Ver. 22. ἀἄξιοῦμεν δὲ: “but we think good,” cf. xv. 38. They acknowledge. that no report had reached them to in- validate the statements which Paul had just made as to the causes of his im- prisonment, but (δέ) they would hear not from others, but from himself (παρὰ cov). —& φρονεῖς: evidently no reference to any special view of Christianity as char- acterising St. Paul’s own teaching, but a reference to his claim to be imprisoned for the hope of Israel.—aip. . Christianity was for them only a sect, and therefore they could not understand the Apostle’s identification of it with the Jewish national hope. See note on ver. 17.— γνωστόν . . . ἡμῖν: if the view is correct that the edict of Claudius, see chap. xviii. 2, was occasioned by the early preaching of Christianity in Rome, it is possible that the dislocation of the Jewish community then caused may help at all events to explain why the Christian Church in Rome did not grow out of the Jewish synagogue in the capital to the same context as elsewhere, see Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. xxi, xxii. It may no doubt be urged that the Christian Church in Rome was not entirely a heathen-Christian Church, and that, as the names in Rom. xvi. indicate, it contained a Jewish element. But it is quite con-
20—24.
549
, , 3 el ca aM 2 ~ , 1 s ‘ ‘ ι ταύτης γνωστόν ἐστιν ἡμῖν ὅτι πανταχοῦ ἀντιλέγεται.' 23. Ταξάµενο
, , , δὲ αὐτῷ ἡμέραν,; ἧἦκον πρὸς αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν δενίαν mAeloves: ois ἐξετί-
θετο διαμαρτυρόμενος τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, πείθων τε αὐτοὺς
9 8 \ a? nw 3 / / , . A A τὰ ὃ περὶ τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ, ἀπό τε τοῦ νόµου Μωσέως καὶ τῶν προφητῶν,
, ἀπὸ tpwt ἕως ἑσπέρας.
5 Ν > / a , 24. καὶ ot μὲν ἐπείθοντο τοῖς λεγομένοις,
1 At the end Blass in β with Gig., Par. adds εν ολῃ Ty οικουµενῃ. 2 For ηκον SAB (A ηλθαν so W.H.) have ηλθον. 3 ra, before περι om. SABH Vulg., Boh., Syr. P. and H., Tisch., W.H., Κ.Υ.
Weiss, Blass, Hilg.
ceivable that in the capital, with its two million inhabitants, the Jews, who had only recently returned to the city, should know nothing beyond what is here indi- cated in such general terms of a poor and obscure sect who dwelt no longer in the Jewish quarter. It is also worthy of con- sideration that the Jews of Rome, whilst not guilty of any untruth in what they had just said as to their knowledge of the Christian sect, may have expressed themselves in this guarded manner from political reasons. If St. Paul’s statement in ver. 18 as to the favourable bearing of the Roman authorities towards him was true, it was but natural that the Jews should wish to refrain from hasty or hostile action towards a prisoner who was evi- dently treated with consideration in his bonds ; they would rather act thus than re- vive an old quarrel which might again lead to their own political insecurity, see especi- ally Lightfoot, Philippians, pp. 15, 16; Felten, im loco; and, further, Rendall, p. 352. Nothing said by the Jews contra- dicts the existence of a Christian com- munity in Rome, nor is it said that they wished to learn the Christian tenets from Paul, as if they knew nothing of them from their own knowledge, or as if they knew nothing of the causes of the oppo- sition to the Christian faith; motives ot curiosity and of policy might well have prompted a desire to hear Paul speak for himself, and with such motives there was apparently mingled a tone of contempt for a sect of which they might fairly say, from the experience of their countrymen, and from their own experience in Rome, πανταχοῦ ἀντιλέγεται: ἀντιλ. Lucan- Pauline; only once elsewhere; cf. John xix. 12. See B text above.
Ver. 23. ταξάµενοι: cf, Matt. xxviii. 16, and Polyb., xviii., 36, 1, for a similar phrase; a mutual arrangement between the two parties; only here in the middle voice in Αοΐβ.- τὴν ξενίαν: may = τὸ µίσθωµα, ver. 30 (Weiss, Holtzmann),