John Gill Commentary Acts 27

And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy ,
&c.] The chief city of which was Rome, the metropolis of the empire, where Caesar had his palace, to whom the apostle had appealed; and his voyage thither was determined by Festus, with the advice of Agrippa and his council, pursuant to the apostle's appeal, and which was founded on the will of God; all which concurred in this affair: it was the decree and will of God that the apostle should go to Rome, which was made known to him; and it was his resolution upon that, to go thither, wherefore he appealed to Caesar; and it was the determination of the Roman governor, not only as to his going there, but as to the time of it, which was now fixed.

The Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, read "he", instead of "we"; and the Ethiopic version reads expressly "Paul"; but the Greek copies read we: by whom are meant the apostle, and his companions; as Luke the writer of this history, and Aristarchus the Macedonian mentioned in the next verse, and Trophimus the Ephesian, who was afterwards left at Miletus sick, (2 Timothy 4:20) and who else cannot be said; these were to sail with him to Italy, not as prisoners, but as companions: this resolution being taken,

they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners ;
who very likely had also appealed to Caesar, or at least the governor thought fit to send them to Rome, to have their cases heard and determined there; and these by the order of Festus were delivered by the centurions, or jailers, in whose custody they had been,

unto one called Julius ;
in the Alexandrian copy of the third verse, he is called Julianus; he was either one of the Julian family, or rather was one that had been made free by some of that family, and so took the name:

a centurion of Augustus' band ;
of a Roman band of soldiers, which belonged to that legion which was called "Augusta"; for it seems there was a legion that bore that name, as Lipsius observes, and it may be from Augustus Caesar.

And entering into a ship of Adramyttium
Which was in the port of Caesarea; for from thence they set sail to the place where this ship was bound, which very likely was the place here mentioned; there was a city of this name in Africa, and which was built upon the sea shore, and is sometimes called Hadrumentum ^F7 , as this is called Adramantos, in the Syriac version; and in the Alexandrian copy, and in another manuscript, "a ship of Adramyntum"; it is mentioned with Carthage, a city in Africa, by Pliny ^F8 and Solinus ^F9 ; the one calls it Adrumetum, and the other Adrymeto; and the latter says, that it, as well as Carthage, was built by the people of Tyre; and so Sallust ^F11 says, that the Phoenicians built Hippo, Adrumetum, Leptis, and other cities on the sea coast; and the name seems to be a Phoenician name, (twmrdx) "Hadarmuth", which signifies "the court of death"; perhaps it might be so called, either from the badness of the air in which it was, or the dangerousness of its haven:

Jerom calls it Hadrumetus, and says ^F12 it is a city in Byzacium, a country in Africa; he seems to design another place, the metropolis of the Byzacian country, the most fruitful of all the parts of Africa, and which in the Phoenician language was (twamrdh) "Hadarmeoth"; which signifies "the court of a hundred"; that is, it was a place so fruitful that it brought forth an hundred fold; and agreeably to which is what Pliny says ^F13 , they are called Libyphoenicians, who inhabit Byzacium, a country so named, in circuit two hundred and fifty miles, and of such great fruitfulness that the land returns to the husbandmen an hundred fold.

The former of these is most likely to be the place here meant; and though we nowhere read of the apostle being here, nor of the Gospel being preached here in the early times of Christianity; yet in the "fourth" century there was a church in this place, and Philologus was bishop of it, who subscribed at a council held at Carthage in this century; and in the "fifth" century we read of several bishops of this place, as Aurelius, who was in the Chalcedon council, Flavianus in that at Ephesus, which was reckoned an infamous one, and Helladius, who was in the first Ephesine council, and Felix, who was banished by Gensericus ^F14 .

There was another city of the same name in Aeolia, or Mysia ^F15 , and which was formerly called Pedasus, and since Landermiti, and was a seaport, and bids fair to be the place here intended;

though since there was an island of Lycia called Adramitis ^F16 , now Audromety, and it was at Myra, a city of Lycia, where this ship stopped, (Acts 27:5) and where the passengers changed their ship, this seems most likely to be designed:

we launched ;
in the said ship from Caesarea:

meaning to sail by the coast of Asia ;
the lesser Asia, along by Ephesus and Miletus, as they did; for in this last place, as before observed, Trophimus was left sick; the Alexandrian copy reads, (mellonti) "that was about to sail"; that is, the ship of Adramyttium was about to sail, or just ready to sail by the coast of Asia, wherefore the company entered, and set forth in it on their voyage:

one Aristarchus a Macedonian, of Thessalonica, being with us ;
the same person that was with the apostle at Ephesus, and accompanied him into Asia, (Acts 19:29) (20:4) the same went through with him to Rome, and became his fellowlabourer, and fellow prisoner there, (Philemon 1:24) (Colossians 4:10) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F7: Mela, l. 1. c. 7.
• F8: Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 34.
• F9: Polyhistor. c. 40.
• F11: Bellum Jugurth. p. 52.
• F12: De locis Hebraicis, fol. 96. B.
• F13: Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 4.
• F14: Magdeburg. Eccl. Hist. cent. 4. c. 9. p. 496, 497. cent. 5. c. 10. p. 648.
• F15: Plin. l. 5. c. 30. Ptolom. l. 5. c. 2. Mela. l. 1. c. 18. Pausan. Messenica sive l. 4. p. 268. Herodot. l. 7. c. 42.
• F16: Stephanus de urbibus.

And the next day we touched at Sidon
This was a famous city in Phoenicia, upon the northern border of the land of Israel; it was a maritime place, and noted for trade and navigation; Mela

``Sidon, a famous city of Phoenicia, formerly the border of the Canaanites, to the north, situated at the foot of Mount Libanus, and the artificer of glass:'' and so Pliny ^F25 calls it, it being famous for the making of glass; and Herodotus ^F26 speaks of it as a city of Phoenicia.

Justin the historian says ^F1 it was built by the Tyrians, who called it by this name from the plenty of fish in it; for the Phoenicians call a fish "Sidon": and indeed Sidon or Tzidon seems to be derived from (dwu) , "Tzud", which signifies "to fish"; and the place is to this day called Said or Salt; and so R. Benjamin calls it Tzaida ^F2 : to this city they came from Caesarea, the day following that they set out on, and here they stopped awhile:

and Julius courteously treated Paul ;
the centurion into whose hands the apostle was delivered, used him with great humanity and civility; he found grace in his sight, as Joseph did in the sight of Potiphar, and as he himself has done before with Lysias, Felix, Festus and Agrippa:

and gave him liberty to go to his friends to refresh himself ;
for as there were disciples at Tyre, (Acts 21:3Acts 21:4) so it seems there were at Sidon, both which cities were in Phoenicia, and are often mentioned together; and the apostle was allowed to go ashore, and visit his friends, and be refreshed by them, both in body and spirit, and be provided for by them with things convenient for his voyage.

It is highly probable that there was here a Gospel church, but by whom it was planted cannot be said; our Lord himself was at the borders of this place, (Matthew 15:21) and the ministers of the word scattered at the death of Stephen, went as far as Phoenicia preaching the Gospel, (Acts 11:19) and that there were brethren there, appears from note on (See Gill on Acts 15:3), in which country Sidon was:

in the "third" century there was a church in this place, and Zenobius was presbyter of it, who suffered martyrdom under Dioclesian ^F3 ; in the "fourth" century there was a bishop of the church here, at the synod held at Nice; in the "fifth" century the bishop of the Sidonians, in the council of Chalcedon, declared his opinion with others against Dioscorus, whose name was Damianus; in the "sixth" century, a bishop of Sidon is mentioned in the acts of the council held at Rome and Constantinople, and in the same century a synod met at Sidon, in the 20th year of Anastasius the emperor ^F4 :

the account of the bishops of Sidon given by Reland ^F5 , is as follows; Theodorus, bishop of Sidon, subscribed in the first Nicene council, in the year 325; Paulus subscribed in the first council at Constantinople, in the year 381; Damianus was in the council held at Chalcedon, in the year 451; Megas is mentioned in the acts and epistles subjoined to the Chalcedon council; Andreas, bishop of this place, is noted in a letter of John of Jerusalem.

FOOTNOTES:

• F25: Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 19. & l. 36. c. 26.
• F26: Euterpe, c. 116. & Thalia, c. 136.
• F1: Hist. ex Trogo, l. 18. c. 3.
• F2: Itinerar. p. 34.
• F3: Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 8. c. 13.
• F4: Magdeburg. Hist. Eccl. cent. 4. c. 2. p. 2. cent. 5. c. 2. p. 2. c. 10. p. 551. cent. 6. c. 2. p. 3. c. 3. p. 17. c. 9. p. 243.
• F5: Palestina Illustrata, l. 3. p. 1014.

