Achaia

Achaia was a senatorial province of the Roman Empire in southern Greece, with Corinth as its capital. On his second missionary journey Paul spent about a year and a half in Corinth establishing the congregation, and the proconsul Gallio dismissed the Jews’ charges against him (Acts 18). Later, from Ephesus, Paul resolved to travel through Macedonia and Achaia (Acts 19:21), and Apollos also crossed over to Achaia and greatly helped the believers. In his letters Paul repeatedly mentions the Achaian believers’ generous contribution (Romans 15:26; 2 Corinthians 9:2), the household of Stephanas as the firstfruits of Achaia (1 Corinthians 16:15), and how the faith of the Thessalonians sounded out through Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thessalonians 1:8).

“Achaia” was originally the name of an ancient district in southern Greece, around the northern coast of the Peloponnese. After the Romans destroyed Corinth in 146 BCE they absorbed most of Greece into their domain; in 27 BCE Augustus formally established the senatorial province of Achaia, which—together with Macedonia to the north and Asia to the east—became one of the key provinces of the eastern Mediterranean, with its proconsul resident at Corinth. A center of Greek culture and commerce, it embraced such cities as Corinth, Athens, and Cenchreae. Paul’s second missionary journey (c. 49–52 CE) is the most closely tied to Achaia. Coming from Athens in Macedonia to Corinth, he stayed with Priscilla and Aquila and taught in the synagogue every Sabbath. Later, when “Gallio was proconsul of Achaia”—dated by historians to about 51–52 CE—the Jews made a concerted attack and dragged Paul to the judgment seat, but Gallio refused to hear the case as a Jewish religious dispute and drove them off, a celebrated verdict in early Christian history (Acts 18:12-17). Paul therefore remained in Corinth about a year and a half, wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and built up Achaia’s foremost congregation. After he left, the eloquent Apollos “wanted to go across to Achaia”; the brothers wrote urging the disciples to welcome him, and when he arrived he “greatly helped” those who had believed through grace (Acts 18:27, 28). During his three-year ministry at Ephesus, Paul also “resolved to go to Jerusalem after passing through Macedonia and Achaia,” hoping afterward to see Rome (Acts 19:21). He later traveled overland through Macedonia and spent three months in Corinth, where he wrote Romans; in that letter he notes that “those in Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the holy ones in Jerusalem” (Romans 15:26), a love gift from the Gentile churches to their Jewish mother church. In 1 Corinthians he praises “the household of Stephanas as the firstfruits of Achaia” and urges the congregation to submit to such ones (1 Corinthians 16:15); in 2 Corinthians he boasts that “Achaia has been ready for a year” in their eagerness to give (2 Corinthians 9:2), and in defending his apostleship he declares that, as the truth of Christ is in him, this boasting “will not be stopped in the regions of Achaia” (2 Corinthians 11:10). In his letter to the Thessalonians he thanks Jehovah God that the word of the Lord “sounded out” from them “not only in Macedonia and Achaia,” their faith spreading everywhere (1 Thessalonians 1:7, 8). Together these accounts show that Achaia held a key place in the early church: it was the stronghold of the gospel Paul established in southern Europe, a meeting point of Greek thought and Gentile mission, and the field addressed by such major letters as Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians.