6. The Apostles Continue Their Public Witness (5:41–42)

6. The Apostles Continue Their Public Witness (5:41–42)

ACTS 3

C. AN ACT OF HEALING AND ITS CONSEQUENCES (3:1–4:31)

1. A Cripple Cured (3:1–10)

1  One day Peter and John were going up to the temple¹ at the time of prayer (the ninth hour),

2  when a man, lame from his birth,² was being carried there. They used to set him down every day at the “Beautiful Gate” of the temple (as it is called), to seek alms from those who were going into the temple.

3  When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple, he asked for alms.

4  Peter (with John beside him) fixed his eyes on him and said, “Look at us.”

5  He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them.

6  Then Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but I am giving you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, [get up and]^3. walk!”

7  Then he took hold of him by the right hand and raised him up. Immediately^4. his feet and ankles were strengthened,

8  and at a bound he stood up and began to walk,⁵ and went into the temple with them, walking and leaping, and as he did so he praised God.

9  All the people saw him walking and (heard him) praising God,

10  and they recognized him as the man who sat (begging) for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and were filled with surprise and amazement at what had happened to him.

1–3     After the events of Pentecost, we have been told, “many wonders and signs were done through the apostles” (2:43). Luke now gives a fuller account of one of these, selecting one which was attended by exceptional publicity.

The apostles continued to live as observant Jews, attending the set services of worship in the Jerusalem temple. The two principal daily services accompanied the offering of the morning and evening sacrifices. One afternoon, as two of the apostles, Peter and John,⁶ went up the steps leading from the outer court to the inner courts,⁷ in order to be present in the Court of Israel for the service of prayer which accompanied the evening sacrifice (about 3 p.m.),⁸ they were arrested by the sight of a cripple who lay begging at the “Beautiful Gate.” This may be identical with the Nicanor Gate, as it is called in the Mishnah,⁹ leading into the Court of the Women; the name here given to it may be more readily understood if it is further identified with the gate of Corinthian bronze described by Josephus, of such exquisite workmanship that it “far exceeded in value those gates that were plated with silver and set in gold.”¹⁰

4–6 Fixing his eyes on the cripple, Peter attracted his attention. When he looked up expectantly, he received something more valuable than the most generous gift he had ever received from a charitable passer-by. The command to walk, given by Peter “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” was accompanied by the power to walk, imparted by that same name.

According to Cornelius a Lapide, Thomas Aquinas once called on Pope Innocent II when the latter was counting out a large sum of money. “You see, Thomas,” said the Pope, “the church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’ ” “True, holy father,” was the reply; “neither can she now say, ‘Rise and walk.’ ” The moral of this tale may be pondered by any Christian body that enjoys a fair degree of temporal prosperity.

7–8 Suiting his action to his word, Peter held out his hand and, taking the cripple’s right hand, raised him to his feet. At that very moment, this man who had never been able to stand, let alone walk, became aware of a strange new strength in his legs and feet: instead of collapsing beneath him, they actually supported him.¹¹ First he practised standing, and when he found he could do that, he put one foot forward and tried to walk; when he found he could do that as well, ordinary walking seemed too humdrum a means of progress. His exultation must find more vigorous expression, so, leaping in the air and bounding along, discovering all that his new limbs were now capable of doing, he accompanied the two apostles into the inner precincts.¹² Nor was it with his limbs alone that he rejoiced in God’s goodness to him; the temple courts echoed his shouts of joyful praise.

9–10 Naturally such indecorous behavior collected a curious crowd. The people recognized the man as the lame beggar who was such a familiar sight at the Beautiful Gate. They knew that there had been nothing fraudulent about his lameness, for he had been born lame; naturally, then, they were astonished at what they saw. It was marvelous enough, to be sure, but it was more than a marvel; it was a sign. The two apostles had not cured the man by any power or skill of their own; it was when they invoked the name and authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that he sprang up and found his feet for the first time in his life. Plainly, then, the power by which Jesus had healed such people during his public ministry was still present and active, exercised no longer directly but through his disciples.

But, as Peter and John went on to point out, that power was not confined to bodily healing. On a memorable occasion in Capernaum, Jesus had cured a paralyzed man by commanding him to rise and walk, in very similar terms to those which Peter used now; and his word which enabled the paralytic to walk was designed to supply public confirmation of his authority to forgive sins as well as to heal the sick (Mark 2:10–11).¹³ So, too, his disciples not only healed the sick in his name but also received from him “power and commandment … to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins.”¹⁴ Again, on the present occasion, the very conduct of the former cripple was itself a token, to those who had eyes to see, of the advent of the new age.¹⁵ Of the new age it had been said long before, “then shall the lame man leap like a hart” (Isa. 35:6). What Jesus’ personal mighty works had signified was corroborated by this mighty work performed through his disciples: he was indeed Lord and Messiah.

2. Peter’s Address in Solomon’s Colonnade (3:11–26)

  a. The power of Jesus’ name (3:11–16)

11  While the man was holding on to Peter and John, all the people, filled with amazement, ran together toward them in Solomon’s Colonnade (as it is called).¹⁶

12  Seeing this, Peter addressed the people: “Men of Israel,” he said, “why are you surprised at this, or why do you fix your eyes on us, as though we had made this man walk by some power or piety¹⁷ of our own?

13  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,¹⁸ the God of our fathers,’ has glorified his Servant Jesus,¹⁹whom you handed over and repudiated in the presence of Pilate,²⁰ when he had decided to release him.

14  Yes, you repudiated ²¹ the Holy and Righteous One, you asked for a man who was a murderer to be released as a favor to you,

15  and you procured the death of the author of life. But God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.

16  It is by faith in his name that he has strengthened this man,²² whom you see and know; yes, it is the faith that comes through his name²³ that has given him this full health in the sight of you all.

11   When the service of prayer and worship was over, Peter and John, together with the man who had been cured of his lameness, came out from the inner area of the temple to the outer court, probably going back through the Beautiful Gate, and made their way to the east side of the outer court, along which Solomon’s Colonnade ran. The tradition tracing this colonnade or portico back to Solomon himself was certainly unfounded; the temple platform did not extend so far to the east in Solomon’s day. The crowd of wondering spectators thronged them, and when they reached Solomon’s Colonnade, Peter had a large audience, ready to listen to anything he might say. If the true significance of the healing miracle escaped many of the crowd (as no doubt it did), Peter had an excellent opportunity of bringing it home to them; and the man himself, who stuck fast by his two benefactors, provided visible confirmation of Peter’s words.

12  Do not imagine, said Peter, addressing the multitude, that it was by any special power or piety of our own that we made this man walk. Do not stare at us, as though there were anything wonderful about us; and do not be so surprised at what has happened to this man: this is God’s doing.

13  “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers,” said Peter (using time-honored liturgical language, which goes back to the theophany at the burning bush),²⁴ has glorified his Servant Jesus.” In order to explain how the cripple had been cured, Peter found it necessary to relate the act of God which had so recently been accomplished in their midst. The cripple had been cured because Jesus had been glorified. From his place of exaltation Jesus had endowed his disciples with power to act in his name, and to perform mighty works such as he himself had performed in the days of his bodily presence among them.

In speaking of the exaltation of Jesus, following his humiliation and death, Peter uses language taken from the portrayal of the obedient and suffering Servant of the Lord in Isa. 52:13–53:12, a portrayal which begins with the words: “Behold, my servant … shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.”²⁵ The voice from heaven which came to Jesus at his baptism addressed him in the language of Isa. 42:1, where the Servant makes his first appearance: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.”²⁶ The figure of this Servant has exercised a profound influence on New Testament thought and language.²⁷

Like the prophet, Peter began by speaking of the Servant’s being glorified by God, and then went back to tell of his sufferings. He does not exonerate his Jerusalem audience from a share in the responsibility for Jesus’ death; this is in line with Luke’s passion narrative, according to which “the people” concurred with “the chief priests and the rulers” in demanding the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus (Luke 23:13–25). God has glorified his Servant, Peter tells him, but when he was in your power you handed him over to be executed by the Romans; when the Roman governor was disposed to discharge him, you spoke against him.²⁸

14–15 You repudiated the Holy and Righteous One, said Peter (using a twofold designation which is rooted in Old Testament language).²⁹ You refused to acknowledge him as your divinely appointed King and Savior, and when Pilate offered to release him, you asked for a condemned murderer to be released instead. (The role of Pilate here conforms to the fuller presentation in Luke 23:1–25.) Yes, Peter continued, you asked that a murderer’s life should be spared, but killed the very Author of life³⁰—an amazing paradox! This is what you did, but God restored him to life again, and we are here to bear witness to the fact of his resurrection. Again it is clear how the apostolic preaching in Acts loves to emphasize the contrast between men’s treatment of Jesus and God’s.

16 It is through his name—the name of the once humbled and now glorified Servant of God—that this man has been cured, said Peter; and it is by faith in that same name that he has appropriated the blessing and strength which he now exhibits. The completeness of his cure was plain for all to see; Peter impressed on them that the power which had wrought the cure resided in Jesus’ name, and that the man had availed himself of this power by the exercise of faith. There was no merely magical efficacy in the words which Peter pronounced when, in Jesus’ name, he commanded the cripple to walk; the cripple would have known no benefit had he not responded in faith to what Peter said. But once this response of faith was made, the power of the risen Christ filled his body with health and strength. Here is a further principle which gives the healing miracles of Acts the same evangelical quality as those recorded in the Gospels.

  b. Call to repentance (3:17–21)

17  Now then, my brothers, I know³¹ that you acted³² in ignorance, and so did your rulers.

18  But in this way God has fulfilled what he announced in advance by the mouth of all the prophets—namely, that the Messiah was to suffer.

19  Repent, therefore, and turn (to God), so that your sins may be wiped out,

20  in order that seasons of refreshment may come from the presence of the Lord, that he may send him who has been designated as your Messiah—namely, Jesus.

21  He must be received into heaven until the time for establishing all that God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since ages past.³³

17–18 Peter conceded that the treatment meted out by the people of Jerusalem to their Messiah was the result of ignorance.³⁴ They did not realize that Jesus of Nazareth was their divinely sent Savior. Even their rulers did not realize this, in spite of his own plain words. It is natural to recall Jesus’ saying from the cross, “they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), though that is more often taken as a reference to the Roman executioners.³⁵ It may be thought that Peter’s words were surprisingly lenient to people like Caiaphas and the other chief priests, whose determination to have Jesus put to death is underscored in all the Gospels. Nevertheless, here is the proclamation of a divine amnesty, offering a free pardon to all who took part in Jesus’ death, if only they acknowledge their error, confess their sin, and turn to God in repentance. For all those things that happened to Jesus in his suffering and death happened in fulfilment of the words of the prophets, who foretold that the Messiah must suffer.³⁶ True, they did not foretell in so many words that it was the Messiah who was to suffer: they spoke of the obedient Servant of God as suffering for the sins of others. But Jesus himself accepted and fulfilled his messianic mission in the terms of the prophetic account of the Servant and other righteous sufferers,³⁷ and the apostles’ interpretation followed his own. The Servant’s sufferings were endured in order that through them salvation might be brought to many. God had foretold this through his servants the prophets; Peter and his hearers had seen the prophetic oracles fulfilled and the salvation of God brought near in these last days.

19 All they had to do to avail themselves of this salvation was to change their former attitude to Jesus and bring it into line with God’s attitude. God had clearly declared his verdict by raising him from the dead. Let them therefore repent, let them repudiate with abhorrence their acquiescence in the murder of their true Messiah, let them turn back in heart to God, and the salvation and blessing procured by their Messiah’s death would be theirs. Their sins would be blotted out, even that sin of sins which they had unwittingly committed in consenting to the death of the Author of life. Here is the heart of the gospel of grace.

Not only would their sins be blotted out; those times of refreshment and joy which the prophets had described as features of the new age would be sent to them by God.³⁸

20–21 The dawn of those times of refreshment and joy was linked, in the expectation of many, with the coming of Messiah. Messiah indeed had come, but had been ignored and repudiated by the majority of those to whom he came. But would he come again? This is implied in Peter’s words. When he speaks to his hearers of Jesus as the one “who has been designated as your Messiah,” he does not mean that Jesus at present is only Messiah-designate, that his investment awaits his coming advent in glory. This indeed has been suggested by those who regard verses 19–21 as embodying “the most primitive Christology of all.”³⁹ But there is nothing in the word translated “designated” to imply designation as opposed to full investment: the two other New Testament occurrences of the word, both in Acts (22:14; 26:16), relate to Paul’s appointment as a herald of the gospel. It is applied to Jesus here in much the same sense as the words translated “appointed” in 2:22 and “ordained” in 10:42.⁴⁰ It is by his resurrection that Jesus has already been “designated” or appointed Messiah, in the sense of Paul’s statement (perhaps echoing a primitive confession of faith) in Rom. 1:4 that he has been “designated Son of God in power … by his resurrection from the dead.”

