CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 20
Antioch to Philippi
1. Paul and Silas set out for Asia Minor
Next time paul set out from antioch for asia minor it was with another companion than Barnabas. According to Luke’s account, there was some word of their going together to revisit the churches which they had jointly planted on their previous journey, but this plan foundered on their inability to agree whether John Mark should accompany them this time or not. Paul felt that Mark had let them down on the former occasion when he left them at Perga and returned home; Barnabas thought that he should be given another chance. When they could not agree, they parted company: Barnabas took Mark and went back to Cyprus.1 In the event, this was probably the best thing that could have happened: Mark developed unsuspected qualities of character and usefulness under his relative’s encouragement, and Paul himself at a later stage was to voice his appreciation of Mark’s presence and help.2
But even if there had not been this disagreement, it is doubtful if Paul and Barnabas would have been as happy in each other’s company as they had once been. The old mutual confidence must have been damaged on the occasion when, as Paul says, “even Barnabas” followed Peter’s example in withdrawing from the society of Gentile Christians at Antioch.3 Henceforth relations between the two men could not be the same as before: “never glad confident morning again”. When Paul has occasion to refer to Barnabas after this, he does so with the warmth of old affection,4 but a change had set in nevertheless.
In place of Barnabas, Paul chose a new fellow-traveller—Silas or Silvanus, a member of the Jerusalem church. He first appears in the record as one of the two messengers sent by the Jerusalem leaders to carry the letter containing the apostolic decree to Antioch.5 This in itself might suggest that he was likely to be persona grata to Gentile Christians. Paul had opportunity to take stock of him and to judge that he would prove a kindred spirit. There might indeed be diplomatic advantages in having as his companion a Jerusalem Christian: if any one hoped to put Paul on the spot by asking what was said or done at Jerusalem, here was a man from Jerusalem to give an answer based on first-hand information. Moreover, if Silas was, as the narrative of Acts implies, a Roman citizen like Paul,6 Paul would not find himself in an embarrassing situation where he could claim for himself civic privileges in which his companion could not share. Silas’s two alternative names, Silas and Silvanus, might bear the same relation to each other as Saul and Paul—the former being the Jewish family name, the latter the Roman cognomen.7
The two men set out, then, with the blessing of the Antiochene church, first travelling north, perhaps through Syrian Alexandria (modern Iskenderun), and then turning west into Cilicia, probably along the road which led through Mopsuestia, Adana and Tarsus. How many of the cities through which they passed had been evangelized by this time is unknown, but such communities of Christians as they found were given copies of the Jerusalem letter. The letter was addressed to the Gentile brethren throughout Syria and Cilicia as well as in Antioch, and Silas was named in it as one of the messengers appointed to deliver it.8 Evidently he continued to discharge this responsibility until Paul and he left Cilicia.9 From Tarsus they turned north and crossed the Taurus range by the Cilician Gates; when they had passed through these they were out of Cilicia and into Cappadocia. Turning west they followed a Roman road which brought them into the territory of Rome’s ally, King Antiochus, and so to Derbe, the most easterly point reached by Paul and Barnabas when they traversed South Galatia from the opposite direction.10
2. Timothy joins the missionary party
In Derbe and Lystra Paul was able to greet friends and converts, and in Lystra he renewed acquaintance with a young man whose career was thenceforth to be interwoven with his own. This was Timothy, son of a mixed marriage. His mother was a Jewess, who had brought him up in the Jewish faith;11 but his father was a Greek, and so Timothy had never been circumcised. Timothy had probably become a Christian when Barnabas and Paul visited Lystra, and now older Christians from Iconium as well as Lystra spoke enthusiastically of his spiritual development and promise. A young man of such qualities and gifts would make an admirable apprentice to Paul if he was minded to give up whatever other ambitions he had and join Paul in his apostolic ministry. Timothy was plainly so attracted by Paul that he counted the world well lost for the sake of accompanying such a man as his aide-de-camp. There are hints in the Pastoral Epistles of prophetic utterances which clearly marked out this course as the divine will for Timothy and which were confirmed by a special spiritual endowment received by him at the same time.12
There is ample evidence that Paul wholeheartedly appreciated the selfless devotion with which Timothy supported and served him for the rest of the older man’s life. Here is how he speaks of him some year later when he proposes to send him as his representative to the church of Philippi (Philippians 2:19–22):
I have no one like him, who will be genuinely anxious for your welfare. They all look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But Timothy’s worth you know, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.
