A. Peter In Western Judaea (9:32–43)

32 While Peter was making a general tour⁷³ he came down to the saints who resided at Lydda.

33 There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been confined to bed for eight years.

34 “Aeneas,” said Peter to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed.” He got up at once.

35 All the residents of Lydda and the (Plain of) Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

32 We left Peter in 8:25 when he returned to Jerusalem with John from their visit to Samaria. Now we find him, taking advantage probably of the collapse of the recent persecution, engaged in an itinerant ministry of visitation among the dispersed Christian communities of Judaea. There was one such community in Lydda (the Greek name of Lod). The nucleus of this community was doubtless formed of fugitives from the persecution in Jerusalem; we should remember also that Philip passed through those parts preaching the gospel on his way from Azotus to Caesarea (8:40). Lydda was at this time the center of a Judaean toparchy or administrative district.

33–34 It is natural to suppose that Aeneas, the man whom Peter cured from his eight-year-old paralysis⁷⁴ at Lydda, was a member of the local Christian group, though this is not expressly stated. The command, “Jesus Christ heals you,” may involve a play on words in the Greek.⁷⁵ The following words, “Get up and make your bed,” might alternatively be rendered, “Get up and set the table for yourself”—that is, “Get yourself something to eat.”⁷⁶ This has been thought to accord well with the interest shown by Luke and other New Testament writers in the provision of nourishment for convalescents.⁷⁷ But the rendering “Make your bed” is more probable in the context. If Aeneas was already at home, he could not be told to roll up his mattress and go home with it, like the paralytic of Capernaum in Mark 2:9 and parallels (cf. John 5:8); but he could at least be told to roll it up and put it away.

35 The news of Aeneas’s cure spread throughout the neighborhood and all over the coastal plain of Sharon. Many of the people in that area came to see him, and the result was a further access of believers. Since much of this territory was semi-Gentile in population, a further widening of the range of the saving message is implied.

2. Peter at Joppa: the Raising of Dorcas (9:36–43)

36 Meanwhile at Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha—her name means “Gazelle” (Dorcas in Greek). She spent all her time in the performance of good works and acts of kindness.

37 About that time she fell sick and died, so they washed her and laid her in an upper room.

38 The disciples at Joppa heard that Peter was at Lydda, so, as Lydda was near Joppa, they sent two men to him with the request: “Please come over to us without delay.”

39 Peter got up and went with the men. When he arrived, they brought him up to the upper room, and all the widows came up to him and stood weeping, showing the dresses and coats which Dorcas made⁷⁸ while she was with them.

40 Peter put everyone out, knelt down, and prayed, and then, turning to the body, said, “Tabitha, get up.”⁷⁹ She opened her eyes and, seeing Peter, she sat up.

41 Then he gave her his hand and raised her up; he called in the saints and the widows and presented her alive.

42 This became known throughout the whole of Joppa, and many believed on the Lord.

43 Then Peter stayed in Joppa for a considerable time with one Simon, a tanner.

36–38 Joppa (Jaffa, Heb. Yafo) is on the Mediterranean coast, about ten or eleven miles northwest of Lydda. It is mentioned in Egyptian records of the fifteenth century B.C., and several times in the Old Testament. Today it is included in a large conurbation with the modern city of Tel-aviv.

In Joppa, as in Lydda, there was a group of believers in Jesus. While Peter was in Lydda, a member of this group fell sick and died. Her name, Tabitha, is Aramaic, meaning “gazelle”⁸⁰ Dorcas is the Greek equivalent. (The corresponding Hebrew form, Zibiah, occurs as a woman’s name in 2 Kings 12:1.) Dorcas’s works of Christian charity had specially endeared her to her friends and neighbors. The leaders of the believers in Joppa, having heard perhaps of Peter’s healing of Aeneas, sent to Lydda and begged him to come on to Joppa.⁸¹ (It is interesting to note how frequently in Acts, as here, a delegation consists of two men.)

39 Peter went to Joppa with the two messengers, and was brought without delay into the room where Dorcas’s body had been laid out, after being washed in accordance with the Jewish custom of purification of the dead.⁸² There stood the widows who had been the principal beneficiaries of her charity, displaying, as they wore them,⁸³ the garments that Dorcas had made for them.

40–42 Peter sent them and the other mourners out of the room, as he had seen his Master do before he raised Jairus’s daughter from her deathbed; then he uttered a short sentence in Aramaic, differing only in one letter from Jesus’ words to Jairus’s daughter. Whereas Jesus had said Talitha qum(i) (Mark 5:41),⁸⁴ Peter now said Tabitha qum(i)—“Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes and sat up, and Peter raised her to her feet and presented her alive to her wondering friends.⁸⁵ “The circumstantial details of the gradual recovery of Tabitha,” says Hobart, “are quite in the style of medical description.”⁸⁶ Many other inhabitants of Joppa inevitably joined the followers of a Master by whose power so marvelous an act of healing and restoration had been accomplished.

43 Peter stayed on in Joppa for a considerable time. His host, Simon the tanner, lived by the seaside; no doubt he used sea water in his work.⁸⁷ It would not be surprising if he lived a little way outside the town; some degree of uncleanness was reckoned to attach to a tanner’s work, because it involved regular contact with the skins of dead animals. Luke shows an interest in the names of hosts and hostesses and in people’s occupations.⁸⁸

73. Gk. “going through all (parts).”

74. It is possible to understand (v. 33) in the sense “since eight years old,” but the usual interpretation is the more probable.

75. Gk. . In a Greek ear. might well seem to be cognate with , “heal” (see p. 331, n. 35, on 17:18). The present is aoristic: “he heals you this moment” (see MHT I, p. 119). But H. J. Cadbury, “A Possible Perfect in Acts 9:34,” JTS 49 (1948). pp. 57–58, suggests accenting the word as perfect, (“has healed”).

76. Gk. . The object to has to be supplied: it might be “bed” or “table.”

77. Cf. v. 19a above; also Mark 5:43 par. Luke 8:55.

78. Gk. (“used to make”). P⁴⁵ reads (“had made for them”).

79. The Western text adds “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. 3:6).

80. Aram, taby‘ta..

81. Their words in v. 38 (lit., “Do not hesitate to come to us”) amount simply to a polite request: “Please come to us”.

82. Cf. Mishnah, 23.5.

83. The middle voice, , suggests this. Widows are mentioned here, as in 6:1, because they were natural recipients of charity. They are not members of a special order attached to the church, as in 1 Tim. 5:3–16.

84. The Western text of Mark 5:41, by confusion with this passage of Acts, reads Talitha in place of Talitha.

85. “To the saints and widows,” says Luke, not meaning that the widows could not be saints. But no doubt Dorcas’s charity extended beyond the bounds of the local community of disciples.

86. W. K. Hobart, The Medical Language of St. Luke (Dublin, 1882), p. 41.

87. A. Harnack suggested that Peter’s trade of fisherman influenced his choice of a house near the sea (The Acts of the Apostles, E.T. [London, 1909], p. 85).

88. See H. J. Cadbury, “Lexical Notes on Luke-Acts, III. Luke’s Interest in Lodging,” JBL 45 (1926), pp. 305–22.

ACTS 10

B. THE STORY OF CORNELIUS (10:1–48)

1. Cornelius the Centurion Sees a Vision (10:1–8)

1 At Caesarea there lived a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian cohort.

2 He was a religious man; he and all his household worshiped God, and he performed many acts of charity to the (Jewish) people and prayed to God regularly.

3 One day, about the ninth hour, he saw in a vision, clearly, an angel of God who came in to him and said to him, “Cornelius!”

4 Filled with awe, he fixed his eyes on him and said, “What is it, sir?”

“Your prayers and your acts of charity,” said the angel to him, “have ascended as a memorial into the presence of God.

5 Now, dispatch men to Joppa and send for Simon, surnamed Peter.

6 He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seashore.”

7 When the angel who spoke to him departed, Cornelius called two of his household servants, and one of the soldiers who were in attendance on him, himself a religious man,

8 and when he had told them the whole story, he sent them to Joppa.

1 The range of the apostolic message has been steadily broadened. Already it has begun to cross the barrier which separated Jews from Gentiles; now the time has come for that barrier to be crossed authoritatively by an apostle.

The apostle who crossed it was Peter, the leader of the Twelve; the place where he crossed it was the largely Gentile city of Caesarea. The Gentiles who first heard the gospel from his lips were the family and friends of Cornelius,¹ a centurion in the Roman army, belonging to one of the auxiliary cohorts stationed in Judaea.²

The centurions who make their appearance in the New Testament record make a favorable impression. It is noteworthy that the first Gentile with whom Jesus had dealings during his public ministry (so far as we are informed) was a centurion stationed in Capernaum (possibly seconded from the Roman army to the security forces of Herod Antipas); it was with reference to this man’s faith that he is reported to have said, “many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8: 11).³ These words now began to find their fulfilment in another centurion.

A centurion was nominally in command of a hundred men: although his status was that of a noncommissioned officer, his responsibilities were more like those of a modern army captain. Centurions were the backbone of the Roman army. The historian Polybius sums up their necessary qualifications thus: “Centurions are required not to be bold and adventurous so much as good leaders, of steady and prudent mind, not prone to take the offensive or start fighting wantonly, but able when overwhelmed and hard-pressed to stand fast and die at their post.”⁴

Peter and Cornelius were each prepared by a visionary experience for their encounter. The whole narrative, which “bears the stamp both of probability and truth” (in Foakes-Jackson’s view),⁵ is of great importance not only because it tells how Peter used the keys of the kingdom to open a “door of faith” to Gentiles, but also because it introduces the questions of social intercourse between Jewish believers and Gentiles and of the admission of Gentile believers to the church without circumcision. These questions were later debated at the Council of Jerusalem, and the Cornelius episode was there adduced as a test case (15:7–9). Luke’s appreciation of the importance of the Cornelius episode is shown by the space he devotes to Peter’s rehearsal of his experience in 11:4–17, as well as by the repetition of salient features of the incident within the present narrative.⁶

2 It is further important to observe that Cornelius, though a Gentile, was a worshiper of the God of Israel. Such Gentiles are commonly called “God-fearers”; while this is not a technical term, it is a convenient one to use.⁷ Many Gentiles of those days, while not prepared to become full converts to Judaism⁸ (the requirement of circumcision being a special stumbling block for men), were attracted by the simple monotheism of Jewish synagogue worship and by the ethical standards of the Jewish way of life. Some of them attended synagogue and became tolerably conversant with the prayers and scripture lessons, which they heard read in the Greek version; some observed with more or less scrupulosity such distinctive Jewish practices as sabbath observance and abstention from certain kinds of food (notably pork). Cornelius’s attachment to the Jewish religion appeared particularly in his regular prayer to the God of Israel and acts of charity to the people of Israel. One may say, indeed, that he had every qualification, short of circumcision, which could satisfy Jewish requirements.

The Roman army had its own religious observances, officially prescribed for appointed days and carried out with the same routine punctiliousness as modern church parades, but utterly incapable of feeding men’s souls.⁹ Roman soldiers who felt the need to satisfy their religious hunger looked elsewhere—many to Mithraism; some, like Cornelius, to Judaism.

That the first Gentiles to hear and accept the gospel (like the Ethiopian eunuch and Cornelius) should be worshipers of the God of Israel is the more significant for the record of Acts because, as we shall see, it was such God-fearers who formed the nucleus of the Christian community in one city after another in the course of Paul’s missionary activity. Luke’s interest in them is such that one may wonder if he himself was not a God-fearing Gentile who believed the gospel when he heard it.

3–6 To Cornelius, then, one afternoon at the regular hour of prayer (cf. 3:1) a heavenly messenger appeared in a vision. His initial alarm at being adressed by such a visitant was overcome when he was assured that his faithfulness in prayer and almsgiving had not been overlooked by God but had been accepted by him as a worthy oblation. The angel’s language is full of sacrificial terminology such as we find in the prescriptions for the levitical offerings; Cornelius’s acts of piety and charity had ascended into the divine presence like incense or the smoke of a sacrifice.¹⁰ God would honor the “memorial” with a suitable response; the nature of that response would be made clear to Cornelius if he sent to a certain house in Joppa and invited one Simon Peter, who was resident there, to come and visit him.

7–8 Immediately Cornelius carried out the instructions he had received in the vision. He dispatched two of his domestic servants and one of his orderlies, a God-fearing soldier like himself, to Joppa.

2. Peter Sees a Vision (10:9–16)

9 The next day, while those men were on their way and near the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. It was about the sixth hour.

10 He became hungry and wanted to eat. While something was being prepared for him, he fell into a trance.

11 He saw heaven opened and something¹¹ descending like a great sheet, being let down to earth by its four corners.

12 In it were all the quadrupeds and creeping things of the earth¹² and the birds of the sky.

13 A voice came to him: “Get up, Peter;¹³ kill them and eat them.”

14 “No, Lord,” said Peter; “I have never eaten anything profane or unclean.”

15 A voice came to him again a second time: “You must not regard as profane what God has cleansed.”

16 This happened three times; then the thing was at once¹⁴ taken back up to heaven.

9–10 Peter had to be prepared for the encounter as well as Cornelius, and there were scruples to be overcome on Peter’s side as there were not on Cornelius’s. A God-fearing Gentile like Cornelius had no objection to the society of Jews, but even a moderately orthodox Jew would not willingly enter the dwelling of a Gentile, God-fearer though he might be. No doubt some of Peter’s inherited scruples were weighing less heavily with him by this time, but to make him accept an invitation to visit a Gentile a special revelation was necessary.

Such a revelation came to Peter the day after Cornelius’s vision, when the messengers from Caesarea were approaching Joppa. About noon Peter went up on the flat roof of the tanner’s house for quiet and prayer. Noon was not one of the appointed times for public prayer, but pious Jews like Daniel (Dan. 6:10) who prayed three times a day probably prayed then (cf. Ps. 55:17). While Peter was on the housetop he began to feel hungry¹⁵and probably called down for some food. It was while this was being prepared that the revelation came to him in a vision, and it was no doubt because of his hunger that the vision centered around food.

