Acts 13:5

And when they were at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John as their attendant.

At Salamis ... This was the largest city on the eastern end of Cyprus, opposite from Seleucia, and within a hundred miles distance, being clearly visible on a clear day from Seleucia.[10] Something of the immense size of this ancient city appears in the fact that the large Jewish population massacred some 240,000 of the Gentile inhabitants in a great uprising put down by Trajan's great general, Hadrian, who himself later became emperor. As a result, Hadrian expelled all Jews from the city; and "even if a Jew was accidentally wrecked on that inhospitable shore, he was instantly put to death."[11] Of course, those terrible conditions developed some fifty years after Barnabas and Saul preached there; and one cannot resist the conjecture that if the Jewish population had received the gospel of Christ, the later tragedies might have been avoided.

The synagogues ... There were many of these attended by the vast Jewish population of Salamis; and it is significant that, from the very beginning, the gospel was preached "to the Jew first, and also to the Gentiles" (Romans 1:16). Luke does not mention any success of the evangelists in Salamis, perhaps because there was none to report.

John Mark as their attendant ... "Mark probably acted as baptist,"[12] is a speculation that is supported by the fact that Paul did not usually do the baptizing personally (1 Corinthians 1:14-17).

Continuing on from Salamis, Barnabas and Saul traversed the whole length of Cyprus to Paphos at the western extremity. It was a rich and populous island, the chief exports being copper and timber. The deity most generally worshiped on Cyprus was Aphrodite (Venus), the whole island being noted for its reprobacy and debauchery.

[10] Ibid.

[11] J. W. Conybeare, op. cit., p. 114.

[12] B. W. Johnson, The People's New Testament (Delight, Arkansas: Gospel Light Publishing Company), p. 470.