ACTS 26

ACTS 26

ACTS 26

11. Paul Accepts Agrippa’s Invitation to Speak (26:1)

1  Agrippa said to Paul, “You may speak for yourself.”¹ Paul² then raised his hand and proceeded to make his defense.

1 Since the proceedings were neither judicial nor in any other way official, Festus left it to Agrippa to conduct them as he thought fit. Agrippa then, turning to Paul, invited him to state his case. Paul was only too willing to accept the king’s invitation, so he raised his hand in salutation to him³ and proceeded to speak. If his speech is called his “defense,” it is so called in no forensic sense; it is rather a defense of the gospel which he preached and of his way of life in conformity with it.

To some extent this speech covers the same ground as that which Paul delivered from the top of the steps leading to the Antonia fortress to the riotous crowd in the temple court below.⁴ But the general tone and atmosphere of the two speeches are different, each being adapted to its very distinctive audience. Here, in the calm and dignified setting of the governor’s audience chamber at Caesarea, Paul delivered the speech which, above all his other speeches in Acts, may worthily claim to be called his Apologia pro vita sua. In it he undertakes to show that neither his manner of life nor his teaching should arouse hostility, especially on the part of Jews. The construction of the speech is more careful than usual, the grammar more classical, and the style more literary, as befitted the distinguished audience.⁵ The argument is designed to appeal particularly to the mind of Agrippa, who was reputed to be interested in Jewish theology, even if Festus found himself completely out of his depth after the first few sentences.

12. Paul’s “Apologia pro vita sua” (26:2–23)

a. Exordium (26:2–3)

2  “I congratulate myself, King Agrippa, that it is before you that I am to make my defense today, regarding all the charges brought against me by the Jews,

3  especially because⁶ you are an expert in all the Jewish customs and disputed questions. Therefore, I beg of you, give me a patient hearing.

2–3 Paul congratulates himself first of all on the opportunity to state his case and expound his teaching before a man of Agrippa’s eminence, particularly one so expert in the details of Jewish religious belief and practice. He, at least, might appreciate the strength of Paul’s argument that the message which he proclaimed was the proper consummation of Israel’s ancestral faith. For such a hearer and examiner no perfunctory statement, but a reasoned narration and exposition of his whole case, was appropriate. Unlike Tertullus before Felix,⁷ Paul did not promise to be brief, but he did ask for a patient hearing; probably he hoped that Agrippa would be interested enough to hear him out at length.

b. The resurrection hope (26:4–8)

4  “My course of life from my earliest youth⁸ among my nation, and (particularly) in Jerusalem,⁹ is known to all the Jews.

5  They have known me for a long time back,¹⁰ and can testify, if they wish, that I lived as a Pharisee, according to the strictest party of our religion.

6  And now it is on the ground of hope based on the promise made by God to our fathers that I stand here on trial.

7  It is to the fulfilment of this promise that our twelve tribes, earnestly occupied in the worship of God night and day, hope to attain; and it is with regard to this hope, Your Majesty, that I am accused—accused by Jews!¹¹

8  Why is it judged incredible among you¹² that God should raise the dead?

4–8 Paul went on, then, to describe his early upbringing. His contemporaries knew all about this, and could bear witness, if called upon, that he had been brought up a Pharisee and lived according to the strictest rules of that party. It went without saying that a faithful Pharisee believed in the resurrection of the dead, and saw no fulfilment of Israel’s ancestral hope apart from the resurrection. But the amazing and indeed absurd feature of the present dispute was that he was being prosecuted for his proclamation of this very hope—and prosecuted by Jews, of all people. This hope was the hope that God would keep the promise which he made to the fathers of the nation long ago; it was the hope which gave life and meaning and purpose to the ordinances of divine worship, faithfully maintained by the twelve tribes of Israel¹³ generation after generation, especially to the unceasing services of morning and evening sacrifice and prayer. It was the hope that God would one day come down to deliver his people as he had done when they were slaves in Egypt, that he would raise up for them “a horn of salvation … in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old” (Luke 1:69–70). Why should they think it incredible that God should honor their hope and fulfil his promise by raising the dead?¹⁴

The Pharisees among them would answer that they did not think it incredible; they ardently believed in God as the raiser of the dead. But Paul’s point was that this belief had now been validated by God in his raising one man from the dead, demonstrating by this very fact that this one man was Israel’s long-expected deliverer, the one in whom the ancient hope was to be realized. Before Agrippa, as previously before the Sanhedrin and before Felix, Paul insisted that his case hinged entirely on the resurrection hope; but by the resurrection hope he meant that hope as realized in “one Jesus, who was dead, but whom Paul claimed to be alive” (25:19). Even Festus had grasped something of the message, despite his total lack of background. Why should those who believed in the resurrection of the dead find it difficult to believe that God had in fact raised up Jesus, thus designating him “Son of God in power” (Rom. 1:4)? If God did not raise up Jesus, why believe that he raises the dead at all? So Paul now reasoned, but once upon a time he had reasoned quite differently.

c. Paul’s persecuting zeal (26:9–11)

9  “To be sure, I myself once imagined that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

10  I opposed his name in Jerusalem: I shut up many of his saints in prison, having received authority to do so from the chief priests, and when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.

11  In all the synagogues I took penal action against them repeatedly and tried to make them blaspheme. In the excess of my fury against them I pursued them even to foreign cities.

9–11 But Paul understood his opponents’ frame of mind very well; he had once shared it himself. He himself, for all his belief in the resurrection of the dead at the last day, thought it incredible that God should have raised the crucified Jesus; and when the disciples insisted that he had indeed raised him, Paul treated them as charlatans and blasphemers. He could not take seriously their claim that they seen him alive again. Their movement, as he saw it, was a cancer attacking the vitals of Israel’s life; it must be uprooted, and Paul himself eagerly took the lead in uprooting it.

Armed with authority from the chief priests, he said, he went from house to house and dragged the followers of Jesus off to jail; he went from synagogue to synagogue and enforced judicial proceedings against them, and when they were put on trial, he cast his vote for their condemnation and demanded the death-sentence against them. The ruling body of each synagogue constituted a minor law court or beth din, but certainly under the Roman administration such a court had no competence to carry out the death-sentence. This competence belonged in principle to the supreme Sanhedrin, but under the Romans it was only where the sanctity of the temple was violated that the Sanhedrin had the authority to inflict capital punishment without reference to the governor. This probably explains Stephen’s summary execution, but such restricted authority could not extend to the rank and file of Jesus’ followers. In Paul’s eyes they might be sharers in Stephen’s offense, but his opinion need not have been given legal effect. One possibility is that in the reference to their being put to death the plural is generalizing, and that it is Paul’s consent to Stephen’s death that is really in view.¹⁵

In any case, Paul did not want to make martyrs of them if he could help it; if he could make them forswear their faith in Jesus, that was much more satisfactory. He did his best¹⁶ in synagogue after synagogue to force them to blaspheme, to call Jesus accursed,¹⁷ and thus repudiate his claims. But such attempts met with little success: the disciples preferred death or exile to apostasy.¹⁸ Nor did Paul confine his activities to Jerusalem and Judaea: when his victims took refuge beyond the provincial frontiers he pursued them into the synagogues of Gentile cities as well, where the writ of the Sanhedrin was honored. At the time in question, the new movement was developing exclusively within the community of Israel: the believers were members of the synagogue and amenable to its discipline.

d. The heavenly vision (26:12–18)

12  “While I was thus engaged, I was on my way to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.

13  It was about midday, Your Majesty, when I saw on the road a light from heaven, brighter than the sun. It shone around me and my fellow travelers.

14  We all fell to the ground,¹⁹ and I²⁰ heard a voice in the Hebrew speech saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick out against the goads.’

15  ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. The Lord said to me, I am Jesus,²¹ the one whom you are persecuting.

16  But get up and stand²² on your feet. This is why I have appeared to you: to appoint you as my servant, a witness to what you have seen of me and to what you will yet see of me ²³

17  I will deliver you from the people and from the Gentiles: it is to them that I am now sending you,

18  to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, from the dominion of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who, by faith in me, have been made my holy people.’

12–15 It was while Paul was thus engaged in the harrying of Jesus’ followers that the revolution in his life took place. Again he tells of his journey to Damascus, of the lightning flash that blinded him, of the challenge from the risen Christ. In this version not only Paul himself but all his companions fall to the ground. This is, moreover, the only one of the three accounts of the event to report the Lord’s words to Paul, “it is hard for you to kick out against the goads.”²⁴ This homely proverb from agricultural life²⁵ has been thought to suggest that Paul had already begun to suffer from the prickings of an uneasy conscience, from a half-conscious conviction that there was more in the disciples’ case than he was willing to admit. It is even suggested that, at one level of his mind, there was a realization that Stephen’s argument was unanswerable and his demeanor strangely disquieting. But there is no hint, either in Acts or in Paul’s letters, that before his conversion he was subject to any such inward conflict. His repeated claim in his apologetic speeches to have maintained a clear conscience all his life (23:1; 24:16) is confirmed by the evidence of his letters. Paul enjoyed a robust conscience: up to the moment of his confrontation with the Lord on the Damascus road he regarded his persecuting campaign as a service acceptable to God, and at the height of his apostolic career he could say that (subject to the judgment of the Lord, with whom the last word lay) he was not aware of anything against himself (1 Cor. 4:4). When Augustine and Luther discovered that Paul spoke so directly to their condition, it may have been natural for them to assume that, before his conversion, he endured the same kind of spiritual disturbance as they had known in their own lives; and this has led to the traditional ascription to Paul of what Krister Stendahl has called “the introspective conscience of the West.”²⁶ But if Paul’s conversion was preceded by a period of subconscious incubation, it has left no trace in our surviving records (no light is shed on such a period by Rom. 7:7–25). The “goads” against which he was now told it was fruitless for him to kick were not the prickings of a disturbed conscience but the new forces which were now impelling him in the opposite direction to that which he had hitherto pursued, the new “necessity” which was henceforth laid upon him (1 Cor. 9:16).

16–18 There was no need on this occasion to enlarge on the part played by the pious and law-abiding Ananias, as Paul had done when he addressed the crowd of Jerusalemites in the temple court. Here the Lord’s message through Ananias is merged with his words spoken directly to Paul on the Damascus road and with those spoken to him in the temple when he returned to Jerusalem (22:14–21). Paul relates the terms in which the Lord commissioned him to be his witness and messenger—terms which recall those in which Jeremiah²⁷ and Ezekiel²⁸ received their prophetic commissions in earlier days. The commission itself echoes the commission of the Servant of the Lord in Isa. 42:1–7, and very properly so, for the commission of Paul and of all Christian witnesses is the perpetuation of the Servant’s commission, as has been made very plain already in Acts (cf. 13:47). As the Servant was to open the eyes of the blind and turn their darkness into light, so Paul was summoned to continue this healing ministry.²⁹ The terms of his commission remained in his mind ever after; they are echoed in the words in which he reminds the Christians of Colossae how God the Father “has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, … has delivered us from the domination of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:12–14). For these words sum up the blessing which, in the heavenly vision, he was charged to communicate to all who placed their faith in Christ, not only Jews, but Gentiles as well. That believing Gentiles were to have an equal and rightful share in the heritage of God’s holy people was a feature of the gospel which it was Paul’s peculiar mission to proclaim and put into effect through his ministry (cf. Gal. 1:16; Eph. 2:19; 3:1–10). We may well wonder if Agrippa, expert as he was in Jewish religious questions, even began to grasp the purport of all this.

e. Paul’s obedience to the vision (26:19–20)

19  “Thereupon, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision;

20  on the contrary, first to those in Damascus and then in Jerusalem and in every country, to Jews and Gentiles,³⁰ I proceeded to declare³¹ that they should repent and turn to God, and do the works that matched their repentance.

19–20 From the moment when he heard the words, “I am Jesus,” Paul knew but one Master. Henceforth for him to receive a command from that one Master was to set about obeying it. So, after his conversion, he immediately proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God in Damascus (9:20), then in Jerusalem, during a short visit, to the Hellenistic Jews (9:29), and after that in many lands to Jews³² and especially to Gentiles. In Acts, in distinction from his letters, Paul is a missionary to Jews and Gentiles alike, a “world apostle.”³³ With his proclamation went the call to repent and turn to God,³⁴and to perform deeds which were the natural fruit of true repentance. John the Baptist had called for such deeds on the part of his hearers, who declared their repentance by receiving baptism at his hands; it was incumbent on them to show the genuineness of this repentance by their subsequent way of life (Matt. 3:8 par. Luke 3:8). While Paul insists that it is “not because of works” but through faith that men and women receive the saving grace of God, he equally insists that those who have received this saving grace are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8–10).

f. Paul’s arrest (26:21)

21  “Because of this the Jews seized me while I was in the temple, and tried to kill me.

21 Was it indeed “because of this,” because of his unceasing missionary activity, that he was attacked in the temple? It was: the charge that he had profaned the temple by bringing a Gentile within forbidden bounds was only a pretext. The hostility of the Jews of proconsular Asia, who raised the hue and cry against him on that occasion, went back to the years of his ministry in Ephesus. What they objected to was not his announcing the fulfilment of what Moses and the prophets foretold; but the terms in which he announced it—his preaching a law-free gospel which in effect obliterated the religious barrier between Jews and Gentiles—were quite unacceptable. This unacceptable feature in his preaching is not mentioned in the present speech (although it may be implied): the reader of Acts is familiar with it (even more so the reader of Paul’s letters), but it is unlikely that Agrippa would learn anything of it from what is said here.

Festus had found it extremely difficult to determine why Paul had been arrested in the first place, and why his Jewish opponents were out for his blood; yet it was important that he should ascertain the reason, in order to include it in his report to Rome. He counted on Agrippa’s help in this matter, and even if Agrippa did not grasp the fundamental point in dispute, he no doubt gathered enough to enable him to give Festus the desired help. Paul had at any rate made it clear that he preached the same message to Jews and Gentiles, and Agrippa, knowing the current climate of Jewish religion as he did, could draw his own conclusions.

g. Peroration (26:22–23)

22  “Having received help from God, then, I have continued to this day, bearing witness to both great and small, saying nothing except what Moses and the prophets said would happen—

23  that the Messiah must suffer, and that by being the first to rise from the dead³⁵ he would announce light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

22–23 In conclusion, Paul emphasized that the teaching which, by God’s help, he had consistently given to all to whom he witnessed was thoroughly loyal to Israel’s ancestral faith and in complete harmony with the divine revelation imparted through Moses and the prophets. Here we are probably to understand that he adduced one text after another from the Old Testament scriptures which found their fulfilment in the life, death, and triumph of Jesus. At an early stage in the course of Christian preaching these texts appear to have been grouped together under appropriate headings, which sometimes took the form of questions. Here Luke does not reproduce Paul’s citations of such messianic “testimonies” in extenso, but indicates them briefly by quoting the interrogative captions under which they were grouped: “Must the Messiah suffer? Must he rise from the dead? Must he bring the light of salvation to the people of Israel and to the Gentile nations?”³⁶ (The “must” of these questions is the “must” of God’s predetermined plan, made known before its fulfilment through his servants the prophets.)³⁷

The announcing of light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles is part of the ministry of the Isaianic Servant: “It is too light a thing,” says God, “that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:6).³⁸ Paul and Barnabas at Pisidian Antioch claimed these words as setting out their own commission (13:47), as Simeon of Jerusalem had earlier echoed them when he greeted the infant Messiah (Luke 2:32).³⁹

13. Interchange between Festus, Paul, and Agrippa (26:24–29)

24  While Paul was making his defense in these terms, Festus spoke up loudly: “You are mad, Paul!⁴⁰ It is all this learning that is turning you mad.”

