From: Acts 18:1-8
Paul in Corinth, with Aquila and Priscilla
[1] After this he left Athens and went to Corinth. [2] And he found a
Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, lately come from Italy with his
wife Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave
Rome. And he went to see them; [3] and because he was of the same
trade he stayed with them, and they worked, for by trade they were
tentmakers. [4] And he argued in the synagogue every sabbath, and
persuaded Jews and Greeks.
Preaching to Jews and Gentiles
[5] When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied
with preaching, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus.
[6] And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments
and said to them, "Your blood be upon your heads! I am innocent.
From now on I will go to the Gentiles." [7] And he left there and went to
the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God; his house
was next door to the synagogue. [8] Crispus, the ruler of the
synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with all his household; and
many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.
Commentary:
1-11. St Paul must have arrived in Corinth very discouraged by what
happened in Athens, and very short of money. Some time later he wrote:
"And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my
speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest
in the wisdom of men but in the power of God..." (1 Cor 2:3-4). He
would never forget his experience in the Areopagus before the
Athenians, who "were friends of new speeches yet who paid no heed to
them or what they said; all they wanted was to have something new to
talk about" (Chrysostom, "Hom. on Acts", 39).
Corinth was a very commercial, cosmopolitan city located on an isthmus
between two gulfs (which are now joined). Ships came to Corinth from
all over the world. Low moral standards, concentration on money-making
and voluptuous worship of Aphrodite meant that Corinth did not seem
the best ground for sowing the word of God; but the Lord can change
people's hearts, especially if he has people as obedient and zealous
as Paul, Silvanus, Timothy and the early Christians in general. The
Athenians' intellectual pride proved to be a more formidable obstacle
than the Corinthians' libertarian lifestyle.
Christians should not soft-pedal if they find themselves in situations
where paganism and loose living seem to be the order of the day:
indeed this should only spur them on. When addressing his Father at
the Last Supper Jesus prayed: "I do not pray that thou shouldst
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil
one" (Jn 17:15).
2. This married couple were probably already Christians when they
arrived in Corinth. Since they came from Rome, the indications are
that there was a community of Christians in the capital from very
early on. Aquila and Priscilla (the diminutive of Prisca) proved to
be of great help to Paul from the very beginning of his work in
Corinth.
Later on they both must have returned to Rome (cf. Rom 16:3); and it
may well be that apostolic considerations dictated their movements, as
would be the case with countless Christians after them. "The Christian
family's faith and evangelizing mission also possesses this Catholic
missionary inspiration. The sacrament of marriage takes up and
reproposes the task of defending and spreading the faith, a task which
has its roots in Baptism and Confirmation and makes Christian married
couples and parents witnesses of Christ 'to the ends of the earth'
(Acts 1:8) [...].
"Just as at the dawn of Christianity Aquila and Priscilla were
presented as a missionary couple (cf. Acts 18; Rom 16:3f), so today
the Church shows forth her perennial newness and fruitfulness by the
presence of Christian couples who [...] work in missionary
territories, proclaiming the Gospel and doing service to their
fellowman for the love of Jesus Christ" (John Paul II, "Familiaris
Consortio", 54).
The edict of Claudius (41-54 A.D.) expelling the Jews from Rome was
issued before the year 50. It is referred to by Suetonius, the Roman
historian, but the details of the decree are not known. We do know
that Claudius had protected the Jews on a number of occasions. He gave
them the right to appoint the high priest and to have charge of the
temple. Apparently, conflict between Jews and Christians in Rome led
him to expel some Jews from the city, on a temporary basis, or at
least to advise them to leave.
3. St Paul earns his living and manages to combine this with all his
preaching of the Gospel. "This teaching of Christ on work," John Paul
II writes, "based on the example of his life during his years in
Nazareth, finds a particularly lively echo in the teaching of the
Apostle Paul. Paul boasts of working at his trade (he was probably a
tent-maker: cf. Acts 18:3), and thanks to that work he was able even
as an Apostle to earn his own bread" ("Laborem Exercens", 26).
