1. The Western text reads: “a plot was hatched against him by the Jews, so he decided to set sail for Syria, but the Spirit told him to return through Macedonia.” His decision to set sail for Syria was not due to the plot; for the introduction of the Spirit as dictating a change of plan cf. 16:6–8; also the Western text of 19:1.
2. A D and the majority of Byzantine witnesses insert “as far as Asia” (pointlessly, since two of the men mentioned had come from Asia to join him).
3. The Byzantine text omits “son of Pyrrhus.”
4. The Western text calls Gaius a “Doberian” (instead of “Derbaean”), i.e., a native of Doberus in Macedonia, twenty-six miles northwest of Philippi. This would ease his identification with the Gaius of 19:29, who was evidently a Macedonian (see p. 375, 67). But there is no compelling reason to identify them. L. C. Valckenaer, followed by F. Blass, emends the text here to make it read “of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus and Gaius; and the Derbaean Timothy.” There is no necessity for such an emendation; and in any case Timothy was probably a Lystran (see 16:1–2 with exposition, and cf. p. 303, 6).
5. D calls him Eutychus, by confusion with the young man of v. 9.
6. The Western text, more explicitly, calls them “Ephesians” and not simply Asians (cf. 21:29).
7. Gk. προελθόντες, for which the Alexandrian text (א B* etc.) reads προσελθόντες, “having come to (us).”
8. Cf. G. S. Duncan, St. Paul’s Ephesian Ministry (London, 1929), p. 34.
9. St. Paul the Traveller (London, 141920), p. 283.
10. Cf. W. L. Knox, St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles (Cambridge, 1939), p. 144, n. 2.
11. G. S. Duncan thought that after Paul reached Dyrrhachium “there was a period of evangelistic work, which need not have been extensive or prolonged, in Illyricum; from there, as winter approached, he sailed south to Nicopolis (cf. Tit. 3:12), and in course of time he came to Corinth” (St. Paul’s Ephesian Ministry, p. 221). He linked Titus’s visit to Dalmatia (2 Tim. 4:10) with this Illyrian ministry.
12. See Rom. 16:23 (cf. p. 350 with 26).
13. Cf. Rom. 1:9–15; 15:22–29.
14. See pp. 371–72 with nn. 45 and 46 (on 19:21).
15. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, p. 287) supposed that the original plan was to be in Jerusalem for Passover, but when the delay caused by the plot and consequent change of itinerary made that impossible, Paul determined to arrive at the latest in time for Pentecost (cf. v. 16).
16. Probably the Sosipater of Rom. 16:21 (see p. 348, 14).
17. Cf. 19:29; 27:2; Col. 4:10.
18. Cf. Eph. 6:21–22; Col. 4:7–8; 2 Tim. 4:12; Tit. 3:12.
19. Cf. 21:29; 2 Tim. 4:20.
20. Possibly a convert of Barnabas and Paul during their first visit there (14:20–21); see also p. 380, 4.
21. The identification of this “brother” with Luke is made in a passage from Origen quoted by Eusebius (HE 6.25.6), where Luke’s Gospel is described as “the gospel praised (ἐπαινούμενον) by Paul” (with ἐπαινούμενον cf. 2 Cor. 8:18, where Paul speaks of the “brother’s” ἔπαινος ἐν τῷ ἐυαγγελίῳ). (Possibly, however, to Eusebius at least, ἐπαινούμενον simply meant “quoted,” and Eusebius may have had in mind the mistaken notion which he expresses in HE 3.4.7, that Paul’s phrase “according to my gospel” [Rom. 2:16, etc.] refers to Luke’s Gospel.) Compare the echo of 2 Cor. 8:18 (“whose praise is in the Gospel”) in the Collect for St. Luke’s Day (October 13) in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. If Luke is indeed the person referred to in 2 Cor. 8:18, that rules out a conjecture of more recent days—that Titus is unmentioned in Acts because he was Luke’s brother (W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. xxxviii, 390; A. Souter, “A Suggested Relationship between Titus and Luke,” ExT 18 [1906–7], p. 285; “The Relationship between Titus and Luke,” ibid., pp. 335–36). Nothing could have been more counterproductive than for Paul to send Titus’s blood-brother with him on the delicate financial mission to Corinth.
22. Gk. λαμπάδες. D reads ὑπολαμπάδες (“windows”), but the Latin text of the same codex (d) has faculae (“little torches”).
23. Lit., “fell on him” (ἐπέπεσεν αὐτῷ).
24. The Western text reads “And as they were saying farewell, he [Paul] brought the young man alive …”
25. Lit., “and were comforted not moderately (οὐ μετρίως), i.e., “very greatly” (a typical instance of Luke’s litotes).
26. See O. Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, E.T. (London, 1955), pp. 10–14, 88–93; C. F. D. Moule, Worship in the New Testament (London, 1961), pp. 16, 28–29; R. P. Martin, Worship in the Early Church (London, 1964), pp. 78–80; W. Rordorf, Sunday, E.T. (London, 1968), pp. 196–205; S. Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday (Rome, 1977), pp. 101–11; R. T.Beckwith and W. Stott, This is the Day (London, 1978), pp. 28, 31–32, 36–38, 89–90. In the still earlier reference to the “first day of the week” in 1 Cor. 16:2 there is no explicit mention of a meeting for worship, though it may be implied. Compare also the implication of John 20:19, 26.
27. On Sunday evening, not Saturday evening. Luke is not using the Jewish reckoning from sunset to sunset but the reckoning from midnight to midnight: although it was apparently after sunset when they met, their departure in the morning was “the next day.”
28. The building was evidently a tenement block like the one in Rome where Martial lived: “I live up three flights of stairs, high ones at that” (Epigrams 1.118.7).
29. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 290–91.
30. Perhaps κλάσας τὸν ἄρτον (v. 11), where the article points back to κλάσαι ἄρτον (v. 7), refers to the eucharistic breaking of the bread, while γευσάμενος (translated “after eating” above, lit. “having tasted”; for γεύομαι = “eat” cf. 10:10) refers to the fellowship meal.
31. Ephrem the Syrian’s commentary on Acts (preserved in an Armenian translation) presupposes an Old Syriac text which read here: “But I Luke, and those who were with me, went on board.” The usual “we” was deemed inappropriate because Paul was not with them from Troas to Assos. See F. C. Conybeare’s translation of Ephrem in Beginnings I.3, p. 442.
32. Gk. προελθόντες. As in v. 5, there is a variant reading προσελθόντες (A B* etc.); the Western text reads κατελθόντες, “having gone down (to the shore).”
33. Gk. πεζεύειν, normally to go on foot as opposed to riding, but here to go by land as opposed to sailing.
34. B and some minuscules add “in the evening.”
35. The Western and Byzantine texts add “having stayed at Trogyllium (Trogyllia).”
36. See Strabo, Geography 13.1.57–58, 66; also J. M. Cook, The Troad (Oxford, 1973), pp. 240–50. Assos was the birthplace of Cleanthes the Stoic (see p. 339, 76).
37. Iliad 2.868–69.
38. See A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, E.T. (London, 21927), pp. 451–52. On Miletus see also T. Wiegand and others, Milet: die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen (Berlin, 1906); A. G. Dunham, The History of Miletus (London, 1915); G. Kleiner, Alt-Milet (Wiesbaden, 1966); Die Ruinen von Milet (Berlin, 1968); Das römische Milet (Wiesbaden, 1970).
39. “The speeches of St. Paul in Acts,” in Cambridge Biblical Essays, ed. H. B. Swete (Cambridge, 1909), p. 403. Gardner considered further that among the Pauline discourses in Acts “that at Miletus has the best claim of all to be historic” (ibid., p. 401). See also M. Dibelius, “The Speeches in Acts and Ancient Historiography” (1949), E.T. in Studies in the Acts of the Apostles (London, 1956), pp. 155–58; C. L. Mitton, The Epistle to the Ephesians (Oxford, 1951), pp. 210–13, 217–20, 266–67; J. Munck, “Discours d’adieu dans le Nouveau Testament et dans la littérature biblique,” in Aux sources de la tradition chrétienne: Mélanges offerts a M. Goguel (Neuchâtel/Paris, 1950), pp. 155–70; J. Dupont, Le discours de Milet: Testament pastoral de saint Paul (Ac 20, 18–36) (Paris, 1962); “La construction du discours de Milet,” Nouvelles études sur les Actes des Apôtres (Paris, 1984), pp. 424–45; H.-J. Michel, Die Abschiedsrede des Paulus an die Kirche Apg 20, 17–38: Motivgeschichtliche und theologische Bedeutung (Munich, 1973); C. K. Barrett, “Paul’s Address to the Ephesian Elders,” in God’s Christ and His People: Studies in Honour of N. A. Dahl, ed. J. Jervell and W. A. Meeks (Oslo, 1978), pp. 107–21; J. Lambrecht, “Paul’s Farewell-Address at Miletus (Acts 20, 17–38),” in Les Actes des Apôtres, ed J. Kremer, BETL (Leuven, 1979), pp. 307–37.
40. Cf. F. H. Chase, The Credibility of the Acts of the Apostles (London, 1902), pp. 234–88; A. Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, E.T. (London, 1909), p. 129.
41. For similar appeals to personal knowledge cf. 1 Cor. 6:11, etc,; Gal. 3:2–5; 4:13; Phil. 4:15; 1 Thess. 2:1–2, 5, 10–11; 3:3–4; 4:2; 2 Thess. 2:5; 3:7.
42. For “all the time” D reads “three years or even more.”
43. Gk. διαμαρτυρόμενος, “a favorite Lukan word” (E. Plümacher, Lukas als hellenistischer Schriftsteller [Göttingen, 1972], p. 48); of its fifteen NT occurrences, ten are in Luke’s writings. Like the simple μαρτύρομαι, it usually has in Acts the sense of preaching in the Spirit’s power (cf. 5:32).
44. “Christ” is added by P74 א A C E and very many minuscules, with latvg syrpesh. D reads “through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
45. The gospel is hear said to evoke “repentance before God (or turning back to God) and faith in our Lord Jesus.” In Paul’s letters repentance does not figure soteriologically as faith so emphatically does. But “true repentance,” says C. F. D. Moule, “ …means responding in kind to the creative efforts of reconciliation.” If so, then this “is precisely what Paul is all the time expressing” in different language. “Justification by faith involves such a response to that finished work [of Christ] as identifies the believer most intimately with the costly work of Christ, involving him inescapably in the cost and pain of repentance” (“Obligation in the Ethic of Paul,” Essays in New Testament Interpretation [Cambridge, 1982], pp. 271–72).
47. Gk. δεδεμένος … τῷ πνεύματι, where (especially in view of what he says in v. 23) it is best to understand a reference to the Spirit of God, and not simply to Paul’s own sense of spiritual compulsion. Cf. 19:21 (p. 371 with 43).
48. The Western text expands: “But I make no reckoning of any thing for myself, nor do I value my own life as precious to me.” The Byzantine text reads “But I make no reckoning of anything nor do I hold my life precious to myself.”
49. The Byzantine text adds “with joy.”
50. Gk. διαμαρτύρασθαι (cf. p. 389, 43). D and some other witnesses add “to Jews and Greeks.”
51. For Paul’s ready surrender of himself for the gospel’s sake cf. also 2 Cor. 4:7–12; 6:4–10; 12:9–10; Phil. 2:17; 3:8; Col. 1:24.
52. For the comparison of Christian service to a race (δρόμος) to be run cf. 1 Cor. 9:24–27; Gal. 2:2; Phil. 2:16; 2 Tim. 4:7; also the words about John the Baptist in 13:25 above.
53. Lit., “that you all among whom I have gone about … will no longer see my face.”
54. The Western text adds “of Jesus”; the Byzantine text adds “of God.”
55. P74 A D and the Western text read “of the Lord” (which would go smoothly with the phrase “with his own blood,” if that were the proper rendering of διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἱδίου). The Byzantine text exhibits the conflate reading “of the Lord and God.”
56. Gk. διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἱδίου, for which the Byzantine text reads διὰ τοῦ ἱδίου αἵματος. The Byzantine reading could mean only “with his own blood,” but the reading here adopted is best rendered “with the blood of his own one.” This sense of ὁ ἴδιος is well attested in the vernacular papyri, where it is “used thus as a term of endearment to near relations, e.g. ὁ δεῖνα τῷ ἱδίῳ χαίρειν [‘So-and-so to his own (friend), greeting’]” (J. H. Moulton, MHT I, p. 90). As used here, ἴδιος is the equivalent of Heb. yāḥîḏ (“only”), elsewhere represented by Gk. ἀγαπητός (“beloved”), ἐκλεκτός (“choice”), and μονογενής (“only-begotten”). In view of this, it is unnecessary to conjecture, with F. J. A. Hort, that ὑιοῦ (“son”) may have dropped out of the text after ἰδίου (it may be supplied for the purpose of translation).
57. Gk. ἄφιξις, related to ἀφικνέομαι (“arrive”); the sense “arrival” is well attested for the noun in classical Greek. But in Hellenistic Greek the sense “departure” is equally well attested, and that is the only sense which suits the context here.
58. It is a fruitless task to try to make a distinction between “proclaiming the kingdom” and “proclaiming the good news of God’s grace.” Such a distinction is made by W. Kelly, who deplores the “confusion which, mingling both characters, never enjoys the simple and full truth of either” (The Acts of the Apostles [London, 31952], p. 306). For the subject matter of the kingdom see on 1:3 (pp. 31–33).
59. See Rom. 15:23–29.
60. In Gk. βουλή here the ideas both of God’s will and of his plan or purpose seem to be combined; see the translation above.
61. Ezek. 3:16–21; 33:1–9.
62. Cf. 1 Tim. 4:14; also 13:2, 4 above.
63. Gk. ἐπίσκοπος (cf. Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:2; Tit. 1:7). Other designations for those exercising this kind of ministry in the churches appear in 1 Thess. 5:12; Rom. 12:8; Heb. 13:17. The present wording is far from the stereotyped terminology of “incipient catholicism,” as frequently conceived, especially in the sense given to Frühkatholizismus by German Protestant scholars. See J. B. Lightfoot, “The Christian Ministry,” dissertation in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (London, 1868), pp. 181–269 (also pp. 95–99, excursus on “The synonyms ‘bishop’ and ‘presbyter’ ”); T. M. Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries (London, 1902); H. B. Swete (ed.), Essays on the Early History of the Church and Ministry (London, 1918); B. H. Streeter, The Primitive Church (London, 1929), pp. 27–83; T. W. Manson, The Church’s Ministry (London, 1948), pp. 53–77; Ministry and Priesthood: Christ’s and Ours (London, 1958); R. P. C. Hanson, Christian Priesthood Examined (London, 1979), pp. 7–32; G. Schneider, “Die Entwicklung kirchlicher Dienste in der Sicht der Apostelgeschichte,” Theologisch-Praktische Quartalschrift 132 (1984), pp. 356–63.