11–13 In this ecstatic experience Peter seemed to see a large, sheetlike object coming down from the sky. Whether it was the awning designed to give him shade on the housetop, or a sail on the western horizon, that assumed this form in his vision need not concern us. When it came down where Peter was, however, the sheet proved to be full of all sorts of quad-rupeds, reptiles, and birds,¹⁶ both fit and unfit for food according to Jewish law and custom.¹⁷ The vision of these was accompanied by a heavenly voice bidding him slaughter and eat what was thus provided.

14–16 This was all wrong, as Peter’s ancestral conscience told him. Unclean animals could not be used for food at all, and even “clean” animals had to be slaughtered with ritual propriety before their flesh could be eaten. Peter’s protest against the divine injunction took verbal shape much as the prophet Ezekiel’s protest had once taken when he was commanded to prepare and eat “abominable flesh” (Ezek. 4:14): “No, Lord; I have never eaten anything profane or unclean,” said Peter (with the implication: “and I am not going to begin now”).¹⁸ Back came the heavenly voice: “You must not regard as profane what God has cleansed.” Three times over this interchange took place; then the sheet went up with its contents and the vision dissolved.

The abolition of barriers was pressed home in the vision with special reference to Jewish food restrictions, but Peter soon learned that its range was much wider.¹⁹ Perhaps, as he thought about the vision, he remembered hearing similar words on an earlier occasion, though he had not then grasped their import. No doubt he was present when his Master, in a debate with Pharisees and scribes, insisted that it is not what goes into someone’s stomach that conveys defilement, but what comes out of one’s heart (Mark 7:14–19a). This was in effect an abrogation of ceremonial food laws and much else of the same character, but it was not until later, as a result of his experience on the roof at Joppa, that Peter appreciated this. It may well be to Peter that we owe the comment appended by the evangelist to Jesus’ pronouncement on this subject: “Thus he declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19b).

The divine cleansing of food in the vision is a parable of the divine cleansing of human beings in the incident to which the vision leads up. It did not take Peter long to understand this: “God has taught me,” he says later in the present narrative, “to call no human being profane or unclean” (v. 30). Within the framework of the vision it is food that God has cleansed by dominical pronouncement, but in the wider narrative it is men and women, even Gentiles, whose hearts he has cleansed by faith (cf. 15:9). Yet the cleansing of food is not wholly parabolic: there is a connection between the abrogation of the levitical food restrictions and the removal of the barrier between believing Jews and Gentiles, for it was in large measure the Gentiles’ eating of food which was “unclean” (not kosher) by Jewish law that made association with them a source of “defilement” for Jews (cf. v. 28).

3. The Messengers from Cornelius Arrive at Joppa (10:17–23a)

17 As Peter was at a loss to understand what might be the meaning of the vision he had seen, the men whom Cornelius had sent, having inquired for Simon’s house, stood there and then at the street door.

18 They called out and asked if Simon, surnamed Peter, was lodging there.

19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “See, there are three²⁰ men looking for you.

20 Get up, go down, and accompany them on their way. Do not hesitate; it is I who have sent them.”

21 So Peter went down to the men²¹ and said, “See, I am the man you are looking for. What is the cause of your being here?”

22 They said, “The centurion Cornelius, a just and God-fearing man, who enjoys a good reputation among the whole Jewish nation, was instructed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.”

23a Then Peter invited them in and entertained them.

17–20 The trance was over, but Peter remained on the roof, deep in thought, pondering the significance of what he had seen and heard in the vision. Suddenly the Spirit of God, by an inward monition, gave him to know that some men were looking for him, and that he was to go with them without any doubt or hesitation. For at that moment, the messengers from Caesarea, having made inquiry for Simon the tanner’s house, were standing at the street door.

It may be asked if there is any distinction between the angelic communication to Cornelius (vv. 3–6) and Peter’s prompting by the Spirit, just as a similar question had to be considered in the narrative of Philip and the Ethiopian (8:26–39). Here the distinction is rather obvious: the angelic communication was made “in a vision, clearly” (v. 3), whereas Peter was conscious of a voice within. But the more general question arises of the relation between one’s experience of the Holy Spirit and one’s experience of the risen Christ—a question all the more difficult to answer because it is through the Holy Spirit that the risen Christ manifests his presence and power.²² But whom did Peter consider that he was addressing as “Lord” when he declined the invitation to slaughter and eat the meat provided in his vision? On that occasion the voice seemed to come from without, one gathers, and it was probably a voice that Peter well remembered, and instantly recognized.

21–23a Peter then went down (by an outside stairway, no doubt) and found Cornelius’s messengers at the door asking for him. He told them that he was the man they were looking for, and asked the reason for their visit. So they told him how their master Cornelius had been divinely instructed to invite him to his house, in order to hear an important communication from him. By this time the meal which Peter had called for was ready, so he brought the men in to share it. Not only so, but he provided accommodation for them overnight, as it was too late to set out for Caesarea after he had entertained them. For Peter to entertain these Gentiles in his lodgings was a step in the right direction, although it did not expose him to such a risk of defilement as would a Jew’s acceptance of hospitality in a Gentile’s house.

4. Peter Enters the House of Cornelius (10:23b–33)

23b The next day he got up and set out with them. Some of the brothers from Joppa went along with him.

24 The following day he entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them;²³ he had called together his relatives and his close friends.

25 When Peter arrived, Cornelius met him; he fell at his feet and did him reverence.

26 But Peter raised him up; “Stand up,” he said, “I too am a human being.”

27 So, conversing with him, he went in and found many come together.

28 Then he said to them, “You know²⁴ how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate or make common cause with a foreigner; but God has taught me to call no human being profane or unclean.

29 Therefore, when I was sent for, I came without demurring. I should like to know, then, the reason you have sent for me.”

30 “Four days ago²⁵ at this time,” said Cornelius, “I was praying²⁶ in my house at the ninth hour. Suddenly a man stood before me in shining clothes.

31 ‘Cornelius,’said he, ‘your prayer has been heard and your acts of charity have been remembered in the presence of God.

32 Therefore send to Joppa and call for Simon, surnamed Peter; he is lodging in the house of Simon a tanner, by the seashore.’²⁷

33 Immediately therefore I sent to you,²⁸ and you have been so good as to come.²⁹ Now then, we are all here present before God,³⁰ to hear all that the Lord has directed you to say.”

23b–24 On Day 1 Cornelius saw the angel and sent his messengers to Joppa; on Day 2 they arrived at Joppa about midday, just after Peter’s ecstatic experience on the roof of Simon’s house. On Day 3 he set out for Caesarea with them. In view of the novelty of his mission, he acted wisely in taking some fellow-believers from Joppa with him—six in number, as he himself reports in 11:12. They spent the night of Day 3 somewhere on the way between Joppa and Caesarea, and reached Caesarea on Day 4.³¹ Mean-while Cornelius had gathered his relatives and close friends in his house, ready for Peter’s arrival.

25–26 When Peter arrived, Cornelius hurried out and paid him the respect which he judged fitting for a messenger of God, prostrating himself at the apostle’s feet in an attitude of homage and supplication.³² A messenger of God was supposed to have some godlike quality himself, to be a theios anēr, as the technical term has it.³³ It is unlikely that Peter had ever had such reverence paid to him before, and no doubt it embarrassed him considerably: “Please get up,” he said, helping his host to rise to his feet; “I am only a mortal myself.”

27–29 Then, talking with him in a friendly manner, Peter accompanied him indoors, and there was the whole group of Cornelius’s friends, full of eager expectation. Two or three days previously, Peter would not have believed it possible that he could find himself in such company, under a Gentile roof; but much had happened since then. “You know very well,” he said to Cornelius and the others, “that to mix in Gentile society is taboo³⁴ for a pious Jew; but God has taught me not to regard any person as unfit to associate with.” Actually, the terms of his vision on the housetop at Joppa taught him to call no food profane or unclean if God pronounced it clean; but he was quick to grasp the analogy between ceremonial food laws and the conventions affecting intercourse with non-Jews. It was largely because of their lack of scruples in food matters that Gentiles were ritually unsafe people for a pious Jew to meet socially. Intercourse with Gentiles was not categorically forbidden; but it was liable to render a Jew ceremonially unclean, as was even the entering of a Gentile building³⁵ or the handling of articles belonging to Gentiles. The most ordinary kinds of food, such as bread, milk, or olive oil, coming from Gentiles, might not be eaten by strict Jews, not to mention flesh, which might have come from a forbidden animal or from one that had been sacrificed to a pagan divinity, and which in any case contained blood. Hence, of all forms of intercourse with Gentiles, to accept their hospitality and sit at table with them was the most intolerable. However, Peter’s lesson had so impressed itself on his mind that he accompanied Cornelius’s messengers without scruple or protest. And now that he had arrived, he asked them to state more fully their reason for inviting him.

30–33 Cornelius then described the vision,³⁶ which he had seen three days before (four days by inclusive reckoning), at the very hour at which he was now speaking, the hour of afternoon prayer. He repeated the words spoken to him by the celestial visitant who stood before him in shining robes.³⁷ It was in accordance with his directions, he explained, that he had sent for Peter, and he heartily thanked him for coming so promptly. “Now then,” he said, “we are all here present before God, to hear all that the Lord has directed you to say.” Never had a preacher of the gospel a more promising audience—as promising in its way as Philip’s one-man audience on the Gaza road when he was invited to expound the Isaianic prophecy of the suffering Servant (8:30–35).

5. Gentiles Hear the Good News (10:34–43)

34 Then Peter spoke up. “In truth,” he said, “I realize that God has no favorites;

35 but in every nation one who fears him and does what is righteous is acceptable to him.

36 You know the message that³⁸ he sent to the people of Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all—

37 (you know) what took place³⁹ throughout all Judaea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism⁴⁰ which John proclaimed,

38 concerning Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all who were under the devil’s domination, because God was with him.

39 We indeed are witnesses of all that he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. The one whom they put to death by hanging him on a gibbet,

40 he is the one whom God raised up on the third day⁴¹ and caused to be manifested—

41 not to all the people, but to witnesses whom God appointed in advance—to us, in fact, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.⁴²

42 He charged us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of living and dead.

43 It is to him that all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

34–35 The expression “Then Peter spoke up” (literally, “Peter opened his mouth”) is one that is used to introduce some weighty utterance. The first words that Peter spoke were words of the weightiest import, sweeping away the racial and religious prejudices of centuries. The words of Cornelius confirmed the lesson that Peter himself had learned in Joppa: God has no favorites⁴³ as between one nation and another, but anyone, from whatever nation, who fears him and acts rightly⁴⁴ is acceptable to him. This may be the veriest truism to us, but it was a revolutionary revelation to Peter. Yet it was implicit in the teaching of the early prophets. They insisted that God’s choice of Israel was an act of grace, not of partiality, and that it called for a response of obedient service, not of careless complacency. If God brought Israel out of Egypt into the land of their inheritance, he had also brought the Philistines from Crete and the Syrians from Kir (Amos 9:7). On a coming day God would bless “Egypt my people” and “Assyria the work of my hands” along with “Israel my heritage” (Isa. 19:25). If, as Micah said, the Lord’s primary requirements were that men and women should act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God (Mic. 6:8), then Gentiles might fulfil these requirements as readily as Israelites. Luke, himself a Gentile by birth, had good reason to emphasize the narrative of the bringing in of the Gentiles, by the cumulative repetitions within the narrative and by other means.

36–37 Peter’s address, which Foakes-Jackson pronounced “peculiarly appropriate to the occasion”⁴⁵ (although Martin Dibelius regarded it as an interpolation into the original Cornelius story),⁴⁶ is devoted almost entirely to a summary of the apostolic preaching. Some acquaintance with the main outline of the story of Jesus is presumed (for Peter’s hearers were far from being raw pagans), but more details are given than in the summaries of Peter’s earlier speeches.⁴⁷ How far this reflects the actual amount of detail given by Peter in his respective addresses, and how far it is due to the way in which Luke summarizes them, cannot easily be decided. C. H. Dodd is no doubt right in suggesting “that the speech before Cornelius represents the form of kerygma used by the primitive Church in its earliest approaches to a wider preaching.”⁴⁸ The scope of the kerygma, as attested by this address of Peter’s, is almost exactly the scope of Mark’s Gospel,⁴⁹ beginning with John’s baptismal ministry, and going on to tell of Jesus? ministry in Galilee,⁵⁰ Judaea,⁵¹ and Jerusalem, of his crucifixion and resurrection, followed by the insistence on personal witness and on the coming judgment, with the offer of forgiveness through faith in him here and now. But the reference to Jesus’ resurrection appearances corresponds not to Mark’s record (in which no such appearances are extant) but to Luke’s. This is specially evident in the statement that the apostles “ate and drank” with the risen Lord (v. 41).

