Act 1:1. τὸν μὲν πρῶτον λόγον, a reference beyond all reasonable doubt to St. Luke’s Gospel. Not merely the dedication of both writings to Theophilus, but their unity of language and style is regarded by critics of all schools as convincing proof of the identity of authorship of Acts and the third Gospel; see Introd. and Zöckler, Greifswalder Studien, p. 128 (1895). In the expression πρῶτος λόγος Ramsay finds an intimation from St. Luke’s own hand that he contemplated a third book at least, otherwise we should have had πρότερος λόγος, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 23, 27, 28; see to the same effect Zahn, Einleitung in das N. T., ii., 371 (1899), Rendall, Acts of the Apostles, in loco, and cf. comment. on Act 28:31. So, too, primus is used in Latin not simply as former but as first in a series, Cicero, De Invent., ii., 3. On the other hand, Blass, Grammatik des N.G., p. 34, Acta Apost., p. 16, and more recently Philology of the Gospels, p. 38, maintains that πρῶτος simply = πρότερος (so also Holtzmann and Felten). But Ramsay, whilst pointing out instances in which St. Luke apparently uses πρῶτος differently from this, p. 28 (cf. also Zahn, u. s., p. 389), admits that we cannot attain to any absolute certainty in the passage before us, since no instance occurs of the use of πρότερος by St. Luke.-λόγον: frequently used by classical writers in the sense of a narrative or history contained in a book; see instances in Wetstein. The passage in Plato, Phædo, p. 61, ., is valuable not only for the marked contrast between λόγος and μῦθος, ποιεῖν μύθους ἀλλʼ οὐ λόγους, but also for the use of ποιεῖν (Wendt). Amongst other instances of the phrase ποιεῖν λόγον cf. Galen, De Usu Part., ii., περὶ πρώτων τῶν δακτύλων ἐποιησάμην τὸν λόγον. St. Chrysostom sees in the phrase a proof of the unassuming character of the author: St. Luke does not say “The former Gospel which I preached”. For the anomalous μέν, “solitarium,” without the following δέ, frequent in Luke, see Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 261, cf. Luk 8:5, Act 3:21; Act 28:22, etc., and several times in St. Paul. μέν occurs thus six times in the Acts without οὖν-on μὲν οὖν see Act 1:6.-ὦ Θεόφιλε: the interjection used here simply in address, as common in Attic Greek, cf. Act 18:14, Act 27:21, 1Ti 6:11; without the epithet κράτιστε, as in Luk 1:3, and without ὦ, Θεόφ. alone would have seemed too bold, Winer-Schmiedel, p. 258. It has been suggested that the omission of the epithet κράτιστε, Luk 1:3, denotes that St. Luke’s friendship had become less ceremonious, just as a similar change has been noted in the dedication of Shakespeare’s two poems to the Earl of Southampton; cf. also Zahn, Einleitung, ii. 360. The way in which the epithet κράτιστε is employed elsewhere in the book in addressing Roman officials, Act 23:26, Act 24:3, Act 26:25, has been thought to indicate that Theophilus held some high official post, or that he was at least of equestrian rank (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 388, 389, and his inferences as to the date of Acts). Ramsay is of opinion that the name was given at baptism, and that it was used or known only among Christians, and he infers that this baptismal name is used in Acts because the book was probably written at a time when it was dangerous for a Roman of rank to be recognised as a Christian. But Theophilus was by no means uncommon as a Jewish name; cf. B. D.2, i., p. 25, and also article “Theophilus,” B. D.1 (see also Deissmann, Bibelstudien, p. 19). The epithet κράτιστος was peculiarly appropriated to Romans holding high office, and actually became during the second century a technical title to denote equestrian rank; and from its use here Zahn maintains not only that Theophilus was a man of some social position, but that he was, when Luke wrote his gospel, not a nember of the Christian Church, since there is no instance in the first two centuries of a Christian addressing his fellow-Christians in a title corresponding as it were to “your Excellency” (Einleitung in das N. T., ii., 360, 383). The instance of the address of the Epist. ad Diognetum, κράτιστε Διόγνητε, is alleged by Blass as an instance that the epithet is not always used in the technical sense mentioned; but to this Ramsay replies that if Diognetus was the friend and teacher of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor might well raise his teacher to equestrian rank; Septimius Severus raised his sons’ tutor to the high dignity of the consulship. Ramsay discusses κράτιστος at length in Was Christ born at Bethlehem? (1898), pp. 65, 71, 72, as against Blass, Philology of the Gospels, p. 19. Blass fully recognises that Theophilus held a high position, and that the title in question would naturally occur in a book dedicated to a patron; but it must be borne in mind that Blass regards Theophilus as of Greek extraction, possibly a fellow-citizen with Luke of Antioch, whilst Ramsay sees in him a citizen of Rome and a resident in the imperial city. Theophylact asks why Luke should have cared to write to one man only and to value him so highly, and makes answer that it was because the Evangelist was a guardian of the words spoken by the Lord: “It is not the will of my Father that one of these little ones should perish”. There seems no great reason to doubt that Theophilus was a real personage, and the epithet κράτιστε, at all events in its technical significance, is hardly consistent with any other supposition (see Sanday, Inspiration, p. 319, note). The recent attempt to identify Theophilus with Seneca, referred to by Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, p. 163, must be dismissed as equally groundless and fanciful as the former conjecture that he was no other than Philo.-περὶ πάντων ὧν: the use of πᾶς (mostly after a prep., as here) followed by an attracted relative may be classed amongst the mannerisms of St. Luke (Simcox, Writers of the N. T., p. 24, where other instances are given); see also Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, pp. 1, 2.-ὧν: in St. Luke’s Gospel and in the Acts the frequency of the attraction of the relative again specially characterises him amongst the N.T. writers, Friedrich, u. s., pp. 36 and 100.-ἤρξατο: often regarded as simply pleonastic, but sometimes as emphatic, to intimate that the work which Jesus began on earth He continued in heaven, or that He began the work of the Gospel and committed its continuance to His followers; Zahn, u. s., p. 366 ff. In Winer’s view to regard ἄρχεσθαι as pleonastic is a mere subterfuge to avoid a difficulty, and he renders the passage “what Jesus began both to do and to teach, and continued to do until,” etc. (see also Grimm-Thayer, sub v.), treating it as an example of breviloquence (Winer-Moulton, lxvi., 1). On the whole it is perhaps best to consider the phrase ἤρξ. ποιεῖν with Bengel (in loco) as equivalent to fecit ab initio, although no doubt there is a sense in which, with every Christian for nineteen centuries, St. Luke would regard the whole earthly life of Jesus as a beginning, a prelude to the glory and mighty working to be revealed and perfected in the ascended Lord. The verb is of frequent use in St. Luke’s writings (Friedrich, Zeller, Lekebusch), although in St. Mark’s Gospel it is also constantly found. In the LXX it is often found like חָלַל hi., and also in Apocr. ποιεῖν τε καὶ διδάσκειν, “Scilicet prius fecit, deinde docuit; prius docuit exemplo, deinde verbo. Unde prius non docuit, quod prius ipse non fecit” (Corn. à Lap.).
Act 1:2. ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας. In Matt. ἄχρι occurs once or twice, in Mark and and John not at all, in Luke four times, and in Acts sixteen; whilst the commoner μέχρι is found only once in the Gospels and twice in the Acts (Winer-Schmiedel, p. 227, and on the use of the form ἄχρι or ἄχρις see Grimm-Thayer, sub v.). It is seldom used in the LXX, but in 2 Maccabees 14 it occurs twice, Act 1:10; Act 1:15; cf. also Symm., 2Ki 21:16; Theod., Job 32:11.-διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου. The older commentators, and Wendt, Holtzmann, Zöckler, Hilgenfeld, amongst moderns, connect the words with ἐξελέξατο, the reference to the choice of the Apostles through the Holy Ghost standing significantly at the opening of a book in which their endowment with the same divine power is so prominent. On the other hand, it is urged that there is no need to emphasise further the divine choice of the Apostles (cf. Luk 6:13, and see below on Act 1:25), but that it was important to show that the instructions to continue the work and teaching of Jesus were a divine commission (Weiss), and to emphasise from the commencement of the Acts that Jesus had given this commission to His Apostles through the same divine Spirit Whom they received shortly after His Ascension (Felten). Spitta (who refers Act 1:1-14 to his inferior source ), whilst he connects διὰ πνεύμ. ἁγ. with ἐντειλάμενος, curiously limits the latter to the command to the Apostles to assemble themselves on the Mount of Olives (so too Jüngst). For other connections of the words see Alford in loco.-ἐξελέξατο, always in N.T. ἐκλέγομαι, middle (except, perhaps, in Luk 9:35, but see R.V. and W.H[98]). Another verb very frequent in LXX, used constantly of a divine choice: of God’s choice of Israel, of Jacob, Aaron, David, the tribe of Judah, Zion, and Jerusalem. The verb is also found in the same sense in the middle voice in classical Greek.-ἀνελήμφθη: the verb is used of Elijah’s translation to heaven in the LXX, 2Ki 2:9-11, also in Sir 48:9 and 1Ma 2:58, and perhaps of Enoch in Sir 49:14 (A, μετετέθη). In addition to the present passage (cf. Act 1:11-12) it is also used in Mar 16:9 and 1Ti 3:16 (where it probably forms part of an early Christian Hymn or confession of faith) of our Lord’s Ascension; cf. also Gospel of Peter, 19, in a doubtfully orthodox sense. It is to be noted that the word is here used absolutely, as of an event with which the Apostolic Church was already familiar. On the cognate noun ἀνάληψις, used only by St. Luke in N.T., and absolutely, with reference to the same event, in his Gospel, Luk 9:51, see Psalms of Solomon, Act 4:20, ed. Ryle and James, p. 49. In the latter passage the word is apparently used for the first time in extant Greek literature, but its meaning is very different from its later technical use with reference to the Assumption of the Blessed; see instances, p. 49, ubi supra. St. Irenæus, i., 10, 1, whilst using the noun of our Lord’s Ascension, is careful to say τὴν ἔνσαρκον εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἀνάληψιν; see especially Swete, The Apostles’ Creed, pp. 70-72, and below on Act 1:11.
[98] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:3. οἷς καὶ παρέστησεν, “he also showed himself,” R.V., but margin “presented himself” (cf. Act 9:41), praebuit se, Vulg. In Act 9:41 monstravit, h. 1. magis demonstravit (Blass). The verb is used thirteen times in Acts (once in a quotation, Act 4:26), both transitively and intransitively. St. Luke in his Gospel uses it three times, and as in Acts both transitively and intransitively. In this he is alone amongst the Evangelists. In the Epistles it is found only in St. Paul, and for the most part in a transitive sense.-μετὰ τὸ παθεῖν, “after his passion,” so in A. and R.V.; post passionem suam, Vulg.; “too sacred a word to be expunged from this the only place where it occurs in the Bible,” Humphry, Commentary on R.V.; cf. Act 3:18, Act 17:3, Act 26:23.-ἐν πολλοῖς τεκμηρίοις-τεκμήριον only here in N.T.-twice in Wis 5:11; Wis 19:13, and 3Ma 3:24. The A.V. followed the Genevan Version by inserting the word “infallible” (although the latter still retained “tokens” instead of “proofs”). But R.V. simply “proofs” expresses the technical use of the word τεκμήριον, convincing, certain evidence. Although in a familiar passage, Wis 5:11, τεκμήριον and σημεῖον are used as practically synonymous, yet there is no doubt that they were technically distinguished, e.g., Arist., Rhet., i., 2, τῶν σημείων τὸ μὲν ἀναγκαῖον τεκμ. This technical distinction, it may be observed, was strictly maintained by medical men, although St. Luke may no doubt have met the word elsewhere. Thus it is used by Josephus several times, as Krenkel mentions, but he does not mention that it is also used by Thucydides, ii., 39, to say nothing of other classical writers. Galen writes to τὸ μὲν ἐκ τηρήσεως σημεῖον τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἐνδείξεως τεκμήριον, and the context states that rhetoricians as well as physicians had examined the distinction; Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, p. 184. The word also occurs in the Proem of Dioscorides to his De Materia Medica, p. 3, which Vogel and Meyer-Weiss hold that Luke imitated in the Prologue to his Gospel (but see Zahn, Einleitung, ii., 384).-διʼ ἡμερῶν τεσσαράκοντα. St. Chrysostom comments οὐ γὰρ εἶπε τεσσαράκοντα ἡμέρας, ἀλλὰ διʼ ἡμερῶν τεσσαράκοντα· ἐφίστατο γὰρ καὶ ἀφίστατο πάλιν. To this interpretation of the genitive with διά Blass refers, and endorses it, Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Griechisch, p. 129, following the Scholiast. The meaning, if this interpretation is adopted, would therefore be that our Lord did not remain with His disciples continuously (οὐ διηνεκῶς, Schol.) as before, but that He appeared to them from time to time; non perpetuo, sed per intervalla, Bengel. But cf. also Simcox, Language of the N.T., p. 140. Men have seen in this period of forty days, mentioned only by St. Luke in N.T., what we may reverently call a symbolical fitness. But in a certain sense the remark of Blass seems justified: Parum ad rem est quod idem (numerus) alias quoque occurrit. The parallels in the histories of Moses and Elijah to which Holtzmann and Spitta refer are really no parallels at all, and if it be true to say that there was nothing in contemporary Jewish ideas to suggest our Lord’s Resurrection as it is represented as taking place, it is equally true to maintain that there was nothing to suggest the after sojourn of the forty days on earth as it is represented as taking place; see Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, ii. 624.-ὀπτανόμενος: if we could call this a frequentative verb with some scholars, it would in itself give the meaning “appearing from time to time,” but it is rather a late Hellenistic present, formed from some parts of ὁρᾶν; Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 57, 181. But it certainly does not mean that our Lord’s appearances were merely visionary. The verb is found only here in N.T., but also in LXX 1Ki 8:8 and in Tob 12:19 (not in .). In these two passages the word cannot fairly be pressed into the service of visionary appearances. In 1 Kings the reference is to the staves of the ark which were so long that the ends were seen from the holy place before the oracle, but they were not seen from without, i.e., from the porch or vestibule. In Tobit it is not the appearance of the angel which is represented as visionary, quite the contrary; but his eating and drinking are represented as being only in appearance. But even if the word could be pressed into the meaning suggested, St. Luke’s view of our Lord’s appearances must be judged not by one expression but by his whole conception, cf. Luk 24:39-43 and Act 10:41. That he could distinguish between visions and realities we cannot doubt; see note below on Act 12:12.-τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θ.: “speaking the things concerning,” R.V., not “speaking of the things,” A.V., but speaking the very things, whether truths to be believed, or commands to be obeyed (Humphry, Commentary on R.V.). On St. Luke’s fondness for τὰ περί τινος in his writings see Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, pp. 10 and 89 (so also Zeller and Lekebusch). The exact phrase is only found in Acts, where it occurs twice (in T.R. three times); cf. Act 19:8 (Act 8:12), and see also Act 20:25; Act 20:28(23):31. The expression ἡ βασ. τοῦ θ., instead of τῶν οὐρανῶν of the Hebrew Evangelist St. Matthew, is characteristic of St. Luke’s writings, although it is found frequently in St. Mark and once in St. John. In St. Luke’s Gospel it occurs more than thirty times, and six times in Acts (only four times in St. Matt.). Possibly the phrase was used by St Luke as one more easily understood by Gentile readers, but the two terms ἡ βασ. τοῦ θ. and τῶν οὐρ. were practically synonymous in the Gospels and in Judaism in the time of our Lord (Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 171; E. T. and Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (second edit.), p. 67; Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, i. 267; and Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, p. 76 ff.). Dr. Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 226, draws attention to the important fact that the preaching of the original Apostles after the Ascension is not described as that of the preaching of the kingdom of God, but that the phrase is only used of the preaching of St. Paul, and of St. Philip the associate of St. Stephen. But in view of the fact that the original Apostles heard during the Forty Days from their Master’s lips to τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλ. τοῦ θεοῦ, we cannot doubt that in deed and in word they would proclaim that kingdom. On the question as to whether they conceived of the kingdom as present, or future, or both, see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i., 409, E. T., and Witness of the Epistles (Longmans), p. 309 ff., and on the conception of the kingdom of God in the Theology of A. Ritschl and his school see Orr, Ritschlian Theology, p. 258 ff. For the relation of the Church and the Kingdom see also Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, pp. 28, 36 ff., “Church,” Hastings, B.D., p. 425; Hort, Ecclesia, p. 5 ff.
