Acts 6 to 8 THE BEGINNINGS OF HELLENISTIC CHRISTIANITY (6:1-8:40)

Acts 6 to 8 THE BEGINNINGS OF HELLENISTIC CHRISTIANITY (6:1-8:40)

ActsExeg.61
1. APPOINTMENT OF THE SEVEN (6:1-7)
At this point a new factor enters into the history of the church--the growth of a Hellenistic as distinct from a purely Hebrew Christianity. There are indications, too, that Luke begins here to draw upon a new source. There is a definite break with what precedes. The daily distribution, though not previously alluded to, is referred to as if familiar, presumably because it has been mentioned earlier in the source; and the whole passage rests upon a fundamental distinction between "Hebrew" and "Hellenist" Christians that has not previously been drawn but now is taken for granted without explanation. Harnack in his analysis calls this the "Antiochene" source, and believes that it originated from a locality where there was special interest in the development of Hellenistic Christianity. He traces this source in 6:1-8:4, with which he links up 11:19-30--the first spread of Christianity to Antioch and district--and 12:25-15:35--Paul's mission from Antioch on his first tour and his return to Antioch. It is interesting, as evidence that this is an Antioch rather than a Jerusalem source, that none of Torrey's examples of possible mistranslation from Aramaic occur in these sections. Torrey claims an Aramaic origin for the whole of the first part of Acts; but his evidence is much weaker here than elsewhere.
The Hellenists (RSV) or Grecians (KJV) in Acts have always been regarded as Greek-speaking Jews in contrast with the "Hellenes," who are Greeks by race and upbringing. This interpretation, though almost certainly right, depends entirely upon the context and not on the intrinsic meaning of the word, which signifies simply "one who Grecizes" either in language or in habits. Here the Hellenists are contrasted with the Hebrews; and as the latter word refers to race rather than to language, the Hellenists here (if they are in fact Jews) are perhaps not "Greek-speaking Jews," but rather Jews who adopted Greek customs in contrast with the more conservative Hebrews. Gadbury (Beginnings of Christianity, V, 59 ff.) in an important note argues that the word "Hellenists" refers not to Jews but to Gentiles, and is simply an alternative for "Hellenes." He points out that the other two passages in which "Hellenists" are mentioned are (a) 9:29, where there is nothing to indicate who is meant, and (b) 11:20, where the context makes it plain that pure Gentile Greeks are in view, and the best-attested reading is undoubtedly "Hellenists" (@Ellhnista6v with a B), though most editors adopt "Greeks" ($Ellhnev with a2 A D). His conclusion is that the word "Hellenists" really refers to Gentile Greeks; Luke loves verbal variations, and while in the latter half of the book "Hellenes" or "Greeks" is used, in the first twelve chapters only "Hellenists" is found. But in the present passage the insuperable obstacle to Cadbury's view would be so early a mention of Gentile Christians without any comment on this innovation. Our author gives so much attention to the case of Cornelius, as the first Gentile conversion and a turning point in Christian missions, that it is very hard to believe that, as Cadbury himself puts it, he could "introduce a reference to Gentile Christians so early in his story and so casually."
6:1-3. The daily distribution: This may be a reference to the public assistance given by means of the agape or common religious meal. The case of widows without legal protection was particularly hard, and the church quickly copied the Jewish custom of providing funds for their relief. Later the "widows" appear to have been a recognized body with their names on a roll (I Tim. 5:9). Tables is usually understood as referring to dining tables; but it is possible that the money-changer's table is meant, with reference to the general financial administration of the community. Pick out from among you: It is the congregation which makes the selection, while the apostles set them apart. Curiously Codex Vaticanus (B) reads, "Let us choose, brethren, seven men from among you," which may imply, though not necessarily, that the apostles made the selection also.
5. Of Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, and Parmenas we know nothing but legend, save that Prochorus is traditionally the writer of the Prochoran Acts of John, and, according to Byzantine art, John dictated the Fourth Gospel to him. Nicolaus was traditionally the founder of the heretical sect of the Nicolaitans found at Ephesus and Pergamum (Rev. 2:6, 15). Antioch is here mentioned for the first time, and perhaps indicates the interest of the source-compiler in that city.
6. Laid their hands upon them: The "laying on of hands" usually symbolizes the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, which at the very beginning seems to have been connected with this rite rather than with baptism (see 19:5-6 and on 8:17). The rite is taken over from the O.T., where it symbolizes the establishment of some vital connection between two persons, and the transference of some power or responsibility from the one to the other. Thus Moses, when appointing Joshua his successor, laid his hands on him, by which act he "put some of his honor upon him" (Num. 27:23, 20). So the apostles in Acts frequently do in healing, confirming, and ordaining. Here the bestowal of some special charisma is not necessarily implied, for the seven were already men full of the Spirit (vs. 3). The rite is the formal sign of appointment to office, as it was in the admission of new members of the Sanhedrin. It would be dangerous, as does Rackham, to base on this verse a full doctrine of apostolic succession. More truly, says Chrysostom, "The hand of man is laid on, but all is the work of God; and it is his hand that touches the head of the candidate, if he is rightly ordained."
The question why the seven were appointed, and what was their function, raises a somewhat difficult problem. Evidently a certain tension had arisen between the "Hebrew" Jews of Jerusalem and the "Hellenists" who had returned to the capital after a period of residence abroad. Possibly the latter felt that they were being treated with unfair discrimination as outsiders. If such was the case, the reason would probably be mere local prejudice rather than any suspicion of their religious orthodoxy. For, as evidence of the Hellenists' loyalty to Jewish law and worship, it is noteworthy that the attack upon Stephen was instigated, not by Palestinian, but by Hellenist Jews. All the seven have Greek names, and they were evidently appointed in some way to safeguard the interests of the Hellenists. But what were their functions? There are three possible views: (a) They have traditionally been regarded as the first "deacons." Luke implies that they were to be responsible for the fair distribution of alms. He does not actually call them "deacons" (dia6konoi); but in connection with them he uses the abstract noun "distribution" (literally ministration or "service"; diakoni6a) and the verb "serve" (diakonei'n); and as by the time that Luke wrote there did in fact exist an order with the name of deacons, the use of these cognate words at least suggests that Luke considers the seven to be deacons. The difficulty is that nowhere in the N.T. are any of the seven referred to as such; nor is there any evidence that there ever were in Jerusalem deacons with functions like those of the deacons whom we meet toward the end of the first century. Whereas, according to Luke, the seven were appointed to be in charge of financial administration, the deacon, as we know him from Phil. 1:1; I Tim. 3:8 ff.; the Didache; and Clement, is commonly mentioned alongside the bishop, and appears to have been his assistant generally in the conduct of the Eucharist, and the ordering of discipline, as well as in the organization of alms. (b) It has been suggested that the seven were the first "elders" of the Jerusalem church. Later in Acts "apostles and elders" are mentioned as the important personages, and in 11:30 it is stated that Antioch sent alms to "the elders," as if the latter had charge of the duties entrusted here to the seven. But it is most unlikely that as early as this "elders" would be officially "appointed" and "ordained." Rather would they naturally assume leadership in virtue of personal prestige and larger experience in the faith. Nor can we explain why all the first elders at Jerusalem should be Hellenists. (c) It is noticeable that the seven comport themselves not as administrators but as missionaries, and Stephen and Philip in particular at once assume an almost apostolic prominence in aggressive evangelism. Hence it is perhaps more likely that the seven were, as Chrysostom says, "neither presbyters nor deacons," but rather held a unique office parallel to the apostolate. The motive for their appointment lay in a Hebrew-Hellenist disharmony which the matter of practical administration merely brought to a head. Probably the Hellenists were discovering that their own view of the gospel was not quite that of the Palestinian brethren, and they wished apostles of their own who would represent it. Thus the title "the seven" corresponds to the title "the twelve," and the names of the seven are given in full like those of the apostles. The distinction between the seven and the twelve was one of sphere rather than of function. The seven were to be for the Hellenists exactly what the twelve were for the Hebrews. If Luke has obscured this, has put all the emphasis on the minor question of the "distribution," and made it to appear that the seven were intended to be mere administrators subordinate to the twelve, it is perhaps because he habitually tends to minimize any cleavage between the more Judaistic and the more liberal elements in the church.
7. Multiplied greatly (sfo6dra): According to Torrey, this represents the same Aramaic word (lahadhA), correctly translated here, as was incorrectly translated by ejpi; to; aujto; in 2:47. We have in this note the only trace in Acts of any interest in Christianity on the part of the priests.
2. STORY OF STEPHEN (6:8-8:3)

