Acts 9:30 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

They brought him down to Cæsarea. — The fact that the brethren at Jerusalem took these measures for the Apostle’s safety may be noted as a proof of their friendship. At Cæsarea he would probably, as afterwards in Acts 21:8, find Philip, and the friend and the accuser of the proto-martyr met face to face as brethren. In returning to his home at Tarsus, from which he had been absent at the least for four years, and possibly for a much longer period, it would be natural for him to resume his old employment as a tent-maker. (See Note on Acts 18:3.) Thence, as from a centre, he did his work as an Evangelist in the regions of Cilicia (Galatians 1:21), where, in Acts 15:41, we find churches already organised, which had not been founded in what we call the first mission journey of Paul and Barnabas, and must therefore have been planted by the former at an earlier period. Here, for the present, we lose sight of him. It need hardly be said that the Cæsarea here spoken of is that on the sea-coast. Cæsarea Philippi is always distinguished by its special epithet.