Act 1:4. συναλίζομενος: a strong array of modern commentators renders “eating with them,” following the Vulgate convescens illis (so both A. and R.V. in margin, and Wycl. and Rhem.). It is thus rendered by Overbeck (as against De Wette), Wendt, Holtzmann, Felten, Weiss, Matthias, Knabenbauer, and Blass, who adopts the reading ὡς συναλ., and regards the particle as showing that the recapitulation is continued of the events already mentioned in Luk 24:42 ff. It is evidently taken in the same sense by Spitta, Feine, Jüngst. If we so translate it, we must derive it from ἅλς (salt), so Schol. κοινωνῶν ἁλῶν, τραπέζης, in the sense given to the expression by Chrys., Theophyl., Œcum. In Psa 140:4 LXX, to which Wendt refers, μὴ συνδυάσω (although the reading is somewhat doubtful-the word is used by Symmachus, 1Sa 26:19) is also rendered συναλισθῶ (Alius) as an equivalent of the Hebrew אֶלְחַם, μὴ συμφάγοιμι, Symmachus. Blass gives no classical references, but points out that the word undoubtedly exists in the sense referred to in Clem. Hom., xiii., 4 (but see Grimm-Thayer, sub v.). Hilgenfeld (Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., p. 74 (1894)) contends that the use of the word in the psalm quoted and in the passage from the Clementines refers not to the use of salt at an ordinary meal, but rather to the sacrificial and symbolical use of salt in the Old and New Testaments. Thus in the passage Clem. Hom., xiii., 4, τότε αὐτοῖς συναλιζόμεθα, τότε means “after the Baptism”; cf. also Ignatius, ad Magnes., x., ἁλίσθητε εν αὐτῷ, “be ye salted in him”. Wendt takes the word quite generally as meaning that the sharing in a common meal with His disciples, as on the evening of the Resurrection, was the habitual practice of the Lord during the Forty Days; cf. Act 10:41 and Luk 24:36 ff. Feine similarly holds that the word presupposes some such incidents as those mentioned in Luke 24, and that Luke had derived his information from a source which described the final instructions to the disciples as given at a common meal. On the other hand it must be borne in mind that in classical Greek, as in Herodotus and Xenophon (Wetstein) (as also in Josephus, B. J., iii., 9, 4), συναλίζω = to assemble, cf. Hesychius, συναλιζ. = συναλισθείς, συναχθείς, συναθροισθείς, and it is possible that the preceding present participles in the immediate context may help to account for the use of the same participle instead of the aorist συναλισθείς. The verb is then derived from σύν and ἁλής (ᾱ), meaning lit[99], close, crowded together. Mr. Rendall (Acts of the Apostles, p. 32) would derive it from Ἁλίη (-α), a common term for a popular assembly amongst Ionian and Dorian Greeks, and he supposes that the verb here implies a general gathering of believers not limited to the Twelve; but the context apparently points back to Luk 24:49 to a command which was certainly given only to the Twelve.-παρήγγειλεν, “he charged them,” R.V., which not only distinguishes it from other verbs rendered “to command,” but also gives the emphatic meaning which St. Luke often attaches to the word. It is characteristic of his writings, occurring four times in his Gospel and ten or eleven times in Acts, and it is very frequent in St. Paul’s Epistles (Friedrich, Lekebusch).-Ἱεροσολύμων: a neuter plural (but cf. Mat 2:3 and Grimm sub v.). St. Luke most frequently uses the Jewish form Ἱερουσαλήμ-twenty-seven times in his Gospel, about forty in Acts-as against the use of Ἱεροσόλυμα four times in his Gospel and over twenty in Acts (Friedrich, Lekebusch). Blass retains the aspirate for the Greek form but not for the Jewish, cf. in loco and Grammatik des N. G., pp. 17, 31, but it is very doubtful whether either should have the aspirate; W.H[100], ii., 313; Plummer’s St. Luke, p. 64; Winer-Schmiedel, p. 93. Grimm points out that the Hebrew form is used in the N.T.: “ubi in ipso nomine tanquam sancta vis quædam reponitur ut, Gal 4:25; ita in compellationibus, Mat 23:37, Luk 13:34;” see further sub v. Ἱεροσόλυμα.-μὴ χωρίζ.: it was fitting that they should not depart from Jerusalem, not only that the new law as the old should go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, Isa 2:3 (Felten), but that the Apostles’ testimony should be delivered not to men unacquainted with the facts, but to the inhabitants of the city where Jesus had been crucified and buried. Εἰ δὲ εὐθὺς ἐχωρίσθησαν Ἱεροσολύμων, καὶ τούτων οὐδὲν ἐπηκολούθησεν, ὕποπτος ἄν ἡ ἀνάστασις ὑπῆρξεν, Œcumenius, in loco; see also Theophyl.-περιμένειν: not elsewhere in N.T. (but see Act 10:24, ), but used in classical Greek of awaiting a thing’s happening (Dem.). The passage in LXX in which it occurs is suggestive: τὴν σωτηρίαν περιμένων κυρίου, Gen 49:18 (cf. Wis 8:12). On the tradition that the Apostles remained in Jerusalem for twelve years in obedience to a command of the Lord, and the evidence for it, see Harnack, Chronologie, i., p. 243 ff. Harnack speaks of the tradition as very old and well attested, and maintains that it is quite in accordance with Acts, as the earlier journeys of the Apostles are there described as missionary excursions from which they always returned to Jerusalem.-τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν: Bengel notes the distinction between ὑπισχνέομαι and ἐπαγγέλλομαι, the former being used of promises in response to petitions, the latter of voluntary offers (Ammonius): “quæ verbi Græci proprietas, ubi de divinis promissionibus agitur, exquisite observanda est”. It is therefore remarkable that in the Gospels the word ἐπαγγελία is never used in this technical sense of the divine promise made by God until Luk 24:49, where it is used of the promise of the Holy Spirit, as here. But in Acts and in St. Paul’s Epistles and in the Hebrews the word is frequent, and always of the promises made by God (except Act 23:21). See Sanday and Headlam on Rom 1:2, and Lightfoot on Gal 3:14, and Psalms of Solomon, Act 12:7 (cf. Act 7:9, and Act 17:6), ed. Ryle and James, p. 106. “The promise of the Father,” cf. Luk 24:49, is fulfilled in the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and although no doubt earlier promises of the gift of the Spirit may be included, cf. Luk 12:11, as also the promise of the Spirit’s outpouring in Messianic times (cf. Joe 2:28, Isa 44:3, Eze 36:26), yet the phraseology may be fairly said to present an undesigned coincidence with the more recent language of the Lord to the Twelve, Joh 14:16; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:14. On the many points of connection between the opening verses of Acts and the closing verses of St. Luke’s Gospel see below.
[99] literal, literally.
[100] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:5. ἐν πνεύματι: the omission of ἐν before ὕδατι and its insertion before πνεύμ. may be meant to draw a distinction between the baptism with water and the baptism in the Spirit (R.V. margin “in”). But in Mat 3:11 we have the preposition ἐν in both parts of the verse; cf. Joh 1:31. On ἐν with the instrumental dative see Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 114, and Grotius, in loco; cf. the Hebrew בְּ.-οὐ μετὰ πολλὰς ταύτας ἡμέρας: not after many, i.e., after few. This use of οὐ with an adjective or adverb is characteristic of St. Luke, cf. Luk 15:13, Act 27:14, in which places οὐ πολύς = ὀλίγος as here; cf. οὐ μετρίως, Act 20:12; οὐ μακράν, Luk 7:6, Act 17:27; οὐκ ἄσημος, Act 21:39; οὐχ ὁ τυχών, Act 19:11; Act 28:2, cf. Hawkins, Horæ Syn., p. 153. No doubt μετʼ οὐ would be more correct, but the negative is found both before and after the preposition, so in Luk 15:13; cf. Josephus, Ant., i., 12, and xiii., 7, 1, for similar changes of allocation in the same words. ταύτας closely connects the days referred to with the current day; cf. also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 221. οὐ μετὰ πολλάς, φησὶν ἵνα μὴ εἰς ἀθυμίαν ἐμπέσωσιν· ὡρισμένως δὲ πότε, οὐκ εἶπεν, ἵνα ἀεὶ ἐκγρηγορῶσιν ἐκδεχόμενοι, Theophylact, in loco.
Act 1:6. οἱ μὲν οὖν: the combination μὲν οὖν is very frequent in Acts in all parts, occurring no less than twenty-seven times; cf. Luk 3:18. Like the simple μέν it is sometimes used without δέ in the apodosis. Here, if δέ is omitted in Act 1:7 after εἶπεν, there is still a contrast between the question of the Apostles and the answer of Jesus. See especially Rendall, Acts of the Apostles, Appendix on μὲν οὖν, p. 160 ff.; cf. Weiss in loco.-συνελθόντες: the question has often been raised as to whether this word and μὲν οὖν refer back to Act 1:4, or whether a later meeting of the disciples is here introduced. For the former Hilgenfeld contends (as against Weiss) and sees no reference to any fresh meeting: the disciples referred to in the αὐτοῖς of Act 1:4 and the ὑμεῖς of Act 1:5 had already come together. According to Holtzmann there is a reference in the words to a common meal of the Lord with His disciples already mentioned in Act 1:4, and after this final meal the question of Act 1:6 is asked on the way to Bethany (Luk 24:50). The words οἱ μὲν οὖν συνελθ. are referred by Felten to the final meeting which formed the conclusion of the constant intercourse of Act 1:3, a meeting thus specially emphasised, although in reality only one out of many, and the question which follows in Act 1:6 was asked, as Felten also supposes (see too Rendall on Act 1:7-8), on the way to Bethany. But there is no need to suppose that this was the case (as Jüngst so far correctly objects against Holtzmann), and whilst we may take συνελθ. as referring to the final meeting before the Ascension, we may place that meeting not in Jerusalem but on the Mount of Olives. Blass sees in the word συνελθ. an assembly of all the Apostles, cf. Act 1:13 and 1Co 15:7, and adds: “Aliunde supplendus locus ubi hoc factum, Act 1:12, Luk 24:50”.-ἐπηρώτων: imperfect, denoting that the act of questioning is always imperfect until an answer is given (Blass, cf. Act 3:3), and here perhaps indicating that the same question was put by one inquirer after another (see on the force of the tense, as noted here and elsewhere by Blass, Hermathena, xxi., pp. 228, 229).-εἰ: this use of εἰ in direct questions is frequent in Luke, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 254; cf. Act 7:1, Act 19:2 (in Vulgate si); it is adopted in the LXX, and a parallel may also be found in the interrogative ה in Hebrew (so Blass and Viteau).-ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ: such a promise as that made in Act 1:5, the fulfilment of which, according to Joe 2:28, would mark the salvation of Messianic times, might lead the disciples to ask about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel which the same prophet had foretold, to be realised by the annihilation of the enemies of God and victory and happiness for the good. As in the days of old the yoke of Pharaoh had been broken and Israel redeemed from captivity, so would the Messiah accomplish the final redemption, cf. Luk 24:21, and set up again, after the destruction of the world-powers, the kingdom in Jerusalem; Weber, Jüdische Theologie, pp. 360, 361 (1897). No doubt the thoughts of the disciples still moved within the narrow circle of Jewish national hopes: “totidem in hac interrogatione sunt errores quot verba,” writes Calvin. But still we must remember that with these thoughts of the redemption of Israel there mingled higher thoughts of the need of repentance and righteousness for the Messianic kingdom (Psalms of Solomon, 17, 18; ed. Ryle and James, p. lviii.), and that the disciples may well have shared, even if imperfectly, in the hopes of a Zacharias or a Simeon. Dr. Edersheim notes “with what wonderful sobriety” the disciples put this question to our Lord (ubi supra, i., p. 79); at the same time the question before us is plainly too primitive in character to have been invented by a later generation (McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 41).-ἀποκαθιστάνεις: ἀποκαθιστάνω, a form of ἀποκαθίστημι which is found in classical Greek and is used of the restoration of dominion as here in 1Ma 15:3; see also below on Act 3:21 and Malachi LXX Act 4:5. On the form of the verb see W.H[101], ii., 162, and on its force see further Dalman, u. s., p. 109. “Dost thou at this time restore …?” R.V.; the present tense marking their expectation that the kingdom, as they conceived it, would immediately appear-an expectation enhanced by the promise of the previous verse, in which they saw the foretaste of the Messianic kingdom.
[101] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:7. χρόνους ἢ καιρούς: Blass regards the two as synonymous, and no doubt it is difficult always to maintain a distinction. But here χρόνους may well be taken to mean space of time as such, the duration of the Church’s history, and καιρούς the critical periods in that history. ὁ μὲν καιρὸς δηλοῖ ποιότητα χρόνου, χρόνος δὲ ποσότητα (Ammonius). A good instance of the distinction may be found in LXX Neh 10:34 : εἰς καιροὺς ἀπὸ χρόνων, “at times appointed”; cf. 1Th 5:1. So here Weiss renders: “zu kennen Zeiten und geeignete Zeitpunkte”. In modern Greek, whilst καιρός means weather, χρόνος means year, so that “in both words the kernel of meaning has remained unaltered; this in the case of καιρούς is changeableness, of χρόνων duration” (Curtius, Etym., p. 110 sq.); cf. also Trench, N. T. Synonyms, ii., p. 27 ff.; Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 153; and Grimm-Thayer, sub v. καιρός.-ἐξουσία, authority, R.V.-either as delegated or unrestrained, the liberty of doing as one pleases (ἔξεστι); δύναμις, power, natural ability, inherent power, residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or, which a person or thing exerts or puts forth-so δύναμις is ascribed to Christ, now in one sense, now in another, so also to the Holy Spirit as in Act 1:8; cf. Act 10:38, Luk 4:14, Rom 15:13; Bengel, Luk 4:36, and Grimm-Thayer, Synonyms. Sub v. δύναμις.
Act 1:8. ἔσεσθέ μου μάρτυρες, “my witnesses,” R.V., reading μου instead of μοι, not only witnesses to the facts of their Lord’s life, cf. Act 1:22, Act 10:39, but also His witnesses, His by a direct personal relationship; Luk 24:48 simply speaks of a testimony to the facts.-ἔν τε Ἱερουσαλὴμ κ.τ.λ.: St. Luke on other occasions, as here, distinguishes Jerusalem as a district separate from all the rest of Judæa (cf. Luk 5:17, Act 10:39), a proof of intimate acquaintance with the Rabbinical phraseology of the time, according to Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, pp. 17, 73. In this verse, see Introduction, the keynote is struck of the contents of the whole book, and the great divisions of the Acts are marked, see, e.g., Blass, p. 12 in Prologue to Acts-Jerusalem, 1-7; Judæa, Act 9:32; Act 12:19; Samaria, 8; and if it appears somewhat strained to see in St. Paul’s preaching in Rome a witness to “the utmost parts of the earth,” it is noteworthy that in Psalms of Solomon, Act 8:16, we read of Pompey that he came ἀπʼ ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς, i.e., Rome-the same phrase as in Act 1:8. This verse affords a good illustration of the subjective element which characterises the partition theories of Spitta, Jüngst, Clemen and others. Spitta would omit the whole verse from his sources A and , and considers it as an interpolation by the author of Acts; but, as Hilgenfeld points out, the verse is entirely in its place, and it forms the best answer to the “particularism” of the disciples, from which their question in Act 1:6 shows that they were not yet free. Feine would omit the words ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς because nothing in the conduct of the early Church, as it is described to us in the Jewish-Christian source, Acts 1-12, points to any knowledge of such a commission from the Risen Christ. Jüngst disagrees with both Spitta and Feine, and thinks that the hand of the redactor is visible in prominence given to the little Samaria.
Act 1:9. ἐπήρθη: the word in Act 1:2 is different, and ἐπήρθη seems not merely to denote our Lord’s first leaving the ground (as Weiss, Overbeck), but also to be more in accordance with the calm and grandeur of the event than ἀπήρθη; this latter word would rather denote a taking away by violence.-καὶ νεφέλη ὑπέλαβε: the cloud is here, as elsewhere, the symbol of the divine glory, and it was also as St. Chrysostom called it: τὸ ὄχημα τὸ βασιλίκον; cf. Psa 104:3. In 1Ti 3:16 we read that our Lord was received up ἐν δόξη, “in glory,” R.V.
Act 1:10. ἀτενίζοντες ἦσαν: this periphrasis of ἦν or ἦσαν with a present or perfect participle is very frequently found in St. Luke’s writings (Friedrich, pp. 12 and 89, and compare the list in Simcox, u. s., pp. 130-134). The verb is peculiar to St. Luke and St. Paul, and is found ten times in Acts, twice in St. Luke’s Gospel, and twice in 2 Cor.; it denotes a fixed, steadfast, protracted gaze: “and while they were looking steadfastly into heaven as he went,” R.V., thus expressing more clearly the longing gaze of the disciples watching the Lord as He was going (πορευομένου αὐτοῦ, the present participle denoting that the cloud was still visible for a considerable time), as if carrying their eyes and hearts with Him to heaven: “Ipse enim est amor noster; ubi autem amor, ibi est oculus et cor” (Corn, à Lapide). The word is also found in LXX 1Es 6:28 and 3Ma 2:26 (cf. Aquila, Job 7:8), and also in Josephus, B. J., v., 12, 3, and Polybius. Ramsay, St. Paul, 38, 39, gives a most valuable account of the use of the word in St. Luke, and concludes that the action implied by it is quite inconsistent with weakness of vision, and that the theory which makes Paul a permanent sufferer in the eyes, as if he could not distinctly see the persons near him, is hopelessly at variance with St. Luke; cf. too the meaning of the word as used by St. Paul himself in 2Co 3:7; 2Co 3:13, where not weak but strong sight is implied in the word. The verb thus common in St. Luke is frequently employed by medical writers to denote a peculiar fixed look (Zahn); so in Luk 22:56, where it is used for the servant-maid’s earnest gaze at St. Peter, a gaze not mentioned at all by St. Matthew, and expressed by a different word in St. Mar 14:67; Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, p. 76. In LXX, as above, it is employed in a secondary sense, but by Aquila, u. s., in its primary meaning of gazing, beholding.-καὶ ἰδοὺ: καὶ at the commencement of the apodosis is explained as Hebraistic, but instances are not wanting in classical Greek; cf. Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 257, and see also Simcox, ubi supra, p. 160 ff. For the formula καὶ ἰδοὺ cf. the Hebrew וְהִנֵּה, and on St. Luke’s employment of it in sudden interpositions, see Hort, Ecclesia, p. 179. The use of καί (which in the most Hebraic books of the N.T. is employed much more extensively than in classical Greek) is most frequent in Luke, who also uses more frequently than other writers the formula καὶ ἰδού to introduce an apodosis; cf. Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 33.-παρειστήκεισαν αὐτοῖς: in the appearance of angels which St. Luke often narrates there is a striking similarity between the phraseology of his Gospel and the Acts; cf. with the present passage Act 10:30; Act 12:7, and Luk 24:4; Luk 2:9. The description in the angels’ disappearances is not so similar, cf. Act 10:7 and Luk 2:15, but it must be remembered that there is only one other passage in which the departure of the angels is mentioned, Rev 16:2; Friedrich, ubi supra, pp. 45, 52, and Zeller, Acts ii., p. 224 (E. T.). For the verb cf. Luk 1:19; Luk 19:24, Act 23:2; Act 23:4, and especially Act 27:23.-ἐν ἐσθῆτι λευκῇ: in R.V. in the plural, see critical notes and also Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 90.
Act 1:11. ἄνδρες Γαλ.: the ἄνδρες in similar expressions is often indicative of respect as in classical Greek, but as addressed by angels to men it may denote the earnestness of the address (Nösgen). St. Chrysostom saw in the salutation a wish to gain the confidence of the disciples: “Else, why needed they to be told of their country who knew it well enough?” Calvin also rejects the notion that the angels meant to blame the slowness and dulness of apprehension of Galilæans. At the same time the word Γαλ. seems to remind us that things which are despised (Joh 7:52) hath God chosen. Ex Galilæa nunquam vel certe raro fuerat propheta; at omnes Apostoli (Bengel); see also below.-οὗτος ὁ Ἰησοῦς: if the mention of their northern home had reminded the disciples of their early choice by Christ and of all that He had been to them, the personal name Jesus would assure them that their master would still be a human Friend and divine Saviour; Hic Jesus: qui vobis fuit eritque semper Jesus, id est, Salvator (Corn. à Lap.).-πορευόμενον: on the frequency of the verb in St. Luke as compared with other N.T. writers, often used to give effect and vividness to the scene, both Friedrich and Zeller remark; St. Peter uses the same word of our Lord’s Ascension, 1Pe 3:22. As at the Birth of Christ, so too at His Ascension the angels’ message was received obediently and joyfully, for only thus can we explain Luk 24:52.