64. Cf. 1 Cor. 12:7–11.
65. Cf. in particular Ps. 74 (LXX 73):2, “Remember thy congregation (LXX συναγωγή, rendering Heb. ʿēḏāh), which thou hast gotten of old”; Isa. 43:21, “the people whom I formed (LXX περιεποιησάμην, “acquired,” “purchased,” the same verb as is used here) for myself.” For “church” (Gk. ἐκκλησία) see on 5:11 (pp. 107–8).
66. Redemption by the blood of Christ is Pauline, not Lukan, doctrine, although Paul prefers the verb ἀγοράζω (ἐξαγοράζω) or the noun ἀπολύτρωσις to express redemption rather than περιποιέομαι, which is used here (both περιποιέομαι and the related noun περιποίησις are used in LXX for God’s acquisition of his people Israel; cf. Eph. 1:14; 1 Pet. 2:9 for περιποίησις used with regard to the church as God’s possession). The Pauline language here cannot be dismissed as a “turn of phrase” introduced “to give the speech a Pauline stamp” (H. Conzelmann, The Theology of St. Luke, E.T. [London, 1960], p. 201). Rather, “this is Paul, not some other speaker; and he is not evangelizing but recalling an already evangelized community to its deepest insights. In other words, the situation, like the theology, is precisely that of a Pauline epistle, not of preliminary evangelism” (C. F. D. Moule, “The Christology of Acts,” in Studies in Luke-Acts: Essays in Honor of Paul Schubert, ed. L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn [Nashville/New York, 1966], p. 171).
67. John 10:12. False prophets are described as wolves in sheep’s clothing in Matt. 7:15; cf. also 4 Ezra 5:18; 1 Enoch 89:13–27.
68. Cf. 1 Tim. 1:19–20; 4:1–3; 2 Tim. 2:17–18; 3:1–9.
69. Rev. 2:4.
70. Ignatius, To the Ephesians 1:1–2:1.
71. “Be watchful,” Gk. γρηγορεῖτε (v. 31), is a “pastoral word,” as Bengel calls it. Cf. 1 Cor. 16:13; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:6, 10; also the synonymous ἀγρυπνέω in a similar context in Heb. 13:17 (the leaders “keep watch” over the souls of those entrusted to their care).
72. For the duration of Paul’s stay at Ephesus see p. 366, 23 (on 19:10).
73. For “counsel” (Gk. νουθετέω, “admonish”) cf. 1 Cor. 4:14; Col. 1:28.
74. Gk. τῷ λόγῳ τῆς χάριτος ἀυτοῦ, a phrase used already in 14:3. If τῆς χάριτος is genitive of quality (i.e., the “word” is characterized by God’s own grace), then “gracious word” is a suitable rendering (cf. Luke 4:22); if it expresses the subject matter of the word, then “the word of his grace” (cf. v. 24) is the proper rendering.
75. The Western text added: “To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen” (a doxology evidently derived from a lectionary, in which a prescribed lesson came to an end at this point).
76. “This message of the free bounty of God is the word which has the greatest effect on the heart of man, and so it is able to build up the church” (R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles, WC [London, 1902], p. 395).
77. For their inheritance among the saints cf. 26:18b; Col. 1:12. The language recalls Deut. 33:3–4, “all those consecrated to him were in his hand; … an inheritance for the assembly of Jacob.”
78. For this insistence on Paul’s part cf. 1 Cor. 4:12; 9:3–15; 2 Cor. 4:5; 11:7–11; 12:13; 1 Thess. 2:3–12; 2 Thess. 3:7–10.
79. Cf. the admonitions in Rom. 15:1; Gal. 6:2; Eph. 4:28; 1 Thess. 4:11–12; 2 Thess. 3:10–13.
80. Cf. Luke 6:38; 11:9–13; John 13:34; also Matt. 10:8, “You received without pay; give without pay.” When Paul wishes to affirm the right of those who preach the gospel to live by the gospel, he can refer to another saying of Jesus (1 Cor. 9:14). He also refers to sayings of Jesus in Rom. 14:14; 1 Cor. 7:10; 11:24–25; 1 Thess. 4:15; 1 Tim. 5:18. H. Windisch argued that the occurrence of this logion here shows that Luke the physician could not have been the author of Luke-Acts because, if he were, he would certainly have incorporated “so fine a saying” in his Gospel (Beginnings I.2, p. 331). This argument, as W. L. Knox rightly pointed out, “betrays a complete failure to understand his methods” (Some Hellenistic Elements in Primitive Christianity [London, 1944], p. 29).
1. The Western text adds “and Myra” (see 4 below).
2. Or “set foot (ἐπιβαίνειν) in Jerusalem” (ASV).
3. The Greek verb here is the passive of ἀποσπάω (the verb is used in the active voice in 20:30 in the pejorative sense of enticing people to follow false teaching).
4. Myra was the great port for transshipment for cross-sea traffic to Syria and Egypt; the Western reviser (see 1 above), knowing this, may have thought it must have been so used on this occasion (if indeed he was not simply influenced by its mention in 27:5). But Myra lies fifty miles east of Patara in a straight line, too long a distance to be accommodated within the day’s voyage, which is all that the itinerary implies here.
5. In the Roman period Tyre was a prosperous commercial city, noted for its purple dye-works. The mole which Alexander the Great constructed to facilitate his siege of the island of Tyre in 332 B.C. was continuously widened by accumulations of sand, which formed two smooth beaches.
6. Gk. τὸν πλοῦν διανύσαντες, otherwise “having completed the voyage,” but F. Field notes that the expression is repeatedly attested with the meaning “continue a voyage” in Xenophon Ephesius (second century A.D.); see his Notes on Translation of the New Testament (Cambridge, 1899), pp. 134–35.
7. More fully St. Jean D’Acre, after the Knights of St. John. The tendency for the old Semitic names to reassert themselves after the Graeco-Roman period can be copiously paralleled in Syria and Palestine.
8. It is from this missionary activity that he is called “Philip the evangelist,” perhaps to distinguish him from Philip the apostle. Even so, they are confused by later writers. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, writing to Victor of Rome c. A.D. 190, includes among the “great luminaries” whose tombs could be pointed out in the province of Asia “Philip, one of the twelve apostles, who sleeps at Hierapolis, with his two daughters who grew old as virgins, and another daughter who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests in Ephesus.” But Eusebius, to whom we are indebted for this quotation (HE 3.31.3), plainly understood the reference to be to Philip the evangelist, for immediately afterward he reproduces from Proclus the Montanist’s Dialogue with the Roman presbyter Gaius (c. A.D. 200) the claim that “the four daughters of Philip, who were prophetesses, were in Hierapolis in Asia; their tomb is there, and their father’s also”—and quotes Acts 21:8 as the biblical reference to this family. That it was Philip the evangelist who migrated to Asia with his daughters was maintained by T. Zahn, Apostel und Apostelschüler in der Provinz Asien, FGNTK 6 (Leipzig, 1900), pp. 158–75; A Harnack, Luke the Physician, E.T. (London, 1907), p. 153; that it was Philip the apostle was maintained by J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (London, 1879), pp. 45–47; J. Chapman, John the Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel (London, 1911), pp. 64–71. But others have urged us not to overlook the possibility that the same person is meant, that “Philip was originally one of the ‘Twelve’ and … went over to the ‘Seven’ ” (so, most recently, M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, E.T. [London, 1983], p. 14; he refers further to E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums I [Stuttgart/Berlin, 1924], pp. 296, 338; J. Weiss, Earliest Christianity, E.T. [New York, 1959], p. 167, n. 4).
9. This last piece of information we owe to Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, quoted by Eusebius (HE) 3.39.9). For the story which they told about Joseph Barsabbas see on 1:23 (p. 46). See also P. Corssen, “Die Töchter des Philippus,” ZNW 2 (1901), pp. 289–99.
10. Cf. A. Harnack, Luke the Physician, pp. 153–60; J. V. Bartlet, The Acts of the Apostles, CentB (London, 1902), p. 23; J. A. Findlay, The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1934), pp. 49–50.
11. When it is said that he came down “from Judaea,” “Judaea” is plainly used in the narrower sense of the Jewish territory proper, and not in the official sense of the Roman province; the Roman province of Judaea included Caesarea (cf. 12:19).
12. Gk. συνθρύπτοντές μου τὴν καρδίαν, “pounding” my heart (i.e., my resolution) “like a washerwoman” (J. A. Findlay). Luke does not explain why Paul regarded his visit to Jerusalem as so solemnly imperative; his determination can be better understood in the light of Rom. 15:25–32, where Paul sets forth the importance of his going there with the evidence of ministry among the Gentiles thus far.
13. Compare Polycarp’s reply in a similar situation: “Let God’s will be done” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 7.1.).
14. The Western text reads “we bade them farewell.”
15. The Western text expands: “and these brought us to those with whom we were to find hospitality. And when we arrived at a certain village, we put up with one Mnason of Cyprus, a disciple of long standing.” See 19 below.
16. Chrysostom (Homily 45) supplies Luke’s ἐπισκευασάμενοι (“having made ready”) with an object, τὰ πρὸς τὴν ὁδοιπορίαν (“the things for the journey”). This might refer to necessary supplies, but W. M. Ramsay took it to mean pack animals (St. Paul the Traveller [London, 141920], p. 302).
17. Perhaps some Caesarean Christians had gone to Jerusalem to arrange hospitality for the party during the “several days” they spent in Caesarea.
18. The expression ἀρχαίῳ μαθητῆ (“a disciple of long standing”) probably means that he had been a disciple from the beginning (ἀρχή).
19. See 15 above. The Western reading here has, however, been read in the light of the Western text of 11:2 (see p. 219, nn. 2 and 3). G. Salmon, reviewing F. Blass’s Acta Apostolorum (Göttingen, 1895) in Hermathena 9 (1896), p. 239, finds here a further point of contact between the earlier part of Acts and the “we” narrative, and says it is “a natural combination” that Mnason was one of Peter’s converts on his way home from Caesarea to Jerusalem.
21. The Western text reads: “And when we departed thence [i.e., from the halfway village], we came to Jerusalem.”
22. Cod. א omits “among the Jews”; the Western text reads “in Judaea”; the Byzantine text reads “of Jews.”
23. A few authorities (including the Greek codices P74 A D E 33, the Latin Vulgate, and the Coptic Bohairic version) omit “all.”
24. P74 א A C2 D E, the Byzantine text, and the Latin Vulgate add “a crowd is bound to come together” and continue: “for they will hear.…”
25. The Western text, as in 15:20, 29, reads “we sent a letter conveying our decision that they should observe nothing of the sort save to guard themselves from idol sacrifices and blood and fornication” (but the addition of the negative golden rule is not repeated here). See p. 296, 63; p. 297, 71.
26. Cf. M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, p. 108.
27. It was by the populace at large that he was called “the Just” (possibly “the ṣaddîq”), according to Hegesippus (ap. Euseb. HE 2.23.4, 7).
28. The element of hyperbole in πόσαι μυριάδες (“how many myriads”) can be appreciated when it is remembered that, according to the calculations of Joachim Jeremias (“Die Einwohnerzahl Jerusalems zur Zeit Jesu” [1943], in Abba [Göttingen, 1966], pp. 335–41; Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, E.T. [London, 1969], pp. 77–84), the normal population of Jerusalem at this time was probably between 25,000 and 55,000. Several scholars, with no basis in the textual tradition, have argued for the deletion of τῶν πεπιστευκότων (“of those who have believed”) from v. 20, so that the “myriads” would be the Jerusalem Jews in general; so, among others, F. C. Baur, Paul E.T., I (London, 21876), pp. 201–4; J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, E.T. (London, 1959), pp. 240–42; cf. A. D. Nock: “We may well be somewhat sceptical about this reference to the multitude (literally, ‘myriads’) of Jewish Christians: the danger was from ordinary Jews” (St. Paul [London, 1938], p. 136).
29. Cf. 15:3–4.
30. When James and the elders describe the rank and file of the Jerusalem church as “zealots for the law,” the term “zealot” is not used in its party sense (for which see on 1:13) but in the sense in which Paul applies it to himself in Gal. 1:14, where he claims to have been “a zealot for the ancestral traditions.” Even so, it is unlikely that the church membership remained completely unaffected by the insurgent spirit which was abroad in the land during Felix’s governorship.
31. Compare his circumcision of Timothy, his own “son in the faith” (see on 16:3).
32. Mishnah, Nāzîr 6.3.
33. The offering comprised one he-lamb, one ewe-lamb, one ram, and accompanying food and drink offerings (Num. 6:14–15). Together with the “hair of consecration” the whole was called a “hair offering” (Mishnah, Nāzîr 6.5–6).
34. Josephus probably implies that Herod Agrippa I performed a meritorious action of this kind when, on his entering Jerusalem as king, he directed many Nazirites to have their hair cut (Ant. 19.294).
35. The verb ἁγνίζω (“purify”) with the derivative noun ἁγνισμός (“purification”).
36. Cf. the vow which he discharged at Cenchreae (see on 18:18).
37. Seven days had to elapse before a Nazirite who had contracted such defilement could be purified; the head was shaved on the seventh day and the offering brought on the eighth day (Num. 6:14–15; Mishnah, Nāzîr 6.6–9).
38. Thus H. Lietzmann, The Beginnings of the Christian Church, E.T. (London, 1949), p. 109, held that the apostolic decree was drawn up after the Council of Jerusalem, behind Paul’s back, and that “only towards the end of his life, when he again visited Jerusalem, was he given any direct official information.”
39. Cf. H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte, HNT (Tübingen, 1963), p. 123; E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, E.T. (Oxford, 1971), p. 610.
