east, and the troublesome character of those prevalent impressions having been perhaps particularly obvious to the apostle, during his first missionary tour, he seized this honorable occasion, to exchange it for one that had no such evil associations; and he was therefore afterwards known only by the name of PAUL.
Embarking at Paphos, the apostles, after doubling cape Acamas, the most western point of the island, sailed northwestward, towards the northern coast of Asia Minor,――and after a voyage of about two hundred miles, reached Perga, a city in Pamphylia. This place was not a sea-port, but stood on the west bank of the river Cestrus, about eight miles from the sea. It was there built by the Attalian kings of south-western Asia, and was by them made the most splendid city of Pamphylia. Near the town, and on a rising ground, was a very famous temple of Diana, to which every year resorted a grand religious assembly, to celebrate the worship of this great Asian goddess. In such a strong hold of heathenism, the apostles must have found much occasion for the preaching of the gospel; but the
historian of their Acts gives no account of anything here said or done by them, and only mentions that at this place their companion, John Mark, gave up his ministration with them, and returned to Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas then went on without him, to the north, and proceeded, without any material delay, directly through Pamphylia, and over the ranges of Taurus, through Pisidia, into Phrygia Katakekaumene, where they made some stay at the city of Antioch, which was distinguished from the great capital of Syria bearing the same royal name, by being called “Antioch of Pisidia,” because, though really within the boundaries of Phrygia, it was often numbered among the cities of the province next south, near whose borders it stood, and was therefore associated with the towns of Pisidia by those who lived south and east of them. At this place the apostles probably arrived towards the last of the week, and reposing here on the sabbath, they went into the Jewish synagogue, along with the usual worshiping assembly, and took their seats quietly among the rest. After the regular service of the day (consisting of the reading of select portions of the law and the prophets) was over, the minister of the synagogue, according to custom, gave an invitation to the apostles to preach to the people, if they felt disposed to do so. It should be noticed, that in the Jewish synagogues, there was no regular person appointed to preach, the minister being only a sort of reader, who conducted the devotions of the meeting, and chanted the lessons from the Scriptures, as arranged for each sabbath. When these regular duties were over, the custom was to invite a discourse from any person disposed or qualified to address the people, the whole being always thus conducted somewhat on the plan of a modern “conference meeting.” On this day, the minister, noticing two grave and intelligent-looking persons among the worshipers, joining devoutly in the service of God, and perceiving them to be of a higher order than most of the assembly, or perhaps having received a previous hint of the fact that they were wellqualified religious teachers, who had valuable doctrines to communicate to the people, sent word to them, “Brethren! if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.” Paul then,――as usual, taking the precedence of Barnabas in speaking,
on account of his own superior endowments as an orator, addressed the meeting, beginning with the usual form of words, accompanied with a graceful gesticulation, beseeching their favor. “Men of Israel! and you that fear God! give your attention.” The two different classes of persons included in this formula, are evidently, first, those who were Jews by birth and education, and second, those devout Gentiles who reverenced the God of Israel and conformed to the law of Moses, worshiping with the Jews on the sabbath. Paul, in his sermon, which was of considerable length, began in the usual form of an apostolic discourse to the Jews, by recurring to the early Hebrew history, and running over the great leading events and persons mentioned in their sacred writings, that might be considered as preparing the way for the Messiah. Then, proceeding to the narration of the most important points in the history of the new dispensation, he applied all the quoted predictions of the inspired men of old, to the man Christ Jesus, whom they now preached. The substance of his discourse was, that in Jesus Christ were fully accomplished those splendid prophecies contained in the Psalms, concerning the future glories of the line of