oyoa = destruction of the people.
172
τὰς χεῖρας.
vi.
7. καὶ 6 λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ] ηὔξανε, καὶ ἐπληθύνετο 6
ἀριθμὸς τῶν μαθητῶν ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ σφόδρα, πολύς τε ὄχλος τῶν
~ , ἱερέων ὑπήκουον τῇ πίστει.
1βεου NABCHP; but DE 180, Vulg., Par., Syr. Harcl., Chrys., Orint- read Κυριον.
2 tepewv ; but δὴ Syr. Pesh., Theophyl
Ver. 6. ἔστησαν, cf. i. 23 ; for ἐνώπιον, see above.—kal προσευξάµενοι ἐπέθηκαν αὐτοῖς τὰς χεῖρας: change of subject. This is the first mention of the laying on of hands in the Apostolic Church. No doubt the practice was customary in the Jewish Church, Num. xxvii. 18, Deut. xxxiv. 9; see also Edersheim, Fewish Social Life, p. 281, and Fesus the Mes- siah, ii., 382, and Hamburger, Keal- Encyclopédie, ii., 6, pp. 882-886, ‘‘ Ordini- rung, Ordination”; Hort, Ecclesia, p. 216; Gore, Church and the Ministry, pp. 187, 382; but the constant practice of it by our Lord Himself was sufficient to recommend it to His Apostles. It soon became the outward and visible sign of the bestowal of spiritual gifts in the Apostolic Church, cf. Acts viii. 15, xiii. 3, I Tim. iv. 14, v. 22, 2 Tim. Ἱ. 6, and every convert was instructed in its mean- ing as one of the elementary teachings of the faith, Heb. vi. 2. That the act was a means of grace is evident from St. Paul’s words, for he reminds Timothy of the grace thus bestowed upon him, 1 Tim. iv. 14, 2 Tim. i. 6, and from the narrative of St. Luke in viii. 15, 17, and passages below. But that it was not a mere outward act dissociated from prayer is evident from St. Luke’s words in the passage before us, in viii. 17, xiii, 3, and xix. 6. See especially Hooker, v., Ixvi., 1, 2; see below in viii. and xiii., and Gore, Church and the Ministry, especially note G. Holtzmann would draw a distinction between the laying on of hands here and in viii. 17, xix. 6. Here, he contends, it only corresponds to the customary usage at the ordination of a Rabbi, as the Seven had already received the Holy Ghost, ver. 3, 5, cf. xiii. 1. But ver. 8 undoubtedly justifies us in believing that an accession of power was granted after the laying on of hands, and now for the first time mention is made of St. Stephen’s τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα μεγάλα (see St. Chrysostom’s comment).
Ver. 7. τῶν tepéwv: the reading *lovSaiwv is advocated by Klostermann, Probleme in Aposteltexte, pp. 13, 14, but _not only is the weight of critical evidence overwhelmingly against it, but we can
. Tead Ἰονδαιων. (See below.)
scarcely doubt that St. Luke would have laid more stress upon the first penetration of the Christian faith into districts outside Jerusalem—this is represented as the re- sult of the persecution about Stephen, viii. 4; ef. John xii. 42 (see also Wendt, 1899, p. 145, note). The whole verse shows that the yoyyvopés had not inter- fered with the growth of the Church. The conjecture that in the word ὄχλος reference is made to the priests of the plebs in contrast to the learned priests is in no way satisfactory ; if this had been the meaning, the words would have been πολλοί τε ἱερεῖς τοῦ ὄχλον, and no such distinction of priests is anywhere noticed in the N.T., see further below.—év Ἱερου- σαλὴμ: Hilgenfeld (so Weiss) considers that, as this notice implies that there were disciples outside Jerusalem, such a remark is inconsistent with the state- ments of the after-spread of the Church in this chapter and in viii., and that therefore the words ἐν ‘I. are to be re- ferred to the “author to Theophilus’’. But so far from the words bearing the interpretation of Hilgenfeld, the historian may have introduced them to mark the fact that the growth of the Church con- tinued in Jerusalem, in the capital where the hierarchical power was felt, and that the growth included the accession of priests no less than οΓΙαΥτηεπ.---ὑπήκονον τῇ πίστει: the imperfect may denote re- petition—the priests kept joining the new community, Blass, in loco ; cf. Rom. i. 5, vi. 16, 17, x. 16, 2 Thess. i. 8—the verb (very frequent in LXX) is only used in Acts in this place in the sense given, but often in St. Paul’s Epistles. No doubt when the number of Jewish priests was so large (according to Josephus, twenty thousand) both poor and wealthy would have been included in the statement, and we cannot limit it to the Sadducees. It must be borne in mind that the obedience of these priests to the Christian faith need not of necessity have interfered with the continuance of their duties in the Temple (so Felten), especially when we remember the attitude of Peter and John; but the words certainly seem to mark their complete obedience to the