LUKE AND ANTIPHON:

The Theology of Acts 27-28 in the Light of Pagan Beliefs about

Divine Retribution, Pollution, and Shipwreck
GARY B. MILES
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ

GARRY TROMPF
UNIVERSITY OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA

The account of Paul's sea journey from Caesarea to Rome, and

of the shipwreck off Malta, is probably the "dramatic center" of
Acts. It is the moving bridge between the mysterious scene of
Christian origins and the awesome power of the Roman forum,
and it is an adventure recounted with much more than Luke's
usual amount of detail. The task of commenting on the passages
in question (27:1-28:16) presents certain difficulties, since it is
hard to decide whether Luke is being more litterateur than
historian, or whether he is virtually reproducing a document
rather than relating the events in his own way. Some scholars
contend that the journey narrative has all the ingredients of a
Hellenistic romance,1 while others hold that both the realism and
the presence of "we passages" confirm its essential historicity.2 To
complicate matters, there remains the possibility that Luke
appropriated a travel story which was originally not about Paul at
all, but about someone else who voyaged in the same direction.3
While these difficulties have encouraged a swell of critical
exegesis, however, another problem has had the quite opposite
effect. The details of the sea adventure seem to have lent
l
E.g., W. L. Knox, Some Hellenistic Elements in Primitive Christianity,
Schweich Lectures, 1942 (London: Milford, 1944) 13-14; Martin Dibelius,
Aufsätze zur Apostelgeschichte, FRLANT 60; (ed. Heinrich Greeven;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeckund Ruprecht, 1951) esp. 172-80; Eckhard Plümacher,
Lukas als hellenistischer Schriftsteller: Studien zur Apostelgeschichte, SUNT9
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeckund Ruprecht, 1972) esp. 14-15, 137; Petr Pokorny,
"Die Romfahrt des Paulus und der antike Roman," ZNW 64 (1973) 233-44;
Pokorny, however, pursues interests quite different from this article.
2
E.g., Kirsopp Lake and Henry J. Cadbury, "The Acts of the Apostles," in
F. J. Foakes-Jackson, ed., The Beginnings of Christianity, 4, 1 (London:
Macmillan, 1920-33), on Acts 27-28; Johannes Munck, The Acts of the
Apostles, (Anchor Bible; Garden City: Doubleday, 1967) xlii-xliii, 249-53.
3
See Hans Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte, (HNT 7; Tübingen: Mohr,
1963) Appendix, and Ernst Haenchen, Die Apostelgeschichte (Meyer K.;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1965) 633-34.
260 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
themselves far more to literary or historical criticism than to
redaction-critical analysis, so that this part of Acts has barely
been treated as any kind of witness to Lukan theology. It is true
that the way in which Paul braved the perils of the deep,
continued alive even after the venomous sting of a viper, and
reached his destination at last, have all been taken to reflect a
theology of providence.4 But more specific statements about
Luke's theological purposes are rare,5 which is a somewhat
disturbing fact in view of the narrative's strategic position within
Luke-Acts as a whole. It is our contention that Paul's troublous
experiences in the central Mediterranean actually carry a fairly
precise theological significance, a significance not easily grasped
by moderns, but one designed to have its dramatic impact on
Hellenistic readers. Clues to the Lukan meaning may first be
uncovered by an excursion into the Classics.

I
The belief that the misfortunes which befall the wicked are in
reality punishments meted out by the gods for their crimes was
deeply ingrained in Greek thought well before the Hellenistic
Age. It is, for example, a major unifying theme in Herodotus'
account of the Persian Wars: the catastrophic ends which meet
those who are full of hybris are the common elements which make
the stories of such incidental figures as a Polycrates6 or a
Pheretima7 (the vindictive Queen of Cyrene who was consumed
by worms) so relevant to Herodotus' treatment of Darius and
Xerxes.8 Later Christian writers were exposed to this tradition,
and some, such as Lactantius in De mortibus persecutorum,
made dramatic use of it for theological purposes.9