David; and more especially that by his attested resurrection he had fulfilled the words spoken by the Psalmist, of the triumphs of the “Holy One” over the grave and corruption. Paul thus concluded,――“Be it known to you therefore, brethren, that through this man is preached to you forgiveness of sins; and every one that believes in him is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken by the prophets, ‘See! you despisers! and wonder and be amazed; for I will do a work in your days, which you shall not believe, even if one should tell it to you.’” These denunciatory concluding words are from the prophet Habakkuk, where he is foretelling to the Israelites of his day, the devastating invasion of the Chaldeans; and the apostle in quoting them, aimed to impress his hearers with the certainty of similar evils to fall upon their nation,――evils so tremendous, that they might naturally disbelieve the warning, if it should give them the awful particulars of the coming ruin, but whose solemn truth they would, nevertheless, too soon learn in its actual
accomplishment These words being directed in a rather bitter tone of warning to the Jews in particular, that portion of the audience do not appear to have been much pleased with his address; but while the most of them were retiring from the synagogue, the Gentiles declared their high satisfaction with the discourse, and expressed an earnest desire that it might be repeated to them on the next sabbath,――a request with which ministers in these modern times are very rarely complimented by their congregations. After the meeting broke up, many of the audience were so loth to part with preachers of this extraordinary character, that they followed the apostles to their lodgings. These were mostly the religious proselytes from the heathen who worshiped with the Jews in the synagogue, but some even of the Jews were so well satisfied with what they had heard, that they also accompanied the throng that followed the apostles. Paul and Barnabas did not suffer this occasion to pass unimproved; but as they went along, discoursed to the company, exhorting them to stand fast in the grace of God. They continued in the city through the week, and meanwhile the fame of their doctrines and their eloquence extended so fast and so far, that when on the next sabbath they went to the synagogue to preach according to promise, almost the whole city came pouring in, along with them, to hear the word of God. But when the Jews, who had already been considerably displeased by the manner in which they had been addressed the last sabbath, saw the multitudes which were thronging to hear these new interlopers, they were filled with envy, and when Paul renewed his discourse, they openly disputed him, denied his conclusions, and abused him, and his doctrine Paul and Barnabas, justly indignant at this exhibition of meanness, that thus set itself against the progress of the truth among the Gentiles, from whom the Jews, not content with rejecting the gospel themselves, would also exclude the light of the word, boldly declared to them――“It was necessary that the word of God should be first spoken to you; but since you have cast it off, and thus evince yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the heathen. For thus did God command us, ‘I have set thee for a light to the heathen, that thou mightest be for their salvation, even to the
uttermost part of the earth ’” And the heathen hearing this, rejoiced, and glorified the word of the Lord, and many of them believed, to their everlasting salvation. And the word of God was spread throughout that whole country; but the opposition of the Jews increasing in proportion to the progress of the faith of Christ, a great disturbance was raised against the apostles among the aristocracy of the city, who favored the Jews, and more especially among the women of high family, who were proselytes; and the result of the commotion was, that the apostles were driven out of the city. Paul and Barnabas, in conformity to the original injunction of Jesus to the twelve, shook off the dust of their feet, as an expressive testimony against them, and turning eastward, came to another city, named Iconium, in Lycaonia, the most eastern province of Phrygia.
Lycaonia is a province of Asia Minor, accounted the southern part of Cappadocia, having Isauria on the west, Armenia Minor on the east, and Cilicia on the south. Its chief cities are all mentioned in this chapter xiv viz., Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. They spake in the Lycaonian tongue, verse 10, which is generally understood to have been a corrupt Greek, intermingled with many Syriac words.――Horne’s Introduction.
