Accepting Prophecy: Paul’s Response to Agabus with Insights from Valerius Maximus and Josephus

1. The Problem

Although Luke is clear that the mission of the apostles in Acts enjoys divine guidance, Acts 16.6-10 and 21.1-14 provide somewhat baffling accounts of the Spirit’s intervention in Paul’s ministry. The former baldly states that the Holy Spirit (16.6) and then the Spirit of Jesus (v. 7) ² prohibited two courses of action before Paul dreams about a third (v. 9), which the first person narrator interprets as divine call (v. 10). ³ In the latter, rather than directly preventing a journey, the Spirit is portrayed as speaking through believers as they tell Paul not to continue to Jerusalem (21.4b). Nonetheless, shortly afterwards, Agabus prophesies that Paul will indeed be bound and handed over to ἔθνη there (v. 11), and the scene ends with Paul’s impassioned acceptance of suffering in Jerusalem and the narrator’s affirmation: ‘the Lord’s will be done’ (vv. 13-14).

Commentaries on both of these passages tend to focus on source-critical questions. ⁴ The introduction of ‘we’ language in Acts 16 perhaps makes this understandable, ⁵ but even possible seams in the text caused by a new source cannot explain the difficulties with the Spirit’s activity as presented by the finished text. ⁶ The sharpest example lies in the tension at 21.4b. Most commentators since Chrysostom excuse the claim that the disciples in Tyre tell Paul ‘through the Spirit (διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος)’ not to continue to Jerusalem as a condensed allusion to (a) prophetic insight into the future, which is the element attributed to the Spirit, and (b) a warning that reflects their own human reaction to this insight (e.g., Conzelmann 1987: 178; Pervo 2009: 535). Fitzmyer (1998) and Pervo (2009) even tailor their translations to say this explicitly. ⁷ Tannehill (1990) provides a psychological reflection on the timeless disparity between prophecy and interpretation, ⁸ and Keener (2012–2015) appeals to the ambiguities inherent in ‘genuine charismatic experience’ (p. 3084). ⁹ Although recognizing the difficulty, Haenchen (1971: 602) sidesteps it through an aside that ‘most readers do not hit upon such questions’.

By contrast, it seems that commentators since at least the fourth century have noticed the difficulty. ¹⁰ But, interestingly, despite the various solutions that commentators suggest for reshaping this verse, Nestle-Aland 28 notes no manuscript variants that scribes may have introduced to 21.4b for this purpose. ¹¹ Moreover, both the wording itself and Luke’s portrayal of prophecy elsewhere support a positive reading of this verse. The only other use of διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος in Acts is found in Agabus’s original prophecy in 11.28, where his prophetic credentials are established through accurately predicting a famine. ¹² And Luke routinely characterizes prophecy positively ¹³ – indeed, as a gift of the Spirit (19.6; cf. 2.17). ¹⁴ These otherwise positive elements of the verse beg the question: Why shouldn’t a reader assume that Acts 21.4b portrays a genuine sense of the Spirit’s direction, as in the inspired insight at 11.28? This is the interpretation offered by Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger, who claim:

That Paul’s journey to Jerusalem was not in accordance with the will of God is made plain at various stages … especially in Codex Bezae. The lack of divine approval is evident in the Alexandrian text, but the first indication is given only in the prophecy given to Paul by the disciples in Tyre (21.4), which is usually explained away as a mistake on the part of the disciples (2004–2009: IV, 169).

Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger claim that in Codex Bezae, at least, Paul’s will is explicitly set against the divine will that he should travel instead to Rome (2004–2009: IV, 152). ¹⁵

However, while I argue that 21.4b should not be dismissed, the contrast with Acts 16 remains compelling. The narrative at 16.6 states decisively that they had ‘been forbidden (κωλυθέντες) by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia’. Likewise, v. 7 asserts, ‘they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them (εἴασεν)’. Whatever the kind of events in practice implied by the text’s claim that the Spirit prohibited both southward and northward travel, ¹⁶ ultimately the text simply states that action against the Spirit here, unlike in 21.4b, was stopped. Conversely, the positive movement westward is an invitation, expressed as a call in Paul’s dream.

I propose that Acts does portray the Spirit as active in each of these scenes. However, rather than a conflict of divine wills, Luke’s mistaken expression, or Paul’s obdurate insistence on his own plan rather than God’s, both the dream in 16.9 and the inspired exhortation in 21.4b serve to underscore the importance of human action, which is confirmed in Paul’s climactic acceptance of Agabus’s prophecy just prior to his entry into Jerusalem.

I suggest that an exploration of Valerius Maximus and Josephus’s texts, as they each deal with questions of determined and foretold futures, will illuminate Luke’s treatment of human response in these chapters. Ancient texts deal with questions of determinism and human free will in a range of ways, from detailed philosophical treatments, to retrospective criticisms of characters for failing to respond appropriately to portents, or proverbs about human vulnerability to forces such as necessity or fortune. ¹⁷ While neither Valerius nor Josephus offers systematic analysis akin to the explicitly philosophical studies of some ancient writers, I suggest that they offer suitable and compelling conversation partners for Acts. First, as two particular case studies, ¹⁸ they broaden the portrayal of these questions in the first-century Graeco-Roman world. Teresa Morgan (2015: 26-27, 36-38) argues convincingly for the interpenetration between Greek and Latin worlds during this time, evident not only in the geographical spread of inscriptions in each language and cultural parallels, but even Latinisms in the Greek New Testament. ¹⁹ Thus both Valerius’s Latin exempla and Josephus’s Greek historiography contribute to the picture of this world. Secondly, they each make a further particular contribution to this discussion of Acts: Josephus provides a key example of Jewish Hellenistic engagement with ideas about determinism and human freedom, ²⁰ whereas Valerius offers a welcome (and often overlooked) insight into popular Graeco-Roman beliefs. ²¹ Perhaps all the more valuable because they are not systematic philosophies, ²² these texts reveal an understanding which can accommodate seemingly contradictory affirmations of both determinism and human responsibility. For the most part, the varying explanations are employed when a retrospective vantage point allows claims about what could or should have happened in the past to be set alongside what did happen, which is simultaneously portrayed as having been inevitable from the beginning. This dynamic illuminates the apparent incoherence in Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s discernment of his ministry direction. However, as set out below, I suggest that the texts’ shared assumptions that the future is to some extent determined highlights the particular significance of Luke’s affirmation of human agency.

2. Discerning the Future in Valerius Maximus

Valerius Maximus’s compilation of exempla, Memorable Doings and Sayings, was produced in approximately 30 ce, during the reign of Tiberius (Bailey 2000: 2-3). ²³ The nine books of anecdotes are collected under thematic headings to assist the ancient rhetorician in need of an illustration ²⁴ on topics ranging from ‘ancient institutions’ (2.1) and ‘rashness’ (9.8) to ‘those who degenerated from famous parents’ (3.5) and the perhaps surprising final category, ‘persons born in the lowest station who tried by falsehood to thrust themselves into illustrious families’ (9.15). ²⁵ Under each heading, Valerius divides the material into Roman and non-Roman stories.

Valerius’s text has often been dismissed as merely derivative of its sources and popular in register. ²⁶ However, this ‘middlebrow’ nature indicates one of its great contributions to the study of the first century. ²⁷ Valerius provides an insight into popular belief. Significantly, rather than the irony and scepticism of some first-century literary works, ²⁸ in Valerius we find affirmation of the assumptions of Roman religion and the place of the princeps in it, alongside everyday anecdotal reflections on virtue and fortune. Wardle (1998) observes that ‘belief in the gods and their active involvement in human affairs provide the fundamental incentive to the morality advocated by V’ (p. 25). Moreover, rather than an explanatory narrative of cause and effect over time, Valerius portrays ‘universally and eternally valid paradigms’ of human experience (Mueller 2002: 176) in pithy compartmentalized tales. Although he can and does edit his sources to bring beliefs into line, ²⁹ Valerius is also happy to let the various stories stand as examples detached from their original settings. In doing so, he relies on both the applicability of the exempla across times and places (Bloomer 1992: 205) and, at a basic level, the considerable entertainment value of the various incidents.

The religious perspective underlying Valerius’s mix of stories asserts the accuracy of the proper methods of gaining insight into the future. He begins his collection with anecdotes about both true and false practice of religion (1.1-2), with further sections of Book 1 devoted to augury (1.4), omens (1.5), prodigies (1.6), ³⁰ dreams (1.7) and wonders (1.8). In the world of his narratives, the insights provided by these events are proved to be true. So Consul L. Sulla’s experience with a snake emerging from the altar during the Social War is interpreted as encouragement to take immediate military action, which is then successful (1.6.4), and the prodigies of insects feeding them as infants foreshadow the later wealth and eloquence of Midas and Plato respectively (1.6.ext 2-3). Though consistently accurate, such prophetic insights can be fulfilled in ways that the characters do not expect, such as Hamilcar’s dream about dining in Syracuse, which he interprets as a sign of victory over the town, only to discover that he would indeed dine there but as a captive (1.7.ext 8, cf. 1.5.4; 1.7.8).

Frequently, the insight into the future provided by methods such as omens, portents, or augurs takes the form of a warning. Ti. Gracchus refuses to heed the message of a series of calamities, stubbing his toe and being attacked by three ravens which also cause a roof tile to fall in front of him, but ‘despising these omens, he was forced off the Capitol by the Chief Pontiff Scipio Nasica and fell on his face, struck by a fragment from a bench’ (1.4.2). In a rare example, the warning is successful for Marius, who accurately interprets a donkey’s behaviour to indicate he should flee by ship (1.5.5). And, particularly strikingly, Ti. Gracchus also accurately understands a portent, which he checks three times to be certain of the awaiting fate of betrayal by his friend, but he then nobly allows the events to unfold anyway (1.6.8). This example will prove to be particularly pertinent (see further below).

But in most cases, the events unfold as indicated because of a failure to attend to the warning, which at times draws considerable feeling from Valerius. Noting that he cannot relate the tale calmly, Valerius suggests that M. Crassus’s refusal to act upon the insight of his sign indicates that he considered himself above the heavens (1.6.11). Valerius chastises Xerxes for foolish disregard for a prodigy (in which blood was poured into his glass three times at dinner), for ‘if there had been any vestige of sense in his mad mind, ample warning was given’ (1.6.ext 1b). And he patriotically mourns Flaminius’s failure to heed a sign before battle against Hannibal.

But would that he had paid the penalty for his rashness only with his own mishap and not with a great calamity for the Roman people! For in that battle fifteen thousand Romans were killed, six thousand taken prisoner, twenty thousand put to flight. The body of the butchered Consul was sought by Hannibal for burial; he, so far as in him lay, had buried Roman empire (1.6.6).

In this last example, Valerius also notes that Flaminius ‘was made Consul without auspices’, which links the story to the importance of observing religious obligations correctly (Mueller 2002: 9). The centrality of Roman religious practices lies in the background throughout Valerius’s collection. Leaders are obligated to consult divine will, such as through auspices prior to leading troops into battle, and tragic results can ensue from failure to do so. ³¹ Indeed, right conduct is tied fundamentally to safeguarding imperial power (1.1.8, cf. 1.6.6). ³²

However, where insights into the future function as warnings, they are contingent predictions, that is, they reveal accurately the events that will unfold if certain actions are taken. As Hans-Friedrich Mueller (2002) notes, Valerius ‘does not bother with philosophical complications arising from simultaneous belief in fate and divination’ (p. 189). Yet even here Valerius recognizes other forces at work in the ability to heed the warnings. For instance, according to Valerius, although supplied with an accurate dream, Alexander was not granted the necessary prudence by fortuna for him to act upon the dream as a reliable warning (1.7.ext 2). ³³

In many further cases, the foretold events are simply inescapable. Valerius announces that Octavius ‘feared a dire omen but could not avoid it’ (1.6.10), whereas C. Hostilius Mancinus’s response to prodigies demonstrates ‘insane obstinacy (vesana perseverantia)’. He undertakes various journeys, and even changing his course does not avert the foreshadowed disaster but rather results in a continued series of signs as ‘he equalled the number of portents with the number of his disasters’ (1.6.7). Dreams in particular coincide with events that Valerius presents as inevitable, such as Gracchus’s dream of his own death (1.7.6) or Calpurnia’s dream of Caesar’s death (1.7.2; cf. 1.7.ext 8 above). Valerius includes anecdotes in which characters go to extreme lengths in unsuccessful attempts to evade a predicted calamity. Following a ‘sleep-vision (quietis imago)’ in which he learnt that his son was destined to be taken ‘by steel (ferro)’, King Croesus took measures to keep his son from harm, removing his store of weapons and keeping the son from war. But in an ironic tragedy, which Valerius introduces with the words ‘necessity opens the way to mourning (necessitas tamen aditum luctui dedit)’, he was eventually killed on a trip to deal with a boar, by the sword of the very guardian employed to keep him safe (1.7.ext 4). ³⁴

Thus Valerius Maximus portrays in his anecdotes that the future can be accurately predicted. Humans are responsible for consulting divine will, and failure to do so leads to disaster both directly, through unnecessary ignorance of the future, and indirectly, through divine punishment. Events such as portents and augurs can be interpreted accurately, and the possibility at least lies open for successfully acting on the warning (in most, though not all, cases), ³⁵ although in practice the necessary prudence to respond to the warning is rare. But in the case of dreams, which rather than warnings give a vision of the future, ³⁶ there is no avoiding the scenario foretold. ³⁷ Even characters’ extravagant attempts to escape their fate lead to its inevitable (if ironic) fulfilment. In such examples, the future into which the dream provides insight is already unalterably determined.

3. Prophecy and the Future in Josephus’s Jewish War

Josephus’s Jewish War also includes numerous references to portents, omens and prophetic dreams which are said to provide accurate insights into the future, though for Josephus, the issue lies in accurate interpretation of these signs. Importantly, Josephus also frequently claims that the future is predetermined while simultaneously attributing blame for disaster to people who failed to alter their behaviour in light of prophetic warnings. All of this serves his particular agenda in recounting the events of the war. Nonetheless, both in his narrative of prophecies and in his more formal treatment of fate and free will in his excursus on the Jewish philosophical schools, Josephus affirms the overriding importance of divine guidance, while recognizing a limited role for human choice.

Unlike Valerius Maximus’s atomized anecdotes, Josephus’s account offers a continuous narrative of events. Written shortly after the war and under the benefaction of Rome, the seven-volume history attempts to recount and, notably, to explain the events of the war. Josephus’s apology relates not only to explaining Jewish behaviour to Roman readers, and the Romans’ behaviour to Jewish readers, ³⁸ but to presenting his own role within the unfolding events in a positive light. His understanding of accurate interpretation of prophecy plays a key role in this apology.

Like Valerius, Josephus provides examples of characters gaining an accurate insight into the future. For instance, Herod interprets a building collapsing immediately after he had left it as a good omen and begins a military campaign the following day, which is successful (1.331). Josephus implies that Glaphyra’s dream about the anger of her first husband, Alexander, led to her death soon after (2.114), ³⁹ and Jesus son of Ananias’s mournful cry ‘woe to Jerusalem!’ emerges not, as some suspected, as the symptom of a mental illness (6.305), but as an inspired seven-year long witness to Jerusalem’s destruction (6.308).

Despite the possibility of accurate prophetic insight into the future, Josephus returns frequently to the theme of misinterpreted signs. After describing storms and earthquakes taking place while the Idumaeans camped outside the city walls, Josephus claims, ‘Such a convulsion of the very fabric of the universe clearly foretokened destruction for ἄνθρωποι, and the conjecture was natural that these were portents of no trifling calamity’ (4.287). But whereas the Idumaeans interpret the portent as their destruction and Ananus’s people consider it a sign of divine favour, Josephus observes that both ‘proved mistaken in their divination of the future’ (4.289), as those who were to die were Ananus and his guards. Here the misinterpretation is not what leads to the disaster, however, because Josephus asserts that the events took place not by human error but ‘by the overruling decree of Destiny (εἱμαρμένης)’ (4.297). ⁴⁰

Among the errors that Josephus attributes to the revolutionaries lies misinterpretation of prophetic signs on the basis of optimism. So, the moderate and revolutionary parties are divided in 2.649-51 in their interpretations of omens, ‘which to the friends of peace boded ill, although those who had kindled the war readily invented favourable interpretations for them’ (2.650; cf. 1.377). Likewise, as he looks back on Jerusalem’s destruction in Book 6, Josephus claims that the Jewish people were incited to war by ‘the ambiguous oracle’ (χρησμὸς ἀμϕίβολος, 6.312), through which ‘many of their wise men went astray in their interpretation (περὶ τὴν κρίσιν)’ (6.313). Their mistake was to presume that the oracle referred to a Jewish person, but Josephus declares authoritatively that it, ‘in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed Emperor on Jewish soil’ (6.313).

Josephus makes assessments of his characters’ interpretations throughout his narrative. As is clear from his identification of Vespasian as the subject of the ambiguous oracle, Josephus incorporates his counter interpretations of prophecy and portents as part of his apologetic explanation (cf. 4.623). He emerges as the key authority in his account, both as narrator and as a character himself. As narrator, Josephus makes frequent intrusions into the story, assessing the strategies and opinions of characters in light of the events that he knows come later. ⁴¹ As a character, Josephus portrays himself in a way that complements his authoritative claims in the narrative.

From his introduction as a character in 2.568, Josephus is a key military figure, able to encourage disheartened troops merely by arriving in their midst (3.142) and full of ingenious strategies (3.171-75, 186-88, 271-75). But his insight goes beyond superior military acumen; he is presented in the style of a prophet like Jeremiah and Daniel (Gray 1993: 35). Josephus’s revelation at Jotapata establishes his prophetic identity. Not only does his later discussion with Vespasian refer to his foreknowledge that Vespasian will become emperor (which the reader knows did indeed take place), but his prayer in hiding (3.354) indicates what Gray argues implies a tripartite revelation based on his dreams:

That God, who had created the Jewish people, had decided to ‘punish’ them; that ‘fortune’ (τύχη) had passed to the Romans; and that God had chosen him, Josephus, ‘to announce the things that are to come’ (τὰ μέλλοντα εἰπεῖν) (1993: 37).

All three parts of this revelation drive Josephus’s explanation throughout his account. ⁴² In speeches, he claims that the destruction reflects divine favour for the more pious Romans (5.363) and punishment for the Jewish people (5.378, 395-96), who have compromised the sanctuary (5.364, 401-2; Regev 2011: 280-83) and engaged in revolution instead of allowing God to come to their defence (5.377, 399-400). ⁴³ Interestingly, as in Valerius Maximus’s anecdotes about dreams, Josephus’s dreams provide an accurate insight into the events of the future. However, in keeping with his focus on accurate interpretation, the turning-point, for Josephus, represented by the event in Book 3 is not his dreams themselves, which the text indicates took place earlier and the contents of which are not disclosed, but his sudden ability to understand what they mean (cf. 3.352).

