It is a critical coincidence, however, that Suetonius places this expulsion about the same time as the occasion when an embassy of Parthians and Armenians was present in Rome. This embassy, I have little doubt, was the embassy alluded to by Tacitus, U. C. 802, when they came to ask for Meherdates. It is placed also about the same time with the restitution of their liberty to the Rhodians, taken away U. C. 797 2; which restitution Tacitus places, U. C. 806a, but Suetonius, U. C. 804b, in some consulate of Claudius; which must have been his fifth. Jerome, in his Commentary on Dan. ix.c quotes from Apollinarius of Laodicea the following passage: Postea vero ab octavo Claudii Cæsaris anno, contra Judæos Romana arma correpta-. Ab octavo means after the eighth, and therefore in the ninth; just as, in a like expression of Tertullian's, A duodecimo, meant after the twelfth, and consequently, in the thir teenth. Now, from whatsoever authority this statement was derived, it is supported by Orosius; who distinctly places the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in the ninth of Claudius: and what is more, it is entirely in unison with the implicit testimony of Josephus. The disturbance at the passover; the subsequent outrage on Stephanus, the emperor's bondman and fiscal procurator; the tumultuary warfare between the Galilæans and the Samaritans; all events of the same year, U. C. 802: were the most natural and most likely causes of this act of severity towards the Jews; whose conduct, as regarded at Rome and until the rupture had been satisfactorily adjusted, partly by the exertions of the Jewish deputies and partly by the intercession of the younger Agrippa; would be looked y Annales, xii. 10. e Operum iii. 1114. ad calcem. z Dio, lx. 24. a Annales, xii. 58. b Nero, 7. e vii. 6. on in the light of a direct rebellion. Tacitus expresses himself strongly to this effect; Arsissetque bello provincia: and Josephus shews that, if actual war was prevented, it was only by the prayers, remonstrances, and entreaties of the rulers or chief Jews themselves; whose efforts and expedients to disarm the infuriated passions of the common people he describes very much to the life. Certain it is, that a breach with the Roman government was never so near at any time before the final revolt as now, and in the last year of Caius; and to these two occasions in particular, I am persuaded that our Saviour alluded in the prophecy upon the mount, when he told the disciples that they should hear of wars and rumours or tidings of wars, but should see no actual war: the storm, once and again, should gather over Judæa as if on the point of bursting upon it; and once and again, as the event proved, it should be seen to pass away without effect, because the end was not to be yet. The number of the Jewish inhabitants of Rome was certainly too considerable to be tolerated there, with confidence or safety, if the mother country was in a state of revolt. But the news of what had happened in Judæa, especially of what had happened after the feast of Tabernacles; (which in U. C. 802. when the Passover was celebrated on April 5. began to be celebrated on September 30;) would not be received in Rome under two or three months afterwards; that is, before December, U. C. 802, or January, U. C. 803. The decree of expulsion might follow soon after this; and in two or three weeks' time subsequently Aquila might arrive at Corinth *; where he had certainly been some *Polybius, xxvii. 6 (Fragmenta): upon an occasion like that in the Acts, it is related that the subjects of Perseus, king of Mace f Annales, xii. 54. g Ant. xx. vi. 1. Bell. ii. xii. 5. h Dissertation vii. vol. i. 332. time, longer or shorter, before St. Paul came thither. If we place, then, their meeting at Corinth about the spring of U. C. 803, we place it in all probability near the truth. We have now, as I think, ascertained two dates, the earlier of which fixes the time of St. Paul's first visit to the peninsula of Greece; and the latter the time of his last visit to Jerusalem, recorded in the Acts. With a view to the detail of intermediate particulars; I will assume only that he set out on his second general circuit, Acts xv. 36, about the same period in the year as on his first, viz. the Pentecost of U. C. 802, May 26; or between that time, and April 5, the date of the preceding Passover. The subsequent course and direction of his journey along the extent of Asia Minor from Antioch, through Syria and Cilicia first; and by land as far as Alexandria Troas; and from thence through Macedonia, Thessaly, and Attica, until he came to Corinth; including the time taken up by his residence in particular places, both those where such residences are not specified, and those where they are, as at Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroa, and Athens: do necessarily require that we should allow the best part of a year for the transaction of every thing, between Acts xv. 36. and xviii. 