Commentari biblici

CHAPTER 8

Acts 8:1. πάντες τε] Lachm. Tisch. Born. read πάντες δέ, according to B C D E H, min. Vulg. Copt. al., and several Fathers. A, min. Syr. Aeth. have τέ; א* has only πάντες; א** has καὶ π. The δέ has the preponderance of testimony, and is therefore to be adopted, as also in Acts 8:6.

Acts 8:2. ἐποιήσαντο] Lachm. and Born. read ἐποίησαν, according to decisive testimony.

Acts 8:5. πόλιν] Lachm. reads τὴν πόλιν, after A B א, 31, 40. More precise definition of the capital.

Acts 8:7. πολλῶν] Lachm. reads πολλοί,[215] and afterwards ἘΞΉΡΧΟΝΤΟ, following A B C E א, min. Vulg. Sahid. Syr. utr.; ἘΞΉΡΧΟΝΤΟ is also in D, which, however, reads ΠΟΛΛΟῖς (by the second hand: ἈΠῸ ΠΟΛΛΟῖς). Accordingly ἘΞΉΡΧΟΝΤΟ, as decisively attested, is to be considered genuine (with Born. and Tisch.), from which it necessarily follows that Luke cannot have written ΠΟΛΛΟΊ (which, on the contrary, was mechanically introduced from the second clause of the verse), but either ΠΟΛΛῶΝ (H) or ΠΟΛΛΟῖς (D*).

Acts 8:10. Ἡ ΚΑΛΟΥΜΈΝΗ] is wanting in Elz., but is distinctly attested. The omission is explained from the fact that the word appeared inappropriate, disturbing, and feeble.

Acts 8:12. ΤᾺ ΠΕΡΊ] Lachm. Tisch. Born. read ΠΕΡΊ, after A B C D E א. Correctly; ΕὐΑΓΓΕΛΊΖ. is not elsewhere connected with ΠΕΡΊ, and this very circumstance occasioned the insertion of ΤΆ.

Acts 8:13. ΔΥΝΆΜΕΙς ΚΑῚ ΣΗΜΕῖΑ ΜΕΓΆΛΑ ΓΙΝΌΜΕΝΑ] Elz. Lachm. Born. read: ΣΗΜΕῖΑ Κ. ΔΥΝΆΜΕΙς ΜΕΓΆΛΑς ΓΙΝΟΜΈΝΑς. Both modes of arrangement have important attestation. But the former is to be considered as original, with the exclusion, however, of the ΜΕΓΆΛΑ deleted by Tisch., which is wanting in many and correct codd. (also in א), and is to be considered as an addition very naturally suggesting itself (comp. Acts 6:8 for the sake of strengthening. The later origin of the latter order of the words is proved by the circumstance that all the witnesses in favour of it have ΜΕΓΆΛΑς, and therefore it must have arisen after ΜΕΓΆΛΑ was already added.

Acts 8:16. ΟὔΠΩ] A B C D E א, min. Chrys. have ΟὐΔΈΠΩ. Recommended by Griesb. and adopted by Rinck, Lachm. Tisch. Born. The Recepta came into the text, through the inattention of the transcribers, as the word to which they were more accustomed.

Acts 8:18. On decisive evidence ἰδών is to he adopted, with Griesb. and the later editors, instead of θεασάμ. The latter is a more precise definition.

Acts 8:21. ἐνώπιον] A B C D א, min. and several Fathers have ἐναντίον or ἔναντι, which last Griesb. has recommended, and Lachm. Tisch. Born. have adopted. Correctly; the familiar word was inserted instead of the rare one (Luke 1:8).

Acts 8:22. κυρίου] So Lachm. Tisch. Born. But Elz. Scholzhave Θεοῦ, against preponderating evidence. A mechanical repetition, after Acts 8:21.

Acts 8:25. The imperfects ὑπέστρεφον and εὐηγγελίζοντο (Lachm. Tisch. Born.) are decisively attested, as is also the omission of τῆς before βασιλ. in Acts 8:27.

Acts 8:27. ὅς before ἐληλ. is wanting in Lachm. and Born., following A C* D* א*, Vulg. Sahid. Oec. An incorrect expedient to help the construction.