Thus invested with messianic dignity (says Peter), Jesus has been received into the divine presence, and will remain there until the consummation of all that the prophets, from earliest days, have foretold. But the word meaning “consummation” or “establishment” may also, in appropriate contexts, bear the sense “restoration” or “restitution.”⁴¹ If a reference to the “restoration of all things” were to be recognized here, we should be reminded of Jesus’ words in Mark 9:12a, “Elijah does come first to restore⁴² all things” (not found in Luke’s account of the transfiguration).⁴³ It has indeed been held that Luke, in these words of Peter, transfers to the expected advent of Jesus language originally applied to the ministry of the returning Elijah.⁴⁴ Quite apart from that, if the meaning “restoration” (well attested for this word) were the only one possible here, one could adduce Paul’s picture of a renovated creation coinciding with the investiture of the sons and daughters of God (Rom. 8:18–23). But the meaning “establishment” or “fulfilment” is equally well attested, and makes good sense in the present context, in reference to the fulfilment of all Old Testament prophecy, culminating in the establishment of God’s order on earth. If Jesus must remain in heaven until this consummation, this is in line with Paul’s exposition of Ps. 110:1: Christ must reign (at the right hand of God) until all hostile powers are overthrown.⁴⁵

The people of Jerusalem (perhaps as representatives of “the whole house of Israel”)⁴⁶ are called on to reverse the verdict of Passover Eve and to accord Jesus united allegiance as Messiah. While many did respond to this call in the earliest days of the church, they remained a minority; it is idle to speculate what might have happened if they had formed the majority. As it is, one of Luke’s motifs in Acts is the progressive rejection of the gospel by Jews, pari passu(from 11:18 on) with its progressive acceptance by Gentiles. But, in the general context of Acts, Peter’s words mean this: the gospel blessings destined to flow from Jesus’ death and resurrection must spread throughout the world; then, and not till then, will he return from the right hand of power.

  c. Witness of the prophets (3:22–26)

22  “Moses said,⁴⁷ ‘The Lord your God will raise up from you, from among your brothers, a prophet like me; you must listen to him, according to all that he says to you.

23  Every person who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed from among the people.’

24  Yes, and all the prophets—all who spoke, from Samuel and his successors onward—also announced these days.

25  You are the descendants of the prophets and (heirs) of the covenant which God made with your fathers when he said to Abraham, ‘And in your posterity all the families of the earth will be blessed.’

26  God, having raised up his Servant, sent him to you first, by way of turning each one of you from your wicked acts.”

22–23 Did all the prophets, from earliest days, indeed speak of this time in which Peter and his hearers were now living? Yes, even Moses, first and greatest of Israel’s prophets, looked forward to the day of Christ. There follow words from Deut. 18:15–19 in which Moses warns the Israelites that, when they wish to ascertain the divine will, they must not have recourse to magic arts for this purpose, after the manner of the Canaanites. When the Lord has a communication to make to them, says Moses, he will “raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed—… and whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him” (Deut. 18:15, 19).⁴⁸ The primary reference of these words of Moses is to the institution of prophets in Israel, as a way appointed by God for making his will known to his people. But well before apostolic times this prophecy was interpreted as pointing to one particular prophet, a second Moses, who would exercise the prophet’s full mediatorial function as Moses had done.⁴⁹ Among the Samaritans,⁵⁰ as later among the Ebionites,⁵¹ the Messiah was envisaged in terms of this prophet like Moses, and we have clear evidence in the Fourth Gospel particularly of contemporaries of Jesus who found this form of expectation realized in him.⁵² From the earliest days of the apostolic preaching, it appears, this text from Deuteronomy was invoked as a Mosaic prediction of Jesus, and it was regularly included in the “testimony” compilations which circulated in the church.⁵³

In Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost the person and work of Jesus are expounded in terms of a “Son of David” christology.⁵⁴ In his present speech at least two, and possibly three, christologies are presented side by side: a “Servant” christology, possibly an “Elijah” christology, and certainly a “prophet” christology. It must not be supposed that these christologies were originally kept separate, each developed independently by one group or school of thought within the primitive church. They have been interwoven throughout the course of Christian history, and such evidence as is available indicates that it was so from the beginning. It has indeed been argued cogently by Martin Hengel that the crucial phase of christological development must be located within the first five years after the death and resurrection of Christ.⁵⁵ The various christologies were all integrated by the overriding acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord in a sense implying universal sovereignty.

24 The prophetic testimony to Christ which Moses began was carried on by Samuel and all the later prophets. Samuel may be specially mentioned as the next named prophet after Moses. It would be difficult to find a recorded prophecy of Samuel which could be applied to Jesus so explicitly as the words of Moses just quoted; but Samuel was the prophet who anointed David as king and spoke of the establishment of his kingdom,⁵⁶ and the promises made to David found their ultimate fulfilment in Jesus (cf. 13:34). And all the words of the prophets similarly found their ultimate fulfilment in him (cf. 10:43).

25–26 Those Israelites who stood listening to Peter were “sons of the prophets”—not in the Old Testament sense which denoted the professional prophetic guilds, but in the sense that they were heirs of the promises made by God through the prophets, promises which had found their fulfilment before their very eyes. So, too, they were “sons of the covenant” made by God with Abraham, and that in a special sense, for they had lived to see the day when that covenant was realized in Christ: “in your posterity all the families of the earth will be blessed.”⁵⁷ For Christ was the descendant of Abraham through whom this blessing was secured, and while the blessing was for “all the families of the earth,” the first opportunity of enjoying it was naturally extended to Abraham’s own family.⁵⁸ It was among them that God had raised up his Servant Jesus—raised him up to be their leader and deliverer, just as centuries before he had raised up his servant Moses. (This, rather than Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, is probably in view here.)⁵⁹ Jesus, as Abraham’s promised descendant, had come to them to bestow God’s best blessing on them, turning them away from their sin. They had not paid heed to him at first when God sent him; let them pay heed now, when God in his pardoning grace was giving them a second opportunity; otherwise they would forfeit the covenanted blessing.

1. After “temple” there is a Western addition: “for the evening (oblation).”

2. Lit., “lame from his mother’s womb.”

3. The words “get up and” are omitted by B D cop^sah (the agreement of B and D is particularly impressive; may have been added under the influence of Luke 5:23 par.).

4. The Western text inserts “he stood up and” ().

5. The Western text adds “rejoicing and exulting.”

6. Presumably John the son of Zebedee, who appears as Peter’s companion on two occasions in Acts (3:1–4:23 and 8:14–25); in both narratives he is but a lay figure alongside Peter. (It is doubtless the same John who is mentioned as one of the three “pillars” of the mother church in Gal. 2:9.)

7. The outer court of the temple as rebuilt and extended by Herod did not form part of the sacred precincts in the strictest sense: it was open to Gentiles, and therefore sometimes called the Court of the Gentiles (see p. 409, n. 46). From this court one might ascend steps to pass through the barrier which separated it from the inner courts. Notices in Greek and Latin were fixed to this barrier, warning Gentiles not to penetrate farther, on pain of death (see p. 409, nn. 47–49, on 21:28–29). The Beautiful Gate was probably one of the gates leading through the barrier. The first of the inner courts, containing the treasury (cf. Mark 12:41–44), was called the Court of the Women because Jewish women might enter thus far, but no farther. Jewish laymen might proceed farther, into the Court of Israel. Beyond this was the Court of the Priests (containing, among other things, the altar of burnt offering); at the west end of this inmost court stood the sanctuary building (the ), with its two compartments, the holy place and the holy of holies.

8. For the evening oblation see Ex. 29:39–42. Josephus says that public sacrifices were offered in the temple “twice daily, in the early morning and about the ninth hour” (Ant. 14.65). A service of public prayer accompanied these two sacrifices and there was a further prayer service at sunset. The “continual burnt offering,” comprising the morning and evening sacrifices, is the subject of the Mishnaic treatise . See Schürer II, pp. 299–307.

9. Mishnah, 2.3. See E. Stauffer, “Das Tor des Nikanor,” ZNW 44 (1952–53), pp. 44–66.

10. Josephus, BJ 5.201. (Josephus, BJ 5. 184–247, and the Mishnaic tractate are our principal sources of information about the temple before its destruction in A.D. 70.)

11. “That which the physician observes during the months of the ordinary gradual cure of a lame man is here compressed into a moment” (A. Harnack, Luke the Physician, E.T. [London, 1907], p. 191). See also W. K. Hobart, The Medical Language of St. Luke (Dublin, 1882), pp. 34–37 (but Hobart’s lexical data must be carefully checked).

12. In other words, “into the temple” () in the sense in which this expression occurs in vv. 1, 2, and 3. The comprises the whole temple area, including the outer court; the is the holy house itself ( is not used of the Jerusalem sanctuary in Acts, but is so used several times in the four Gospels, as in Luke 1:9, 21–22; 23:45).

13. Par. Matt. 9:6; Luke 5:24 (see p. 76, n. 3). Cf. John 5:8 (in the healing of the disabled man at the pool of Bethesda).

14. From the General Absolution in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

15. Compare the terms in which Jesus reassures John the Baptist that he was indeed the Coming One to whom John had pointed forward (Luke 7:18–23 par. Matt. 11:2–6); “the lame walk” was one of the signs which John’s messengers were to report to him.

16. There is a Western expansion of this verse: “And as Peter and John came out, he came out with them, holding on to them; and the others, filled with amazement, took up their position in Solomon’s Colonnade (as it is called).”

17. Chrysostom and several of the versions (Old Latin, Syriac, and Armenian) read “authority” () for “piety” (). The Latin version of Irenaeus omits “or piety.”

18. The Western text here (and in 7:32) repeats “the God of” before “Isaac” and “Jacob” (in conformity with Ex. 3:6).

19. After “Jesus” the Western text adds “Christ.”

20. After “Pilate” the Western text reads “who judged him, when he was willing to release him.”

21. There is a Western reading “oppressed” () instead of “repudiated” (), possibly through transposition of consonants in an Aramaic original (see M. Wilcox, The Semitisms of Acts [Oxford, 1965], pp. 139–41), but more probably representing a not very successful effort to improve the style avoiding the repetition of in two consecutive clause.

22. Lit., “his name, by faith in his name, has healed this man”; C. C. Torrey shows the way to a simplification of this construction by suggesting that, in an Aramaic stage of the transmission, “he has made whole,” was changed to “his name has strengthened” (Composition and Date of Acts [Cambridge, Mass., 1916], pp. 14–16).

23. Taking the genitive pronoun in to be neuter (referring to “his name”) rather than masculine (“through him”).

24. Where God introduced himself to Moses as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob … the God of your fathers” (Ex. 3:6, 15). The Eighteen Benedictions (see p. 59 with n. 52) open with the invocation: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.…”

25. LXX (“shall be glorified”), whence (“has glorified”) in this passage. In the (later) Targum of Jonathan on the Prophets, “my servant” in Isa. 52:13 (as in Isa. 42:1) is explained by the additional word “Messiah”. On Peter’s use of the Servant concept here see O. Cullmann, Peter: Disciple–Apostle–Martyr, E.T. (London, 1953), pp. 66–68.

26. Mark 1:11 par. Luke 3:22, where words from Isa. 42:1 are preceded by “You are my Son” from Ps. 2:7 (cf. 13:33 below, pp. 259–60 with nn. 79–82). The identification of the Servant with the Davidic Messiah is implied.

27. Cf. 8:32–35 below (pp. 175–77 with nn. 66–70). See V. Taylor, Jesus and his Sacrifice (London, 1937), pp. 39–48; W. Zimmerli and J. Jeremias, TDNT 5, pp. 654–717 (s.v. ), published separately as The Servant of God, E.T., SBT 20 (London, 1957); also, by way of a caveat, M. D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant (London, 1959).

28. See further references to Pilate in 4:27 (where his hostility to Jesus is asserted); 13:28.

29. The title “the holy one” (, not as in 2:27) is paralleled in the NT in Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; 1 John 2:20; Rev. 3:7. In the first of these passages “it is probable … that the demoniac uses with Messianic significance, as expressing a sense of the presence of a supernatural person” (V. Taylor, The Gospel according to St. Mark [London, 1952], p. 174). Similar titles are given in the OT to Aaron the priest (Ps. 106:16) and Elisha the prophet (2 Kings 4:9); in both these places (as elsewhere) Heb. is rendered in LXX (where appears in LXX it regularly corresponds to Heb. ). The title “the righteous one” () is paralleled in the NT in Acts 7:52; 22:14; Jas. 5:6; 1 John 2:1. For OT insistence on the righteousness of the Lord’s Anointed see 2 Sam. 23:3; Isa. 32:1; Zech. 9:9 (cf. also “my righteous Servant” in Isa. 53:11). Messiah is called “the righteous one” in 1 Enoch 38:2 (cf. 1 Enoch 46:3; 53:6; Ps. Sol. 17:35); the plural style, “righteous and holy ones,” is used of the messianic people in 1 Enoch 38:5; 48:1, 7; 51:2. See V. Taylor, The Names of Jesus (London, 1953), pp. 80–83.

