Acts 23:1

ἀτενίσας, see on chap. Acts 1:10, “looking stedfastly,” R.V. The word denotes the fixed stedfast gaze which may be fairly called a characteristic of St. Paul. On this occasion the Apostle may well have gazed stedfastly on the Council which condemned Stephen, and although many new faces met his gaze, some of his audience were probably familiar to him. There is no need to suppose that the word implied weakness of sight (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 38). ἄνδ. ἀδελ.: the omission of πατέρες suggests that he addressed the assembly not as judges but as fellow-countrymen. On ἀδελ. see on Acts 1:15. It is of course possible, as Chrysostom observes, that he did not wish to appear εὐκαταφρόνητος before the chiliarch. συνειδήσει : the word occurs no less than thirty times in N.T., R.V., so also in John 8:9, but 1 Corinthians 8:7, συνηθείᾳ, R.V., and of these no less than twenty times in St. Paul's Epistles, twice in Acts, on both occasions by St. Paul, three times in 1 Peter, and five times in Hebrews. It may therefore be almost reckoned as a Pauline word. It does not occur at all in the Gospels (but cf. John 8:9), but it need hardly be said that our Lord distinctly appeals to its sanction, although the word is never uttered by Him. The N.T. writers found the word ready to their use. In Wis 17:10 (11) we have the nearest anticipation of the Christian use of the word, whilst it must not be forgotten that it first appears at least in philosophical importance amongst the Stoics. (In Ecclesiastes 10:20 it is used but in a different sense, and in Sir 42:18, but in the latter case the reading is doubtful, and if the word is retained, it is only used in the same sense as in Ecclesiastes 10:20.) It is used by Chrysippus of Soli, or Tarsus, in Cilicia, Diog. Laert., vii., 8, but not perhaps with any higher meaning than self-consciousness. For the alleged earlier use of the word by Bias and Periander, and the remarkable parallel expression ἀγαθὴ συνείδησις attributed to the latter, see W. Schmidt, Das Gewissen, p. 6 (1889), and for two quotations of its use by Menander, Grimm-Thayer, sub v.; cf. also Davison, The Christian Conscience (Fernley Lectures), 1888, sec. ii. and vi.; Cremer, Wörterbuch, sub v.; Sanday and Headlam, Romans 2:15, and for literature “Conscience,” Hastings' B.D. For the scriptural idea of the word cf. also Westcott, additional note, on Hebrews 9:9. πεπολ.: however loosely the word may have been used at a later date, it seems that when St. Paul spoke, and when he wrote to the Philippians, it embraced the public duties incumbent on men as members of a body, Hort, Ecclesia, p. 137, Lightfoot on Philippians 1:27 (Acts 3:20), cf. Jos., Vita, ii. St. Paul was a covenant member of a divine πολιτεία, the commonwealth of God, the laws of which he claims to have respected and observed. The word is also found in LXX, Esther 8:13 (H. and R.), 2Ma 6:1; 2Ma 11:25, and four times in 4 Macc. Lightfoot, u. s., parallels the use of the verb in Phil. by St. Paul from Clem. Rom., Cor [371], xxi. 1, and Polycarp, Phil., v., 5. But Clem. Rom., u. s., vi., 1, has the phrase ποῖς ἀνδράσιν ὁσίως πολιτευσαμένοις, referring to the O.T. Saints, and so St. Peter and St. Paul. To this latter expression Deissmann, Bibelstudien, i., p. 211, finds a parallel in the fragment of a letter dating about 164 B.C. (Pap., Par., 63, coll. 8 and 9), τοῖς θεοῖς πρὸς οὓς ὁσίως καὶ … δικαίως (πολι) τευσάμενος. τῷ Θεῷ : in another moment of danger at the close of his career, 2 Timothy 1:3, the Apostle again appeals to a higher tribunal than that of the Sanhedrim or of Caesar. For the dative of the object cf. Romans 14:18; Galatians 2:19. ἄχρι ταύτης τῆς ἡμ., emphatic, because the Apostle wished to affirm that he was still in his present work for Christ a true member of the theocracy, cf. Romans 9:1 ff.

[371] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.