Act 2:1. ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι, lit[114], “when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled” (filled up). R.V. renders “was now come,” and a question arises as to whether the words mean this, or that the day was only being filled up, and not fully come. Blass interprets the expression to mean a short time before the day of Pentecost, not the day itself. Weiss and others suppose that the expression refers to the completing of the interval of time between the Paschal Feast and Pentecost. Vulgate (cf. Syriac) reads “cum complerentur dies Pentecostes,” and so all English versions have “days” except A. and R.V. The verb is only used by St. Luke in the N.T., twice in his Gospel, Luk 8:23, and in the same sense as here, Luk 9:51, and once more in the passage before us. We have the noun συμπλήρωσις in the same sense in LXX 2Ch 36:21, Dan. (Theod.) Act 9:2, 1Es 1:58; see Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 44. The mode of expression is Hebraistic, as we see also from Exo 7:25, Jer 36:10 (LXX). St. Luke may be using the expression of a day which had begun, according to Jewish reckoning, at the previous sunset, and which thus in the early morning could not be said to be either fulfilled or past, but which was in the process of being fulfilled (Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., p. 90, 1895; Knabenbauer, in loco). The parallel passage in Luk 9:51 cannot be quoted to support the view that the reference here is to a period preceding the day of Pentecost, since in that passage we have ἡμέρας, not ἡμέραν as here, and, although the interpretation of the word as referring to the approach of the Feast is possible, yet the circumstances and the view evidently taken by the narrator point decisively to the very day of the Feast (see Schmid, Biblische Theol., p. 283). On the construction ἐν τῷ with the infinitive, see Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 232, 234, and Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, p. 27. It is quite in the style of St. Luke, who frequently employs it; cf. the Hebrew use of בְּ, Friedrich, p. 13, ubi supra, Lekebusch, Apostelgeschichte, p. 75). On Spitta’s forced interpretation of the word, see p. 100.-τῆς Πεντηκοστῆς: no occasion to add ἡμέρα, as the word was used as a proper name (although as an adjective ἡμέρα would of course be understood with it); cf. 2Ma 12:32 (Tob 2:1), μετὰ δὲ τὴν λεγομ. Πεντηκοστήν.-ἅπαντες, i.e., the hundred-and-twenty as well as the Apostles (Chrysostom, Jerome), and the expression may also have included other disciples who were present in Jerusalem at the Feast (so Hilgenfeld, Wendt, Holtzmann). This interpretation appears to be more in accordance with the wide range of the prophecy, Act 2:16-21.-ὁμοθυμαδὸν, see above on Act 2:14. ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό may simply = “together,” so that of the two expressions ὁμοῦ, R.V., and this phrase “alterum abundat” (Blass, Weiss); but the reference may be to the room in which they were previously assembled; cf. Act 1:15.
[114] literal, literally.
Act 2:2. ἄφνω: only in Acts, here, and in Act 16:26, Act 28:6; Klostermann’s Vindiciæ Lucanæ, p. 55; several times in LXX, but also in classical Greek in Thuc., Dem., Eur.-ἦχος ὥσπερ φερομ. πν. βιαίας, lit[115], “a sound as if a violent gust were being borne along”. St. Chrysostom rightly emphasises the ὡς, so that the sound is not that of wind, but as of the rushing of a mighty wind (so too the tongues are not of fire, but as of fire). The words describe not a natural but a supernatural phenomenon, as Wendt pointedly admits. Wind was often used as a symbol of the divine Presence, 2Sa 5:24, Psa 104:3, 1Ki 19:11, Eze 43:2, etc.; cf. Josephus, Ant., iii., 5, 2; vii., 4; here it is used of the mighty power of the Spirit which nothing could resist. St. Luke alone of the N.T. writers uses ἦχος-Heb 12:19 being a quotation, and it is perhaps worth noting that the word is employed in medical writers, and by one of them, Aretæus, of the noise of the sea (cf. ἤχους θαλάσσης, Luk 21:25).-ὅλον τὸν οἶκον. If the Temple were meant, as Holtzmann and Zöckler think, it would have been specified, Act 3:2; Act 3:11, Act 5:21.
[115] literal, literally.
Act 2:3. διαμεριζόμ. γλῶσσαι: the audible σημεῖον is followed by a visible: γλῶσσαι the organs of speech by which the wonderful works of God were to be proclaimed, so that the expression cannot be explained from Isa 5:24, where the tongue of fire is represented as an organ of destruction (Wendt, note, in loco). ὡσεὶ πυρός in their appearance and brightness. The words themselves therefore forbid reference to a natural phenomenon, to say nothing of the fact of the spiritual transformation of the Apostles which followed. Fire like wind was symbolic of the divine Presence, Exo 3:2, and of the Spirit who purifies and sanctifies, Eze 1:13, Mal 3:2-3 (see Wetstein for classical instances of fire symbolical of the presence of the deity; cf., e.g., Homer, Iliad, xviii., 214; Virgil, Æn., ii., 683). διαμεριζ., lit[116], dividing or parting themselves off. R.V. “tongues parting asunder,” so that originally they were one, as one mighty flame of fire. This rendering is strictly in accordance with the meaning of the verb. Vulgate dispertitæ (the word used by Blass). διαμερίζω is used once again in Act 2:45 in the active voice, and once only by St. Matthew and St. Mark (once by St. John as a quotation) in the middle voice, but six times by St. Luke in his Gospel; frequently in the LXX.-ἐκάθισε (not -αν), sc., γλῶσσα (not πῦρ or πνεῦμα ἅγιον), although the latter is advocated by Chrysostom, Theophylact, Bengel: “it sat,” R.V. The singular best expresses the result of the tongues parting asunder, and of the distribution to each and all. So too ἐφʼ ἕνα ἕκαστον αὐτῶν, “upon each one of them,” R.V., cf. Act 2:6 εἷς ἕκαστος (and Act 2:8). The resting of a flame of fire upon the head as a token of the favour of Heaven may be illustrated from classical sources (see above and instances in Wetstein), but the thought here is not so much of fire as the token of divine favour, as of the tongue (as of fire) conferring a divine power to utter in speech divine things.
[116] literal, literally.
Act 2:4. ἀποφθέγγεσθαι-a word peculiar to Acts, cf. Act 5:14 and Act 26:25; in the LXX used not of ordinary conversation, but of the utterances of prophets; cf. Eze 13:9, Mic 5:12, 1Ch 25:1, so fitly here: (cf. ἀποφθέγματα, used by the Greeks of the sayings of the wise and philosophers, and see also references in Wendt).-ἐτέραις γλώσσαις, see additional note.
Act 2:5. κατοικοῦντες, probably used not merely of temporary dwellers for the Feast, but of the devout Jews of the Diaspora, who for the purpose of being near the Temple had taken up their residence in Jerusalem, perhaps for the study of the Law, perhaps to live and to die within the city walls (see St. Chrysostom’s comment on the word). They were not proselytes as is indicated by Ἰουδαῖοι, but probably devout men like Symeon, Luk 2:25, who is described by the same word εὐλαβής, waiting for the consolation of Israel. The expression, as Zöckler points out, is not quite synonymous with that in Act 2:14 (or with Luk 13:4), and he explains it as above. There is certainly no need to consider the word, with Spitta and Hilgenfeld, as an epithet added by a later editor, or to omit Ἰουδαῖοι, as Blass strongly urges (while Hilgenfeld desires to retain this word). The word may fairly be regarded as contrasted with Γαλιλαῖοι (Act 2:7). The same view of it as applied here to foreign Jews who had their stated residence in Jerusalem is maintained by Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 291 (note) E.T.-κατοικεῖν is used generally of taking up a permanent abode as in contrast to παροικεῖν used of temporary sojourn, and on the frequent use of the word in St. Luke, Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 39. But here it is followed most probably by εἰς not ἐν, constructio prægnans, cf. Wendt and Weiss as against W.H[117] (T.R. ἐν and so Blass in [118]). Weiss, Apostelgeschichte, p. 36, regards this frequent use of εἰς as characteristic of the style of Acts, cf. Act 9:21, Act 14:25, and considers it quite inconceivable that ἐν would be changed into εἰς, although the reverse is likely enough to have happened (Wendt).-εὐλαβεῖς, see Act 8:2.-ἀπὸ παντὸς ἔθνους: “from every nation,” so R.V.; “out of,” A.V., but this would represent ἐκ rather than ἀπό, and would imply that they belonged to these different nations, not that they were born Jews residing among them and coming from them (Humphry, Commentary on R.V.).-τῶν ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανόν, sc. ἐθνῶν. The phrase is used frequently in LXX, cf. Deu 2:25, and in classical literature by Plato and Dem. If κατοικοῦντες includes the Jews who had come up to the Feast as well as those who had settled in Jerusalem from other countries, this expression is strikingly illustrated by the words of Philo, De Monarchia, ii. 1, p. 223. The Pentecost would be more largely attended even than the Passover, as it was a more favourable season for travelling than the early spring (see Wetstein, in loco), and cf. Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., pp. 291, 307, E.T.
[117] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
[118] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.
Act 2:6. φωνῆς ταύτης: “when this sound was heard,” R.V. “Hic idem quod ἦχος comm[119] 2,” so Wetstein, who compares for φωνή in this sense Mat 24:31, 1Co 14:7-8 (2Ch 5:13), and so most recent commentators (cf. Joh 3:8); if human voices were meant, the plural might have been expected. But the word in singular might refer to the divine voice, the voice of the Spirit, cf. Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5. The A.V., so too Grotius, following Erasmus, Calvin, render the word as if φήμη, but the two passages quoted from LXX to justify this rendering are no real examples, cf., e.g., Gen 45:16, Jer. 27:46.-τὸ πλῆθος: a characteristic word of St. Luke, occurring eight times in his Gospel, seventeen in Acts, and only seven times in rest of the N.T.; on the frequency with which St. Luke uses expressions indicative of fulness, see Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, pp. 40, 102. In inscriptions the word seems to have been used not only of political but of religious communities, see Deissmann, Neue Bibel-studien, pp. 59, 60 (1897), and see below on Act 15:30.-συνεχύθη-from συνχύνω (συνχέω) only found in Acts, where it occurs five times (cf. also σύγχυσις, Act 19:29), see Moulton and Geden, sub v. For its meaning here cf. Gen 11:7; Gen 11:9, 1Ma 4:27, 2Ma 13:23; 2Ma 14:28; Vulg., mente confusa est.-διαλέκτῳ: only in the Acts in N.T. The question has been raised as to whether it meant a dialect or a language. Meyer argued in favour of the former, but the latter rendering more probably expresses the author’s meaning, cf. Act 1:19, and also Act 21:40, Act 22:2, Act 26:14. The word is apparently used as the equivalent of γλῶσσα, Act 2:11, A. and R.V. “language”. As the historian in his list, Act 2:9-10, apparently is following distinctions of language (see Rendall, Acts, p. 177, and Appendix, p. 359), this would help to fix the meaning of the word διάλεκτος here. Wendt in revising Meyer’s rendering contends that the word is purposely introduced because γλῶσσα, Act 2:3-4, had just been employed not in the sense of language but tongue, and so might have been misunderstood if repeated here with λαλεῖν. On the other hand it may be urged that some of the distinctions in the list are those of dialect, and that St. Luke intentionally used a word meaning both language and dialect.
[119]omm. commentary, commentator.
Act 2:7. ἐξίσταντο: frequent in St. Luke, three times in his Gospel, eight in the Acts, elsewhere once in St. Paul, once in St. Matthew, four times in St. Mark. The word is often found in the LXX in various senses; cf. for its meaning here Gen 43:33, Jdt 13:17; Jdt 15:1, 1Ma 15:32; 1Ma 16:22. πάντες-Γαλιλαῖοι: there is no need to suppose with Schöttgen (so Grotius, Olshausen) that the term implies any reference to the want of culture among the Galileans, as if in this way to emphasise the surprise of the questioners, or to explain the introduction of the term because the Galileans were “magis ad arma quam ad litteras et linguas idonei” (Corn. à Lapide). But if there is a reference to the peculiar dialect of the Galileans this might help to explain the introduction of Ἰουδαίαν in Act 2:9 (Wetstein followed by Weiss, but see below). Weiss sees here, it is true, the hand of a reviser who thinks only of the Apostles and not of the hundred-and-twenty who could not be supposed to come under the term Γαλιλαῖοι. But whilst no doubt Γαλ. might be considered a fitting description of the Apostolic band (except Judas), Hilgenfeld well asks why the hundred-and-twenty should not have been also Galileans, if they had followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem.
Act 2:8. τῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλ … ἐν ᾗ ἐγεννήθημεν-used distributively as Act 2:11 ταῖς ἡμετ. γλώσσαις shows-and hence cannot be taken to mean that only one language common to all, viz., Aramaic, was spoken on the outpouring of the Spirit.
Act 2:9-11. The list which follows has been described as showing the trained hand of the historian, whilst it has also been regarded as a distinctly popular utterance in Greek style (Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 149; but see also Rendall, Acts, Introd., p. 13). But, as Dean Plumptre well remarks, the omission of many countries which one might have expected shows that the list was not a made up list after the event, but that St. Luke had accurately mentioned the nations present at the Feast. The reference throughout is of course to Jews of the Dispersion, and Schürer (see too Schöttgen) well parallels the description given here of the extent of the Diaspora with the description in Agrippa’s letter to the Emperor Caligula given by Philo (Legat. ad Gaium, 36. Mang., ii., 587). All commentators seem to be agreed in regarding the list as framed to some extent on geographical lines, beginning from Parthia the furthest east. Mr. Page holds that the countries named may be regarded as grouped not only geographically but historically. Of the Jews of the Dispersion there were four classes: (1) Eastern or Babylonian Jews, corresponding in the list to Parthians, Medes, Elamites; (2) Syrian Jews, corresponding to Judæa, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia; (3) Egyptian Jews, corresponding to Egypt and the parts of Libya over against Cyrene; (4) Roman Jews. (1) Parthia, mentioned here only in the N.T., is placed first, not only because of the vast extent of its empire from India to the Tigris, but because it then was the only power which had tried issues with Rome and had not been defeated, “Parthia” B.D. (Rawlinson). In Mesopotamia, Elam, and Babylonia were to be found the descendants of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes and of the kingdom of Judah, transported thither by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, now and until the reign of Trajan the subjects of the Parthians, but always of political importance to Rome from their position on the eastern borders of the Empire (Schürer, ubi supra, div. ii., vol. ii., pp. 223, 224 E.T.). At the head of (2), Ἰουδαίαν is placed by Mr. Page, i.e., at the head of the group with which in his view it is geographically connected. Of Asia, as of Syria, it could be said that Jews dwelt in large numbers in every city, and the statement that Jews had settled in the most distant parts of Pontus is abundantly confirmed by the Jewish inscriptions in the Greek language found in the Crimea. Seleucus Nicator granted to the Jews in Syria and Asia the same privileges as those bestowed upon his Greek and Macedonian subjects (Jos., Ant., xii., 31); and to Antiochus the Great was due the removal of two thousand Jewish families from Mesopotamia and Babylonia to Lydia and Phrygia (Schürer, l. c., and “Antiochus III.,” B.D.2; Jos., Ant., xii., 3, 4). Mr. Page uses the word Ἰουδαία as equivalent to the land of the Jews, i.e., Palestine and perhaps also to some part of Syria. In the former sense the word could undoubtedly be employed (Hamburger, “Judâa,” Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, i., 5; so too by classical writers and by Strabo, “Judæa,” B.D.). But it is very doubtful how far the term can be extended to include any part of Syria, although Josephus (B.J., iii., 3, 5) speaks of the maritime places of Judæa extending as far as Ptolemais. It may well be that Syria was regarded as a kind of outer Palestine, intermediate between it and heathendom (Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, pp. 16-19, 71, 73). St. Jerome reads Syria instead of Judæa, a reading to which Blass apparently inclines. Tertullian conjectured Armenia, c. Jud 1:7, and Idumæa (so again Spitta), Bithynia and India have been proposed. It is often very difficult to say exactly what is meant by Asia, whether the term refers to the entire Roman province, which had been greatly increased in the first century B.C. since its formation in 133 B.C., or whether the word is used in its popular sense, as denoting the Ægean coast lands and excluding Phrygia. Here the term is used with the latter signification (Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 150, and also “Asia” in Hastings, B.D.). At the head of (3) stands Egypt, where the Jewish Dispersion, especially in Alexandria, played so important a part in the history of civilisation. The greatest prosperity of the Jews in Egypt began with Alexander the Great, but long before his time, in the seventh century B.C., Jewish immigrants were in the country (Schürer, ubi supra, pp. 226, 227, and “Alexandria,” B.D.2). From Egypt the Dispersion penetrated further westward (Schürer, u. s., pp. 230, 231, and note), and in Libya Cyrenaica or Pentapolitana, the modern Tripoli, the Jews were very numerous; cf. for their history in Cyrene 1Ma 15:23; 2Ma 2:23; Jos., Ant., xvi., 6, 1, 5, and Act 6:9; Act 11:30; Act 13:1; Schürer, u. s., p. 232, and Merivale, Romans under the Empire, pp. 364, 365. The expression used here, τὰ μέρη τῆς Λ. τῆς κατὰ Κ., affords a striking parallel to that used by Dio Cassius, ἡ πρὸς Κυρήνην Λιβύη, liii., 12; cf. also Jos., Ant., xvi., 16; “Cyrene,” B.D.2, and Hastings’ B.D. In (4) we have οἱ ἐπιδ. Ῥωμαῖοι. There is no ground for supposing that any Jews dwelt permanently in Rome before the time of Pompey, although their first appearance there dates from the days of the Maccabees (1Ma 8:17; 1Ma 14:24; 1Ma 15:15 ff.). Of the numerous Jewish families brought to Rome by Pompey many regained their freedom, and settled beyond the Tiber as a regular Jewish community with the rights of Roman citizenship. In 19 A.D., however, the whole Jewish population was banished from the imperial city, Jos., Ant., xviii., 3, 5; but after the overthrow of Sejanus it may be safely assumed that Tiberius allowed their return to Rome (Schürer, u. s., p. 232 ff.).-οἱ ἐπιδημοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι, “Sojourners from Rome,” R.V., i.e., the Jews who live at Rome as sojourners-Roman Jews. Others take ἐπιδ. as referring to the Roman Jews who were making a temporary sojourn in Jerusalem for the Feast, or for some other purpose, the word being thus in a certain degree opposed to the κατοικοῦντες (of permanent dwelling) in Act 2:5. Others again apparently take the expression as describing Roman Jews who, born in Rome, had taken up their dwelling in Jerusalem, and who are thus distinguished from those Jews who, born in Jerusalem, were Romans by right of Roman citizenship. The only other passage in which ἐπιδημοῦντες occurs is Act 17:21 (but cf. Act 18:27, [120] and [121] (Blass)), and it is there used of the ξένοι sojourning in Athens, and so probably thus making a temporary sojourn, or who were not Athenians by birth or citizenship, as distinct from the regular inhabitants of Athens. Cf. Athenæus, viii., p. 361 F.-οἱ Ῥώμην κατοικοῦντες, καὶ οἱ ἐνεπιδημοῦντες τῇ πόλει, which passage shows that ἐπιδ. “minus significat quam κατοικεῖν” (Blass), and other instances in Wetstein. Hilgenfeld, whose pages contain a long discussion of recent views of the words in question, argues that according to what precedes we should expect καὶ οἱ κατοικοῦντες Ῥώμην, and according to what follows we should expect simply Ῥωμαῖοι, and he solves the difficulty by the arbitrary method of omitting καὶ οἱ ἐπιδ. before Ῥωμαῖοι, and Ἰουδ. τε καὶ προσήλυτοι after it, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., p. 93 ff. (1895); see further Actus Apost., p. 260, 1899.-Ἰουδαῖοί τε καὶ προσήλυτοι. Not only would St. Luke in writing to a Roman convert of social rank like Theophilus be likely to mention the presence of Roman Jews at the first Christian Pentecost, but he would also emphasise the fact that they were not only Jews, or of Jewish origin, but that proselytes from heathendom were also included (Felten, Belser). In thus explaining the words Felten refers them, with Erasmus and Grotius, to οἱ ἐπιδ. Ῥωμαῖοι only, whilst Overbeck, Weiss, Holtzmann, Wendt, Belser, so Page, Hackett, refer them to the whole of the preceding catalogue. It is evident that Schürer takes the same view, for in speaking of the large offerings contributed by proselytes to the Temple at Jerusalem he mentions that in stating the number of Jews of every nationality living in Jerusalem the Acts does not forget to mention the proselytes along with the Jews, Act 2:10 (u. s., p. 307).
[120] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.
[121] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.
Act 2:11. Κρῆτες καὶ Ἄραβες: both names seem to have been added to the list as an after-thought. Even if we cannot accept Nösgen’s idea that St. Luke is repeating verbatim the account which he had received orally from an eyewitness who had forgotten the Arabians and Cretans in going through the list geographically, yet the introduction of the two names in no apparent connection with the rest ought to show us that we are not dealing with an artificial list, but with a genuine record of the different nations represented at the Feast. Belser, who endorses this view, supposes that St. Luke obtained his information from an eyewitness who added the Cretans and Arabians supplementarily, just as a person might easily forget one or two names in going through a long list of representative nations at a festival. It is possible, as Belser suggests, that the Cretans and Arabians were thinly represented at the Pentecost, although the notices in Josephus and Philo’s letter mentioned above point to a large Jewish population in Crete. The special mention of the Cretans is strikingly in accordance with the statement of the Jewish envoys to Caligula, viz., that all the more noted islands of the Mediterranean, including Crete, were full of Jews, “Crete,” B.D.,2 and Schürer, u. s., p. 232. In R.V. “Cretans”; which marks the fact that the Greek Κρῆτες is a dissyllable; in A.V. “Cretes” this is easily forgotten (cf. Tit 1:12).-μεγαλεῖα only found here in N.T.; the reading of T.R., Luk 1:49, cannot be supported; cf. Psalms 70(71):19, where the word occurs in LXX. (Hebrew, גְּדלוֹת) Sir 17:9; Sir 18:4; Sir 18:33, Sir 42:21, 3Ma 7:22, R. The word is found in Josephus, and also in classical Greek: used here not only of the Resurrection of the Lord (Grotius), but of all that the prophets had foretold, of all that Christ had done and the Holy Ghost had conferred.
Act 2:12. διηπόρουν: not found in LXX (only in Psa 76:5, and Dan 2:3, Symmachus), and peculiar to St. Luke in the N.T., once in his Gospel, Luk 9:7 (Luk 24:4 ἀπορεῖσθαι, W.H[122] and R.V.), and three times in Acts, cf. Act 5:24; Act 10:17. διηποροῦντο in R.V. “were perplexed”; A. V. “were in doubt,” although in Luk 24:4 this or a similar word is rendered as in R.V., “were (much) perplexed”. The Greek conveys the thought of utter uncertainty what to think, rather than doubt as to which opinion of several is right (Humphry). The word no doubt is frequently found in classical writers, and is found also in Philo (not in Josephus), but it may be worth noting that ἀπορία, εὐπορία, διαπορεῖν, εὐπορεῖν are all peculiar to St. Luke, and were terms constantly employed by medical writers (Hobart, Medical Language, etc., p. 163). τί ἂν θέλοι τοῦτο εἶναι-θέλω was constantly used in this sense in classical writers, see instances in Wetstein. On the popular use of θέλω instead of βούλομαι in later Greek, cf. Blass, Acta Apostolorum, p. 15. Blass points out that St. Luke’s employment of βούλομαι is characteristic of his culture, although it must be remembered that the Evangelist uses θέλω (as here) very frequently.
[122] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 2:13. ἕτεροι δὲ: although the word is ἕτεροι, not ἄλλοι, it is doubtful how far it indicates a distinct class from those mentioned as speaking in Act 2:7-12. At the same time not only πάντες, Act 2:12, but also the behaviour of the ἕτεροι, seems to separate them from the εὐλαβεῖς in Act 2:5.-χλευάζοντες: but stronger with the intensifying διά than the simple verb in Act 17:32; used in classical Greek, Dem., Plato, and in Polybius-here only in N.T., not found in LXX, although the simple verb is used (see below).-γλεύκους: if the rendering R.V. “new wine” is adopted, the ridicule was indeed ill-timed, as at the Pentecost there was no new wine strictly speaking, the earliest vintage being in August (cf. Chrysostom and Oecumenius, who see in such a charge the excessive folly and the excessive malignity of the scoffers). Neither the context nor the use of the word elsewhere obliges us to suppose that it is used here of unfermented wine. Its use in Lucian, Ep., Sat., xxii. (to which reference is made by Wendt and Page), and also in LXX, Job 32:19, ὥσπερ ἀσκὸς γλεύκους ζέων δεδεμένος, points to a wine still fermenting, intoxicating, while the definition of Hesychius, τὸ ἀπόσταγμα τῆς σταφυλῆς πρὶν πατηθῇ, refers its lusciousness to the quality of its make (from the purest juice of the grape), and not of necessity to the brevity of its age, see B.D. “Wine”. It would therefore be best to render “sweet wine,” made perhaps of a specially sweet small grape, cf. Gen 49:11. “The extraordinary candour of Christ’s biographers must not be forgotten. Notice also such sentences as ‘but some doubted,’ and in the account of Pentecost, ‘these men are full of new wine’. Such observations are wonderfully true to human nature, but no less wonderfully opposed to any ‘accretion’ theory”: Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, p. 156.
Act 2:14. σταθεὶς δὲ Πέτρος: St. Chrysostom rightly remarks on the change which had passed over St. Peter. In the place where a few weeks before he had denied with an oath that he knew “the man,” he now stands forth to proclaim him as the Christ and the Saviour. It is quite characteristic of St. Luke thus to introduce participles indicating the position or gesture of the speaker (cf. Friedrich, Zöckler, Overbeck); cf. St. Luk 18:11; Luk 18:40; Luk 19:8, Act 5:40; Act 11:13; Act 17:2; Act 25:18; Act 27:21.-σὺν τοῖς ἕνδεκα, and so with Matthias; cf. Act 5:32, and Act 1:22.-ἐπῆρε τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ: this phrase is only found in St. Luke’s Gospel (Act 11:29) and the Acts (Act 14:11, Act 22:22), but it is quite classical, so in Demosthenes, and in LXX it occurs several times.-ἀπεφθέγξατο: “spake forth,” R.V., cf. Act 26:25, expressive of the solemnity of the utterance, see above in Act 2:4, and showing that St. Peter’s words were inspired no less than the speaking with tongues (Weiss).-ἄνδρες Ἰουδαῖοι: no word of reproach, but an address of respect; the words may be taken quite generally to indicate not only those previously present, but also those who were attracted by the noise. There is no need to suppose that St. Peter addressed the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the Jews as if they had been the only scoffers as distinct from the pilgrims from other lands. It is no doubt possible that the first part of the speech was addressed to the native home-bred residents, and that in Act 2:22 St. Peter in the word Ἰσραηλῖται includes all the Jews whether resident in Jerusalem or not.-ἐνωτίσασθε: only here in N.T., but frequent in LXX, especially in the Psalms. It usually translates Hebrew הֶאֱזִין from Hebrew אֹזֶן= ear; cf. inaurire; Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 130. “Give ear unto my words,” R.V. Auribus percipite, Vulg.