Thus, Josephus’s apologetic narrative is invested in his own interpretation of signs and claims about the possibility of prophetic insight into events determined for the future. By the time his narrative comes to look back on Jerusalem’s destruction, Josephus will claim that the disaster had been set for a particular day since long ago (6.313-14). Yet, in earlier speeches attributed to his character, he exhorts characters to repent to Rome (5.372) and to God (5.416). As Gray (1993: 165-66) notes, the apparent conflict between assessing a prophet’s credentials on the basis of the accuracy of their prophecy and recognizing the prophet’s vocation as exhorting hearers to alter their behaviour (and thus to avert the foretold disaster) does not appear problematic in Josephus’s treatment of popular prophets. ⁴⁴ At one point he comes close to suggesting that his exhortation may constitute a conflict, by suggesting that he deserves harsher treatments than the abuse he has received from his listeners, for attempting to prevent the destruction that has already been determined (6.108). However, the claim serves rather to underscore his passion in imploring his hearers.

Josephus’s political agenda plainly shapes his treatment of these themes. His excursus on the Jewish philosophical schools in Book 2, though not without its own political elements, offers a different angle for confirming Josephus’s approach to these questions. Setting aside any possible historical claims about these Jewish groups based on Josephus’s descriptions, ⁴⁵ I suggest that the excursus does illuminate Josephus’s view of fate and free will (see also Haaland 2007: 267). The group that Josephus presents negatively, the Sadducees (2.166), is said to make no allowance for fate (εἱμαρμένη) or God but gives credence only to human freedom (2.164-65). By contrast, the very long treatment of the Essenes commends their piety and Josephus observes, ‘There are some among them who profess to foretell the future … and seldom, if ever, do they err in their predictions’ (2.159), which is high praise from Josephus! Finally, he portrays the Pharisees positively and as the ‘leading sect’. He says that members of this group, who seem to be those with whom he identifies most strongly himself, ‘[a]ttribute everything to Fate (εἱμαρμένῃ) and to God (θεῷ); they hold that to act rightly or otherwise rests, indeed, for the most part with ἄνθρωποι, but that in each action Fate co-operates’ (2.162-63). His description of the Pharisees is consistent with his view expressed elsewhere, that divine guidance determines the future and yet humans remain responsible for disaster. For Josephus, such a view can coexist with the failure to learn from contingent signs, as exemplified by his summary that portents which the people failed to understand would lead to the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple:

Reflecting on these things one will find that God has a care for ἄνθρωποι, and by all kinds of premonitory signs (προσημαίνοντα) shows His people the way of salvation (τὰ σωτήρια), while they owe their destruction to folly and calamities of their own choosing (ὑπ᾿ ἀνοίας καὶ κακῶν αὐθαιρέτων) … For all that, it is impossible for ἄνθρωποι to escape their fate (τὸ χρεὼν διαϕυγεῖν) even though they foresee it (οὐδὲ προορωμένοις). Some of these portents (σημείων), then, the Jews interpreted (ἔκριναν) to please themselves, others they treated with contempt, until the ruin of their country and their own destruction convicted them of their folly (ἄνοιαν) (6.310, 314-15).

In his explanation of the events of the war, Josephus thereby holds together the call to repentance and blame for those who not only brought about divine judgment in the first place, but misinterpreted the signs and omens as a result of their optimism and thus tragically failed to take action in response to avert the foreshadowed disaster (6.313-14), alongside his simultaneous claims that the destruction had been predetermined for a particular date since long ago (6.250). ⁴⁶

Thus, for both Josephus and Valerius, the future is divinely guided and can be accurately divined. Valerius illustrates the assumption of Roman religion that humans have a responsibility to consult divine will, which itself determines the future. Dreams provide an insight into events that cannot be overturned, leaving the appropriate response simply to assent to the determined future. Even in the case of contingent warnings like portents (the accuracy of which is in any case assessed retrospectively by the writers), Valerius suggests that people rarely exhibit the prudence to respond to the warning, and Josephus asserts that they misinterpret the signs. As a result, even the possibility of humans impacting on the future does not compromise the certainty of future events unfolding as determined.