30. Gk. … . The word is used four times of Christ in the NT. Here and in Heb. 2:10 it denotes him as the source of life or salvation (since “life” and “salvation” are both represented by one Aramaic word, the phrase used here is practically synonymous with in Heb. 2:10; cf. A. F. J. Klijn, “The Term “Life’ in Syriac Theology,” SJT 5 [1952], pp. 390–97). In 5:31 below is used rather in the sense of “prince” or “leader”; in Heb. 12:2 it is applied to Christ as the “pioneer” or “exemplar” of faith ().

31. The Western text has “we know” () for “I know” ().

32. The Western text, more explicitly, reads “you did an evil thing” ().

33. The Western text omits “since ages past” (), for which cf. Luke 1:70.

34. It is assumed, perhaps for dramatic effect, that the Jerusalemites addressed by Peter are identical with “the people” of Luke 23:15 who sided with Jesus’ prosecutors, in contrast to the weeping women of Luke 23:27 or the many spectators who returned from the crucifixion beating their breasts (Luke 23:48).

35. On the text and meaning of Luke 23:34a see I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, pp. 867–68. Cf. p. 160, n. 132.

36. The phrase is a characteristic Lucanism; cf. 17:3; 26:23; Luke 24:46.

37. The experiences of a righteous sufferer in the Psalter are woven into the NT passion narratives and elsewhere; see Luke 23:35, echoing Ps. 22:7; 23:36, echoing Ps. 69:21 (also Rom. 15:3, citing Ps. 69:9); cf. the pierced one of Zech. 12:10 (John 19:37; Rev. 1:7).

38. The Greek word rendered “refreshing” is , “respite” (cf. Ex. 8:15, the only LXX occurrence of the word). Repentance would bring the people of Jerusalem a respite from the judgment foretold by Jesus, as it brought the Ninevites a respite from the destruction announced by Jonah. Possibly more than a respite is intended here, if “the ‘times of refreshing’ are the definitive age of salvation” (E. Schweizer, TDNT 9, pp. 664–65, s.v. ).

39. See J. A. T. Robinson, “The Most Primitive Christology of All?” in Twelve New Testament Studies, SBT 34 (London, 1962), pp. 139–53.

40. The word used here is (perfect participle passive of ), that in 2:22 is (from ), that in 10:42 is (from , the aorist participle of which is used in Rom. 1:4).

41. Gk. . Cf. the corresponding verb in 1:6, of the restoring of the kingdom to Israel. The restoration here seems to be identical with the regeneration () of Matt. 19:28.

42. Gk. .

43. But see Luke 1:17, where John, endowed with “the spirit and power of Elijah,” will “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children”—a detail quoted from the prophecy of the returning Elijah in Mal. 4:5–6 (to which Mark 9:12a also refers).

44. See O. Bauernfeind, Die Apostelgeschichte (Leipzig, 1939), pp. 66–68; “Tradition und Komposition in dem Apokatastasisspruch Apostelgeschichte 3, 20 f.” in Abraham unser Vater … Festschrift für Otto Michel, ed. O. Betz, M. Hengel, and P. Schmidt (Leiden, 1963), pp. 13–23.

45. 1 Cor. 15:24–28. While Ps. 110:1 is frequently quoted with reference to Christ throughout the NT, only in 1 Cor. 15:24–28 is an interpretation offered of the “enemies” that are to be made his footstool.

46. See 2:36.

47. The Western text adds “to your fathers.”

48. The concluding part of this quotation reproduced in our present text bears a greater resemblance to Lev. 23:29 (anyone who does not observe the day of atonement “shall be cut off from his people”) than to Deut. 18:19. See n. 53 below.

49. See the Qumran application of this prophecy in 4Q Testimonia 5–7; also 1QS 9.11 (“until the coming of a prophet and the anointed ones of Aaron and Israel”). Cf. F. F. Bruce, Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts (Grand Rapids/London, 1960), pp. 46–50.

50. See J. Macdonald, The Theology of the Samaritans (London, 1964), pp. 359–65. The Coming One of Samaritan expectation was later called the “Restorer” (Taheb). Cf. John 4:19, 25, 29.

51. See H.-J. Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen, 1949), pp. 87–98.

52. See John 6:14 and 7:40, where Jesus, as the supplier of bread from heaven and the water of life, is hailed as “the prophet” (the second Moses); cf. John 1:21b, 25, where John denies that he himself is “the prophet.” In the transfiguration narrative the command from the cloud enveloping the divine presence, “listen to him” (Mark 9:7), echoes Deut. 18:15, and identifies Jesus with the expected prophet.

53. Cf. the use made of Deut. 18:15 in Stephen’s speech (7:37); see C. H. H. Scobie, “The Origins and Development of Samaritan Christianity,” NTS 19 (1972–73), pp. 390–414. In the form in which it appears in our present text, conflated with Lev. 23:29 (see n. 48 above), the quotation recurs in Clem. Recog. 1.36 (this may suggest dependence on a testimony collection). See also C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures(London, 1952), pp. 53–57.

54. See p. 66 above.

55. M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul. E.T. (London, 1983), pp. 30–47.

56. See 1 Sam. 13:14; 15:28; 16:13; 28:17.

57. This quotation conflates the LXX rendering of Gen. 12:3 (“in you all the families of the earth will be blessed”) and of Gen. 22:18 (“in your posterity all the nations of the earth will be blessed”). Luke probably looks forward to the Gentile mission (cf. Paul’s use of the same promise in Gal. 3:8–9, 16–29).

58. With “to you first” cf. 13:46 as well as Paul’s statement of the principle “to the Jew first” (Rom. 1:16; 2:9–10).

59. Cf. also 5:30; 13:33. Here the verb is , as in v. 22 and 13:33 (in 5:30 it is ).

ACTS 4

3. Arrest of Peter and John (4:1–4)

1  While they were speaking¹ to the people, the [chief] priests,² the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them.

2  They were annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming, in the case of Jesus, resurrection from the dead.³

3  They arrested them and locked them up until the following day (for it was now evening).

4  But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men grew to about five thousand.

1 Such a crowd gathered around Peter and John while they addressed the people thus in Solomon’s Colonnade that the temple authorities intervened. The “captain of the temple,”⁴ the commander of the temple police, was responsible for maintaining order in the temple courts, and he may have had misgivings lest the obstruction caused by so large a crowd might lead to a riot.

2 But some of the other authorities had strong religious objections to the content of the apostles’ preaching, in particular to the announcement that Jesus had been raised from the dead. It is noteworthy that the Sadducees⁵—the party to which the chief-priestly families⁶ belonged—are specially mentioned in this regard. They objected on principle to the doctrine of resurrection in itself, considering it to be a Pharisaic innovation, and they were greatly annoyed because the two apostles, by their insistence on the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, were so publicly and cogently maintaining that doctrine.

3–4 It was now evening (an hour or two at least must have gone by since the afternoon prayers for which Peter and John had gone up to the temple in the first instance), and there was no time to hold an inquiry into the apostles’ conduct before sundown. They were therefore locked up for the night. But the temple authorities could not undo the harm (as they considered it) that Peter and John had done; the healing of the cripple and the preaching which followed it had the effect of adding a large number to the three thousand who believed on the day of Pentecost. The number of men alone,⁷ says Luke, now totaled some five thousand.

4. Peter and John before the Sanhedrin (4:5–12)

5  The next day there came together in Jerusalem their rulers, elders, and scribes,

6  with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas, John⁸ and Alexander, and all who belonged to the high-priestly family.

7  They set Peter and John in the midst and proceeded to inquire: “By what authority or in what name have you⁹ done this?”

8  Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders!

9  If we are being questioned today regarding a good deed done to a cripple, by what means he has been healed,

10  let all of you, and all the people of Israel, take knowledge that this man is standing here before you all in perfect health through the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,¹⁰ whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead.

11  He is ‘the stone which was rejected by the builders’—by you—‘but has been made top stone of the pediment.’

12  And there is no saving health¹¹ in anyone else, for indeed no other name under heaven has been given to human beings, by which we must be saved.”

5–6  The next morning the Sanhedrin¹² met (probably in a building immediately to the west of the temple precincts¹³), and the chief-priestly, Sadducean, element in its membership was especially well represented. Annas, the senior ex-high priest,¹⁴ was there, and so was his son-in-law Caiaphas,¹⁵ the reigning high priest, who was president of the Sanhedrin by virtue of his office. Not many weeks had passed since these two men had taken a part in the arrest and condemnation of Jesus. If they hoped that they had got rid of him, their hope was short-lived; it looked now as if they were going to have as much trouble on his account as they had had before his death. With them were several of their kinsmen, two of whom are mentioned by name, although one of these cannot be identified with certainty, and the other cannot be identified at all.¹⁶

7 When the members of the court had taken their seats, Peter and John were fetched from the lock-up and set before them. They were then asked, presumably by the president, by what authority men like them¹⁷ had presumed to act as they had done. Perhaps the Sanhedrin met on this occasion more as a court of inquiry than in a more formal capacity, but the presence of so many senior members indicates the seriousness with which they viewed the situation.

8–10 For such an occasion as this the apostles had already received instructions from their Master: “Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict” (Luke 21:14–15). They now proved the truth of this assurance. In words inspired by the Holy Spirit,¹⁸ Peter made his reply. If he and John were being examined with regard to an act of healing performed on a cripple, if the court wished to know the cause of the man’s cure, then let them know, and let all the nation know, that the deed had been done in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. The former cripple was present in court with them: either he had been locked up with them overnight, as being partly responsible for the commotion in Solomon’s Colonnade, or else he had been summoned as a witness. “This man stands here in your presence completely healed,” said Peter, “by the name of Jesus the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, whom you sent to his death, but whom God raised from the dead.” Of the responsibility of the men whom Peter was now addressing there could be no doubt; it was they who had handed Jesus over to Pilate, Caiaphas bearing the chief responsibility. (It is to Caiaphas that reference is probably made in Jesus’ words to Pilate in John 19:11, “he who delivered me to you has the greater sin.”) As before, there is a pointed contrast between men’s treatment of Jesus and God’s treatment of him.

11 The apostles are technically on the defensive, but actually they have gone over to the attack. Peter proceeds to preach the gospel to his judges, and he bases his argument on a well-known Old Testament text. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner” (Ps. 118:22) is one of the earliest messianic testimonies. It was so used (by implication) by Jesus himself, as the conclusion of the parable of the vineyard (Mark 12:10–11).¹⁹ In the original Old Testament context the rejected stone is perhaps Israel, despised by the nations but chosen by God for the accomplishment of his purpose. But, as so often in the New Testament, God’s purpose for Israel finds its fulfilment in the single-handed work of Christ.

Both here and in later Christian use of this “testimony,” the “builders”²⁰ are interpreted as the rulers of the Jewish nation, who failed to acknowledge Jesus as the divinely sent deliverer; but the Stone which they disregarded has now received from God the place of highest distinction: Jesus now sits enthroned at God’s right hand.

12 And from the once rejected but now glorified Jesus, and from him alone, comes true saving health. The deliverance of the cripple from a bodily affliction might serve as a parable of deliverance from the guilt of sin and from judgment to come.²¹ If the rulers persisted in their repudiation of Jesus, which had already involved them in blood-guiltiness, no deliverance from its consequences could be hoped for from any other quarter or by the power of any other name. The name of Jesus, by which the cripple had been empowered to spring to his feet and walk, was the name with which Israel’s salvation (and, as was to appear later, the salvation of the world ) was inextricably bound up. The course of duty and wisdom for the rulers was therefore clear; if they refused it and persisted in their present attitude, they would bring destruction on their nation as well as on themselves.

The founders of the great world-religions are not to be disparaged by followers of the Christian way. But of none of them can it be said that there is no saving health in anyone else; to one alone belongs the title: the Savior of the world.

5. Debate in the Sanhedrin (4:13–17)

13  As they saw Peter and John’s freedom of speech and realized that they were uneducated laymen, they were surprised, and recognized them as having been with Jesus.

14  And, as they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had no reply to make.²²

15  So they ordered them to leave²³ the court, and conferred with one another.

16  “What shall we do to these men?” they said. “It is a matter of public knowledge²⁴ among all the residents in Jerusalem that a notable sign has been performed through them; we cannot deny it.

17  But to prevent this²⁵ from spreading more widely among the people, let us warn them, under severe penalties,²⁶ to speak no more to anyone in this name.”

13–14 Peter and John were obviously unversed in the formal learning of the rabbinical schools,²⁷ yet they spoke with a freedom and forthrightness that impressed their judges.²⁸ How could untrained laymen like these so ably sustain a theological disputation with members of the supreme court? The answer was not far to seek: the judges took cognizance of the fact²⁹ that they had been companions of Jesus. He too had sat at the feet of no eminent rabbi, yet he taught with an authority which they could well remember. People expressed the same surprise about him: “How is it that this man has learning,³⁰ when he has never studied?” (John 7:15). None could match him in his sure handling of the scriptures, his unerring ability to go back to first principles for the confirming of his own teaching and the discomfiture of his opponents. And plainly he had imparted something of that same gift to his disciples. Not only so, but he had supported his teaching with the mighty works which he performed; now Peter and John were doing the same. That the cripple had been cured was evident; he stood before them as a witness to the fact. Peter and John claimed that the cure had been effected by the power of Jesus’ name; their judges were in no position to deny the claim.

