VIIl. τ.
207
VIII. 1. ᾿Εγένετο δὲ ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρα διωγμὸς µέγας ἐπὶ τὴν
ἐκκλησίαν τὴν ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις: πάντες τε διεσπάρησαν κατὰ τὰς
the book. The attempt of Feine (so also Holtzmann and Jiungst) to split up the speech into two distinct parts is based upon the idea that in one part an answer is made to the charge that Stephen had spoken against God, and that the other part contains an answer to the charge that he had spoken against the temple. The first part is contained in vii. 2-21, 29-34, 44-50, and the second part in vii, 22-28, 35-43, 51-53- The latter sections are taken from Feine’s Jerusalem source; they are then added to those which belong to a new source, and finally combined by the canonical Luke. Hilgenfeld may well ask how it is possible to break up in this manner the narrative part of the speech relating to Moses, so as to regard vv. 22-28 as a section alien from what precedes and what follows! (see especially Hilgenfeld’s criticism on Feine, Zeitschrift fur wissen- schaft. Theol., p. 396 (1895) and Knaben- bauer, p. 120); on the truthful record of the speech see Lightfoot’s striking remarks “' Acts,” B.D.?, i., p. 33. What- ever may be said as to the various diffi- culties which the speech contains, two things are apparent: (1) that these diffi- culties do not touch the main drift of the argument; (2) that the fact of their presence, where their removal was easy, bears witness to the accuracy of the report.
CuaPTER VIII.—Ver. 1. Σαῦλος δὲ .T-A., R.V. joins these words to the conclusion of the previous chapter, and thus brings them into a close and fitting connection with vii. 58. So too Wendt, Blass, Nosgen, Zockler.—iv συνευδοκῶν: for this characteristic Lucan use of the imperfect of the substantive verb with a participle, see chap. i. το. The formula here indicates the lasting and enduring nature of Saul’s “consent”. The verb συνευδοκέω is peculiar to St. Luke and St. Paul, and is used by the former in his Gospel as well as in Acts, cf. Luke xi. 48, Acts xxii. 20 (by St. Paul him- self with reference to his share in the murder of St. Stephen), Rom. i. 32, 1 Cor. vii. 12, 13. The word is also found in 1 Macc. i. 57 (iv. 28), 2 Macc. xi. 24, 35, signifying entire approval; it is also twice used by St. Clement, Cor., xxxv., 6; xliv., 3: ‘“*consent”’ does not express the force of the word—‘‘ was approving of his death” (Rendall).—avatpéoer: used only here in N.T. (on St. Luke’s favourite
word ἀναιρέω, see Friedrich, Das Lucas- evangelium, p. 22); both verb and noun were frequent in medical language (Hobart, Zahn), see below on ix. 29, but the noun in LXX, Num. xi. 15, Judith xv. 4, 2 Macc. v. 13, and in classical Greck,. εαᾳ., Xen. allen ay ἐγένετο δὲ: another characteristic for- mula in St. Luke, Friedrich, 1. s., p. 13; here introduces a new section of the history.—év ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρα: R.V. “on that day” (A.V. “at that time”), cf. ii. 41; the persecution broke out at once, ‘on that very day”’ (so Wendt, Rendall, Hort, Hackett, Felten, Zéckler, Holtz- mann), the signal for it being given by the tumultuous stoning of the first mar- tyr (but see on the other hand Alford, in loco). Weiss draws attention to the emphatic position of ἐκείνῃ before τῇ ἡμέρα. --ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τὴν ἐν Ἱ.: hitherto as, ¢.g., v. 11, the Church has been thought of as one, because limited in fact to the one city Jerusalem, but here we have a hint that soon there would be new Ecclesie in the one Ecclesia, as it spread throughout the Holy Land (Hort, Ecclesia, pp. 53-56, 227, and Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., pp. 41, 127, 377).--πάντες τε: ‘‘ridiculum est hoc mathematica ratione accipere” (Blass)—it is evident from ver. 3 that there were some left for Saul to perse- cute. In ix. 26 we have mention of a company of disciples in Jerusalem, but there is no reason to suppose (Schnecken- burger, Zeller, Overbeck) that Luke has made a mistake in the passage before us, for there is nothing in the text against the supposition that some at least of those who had fled returned again later. ---“διεσπάρησαν: only in St. Luke in N.T., here and in ver. 4, and in xi. 19. This use of the word is quite classical, and frequent in LXX, e.g., Gen. ix. 19, Lev. xxvi. 33, 1 Macc. xi. 47. Feine remarks that even Holtzmann allows that the spread of Christianity through- out Judzea and Samaria may be regarded as historical.—ydpas: here rendered regions”: Blass takes the word as almost = κώµας, and see also Plummer on Luke xxi. 21, ἐν ταῖς χώραις “in the country,” R.V. The word is charac- teristic of St. Luke, being used in his Gospel nine times, and in Acts eight; it is used thrice by St. Matthew and by St. John, four times by St. Mark, but elsewhere in N.T. only once, James v. 4.