40. Gk. σῦν αὐτοῖς ἁγνισθείς—is the aorist ingressive?
41. Cf. J. D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (London, 1977), p. 257.
42. A. J. Mattill, “The Purpose of Acts: Schneckenburger Reconsidered,” in Apostolic History and the Gospel, ed. W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin (Exeter/Grand Rapids, 1970), pp. 115–16.
43. A. J. Mattill, “The Purpose of Acts: Schneckenburger Reconsidered,” in Apostolic History and the Gospel, ed. W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin (Exeter/Grand Rapids, 1970), pp. 115–16.
44. Every requirement for the purificatory process had been met, according to the natural sense of the perfect participle “purified” (ἡγνισμένον) in 24:18.
45. Cf. 20:19.
46. The Court of Israel was the area of the inner precincts to which Jewish men who were not priests or Levites were admitted (see on 3:1–3, p. 77 with 7).
47. Titus, the Roman commander-in-chief, reminds the defenders of the temple of this concession in a speech attributed to him by Josephus (BJ 6.126).
48. Cf. Josephus, BJ 5.194; 6.12–25; Ant. 15.417; Ap. 2.103–4; Philo, Embassy to Gaius 212.
49. Cf. C. S. Clermont-Ganneau, “Discovery of a Tablet from Herod’s Temple,” PEQ 3 (1871), pp. 132–33; J. H. Iliffe, “The ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ Inscription from Herod’s Temple,” QDAP 6 (1936), pp. 1–3.
51. T. D. Bernard, The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament (London, 51900), p. 121.
52. Gk. χιλίαρχος, lit. “commander of a thousand”; the auxiliary cohort (σπεῖρα) which he commanded had a paper strength of 1,000 men (760 foot-soldiers and 240 cavalry). Cf. p. 433, 44 (on 23:23). Details of the Antonia fortress are given by Josephus, BJ 5.238–45. See also P. Benoit, “The Archaeological Reconstruction of the Antonia Fortress,” in Jerusalem Revealed, ed. Y. Yadin (New Haven/London/Jerusalem, 1975), pp. 87–89.
53. Since centurions are mentioned in the plural, there were at least two of them, each in charge of a “century” of 100 men (on paper).
54. Gk. αἶρε αὐτόν (cf. P. Oxy. 119.10, quoted p. 324, 9).
55. The story is told by Josephus, BJ 2.261–63; Ant. 20.169–72. He does not suggest that the man’s followers were “assassins” (sicarii), as the tribune says. The sicarii, or dagger men (from sica, “dagger”), began to be active about this time and, after murdering the former high priest Jonathan, made pro-Roman Jews their special target; they mingled with crowds at festivals and stabbed their victims by stealth (cf. Josephus, BJ 2.254–57; Ant. 20.162–65, 185–87). In saying that the Egyptian led them into the wilderness, the tribune may be grouping him with other impostors who at this time did lead their dupes out to the wilderness of Judaea, promising to perform miracles there (cf. Matt. 24:26), according toJosephus (BJ 2.259; Ant. 20.167–68); see P. W. Barnett, “The Jewish Sign Prophets, A.D. 40–70—Their Intentions and Origin,” NTS 27 (1980–81), pp. 679–97.
56. Josephus gives the number of his followers as 30,000; the number of 4,000 mentioned here is much more probable.
57. The tribune was much more impressed by Paul’s later revelation that he was a Roman citizen (22:25–29) than by his present claim to be a citizen of Tarsus: what was Tarsus to him?
58. Aramaic appears to be meant wherever reference is made to the “Hebrew” language in the NT, except in Rev. 9:11; 16:16. See F. Rosenthal, Die aramaistische Forschung (Leiden, 1939).
59. Cf. 13:16.
1. For “God” the Latin Vulgate reads “the law” and the Harclean Syriac has the asterisked reading “my ancestral traditions” (borrowed from Gal. 1:14).
2. A few Western witnesses add “Ananias” (cf. 23:2). But Ananias was not high priest at the time of Paul’s mission to Damascus.
3. Gk. τοῦς ἐκεῖσε ὄντας (this translation is designed to bring out the force of ἐκεῖσε, “thither”).
4. Cf. 7:2.
5. See W. C. van Unnik, Tarsus or Jerusalem: The City of Paul’s Youth, E.T. (London, 1962).
6. On Gamaliel see 5:34, with exposition and notes. The pupil’s persecuting zeal forms a sharp contrast to the moderation and tolerance of his teacher’s policy; but the pupil probably saw more clearly than the teacher how grave a threat the new way presented to the old. The unnamed pupil of Gamaliel who, according to the Babylonian Talmud, manifested “impudence in matters of learning” (Shabbāṯ 30b), is identified with Paul by J. Klausner (From Jesus to Paul, E.T. [London, 1944], pp. 310–11), but with doubtful cogency.
7. For “the Way” see on 9:2.
8. Cf. 8:3; 9:1 26:9–11; Gal. 1:13; Phil. 3:6 (“as to zeal, a persecutor of the church”). For the comparison of his former zeal to their present zeal cf. Rom. 10:2 (“they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened”).
9. Two Western witnesses (the Latin codex gigas and the margin of the Harclean Syriac) add “in the Hebrew speech” (borrowed from 26:14).
10. A number of witnesses, many Western in character, add “it is hard for you to kick against the goads” (borrowed from 26:14).
11. For “about all that has been appointed for you to do” some Byzantine authorities read “what you must do” (from 9:6).
12. The Western text reads: “And rising up I could not see. And as I could not see.…”
13. Cod. B reads “I saw nothing.”
14. This is the only one of the three narratives of Paul’s conversion where Jesus calls himself “Jesus the Nazarene” (see on 2:22, p. 63, 72); in 9:5 and 26:15 he says, “I am Jesus.” G. H. Dalman reconstructed the Aramaic wording as ʾănā Yēšûaʿ Nāṣərāyā dəʾ att rāḏəpinnēh (Jesus-Jeshua, E.T. [London, 1929], p. 18).
15. See on 9:7.
16. Gk. ἀνάβλεψον, which may mean either “look up” (ἀνά = “up”) or “see again,” i.e., “recover your sight” (ἀνά = “again”).
17. Gk. ἀνέβλεψα εἰς αὐτόν.
18. See, however, the instruction given to Ananias by the Lord in 9:15–16.
19. On the relation of Ananias’s role here to Paul’s claim in Gal. 1:1, 11–12, see the exposition of 9:17 (pp. 187–89).
20. For this designation cf. 3:14; 7:52 (see p. 81, 29).
21. That Paul actually saw the risen and exalted Lord in addition to hearing his voice is emphasized more explicitly in his letters than in Acts. It is mentioned indeed in Acts (both here and in 26:16); but whereas the narratives in Acts lay chief stress on what the Lord said, Paul himself makes it plain that to him the vision of Christ was the central and all-important feature of his conversion experience (Gal. 1:12, 16; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8).
22. For the view that Paul was bidden to baptize himself see B. S. Easton, “Self-Baptism,” AJT 24 (1920), pp. 513–18. In its favor there is the analogy of proselyte baptism, which was self-administered; on the other hand, the passive voice ἐβαπτίσθη, “he was baptized,” is used in 9:18. The middle voice here (βάπτισαι) probably means “get yourself baptized”; similarly ἀπόλουσαι (also middle) may be rendered “have (your sins) washed away.” Cf. ἀπελούσασθε, 1 Cor. 6:11; ἐβαπτίσαντο, 1 Cor. 10:2.
23. His invocation of the name of Jesus meant that he was baptized “in the name” (or “with the name”) of Jesus in the sense of 2:38; 10:48. Such an invocation might be the “word” (ῥῆμα) referred to in Eph. 5:26.
24. See O. Betz, “Die Vision des Paulus im Tempel von Jerusalem,” in Verborum Veritas: Festschrift für G. Stählin, ed. O. Böcher and K. Haacker (Wuppertal, 1970), pp. 113–23. Both Isaiah and Paul were told that their testimony would be unacceptable, but Isaiah was told to persist, whereas Paul was told to leave.
25. And he began immediately to fulfil it by going to Arabia, i.e., the Nabataean kingdom (Gal. 1:17).
26. Gk. ἐν ἐκστάσει (v. 17); the phrase is used also of Peter’s experience on the roof at Joppa (10:10; 11:5).
27. Cf. 7:58, 8:1a, with exposition and notes. In Paul’s words “your witness Stephen” we see the beginning of the Christian semantic development of Gk. μάρτυς from “witness” to “martyr” (cf. Rev. 2:13; 17:6).
28. Gk. αἶρε ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς τὸν τοιοῦτον, οὐ γὰρ καθῆκεν αὐτὸν ζῆν.
29. Or “with the thongs” (τοῖς ἱμᾶσιν).
30. Or “uncondemned” (ἀκατάκριτος), as in 16:37.
31. Gk. ἔφη Ναί, for which the Western reading is the synonymous εἶπεν Εἰμί.
32. The Western text reads “I know for how large a sum I acquired this citizenship” (cf. 39 below).
33. “Waving” or “shaking” seems to be the sense of ῥιπτούντων here; the verb ῥιπτέω is a variant form of ῥίπτω (“throw,” “cast”). For the action cf. the Latin phrase iactatio togarum. Chrysostom (Homilies on Acts 48.2), describing the scene, explains ῥιπτέω by ἐκτινάσσω (“shake out”); cf. F. Field, Notes on the Translation of the New Testament (Cambridge, 1899), p. 136.
34. It may be that horror at Paul’s imagined sacrilege was also expressed by these actions. See H. J. Cadbury, “Dust and Garments,” Beginnings I.5, pp. 269–77.
35. As is suggested by the use of μάστιξ (μάστιξιν ἀνετάζεσθαι) in v. 24.
36. 2 Cor. 11:24–25. One of the beatings with rods had been received at Philippi (see on 16:22 above).
37. By the Valerian and Porcian Laws (see on 16:37).
38. The victim is commonly depicted as tied to a pillar or post of convenient height for scourging. F. Field (Notes on the Translation of the New Testament, pp. 136–37) adduces some evidence in support of the view that here the victim was strung up some little distance above the ground.
39. Bede of Jarrow, in his exposition of Acts, says here, “Another edition indicates more clearly what he meant: ‘The tribune said, Do you claim so easily to be a Roman citizen? For I know at how great a price I acquired this citizenship.’ ” Cf. the Western reading (32 above).
40. A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford, 1963), pp. 154–55.
41. Claudius’s wife Messalina and her court favorites used the procedure as a means of enriching themselves. Cf. Dio Cassius, History 60.17.5–6. The tribune’s personal name Lysias indicates that he was of Greek birth. Wealth or influence (probably both) had enabled him to become not only a Roman citizen but also a superior officer in the Roman army.
42. “Had not his father (or possibly grandfather) been made a citizen by Antony or Pompey? Were they not a firm of σκηνοποιοί, able to be very useful to a fighting proconsul?” (W. M. Calder, personal letter, February 18, 1953). Jerome’s statement that Paul’s family came from Gischala (Gush Halab) in Galilee and emigrated to Tarsus at the time of the Roman conquest of Judaea (On Illustrious Men 5) has been treated seriously by a number of scholars (including M. Dibelius, Paul, E.T. [London, 1953], p. 16, who links it with Paul’s claim in Phil. 3:5 to be a “Hebrew from Hebrews”). W. M. Ramsay’s dismissal of Jerome’s story as “in itself an impossible one” (The Cities of St. Paul [London, 1907], p. 185) seems to have no solid basis.
43. The tribune was afraid also “because he had put him in chains” (v. 29, ὅτι αὐτὸν ἦν δεδεκώς). This probably refers to his action in 21:33, rather than to Paul’s being tied up for scourging—the verb used for his being so tied up is not the ordinary verb for binding (δέω) but one which denotes stretching out (προτείνω). It may be that the two ἁλύσεις with which Paul was bound in 21:33 were heavier than the ἅλυσις which he continued to wear during his custody in Judaea (e.g., before Agrippa, 26:29) and later in Rome (28:20). When in v. 30 the tribune is said to have “released him” (ἔλυσεν αὐτόν) before bringing him before the Sanhedrin, the meaning may be that he released him (temporarily) from imprisonment in the fortress (cf. Byzantine reading, 44).
44. The Byzantine text adds ἀπὸ τῶν δεσμῶν, “from his bonds,” i.e., from custody, making explicit what is in any case implied.
1. Even his persecution of the church had been carried out with good conscience; it was, as he thought, his bounden duty (cf. 26:9). The verb πεπολίτευμαι (“I have conducted myself”) refers particularly to his life in public.
2. See H. Osborne, “Συνείδησις,” JTS 32 (1931), pp. 167–79; C. A. Pierce, Conscience in the New Testament (London, 1955); J. Stelzenberger, Syneidesis im Neuen Testament (Paderborn, 1961); M. E. Thrall, “The Pauline Use of Συνείδησις,” NTS 14 (1967–68), pp. 118–25; R. Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms (Ledien, 1971), pp. 402–46.
4. Yoḥanan presents the same elements as are found in Ananias = Hananiah (ḥănanyāhû, “Yahweh has graciously given”), but in the reverse order.
5. Narbai may be a corruption of Nadbai (= Nedebaeus) arising from the similarity of the letters r and d in the Hebrew script.
6. There is a satirical word-play here on the personal name Pinqai, itself perhaps a variation of Phinehas (pinḥās), and the noun pinkā, “meat-dish” (in allusion to Ananias’s proverbial greed).
9. Josephus, BJ 2.441–42, 448.
10. W. Kelly thinks that “the apostle throughout scarcely seems to be breathing his ordinary spiritual atmosphere” (An Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles [London, 31952], p. 344).
11. John 18:21–23.
12. Cf. the wall of Ezek. 13:10–16, daubed with untempered mortar. The Greek word here translated “whitewashed” is the same as that used in Jesus’ reference to “whitewashed tombs” in Matt. 23:27, but the point of the comparison is different.
13. Cf. the remonstrance addressed to Jesus in John 18:22, “Is that how you answer the high priest?”—words which were actually accompanied by a blow.
14. Compare the interpretation of the preceding part of this commandment (Ex. 22:28a) mentioned in the note on 19:37 (p. 379, 80).
15. R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles (London, 61912), p. 433.
16. W. M. Ramsay, BRD, pp. 90–94. He argued further that, after Paul’s appeal to the resurrection hope (v. 6), the Pharisaic members of the court crossed the floor and took their places alongside Paul.
