62
15. ΚΑΙ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ταύταις ἀναστὰς Πέτρος ἐν µέσῳ τῶν
μαθητῶν 1 εἶπεν (ἦν τε ὄχλος ὀνομάτων ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ὡς ἑκατὸν εἴκοσιν'),
1 µαθητων; but NABC*, Vulg., Tisch., W.H., R.V., so Weiss, Wendt αθελφων.
settled homes in Galilee to take part in the lot of the disciples of Jesus, and to await with them the promise of the Father (Felten). It may have been that. James, ‘‘the Lord’s brother,’’ was con- verted by the Resurrection, 1 Cor. xv. 5, and that his example constrained the other ‘‘ brethren” to follow him. Ver. 15. καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ταύταις: St. Luke often employs such notes of time, used indefinitely like similar ex- pressions in Hebrew—e.g., 1 Sam. xxviii. 1, both in his Gospel and in Acts. Fried- rich, p. 9, Lekebusch, p. 53.--ἀναστὰς: it is very characteristic of St. Luke to add a participle to a finite verb indica- ting the posture or position of the speaker. This word is found in St. Luke’s Gospel seventeen times, and in Acts nineteen times, only twice in Matthew, six or seven times in Mark; cf. also his use of σταθείς, three times in Gospel, six times in Acts, but not at all in the -other Evangelists. — Πέτρος: that St. Peter should be the spokesman is only what we should naturally expect from his previous position among the Twelve, but, as St. Chrysostom observes, he does everything with the common consent, nothing imperiously. The best fruits of his repentance are here seen in the ful- filment of his commission to strengthen his brethren. ἐν µέσῳ: another favourite expression of St. Luke both in his Gospel and in the Acts, in the former eight times, in the latter five times (four times in St. Matthew, twice in St. Mark).
Blass compares the Hebrew TNA,
Grammatik des N.G., p. 126, and in loco. --μαθητῶν: Blass retains and contends that ἀδελφ. has arisen from either ver. 14 or ver. 16; but there is strong critical authority for the latter word; cf. vi. 1. In LXX it is used in three senses; a brother and a neighbour, Lev. xix. 17; a member of the same nation, Exod. ii. 14, Deut. xv. 3. In the N.T. it is used in these three senses, and also in the sense of fellow-Christians, who are looked upon as forming one family. The transition is easily seen: (1) member of the same family; (2) of the same community (national), of the same community (spirit- ual). Kennedy, Sources of N.T. Greek, spp- 95, 96. On its use in religious as-
sociations in Egypt see Deissmann, Bibelstudien, i., 82, 140, 209.--- τε: here for the first time solitarium. On the frequent recurrence of this word in Acts in all parts, as compared with other books of the N.T., see Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 257, 258.— ὀνομάτων: R.V., “ persons”. Light- foot compares the use of the word in Rev. iii. 4, xi. 13 (so too Wendt), where the word is used to signify any persons without distinction of sex, so that the word may have been used here to include the women also. But he considers that it rather means men as distinct from women, and so, as he says, the Syriac and Arabic understand it here. Its use in the sense of persons reckoned up by
name is Hebraistic FAV) LXX, Numb.
{ένο πδι οὗ ΠΠ, οι 43 2 eas (Grimm-Thayer, sub v.), but see also for a similar use on the Egyptian papyri, Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 24 (1807).---ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, “gathered to- gether,” R.V.; cf. Matt. xxii. 34, Luke xvii. 35, Acts il. 1, 44, 47 (so W.H., R.V., see 27 loco, Wendt, Weiss), 1 Cor. xi. 20, xiv. 23. Holtzmann, zn loco, de- scribes it as always local, and it is no doubt so used in most of the above pas- sages, as also in LXX Psalm ii. 2 (ef. Acts iv. 26), 2 Sam. ii. 13, 3 Macc. iii. 1, Sus. v. 14, and in classical Greek. But when we remember the stress laid by St. Luke in the opening chapters of the Acts upon the unanimity of the believers, it is not unlikely that he should use the phrase, at all events in ii. 44, 47, with this deeper thought of unity of purpose and devotion underlying the words, even if we cannot render the phrase in each passage in Acts with Rendall (Acts, p. 34), ‘‘ with one mind,”’ ‘‘ of one mind ”..--- ὡς ἑκατὸν εἴκοσιν. Both Wendt and Feine reject the view that the number is merely mythical (Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, Weizsacker), and would rather see in it a definite piece of information which St. Luke had gained. It is quite beside the mark to suppose that St. Luke only used this particular number because it repre- sented the Apostles multiplied by 10, or 40 multiplied by 3. If he had wished to emphasise the number as a number, why introduce the ws?