Comentarios bíblicos

CHAPTER 19

Acts 19:1-2. εὑρών] A B א, min. Copt. Vulg. Fulg. have εὑρεῖν, and then τε (or δέ) after εἶπε. So Lachm. Tisch. But how easily might εὑρών, after ἐλθεῖν, be changed by transcribers into εὑρεῖν!

εἶπον, Acts 19:2, and πρὸς αὐτούς, Acts 19:3 (both deleted, after important witnesses, by Lachm. Tisch. Born.), have the character of an addition for the sake of completion.

Acts 19:4. μέν] is wanting in A B D א, min. Vulg. Deleted by Lachm. and Born. The want of a corresponding δέ occasioned the omission.

Before Ἰησοῦν Elz. Scholz read Χριστόν, which is deleted according to preponderating testimony. A usual addition, which was here particularly suggested by εἰς τ. ἐρχ.

Acts 19:7. δεχαδύο] Lachm. Born. read δώδεκα, it is true, according to A B D E א, min., but it is a change to the more usual form.

Acts 19:8. τὰ περί] B D, min. vss. have περί. So Lachm. Tisch. Born. See on Acts 8:12.

Acts 19:9. τινός] is wanting in A B א, min. vss. Lachm. Tisch., but was, as apparently unnecessary, more easily omitted than inserted.

Acts 19:10. After Κυρίου Elz. has, against decisive testimony, Ἰησοῦ, which Griesb. has deleted.

Acts 19:12. ἀποφέρ.] recommended by Griesb., and adopted by Lachm. and Tisch., after A B E א, min. But Elz. Scholz, Born, read ἐπιφέρ. Occasioned by ἐπὶ τ. ἀσθ.

ἐκπορεύεσθαι] Elz. reads ἐξέρχεσθαι ἀπʼ αὐτῶν, against preponderating evidence. The usual word for the going out of demons! and ἀπʼ αὐτ. was added from the preceding.

Acts 19:13. καί] after τινές, is approved by Griesb. and adopted by Lachm. Tisch., according to A B E א, min. Syr.; Elz. Scholz read ἀπό, according to G H, min.; Born, reads ἐκ, after D. Accordingly something, at all events, originally stood after τινές. But had ἀπό or ἐκ stood, no reason can be perceived why they should be meddled with; καί, on the other hand, might be found perplexing, and was sometimes omitted and sometimes exchanged for ἀπό or ἐκ.

ὁρκίζω] So A B D E א, min. Copt. Arm. Cassiod. But Elz. has ὁρκίζμεν. Correction to suit the plurality of persons.

Acts 19:14. τινες υἱοὶ Σκ. Ἰ. ἀρχ. ἑπτά] Lachm. reads τινος Σκ. Ἰ. ἀρχ. ἑπτὰ υἱοί. Both have important evidence, and the latter is explained as a correction and transposition (Tisch. has τινές indeed, but follows the order of Lachm., also attested by א), the transcribers not knowing how to reconcile τινές with ἑπτά.

οἱ] is deleted by Lachm., according to insufficient evidence. Superfluous in itself; and, according to the order of Lachm., it was very easily passed over after υἱοί.

Acts 19:16. ἐφαλλόμ.] A B א*, 104. Lachm. reads ἐφαλόμ. Correctly; the Recepta arises from the inattention of transcribers.

Before κατακύρ. Elz. Scholz have καί, which is deleted according to predominant testimony. An insertion for the sake of connection.

ἀμφοτέρων] Elz. has αὐτῶν, against A B D א, min. Theophyl. 2, and some vss.; ἀμφ., which is recommended by Griesb. and adopted by Lachm. Tisch. Born., was objectionable, as before there was no mention of two.

Acts 19:21. διελθών] Lachm. Born, read διελθών, according to A D E. Resolution of the construction, by which καί became necessary before πορεύεσθαι, which, also, D has (so Born.).

Acts 19:24. παρείχετο] Lachm. reads παπείχε, according to A* D E; yet D places ὅς before, and has previously ἦν after τίς (so Born.). The middle was less familiar to transcribers.

Acts 19:25. Elz. Scholz have ἡμῶν; Lachm. Tisch. Born. read ἡμῖν, according to A B D E א, min. Vulg. Copt. Sahid. Theophyl. 2. The latter is to be received on account of the preponderance of testimony, and because ἡμῶν would more easily suggest itself to unskilful transcribers.

Acts 19:26. ἀλλά] Lachm. Born. read ἀλλὰ καί, after A B G, min. vss. Chrys. Both suitable in meaning; but καί would more easily after οὐ μόνον be mechanically inserted (comp. Acts 19:27) than omitted.