Some editors have detected a certain incoherence in the telling of the story of Stephen. The connection between the wonders and signs in vs. 8 and the disputation that follows in vs. 9 is not very clear; it looks as if the source rather may have told how Stephen carried his aggressive missionary message into the Hellenistic synagogues and thus aroused an acrimonious debate which resulted in his arrest. Furthermore there are curious repetitions in the narrative: (a) The charge against Stephen is twice stated, the substance of vss. 9-11 being repeated in vss. 12-14; (b) the stoning of Stephen is also described twice, in 7:54-58a and in 7:58b-60. These doublets suggest that the story may be derived from two sources, possibly reflecting two variant traditions, which have been somewhat infelicitously combined. According to one (6:9-11 plus 7:54-58a) Stephen was summarily lynched by an angry mob; according to the other (6:12-7:53, plus 7:58b-60) he was tried, possibly somewhat informally, and executed by the Sanhedrim Lake points out that one can pass from 6:8-11 to 7:54 ff. without being conscious of any break in the narrative. He is inclined to think that the whole speech, which bears very little relation to the charges brought against Stephen, is a free composition by the author--who considers that Stephen's death was due to the Sanhedrin--inserted into an earlier narrative which related that he was stoned by a mob (Beginnings of Christianity, II, 14950). Even without accepting any such theory of "doublets," it may be admitted that the speech looks like an insertion. Note that the ecstasy of 6:15 reappears in 7:55. If the latter verse is read to follow immediately after 7:1, Stephen's only answer to the high priest, like Jesus', would be a reference to a theophany of the glorified Christ (Mark 14:62)--a most suggestive and impressive parallel. One cannot but wonder whether the story was not told thus in Luke's original source. Quite apart from the acceptance of any one of the complicated theories of source reconstruction, the problem of how and why Stephen was put to death remains, and is discussed below.
Concerning the authenticity of Stephen's speech, it is particularly difficult to reach a clear judgment. At first sight it appears largely irrelevant. No direct answer is made to the charges brought against him. Instead, a lengthy narrative of God's gracious dealings with Israel is followed by illustrations of the ingratitude with which Israel requited God's goodness. But this criticism of the old economy is not balanced by a single word about the new Christian economy which is to supplant it; nor is there any mention of the name of Jesus Christ. The conclusion in vss. 51 ff. is singularly surprising and abrupt. Why should Stephen find the climax of his people's history in the building of Solomon's temple? And having done so, why does he abruptly launch into invective without any attempt to give a reasoned answer to his accusers? It is easy to say that "he was cut short and his defense left incomplete" (Rackham). If he really made so irrelevant a speech, the wonder rather is how the court could have allowed him to run on so long. Moreover, though the speech professes to be a summary of O.T. history, there are a surprising number of variations from and of additions to the O.T. record. Hence most modern editors are unable to accept the speech as Stephen's own. On the other hand Lake and Cadbury comment: "The absence of an allusion to they Judaistic controversy seems to exclude any theory which would make the speech the composition of one who had lived through that controversy in the company of Paul, and was writing with a view to the situation of the Christian Church of the period. ... The general character of the speech seems to fit in very well with the theory that it represents either a good tradition as to what Stephen really did say, or at least what a very early Christian, not of the Pauline school, would have wished him to say. All observation shows that religious or political pioneers when brought into court never attempt to rebut the accusations brought against them, but use the opportunity for making a partisan address" (The Beginnings of Christianity, ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake [London: Macmillan & Co.; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920-33], IV, 69-70).
Had Stephen lived he would have ranked with the greatest of the apostles. His career can hardly have lasted more than a few months, or even weeks, and he is the ideal type of man who "being made perfect in a little while fulfills long years" (Wisd. Sol. 4:13). Of his origin we know nothing, save that he was probably a Hellenistic Jew from abroad--possibly from Cyrene or Alexandria, if the name of the synagogue in which he was attacked provides any clue. It has been noted that there is a slight flavor of Alexandrian culture in his speech; e.g., the word "wisdom" occurs four times and nowhere else in Acts; and men from Cyrene were of course also prominent in the early community--Simon who carried the cross (Mark 15:21), and Lucius the prophet of Antioch (13:1). Stephen's significance is that his preaching in the Hellenistic synagogues made it evident that Christianity was something more than just a new Jewish sect, and that its spread would involve danger to the law of Moses. He drove in the first wedge between Judaism and Christianity and made possible the emergence of a distinctively Christian church. Hence the attack upon him by his fellow Hellenist Jews. The accusation must have had some basis in fact; but 6:13 is almost certainly a misrepresentation. Had this been a true charge, Stephen must have earned the disapproval of the Christian community itself, which was still wholly loyal to the Jewish faith, and of this there is no trace. Even if we accept the speech as authentic, it would be a mistake to interpret even vss. 48-50 as an attack on the whole temple system as such. The sting of the speech is not in vss. 48-50 but in vss. 51-53, and Stephen's main point is that the real violators of God's law are not the Christians but their accusers and the unconverted Jews in general. Hence the force of vss. 48-50 is not so much that God is to be worshiped only in spirit and that temple worship should be abolished; it is rather that mere external worship is not enough if the hearts of the worshipers are turned away to other gods. Stephen is repeating a thought constantly voiced by the prophets, not launching a new Gentile-Christian anti-Jewish polemic. Probably Stephen was arrested, not because of any definite attack on the law and the temple, but because he represented a more liberal type of Judaism, which emphasized the moral rather than the ceremonial side of the law, perhaps combined with a more spiritual interpretation of the messianic expectations, which may have seemed to belittle national and political hopes. Though Stephen is rightly considered a forerunner of Paul, it is only in this somewhat limited sense that we can think of him as anticipating Paul's assertion of a distinctively free, Gentile Christianity.
As to how, as a matter of history, Stephen's death was brought about, there is a good deal to suggest that Luke's source may have described the martyrdom as an act of mob violence. But the account as edited by Luke implies that he was officially tried and condemned by the Sanhedrin; and in particular the reference to "witnesses" points to a regular execution. On the other hand it is perhaps unlikely that during the Roman dominion in Jerusalem the Sanhedrin could have carried through such a summary trial and execution. It is possible that Stephen really was tried before the Sanhedrin, which had no intention of exceeding its powers by inflicting the death penalty, and that the mob intervened and lynched him. But it is worth remembering that the insertion of a trial scene, whereby the blame for judicial murder would be cast upon the Jewish authorities rather than on the people or the Romans, would be quite in keeping with our author's point of view.
The persecution which followed Stephen's death made more clear the growing cleavage between the two sections within the Christian community. The apostles and the native Christians were apparently permitted to remain in Jerusalem; the followers of Stephen were driven in all directions, many no doubt returning to their former homes, and thereby sowing the first seeds of a wider mission. How long the persecution lasted we do not know. Three years after Paul's conversion (Gal. 1:18) Peter and James, and presumably other Jewish Christians, were still in the city; and a few years later the community was numerous enough to give Herod Agrippa the opportunity to curry favor with the Jews by executing James and imprisoning Peter (12:1 ff.). But Luke records this as something exceptional and in contrast to a general toleration.
9. Better translated: "Some of the members of the synagogue which is called that of the Libertines, both Cyrenians and Alexandrians." Jews who were Libertines, or Freedmen, had their own synagogue, and in this particular case both Cyrenians and Alexandrians were included in the membership. Those from Cilicia and Asia are mentioned as a separate group. An alternative is to read "Libyans" instead of "Libertines"--these "Libyans" then being defined as "Cyrenians and Alexandrians."
11. Secretly instigated: The Greek word gives the suggestion of a frame-up. Blasphemous words: "Blasphemy" in the technical sense according to rabbinical law required the use of God's name. But the word can be used of scurrilous language apart from any technical religious offense.
14. An obvious echo of the charge brought against Jesus himself (Mark 14:58).
7:2. Before he lived in Haran: According to Gen. 11:27-12:5, God's promise to Abraham was made after he had already moved to Haran. But both Philo and Josephus support Stephen's version. There are in the speech a number of variations from the story as told in the Pentateuch, some of which are due to the influence of the LXX and others apparently to the persistence of varying traditions. (On the speech see also pp. 91-93.)
4-5. After his father died: According to the reckoning of Gen. 11:26, 32; 12:4, Terah must still have been living when the move was made from Haran. A foot's length: An echo of Deut. 2:5, where, however, the reference is to Mount Seir.
7. In this place: An echo of Exod. 3:12, where similarly the reference is not to Canaan but to Mount Sinai. According to Stephen, the promise is not only that they shall inherit the land, but, even more, that they shall have free opportunity of worship; cf. Luke 1:73, "The oath ... that we ... might serve him without fear."
14. Seventy-five souls: So the LXX in Gen. 46:27; Exod. 1:5, whereas the original Hebrew has "seventy."
16. Again tradition varies, for according to Josh. 24:32, it was Joseph alone who was buried at Shechem, while according to Gen. 50:13, Jacob--and his other sons? (cf. Josephus Antiquities II. 8. 2)--was buried at Hebron.
19. Dealt craftily with: An unusual Greek word well translated "exploited" by Lake and Cadbury; cf. Exod. 1:10, "let us deal wisely with them."
20. Beautiful before God, i.e., even by God's standards--equivalent to a strong superlative (cf. Gen. 10:9). In modern Greek qeo-, prefixed to adjectives, gives them this superlative force.
22. This is not mentioned in the O.T. but is stressed by Philo (Moses I. 5).
25. This statement is not supported by any O.T. passage and seems prompted by the desire to draw a parallel between Moses and Jesus, and to illustrate the proverb that "no prophet is acceptable in his own country"; cf. Luke 4:24 ff., where two illustrations are given from the O.T.
30. Mount Sinai: According to Exod. 3:1, Horeb. The relation between the two mountains is something of a puzzle, and later tradition identified them.
35. Deliverer or "redeemer": This word is never applied to Moses in the LXX, and once again the motive here seems to be to compare Moses with Jesus, who in Luke 24:21 is described as "the one to redeem Israel."
37-38. A prophet: See on 3:22. In the congregation is an echo of the LXX phrase "the day of the assembly," i.e., the day on which the people assembled to receive the law (Deut. 9:10; 18:16). The angel as a mediator is a later tradition added to the original account, in which Yahweh himself gives the law to Moses (see on vs. 53). For living oracles cf. Ezek. 20:11, "I gave them my statutes ... which if a man do, he shall even live in them."
42-43. For the distinctively Jewish idea that God punishes sinners by giving them over to even worse sin, cf. Rom. 1:24, 26, 28. The book of the prophets means the Book of the Twelve or minor prophets, which was one of the books into which the Prophets, or second part of O.T. canon, was divided. The quotation is from the LXX of Amos 5:25-27, but Stephen changes the point. Amos is arguing that whereas no sacrifices were required in the wilderness, the people had later turned to idolatrous sacrifices. Stephen uses the passage as a proof that even in the wilderness Israel rejected God for idols. There are several variations from the Hebrew in the LXX version which Stephen follows. Rephan is read for "Chiun"; and whereas the Hebrew has "ye have carried Sikkuth your king," the LXX took "Sikkuth" to mean tent (skhnh6) and "your king" (Hebrew mélekh) to mean the god Moloch. Stephen also puts Babylon in the place of "Damascus" (both Hebrew and LXX). The important point is that, if we had here a transcript of what Stephen actually said, the text would hardly be likely to follow the LXX in the changes made from the Hebrew. But if the speech was written in Greek by the author of Acts, the facts become intelligible. If it is held, as is argued by the champions of the theory of an Aramaic original, that the translator always brought the O.T. references into line with the LXX, why did he allow Babylon to stand in place of "Damascus"?
46. Much the best-attested reading is "for the house of Jacob" (oi[kw with a B D), though most editors prefer God of Jacob in line with Ps. 132:1-5. But the temple was for the use of the assembled people as well as of Yahweh, and "house" may well be correct.
48. The force of the Greek is: "It is not the Most High who dwells in houses made with hands"--with the implication that the heathen gods do dwell in such houses. The Most High ($Uyistov) is the LXX rendering of (Elyôn, which in the O.T. is the name used by non-Israelites who reverence the God of Israel. The prophet is Isaiah (66:1-2), again quoted from the LXX.
51-53. The Holy Spirit: Here, as often in rabbinical writings, with reference to the spirit of prophecy; or possibly Isa. 63:10--"they ... vexed his Holy Spirit"--is in mind. They killed: Historically there is no support for this statement, but in legendary tradition nearly every prophet became a martyr. For the Righteous One see on 3:14. As delivered by angels: The phrase presents us with one of the very few verbal echoes between Acts and the epistles of Paul, who in Gal. 3:19 speaks of the law as being "ordained by angels" (cf. 9:21 for another such possible echo).
55-56. Jesus standing, instead of the usual "seated," seems to suggest that our Lord is about to welcome Stephen into the immediate presence without an intermediate period of waiting for judgment or resurrection. The parallels of the story of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:22) and of the promise made to the penitent thief (Luke 23:43) suggest that this is characteristic Lukan eschatology. Son of man: The only place outside the Gospels where the title is given to Jesus. There seems to be an echo of Jesus' own words in Luke 22:69, "But from now on the Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God."
57-58. The Western text of vs. 57 probably read, "then the people cried out"--perhaps because the copyist regarded the execution as a mob lynching. Cast him out again suggests a lynching, whereas the mention of witnesses suits better an official execution; their duty was to throw the first stones (Deut. 17:7). A young man named Saul: This reads like a "genuine Pauline reminiscence" and "probably turns the scale in favour of the view that Stephen was actually executed rather than lynched" (Beginnings of Christianity, IV, 85)--though it is by no means clear that this is Luke's own view. How keenly Luke, if not Paul himself, felt the latter's responsibility is shown by the way he harks back to the subject in Paul's speech to the crowd at Jerusalem (22:20).
59-60. Stephen's last words echo those of Jesus as recorded by Luke: "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" and "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:46, 34). If we could be sure that these are Stephen's exact words, the occurrence of the title Lord with reference to Jesus would prove that this use of ku6riov (or the Aramaic mar) began at Jerusalem and not later among the Hellenistic churches. But Luke has a fondness for this title, and historical deductions would be dangerous.
8:1. Saul was consenting: For the Greek word cf. Luke 11:48. Saul was not necessarily an actual member of the Sanhedrin that condemned Stephen. But as a member of the Cilician synagogue he may have taken part in the original dispute, and Luke suggests that the moral consent he gave to the execution carried with it as much responsibility as the actual doing of the deed.
2. The devout men would be Jews rather than Christians, for the law prescribed the burial of executed criminals (Deut. 21:22-23). As apparently no lamentation or wake was permitted after a legal execution, is this another hint of an irregular lynching?
3. Saul laid waste the church: But did he in fact have a part in this particular persecution? Though he confesses several times that he had persecuted the Christians (Gal. 1:13, 23; I Cor. 15:9; Phil. 3:6), it is nowhere stated that he did so in Jerusalem, and from Galatians it would seem that Damascus was the center of his persecuting activity.
3. STORY OF PHILIP (8:4-40)
a) THE MISSION TO SAMARIA (8:4-13)
According to Harnack, 8:4-40 belongs to a source in which interest is divided between Jerusalem and Caesarea; he calls it the "Jerusalem-Caesarean" source and finds its continuation in 9:32-11:18 and 12:1-24. The present section, however, appears to be composite, as, inserted in the story of Philip, we have a paragraph dealing with Peter's visit to Samaria and his encounter with Simon Magus. This "Petrine" interlude may possibly be derived from Jerusalem Source A.
R. B. Rackham well notes that "this chapter is thoroughly Old Testament in its spirit and language, and ... we could imagine that we are reading of a second Elijah or Elisha. ... Like an Old Testament prophet [Philip] wanders about, with sudden and spontaneous movements under the immediate impulse of the Spirit" (The Acts of the Apostles [London: Methuen & Co., 1901; "The Westminster Commentary"], p. 112). Philip is the typical Christian "prophet" and "evangelist." His mission to Samaria is chiefly important as marking the first definite initiative into non-Jewish territory, and was naturally enough undertaken by one who was himself a "Hellenist" and therefore, though no doubt as loyal a Jew as his fellows, would feel a deeper interest in the outside world. For the Samaritans formed a halfway house between Judaism and the Gentile world proper. They were a heterogeneous people of mixed Israelitish and heathen blood. But their religion was genuinely Israelitish; they worshiped Yahweh, kept the sabbath, practiced circumcision. But their holy city was Gerizim, and of the Jewish scripture canon they accepted only the Pentateuch. Though hated and despised by their Jewish neighbors, they were not put upon a level with the heathen; their observance of the law was regarded as very defective, but they were not looked upon as complete aliens; and social intercourse with them, though not frequent, was pronounced by the rabbis to be permissible (John 4:9 must not be taken too literally). Thus Philip's new move involved no definite breach of Jewish law. But it revealed a concern for the Samaritans that no ordinary Jew would feel, and to that extent it marked an advance on the spirit of Judaism in general and an approach to Jesus' own broader sympathy. It is no doubt chiefly for this reason that Luke records the visit.
5. A city of Samaria, the Western text reading, seems preferable to "the city of Samaria" (KJV), for in the N.T. "Samaria" always refers to the territory rather than the capital city Sebaste, and "the city of Samaria," meaning "called Samaria," is an English and not a Greek idiom. Lake and Cadbury guess that the town in question is Gitta, with which Justin Martyr connects Simon Magus.
9-10. For Simon see on 8:14-25. With somebody great cf. Theudas' claim in 5:36 "to be somebody," and Luke 1:32, "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High." Simon, like Theudas, evidently had messianic ambitions. That power of God which is called Great: The sentence is awkward, and the Greek may be a mistranslation of an Aramaic phrase meaning "this is the power of the God who is called Great"--Great being a title used by foreigners of the God of the Jews. Power is a Jewish reverential substitute for "God" (cf. Mark 14:62, "sitting at the right hand of Power," where Luke in his parallel [Luke 22:69] adds, as here, the explanatory words "of God").
12. The kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ: Implying, perhaps in contrast to Simon's false claim, that it was only through Jesus, the true Christ, that the messianic kingdom would come. Lake and Cadbury note that "the usage of Acts suggests ... that Kingdom of God here means the Church--the society of believers in Jesus, who through his representatives, using the power of his name, receive the Holy Spirit which cleanses and saves" (Beginnings of Christianity, IV, 91).
b) THE APOSTLES' CONFIRMATORY VISIT (8:14-25)
This paragraph reads like the account of an episcopal tour of confirmation. Peter and John, like Barnabas on a later occasion (11:22), are sent to investigate a new development in missionary work, to bestow on the converts by the laying on of apostolic hands a grace which presumably Philip could not bestow, and to give to the new Samaritan church the apostolic sanction which was necessary for its regular organization. All this seems to reflect the point of view of a later age when ecclesiasticism had become much more self-conscious. This comes out in three ways: (a) Our author thinks of authority as being centralized in the hands of an apostolic college without whose imprimatur no undertaking was valid. But this is almost certainly to misread history (see on 1:12). No doubt Peter and John did visit Samaria; but the idea that they went as an official delegation to do something that Philip could not do betrays later conceptions. It is very questionable whether the apostles ever constituted an official board with oversight over the whole church in its various local divisions. As A. C. McGiffert says: "It is widely said that the bishops were the successors of the apostles. It would perhaps be as near the truth to say that the apostles were the successors of the bishops! For the official character that has been ascribed to the apostles since the second century was the result of carrying back to them the official character of the bishops" (A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896], p. 97 n.). (b) We have here too the suggestion that the Holy Spirit could be conveyed to converts by the mediation of apostles and no others. Luke evidently supposes that Peter and John exercised a peculiar function not possessed by Philip. But such an association of the gift of the Spirit with a particular office or class of men is foreign to the ideas of the early apostolic age, as is shown by Luke himself in other passages--e.g., in 9:17 Ananias, an ordinary disciple, lays his hands on Paul in order that he may receive the Holy Spirit; and in 2:4 no human agent at all is in view. In 2:33 Peter says that the exalted Jesus has poured forth his Spirit, and there is no suggestion that he, as an apostle, can alone mediate the gift. (c) Still less does the tying up of the gift of the Spirit with some specific rite such as baptism or the laying on of hands belong to these earliest months (see also on 6:6). The truly primitive point of view is reflected even by Luke, not only in the passages already referred to, but also in 10:44, 11:15 ff., where it is clearly stated that the Spirit fell on Cornelius and his fellows while Peter was still speaking, and before they were baptized. The evident possession by them of the Christian experience, the fact that they had already "received the Holy Spirit," was precisely the reason urged by Peter that they should then receive baptism--not something which followed the performance of the rite.
Simon, as his traditional name "the Magus" shows, is the typical wonder-working false prophet, and acts as foil to the typical Christian prophet, Philip. The picture suggested by vss. 9-13 of a competition in wonder-working reminds us of Moses' encounter with the magicians of Egypt, or St. Patrick and St. Columba in rivalry with the druids. The decay of orthodox pagan religion had created a keen demand for teachers who by esoteric knowledge of the occult could open up the way to God. The current intermixture of Greek philosophy and Eastern mysticism had given a very varied hue to their pretensions, and the whole Mediterranean world abounded with seers, astrologers, spiritualists, exorcists, and miracle-workers. Some of them were no doubt sincere and able men, as for example Apollonius of Tyana, whose biography by Philostratus rivaled the Gospels in popularity. But the temptation to gain through quackery must have been too strong for most, and the majority were certainly charlatans. From the references in Acts, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, there seems little doubt that Simon claimed to be Messiah, and instituted in Samaria a movement that was intended to rival Christianity. With his messianic pretensions he seems to have combined Gnostic speculations, including the common conception of a hierarchy of divine emanations or "powers," serving as mediators between God and man, of which he claimed himself to be the chief--"that power of God which is called Great." Justin Martyr tells us that in the reign of Claudius, Simon went to Rome where the senate honored him "with a statue erected upon the Tiber between the two bridges, with the Latin inscription, Simoni Deo Sancto, 'To Simon the Holy God'" (I Apology 26:2). This incredible statement has been explained by the discovery on an island in the Tiber, called "between the two bridges," of an altar inscribed "Semoni Sanco Deo"--Semo Sancus being an ancient Sabine deity! As Streeter says, "Justin's veracity ... is completely vindicated, somewhat at the expense of his intelligence" (The Primitive Church [New York: The Macmillan Co., 1929], p. 13). Besides giving his name to the sin of "simony" or the use of money to attain spiritual ends, Simon came to be regarded in Christian tradition as the father of all heresy. In Justin's day, about one hundred years later, there were heretics called "Simonians." In the Pseudo-Clementine literature of the third century Simon appears as the foremost opponent of Peter in debate in various cities, and in the next century legend is busy with his end. Denounced by Peter at Rome, he seeks to rehabilitate himself by a superlative feat of magic and offers to fly. The experiment has fatal results!
14. John: If, as is probable, this is the son of Zebedee--who had once wished to call down fire on a Samaritan town! (Luke 9:54)--this is the last time he is mentioned in Acts. But it is just possible that the reference is to John Mark (12:25; 15:37), who in 13:13 is called simply "John."
16-17. Here it is not baptism but the laying on of hands that bestows the Spirit. In 19:1 ff. certain Christians at Ephesus, who had not received the Holy Spirit as a result of the "baptism of John," are "baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus," and forthwith "when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them." The two passages taken together suggest that "the baptism of the early church was a conflation of the water-baptism of John with the Christian baptism which was the gift of the Spirit," and that "possibly the 'laying on of hands' was the specifically Christian element in baptism" (Beginnings of Christianity, IV, 93). See also on 2:37.
20. Gift: The Greek word means a free gift that cannot be bought.
22-24. If possible: the question being, of course, Simon's repentance. In the gall of bitterness: An echo of Deut. 29:18, where the first phrase relates to idolatry. The ERV mg. has "thou wilt become gall of bitterness"--i.e., Simon's sin will be a root of bitter dispute in the church. Bond of iniquity is from Isa. 58:6. Simon is held fast by the chain of his sin. The Western text ends vividly, "and he ceased not weeping greatly."
c) PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH (8:26-40)
The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is most vividly told, very much in the style of a narrative from the books of Samuel or Kings. Was the eunuch a Jew or a Gentile? Eusebius refers to him as the first Gentile to embrace Christianity; so this Ethiopian has sometimes been regarded as an uncircumcised heathen, and his baptism as the first departure from the principle that Christianity was only for Jews, either native or proselyte. But there is nothing in the story to suggest any such far-reaching innovation. The fact that the Ethiopian was a pilgrim returning from Jerusalem, and that he was reading Isaiah, indicates that already he was at least a Jewish proselyte. Luke quite evidently regards not his case, but that of Cornelius, as the first admission of an uncircumcised Gentile. The stress laid on all the details of Cornelius' case, on the scruples that Peter found so hard to overcome, and on the controversy which the incident precipitated at Jerusalem--all this proves that Luke is describing what he considers to be the first case of the baptism of a heathen. He can hardly have thought of it as a mere repetition of the present event. The conversion of the Ethiopian is significant, not as introducing a new principle, but as an illustration of how far afield the gospel was already spreading. The most important feature of the story is the emergence for the first time of the great suffering servant passage in Isa. 53:1 as a specifically quoted text for Christian apologetic. If we can believe that the story rests on authentic tradition, this is of the greatest possible significance.
Vss. 26-40 contain a number of echoes of the story of Elijah (cf. I Kings 18:12; II Kings 2:16-17) which, combined with the echoes of Zephaniah noted below (on 8:26), have suggested to some scholars that the whole story may have been built up out of reminiscences extracted from the O.T. This appears a fantastic explanation of what is much more probably a perfectly natural coloring of the narrative by O.T. language.
26. An angel: Compare this verse with vss. 29 and 39, and note the interesting interchange between "angel" and "spirit." Cf. also 10:3 with 10:19, and see 23:8. Toward the south: This seems the most natural translation; but in the LXX the Greek word always means "midday," and it is possible that we ought here to translate "about noon" (cf. Zeph. 2:4; RSV mg.). Several curious verbal echoes of the LXX of Zephaniah occur in the narrative, including the use of this word and the mention of Ethiopia, Gaza, and Azotus (cf. this verse with Zeph. 2:4; vs. 27 with Zeph. 2:11-12; 3:10; vs. 39 with Zeph. 3:4). This is a desert road: Perhaps more probably "this place [i.e., Gaza] is deserted." Old Gaza, about two miles from the sea, had been destroyed by Alexander and was at this time "deserted." New Gaza, on the coast, was not destroyed till A.D. 66. The clause reads like an editorial note.
27. An Ethiopian: The Ethiopians were the Nubian race dwelling in the Nile region south of Egypt proper. It is only in modern times that they have been confused with the Abyssinians, who ethnologically and linguistically are Semitic. A eunuch: As such he would be excluded by the law from the "assembly of the Lord"; but for the more charitable prophetic attitude see Isa. 56:3 ff. To worship (proskunh6swn), or "on a pilgrimage." Proskunhth6v is the regular modern Greek word for a "pilgrim" (cf. 24:11).
32-33. The quotation is from the LXX of Isa. 53:7-8 and is important as the first definite application of the passage to Jesus as the suffering Servant. Have we a clue to anything characteristic of Luke's view of Christ's death in the fact that the quotation, as here employed, avoids Isaiah's several references to bearing the sins of others, while Luke also omits both Mark's "give his life as a ransom for many" (cf. Luke 22:27 with Mark 10:45), and also--in the shorter Western text--his reference to the "blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many" (cf. Luke 22:19 with Mark 14:24)? Of vs. 33, Lake and Cadbury say: "The meaning of the original is apparently as obscure to Hebrew scholars as are these Greek words. ... The truth seems to be that the translators did not know what the meaning of the Hebrew was, and gave a literal but unintelligible rendering" (Beginnings of Christianity, IV, 97). But see on 13:36.
36. After the words What is to prevent my being baptized? the Western text adds, "And Philip said, 'If you believe with all your heart, you may.' And he replied, 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.'" (RSV mg.; vs. 37 in KJV.) This probably represents the earliest form of the baptismal creed; and it is noticeable that it is an expansion, not of the trinitarian formula, but of the primitive formula "in the name of Jesus Christ."
39. The Spirit of the Lord: cf. II Kings 2:16. In Acts the phrase is used only here; but cf. 16:7, "the Spirit of Jesus," which is probably the meaning here, the title "Lord" being transferred as usual from Yahweh to Christ. No gift of the Spirit is said to follow baptism, unless we read with the Western text, "The Holy Spirit fell on the eunuch, but the angel of the Lord caught away Philip."
40. Azotus is the O.T. Ashdod. Among all the towns visited may have been Lydda and Joppa, where Peter, in 9:32, may have followed up and confirmed Philip's work, just as he had previously done in Samaria. Caesarea was the headquarters of the Roman procurators of Judea. Apparently it was Philip's home, for in 21:8 he is still resident there.

