Bible Commentaries

Acts 18:1. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα: in continuation of the narrative, cf. Luke 10:1.—χωρισθεὶς: in Acts 1:4 with ἀπό, and so usually—only here with ἐκ, departure from Athens emphasised, because events had compelled the Apostle to alter his intended plan (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 240, and Blass, in loco), cf. 1 Chronicles 12:8 (A al.); 2Ma 5:21; 2Ma 12:12, with an accusative of place.—Κόρινθον: Corinth from its position as the capital of the Roman province Achaia was the centre of government and commerce, while Athens was still the great educational centre of Greece. St. Paul, with his keen eye for the most important and prominent stations of Roman government and the meeting points of East and West, might be expected to choose a place from whence the influence of the Gospel could spread over the whole province. Like Ephesus, Corinth lay on the great highway between East and West; like Ephesus it was, as Professor Ramsay terms it, one of the knots on the line of communication, the point of convergence for many subordinate roads. But Corinth, with all its external beauty, its wealth and fame, had become a byword for vice and infamy, cf. Κορινθιάζεσθαι, Κορινθιάζειν, Wetstein, 1 Corinthians 1:2, and references in Farrar, St. Paul, i., 557 ff., and it has not been unfairly termed the Vanity Fair of the Roman empire: at once the London and the Paris of the first century after Christ (Farrar, u. s., p. 556). To this infamous notoriety not only the cosmopolitanism of the city contributed, but the open consecration of shameless impurity in its temple service of Venus, see Ramsay, “Corinth,” Hastings’ B.D.; C. and H., small edition, p. 324 ff.; McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 262, and notes below.