After Acts 8:36, Elz. has (Acts 8:37): εἶπε δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος· εἰ πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας, ἔξεστιν. Ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ εἶπε· πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ εἶναι τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν. This is wanting in decisive witnesses; and in those which have the words there are many variations of detail. It is defended, indeed, by Born., but is nothing else than an old (see already Iren. iii. 12; Cypr. ad Quir. iii. 43) addition for the sake of completeness.

Acts 8:39. After ΠΝΕῦΜΑ A**, min. and a few VSS. and Fathers have ἍΓΙΟΝ ἘΠΈΠΕΣΕΝ ἘΠῚ (or ΕἸς) ΤῸΝ ΕὐΝΟΥΧΟΝ, ἌΓΓΕΛΟς ΔΈ. A pious expansion and falsification of the history, induced partly by Acts 8:26 and partly by Acts 10:44.

[215] Instead of which, however, he (Praefat. p. viii.) conjectures πολλά.

Acts 8:1. The observation Σαῦλος … αὐτοῦ[216] forms the significant transition to the further narrative of the persecution which is annexed.

ἦν συνευδοκῶν] he was jointly assenting, in concert, namely, with the originators and promoters of the ἀναίρεσις; comp. Luke 11:48, and on Romans 1:32. On ἈΝΑΊΡΕΣΙς, in the sense of caedes, supplicium, comp. Numbers 11:15; Jdt 15:4; 2Ma 5:13; Herodian. ii. 6. 1, iii. 2. 10. Here, also, the continuance and duration are more strongly denoted by ἦν with the participle than by the mere finite tense.

ἘΝ ἘΚΕΊΝῌ Τῇ ἩΜΈΡᾼ] is not, as is usually quite arbitrarily done, to be explained indefinitely illo tempore, but (comp. Acts 2:41): on that day, when Stephen was stoned, the persecution arose, for the outbreak of which this tumultuary stoning served as signal.

τὴν ἐν Ἱεροσ.] added, because now the dispersion (comp. Acts 11:19) set in.

ΠΆΝΤΕς] a hyperbolical expression of the popular mode of narration, Matthew 3:5; Mark 3:33, al. At the same time, however, the general expression τὴν ἐκκλησίαν does not permit us to limit ΠΆΝΤΕς especially to the Hellenistic part of the church (Baur, I. p. 46, ed. 2; comp. de Wette). But if the hyperbolical πάντες is not to be used against the historical character of the narrative (Schneckenburger, Zeller), neither are we to read withal between the lines that the church had been formally assembled and broken up, but that to dispersion into the regions of Judaea and Samaria (which is yet so clearly affirmed of the πάντες!), a great part of those broken up, including the apostles, had not allowed themselves to be induced (so Baumgarten).

Κ. ΣΑΜΑΡΕΊΑς] This country only is here mentioned as introductory to the history which follows, Acts 8:5 ff. For a wider dispersion, see Acts 11:19.

πλὴν τῶν ἀποστ.] This is explained (in opposition to Schleiermacher, Schneckenburger, and others, who consider these statements improbable) by the greater stedfastness of the apostles, who were resolved as yet, and in the absence of more special divine intimation, to remain at the centre of the theocracy, which, in their view at this time, was also the centre of the new theocracy.[217] They knew themselves to be the appointed upholders and πρωταγωνισταί (Oecumenius) of the cause of their Lord.

[216] Observe the climax of the three statements concerning Saul, Acts 7:59, Acts 8:1; Acts 8:3; also how the second and third are inserted antithetically, and how all three are evidently intended to prepare the way for the subsequent importance of the man.

[217] Quite inappropriately, pressing that πάντες, Zeller, p. 153, in opposition to this inquires: “Wherefore was this necessary, if all their followers were dispersed?”

Acts 8:2-3. The connection of Acts 8:1-3 depends on the double contrast, that in spite of the outbreak of persecution which took place on that day, the dead body of the martyr was nevertheless honoured by pious Jews; and that on the other hand, the persecuting zeal of Saul stood in stern opposition thereto. On that day arose a great persecution (Acts 8:1). This, however, prevented not pious men from burying and lamenting Stephen (Acts 8:2); but Saul laid waste, in that persecution which arose, the church (of Jerusalem, Acts 8:3). The common opinion is accordingly erroneous, that there prevails here a lack of connection (Acts 8:2 is a supplementary addition, according to de Wette), which is either (Olshausen, Bleek) to be explained by the insertion of extracts from different sources, or (Ziegler in Gabler’s Journ.f. theol. Lit., I. p. 155) betokens that ἐγένετο δὲ … ἀποστόλων is an interpolation, or (Heinrichs, Kuinoel) at least makes it necessary to hold these words as transposed, so that they had originally stood after Acts 8:2.[218]

συγκομίζειν] to carry together, then, used of the dead who are carried to the other dead bodies at the burial-place, and generally: to bury. Soph. Aj. 1048; Plut. Sull. 38. According to the Scholiast on Soph. l.c. and Phavorinus, the expression is derived from gathering the fruits of harvest. Comp. Job 5:26.