In the house of Cornelius Peter may have spoken Greek, but some have thought it more probable that he spoke in Aramaic through an interpreter.⁵² This speech, at any rate, is more strongly marked by Aramaisms than Peter’s speeches in the earlier chapters of Acts. The presence of Aramaisms suggests that the speech is not Luke’s free invention, but a rather literal reproduction of what he found in his source (whether written or oral). The Greek of verses 36–38 in particular reads somewhat awkwardly, as do the fairly literal renderings in the older English versions, but it is claimed that it can be turned back word for word into idiomatic and intelligible Aramaic.⁵³

38 The statement that Jesus of Nazareth was “anointed” by God with the Holy Spirit and power is reminiscent of the words of Isa. 61:1–2 which Jesus read in the Nazareth synagogue—“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me …”—and which he claimed to be fulfilled that day in his ministry (Luke 4:17–21).⁵⁴ The prophet who introduces himself in these words may be assuming the role of the Servant of Isa. 42:1–53:12.⁵⁵ When the Servant is first presented in Isa. 42:1, he is described as God’s chosen one on whom he had put his Spirit; this brings him into relation with the predicted ruler of David’s line in Isa. 11:1–5 on whom “the Spirit of the LORD shall rest.” It was at his baptism that Jesus was thus anointed, for then the Holy Spirit descended on him from above, while the voice from heaven acclaimed him as God’s Son and chosen one—Messiah and Servant in one. Part of the force of Peter’s words will come home to us if for a moment we render “God anointed him” as “God made him Messiah.”⁵⁶ These words may be understood as “commenting upon the meaning and implication of an already accepted name of Jesus” (i.e., the Christ).⁵⁷

When Jesus had been thus anointed, he “returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:14) and embarked on a ministry which fulfilled the terms of Isa. 61:1–2 and other passages of prophetic scripture—healing the sick and delivering the demon-possessed,⁵⁸ proclaiming in word and action the good news of the kingdom of God. When we consider this brief summary of the preaching, we should reflect that in its actual delivery it would be amplified by the inclusion of examples of Jesus’ works of mercy and power (“paradigms,” to use a technical term of form criticism), such as are recorded in the Gospels.⁵⁹

39 Peter insists that he and his colleagues are eyewitnesses of those things, which took place throughout the whole land of Israel. Yet Jesus’ works of healing and release, he goes on, did not prevent him from being put to death—and put to death by that means on which the law of Moses pronounced a curse, for his enemies killed him “by hanging him on a gibbet.” We have already considered the significance of this particular expression as a way to describe death by crucifixion (cf. 5:30).⁶⁰

40–41 Again, as so often in the apostolic preaching, comes the pointed contrast between men’s treatment of the Christ and God’s treatment of him: the very one whom men put to death is the one whom God raised to new life on the third day.⁶¹ There could be no doubt about his resurrection: he appeared to many witnesses—not indeed to the people at large but to those selected by God to see and proclaim the risen Savior, Peter and his fellow-disciples. They could testify with assurance to his resurrection, for they had not only seen him alive again after his passion but had even eaten and drunk with him. Luke, the only one of the four evangelists who records the risen Lord’s eating with his disciples (Luke 24:41–43), regarded this as among the most convincing of the many tokens of his bodily resurrection (cf. 1:4 above); so, at a later date, did Ignatius (“he ate and drank with them as a being of flesh, although he was spiritually united to the Father”). The disciples were assured that it was no bodiless phantom that appeared to them.⁶²

42 During these appearances, said Peter, Christ commanded him and the other apostles to proclaim “to the people” the message of the kingdom of God, now inaugurated by his death and resurrection, and also to announce him as the one divinely appointed to be judge of all, both living and dead—the “one like a son of man” of Daniel’s vision to whom was committed authority to execute judgment (Dan. 7:13–14; John 5:27).⁶³

While the apostles’ commission was worldwide—“to the end of the earth,” according to 1:8—Peter speaks of it as specifically directed to the Jewish people (cf. 13:31); and this is in accord with historical fact. Apart from his present visit to Cornelius, Peter is not recorded as evangelizing Gentiles. A few years after this, at the Jerusalem conference described in Gal. 2:1–10, it was agreed that Peter and his colleagues should concentrate on evangelizing Jews, while Paul and Barnabas should continue to discharge their commission to preach to the Gentiles; and the narrative of Acts reflects this division of labor. As for the commission of 1:8, Peter and the Eleven bore witness in Jerusalem and Judaea and Philip the evangelist (primarily) in Samaria, but in Luke’s record the spreading of the message to the end of the earth is reserved for Paul.

43 The function of the risen Christ was by no means limited to the execution of judgment; he was also the one through whom, as the prophets agreed, those who believed on him would have their sins forgiven.⁶⁴ As Jesus said himself when he cured the paralytic of Capernaum, “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10). Peter’s appeal to “all the prophets” would be supported by relevant quotations from their writings, including most probably the portrayal of the Servant of the Lord who was to “make the many righteous” and “bear their iniquities” (Isa. 53:11).

6. Gentiles Receive the Holy Spirit (10:44–48)

44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all who were listening to the message.

45 The believers of the circumcision who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on Gentiles;

46 for they heard them speaking with⁶⁵ tongues and magnifying God.

47 Then Peter said, “Can anyone forbid water? Why should these people not be baptized, since they have received the Holy Spirit as we also did?”

48 So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of⁶⁶ Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for some days.

44 Peter had not yet finished his address⁶⁷ when the “Pentecost of the Gentile world” took place.⁶⁸ The Holy Spirit fell on all his listeners. The event was not so much a second Pentecost, standing alongside the first, as the participation of Gentile believers in the experience of the first Pentecost.⁶⁹ What was involved was later summed up by Paul: “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks” (1 Cor. 12:13).

But, so far as the hearers of the apostolic preaching were concerned, the order of events differed markedly from that of the hearers on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. The hearers in Jerusalem were exhorted to repent and be baptized in order to receive the remission of sins and the gift of the Spirit. But the experience of the hearers in Caesarea reproduced rather that of the original company of disciples in Jerusalem, on whom the Spirit descended suddenly.⁷⁰ This may be recognized in Peter’s drawing a parallel (v. 47) between the household of Cornelius and the original disciples rather than between the household of Cornelius and the three thousand who believed on the day of Pentecost (cf. 11:15; 15:8).

45–46 The descent of the Spirit on those Gentiles was outwardly manifested in much the same way as it had been when the original disciples received the Spirit at Pentecost: they spoke with tongues and proclaimed the mighty works of God.⁷¹ Apart from such external manifestations, none of the Jewish believers present, perhaps not even Peter himself, would have been so ready to accept the reality of the Spirit’s coming upon them. The Jewish believers who had accompanied Peter from Joppa were astounded by what they saw and heard: Gentiles, those “lesser breeds without the law,” had actually received the same Holy Spirit as they themselves had received on believing the same message. How right Peter had been in his new insight into the impartiality of God as between people of one race and another! As in Peter’s vision the voice of God overruled food restrictions, even those imposed with the authority of divine law, so now the act of God in sending the Spirit overruled the sacred tradition which forbade association with Gentiles.

47–48 On the day of Pentecost (2:37–41) the sequence of initiation into the new community was conviction of sin, repentance and faith, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and the reception of the Spirit. Here the reception of the Spirit comes first. There is no explicit mention of faith in the immediate context, but it is certainly implied; it is suggested more definitely in 11:17, where Peter’s words “when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ” clearly mean that the Gentiles received the Spirit when they believed,⁷² while in 15:7–9 Peter expressly links the Gentiles’ reception of the Spirit with their believing and having their hearts cleansed by faith.⁷³ Only after the manifest descent of the Spirit on these believing Gentiles were they baptized in water. As for the imposition of apostolic hands⁷⁴ (whatever inferences may be drawn from the silence on this subject in ch. 2), nothing of the kind took place before the Gentiles received the Spirit, and nothing is said about its taking place subsequently.

Had Peter not been confronted with a divine fait accompli in the outpouring of the Spirit on Cornelius and his friends, he might not have taken the initiative in having them baptized. But, as things were, God had plainly accepted them, and Peter had no option but to accept what God had done. In justifying his action a few days later, he asked, “Who was I to hinder God?” (11:17). Here his question, “Can anyone forbid water?” (like the Ethiopian’s question in 8:36, “What prevents me from being baptized?”), has been thought to point to a primitive custom by which, before a convert was baptized, it was inquired if there was any “just cause or impediment” why the baptism should not take place.⁷⁵ Whether this was so or not, no impediment was alleged on the present occasion, and Peter gave orders that these new believers should be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.⁷⁶ Their reception of the Spirit was not regarded as a substitute for baptism in water; rather, their baptism in water was the fitting response to the act of God in bestowing his Spirit. But no one appears to have suggested that Cornelius should be circumcised. His case thus served as a specially appropriate precedent when the question of the circumcision of Gentile believers was later raised at the Jerusalem council (ch. 15).

1. Cornelius was a specially common name in Rome ever since 82 B.C., when P. Cornelius Sulla emancipated 10,000 slaves who were enrolled in his own gens Cornelia.

2. In the regular Roman army a cohort was the tenth part of a legion and had a paper strength of 600 men. But there were no legionary troops in Judaea between A.D. 6 and 66; the Roman governors of Judaea commanded auxiliary forces. An auxiliary cohort had a paper strength of 1,000 men. The “Italian cohort” was one of these; it was so called presumably because it was originally raised in Italy, but in due course it would have consisted increasingly of provincials. Indeed, the soldiers making up an auxiliary unit were usually provincials; they were, however, awarded Roman citizenship when their term of service had expired. There is inscriptional evidence (ILS 9168) for the presence in Syria C. A.D. 69 of the auxiliary cohors II Italica ciuium Romanorum (“second Italian cohort of Roman citizens”); but we have no direct evidence of the identity of the military units in Judaea between A.D. 6 and 41. See further on 27:1, “the Augustain cohort.”

3. The logion occurs also in Luke 13:28–29, but not in the context of the healing of the centurion’s servant (which is related in Luke 7:2–10).

4. Polybius, History 6. 24.

5. F. J. Foakes-Jackson, The Acts of the Apostles, MNTC (London, 1931), p. 87. M. Dibelius distinguishes the original story (derived, he thinks, from the tradition of some Hellenistic communities) from Lukan additions; see further on 10:14–16 (p. 206, n. 19); 10:36–37 (p. 212, n. 46); 11:2–3 (p. 220).

6. E.g., Cornelius’s repetition (vv. 30–32) of the substance of his vision (vv. 3–6).

7. See Schürer III, pp. 150–77; K. G. Kuhn, TDNT 6, pp. 743–44 (s.v. D II); L. H. Feldman, “Jewish‘ ‘Sympathizers’ in Classical Literature and Inscriptions,” TAPA 81 (1950), pp. 200–208; F. Siegert, “Gottesfürchtige und Sympathisanten,” JSJ 4 (1973), pp. 109–64; B. T. Kraabel, “The Diaspora Synagogue: Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence since Sukenik,” ANRW 2/19 (Berlin, 1979), pp. 477–510; “The Disappearance of the ’God-fearers, ’ ” Numen 28 (1981), pp. 113–26; M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, II (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 103–6; M. Wilcox, “The ‘God-fearers’ in Acts—A Reconsideration,” JSNT, issue 13 (1981), pp. 102–22; T. M. Finn, “The God-fearers Reconsidered,” CBQ 47 (1985), pp. 75–84. The “disappearance” of the God-fearers, to which Kraabel refers, amounts to the absence of any mention of them in synagogue inscriptions. There is a similar absence of mention of Jewish freedmen in Jewish catacomb inscriptions in Rome; yet there is ample evidence from other sources of the presence of Jewish freedmen in Rome and elsewhere in the empire; cf. G. Fuks, “Where have all the Freedmen gone? On an Anomaly in the Jewish Grave Inscriptions from Rome,” JJS 36 (1985), pp. 25–32.

8. See on 2:10 (p. 58 with nn. 44–47).

9. A. Ehrhardt (The Acts of the Apostles [Manchester, 1969], p. 54) illustrates this from the feriale or table of feast days for the Roman army discovered at Dura Europus on the Euphrates (cf. R. O. Fink, A. S. Hoey, and W. F. Snyder,“The Feriale Duranum,” Yale Classical Studies 7 [1940], pp. 1–222).

10. “Your prayers and your acts of charity have ascended” (Gk. ) like the smoke of a sacrifice (cf. the Hebrew word for a burnt-offering, ) lit. “ascending”). For the sacrificial reference of the word “memorial” (Gk. ) cf. Lev. 2:2 LXX, where this term is used of the part of the cereal offering which was burnt, i.e., presented to God. For the sacrificial efficacy of such religious acts as those of Cornelius cf. Ps. 141 (LXX 140):2; Tob. 12:12, and in the NT Phil. 4:18; Heb. 13:15–16.

11. Gk. “instrument”( as in 9:15); here to be rendered by a more indefinite word, such as “thing” or “object.” P⁴⁵ read “a certain object, tied by the four corners, let down on the earth.”

12. The Byzantine text place the phrase “of the earth” after “quadrupeds” and follows on with “and wild beasts” before “and creeping things” (c.f.KJV).

13. P⁴⁵omits “Peter.”

14. The Western and Byzantine texts have “again” in place of “at once” (cf. KJV).

15. The word translated “hungry” in v. 10 (Gk. ) occurs elsewhere, so far as is known, only in a first-century eye doctor named Demosthenes. F. W. Dillistone ( [Acts x. 10],” ExT 46 [1934–35], p. 380) suggests that Luke may have been a pupil of his. “Eat” is literally “taste” (); cf. 20:11 (p. 385, n. 30).

16. The animal world is classified under these three divisions in Gen. 6:20 (“birds … cattle … every creeping thing of the ground”).

17. The laws distinguishing clean from unclean animals are laid down in Lev. 11:2–47. Those quadrupeds were clean (and therefore fit for food) which both chewed the cud and had cloven hooves.

18. Peter might no doubt have slaughtered and eaten one of the “clean” animals; but he was scandalized by the unholy mixture of clean animals with unclean. This is specially important in view of the practical way in which he had immediately to apply the lesson of the vision.

19. The fact that Peter’s vision had to do with food restrictions, whereas the narrative in which it is set is concerned with the propriety of a Jew’s entering a Gentile house, is taken by M. Dibelius as an indication that vv. 9–16 are part of Luke’s working over of an original narrative which had nothing of the special significance which it acquires in the scheme of Luke’s history (Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, E.T. [London, 1956], pp. 111–12).

20. Two men, according to B; the Western and Byzantine texts omit the numeral. The reading of B, being the most difficult (because of the discrepancy with v. 7 and 11:11), has claims to be regarded as original; if so, it suggests that the two domestic servants were the actual messengers, the soldier who accompanied them acting as a guard.

21. The Byzantine text adds “who had been sent to him by Cornelius” (cf. KJV).

22. Cf. F. F. Bruce, “Christ and Spirit in Paul,” BJRL 59 (1976–77), pp. 259–85.

23. From here to the end of v. 25 the Western text has the amplified reading: “and having called together his relatives and his close friends was waiting for them. As Peter drew near to Caesarea, one of the slaves ran on ahead and announced that he had arrived. Then Cornelius, leaping up and going to meet him, fell at his feet and did him reverence.”

