(Suggested Reading: Chapter 27; Chapter 28:1-17)
Roman authorities determined that “we” should sail into Italy. This opening of another “we” section tells us that Luke once more has become Paul’s travelling companion. This is the fourth “we” section of Acts and ends at 27:37. But in this instance Luke is not the only one with Paul, for Aristarchus, a Macedonian, also accompanies him. Roman custom does not permit anyone to accompany a prisoner except his slaves. It has been suggested1 that Luke and Aristarchus signed on as Paul’s slaves. Two slaves are the minimum for a Roman citizen. Only when this arrangement is approved are the prisoners delivered to Julius the centurion. The narrative begins with prisoners and ends with prisoners. The sea voyage to Rome is interrupted by disaster. The prisoners are transferred from one ship to a second, which encounters a storm and is wrecked. A third ship takes the prisoners to Rome.
In the voyage of the first ship personalities are named—Julius, Aristarchus, and Paul. In the second ship only Paul is named, Julius is referred to as “the centurion”, Aristarchus is not noticed, and Luke as usual keeps himself out of sight. Luke does this to draw our attention to Paul’s prominence in God’s sight. In man’s eyes he is but Paul the prisoner—the only man called “the prisoner” in Acts. But he is God’s representative on board the troubled second ship and Luke doesn’t want us to forget it. On the third ship which has an uneventful passage, nobody is named.
The First Ship
The first sailing is a routine one. The prisoners, escorted by the centurion, board a ship of Adramyttium. Adramyttium is a seaport of Mysia on the western coast of modern Turkey opposite Lesbos. This ship has discharged her cargo and is going home. Winter is ahead and with it the close of navigation. But Julius expects to find a bigger and more seaworthy ship at this vessel’s destination. There is a stopover at Sidon where Julius grants Paul liberty to visit friends who are not identified. The voyage continues. The island of Cyprus is in their path. They cannot sail past it on the West because the winds are contrary that is, blowing from the West. Instead they sail “under the lee of Cyprus.” This nautical expression means between the island and the point toward which the wind is blowing. This course lets them make headway using the prevailing wind as a side wind. The ship takes an easterly and then northerly direction. They are helped along by the strong Westward current which flows along the coast of Turkey to this day. Even though the winds continue to oppose them from the West the current is so strong that they can still continue on to their destination, via that part of the Mediterranean which Luke calls the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia, because it touches these two Roman provinces. So they come to Myra, where this ship docks, and they must transfer to another one.
From the Inception of the Voyage on the Second
Ship to Paul’s Warning Not to Sail
At Myra the centurion finds a ship of Alexandria about to sail for Italy and puts the prisoners on board. It is a huge ship. The passengers and crew alone number two hundred and seventy-six. But the real measure of its size is that it is a grain boat and the passengers are only secondary. The grain boats were the second largest vessels of the ancient world. The largest were those designed to transport marble blocks and columns which could also carry up to twelve hundred passengers and much cargo besides.
In those days Rome depended on Egypt and Northern Africa for her grain supply. The Roman masses were vegetarians living on grain, vegetables and water largely. So much so was this the case that Caesar favorably comments on his soldiers’ endurance in eating meat when there was no grain.2 The mountainous terrain of Italy was not suitable for grain growing so that it had to be imported. This the State undertook to do. Depending on the politics of the time grain was supplied free or at low cost to the people. Huge grain boats were built to transport the grain. In Cicero’s time Rome consumed a million and a half pounds of grain daily.3 The Alexandrian grain boats carried 20% of Egypt’s grain harvest to Rome annually. This tribute fed the capital for four months of the year.
The owners of the ship hope to sail to Rome and winter there. However, the ship sails slowly for many days. This lack of progress brings them into an unfavorable navigation season. By the time the ship arrives at Crete the only question is, which is the better harbor to winter in in that island. Perhaps the reader wonders why such a large ship must postpone sailing to Rome at this time. There are two answers. First, the Mediterranean is a comparatively shallow sea, and fierce winds can whip its waves into fury. The second is that the ancients do not know about the compass. Their navigation is crude at the best. They hug coast lines and measure their progress by passing prominent features on land such as a mountain. Whatever bearings they get from the heavenly bodies are also based on sight. Let a storm obscure the face of the heavens and the earth and they are lost. These two handicaps to ancient navigation explain the twentieth verse which is otherwise not clear “and when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.”
