Acts 20:4

Acts 20:4. And there accompanied him into Asia, Sopater of Berea; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gains of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. Of these companions of the apostles three were natives of Macedonia and four of Asia Minor. In the older MSS. Sopater is described as (the son) of Pyrrhus; this was possibly added to distinguish him from the Sosipater (the same name as Sopater) mentioned in Romans 16:21, a kinsman of St. Paul. Nothing is known of him further. The name, however, occurs in an inscription still existing in Saloniki (Thessalonica), probably of the date of Vespasian, as belonging to one of the politarchs of that city. Aristarchus had been associated with St. Paul at Ephesus (chap. Acts 19:29). Secundus is not mentioned elsewhere. Professor Plumptre ingeniously suggests that this Secundus, together with Tertius in Romans 16:22, and Quartus (Romans 16:23), were all three sons of a disciple who had adopted this plan of naming his children. Gaius of Derbe. So styled to distinguish him from another companion of St. Paul with the same name, who belonged to Macedonia (chap. Acts 19:29). Derbe was a small city of Lycaonia, in Asia Minor, near to Lystra (see chap. Acts 14:6). Timotheus. The well-known pupil and disciple of St. Paul, to whom in after days the two epistles bearing his name were addressed. It is not improbable that these two here named together, coming from the same neighbourhood, were friends and comrades. Tychicus. The name which means ‘fortunate' is represented by the Latin ‘Felix.' He was probably a native of Ephesus. We hear of him several times in early apostolic history. He was the bearer of the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians from Paul, then a prisoner at Rome, to those distant churches (see Colossians 4:7-8; Ephesians 6:21-22), and he is styled ‘a beloved brother and a faithful minister of the Lord.' In the last epistle of his brave, good life, St. Paul tells Timothy ‘he had sent Tychicus to Ephesus' (2 Timothy 4:12). Tradition tells us he became Bishop of Chalcedon in Bithynia. Trophimus. The last-named of this company of St. Paul's friends, we know, accompanied the apostle on this journey all the way to Jerusalem, and was the occasion there of his arrest (Acts 21:29). Trophimus, too, is mentioned in the Second Epistle to Timothy (chap. Acts 4:20), ‘Trophimus have I left at Miletus sick.' Early tradition tells us this friend and associate of St. Paul had been one of the seventy disciples, and suffered martyrdom under Nero. It is, however, very doubtful if any of the ‘seventy' belonged to an alien race, to which Trophimus, from the circumstance related in chap. Acts 21:27-30, certainly appears to have belonged. It has been asked why these seven companions of the apostle are so carefully enumerated in this case. The supposition that they acted as a bodyguard to St. Paul, and that they were seven in number, to correspond with the number of the deacons (chap. Acts 6:3-5), must be dismissed as purely fanciful. They were, no doubt, messengers of their several churches deputed to carry the contributions of the Gentile congregations to the poor saints of Jerusalem. St. Luke, the compiler of the history of the ‘Acts,' as we shall see in the next verse, at this juncture rejoined the apostle, and the narrative now indicates from its minuteness that the writer was present at the scenes described. We can easily conceive that the names of the persons of this little company with which he found himself so intimately associated were graven on the mind of the compiler of the memoir.