Paul knew that Timothy was naturally diffident by temperament: when he sends him, for example, as his representative to the more turbulent church of Corinth, he has to ask his friends there not to underestimate him but to put him at his ease and see that he is not intimidated (1 Corinthians 16:10 f.). But he had the utmost confidence in entrusting him with responsible and delicate missions: Timothy, he knew, would not misrepresent him.
But in order that Timothy might serve him most effectively in these ways Paul decided that he should be circumcised. Luke’s statement that Paul “took him and circumcised him because of the Jews” of Lystra and its neighbourhood, “for they all knew that his father was a Greek” (Acts 16:3), is cryptic enough, but not so incredible as has sometimes been thought.13 Such an action on the part of the writer to the Galatians is surprising indeed (no matter what view be taken of the date of the letter), but there is no point in ascribing to Paul a consistency which his own acquaintances were far from seeing in him. Timothy was not a Gentile Christian in the sense in which Titus was. By birth, as the son of a Jewish mother, and by religious upbringing Timothy was a Jew in all respects save the admittedly material one of circumcision. To the Gentiles around he was probably a Jew, but he could not be so in the eyes of the Jews unless he received circumcision. In the social setting of that place and time he was neither the one nor the other, and Paul resolved to regularize his position by circumcising him. He was now legitimized in Jewish eyes and shared Paul’s own status as a Jewish Christian. Whether Paul was wise or not in his action could be determined only by a more detailed knowledge of the circumstances than is available, but the action was not inconsistent with Paul’s own principles. Even in writing to the Galatians he insists twice over that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters in itself (5:6; 6:15);14 it is only when circumcision is undertaken as a legal obligation that a man “is bound to keep the whole law” (5:3). In this same letter, too, it is implied that Paul was charged with not always maintaining the rigid line on circumcision which he adopted with the Galatians. What does he mean by his rhetorical question, “But if I, brethren, still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?” (5:11), if not that some people told the Galatians that he was not always so opposed to circumcision as he was with them?15
As frequently when Paul’s actions and motives are under consideration, it is necessary to distinguish a higher and a lower consistency. Paul’s higher consistency appears in his defence and promotion of the law-free gospel, for the sake of which many lower consistencies might be ignored. If one so thoroughly emancipated from legalism as Paul wishes for certain proper purposes to perform a ritual act which in itself is ethically indifferent, he will perform it, not by compulsion but freely. If expediency suggests that someone who is a Jew in every respect but circumcision (presumably because his Greek father would not allow it when he was an infant) be circumcised for his greater usefulness in the gospel, Paul will circumcise him; in such a situation circumcision is nothing but a minor surgical operation performed for a practical purpose. It is natural that many people in Paul’s day did not appreciate the difference between doing such things voluntarily and doing them by way of religious duty, and accordingly charged Paul with inconsistency.16 But there is a right as well as a wrong way of being “all things to all men”, to use Paul’s own expression (1 Corinthians 9:22).17
If we have been right about the date and destination of the letter to the Galatians, then the churches of Lystra and Iconium, which were specially interested in Timothy, had received that letter only a few months before. What would they make of Paul’s circumcising Timothy so soon after writing to them as he had done on that subject? That the circumcision was kept secret from them is incredible on every count. Perhaps Paul’s action was not only performed “because of the Jews that were in those places”, as Luke says (Acts 16:3), but also served as an object-lesson for the Gentile Christians in those places of the difference between circumcision as an act of legal obedience, undertaken by people like themselves who were under no such obligation, and circumcision as a practical and religiously neutral expedient adopted in a most exceptional case. If so, would they have taken the lesson to heart?
3. The call to Macedonia
Paul’s plan had been, after visiting his converts in South Galatia, to follow the westward road to Ephesus. Perhaps he had already thought of this city as a base from which the great province of Asia could be evangelized. But this plan was not to be put into effect yet. According to Luke, by the time he and his two companions (Silas and Timothy) “went through the Phrygian and Galatic region”, they had already “been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6). This language implies that a prophetic utterance—perhaps one of those heard at Lystra18—had given this negative guidance without indicating positively where they were to turn. One possible course was to turn north and go to Bithynia, the province in the north-west of Asia Minor, in which lay the cities of Nicaea and Nicomedia.
If the negative guidance was granted at Lystra, they had to go on to Iconium in any case. If by this time they thought of Bithynia they could either cut out Pisidian Antioch and take the road into the northern part of Phrygia Paroreios (the territory lying north and south of the mountain range of Sultan Daǧ) or they could go on to Pisidian Antioch (which, for the sake of the church recently planted there, they probably did) and reach northern Phrygia Paroreios from there by crossing Sultan Daǧ. One way or the other, they would arrive at Philomelium (modern Akşehir).
