Acts 18:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

To Corinth;— Achaia Propria was a part of Greece, and Corinth the metropolis of Achaia Propria. It was a famous mart town; for, by standing in the middle of the isthmus, it had the trade of both the eastern and western seas, that is, through Asia and Europe. It was at first called Ephyre; but it had the name of Corinth from one Corinthus, who took and rebuilt it; and it had now gone by that name for several years. Cenchrea was its port or haven for the east or AEgean sea; as Jochoeum or Lechoeum was for the west or Adriatic sea. Corinth and Carthage had been destroyed by the Romans in one and the same year; a hundred years after which, Julius Caesar ordered them both to be rebuilt, and in a little time sent Roman colonies to them. From the colony which he sent to Corinth, were descended the Gentiles of that city, to whom the apostle now went and preached the gospel. Corinth was almost as famous as Athens for philosophers and orators, and made very great pretences to learning and wisdom; and being a place of such great trade and resort, it was a rich and luxurious city, even to a proverb. In this city St. Paul found Aquila, who was a Jew by nation, but by religion a Christian. See particularly Acts 18:26. He had lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because the Roman emperor Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome. Dio says that Claudius did not banish the Jews from Rome, but only prohibited their assemblies; but though that was in effect to banish all the most zealous and conscientious persons among them, Suetonius, who lived nearer the time, says, that he expelled the Jews from Rome, who were continually making tumults;Chrestus inciting them,or being the occasion of their disturbances. It is indeed a matter of dispute among learned men, whether by Chrestus Suetonius meant the Lord Jesus Christ or not: it is likely enough he might mean so; for he has in other places shewn himself peculiarly virulent against the Christians. But if he meant to say that Christ incited the Jews to make tumults at Rome, he could not possibly, I think, charge our Lord with doing it in person. One cannot suppose that Suetonius should so far mistake both in point of time and place, as to think that the Lord Jesus Christ was at Rome in the reign of Claudius Caesar, and that there he incited the Jews to tumults and seditions: he could therefore intend only to charge it upon Christ's doctrine and followers. That the Jews should make tumults, when Christianity began to spread in Rome, is not wonderful, if we consider their behaviour towards St. Stephen, towards the other apostles, and towards St. Paul himself: and when tumults were made, Claudius's timorous and suspicious temper would very naturally lead him to punish both the guilty and the suspected. However, neither Christ himself, nor Christianity, were in the least to be charged with being the criminal causes of those tumults, supposing they were the innocent occasion of them. If bigots and persecutors will abuse the holy, the virtuous, and the modest, for speaking the truth, and supporting it with proper evidence, such zealots are criminal, and not the innocent persons whom they persecute. This banishment of the Jews from Rome was not ordered by a decree of the senate, but of the emperor only; and therefore it died with him at the farthest: but as the Christians were then looked upon by the Romans to be only a sect of the Jews, it affected them no less than the Jews, while it continued. Josephus has no where particularly mentioned this edict; as it was enforced for so short a time only, he might partly for that reason omit it: but a more prevailing reason was, probably, that it reflected dishonour upon the Jews, and was therefore disagreeable to a Jewish historian; and if some dispute between the Jews and the followers of the Lord Jesus was really the occasion of this order, as Suetonius seems to affirm, that might be another reason for the silence of Josephus: for he was very reserved about the affairs of the Christians. See Dio, lib. 60: p. 669. Suetonius, in Vit. Claud. 100. 25 in Nero.