Iconium was the capital of Lycaonia, and is mentioned by the Grecian and Roman writers, before and after the apostolic times, as a place of some importance; but nothing definite is known of its size and character. It appears, at any rate, from the apostolic record, that this flourishing city was one of the numerous centers of the Jewish population, that filled so much of Asia Minor; and here, according to their custom, the apostles made their first communication of the gospel, in the Jewish synagogue Entering this place of worship, they spoke with such effect, that a great number both of Greeks and Jews were thoroughly convinced of the truth of the Christian doctrine, and professed their faith in Jesus. But, as usual, there was in Iconium a great residue of bigoted adherents to the Mosaic faith, who could appreciate neither the true scope of the ancient dispensation, nor the perfection of gospel truth; and a set of these fellows undertook to make trouble for the apostles, in the same way that it had been done at the Pisidian Antioch. Not having power or influence enough among themselves to effect any great mischief, they were obliged to
resort to the expedient of exciting the ill-will of the Gentile inhabitants and rulers of the city, against the objects of their mischievous designs,――and in this instance were successful, inasmuch as “they made their minds disaffected against the brethren.” But in spite of all this opposition, thus powerfully manifested, “long time they abode there, speaking boldly in the Lord,” who did not fail to give them the ever-promised support of his presence, but “gave testimony to the word of his grace, and caused signs and miracles to be done by their hands.” The immediate effect of this bold maintenance of the truth was, that they soon made a strong impression on the feelings of the mass of the people, and created among them a disposition to defend the preachers of the word of heavenly grace, against the malice of their haters. The consequence of course was, that the whole city was directly divided into two great parties, one for and the other against the apostles. On one hand the supporters of the Jewish faction were bent upon driving out the innovators from the city, and on the other, the numerous audiences, who had been interested in the preaching of Paul and Barnabas, were perfectly determined to stand by the apostles at all hazards, and the whole city seems to have been on the eve of a regular battle about this difference. But it did not suit the apostles’ scheme to make use of such means for their own advancement or defence; and hearing that a grand crisis in affairs was approaching, in the opposition of the Jewish faction, they took the resolution of evading the difficulty, by withdrawing themselves quietly from the scene of commotion, in which there was but very little prospect of being useful, just then. The whole gang of their opponents, both Gentiles and Jews, rulers and commonalty, having turned out for the express purpose of executing popular vengeance on these odious agitators, by abusing and pelting them, the apostles, on getting notice of the scheme, moved off, before the mob could lay hands on them, and soon got beyond their reach, in other cities.
These fugitives from popular vengeance, after having so narrowly escaped being sacrificed to public opinion, turned their course southward, and stopped next on their adventurous route at the city of
Lystra, also within Lycaonia, where they preached the gospel, and not only in the city and its immediate vicinity, but also throughout the whole surrounding region, and in the neighboring towns. In the progress of their labors in Lystra, they one day were preaching in the presence of a man who had been lame from his birth, being in exactly the same predicament with the cripple who was the subject of the first miracle of Peter and John, in the temple. This unfortunate auditor of Paul and Barnabas believed the word of truth which they preached; and as he sat among the rest, being noticed by the former apostle, was recognized as a true believer. Looking earnestly on him, Paul, without questioning him at all as to his faith, said to him at once, in a loud voice, “Rise, and stand on thy feet ” Instantly the man sprang up, and walked. When the people saw this amazing and palpable miracle, they cried out, in their Lycaonian dialect, “The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.” Struck with this notion, they immediately sought to designate the individual deities who had thus honored the city of Lystra with their presence; and at once recognized in the stately form, and solemn, silent majesty of Barnabas, the awful front of J , the Father of all the gods; and as for the lively, mercurial person attending upon him, and acting, on all occasions, as the spokesman, with such vivid, burning eloquence,――who could he be but the attendant and agent of Jupiter, H , the god of eloquence and of travelers? Full of this conceit, and anxious to testify their devout sense of this condescension, the citizens bustled about, and with no small parade brought out a solemn sacrificial procession, with oxen and garlands, headed by the priests of Jupiter, and were proceeding to offer a sacrifice in solemn form to the divine personages who had thus veiled their dignity in human shape, when the apostles, horror-struck at this degrading exhibition of the idolatrous spirit against which they were warring, and without a single sensation of pride or gratitude for this great compliment done them, ran in among the people, rending their clothes in the significant and fantastic gesture of true Orientals, and cried out with great earnestness, “Sirs! what do you mean? We also are men of like constitutions with yourselves, and we preach to you with the express intent that you should turn from these follies to