The ἄνδρες εὐλαβεῖς are not (in opposition to Heinrichs and Ewald) Christians, but, as the connection requires, religious Jews who, in their pious conscientiousness (comp. Acts 2:5), and with a secret inclination to Christianity (comp. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus), had the courage to honour the innocence of him who had been stoned. Christians would probably have been prevented from doing so, and Luke would have designated them more distinctly.

κοπετός: θρῆνος μετὰ ψοφοῦ χειρῶν, Hesychius. See Genesis 50:10; 1Ma 2:70; Nicarch. 30; Plut. Fab. 17; Heyne, Obss. in Tibull. p. 71.

ἐλυμαίνετο] he laid waste, comp. Acts 9:21; Galatians 1:13. The following sentence informs us how he proceeded in doing so; therefore a colon is to be placed after τ. ἐκκλ.

κατὰ τοὺς οἰκ. εἰσπορ.] entering by houses (house by house, Matthew 24:7; Winer, p. 374 [E. T. 500]).

σύρων] dragging. See Tittmann, Synon. N. T. p. 57 f., and Wetstein. Comp. Acts 14:19, Acts 17:3. Arrian. Epict. 1:29.

[218] According to Schwanbeck, p. 325, ver. 1 is to be regarded as an insertion from the biography of Peter.

Acts 8:4-5. Διῆλθον] they went through, they dispersed themselves through the countries to which they had fled.[219]

Acts 8:5. Of the dispersed persons active as missionaries, who were before designated generally, one is now singled out and has his labours described, namely Philip, not the apostle, as is erroneously assumed by Polycrates in Eusebius, iii. 31. 2, v. 24. 1 (see, on the contrary, Acts 8:1; Acts 8:14, and generally, Zeller, p. 154 ff; Ewald, p. 235 f.), but he who is named in Acts 6:5, Acts 21:8. That the persecution should have been directed with special vehemence against the colleagues of Stephen, was very natural. Observe, however, that in the case of those dispersed, and even in that of Philip, preaching was not tied to an existing special office. With their preaching probably there was at once practically given the new ministry (that of the evangelists, Acts 21:8; Ephesians 4:11), as circumstances required, under the guidance of the Spirit.

κατελθ.] from Jerusalem.

ΕἸς ΠΌΛΙΝ Τῆς ΣΑΜΑΡ.] into a city of Samaria. What city it was (Grotius and Ewald think of the capital, Olshausen thinks that it was perhaps Sichem) is to be left entirely undetermined, and was probably unknown to Luke himself. Comp. John 4:5. Kuinoel, after Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Calovius, and others, takes τῆς Σαμαρ. as the name, not of the country, but of the capital (Sebaste, which was also called Samaria, Joseph. Antt. xviii. 6. 2). In that case, indeed, the article would not have been necessary before πόλιν, as Olshausen thinks (Poppo, ad Thuc. i. 10; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 137; comp. Luke 2:4; Luke 2:11; 2 Peter 2:6). πόλις, too, with the genitiye of the name of the city, is a Greek idiom (Ruhnk. Epp. crit. p. 186); but Acts 8:9, where τῆς Σαμαρ. is evidently the name of the country (ΤῸ ἜΘΝΟς), is decidedly opposed to such a view. See also on Acts 8:14.

ΑὐΤΟῖς] namely, the people in that city.

[219] The οἱ μὲν οὖν διασπαρέντες is resumed at Acts 11:19,—a circumstance betokening that the long intervening portion has been derived from special sources here incorporated.

Acts 8:6-7. Προσεῖχον] they gave heed thereto, denotes attentive, favourably disposed interest, Acts 16:14; Hebrews 2:1; 1 Timothy 1:4; often in Greek writers, Jacobs, ad Ach. Tat. p. 882. The explanation fidem praebebant (Krebs, Heinrichs, Kuinoel, and others) confounds the result of the προσέχειν (Acts 8:12) with the προσέχειν itself,—a confusion which is committed in all the passages adduced to prove it.

