Io—ItI.
175
~ ~ a @ οὐκ ἴσχυον ἀντιστῆναι TH copia! καὶ τῷ πνεύµατι ᾧ ἐλάλει. 11. τότε
ὑπέβαλον ἄνδρας λέγοντας, Ὅτι ἀκηκόαμεν αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος ῥήματα
1 After σοφιᾳ DE, Flor. add ry ουσῃ εν αυτῳ, so Hilg., and after πνευµατι DE,
Flor., Gig., Par. add tw αγιῳ.
(Harris regards as Montanist additions.)
2 At end of verse 1ο D (E), Syr. Harcl. mg., Flor., Wern. add δια το ελεγχεσθαι υπ᾿ αυτον µετα πασης παρρησιας; (11) µη δυναμενοι ουν αντοφθαλµειν τῃ αληθειᾳ
so Hilg., Blass.
E, διοτι ηλεγχοντο . .. επειδη ουκ ndvvavro αντιλεγειν TH
αληθεια, possible influence of Luke xxi. 15, 2 Tim. iii. 8 (see Chase); Harris refers
to Latin and regards as Montanistic.
µετα π. παρρησιας characteristic of Luke and Paul, iv. 20, etc.; αγτοφθαλµειν Acts xxvii. 15.
Blass refers to Wisdom xii. 14
(also in Polyb.); cf. also v. 39 with Wisdom ᾖ.ο. 3 Both ουν and τοτε are retained by Blass in B, but see Weiss, Codex D, p. 66,
Flor. reads τοτε ουν µη Suv.
dria. In his new city Alexander the Great had assigned the Jews a place: their numbers rapidly grew, and, accord- ing to Philo, two of the five districts of the town, named after the first five letters of the alphabet, were called ‘‘ the Jewish,” from the number of Jews dwelling in them, one quarter, Delta, being entirely populated by them. Julius Caesar and Augustus confirmed their former privi- leges, and they retained them for the most part, with the important exception described by Philo, during subsequent reigns. For some time, until the reign of Claudius, they had their own officer to represent them as ethnarch (alabarch), and Augustus appointed a council who should superintend their affairs according to their own laws, and the Romans evidently recognised the importance of a mercenary race like the Jews for the trade and commerce of the city. Here dwelt the famous teacher Philo, B.c. 20-A.D. 50; here Apollos was trained, possibly under the guidance of the famous philosopher, and here too St. Stephen may have belonged by birth and educa- tion (Edersheim, ¥ewish Social Life, p. 253). St. Paul never visited Alexandria, and it is possible that the Apostle may have felt after his experience at Corinth, and the teaching of Apollos (τ Cor. i. 12), that the simplicity of his own mes- sage of Christ Crucified would not have been acceptable to hearers of the word of wisdom and the lovers of allegory. On the causes which tended to produce a distinct form of the Jewish character and faith in the city, see B.D.? ‘ Alexandria,” and Hastings, B.D., sub v.; Stanley’s fewish Church, iii., xlvii.; Hamburger, Real- Encyclopddie des $udentums, ii., 1, 47. We know that Alexandria had, as was only likely, a synagogue at Jerusalem, specially gorgeous (Edersheim, ¥ewish Social Life, p. 253); on the history
of the place see, in addition to litera- ture already mentioned, Schiirer, ¥ewish People, div. ii., vol. Ἱ., pp. 73, 228, 220, 244, E.T.; Jos., Ant:;*xiv:; 7; 2” Χ., I; xix., 5, 2.---Κιλικίας: of special in- terest because Saul of Tarsus would pro- bably be prominent amongst ‘those of Cilicia,” and there is no difficulty in supposing with Weiss and even Spitta (Apostelgeschichte, p. 115) that he be- longed to the members of the Cilician synagogue who disputed with Stephen. To the considerable Jewish community settled in Tarsus, from the time of the Seleucidz, Saul belonged. But whatever influence early associations may have had upon Stephen, Saul by his own confession was not merely the son of a Pharisee, but himself a Pharisee of the Pharisees in orthodoxy and zeal, Gal. i. 14, Phil. iii. 5. It would seem that there was a syna- gogue of the Tarsians at Jerusalem, Megilla, 26a (Hamburger, 4. s., ii., 1, 148); see also B.D.? “ Cilicia,” Schirer, u. δ., Ῥ. 222; O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 100. The “ Jews from Ασία” are those who at a later date, xxi. 27, are again prominent in their zeal for the sacredness of the Holy Place, and who hurl against Paul the same fatal charge which he now directs against Stephen (Plumptre, zz loco; Sabatier, 1, Apétre Paul, Ρ.2ο).--συνζητοῦντες: not found in LXX or other Greek versions of the O.T., or Apocrypha, although it may occur, Neh. ii. 4, in the sense of request, but the reading is doubtful (see Hatch and Redpath). In the N.T. it is used six times by St. Mark and four times by St. Luke (twice in his Gospel), and always in the sense of questioning, gen- erally in the sense of disputatious ques- tioning. The words of Josephus in his preface (sect. 5), B. ¥., may help us to understand the characteristics of the Hellenists. The same verb is usea by