Acts 18:2. Ἀκύλαν, cf. Acts 18:18, Romans 16:3, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:19 : the Latin Aquila in its Greek form; the name may have been assumed, as often the case, in place of the Jewish name. It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that Luke made a mistake and that this Aquila’s name was Pontius Aquila, which he bore as a freedman of the Gens Pontia, a distinguished member of which was called by the same two names, Pontius Aquila, Cic., Ad Fam., x., 33; Suet., Jul. Cæs., 78. The fact that another Aquila, who is famous as giving us the earliest version A.D. of the O.T. in Greek, is also described as from Pontus goes far to show that there is nothing improbable in St. Luke’s statement (Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 226, E.T.). The name, moreover, was also a slave name (Ramsay, p. 269), as a freedman of Mæcenas was called (C. Cilnius) Aquila. But it is probable that as the greater part of the Jews in Rome were freedmen, Aquila may also have belonged to this class, see Schürer, u. s., p. 234, and also further, Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. xxvii., 418; Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 173.—τῷ γένει: “by race,” R.V., cf. Acts 4:36, of Barnabas, and Acts 18:24, of Apollos; the word need not mean more than this.—Ἰουδαῖον: The word has been pressed sometimes to indicate that Aquila was still unconverted to Christianity. But the fact that he is called a Jew may simply refer to the notice which follows “that all Jews,” etc. Whether Aquila was a Christian before he met St. Paul is very difficult to determine. He is not spoken of as a disciple, and similarity of employment rather than of Christian belief may account for the Apostle’s intercourse with him and Priscilla, Zahn, Einleitung, i., 189. But the suspicion with which most of his countrymen regarded St. Paul rather indicates that Aquila and Priscilla must at least have had some leanings towards the new faith, or they would scarcely have received him into their lodgings. It is quite possible that, as at the great Pentecost Jews from Rome had been present, cf. Acts 2:10, Christianity may have been carried by this means to the imperial city, and that such tidings may have predisposed Aquila and Priscilla to listen to St. Paul’s teaching, even if they were not Christians when they first met him. If they were converted, as has been supposed, by St. Paul at Corinth, it is strange that no mention is made of their conversion. That they were Christians when St. Paul left them at Ephesus seems to be beyond a doubt. Renan describes them as already Christians when they met the Apostle, so too Hilgenfeld, on the ground that their conversion by St. Paul could scarcely have been passed over, see further “Aquila,” B.D.2, and Hastings’ B.D.; Wendt, in loco; Lightfoot, Phil., pp. 16 and 17, Hort, Rom. and Ephes., p. 9.—προσφάτως: here only, lit[317], lately slaughtered or killed; hence recent, fresh; Latin, recens (Grimm). In LXX, Deuteronomy 24:5, Ezekiel 11:3, Jdg 4:3; Jdg 4:5, 2Ma 14:36, so too in Polybius, Westcott on Hebrews 10:20 πρόσφατος regards all derivations from σφάω (σφάζω) φάω (φένω) φάω (φημί) as unsatisfactory.—Πρίσκιλλαν: in Epistles, Romans 16:3, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:9, Prisca, R.V., W.H[318], Priscilla, perhaps the diminutive, cf. Lucilla, Domitilla. Probably St. Luke used the language of conversation, in which the diminutive forms were usually employed, St. Paul, p. 268. On Bezan text see critical note, Ramsay, u. s., and Church in the Roman Empire, p. 158. In Acts 18:18; Acts 18:26 we have Priscilla mentioned before her husband, and so by St. Paul, except in 1 Corinthians 16:19. The reason may be that she was of higher social status, and indeed not a Jewess at all, as this seems the best way of accounting for the curious arrangement of the sentence here, the point being to emphasise the fact that Aquila was a Jew. Her name may indicate some connection with the Priscan Gens; whilst Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 420, in an interesting discussion find reasons to connect both her (and possibly her husband) with the Acilian Gens. That she was a woman of education is evident from Acts 18:26, and it is possible that her marriage with Aquila may afford us another proof amongst many of the influence of the Jewish religion over educated women in Rome, Jos., Ant., xviii., 3, 5. But many commentators from St. Chrysostom have referred the precedence of Priscilla not to social rank, but to her greater fervency of spirit or ability of character; or it may be simply due to the fact that she was converted first.—διὰ τὸ διατεταχέναι: St. Luke’s statement is fully corroborated by Suet., Claudius, 25: “Judæos impulsore Christo assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit”. But Dio Cassius, lx. 6, in referring to what is most probably the same edict, states that the Jews were not expelled, because of the difficulty in carrying such an order into effect on account of their great numbers. Another passage in Suet., Tiberius, 36, gives us the probable explanation: “expulit et mathematicos sed deprecantibus veniam dedit”: an instance of a contemplated expulsion, afterwards abandoned. If we thus interpret the meaning of Suetonius with reference to the edict of Claudius by giving the same force to “expulit,” it explains the silence of Tacitus and Josephus, who do not mention the edict, while the words of Dio Cassius emphasise the fact that although no expulsion took place the assemblies of the Jews were prohibited, and on that account, we may fairly suppose, that many Jews would leave the city, Schürer, u. s., p. 237. On any view the edict could not have remained in force very long, cf. Acts 28:15, and also the return of Aquila and Priscilla to Rome, Romans 16:3. Ramsay dates the edict at the end of 50 A.D. on the ground that although Orosius, Hist., vii., 6, 15, states that it occurred in the ninth year of Claudius, 49 A.D., the historian here, as elsewhere (e.g., cf. the famine) in connection with the events of this reign, is a year too early. Wendt (1899), p. 59, gives 49–50 as the year of the edict. But it must be remembered that the authority of Orosius is not altogether reliable in this case, as there is no proof that he had any direct reference to Josephus, to whom he appeals for his date; see O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 129; Blass, Proleg., 23, and Turner, “Chronology of the New Testament” Hastings’ B.D. McGiffert, p. 362, maintains that as the date of the edict is thus unknown, we cannot base any chronological conclusions upon it, cf. Zahn, Einleitung, ii., 634. Meyer maintained that by Chrestus Suetonius meant a Jewish agitator so called, but it is more probable that the historian confused Christus with Chrestus—an unfamiliar name with one in use among both Greeks and Romans. This Chrestus Suetonius speaks of as actually living, as the historian might have heard enough to lead him to regard the commotions between Jews and Jewish Christians in Rome as instigated by a leader bearing this name, commotions like those excited in the Pisidian Antioch, in Thessalonica, and elsewhere; or it may be that he thus indicates the feverish hopes of the Messiah amongst the Jews resident in Rome, hopes so often raised by some pretentious deliverer. But Lightfoot makes the important remark that even in this case we may fairly suppose that the true Christ held a prominent place in these reports, for He must have been not less known at this time than any of the false Christs (Philippians, p. 16, note). Such indifference on the part of a Roman of the period is surely not surprising, and the probability is more generally maintained that this Chrestus was really Christ, the leader of the Christians, see Weiss, Didache 1 N. T., p. 227; Wendt (1899), in loco; Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 47, 254; McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 362, note, but, on the other hand, Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 306.