4
Note esp. Haenchen, Apostelgeschichte, 635; cf. J. C. O'Neill, The
Theology of Acts in its Historical Setting (London: S.P.C.K., 1961) 62-63.
5
E.g., M. D. Goulder {Type and History in Acts [London: S.P.C.K., 1964]
36-40) has argued that Paul's voyage and shipwreck are a typos of Jesus'
crucifixion and death, a difficult view to defend.
^Herodotus 3. 39-44, 120-29.
7
Herodotus 4. 200-05.
8
See Henry R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland:
American Philological Association, 1966), "Conclusion: History and the Order
of Nature," 306-26.
9
Garry Trompf discusses the importance of retributive logic in ancient
thought with particular reference to Polybius and Luke in The Idea of Historical
Recurrence in Western Thought (Unpublished diss.; Australian National
University, 1974).
 MILES AND TROMPF 261
In Hellenistic thought the working out of retributive justice was
often complicated by belief in the possibility of religious
pollution. According to this idea, the innocent, if they associate
even unknowingly with a person guilty of a religious crime, are so
endangered by him that they may become engulfed in whatever
disaster it is by which the guilty is punished. A particularly
relevant example of this belief from the Judaic tradition is, of
course, the story of Jonah (Jonah 1:1-2:1). E. R. Dodds,10
moreover, has shown that concern with the dangers of pollution
(and thus with the need for purification) had become an
important preoccupation with Greeks during the Archaic Period
(800-500 B.c.).That this belief enjoyed wide currency throughout
the Hellenistic world is suggested, for example, by Livy.11 Writing
in a different language, in a later age, and for a different people,
Livy could nonetheless imply that an entire Roman army suffered
a disastrous defeat at Lake Trasimene because Consul Flaminius
had been too headstrong and impatient to take the auspices when
assuming office. Another evidence of the depth and persistence of
belief in religious pollution is its very prominence in modern
Greek folklore.12
A neglected passage from a speech by the Athenian orator
Antiphon (c. 480-411 B.C.)13 provides a striking testament to the
extent of popular commitment to retributive logic and to the idea
of pollution—and this in a situation which is of specific relevance
to the interpretation of Paul's voyage in Acts. Antiphone speech
is characteristic of legal speeches produced by Greek orators of
the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., since it was written for a client
who would deliver it in his own person. In this case the client was
one Helos, a citizen of the Athenian dependency Mytilene.
Around 419 B.C. Helos had sailed from Mytilene to Aenos on the
coast of Thrace. Forced to land because of bad weather, the ship's
passengers sojourned at Methymne. It was at this place that
Herodes, a traveling companion of Helos and an Athenian
citizen, disappeared. Herodes' relatives forced Helos to return to
10
The Greeks and the Irrational, Sather Classical Lectures 25 (Berkeley:
University of California, 1951) 35-37, 38, 43-48.
»Bk. 22. 1-6.
12
For documentation and discussion see R. and E. Blum, The Dangerous
Hour: The Lore of Crisis and Mystery in Rural Greece (London: Chatto and
Windus,*1970) 298-300, 359, et passim.
13
Peri tou Hërodou phonou, 82-83. Plümacher, Lukas, 14-15 cites numerous
Hellenistic models for Luke's narrative of the shipwreck, but no one to our
knowledge has yet sought to illuminate the meaning of Luke's narrative in light
of this passage from Antiphon.
262 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Athens and stand trial. Although Helos' alleged crime was the
murder of Herodes, the plaintiffs charged him as a "malefactor."
This was an arrangement which offered several important
advantages to the plaintiffs. It is of interest in the present
discussion, however, because it meant that the case was not tried
before the more religiously conservative Areopagus but rather
before one of the more modern and secular dicasteries.
The defense which Antiphon prepared for Helos was organized
around two main points. One was that Helos should be acquitted
in order that his case could be tried before the appropriate court,
the Areopagus. Helos argued, indeed, that the trial was
inappropriate because, among other things, it did not take the
customary precautions against pollution. The case was being
tried in the marketplace so that the entire population was exposed
to the danger of pollution. Likewise, since it was being tried inside
a building, not in the open air, the entire jury risked entering
under the same roof as an accused murderer who might, if he were
guilty, bring disaster down upon all their heads.14 The plaintiffs in
their eagerness to injure the defendant have disregarded both the
technicality of the law and the public safety.
Helos' second line of defense contains an argument which is
even more interesting in its appeal to accepted beliefs about
pollution:
I think you know that before now many men whose hands are unclean (µfi
Kadapoì)and who have some other pollution (µfl·Ûµ·) have boarded ship
with others and along with their own lives have destroyed those who are
pure (¸Ûfl˘Ú ‰È·ÍÂȵ›ÌÔıÚ) in matters relating to the gods, and that others
who are pure, while they have not perished, have experienced the most
extreme dangers on account of such [polluted] men. And in addition,
many in attendance at sacred rites have been revealed to be impure and to
be hindrances to the performance of the proper ceremonies. But in my
case, the opposite is true on every count. For all those with whom I have
sailed have enjoyed good voyages. And wherever I attended sacred rites,
they have always turned out excellently. I claim all this as great proof of
the charge that the plaintiffs have accused me falsely. (Antiphon, Peritou
Hërodou phonou, 82-83)15

This unusual defense calls for some preliminary comments.

