In marked distinction from Athens is the dealing of divine grace with Corinth, the wealthy capital of Achaia, the southern province of Greece under the Roman empire. Thither the apostle repaired after his brief visit to Athens: with what result the record stands, not in the inspired history alone, but in the two great epistles to the church of God in Corinth.
“After these things he departed from Athens and came unto Corinth. And he found a certain Jew, named Aquila, of Pontus by, race, lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. And he came unto them; and because he was one of the same trade, he abode with them, and [?they] wrought, for by their trade they were tent-makers. And he was discoursing in the synagogues every sabbath, and persuading Jews and Greeks” (ver. 1-4).
The ways of grace are wholly above man's thoughts. None could have anticipated that God would raise a trophy to His Son, not in intellectual Athens, but in demoralized Corinth. Was there any antecedent link, or natural suitability whatever, between the Holy One of God and this proverbial seat of impurity? The grace of God gives no account of its matters but works to the glory of Christ; and most of all where man is most needy. Even so the apostle asked in the beginning of his first epistle to the Corinthians, “Where is the wise? Where the scribe? Where the disputer of this age? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom knew not God, God was pleased through the foolishness of the preaching to save those that believe. Since Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumbling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness, but unto the called themselves, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” The wisdom of this age had proved its folly in Athens; the compassion of God yearned over Corinth in the face of all its dissolute manners and corruption.
“For behold your calling, brethren, how that there are not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world that He might put to shame the wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that He might put to shame the strong things, and the base things of the world, and the things despised, did God choose, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are; that no flesh should glory before God.” Never was this more realized than in Corinth, where in due time a numerous assembly was formed from both Jews and Gentiles, for the most part of no great account in this world.
Paul was not alone long. He found in Corinth a certain Jew, called Aquila, who though of Pontes by race (like his namesake of a later date, who however was a Jewish proselyte and translated the O. T. into Greek most literally), had just come from Italy, with Priscilla his wife. This is their first mention in scripture. We hear of them afterward in Ephesus and of the assembly at their house. Later still they were found once more in Rome, and saluted as Paul's fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, “Who for my life staked their own necks, to whom not I only am thankful, but also all the assemblies of the Gentiles.” There also we hear of the assembly at their house, In the last epistle which our apostle ever wrote, he bids Timothy salute them once more and for the last time in Ephesus.
The occasion of their coming from Italy at this time was because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Suetonius, the Roman biographer of the Caesars, states that this emperor, because of a Jewish outbreak, “impulsore Chresto,” expelled them from Rome. The Latin words cited are probably an error on his part, but may allude to violence on the side of unbelieving Jews against those who believed, or may be a confusion (owing to Roman jealousy) with the preaching of the Messiah elsewhere. Bp. Pearson is of opinion that this expulsion happened about A.D. 52, in which year Tacitus (Ann. xii. 52) puts the Senate's decree for expelling the “mathematici” or “Chaldaei;” but whether they were identical or connected is uncertain. It is known that Claudius was deeply indebted to Herod Agrippa the First for his nomination to the empire, and did not forget him but rewarded the Herod family: so one could hardly suppose so hostile an attitude toward the Jews, while Herod A. was in Rome; and we can easily understand that, if enacted in his absence, the decree soon fell through. This consideration clears up the statement of Dio Cassius (lx. 6), which some have supposed to contradict Luke, as well as Suetonius, that the emperor did not expel them, but ordered them not to congregate in Rome. If we distinguish the times, all is clear and true.
But God made use of the edict to bring Aquila and his wife into life-long communication with the apostle. Whether they were converted or not before they first net is not quite certain. Much stress has been laid on Aquila's description as “a certain Jew,” rather than as a disciple; but this may be satisfactorily enough accounted for, both as qualifying the place of his birth, and as furnishing the ground of his quitting Rome for Corinth. Then we must bear in mind that, as the Romans and strangers in general did not in these early days distinguish Christian Jews from their brethren after the flesh, so Paul repeatedly designates himself a Jew afterward in this book (21:39; 22:3). The apostle never speaks of them as his children in the faith, however warmly he may greet or characterize them. Certain it is that they were abundantly blessed through him, as he graciously owns the large debt due to them, not by himself only, but by all the assemblies of the Gentiles. We never hear of this devoted pair in Judea: they were widely known outside the land among the Gentiles where assemblies met. Their wealth, or their trade, afforded the means to welcome the gathering of saints at their own house; a circumstance not unusual in those days (or even much later, as we know from the Acta Martyrii S. Justini, Ruinart). So we see also in the cases of Nymphas and Philemon. It abides now a happy resource where a few can only thus be gathered to Christ's name according to His word. That they should first wait for a bishop is either an Ignatian tradition or a notion at the present day flowing from the same unbelieving superstition which gave birth to the tradition in the past. Only the ever living truth of “one body and one Spirit” would call for fellowship in such an act. Independency is a denial of true church action.