Act 1:12. τότε: frequent in Acts and in St. Luke’s Gospel, but most frequent in St. Matthew; on its use see Grimm-Thayer, and Blass, Gramm. des N. G., p. 270.-ὑπέστρεψαν: a word characteristic of Luke both in his Gospel and in Acts, occurring in the former over twenty times, in the latter ten or eleven times. Only in three places elsewhere, not at all in the Gospels, but see Mar 14:40 (Moulton and Geden, sub v.); Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 8. On the Ascension see additional note at end of chapter.-τοῦ καλ. Ἐλαιῶνος: ubi captus et vinctus fuerat. Wetstein. Although St. Matthew and St. Mark both speak of the Mount of Olives they do not say τοῦ καλ. (neither is the formula found in Joh 8:1). It is therefore probable that St. Luke speaks as he does as one who was a stranger to Jerusalem, or, as writing to one who was so. Blass, ubi supra, pp. 32, 84, contends that Ἐλαιῶνος ought to give place to ἐλαιῶν, which he also reads in Luk 19:29; Luk 21:37 (W.H[102] Ἐλαιῶν, and in Luk 19:37; Luk 22:39, τῶν Ἐλαιῶν, in each case as genitive of ἐλαία), the former word being found only here and in Josephus, Ant., vii., 9, 2. But it is found in all the MSS. in this passage, although falso . cum cæt., says Blass. Blass would thus get rid of the difficulty of regarding Ἐλαιών as if used in Luk 19:29; Luk 21:37 as an indeclinable noun, whilst here he would exchange its genitive for ἐλαιῶν. Deisstmann, however, is not inclined to set aside the consensus of authoritities for Ἐλαιῶνος, and he regards ἐλαιών in the two passages above as a lax use of the nominative case. As the genitive of ἐλαιών it would correspond to the Latin Olivetum (so Vulgate), an olive-orchard; cf. ἄμπελος and ἀμπελών in N.T., the termination ών in derivative nouns indicating a place set with trees of the kind designated by the primitive. for instances cf. Grimm-Thayer, sub Ἐλαιών, but see on the other hand Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 36 ff. With regard to the parallel between our verse and Josephus, Ant., vii., 9, 2, it is evident that even if St. Luke had read Josephus he was not dependent upon him, for he says here τοῦ καλ. just as in his Gospel he had written τὸ καλ., probably giving one or more popular names by which the place was known; Gloël, Galaterbrief, p. 65 (see also on the word W.H[103], ii., Appendix, p. 165; Plummer, St. Luke, p. 445; and Winer-Schmiedel, p. 93).-σαββάτου ἔχον ὁδόν, not ἀπέχον: the distance is represented as something which the mountain has, Meyer-Wendt; cf. Luk 24:13. There is no real discrepancy between this and the statement of St. Luke’s Gospel that our Lord led His disciples ἕως πρὸς Βηθανίαν, Luk 24:50, a village which was more than double a sabbath day’s journey, fifteen furlongs from Jerusalem. But if the words in St. Luke, l. c., mean “over against Bethany,” ἕως πρός (so Feine, Eine vorkanonische Uberlieferung des Lucas, p. 79, and Nösgen, Apostelgeschichte, p. 80; see also Rendall, Acts, p. 171-Blass omits ἕως and reads only πρός and remarks neque vero πρός est εἰς; cf. also Belser, Theologische Quartalschrift, i., 79 (1895)), the difficulty is surmounted, for St. Luke does not fix the exact spot of the Ascension, and he elsewhere uses the Mount of Olives, Luk 21:37, as the equivalent of the Bethany of Matthew (Act 21:17) and Mark (Act 11:1). Nor is it likely that our Lord would lead His disciples into a village for the event of His Ascension. It should be remembered that Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., says that “the Ascension was from the place where that tract of the Mount of Olives ceased to be called Bethphage and began to be called Bethany”. The recent attempt of Rud. Hoffmann to refer the Ascension to a “Galilee” in the Mount of Olives rests upon a tradition which cannot be regarded as reliable (see Galilæa auf dem Oelberg, Leipzig, 1896), although he can quote Resch as in agreement with him, p. 14. On Hoffmann’s pamphlet see also Expositor (5th series), p. 119 (1897), and Theologisches Literaturblatt, No. 27 (1897). This mention of the distance is quite characteristic of St. Luke; it may also have been introduced here for the benefit of his Gentile readers; Page, Acts, in loco, and cf. Ramsay’s remarks, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? pp. 55, 56.
[102] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
[103] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:13. τὸ ὑπερῷον: “the upper chamber,” R.V., as of some well-known place, but there is no positive evidence to identify it with the room of the Last Supper, although here and in Mar 14:15, as also in Luk 22:12, the Vulgate has cœnaculum. Amongst recent writers Hilgenfeld and Feine see in this definite mention of a room well known to the readers a reference to the author’s first book, Luk 22:11-12. But the word used in St. Mark and in St. Luke’s Gospel is different from that in the passage before us-ἀνάγαιον, but here ὑπερῷον. If we identify the former with the κατάλυμα, Luk 22:11, it would denote rather the guest-chamber used for meals than the upper room or loft set apart for retirement or prayer, although sometimes used for supper or for assemblies (ὑπερῷον). Both words are found in classical Greek, but only the latter in the LXX, where it is frequent. In the N.T. it is used by St. Luke alone, and only in Acts. Holtzmann, following Lightfoot and Schöttgen, considers that an upper room in the Temple is meant, but this would be scarcely probable under the circumstances, and a meeting in a private house, Act 2:46, Act 4:23, Act 5:42, is far more likely.-ὅ τε Π.: in a series of nouns embraced under one category only the first may have the article, Winer-Schmiedel, pp. 154-157. In comparing this list of the Apostles with that given by the Synoptists we notice that whilst St. Peter stands at the head in the four lists, those three are placed in the first group who out of the whole band are prominent in the Acts as also in the Gospels, viz., Peter, John, and James; all the Synoptists, however, place St. James as the elder brother before St. John. In St. Luke’s first list, as in St. Matthew’s list, the brothers Peter and Andrew stand first, followed by another pair of brothers James and John; but in Acts Andrew gives place, as we might expect, to the three Apostles who had been admitted to the closest intimacy with Jesus during His earthly life, and St. John as St. Peter’s constant companion in the Gospel narrative makes a pair with him. The list in Acts agrees with that given by St. Luke in his Gospel in two particulars (see Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 50, and so too Zeller): (1) Simon the Zealot is called not ὁ Καναναῖος, as in Matthew and Mark, but ὁ Ζηλωτής, cf. Luk 6:15; (2) instead of Thaddæus (or Lebbæus) we have “Judas of James,” cf. Luk 6:16.-Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου, “the son of James,” R.V. (so too above Ἰάκωβος Ἀλφαίου, “James the son of Alphæus”), placing the words “or, brother, see Jud 1:1,” in the margin, so too in Luk 6:16. The rendering of the words as Jude the brother of James was probably caused by Jud 1:1, and it is difficult to believe, as Nösgen argues (see also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 262), that in the same list and in such close proximity these two meanings “the son of” and “the brother of” should occur for the genitive, although no doubt it is possible grammatically; see Nösgen and Wendt, in loco. On the other hand, see Felten, note, p. 66. But Winer, to whom the latter refers, is by no means positive, and only expresses the opinion that ἀδελφός is perhaps to be supplied here and in Luk 6:16 if the same Apostle is referred to in Jud 1:1. (Winer-Moulton, p. 238). But the identification with the latter is very improbable, as he was most likely the brother of James, known as “the Lord’s brother” (see Plummer on Luke, Luk 6:16, and Salmon, Introduction to N. T., pp. 473, 474, fifth edit.). It is also noteworthy that St. Luke uses ἀδελφός where he means “brother,” cf. Luk 3:1; Luk 6:14; Act 12:2. Blass, Grammatik des N. G., gives the same reference to Alciphr., ii., 2, as Winer, Τιμοκράτης ὁ Μητροδώρου, sc. ἀδελφός, but at the same time he declines to commit himself as to the passage in Acts and Luke 6. The list, it has been thought, is given here again by St. Luke to show the recovery of the Apostolic band from their denial and flight-so St. Chrysostom remarks that Luke did well to mention the disciples, for since one had betrayed Christ and another had been unbelieving, he hereby shows that, except the first, all were preserved (so to the same effect Œcumenius, in loco). There may also have been the desire of the author to intimate that although only the works of a few on the list would be chronicled, yet all alike were witnesses to Christ and workers for Him (Lumby).
Act 1:14. καὶ ἦσαν προσκαρτεροῦντες: on the construction see Act 1:10. In N.T. found only in St. Luke and St. Paul (except once in St. Mar 3:9); most frequently with the dative of the thing, of continuing steadfast in prayer; cf. Act 6:4, Rom 12:12, Col 4:2, and cf. also Act 2:42 or Act 2:46 of continuing all the time in (ἐν) a place; in Act 8:13; Act 10:7, it is used with the dative of the person, and in Rom 13:6 with εἴς τι. It is found in Josephus with the dative of the thing, Ant., v., 2, 6, and in Polybius, who also uses it with the dative of the person. In LXX it is found in Num 13:21 and in Susannah ver. 6, Theod., also in Tob 5:8, .-ὁμοθυμαδὸν, a favourite word of St. Luke: Lucæ in Actis in deliciis est (Blass)-used ten or eleven times in Acts, only once elsewhere in N.T., Rom 15:6, where it has the same meaning, Vulgate unanimiter. In the LXX it is oftener found as the equivalent of Hebrew words meaning simply “together,” and Hatch, Essays in B. G., p. 63, would limit it to this meaning in the N.T., but the word cannot be confined to mere outward assembling together; cf. Dem., Phil., iv., 147, ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἐκ μιᾶς γνώμης (Meyer-Wendt); so Luther einmüthig. It was very natural that St. Luke should lay stress upon the absolute unanimity of the early believers, and the word is used with reference to the Twelve, to the hundred-and-twenty, to the whole number of believers; truly the Holy Ghost was “amator concordiæ” (Corn. à Lapide).-τῇ προσευχῇ καὶ τῇ δεήσει: the latter noun cannot be supported by MS. authority; the two words mark the difference between general and specific prayer; cf. Bengel on 1Ti 2:1, and cf. Luke, Luk 5:33. It is very doubtful whether we can confine προσευχή here to the Temple prayers; rather the article, cf. Act 6:4 and Act 2:42, seems to point to a definite custom of common prayer as a bond of Christian fellowship (Hort, Ecclesia, p. 43, so Speaker’s Commentary, in loco). As in his Gospel, so here and elsewhere in Acts, St. Luke lays stress upon frequency in prayer, and that too in all parts of the book (Friedrich, pp. 55-60).-σὺν γυναιξὶ: it is natural to include the women already mentioned in St. Luke’s Gospel, cf., e.g., Luk 8:2-3, Luk 23:55, “with the women,” R.V., or the expression may be quite indefinite as in margin R.V. In this mention of the presence of women, as in the stress laid upon prayer, there is another point of unity between the book and the third Gospel, “The Gospel of Womanhood” (see also Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? p. 50). (The mention of women would certainly indicate a private house rather than the Temple.) Erasmus and Calvin both interpret the words cum uxoribus, probably not without desire to make a point against celibacy. J. Lightfoot allows that this meaning may be correct, since the Apostles and disciples who had wives took them with them, “but,” he adds, “it is too strait”.-Μαριάμ (for Μαρίᾳ), so always according to W.H[104] of the Blessed Virgin, nominative, vocative, accusative, dative, except twice in a few of the best MSS. (Mat 1:20, and Luk 2:19). Cf. Appendix, p. 163. See also Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 28, and Winer-Schmiedel, p. 91, note. The καί may be taken either to comprehend her under the other women, or as distinguishing her from them. This is the last mention of her in the N.T., and the Scripture leaves her “in prayer”.-σὺν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς αὐτοῦ: they are previously mentioned as unbelieving (Joh 7:5, and compare Mar 6:4), but not only the Resurrection of the Lord but also that of Lazarus may well have overcome their unbelief. St. Chrysostom (so too Œcumenius) conjectures that Joseph was dead, for it is not to be supposed, he says, that when the brethren had become believers Joseph believed not. As the brethren are here distinguished from the Eleven, it would seem that they could not have been included in the latter (see, however, “Brethren,” B.D.2 pp. 13, 14). But whatever meaning we give to the word “brethren” here or in the Gospels, nothing could be more significant than the fact that they had now left their settled homes in Galilee to take part in the lot of the disciples of Jesus, and to await with them the promise of the Father (Felten). It may have been that, James, “the Lord’s brother,” was converted by the Resurrection, 1Co 15:5, and that his example constrained the other “brethren” to follow him.
[104] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:15. καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ταύταις: St. Luke often employs such notes of time, used indefinitely like similar expressions in Hebrew-e.g., 1Sa 28:1, both in his Gospel and in Acts. Friedrich, p. 9, Lekebusch, p. 53.-ἀναστὰς: it is very characteristic of St. Luke to add a participle to a finite verb indicating the posture or position of the speaker. This word is found in St. Luke’s Gospel seventeen times, and in Acts nineteen times, only twice in Matthew, six or seven times in Mark; cf. also his use of σταθείς, three times in Gospel, six times in Acts, but not at all in the other Evangelists.-Πέτρος: that St. Peter should be the spokesman is only what we should naturally expect from his previous position among the Twelve, but, as St. Chrysostom observes, he does everything with the common consent, nothing imperiously. The best fruits of his repentance are here seen in the fulfilment of his commission to strengthen his brethren. ἐν μέσῳ: another favourite expression of St. Luke both in his Gospel and in the Acts, in the former eight times, in the latter five times (four times in St. Matthew, twice in St. Mark). Blass compares the Hebrew בְּתוֹךְ, Grammatik des N. G., p. 126, and in loco.-μαθητῶν: Blass retains and contends that ἀδελφ. has arisen from either Act 1:14 or Act 1:16; but there is strong critical authority for the latter word; cf. Act 6:1. In LXX it is used in three senses; a brother and a neighbour, Lev 19:17; a member of the same nation, Exo 2:14, Deu 15:3. In the N.T. it is used in these three senses, and also in the sense of fellow-Christians, who are looked upon as forming one family. The transition is easily seen: (1) member of the same family; (2) of the same community (national), of the same community (spiritual). Kennedy, Sources of N.T. Greek, pp. 95, 96. On its use in religious associations in Egypt see Deissmann, Bibelstudien, i., 82, 140, 209.-τε: here for the first time solitarium. On the frequent recurrence of this word in Acts in all parts, as compared with other books of the N.T., see Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 257, 258.-ὀνομάτων: R.V., “persons”. Lightfoot compares the use of the word in Rev 3:4; Rev 11:13 (so too Wendt), where the word is used to signify any persons without distinction of sex, so that the word may have been used here to include the women also. But he considers that it rather means men as distinct from women, and so, as he says, the Syriac and Arabic understand it here. Its use in the sense of persons reckoned up by name is Hebraistic שֵׁמוֹת LXX, Num 1:2; Num 1:18; Num 1:20; Num 3:40; Num 3:43; Num 26:53 (Grimm-Thayer, sub v.), but see also for a similar use on the Egyptian papyri, Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 24 (1897).-ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, “gathered together,” R.V.; cf. Mat 22:34, Luk 17:35, Act 2:1; Act 2:44; Act 2:47 (so W.H[105], R.V., see in loco, Wendt, Weiss), 1Co 11:20; 1Co 14:23. Holtzmann, in loco, describes it as always local, and it is no doubt so used in most of the above passages, as also in LXX Psa 2:2 (cf. Act 4:26), 2Sa 2:13, 3Ma 3:1, Sus. Act 1:14, and in classical Greek. But when we remember the stress laid by St. Luke in the opening chapters of the Acts upon the unanimity of the believers, it is not unlikely that he should use the phrase, at all events in Act 2:44; Act 2:47, with this deeper thought of unity of purpose and devotion underlying the words, even if we cannot render the phrase in each passage in Acts with Rendall (Acts, p. 34), “with one mind,” “of one mind”.-ὡς ἑκατὸν εἴκοσιν. Both Wendt and Feine reject the view that the number is merely mythical (Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, Weizsäcker), and would rather see in it a definite piece of information which St. Luke had gained. It is quite beside the mark to suppose that St. Luke only used this particular number because it represented the Apostles multiplied by 10, or 40 multiplied by 3. If he had wished to emphasise the number as a number, why introduce the ὡς?
[105] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:16. Ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί: a mode of address indicating not only respect but also the solemnity of the occasion and the importance of the subject. There is nothing unclassical in this use of the vocative without ὦ at the beginning of speeches. Demosthenes, at least on some occasions, used the phrase Ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι without ὦ. Simcox, ubi supra, p. 76, note, and see also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 258, note.-ἔδει: very frequent in St. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts; in the former nineteen, in the latter twenty-five times, and in all parts of the book, Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 22 (Lekebusch). It expresses a divine necessity, and is used by all the Evangelists, as by St. Peter here, and by St. Paul (1Co 15:25), of the events connected with and following upon the Passion.-δεῖ, oportet, expresses logical necessity rather than personal moral obligation ὤφειλεν, debuit, or the sense of fitness, ἔπρεπεν, decebat. The three words are all found in Heb 2:1; Heb 2:17; Heb 2:10, on which see Westcott, Hebrews, p. 36, and Plummer’s St. Luke, p. 247. St. Peter’s speech falls into two parts, one introduced by ἔδει, and the other introduced by δεῖ, Act 1:21.-τὴν γραφὴν: the reference is undoubtedly to the particular passages in the O.T. which follow, cf. Luk 4:20, Act 8:35; see Lightfoot on Gal 3:22. There is no reference to Psa 41:9, or this passage would have been quoted, but to the passages in Act 1:20.-πληρωθῆναι, cf. Luk 24:44-45. πληρόω (which is very frequently used by St. Luke, Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 40) means more than “fulfil” in the popular acceptation of the word; it implies “to fill up to the full”; “Not only is our Lord the subject of direct predictions in the Old Testament, but His claims go to the full extent of affirming that all the truths which are imperfectly, and frequently very darkly shadowed forth in the pages, are realised in Him as the ideal to which they pointed” (Row, Bampton Lectures, pp. 202, 203).-τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον. St. Luke uses this, or a similar expression, πνεῦμα ἅγιον or τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, about forty times in Acts alone, whilst in St. Luke’s Gospel alone it is used about as many times as in the three other Evangelists together (Lekebusch, Apostelgeschichte, p. 65, and Plummer, St. Luke, p. 14).-ὁδηγοῦ τοῖς συλλ. τὸν Ἰησοῦν. St. Peter simply states a fact, but does not heap scorn or abuse upon Judas (Chrysostom, Hom., iii., cf. Theophylact). St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. John simply say of Judas ὁ παραδιδούς, “he who delivered Him up,” or employ some similar expression; he is never called “the traitor” (St. Luk 6:16, ἐγένετο προδότης, “became a traitor,” see Plummer, in loco). This self-restraint is remarkable on the part of men who must have regarded their Master’s Death as the most atrocious of murders (see Row, Bampton Lectures, pp. 179, 180, note). At the same time the word ὁδηγός seems to bring before us the scene in Gethsemane, how Judas went before the multitude, and drew near to Jesus to kiss Him (Luk 22:47), and to show us how vividly the memories of the Passion were present to St. Peter; cf. 1Pe 2:21 ff.).