25  But Paul⁴¹ replied, “I am not mad, Your Excellency; the words I speak declare the sober truth.⁴²

26  The king knows all about this: indeed,⁴³I speak to him freely. He is not unaware, I am convinced, of any of these things. This business did not take place in a corner.

27  Do you believe the prophets, King Agrippa? I know you do.”

28  “In short,” said Agrippa to Paul, “you are trying to make me act the Christian.”⁴⁴

29  “In short or at length,” Paul replied, “I could pray that not only you but all who are listening to me today would become as I am, apart from these chains.”

24 Festus could endure it no longer. Paul was obviously a man of tremendous learning, but equally obviously his learning was driving him mad. Otherwise he could never talk so earnestly and at such length about things to which a sensible Roman could attach no meaning; and no man who retained his senses would have antagonized his whole nation for such insubstantial philosophizing. “You are mad, Paul,” he exclaimed; “all this study is turning you crazy.”

25–27 But what was sheer madness to the governor’s way of thinking was the merest truth and sober good sense for Paul. So he assured Festus, and appealed for confirmation to Agrippa. The events which fulfilled the ancient promises were well known and public: this was no hole-and-corner esoteric mystery, whose initiates were pledged to secrecy. The ministry and death of Jesus were matters of common knowledge; his resurrection was amply attested; the gospel had been openly proclaimed in his name. Anyone who believed the prophets and compared their predictions with the historical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth must acknowledge the truth of Christianity. Agrippa, who might be expected to believe the prophets, could supply corroborating testimony and tell Festus that Paul’s arguments were sane and well founded, that the gospel which he preached contained “nothing except what Moses and the prophets said would happen.”

28 The king was embarrassed by Paul’s appeal. He may have listened to him with interest enough, but Paul obviously hoped that his apparent interest would grow into something more. The logic of the argument was so plain to Paul that he could scarcely imagine that such an expert in the Jewish religion would fail to accept the obvious conclusion. But Agrippa was not disposed even to appear to lend support to Paul’s case. What would Festus think if he expressed—or even seemed to express—agreement with a man whose head had been turned by his learning? Therefore he could not admit that he did believe the prophets; on the other hand, he could not say that he did not believe them, for then his influence with the Jews and his standing with their religious leaders would be gone. So he turned Paul’s appeal aside with a smile: “In short,” he said, “you are trying to make me play the Christian”—for that seems to be the meaning of his words. He was not going to be maneuvered into anything like that!

29 “In short or at length,” said Paul, “I could pray that not only Your Majesty, but all who are here today listening to me, were Christians like myself—apart from these chains” (indicating his shackled wrist with a gesture).

14. Agreement on Paul’s Innocence (26:30–32)

30  Then⁴⁵ the king, the governor, Bernice, and their assessors rose up.

31  When they had withdrawn, they discussed him one with another. “This man, “they said,”does nothing that deserves either death or imprisonment.”

32  “No,” said Agrippa to Festus; “he might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed to Caesar.”⁴⁶

30–32 However, enough had been heard for the immediate purpose. The audience was over, and the governor, Agrippa, and Bernice, with their adjutants and entourages, discussed what Paul had said. One thing at least was clear: even if Paul was as mad as Festus thought, he had done nothing to incur a major legal penalty. In the eyes of Roman law, indeed, he was completely innocent and, as the king said, he might have been discharged there and then if he had not appealed to Caesar. His appeal, however, had taken the decision out of the governor’s hands, and he had to be sent to Rome. Agrippa presumably had no difficulty in suggesting to Festus the lines along which he should frame his report.

The present unanimous agreement on Paul’s innocence is a further contribution to Luke’s general apologetic motive. But it has been argued that the first readers of Acts would detect a sinister note in Agrippa’s last words: “if he had not appealed to Caesar.” They would understand, the argument goes, that by appealing to Caesar Paul had forfeited any prospect of ever being set free, for they would be familiar with the record of that particular Caesar to whom he had appealed—Nero.⁴⁷ This is reading too much into the text. Nero is not mentioned by name, and after a few decades the average reader might not immediately realize that Nero was emperor when Paul lodged his appeal. At the time, of course, Agrippa’s words could have had no sinister implication: the quinquennium Neronis (the first five years of Nero’s principate which, as has been said above, were later remembered as a miniature golden age) had not yet run its course.⁴⁸ What Agrippa meant was that, by making his appeal, Paul had put himself into a new position in relation to Roman law, ⁴⁹ and the course prescribed by the law for citizens in that position—appellants to the emperor—must now be followed. Paul must be sent to Rome, to have his appeal heard in the supreme court.⁵⁰

1. Or rather “about yourself” (the reading is better attested than ).

2. There is a Western insertion, preserved in the margin of the Harclean Syriac: “confident, and encouraged by the Holy Spirit.”

3. This gesture ( ) is not that with which a speaker beckons for a quiet hearing ( , 13:16; 21:40).

4. Cf. 22:3–21.

5. Cf. F. Blass, The Philology of the Gospels (London, 1898), p. 9; J. H. Moulton, MHT I, p. 78, n. 1; H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, 1963), p. 137.

6. Some authorities (P⁷⁴ A C 33 al syr^pesh) add , “knowing” (“especially because I know that you are …”).

7. Cf. 24:4.

8. Gk. , “from my youth, from the beginning” (for the latter phrase cf. Lk. 1:2).

9. It is unlikely that “among my nation and in Jerusalem” means “among the people of Tarsus and (later) in Jerusalem,” as Lake and Cadbury think.

10. Gk. (cf. Lk. 1:3), not necessarily going as far back as (v. 4).

11. The position of may denote emphasis.

12. One Western authority (P²⁹) seems to omit “Why is it judged incredible amoung you?” See also p. 469, n. 36.

13. For the twelve tribes (emphasizing the nation in its totality) cf. Matt. 19:28 par. Luke 22:30; Jas. 1:1 (with F. J. A. Hort’s note ad loc.) Rev. 7:4–8; 21:12. The myth of the ten lost tribes plays no part in the biblical record.

14. There is no definite article in the Greek text here; the clause may be rendered: “that God raises dead people.” The plural is generalizing, but Paul has one particular instance in his mind—the resurrection of Jesus. Cf. Rom. 1:4, where Jesus is “designated Son of God in power … by his resurrection from the dead”—lit., “by resurrection of dead people” (here also the generalizing plural points to the resurrection of Jesus in particular). It was useless, Paul implied, to acknowledge the resurrection of the dead in principle and refuse to believe in the one authenticated instance of such resurrection.

15. For his acquiescence in the execution of Stephen, who was tried and condemned by the supreme Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, see 8:1a (p. 161 with n. 3).

16. Gk. . The imperfect means “I tried to compel” (not, as in KJV, “compelled”).

17. Cf. 1 Cor. 12:3.

18. So, in Pliny the Younger’s report to Trajan, if people suspected of being Christians obeyed his order to curse Christ (male dicerent Christo), he discharged them, as he was informed that this was something which “people who are really Christians cannot possibly be made to do” (Epistles 10.96.5).

19. The Western text adds “for fear.”

20. The Western text reads “I myself alone.”

21. The Western text adds “the Nazarene” (from 22:8).

22. Cod. B omits “and stand” ( ) by accident after “get up” ( ).

23. Lit., “a witness to the things wherein you have seen me and those in which I will appear to you.”

24. This is also the only one of the three accounts where the Lord is said to have addressed him in Aramaic (“in the Hebrew speech”; cf. p. 182, n. 14; p. 413, n. 58); but we should have inferred this in any case from the vocative form not (9:4; 22:7), .

25. Several parallels to this proverbial saying are adduced from Greek and Latin literature; none seems to be quoted from a Semitic source, but it is the sort of saying that would be current in any community where the ox was used for transport.

26. Cf. K. Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” (1963), in Paul among Jews and Gentiles (London, 1977), pp. 78–96.

27. Cf. Jer. 1:7–8: “to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak … for I am with you to deliver you” (observe also that Jeremiah is appointed “a prophet to the nations,” Jer. 1:5; cf. Gal. 1:16).

28. Cf. Ezek. 2:1, 3: “stand upon your feet … I send you to the people of Israel.”

29. The “dominion () of Satan” is the “dominion ( ) of darkness” (Col. 1:13); he is chief over the “world rulers of this darkness” (Eph. 6:12). With the terms of Paul’s call cf. especially Isa. 42:6–7, where the Servant is commissioned to be “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” On Isa. 42:5–9 see C. R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah (Oxford. 1948), pp. 131–35.

30. The words “in every country, to Jews and Gentiles” render F. Blass’s emendation ( ) for (see n. 32 below).

31. , imperfect.

32. Blass’s emendation (quoted in n. 30 above) is attractive both because of the grammatical awkwardness of the traditional text, even with the (Byzantine?) addition of before and especially without it, and because the statement that Paul evangelized “all the country of Judaea” is plainly at variance with the evidence of Luke’s narrative (not to speak of the evidence of Paul’s account in Gal. 1:17–24). The emendation was approved by Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller [London, ¹⁴1920], p. 382).

33. Cf. J. Jervell, “Paulus in der Apostelgeschichte und die Geschichte des Urchristentums,” NTS 32 (1986), p. 380.

34. On repentance cf. 2:38; 3:19; 20:21 ; on turning to God cf. 3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 15:19.

35. Gk. (cf. Rom. 1:4, where is used in reference to the resurrection of Christ; see n. 14 above). Cf. 1 Cor. 15:20, 23 (“Christ … the firstfruits”).

36. The captions are here introduced by the interrogative (“if” as used in indirect questions). E. Nestle, mistakenly taking as conditional, looked for an apodosis, and found it in v. 8, “Why is it judged incredible among you?” This clause already has one “if” clause attached to it (); Nestle provided it with two more (the “if” clauses of v. 23) by proposing the transposition of v. 8 to follow v. 22. Following him, James Moffatt renders the rearranged words: “Why should you consider it incredible that God raises the dead, that the Christ is capable of suffering, and that he should be the first to rise from the dead and bring the message of light to the People and to the Gentiles?”

37. Cf. J. R. Harris, Testimonies, I (Cambridge, 1916), pp. 19–20; Testimonies, II (Cambridge, 1920), p. 77; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (London, 1952), pp. 16–17; B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic (London, 1961), p. 80; A. T. Hanson, The Living Utterances of God (London, 1983), p. 81. Justin (Dialogue 39.7) represents Trypho as saying “It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the necessity of Christ’s suffering is proclaimed through the scriptures” (similarly 89.2).

38. See n. 29 above; cf. Isa. 60:1–3. It is because Isa. 60:3 (“nations shall come to your light”) was recognized as fulfilled in the visit of the Magi (Matt. 2:1–12) that that incident has been traditionally called “the Epiphany of Christ to the Gentiles.”

39. See pp. 266–67 with footnotes.

40. The Western text, preserved in lat^h, has the fuller reading: “You are mad, Paul, you are mad.”

41. The Western and Byzantine texts omit “Paul” (“But he replied”).

42. Lit., “I utter words of truth and soberness.”

43. Cod. B omits “indeed” ().

44. Gk. , lit., “In short, you are persuading me [, i.e., ‘trying to persuade me,’ present tense] to act the Christian.” For this construction with cf. 3 Kingdoms 20:7 LXX (MT 1 Kings 21:7), : “Is it thus that you act the king over Israel?” Failure to recognize this construction has led to several variant readings; thus Cod. A has (“you trust that you can make me a Christian”; cf. Hort’s emendation for ) the Byzantine text has for (whence KJV “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”). See also p. 228, n. 31 (on 11:26).

45. The Western text adds “when he had said this. “

46. A few witnesses (97 pc lat^{h w} syr^{pesh hcl.m}g), possibly representing the Western text, add “and so the governor decided to send him to Caesar” (ineptly, because it was no longer within the governor’s discretion to make such a decision; he was bound to send him as soon as Paul uttered his appeal).

47. See J. V. Bartlet, “Two New Testament Problems: 1. St. Paul’s Fate at Rome,” Exp. 8, 5 (1913), pp. 465–66.

48. The imperial policy toward Christians apparently began to be hostile about A.D 62. This year marked a turning point in Nero’s career; it was the year of Burrus’s death and his replacement as prefect of the praetorian guard by Tigellinus and Faenius Rufus (Tigellinus being the more powerful of the two), the year of Seneca’s retirement, and of Nero’s divorce of Octavia and marriage with Poppaea. Poppaea was a warm friend of the Jews; indeed, Josephus (Ant. 20. 195) calls her a “God-fearer” ( ), whatever he may mean by that. Her influence may well have been inimical to Christianity. About this time, too, it must have become increasingly clear to the Roman authorities that Christianity was not simply a movement within Judaism, entitled to share the recognition which Jewish congregations enjoyed as collegia licita. It might therefore at any time become the object of suppression by the imperial police, and an opportunity for such measures arose at Rome in the aftermath of the great fire ofA.D64. But the situation at the time of Paul’s appeal was still largely what it had been when Gallio gave his favorable verdict at Corinth (18:12–17) seven or eight years before.

49. The pluperfect tense (, “had appealed,” v. 32) points not merely to Paul’s action in appealing some days before but to his present legal status as a result of that appeal.

50. See C. J. A. Hickling, “The Portrait of Paul in Acts 26,” in Les Actes des Apôtres, ed. J. Kremer, BETL 48 (Leuven, 1979), pp. 499–503.

ACTS 27

E. PAUL’S VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK (27:1–44)

Luke’s narrative of the voyage and shipwreck of Paul on his way to Italy is a small classic in its own right, as graphic a piece of descriptive writing as anything in the Bible. It has long been acknowledged as “one of the most instructive documents for the knowledge of ancient seamanship.”¹ It bears clear evidence of being the account of an eyewitness, who viewed the sea through Greek eyes and, while not himself a seaman versed in the technical vocabulary of sailing, described his experiences in his own vigorous language. For the description of a storm and wreck at sea he could draw on a well-established literary tradition—not that this in any way depreciates the factual worth of his narrative. From Homer’s Odyssey onward, ancient accounts of a Mediterranean voyage frequently included a storm or ship-wreck. Homer, in fact, set the fashion in which such accounts continue to be related for many centuries. This chapter itself presents one or two unmistakable Homeric reminiscences.² Again, the Old Testament contains one famous narrative of the same kind, the story of Jonah’s Mediterranean voyage and the storm into which he and his shipmates ran; Luke appears to have drawn on this narrative also.³

Human life has often been compared to a voyage across a stormy sea. It is not surprising, therefore, that many readers and expositors have found an allegory of the soul’s experience in Acts 27. Some have even detected in it a figurative prediction of the course of church history. This particular form of allegorization becomes specially interesting at the end of the story, when the ship is broken up and the passengers and crew have to make their way ashore as best they can. (The allegorist’s own ecclesiastical bias usually appears when he comes to identify those who swam ashore and those who made do with planks or fragments of the ship.) Those who care for this sort of exposition may work the correspondences out for themselves, but let them beware of supposing that Luke had any such interpretation in mind when he penned his narrative.