the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them. He, indeed, in times past, left all nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he left himself not wholly without witness of his being and goodness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” With these words of splendid eloquence and magnificent conception bursting from their lips in the inspiration of the moment,――the apostles, with no small ado, stopped the idolatrous folly of the Lystrans, who probably felt and looked very silly, when the mistake into which they had been drawn by a mere mob-cry, was shown to them. Indignant, not so much at themselves, who alone were truly blamable for the error, as against the persons who were the nobly innocent occasions of it, they were in a state of feeling to overbalance this piece of extravagance by another,――much more wicked, because it was not mere nonsense, but downright cruelty. When, therefore, certain spiteful Jews came to Lystra from Antioch and Iconium, from which places they had been hunting, like hounds, on the track of the apostles, and told their abusive lies to the people about the character of these two strange travelers, the foolish Lystrans were easily persuaded to crown their absurdity by falling upon Paul, who seemed to be the person most active in the business. Having seized him, before he could slip out of their hands, as he usually did from his persecutors, they pelted him with such effect that he fell down as if dead; and they, with no small alacrity, dragged him out of the city as a mere carcase. But the mob had hardly dispersed, when he rose up, to the great wonder of the brethren who stood mourning about him, and went back with them into the city. The whole of this interesting series of events is a firm testimony to the honesty of the apostolic narrative, exhibiting, as it does, so fairly, the most natural, and at the same time, the most contemptible tendencies of the human character. Never was there given such a beautiful illustration of the value and moral force of public opinion! unless, perhaps, in the very similar case of Jesus, in Jerusalem: “Hosanna,” to-day, and “Crucify him,” to-morrow. One moment, exalting the apostles to the name and honors of the highest of all the gods; the next, pelting them through the streets, and kicking
them out of the city as a nuisance The Bible is everywhere found to be just so bitterly true to human nature, and the whole world cannot furnish a story in which the character and moral value of popular movements are better exhibited than in the adventures of the apostles, as recorded by Luke.
Acts xiv 12. “It has been inquired why the Lystrans suspected that Paul and Barnabas were Mercury and Jupiter? To this it may be answered, 1st that the ancients supposed the gods especially visited those cities which were sacred to them. Now from verse 13, it appears that Jupiter was worshiped among these people; and that Mercury too was, there is no reason to doubt, considering how general his worship would be in so commercial a tract of Maritime Asia. (Gughling de Paulo Mercurio, p. 9, and Walch Spic. Antiquities, Lystra, p. 9.) How then was it that the priest of Mercury did not also appear? This would induce one rather to suppose that there was no temple to Mercury at Lystra. Probably the worship of that god was confined to the sea-coast; whereas Lystra was in the interior and mountainous country 2. It appears from mythological history, that Jupiter was thought to generally descend on earth accompanied by Mercury See Plautus, Amphitryon, 1, 1, 1. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 8, 626, and Fasti, 5, 495 3. It was a very common story, and no doubt, familiar to the Lystrans, that Jupiter and Mercury formerly traversed Phrygia together, and were received by Philemon and Baucis. (See Ovid, Metamorphoses, 8, 611, Gelpke in Symbol. ad Interp. Acts xiv. 12.) Mr. Harrington has yet more appositely observed, (in his Works, p. 330,) that this persuasion might gain the more easily on the minds of the Lycaonians, on account of the well-known fable of Jupiter and Mercury, who were said to have descended from heaven in human shape, and to have been entertained by Lycaon, from whom the Lycaonians received their name.
“But it has been further inquired why they took Barnabas for Jupiter, and Paul for Mercury Chrysostom observes, (and after him Mr Fleming, Christology Vol. II. p. 226,) that the heathens represented Jupiter as an old but vigorous man, of a noble and majestic aspect, and a large robust make, which therefore he supposes might be the form of Barnabas; whereas Mercury appeared young, little, and nimble, as Paul might probably do, since he was yet in his youth. A more probable reason, however, and indeed the true one, (as given by Luke,) is, that Paul was so named, because he was the leading speaker. Now it was well known that Mercury was the god of eloquence. So Horace, Carmen Saeculare, 1, 10, 1. Mercuri facunde nepos Atlantis Qui feros cultus hominum recentum Voce formasti cantus Ovid, Fasti, 5, 688. Macrobius, Saturnalia, 8, 8. Hence he is called by Jamblichus, de Mysteriis, θεὸς
ἡγεμὼν, a passage exactly the counterpart to the present one, which we may render, ‘for he had led the discourse.’” (Bloomfield’s Annotations, New Testament, Vol. IV c. xiv § 12.)