17. Lit., “hope and resurrection”—an instance of hendiadys.
18. F. W. Farrar, The Life and Work of St. Paul (London, 1879), pp. 327–28.
19. W. Kelly, who agrees with Farrar in finding Paul’s behavior here to fall below his usual standard (see 10 above)—he suggests that the spiritual atmosphere of Jerusalem had an adverse effect on him!—is far from ascribing a “very partial and limited” significance to this common belief in resurrection: “Nevertheless there was truth and important truth before all here” (Exposition of Acts, p. 344).
20. The common view is that it was not until the final decade of the first century that the conclusive breach between Jewish Christians and other Jews took place, when the addition of the birkaṯ hammînîm, the prayer that “the Nazarenes and the heretics might perish as in a moment and be blotted out of the book of life,” effectively debarred Jewish Christians from participation in synagogue worship. See K. L. Carroll, “The Fourth Gospel and the Exclusion of Christians from the Synagogue,” BJRL 40 (1957–58), pp. 19–32; R. Kimelman, “Birkat Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, ed. E. P. Sanders, II (London, 1981), pp. 226–44; W. Horbury, “The Benediction of the Minim and Early Jewish-Christian Controversy,” JTS n.s. 33 (1982), pp. 19–61.
21. Luke has already mentioned this in Luke 20:27 (see also the note on 4:2 above, pp. 89–90, 5). Josephus, who tries to portray the Jewish religious parties in the guise of Greek philosophical schools, says it was the immortality of the soul that the Sadducees denied (BJ 2.165; Ant. 18.16).
22. “What they rejected was the developed doctrine of the two kingdoms with their hierarchies of good and evil spirits” (T. W. Manson, The Servant-Messiah [Cambridge, 1953], p. 17, n. 3).
23. The word “both” in v. 8 probably embraces (a) the belief in resurrection and (b) the belief in angels and spirits. It is less likely that there is here another instance of the loose use of ἀμφότεροι = πάντες as in 19:16 (see p. 367, 25), in which case the reference would be to the belief in (a) resurrection, (b) angels, (c) spirits.
24. Cf. T. W. Manson, “Sadducee and Pharisee,” BJRL 22 (1938), pp. 144–59, especially pp. 153–58.
25. Cf. Dan. 12:2.
26. Sanhedrin 10.1.
27. The “scribes” (γραμματεῖς) or experts in the law belonged mostly to the Pharisaic party, so far as can be gathered from our records (cf. Mark 2:16). We may compare the delight with which “some of the scribes” heard Jesus’ confutation of the Sadducees’ argument against resurrection: “Teacher, you have spoken well” (Luke 20:39). But the Sadducees also had their legal experts.
28. Like the scribe who received encouragement from Jesus in Mark 12:34.
29. E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, E.T. (Oxford, 1971), p. 643.
30. The Western and Byzantine texts add the vocative “Paul” (cf. 27:24, “Do not be afraid, Paul”).
31. Cf. 20:22–23; Rom. 15:31.
32. Gk. ἐπιστάς, translated “came and stood over” above so as to bring out the force of the aorist.
33. Cf. 18:9; 22:17.
34. For “the Jews” the Western and Byzantine texts read “some of the Jews,” which is of course more accurate—some forty of them, in fact (v. 13).
35. The Western text expands: “Now then, we ask you to grant us this (favor). Gather the Sanhedrin together and give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you.”
36. The Western text adds “even if we must die for it.”
37. The Mishnah makes provision for relief from such vows as could not be fulfilled “by reason of constraint” (Nədārîm 3.1, 3).
38. Gk. ὡς μέλλον (א* 33 1891 pc), in agreement with συνέδριον (“Sanhedrin”). Five other forms of the same participle, singular and plural, are represented among the variant readings (ASV, “as though thou wouldest …” renders ὡς μέλλων).
39. By taking παραγενόμενος, “having arrived (at the fortress),” to mean “having been present (at the making of the conspiracy).” But this is rendered improbable by the order and position of the verbs in v. 16.
40. A property qualification of 500 drachmae was fixed for admission to the roll of citizens, perhaps by Athenodorus sometime after 30 B.C. (Dio Chrysostom, Oration 34.23).
41. A. Loisy, Les Actes des Apôtres (Paris, 1920), p. 840.
42. Unlike J. Klausner at a later date, who regards this plot as a “probably groundless” suspicion on Paul’s part (From Jesus to Paul, E.T. [London, 1944], p. 403).
43. The Western text reads: “ ‘Make ready soldiers under arms to go to Caesarea, a hundred horsemen and two hundred light-armed troops.’ And they said, ‘They are ready.’ And he ordered the centurions also to provide mounts that they might set Paul on them and bring him safely by night to Caesarea, to Felix the governor. For he was afraid that the Jews might seize and kill him, and that he himself should be blamed meanwhile for having taken bribes.”
44. The meaning of δεξιολάβους (lit., “holding in the right hand”) is uncertain. It appears here for the first time, and is not found again until the sixth century. There is a weakly attested variant δεξιοβόλους (A 33, lit. “throwing with the right hand”), which might mean “slingers” or “javelin throwers”; it is adopted by the Syriac Peshiṭta. Whatever be the precise sense of δεξιολάβοι, light-armed troops of some kind are meant. The main part of the escort as far as Antipatris consisted of two hundred heavy infantry, commanded by two centurions. This did not excessively weaken the garrison in the Antonia fortress, for it was an auxiliary cohort, and such a cohort regularly comprised a thousand men.
45. The Western text inserts “to Caesarea.”
46. Gk. ἔχουσαν τὸν τύπον τοῦτον. The Western text reads περιέχουσαν τάδε, “containing these things” (so 15:23, Western text).
47. The clause “I brought him down to their Sanhedrin” is absent from B* and 81, but has been supplied in the margin of B.
48. The Western text adds “concerning Moses and a certain Jesus” (cf. 25:19).
49. The Western text adds “I brought him out with difficulty, by force.”
50. For “forthwith” (ἐξαυτῆς) some Alexandrian authorities read “from among them” (ἐξ αὐτῶν).
51. Gk. τὰ πρὸς αὐτόν. B 1175 omit τά, the sense then being “against him.”
52. א Ψ 81 and the Byzantine text add “Farewell” (ἔρρωσο).
53. E. A. Judge argues that τύπος in such a context (cf. 3 Macc. 3:30) implies a verbatim copy (New Docs.) 1 [1976], § 26; cf. 2 [1977], § 27).
54. Cf. 22:28 (p. 421 with 41).
55. The equestrian order or order of “knights” (equites) ranked next after the senatorial order. For the title κράτιστος see p. 29, 3.
56. Compare Gallio’s pronouncement in 18:15. Lysias thus makes his contribution to the testimonies to Christians’ law-abiding conduct unobtrusively presented by Luke.
57. In Luke’s account of the abortive hearing before the Sanhedrin (vv. 1–10) this charge is not mentioned. It was raised at Paul’s hearing before Felix (24:6).
58. The Western text exhibits a more vivid reading: “And when he had read the letter, he asked Paul, ‘From what province are you?’ He said, ‘A Cilician.’ And when he understood this, he said …”
59. “The third hour of the night,” according to v. 23. The Romans divided the period between sunset and sunrise into twelve hours, on the analogy of the twelve hours of daylight.
60. Cf. Josephus, BJ 1.99, 417; Ant. 13.390; 16.142.
61. Cf. M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, E.T. (London, 1983), pp. 119–20.
62. Thus Pontius Pilate, governor of Judaea, hearing that Jesus came from Galilee, remitted his case to Herod Antipas, to whose tetrarchy Galilee belonged. Antipas appreciated the courtesy, but was too wise to take advantage of it (Luke 23:6–12). See p. 99 with 44.
63. For Herod’s “most costly palace” see Josephus, Ant. 15.331. It now provided the procurator’s headquarters. Lat. praetorium (whence the loanword πραιτώριον) denoted the official residence of the Roman governor of an imperial province. In Mark 15:16 and John 18:28 it is used for Pilate’s headquarters in Jerusalem (probably Herod’s palace on the western wall). In Phil. 1:13 it probably refers to the praetorian guard in Rome.
64. Tacitus (History 5.9) gives Felix’s nomen gentile as Antonius, implying that, like his brother Pallas, he was manumitted by Antonia, mother of the Emperor Claudius. But the MSS of Josephus (Ant. 20.137) give his nomen gentile as Claudius, which would imply that he was manumitted by Claudius, who inherited his mother’s household after her death. An inscription found in 1956 at Bir el-Malik, near Athlit, Israel, mentions a procurator named Tiberius Claudius, whose cognomen is tantalizingly missing. See M. Avi-Yonah, “The Epitaph of T. Mucius Clemens,” IEJ 16 (1966), pp. 258–64, with plate 28; F. F. Bruce, “The Full Name of the Procurator Felix,” JSNT 1 (1978), pp. 33–36; C. J. Hemer, “The Name of Felix Again,” JSNT 31 (1987), pp. 45–59.
65. Josephus, BJ 2.247; Ant. 20.137–38.
66. This may be inferred from Tacitus, Annals 12.137–38.
67. Tacitus, History 5.9.
68. Suetonius, Life of Claudius 28.
69. Tacitus, History 5.9.
1. Gk. κράτιστε Φῆλιξ (cf. 23:26). See p. 29, 3 (on 1:1).
2. Gk. ἐγκόπτω, “hinder”; here perhaps in one of the senses of κόπτω, “weary,” “bore.”
3. The words within square brackets are added in the Western text, and were taken over into TR. They are not found in the Byzantine witnesses, and are therefore not included in The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text, ed. Z. C. Hodges and A. L. Farstad (Nashville, TN, 1982).
4. Tacitus, Agricola 30.
5. Gk. πρόνοια. It was a favorite term among the Stoics; cf. the title of a treatise by Chrysippus, Concerning Providence (Περὶ Προνοίας). Its only other NT occurrence is in the nontechnical sense of “provision” (Rom. 13:14).
6. Gk. ἐπιείκεια, a term which was used at this time almost as an honorific title: “Your Clemency.”
7. Compare the threefold structure of the charge brought against our Lord before Pilate (Luke 23:2).
8. Gk. λοιμός. Cf. Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrines (November 10, A.D. 41) in which he warns the Jews of that city that, if they persist in activities which arouse his suspicion, he “will proceed against them with the utmost severity for fomenting a general plague (νόσος) which infests the whole world” (P.Lond. 1912, line 99).
10. F. J. Kramer notes that it was not uncommon to “throw in for good measure a maiestas charge along with other less deadly accusations” (Astrology in Roman Law and Politics [Philadelphia, 1954], p. 252).
11. For Alexandria cf. Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrines (8 above); for Rome cf. Suetonius, Claudius 25.4 (see p. 347, 9).
12. Cf. 13:45, 50; 14:2–5; 17:5–9, 13; 18:6, 12–17; 19:9; 20:19.
13. Political messianism is a loose term for movements which sought the establishment of Judaean independence by the use of armed force, but it did not necessarily involve belief in an individual Messiah. Thus the anti-Roman revolt of A.D. 66 was not in the strict sense messianic, whereas that of A.D. 132 was.
14. The Nazarenes are here called a party or sect (Gk. αἵρεσις), like the Sadducees in 5:17 and the Pharisees in 15:5. In Judaea they were still reckoned as a Jewish party, albeit a subversive and heretical party from the chief-priestly point of view.
15. See p. 63, 72 (on 2:22). Heb. noṣrîm, Arab. Naṣārā, Aram./Syr. Nāṣərāyē (the name by which the Mandaeans are called in their sacred writings). Jesus and his followers are regularly called noṣrîm in the Talmud; the earliest recorded use of the Hebrew word to denote followers of Jesus is in the birkaṯ hammînîm (see p. 428, 20). Possibly the Jews associated the word with the “branch (Heb. nōṣer) of violence” which, according to the Hebrew text of Sir. 40:15, “has no tender twig” (i.e., no lasting posterity), just as Christians associated it with the messianic Branch (Heb. nēṣer) of Isa. 11:1 (probably the scripture alluded to in Matt. 2:23).
16. The Nazarenes may have been confused with people called the nôṣərim or “observants.” Epiphanius makes a distinction between Nasaraeans (Νασαραῖοι) and Nazoraeans (Ναζωραῖοι) in his collection of heresies, the former coming fifth in his list of Jewish heresies (Panarion 1.18), the latter coming ninth in his list of Christian heresies (Pan. 1.29). By the Nazoraeans he means those Jewish Christians who were not in communion with the catholic church, but the Nasaraeans he represents as an ascetic Jewish group, similar to but not identical with the Essenes, living east of the Jordan and dating back to pre-Christian times. But Epiphanius may be as far astray in distinguishing the Nasaraeans and Nazoraeans as he is in distinguishing the Essenes (Pan. 1.10) and Ossenes (Pan. 1.19).
18. Paul himself does it in vv. 18–19, as frequently in his letters (see 21 below).
19. The Western text (represented by the marginal reading of the Harclean Syriac) expands: “The governor then beckoned to Paul to make his defense, and he took up a godlike attitude and said …” A godlike attitude was thought fitting in an orator (which Paul did not pretend to be).
20. The Western text seems to have omitted “the Way,” reading: “according to the party (αἵρεσις), as they call it.”
21. There is nothing in the Greek text corresponding to “there were”: “some Jews from Asia” (τινὲς δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀσίας Ἰουδαῖοι) is a subject without a verb.
22. So A. Schlatter, Die Apostelgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1948), p. 285, and E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, E.T. (Oxford, 1971), p. 654. The five days which he had now spent in Caesarea are not included. The notes of time since his arrival in Jerusalem are detailed and precise: Day 1, Paul arrives in Jerusalem (21:17); Day 2, Paul and his companions received by James and the elders (21:18); Day 3, Paul initiates the purification ceremony (21:26); Days 3–9, the seven days of purification (21:27); Day 9, Paul attacked in the temple and rescued by Roman soldiers (21:27–22:29); Day 10, Paul brought before the Sanhedrin (22:30–23:10); Day 11, Plot against Paul; Paul sent away from Jerusalem (23:12–30); Day 12, Paul arrives in Caesarea (23:31–33).
23. Again he emphasizes the centrality of the resurrection hope in his preaching (cf. 23:6; 26:8); that he related the resurrection hope explicitly to Jesus’ resurrection is made evident by 25:19. Cf. L. De Lorenzi (ed.), Résurrection du Christ et des chrétiens (1 Co 15), SMB:SBO 8 (Rome, 1985).
24. See p. 429 with nn. 21 and 22 (on 23:8).
25. For the resurrection of the righteous cf. Luke 14:14; 20:35–36. For the resurrection of the unrighteous in addition to the righteous cf. John 5:28–29 and Rev. 20:12–15. It is usually taken to be the sense of Dan. 12:2 (another interpretation, favored by Sa‘adya Ga’on and others, regards those who are destined “to shame and everlasting contempt” as being left unraised in “the dust of the earth”). It is unlikely that Paul has the resurrection of the unrighteous in view when he says that “in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).
26. Gk. ἀσκῶ, “I exercise myself” (the only NT instance of the word). There is a note of moral strictness in the word, without the later sense of asceticism (which in Pauline Greek is expressed by ἀφειδία σώματος, “severity to the body,” as in Col. 2:23).
27. See p. 424 with 2 (on 23:1).
28. G. W. H. Lampe, St. Luke and the Church of Jerusalem (London, 1969), p. 24, suggests that the reference may be “only to his acts of Jewish piety in the Temple concerned with the vows and sacrifices that he undertook” (cf. 21:23–26).
29. For the collection see pp. 371–72 with nn. 45 and 46 (on 19:21), pp. 381–82 (on 20:3 and 4). See also K. Holl, “Der Kirchenbegriff des Paulus in seinem Verhältnis zu dem der Urgemeinde” (1921), in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, 2: Der Osten (Tübingen, 1928), pp. 44–67; C. H. Buck, “The Collection for the Saints,” HTR 43 (1950), pp. 1–29; J. Knox, Chapters in a Life of Paul (London, 1954), pp. 51–58, 60, 69–72; D. Georgi, Die Geschichte der Kollekte des Paulus für Jerusalem (Hamburg, 1965); K. F. Nickle, The Collection: A Study in Paul’s Strategy (London, 1966); K. Berger, “Almosen für Israel: Zum historischen Kontext der paulinischen Kollekte,” NTS 23 (1976–77), pp. 180–204; S. Garofalo, “Un chef d’oeuvre pastoral de Paul: la collecte,” in Paul de Tarse: Apôtre du notre temps, ed. L. De Lorenzi, SMB:SBO 1 (Rome, 1979), pp. 575–93.
30. F. W. Farrar read a confession of wrong into the words of v. 21: “In the remark of St. Paul before the tribunal of Felix I seem to see—though none have noticed it—a certain sense of compunction for the method in which he had extricated himself from a pressing danger” (The Life and Work of St. Paul, II [London, 1879], p. 328).
31. The proceedings now adjourned by Felix are identified by J. A. T. Robinson as Paul’s “first defense,” to which reference is made in 2 Tim. 4:16 (Redating the New Testament [London, 1976], p. 74; cf. his Can We Trust the New Testament? [London, 1977], pp. 65–66).
32. As Tertullus had suggested, according to the Western text of vv. 7–8.
33. According to Tacitus (Annals 13.14.1) Pallas was deposed by Nero in A.D. 55 from his very influential post as head of the imperial treasury. See 43 below.
34. The Western text (preserved in the margin of the Harclean Syriac) adds: “who asked to see Paul and hear him speak, so wishing to satisfy her he summoned Paul.”
35. See pp. 456–57 with 23 (on 25:13).
36. It would be farfetched to connect Atomos with Etymas (Hetoimas), the Western reading of the name of Elymas, the Cypriot magician of 13:8. Some manuscripts of Ant. 20.142 have “Simon” in place of “Atomos.”
37. See Josephus, Ant. 19.354; 20.139–44.
38. J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, E.T. (London, 1944), p. 406.
39. W. M. Ramsay supposed that Paul had command of considerable personal resources around this time, that the expenses of his trial and of his periods of custody in Caesarea and Rome were met from his hereditary property, which may have “come to him as legal heir (whose right could not be interfered with by any will)” (St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 310–12). But the whole matter belongs to the realm of speculation—as money matters often do!
40. Paul may have found these two years tedious, but for Luke, says J. H. Moulton, they “were doubtless the opportunity of collecting material for his Gospel and the earlier parts of Acts” (MHT II, p. 19).
41. Josephus, BJ 2.266–70; Ant. 20.173–78, 182–84.
43. Even when he was dismissed from office, Pallas could stipulate successfully that there should be no scrutiny of his conduct in office and that his accounts with the state should be treated as balanced (Tacitus, Annals 13.14.2). His influence lasted until A.D. 62, when he fell victim to Nero’s desire to lay hands on his wealth (Tacitus, Annals 14.65.1). There is nothing in the circumstances of Pallas’s career to rule out his effective intervention on behalf of Felix in (say) A.D. 59.
44. Cf. Josephus, BJ 2.271; Ant. 20.182–97. Festus appears to have governed Judaea from A.D. 59 to his death in 62. Eusebius gives A.D. 55 as the year of Felix’s replacement by Festus (Chronicon, year of Abraham 2072), and in this he has been followed not only by Jerome but by some scholars of more recent date (see K. Lake in Beginnings I.5, pp. 464–67, 470–73; H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte [Tübingen, 21972], pp. 129–30). But this gives Felix too short a rule and compresses Paul’s career since Gallio’s proconsulship of Achaia (see p. 352 with 38, on 18:12) into too narrow a space. A more reliable pointer to the date of Felix’s replacement has been found in a change in the Judaean provincial coinage attested for Nero’s fifth year (A.D. 58–59); this coin issue “is more likely to be the work of a new procurator than of an outgoing one who had already minted a large issue” (E. M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, SJLA 20 [Leiden, 1976], p. 269, n. 40). See F. W. Madden, History of Jewish Coinage (London, 1864), p. 153; A. Reifenberg, Ancient Jewish Coins (Jerusalem, 1947), p. 27; cf. also H. J. Cadbury, The Book of Acts in History (New York, 1955), p. 10; Schürer I, p. 255, n. 42.
1. The Western text is probably represented by the fuller reading of the Syriac Harclean margin: “those who had made a vow to get him into their hands planned …” (ascribing this plot to the plotters of 23:12–15).
2. Lit., “if there is anything improper (ἄτοπον, with which cf. Luke 23:41) in the man.”
3. Cod. B repeats the participle “standing” (ἑστώς): “standing before Caesar’s tribunal, I am standing where I ought to be judged” (an attractive reading, which Lake and Cadbury adopt).
4. This formality was necessary for his decision to have legal validity. For a Roman magistrate’s “tribunal” (βῆμα) cf. 18:12, 16; Matt. 27:19; John 19:13; Josephus, BJ 2.172, 301; 3.532 (according to Josephus, Ant. 18.207, Philip the tetrarch took his official seat of office, his θρόνος, around with him when he toured his tetrarchy in order to judge cases without delay).
5. Cf. 21:27–29 (p. 409 with nn. 47, 48, and 49).
6. See p. 325 with nn. 13, 14, 15, and 16, pp. 439–40 with nn. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.
8. Dio Cassius, History 51.19; in Dio’s Greek phrase ἔκκλητον δικάζειν A. H. M. Jones recognized the equivalent of Lat. ex prouocatione cognoscere (Studies in Roman Government and Law [Oxford, 1960], p. 96).
9. Digest48.6–7; Paulus, Sententiae 5.26.1.
10. Cf. 18:12–17 (pp. 351–54).
11. Pliny, Epistles10.96.4. There was a gradual erosion of the privileges of citizens as the second century advanced (this is evident from the Letter of the Churches of Lyon and Vienne, reproduced in Eusebius, HE 5.1, describing the persecution of Christians in the Rhone valley in A.D. 177, under Marcus Aurelius), until in A.D. 212 the citizenship was extended to all freeborn subjects of the empire. Luke’s account of Paul’s appeal is consistent with all that is known of relevant conditions in the late fifties of the first century. See A. H. M. Jones, Studies in Roman Government and Law, pp. 5–98; A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford, 1963), pp. 57–70; P. Garnsey, “The Lex Iulia and Appeal under the Empire,” JRS 58 (1966), pp. 167–89.
12. Gk. συμβούλιον, comprising his σύνεδροι or comites.
13. The legal status desired is expressed by collegium licitum (Digest 47.22) rather than by Tertullian’s religio licita (Apology 21.1), which is not a technical term of Roman law.
14. Cf. Eph. 6:19–20; Phil. 1:19–20, and possibly 2 Tim. 4:17.
15. Lit., “brought no charge of evil things” (οὐδεμίαν ἀιτίαν … πονηρῶν); P74 A C Ψ and other witnesses read “no evil charge” (ἀιτίαν … πονηράν); א* C2 read the accusative πονηρά, “evil things,” in apposition with ἀιτίαν, while the Byzantine text omits “evil” altogether.
16. Gk. δεισιδαιμονία, which may be mildly disparaging (“superstition”) or not according to the context. The disparaging sense is inappropriate here, since Festus was addressing a distinguished Jew. Cf. the adjective δεισιδαιμονεστέρους in 17:22 (p. 335 with 56).
17. Gk. εἰς τὴν τοῦ Σεβαστοῦ διάγνωσιν. Here and in v. 25 Festus refers to the emperor by the Greek title Σεβαστός, the equivalent of Lat. Augustus (cf. KJV).
18. That is, “send him up” (ἀναπέμπω, “remand,” “refer”) to the higher court to which he had appealed.
19. See 12:1–23.
20. Between A.D. 6 and 37 the high priests were appointed by Roman governors. The right of appointment was granted to Herod Agrippa I in A.D. 41. When he died three years later, a Jewish deputation visited Rome and protested to Claudius against the attempt made by Cuspius Fadus, newly appointed procurator of Judaea, to secure the right of appointment (which carried with it the custody of the high-priestly vestments) for himself. Their protest was supported by the younger Agrippa, and Claudius conciliated them by giving the right to Herod of Chalcis (brother of the elder Agrippa). See Josephus, Ant. 20.6–16.
21. This was the territory which the Emperor Gaius had given to Herod Agrippa I in A.D. 37. For the two tetrarchies cf. Luke 3:1, where Philip’s tetrarchy is described as “the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis” and that of Lysanias as “Abilene.” See Schürer I, pp. 561–73.
22. Caesarea Philippi—“Philip’s Caesarea”—was so called to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima, on the Mediterranean seaboard of Judaea. It was the capital of Philip’s tetrarchy from 4 B.C. to his death in A.D. 34. Banyas is the Arabic pronunciation of the earlier Greek name Paneas.
23. Agrippa did his best to prevent the revolt of A.D. 66 (see the dissuasive speech attributed to him by Josephus, BJ 2.345–401). When his efforts failed, he remained loyal to Rome and was rewarded after the war with a further increase of territory and (in 75) with promotion to praetorian rank. He corresponded with Josephus about the latter’s Jewish War, confirming its accuracy (Josephus, Life 362–66; Ap. 1.51). He died about A.D. 100, leaving no children, and has thus been called “the last of the Herods.” See Josephus, BJ 2.233, 245, 247, 309, 337–407; 3.56–57; 7.97; Ant. 19.354, 360–62; 20.104, 135, 138–40, 159, 179, 189–93, 203, 211–13; Life 34, 38–39, 46, 48, 52, 61, 74, 112, 114, 126, 131, 149, 154–55, 162, 180–82, 185, 220, 340–56, 359, 362–67, 381–84, 388–91, 397–98, 407–8, 410; also A. H. M. Jones, The Herods of Judaea (Oxford, 1938), pp. 207–31; Schürer I, pp. 471–83.
24. “Bernice” was the popular Hellenistic pronunciation of the Macedonian name Berenice (the form by which Josephus always refers to her).
25. To him she bore two sons, Berenicianus and Hyrcanus (Josephus, Ant. 20.104). A remarkable number of marriages between uncles and nieces took place within the Herod family. Thus Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, was married successively to two of her father’s half-brothers—Herod (Philip) and Herod Antipas; her daughter Salome was married to her father’s half-brother, Philip the tetrarch.
26. Like her brother, she tried hard to avert the war which broke out in A.D. 66. In spring of that year she performed a Nazirite vow in Jerusalem, and attempted, but in vain (and not without considerable personal risk), to prevent a massacre of Jews by the procurator Gessius Florus. Later, however, when her house (together with Agrippa’s) was burned down by insurgent extremists, she became an ardent pro-Flavian. She attracted the attention of Titus during the war, and lived with him on the Palatine when she came to Rome with her brother in 75. Titus would have married her, had it not been for strong expressions of disapproval among the citizens of Rome, which made him sever his connection with her. See Josephus, BJ 2.217, 220–21, 310–14, 333–34, 405, 426, 595; Ant. 19.276–77, 354; 20.104, 143, 145–46; Life 48, 119, 180–81, 343, 355; Juvenal, Satire 6.156–60; Tacitus, Histories 2.2; Suetonius, Titus 7.1; Dio Cassius, History 65.15; 66.18; also G. H. Macurdy, “Julia Berenice,” AJP 56 (1933), pp. 246–53.
27. On a Latin inscription from Beirut she is called “Queen Berenice, daughter of the great king Agrippa” (Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions [1927], pp. 243–44); on a Greek inscription she is called “Julia Berenice, the great queen” (IG III.556 = CIG 361).
28. F. Field quotes from Appian, Civil war3.54: “The law requires, members of the council, that a man who is on trial should hear the accusation and speak in his own defense before judgment is passed on him” (Notes on the Translation of the New Testament [Cambridge, 1899], p. 140).
29. A Western addition is preserved in the Syriac Harclean margin: “who had come down from the province.”
30. Gk. ἄνδρες The masculine is formal, and Bernice would not feel herself to be expressly ignored.
31. After “and here” the Western text reads (to the end of v. 25): “that I should hand him over to them for punishment without any defense. But I could not hand him over, on account of the commands which we have from His Imperial Majesty. But if any one was going to accuse him, I said that he should follow me to Caesarea, where he was in custody; and when they came, they clamored that he should be put to death. But when I heard one side and the other, I found that he was in no way worthy of death. But when I said, ‘Are you willing to be judged before them in Jerusalem?’ he appealed to Caesar.”
32. Gk. ἀσφαλές, “secure.”
33. The military tribunes included on his staff were five in number, as there were five auxiliary cohorts stationed at Caesarea (Josephus, Ant. 19.365).
34. Gk. μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας. The Greek word survives as a loanword in Palestinian Arabic (fantasya), in the sense of a festal procession.
35. See the discussion in E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, E.T. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 673–75, 678–79.
36. “To my κύριος”: the title κύριος with a divine connotation was given to Roman emperors by their subjects in the eastern provinces as it had been given to the Ptolemies and other dynasts; Deissmann notes that there is a remarkable rise in the frequency of such inscriptions under Nero and his successors (Light from the Ancient East, E.T. [London, 21927], pp. 353–62; cf. New Docs. 2 [1977], § 6).
37. The word ἀνάκρισις in v. 26 means “preliminary investigation” when it is used technically; here it is used nontechnically of an informal inquiry.
38. Such a report was called litterae dimissoriae or litterae apostoli (Digest 49.6.1).
1. Or rather “about yourself” (the reading περὶ σεαυτοῦ is better attested than ὑπὲρ σεαυτοῦ).
2. There is a Western insertion, preserved in the margin of the Harclean Syriac: “confident, and encouraged by the Holy Spirit.”
3. This gesture (ἐκτείνω τὴν χεῖρα) is not that with which a speaker beckons for a quiet hearing (κατασείω τῇ χειρί, 13:16; 21:40).
4. Cf. 22:3–21.
5. Cf. F. Blass, The Philology of the Gospels (London, 1898), p. 9; J. H. Moulton, MHT I, p. 78, n. 1; H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, 1963), p. 137.
6. Some authorities (P 74 אc A C 33 al syr pesh) add ἐπιστάμενος, “knowing” (“especially because I know that you are …”).
7. Cf. 24:4.
8. Gk. ἐκ νεότητος … ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, “from my youth, from the beginning” (for the latter phrase cf. Lk. 1:2).
9. It is unlikely that “among my nation and in Jerusalem” means “among the people of Tarsus and (later) in Jerusalem,” as Lake and Cadbury think.
10. Gk. ἄνωθεν (cf. Lk. 1:3), not necessarily going as far back as ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς (v.4).
11. The position of ὑπὸ Ἰουδαίων may denote emphasis.
12. One Western authority (P 29) seems to omit “Why is it judged incredible among you?” See also p. 469, 36.
13. For the twelve tribes (emphasizing the nation in its totality) cf. Matt. 19:28 par. Luke 22:30; Jas. 1:1 (with F. J. A. Hort’s note ad loc.); Rev. 7:4–8 21:12. The myth of the ten lost tribes plays no part in the biblical record.
14. There is no definite article in the Greek text here; the clause may be rendered: “that God raises dead people.” The plural is generalizing, but Paul has one particular instance in his mind—the resurrection of Jesus. Cf. Rom. 1:4, where Jesus is “designated Son of God in power … by his resurrection from the dead”—lit., “by resurrection of dead people” (here also the generalizing plural points to the resurrection of Jesus in particular). It was useless, Paul implied, to acknowledge the resurrection of the dead in principle and refuse to believe in the one authenticated instance of such resurrection.
15. For his acquiescence in the execution of Stephen, who was tried and condemned by the supreme Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, see 8:1a (p. 161 with 3).
16. Gk. ἠνάγκαζον. The imperfect means “I tried to compel” (not, as in KJV, “compelled”).
17. Cf. 1 Cor. 12:3.
18. So, in Pliny the Younger’s report to Trajan, if people suspected of being Christians obeyed his order to curse Christ (male dicerent Christo), he discharged them, as he was informed that this was something which “people who are really Christians cannot possibly be made to do” (Epistles 10.96.5).
19. The Western text adds “for fear.”
20. The Western text reads “I myself alone.”
21. The Western text adds “the Nazarene” (from 22:8).
22. Cod. B omits “and stand” (καὶ στῆθι) by accident after “get up” (ἀνάστηθι).
23. Lit., “a witness to the things wherein you have seen me and those in which I will appear to you.”
24. This is also the only one of the three accounts where the Lord is said to have addressed him in Aramaic (“in the Hebrew speech”; cf. p. 182, 14; p. 413, 58); but we should have inferred this in any case from the vocative form Σαοῦλ Σαούλ (9:4; 22:7), not Σαῦλε Σαῦλε.
25. Several parallels to this proverbial saying are adduced from Greek and Latin literature; none seems to be quoted from a Semitic source, but it is the sort of saying that would be current in any community where the ox was used for transport.
26. Cf. K. Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” (1963), in Paul among Jews and Gentiles (London, 1977), pp. 78–96.
27. Cf. Jer. 1:7–8: “to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak … for I am with you to deliver you” (observe also that Jeremiah is appointed “a prophet to the nations,” Jer. 1:5; cf. Gal. 1:16).
28. Cf. Ezek. 2:1, 3: “stand upon your feet … I send you to the people of Israel.”
29. The “dominion (ἐξουσία) of Satan” is the “dominion (ἐξουσία) of darkness” (Col. 1:13); he is chief over the “world rulers of this darkness” (Eph. 6:12). With the terms of Paul’s call cf. especially Isa. 42:6–7, where the Servant is commissioned to be “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” On Isa. 42:5–9 see C.R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah (Oxford, 1948), pp. 131–35.
30. The words “in every country, to Jews and Gentiles” render F. Blass’s emendation (εἰς πᾶσάν τε χώραν Ἰουδαίοις καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν for (εἰς) πᾶσαν τε τὴν χώραν τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (see 32 below).
31. ἀπήγγελλον, imperfect.
32. Blass’s emendation (quoted in 30 above) is attractive both because of the grammatical awkwardness of the traditional text, even with the (Byzantine?) addition of εἰς before πᾶσαν and especially without it, and because the statement that Paul evangelized “all the country of Judaea” is plainly at variance with the evidence of Luke’s narrative (not to speak of the evidence of Paul’s account in Gal. 1:17–24). The emendation was approved by Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller [London, 14 1920], p. 382).
33. Cf. J. Jervell, “Paulus in der Apostelgeschichte und die Geschichte des Urchristentums,” NTS 32 (1986), p. 380.
34. On repentance cf. 2:38; 3:19; 20:21; on turning to God cf. 3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 15:19.
35. Gk. πρῶτος ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν (cf. Rom. 1:4, where ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν is used in reference to the resurrection of Christ; see 14 above). Cf. 1 Cor. 15:20, 23 (“Christ … the firstfruits”).
36. The captions are here introduced by the interrogative εἰ (“if” as used in indirect questions). E. Nestle, mistakenly taking εἰ as conditional, looked for an apodosis, and found it in v. 8, “Why is it judged incredible among you?” This clause already has one “if” clause attached to it (εἰ ὁ θεὸς νεκροῦς ἐγείρει); Nestle provided it with two more (the “if” clauses of v. 23) by proposing the transposition of v. 8 to follow v. 22. Following him, James Moffatt renders the rearranged words: “Why should you consider it incredible that God raises the dead, that the Christ is capable of suffering, and that he should be the first to rise from the dead and bring the message of light to the People and to the Gentiles?”
37. Cf. J. R. Harris, Testimonies, I (Cambridge, 1916), pp. 19–20; Testimonies, II (Cambridge, 1920), p. 77; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (London, 1952), pp. 16–17; B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic (London, 1961), p. 80; A. T. Hanson, The Living Utterances of God (London, 1983), p. 81. Justin (Dialogue 39.7) represents Trypho as saying “It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the necessity of Christ’s suffering is proclaimed through the scriptures” (similarly 89.2).
38. See 30 above; cf. Isa. 60:1–3. It is because Isa. 60:3 (“nations shall come to your light”) was recognized as fulfilled in the visit of the Magi (Matt. 2:1–12) that that incident has been traditionally called “the Epiphany of Christ to the Gentiles.”
39. See pp. 266–67 with footnotes.
40. The Western text, preserved in lath, has the fuller reading: “You are mad, Paul, you are mad.”
41. The Western and Byzantine texts omit “Paul” (“But he replied”).
42. Lit., “I utter words of truth and soberness.”
43. Cod. B omits “indeed” (καί).
44. Gk. ἐν ὁλίγῳ με πείθεις χριστιανὸν ποιῆσαι, lit., “In short, you are persuading me [ με πείθεις, i.e., ‘trying to persuade me,’ present tense] to act the Christian.” For this construction with ποιέω cf. 3 Kingdoms 20:7 LXX (MT 1 Kings 21:7), σῦ νῦν ὁύτως ποιεῖς βασιλέα ἐπὶ Ἰσραήλ: “Is it thus that you act the king over Israel?” Failure to recognize this construction has led to several variant readings; thus Cod. A has πείθηᾳ for πείθεις (“you trust that you can make me a Christian”; cf. Hort’s emendation πέποιθας for με πείθεις); the Byzantine text has γενέσθαι for ποιῆσαι (whence KJV “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”). See also p. 228, 31 (on 11:26).
45. The Western text adds “when he had said this.”
46. A few witnesses (97 pc lath w syrpesh hcl.mg), possibly representing the Western text, add “and so the governor decided to send him to Caesar” (ineptly, because it was no longer within the governor’s discretion to make such a decision; he was bound to send him as soon as Paul uttered his appeal).
47. See J. V. Bartlet, “Two New Testament Problems: 1. St. Paul’s Fate at Rome,” Exp. 8, 5 (1913), pp. 465–66.
48. The imperial policy toward Christians apparently began to be hostile about A.D. 62. This year marked a turning point in Nero’s career; it was the year of Burrus’s death and his replacement as prefect of the praetorian guard by Tigellinus and Faenius Rufus (Tigellinus being the more powerful of the two), the year of Seneca’s retirement, and of Nero’s divorce of Octavia and marriage with Poppaea. Poppaea was a warm friend of the Jews; indeed, Josephus (Ant. 20.195) calls her a “God-fearer” (θεοσεβής), whatever he may mean by that. Her influence may well have been inimical to Christianity. About this time, too, it must have become increasingly clear to the Roman authorities that Christianity was not simply a movement within Judaism, entitled to share the recognition which Jewish congregations enjoyed as collegia licita. It might therefore at any time become the object of suppression by the imperial police, and an opportunity for such measures arose at Rome in the aftermath of the great fire of A.D. 64. But the situation at the time of Paul’s appeal was still largely what it had been when Gallio gave his favorable verdict at Corinth (18:12–17) seven or eight years before.
49. The pluperfect tense (ἐπεκέκλητο, “had appealed,” v. 32) points not merely to Paul’s action in appealing some days before but to his present legal status as a result of that appeal.
50. See C. J. A. Hickling, “The Portrait of Paul in Acts 26,” in Les Actes des Apôtres, ed. J. Kremer, BETL 48 (Leuven, 1979), pp. 499–03.
1. H. J. Holtzmann, Handcommentar zum Neuen Testament (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889), p. 421.
2. Especially in v. 41; see 90 below.
3. Compare vv. 18–19 with Jonah 1:5. See E. S. Krantz, Des Schiffes Weg mitten im Meer: Beiträge zur Erforschung der nautischen Terminologie des Alten Testaments (Lund, 1982).
4. See H. Chadwick, “The Circle and the Ellipse: Rival Concepts of Authority in the Early Church,” History and Thought of the Early Church (London, 1982), pp. 3–7, especially p. 16.
5. See M. Dibelius, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, E.T. (London, 1956), p. 107; H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, 1963), pp. 140–47; E. Haenchen, “Acta 27,” in Zeit und Geschichte: Dankesgabe an R. Bultmann, ed. E. Dinkler (Tübingen, 1964), pp. 235–54.
6. R. P. C. Hanson, “The Journey of Paul and the Journey of Nikias: An Experiment in Comparative Historiography,” Studies in Christian Antiquity (Edinburgh, 1985), pp. 22–26.
7. J. Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul (London, 1848, 41880).
8. See also A. Breusing, Die Nautik der Alten (Bremen, 1886); H. Balmer, Die Romfahrt des Apostels Paulus (Bern/Münchenbuchsee, 1905); A. Köster, Das antike Seewesen (Berlin, 1923); W. Stammler, Apostelgeschichte 27 in nautischer Beleuchtung (Berlin, 1931); L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners (London, 1959); Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ, 1971); V. K. Robbins, “By Land and by Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages,” in Perspectives on Luke-Acts, ed. C. H. Talbert (Edinburgh, 1978), with critique by C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative in Acts 27–28,” TynB 36 (1985), pp. 79–109; C. K. Barrett, “Paul Shipwrecked,” in Scripture: Meaning and Method, ed. B. P. Thompson (Hull, 1987), pp. 51–64.
9. The Western text goes on from “and so the governor decided to send him up to Caesar” (26:32b) with the paraphrase: “And the next day he called a certain centurion named Julius and handed Paul over to him, with other prisoners also.”
10. The Western text adds “and Secundus” (from 20:4).
11. The Western text adds “in fifteen days.”
12. Cod. B gives this place-name a new etymology by spelling it Μύρρα (“myrrh”) instead of Μύρα. Cod. 69 replaces this with “Smyrna” (σμύρνη is a dialectal variant of μύρρα). The still more aberrant reading “Lystra” is found in P74 א with the Latin and Bohairic (Coptic) versions.
13. His nomen gentile suggests that he or rather his ancestor acquired the citizenship under Julius Caesar or Augustus.
14. We find inscriptional references to the Cohors Augusta I in Syria under Augustus (ILS 2683), to the σπεῖρα Ἀυγούστη in the same area some decades later (OGIS 421); cf. also the Cohors III Augusta at Rome (CIL VI.3508).
15. In the event, the “ship of Alexandria” which he found at Myra was indeed a grain ship (see p. 479, on v. 6), and if he was a frumentarius, this would account for the authority which he exercised on board (cf. v. 11).
16. But if they arrived late and found that the period of sailing was over for the winter, they would no doubt take the land route to Rome along the Egnatian Way from the Aegean to the Adriatic (see p. 309, on 16:11).
17. See 19:29.
18. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller (London, 141920), p. 316.
19. Cf. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon 1.1. Lucian tells how a ship which set out from Alexandria for Italy was forced by a storm to put in at Sidon (Ship 7).
20. Cf. p. 202 with 4 (on 10:1).
21. A. von Harnack suggested that πρὸς τοῦς φίλους should be translated “to the Friends”; he regarded this as possibly one of the current designations by which Christians referred to one another (The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, E.T., I [London, 21908], pp. 419–21). Cf. 3 John 1:15.
22. J. Smith, Voyage, p. 68.
23. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 317.
24. Cf. 21:1, where the Western text makes Myra the port of transshipment on Paul’s last voyage to Judaea.
25. See C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative,” pp. 94–95, for evidence of facilities for the storage of grain at Andriaki.
26. See Strabo, Geography 13.3.7; also G. E. Bean, Lycian Turkey: An Archaeological Guide (London, 1978), pp. 120–30.
27. See M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, II (Oxford, 21957), p. 708.
28. Smith, Voyage, pp. 72–73.
29. Smith, Voyage, pp. 75–76.
30. Thucydides, History 8.35.
31. Smith, Voyage, p. 76.
32. Lasaea is variously spelled in our textual witnesses and in other literature. C. J. Hemer (“First Person Narrative,” p. 95) quotes from A. Plassart, “Les inscriptions de Delphes. La liste de théorodoques,” BCH 45 (1921), p. 61, n. 3 (col. 4, line 9), ἐν Λασσοίαᾳ (from a list of Cretan cities arranged clockwise in the angle southwest from Gortyna). Lasaea has been (provisionally) identified with Pliny’s Lasos or Alos (Nat. Hist. 4.59) and also with ruins a little way east of Fair Havens.
33. Vegetius, On Military Affairs 4.39.
34. Cf. W. P. Workman, “A New Date-Indication in Acts,” ExT 11 (1899–1900), pp. 316–19.
35. Vegetius, loc. cit.
36. “We might be disposed to infer that the Feast of Tabernacles, Oct. 10, fell after they left Fair Havens, otherwise Luke would have mentioned it rather than the Fast, as making the danger more apparent” (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 322).
37. Cf. 2 Cor. 11:25b.
38. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 322–25.
39. Gk. κυβερνήτης. According to Plutarch (Precepts of Statecraft 807B), “the helmsman (κυβερνήτης) chooses the sailors and the shipowner (ναύκληρος) chooses the helmsman.”
40. Gk. ναύκληρος (Latinized as nauicularius). Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, p. 324, n. 2) quotes from IG XIV.918 οἱ ναύκληροι τοῦ πορευτικοῦ Ἀλεξανδρείνου στόλου (“the shipowners of the Alexandrian fleet”). Cf. M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, II, p. 607.
41. A. D. Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, II (Oxford, 1972), p. 823.
42. Smith, Voyage, p. 85, n. 2.
43. See R. M. Ogilvie, “Phoenix,” ITS n.s. 9 (1958), pp. 308–14.
44. Smith, Voyage, p. 91, n. 1.
45. ARV margin gives as the literal rendering “down the south-west wind and down the north-west wind,” but this is a mistranslation in such a context of the preposition κατά in κατὰ λίβα καὶ κατὰ χῶρον. C. J. Hemer (“First Person Narrative,” pp. 95–96) quotes, from IGRR I. 177, the wind directions on a twelve-point scheme, with the names in Greek and Latin: Ἰάπυξ / Chorus (30 degrees north of west) and Λίψ / Africus (30 degrees south of west). In this inscription Lat. Chorus, normally spelled Caurus, is aspirated just as it is here in its Greek transliteration χῶρος. The term λίψ is explained (at least by a popular etymology) as meaning “Libyan.”
46. Ogilvie, art. cit. For Loutron and Phoenix today see Xan Fielding, The Stronghold (London, 1955), pp. 215–24, 262–65.
47. The Byzantine text has the variant “Euroclydon.”
48. There is an expanded Western reading: “We gave way to the wind that was blowing and shortened sail (συστείλαντες τὰ ἱστία) and, as happens in such cases, scudded before it.”
49. Many manuscripts and versions have the spelling Clauda (found also in several ancient authors).
50. Gk. βοηθεῖαι, “helps.” See p. 485 with 59 below.
51. Gk. χαλάσαντες τὸ σκεῦος (σκεῦος being a word of indeterminate meaning—“instrument,” “object,” “thing”—as in 10:11).
52. The Byzantine text reads “we threw … with our own hands”; the Western text adds “into the sea.”
53. Lit., “all hope of our coming safely through was henceforth being taken away” (λοιπὸν περιηᾳρεῖτο ἐλπὶς πᾶσα τοῦ σῴζεσθαι ἡμᾶς).
54. Smith, Voyage, p. 102.
55. Gk. ἄνεμος τυφωνικός. It may have had the effect of a whirlwind or cyclone when it first struck them, but thereafter it blew steadily in one direction. See also p. 486 with 60.
56. Euraquilo is a hybrid, from Gk. Ἐῦρος (“east wind”) and Aquilo (“north wind”). It appears (with the spelling Euroaquilo) in Latin on a twelve-point wind-rose incised on a pavement at Thugga in the province of Africa, where (beginning from the north and reading clockwise) we find septentrio aquilo euroaquilo [uo] Iturnus eurus … (CIL VIII.26652). See C. J. Hemer, “Euraquilo and Melita,” JTS n.s. 26 (1975), pp. 100–111 (especially p. 103). In this article Hemer answers A. Acworth, “Where was St. Paul Shipwrecked? A Re-examination of the Evidence,” JTS n.s. 24 (1973), pp. 190–93, where the reading “Euroclydon” is preferred and taken to mean a southeast wind. But a southeast wind would not have driven the ship under the lee of Cauda.
57. In the vicinity of this island the naval engagement usually called the Battle of Cape Matapan was fought on March 28, 1941. There is, according to Smith, an anchorage at Cauda, but it lies on the side of the island open to Euraquilo, and therefore could have given no protection to the ship (Voyage, p. 113, n. 1).
58. Lake and Cadbury (Beginnings I.4, p. 332) suggest that the foremast, which sloped forward, may have been used as a derrick.
59. Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.5.18; Philo, On Joseph 33. In view of such attestation, it is unnecessary to emend βοηθείαις to βοείαις (“with ropes of ox-hide”), with S. A. Naber, “Nautica,” Mnemosyne n.s. 23 (1895), pp. 267–69. A more technical Greek word for these cables is ὑποζώματα, used in this sense (“undergirders”) in Plato (Republic 10.616C; Laws 12.945C), Callixenus, Herodotus Medicus, and inscriptions.
60. Nat. Hist. 2.132.
61. See H. J. Cadbury, “Ὑποζώματα,” Beginnings I.5 (London, 1933), pp. 345–54; The Book of Acts in History (New York, 1955), p. 10.
62. Cf. J. Renié, “Summisso Vase,” RSR 35 (1948), pp. 272–75. This interpretation is presupposed by the Old Latin text of codex gigas: “they let out a certain instrument to drag” (uas quoddam dimiserunt quod traheret). Smith suggests that what was lowered was “the ‘top-hamper’, or gear connected with the fair-weather sails, such as the suppara, or top-sails,” which “every ship situated as this one was, when preparing for a storm, sends down upon deck” (Voyage, p. 111).
63. Smith, Voyage, p. 114.
64. Cf. Jonah 1:5.
65. Voyage, p. 116. The Greek word is σκευή (here only in the NT).
66. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 332. See 52 above.
67. Smith, Voyage, p. 117.
68. Gk. πολλῆς … ἀσιτίας ὑπαρχούσης, “there being much abstinence from food.”
69. J. Newton, Omicron’s Letters (London, 1774), Letter 7, quoted by Smith, Voyage, p. 118.
70. Gk. ἄγγελος (“messenger”), usually of a supernatural being in the Greek Bible.
71. See Gen. 18:26–32.
72. Voyage, pp. 126–28.
73. E.g., Strabo (c. A.D. 19) says that “the Ionian Sea is part of what is now called the Sea of Adria” (Geography 2.5.20).
74. Ptolemy, Geography 3.4.1; 15.1.
75. Life 15.
76. See on 28:1 (p. 496 with 4).
77. For προσάγειν B* reads προσαχεῖν (a Doric form equivalent to Attic προσηχεῖν), whence probably resonare in the Old Latin codices gigas and Bobiensis (s).
78. Voyage, p. 121.
79. Voyage, pp. 130–31.
80. “In St. Paul’s Bay the anchorage is thus described in the sailing directions: ‘The harbour of St. Paul is open to easterly and north-east winds. It is, notwithstanding, safe for small ships, the ground, generally, being very good; and while the cables hold there is no danger, as the anchors will never start’ ” (Smith, Voyage, p. 132).
81. In 147 B.C. the Romans under Scipio Aemilianus won a naval victory off Carthage through anchoring by the stern and thus obviating the necessity of exposing the ships’ weak points to the Cathaginians in turning round (Appian, Punic War 18.213). For the same reason Nelson anchored by the stern at the Battle of the Nile in 1798.
82. Smith reproduces, from a picture at Herculaneum, the figure of a ship fitted with hawse-holes aft, through which anchor-cables could be passed if necessary. “We see, therefore, that ships of the ancients were fitted to anchor by the stern; and in the present instance that mode of anchoring was attended with most important advantages” (Voyage, p. 135).
83. The Western text adds “giving also to us” (using the same Greek verb, ἐπιδίδωμι, as in Luke 24:30; cf. also Mark 14:23 and parallels).
84. A few witnesses, including B and the Sahidic (Coptic) read “about seventy-six” instead of “two hundred and seventy-six.”
85. Abstinence from food, not absence of food, is implied by the adjective ἄσιτος (cf. the noun ἀσιτία in v. 21).
86. Gk. λαβὼν ἄρτον ἐυχαρίστησεν … κλάσας. These words play a part in other meals provided or shared by Jesus, e.g., the feeding of the multitudes and the supper at Emmaus (Mark 6:41; 8:6 and parallels; Luke 24:30), and indeed they belong to the general vocabulary of Jewish social meals, but there was evidently something distinctive about Jesus’ words and actions on such occasions. The feeding of the multitudes can be interpreted as an anticipation of the Eucharist, and Jesus’ action at Emmaus as a deliberate reminder of it. See B. Reicke, “Die Mahlzeit mit Paulus auf den Wellen des Mittelmeers, Act 27, 33–38,” TZ 4 (1948), pp. 401–10. W. Kelly, Exposition of Acts (London, 31952), p. 387, denies all eucharistic significance to the present meal: “It is the object of the Eucharist which gives it its character, and this was quite out of place here. But the most ordinary food should be sanctified by the word of God and prayer, and the apostle here acts on his own instructions to Timothy (1 Tim. 4:5, 6).” But in Paul’s eyes the object of the Eucharist may have been very much in place here. See Barrett, “Paul Shipwrecked,” pp. 59–63.
87. Josephus, Life 15. No significance need be seen in the fact that 276 is a triangular number (the sum of all whole numbers from 1 through 23), like 120 in 1:15; 153 in John 21:11; 666 in Rev. 13:18.
88. For the lightening of the ship cf. Jonah 1:5. S. A. Naber, on the ground that the wheat had been jettisoned already (v. 18), emended σῖτον (“wheat”) here to ἱστόν (“mainmast”), quite unnecessarily (“Τρίτον τοῦτο ἔρχομαι /Ad Novum Testamentum,” Mnemosyne n.s. 9 [1881], p. 293; “Nautica,” Mnemosyne n.s. 23 [1895], p. 269).
89. Gk. ἐξῶσαι (from ἐξωθέω), for which B* C and a number of other witnesses read the homophone ἐκσῶσαι (from ἐκσῴζω), “to bring it out safely,” which is a less natural expression here.
90. Gk. ἐπέκειλαν τὴν ναῦν (there is a Western addition, “on a place where there was a quicksand,” in the Harclean Syriac). This is the only NT occurrence of the classical word for “ship” (ναῦς), which, in conjunction with the verb ἐπικέλλω (“run aground”), has been put down to a Homeric reminiscence (cf. Odyssey 9.148, νῆας … ἐπικέλσαι).
91. Voyage, p. 141.
92. Voyage, p. 142.
93. Gk. πηδάλια.
94. Gk. ἀρτέμων, the earliest occurrence of the word in Greek literature. Its absence earlier is accidental, for it certainly existed; it appears as a loanword in Latin in Vitruvius, who wrote under Augustus, meaning the main block of a tackle (On Architecture 10.2.9). In a nautical context it was used of “a smaller sail in the forepart of a ship, by which the speed is not increased but the course is directed” (S. A. Naber, “Nautica,” p. 269).
95. Smith, Voyage, p. 143.
96. Voyage, p. 144.
97. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 341. “The only difficulty,” he adds, to which Smith “has applied a rather violent solution,” is the fact that at the traditional place where the ship ran ashore there is now no sandy beach. But the evidence is satisfied if the creek with a sandy beach which the sailors noticed is identified with the creek where there is still such a beach (see p. 494 with 92). W. Burridge, Seeking the Site of St. Paul’s Shipwreck (Valletta, 1952), argued on the basis of local observation that the wreck took place not in St. Paul’s Bay but in Mellieha Bay farther north.
98. The Old Latin text of gigas, perhaps preserving the original Western reading, runs as follows: “But the centurion forbade this to be done, principally on Paul’s account, in order to save him. And he commanded those who could swim to get to land first, and some of the rest to make their way to safety on planks; and thus all the souls escaped safe to the land.”
99. The words “on pieces of things from the ship”—literally, “on some of the (things) from the ship” (Gk. ἐπί τινων τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ πλοίου—might conceivably mean “on some of the (persons) from the ship,” i.e., on the backs of members of the crew.
1. The first hand in B and a few other authorities have “Melitene” (Gk. Μελιτήνη) instead of “Melita” (Gk. Μελίτη); the Latin Vulgate has Militene. The longer forms have arisen through dittography of some of the letters in Μελίτη ἡ νῆσος.
2. Gk. προσελάβοντο, “they brought us (to the fire).” If, with א* Ψ and a number of minuscules, we read προσανελάμβανον (cf. Latin Vulgate reficiebant), we have the more satisfactory sense “they refreshed us (all).”
3. Gk. θηρίον (lit., “wild beast”). In later Greek the word came to be specialized in the sense of “snake”; from the word in this sense is derived θηριακή (whence our “treacle”), originally a medicine prepared from snake-flesh to cure snakebite.