1; though this interval is not too little for it is clear that St. Paul did not make a practice of staying every where; and we may infer from the narrative in the Acts, compared also with the Epistles to Philippi and to Thessalonica1, that he stayed as long in each of those cities as he did any where else; and yet the length of the stay at the donia, U. C. 583, were ordered away from Rome instantly, and to be gone from Italy ἐν τριά κονθ' ἡμέραις. i Thess. i. 6. ii. 9. 2 Thess. iii. 7, 8. Philipp. iv. 16. latter does not appear to have much exceeded three weeksk*. In the year of our Lord 44, U. C. 797, in which St. Paul set out on his first circuit, the Passover was celebrated March 31; and the day of Pentecost fell on May 21 and St. Paul's first circuit, as we have assumed, began about that time. Between this time and the Pentecost, May 26, U. C. 802, which we have assumed to be the date of his second circuit, there was just a five years' interval; to be filled up first, by the time occupied on the first circuit before the return to Antioch; that is, between Acts xiii. 4, and xiv. 26: secondly, by the residence at Antioch posterior to the return, but before the beginning of the dispute with the Judaizing teachers; that is, between Acts xiv. 27. and xv. 1: thirdly, by the mission to Jerusalem and the conference there, in consequence of this dispute; viz. between Acts xv. 2, and xv. 29: and fourthly, by the return to Antioch, and the continuance of the residence there, posterior to all the former events, but prior to the commencement of the next general circuit; that is, between Acts xv. 30, and xv. 35. For one and all of these transactions the period of five years is not too long an interval; especially, as independent of the duration of the circuit itself, the residence at Antioch before and after the conference in Jerusalem is either affirmed or implied to have occupied no little time1f. * Three sabbaths only are mentioned in the account of Paul's residence at Thessalonica; but he might be there a longer time than three weeks in all. + The details of these five years are of no importance to our k Acts xvii. 2. general argument, and so far may be distributed as we please. I cannot help conjecturing however, that the time of the council of Jerusalem, at which the question, whether the Gentile converts to Christianity became 1 Acts xiv. 28. xv. 35. The arrival of St. Paul at Corinth, then, within a year after the commencement of his second journey, would be about the spring of U. C. 803; and consequently, in the first quarter of the tenth of Claudius, which began that year on January the 24th. The last places which he visited, and as the course of the history proves, not many weeks before his arrival at Athens, were Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroa; all which it is to be presumed would be visited U. C. 803: and it is some slight confirmation of this presumption, that the language ascribed to the enemies of Paul, first at Philippi and again at Thessalonica", points to a period when Christianity must have pervaded the world, which it might be said to have done when it had once reached Rome; and also to the knowledge of some dogma or decree of the existing emperor, hostile to the Jews, and especially binding on Roman citizens: which might be that very edict of Claudius, which he issued about this time, commanding the Jews to leave Rome and Italy: and consequently laying them under a public ban, and forbidding Roman citizens in particular to give them any encouragement. subject, in consequence of their conversion, to the Law of Moses, or not, was formally discussed and settled; and which was therefore a cardinal period in the progress of the Christian scheme as concerned them; is to be placed U. C. 800, or U. C. 801, exactly at seven years' distance from the time of the conversion of Cornelius. This supposition is manifestly possible; and it derives some support from the language of St. Peter, Acts xv. 7. ἀφ ̓ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων, which is seen from verse 14— lower down-in the speech of St. James, to be equivalent simply to rò рτоv, or at the utmost to ἀπ ̓ ἀρχῆς. The fact alluded to in each instance is clearly the opening of the Gospel to the Gentiles, by the instrumentality of St. Peter in the conversion of Cornelius; and this being spoken of as a somewhat remote event; as what had happened a good while ago, or at first; it is more naturally to be understood of a period of six or seven years, than merely of three or four. m Acts xvi. 21. xvii. 6, 7. |