Acts 19:27. λογισθῆναι, μέλλειν] Lachm. Born, read λογισθήσεται, μέλλειν according to weighty evidence; but certainly only an emendation of a construction not understood.

τὴς μεγαλ.] Lachm. reads τη̄ς μεγαλειότητος, A B E א, min. Sahid. Correctly; the genitive not being understood, or not having its meaning attended to, yielded to the more naturally occurring accusative.

Acts 19:29. ὅλη] is wanting in A B א, min. Vulg. Copt. Arm., and is deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. An addition which easily suggested itself.

Acts 19:33. προεβίβασαν] Lachm. reads συνεβίβασαν, according to A B E א, min.; Born. reads κατεβίβ., after D*. In this diversity συνεβίβ. is indeed best attested by Codd., but yet is to be rejected as completely unsuitable. As, further, κατεβίβ. has only D* for it, the reading of the Recepta, which was glossed in a variety of ways, is to be retained.

Acts 19:34. ἐπιγνόντες] Elz. has ἐπιγνόντων, against decisive evidence. A correction in point of style.

Acts 19:35. ἄνθρωπος] Lachm. Tisch. read ἀνθρώπων, according to A B E א, min. vss. The Recepta came in mechanically.

After μεγάλ. Elz. has θεᾶς. Condemned by decisive testimony as an addition.

Acts 19:37. θεόν] Elz. reads θεάν, against decisive testimony.

Instead of ὑμῶν, Griesb. approved, and Lachm. and Born. read, ἡμῶν, according to A D E** א, min. vss. But with the important attestation which ὑμῶν also has, and as the change into ἡμῶν was so naturally suggested by the context, the Recepta, is to be defended.

Acts 19:39. περὶ ἑτέρων] B, min. Cant. have περαιτέρω. Preferred by Rinck, adopted by Lachm. and Tisch.; and correctly, as alterations easily presented themselves for a word not occurring elsewhere in the N.T. (E has περ ἕτερον), and which is hardly to be ascribed to the transcribers.

Acts 19:40. After περὶ οὗ Griesb. and Matth. have adopted οὐ, which, however, has more considerable authorities against it than for it (A G H א). Writing of the οὗ twice.

περί before τῆς συστρ. is found in A B E א, min. vss.; it is, with Lachm., to be adopted, because, being superfluous and cumbrous, it ran the risk of being omitted, but was not appropriate for insertion.

Acts 19:1. Ἀπολλώ] Concerning this form of the accusative, see Winer, p. 61 [E. T. 72].

τὰ ἀυωτερικά] the districts lying more inland from Ephesus, as Galatia and Phrygia, xviii. 23. Comp. Kypke, II. 95. The reading of Theophylact, τὰ ἀνατολικά, is a correct gloss. A more precise definition of the course of the journey (Böttger, Beitr. I. p. 30, and de Wette: through the regions of Hierapolis, Philadelphia, and Sardes) is not to be attempted.

μαθητάς] i.e. as no other definition is added, Christians. It is true that they were disciples of John (Acts 19:3), who had been, like Apollos, instructed and baptized by disciples of the Baptist (comp. Acts 18:25), but they had joined the fellowship of the Christians, and were by these regarded as fellow-disciples, seeing that they possessed some knowledge of the person and doctrine of Jesus and a corresponding faith in Him, though of a very imperfect and indefinite character,—as it were, misty and dawning: therefore Paul himself also considered them as Christians (Acts 19:2), and he only learned from his conversation with them that they were merely disciples of John (Acts 19:3). Heinrichs (comp. Wetstein, also Lange, II. p. 264) thinks that they had received their instruction (Acts 18:25-26) and baptism of John from Apollos, and that Paul was also aware of this. But the very ignorance of these disciples can as little be reconciled with the energetic ministry of Apollos as with any already lengthened residence at Ephesus at all, where, under the influence of the Christians, and particularly of Aquila and Priscilla, they must have received more information concerning the πνεῦμα ἅγ. Therefore it is most probable that they were strangers, who had but just come to Ephesus and had attached themselves to the Christians of that place. As disciples of John they are to be regarded as Jews, not as Gentiles, which Acts 19:2 contains nothing to necessitate (in opposition to Baumgarten, II. p. 3).

Observe, also, that the earlier keeping back of the apostle from Asia on the part of the Spirit (Acts 16:6) had now, after his labours thus far in Greece, obtained its object and was no longer operative. Of this Paul was conscious. Cod. D has a special address of the Spirit to this effect,—an interpolation which Bornemann has adopted.

