Acts 28:11-14 And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux.… 1. After a delay of three months — i.e., when winter was past and spring approaching — the party put to sea again. Castor and Pollux, the tutelary deities of seafaring men, constituted the figurehead of the ship in which they sailed, and gave it its name. The fact that this vessel, trading between Alexandria and Puteoli, passed the winter in Melita is clear proof that it was not Meleda, in the Gulf of Venice, where Paul was shipwrecked. Then, again, she called at Syracuse on the way, which lay in the course from Malta, but not from Meleda. 2. Syracuse was the great seaport of Sicily, and by far the most renowned of the cities founded by Greek emigrants on the western coasts of Europe. It occupied an important position in the struggles between the Greek republics, and also in the quarrel between Rome and Carthage. Perhaps no ancient city was so often besieged. There is a tradition that its Church was founded by Paul, and it is possible that Julius permitted him to go ashore and preach. 3. From Syracuse the Castor and Pollux fetched a compass and came to Rhegium, on the Italian shore, in the Sicilian straits — the place where Garibaldi landed after he had subjugated Sicily, and proceeded with a handful of men to deliver a fair country from the double tyranny of priest and king, and to introduce Italy into the community of nations. 4. After a halt here of a single day, the wind became fair, and they reached Puteoli, the great mercantile seaport of Rome. Here Paul found "brothers." The family is multiplying and spreading. The fire of Christian life is going, like the lightning, against the wind; the sect is everywhere spoken against, yet it is increasing like the breaking forth of waters. The seven days' stay is a Christian, not a Roman, measurement, and points, on the one hand, to the weekly Sabbath, and on the other to the confirmed ascendency of Paul. Julius seems by this time to have fallen into the habit of shaping his course by the advice of his prisoner. 5. "So we went to Rome," along the much celebrated and frequented Appian Way. The brothers at Puteoli must have sent express to Rome to advise their fellow disciples of Paul's arrival, and a deputation started to meet him. The arrival of Paul was a great event. The Roman Christians had been longing for him, and he for them. Messages went round convening a meeting — at the house of Aquila probably — at which those who had never seen the great missionary would demand of those who had what his appearance was and wherein his power seemed to lie. 6. A large deputation was resolved upon, for he should have a royal welcome. Some started who seem to have been hardly fit for the journey, for they halted at "Three Taverns," only seventeen miles away, while the rest went on to "Appii Forum," ten more. The apostle and his company meanwhile pushed northward. For the last nineteen miles a canal ran alongside the highway, partly for the drainage of the marshes, partly for navigation. Appii Forum was the terminus of the canal, a rough spot, swarming with low tavern keepers and bargemen. At that disreputable place the front rank of the deputation met Paul, and the two ends of the coil were joined, and Jerusalem brought into contact with Rome. There the spirit of the kingdom passed out of the one into the other. Christ has come to the world's great head, and Paul is the chosen vessel used to bear Him thither. (W. Arnot, D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. |
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