Acts 28:15

Journey from Puteoli and Arrival in Rome, 15.

Acts 28:15. When the brethren heard of us. During the week spent at Puteoli there would be abundant time for the intelligence to travel to Rome; nor would a moment be lost in announcing the arrival of the wonderful writer of the Epistle to the Romans.

They came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. They were in two separate groups, the one in advance of the other. Among them were possibly Aquila and Priscilla, and others named in the sixteenth chapter of the epistle. The two places are well known to us through the writings of Horace and Cicero, and through the Itineraries. Three Taverns was thirty-three miles from Rome, and Appii Forum ten miles farther, on the low ground termed ‘the Pomptine Marshes.'

Whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage. We mark here two most distinctive characteristics of St. Paul the consciousness of help derived from the presence of his friends, and the gratitude which such services inspired in him. See, for instance, 2 Corinthians 2:13; 2 Corinthians 7:6; and 2 Timothy 1:16-18.