THE CHURCH AT JERUSALEM (3:1-5:42)

C. THE CHURCH AT JERUSALEM (3:1-5:42)

1. PETER'S HEALING AND PREACHING (3:1-26)
Some scholars believe that 3:1-5:16 is a "doublet" of ch. 2, plus 5:17-42, and represents an earlier and more reliable tradition about "the birth of the church." For a fuller discussion see pp. 69-70, 72-73; on this theory 4:31 would be the simplest and most primitive version of the Pentecost story.
Peter's healing of a lame man and his provocative speech which follows lead to the first serious clash with the Jewish authorities. The account of the healing should be compared with that by Paul of a lame man at Lystra (14:8-11)--one of the best illustrations of the alleged parallelism between the two halves of Acts. According to our author, the power to work miracles was the supreme proof that the apostles had inherited the mission and authority of their Master. In Acts, as in the Gospels, we note a twofold attitude to miracles: (a) faith is necessary in order that a miracle may be worked (vs. 16; 14:9); (b) conversely, miracle is the supreme way of awakening faith (4:16, 21-22). The presence of a miraculous element in the narrative must therefore not be regarded as evidence either against the Lukan authorship or against the writer's dependence on a quite primitive tradition. There can be no question that the first Christians lived in daily expectation of "miracles," and may therefore well have experienced them; and Luke is just as likely as any alleged later editor to record miracles in full good faith.
Peter's speech follows very much the same lines as his first one. Again the language is strongly messianic; and we have the same emphasis on the rejection of Jesus by his own people, on his rehabilitation as Christ through the Resurrection, and on the consequent need of repentance if the blessings of the messianic era are to be enjoyed. It is again alleged that this speech, like the first, is full of ideas which can be paralleled in I Peter; e.g., vss. 20-21 are compared with I Pet. 1:10-11. But the ideas are all such as were common to primitive Christianity in general, and the parallelism is hardly sufficient to prove conclusively either the Petrine origin of the speech or the Petrine authorship of the First Epistle of Peter. This speech possibly reflects an even more primitive viewpoint than that in ch. 2 (as being derived from the better of the two sources?). Here the return of Jesus is the chief hope and central message (vs. 20); there the central place is given to the gift of the Spirit, the bestowal of which is the chief work of the ascended Jesus. This speech is also written in much less polished Greek than most of Acts, which may indicate a translation from an Aramaic source.
3:1. John, generally assumed to be the son of Zebedee, is, as in the Gospels, closely associated with Peter; but in Acts he takes a quite subordinate position (see 8:14 if.)--which is strange if he was really so prominent a figure in the early church as tradition asserts. If, as some hold, the source from which this section comes (Jerusalem Source A) is a continuation of the original Marcan narrative, Lake's suggestion would be attractive --that the John who accompanied Peter was not the apostle but John Mark, who was traditionally "the interpreter of Peter" (so Papias; Eusebius Church History III. 39). This would certainly better explain his lack of prominence.
2. The gate ... Beautiful of the temple is usually identified with either (a) the Shushan Gate, which was the eastern external gate to the temple area. This would be on the outside of "the portico called Solomon's" (vs. 11), and would better suit our ("Neutral") text, according to which the apostles "entered the temple" (vs. 8), or rather the temple area, presumably through the "Beautiful Gate," and inside it were surrounded by a crowd in Solomon's Portico, which was a colonnade, probably on the east side of the temple area. Or (b) the gate in question is the Nicanor Gate, the eastern gate of the temple buildings proper, the special magnificence of which is described both in the Mishnah and by Josephus. This suits the Western text which reads: "When Peter and John were going out, he went with them, holding on to them, and they [the people] stood astonished in the portico called Solomon's"; this would seem to indicate that the "Beautiful Gate" was farther in than Solomon's Portico. Lake and Cadbury suggest that the reason why the apostles entered from the east, rather than by the usual great southern entrance, may have been that they were still coming in daily from the Bethany district. True, 1:13 seems to regard the upper room in Jerusalem as their home; but, if Harnack's source analysis is true, that verse comes from Jerusalem Source B, while the present passage belongs to Jerusalem Source A.
6-7. In the name: The use of "the name" in religious formulas and practice springs from the identification of a name with the person to whom the name belongs and the belief that the qualities and powers of that person are inherent in his "name," so that by invoking the "name" his power and authority are called into operation. For the use of "the name" in the N.T. see Mark 9:38 ff.; Matthew 7:22; Luke 10:17; Phil. 2:9-11, and the common baptismal formula (e.g., I Cor. 6:11); for Acts in particular see 2:38; 3:16; 4:12; 5:41; 9:14; 16:18; 19:13. Note that while others work miracles in the power of "the name," Jesus does so by his own "authority" (Mark 1:27). Vs. 7 is a favorite passage with those who seek proof from his technical language that the author of Acts was a medical man.
13. The words glorified his servant Jesus read like an echo of Isa. 52:13, whence it has been deduced that Peter and the early Jerusalem community already identified Jesus with the "righteous servant" of Second Isaiah (see also 4:27-30). The word servant (pai'v) is ambiguous in the Greek, and may mean either "child" or "servant"; there is no such ambiguity in the Hebrew, and from this it has been argued that its use as a title for Jesus is more likely to have begun among Greek-speaking Christians. The only passage in Acts which quite clearly identifies Jesus with "the servant" of Isaiah is 8:32, which, according to Harnack, comes from a source connected with Caesarea, and would reflect the view of the Hellenistic-Jewish circle to which Philip belonged. But if Jesus himself, as seems highly probable, identified himself with the servant (cf. Luke 4:17 ff.; Mark 10:45), there seems no good reason why Peter and the earliest disciples should not have bestowed the title upon him. The servant was glorified first by the sign just performed in his name, but chiefly through the Resurrection (vs. 15).
14-15. The Holy and Righteous One likewise seems an echo of Isa. 53:11. The "Just One" is again used as a title for Jesus in 22:14. The only evidence that it was a Jewish title of the Messiah is in Enoch 38:2. Wisd. Sol. 2 speaks of the persecution of the "righteous one" by the wicked, but without any messianic reference. But it was evidently one of the earliest titles given to Jesus. Have we an echo of it in Matthew 27:19; Luke 23:47; Jas. 5:6; I Pet. 3:18? And was the title passed on to James the Lord's brother, who was also called "the Just"? (See also 7:52; 22:14.) The Author of life: Except in Acts, the word (ajrchgo6v) occurs in the N.T. only in Heb. 2:10; 12:2, and in both those passages means, as here, "originator" rather than "captain," which, however, seems to be the meaning in Acts 5:31. Bengel remarks on the magnificum antitheton which calls Barabbas a murderer and Jesus the Author of life.
16. The language here is intolerably awkward, and the text must surely be confused. Torrey (The Composition & Date of Acts [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916]) suggests that an original Aramaic phrase meaning "[God] made him strong" has been misread and mistranslated as if it were another phrase meaning "his name has strengthened." This is perhaps his most ingenious and convincing proof from mistranslation of the existence of an Aramaic original. Alternatively, Burkitt alters the punctuation to read: "To this we are witnesses, and to faith in his name; this man ... did his name make strong" (Journal of Theological Studies, XX [1919], 320 if.). The faith in question is either the lame man's or, perhaps more probably, the apostles' faith in Jesus which enables them to work miracles in his name (cf. vs. 6).
17. Note I Cor. 2:8: However, there "the rulers of this age" are probably to be understood, not as the civil authorities, but as the demonic "principalities and powers."
18-19. Strictly speaking, the prophets neither in the original passages nor in Jewish interpretation of them foretold ... that his Christ should suffer; for even the suffering Servant prophecies were never interpreted messianically. But Christian interpretation soon came to apply to Christ all references to suffering both in the Psalms and the Prophets. Lake and Cadbury remark that "the assumption ... that the Christian interpretation was recognized and accepted by Jews in Jerusalem is difficult to reconcile with the view that the speech is authentic" (Beginnings of Christianity, IV, 37; see also on 17:3; 26:23). The context shows that by times of refreshing is meant the coming of the messianic age, though the Greek word appears never to be technically so used in Jewish writings.
21-23. The time for establishing: The Greek word ought properly to mean "restoration"; but "in relation to prophecy it may mean the establishment of what was predicted rather than the restoration of an earlier condition" (ibid. IV, 38). The quotation in vss. 22-23 is a combination of Deut. 18:15 and Lev. 23:29, possibly taken from some collection of testimonia or proof texts, where they were already run together. The Jews distinguished this prophet from the Messiah (see John 1:20-21; 7:40-41), but Christian interpretation, as here and in 7:37, united them in the person of Jesus.
25. Note Gen. 12:3; 22:18, and the use made by Paul of the latter verse in Gal. 3:16.
26. Having raised up apparently echoes the quotation in vs. 22, and means "caused to appear," with reference to Jesus' ministry. But the Greek word is used regularly of the Resurrection, and 4:2 (as well as 26:22-23, where many of the same ideas as here reappear) suggests that here too the reference may be to the Resurrection: in Pentecost and the miracle of healing God has sent the risen Jesus on a new ministry. In that case should first be taken as an adjective agreeing with his servant, as in 26:23, where Christ is "the first to rise from the dead," and in Col. 1:18 where he is "the first-born from the dead"?
2. FIRST CLASH WITH JUDAISM (4:1-22)

