(1) Other Expulsions

(1) Other Expulsions

II. CLAUDIUS’S EXPULSION OF JEWS FROM ROME (18:2)

When Luke says that Claudius commanded Jews to “depart” (χωρίζεσθαι) from Rome, his choice of wording probably echoes Paul’s recent departure (χωρισθείς; Luke’s only other use of this verb is in 1:4, prohibiting departing Jerusalem prematurely) from Athens in 18:1; that is, he underlines the providential coincidence of the couple’s arriving in Corinth “recently” (προσφάτως) before Paul’s arrival there.[4015] As elsewhere, however, Luke’s choice of wording remains historically compatible with the essential event he reports.

Luke’s report of the expulsion of Jews from Rome is confirmed by Suetonius (Claud. 25.4), though questions of detail and nuancing require considerably greater discussion. Suetonius claims that Claudius expelled Jews from Rome because of a habitual disturbance among them instigated by one “Chrestus” (25.4). A number of questions remain. How many and which Jews did Claudius expel? In what year did the expulsion occur? Who was this Chrestus, and what were the controversies surrounding him? These issues are addressed below.

Claudius was an intellectual (Claud. 41–42),[4016] falsely maligned by his successor, Nero, as stupid (Suet. Nero 33).[4017] Ancient writers typically viewed him as weak, manipulated by his wives and freedmen, but even ancient writers could recognize him as less tyrannical than his predecessors.[4018] Inscriptional evidence reveals him as, in fact, a brilliant administrator for the empire.[4019] As noted below, however, one aspect of his efficiency in maintaining order could be the expulsion of foreign communities, or members thereof, unable to assimilate to—or, worse still, apparently threatening to—Rome’s heritage.

(1) Other Expulsions

That Romans banished Jews at other times makes Suetonius’s claim plausible; despite detractors of the theory, it is even plausible that Claudius could have ordered the entire Jewish community to leave (though unlikely that everyone did so and even more unlikely that Jewish areas were simply left abandoned till their return to those areas). Roman leaders often banished groups en masse, though not always with equal effectiveness. In the more xenophobic second century B.C.E., a praetor expelled astrologers and Jews from Rome because of foreign customs and Jewish proselytism (Val. Max. 1.3.3).[4020] The emperor Augustus banished all nonessential foreigners (i.e., all but doctors and teachers) when it became impossible to provide the grain dole for all Rome’s residents (Suet. Aug. 42.3). A few decades after Claudius’s expulsion mentioned by Luke, Vespasian expelled most philosophers from Rome, especially the ever critical Cynics.[4021]

Early in the first century C.E., Tiberius expelled Jews and proselytes, as well as astrologers and Egyptian religions, from Rome (Suet. Tib. 36).[4022] Four thousand young Jewish men were sent to battle bandits in Sardinia and, it was presumably hoped, perish. Again part of the problem was reportedly that the Jewish people were coming to Rome in “excessive” numbers and converting Romans to Judaism (Dio Cass. 57.18.5).[4023] Josephus strategically shifts the blame to the episode of a single Jewish charlatan, which was probably the sparking incident;[4024] but Josephus, for apologetic reasons, also attributes the Judean-Roman war mainly to a marginal group of “bandits.” (Philo’s apologetic is more vigorous still: after emphasizing in Embassy 157 that Caesar never expelled Jewish Roman citizens from Rome, he attributes Tiberius’s opposition against Jews to Sejanus, and notes that Tiberius discovered this situation immediately after the hated praetorian prefect’s death [Embassy 159–60].) Another factor may have been the poverty of most Roman Jews, who like others depended on the city grain dole and participated in unrest during the grain shortage.[4025]

(2) The Nature of Expulsions

Exile was a frequent penalty for individuals[4026] and could bring considerable shame.[4027] Different forms of banishment existed, some harsher than others.[4028] Full exile could be very severe,[4029] though sometimes a lesser penalty for a person of rank than what commoners would suffer for the same offense.[4030] At its worst, it included confiscation of property[4031] (often convenient for the government),[4032] though exile did not always include this penalty.[4033] (Those who think that Hebrews was written to Rome sometimes relate Heb 10:34, which notes the confiscation of goods, to this expulsion.)[4034]

One who loved Rome and was banished from the city could lament intensely,[4035] though philosophers sometimes argued that exile was not significant.[4036] Providing food or shelter for political exiles was likely strongly discouraged.[4037] To return from exile unsummoned was to commit a form of treason or sedition.[4038] Romans often banished individuals to islands,[4039] a restriction that could inhibit potential risks caused by their mobility and perhaps even allow surveillance.[4040]

We should not suppose, however, that Romans supervised a mass banishment the way they would treat individual political exiles. Here the issue was simply (at most) removal from Rome. Squatters may have “confiscated” property left behind as a matter of convenience; but this does not seem to be formal banishment, and there were no restrictions on where expelled Jews might go once they left.

(3) The Expulsion’s Political Context

Expulsions were a matter of exception rather than one of policy. Political expediency initially inclined Rome toward toleration; Julius Caesar and Augustus both found Jews helpful against Pompey and Syria.[4041] Augustus’s benevolence toward Jews in Rome set the course of policy for some time (until Tiberius’s expulsion).[4042] The state treated their assemblies like other collegia.[4043]

In time, however, memory of the Jewish people’s past favors to the early Caesars faded; conflicts with the Roman administration in Judea and with Greeks in other eastern Mediterranean cities led to increasing Roman frustration with the “Judeans.”[4044] There was no systematic repression or targeting of Jews, however; Rome’s concern was to maintain order, and periodic expulsions or limitations of Jewish rights simply mirrored the same behavior of Romans toward other groups in similar situations.[4045] Claudius himself had defended Jewish rights in Alexandria and elsewhere, though his compromise to maintain order was not to everyone’s (particularly the Greeks’) satisfaction.[4046] It appears that Agrippa I remained influential on Claudius’s favorable policies toward Jews early in his reign (Jos. Ant. 19.279, 287), though Claudius did not trust him fully.[4047]

The expulsion is certainly plausible, not only against the backdrop of Tiberius’s precedent but also against that of the times. Although Claudius fostered tolerance among various religions, he also revived ancient Roman religious practices.[4048] Claudius furthered Roman religion, especially in the second half of his reign; this led to increasing opposition to “oriental cults,” and more emphatically, charges of association with astrologers, Chaldeans, and magic became dangerous in this period.[4049]

Given other evidence for Roman mistrust of foreign cults in this period,[4050] Claudius’s actions undoubtedly played well politically and fit a larger context. The Roman senate banished astrology from Italy in 52 C.E. (Tac. Ann. 12.52.3; cf. Dio Cass. 61.33.3b).[4051] Likewise, Tiberius[4052] and Vitellius expelled astrologers,[4053] as did Domitian.[4054] Although a specific incident may have provoked the expulsion of Jewish people, as Suetonius indicates, the general backdrop of xenophobia may have contributed to the climate that allowed it.[4055]

III. EXPELLED OR RESTRICTED? SUETONIUS VERSUS DIO CASSIUS (18:2)

Dio Cassius claims that Claudius merely forbade Jews to assemble (Dio Cass. 60.6.6b), but this claim does not necessarily call Suetonius’s earlier description into question. Although Dio is treated more fully below (on the question of the edict’s date), a few observations should be made at this point.

First, Suetonius and Acts are significantly earlier than Dio (with Acts being the earliest, though the least complete source) and hence preferable in terms of proximity to the events described. Second, it is hard to explain how Suetonius and Luke both speak of an expulsion, undoubtedly independently, if none occurred.[4056] Third, it is not clear—and, on the whole, unlikely—that Dio addresses the same event as Suetonius, especially given the broader pattern of restrictions on Jews and other foreign “superstitions” in Rome noted above. (For the probability that Suetonius and Dio refer to separate incidents, see the discussion below concerning the edict’s date.) Finally, if Dio and Suetonius do refer to the same event, which Dio has nuanced on the basis of other sources no longer extant, restriction on Jewish meetings would constitute a de facto expulsion for some Jews, who would hardly abandon long-standing synagogue customs on their Sabbaths. Many who were able to do so would undoubtedly prefer to “take the hint” of being unwelcome and emigrate.[4057] The poverty of many Roman Jews would have made emigration difficult for many, in any case, but some might have felt they had no choice; others might simply meet as smaller groups of families until Roman interest in the matter cooled.

(1) Who Was Expelled?

A persistent debate in scholarship is the extent of the expulsion. Some doubt that all Jews were expelled, because they harmonize Suetonius with Dio; others (with perhaps better reason) doubt that all the community was expelled, for logistical reasons. With estimates of perhaps forty to fifty thousand Jews in Rome, their departure would represent a significant exodus.[4058] This logistical problem is not decisive, because the situation was no different in the time of Tiberius. Whether the entire community heeded the emperor’s edict is a separate question from what the emperor’s edict decreed. Yet certainly not all Jews in Rome were expected to leave (probably in either period), despite summary statements in Luke and Suetonius: at the least, Roman citizens, who constituted one of Rome’s Jewish communities, were not expelled.[4059] Only peregrini could be legally expelled without trial; by this period, many Jews were citizens, descended from freed Roman slaves.[4060] Moreover, the army’s leaders did not always enforce expulsions or enforce them thoroughly; expulsions could thus prove haphazard.[4061]

Suetonius’s claim is ambiguous enough to admit two different interpretations: Claudius expelled “the Jews who were making regular disturbances.” Does this claim refer to all the Jews as making disturbances and hence being expelled as a community? Or might it refer to the expulsion only of the particular Jews causing the unrest?[4062] On the basis of the incidental agreement with Acts 18 (which must be dated before Suetonius yet cannot be the latter’s source), a general expulsion would seem likelier.[4063] But even a general expulsion need not involve every member of the Jewish community, given Luke’s sometimes hyperbolic use of “all” outside theological affirmations (e.g., Acts 1:1, 18; 2:5, 14; 19:10; 26:4).[4064] The question of the expulsion’s extent thus remains open.

Some scholars suggest that Claudius issued an expulsion order like Tiberius’s and then, in view of its evident impracticability, amended the order to an embargo on meetings; by this time, some (like Prisca and Aquila) had already left.[4065] This proposal harmonizes Dio and Suetonius, but probably at the expense of both: why would Dio emphasize that Claudius did not expel them (without mentioning that he almost did), or Suetonius focus on an expulsion that was quickly rescinded rather than the restrictions more easily enforced?

Many argue that only part of the Jewish community was expelled or at least only part of them left.[4066] These are essentially distinct questions: the emperor could issue an edict that everyone should leave, without everyone obeying the edict (or even anyone expecting that everyone would). Certainly not all Jews would have left, though many advocates of this position suggest that only ringleaders of the disturbances were expelled, which is less certain. Perhaps the debate infected only a few synagogues, requiring their members to leave until matters had quieted down.[4067] Rome’s Jewish community was divided into several synagogues, and it is unlikely that unrest would have infected all of them.[4068] Still, an emperor far removed from their situation might have lumped the entire community together; on Josephus’s reading (admittedly disputed), Tiberius expelled the Jewish community particularly over the behavior of one individual.

As noted, many argue that the expulsion targeted (or was at least enforced against only) ringleaders,[4069] especially or exclusively Jewish Christians or their leaders, who were advocating for the “Christ” (on this sense of “Chrestus,” see discussion below).[4070] If Christians were targeted as a Jewish sect, this might include any Gentiles who may have joined, since Romans reckoned converts to Jewish lifestyle as Jewish (Dio Cass. 37.17.1);[4071] early Gentile Christians also recognized that they were converting to a historically Jewish faith.[4072] (Their lack of circumcision probably would have protected them; certainly, uncircumcised Roman citizens would not be expelled. But questions of requirements for converts, only recently publicly debated in the Jesus movement even in Jerusalem, would probably not be settled among Jesus’s followers in Rome, nor would Roman officials have cared for the details of such discussions.) Yet Suetonius’s probable confusion regarding “Chrestus” may not have been his own (since Christians were well known in his own day);[4073] in 49 C.E. most Romans probably could not distinguish Christians from other Jews and proselytes (in contrast to 64 C.E.). Thus it is possible that anyone associated with the disturbances would have been expelled.[4074]

Modern reluctance to accept ancient reports about large events need not play a part in our discussion here.[4075] It is not modern assumptions but the fact of inscriptions attesting the Jewish community’s continuous presence in Rome that renders a total expulsion, or at least a wholesale emigration, unlikely. This does not mean that only a few people left, however, because Jewish life continued in Rome under Tiberius’s expulsion no less than Claudius’s.[4076] Still, Claudius’s expulsion was probably less sweeping or effective than Tiberius’s, for Josephus and Dio Cassius, both explicit about Tiberius’s expulsion, remain silent about that of Claudius.[4077]

A general ban might be decreed yet not be entirely effective. Thus the senate’s ban against astrologers proved ineffectual (Tac. Ann. 12.52).[4078] A ban against Jewish residents could be more generally enforced than against astrologers, since it was known in what sections the majority of Jewish residents lived whereas astrologers would be scattered throughout the city. The point, however, remains that at least some Jews and perhaps very many could have remained, with Roman administrators loath to try to enforce the edict forcibly so long as they remained quiet. It is hard to imagine that the Jewish sections (known from archaeology) remained deserted after their absence, yet it is even more inconceivable that Jews recovered their property after returning if it had been seized by others; therefore it is unlikely that all would have left, despite the edict.

