And when he had gone over those parts. — Here also we can fill up the outline of the narrative from the Epistles. We may take for granted that St. Paul would revisit the churches which he had himself founded at Thessalonica and Beræa, as well as at Philippi. The names in Acts 20:4 indicate that delegates were chosen, probably by his direction, for the great journey to Jerusalem, which he now began to contemplate. Romans 15:19 indicates a yet wider range of activity. He had taken the great Roman road across Macedonia, and going westward to the shores of the Adriatic, had preached the gospel in Illyricum, where as yet it had not been heard.
He came into Greece. — The word Hellas, or Greece, seems used as synonymous with Achaia, the southern province. This may have led to an unrecorded visit to Athens. It certainly brought him to Corinth and Cenchreæ. There, we may hope, he found all his hopes fulfilled. Gaius was there to receive him as a guest, and Erastus was still a faithful friend. There, if not before, he found Timotheus, and he had with him Jason of Thessalonica and Sosipater of Berœa (Romans 16:21-23). In one respect, however, he found a great change, and missed many friends. The decree of Claudius had either been revoked or was no longer acted on. Aquila and Priscilla had gone straight from Ephesus to Rome on hearing that they could do so with safety, and with them the many friends, male and female, most of them of the libertini class, whom he had known in Corinth, and whose names fill so large a space in Romans 16. The desire which he had felt before (Acts 19:21) to see Rome was naturally strengthened by their absence. His work in Greece was done, and he felt an impulse, not merely human, drawing him to the further west. A rapid journey to Jerusalem, a short visit there, to show how generous were the gifts which the Gentile Churches sent to the Churches of the Circumcision, and then the desire of his life might be gratified. To preach the gospel in Rome, to pass on from Rome to the Jews at Cordova and other cities in Spain (Romans 15:24-28), — that was what he now proposed to himself. How different a path was actually marked out for him the sequel of the story shows.