Acts 28 - Introduction

Excursus A.

On the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.

It seems proper, before this commentary closes, that some slight notice should be taken of a literature which is in one sense parallel with the Acts of the Apostles. Just as Apocryphal Gospels exist, if not in rivalry with, yet in contrast with, the Canonical Gospels, so are there Apocryphal Acts which at least invite comparison with the Authentic Acts. Literature of this kind filled a large space in the second and third centuries; and the surviving fragments of it have been brought to view in the course of modern criticism and speculation far more prominently than used to be the case. It will be only necessary here to mention three of the most important of these documents. A few words will show by how wide a gulf they are separated in character from the true record of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The scene of The Acts of Paul and Thecla is laid chiefly at Iconium. Names of places and persons suggested by the New Testament, such as Antioch and Myra on the one hand, and Onesiphorus and Demas on the other, seem to be put together in this document very much at random. But especially must be noted its utter want of dignity, as constituting a strong contrast with St. Luke's elevating narrative. Two of the chief features of this apocryphal work are a fantastic love story, and a form of asceticism quite different from what is inculcated in the New Testament. See some notice of this subject in the Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. i. chap. vi.

A much larger space is filled by what are known as the Clementines. We are acquainted with them in two forms the homilies, of which the Greek text is extant; and the Recognitions, of which we possess only a Latin translation. The general drift of this Ebionite production is to glorify St. Peter at the expense of St. Paul. It may suffice to quote on this subject some of the remarks of Baron de Bunsen, who was by no means narrow and restricted in his orthodoxy. He says that the Ebionites ‘have produced neither a genuine author nor a genuine work; they begin with Jewish separation and end with fiction.' They set up a Praedicatio Petri, ‘ which was afterwards extended into a regular novel and a very ingenious one.' Clement of Rome is ‘made the hero of the story, as being a supposed disciple of Peter, whom he meets during that apostle's travels, being himself in search after truth. Of course both Clement and Peter are transformed into purely fictitious personages. ‘Bunsen adds that' it is difficult to fix the origin and centre of a lie, and impossible to discover the history of a progressive fraud and fiction,' and he protests against Baur's modern ‘attempt to subvert history by means of a novel the canonical writings by the Clementine fictions.' One part of Baur's theory is, that the Pauline influence having been overpowered by the Petrine, attempts were made to rectify this result; and that the Acts of the Apostles, as we possess them, represent part of this endeavour, ‘both parties forging and adulterating as many documents as they could' (Christianity and Mankind, vol. i. pp. 127-132). On the supposed antagonism between St. Peter and St. Paul, as exhibited in the Clementines, see Bishop Lightfoot on the Galatians.

A third apocryphal document, which possesses greater dignity, and some parts of which are really edifying and beautiful, is entitled the Acts of Peter and Paul. In it is contained the beautiful legend of Peter when he was fleeing from martyrdom: ‘My Lord Jesus Christ met me as I was going; and having adored Him, I said, Lord, whither art Thou going? And He said to me, I am going to Rome to be crucified.' That this document, however, is, so to speak, a random composition, is evident from its geographical inaccuracy. It begins by speaking of the voyage of St. Paul from Malta to Puteoli, with ‘Dioscurus' as the shipmaster (see Acts 28:11). It is distinctly said in Acts 28:13 that the ship stayed only one day at Rhegium; and this fact is expressly connected with a change of wind, which admitted of no delay: and it is added that they arrived at Puteoli ‘the next day;' whereas in these Apocryphal Acts, it is stated that Paul went across from Rhegium to Messina, and there ordained a bishop. We see here most distinctly the traces of a later period. On the other hand, we have in this document the most express recognition of the unity of Peter and Paul in their spirit and their teaching. The Christians in Rome are represented as writing to St. Paul, on hearing of his approach, ‘We have believed, and do believe, that as God does not separate the two great lights which He has made, so He is not to part you from each other, that is, neither Peter from Paul, nor Paul from Peter;' and again, when Paul stands before Nero, we find him asserting: ‘Those things which thou hast heard from Peter, believe to have been spoken by me also: for we purpose the same tiling, we have the same Lord Jesus Christ.'

Thus we find that another of the Apocryphal Acts of the second century may be fairly set against the Clementines, in refutation of the theory of deliberate and continued antagonism between St. Peter and St. Paul.

All these documents are now accessible to the English reader in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library. And the more fully they are read the better; for in their tone and character they are as different as possible from the Authentic Acts. We have no reason, for instance, to regret that Renan has taken great pains to bring all literature of this class fully to view. The more carefully it is placed all around the Scriptural narrative, and compared with it, the more does that narrative tower above it all, like a mountain above lower hazy heights with a golden light ever upon its summit.