15–17 Peter and John were accordingly sent outside the council-chamber while the court conferred.³¹ It was difficult to know what action to take. They had broken no law in curing the cripple; besides, their action in doing so had made them popular heroes, and it would be impolitic to penalize them. On the other hand, it would be equally impolitic to set them at liberty to go on teaching and healing in the name of Jesus; the authorities would then be confronted once more with the problem which they had thought to be solved by Jesus’ condemnation and execution, and that in a more intractable form than previously. The action on which they decided was a confession of their weakness: they would dismiss the two men, but threaten them with serious consequences if they did the like again.

It is particularly striking that neither on this nor on any subsequent occasion did the authorities take any serious action to disprove the apostles’ central affirmation—the resurrection of Jesus.³² Had it seemed possible to refute them on this point, how eagerly would the opportunity have been seized! Had their refutation on this point been achieved, how quickly and completely the new movement would have collapsed! It is plain that the apostles spoke of a bodily resurrection when they said that Jesus had been raised from the dead; it is equally plain that the authorities understood them in this sense. The body of Jesus had vanished so completely that all the resources at their command could not produce it. The disappearance of his body, to be sure, was far from proving his resurrection, but the production of his body would have effectively disproved it. Now the apostles’ claim that Jesus was alive had received public confirmation by the miracle of healing performed in his name. It was, for the Sanhedrin, a disturbing situation.

6. The Apostles Dismissed with a Caution (4:18–22)

18  So they called them in and charged them absolutely not to speak or teach any more in Jesus’ name.

19  Then Peter and John answered them, “Judge for yourselves if it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God.

20  As for us, we cannot give up speaking of what we have seen and heard.”

21  Then they threatened them further and released them: they could find no way of punishing them, because everyone was glorifying God for what had happened.

22  The man on whom this sign of healing had been performed was more than forty years old.

18–20 They recalled Peter and John, and acquainted them with their decision. A complete ban was imposed on any further public mention of the name of Jesus. If they thought that any heed would be paid to this ban, they were quickly disillusioned. Peter and John had probably never heard of Socrates, and had certainly never read Plato’s Apology, but they gave the same kind of answer as Socrates gave when he was offered his release on condition that he give up the pursuit and discussion of truth and wisdom: “I shall obey God rather than you.”³³ It is, of course, the sort of answer that any person of principle will give when offered freedom at the price of abandoning the path that conscience dictates. But what weighed most of all with the apostles was their personal commitment to the risen Lord to be his witnesses. If the point were put to those judges in the abstract, whether a divine commandment or a human regulation should be obeyed in the event of a clash between the two, they would affirm without hesitation that the divine commandment must be obeyed at all costs. Right, said Peter and John, “we cannot stop telling what we have seen and heard.”³⁴

21–22 Despite this open defiance, the court did nothing but repeat the threat of severe penalties. The popular enthusiasm was too great for them to do anything more. Luke points out here, by way of explaining the extent of the public amazement, that the cripple who had been cured was over forty years old: he had reached an age at which such cures, especially for a congenital defect, simply do not occur.³⁵ Peter and John were discharged.

“This,” says a twentieth-century Jewish historian, “was the first mistake which the Jewish leaders made with regard to the new sect. And this mistake was fatal. There was probably no need to arrest the Nazarenes, thus calling attention to them and making them ‘martyrs’. But once arrested, they should not have been freed so quickly. The arrest and release increased the number of believers; for these events showed on the one hand that the new sect was a power which the authorities feared enough to persecute, and on the other hand they proved that there was no danger in being a disciple of Jesus (he, of course, being the one who had saved them from the hand of their persecutors!).”³⁶

7. Peter and John Rejoin Their Friends (4:23–31)

23  When they had been released, Peter and John rejoined their companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.

24  When they heard it, they raised their voices together³⁷ to God and said,

“Sovereign Lord, who hast made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them,

25  who by the Holy Spirit hast spoken through thy servant David, our father:³⁸

‘Why did the Gentiles rage,

and the peoples make vain plans?

26  The kings of the earth set themselves in array,

and the rulers were gathered together,

against the Lord and against his anointed one’—

27  for in truth, in this city, there were gathered together against thy holy

Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and peoples of Israel,

28  to do all that thy hand and counsel had foreordained to take place.

29  And now, O Lord, look on their threats, and empower thy servants to

declare thy word with all freedom of speech,

30  while thou stretchest forth thy hand for healing and for the performance of signs and wonders through the name of thy holy Servant Jesus.”

31  When they had prayed, the place where they were gathered together

was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to declare the word of God with freedom of speech.³⁹

23–24 The two apostles, on their release, returned to the place where their fellow-apostles and other believers were, and when they told them of their experience before the Sanhedrin, the whole company resorted to prayer. They addressed God as Sovereign Lord,⁴⁰ the Creator of all, in time-honored liturgical language derived from Hebrew scripture.⁴¹

25–28 Then they quoted the opening words of the second Psalm, and found proof of their divine origin in the fulfilment which had so recently taken place in their own experience.

This psalm, with its explicit reference to Yahweh’s anointed one (Messiah), had been interpreted of the coming deliverer of David’s line at least as early as the middle of the first century B.C.;⁴² the words “You are my Son” (Ps. 2:7), addressed to Jesus at his baptism by the heavenly voice, actually hailed him as that Messiah. In conformity with this understanding is the interpretation which the apostles now place on the opening verses of the psalm. The “Gentiles” raged against Jesus in the person of the Romans who sentenced him to the cross and carried out the sentence; the “peoples” who plotted against him are (despite the plural) the Jews, or rather their rulers; the “kings” who set themselves in array are represented by Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, while the “rulers” are represented by Pontius Pilate.⁴³ The reference to Herod harks back to the account in Luke 23:7–12, where Pilate, learning that Jesus is a Galilaean, performs a diplomatic courtesy by referring him to Herod. Luke is the only one of the four evangelists who gives Herod a role in the passion narrative.⁴⁴

The prophetic language of the psalm showed that Pilate, Herod, and the others, in uniting against Jesus, were simply carrying out “God’s appointed counsel and foreknowledge” (as it was called in 2:23), “that the Messiah was to suffer” (3:18).⁴⁵ In these words of the apostles there is an explicit identification of God’s “holy Servant Jesus” with the royal Son of God addressed in Ps. 2:7. Jesus, God’s obedient servant, is the one whom God “anointed” or made Messiah—at his baptism.⁴⁶

29–30 The Sanhedrin might threaten, but the threats called not for intimidation and silence but for increased boldness of speech. The apostles therefore prayed that they themselves might have courage to proclaim their message without fear or favor,⁴⁷ and that God would place the seal of his public approbation on their witness by granting further mighty works of healing and similar signs and wonders through the same name which had cured the lame man—the name of his “holy Servant Jesus.”⁴⁸

31 The assurance of divine favor and help came even as they prayed. The place shook as with an earthquake—whether there was an objective shaking or this was the way in which God’s presence and power were manifested to their consciousness cannot be said—and the Holy Spirit filled them all and sent them forth to proclaim the good news with renewed confidence. The description here is reminiscent of the description of what happened on the day of Pentecost, both in the external signs of the Spirit’s advent and in the prayerful attitude of the disciples at his coming;⁴⁹ but while this was a fresh filling ofthe Spirit, it could not be called a fresh baptism.⁵⁰ If the narrative of 3:1–4:31 is based on a different source from that of 2:1–41, the filling of the Spirit here is not a duplicate of that in 2:4, when for the first time “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”; in the present narrative Peter has already been “filled with the Holy Spirit” for his effective defense before the court (4:8).

D. ALL THINGS IN COMMON (4:32–5:11)

1. Community of Goods (4:32–35)

32  Now the multitude of believers had one heart and soul,⁵¹ and none of them claimed any of his property as his own: they held everything in common.

33  The apostles, with great power, bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,⁵² and much grace rested on them all.

34  No one was in need among them, for all who were owners of land or houses sold them and brought the price received from the sale

35  and placed it at the apostles’ feet. Distribution was then made to each person according to individual need.

32–35 The summary contained in these verses is similar to that in 2:43–47, but serves a different purpose in the narrative. The earlier summary concluded the account of the day of Pentecost; this summary introduces the contrasted episodes of Barnabas and Ananias.

The Spirit-filled community⁵³ exhibited a remarkable unanimity which expressed itself even in the attitude to private property. Whereas the institution of a communal purse was explicitly regulated in writing at Qumran,⁵⁴ the action taken by these early disciples of Jesus was intended to be voluntary. Members regarded their private estates as being at the community’s disposal; those who owned houses or lands sold these in order that they might be more conveniently available to the community in the form of money. The richer members thus made provision for the poorer, and for a time no one had any need to complain of hunger or want. (But later on, when funds ran out and especially after the country was hard hit by the famine mentioned in 11:28, the Jerusalem church became dependent on the generosity of fellow-believers in other places.) The apostles, as the community leaders, received the free-will offerings that were brought, but they apparently delegated the details of distribution to others, for they themselves had to devote their time and energy to their public testimony to the risen Christ. As they did so, the power of God, shown in mighty works, attended their preaching, in answer to their prayer (v. 30). And they continued to enjoy the experience of God’s grace and the favor of the Jerusalem populace.⁵⁵

2. The Generosity of Barnabas (4:36–37)

36  There was one Joseph, whom the apostles surnamed Barnabas, meaning “son of encouragement.” He was a Levite; his family belonged to Cyprus.

37  He had afield which he sold, and he brought the money and placed it at the apostles’ feet.

36–37 The exact etymology of Joseph’s additional name Barnabas is a matter of debate,⁵⁶ but in all that we know of him he proved himself to be a true encourager. He was a Cypriot Jew, but he had relatives in Jerusalem⁵⁷ and a piece of land as well. The Pentateuchal regulations prohibiting priests and Levites from holding landed property seem to have become a dead letter by this time.⁵⁸ The piece of land⁵⁹ which he possessed may not have been large; whatever it was, he sold it and gave the purchase-price to the apostles for the benefit of the community.

1. The Western text adds “these words.”

2. The great majority of witnesses read “priests” (); “chief priests” () is the reading of B and C. In any case, the chief priests are meant.

3. Cod. D reverses the construction, reading “… announced Jesus in the resurrection of the dead.”

4. The captain () of the temple is referred to in rabbinical literature as the sāgān, or sometimes as (“the man of the temple mount”). He belonged to one of the chief-priestly families, and in the temple he ranked next to the high priest. The temple guard which he commanded was a picked body of Levites. Cf. 5:24, 26.

5. The name “Sadducees” is most probably derived from the personal name Zadok, but from which Zadok is not known. An association with the priestly family of Zadok is unlikely, because they first appear in history after the removal of the Zadokites from the high-priesthood, and as supporters of the high-priestly dynasty of the Hasmonaeans. All the high priests from the reign of Herod to the outbreak of the war against Rome in A.D. 66 belonged to their party. As the continued enjoyment of the high-priestly prerogatives and indeed the political existence of the Jews as a nation depended on Roman goodwill during those years, the Sadducees collaborated as far as possible with the Roman authorities, and opposed religious or nationalist aspirations which might incur their wrath.

There is no surviving evidence from the Sadducees themselves about their theology. What is recorded deals mainly with the points on which they differed from the Pharisees (see p. 114, n. 51, on 5:34). They rejected the “oral law” or “tradition of the elders” which the Pharisees maintained, holding that the written law should be preserved and applied without modification. Perhaps it was for this reason that they were reputed to be more severe in judgment than the Pharisees. They dismissed as innovations the Pharisaic belief in angelic and demonic hierarchies, together with the hope of bodily resurrection (see 23:8). See Josephus, BJ 2.164–66; Ant. 13.171, 298; 18.16–17; also Schürer II, pp. 404–14.

6. The chief priests included the high priest and the principal temple officers (J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, E.T. [London, 1969], pp. 160–81), together with ex-high priests and members of the leading priestly families from which the high priest was regularly drawn at this period (see Schürer II, pp. 232–36).

7. Men as distinct from women and children: , not (cf. Matt. 14:21).

8. For “John” the Western text reads “Jonathan” (cf. n. 16 below).

9. Emphatic , “people like you.”

10. Some Western witnesses add “and through no other” (cf. v. 12).

11. The phrase “saving health” is used here to render , indicating that the word covers both bodily and spiritual healing. (Cf. Ps. 67:2, KJV.)

12. The Sanhedrin (a Hebrew and Aramaic loanword from Gk. , the word translated “court” in v. 15 below) was the senate and supreme court of the Jewish nation. In the NT it is also called the , “body of elders” (22:5; Luke 22:66) and , “senate” (5:21); Josephus also refers to it as the , “council” (BJ 2.331, 336; 5.532; Ant. 20.11). The Mishnah calls it the Sanhedrin, the great Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin of the seventy-one, the great law-court. It comprised the high priest, who presided over it by virtue of his office, and seventy other members. It first appears in history in the Hellenistic period (c. 200 B.C.) as the body which regulated the internal affairs of the nation (Josephus, Ant. 12.142); it maintained this role until the revolt of A.D. 66. (It should not be confused with the later Sanhedrin of scholars which regulated the religious law of Israel after the war of A.D. 66–73, under Yohanan ben Zakkai as its first president.) The Sanhedrin at this time included a majority of members from the Sadducean party, supporting the chief-priestly interests, and a powerful minority from the Pharisaic party, to which most of the scribes or professional exponents of the law of Moses belonged. The body is frequently referred to in the NT by some or all of its component groups; so here in v. 5, “their rulers, elders, and scribes” (cf. 5:23, “the chief priests and elders”).