(2) Probably Some More than Ringleaders

Though not all Jews would have left (certainly, Roman citizens would not have done so), probably a larger number were expelled than is often assumed.[4079] If an expulsion under Tiberius, why not under Claudius? Suetonius certainly did not derive the idea from Luke, and Luke wrote too early to have obtained it from Suetonius. Nevertheless, we need not press their claims fully; we must allow for the exaggerated nature of Suetonius’s and Luke’s summaries instead of insisting that all Jewish people were forced to leave Rome. Further, even the revoking of the validity of residence permits would not automatically geographically expel all residents; many foreigners inhabited Rome without such permits.

An alternative position is also plausible, one that retains the mutual confirmation between Suetonius (read as referring to the leading troublemakers) and Luke. Given his commitment to positive precedents in his apologetic history, Luke had good reason to omit the cause of the expulsion from Rome (if Christians were involved; see discussion below on “Chrestus”),[4080] and if most of those expelled were Jewish Christians, he had reason to omit this as well. If only Jewish Christian leaders were expelled, as some scholars think, then Aquila and Priscilla were already involved in the movement before Paul met them.[4081] In that case, they must have arrived only shortly before Paul (with an expulsion in 49 C.E.), given Paul’s role in founding the Corinthian church (1 Cor 4:15; 16:15).

Since, however, Luke’s most hyperbolic uses of “all” are usually more obvious (they at least mean very many), he probably intends a larger segment of Rome’s Jewish community than simply the Christian leaders; the group of Christian leaders in 49 C.E. (and all the more in 41) was probably also too few for Suetonius to have taken note of their expulsion. And so, although the expulsion may not have been complete and Luke may have reason for not specifying its cause, it probably included a significant number of people. How these were ferreted out from the others we can only guess, though certainly anyone specifically suspected of being involved in the unrest would be included.[4082] Others may have chosen whether or not to risk personal compliance with, or defiance of, a general order, if such was issued; perhaps many chose to ignore an order not likely to be enforced, but significant leaders (including Jewish followers of Jesus) would be too visible to remain.

IV. DATE OF THE EXPULSION (18:2)

The later proposed date of the expulsion fits well with the time of Paul’s sojourn in Corinth (see discussion on that date at Acts 18:12–17). On the basis of his appearance before Gallio (Acts 18:12–17) and Gallio’s eighteen-month stay (18:11), some date Paul’s arrival in Corinth to early 50 C.E.[4083] Others date Gallio’s arrival to 51 (most frequently) or even 52 (see introductory comment on the date at Acts 18:12–17); such variations shift the chronology only slightly. All of these dates would allow for Paul to meet Priscilla and Aquila soon after their expulsion from Italy.

(1) Dio Cassius and 41 C.E.

Scholars generally date the expulsion to 49 C.E.,[4084] but some suggest an earlier date, in 41 C.E.[4085] This is because Dio Cassius mentions a restriction of Jewish meetings in Rome in 41 C.E. (Dio Cass. 60.6.6). Whether Dio and Suetonius refer to the same event, however, remains an open question. Certainly the Jewish community experienced multiple incidents of hostility in first-century Rome (as noted above), and so it seems plausible that Claudius, succeeding at an earlier restriction, would have imposed a second and more complete one later in his reign.[4086]

Some confusion arises because Dio Cassius describes Claudius’s restriction of the Roman Jewish community differently from Suetonius. He explicitly reports that Claudius did not expel them from the city, because this would have been too difficult to enforce given their numbers, but merely ordered them not to hold meetings.[4087] His explicit claim that Claudius did not expel them seems meant to register his disagreement with the idea that Claudius did expel them. But with what is Dio contrasting this claim? He could be contradicting Suetonius’s claim (or a potential misreading of that claim); or he could be contrasting this lack of expulsion with a later expulsion also reported by Suetonius (that section of Dio is no longer extant); or he could be contrasting the earlier expulsion under Tiberius that he has already recorded (57.18.5a).[4088]

The matter must be investigated for two reasons. First, although Dio cannot be preferred to Suetonius, who is earlier (and agrees with Acts, the earliest report), his apparent certainty must be taken into account and, if possible, explained. Second, Dio’s date for this disbanding of Jewish meetings is earlier than one might guess from Suetonius (and certainly than one would gather from Orosius Hist. 7.6.15). It is the date of Suetonius’s expulsion that would address when Aquila and Priscilla came to Corinth and how early Christians were involved in Rome’s Jewish community if Suetonius’s “Chrestus” is Christ.

Because Dio claims that the Jews’ numbers were too great for wholesale expulsion in 41 C.E., it is possible to argue that their numbers would also be too great in 49. This inference, however, may be misleading. First, Dio makes a contrary statement in his earlier reference to Tiberius’s expulsion: their threatening numbers, in fact, served as a factor favoring their expulsion at that time (Dio Cass. 57.18.5). The numbers in Tiberius’s time were comparable.[4089] Second, policies shift, and if the first expulsion proved ineffective, it might have generated a stronger policy; if effective, it might have reduced numbers sufficiently to make a wider expulsion more manageable. Finally, it remains debated (as noted above) whether even the expulsion generally dated to 49 was intended to be complete.

The reports in Suetonius and Dio Cassius, however, are significantly different and hence probably report distinct events.[4090] Since Dio Cassius explicitly denies an expulsion and Suetonius explicitly affirms it, they almost certainly talk about two different measures, though both may well reflect Claudius’s broader concern for Jewish unrest in Rome.[4091] It is possible that Dio even spoke of the more extreme, separate expulsion of 49 C.E. later, as Suetonius did, but this section of Dio remains only in one of the brief epitomes of Dio by later authors, leaving unknown what Dio covered for the year 49.[4092] Classicists and ancient historians (in contrast to some NT scholars) thus generally do not identify the two events.[4093]

(2) An Expulsion in 49 C.E.

Several factors support a date of 49 C.E., later in Claudius’s reign. None is completely compelling by itself, but together their support seems to make it likely. First, Orosius in the fifth century explicitly claims this date;[4094] though we would certainly prefer Dio to Orosius if the two conflicted, it is likely (as already argued) that Dio refers to a distinct event. The problem with Orosius’s testimony is that he claims to base it on Josephus, but our extant text of Josephus provides no such information.[4095] Some scholars suggest that he depends on Julius Africanus. If his attribution is wrong,[4096] his content might also be wrong; but that he committed the second error need not follow from his fallibility on the first point (especially if he was working from memory). Certainly he believes that he depends on an earlier source, and so, although his testimony must be employed with caution, it is more likely to be accurate than not if it corresponds with other data.

Second, Acts, the earliest source, also suggests that the expulsion was recent.[4097] Suetonius hardly depends on Acts, yet Acts is earlier (and hence not dependent on Suetonius); this provides independent mutual corroboration of pre-Lukan information. Paul was clearly in Corinth when Gallio became proconsul of Achaia in 51 C.E. (or 52 or 50),[4098] and roughly eighteen months before that point, he began to stay with Aquila and Priscilla, who had “freshly” or “recently” come from Italy.[4099]

One should not press Luke’s “recently” so far as to suggest an earlier Pauline visit, nearer 41 C.E., if one were to conclude (which I did not) that the expulsion was in 41 C.E. Some do suggest such an earlier visit. One could suggest that Luke conflates two Pauline visits, one in 41 (after the expulsion) and the other in 49, thus naming two rulers of the synagogue (Acts 18:8, 17). Some scholars have argued that Luke has in fact conflated two visits.[4100] Although their arguments are not by themselves implausible,[4101] Occam’s razor argues that the simplest solution is the most probable, and the two-visits hypothesis is certainly not the simplest.[4102] Seeking to place Paul in Corinth so early would be the least satisfactory solution.[4103] But the voyage from Rome was not long, and even if the couple did not leave immediately after Claudius’s decree,[4104] eight years in Corinth could not justify the use of προσφάτως by any stretch. The mutual corroboration of Suetonius and Acts concerning the event and the specification of the date in Acts, which lacks any purpose other than historical explanation of the couple’s recent arrival, is probably the strongest argument, once it is supported by arguments 1 and 3.

Third, in the second half of his reign, in 47–52 C.E., Claudius became increasingly supportive of distinctly Roman religion at the expense of foreign cults and practices.[4105] In 47, Claudius restored the college of Haruspices (Tac. Ann. 11.15); in 49–53, he banished some prominent people who had consulted astrologers: Lollia Paulina (49 C.E.), Furius Scribonianus (52), and Statilius Taurus (53; Ann. 12.22.1–2; 12.52.1; 12.59.1–2).[4106] Thus it is probably later in Claudius’s reign, rather than earlier, that the expulsion occurs.

After matters quieted down in Rome, many Jews probably began to return.[4107] Although edicts were officially valid only during the issuing magistrate’s term of office,[4108] most magistrates continued their predecessors’ precedents.[4109] The matter was likely different after Claudius’s death; Jewish exiles might well recall that the senate repealed the acta of Claudius’s predecessor, Gaius Caligula, on Claudius’s accession in 41.[4110] Nero mocked his stepfather, Claudius, and “disregarded many of his decrees and acts as the work of a madman.”[4111] (The eventual pro-Jewish influence of Poppaea Sabina on Nero would have reduced still further any likelihood of reviving Claudius’s idea.) That we find Prisca and Aquila already back in Rome by the time of Paul’s later trip to Corinth (Rom 16:3–5) is not surprising.[4112]

V. SUETONIUS’S “CHRESTUS”

While listing Claudius’s treatment of various peoples and their envoys in Rome, Suetonius reports, “Since the Jews continually made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.”[4113] The most common view among scholars is that Suetonius includes a garbled reference at his source to the Jewish “Christ” (whether or not Suetonius recognized it), whom he mistakenly thought to be in Rome personally.[4114] How likely is this view?

(1) A Different Messiah?

That “Chrestus” was the personal name of an otherwise unknown messianic figure or influential Jewish leader in Rome[4115] is improbable from the start. Though “Chrestus” was a common slave name, it never appears among the more than five hundred extant names of Roman Jews.[4116] Moreover, that Jewish debates about this figure led to expulsions from Rome suggests not purely academic discussion about an individual but messianic views about a leader that could be counted treasonous (see comment on Acts 17:7). For Jewish people, a key leader might be a royal, and hence messianic, contender, and the correlation between “Chrestus” and “Christos,” or “Messiah,” is therefore too close for coincidence.[4117]

It is possible that some other purported “Christ,” or messianic figure, was present in Rome, and not the Christian Messiah.[4118] (On the meaning of messiahship, see the excursus on messiahship at Acts 2:36.)[4119] In support of the possibility of a different messianic or revolutionary figure here, it can be argued that Suetonius knew the proper spelling of “Christus,” knew of Christians by his time, and should not have expected the Christians’ executed leader to be in Rome.[4120] But did Suetonius know the details and chronology of the early Christian movement’s history, and hence whether Christus would be in Rome?[4121] More important, Suetonius may have simply copied a source without recognizing, and hence correcting, its misinterpretation. He may well have employed “a contemporary police record,” and Suetonius is known for reproducing rather than evaluating his sources.[4122]

Other factors raise questions about the likelihood of an alternative messianic figure in Rome. The heart of the empire was a far less attractive place for Jewish revolutionaries than was Judea. Meanwhile, the Greek Χριστός, translating a Hebrew messianic title, applies quite frequently to Jesus; it also seems probably more than coincidence that the misnomer “Chrestus” elsewhere applies to Jesus.

