Bible Commentaries
Acts 27

Verses 1-31

XXXII

FROM CAESAREA TO ROME

Acts 27-28.

In all literature there is not such an accurate description of a voyage as this given by Luke. Indeed, the book of Acts can be tested as to its accuracy on more points than any other book in the whole Bible. If it were not a true narrative, in a thousand places proof would be abundant of its falsehood. But the fact that on every point it is proven to be exactly accurate, is the highest demonstration of its historical value. Virgil, in his Aeneid, in describing the voyage of the Trojan fleet over a great many of the same places of the Mediterranean Sea, is generally exact in his references to the winds and to the navigation of that sea. Homer, in his Odyssey, while giving many important points, is not so accurate as Virgil. In the corresponding chapters of Conybeare and Howson on this voyage of Paul will be found about as good a thing as anybody can say about the journey in these two chapters, though there are some fine things in Farrar’s description of Paul’s voyage.

In the navigation of that day they had no regular passenger ships like we have. We have the great liners that run from New York to Liverpool, and to Hamburg and other points. They had no passenger ships. Even the emperors, when they didn’t go in their war galleys, took a merchant vessel. They had no compass to steer by. The compass has been invented since that time. They had no charts, and hence we can understand a number of things in this chapter that vessels that had no compass and no chart, and indeed no rudder such as we now use – only two paddles that they used – and what conditions these people would be in if they couldn’t see the sun or moon or stars for many days.

While these ships were inferior in build to the ships of modern times, their merchant vessels were large vessels, and for a part of this voyage Paul was on one of those big merchant vessels. He was not on the same ship all the voyage. He was on three different vessels in making this voyage, and the second one was a big merchant vessel – an Alexandrian ship carrying wheat. The Romans themselves were no sailors, and when they fought on sea, they fought as land troops. The sailing of the sea was mainly in the hands of the Greeks. Alexandria, the coast of Asia Minor, the Peloponnesus, and the Aegean Islands, and some of the ancient Phoenicians were still great in commerce. There was a steady line of trade from Alexandria to Rome, carrying wheat. Rome was dependent upon the bread or wheat that came from the valley of the Nile. There was a steady line of commerce that came over the Isthmus of Suez brought by Arabian ships to that point, and after crossing the isthmus it was brought across the Mediterranean in Greek ships. The Greek ships also brought all of the trade from Middle and Western Asia.

Hence we find that when they start to send these prisoners, there being no regular line of passenger ships, they wait for the merchant ships, and the first available one wasn’t going on straight across to Rome at all. It was going to Adramyttium, on the coast of Asia Minor, and they took that vessel, and when they got nearly to their destination they found an Alexandria ship going to Rome, and they were transferred to that ship, and when that ship was wrecked on the Island of Malta (Melita it is called in our text), a third ship took them to that point where they went by land to the city of Rome.

The salient incidents of this voyage are as follows:

1. The first incident is that in taking a merchant vessel they had to go to the southern coast of Asia Minor in order to fall in with an Alexandria ship.

2. The second is that as soon as they got on this big Alexandrian merchantman, the weather became very bad, and remained so until the ship was wrecked.

3. In the terrible storm, many days and nights no sight of the sun or stars, Paul had a vision. An angel of God came to tell him that the ship would be lost, but that he, all the sailors, the soldiers, and the prisoners would be saved.

4. The next incident is the shipwreck itself. The ship, striking before it got clear to the coast line, 276 people, every one of them without exception got safe to land, a thing that doesn’t occur more than once in ten thousand cases.

5. The inhabitants of that island were very kind to them. Paul is bitten by a viper, and fulfilling the prophecy given in the latter part of Mark’s Gospel that the bite of deadly serpents should not harm them, he escaped, and then came the miracles that he wrought in that island, the great favor that came to those shipwrecked people where they remained for three months till the winter passed. Then there was a ship there, that had wintered there, that took them on to Rome, and when they got to Puteoli, the brethren there met him, and at the Appii and the Three Taverns the brethren out of Rome came and met him, and so they got safely to Rome.

On this voyage Paul came to the front. It doesn’t make any difference how he started out – as a prisoner and little regarded – before he gets there he is going to boss the whole crew. Long before that journey is over, he is the head man. It is Paul that saved them; it is Paul that secured them comfortable quarters in that island, and kept them three months. It was not Jonah that they had along.