13. The council-chamber, according to Josephus (BJ 2.344; 5.144; 6.354), was situated at the eastern end of a bridge across the Tyropoeon valley (the bridge now represented by Wilson’s Arch). At the western end of the bridge lay the open-air gathering place called the Xystus, “the polished (floor).” The Mishnaic name for the council-chamber, , means presumably not (as traditionally rendered) “the hall of hewn stones” but “the hall beside (or over against) the Xystus.” See Schürer II, pp. 223–25; G. H. Dalman, Jerusalem und sein Gelände (Gütersloh, 1930), pp. 193–94; J. Simons, Jerusalem in the Old Testament (Leiden, 1952), pp. 252–53.

14. Annas or Ananus (Heb. , son of Sethi, was appointed to the high-priesthood by P. Sulpicius Quirinius, legate of Syria, in A.D. 6, and held the office for nine years. Even after his deposition he continued to exercise great influence: five of his sons, one son-in-law (Caiaphas), and one grandson became high priest for shorter or longer periods during the following half-century. His personal authority is reflected in the part he plays in the trial narrative of the Fourth Gospel (John 18:13–24). He is called “the high priest” here in the sense of ex-high priest (or, as we might say, high priest emeritus). In Luke 3:2 he is coupled with Caiaphas (reigning high priest at the time) in a chronological note: “in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas” ().

15. Caiaphas was the surname of Joseph (Josephus, Ant. 18.35, 95), son-in-law to Annas according to John 18:13. He was appointed high priest by Valerius Gratus, prefect of Judaea, in A.D. 18 and held the office for the remarkably long term of eighteen years, which included the ten years of Pilate’s administration. He was deposed at last by L. Vitellius (who as legate of Syria visited Judaea at the time of Pilate’s recall in A.D. 36) and replaced by Jonathan, son of Annas.

16. If the Western reading “Jonathan” (instead of “John”) be followed in v. 6, the reference might be to Jonathan, son of Annas, who eventually succeeded Caiaphas in the high-priesthood. No Alexander of the high-priestly family is otherwise known.

17. There is an implication of scorn in the emphatic “you” () of v. 7, coming as it does at the end of the sentence.

18. Gk. , “filled with (the) Holy Spirit.” A distinction should be made between this use of the aorist participle passive, denoting a special moment of inspiration, and the use of the adjective (“full”) to denote the abiding character of a Spirit-filled person (like Stephen in 6:5).

19. In the parallel passage Luke 20:17–18 the rejected stone is linked with the stumbling stone of Isa. 8:14–15 against which “many … shall fall and be broken” and with the great stone in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream which struck the image so that the wind carried its dust away like chaff (Dan. 2:35). In 1 Pet. 2:6 the rejected stone is further linked with the “precious cornerstone of a sure foundation” laid in Zion (Isa. 28:16), which is also interpreted of Christ by Paul in Rom. 9:33 and possibly in Eph. 2:20. The interdependent christological exegesis of these “stone” texts has been held to be strong evidence of a primitive collection of OT “testimonies.” In later Christian literature other OT stones are brought into the interpretation, e.g., Jacob’s stone at Bethel (Gen. 28:11) and the stone which supported Moses during the battle with Amalek at Rephidim (Ex. 17:12); cf. Cyprian, Testimonies 2:16. See J. A. Robinson, The Epistle to the Ephesians (London, 1904), pp. 163–64; J. R. Harris, Testimonies, I (Cambridge, 1916), pp. 30–31; E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of Peter (London, 1946), pp. 268–77; B. P. W. Stather Hunt, Primitive Gospel Sources (London, 1951), pp. 126–29; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (London, 1952), pp. 35–36, 69, 99–100; S. H. Hooke, The Siege Perilous(London, 1955), pp. 235–49; F. F. Bruce, “The Corner Stone,” ExT 84 (1972–73), pp. 231–35. The “head of the corner” is equivalent to the “top stone of the pediment.”

20. “Builders” appears in rabbinical literature as a figure of speech for teachers of the law. In the Qumran texts “the builders of the wall” are leaders of a religious community, whether of the true one (as in CD 4.12, applying Mic. 7:11) or a false one (as in CD 4.19, with reference to the rickety wall of Ezek. 13:10–16). In the present context, when once the rejected stone had been identified as Jesus, the “builders” who rejected it were bound to be interpreted as the Jewish authorities. Ps. 118:22 thus became “one of the sheet-anchors of early Christian teaching” (E. G. Selwyn, First Peter, p. 269).

21. For the twofold sense of salvation () cf. 14:9.

22. Lit., “They could say nothing against it”; the Western text has the amplified reading: “they could do or say nothing against it.”

23. The Western text reads “to be led off” () for “to leave” ().

24. Cod. D has the comparative (in the elative sense, “very clear,” “all too clear”) for the positive .

25. Several Western authorities read “these matters” ().

26. Lit., “let us threaten them” (). The Byzantine text makes the threat more emphatic by adding before (lit., “let us threaten with threatening”), whence KJV “let us straitly threaten them.”

27. This is the force in the present context of … In papyri the former word appears with the sense “illiterate”; here it means rather “uneducated” in respect of rabbinical training. As for , which means “private person” in ordinary Greek, it is interesting to note that it appears as a loanword in postbiblical Hebrew and Aramaic () with the meaning “commoner,” “layman,” “unskilled.” Here it implies that Peter and John, far from being professional exponents of scripture, were laymen— (“people of the land”) in the rabbinical sense of that phrase, denoting the rank and file of the Jewish population who could not be expected to know or practise the details of the oral law (cf. John 7:49). The wonder was that they showed such mastery of biblical argument.

28. The judges took note of their , “freedom of speech” (cf. vv. 29, 31). “This freedom manifests itself … mainly in the clear witness about Jesus, who had been rejected by this very same council and yet was the exclusive Saviour” (W. C. van Unnik, “The Christian’s Freedom of Speech in the New Testament,” BJRL 44 [1961–62], p. 478).

29. Gk. —they directed special attention to this fact as an important piece of relevant evidence. If the compound is to be distinguished from the simple , it may be by a certain decisive quality.

30. Gk. , “knows letters” (cf. here).

31. It is idle to inquire into the narrator’s source of information about the conversation that took place when the apostles were sent out of the room. Its general drift could be readily inferred from what the judges said when Peter and John were brought back.

32. The action reported in Matt. 28:13 (which incidentally confirms that the tomb was found empty) can scarcely be called serious; had a more convincing refutation of the apostles’ claim been possible, it would have been preferred.

33. Plato, Apology of Socrates 29D (for Socrates “the god” might be a more appropriate rendering of than “God”). Cf. 5:29 below.

34. Gk. … .

35. Compare the man at the pool of Bethesda, whose infirmity had lasted for thirty-eight years (John 5:5); only it is not said to have been congenital.

36. J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, E.T. (London, 1944), pp. 282–83.

37. Gk. (“with one accord”), as in 1:14.

38. The Greek is very awkward here: Westcott and Hort speak of “the extreme difficulty of text, which doubtless contains a primitive error.” The only way to construe it as it stands () is to take David as the “mouth” (i.e., mouthpiece) of the Holy Spirit: “who didst say through thy servant David our father, the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit.” The Western text reads: “who through the Holy Spirit didst speak through the mouth of David, thy servant.” C. C. Torrey envisages an underlying text which might be rendered: “as our father David, thy servant, said by the mouth of the Holy Spirit” (Composition and Date of Acts [Cambridge, Mass., 1916], pp. 16–18). H. W. Moule (ExT 51 [1939–40], p. 396) suggested that the writer put down a first draft and then made corrections, and that a copyist, misunderstanding the signs for deletion or addition, combined words which were intended to be alternatives.

39. The Western text adds “to everyone who was willing to believe.”

40. Gk. , vocative of (cf. Luke 2:29; Rev. 6:10).

41. Cf. Ex. 20:11; Neh. 9:6; Ps. 146:6; Isa. 42:5; also Wisd. 13:3, 4, 9 (and cf. 14:15; 17:24 below).

42. See Ps. Sol. 17:26, where Ps. 2:9 is applied to the expected son of David, the “anointed lord” (cf. p. 68, n. 90 above).

43. See p. 81, n. 28 above.

44. For the improbable view that Luke’s introduction of Herod was created out of Christian exegesis of Ps. 2:1–2 see M. Dibelius, “Herodes und Pilatus,” ZNW 16 (1915), pp. 113–26; G. Lüdemann, Paul: Apostle to the Gentiles, E.T. (London, 1984), pp. 12–13, 36–37 (with n. 41).

45. Tertullian (On the Resurrection of the Flesh 20) gives a slightly different interpretation: “In the person of Pilate the nations (gentes) raged, and in the person of Israel the peoples (populi, plural) planned vain things; the kings of the earth stood up in Herod, and in Annas and Caiaphas the rulers were gathered together.” The unusual application to Israel of the plural is due to the use of the singular in reference to Israel as God’s people over against , “Gentiles”; in Ps. 2:1 the Heb. plural LXX , stands in synonymous parallelism with , LXX , not in opposition to it.

46. With “whom thou didst anoint” () cf. 10:38, “God anointed () Jesus of Nazareth”; from the verb comes the form , “anointed one,” “messiah.”

47. They call themselves God’s “slaves” (), perhaps deliberately using a humbler term than that applied to Jesus as God’s servant ().

48. Phrases like “through thy holy Servant Jesus” retained liturgical currency in the church for some generations; cf. Did. 9:2 (“through Jesus thy Servant”); 1 Clem. 59:3 (“through Jesus Christ thy beloved Servant”); Mart. Pol. 14.3 (“through … Jesus Christ thy dear Servant”); Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 4.4 (“through thy beloved Servant Jesus Christ”), etc.

49. See p. 42, n. 57 (on 1:14).

50. See the exposition of 2:38 (pp. 69–71).

51. The Western text adds “and there was no division among them.”

52. Cod. D adds “Christ”; and A read “Jesus Christ the Lord.”

53. The word , rendered “multitude” in v. 32, acquired the special sense of a civic community (in Athens) and of a religious community (among Jews and Christians). In LXX it twice renders Heb. qāhāl (Ex. 12:6; 2 Chron. 31:18), more usually rendered (cf. 5:11 below with n. 23 on p. 108). Cf. 6:2, 5; 15:12, 30.

54. Cf. 1QS 1.12; 5.2; 6.17–25.

55. The “grace” which rested on them all (v. 33) may include divine and human favor, together with a responsive spirit of gratitude (Gk. covers all these nuances).

56. It is explained as , variously translated “son of consolation” (KJV), “son of exhortation” (ASV) or, better than either of these, “son of encouragement” (RSV), this use of “son” to indicate a man’s character being a familiar Semitic idiom. “Barnabas” might be the adaptation of a form like Palmyrene Bar-Nebo (cf. G. A. Deissmann, Bible Studies, E.T. (Edinburgh, ²1909], p. 188); another suggestion is that it represents Aram. (lit., “son of soothing”); cf. A. Klostermann, Probleme im Aposteltexte (Gotha, 1883), pp. 8–14. See T. Zahn, Die Apostelgeschichte des Lucas, pp. 183–88; S. P. Brock, , JTS N.S. 25 (1974), pp. 93–98.

57. See 12:12 below together with Col. 4:10.

58. For the prohibitions see Num. 18:20, 24; Deut. 10:9; 18:1–2; but members of priestly families like Jeremiah (Jer. 32:6–15) and Josephus (Life 422) held landed property.

59.The word used here is , which appears nowhere else in Acts; elsewhere in Acts a piece of land is a (cf. v. 34; 1:18; 5:3, 8) or (2:45; 5:1).

ACTS 5

3. Deceit and Death of Ananias (5:1–6)

1  But¹ a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property²

2  and, with his wife’s complicity, kept back some of the money received; then he brought the other part and placed it at the apostles’ feet.

3  “Ananias,” said Peter, “why did Satan fill³ your heart, making you deceive the Holy Spirit and keep back some of the money received for the land?

4  While the land remained, did it not remain in your possession? And when it was sold, was the money not still under your control? Why did you conceive this thing⁴ in your heart? You have lied to God, not to human beings.”