Today we think of a ship’s captain and officers alone deciding whether to sail or remain in port. Here a meeting of the principal men on board is held to decide whether to winter at Fair Havens or seek another harbor in the same island, for the lives of the passengers are at stake. The voyage is presented as a calculated risk with the odds favoring success. Paul opposes the proposition, but the Centurion overrides his counsel. After some discussion a decision to sail is made. This is a majority decision, and by implication there are some dissenters, who possibly urge caution fearing the treacherous local winds. Paul alone is named as a dissenter. But his counsel is vetoed, although he has traveled greatly by sea and more importantly is close to the Lord. Of this the majority, who make the decision to depart, know nothing.
The Storm
The winds now become favorable. With a soft South wind the ship sets sail, hugging the coast lest it change and blow them out to sea. They pass Cape Matala and begin to sail across the broad opening of the Gulf of Messara, thus losing the protection of being close to the shore. It is an anxious moment of exposure which they hope will soon pass. But these waters are noted for fickle winds. Before they sail halfway across the bay the South wind shifts to a violent wind originating in the mountains of Crete. Winds coming from mountains are high and overpowering. This one towers over the ship from a height of more than seven thousand feet and seizes it like a toy. Unlike the passengers, the sailors now know the worst has happened because they call the wind by a name known to them professionally Euroclydon. They don’t pass it off as a sudden squall. They know what to expect from Euroclydon. Euroclydon is a hurricane. And Euroclydon has struck them. The sudden blast puts such strain on the hull that the ship may be torn to pieces and flounder. It takes time to slacken sail. They cannot face the wind and, helpless, let it take the ship where it may. Control is never regained. In the storm they are not able to bring the ship’s head to the wind, then they are with difficulty able to haul the ship’s boat out of the sea to the deck. In the shipwreck they hope to run the ship aground if they should be able and finally the Centurion commands those who are able to swim ashore when the ship is abandoned.
Clauda, a small island off the coast of Crete, affords temporary shelter. It acts as a buffer from the full force of the gale and helps the crew take emergency measures. First, they haul in the lifeboat the ship is towing. Badly waterlogged, everybody must toil to get it on board. By this time, we might remark, the ship itself is leaking. The cargo of wheat is probably beginning to swell and part the ship’s seams. So they undergird the ship to strengthen its hull. On each side of the ship are stanchions, facing one another. Tying a thick rope to one stanchion the sailors drag it on deck to the stern, and then in a semicircular fashion over to the opposite stanchion, leaving much play in the rope. The looped rope in the stern is then dropped overboard. As the waves sweep it under the hull the sailors pull in the rope in the stanchion until it becomes taut. Then the rope is carried across the ship to the first stanchion. This operation, known as frapping, is usually done to the waist of the ship, immensely strengthening it.
Next, they lower the gear. Authorities differ on what this means. Some think it means the leeboards, projecting below the ship to resist drift, others that it means slackening the sail but leaving some spread for a special purpose. The details are unimportant because either measure will achieve the desired result, avoiding drifting in the direction of the Syrtis, one of two sandy gulfs on the north coast of Africa. By their efforts the sailors postpone running the ship aground. They succeed in altering the direction of drift from the dreaded Syrtis to Malta, where it will be run aground.
The storm increases in violence during the night. The ship must now be taking in too much water, for on the next day the cargo is thrown overboard. Then on the third day “with their own hands” they cast away either the ship’s furniture or its tackling, the exact meaning being disputed. “With their own hands” is a meaningful expression. Throughout the narrative there is a cleavage between Paul’s party “us” “we” and the others, “they”, “the sailors”, “the soldiers”, etc.4 At the beginning “they supposed that they had gained their purpose” in the storm “they” jettison material “with their own hands” exposing their original folly when shipwreck threatens “the sailors” expose their lack of care by trying to abandon all on board ship to fate when the shipwreck actually occurs, the soldiers plan to kill the prisoners. Nobody but Paul has the care of the ship and its passengers on his heart. Those who are running the ship are now abandoned to an uncertain drift with neither sun nor stars to show them what lies ahead. To increase their misery, they cannot eat. On a violent storm at sea desire for food disappears and the stomach generally throws up food anyway. The present writer saw hundreds of men vomiting their food on a troopship during a stormy crossing of the Atlantic in the last World War. And finally, instead of supposing they had gained their purpose “all hope of our being saved was taken away.”