That it was the messianic title of another figure besides Jesus is possible, but as noted above, the title applies to Jesus more commonly than anyone else in our extant sources, especially by Suetonius’s time. Thus it remains possible even that Suetonius inconsistently applied the claim to Jesus.[4123] If he had an unknown Chrestus in mind, one would expect him to introduce him as quodam Chresto, “a certain Chrestus,” following his own customary style; by 120 C.E., Suetonius would expect his audience to think of a particularly well-known Chrestus and his movement.[4124] Whether or not Suetonius recognized that his source involved debates about Jesus, the majority of scholars concur that the most plausible reconstruction of the situation he reports does involve such debates.

(2) The “Chrestus” of the Chrestians

Christians’ early critics often substituted the more intelligible “Chrestus” for “Christus” and “Chrestians” for “Christians.”[4125] Early Christian apologists sometimes adapted the titles positively, as they had earlier embraced the derogatory label “Christians” (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet 4:16):[4126] “We are derided as ‘Christians,’ but to despise what is excellent [Chrestian] is improper” (Justin 1 Apol. 4). The Greek term χριστός made for an unusual name in Greek (meaning something like “anointed” in medicine or “plastered” in construction language); Greeks did, however, make good use of the similar-sounding χρηστός (“useful”), especially as a slave name.[4127] Gentiles unfamiliar with Jewish terminology might then hear “Christos” as “Chrestus,” confusing Suetonius’s source.

It is thus possible that Jewish followers of Jesus began enthusiastically announcing Christ to their fellow Jews in Rome in this period, which led to some equally vigorous responses, and that sometimes the controversy became sufficiently out of hand even to invite local police intervention.[4128] One hostile source from late antiquity suggests that the “Jewish law” came to Rome during or soon after Caligula’s reign (March of 37 to January of 41); since this cannot refer to the original Jewish settlement (as early as the late second century B.C.E.), it may refer to what became the most widely known Jewish sect of the source’s period.[4129]

Why, one might ask, does Luke not corroborate the cause cited in Suetonius’s account if in fact Suetonius provides early evidence for vocal Christians in Rome?[4130] But we should remember that Luke is an apologist, and the portrait of Christians in Suetonius’s source would hardly appear flattering to those who respected Roman order. If Christians were part of the debate that stirred some unrest (perhaps provoking intra-Jewish violence in some cases), then mentioning them would not help Luke’s portrait or would at least require the explanation that the Christians were not the provocateurs of the discord (cf. Acts 18:12–15; 19:37, 40; 24:5; Luke 23:2), an explanation that could distract from his focus on Paul. An imperial edict expelling them (along with other Jews involved in the controversy) would not contribute to his positive precedents.

VI. AQUILA AND PRISCILLA

Most commentators infer from either Claudius’s expulsion order or Luke’s silence about Paul converting them that Aquila and Priscilla were already followers of Christ before they came to Corinth.[4131] This is a reasonable assumption, though it is not completely certain. Luke’s silence about the couple’s faith, in contrast to Luke’s explicit statement that Paul stayed with them because of their shared occupation, seems strange if they were already believers. Perhaps Luke’s silence stems mainly from his need to abridge a great deal of material. In any case, Paul’s role in founding the Corinthian church (1 Cor 4:15) need not imply that he was the first Christian in Corinth.[4132]

(1) Aquila and Rome?

Although Aquila lived in Rome and migrated to a Roman colony, we cannot be sure that he was a Roman citizen. In favor of the couple’s Roman citizenship are their names.[4133] Aquila’s recorded name was a reasonably respectable Roman one,[4134] and he could have been a freedman of the gens Acilia[4135] (though this would be more easily explained in Rome than in Pontus). “Priscilla” was a common name (e.g., Statius Silv. 5.1.3), but she could have been a freedwoman from the gens Prisca.[4136] Paul employs the formal “Prisca” (as he also uses the formal “Silvanus”) whereas Luke employs the more informal forms “Priscilla” and “Silas.”[4137]

Against their citizenship, it is very improbable that Roman citizens would have been subject to the expulsion order, Jewish or not (Acts 18:2).[4138] When Tiberius wished to expel even Roman citizens, he went further than a normal expulsion by drafting them for military service.[4139] Many Greek-speaking as well as Latin-speaking Jews in Rome had Roman names,[4140] and so, even though Aquila, at least, hailed from outside Rome (we cannot know about Priscilla),[4141] we should not infer citizenship necessarily from the name.

It thus does not seem clear that both Aquila and Prisca must have been freedpersons and Roman citizens; and if only one (at most) was a citizen, it seems safe to presume that they would leave together. If they were both citizens, they probably left Rome voluntarily, alongside others among whom they ministered, rather than being compelled by the decree. Further, they could have been targeted even as citizens if they were known to be leaders. Nevertheless, on the whole, their departure might count somewhat more against the assumption that both were citizens, unless countervailing factors supporting that assumption (as ringleaders they could be expelled anyway) prove more compelling.

(2) The Couple’s Travel

Why had the couple settled specifically in Corinth? One factor may be the Roman connection, even if they were not Roman citizens. That they later returned to Rome when able to do so (Rom 16:3) suggests their Roman interests. The Roman element was far more dominant in Corinth than anywhere else in Greece and also appears conspicuous in the church Paul founded there.[4142] But given the dominance of Greek among Roman Jews who were not Roman citizens,[4143] we dare not infer that they migrated to Corinth because of its linguistically Latin elements; the couple’s Latin may also have been limited (though their exposure to it may have exceeded that of a citizen with more limited experience of Rome, such as Paul). A more important factor may be the likelihood that Corinth held Achaia’s most significant Jewish population.[4144]

Aquila was from Pontus, a region that Luke mentions elsewhere (Acts 2:9) but on which he does not elaborate further.[4145] Even from a skeptical standpoint, there is no reason to doubt Luke’s information here, which he has no reason to report apart from believing it to be true (Pontus is neither important to his narrative nor a particularly high-status location). None of our earliest Christian sources suggest that Aquila, widely traveled as he was, himself returned to Pontus to spread the gospel. (“Of Pontus” apparently simply identifies his place of origin, like “Saul of Tarsus” or “Joseph of Arimathea” [Luke 23:50–51].) But the gospel apparently did spread there in a relatively early period (1 Pet 1:1). Pontus was also closely connected with Bithynia and probably shared in the spread of Christianity attested there in an extant early source (Pliny Ep. 10.96–97, esp. 10.96.5, 9, 10).[4146] In about the same period (the early second century), a religious charlatan is said to complain that too many Christians live in Pontus, especially the city Amastris (Lucian Alex. 25).[4147] Although one writer later protests that only seventeen Christians lived in central Pontus at one point in the third century,[4148] this report is probably not accurate. Demetrius bishop of Corinth disagreed with the bishop there,[4149] indicating continuing communication between the regions.

(3) Priscilla and Women Artisans

Paul once and Luke twice (out of three times) refers to Prisca before her husband.[4150] Normally the husband was named first unless the wife was of higher social status.[4151] Since Luke and Paul write for Christians, she may have exercised a higher status in the Christian community or in their ministry.[4152] We cannot say for certain in which circles the higher status applied, but it was at least known and respected in the church.

Priscilla shared Aquila’s occupation (otherwise Luke lacked reason to use the plural in Acts 18:3). We have evidence for women (including Jewish women) as merchants, traders,[4153] and artisans[4154] in the eastern empire. (These were not, of course, aristocratic women,[4155] but only a tiny percentage of people in antiquity belonged to the true elite. Peasant women must have also been very active in rural agrarian labor, where many hands were necessary,[4156] though texts that focus on larger estates stress men.)[4157] The range of occupations open to women was narrower than that open to men, but it was nevertheless somewhat diverse, including both specifically “female” occupations, such as “hairdressers,”[4158] and occupations open to both genders, such as physicians (of whom the majority of women were midwives)[4159] and involvement in business.[4160] In one analysis of Roman funerary inscriptions (relevant for Roman Corinth), although women were absent in construction, banking, and transportation, they constituted 47 percent of skilled service, 27 percent of domestic service, 15 percent of those involved in manufacturing, 8 percent of sales, and 3 percent of those involved in administration.[4161] A woman’s being the sole wage earner, however, was not considered ideal economically.[4162]

Most women artisans performed their services “in small shops or in the home”; in the shops, “the traditional boundaries between men and women became more permeable, thus offering a little more freedom to women.”[4163] They undoubtedly worked alongside their husbands in smaller shops, and we also have documentation for women owning workshops.[4164] Some Eastern cities may have forbidden women to work in shops or be involved in business in the market,[4165] but in most cities, economics probably drove behavior more than did ideal mores. Women engaged particularly in “humbler crafts, especially textile production.”[4166] There is epigraphic evidence for women working leather (sutrices); they cut and sewed it, perhaps for shoes.[4167] That Luke presents both Priscilla and Aquila as engaged in this trade is clear from his mention of “their” trade.[4168]

VII. ECONOMIC STATUS AND HOUSING

New Testament evidence is not sufficient to provide a definite picture of Aquila and Priscilla’s economic status, but it is possible to offer some reasonable guesses. These guesses, in turn, will help us form an idea of the sort of housing in which Luke’s audience would have envisioned Paul joining them.

(1) Successful among “Poor” Artisans

Most artisans even in wealthier regions such as Asia Minor were too poor to acquire land, though this couple was better off than many (see comment below). Women typically earned much less than men,[4169] but such division would not be as relevant for a husband-and-wife team. (A husband and a wife could enter a societas, a business partnership, even if in some cases the wife contributed only money.)[4170]

Meeks suggests that this couple’s background is economically low to middle, their occupation low but not extremely low, and their wealth relatively high on the basis of their ability to make independent moves several times (to Rome, then Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome)[4171] and to host Paul and Christian gatherings.[4172] These observations seem accurate, on the whole. Those who demur from Meeks’s interpretation here may be equally correct—yet, ironically, not so much because of differing on the data but mainly because their definitions of poverty and wealth, based on different standards for comparison, differ from those of Meeks (because they compare the couple’s economic status with that of different groups): thus most urban artisans were poor and despised by the elite but had an independence not available to the agrarian peasants who constituted most of the empire’s population.[4173]

John Chrysostom and other ancient commentators thought of Paul and this couple as poor,[4174] but many of the patristic writers, though dedicated to poverty, came from elite backgrounds. From the standpoint of the majority of readers with access to commentaries today, most artisans were poor and their lives difficult, but from the standards of ancient populations in general (and much of the world’s population today in impoverished regions), their lives may have been somewhat easier. The stalls for leatherworking in Corinth seem to have been just over three meters wide and less than four meters long;[4175] the doorway was typically the only source of light, and such stalls were cold during winter.[4176]

Since Prisca and her husband had sufficient resources to host a congregation in their home in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:19) and then in Rome (Rom 16:5; see comment on Acts 12:12–13),[4177] they were likely better off than most artisans—not merely poor shopworkers but somewhat better off “shop owners.”[4178]

(2) Shops

Small shops could employ one or two assistants, with large ones employing up to one hundred slaves.[4179] But most ground-floor tenement businesses were probably small and could employ only family members.[4180] Paul thus may have been particularly appreciative of the couple’s welcome to join both their home and their trade.

The economic status of this couple affects how we should view Paul’s living and working arrangements with them. They may have used a shop or stall in the marketplace, but Luke’s wording might suggest (if his condensing a larger body of material has not again obscured the details) that the shop was part of their home.[4181] Some wares, such as textiles, were often produced at home, though larger industries may appear in some locations.[4182] Shops were frequently in homes;[4183] commonly they constituted the ground floors of apartment buildings,[4184] especially in the less wealthy areas.[4185] Roman shops faced streets along the ground floors of apartments, and some were even built on to the walls of homes.[4186] When shops were open, the doors would be opened to display wares, the latter extending even into the street.[4187] Poorer vendors erected booths in the streets, with the poorest of all simply moving to and fro accosting bypassers with their wares.[4188] Corinth was known for its many peddlers (Dio Chrys. Or. 8.9). Given the weekly closing of Jewish shops on the Sabbath, a higher proportion of Jewish shops’ customers may have been Jewish,[4189] but presumably they could have also supplied goods to wholesalers who could sell to Gentiles daily.