Act 2:15. ὥρα τρίτη τῆς ἡμέρας: the words refer to the hour of early prayer, 9 A.M., the Jews previously did not partake of food, and on festal days they abstained from food and drink until the sixth hour (twelve o’clock). But if Schürer (see on Act 3:1, and Blass, in loco) is right in specifying other hours for prayer, the expression may mean that St. Peter appeals to the early period of the day as a proof that the charge of drunkenness was contrary to all reasonable probability.
Act 2:17. ἐν ταῖς ἐσχ. ἡμέρ., i.e., the time immediately preceding the Parousia of the Messiah (Weber, Jüdische Theologie, p. 372). The expression is introduced here instead of μετὰ ταῦτα, LXX, to show that St. Peter saw in the outpouring of the Spirit the fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy, Act 2:28-31 (LXX), and the dawn of the period preceding the return of Christ in glory, Isa 2:2, Mic 4:1 (2Ti 3:1, Jam 5:3, Heb 1:1).-λέγει ὁ Θεός: introduced possibly from Joe 2:12, although wanting in LXX and Hebrew.-ἐκχεῶ: Hellenistic future, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 41, 42, 58, cf. Act 10:45, Tit 3:6. In LXX the word is used as here, not only in Joel, but in Zach. Act 12:10, Sir 18:11; Sir 24:33, but very often of pouring forth anger.-ἀπὸ τοῦ πνεύμ. μου, “I will pour forth of my Spirit,” R.V., so in LXX, but in Heb., “I will pour out my Spirit”. The partitive ἀπό may be accounted for by the thought that the Spirit of God considered in its entirety remains with God, and that men acquire only a certain portion of its energies (so Wendt, Holtzmann). Or the partitive force of the word may be taken as signifying the great diversity of the Spirit’s gifts and operations. See also Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 151 (1893).-πᾶσαν σάρκα, i.e., all men; but this expression in itself suggests a contrast beween the weakness and imperfection of humanity and the all-powerful working of the divine Spirit. The expression is Hebraistic, cf. Luk 3:6, Joh 17:2, and Sir 45:4, and often in LXX. In Joel’s prophecy the expression only included the people of Israel, although the divine Spirit should be no longer limited to particular prophets or favoured individuals, but should be given to the whole nation. If we compare Act 2:39, the expression would include at least the members of the Diaspora, wherever they might be, but it is doubtful whether we can take it as including the heathen as such in St. Peter’s thoughts, although Hilgenfeld is so convinced that the verse Act 2:39 can only refer to the heathen that he refers all the words from καὶ πᾶσι to the end of the verse to his “author to Theophilus”. Spitta on the other hand regards the expression as referring only to the Jews of the Diaspora; if the Gentiles had been intended, he thinks that we should have had τοῖς εἰς μακρὰν ἔθνεσιν as in Act 22:21. Undoubtedly we have an analogous expression to Act 2:39 in Eph 2:13, οἳ ποτε ὄντες μακράν, where the words evidently refer to the heathen, but we must not expect the universalism of St. Paul in the first public address of St. Peter: for him it is still ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν, “our God,” Act 2:39, and even the expression, πρῶτον, Act 3:26, in which Holtzmann sees a reference to the extension of the Messianic blessings to the Jew first and then to the Gentile, need only mean that in St. Peter’s view these blessings could only be secured by the Gentile through becoming a proselyte to the faith of Israel. It is thus only that St. Peter’s subsequent conduct becomes intelligible. The reading αὐτῶν instead of ὑμῶν in the next clause before both υἱοὶ and θυγατέρες if it is adopted (Blass [123]) would seem to extend the scope of the prophecy beyond the limits of Israel proper.-θυγατέρες: as Anna is called προφῆτις, Luk 2:36, so too in the Christian Church the daughters of Philip are spoken of as προφητεύουσαι, Act 21:9.-νεανίσκοι: in LXX and Hebrew the order is reversed. It may be that Bengel is right in drawing the distinction thus: “Apud juvenes maximi vigent sensus externi, visionibus opportuni: apud senes sensus interni, somniis accommodati”. But he adds “Non tamen adolescentes a somniis, neque sensus a visionibus excluduntur” (see also Keil, in loco), and so Overbeck, Winer, Wendt see in the words simply an instance of the Hebrew love of parallelism.-καί γε (in LXX) = Hebrew וְגַם-only here in N.T. and in Act 17:27 W.H[124] (and possibly in Luk 19:42) = “and even,” Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 255. The only good Attic instance of καί γε with an intervening word is to be found in Lysias, in Theomn., ii., 7, although not a strict parallel to the passage before us, Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 168.
[123] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.
[124] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 2:18. As there was to be no limit of sex or age, so too there was no limit of condition. The word μου is not in the Hebrew, only in the LXX, but as it is found in the latter and in Acts it is argued that the words δούλους and δούλας do not mean those of servile rank, but are applied in a general sense to those who are worshippers, and so servants of God. But in retaining the word μου we are not obliged to reject the literal meaning “bond-servants,” just as St. Peter himself, in addressing household servants and slaves, commands them to act ὡς δοῦλοι θεοῦ (1Pe 2:16): “Intelliguntur servi secundum carnem, diversi a liberis. Act 2:17, sed iidem servi Dei,” Bengel. According to Maimonides, no slave could be a prophet, but as in Christ there was neither Jew nor Gentile, neither male nor female, so in Him there was neither bond nor free (see also Keil, in loco).-καὶ προφητεύσουσι: an explanatory addition of the speaker, or an interpolation from Act 2:17, not found either in Hebrew or LXX.
Act 2:19. The word σημεῖα is wanting in the Hebrew and the LXX, but the co-ordination of the two words τέρας and σημεῖον is frequent in the N.T. (Joh 4:48, Act 4:30, Rom 15:19, 2Co 12:12), and even more so in the LXX (Exo 7:3; Exo 7:9, Deu 4:34, Neh 9:10, Dan 6:27), so also in Josephus, Philo, Plutarch, Polybius. For the distinction between the words in the N.T., see below on Act 2:22. τέρας is often used of some startling portent, or of some strange appearance in the heavens, so here fitly used of the sun being turned into darkness, etc. But God’s τέρατα are always σημεῖα to those who have eyes to see, and significantly in the N.T. the former word is never found without the latter. It is no doubt true to say that St. Peter had already received a sign from heaven above in the ἦχος ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, and a sign upon the earth below in the λαλεῖν ἑτέραις γλώσσαις (Nösgen), but the whole context, Act 2:19-21, shows that St. Peter’s thoughts had passed from the day of Pentecost to a period of grace and warning which should precede the Parousia. No explanation, therefore, of the words which limits their fulfilment to the Pentecostal Feast (see Keil, in loco, and also his reference to the interpretation of the Rabbis) is satisfactory.-σημεῖα is probably introduced into the text to emphasise the antithesis, as also are ἄνω and κάτω.-αἷμα καὶ πῦρ: if we see in these words σημεῖα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς κάτω, there is no need to refer them to such startling phenomena as rain of blood, or fiery meteors, or pillars of smoke rising from the earth (so De Wette, Overbeck), but rather to the bloodshed and devastation of war (so Holtzmann, Wendt, Felten); cf. our Lord’s words, Mat 24:6; Mat 24:29. Dean Plumptre thinks of the imagery as drawn from one of the great thunderstorms of Palestine, and cf. Weber, Jüdische Theologie, pp. 350, 351 (1897).
Act 2:20. For similar prophetic imagery taken from the startling phenomena of an eclipse in Palestine, cf. Isa 13:10, Eze 32:7, Amo 8:9.-πρὶν ἢ ἐλθεῖν. The LXX omit ἤ, and Weiss contends that this is the reason of its omission here in so many MSS. Weiss retains it as in Act 7:2, Act 25:16; cf. also Luk 2:26 (but doubtful). Blass omits it here, but retains it in the other two passages cited from Acts: “Ionicum est non Atticum”; cf. Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 130 (1893).-τὴν ἡμέραν Κυρίον. It is most significant that in the Epistles of the N.T. this O.T. phrase used of Jehovah is constantly applied to the Coming of Jesus Christ to judgment; cf. 1Th 5:2, 1Co 1:8, 2Co 1:14, Php 1:10; Sabatier, L’Apôtre Paul, p. 104.-καὶ ἐπιφανῆ: if the word is to be retained, it means a day manifest to all as being what it claims to be, Vulgate manifestus, “clearly visible”; Luk 17:24; also 1Ti 6:14, 2Th 2:8, where the word ἐπιφάνεια is used of the Parousia (cf. Prayer-Book, “the Epiphany or Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles”). But in the Hebrew the word הַנּוֹרָא = “terrible,” not “clearly visible,” and the LXX here, as elsewhere, Hab 1:7, Mal 1:14 (Jdg 13:6, A.), etc., has failed to give a right derivation of the word which it connects with רָאָה, to see, instead of with יָרֵא, to fear (Niph. נוֹרָא and Part[125], as here, “terrible”). Zöckler holds that the LXX read not הַנּוֹרָא, but הָנּוֹדָא.
[125]art. grammatical particle.
Act 2:21. ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα, the usual LXX rendering of a common Hebrew phrase. The expression is derived from the way in which prayers addressed to God begin with the invocation of the divine name, Psa 3:2; Psa 6:2, etc., and a similar phrase is found in classical writers, ἐπικαλεῖσθαι τοὺς θεούς, Xen., Cyr., vii., 1, 35; Plat., Tim., p. 27, c.; Polyb., xv., 1, 13. From this it was an easy step to use the phrase as meaning the worshippers of the one God, Gen 4:26; Gen 12:8, 2Ki 5:4. It is therefore significant that the Christian converts at Corinth are described by the same phrase, 1Co 1:2. But just as in Rom 10:12 this same prophecy of Joel is beyond all doubt referred by St. Paul to the Lord Jesus, so here the whole drift of St. Peter’s speech, that the same Jesus who was crucified was made both Lord and Christ, points to the same conclusion, Act 2:36. In Joel Κύριος is undoubtedly used of the Lord Jehovah, and the word is here transferred to Christ. In its bearing on our Lord’s Divinity this fact is of primary importance, for it is not merely that the early Christians addressed their Ascended Lord so many times by the same name which is used of Jehovah in the LXX-although it is certainly remarkable that in 1 Thess. the name is applied to Christ more than twenty times-but that they did not hesitate to refer to Him the attributes and the prophecies which the great prophets of the Jewish nation had associated with the name of Jehovah, Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, pp. 8, 10, 16 (1894), and for the force of the expression, ἐπικ. τὸ ὄνομα, in 1Co 1:2, see Harnack, History of Dogma, i., p. 29, E.T.-ὃς ἂν ἐποκ., “whosoever”: it would seem that in St. Peter’s address the expression does not extend beyond the chosen people; cf. Act 5:36.-σωθήσεται: to the Jew salvation would mean safety in the Messianic kingdom, and from the penalties of the Messianic judgment; for the Christian there would be a partial fulfilment in the flight of the believers to Pella for safety when the Son of Man came in the destruction of Jerusalem; but the word carries our thoughts far beyond any such subordinate fulfilment to the fulness of blessing for body and soul which the verb expresses on the lips of Christ; cf. Luk 7:50. And so St. Luke places in the forefront of Acts as of his Gospel the thought of Jesus not only as the Messiah, but also as the Σωτήρ, Luk 2:14; cf. Psalms of Sol., Act 4:2 (Ryle and James).
Act 2:22. Ἰσραηλῖται: the tone of St. Peter throughout is that of a man who would win and not repulse his hearers, cf. Act 5:29, and so he commences the second part of his speech, in proof that Jesus was both Lord and Christ, with a title full of honour, reminding his hearers of their covenant relation with God, and preparing them for the declaration that the covenant was not broken but confirmed in the person of Jesus.-Ἰ. τὸν Ναζ., “the Nazarene,” the same word (not Ναζαρηνός) formed part of the inscription on the Cross, and it is difficult to believe with Wendt that there is no reference to this in St. Peter’s words (cf. προσπήξαντες, Act 2:23; Act 2:36), although no doubt the title was often used as a description of Jesus in popular speech, Act 4:10, Act 26:9. No contrast could be greater than between Ἰησοῦς the despised Nazarene (ὁ Ν. οὗτος, Act 6:14) dying a felon’s death, and Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Act 5:38, ὑψωθείς, Act 5:33, no longer upon the Cross, but at a seat on the right hand of the Father (cf. Joh 12:12); again the marvellous change which had passed over St. Peter is apparent: “If Christ had not risen,” argues St. Chrysostom, “how account for the fact that those who fled whilst He was alive, now dared a thousand perils for Him when dead? St. Peter, who is struck with fear by a servant-maid, comes boldly forward” (so too Theophylact).-ἄνδρα ἀποδεδειγ. ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰς ὑμᾶς, “a man approved of God unto you,” R.V. The word, only used by St. Luke and St. Paul in the N.T. (cf. Act 25:7, 1Co 4:9, 2Th 2:4) = demonstrated, and “approved” in its old meaning would be a good equivalent; so in classical Greek, in Plato and Aristotle, shown by argument, proved, cf. Act 25:7. The sense of the word is given by the gloss in δεδοκιμασμένον. It occurs in Est 2:9, AB, and Act 3:13 (LXX), and several times in the Books of the Maccabees (see Hatch and Redpath, sub v.).-ἄνδρα: Erasmus commends the wisdom of Peter, “qui apud rudem multitudinem Christum magnifice laudat, sed virum tantum nominat, ut ex factis paullatim agnoscant Divinitatem”.-ἀπό: probably here not simply for ὑπό (as Blass, and Felten, and others). The phrase means “a man demonstrated to have come unto you from God by mighty works,” etc. If the words may not be pressed to mean our Lord’s divine origin, they at least declare His divine mission (Joh 3:2), divinitus (Wendt in loco).-δυνάμεσι καὶ τέρασι καὶ σημείοις: cf. 2Co 12:12, Heb 2:4, and 2Th 2:9; cf. Rom 15:19.-σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα: no less than eight times in Acts.-δυνάμεις is often rendered in a way which rather obscures its true form and meaning. Lit[126] = “powers,” and so here in R.V. margin, where in the text we have “mighty works,” so in Heb 2:4. St. Luke is fond of using δύναμις of the power inherent in Christ, and so the plural might well be used of the outward manifestations of this power in Christ, or through Him in His disciples. The word therefore seems in itself to point to the new forces at work in the world (Trench, N. T. Synonyms, ii., p. 177 ff.).-τέρατα: the word is never used in the N. T. alone as applied to our Lord’s works or those of His disciples, and this observation made by Origen is very importaut, since the one word which might seem to suggest the prodigies and portents of the heathen world is never used unless in combination with some other word, which at once raises the N.T. miracles to a higher level. And so whilst the ethical purpose of these miracles is least apparent in the word τέρατα, it is brought distinctly into view by the word with which τέρατα is so often joined-σημεῖα, a term which points in its very meaning to something beyond itself. Blass therefore is not justified in speaking of σημεῖα and τέρατα as synonymous terms. The true distinction between them lies in remembering that in the N.T. all three words mentioned in this passage have the same denotation but a different connotation-they are all used for miracles, but miracles regarded from different points of view (see Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 406).-οἷς ἐποίησεν … ὁ Θεὸς. The words, as Alford points out against De Wette, do not express a low view of our Lord’s miracles. The favourite word used by St. John for the miracles of Christ, ἔργα, exactly corresponds to the phrase of St. Peter, since these ἔργα were the works of the Father Whom the Son revealed in them (cf. St. Joh 5:19; Joh 14:10).-καθὼς καὶ αὐτοὶ οἴδατε: Weiss rightly draws attention to the emphatic pronoun. The fact of the miracles was not denied, although their source was so terribly misrepresented; cf. “Jesus Christ in the Talmud,” Laible, E.T. (Streane), pp. 45-50 (1893).
[126] literal, literally.
Act 2:23. τοῦτον, emphatic, ἔκδοτον delivered up, by Judas, not by God; only here in the N.T., but see instances from Josephus, also from classical Greek, in Wetstein. In Dan., Theod., Bel and the Dragon Act 2:22.-ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ: both favourite words of St. Luke: ὡρις. used by him five times in the Act 10:42; Act 11:29; Act 17:26; Act 17:31; once by St. Paul, Rom 1:4; once in Hebrews, Heb 4:7, and only in St. Luke amongst the Evangelists, Luk 22:22, where our Lord Himself speaks of the events of His betrayal by the same word, κατὰ τὸ ὡρισμένον (cf. Act 24:26).-βουλῇ: Wendt compares the Homeric Διὸς δʼ ἐτελείετο βουλή. The phrase βουλή τοῦ Θ. is used only by St. Luke; once in his Gospel, Act 7:30, and three times in Act 13:36; Act 20:27 (whilst βουλή is used twice in the Gospel, eight times in the Acts, and only three times elsewhere in the N.T., 1Co 4:5, Eph 1:2, Heb 6:17), but cf. Wis 6:4; Wis 9:13, and often ἡ βουλή Κυρίου in LXX.-προγνώσει: the word is only found again in 1Pe 1:2. and its occurrence in that place, and the thoughts which it expresses, may be classed amongst the points of contact between Acts and 1 Peter (see at end of chap. 3). In the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, which at one time seemed to Peter impossible, cf. Mat 16:22, he now sees the full accomplishment of God’s counsel, cf. Act 3:20, and 1Pe 1:20 (Nösgen, Apostelgeschichte, p. 53, and also 48-52). In this spiritual insight now imparted to the Apostle we see a further proof of the illuminating power of the Holy Ghost, the gift of Pentecost, which he himself so emphatically acknowledges in his first epistle (Act 1:1-12).-διὰ χειρῶν, best explained as a Hebraism. Cf. for the frequent use of this Hebraistic expression, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 126, 127; and Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 141. In the LXX, cf. 2Ki 14:27, 1Ch 11:3; 1Ch 29:5. St. Luke is very fond of these paraphrases with πρόσωπον and χείρ see Friedrich, Das Lukasevangelium, pp. 8, 9, and Lekebusch, Apostelgeschichte, p. 77; cf. Act 5:12, Act 7:25, Act 11:30, Act 14:3, Act 15:23, Act 19:11, so ἐν χειρί, εἰς χεῖρας.-ἀνόμων: “lawless,” R.V., generally taken to refer to the Roman soldiers who crucified our Lord, i.e., Gentiles without law, as in 1Co 9:21, Rom 2:14. In Wis 17:2 the same word is used of the Egyptians who thought to oppress the holy nation-they are described as ἄνομοι.-προσπήξαντες, sc., τῷ σταυρῷ: a graphic word used only here, with which we may compare the vivid description also by St. Peter in Act 5:29-32, Act 10:39, cf. 1Pe 2:24-the language of one who could justly claim to be a witness of the sufferings of Christ, 1Pe 5:1. The word is not found in LXX, cf. Dio Cassius.-ἀνείλατε: an Alexandrian form, see for similar instances, Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, pp. 159, 160. The verb is a favourite with St. Luke, nineteen times in Acts, twice in the Gospel, and only once elsewhere in the Evangelists, viz., Mat 2:16, and the noun ἀναίρεσις is only found in Act 8:10 (Act 22:20), cf. its similar use in classical Greek and in the LXX. The fact that St. Peter thus describes the Jewish people as the actual murderers of Jesus is not a proof that in such language we have an instance of anti-Judaism quite inconsistent with the historical truth of the speech (Baur, Renan, Overbeck), but the Apostle sees vividly before his eyes essentially the same crowd at the Feast as had demanded the Cross of Jesus before the judgment-seat of Pilate, Nösgen, Apostelgeschichte, p. 103.-ὃν ὁ Θεὸς ἀνέστησε, “est hoc summum orationis,” Blass, cf. Act 5:32, and Act 1:22.
Act 2:24. λύσας τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ θαν.: R.V. “pangs” instead of “pains” (all previous versions) approaches nearer to the literal form of the word-“birth-pangs,” the resurrection of Christ being conceived of as a birth out of death, as the Fathers interpreted the passage. The phrase is found in the Psalms, LXX Psa 17:4, Psa 114:3, but it is most probable that the LXX has here mistaken the force of the Hebrew חבל which might mean “birth-pangs,” or the cords of a hunter catching his prey. In the Hebrew version the parallelism, such a favourite figure in Hebrew poetry, decides in favour of the latter meaning, as in R.V. Psa 18:4-5 (LXX 18), Sheol and Death are personified as hunters lying in wait for their prey with nooses and nets (Kirkpatrick, Psalms, in loco, the word מוֹקְשֵׁי meaning snares by which birds or beasts are taken (Amo 3:5)). In the previous verse the parallelism is also maintained if we read “the waves of death” (cf. 2Sa 22:5) “compassed me, the floods of ungodliness made me afraid”. It is tempting to account for the reading ὠδῖνας by supposing that St. Luke had before him a source for St. Peter’s speech, and that he had given a mistaken rendering of the word חבל. But it would certainly seem that λύσας and κρατεῖσθαι are far more applicable to the idea of the hunter’s cords, in which the Christ could not be bound, since He was Himself the Life. A similar mistake in connection with the same Hebrew word חבל may possibly occur in 1Th 5:3 and Luk 21:34. There is no occasion to find in the word any reference to the death-pains of Christ (so Grotius, Bengel), or to render ὠδῖνες pains and snares (Olshausen, Nösgen), and it is somewhat fanciful to explain with St. Chrysostom (so Theophylact and Oecumenius) ὁ θάνατος ὤδινε κατέχων αὐτὸν καὶ τὰ δεινὰ ἔπασχε.-καθότι: only found in St. Luke, in Gospel twice, and in Acts four times (Friedrich); generally in classical Greek καθʼ ὅ τι (cf. Tob 1:12; Tob 13:4).-οὐκ ἦν δυνατὸν … γὰρ: the words primarily refer to the proof which St. Peter was about to adduce from prophecy, and the Scripture could not be broken. But whilst Baur sees in such an expression, as also in Act 3:15, a transition to Johannine conceptions of the Person of Jesus, every Christian gladly recognises in the words the moral impossibility that the Life could be holden by Death. On the impersonal construction, see Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 151 (1893).-κρατεῖσθαι … ὑπʼ, cf. Luk 24:16 (Joh 20:23), only in these passages in passive voice in N.T., but cf. for similar use of the passive voice, 4Ma 2:9, and so in Dem. Schmid compares this verse where the internal necessity of Christ’s resurrection is thus stated with 1Pe 3:18, showing that the πνεῦμα in Him possessed this power of life (Biblische Theologie des N. T., p. 402).
Act 2:25. Δαυεὶδ γὰρ λέγει: the words which follow are quoted by St. Peter from Psalms 16; and it has been said that the Apostle’s argument would be the same if the Psalm were the work of some other author than David. But if the following Psalm and the Psalm in question may with considerable reason be attributed to the same author, and if the former Psalm, the seventeenth, may be referred to the period of David’s persecution by Saul, then David’s authorship of Psalm sixteen becomes increasingly probable (Kirkpatrick). In Delitzsch’s view whatever can mark a Psalm as Davidic we actually find combined here, e.g., coincidences of many kinds which he regards as undoubtedly Davidic (cf. Act 5:5 with Act 11:6, Act 5:10 with Act 4:4, Act 5:11 with Act 17:15), and he sees no reason for giving up the testimony afforded by the title. But it is plain that David’s experience did not exhaust the meaning of the Psalm, and St. Peter in the fulness of the gift of Pentecost interprets the words εἰς αὐτὸν, “with reference to Him,” i.e., the Messiah (cf. St. Paul’s interpretation of the same Psalm in Act 13:35). On the application of the Psalm as Messianic, cf. Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, ii., p. 717.-Προωρώμην: not “I foresaw,” but “I beheld the Lord always before my face,” LXX; Heb., “I have set the Lord always before me”.-Κύριον = Jehovah.-ἐκ δεξιῶν μου: as a defence and helper. Cf. παραστάτης, Xen., Cyr., iii., 3, 21. The imagery may be taken from that of the trials in which advocates stood at the right hand of their clients (Psa 109:31), or there may be a reference to a champion who, in defending another, would stand on his right hand; cf. Psa 110:5; Psa 121:5 (Kirkpatrick, and Robertson Smith, Expositor, 1876, p. 351).-ἵνα μὴ σαλευθῶ: although the verses which follow contain the chief Messianic references in St. Peter’s interpretation, yet in the fullest sense of the words the Christ could say προωρ. κ.τ.λ. (see Felten, in loco). But because the Father was with Him, He could add διὰ τοῦτο εὐφράνθη ἡ καρδία μου: “the heart” in O.T. is not only the heart of the affections, but the centre of the man’s whole moral and intellectual nature (Oehler, Theol. des A.T., p. 71).-εὐφράνθη refers rather to a joyous state of mind, “was glad,” R.V., ἠγαλλιάσατο used of outward and active expression of joy is rendered “rejoiced,” R.V. (in A.V. the meaning of the two verbs is transposed). At the same time εὐφράνθη is sometimes used in LXX and N.T., as in modern Greek of festive enjoyment, Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 155.-ἡ γλῶσσά μου: in Hebrew כְּבוֹדִי “my glory,” i.e., my soul, my spirit (cf. Gen 49:6, Schöttgen). The Arabs use a similar expression for the eye, the hand, or any member of the body held in special honour (cf. Lumby on Psa 108:1).-ἔτι δὲ καὶ ἡ σάρξ: flesh does not here mean the dead corpse but the living body (Perowne, Kirkpatrick).-κατασκηνώσει, “shall dwell in safety,” R.V., “confidently,” margin (O.T.); the expression is used frequently of dwelling safely in the Promised Land. In N.T. the R.V. translates “shall dwell,” “tabernacle” margin, shall dwell as in a tent, a temporary abode. In its literal meaning, therefore, there is no reference to the rest of the body in the grave, or to the hope of resurrection from the grave, but the words must be understood of this life (Perowne); cf. Deu 33:12; Deu 33:28, Psa 4:8; Psa 25:13, Jer 23:6; Jer 33:16. For the hope of the Psalmist, expressed in the following words, is primarily for preservation from death: “Thou wilt not give up my soul to Sheol [i.e., to the underworld, so that one becomes its prey], neither wilt thou suffer thy beloved one [singular] to see the pit” (so Delitzsch and Perowne, as also R. Smith and Kirkpatrick).
