Acts 6:9

ἀνέστησαν : in a hostile sense, cf. Luke 10:25; Mark 14:57, and see above on Acts 5:17. τῆς συναγωγῆς : in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and the larger towns there was no doubt a considerable number of synagogues, but the tradition that assigned no less than four hundred and eighty to Jerusalem alone is characterised by Schürer as a Talmudic myth (Jewish Temple, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 73, E.T., so too Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, pp. 83, 252, but see also Renan, Apostles, p. 113, E.T.). The number four hundred and eighty was apparently fixed upon as the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word for “full,” in Isaiah 1:21, a city “full of judgment”. The names which follow have been variously classified, but they have always proved and still prove a difficulty. Ramsay considers that the bad form of the list is due to the fact that St. Luke is here dependent on an authority whose expressions he either translated verbatim or did not understand, Expositor (1895), p. 35. One thing seems certain, viz., that Λιβερτίνων does not refer to any town Libertum in the neighbourhood of Carthage, which has been urged as an explanation of the close juxtaposition of Cyrene, also in Africa. The existence of a town or region bearing any such name is merely conjectural, and even if its existence could be demonstrated, it is improbable that many Jews from such an obscure place should have been resident in Jerusalem. There is therefore much probability that St. Chrysostom was correct in referring the word to the Libertini, Ῥωμαῖοι ἀπελεύθεροι. The Libertini here were probably Roman “freedmen” who were formerly captive Jews brought to Rome by Pompey, B.C. 63 (Suet., Tib., 36; Tac., Ann., ii., 85; Philo, Legat. ad Gaium, 23), and afterwards liberated by their Roman masters. These men and their descendants would enjoy the rights of Roman citizenship, and some of them appear to have returned to Jerusalem, where they had their own community and a synagogue called συναγ. Λιβερτίνων (according to Grimm-Thayer, sub v. Λιβερτ., some evidence seems to have been discovered of a “synagogue of the Libertines” at Pompeii), see Schürer, Jewish Temple, div. ii., vol. ii., pp. 57, 276, 277; O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 89; and Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, p. 201 (second edition). But a further question arises as to the number of synagogues intended. Thus it has been maintained that they were five in number. This is Schürer's decided view, Weiss, Meyer (in earlier editions), so Hackett, so Matthias, Handbuch zum N. T., V. Apostelgeschichte, 1897. By other writers it is thought that reference is made to two synagogues. This is the view advocated by Wendt as against Meyer. Wendt admits that as in the places named there were undoubtedly large numbers of Jewish inhabitants, so it is possible that in Jerusalem itself they may have been sufficiently numerous to make up the five synagogues, but his own view is based upon the ground that τῶν before ἀπὸ Κ. καὶ Ἀ. is parallel with the τῶν after τινες (so Holtzmann, Felten). So too Zöckler, who depends upon the simple καί before Κυρηναίων and Ἀλεξ. as pointing to one group with the Libertines; τῶν ἀπὸ Κ. καὶ Ἀσίας forming a second group. Dr. Sanday, Expositor, viii., p. 327 (third series), takes the same view of two synagogues only, as he considers that it is favoured by the Greeks (so too Dean Plumptre and Winer-Moulton, xix., 5 a, note, but see also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 158; cf. critical note above). Mr. Page is inclined to think that three synagogues are intended: (1) i.e., of the Libertini, (2) another of the men of Alexandria and Cyrene, (3) another of the men of Cilicia and Asia; whilst many writers from Calvin, Bengel and others to O. Holtzmann and Rendall hold that only one synagogue is intended; so Dr. Hort maintains that the Greek suggests only the one synagogue of the Libertines, and that the other names are simply descriptive of origin from the south, Cyrene, and Alexandria; from the north, Cilicia, and Proconsular Asia. On the whole the Greek seems, to favour the view of Wendt as above; καὶ Κυρην. καὶ Ἀλεξ. seem to form, as Blass says, a part of the same appellation with Λιβερτίνων. Blass himself has recently, Philology of the Gospels, p. 49 ff., declared in favour of another reading, Λιβυστίνων, which he regards as the correct text, Λιβερτίνων being corrupt although differing only in two letters from the original. In the proposed reading he is following Oecumenius and Beza