who favours an earlier chronology, and dates Paul’s conversion in 31 or 32 A.D., contends that the flight from Damascus may have occurred as well in the year 35, κ. in the reign of Tiberius, as in 38, when no change had taken place in the status of Damascus ; the city was subject to Rome, but Aretas may have had con- trol over it, just as Herod had control over Jerusalem. There is at all events no ground for supposing that the term ethnarch denotes that Aretas was only head of the Arabian colony in Damascus (so O. Holtzmann, following Keim, Nésgen, etc.), or that he was only a chance visitor who exercised his authority to the detriment of Paul (Anger); any such suggestion utterly fails to account for the fact that he is represented as. guarding Damascus. It has been sug- gested that the wife of Aretas may well have been a proselyte, but the fact that the Jews of Damascus were both numer- ous and powerful is quite sufficient to explain the attitude of the governor, Jos., B. F.,ii., 20, 2; vii., 8,7. See ‘‘ Aretas” in Hastings’ B.D.,and Β.Ρ... McGiffert, Apostolic Age, pp. 164, 165; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog., pp. 619, 620; O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 97; Schirer, Fewish People, div. i., vol. ii., p. 356, and div. Π., vol.i., Ρ. 98, E.T.; Real-Encyclo- padie fur protestant. Theol. (Hauck), i., ΡΡ. 795-797, by P. Ewald: See further on the title ἐθνάρχης Schiirer, Studien und Kritiken, 1899 (1), which he explains by the conditions of the Nabatean kingdom, in which tribes not cities were concerned— the head of such a tribe being actually so called in more than one inscription. Ver. 25. of padnrat—if we add αὐτοῦ, see critical notes, the words would ap- parently refer to Jews converted by Saul, so Chrysostom: “' but his disciples” R.V. Alford, who reads αὐτοῦ, supposes that we have here an unusual government of
25--2].
Χαλάσαντες ἐν σπυρίδι.