Act 2:27. In LXX and N.T. rightly εἰς ᾅδην. W.H[127]; cf. also Briggs, Messianic Prophecies, p. 24; although in T.R. as usually in Attic, εἰς ᾅδου, sc., δόμον. Blass regards as simply usurping in the common dialect the place of ἐν, but we can scarcely explain the force of the preposition here in this way. ἐγκαταλείψεις used of utter abandonment, cf. Psa 22:1 (cf. 2Ti 4:10; 2Ti 4:16).-εἰς ᾅδην: whilst it is true that the Psalmist “says nothing about what shall happen to him after death” (Perowne), he expresses his conviction that his soul would not be given up to the land of gloom and forgetfulness, the abode of the dead, dark and cheerless, with which the Psalmist cannot associate the thought of life and light (see also on Act 2:31).-οὐδὲ δώσεις: in R.V. (O.T.) the word “suffer” is retained, but in R.V. (N.T.) we find “thou wilt not give,” the Hebrew נתן being used in this sense to permit, to suffer, to let, like δίδωμι and dare, Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 156 (1893).-τὸν ὅσιόν σου: the Hebrew Châsîd which is thus sometimes translated in the LXX (Vulgate, Sanctus) is often rendered “thy beloved one,” and the word denotes not only one who is godly and pious, but also one who is the object of Jehovah’s loving-kindness. The word might well be used of Him, Who was not only the Holy One of God, but ὁ ἀγαπητὸς υἱός, “the beloved Son”. On the word Châsîd see Kirkpatrick, Psalms, Appendix, p. 221.-ἰδεῖν διαφθοράν: “corruption” or “the pit,” margin R.V. (O.T.), but in the N.T. simply “corruption” (A. and R.V.), Vulgate, corruptio. In the LXX the Hebrew שַׁחַת is often rendered διαφθορά, “corruption,” as if derived from שָׁחַת διαφθείρειν, “to corrupt”; not, however, in the sense of corruption, putridity, but of destruction. The derivation however is probably from שׁוּחַ, to sink down, hence it means a pit, and sometimes a sepulchre, a grave, Psa 30:10; Psalm 55:24, so here “to see the grave,” i.e., to die and be buried, cf. Psa 49:10 (see Robinson’s Gesenius, p. 1053, note, twenty-sixth edition). Dr. Robertson Smith maintains that there are two Hebrew words the same in form but different in origin, one masculine = putrefaction or corruption, the other feminine = the deep or the pit. So far he agrees with the note in Gesenius, u. s., that the word διαφθορά should here be rendered by the latter, the pit, but he takes the rendering, the deep or the pit, as an epithet not of the grave but of Sheol or Hades (see Expositor, p. 354, 1876, the whole paper on “The Sixteenth Psalm,” by Dr. R. Smith, should be consulted, and p. 354 compared with the note in Gesenius), and this view certainly seems to fit in better with the parallelism.
[127] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 2:28. ἐγνώρισάς μοι ὁδοὺς ζωῆς: St. Peter quotes from the LXX, which has the plural ὁδούς-so in Pro 5:6, where Hebrew has the same word as here in the singular, the LXX translates ὁδοὺς ζωῆς.-μετὰ τοῦ προσώπου σου, “with thy countenance” = “in thy presence,” margin; = Hebrew, “in thy presence”. The LXX πρόσωπον is a literal translation of the Hebrew פָּנִים, face or countenance, in the O.T. The expression is a common one in the O.T., “in God’s presence”; cf. Psa 4:6; Psa 17:15; Psa 21:6; Psa 140:13. Grimm-Thayer explains (με) ὄντα μετὰ, etc., “being in thy presence” (see sub μετὰ, i. 2 b). The force of the expression is strikingly seen in its repeated use in Num 6:25; cf. Exo 33:14; Oehler, Theologie des A. T., pp. 46, 56, 62, and Westcott, Hebrews, p. 272. And so the Psalm ends as it had begun with God; cf. Act 2:2, and Act 2:11. The Psalmist’s thoughts carried him beyond mere temporal deliverance, beyond the changes and chances of this mortal life, to the assurance of a union with God, which death could not dissolve; while as Christians we read with St. Peter a deeper and a fuller meaning still in the words, as we recall the Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Him, of Whom it was written: ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν.
Act 2:29. ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί: an affectionate form of address as compared with Act 2:14; Act 2:22 (cf. Act 7:2, Act 22:1), but still much more formal than Act 3:17, where we have ἀδελφοί alone in St. Peter’s pity for those who crucifying the Saviour knew not what they did.-ἐξὸν, sc., ἐστι (with infinitive), cf. 2Co 12:4, only in N.T. Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 200 (1893), cf. LXX Est 4:2; 4Ma 5:18; not “may I speak unto you,” but “I may say unto you,” R.V., not = ἔστω, but ἐστί (ἔξεστι), Wendt, in loco.-μετὰ παρρησίας: on the phrase, see below, Act 4:13, and its repeated use by St. Luke; cf. Heb 4:16; Lat., cum fiducia, Westcott, Hebrews, p. 108. In the LXX the phrase is found, Lev 26:13, Est 8:12, 1Ma 4:18, 3Ma 4:1; 3Ma 7:12. St. Peter will first of all state facts which cannot be denied, before he proceeds to show how the words used of David are fulfilled in “great David’s greater Son”. He speaks of David in terms which indicate his respect for his name and memory, and as Bengel well says, “est igitur hoc loco προθεραπεία, prævia sermonis mitigatio” (“est hæc προθερ. ut aiunt rhetores,” Blass, in loco).-τοῦ πατριάρχου, the name is emphatically used in the N.T. of Abraham; cf. Heb 7:4 (properly the ἄρχων (auctor), πατριᾶς), and of the sons of Jacob, Act 7:8-9, and cf. 4Ma 7:19, used of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the LXX it is used of the “heads of the fathers’ houses,” 1Ch 9:9; 1Ch 24:31, in a comparatively lower sense. Here used, as a term of high honour, of David, regarded as the ancestor of the kingly race. See on the word and its formation, Kennedy, Sources of New Testament Greek, p. 114.-ὅτι καὶ ἐτελεύτησε καὶ ἐτάφη: “that he both died and was buried,” R.V. St. Peter states notorious facts, and refers to them in a way which could not wound the susceptibilities of his hearers, whilst he shows them that David’s words were not exhausted in his own case. The argument is practically the same as that of St. Paul in Act 13:36 from the same Psalm.-καὶ τὸ μνῆμα αὐτοῦ ἐστιν ἐν ἡμῖν, i.e., in Jerusalem, the mention of the tomb emphasises the fact and certainty of the death of David, and implies that his body had seen corruption. That David’s tomb was shown in the time of Nehemiah we know from Neh 3:16. From Jos., Ant., vii., 15, 3; xiii., 8, 4; B. J., i., 2, 5, we learn that Solomon had buried a large treasure in the tomb, and that on that account one of its chambers had been broken open by Hyrcanus, and another by Herod the Great. According to Jos., Ant., xvi., 7, 1, Herod, not content with rifling the tomb, desired to penetrate further, even as far as the bodies of David and Solomon, but a flame burst forth and slew two of his guards, and the king fled. To this attempt the Jewish historian attributed the growing troubles in Herod’s family. In the time of Hadrian the tomb is said to have fallen into ruins. Whatever its exact site, it must have been within the walls, and therefore could not correspond with the so called “tombs of the kings” which De Saulcy identified with it. Those tombs are outside the walls, and are of the Roman period (Schürer, Jewish People, div. i., vol. i., p. 276, E.T., “David,” B.D.2). Wetstein, in loco, quotes the testimony of Maundrell as to the sepulchres of David and his family being the only sepulchres within the walls. St. Jerome, Epist., xlvi., writing to Marcella, expresses a hope that they might pray together in the mausoleum of David; so that at the end of the fourth century tradition must still have claimed to mark the spot.
Act 2:30. προφήτης: as David could not have spoken this Psalm of himself, he spoke it of some other, who was none other than the Messiah-here the word is used in the double sense of one declaring God’s will, and also of one foretelling how that will would be fulfilled.-ὑπάρχων: another favourite word of St. Luke, in his Gospel, and especially in Acts; in the former it is found seven times, and in the latter no less than twenty-four times, and in all parts (excluding τὰ ὑπάρχοντα), Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, p. 7. It is not used by the other Evangelists. In the N.T., as in later Greek, it is often weakened into an equivalent of εἶναι; Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 239. Here it may indicate that David was a prophet, not only in this one instance, but constantly with reference to the Messiah.-ὅρκῳ ὤμοσεν, Hebraistic; cf. Act 2:17. Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 141 (1896); for the oath cf. Psa 132:11, 2Sa 7:16.-ἐκ καρποῦ τῆς ὀσφύος αὐτοῦ, i.e., of his offspring. It is a common Hebraistic form of expression-ὀσφύς read here, but κοιλία in Ps. 131:11 (LXX); cf. Gen 35:11 and 2Ch 6:9 (Heb 7:5). With regard to the human element in the Person of Jesus, Peter speaks of him as a descendant of David according to prophecy, as in the Synoptists and Rom 1:3 (Schmid). The exact expression, καρπὸς τῆς ὀσφύος, is not found in the LXX, but καρ. τῆς κοιλίας is found, not only in the Psalm quoted but in Mic 6:7 (Lam 2:20), where the same Hebrew words are used as in the Psalm: ὀσφύς in the LXX is several times a translation of another Hebrew word חֲלָצַיִם (dual). This partitive construction (supply τινα) is also a Hebraistic mode of expression, and frequent in the LXX; cf. Act 2:18, Act 5:2. See Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 151 (1896).
Act 2:31. προϊδών, cf. Gal 3:8. The word ascribes prophetic consciousness to David in the composition of the Psalm, but, as we learn from St. Peter himself, that prophetic consciousness did not involve a distinct knowledge of the events foretold (1Pe 1:10-12); that which the Holy Ghost presignified was only in part clear to the prophets, both as to the date of fulfilment and also as to historical shaping (Schmid, Biblische Theol. des N. T., p. 395, and Alford, in loco).-ὅτι: introducing the words which follow as a fuller explanation, or simply as expressing a well-known fact.-ἐγκατελείφθη … εἶδεν: aorists, not futures, because from St. Peter’s standpoint the prophecy had been already fulfilled (Felten, Wendt). With this verse we naturally compare the mention of Christ’s descent into Hades and His agency in the realms of the dead in St. Peter’s First Epistle, Act 3:19 (cf. Php 2:10, Eph 4:9, Rom 10:7; Zahn, Das Apost. Symbolum, pp. 71-74; but see also Schmid, ubi supra, p. 414). Thus while the words bore, as we have seen, a primary and lower reference to David himself, St. Peter was led by the Holy Ghost to see their higher and grander fulfilment in Christ.-εἰς ᾅδου: on the construction see above on Act 2:27, and on the Jewish view of Sheol or Hades in the time of our Lord as an intermediate state, see Charles, Book of Enoch, p. 168 and p. 94, and compare also the interesting although indirect parallel to 1Pe 3:19, which he finds in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, p. 45. ff.; Weber, Jüdische Theologie, pp. 163, 341.
Act 2:32. οὗ: may be masculine = Christ, cf. Act 13:31, but is taken as neuter by Blass (so too Overbeck, Holtzmann, Weiss, Wendt, Felten). Bengel remarks “nempe Dei qui id fecit,” and compares Act 5:32, Act 10:41, and 1Co 15:15.
Act 2:33. οὖν: the Ascension is a necessary sequel to the Resurrection, cf. Weiss, Leben Jesu, iii., 409 ff. and in loco. Or the word may mark the result of the assured and manifold testimony to the Resurrection, to which the Apostle had just appealed: “Confirmata resurrectione Christi, ascensio non potest in dubium vocari,” Bengel.-τῇ δεξιᾷ τοῦ Θεοῦ: best to take the words as an instrumental dative, so in Act 5:31, with the majority of recent commentators. On grammatical grounds it would be difficult to justify the rendering “to the right hand” (although taken in connection with Act 5:34 it would give very good sense), since such a combination of the dative alone is found only in the poets, and never in prose in classical Greek. The only other instances adduced, Act 21:16 and Rev 2:16, can be otherwise explained, cf. Winer-Moulton, xxxi., p. 268. On Jdg 11:18 (LXX) quoted in support of the local rendering by Fritzsch, see Wendt’s full note in loco. The instrumental meaning follows naturally upon Act 2:32-the Ascension, as the Resurrection, was the mighty deed of God, Php 2:9. There is therefore no occasion to regard the expression with De Wette as a Hebraism, see Wetstein, in loco.-ὑψωθείς, cf. especially Joh 12:32, and Westcott’s note on Joh 3:14. The word is frequently found in LXX. As Lightfoot points out, in our Lord Himself the divine law which He Himself had enunciated was fulfilled, ὁ ταπεινῶν ἑαυτὸν ὑψωθήσεται (Luk 14:11; Luk 18:14).-τήν τε ἐπαγγελίαν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος κ.τ.λ., see above on Act 1:4 (Gal 3:14). The language of St. Peter is in agreement with, but yet independent of, that in St. John, whilst it calmly certifies the fulfilment of our Lord’s promise.-ἐξέχεε: “hath poured forth,” R.V. All previous English versions except Rhem. = A.V. The verb is used in the LXX in the prophecy cited above, Joe 2:28-29 (cf. also Zec 12:10), although it is not used in the Gospels of the outpouring of the Spirit.-τοῦτο: either the Holy Ghost, as the Vulgate takes it, or an independent neuter “this which ye see and hear,” i.e., in the bearing and speech of the assembled Apostles. St. Peter thus leads his hearers to infer that that which is poured out is by its effects nothing else than the Holy Ghost. It is noteworthy that just as Joel speaks of God, the Lord Jehovah, pouring out of His Spirit, so the same divine energy is here attributed by St. Peter to Jesus. See above on Act 2:17.
Act 2:34. St. Peter does not demand belief upon his own assertion, but he again appeals to the Scriptures, and to words which could not have received a fulfilment in the case of David. In this appeal he reproduces the very words in which, some seven weeks before, our Lord Himself had convicted the scribes of error in their interpretation of this same Psalm (Mat 22:44, Mar 12:35, Luk 20:41), and, “unlearned” in the eyes of the scribes, had answered the question which they could not answer, how David’s Son was also David’s Lord. No passage of Scripture is so constantly referred to in the N.T. as this 110th Psalm, cf. references above, and also 1Co 15:25, Heb 1:13; Heb 5:6; Heb 7:17; Heb 7:21; Heb 10:13. The Psalm was always regarded as Messianic by the Jews (Weber, Jüdische Theologie, p. 357 (1897); Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, ii., 720 (Appendix); Cheyne, Origin of the Psalter, p. 35; Driver, Introduction to O. T., pp. 362, 363; and if it had not been so in the time of our Lord, it is obvious that His argument would have missed its point if those to whom He addressed His question “What think ye of the Christ?” could have answered that David was not speaking of the coming Messiah. For earlier interpretations of the Psalm, and the patristic testimony to its Messianic character, see Speaker’s Commentary, iv., 427, and on the authorship see Gifford, Authorship of the 110th. Psalm, with Appendix, 1895 (SPCK), and Delitzsch, Psalms, iii., pp. 163-176, E.T.-κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου: κάθου contracted for κάθησο (cf. also Mar 12:36, Heb 1:13); this “popular” form, which is also found in the Fragments of the comic writers, is the present imperative of κάθημαι in modern Greek, Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 162. In the LXX it is frequently used (see Hatch and Redpath, sub. v.).-ἕως: the word does not imply that Christ shall cease to reign subsequently: the word here, as elsewhere, does not imply that what is expressed will only have place up to a certain time (cf. Gen 33:15, Deu 7:4, 2Ch 6:23; cf. 1Ti 4:13), rather is it true to say that Christ will only then rightly rule, when He has subjugated all His enemies.-ἄν with ἕως as here, where it is left doubtful when that will take place to which it is said a thing will continue (Grimm-Thayer, and instances sub ἕως, i., 1 b).-ὑποπόδιον, cf. Jos 10:24, referring to the custom of conquering kings placing their feet upon the necks of their conquered enemies (so Blass, in loco, amongst recent commentators).
Act 2:36. ἀσφαλῶς: used here emphatically; the Apostle would emphasise the conclusion which he is about to draw from his three texts; cf. Act 21:34, Act 22:30, and Wis 18:6 (so in classical Greek).-πᾶς οἶκος Ἰσρ., without the article, for οἶκος Ἰ. is regarded as a proper name, cf. LXX, 1Sa 7:2, 1Ki 12:23, Neh 4:16, Eze 45:6, or it may be reckoned as Hebraistic, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 147, 158.-καὶ Κύριον καὶ Χριστόν: the Κύριος plainly refers to the prophetic utterance just cited. Although in the first verse of Psalms 110 the words τῷ Κυρίῳ μου are not to be taken as a name of God, for the expression is Adoni not Adonai (“the LORD saith unto my Lord,” R.V.), and is simply a title of honour and respect, which was used of earthly superiors, e.g., of Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Sisera, Naaman, yet St. Peter had called David a Prophet, and only in the Person of the Risen and Ascended Christ Who had sat down with His Father on His Throne could the Apostle see an adequate fulfilment of David’s prophecy, or an adequate realisation of the anticipations of the Christ. So in the early Church, Justin Martyr, Apol., i., 60, appeals to the words of “the prophet David” in this same Psalm as foretelling the Ascension of Christ and His reign over His spiritual enemies. On the remarkable expression Χριστὸς Κύριος in connection with Psa 110:1, see Ryle and James, Psalms of Solomon, pp. 141-143, cf. with the passage here Act 10:36; Act 10:42. In 1Pe 3:15 we have the phrase Κύριον δὲ Χριστὸν ἁγιάσατε κ.τ.λ. (R.V. and W.H[128]), “sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord” (R.V.), where St. Peter does not hesitate to command that Christ be sanctified in our hearts as Lord, in words which are used in the O.T. of the LORD of hosts, Isa 8:13, and His sanctification by Israel. If it is said that it has been already shown that in Psa 110:1 Christ is referred to not as the Lord but as “my lord,” it must not be forgotten that an exact parallel to 1Pe 3:15 and its high Christology may be found in this first sermon of St. Peter, cf. note on Act 2:18-21; Act 2:33.-τοῦτον τὸν Ι. ὃν ὑμεῖς ἐσταυρώσατε, “hath made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified,” R.V., so Vulgate. The A.V., following Tyndale and Cranmer, inverts the clauses, but fails to mark what Bengel so well calls aculeus in fine, the stinging effect with which St. Peter’s words would fall on the ears of his audience, many of whom may have joined in the cry, Crucify Him! (Chrysostom). Holtzmann describes this last clause of the speech as “ein schwerer Schlusstein zur Krönung des Gebäudes”.
[128] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Act 2:37. κατενύγησαν τὴν καρδίαν: no word could better make known that the sting of the last word had begun to work (see Theophylact, in loco) = compungo, so in Vulg. The word is not used in classical Greek in the same sense as here, but the simple verb νύσσειν is so used. In LXX the best parallels are Gen 34:7, Ps. 108:16 (Psa 109:16): cf. Cicero, De Orat., iii., 34. “Hoc pœenitentiæ initium est, hic ad pietatem ingressus, tristitiam ex peccatis nostris concipere ac malorum nostrorum sensu vulnerari … sed compunctioni accedere debet promptitudo ad parendum,” Calvin, in loco.-τί ποιήσωμεν; conj., delib., cf. Luk 3:10; Luk 3:12; Luk 3:14, Mar 12:14; Mar 14:12, Joh 12:27, Mat 26:54, Burton, Moods and Tenses of N. T. Greek, pp. 76, 126, and Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 28 ff. (1893).-ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί: indicating respect and regard-St. Peter’s address had not been in vain-“non ita dixerant prius” Bengel; but now the words come as a response to St. Peter’s own appeal, Act 5:29, cf. also Oecumenius, (so too Theophylact), καὶ οἰκειωτικῶς αὐτοὺς ἀδελφοὺς καλοῦσιν, οὒς πρώην ἐχλεύαζον.-μετανοήσατε, Luk 24:47. The Apostles began, as the Baptist began, Mat 3:2, as the Christ Himself began, Mat 4:17, Mar 1:15, with the exhortation to repentance, to a change of heart and life, not to mere regret for the past. On the distinction between μετανοεῖν and μεταμέλομαι, see Trench, N. T. Synonyms, i., 208. Dr. Thayer remarks that the distinction drawn by Trench is hardly sustained by usage, but at the same time he allows that μετανοεῖν is undoubtedly the fuller and nobler term, expressive of moral action and issues, as is indicated by the fact that it is often employed in the imperative (μεταμέλομαι never), and by its construction with ἀπό, ἐκ cf. also Act 20:31, ἡ εἰς θεὸν μετάνοια (Synonyms in Grimm-Thayer, sub μεταμέλομαι) Christian Baptism was not admission to some new club or society of virtue, it was not primarily a token of mutual love and brotherhood, although it purified and strengthened both, cf. Act 2:44 ff.
Act 2:38. βαπτισθήτω: “Non satis est Christocredere, sed oportet et Christianum profiteri, Rom 10:10, quod Christus per baptismum fieri voluit,” Grotius. John’s baptism had been a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, but the work of St. Peter and of his fellow-Apostles was no mere continuation of that of the Baptist, cf. Act 19:4-5. Their baptism was to be ἐπὶ (ἐν) τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰ. Χ. St. Peter’s address had been directed to the proof that Jesus was the Christ, and it was only natural that the acknowledgment of the cogency of that proof should form the ground of admission to the Christian Church: the ground of the admission to baptism was the recognition of Jesus as the Christ. The reading ἐπί (see especially Weiss, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 35, 36) brings this out more clearly than ἐν. It is much better to explain thus than to say that baptism in the name of one of the Persons of the Trinity involves the names of the other Persons also, or to suppose with Bengel (so Plumptre) that the formula in Mat 28:19 was used for Gentiles, whilst for Jews or Proselytes who already acknowledged a Father and a Holy Spirit baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus sufficed; or to conjecture with Neander that Mat 28:19 was not at first considered as a formula to be adhered to rigidly in baptism, but that the rite was performed with reference to Christ’s name alone. This difficulty, of which so much has been made, does not appear to have pressed upon the early Church, for it is remarkable that the passage in the Didache 1, vii., 3, which is rightly cited to prove the early existence of the Invocation of the Holy Trinity in baptism, is closely followed by another in which we read (ix. 5) μηδεὶς δὲ φαγέτω μηδὲ πιέτω ἀπὸ τῆς εὐχαριστίας ὑμῶν, ἀλλʼ οἱ βαπτισθέντες εἰς ὄνομα Κυρίου, i.e., Christ, as the immediate context shows.-εἰς ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν εἰς, “unto” R.V., signifying the aim. It has been objected that St. Peter lays no stress upon the death of Christ in this connection, but rather upon His Resurrection. But we cannot doubt that St. Peter who had emphasised the fact of the crucifixion would have remembered his Master’s solemn declaration a few hours before His death, Mat 26:28. Even if the words in this Gospel εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν are rejected, the fact remains that St. Peter would have connected the thought of the forgiveness of sins, a prerogative which, as every Jew was eager to maintain, belonged to God and to God alone, with the (new) covenant which Christ had ratified by His death. Harnack admits that however difficult it may be to explain precisely the words of Jesus to the disciples at the Last Supper, yet one thing is certain, that He connected the forgiveness of sins with His death, Dogmengeschichte, i., pp. 55 and 59, see also “Covenant,” Hastings, B.D., p. 512.-ὑμῶν: the R.V. has this addition, so too the Vulgate (Wycl. and Rheims). As each individual ἕκαστος was to be baptised, so each, if truly penitent, would receive the forgiveness of his sins.-τὴν δωρεὰν, not χάρισμα as in 1Co 12:4; 1Co 12:9; 1Co 12:28, for the Holy Ghost, the gift, was a personal and abiding possession, but the χαρίσματα were for a time answering to special needs, and enjoyed by those to whom God distributed them. The word is used specially of the gift of the Holy Ghost by St. Luke four times in Act 8:20; Act 10:45; Act 11:17, but by no other Evangelist (cf., however, Luk 11:13), cf. Heb 6:4 (Joh 4:10).
Act 2:39. ὑμῖν γὰρ: the promise was made to the very men who had invoked upon themselves and upon their children, St. Mat 27:25, the blood of the Crucified. See Psalms of Solomon, Act 8:39 (Ryle and James’ edition, p. 88).-πᾶσι τοῖς εἰς μακράν: no occasion with Wendt and others to limit the words to the Jews of the Diaspora. It must not be forgotten that the Apostles were not surprised that the Gentiles should be admitted to the Christian Church, but only that they should be admitted without conforming to the rite of circumcision. If we compare Act 3:26, and Eph 2:13; Act 2:17 (cf. Rom 10:13), it would seem that no restriction of race was placed upon the declaration of the Gospel message, provided that it was made to the Jew first (as was always Paul’s custom). Hilgenfeld interprets the words as referring beyond all doubt to the Gentiles, since ὑμῖν … ὑμῶν had already expressed the Diaspora Jews. But he contends that as Act 2:26 plainly intimates that the address was delivered only to Israelites, the words in question are added by “the author to Theophilus”. He therefore places them in brackets. Jüngst in the same way thinks it well to refer them to the Redactor, and Feine refers them to Luke himself as Reviser. Weiss sees in the words an allusion to an O.T. passage which could only have been applied at first to the calling of the Gentiles, but which (in the connection in which it is here placed by the narrator) must be referred to the Jews of the Diaspora. It may well have been that (as in Holtzmann’s view) St. Peter’s audience only thought of the Jews of the Diaspora, but we can see in his words a wider and a deeper meaning, cf. Isa 5:26, and cf. also Isa 2:2, Zec 6:15. Among the older commentators Oecumenius and Theophylact referred the words to the Gentiles.-ὅσους ἂν προσκαλέσηται Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν. Wendt presses the to favour his view that St. Peter thinks only of the Jews and not of the Gentiles, since he speaks of “our God,” but Blass catches the meaning much better in his comment: “ἡμῶν Israelitarum, qui idem gentes ad se vocat”. This gives the true force of προσκαλ., “shall call unto him” (so R.V.). Oecumenius also comments on the words as revealing the true penitence and charity of Peter, ψυχὴ γὰρ ὅταν ἑαυτὴν καταδικάσῃ, οὐκ ἔτι φθονεῖν δύναται.