Another fact in solving a principle of deep practical moment comes out in verse 3. “And because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and wrought; for by their occupation they were tent-makers." God was pleased so to order things that the great apostle, in the wealthiest and most luxurious city of Greece, should carry on an honest occupation for necessary wants. What a death-blow to clericalism on the one hand, and to worldliness on the other! Yet in the circumstances of both Paul himself and Corinth, it was just the course which was worthy of the gospel of the grace which sent it out. It is unreasonable to suppose that this blessed servant of the Lord failed in ordinary foresight for his missionary journey, or that the assemblies of the saints were lacking in care for him or in zeal for the work, especially in the regions beyond those where the faithful were already gathered together unto Christ's name. The apostle had pushed forward alone without means into a quarter of abounding ease and distinguished elegance, to say nothing of the dissoluteness of morals which followed in their train; and there, laboring with his own hands for the necessities of others no less than his own, as was his wont, he truly represented the Master Who came not to be ministered unto but to minister. It was for the Son of man alone to give His life a ransom for many; it was His exclusively to suffer once for sins, Just for unjust, to bring us to God. But the apostle of the Gentiles was Christ's follower, or imitator, with energy of devotedness unparalleled not among saints or servants only, but among the apostles, whom God set foremost in the church. And grace gave his single eye to discern how best to please and glorify Christ in such circumstances. At a later day he exhorted the presbyters of the Ephesian assembly in his affecting farewell charge at Miletus; for he was not the man to urge on others what he shrank from himself. Neither did he shrink from commending such a path of gracious self-abnegation to those whose function it is to feed or tend the flock of God.
The laborer is indeed worthy of his food and of his hire, for there are other necessities beyond food, and the Lord forgot none, as is plain from this twofold statement (Matt. 10:1010Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. (Matthew 10:10); Luke 10:77And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. (Luke 10:7), as cited in 1 Tim. 5:1818For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The laborer is worthy of his reward. (1 Timothy 5:18)): so the apostle declares (1 Cor. 9:1414Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:14)) the Lord ordained that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel, as the law had done before for those that ministered about holy things. But, while insisting on a title so just and true for others, we see the blessed man foregoing it for himself in the same context: “But I [emphatically] have used none of these things; and I write not these things that it may be so done in my case; for it were good for me rather to die than that any man should make my glorying vain. For if I preach the gospel I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me; for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if not of mine own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. What then is my reward? That in preaching the gospel, I make the gospel without charge, so as not to use for myself [or, to the full] my title as to the gospel.” Here was not letter but spirit, not self but Christ, in the full stream of that love which displayed itself to sinners in Christ sent that we who were dead might live through Him, and that He might die a propitiation for our sins. It was meet that the highest witness of grace among men should be a manifest giver in his measure as God is infinitely.
So he told the Thessalonians in his earliest Epistle, that he sought not glory of men, neither from you nor from others, when we might have been a burden as apostles of Christ. None ever so well felt the value of Christ's words, It is more blessed to give than to receive. His reason was far more, elevated than that which Calvin imputes—because the false apostles taught freely without taking anything, that they might craftily insinuate themselves. In 1 Cor. 9, where his motives are shown, there is no allusion to those evil workers; and in fact there could be no such persons in Corinth when Paul came to preach, and no assembly as yet existed. It was a heart filled with love, and burning to illustrate the gospel in deed and in truth as he proclaimed it in word, without question of adversaries yet to arise and set up cheap and vaunting pretensions to similar grace. In his second epistle no doubt he does speak of his keeping himself in everything from being a burden to the saints in Corinth, and of his determination so to keep himself, that he might cut off the occasion of those wishing for an occasion, that wherein they boasted they might be found even as we [not we even as they].
“And he was discoursing in the synagogue every sabbath and persuading Jews and Greeks” (ver. 4).
The same word means either “discoursing” in general, or in particular “reasoning,” or even “disputing,” as in Mark 9:3434But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest. (Mark 9:34); Acts 17:2; 24:122And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, (Acts 17:2)
12And they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogues, nor in the city: (Acts 24:12); Jude 99Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. (Jude 9). Here, as in ch. 20:7, 9; Heb. 12:55And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: (Hebrews 12:5), the more general force seem preferable; in others “reasoning” may be right as between the extremes. Context alone can decide. As the synagogue was the scene of the discourses, we may gather assuredly that the testimony of the O. T. was the ample groundwork on which he appealed to his hearers, who were not exclusively Jews; for we are expressly told that (not Hellenists but) Greeks were the objects of his habitual persuasion. If they were not proselytes, they must have been men whom the licentious excess of heathenism drove there; and no wonder, when, as another has said, their religion itself corrupted man; and he made of his corruption a religion. Nowhere was this more deeply and conspicuously true than in Corinth, where the worship of Aphrodite with her infamous ἱερόδουλοι prevailed (the counterpart of Venus at Rome, and of Astarte or Hebrew Ashtoreth, in Syria). Abandoning all fear or thought of the true God, they fell below even the natural decency of man, and dishonored themselves in the dishonor of God. The synagogue, cold as it was, attracted consciences which revolted from evil which philosophy indulged in, or at best was far too weak to supplant or restrain; and Greeks there listened with Jews to the holy and persuasive discourses of the apostle. We shall find a crisis that went farther ere long, but not till the apostle had the companionship of beloved fellow-laborers.