[317] literal, literally.

[318] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

Acts 18:3. διὰ τὸ ὁμότεχνον: the word is peculiar to St. Luke, and although it is found in classical Greek and in Josephus, it is not used in the LXX, and it may be regarded as a technical word used by physicians of one another; the medical profession was called ἡ ἰατρικὴ τέχνη, physicians were ὁμότεχνοι; thus Dioscorides in dedicating his work to Areus speaks of his friendly disposition towards fellow-physicians (ὁμοτέχνους), Hobart, p. 239, Weiss in Meyer’s Kommentar, Luke 1:6, and also Vogel, Zur Charakteristik des Lukas, p. 17 (1897). On the dignity of labour as fully recognised by Judaism at the time of the Advent, see Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, chapter xi.; Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, pp. 18, 19, 141 (Taylor, 2nd edit.).—ἔμενε παρʼ αὐτοῖς: “In Alexandria the different trades sat in the synagogue arranged into guilds; and St. Paul could have no difficulty in meeting in the bazaar of his trade with the like-minded Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2-3), with whom to find a lodging,” Edersheim, u. s., p. 89, and see passage from T. B. Sukkah, 51 b, quoted by Lumby, in loco, and on Acts 6:9.—ἠργάζετο: “at Corinth St. Paul’s first search seems to have been for work,” cf. Acts 20:34-35, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, 2 Thessalonians 3:8, 1 Corinthians 4:11-12, 2 Corinthians 11:9, Php 4:12. In close connection with this passage cf. “St. Paul a Working Man and in Want,” An Expositor’s Note-Book, pp. 419–438 (the late Dr. Samuel Cox), see also Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 34–36.—σκηνοποιοὶ: only here in N.T. (σκηνοποιεῖν, Symm., Isaiah 13:20; Isaiah 22:15); much has been said about the word, but there seems no reason to depart from the translation “tent-makers,” i.e., σκηνοῤῥάφος, Aelian, V.H., ii., 1, and so St. Paul is called by Chrysostom and Theodoret, although Chrysostom also calls him σκυτοτόμος, 2 Timothy 2, Hom., iv., 5, 3. It is no doubt true that tents were often made of a rough material woven from the hair of the goats in which Cilicia abounded, and that the name κιλίκιον (Lat. cilicium, Fr. cilice, hair-cloth) was given to this material; but the word in the text does not mean “makers of materials for tents”. There is no ground for rendering the word with Renan tapissier, or with Michaelis “Kunst-Instrumentenmacher”. On the curious notion that St. Paul was a landscape painter, which appears to have arisen from a confusion between σκηνοῤῥάφος and σκηνογράφος, and the fact that he is described as ἡνιοποιός, probably a confusion with σκηνοποιός, see Expository Times, and notes by Ramsay, Nestle, Dec., 1896, Jan. and March, 1897. As it was often enjoined upon a son not to forsake the trade of his father, perhaps from respect, perhaps because a similar trade might be more easily learnt at home, it is likely that Saul followed his father’s trade, which both father and son might easily have learnt at Tarsus. Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. i., p. 44, E.T. In a commercial city like Corinth the material would be easily obtainable, see critical note.

Acts 18:4. διελέγετο δὲ … ἔπειθέ τε: “and he used to discourse … and tried to persuade,” so Ramsay, marking the imperfects, see also Hackett’s note.—Ἐλληνας: proselytes, since they are represented as in the synagogue, cf. Acts 14:1. The heathen are not addressed until Acts 18:6. McGiffert considers that this notice of work in the synagogue is untrustworthy (p. 268) and at variance with the fact that in St. Paul’s own Epistles there is no hint of it, but cf. 1 Corinthians 9:20, words which we may reasonably suppose had a special application to Corinth, or the Apostle would scarcely have so expressed himself. It would have been strange if in such a commercial centre there had been no Jewish synagogue.

