Acts 10:38

Ἰησοῦν τὸν ἀπὸ Ν.: in apposition to ῥῆμα, the person in Whom all else was centred, and in Whom Peter had found and now preached “the Christ”; or may be treated as accusative after ἔχρισεν. ὡς ἔχρ.: taken by St. Ambrose, St. Cyril of Jerusalem (so by Bede) to refer to the Incarnation, by St. Athanasius to the Baptism only. But the expression may also be connected with the entrance of our Lord upon His ministry at Nazareth, cf. Luke 4:14; cf. in this passage the mention of Nazareth and Galilee. εὐεργετῶν : our Lord was really εὐεργέτης, cf. Luke 22:25 (only in St. Luke); “far more truly used of Christ than of Ptolemy the king of Egypt,” Cornelius à Lapide. καταδυναστευομένους : only elsewhere in James 2:6 in N.T., but cf. Wis 2:10; Wis 15:14, Sir 48:12, Jos., Ant., xii., 2, 3. No doubt other diseases besides those of demoniacal possession are included, cf. especially Luke 13:11; Luke 13:16; but a special emphasis on the former exactly corresponds to the prominence of a similar class of disease in Mark 1:23. ὁ Θεὸς ἦν μετʼ αὐτοῦ, cf. Acts 7:9; John 3:2, so also Luke 1:28; Luke 1:66, and in LXX, Judges 6:16. We cannot see in the expression a “low” Christology; St. Peter had first to declare that Jesus was the Christ, and it is not likely that he would have entered upon a further exposition of His Person in his introductory discourse with a Gentile convert; but Acts 10:42-43 below, to say nothing of St. Peter's public addresses, certainly do not point to a humanitarian Christ.