Ver. 58. ἔξω τῆς πόλεως: according to the law, Lev. xxiv. 14, soin Luke iv. 29, our Lord is cast out of Nazareth to be φίοπεά.---ἐλιθοβόλουν: as guilty of blasphemy. St. Stephen’s closing re- marks were in the eyes of his judges a justification of the charge; imperf. as in ver. 59, see note below. The judicial forms were evidently observed, at least to some extent (Weiss attributes the introduction of the witnesses to a re- viser), and whilst the scene was a tumultuous one, it was quite possible that it was not wholly bereft of judicial appear- ances.—paptupes: whose part it was to throw the first stone, cf. Deut. xvii. 7 (John viii. Ἰ).--- ἀπέθεντο τὰ ἵμάτια αὐτῶν: to perform their cruel task with greater ease and freedom, ¢f. xxii. 20.— νεανίου: only used in Acts, where it occurs three or four times, xx. 9, xxiii. 17 (18), several times in LXX. It has been thought (Wendt) that the term could not have been used of Saul if he had been married, or if he was at this time a widower, but if νεανίας might be, used to denote any man of an age between twenty-four and forty, like Latin adule-
scens and the Hebrew V5, Gen. xii.
12 (Grimm-Thayer), Saul might be so described. Josephus applies the term to Agrippa I. when he was at least forty. Jos.- Ant., xviii., 6, 7. See further on
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58. καὶ ἐκβαλόντες ἔξω τῆς πόλεως, ἐλιθοβόλουν.
LY e η τά και OL µαρτυρες
ἀπέθεντο τὰ ἵμάτια αὐτῶν παρὰ τοὺς πόδας νεανίου καλουμένου
1 µαρτυρες, Gig., Par. falsi testes ; cf. vi. 12.
Blass rejects in β.
2 avrev; B has εαυτων, so Weiss, but W.H. as in Τ.Ε.
xxvi. 10.—ZavAov: ‘If the Acts are the composition of a second-century writer to whom Paul was only a name, then the introduction of this silent figure in such a scene is a masterpiece of dramatic invention”’ (Page, Acts, Introd., xxxi.) ; for the name see below on xiii. 9, and also on its genuineness, Zahn, Einleitung in das N. Τ., ii., 49, aS against Krenkel. Of Saul’s earlier life we gather something from his own personal notices, see notes on xxii. 3, xxill. 6, xxiv. 14, xxvi. 4, and cf. ix. 13. He was a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews, Phil. iii. 5 ; he was a Roman citizen, and not only so, but a Tarsian, a citizen of no mean city; cf. for the two citizenships, xxi. 39 (ix. 11) and xxii. 27, “' Citizenship,” Hastings’ B.D. ; Zahn, u. s., p. 48; Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 30. Zahn, 1. 5., pp. 35, 49, maintains that Saul’s family had only recently settled in Tarsus (but see Ramsay, 1. s.), and defends the tradition that his parents had come there from Gischala, their son being born to themin Tarsus. On Saul’s family and means see notes on xxiii, 16 and xxiv. 26. But whatever his Roman and Tarsian citizenship may have con- tributed to his mental development, St. Paul’s own words clearly lead us to attach the highest and most significant influence to the Jewish side of his nature and character. Paul’s Phari- saism was the result not only of his training under Gamaliel, but also of the inheritance which he claimed from his father and his ancestors (xxiii. 6, Φαρισαίων not Φαρισαίου, cf. Gal. 1. 14). His early years were passed away from Jerusalem, xxvi. 4 (the force of τε (R.V.) and the expression ἐν τῷ ἔθνει pov, Zahn, u. S., Ῥ. 48), but his home-training could not have been neglected (cf. 2 Tim. i. 3), and when he went up to the Holy City at an early stage to study under Gamaliel (xxii. 3, ἀνατεθραμμένος, on its force see Sabatier L’Apdtre Paul, p. 30) he ‘lived a Pharisee,” and nothing else than his well-known zeal is needed to account for his selection to his dreadful and solemn office at St. Stephen’s martyrdom. Asa Pharisee he had been “a separated one,’’ and had borne the mame with pride, not suspecting that a day was at hand when he would speak of