Atos 20:4
Comentário de Ellicott sobre toda a Bíblia
And there accompanied him into Asia... — The occurrence of the two names, Timotheus and Sosipater (another form of Sopater) in Romanos 16:21 makes it probable that all of those here named were with St. Paul at Corinth. As they were to go with him to Jerusalem, it was indeed natural they should have gone to the city from which he intended to embark. It is not difficult to discover the reason of their accompanying him. He was carrying up a large sum in trust for the churches of Judæa, and he sought to avoid even the suspicion of the malversations which the tongue of slanderers was so ready to impute to him (2 Coríntios 8:20). Representatives were accordingly chosen from the leading churches, who acting, as it were, as auditors of his accounts, would be witnesses that all was right. As regards the individual names, we note as follows: (1) The name of Sopater, or Sosipater, occurs in the inscription on the arch named in the Note on Atos 17:8 as belonging to one of the politarchs of Thessalonica. (2) Aristarchus had been a fellow-worker with St. Paul at Ephesus, and had been a sufferer in the tumult raised by Demetrius (Atos 19:29). (3) Of Secundus nothing is known, but the name may be compared with Tertius in Romanos 16:22, and Quartus in Romanos 16:23, as suggesting the probability that all three were sons of a disciple who had adopted this plan of naming his children. The corresponding name of Primus occurs in an inscription from the Catacombs now in the Lateran Museum, as belonging to an exorcist, and might seem, at first, to supply the missing link; but the inscription is probably of later date. In any case, it is a probable inference that the three belonged to the freed-man or slave class, who had no family names; and the Latin form of their names suggests that they had been originally Roman Jews, an inference confirmed by the fact that both Tertius and Quartus send salutations to their brethren in the imperial city (Romanos 16:22). The names Primitivus and Primitiva, which occur both in Christian and Jewish inscriptions in the same Museum, are more or less analogous. (4) Gains of Derbe. The Greek sentence admits of the description being attached to the name of Timotheus which follows; and the fact that a Caius has already appeared in close connection with Aristarchus makes this construction preferable. On this assumption he, too, came from Thessalonica. (See Note on Atos 19:29.) (5) Timotheus. (See Note on Atos 16:1.) (6) Tychicus. The name, which means “fortunate,” the Greek equivalent for Felix, was very common among slaves and freed-men. It is found in an inscription in the Lateran Museum from the Cemetery of Priscilla; and in a non-Christian inscription, giving the names of the household of the Emperor Claudius, in the Vatican Museum, as belonging to an architect. The Tychicus of the Acts would seem to have been a disciple from Ephesus, where men of that calling would naturally find an opening. Such vocations tended naturally, as has been said in the Note on Atos 19:9, to become hereditary. (7) Trophimus (= “nursling,” or “foster-child” was, again, a name of the same class, almost as common as Onesimus (= “profitable”). In a very cursory survey of inscriptions from the Columbaria and Catacombs of Rome, I have noted the recurrence of the former four, and of the latter five times Trophimus appears again in Atos 21:29, and is described more definitely as an Ephesian. We find him again in contact with St. Paul towards the close of the Apostle’s life, in 2 Timóteo 4:20. That they were seven in number suggests the idea of a reproduction either of the idea of the Seven, who are commonly called Deacons in Atos 6, or of the Roman institution upon which that was probably based. It may be noted here, in addition to what has there been said on the subject, that the well-known pyramidal monument of Caius Cestius, of the time of Augustus, near the Porta Latina at Rome, records that he was one of the Septemviri Epulonum there referred to.
We must not forget what the sudden change to the first person plural in the next verse reminds us of, that the name of Luke has to be added to the list of St. Paul’s companions. We may, perhaps, assume that he went less as an official delegate from the Church of Philippi than as a friend, and probably, St. Paul’s health needing his services, as physician.