Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 27, 2022

Acts 18:9-18

One night while Paul was in Corinth, the Lord said to him in a vision, “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.” He settled there for a year and a half and taught the word of God among them.  But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him to the tribunal, saying, “This man is inducing people to worship God contrary to the law.” When Paul was about to reply, Gallio spoke to the Jews, “If it were a matter of some crime or malicious fraud, I should with reason hear the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a question of arguments over doctrine and titles and your own law, see to it yourselves. I do not wish to be a judge of such matters.” And he drove them away from the tribunal. They all seized Sosthenes, the synagogue official, and beat him in full view of the tribunal. But none of this was of concern to Gallio.  Paul remained for quite some time, and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had shaved his head because he had taken a vow.

Following Easter and preceding Pentecost, the Church uses readings from the Acts of the Apostles and from the Gospel of St. John.  The Gospel readings feature the Lord Jesus teaching the Apostles (and us) about the Holy Spirit; the readings from Acts show us the Holy Spirit on action in the early days of the Church.  In readings such as the one for today’s Mass, the Holy Spirit goes unmentioned, and yet he is working through the actions of the Apostles and others.  The Holy Spirit never speaks directly to us in his own Person, preferring to speak of the Father and the Son.  We can see his effects, however, and know that he is acting, for, as the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes” (John 3, 8).

When the Apostles began to preach the Gospel, the whole wide world was open to them.  Tradition holds that they divided up by lot the vast field of their labors, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide them to guide them to the destinations meant for them by Providence, just as they had for the choice of Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot.  Andrew, for instance, drew Greece.  While on their journeys, they prayed to the Holy Spirit to tell them when to stay and when and where to move on.  St. Paul is depicted in the Acts as praying in this way, and he himself speaks of praying for the opportunity to visit the Christians in Rome (cf. Romans 1, 10).  “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.”  At the beginning of today’s reading from the Acts, the Lord Jesus appears to Paul to tell him what he is to do in the city of Corinth, to which the Holy Spirit had directed him.  The Lord appeared to Paul on a few occasions in order to strengthen him at crucial times or, as in this case, to confirm his understanding of what the Holy Spirit was telling him in his heart.

“He settled there for a year and a half and taught the word of God among them.”  When Paul came to convert a city, he began by attending that city’s synagogue (all the larger cities in the Empire had one).  Often, as a traveler, he would be asked to speak.  Sometimes his reputation came before him to a place and the Jews there were eager to hear what this famous man had to teach them.  Paul’s words attracted some and alienated others, as we would expect.  Though he was not a great speaker, as he himself admitted, he was earnest, sincere, and learned, as a Pharisee.  He knew his Scriptures, he knew his message, and he persuaded many people in each place he visited to follow the Lord Jesus: “Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not in knowledge; in every way we have made this plain to you in all things” (2 Corinthians 11, 6). 

“But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him to the tribunal.”  This Gallio was the son of Seneca the Elder and the brother of philosopher and writer Seneca the Younger.  He was educated in philosophy and rhetoric.  Like his more famous father and brother, he became involved in the imperial politics in Rome.  He died in the year 65 A.D.  He was an intelligent man and a cultured man, far more so than, for instance, Pontus Pilate had been.  Some of the Jews, during his rule, rose up against Paul and went to the proconsul about him.  Paul had lived there by then for a year and a half and must have converted most of the synagogue to have been able to stay in the city for so long.  There were those, of course, who vehemently opposed the way of Christ and so they fought him through Paul.  It is curious that the Jews, both in Jerusalem and in Corinth (as well as in other places) seem to think that the secular rulers have any interest in their religious affairs.  Gallio says that their affairs are not his, and the Jews turn on Sosthenes, the “synagogue official” (either the builder or owner of the synagogue) and best him up in full view of the proconsul.  Presumably Sosthenes had supported Paul and perhaps had become a Christian himself.  Gallio would not be dragged into their trap by sending in troops, a move the Jews hoped would result in Paul’s arrest.  The Holy Spirit guided Gallio here in his prudent avoidance of the interests of those opposed to Christ.

“Paul remained for quite some time, and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila.”  Priscilla and Aquila were a married couple whom Paul had met and converted.  They had lived in Rome, and when Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome after a civil disturbance, they came to Greece.  At the appointed time, the Apostle Paul departed from Corinth and its by then vibrant Christian community in order to return to Syria on his way back to Jerusalem.  We can see the Holy Spirit active here in the preaching of Paul and the success of his preaching, the growth of the Church in Corinth despite its enemies, the conversion of very many people, both Jews and Gentiles, and then Paul’s moving on.  He could have remained there in relative peace and comfort for the rest of his life, but the Holy Spirit urged him on at the time meant for him, and he was obedient to the Holy Spirit.

“At Cenchreae he had shaved his head because he had taken a vow.”  Cenchreae was a kind of suburb of Corinth, on the Achaean coast.  Paul would have shaved his head there before embarking for Syria.  This is a strange little remark that St. Luke leaves unexplained.  He must have expected his readers to understand what was meant.  The vow may have signified the success of his first work in Europe.  He could have made the vow before crossing over from Asia and the news of his vow gotten back to Antioch so that when his friends in Antioch saw him again, they would know at once how the Gospel had fared through his cooperation with the Holy Spirit.