Act 2:40. ἑτέροις τε λόγοις πλείοσιν τε (not δὲ), as so frequent in Acts; “inducit quæ similia cognataque sunt, δέ diversa,” Blass, in loco, and Grammatik des N. G., p. 258.-διεμαρτύρατο: the translation “testified,” both in A. and R.V., hardly gives the full form of the word. Its frequent use in the LXX in the sense of protesting solemnly, cf. Deu 4:26; Deu 8:19, 1Sa 8:9, Zec 3:7 (6), seems more in accordance with St. Peter’s words, who here as elsewhere (Act 10:42, Act 13:5, Act 20:21) was not simply acting as a witness μαρτυρεῖν, but was also protesting against the false views of those he was addressing. It must not, however, be forgotten that in other passages in the LXX the verb may mean to bear witness (see Hatch and Redpath, sub v.). In the N.T., as Wendt notes, it is used by St. Paul in the former sense of protesting solemnly in 1Ti 5:21, 2Ti 2:14; 2Ti 4:1. With this Mr. Page rightly compares its use in Act 20:23 (cf. also Act 5:20, μαρτύρομαι), and Luk 16:28. So too in classical writers.-παρεκάλει: the imperfect suggests the continuous exhortation which followed upon the Apostles’ solemn protest (Weiss, in loco).-τῆς γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς ταύτης: the adjective is used to describe the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness, LXX, Deu 32:5 (and Psa 77:8), a description used in part by Our Lord Himself, Mat 17:17, Luk 9:41, and wholly by St. Paul, Php 2:15. The correct translation “crooked,” R.V. (which A.V. has in Luk 3:5, Php 2:15), signifies perversity in turning oft from the truth, whilst the A.V. “untoward” (so Tyndale) signifies rather backwardness in coming to the truth (Humphry, Commentary on R. V.), Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 41, 42.
Act 2:41. Οἱ μὲν οὖν: a truly Lucan formula, see Act 1:6. There is no anacoluthon, but for the answering δέ see Act 5:42. The words therefore refer to those mentioned in Act 5:37; in contrast to the three thousand fear came upon every person, ψυχή, so Mr. Page, on μὲν οὖν, in loco. Mr. Rendall finds the answering δέ in Act 5:42; two phases of events are contrasted; three thousand converts are added in one day-they clave stedfastly to the Christian communion. See also his Appendix on μὲν οὖν, p. 162.-ἀποδεξάμενοι τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ: used in classical Greek, especially in Plato, of receiving a teacher or his arguments with acceptance, and in the N.T. of receiving with approval; cf. Act 24:3. The verb is only found in St. Luke in the N.T. with varying shades of meaning, twice in his Gospel, and five times in Acts in all parts. Only found in LXX in Apocryphal books, Tob 7:17, Jdt 13:13 (but see Hatch and Redpath, sub v.), and in the Books of the Maccabees; cf. Act 18:27, Act 21:17, Act 24:3, Act 28:30, see below.-ἐβαπτίσθησαν. There is nothing in the text which intimates that the Baptism of the three thousand was performed, not on the day of Pentecost, but during the days which followed. At the same time it is not said that the Baptism of such a multitude took place at one time or in one place on the day of the Feast, or that the rite was performed by St. Peter alone. Felten allows that others besides the Twelve may have baptised. See his note, in loco, and also Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, p. 183.-προσετέθησαν, cf. Act 2:47, and Act 5:14, Act 11:24. In the LXX the same verb is used, Isa 14:1, for a proselyte who is joined to Israel, so too Est 9:27.-ψυχαὶ, “souls,” i.e., persons. See on Act 2:43.-ὡσωὶ τρισχίλιαι: the adverb is another favourite word of St. Luke (Friedrich)-it is not found in St. John, and in St. Mark only once, in St. Matthew three times, but in St. Luke’s Gospel eight or nine times, and in Acts six or seven times. As in Act 1:15 the introduction of the adverb is against the supposition that the number was a fictitious one. We cannot suppose that the influence and the recollection of Jesus had vanished within a few short weeks without leaving a trace behind, and where the proclamation of Him as the Christ followed upon the wonderful gift of tongues, in which many of the people would see the inspiration of God and a confirmation given by Him to the claims made by the disciples, hearts and consciences might well be stirred and quickened-and the movement once begun was sure to spread (see the remarks of Spitta, Apostelgeschichte, p. 60, on the birthday of the Church, in spite of the suspicion with which he regards the number three thousand).
Act 2:42. The growth of the Church not merely in numbers but in the increase of faith and charity. In R.V. by the omission of καὶ before τῇ κλάσει two pairs of particulars are apparently enumerated-the first referring to the close adherence of believers to the Apostles in teaching and fellowship, the second expressing their outward acts of worship; or the first pair may be taken as expressing rather their relation to man, the second their relation to God (Nösgen). Dr. Hort, while pointing out that the first term τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων (“the teaching,” R.V., following Wycliffe; cf. Mat 7:28, “doctrine,” A.V., which would refer rather to a definite system, unless taken in the sense of the Latin doctrina, teaching) was obviously Christian, so that the disciples might well be called scribes to the kingdom, bringing out of their treasures things new and old, the facts of the life of Jesus and the glory which followed, facts interpreted in the light of the Law and the Prophets, takes the next words τῇ κοινωνίᾳ as separated altogether from τῶν ἀποστόλων, “and with the communion”: κοινωνία, in Dr. Hort’s view by parallelism with the other terms, expresses something more external and concrete than a spirit of communion; it refers to the help given to the destitute of the community, not apparently in money, but in public meals, such as from another point of view are called “the daily ministration” (cf. Act 6:2, τραπέζαις). There are undoubtedly instances of the employment of the word κοινωνία in this concrete sense, Rom 15:26, 2Co 8:4; 2Co 9:13, Heb 13:16, but in each of these cases its meaning is determined by the context (and Zöckler, amongst recent commentators, would so restrict its meaning here). But, on the other hand, there are equally undoubted instances of κοινωνία referring to spiritual fellowship and concord, a fellowship in the spirit; cf. 2Co 6:4; 2Co 13:14, Php 2:1, Gal 2:9, 1Jn 1:3; 1Jn 1:6-7; cf. also in classical writers, Arist., Ethic., viii., 9, 12, ἐν κοινωνίᾳ ἡ φιλία ἐστί. Here, if the word can be separated from ἀπος., it may be taken to include the inward fellowship and its outward manifestation, Act 2:44. May not a good parallel to this signification of the word be found in Php 1:5, where κοινωνία, whilst it signifies co-operation in the widest sense, including fellowship in sympathy, suffering and toil, also indicates the special and tangible manifestation of this fellowship in the ready almsgiving and contributions of the Philippian Church; see Lightfoot, Philippians, in loco. The word naturally suggests the community of goods, as Weizsäcker points out, but as it stands here without any precise definition we cannot so limit it, and in his view Gal 2:9 gives the key to its meaning in the passage before us-the bond which united the μαθηταί was the consciousness of their belief in Christ, and in the name ἀδελφοί the relationship thus constituted gained its complete expression.-τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου: no interpretation is satisfactory which forgets (as both Weizsäcker and Holtzmann point out) that the author of Acts had behind him Pauline language and doctrine, and that we are justified in adducing the language of St. Paul in order to explain the words before us, cf. 1Co 10:16; 1Co 11:24, Act 20:7 (and Act 27:35, Weizsäcker). But if we admit this, we cannot consistently explain the expression of a mere common meal. It may be true that every such meal in the early days of the Church’s first love had a religious significance, that it became a type and evidence of the kingdom of God amongst the believers, but St. Paul’s habitual reference of the words before us to the Lord’s Supper leads us to see in them here a reference to the commemoration of the Lord’s death, although we may admit that it is altogether indisputable that this commemoration at first followed a common meal. That St. Paul’s teaching as to the deep religious significance of the breaking of the bread carries us back to a very early date is evident from the fact that he speaks to the Corinthians of a custom long established; cf. “Abendmahl I.” in Hauck’s Real-Encyklopädie, heft i. (1896), p. 23 ff., on the evidential value of this testimony as against Jülicher’s and Spitta’s attempt to show that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in the early Church rested upon no positive command of Jesus. Weizsäcker’s words are most emphatic: “Every assumption of its having originated in the Church from the recollection of intercourse with Him at table, and the necessity felt for recalling His death is precluded-the celebration must rather have been generally observed from the beginning”Apostolic Age, ii., p. 279, E.T., and cf. Das apostol. Zeitalter, p. 594, second edition (1892), Beyschlag, Neutestamentliche Theol., i., p. 155. Against any attempt to interpret the words under discussion of mere benevolence towards the poor (Isa 58:7) Wendt regards Act 20:6-7 (and also Act 27:35) as decisive. Weiss refers to Luk 24:30 for an illustration of the words, but the act, probably the habitual act of Jesus, which they express there, does not exhaust their meaning here. Spitta takes Act 6:2, διακονεῖν τραπέζαις as = κλάσις ἄρτου, an arbitrary interpretation, see also below. The Vulgate connects τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου with the preceding κοινωνία, and renders in communicatione fractionis panis, a rendering justified in so far as the κοινωνία has otherwise no definite meaning, and by the fact that the brotherly intercourse of Christians specially revealed itself in the fractio panis, cf. 1Co 10:16, and Blass, in loco, and also [129] where he reads καὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ τῆς κλάσεως τοῦ ἄρτου. But whilst Felten refers to the evidence of the Vulgate, and also to that of the Peshitto, which renders the words before us “in the breaking of the Eucharist” (so too in Act 20:7), it is worthy of note that he refuses to follow the usual Roman interpretation, viz., that the words point to a communion in one kind only, Apostelgeschichte, p. 94. It is possible that the introduction of the article before at least one of the words τῇ κλάσει (cf. R.V.) emphasises here the Lord’s Supper as distinct from the social meal with which it was connected, whilst Act 2:46 may point to the social as well as to the devotional bearing of the expression (cf. Zöckler, note in loco), and this possibility is increased if we regard the words τῶν ἀποστόλων as characterising the whole sentence in Act 2:42. But unless in both verses some deeper meaning was attached to the phrases τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου-κλῶντες ἄρτον, it seems superfluous, as Schöttgen remarked, to introduce the mention of common food at the time of a community of goods. No doubt St. Chrysostom (so Oecum., Theophyl.) and Bengel interpret the words as simply =victus frugalis, but elsewhere St. Chrysostom speaks of them, or at least when joined with κοινωνία, as referring to the Holy Communion (see Alford’s note in loco), and Bengel’s comment on Act 2:42 must be compared with what he says on Act 2:46.-καὶ ταῖς προσευχαῖς, “and [in] the prayers” R.V. Dr. Hort suggests that the prayers may well have been Christian prayers at stated hours, answering to Jewish prayers, and perhaps replacing the synagogue prayers (not recognised in the Law), as the Apostles’ “teaching” had replaced that of the scribes (Judaistic Christianity, p. 44, and Ecclesia, p. 45). But the words may also be taken to include prayers both new and old, cf. Act 4:24, Jam 5:13 (Eph 2:19, Col 3:16), and also Act 3:1, where Peter and John go up to the Temple “at the hour of prayer,” cf. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, ii., p. 159.
[129] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.
Act 2:43. πάση ψυχῇ, i.e., every person, and so Act 3:23, Hebraistic, cf. כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ, Lev 7:17; Lev 17:12, etc., and cf. 1Ma 2:38. In Act 2:41 the plural is used rather like the Latin capita in enumerations, cf. Act 7:14; Act 27:37, and LXX, Gen 46:15, Exo 1:5, Num 19:18, etc. But Winer-Moulton (p. 194, Act 22:7) would press the meaning of ψυχή here, and contends that the fear was produced in the heart, the seat of the feelings and desires, so that its use is no mere Hebraism, although he admits that in Rom 13:1 (1Pe 3:20) the single πᾶσα ψυχή= every person, but see l.c.-φόβος, cf. Act 3:10, i.e., upon the non-believers, for “perfect love casteth out fear”. Friedrich notes amongst the characteristics of St. Luke that in his two books one of the results of miraculous powers is fear. Here the φόβος means rather the fear of reverential awe or the fear which acted quasi freno (Calvin), so that the early growth of the Church was not destroyed prematurely by assaults from without. There is surely nothing inconsistent here with Act 2:47, but Hilgenfeld ascribes the whole of Act 2:43 to his “author to Theophilus,” partly on the ground of this supposed inconsistency, partly because the mention of miracles is out of place. But it is nowhere stated, as Hilgenfeld and Weiss presuppose, that the healing of the lame man in Act 3:1 ff. was the first miracle performed (see note there, and Wendt and Blass).
Act 2:44. πάντες δε κ.τ.λ., cf. Act 3:24, all, i.e., not only those who had recently joined, Act 2:41.-ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, see note on Act 1:15; here of place. Theophylact takes it of the unanimity in the Church, but this does not seem to be in accordance with the general use of the phrase in the N.T. =ὁμοῦ, ἐπὶ τὸν αὐτὸν τόπον (Hesychius). Blass points out that ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ demands ἦσαν, and if we omit this word (W.H[130]) we must supply ὄντες with ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, as ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ εἶχον could not stand (W.H[131]). The difficulty raised by Hilgenfeld, Wendt, Holtzmann, Overbeck, in this connection as to the number is exaggerated, whether we meet it or not by supposing that some of this large number were pilgrims who had come up to the Feast, but who had now returned to their homes. For in the first place, ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ cannot be taken to mean that all the believers were always assembled in one and the same place. The reading in [132], Act 2:46, may throw light upon the expression in this verse καὶ καιʼ οἴκους ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό, or the phrase may be referred to their assembling together in the Temple, Act 2:46, and Act 5:12 may be quoted in support of this, where all the believers apparently assemble in Solomon’s Porch. It is therefore quite arbitrary to dismiss the number here or in Act 4:4 as merely due to the idealising tendency of the Apostles, or to the growth of the Christian legend.-εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινά, “held all things common,” R.V. Blass and Weiss refer these words with ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ to the assembling of the Christians together for common meals and find in the statement the exact antithesis to the selfish conduct in 1Co 11:20-21. But the words also demand a much wider reference. On the Community of Goods,” see additional note at end of chapter.
[130] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
[131] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
[132] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.
Act 2:45. τὰ κτήματα … τὰς ὑπάρξεις: according to their derivation, the former word would mean that which is acquired, and the latter that which belongs to a man for the time being. But in ordinary usage κτήματα was always used of real property, fields, lands, cf. Act 5:1, whilst ὑπάρξεις was used of personal property (=τὰ ὑπάρχοντα in Heb 10:34). This latter word, to, τὰ ὑπάρχοντα, was a favourite with St. Luke, who uses it eight times in his Gospel and in Act 4:32. No doubt κτῆμα is used in LXX for field and vineyard, Pro 23:10; Pro 31:16, but the above distinction was not strictly observed, for τὰ ὑπάρχοντα, ὕπαρξις, are used both of movable and immovable property (see Hatch and Redpath, sub v.).-ἐπίπρασκον: all three verbs are in the imperfect, and if we remember that this tense may express an action which is done often and continuously without being done universally or extending to a complete accomplishment (cf. Act 4:34, Act 18:8, Mar 12:41), considerable light may be thrown upon the picture here drawn (see Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 186, on the tense and this passage): “And kept getting … and distributing to all, as any man [τις] [not ‘every man,’ A.V.] had need”. See Rendall, Acts, in loco, and on Act 4:32, and Expositor, vii., p. 358, 3rd series.-καθότι: peculiar to St. Luke; in Gospel twice, and in Acts four times, ἄν makes the clause more indefinite: it is found in relative clauses after ὅς, ὅστις, etc., with the indicative-here it is best explained as signifying “accidisse aliquid non certo quodam tempore, sed quotiescumque occasio ita ferret,” quoted by Wendt from Herm., ad Vig., p. 820; cf. Mar 6:56, Blass, in loco, and Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 142 (1893). Grimm renders καθότι ἄν here “in so far,” or “so often as,” “according as”. Spitta refers Act 2:45-47 to the Apostles only, but to justify this he is obliged to refer Act 2:44 to his reviser. Hilgenfeld brackets the whole verse, referring it to his “author to Theophilus,” retaining Act 2:44, whilst Weiss also refers the whole verse to a reviser, who introduced it in imitation of St. Luke’s love of poverty as indicated in his Gospel. But by such expedients the picture of the whole body of the believers sharing in the Apostles’ life and liberality is completely marred.
Act 2:46. ὁμοθυμαδόν, see note on Act 1:14.-προσκαρτεροῦντες, cf. Act 1:14.-ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ: we are not told how far this participation in the Temple extended, and mention is only made in one place, in Act 21:26, of any kind of connection between the Apostles or any other Christians and any kind of sacrificial act. But that one peculiar incident may imply that similar acts were not uncommon, and their omission by the Christians at Jerusalem might well have led to an open breach between them and their Jewish countrymen (Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 44, 45). No doubt the Apostles would recommend their teaching to the people by devout attendance at the Temple, cf. Act 3:1, Act 5:20; Act 5:42, like other Jews.-κατʼ οἶκον, R.V. “at home” (so in A.V. margin). But all other English versions except Genevan render the words “from house to house” (Vulgate, circa domos), and this latter rendering is quite possible, cf. Luk 8:1, Act 15:21; Act 20:20. If we interpret the words of the meeting of the believers in a private house (privatim in contrast to the ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, palam), cf. Rom 16:3; Rom 16:5, 1Co 16:19, Col 4:15, Phm 1:2, it does not follow that only one house is here meant, as Wendt and Weiss suppose by referring to Act 1:13 (see on the other hand Blass, Holtzmann, Zöckler, Spitta, Hort)-there may well have been private houses open to the disciples, e.g., the house of John Mark, cf. Dr. Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, pp. 259, 260. Hilgenfeld, with Overbeck, rejects the explanation given on the ground that for this κατʼ οἴκους, or κατὰ τοὺς οἴκους, would be required-an argument which does not however get over the fact that κατά may be used distributively with the singular-according to him all is in order if Act 2:42 follows immediately upon 41a, i.e., he drops 41b altogether, and proceeds to omit also the whole of Act 2:43; Act 2:45.-κλῶντες ἄρτον: the question has been raised as to whether this expression has the same meaning here as in Act 2:42, or whether it is used here of merely ordinary meals. The additional words μετελάμβανον τροφῆς have been taken to support this latter view, but on the other hand if the two expressions are almost synonymous, it is difficult to see why the former κλῶντες ἄρτον should have been introduced here at all, cf. Knabenbauer in loco. It is not satisfactory to lay all the stress upon the omission of the article before ἄρτον, and to explain the expression of ordinary daily meals, an interpretation adopted even by the Romanist Beelen and others. In the Didache 1 the expression κλάσατε ἄρτον, chap. iv. 1, certainly refers to the Eucharist, and in the earlier chap. ix, where the word κλάσμα occurs twice in the sense of broken bread, it can scarcely refer to anything less than the Agape (Salmon, Introd., p. 565, and Gore, The Church and the Ministry, p. 414, on the value of the Eucharistic teaching in the Didache 1).-μετελ.: the imperf. denotes a customary act, the meaning of the verb with the gen[133] as here is frequently found in classical Greek; cf. LXX, Wis 18:9, 4Ma 8:8, AR., and Act 16:18.-ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει: exulting, bounding joy; Vulgate, exultatione, “extreme joy,” Grimm, used by St. Luke twice in his Gospel, Luk 1:14; Luk 1:44-only twice elsewhere in the N.T., Heb 1:9, quotation, and in Jud 1:24. The word, though not occurring in classical Greek, was a favourite in the LXX, where it occurs no less than eighteen times in the Psalms alone. This “gladness” is full of significance-it is connected with the birth of the forerunner by the angel’s message to Zacharias, Luk 1:14; the cognate verb ἀγαλλιάω, -άομαι, common to St. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts, denotes the spiritual and exultant joy with which the Church age after age has rejoiced in the Song of the Incarnation, Luk 1:47.-ἀφελότητι καρδίας: rightly derived from a priv. and φελλεύς, stony ground = a smooth soil, free from stones (but see Zöckler, in loco, who derives ἀφέλεια, the noun in use in Greek writers, from φέλα, πέλλα, Macedon. a stone). The word itself does not occur elsewhere, but ἀφέλεια, ἀφελής, ἀφελῶς are all found (Wetstein), and just as the adj[134] ἀφελής signified a man ἁπλοῦς ἐν τῷ βίῳ, so the noun here used might well be taken as equivalent to ἁπλότης (Overbeck) “in simplicity of heart,” simplicitate, Bengel. Wendt compares the words of Demosthenes, ἀφελὴς καὶ παρρησίας μεστός.
[133] genitive case.
[134] adjective.
Act 2:47. αἰνοῦντες τὸν Θεὸν: a favourite expression with St. Luke, cf. Gospel Act 2:13; Act 2:20, Act 19:37, Act 3:8-9, elsewhere only in Rom 15:11 (a quotation), and Rev 19:5, with dative of person, W.H[135] The praise refers not merely to their thanksgivings at meals, but is characteristic of their whole devotional life both in public and private; and their life of worship and praise, combined with their liberality and their simplicity of life, helped to secure for them the result given in the following words, and an unmolested hearing in the Temple “Hunc inveniunt (favorem) qui Deum laudant” Bengel. αἰνέω is very frequent in the LXX, and nearly always of the praise of God, but cf. Gen 49:8, Pro 31:28; Pro 31:30-31, Sir 44:1, etc.-ἔχοντες χάριν: if the life of the Church at this stage has been compared with that of her divine Master, inasmuch as it increased in wisdom and stature, another point of likeness may be found in the fact that the Church, like Christ, was in favour with God and man.-χάριν: very frequent in St. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts (Friedrich), only three times in the Gospel of St. John, and not at all in St. Matthew or St. Mark. In the O.T. it is often used of finding favour in the sight of God, and in the N.T. in a similar sense, cf. Luk 1:30, Act 7:46. It is also used in the O.T. of favour, kindness, goodwill, especially from a superior to an inferior (Gen 18:3; Gen 32:5, etc.), so too in the N.T., here, and in Act 7:10. See further note on Act 14:3. In Luke’s Gospel eight times, in Acts seventeen times. See also Plummer’s full note on Luk 4:22, Sanday and Headlam’s Romans, p. 10, and Grimm-Thayer, sub v. Rendall would render “giving Him thanks before all the people,” and he refers to the fact that the phrase is always so rendered elsewhere (though once wrongly translated, Heb 12:28). But the phrase is also found in LXX, Exo 33:12, 1Es 6:5 (see also Wetstein, in loco) in the sense first mentioned.-ὁ δὲ κύριος προσετίθει, i.e., the Lord Christ, cf. Act 2:36 (as Holtzmann, Wendt, Weiss, amongst others). The pure and simple life of the disciples doubtless commended them to the people, and made it easier for them to gain confidence, and so converts, but the growth of the Church, St. Luke reminds us, was not the work of any human agency or attractiveness.-τοὺς σωζομένους: naturally connected with the prophecy in Act 2:21 (cf. Act 5:40), so that the work of salvation there attributed to Jehovah by the Old Testament Prophet is here the work of Christ the inference is again plain with regard to our Lord’s divinity. The expression is rightly translated in R.V. (so too in 1Co 1:18, 2Co 2:15. See Burton, Moods and Tenses in N. T. Greek, pp. 57, 58). It has nothing to do, as Wetstein well remarks, with the secret counsels of God, but relates to those who were obeying St. Peter’s command in Act 2:40. An apt parallel is given by Mr. Page from Thuc., vii., 44.
[135] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Gift of Tongues, Act 2:4. λαλεῖν ἑτέραις γλώσσαις.-There can be no doubt that St. Luke’s phrase (cf. γλώσσαις καιναῖς, Mar 16:17, W.H[136], margin, not text), taken with the context, distinctly asserts that the Apostles, if not the whole Christian assembly (St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, including the hundred-and-twenty), received the power of speaking in foreign languages, and that some of their hearers at all events understood them, Act 2:8; Act 2:11 (ἡμετέραις). (On the phrase as distinguished from those used elsewhere in Acts and in 1 Cor., see Grimm-Thayer, sub v., γλῶττα 2, and Blass, Acta Apost., p. 50, “γλῶττα etiam ap. att. per se est lingua peregrina vel potius vocabulum peregrinum”.) Wendt and Matthias, who have recently given us a lengthy account of the events of the first Christian Pentecost, both hold that this speaking with tongues is introduced by St. Luke himself, and that it is a legendary embellishment from his hand of what actually took place; the speaking with tongues at Pentecost was simply identical with the same phenomenon described elsewhere in Act 10:46, Act 19:6, and in 1Co 12:14. This is plain from St. Peter’s own words in Act 11:15; Act 11:17; so in Act 19:6, the speaking with tongues is the immediate result of the outpouring of the Spirit. So too Wendt lays stress upon the fact that St. Paul says λαλεῖν γλώσσαις or γλώσση, but not λαλ. ἑτέρ. γλ. The former was evidently the original mode of describing the phenomenon, to which Luke recurs in his own description in Act 10:46 and Act 19:6, whereas in the passage before us his language represents the miraculous enhancement of the events of Pentecost. M’Giffert, in the same way, thinks that the writer of Acts, far removed moved from the events, could hardly avoid investing even the common phenomena of the Glossolalia with marvel and mystery. Wendt however admits that this embellishment was already accomplished by Christian tradition before Luke. But if St. Luke must have had every means of knowing from St. Paul the character of the speaking with tongues at Corinth, it does not seem unfair to maintain that he also had means of knowing from the old Palestinian Christians, who had been in union with the Church at Jerusalem from the beginning, e.g., from a John Mark, or a Mnason (ἀρχαῖος μαθητής, Act 21:16), the exact facts connected with the great outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Schmid, Biblische Theologie, pp. 278, 279). But it is further to be noted that Wendt by no means denies that there was a miraculous element, as shown in the outpouring of the Spirit, in the events of the Pentecostal Feast, but that he also considers it quite unlikely that Luke’s introduction of a still further miraculous element was prompted by a symbolising tendency, a desire to draw a parallel between the Christian Pentecost and the miraculous delivery of the Law, according to the Jewish tradition that the one voice which proceeded from Sinai divided into seventy tongues, and was heard by the seventy nations of the world, each in their mother tongue (so Zeller, Pfleiderer, Hilgenfeld, Spitta, Jüngst and Matthias, and so apparently Clemen in his “Speaking with Tongues,” Expository Times, p. 345, 1899). But in the first place there is no convincing evidence at the early date of the Christian Pentecost of any connection in Jewish tradition between the Feast of Pentecost and the giving of the Law on Sinai (cf. Schmid, Biblische Theologie, p. 286; Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, i., 7, 1057, and Holtzmann, Apostelgeschichte, p. 330), and it is significant that neither Philo nor Josephus make any reference to any such connection; and in the next place it is strange, as Wendt himself points out, that if Luke had started with the idea of the importance of any such symbolism, no reference should be made to it in the subsequent address of Peter, whereas even in the catalogue of the nations there is no reference of any kind to the number seventy; the number actually given, Act 2:9; Act 2:11, might rather justify the farfetched notice of Holtzmann (u. s., p. 331), that a reference is meant to the sixteen grandsons of Noah, Gen 10:1-2; Gen 10:6; Gen 10:21. Certainly Heb 2:2-4 cannot, as Schmid well points out against Holtzmann, lead to any such connection of ideas as the μερισμοὶ πνεύμ. ἁγ. are evidently the distribution of the gifts of the Spirit. We may readily admit that the miracle on the birthday of the Christian Church was meant to foreshadow the universal progress of the new faith, and its message for all mankind without distinction of nation, position, or age. But even if the Jewish tradition referred to above was in existence at this early date, we have still to consider whether the narrative in Acts could possibly be a copy of it, or dependent upon it. According to the tradition, a voice was to be expected from Heaven which would be understood by different men in their mother tongues, but in our narrative the Apostles themselves speak after the manner of men in these tongues. For to suppose that the Apostles all spoke one and the same language, but that the hearers were enabled to understand these utterances, each in his own language, is not only to do violence to the narrative, but simply to substitute one miraculous incident for another. Nor again, as Wendt further admits, is there any real ground for seeing in the miraculous event under consideration a cancelling of the confusion of tongues at Babel which resulted from rebellion against God, for the narrative does not contain any trace of the conception of a unity of language to which the Jewish idea appears to have tended as a contrast to the confusion of Babel (Test. xii., Patr., Jud., xxv). The unity is not one of uniformity of speech but of oneness of Spirit and in the Spirit. At the same time there was a peculiar fitness in the fact that the first and most abundant bestowal of this divine gift should be given at a Feast which was marked above all others by the presence of strangers from distant lands, that a sign should thus be given to them that believed not, and that the firstfruits of a Gentile harvest should be offered by the Spirit to the Father (Iren., Adv. Haer, iii., 17), an assurance to the Apostles of the greatness and universality of the message which they were commissioned to deliver. But there is no reason to suppose that this power Of speaking in foreign languages was a permanent gift. In the first place the Greek language was known throughout the Roman Empire, and in the next place Act 14:11 (see in loco) seems to forbid any such view. The speaking with tongues in Acts 2 and in other passages of the N.T. may be classed as identical in so far as each was the effect of the divine Πνεῦμα, each a miraculous spiritual gift, marking a new epoch of spiritual life. But in Acts we have what we have not elsewhere-the speaking in foreign tongues-this was not the case in Corinth; there the speaking with tongues was absolutely unintelligible, it could not be understood without an interpreter, i.e., without another gift of the divine Spirit, viz., interpretation, 1Co 12:10; 1Co 12:30 (the word unknown inserted in A.V. in 1 Corinthians 14 is unfortunate), and the fact that the Apostle compares the speaking with tongues to a speaking in foreign languages shows that the former was itself no speaking in foreign tongues, since two identical things do not admit of comparison (Schmid, u. s., pp. 288, 289).