That does not mean that the narrative is devoid of moral and spiritual lessons. They are here in abundance for those who have eyes to see. In particular, much may be learned from Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s character and behavior in circumstances in which the real man is most likely to be revealed. He portrays Paul in many roles throughout Acts, but here he shows him standing out as the practical man in a critical emergency—keeping his head when all about him are losing theirs. Not once or twice the world has had to thank the great saints and mystics for providing timely help in moments of crisis when realistic, practical men of affairs were unable to supply it.

Luke’s devoting so much of his narrative to the details of those few weeks at sea is best explained by his desire to emphasize the divine determination that Paul’s purpose of seeing Rome must be fulfilled, despite all the factors that rendered his ever getting there unlikely in the extreme.⁴ On the open sea Paul shares the peril of his companions, who gave up all hope of ever reaching safety; toward the end of the voyage he is in danger from the soldiers, who plan to kill the prisoners in case any of them should escape; when they land on Malta, his life seems to be threatened by a venomous snake. But it is the will of God that Paul shall preach the gospel at the heart of the empire, and his will is not to be frustrated. The description of the storm and shipwreck is integral to the story of Paul’s missionary career. It betrays a failure to grasp Luke’s intention when Acts 27 is taken to be basically a popular account of a shipwreck, introduced to add the spice of adventure to the record, and connected with the rest of Acts by the insertion of detachable episodes in which Paul figures. ⁵ (As for their being “detachable,” it has been wisely observed that Paul was but a passenger on board, “and passengers are by definition detachable.”⁶)

An indispensable aid to the study of this chapter is The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, by James Smith. ⁷ Smith, an experienced yachtsman and a man of no mean classical scholarship, made a careful study of Luke’s narrative in relation to the route which it maps out—a part of the Mediterranean with which he himself was acquainted—and formed the most favorable estimate of the accuracy of Luke’s account of each stage of the voyage. For the seafaring technicalities of this chapter we shall lean heavily on Smith’s work: although it is more than a century since Smith produced the last edition of it, it remains unsurpassed, and indeed unequalled for its purpose.⁸

1. Caesarea to Myra (27:1–5)

1  Since it had been decided that we were to set sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners into the custody of a centurion named Julius,⁹ who belonged to the Augustan Cohort.

2  We embarked on a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to the places along the coast of (proconsular) Asia, and so we put out to sea. We were accompanied by Aristarchus,¹⁰ a Macedonian from Thessalonica.

3  The next day we put in at Sidon. Julius treated Paul kindly, and gave him leave to go to his friends there and be cared for.

4  From there we put out to sea and sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary;

5  then we sailed across the open sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia¹¹ and put in at Myra¹² in Lycia.

1 The “we” narrative is now resumed, after being broken off at 21:18. We have no information about Luke’s movements during the two intervening years, but it would be safe to think of him as spending much of the time in or around Caesarea (where Paul was kept in custody) and making good use of his opportunities of gathering information about the early days of the Christian movement.

Once Paul had appealed to Caesar, the governor was bound to send him to Rome; the first opportunity was therefore seized to have him taken there under escort. The centurion Julius,¹³ into whose custody he was delivered, belonged (we are told) to the Augustan Cohort. (The term “Augustan,” i. e., “His Imperial Majesty’s,” was a title of honor bestowed on several cohorts of auxiliary troops.)¹⁴ The precise status of Julius is difficult to determine: from the authority which he assumed when once (from Myra onward) he found himself on board a ship of the Alexandrian grain fleet, it might be inferred that he was a frumentarius, an officer charged with supervising the transport of grain (frumentum) to Rome. At any rate, Paul was entrusted to him because he was bound for Rome, with a body of soldiers under his command. It is not said who the other prisoners were whom they had in charge; in any case, a Roman citizen who had appealed to the emperor would receive special consideration.

2 The port of embarkation is not specified; probably it was Caesarea. Had it been any other (such as Ptolemais), Luke would doubtless have mentioned it, in accordance with his usual practice. The ship in which they embarked belonged to Adramyttium (modern Edremit), a seaport of Mysia in northwest Asia Minor, opposite the island of Lesbos. It was a coasting vessel, which was to call at various ports of the province of Asia; at one of these Julius knew he would find a ship, preferably a grain ship,¹⁵ bound for Italy.¹⁶ Aristarchus¹⁷ is not expressly named later in this narrative; it is possible, therefore, that he was traveling home to Thessalonica and did not join the second ship which took the party in the direction of Italy. On the other hand, if Colossians and Philemon are to be dated in the course of Paul’s Roman captivity, he was in Paul’s company when those letters were written (Col. 4:10; Philem. 24), so he may have gone all the way with Paul on this occasion; in that case he is no doubt included in Luke’s “we” throughout the narrative. It is impossible to be sure. Ramsay argued that Luke and Aristarchus “must have gone” as Paul’s slaves, “not merely performing the duties of slaves … but actually passing as slaves. In this way not merely had Paul faithful friends always beside him; his importance in the eyes of the centurion was much enhanced, and that was of great importance. The narrative clearly implies that Paul enjoyed much respect during this voyage, such as a penniless traveller without a servant to attend on him would never receive either in the first century or the nineteenth.”¹⁸ While Ramsay’s argument merits the respect due to his great knowledge of social history in the Roman Empire of the first century A.D., it is not the prima facie inference which one would draw from the narrative, and is really improbable. Aristarchus may have gone as a fare-paying passenger; Luke (if a reader’s imagination may be indulged) perhaps signed on as ship’s doctor.

3 The day after they set sail, they put in at Sidon, the ancient Phoenician metropolis, which was about 69 miles north of Caesarea. It had a double harbor.¹⁹

Here Paul received the first of several recorded kindnesses at the hand of Julius. (It is remarkable how uniformly centurions receive a favorable portrayal in the New Testament.)²⁰ In Sidon there was a Christian community, founded probably during the persecution and dispersion that followed the death of Stephen (11:19). Paul received permission to go ashore and visit members of this community (for so we should certainly understand “his friends”²¹) and enjoy all the attention that their Christian love could suggest while the ship was in harbor. It may be assumed that a soldier was detailed to accompany him.

4 Putting out to sea again for Sidon, they sailed east and north of Cyprus, that is to say, on the lee side of the island, as the prevailing winds in the Levant are westerly throughout the summer months.²² A ship doing the reverse journey, from southwest Asia Minor to Syria, fared directly over the sea, passing west of Cyprus. Luke no doubt remembered doing this when he sailed with Paul and his companions from Patara to Tyre two years previously (21:1–3), and noticed the different course now taken.

5 A stretch of open sea remained to be crossed—the sea between Cyprus and the south coast of Asia Minor. They reached the coast of Asia Minor at a point well to the east, and then the ship worked slowly toward the west, helped by local land breezes and by a steady westward current which runs along the coast. “The Adramyttian ship crept on from point to point up the coast, taking advantage of every opportunity to make a few miles, and lying at anchor in the shelter of the winding coast, when the westerly wind made progress impossible.”²³ In this way they reached Myra, or rather its port Andriakē (about 3½ miles west by southwest of Myra itself).²⁴ Andriakē was one of the chief ports of the imperial grain service.²⁵ The site of ancient Myra, a city of Lycia, is now known as Kocademre or Old Demre (marked by remains of a theater, aqueduct, and rock tombs); modern Demre stands a mile to the south.²⁶

2. They Transship at Myra and Sail to Crete (27:6–8)

6  There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria which was sailing to Italy, so he put us on board it.

7  We sailed slowly for many days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus; then, because the wind prevented us (from putting in there), we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone.

8  Coasting along Crete with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasaea.

6 At Myra the first part of the journey came to an end. When the ship of Adramyttium put in at the port of Andriakē, there was a vessel there belonging to the grain fleet that plied between Egypt and Rome; it had set out from Alexandria and was on its way to Italy. Egypt was the chief granary of Rome, and the regular trade in grain between Alexandria and Puteoli or Ostia was of the highest importance; the political stability of Rome depended on it. The service of ships devoted to this trade was organized as a department of state.²⁷ The corporation of owners of these ships received special recognition from the Roman state, for they were in practice its agents and concessionaires. That the “ship of Alexandria” which was in harbor at Myra when the centurion and his party arrived there belonged to this fleet is confirmed later in the narrative, when the ship’s cargo of wheat had to be jettisoned (v. 38)—something to be done only in the last extremity. “With the westerly winds which prevail in those seas, “says James Smith,” ships, particularly those of the ancients, unprovided with a compass and ill calculated to work to windward, would naturally stand to the north till they made the land of Asia Minor, which is peculiarly favourable for navigation by such vessels, because the coast is bold and safe, and the elevation of the mountains makes it visible at a great distance; it abounds in harbours, and the sinuosities of its shores and the westerly current would enable them, if the wind was at all off the land, to work to windward, at least as far as Cnidus, where these advantages ceased. Myra lies due north from Alexandria, and its bay is well calculated to shelter a windbound ship”²⁸ Here the centurion no doubt knew he would find a vessel of the grain fleet, on which he had official duties to perform.

7 Having embarked on this vessel, then, they found the going from Myra slow and difficult, because of the strong northwest wind that was blowing. ²⁹ After several days they reached Cnidus, a port on the Carian promontory of Triopium, which was frequented by merchant ships from Egypt.³⁰ Here they had a choice of two alternatives. If they could put into port at Cnidus, they could wait there for a fair wind; there was ample accommodation at Cnidus, for it had two harbors, the eastern one being particularly large. When a fair wind came, they might then sail due west for the island of Cythera. But if they preferred to continue the voyage (which would probably be the shipowner’s choice), their only course was to run for the eastern extremity of Crete (Cape Salmone) and, after rounding it, sail under the lee of that island (along its south coast). This is what they did; in fact, the wording here suggests that their ship was unable to get into port at Cnidus. From the fact that they succeeded in fetching Cape Salmone, Smith deduces that the wind must have been a northwester, which in any case is “precisely the wind which might have been expected in those seas towards the end of summer.”³¹

8 Even coasting along the south of Crete was difficult, with the wind blowing from the northwest, but at last they came to the small bay still marked on maps of Crete as Fair Havens (Kaloi Limenes, which may be a revival of the ancient name rather than a survival of it). Fair Havens was their first convenient shelter after they rounded Cape Salmone, so they put in here and waited for the wind to change. Two leagues farther west lies Cape Matala, and beyond Cape Matala the south coast of Crete trends suddenly to the north, and would no longer provide effective protection against a northwest wind. In the neighborhood of Fair Havens, Luke points out, lay the city of Lasaea; if they had decided not to proceed beyond Fair Havens, they could have found adequate winter quarters in that city.³²

3. Paul’s Advice Rejected (27:9–12)

9  It had taken them a long time to get thus far, and sailing was now dangerous—even the Fast was now past. So Paul offered them his advice.

10  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I see that this voyage is going to be attended by damage and great loss, not only to the cargo and the ship but also to our lives.”

11  But the centurion paid more heed to the steersman and the shipowner than to what Paul said.

12  Since the harbor was unsuitable for spending the winter in, the majority advised that we should put out to sea from there in hope of making Phoenix and wintering there. Phoenix is a harbor of Crete looking southwest and northwest.

9 The delay that had been occasioned already by the adverse wind began to make them anxious. As they waited for a change of wind at Fair Havens, it soon became clear that they could not complete the voyage to Italy before the onset of winter. The dangerous season for sailing began about September 14 and lasted until November 11; after the latter date all navigation on the open sea came to an end until winter was over.³³ They were now well into the dangerous season; as Luke notes, even the Fast had now gone by. The Fast is the day of atonement (Yôm Kippûr), which falls on Tishri 10. Luke’s remark has point only if it fell rather late in the solar calendar that year. In A.D. 59 it fell on October 5, but in all the neighboring years from 57 to 62 it fell earlier.³⁴ A late date for the day of atonement is required also by the time notes of the subsequent journey to Italy. When they set sail from Fair Havens, fifty or sixty miles brought them under the lee of Cauda (v. 16); on the fourteenth night from Cauda they drew near the coast of Malta (v. 27), and the next day (v. 39) they landed on that island, where they spent three months (28:11). The seas were closed to sailing until the beginning of February at the earliest;³⁵ the three months spent in Malta must therefore have corresponded roughly to November, December, and January, so they must have left Fair Havens not much before mid-October.³⁶ The solar date of the day of atonement in A.D. 59 thus accords well with Luke’s implication that the Fast took place while they waited at Fair Havens.

10 Paul, who was no stranger to storm at sea and shipwreck,³⁷ saw that any plan to sail on from Fair Havens was attended by grave risk, so he gave the authorities his advice—it was given in the first instance, probably, to the centurion, with whom he had established a good relationship. No doubt, as is implied by verses 11 and 12, a ship’s council was held, but it is unnecessary to suppose, with Ramsay, that Paul, as an experienced traveler, was invited to attend it.³⁸ Paul’s advice, of which he reminds the others in verse 21, was that they should stay at Fair Havens for the winter. His warning that any other course would involve damage to life and limb as well as the loss of cargo and ship, is contradicted by his own later assurance to them that not a life would be lost, though cargo and ship would perish (v. 22). But on that later occasion he was to speak on the strength of a supernatural revelation; here he expresses his personal, well-founded, opinion.

11 The helmsman³⁹ and shipowner,⁴⁰ however, thought that there was a chance of reaching a more commodious port farther west along the south coast of Crete, and the centurion, not unnaturally, accepted their view rather than Paul’s. (The narrator seems to find the centurion’s preference surprising, not to say reprehensible; this is one of the touches in which A. D. Nock and others have recognized “an authentic transcript of the recollections of an eyewitness, with the confusion and coloring which so easily attach themselves to recollections.”)⁴¹ A merchant-shipowner normally acted as captain of his own ship. The owner of this particular ship would be a contractor for the state transport of grain. But the final decision was left to the centurion, who (especially if he belonged to the corps of frumentarii) represented the Roman state. He ruled that the advice of the experts should be followed. Smith observes “that Fair Havens is so well protected by islands, that though not equal to Lutro [Loutron, a port some 40 miles farther west along the coast], it must be a very fair winter harbour; and that considering the suddenness, the frequency, and the violence with which gales of northerly wind spring up, and the certainty that, if such a gale sprang up in the passage from Fair Havens to Lutro, the ship must be driven off to sea, the prudence of the advice given by St. Paul may probably be supported even on nautical grounds.”⁴²

12 The view of the steersman and shipowner, and of the majority of the crew, was that Fair Havens was not a convenient harbor to spend the winter in. It is, as Smith says, protected by small islands, but it labors under the disadvantage of standing open to nearly half the compass. It was therefore decided to set sail from there as soon as the wind changed in their favor, in the hope of reaching the more commodious harbor of Phoenix.

Phoenix is described as a Cretan port facing southwest and northwest. The name is preserved to this day in Phineka Bay, on the west side of Cape Mouros, 34 miles west of Cape Matala and 33 miles east of the western end of the south coast of Crete. Before a seismic upheaval of the sixth century A.D., which raised the coast level here by tilting the island from west to east, this bay had two inlets, one facing southwest and one northwest, exactly as Luke says. ⁴³

On the east side of Cape Mouros is the harbor of Loutron, which Smith (using the local pronunciation Lutro) preferred to identify with Luke’s Phoenix; he was authoritatively informed that this is “the only secure harbour in all winds on the south coast of Crete.”⁴⁴ But this was not necessarily so in the first century. Besides, Loutron faces the easterly winds, not the southwest and northwest. Smith, however, argues that the Greek text means that the harbor looks in the direction toward which the southwest and north-west winds blow—that is, toward the northeast and southeast (and this thinking underlies the ARV rendering, “looking north-east and south-east”).⁴⁵ But this argument cannot be sustained. The only sense that the Greek words can bear is that the harbor in question faced southwest and northwest, and Phineka Bay fits the description admirably. Its two sheltered inlets (as they then were) are still marked by raised beaches and the absence of traces of ancient occupation.⁴⁶

4. They Are Caught by the Wind Euraquilo (27:13–20)

13  When a gentle south wind sprang up, they thought they had attained their purpose, so they weighed anchor and continued to coast along the shore of Crete, keeping close in to the land.