Excursus B.

On the Introduction of Christianity into Rome.

In the first century of the Christian era, the principal Jewish quarter at Rome was situated in the low-lying district beyond the river, between the Tiber and the Janiculum Hill, always known as ‘Transtiberina;' the ‘Trastevere,' probably in the immediate neighbourhood of the Porta Portuensis, close to which was once the principal Jewish cemetery. This district was the port of Rome, and to this spot on the Tiber the merchandise brought from distant countries and the East to Ostia was conveyed, and here landed. It was peculiarly the quarter of Syrians and Jews.

The Jewish community at Rome owed its origin, as we stated above (see note on Acts 28:17), to the captives brought by Pompey to Rome.

The original colony was largely recruited as time went on, and Rome, like other great cities, became the home of vast numbers of the ‘chosen people.' Some of these we know, from the contributions sent over for religious purposes to the Holy Land, were wealthy; but by far the larger proportion of the Roman Jews was extremely poor, carrying on the various little trades common in the humbler and crowded quarters of large cities. It is more than probable that the religion of Jesus was first introduced into this poor though numerous colony on the banks of the Tiber, by pilgrims returning after the memorable Pentecost which followed the Ascension of the Messiah.

In the long list of salutations at the end of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul salutes Andronicus and Junia, his kinsmen... ‘who were in Christ,' he writes, ‘before me' (Romans 16:7). Now Paul's conversion took place in the year 37 not more, it is supposed, than four years after the Ascension. These prominent members of the Roman Church had therefore received the faith of Christ some time between A. D. 33 and A.D. 37, and we have no reason to suppose that they were not among the Jewish sojourners at Rome at the time of their conversion. Two other names of the primitive Church of Rome are also certainly known to us, Aquila, a tentmaker by trade, of Pontus, and Priscilla his wife. These, about the year 50-51, were, with their fellow-countrymen, expelled from Rome, and made a temporary home for themselves at Corinth. Paul, on his arrival at that city A.D. 52, took up his abode with this pious couple. Nothing is said about his converting them to his Master's faith. We may

assume, with some certainty, that he selected their house as his home on account of their being Christians already. [This is, at least, the opinion of Neander, Wieseler, Olshausen, Lange, Ewald, and others; see note on chap, Acts 18:2. J Now, it is expressly stated (Acts 18:2) that this Aquila and his wife had left Italy ‘because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome.' Suetonius, the well-known Roman historian, fills in the wanted details here, and tells us (Claud. 25) that the Emperor Claudius drove the Jews from Rome because they were incessantly raising tumults at the instigation of a certain Chrestus. This was in the year 51-52 (according to some, A.D. 49-50).

What had happened to Rome is clear. Between A.D. 33 and A.D. 51, the little Christian sect in the poor Trastevere river quarter had been gradually increasing; its members recruited partly from Jewish families, partly from Syrians or Italians, living and working by their side.

As the Christian Church grew in numbers and in consideration, the same jealousies and heartburnings were stirred up among the rigid and exclusive Jews in Rome as in Jerusalem, or Corinth, or Ephesus. The same spirit which years later prompted the stubborn representatives of the ‘people' to turn a deaf ear to the pleading voice of Paul the prisoner, flamed out in hot anger against their renegade brothers, who could countenance and approve a teaching which gave, as it seemed, to these proud mistaken ones a death-blow to their claims of Israelitic supremacy; and as in Corinth and at Philippi, so too in the crowded and squalid Trastevere of Rome, these furious and misguided Jews would now and again, in their jealous fury, have recourse to violence. It was owing, no doubt, to these recurring tumults and disorders, that the edict of Claudius was issued ordering all Jews (the Roman government could see no difference between the Christian and the Jew) to leave the capital.

The edict of banishment, however, was soon after repealed, or suffered to lapse, for we hear of Aquila and Priscilla returning, after a comparatively short absence, to Rome again.

It has been ingeniously suggested that some of the oldest memories connected with Christianity at Rome, belong to a humble tavern on the Tiber quay of that poor rough ‘Trastevere' quarter, known as the Taberna Meritoria. This inn, frequented by the poor struggling Jews of the neighbourhood, boasted, as its chief attraction, a little oil spring flowing out of the rock. From a very early date, the Roman Christians related that this strange spring gushed forth at the same time that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. Later, the tavern became a church; and tradition claims that Santa Maria of the Trastevere occupies the site of this ancient inn, in an upper room of which perhaps the earliest meetings of the Roman believers in Jesus were held (comp. Renan, St. Paul, chap. 4).

Excursus C.

