Paul’s Voyage to Rome

Paul and other prisoners were handed to a centurion named Julius for the passage to Italy. The account is told in the first person plural, “we” (Acts 27:1–2); Irenaeus, writing about AD 180, took the narrator to be Luke, Paul’s companion (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.14.1). At Myra the centurion moved his party onto a ship from Alexandria bound for Italy. It made slow progress and put in at Fair Havens in Crete. The safe season for sailing was over, and Paul warned against going on, but the centurion listened to the ship’s master and its owner, and most wanted to reach a better harbour for the winter (Acts 27:5–12).

A gale drove the ship before it for fourteen days. The crew threw the cargo and tackle overboard. Paul told the company that an angel had said to him that he must stand before Caesar and that no one on board would be lost. There were 276 people in the ship. It ran aground and broke up, and all of them reached the shore (Acts 27:13–44).

The island was Malta. Acts says that the islanders showed the survivors unusual kindness, that Paul shook off a viper unharmed, and that he healed the father of Publius, the chief man of the island (Acts 28:1–10). After three months they sailed in another Alexandrian ship by Syracuse and Rhegium to Puteoli, where they found believers. Christians from Rome came out along the road to meet them (Acts 28:11–15).

In Rome Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier to guard him. He called together the leaders of the Jewish community, who said that they had had no letters about him and wished to hear his views. Some were persuaded and others were not, and Paul declared that the message would go to the Gentiles (Acts 28:16–28). Acts closes with the words that he stayed two whole years in his own rented house, receiving all who came and teaching about Jesus “with all boldness, without hindrance” (Acts 28:30–31).

Acts does not say how the appeal ended. Letters written in Paul’s name from prison name Aristarchus and Luke among those with him (Philemon 23–24) (Colossians 4:10, 14), and the letter to the Philippians sends greetings from “Caesar’s household” (Philippians 4:22); none of them says where he was held. Eusebius, some 250 years later, assigns the mention of Aristarchus to this Roman custody and reports, as something said, that Paul was then released, preached again and came to Rome a second time (Eusebius, Church History 2.22.1–2). For that, see the Martyrdoms of Peter and Paul.