Acts 3:11

κρατοῦντος : in his joy and gratitude, “holding them” in a physical sense, although it is possible that it signifies that the healed man joined himself to the Apostles more closely as a follower (Acts 4:14), fearing like the demoniac healed by Christ (Luke 8:38) lest he should be separated from his benefactors, cf. Song of Solomon 3:4. ἐπὶ τῇ στοᾷ τῇ καλ. Σ.: better “portico,” R.V. margin; colonnade, or cloister (John 10:23). It derived its name from Solomon, and was the only remnant of his temple. A comparison of the notices in Josephus, B. J., v., 5, 1; Ant., xv., 11, 5 and xx., 9, 7, make it doubtful whether the foundations only, or the whole colonnade, should be referred back to Solomon. Ewald's idea that the colonnade was so called because it was a place of concourse for the wise in their teaching has not found any support: Stanley's Jewish Church, ii., 184; Edersheim, Temple and its Services, pp. 20, 22, and Keim, Geschichte Jesu, iii., 161. It was situated on the eastern side of the Temple, and so was sometimes called the Eastern Cloister, and from its position it was a favourite resort. τῇ καλ.: the present participle is used just as the present tense is found in the notice in St. John's Gospel, chap. Acts 5:2 (see Blass, Philology of the Gospels, pp. 241, 242), and if we cannot conclude from this that the book was composed before the destruction of the Temple, the vividness of the whole scene and the way in which Solomon's Porch is spoken of as still standing, points to the testimony of an eye-witness. Nösgen argues that this narrative and others in the early Chapter s may have been derived directly from St. John, and he instances some verbal coincidences between them and the writings of St. John (Apostelgeschichte, p. 28). But if we cannot adopt his conclusions there are good reasons for referring some of these Jerusalem incidents to St. Peter, or to John Mark, see introduction and chap. 12. Feine rightly insists upon this notice and that in Acts 3:2 as bearing the stamp of a true and trustworthy tradition.