Apollos went on to preach valiantly in the synagogue, and the orthodoxy of his doctrine – even if incomplete – coupled with the courage with which he spoke, made him an attraction in the city.
Newsroom (07/09/2024 17:08, Gaudium Press) The moment when the figure of Apollos appears in the Acts of the Apostles probably coincides with the end of the year 52 A.D, or the beginning of 53 A.D, a time of full expansion of the Church. Although it hadn’t been long since the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ – less than twenty years – Christian communities could already be found all over the Mediterranean and beyond!
St. Peter, the first Pope, had moved to Rome about a decade earlier. In the same period, St. Paul began the last of his three apostolic journeys. He set off from the city of Antioch – the “headquarters” from which he usually began his journeys – and traveled “successively through the regions of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples” (Acts 18:23).
In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us about the adventures of these two men, pillars of the Church. However, in the eighteenth chapter of his work, he interrupts the narrative to look elsewhere.
The first mention of Apollos
The author of Acts turns to the port city of Ephesus, located a short distance from where the Apostle was, and where there was also a Christian community. St. Paul had been there not long before and had left behind two of his great friends and disciples, Priscilla and Aquila.
In that place, a character appeared who attracted attention: “A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, had arrived in Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the Scriptures. He had received instruction in the way of the Lord and, with great enthusiasm, spoke and taught accurately about Jesus, although he only knew the baptism of John” (Acts 18:24).
St. Mark had founded a fledgling community in Alexandria, a coastal city in Egypt, close to Israel. It is rightly assumed that Apollos was only a catechumen, having received only John’s baptism, a public invitation to penance and preparation for true Christian baptism.
Apollos was a fearless man. He began to preach valiantly in the synagogue and the orthodoxy of his doctrine – even if incomplete – added to the courage with which he spoke, made him an attraction in the city. Priscilla and Aquila, having been informed about this unusual character, decided to attend one of his speeches and had a very good impression: “When they heard him, Priscilla and Aquila welcomed him and explained to him the way of God more exactly” (Acts 18:26).
Here the sacred text reveals a very beautiful detail of Apollos’ personality: humility. Even though he was an extremely eloquent man and well-versed in the Scriptures, he didn’t hesitate to put himself, like a child, into the school of those disciples. It is to be believed that Apollos had already been baptized, perhaps even by Aquila himself.
Bishop Gaume says beautifully of Apollos’ attitude: “God blessed this disposition, as he always blesses humble souls.”[2] Apollos did the community of Ephesus an enormous amount of good. However, he felt inspired to preach in another city, where there was also a group of Christians: Corinth.
Faced with this prompting of grace, “the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him” (Acts 18:27). Apollos immediately set sail for his destination, where great trials awaited him.
Profound apostolate in Corinth
Corinth was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire. Situated on the isthmus linking the Peloponnese with the mainland, it had a double port which provided it with an intense commercial movement. Scholars estimate that its inhabitants numbered between one and two hundred thousand!
For the time, this was an appreciable figure. However, this prosperity, coupled with the heavy movement of travelers, ended up creating an environment of great moral debauchery. “Corinth was, so to speak, the capital of lust in the Mediterranean world”.
Despite this, the Apostle St. Paul founded one of his largest communities in that city between the years 50 and 51, and remained there for at least a year and a half (cf. Acts 18:11). Throughout this period, he faced harsh suffering and strong opposition from the Jews who lived there. His troubles reached such an extreme that Our Lord himself wanted to appear to him to encourage him: “Do not be afraid; keep talking and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will lay a hand on you to do you harm. In this city there are many people who belong to me” (Acts 18:9-10).
This was the context in which Apollos found himself, practically a year after St. Paul’s departure.[5] However, none of this discouraged the great preacher: “Apollos’ presence there was very helpful to those who had embraced the Faith by the grace of God. For he vigorously and publicly refuted the Jews, demonstrating from the Scriptures
Well-instructed in the truths of the Gospel, Apollos preached in Corinth with the same success he had achieved in Ephesus, becoming the Bishop of that city.
Absurd dispute
His popularity among the Corinthian faithful grew to such an extent that he ended up causing a kind of division: some claimed to be Peter’s, others Paul’s, others Apollos’, others Christ’s?
This absurd attitude had several causes, the first of which was the superficiality of the Corinthians themselves. How could they equate the Apostles with Our Lord, to the point where their authority was equal to His? It’s hard to find an answer.
The same superficiality made the Corinthians, seeing Apollos’ great eloquence, think he was superior to St. Paul, who preached in a much simpler way and without using the resources of rhetoric (cf. 1 Cor 2:1-5).
As if that weren’t enough, we find an external factor: the creation of parties among the Corinthians was probably also instigated by certain Jewish “converts”, who arrived in the city shortly after Apollos and were looking for pretexts to attack St. Paul and his title of Apostle (cf. II Cor 10:9-10; 11:5-7; 12:11-13). The wickedness of these infiltrators is well expressed in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, in which they are called “false apostles, dishonest workers, who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ” (11:13).
It’s worth remembering that Apollos had nothing to do with the dispute. If there had been any ill intent in his apostolate, we can be sure that St. Paul – a man of remarkably fiery, uncompromising, and sincere character – would have criticized him, as he even did St. Peter (cf. Gal 2:11). However, we see the opposite: all the references to Apollos in the Pauline letters show great esteem and trust.
In any case, the parties were formed and the situation in Corinth became untenable. It was then that Apollos decided to leave the city to meet St. Paul in Ephesus.
Meeting St. Paul
Arriving in the presence of the Apostle, Apollos reported all the division that the Corinthian community was suffering. His news was added to that of several other disciples.
Faced with this, St. Paul decided to write his First Letter to the Corinthians, in which, on the one hand, he rebukes them for creating factions and, on the other, he shows how Apollos was his collaborator in preaching the Gospel: “When one among you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ is this not an entirely human way of thinking? For what is Apollos? And what is Paul? Simple servants, through whom you have embraced the Faith, and this according to the measure that the Lord has distributed to each of them: I planted, Apollos watered, but God is the one who made it grow. So neither the one who plants is anything, nor the one who waters, but only God who makes it grow” (3:4-7).
The Apostle’s humility, coupled with his desire to eliminate divisions among the Corinthians, led him to declare that his work was worthless. In fact, without the help of grace, no apostolate can bear real fruit.
However, it is an immense glory to be an instrument in God’s hands to proclaim the Gospel. It is also an enormous glory to support the great Doctor of the Gentiles in his preaching. In this way, Apollos had the great merit of watering the blessed seed that Paul planted.
In another passage from the same letter, we find even more eloquent data: “As for our brother Apollos, I begged him very much to come to you with the brothers, but he did not want to go now. However, he will come and see you when he has the chance” (16:12).
This passage shows, first of all, the trust that St. Paul had in Apollos. In the same letter in which he criticizes the division that had arisen around Apollos, he affirms that he had allowed him to return to Corinth and, as if that weren’t enough, he had begged him to do so. However, Apollos didn’t want to distract attention from the main thing: our Lord Jesus Christ.
We can conclude that the Bishop of Corinth accepted with veneration the superiority of Paul, whom Our Lord himself had chosen to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. Apollos recognized himself as a mere teacher, while the father of the Corinthian community was Saint Paul. This truth is also mentioned in the letter, shortly after the rebuke of the parties (cf. 1 Cor 4:15-16).
And it is for these reasons that Apollos, as an example of humility, does not want to return to Corinth.
Diving back into the mystery
After these episodes, the figure of the eloquent Alexandrian disappears again. Did he return to Corinth with St. Paul in the year 57 A.D? It’s possible, but we don’t have any documents that give us certainty.
Apollos’ next clue dates from much later, when the end of St. Paul’s life was approaching. It is the last mention of him in Sacred Scripture, found in the Letter to Titus: “Provide diligently for the journey of Zenas the lawyer and Apollos, so that they may lack nothing” (3:13).
Titus was the first Bishop of Crete and at the time lived on the island. St. Paul wrote to him to make sure that Apollo and Zenas – nothing else is known about the latter – were well taken care of on their journey. Once again, we see the esteem in which the Apostle held his eloquent collaborator.
It seems that both Apollos and Zenas were with Paul at the time and that they were to make some journey via Crete, perhaps back to Alexandria.
And here, the fiery and eloquent preacher, disciple, and helper of the Apostle St. Paul plunges once again into mystery. Had he returned once again to Corinth to tend his flock? Or did he remain in Alexandria until the end of his days? Why was he not officially awarded the title of Saint by the Church?
These questions remain unanswered for the time being…
However, the little we know about this character, whose name deserved to appear in the Holy Books, already reveals to us an example of humility, unpretentiousness, and faith, which the Holy Spirit wanted to bestow on the Church until the end of time.
Text taken from the Heralds of the Gospel Magazine no. 225, September 2020. By Marcelo Soares Teixeira da Costa.
Compiled by Dominic Joseph