Act 1:17. ὅτι κατηριθμημένος ἦν κ.τ.λ. For the construction see Act 1:10. ὅτι introduces the ground upon which the Scripture to be cited, which speaks of the vacancy in the Apostolic office, found its fulfilment in Judas; “he was numbered,” “triste est numerari non manere,” Bengel.-καὶ ἔλαχεν τὸν κλῆρον: lit[106], “and obtained by lot the lot”: κλῆρος, a lot, that which is assigned by lot, the portion or share so assigned; so amongst the Greeks, and somewhat similarly in English, cf. in LXX Wis 2:9; Wis 5:5, Sir 25:19. The word is used elsewhere in Acts three times, Act 1:26, Act 8:21, Act 26:18; cf. with the last passage its use by St. Paul elsewhere, Col 1:12. Here the word no doubt may be used by St. Peter with reference to the actual selection by lot which was about to follow. The same word is used elsewhere by the same Apostle, 1Pe 5:3, “neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you,” τῶν κλήρων. Tyndale and Cranmer render the word here “parishes,” which really gives a good interpretation of it = the “lots” assigned to the elders as their portions in God’s heritage; and so we have by an easy transition clerici = clergy, those to whom such “lots” are assigned: Humphry, Commentary on R. V., p. 446, Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 246 ff.-ἔλαχεν: here and in 2Pe 1:1 with an accusative, as in classical Greek, “received his portion” R.V. On the construction of the verb with the genitive, cf. Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 100, 230, and Plummer’s St. Luke, p. 11; with Luk 1:9, cf. 1Sa 14:47. In classical Greek it is used as the opposite of χειροτονηθῆναι, to be elected, more commonly with the infinitive.-διακονίας: “Apostleship the highest form of ministration is repeatedly designated thus,” Hort, Ecclesia, p. 204, e.g., Act 1:25, Act 20:24, Act 21:19, 2Co 4:1; 2Co 5:18; 2Co 6:3, Rom 11:13, and see further on the word, chap. 6. below. It would be difficult to find in such a general term, or in any part of the speech, any reference to a hierarchical constitution of the Church (Zeller, Overbeck). Jüngst cannot derive any such view from this verse, although he sees in the description of διακονία as ἀποστολή, Act 1:25, the mark of a later period than that of the delivery of the speech (so too Wendt).
[106] literal, literally.
Act 1:18. οὗτος μὲν οὖν κ.τ.λ. This verse and the next are regarded in R.V. as a parenthesis (compare also W.H[107]), μὲν οὖν making the transition from St. Peter’s own words to the explanatory statement of St. Luke; see Rendall’s Appendix on μὲν οὖν, although he would place Act 1:20 also in a parenthesis, Acts, p. 160 ff. For this frequent use of μὲν οὖν in Acts, see also Blass, who regards μέν as used here, as in other places, without any following antithesis expressed by δέ, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 261, 267, see also Hackett’s note in loco. Spitta, Feine, Weiss, see in these two verses an editorial interpolation.-ἐκτήσατο χωρίον. To harmonise this with Mat 27:5, an explanation has been often used to this effect, that although Judas did not purchase the field, it was purchased by his money, and that thus he might be called its possessor. This was the explanation adopted by the older commentators, and by many modern. Theophylact, e.g., describes Judas as rightly called the κύριος of the field for the price of it was his. It is no doubt quite possible that St. Peter (if the words are his and not St. Luke’s) should thus express himself rhetorically (and some of his other expressions are certainly rhetorical, e.g., ἐλάκησε μέσος), or that Judas should be spoken of as the possessor of the field, just as Joseph of Arimathæa is said to have hewn his own tomb, or Pilate to have scourged Jesus, but possibly Dr. Edersheim’s view that the blood-money by a fiction of law was still considered to belong to Judas may help to explain the difficulty, Jesus the Messiah, ii., 575. Lightfoot comments, “Not that he himself bought the field, for Matthew resolves the contrary-nor was there any such thing in his intention when he bargained for the money,” and then he adds, “But Peter by a bitter irrision showeth the fruit and profit of his wretched covetise:” Hor. Heb. (see also Hackett’s note). Without fully endorsing this, it is quite possible that St. Peter, or St. Luke, would contrast the portion in the ministry which Judas had received with the little which was the result of the price of his iniquity.-ἐκ τοῦ μισθοῦ τῆς ἀδικίας pro τοῦ ἀδίκου μισθοῦ, a Hebraism, Blass, in loco, see also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 268. The phrase only occurs again in 2Pe 2:13; 2Pe 2:15; on this use of ἐκ see Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 146. Combinations of words with ἀδικία are characteristic of St. Luke (Friedrich). In the other Evangelists the word is only found once, Joh 7:18.-καὶ πρηνὴς γενόμ. Wendt (following Zeller and Overbeck) and others maintain that St. Luke here follows a different tradition from St. Matthew, Mat 27:6 ff., and that it is only arbitrary to attempt to reconcile them. But Felten and Zöckler (so too Lumby and Jacobson) see in St. Luke’s description a later stage in the terrible end of the traitor. St. Matthew says καὶ ἀπελθὼν ἀπήγξατο: if the rope broke, or a branch gave way under the weight of Judas, St. Luke’s narrative might easily be supplementary to that of St. Matthew. Blass, in loco, adopts the former alternative, and holds that thus the narrative may be harmonised with that of St. Matthew, rupto fune Iudam in terram procidisse. It is difficult to see (as against Overbeck) why πρηνὴς γεν. is inconsistent with this. The words no doubt mean strictly “falling flat on his face” opposed to ὕπτιος, not “falling headlong,” and so they do not necessarily imply that Judas fell over a precipice, but Hackett’s view that Judas may have hung himself from a tree on the edge of a precipice near the valley of Hinnom, and that he fell on to the rocky pavement below is suggested from his own observation of the locality, p. 36, Acts of the Apostles (first English edition), see also Edersheim, ubi supra, pp. 575, 576. At all events there is nothing disconcerting in the supposition that we may have here “some unknown series of facts, of which we have but two fragmentary narratives”: “Judas,” B.D.2, and see further Plummer sub v. in Hastings’ B.D. ἐλάκησε: here only in the N.T. λάσκω: a strong expression, signifying bursting asunder with a loud noise, Hom., Iliad, xiii., 616; cf. also Acta Thomæ, 33 (p. 219, ed. Tdf.): ὁ δράκων φυσηθεὶς ἐλάκησε καὶ ἀπέθανε καὶ ἐξεχύθη ὁ ἰὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ χολή, for the construction cf. Luk 23:45.
[107] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:19. καὶ γνωστὸν … πᾶσιν τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν Ἱερουσ.: the words have been taken to support the view that we have here a parenthesis containing the notice of St. Luke, but if St. Peter was speaking rhetorically he might easily express himself so. But many critics, who refuse to see in the whole of the two verses any parenthetical remarks of the historian, adopt the view that τῇ διαλέκτῳ αὐτῶν and τοῦτʼ ἔστιν χωρίον αἵματος are explanations introduced by St. Luke, who could trust to his Gentile readers to distinguish between his words and those of St. Peter (Wendt, Holtzmann, Zöckler, Nösgen, Jüngst. Matthias).-τῇ διαλέκτῳ: only in Acts in the N.T., where it is used six times in all parts; it may mean dialect or language, but here it is used in the latter sense (R.V.) to distinguish Aramaic from Greek (cf. its use in Polybius).-αὐτῶν, i.e., the dwellers of Jerusalem, who spoke Aramaic-unless the whole expression is used rhetorically, it would seem that it contains the words, not of St. Peter, who himself spoke Aramaic, but of the author (see Blass, in loco).-Ἀκελδαμά: the Aramaic of the Field of Blood would be חֲקַל דְּמָא, and it is possible that the χ may be added to represent in some way the guttural [108], just as Σιράχ = סירא, cf. Blass, in loco, and Grammatik des N. G., p. 13. W.H[109] (so Blass) read Ἁκελδαμάχ (and Ἀχελδαμάχ, Tisch. and Treg.); see also on the word Winer-Schmiedel, pp. 60 and 63. A new derivation has been proposed by Klostermann, Probleme in Aposteltexte, p. 6 ff., which has gained considerable attention (cf. Holtzmann, Wendt, Felten, Zöckler, in loco), viz.: דְּמַךְ=κοιμᾶσθαι, so that the word = κοιμητήριον, cf. Mat 27:8. This is the derivation preferred by Wendt, and it is very tempting, but see also Enc. Bibl., I., 32, 1899, sub v.
[108] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.
[109] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
It is true that the two accounts in St. Matthew and St. Luke give two reasons for the name Field of Blood. But why should there not be two reasons? If the traitor in the agony of his remorse rushed from the Temple into the valley of Hinnom, and across the valley to “the potter’s field” of Jeremiah, the old name of the potter’s field might easily become changed in the popular language into that of “field of blood,” whilst the reason given by St. Matthew for the name might still hold good, since the blood-money, which by a fiction of law was still considered to belong to Judas, was employed for the purchase of the accursed spot as a burial ground for strangers. See Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, ii., 574, 575. Whatever may be alleged as to the growth of popular fancy and tradition in the later account in Acts of the death of Judas, it cannot be said to contrast unfavourably with the details given by Papias, Fragment, 18, which Blass describes as “insulsissima et fœdissima”.
Act 1:20. The quotation is twofold, the first part from Psa 69:26 (LXX, 68); in the LXX we have αὐτῶν, changed here into αὐτοῦ with reference to Judas, whilst ἐν τοῖς σκηνώμασιν is omitted and the words ἐν αὐτῇ, referring to ἔπαυλις, are added. The omission would make the application of the words more general than in the original, which related to the desolation of the encampment and tents of a nomadic tribe. The other part of the quotation is verbatim from Psa 108:8 (109), called by the ancients the Iscariot Psalm. With the exception of Psalms 22, no Psalm is more frequently quoted in the N.T. than 69; cf. Psa 108:9 with Joh 2:17; Psa 108:21 with Mat 27:34, and with Joh 19:28; Psa 108:22-23 with Rom 11:9-10; and Psa 108:9 with Rom 15:3. In these Psalms, as in the twenty-second Psalm, we see how the history of prophets and holy men of old, of a David or a Jeremiah, was typical of the history of the Son of man made perfect through suffering, and we know how our Lord Himself saw the fulfilment of the words of the suffering Psalmist Psa 41:9) in the tragic events of His own life (Joh 13:18). So too St. Peter in the recent miserable end of the traitor sees another evidence, not only of the general truth, which the Psalmists learnt through suffering, that God rewarded His servants and that confusion awaited the unrighteous, but also another fulfilment in the case of Judas of the doom which the Psalmists of old had invoked upon the persecutors of the faithful servants of God. But we are not called upon to regard Psalms 109 as the Iscariot Psalm in all its details (see Perowne, Psalms, p. 538 (smaller edition)), or to forget, as Delitzsch reminds us, that the spirit of Elias is not that of the N.T. St. Peter, although he must have regarded the crime of Judas as a crime without a parallel, does not dwell upon his punishment, but passes at once to the duty incumbent upon the infant Church in view of the vacant Apostleship.-ἔπαυλις: by many commentators, both ancient and modern (Chrys., Oecum., so too Nösgen, Overbeck, Wendt, Blass, Holtzmann, Zöckler, Jüngst), this is referred to the χωρίον, which was rendered desolate by the death of Judas in it, on the ground that γάρ thus maintains its evident relation to what precedes. But if the two preceding verses are inserted by St. Luke, and form no part of St. Peter’s words, it would seem that ἔπαυλις must be regarded as parallel to ἐπισκοπή in the second quotation.-ἐπισκοπὴν: “his office,” R.V. (“overseership,” margin), so for the same word in LXX, Psa 109:8, from which the quotation is made. In the LXX the word is used, Num 4:16, for the charge of the tabernacle. St. Peter uses the word ἐπίσκοπος in 1Pe 2:25, and it is significant that there the translators of 1611 maintain the use of the word “bishop,” as here “bishoprick” (so R.V., “overseer,” margin), whilst they use “overseer” and “oversight” (ἐπισκοπή), Act 20:28 and 1Pe 5:2, where the reference is to the function of the elders or presbyters. The word ἐπισκοπή, of course, could not have its later ecclesiastical force, but the Apostolic office of Judas might well be described as one of oversight, and care of others; and it is significant that it is so described, and not only as a διακονία (see below on Act 1:25, and on ἐπίσκοπος, Act 20:28, note): “St. Peter would not have quoted the Psalm containing the expression ἐπισκοπή unless he had instinctively felt the word to be applicable to Judas’ position” (Canon Gore in Guardian, 16th March, 1898).
Act 1:21. δεῖ οὖν, see Act 1:16. As the one prophecy had thus already been fulfilled, so for the fulfilment of the other it was imperative upon the Church to elect a successor to Judas.-εἰσῆλθε καὶ ἐξῆλθεν: a Hebraistic formula expressing the whole course of a man’s daily life; Act 9:28; cf. LXX Deu 28:6, 1Sa 29:6, Psalm 120:8, and for other instances, Wetstein, in loco. There is no occasion to render ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς, “over us,” R.V., margin, for in full the phrase would run: εἰσῆλθεν ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ἀφʼ ἡμῶν. The formula shows that St. Peter did not shrink from dwelling upon the perfect humanity of the Ascended Christ, whilst in the same sentence he speaks of Him as ὁ Κύριος.
Act 1:22. ἀρξάμενος, cf. note on Act 1:1. The word need not be restricted to our Lord’s own baptism, but would include the time of the baptism preached by John, as his baptism and preaching were the announcement of, and a preparation for, the Christ. If St. Mark’s Gospel, as there is every reason to believe, was closely connected with St. Peter, its opening verses give us a similar date for the commencement of the Apostolic testimony; cf. Schmid, Biblische Theologie des N. T., p. 436.-ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἧς: according to Wendt and Weiss, the relative is not attracted for ᾗ, but is to be regarded as a genitive of time, but cf. Lev 23:15, Hag 2:18, Bar 1:15; Winer-Schmiedel, p. 226; Blass, ubi supra, p. 170.-μάρτυρα τῆς ἀναστάσεως. It has been noted as remarkable that St. Peter here lays down experience of matters of fact, not eminence in any subjective grace or quality, as one of the conditions of Apostleship, but it is evident that from the first the testimony of the Apostles was not merely to the facts, but to their spiritual bearing, cf. chap. Act 5:32 : “On the one side there is the historical witness to the facts, on the other, the internal testimony of personal experience” (Westcott’s St. John, Joh 15:27), and the appeal to Him “Who knew the hearts,” showed that something more was needed than intellectual competency. Spitta and Jüngst (so Weiss) regard the whole clause ἐν παντὶ χρόνῳ … ἀφʼ ἡμῶν as introduced by a reviser, but on the other hand Hilgenfeld considers the words to be in their right place. He also rebukes Weiss for maintaining that the whole passage, Act 1:15-26, could not have been composed by the author of the book, who gives no intimation of the number of the Apostles, with whom the Twelve as such play no part, and who finds his hero outside their number. But Hilgenfeld points out that the Twelve have for his “author to Theophilus” a very important place; cf. Act 2:14; Act 2:22, Act 4:33, Act 5:12; Act 5:40, Act 8:1; Act 8:14, Act 9:27.
Act 1:23. ἔστησαν, not ἔστησεν: the latter reading, “nimium Petro dat, nihil concilio relinquit” (Blass). “They put forward,” R.V., not “appointed,” A.V., for the appointment had not yet been made.-Ἰωσὴφ τὸν καλ. Βαρσαβᾶν, “Joseph called Barsabbas”. We cannot identify him with Joseph Barnabas (Act 4:36), or with Judas Barsabbas (Act 15:22). Barsabbas may have been a patronymic “son of Sabba,” but cf. Enc. Bibl., I., 487, 1899. It is only a conjecture that he was the brother of Judas Barsabbas just mentioned. The name Justus is probably a Roman surname, as Ἰοῦστος indicates, adopted after the custom of the time, just as the second Evangelist took the Roman name Marcus in addition to the Hebrew John. Nothing more is said of him in the N.T. Eusebius ranks him with Matthias as one of the Seventy, H.E., i., 12, and Papias is said to have related concerning him that he drank deadly poison but escaped all harm, Euseb., H.E., iii., 39. On the connection of this tradition with Aristion see Nestle, Einführung in das G. N. T., p. 240, and Zahn, Einleitung, ii., p. 231. If the reading of Blass in [110], supported by the Latin, τὸν καὶ Ἰοῦστον (qui et Justus) may claim acceptance, it affords, as Belser notes, an interesting parallel with the Σαῦλος ὁ καὶ Παῦλος of Act 13:8. On the spelling of the word, see W.H[111] Appendix p. 166, and also Winer-Schmiedel, pp. 56, 57.-Ματθίαν. Nothing more is known of him with certainty than that he must have fulfilled the qualifications required by St. Peter. Both Eusebius and Epiphanius rank him in the Seventy, and he is said to have suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia. An apocryphal Gospel was ascribed to him, Euseb., H.E., iii., 25, and from Clem. Alex., Strom., iv., 6, 35, we find that the words of Zacchæus, Luk 19:8, were supposed to be his; so too Hilgenfeld, Actus Apost., p. 202, 1899.
[110] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.
[111] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 1:24. Κύριε καρδιογνῶστα … ὃν ἐξελέξω. The words may well have been addressed to Christ: St. Peter had just spoken of Him as the Lord, his own experience and that of his fellow-disciples must have taught him that Jesus was One Who knew the hearts of all men (Joh 2:25; Joh 21:17), and he had heard his Master’s claim to have chosen the Apostles (cf. Luk 6:13; Luk 5:2 above, where the same verb is used). On the other hand Wendt regards as decisive against this view that St. Peter himself in Act 15:7 says ἐξελέξατο ὁ θεός and then in Act 1:8 calls God καρδιογνώστης (cf. Jer 17:10, where Jehovah is said to search the heart). But the passage in Acts 15 is much too general in its reference to consider it decisive against any special prerogative ascribed to Jesus here (viz., the choice of His own Apostles), and the references to 2Co 1:1, Eph 2:1, where St. Paul refers his Apostleship to God, may be fairly met by Act 9:17; Act 26:16. It is quite true that in Act 4:29 Κύριε is used in prayer plainly addressed to the Lord Jehovah, but it is equally certain that prayer was directed to Christ in the earliest days of the Church (Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, pp. 1-38 and notes), see also below on Act 2:21 (and cf. 1Th 3:11-12, and 2Th 2:16; Archbishop of Armagh in Speaker’s Commentary, iii., 690).-ἀνάδειξον: in Luk 10:1 the only other passage in the N.T. where the word is used, it is applied to our Lord’s appointment of the Seventy, and is rendered “appointed,” A. and R.V. But here R.V. renders “show” as A.V. (Rendall, “appoint”). The verb however may be used in the sense of showing forth or clearly, and hence to proclaim, especially a person’s appointment to an office (cf. the noun ἀνάδειξις also used by St. Luke only in his Gospel, Luk 1:80); cf. for the former meaning, 2Ma 2:8; cf. 2Ma 5:6, and for the latter, 2 Macc. 9:14, 23, 35; 10:11; 14:12, 26; 1Es 1:35; 1Es 8:23; so too the use of the word in Polybius and Plutarch (see Grimm-Thayer, sub v., and Weiss, in loco).
Act 1:25. τὸν κλῆρον: R.V. τόπον marking the antithesis between the place in the Apostleship and “his own place” to which Judas had gone, Vulg. locum.-τῆς διακονίας ταύτης καὶ ἀποστολῆς: as above we have not only the word διακονία used but also ἐπισκοπή, Act 5:17; Act 5:20, so here too we have not only διακονία but also ἀποστολή, although no doubt there is a sense in which we may truly say with Dr. Hort (Ecclesia, p. 204) that Apostleship is the highest form of ministration. On the word ἀπόστολος see Act 13:2-3; the term was undoubtedly used in N.T. to include others besides the Twelve, although there is no reason to suppose that the qualification of having “seen the Lord” was in any case invalidated (cf. Gwatkin, “Apostle,” Hastings’ B.D., p. 126). The whole narrative before us which relates the solemn appeal of the Church to her Ascended Lord, and the choice determined upon in immediate sequence to that appeal, is clearly at variance with any conception of Apostleship as other than a divine commission received directly from Christ Himself (Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. 130).-παρέβη, “fell away,” R.V. cf. LXX Exo 32:8, ἐκ τῆς ὁδοῦ, so Deu 9:12; Deu 17:20, ἀπὸ τῶν ἐντολῶν (cf. Act 28:14, A.), so the Heb. סוּר followed by מִן. A.V. following Tyndall renders “by transgression fell,” which lays too much stress upon “fell,” which is not the prominent notion of the Greek verb, elsewhere “transgressed” (Humphry on Revised Version, p. 188-εἰς τὸν τόπον τὸν ἴδιον on τόπος). in the sense of social position, dignity, see Sir 12:12, and also Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 95, of succeeding to the vacant place caused by death in a religious community. Here the phrase is usually explained as the place of punishment, Gehenna, cf. Baal-Turim on Num 24:25 (and Gen 31:55) “Balaam ivit in locum suum,” i.e., Gehenna, Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., while on the other hand Schöttgen sees no need to explain the expression in this way. In each of the passages in the O.T. the word ἴδιος does not occur in the LXX, although in the still more fanciful comment of the Rabbis on Job 2:11, we have ἐκ τῆς ἰδίας χώρας. That the phrase ἴδιος τόπος may be used in a good or bad sense is plain from Ignat., Magn., v., in a passage which is naturally referred to the verse before us, where a man’s “own place” denotes the place of reward, or that of punishment, cf., e.g., εἰς τὸν ὀφειλόμενον τόπον, Polycarp, Phil., ix., where the words refer to the martyrs who were with the Lord, and εἰς τὸν ὀφειλ. τόπον τῆς δόξης said of St. Peter, Clem. Rom., Cor[112] v. Nösgen argues, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 88, 89, that we are not justified in concluding from a few Rabbinical passages which contain such fanciful interpretations of simple words (cf. the comment on Job 2:11, quoted by Wetstein) that St. Peter must have meant “Gehenna”. In his wilful fall from the place chosen for him by God, Judas had chosen in self-will ἴδιος τόπος, and this wilful and deliberate choice St. Peter would emphasise in contrast to the τόπος ἀποστολῆς about to be bestowed, Act 1:25 (see also Rendall, Acts, p. 174). But however this may be, the words may well indicate a reserve on the part of St. Peter in speaking of the fate and destiny of Judas, characteristic of his reference to him cf. note on Act 1:16. None of the other explanations offered can be deemed satisfactory, as, e.g., that the word πορευθῆναι κ.τ.λ. refers to the successor of Judas; that Matthias should undertake the Apostolic circuit assigned to Judas (so Oecumenius, and amongst English commentators, Hammond); or, that the words refer to the house or home of Judas, or to his association with the Pharisees, or to his suicide and dishonoured burial, or to the χωρίον mentioned above. Spitta, amongst recent commentators, stands almost alone in referring the words back to Act 1:16, and holds that they refer to the position of Judas as the guide to those who took Jesus. The sense of the passage is expressed in the reading of A δίκαιον instead of ἴδιον.
[112] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
Act 1:26. καὶ ἔδωκαν κλήρους αὐτῶν, “they gave forth their lots,” A.V. But R.V. reads αὐτοῖς, “they gave lots for them”. R.V. margin, “unto them”. It is difficult to decide whether the expression means that they gave lots unto the candidates themselves or whether they cast lots for them-i.e., on their behalf, or to see which of the two would be selected. How the lot was decided we cannot positively say. According to Hamburger (Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, i., 5, p. 723) the Bible does not tell us, as the expressions used point sometimes to a casting, sometimes to a drawing out, of the lots; cf. Pro 16:33 : “Quo modo et ratione uti sunt Apostoli incertum est. Certum est Deum per earn declarasse Mathiam tum dirigendo sortem ut caderet in Mathiam juxta illud Pro 16:33” (Corn. à Lapide). For the expression cf. Lev 16:8. Hebraismus (Wetstein), so Blass. καὶ ἔπεσεν, i.e., through shaking the vessel, Jon 1:7; cf. Livy, xxiii., 3; so in Homer and Sophocles πάλλειν, cf. Josephus, Ant., vi., 5.-συγκατεψηφίσθη: only here in N.T. “he was numbered with the eleven Apostles,” i.e., as the twelfth. The verb is used in the middle voice for condemning with others, Plut., Them., 21, but as it occurs nowhere else we have no parallels to its use here. Grimm explains it “deponendo (κατά) in urnam calculo, i.e., suffragando assigno (alicui) locum inter (σύν)”. But here it is used rather as an equivalent of συγκαταριθμεῖσθαι; cf. Act 1:17 (and also Act 19:19), (Blass and Wendt, in loco) = ἐναρίθμιος, συμψηφισθείς, καταριθμηθείς, Hesychius. Wendt as against Meyer maintains that it is not proved that recourse was never again had to lots, because no other instance of such an appeal is recorded in Acts. But it is most significant that this one instance should be recorded between the departure of the Lord and the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, and that after Pentecost no further reference is made to such a mode of decision. Cf., e.g., Act 10:19, Act 16:6. With regard to the historical character of the election of Matthias, Wendt sees no ground to doubt it in the main, although he is not prepared to vouch for all the details, but he finds no reason to place such an event at a later date of the Church’s history, as Zeller proposed. To question the validity of the appointment is quite unreasonable, as not only is it presupposed in Act 2:14, Act 6:2, but even the way in which both St. Paul (1Co 15:5) and the Apocalypse (Act 21:14) employ the number twelve in a technical sense of the Twelve Apostles, makes the after choice of Matthias as here described very probable (so Overbeck, in loco). No mention is made of the laying on of hands, but “non dicuntur manus novo Apostolo impositæ; erat enim prorsus immediate constitutus,” Bengel. See also on Act 1:25, and Act 13:3.
Ascension of our Lord.-Friedrich in his Das Lucasevangelium, p. 47 ff., discusses not only similarity of words and phrases, but similarity of contents in St. Luke’s writings. With reference to the latter, he examines the two accounts of the Ascension as given in St. Luke’s Gospel and in the Acts. There are, he notes, four points of difference (the same four in fact as are mentioned by Zeller, Acts of the Apostles, i., 166, E. T.): (1) Bethany as the place of the Ascension, Luk 24:30; Act 1:12, the Mount of Olives; (2) the time of the Ascension; according to Acts the event falls on the fortieth day after the Resurrection, Act 1:3; according to the Gospel on the Resurrection day itself; (3) the words of Jesus before the Ascension are not quite the same in the two narratives; (4) in the Gospel the words appear to be spoken in Jerusalem, in the Acts at the place of the Ascension. Friedrich points out what Zeller fully admitted, that (1) has no importance, for Bethany lay on the Mount of Olives, and the neighbourhood of Bethany might be described quite correctly as ὄρος ἐλαιῶνος; (3) is not of any great importance (as Zeller also admitted), since Luk 24:47-49 and Act 1:4-8 agree in the main. With regard to (4), Friedrich is again in agreement with Zeller in holding that the difficulty might easily be solved by supposing some slight inaccuracy, or that the words in question were uttered on the way from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives; but he agrees also with Zeller in maintaining that the time of the Ascension as given in Luke’s Gospel and in Acts constitutes the only definite contradiction between the two writings. But even this difficulty presents itself to Friedrich as by no means insuperable, since the author has not attempted to avoid apparent contradictions in other places in the Acts, and therefore he need not have felt himself called upon to do so in the passage before us, where the book seems at variance with his Gospel (see pp. 48, 49).
But Friedrich proceeds to emphasise the many points in which the history of the Ascension in Acts reminds us of the close of the Gospel (see also Zeller, u. s., ii., pp. 226, 227, E.T., and also Feine). Only St. Luke knows of the command of Jesus, that the Apostles should not leave Jerusalem, and of the promise of the Holy Spirit associated with it, Luk 24:49, and Act 1:4-8. So also Luk 24:47 reminds us unmistakably of Act 1:8; also Luk 24:52 and Act 1:12, Luk 24:53 and Act 1:14 (Act 2:14) (cf. also Act 1:5 and Luk 3:16). But there is no need to adopt Friedrich’s defence of the supposed contradiction with regard to the time of the Ascension. Certainly in the Gospel of St. Luke nothing is said of any interval between the Resurrection and the Ascension, but it is incredible that “the author can mean that late at night, Luk 3:29; Luk 3:33, Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany and ascended in the dark!” Plummer, St. Luke, p. 569, see also Felten, Apostelgeschichte, p. 59, and Blass, Acta Apostolorum, p. 44. It is of course possible that St. Luke may have gained his information as to the interval of the forty days between the writing of his two works, but however this may be (cf. Plummer, but against this view Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, p. 173), it becomes very improbable that even if a tradition existed that the Ascension took place on the evening of the Resurrection, and that Luke afterwards in Acts followed a new and more trustworthy account (so Wendt), that the Evangelist, the disciple of St. Paul, who must have been acquainted with the continuous series of the appearances of the Risen Christ in 1 Corinthians 15, should have favoured such a tradition for a moment (see Zöckler, u. s.). On the undue stress laid by Harnack upon the famous passage in Barnabas, Epist., xv., see Dr. Swete, The Apostle’s Creed, p. 68, Plummer, u. s., p. 564, and on this point and also the later tradition of a lengthy interval, Zöckler, u. s. For the early testimony to the fact of the Ascension in the Apostolic writings, and for the impossibility of accounting for the belief in the fact either from O.T. precedents or from pagan myths, see Zahn, Das Apostolische Symbolum, pp. 76-78, and Witness of the Epistles (Longmans), p. 400 ff. The view of Steinneyer that St. Luke gives us a full account of the Ascension in the Acts rather than in his Gospel, because he felt that the true position of such an event was to emphasise it more as the beginning of a new period than as a conclusion of the Gospel history, Die Auferstehungsgeschichte des Herrn, pp. 226, 227, deserves attention, and may be fitly compared with W.H[113], Notes on Select Readings, p. 73.
[113] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
That he may pass over unto those things which followed the ascension of Christ, he briefly gathereth the sum of all those which before he had handled in the former book, that he may annex this thereunto. And he briefly setteth down this description of the history of the gospel, that it is a narration of those things which Christ did and said so long as he was conversant upon earth. Furthermore, whereas they interpret this commonly, that there was first in Christ purity of life, before such time as he began to preach, it maketh nothing unto Luke’s mind. Truth it is, that the manners of a good and godly teacher ought so to be framed, that he speak first with his life, then with his tongue, otherwise he should differ nothing from a stage-player. But Luke hath respect rather unto that which he had said about the end of his gospel, (Luk 24:19,) namely, that Christ was a prophet mighty in deed and word, that is, such a one as did excel no less in deeds than in words; although there be but small difference betwixt these two places. For the mightiness of works which is commended there doth belong unto his miracles, but this, to do, doth reach further in my opinion, namely, that under the same are comprehended all the famous acts which were proper unto his ministry, wherein his death and resurrection are the chiefest. For the office of the Messias did not only consist in doctrine, but it was also behoveful that he should make peace between God and man, that he should be a Redeemer of the people, a restorer of the kingdom, and an author of everlasting felicity. All these things, I say, as they were promised of the Messias, so were they looked for at his hands.
Now we see that the sum of the gospel consisteth of these two parts, namely, of the doctrine of Christ, and of his acts; forasmuch as he did not only bring unto men that embassage which was given him in charge of his Father, but also performed all things that could be required of the Messias. He began his kingdom, he pacified God with his sacrifice, he purged man’s sins with his own precious blood, he subdued death and the devil, he restored us unto true liberty, he purchased righteousness and life for us. And to the end that whatsoever he either did or said might be certain, he proved himself by miracles to be the Son of God. So that this word, to do, is extended unto his miracles also; but it must not be restrained only unto the same. Here must we note, that those which have only the bare knowledge of the history have not the gospel; unless the knowledge of the doctrine which maketh manifest the fruits of the acts of Christ be adjoined thereunto. For this is a holy knot which no man may dissolve. Therefore, whensoever mention is made of the doctrine of Christ, let us learn to adjoin thereunto his works, as seals whereby the truth thereof is established and confirmed, and the effect declared. Furthermore, that we may reap commodity by his death and resurrection, and also that miracles may have their use, we must always have respect unto him that speaketh. For this is the true rule of Christianity.
1.Of all things which he began I do not greatly mislike the interpretation which some give of this place that Luke said rather of all than all; because it is possible in some measure to intreat of the works and doctrine of Christ, but to set down the whole course, that the narration may be perfect, were a matter of great (18) weight. Like as John doth declare that the world could not contain the books, (Joh 21:25.) That is also to be noted that Luke saith, that he began his history at the beginning of the works of Christ. But so soon as he hath declared the nativity of Christ, he passeth over unto the twelfth year of his age (Luk 2:42;) and after he had briefly spoken of his disputation had in the temple with the doctors, passing over eighteen years without speaking any thing of them, he entereth [on] the just narration of the works of Christ. It is, therefore, manifest that those works and sayings only which make any thing unto the sum of our salvation are noted in this place. For, after that Christ came abroad into the world clothed with our flesh, he lived privately at home until he was thirty years of age, at which time his Father put upon him another manner of person. God would have him to lead the former part of his life obscurely, to this end, that the knowledge of these things might be more excellent which do edify our faith.
The former speech. It seemed good to me to translate this on this wise, because λογον ποιεισθὰι, is the same with the Grecians, which verba facere, or to speak, is with the Latins, as Budaeus doth note. And we must understand the contrariety of the second part, which he taketh in hand, that we may know that the evangelist determined with himself afresh to write, having new matter whereupon to write.
(18) “Nimiae,” too great.
2. Even until that day. Therefore, the ascension of Christ is the end of the history of the gospel. For he hath ascended, saith Paul, that he might fulfill all things, (Eph 4:10.) Our faith gathereth other fruit thereby; but it shall be sufficient to note in this place, that our redemption was fully complete and finished then when Christ did ascend unto his Father; and, therefore, that Luke did fully perform his duty in this narration, as touching the doctrine and works of Christ. And he is said to be taken up, that we may know that he is truly departed out of this world, lest we should consent unto their dotings who think that in his ascension there was no alteration of place made.
Commandment by the Holy Ghost Luke showeth in these words, that Christ did not so depart out of the world that he did no longer care for us; for in that he hath ordained a perpetual government in his Church, he thereby declareth that he had a care to provide for our salvation; yea, he hath promised that he will be present with his to the end, (Mat 28:20,) like as, indeed, he is always present by his ministers. Luke, therefore, doth show unto us, that Christ did no sooner depart hence, but straightway he provided for the government of his Church; whence we may gather that he is careful for our salvation. And this his providence hath Paul plainly noted in the place lately cited, when he saith, That he hath fulfilled all things, making some apostles, some evangelists, some pastors, etc. But these commandments, which the evangelist saith Christ gave unto his disciples, do I interpret of the preaching of the gospel; like as ambassadors use to be instructed with certain precepts before they go of their embassage, lest they should rashly attempt any thing contrary to his will and mind that sendeth them. And all this is spoken in commendation of that doctrine which the apostles taught. The which that it may appear more manifestly, every thing is to be marked in order as it lieth. First of all, he saith they were elect and chosen of Christ, that we may be certain of their calling unto that function. Neither doth he in this place set God’s election against man’s merits, but only affirmeth that they were raised up by God, and that they did not rashly take upon them this function. That is true, indeed, that they were freely chosen; but now have we to inquire what is Luke’s drift in this place. I say that he hath respect unto nothing else, but that we may be certain of the calling of the apostles, that we may learn not to have respect unto men, but unto the Son of God, the author thereof, because this must always be a maxim in the Church, that no man usurp any honor. Secondly, he saith, that they were instructed of Christ what they should do. As if he should say, that they uttered not their own inventions, but they delivered that sincerely and faithfully which was enjoined them by their heavenly Master. And to the end that that which Christ taught them might be the more reverenced, he addeth this, that this was done by the direction of the Holy Ghost. Not because the Son of God had any need to be guided by any other, who is eternal wisdom, but because he was also man, lest any man should think that he did deliver those things unto his disciples which he delivered by man’s wit and reason, he calleth us back expressly unto the divine authority. Like as the Lord himself doth so often affirm, that he taught nothing but that which he had received of his Father; and therefore he saith, that his doctrine was not his own. Therefore, he signifieth that in the preaching of the gospel there is nothing which issueth from man’s brain, but that it is the divine ordinance of the Spirit, whereunto the whole world must be subject.
3. Unto whom, etc He addeth this, that he might make the resurrection to be believed, as a thing most necessary to be known, and without the which the whole gospel falleth fiat to the ground, neither remaineth there any more faith. And that I may omit to speak of other discommodities that come by being ignorant of the resurrection of Christ, the gospel loseth his whole authority, unless we know and be also fully persuaded that Christ being alive, speaketh unto us from the heavens. Whereunto Luke hath chiefest respect in this place. Therefore, that the truth hereof might not be called in question, he saith that it was proved by many signs and tokens. Those which Erasmus, following an old interpreter, doth call arguments, I have translated proofs. For Aristotle doth call that τεκμηριον, in the first book of his Rhetorics, which is necessary in signs. This is, therefore, that which I said before, that Christ did make manifest his resurrection unto his apostles by evident tokens, which did serve instead of necessary proofs, lest they should doubt of the same. Furthermore, he doth not reckon up those tokens and signs, saving only that he saith, that Christ did appear unto them about the space of a month and one-half oftentimes. If he had but once appeared unto them, it might have been somewhat suspicious, but in showing himself so often unto them, he dissolveth all doubts which might arise in their minds, and by this means, also, he putteth away the reproach of the ignorance which he said was in the apostles, lest it discredit their preaching.
He intreateth of the kingdom of God He telleth us again that the apostles themselves were well taught (19) before such time as they took upon them to teach others; therefore, whatsoever things they uttered and brought to light, either by word or by writing, touching the kingdom of God, they are those speeches which Christ himself uttered. And hereby doth he briefly set down the end of the doctrine of the gospel; namely, that God may reign in us. Regeneration is the beginning of this kingdom, and the end thereof is blessed immortality; the middle proceedings are in a more ample going forward and increase of regeneration. But that this thing may appear more evidently, we must first note, that we are born, and that we live aliens and strangers from the kingdom of God, until such time as God doth fashion us again unto a new life. Therefore, we may properly set the world, the flesh, and whatsoever is in man’s nature against the kingdom of God, as contrary to it. For the natural man is wholly occupied about the things of this world, and he seeketh felicity here; (20) in the mean season, we are as it were banished from God, and he likewise from us; but Christ, by the preaching of the gospel, doth lift us up unto the meditation of the life to come. And to the end he may the better bring this to pass, he reformeth all our earthly affections, and so having striped us out of the vices of our flesh, he separateth us from the world. And, like as eternal death is prepared for all those which live after the flesh, so in as much as the inward man is renewed in us, that we may go forward in the spiritual life, we draw nearer unto the perfection of the kingdom of God; which is the society of the glory of God. Therefore, God will reign in and amongst us now, that he may at length make us partakers of his kingdom. Hereby we gather that Christ did principally intreat of the corruption of mankind; of the tyranny of sin, whose bond-slaves we are; of the curse and guiltiness of eternal death, whereunto we all are subject, and also of the means to obtain salvation; of the remission of sins; of the denying of the flesh; of spiritual righteousness; of hope of eternal life, and of like such things. And if we will be rightly instructed in Christianity, we must apply our studies to these things.
(19) “Ab unico magistro,” by the only master, omitted.
(20) “Et ultimum bonum,” and it is his final good, omitted.
4. Gathering them together, he commanded, etc They had before done the duty of Apostles; but that lasted but a while; and, secondly, so far forth that they might with their preaching awake the Jews to hear their Master. And so that commandment to teach, which Christ had given them, (Mat 10:7,) whilst he lived with them upon earth, was, as it were, a certain entrance into their apostleship which was to come, for which they were not yet ripe. Therefore, their ordinary function was not laid upon them, until such time as Christ was risen again; but they stirred up their nation (as I have said) like criers, that they might give ear to Christ. And then at length, after the resurrection, they were made Apostles, to publish abroad throughout the whole world that doctrine which was committed to them. And whereas after they were made Apostles, Christ commandeth them as yet to abstain from their office, that is done not without just cause; yea, many causes may be alleged why it should be so. That filthy forsaking of their Master was yet fresh; many notes and tokens of unbelief were yet fresh. Whereas, they had been so thoroughly taught, and had so suddenly forgotten all, they showed a manifest token of their great dullness of wit. Neither were they free from sluggishness, which could not otherwise fitly be purged, than by deferring the promised grace, that he might the more sharpen their desire. But this cause is chiefly to be noted, that the Lord did appoint a certain time for the sending of the Spirit, that the miracle might be the more apparent. Again, he suffered them to rest a while, that he might the better set forth the greatness of that business which he was about to commit unto them. And thereby is the truth of the gospel confirmed, because the Apostles were forbidden to address themselves to preach the same, until they should be well prepared in succession of time.
And they were commanded to stay together, because they should all have one spirit given them. If they had been dispersed, the unity should not have been so well known. Though they were scattered abroad afterwards in divers places, yet because they brought that which they had from one and the same fountain, it was all one, as if they always had had all one mouth. Furthermore, it was expedient that they should begin to preach the gospel at Jerusalem, that the prophecy might be fulfilled,
“There shall a law go out of Zion,
and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem,” (Isa 2:3.)
Although the participle συναλιζομενος, may be diversely translated, yet Erasmus his translation did please me best, because the signification of gathering together will agree better with the text, [context.]
They should wait for the promise It was meet that these should be accustomed to obey first, who should shortly after lay Christ’s yoke upon the neck of the world. And surely they have taught us by their example, that we must work and rest at the Lord’s pleasure alone. For if, during our life, we go on warfare under his banner and conduct, surely he ought to have no less authority over us than any earthly captain hath in his army. Therefore, as warlike discipline requireth this, that no man wage unless he be commanded by the captain, so it is not lawful for us either to go out, or to attempt any thing, until the Lord give the watchword; and so soon as he bloweth the retreat, we must stay, [halt.] Moreover, we are taught that we are made partakers of the gifts of God through hope. But we must mark the nature of hope as it is described in this place. For that is not hope which every man feigneth to himself unadvisedly, but that which is grounded on the promise of God. Therefore Christ cloth not suffer his apostles to look for whatsoever they will, but he addeth expressly the promise of the Father. Furthermore, he maketh himself a witness thereof; because we ought to be so sure and certain, that although all the engines of hell gainstand us, yet this may remain surely fixed in our minds, that we have believed God. I know, saith Paul, whom I have believed, (Tit 1:12.) And here he putteth them in mind of those things which are written in Joh 14:15,
“I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may continue with you; I say the Spirit of truth,” etc.
Again,
“I have spoken these things unto you while I am with you.” “And the Spirit, whom my Father shall send in my name, shall teach you all things,” (Joh 14:25,) etc.
And again,
“When the Spirit of truth shall come, whom I will send from my Father, he shall bear witness of me,” (Joh 15:26.)
And again,
“If I shall go hence, I will send you the Comforter, who shall reprove the world,” (Joh 16:7.)
And he had said long before,
“He which believeth in me, out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water,”
(Joh 7:38.)
5. Because John truly Christ repeateth this unto his apostles out of John’s own words. For some part of them had heard that at John’s mouth, which the Evangelists report, “I truly baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” Now Christ pronounceth that they shall well perceive that that is true indeed which he said. Furthermore, this serveth greatly to confirm the sentence next going before, for it is an argument drawn from the office of Christ. And that thus: John was sent to baptize with water, he fulfilled his function as it became the servant of God. The Son of God is sent to baptize with the Holy Ghost; it remained, therefore, that he do his duty. Neither can it be otherwise but he must do that which his Father hath commanded him to do, and for which also he came down into the earth. But it seemeth a very absurd thing to restrain that unto the visible sending of the Holy Ghost, which was spoken universally of regeneration. (21) I answer, that Christ did not then only baptize with the Holy Ghost, when as he sent him under the form of fiery tongues; for he had baptized his apostles before this; and he baptizeth all the elect thus daily. But because the sending of the Holy Ghost after so glorious a sort was a token of the hidden grace wherewith he doth daily inspire his elect, he doth fitly apply thereunto the testimony of John. And truly this was as though it had been the common baptism of the Church. For besides that the apostles did not receive the Spirit for themselves only, but for the use of all the faithful, there was also declared the universal favor of Christ towards his Church, while that he poured out thereupon the gifts of his Spirit in great abundance.
Although, therefore, he doth daily baptize the elect of his Father, yet was this no let why he might not show forth this token to be remembered above all others, that the apostles might know that they were only entered by John; and that not in vain, seeing their perfection was hard at hand. And that is frivolous which some gather out of this place most commonly, (22) namely, that the baptism of John and the baptism of Christ were diverse. For here doth not he dispute in this place of baptism, but maketh only a comparison betwixt the person of John and the person of Christ. When as John did say that he did baptize with water only, he did not reason of what sort his baptism was; but what he himself was; lest he should arrogate that unto himself which was proper to Christ. As also, the ministers in these days ought not to speak otherwise of themselves; but they must acknowledge Christ to be the author of all those things which they do prefigure in the outward baptism, and leave nothing to themselves save only the outward administration. For when as these titles are attributed unto baptism, namely, that it is the laver of regeneration, (Tit 3:5,) a washing away of sins, the fellowship of death, and burying with Christ, (Rom 6:4,) and a grafting into the body of Christ, it is not declared what man, being the minister of the outward sign, doth; but rather what Christ doth, who only giveth force and efficacy unto the signs. We must always hold fast this distinction, lest, whilst we deck man too much, we take from Christ. (23)
But here may a question be moved, why he doth rather name John here than any other; first, It is manifest enough that John did profess himself to be the minister of the outward sign, namely, of water, and that Christ was the author of the spiritual baptism; secondly, Because it was meet that John should decrease and Christ increase; and, thirdly, Because the apostles did so much esteem of John, (Joh 3:30,) it might have been that thereby the glory of Christ might have been obscured. Therefore, Christ, to the end he might reclaim them to himself, telleth them that John did only minister unto them the external baptism; notwithstanding, he confirmeth them also, lest they should doubt of the promise; for they did attribute very much unto John, and therefore were they persuaded that the baptism which they had received by him was not in vain. Now, if that the verity and force thereof must be looked for at Christ’s hands, then ought the apostles to hope that that shall surely be fulfilled which John prefigured.
So must we, in like manner, think that we are not in vain baptized with water by men, because Christ, who commanded the same to be done, will fulfill his office, and baptize us with the Spirit. So faith draweth a consequent from the outward sign unto the inward effect; yet doth it not attribute any more than is meet, either to the sign or to the minister thereof, because in the sign it only looketh unto the promise, which is Christ’s, and doth acknowledge him to be the only author of grace. Let us, therefore, use such a mean that we do in no part diminish Christ’s honor; and yet, nevertheless, let us hope for that fruit by our baptism which is noted in this place. By assigning so short a time our Savior maketh them more joyful to hope well. Whereupon it followeth, that that death was not to be lamented which brought with it presently so precious fruit. And let us note this also, that this word baptism is used improperly in this place, that the contrariety may be full. After the same sort, Paul, in his Epistle unto the Romans, (Rom 3:26,) after he hath set down the law of works, to the end that the contrary may answer on the other side, he useth the law of faith for faith itself.
(21) “Generaliter de gratia regenerationis,” generally of the grace of regeneration.
(22) “Ex hoc loco et similibus vulgo colligunt,” commonly gather out of this and similar passages.
(23) “Christum spoliemus,” we rob Christ.
6. He showeth that the apostles were gathered together when as this question was moved, that we may know that it came not of the foolishness of one or two that it was moved, but it was moved by the common consent of them all; but marvelous is their rudeness, that when as they had been diligently instructed by the space of three whole years, they betray no less ignorance than if they had heard never a word. There are as many errors in this question as words. They ask him as concerning a kingdom; but they dream of an earthly kingdom, which should flow with riches, with dainties, with external peace, and with such like good things; and while they assign the present time to the restoring of the same. they desire to triumph before the battle; for before such time as they begin to work they will have their wages. They are also greatly deceived herein, in that they restrain Christ’s kingdom unto the carnal Israel, which was to be spread abroad, even unto the uttermost parts of the world. Furthermore, there is this fault in all their whole question, namely, that they desire to know those things which are not meet for them to know. No doubt they were not ignorant what the prophets did prophesy concerning the restoring of David’s kingdom, they had oftentimes heard their Master preach concerning this matter. Lastly, It was a saying common in every man’s mouth, that, in the most miserable captivity of the people, they should all be comforted, with the expectation of the kingdom that should be. Now, they hoped for the restoring hereof at the coming of the Messias, and hereupon was it that so soon as the apostles saw their Master Christ risen from the dead, they straightway began to think thereupon; but, in the meantime, they declared thereby how bad scholars they were under so good a Master. Therefore doth Christ briefly comprehend (24) in this short answer all the errors whereinto they fell in this their question, as I shall straightway declare. To restore, in this place, doth signify to set up again that which was fallen, and through many ruins grown out of fashion; for out of the dry stock of Isai [Jesse] should spring a Branch, and the tabernacle of David, which was laid waste, (25) should be erected and set on foot again.
(24) “Perstringit,” reprimand.
(25) “Misere dissipatum,” miserably laid waste.
7. It is not for you to know, etc. This is a general reprehension of the whole question. For it was too curious for them to desire to know that whereof their Master would have them ignorant; but this is the true means to become wise, namely, to go as far forward in learning as our Master Christ goeth in teaching, anal willingly to be ignorant of those things which he doth conceal from us. But forasmuch as there is naturally engendered in us a certain foolish and vain curiosity, and also a certain rash kind of boldness, we must diligently observe this admonition of Christ, whereby he correcteth both these vices. But to the end we may know what his meaning is hereby, we must mark the two members which he joineth together. “It is not for you” (saith he) “to know those things which the Father hath placed in his own power.” He speaketh, indeed, of the times and seasons; but seeing there is the like reason in other things, we must think this to be a universal precept, That being contented with the revelation of God, we think it an heinous crime to inquire any further. This is the true mean between the two extremes. The Papists, that they may have somewhat wherewith to cloak their gross ignorance, say for themselves, that they omit the hidden mysteries of God, as though our whole faith and religion did consist upon any thing else than upon the hidden mysteries of God; then may we take our leave of Christ and his gospel, if we must abstain utterly from the hidden mysteries of God. But we must keep, as I said before a mean herein; for we must be desirous to learn so far as our heavenly Master doth teach us; but as for such things as he will have us ignorant of, let mine be so bold as to inquire after them that we may be wise with sobriety. Therefore, so often as we are vexed with this foolish desire of knowing more than we ought, let us call to mind this saying of Christ, “It is not for you to know.” For unless we will burst in against his will and commandment, this shall have force and strength enough to restrain the outrageousness of our wits.
Now, as touching the foreknowledge of times, Christ condemneth only the searching out thereof which reacheth beyond the measure of God’s revelation; and that is to be noted out of the second member, as before I have said, “which the Father hath placed in his own power.” Truth it is, that God hath in his own power winter and summer, and the rest of the seasons of the year, cold and heat, fair weather and foul. But because he hath testified that the course of the years shall be perpetual, (Gen 1:14,) he is said not to have placed that in his own power which he hath revealed unto men. What thing soever the philosophers or husbandmen do comprehend or understand by art, by learning, by judgment, or experience, all that doth God not retain unto himself, because he hath after a certain sort revealed it unto them, (Gen 8:22.) The same opinion must we have of the prophets; for it was their office to know those things which God did reveal. But we must be ignorant of the secret events of things, as touching the time to come; for there is nothing which may make us more slack in doing our duties, than too careful an inquisition herein, for we will always take counsel according to the future event of things; but the Lord, by hiding the same from us, doth prescribe unto us what we ought to do. Here ariseth a conflict, because we will not willingly suffer God to have that which is his own, namely, the sole government and direction of things which are to come; but we cast ourselves into a strange and inordinate carefulness. To conclude, Christ forbiddeth us to apply those things unto ourselves, which God doth challenge as proper to himself alone. Of this sort is the foreknowledge of those things which God hath taken to himself to govern and direct, according to his own pleasure, far contrary to our opinion, and otherwise than we could invent. (26)
(26) “Supra ingenii nostri captum,” beyond the reach of our minds.
8. You shall receive power. Our Savior Christ doth here call them back as well unto the promise of God as also unto his commandment, which was the readiest way to bridle their curiosity. Curiosity doth rise almost always either of idleness or else of distrust; distrust is cured by meditating upon the promises of God. And his commandments do tell us how we ought to occupy ourselves and employ our studies. Therefore, he commandeth his disciples to wait for the promise of God, and to be diligent in executing their office whereunto God had called them. And in the mean season he noteth (27) their great hastiness, in that they did preposterously catch at those gifts which were proper unto the Holy Spirit, when as they were not as yet endued with the same. Neither did they take the right way herein, in that being called to go on warfare, they desire (omitting their labor) to lake their ease in their inn. (28) Therefore, when he saith, you shall receive power, he admonisheth them of their imbecility, lest they follow before the time those things whereunto they cannot attain. It may be read very well either way, You shall receive the power of the Spirit; or, The Spirit coming upon you; yet the latter way seemeth to be the better, because it doth more fully declare their defect trod want, until such time as the Spirit should come upon them.
You shall be my witnesses He correcteth two errors of theirs in this one sentence. For, first, he showeth that they must fight before they can triumph; and, secondly, that the nature of Christ’s kingdom was of another sort than they judged it to have been. Therefore, saith he, You shall be my witnesses; that is, the husbandman must first work before he can reap his fruits. Hence, nay we learn that we must first study how we may come unto the kingdom of God, before we begin to dispute (29) about the state of the life to come. Many there be which do curiously inquire what manner [of] blessedness that shall be which they shall enjoy after they shall be received into the everlasting kingdom of heaven, not having any care how they may come to enjoy the same. (30) They reason concerning the quality of the life to come, which they shall have with Christ; but they never think that they must be partakers of his death, that they may live together with him, (2. i 2:11.) Let every man, therefore, apply himself in his work which he hath in hand; let us fight stoutly under Christ’s banner; let us go forward manfully and courageously (31) in our vocation, and God will give fruit in due time (and tide.) There followeth another correction, when he saith, that they must be his witnesses. For hereby he meant to drive out of his disciples’ minds that fond and false imagination which they had conceived of the terrestrial kingdom, because he showeth unto them briefly, that his kingdom consisteth in the preaching of the gospel. There was no cause, therefore, why they should dream of riches, (32) of external principality, or any other earthly thing, whilst they heard that Christ did then reign when as he subdueth unto himself (all the whole) world by the preaching of the gospel. Whereupon it followeth that he doth reign spiritually, and not after any worldly manner. And that which the apostles had conceived of the carnal kingdom proceeded from the common error of their nation; neither was it marvel if they were deceived herein. (33) For when we measure the same with our understanding, what else can we conceive but that which is gross and terrestrial? Hereupon it cometh, that, like brute beasts, we only desire that which is commodious for our flesh, and therefore we rather catch that which is present. Wherefore, we see that those which held opinion, that Christ should reign as a king in this world a thousand years (34) fell into the like folly. Hereupon, also, they applied all such prophecies as did describe the kingdom of Christ figuratively by the similitude of earthly kingdoms unto the commodity of their flesh; whereas, notwithstanding, it was God’s purpose to lift up their minds higher. As for us, let us learn to apply our minds to hear the gospel preached, lest we be entangled in like errors, which prepareth a place in our hearts for the kingdom of Christ. (35)
In all Judea Here he showeth, first, that they must not work for the space of one day only, while that he assigneth the whole world unto them, in which they must publish the doctrine of the gospel. Furthermore, he refuteth (36) the opinion which they had conceived of Israel. They supposed those to be Israelites only which were of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. Christ testifieth that they must gather thereunto all Samaria; which, although they were nigh in situation, yet were they far distant in mind and heart. He showeth that all other regions far distant, and also profane, must be united unto the holy people, that they may be all partakers of one and the same grace. It is evident (Joh 4:9) how greatly the Jews did detest the Samaritans. Christ commanded that (the wall of separation being broken down) they be both made one body, (Eph 2:14,) that his kingdom may be erected everywhere. By naming Judea and Jerusalem, which the apostles had tried (37) to be full of most deadly enemies, he foretelleth them of the great business and trouble which was prepared for them, that he may cause them to cease to think upon this triumph which they hoped to have been so nigh at hand. (38) Neither could they be a little afraid to come before so cruel enemies, more to inflame their rage and fury. And here we see how he giveth the former place unto the Jews, because they are, as it were, the first-begotten, (Exo 4:22.) Notwithstanding, he calleth those Gentiles one with another, which were before strangers from the hope of salvation, (Eph 2:11.) Hereby we learn, that the gospel was preached everywhere by the manifest commandment of Christ, that it might also come unto us.
(27) “Perstringit,” reprimandeth.
(28) “Molliter quiescere,” to take soft repose.
(29) “Subtiliter philosophemur,” we subtlely philosophize.
(30) “Atqui in primis renunciandum erat mundo,” but they ought, in the first instance, to renounce the world, omitted.
(31) “Indefessis animis,” with unwearied minds, indefatigably.
(32) “Delicias,” dainties.
(33) “Hac in parte omnes fuisse hallucinatos,” that they all labored under this hallucination.
(34) “Chiliastas,” the Chiliasts.
(35) Transpose thus: As for us, lest we be entangled in like errors, let us learn to apply our minds to hear the gospel preached, (a preached gospel,) which prepareth a place in our heart for the kingdom of Christ.
(36) “Oblique refutat,” indirectly refuteth.
(37) “Experti sunt,” experienced.
(38) “Ut de propinquo triumpho cogitare desinant,” that they may cease to think of a near triumph.
9. The readers may learn out of our Institutions what profit we reap by the ascension of Christ. Notwithstanding, because it is one of the chiefest points of our faith, therefore doth Luke endeavor more diligently to prove the same; yea, rather, the Lord himself meant to put the same out of all doubt, when as he hath ascended so manifestly, and hath confirmed the certainty of the same by other circumstances. For, if so be it he had vanished away secretly, then might the disciples have doubted what was become of him; (39) but now, sith that they, being in so plain a place, (40) saw him taken up with whom they had been conversant, whom also they heard speak even now, whom they beheld with their eyes, whom also they see taken out of their sight by a cloud, there is no cause why they should doubt whither he was gone. Furthermore, the angels are there also to bear witness of the same. And it was needful that the history should have been set down so diligently for our cause, that we may know assuredly, that although the Son of God appear nowhere upon earth, yet doth he live in the heavens. And this seemeth to be the reason why the cloud did overshadow him, before such time as he did enter into his celestial glory; that his disciples being content with their measure (41) might cease to inquire any further. And we are taught by them that our mind is not able to ascend so high as to take a full view of the glory of Christ; therefore, let this cloud be a mean to restrain our boldness, as was the smoke which was continually before the door of the tabernacle in the time of the law.
(39) “Haesissent attoniti,” might have stood astonished.
(40) “Quam in edito et undique experto ac patente loco et constituti,” when they were standing on an elevated spot, open on all sides, with nothing to interrupt the view.
(41) “Modulo,” little measure.
10. Two men He calleth them so by reason of their form. For although it might be that they had the bodies of men in deed, concerning which thing I will not greatly stand in defense of either part, yet certain it is they were not men; but because this metonymia is commonly used in the Scriptures, especially in the First Book of Moses, I will not greatly stand thereupon. Their white garments were a token of rare and excellent dignity. For God meant by this, as by an evident token to distinguish them from the common sort of people, that the disciples might give better ear unto them; (42) and that at this day we also may know that this vision was showed them of God.
(42) “Ad eorum dicta attentiores,” might be more attentive to what they said.
11. Ye men of Galilee, etc. I am not of their opinion who think that this name was given the apostles after an opprobrious sort, as if the angels meant to reprehend the slowness and dullness of the apostles. In my opinion, it was rather to make them more attentive, in that men, whom they did never see before, did name them as though they had perfectly known them. But they seem to reprehend without cause, for looking up into heaven. For where should they rather seek for Christ than in heaven? Doth not the Scriptures also oftentimes exhort us thereunto? I answer, that they were not reprehended because they looked up towards heaven; but because they coveted to see Christ, when as the cloud which was put between them and him did keep them from seeing him with their bodily senses: Secondly, because they hoped that he would return again straightway, that they might enjoy the sight of him again, when as lie did ascend to stay in the heavens until such time as he should come (43) to judge the world. Wherefore, let us first learn out of this place that we must not seek Christ either in heaven, either upon earth, otherwise than by faith; and also, that we must not desire to have him present with us bodily in the world; for he that doth (44) either of those two shall oftentimes go farther from him. So this their admiration is reprehended, not simply, but inasmuch as they were astonied by the strangeness of this matter; like as we are oftentimes carried unadvisedly into a wonderful great wondering at God’s works; but we never apply ourselves to consider for what end and purpose they were done.
Jesus, which is taken up into heaven There are two members in this one sentence. The first is, that Christ was taken up into heaven, that they may not henceforth foolishly desire to have him any longer conversant with them upon earth. The other is straightway added as a consolation concerning his second coming. Out of these two jointly, and also severally, is gathered a firm, stable, and strong argument, to refute the Papists, and all other which imagine that Christ is really present in the signs of bread and wine. For when it is said that Christ is taken up into heaven; here is plainly noted the distance of place. I grant that this word heaven is interpreted divers ways, sometimes for the air, sometimes for the whole connection (45) of the spheres, sometimes for the glorious kingdom of God, where the majesty of God hath his [its] proper scat, howsoever it doth fill the whole world. After which sort Paul doth place Christ above all heavens, (Eph 1:22,) because he is above all the world, and hath the chiefest room in that place of blessed immortality, because he is more excellent than all the angels, (Eph 4:15.) But this is no let why he may not be absent from us bodily, and that by this word heavens, there may not be signified a separation from the world. Let them cavil as much as they will, it is evident that the heaven whereinto Christ was received is opposite to the frame of the world; therefore it doth necessarily follow, that if he be in heaven, he is without [beyond] the world.
But, first, we must mark what the purpose of the angels was, for thereby we shall more perfectly know what the words mean. The angels’ intent was to call back the apostles from desiring the carnal presence of Christ. For this purpose was it that they said that he should not come again until he came to judge the world. And to this end serveth the assigning of the time, that they might not look for him in vain before that same time. Who seeth not that in these words is manifestly showed that he was bodily absent out of the world? Who seeth not that we are forbidden to desire to have him upon the earth? But, they think they escape safe with that crafty answer, when as they say that then he shall come visibly; but he cometh now invisibly daily. But we are not here to dispute of his form; only the apostles are taught that Christ must abide in heaven until such time as he appear at the latter day. For the desiring of his corporeal presence is here condemned as absurd and perverse. The Papists deny that he is present in the sacrament carnally, while that his glorious body is present with us after a supernatural sort, and by a miracle; but we may well enough reject their inventions concerning his glorious body, as childish and frivolous toys. They feign unto themselves a miracle not confirmed with any testimony of Scripture. The body of Christ was then glorious, when as he was conversant with his disciples after his resurrection. This was done by the extraordinary and secret power of God; yet, notwithstanding, the angels do forbid to desire him afterward after that sort, and they say that he shall not come unto men in that sort (before the latter day.) Therefore, according to their commandment, let us not go about to pull him out of the heavens with our own inventions; neither let us think that we call handle him with our hands, or perceive him with our other senses, more than we can see him with our eyes. I speak always of his body. For in that they say it is infinite, as it is all absurd dream, so is it safely to be rejected. Nevertheless, I willingly confess that Christ is ascended that he may fulfill [fill] all things; but I say that he is spread abroad everywhere by the power of his Spirit, not by the substance of his flesh. I grant, furthermore, that he is present With us both in his word and in the sacraments. Neither is it to be doubted, but that all those which do with faith receive the signs of his flesh and blood, are made truly partakers of his flesh and blood. But this partaking doth nothing agree with the dotings of the Papists; for they feign that Christ is present in such sort upon the altar as Numa Pompilius did call down his Jupiter Elicitus, or as those witches did fetch down the moon from heaven with their enchantments. But Christ, by reaching us the bread in his Supper, doth will us to lift up our hearts into heaven, that we may have life by his flesh and blood. So that we do not eat his flesh grossly, that we may live thereby, but he poureth into us, by the secret power of his Spirit, his force and strength.
He shall so come I have said before, that by this consolation all sorrow which we might conceive, because of Christ’s absence, is mitigated, yea, utterly taken away, when as we hear that lie shall return again. And also the end for which he shall come again is to be noted; namely, that he shall come as a Redeemer, and shall gather us with him into blessed immortality. For as lie doth not now sit idle in heaven, (as Homer signifieth, that his gods be busied only about their bellies;) so shall not he appear again without profit. Therefore, the only looking for Christ’s coming must both restrain the importunate desires of our flesh, and support our patience in all our adversities; and, lastly, it must refresh our weariness. But it worketh this only in the faithful, which believe that Christ is their Redeemer; for it bringeth unto the wicked nothing but dread, horror, and great fearfulness. And howsoever they do now scoff’ and jest when as they hear of his coming, yet shall they be compelled to behold him sitting upon his tribunal-seat, whom now they will not vouchsafe to hear speak. Furthermore, it were but frivolous to move any question about his apparel wherewith he was then clothed, whether he shall come again being clothed with the same or no. Neither am I now determined to refute that which Augustine, in his Epistle unto Consentius, doth touch, (August. ad Con. Epist. 146;) notwithstanding, it is better for me to omit that thing which I cannot unfold.
(43) “Secundo,” a second time, omitted.
(44) “Haerebit,” shall cling to.
(45) “Complexa,” system.
12. That he may pass over unto another history, he showeth that the disciples being returned unto Jerusalem, dwelt together in one parlor. For it was the upper part of the house, which used to be let out unto those which did hire houses; (46) for the most commodious places were reserved unto them that were masters of the house, (for their own use.) Wherefore, by this word Luke doth signify that they were driven into a strait room; (47) and yet, notwithstanding, though this commodity were great, yet they did not part asunder. They might have been more commodiously asunder, yet might they not part company before they had received the Spirit. In that he noteth here the distance of place, it bringeth credit unto the history. Unless, peradventure, he meant hereby to declare that they were not terrified with any fear of danger, but that they did all return and kept company together in one house, which was not so large, but that the company being greater than the place could well contain, it might breed some rumor (or noise.) A Sabbath-day’s journey was two miles, and that account doth well agree with the place of Joh 11:18, where he saith, “that Jerusalem was distant from Bethany almost fifteen furlongs;” which containeth about a thousand and nine hundred paces. And the mount Olivet was at the side of Bethany. There was no Sabbath-day’s journey prescribed in the law; for the Lord doth command them simply to rest upon the Sabbath-day in the law. (48) But because the Jews could not easily be ruled, but that they would run abroad about their business upon the Sabbath-day, (as the Lord himself doth complain, “that they did bear burdens out at the gates,”) (Jer 17:24,) therefore, it is to be thought that it was determined by the priests, (49) (to the end they might restrain such enormities,) that no man should travel upon the Sabbath-day above two miles. Although Jerome, in his Answers unto Algasia, doth say that this tradition did come from two Rabbins, namely, from Atriba, and from Simon Heli.
(46) “Inquilinis,” tenants or lodgers.
(47) “In angustum locum fuisse constrictos,” were confined to a narrow space.
(48) More properly, For the Lord doth in the law command, etc.
(49) “Communi sacerdotum concilio,” by the common council of the priests, the Sanhedrim.
13. Where they abode Some translate it, where they did abide; as though they did use to dwell there. But I am of that opinion, that they did then first of all use that hired room to dwell together in, until such time as the Holy Spirit was come upon them. Too, too ridiculous are the Papists, which go about to prove Peter his supremacy (50) hereby, because he is reckoned up first of all the apostles. Although we do grant that he was the chiefest of the apostles, yet it doth not follow hereupon that he was the chiefest ruler of all the world. But if he be, therefore, the chief of all the apostles, because his name is first in the catalogue of the apostles’ names, I will again conclude, that the mother of Christ was inferior unto all the rest of the women, because she is [here] reckoned the last; which they will in no case admit, as indeed it were a thing too absurd. Wherefore, unless they will set their Papacy to be laughed at of all men, as hitherto they have done, they must leave off to adorn it with such foolish toys. But what is their intent? Forsooth, they will prove out of the Scriptures that there was a secondary head of the Church, inferior to Christ; whereas there is no syllable in the Scripture which is consenting unto this their foolish invention. No marvel is it, therefore, if they do snatch here and there certain places, which, although no man smite them out of their hands, they will let fall of their own accord. But omitting them, let us mark what is Luke’s purpose in this place. Because the disciples had fallen away, and filthily fled from their Master Christ, every man whither fear did drive him, (Mat 26:56,) they did deserve, like forsakers of their masters, or run-agates, to be deprived of honor. Therefore, that we may know that by the appointment of the Lord they were gathered together again, and restored to their former degree, Luke reckoneth up all their names.
(50) “Primatum,” primacy.
14. With their wives Some translate it women; and they think that he speaketh of those which accompanied Christ. As I will not contend with any man concerning this matter, so have I not doubted to prefer that which I thought was more probable. I grant that the word which Luke useth may be interpreted both ways. But this is my reason, why I do think that he speaketh rather of wives, because, seeing that they used afterward to carry their wives about with them, as Paul doth testify, (1. o 9:5,) it is not likely that they were then asunder. For they might more easily rest together in one place, than by wandering to and fro oftentimes to change their abiding; and, secondly, seeing that they did look for the coming of the Holy Ghost, which was even then at hand, what reason was there why they should deprive their wives of so great goodness? Peter’s wife was about to be a helper unto him shortly after, which we must also think of the rest of the wives. These women had need of heroical fortitude and constancy, lest they should faint. Who would, therefore, think that they were excluded from their husbands whilst they look for the coming of the Spirit? But if they will stick to the general word, it standeth with reason that there were married women in the company. Howsoever it be, it is Luke’s mind to tell us by the way how greatly they had changed their minds. (51) For whereas before the men, being afraid, had fled away, the women are gathered together with them now, neither do they fear any danger. He doth reckon up the mother of Jesus with the other women, whom, notwithstanding, John is said to have kept at his own house. But, as I have said before, they met altogether now only for a short season; for it is not to be doubted but that they departed one from another afterwards. It is well known that amongst the Hebrews all kinsfolk are comprehended under this word brethren.
All these did continue. Here he showeth that they did diligently look for the coming of the Holy Spirit.; For this was the cause of their prayer, that Christ would send his Spirit, as he had promised. Whereupon we may gather that this is the true faith which stirreth us up to call upon God. For the security of faith doth much differ from sluggishness. Neither doth God, therefore, assure us of this grace, that our minds may straightway become careless, but that he may rather sharpen our desire to pray. Neither is prayer any sign of doubting, but rather a testimony of our (sure hope and) confidence, because we ask those things at the Lord’s hands which we know he hath promised. So it becometh us also (after their example) to be instant in prayer, (52) and to beg at God’s hands that he will increase in us his Holy Spirit: (53) increase, (I say,) because before we can conceive any prayer we must needs have the first-fruits of the Spirit. For as much as he is the only Master which teacheth us to pray aright, who doth not only give us utterance, (Rom 2:25,) but also governs our inward affections.
Furthermore, Luke doth express two things which are proper to true prayer, namely, that they did persist, and that they were all of one mind. This was art exercise of their patience, in that Christ did make them stay a while, (54) when as he could straightway have sent the Holy Spirit; so God doth oftentimes drive off, (55) and, as it were, suffer us to languish, that he may accustom us to persevere. The hastiness of our petitions is a corrupt, yea a hurtful plague; wherefore it is no marvel if God do sometimes correct the same. In the mean season (as I have said) he doth exercise us to be constant in prayer. Therefore, if we will not pray in vain, let us not be wearied with the delay of time. As touching the unity of their minds, it is set against that scattering abroad, which fear had caused before. Yet, notwithstanding, we may easily gather, even by this, how needful a thing it is to pray generally, in that Christ commandeth every one to pray for the whole body, and generally for all men, as it were, in the person of all men: Our Father, Give us this day, etc., (Mat 6:9.) Whence cometh this unity of their tongues but from one Spirit? Wherefore, when Paul would prescribe unto the Jews and Gentiles a right form of prayer, he removeth far away all division and dissension. That we may, (saith he,) being all of one mind, with one mouth glorify God, (Rom 15:6.) And truly it is needful that we be brethren, and agree together like brethren, that we rightly call God Father.
(51) “In melius,” for the better.
(52) “Ut precibus nostris concedat,” that he would grant our prayers.
(53) “Ut quotidiana Spiritus augmenta impetremus,” that we may obtain daily increase of the Spirit.
(54) “Suspensos tenuit,” kept them in suspense.
(55) “Differt,” defer or delay.
15. It was meet that Matthias should be chosen into the place of Judas, lest, through the treachery of one man, all that might seem to have been made of none effect which Christ had once appointed. He did not unadvisedly choose the twelve in the beginning, as principal preachers of his gospel. For when he said that they should be judges of twelve tribes of Israel, Luk 6:13, Joh 6:70; he showeth here that it was done of set purpose, that they might gather together the tribes of Israel unto one faith. But after that the Jews had refused the grace offered unto them, it was behoveful that the Israel of God should be gathered together out of all countries.
This, therefore, was, as it were, a holy number, which, if it should have been diminished through the wickedness of Judas, then should the preaching of the gospel both have had, and also have, less credit at this day, if the beginning thereof had been imperfect. (56) Although, therefore, Judas would (as much as in him lay) have disappointed the purpose of Christ, yet nevertheless it stood firm and stable. He perished as he was worthy, yet did the order of the apostles remain whole and sound.
The company of names It is uncertain whether he meaneth the men who only have the name properly, seeing the women are comprehended under the name of the men; or whether he taketh names simply for all the heads, as the Hebrews call them souls. This may also be called in question, whether they were wont daily to frequent that parlor in which the apostles did dwell, or they did continually dwell there with them. For the place was scarce able to contain so great a multitude, to serve them for all necessary uses. Surely it seemeth to me a thing more like to be true, that Luke doth in this place express the number of them, that we may know that they were all gathered together when Peter made this sermon. Whereby we may guess that they were not always present there. Although I dare not affirm any certain thing concerning this matter, yet being moved with a probable conjecture, I do rather lean unto this part, that the church was gathered together them because they had to intreat of a serious matter, and to this end also tendeth this word rising, [standing up.]
(56) “Ut ita loquar claudicaret,” had been, so to speak, lame, defective.
