A Question on St. Paul’s Journeys
Valentin de Boulogne. Saint Paul Writing His Epistles (oil on canvas), c. 1620.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
(Listen to an audio version of the blog post above!)
Here’s a question many have asked:
“How did St. Paul get to all the places he visited on his missionary journeys, how much did it cost, and who paid for it?”
Here’s the answer:
In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus commissions his disciples to go and “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit . . .” (28: 19-20).
As the Apostle to the Gentiles, St. Paul took that commission seriously, and he worked tirelessly to deliver the gospel message throughout the Roman Empire. To accomplish that task, St. Paul used the most modern and efficient transportation networks of his day: the Roman road system and the Roman maritime trade routes.
Since the Roman Empire consisted of the land mass surrounding the entire Mediterranean Sea, travel by ship was the quickest and most efficient means of transportation. Indeed, the Roman Empire had a fully-developed network of maritime routes, much like airline routes operate today. Stanford University has developed a fabulous research tool: ORBIS, the Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World. With ORBIS we can see all of the established maritime routes (blue is open-sea routes; green is coastal routes):
Using ORBIS we learn that St. Paul’s journey from Caesarea Maritima to Rome in the fall of A.D. 60 (Acts 27-28) should have taken 23.6 days and covered 2,913 kilometers, or 1,810 miles. But recall that St. Paul’s ship was blown off course by hurricane-force winds off the southern coast of Crete, and after 14 days in the storm St. Paul ended up shipwrecked on the island of Malta, where he spent three months until the weather cleared and it was safe to sail again.
The Romans built over 58,000 miles of roads throughout the Empire, and ORBIS maps those, as well:
When St. Paul set out on his third missionary journey to Ephesus in A.D. 54, he left Syrian Antioch and headed west, walking across Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey (Acts 19: 1). It would have taken him 37 days and covered 1,073 kilometers, or 667 miles.
Using ORBIS we can also calculate the in-transit costs of St. Paul’s missionary journeys. Here is a chart I have put together to illustrate:
A denarius was roughly equivalent to a day’s wages for an average worker, say $250/day. Consequently, today’s equivalent for St. Paul’s in-transit travel expenses would be roughly $283,750. That doesn’t include St. Paul’s expenses once he arrived at his destination and stayed. He spent eighteen months in Corinth and nearly three years in Ephesus, so those missionary journeys were quite expensive!
So, who paid for them? Initially, St. Paul’s home church at Syrian Antioch would have covered much of the cost, for they commissioned Paul and Barnabas for the work. Perhaps the Syrian Antioch church contributed to the second and third missionary journeys, as well. Once Paul arrived at his destination, he sometimes worked (as he did initially in Corinth and perhaps also at Thessalonica), but more often either local believers offered him hospitality or St. Paul self-funded.
As you know, I lead teaching tours throughout the biblical world. Indeed, if COVID-19 restrictions lift, I’ll be leading my 63rd teaching tour to Israel this October 31, 2021! For nearly thirty years our Logos Bible Study students have traveled with me to Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain, walking in the footsteps of Jesus, St. Paul and other personalities in Scripture. From A.D. 46-62, St. Paul spent the vast majority of his time “on the road.” Apparently, St. Paul liked to travel . . . and so do we. I hope you’ll join us on our adventures!
Dr. C. and his Logos Bible Study students at Ephesus . . . in the “Footsteps of St. Paul.”