24. Dadds “very well” ().

25. Dreads “three days ago”; this shortens the time taken for the journey from Joppa to Caesarea.

26. The Western text reads “fasting and praying”; this pietistic amplification is a Western characteristic.

27. The Western and Byzantine texts add “who, having arrived, will speak to you” (cf. KJV).

28. The Western text adds “requesting you to come to us.”

29. The Western text adds “speedily.”

30. P⁴⁵ omits “all” and “before God.”

31. But see n. 25 above.

32. As the footnote in ASV points out, Gk. is used of an act of reverence whether paid to God or (as here) to a creature (of either angelic or human nature).

33. See p. 172, n. 49 (on 8:9–24); p. 499 with n. 14 (on 28:6). Cf. L. Bieler, Theios Anēr. Das Bild des “göttlichen Menschen” in Spätantike und Frühchristentum(Darmstadt, 1967); C. R. Holladay, Theios Anēr in Hellenistic Judaism. SBLDS 40 (Missoula, MT, 1977).

34. A suitable word to use here as the equivalent of Gk. The word for “Gentile” or “foreigner” in v. 28 is which (significantly enough) is commonly used in LXX to denote an uncircumcised Philistine. Josephus (BJ 5.194) uses it (in place of the inscriptional ) in paraphrasing the warning notice in the temple forbidding Gentiles to trespass into the inner courts (see on 21:28, p. 409, n. 48).

35. Thus, on Good Friday, Jesus ‘accusers stayed out in the courtyard of Pilate’s praetorium; to enter the building itself would have necessitated their being ceremonially purified all over again, in order to celebrate the Passover that evening (John 18:28).

36. Cornelius’s description of his vision affords an opportunity of repeating part of a narrative very important in Luke’s history, as Peter’s description of his vision in 11:5–10 affords an opportunity of repeating another part.

37. Cf. 1:10 (p. 38) for angelic clothing.

38. The relative pronoun is omitted by A B et al. (a haplographic omission of after ). The Western text recasts the construction of vv. 36–38 thus: “For you know the message which he sent to the children of Israel, which was published throughout all Judaea, when he preached good tidings of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all). For beginning in Galilee, after the baptism which John proclaimed, Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, went about doing good.…”

39. Gk. lit. “the word which took place” (for in the sense of “thing,” “event,” cf. 5:32).

40. B reads (“proclamation”) for (“baptism”).

41. D reads “after the third day” (perhaps an attempted harmonization with Mark 8:31; Matt. 27:63, etc.).

42. The Western text amplifies: “who ate and drank and conversed with him forty days after the resurrection from the dead.”

43. Gk. (“respecter of persons,” lit. “lifter of faces”) reflects the Hebrew idiom , “lift (someone’s) face” and hence “show favor” or, in a pejorative sense, “show favoritism.” This idiom is rendered in Greek by and similar phrases (cf. Luke 20:21; Gal. 2:6); the nouns (here appearing for the first time in Greek literature and the only time in the NT)and (“partiality”) are formed on the basis of phrase (cf. Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; Jas 2:1; 1 Pet. 1:17).

44. Gk. (v. 35) no doubt means the practice of righteousness in the widest sense, but it is relevant to recall the more specialized sense of the word (like in Mishnaic Hebrew) to denote almsgiving (cf. Dan. 4:27; Matt. 6:1), in view of Cornelius’s charitable activity.

45. The Acts of the Apostles, MNTC, p. 93.

46. “A speech which is so long, relatively speaking, cannot have had any place in a legend told among Christians about the conversion of a centurion” (Dibelius, Studies, p. 110). Like the other speeches in Acts, said Dibelius, this speech is a literary composition of the author’s; nothing in it is (apart from the introductory remarks of vv. 34–35) relevant to the special question of Gentile evangelization, and Peter’s own account of the proceedings leaves no room for such a speech, for he tells how the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his household “as I began to speak” (11:15). But, since Dibelius regarded Peter’s defense of his action in 11:4–17 as equally Luke’s overworking of the original “legend,” there seems to be little force in this last argument.

47. Cf. 2:14–36; 3:12–26; 4:8–12; 5:29–32.

48. C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments (London, 1936), p. 56.

49. Cf. C. H. Dodd, “The Framework of the Gospel Narrative,” ExT 43 (1931–32), pp. 396–400, reprinted in his New Testament Studies (Manchester, 1953), pp. 1–11. Against the view propounded by K. L. Schmidt in Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu (Berlin, 1919), that Mark’s record consists mainly of independent pericopae strung together by means of short editorial summaries (Sammelberichte) which have no historical value of their own, Dodd undertook to show that those summaries, when put together, present a coherent outline of the ministry of Jesus, comparable to outlines of the apostolic preaching found elsewhere in the NT, and in particular to the outline of Peter’s address in the house of Cornelius. For a critique of Dodd’s argument see D. E. Nineham, “The Order of Events in St. Mark’s Gospel—An Examination of Dr. Dodd’s Hypothesis,” in Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot, ed. D. E. Nineham (Oxford, 1955), pp. 223–39.

50. “This emphasis on the beginning in Galilee seems to have been integral to the pattern of the kerygma from the first” (C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures [London, 1952], pp. 80–81).“Beginning from Galilee” characterizes Jesus ‘ministry, as “beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47) characterizes that of the apostles.

51. The expressions “throughout all Judaea” (v. 37) and “in the country of the Jews” (v. 39) probably denote the whole land of Israel and not only the Roman province of Judaea. Cf. 26:20.

52. According to Papias’s account of the origin of Mark’s Gospel (preserved by Eusebius, HE 3.39.15, and probably reflected in the so-called anti-Marcionite prologue to the Gospel), Peter even at a later date used the services of an interpreter.

53. Cf. C. C. Torrey, Composition and Date of Acts (Cambridge, Mass., 1916), pp. 27, 35–36.

54. In Jesus’ Nazareth exposition of these words the Gentile mission is adumbrated; so here Peter’s assertion that Jesus Christ is “Lord of all” implies his lordship over Gentiles as well as Jews (cf. Rom. 10:12). The “good news of peace” preached through him (Isa. 52:7) is intended for those who are “far off” as well as for those who are “near” (Isa. 57:19; see on 2:39 above).

55. The affinities of Isa. 61:1–2 with the Servant Songs can be recognized without the formal inclusion of that passage as an additional Servant Song (cf. a note on some who have so included it in C. R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah [Oxford, 1948], pp. 137–38).

56. Cf. 4:27 (p. 99 with n. 46); see also C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures(London, 1952), pp. 52–53, 94–96.

57. A. E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History (London, 1982), p. 139, n. 95.

58. The participle “doing good” () is related to the royal designation Euergetes, “benefactor” (cf. Luke 22:25). As for Jesus’ “healing all those who were under the devil’s domination,” the Gospels ascribe not only demon-possession but also certain other ailments to satanic agency (cf. Luke 13:16), not to mention unbelief and falsehood (cf. Matt. 13:19, 39; John 8:44). Gk. (translated “devil,” as in 13:10) means “slanderer” or “false accuser”; it is the equivalent of Heb. (see on 5:3, p. 105, n. 14).

59. These examples would not be mere illustrations in the preaching; they were (among other things) proofs of the fulfilment of prophecy, as Jesus himself implied when he sent John the Baptist’s messengers back to their master with the command to tell John what they and seen and heard (Luke 7:22). John would recognize from their report that the prophetic program (e.g., of Isa. 35:5–6) was indeed being carried out, and that Jesus was therefore the Coming One to whom the prophets bore witness.

60. See p. 113, n. 40.

61. The “third day” (v. 40) is mentioned not only for chronological accuracy, but in order to emphasize another fulfilment of prophecy; cf. 1 Cor. 15:4, where Paul quotes the primitive apostolic message as affirming that Christ was “raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.” The OT testimonies quoted in the apostolic preaching sometimes reflect the recognition that the Messiah’s experiences exhibit the same pattern as Israel’s experiences; hence such a statement as “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up” (Hos. 6:2) could find its fulfilment in the resurrection of Jesus. Paul’s reference to the risen Christ as the “firstfruits” in 1 Cor. 15:20, 23 may suggest that he saw in his resurrection a fulfilment of the ordinance of Lev. 23:10–11 that the firstfruits of barley harvest were to be presented to God the day after the paschal sabbath (i.e., on the first day of the week).

62. Luke 24:39; cf. the words ascribed to the risen Christ in a lost work quoted by Ignatius (Smyrnaeans 3:2): “I am not a bodiless spirit” ().

63. Cf. 17:31, where Paul’s address in Athens finds its climax in the announcement of God’s righteous judgment of the world “by the man whom he has ordained.”

64. Cf. 13:38; 26:18; Luke 24:47.

65. The Western text inserts “other” (cf. 2:4).

66. The Western text inserts “the Lord” (as it does in 2:38).

67. Cf. 11:15.

68. So this occasion is called by F. H. Chase, The Credibility of the Acts of the Apostles(London, 1902), p. 79.

69. Cf. N. B. Stonehouse, “Repentance, Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Spirit,” in Paul Before the Areopagus and Other New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids, 1957), pp. 76–77.

70. Cf. G. W. H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit (London, 1951), p. 66.

71. “Magnifying God” () in v. 46 is synonymous with “declaring the mighty words of God” () in 2:11.

72. The repentance of these Gentiles is mentioned in 11:18.

73. The “cleansing” of the Gentiles’ hearts by faith is closely linked with the words addressed to Peter in his vision: “You must not regard as profane what God has cleansed.” The same verb (GK. ) is used in both places.

74. Contrast the experience of the Samaritan believers in 8:17.

75. The same verb () is here translated “forbid” as is translated “hinder” in 11:17; it appears also in a baptismal context in 8:36 (see p. 177, n. 71).

76. The same phrase as is used in 2:38 (see p. 70).

ACTS 11

C. PETER’S ACTION ENDORSED AT JERUSALEM (11:1–18)

1. Peter Called to Account (11:1–3)

1 The apostles and the brothers who were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.¹

2 So, when Peter went up to Jerusalem, those who were of the circumcision party remonstrated with him.²

3 “Why,” they asked, “did you go in to visit uncircumcised men and actually share a meal with them?”

1 The news of Peter’s revolutionary behavior, in entering a Gentile house at Caesarea, reached Jerusalem before he himself did. The Western text makes him spend a fairly long time at Caesarea, and then engage in a teaching ministry in the region between Caesarea and Jerusalem.³ There may be some truth in this, although the Western reviser’s main concern was probably to avoid giving the impression that the outpouring of the Spirit at Caesarea was followed immmediately by controversy within the Spirit-filled community at Jerusalem. But however long the interval was, Peter’s action could not fail to arouse alarm at Jerusalem. Hitherto, even if Stephen and his fellow-Hellenists incurred popular hostility, the apostles had been able to enjoy a measure of general goodwill; but if the news got around that the leader of the apostles himself had begun to fraternize with Gentiles, that goodwill would soon be dissipated. And in fact it may well have turned out so. It was not long after this that Herod Agrippa I, appointed ruler of Judaea by the Emperor Claudius in A.D. 41, executed James the son of Zebedee and then, in view of the approval with which this action met, arrested Peter in his turn (12:1–3). About the same time, too, James the brother of Jesus emerges as acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem church, rather than any one of the twelve apostles (cf. 12:17; 15:13).

2–3 When Peter arrived home, then, he was immediately taken to task by “those who were of the circumcision”⁴ (as the phrase may be rendered fairly literally). The same phrase is used of the Jewish believers who accompanied Peter from Joppa to Caesarea (10:45), but there it simply denotes people who were of Jewish stock as distinct from Gentiles. Here it refers more particularly to those Jewish believers who were specially zealous for the law and insisted that there should be no social intercourse between circumcised and uncircumcised. Paul uses the phrase in this sense in Gal. 2:12 when he speaks of those visitors from Jerusalem to Antioch who persuaded Peter to abstain from table fellowship with Gentile Christians. “Why,” Peter was asked on the present occasion, “did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

In the original form of the story, Martin Dibelius suggests, Peter had no more need to defend himself for preaching the gospel to Cornelius than Philip had for preaching it to the Ethiopian eunuch.⁵ In the original story the issue of eating with Gentiles was not raised; it was introduced later because of the part which it came to play in the discussion of the terms to be laid down for the admission of Gentile believers to church membership. There is, indeed, no express reference to eating with Gentiles in the narrative of chapter 10. But the problem is present in the narrative by implication. It was the thought of eating with Gentiles in particular that made the idea of entering a Gentile house so objectionable, for Gentile food was “profane and unclean”; and it is the thought of eating with Gentiles that supplies the link between Peter’s vision in which the levitical food restrictions were abrogated and his practical application of that lesson in ignoring the ceremonial objections to entering a Gentile house.

2. Peter’s Defense (11:4–17)

4 Then Peter began and set the events before them in order.

5 “I was at prayer in the city of Joppa,” he said, “and in a trance I saw a vision—something like a great sheet descending, let down from heaven by four corners, and it came right to where I was.

6 When I had looked at it carefully I was able to make out the four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky.

7 I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat.’

8 But I said, ‘No, Lord; nothing profane or unclean has ever entered into my mouth.’

9 A voice came from heaven a second time and answered,⁶ ‘You must not regard as profane what God has cleansed.’

10 This happened three times; then everything was drawn up again into heaven.

11 At that moment, I tell you, three men stood at the house where we were;⁷ they had been sent to me from Caesarea.

12 The Spirit told me to go with them without making any distinction. And these six brothers went with me, and we entered the man’s house.

13 He told us how he had seen the angel in his house, standing there and saying, ’send to Joppa and fetch Simon, surnamed Peter;

14 he will speak words to you by which you and your household will be saved.’