Workshops normally consisted of single rooms, used not only for labor but for storage and selling.[4190] The family who worked there often also “slept and ate there . . . in the back or on an elevated mezzanine,”[4191] a cramped loft above their workplace.[4192] Of 806 shops in Ostia, 155 were attached to mezzanines; 141 had back rooms (46 had both back rooms and mezzanines); most had only a single room.[4193] They averaged four workers per shop.[4194] In the less well-to-do sections of Pompeii where shops abounded on the ground floor, 40 percent had an upper room of some sort, and 33 percent had one or more rooms in the back.[4195] But Pompeian blocks were probably wealthier and less crowded than the average block in Rome.[4196] Although Corinth was modeled after Rome in positive ways, its average population density might rest between these two examples. Excavations east of Corinth’s theater also reveal one-room lofts above ground-floor shops.[4197]

If, as was suggested above, Priscilla and Aquila had more-spacious facilities than many of their occupational peers, it would have made accommodating Paul much easier. Some scholars even suggest that they would have had “mezzanine apartments” with two or three fairly large rooms.[4198] It is difficult to be certain, however; at the least, there was space for a guest and, in some cities where they settled, for house church meetings (of uncertain size; Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19).

(3) Insulae

Romans began constructing insulae, apartment buildings with many stories, in the second century B.C.E.; the style spread to other densely populated cities, certainly including those following the Roman model.[4199] These tenements usually surrounded an inner courtyard, which provided more air and light for the buildings.[4200] Fairly wealthy urbanites often lived in ground-floor apartments facing the inner courtyards of insulae; these were particularly expensive luxury apartments, in contrast to the housing generally available to shop owners whose shops faced the streets.[4201] The upper stories (usually totaling two to five) were cheaper, generally with an outer room and also a small inner room for sleeping that lacked fresh air and sunlight.[4202] In light of seismic activity in the area, some have recently questioned whether multistory buildings proved feasible in Corinth.[4203] Even in multistory tenements, however, sometimes different families would have distinct, cramped sleeping quarters yet share the same outer room; often these were too small to host gatherings, and so apart from the long connecting halls, any meetings even in such tenements would need to be in the larger, inner homes on the ground floor.[4204] (An alternative could be the long hall connecting apartments; see comment on Acts 20:8.) Freshly arrived from Rome, perhaps Aquila and Priscilla did not yet have means for a larger luxury apartment, but apparently they later had a larger apartment in Rome (Rom 16:5). Some scholars suggest that neighbors in many insulae may have had “a strong sense of community,”[4205] which would help the growth of house congregations. This principle would remain true in single-floor housing in crowded urban space.

Most urban dwellers depended on public fountains for water, having to carry it back and up to their apartments; though cities had public toilets near the baths, many people kept more convenient chamber pots beneath the outside stairs.[4206] Where city aqueducts existed, only the wealthy could tap them.[4207] Rome had “large urinal pots” on street corners; fullers recycled their contents.[4208]

(4) Corinth’s Markets

Though some trades were not permitted inside cities (see comment on Acts 9:43), most were near the market, or agora.[4209] Corinth had numerous places to sell wares. Many shops lined Lechaeum Road, which entered the forum through an arch.[4210] The North Market was finished shortly before Paul arrived and would have contained many small shops. These averaged about four meters high, just under four meters long, and 2.8 to 4 meters wide.[4211] The marketplace must have been very busy, servicing what some estimate to be as many as eighty thousand residents in Paul’s time.[4212] Shops lined Corinth’s forum, some directly flanking the bēma.[4213] Archaeological evidence for posts shows that numerous tents must have shaded the large forum’s market stalls.[4214] Regarding more formal structures, excavations around Corinth’s center have so far uncovered “some 23,220 square meters of building space . . . devoted to stoas and shop structures.”[4215] Corinth’s huge service market necessitated this abundance of shops in the city center.[4216]

We know of the macellum, or meat market, in Corinth, but against some earlier hypotheses, archaeological evidence does not show us for certain where it was located, unless it was near the post-77 C.E. site near the theater.[4217] Presumably it was in some location accessible to the public.[4218] See also the discussion on Corinth’s economic strength, above.

By the second century, the major marketplace in Corinth included public statues of Poseidon, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Zeus (Paus. 2.2.8). Athena’s sanctuary stood in the midst of the agora, and a temple to Augustus’s sister Octavia stood above the agora (2.3.1). Corinth’s sanctuary of Ephesian Artemis (2.2.6) might turn a passerby’s attention to Ephesus and its religious activities (see Acts 19:27).[4219] Whether Paul worked near the marketplace or not, such images would have kept him well aware of the dominance of paganism in his city (1 Cor 8:5).

The plausible suggestion that Paul’s employment may have been near more-general market districts such as Corinth’s forum, where he was dragged in Acts 18:12, must be tempered by the general practice of members of given trades to live and work in particular areas. Workers who shared the same trade tended to live near each other.[4220] Artisans also usually sold their product from their workshops.[4221] Most towns were full of “narrow streets lined with shops,”[4222] and those near the forum were likely prime real estate. It is not certain which hypothesis is more probable, but I would tentatively incline toward the likelihood that the family worked where it lived, perhaps in an area for cobblers and leatherworkers but most likely in a specifically Jewish area.

VIII. WHAT CONNECTED PAUL WITH THIS COUPLE?

On coming to a city, Paul typically sought local or resident-alien coworkers to aid in his task.[4223] That Paul would find fellow Jews of the same trade is no more surprising than his ministry starting in the synagogues (18:4), whether or not Priscilla and Aquila were Christians before their encounter. Often cities recognized large groups of foreigners living and working in their midst; such a legally recognized group of resident aliens constituted a πολίτευμα, with some degree of independence.[4224]

(1) Shared Faith?

Commentators generally believe that Aquila and Priscilla were already Christians before Paul met them; this may well be the case,[4225] yet it is strange, if so, that Luke mentions the shared trade as the reason for Paul’s connection with them (18:3). Perhaps Luke thought that the Christian connection could be taken for granted at this point (cf. 16:15; though we could wish he had been more explicit in 17:7a). Or perhaps Luke wished, as many scholars think, to emphasize Paul as the Corinthian church’s founding apostle (though this is not Luke’s invention; Paul shares this opinion, 1 Cor 4:15) and hence does not wish to emphasize Christians who settled there before he did. It could also be that if Aquila and Priscilla were Christians or Christian sympathizers, they were not yet adept in strategic witness and perhaps not yet grounded in their understanding (cf. perhaps Apollos in Acts 18:26). Then again, if Claudius expelled especially ringleaders, Aquila and Priscilla may have been among them.

The Jewish connection is more explicit and fits Luke’s portrait of Paul starting with the Jewish Diaspora in each location, including in Corinth (18:4). Travelers would always know where to look for immigrant communities from their own nation or for members of their own trade. Neighborhoods were defined precisely by ethnicity and trades.[4226]

(2) Trade Ties

Paul could establish a relationship with people on a very human level such as mutual employment; indeed, the structure of ancient society made this approach to connecting with others a natural one. Craftsmen of particular trades had long lived in particular sections of ancient cities, often as members of extended families or trade guilds (cf. Neh 3:8, 11;[4227] Jer 37:21). Today, when businesses selling the same product work in the same area, they view themselves as in competition with each other. Some ancients viewed competition among those of the same trade as a good motivation to work hard (Hesiod W.D. 25–26) or as cause for envy and rivalry.[4228] But scholars argue that members of trades usually shared the same locality to provide mutual support in an environment more of collegiality than of serious competition.[4229]

One could find necessities such as food scattered throughout a city,[4230] but artisans usually lived in their own districts (e.g., goldsmiths or tailors).[4231] Transport businesses tended to cluster nearer the gates, and the most respectable (the least smelly and noisy) toward the city’s center.[4232] As MacMullen observes,

While most streets took their names from prominent buildings or monuments nearby, or from some person honored in the neighborhood long ago, quite a number were called Glass, Incense, or Perfume Street, because of the concentration there of trade in those commodities.[4233]

So also with squares, markets, and so forth, designated “Jewelers’, Wainwrights’, Vintners’, Cobblers’, Muleteers’, in urban centers of every province.”[4234] One thus might identify one’s neighborhood, for example, by the expression “among the barbers.”[4235] Romans knew where to go to buy whatever they were looking for, as inscriptions (including epitaphs) confirm.[4236] Romans would find gold and pearl dealers in booths by the Sacra Via; dealers in silver around the Clivus Argentarius and the Velabrum (CIL 6.9184); and book dealers north of the imperial forum.[4237] This practice of localizing professions probably was for buyers’ convenience, as well as to provide contact with those sharing common interests and needs for raw materials;[4238] it naturally led to trade associations.[4239]

Professional guilds were likely the most common form of collegia, or associations, in Rome and were growing in the East (which had long had other associations) in the first century.[4240] As with other associations, trade guilds’ names generally identified their purpose for existing.[4241] Those who shared the same trade met as guilds mainly for social purposes, not for organizing like modern labor unions;[4242] they did sometimes join resources, however, as in, for example, setting up a statue.[4243] They would share some common meals, celebrate the founder’s or patron’s birthday or the feast of some relevant deity, and provide for the burial of deceased members.[4244] Normally they would not meet more than once a month,[4245] though apparently this rule was often ignored.[4246]

Jewish groups would also be seen as associations, but not of a kind overlapping with the Gentile ones. Gentile outsiders probably often saw the early church in terms of “associations” (see discussion under house churches at Acts 12:12), but “synagogues” (specifically Jewish associations) provided a closer context (see discussion of synagogues in Acts 6:9).

Some associations had their own meeting houses, as attested in Ostia; others (especially religious guilds) might meet in temples or (especially burial clubs) near places for interment.[4247] Virtually all guilds and associations included religious activity.[4248] Each association (such as “Butchers” or “Youths”) chose a patron deity when the association was founded, often a deity naturally connected with the members’ trade (e.g., Silvanus for woodcutters or Bacchus for restaurant owners); each meeting thereafter would open by invoking that deity.[4249] Guilds and associations nearly always included libations or a sacrifice before or during the common meal.[4250] Some associations also offered sacrifice to the emperor or members of his family;[4251] open refusal to participate, especially for people of status, could lead to tensions, but these tensions were probably not felt everywhere.[4252]

These pagan connections of guilds would alienate prospective Jewish members who shared the same trade, and so most Jewish people would live in their own ethnic districts, following their own dietary and other customs.[4253] If Paul lived in a Jewish area, he would have had easier access to the synagogue and to other members of the Jewish community (Acts 18:4, 7);[4254] such a location also would help explain how serious a rift of fellowship would be, dividing the community not only in its Sabbath worship but in its day-to-day existence (18:6, 12–13). Yet it also would help explain why Aquila and Priscilla would gladly welcome a fellow Jew of their own trade; if they all shared a common belief in Jesus, this factor would reinforce their connection all the more fully.

(3) Paul’s Mission

Paul would naturally welcome hospitality, since Jesus indicated that his evangelistic followers during their missions would normally lack their own home (cf. Luke 9:57–58) and they should therefore stay where hospitality was available (9:4; 10:5–8). Entertaining a visiting scholar was also considered a great honor,[4255] though normal hospitality typically meant no more than a week’s stay.[4256] Dependence on a householder could run the risk of appearing to be, like some teachers, a client who increased the host’s prestige by teaching at his banquets;[4257] Paul’s letters attest the struggle between Paul and elite members of the Corinthian church over this definition of his role. (Given Rome’s desire to regulate voluntary associations, however, household patronage may have provided at least a useful official “cover” for Paul and for house churches.)[4258] Paul’s warm reports of Prisca and Aquila in his letters, however, suggest that they were fellow workers who either shared initially or came to share his understanding of the mission.