“They called Paul Mercury, because he was the chief speaker,” verse 12. Mercury was the god of eloquence. Justin Martyr says Paul is λόγος
, the word; that is, the interpreter and teacher of all men. Apology ii. p. 67. Philo informs us that Mercury is called Hermes, ὡς
, as being the interpreter and prophet of divine things, apud Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica, Lib. iii. c. 2. He is called by Porphyry παραστατικὸς, the exhibitor or representor of reason and eloquence Seneca says he was called Mercury, quia ratio penes illum est De Beneficiis, Lib. iv cap. 7.――Calmet, Whitby, Stackhouse.
All this pelting and outcry, however, made not the slightest impression on Paul and Barnabas, nor had the effect of deterring them from the work, which they had so unpropitiously carried on. Knowing, as they did, how popular violence always exhausts itself in its frenzy, they without hesitation immediately returned by the same route over which they had been just driven by such a succession of popular outrages. The day after Paul had been stoned and stunned by the people of Lystra, he left that city with Barnabas, and both directed their course eastward to Derbe, where they preached the gospel and taught many. Then turning directly back, they came again to Lystra, then to Iconium, and then to Antioch, in all of which cities they had just been so shamefully treated In each of these places, they sought to strengthen the faith of the disciples, earnestly exhorting them to continue in the Christian course, and warning them that they must expect to attain the blessings of the heavenly kingdom, only through much trial and suffering. On this return journey they now formally constituted regular worshiping assemblies of Christians in all the places from which they had before been so tumultuously driven as to be prevented from perfecting their good work, ordaining elders in every church thus constituted, and solemnly, with fasting and prayer, commending them to the Lord on whom they believed. Still keeping the same route on which they had come, they now turned southward into Pamphylia, and came again to Perga. From this place, they went down to Attalia, a great city south of Perga, on the coast of Pamphylia, founded by Attalus Philadelphus, king of Pergamus. At this port, they embarked for the coast of Syria, and soon arrived at Antioch, from which they had been commended to the favor of God, on this adventurous journey. On their arrival, the whole church was gathered to hear the story of their doings and sufferings, and to this eager assembly, the apostles then recounted all that happened to them in the providence of God, their labors, their trials, dangers, and hair-breadth escapes, and the crowning successes in which all these providences had resulted; and more especially did they set forth in what a signal manner, during this journey, the door of Christ’s kingdom had been opened to the
Gentiles, after the rejection of the truth by the unbelieving Jews; and thus happily ended P ’ .
Bishop Pearson here allots three years for these journeys of the apostles, viz. 45, 46, and 47, and something more. But Calmet, Tillemont, Dr Lardner, Bishop Tomline, and Dr Hales, allow two years for this purpose, viz. 45 and 46; which period corresponds with our Bible chronology. (Williams on Pearson.)
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The great apostle of the Gentiles now made Antioch his home, and resided there for many years, during which the church grew prosperously. But at last some persons came down from Jerusalem, to observe the progress which the new Gentile converts were making in the faith; and found, to their great horror, that all were going on their Christian course, in utter disregard of the ancient ordinances of the holy Mosaic covenant, neglecting altogether even that grand seal of salvation, which had been enjoined on Abraham and all the faithful who should share in the blessings of the promise made to him; they therefore took these backsliders and loose converts, to task, for their irregularities in this matter, and said to them, “Unless you be circumcised ♦according to the Mosaic usage, you can not be saved.” This denunciation of eternal ruin on the Gentile non-conformists, of course made a great commotion among the Antiochians, who had been so hopefully progressing in the pure, spiritual faith of Christ,――and were not prepared by any of the instructions which they had received from their apostolic teachers, for any such stiff subjection to tedious rituals. Nor were Paul and Barnabas slow in resisting this vile imposition upon those who were just rejoicing in the glorious light and freedom of the gospel; and they at once therefore, resolutely opposed the attempts of the bigoted Judaizers to bring them under the servitude of the yoke which not even the Jews themselves were able to bear. After much wrangling on this knotty point, it was determined to make a united reference of the whole question to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, and that Paul and Barnabas should be the messengers of the Antiochian church, in this consultation. They accordingly set out, escorted