But what does Luke mean by “the Phrygian and Galatic region”—a phrase which seems to mean “the region which is both Phrygian and Galatic”? Almost certainly he means the part of Phrygia which belonged to the Roman province of Galatia, the region in which Iconium and Pisidian Antioch lay19—Phrygia Galatica, as it might be called (although there is no direct evidence that this was its official designation).20 Any other interpretation of the phrase is fraught with difficulties, especially an interpretation which envisages a visit on this occasion to one or more of the cities of ethnic Galatia, in the north of the province (Pessinus, Ancyra and Tavium).
Leaving Philomelium for the north-west, they would pass at once into the Asian part of Phrygia and arrive in due course at the important road-junction of Dorylaeum. To the north lay the frontier of the province of Bithynia; to the west lay Mysia, the north-westerly territory of the province of Asia. But when they made to cross into Bithynia, “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” (Acts 16:7). This may point to another prophetic utterance, but the slight change in wording from the previous occasion may point to another kind of monition—an inward sense of inhibition, perhaps. There was only one way to go now: since they could not take the north road into Bithynia, they turned west, skirted the territory of Mysia, and reached the Aegean coast at the port of Alexandria Troas (modern Kestambol).21
Alexandria Troas stood on the site of the earlier Greek city of Sigeia. It was founded (with the name Antigonia Troas) by Alexander’s successor Antigonus and, after him (with the name Alexandria Troas), by Lysimachus, king of Thrace (c. 300 B.C.), and it had the status of a free city. In the New Testament it is called simply Troas, which is also the name of the surrounding district of the Troad (the district called after the ancient city of Troy). Julius Caesar, it is said, toyed with the idea of making it his imperial capital22—an idea taken up three and a half centuries later by Constantine who, however, decided in favour of a city on the European side of the narrow seas which here divide Europe from Asia. Augustus showed his appreciation of the importance of Troas by establishing a Roman colony there.
Some years later there was a church in Troas:23 whether it was founded at this time or on a subsequent occasion is uncertain. But when Paul and his two friends arrived here, two things happened: they were joined by a fourth companion, and at last positive guidance about their next move was granted.
The fourth companion was the author of Acts—or, if fine distinctions are to be made, the author of the travel-diary incorporated in the narrative of Acts.24 His joining the others is indicated in the most unobtrusive manner—by a sudden switch from the third person to the first person plural, from “they” to “we”. There are three sections of Acts in which the story is told in the first person plural and, interestingly enough, each of the three is largely concerned with a journey by sea.25
The positive guidance came to Paul in the form of a night vision. “A man of Macedonia stood beseeching him: ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’ ” (Acts 16:9). No need to inquire, as some writers have done, how Paul knew that the man was a Macedonian: his invitation, “Come over to Macedonia”, was enough. Paul related his vision to the others, and “immediately”, says the narrator, “we at once set about getting a passage to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to bring them the good news” (Acts 16:10).
4. The gospel comes to Philippi
The first passage they could get for Macedonia took them in a couple of days to Neapolis (modern Kavalla), the seaport of Philippi: the ship put in for one night at the mountainous island of Samothrace. Plainly they had a favourable wind; some of them made the same voyage in the reverse direction seven or eight years later and it took five days.26
At Neapolis the Via Egnatia, the great Roman military road which linked the Adriatic with the Aegean and the Bosporus, met the sea. Following this road for about ten miles (16 kilometres) in a north-westerly direction, they came to Philippi. Philippi bore the name of Philip II of Macedonia (father of Alexander the Great), who established it in 356 B.C. on the site of the earlier settlement of Krenides. Luke describes it as “a city of the first district of Macedonia”27 (with reference to the division of Macedonia into four districts in 167 B.C. by its Roman conqueror Lucius Aemilius Paullus); he adds that it was a Roman colony (Acts 16:12). Although several cities mentioned in the New Testament were in fact Roman colonies, Philippi is the only one which is explicitly called a colony by any New Testament writer; Luke apparently had a special interest in Philippi.28 It became a Roman colony in 42 B.C., after the battle of Philippi in which Antony and Octavian (later Augustus), the political heirs of Julius Caesar, defeated the party led by Caesar’s chief assassins, Brutus and Cassius. The victors settled a number of their veteran soldiers here, and called the new colony Colonia Victrix Philippensium. Twelve years later Octavian (who had by this time disposed of his former ally and subsequent rival Antony) settled a number of Antony’s followers in Philippi, and renamed the colony after himself: Colonia Iulia Philippensis (in which the title Augusta was inserted when he was designated Augustus in 27 B.C.).