IX. WORKING A “MENIAL” JOB (18:3)

Paul does what he must to proclaim the gospel, including supporting himself on the side through a profession apparently controversial among the Corinthian church’s elite. That Paul performed manual labor at least some of the time that he was in Corinth cannot be disputed (1 Cor 4:11; 9:6, 15, 18; 2 Cor 11:23, 27), and it appears that some viewed it as enslavement (1 Cor 9:18–19) or humiliation (2 Cor 11:7). Even if we lacked Paul’s testimony, we know enough about elite views toward trades (see discussion below) and Luke’s interest in retaining high-status hearers that we can be certain that Luke would not invent Paul’s being an artisan. If anything, he says as little about it as possible (elsewhere only the less explicit Acts 20:34). Luke even omits Mark’s report that Jesus was a carpenter (Mark 6:3).[4259] But Paul’s letters suggest that his labor in Corinth (along with receiving help from Philippi) became an issue of contention between him and the Corinthians (1 Cor 9:6; cf. 2 Cor 11:7–9; 12:13),[4260] and so it may have been difficult for Luke to ignore it completely.

Some scholars suggest that a grain shortage in the city, which occurred at about this time, may have provided Paul with additional incentive to work in Corinth.[4261] The famine affected even Rome,[4262] and Eusebius supplies both the year (51 C.E.) and the famine’s severity.[4263] The association of Paul’s work with the famine is possible, but he also often worked where we know of no famine, at least in Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:9; 2 Thess 3:7–8) and Ephesus (Acts 19:11–12; esp. 20:34).[4264]

(1) The Reproach of Manual Labor

The elite despised most forms of manual labor;[4265] they certainly avoided it for themselves.[4266] Granted, in earlier times, manual laborers could address the Athenian assembly, though this practice does not appear to have been common.[4267] But elites tended to look down on manual laborers; one papyrus complains about a mere weaver who, instead of deferring properly to persons of status, “swaggers around as if he were someone important.”[4268] Although Cicero praised intellectuals who, like himself, achieved high status without depending on the birth advantages held by some,[4269] he regarded the workshop as servile and unbefitting a free person.[4270] At one point in Rome’s history, manual laborers could not be citizens, and together with other noncitizens, they outnumbered citizens three to one.[4271] That many Jews in Roman society had such low-grade, “blue-collar” jobs increased the scorn of some in the Roman elite.[4272]

Those who looked down on manual labor did not look down on all forms of such labor equally.[4273] They could divide skills into the lowly (e.g., goldsmithing, coppersmithing, and carpentry) and “free” (mostly arts as opposed to crafts),[4274] and those who needed to praise a city could praise either the quality or quantity of the work.[4275] Those with sufficient substance would choose liberal arts, rhetoric, philosophy, or politics over a trade.[4276] Paul’s activity, however, is a craft. But even here, people of status were expected not to converse with commoners, including metalsmiths and other craftsmen (τεχνῖται).[4277] Some less religious writers even mocked old myths about one of the Olympian gods being a smith; thus Hephaistos is a mere “artisan” (τέχνην ἔχοντα βάναυσον).[4278] (Such information is also relevant to Luke’s characterization of Demetrius in Acts 19:24–25.)

What of Paul’s particular trade? Some ancients considered particular forms of manual labor, such as weaving, to be effeminate.[4279] Work in textiles was traditionally ideal women’s work.[4280] Parthian Jews accepted weaving as a legitimate male profession, but from Josephus’s explanation, it sounds as if he expected many of his readers in the Roman Empire to be familiar with a contrary perspective (Jos. Ant. 18.314). Yet as is argued below, Paul probably worked with leather rather than wove tents. Leatherworking was not considered effeminate and would not shame Paul with the elite any more than would any other low-class craft.

(2) Philosophic Discussions

Certainly, aspiring sages and their students (often competing in rival schools) were a familiar element of first-century Corinthian culture (Dio Chrys. Or. 8.9). Philosophers often shared elite condescension toward the laborers. Xenophon’s Socrates complains about workers who become physically and mentally lazy (Oec. 4.2) and lack the time for friends and civic affairs necessary for good citizenship (4.3).[4281] Plato’s Socrates did recognize the value of all crafts but saw nonintellectual interests as devoid of value for higher matters, and many later thinkers followed this lead.[4282] Thinkers often repeated the claim of Zeno the Stoic, who denied that anything valuable came from artisans and builders.[4283] Philodemus the Epicurean thought farm work miserable and reasoned that dependence on others’ manual labor was less distracting than, and hence superior to, one’s own.[4284]

Philosophers differed in their views toward sages engaging in manual labor, but many did not view it highly.[4285] For many, charging fees was a better means for sages acquiring support.[4286] Socrates never charged fees, but others later offered his teachings only to those who could pay (Xen. Mem. 1.2.60).[4287] The Stoic philosopher Cleanthes worked to earn his living, refusing to live only off others as some philosophers did (Diog. Laert. 7.5.170). Lucian[4288] complains about ignorant artisans abandoning their difficult labors to adopt the easier lives of phony philosophers.[4289] He opines that manual laborers who kept laboring were at least better than the many sages who simply spewed forth nonsense for a living; all these hard workers would want to join the ranks of ignorant lecturers who made more money with less work than they![4290]

There were, however, more positive attitudes toward manual labor (in addition to the likely positive views of the laborers themselves; see discussion below). Certainly some Cynics and sympathetic Stoics shared more favorable views toward working with one’s hands.[4291] Fitting the Roman ethos supporting hard work,[4292] Roman Stoics were especially inclined in this direction, but some Greek Stoics and others influenced by Stoicism shared the same value.[4293] Musonius argues that toil is not something negative (Mus. Ruf. 1, p. 32.28) and that the good achieved through toil lasts far longer than the toil itself (frg. 51, p. 144.7–8).[4294] But most Stoics failed to embrace this ideal in practice whereas Paul presents his behavior as an ideal model (1 Cor 4:12, 16; 2 Thess 3:8–9).[4295] Some other thinkers could also identify themselves with lowly persons who toiled.[4296]

More generally, Greek authors as early as Hesiod praise the value of hard work.[4297] Romans highly valued self-discipline, austerity, and labor.[4298] The philosophically minded encouraged people to endure sufferings, including toil;[4299] toil was neither a good nor an evil,[4300] but love of toil was a virtue.[4301] On work versus laziness, see comment on Acts 17:5. On hard work and the virtue of an austere lifestyle in Roman ethos, see further comment on Acts 20:33–35.

(3) A Jewish Model?

Many scholars suggest that Paul was influenced by a Jewish model of laboring sages.[4302] This was probably not the only available model or the only reason for Paul’s working, but it may have been an influence. Hock (whose study of Paul’s labor has proved invaluable) offers three objections to the idea that Paul’s rabbinic training was the cause of his work; they are listed here with responses:[4303]

Still, it must be recognized that Hock is right that Paul probably would have learned the trade in a family setting, as was customary throughout the Mediterranean world, and not as part of formal rabbinic training.[4307] Further, Jewish tradition was never monolithic on the subject of sages working, though it was more apt to present manual labor as honorable than do extant elite Greek sources.

Extant Jewish sources reveal a high work ethic.[4308] As one widely known sage declared, “Do not hate hard work, and vinedressing, which the Most High” commanded (Sir 7:15). Essenes labored during the day in their communities (Jos. War 2.131). In the pre-Christian era, Shemaiah reportedly urged people to “love labor” (m. ʾAb. 1:10).[4309] As might be expected, some Tannaim also emphasized that the study of Torah was the most important toil (R. Eleazar in b. Sanh. 99b). Jewish people more generally condemned idleness.[4310] A Diaspora Jewish writer warned that one who does not learn a craft must wield a hoe—that is, engage in the strenuous and truly despised labor of digging.[4311] See further discussion below on rabbis and learning a trade. Some early Christian writers emphasized the value of manual labor, often pointing to Paul’s example.[4312]

(4) Views of Work in Corinth

That the elite despised manual laborers in Corinth should not surprise us; instead, we should be surprised that while working with his hands, Paul reached some people of status. Yet Corinth in this period likely continued to host many laborers whom Paul wished to reach.

Craftsmen were less despised in old Corinth than in any other major Greek city (Hdt. 2.167.2); their patron deity in Corinth was Athena.[4313] But outsiders viewed this situation with disdain; Polybius fails to conceal his disgust when complaining about the common assembly in old Corinth consisting mainly of laborers.[4314] New Corinth was settled primarily from the outside, and so, although laborers may have taken pride in their work, the elite probably reflected the values of broader Greco-Roman elite society. One of the qualifications for duumvirs in new Corinth was never having “followed an ignoble trade.”[4315]

Even some of the early Roman colonists of new Corinth were probably relatively poor. Rome sent unemployed, landless, and potentially unstable Romans to settle Carthage and may have done the same with Corinth.[4316] Coins and inscriptions from Augustan to Neronian Corinth include among Corinth’s duumvirs more ex-slaves of Roman aristocrats than veterans and especially suggest an influx of businesspeople and their exslaves.[4317] Corinth grew much more commercially successful under Claudius and Nero, at which time more older Greek families began to participate in the civic government.[4318]

(5) Laborers’ Self-Identity

Manual laborers themselves seem to have held a higher view of their work; their burial epitaphs, for example, advertise their occupations,[4319] and farmers are portrayed as valuing manual labor.[4320] From an early period, Greek potters may have even painted “signatures” on their pots (if the signatures are their own), and Athenian artisans had long mentioned their professions in inscriptions.[4321]

Even those who originally came from more privileged classes, such as Dio Chrysostom, might recognize that all laborers found satisfaction in their own work, however demeaning others may have found it.[4322] Whereas Dio elsewhere warned against trades that are dangerous or too sedentary,[4323] he affirmed that other occupations provided livelihood and were good.[4324] One should not sneer at such occupations because they belong to the poor, he warned; poverty was sometimes healthier than wealth anyway.[4325]

(6) Status and Luke’s Report

Some question whether a Roman citizen in fact made tents (or worked leather): do not these high- and low-status associations conflict? Although Paul’s own letters attest his manual labor and the hostile reaction to it, we depend on Luke for Paul’s higher-status Roman citizenship (see discussion at Acts 16:37). But an educated Roman citizen would still need means of support when he came to a new city; inherited citizenship did not in itself automatically confer wealth.[4326] Further, Paul’s high status as an educated citizen and his low status as a manual laborer would together create “status tension,” a not unusual situation in antiquity; this tension helps explain why he is treated neither better nor worse than he is in judicial situations in Acts.[4327] When Paul speaks of working with his hands, he lists it among his hardships, well aware of the low status with which it was associated in the eyes of some (1 Cor 4:12).[4328]

Luke mentions Paul’s work only in passing here[4329] and more forcefully at the climax of an apology for Paul in Acts 20:34; Paul, however, mentions it conspicuously in his letters, even when writing to Corinthians about his sufferings (1 Cor 4:11–12; 2 Cor 11:23, 27; cf. 2 Thess 3:8). Luke appeals to a socially respectable stratum and may know that some higher-status Corinthians probably favored Apollos over Paul for the former’s more socially respectable approach. Luke challenges the honor definitions of Theophilus’s class in Acts 20:34, as he often challenges them economically, especially in the Gospel (e.g., Luke 3:11; 12:33; 14:33), but he prefers to emphasize higher-status aspects of Paul’s background than does Paul himself.

The higher-status members in the Corinthian congregation may have resented Paul’s laboring with his hands. By contrast, Paul identified with the working class in a way that would commend him to its members.[4330] His agenda was not to maintain high status but to “enslave” himself, if necessary, to reach everyone (1 Cor 9:18–19).

X. LEARNING A TRADE (18:3)

Given Paul’s advanced education in Torah (cf. Gal 1:14 and the level of Paul’s letters), we may be surprised that Paul also learned a trade, yet his letters testify to his manual labor (e.g., 1 Cor 4:12). How did Paul learn this trade?

(1) Various Possibilities

One might argue that he learned this trade under Aquila and Priscilla; he earlier worked in Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:9), though we do not know for certain what the work was.[4331] Luke’s wording, however, suggests otherwise (and given general attitudes toward trades, Luke lacked reason to lengthen Paul’s practice of it): Paul stayed with them because they shared the same trade, and so he could help in their shop. Perhaps he picked up the trade in Tarsus after fleeing Damascus and Jerusalem, having abandoned or lost his possessions.[4332]

It is more often suggested that he learned it in Jerusalem; if his family was well-to-do (see comment on Acts 22:3), he may have learned it only as a temporary job within his family’s larger textile business.[4333] Perhaps he was not a “professional” “rabbi,” (though cf. “his disciples” in Acts 9:25), but he may not have been a full-time textile worker either (note 9:1–2; one need not suppose that he also had business interests in Damascus). He may have been a Pharisaic “layman” but still young (7:58) and perhaps only recently out of school (cf. Gal 1:14), and he may have been planning to teach Torah but was perhaps of such a social station that acquiring many students was not an urgent task. Unfortunately, at this remove, we can only speculate about such matters.