[136] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Peter might well express his belief that Cornelius and those who spoke with tongues had also received the Holy Ghost, cf. Act 10:44, Act 11:17; Act 11:24, in loco; but it does not follow that the gift bestowed upon them was identical with that bestowed at Pentecost-there were diversities of gifts from the bounty of the One Spirit. Felten, Apostelgeschichte, p. 78; Evans in Speaker’s Commentary on 1 Cor., p. 334; Plumptre, B.D.1 “Tongues, Gift of”; Weizsäcker, Apostolic Age, ii., pp. 272, 273, E.T., and Feine, Eine Vorkanonische Ueberlieferung des Lukas, n., p. 167; Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, p. 177; Page, Acts of the Apostles, note on chap. Act 2:4; and A. Wright, Some N. T. Problems, p. 277 ff.
The objection urged at length by Wendt and Spitta that foreign languages could not have been spoken, since in that case there was no occasion to accuse the Apostles of drunkenness, but that ecstatic incoherent utterances of devotion and praise might well have seemed to the hearers sounds produced by revelry or madness (cf. 1Co 14:23), is easily met by noting that the utterances were not received with mockery by all but only by some, the word ἕτεροι apparently denoting quite a different class of hearers, who may have been unacquainted with the language spoken, and hence regarded the words as an unintelligible jargon.
Spitta attempts to break up Act 2:1-13 into two sources, 1a, 4, 12, 13, belonging to A, and simply referring to a Glossolalia like that at Corinth, whilst the other verses are assigned to [137] and the Redactor, and contain a narrative which could only have been derived from the Jewish tradition mentioned above, and introducing the notion of foreign tongues at a date when the Glossolalia had ceased to exist, and so to be understood. Spitta refers συμπληροῦσθαι Act 2:1 to the filling up of the number of the Apostles in chap. 1, so that his source A begins καὶ ἐν τῷ συμπλ.… ἐπλήσθησαν πάντες π. ἁγ., Apostelgeschichte, p. 52. It is not surprising that Hilgenfeld should speak of the narrative as one which cannot be thus divided, upon which as he says Spitta has in vain essayed his artificial analysis.
[137] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.
Community of Goods.-The key to the two passages, Act 2:42 ff. and Act 4:32 ff., is to be found in the expression in which they both agree, occurring in Act 2:45 and Act 4:35, καθότι ἄν τις χρείαν εἶχεν. Such expressions indicate, as we have seen, not reckless but judicious charity (see also Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p. 373, and reading in , Act 2:45); they show wise management, as in early days St. Chrysostom noted in commenting on the words, so that the Christians did not act recklessly like many philosophers among the Greeks, of whom some gave up their lands, others cast great quantities of money into the sea, which was no contempt of riches, but only folly and madness (Hom., vii.). Not that St. Luke’s glowing and repeated description (on St. Luke’s way of sometimes repeating himself as here, see Harris, Four Lectures on the Western Text, p. 85) is to be confined to the exercise of mere almsgiving on the part of the Church. Both those who had, and those who had not, were alike the inheritors of a kingdom which could only be entered by the poor in spirit, alike members of a family and a household in which there was one Master, even Christ, in Whose Name all who believed were brethren. In this poverty of spirit, in this sense of brotherhood, “the poor man knew no shame, the rich no haughtiness” (Chrys.).
But whilst men were called upon to give ungrudgingly, they were not called upon to give of necessity: what each one had was still his own, τὰ ὑπάρχοντα αὐτῷ, Act 4:32, although not even one (οὐδὲ εῖς) of them reckoned it so; the daily ministration in Act 6:1 seems to show that no equal division of property amongst all was intended; the act of Barnabas was apparently one of charity rather than of communism, for nothing is said of an absolute surrender of all that he had; the act of Ananias and Sapphira was entirely voluntary, although it presented itself almost as a duty (Ramsay, u. s.); Mark’s mother still retains her home at Jerusalem, Act 12:12, and it would seem that Mnason too had a dwelling there (see on Act 21:16). At Joppa, Act 9:36; Act 9:39, and at Antioch, Act 11:29, there was evidently no absolute equality of earthly possessions-Tabitha helps the poor out of her own resources, and every man as he prospered sent his contributions to the Church at Jerusalem.
It is sometimes urged that this enthusiasm of charity and of the spirit (ἐνθουσιασμός, as Blass calls it), which filled at all events the Church at Jerusalem, was due to the expectation of Christ’s immediate return, and that in the light of that event men regarded lands and possessions as of no account, even if ordinary daily work was not neglected (O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 233). But it is strange that if this is the true account of the action of the Church at Jerusalem, a similar mode of life and charity should not have found place in other Churches, e.g., in the Church at Thessalonica, where the belief in Christ’s speedy return was so overwhelmingly felt (Felten). No picture could be more extraordinary than that drawn by O. Holtzmann of the Christian Church at Jerusalem, driven by the voice of Christian prophets to enjoin an absolutely compulsory community of goods in expectation of the nearness of the Parousia, and of Ananias and Sapphira as the victims of this tyrannical product of fanaticism and overwrought excitement. It is a relief to turn from such a strange perversion of the narrative to the enthusiastic language in which, whilst insisting on its idealising tendency, Renan and Pfleiderer alike have recognised the beauty of St. Luke’s picture, and of the social transformation which was destined to renew the face of the earth, which found its pattern of serving and patient love in Jesus the Friend of the poor, whose brotherhood opened a place of refuge for the oppressed, the destitute, the weak, who enjoyed in the mutual love of their fellows a foretaste of the future kingdom in which God Himself will wipe all tears from their eyes. Whatever qualifications must be made in accepting the whole description given us by Renan and Pfleiderer, they were at least right in recognising the important factor of the Person of Jesus, and the probability that during His lifetime He had Himself laid the foundations of the social movement which so soon ennobled and blessed His Church. It is far more credible that the disciples should have continued the common life in which they had lived with their Master than that they should have derived a social system from the institutions of the Essenes. There is no proof of any historical connection between this sect and the Apostolic Church, nor can we say that the high moral standard and mode of common life adopted by the Essenes, although in some respects analogous to their own, had any direct influence on the followers of Christ. Moreover, with points of comparison, there were also points of contrast. St. Luke’s notice, Act 2:46, that the believers continued steadfastly in the Temple, stands out in contrast to the perpetual absence of the Essenes from the Temple, to which they sent their gifts (Jos., Ant., xviii. 2, 5); the common meals of the Essene brotherhood naturally present a likeness to St. Luke’s description of the early Christian Church, but whilst the Essenes dined together, owing to their scrupulosity in avoiding all food except what was ceremonially pure, the Christians saw in every poor man who partook of their common meal the real Presence of their Lord. Of all contemporary sects it may no doubt be said that the Christian society resembled most nearly the Essenes, but with this admission Weizsäcker well adds: “The Essenes, through their binding rules and their suppression of individualism, were, from their very nature, an order of limited extent. In the new Society the moral obligation of liberty reigned, and disclosed an unlimited future,” Apostolic Age, i., 58 (E.T.). It is often supposed that the after-poverty of the Church in Jerusalem, Rom 15:26, Gal 2:10, etc., was the result of this first enthusiasm of love and charity, and that the failure of a community of goods in the mother city prevented its introduction elsewhere. But not only is the above view of the “communism” of the early Christians adverse to this supposition, but there were doubtless many causes at work which may account for the poverty of the Saints in Jerusalem, cf. Rendall, Expositor, Nov., 1893, p. 322. The collection for the Saints, which occupies such a prominent place in St. Paul’s life and words, may not have been undertaken for any exceptional distress as in the earlier case of the famine in Judæa, Act 11:26, but we cannot say how severely the effects of the famine may have affected the fortunes of the Jerusalem Christians. We must too take into account the persecution of the Christians by their rich neighbours; the wealthy Sadducees were their avowed opponents. From the first it was likely that the large majority of the Christians in Jerusalem would possess little of this world’s goods, and the constant increase in the number of the disciples would have added to the difficulty of maintaining the disproportionate number of poor. But we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there was another and a fatal cause at work-love itself had grown cold-the picture drawn by St. James in his Epistle is painfully at variance with the golden days which he had himself seen, when bitter jealousy and faction were unknown, for all were of one heart and one soul, Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, p. 39 ff.; Zöckler, u.s., pp. 191, 192; Wendt, in loco; M‘Giffert, Apostolic Age, p. 67; Conybeare, “Essenes,” Hastings’ B.D.; Kaufmann, Socialism and Communism, p. 5 ff.
1. And when. To be fulfilled is taken in this place for to come. For Luke beareth record again of their perseverance, when he saith that they stood all in one place until the time which was set them. Hereunto serveth the adverb, with one accord Furthermore, we have before declared why the Lord did defer the sending of his Spirit a whole month and a half. But the question is, why he sent him upon that day chiefly. I will not refute that high and subtle interpretation of Augustine, that like as the law was given to the old people fifty days after Easter, being written in tables of stone by the hand of God, so the Spirit, whose office it is to write the same in our hearts, did fulfill that which was figured in the giving of the law as many days after the resurrection of Christ, who is the true Passover. Notwithstanding, whereas he urgeth this his subtle interpretation as necessary, in his book of Questions upon Exodus, and in his Second Epistle unto Januarius, I would wish him to be more sober and modest therein. Notwithstanding, let him keep his own interpretation to himself. In the mean season, I will embrace that which is more sound.
Upon the feast day, wherein a great multitude was wont to resort to Jerusalem, was this miracle wrought, that it might be more famous. And truly by means hereof was it spread abroad, even unto the uttermost parts and borders of the earth. (77) For the same purpose did Christ oftentimes go up to Jerusalem upon the holy days, (78) (Joh 2:0,) to the end those miracles which he wrought might be known to many, and that in the greater assembly of people there might be the greater fruit of his doctrine. For so will Luke afterward declare, that Paul made haste that he might come to Jerusalem before the day of Pentecost, not for any religion’s sake, but because of the greater assembly, that he might profit the more, (Act 20:16.) Therefore, in making choice of the day, the profit of the miracle was respected: First, that it might be the more extolled at Jerusalem, because the Jews were then more bent to consider the works of God; and, secondly, that it might be bruited abroad, even in far countries. They called it the fiftieth day, beginning to reckon at the first-fruits.
(77) “Ut more videbimus,” as we shall by and by see, omitted.
(78) “Festis diebus,” on feast days, or festivals.
2. And there was made It was requisite that the gift should be visible, that the bodily sense might the more stir up the disciples. For such is our slothfulness to consider the gifts of God, that unless he awake all our senses, his power shall pass away unknown. This was, therefore, a preparation that they might the better know that the Spirit was now come which Christ had promised. Although it was not so much for their sake as for ours, even as in that the cloven and fiery tongues appeared, there was rather respect had of us, and of all the whole Church in that, than of them. For God was able to have furnished them with necessary ability to preach the gospel, although he should use no sign. They themselves might have known that it came to pass neither by chance, neither yet through their own industry, that they were so suddenly changed; but those signs which are here set down were about to be profitable for all ages; as we perceive at this day that they profit us. And we must briefly note the proportion of the signs. The violence of the wind did serve to make them afraid; for we are never rightly prepared to receive the grace of God, unless the confidence (and boldness) of the flesh be tamed. For as we have access unto him by faith, so humility and fear setteth open the gate, that he may come in unto us. He hath nothing to do with proud and careless men. It is a common thing for the Spirit to be signified by wind, (or a blast,) (Joh 20:22.) For both Christ himself, when he was about to give the Spirit to his apostles, did breathe upon them; and in Ezekiel’s vision there was a whirlwind and wind, (Eze 1:4.) Yea, the word Spirit itself is a translated word; for, because that hypostasis, or person of the Divine essence, which is called the Spirit, is of itself incomprehensible, the Scripture doth borrow the word of the wind or blast, because it is the power of God which God doth pour into all creatures as it were by breathing. The shape of tongues is restrained unto the present circumstance. For as the figure and shape of a dove which came down upon Christ, (Joh 1:32,) had a signification agreeable to the office and nature of Christ, so God did now make choice of a sign which might be agreeable to the thing signified, namely, that it might show such effect and working of the Holy Ghost in the apostles as followed afterward.
The diversity of tongues did hinder the gospel from being spread abroad any farther; so that, if the preachers of the gospel had spoken one language only, all men would have thought that Christ had been shut up in the small corner of Jewry. But God invented a way whereby it might break out, when he divided and clove the tongues of the apostles, that they might spread that abroad amongst all people which was delivered to them. Wherein appeareth the manifold goodness of God, because a plague and punishment of man’s pride was turned into matter of blessing. For whence came the diversity of tongues, save only that the wicked and ungodly counsels of men might be brought to naught? (Gen 11:7.) But God doth furnish the apostles with the diversity of tongues now, that he may bring and call home, into a blessed unity, men which wander here and there. These cloven tongues made all men to speak the language of Canaan, as Isaiah foretold, (Isa 19:18.) For what language soever they speak, yet do they call upon one Father, which is in heaven, with one mouth and one spirit, (Rom 15:6.) I said that that was done for our sake, not only because the fruit came unto us, but because we know that the gospel came unto us not by chance, but by the appointment of God, who to this end gave the apostles cloven tongues, lest any nation should want that doctrine which was committed unto them; whereby is proved the calling of the Gentiles; and, secondly, hereby their doctrine doth purchase credit, which we know was not forged by man, seeing that we hear that the Spirit did dwell in their tongues.
Now, it remaineth that we declare what the fire meaneth. Without all doubt, it was a token of the (force and) efficacy which should be exercised in the voice of the apostles. Otherwise, although their sound had gone out into the uttermost parts of the world, they should only have beat the air, without doing any good at all. Therefore, the Lord doth show that their voice shall be fiery, that it may inflame the hearts of men; that the vanity of the world being burnt and consumed, it may purge and renew all things. Otherwise they durst never have taken upon them so hard a function, unless the Lord had assured them of the power of their preaching. Hereby it came to pass that the doctrine of the gospel did not only sound in the air, but pierce into the minds of men, and did fill them with an heavenly heat (and burning.) Neither was this force showed only in the mouth of the apostles, but it appeareth daily. And, therefore, we must beware lest, when the fire burneth, we be as stubble. Furthermore, the Lord did once give the Holy Ghost under a visible shape, that we may assure ourselves that his invisible and hidden grace shall never be wanting to the Church.
And it sat. Because the number is suddenly changed, it is to be doubted whether he speaketh of the fire. He said that there appeared tongues as it had been of fire. It followeth by and by, and it sat upon them. Notwithstanding, I refer it unto the Spirit. For the Hebrews use commonly to express the substantive of the verb in the second member, which they did omit in the former. Wherefore we have an example in this place: It sat upon them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. And we know that although Luke did write in Greek, yet is he full of those phrases which the Hebrews use. (79) Now, whereas he calleth the tongues the Holy Ghost, it is according to the custom of the Scripture. For John calleth the dove by the same name, (Joh 1:32,) because the Lord would testify and declare the presence of his Spirit by some such sign. If it were a vain sign, it should be an absurd naming (to call the sign by the name of the thing signified;) but where the thing is annexed, the name of the thing is fitly given to the sign which offereth the same unto our senses to be perceived. The fullness of the Spirit, wherewith he saith every one was replenished, doth not express the [an] equal measure of gifts in every one, but that excellence which should be meet for such a calling. (80)
(79) “Hebraismis,” Hebraisms.
(80) “Excellentiam quae obeundo muneri par futura esset.” but that excellence which might be sufficient to enable each to execute his office.
4. They began to speak He showeth that the effect did appear presently, and also to what use their tongues were to be framed and applied, But because Luke setteth down shortly after, that strangers out of divers countries did marvel, because that every one of them did hear the apostles speaking in their own tongue, some think that they spoke not in divers tongues, but that they did all understand that which was spoken in one tongue, as well as if they should hear their natural tongue. (81) Therefore, they think that one and the same sound of the voice was diversely distributed amongst the hearers. Another conjecture they have, because Peter made one sermon in the audience of many gathered together out of divers countries, who could not understand his speech (and language,) unless another voice should come unto their ears than that which proceeded out of his mouth. But we must first note that the disciples spoke indeed with strange tongues; otherwise the miracle had not been wrought in them, but in the hearers. So that the similitude should have been false whereof he made mention before; neither should the Spirit have been given so much to them as to others. Again, we hear how Paul giveth thanks to God, that he speaketh with divers tongues, (1. o 14:18.) Truly he challengeth to himself both the understanding, and also the use thereof. Neither did he attain to this skill by his own study and industry, but he had it by the gift of the Spirit. In the same place he affirmeth that it is an especial gift, wherewith all men are not endued. I suppose that it doth manifestly appear hereby that the apostles had the variety and understanding of tongues given them, that they might speak unto the Greeks in Greek, unto the Italians in the Italian tongue, (82) and that they might have true communication (and conference) with their hearers. Notwithstanding, I leave it indifference whether there was any second miracle wrought or no, so that the Egyptians and Elamites did understand Peter speaking in the Chaldean tongue, as if he did utter divers voices. For there be some conjectures which persuade me thus to think, and yet not so firm but that they may be refuted. For it may be that they spoke with divers tongues, as they light upon this man or that, and as occasion was offered, and as their languages were diverse. Therefore, it was a manifest miracle, when they saw them ready to speak divers languages. As touching Peter’s sermon, it might be understood of the greater part of men wheresoever they were born; for it is to be thought that many of those which came to Jerusalem were skillful in the Chaldean tongue. Again, it shall be nothing inconvenient if we say that he spoke also in other tongues. Although I will not much stand about this matter; so that this be out of doubt, that the apostles changed their speech. (83)
(81) “Nativum,” native.
(82) “Latine,” in Latin.
(83) “Vere mutasse,” truly changed.
5. And there were at Jerusalem. When he calleth them godly or religious men, he seemeth to give us to understand that they came to Jerusalem that they might worship God; like as God, in all ages, after the scattering abroad, did gather together into that city some seed which remained, having, as it were, set up his banner, because as yet the temple did serve to some use. Yet, nevertheless, he showeth, by the way, who those be which profit by those miracles, whereby God doth declare his power. For wicked and profane men do either laugh at them, or else pass [care] not for them, as we shall see by and by. Furthermore, he meant to cite those as witnesses, which may the better be believed for their religion and godliness. When he said, out of every nation, he meaneth out of divers countries, whereof one is far from another. For he doth also afterwards reckon up those lands whereof one was far distant from another, of which sort are Libya and Pontus, Rome and Parthia, and Arabia, and such like. This serveth to increase the greatness of the thing. For the Cretians and men of Asia, dwelling so near together, might have some likelihood and agreement in speech; (85) but the same could not be betwixt the Italians and the men of Cappadocia, betwixt the Arabians and those of Pontus. Yea, this was also a work of God worthy to be remembered and wondered at, that in so huge and horrible a scattering abroad of the people, he did always reserve some relics, yea, he caused certain strangers to adjoin themselves unto a people which was in such misery, and, as it were, quite destroyed. For although they lived here and there in exile in far countries, and being one far from another, did, as it were, inhabit divers worlds, yet did they hold among themselves the unity of faith. Neither doth he call them unadvisedly, and without good consideration, godly men, and men gearing God.
(85) “Linguae commercium,” interchange of speech.
6. When this was noised abroad. Luke saith thus in Greek, This voice being made; but his meaning is, that the fame was spread abroad, whereby it came to pass that a great multitude came together. For if one after another in divers places, and at divers times, had heard the apostles speaking in divers tongues, the miracle had not been so famous; therefore they come altogether into one place, that the diversity of tongues may the better appear by the present comparison. There is a further circumstance also here to be noted, that the country (and native soil) of the apostles was commonly known, and this was also commonly known, that they never went out of their country to learn (86) strange tongues. Therefore, forasmuch as one speaketh Latin, another Greek, another the Arabian tongue, as occasion was offered, and that indifferently, and every one doth also change his tongue, the work of God appeareth more plainly hereby.
(86) “Ut peregrinas linguas discere potuerint,” so as to be able to learn foreign tongues.
11. The wonderful works of God. Luke noteth two things which caused the hearers to wonder; first, because the apostles being before ignorant and private persons, (87) born in a base corner, (88) did, notwithstanding, intreat profoundly of divine matters, and of heavenly wisdom. The other is, because they have new tongues given them suddenly. Both things are worth the noting, because to huddle out [utter] words unadvisedly and foolishly, should not so much have served to move their minds; and the majesty of the things ought the more to have moved them to consider the miracle. Although they give due honor to God, in that they are astonished and amazed, yet the principal and of the miracle is expressed in this, that they inquire, and thereby declare that they are prepared to learn; for otherwise their amazedness and wondering should not have done them any great good. And certainly we must so wonder at the works of God, that there must be also a consideration, and a desire to understand.
(87) “Idiotae,” unlearned.
(88) “Nati in contempto angulo,” born in a district of no repute.
12. Others mocking Hereby it appeareth how monstrous as well the sluggishness, as also the ungodliness of men is, when Satan hath taken away their mind. If God should openly (and visibly) descend from heaven, his majesty could scarce more manifestly appear than in this miracle. Whosoever hath any drop of sound understanding in him must needs be stricken with the only hearing of it. How beastly, then, are those men who see it with their eyes, and yet scoff, and go about with their jests to mock the power of God? But the matter is so. There is nothing so wonderful which those men do not turn to a jest who are touched with no care of God; because they do, even upon set purposes, harden themselves in their ignorance in things most plain. And it is a just punishment of God, which he bringeth upon such pride, to deliver them to Satan, to be driven headlong into blind fury. Wherefore, there is no cause why we should marvel that there be so many at this day so blind in so great light, if they be so deaf when such manifest doctrine is delivered, yea, if they wantonly refuse salvation when it is offered unto them. For if the wonderful and strange works of God, wherein he doth wonderfully set forth his power, be subject to the mockery of men, what shall become of doctrine, which they think tasteth of nothing but of that which is common? Although Luke doth signify unto us that they were not of the worst sort, or altogether past hope, which did laugh (and mock;) but he meant rather to declare how the common sort was affected when they saw this miracle. And truly it hath been always so in the world, for very few have been touched with the true feeling of God as often as he hath revealed himself. Neither is it any marvel; for religion is a rare virtue, and a virtue which few men have; which is, indeed, the beginning of understanding. Nevertheless, howsoever the more part of men, through a certain hard stiff-neckedness, doth reject the consideration of the works of God, yet are they never without fruit, as we may see in this history.
14. And Peter, standing By this word standing he did signify, that there was a grave sermon made in the assembly; for they did rise when they spoke unto the people, to the end they might be the better heard. The sum of this sermon is this, he gathereth that Christ is already revealed and given by the gift of the Holy Ghost, which they saw. Yet, first, he refuteth that false opinion, in that they thought that the disciples were drunk. This refutation consisteth upon a probable argument; because men use not to be drunk betimes in the morning. For, as Paul saith,
“Those which are drunk are drunk in the night,”
(1. h 5:7.)
For they flee the light for shame. And surely so great is the filthiness of this vice, that for good causes it hateth the light. And yet this argument were not always good; for Esaias doth inveigh in his time against those which did rise early to follow drunkenness. And at this day there be many who, like hogs, so soon as they awake, run to quaffing. But because this is (89) a common custom amongst men, Peter saith, that it is no likely thing. Those which have but even small skill in antiquity do know that the civil day, from the rising of the sun until the going down thereof, was divided into twelve hours; so that the hours were longer in summer, and shorter in winter. Therefore, that which should now be the ninth before noon in winter, and in summer the eighth, was the third hour amongst the old people. (90) Therefore, whereas Peter doth only lightly remove the opinion of drunkenness, he doth it for this cause, because it had been superfluous to have stood about any long excuse. (91) Therefore, as in a matter which was certain and out of doubt, he doth rather pacify those which mocked, than labor to teach them. And he doth not so much refute them by the circumstance of time, as by the testimony of Joel. For when he saith that that is now come to pass which was foretold, he toucheth briefly their unthankfulness, because they do not acknowledge such an excellent benefit promised unto them in times past which they now see with their eyes. And whereas he upbraideth the fault of a few unto all, (92) he doth it not to this end, that he may make them all guilty of the same fault; but because a fit occasion was offered by their mocking to teach them altogether, he doth not foreslow the same. (93)
(89) “Abhorret,” differs from.
(90) “Veteribus,” the ancients.
(91) “Anxia excusatio,” anxious excuse.
(92) “Quod autem omnibus exprobrat paucorum vitium,” as to his upbraiding all with the fault of a few.
(93) “Eam non negligit,” he does not neglect it.
