According to Acts 19:31, “some of the officials of the province [of Asia Minor]” were “friends of Paul,” and sent him warnings about the resistance he would face there.
In addition, we are told that among Paul’s early converts was Sergius Paulus, probably of consular rank and the Roman governor of Cyprus. (86)
All of Paul’s powerful connections strongly suggest that the “greetings” he sends from those “in Caesar’s household” in his letter to the Philippian community should be taken at face value. (87) Which brings us, at last, to one of Paul’s most important allies: Epaphroditus.
This most extraordinary figure has been remarkably unsung in history, though he is not only likely to have been a revered associate of St. Paul but also a powerful administrator for Roman emperors including Nero, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Having had a hand in four imperial administrations, Epaphroditus no doubt had considerable influence over the great events of his time.
Paul wrote to his friends in Philippi:
I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Greet all God’s people in Christ Jesus. The brothers and sisters who are with me send greetings. All God’s people here send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household. (Emphasis added.) (88)
Previously, in the same letter to the Philippians:
I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me. (Emphasis added.) (89)
Given the extraordinary credit he is paid in Philippians, Epaphroditus is curiously never mentioned in Acts. If he was a native of Philippi, as some have supposed, he makes no appearance in Christian literature until after Festus delivers Paul to Rome and only in this letter to the Philippians where Epaphroditus is shown personally attending to Paul’s needs.
Another of Paul’s important companions (one named “Titus”) is also not mentioned in Acts, even though he played such an important role in the circumcision controversy between Paul and James described in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, in which Titus is uniquely spared from that initiation. At the very least, the narrative in Acts is deficient for neglecting to follow these two previously instrumental New Testament figures, just as it largely ignores the leadership role played by James the Just.
Icon of Epaphroditus
Leaving that aside, let us consider what Paul says about Epaphroditus, a man who was probably a loyal friend of both the emperors Vespasian and Titus. Paul tells us that “Epaphroditus” helped deliver material support and messages from Paul’s friends in Philippi, enough for Paul to say that he was now “amply supplied.” Epaphroditus had apparently been ill and this may have brought him close to death, much to his Philippian friends’ distress, but he has also “risked his life” in order to help Paul in a way that the Philippians could not.
For all of their “ample” material support, the Philippians could not do the risky thing that Epaphroditus did for Paul, suggesting that Epaphroditus was in a position to assist Paul in some unique way in the city of Rome. This alone suggests that Epaphroditus may have had some special sort of influence that others did not.
It was to Caesar himself that Paul had appealed his case. Apart from material support, what Paul needed in Rome were friends in high places. Epaphroditus, if he had such influence there, apparently used it for Paul at this time—successfully, it seems, but at some personal risk. Paul urges the Philippian Christians to honor men like Epaphroditus.
Any doubt about Paul’s relative freedom under Roman captivity is dispelled by Paul himself in the same letter, in which he reassures his Philippian friends:
Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. (Emphasis added.) (90)
Given the nature of Paul’s imprisonment, it is easy to see why other Christians would have lost any fear of “proclaiming the gospel”; at least, Paul’s gospel. Paul’s friends are allowed to attend to his needs, Paul is free to correspond, and, even more remarkably, Paul is free to communicate with the whole of the Praetorian Guard about his situation. He has somehow gained the sympathy of the entire imperial bodyguard in Rome!
It is clearly implied that the Philippians to whom Paul is writing have some special relationship with Epaphroditus. They also seem to have a connection to those “in Caesar’s household,” since Paul winds up his letter with greetings from the imperial palace.
Remember, we have previously seen that Philippi, as a colony comprising many retired legionaries, was a community with a special relationship to the imperial cult.
Who else could Paul have meant when, writing from Rome, he makes such a casual, unexplained reference to “Caesar’s household”—other than Caesar himself? The progress he has made in persuading Caesar’s Praetorian Guard to Christianity only reinforces the authenticity of this imperial reference.
But how is this possible? That St. Paul should have connections to the highest levels of the administration of the Roman emperor is baffling under any traditional assumptions about Christian history. And it might simply be speculative—if other sources did not actually verify that a real person named “Epaphroditus” did in fact live in Rome at this time.
This Epaphroditus did enjoy just the sort of influence over Emperor Nero that Paul could use. He was so close to the emperor, in fact, that he would personally “help” Nero commit “suicide.”
When Jesus states that his Second Coming will occur within a lifetime, when Josephus calls his imperial master the true Jewish messiah, and when Paul refers casually to Caesar and the Praetorian Guard, we must first consider these astonishing claims at face value if we are to understand what is actually happening. Modern Christianity dismisses or deflects the import of these statements, and yet, without evidence to contradict them, we must start by testing the literal meaning, since—in contrast to so much else in the New Testament—they are factually specific, non-miraculous assertions found in contemporary personal correspondences of St. Paul and some of the oldest Christian literature.
The wider context of Paul’s high-ranking connections, along with the friendly way Roman officials uniformly treat him, all support taking him literally when he name-drops Epaphroditus, “Caesar’s household,” and the Praetorian Guard in the same letter to his compatriots in Philippi.