Acts Chapter 18 verse 2 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 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.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(2) And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus.--The name presents some interesting associations. Strictly speaking, the Greek form is Ahylas, but this is undoubtedly the transliterated form of the Latin Aquila (= Eagle). The name appears in a yet more altered form in Onkelos, the traditional writer of one of the Targums, or Paraphrases of the Law, then current among the Jews. In Aquila, one of the later translators of the Old Testament into Greek, himself also born in Pontus, and possibly (but see Mr. Deutsch's Remains, p. 339) identical with Onkelos, we get the Greek form again. In the well-known chief Rabbi of the synagogues of the Jews of London, Dr. Adler, we have it reappearing in a German form (Adler=Eagle). The tendency of Jews to take names derived from animals when sojourning in heathen countries, may be noted as not uncommon. Ursulus, Leo, Leopardus, Dorcas, which appear in the early Christian inscriptions in the Vatican and Lateran Museums, present analogous instances. His birth in Pontus indicates that he belonged to the dispersion of the Jews of that province (1Peter 1:1) which, as the north-eastern region of Asia Minor, lay between Bithynia and Armenia. Some from that province had been present at Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:9). As the Jews at Rome consisted largely of freed-men, the libertinum genus of Latin writers (see Note on the Libertines in Acts 6:9), it is probable that Aquila belonged to that class.With his wife Priscilla.--The name appears in some MSS., both here and elsewhere, in the form of Prisca, of which it is the diminutive. So we have Lucilla from Lucia, Domitilla from Domitia, Atticilla (in an inscription in the Museum of Perugia) from Attica. The name Prisca probably indicates a connection with the gens of the Prisci, who appear in the earliest stages of Roman history, and supplied a long series of praetors and consuls. The marriage was probably, therefore, an example of the influence gained by educated Jews over the higher class of women at Rome. It was, perhaps, a natural consequence of her higher social position that her name is sometimes placed before Aquila's (Acts 18:18; Romans 16:3; 2Timothy 4:19). The fact that she took part in the instruction of Apollos (see Note on Acts 18:26), indicates that she was a woman of more than ordinary culture, a student and interpreter of the Old Testament Scriptures. . . .