ἐν τῷ ἀκούειν αὐτοὺς κ. κ.τ.λ.] in their hearing, etc., while they heard.

In Acts 8:7, more than in v. 16, those affected by natural diseases (παραλελ. κ. χωλοι), who were healed (ἐθεραπεύθ.), are expressly distinguished from the possessed (comp. Luke 4:40 f.), whose demons came out (ἐξήρχετο) with great crying.

Notice the article before ἐχόντων: of many of those who, etc., consequently, not of all. As regards the construction, πολλῶν is dependent on the τὰ πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα to be again tacitly supplied after πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα (see Matthiae, p. 1533; Kühner, II. p. 602).

Acts 8:9 Σίμων] is not identical (in opposition to Heumann, Krebs, Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Neander, de Wette, Hilgenfeld, see also Gieseler’s Kirchengesch. I. sec. 18. 8, and others) with the Simon of Cyprus in Joseph. Antt. xx. 7. 2,[220] whom the Procurator Felix, at a later period, employed to estrange Drusilla, the wife of Azizus king of Emesa in Syria, from her husband. For (1) Justin, Apol. I. 26 (comp. Clem. Hom. i. 15, ii. 22), expressly informs us that Simon was from the village Gitthon in Samaria, and Justin himself was a Samairitan, so that we can the less suppose, in his case, a confusion with the name of the Cyprian town Κίτιον (Thuc. i. 112. 1). (2) The identity of name cannot, on account of its great prevalence, prove anything, and as little can the assertion that the Samaritans would hardly have deified one of their own countrymen (Acts 8:10). The latter is even more capable of explanation from the national pride, than it would be with respect to a Cyprian.

ΠΡΟΫΠῆΡΧΕΝ] he was formerly (even before the appearance of Philip) in the city. The following μαγεύων κ.τ.λ. then adds how he was occupied there; comp. Luke 23:12.

μαγεύων] practising magical arts, only here in the N. T.; but see Eur. Iph. T. 1337; Meleag. 12; Clearch. in Athen. vi. p. 256 E; Jacobs, ad Anthol. VI. p. 29. The magical exercises of the wizards, who at that time very frequently wandered about in the East, extended chiefly to an ostentatious application of their attainments in physical knowledge to juggling conjurings of the dead and demons, to influencing the gods, to sorceries, cures of the sick, soothsayings from the stars, and the like, in which the ideas and formulae of the Oriental-Greek theosophy were turned to display. See Neander, Gesch. d. Pflanz. u. Leit. d. christl. K. I. p. 99 f.; Müller in Herzog’s Encykl. VIII. p. 675 ff.

τινα … μέγαν] We are not, accordingly, to put any more definite claim into the mouth of Simon; the text relates only generally his boasting self-exaltation, which may have expressed itself very differently according to circumstances, but always amounted to this, that he himself was a certain extraordinary person. Perhaps Simon designedly avoided a more definite self-designation, in order to leave to the praises of the people all the higher scope in the designating of that (Acts 8:10) which he himself wished to pass for.

ἑαυτόν] He thus acted quite differently from Philip, who preached Christ, Acts 8:5. Comp. Revelation 2:20.

[220] Neander, p. 107 f., has entirely misunderstood the words of Josephus. See Zeller, p. 164 f.

Acts 8:10. Προσεῖχον] just as in Acts 8:6.

ἀπὸ μικροῦ ἕως μεγάλου] A designation of the whole body, from little and up to great, i.e. young and old. Comp. Hebrews 8:11; Acts 26:22; Bar 1:4; Jdt 13:4; Jdt 13:13; 1Ma 5:45; LXX. Genesis 19:11; Jeremiah 42:1, al.