ActsExeg.41
According to vs. 4, the number of persons belonging to the new Christian community had now risen to about five thousand. Such a statement some scholars feel "defies every resemblance to truth" (Maurice Goguel, Introduction au Nouveau Testament, "Le Livre des Actes" [Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1922], III, 179). It is true that the verse reads like an editorial summary, so that the figure may not have stood in the source. On the other hand, though most of these notes about the growth of numbers are very vague (see 2:47; 5:14; 6:1; 9:31), and almost certainly editorial, in other cases specific numbers are given (so 1:15--"about a hundred and twenty"; 2:41--"about three thousand"; 4:4--"about five thousand"), which suggests the possibility that in these cases Luke may be quoting from his sources, and that the figures are not merely the result of his own idealization of early history. In any case the growth of the community was evidently extremely rapid; and it was probably alarm at this that prompted the authorities to take action. Hitherto they had not thought it worth while to do so; that the Christians were still proclaiming a gibbeted malefactor as Messiah merely stamped them as deluded fanatics; and that they never questioned the validity of the Jewish law, and were in no sense revolutionaries against either church or state, would disarm suspicion. This would be the situation until the steady increase of their numbers attracted hostile attention.
It is significant that it was not the Pharisees who first took action, but the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees. Although Judea had been a Roman province under a procurator since A.D. 6, external affairs were left to the Jewish authorities in the persons of the high priest and the seventy members of the Sanhedrin drawn from the rulers, or actual holders of political office, the elders, who owed their position not to office but to blood or wealth or religious prestige, and the scribes or teachers of the law. But political power was concentrated in the hands of "the high priest ... and all who were with him, that is, the party of the Sadducees" (5:17). Theologically the hierarchical aristocracy represented a rationalistic and skeptical tendency; for example they denied the resurrection and the existence of spirits (23:8). But their religious views were subordinated to policy. Their one aim was to maintain their own ascendancy and to prevent this being endangered by any popular restlessness that might provoke the Romans to place restrictions on local self-government (cf. especially John 11:48). Hence their suspicion of any undue religious enthusiasm, especially of the messianic order such as was being manifested by the new Christian sect. Thus Luke is undoubtedly right in representing the first opposition as coming from the Sadducees rather than from the Pharisees, who would have had no reason for proceeding against such consistent Jews. The apostles almost certainly were arrested, not as teachers of false doctrine, but as potential disturbers of the public peace. For Luke is probably wrong in the reason which he gives for the hostility of the Sadducees--because they were ... proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees were tolerant to a fault, and never sought to silence those who merely differed from them theologically. But for Luke it is a postulate that the Sadducees "say that there is no resurrection" (Luke 20:27; Acts 23:8), and it may well be that he ignores the real reason because of his concern throughout the book to demonstrate that the Christians were never politically suspect in the eyes of the Roman authorities.
On the ground that the account of the arrest is so vague, and that so little is said of any definite charge, some scholars (e.g., Loisy) think that the disciples were merely warned, and that no formal proceedings can have been taken before the Sanhedrin. But for Luke at least the trial provides the dramatic climax to which the story of the cure is introductory. A few weeks before, Jesus himself had been arraigned before the same court; he had warned his disciples that "they will deliver you up to councils" (Mark 13:9); and here is the fulfillment of the prophecy.
4:1-2. The captain of the temple is either (a) the zAghAn who held rank next to the high priest and was his chief executive officer; he is called "captain" in the LXX; or (b) a lesser official in charge of the temple guard, to whom Josephus gives the same title. Proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection, i.e., in Jesus they found proof of the doctrine denied by the Sadducees.
5-6. The rulers are presumably the office-holding priests of vs. 1. Compare the usual collocation, as here, with elders and scribes of "chief priests" in Luke 9:22; 20:1; etc., the latter being not only those who had actually held office as high priest, but also their priestly relatives--all who were of the high-priestly family. Annas had been high priest from A.D. 6 to 14, but as five of his sons and his son-in-law Caiaphas (now the legal high priest) had followed him in the office, he was still the power behind the throne (cf. John 18:13). Did Luke believe that Annas and Caiaphas both held office at the same time, as seems implied by the words "in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas" (Luke 3:2)? For John Codex Bezae (D) reads "Jonathan"; if this is correct, he may be the son of Annas who succeeded Caiaphas as high priest in A.D. 36. Of Alexander we know nothing.
8-9. Filled with the Holy Spirit: Another very primitive touch, the action of the Spirit, as often in the O.T., being still regarded as intermittent (e.g., I Sam. 19:20, 23; Judg. 11:29; 15:14; see on 4:31). By what means this man has been healed: The Greek word for healed is the same as that for "saved" (vs. 12), but the play on the word cannot be reproduced in English.
11. This is the stone refers of course to Jesus. The quotation is from Ps. 118:22. In Luke 20:17 (following Mark 12:10) it is quoted verbatim from the LXX; but here we have a free paraphrase from the original Hebrew, again perhaps from some collection of testimonia (see on 3:22). The head of the corner may be either (a) a stone in the foundation, which suits the reference in Isa. 28:16 (quoted in Rom. 9:33) and in Eph. 2:20; or (b) a stone at the top of a corner, binding the walls together where they meet, which better suits the word head. (See also I Pet. 2:7.)
13. Uneducated, common men (ajgra6mmato6i ... ijdiw'tai): The first word means properly "unable to write," but here probably implies that they had not been educated in the rabbinical schools. The ijdiw6thv is properly the layman as opposed to the professional in any field. The implication is that the apostles belong to the Amhaarez, the "people of the land," of whom the Pharisees say in John 7:49 that "this crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed." They recognized that they had been with Jesus: Does this imply that up to this point the authorities had not actually associated the apostles with Jesus? Possibly so; and the longer Western text makes this even more evident. But Luke may mean rather that the authorities, already knowing that they were followers of Jesus, now put two and two together and deduced that it was just because they were Christians that they possessed such marvelous powers.
19. So Socrates, in Plato Apology 29. D: "I shall obey God rather than you."
21. Because of the people: The Pharisees, not the Sadducees, were the party in favor with the people, and the Sadducees had therefore carefully to watch public opinion (cf. 5:26; Matthew 21:26; 26:5).
3. LIFE WITHIN THE. COMMUNITY (4:23-5:16)