17. It shall be in the last days By this effect he proveth that the Messiah is already revealed. Joel, indeed, doth not express the last days, (Joe 2:29;) but for as much as he intreateth of the perfect restoring of the Church, it is not to be doubted but that that prophecy belongeth unto the last age alone. Wherefore, that which Peter bringeth doth no whit dissent from Joel’s meaning; but he doth only add this word for exposition sake, that the Jews might know that the Church could by no other means be restored, which was then decayed, but by being renewed by the Spirit of God. Again, because the repairing of the Church should be like unto a new world, therefore Peter saith that it shall be in the last days. And surely this was a common and familiar thing among the Jews, that all those great promises concerning the blessed and well-ordered state of the Church should not be fulfilled until Christ, by his coming, should restore all things. Wherefore, it was out of all doubt amongst them, that that which is cited out of Joel doth appertain unto the last time. Now, by the last days, or fullness of time, is meant the stable and firm condition of the Church, in the manifestation or revealing of Christ.
I will pour out my Spirit He intendeth to prove, (as we have already said,) that the Church can be repaired by no other means, saving only by the giving of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, forasmuch as they did all hope that the restoring drew near, he accuseth them of sluggishness, because they do not once think upon the way and means thereof. And when the prophet saith, “I will pour out,” it is, without all question, that he meant by this word to note the great abundance of the Spirit. And we must take I will pour out of my Spirit in the same sense, as if he had said simply, I will pour out my Spirit. For these latter words are the words of the prophet. But Peter followed the Grecians, who translate the Hebrew word ח, (cheth,) απο Therefore, some men do in vain more subtlely play the philosophers; because, howsoever the words be changed, yet must we still retain and keep the prophet’s meaning. Nevertheless, when God is said to pour out his Spirit, I confess it must be thus understood, that he maketh manifold variety and change of gifts to flow unto men from his Spirit, as it were out of the only fountain, the fountain which can never be drawn dry. For, as Paul doth testify, there be divers gifts, and yet but one Spirit, (1. o 12:4.) And hence do we gather a profitable doctrine, that we can have no more excellent thing given us of God than the grace of the Spirit; yea, that all other things are nothing worth if this be wanting. For, when God will briefly promise salvation to his people, he affirmeth that he will give them his Spirit. Hereupon it followeth that we can obtain no good things until we have the Spirit given us. And truly it is, as it were, the key which openeth unto us the door, that we may enter into all the treasures of spiritual good things; and that we may also have entrance into the kingdom of God.
Upon all flesh It appeareth, by that which followeth, of what force this generality is; for, first, it is set down generally, all flesh; after that the partition is added, whereby the prophet doth signify that there shall be no difference of age or kind, but that God admitteth all, one with another, unto the partaking of his grace. It is said, therefore, all flesh, because both young and old, men and women, are thereby signified; yet here may a question be moved, why Clod doth promise that unto his people, as some new and unwonted good thing, which he was wont to do for them from the beginning throughout all ages; for there was no age void of the grace of the Spirit. The answer of this question is set down in these two sentences: “I will pour out,” and, “Upon all flesh;” for we must here note a double contrariety, (94) between the time of the Old and New Testament; for the pouring out (as I have said) doth signify great plenty, when as there was under the law a more scarce distribution; for which cause John also doth say that the Holy Ghost was not given until Christ ascended into heaven. All flesh cloth signify an infinite multitude, whereas God in times past did vouchsafe to bestow such plenty of his Spirit only upon a few.
Furthermore, in both comparisons we do not deny but that the fathers under the law were partakers of the self, same grace whereof we are partakers; but the Lord doth show that we are above them, as we are indeed. I say, that all godly men since the beginning of the world were endued with the same spirit of understanding, of righteousness, and sanctification, wherewith the Lord doth at this day illuminate and regenerate us; but there were but a few which had the light of knowledge given them then, if they be compared with the great multitude of the faithful, which Christ did suddenly gather together by his coming. Again, their knowledge was but obscure and slender, and, as it were, covered with a veil, if it be compared with that which we have at this day out of the gospel, where Christ, the Sun of righteousness, doth shine with perfect brightness, as it were at noon day. Neither doth that any whit hurt or hinder that a few had such an excellent faith, that peradventure they have no equal at this day. For their understanding did nevertheless smell or savor of the instruction and schoolmastership (95) of the law. For that is always true, that godly kings and prophets have not seen nor heard those things which Christ hath revealed by his coming. Therefore, to the end the prophet Joel may commend the excellency of the New Testament, he affirmeth and foretelleth that the grace of the Spirit shall be more plentiful in time thereof; and, again, that it shall come unto more men, (Mat 13:17; Luk 10:24.)
And your sons shall prophesy By the word prophesy he meant to note the rare and singular gift of understanding. And to the same purpose tendeth that partition which followeth afterwards, “your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;” for we gather out of the twelfth chapter of Numbers, that these were the two ordinary ways whereby God did reveal himself to the prophets. For in that place, when the Lord exempteth Moses from the common sort of prophets, he saith,
“I appear unto my servants by a vision, or by a dream; but I speak unto Moses face to face,”
(Num 12:6.)
Therefore, we see that two kinds are put after the general word for a confirmation; yet this is the sum, that they shall all be prophets so soon as the Holy Ghost shall be poured out from heaven. But here it is objected, that there was no such thing, even in the apostles themselves, neither yet in the whole multitude of the faithful. I answer, that the prophets did commonly use to shadow under tropes most fit for their time, (96) the kingdom of Christ. When they speak of the worship of God, they name the altar, the sacrifices, the offering of gold, silver, and frankincense. Notwithstanding, we know that the altars do cease, the sacrifices are abolished, whereof there was some use in time of the law; and that the Lord requireth some higher thing at our hands than earthly riches. That is true, indeed; but the prophets, whilst they apply their style unto the capacity of their time, comprehend under figures (wherewith the people were then well acquainted) those things which we see otherwise revealed and showed now, like as when he promiseth elsewhere that he will make priests of Levites, and Levites of the common sort of men, (Isa 66:21,) this is his meaning, that under the kingdom of Christ every base person shall be extolled unto an honorable estate; therefore, if we desire to ]lave the true and natural meaning of this place, we must not urge the words which are taken out of the old order (97) of the law; but we must only seek the truth without figures, and this is it, that the apostles, through the sudden inspiration of the Spirit, did intreat of the heavenly mysteries prophetically, that is to say, divinely, and above the common order.
Therefore, this word prophesy doth signify nothing else save only the rare and excellent gift of understanding, as if Joel should say, Under the kingdom of Christ there shall not be a few prophets only, unto whom God may reveal his secrets; but all men shall be endued with spiritual wisdom, even to the prophetical excellency. As it is also in Jeremiah,
“Every man shall no longer teach his neighbor; because they shall all know me, from the least unto the greatest,”
(Jer 31:34.)
And in these words Peter inviteth the Jews, unto whom he speaketh, to be partakers of the same grace. As if he should say, the Lord is ready to pour out that Spirit far and wide which he hath poured upon us. Therefore, unless you yourselves be the cause of let, ye shall receive with us of this fullness. And as for us, let us know that the same is spoken to us at this day which was then spoken to the Jews. For although those visible graces of the Spirit be ceased, yet God hath not withdrawn his Spirit from his Church. Wherefore he offereth him daily unto us all, by this same promise, without putting any difference. Wherefore we are poor and needy only through our own sluggishness; and also it appeareth manifestly, that those are wicked and sacrilegious enemies of the Spirit which keep back the Christian common people from the knowledge of God; and forasmuch as he himself doth not only admit, but also call by name unto himself, women and men, young and old.
(94) “Antithesis,” antithesis.
(95) “Paedagogiam,” tutelage.
(96) “Suo seculo,” for their own age.
(97) “OEconomia,” economy.
18. Upon my servants. In these words the promise is restrained unto the worshippers of God. For God doth not profane his Spirit; which he should do, if he should make the stone common to the unbelieving and despisers. It is certain that we are made the servants of God by the Spirit; and that, therefore, we are not, until such time as we have received the same; but, first, whom God hath adopted to be of his family, and whom he hath framed by his Spirit to obey him, those doth he furnish with new gifts afterward. Again, the prophet did not respect that order of thee, but his meaning was to make this grace proper to the Church alone. And forasmuch as the Church was only among the Jews, he calleth them honorably the servants and handmaids of God. But after that God did gather unto himself on every side a Church, the wall of separation being pulled down, so many as are received into the society of the covenant are called by the same name. Only let us remember, that the Spirit is appointed for the Church properly.
19. And I will show wonders We must first see what is meant by this great day of the Lord. Some do expound it of the former coming of Christ in the flesh; and others refer it unto the last day of the resurrection, I do allow neither opinion. For, in my judgment, the prophet comprehendeth the whole kingdom of Christ. And so he calleth it the great day, after that the Son of God began to be revealed in the flesh, that he may lead us into the fulfilling of his kingdom. Therefore, he appointeth no certain day, but he beginneth this day at the first preaching of the gospel, and he extendeth the same unto the last resurrection. Those which restrain it unto the time of the apostles are moved with this reason, because the prophet joineth this member and that which goeth next before together. But in that there is no absurdity at all, because the prophet doth assign the time when these things began to come to pass, howsoever they have a continual going forward even until the end of the world. Furthermore, whereas he saith that the sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon into blood, they are figurative speeches, whereby he doth give us to understand thus much, that the Lord will show tokens of his wrath through the whole frame of the world, which shall bring men even to their wit’s end, as if there should be some horrible and fearful change of nature wrought. For as the sun and moon are unto us witnesses of God’s fatherly favor towards us, whilst that by course they give light to the earth; so, on the other side, the prophet saith, that they shall be messengers to foreshow God’s wrath and displeasure. And this is the second member of the prophecy. For after that he had intreated of the spiritual grace which should be abundantly poured out upon all flesh, lest any man should imagine that all things should be quiet and prosperous together, therewithal he addeth that the estate of the world shall be troublesome, and full of great fear under Christ; as Christ himself doth more fully declare, Mat 24:0. and Luk 21:0.
But this serveth greatly to the setting forth of grace, that whereas all things do threaten destruction, yet whosoever doth call upon the name of the Lord is sure to be saved. By the darkness of the sun, by the bloody streaming of the moon, by the black vapor of smoke, the prophet meant to declare, that whithersoever men turn their eyes, there shall many things appear, both upward and downward, which may make them amazed and afraid, as he hath already said. Therefore, this is as much as if he should have said, that the world was never in a more miserable case, that there were never so many and such cruel tokens of God’s wrath. Hence may we gather how inestimable the goodness of God is, who offereth a present remedy for so great evils; and again, how unthankful they are towards God, and how froward, which do not flee unto the sanctuary of salvation, which is nigh unto them, and doth meet them. Again, it is out of all doubt, that God meaneth by this so doleful a description, to stir up all godly men, that they may with a more fervent desire seek for salvation. And Peter citeth it to the same end, that the Jews may know that they shall be more miserable unless they receive that grace of the Spirit which is offered unto them. Yet here may a question be asked, how this can hang together, that when Christ is revealed, there should such a sea of miseries overflow and break out therewithal? For it may seem to be a thing very inconvenient, (98) that he should be the only pledge of God’s love toward mankind, in whom the heavenly Father doth lay open all the treasure of his goodness, yea, he poureth out the bowels of his mercy upon us, and that yet, by the coming of the same, his Son, his wrath should be more hot than it was wont, so that it should, as it were, quite consume both heaven and earth at once.
But we must first mark, that because men are too slow to receive Christ, they must be constrained by divers afflictions, as it were with whips. Secondly, forasmuch as Christ doth call unto himself all those which are heavy laden and labor, (Mat 11:28,) we must first be tamed by many miseries, that we may learn humility. For through great prosperity men do set up the horns of pride. And he cannot but despise Christ fiercely, whosoever he be, that seemeth to himself to be happy. Thirdly, because we are, more than we ought, set upon the seeking of the peace of the flesh, whereby it cometh to pass that many tie the grace of Christ unto the present life, it is expedient for us to be accustomed to think otherwise, that we may know that the kingdom of Christ is spiritual. Therefore, to the end God may teach us that the good things of Christ are heavenly, he doth exercise us, according to the flesh, with many miseries; whereby it cometh to pass that we do seek our felicity without the world. Moreover, men do bring miseries upon themselves through their unthankfulness; for the servant which knoweth his master’s will, and doth not obey, is worthy of greater and more stripes, (Luk 12:47.) The more familiarly that God doth communicate with us in Christ, the more doth our ungodliness grow and break out into open contumacy, so that it is no marvel if, when Christ is revealed, there appear many tokens of God’s vengeance on the other side, forasmuch as men do hereby more grievously provoke God against them, and kindle his wrath through wicked contempt. Surely, in that the day of Christ is fearful, it is an accidental thing; whether God will correct our slothfulness, to bring us under, which [who] are yet inapt to be taught, or whether he will punish our unthankfulness. For it bringeth with it of itself nothing but that which is pleasant; but the contempt of God’s grace doth provoke him to horrible anger not without cause.
(98) “Absurdum,” absurd.
21. Whosoever shall call upon An excellent place. For as God doth prick us forward like sluggish asses, with threatenings and terrors to seek salvation, se, after that he hath brought darkness upon the face of heaven and earth, yet doth he show a means whereby salvation may shine before our eyes, to wit, if we shall call upon him. For we must diligently note this circumstance. If God should promise salvation simply, it were a great matter; but it is a far greater when as he promiseth the same amidst manifold dungeons of death. Whilst that (saith he) all things shall be out of order, and the fear of destruction shall possess all things, only call upon me, and ye shall be saved. Therefore, howsoever man be swallowed up ill the gulf of miseries, yet is there set before him a way to escape. We must also note the universal word, whosoever For God admitteth all men unto himself without exception, and by this means doth he invite them to salvation, as Paul gathereth in the tenth chapter to the Romans, and as the prophet had set it down before,
“Thou, Lord, which hearest the prayer,
unto thee shall all flesh come,”
(Psa 65:2.)
Therefore, forasmuch as no man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men; neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief. I speak of all unto whom God doth make himself manifest by the gospel. But like as those which call upon the name of the Lord are sure of salvation, so we must think that, without the same, we are thrice miserable and undone. And when as our salvation is placed in calling upon God, there is nothing in the mean season taken from faith, forasmuch as this invocation is grounded on faith alone. There is also another circumstance no less worthy the noting; in that the prophet doth signify, that the calling upon God doth properly appertain and agree unto the last days. For although he would be called upon in all ages, notwithstanding, since that he showed himself to be a Father in Christ, we have the more easy access unto him. Which thing ought both the more to embolden us, and to take from us all sluggishness. As he himself doth also reason, that by this privilege our forwardness to pray is doubled to us: “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in nay name; ask, and ye shall receive;” as if he should say, theretofore, although I did not yet appear to be a mediator and advocate in the faith, yet did ye pray; but now, when you shall have me to be your patron, with how much more courage ought ye to do that?
22. Jesus of Nazareth Now doth Peter apply unto his purpose the prophecy of Joel; namely, that the Jews may thereby know that the time of restoring was present; and that Christ was given them for this purpose. For this promise was no otherwise to be fulfilled, save only by the coming of the Mediator. And this is the right use of all those gifts which we have by Christ, whilst that they bring us unto Christ, as unto a fountain. But he cometh hither by little and little. For he doth not by and by in the beginning affirm that Jesus was Christ; but he saith only that he was a man sent of God; and that doth he prove by his miracles. Afterward he addeth, that he rose from death when he was slain. Whereby it appeareth more certainly and more fully that he was not one of the prophets, but the very Son of God, who was promised to be the repairer of all things. Let this, therefore, be the first member, that Jesus of Nazareth was a man approved of God by manifest testimonies, so that he could not be despised as some base and obscure person. The old interpreter did not evil (99) translate ὑποδεδειγμενον approved. And Erasmus is deceived, who thinketh that he did read it otherwise; and he himself did not express Luke’s mind, when as he translated it given. (100) For, seeing that word doth signify among the Grecians to show, whereupon the mathematicians also call those arguments whereby they set a thing, as it were, before a man’s eyes, αποδειξεις, or demonstrations, Luke meant to say, that Jesus came not unknown, and without any testimony or approbation, but that those miracles which God showed by him served to this end, that he might be famous and excellent. Therefore he saith that he was showed toward the Jews; because God would have his Son to be accounted excellent and great among them; as if he should say, that miracles were not appointed for other nations, but for the Jews, that they might know that Jesus was sent unto them of God.
By great works. He calleth miracles by these three names. And because God doth show forth his power in them after a new and unwonted sort, or doth, at least, procure greater admiration, they are, for good causes, called great works. (101) For we are commonly more moved when any extraordinary thing doth happen. In which respect they are also called wonders, (102) because they make us astonished. And for this cause are they called signs, because the Lord will not have men’s minds to stay there, but to be lifted up higher; as they are referred unto another end. He put in three words, to the end he might the more extol Christ’s miracles, and enforce the people, by his heaping and laying of words together, to consider the same. Furthermore, he maketh not Christ the chief author, but only the minister; because, as we have already said, he determined to go forward by degrees. Notwithstanding, here may a question be asked, whether miracles do suffice to be a sufficient and just approbation [proof] or no? Because by this means inchanters might cause their legerdemain (103) to be believed. I answer, that the juggling casts of Satan do much differ from the power of God. Christ saith elsewhere, that the kingdom of Antichrist shall be in wonders, but he addeth by and by, in lying wonders, (2. h 2:9.) if any man object, that we cannot easily discern, because he saith that they shall have so great color that they shall deceive (if it could be) the very elect; I answer again, that this error proceedeth only from our own want of wit, because we are so dull; for God doth show his power manifestly enough. Therefore, there is sufficient approbation of the doctrine and of the ministry in the miracles which God doth work, so that we be not blind. And whereas it is not of sufficient force among the wicked, because they may now and then be deceived with the false miracles of Satan, this must be imputed unto their own blindness; but whosoever hath a pure heart, he doth also know God with the pure eyes of his mind, so often as he doth show himself. Neither can Satan otherwise delude us, save only when, through the wickedness of our heart, our judgment is corrupt and our eyes blinded, or at least bleared through our own slothfulness.
(99) “Male,” ill, improperly.
(100) “Exhibitum,” exhibited.
(101) “Virtutes.”
(102) “Prodigia,” prodigies.
(103) “Suis imposturis fidem facerent magi,” magians might procure credit for their impostures.
23. Him have ye slain. He maketh mention of the death of Christ for this cause chiefly, that the resurrection might the more assuredly be believed. It was a thing full well known among the Jews that Christ was crucified. Therefore, in that he rose again, it is a great and wonderful token of his Divine power. In the mean season, to the end he may prick their consciences with the feeling of sin, he saith that they slew him; not that they crucified him with their own hands, but because the people, with one voice, desired to have him put to death. And although many of the hearers unto whom he speaketh did not consent unto that wicked and ungodly cruelty, yet doth he justly impute the same to the nation; because all of them had defiled themselves either with their silence, or else through their carelessness. Neither hath the cloak and color (104) of ignorance any place, forasmuch as he was showed before of God. This guiltiness, therefore, under which he bringeth them, is a preparation unto repentance.
By the determinate counsel He removeth a stumbling-block; because it seemeth, at the first blush, to be a thing very inconvenient, [unaccountable,] that that man whom God had so greatly adorned, being afterward laid open to all manner of mocking, doth suffer so reproachful a death. Therefore, because the cross of Christ doth commonly use to trouble us at the first sight, for this cause Peter declareth that he suffered nothing by chance, or because he wanted power to deliver himself, but because it was so determined (and appointed) by God. For this knowledge alone, that the death of Christ was ordained by the eternal counsel of God, did cut off all occasion of foolish and wicked cogitation’s, and did prevent all offenses which might otherwise be conceived. For we must know this, that God doth decree nothing in vain or rashly; whereupon it followeth that there was just cause for which he would have Christ to suffer. The same knowledge of God’s providence is a step to consider the end and fruit of Christ’s death. For this meeteth us by and by in the counsel of God, that the just was delivered (105) for our sins, and that his blood was the price of our death.
And here is a notable place touching the providence of God, that we may know that as well our life as our death is governed by it. Luke intreateth, indeed, of Christ; but in his person we have a mirror, which doth represent unto us the universal providence of God, which doth stretch itself throughout the whole world; yet doth it specially shine unto us who are the members of Christ. Luke setteth down two things in this place, the foreknowledge and the decree of God. And although the foreknowledge of God is former in order, (because God doth first see what he will determine, before he doth indeed determine the same,) yet doth he put the same after the counsel and decree of God, to the end we may know that God would nothing, neither appointed anything, save that which he had long before directed to his [its] end. For men do oftentimes rashly decree many things, because they decree them suddenly. Therefore, to the end Peter may teach that the counsel of God is not without reason, he coupleth also therewithal his foreknowledge. Now, we must distinguish these two, and so much the more diligently, because many are deceived in this point. For passing over the counsel of God, wherewith he doth (guide and) govern the whole world, they catch at his bare foreknowledge. Thence cometh that common distinction, that although God doth foresee all things, yet doth he lay no necessity upon his creatures. And, indeed, it is true that God doth know this thing or that thing before, for this cause, because it shall come to pass; but as we see that Peter doth teach that God did not only foresee that which befell Christ, but it was decreed by him. And hence must be gathered a general doctrine; because God doth no less show his providence in governing the whole world, than in ordaining and appointing the death of Christ. Therefore, it belongeth to God not only to know before things to come, but of his own will to determine what he will have done. This second thing did Peter declare when he said, that he was delivered by the certain and determinate counsel of God. Therefore, the foreknowledge of God is another thing than the will of God, whereby he governeth and ordereth all things.
Some, which are of quicker sight, confess that God doth not only foreknow, but also govern with his beck what things soever are done in this world. Nevertheless, they imagine a confused government, as if God did give liberty to his creatures to follow their own nature. They say that the sun is ruled by the will of God, because, in giving light to us, he doth his duty, which was once enjoined him by God. They think that man hath free-will after this sort left him, because his nature is disposed or inclined unto the free choice of good and evil. But they which think so do feign that God sitteth idle in heaven. The Scripture teacheth us far otherwise, which ascribeth unto God a special government in all things, and in man’s actions. Notwithstanding, it is our duty to ponder and consider to what end it teacheth this; for we must beware of doting speculations, wherewith we see many carried away. The Scripture will exercise our faith, that we may know that we are defended by the hand of God, lest we be subject to the injuries of Satan and the wicked. It is good for us to embrace this one thing; neither did Peter mean anything else in this place. Yea, we have an example set before us in Christ, whereby we may learn to be wise with sobriety. For it is out of question, that his flesh was subject to corruption, according to nature. But the providence of God did set the same free. If any man ask, whether the bones of Christ could be broken or no? it is not to be denied, that they were subject to breaking naturally, yet could there no bone be broken, because God had so appointed and determined, (Joh 19:36.) By this example (I say) we are taught so to give the chiefest room to God’s providence, that we keep ourselves within our bounds, and that we thrust not ourselves rashly and indiscreetly into the secrets of God, whither our eyesight doth not pierce.
By the hands of the wicked Because Peter seemeth to grant that the wicked did obey God, hereupon followeth two absurdities; (106) the one, either that God is the author of evil, or that men do not sin, what wickedness soever they commit. I answer, concerning the second, that the wicked do nothing less than obey God, howsoever they do execute that which God hath determined with himself. For obedience springeth from a voluntary affection; and we know that the wicked have a far other purpose. Again, no man obeyeth God save he which knoweth his will. Therefore, obedience dependeth upon the knowledge of God’s will. Furthermore, God hath revealed unto us his will in the law; wherefore, those men (107) do obey God, who do that alone which is agreeable to the law of God; and, again, which submit themselves willingly to his government. We see no such thing in all the wicked, whom God doth drive hither and thither, they themselves being ignorant. No man, therefore, will say that they are excusable under this color, because they obey God; forasmuch as both the will of God must be sought in his law, and they, so much as in them lieth, do (108) to resist God. As touching the other point, I deny that God is the author of evil; because there is a certain noting of a wicked affection in this word. For the wicked deed is esteemed according to the end whereat a man aimeth. When men commit theft or murder, they offend (109) for this cause, because they are thieves or murderers; and in theft and murder there is a wicked purpose. God, who useth their wickedness, is to be placed in the higher degree. For he hath respect unto a far other thing, because he will chastise the one, and exercise the patience of the other; and so he doth never decline from his nature, that is, from perfect righteousness. So that, whereas Christ was delivered by the hands of wicked men, whereas he was crucified, it came to pass by the appointment and ordinance of God. But treason, which is of itself wicked, and murder, which hath in it so great wickedness, must not be thought to be the works of God.
(104) “Praetextus,” pretext.
(105) “Morti addictum,” subjected to death.
(106) “Ex duobus absurdis alterutrum,” one of two absurdities.
(107) “Demum,” only.
(108) “Cupiant,” desire.
(109) “Peccant,” they sin.
24. Having loosed the sorrows of death. By the sorrows of death I understand some farther thing than the bodily sense or feeling. For those which duly consider the nature of death, because they hear that it is the curse of God, must needs conceive that God is angry in death. Hence cometh marvelous horror, wherein there is greater misery than in death itself. Furthermore, Christ died upon this occasion that he might take upon him our guiltiness. That inward fear of conscience, which made him so afraid that he sweat blood when he presented himself before the throne and tribunal seat of God, did more vex him, and brought upon him greater horror, than all the torments of the flesh. And whereas Peter saith, that Christ did wrestle with such sorrows, and doth also declare that he had the victory, by this it cometh to pass that the faithful ought not now to be afraid of death; for death hath not the like quality now which was in Adam; because by the victory of Christ the curse is swallowed up, (1. o 15:54.) We feel, indeed, yet the pricking of sorrows, but such as do not wholly wound us, whilst that we hold up the buckler of faith against them. He added a reason, because it was impossible that Christ should be oppressed by death, who is the author of life.
25. The resurrection, (110) which was both declared and witnessed by certain and evident testimonies, and which might also have been gathered out of the continual doctrine of the prophets, was to be proved to the Jews as some new and strange thing. And no marvel. For we see that although Christ had oftentimes beat (111) the same into his disciples’ heads, yet did they profit but a little. And yet did they retain certain principles of true doctrine, which might have made a way for them unto the knowledge of Christ, as we shall see by and by. Therefore, because the gift of the Spirit was a fruit of the resurrection of Christ, he proveth by the testimony of David that Christ must needs have risen again, that the Jews may thereby know that he was the author of the gift. For he taketh it as a thing which all men grant, that he was raised up from death, that he may live not for himself, but for his. Now we see Peter’s drift; that that ought to seem no strange thing which was foretold so long before; and that Jesus is also Christ, because David did prophecy of him, as of the tied of the Church.