οὗτός ἐστιν ἡ δύν. τ. Θεοῦ ἡ καλ. μεγ.] this is the God-power called great. The Samaritans believed that Simon was the power emanating from God, and appearing and working among them as a human person, which, as the highest of the divine powers, was designated by them with a specific appellation κατʼ ἐξοχήν as the μεγάλη. Probably the Oriental-Alexandrine idea of the world-creating manifestation of the hidden God (the Logos, which Philo also calls μητρόπολις πασῶν τῶν δυνάμεων τοῦ Θεοῦ) had become at that time current among them, and they saw in Simon this effluence of the Godhead rendered human by incarnation,—a belief which Simon certainly had been cunning enough himself to excite and to promote, and which makes it more than probable that the magician, to whom the neighbouring Christianity could not be unknown, designed in the part which he played to present a phenomenon similar to Christ; comp. Ewald. The belief of the Samaritans in Simon was thus, as regards its tenor, an analogue of the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, and hence served to prepare for the true and definite faith in the Messiah, afterwards preached to them by Philip: the former became the bridge to the latter. Erroneously Philastr. Haer. 29, and recently Olshausen, de Wette, and others put the words ἡ δύναμις κ.τ.λ. into the mouth of Simon himself, so that they are held only to be an echo of what the sorcerer had boastingly said of himself.[221] This is contrary to the text, which expressly distinguishes the opinion of the infatuated people here from the assertion of the magician himself (Acts 8:9). He had characterized himself indefinitely; they judged definitely and confessed (λέγοντες) the highest that could be said of him; and in doing so, accorded with the intention of the sorcerer.

[221] According to Jerome on Matthew 24, he asserted of himself: “Ego sum sermo Dei, ego sum speciosus, ego paracletus, ego omnipotens, ego omnia Dei.” Certainly an invention of the later Simonians, who transferred specifically Christian elements of faith to Simon. But this and similar things which were put into the mouth of Simon (that he was ἀνωτάτη τις δύναμις καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον κτίσαντος Θεοῦ, Clem. Hom. ii. 22, 25; that he was the same who had appeared among the Jews as the Son, but had come among the Samaritans as the Father, and among other nations as the Holy Spirit, Iren. i. 23), and were wonderfully dilated on by opponents, point back to a relation of incarnation analogous to the incarnation of the Logos, under which the adherents of Simon conceived him. De Wette incorrectly denies this, referring the expression: “the great power of God,” to the notion of an angel. This is too weak; all the ancient accounts concerning Simon, as well as concerning his alleged companion Helena, the all-bearing mother of angels and powers, betoken a Messianic part which he played; to which also the name ὁ Ἑστώς, by which he designated himself according to the Clementines, points. This name (hardly correctly explained by Ritschl, altkath. Kirche, p. 228 f., from ἀναστήσει, Deuteronomy 18:15; Deuteronomy 18:18) denotes the imperishable and unchangeable. See, besides, concerning Simon and his doctrine according to the Clementines, Uhlhorn, die Homil. u. Recognit. des Clemens Rom. p. 281 ff.; Zeller, p. 159 ff.; and concerning the entire diversified development of the old legends concerning him, Müller in Herzog’s Encykl. XIV. p. 391 ff.; concerning his doctrine of the Aeons and Syzygies, Philosoph. Orig. vi. 7 ff. According to Baur and Zeller, the magician never existed at all; and the legend concerning him, which arose from Christian polemics directed against the Samaritan worship of the snn-god, the Oriental Hercules (Baal-Melkart), is nothing else than a hostile travestie of the Apostle Paul and his antinomian labours. Comp. also Hilgenfeld, d. clement. Recognit. p. 319 f.; Volckmar in the theol. Jahrb. 1856, p. 279 ff. The Book of Acts has, in their view, admitted this legend about Simon, but has cut off the reference to Paul. Thus the state of the case is exactly reversed. The history of Simon Magus in our passage was amplified in the Clementines in an anti-Pauline interest. The Book of Acts has not cut off the hostile reference to Paul; but the Clementines have added it, and accordingly have dressed out the history with a view to combat Paulinism and Gnosticism, indeed have here and there caricatured Paul himself as Simon. We set to work unhistorically, if we place the simple narratives of the N. T. on a parallel with later historical excrescences and disfigurements, and by means of the latter attack the former as likewise fabulous representations. Our narrative contains the historical germ, from which the later legends concerning Simon Magus have luxuriantly developed themselves; the Samaritan worship of the sun and moon has nothing whatever to do with the history of Simon.

Acts 8:12. They believed Philip, who announced the good news of the kingdom of God and of the name of Jesus Christ.

εὐαγγελίζ. only here (see the critical remarks) with περί, but see Romans 1:3; Josephus, Antt. xv. 7. 2.

The Samaritans called the Messiah whom they expected הַשָּׁהֵכ or הַתָּֽהֵב, the Converter, and considered Him as the universal, not merely political, but still more religious and moral, Renewer. See on John 4:25.