15 When I had begun to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them as he did on us at the beginning.

16 Then I remembered what the Lord said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

17 If, then, God gave them the same gift as he gave to us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be capable of hindering God?”⁸

4–10 Peter’s best defense of his conduct was a straightforward narration of his experience. So he told them of his vision on the roof of the tanner’s house at Joppa. In this repetition of the story variety of expression is combined with similarity in construction. Although it abridges the fuller account in chapter 10, yet it introduces one or two details which are absent there. In verses 5 and 6 there is a vividness in Peter’s description of the great sheet which contrasts with the comparative colorlessness of the third-person account in 10:11–12.⁹ Whereas three categories of animal are distinguished in 10:12, 11:6 distinguishes four, adding wild beasts to the domestic quadrupeds, as in the creation narrative of Genesis.¹⁰ The wording of Peter’s refusal in verse 8 is closer even than that of 10:14 to Ezekiel’s protest when he was directed to eat “unclean” food: “abominable flesh has never entered into my mouth” (Ezek. 4:14).

11–14 Then he told how Cornelius’s messengers came to invite him to Caesarea, and how he went with them at the Spirit’s prompting, “without making any distinction” (v. 12). The six members of the believing community in Joppa who had accompanied him to Caesarea had come with him also to Jerusalem, and they were present as witnesses to the truth of his account. The reference to “the angel” in verse 13 implies that the story of Cornelius’s supernatural visitant is already known—known, that is to say, to Luke’s readers rather than to Peter’s hearers (although we are probably intended to understand that what we have here is a brief summary of the story as told by Peter). According to this account, the angel informed Cornelius that the words which he would hear from Peter (cf. 10:22) were words which would bring salvation to himself and his household. It has already been made clear that Cornelius was acceptable to God as a man who feared him and practised righteousness (10:35). Throughout the Bible, divine judgment is regularly pronounced in accordance with a person’s works;¹¹ but salvation is not of works but of grace (cf. 15:11), and salvation did not enter Cornelius’ s house until Peter came there with the gospel. The “household” (v. 14) included not only Cornelius’s immediate family in the modern English sense, but all who were under his authority—slaves, attendants, and other dependents.¹²

15–17 Then Peter reached the climax of his narration, telling how he had scarcely begun to address Cornelius and his household when the Holy Spirit descended on them, just as he had descended on Peter and his fellow-disciples at Pentecost.¹³ The words of the risen Christ to his disciples, “John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days’ time” (1:5), were quickly fulfilled in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, but as Peter saw what took place in the house of Cornelius, and heard those Gentiles speak with tongues and magnify God, the words came afresh to his mind, and he recognized that now they were being fulfilled anew. God evidently made no distinction between believing Gentiles and believing Jews; how could Peter maintain a barrier which God plainly ignored? To do so would be to oppose God. There is no express mention here (as there is in 10:47–48) of the baptism of the Gentiles, though it is perhaps implied in the language of verse 17.

3. Peter’s Defense Accepted (11:18)

18 When they heard this, they fell silent. Then they glorified God. “So,” they said, “to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance to life!”

18 Nothing could be said to counter Peter’s argument. His critics were silenced. God had acted, and had clearly shown his will. That he had bestowed his blessing on Gentiles also—or even on Gentiles—giving them through his Spirit a change of mind and heart and the assurance of eternal life, was a matter for wonder and praise. Their objections ceased; their praise began. The practical problems which were to become so acute when large-scale Gentile evangelization began did not arise at this stage. Even so, it may be surmised that the endorsement of Peter’s action was more wholehearted on the part of his fellow-apostles than on the part of the zealous rank and file of the Jerusalem church.¹⁴ This may have been one reason for the speed with which James the Just was henceforth acknowledged as the undisputed leader of the mother-church: James at least enjoyed a public reputation which was unspotted by any suspicion of fraternizing with Gentiles.¹⁵ But the apostles had at least admitted the principle of evangelizing Gentiles, and had done so in time to recognize the same principle being worked out farther north on a scale previously unimagined.

D. ANTIOCH BECOMES A CHRISTIAN BASE (11:19–30)

1. Gentile Evangelization in Antioch (11:19–21)

19 Now those who had been dispersed because of the tribulation that broke out over Stephen made their way as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews only.

20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks¹⁶ also, telling them the good news of the Lord Jesus.

21 The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

19 Luke’s narrative now goes back to the same point of departure as we found in 8:4, which opens with the same words. There he related how those who were dispersed by the persecution which followed Stephen’s death “went about spreading the good news”; here he tells how some of them made their way north along the Phoenician seaboard, from which some took ship for Cyprus, while others continued farther north until they reached Antioch on the Orontes.

Antioch on the Orontes (modern Antakya in the Hatay province of Turkey), situated some eighteen miles upstream, was founded in 300 B.C. by Seleucus Nicator, first ruler of the Seleucid dynasty, and was named by him after his father Antiochus. He had already given his own name to Seleucia Pieria at the mouth of the Orontes, the port of Antioch (cf. 13:4). As the capital of the Seleucid monarchy Antioch rapidly became a city of great importance. When Pompey reorganized Western Asia in 64 B.C. he made Antioch a free city; it became the seat of administration of the Roman province of Syria. It was at this time the third largest city in the Graeco-Roman world (surpassed in population only by Rome and Alexandria). It was planned from the first on the Hippodamian grid pattern; it was enlarged and adorned by Augustus and Tiberius, while Herod the Great provided colonnades on either side of its main street and paved the street itself with polished stone. The produce of Syria and lands farther east passed through it on its way to the west; it was a commercial center as well as a political capital. Because of its situation between the urbanized Mediterranean world and the eastern desert, it was even more cosmopolitan than most Hellenistic cities. Here Christianity first displayed its cosmopolitan character.

Jewish colonization in Antioch began practically from the city’s foundation. By the beginning of the Christian era, proselytes to Judaism are said to have been specially numerous in Antioch;¹⁷ we have already met Nicolaus, a proselyte from Antioch, as a leader among the Hellenists in the primitive Jerusalem church (6:5). Many other nationalities were represented among its residents: it is Antioch that the Roman satirist Juvenal has in mind when he complains that “the sewage of the Syrian Orontes has for long been discharging itself into the Tiber.”¹⁸ The city’s reputation for moral laxity was enhanced by the cult of Artemis and Apollo at Daphne, five miles distant, where the ancient Syrian worship of Astarte and her consort, with its ritual prostitution, was carried on under Greek nomenclature.¹⁹ But a new chapter in the history of Antioch was about to be written, for it was to be the metropolis of Gentile Christianity.²⁰

20 Thus far, the Hellenistic disciples who had fled from the persecution in Jerusalem had confined their evangelizing activity to the Jewish communities of the various places to which they came. The members of those communities were predominantly Hellenists like themselves. The idea that the gospel could have any relevance for non-Jews was not one that would naturally occur to them. But in Antioch some daring spirits among them, men of Cyprus²¹ and Cyrene,²² took a momentous step forward. If the gospel was so good for Jews, might it not be good for Gentiles also? At any rate, they would make the experiment. So they began to make known to the Greek population of Antioch the claims of Jesus as Lord and Savior. To present him as Messiah to people who knew nothing of the hope of Israel would have been a meaningless exercise, but the Greek terms kyrios (“Lord”) and sōter (“Savior”) were widely current in the religious world of the eastern Mediterranean.²³ Many were trying to find in various mystery cults a divine lord who could guarantee salvation and immortality to his devotees; now the pagans of Antioch were assured that what they vainly sought in those quarters could be secured through the Son of God who had lately become man, suffered death, and conquered the grave in Palestine.

21 This enterprise met with instant success. The Gentiles took to the Christian message as the very thing they had been waiting for, as something that exactly suited their case, and a large number of them believed the gospel and yielded their allegiance to Jesus as Lord. It may be that some of the Gentiles who believed belonged to the class commonly called God-fearers, who already knew something of the Old Testament revelation by attendance at the Jewish synagogue;²⁴ it would be in accordance with the analogy of other places if such people formed the nucleus of the new church of Antioch. But Luke does not say so, and we cannot be sure. At any rate, the power of God was manifest in the conversion of the Gentiles in this city. An Ethiopian chamberlain might have become a Christian some time previously while traveling home along the Gaza road, and a Roman centurion and his household might have believed the gospel as an apostle unfolded it in their home at Caesarea, but the scale of Gentile evangelization in Antioch was something entirely new.

2. Barnabas and Saul’s Ministry at Antioch (11:22–26)

22 When word of this came to the ears of the church at Jerusalem, they sent off Barnabas all the way to Antioch.

23 When he arrived there, and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and encouraged them all to adhere to the Lord with resolute hearts;

24 for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. A large number were added to the Lord.²⁵

25 Then Barnabas set out for Tarsus to search for Saul,

26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So they spent a whole year meeting together in the church and teaching a great multitude. It was in Antioch that the disciples first came to be known as “Christians.”²⁶

22–24 The leaders of the Jerusalem church recognized the novelty of the situation at Antioch when news of it reached them. They considered themselves responsible for the direction of the movement in all its extensions. Therefore, as Peter and John had earlier gone to Samaria to investigate Philip’s missionary service there, so now Jerusalem sent a delegate to Antioch to look into the strange events that were being enacted in that city. It was a critical moment: much—far more than they could have realized—depended on their choice of a delegate. In the providence of God, they chose the best man for this delicate and important work—Barnabas, the “son of encouragement” (4:36). Barnabas himself was a Cypriot Jew by birth, like some of those who had begun to preach the gospel to the Antiochene Gentiles, and his sympathies would in any case be wider than those of such Jerusalem believers as had never set foot outside Judaea. It may indeed be that he took the initiative in offering his services for this mission, and his offer was eagerly accepted.²⁷

To Antioch, then, Barnabas was sent, as the representative or “apostle”²⁸ of the mother-church. When he reached Antioch, his generous spirit was filled with joy at what he found. Here was the grace of God in action, bringing blessing not only to the local Jews but also to the Gentile population as they heard and accepted the good news. True to his name, he gave them all the encouragement he could. Missionaries and converts alike had begun well; what they needed was the gift of perseverance, and he urged them to carry on and maintain their loyal service to the Lord in whom they had believed. The presence of a man of such sterling character and faith, a man “full of the Holy Spirit,”²⁹ gave them the stimulus they needed to prosecute their evangelism still more vigorously; the number of converts increased rapidly.

25–26 Soon the scale of Barnabas’s responsibility was such that he could not hope to discharge it single-handedly. He had to find a colleague. But it was no easy matter to find the right man for the situation. Barnabas, however, decided that he knew the man, if only he could locate him. Several years had gone by since Saul of Tarsus had been escorted to Caesarea by his new friends in Jerusalem and put on board a ship bound for his native city. Barnabas could think of no one more eminently suited for the responsibility of sharing his ministry in Antioch. He therefore went to Tarsus in person to seek him out³⁰—a task of some difficulty, perhaps, since Saul appears to have been disinherited for his joining the followers of Jesus and could no longer be found at his ancestral home. Barnabas found him, however, and took him to Antioch. There for a whole year the good work proceeded apace under their joint direction. More converts were added to the believing community, and when they were added, they received systematic instruction in the principles of the new way on which they had entered.

No difficulty seems to have been felt at this stage about the uniting in one believing community of Jewish converts and Gentile converts. The new way was wide enough to accommodate believers of the most diverse backgrounds. Antioch was a cosmopolitan city, where Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian rubbed shoulders, where Mediterranean civilization met the Syrian desert; racial and religious differences which loomed so large in Judaea seemed much less important here. The church of Antioch from the outset had an ethos quite distinct from that of the Jerusalem church. The pagans of Antioch, too, knew all about these people, for they did not keep quiet about their faith, but proclaimed it wherever they went. Christ—Christos, the Greek form of the title Messiah (“the anointed one”)—might be the name of an office to Greek-speaking Jews, but to the pagans of Antioch it was simply the name of a man of whom these people were always talking: a curious name, to be sure, unless it was the same as Chrēstos (“serviceable”), a name attested for slaves and free persons alike.³¹ “Who are these people?” one Antiochene would ask another, as two or three unofficial missionaries gathered a knot of more or less interested hearers and disputants around them in one of the city colonnades. “Oh, these are the people who are always talking about Christos, the Christ-people, the Christians.” Just as, in Palestine, the adherents of the Herod dynasty were called Herodians, so, says Luke, in Antioch the adherents of Jesus the Christ first came to be popularly known as Christians.³²

3. Famine relief (11:27–30)

27 About that time prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.³³

28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and indicated through the Spirit that there would be a great famine over the whole world. (This took place under Claudius.³⁴)

29 Then each of the disciples decided on a sum of money, according to each one’s means, to be sent as a charitable offering to their brothers who lived in Judaea.

30 This they did, and sent it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

27 The gift of prophecy in the apostolic church was like the gift of tongues in that it was exercised under the inspiration of God; it differed from it in that it was expressed in the speaker’s ordinary language. The place for this spiritual gift in the church is recognized in the Pauline letters: Paul regarded it as of high value and ranked the prophet next after the apostle.³⁵ Here and there the narrative of Acts illustrates how it was exercised.

28 Among the prophets who came to Antioch from Jerusalem in those days was one called Agabus,³⁶ who announced by inspiration that there would be a great famine throughout the whole Roman world.³⁷ It may be that Agabus had in mind the famine conditions which would make their contribution to the expected woes of the end-time (cf. Mark 13:8).³⁸ Such famine conditions, says Luke, were actually experienced in the principate of Claudius ( A.D. 41–54). We know from other sources that Claudius’s principate was marked by a succession of bad harvests and consequent scarcity in various parts of the empire—in Rome, Greece, and Egypt as well as in Judaea.³⁹

If a true tradition is reflected in the Western reading of this passage, according to which Agabus uttered his prophecy “when we were gathered together,”⁴⁰ then Luke may have had personal cause to remember the prophecy and the effect which it produced on the church of Antioch. This reading does at least show the influence of the tradition preserved in the so-called anti-Marcionite prologue to the third Gospel, and elsewhere, that Luke was a native of Syrian Antioch.⁴¹ If Luke was one of the Antiochene Gentiles who were evangelized in those days, we can readily appreciate both his interest in Antioch and his enthusiasm for the Gentile mission.

