Greek: καὶ εὑρών τινα Ἰουδαῖον ὀνόματι Ἀκύλαν, Ποντικὸν τῷ
γένει, προσφάτως ἐληλυθότα ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰταλίας καὶ Πρίσκιλλαν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ
διὰ τὸ διατεταχέναι Κλαύδιον χωρίζεσθαι πάντας τοὺς Ἰουδαίους ἀπὸ τῆς
Ῥώμης, προσῆλθεν αὐτοῖς
Translation (ESV): "And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them"
Questions: This verse is referring to Paul's arrival: he came to Corinth and encountered "a Jew" (εὑρών τινα Ἰουδαῖον) named Aquila along with his wife Priscilla. Other passages use Prisca which is the formal version of her name (Romans 16:3-4; 2 Timothy 4:19). Commentators raise questions about the religious standing of this couple. Had they become Christians yet? Another question is what Luke means when he reports that emperor Claudius expelled all the Jews from Rome.
When did this expulsion happen? The account depicts it as a recent event. Who were the Jews, whom Claudius drove out of Rome? To which tribes did they belong? How would we know? Claudius reigned as emperor from 41-54 CE, so that gives us an approximate idea about when Aquila and Priscilla might have been expelled. The Roman historian Suetonius seems to provide a narrative of the expulsion; he lived from approximately 69-140 CE.
Monday, August 09, 2021
Acts 18:2 (Text and Questions)
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19 comments:
"Traders and tent makers. Tent making was a very lucrative trade.
One thing that is becoming evident in the archelogy is that what were thought to be barriers from barbarians, such as Hadrian's wall are being redefined.
It is now thought that this was a customs wall where traders moving from Scotland to England were taxed by the empire on goods and particularly cattle.
I think that there is a good chance that the expulsion from Rome was in regard to traders from Jerusalem.
Its usually ends up being about money.
“because the Jews of Rome were indulging in constant riots at the instigation of Chrestus (impulsore Chresto) he expelled them from the city”. Suet. Claud. 25.4.
This is the game of - blame the minority foreigner.
Like Nero with the fire that he probably instigated to make space for his new place.
"At any rate, our inference from Suetonius that the riots were due to the recent introduction of Christianity into the Jewish colony at Rome agrees well enough with our independent inference from the New Testament [p.317] that Aquila and Priscilla were Christians before they came to Corinth."
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bjrl/claudius_bruce.pdf
" To the contrary, R. Graves and J. Podro, Jesus in Rome (1957), pp. 38 ff. H. W. Montefiore (“Josephus and the New Testament”, Nov. Test. iv [19601, p. 139 n. 2) says “Suetonius is here referring to the influence of the risen Christ; but that is the Christian reader’s interpretation, not the pagan writer’s Intention. "
These points are helpful. I would say that none of the histories (Thucydides, Suetonius, Tacitus, Herodotus, etc) can be read at face value: not even Eusebius of Caesarea. We have to account for rhetoric and political agendas, but maybe we can trust what Suetonius writes about the expulsion, even if we cannot trust what he states concerning its cause.
Most Bible students have read about ancient tent-making: it was lucrative as you mention above, but I've read that it was hard work and they used goat hair. The hours could also be long. It seems that Paul worked with Aquila and Priscilla long enough to "catch up" on his financial affairs: maybe Philippians 4:12-13 comes into play here.
The emperors did like playing the blame game. I agree 100%.