That Helos should cite the success of voyages he had been on was
particularly appropriate to this specific case, inasmuch as the
crime of which he was accused was to have been committed in the

14
Antiphon, Peri tou Hërodou phonou, 10-11.
15
The translation is ours.
 MILES AND TROMPF 263
course of a sea voyage. Nonetheless, Helos' argument here makes
a remarkable assumption and implies that it would be shared by
his audience. Helos did not cite a maritime disaster as proof of
inevitable divine retribution on the impure, or even as proof of
guilt. He was doing the reverse: the fact that his voyages had been
successful could only be significant proof of his innocence, if he
assumed that they could not have been successful were he guilty of
murder. Not only can disasters, then, be understood as
punishment for wickedness, but in some circumstances they are
so much to be expected that their absence can be adduced as proof
of innocence.
That this should be the case concerning seafaring in particular
may be explained by the fact that it was a notoriously dangerous
undertaking in Antiquity and that it was an occasion when men
were especially vulnerable to disaster whether from piracy or
from unpredictable and uncontrollable natural forces.16 Indeed,
belief in man's particular vulnerability to divine retribution and
to the dangers of pollution at sea seems to have been well
established throughout all Antiquity. Odysseus' crew, because of
their slaughter of Helios' sacred cattle, were all destroyed in a
shipwreck. Odysseus himself, even though he forbade the
slaughter and attempted to guard against it, suffered shipwreck
with his impious crew. He was not killed as they were, but his
efforts to reach Ithaca were severely hampered, and he lost all of
the prizes which he had accumulated in the course of his voyage
thus far.17 At the other end of Antiquity, Lactantius
acknowledged pagan beliefs in retribution and pollution. While
he regarded the pagan deities not as true gods but as fallen
angels,18 he nonetheless affirmed that these fallen angels did exact
retribution as the pagans believed them to do. He even supported
traditional beliefs with examples, including that of Pyrrhus of
Epirus, the Hellenistic military adventurer. Because he had
plundered a temple of Locrian Proserpina, he and his entire crew
were destroyed in a shipwreck. Only the booty survived.19 Once
again wefindthe innocent perishing in a shipwreck with the guilty
as a consequence of divine retribution.
16
It is possible, too, that the idea of polluted objects or persons being
engulfed at sea and the pollution thus "washed away" lay behind the thinking of
Helos and his audience. Although we have been unable to find an explicit
articulation of this idea in Classical Antiquity, it is well-attested in modern
Greek folklore; see Blum The Dangerous Hour, 32, 34, 64, 188.
"Homer Od. fi." 127-41, 259-446.
l
*Div. inst. 2.17 (PL 6. cols. 290-91).
"Div. inst. 2. 8 (PL 6. cols. 337-39).
264 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
It is significant in assessing the popularity of the views of
retribution, pollution, and seafaring which Antiphon assumed in
his defense of Helos that Helos presented his argument not before
the Areopagus, which might be expected to be rather conservative
and not necessarily representative in religious matters, but before
a dicastery which did not have the same strong religious-ritual
traditions as the Areopagus. It is perhaps also worthy of note that
Helos' reference to his successful voyages comes as thefinaland
climactic proof of his innocence. The remaining arguments in his
defense deal with the question of legal proprieties. We are led to
believe, then, that the failures of the gods to visit disaster upon an
individual and his associates during a sea voyage would be
regarded by a representative cross-section of Athenians as a
legitimate, indeed, even as an especially persuasive, evidence of
religious purity.