14  But not long after, a violent wind called Euraquilo⁴⁷ beat down from the land.

15  The ship was caught by it and could not head up to it, so we gave way to it and drifted along.⁴⁸

16  When we ran under the lee of a small island called Cauda,⁴⁹ we succeeded, with difficulty, in securing the dinghy.

17  Taking it on board, they used cables⁵⁰ to undergird the ship; then, fearing that they might be cast up on the (greater) Syrtis, they dropped a floating anchor⁵¹ and continued to drift.

18  As we were making very heavy weather, they began the next day to jettison the cargo,

19  and on the third day they threw the spare gear overboard with their own hands.⁵²

20  When neither sun nor stars could be seen for many days, and the storm which raged upon us was no ordinary one, we began to lose all hope of ever coming safely through it.⁵³

13 Soon after it was decided to try to make Phoenix, there came the change of wind for which they had been waiting. A gentle south wind sprang up, which promised to bring them to Phoenix with little difficulty. So they set out from Fair Havens and coasted along toward the west, hugging the shore. When once they rounded Cape Matala, a few hours would take them to their desired haven, with this favoring wind to waft them across the mouth of the wide Gulf of Messara.

14 Without warning, however, the wind changed again: “the sudden change from a south wind to a violent northerly wind is a common occurrence in these seas.”⁵⁴ A furious northeaster sprang up and rushed down on them from Mount Ida, in the center of the island—a typhonic wind,⁵⁵ says Luke, referring to the whirling motion of the clouds and sea caused by the meeting of contrary currents of air. The sailors recognized this wind as an old enemy, and had a name for it—Euraquilo.⁵⁶ (Today in Mediterranean lands it is known as the grigal or gregale.)

15–16 The ship was caught up in the gale and, being unable to head up to it, scudded before it. Any chance of making Phoenix was now out of the question. Twenty-three miles or so to leeward lies the small island of Cauda or Clauda (modern Gavdhos, Italian Gozzo),⁵⁷ under the lee of which they soon ran. They made speedy and timely use of the brief opportunity of shelter which it afforded. First of all they hauled the dinghy on board. The dinghy was normally towed astern, but was taken aboard in bad weather. On this occasion there had been no time to do so, so suddenly did Euraquilo burst upon them. By this time it must have been full of water, and this made it all the more difficult to secure it. “We succeeded, with difficulty, in securing the dinghy, “says Luke, using the first person plural; there were certain jobs which only trained members of the crew could carry out, but any landlubber could haul on a rope, and able-bodied passengers were pressed into service. “With difficulty,” says Luke, probably remembering his blisters!⁵⁸

17 The next thing to do was to undergird the ship, passing cables around it transversely underneath in order to hold the timbers together. The word which Luke uses for these cables means literally “helps”; it appears in other Greek authors in a nautical context such as this.⁵⁹ The typhoon is described by Pliny the elder as “the chief plague of sailors, breaking up not only the spars but the hull itself.”⁶⁰ As a safety measure, ancient vessels were provided with cables ready fitted for bracing the hulls to enable them to resist the destructive force of such winds. The undergirding operation is best illustrated by an Egyptian drawing of an expedition of Queen Hatshepsut to the land of Punt (Somalia?) in the late sixteenth century B.C. reproduced on a special series of Egyptian postage stamps issued to mark the International Congress of Navigation at Cairo in 1926.⁶¹

There was just time for a third precautionary measure to be taken while they enjoyed the shelter of Cauda. The crew were afraid that the ship would be driven on to the Greater Syrtis, quicksands off the African coast, west of Cyrene. (The Lesser Syrtis lay still farther west. ) The Greater Syrtis was still a great distance away, but the wind might continue to blow for many days, and that was the direction in which it was blowing them. So, says Luke, they “lowered the instrument,” not being more specific perhaps because he did not know, or did not remember, the technical name for what ever it was that was lowered. The most probable account is that they dropped a floating anchor or drift anchor, which was dragged astern at the end of a rope of suitable length so as to offer the maximum resistance every time the ship plunged down from the crest of a wave.⁶² Then, when everything had been done that could be done in those circumstances, the ship was laid to on the starboard tack (with her right side to the wind), with storm sails set, and so she drifted slowly, at a mean rate of one and a half miles an hour, in a direction about eight degrees north of west.⁶³

18–19 The next day, as there was no abatement of the gale, they began to jettison some of the cargo.⁶⁴ True, the narrator does not say that it was some of the cargo that was jettisoned, but it cannot well have been anything else. Since the transport of grain was the purpose of the ship’s voyage, on which the shipowner’s livelihood depended, the sacrifice of even part of it stressed the desperateness of the situation. The following day, a more drastic measure was necessary: the spare gear had to go if the ship was to have any chance of surviving. Smith suggests that “the mainyard is meant; an immense spar, probably as long as the ship, which would require the united efforts of passengers and crews to launch overboard.”⁶⁵ The KJV uses the first person plural here—“we threw it out with our own hands”—and while this reading is not nearly so well supported as the third person, there is no doubt that, as Ramsay says, it “greatly increases the effect.”⁶⁶

20 Eleven dreary nights and days followed. The storm blotted out the sun by day and the stars by night, and thus they had no means of keeping a reckoning or calculating their whereabouts. The ship was no doubt leaking badly, and they “could not tell which way to make for the nearest land, in order to run their ship ashore, the only recourse for a sinking ship; but unless they did make the land, they must founder at sea.”⁶⁷ No wonder, then, that all hope of their ever gaining safety drained away as day succeeded day.

5. Paul’s Encouragement (27:21–26)

21  By this time many were suffering from lack of food,⁶⁸ so Paul stood up among them and said, “Gentlemen, you should have been ruled by me and not set out from Crete and gained this damage and loss.

22  But now, take my advice: cheer up! There will be no loss of anyone‘s life; only the ship will perish.

23  Last night there stood beside me a messenger of the God to whom I belong, the God whom I worship.

24  He said to me, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand in the presence of Caesar, and see, God has granted you (the lives of) all who are sailing with you.’

25  So, gentlemen, cheer up. I have faith in God that it will turn out just as I have been told.

26  But we must be cast up on some island.”

21 Things being as they were, they had little heart to take food; besides, it would have been difficult to prepare food, and a good part of their supplies must have been spoiled by the sea water. Among several parallels to their experience quoted by Smith is a passage from John Newton, the celebrated English clergyman and hymn writer, relating to his earlier seafaring days: “We found that the water having floated all our movables in the hold, all the casks of provisions had been beaten in pieces by the violent motion of the ship. On the other hand, our live stock, such as pigs, sheep and poultry, had been washed overboard in the storm; in effect, all the provisions we saved … would have subsisted us but a week, at a scanty allowance.”⁶⁹ And anyone who has suffered from seasickness on board a well-appointed passenger liner of the present day can imagine something of its horrors on that storm-tossed vessel, and can realize how little appetite for eating its victims must have had.

In the midst of this general dejection and despair, Paul stood up one morning and spoke cheering words to his companions in distress. It warms our hearts to see, first of all, that in some very human respects he was quite like ourselves: he could not resist the temptation to say “I told you so!” to those who had rejected his advice at Fair Havens.

22–24 But what he went on to tell them was exactly what the situation most needed, a message of encouragement and hope. Nor was this message the product of wishful thinking: he spoke as one who had received divine reassurance. Earlier, at Fair Havens, he had warned them that loss of life, as well as of cargo and ship, would be the result of their setting sail from that port. But on that occasion he spoke simply as an experienced traveler of sound judgment. This was not the first time he had known the destructive power of a storm at sea. He remembered another ship in which he had once sailed: it had come to grief, and he had spent twenty-four hours in the open sea, probably supported by a spar from the wreck, until he was picked up or washed ashore (2 Cor. 11:25). There had been considerable loss of life on that occasion, we may suppose, and he feared that the same thing might happen again. But now he is confident that, while the ship is doomed, no life will be lost. No amount of experience or shrewd calculation could have given him this assurance; he ascribes his new confidence to a supernatural revelation made to him during the night by a messenger (probably an angel)⁷⁰ of God. In a vision when his life was endangered at Jerusalem two years previously he had received the assurance that he would survive to bear witness at Rome (23:11); this assurance was now repeated and amplified. Not only so: the lives of his shipmates also were to be spared for his sake. Human society has no idea how much it owes, in the mercy of God, to the presence in it of righteous men and women.⁷¹

25–26 Having received this communication from heaven, Paul was completely persuaded (such was his faith in God) that things would turn out exactly as he had been told. The ship would go down, but the people on board would be saved: they would be cast up or washed ashore on some island or other. The island, in the event, proved to be Malta. Since there was no chance of a landfall on Sicily (in view of the direction of the drift), Malta was the next best hope. But Paul could scarcely have known this: his reference to “some island” was an expression of faith. If they missed Malta, there would have been nothing for it but to hold on for 200 miles until they struck the Tunisian coast, and no one could have expected the ship to survive that long.

6. They Approach Land (27:27–29)

27  During the fourteenth night, as we were drifting through the sea of Adria, the sailors suspected about midnight that some land was approaching them.

28  They took soundings, and found a depth of twenty fathoms; after a short interval they took soundings again and found it was fifteen fathoms.

29  Then, fearing that we might perhaps be driven on to the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and waited longingly for day to dawn.

27 Smith relates how he made careful inquiries of experienced Mediterranean navigators in order to ascertain the mean rate of drift of a ship of this kind laid to in such a gale. The conclusion which he reached was a mean drift of about thirty-six miles in twenty-four hours. The soundings recorded in verse 28 indicate that the ship was passing Koura, a point on the east coast of Malta, on her way into St. Paul’s Bay. “But the distance from Clauda to the point of Koura … is 476.6 miles, which, at the rate as deduced from the information …, would take exactly thirteen days, one hour, and twenty-one minutes.” Not only so: “The coincidence of the actual bearing of St. Paul’s Bay from Clauda, and the direction in which a ship must have driven in order to avoid the Syrtis, is if possible still more striking than that of the time actually consumed, and the calculated time.” Then, after carefully reckoning the direction of the ship’s course from the direction of the wind, from the angle of the ship’s head with the wind, and from the leeway, he goes on:

“Hence according to these calculations, a ship starting late in the evening from Clauda would, by midnight on the 14th, be less than three miles from the entrance of St. Paul’s Bay. I admit that a coincidence so very close as this, is to a certain extent accidental, but it is an accident which could not have happened had there been any inaccuracy on the part of the author of the narrative with regard to the numerous incidents upon which the calculations are founded, or had the ship been wrecked anywhere but at Malta, for there is no other place agreeing, either in name or description, within the limits to which we are tied down by calculations founded upon the narrative.”⁷²

The “sea of Adria” mentioned in verse 27 is the central Mediterranean; it is so called in several places in ancient literature.⁷³ Ptolemy, the second-century mathematician and geographer, distinguishes the “sea of Adria” or “Hadria” (the central Mediterranean) from the “gulf of Adria” (the Adriatic Sea).⁷⁴ Josephus tells how the ship on which he set sail for Italy in A.D. 63 went down in the midst of the sea of Adria; he was picked up by a ship of Cyrene and carried by it to his destination.⁷⁵ In former days, and even in more recent times, some perverse interpretations of our narrative have been suggested by expositors who thought that the Adriatic Sea was intended—as though a northeaster could possibly have blown them in that direction from the south coast of Crete.⁷⁶

The sailors’ surmise that some land was approaching them reflects the language of those accustomed to a life on board ship. Luke would normally have said “we were approaching some land.” But there is an attractive variant reading according to which “some land was resounding in their ears”⁷⁷—that is, the breakers could be heard. Had it been daylight, they would have seen the breakers as well as heard them. For, as Smith tells us, no ship can enter St. Paul’s Bay from the east without passing within a mile of the point of Koura; when she comes within that distance (and only then), the breakers cannot fail to be seen, for they are specially violent there in a northeast wind.⁷⁸

28 The tradition which has given St. Paul’s Bay its name as the place of the shipwreck is confirmed by the soundings which Luke records: these agree with the direction of a ship passing Koura on her way into the bay. The twenty fathoms’ depth is close to the spot where they would first have had indications that land was approaching, bearing east by south from the fifteen fathoms’ depth, at a distance which would allow preparations for anchoring in the way mentioned in verse 29. Smith estimates the “short interval” between the two soundings as about half an hour.⁷⁹

29 It was dangerous to go any farther in the dark; the breakers warned them of rocks ahead, so they dropped four anchors to serve as a brake until daylight showed them where they were.⁸⁰ The anchors were dropped from the stern—an unusual procedure, but advantageous in certain circumstances, as naval commanders have known in ancient and modern times⁸¹ (it obviates the necessity of exposing the weak points of ships to the enemy in turning around, when the enemy fleet is drawn up along the shore). On this occasion the prow kept pointing to the shore whereas, had they anchored by the bow, the ship would have swung around from the wind. The ship was thus in readiness to be beached when day broke and the anchor cables were cut.⁸²

7. The Sailors’ Attempt to Escape Frustrated (27:30–32)

30  When the sailors tried to abandon the ship and lowered the dinghy into the sea on the pretext that they were going to let out anchors from the bow,

31  Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay on board, you will not be able to reach safety.”

32  Then the soldiers cut away the falls of the dinghy and let it drop away.

30 The sailors now attempted to make sure of their own safety at the expense of the others on board. They lowered the dinghy into the sea, pretending that they were going to lay out anchors from the bow as well as from the stern, but actually with the intention of making for the shore.

31 Paul detected their aim, and prevented it. Perhaps his own nautical experience told him that there could be no possible advantage in anchoring the ship by the bow in the present circumstances. Why the sailors’ presence aboard was necessary for the safety of all is not expressly said; but plainly it would have been disastrous had the ship been left as it was with no skilled hands to work it.

32 By this time the centurion had learned that it was unwise to disregard Paul’s advice, although his advice was probably misinterpreted when the soldiers cut the hawsers and let the dinghy go adrift. The dinghy could have been very useful in getting the ship’s company ashore had it proved impossible to beach the ship, or when the ship stuck fast as it later did (v. 41). However, the centurion may have decided that the soldiers’ action was the most effective way of keeping the sailors on board.

8. The Meal on Board (27:33–38)

33  As day was about to dawn, Paul encouraged them all to take food. “This is now the fourteenth day,” he said, “that you have been waiting and remaining without food; you have not taken anything.

34  Therefore, accept my advice: take some food. This is something on which your safety depends. Not a hair will be lost from anyone’s head. “

35  So saying, he took bread, gave thanks to God in the presence of all, broke it, and began to eat.⁸³

36  They all cheered up and themselves took some food.

37  We were in all two hundred and seventy-six⁸⁴ persons on board.

38  When they had satisfied themselves with food, they proceeded to lighten the ship by throwing the wheat out into the sea.