There does not appear to have been a synagogue in Philippi, presumably because there was no Jewish community worth speaking of. A properly constituted synagogue requires a minyān or quorum of ten male Jews.29 But outside the city walls, by the river Gangites, there was an unofficial place of worship where a number of women—God-fearers and possibly some Jewesses—met on sabbaths and holy days to recite the appointed synagogue prayers and thanksgivings.30 The four missionaries found this meeting-place one sabbath morning soon after their arrival in Philippi, and sat down and talked to the women, imparting the good news which they brought. The leader of these women was Lydia, a God-fearer from the city of Thyatira in the province of Asia, who was an agent for the sale of the purple dye, derived from the juice of the madder root, for which her native region was famed as early as Homer’s day.31 Since there was a Jewish colony in Thyatira, it was probably there that she had become a God-fearer. As she listened to the gospel, she was convinced of its truth and was baptized, together with her household.32 Thereupon she insisted that the missionaries should be her guests for the remainder of their stay in Philippi.
This may prompt one to ask how the missionaries normally supported themselves when hospitality such as Lydia’s was not forthcoming. So far as Paul is concerned, the answer is not in doubt: he supported himself, and his companions where necessary, by his “tent-making”.33 Many rabbis practised a trade so as to be able to impart their teaching without charge.34 Paul scrupulously maintained this tradition as a Christian preacher, partly as a matter of principle, partly by way of example to his converts, and partly to avoid giving his critics any opportunity to say that his motives were mercenary. When, however, hospitality was spontaneously offered, as by Lydia on this occasion, he gladly accepted it: it would have been ungracious to refuse.
Luke’s account of their stay at Philippi illustrates some aspects of the life of a Roman colony in the Greek world, with its citizens so proud of being Romans and their two collegiate magistrates rejoicing in the honorary designation of “praetors”35 and attended, as were the two consuls in Rome itself, by the lictors. The lictors bore as their badge of office the bundles (fasces) of rods and axes which denoted the authority of the magistrates whom they served.36 The two Philippian praetors and their lictors make an appearance in the incident of the fortune-telling slave-girl. This girl told fortunes by the aid of a “pythonic spirit”, a pale imitation, we may suppose, of the spirit that possessed the Pythian prophetess at Delphi so that she became for the time being the mouthpiece of Apollo.37 The spirit that enabled the Philippian slave-girl to tell fortunes was exorcized by Paul when she persisted in shouting unsolicited testimonials after him and his companions through the streets of the city. Her owners were naturally incensed at this violation of property rights and accused Paul and Silas before the praetors of being itinerant Jews who were troubling this Roman city with their unwelcome and indeed illegal propaganda.38 Paul and Silas were not only the leaders of the missionary party but were full Jews and perhaps looked it (Luke was a Gentile and Timothy a half-Gentile); they were thus natural targets for anti-Semitic resentment. Without staying to inquire into the grounds of the accusation, the praetors ordered the two men to be soundly beaten (with the lictors’ rods) and locked up overnight—they would be expelled from Philippi next day. But when the lictors arrived at the town jail in the morning to take custody of them and expel them, they were met with a protest—a protest which may have been made the day before but, if so, went unheard or unheeded in the public excitement. “We are Roman citizens”, said Paul and Silas; “we have been beaten publicly without being granted a trial”.39 Ordinary provincials might be treated summarily, but Roman citizens had their legal rights and could appeal to higher authority if those rights were infringed. The praetors had to come in person and apologize to them, but even so they requested them to move on: the responsibility of protecting two unpopular Roman citizens was more than they felt able to bear.
Paul and Silas, with Timothy, moved on, but by the time they did so they had gathered a promising young church together in Philippi. The last converts they made before leaving the place were the town jailer and his family. Luke seems to have been left behind in Philippi; he disappears from the narrative of Acts at this point and reappears at Philippi some years later.40 If the letter to the Philippians (or at any rate the relevant part of it) was written during this interval,41 Luke may well be the unnamed “true yokefellow” whom Paul asks to help Euodia and Syntyche “to agree in the Lord”, for these two women, he says, “have laboured side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow-workers” (Philippians 4:2 f.). Euodia, Syntyche and Clement are but names to us, but it is plain that Paul set a high value on the friendship and activity of many of his converts in Philippi.
They, for their part, maintained a warm affection for their apostle, and showed it by sending him personal gifts from time to time. Paul was not too happy about accepting such gifts from his converts, but the generosity of his Philippian friends was so unanimous and spontaneous that he could do no other than accept their gifts in the spirit in which they were given and view them as the outward expression of their faith and love, and thus not only a donation to himself but an acceptable offering to God.42