"The careful description of Aquila as ‘a Jew, a man of Pontus by race’ (Acts 18:2), rather implies that Priscilla his wife was not a Jewess; because her name is usually put first, it is thought that she was of higher social standing than her husband. Evidence has been offered by de Rossi that Priscilla was a well-connected Roman lady. Discussing this evidence, Sanday and Headlam suggest that both Aquila and Priscilla ‘were freedmen of a member of the Acilian gens’ (Romans5, 420). But they admit the possibility of Priscilla being ‘a member of some distinguished Roman family.’ Ramsay strongly urges this theory, and it explains much in the story-their social position, their command of money, their influence in Rome, their freedom from Jewish prejudices, etc. Another explanation of why Priscilla’s name comes first may be that she was the more vigorous and intelligent Christian worker. Thus Harnack describes them as ‘Prisca the missionary, with her husband Aquila’ (Expansion of Christianity2, i. 79)"
Thanks. I've read that explanation but don't buy it. :-)
Some of those comments are rooted in old and archaic views of Judaism and Jews: it's commonly found throughout older lit. However, Keener notes that evidence is available for Jewish women, who were merchants, traders and artisans. It's possible she was not a Jewess since the account does not explicitly say. But see https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/priscilla-in-the-new-testament/
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/entrepreneurs
"Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (Trans. Marshall D. Johnson. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 11. For problems with this expulsion theory, see Mark D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 372-87"
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1821&context=etd
See page 121ff about the Edict of Claudius: the writer is critical of the raditional scholarly reconstruction of Acts 18 and how the guild handles Suetonius.
Compare https://www.westmont.edu/~fisk/paulandscripture/FiskSynagogueInfluenceonPaulsRomanReaders.pdf
See R. Riesner, D. Stott (trans.): Paul’s Early Period. Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology. Pp. xvi + 535. Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.
Especially page 200ff.
Staples thesis footnote:-
1499 Even attempting to compare the number of Jews versus gentiles by the names of those Paul greets in the letters is problematic, as Jews did not necessarily go by Semitic or traditionally Jewish names. Παῦλος, for example, is a Roman surname (Latin Paulus) and would not in itself suggest a Jew; similarly, Paul’s συγγενεῖς Andronica and Junia have names that would not otherwise indicate Jews. Moreover, even if Paul’s churches were primarily gentile, the very fact of the circumcision debate suggests that the larger Jesus-movement was still chiefly Jewish, although it would not remain so for long.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15699/jbl.1391.2020.9
Aquila and Priscilla (Prisca) are two other examples of Jews with Roman names: I think Aquila means "eagle" and Prisca can mean "old woman" whereas Priscilla (the diminutive form) means "little old woman." The comment above is one of the few areas where I possibly assent to Staples' assertions.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30222687
Witherington (The Acts of the Apostles) has a long note about the Edict of Claudius/Expulsion, but here's part of what he relates:
In order to understand Claudius’s dealings with Jews and Jewish Christians it is necessary first to say something about the history of the relationship between Roman rulers and their Jewish subjects. In the first place there was a long history of expelling adherents of “foreign” religions, including Jews, from Rome. In 139 B.C. city authorities expelled Jews for “attempting to corrupt Roman morals” (Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia 1.3.3). Again during the Empire under the reign of Tiberius they were expelled in A.D. 19 because they “had flocked to Rome in great numbers and were converting many of the natives to their ways” (Dio Cassius 57.18.5). Tiberius in fact had sent several thousand to Sardinia and executed few of the leaders. Thus when we come to the statement in Acts 18:2, there is nothing very surprising about an edict of expulsion of Jews by a Roman ruler. There was more than sufficient precedent for such an action.
Dio tells us that Claudius in A.D. 41 took action against the Jews in the following fashion: “As for the Jews, who had again increased so greatly that by reason of their multitude it would have been hard
without raising a tumult to bar them from the city, he did not drive them out, but ordered them, while continuing their traditional mode of life, not to hold [open?] meetings” (60.6.6).
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1486795?read-now=1&seq=26#page_scan_tab_contents
One of the most helpful works I've read on Roman & Jewish relations in antiquity is Albert Bell, Exploring the New Testament World, page 20ff:
"Paul may have believed that in Christ there was no distinction
between Jew and Greek (Gal. 3:28), but few Jews or Greeks (or
Romans) of his day would have agreed. The Jews were accused by the
Greeks and Romans of being aloof, separatist, priding themselves on
maintaining their identity (cf. chapter 3). At a time when ethnic distinctions were being blurred under the pax Romana, Tacitus (Hist.
5.5) considered Jewish customs 'perverse and disgusting' and
claimed that the Jews 'hate all others as though they were enemies'
(cf. 2.2; 2.11)."
For a more updated account, see Jewish World Around the New Testament (Richard Bauckham).
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