33–34 Paul now imparted further encouragement to his shipmates. As dawn was breaking he advised them to take some food, after the enforced abstinence⁸⁵ of fourteen long days. The situation was now easier, and food could be more conveniently prepared: hard work lay ahead if they were all to come safe to land, and it would do them all good and give them fresh energy and enthusiasm for what had yet to be done if they had something to eat. Again he assured them that no harm would befall any of them.

35–36 Then he encouraged them by example as well as by what he said; he took some bread himself, gave thanks to God in words which all could hear, broke it, and began to eat it. The rest followed his example; there was no further need to stint themselves, and they took a full meal.

There is a cluster of words and phrases here—“took bread,” “gave thanks,” “broke it”⁸⁶—which are familiar in a eucharistic setting. This supports the view of many commentators that the meal here described was a eucharistic meal. Probably it was so in a limited sense: all shared the food, but to the majority it was an ordinary meal, while for those who ate with eucharistic intention (Paul and his fellow-Christians) it was a valid eucharist: “the bread which we break, is it not our participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). They did not, however, withdraw into a corner to communicate: Paul gave thanks “in the presence of all, “and the communicant Christians broke the bread and ate it with the ship’s company. No mention is made of wine; the terms “wine” and “cup” are absent from the whole of Acts.

37 It is at this point that Luke tells us how many were on board. There is some ancient evidence for a smaller figure—“seventy-six” instead of “two hundred and seventy-six”—but there is nothing improbable in the larger and better-attested number: the ill-fated ship on which Josephus set sail for Italy some four years later had about six hundred on board.⁸⁷ The mention of the number in the context of the meal suggests that it was necessary to count them in order to divide the available bread among them fairly.

38 When they had eaten their fill, they used their new strength to jettison the remainder of the wheat cargo.⁸⁸ Part of it had been thrown overboard at the beginning of the storm (v. 18), but sufficient must have been kept as ballast and possibly also for food. Now, however, it was essential that the ship should draw as little water as possible, and run ashore well up the beach. The abandonment of the wheat was an extreme measure, but there was nothing else for it in the present situation.

9. The Shipwreck (27:39–41)

39  When day had broken, they did not recognize the land, but noticed a creek with a sandy beach and planned, if possible, to run the ship aground⁸⁹ on it.

40  So, slipping the anchors, they let them go into the sea. At the same time they unleashed the lashings of the steering paddles and, hoisting the foresail to the wind, they held for the beach.

41  But they found themselves in a place between two seas, and ran the ship aground:⁹⁰ the bow stuck fast and remained immovable, while the stern was broken up by the violence of the waves.

39 By this time it was light, but the sailors did not recognize the land which they had approached. St. Paul’s Bay is some distance away from the grand harbor of Valletta, with which some of them would have been familiar. But they noticed a creek with a sandy beach, and decided to try to run the ship aground there. The combination of this creek with the rocks (v. 29) and the place between two seas (v. 41) confirms the tradition which locates this incident in St. Paul’s Bay. Smith shows in detail “how perfectly these features still distinguish the coast.”⁹¹ The west side of the bay, to which the ship must have been driven, is rocky, but has two creeks, one of which still has a sandy beach. (Smith, however, thinks that the other creek was the one mentioned by Luke, since it was nearer to the place “between two seas,” considering that its sandy beach has now been “worn away by the wasting action of the sea.”)⁹²

40 They had no further use for the four anchors, so they slipped them and left them in the sea. At the same time they unleashed the lashings of the steering paddles⁹³ (which in ancient ships served the purpose of rudders) and hoisted a small sail⁹⁴ on the foremast, setting it to the wind; thus they had the ship under control to run her aground on the beach which they had noticed.

41 But there was something which they had not noticed, because it could not be seen until they had entered the bay. “From the entrance of the bay, where the ship must have been anchored, they could not possibly have suspected that at the bottom of it there should be a communication with the sea outside.”⁹⁵ St. Paul’s Bay is sheltered on the northwest by the island of Salmonetta, which is separated from the Maltese mainland by a narrow channel about a hundred yards wide. This channel is the place “between two seas.” Here the ship, in Smith’s words, “would strike a bottom of mud graduating into tenacious clay, into which the fore part would fix itself and be held fast, whilst the stern was exposed to the force of the waves.”⁹⁶ After the long battering which the ship had endured for the past two weeks, its exposed part could not take this further punishment, and it quickly disintegrated.

“Thus,” says Ramsay, “the foreship was held together, until every passenger got safe to dry land. Only the rarest conjunction of favorable circumstances could have brought about such a fortunate ending to their apparently hopeless situation; and one of the completest services that has ever been rendered to New Testament scholarship is James Smith’s proof that all these circumstances are united in St. Paul’s Bay.”⁹⁷

10. Safe Ashore! (27:42–44)

42  The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners, in case any of them should swim off and make his escape.

43  But the centurion⁹⁸ wished to save Paul’s life, so he prevented them from carrying out their plan. Instead, he ordered those who could swim to jump out first and get away to land.

44  The others he ordered to make their way on planks, or on pieces of things from the ship. Thus it turned out that all reached land in safety.

42–44 In accordance with traditional Roman discipline, the soldiers were responsible for the safekeeping of the prisoners in their charge. But now it would be easy for some of the prisoners to escape in the general confusion of abandoning ship. The soldiers, therefore, decided to forestall any such attempt by slaughtering them. The centurion, however, forbade them to do any such thing: he felt too grateful to Paul to expose him to this fate. Let the prisoners get safe to land along with the others, he said (it should not be too difficult to round them up afterward and keep them under guard). Those of the ship’s company who could swim should dive overboard and swim ashore. The rest could float ashore on planks and spars; some nonswimmers might even be carried ashore by swimmers.⁹⁹ At any rate, one way or another, they all reached land safely. The angelic assurance given to Paul in their darkest hour had been fulfilled to the letter: the ship and cargo were lost, but every life on board was saved.

1. H. J. Holtzmann, Handcommentar zum Neuen Testament (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889), p. 421.

2. Especially in v. 41; see n. 90 below.

3. Compare vv. 18–19 with Jonah 1:5. See E. S. Krantz, Des Schiffes Weg mitten im Meer: Beiträge zur Erforschung der nautischen Terminologie des Alten Testaments (Lund, 1982).

4. See H. Chadwick, “The Circle and the Ellipse: Rival Concepts of Authority in the Early Church,” History and Thought of the Early Church (London, 1982), pp. 3–17, especially p. 16.

5. See M. Dibelius, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, E. T. (London, 1956), p. 107; H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, 1963), pp. 140–47; E. Haenchen, “Acta 27,” in Zeit und Geschichte:Dankesgabe an R. Bultmann. ed. E. Dinkler (Tübingen, 1964), pp. 235–54.

6. R. P. C. Hanson, “The Journey of Paul and the Journey of Nikias: An Experiment in Comparative Historiography,” Studies in Christian Antiquity (Edinburgh. 1985), pp. 22–26.

7. J. Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul (London, 1848, ⁴1880).

8. See also A. Breusing, Die Nautik der Alten (Bremen, 1886); H. Balmer, Die Romfahrt des Apostels Paulus (Bern/Münchenbuchsee, 1905); A. Köster, Das antike seewesen (Berlin, 1923); W. Stammler, Apostelgeschichte 27 in nautischer Beleuchtung (Berlin, 1931); L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners (London, 1959); Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ, 1971); V. K. Robbins, “By Land and by Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages,” in Perspectives on Luke-Acts, ed. C. H. Talbert (Edinburgh, 1978), with critique by C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative in Acts 27–28,” TynB 36 (1985), pp. 79–109; C. K. Barrett, “Paul Shipwrecked,” in Scripture: Meaning and Method, ed. B. P. Thompson (Hull, 1987), pp. 51–64.

9. The Western text goes on from “and so the governor decided to send him up to Caesar” (26:32b) with the parapharse: “And the next day he called a certain centurion named Julius and handed Paul over to him, with other prisoners also.”

10. The Western text adds “and Secundus” (from 20:4).

11. The Western text adds “in fifteen days.”

12. Cod. B gives this place-name a new etymology by spelling it (“myrrh”) instead of . Cod 69 replaces this with “Smyrna” ( is a dialectal variant of ). The still more aberrant reading “Lystra” is found in P⁷⁴ with the Latin and Bohairic (Coptic) versions.

13. His nomen gentile suggests that he or rather his ancestor acquired the citizenship under Julius Caesar or Augustus.

14. We find inscriptional references to the Cohors Augusta I in Syria under Augustus (ILS 2683), to the in the same area some decades later (OGIS 421); cf. also the Cohors III Augusta at Rome (CIL VI.3508).

15. In the event, the “ship of Alexandria” which he found at Myra was indeed a grain ship (see p. 479, on v. 6), and if he was a frumentarius, this would account for the authority which he exercised on board (cf. v. 11).

16. But if they arrived late and found that the period of sailing was over for the winter, they would no doubt take the land route to Rome along the Egnatian Way from the Aegean to the Adriatic (see p. 309, on 16:11).

17. See 19:29.

18. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller (London, ¹⁴1920), p. 316.

19. Cf. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon 1. 1. Lucian tells how a ship which set out from Alexandria for Italy was forced by a storm to put in at Sidon (Ship 7).

20. Cf. p. 202 with n. 4 (on 10:1).

21. A. von Harnack suggested that should be translated “to the Friends”; he regarded this as possibly one of the current designations by which Christians referred to one another (The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, E. T., I [London, ₂1908], pp. 419–21). Cf. 3 John 15.

22. J. Smith, Voyage, p. 68.

23. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 317.

24. Cf. 21:1, where the Western text makes Myra the port of transshipment on Paul’s last voyage to Judaea.

25. See C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative,” pp. 94–95, for evidence of facilities for the storage of grain at Andriakē

26. See Strabo, Geography 13.3. 7; also G. E. Bean, Lycian Turkey: An Archaeological Guide (London, 1978), pp. 120–30.

27. See M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, II (Oxford, ²1957), p. 708.

28. Smith, Voyage, pp. 72–73.

29. Smith, Voyage, pp. 75–76.

30. Thucydides, History 8. 35.

31. Smith, Voyage, p. 76.

32. Lasaea is variously spelled in our textual witnesses and in other literature. C. J. Hemer (“First Person Narrative,” p. 95) quotes from A. Plassart, “Les inscriptions de Delphes. La liste des théorodoques,” BCH 45 (1921), p. 61, n. 3 (col. 4, line 9), (from a list of Cretan cities arranged clockwise in the angle southwest from Gortyna). Lasaea has been (provisionally) identified with Pliny’s Lasos or Alos (Nat. Hist. 4.59) and also with ruins a little way east of Fair Havens.

33. Vegetius, On Military Affairs 4.39.

34. Cf. W. P. Workman, “A New Date-Indication in Acts,” ExT 11 (1899–1900), pp. 316–19.

35. Vegetius, loc. cit.

36. “We might be disposed to infer that the Feast of Tabernacles, Oct. 10, fell after they left Fair Havens, otherwise Luke would have mentioned it rather than the Fast, as making the danger more apparent” (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 322).

37. Cf. 2 Cor. 11:25b.

38. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 322–25.

39. Gk. , According to Plutarch (Precepts of Statecraft 807B), “the helmsman () chooses the sailors and the shipowner () chooses the helmsman. “

40. Gk. (Latinized as nauicularius). Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, p. 324, n. 2) quotes from IG XIV. 918 (“the shipowners of the Alexandrian fleet”). Cf. M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, II, p. 607.

41. A. D. Nock, Essays on Religion and: he Ancient World, II (Oxford, 1972), p. 823.

42. Smith, Voyage, p. 85, n. 2.

43. See R. M. Ogilvie, “Phoenix,” JTS n. s. 9 (1958), pp. 308–14.

44. Smith, Voyage, p. 91, n. 1.

45. ARV margin gives as the literal rendering “down the south-west wind and down the north-west wind,” but this is a mistranslation in such a context of the preposition C. J. Hemer (“First Person Narrative,” pp. 95–96) quotes, from IGRR 1. 177, the wind directions on a twelve-point scheme, with the names in Greek and Latin: /Chorus (30 degrees north of west) and /Africus (30 degrees south of west). In this inscription Lat. Chorus, normally spelled Caurus, is aspirated just as it is here in its Greek transliteration . The term is explained (at least by a popular etymology) as meaning “Libyan.”

46. Ogilvie, art. cit. For Loutron and Phoenix today see Xan Fielding, The Stronghold (London, 1955), pp. 215–24, 262–65.

47. The Byzantine text has the variant “Euroclydon. “

48. There is an expanded Western reading: “We gave way to the wind that was blowing and shortened sail () and, as happens in such cases, scudded before it.”

49. Many manuscripts and versions have the spelling Clauda (found also in several ancient authors).

50. Gk. , “helps.” See p. 485 with n. 59 below.

51. Gk. ( being a word of indeterminate meaning—“instrument,” “object,” “thing”—as in 10:11).

52. The Byzantine text reads “we threw … with our own hands”; the Western text adds “into the sea.”

53. Lit., “all hope of our coming safely through was henceforth being taken away” ( ).

54. Smith, Voyage, p. 102.

55. Gk. . It may have had the effect of a whirlwind or cyclone when it first struck them, but thereafter it blew steadily in one direction. See also p. 486 with n. 60.

56. Euraquilo is a hybrid, from Gk. (“east wind”) and Lat. Aquilo (“north wind”). It appears (with the spelling Euroaquilo) in Latin on a twelve-point wind-rose incised on a pavement at Thugga in the province of Africa, where (beginning from the north and reading clockwise) we find septentrio aquilo euroaquilo [uojlturnus eurus … (CIL VIII. 26652). See C. J. Hemer, “Euraquilo and Melita,” JTS n.s. 26 (1975), pp. 100–111 (especially p. 103). In this article Hemer answers A. Acworth, “Where was St. Paul Shipwrecked? A Re-examination of the Evidence,” JTS n.s. 24 (1973), pp. 190–93, where the reading “Euroclydon” is preferred and taken to mean a southeast wind. But a southeast wind would not have driven the ship under the lee of Cauda.

57. In the vicinity of this island the naval engagement usually called the Battle of Cape Matapan was fought on March 28, 1941. There is, according to Smith, an anchorage at Cauda, but it lies on the side of the island open to Euraquilo, and therefore could have given no protection to the ship (Voyage, p. 113, n. 1).

58. Lake and Cadbury (Beginnings 1.4, p. 332) suggest that the foremast, which sloped forward, may have been used as a derrick.

59. Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.5.18; Philo, On Joseph 33. In view of such attestation, it is unnecessary to emend to (“with ropes of ox-hide”), with S. A. Naber, “Nautica,” Mnemosyne n.s. 23 (1895), pp. 267–69. A more technical Greek word for these cables is , used in this sense (“undergirders”) in Plato (Republic 10.616C; Laws 12.945C), Callixenus, Herodotus Medicus, and inscriptions.

60. Nat. Hist. 2. 132.

61. See H. J. Cadbury, “,” Beginnings I.5 (London, 1933), pp. 345–54; The Book of Acts in History (New York, 1955), p. 10.

62. Cf. J. Renié, “Summisso Vase,” RSR 35 (1948), pp. 272–75. This interpretation is presupposed by the Old Latin text codex gigas: “they ley out a certain instrument to drag” (was quoddam dimiseunt quod traheret). Smith suggests that what was lowered was “the ‘top-hamper’, or gear connected with the fair-weather sails, such as the Suppara, or top-sails,” which” every ship situted as this one was, when preparing for a storm, sends down upon deck” (Voyage, p. 111).