(2) Apprenticeship

What we can reconstruct more easily is the most common means of learning a trade. After age thirteen, rabbis expected fathers either to train sons in their own trade or to apprentice them to another to learn a different trade.[4334] One Tanna reportedly warned that a father who fails to teach his son how to make a living teaches him to become a robber.[4335] A later tradition claims that a father could make arrangements for an apprenticeship even, if necessary, on the Sabbath.[4336] Parthian Jews also arranged for their sons to learn by apprenticeship, even from Gentiles (Jos. Ant. 18.314–15).

Some of this custom reflects common ancient Mediterranean culture.[4337] In classical Athens at least, a son was relieved of any obligation to care for his aged parents if his father had not arranged training for him in a craft.[4338] Many ancient apprenticeship contracts survive, whether to weavers (P.Oxy. 275 [66 C.E.]; 725 [183 C.E.]), shorthand writers (P.Oxy. 724 [155 C.E.]), coppersmiths,[4339] or others. Sometimes women would learn a trade as apprentices to women (to prevent molestation).[4340] Around age thirteen at the latest, a boy would typically begin an apprenticeship, which would consume most days in the next two or three years.[4341] Discipline could be strict during this period; apprenticeship was to benefit the supervisor’s work as well as the boy’s learning.[4342] Lucian claims that his father decided on a trade for him so that he could bring money into the family (Career 1);[4343] he became an apprentice to his uncle in sculpting (Career 2–3) and was beaten for his mistakes (Career 4).

For most boys, apprenticeship (usually to the father) was the only education their family could afford.[4344] Records of linen weavers reveal that they trained not only their own sons and daughters but also those from other weavers’ families and even outside the guild, whether free or slave.[4345] The apprentice’s father provided his son food and clothing while the overseer taught the boy the trade. Families tended to pass on skills from one generation to another.[4346] It was normally expected that a young man would spend his life in his family’s craft[4347] or at least the one in which he was trained. A later rabbi tells how a carpenter passes on his tools to his son when he grows up (y. Roš Haš. 1:3, §35). An apprentice learning to work leather, as Hock suggests for Paul’s background,

would have learned to cut the leather pieces so that their placement would take advantage of the natural strengths of the leather and thus best withstand strains and pulling. An apprentice like Paul would also have learned how to sew these leather pieces together, using either a basting stitch, a seam stitch, or a felling stitch, the latter two being used where seams needed to be waterproof.[4348]

(3) Rabbis and Training in Manual Labor

Many, though not all, early rabbis practiced a trade alongside their studies.[4349] An early third-century rabbi praised conjoining secular labor with study of Torah, perhaps because poverty created temptation (m. ʾAb. 2:2).[4350] Some rabbis claimed that their versatility in studies stemmed from working a job during the day.[4351] This emphasis on work alongside study of Torah remained an important stream in rabbinic tradition,[4352] though the practical realities of full-time scholars eventually provided a different emphasis. Some wanted to reject crafts and teach their sons only Torah (m. Qidd. 4:14). Even in the pre-Christian era, scribes who could focus on learning wisdom rather than working as artisans claimed to gain more wisdom (Sir 38:24); other occupations were necessary, but their diversion of attention from wisdom could disqualify one from judging or expounding wisdom (38:32–33).[4353]

In the early second century, R. Ishmael interpreted Scripture as requiring both secular work and Torah study.[4354] Later in the second century, R. Simeon ben Yohai disagreed;[4355] a still later rabbi observed that more rabbis had found Ishmael’s advice beneficial than Simeon ben Yohai’s.[4356] But study of Torah might free one from a secular occupation or at least from undue attention to it;[4357] an Amora claimed that a man, if deserving, receives the opportunity to labor in Torah and, if not, to till soil.[4358] Some Jewish sages also valued providing Torah without concern for remuneration,[4359] though scribes and teachers of Mishnah in a later period were supported and did not need to work.[4360] Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai in the late second century claimed that towns that neglected supporting their scribes and Mishnah teachers invited divine judgment.[4361]

Economic necessity needed to be taken into account, whether by Paul or by later rabbis. But a principle perhaps originally demanded by necessity became a matter of virtue; thus some rabbis would carry a pitcher or basket to the academy, claiming, “Labor is great, because it honors the laborer.”[4362] Rabbinic tradition was not unanimous regarding every aspect of labor, but it did praise it as honorable. Likewise, having to depend on others was shameful,[4363] though laboring in Torah was considered different (apparently even more so in later centuries) because those who did so merited support. Later rabbis claimed that publicly accepting charity from Gentiles disqualified one from serving as a legal witness unless absolutely necessary (b. Sanh. 26b).

The Talmud’s reports of the earliest scribes, surely at least partly accurate, include various crafts: flax or asphalt merchants, bakers, tailors, master builders, makers of nails or sandals, millers, and so forth.[4364] Some trades were dishonorable, as noted in a second-century list: ass- or camel-drivers, barbers, sailors, herdsmen, and shopkeepers (whom the rabbi identifies with robbers; m. Qidd. 4:14). An early third-century rabbi emended the list to oppose mostly ass-drivers, physicians, and butchers.[4365] Other trades were more honorable.[4366]

As members of the educated class, Pharisees included some members (such as Gamaliel’s family) who were wealthy enough to share with the Sadducees in Jerusalem’s aristocracy; many others were still better off than the masses, though probably working some trades that provided better than others.[4367] Tradition declares that some, like Hillel, began poor or, like Akiba, began as “commoners.”[4368] Undoubtedly, Paul’s family had means if he studied with Gamaliel (Acts 22:3) and he had access to the high priest as a young man (9:1). Surrounded by Pharisees who honored labor, however, Paul may have imbibed this value or at least recognized its importance in some circles he honored.

Given the discussion above, it is probable that Paul learned a trade even if he grew up in a home of moderate wealth; his trade may have been more “honorable” than tentmaking or leatherworking, but the honorable ethic of labor was undoubtedly instilled in him from youth. Even if he had escaped the drudgery of much such labor in his own youth, he knew the traditions that valued it, which would allow him to learn a trade at a later time if necessary (perhaps, e.g., during his adult sojourn in Tarsus, 9:30).

XI. THE NATURE OF PAUL’S WORK (18:3)

Although many have traditionally translated the term σκηνοποιός as “tentmaker,”[4369] the etymological sense that one might guess for it, more recent scholarship has inclined toward the patristic view that Paul and Aquila were “leatherworkers.”[4370] The term is rare (nowhere else in the NT or the LXX), but its etymological interpretation should not be pressed against the interpretation of ancient authors who knew living Koine. John Chrysostom, Origen, and all the earliest fathers take it as “leatherworker”;[4371] most medieval interpreters understood the term etymologically as “tentmaker,” but they believed the tents were made of leather.[4372] On any of these views, Paul could have ministered while at work.

(1) Fabric Worker?

Some evidence has been cited for Paul being a tentmaker who used fabric—that is, a weaver—like many people in Tarsus. The hills of rural Cilicia hosted many goats, whose hair was used for socks, stockings, “and a special kind of warm cloak, called a ‘cilicium,’ which was imported to Italy in the time of Augustus.”[4373] Since one could both shear animals when they were alive and use their skins after their death, such material is not necessarily incompatible with the perspective that Paul was also a leatherworker (below), though they involved different skills.[4374] Goat hair was not the only textile known in that region, however. Linen workers, probably as a guild, constituted a large group of workers in Tarsus (Dio Chrys. Or. 34.21), Paul’s home city; this probably constituted a source of the city’s prosperity.[4375] So closely associated was linen-working with Tarsus that rabbinic literature often mentions linen workers as Tarsiim in various Palestinian Jewish cities.[4376] Some have also argued for the use of linen tabernacula, or tents, as shade for vendors or others.[4377] The same sort of sailcloth used for stalls and shops might even be used in a port town for sails.[4378] Although wool and linen were the most common textiles,[4379] weavers and tentmakers of other fabrics sometimes used quite expensive fabrics, such as silk,[4380] the expense of which was increased by costs incurred transporting it (usually) from China.[4381]

(2) Leatherwork?

A greater number of factors, however, probably count against this interpretation and favor the leatherworking interpretation. In Paul’s home city, linen workers were excluded from citizenship, which does not fit Paul (Acts 21:39).[4382] The exclusion of cloth workers may have been more widespread,[4383] but Tarsus’s linen workers resented it.[4384] Their lack of resources helped contribute to their lack of citizenship (it cost five hundred drachmas, Dio Chrys. Or. 34.23), which also does not fit a family that could send Paul to Jerusalem to study with Rabban Gamaliel (Acts 22:3).

Further, Paul was raised not in Tarsus but in Jerusalem (22:3).[4385] It also appears that in Judea, where Paul had spent most of his formative years and would have learned a trade, it was considered shameful for men to weave cloth (Jos. Ant. 18.314).[4386] Even elsewhere, spinners and weavers were most commonly associated with women.[4387] Textile work was perhaps the most common occupation in Jewish Asia Minor, and the term Ταρσεύς “early became synonymous with a linen-weaver,” but Palestinian Jews did not clearly import Cilician goat hair cloths before the late second century C.E. (m. Kelim 29:1).[4388]

More important, weaving equipment was bulky and could not have been carried by the mobile apostle from one city to another; leatherworking equipment was much more manageable.[4389] Granted, it is possible that Paul did different work in Thessalonica[4390] and perhaps other cities and that he worked for others in each place instead of carrying his own tools, and so this objection is of limited value. But even if we think of “tentmaking” more generally, many scholars argue that most tents were made of leather and were rarely made of cilicium.[4391] The matter continues to generate debate.

(3) The Nature of Leatherworking

Leatherwork would not require the tanning and treating of hides, a malodorous work assigned to tanners (see comment on Acts 9:43).[4392] Rather, leatherworkers were a more acceptably “clean” profession,[4393] cutting leather with knives and then sewing it with awls.[4394] Various products could emerge from leatherworking, including shoes and awnings.[4395] Soldiers, like peasants, “wore leather shoes with nailed soles and uppers slit into strips”;[4396] soldiers also needed tents. In Corinth, however, Paul’s customers would be primarily civilians, perhaps especially (and particularly strategically for the gospel) those who traveled. Visiting oarsmen might need tents until their ship left port; the well-to-do would use tents for shade on board ships or while visiting festivals.[4397] In a leatherworkers’ market, one could reportedly find even a leather bed (b. Ned. 56b). (Given the probable wealth of Paul’s family [cf. comment on Acts 22:3], if his parents made tents, they might have owned a factory rather than only a family business, though Paul could have learned the trade in either.)