II
The pleas of Helos, along with our preliminary observations
concerning retribution and pollution, have obvious relevance for
the interpretation of Acts 27-28. On reconsidering these chapters
we are suddenly confronted by an inconspicuous, long-forgotten
theological punch-line: Í·fl Ô˝Ù˘Ú éyévero ‹ÌÙ·Ú ÔÈ·Ô˘ËfiÌ·È
ènl ÙÁÌ yr¡v (27:44). As the arduousness of the Mediterranean
voyage increased, Paul emerged as the crucialfigurewho could
save the seafarers from utter calamity. With every tack, hoist, or
sounding, the reader is carried along by the claims and entreaties
of the captive hero who, after making his first unheeded
prediction about an almost total disaster (v. 10), eventually gives
encouragement that there will be "no loss of life" and that "no hair
will perish" (w. 22,34). When (as most readers expect) the vessel
breaks on the rocks, we are relieved to discover that his
assurances were well founded. Luke's emphasis on the complete
fulfillment of the prognostications is quite clear. His impressive
statement that "everyone escaped to land," moreover, was not
simply meant to suggest that, under divine guidance, Paul was
miraculously preserved for his climactic trek along the Appian
Way; it also conveys the telling point that Paul was the salvation
of about 276 voyagers.20 And why is this such a telling point?
Because it is decisive confirmation of Paul's innocence.

20
For the number, see v. 37 (with textual variants). In vv. 35-36, Luke states
that Paul thanked God and broke bread in the presence of all (‹ÌÙ˘Ì), and that
all (‹ÌÙ‚Ú) were thereby encouraged.
 MILES AND TROMPF 265
At this stage it is useful to contemplate three noteworthy facts.
The first is the omission, at the conclusion to Acts, of any trial
before Caesar or before a tribunal in Rome (cf. the anticipatory
passages 25:11b; 26:32; 27:24; 28:19). Paul arrives at the
administrative hub of the oikoumenë; he is welcomed by certain
Christians, disputes with Roman Jews, and finally establishes a
center for preaching in his own hired dwelling (28:14-31). The
modern reader has reason to be either disappointed over the
apparently irresolute nature of the ending, or else impatiently
curious about subsequent events.21 The absence of any hearing at
Rome, however, could well fall within the bounds of the Lukan
purpose. Instead of asking the usual questions — whether Luke
planned a third volume, for instance, or whether he lacked the
information necessary to complete his story — we should be
recognizing how his account of the shipwreck amounted to a
theological tour deforce in the eyes of most ancient readers. Paul
was put to the last test by forces and exigencies far more dreaded
than the requirements of a human law court, and since he had
been found guiltless, what need was there to recount the outcome
of his appeal?22 The last pages of Acts, then, possess a resolution
which can be grasped only by reappropriating Hellenistic
preconceptions concerning shipwreck.23

21
Even the modern critic, cf. esp. R. P. C. Hanson, "The Acts," The New
Clarendon Bible, The New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967) 28-35.
22
It is not impossible that Julius (the centurion of 27:3, 31) secured Paul's
freedom (see 28:31b, yet cf. 2 Tim 4:16-17) in view of the events at sea. That is a
tantalizing question about historicity, however, and it is Lukan theology which
concerns us here. Perhaps Luke omitted reference to a final trial because he
wished to arouse his readers' curiosity, but there seems more promise in the
assumption that, in not mentioning it, Luke avoided real politico-theological
difficulties. By the time of Paul's arrival, the emperor was revered as a god, and
while the normal inclination of Luke's non-Christian readers would have been to
declare Caesar's judgment divine, the Evangelist himself was doubtless of the
opinion that Nero was a mere mortal, and one who did not know the true god.
The theology of Acts is such that Paul's innocence was established by a divinely
controlled happening en route to Rome which made the emperor's judgment
superfluous.
23
Here we do not wish to discount Luke's preoccupations with Jewish
questions (esp. in 28:17-28), nor the evident influence of Jewish historiography
(Paul's relative freedom in captivity may have been consciously paralleled to
Jehoiachin's condition in Babylon which is described at the very end of the
Deuteronomic history, 2 Kgs 24:29-30, cf. Trompf, Idea of Historical
Recurrence, 250). What happened to Paul, too, may represent a deliberate
contrast to the fate of Jonah.
266 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
The second notable fact is that Luke actually spends time
playing with these preconceptions in his treatment of the Maltese
(28:1-6). In this connection, though, we must preserve a working
distinction between the common presuppositions of Luke's
readers (who have been following the career of Paul up to this
point with great interest), and the slightly ridiculed beliefs of the
Maltese (who have not). The reader is carried along with the
buoyancy of Luke's "providentialism." Instead of falling into the
hands of plunderers, the shipwrecked were shown "unusual
24
courtesy" by ‚‹Ò‚·ÒÔÈ. Instead of dying from snakebite, Paul
was miraculously saved so that he could perform miracles among
the island people. The Maltese onlookers, for their part,
expressed opinions which were not meant to be those of the
readers (who were "in the know"!) but which were nevertheless
notions very familiar to gentiles and commonly used by them. We
must hasten to add, though, that the remarks of the Maltese
about the avenging dike do not only pertain to the unexpected
sting of a viper. Luke's representation of their views is carefully
worded: ……‹ÌÙ˘Ú ˆÔÌ‚˝Ú lorivo ‹ÌËÒ˘ÔÚ Ô‡ÙÔÚ, ÔÌ ‰È·Û˘Ë›ÌÙ·
›Í ÙÁÚ Ë·Î‹ÛÛÁÚ fi ‰flÍÁ ÊÁÌ ÔıÍ eïaoev (v. 4).25 The general
implication of these phrases is that Paul's escape from the sea
would have been popularly attested as a clear sign of his
innocence, but that for a brief moment doubt had been cast over
his worthiness. The snap judgments of the Maltese, however,
proved to be unjustified on at least three counts. First, they were
quite mistaken in supposing Paul to be a murderer; secondly, they
were wrong in thinking that Paul would be harmed by the snake
(a misjudgment which soon produced the equally misguided
conclusion that Paul was a god); and thirdly, they failed to realize
that Paul was actually the salvation of the voyagers. It is this third
misapprehension which was of the greatest importance for Luke's
theology. Paul was already innocent; there was no question that
justice would claim him at last.

