ACC ~ Acts 18 v1 - 4

OVERVIEW:

Modern commentators locate the probable date of Claudius’s edict at A.D. 49; it would thus have lapsed some five years later at his death. The ancients were more interested in this passage for the light it shows on a Christian understanding of manual labor, which, regardless of the level of skill, was proper to the lower classes of the Greco-Roman world. In Greek, words denoting manual labor had long carried negative connotations. Although the social status and mobility of manual laborers varied at different times and in different places, such a view was common throughout most of antiquity. Some pagan philosophers whose lives functioned as criticisms of the dominant social mores had, in Chrysostom’s view, discovered the benefits to their souls of good and honest work. Christianity, with its focus on the hereafter, infuses into human toil a different perspective, one that early urban and monastic Christians sometimes overlooked. In the monastic tradition work, in addition to being the fundamental means of self-support, takes on a use of pulling the person out of himself, orienting him to a communal life and keeping him from sloth. Augustine, who had to censure some idle monks, wrote a letter extolling work’s utility in the Christian life, and he drew his argument primarily from Paul’s writings. Chrysostom faces an urban audience among whom Paul’s manual labor and the home of an artisan carry not honor but amusement. He too makes Paul a goad to their idleness. Among the early Christians, Paul is often the prime example for them that a life aimed at idleness and luxury is amiss: Paul was practical not to give scandal by seeking luxury and set an example of an honest though hard life that can keep us focused on our true goal (CHRYSOSTOM). He did not do this out of greed but for the sake of the kingdom (AUGUSTINE). Moreover, these apparently earthly actions that answered to people’s physical needs were not cut off from his vocation as an apostle, but they pointed to the spiritual benefits that Paul was bequeathing to his audience, his churches and to us (ORIGEN).

18:3 | Of the Same Trade

THE VALUE OF A LIFE OF WORK. CHRYSOSTOM: Let no one who is a craftsman be ashamed, but rather those who are reared for no purpose and do nothing, the ones who employ many servants and enjoy an immense court. For being raised as an unceasing worker is the nature of philosophy. The minds of such people are purer, more vigorous. The one who does nothing is really one who does much in vain and, full of indolence, in an entire day accomplishes nothing. The one engaged in work will take on nothing superfluous in haste, neither in deeds nor words nor thoughts. For such a person’s entire soul, throughout the day, has been set on a painful means of existence. We, therefore, ought not to scorn those who support themselves by the work of their hands, but we should really count them blessed because of this. … Paul, after countless journeys, despite such great wonders, stayed with a tentmaker and sewed skins. Angels honored him and demons trembled at him, and still he was not ashamed to say, “These same hands served my needs and those who were with me.” CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.3-5.

PAUL DOES NOT LIVE IN IDLENESS. CHRYSOSTOM: It was with them that [Paul] stayed, and he was not ashamed to do so; on the contrary, he stayed precisely because he had found a suitable lodging place. For it was much more suitable for him than royal palaces. And do not laugh as you listen. … For just as to an athlete the gym is more useful than soft cushions, likewise to a warrior an iron sword is useful and not a golden one. And he worked while preaching. Let us be ashamed, we who live idle lives even though we are not occupied with preaching. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 39.

EARNING AN HONEST LIVING. AUGUSTINE: [Paul] has repeatedly said of himself that he was working with his own hands so as not to burden anyone, and it is written of him that he joined with Aquila because of the similarity of their handicraft, so that they might work together to maintain a livelihood. From these and other such passages of the Scripture it is clear enough that our Lord does not reprove a person for procuring these things in the usual manner, but that he reproves a person who would serve in the army of God for the sake of these things, one who in his works has his eye fixed not on the kingdom of God but on the acquisition of these things. This entire precept is reduced, therefore, to the following rule: namely, that even in the procuring of these things we should keep our mind on the kingdom of God and that in the service of the kingdom of God we should give no thought to these things. In this way, even if these things be lacking at times (and God permits this usually for the purpose of exercising us), not only do they not weaken our resolve, but they even strengthen it for trial and approval. SERMON ON THE MOUNT 2.17.57-58.

MAKING HEAVENLY TENTS—THE SPIRITUAL SENSE OF PAUL’S LABOR. ORIGEN: Tents can refer to perfect souls, which also is true of the name Israel derived from “seeing God.” Now these “tents,” says Scripture, are “just like shady groves, like paradises beside streams and like tents that the Lord has pitched.” It thus shows that there are other tents that the Lord has pitched, which the tents of Israel resemble. I have to go forth beyond this world in order to see those that are “the tents the Lord has pitched.” They, no wonder, are those he showed to Moses when he was building the tent in the desert. The Lord said to him, “Behold, you shall make all according to the model that has been shown to you on the mountain.” In imitation of these tents, therefore, Israel must make its tents, and each of us must prepare and build our own tent. In light of this, I do not believe it happened by chance that Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee were fishermen and that Paul was a tentmaker. And as they, summoned from their trade of catching fish, are changed and become fishers of people when the Lord says, “Come, follow me, and I shall make you fishers of men,” so too Paul—for he too was called “apostle” through my Lord Jesus Christ—was changed by a similar transformation of his trade so that, just as they were turned from fishermen into fishers of men, so he was moved from making earthly tents to building heavenly tents. He made heavenly tents by teaching each path of salvation and showing the way of the blessed dwellings in the heavens. Paul made tents also by establishing churches when “he proclaimed, in its fullness, the gospel of God from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum.” In this way he too made tents in the likeness of the heavenly tents, “which God showed to Moses on the mountain.” HOMILIES ON NUMBERS 17.4.6-7.