If Paul indeed made tents (whether of leather or another substance), he was probably busy producing awnings during the Isthmian Games of spring 51 C.E.;[4398] the biennial games were a major tourist event and a boon to the local economy.[4399] (For further discussion of the Isthmian Games, see below.) Others suggest he made awnings for use in the theater or elsewhere in Corinth.[4400]

(4) Activity and Discussion in Shops

As noted above, artisans were better off than peasants, miners, and unskilled laborers; but usually they struggled, and only a small percentage achieved moderate wealth.[4401] Apprentice contracts from Egypt suggest availability for work from sunrise to sunset, though most workers would have taken a midday siesta.[4402] Paul seems to have worked long hours, too (20:31, 35; 1 Thess 2:9; 2 Thess 3:8), although, undoubtedly, he counts preaching outside the shop among them. If remains of shutters found in Herculaneum are representative, many shopkeepers apparently began their workdays by opening folding wooden doors or grills facing the street.[4403]

Some shops (e.g., for sculptors and metalsmiths) were dirty, noisy, and potentially dangerous; some others (e.g., for weavers) required large and expensive equipment. If Paul was a leatherworker, his shop was probably more like a shoemaker’s, which could be fairly quiet and allow extensive conversation without distracting one from one’s work.[4404] In such an environment, a worker (like a shoemaker in one account) could keep stitching while listening to someone reading; a servant might nap.[4405]

Mediterranean society was given to conversations, whether in streets, shops, or taverns or with business or residential neighbors.[4406] Shops were common places to congregate and talk, especially (though not exclusively) those nearest the marketplace.[4407] They might also provide one relatively private means of oratorical practice: an individual too young to address the marketplace was allowed to speak “in a saddler’s shop near the Market.”[4408] Even married women could chat and ask questions while they considered buying something; tax and rent collection could provide contacts with city officials.[4409] Paul certainly could have carried on lengthy conversations about his God with those who entered, and some scholars think that this work would provide an initial basis for evangelism in the Gentile community.[4410] Most philosophers chose higher-status venues for intellectual discussion, but Socrates and especially some Cynics had also used shops for intellectual conversation.[4411]

Paul’s work suggests a significant difference between Paul and the traditional stereotype of modern Western missionaries. Paul became part of local societies, to which he had some relatively easy access because of common elements of eastern Mediterranean culture and Judaism’s intelligibility in and apologetic toward the larger culture. With probably no regular support from Antioch and only sporadic offerings from Macedonia (cf. Phil 4:15–16; 2 Cor 12:14), Paul also had no choice but to work within local societies.[4412] Other traveling merchants also carried ideas and cults (see comment on Acts 8:4), but in contrast to many of them, Paul used work so that he could spread his gospel; it was labor, rather than the mission, that was incidental to his objective.

The group’s shop would include basic tools necessary for their work (oil and blacking for the leather; knives, awls, and sharpening stones; a table and stool) and probably benches for customers.[4413] As a missionary traveling lightly (Luke 9:3; 10:4), Paul may not have always taken his tools with him; on occasions when he was abruptly driven from a city (as in the case of his flight from Thessalonica shortly before his arrival in Achaia), he likely could not have done so. It seems nevertheless significant that he settled especially in cities with many tradesmen whom he could evangelize and through whose numerous contacts his message would be widely spread.[4414] Paul could have borrowed tools when coming to a new town, or perhaps he worked for those who would have supplied them.[4415]

c. Ministry in and out of the Synagogue (18:4–8)

Luke develops some of his preferred themes in this section, as elsewhere. Such literary connections need not mean that Luke lacked historical material (see discussion of such material above) but that he repeated particular themes to underline his literary and theological point. After the terse and closely packed introduction (Acts 18:1–3)[4416] follow three “type-scenes,” each repeating Lukan or pre-Lukan biblical themes. Tannehill thinks that they are meant to emphasize the central pronouncements of Paul (18:6), the Lord (18:9–10), and Gallio (18:14–15).[4417] The type-scenes are the following:

That the setting is similar to conflicts in 16:19–24 and 17:5–9 invites suspense, but this new confrontation ends more positively, underlining by way of contrast the benefit of appearing before Rome’s own officials rather than local magistrates. Paul himself may have learned the difference, if we may infer from his subsequent appeals to Roman authority (22:25–29; 25:9–11).

I. REASONING IN THE SYNAGOGUE (18:4)

Although some local Jews likely were Roman citizens (cf. 18:8; more certainly, the God-fearer in 18:7), most were resident aliens forming a semiautonomous immigrant community.[4421] They were immigrants or descendants of immigrants, with the social stigmas that this status could carry in the sight of the Roman colonists (who were in a sense “colonialists” rather than immigrants) or local Greeks. Even in Roman colonies, the vast numbers of inhabitants who were not citizens of those colonies meant that Roman citizens were not always a majority.[4422] The Jewish community was probably treated like other immigrant communities with their non-Roman and non-Greek religions. Most notable is the second-century C.E. temple of Isis in Cenchreae (cf. comment on Acts 18:18); Egyptian cults continued to flourish here until the fourth century.[4423]

On the whole, Jewish people in the empire exhibited the same range of economic resources found among Gentiles.[4424] Whatever else we may surmise about the economic life of the Jewish community in Corinth (see comment on Acts 18:3), we can be fairly certain that this community faced significant external pressure in the wake of Claudius’s decree (see comment on Acts 18:2), which pressure would under normal circumstances generate internal community cohesion. The largest problem would not be the accommodation of new immigrants from Rome but the repercussions of Rome’s anti-Jewish sentiment; the capital’s behavior appeared to grant implicit permission to imitate it in the provinces. (On ancient anti-Judaism, see the excursus at Acts 16:20–21.) Corinth had a Jewish community, but it was never large enough to assert significant force in local politics.[4425] The community might be economically insular in ways that local Romans and Greeks were not; Jewish people did not fit well into a guild system that included patron deities.[4426]

Colonies sometimes followed Rome’s lead on how to treat their Jewish minorities; this could include whether to provide kosher meat in the local market, which the ἀγορανόμος controlled (Jos. Ant. 14.261).[4427] Civic authorities controlled the market, including the fish and meat markets (cf. 1 Cor 10:25), which provided substantial tax revenue. Corinth’s own meat market was constructed in Augustus’s day by the Lechaeum Road,[4428] near where an aedile supervised legal disputes concerning commercial matters.[4429] Whether impatience with local Jews was local policy or not (until Gallio’s arrival, Acts 18:14–17), Rome’s example gave permission to such attitudes, and interest in Jewish market access may have been among them.[4430]

Explicit evidence from both Philo and Paul confirms Luke’s report of Jewish people in Corinth and, in Paul’s case, in the church.[4431] Although we lack reason to doubt the existence of a synagogue in such a cosmopolitan center as Corinth, the discovery of an inscription noting the local Συναγωγή Ἑβραίων (CIJ 1:518, §718) is fortunate. It has been dated between 100 B.C.E. and 200 C.E.,[4432] or even much later,[4433] the style of lettering probably favoring a date after Paul. Still, it might have been built over the site of the earlier one, like many other synagogues.[4434] Because it was found on the road to the marketplace,[4435] some scholars have drawn connections with Paul’s work,[4436] but because it was not recovered in situ but possibly moved, we cannot be sure of its original site.[4437] If we can guess that it was not moved far, perhaps the Jewish community was near the market and Paul had easy access to both; but this is uncertain. In the final analysis, nothing rests on the matter, since Paul may have lived and worked in a shop in or near a largely Jewish enclave, and his journeys also reveal someone capable of walking long distances. The pre-70 Palestinian synagogue at Gamla could seat about three hundred people;[4438] with urban space at a premium, we cannot guess how many the Corinthian building would have accommodated, and we do not know the local Jewish community’s size.[4439] Members of the Samaritan Diaspora are also attested here, albeit centuries later (from the fourth century C.E.).[4440]

That Paul “reasoned” (διελέγετο) in the synagogue fits his usual pattern at least since Thessalonica (Acts 17:2, 17; 18:19; 19:8)[4441]—that is, in the first new synagogues explicitly reported since the most recent sending from Antioch (15:40). (Although Luke does not employ the same term, Paul ministered in synagogues from the beginning of his recorded ministry [see, e.g., 9:20; comment on Acts 13:5; in his letters, see 2 Cor 11:24].) The same term also applies to his teaching in other settings (Acts 19:9; 24:25), including church settings (20:7–9). The term’s semantic range includes both instruction and argumentation, but the fact that in some passages Paul does so “with” others (e.g., τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις in 17:17) probably suggests an element of interaction.[4442] Disputation was a standard Jewish pedagogic technique,[4443] including in the Diaspora,[4444] and in a Greco-Roman context such as Corinth repartee and skill in silencing opponents would be greatly appreciated.[4445] Any of Luke’s Christian hearers uncomfortable with this activity of Paul or Apollos (18:28) could be silenced by the model of Jesus in Luke and the gospel tradition on which he depends (Luke 20:1–47; Mark 11:27–12:40). On the term “persuade,” see discussion at Acts 17:4.

Paul regularly sought to persuade “both Jews and Greeks” (14:1; 19:10, 17; 20:21). The “Greeks” whom Paul sought to persuade in the synagogue were undoubtedly God-fearers who attended there (cf. 18:7), as on earlier occasions (14:1; 17:1–4), though later Paul would find success ministering to Greeks elsewhere as well (19:10, 17). Although Paul and Luke both use “Greeks” loosely[4446] and freely pair “Jews and Greeks” (with the latter being Gentiles), it may be noteworthy that “Greeks” attend Corinth’s synagogue, suggesting that it is Greek-speaking.[4447] Corinth was a Roman colony with public inscriptions in Latin, but Paul writes letters to the Corinthians in Greek. We should expect the use of Greek to be no less true for the non-Roman citizen Jews expelled from Rome and settling in Corinth (18:1–2); Greek was the most common language of Roman Jews.[4448]

Although Paul undoubtedly used some everyday rhetorical principles when making his argument, suiting the Lukan persona of him, the epistolary Paul not only used various rhetorical techniques but insisted that his basis for persuasion differed from the mere rhetoric his audience expected (1 Cor 2:1–5, esp. 2:4).[4449]

II. REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE (18:5)

That Paul is now able to devote himself more fully to the service of the word is an ideal of ministry for Luke (cf. Acts 6:2–4), though the term that Luke uses (συνείχετο) is a strong one that could suggest compulsion, possibly similar to how the inner compulsion of Jesus’s calling drove him toward its fulfillment (Luke 12:50). It is possible that Paul’s companions began working, freeing him from the necessity of labor; they may have worked with him in Thessalonica (if “we” in 1 Thess 2:9 covers the entire team; cf. 1:1). But this is not clear even in Luke’s narrative (cf. Acts 20:34), and in this case, knowledge external to Acts suggests that they probably brought an offering at this time.

On one occasion when Paul was in Corinth, his companions brought him a gift from Philippi (2 Cor 11:8–9; Phil 4:15), which temporarily relieved him of the need to perform manual labor (Acts 18:5).[4450] Although Paul is not explicit that the gift comes with Silas and Timothy or a group that includes them (“the brothers” could be entirely Macedonian), nothing he says excludes them. It seems better to accept Luke’s complementary claim, even in its terse, summary, and hence not necessarily precise form, than to contradict him on the basis of an argument from silence.

The Macedonian church helped Paul when he was in Corinth (2 Cor 11:8–9),[4451] and later he hoped that the Corinthian church might help him evangelize other regions (probably the meaning of 10:15–16; also the Roman church, Rom 15:24). Yet to be one church’s missionary elsewhere differed from depending on local support where the missionary could be viewed as becoming a client of the supporters; Paul refused the Corinthian Christians’ support when he was among them (2 Cor 12:13) and would also refuse it on his future trip (12:14–15).[4452] He did so not because he doubted that support for apostolic labors was the ideal (1 Cor 9:4–14)[4453] but because he sacrificed this (9:15–18). Rather, he apparently would not submit to local ideas of patronage or did not want to be compared too closely to begging Cynics.

The basic picture of Acts 18:5 seems confirmed by various Pauline writings (which Luke would not likely have collected and read),[4454] but the differences, perhaps caused by Luke’s terse summary, probably indicate that Luke does not depend on the epistles directly.

Clearly, Luke omits most details while compressing the account; they are not strictly relevant to his narrative.[4455] It is possible that in keeping his own narrative cohesive, he has erased details in a way that modern historians might consider inaccurate but that ancient writers seemed to accept as a matter of course at times (see, e.g., Matthew’s abbreviation by omitting messengers in Mark 5:35; Luke 7:3).[4456] The primary complication is whether Timothy accompanied Paul to Athens and was sent away, leaving him alone (1 Thess 3:1), or Paul went there alone and sent for Silas and Timothy (Acts 17:15). As noted below, this complication is potentially reconcilable, but Luke also clearly did not write his narrative with Paul’s epistolary description in mind.

Acts 17:15; 18:5

1

Thess 3:1–6

Paul sends for Silas and Timothy while he is in Athens (17:15)

Paul sends Timothy from Athens to Thessalonica (3:1–2)

—

*

—

Apparently, Paul, Silas, and Timothy are together for authoring 1 Thessalonians (1 Thess 1:1; cf. 2 Thess 1:1)

—

†

Silas and Timothy come to Paul in Corinth

Silas and Timothy return to Paul at some point They are present early in his ministry in Corinth (2 Cor 1:19)

‡

Consequently, Paul is able to stop working (18:5)

“The brothers” come from Macedonia with an offering from Philippi while Paul is in Corinth (2 Cor 11:9)

*

Primarily on the basis of the impression in Acts that Paul stayed only briefly in Athens and of the small mention of Athens in Paul’s letters.