29–30 How the Christians of Antioch inferred from the general terms of Agabus’s prophecy that Judaea would be specially hard hit by the predicted famine Luke does not say. We know that Judaea did in fact suffer severely from a famine at some point between A.D. 45 and 48. At that time Helena, queen-mother of Adiabene, a Jewish proselyte, bought grain in Egypt and figs in Cyprus and had them taken to Jerusalem for distribution, while her son King Izates sent a large sum of money to the authorities in Jerusalem to be used for famine relief.⁴² The church of Antioch similarly organized a relief fund for the mother-church.⁴³ The various members of the church appear to have allocated a fixed sum out of their income or property as a contribution to this fund, much as Paul was to advise the Corinthian Christians to do when he was organizing a later relief fund for Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4). When the collected sum was ready to be sent to Judaea, Barnabas and Saul were deputed to take it there. On their arrival, they handed it over to the elders, who from now on play an increasing part in the leadership of the church of Jerusalem.⁴⁴

This is the second occasion in Luke’s record on which Paul visited Jerusalem after his conversion (the first being briefly described in 9:26–30). He himself records two visits which he paid to Jerusalem; the possibility arises that the famine-relief visit of Acts 11:30 is identical with that described in Gal. 2:1–10, when he went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas in the fourteenth year after his conversion (which is the most probable interpretation of Gal. 2:1).⁴⁵ More common, however, is the identification of the visit of Gal. 2:1–10 with that of Acts 15; this raises problems which will be considered later.⁴⁶

1. Some fortms of the Western text add (prematurely) “and they glorified God” (cf. v. 18).

2. The Western text expands v. 2 as follows: “Peter then after a considerable time wished to go to Jerusalem; and calling the brothers to him and establishing them, he took his departure, engaging in much preaching throughout the regions and teaching them. When he met them [at Jerusalem], he reported to them the grace of God, but those who were of the circumcision (part) remonstrated with him.”

3. See n. 2 above. Some scholars (e.g., G. Salmon, “Blass’s Commentary on the Acts,” Hermathena 9 [1896], p. 235, quoted with approval by F. Blass, Philology of the Gospels[London, 1898], p. 129), accepting the Western reading here, have linked it with the Western reading of 21:16 which makes Mnason the Cypriot live in one of the villages between Caesarea and Jerusalem; but this is improbable. See pp. 402–3, nn. 15, 19.

4. Gk. .

5. See his study “The Conversion of Cornelius” in Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, E.T. (London, 1956), pp. 109–22.

6. D reads: “there came a voice from heaven to me.”

7. “We were” () is the reading of P⁷⁴ A B D pc; “I was” () is the reading of P⁴⁵ E 33 81 byz (and all the versions).

8. The Western text reads: “who was I that I could hinder God from giving them the Holy Spirit when they believed on him?”

9. Similarly the verb “was drawn up” (v. 10) is more vigorous than “was taken up” (10:16).

10. Gen. 1:24–25; cf. Ps. 148:10 (“beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds”).

11. Cf. Rom. 2:1486 (Cornelius, as portrayed by Luke, is a good example of those persons described by Paul in Rom. 2:7).

12. All, in fact, who came within the scope of the Roman familia. Compare the similar language used to the jailer of Philippi in 16:31.

13. M. Dibelius sees a discrepancy between “when I had begun to speak” here and “while Peter was still speaking” in 10:44: “According to 10:44,” the Spirit was manifested “at the end of Peter’s sermon, according to 11:15, just as he had begun to speak” (Studies, p. 110). But the idea of beginning need not be pressed unduly (cf. p. 212, n. 46). In several places in the narrative parts of the NT, ) is little more than a semitizing redundant auxiliary; cf. J. H. Moulton in MHT I, pp. 14–15.

14. See 21:20.

15. See on 12:11527 (p. 239).

16. Gk which is the reading of P⁴⁵ A D* 1518, with Eusebius and Chrysostom; is read by B C^c E byz (and is usually thought to be presupposed by the aberrant of which must have been suggested by the following word ). The versions do not help, as they make no distinction between and . But, since Jews in Antioch had already been evangelized, the sense of the passage requires i.e., pagan Greek (cf.16:1; Rom. 1:16;), not Hellenists (cf.6:1).

17. Cf. Josephus, BJ 7.45.

18. Juvenal, Satire 3.62.

19. Hence this Antioch, to distinguish it from other cities of the same name, was sometimes called whence Epidaphna (Tacitus, Annals 2.83.3). Cf. also 1 Macc. 11:41–51; Josephus, BJ 3.29; 7.41–62, 106–11, Ant. 12.119; 16.148; Ap. 2.39; Strabo, Geography 16.2.4–7.

20. See G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest(Princeton, 1961), abridged in Ancient Antioch(Princeton, 1963); W. A. Meeks and R. L. Wilken, Jews and Christians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries of the Common Era(Missoula, MT, 1978); R. E. Brown and J. P. Meier, Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity(London, 1983), pp. 11–86 (“Antioch,” by J. P. Meier); D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch: A Study of Early Christian Thought in the East (Cambridge, 1982).

21. Like Barnabas (4:36).

22. Cf. 2:10; 6:9; 13:1. The sons of Simon of Cyrene were well known in some areas of the early church (Mark 15:21).

23. Cf. Paul’s reference to “many ‘lords’ ” (1 Cor. 8:5). But it does not follow that the proclamation of Jesus as Lord and Savior developed in a Gentile environment by analogy with the terminology and interests of the mystery cults. See J. G. Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (New York, 1921), pp. 211–317, for a full and conclusive discussion.

24. See p. 203,161 n. 7.

25. The first hand in B omits “to the Lord.”

26. The Western text recasts vv. 25 and 26 thus: “And hearing that Saul was in Tarsus, he went away looking for him, and when he had met with him, he encouraged him to come to Antioch. And when they arrived they consorted for a whole year with the church and taught much people, and then the disciples first came to be known as Christians at Antioch.”

27. Cf. M. Hengel, Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity, E.T. (London, 1979), pp. 101–2.

28. “ ‘Apostles of churches” () are mentioned elsewhere in the NT; cf. 2 Cor. 8:23. In such a context the word has a more general significance than when it is used of the specially commissioned apostles of Christ. See p. 271, n. 7 (on 14:4).

29. The same words are used of Stephen in 6:5.

30. The verb , over and above its general meaning, “is specially used of searching for human beings, with an implication of difficulty, as in the NT passages” (J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament[Edinburgh, 1930], p. 32). Cf. Luke 2:44. For the likelihood that Paul was disinherited cf. his statement in Phil. 3:8 that for Christ’s sake he had “suffered the loss of all things.” During those years in Syria and Cilicia (cf. Gal. 1:21) he probably endured some of the sufferings listed in 2 Cor. 11:23–27 and underwent the mysterious experience described in 2 Cor. 12:2–9. Moreover, it may be inferred from a number of allusions in his letters that Paul had begun Gentile evangelization on his own initiative before Barnabas brought him to Antioch (cf. Gal. 1:23). His commission to proclaim the Son of God among the Gentiles was evidently received on the Damascus road (Gal. 1:16), and his references in Gal. 2:2, 7 to his evangelization of Gentiles probably point back to a time earlier than his association with Barnabas in the work at Antioch. See also 22:21 (pp. 418–19). Barnabas indeed may have known something of Paul’s evangelistic activity in Cilicia and was moved on that account to bring him to Antioch. The present narrative strengthens the impression received from 9:27 that Barnabas had some knowledge of him even before his Damascus-road conversion.

31. Suetonius (Claudius 25.4) speaks of the riots which broke out in the Jewish community of Rome “at the instigation of Chrestus,” i.e., most probably Christ (see p. 347 with n. 10, on 18:2). Chrestus occurs in CIL VI. 10233 as the cognomen of a Roman citizen. The spelling for is similarly found (e.g., in the first hand of in all three NT occurrences of the term: 26:28 and 1 Pet. 4:16 as well as here).

32. The verb translated “came to be known as” is , literally meaning “to transact business.” To transact business under a particular name is in effect to be publicly known by that name. E. J. Bickerman, “The Name of Christians,” HTR 42 (1949), pp. 71–124, argues that must mean “assume the name,” “style oneself,” and that it was therefore the disciples themselves who first adopted the designation “Christians,” meaning thereby “servants of Christ,” ministri regis (cf. in 1 Cor. 15:23), just as the Caesariani were the emperor’s servants ( . This intransitive must be distinguished from meaning “give an oracular response” (used in the passive in 10:22). Cf. MHT II. p. 265. The term is a Latin formation (with suffix - from Lat. -ianus). In the NT it is used only by non-Christians (pace Bickerman)—in 26:28 on the lips of the younger Agrippa, and in 1 Pet. 4:16 in the language of the indictment when one is made to suffer “as a Christian.” The earliest occurrences of the term in non-Christian literature are in Josephus, Ant. 18.64 (where “the tribe of Christians” is said to be called after “the so-called Christ”); Pliny, Epistles 10.96–97 (correspondence with Trajan about Christians in Bithynia); Tacitus, Annals 15.44.3–4 (where Nero’s scapegoats for the fire of A.D. 64 are those “people loathed for their vices, who were commonly styled Christians”a name derived from Christ, who was executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate when Tiberius was emperor”); and Suetonius, Nero 16.2 (“punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of people addicted to a novel and mischievous superstition”).

33. The Western text links vv. 27 and 28 thus: “and there was much rejoicing; and when we were gathered together, one of them, Agabus by name, spoke signifying …”

34. The Byzantine text reads “Claudius Caesar” (cf. KJV).

35. Cf. 1 Cor. 12:28; 14:24–25, 29–32; Eph. 4:11. See D. Hill, New Testament Prophecy(London, 1979); D. E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World(Grand Rapids, 1983).

36. Agabus reappears in 21:10, in a “we” section of Acts. There is no sound reason for supposing that his introduction here is a reading back into this context of details from Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem (when the relief fund organized in his Gentile mission field was handed over to the mother-church); cf. G. W. H. Lampe, St. Luke and the Church of Jerusalem(London, 1969), p. 24.

37. The “world” here, as in Luke 2:1, is the (Lat. orbis terrarum). C. C. Torrey (CDA, pp. 20–21) maintained (improbably) that “the whole world” represents a misunderstanding of the Aramaic phrase which here means “the whole land” (of Israel). But this is not one of the sections of Acts for which an Aramaic substratum is at all probable. See M. Wilcox, The Semitisms of Acts (Oxford, 1965), pp. 147–48.

38. Cf. M. Hengel, Acts, p. 111.

39. Famine conditions are attested for Rome, at the beginning of Claudius’s rule (Dio Cassius, History 60.11), for Egypt, in his fifth year (P. Mich. 123, 127), for Greece, in his eighth or ninth year (Eusebius, Chronicle, Year of Abraham 2065), and again in Rome, between his ninth and eleventh years (Tacitus, Annals 12.43; Orosius, History 7.6.17). More generally, Suetonius says that his principate was marked by “persistent droughts” (Claud. 18.2).

40. See p. 229,177 n. 33.

41. This prologue (of uncertain date, but possibly as early as the second century) begins with the words “Luke was an Antiochene of Syria.” The statement is repeated by Eusebius (HE 3.4.6) and Jerome (On Illustrious Men 7; Preface to Commentary on Matthew). Cf. p. 5, n. 6, and 6:5 with exposition and note (p. 121, n. 11).

42. Josephus, Ant. 20.51–53. In Ant. 20.101 he dates the famine in the procuratorships of Cuspius Fadus and Tiberius Julius Alexander. (i.e., between A.D. 44 and 48) or, according to a variant reading, in that of Alexander (A.D. 45/46–48). K. S. Gapp, “The Universal Famine under Claudius,” HTR 28 (1935), pp. 258–65, identifies this famine with one mentioned in Ant. 3.320–21, and concludes that it extended to the spring of 46 or 47. J. Jeremias, “Sabbathjahr und neutestamentliche Chronologie,” Abba (Göttingen, 1966), pp. 233–37, points out that, if the harvest failed in 46/47, the incidence of the sabbatical year 47/48 would have intensified the scarcity of food in Judaea: famine conditions would have prevailed until the spring of 49.

43. Such an act of fellowship was calculated to strengthen the bond of a common faith which linked the totally Jewish-Christian church of Jerusalem with the mainly Gentile-Christian church of Antioch. The Jerusalem church in the apostolic age appears to have suffered from chronic poverty; this helps to explain why its members, or an influential group of them, were called “the poor” (Heb. , whence the later “Ebionites”).

44. With the dispersal of the Hellenistic almoners of 6:5 in the persecution that followed Stephen’s death, the charge of financial affairs in the church seems to have devolved on the elders. The elders (among whom James the Just emerges as primus inter pares) constituted a kind of Nazarene Sanhedrin. In Acts 15 they share the leadership of the church with the apostles; from then on, the apostles disappear from the Jerusalem scene and the elders exercise the whole corporate leadership (cf. 21:18).

45. See F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids/Exeter, 1982), pp. 105–28.

46. See pp. 282–84 below. See also J. Knox, Chapters in a Life of Paul (London, 1950), pp. 71–72; C. H. Buck, “The Collection for the Saints,” HTR 43 (1950), pp. 1–29 (especially pp. 15–21); J. Dupont, “La famine sous Claude, Actes 11,28,” Études sur les Actes des Apôtres (Paris, 1967), pp. 163–65; R. W. Funk, “The Enigma of the Famine Visit,” JBL 75 (1956), pp. 130–36; G. Strecker, “Die sogenannte zweite Jerusalemreise des Paulus (Act 11,27–30),” ZNW 53 (1962), pp. 67–77; G. Ogg, The Chronology of the Life of Paul(London, 1968), pp. 43–57; R. Jewett, Dating Paul’s Life (London, 1979), p. 34; G. Lüdemann, Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles: Studies in Chronology, E.T. (London, 1984), pp. 13–15, 149–52; S. Dockx, Chronologies néotestamentaires et vie de I’Église primitive(Leuven, 1984), pp. 62–69, 89–95.