First of all, we must see whether this place ought altogether to be understood of Christ, as Peter affirmeth; that done, if there be any thing in the words worth noting, we will in order discuss it. Peter denieth that that agreeth with David which is said in this place:
“Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption,”
(Psa 16:10,)
because David’s carcass was corrupt in the grave. It seemeth at the first blush to be but a light argument. For a man might easily object, that the word is not to be urged, forasmuch as David meant nothing else, save only to exempt himself from destruction. Therefore, howsoever corruption did touch him, yet doth that no whit hinder but that he may easily say that he was safe from the danger thereof, because he knew that the Lord would deliver him. Yea, it seemeth to be a repetition of the former sentence, according to the common custom of the Hebrew tongue. Which if it be so, the sense shall be plain, that God will not suffer him to be oppressed with death, or that death should consume him. And this interpretation is confirmed by that where we read hell, it is in Hebrew סל , (seol;) where we read corruption, there it is שחת,(shachat;) both these words do signify the grave. By this means David should say twice, that he shall be delivered from death by the grace of God. Finally, he saith the same thing in this place, which he saith, (Psa 49:15,) “God shall redeem my soul from the hand of hell.” Like as, on the other side, when he speaketh of the reprobates, he is wont to take “going down into the grave” for destruction. I answer briefly, that there is some greater thing expressed in this place than the common redemption or deliverance of the godly. David, indeed, doth promise that God will be his eternal deliverer, as well in life as in death. Neither had he been much better for this, to have been once delivered from one danger, unless he had hoped that he should be safe even unto the end through God’s protection; but he speaketh of such safety as is not common. (112) And surely the words do sound that he speaketh of some new and singular privilege. Admit I grant that it is a repetition, and that there is all one thing uttered in these two members, “Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell;” and, “Thou shalt not suffer me to see corruption;” yet do I deny that it is simply to be understood that God will deliver his Holy One from eternal destruction; for freedom from corruption is promised by name. Neither do I pass for this, that שחת (shachat) doth signify the grave, as סל,(seol,) which is put in the former member. For although I do not stand nor contend about the words, yet must we respect the etymology. Therefore, forasmuch as the grave is called שחת, (shachat) because it doth corrupt man’s body with rottenness, it is not to be doubted but that David meant to note that quality. Therefore, the place is not so much expressed by this word, as the condition of rotting. So that the sense is, that God will not suffer him of whom the Psalm speaketh “to rot or corrupt in the grave.” And forasmuch as David was not free from this necessity, it followeth that the prophecy was neither truly nor perfectly fulfilled in him.
And that the Psalm ought altogether to be expounded of Christ, the thing itself doth prove. For seeing that David was one of the sons of Adam, he could not escape that universal condition and estate of mankind,
“Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,”
(Gen 3:19;)
the grave standeth open (I say) for all the children of Adam, that it may swallow them up, and consume them; so that no man can exempt himself from corruption. So that, beholding ourselves apart from Christ, we see the grave prepared for us, which threateneth to us corruption. Wherefore, if David be separated from Christ, that shall not belong to him which is here said, that he shall be preserved from the grave. Therefore, when he boasteth that he shall be free from the grave, as touching corruption, without all doubt he placeth himself in the body of Christ, wherein death was overcome, and the kingdom thereof abolished. But and if David do promise himself exempting from the grave in another respect, save only so far forth as he is a member of Christ, hereby it appeareth that this freedom must begin at Christ as at the head. What man soever shall be of sound judgment shall easily know that this is a good argument. God did put all mankind under corruption; therefore, David, inasmuch as he was of the number of men, could not be free from the same. Neither is it to be doubted, but that the Jews, before whom this sermon was made, forasmuch as without question that maxim was of force amongst them, that they were to hope for the restoring of things at the hands of Christ alone, did the more readily stay themselves upon (113) the words of Peter; because they saw that that could no otherwise be which the words do import, unless they should apply it to the Messias. For they were not come to that point of impudence, at least those of whom mention is made here, that they durst cavil in matters which were evident; for God had then offered unto his disciples those which were godly hearers, and apt to be taught. They sought the Messias in the Old Testament. They knew that David was a figure of him. There was amongst them some religion and reverence of the Scriptures then; but now the impudency of all the whole nation almost is desperate. Howsoever they be urged, they wrench themselves out one way or other. (114) Where there is no way to escape, yet they break through; although they be overcome, yet will they not yield; neither is it to be doubted but that this their shameless forwardness is a punishment for their ungodliness. But let us return unto Peter’s sermon.
Seeing that David doth not only affirm that God also shall be his deliverer, but doth express a singular way and means; namely, that he shall not be subject to the corruption of the grave, Peter doth for good causes gather, that that doth not properly appertain unto him, for that his body was corrupt in the grave. And now, because this had been somewhat hard to be spoken among the Jews, he mollifieth the hardness with a circumlocution. For he doth not flatly deny in one word that that was fulfilled indeed in David, but doth only by the way (115) signify so much unto them, because he lieth consumed in the grave after the common custom of other men. And David did so prophesy of Christ, that he did both apply this consolation unto himself privately, and’ also extend the same unto the whole body of the Church. For that which is sound and perfect in the head is spread abroad, being afterward poured out into all the members. Neither is it to be denied but that David spoke of himself in this place; yet only so far forth as he beheld himself in Christ, as in the mirror of life. First, he hath respect unto Christ; after that he turneth his eyes toward himself, and others the faithful. So that we have a general doctrine prescribed unto us in this plate, concerning the nature of faith, the spiritual joy of conscience: and the hope of eternal deliverance.
I saw We must hold this principle. If we will have God present with us, we must set him before our eyes; and that before he do appear; for the prospect of faith pierceth far further than unto the present experience. Therefore faith hath this property, to set God always before it as a guide in all dangers and confused matters. For there is nothing that doth so much hold us up, as when we know that God is present with us; as the opinion of his absence doth often cast us down, and at length quite discourage us. David addeth, That he took not heed in vain unto the direction of God. “He is (saith he) at my right hand;” whereby he doth signify that we need not to fear lest we be deceived, (116) when as we set him before us at present; for we shall always feel his help most ready. Faith, in hoping for the help of God, ought to prevent and overgo (117) all experience, and whatsoever is perceived by the sense; but so soon as it shall give this glory to God, that it doth behold him in his Word, although he be absent, and so, consequently, invisible, it shall be overcome with the effect of the thing. For the measure of faith is not able to comprehend the infinite greatness of the power and goodness of God. He draweth a similitude from those which, when they will underprop the weak, or strengthen the fearful, do join themselves unto their side. Not to be moved, is not to be thrown down from their degree, but to remain firm in their estate; like as also Psa 46:5, God is in the midst of it, therefore shall it not be moved. For although it come to pass sometimes that the godly be sore shaken, yet because they come to themselves again, they are said to continue firm. Therefore, there is no cause why they should be afraid of falling, who are upholden by the help of God. Like as, on the other side, those which place their strength anywhere else save only in God, they shall be like to fall at every blast of wind, but at any mean wind of temptation they shall fall to the ground.
(110) “Christi,” of Christ.
(111) “Inculcasset,” inculcated.
(112) “Superiorem communi sorte,” superior to the common lot.
(113) “Acquieverint,” acquiesced in.
(114) “Eludunt,” they evade, practice evasion.
(115) “Oblique,” indirectly.
(116) “Non esse periculum ne unquam nos ac fidem nostram frustratur,” there is no danger of his deceiving us or our faith.
(117) “Antevertere,” outstrip.
26. For this my heart rejoiced Joy of the soul, gladness of the tongue, and quietness of all the whole body, do ensue upon sure hope and confidence; for unless men be quite past feeling, (118) they must needs be careful and sorrowful, and so, consequently, miserably tormented, so long as they feel themselves destitute of the help of God. But that sure trust which we repose in God doth not only deliver us from carefulness, (119) but doth also replenish our hearts with wonderful joy (and gladness.) That is the joy which Christ promised to his disciples should be full in them, and which he testified could not be taken from them, (Joh 16:22.) He expresseth the greatness of the joy when he saith, That it cannot be kept in, but that it will break forth into the gladness of the tongue. (120) כבוד, doth signify, indeed, glory, but it is taken in that place, as in many others, forthe tongue And so the Grecians have truly translated the same. The rest of theflesh doth signify the quietness of the whole man, which we have through the protection of God. Neither is this any let, because the faithful are continually out of quiet and tremble; for as in the midst of sorrows they do nevertheless rejoice; so there are no troubles so great that can break them of their rest. If any man object, that the peace of the faithful doth consist in the spirit, and that it is not in the flesh: I answer, that the faithful do rest in body; not that they are free from troubles, but because they believe that God careth for them wholly, and that not only their soul shall be safe through his protection, but their body also.
(118) “Stupeant,” be stupid or stunned.
(119) “Anxietate,” anxiety.
(120) “Quin erumpat in linguae exultationem,” but will burst forth into the language of exultation.
27. Because thou shalt not leave To leave the soul in hell is to suffer the same to be oppressed with destruction. There be two words used in this place, both which do signify the grave amongst the Hebricians. Because שאול, doth signify to require, I suppose it is called סול, because death is insatiable; whence also cometh that translation, Hell hath enlarged her soul. Again, they set open their mouth like hell. And because the latter שחת, is derived and set for corruption, or consumption, that quality is to be considered, as David meant to note the same. Those things which are disputed in this place by divers, concerning the descending of Christ into hell, are in my judgment superfluous; because they are far from the intent and purpose of the prophet. For the word anima, or soul, doth not so much signify the spirit being of an immortal essence as the life itself. For when a man is dead, and lieth in the grave, the grave is said to rule over his life. Whereas the Grecians translate it holy, it is in Hebrew חסת, which doth properly signify meek, or gentle, but Luke did not much regard this, because it doth not much appertain unto the present purpose. Furthermore, gentleness and meekness is so often commended in the faithful, because it behoveth them to imitate and resemble the nature of their Father.
28. Thou hast made known. He meaneth, that he was restored from death to life by the grace of God. For in that he was, as it were, a man raised from death to life, he acknowledgeth that it was a great good gift of God. This was in such sort fulfilled in Christ, that there wanted nothing unto perfection. As for the members they have their measure. Therefore Christ was far from corruption, that he may be the first-fruits of those which rise from death, (1. o 15:23.) We shall follow him in our order at length, but being first turned into dust, (1. o 15:42.) That which followeth, thathe was filled with gladness, with the countenance of God, agreeth with that: Show us thy face, and we shall be safe. And, again, The light of thy countenance is showed upon us: thou hast put gladness in my heart. For it is only the pleasantness of God’s countenance, which doth not only make us glad, but also quickens us; again, when the same is turned away, or troubled, we must needs faint.
30. Therefore, seeing he was a prophet He showeth, by two reasons, that it is no marvel if David do speak of things that should come to pass long after his time; the former is, because he was a prophet. And we know that things to come, and such as are removed far from the knowledge of men, are revealed unto the prophets. Therefore, it were wickedness to measure their speeches according to the common manner and order which we use in measuring the speeches of other men, forasmuch as they go beyond the long courses of years, having the Spirit for their director. Whereupon they are also called seers; because being placed, as it were, upon an high tower, (121) they see those things which, by reason of great distance, are hidden from other men. Another reason is, because Christ was promised to him peculiarly. This maxim was so common amongst the Jews, that they had ever now and then the son of David in their mouth, so often as there was any mention made of Christ. They be no such arguments, I confess, as do necessarily prove that this prophecy is to be expounded of Christ; neither was that Peter’s intent and purpose; but first he meant to prevent the contrary objection, whence David had such skill to foretell a thing which was unknown. Therefore he saith, That he knew Christ, both by prophetical revelation, and also by singular promise. Furthermore, this principle was of great (Rom 10:4) force amongst the better-minded sort which Paul setteth down, that Christ is the end of the law. (122) No man, therefore, did doubt of this, but that this was the mark whereat all the prophets did aim, to lead the godly unto Christ as it were by the hand. Therefore, what notable or extraordinary thing soever they did utter, the Jews were commonly persuaded that it did agree with Christ. Furthermore, we must note, that Peter doth reason soundly, when he gathered that David was not ignorant of that which was the chiefest point of all revelations.
He had sworn with an oath God swore not only to the end he might make David believe his promise, but also that the thing promised might be had in greater estimation. And to this end, in my judgment, it is here repeated, that the Jews may think with themselves of what great weight the promise was, which God did make so notable (and so famous.) The same admonition is profitable for us also. For we need not to doubt of this, but that the Lord meant to set forth the excellency of the covenant by putting in a solemn oath. In the mean season, this is also a fit remedy for the infirmity of our faith, that the sacred name of God is set forth unto us, (123) that his words may carry the greater credit. These words, “according to the flesh,” do declare that there was some more noble thing in Christ than the flesh. Therefore Christ did so come of the seed of David as he was man, that he doth nevertheless, retain his divinity; and so the distinction between the two natures is plainly expressed; when as Christ is called the Son of God, according to his eternal essence, in like sort as he is called the seed of David according to the flesh.
(121) “Specula,” watch tower.
(122) “Hoc principium quod Paulus tradit Christum esse finem legis,” etc., this principle which Paul delivers, viz., that Christ was the end of the law, was of great force, etc.
(123) “Pignoris instar,” like a pledge, omitted.
32. This Jesus After that he had proved by the testimony of David, that it was most requisite that Christ should rise again, he saith, that he and the rest of his fellows were such witnesses as saw him with their eyes after his resurrection. For this text (124) will not suffer this word raised up to be drawn into any other sense. Whereupon it followeth that that was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth which David did foreshow concerning Christ. After that he intreateth of the fruit or effect. For it was requisite for him to declare that first, that Christ is alive. Otherwise it had been an absurd and incredible thing that he should be the author of so great a miracle. Notwithstanding he doth therewithal teach us, that he did not rise for his own sake alone, but that he might make the whole Church partaker of his life, having poured out the Spirit.
(124) “Contextus,” context.
33. He being therefore exalted by the right hand of God The right hand is taken in this place for the hand or power, in like sort as it is taken everywhere in the Scripture. For this is his drift, to declare that it was a wonderful work of God, in that he had exalted his Christ (whom men thought to be quite destroyed by death) unto so great glory.
The promise of the Spirit for the Spirit which was promised. For he had oftentimes before promised the Spirit to his apostles. Therefore Peter doth signify, that Christ had obtained power of God the Father to fulfill the same. And he maketh mention of the promise in plain words, to the end the Jews may know that this came not to pass suddenly, but that the words of the prophet were now verified, which went long time before the thing itself.
Furthermore, whereas it is said that he obtained it of the Father, it is to be applied to the person of the Mediator. For both these are truly said, that Christ sent the Spirit from himself and from the Father. He sent him from himself, because he is eternal God; from the Father, because in as much as he is man, he receiveth that of the Father which he giveth us. And Peter speaketh wisely according to the capacity of the ignorant, lest any man should move a question out of season concerning the power of Christ. And surely forasmuch as it is the office of Christ to direct us unto his Father, this is a most apt form of speaking for the use of godliness, that Christ being placed, as it were, in the midst between God and us, doth deliver unto us with his own hand those gifts which he hath received at the hands of his Father. Furthermore, we must note this order that he saith, that the Spirit was sent by Christ after that he was exalted. This agreeth with those sentences:
“The Spirit was not yet given,
because Christ was not yet glorified,”
(Joh 7:39.)
And again,
“Unless I go hence, the Spirit will not come,”
(Joh 16:7.)
Not because the Spirit began then first to be given, wherewith the holy fathers were endued since the beginning of the world; but because God did defer this more plentiful abundance of grace, until such time as he had placed Christ in his princely seat; which is signified by this word poured out, as we saw a little before. For by this means the force and fruit of Christ his death and resurrection is sealed; and we do also thereby know, that we have lost nothing by Christ his departing out of the world; because, though he be absent in body, yet is he present with us after a better sort, to wit, by the grace of his Holy Spirit.
34. For doubtless David Although they might easily gather by the very effect which they saw with their eyes, that the principality was granted and given to Christ, yet to the end his glory may carry the greater credit, he proveth, by David his testimony, that it was so appointed in times past by God, that Christ should be lifted up unto the highest degree of honor. For these words, to “sit at the right hand of God,” import as much as to bear the chief rule, as we shall afterward more at large declare. Yet before he reciteth the prophecy, he saith that it agreeth only to Christ. Therefore, to the end the sense may be more manifest, the sentence must thus run. David pronounceth that it was decreed by God that a king should sit at his right hand. But this doth not appertain unto David, who was never extolled unto so great dignity. Therefore lie speaketh this of Christ. Furthermore, that ought to have seemed no strange thing unto the Jews which was foretold by the oracle of the Holy Ghost. Hereby it appeareth in what sense Peter denieth that David ascended into heaven. He intreateth not in this place of the soul of David, whether it were received into blessed rest, and the heavenly dwelling or no; but the ascending into heaven comprehendeth under it those things which Paul teacheth in the Epistle to the Ephesians, (Eph 4:9), where he placeth Christ above all heavens, that he may fulfill all things. Wherefore the disputation concerning the estate of the dead is altogether superfluous in this place. For Peter goeth about to prove no other thing but this, that the prophecy concerning the sitting at the right hand of God was not fulfilled in David, and that, therefore, the truth thereof must be sought elsewhere. And forasmuch as it can be found nowhere else save only in Jesus Christ, it resteth that the Jews (125) do know that that is showed to them in Christ which was foretold them so long before. That is true, indeed, that David reigned, God being the author hereof, and, in some respect, he was God’s vicegerent; yet not so that he might be above all creatures. Wherefore, this sitting agreeth to none, unless he excel and be above all the whole world.
The Lord said unto my Lord. This is the most lawful manner of ruling, when as the king (or by what other title soever he be called) doth know that he is ordained of God, therefore David pronounceth that the commandment to reign was given unto Christ by name, (Psa 110:1.) As if he should say, He took not the honor to himself rashly, but did only obey God when he commanded him, (Heb 5:5.) Now must we see whether Peter’s reason be sound enough or no. He gathereth that the words concern Christ, because the sitting at the right hand of God doth not agree to David. It seemeth that this may be refuted, because David did reign by the peculiar commandment, name, and help of God; which is to sit at the right hand of God. But Peter taketh that for a thing which all men grant, which is true, and which I have already touched, that a greater and more royal government is here spoken of than that which David did enjoy. For howsoever he was God’s vicegerent and did, as it were, represent his person in reigning, yet is this power far inferior to that, to sit even at the right side of God. For this is attributed to Christ, because he is placed above all principality, and above every name that is named, both in this world, and in the world to come, (Eph 1:21.) Seeing that David is far inferior to the angels, he doth possess no such place that he should be counted next to God. For he must ascend far above all heavens, that he may come to the right hand of God. Wherefore no man is said to sit at it, rightly and properly, save only he which doth surpass all creatures in the degree of honor. As for him which is resident amongst the creatures, although he be reckoned in the order of angels, yet is he far from that highness. Again, we must not seek the right hand of God amongst the creatures; but it doth also surpass all heavenly principalities.
Furthermore, there is great weight even in the sentence itself. The king is commanded to bear the chiefest rule, until God have put all his enemies under his feet. Surely, although I grant that; he name of such an honorable sitting may be applied unto earthly lordship: yet do I deny that David did reign until such time as all his enemies were subdued. For we do hereby gather that the kingdom of Christ is eternal. But the kingdom of David was not only temporal, but also frail, and of a small continuance.
Moreover, when David died, he left many enemies alive here and there he got many notable victories, but he was far from subduing all his enemies. He made many of those people which were round about him tributaries to him; some did he put to flight and destroyed; but what is all this unto all? Finally, we may prove by the whole text of the Psalm, that there can nothing else be understood save only the kingdom of Christ. That I may pass over other things: that which is here spoken touching the eternal priesthood is too far disagreeing from David’s person. I know that the Jews do prattle, that kings’ sons are called elsewhere cohenim. But he intreateth here of the priesthood as it is ascribed by Moses to the king Melchizedek. And there is established by a solemn oath a certain new kind of priesthood. And, therefore, we must not here imagine any common or ordinary thing. But it had been wickedness for David to thrust himself into any part of the priest’s office. How should he then be called cohen, greater than Aaron, and consecrated of God for ever? But because I do not intend at this present to expound the whole Psalm, let this reason suffice which Peter bringeth: That he is made Lord of heaven and earth, which sitteth at the right hand of God. As touching the second member of the verse, read those things which I have noted upon the fifteenth chapter (1. o 15:25) of the former Epistle to the Corinthians, concerning the putting of his enemies under his feet.
(125) “Prophetia admoniti,” admonished by prophecy, omitted.
36. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know The house of Israel did confess that that Christ should come which was promised; yet did they not know Who it was. Therefore, Peter concludeth, that Jesus: whom they had so spitefully handled, yea, whose name they did so greatly detest: is he whom they ought to acknowledge to be their Lord, and whom they ought to reverence. For, (saith he,) God hath made him Lord and Christ; that is, you must look for none other than him whom God hath made and given. Furthermore, he saith, That he was made, because God the Father gave him this honor. He joineth the title Lord with the word Christ, because it was a common thing among the Jews, that the Redeemer should be anointed upon this condition, that he might be the Head of the Church, and that the chiefest power over all things might be given him. He speaketh unto the whole house of Israel; as if he should say, Whosoever will be reckoned among the sons of Jacob, and do also look for the promise, let them know for a surety, that this is he and none other. He useth the wordhouse, because God had separated that name and family from all other people. And he saith ασφαλως, or for a surety, not only that they may repose their sure confidence and trust in Christ, but that he may take away all occasion of doubting from those which do oftentimes willingly doubt even of matters which are certain and sure. In the end of his oration he upbraideth unto them again, that they did crucify him, that being touched with greater grief of conscience, they may desire remedy.
And now, forasmuch as they know that Jesus is the Anointed of the Lord, the governor of the Church, and the giver of the Holy Ghost, the accusation hath so much the more force. For the putting of him to death was not only full of cruelty and wickedness, but also a testimony of outrageous disloyalty against God, of sacrilege and unthankfulness, and, finally, of apostasy. But it was requisite that they should be so wounded, lest they should have been slow to seek for medicine. And yet, notwithstanding, they did not crucify him with their own hands; but this is more than sufficient to make them guilty, in that they desired to have him put to death. And we also are accused by this same voice, if we crucify him in ourselves, being already glorified in heaven, making a mock of him, as saith the Apostle, (Heb 6:6.)
37. They were pricked in heart. Luke doth now declare the fruit of the sermon, to the end we may know that the power of the Holy Ghost was not only showed forth in the diversity of tongues, but also in their hearts which heard. And he noteth a double fruit; first, that they were touched with the feeling of sorrow; and, secondly, that they were obedient to Peter’s counsel. This is the beginning of repentance, this is the entrance unto godliness, to be sorry for our sins, and to be wounded with the feeling of our miseries. For so long as men are careless, they cannot take such heed unto doctrine as they ought. And for this cause the word of God is compared to a sword, (Heb 4:12,) because it doth mortify our flesh, that we may be offered to God for a sacrifice. But there must be added unto this pricking in heart readiness to obey. Cain and Judas were pricked in heart, but despair did keep them back from submitting themselves unto God, (Gen 4:13; Mat 27:3.) For the mind being oppressed with horror, can do nothing else but flee from God. And surely when David affirmeth that a contrite spirit and an humble heart is a sacrifice acceptable to God, he speaketh of voluntary pricking; forasmuch as there is fretting and fuming mixed with the prickings of the wicked. Therefore, we must take a good heart to us, and lift up our mind with this hope of salvation, that we may be ready to addict and give over ourselves unto God, and to follow whatsoever he shall command. We see many oftentimes pricked, who, notwithstanding, do fret and murmur, or else forwardly strive and struggle, and so, consequently, go furiously mad. Yea, this is the cause why they go mad, because they feel such prickings against their will. Those men, therefore, are profitably pricked alone who are willingly sorrowful, and do also seek some remedy at God’s hands.
38. Peter said Hereby we see that those do never go away empty which ask at the mouth of the Lord, and do offer themselves unto him to be ruled and taught; for that promise must needs be true, Knock, and it shall be opened unto you, (Mat 7:7.) Therefore, whosoever shall be rightly prepared to learn, the Lord will not suffer his godly desire to be in vain; for he is a most faithful master, so that he hath scholars which are apt to be taught and studious. Wherefore, there is no cause why he should fear, lest he suffer us to be destitute of sound counsel, if we be attentive and ready to hear him, and do not refuse to embrace whatsoever he shall teach us. And let us suffer ourselves to be governed by the counsel and authority of those men whom he offereth unto us to teach us, for this ready obedience cometh thence so suddenly in those which addict themselves unto the apostles, because they are persuaded that they are sent of God, to show them the way of salvation.
Repent. There is greater force in the Greek word, for it doth signify the conversion of the mind, that the whole man may be renewed and made another man, which thing must be diligently noted, because this doctrine was miserably corrupted in the time of Popery; for they translated the name of repentance almost unto certain external rites. They babble somewhat, indeed, about the reigned contrition of the heart; but they touch that part very slightly, and they stand principally upon the external exercises of the body, which were little worth; yea, though there were in them no corruption; but they urge nothing else in a manner but reigned trifles, wherewith men are wearied in vain. Wherefore, let us know that this is the true repentance, when a man is renewed in the spirit of his mind, as Paul teacheth, (Rom 12:2.) Neither need we to doubt of this; but that Peter did preach plainly of the force and nature of repentance; but Luke doth only touch the chief points, and doth not reckon up the words of the oration which he made. We must, therefore, know thus much, that Peter did at the first exhort the Jews unto repentance; and that done, he lifted them up with hope of pardon; for he promised them forgiveness of sins, which two things are the two parts of the gospel, as we know full well; and, therefore, when Christ will briefly teach what the doctrine of the gospel doth contain, he saith, that repentance and remission of sins (Luk 24:47) must be preached in his name. Furthermore, because we are reconciled unto God only by the intercession of Christ’s death, neither are our sins otherwise purged, (126) and done away, save only by his blood, therefore, Peter calleth us back unto him by name. He putteth baptism in the fourth place, as the seal whereby the promise of grace is confirmed.
Wherefore, we have in these few words almost the whole sum of Christianity, namely, how a man renouncing himself and taking his farewell of the world, may addict himself wholly to God; secondly, How he may be delivered by free forgiveness of sins, and so adopted into the number of the children of God. And forasmuch as we can obtain none of all these things without Christ, the name of Christ is therewithal set forth unto us, as the only foundation of faith and repentance. And we must also note this, that we do so begin repentance when we are turned unto God, that we must prosecute the same during our life; therefore, this sermon must continually sound in the Church, repent, (Mar 1:15;) not that those men may begin the same, who will be counted faithful, and have a place already in the Church; but that they may go forward in the same; although many do usurp the name of faithful men, which had never any beginning of repentance. Wherefore, we must observe this order in teaching, that those which do yet live unto the world and the flesh may begin to crucify the old man, that they may rise unto newness of life, and that those who are already entered the course of repentance may continually go forward towards the mark. Furthermore, because the inward conversion of the heart ought to bring forth fruits in the life, repentance cannot be rightly taught unless works be required, not those frivolous works which are only in estimation amongst the Papists, but such as are sound testimonies of innocence and holiness.