†

That he cannot return himself may suggest that he was busy, but it probably suggests the kind of official hostility, explicitly mentioned by Acts (17:7–9; cf. 1 Thess 2:2, 18), toward his presence.

‡

Although Silas is mentioned only at the beginning of Paul’s ministry there, Timothy continues to be involved (see 1 Cor 4:17; 16:10–11). He may have left Corinth before Paul, reappearing later with Peter in Rome if (as I believe) 1 Peter is authentic (1 Pet 5:12). The idea that Silas fades from Luke’s view here once Paul’s mission leaves the synagogue (Kaye, “Portrait of Silas”) makes too much of a break; Paul still labors in synagogues and other distinctly Jewish settings (Acts 19:8; 21:39–40; 28:17).

One can connect the sources in several ways (not all of them mutually exclusive):

1. Luke perhaps did not know the details of these travels but knew that Paul was on his own for some time, and he fit this information into his narrative as best he could. Such an attempt to write cohesive narrative from data with some narrative details missing would fit ancient historiographic practice.

2. By condensing and summarizing the account, Luke shows his interest only in the basic action, not detailed movements here.

3. It is possible to fit all the details together, in which case Luke’s condensation is not technically inaccurate (no one could plausibly claim perjury even were it a legal testimony) but simply quite incomplete. This view would be explained somewhat as follows:

a. Perhaps Paul sent for Silas and Timothy while he was in Athens (Acts 17:15).

b. Timothy or both of them did join Paul while he was in Athens.[4457]

c. Paul sent Timothy to Thessalonica (1 Thess 3:1–2).

d. Instead of either one traveling alone to Macedonia, Silas may have traveled most of the way up the coast but gone on to the congregation in Philippi (a fact that Paul would not need to mention to the Thessalonians but that would make sense to express concern for another new and endangered church in the same region).[4458]

e. Silas would join Timothy for the return journey, carrying the financial support from the Philippian Christians.

Whether in conjunction with or apart from the second approach, this third approach is plausible (but faces a problem noted below). If Timothy carried 1 Thessalonians, he would have to return to Paul in Corinth again at some point; if Paul was in Athens “alone” after Timothy left (1 Thess 3:1), then Silas must also have rejoined Paul at some point for the ministry in Corinth (2 Cor 1:19).[4459] Luke’s account works here as well as any. In this case, the only issue of compression is that he omits Timothy’s (and probably Silas’s) initially rejoining Paul at Athens and, to tie up the loose end in his narrative, reports only their later coming. Had he supplied all such details (in case readers might happen to know them from elsewhere), Acts would be much longer than it is; we notice the compression here only because we have further information from a Pauline letter, which we usually lack.

While this approach is possible, however, it may falter if the pervasive first person plural in 1 Thessalonians means what we might expect. The plural first-person pronouns suggest that Silas either remained with Paul in Athens or, less likely (though somewhat less problematic for the third view), left after Timothy and returned to Paul before Timothy did (1 Thess 3:1–2, 6). “We” sometimes apparently includes all three, or at least Paul and Silas (1 Thess 1:1–2, 5–6, 9–10; 2:1–13, 17–20; 3:4; at most, Paul and Silas in 3:1–2, 6). Against this problem, Paul could use “we” for himself only (cf. 2:18; sending in both 3:2 and 5), though he specifies himself separately in his postscript (5:27). An authorial “we” does appear elsewhere in ancient sources.[4460] On the whole, however, the probability of Silas remaining with Paul remains strong enough to reduce the overall likelihood of position 3. Without being certain, I currently find position 2 the most attractive historically. The matter will continue to generate debate.

See further comment on Acts 17:15–16. On “testifying” in Acts 18:5, see comment on Acts 1:8 regarding the witness motif; see also comment on this verb in a note on Acts 2:40 (Keener, Acts, 1:988n1353).

III. TURNING TO THE GENTILES (18:6)

Facing persistent recalcitrance, Paul withdraws, following the teaching of Jesus (Luke 10:10–11).[4461] Although Paul pronounces judgment here on the synagogue, it is apparently only on the dominant majority of the synagogue (just as Paul’s letters lament the failure of Israel while affirming a substantial continuing remnant, Rom 11:5, 11); in the biblical ideal, Israel as an entire community must turn to the covenant. The opposing faction keeps the synagogue building, but Paul’s faction acquires a significant synagogue leader (Acts 18:8) and undoubtedly a significant patron (Acts 18:7; judging by his location, he may have even contributed significantly to the synagogue’s building). Both the theft of a wealthy Gentile sympathizer and probable patron, on the one hand, and the new movement’s competitive location, on the other, would further exacerbate tensions with the synagogue members staying behind.

Division in the synagogue is not difficult to imagine. Besides its fitting a pattern in other synagogues in Acts (13:45–50; 14:1–4; 19:8–9), the pervasive Greco-Roman culture of Corinth invited speakers to compete and their followers to divide.[4462] Given recent events in Rome (18:2), the last thing the synagogue community needed was any public division; it is, however, Paul’s opponents, rather than Paul, who make the division public before the authorities (18:13). Luke describes their verbal opposition as blasphemy; this can mean simply “speaking against harshly” but may bear more of its religious sense of speaking against a deity here (though not likely in the most technical form of cursing the Tetragrammaton; cf. 19:37).[4463] It depicts Luke’s perspective, not that of the narrative’s speaker. Perhaps it refers to cursing Jesus’s name or regarding him as accursed (1 Cor 12:3) because he was hanged on a cross (Gal 3:13; Deut 21:23). Luke elsewhere applies the term to speaking against Christ (Luke 22:65; 23:39) and blasphemy against the Spirit (12:10); it also applies to hostility to Paul’s message in an earlier synagogue (Acts 13:45) and to Paul’s view of his former attempts to force Christian prisoners to repudiate Christ (26:11). This view of what is blasphemous contrasts with the perspective of the movement’s adversaries (6:11).

Shaking out one’s garment[4464] might serve as a warning of judgment to covenant breakers (Neh 5:13),[4465] an even more dramatic form of public repudiation than shaking dust from one’s feet (see comment on Acts 13:51; cf. Luke 9:5; 10:11).[4466] It would prove a dramatic and appropriate response to their “blasphemy,” for which one might even tear one’s garments (m. Sanh. 7:5); see comment on Acts 14:14; 22:23. (Shaking the garment would incur less expense than rending it!)

Soards sees Paul’s pronouncement as primarily epideictic rhetoric with a judicial element,[4467] but it is surely primarily judicial in the narrative world; although the speech might have some epideictic function for Luke’s own audience, denouncing opponents was common in forensic rhetoric.

Bloodguilt for another’s death is a frequent biblical image (Luke 11:50–51)[4468] but of less direct importance here than passages recalling responsibility for one’s own judgment. The blood of Paul’s opponents on their own heads must thus instead recall the more particular biblical idiom for responsibility for one’s own death.[4469] A preacher’s freedom from his hearers’ blood appears in Ezek 3:18–21 (esp. 3:18, 20) and (with the same expression, one’s “blood upon” their “head”) 33:4.[4470] Paul recalls Ezekiel’s watchman also in summarizing his ministry in Asia in Acts 20:26.

Philosophy often emphasized the importance of inner purity.[4471] But when Paul says here, “I am pure!” he continues the thought of bloodguilt; his opponents are responsible for their own doom, but he is pure from others’ blood. This fits both the Ezekiel allusion above and the explicit connection between the concepts in 20:26: “I am pure from the blood of all people” (the only other NT verse including both καθαρός and αἷμα).[4472] Bloodguilt could make a land impure (Num 35:33; Ps 106:38; Isa 59:3; Lam 4:14; Ezek 22:4); it could be removed (Deut 21:8–9; hence, in some sense, “cleansed”), but it was best to avoid it being imputed to begin with (Jonah 1:14; cf. Matt 27:24).

Paul’s declaration that he goes to the Gentiles because of his Jewish opponents’ rejection fits what we know of Pauline theology (Rom 11:11).[4473] As long as the mission remained rooted in the synagogue, some Gentiles would avoid it for that reason, as a foreign ethnic faith; but Paul would not leave the synagogue until that step became necessary, because the gospel belonged first to the people of Israel. Ultimately, however, neither the Lukan nor the epistolary Paul articulates a permanent rejection of Paul’s Jewish people (Rom 11:15, 26). In Acts, Paul has made this declaration before (Acts 13:46) yet has continued going to Jewish assemblies (14:1; 16:13; 17:1, 10, 17; 18:4). After the present announcement, he labors for three months in the synagogue in Ephesus (19:8) and meets with Jewish leaders in Rome (28:17). Unless we should think that Paul, an ideal character in Luke’s story, offers idle threats that he will not carry out (hardly an honorable trait in the ancient Mediterranean world),[4474] these pronouncements represent purely local judgments (cf. Luke 10:12–15; see comment on Acts 13:46).[4475] They must in some sense also further God’s agenda as well as Luke’s plot, for the commission to the nations was already Jesus’s command (Luke 24:47).

IV. TITIUS JUSTUS’S HOUSE (18:7)

Both in Luke’s Gospel and in earlier Jesus tradition, Jesus instructed his followers to use a local home as a base for reaching a local community (Luke 9:4; 10:7; Mark 6:10). As noted in the introduction to this section, many Corinthian Christians had Latin names, much higher than the usual percentage of those noted in the Pauline circle in other locations. Not all those with single Latin names were citizens, but on the whole, the percentage seems higher in Corinth, which fits its status as a colony. In the case of Titius Justus, where two names are given, we may be relatively certain that he was indeed a Roman citizen, possessing the Latin tria nomina.[4476] The double name for a Roman citizen fits common first-century usage[4477] and was also sufficient to indicate citizenship when, as here, they are the nomen and the cognomen.[4478] That Paul was able to reach Roman citizens or those with special Roman sympathies in Greek-speaking areas is evident from the high percentage of Roman names overall in his circle, especially—but by no means exclusively—in Corinth.[4479]

Titius Justus was not the only well-to-do member. Since nine of the seventeen names of Corinthian Christians preserved in the NT are mentioned as being on journeys, a significant number were apparently engaged in commercial activity or otherwise had means.[4480] This fits the picture of Corinth’s prosperity noted in the introduction to this section; the church included members with substance as well as those without it.

Because some think that the Corinthian church later meets in the home of one “Gaius” (possibly a rare home large enough to host everyone, at least initially, Rom 16:23),[4481] some scholars suspect that this was probably Titius Justus’s praenomen.[4482] “Gaius” was one of the most common examples of a praenomen,[4483] and we may safely assume that this was not Gaius’s only name.[4484] Since we do not know what may have transpired between the founding of the church and the writing of Romans, we cannot be certain that the names represent the same individual, but it is a very plausible guess.[4485] Historical narrative would employ the more formal Titius Justus whereas Paul employs the more familiar language of the praenomen.[4486] We do have reason to believe, however, that multiple house congregations probably grew in Corinth;[4487] we cannot be certain how many or which individuals may have borne this praenomen.

Wealthier associations could construct their own meeting halls (under Roman laws governing voluntary associations), but smaller ones were limited to rented halls, homes, or public meetings in a part of a temple or in a corner café.[4488] Speakers did not easily acquire public buildings without first establishing significant status;[4489] but use of a patron’s home would be more easily come by, and synagogues often met in homes until resources were sufficient to build a separate edifice (see comment on Acts 12:12–13).[4490] Romans built their well-to-do urban homes with large vestibules opening onto the street so that clients could gather there in the mornings; meeting with clients was among a patron’s civic responsibilities. This cultural and architectural characteristic of wealthy Roman households provided a natural setting for one of the most ample forms of house churches.[4491] Some scholarship suggests that the average triclinium in Corinth was roughly thirty-six square meters, comfortably reclining nine guests (or up to twelve if four reclined on each couch); the atrium might hold fifty more, but with normal furniture probably thirty to forty.[4492] These figures have been questioned but provide at least a general order of magnitude with which we can work. Although such a home would easily hold the initial assembly, five basic alternative explanations exist for Paul’s reference to a Corinthian house that could host the entire church by the time Paul wrote Rom 16:23:

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