ACTS 12

E. HEROD AGRIPPA I AND THE CHURCH (12:1–24)

1. Martyrdom of James and Imprisonment of Peter (12:1–4)

1 It was about that time that King Herod laid hostile hands on some members of the church.

2 He beheaded¹ James, the brother of John;

3 and when he saw that this² was acceptable to the Jews, he went on to arrest Peter also. This was at the season of unleavened bread.

4 Having arrested Peter, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four quaternions of soldiers. His intention was to bring him out before the people after Passover.

1 King Herod, introduced rather abruptly at the beginning of this narrative, is the elder Herod Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great and of his Hasmonaean queen Mariamne. When his father Aristobulus was executed in 7 B.C., Agrippa, then four years old, was sent by his mother to be brought up at Rome. There he grew up on terms of close friendship with some members of the imperial family, notably with Claudius, his exact contemporary, and with Gaius, grandnephew of Tiberius. When Gaius succeeded Tiberius as emperor in A.D. 37, he bestowed on Agrippa the former tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias in southern Syria (cf. Luke 3:1), together with the title “king.” Two years later Agrippa’s kingdom was enlarged by the addition of Galilee and Peraea, the former tetrarchy of his uncle Antipas, whom Gaius deposed from his rule and sent into exile. When Claudius was made emperor in A.D.41, after the assassination of Gaius, he further increased Agrippa’s realm by the addition of Judaea, which since A.D. 6 had been governed on the emperor’s behalf by a prefect.³ Agrippa was more popular with the Jews than many members of the Herod family had been: his descent from the Hasmonaean dynasty was a point in his favor. He set himself sedulously to win and retain their goodwill.⁴

2 The “members of the church” whom he singled out for attack were apostles. It is evidence of a change in the attitude of the people of Jerusalem toward the apostles, who had not been molested in the persecution that followed Stephen’s death, that Agrippa should now make them his principal targets.⁵

The first of his victims was James, the son of Zebedee, whom he had executed. James was the first of the apostles to meet a martyr’s death; thus he experienced the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise to him and his brother John that they would both drink from his cup and share his “baptism” (Mark 10:39). Jesus did not say, or even imply, that they would both suffer death together; indeed, John appears to have outlived all the other apostles. The theory propounded by Eduard Schwartz and others, that in the original form of the present narrative both James and John were executed by Herod Agrippa, is quite without warrant.⁶

3 If it is asked why this attack on the apostles should have proved “acceptable to the Jews,” the answer may be found in the wider phase of apostolic activity which had recently set in with Peter’s visit to the Gentile Cornelius in Caesarea. Those members of the Jerusalem church who, under the leadership of James the Just and his fellow-elders (cf. v. 17), maintained a more rigorous resistance to the weakening of the bonds of Jewish particularism, continued to enjoy general toleration for some two decades more. It was not by accident that Agrippa, after putting James the Zebedaean to death⁷ and testing the popular reaction to this, laid hands next on the leader of the apostles—the one, moreover, who had taken the initiative in fraternizing with Gentiles.

4 The seven days of “unleavened bread”⁸ were beginning when Peter was arrested. He was therefore kept in prison for the duration of the festal period. Agrippa’s intention was to bring him out for trial and public execution immediately after this period had expired.⁹ But, knowing how many sympathizers, secret as well as open, the apostles had in Jerusalem, he took special precautions against any attempt to free the prisoner. Four relays of soldiers took it in turn to guard him:¹⁰ four guards at a time, one on either side of him (to whom he was chained) and two at his cell door.

2. Peter’s Escape from Prison (12:5–11)

5 So Peter was kept in prison, ¹¹and earnest prayer on his behalf was being offered to God by the church.

6 The night before Herod was about to bring him out, Peter was asleep between two soldiers, bound to them with two chains, while sentries were in front of the door, guarding the prison.

7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord stood over him and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter’s side and roused him: “Quick!” he said. “Get up!” The chains fell off from his hands.

8 Then the angel said, “Fasten your belt and tie on your sandals.” Peter did so. “Put on your cloak,” said the angel, “and follow me.”

9 Peter went out and followed him: he did not realize that the angel’s action was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.

10 They passed through the first watch and the second, and came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened to them of its own accord, so they went out¹² and went along one street. Then immediately the angel left him.

11 Peter then, coming to himself, said, “Now I know that the Lord has sent his angel and delivered me from the hand of Herod and from what the Jewish people were expecting.”

5–9 Meanwhile, continuous prayer was being offered for Peter by the church of Jerusalem—the supplication of righteous people which “has great power in its effects” (Jas. 5:16). And while they were persevering in fervent prayer during what, in Agrippa’s intention, was to be Peter’s last night on earth, their prayer, unknown to themselves, was receiving an effective answer. For Peter was roused from sleep—the calm sleep that springs from a good conscience and quiet confidence in God—by a blow on his side and a voice which bade him get up quickly. The chains by which he was hand-cuffed to the soldiers on either side fell away as he rose. The cell was lit up; an unknown visitor stood by him, and ordered him to fasten his girdle, tie on his sandals, wrap his cloak around him, and follow. It was this narrative, probably, that was in Charles Wesley’s mind when he wrote the lines:

“I woke; the dungeon flamed with light.

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed thee.”

Amazed at it all, and only half-awake, Peter did as he was told, not realizing that it was really happening, but suspecting that it was a dream, and that he would soon wake up to find himself with the soldiers in the cell, compelled to face what the morning might bring. Through one gate and another they passed, both of them guarded. It may be that Peter was “allowed to pass the first and the second, being taken presumably as a servant; but no servant would be expected to pass beyond the outermost ward at night, and a different course was needed there.”¹³ Wonderful to relate, however, the outermost gate opened automatically as Peter and his mysterious guide approached it, and they found themselves in the open street—after descending “the seven steps,” as the Western text informs us. This addition has such a circumstantial character that many regard it as a genuine piece of local color, derived from an informant who knew Jerusalem as it stood before A.D. 70. Luke does not say where Peter’s prison was, but it was quite probably in the Antonia fortress, where Paul was later confined (cf. 21:31–23:32). The fortress stood northwest of the temple area, and a flight of steps may have led down from it to street level comparable to flights excavated south and southwest of the temple mount since 1968.¹⁴

10–11 They traversed one street, and Peter suddenly found himself alone. Thus far he had followed his rescuer like a man in a trance or a sleepwalker; now he woke up to his strange situation and took stock of it. This was the finger of God: it was an angel of the Lord who had come to snatch him from his imminent fate.

What account are we to give of Peter’s escape from prison? What kind of messenger was it that released him? Whether human or superhuman, he was no doubt a messenger of God. There are some features of the narrative that would point to a carefully planned and skillfully executed “inside job”; probably that was Agrippa’s conclusion. There are other features which are strongly reminiscent of the “form” in which other miraculous escapes from prison are described in ancient literature.¹⁵ But Peter apparently recognized divine intervention of a supernatural kind, and so evidently did Luke: he introduces the incident in septuagintal idiom, and the opening words of verse 7 are very similar to those at the beginning of Luke 2:9, where the angel appears to the shepherds to announce the birth of Christ.

A striking modern parallel has been quoted more than once from the experiences of Sundar Singh. By order of the chief lama of a Tibetan community he was thrown into a dry well, the cover of which was securely locked. Here he was left to die, like many others before him, whose bones and rotting flesh lay at the bottom of the well. On the third night, when he had been calling to God in prayer, he heard someone unlocking the cover of the well and removing it. Then a voice spoke, telling him to take hold of the rope that was being lowered. He did so, and was glad to find a loop at the bottom of the rope in which he could place his foot, for his arm had been injured before he was thrown down. He was then drawn up, the cover was replaced and locked, but when he looked around to thank his rescuer, he could find no trace of him. The fresh air revived him, and his injured arm felt whole again. When morning came, he returned to the place where he had been arrested, and resumed preaching. News was brought to the chief lama that the man who had been thrown into the execution well had been liberated and was preaching again. Sundar Singh was brought before him and questioned, and told the story of his release. The lama declared that someone must have got hold of the key and let him out, but when search was made for the key, it was found attached to the lama’s own girdle.¹⁶

“Now,” says Laurence Browne, “although this story is in our own time, its interpretation is as difficult as the story of St. Peter’s escape. It is possible that both events were nonmiraculous, that some well-disposed person acted as rescuer. But the difficulty in the way of a rescue in either case suggests that both were actually miraculous interventions of God. One striking difference between the two accounts is the opinion of the prisoner at the time. St. Peter thought it was all a vision until he found himself safe and sound. The Sadhu thought the rescuer was a man until he disappeared.”¹⁷

In any case, the narrative bears witness to the delivering grace of God and to the power of believing prayer. That James should die while Peter should escape is a mystery of divine providence which has been repeated countless times in the history of the people of God. By faith, says the writer to the Hebrews, some “escaped the edge of the sword”; by faith others “were killed with the sword” (Heb. 11:34, 37).

3. Peter Reports His Escape (12:12–17)

12 Peter, having taken stock of the situation, came to the house of Mary the mother of John (surnamed Mark), where many were gathered together praying.

13 He knocked at the door of the outer gateway, and a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer his knock.

14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate.

15 “You are mad,” they said to her. But she insisted that it was so. Then they said, “It is his angel.”

16 Meanwhile Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the gate they saw him and were astounded.

17 But he gestured to them with his hand to keep quiet, and told them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. Then he said, “Report this to James and the brothers.” So saying, he departed and went to another place.

12 The first thing for Peter to do was to acquaint his fellow-believers in Jerusalem with his escape; the next was to go into hiding, lest Agrippa’s police should find him again. So he first made his way to one of the chief Christian meeting places in Jerusalem, the house of Mary. Luke’s readers would be more familiar with Christians of the second generation than with those of the first, especially when a second-generation Christian attained such distinction as Mark eventually did; hence Mary is identified as the mother of Mark (one might compare the identification of Simon the Cyrenaean as the father of Alexander and Rufus in Mark 15:21).

Like several other persons mentioned in Acts, Mary’s son had both a Jewish name (John) and a Roman name (Mark). Joseph, surnamed Justus (1:23), was one such person; the most outstanding example is “Saul, who is also called Paul” (13:9). This John Mark is probably identical with the Mark mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament (Col. 4:10; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11; 1 Pet. 5:13) and with the author of the Second Gospel.¹⁸

The church of Jerusalem was too large to meet in any one building: its members were evidently divided for fellowship and worship into a number of house churches, one of which—presumably that to which Peter himself was attached—met in Mary’s house. Her house was a large one: Martin Hengel calls it a “splendid” one,¹⁹ for it was distinguished by a gatehouse or forecourt²⁰ leading from the courtyard to the street door. The high priest’s palace was similarly equipped: when Peter was leaving its courtyard on the night of Jesus’ trial, he “went out into the forecourt” (Matt. 26:71).

13–16 The scene that now unfolds itself at the street door and inside the house is full of quiet humor. Rhoda’s excitement at hearing Peter’s voice makes her forget to open the door and let him in; those inside cannot believe that their prayers have been answered so quickly: Rhoda must be mad, or else it is Peter’s guardian angel, his spirit-counterpart, that she has heard.²¹ Meanwhile Peter stands outside, continuing to knock for admission—not too loudly, for the hue and cry may already have been raised, and Mary’s house is one of the first to which a search party will come.

17 When at last he was admitted, he told them about his miraculous release, and directed them to pass on the news to “James and the brothers.” Then he took his departure, and went underground so successfully that no one to this day has discovered for certain where he went. Luke’s informant probably did not know, and Luke had no other means of finding out.²²

The description of Peter’s anxious gesture, as he beckoned to surprised and excited company to make less noise, is the authentic touch of an eyewitness—whether Luke got the story from Mark (whom he later knew in Rome) or from Rhoda, as Ramsay argued, or from someone else.

In addition to the company which met in Mary’s house, there was evidently another associated with James the brother of Jesus. They too must be told of Peter’s escape. The “brothers” mentioned along with him probably include his fellow-elders (cf. 11:30; 21:18). It appears that by this time James had attained a position of undisputed leadership in the Jerusalem church. When Barnabas and Paul had the conference with the “pillars” of that church described in Gal. 2:1–10, the three “pillars” with whom they conferred were James, Cephas (Peter), and John, named in that order. James on that occasion concurred with his two colleagues in exchanging “the right hand of fellowship” with Barnabas and Paul on the understanding that the latter two should evangelize Gentiles, while the Jerusalem leaders would continue to concentrate on their mission to Jews. James had a statesmanlike breadth of vision, as appears from his policy at the Council of Jerusalem (15:13–21). But he was careful to retain the confidence of the ordinary church members in Jerusalem, many of whom were “zealots for the law” (21:20). In addition, he continued to the end to command the respect of the Jerusalem populace, largely because of his ascetic way of life and his regular participation in the temple services of prayer, where he interceded for the people and their city. Whatever Peter and other members of the Twelve may have done, James was free of any suspicion of fraternizing with Gentiles. When he was stoned to death in A.D. 62, at the instance of the high priest Ananus II, many of the people were gravely shocked; and some years later some ascribed the calamity which overtook the city and its inhabitants to the cessation of James’s prayers on their behalf.²³

4. Peter’s Escape Discovered (12:18–19)

18 When day dawned, there was great commotion among the soldiers: what had become of Peter?

19 Herod instituted a search for him and, when he could not find him, he interrogated the guards and ordered them to be punished.²⁴ Then he went down from Judaea and spent some time in Caesarea.

18–19 Search was made for Peter, but he was nowhere to be found. Agrippa examined the soldiers who were responsible for guarding him, and sent them off to be punished, suspecting perhaps that Peter’s escape was the result of a plot, and that the guards had been bribed. By Roman law (which, however, was not binding on Agrippa in the internal administration of his kingdom) a guard who allowed a prisoner to escape became liable to the same penalty as the escaped prisoner would have suffered.²⁵

Soon afterward, Agrippa left Jerusalem for Caesarea, the seat of government of Judaea under the Romans. When it is said that he “went down from Judaea,” Judaea is used in its narrower sense of the territory of the Jews. Caesarea, although it belonged politically to Judaea, was not in strictly Jewish territory: from its foundation by Herod the Great it was a predominantly Gentile city.