5  Hearing these words, Ananias⁵ fell down and died, and great fear came on all who heard about it.

6  The young men got up, wrapped him in a winding-sheet, carried him out, and buried him.

The story of Ananias is to the book of Acts what the story of Achan is to the book of Joshua. In both narratives an act of deceit interrupts the victorious progress of the people of God. It may be that the author of Acts himself wished to point this comparison: when he says that Ananias “kept back” part of the price (v. 2), he uses the same Greek word as is used in the Greek version of Josh. 7:1 where it is said that the Israelites (represented by Achan) “broke faith” by retaining for private use property that had been devoted to God.⁶

The incident of Ananias and Sapphira is felt by many readers to present a stumbling block partly ethical and partly intellectual. The intellectual difficulty is not so great as is sometimes supposed. We know almost nothing of the private beliefs of Ananias and his wife, but at a certain stage of religious awareness sudden death is a familiar sequel to the realization that one has unwittingly infringed a taboo. (It does not necessarily follow that Ananias’s death must be accounted for in this way, but it shows how little substance there is in the idea that the story is essentially improbable.) As for the ensuing death of Sapphira, if it is thought that this “adds such improbability as lies in a coincidence,”⁷ it must be remembered that she sustained the additional shock of learning of her husband’s sudden death.

It is pointless to argue that the double death was not quite so sudden as the narrative suggests, as is done, for example, by Joseph Klausner. When the couple’s deceit was detected, he says, “Peter became angry at them and rebuked them; and when they died shortly thereafter, of course their death was attributed to this rebuke by the chief and first apostle.”⁸ Even more improbable is the suggestion of P. H. Menoud, that Ananias and Sapphira were the first members of the believing community to die, and that their natural death came as such a shock to the others (who thought that Christ by his resurrection had abolished physical death for his people) that they felt obliged to explain it by the supposition that some previously un-detected sin had found them out.⁹

A much more serious matter is the impression which the narrative gives of the personality of Peter, who had so recently experienced the forgiving and restoring grace of God after his denial of Christ in the high priest’s palace. It is absurd to try to make him directly responsible for the death of the couple, but his language to them, and especially to Sapphira, has seemed to many readers to reflect the spirit of Elijah calling down fire from heaven on the soldiers who came to arrest him, or Elisha pronouncing sentence of perpetual leprosy on Gehazi, rather than the spirit of his Master. “It could not of course,” says one commentator, “be laid as a charge against St. Peter that after his stern rebuke of Ananias the offender fell down dead suddenly, though one would have expected St. Peter in future to be more careful in rebuking the sinful members of the congregation. But the story goes on to relate that Ananias was buried without word being said to his wife, although she must have been in the neighbourhood. When she came into the house three hours later, St. Peter instead of telling her of the dreadful fall of her husband so as to give her a chance of repentance cross-examined her in such a way that the sin in her heart was brought to light as a downright lie; and then he told her that her husband was dead and she would die too.… Try how we may, we cannot imagine Christ acting towards sinners as St. Peter is here represented as doing.”¹⁰

It is no part of a commentator’s work to pass moral judgment on Peter; it would be necessary, in any case, to know much more than is stated in the narrative. Sapphira, for aught that is known to the contrary, may have suggested the deceit to her husband. It is not Peter’s character or even Ananias and Sapphira’s deserts in which Luke is primarily interested. What he is concerned to emphasize is the reality of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence in the church, together with the solemn practical implications of that fact. So early was it necessary to emphasize the lesson later formulated by Paul: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are” (1 Cor. 3:16–17).¹¹

The incident shows, too, that even in the earliest days the church was not a society of perfect people. Luke’s picture of the primitive community is no doubt idealized, but it is not over-idealized. Lest his readers should overestimate the unity and sanctity of the first believers, he has recorded this incident which not only illustrates his honest realism but is intended also to serve as a warning to others.

1–2   Two members of the community, Ananias and his wife Sapphira,¹² like many other members, sold a piece of land which they possessed. They retained part of the price for their private use, as they had every right to do, and Ananias brought the rest to the apostles to be used for the benefit of the community, but he represented this balance as being the total purchase price that they had received.

3  Peter, perceiving the truth of the situation, broke out on Ananias in words calculated to convey to the wretched man the enormity of his sin. Sharp practice in the ordinary commerce of life was as common then as now, but a higher standard of probity must prevail among the followers of Christ. Ananias, in the effort to gain a reputation for greater generosity than he had actually earned, tried to deceive the believing community, but in trying to deceive the community he was really trying to deceive the Holy Spirit, whose life-giving power had created the community and maintained it in being. So real was the apostles’ appreciation of the presence and authority of the Spirit in their midst. There may indeed be the further implication that Ananias and Sapphira had vowed to give the whole proceeds of the sale to God, but then changed their mind and handed over only part. A lie told to Peter as a private man might have been relatively venial, but this—whether Ananias knew it or not—was a lie told to God,¹³ something prompted by none other than the great adversary of God and humanity.¹⁴

4   No compulsion had been laid on Ananias to sell his property: the virtue of such an act as Barnabas’s lay in its spontaneous generosity. The community of goods in the primitive Jerusalem church was quite voluntary. The piece of land belonged to Ananias; he could keep it or sell it as he pleased, and when he had sold it the money he got for it was his to use as he chose.¹⁵ The voluntariness of the whole procedure forms a contrast to much that has claimed this early Christian practice as a precedent. But the voluntariness of the whole procedure made Ananias’s action the more gratuitous. If it is no part of a commentator’s business to pass moral judgments on Peter, the temptation must equally be resisted to pass them on Ananias. The desire to gain a higher reputation than is one’s due for generosity or some other virtue is not so uncommon that anyone can afford to adopt a self-righteous attitude toward Ananias. In a situation where those who followed Barnabas’s example received high commendation within the group, the social pressure on others to do the same, or rather to appear to do the same, must have been considerable.

5  As Peter spoke, Ananias’s sin came home to him, and he fell down dead. It was an evident act of judgment—the judgment that begins first at the house of God—and it is no wonder that all who heard about it were filled with fear. But it may have been an act of mercy as well, if the incident be considered in the light of Paul’s words about another offender against the believing community: “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5).¹⁶ Some expositors have cited as a parallel to Ananias’s sudden death the story of the Archbishop of York who fell dead with fright when King Edward I of England darted an angry look at him.¹⁷ But it is no real parallel: nothing in Peter’s personality stopped Ananias’s heart from beating, but rather the sudden realization of the sacrilege that he had committed.

6  Immediately his dead body was carried out and buried by “the young men”—probably the younger members of the community rather than professional buriers. Burial in that climate followed quickly after death; what was required in the way of medical certification is uncertain. Apparently Sapphira was not told of her husband’s death; there is no way of knowing if any attempt was made to communicate with her. The telescoping of such proceedings enhances the dramatic effect of the narrative, the first act of which is now to be followed by the second.

4. Death of Sapphira (5:7–11)

7  There was a lapse of about three hours; then his wife came in. She did not know what had happened.

8  Peter said¹⁸ to her, “Tell me, did you sell the land for so much?” “Yes,” said she, “for so much.”

9  Then Peter answered her, “What made you agree together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? See, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door; they will carry you out too.”

10  Immediately she fell down at his feet and died.¹⁹ The young men came in, found her dead, carried her out,²⁰ and buried her with her husband.

11  Great fear fell on the whole church and on all who heard of this.

7–10   The death of Ananias may have come as a shock to Peter, but the following three hours gave him time to consider the tragedy and to recognize in it the divine judgment for an attempt to deceive the church, and to deceive the Spirit in the church. When Sapphira came in, he asked her plainly if she and her husband had sold the land for the sum which had actually been handed over. She had thus an opportunity to tell the truth, but when she brazened it out and repeated her husband’s falsehood, Peter had no doubt that she would share her husband’s fate, and he told her so bluntly. At this stage Peter had not had much experience in pastoral ministry; otherwise he would probably have broken the news of Ananias’s death to her before he questioned her, and the result might have been happier. As it was, both husband and wife had been detected in a deliberately conceived plan to see how far they could go in presuming on the forbearance of the Spirit of God (which is what is meant by “tempting” him); and they had gone too far.²¹ The conviction of complicity in this guilt, together with the rough-and-ready announcement of her husband’s death, proved too much for Sapphira: she in her turn fell down dead and was carried out and buried.

11   There is no point in asking if Ananias and Sapphira were genuine believers or not, because there is no means of answering such a question. On the one hand, they did not behave as if they were genuine believers; on the other hand, it cannot be said for certain that they were not, unless one is prepared to say that no one who commits an act of deliberate deceit can be a genuine believer. The fear which fell on the whole community suggests that many a member of it (like many an Israelite when Achan was exposed) had reason to tremble and think, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” The best answer to questions of this kind is provided by the twofold inscription on the divinely laid foundation stone: “The Lord knows those who are his” and “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19).

In verse 11 the word “church” (Gk. ekklēsia) occurs for the first time in the authentic text of Acts.²² The Greek word has both a Gentile and a Jewish background. In its Gentile sense it denotes chiefly the citizen-assembly of a Greek city (cf. Acts 19:32, 39, 41), but it is its Jewish usage that underlies its use to denote the community of believers in Jesus. In the Septuagint it is one of the words used to denote the people of Israel in their religious character as Yahweh’s “assembly.” It is a pity that in so many English versions of the New Testament it is rendered by a term (“church”) which is absent from the English Old Testament. Readers of the Greek Bible could draw their own conclusions from the use of ekklēsia in Old and New Testament alike. So could readers of William Tyndale’s English translation when they came on the word “congregacion” in both Testaments.²³

E. THE APOSTLES BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN (5:12–42)

1. Signs and Wonders (5:12–16)

12  Many signs and wonders were performed through the apostles among the people. They all met together in Solomon’s Colonnade,

13  and none of the others²⁴ dared to join them; but the people held them in high esteem.²⁵

14  More and more believed in the Lord and were added to their number, multitudes of both men and women,

15  so that people even carried their sick folk into the open squares²⁶ and laid them on couches and pallets, in order that even Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came that way.²⁷

16  A multitude also came from the towns round about Jerusalem, bringing sick and demon-possessed people, and they were all healed.

12–16   This paragraph is a further summary such as has been seen already in 2:43–47 and 4:32–35. It provides a transition to the incident recorded in verses 17–42.

One may wonder how the statement that “none of the others dared to join” the disciples can be squared with the report of “more and more” being added to their fellowship; the point seems to be that the death of Ananias and Sapphira scared off all but the totally committed. Again we are told of the “signs and wonders” performed through the agency of the apostles; the general atmosphere is like that of the earlier days of our Lord’s Galilaean ministry (Mark 1:32–34 par. Luke 4:40–41). Peter’s shadow was as efficacious as a medium of healing power as the fringe of his Master’s cloak had been (Mark 6:56). No wonder that the common people sounded the apostles’ praises and that the number of believers increased. Even from outlying towns and villages of Judaea people streamed into the capital with their sick folk in hope of profiting from the apostles’ healing ministry. Peter’s reputation evidently stood specially high in this regard.

2. The Apostles Imprisoned and Released (5:17–21a)

17  Now the high priest and all his colleagues, the party of the Sadducees as it then was, took action. They were filled with indignation,

18  so they arrested the apostles and put them in official custody.²⁸

19  But the angel of the Lord opened the prison doors by night and brought them out.

20  “Go,” he said, “stand in the temple and tell the people all the words of this life.”

21a  On hearing that, they went into the temple at dawn and proceeded to teach.

17–18  It has been held that this incident is a duplicate of the account of Peter and John’s arrest and examination before the Sanhedrin given in the preceding chapter (4:1–22), derived from a parallel source. Whether this is so or not, Luke clearly presents this incident as a sequel to the earlier one. This time all the apostles are involved, not two only, and instead of being merely dismissed with a caution they are punished for disobeying the court order imposed at the previous hearing. Peter and John gave notice that they would disregard that order (which forbade them to speak or teach any more in Jesus’ name). They and their colleagues continued their preaching activity, together with a healing ministry which reproduced on a wider scale the miraculous cure which had led to their first appearance before the Sanhedrin. Now the temple authorities, at the instance of the chief-priestly group (who belonged, as we have been told already, to the party of the Sadducees), arrested the whole band of apostles—presumably while they were preaching in Solomon’s Colonnade—and had them locked up over-night. The next day it was proposed to take more drastic steps with them than had been taken on the previous occasion.

19–21a   But when the next day dawned, and a meeting of the Sanhedrin was convened to deal with the apostles, the apostles could not be found. The prison doors were locked, the members of the temple police force who were guarding them were at their posts, but the prisoners had gone. In classical literature we can trace a special “form” in which it was customary to describe unaccountable escapes from prison,²⁹ and elements of this “form” have been detected here; but such form criticism has but little to say about the historicity of the matter which is being narrated.

Luke ascribes the apostles’ escape to divine agency. It was “the angel of the Lord” (or “an angel of the Lord”), he says, that opened the prison doors by night and freed them. The idiom is drawn from the Old Testament, where “the angel of the Lord” is an extension of the divine personality—Yahweh himself in his manifestation to human beings. Even if this is scarcely the sense in which Luke uses the expression, he does mean that the hand of God was at work in the apostles’ release.³⁰ He does not say whether the agent was a supernatural being or a human messenger of God;³¹ he gives no such details as he gives later of Peter’s escape when he was held prisoner by Herod Agrippa (12:6–10). But whoever the “messenger” may have been on this occasion, he had a voice, for when he brought the apostles out of prison, he told them to resume proclaiming in the temple court “all the words of this life”—an apt term for the message of salvation.³²

3. The Apostles Brought before the Sanhedrin (5:21b–26)

21b  The high priest and his colleagues arrived and³³ called the Sanhedrin together—the whole senate of the people of Israel—and sent to the prison for the apostles to be brought.

