Acts 20:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet the Apostle wished to see the Macedonian Christians once more. For this purpose he set out for Syria by land through Macedonia. There, in Philippi, the Apostle spent the Days of Unleavened Bread. Afterward he went by sea to Troas, where he arrived after five days.

Before such grandeur of apostolic labors, the tongue of his fiercest enemies had to fall silent. Peace was established in Corinth, so that when the Apostle arrived there, the community received him with open arms.

In Corinth the Apostle met most of his dearly beloved fellow workers: Timothy, Titus, Aristarchus, Luke, and many others. In their fellowship he spent three months.

He arranged the affairs of the Church and at the same time watched over the condition of the neighboring and Macedonian churches.

Corinth maintained frequent relations with Rome, the capital of the world. The Apostle involuntarily cherished the thought of visiting it, so that there too he might proclaim the Gospel of Christ, in the very center of the pagan world.

But circumstances did not allow him to undertake this great journey at once. Moreover, the Apostle knew that a Christian Church already existed there, and he did not wish to build on another man's foundation.

Therefore, for a time, the Apostle limited himself to relations by correspondence with the Roman Church. He did this through Christian brethren who, for various affairs, had to travel among the three chief centers of world trade: Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome.

It is unknown exactly when Christianity entered the shores of Italy and Rome. But it may probably be thought that the Gospel was first brought there by some of those Jews and proselytes from Rome.

On the day of Pentecost and the descent of the Holy Spirit, they had heard the God-inspired speech of the Apostle Peter in Jerusalem.

There were many Jews in Rome, especially from the time when Pompey, after the conquest of Palestine, resettled a considerable number of them in the capital of the world.

There they soon displayed that astonishing mutual aid and resourcefulness by which they were already distinguished at that time among other peoples.

They were not fit for slavery and were not accepted as slaves. They soon obtained their freedom and began quickly to multiply and grow rich.

The friendly relations between Augustus and Herod the Great further helped improve their position. At the dawn of the Christian era they were already recognized as a constituent part of the Roman population.

They had rights and their own religion. The politically wise emperor assigned them a special quarter beyond the Tiber, which they occupied during the following centuries.

From the dark alleys of this quarter they went out to sell sulfur matches, old clothing, and broken pottery. They also went to the Cestian and Fabrician bridges to beg and tell fortunes.

Soon they multiplied so greatly that they began to alarm the government. More than once the emperors issued decrees expelling them from the capital.

One such decree, namely the decree of Claudius (Acts 18:2), led to the friendship of the Apostle Paul with Aquila and Priscilla.

It may probably be identified with the measure mentioned by Suetonius in the famous passage where he speaks of "Impulsor Chrestus," "the agitator Chrestus," as the Romans incorrectly pronounced the name of Christ.

If so, it is almost beyond doubt that Christians were not separated from the Jews in this common misfortune, caused by their messianic disagreements.

But, as Tacitus admits when speaking of the attempt to expel astrologers from Italy, such measures were generally useless. The Jews, after leaving Rome for a time, soon returned to it again.

Their underground proselytism had already grown so strong under Nero that Seneca, who called the Jews "the worst nation in the world," testified to their extraordinary spread.

Therefore, when the Apostle Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, the Jews already formed a very large community. This was so despite the still unrepealed decree of Claudius, issued only six years earlier.

They were again a matter of concern to the imperial government. On great feasts they traveled in masses to Jerusalem, often combining this with commercial enterprises.

It was precisely there that some of them heard the preaching of the Apostle Peter and became the first heralds of the Gospel in the capital of the world.

By this very fact the belief of the Roman Church is overthrown, namely that the Apostle Peter was the founder of Christianity in Rome.

As is known, this tradition was later expanded even to the point that the Apostle Peter was recognized as the first bishop of Rome, where he was supposedly bishop for twenty-five years.

But such a tradition finds no support in history. On the contrary, history can allow only this: the Apostle Peter suffered a martyr's death in Rome at the same time as the Apostle Paul.

This beginning of Christianity in Rome also makes it possible to understand the original composition of the Roman Church.

At first it consisted of Jews and proselytes. Later many Gentiles also began to enter it, so that the Gentile element soon became predominant.

But this Gentile element consisted not so much of Romans themselves as of Greeks. There were many Greeks in Rome, and they joined the Christian Church more readily than the haughty Romans.

For this reason the concluding chapter of the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Romans contains so many persons with Greek names.

But these names belong mostly to the middle and lower classes of society. Christianity first found adherents not among the rich and noble, but among petty merchants and tradesmen.

It also found them among soldiers, slaves, freedmen of the imperial palace, and those servants crowded into the densely populated "dovecotes," columbaria, as lodging houses and dwellings of poor workers were called in Rome.

Among the Apostle's personal friends in Rome at that time were the well-known Aquila and Priscilla. After a temporary absence they had returned to Rome for work, and their house was a meeting place for believers.