Be baptized every one of you. Although in the text and order of the words, baptism doth here go before remission of sins, yet doth it follow it in order, because it is nothing else but a sealing of those good things which we have by Christ that they may be established in our consciences; therefore, after that Peter had intreated of repentance, he calleth the Jews unto the hope of grace and salvation; and, therefore, Luke well afterwards, in Paul’s sermon, joineth faith and repentance together in the same sense, wherein he putteth forgiveness of sins in this place, and that for good considerations; for the hope of salvation consisteth in the free imputation of righteousness; and we are counted just, freely before God, when he forgiveth us our sins. And as I said before, that the doctrine of repentance hath a daily use in the Church so must we think of the forgiveness of sins, that the same is continually offered unto us; and surely it is no less necessary for us during the whole course of our life, than at our first entrance into the Church, so that it should profit us nothing to be once received into favor by God, unless this embassage should have a continual course; be-reconciled unto God, because
“he which knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in him,”
(2. o 5:20.)
Moreover, the Papists do so corrupt this other part of the gospel, that they quite exclude the remission of sins, which was to be obtained by Christ. They confess their sins are freely forgiven in baptism, but they will have them redeemed with satisfactions after baptism; and although they mix the grace of Christ together therewithal, yet because they inwrap the same in men’s merits, they do by this means overthrow the whole doctrine of the gospel; for, first, they take from men’s consciences the certainty of faith; that done, forasmuch as they part the forgiveness of sins between the death of Christ and our satisfactions, they do altogether deprive us of Christ’s benefit. For Christ doth not reconcile us unto God in part, but wholly, neither can we obtain remission of sins by him, unless it be whole and perfect. But the Papists are much deceived therein, who restrain baptism unto the nativity and former life, as if the signification and force thereof did not reach even unto death.
Let us know, therefore, that forgiveness of sins is grounded in Christ alone, and that we must not think upon any other satisfaction (127) save only that which he hath performed by the sacrifice of his death. And for this cause, as we have already said, doth Peter express his name, whereby he doth signify unto us, that none of all these things can be rightly taught, unless Christ be set in the midst, to the end the effect of this doctrine may be sought in him. That needeth no long exposition where he commandeth them to be baptized for the remission of sins; for although God hath once reconciled men unto himself in Christ” by not imputing unto them their sins,” (2. o 5:19,) and doth now imprint in our hearts the faith thereof by his Spirit; yet, notwithstanding, because baptism is the seal whereby he doth confirm unto us this benefit, and so, consequently, the earnest and pledge of our adoption, it is worthily said to be given us for the remission of sins. For because we receive Christ’s gifts by faith, and baptism is a help to confirm and increase our faith, remission of sins, which is an effect of faith, is annexed unto it as unto the inferior mean. Furthermore, we must not fetch the definition of baptism from this place, because Peter doth only touch a part thereof. Our old man is crucified by baptism, as Paul teacheth, that we may rise unto newness of life, (Rom 6:4.) And, again, we put on Christ himself, (1. o 12:0.) and the Scripture teacheth every where, that it is also a sign and token of repentance, (Gal 3:27.) But because Peter doth not intreat in thin place openly of the whole nature of baptism, but speaking of the forgiveness of sins, doth, by the way, declare that the confirmation thereof is in baptism, there doth no inconvenience follow, if ye do omit the other part. (128)
In the name of Christ. Although baptism be no vain figure, but a true and effectual testimony; notwithstanding, lest any man attribute that unto the element of water which is there offered, the name of Christ is plainly expressed, to the end we may know that it shall be a profitable sign for us then, if we seek the force and effect thereof in Christ, and know that we are, therefore, washed in baptism, because the blood of Christ is our washing; and we do also hereby gather, that Christ is, the mark and end whereunto baptism directeth us; wherefore, every one profiteth so much in baptism as he learneth to look unto Christ. But here ariseth a question, Whether it were lawful for Peter to change the form prescribed by Christ? The Papists do think, at least feign so, and thence do they take a color of liberty to change or abrogate the institutions of Christ. They confess that nothing ought to be changed, as touching the substance, but they will have the Church to have liberty to change whatsoever it will in the form. But this argument may easily be answered. For we must first know that Christ did not indite and rehearse unto his apostles magical words for enchanting, as the Papists do dream, but he did, in few words, comprehend the sum of the mystery. Again, I deny that Peter doth speak in this place of the form of baptism; but he doth simply declare that the whole strength (129) of baptism is contained in Christ; although Christ cannot be laid hold on by faith without the Father by whom he was given us, and the Spirit by the which he reneweth and sanctifieth us. The answer consisteth wholly in this, that he intreateth not in this place of the certain form of baptizing, but the faithful are called back unto Christ, in whom alone we have whatsoever baptism doth prefigure unto us; for we are both made clean by his blood, and also we enter into a new life by the benefit of his death and resurrection.
Ye shall receive the gift of the Spirit. Because they were touched with wondering when they saw the apostles suddenly begin to speak with strange tongues, Peter saith that they shall be partakers of the same gift if they will pass over unto Christ. Remission of sins and newness of life were the principal things, and this was, as it were, an addition, that Christ should show forth unto them his power by some visible gift. Neither ought this place to be understood of the grace of sanctification, which is given generally to all the godly. Therefore he promiseth them the gift of the Spirit, whereof they saw a pattern in the diversity of tongues. Therefore this doth not properly appertain unto us. For because Christ meant to set forth the beginning of his kingdom with those miracles, they lasted but for a time; yet because the visible graces which the Lord did distribute to his did shoe, as it were in a glass, that Christ was the giver of the Spirit, therefore, that which Peter saith doth in some respect appertain unto all the whole Church: ye shall receive the gift of the Spirit. For although we do not receive it, that we may speak with tongues, that we may be prophets, that we may cure the sick, that we may work miracles; yet is it given us for a better use, that we may believe with the heart unto righteousness, that our tongues may be framed unto true confession, (Rom 10:10,) that we may pass from death to life, (Joh 5:24) that we, which are poor and empty, may be made rich, that we may withstand Satan and the world stoutly. Therefore, the grace of the Spirit shall always be annexed unto baptism, unless the let be in ourselves.
(126) “Expiantur,” expiated.
(127) “Expiatione,” expiation.
(128) “Nihil absurdi est si partem alteram praetereat,” there is no absurdity, there is nothing strange, in his omitting the other part.
(129) “Virtutem,” virtue or efficacy.
39. For the promise appertaineth unto you. It was requisite that this should be expressly added, that the Jews might certainly think and persuade themselves that the grace of Christ did belong as well to them as to the apostles. And Peter proveth it thus, because the promise of God was made unto them. For we must always look unto this, because [that] we cannot otherwise know the will of God save only by his word. But it is not sufficient to have the general word, unless we know that the same is appointed for us. Therefore Peter saith, that those benefits which they see in him and his fellows in office were in times past promised to the Jews; because this is required necessarily for the certainty of faith, that every one be fully persuaded of this, that he is comprehended in the number of those unto whom God speaketh. Finally, this is the rule of a true faith, when I am thus persuaded that salvation is mine, because that promise appertaineth unto me which offereth the same. And hereby we have also a greater confirmation, when as the promise is extended unto those who were before afar off. For God had made the covenant with the Jews, (Exo 4:22.) If the force and fruit thereof come also unto the Gentiles, there is no cause why the Jews should doubt of themselves, but that they shall find the promise of God firm and stable.
And we must note these three degrees, that the promise was first made to the Jews, and then to their children, and last of all, that it is also to be imparted to the Gentiles. We know the reason why the Jews are preferred before other people; for they are, as it were, the first begotten in God’s family, yea, they were then separated from other people by a singular privilege. Therefore Peter observeth a good order, when he giveth the Jews the pre-eminence. Whereas he adjoineth their children unto them, it dependeth upon the words of the promise: I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed after thee, (Gen 17:7,) where God doth reckon the children with the fathers in the grace of adoption.
This place, therefore, doth abundantly refute the manifest error of the Anabaptists, which will not have infants, which are the children of the faithful, to be baptized, as if they were not members of the Church. They espy a starting hole in the allegorical sense, (130) and they expound it thus, that by children are meant those which are spiritually begotten. But this gross impudency doth nothing help them. It is plain and evident that Peter spoke thus because God did adopt one nation peculiarly. And circumcision did declare that the right of adoption was common even unto infants. Therefore, even as God made his covenant with Isaac, being as yet unborn, because he was the seed of Abraham, so Peter teacheth, that all the children of the Jews are contained in the same covenant, because this promise is always in force, I will be the God of your seed.
And to those which are afar off. The Gentiles are named in the last place, which were before strangers. For those which refer it unto those Jews which were exiled afar off, (and driven) into far countries, they are greatly deceived. For he speaketh not in this place of the distance of place; but he noteth a difference between the Jews and the Gentiles, that they were first joined to God by reason of the covenant, and so, consequently, became of his family or household; but the Gentiles were banished from his kingdom. Paul useth the same speech in the second chapter to Ephesians, (Eph 2:11,) that the Gentiles, which were strangers from the promises, are now drawn near, through Jesus Christ, unto God. Because that Christ (the wall of separation being taken away) hath reconciled both (the Jews and Gentiles) unto the Father, and coming, he hath preached peace unto those which were nigh at hand, and which were afar off. Now we understand Peter’s meaning. For to the end he may amplify the grace of Christ, he doth so offer the same unto the Jews, that he saith the Gentiles are also partakers thereof. And therefore he useth this word call, as if he should say: Like as God hath gathered you together into one peculiar people heretofore by his voice, so the same voice shall sound everywhere, that those which are afar off may come and join themselves unto you, when as they shall be called by a new proclamation.
(130) “Effugium in allegorico sensu captant,” they attempt evasion by giving an allegorical meaning.
40. And with many Although in these things which we have had hitherto, Luke did not recite the words of St Peter, but did only briefly touch the chief points; notwithstanding he telleth us again in this place, that Peter did not use doctrine only, but did add the pricks of exhortations. And he expresseth plainly that tie stood much (131) hereupon. Whereas he saith, that he did exhort and beseech, he noteth therein his earnestness. For it was not so easy a matter for them by and by (132) to take their leave of those errors wherewith they were of late infected, and to shake off the government of the priests whereunto they were accustomed. Therefore it stood him upon to pull them violently out of this mire. The sum was this, that they should beware of that froward generation. For they could not be Christ’s unless they would depart from his professed enemies. The priests and scribes were then in great authority, and forasmuch as they did cover themselves under the visor [mask] of the Church, they did deceive the simple, this did hinder and keep back a great many from coming to Christ. Also some might waver, and other some might fall away from the right faith. Therefore Peter plainly declareth that they are a froward generation, howsoever they may boast of the title of the Church. For which cause he commandeth his hearers to separate themselves from them, lest they entangle themselves in their wicked and pestiferous fellowship. Whereas he saith, Be ye saved, he signifieth unto them that they shall surely perish if they couple themselves with such a plague. And surely experience doth teach us, how miserably those men are tossed to and fro who cannot discern the voice of their pastor from the voice of other men; (133) and again, what an hindrance softness and sluggishness is to a great many, whilst they desire to stand in a doubt. (134) Therefore he commandeth them to depart from the wicked if they will be saved. And this point of doctrine is not to be neglected. For it were not sufficient to have Christ set before us, unless we were also taught to flee those things which do lead us away from him. And it is the duty of a good shepherd to defend his sheep from the wolves. So at this day, to the end we may keep the people in the sincere doctrine of the gospel, we are ever now and then enforced to show and testify how much Papistry differeth from Christianity, and what a hurtful plague it is to be yoked with the unfaithful enemies of Christ. Neither ought Peter to be accused of railing, because he calleth the reverend 6. thers, who had the government of the Church (135) in their hands at that day, a froward generation For those dangers which may draw the soul unto destruction are to be showed by their names. For men will not beware of poison, unless they know that it is poison.
(131) “Multum institisse.” insisted much.
(132) “Protinus,” forthwith.
(133) “Alienorum,” of strangers or aliens.
(134) “Medii stare,” to hold a middle course, remain undecided.
(135) “Ordinarium Ecclesiae regimen,” the ordinary government of the Church.
41. They, therefore, which willingly. Luke showeth more plainly how fruitful this one sermon which Peter made was: to wit, that it gained unto Christ about three thousand men. And therewithal he declareth the nature and force of faith when he saith, that with a prompt and ready (136) mind they embraced his word. Therefore, faith must begin with this readiness and willing desire to obey. And because many do show themselves at the first very willing, who afterward have in themselves no constancy or continuance, lest we should think that it was some sudden pang (137) which by and by fell away, Luke doth also afterward commend their constancy, who (as he said) did willingly embrace this word of the apostles, showing that they were joined unto the disciples, or that they were engrafted into the same body, and that they continued in their doctrine. Therefore we must neither be slow to obey, nor yet swift to leap back; but we must stick fast, and stand stoutly to that doctrine which we did forthwith (without any tarriance [delay]) embrace. Furthermore, this example ought to make us not a little ashamed. For whereas there was a great multitude converted unto Christ with one sermon, an hundred sermons can scarce move a few of us; and whereas Luke saith that they continued, there is scarce one amongst ten that doth show even a mean desire to profit and go forward, yea, rather, the more part doth soon loathe our doctrine. Woe be, therefore, to the sluggishness and lightness of the world!
(136) “Ililari,” cheerful.
(137) “Impetum,” impulse.
42. In their doctrine Luke doth not only commend in them the constancy of faith or of godliness, but he saith, also, that they did constantly give themselves to those exercises which serve to the confirmation of faith; to wit, that they studied continually to profit by hearing the apostles; that they gave themselves much to prayer; that they did use fellowship and breaking of bread very much.
As touching prayer and doctrine the sense is plain. Communication or fellowship, and breaking of bread, may be taken diversely. Some think that breaking of bread doth signify the Lord’s Supper; other some do think that it signifieth alms; other some that the faithful did banquet together (138) among themselves. Some do think that κοινωνια, doth signify the celebrating of the Holy Supper; but I do rather agree to those others who think that the same is meant by the breaking of bread. For κοινωνια, unless it have somewhat added unto it, is never found in this sense; therefore, I do rather refer it unto mutual society and fellowship, unto alms, and unto other duties of brotherly fellowship. And my reason why I would rather have breaking of bread to be understood of the Lord’s Supper in this place is this, because Luke doth reckon up those things wherein the public estate of the Church is contained. Yea, he expresseth in this place four marks whereby the true and natural face of the Church may be judged. Do we then seek the true Church of Christ? The image thereof is lively depainted and set forth (139) unto us in this place. And he beginneth with doctrine which is, as it were, the soul of the Church. Neither doth he name all manner of doctrine, but the doctrine of the apostles, that is, that which the Son of God had delivered by their hands. Therefore, wheresoever the pure voice of the gospel doth sound, where men continue in the profession thereof, where they exercise themselves in hearing the same ordinarily that they may profit, without all doubt there is the Church.
Hereby we may easily gather how frivolous the boasting of the Papists is, whilst that they carelessly (140) thunder out with fall mouth the name of the Church; whereas, notwithstanding, they have most filthily corrupted the doctrine of the apostles. For if it be duly examined, we shall find no sound part at all; and in most points they do as much dissent from the same, and have as little agreement therewith as light with darkness. The rule of worshipping God, which ought to be fetched out of the pure Word of God alone, is only made and patched together (141) amongst the Papists, of the superstitious inventions of men. They have translated unto the merits of works the hope of salvation, which ought to have rested in Christ alone. The invocation of God is altogether polluted with innumerable profane dotings of men. Finally, whatsoever is heard amongst them, it is either a deforming of the apostles’ doctrine, or else a clear overthrowing (and destroying) of the same. Therefore, we may as easily refute the foolish arrogancy of the Papists, as they can cloak their dealings with the title of the Church. For this shall be the state, (142) whether they have retained the purity of doctrine, from which they are as far as hell is from heaven. But they are wise enough in that point, because they will have no controversy moved about doctrine. But we, as I have said, may freely contemn that vain visor, [mask,] forasmuch as the Spirit of God doth pronounce that the Church is principally to be (esteemed and) discerned by this mark, if the simplicity or purity of the doctrine delivered by the apostles do flourish (and be of force) in the same.
In fellowship. This member and the last do flow from the first, as fruits or effects. For doctrine is the bond of brotherly fellowship amongst us, and doth also set open unto us the gate unto God, that we may call upon him. And the Supper is added unto doctrine instead of a confirmation. Wherefore, Luke doth not in vain reckon up these four things, when as he will describe unto us the well-ordered state of the Church. And we must endeavor to keep and observe this order, if we will be truly judged to be the Church before God and the angels, and not only to make boast of the name (143) thereof amongst men. It is certain that he speaketh of public prayer. And for this cause it is not sufficient for men to make their prayers at home by themselves, unless they meet altogether to pray; wherein consisteth also the profession of faith.
(138) “Communiter,” in common.
(139) “Ad vivum depicta,” painted to the life.
(140) “Secure,” confidently.
(141) “Conflata est,” compounded.
(142) “Hic enim erit status,” for the state (of the question) shall be.
(143) “Inane...nomen,” the empty name.
43. And there came. He signifieth unto us that the show and sight of the Church was such, that it made others afraid which did not consent unto [its] doctrine; and that was done for the preserving and furthering of the Church. When there ariseth any seen all men set themselves stoutly against the same; and as novelty is odious, the Jews would never have suffered the Church of Christ to stand one minute of an hour, (144) unless the Lord had restrained them with fear as with a bridle. Furthermore, Luke noteth the manner of fear, that it was no such fear as bringeth men unto the obedience of Christ, but such as causeth men to stand in a doubt, and so, consequently, doth, as it were, so bind them hand and foot, (145) that they dare not hinder the Lord’s work. Like as there be some at this day who will willingly be ignorant of the gospel; or, at least, are so holden (146) with the cares of this world, that they cannot thoroughly join themselves unto Christ; and yet they are not so hard-hearted but that they confess that the truth is on our side; and, therefore, they rest, as it were, in the middle way, neither do they favor the cruelty of the wicked, because they are afraid to strive against God. And whereas he saith, Every soul, he speaketh thus by synecdoche. For it is certain that many did contemn the hand of God, and that other some were stricken with no great fear, but that they did furiously rage together against the Church. (147) But Luke’s meaning was this, that there appeared such power of God in the Church, that the people for the most part had not one word to say. (148)
And many wonders. This member serveth also to the showing of the cause. For the miracles served to make them afraid, together with other works of God, although this was not the only reason, but one of many, why they were afraid to set themselves against God, who was on that side, as they did gather by the miracles; whence we gather that they are not only profitable for this to bring men to God, (149) but also to make the wicked somewhat more gentle, and that they may tame their furiousness. Pharaoh was a man of desperate stubbornness, (Exo 8:8, etc. 19,) and yet we see how miracles do sometimes pierce his obstinate heart. He forgetteth them by and by; but when the hand of God is heavy upon him, he is compelled through fear to yield. To be brief, Luke teacheth that the Jews were by this means kept back, that the Church, which might easily have been destroyed, might have got up her head. (150) Which thing we have oftentimes tried (151) even in our time. And he doth not only declare that they were bridled with fear, lest they should be so bold as to attempt so much as they lusted to do hurt to the Church, but that they were also humbled with reverence to the glory of the gospel.
(144) “Momentum,” moment.
(145) “Sed qui suspensos tenet adeoque constrictos,” but which keeps them in suspense and restrained.
(146) “Impliciti,” entangled.
(147) “Alios nullo metu fuisse deterritos quin furiose adversus Ecclesiam saevirent,” that others were not deterred by any fear from raging against the Church.
(148) “Obmuteceret,” stood dumb.
(149) “In obsequium Dei,” into obedience to God.
(150) “Emergeret,” might emerge, or raise her head.
(151) “Subinde sumus experti,” have ever and anon experienced.
44. And all Whereas I have translated it joined together, it is word for word in St Luke, Into the same, or into one, which may be expounded of the place; as if he should have said that they were wont to dwell together in one place. Notwithstanding, I had rather understand it of their consent (and agreement;) as he will say in the fourth chapter, “That they had one heart,” (Act 4:32.) And so he goeth forward orderly, when, as he beginneth with their mind, he addeth afterward their bountifulness, as a fruit proceeding thence. Therefore, he giveth us to understand that they were rightly joined together with brotherly love amongst themselves, and that they did indeed declare the same, because the rich men did sell their goods that they might help the poor. And this is a singular example of love, and therefore doth Luke record the same, to the end we may know that we must relieve the poverty of our brethren with our plenty.
But this place hath need of a sound exposition, because of fantastical [fanatical] spirits, which do feign a commonalty or participation together of goods, whereby all policy or civil government is taken away; as in this age the Anabaptists have raged, because they thought there was no Church unless all men’s goods were put and gathered together, as it were, in one heap, that they might all one with another take thereof. Wherefore, we must in this point beware of two extremes. For many, under color of policy, do keep close and conceal whatsoever they have; they defraud the poor, and they think that they are twice righteous, so they take away no other men’s goods. Other some are carried into the contrary error, because they would have all things confused. But what doth Luke? Surely he noteth another order, when he saith that there was choice made in the distribution. If any man object that no man had any thing which was his own, seeing all things were common, we may easily answer. For this community or participation together must be restrained unto the circumstance which ensueth immediately; to wit, that the poor might be relieved as every man had need. We know the old proverb, “All things are common amongst friends.” When as the scholars of Pythagoras said thus, they did not deny but that every man might govern his own house privately, neither did they intend to make their own wives common; so this having of things common, whereof Luke speaketh, and which he commendeth, doth not take away household government; which thing shall better appear by the fourth chapter, whereas he nameth two alone which sold their possessions of so many thousands. Whence we gather that which I said even now, that they brought forth and made common their goods in no other respect, save only that they might relieve the present necessity. And the impudency of the monks was ridiculous, who did profess that they did observe the apostles’ rule, because they call nothing their own; and yet, nevertheless, they neither sell any thing, neither yet do they pass for any man’s poverty; (152) but they stuff their idle bellies with the blood of the poor, neither do they regard any other thing in their having of things common, save only that they may be well filled and daintily, although all the whole world be hungry. Wherein, then, are they like to the first disciples, with whom they will be thought to be able to compare? (153)
(152) “Nec solliciti sunt si quisquam egeat,” nor are solicitous if any man want.
(153) “Quorum aemuli haberi volunt,” whose rivals they would be thought.
46. Continuing in the temple We must note that they did frequent the temple for this cause, because there was more opportunity and occasion offered there to further the gospel. Neither were they drawn with the holiness of the place, seeing they knew that the shadows of the law were ceased; neither meant they to draw others by their example to have the temple in any such reverence; (154) but because there was there great concourse of people, who having laid aside their private cares, wherewith they had been drawn away elsewhere, (155) did seek the Lord; they were continually in the temple, that they might gain such unto Christ. There might be another reason which might induce them hereunto, that they might have a mutual conference and imparting of doctrine amongst themselves, which they could not have done so conveniently in a private house, especially seeing they were so, many.
Breaking bread from house to house. Luke signifieth unto us, that they did not only show some token of true godliness publicly, but that the course and tenor of their private life was alone in that respect. For whereas some do think that in this place, by breaking of bread is meant the Holy Supper, it seemeth to me that Luke meant no such thing. He signifieth, therefore, unto us, that they used to eat together, and that thriftily. (156) For those which make sumptuous banquets do not eat their meat together so familiarly. Again, Luke addeth, in singleness of heart; which is also a token of temperance. In sum, his meaning is to declare, that their manner of living was brotherly and sober. Some do join simplicity and gladness with the praise of God; and both texts may well be allowed. (157) But because there can be no singleness of heart in praising God, unless the stone be also in all parts of the life, therefore it is certain, that there is mention made thereof in this sense, that the faithful did always use the same in all places. (158) And we must also note the circumstance of time, that, being environed and beset with many dangers, they were merry and joyful. The knowledge of God’s love toward us, and the hope of his protection, do bring us this goodness with them, that we praise God with quiet minds, whatsoever the world doth threaten. And as Luke spoke a little before of the public estate of the Church, so he declareth now what form and manner of life the faithful did use; that we may learn by their example a thrifty fellowship in our manner of living, and in all our whole life to embrace singleness, to enjoy the spiritual joy, and to exercise ourselves in the praises of God. Furthermore, the singleness of heart reacheth far; but if you join it in this place with breaking of bread, it shall signify as much as sincere love, where one man dealeth plainly with another, neither doth any man craftily hunt after his own profit. Yet had I rather set the same against that carefulness, wherewith worldly men (159) do too much torment themselves. For when as we do not cast our care upon the Lord, this reward hangeth over our heads, that we tremble and quake even when we take our rest.
(154) “Ad templi cultum,” to worship the temple.
(155) “Quibus alibi magis distracti fuissent,” with which elsewhere they might have been more distracted.
(156) “Frugaliter,” frugally.
(157) “Et probabilis est uterque contextus,” and the context makes this probable.
(158) “Eam ubique coluerunt,” did cultivate it everywhere.
(159) “Providi homines,” the provident, or over careful.
47. Having favor. This is the fruit of an innocent life, to find favor even amongst strangers. And yet we need not to doubt of this, but that they were hated of many. But although he speak generally of the people, yet he meaneth that part alone which was sound, neither yet infected with any poison of hatred; he signifieth briefly, that the faithful did so behave themselves, that the people did full well like of them for their innocency of life. (160)
The Lord added daily. He showeth in these words that their diligence was not without profit; they studied so much as in them lay to gather into the Lord’s sheepfold those which wandered and went astray. He saith that their labor bestowed herein was not lost; because the Lord did increase his Church daily. And surely, whereas the Church is rather diminished than increased, that is to be imputed to our slothfulness, or rather forwardness. (161) And although they did all of them stoutly labor to increase the kingdom of Christ, yet Luke ascribeth (162) this honor to God alone, that he brought strangers into the Church. And surely this is his own proper work. For the ministers do no good by planting or watering, unless he make their labor effectual by the power of his Spirit, (1. o 3:0.) Furthermore, we must note that he saith, that those were gathered unto the Church which should be saved. For he teacheth that this is the means to attain salvation, if we be incorporate into the Church. For like as there is no remission of sins, so neither is there any hope of salvation. (163) Furthermore, this is an excellent comfort for all the godly, that they were received into the Church that they might be saved; as the Gospel is called the power of God unto salvation to all that believe, (Rom 1:16.) Now, forasmuch as God doth gather only a part, or a certain number, this grace is restrained unto election, that it may be the first cause of our salvation.
(160) “Populo grati atque probati essent,” that they were agreeable to, and approved by, the people.
(161) “Praxitati,” wickedness.
(162) “Vendicat,” claimeth.
(163) “Extra eam,” out of it, (the Church,) omitted.