Paul Restores Hope
During the storm Paul has been silent and nothing is told us of his actions. When he last spoke, his counsel was refused. This is the first thing he reminds them of as he speaks to them. All hope of being saved has been taken away, but Paul assures them “there shall be no loss at all of life of any of you, only of the ship.” This is a slightly different message from his original warning and the reason is that an angel told him that God has granted to him Paul must have been praying for them all who sail with him. Here we see Paul a man of like passions with us for the angel tells him not to fear. So strengthened, he encourages those on the ship. Ignoring the ship, he tells them that the passengers will be washed up on a certain island. He closes his short, reassuring speech as he opens it, with an exhortation to be courageous, for he believes God that thus it shall be, as it has been said to him.
Paul is thus an example to us all. The Christian can depend on God to stand by him in the storms of life. As the hymn writer puts it “Jesus Savior pilot me, over life’s tempestuous sea.” The Lord may severely try our faith, but He will not disappoint it. Paul tells us “act like men” —1 Cor. 16:1313Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13). We are to play a man’s part in this world representing God in it, and not crumpling under pressure. “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” —2 Tim. 1:77For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7).
Nearing Land
It is an open question whether the fourteenth night in v. 27 is the same night in which Paul made his speech or sometime after that. Nothing has been said as to the passage of time since the third day—v. 19. Whatever the case the narrative quickly goes from the prediction of landing in Paul’s speech to the first indications that land is approaching.
The ship is still being driven up and down in Adria. “Adria” is a geographical expression of the ancients for the great central basin of what we now call the Mediterranean. The use of this term covering such great distances indicates that they have lost their bearings. Then about midnight the sailors sense land and make two soundings. As the second reading is shallower than the first it is urgent to anchor the boat. Already they are afraid they may hit rocks. So they cast four anchors out of the stern. Their next thought is to escape from the ship and leave the passengers to their fate. The boat which had been hauled aboard with so much effort at Clauda can be rowed away. To conceal their plan, they pretend that they must carry out anchors from the prow. To do this they lower the boat into the sea. But Paul detects their perfidy and notifies the Centurion. Unlike the start of the voyage he listens to Paul. His soldiers cut away the ropes of the boat and it falls into the sea. Here we get a good lesson in practical Christianity. Paul has been assured by God that everybody will be saved. But this does not prevent him from using his head. He sees clearly that experienced sailors will be needed the next day to beach the ship. Nobody else can.
Paul’s Last Speech
Paul’s first speech was at night when all seemed lost; this one as the day is dawning. In the first speech they had not eaten but he encourages them; here they still have not eaten but he tells them to eat. They are starving on a ship full of grain. Eat something, he insists, as a safety precaution. He is warning them that each man must be strengthened for the effort to reach shore. He repeats his earlier assurance that none shall perish. Then he takes a loaf, gives thanks to God for it, breaks it, and begins to eat. His example is soon imitated. Only then do we get the count of those on board—two hundred and seventy-six souls. Thus, personally strengthened, they throw the wheat into the sea. This will decrease the ship’s displacement in the water and make it easier to beach it. The fourth “we” section ends here.
The Shipwreck
As the day dawns the sailors look at the land but cannot recognize it. Next, they examine its physical features. It has an inlet or bay with a beach suitable for landing. They cast off the sea “anchors” —floating devices like rafts which act like brakes to slow down a ship’s speed leaving them in the sea. They free the lashings of the two rudders. In ancient ships the rudders are two large oars on each side of the stern. Now they can steer the ship, they think. But some thrust is needed so they hoist the foresail to the wind. These technical maneuvers confirm Paul’s wisdom in insisting that unless the crew stayed in the ship the passengers could not be saved. So they run the ship aground. The prow is wedged firmly in the ground, but the stern is broken up by fierce waves.
Now the soldiers imitate the selfishness of the sailors. The sailors, thinking only of themselves, had been willing to abandon the passengers to certain death. The soldiers, thinking only of their own lives being lost if the prisoners escape, intend to kill the prisoners. It is the centurion’s desire to spare Paul which saves the other prisoners from this fate. He commands those who can swim to do so. The non-swimmers get to land on readily available pieces of the battered ship. All escape safely as Paul had said. They are on the island of Malta.
