360
ἐζήτουν αὐτοὺς ἀγαγεῖν εἰς τὸν δῆμον 6. ph εὑρόντες δὲ αὐτούς, ἔσυρον τὸν Ιάσονα καί τινας ἀδελφοὺς ἐπὶ τοὺς πολιτάρχας, βοῶντες, "Ort οἱ τὴν οἰκουμένην ἀναστατώσαντες, οὗτοι καὶ ἐνθάδε πάρεισιν, 7. οὓς ὑποδέδεκται Ιάσων: καὶ οὗτοι πάντες ἀπέναντι τῶν δογµάτων
former, owing no doubt to his Hellenis- ing ; see Deissmann, Bibelstudien, p. 184, note; Wendt and Zéckler express them- selves doubtfully, and hold that the name may be here a Greek name, and its bearer not a Jew at αἱ].---ἐπιστάντες, cf. iv. 1, vi. 12, Friedrich, p. 87.---δημον: to a public meeting, or to the crowd who shall inflict vengeance on them, there and then (so Weiss, Lumby); C. and H. take it of the free assembly of the people, so Ramsay. A true cause does not need such methods or supporters, ‘‘non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis”.
Ver. 6. ἔσυρον: the word indicates the violence of the πιοῦ.---πολιτάρχας: the word is an excellent instance of the accuracy of St. Luke; it is not used by any classical author of the magistrates of any city (in classical Greek we have only the form πολίαρχος and πολίταρχος), but an inscription on an arch spanning a street of the modern city has been pre- served containing the title (and also containing the names which occur among the names of St. Paul’s converts, Sosipater, Gaius, Secundus), see Boeckh, C. I. Gr., 1967. The arch is assigned to the time of Vespasian, and the entablature preserved by the British con- sul at the instance of Dean Stanley in 1876 is in the British Museum, see Blass, in loco, Speaker’s Commentary, Ὁ. and H. (small edition), p. 258, Knaben- bauer t# loco, and for other inscription evidence, Zahn, Emleitung, Ἱ., 151. But more recently Burton (Amer. Four. of Theol., July, 1898, pp. 598-632) has col- lected no less than seventeen inscriptions on which the word πολιτάρχαι or πολι- ταρχοῦντες (πολειταρχ-), the latter more frequently, occurs: of these thirteen are referred to Macedonia, and of these again five to Thessalonica, extending from the beginning of the first to the middle of the second century, Α.Ρ. The number of the politarchs in Thessalonica varies from five to six (see Theol. Liter- aturzeitung, 1899, 2, for notice of Burton’s article by Schirer), and on spelling, Winer-Schmiedel, p. 82 note.— τὴν οἰκουμένην: no doubt in the political sense ‘“‘the Roman Empire” since the charge was a political one, and was naturally exaggerated through jealousy
and excitement. There is therefore no need for the hypercritical remarks of Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, against the truth- fulness or accuracy of the expression.— ἀναστατώσαντες: Only in Luke and Paul, xxi. 38, Gal. v. 12, see LXX, Dan. vii. 23 (in a different sense), Deut. xxix. 27, Grec. Venet. (Grimm-Thayer, sub ν.), and several times in the O.T., fragments of Aquila, Symmachus, and in Eustathius, see also Hatch and Redpath, sub v.). οὗτοι, contemptuous.
Ver. 7. ὑποδέδεκται: no notion of secrecy as Erasmus and Bengel, but as in Luke x. 38, xix. 6; only found in these three passages in Luke, and in James ii. 25, cf. LXX, Tob. vii. 8, Jud. xiii. 13 (see Hatch and Redpath for both instances), 1 Mace. xvi. 15, and 4 Macc. xiii. 17, often in classical Greek without any notion of secrecy.—ovTo. πάντες: the words may be taken as referring not only to Jason and the accused, but with Alford, “all these people,” 7z.e., Christians wherever found.—amévavtt: only here in Ν.Τ. in this sense (common in LXX and Apocrypha, so also Polyb., i., 86, 3), cf. Ecclus. xxxvi. (xxxiii.) 14.—Soypa- των, see on xvi. 4. The word may here refer to the successive decrees of the emperors against treason, and there is no need to refer it in this passage to the decree of Claudius, see on xviii. 2, but rather to the Julian Leges Majestatis.— β. λέγοντες ἕτερον εἶναι: this was the charge, the political charge of high treason, brought against our Lord Him- self by the Jews, Luke xxiii. 2, John xix. 12,15. The nature of this charge may fairly point to a Jewish source, for the Jews thought of the Messiah as a king, and in their hostility to Paul they could easily accuse him of proclaiming Jesus or another king, another emperor (Ramsay), - instead of Caesar; so McGiffert on this passage, “whose trustworthiness can hardly be doubted” (Apostolic Age, Ρ. 246). The Epistles to the Thessalonians contain passages which might be as easily perverted in the same direction, 1 Thess. ii. 12, iv. 14, Vv. 2, 23; 2 Thess. i. 5-8, or the fact that Jesus was so often spoken of as Κύριος, ‘that deathless King Who lived and died for men,” might have given colour to the charge, cf. on the