Acts 16:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What, then, had they done? Why did you not seize them before? “Being Jews,” they say. So shameful was this name! Thus the accusers shouted furiously, and, thinking to influence the matter by shouting, said: “These men are troubling our city.” What are you saying? You believe the demon. Why do you not believe him now? He says that they are “servants of the Most High God,” but you say, “They are troubling our city.” He says, “They proclaim to us the way of salvation,” but you say, “They preach customs which it is not lawful for us to receive.” See, they do not heed even the demon, but have only greed in view.

The demon said, “These men are servants of the Most High God,” but they say, “These men are troubling our city.”

Here are their words: “These men, being Jews, trouble,” not their own welfare, but the whole city, “and they preach customs which we, honorable Romans, ought neither to receive nor observe.” The accusation that was brought concerned the precious honor of a Roman.

Why did the inhabitants of the city of Philippi call themselves Romans? This city was built by Philip of Macedon, after whom it was named Philippi. But when the Romans became masters of Greece, they sent a colony there from Rome. Among the Romans there were two kinds of colonies. To the first kind belong those they settled in places that from ancient times had been uninhabited, or had once become deserted. To the second belong those they sent into cities, settling them with soldiers and partly with their subjects. The city of Philippi was a Roman colony of the latter kind. Julius Caesar first enlarged it, and then Augustus. For this reason the coins of this city, used under Claudius Caesar, bore the inscription: of the Julian Augustan Philippian colony.

A certain maidservant had within herself a spirit of darkness, through which she foretold the future and revealed hidden things. Following the apostles, she said in the hearing of the people: behold, servants of God; they preach to you the way of salvation. It is not known what moved her to do this, or rather, the spirit that dwelt in her. Was he afraid of being cast out of the soothsayer, and therefore wished beforehand to dispose Paul favorably toward her? Or did he think it improper to be silent about such men, as a spirit to whom they had to be known? In any case, he repeated such statements many times, although by this he seemed to harm himself. But the apostles were as far from accepting such testimony in their favor as the Savior was.

The work of Gospel preaching began successfully here. A wealthy woman named Lydia soon turned to faith in Christ and offered the preachers her house as a place to stay. But the expulsion of a divining spirit from a servant girl brought upon Paul and Silas the hatred of her masters, who profited from her divinations. They seized the preacher-wonderworkers and dragged them to the marketplace before the authorities. The authorities gave them many blows and, without trial, threw them into prison (verses 13-23).

Having brought them to the magistrates: the private persons here indicate the city authorities. The magistrates were the highest Roman dignitaries of municipal administration in Roman colonies. They were officially called duumvirs, while they called themselves, and were honored by the people with, the honorary name praetors. They said, and so forth: the apostles are accused of disturbing the public peace of the city. This disturbance is supposedly caused by their preaching customs contrary to the Romans. “They turned the matter into a state crime” (Chrysostom). Being Jews: this is not merely a designation of the nationality of the new preachers. It is a contemptuous name, opposed to the proud expression, “we are Romans.” Beyond this, the expression seems to indicate that the accusers confused Christianity with Judaism and did not distinguish it as a separate confession of faith.

The accusation made against the apostles by the masters of the soothsayer is reduced to the politics of life and to national antipathies. The factual side of the matter is completely left aside and passed over in silence. Popular disturbance because of preaching and other customs: this is the essence of the accusation. Since the preachers are despised Jews and the hearers are proud Romans, this becomes the motive for condemnation. It seems that no true Roman could have had a ventriloquist as a source of income. Therefore one may think that the masters who kept the young soothsayer were not true Romans. They used this title as one common to those from the central regions of the empire, who enjoyed the Roman court granted to Philippi as a Roman colony of that time.