4. This identification seems to have been made first by the tenth-century Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (On Administering the Empire 36). It has been defended recently by A. Acworth, “Where was St. Paul Shipwrecked? A Re-examination of the Evidence,” JTSn.s. 24 (1973), pp. 190–92, and O. F. A. Meinardus, “Melita Illyrica or Africana? An Examination of the Site of St. Paul’s Shipwreck,” Ostkirchliche Studien 23 (1974), pp. 21–36 (cf. his St. Paul’s Last Journey [New Rochelle, NY, 1979], pp. 79–85); they have been conclusively answered by C. J. Hemer, “Euraquilo and Melita,” JTSn.s. 26 (1975), pp. 100–111.
5. Cf. J. R. Harris, “Clauda or Cauda?” ExT 21 (1909–10), p. 18.
6. Modern Maltese is a form of Arabic.
7. Gk. βάρβαρος, as in 1 Cor. 14:11 (cf. also Rom. 1:14; Col. 3:11).
8. Revolt in the Desert (London, 1927), p. 107.
9. Gk. ἔχιδνα (v. 3).
10. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller (London, 141920), p. 343.
11. Gk. καθῆψεν. F. Blass insists on the meaning “bit,” as also do Lake and Cadbury. “But it is a well-assured fact that the viper, a poisonous snake, only strikes, fixes the poison-fangs in the flesh for a moment, and withdraws its head instantly. Its action could never be what is attributed by Luke the eye-witness to this Maltese viper: that it hung from Paul’s hand, and was shaken off into the fire by him.” So says W. M. Ramsay, who goes on to suggest that it may have been Coronella leopardinus, a snake found in Malta and “so closely resembling a viper as to be taken for one by a good naturalist until he had caught and examined a specimen. It clings, and yet it also bites without doing harm. That the Maltese rustics should mistake this harmless snake for a venomous one is not strange.… Every detail as related by Luke is natural, and in accordance with the facts of the country” (Luke the Physician [London, 1908], pp. 63–65).
12. Coronella austriaca, a species of the same family as leopardinus (see previous 11), “is known to be rather irritable, and to fix its small teeth so firmly into the human skin as to hang on and need a little force to pull it off, though the teeth are too short to do any real injury to the skin” (Ramsay, Luke the Physician, p. 64). The accurate identification of this reptile must evidently be left to the few who combine expert knowledge of this branch of natural history with expert knowledge of Luke’s Greek terms (cf. also C. J. Hemer, “Euraquilo and Melita,” pp. 109–10). But note Ramsay’s additional remark: “A trained medical man in ancient times was usually a good authority about serpents, to which great respect was paid in ancient medicine and custom” (Luke the Physician, pp. 63–64).
13. Cf. Wisd. 1:8. A poem in the Greek Palatine Anthology (7.290) tells of a man who escaped from a storm at sea and was shipwrecked on the Libyan coast, only to be killed by a viper. See also G. Miles and G. Trompf, “Luke and Antiphon: The Theology of Acts 27–28 in the Light of Pagan Beliefs about Divine Retribution, Pollution and Shipwreck,” HTR 69 (1967), pp. 256–67.
14. He is not even a “divine man” (θεῖος ἄνθρωπος or θεῖος ἀνήρ), as supposed (e.g.) by H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, 21972), p. 147; E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (Oxford, 1971), E.T., p. 716. The anecdote, says M. Dibelius, “is told in a completely secular fashion.… it does not sound like Christian tradition concerning Paul” (Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, E.T. [London, 1956], p. 204, n. 27). It is best taken as the reminiscence of an eyewitness. There may be a reflection of the incident in the longer Markan appendix (Mark 16:18, “they will pick up serpents”).
15. In IGXIV.601 one L. Castricius, a member of the equestrian order, is called (among other designations) πρῶτος Μελιταίων, “first of the Maltese.” A Latin parallel has often been recognized in CILX. 7495, where the words Mel (itensium) primus omni[um] appear in juxtaposition; the meaning may indeed be “first of all the Maltese,” but much of the context is mutilated, and the reference may be to someone who was “first” to bestow architectural and statuary benefactions on the community (see C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative in Acts 27–28,” TynB [1985], p. 100).
16. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 343. Polybius, the Greek historian, regularly refers to the Roman general P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus by his bare praenomen Publius (Gk. Πόπλιος, as here).
17. What is traditionally called Malta fever (now no longer the menace that it once was) is caused by a microbe in goats’ milk.
18. Gk. τιμή (“honor”) may also mean honorarium; cf. Sir. 38:1, “Honor the physician with the honor due to him, according to your need of him” (or “ …according to his needs,” which brings the wording into closer affinity with our present text); Cicero, Letters to his Family 16.9.3, “that ‘honor’ be paid to the physician.” For the ambiguity cf. 1 Tim. 5:17, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor.”
19. A. Harnack, Luke the Physician, E.T. (London, 1907), p. 179.
20. Gk. Διόσκουροι (lit., “sons of Zeus”).
21. Gk. περιελόντες (the translation takes it as a shortened form of τὰς ἀγκύρας περιελόντες, “casting loose”; cf. 27:40). A variant reading is περιελθόντες (P74 אc A with a few minuscules and the Byzantine text), “sailing around” or “tacking,” as if referring to the sharp angle to be turned in getting through the Straits of Messina.
22. Gk. ἐπιμεῖναι, “to remain.” A variant reading is ἐπιμείναντες (H Ψ and several minuscules), “having remained” (which makes difficult sense).
23. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 2.122. Vegetius (On Military Affairs 4.39) says the seas are closed till March 10; this might be for voyages farther from the shore. In actual practice, the state of the weather would determine the resumption of navigation in any particular year.
24. Gk. παράσημος.
25. Horace, Odes 3.29.62–64.
26. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 346.
27. St. Paul the Traveller, p. 345.
28. J. Smith, Voyage (London, 41880), pp. 156–57.
29. Seneca, Epistle77.1.
30. Voyage, p. 157.
31. Cf. CIL XIV. 85 (inscription of Claudius, A.D. 46); Suetonius, Claudius 18.3; Dio, rt History 60.11.4, 5.
32. Josephus disembarked at Puteoli (which he calls by its Greek name Dikaiarcheia) in A.D. 63 (Life 16). See C. J. Hemer, “First Person Narrative …,” p. 93.
33. It was there in 4 B.C.; see Josephus, BJ 2.104; Ant. 17.328.
34. See 27:3; cf. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 344, n. 1.
35. This is the sense of Gk. ἦλθαν εἰς ἀπάντησιν ἡμῖν (“they came to meet us”); ἀπάντησις was almost a technical term for the official welcome of a visiting dignitary by a deputation which went out from the city to greet him and escort him for the last part of his journey; cf. the same use in Matt. 25:6; 1 Thess. 4:17 (also Cicero, Letters to Atticus 8.16.2; 16.11.6).
36. Horace, Satires 1.5.3–4. Cicero mentions Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae together in Letters to Atticus 2.10.
37. Contrast Haenchen, who even in this context says that Luke “wants Paul to proclaim in Rome the gospel up to that point unknown” (Acts, p. 720). The intelligent reader might even infer from the introduction of Priscilla and Aquila in 18:2 that the gospel had reached Rome before they left it: Luke knows that they were believers, but does not imply that they were Paul’s converts.
38. Cf. Phil. 1:12–18.
39. Cf. Rom. 1:9–13 15:22–32.
40. The Western text (followed by the Byzantine) gives a fuller reading of this verse: “When we entered Rome, the centurion handed his prisoners over to the stratopedarch, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself outside the barracks with the soldier who guarded him.”
41. Cf. Philem. 1:24; Col. 4:14.
42. It is hardly likely that such an important officer of state as the prefect of the praetorian guard (at this time Afranius Burrus) is meant. Trajan indeed directs the younger Pliny to send a prisoner in chains “to the prefects of my praetorium” (Pliny, Epistles 10.57.2), and fifty five years earlier Claudius sends the praetorian prefect in person to Baiae to arrest Valerius Asiaticus and bring him to Rome in chains (Tacitus, Annals 11.1), but Valerius was a powerful ex-consul. Another interpretation of the stratopedarch, favored by T. Mommsen (Historische Schriften, III [Berlin, 1910], pp. 552–53) and W. M. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 315, 348), identifies him with the commandant of the castra peregrinorum, the headquarters (on the Caelian hill) of legionary liaison officers (all of centurial rank) on furlough in Rome. (This commandant was called the princeps peregrinorum, a form actually given in the Old Latin codex gigas as the rendering of Gk. στρατοπέδαρχος.) But this interpretation is less likely than that proposed above.
43. See F. F. Bruce, Philippians, GNC (San Francisco, 1983), pp. xxii–xxiv, 17.
44. Gk. ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς, a phrase occurring in an allegorical sense in Heb. 13:11 (reflecting Ex. 33:7; Lev. 16:27, with reference to the camp of Israel in the wilderness). Luke has used Gk. παρεμβολή already (21:34, etc.) of the Antonia fortress in Jerusalem.
45. Cf. Phil. 1:13.
46. The Western text adds “much.”
47. The Western text adds “and cried out, ‘Away with our enemy!’ ”
48. The Western text adds “but that I might deliver my soul from death.”
49. “Reported” (ἀνήγγειλεν) officially or “spoken” (ἐλάλησεν) unofficially.
50. The names of eleven synagogues in Rome have been so preserved; see H. J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (Philadelphia, 1960), pp. 135–66; Schürer III, pp. 95–98.
51. For the general argument, and especially for the emphasis on Jesus’ resurrection as vindicating Israel’s national hope, see 23:6; 24:14–15 26:6–8, 23.
52. R. E. Brown, Antioch and Rome (London, 1983), p. 104.
53. au R. E. Brown, Antioch and Rome, p. 97.
55. Cf. Rom. 1:8; 15:14.
57. Gk. εἰς τὴν ξενίαν (ξενία is primarily “hospitality,” but it may be extended to mean the place where hospitality is dispensed; cf. Philem. 1:22, where it is translated “guest room”).
58. Gk. ἐπείθοντο, “were on the way to being persuaded.”
59. The construction (lit., “by hearing you shall hear … looking you shall look”), taken over here from LXX, represents the Hebrew use of the absolute infinitive before the finite verb to express emphasis.
60. The Western and Byzantine texts add the sentence: “And when he had said these things, the Jews departed, having much debate among themselves” (v. 29 in TR and KJV).
61. Cf. 13:17–41; 17:2–3; 26:22–23.
62. Cf. 2:16–21, 25–28, 34–35; 3:22–23; 4:25–26; 8:32–33; 13:33–35.
63. See 1 Cor. 9:19–23.
64. Josephus, Life 14.
65. See J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, E.T. (London, 1959), pp. 42–48 et passim.
67. “Paul always gets the last word—generally with devastating effect” (Lake and Cadbury, Beginnings I.4, p. 347).
68. The full LXX text, as here in Acts, is quoted in Matt. 13:14–15.
69. See J. R. Harris, Testimonies, II (Cambridge, 1920), pp. 65, 74, 137; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (London, 1952), pp. 36–39; B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic (London, 1961), pp. 159–67; A. T. Hanson, The Living Utterances of God (London, 1983), pp. 34, 67, 114–15; F. Bovon, “Schön hat der heilige Geist durch den Propheten Jesaja zu euren Vätern gesprochen (Act 28, 25),” ZNW 75 (1984), pp. 226–32.
70. F. H. Chase, The Credibility of the Acts of the Apostles (London, 1902), p. 52.
71. There is a Western addition: “saying that this is the Christ, Jesus the Son of God, by whom the whole world is to be judged.” This weakens the very effective ending of the true text.
72. See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 349.
73. Gk. ἐν ἱδίῳ μισθώματι. The sense “rented lodgings” is not otherwise attested for μίσθωμα. See H. J. Cadbury, “Lexical Notes on Luke-Acts, III. Luke’s Interest in Lodging,” JBL 45 (1926), pp. 321–22.
74. Like the poet Martial (see p. 385, 28).
75. E.G., Philo (Flaccus 128–29) says that Lampon was kept in prison during his trial for two years, described as “a very long time” (πρὸς μήκιστον χρόνον); the younger Pliny (Epistles10.56–57) speaks of a biennium fixed as a term within which those unjustly sentenced by Julius Bassus (whose acts had been annulled) might claim the right to a new trial.
76. “The Imprisonment and Supposed Trial of St. Paul in Rome,” Exp. 8, 5 (1913), pp. 264–84, reprinted in The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day (London, 1913), pp. 346–71.
77. Cf. K. Lake, “What was the End of St. Paul’s Trial?” Interpretation 5 (1908–9), pp. 147–56; H. J. Cadbury, “Roman Law and the Trial of Paul,” BeginningsI.5, pp. 325–36.
78. BGU II.628 recto, reproduced by Cadbury in Beginnings I.5, pp. 333–34, and by H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte, pp. 157–58.
79. See A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford, 1963), p. 117.
80. Sherwin-White, Roman Society …, p. 119.
81. “Two New Testament Problems. 1. St. Paul’s Fate at Rome,” Exp. 8, 5 (1913), pp. 464–67 (a reply to Ramsay’s article, “The Imprisonment and Supposed Trial of Paul,” cited in 76 above). J. Moffatt was even more positive than Bartlet; with unwarranted assurance he bluntly asserted that “as a matter of fact, Paul was not released” (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament [Edinburgh, 31918], p. 313).
82. J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, BNTC (London/New York, 1963), pp. 9–10. The tradition of a further period of ministry between Paul’s first and second Roman imprisonment is found in Eusebius (HE 2.22.2). For reconstructions of the events of this intervening period see L. P. Pherigo, “Paul’s Life after the Close of Acts,” JBL 70 (1951), pp. 277–84; S. Dockx, “Chronologie de la vie de saint Paul depuis sa libération de la première captivité romaine à son martyre à Rome,” Chronologies néotestamentaires et Vie de l’Église primitive (Leuven, 1984), pp. 151–60.
83. The last word in the book is ἀκωλύτως, “unhindered”; according to J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London, 1930), p. 20, “the word is legal to the last” (so that such a legal tag as “without let or hindrance” would be an apt rendering).
84. J. A. Bengel, Gnomon Novi Testamenti ([Tübingen, 1742] London, 31862), p. 489.