63. Smith, Voyage, p. 114.

64. Cf. Jonah 1:5.

65. Voyage, p. 116. The Greek word is (here only in the NT).

66. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 332. See n. 52 above.

67. Smith, Voyage, p. 117.

68. Gk. , “there being much abstinence from food.”

69. J. Newton, Omicron’s Letters (London, 1774), Letter 7, quoted by Smith, Voyage, p. 118.

70. Gk. (“messenger”), usually of a supertural being in the Greek Bible.

71. See Gen. 18:26–32.

72. Voyage, pp. 126–28.

73. E. g., Strabo (C.A.D. 19) says that “the Ionian Sea is part of what is now called the Sea of Adria” (Geography 2.5.20).

74. Ptolemy, Geography 3.4.1; 15.1.

75. Life 15.

76. See on 28:1 (p. 496 with n. 4).

77. For B^* reads (a Doric form equivalent to Attic ), whence probably resonare in the Old Latin codices gigas and Bobiensis (s).

78. Voyage, p. 121.

79. Voyage, pp. 130–31.

80. “In St. Paul’s Bay the anchorage is thus described in the sailing directions: ‘The harbour of St. Paul is open to easterly and north-east winds. It is, notwithstanding, safe for small ships, the ground, generally, being very good; and while the cables hold there is no danger, as the anchors will never start’ ” (Smith. Voyage, p. 132).

81. In 147B.Cthe Romans under Scipio Aemilianus won a naval victory off Carthage through anchoring by the stern and thus obviating the necessity of exposing the ships’ weak points to the Cathaginians in turning round (Appian, Punic War 18. 213). For the same reason Nelson anchored by the stern at the Battle of the Nile in 1798.

82. Smith reproduces, from a picture at Herculaneum, the figure of a ship fitted with hawse-holes aft, through which anchor-cables could be passed if necessary. “We see, therefore, that ships of the ancients were fitted to anchor by the stern; and in the present instance that mode of anchoring was attended with most important advantages” (Voyage, p. 135).

83. The Western text adds “giving also to us” (using the same Greek verb, as in Luke 24:30; cf. also Mark 14:23 and parallels).

84. A few witnesses, including B and the Sahidic (Coptic) read “about seventy-six” instead of “two hundred and seventy-six.”

85. Abstinence from food, not absence of food, is implied by the adjective (cf. the noun in v. 21).

86. Gk. . These words play a part in other meals provided or shared by Jesus, e.g., the feeding of the multitudes and the supper at Emmaus (Mark 6:41; 8:6 and parallels; Luke 24:30), and indeed they belong to the general vocabulary of Jewish social meals, but there was evidently something distinctive about Jesus’ words and actions on such occasions. The feeding of the multitudes can be interpreted as an anticipation of the Eucharist, and Jesus’ action at Emmaus as a deliberate reminder of it. See B. Reicke, “Die Mahlzeit mit Paulus auf den Wellen des Mittelmeers, Act 27, 33–38,” TZ 4 (1948), pp. 401–10. W. Kelly, Exposition of Acts (London, ³1952), p. 387, denies all eucharistic significance to the present meal: “It is the object of the Eucharist which gives it its character, and this was quite out of place here. But the most ordinary food should be sanctified by the word of God and prayer, and the apostle here acts on his own instructions to Timothy (1 Tim. 4:5, 6).” But in Paul’s eyes the object of the Eucharist may have been very much in place here. See Barrett, “Paul Shipwrecked” pp. 59–63.

87. Josephus, Life 15. No significance need be seen in the fact that 276 is a triangular number (the sum of all whole numbers from 1 through 23), like 120 in 1:15; 153 in John 21:11; 666 in Rev. 13:18.

88. For the lightening of the ship cf. Jonah 1:5. S. A. Naber, on the ground that the wheat had been jettisoned already (v. 18), emended (“wheat”) here to (“mainmast”), quite unnecessarily (“/Ad Novum Testamentum,” Mnemosyne n. s. 9 [1881], p. 293; cf. “Nautica,” Mnemosyne n. s. 23 [1895], p. 269).

89. Gk. (from ), for which B*C and a number of other witnesses read the homophone (from ), “to bring it out safely,” which is a less natural expression here.

90. Gk. (there is a Western addition, “on a place where there was a quicksand,” in the Harclean Syriac). This is the only NT occurrence of the classical word for “ship” ( ), which, in conjunction with the verb (“run aground”), has been put down to a Homeric reminiscence (cf. Odyssey 9.148, ).

91. Voyage, p. 141.

92. Voyage, p. 142.

93. Gk. .

94. Gk. , the earliest occurrence of the word in Greek literature. Its absence earlier is accidental, for it certainly existed; it appears as a loanword in Latin in Vitruvius, who wrote under Augustus, meaning the main block of a tackle (On Architecture 10.2.9). In a nautical context it was used of “a smaller sail in the forepart of a ship, by which the speed is not increased but the course is directed” (S. A. Naber, “Nautica,” p. 269).

95. Smith, Voyage, p. 143.

96. Voyage, p. 144.

97. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 341. “The only difficulty,” he adds, to which Smith “has applied a rather violent solution,” is the fact that at the traditional place where the ship ran ashore there is now no sandy beach. But the evidence is satisfied if the creek with a sandy beach which the sailors noticed is identified with the creek where there is still such a beach (see p. 494 with n. 92). W. Burridge, Seeking the Site of St. Paul’s Shipwreck (Valletta, 1952), argued on the basis of local observation that the wreck took place not in St. Paul’s Bay but in Mellieha Bay farther north.

98. The Old Latin text of gigas, perhaps preserving the original Western reading, runs as follows: “But the centurion forbade this to be done, principally on Paul’s account, in order to save him. And he commanded those who could swim to get to land first, and some of the rest to make their way to safety on planks; and thus all the souls escaped safe to the land.”

99. The words “on pieces of things from the ship”—literally, “on some of the (things) from the ship” (Gk. —might conceivably mean “on some of the (persons) from the ship,” i.e., on the backs of members of the crew.

ACTS 28

F. WINTER IN MALTA (28:1–10)

1. Welcome to Malta! (28:1–6)

1  When we got safely ashore, we learned that the island was called Malta.¹

2  The natives showed us extraordinary kindness: they welcomed² us all with a fire which they had lit because of the rain which had set in, and the cold.

3  When Paul had twisted a bundle of brushwood together and put it on the fire, a viper emerged from the heat and fastened on his hand.

4  When the natives saw the creature³ hanging from his hand, they said one to another, “This man is certainly a murderer: he has escaped from the sea, but Justice has not allowed him to stay alive. “

5  But Paul shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm.

6  They expected that he would swell up or fall down dead suddenly, but when they watched a long time and saw that nothing untoward was happening to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.

1 It was not until they came ashore that they found out which island it was they had landed on. No doubt many of the crew knew Malta, but they were accustomed to put in at Valletta, in the grand harbor, and did not recognize this part of the coast. The idea that the island on which they landed was Mljet (Meleda) off the Dalmatian coast⁴ is bound up with the misinterpretation of the “sea of Adria” (27:27) as the Adriatic Sea; both are impossible identifications if Euraquilo be read as the name of the wind which drove them away from the south coast of Crete (27:14). The name Melita was first given to the island by Phoenician seafarers: it is the Canaanite word for “refuge,” and they must have found it a true refuge on more than one occasion. It has even been suggested that when Luke wrote “we learned that the island was called Malta (Melita),” he really meant, “we recognized that it was well named.”⁵ Paul, at any rate, would realize the meaning of the name from his knowledge of Hebrew.

2 The native Maltese were largely of Phoenician extraction, and their language was a Phoenician dialect.⁶ They were thus regarded by both Greeks and Romans as “barbarians”—people who spoke a foreign tongue.⁷ But on this occasion, if they were barbarians in speech, they showed themselves truly civilized in behavior; they received the 276 shipwrecked people with warm hospitality. It was a cold, rainy morning, and the men from the wrecked ship were wet and shivering as they came ashore; how good it was to see the fire which the Maltese had kindled for them to warm and dry themselves!

3 Paul, who had shown himself such a practical and helpful person on board ship, continued to make himself useful on land. A wood fire out of doors is an excellent thing, but it will soon burn out if it is not fed with fresh fuel. Paul therefore started to gather brushwood to help to keep the fire going. But when he had gathered one bundle and put it on the fire, a poisonous snake crept from the fire and bit his hand or at least fastened on it. He had probably mistaken it for a small twig as it lay on the ground stiff with cold, but the heat quickly brought it back to life. A parallel has been quoted from T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia):”When the fire grew hot a long black snake wound slowly out into our group; we must have gathered it, torpid, with the twigs.”⁸

What kind of snake was it? The Greek word means “viper.”⁹ But we are told that there are no vipers, or indeed poisonous snakes of any kind, in Malta today. That, however, is not a conclusive argument. “The objections which have been advanced, that there are now no vipers in the island, and only one place where any wood grows, are too trivial to deserve notice. Such changes are natural and probable in a small island, populous and long civilised.”¹⁰ One might compare Ireland, which has been free from snakes for long centuries, although tradition asserts that they were once plentiful there until they were banished—by St. Patrick (according to the Christian account) or by Fionn MacCumhail (according to the earlier pagan legend). When we read that this snake “fastened on”¹¹ Paul’s hand, we must understand that it bit him, if it was indeed a viper, since vipers do not coil.

4–6 The Maltese bystanders looked at the reptile hanging on to Paul’s hand by its fangs, ¹² and drew their own conclusions. It was plainly the will of heaven that this man should lose his life—no doubt he was a murderer, and Nemesis was on his trail. He had escaped drowning at sea, indeed, but divine Justice was not so easily baffled: she had devised this alternative way of punishing him. ¹³ For some time, then, they stood watching him, after he shook the snake off into the fire, but nothing happened: he did not begin to swell up or suffer any obvious discomfort. Clearly their original conclusion had been wrong: he was no murderer pursued by divine Justice, but a divine person, immune to mischances that would prove fatal to ordinary mortals. It is not difficult to detect Luke’s quiet humor in his account of their sudden change of mind. We may compare and contrast his description of the change of mind among the native populace of Lystra, who first greeted Paul and Barnabas as gods, and then stoned Paul nearly to death (14:11–19). Luke probably implies that only uncultured people like the Lystrans and the Maltese—“barbarians,” as he calls them—would think of Paul as a divine being.¹⁴

2. Works of Healing in Malta (28:7–10)

7  In the district around that place there was an estate belonging to the chief man of the island, Publius by name. He took us in for three days and entertained us generously.

8  Publius’s father lay ill from fever and dysentery, but Paul went in where he was and prayed, laid his hands on him, and healed him.

9  When this happened, the other people in the island who were sick came to us and were treated.

10  They bestowed many honors on us, and when we put out to sea they put on board the things we needed.

7–8 The expression “the chief man of the island”—literally, “the first man of the island”—is probably an official designation: it appears on a Maltese inscription.¹⁵ The “first man” at this time, named Publius, had an estate near the place where the shipwrecked party came ashore, and he treated them as his guests for three days. Publius was a common praenomen: Ramsay suggested that the local peasantry used this name when they spoke of him familiarly, “and Luke (who has no sympathy for Roman nomenclature) took the name that he heard in common use.”¹⁶ Publius’s father was suffering from intermittent attacks of gastric fever¹⁷ and dysentery, of which Paul cured him by laying his hands on him and praying for him.

9–10 The news of this cure spread rapidly; in consequence, people who were suffering from a variety of ailments came from all over the island to receive suitable treatment. Perhaps Luke was able to add his medical skill to Paul’s gift of healing. At any rate, says Luke, they “honored us with many honors,” which in this context might well include honoraria or material gifts.¹⁸ Harnack, pointing out that the whole of the preceding section (vv. 3–6) “is tinged with medical colouring,” adds: “and seeing that in verses 7–10 both subject-matter and phraseology are medical, therefore the whole story of the abode of the narrator in Malta is displayed in a medical light.”¹⁹

When at last the time came for the party to leave Malta, the Maltese showed their appreciation of Paul and his friends by putting on board for them things that would supply their need and minister to their comfort for the remainder of the voyage.

G. ROME AT LAST! (28:11–31)

1. The Last Lap:“And So We Came to Rome” (28:11–15)

11  After three months we put to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island—a ship of Alexandria which had the Heavenly Twins²⁰ as its figurehead.

12  We put in at Syracuse, and stayed there for three days.

13  From there we weighed anchor²¹ and arrived at Rhegium. After one day a south wind sprang up and on the second day we came to Puteoli.

14  We found brothers there, and they invited us to spend²² seven days with them. And so we came to Rome.

15  From Rome the brothers, hearing the news about us, came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae. When Paul saw them, he gave thanks to God and took courage.

11 The three months which they spent in Malta were the three months of winter; they could not continue their journey to Italy until early spring, when the seas began to be opened again for navigation. The elder Pliny²³ says that navigation begins to be resumed when the west winds start to blow on February 8; it was probably about this date that the party set sail from Malta. The ship in which they embarked was another Alexandrian ship, probably also belonging to the grain fleet; it had spent the winter in Malta, presumably in harbor at Valletta. Ships, like inns, took their names from their figureheads.²⁴ The “Heavenly Twins” who formed the figurehead of this ship were Castor and Pollux, patrons of navigation and favorite objects of sailors’ devotion. Their constellation, Gemini, was considered a sign of good fortune in a storm:

“Then through the wild Aegean roar

The breezes and the Brethren Twain

Shall waft my little boat ashore.”²⁵

Ramsay suggests that Luke refers to this ship by name, as he does not refer to any other, because the name was the first thing he knew about it: he heard the news about this vessel before he saw it, whereas he became acquainted with the others by seeing them.²⁶

12 In this ship, then, they set sail from Malta, and (probably after a day’s sailing) reached the great port of Syracuse, on the east coast of Sicily. Here they spent three days—possibly, as Ramsay suggests, because the southerly wind, which brought them from Malta, fell.²⁷ Syracuse, with its two harbors, was the most important city of Sicily. It was founded as a Corinthian colony in 734 B.C., and passed under the control of Rome during the Second Punic War, in 212 B.C.

13 From Syracuse they made their way (perhaps by tacking in a northwesterly wind) to Rhegium (Reggio di Calabria), in the toe of Italy. Rhegium was an important harbor on the Italian side of the Straits of Messina, some six or seven miles across from Messina, in the northeast corner of Sicily. They had to wait at Rhegium for a suitable wind to take them through the straits, but they had not to wait long, for a south wind arose after one day, and the following day brought them to Puteoli (Pozzuoli) in the Bay of Naples, “having accomplished a distance of about 180 nautical miles in less than two days.”²⁸

“Puteoli was then, as it is now,” Smith continues, “the most sheltered part of the Bay of Naples. It was the principal port of southern Italy, and, in particular, it was the great emporium for the Alexandrian wheatships. Seneca, in one of his epistles, gives an interesting and graphic account of the arrival of the Alexandrian fleet.²⁹ All ships entering the bay were obliged to strike their topsails (suppara), except wheat-ships, which were allowed to carry theirs. They could therefore be distinguished whenever they hove in sight. It was the practice to send forward fast-sailing vessels (tabellariae) to announce the speedy arrival of the fleet; and the circumstance of their carrying topsails made them distinguishable in a crowd of vessels. The supparum, therefore, was the distinguishable signal of the Alexandrian ships.”³⁰

To this it should be added that, after the construction of the great harbor installations at Portus, near Ostia, in the principate of Claudius,³¹ships of the grain fleet usually took their cargo on to be unloaded there, but passengers were put ashore at Puteoli (as Paul and his company were).³²

14 It is not surprising that Christians were to be found in such an important seaport as Puteoli. There was an important Jewish colony there too—apparently the oldest in Italy after that in Rome.³³ We have to conclude from the text that the centurion’s official business involved a week’s halt at Puteoli, and that during that week Paul was allowed to enjoy the hospitality offered him by the local church. He had received similar permission at Sidon quite early in the voyage.³⁴ After the week’s stay at Puteoli they continued their journey by road; “and so we came to Rome,” says Luke, but then he goes back and relates one particularly encouraging feature of the last stage of the journey.