Acts 19:2. The want of the distinctively Christian life of the Spirit in these disciples must have surprised the apostle; he misses in their case those peculiar utterances of the Holy Spirit, commencing with Christian baptism, which were elsewhere observable (1 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 3:5). Hence his question.

εἰ] The indirect form of conception lies at the foundation, as in Acts 1:6.

πιστεύσαντες] after ye became believers, i.e. Christians, which Paul considered them to be. See on Acts 19:1.

ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ εἰ πν. ἅγ. ἐ. ἠκούσ.] As the existence of the Holy Spirit at all cannot have been unknown to the men, because they were disciples of John and John’s baptism of water had its essential correlate and intelligible explanation in the very baptism of the Spirit—even apart from the O.T. training of these men, according to which they must at least have been aware that the Holy Spirit was something existing

ἔστιν (to be so accented) must necessarily be taken as adest, as in John 7:39 : No, we have not even heard whether the Holy Spirit is there (already present on the earth). Accordingly, they still remained ignorant whether that which John had announced, namely, that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit, had already taken place, and thus the πνεῦμα ἅγιον had become present. The supplements, δοθέν, ἐκχυνόμενον, and the like, give the sense, just as in John 7:39, but are quite unnecessary. The view which takes it of existence generally has misled Olshausen to import the here inappropriate dogmatic assertion: that God still stood before their minds as a rigid, self-contained, immediate unity, without their knowing anything of the distinctive attributes of the Father, Son, and Spirit, necessarily conditioned by the nature of the Spirit; and, with Baumgarten, has given rise to the supposition that they were Gentiles.

On ἀλλά, in the reply, see Klotz, ad Devar. p. 11 f. The question occurred to them as surprising; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 14.

Acts 19:3. Εἰς τί] reference of the baptism (Matthew 3:11; Matthew 28:19; Romans 6:3; 1 Corinthians 1:13; 1 Corinthians 10:2; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:27): unto what, then, as the object of faith and confession, to which you were referred, were ye baptized?

οὖν] accordingly, since the matter so stands, since ye have not even heard of the existence of the Holy Spirit. The presupposition in this εἰς τί οὖν is, that they, baptized in the name of Christ, could not but have received the Holy Spirit.

εἰς τὸ Ἰωανν. βάπτ.] in reference to the baptism administered by John, so that thus the baptism performed in our case was to be the baptism of John, in relation to which we were baptized.

Acts 19:4. Μέν] See on Acts 1:1. Instead of following it up by an apodosis, such as: “but Jesus is the coming One, on whom John by his baptism bound men to believe,” Paul already inserts this idea by τοῦτ. ἔστιν εἰς τ. Ἰ. into the sentence begun by μέν, and, abandoning the μέν, entirely omits to continue the construction by δέ.

ἐβάπτ. βάπτ. μεταν.] he baptized (administered) a baptism (which obliged) to repentance. See Mark 1:4. On the combination of βαπτίζω with a cognate noun, comp. Luke 7:29; Luke 12:50; Mark 10:38.

εἰς τ. ἐρχ.] is with great emphasis prefixed to the ἴνα. Comp. on Galatians 2:10; Ephesians 3:18.

ἵνα πιστ.] is to be understood purely in the sense of design; saying to the people: (that he administered a baptism of repentance) in order that they should believe on Him who was to come after him, i.e. on Jesus. This terse information concerning the connection of the baptism of John, which they had received, with Jesus, decided these disciples to receive Christian baptism. The determining element lay in τοῦτʼ ἔστιν εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν, which Paul must have more precisely explained to them, and by which they were transplanted from their hitherto indistinct and non-living faith into the condition of a full fides explicita—from the morning dawn of faith to the bright daylight of the same.

Acts 19:5. Εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τ. Κυρ. Ἰ.] on the name of the Lord Jesus, which they were to confess, namely, as that of the Messiah. Comp. on Matthew 28:19.

