Acts 4:13

θεωροῦντες δὲ, cf. Acts 3:16, not merely βλέπ., as in Acts 4:14, but “inest notio contemplandi cum attentione aut admiratione,” Tittm., Synon. N. T., p. 121. The present participle marks this continuous observation of the fearless bearing of the Apostles during the trial (Rendall). παρρησίαν : either boldness of speech, or of bearing; it was the feature which had characterised the teaching of our Lord; cf. Mark 8:32, and nine times in St. John in connection with Christ's teaching or bearing; and the disciples in this respect also were as their Master, c. Acts 4:29; Acts 4:31 (Acts 2:29); so too of St. Paul, Acts 28:31, and frequently used by St. Paul himself in his Epistles; also by St. John four times in his First Epistle of confidence in approaching God: “urbem et orbem hac parrhesia vicerunt,” Bengel. Cf. παρρησιάζεσθαι used of Paul's preaching, Acts 9:27-28, and again of him and Barnabas, Acts 13:46; Acts 14:3, of Apollos, Acts 18:26, and twice again of Paul, Acts 19:8; Acts 26:26; only found in Acts, and twice in St. Paul's Epistles, Ephesians 6:20; 1 Thessalonians 2:2, of speaking the Gospel boldly. For παρρησία, see LXX, Proverbs 13:5 1Ma 4:18, Wis 5:1 (of speech), cf. also Jos., Ant., ix., 10, 4, xv., 2, 7. Ἰωάννου : even if St. John had not spoken, that “confidence towards God,” which experience of life deepened, 1 John 4:17; 1 John 5:14, but which was doubtless his now, would arrest attention; but it is evidently assumed that St. John had spoken, and it is quite characteristic of St. Luke's style thus to quote the most telling utterance, and to assume that the reader conceives the general situation, and procedure in the trial, Ramsay's St. Paul, pp. 371, 372. καὶ καταλαβόμενοι : “and had perceived” R.V., rightly marking the tense of the participle; either by their dress or demeanour, or by their speech (cf. Acts 10:34; Acts 25:25; Ephesians 3:18, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 181). ὅτι … εἰσι … ὅτι σὺν τῷ Ἰ. ἦσαν in dependent clauses where English usage would employ a past tense and a pluperfect, N.T. usage employs a present and an imperfect “perceived that they were … that they had been …,” Blass, and see Salmon on Blass's Commentary, Hermathena, xxi., p. 229. ἄνθρωποι : Wendt sees in the addition something depreciatory. ἀγράμματοι : lit [153], unlettered, i.e., without acquaintance with the Rabbinic learning in τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα (2 Timothy 3:15), the Jewish Scriptures (lit [154], letters, hence γραμματεύς), cf. John 7:15; Acts 26:24, where the word is used without ἱερά, so that it cannot be confined to the sacred Scriptures of the O.T., and includes the Rabbinic training in their meaning and exposition. In classical Greek the word = “illiterati,” joined by Plato with ὄρειος, ἄμουσος, see also Xen., Mem., iv., 2, 20; by Plutarch it is set over against the μεμουσωμένος, and elsewhere joined with ἄγροικος, Trench, N. T. Synonyms, ii., p. 134, and Wetstein, in loco, cf. Athenæus, x., p. 454 B., βοτὴρ δʼ ἐστὶν ἀγράμματος. ἰδιῶται : the word properly signifies a private person (a man occupied with τὰ ἴδια), as opposed to any one who holds office in the State, but as the Greeks held that without political life there was no true education of a man, it was not unnatural that ἰδιώτης should acquire a somewhat contemptuous meaning, and so Plato joins it with ἀπράγμων, and Plutarch with ἄπρακτος and ἀπαίδευτος (and instances in Wetstein). But further: in Trench, u. s., p. 136, and Grimm, sub v., the ἰδιώτης is “a layman,” as compared with the ἰατρός, “the skilled physician,” Thuc. ii. 48, and the word is applied by Philo to the whole congregation of Israel as contrasted with the priests, and to subjects as contrasted with their prince, cf. its only use in the LXX, Proverbs 6:8 (cf. Herod., ii., 81, vii., 199, and instances in Wetstein on 1 Corinthians 14:16). Bearing this in mind, it would seem that the word is used by St. Paul (1 Corinthians 14:16; 1 Corinthians 14:23-24) of believers devoid of special spiritual gifts, of prophecy or of speaking with tongues, and in the passage before us it is applied to those who, like the ἀγράμματοι, had been without professional training in the Rabbinical schools. The translation “ignorant” is somewhat unfortunate. ἰδιώτης certainly need not mean ignorant, cf. Plato, Legg., 830, A., ἀνδρῶν σοφῶν ἰδιωτῶν τε καὶ συνετῶν. St. Paul uses the word of himself, ἰδιώτης ἐν λόγῳ, 2 Corinthians 11:6, in a way which helps us to understand its meaning here, for it may well have been used contemptuously of him (as here by the Sadducees of Peter and John) by the Judaisers, who despised him as “unlearned” and a “layman”: he would not affect the Rabbinic subtleties and interpretations in which they boasted. Others take the word here as referring to the social rank of the Apostles, “plebeians” “common men” (Kuinoel, Olshausen, De Wette, Bengel, Hackett), but the word is not so used until Herodian, iv., 10, 4. See also Dean Plumptre's note on the transition of the word through the Vulgate idiota to our word “idiot”: Tyndale and Cranmer both render “laymen”. ἐπεγίνωσκόν τε : if we take those words to imply that the Sanhedrim only recognised during the trial that Peter and John had been amongst the disciples of Jesus, there is something unnatural and forced about such an interpretation, especially when we remember that all Jerusalem was speaking of them, Acts 4:16; Acts 4:21, and that one of them was personally known to the high priest (John 18:15). In Codex [155] (so [156]) an attempt is apparently made to meet this difficulty by reading τινες δὲ ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐπεγίνωσκον αὐτοὺς. Others have pointed out that the same word is used in Acts 3:10 of the beggar who sat for alms, and that here, as there, ἐπεγίν. implies something more than mere recognition (see especially Lumby's note on the force of ἐπί); thus the revisers in both passages render “took knowledge of”. But here as elsewhere Professor Ramsay throws fresh light upon the narrative, St. Paul, p. 371. And however we interpret the words, St. Chrysostom's comment does not lose its beauty: ἐπεγίν. τε … ἦσαν, i.e., in His Passion, for only those were with Him at the time, and there indeed they had seen them humble, dejected and this it was that most surprised them, the greatness of the change; Hom., x. The τε after ἐπεγίν., and its repetition at the commencement of Acts 4:14 (so R.V., W.H [157], Weiss), is very Lucan (see Ramsay's paraphrase above); for this closely connecting force of τε cf. Weiss's commentary, passim. With σύν κ. τ. λ. Weiss compares Luke 8:38; Luke 22:56.

[153] literal, literally.

[154] literal, literally.

[155] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[156] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.

[157] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.