Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 27

Paul and certain other prisoners. The Greek for “other” implies that they were prisoners of a different class. It is probable, however, that they also had appealed to the emperor, as there would otherwise be no reason for sending them to Rome.

A centurion of Augustus’ band. Literally, of the Sebaste. On the band or cohort as a subdivision of the Roman legion, see Note on Acts 10:1. Three different explanations have been given of the term translated “Augustus.”

1. The cohort may have consisted of soldiers levied in Sebaste (= Augusta) or Samaria. Josephus mentions a squadron of Sebastene cavalry (Ant. xx. 6, § 1; xix. 9, § 2), and there may have been a corresponding band of foot-soldiers.
2. Nero about this time had formed a kind of bodyguard, consisting of some 3,000 young men of the equestrian order, who accompanied him to games and spectacles, and whose chief business it was to applaud him in his speeches and recitations. To these he gave the name of Augustani (Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 15; Suetonius, Nero, c. 25), a term of which Sebastene would be the natural Greek equivalent.
3. A certain Julius Priscus appears in Tacitus, Hist. ii. 92 as appointed by Vitellius to be one of the prefects of the Praetorian cohorts, which, as specially under the emperor’s personal command, might naturally be called by his name; and he has been conjecturally identified with the centurion mentioned here.

Of these, the second explanation seems the most probable, but it is not absolutely incompatible with the third.

On this assumption, as it is not said that the cohort itself was at Caesarea, it is possible that he may have accompanied Festus as an escort to his province and was now returning to Rome.

Entering into a ship of Adramyttium.—Better, embarking in. Adramyttium was a town on the coast of Mysia, opposite Lesbos. It lay on the Roman road from Assos and Troas to Pergamus, Ephesus, and Miletus. It was a port of considerable importance, and the Gulf of Adramyti still retains its name.

There would seem to have been but little direct intercourse by sea between Caesarea and Rome, and the voyage therefore had to be made, now in one ship, now in another. Changes of this kind occurred, it will be remembered, in St. Paul’s journey from Philippi to Caesarea. Possibly it was at first intended that the prisoners should go to Adramyttium, cross to Greece, and then proceed by land. “Asia” is, of course, the proconsular province so called. Looking to the fact that the “fast,” i.e., the Day of Atonement (falling this year on September 24th), was over when St. Paul reached Crete (Acts 27:9), the date of embarkation may be fixed, with much probability, in the middle, or towards the end, of the previous August.

One Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica.—It is reasonable to infer that Aristarchus, who had come with St. Paul to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4), had remained in Palestine during the two years of the Apostle’s imprisonment, and was now intending to return to his native city. The subsequent alteration of plan (Acts 27:6), however, led to his accompanying him to Rome, and we find him there with St. Paul in Colossians 4:10, sharing his imprisonment.

And Julius courteously entreated.—The English fairly expresses the meaning of the Greek adverb, which is literally philanthropically. We note, as in other instances, the favorable impression made by St. Paul’s conduct on official persons who came in contact with him. (Acts 19:31; Acts 19:37.) The “friends” of St. Paul at Sidon were probably Christian disciples who had seen him when he passed through Phoenicia, as in Acts 15:3, or in other journeys.

To refresh himself—Literally, to avail himself of their care. The Greek word suggests the thought of a provision of personal comforts, clothing, and the like, for the voyage. After two years’ imprisonment, we may well believe that such kindly care would be both necessary and acceptable.

We sailed under Cyprus . . .—Had the wind been favourable, the ship would naturally have taken the direct course from Sidon to Mysia, leaving Cyprus on the right, as in his previous voyage St. Paul had sailed from Patara to Tyre (Acts 21:1). As it was, the wind probably being from the north-west, they made for the channel between Cyprus and Cilicia, and, sailing close under the lee of the long, projecting east coast of the island from Salamis to the promontory of Dinaretium (Capo Andrea), were thus sheltered.

We came to Myra, a city of Lycia.—The city lay about two miles and a half from the mouth of the river Andriacus. It had been at one time the metropolis of Lycia, and the remains of a theatre and an aqueduct remain to attest its former stateliness.