These disciples of John thus received (whether from Paul himself, or from a subordinate assistant, the text leaves undetermined; but see for the latter view 1 Corinthians 1:17; comp. Acts 10:48) Christian baptism, for it had appeared that they had not yet received it. The Anabaptists have from the first wrongly appealed to this passage; for it simply represents the non-sufficiency of John’s baptism, in point of fact, for Christianity, and that purely in respect of the twelve persons, but does not exhibit the insufficiency of the Christian baptism of infants. Many, moreover, of the orthodox (comp. Beza, Calixtus, Calovius, Suicer, Glass, Buddeus, Wolf, and several of the older commentators), in a controversial interest,—both against the Roman Catholic doctrine of the distinction between the Johannean and the Christian baptism (Trident. Sess. vii. Song of Solomon 1), and also against the Anabaptists,—have wrongly attached Acts 19:5 to the address of the apostle: “but after they had heard it they were baptized (by John), etc.” But against this it may be urged, that John did not baptize in the name of Jesus, and that δέ, Acts 19:5, stands in no logical connection at all with μέν, Acts 19:4. On the other hand, Calvin and others have maintained, against the Anabaptists, that Acts 19:5 is meant not of the baptism of water, but of the baptism of the Spirit, which Acts 19:6 only more precisely explains; but this shift is just another, quite as utterly unexegetical, error of dogmatic presupposition. We may add, that it may not be inferred from our passage that the disciples of John who passed over to Christianity were uniformly rebaptized; for, in the case of the apostles who passed over from John to Jesus, this certainly did not take place (John 4:2); and even as regards Apollos, the common opinion that he was baptized by Aquila is purely arbitrary, as in Acts 18:26 his instruction in Christianity, and not his baptism, is narrated. Indeed, in the whole of the N.T., except this passage, there is no example of the rebaptism of a disciple of John. Hence the baptism of the disciples of John who passed over to Christianity was not considered as absolutely necessary; but it did or did not take place according as in the different cases, and in proportion to the differences of individuals, the desire of the persons concerned and the opinion of the teachers on the matter determined. With those twelve, for example, Paul regarded it as conducive to his object and requisite that they should be baptized, in order to raise them to the elevation of Christian spiritual life; and therefore they were baptized (evidently according to their own wish and inclination, as is implied in ἀκούσαντες δὲ ἐβαπτ.), whilst Apollos, on the other hand, could dispense with rebaptism, seeing that he with his fervid spirit, following the references of John to Christ and the instruction of his teachers, penetrated without any new baptismal consecration into the pneumatic element of life. If, however, among the three thousand who were baptized at Pentecost (Acts 2:38; Acts 2:41) there were some of John’s disciples,—which is probable,—it was their desire to be baptized, and apostolic wisdom could not leave this unfulfilled. Accordingly, the opinion of Ziegler (theol. Abh. II. p. 162), that those twelve were rebaptized, because they had been baptized by some disciple of John not unto the ἐρχόμενος, but unto John himself, and thus had not received the true Johannean baptism, is to be rejected. They did not, in fact, answer, in Acts 19:3, εἰς τὸν ʼΙωάννην!

Acts 19:6-7. After the baptism the imposition of the hands of the apostle (see on Acts 8:15, remark) became the vehicle of the reception of the πνεῦμα ἅγιον on the part of the minds opened by the apostolic word. The Spirit descended upon them, and manifested Himself partly by their speaking with tongues (see on Acts 10:46), and partly in prophetic inspiration (see on Acts 11:27). These two must, according to the technical mode of reference to them in the apostolic church attested by 1 Corinthians 12-14, be distinguished, and not treated as equivalent, with van Hengel, who (comp. on chap. Acts 2:10) finds here merely in general an expression of the inspired praising aloud of God in Christ. See his Gave d. talen, p. 84 ff.; Trip, p. 185, follows him. The analogy of the phenomenon with what occurred in the history of Cornelius (Acts 10:44 ff.) serves Baur, I. p. 212 f., ed. 2 (with whom Zeller agrees; and see earlier, Schneckenburger, p. 56 ff.), for a handle to condemn the whole narrative as unhistorical, and to refer it to the set purpose of placing the Apostle Paul, by a new and telling proof of his apostolic dignity and efficiency, on a parallel with the Apostle Peter. The author had, in Baur’s view, seeing that the first γλώσσαις λαλεῖν (chap. 2) is exhibited in the person of Jews, and the second (chap. 10) in that of Gentiles, now chosen for the third a middle class, half-believers (like the Samaritans! see Schwegler). With all this presumed refinement of invention, it is yet singular that the author should not have carried out his parallelism of Paul with Peter even so far as to make the descent of the Holy Spirit and the speaking with tongues take place, as with Cornelius, before baptism, on the mere preaching of the apostle! People themselves weave such fictions, and give forth the author of the book, which is thus criticised, as the ingenious weaver.

Acts 19:7. A simple historical statement, not in order to represent the men “as a new Israel.”[93]

[93] So Baumgarten, II. p. 7, whom the very ὡσεί ought to have preserved from this fancy.

Acts 19:8. Πείθων] is not equivalent to διδάσκων, but contains the result of διαλεγ. He convinced (men’s minds) concerning the kingdom of the Messiah. Comp. on πείθειν with the mere accusative of the object (Plat. Pol. p. 304 A; Soph. O. C. 1444), Valckenaer, ad Eur. Hipp. 1062.