The key verse of this section is 4:31, describing a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This reads so like a repetition of the Pentecost experience that it is convenient at this point to call attention to the remarkable parallelism between the two blocks of material represented by (a) 2:1-47 plus 5:17-42, and (b) 3:1-5:16, corresponding respectively to Harnack's two sources, Jerusalem Source B and Jerusalem Source A. The "doublets" may be set in parallel columns, the passages attributed by Harnack to Jerusalem Source A being in boldface type. If it is conceded that we have in fact two parallel accounts of the same series of events, which the author has set down consecutively, there is a general inclination to prefer that derived from Jerusalem Source A as being a simpler and therefore more authentic account of the church's infancy. The series of parallels is certainly most striking, and in particular the duplication of "summaries of progress" is somewhat suspicious (cf. 2:43a with 5:5b; 2:43b with 5:12a; 2:46a with 5:12b; 2:47a with 5:13b; 2:47b with 5:14). It is of course not impossible that events did thus repeat themselves. If, on the other hand, we accept the theory of two accounts of the same series of happenings, then the very closeness of the parallelism, quite unconsciously reproduced by our author, is surely a proof of the historicity of the sequence of events.
2:1-13 Outpouring of the Spirit.
2:14-21 Peter's speech at Pentecost.
2:42-47 Summary: the communal life of the church.
2:43a "Fear came upon every soul."
2:43b "Many wonders and signs were done through the apostles."
3:1-11 Healing of the lame man.
3:12-26 Peter's speech in Solomon's Portico.
4:1-7 Arrest of the apostles.
4:4 "Many of those who heard the word believed."
4:8-12 Peter's speech to his accusers.
4:13-17 The council deliberates.
4:18-22 The apostles are warned and freed.
4:23-30 The community rejoices.
4:31a Outpouring of the Spirit.
4:31b "They ... spoke the word of God with boldness."
4:32-35 Summary: the communal life of the church.
4:36-5:11 Two examples of communism: Barnabas, Ananias.
5:5b "Great fear came upon all who heard it."
5:11 "Great fear came upon the whole church."
5:12a "Many signs and wonders were done ... by the hands of the apostles."
5:12b-16 Typical healings.
5:12b "They were all together in Solomon's Portico."
5:17-18 Arrest of the apostles.
5:19-28 The apostles escape and preach the word (vs. 20).
5:29-32 Peter's speech to his accusers.
5:33-39 The council deliberates (Gamaliel).
5:40 The apostles are warned and freed.
5:41-42 "Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer."
The passages 2:42-47 and 4:32-35 may either be ascribed to Jerusalem Source B and Jerusalem Source A respectively, or may be regarded as editorial summaries not derived from either source. The passage 4:36-5:11 is not regarded by Lake as part of Jerusalem Source A, on the ground that logically 5:12 ff. is a continuation of 4:31, so that all the intervening verses (and not merely 4:32-35) must be an intrusion from elsewhere (see Beginnings off Christianity, V, 142). But 5:12b-16 provides the same prelude to the arrest of the disciples in 5:17-18 as does the healing of the lame man to their arrest in 4:1 ff. It is tempting therefore to transfer 5:12b-16 to Jerusalem Source B, to which the sequel belongs, or to suppose that the verses are Luke's own composition. Vs. 12a should surely be combined with vs. 11 to form a summary conclusion to Jerusalem Source A parallel to 2:43, which provides an exactly similar conclusion to Jerusalem Source B. The two sets of doublets would then be complete; and if ch. 2 were transposed to follow ch. 5, we should have from Jerusalem Source B a complete narrative parallel in detail to that from Jerusalem Source A in 3:1-5:12a. Whereas, with ch. 2 in its present position, there is nothing to lead up to Pentecost, we might now assume that in both sources the first outpouring of the Spirit followed the first public appearance of the apostles as miraculous healers and their first encounter with the Jewish authorities. The result of the gift of the Spirit shows itself in a new boldness in witness-bearing in the face of persecution, thereby illustrating the fulfillment of the promise given by Jesus (Luke 12:11-12).
a) NEW OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT (4:23-31)
The prayer of thanksgiving (vss. 24-30) is a lyric comparable with the songs and prayers of Luke's nativity storyú It is quite in the style of the O.T. to insert such lyrics in the middle of narrative, good examples being the prayer of Jonah "out of the fish's belly" (Jonah 2:1), and the song of the three children "in the burning fiery furnace" (Dan. 3:1, in the Greek). Luke here with great skill reproduces the O.T. flavor, and if, as seems likely, the lyric is his own composition, it illustrates how well he conforms to the conventions of his twofold literary inheritance--Greek in the case of the speeches, Hebrew in this characteristically Hebraic section.
Immediately after the prayer of thanksgiving they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (vs. 31). Acts is particularly full of references to the activity of the Spirit. Men are variously spoken of as in it, under it, filled with it, baptized with it, anointed with it, instructed by it. They speak through it, or it through them. Sometimes it is called the Spirit of the Lord, or the Spirit of Jesus, and is in fact almost indistinguishable from the risen Jesus himself. All this is of course not peculiar to Luke, whose special outlook is shown (a) in his emphasis on the materiality of the Spirit: at Jesus' baptism it descends "in bodily form, as a dove" (Luke 3:22); Jesus casts out devils "by the finger of God" (Luke 11:20; Matthew 12:28 has "by the Spirit of God"); at Pentecost we have the actual sound of "wind" and the tongues of "fire"; and the idea of "filling" and "pouring," almost as of some kind of material fluid, is especially frequent. Is Luke showing the characteristic interest of the physician in the tangible and corporeal? (b) Noticeable too is the definiteness with which Luke marks the arrival of the Spirit; there are outstanding moments when the Spirit manifests itself quite apart from the normal spiritual experience of Christians. Here Luke certainly reflects a point of view much more primitive than Paul's. For Paul the Spirit is the active moving power in normal Christian living; the life of every true Christian is "spiritual" in the fullest sense. But the primitive view saw the highest expression of the Spirit's activity, not in the everyday faith and piety of the common disciple, but in the abnormal and unusual in character, word, or work. To see visions, speak with tongues, preach with more than ordinary power was a proof of possession by the Spirit, of which the ordinary disciple was expected to show no striking evidence. Thus the community as a whole could be "filled with the Spirit" only on special ecstatic occasions such as the present. Nevertheless in the case of some saints such possession by the Spirit, attainable by others only spasmodically, was regarded as habitual and characteristic, and they are called men "full of the Spirit" (6:3). Stephen (6:5) and Barnabas (11:24) are specifically so called. Such were men whose religious power was so pre-eminent that only the permanent indwelling of the Spirit of God could account for it. It was not the least of Paul's achievements that he transcended this somewhat artificial distinction between the man whose religious fervor manifested itself in striking outward effects, and the saint in whom the Spirit expressed itself in the depth of his personal devotional life. (On the Spirit in the primitive church see also article "The Gospel in the New Testament," in Vol. VII of this work, especially pp. 8-10.)
24. The only other place where Luke uses the title Sovereign Lord (despo6thv) of God is Luke 2:29, where also the word "slave" (dou'lov, the word translated "servants" in vs. 29) is used in antithesis. Is a similar antithesis implied by the use in vs. 27 of the phrase "thy holy servant [pai'da] Jesus"--our Lord being thus identified with the "servant of Yahweh" of Isa. 52:13, etc.? (See on 3:13.)
25. Though the RSV probably gives the intended sense, the Greek here is "an incoherent jumble of words" (Torrey). The text is almost certainly corrupt, though Torrey suspects a mistranslation of an original Aramaic sentence meaning, "That which our father, thy servant David, said by command of the Holy Spirit." The quotation is from Ps. 2:1-2.
27. Whom thou didst anoint, i.e., "make Christ," "make Messiah." Did Luke think of this anointing as taking place at Jesus' baptism? Herod represents "the kings" of the quotation, and Pontius Pilate represents "the rulers."
31. An earthquake would be considered an outward sign of divine activity, and it is the only one of the four signs in the divine manifestation to Elijah (I Kings 19:11-12) which was not reproduced in the account of Pentecost in ch. 2. Boldness, as illustrated in vs. 8 above, is the result of the possession of the Spirit. The phrase almost means "without inhibition"; cf. its use of Jesus in Mark 8:32 ("he said this plainly"), and for the thought in general cf. Luke 12:11-12.
b) THE SHARING OF GOODS (4:32-5:10)
Immediately after the notice of the outpouring of the Spirit there follows once again (as in 2:42-47 after the story of Pentecost) a summary giving a little tableau of life within the primitive community. Those who regard the two summaries as doublets are inclined to give priority to the present passage. In both stress is laid upon the apostles' teaching and upon the community of goods, practiced not as a compulsory system but as a voluntary means of meeting the common need.
The two illustrations given of "communism"--the cases of Barnabas and Ananias--show that there can have been no absolute or even general rule. The special liberality of Barnabas had no reason to be mentioned if vs. 32 is to be taken with strict literalness. Similarly 5:4 makes it clear that Ananias was perfectly at liberty to keep his possessions if he so wished. His sin was not that he withheld part of his goods, but that he lied to the Holy Spirit (5:3) by retaining part of the proceeds of the sale, and thereby pretending to be more generous than in fact he was. Whatever may have been the extent of this "communistic" experiment at Jerusalem, it appears very soon to have broken down, first, perhaps on account of the dissension between "Hellenists" and "Hebrews" (6:1), and second, because the administrators who had been appointed as a result of the dispute had been driven from the city by the Jews. Probably also the eager expectation of the Parousia led to improvidence for the future, so that the Jerusalem community was always poor. Accordingly we find the selling of local possessions superseded by the sending of alms to the mother church by the richer daughter churches. Antioch sent relief by Barnabas and Paul (11:30); Paul was asked "to remember the poor," presumably of Jerusalem (Gal. 2:10); and later he brought a contribution from the Gentile churches (Rom. 15:25 ff.; II Cor. 8:1 ff.).
Barnabas is here mentioned for the first time. For a considerable period, until Paul later took the leadership, he must have been the most prominent figure in Hellenistic Jewish-Christian circles. In the calendar of the Anglican church he is given the title of "apostle," and is the only saint outside the twelve, except Paul and the evangelists, to be honored with a red-letter day. By birth he was a Cypriote; but he probably had connections with Jerusalem, for John Mark was his cousin. Originally named Joseph, he received the surname "Barnabas" possibly to mark his admission to the function of prophet or teacher--if we accept the traditional derivation of the name from bar-nebhû)Ah, "son of prophecy." This might also give the meaning "Son of exhortation" (ASV). Alternatively, an Aramaic derivation from bar-newahâ) ("rest" or "refreshment") would give "son of consolation" (KJV). Luke's Greek (uiJo;v paraklh6sewv) might at a stretch bear either meaning. A "paraclete" is properly a person called in to one's side to help; hence in I John 2:1 it is translated "advocate"; in John 14:16 it is used of the Holy Spirit and is translated "Comforter" (KJV) or "Counselor" (RSV). Here a good translation is Son of encouragement, which includes both ideas. In Acts Barnabas lives up to his name (see e.g., 11:23 ff.). Adolf Deissmann (Bible Studies [Edinburgh: T. g: T. Clark, 1901], pp. 307-10) and others prefer a derivation from Nebo, apparently a heathen demon-god, in which case Luke's translation seems quite arbitrary, though curiously, as Lake and Cadbury note, it would fit Manaen, who appears with Barnabas in 13:1. Can there have been some confusion? A similar problem arises in connection with the meaning of the name Elymas in 13:8.
For the extreme punishment meted out to Ananias and Sapphira we may compare Paul's words in I Cor. 5:5, "You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Some may prefer to believe that the account has been somewhat "written up": the coincidence of the sudden death of the guilty pair was put down to a direct visitation of the Spirit--cf. lie to the Holy Spirit (5:3); tempt the Spirit of the Lord (5:9)--and the actual agency of Peter in causing the deaths was introduced later. But more important than the accuracy of the story in detail is the light it throws on the ideas of the primitive community--the constant oversight of the Spirit whom none can deceive; the odiousness of hypocrisy, which Jesus had treated as the chief of all sins; the love of money as the root of all evil. Indeed, greed for gain or trust in the power of money lies behind most of the sins or failures recorded in Acts: Judas' betrayal (1:18), the sin of Simon (8:18), the opposition of the "owners" of the mediumistic slave girl at Philippi (16:16 ff.) and of the silversmiths at Ephesus (19:23 ff.), and even the procrastination of Felix (24:26). The sin of Ananias was that he tried "to make the best of both worlds."
32. The company of those who believed means the whole body of Christians and is practically synonymous with "the church" (cf. 6:2, 5; 15:12, 30).
35. Laid it at the apostles' feet may reflect an old legal convention by which property was transferred by placing it at or under the feet of the recipient.
5:1-2. Ananias, not an uncommon name (9:10; 23:2), means "Yahweh is gracious." Sapphira means "beautiful." Kept back some of the proceeds: The Greek verb is somewhat obscure, but is regularly used of appropriating something that is held in trust; the implication is that the proceeds of the sale, having already been dedicated to the community, were no longer at Ananias' own disposal. Lake and Cadbury well translate: "embezzled part of the price." The word is used in Josh. 7:1 of Achan who "took of the accursed thing," i.e., "retained part of the consecrated spoil." The word may well have been chosen with that story in view, for the enormity of Ananias' sin, like Achan's, was that through it sin entered into the community.
3. Lie to [or "cheat"] the Holy Spirit: The essential "sin against the Holy Spirit" is always to confound evil with good. In Mark 3:29 to ascribe Jesus' good deeds to the Devil's agency is to "blaspheme the Holy Spirit"; here the lie to the Holy Spirit is for a miserly man to pose as generous--a piece of willful hypocrisy. Note that this "lie to the Spirit" is equivalent to lying to God (vs. 4), and to tempting the Spirit of the Lord (vs. 9).
6. The young men: Literally "the younger men," possibly in distinction from the "elders"; but it is questionable whether even the latter yet existed as officials, and most unlikely that "the younger men" were an official "body of men devoted to such offices as burying" (Rackham). In vs. 10 they are called simply "young men," the Greek word having no such official flavor.
9. To tempt the Spirit of the Lord: The primitive idea of seeing how far one can go without provoking retaliation; cf. the common O.T. phrase of "tempt the Lord" (e.g., Exod. 17:2), and notice how, as in I Cot. 10:9, the idea, and indeed the very title "Lord," is transferred from God to Christ.
c) SUMMARY (5:11-16)
Vss. 11-12a probably go together to form a summary conclusion to Jerusalem Source A parallel to 2:43, which provides an exactly similar conclusion to Jerusalem Source B. In the following verses (12b-16) the idea of signs and wonders is developed into a generalizing summary which provides a fitting climax to the whole section. This was probably composed by Luke himself. Or did he take over these verses also from one or other of his sources? (See Exeg., above on p. 70.)
11. The word church (ejkklhsi6a) is here used for the first time as a name for the Christian community. At first any such name would be unnecessary, for Christians were still within the Jewish community, though marked out as "those who called on this name" (i.e., of Jesus; 9:21). Then vague phrases like "the Way" (9:2), "this Life" (5:20), "this salvation" (13:26) were perhaps used. The Christians, as a sect within Judaism, were probably called "Nazarenes," and their synagogue in Aramaic would be "the Kenîshta) [Hebrew Kenézeth] of the Nazarenes." Among themselves they were known as "saints" or "brothers," the name "Christian" being regarded as a mere nickname (11:26) and not used till well on in the second century. As the rift with Judaism widened, "the church" was accepted as a distinctive title. The usage has its roots in the LXX, where ejkklhsi6a (ecclesia) is one of two words used to describe the "congregation" or "assembly" of Israel, the other being sunagwgh6, "synagogue." The Hebrew words used to describe the people assembled for acts of public worship, deliberation, and judgment are (edhAh (ASV "congregation") and qAhAl (ASV "assembly"). Both words seem sometimes to be used in exactly the same sense; but the distinction is that (edhAh can denote all Israelites as a community, while qAhAl is rather the "assembly" called for a specific purpose. In the LXX the distinction becomes clearer: sunagwgh6 is often used to translate both Hebrew words in the more general sense. But there was ready at hand another Greek word ejkklhsi6a, with the technical sense of a specially convoked public assembly "called out" by trumpet or otherwise. When the qAhAl in question is a formal assembly for solemn religious purposes (e.g., on Sinai, Ebal, and Gerizim, at the dedication of the temple, or at Hezekiah's and Josiah's Passovers), the regular LXX translation is ejkklhsi6a. Hence Israel as God's "called" community might be spoken of as "the ecclesia, or church, of the Lord," and the use of the word by the Christians certainly implies the claim that they, rather than the Jews, were the true "people of God." The Jews appear to have preferred to use sunagwgh6 in the same sense; e.g., Ps. 74:2 in the LXX runs, "Remember thy synagogue which thou hast purchased and redeemed of old"--for which Paul significantly substitutes "church" when he echoes the verse (Acts 20:28). In short the Christians appropriated the word ejkklhsi6a; over against the Jewish "synagogue" stands the Christian "church." As in the Pauline epistles, the use of the word "church" in Acts is threefold: (a) The whole church as a religious community; 20:28 comes nearest to this "catholic" use; cf. also 5:11; 9:31; I Cor. 10:32. (b) The local Christian body: e.g., 13:1, "the church at Antioch," or 11:26, where the local community at the same place is called "the church"; so both in Paul and Acts we have "the churches" with reference to the local bodies; this is much the most common usage. (c) The original use with reference to the people in actual assembly. So throughout I Cor. 14 ejn ejkklhsi6a almost means, as we would say, "in church," and in 14:23 kat! ejkklhsi6an may mean "at church," just as in 2:46 kat! oi\kon means "at home." An extension of this usage would be the application of the word to the church building, as with the word "synagogue." A possible, but unlikely, example might be I Cor. 11:22, where oijki6av (homes) and ejkklhsi6av (church building?) may be in antithesis.
12b-14. These verses are very obscure. The all who were together in Solomon's Portico are presumably the apostles and their immediate following, or possibly the whole Christian community, in which case the rest will be other interested spectators who still hesitated to identify themselves thus publicly with the Christians, even though the people in general held them in high honor. But vs. 14 seems a contradiction unless we suppose that dared loin them means not merely to join the community but to co-operate in courageous public witness. It is suggested that join them (kolla'sqai, "be cemented to") is a mistranslation of an Aramaic word meaning "interfere with."
15-16. So that: The connection is obviously with 12a rather than with the immediately preceding words, which suggests that the obscure intervening sentences may be a misplaced editorial summary. Note the close parallel between vss. 15-16 and Mark 6:56, which is part of a Marcan section omitted by Luke's Gospel (see on 1:7). For the healing power of Peter's shadow compare the faith in Paul's "handkerchiefs" (19:12).
4. SECOND CLASH WITH JUDAISM (5:17-42)
The second encounter of the apostles with the Sanhedrin is very much like that recorded in 4:1-22, and, as we have seen, there is some reason for regarding the two accounts as "doublets." There is also a close resemblance to the account of Peter s escape from prison in 12:6-11, though the present narrative has none of the vivid circumstantial details of the later story. If we are dealing with doublets, then we should recall that the present account is, according to Harnack, from Jerusalem Source B, the less satisfactory of the two parallel Jerusalem sources. It is perhaps significant that the section contains what appears to be the worst historical error in Acts. In 5:36 Gamaliel refers to a rebellion of Theudas which, according to Josephus (Antiquities XX. 5), took place ten or twelve years after the time when he is speaking. He also makes it appear that Theudas rebelled at an earlier date than Judas, who in fact led a revolt in A.D. 6-8. This notorious anachronism has been made the basis for the argument that the author of Acts had read Josephus' Antiquities; for the latter, after narrating the rebellion of Theudas, goes on to tell of the subsequent execution of the sons of Judas. The two names thus occur in reverse order, and it is suggested that Luke's anachronism is due to a careless reading of Josephus. The importance of this is that it would necessitate a later date for Acts, as Josephus did not publish his Antiquities till about A.D. 93. Two other passages are quoted as proving Luke's dependence on Josephus--Luke 3:1; Acts 21:38. But it must be granted that all three passages "fall just short of demonstration," and in the case of the present passage "there is always the possibility that Luke and Josephus were using a common source in which the events were arranged in the order given by Josephus" (Beginnings of Christianity, II, 357). There is in fact no need to assume any acquaintance on Luke's part with the works of Josephus.
The historicity of Gamaliel's intervention has been commonly denied by radical critics, on account both of the anachronism in his speech and of the general line that he is alleged to have taken. But Gamaliel belonged to the more liberal school of Hillel, as opposed to the more rigid followers of Shammai; and it is quite likely that he may have counseled moderation for reasons of conviction as well as of policy. As a Pharisee he may well have had a bias in favor of the Christians as loyal observers of the law over against their Sadducean persecutors; and as a coolheaded statesman he may have believed that firm control would accomplish more than harsh repression, which might provoke a popular outbreak in support of a respected sect. It is entirely credible that Gamaliel, as indeed any other member of the Sanhedrin, may have taken up the attitude indicated by Luke. The Christians were in fact for some considerable time treated with just the kind of toleration that Gamaliel urged.
17. The party of the Sadducees: The Greek is hJ ou\sa ai{resiv--an odd use of the participle, for which cf. 13:1. Lake and Cadbury suspect a semitechnical usage, for which there is some evidence in the papyri, of a participle "referring to what was existent at the place mentioned or the time mentioned, for which our English equivalent would be 'local' and 'current' respectively" (Beginnings of Christianity, IV, 56). Here the meaning would be "the local party of the Sadducees." Would this explain the famous crux in Eph. 1:1, which might be translated "to the local saints and believers in Christ Jesus"?
19-20. An angel sometimes appears in the O.T. as a quite impersonal agent of God's purpose, as when, e.g., "an angel" (pestilence) smites Sennacherib's army (II Kings 19:35; cf. II Sam. 24:16) or protects Daniel from the lions (Dan. 6:22). Here some providential intervention is suggested, perhaps the connivance of a jailer or the help of a friend (see also 8:26; 12:7, 23). This Life: a unique expression, perhaps like "the Way," used by Christians to describe their gospel.
21. The council and all the senate are one and the same body, the Jewish Sanhedrin. Senate is an older name which well suits the archaic language, the senate of the children of Israel. It is, however, just possible that Luke thought that there was a deliberative body of "elders" in addition to the "council" or "Sanhedrin" as the judicial body.
28-29. We strictly charged: i.e., referring to 4:18, as we must obey God repeats 4:19. Rackham well compares Antigone's words in Sophocles' tragedy (Antigone 453-55; tr. E. H. Plumptre):
Nor did I deem thy edicts strong enough,
That thou, a mortal man, should'st over-pass
The unwritten laws of God that know not change.
30-32. The gist of Peter's speech is exactly the same as in the parallel in 4:8 ff.: the Jews are responsible for the crime of crucifying one whom God has vindicated by raising him from the dead and exalting him to the highest honor. Killed: The unusual Greek word has perhaps a semislang flavor, for which cf. 26:21; Lake and Cadbury translate "did away with." Hanging him on a tree; cf. Deut. 21:22 and see on 10:39. Leader: The same word translated in 3:15 as "the Author of life." To these things: Literally "words," probably one of Luke's deliberate Hebraisms, based on the similar use of the Hebrew word däbhär; cf. 10:37. So is the Holy Spirit, i.e., as demonstrated by the deeds of the apostles.
34. Gamaliel: The first of the famous rabbis of that name, he was a descendant of Hillel and is named in the traditional list as one of the successive "presidents of the council." His reputation is later attested by the saying, "Since Rabban Gamaliel the elder died, there has been no more reverence for the law" (quoted in Emil Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891], Div. II, Vol. I, p. 364). According to 22:3, he was Paul's teacher.
36-37. Theudas: There is no evidence of any Theudas other than the rebel mentioned by Josephus as having risen some years later than Gamaliel's speech. The argument is that if Jesus is, like Theudas and Judas, a mere impostor, his cause will as speedily collapse. The census in question in connection with Judas is that made by Quirinius in A.D. 6, and is not that of Luke 2:1, though there is a question that Luke may have confused them. Judas, according to Josephus (Jewish War II. 8. 1), was the leader of a much more serious uprising than is here implied and his followers, so far from being completely exterminated, became the origin of the "Zealots," who in turn were largely responsible for the movement which eventually led to the great rebellion and the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
41-42. For the phrase the name, without qualification, cf. the Greek of III John 7. Jesus as the Christ: Alternatively, we may have here the use of the double name--"telling the good news of Christ Jesus."