amongst others; the same reading is apparently favoured also by Wetstein, who gives both the passages to which Blass refers, one from Catullus, lx., 1, “Leæna montibus Libystinis,” and the other from the geographical Lexicon of Stephanus Byzantinus. Λιβυστίνων would mean Jews inhabitants of Libya, not Libyans, and the synagogue in question bore the name of Λιβυσ. καὶ Κυρηναίων καὶ Ἀλεξ., thus specifying the African Jews in the geographical order of their original dwelling-places. Κυρηναίων, see on Acts 2:9, and below, Acts 11:20; Acts 13:1. Ἀλεξ.: probably there was no city, next to Jerusalem and Rome, in which the Jewish population was so numerous and influential as in Alexandria. In his new city Alexander the Great had assigned the Jews a place: their numbers rapidly grew, and, according to Philo, two of the five districts of the town, named after the first five letters of the alphabet, were called “the Jewish,” from the number of Jews dwelling in them, one quarter, Delta, being entirely populated by them. Julius Caesar and Augustus confirmed their former privileges, and they retained them for the most part, with the important exception described by Philo, during subsequent reigns. For some time, until the reign of Claudius, they had their own officer to represent them as ethnarch (alabarch), and Augustus appointed a council who should superintend their affairs according to their own laws, and the Romans evidently recognised the importance of a mercenary race like the Jews for the trade and commerce of the city. Here dwelt the famous teacher Philo, B.C. 20 A.D. 50; here Apollos was trained, possibly under the guidance of the famous philosopher, and here too St. Stephen may have belonged by birth and education (Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 253). St. Paul never visited Alexandria, and it is possible that the Apostle may have felt after his experience at Corinth, and the teaching of Apollos (1 Corinthians 1:12), that the simplicity of his own message of Christ Crucified would not have been acceptable to hearers of the word of wisdom and the lovers of allegory. On the causes which tended to produce a distinct form of the Jewish character and faith in the city, see B.D. 2 “Alexandria,” and Hastings, B.D., sub v.; Stanley's Jewish Church, iii., xlvii.; Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, ii., 1, 47. We know that Alexandria had, as was only likely, a synagogue at Jerusalem, specially gorgeous (Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 253); on the history of the place see, in addition to literature already mentioned, Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., pp. 73, 228, 229, 244, E.T.; Jos., Ant., xiv., 7, 2; x., 1; xix., 5, 2. Κιλικίας : of special interest because Saul of Tarsus would probably be prominent amongst “those of Cilicia,” and there is no difficulty in supposing with Weiss and even Spitta (Apostelgeschichte, p. 115) that he belonged to the members of the Cilician synagogue who disputed with Stephen. To the considerable Jewish community settled in Tarsus, from the time of the Seleucidæ, Saul belonged. But whatever influence early associations may have had upon Stephen, Saul by his own confession was not merely the son of a Pharisee, but himself a Pharisee of the Pharisees in orthodoxy and zeal, Galatians 1:14; Philippians 3:5. It would seem that there was a synagogue of the Tarsians at Jerusalem, Megilla, 26 a (Hamburger, u. s., ii., 1, 148); see also B.D. 2 “Cilicia,” Schürer, u. s., p. 222; O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 100. The “Jews from Asia” are those who at a later date, Acts 21:27, are again prominent in their zeal for the sacredness of the Holy Place, and who hurl against Paul the same fatal charge which he now directs against Stephen (Plumptre, in loco; Sabatier, L'Apôtre Paul, p. 20). συνζητοῦντες : not found in LXX or other Greek versions of the O.T., or Apocrypha, although it may occur, Nehemiah 2:4, in the sense of request, but the reading is doubtful (see Hatch and Redpath). In the N.T. it is used six times by St. Mark and four times by St. Luke (twice in his Gospel), and always in the sense of questioning, generally in the sense of disputatious questioning. The words of Josephus in his preface (sect. 5), B. J., may help us to understand the characteristics of the Hellenists. The same verb is used by St. Paul himself, as in this same Jerusalem he disputed, possibly in their synagogue, with the Hellenists on behalf of the faith which he was now seeking to destroy, Acts 9:29. In modern Greek the verb has always the meaning to discuss, to dispute (Kennedy).