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 (1 Peter 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 prætors 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; 2 Timothy 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.
The question naturally suggests itself, whether the husband and wife, who were afterwards so prominent in the Apostolic Church, were, at this stage of their career, converted by St. Paul to the faith in Christ. The answer to that question must, it is believed, be a distinct and decisive negative. (1) There is no mention of their listening to St. Paul, and believing, as, e.g., in the case of Lydia (Acts 16:14); and it is hardly conceivable that St. Luke, who relates that case so fully, would have omitted a fact of such importance. (2) He joins himself to them, as able to share his thoughts and hopes, even before he begins preaching in the synagogue, as in Acts 18:4. (3) An unbelieving Jew was not likely to have admitted St. Paul into a partnership in his business. The question how and by whom the Church of Christ had been first brought to Rome will be discussed in the next Note.
Because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome. — The account of the expulsion is given by Suetonius (Claudius, c. 25) in words which are in many ways suggestive — “Claudius, Judœos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes, Româ expulit” (“Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome on account of their continual tumults, instigated by Chrestus”). The Jews, at this period, were settled mainly in the Transtiberine region of Rome, at the base of the Janiculum, opposite the present Ghetto, or Jewry, of the city. They exercised considerable influence over the upper classes, had synagogues and oratories (proseuchæ, see Notes on Acts 16:13; Luke 6:12) of their own, were tolerated as possessing a relligio licita, had their own cemeteries on the Appian Way. Suddenly there is a change in their relations to the civil power, and the name of Chrestus is connected with it. Of the man whom he so mentions, Suetonius tells us nothing further. But we know that the sounds of the Greek “i” and “ç” were hardly distinguishable. Tertullian (Apol. c. 3) says that the name of Christus was almost invariably pronounced Chrçstus, and, as that word signifies “good,” “useful,” “honest,” founds a kind of argumentum ad hominem on the prevalent mistake. So in Jewish inscriptions in the Lateran Museum, Alfius appears as the equivalent for the Greek form Alphæus. The probable explanation of Claudius’s decree, accordingly, is that men had come to Rome after the Day of Pentecost proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, that this had been followed by tumults like those of which we read in the Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:50), and Lystra (Acts 14:19), and Thessalonica (Acts 17:5), and Berœa (Acts 17:13), and that as the name of Christus was much in the mouths both of those who received and those who rejected His claim to be the Messiah, the Roman magistrates, like Gallio, careless as to questions about names and words (Acts 18:15), naturally inferred that he was the leader of one of the parties, probably assuming, as at Thessalonica (Acts 17:7), that he claimed the title of king after the manner of the pretenders to an earthly throne. If we ask who were the first preachers of the new faith, the answer, though we may be unable to identify individuals, is not far to seek. (1) It was scarcely likely that twenty-three years should have passed since the Day of Pentecost, without bringing to the ears of the Jews of Rome some tidings of what was going on in Palestine. (2) In the list of those who were present at the Pentecostal wonder are strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes (Acts 2:10). (3) Among the Hellenistic Jews who disputed with Stephen were libertini, or freed-men of Rome, and Stephen himself, we saw reason to believe, belonged to the same class. (See Notes on Acts 6:5; Acts 6:9.) (4) Andronicus and Junias (contracted from Junianus, as Lucas from Lucanus), who are among those to whom St. Paul sends messages of affection at Rome, were “in Christ” before him (Romans 16:7). To these, then, and not to St. Peter, we may probably look as among the real founders of the Church of Rome. The facts all indicate that the theology of the disciples of Rome was likely to be based upon the same great principles as that of Stephen, and this explains the readiness with which Aquila and Priscilla received the gospel as St. Paul preached it. It is obvious that many more of those who had been expelled from Rome were likely to have accompanied them from Rome to Corinth, and the long list of names in Romans 16:3-15 probably consists for the most part of those who had thus come within the range of St. Paul’s personal acquaintance, and had returned to Rome in the interval. The names in that list are many of them identical with those in the Columbaria, or burial-place, on the Appian Way, which contains the names of the men and women of the freed-man class who belonged to the household of the Empress Livia, and make it almost certain that they were of the same class; and that when St. Paul speaks (Philippians 4:22) of the “saints of Caesar’s household” he is referring to such as these, and not to persons of high official rank. (See Notes on Romans 16) The name of Priscus occurs, it may be added, in a Christian inscription of uncertain date in the Collegio Romano. We need not wonder that Greek should be the medium of intercourse even with these Roman Jews. The inscriptions in the recently discovered Jewish cemetery in the Vigna Randanini, at Rome, show a strange blending of the two languages, Greek words appearing sometimes in Latin characters, and Latin words in Greek. Hebrew does not appear, but the symbol of the seven-branched candlestick of the Temple recurs frequently.
(2) We cannot exclude from the probable motives the strong feeling of thankfulness for deliverance from danger, following upon fear which, as in nearly all phases of the religious life, has been the chief impulse out of which vows have grown. We have seen the fear, and the promise, and the deliverance, in the record of St. Paul’s work at Corinth, and the vow of self-consecration, for a season, to a life of special devotion was the natural result. St. Paul had not learnt to despise or condemn such expressions of devout feeling.