15 A few miles’ journey from Puteoli brought them on to the Appian Way, one of the great Roman roads of south Italy, named after AP Claudius, in whose censorship it was planned (312 B.C.). Along this road they made for Rome. But news of their approach had reached the Christians of the capital already (conveyed, probably, by their brothers in Puteoli); and a number of them set out southward along the Appian Way to meet Paul and escort him for the remainder of his journey to Rome.³⁵ Some of them got as far as Tres Tabernae (“the Three Taverns”), a halting place on the Appian Way about thirty-three miles from Rome; others walked ten miles farther and met him at Appii Forum (“the marketplace of Appius”):

“Next Appii Forum, filled, e’en nigh to choke,

With knavish publicans and boatmen folk.”³⁶

Luke is far from giving the impression that Paul was the first person to bring the gospel to Rome.³⁷ His coming to Rome certainly led to a great advance in gospel witness in the city,³⁸ but the presence of those Christians—“the brothers,” as Luke calls them—provides evidence enough that the gospel had reached Rome already.

Paul might well thank God and take fresh courage at the sight of these friends. He had long had a desire to visit Rome; it was three years since he had sent his letter to the Christians there to prepare them for his projected visit.³⁹ Now his prayer was granted and, in circumstances which he had not foreseen when he dictated his letter, he saw Roman Christians face to face. He probably wondered from time to time what kind of reception he would have from them. Now any misgivings he might have had were removed by the heart-warming action of those members of the Roman church who tramped out so far to bid him welcome to their midst.

2. Paul Handed Over to Be Kept under Guard (28:16)

16  When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him.⁴⁰

16 At last, then, they came to Rome, entering the city by the Porta Capena. Here the “we” narrative comes to an end. If the letters to Philemon and Colossians were sent from Rome during Paul’s confinement there, then they supply evidence that Luke stayed on in Rome for some time: greetings are sent from him to Philemon and to the church of Colossae.⁴¹

The Western text, followed in part by the Byzantine text, provides fuller information at this point: “the centurion handed his prisoners over to the stratopedarch, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself outside the camp with the soldier who guarded him.” The “stratopedarch” (“commander of the army” or “commander of the camp”) is most probably to be identified with the commandant of the camp or barracks where the emperor’s praetorian guard was housed, near the Viminal Gate.⁴² We may compare Phil. 1:13, where Paul uses the term praetorium either of the praetorian guard or of its headquarters.⁴³

Whether the phrase “outside the camp”⁴⁴ is part of the original text or not, it expresses the fact that Paul was not kept in the barracks but received leave to stay in lodgings of his own—the place where he received representatives of the local Jewish community in verse 23 and many other visitors according to verse 30. He thus enjoyed a measure of personal liberty while he was under restraint: he was permitted to live as a private resident, and a soldier (presumably one of the praetorian guard) was detailed to guard him. To this soldier he would be lightly chained by the wrist, with the chain to which he draws his visitors’ attention in verse 20. The soldier would be relieved every four hours or so, but for Paul there was no comparable relief. The result, however, was that he became a talking point among members of the praetorian guard.⁴⁵

3. Paul and the Roman Jews (28:17–28)

a. First interview (28:17–22)

17  After three days Paul invited the local leaders of the Jewish community to meet with him. When they had come together, he proceeded to say to them, “Brothers, I am here as a prisoner from Jerusalem. Although I had done nothing against our people or the ancestral customs, I was delivered into the hands of the Romans.

18  When the latter had examined me,⁴⁶ they were minded to release me, because no ground for putting me to death was found in me.

19  But the Jews objected,⁴⁷ so I was forced to appeal to Caesar, although I had no charge to lay against my nation.⁴⁸

20  For this reason I have invited you, to see you and talk to you, for it is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.”

21  They said to him, “Neither have we received letters about you from Judaea, nor has any of our brothers, coming from there, reported or spoken⁴⁹ anything bad about you.

22  But we desire to hear from you what your views are; as regards this party, it is known to us that “people speak against it everywhere.”

17–20 True to his fixed procedure, Paul took steps as soon as was practicable to get in touch with the Jewish community in this new city to which he had come. It was not convenient here to go to one of the synagogues to find them; he had to stay where he was. Had he been able to move around freely, there were several synagogues in Rome which he might have visited; the names of some of them have been preserved on inscriptions.⁵⁰ Instead of going to any of these, Paul invited the leaders of the Jewish community in Rome to come and see him. He briefly introduced himself and summarized the course of events that had brought him as a prisoner to Rome, taking care to say as little as possible about the responsibility of the national authorities in Jerusalem. To say that he “was delivered into the hands of the Romans” is a very mild way of describing how he was rescued by Roman soldiers from a mob that was trying to beat him to death—although it conforms well enough with the prophecy of Agabus (21:11) and, more significantly, with language used repeatedly about the passion of Jesus (Luke 9:44; 18:32).

Paul insists that he is speaking strictly in his own defense; that he has no complaint to make against his own nation or its Judaean leaders. His appeal to Caesar has been made purely in order to have his innocence established. As it was, it was his devotion to Israel’s ancestral hope that had cost him his freedom and brought him under guard to Rome. In Rome, as in Judaea, he emphasizes that the resurrection message which he proclaims, far from undermining the religion of Israel, is its divinely appointed fulfilment.⁵¹

21–22 The Jewish leaders’ answer to Paul is a model of diplomacy. It may be thought surprising that the Jewish authorities in Judaea had sent no communication about Paul to the Roman Jews, since “the Jerusalem-Rome axis was strong.”⁵² Perhaps a letter had been sent, but had not arrived yet because of the difficulties of winter travel. If, on the other hand, a personal representative had been sent, he for his part could equally well have been delayed. Without any message from Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders in Rome were unwilling to commit themselves—“an implicit indication from Luke that Roman Jewry looked to Jerusalem for guidance.”⁵³ They would certainly take no initiative in the prosecution of a Roman citizen who had appealed to Caesar.

As for the Christianity which Paul professed and proclaimed, they had some hearsay information about it, they agreed, and it was not favorable: all that they knew about this “party of the Nazarenes”⁵⁴ Was that it was the subject of universal ill repute. But we may be sure that they were not entirely ignorant of the Christian presence in Rome itself. When the Christian community in Rome came into being is uncertain, but when Paul sent his letter to the Roman church early in A.D. 57 it was already a well-established church, renowned for its faith and loyalty throughout all the churches.⁵⁵ It may well have been one of the earliest churches to be founded outside Judaea and Syria, and ten or eleven years before Paul’s arrival in Rome the introduction of the gospel into the Jewish community there, as we have seen, appears to have led to riots which brought down the imperial displeasure on the community.⁵⁶ But on this occasion the leaders of the community judged it politic not to commit themselves on the subject—at least not until they heard Paul’s account of himself and his beliefs and received instructions from Jerusalem about him.

b. Second interview (28:23–28)

23  So they fixed a day for him, and many came to him to receive his hospitality.⁵⁷ He expounded the matter to them, bearing witness to the kingdom of God and speaking to them persuasively about Jesus from both Moses’ law and the prophets, from morning to evening.

24  Some of them paid serious heed⁵⁸ to what he said; the others would not believe.

25  When they failed to agree with one another, they dispersed, after Paul had said this one thing:

“Well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers:

26  ‘Go to this people and say,

You shall hear indeed⁵⁹ but by no means understand;

You shall look indeed but by no means see.

27  For this people’s heart has been made dull;

They have become hard of hearing with their ears; They have closed their eyes,

Lest they should see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with the heart,

and turn to me and I should heal them.‘

28  Take knowledge therefore that this saving message of God has been sent to the Gentiles: They will listen to it. “⁶⁰

23 A day was fixed for a thoroughgoing discussion, and on the day appointed many of them came to the place where Paul stayed and heard what he had to say. No considerable summary of what he said is recorded, but from accounts of his regular line of argument with Jews in earlier parts of Acts,⁶¹ as well as from relevant material supplied by some of his letters, the general outline of his exposition may be inferred, as he spoke authoritatively about the kingdom of God and told the story of Jesus persuasively, showing how it marked the fulfilment of the law and the prophets. Throughout that day he labored to prove to them that the gospel of Christ was the fine flowering of Israel’s religion, that the whole course of Hebrew history and prophecy led up to it and was consummated by it. His text was the whole volume of what we now call the Old Testament, interpreted by the events of the advent, passion, and triumph of Jesus of Nazareth, “designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). Most of the messianic “testimonies” which have already been cited in Acts⁶² were adduced, no doubt, and more as well. It can readily be conceived how Paul on this occasion must have exerted all his powerful qualities of mind and heart as he endeavored to persuade the leading Jews of Rome of the truth of the gospel. Nor did his exposition take the form of a monologue. The debate must have been keen and impassioned.

Nor, perhaps, was the truth of the gospel the only subject of debate. If some of those present knew anything of Paul, they could have questioned his claim to have “done nothing against our people or the ancestral customs” (v. 17). On his own testimony he did live as a law-abiding Jew when he was among Jews, but did not adhere to the “ancestral customs” when he found himself in Gentile company.⁶³ A truly loyal Jew, they might have argued, would have been specially scrupulous about observing those customs in a Gentile environment, like some other Jewish prisoners in Rome around this time, who (according to Josephus) restricted their diet to figs and nuts, so as to avoid eating suspect food.⁶⁴ But if such matters were raised, Luke says nothing of them.

24–28 Some of Paul’s visitors were impressed by what he said, but the majority remained unconvinced. The bulk of the Jewish community in Rome, leaders and led alike, declined to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah. This fulfilled the pattern that had been set in one city after another to which Paul brought the gospel. Since the Jewish people, who had the prescriptive right to hear it first, would not accept it, it had to be offered direct to Gentiles. In Acts as in the Pauline letters, while the order of preaching the gospel is “to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16), the order of its reception is “by the Gentile first.”⁶⁵ It is not clear that Luke would follow Paul in adding to these last words, “and also (if later) by the Jew” (cf. Rom. 11:11–32). Luke records the expansion of Christianity among the Gentiles, but at the same time he records its rejection by one Jewish community after another (the community in Beroea forming a notable exception).⁶⁶ In Rome the definitive rejection takes place, and this instance is brought to a fitting conclusion by the quotation of an early Christian “testimony”⁶⁷—the passage from Isa. 6:9–10 in which Isaiah, on his call to the prophetic ministry, is warned not to expect a favorable response from the people to whom he is sent. The effect of his ministry, divinely ordained though it is, will be but to make the deaf still more deaf (there are none so deaf as those who will not hear), to make the blind still more blind (there are none so blind as those who will not see). The early Christian use of this text as a prophetic adumbration of the general Jewish resistance to the gospel had supreme authority: both Mark, followed by the two other Synoptists (Mark 4:12 par. Matt. 13:13 and Luke 8:10), and John (John 12:39–40) tell how our Lord himself applied it to his unresponsive hearers.⁶⁸ Its position here at the end of Acts is comparable to its position in John 12:39–40, where it appears at the end of John’s record of Jesus’ revelation to “the world” (cf. John 1:11, “he came to his own home, and his own people received him not”).⁶⁹ We may also compare Paul’s probable allusion to the same Isaianic text (among others) in Rom. 11:8 and, more generally, his wrestling with the sore problem of Israel’s unbelief in Rom. 9–11. As before in Pisidian Antioch (13:46), Corinth (18:6), and Ephesus (19:8–10), so here again in Rome he announces—and this time with a note of solemn finality—that henceforth the Gentiles will have priority in hearing the word of life and that, unlike the Jews as a whole, they will accept it. “The narrative reaches a solemn climax—rejection on the one side, unchecked success and hope on the other.”⁷⁰

4. The Gospel Advances without Hindrance in Rome (28:30–31)

30  So Paul stayed there for two full years, living at his own expense. He welcomed all who came in to see him,

31  preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. He enjoyed complete freedom of speech, and no one hindered him.⁷¹

30 For two years, then, Paul stayed in Rome. The conditions of his custody did not permit him to go anywhere he wished, but anyone who wished might come and see him, as the leaders of the Jewish community had done.⁷² He lived, says Luke, “on his own earnings” or “at his own expense”;⁷³ this means that the place were he stayed would indeed have been “his own hired house” (as KJV has it) or at least his own hired apartment (possibly three floors up in a tenement building).⁷⁴ Perhaps he was able to carry on his “tent-making,” although this would have been awkward if he was continually chained by the wrist to a soldier.

The significance of the “two full years” has been much debated. There are a few literary parallels, but none of them is of direct relevance.⁷⁵ A popular view has been that the two years comprised a statutory period of eighteen months within which the prosecutors might come and state their case against Paul, together with some further months required for the formalities attending his discharge, when the prosecutors failed to appear.

This account of the matter, favored at one time by Ramsay⁷⁶ and others,⁷⁷ is now known to have arisen from a misinterpretation of a third-century imperial edict dealing with a different kind of case from that in which Paul was involved. ⁷⁸ Besides, it is wrong to suppose that a case would simply lapse by default if the prosecutors did not appear to press it; the appearance of prosecutors and defendants was compulsory. Defaulting prosecutors would incur penalties, but their default did not mean that the defendant would be discharged automatically.⁷⁹

The two years’ prolongation of Paul’s stay in Rome could be accounted for adequately by congestion of court business. It took that time for his case to come up for hearing. It was always possible for such congestion to be eased by the discharge of defendants whose cases did not seem to be serious, through the exercise of imperial “clemency”;⁸⁰ but it is a safe inference from the report of Paul’s vision aboard ship (27:24) that his case did come up for hearing, that he did “stand before Caesar,” and that Luke, when he wrote, knew this to be so. It may seem the stranger that, if Luke did know this, he said nothing about the outcome of the case. Perhaps the outcome of the case was so well known that Luke’s readers did not need to be informed about it; in any case, Luke has attained his object in writing when he depicts Paul preaching the gospel without hindrance in Rome over an extended period of time.

In 1913 J. V. Bartlet argued that Paul’s prosecutors, having given due notice of their intention to proceed with their case against Paul, arrived in Rome early in 62 and successfully prosecuted him as a disturber of the peace of the provinces (cf. 24:5). He argued further that Luke’s readers knew from Nero’s subsequent record as a persecutor what the result of such a prosecution before him would be (the more so in view of the pro-Jewish sentiments of Poppaea, whom he married in 62).⁸¹ Fifty years later J. N. D. Kelly, attaching considerable weight to the evidence for seeing Paul’s execution as an incident in the wider persecution of Christians which broke out as a sequel to the great fire of Rome (dated in July, A. D. 64), has concluded that the view that Paul was released and, after a few years of liberty, was rearrested, imprisoned, condemned, and executed, “seems firmly grounded.”⁸² It must be confessed that we cannot be sure.