5. Death of Herod Agrippa I (12:20–23)

20 Now Herod had a furious quarrel with the people of Tyre and Sidon. A united deputation from those cities appeared before him and, having secured the good offices of²⁶ Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they sought a reconciliation. Their country depended for its food on the king’s territory.

21 On an appointed day Herod put on royal robes, sat down on his judgment seat, and made a public oration to them.²⁷

22 The populace called out, “It is a god, not a human being, that is speaking!”

23 Immediately the angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory;²⁸ and he died, consumed by worms.

20 It was while he was in Caesarea that Agrippa met his death, and Luke relates the circumstances. The cities of the Phoenician seaboard, Tyre and Sidon, depended on Galilee for their food supply, as they had done a thousand years earlier in the time of Hiram and Solomon (1 Kings 5:9–12). When, therefore, the inhabitants of those cities found that they had given Agrippa grave offense, for some reason which has not been recorded, they realized that it would be wise for them to regain his favor as soon as possible. They made use accordingly of the good offices of his chamberlain Blastus (whatever his services cost them, the price was worthwhile), and an opportunity was found for them to present themselves before the king and make their peace with him publicly.

21–23 We are indebted to Josephus for a parallel account of what followed. At Caesarea, says Josephus, Agrippa “exhibited shows in honor of Caesar, knowing that this was celebrated as a festival for his welfare. There came together for this occasion a large number of provincial officials and others of distinguished position. On the second day of the shows Agrippa put on a robe made of silver throughout, of quite wonderful weaving, and entered the theatre at break of day. Then the silver shone and glittered wonderfully as the sun’s first rays fell on it, and its resplendence inspired a sort of fear and trembling in those who gazed at it. Immediately his flatterers called out from various directions, in language which boded him no good, for they invoked him as a god: ‘Be gracious to us!’ they cried. ‘Hitherto we have reverenced you as a human being, but henceforth we confess you to be of more than mortal nature.’ He did not rebuke them, nor did he repudiate their impious flattery. But soon afterward he looked up and saw an owl sitting on a rope above his head, and recognized it at once as a messenger of evil as on a former occasion it had been a messenger of good;²⁹ and a pang of grief pierced his heart. At the same time he was seized with a severe pain in his bowels, which quickly increased in intensity.… He was hastily carried into the palace, and … when he had suffered continuously for five days from the pain in his belly, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his life and the seventh year of his kingship.”³⁰

The accounts of Luke and Josephus are independent, but they agree in all essentials.³¹

The “appointed day” on which the Phoenicians were to be publicly reconciled with Agrippa is commonly held to have been a festival celebrated quinquennially on March 5 in honor of the foundation of Caesarea.³² (Another possibility is that it was held to celebrate the emperor’s birthday on August 1.) ³³ The “royal robes” which Agrippa wore are described in greater detail by Josephus. The way in which the silver weaving reflected the rays of the rising sun has suggested to one or two students that Agrippa presented himself to the assembled crowd as a manifestation of divinity (more precisely of the sun-god), theos epiphanēs, as Phoenician rulers had done in earlier days.³⁴ This is improbable. Both Luke and Josephus agree in saying that he was hailed as a god and not as a mere mortal, and in deprecating his tacit acceptance of such blasphemous adulation. (There is a further reminiscence of this in rabbinical tradition.)³⁵ The mortal pain which seized him is interpreted by Luke as a stroke of divine judgment. Medical experts have attempted to diagnose the trouble, but the data are too imprecise: suggestions include peritonitis (resulting from a perforated appendix),³⁶ arsenical poisoning,³⁷ acute intestinal obstruction,³⁸ the rupture of a hydatid cyst.³⁹ Luke’s statement that he was “consumed by worms” provides a clue of sorts, but such a term is used by several ancient writers in relating the deaths of people deemed worthy of so unpleasant an end.⁴⁰

On the death of Agrippa, Judaea reverted to administration by Roman governors. Three children of his figure later in the narrative of Acts: Agrippa the younger and Bernice (25:13), and Drusilla (24:24).

6. Continued Progress of the Gospel (12:24)

24 But the word of God⁴¹ increased and multiplied.

24 This is the third of the brief reports of progress with which the narrative of Acts is punctuated (cf. 6:7; 9:31). In the present report the progress and prosperity of the cause of the gospel are emphasized by contrast with the miserable end of the royal persecutor.

1. Lit., “Killed with the sword” ()

2. For “this” (unexpressed in Greek) the Western text reads “his attack on the believers” ( as in 10:45).

3. See Josephus, Ant. 18.126, 131–34, 143–69, 179–204, 228–56, 289–301; 19.236–44, 265, 274–77, 288, 292–354; Philo, Flaccus 25–29, 103; Embassy to Gaius 179, 261–333; also Schürer I, pp. 442–54; A. H. M. Jones, The Herods of Judaea (Oxford, 1938), pp. 184–216.

4. The Mishnah ( 7.8) relates how he read “the law of the kingship” (Deut. 17:14–20) publicly at the Feast of Tabernacles in a sabbatical year (presumbably in A.D. 41), and wept as he read the words, “you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother” (v. 15), for he remembered the Herods’ Edomite ancestry. But the people, remembering rather his Hasmonaean descent, called out repeatedly, “Be not dismayed; you are indeed our brother!”

5. The phrase “about that time” (v. 1) refers to the events narrated in 11:27–30. Actually the events of 12:1–23 fell between the prophecy of Agabus (11:28) and the Jerusalem visit of Barnabas and Saul (11:30).

6. E. Schwartz, “Über den Tod der Söhne Zebedaei” (1904), in his Gesammelte Schriften V: Zum Neuen Testament und zum frühen Christentum (Berlin, 1963), pp. 48–123; “Zur Chronologie des Paulus” (1907), Gesammelte Schriften V, pp. 128–31; “Noch einmal der Tod der Söhne Zebedaei,” ZNW 11 (1910), pp. 89–104. The chief basis for the theory is provided by one manuscript (Codex Coislinianus 305, discovered in 1862) of the ninth-century Georgios Hamartolos, Chron. 3.134.1, according to which Papias of Hierapolis, writing as an “eyewitness of John,” recorded in the second book (of his Exegesis of the Dominical Oracles) that John was “killed by Jews.” This peculiar reading may have been interpolated from an epitome of the fifth-century Chronicle of Philip of Side: “Papias in his second book says that John the divine and James his brother were killed by Jews” (Bodleianus MS Baroccianus 142, published by C. de Boor, “Neue Fragmente des Papias, Hegesippus und Pierius,” TU 5.2 [1888], pp. 165–84, especially p. 170). The evidence of early church calendars and martyrologies has also been cited. But the “critical myth” of John the apostle’s early death rests on evidence so flimsy that it “would have provided derision if it had been adduced in favour of a conservative conclusion” (A. S. Peake, Holborn Review 19 [1928], p. 394). See J. H. Bernard, “The Traditions as to the Death of John, the Son of Zebedee,” Studia Sacra (London, 1917), pp. 260–84.

7. Eusebius (HE 2.9.2–3) preserves the tradition from the seventh book of Clement of Alexandria’s Hypotyposes that the officer who guarded James was so impressed by his witness that he professed himself a Christian and was beheaded along with him.

8. The days of unleavened bread lasted from Nisan 14 (Passover Eve) until Nisan 21 (Ex. 12:18). “Passover” in v. 4 is used in a broad sense of the whole festal period which began with the paschal celebrations. Cf. Luke 22:1, in distinction from Mark 14:1.

9. A public execution would be offensive during the sacred season; cf. Mark 14:2, where Jesus’ enemies plan his arrest and execution “not during the feast [of un-leavened bread], lest there be a tumult of the people.”

10. This may refer particularly to nighttime, one relay being assigned to each of the four watches of the night. “The watches are divided into four, according to the water-clock, so that it is not necessary to keep watch for more than three hours of the night” (Vegetius, On Military Affairs 3.8).

11. Some witnesses to the Western text add “by the king’s cohort.”

12. The Western text adds “and went down the seven steps.”

13. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller (London, ¹⁴1920), p. 28.

14. See N. Avigad in Jerusalem Revealed, ed. Y. Yadin (New Haven/London, 1976), pp. 25–30.

15. Cf. 5:19–23 (p. 110, n. 29); 16:25–28 (p. 316, n. 67). Josephus tells (BJ 6.293) how, shortly before the outbreak of war in A.D. 66, the heavy eastern gate of the inner court of the temple opened by night “of its own accord” (, with which cf. , v. 10).

16. See B. H. Streeter and A. J. Appasamy, The Sadhu (London, 1921), pp. 30–32.

17. L. E. Browne, The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1925), pp. 204–5.

18. Later writers tell how he served Peter as his aide-de-camp and interpreter in Rome, and how he afterwards founded the church of Alexandria (this last tradition probably reflects the arrival of the Gospel of Mark in Alexandria). See extracts from Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and others preserved by Eusebius (HE 2.15.1–16.2; 3.39.14–16; 5.8.3; 6.14.6); also M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, E.T. (London, 1985), pp. 2–24.

19. M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, E.T. (London, 1983), p. 108.

20. Gk. (vv. 13–14).

21. This “angel” (like the fravaši in Zoroastrianism) was regarded as capable of assuming the bodily appearance of the human being whom he protected. The role of the angel Raphael in Tob. 5:4–16 probably reflects this belief. Cf. Matt. 18:10. See J. H. Moulton, “It is his angel,” JTS 3 (1902), pp. 514–27, especially pp. 516–17; Early Zoroastrianism (London, 1913), pp. 254–85.

22. Antioch (cf. Gal. 2:11) or Rome has been suggested as the “other place” to which he went at this time. Eusebius (Chron.) brings him to Rome in A.D. 42, but this date is almost certainly too early, and probably belongs to the traditions underlying the Acts of Peter and the Clementine corpus, which recorded his coming to Rome in the time of Claudius to contend with Simon Magus (see pp. 166–67, with nn. 30–35). It is difficult to take seriously suggestions that the “other place” was the heavenly abode of the faithful departed, Acts 12:3–17 being a pictorial account of Peter’s martyrdom (cf. D. F. Robinson, “Where and when did Peter die?” JBL 64 [1945], pp. 255–67; W. M. Smaltz, “Did Peter die in Jerusalem?” JBL 71 [1952], pp. 211–16). See also J. W. Wenham, “Did Peter go to Rome in AD 42?” TynB 23 (1972), pp. 94–102.

23. Josephus, Ant. 20.200–201. A more legendary account by Hegesippus is preserved by Eusebius (HE 2.23). See F. F. Bruce, Men and Movements in the Primitive Church (Exeter/Grand Rapids, 1979), pp. 86–119.

24. Lit., “to be led away” (). Cod. D (the chief Western witness) says “to be put to death” (); this agrees with the idiomatic Attic use of in the sense of leading off to execution (cf. Luke 23:26). This meaning is more likely in the present context than the Hellenistic meaning “arrest” or “lead off to prison.”

25. Code of Justinian 9.4.4.

26. Lit., “having persuaded” ().

27. The Western text adds “having been reconciled to the Tyrians.”

28. The Western text amplifies after “glory” as follows: “and, having come down from the tribunal, he was eaten by worms while still alive, and so died.”

29. When Agrippa had been thrown into chains some years before, by order of Tiberius, he leaned against a tree on which an owl sat; a German fellow-prisoner told him that the bird betokened an early release and great good fortune, but that if he ever saw it again he would have but five days longer to live (Josephus Ant. 18.195–201). The fact that Josephus calls the bird a “messenger” (Gk. ), while Luke says in v. 23 that “the angel () of the Lord smote him,” is nothing more than a verbal coincidence.

30. Josephus, Ant. 19.343–50.

31. See E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums. III (Stuttgart/Berlin, 1923), pp. 167–68.

32. The date of the city’s dies natalis is preserved by Eusebius (Martyrs of Palestine 11.30). The institution of the festival in 9 B.C. is recorded by Josephus (BJ 1.415; Ant. 16.136–44). The identification of this festival as that which witnessed the onset of Agrippa’s mortal illness was propounded by E. Schwartz, “Zur Chronologie des Paulus” (1907), in Gesammelte Schriften V (Berlin, 1963), pp. 127–28.

33. The date is known from Suetonius (Claudius 2.1).

34. See S. Lösch, Deitas Jesu und Antike Apotheose (Rottenburg a/N, 1933), pp. 14–15; J. Morgenstern, “The Chanukkah Festival and the Calendar of Ancient Israel,” HUCA 20 (1947), pp. 1–136, especially pp. 89–90, n. 167, and “The King-God among the Western Semites and the Meaning of Epiphanes,” VT 10 (1960), pp. 138–97, especially pp. 156–59.

35. “In that hour the enemies of Israel earned destruction, for they flattered Agrippa” (Tosefta, 7.16; cf. TB 41b).

36. E. M. Merrins, “The Deaths of Antiochus IV, Herod the Great, and Herod Agrippa I,” Bibliotheca Sacra 61 (1904), pp. 561–62.

37. J. Meyshan, “The Coinage of Agrippa the First,” IEJ 4 (1954), p. 187, n. 2.

38. A. R. Short, The Bible and Modern Medicine (London, 1953), pp. 66–68.

39. The late C. C. Harvey (of the Department of Child Health, University of Sheffield), in a private communication.

40. Cf. 2 Macc. 9:5–12 (of Antiochus Epiphanes); Josephus, Ant. 17.168–70 (of Herod the Great); Lucian, Alexander 59 (of Alexander the impostor); Eusebius, HE 8.16.3–5 (of Galerius); Theodoretus, HE 3.9 (of the uncle and namesake of Julian the Apostate).

41. For “God” B lat ^vg cop^bo.codd read “the Lord.”

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A. Peter In Western Judaea (9:32–43)