Paul at Malta
At Malta it is cold and raining to add to the miseries of the shipwrecked party. Luke calls the natives on the island “barbarians”, a term used of people who do not speak Greek and not of Greek or Roman descent. The “barbarians” show them kindness, lighting a fire to dry them out and warm them. Paul, ever practical, gathers sticks for the fire. A viper, asleep until the fire wakens it, attaches itself to Paul’s hand but he shakes it into the fire without harm. The barbarians judge Paul to be a murderer whom “Justice” would not allow to live even though saved out of the sea. When nothing happens, they change their minds and think that he is a god. It has been noted that in some ways this is the reverse situation to Paul at Lystra. There the crowds say that the gods have come down to them and later join the Jews in stoning Paul. Here Publius, the chief man of the island “gave us hospitality three days in a very friendly way.” This kindness does not go unrewarded, for God is no man’s debtor. The father of Publius lies ill of a fever and dysentery. Paul enters in, prays, lays his hands on him and cures him. Then “the rest also who had sicknesses in the island came and were healed.” When the time comes to depart, the barbarians “honored us with many honors, and—made presents to us of what should minister to our wants.”
The Third Ship Takes the Prisoners to Italy
The winter is spent in Malta. In the Spring another grain boat arrives. Malta and Sicily are regular stopping points for these boats on the way to Puteoli. Luke does not tell us whether all who sailed on the first ship embark on this one, but he makes it clear that the prisoners do. This ship has the sign of the Dioscuri on its prow—the twin youths Castor and Pollux, the mythical sons of Jupiter. It first stops at Syracuse in Sicily for three days. Next, “going in a circuitous course we arrived at Rhegium.” Rhegium is on the toe of Italy. This City worships the gods on this ship—Castor and Pollux. They are considered to be the protectors of navigation and the guardian gods of sailors. Because they are thought to have been taken up into the sky, two stars in the constellation Gemini (twins) are called by their names. Our readers will recognize Gemini as the name given to the American space capsule between the Mercury and Apollo projects. (If they are alert, they will not fail to note the return in spirit of the supposedly Christian West to idolatry, implied by these and other pagan names selected in the space program). The ship finally sails to Puteoli in the northern part of the Bay of Naples. This seaport handles a great deal of the commercial shipping between Rome and the provinces. Puteoli was the oldest Jewish settlement next to that of Rome.
By Land to Rome
At Puteoli the apostolic party find brethren who beg them to stay with them seven days—another indication of the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the Empire. Then the prisoners begin the march to Rome. The first part of the trip is on one of the sideroads which link Puteoli to the Appian Way, the highway to Rome. The Appian Way is the earliest and one of the best of the great military roads which are the arteries of the Roman Empire. These roads were built to last for centuries and did. Eight hundred years after the Censor Appius Claudius constructed the Appian Way Procopius commented with astonishment at its durability. It was built of stones hauled from a quarry, and so closely fitted that they seem to the eye to be unbroken natural stone. After eight hundred years of continuous commercial and military traffic the stones adhered to one another and retained their original smoothness. This highway was broad enough for two carriages to pass one another. It had way stations and a variety of traffic passed over it.
What is built for man’s purposes can sometimes be used for God’s. The brethren from Rome travel out of the City to see the Apostle. They have been awaiting his visit but hardly expect it to be this way. No doubt they are alerted to his coming by the brethren at Puteoli. One party greets him at Appii Forum, another ten miles farther on at a place called “Three Taverns.” We must not forget Paul’s circumstances. Although an important prisoner because a Roman citizen, he is only one of a number of prisoners en-route to Rome for trial. In the course of this long march Paul has to cross the Pomptine marshes with the other prisoners, experience the harshness of his soldier captors and the lewdness for which Appii Forum is noted. It is no wonder, then, that at seeing the brethren he thanks God and takes courage.
As they near Rome they pass the elaborate tombs of the rich, mighty and illustrious men of the City, which are visible everywhere. The approaches to Rome, the so-called eternal City, the seven hilled City, the mistress of the world, are ringed by monuments to the dead. The inscriptions on these tombs sometimes invoke the curses of the gods on those who disturb the bones or write on the sepulcher of the deceased. Eternal night was their only prospect. This can be seen in the inscriptions of their tombs— “an eternal home” “in eternal sleep” and often an inverted torch, the emblem of despair, “farewell, farewell, a long farewell” “farewell forever” and similar expressions of hopelessness. Alas, the Apostle whose gospel of life alone can light men and spare them from following their fathers to eternal darkness, passes by in chains.
