Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 18:3

Acts 18:3. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought (for by their occupation they were tentmakers). We have here the first mention of the handicraft by which, during so many periods of that toilsome, anxious missionary life of his, Paul earned his daily bread. This trade, learned in his boyhood, gives us no clue to the circumstances of the family of Saul of Tarsus. We have good reason for assuming that the family were in affluent circumstances. Every Jewish boy was carefully taught a trade. Since the captivity, and the terrible misfortunes of the chosen people, the vicissitudes of life had taught the Rabbis the stern necessity which existed for every Jewish boy to be able at least to earn his daily bread in the foreign cities where the chances of war or persecution might transport him. We read in the Talmud, ‘What is commanded of a father towards his son? To circumcise him, to teach him the law, to teach him a trade.' Rabbi Judah saith: ‘He that teacheth not his son a trade, teacheth him to be a thief.' Rabban Gamaliel saith: ‘He that hath a trade in his hand, to what is he like? He is like a vineyard that is fenced.' Tent making was a common occupation in Paul's native Cilicia. These tents were made of the rough hair of the goats, which abounded in the Cilician hill country. It was a well-known trade in the markets of the Levant. This tent-cloth was generally known as ‘Cilicium.' We read of it, this hair-cloth, in mediaeval works on penitential discipline. The word Cilicium is still retained in French, Spanish, and Italian.

It is probable that the work of Aquila and Paul was the making-up of this goat's-hair cloth into tents. ‘Paul,' writes St. Chrysostom, ‘after working miracles, would stand in his workshop of Corinth, and stitch the leather skins (the Greek father appears not to have known of the ordinary goat's-hair cloth) with his hands, while the angels looked on him lovingly, and the devils with fear.' At Miletus, when Paul took leave of the elders of Ephesus, with whom he had spent so long a time, he expressly alludes to the toil of his hands (Acts 20:34). Allusion is also made to it in 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2Th 3:8; 1 Corinthians 4:12.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 18:3

Old Testament

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