The Last Years of St. Paul.

The story of the ‘Acts' comes to an end with the close of the two years' imprisonment at Rome, A.D. 63. The unanimous testimony of the primitive Church tells us that the appeal of St. Paul to Cæsar (Acts 25:11), after a long delay, terminated successfully for the prisoner. The delay was quite in accordance with the ordinary course of Roman law, which allowed ample time for the bringing together of witnesses and evidence from a distance. In the case of St. Paul these witnesses had to be summoned and evidence got together from very distant provinces of the Empire. The apostre appears to have been liberated A.D. 63, and for some years more laboured earnestly in his Master's cause in various lands. In the year 66 he was again arrested by the Roman government, conveyed to Rome, and there condemned and executed A.D. 67-68.

The principal evidences for this are found in the Epistle of Clement, Bishop of Rome, the disciple of St. Paul (Philippians 4:3), to the Romans, written in the last year of the first century. ‘He, Paul, had gone to the extremity of the West before his martyrdom.' In a Roman writer the ‘extremity of the West' could only signify ‘Spain,' and we know in that portion of his life related in the Acts he had never journeyed farther west than Italy. In the fragments of the Canon called Muratori's, written about A.D. 170, we read in the account of the Acts of the Apostles: ‘Luke relates to Theophilus events of which he was an eye-witness; as also in a separate place (Luke 22:31-33 [1]), he evidently declares the martyrdom” of Peter, but (omits) the journey of St. Paul to Spain.' Eusebius (H. E. ii. 22, A.D. 320) writes: ‘After defending himself successfully, it is currently reported that the apostle again went forth to proclaim the gospel, and afterwards came to Rome a second time, and was martyred under Nero.'

[1] Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, vol. i. p. 395, suggests here that the reference is to St. John 21:18-19, and reads, for ‘he evidently declares,' ‘ they evidently declare.' The text of the Muratorian Fragment on the Canon is confused, and is full of barbarisms and gross inaccuracies. See Westcott on the Canon, chap. xi.. The Age of the Greek Apologists.'

St. Chrysostom (A.D. 398) mentions as an undoubted historical fact, ‘that St. Paul, after his residence in Rome, departed to Spain.' St. Jerome (A.D. 390) also relates, ‘that St. Paul was dismissed by Nero, that he might preach Christ's gospel in the West.' Thus in the Catholic Church in the East and West, during' the three hundred years which succeeded the death of St. Paul, a unanimous tradition was current that the great apostle's labours were continued for a period extending over three years after his liberation from that Roman imprisonment related in Acts 28.

In addition to the above quoted most weighty testimony to a period of activity in St. Paul's life subsequent to the captivity at Rome related in the last chapter of the Acts, we possess three epistles bearing the name of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Of these three epistles, two were addressed to Timothy and one to Titus. The early Church, without question, from the first century downwards, included these writings among the undoubted works of St. Paul.

Now it is impossible to assign any period in the lifetime of St. Paul, as related in the ‘Acts, which would suit the peculiar circumstances under which it is evident these writings were composed. The historical references to persons, and the traces they present of development both of truth and error in the churches referred to, point to a somewhat later period. All the necessary conditions are, however, fulfilled if we accept the universally current tradition of the three years of work succeeding the captivity related in the Acts.

Following then the accounts of Clement, of the unknown writer of the Muratorian Fragment on the Canon, of Eusebius, Chrysostom, and Jerome, we conclude that Paul was liberated in the year 63, and then, leaving Rome, he went to Spain and the great African province adjacent. We possess no traditions of his work in the far West, only the language used by Tertullian at the close of the second century respecting the amazing success which the gospel preaching had met with in the great and populous province of Proconsular Africa supplies us with a hint for it is no more that here in the flourishing and numerous churches of North Africa (so close to the Spain of the tradition) must be sought the chief results of the closing labours of Paul's great life.

From the far West, somewhere about the years 65-67, he returned and visited once more the Greek and Asiatic churches founded by him and his disciples in earlier days. Towards the close of these last visits, possibly from Macedonia, Paul wrote the First Epistle to Timothy, then in charge of the Church of Ephesus. The Epistle to Titus was indited soon after. It was in Nicopolis, the city of that name in Epirus, that the apostle was again arrested, once more brought to Rome as a state prisoner. While waiting his final trial, he wrote the second letter to his dear disciple Timothy. As we read the well-known concluding words of the sad yet rejoicing farewell, we are sensible that the writer knew that for him the end was very near. The shadow of death rests upon each of the touching, beautiful words; but for the writer the bitterness of death was past; his forebodings were too surely realized, and he entered into his eternal rest that same year, 67.