4. Making Sense of the Spirit’s Role in Acts 16 and 21

Turning again to Acts, various features of Valerius and Josephus’s texts illuminate the Spirit’s role in Acts 16 and 21. As suggested above, there are good reasons to take seriously the narrative’s claim in 21.4b that the disciples speak through the Spirit when they tell Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Despite the apparent theological discomfort that arises from the implication that Paul’s journey to Jerusalem conflicts with the Spirit’s exhortation, ⁴⁷ assumptions that the verse must be secondary ⁴⁸ or expressed wrongly (Fitzmyer 1998) are challenged by the identical formula for Agabus’s earlier prophecy (11.28) and the positive treatment of prophecy throughout Luke’s narrative. Nonetheless, by the end of the episode involving Agabus’s second prophecy, the narrative indicates that the unfolding events do complement divine will (21.14). ⁴⁹ Not only the we-group’s eventual affirmation of the Lord’s will, but the explicit parallels with Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem confirm the faithfulness of the direction that Paul takes. ⁵⁰

Despite the intuitive difficulties, the tension between the Spirit genuinely directing Paul elsewhere and the affirmation of his course to Jerusalem does not need to be explained away in order to make sense in the text. ⁵¹ The discussion above demonstrates that other texts are also able to hold together a divinely inspired warning and a future that is nonetheless already fixed. While the texts are therefore not systematic on these philosophical matters, their interests – for instance, in providing retrospective explanations of how things did turn out, or in praising virtue or censuring the failure reflected in the human choices made – ensure that the texts are not necessarily concerned by possible incoherence between divine determinism of the future and human responsibility.

I suggest that a similar dynamic is at work in Acts 21. The exhortation to take another course in v. 4b is genuine, as is the contingent warning in Paul’s earlier declaration that ‘the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city (κατὰ πόλιν) that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting (μένουσιν) for me’ (20.23). ⁵² If Paul goes to Jerusalem he will meet with suffering there, as has been revealed to him. But rather than leading to a focus on divine guidance, which after all is assumed in all of these texts, or questioning the Spirit’s trustworthiness, the result is an emphasis on Paul’s virtue in nonetheless choosing to go to Jerusalem.

When viewed in light of the emphases of texts like Valerius Maximus and Josephus above, the feature that stands out in both Acts 16.6-10 and 21.1-14 is not the determining role of divine involvement or the certainty that appropriately foretold events will unfold as predicted, but the importance of human involvement in the story. As noted above, Acts 16.6-7 demonstrates that, within Luke’s narrative, the Spirit can dictate events in very explicit ways. Two directions of travel are simply prohibited. But again the focus falls not on the Spirit’s capacity to intervene, but the openness of the event which follows. Unlike the prophetic dreams described by Valerius and Josephus, which constitute a vision of an event as it will unfold in the future, Paul’s dream expresses an invitation. The Macedonian man calls him, but Paul is not made to follow or forced to leave Troas. ⁵³ The we-group forms a conclusion about the meaning of the dream and responds faithfully to the divine call (v. 10). ⁵⁴

By contrast, in Acts 21.1-14 no course of action is prescribed or directly prohibited. Despite the exhortation in v. 4b, the way to Jerusalem remains open. The divine plan does not force Paul into a situation of certain suffering; indeed, v. 4b describes a divine longing for him to avoid it. But again, the focus lies on Paul’s free choice to continue to Jerusalem, where he knows that affliction and imprisonment await him (20.22-23). From his own position after the events that he recounts, Luke offers a retrospective account of outcomes with which he is already familiar and demonstrates little concern with incoherence. As the story unfolds, Paul’s choice is revealed as faithful.