ACTS - Chapters One and Two

I. FROM JERUSALEM TO ANTIOCH (1:1-12:25)

ActsExeg.11

A. DAYS OF EXPECTATION (1:1-26)

1. INTRODUCTORY PREFACE (1:1-5)

The introductory verses, both of his Gospel and of Acts, stamp Luke as a typical man of letters of his day. Such prefaces were used neither by ancient Greek nor ancient Semitic writers, but came into fashion in the Hellenistic age among both Greeks and Romans. They usually followed conventional lines. References would be made to earlier writers on the same subject--often with unflattering comparisons with the author's own work--claims put forward to special knowledge, and an explanation given of the author's purpose in writing. When the work was divided into several logoi or books, the whole work began with a general preface or prooimion setting forth the author's method and aim. This we have at the beginning of Luke's Gospel. At the beginning of each subsequent volume came a subsidiary preface or proekthesis linking this volume with the preceding one and noting the stage reached in the work. This we have here; and the natural deduction is that the two books are by the same author. A good example of the proekthesis is found at the beginning of the fourth book of Polybius' Histories: "In the preceding book, after pointing out the causes of the second war between Rome and Carthage, I described the invasion of Italy by Hannibal. ... I shall now give an account of the contemporary events in Greece. ..." True, the proekthesis of Acts is incomplete: we have a summary of the first logos, but not the usual sketch of the contents of the second. This suggests to some critics that the preface has been mutilated by a later editor, who at the same time has introduced a second and discordant account of the Ascension, an incident already narrated in the Gospel, and alluded to in vs. 2--until the day when he was taken up. It is surely better to recognize that Luke is not slavishly bound by literary convention, and that the opening sentence is in fact balanced by the whole succeeding narrative.

1:1. There is no reliable tradition about Theophilus, and it has even been suggested that the name, "lover of God," means merely "Christian reader." But the title "most excellent" (Luke 1:3) suggests a real person. It is thrice used in Acts (23:26; 24:3; 26:25), always of persons of high official rank. B. H. Streeter (The Four Gospels [New York: The Macmillan Co., 1925], p. 539) suggests that Theophilus may have been the secret Christian name of Flavius Clemens, cousin and heir of Domitian. His wife Domitilla was secretly an adherent of the church, and he himself at least an inquirer. He was put to death by Domitian in A.D. 96. Acts would thus be the first of those "apologies" addressed by the church to prominent members of the Imperial House. The Clementine Recognitions speaks of Theophilus as a wealthy resident of Antioch, the probable birthplace of Luke. Later Christian writers transform him into a bishop, and finally confound him with the apologist of the same name at the end of the second century, Bishop Theophilus of Antioch. First (prw'ton, not pro6teron) in the Greek of Luke's day need not imply that the author had written, or intended to write, more than two books in the present series. Began to do in Semitic idiom means little more than "did." The first book narrates Jesus' activities "from the beginning" (Luke 1:2) till the Ascension. The idea that Acts narrates what the ascended Christ continued to do is true. but too subtle.

2. The order of the Greek words shows that through the Holy Spirit should be taken with given commandment rather than with had chosen. The text here is doubtful; and after he had given commandment, without any explanatory object, is left curiously vague. Possibly dia6 ("through") is here used to translate an Aramaic preposition meaning "in the case of," and the original sense may have been "when he had given commandment concerning the Holy Spirit"--a reference forward to vss. 4-5.

3. The Greek word for appearing to them occurs only here in the N.T., but is used in the LXX in Num. 14:14 of Yahweh's self-manifestation in the wilderness. These appearances occurred during forty days--a number traditional in sacred history (Exod. 34:28; I Kings 19:8; Matthew 4:2). In Luke's Gospel there is nothing to indicate that the Ascension did not take place on the same day as the Resurrection--a view perhaps shared by Paul who seems to regard the two as synonymous. The acceptance of the longer period by church tradition was probably due to the desire to make room for the imparting of secret instruction to the inner circle of his disciples by the risen Jesus, in particular concerning the kingdom of God. The kingdom in Acts is much more closely identified with the church than is the case in the Synoptic Gospels, though nowhere in Acts is the earlier eschatological meaning excluded by the context (see 8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31).

4. While staying with them is the translation of a difficult Greek word (sunalizo6menov) variously taken as meaning (a) being assembled together--a rare word from the root aJlh6v, "crowded"; (b) "eating salt together"--presumably with reference to Luke 24:42; (c) "lodging together"--a spelling variant of sunaulizo6menov, and on the whole the most probable rendering. The word might even mean "camping with them in the open"-it is a military term, to "bivouac"--as according to Luke 21:37, he had done during the week before the Crucifixion. The disciples are charged not to depart from Jerusalem--the suggestion being that it had been their intention to do so. Is Luke deliberately contradicting the variant "Galilean tradition," according to which Jesus' first appearances took place at a distance from Jerusalem? According to our author, it is in Jerusalem that they are to wait for the promise of the Father, i.e., for the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise, says Jesus, you heard from me (in Luke 24:49), and to its fulfillment at Pentecost Peter makes reference in 2:33. For the promise of the Spirit see also Gal 3:14; Eph. 1:13.

5. Here, as also in 11:16, Luke puts on Jesus' lips words elsewhere ascribed, not to Jesus, but to John the Baptist (Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16). The idea, evidently here present, that this promise was fulfilled, quite apart from any specifically Christian baptismal rite, by the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, is genuinely primitive. Later the words were understood as referring to a Christian baptism with water which differed from John's baptism, not because it was Spirit-baptism rather than water-baptism, but because though still water-baptism it also bestowed the Spirit, as John's baptism did not (see on 19:1-6 and a fuller note on 2:37-41).

2. THE ASCENSION (1:6-11)

For the first Christians the two cardinal events after the Crucifixion were the Resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Ascension holds a peculiar middle position. There is little reference to it in the earliest Christian teaching, and it was probably not felt to mark so complete a break in Jesus' earthly fellowship with his disciples as it is now often regarded as doing. Paul, for example, in 1 Cor. 15, enumerates the resurrection "appearances" without any reference to the Ascension, and evidently felt no radical difference between the appearances to the eleven before the Ascension and that to himself later on the Damascus road. For Paul the risen Christ, even when he appeared to the eleven, was already clothed in a "spiritual" or "glorified" body; and the Ascension, as symbolical of his passage to heaven, was in fact identical with the Resurrection. But with the growth of the tradition of the "forty days," the Resurrection implied first a temporary renewal of earthly intercourse with the disciples, followed by the Ascension as a separate event. Acts gives us the only explicit account of the Ascension in the N.T., apart from the Marcan appendix (Mark 16:19), for Luke 24:51-52 is textually suspect and the best texts bracket the words "and carried up into heaven" (KJV). Yet the exaltation of Jesus at the right hand of God quickly became an integral part of the earliest Christian creed; and this, given ancient cosmic ideas, presupposes an "ascension." Such a happening would also help to explain the cessation of appearances of the risen Jesus. But the silence of Matthew and Mark, apart from the appendix, suggests that the Ascension, as an event separate from the Resurrection, had no place in the most primitive tradition.

6. The disciples are pictured as misunderstanding the meaning of the "promise" (vs. 4). They still connect it with the expected restoration of the national theocracy and therefore ask, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? It is quite likely that the disciples' earliest expectations would in fact take this line. They would be looking for the personal return of Jesus as the herald of the kingdom. In the Gospels Jesus speaks much of the coming of the kingdom, but little of the Holy Spirit. But by the time Acts was written the church had realized that the truest return of Jesus was in the manifest power of the Holy Spirit.

7-8. The Western text here reads "no one can know," which makes the parallel closer with Mark 13:32, a verse which Luke omits in his Gospel. It has been noted that Acts not infrequently thus compensates for an omission of Marcan material from Luke's Gospel (cf. 5:15; 6:13; 12:4). Power implies the ability to work miracles, and such ability, according to contemporary ideas, was the chief evidence expected of witnesses of Jesus. Mark 16:17-18 reads like a later elaboration of this promise, which is itself the Lukan form of the universal commission in Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (RSV). The widening circle--Jerusalem ... Judea ... Samaria ... the end of the earth--suggests the plan of Acts. Note again how in place of the promise in Matthew 28:20, that Jesus in person will be "with you always," we have here a promise of the Spirit. If Jesus had in actual fact commanded such a universal Gentile mission, would the apostles have shown the hesitation which is so evident in the first half of Acts? (See on Matthew 28:20, Vol. VII.)

9. A cloud took him out of their sight may be understood metaphorically; but the spiritual reality could not be better conveyed pictorially to Luke's readers. Daniel speaks of one like a Son of man who "came with the clouds of heaven" (Dan. 7:13); in the O.T. the incomprehensibleness of Yahweh is represented by the cloud that hides him from view; now Jesus is received into the same cloud of the Shekinah or divine glory.

10-11. In the message of the men in white robes, the garb of angels (Mark 16:5), the belief in Christ's personal return, which is one of the central tenets of the earliest creed, is set in the very forefront of Acts.

3. FILLING UP OF THE NUMBER OF THE TWELVE (1:12-26)

The first act of the new community was to appoint one of their number to take the place of the traitor Judas. The filling up of the number of the twelve was evidently considered of great importance. This is the more remarkable in that the twelve as such play a small part in the rest of the book, only three of them being again mentioned (Peter, James, and John), and Matthias never at all. At their original appointment the number twelve certainly had a symbolic reference to the twelve tribes, and in some ancient lists a tribe is assigned to each apostle. In the kingdom the twelve are to "sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Luke 22:30). The disciples presumably wished to preserve this national symbolism by keeping the number intact. It is interesting that later no successor was appointed to James, possibly because it was felt that the martyr, unlike the traitor, would still judge the tribe allotted to him. At this time the disciples anticipated neither an apostolate to the Gentiles, which would deprive the symbol of its significance, nor such a long delay of the Parousia as would make it impossible to keep the number twelve intact.

What was the significance attached to the twelve in the most primitive tradition? Apparently they held no "official" position, nor were they commissioned with authority to govern the whole church. It was not the twelve as a "college" who headed the Jerusalem church, but certain individuals--Peter, and John, and later James the Lord's brother. Matthias is here appointed, not as an office-bearer, but as a witness to his resurrection (vs. 22). An "apostle" was a shelîah--the Aramaic word for one "sent out" by Jesus, of which "apostle" is the Greek translation (cf. Luke 6:13, "whom he named apostles"). The title was perhaps originally confined to the twelve. But very quickly it was extended to others like Paul and Barnabas, who worked as traveling missionaries without necessarily holding any "official" position in the churches. Indeed, even in the case of the twelve we have a hint here that they were "apostles" primarily as missionaries. They have been commanded to wait in Jerusalem (vs. 4), not permanently as resident officials, but until they "receive power" to become "witnesses."

