Acts 18:2. Ἀκύλαν, cf. Acts 18:18, Romans 16:3, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:19 : the Latin Aquila in its Greek form; the name may have been assumed, as often the case, in place of the Jewish name. It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that Luke made a mistake and that this Aquila’s name was Pontius Aquila, which he bore as a freedman of the Gens Pontia, a distinguished member of which was called by the same two names, Pontius Aquila, Cic., Ad Fam., x., 33; Suet., Jul. Cæs., 78. The fact that another Aquila, who is famous as giving us the earliest version A.D. of the O.T. in Greek, is also described as from Pontus goes far to show that there is nothing improbable in St. Luke’s statement (Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 226, E.T.). The name, moreover, was also a slave name (Ramsay, p. 269), as a freedman of Mæcenas was called (C. Cilnius) Aquila. But it is probable that as the greater part of the Jews in Rome were freedmen, Aquila may also have belonged to this class, see Schürer, u. s., p. 234, and also further, Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. xxvii., 418; Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 173.—τῷ γένει: “by race,” R.V., cf. Acts 4:36, of Barnabas, and Acts 18:24, of Apollos; the word need not mean more than this.—Ἰουδαῖον: The word has been pressed sometimes to indicate that Aquila was still unconverted to Christianity. But the fact that he is called a Jew may simply refer to the notice which follows “that all Jews,” etc. Whether Aquila was a Christian before he met St. Paul is very difficult to determine. He is not spoken of as a disciple, and similarity of employment rather than of Christian belief may account for the Apostle’s intercourse with him and Priscilla, Zahn, Einleitung, i., 189. But the suspicion with which most of his countrymen regarded St. Paul rather indicates that Aquila and Priscilla must at least have had some leanings towards the new faith, or they would scarcely have received him into their lodgings. It is quite possible that, as at the great Pentecost Jews from Rome had been present, cf. Acts 2:10, Christianity may have been carried by this means to the imperial city, and that such tidings may have predisposed Aquila and Priscilla to listen to St. Paul’s teaching, even if they were not Christians when they first met him. If they were converted, as has been supposed, by St. Paul at Corinth, it is strange that no mention is made of their conversion. That they were Christians when St. Paul left them at Ephesus seems to be beyond a doubt. Renan describes them as already Christians when they met the Apostle, so too Hilgenfeld, on the ground that their conversion by St. Paul could scarcely have been passed over, see further “Aquila,” B.D.2, and Hastings’ B.D.; Wendt, in loco; Lightfoot, Phil., pp. 16 and 17, Hort, Rom. and Ephes., p. 9.—προσφάτως: here only, lit[317], lately slaughtered or killed; hence recent, fresh; Latin, recens (Grimm). In LXX, Deuteronomy 24:5, Ezekiel 11:3, Jdg 4:3; Jdg 4:5, 2Ma 14:36, so too in Polybius, Westcott on Hebrews 10:20 πρόσφατος regards all derivations from σφάω (σφάζω) φάω (φένω) φάω (φημί) as unsatisfactory.—Πρίσκιλλαν: in Epistles, Romans 16:3, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:9, Prisca, R.V., W.H[318], Priscilla, perhaps the diminutive, cf. Lucilla, Domitilla. Probably St. Luke used the language of conversation, in which the diminutive forms were usually employed, St. Paul, p. 268. On Bezan text see critical note, Ramsay, u. s., and Church in the Roman Empire, p. 158. In Acts 18:18; Acts 18:26 we have Priscilla mentioned before her husband, and so by St. Paul, except in 1 Corinthians 16:19. The reason may be that she was of higher social status, and indeed not a Jewess at all, as this seems the best way of accounting for the curious arrangement of the sentence here, the point being to emphasise the fact that Aquila was a Jew. Her name may indicate some connection with the Priscan Gens; whilst Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 420, in an interesting discussion find reasons to connect both her (and possibly her husband) with the Acilian Gens. That she was a woman of education is evident from Acts 18:26, and it is possible that her marriage with Aquila may afford us another proof amongst many of the influence of the Jewish religion over educated women in Rome, Jos., Ant., xviii., 3, 5. But many commentators from St. Chrysostom have referred the precedence of Priscilla not to social rank, but to her greater fervency of spirit or ability of character; or it may be simply due to the fact that she was converted first.—διὰ τὸ διατεταχέναι: St. Luke’s statement is fully corroborated by Suet., Claudius, 25: “Judæos impulsore Christo assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit”. But Dio Cassius, lx. 6, in referring to what is most probably the same edict, states that the Jews were not expelled, because of the difficulty in carrying such an order into effect on account of their great numbers. Another passage in Suet., Tiberius, 36, gives us the probable explanation: “expulit et mathematicos sed deprecantibus veniam dedit”: an instance of a contemplated expulsion, afterwards abandoned. If we thus interpret the meaning of Suetonius with reference to the edict of Claudius by giving the same force to “expulit,” it explains the silence of Tacitus and Josephus, who do not mention the edict, while the words of Dio Cassius emphasise the fact that although no expulsion took place the assemblies of the Jews were prohibited, and on that account, we may fairly suppose, that many Jews would leave the city, Schürer, u. s., p. 237. On any view the edict could not have remained in force very long, cf. Acts 28:15, and also the return of Aquila and Priscilla to Rome, Romans 16:3. Ramsay dates the edict at the end of 50 A.D. on the ground that although Orosius, Hist., vii., 6, 15, states that it occurred in the ninth year of Claudius, 49 A.D., the historian here, as elsewhere (e.g., cf. the famine) in connection with the events of this reign, is a year too early. Wendt (1899), p. 59, gives 49–50 as the year of the edict. But it must be remembered that the authority of Orosius is not altogether reliable in this case, as there is no proof that he had any direct reference to Josephus, to whom he appeals for his date; see O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 129; Blass, Proleg., 23, and Turner, “Chronology of the New Testament” Hastings’ B.D. McGiffert, p. 362, maintains that as the date of the edict is thus unknown, we cannot base any chronological conclusions upon it, cf. Zahn, Einleitung, ii., 634. Meyer maintained that by Chrestus Suetonius meant a Jewish agitator so called, but it is more probable that the historian confused Christus with Chrestus—an unfamiliar name with one in use among both Greeks and Romans. This Chrestus Suetonius speaks of as actually living, as the historian might have heard enough to lead him to regard the commotions between Jews and Jewish Christians in Rome as instigated by a leader bearing this name, commotions like those excited in the Pisidian Antioch, in Thessalonica, and elsewhere; or it may be that he thus indicates the feverish hopes of the Messiah amongst the Jews resident in Rome, hopes so often raised by some pretentious deliverer. But Lightfoot makes the important remark that even in this case we may fairly suppose that the true Christ held a prominent place in these reports, for He must have been not less known at this time than any of the false Christs (Philippians, p. 16, note). Such indifference on the part of a Roman of the period is surely not surprising, and the probability is more generally maintained that this Chrestus was really Christ, the leader of the Christians, see Weiss, Didache 1 N. T., p. 227; Wendt (1899), in loco; Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 47, 254; McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 362, note, but, on the other hand, Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 306.

[317] literal, literally.

[318] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

2. a certain Jew named Aquila] The name Aquila is a Latin word, and it is not likely that this was the man’s Jewish name, but as the custom was among the Jews, he had probably assumed a Roman name during his dwelling in Italy and in his intercourse with the Gentiles. See above on Acts 13:9. The name is identified, by the Jews, with that of Onkelos, who wrote a Targum on the Pentateuch, and some make that Onkelos to be the same with Aquila who translated the Old Testament into Greek, of which translation part is preserved to us in Origen’s Hexapla.

born in Pontus] Lit. a man of Pontus by race. The provinces of Asia Minor abounded with Jewish families of the Dispersion, as we may see from the whole history in the Acts. In Acts 2:9-10 many of these districts are mentioned as contributing to the number of worshippers who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. Pontus came under Roman sway when its king Mithridates was conquered by Pompey, and this connexion may have led Aquila to leave his native country for Italy. Aquila and his wife are mentioned Romans 16:3 as though they were again in Rome, so that probably they had formed ties there which were only temporarily severed by the Claudian edict mentioned in this verse. (It is however questioned whether the salutations in Romans 16 form part of the Epistle as it was sent to the Romans.) They were with St Paul when he wrote the first Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 16:19), and were so far settled in Ephesus, where that Epistle was written, as to have a house which they could place at the service of the Christians there, as a place to worship in. And if (as is most probable) Timothy was in Ephesus when the second Epistle (2 Timothy 4:19) was addressed to him, they were in that city again at this later date (for Priscilla is only the diminutive form of Prisca as the name of the wife is there written). More than this is not known of their changes of abode.

Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome] The Jews were often objects of persecution in Rome, but this particular occasion is probably that mentioned by Suetonius, Claud. 25, where we read that by reason of Jewish tumults at the instigation of one Christus (or Chrestus) they were driven out of the city. Whether this was the name of some Jew then resident in Rome, or whether it is a reference to some disturbance that had arisen from the Jewish expectation of “the Christ” or Messiah, and the name Christus is mistakenly used by Suetonius as though it were that of some agitator actually present, we cannot tell. Or it may have been some movement of the Jews against the Christians because they taught that the “Christ” was already come. In that case the name “Christus” would come into great prominence, and might give rise to the statement of Suetonius that a person of that name had been the instigator of the disturbances.

Acts 18:2. Προσφάτως) So the LXX., Deuteronomy 24:5.—ἐληλυθότα, who had come) They afterwards returned to Rome, Romans 16:3, after various travels.—τοὺς Ἰουδαίους, the Jews) The Romans, in their proud contempt of both, did not care to distinguish between Jews and Christians. He expelled all who were Jews by nation.

Verse 2. - He found for found, A.V.; a man of Pontus by race for born in Pontus, A.V.; because for because that, A.V.; the Jews for ,[ewe, A.V.: he came for came, A.V. Aquila. A Roman name, Graecized into Ἀκύλας. Knights and tribunes and others of the name occur in Roman history. Whether the Jewish family residing in Pontus took the name of Aquila from any of these Romans is not known. Aquila, the translator of the Old Testament into Greek about A.D. , was also a Jew of Pontus, the old kingdom of Mithridates. That there was a considerable colony of Jews in Pontus appears also from 1 Peter 1:1 and Acts 2:9. Priscilla. Also called Prison (2 Timothy 4:19). So in classical authors, Livia and Livilla, Drusa and Drusilla, are used of the same persons (Howson, p. 415). Prisca is a not uncommon name for Roman women. The masculine Priscus occurs very frequently. Aquila and Priscilla were among the most active Christians, and the most devoted friends of St. Paul (vers. 18, 26; Romans 16:3, 4, 5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; 2 Timothy 4:19); and were evidently persons of culture as well as piety. Lately; προσφάτως (i.q. πρόσφατον, Pindar, etc.), only found here in the New Testament. But it occurs in the LXX. of Deuteronomy 24:5 and Ezekiel 11:3, and in the apocryphal books repeatedly, and in Polybius. The adjective πρόσφατος, which is also used by the LXX. and the Apocrypha and in classical Greek for "new," is used only once in the New Testament, in Hebrews 10:20. It means properly "newly killed," hence anything "recent," "fresh, or "new." Both the adjective and the adverb are very common in medical writings. Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. Suetonius mentions the fact, but unfortunately does not say in what year of Claudius's reign it took place. His account is that, in consequence of frequent disturbances and riots among the Jews at the instigation of Chrestus, Claudius drove them from Rome. It seems almost certain, as Renan says, especially combining Tacitus's account ('Annal.,' 15:44) of the spread of Christianity in the city of Rome before the time of Nero, that Chrestus (Greek Ξρηστός,) is only a corruption of the name Christ, similar to that found on three or four inscriptions before the time of Constantine, where Christians are called Ξρηστιανοί, and to the formation of the French word Chretien - in old French Chrestien; and that the true account of these riots is that they were attacks of the unbelieving Jews upon Christian Jews, similar to these at Jerusalem (Acts 8.), at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:50), at Iconium and Lystra (Acts 14.), and at Thessalonica and Beraea (Acts 17.). The Romans did not discriminate between Jews and Christian Jews, and thought that those who called Christ their King were fighting under his leadership (comp. Acts 17:7; Luke 23:2; see Renan, 'St. Paul,' p. 101). Tertullian and Lactantius (quoted by Lewin, p. 274) both speak of the vulgar pronunciation, Chres-tianus and Chrestus. Howson also adopts the above explanation. But Meyer thinks that Chrestus was, as Suetonius says, a Jewish leader of insurrection at Rome. The question bears on the passage before us chiefly as the solution does or does not prove the existence of Christians at Rome at this time, and affects the probability of Aquila and Priscilla being already Christians when they came to Corinth, before they made St. Paul's acquaintance. Acts 18:2Lately (προσφάτως)

Only here in New Testament, though the kindred adjective, rendered new, is found in Hebrews 10:20. It is derived from φένω, to slay, and the adjective means, originally, lately slain; thence, fresh, new, recent. It is quite common in medical writings in this sense.

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