Finally, vv. 8-14 relate the climax of this tension in Paul’s journey to Jerusalem. The prophetic gift of Philip’s daughters sets the tone in advance of the reintroduction of Agabus in v. 10 (Conzelmann 1987: 178) and the last authoritative prophecy prior to Paul’s entry into Jerusalem (v. 11). Rather than a warning of events that may be avoided, Agabus’s prophecy states, in the future indicative, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit, “This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind (δήσουσιν) the man who owns this belt and will hand him over (παραδώσουσιν) to the Gentiles”’ (21.11). Paul’s companions express their grief, repeating almost precisely the words spoken through the Spirit in 21.4b. Here the words do constitute a human response to Agabus’s spiritual insight into the future. ⁵⁵ But, Paul’s emphatic response in accepting the prophecy forms the climax of this trajectory. ⁵⁶ Verse 15 draws the tension to a conclusion in a way which is both momentous and matter of fact: ‘After these days we got ready and started to go up (άνεβαίνομεν) to Jerusalem’.

5. Conclusion: Human Involvement in Acts’ Unfolding Divine Plan

In this article I have argued for taking Acts 21.4b at face value, as Luke’s genuine attempt to portray the Spirit exhorting Paul not to travel to Jerusalem. Various features of the text support this reading, as do illuminating comparisons with Valerius Maximus and Josephus’s texts. Josephus offers a retrospective assessment of the people’s failure to heed prophetic warnings while nonetheless claiming that Jerusalem’s destruction was predetermined. A similar retrospective orientation enables Luke to affirm a divine wish that Paul does not suffer while also portraying Paul as virtuous in choosing to allow this to take place anyway; in the process, Paul is shown to participate in the unfolding divine βουλή. I suggest that this reflects the kind of virtue that Valerius Maximus attributes to Ti. Gracchus in allowing his friend’s betrayal to take place as predicted. Rather than indicating a misunderstanding on the part of the disciples in Tyre, or requiring that the text criticizes Paul for following his own will over divine will, Acts 21.1-14 serves to focus the narrative on the importance of human involvement in the unfolding divine plan. Contrasts between the Spirit’s intervention to stop travel to Asia and Bithynia in Acts 16.6-7, and the openness of both the call to Macedonia (16.8) and the way to Jerusalem, despite the Spirit’s exhortation (21.4b, 13-15), also emphasize the importance of Paul’s choices.

A number of implications arise from this discussion of specific sections of Acts. Here I touch briefly on two. First, unlike the reading of the Bezan text offered by Rius-Camps and Read-Heimerdinger (2004–2009), at least in other textual traditions of Acts ⁵⁷ the focus on human choice underscores Paul’s virtue. As I have suggested, Valerius’s anecdote of Ti. Gracchus’s noble choice to allow himself to be betrayed, which is strikingly different from the ways in which Valerius bemoans the idiocy of those who fail to act upon portents and omens in numerous other situations, offers a possible analogy. Further examples, such as Stoic commitments to aligning one’s will with fate, confirm similar ideas, as indeed does the significant parallel of Jesus’ assent to the necessity of his own journey to Jerusalem (Lk. 9.51).

Secondly, such an approach to human freedom navigates a way through difficult questions about the relationship between the divine plan and tragic elements in the unfolding narrative. For instance, Acts does not present persecution as either divine will or the apostles’ goal, but rather as the consequence of a tragic failure of some groups to accept Jesus and the apostles’ proclamation. Nonetheless, the persecution prompted by Stephen’s death in fact leads to the spread of the gospel (8.1, 4), ⁵⁸ which is in keeping with the divine plan (Lk. 24.46-49; Acts 1.8). This dynamic relationship between the divine plan and human action allows not only for the Spirit to warn Paul of suffering (Acts 21.4b), and for persecution to be turned to the service of the divine plan (8.4), but for the tragedy of Jesus and the apostles’ rejection, even by those who had the keenest insight into the ways of God (7.51-54, 57-58), also to be incorporated into the unfolding βουλή (5.39). Luke’s retrospective account of events asserts that God did not plan past suffering, and yet the prospective elements of Luke’s orientation assert that divine action cannot be stopped. As Acts’ persistent call for repentance continues throughout the narrative (2.38; 3.19; 5.31; 11.18; 17.30; 20.21; 26.20), the way for human freedom remains open even while the divine plan provides assurance of the events that have been, and will be, fulfilled (Lk. 1.1-4; Acts 17.31).