But a later conception of the significance of the twelve soon becomes apparent in Acts. Already they are beginning to be thought of as constituting an "apostolic college" which remained in being for some years at Jerusalem, had in its hands the first organization of the church, and provided the official heads, not only of local congregations, but of the church at large (cf. 6:2; 8:14; 11:1; and vs. 20, his office let another take). But such a conception is out of accord with the facts even as they appear in Acts, and will not square with what we know from Paul's epistles concerning the Jerusalem church.

12-13. The disciples then returned to Jerusalem in expectation that Jesus was about to appear as the triumphant Messiah. The list of the eleven agrees with that in Luke's Gospel (Luke 6:14-16), save that John now ranks next to Peter, as throughout the following narrative, while Thomas is coupled with Philip, perhaps because both are prominent in the resurrection stories. The eleven are regarded as the nucleus of the new community, and they have their rendezvous in the upper room, probably the scene of the Last Supper (Luke 22:12), and perhaps in the house of Mary the mother of Mark (12:12).

14. Devoted themselves to prayer: Probably in the temple, where it was expected that the Messiah would appear (Mal. 3:1). But the Greek may mean "attended the place of prayer," i.e., the synagogue (cf. 16:13, 16). But the similar phrase in 2:42 seems rather to mean "attended the service of prayer," presumably in the temple. With the women may be purely general--"with their wives," rather than a reference to "the women" mentioned in Luke 8:2; 24:10.

15. It is noteworthy that from the first, Peter, in spite of his cowardly denial, takes the leadership. The obvious explanation of this rapid recovery of authority is that it was to Peter that the risen Lord first appeared (Luke 24:34; I Cor. 15:5), and that his sturdy faith had rallied the others from despair. Jesus' words that "upon this rock" he would build his church (Matthew 16:18) had found literal fulfillment.

How much of the content of these first speeches in Acts rests on an earlier tradition is debatable. Attention has often been called to the primitive Christology of the sermons attributed to Peter. But generally speaking there is doctrinally no essential difference between Peter's speeches and Paul's. Nor should we look for it; for Luke can hardly have had any idea of an "evolution of theology." No doubt he sometimes skillfully adapts thought and language both to the occasion and to the speaker. The present speech certainly reflects a primitive stage of Christian thought, such as might be expected in Peter's teaching. If vss. 17-19 are regarded as an insertion of the author, there remains nothing that might not fittingly have been said by Peter. But on the whole it is safer to assume that the theology underlying the speeches is neither Peter's nor Paul's, but Luke's own--the average point of view of the Gentile Christianity of Antioch.

In all, ejpi6 to; aujto6: see note on 2:47. A hundred and twenty: Is it a coincidence that the tract Sanhedrin (1:6) states that the number of officers in a community (here the twelve) shall be one tenth of the membership?

16.The scripture had to be fulfilled, i.e., presumably that freely quoted in vs. 20 (Pss. 69:25; 109:8). The tense in the Greek implies that the prophecy had already been fulfilled.

18-20. A field: or perhaps better "a farm" or "estate" in the country. Reward of his wickedness: Or, by a common Semitic idiom (cf. Luke 16:8-9; 18:6; II Pet. 2:15), simply "with his unjust reward." There are three traditions concerning the death of Judas: (a) the account here in Acts; (b) Matthew 27:3-10, according to which he hanged himself; (c) the story preserved by Papias that, on account of a loathsome disease, he suffered from excessive swelling (prhsqei6v) and was crushed by a wagon in a narrow place where it could normally have passed him (see J. A. Cramer, Catenae in Evangelia S. Matthaei et S. Marci [Oxford: Typographeo Academico, 1844], on Matthew 27:1). It has been suggested that Papias is really dependent on the same tradition as Acts, and that the somewhat strange phrase prhnh;v geno6menov, falling headlong, is an obscure medical term with the same meaning as prhsqei6v (see The Beginnings of Christianity, ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake [London: Macmillan & Co., 1933], V, 22-30). His habitation is presumably the estate Judas had bought, while his office is his commission as apostle.

21-23. The baptism of John: The more natural meaning would be "from Jesus' baptism by John till his ascension"; but the parallel in 10:37 suggests "from the time when John was baptizing" (cf. 13:24). They put forward: According to the Western text it is Peter, and not the community, who makes the nomination. Of Joseph called Barsabbas (to be distinguished from Judas Barsabbas in 15:22) all that we know is that Eusebius numbers him, like Matthias, among the seventy, while Papias is said to have related that, according to Jesus' promise in Mark 16:18, he drank poison and came to no harm. Matthias means the "gift of Yahweh"; about him also there is no trustworthy tradition. He was later constantly confused with Matthew; Clement of Alexandria identifies him with Zacchaeus, and the Clementinc Recognitions with Barnabas.

24. Lord, who knowest the hearts would more naturally refer to God. But the word for chosen is the same as that used in vs. 2 of the original choice by Jesus of the apostles (Luke 6:18), and this would seem to indicate that the prayer is addressed to Jesus.

26. Cast lots: The story strikes a very primitive O.T. note. There is no mention yet of ordination by the laying on of hands. The method of "casting lots" would be to put stones with names written on them into a vessel and shake it until one fell out. But the natural verb would be e[balon, not e[dwkan, and it is just possible that the phrase here means "gave their votes."

B. BIRTH OF THE CHURCH (2:1-47)



ActsExeg.21

In 2:1-40 we have, according to Harnack, the first of several sections derived from Jerusalem Source B (see Intro., p. 18 and note on p. 69). Vss. 41-47 are more probably a summary by Luke himself. The story of Pentecost falls into four parts: a description of the descent of the Spirit and the accompanying phenomena (vss. 1-13); an explanatory speech by Peter (vss. 14-36); a description of the effects produced (vss. 37-41); and an account of the beginnings of communal life (vss. 42-47).

1. GIFT OF THE SPIRIT (2:1-13)

The conviction that shortly after the Resurrection the Christian community "received the Holy Spirit" is a constant factor in N.T. writings; but there appear to have been more than one tradition concerning the time and circumstances of the gift. In the Fourth Gospel the Spirit is bestowed by Jesus himself on the day of Resurrection: "He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22). According to Acts, the Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection. But both traditions bear witness to the fact that, as a result of the Resurrection, the disciples became conscious of a new inward power which completely transformed their whole outlook; and this they attributed to the possession by the Spirit of God. It is indeed this new sense of power that is the significant factor in the experience of Pentecost. For Pentecost can hardly have been the first occasion when the little community felt the presence of the Holy Spirit; it must have been through the Spirit's enlightening influence that they had already reached the conviction that Jesus had risen. But now they became conscious of the Spirit as power--in accordance with the promise of 1:8--wherein they might go forth to their work of witness-bearing. Accordingly the great central fact of the day was not that on it the Spirit was given for the first time, but that it marked the beginning of their active missionary work (cf. 4:31).

But this is not the conception of our author, for whom Pentecost does mark the first descent of the Holy Spirit. The accompanying miraculous phenomena are set forth as evidence that this was a completely new and strange gift, marking the birthday of a new community. Even the gift of "speaking with tongues," apparently a common enough experience in the later Pauline churches, is described as if it were something abnormal and unique, and is given quite another significance than it has in the epistles. There this glossolalia quite clearly means the outpouring of inarticulate sounds under the stress of an overpowering religious emotion, a phenomenon to which there are many parallels in the history of all religious revivals down to our own day. It was evidently regarded as a supreme proof of possession by the divine Spirit and as such was earnestly coveted. But it is a gift to which Paul gives no very high place in his list of charismata (see I Cor. 12:4-11 and ch. 14 throughout), because it did not edify unbelievers, tended to disorder, and could be easily counterfeited. It is among the "childish things" which are to be put away while we "earnestly desire the higher gifts" (I Cor. 13:11; 12:31).

The "speaking with tongues" at Pentecost was almost certainly the same common phenomenon, and not something unique as is suggested by Luke, who undoubtedly intends us to understand that the disciples were miraculously endowed with the power to speak foreign languages. But this idea is quite inconsistent with the evidence elsewhere, even of Acts itself. There is, of course, no hint elsewhere that the apostles ever made use of such a gift in their missionary labors; nor would it have been necessary in a world where the Greek Koine was almost universally understood. In 10:46 and 19:6 glossolalia is mentioned in the true Pauline sense with no hint of misunderstanding. Even in the present context the impression produced is that they are filled with new wine, which exactly suits the known phenomena, but not Luke's conception. In the following speech Peter draws a comparison with the expected messianic outpouring of the Spirit foretold by Joel, and makes no reference to foreign tongues, even in his defense against the charge of drunkenness. We must probably assume that the glamour surrounding the birth of the church has, either for Luke or for the compiler of his source, invested even familiar occurrences with unique marvel and mystery, so that to add to the wonders of "wind" and "fire" he creates a similar unique miracle out of the everyday phenomena with which the church of his day was familiar.

2:1. Pentecost is the Hellenistic name for the Hebrew feast of Weeks, the institution of which is described in Lev. 23:15-21. They were all together: Either all the Christians (the 120 of 1:15?); or all the apostles, if it is held that vs. 4 implies that it was upon the apostles only that the Spirit fell.

3. The tongues ... of fire are distributed so that one rests on each disciple. The promise of baptism "with the Holy Spirit and with fire" is fulfilled (Luke 3:16). The word tongues is chosen probably to suit the glossolalia that follows; and if the twelve only are involved, the suggestion may be that each apostle spoke one of the languages.

5. There is some textual evidence for the omission of the word Jews. It is omitted by Codex Sinaiticus, and the fact that in vs. 10 Jews and proselytes are treated as merely component parts of the crowd suggests that it is not wholly composed of Jews.

It would then follow that the crowd at Pentecost represents the whole world, Jewish and heathen alike, and Luke presumably considers this as the beginning of the worldwide mission entrusted to the disciples in 1:8.

6. The multitude here apparently means the whole company of devout men just mentioned, rather than the entire Christian community or the general populace. There are undoubtedly signs of confusion in the language, due possibly to the author's having written up the earlier source--perhaps transferring the scene from the house to the open air, and converting the glossolalia into the novel phenomenon of speaking in foreign languages. As Lake says: "The facts would be adequately covered if it were supposed that the original source ran 'and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance, and when this voice arose the populace came together, and they were all astonished and perplexed, one saying to another, "What does this mean?" But others jeered and said, "They are full of sweet wine"'"(Beginnings of Christianity, ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake [London: Macmillan & Co., 1920-33], V, 119).

9-11. The list of people is intended to cover every nation under heaven (vs. 5). Parthians and Medes and Elamites represent Eastern races outside the Roman Empire. Then come the residents of the districts around the eastern Mediterranean, followed by visitors from Rome (i.e., temporarily resident in Jerusalem), and Cretans and Arabians, who perhaps represent the two extremes of West and Southeast. But the classification may be one of language rather than geography, Judea perhaps meaning Aramaic--speaking Palestine and Syria.

2. PETER'S SPEECH (2:14-36)

Peter's speech at Pentecost appears to be derived from a very primitive tradition concerning, if not his own teaching, at any rate that of the earliest community. The Christology is very elementary, and there is little trace of Pauline ideas which must have been current in the environment in which Luke wrote. For example, any reference to faith as a necessary condition of sharing in the blessings of the messianic age is noticeably absent. Only once in these early speeches does Peter mention it: in 3:16, where it is stated to be the ground of the healing of the lame man--a close resemblance to the view of faith characteristic of the Synoptic Gospels. As Christianity for Luke and his contemporaries was above all the proclamation of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the absence of such ideas in the early Petrine speeches argues strongly for the use of primitive documentary sources.

In this speech numerous parallels have been traced with the thought and language of I Peter. Foreknowledge occurs in the N.T. only here (vs. 23) and in I Pet. 1:2. The following ideas are prominent both here and in the epistle: that Christ is Lord (vs. 36; I Pet. 3:15); his rejection by his own (vs. 23; I Pet. 2:4, 7); his ascension and session at the right hand of God (vs. 33; I Pet. 3:22); the promised gift of the Spirit (vs. 33; I Pet. 1:12; 4:14); the glory that follows upon suffering (vs. 36; I Pet. 1:11; 4:12-14); salvation and baptism (vs. 38; I Pet. 3:21). E.G. Selwyn (The First Epistle of St. Peter [London: Macmillan & Co., 1946], p. 12) has suggested that the echoes of I Peter which are heard in Acts may be due partly to the fact that Silvanus, who was the joint author with Peter of the epistle (I Pet. 5:12), was also a friend and companion of Luke.

The speech may be said to be the earliest Christian apology. The first aim of the Christian preacher was to show to his fellow countrymen that Jesus was the promised Messiah. The Crucifixion seemed to have given the lie to Jesus' claims to be the revealer of God, and till this impression was dispelled all preaching of the Christian message was futile. Hence the defense of the gospel rather than its exposition is the need of the hour, and the stress is not so much on the content of the gospel as on the evidence of its truth. To judge by these early sermons the first preachers contented themselves with the demonstration of the messiahship, and did not ask what the messiahship involved for Jesus himself. There is no reason to suppose that at first their idea of messiahship differed greatly from that of their fellow Jews. It was only when the original messianic expectations had somewhat waned that Christians began to fill in or add to the picture with its original Jewish content, probably by drawing on their recollection of Jesus' own words, the full meaning of which they had at the time missed. Only when it dawned upon them that Jesus' work was something more than the founding of a national messianic kingdom did they begin to speculate upon the person of Jesus himself. Hence the complete absence here of any developed Christology.

The supreme argument for the messiahship was the Resurrection, for it effaced the impression left by a disgraceful death, proved that Jesus was no impostor, and vindicated all his claims. Hence the effort, so well illustrated in this speech, to show that such a resurrection, though no part of common messianic expectation, had nevertheless been foretold in Scripture. To a Jewish audience no other argument would be necessary; that an event had been prophesied was sufficient reason for believing in its truth and its divine significance. So Peter (vss. 25-28) appeals to Ps. 16 and claims that it foretells the resurrection of the Messiah. This would both make Jesus' resurrection credible and be convincing proof that he was Christ. Peter argues also (vss. 32-35) that the Messiah must be exalted to the right hand of God, and Jesus' ascension becomes yet further proof of his claims. Such an exaltation is evidenced by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which in turn is a final proof, after Joel, that the messianic age has arrived; for the gift of the Spirit is the work of the glorified Jesus and shows him to be Lord and Christ (vs. 36).

