Ver. 8. R.V. gives more clearly the significance of the original, ‘‘ Why is it judged incredible with you, if God (as He does) raises the dead?” εἰ with indicative assumes that the hypothesis is true, Vulgate ‘‘si Deus mortuos suscitat?” cf. Luke xvi. 31. It has sometimes been thought that St. Paul
6—10.
5°3
ἄπιστον κρίνεται παρ ὑμῖν, εἰ 6 Θεὸς νεκροὺς ἐγείρει; 9. ἐγὼ μὲν
οὖν ἔδοξα ἐμαυτῷ πρὸς τὸ ὄνομα ᾿Ιησοῦ τοῦ Ναζωραίου δεῖν πολλὰ
ἐναντία mpagar: 10. ὃ καὶ ἐποίησα ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις, καὶ πολλοὺς
τῶν ἁγίων ἐγὼ Φυλακαῖς κατέκλεισα, τὴν παρὰ τῶν ἀρχιερέων
here makes a special appeal to the Sadducean part of his audience—rap’ vpiv—including among them Agrippa, with his indifference and practical Sad- duceism (Alford), with his policy favour- ing the Sadducees in the appointment ot the high priests (Felten): others have seen in the words a reference to the general resurrection with which the Apostle’s Messianic belief was con- nected, or to cases of resurrection in the history of Israel, as, e.g., 1 Kings xvii., 2 Kings iv., as if the speaker would ask: Why is it judged a thing incredible in your judgment when you haveinstances before you in the sacred books accepted by Agrippa and the Jews? But it is far better to consider the words in connec- tion with the great truth to which the whole speech was meant to lead up, ver. 23, viz., that Jesus, although crucified, had risen again, that He was at this moment a living Person, and by His resurrection had been proved to be the Messiah, the fulfiller of the hope of Israel. Z6ckler regards the question as forming a kind of transition from the general hope of the Jews in a Messiah to the specific Christian hope in Jesus. --ἄπιστον: only here in Acts, twice in Luke’s Gospel, but frequent in St. Paul’s Epistles of those who believed not. See further Nestle, Philologica Sacra, p. 54, 1896, and Wendt, p. 391 and note (1899). Nestle proposes to place the verse as out of connection here between vv. 22 and 23, with a full stop at the end of the former; and Wendt commends this view.
Ver. g. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν: the words may be taken as simply resuming the narra- tive of the Apostle’s life which he had commenced in vv. 4 and 5, the three succeeding verses forming a parenthesis, or as an answer to the question of ver. 8, the real antithesis to μὲν οὖν, ver. 9, and the narrative, vv. g-11, being found in νετ. 12 and what follows. On μὲν οὖν see Rendall, Acts, Appendix, p. 163, and also Page on ii. 41, Acts, pp. 94, 95; see also critical note above.— Sofa ἐμαντῷ: mihi ipsi videbar; so in classical Greek. If with Weiss, Wendt, Bethge we lay stress on éwav., the Apostle explains the fact that this obligation was his own wilful self-delusion. In classical Greek
instead of the impersonal construction we have frequently the personal construc- tion with the infinitive as here, cf. 2 Cor. x. g—only in Luke and Paul, indication of literary style, Viteau, Le Grec du Ν.Τ., Pp. 152 (1893).—7T6 ὄνομα |. τοῦ N., see on iv. 10, 12.---ἐναντία πρᾶξαι, cf. xxviii. 17, and also 1 Thess. ii. 15, Tit. ii. 8.
Ver. 10. 6 καὶ ἐποίησα, cf. Gal. ii. 1ο (Bethge, p. 272), on the distinction between πράσσειν and ποιεῖν Westcott on St. John iii. 22.--ἐγὼ: emphatic.— τῶν ἁγίων, see above ix. 13, cf. its use in ix. 32; the word aggravates St. Paul’s own guilt. Agrippa too would know of pious Jews by the same designation.— ἀναιρ. τε αὐτῶν: probably pointing to more deaths, not as expressing the death of Stephen alone, cf. viii. 1, ix. 1, xxii. 4. The state of affairs which rendered the murder of St. Stephen possible in the capital would easily account for similar acts of outrage in other places, so that there is no need to suppose with Weiss that the notice here is un- historical.—katyveyxa ψῆφον: “I gave my vote,” R.V., the ψῆφος, literally the pebble used in voting, calculum defero sc. in urnam (Grimm), {.ε., addo calculum, approbo, cf. ψῆφον Φφέρειν, ἐπιφ. or ἐκφ. If the phrase is taken quite literally, it is said to denote the vote of a judge, so that Paul must have been a member of the Sanhedrim, and gave his vote for the death of St. Stephen and other Christians. On the other hand the phrase is sometimes taken as simply = συνευδοκεῖν τῇ ἀναιρέσει (5ο amongst recent writers, Knabenbauer), xxii. 20Ο. (C. and H. think that if not a member of the Sanhedrim at the time of Stephen’s death,he was elected soon after, whilst Weiss holds that if the expression does not imply that the writer represents Paul by mistake as a member of the Sanhedrim, it can only be understood as meaning that by his testimony Paul gave a decisive weight to the verdict in con- demnation of the Christians.) Certainly it seems, as Bethge urges, difficult to suppose that Paul was a member of such an august body as the Sanhedrim, not only on account of his probable age at the time of his conversion, but also because of his comparatively obscure circumstances. The Sanhedrim was an