22  When the officers arrived there,³⁴ they did not find them in the prison, so they came back and made their report:

23  “We found the prison most securely locked, and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.”

24  When the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard this, they were greatly perplexed about the matter, wondering what it would come to.

25  Then someone arrived and reported to them, “See, the men whom you imprisoned are standing in the temple and teaching the people.”

26  Then the captain of the temple went off with the officers and brought them, using no force, for they were afraid that the people might stone them.

21b–24   When the Sanhedrin met early in the morning, its leaders were naturally perturbed to learn that the prisoners were not to be found. The captain of the temple and his officers were even more perturbed, for they were responsible for the prisoners’ safekeeping.

25  However, if the prisoners had escaped, they had not gone far away. While the Sanhedrin was in session, a messenger came in to tell the authorities that the apostles were standing in the temple court again, teaching the people as before. The authorities drew the disquieting conclusion that the apostles had even more support than they had imagined: they had sympathizers, it appeared, in the ranks of the temple police, if not indeed among some members of the Sanhedrin itself. How otherwise could they have been so unobtrusively released from prison? Where was all this going to end?

26  The captain of the temple, hearing that the apostles were still within his jurisdiction, went with his lieutenants³⁵ and persuaded them to accompany him to the meeting of the court. No force was used, but no resistance was offered. Had the apostles been minded to stand their ground, they could have relied on the support of the crowd that was listening to them and the temple officials would have been faced with an awkward situation; thanks to the apostles’ restraint, there was no breach of the peace.

4. The High Priest’s Charge and the Apostles’ Reply (5:27–32)

27  When they brought them, they set them before the Sanhedrin. Then the high priest³⁶ questioned them:

28  “Did we not charge you strictly not to go on teaching in this name? But see, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you want to make us responsible for this man’s blood.”

29  Then Peter and the (other) apostles said in reply, “We must obey God rather than human beings.³⁷

30  The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, but you put him to death, hanging him on a gibbet.

31  It is he whom God has exalted with his right hand as a prince and savior, to give to Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.

32  We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

27–28   When the apostles were brought in and stood before the Sanhedrin, the high priest, as president of the court, reminded them of the previous warning, and expostulated with them for the way in which they had ignored it, continuing to teach in the temple precincts and throughout the city. It appeared, he said, that they were endeavoring to place the responsibility for Jesus’ death on him and his colleagues on the court. Perhaps the allusion to Jesus as “this man” is an early example of the curious reluctance in Jewish tradition to pronounce the name Jesus.³⁸ (One might, of course, refer to a curious Christian reluctance to pronounce his name, although for a different reason.)

29–31   The words “Peter and the apostles” no doubt imply that Peter made reply on behalf of the whole group, as he had done when addressing the crowd on the day of Pentecost (2:14). Their present reply is simply a repetition of the apostolic proclamation, emphasizing once more the contrast between what the rulers of the people did to Jesus and what God did to him. “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus” (v. 30) refers probably to the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry: as God had once raised up David to be their king (13:22),³⁹ so he had more recently raised up Jesus to be their Messiah (cf. 3:26). The rulers, however, had compassed his death. It was the Romans who crucified him, indeed, but the chief-priestly authorities were responsible for handing him over to them. The manner of this death was the one on which the sacred law of Israel pronounced a curse: “a hanged man is accursed by God” (Deut. 21:23).⁴⁰ His enemies, in other words, had inflicted the utmost disgrace on him. But God’s mighty power⁴¹ exalted him; God bestowed the utmost honor on him, investing him with the authority of Prince⁴² and Savior, to bless his people with the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness. With such a proclamation entrusted to them, the apostles could do no other than insist, as they had done before, that they must obey God rather than any earthly court.⁴³ The authority of the Sanhedrin was great, but greater still was the authority of him who had commissioned them to make the good news known.

32   For they were not only heralds of the good news, but witnesses as well, and not simply witnesses on their own initiative, but witnesses under the direction of the divine witness, the Holy Spirit, imparted by God to all who obey him. In these words we mark again the primitive community’s awareness of being indwelt and possessed by the Spirit to such a degree that they were his organ of expression. We also mark a noteworthy agreement with one of the paraclete passages in the Fourth Gospel: “when the Counselor comes,” said Jesus to the disciples in the upper room, “whom I shall send to you from the Father, he will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:26–27).⁴⁴

5. The Court’s Decision (5:33–40)

33  Hearing this, they were enraged and were minded to put them to death.

34  But one of the Pharisees stood up in the Sanhedrin, Gamaliel by name. He was a doctor of the law, honored by all the people. He directed that the men should be put outside for a little,

35  and he said to his colleagues,⁴⁵ “Men of Israel, beware of what you plan to do about these men.

36  Some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody,⁴⁶ and about four hundred men went over to his side. But he was killed,⁴⁷ and all those who were persuaded by him were dispersed and came to nothing.

37  After him Judas the Galilaean rose up at the time of the enrollment, and led away a host after him. He too was destroyed, and all⁴⁸ those who were persuaded by him were scattered.

38  And now I tell you: do not interfere with these men; leave them alone.⁴⁹ If this idea or activity of theirs is of merely human origin, it will be overthrown;

39  but if it comes from God, you will not be able to overthrow them.⁵⁰ You may even be found to be fighting against God.” They were persuaded by him

40  and, calling the apostles in, they flogged them and charged them not to go on speaking in Jesus’ name. Then they dismissed them.

33   The Sadducean leaders of the Sanhedrin were so enraged at this defiance of their orders that they considered sentencing the apostles to death (by stoning, presumably). But they could take no such action without the support of the Pharisaic members of the court.⁵¹ The Pharisees were in the minority, but they commanded much more public respect than did the Sadducees, so much so that the Sadducean members of the court found it impolitic to oppose the Pharisees’ demands.⁵² This was particularly important in a case like the present, in which the defendants enjoyed the people’s goodwill.

34   There was present at this meeting of the Sanhedrin a Pharisaic leader of quite exceptional eminence, Gamaliel the Elder, the greatest teacher of the day. According to later tradition he was a disciple of Hillel, whom he succeeded as head of his school. But those earlier traditions which reflect some direct memory of Gamaliel and his teaching do not associate him with the school of Hillel; they speak rather of others as belonging to the school of Gamaliel, as though he founded a school of his own.⁵³ According to Acts 22:3, Paul of Tarsus was one of his pupils. He was remembered in later generations as the embodiment of pure Pharisaism. “When Rabban Gamaliel the Elder died,” it was said, “the glory of the Torah ceased, and purity and ‘separateness’ died.”⁵⁴ He now rose up in court and directed that the apostles should be taken out of the council-chamber in order that he might speak his mind freely to his colleagues.

35–36   Gamaliel warned the others not to do anything rash. His advice consisted of “sound Pharisaic teaching; God is over all, and needs no help from men for the fulfilment of His purposes; all men must do is to obey, and leave the issue to Him.”⁵⁵ Similar sentiments to Gamaliel’s were expressed in the dictum of a second-century rabbi, Yohanan the sandal-maker: “Every assembly which is in the name of heaven will finally be established, but that which is not in the name of heaven will finally not be established.”⁵⁶ Gamaliel makes this point, and illustrates it by reminding his hearers of other movements within their lifetime which for a time enjoyed considerable support but were finally not established, because (evidently) they were not “in the name of heaven.”

First, he reminded them of an insurgent named Theudas, who made large claims for himself and secured a following of four hundred men, but he achieved nothing but his own destruction and the dispersal of his followers. We have no other information about this Theudas, but since he is said to have flourished before the rising of Judas the Galilaean (A.D. 6), he may have been one of the many insurgent leaders who arose in Palestine after the death of Herod the Great (4 B.C.).⁵⁷

37  Next, he reminded them of Judas the Galilaean. When Judaea was reduced to the status of a Roman province in A.D. 6, after the deposition of Archelaus, a census was held under the direction of the legate of Syria, P. Sulpicius Quirinius, to determine the amount of tribute to be paid by the new province to the imperial exchequer.⁵⁸ Judas, a man from Gamala in Gaulanitis (Golan), inaugurated a religious and nationalist revolt, contending that it was high treason against God, Israel’s one true king, for his people in his land to pay tribute to a pagan ruler.⁵⁹ The revolt was crushed by Rome, but the spirit which animated it lived on, and emboldened the party of the Zealots to take the lead in the Jewish revolt of A.D. 66.⁶⁰ Judas’s movement proved not to be so ineffective as Gamaliel supposed it was.

38–39  Therefore, said Gamaliel, take no hostile action against these men. If their movement is not of God, it will come to nothing in any case; on the other hand, if after all it should prove to be of God, you would not wish to be found fighting against him.⁶¹ There is much common sense in this position, for certain kinds of men—and movements—can safely be relied on to hang themselves if given enough rope; but Gamaliel’s temporizing policy is not always the wisest one to follow, whether in religious or in political life. His pupil Paul of Tarsus was of a very different mind.

40   However, Gamaliel’s advice prevailed on this occasion. It probably represented the viewpoint of the Pharisees as a whole. The court was content to inflict the minor penalty of flogging on the apostles—whether with the full tale of “forty stripes save one” or something more lenient is not said⁶²—for disobeying its previous order, which was now reimposed: they must speak no more in the name of Jesus.

6. The Apostles Continue Their Public Witness (5:41–42)

41  They, for their part, left the Sanhedrin with joy, because they had been counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the Name.

42  And every day, in the temple and in household groups,⁶³ they continued without ceasing to teach and to tell the good news of the Messiah, Jesus.

41–42  The apostles paid no more attention to the repeated ban on speaking in Jesus’ name than they had done the first time. Both in the temple court and in various homes they continued to bear witness to Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. As for the flogging they had received, this did not dishearten them; on the contrary, they found cause for joy in the thought that God had counted them worthy to endure this humiliation for the sake of Jesus’ name.⁶⁴ It was insignificant indeed when compared with the disgrace and anguish that Jesus had endured; but, as far as it went, it was a participation in his suffering, such as he had warned them to expect.⁶⁵

1. The Greek conjunction need not have adversative force, but here it probably is adversative, in contrast to Barnabas (4:36–37).

2. Gk. (cf. 2:45, ), referring here to landed property, large or small, as is clear from the use of (“piece of land”) in v. 3.

3. Gk. . By accidental omission of Cod. reads (which by itself would have the inappropriate meaning “maimed”); in P⁷⁴ etc. this appears emended to (“tempted”): hence Vulgate temptauit.

4. The Western text reads “to do this (the) wicked thing” ([] []).

5. Before “fell down” the Western text inserts “immediately” (cf. v. 10).

6. The verb is (translated “pilfer” in Tit. 2:10); with here cf. in Josh. 7:1 LXX.

7. A. W. F. Blunt, The Acts of the Apostles (Oxford, 1923), p. 153.

8. J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, E.T. (London, 1944), p. 289.

9. P. H. Menoud, “La mort d’Ananias et de Saphira (Actes 5, 1–11),” Aux Sources de la Tradition Chrétienne: Mélanges offerts à M. Maurice Goguel (Paris/Neuchâtel, 1950), pp. 146–54.

10. L. E. Browne, The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1925), pp. 83–84.

11. H. A. W. Meyer’s emphasis on the principle of church discipline is important for the assessment of the incident in its context (The Acts of the Apostles, E.T., I [Edinburgh, 1877], p. 142). See also O. Cullmann, Peter: Disciple–Apostle–Martyr, E.T. (London, 1953), p. 34.

12. Ananias is the OT Hananiah (, “Yahweh has graciously granted”). Sapphira represents Aram. , “beautiful.” J. Klausner (From Jesus to Paul, pp. 289–90) suggests that this may be the Sapphira whose name appears in Aramaic (or Hebrew) and Greek on an ossuary found in Jerusalem in 1923. The most that can be said in support of such an identification is that it cannot be disproved.

13. The Holy Spirit in the church is God himself present with his people (cf. 1 Cor. 14:25).

14. Gk. is a loanword from Aramaic; the corresponding Heb. (“adversary”) occurs as a common noun in the OT, sometimes to denote the chief prosecutor in the heavenly court (cf. 1 Chron. 21:1; Job 1:6–2:7; Zech. 3:1–2). Together with the transliteration the NT also uses the translation , as in 10:38; 13:10 below (see p. 214, n. 58; p. 249, n. 26).