The view taken of Jesus' death is also very primitive. The Cross is an obstacle to faith, to be overcome by stressing the Resurrection; it has not become a central doctrine of the faith. The conception of a suffering Messiah was completely strange to contemporary Judaism, and there is little sign that the disciples saw at first in Jesus' death, as did Jesus himself, any positive contribution to the advancement of the kingdom of God. Such a development of thought may well have taken place before Paul, for one of the truths that Paul "received" was that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures" (I Cor. 15:3). But there is little trace of such a thought in these earliest days, and its absence here seems again to confirm the authenticity of the primitive tradition underlying the speech.

15-17. The third hour: about 9 A.M., the hour of morning prayer, before which a Jew would not customarily eat. The prophet is Joel 2:28-32. The Western text omits the name and also makes several alterations in the quotation to suit it to the occasion more exactly, and to suggest that the promise was made to all flesh and not only to the Jews: e.g., "your sons and daughters" becomes "their sons and daughters," and the "my" is omitted before "menservants and maidservants" (cf. the similar omission of "Jews" in vs. 5).

18-21. Do the words and they shall prophesy indicate that Luke thought that the "speaking with tongues" was such prophecy? In I Cor. 12:10 Paul of course clearly distinguishes between "prophecy" and glossolalia as he knew it. Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: omitted by the Western text, again presumably to make the quotation suit the circumstances. The manifest day is in the Hebrew original the "terrible day"; but owing to the confusion of similar Hebrew roots meaning respectively "fear" and "see," the LXX translation is ejpifanh6v, which may here mean "conspicuous" in the sense of notable (KJV) or "splendid." The Lord in Joel is of course Yahweh; but in Luke's thought the title, as in vss. 34-36, is transferred to Jesus as Messiah.

22. Jesus of Nazareth: literally "the Nazoraean." Two forms of the word are found in the N.T.: Nazwrai'ov (regularly in Acts), and Nazarhno6v (in Mark and Luke 4:34; 24:19). In spite of the attempt, based on Matthew 2:23, to make the words the name of a religious sect, there seems to be no decisive philological argument against deriving both forms of the adjective from the name of the town Nazareth (see on 24:5; also G. F. Moore in Beginnings of Christianity, I, 429). Attested: The Greek is ajpodedeigme6non, which would mean, as frequently in contemporary papyri, designatus, proclaimed or appointed to office. Jesus is the "elected Messiah," and was actual Messiah here on earth. The Western text reads dedokimasme6non--translated destinatum by Tertullian--which would suggest rather that Jesus was "Messiah-elect," and entered on his actual messiahship only at his ascension.

28-24. A hint, in spite of what was said above, that even thus early the Cross is seen to be part of the definite plan of God for salvation. Lawless men may mean either "wicked men" or merely those "outside the law," i.e., the heathen. Pangs (wjdi'nav) is also used in the LXX to translate a Hebrew word really meaning "cords" or "bands" (e.g., Ps. 18:4-5). Hence perhaps the somewhat strange expression loosed the pangs, a phrase which actually occurs in the LXX of Job 39:2.

25-28. Accurately quoted from Ps. 16:8-11 in the LXX which, as here, has my tongue rejoiced in place of the Hebrew "my glory rejoices." Curiously enough the latter phrase is the very one on the basis of which the Midrash gives the psalm a messianic interpretation. Elsewhere in rabbinical literature the psalm is not applied to the Messiah. My flesh will dwell in hope: The Hebrew has "shall dwell safely," i.e., with God's help the psalmist need have no fear of death. But for Luke the LXX variant in hope gives to the quotation its main point: Peter's whole argument is that this hope was not fulfilled in the person of David, but only in Jesus' resurrection.

29-30. The site of David's tomb is uncertain, but it was probably on the southeastern hill. It is only since the Crusades that it has been located on "Mount Zion" (southwestern hill). That he would set (RSV) is a more accurate translation than would raise up Christ to sit (KJV), and better suits the original in Ps. 132:11: "Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne."

32-33. Of that (i.e., the Resurrection) rather than "of whom" (i.e., Christ) suits better 1:22, where the function of an apostle is to be "a witness of his resurrection." Vs. 34 supports the translation at the right hand of God (RSV), rather than by the right hand (KJV), in spite of a curious Midrash on Ps. 118:16, which states that "the right hand of the Lord exalts."

34. Since the psalm quoted (110:1) cannot refer to David, who did not ascend to the heavens, it must refer to the Messiah; and Jesus in virtue of his ascension is proved to be that Messiah and also to have the right to the supreme divine title Lord. For a similar confession by Paul see I Cor. 12:3; Rom. 10:9; Phil. 2:11; and for Jesus' own treatment of the same verse from Ps. 110 see Mark 12:35 and parallels.

3. RESULTS OF PENTECOST (2:37-41)

Vss. 37-41 describe the immediate results of Pentecost and of Peter's speech, and summarize the requirements for membership in the new community. Special emphasis is given first to the need for repentance, which in the most primitive preaching means primarily repentance for the failure to recognize Jesus as the Messiah and for the consequent crime of the Crucifixion (cf. 3:17-19). If there is any more general idea of the necessity for repentance as a condition of God's blessing, this too is purely a Jewish conception. There is as yet no trace of the specifically Christian idea that every man is a sinner, and that repentance, as contrasted with the keeping of the law, is a universal precondition of salvation. Second, closely linked with repentance is baptism. Here too there is nothing essentially novel, for baptism as such was in line with Jewish rites of purification for the admission of proselytes, and John the Baptist--a great Jewish prophet, quite apart from his intimate connection with Jesus--had already associated baptism with repentance (Mark 1:4). But throughout Acts the conception of the significance of baptism, and in turn of its relationship to the gift of the Holy Spirit, varies to such an extent that we can only assume that several traditions have been inconsistently combined. There is no evidence that Jesus himself ever baptized--except in John 3:22, corrected in 4:2. The earliest idea seems to have been that the Christian equivalent of John's baptism was not a similar water-baptism, but rather a baptism with the Holy Spirit such as is pictured at Pentecost (see on 1:5). Later the distinction between Christian baptism and John's baptism--both alike being with water--was held to be that the former bestowed the Spirit as the latter did not (cf. 19:1-7). Similarly there is no consistent view of the part played by baptism in the gift of the Spirit. Perhaps in the beginning the Spirit is given before there is any question of baptism, which is added rather as a seal upon a gift already bestowed; so in the case of Cornelius (10:44-48). Later, baptism is regarded as a necessary condition of entrance into the community and an opportunity for public confession, but the gift of the Spirit is still distinct from it. So in 8:12-17 Samaritans are baptized, but they do not receive the Spirit until Peter and John, dispatched from Jerusalem for that very purpose, lay apostolic hands upon them. And finally the stage is reached when baptism with the Spirit becomes the direct consequence of baptism with water, so that Christian baptism becomes the essential condition of Christian spiritual experience (19:5-6). Although the present narrative is in general so primitive, 2:38 seems to reflect this final stage of development.

It has been suggested that baptism may have been adopted by the Christian community only as part of the Hellenistic mission which followed the appointment of the seven (6:1-6). It seems much more likely that with the beginnings of organization the fitness and indeed necessity of some such initiatory rite would be recognized, and baptism, at first simply as a rite of incorporation into the fellowship of those who professed "the name of Christ" and awaited his Parousia, would readily be adapted from the practice by which his forerunner had symbolized repentance in preparation for the coming kingdom. All that was necessary was the addition of the distinctively Christian formula in the name of Jesus Christ. This phrase (cf. 8:16; 10:48; 19:5) sometimes means "with the authority of" (e.g., Mark 9:38-39), but as a primitive baptismal formula the invocation of the name implies primarily recognition of Jesus as "Lord and Christ." There is as yet no trace of the trinitarian formula of Matthew 28:19, which is not to be taken as part of Jesus' original commission, but comes from later liturgical use.

38-40. Does our author hold that baptism not only confers the gift of the Holy Spirit but also conveys the forgiveness of your sins? Probably this latter thought should be linked up as closely with repent as with be baptized, for the ideas of repentance and forgiveness are constantly associated in Luke-Acts (Luke 3:3; 24:47; Acts 5:31). Far off may refer either to space or time, and mean either "to those who live far away" (for which cf. Isa. 57:19, quoted in Eph. 2:17; Acts 22:21), or "to you and to your children and to your distant descendants." Crooked generation: a proverbial phrase drawn from Deut. 32:5; Ps. 78:8.

41. So (me;n ou\n) is a regular formula in Acts summarizing what has just preceded and looking forward to a new section (cf. 1:6; 5:41; 8:25; 9:31; 11:19; 12:5; 13:4; 15:3, 30; 16:5). If Harnack's source division is accepted, it here marks the end of the first section extracted by Luke from Jerusalem Source B. Three thousand souls: The use of yuch6, "soul," in the sense of an "individual," comes from the LXX, where it is used to translate the Hebrew néphesh, which has the same meaning.

4. BEGINNINGS OF COMMUNAL LIFE (2:42-47)

The paragraph seems to be composite; vss. 42 and 46 read like two parallel summaries, and may be doublets. Possibly vss. 42 and 43 are Luke's summarizing link by which he joins his account of Pentecost with a more ancient fragment, vss. 44-47, describing the life of the primitive community. Four characteristic features of the early church are emphasized. First, concern with the apostles' teaching--chiefly, it may be supposed, their personal recollections of Jesus and his teaching. It would not be long before a comparatively fixed body of such teaching would take shape. Thus Paul speaks of the "standard of teaching" (Rom. 6:17) and the "pattern of the sound words" (II Tim. 1:13). Out of this would be formed the tradition which ultimately was reduced to writing in the logia, to which on one theory Papias refers, and which may supply the Q material in Matthew and Luke. Such "teaching" would no doubt also include renewed study of the O.T., especially such passages as appeared to foretell Jesus as the Christ--the testimonia, or "proof texts," of later days.

Second, fellowship (koinwni6a)--first perhaps with the apostles, but also with reference to the wider fellowship of all believers. It is Paul's favorite word to describe the unity of believers with each other and with their Lord. In I Cor. 1:9 ("called into the fellowship of his Son") it seems almost to take on the concrete sense of "the body of believers." Its equivalent in Aramaic (habhûrA)) seems to have been in common use to describe a group of companions who shared a common life, particularly those who united to celebrate a common Passover meal. Thus there may possibly be a reference here to the tablefellowship which becomes more explicit in the breaking of bread. Again, this fellowship found practical expression in experiments in Christian communism (vss. 44-45; for a fuller discussion see on 4:32-37). The original habhûrA) of Jesus had shared a common life (cf. John 13:29), and the communism of Jerusalem was simply a continuation of that practice. The word koinwni6a sometimes has the sense almost of "almsgiving" or "relief" (cf. Rom. 15:26, "to make some contribution for the poor"). What is in view here is clearly not absolute communism, but a sharing of goods for the benefit of those in need. Nevertheless the motive was probably not mere charity, but the recognition that the claims of the Christian family are superior to those of the individual, and that brethren must have their share, not only because they are needy, but because they are brethren. No doubt the vivid expectation of the Parousia and the consequent undervaluing of possessions made this "communism" easier, but it does not explain it.



Third, we have mention of the breaking of bread, picked up in vs. 46 by the words breaking bread in their homes. The association of this in vs. 42 with teaching and prayers shows that it has a religious significance, and immediately following the reference to fellowship it appears as the peculiar symbol of that fellowship. For this same word koinwni6a is, of course, the word used of the "communion of the blood of Christ" and the "communion of the body of Christ" at the Lord's Supper (I Cor. 10:16), which is the central pledge and symbol of a common life and a common faith. At the same time the close conjunction in vs. 46 of breaking bread and they partook of food proves that the former, though already of religious significance, was still part of a regular nourishing meal. It may be indeed that the poorer members of the community found in it their chief means of subsistence. It was only later that the Eucharist became differentiated from the agape. The exact phrase breaking of bread occurs only in vs. 42 and in Luke 24:35; but the verbal phrase "to break bread" occurs also in Luke 24:30; Acts 2:46; 20:7-11; 27:35; and in connection with the feeding of the multitude, and the institution of the Lord's Supper. The phrase springs from the Jewish custom of beginning a meal with the prayer, "Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, that thou didst make bread to be on earth," followed by a ceremonial breaking of bread. In vs. 46 breaking bread in their homes seems to be contrasted with attending the temple together. Regular attendance at the public worship of the temple would mark the disciples as still being loyal Jews. It was the common religious meal in their own homes that provided them with the opportunity for distinctively Christian fellowship and worship.

Fourth, they devoted themselves to ... the prayers. So far as public worship is in view this would still be through attending the temple together, and in the regular meetings of the Jewish synagogue. As yet there was no idea of establishing separate places of public worship. But once again the specifically Christian side of this devotional life would find expression in family gatherings for prayer, and in daily intercourse in the homes of members of the new community. Christian public worship, when it did take shape, closely followed Jewish models, as is seen by a comparison of the prayers of the Didache with the Jewish liturgy. But meantime the emphasis would be on domestic family worship and private prayers at home (see references in 1:24; 4:23-30; 12:12).

43-44. The mention of fear at this point appears strange; but it suits the context exactly in 5:5; 5:11, where this "summary" reappears (see on 4:23-5:16 for the theory of possible "doublets"). Wonders and signs is a common O.T. description of miracles. It is frequent in the first half of Acts with its marked Aramaic background, but does not occur in the second half. Paul uses it in Rom. 15:19; II Cor. 12:12; II Thess. 2:9.

45-46. The tense of the verb sold is imperfect, "used to sell," not in one great sale, but occasionally as the need arose. Possessions and goods are properly "real estate" and "private possessions"; the meaning probably is that they sold the former and divided the proceeds, while they distributed the latter. In their homes may mean (a) merely "at home," in contrast with attending the temple, or (b) from house to house or "in separate houses," implying a possible contrast with the preceding together.

47. The phrase translated to their number (ejpi6 to; aujto6) has given much difficulty, as is evidenced by the confusion in the text. Usually it seems to mean "together" (Luke 17:35; Acts 1:15; 2:1; 2:44; 4:26); but here it is so awkward that Torrey suggests the mistranslation of an Aramaic adverbial compound meaning "exceedingly." The word has this meaning only in the Judean dialect, of which Luke may well have been ignorant, ú and is also regularly put at the end of a clause, as here. The Western text tried to solve the puzzle by adding ejn th' ejkklhsi6a, and the omission of the ejn gave us the KJV translation added to the church. Lake and Cadbury (Beginnings of Christianity, IV, 30) point out that in the papyri ejpi; to; aujto; is used in financial statements as being "in total," and wonder whether a number should follow it here as in 1:15. Saved is an echo of Peter's quotation (vs. 21) of Joel 2:32.