Bibelkommentare

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself:

And answered for himself — This the apostle doth most artificially and effectually. Raptare eum iudices credas, as one saith concerning Cicero, involvere, praecipitem agere, nec incendere auditorem, sed ipsum putes ardere: animorum denique quendam credas Deum.

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I think myself happy, king Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews:

I think myself happy — Est quaedam putativa felicitas, saith an interpreter here, si concedatur nobis causam nostram aperte agere. Beatitudo autem vera in peccatorum remissione, …,Psalms 32:1-2; Psalms 32:1-2 . It is a kind of happiness to have fair hearing before men; but the true happiness is to find favour with God.

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Especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews: wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.

To be expert in all customs and questions — As being a Jew, and conversant among the Jews (for he was Herod’s son), and therefore a more competent judge.

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My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;

My manner of life from my youth — And although with some, Principium fervet, medium leper, exitus alget, their best is at first, as Nero (who now reigned at Rome) for his first five years was very hopeful; yet that is not ordinary. A good beginning hath for the most part a good ending, and a young saint proves an old angel.

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Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.

After the most straitest sect — There were three several sects among the Jews, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes; which last lived a monastic kind of life, and besides the Bible, studied medicine: whence also they had their name of Asa, to heal. The Pharisees were most in request, professing extraordinary strictness, as those districtissimi Monachi, those puritan monks among the Papists (as one calleth them) that carried wooden crosses at their backs continually, and pretended for it Matthew 10:38 .

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And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers:

For the hope of the promise — The goodness of his cause made much for his comfort. It is one thing to suffer as a martyr, and another thing to suffer as a malefactor. Ibi erat Christus, ubi latrones: similis poena, dissimilis causa. Christ and the thieves were in the like condemnation, but their cause was not alike. (Angustin.) Samson died with the Philistines by the fail of the same house; simili quidem poena, sed dissimili culpa, et diverso fine ac fato, but for another end, and by a different destiny. (Bucholcer.) Together with the Lord Cromwell was beheaded the Lord Hungerford; neither so Christianly suffering, nor so courageously dying for his offence committed against nature. (Speed.) Blessed are they that suffer "for righteousness’ sake," Matthew 5:10 ; and, "for thy sake are we slain all the day long,"Psalms 44:22; Psalms 44:22 . And, O beata Apocalypsis, quam bene mecum, agitur qui comburar tecum? said a certain martyr when he saw the Revelation cast into the fire with him. (Fox.) So might St Paul say by that hope of the promise made of God unto the fathers, for the which he now stood and was judged.

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Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope’s sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.

Instantly serving God — And yet finding enough to do, when they have done their utmost, to get to heaven. The time is short, the task long; Castigemus ergo mores st moras,

Praecipita tempus, mors atra impendet agenti.

Silius.

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Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

Why should it be thought a thing incredible? — Philosophy indeed is against it. A privatione ad habitum, … Et redit in nihilum, quod fuit ante nihil, as the epicure in Ecclesiastes concludeth. But first, many heathens believed a resurrection; as Zoroaster, Theopolupus, and Plato. And the Stoic’s opinion was, that the world should be dissolved by fire or water; and all things brought to a better state, or to the first golden age again. Sen. Nat. Quaest. iii. 26, 27. Secondly, no article of the faith was more generally believed among the Jews than this, John 12:24 ; Acts 23:8 . Hence they called their burying places Domus viventium, the houses of the living, áéú çéåí the Greeks called them dormitories, or sleeping houses, κοιμητηρια , as holding that their dead should once awake again, and be filled with God’s image, Psalms 17:15 . The Germans call the churchyard God’s Acre; because the bodies are sown there to be raised again. What if those profane popes (sons of perdition), Leo X and Julius II, jeer at the resurrection, as if anything were impossible with God? cannot he that made man at first of nothing make him up again of that substance of the body that is preserved after death, though never so dispersed? God knows where every part and parcal of it is, and can easily bring it together again. In the transfiguration, that body of Moses which was hidden in the valley of Moab, appeared glorious in the hill of Tabor; that we may know that these bodies of ours are not lost, but laid up, and shall as sure be raised in glory as they are laid down in corruption. Do we not see a resurrection of the creatures every spring? and the grain we sow, doth it not first rot and then revive? See we not men of ashes to make glass? and cannot a skilful gardener discern his different seeds when mixed together, and gather every one of them to their own kind? Have we not observed how those little balls of quicksilver dispersed, will not mix with any of another kind; but if any man gather them, they run together of their own accord into one mass? why then should it be thought a thing incredible with any, that God should raise the dead? Consentaneum est Phoenicem, saith Nyssen. It is probable enough, that that Phoenix that was found in the reign of Nero (and perhaps at this very time when St Paul was thus pleading for the resurrection) might signify the resurrection of Christ, and of all believers by him; according to that of the prophet, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead," Isaiah 26:19 .

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