15. B. J. Capper, “The Interpretation of Acts 5.4,” JSNT 19 (1983), pp. 117-31, points out that in the Qumran regulations a postulant for membership in the community handed over his property provisionally to the treasurer, but it was not merged with the assets of the community until he had completed his period of probation and was admitted to full membership (1QS 6.18–23). He suggests that Ananias similarly made a provisional transference of his money to the church, but he was expected to transfer it all, even if only provisionally; until then, it remained under his control in the sense that he could receive it back if he were not in due course admitted to full membership. But there is no evidence that such a provisional catechumenate was practised at this early stage in the church’s life. The contrast may also be drawn between the penalty prescribed for deceiving the community in the matter of property—one year’s exclusion from the fellowship meal and deprivation of one quarter of one’s food ration (1QS 6.24–25)—and the consequences of Ananias and Sapphira’s deceit.

16. It is not agreed whether this “destruction of the flesh” meant the death of the erring member of the Corinthian church or some severe bodily affliction (cf. 2 Cor. 12:7; Job 2:4–7). For the belief that Christians might die prematurely for serious sin see 1 Cor. 11:30; Jas. 5:20; 1 John 5:16–17.

17. F. J. Foakes-Jackson, The Acts of the Apostles, MNTC (London. 1931), p. 42.

18. Lit., “Peter answered () her”; but she had not spoken. Here, as in some other places in the NT and LXX, means simply “address.”

19. Gk. (as in v. 5 above); it is used again in 12:23 of the death of Herod Agrippa I, and nowhere else in the NT. In LXX is used of the death of Sisera in Judg. 4:21 (recension A) and in Ezek. 21:12 (MT 7) of the “fainting” of everyone who hears of the destruction of Jerusalem.

20. Cod. D and the Syriac Peshitta (probably preserving a Western reading) have “wrapped her round and carried her out” (cf. v. 6).

21. For the idea cf. Ex. 17:2, “Why do you put the LORD to the proof?” and Deut. 6:16, “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test” (quoted by our Lord in his wilderness temptation, Matt. 4:7 par. Luke 4:12).

22. See p. 72, n. 111, for its occurrence in the Western text of 2:47.

23. In Deuteronomy and the following OT books, except Jeremiah and Ezekiel, is the regular LXX rendering of Heb. , “assembly”; in the first four books of the OT, as in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, is regularly represented in LXX by , which is also used throughout LXX as the rendering of , “congregation.” The Aramaic equivalent of , and occasionally of , was , which may lie behind the dominical sayings of Matt. 16:18 and 18:17 and was possibly the term by which the group of Jesus’ disciples was known in Jerusalem (the of the Nazarenes). In due course came to be specialized for Christian meetings and for Jewish meetings. The Christian was both new and old—new, because of its relation and witness to Jesus as Lord and to the epoch-making events of his death and exaltation and the sending of the Spirit; old, as the continuation of the “congregation of the LORD” which had formerly been confined within the limits of one nation but now, having died and risen with Christ, was to be open to all believers without distinction. See F. J. A. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia (London, 1897); K. L. Schmidt, TDNT 3, pp. 501–36 (s.v. ); G. Johnston, The Doctrine of the Church in the New Testament (Cambridge, 1943); O. Cullmann, The Early Church, E.T. (London, 1956); E. Schweizer, Church Order in the New Testament, E.T. (London, 1961); H. Küng, The Structures of the Church, E.T. (London, 1965).

24. Because of a difficulty in reconciling v. 13a with v. 14a, attempts have been made to emend “of the others” ( … ) or “join” () or both. A. Hilgenfeld emended to (“Levites”). A. Pallis adopted this emendation and also emended (“prevent”): “And of the Levites none dared to prevent them” (from holding meetings in the temple precincts). F. Blass suggested that might be translated “meddle with them”; unfortunately no convincing evidence can be produced for the use of in this sense. M. Dibelius emended (“but of the others”) to (“of the rulers”). C. C. Torrey’s attempts to solve the problem by reference to an Aramaic substratum are unconvincing (Composition and Date of Acts [Cambridge, Mass., 1916], pp. 31–32; Documents of the Primitive Church [New York, 1941], p. 96); besides, it is unlikely that a summarizing paragraph like 5:12–16 should have an Aramaic source. No emendation is necessary; see the exposition above.

25. P⁴⁵ omits “but the people held them in high esteem.”

26. Gk. , lit., “into the broadways.” The very similar passage in Mark 6:56 (not paralleled in Luke) has (“in the marketplaces”).

27. The Western text adds “for they were set free from every sickness which each one of them had.”

28. The Western text adds “and each one went to his own home” (cf. John 7:53).

29. Cf. 12:6–10 (pp. 236–38 with nn. 15–21); 16:25–26 (p. 316 with n. 67). See R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Wundererzählungen (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 120–22.

30. Cf. 7:30 below (p. 140 with n. 50); also 27:23 (p. 488 with n. 70).

31. Gk. , like Heb. , means simply “messenger,” but the words are most commonly used in the OT and NT of the spiritual messengers of God.

32. See p. 82, n. 30 (on 3:15) for the close relation between and . The present expression is almost identical with “the word of this salvation” in 13:26 (in the Syriac Peshitta the same word , “life,” translates as translates here).

33. The Western text adds “having risen early.”

34. The Western text adds “having opened the prison.”

35. Gk. , used similarly of the temple police in John 7:32, 45, 46; 18:3, 12.

36. Cod. D has (“priest”) for (“high priest”). The African Latin codex h (which exhibits a Western text) has praetor, which probably represents a Greek reading (i.e., captain of the temple).

37. The Western text paraphrases v. 29 more graphically: “But Peter said to him, ‘Who should be obeyed? God, or human beings?’ And he said, ‘God.’ And Peter said to him, ‘The God of our fathers.…’ ”

38. Cf. J. Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ (London, 1949), p. 111.

39. The verb here and in 13:22 is .

40. The phrase occurs again at 10:39; the cross of Jesus is similarly called a gibbet (, “wood”) in 13:29; 1 Pet. 2:24. This use of goes back through LXX to Heb. , which denotes both a tree and the stake or pole on which bodies of executed criminals were hung (as in Deut. 21:22–23). For Paul’s account of the paradox that the mediator of unique divine blessing should nevertheless have died under the divine curse see Gal. 3:10–14. See M. Wilcox, “ ‘Upon the Tree’—Deut. 21:22–23 in the New Testament,” JBL 96 (1977), pp. 85–99; J. A. Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament,” CBQ 40 (1978), pp. 493–513. Another penal form of (“stocks”) appears in 16:24.

41. Lit., his right hand, as in 2:33.

42. Gk. , as in 3:15 (see p. 82, n. 30).

43. Peter’s reply in v. 29 is more succinct than the parallel in 4:19, and even closer to the Socratic parallel quoted ad loc. (cf. p. 96, n. 33).

44. See W. F. Lofthouse, “The Holy Spirit in the Acts and the Fourth Gospel,” ExT 52 (1940–41), pp. 334–36.

45. Lit., “he said to them” (Cod. D expands “them” to “the rulers and those who sat with them”).

46. The Western text has “somebody great” (probably from 8:9).

47. Cod. D reads “was destroyed through his own act” ( for ).

48. P⁴⁵ and D omit “all.”

49. D adds “not defiling your hands.”

50. The Western text adds “neither you nor kings nor tyrants. Refrain therefore from these men.”

51. The word “Pharisees” () is rather clearly derived from Aram. , Heb. , “separated ones.” This name may have indicated both their general tendency to keep aloof from contact with those who were careless about ceremonial purity and in particular their withdrawal from association with the Hasmonaeans during the rule of John Hyrcanus I (134–104 B.C.). They were the spiritual heirs of the (the Hasidaeans, , of 1 Macc. 2:42; 7:13; 2 Macc. 14:6), the pious members of the community who in Hellenistic times gave themselves to the study, exposition, and practice of the written and oral law and opposed the popular hellenizing tendencies. When Antiochus IV tried to abolish the Jewish religion, the supported the Hasmonaeans, the leaders of armed resistance to him, but withdrew their support when the Hasmonaeans went on to establish political as well as military supremacy for themselves and assumed the high-priesthood. The Pharisees were in opposition to the ruling party from the time of John Hyrcanus to the accession of Queen Salome Alexandra (76–67 B.C.); under her they occupied a position of great influence. In the first century A.D. they were reckoned to be some 6,000 strong, organized in closely knit “companies” or “associations” (Heb. ). They had great religious influence among the people; most of the scribes (cf. 4:5; 6:12; 23:9), the public expositors of the law, belonged to their party. Their two chief schools in NT times were those of Hillel and Shammai, leading rabbis who flourished in the later part of Herod’s reign. After the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the temple order in A.D. 70 it was the Pharisees, and more particularly the heirs of the school of Hillel, who proved best able to survive the disaster and preserve the continuity of national life. For some of their distinctive beliefs see 23:6–8 (pp. 428–30, nn. 21–23). See L. Finkelstein, The Pharisees (Philadelphia, 1946); A. Finkel, The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Leiden. 1946); J. Neusner, The Rabbinical Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, I–III (Leiden. 1971); J. Bowker, Jesus and the Pharisees (Cambridge, 1973); E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution (Nashville, 1978); Schürer II, pp. 388–403. We have contemporary accounts of the Pharisees from Josephus, who claims to have been one of them (BJ 2.162–63; Ant. 18.12–15).

52. Josephus, Ant. 18.17.

53. J. Neusner, The Rabbinical Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, I, pp. 341–76.

54. Mishnah, 9.15. Rabbān (“our teacher”) was an Aramaic term applied as an honorific title to certain distinguished teachers, marking them off from those who received the more ordinary title rabbi (“my teacher”). The word translated “separateness” (or “abstinence”) is , from the same root as the word “Pharisees”; it denotes the sum total of Pharisaic virtues. Gamaliel (who tends to be confused in tradition with the later Gamaliel II, c. A.D. 100) is credited with introducing certain reforms in the regulations for divorce and remarriage, “as a precaution for the general good” (Mishnah, 4.2–3; 16.7).

55. J. A. Findlay, The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1936), p. 85.

56. 4.14.

57. According to Josephus (Ant. 20.97–98) a magician named Theudas led a large company to the Jordan, promising that at his word of command the river would be divided, so that they might cross it dryshod. The procurator Cuspius Fadus (c. A.D. 44–46) sent a body of horsemen against them; they dispersed the multitude and brought the head of Theudas to Jerusalem. This event, however, must have taken place several years after the incident now being described by Luke. Even so, Luke’s Theudas has been identified with Josephus’s Theudas by some who find Luke guilty of a double blunder: (a) making Gamaliel refer to a rising which took place well after his present speech purports to have been delivered (for the situation of Acts 5 antedates by some years that of Acts 12, during Herod Agrippa’s reign over Judaea, A.D. 41–44, and Josephus’s Theudas arose shortly after Herod Agrippa’s death); (b) making an event of A.D. 44 take place before the rising under Judas of Galilee, which is firmly dated in A.D. 6/7. The double blunder is accounted for by the supposition that Luke misread Josephus, who goes on, after his account of the magician Theudas, to mention the sons of Judas (M. Krenkel, Josephus und Lucas [Leipzig, 1894], pp. 162-74). But the arguments for Luke’s knowledge of the Antiquities of Josephus are unconvincing, and involve us in the conclusion that Luke misread Josephus every time he drew on him. “Either Luke had not read Josephus, or else he forgot all he had read” (E. Schürer, “Lucas und Josephus,” ZWT 19 [1876], p. 582).

58. Josephus, Ant. 17.355. The Judaea census was evidently made part of a wider census carried out by Quirinius throughout his province of Syria-Cilicia (which he governed A.D. 6–7). Apparently officers under his command were charged with supervising the census in various parts of the province: the funerary inscription of one Q. Aemilius Secundus (CIL 3.6687, the “lapis Venetus”) tells how he supervised it in Apamea on the Orontes, and in Judaea it was probably supervised by Coponius, whom Augustus sent to Judaea as its first prefect (BJ 2.117). On the relation of this census to that of Luke 2:2, also associated with the name of Quirinius as governor of Syria, see I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids/Exeter, 1978), pp. 96–104.

59. See Josephus, BJ 2.118, 433; 7.253; Ant. 18.4–10, 23–25; 20.102.

60. See pp. 40–41, with nn. 48–51 (on 1:13).

61. Cf. Nicodemus’s plea to Pilate on Jesus’ behalf in the apocryphal Acts of Pilate 5:1, “Let him alone and do not contrive any evil against him: if the signs he performs are of God, they will stand; but if they are of men. they will come to nothing.” (In Nicodemus’s argument, which is no doubt modelled on Gamaliel’s argument here, the works of the Egyptian magicians Jannes and Jambres serve the purpose which the risings of Theudas and Judas serve in Gamaliel’s argument.)

62. The limit of forty stripes was fixed in Deut. 25:3; lest it should inadvertently be exceeded the limit was fixed in practice at thirty-nine (cf. 2 Cor. 11:24). Details for the infliction of the stripes are laid down in Mishnah, 3.10–14.

63. Gk. , as in 2:46 (cf. , 20:20).

64. The text (v. 41) has simply “for the Name” (). To Christians there was one name above all others, the name of Jesus. This absolute use of recurs in 3 John 7 and here and there in the Apostolic Fathers.

65. Cf. Matt. 10:17–22; Mark 13:9–13; Luke 12:11-12; 21:12–19; John 15:18–25; 16:2–3.

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