The time consumed in this voyage was several months. They were three months wintering on the island of Malta. Many days were consumed in getting there, and more than a week after that; so it was a long time from Caesarea to Rome. They got there about A.D. 62. They passed Scylla and Charybdis, the famous celebrities, proverbial for danger, after leaving Melita, or Malta. Scylla was a dangerous rock just under the edge of the water, and off to the side and somewhat in front of or opposite, was Charybdis, a very dangerous whirlpool in that strait of the Mediterranean between Sicily and Italy, and hence the old Latin proverb, "He who shuns Scylla must beware of Charybdis." We must not go out too far in trying to avoid Scylla or we will come into the dangerous whirlpool, Charybdis, and we must not go too far away from Charybdis lest we strike Scylla. During the earthquake in Sicily in 1909, those two places, both the whirlpool and the rock, disappeared from the strait, and are no longer there.

A part of the journey was by land. The record says that they came to Puteoli and met some brethren there, and then came to the Great Appian Way. This was a way leading to the Imperial City, Rome, and was the most beautiful street that earth ever saw. It was laid off for many miles, running down the Tiber, following the river’s course, like a broadway, and the whole length of that broadway was paved with broad sidewalks so that footmen would never come in contact with teams, or chariots; everywhere there were the most finished works of art all along the side. Sometimes, when Rome decreed a triumph to a consul, the great parade would come up that way. The people in the city would take their evening walks down that way, and in the moonshine would go miles down that beautiful way. Great men, world-illustrious, were buried in imposing sepulchers along that way. An American city would think that it was next to heaven if it had such a street.

The Emperor of Rome at this time was Nero, the infamous, the most bestial man that ever occupied a throne. His persecution had not commenced. It commenced soon after Paul’s imprisonment expired. Indeed, it commenced in A.D. 64, but Paul is loose and gone by that time. There was what is called the Ghetto, that is, a suburb set apart for the Jews on one of the banks of the Tiber, and there were a good many of them there a little before Paul’s time. Ten thousand of them had signed a petition with reference to some affray that occurred over in Judea. I recommend Jews of the Roman Empire, by Brice, which sets forth clearly the conditions of the Jews in that great city.

Two years after Paul got there, Nero burned Rome. He played his harp while it was burning, and then to escape the indignation of the people, he attributed it to the Christians, and then came the bloodiest persecution of all time. This is the way he fixed it up: He laid off a street about like the Appian Way, and instead of putting statuary all along the way, he put iron pillars, and to each pillar he chained a living Christian, and then had oil and tar poured over him and set him afire, and that constituted the light; then Nero drove up and down in the light of the burning Christians. Paul had just gotten away before that came, however.

There are several proofs of Paul’s mild imprisonment. We can see from the fact that the Christians went down that Appian Way a long ways, two bands of them, to meet him, that they were under no restraint, and when he got there that he was allowed to talk in the synagogue, to have an interview with the Jewish people, and then he lived in his own hired house, and there was chained to him a soldier, and the soldiers, one fast succeeding another, so that Paul was able to preach to nearly all of that famous Praetorian Guard of 10,000. His friends visited him from every part of the world. All that goes to show that the letters of Festus and of Lysias had made their proper impression on the mind of the emperor. Paul’s case might not come up soon, because from every direction of the world prisoners were being sent in whose cases Caesar adjudicated, not that Caesar paid any attention to them, but he appointed some delegate of his to examine all those cases of appeal, and it was two years before they got to Paul.

The centurion that had charge of Paul had charge of the Augustan Cohort, and he was certainly a noble fellow. Whenever we see such expressions as Italian Band or Augustan Cohort, we may know that this detachment is off in some foreign country. It belongs to that famous Praetorian Guard – the emperor’s body-guard. They could not be sent to a foreign field except under peculiar circumstances when the emperor would detach portions of it. Three legions garrisoned Judea like the five legions in Syria, and the many legions on the Danube, all of whom would recruit from the natives, and in a Roman legion might be found men from Britain, men from the forests of Germany, and Gaul and Jews, and people from every nation under heaven, but that Praetorian Guard of 10,000 were all Italians. Now it chanced that a cohort of this Praetorian Guard was over in Judea, and quite naturally a centurion of that Judean garrison would take charge of these prisoners.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the scripture, and the theme of this chapter?

2. What can we say of Luke’s description, of this voyage, and what of navigation at that time?

3. What are the salient incidents of this voyage?

4. How does Paul come to the front?

5. What is the time consumed in this voyage?

6. What famous celebrities, proverbial for danger, did they pass after leaving Melita, or Malta?

7. What part of the journey was by land?

8. Who was Emperor of Rome at this time, what his character, what his history, and what of the Jews in Rome?

9. Had the persecution of Christians commenced at this time?

10. What are the proofs of Paul’s mild imprisonment?

11. What is meant by the "Augustan Band"?