Cyprus

Acts simply notes in passing, "Saul, who was also called Paul," right at the encounter with the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus. Both names were likely his from birth, one Hebrew and one Roman, which was ordinary for a Jew who also held Roman citizenship. Scripture gives no stated reason for the timing; it lands at the first recorded meeting with a Gentile official on Gentile ground.

He is named a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet in the household of Sergius Paulus, actively trying to keep the governor from the faith. Paul pronounced a judgment of blindness on him for that specific opposition, and it was temporary, for a time, the same word used of Paul's own blindness at his conversion.

New Paphos became a city around 312 BC under Nikokles, the last king of the local Paphian kingdom, and it grew into the administrative capital of the Roman province of Cyprus, a status it held until Salamis was refounded as the island's capital in AD 346. That is why Luke's account finds the governor, Sergius Paulus, at Paphos rather than at Salamis, where Barnabas and Saul had begun their preaching.

Acts records that Barnabas himself was a Levite from Cyprus before any mission begins. Once the Holy Spirit set him and Saul apart for the work, they sailed there first. Scripture states the fact plainly and does not comment further on the reason.

The standard Hebrew lexicons identify Kittim with Kition, a city on Cyprus, and by extension the island itself. This page uses the identification only as far as those lexicons support it, without extending it to later, broader uses of the same name in other books.

Acts names the disagreement plainly: Barnabas wanted to bring John Mark on a second journey, and Paul did not, because Mark had left them partway through the first one. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for his own island; Paul chose Silas and went another way. Scripture reports the sharp parting without assigning blame to either man by name.