Acts 18:5. See note on Acts 17:15; McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 269, recognises this among the striking points of contact between Acts and the Epistles to the Corinthians. Here Silas and Timothy are said to have been with St. Paul in Corinth, cf. St. Paul’s own statement in 2 Corinthians 1:19, to the fact that the same two names occur in the salutations of 1 and 2 Thess., both of which were written from Corinth, see also Paley, Horæ Paulinæ, iv., 6, 7, and viii. 4.—συνείχετο τῷ πνεύματι: “he was wholly absorbed in preaching,” λόγῳ, so Ramsay; “in teaching the word,” Grimm-Thayer, cf. Wis 17:11 (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14). The verb occurs frequently in Luke, six times in his Gospel, three times in Acts, twice in St. Paul, only once elsewhere in N.T., but nowhere as in the particular phrase here. It looks as if St. Paul’s preaching in Corinth was specially characterised by “greater concentration of purpose and simplicity of method,” cf. 1 Corinthians 2:2. The philosophic style in which he had addressed the Athenians is now abandoned, and so too, at least primarily, the proclamation of the living and true God, and of the coming of His Son to save His people in the day of wrath, with which apparently he had commenced at Thessalonica, 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10. Such methods and truths had their place, but in Corinth “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” was to be preached as the power of God and the wisdom of God, and in both his Epistles all that the Apostle says about the duties of the Christian life is brought into relation with this fundamental truth (see McGiffert, u. s., p. 266). Silas and Timothy found him wholly possessed by and engrossed in the word (so the imperfect, Page, Alford, Wendt). On the other hand it has been maintained that the arrival of Silas and Timothy brought St. Paul help from Macedonia, and that on the account, Php 4:15, 2 Corinthians 11:9, he was able to give himself up to preaching, as he was thus relieved from the strain of working for his bread (so Wordsworth, Lewin, Rendall). But 1 Corinthians 9:1 seems to imply that St. Paul still continued to work for his livelihood at Corinth. Blass seems to find in the uniqueness of the phrase a reason for its alteration; see critical note for his view. Plumptre refers the words to the Apostle’s desire to see Rome, which the Apostle cherished for many years, and which had been further kindled by finding himself in company with those who came from Rome; and the announcement of a journey to Rome, Acts 19:21, after the Apostle had been some time in the company of Aquila and Priscilla both at Corinth and Ephesus, is emphasised by Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 255. But on the whole, Ramsay’s interpretation is very striking, p. 252, cf. the remarks of McGiffert much to the same effect, Apostolic Age, pp. 263–266.—διαμαρτ., see above on p. 92.—τὸν Χ. Ἰ.: “that the Anointed One is Jesus,” cf. Acts 17:3, so Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 226. So far the message was evidently for Jews. See critical note for reading in .

Acts 18:6. ἀντιτασσ.: classical use, of an army ranged in hostile array, or of those opposed to each other in opinion, Thuc., iii., 83. So in later Greek, in Polyb-generally to oppose, to resist. Ramsay renders “and when they began to form a faction against him,” but cf. Romans 13:2, Jam 4:6; Jam 5:6, 1 Peter 5:5, Proverbs 3:34.—βλασφ., cf. Acts 13:45, or it may be used generally as in Acts 19:9, and 2 Peter 2:2.—ἐκτιναξ., cf. Acts 13:51, note; cf. Matthew 10:14, and LXX, Nehemiah 5:13, “undoubtedly a very exasperating gesture,” Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 256; but we must remember that the opposition at Corinth seems to have been unusally great, as Ramsay himself points out, u. s., pp. 143, 256.—τὸ αἶμα ὑμῶν, cf. Acts 20:26, Hebraistic, cf., e.g., Matthew 27:25, and in LXX, Leviticus 20:16, 2 Samuel 1:16, 1 Kings 2:37, Ezekiel 3:18, etc., i.e., ἐλθέτω, Matthew 23:35. Both here and in Acts 20:26 we can scarcely doubt that St. Paul had in mind the words of the prophet, Ezekiel 33:6.—ἐπὶ τὴν κεφ., i.e., upon yourselves, the head being used for the person—for other ideas of the word see Wendt (1888), in loco. De Wette interprets of moral ruin, and others of the eternal ἀπωλεία, but we cannot refine so much upon a figurative phrase. In Acts 18:5 b and 6 Spitta and Jüngst see the hand of a Reviser, the former holding that the whole passage runs smoothly with these omissions, whilst Jüngst ascribes also the word ἐκεῖθεν, Acts 18:7, to the Reviser. According to Clemen, 4 and 5b, the preaching in the synagogue belongs to Redactor Judaicus, the Jewish persecution in Acts 18:6 to the Redactor Antijudaicus. Hilgenfeld agrees with Spitta in so far that he ascribes 5b and 6b to “the author to Theophilus”.—καθαρὸς ἐγὼ: scarcely enough to say “I am pure,” have discharged my duty with a clear conscience, cf. Acts 20:26, the same idea here, better to punctuate at ἐγώ, but see Blass, in loco.—ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν: from henceforth, i.e., so far as he is concerned. It is evident that the words did not apply to other places, for in Acts 19:8 St. Paul goes to the synagogue according to his wont. The phrase is found five times in St. Luke’s Gospel, but only here in Acts. It is used once elsewhere in N.T, and there by St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 5:16 (cf. John 8:11). See Friedrich, p. 16, and Hawkins, Horæ Synopticæ, p. 29.

