Salamis: The First Stop of Paul's First Missionary Journey

Salamis was the great harbour city of eastern Cyprus and, according to Acts 13:5, the first place where Paul and Barnabas preached the word of God on the first missionary journey. When the two apostles sailed from Seleucia, the port of Antioch, in c. AD 46–47, it was at Salamis that they stepped ashore and began the work that would carry the gospel across the Roman world. For a library centred on Tarsus, Salamis holds a particular place: the journey that began here had been set in motion only a few years earlier, when Barnabas travelled to Tarsus to seek out Paul and bring him to Antioch (Acts 11:25–26).

The Ancient City

Salamis stood on the east coast of Cyprus, on the sandy bay north of modern Famagusta, facing the Syrian coast across the water; the coast of Cilicia, Paul's home region, lay across the sea to the north of the island. (Tradition) held that the city was founded after the Trojan War by Teucer, son of Telamon of the Greek island of Salamis, from which it took its name. Whatever its true origins, archaeology confirms settlement in the area from the Late Bronze Age, and by the first millennium BC Salamis had become the largest and wealthiest of the Cypriot kingdoms, minting its own coinage and trading grain, copper, timber, and wine across the eastern Mediterranean.

Under the successors of Alexander the Great, and then under Rome — Cyprus became a Roman province in 58 BC — the political capital of the island shifted to Paphos on the west coast, where the proconsul resided. Salamis, however, remained the commercial heart of Cyprus. Its harbour was the natural landing point for ships arriving from Syria and Cilicia, and its population in the first century AD was the largest on the island, likely numbering in the tens of thousands.

That population included a substantial Jewish community. Jews had settled on Cyprus in significant numbers from the Ptolemaic period onward, drawn by the copper industry and by trade, and (Scripture) confirms their presence at Salamis in the plural: Acts 13:5 speaks of "the synagogues of the Jews" — more than one — an incidental detail that fits everything else known about the city's size and its Jewish population. (Scholarship) generally regards this plural as an authentic touch of local knowledge in Luke's account. The community's later history was tragic: in AD 115–117, during the Jewish revolt under Trajan, Salamis was devastated in the fighting, and the Jewish population of Cyprus was afterwards expelled by Roman decree.

Paul at Salamis (Acts 13:4–5)

The first missionary journey began at Antioch, where the church, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which they had been called (Acts 13:2–3). The choice of Cyprus as the first field was natural: Barnabas was himself a Cypriot, a Levite born on the island (Acts 4:36), and Cypriot believers had been among the first to preach to Greeks at Antioch (Acts 11:19–20).

The Douay-Rheims translation renders the arrival thus: "And when they were come to Salamina, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John also in the ministry" (Acts 13:5).

Three details deserve attention. First, the synagogues: preaching first in the synagogue became the settled pattern of Paul's missionary method, repeated at Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Thessalonica, and elsewhere. Salamis is the first recorded instance of it on the journeys. Second, the plural "synagogues" indicates a sustained effort across the city's Jewish community rather than a single address. Third, the note that "they had John also in the ministry" introduces John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas (Scripture, Colossians 4:10), as the party's assistant — a detail that becomes significant later, when John Mark's departure at Perga (Acts 13:13) sowed the seed of the later disagreement between Paul and Barnabas.

Luke records no results at Salamis — no conversions, no opposition. The narrative moves swiftly on: "And when they had gone through the whole island, as far as Paphos..." (Acts 13:6). The journey across Cyprus, roughly 150 kilometres from east to west, culminated at Paphos in the encounter with the proconsul Sergius Paulus and the sorcerer Elymas, after which the party sailed north to Perga in Pamphylia — the coastal region of southern Asia Minor adjoining Cilicia, the province whose eastern plain held Paul's native Tarsus, farther along the same Anatolian shore.

Barnabas and Salamis (Tradition)

Salamis belongs above all to Barnabas. After the disagreement over John Mark recorded in Acts 15:36–41, the two apostles parted: Barnabas took Mark and sailed again to Cyprus, while Paul went overland through Syria and Cilicia — the road that led through his home city of Tarsus — confirming the churches there. Scripture says nothing further of Barnabas's work on the island.

(Tradition), however, is rich. Cypriot tradition, elaborated in the fifth-century *Acts of Barnabas*, holds that Barnabas continued to evangelize Cyprus and was martyred at Salamis in c. AD 61, stoned by opponents of his preaching, and that Mark buried his body secretly outside the city with a copy of the Gospel of Matthew laid upon his breast. (Tradition) further relates that in AD 478 the burial place was revealed in a dream to Anthemius, archbishop of Constantia (as Salamis was then called), and the relics were found as described. The discovery had lasting consequences: it was cited in support of the autocephaly — the self-governing status — of the Church of Cyprus, which endures to this day. The Monastery of St. Barnabas, standing about a kilometre west of the ruins beside the traditional tomb, commemorates these events.

The city itself outlived its ancient name. Severely damaged by earthquakes in the fourth century AD, Salamis was rebuilt by the emperor Constantius II and renamed Constantia, serving as the capital and metropolitan see of Byzantine Cyprus until Arab raids in the seventh century drove its population to the site of modern Famagusta. The harbour silted, the sand advanced, and the great city fell quiet.

What Remains Today

The ruins of Salamis are among the most extensive and evocative ancient sites on Cyprus, spread over a large area of coastal woodland and dune about nine kilometres north of Famagusta (Gazimağusa), in the northern part of the island. The principal monuments visible today are largely Roman and early Byzantine — later, that is, than Paul's visit, but standing on the city he knew.

The most celebrated remains are the gymnasium and baths, with a colonnaded palaestra whose re-erected marble columns frame views of the sea; the theatre, one of the largest in the eastern Mediterranean, originally seating an estimated 15,000 spectators and partially restored; the agora, among the largest known in the Roman world, with the Temple of Zeus Salaminios at its southern end; and two great early Christian basilicas — the basilica of Epiphanius, in its day among the largest churches on the island, and the elegant Kampanopetra basilica near the shore. Roman villas, cisterns, a stretch of paved street, and lengths of the ancient harbour works complete the picture. To the west lies the royal necropolis, with monumental built tombs of the eighth and seventh centuries BC whose burials, complete with horses and chariots, recall the funerals described in Homer.

Nothing of the first-century synagogues has been identified; their location within the city is unknown. As at many Pauline sites, the visitor stands not before the building the apostle entered but within the city whose streets, harbour, and population defined his first mission field.

Visiting Salamis

The site lies just off the coastal road north of Famagusta and is open to visitors year-round; the ruins are extensive, and unhurried exploration — the gymnasium, theatre, basilicas, and a walk to the shore — rewards half a day. Spring and autumn offer the kindest weather; summer visits are best made early, with water and sun protection, as shade across the open site is limited. The Monastery of St. Barnabas, with its icon museum and the traditional tomb of the apostle nearby, is a short drive west and is naturally paired with the ancient city.

For those tracing the journeys of Paul, Salamis is the opening chapter of the first missionary journey: the road continues across the island to Paphos, then by sea to Perga and the highlands of Asia Minor. And the wider story frames Cyprus between two shores that matter to this library: the journey was launched from Antioch, to which Barnabas had brought Paul from Tarsus, and when the apostles later parted, it was to Cyprus that Barnabas returned — while Paul turned again through Cilicia, past the city of his birth, toward the churches of the interior.