16. It was meet that the Scripture should be fulfilled. Because Peter doth speak in this their assembly, therefore the Papists will have him to be the head of the church. (57) As though no man might speak in any assembly of the godly but he should straightway be Pope. We do grant, that as in every assembly there must be some which must be chief, so in this assembly the apostles did ascribe this honor unto Peter. But what maketh this unto (the proving of) their Papacy? Wherefore, bidding them adieu, (58) let us consider what the Spirit doth speak by the month of Peter. He saith That the Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, lest any man’s mind should be troubled with that horrible fall of Judas. For it seemed a strange thing that he which was chosen by Christ unto so excellent a function, should so filthily fall in the beginning of his course. Peter removeth this stone of stumbling, when he saith that it was foretold by the Scripture. Whence we may gather an admonition very necessary for daily practice; namely, that we ought to attribute this honor unto the prophecies of the Scriptures, that they are able to appease all such fear as we conceive of the sudden event of things. For there is nothing which doth more trouble us than when we stay still in our own sense and understanding, and procure unto ourselves lets and doubts, (59) which the Lord would be ready to cure, if so be that we would hold fast this one thing, that nothing is absurd which he hath foreseen, appointed, and foretold, that he might make us more strong. Neither was Judas therefore excusable, because that which befell him was foretold, seeing that he fell away, not being compelled by the prophecy, but only by the malice of his own heart. The oration of Peter hath two parts. For, in the first place, he putteth away the offense which godly minds might have conceived by reason of the fall of Judas; whence also he gathereth an exhortation that the rest may learn to fear God. Secondly, he telleth them that it remaineth that they choose another into his place, both which he proveth by testimony of Scripture.
Which the Holy Ghost foretold Such manner of speeches bring greater reverence to the Scriptures, whilst we are taught by them that David and all the rest of the prophets did speak only as they were directed by the Holy Ghost; so that they themselves were not the authors of their prophecies, but the Spirit which used their tongues as an instrument. Wherefore, seeing that our dullness is so great, that we ascribe less authority unto the Scriptures than we ought, we must diligently note such manner of speeches, and acquaint ourselves with them, that we may oftentimes remember the authority of God to confirm our faith withal.
(57) “Universae Ecclesiae,” the Universal Church.
(58) “Illis valere jussis,” omitting these things.
(59) “Offendicula,” small scandals.
17. Adopted. It is word for word reckoned. And he saith that he was one of the number, that he might signify unto them that it was needful that the empty place should be filled, to the end that the number might continue whole. And to this propose serveth that which followeth, that he had obtained a part in the ministry. For thereupon it doth follow that the body should be, as it were, lame, if that part should be wanting. Surely it was a thing which might make them greatly amazed, that he whom Christ had extolled unto so high dignity should fall headlong into such destruction. Which circumstance doth increase the cruelty of the fact, (60) and teacheth the rest to take heed unto themselves. (61) Neither is it to be doubted but that the disciples did remember Judas with great grief and sorrow. But Peter doth here express by name the excellency of his function, that he might make them more attentive and more careful to provide a remedy.
(60) “Atrocitatem sceleris,” the atrocity of the crime.
(61) “Ut sibi caveant et metuani,” to be cautious and fear.
18. And he truly It seemeth unto me a thing like to be true, that this narration of the death of Judas was put in by Luke; therefore, it seemeth good to me to include it within a parenthesis, that it may be separated from Peter’s sermon. For to what end should Peter here reckon up unto the disciples those things which they already knew well enough?
Secondly, it should have been an absurd thing to have spoken after this among them, that the field which was bought with the money that was given to betray Christ was called of the Hebrews, in their own mother tongue, Aceldama. But whereas some do answer, that Peter spoke this unto the Galileans, whose speech did disagree with the Jewish tongue, it is but vain and frivolous. In very deed they did somewhat disagree in pronunciation; yet not so much but that they did well understand one another; like as do these of Paris and the men of Rouen.
Furthermore, how could this be a fit word for Jerusalem, where Peter made his sermon? To what end should he interpret in Greek among the Hebrews their own mother tongue? Therefore doth Luke of himself put in this sentence concerning the death of Judas, lest Peter’s words might seem strange (62) through ignorance of that history.
He possessed a field This word hath a double signification, which, in my opinion, doth rather signify in this place to possess than to get; yet because it skilleth little whether way we read it, I leave it indifferent. And he speaketh after this sort, not because Judas had the use of the field, or that he himself did buy it, seeing it was bought after his death. But Luke’s meaning was, that his burial was the perpetual note of ignominy; was the reward which he had for his falsehood and wicked act. Neither did he so much sell Christ for thirty pieces as his apostleship. He enjoyed not the money; (63) he only possessed the field. Furthermore, it came to pass through the marvelous providence of God, that the very common name of the field should be a note of infamy for the priests, which had bought (the) innocent blood of [from] the traitor. He saith that the Hebrews did call it by that name in their tongue, because he himself was a Grecian born; and he calleth that the Hebrew tongue which the Jews did use after the captivity of Babylon, namely, such as was mixed of the Assyrian tongue and of the Chaldean tongue.
It is written in the book of Psalms He taketh away, by authority of Scriptures, all offense which might have happened by reason of the falling away of Judas. Yet might this place seem to be greatly wrested: First, in that David did not wish that these things might befall any particular person, but (in the plural number) he wisheth them unto his enemies. Secondly, it seemeth that Peter doth apply these things amiss unto Judas, which were spoken of the enemies of David. I answer, that David doth there speak after this [afterwards] of himself, that he may describe the condition and state of Christ’s kingdom.
In that Psalm (I say) is contained the common image of the whole Church, which is the body of the Son of God. Therefore, the things which are there set down must needs have been fulfilled in the head, which are indeed fulfilled, as the evangelists do testify, know, if any man object that those things which there were spoken against the enemies of David do not fitly agree unto Judas, we may easily gather that they do so much the rather agree with him, because David doth not respect himself as being separated from the body of the Church; but rather as he was one of the members of Christ, and so taking upon him his image, he steppeth forth in his name.
Whosoever shall mark that this singular person was attributed to David, that he should be a figure of Christ, will not marvel if all these things be applied unto him which were prefigured in David. Although, therefore, he doth comprehend the whole Church, yet he beginneth at the head thereof, and doth especially describe what things Christ should suffer by the hands of the wicked. For we learn out of Paul’s doctrine, that whatsoever afflictions the godly suffer, they are part of the afflictions of Christ, and serve to the fulfilling of the same, (Col 1:14.) This order and connection did David observe, or rather the Spirit of God, who meant by the mouth of David to instruct the whole Church. But as touching the persecutors of Christ, all that which is commonly spoken of them is by good right referred unto their standard-bearer; whose impiety and wickedness, as it is most famous, so his punishment ought to be made known unto all men. If any man do object again, that that which is recited in the Psalm is only certain cursings, and not prophecies; and that, therefore, Peter doth gather improperly that it was of necessity that it should be fulfilled, it is soon answered. For David was not moved with any perverse or corrupt affection of the flesh to crave vengeance; but he had the Holy Spirit to be his guide and director. Therefore, what things soever he prayed for there, being inspired with the Holy Ghost, they have the same strength which prophecies have, because the Spirit doth require no other thing than that which God hath determined with himself to perform, and will also promise unto us. But whereas Peter doth cite out of the Scriptures two diverse testimonies; by the first is meant, that Judas, together with his name and family, should quite be extinguished, that his place might be empty; the other, which he fetcheth out of the 109. h Psalm, tendeth to this end, that there should be another chosen to supply his place. These seem at first to be contrary; namely, a waste habitation and succession. Yet, because the Spirit saith only, in the former place, that the adversaries of the Church should be taken away, that their place might be empty, and without one to dwell therein, in respect of themselves, this is no let why another may not afterward supply their empty place. Yea, this doth also augment their punishment, in that the honor, after it was taken from him that was unworthy thereof, is given to another.
And his bishopric The Hebrew word could not be translated more fitly. For פכודה (pecudah) doth signify a jurisdiction or government, so called of the overseeing and beholding of things. For as for those which interpret it wife, the text (64) refuteth them; for it followeth in the next verse, of his wife, that she may be made a widow. Therefore, after that he had wished that the wicked may be deprived of his life, he addeth, moreover, that he may be spoiled of his honor; neither doth he stay here, but also he desireth that another may succeed him, whereby, as I have said before, his punishment is doubled. In the meanwhile, he noteth by the way, (65) that this false, treacherous, and wicked person, whereof he speaketh, should not be some one of the common sort, but such an one as should be indued with honor and dignity; from which, nevertheless, he shall fall. And out of this place must we learn, that the wicked shall not escape scott free, which have persecuted the Church of God; for this miserable and wretched end is prepared for them all.
(62) “Lectoribus obscura essent,” might be obscure to his readers.
(63) “Argento potitus non est,” he did not obtain the money.
(64) “Contextus,” context.
(65) “Oblique,” indirectly.
21. We must therefore. This which he bringeth in might seem, at the first sight, to be far set [fetched.] For if so be it David did speak of transposing (66) Judas’s bishopric, it did not thereupon straightway follow that the disciples should choose another to be his successor; yet, because they knew that they had this charge given them to order the Church, so soon as Peter had told them that it did please the Lord that it should be so, he gathereth thereupon that they ought to do it. For whensoever God will use as means, (67) to maintain the government of his Church, so soon as we know what his will is, we must not linger, but stoutly perform whatsoever is required in our ministry (and function.) That was, without all controversy, what was the duty of the Church; like as, at this day, when we hear that those must be put from their office which behave themselves ungodly and wickedly, and that others must be chosen in their rooms, the Church must take this charge in hand. Wherefore, it was superfluous to move any question about a thing that was not to be doubted of. Therefore, let us always remember to consider what we have to do, that we may be ready to obey the Lord. Furthermore, when as he intreateth of the making of an apostle, he saith, He must be a witness of the resurrection; which signifieth that the apostleship is not without the preaching of the gospel. Whence it may appear how vain and frivolous the Popish bishops are, which having on only dumb visors, brag that they are the successors of the apostles; but wherein are they like unto them? I grant that Peter doth here require such a witness as saw the Lord after his resurrection, of which sort John professeth himself to be one, when he saith, “He which saw it beareth witness,” (Joh 19:35.) For this did serve for the confirmation of faith; yet, nevertheless, Peter maketh it a thing necessary in him and the rest of his fellows in office, that they should teach, whilst he maketh them and himself preachers or witnesses of the resurrection.
He nameth the resurrection, not because they must bear witness thereof alone; but because, first, under this is comprehended the preaching of the death of Christ; secondly, because we have the end of our redemption therein, and the accomplishment thereof, and also it bringeth with it the celestial government of Christ, and the power of the Spirit in defending his, in establishing justice and equity, in restoring order, in abolishing the tyranny of sin, and in putting to flight all the enemies of the Church. Let us know, therefore, that those things are not excluded by this word which are necessarily knit together. Nevertheless, let us note that the resurrection is here named before other things, as being the chief point of the gospel, as also Paul teacheth, (1. o 15:17.)
But were the apostles alone witnesses of the resurrection? Was not this also common to the rest of the disciples? For Peter seemeth to challenge this as proper only to the apostles. I answer, that this title is therefore attributed unto them, because they were chosen peculiarly unto that function, and because they had the chief room amongst those which did bring this embassage; therefore, though they were the chief of those which were assigned, yet were not they only appointed thereunto.
All that time. He beginneth at that time when Jesus began to show himself unto the world, which is diligently to be observed, as before I have said; for he lived privately until such time as he was almost thirty years of age. For he would not make himself known further than was needful for our salvation. Therefore, when the time was come wherein he must go about that business which his Father had appointed him, he came abroad like a new man, and one that was but lately born. Every man may easily perceive what great force this hath to bridle our curiosity. The whole life of Christ might have been a mirror most marvelous, (68) of more than absolute perfection; and yet, notwithstanding, that he might keep us occupied in the study and meditation of those things which were most needful to be known, he would lead the better part of his life obscurely and in secret. (69) Who dare now wander without Christ, seeing that he doth apply the knowledge of himself to the edifying of faith?
The Hebrews take this, to go in and out, for to be conversant and to lead the life among men. In which sense, citizens are said to go in and out by the gates of their city; so Joh 10:9,
“If any man enter in by me, he shall go in and out,
and shall find pasture.”
Although, in the Second Book of the Chronicles, the first chapter, and tenth verse, it seemeth to be a token of rule and government.
(66) “Transferendo,” transferring.
(67) “Quum opera nostra uti velit Deus,” since God is pleased to use our agency.
(68) “Admirable speculum,” an admirable mirror.
(69) “Quasi sepultam,” as it were buried.
23. They were to choose one only into the room of Judas; they present two. Here may a question be asked, Why they were not contented with one only? Was it because they were so like, that they could not discern whether was more fit? This truly had been no sufficient reason why they should suffer it to be decided by lots. And also it seemeth that Joseph was of greater estimation otherwise; or was it because they were diversely affectioned? But this seemeth scarce probable, neither is this to be admitted as true, because of that most excellent testimony which Luke did give a little before of their unity and agreement. Lastly, It had been very absurd for them to have polluted the election of the apostle with such strife and contention. (70) But for this cause did they use the casting of lots, that it might be known that Matthias was not only chosen by the voices of men, but also that he was made by the determination and judgment of God.
For there was this difference between the apostles and the pastors, that the pastors were chosen simply by the Church, the apostles were called of God. In which respect Paul, in the preface of his Epistle to the Galatians, (Gal 1:2,) doth profess himself to be an apostle, “neither of men, neither made by man.” Therefore, like as the dignity of this function was excellent, so was it meet that in the choosing of Matthias, the chief judgment should be left unto God, howsoever men did their duty. Christ by his own mouth did appoint the rest; therefore, if Matthias had been chosen only by man to be one of them, he should have had less authority than they. This was very orderly done, (71) that the disciples should present unto God those whom they thought to be the best; and he should choose to himself whom he knew to be most fit, so that God, by the fall of the lot, doth pronounce that he did allow of the apostleship of Matthias. But the apostles might seem to have dealt very rashly and disorderly, which laid so great and weighty a matter upon a lot; for what certainty could they gather thereby? I answer, that they did it only as they were moved thereunto by the Holy Spirit; for although Luke doth not express this, yet, because he will not accuse the disciples of rashness, but rather doth show that this election was lawful and approved of God; I say, therefore, that they went this way to work, being moved by the Spirit, like as they were directed in all the action by the same Spirit. But why do they not pray that God would choose whom he would out of the whole multitude? Why do they restrain his judgment unto two? Is not this to rob God of his liberty, when as they tie him, and, as it were, make him subject unto their voices and consents? (72) But whosoever shall quietly ponder the matter shall plainly perceive, by the drift of Luke, that the disciples durst do nothing but that which they knew was their duty to do, and was commanded them by the Lord. As for the contentious, let them go shake their ears. (73)
(70) “Tali dissidio,” with such dissension.
(71) “Medium fuit temperamentum.” a middle course was adopted.
(72) “Suis suffragiis,” their suffrages.
(73) “Valere sinamus,” let us leave them alone, bid them good day.
24. In praying, they said. Word for word it is, Having prayed, they said; but there is no obscurity in the sense, because his meaning was to speak as followeth, that they prayed; and yet he doth not reckon up all the words, being content briefly to show the sum. Therefore, although they were both of honest conversation, yea, although they did excel in holiness and other virtues, yet because the integrity of the heart, whereof God is the alone knower and judge, is the chief, the disciples pray that God would bring that to light which was hidden from men. The same ought to be required even at this day in choosing pastors; for howsoever we are not to appoint two for one, yet because we may oftentimes be deceived, and the discerning of spirits cometh of the Lord, we must always pray unto God, that he will show unto us what men he will have to be ministers, that he may direct and govern our purposes. Here we may also gather what great regard we must have of integrity and innocency in choosing pastors, without which both learning and eloquence, and what excellency soever can be invented, are as nothing. (74)
(74) “In fumum abeunt,” go to smoke.
25.(75) Of the ministry and apostleship. Because the word ministry was base, he addeth apostleship, wherein there is greater dignity; although the sense shall be more plain if you expound it, “the ministry of the apostleship.” For the figure hypallage is common in the Scriptures. Assuredly Luke meant to join with the burden the excellency of the office, that it might have the greater reverence and authority; and yet this was his intent also, to declare that the apostles are called unto a painful function.
(75) There is here a transposition in the translation. The 26th verse precedes the 25th.
26. They gave in their lots We will not, in this place, make any long disputation about lots. Those men who think it to be wickedness to cast lots at all, offend partly through ignorance, and partly they understand not the force of this word. There is nothing which men do not corrupt with their boldness and vanity, whereby it is come to pass that they have brought lots into great abuse and superstition. For that divination or conjecture which is made by lots is altogether devilish. But when magistrates divide provinces among them, and brethren their inheritance, it is a thing lawful. Which thing Solomon doth plainly testify, when he maketh God the governor of the event.
“The lots (saith he) are cast into the bosom, and the judgment of them cometh forth from the Lord,” (Pro 16:33.)
This ordinance or custom is no more corrupt and depraved by corruption, than the corrupt vanity of the Chaldeans doth corrupt true and natural astrology. Whilst the Chaldeans go about, with the name of astrology, to cloak and color their wicked curiosity, they defame a science both profitable and praiseworthy. The same do those which tell men their destinies (as they call them) by casting lots; but it is our duty to discern the lawful use from the corruption. He saith the lots were given, that being put into a pot, or one of their laps, they might afterwards be drawn out. And here we must also note that this word lot is diversely taken in this place; for when he said before that Judas had obtained a lot of the ministry, his meaning was, (according to the common custom of the Scripture,) that he had a portion given him of the Lord. He speaketh afterwards properly, and without any figure of a lot, yet is it likely, forasmuch as the word גראל, (goral) is commonly used by the Hebrews for both things, that Peter meant to allude unto that which they were about to do, and that Luke had respect unto the self-same thing.
The lot fell upon Matthias. It came to pass as no man would have looked for; for we may gather by that which goeth before, that there was not so great account made of Matthias as of the other; for, besides that Luke gave him the former place, the two sirnames which Barsabas had do show that he was in great estimation. He was called Barsabas, (that is, the son of an oath, or of rest,) of the thing itself, as if he were some mirror, either of faithfulness and innocency, or of a quiet and modest nature. The other sirname did import singular honesty. This man, therefore, in men’s judgment, was the former, [superior;] but God did prefer Matthias before him. Whereby we are taught that we must not glory if we be extolled unto the skies in the opinion of men, and if by their voices and consents (76) we be judged to be most excellent men; but we must rather have regard of this, to approve ourselves unto God, who alone is the most lawful and just judge, by whose sentence and judgment we stand or fall. And we may oftentimes mark this also, that God passeth over him which is the chiefest in the sight of men, that he may throw down all pride which is in man. In that he addeth, that he was reckoned amongst the rest, he wipeth away all sinister note of rashness from the casting of lots, because the Church did embrace him as chosen by God on whom the lot fell.