When his captivity began at Jerusalem, he was alone, guarded by two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen. Now as he reaches his destination, Rome, his escort is minimal, for the pagans do not seek his life as his own nation did. He is with other prisoners. Luke certainly, and Aristarchus probably, follow him to the end. This is indicated by the fifth “we” section of the Acts which opens at 28:2 and closes at 28:16 with Paul delivered up to his captors at Rome— “and when we came to Rome the centurion delivered up the prisoners to the Praetorian Prefect, but Paul was allowed to remain by himself with the soldier who kept him” —v. 16. The Praetorian Prefect is the Commander-in-Chief of the Praetorian guards. His official duty is to keep in custody all persons who are to be tried by the Emperor. This man’s name is Burrus. Burrus gives Paul preferential treatment, not confining him to the barracks like the other prisoners but allowing him to live in a rented house. This is probably due to Julius’ influence. Julius owes his life to Paul’s intervention in the shipwreck and he must have given a good report of him to Burrus. Still, Paul’s circumstances are depressing, or would be to a lesser man. He is kept chained by the arm to a soldier by day. At night Roman law calls for a guard of two soldiers. The guards change from watch to watch. Paul, familiar with the Latin language, uses the opportunity to evangelize them and others too. Onesimus is begotten in his bonds—Phil 10. Much can be learned of his energy in the gospel from the opening of his Epistle to the Philippians, in whose City he has also been a prisoner— “my bonds have become manifest (as being) in Christ in all the praetorium” —Phil 1:13. That his gospel efforts are crowned with success by the Lord is the closing message of that Epistle— “all the saints salute you, and specially those of the household of Caesar” —Phil 4:22.
Life in the City of Rome
Luke gives us some description of Athens when Paul visited it, but as to the City of Rome he is silent. In Athens he is recording history from a divine viewpoint; at Rome we are dealing with moral issues—the position of the Apostle in chains there and its meaning—and moving on to the conclusion of the book. However, a very brief picture of life in the City will give the reader a glimpse of conditions at that time.
Paul’s imprisonment in Rome coincided with an influx into the City of foreign wealth from successful wars of conquest. Tacitus tells us that Roman luxury reached its peak in the years from 31 B.C. to 68 A.D. While it is true that there was a yawning chasm between the wealthy and the Roman mob, still the latter shared indirectly in the wealth that poured into Rome. The mob lived in apartment buildings five or six stories high, the ground floors of some of which were serviced with free water. This was a great gift at the time since the water was brought in from distant springs by pipes. Where valleys, rivers, etc. prevent the laying of pipes, the Romans construct magnificent aqueducts to span the obstacles. Depending on the politics of the day their food is largely given to them free by the State together with a form of dole. Disdaining work, the Roman enjoys himself in one of the magnificent public baths that stud the City.5 These baths are huge, elaborate masterpieces, mostly provided free to the public. Then he goes off to the amphitheater to wager money on gladiators fighting to the death or to watch a fight of the wild beasts. He may prefer a sea battle which he can see in one of the special amphitheaters provided for this purpose, or at a lake. Perhaps he just wants to watch the chariot races at the Circus Maximus, with its seating capacity of 200,000 6 where he can gamble on the competing chariot teams. Through with excitement for the day, he can stroll in the miles of parks and gardens along the river Tiber, and on the hills.
At the other end of the social scale are the rich and wealthy. They own luxury houses and villas in the countryside. Possessing innumerable slaves, they spend their hours in banqueting and reveling, although there are exceptions. At the head of everything is the Emperor, before whom Paul must appear. Paul, the aged prisoner of Jesus Christ, is a holy man, the Apostle to the Gentiles; Nero, young and dissolute, is the Emperor of Rome. The contrast between the two men is very great. Nero lives in a Golden House, which has a triple colonnade a mile long, with a statue of him 120 feet high in the vestibule. Close by is a pond. Vineyards, forests for beasts, pastures, etc. rest his eyes. Inside his house are gold plated walls, or walls made from pearls. The main dining room is circular and revolves day and night. Nero has one thousand carriages drawn by horses shod with silver and harnessed with gold. His subject Paul lives in a rented house chained to a soldier. But the real issue of our lives comes with death, as the Lord made plain in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Very little time elapsed between the deaths of Paul and Nero. Paul departed to be with Christ, which is far better; Nero went to hell.