How large the Roman Church generally was in the number of its members may be judged from this: during Nero's persecution, according to Tacitus, "a great multitude" perished there.

This is also indicated by the fact that, in the concluding chapter of Romans, the Apostle sends greetings by name to twenty-six persons.

These were persons whose position in the Church required personal mention. Many of them are greeted by the Apostle as his acquaintances, fellow workers, and kinsmen.

This is explained by the fact that many Christians converted by the Apostle were later found in Rome. They strengthened the Roman Church, which soon acquired such renown among the other churches that the faith of its members "was proclaimed in all the world" (Rom. 1:8).

It was to this Church, in the very capital of the world of that time, that the Apostle Paul addressed an epistle.

By the depth of its theological thought and the height of its God-inspired revelation of the truth of Christianity, it rightly occupies first place among the epistles of the great Apostle to the Gentiles.

He could have had many motives for this. As the Apostle to the Gentiles, he naturally wished personally to proclaim the Gospel in the center of the world.

From that center the rays of the Christian good tidings could best spread throughout the whole world. Preaching there could be the natural completion of preaching to the pagan world as a whole.

Since circumstances did not yet permit him to undertake so distant a journey, he limited himself to a written exposition of his Gospel.

But there may also have been other, more particular reasons. Between the two classes that made up the Roman Church, disputes about precedence had apparently arisen.

This happened almost everywhere that Jews came together with Gentiles. Since Jews had been the founders of the Church, they naturally tried to occupy the leading position in it.

In doing so, they of course relied on their title as the chosen people, to whom the Law and all the promises had been given.

They began to assign such importance to the Law that without it they did not acknowledge the possibility of salvation or justification before God.

On the other hand, the Gentiles protested against this claim. They declared that they had their own moral law, which had been sufficient to prepare them for reception into the Church.

They also claimed that their sages were no less God-inspired than the Old Testament prophets. Both claims were plainly dangerous delusions.

Before matters reached an open rupture, the Apostle hastened to explain to them the great truth of salvation.

First of all, he turned to the Gentiles and proved that their opinion was unfounded. They thought that the natural law of morality was, in a certain sense, sufficient for salvation.

This was refuted by the very circumstance that the pagan world by that time had come to a state of terrifying moral downfall.

It was enough to look at the horrors of moral corruption, which appeared most vividly and shamelessly in Rome itself, to see how unfounded the Gentiles' position was.

The dreadful picture of that abyss of immorality, which the Apostle depicted in the first chapter of Romans (Rom. 1:24-32), was meant to refute their baseless claims.

On the other hand, the claims of the Jews were also unfounded. They had a great advantage in this respect, that "the oracles of God were entrusted" to them.

Yet this alone was insufficient for salvation. It was necessary to justify this trust from God.

Hence, "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly. Circumcision is of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter. His praise is not from men, but from God" (Rom. 2:28-29).

In a word, since Jews and Greeks alike are in bondage to sin, justification becomes possible neither by the Law or circumcision, nor by natural reason.

It becomes possible only by the one saving faith in Christ. This faith, by its living power, can remove every question about the Law and good works.

For the Law and good works themselves appear inevitably, like fruits on a healthy tree filled with vital sap. In precisely this sense, "a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law" (Rom. 3:28).

Then the Apostle develops this fundamental thought in detail, confirming it with examples and quotations from Holy Scripture.

Having set forth a series of edifying truths, he concludes with every kind of good wish and greeting to the Roman Christians. He also expresses his desire to visit the famous capital of the world personally.

The scribe of the epistle was the Apostle's fellow worker Tertius. It was sent with Phoebe, deaconess of the Church in Cenchreae near Corinth.

Presenting her to the Roman Christians, the Apostle asks them to receive her as befits the saints and to help her in whatever she may need.

"For," he adds, "she has been a helper of many, and of myself also" (Rom. 16:1-2).

Again he suffers persecution from the Jews and returns to Macedonia.' There he visited Philippi, Amphipolis, Thessalonica, and other places. The chief place was undoubtedly Thessalonica. Perhaps at this time he went as far as Illyricum (see Rom 15:19). The Macedonian Churches, even amid trials, abounded with joy (see 2 Cor 7:4). This joy also gladdened the Apostle. Their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their generosity. They were willing beyond their means (2 Cor 8:3). This very generosity moved the Apostle to visit Macedonia once more before going to Jerusalem. There is an opinion that the Jewish uprising mentioned here occurred in Corinth, where much in general caused the Apostle great sorrow. He now stayed with Gaius (see 1 Cor 1:14), whose house became the meeting place of the whole Corinthian Church. At that time he wrote his Epistle to the Romans. Before the Apostle's departure, the Corinthian Jews raised an uprising against him. This forced the Apostle to change his intention. He did not go directly to Syria, but through Macedonia.