Acts 11:28Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet if it was meant for them, then for the others it should have ceased after it had begun. What evil had the Greeks done, that they too, who had done no evil to the apostles, should suffer the same calamities?

But if it was not for the Jews, then the Christians themselves were able to show their virtues all the more. For the Jews were doing their work: killing, tearing, tormenting, and persecuting them everywhere.

And see when the famine comes: after the Gentiles had already been received.

But you will say, if the famine was for the Jews' crimes, Christians should have been exempt from it. Tell me, why? Had not Christ said to them beforehand: "In the world you will have tribulation" (Jn 16:33)?

And when you say this, perhaps you will add that they also should not have been scourged. But look: for them even the famine served unto salvation. It gave occasion for almsgiving and became the cause of many blessings.

It would have been the same for you, had you wished it. But you did not wish it.

The famine is foretold so that they might prepare themselves for almsgiving, because those in Jerusalem were suffering severely. Until that time they had not suffered famine.

Barnabas and Paul are sent to minister to them. It is also good that they themselves do not foretell the famine, but the prophets do, lest they should somehow seem burdensome.

Josephus the Jew also testifies to it. He relates that Queen Helena of Adiabene, learning that famine was then raging in Jerusalem, during the reign of Claudius, first sent there a notable quantity of grain and figs. Afterward her son Izates also sent there a large sum of money.

The Roman writer Suetonius Tranquillus also bears witness to this. Writing about Claudius, he says that the people so beset him with insults and pieces of bread that he could scarcely escape to the palace by a back way.

But that this famine was throughout the whole world, we have no testimony for this. Perhaps there were not historians everywhere, or perhaps books that narrated it have been lost.

Or perhaps the prophet Agabus in this case used the rhetorical ornament called "hyperbole," ὑπερβολὴ. By the words "throughout the whole world" he meant the lands then ruled by the Romans.

He foretold this, first, so that unbelievers would not accuse the faithful when the famine occurred. They might have said that such punishment was sent because the faith they had received from their fathers was being changed.

Second, he foretold it so that, foreknowing this, the faithful would take care to provide help for the Christians then living in Judea, where the famine raged more fiercely. The faithful in Antioch did this, as is clear from the following words.

Caesar Claudius occupied the Roman throne from A.D. 41 to 54. During his reign famine occurred more than once in the Roman Empire. In Palestine it occurred around A.D. 44.

Then the disciples resolved, each according to his means, to send aid to the brethren living in Judea. Gathering voluntary offerings, they sent what had been collected to the presbyters, the heads of the Churches in the various cities of Judea, through Barnabas and Saul.

Among the properties of prophetic contemplations, dependent on the manner of revelations given in visions, one observes that something great and extraordinary is presented as universal. For this, intensified expressions are used.

Again, when prophets contemplate future events separated by time on one picture, as though in perspective, they sometimes do not distinguish events separated by certain intervals of time. Instead, they present them as though simultaneous.

Both these properties of prophetic speech appear with special force, for example, in the second part of the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapters 40-66.

Both properties of prophecy were reflected also in Agabus's prophecy about the famine. The fulfillment of that prophecy is reported by the brief remark of the author of Acts.

The fulfillment indicated by the author of Acts fully explains the meaning, or more precisely the mode of expression, of the prophecy itself, in accordance with the manner of revelation.

Agabus prophesies that the famine will be throughout the whole world. This is an intensified expression for a great famine in various countries of the world, though not in all of them.

Nor was it simultaneous in many countries. It occurred first in one, then after some interval in another, then in a third, and so on.

The author of Acts remarks that such a famine occurred under Caesar Claudius. Claudius Caesar, the Roman emperor and successor of Gaius Caligula, occupied the Roman imperial throne from A.D. 41 to 54.

During this period famine raged more than once in various regions of the Roman Empire. Around A.D. 44, there was a great famine throughout Palestine. Around A.D. 50, famine occurred in Italy itself and in other provinces.

All this is presented in prophetic contemplation as a great famine throughout the whole world.

The book of Acts was undoubtedly written after this famine. The writer himself lived through this time. Therefore, as a fully reliable witness, he points to the famine that occurred in the reign of Claudius as the fulfillment of Agabus's prophecy.

The author of Acts says that Agabus uttered the prophecy while standing. This suggests that it took place during common Christian prayer (see Lk 22:46), for which the Antiochian Christians gathered in suitable places (verse 26). The pagan authorities were not yet placing any obstacle before this.

The testimony that this prediction was fulfilled, specifically under Emperor Claudius, leads one to think that the prophets came from Jerusalem following Barnabas.

By the end of that year, the predicted famine had appeared first in Judea, then in other parts of Palestine, in Italy, and in other provinces of the empire.

Emperor Claudius reigned between A.D. 41 and 54. According to the testimony of Josephus, there was famine in Palestine around A.D. 44. Tacitus reports that there was famine in Italy and other provinces around A.D. 60.

Thus the time when the prophets appeared in Antioch, and when Barnabas and Saul preached there, was A.D. 41-43.