24
See Henry J. Cadbury, The Book ofActs in History (London: Black, 1955)
25-26; and Ernst Haenchen, "Das 'Wir' in der Apostelgeschichte und das
Itinerar," ZThK 58 (1961) 360, n. 93, on feared piratical "barbarians." The
double meaning of "non-Greek-speaking natives" and "uncivilized men" (who
are likely to harm strangers but who are surprisingly kind) seems intended.
25
Although Luke expressed their thoughts with his usual feeling for dramatic
impact, this does not mean that 28:4 and 6 lose any of their value as passages
indicating the forms of retributive logic prevalent at the level of village
consciousness, let alone among intellectuals and urban dwellers of the
Mediterranean basin.
 MILES AND TROMPF 267
The third fact of note is that the legal issues raised in the case of
Helos and in Luke's narrative of shipwreck and deliverance are
substantially the same. Antiphon clinched the defense of his client
by pointing tò Helos' remarkable immunity to shipwreck after the
incident at Methymne. His arguments rested on grounds which
were apparently quite well accepted in Athenian courts: either
Helos himself, or some other person(s) on the same ship, would
not have been spared had he been a figure of pollution. That
everyone on the vessel had escaped removed all doubts as to his
innocence, and this is a striking claim which has been subtly
reproduced in the book of Acts. Antiphon, admittedly, wrote
over three centuries before Luke, yet as the relevant beliefs clearly
persisted well beyond Luke's time, it has not seemed at all
improper to make connections.26
To conclude, the special meaning we have elicited from the last
two chapters of Acts ought to be related to a major line of Lukan
theology as it is manifested in Luke's work as a whole. As argued
elsewhere,27 Luke was extremely interested both in Jesus'
teaching about retribution and in the recurrent actualization of
retributive principles within history. Why he was motivated to
produce a Gospel sequel may be at least partly explained by his
concern to reveal the sorry fate of such apparently evil people as
the betrayer (Acts 1:18-19), the Herodians (12:20-23), the Jewish
priesthood (23:3) and the rebellious Jews in general (28:28; cf.
Luke 19:41-44; 21:20-21). Conversely, his defense of the
Christians lay in his depiction of them as innocent sufferers whose
murderers and persecutors were worthy of punishment. Although
the Christians so often found themselves in the sorest straits, their
untimely deaths or unfortunate circumstances were either
recognizably unjust (e.g., Acts 22:19-21; Luke 23:47b, om. Mk.,
Mt.) or else vindicated by subsequent events (e.g., Acts 12:1-23).
In the particular case of Paul, moreover, each travesty of justice
was overcome by the irrepressible power of God, who proved how
the victimized hero merited life and freedom (e.g., 14:19-21;
16:19-40; 21:27; 26:32). The outcome of the voyage to Rome,
signifying as it did that Paul was acquitted by a tribunal no less
formidable than the divinely controlled ocean itself, is the
crowning-point of this theological trajectory.

26
See supra on Lactantius.
27
Garry Trompf, "La section médiane de l'Evangile de Luc; l'organisation
des documents," in RHPhR 53 (1973) 141-54, and cf. Idea of Historical
Recurrence, 291-99.