59—6o,
i., pp. 68-71, E.T.). Thus in his last edition, p. 151 (1899), he points out that in section vv. 35-43, as alsoin vy. 25 and 27, the obstinacy of the people against Moses, sent to be their deliverer, is evidently compared with their obstinacy in reject- ing Jesus as the Messiah, and in vv. 51- 53 the murder of Jesus is condemned as a fresh proof of the opposition of the people to God’s revelation to them: here is a point of view which in Wendt’s judgment evidently had a share in the composition of the address. Wendt urges his view against the older one of Meyer and to some extent at all events that of Baur, Zeller and Overbeck, that the central point of the speech is to be found in ver. 51, to which the whole pre- ceding sketch of the history of the people led up: however great had been the benefits bestowed by God upon His people, on their part there had been from the beginning nothing in return but a corresponding thanklessness and resist- ance to this purpose. McGiffert, 4βος- tolic Age, pp. 87, 88, also recognises that the theme of the address is to be found in vv. 51-53, but he also admits the double purpose of St. Stephen, v7z., not only to show (as Meyer and others) that at all stages of their history Israel had been stiffnecked and disobedient, but also (as Wendt) to draw a parallel between their conduct and the treatment of Jesus by those whom he is addressing.
This leads us to a consideration of the view of Spitta as to the main purpose of St. Stephen’s speech. Whatever may be thought of its merits, it gives a unity to the speech which is wanting in many earlier and more recent expositions of it, as Hilgenfeld recognises, although he himself holds a different view, and one essentially similar to that of Baur. Ac- cording to Spitta, in vv. 2-16 we have an introduction to the chief section of the address which begins with ver. 17, καθὼς δὲ ἤγγιζεν ὁ χρόνος τῆς ἐπαγ. Moses, νετ. 20, was the person through whom God would save His people, and lead them to His true service in the promised land, vv. 7, 35, 38, 44. If we ask why Moses occupies this important place in the speech, the answer is found in ver. 37, which forms the central point of the description of Moses, and divides it into two parts (a verse in which Cle- men and Hilgenfeld can only see an interpolation of a redactor, and in which Weiss finds something suspicious, see Zockler’s note, im loco). In the first part, 17-36, we are told how Moses by divine and miraculous guidance grows up