During this stay of a year and a half in Corinth St Paul wrote some
rather severe letters to the Thessalonians, pointing out to them the
need to work: "If any one will not work, let him not eat. [...] we
command and exhort [idlers] in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work
in quietness and to earn their own living" (2 Thess 3:10, 12). St John
Chrysostom, commenting on this passage of Acts, says that "Work is
man's natural state. Idleness is against his nature. God has placed
man in this world to work, and the natural thing for the soul is to be
active and not passive" ("Hom. on Acts", 35).
Taking Christ's own example, Monsignor Escriva points out that "Work
is one of the highest human values and a way in which men contribute
to the progress of society. But even more, it is a way to holiness"
("Conversations", 24). In Jesus' hands, "a professional occupation,
similar to that carried out by millions of people in the world, was
turned into a divine task. It became a part of our redemption, a way
to salvation" ("ibid"., 55).
In fact, it is in work, in the middle of ordinary activity, that most
people can and should find Christ. God "is calling you to serve him in
and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life.
He waits for us everyday [...] in all the immense panorama of work"
("ibid"., 114). Man thereby finds God in the most visible, material
things, and Christians can avoid the danger of what might be called "a
double life: on one side, an interior life, a life of relation with
God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social
and family life, full of small earthly realities" ("ibid".).
Like most people Paul spent part of his day working to earn his
living. When engaged in work he was still the Apostle of the Gentiles
chosen by God, and his very work spoke to his companions and friends.
We should not think that there was any split between his on-going
personal relationship with God, and his apostolic activity or his
work--or that he did not work in a concentrated or exemplary manner.
4. It is easy to imagine the hope and eagerness Paul felt when
preaching the Gospel to his fellow Jews. He knew from experience the
difficulties they had about recognizing Jesus as the Messiah and
accepting the Good News. Paul feels both joy and sorrow: he is happy
because the moment has arrived for the sons of Abraham to receive the
Gospel as is their right by inheritance; but he also realizes that
although it brings salvation to some, it spells rejection for those
who refuse to accept it.
Origen spoke in similar terms: "I experience anxiety to speak and
anxiety not to speak. I wish to speak for the benefit of those who are
worthy, so that I may not be taken to task for refusing the word of
truth to those who have the ability to grasp it. But I am afraid to
speak in case I address those who are unworthy, because it means I am
giving holy things to dogs and casting pearls before swine. Only Jesus
was capable of distinguishing, among his listeners, those who were
without from those who were within: he spoke in parables to the
outsiders and explained the parables to those who entered with him
into the house" ("Dialogue with Heraclides", 15).
6. The blindness of the Jews once again causes Paul great sadness;
here is further evidence of the mysterious resistance to faith of so
many of the chosen people. As he did in Pisidian Antioch (cf. 13:51),
the Apostle shakes the dust from his clothes to show his break from
the Jews of Corinth: their apparent fidelity to the religion of their
forefathers disguises their proud rejection of God's promises.
He finds himself confronted by the great enigma of salvation history,
in which God dialogues with human freedom. As St Justin writes, "The
Jews, in truth, who had the prophecies and always looked for the
coming of Christ, not only did not recognize him, but, far beyond
that, even mistreated him. But the Gentiles, who had never even heard
anything of Christ until his Apostles went from Jerusalem and preached
about him and gave them the prophecies, were filled with joy and
faith, and turned away from their idols, and dedicated themselves to
the Unbegotten God through Christ" ("First Apology", 49, 5).
Paul's words on this occasion are addressed to the Jews of Corinth,
not to Jews elsewhere. For a long time past he has directed his
preaching to Gentiles as well as Jews. The phrase "From now on I will
go to the Gentiles" does not mean that he will no longer address Jews,
for in the course of his apostolic work he continues to evangelize
Jews as well as Gentiles (cf. Acts 18:19; 28:17).
7. Titus Justus had a Roman name and was a Gentile, but the fact that
he lived next door to the synagogue and, in particular, the Greek term
used to identify him as a "worshipper" of God, indicates that he was a
convert to Judaism. Cf. note on Acts 2:5-11.
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.
