Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 11:19

"They therefore that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to none save only to Jews." — Acts 11:19 (ASV)

Now they which were scattered abroad.—A new and important section begins with these words. We are carried back to the date of the persecution of which Stephen was the chief victim.

The persecution that arose about Stephen.—The manuscripts vary in their reading, some giving the case that would be rendered by “the persecution in the time of Stephen;” some, that which answers to the persecution upon or against or after Stephen. The death of the martyr was followed, as Acts 8:1-4 shows, by a general outburst of fanaticism against the disciples, and this led to a comparatively general flight. It was probable, given the circumstances, that the Hellenistic or Greek-speaking Jews who had been associated with Stephen would be the chief sufferers. Philip we have traced in Samaria and Caesarea; others went to Phoenicia, that is, to the cities of Tyre and Sidon and Ptolemais, and were probably the founders of the churches that we find there in Acts 21:4-7 and Acts 27:3. In Cyprus (see Note on Acts 13:4, for an account of the island) they prepared the way for the work of Barnabas and Paul.

And Antioch.—We have here the first direct point of contact between the Church of Christ and the great Syrian capital that was for so many years one of its chief centers. We may, perhaps, think of the proselyte of Antioch (Acts 6:5) who had been one of Stephen’s colleagues as one of those who brought the new faith to his native city.

It was, as the sequel shows, a moment of immense importance. Situated on the Orontes, about fifteen miles from the port of Seleucia, the city, founded by Seleucus Nicator, and named after his father Antiochus, had grown in wealth and magnificence until it was one of the “eyes” of Asia.

Its men of letters and rhetoricians (among them the poet Archias, on whose behalf Cicero made one of his most memorable orations) had carried its fame to Rome itself, and the Roman Satirist complained that the Syrian Orontes had polluted his native Tiber with the tainted stream of luxury and vice (Juvenal, Satire iii. 62-64).

Antioch had a large colony of Jews, and Herod the Great had courted the favor of its inhabitants by building a marble colonnade that ran the whole length of the city.

It became the headquarters of the Prefect or President of Syria, and the new faith was thus brought into more direct contact with the higher forms of Roman life than it had been at Jerusalem or Caesarea.

There also, it came into more direct conflict with paganism in its most tempting and most debasing forms. The groves of Daphne, in the outskirts of the city, were famous for a worship that in its main features resembled that of Aphrodite at Corinth. An annual festival was held, known as the Maiuma, at which the harlot-priestesses, stripped of clothing, cavorted in the waters of a lake.

The city was stained with the vices of a reckless and shameless sensuality. It was, in effect, one of the strongholds of Satan; and we have to trace, as it were, the stages of the victory that transformed it into the mother-church of the Gentiles.

Preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.—Better, as answering to the singular number in the Greek, to no one. This was, of course, to be expected in the work of those who had left Jerusalem before the conversion of Cornelius had determined the matter otherwise. The fact is stated, apparently, in contrast both with the narrative that precedes and the statement that immediately follows.