Acts 18:7. μεταβὰς ἐκεῖθεν, i.e., from the synagogue, cf. Luke 10:7, “he removed,” Rendall; “he changed his place from the synagogue,” Ramsay: the verb is found three times with ἐκεῖθεν in St. Matthew, and in each place “departed” R.V., this gives perfectly good sense: cf. Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 158, and critical note.—Ἰούστου: if the addition Τίτου or Τιτίου is correct, there is no need to discuss the possible identification with the companion of St. Paul in Galatians 2:1, etc.; see Alford and Page, in loco, and critical note. The identification was adopted by Chrysostom and Grotius, and for a statement of the evidence on either side see Plumptre, in loco. It should be remembered that we have Barsabbas Justus, Acts 1:23, and Jesus Justus, Colossians 4:11, see also Lightfoot “Acts of the Apostles,” B.D.2, i., 32. The house of a proselyte may have been chosen because it offered easy access to those who wished to come, whether Greeks or Hebrews (see Chrysostom’s comment), but in Paul’s thus going into the house of a proselyte hard by the synagogue we may see how his spirit had been stirred. But further: this Titus Justus was evidently a Roman citizen, one of the coloni in Corinth, and thus St. Paul would gain access through him to the more educated class in the city, Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 256, and “Corinth,” Hastings’ B.D., i. 480.—συνομοροῦσα: there is no need to suppose that he left his lodgings with Aquila—this house became Paul’s place of meeting (so in Ephesus, cf. Acts 19:9-10); he had his own synagogue there (Blass); in classics simple verb ὁμορέω, ὁμουρέω; compound only found here; συνόμορος, Eccl[319] writers.

[319]ccl. ecclesiastical.

Acts 18:8. Κρίσπος, cf. 1 Corinthians 1:14, coincidence with, admitted by McGiffert, p. 269 (so too by Holtzmann), “no reason to doubt that he is the man whose conversion Luke reports,” according to tradition he became Bishop of Ægina, Const. Apost., vii., 46. Though a Jew he bore a Latin name, cf. for a parallel case J. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., in loco.—ὁ ἀρχισ., if we cf. Acts 18:17 it looks as if in the Corinthian synagogue there was only one person bearing this title, and that Sosthenes succeeded Crispus when the latter became a Christian, see “Corinth” (Ramsay), Hastings’ B.D., i., p. 482, and see also Ramsay, Expositor, April, 1895, and above on Acts 13:15 : on the reason of St. Paul’s baptism of Crispus, Gaius, Stephanas, see B.D.2, and Hastings’ B.D., u. s. There is certainly no ground for supposing that St. Paul depreciated baptism although he baptised so few in Corinth with his own hands, Speaker’s Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:17. It is evident from this notice that St. Paul’s preaching had not been without its effect on the Jewish residents, and probably one reason why the feeling against the Apostle was so strong, Acts 20:3, was because this influence extended to persons of importance in Corinth; the next words show good results among the Gentile population of the city.—σὺν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ, cf. Acts 16:15, 1 Corinthians 1:16.—τῶν Κ., not Ἰουδαῖοι, who are always so called, but Ελληνες, Acts 18:4, including for the most part “proselytes of the gate”.—ἀκού. ἐπίστευον καὶ ἐβαπτ.: “used to hear, and believe, and receive baptism,” imperfects; the spread of the new faith was gradual but continuous, ἀκού. is taken by some to refer to the hearing of the fact that Paul had separated himself from the synagogue (so Wendt, Weiss); see critical note.