And when we had launched from thence
From Sidon:

we sailed under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary ;
that is, they sailed below the island of Cyprus; of which see (Acts 4:36) (13:4) whereas if the wind hadbeen right for them, they would have sailed above the island; leaving it on the right hand, in a straightcourse to Myra; but now they were obliged to go below it, leaving it on the left hand, going in part aboutit, through the seas of Cilicia and Pamphylia to Lycia, as follows.

And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia and
Pamphylia
For these two seas joined, as Pliny says ^F6 , "mare Pamphylium Cilicio jungitur", the Pamphyliansea is joined to the Cilician; and in another place ^F7 he observes, that in the Pamphylian seawere islands of no note, and in the Cilician sea of the five chiefest was Cyprus (an island mentioned in thepreceding verse), and a little after, the sea of Cilicia is distant from Anemurius fifty miles:

we came to Myra a city of Lycia ;
not Limyra in Lycia, though that lay by the sea side; for according both to Pliny ^F8 and Ptolomy^F9, Limyra and Myra were two distinct places in Lycia; which was a country, according to the latter, whichhad on the west and north Asia; (according to others, Caria on the west, and part of Lydia on the north; ) onthe east part of Pamphylia, and on the south the Lycian sea, or, as others, the Rhodian sea: much less wasthis the city of Smyrna, as some have said, which lay another way in Ionia, over against the Aegean sea; andstill less Lystra, as the Alexandrian copy and Vulgate Latin version read, which was in Lycaonia, and in thecontinent many miles from the sea:

Lycia was a country of the lesser Asia, and lay between Caria andPamphylia, and so it is mentioned with Caria and Pamphylia, in:``And to all the countries and toSampsames, and the Lacedemonians, and to Delus, and Myndus, and Sicyon, and Caria, and Samos, and Pamphylia,and Lycia, and Halicarnassus, and Rhodus, and Aradus, and Cos, and Side, and Aradus, and Gortyna, and Cnidus,and Cyprus, and Cyrene.'' and the Carians, Pamphylians, and Lycians, are frequently puttogether in history;

and the Lycians are said ^F11 to be originally of Crete, and to have theirname from Lycus the son of Pandion; though some think that Lycia took its name "a luce", from light, and ofthis country Myra was the metropolis: Ptolomy calls it Myrra, as if it had the signification of "myrrhe"; andso Jerom or Origen ^F12 reads it here, and interprets it "bitter"; but Pliny and others call itMyra, as here, and it signifies "ointment"; and here the apostle staying some time, though it cannot be saidhow long, no doubt opened the box of the precious ointment of the Gospel, and diffused the savour of it inthis place;

for in the beginning of the "fourth" century, in Constantine's time, we read of one Nicolaus, afamous man, bishop of Myra in Lycia, who was present at the council of Nice, and there showed the scars andmarks upon him, because of his constant confession of Christ under Maximinus; in the "fifth" century therewas a bishop of this place, whose name was Romanus, and was in two synods, in the infamous one at Ephesus,where he favoured Eutyches, and in that at Chalcedon; in the "sixth" century mention is made of a bishop ofthis church in the acts of the synod at Rome and Constantinople; in the "seventh" century, Polyeuctus, bishopof Myra, was in the sixth synod at Constantinople, and in this century Myra was the metropolitan church ofLycia; in the "eighth" century, Theodorus, bishop of it, was in the Nicene synod; and in the ninth centurythis place was taken by the Saracens ^F13 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F6: Hist. l. 5. c. 27.
• F7: Ib. c. 31.
• F8: Ib. c. 27.
• F9: Geograph. l. 5. c. 3.
• F11: Herodotus, l. 1. c. 173. & l. 7. c. 92. Pausanias, l. 1. p. 33. & l. 7. p. 401.
• F12: De Hebraicis Nominibus, fol. 106. A.
• F13: Magdeburg. Eccl. Hist. cent. 4. c. 2. p. 3. c. 10. p. 552. cent. 5. c. 2. p. 3. c. 10. p. 588. cent. 6. c. 2. p. 4. cent. 7. c. 2. p. 3. c. 7. p. 112. c. 10. p. 254. cent. 8. c. 2. p. 4. cent. 9. c. 3. p. 13.