31 During these two years, however—and this is what was important in Luke’s eyes—the gospel was proclaimed freely in Rome through the lips of its chief messenger. The apologetic value of this fact was great. It is unlikely, Luke implies, that if the gospel were illegal and subversive propaganda, it could have been proclaimed for two years at the heart of the empire by a Roman citizen who had appealed to Caesar and was waiting under guard for his case to be heard. The authorities must have known what he was doing all that time, yet no obstacle was put in his way. The program mapped out by the risen Lord in 1:8 has been carried out with Paul’s residence in Rome, where he bears his witness “unhindered.” Luke’s final word is a legal expression; with it the record of Acts closes on a triumphant note.⁸³ “Victory of the word of God,” says J. A. Bengel: “Paul at Rome, the apex of the gospel, the end of Acts.… It began at Jerusalem; it finishes at Rome. Here, O church, thou hast thy pattern; it is for thee to preserve it and to guard the deposit.”⁸⁴

1. The first hand in B and a few other authorities have “Melitene” (Gk. ) instead of “Melita” (Gk. ); the Latin Vulgate has Militene. The longer forms have arisen through dittography of some of the letters in .

2. Gk. , “they brough us (to the fire).” If, with and a number of minuscules, we read (cf. Latin Vulgate reficiebant), we have the more satisfactory sense “they refreshed us (all).”

3. Gk. (lit., “wild beast”). In later Greek the word came to be specialized in the sense of “snake”; from the word in this sense is derved (whence our “treacle”), orginally a medicine prepared from snake-flesh to cure snakebite.

4. The identification seems to have been made first by the tenth-century Byzantine empire Constantine VII Prophyrogentus (On Administering the Empire 36). It has been defended recently by A. Acworth, “Where was St. Paul Shipwrecked? A Re-examination of the Evidence,” JTS n.s. 24 (1973), pp. 190–92, and O. F. A. Meinardus, “Melita Illyrica or Africana? An Examunation of the Site of St. Paul’s Shipwreck,” Ostkrichliche Stydien 23 (1974), pp. 21–36 (cf. his St. Paul’s Last Journey [New Roche, NY, 1979], pp. 79–85); they have been conclusively answered by C. J. Hemer, “Euraquilo and Melita,” JTS n.s. 26 (1975), pp. 100–111.

5. Cf. J. R. Harris, “Clauda or Cauda?” ExT 21 (1909–10), p. 18.

6. Modern Maltese is a form of Arabic.

7. Gk. as in 1 Cor. 14:11 (cf. also Rom. 1:14; Col. 3:11).

8. Revolt in the Desert (London, 1927), p. 107.

9. Gk. (v. 3).

10. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller (London, ¹⁴I920), p. 343.

11. Gk. . F. Blass insists on the meaning “bit,” as also do Lake and Cadbury. “But it is a well-assured fact that the viper, a poisonous snake, only strikes, fixes the poison-fangs in the flesh for a moment, and withdraws its head instantly. Its action could never be what is attributed by Luke the eye-witness to this Maltese viper: that it hung from Paul’s hand, and was shaken off into the fire by him.” So says. W. M. Ramsay, who goes on to suggest that it may have been Coronella leopardinus, a snake found in Malta and “so closely resembling a viper as to be taken for one by a good naturalist until he had caught and examined a specimen. It clings, and yet it also bites without doing harm. That the Maltese rustics should mistake this harmless snake for a venomous one is not strange.… Every detail as related by Luke is natural, and in accordance with the facts of the country” (Luke the Physician [London, 1908], pp. 63–65).

12. Coronella austriaca, a species of the same family as leopardinus (see previous note), “is known to be rather irritable, and to fix its small teeth so firmly into the human skin as to hang on and need a little force to pull it off, though the teeth are too short to do any real injury to the skin” (Ramsay, Luke the Physician, p. 64). The accurate identification of this reptile must evidently be left to the few who combine expert knowledge of this branch of natural history with expert knowledge of Luke’s Greek terms (cf. also C. J. Hemer, “Euraquilo and Melita,” pp. 109–10). But note Ramsay’s additional remark: “A trained medical man in ancient times was usually a good authority about serpents, to which great respect was paid in ancient medicine and custom” (Luke the Physician, pp. 63–64).

13. Cf. Wisd. 1:8. A poem in the Greek Palatine Anthology (7.290) tells of a man who escaped from a storm at sea and was shipwrecked on the Libyan coast, only to be killed by a viper. See also G. Miles and G. Trompf, “Luke and Antiphon: The Theology of Acts 27–28 in the Light of Pagan Beliefs about Divine Retribution, Pollution and Shipwreck,” HTR 69 (1967), pp. 256–67.

14. He is not even a “divine man” (), as supposed (e. g.) by H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, ²1972), p. 147; E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (Oxford, 1971), E. T., p. 716. The anecdote, says M. Dibelius, “is told in a completely secular fashion.… it does not sound like Christian tradition concerning Paul” (Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, E. T. [London, 1956], p. 204, n. 27). It is best taken as the reminiscence of an eyewitness. There may be a reflection of the incident in the longer Markan appendix (Mark 16:18, “they will pick up serpents”).

15. In IG XIV.601 one L. Castricius, a member of the equestrian order, is called (among other designations) , “first of the Maltese.” A Latin parallel has often been recognized in CIL X.7495, where the words Mel(itensium) primus omni[um] appear in juxtaposition; the meaning may indeed be “first of all the Maltese,” but much of the context is mutilated, and the reference may be to someone who was “first” to bestow architectural and statuary benefactions on the community (see C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative in Acts 27–28,” TynB 36 [1985], p. 100).

16. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 343. Polybius, the Greek historian, regularly refers to the Roman general P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus by his bare praenomen Publius (Gk. , as here).

17. What is traditionally called Malta fever (now no longer the menace that it once was) is caused by a microbe in goats’ milk.

18. Gk. (“honor”) may also mean honorarium; cf. Sir. 38:1, “Honor the physician with the honor due to him, according to your need of him” (or “… according to his needs,” which brings the wording into closer affinity with our present text); Cicero, Letters to his Family 16.9.3, “that ‘honor’ be paid to the physician.” For the ambiguity cf. 1 Tim. 5:17, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor.”

19. A. Harnack, Luke the Physician, E. T. (London, 1907), p. 179.

20. Gk. (lit., “sons of Zeus”).

21. Gk. (the translation takes it as a shortened form of , “casting loose”; cf. 27:40). A variant reading is (P⁷⁴ A with a few minuscules and the Byzantine text), “sailing around” or “tacking,” as if referring to the sharp angle to be turned in getting through the Straits of Messina.

22. Gk. , “to remain.” A variant reading is (H and several minuscules), “having remained” (which makes difficult sense).

23. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 2.122. Vegetius (On Military Affairs 4. 39) says the seas are closed till March 10; this might be for voyages farther from the shore. In actual practice, the state of the weather would determine the resumption of navigation in any particular year.

24. Gk. .

25. Horace, Odes 3.29.62–64.

26. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 346.

27. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 345.

28. J. Smith, Voyage (London, ⁴1880), pp. 156–57.

29. Seneca, Epistle 77.1.

30. Voyage, p. 157.

31. Cf. CIL XIV.85 (inscription of Claudius, A.D. 46); Suetonius, Claudius 18.3; Dio. History 60.11.4,5.

32. Josephus disembarked at Puteoli (which he calls by its Greek name Dikaiarcheia) in A.D. 63 (Life 16). See C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative.,” p. 93.

33. It was there in 4 B.C.; See Joseohus, BJ 2. 104; Ant. 17.328.

34. See 27:3; cf. Ramasay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 344, n. 1.

35. This is the sense of Gk. (“the came to meet us”); was almost a tecthinal term for the offical welcome of a visiting digitary by a deputation which went out from the city to greet him and escort him for the last part of his journey; cf. the same use in Matt. 25:6; 1 Thess. 4:17 (also Cicero, Letters to Atticus 8.16.2; 16.11.6).

36. Horace, Satires 1.5.3–4. Cicero mentions Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae together in Letters to Atticus 2.10.

37. Contrast Haenchen, who even in this context says that Luke “wants Paul to proclaim in Rome the gospel up to that point unknown” (Acts, p. 720). The intelligent reader might even infer from the introduction of Priscilla and Aquila in 18:2 that the gospel had reached Rome before they left it: Luke knows that they were believers, but does not imply that they were Paul’s converts.

38. Cf. Phil. 1:12–18.

39. Cf. Rom. 1:9–13; 15:22–32.

40. The Western text (followed by the Byzantine) gives a fuller reading of this verse: “When we entered Rome, the centurion handed his prisoners over to the stratopedarch, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself outside the barracks with the soldier who guarded him.”

41. Cf. Philem. 24; Col. 4:14.

42. It is hardly likely that such an important officer of state as the prefect of the praetorian guard (at this time Afranius Burrus) is meant. Trajan indeed directs the younger Pliny to send a prisoner in chains “to the prefects of my praetorium” (Pliny, Epistles 10. 57. 2), and fifty-five years earlier Claudius sends the praetorian prefect in person to Baiae to arrest Valerius Asiaticus and bring him to Rome in chains (Tacitus, Annals 11.1), but Valerius was a powerful ex-consul. Another interpretation of the stratopedarch, favored by T. Mommsen (Historische Schriften, III [Berlin, 1910], pp. 552–53) and W. M. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 315, 348), identifies him with the commandant of the castraperegrinorum, the headquarters (on the Caelian hill) of legionary liaison officers (all of centurial rank) on furlough in Rome. (This commandant was called the princepsperegrinorum, a form actually given in the Old Latin codex gigas as the rendering of Gk. . ) But this interpretation is less likely than that proposed above.

43. See F. F. Bruce, Philippians, GNC (San Francisco, 1983), pp. xxii–xxiv, 17.

44. Gk. , a phrase occurring in an allegorical sense in Heb. 13:11 (reflecting Ex. 33:7; Lev. 16:27, with reference to the camp of Israel in the wilderness). Luke has used Gk. already (21:34, etc. ) of the Antonia fortress in Jerusalem.

45. Cf. Phil. 1:13.

46. The Western text adds “much,”.

47. The Western text adds “and cried out, ‘Away with our enemy!’ ”

48. The Western text adds “but that I might deliver my soul from death.”

49. “Reported” () officially or “spoken” () unofficially.

50. The names of eleven synagogues in Rome have been so preserved; see H. J. Leon, The Jews of Anicient Rome (Philadelphia, 1960), pp. 135–66; Schührer III, pp. 95–98.

51. For the general argument, and espescially for the emphasis on Jesus’ resurrection as vindicating Israel’s national hope, see 23:6; 24:14–15; 26:6–8, 23.

52. R. E. Brown, Antioch and Rome (London, 1983), p. 104.

53. R. E. Brown, Antioch and Rome. p. 97.

54. See on 24:5 (p. 440).

55. Cf. Rom. 1:8 15:14.

56. See on 18:2 (p. 347).

57. Gk. ( is primarily “hospitality,” but it may be extended to mean the place where hospitality is dispensed; cf. Philem. 22, where it is translated “guest room”).

58. Gk. , “were on the way to being persuaded.”

59. The construction (lit., “by hearing you shall hear … looking you shall look”), taken over here from LXX, represents the Hebrew use of the absolute infinitive before the finite verb to express emphasis.

60. The Western and Byzantine texts add the sentence: “And when he had said these things, the Jews departed, having much debate among themselves” (v. 29 in TR and KJV).

61. Cf. 13:17–41; 17:2–3; 26:22–23.

62. Cf. 2:16–21, 25–28, 34–35; 3:22–23; 4:25–26; 8:32–33; 13:33–35.

63. See 1 Cor. 9:19–23.

64. Josephus, Life 14.

65. See J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, E.T. (London, 1959), pp. 42–48 et passim.

66. See 17:11–12 (p. 327).

67. “Paul always gets the last word—generally with devastating effect” (Lake and Cadbury, Beginnings 1. 4, p. 347).

68. The full LXX text, as here in Acts, is quoted in Matt. 13:14–15.

69. See J. R. Harris, Testimonies, II (Cambridge, 1920), pp. 65, 74, 137; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (London, 1952), pp. 36–39; B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic (London, 1961), pp. 159–67; A. T. Hanson, The Living Utterances of God (London, 1983), pp. 34, 67, 114–15; F. Bovon, “Schön hat der heilige Geist durch den Propheten Jesaja zu euren Vätern gesprochen (Act 28, 25),” ZNW 75 (1984), pp. 226–32.

70. F. H. Chase, The Credibility of the Acts of the Apostles (London, 1902), p. 52.

71. There is a Western addition: “saying that this is the Christ, Jesus the Son of God, by whom the whole world is to be judged.” This weakens the very effective ending of the true text.

72. See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 349.

73. Gk. . The sense “rented lodgings” is not otherwise attested for . See H. J. Cadbury, “Lexical Notes on Luke-Acts, III. Luke’s Interest in Lodging,” JBL 45 (1926), pp. 321–22.

74. Like the poet Martial (see p. 385, n. 28).

75. E.g., Philo (Flaccus 128–29) says that Lampon was kept in prison during his trial for two years, described as “a very long time” (); the younger Pliny (Epistles 10.56–57) speaks of a biennium fixed as a term within which those unjustly sentenced by Julius Bassus (whose acts had been annulled) might claim the right to a new trial.

76. “The Imprisonment and Supposed Trial of St. Paul in Rome,” Exp. 8, 5 (1913), pp. 264–84, reprinted in The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day (London, 1913), pp. 346–71.

77. Cf. K. Lake, “What was the End of St. Paul’s Trial?” Interpretation 5 (1908–9), pp. 147–56; H. J. Cadbury, “Roman Law and the Trial of Paul,” Beginnings 1. 5, pp. 325–36.

78. BGU II.628 recto, reproduced by Cadbury in Beginnings 1.5, pp. 333–34, and by ?. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte, pp. 157–58.

79. See A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford, 1963), p. 117.

80. Sherwin-White, Roman Society …, p. 119.

81. “Two New Testament Problems. 1. St. Paul’s Fate at Rome,” Exp. 8, 5 (1913), pp. 464–67 (a reply to Ramsay’s article, “The Imprisonment and Supposed Trial of Paul,” cited in n. 76 above). J. Moffatt was even more positive than Bartlet; with unwarranted assurance he bluntly asserted that “as a matter of fact, Paul was not released” (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament [Edinburgh, ³1918], p. 313).

82. J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, BNTC (London/New York, 1963), pp. 9–10. The tradition of a further period of ministry between Paul’s first and second Roman imprisonment is found in Eusebius (HE 2. 22. 2). For reconstructions of the events of this intervening period see L. P. Pherigo, “Paul’s Life after the Close of Acts,” JBL 70 (1951), pp. 277–84; S. Dockx, “Chronologie de la vie de saint Paul depuis sa liberation de la premiere captivité romaine à son martyre à Rome,” Chronologies néotestamentaires et Vie de l’Égliseprimitive (Leuven, 1984), pp. 151–60.

83. The last word in the book is “unhindered”; according to J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London, 1930), p. 20, “the word is legal to the last” (so that such a legal tag as “without let or hindrance” would be an apt rendering).

84. J. A. Bengel, Gnomon Novi Testamenti ([Tübingen, 1742] London, ³1862).

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