Acts 8:2

Spitta connects Acts 8:2 with Acts 11:19-21, and all the intermediate section, Acts 8:5 to Acts 11:19; forms part of his source (so also Sorof, Clemen, who joins his H.H., Acts 8:1 to Acts 11:19; but on the other hand see Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., p. 501 (1895), and Jüngst, Apostelgeschichte, p. 79). According to Spitta the whole narrative of Philip's ministry in 8 ought not to be connected so closely with the death of Stephen, but should fall after Acts 9:31. The only reason for its earlier insertion is the desire to connect the second deacon with the first (but Hilgenfeld, u. s., pp. 413, 414 (1895), as against both Spitta and Clemen, regards the account of Philip and that of Stephen as inseparable). Spitta strongly maintains that Philip the Apostle, and not the deacon, is meant; and if this be so, he would no doubt help us to answer the objection that in Acts 8:14-17, and indeed in the whole section 9 24 we have an addition of the sub-Apostolic age inserted to show that the Apostles alone could bestow the Holy Spirit. But it cannot be said that Spitta's attempt at the identification of Philip in 8 with the Apostle is in any way convincing, see, e.g., Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, p. 212; Hilgenfeld, u. s., p. 416 (note), and Jüngst, u. s., p. 81. Feine's objection to Acts 8:14-17 leads him, whilst he admits that the meeting with Simon Magus is historical, to regard the conversion of the sorcerer as doubtful, because the whole passage presupposes (Acts 8:18-24) that the laying on of the Apostles' hands bestowed the Spirit; so Clemen refers the whole representation in its present form of the communication of the Spirit, not through Baptism, but through the laying on of the Apostles' hands, to his Redactor Antijudaicus (cf. Acts 19:6), and to the same hand he attributes the πλὴν τῶν ἀποστόλων, Acts 8:1, and cf. Acts 8:25, introduced for the purpose of showing that the Apostles Peter and John sanctioned the Samaritan mission from the central home of the Christian Church. συνεκόμισαν : in its primary sense the verb means to carry or bring together, of harvest; to gather in, to house it; so also in LXX, Job 5:26; in a secondary sense, to help in burying; so Soph., Ajax, 1048; Plut., Sull., 38. The meaning is not “carried to his burial,” as in A.V., but rather as R.V., “buried,” for, although the Greek is properly “joined in carrying,” the word includes the whole ceremony of burial it is used only here in the N.T., and in LXX only in l. c. εὐλαβεῖς : only found in St. Luke in N.T., and used by him four times, once in Luke 2:25, and in Acts 2:5; Acts 22:12 (εὐσεβής, T.R.). The primary thought underlying the word is that of one who handles carefully and cautiously, and so it bears the meaning of cautious, circumspect. Although εὐλάβεια and εὐλαβεῖσθαι are both used in the sense of caution and reverence towards the gods in classical Greek, the adjective is never expressly so used. But Plato connects it closely with δίκαιος (cf. Luke 2:25), Polit. 311 A and 311 [214] (so εὐσεβῶς and εὐλαβῶς are used together by Demosthenes). In the LXX all three words are found to express reverent fear of, or piety towards, God; εὐλαβεῖσθαι, frequently, εὐλάβεια in Proverbs 28:14, where σκληρὸς τὴν καρδίαν in the second part of the verse seems to point to the religious character of the εὐλαβ., whilst εὐλαβής is found in Micah 7:2 as a rendering of חסיד (cf. Psalms of Solomon, p. 36, Ryle and James' edition); cf. also Sir 11:17 (but see for both passages, Hatch and Redpath); in Leviticus 15:31 we find the word εὐλαβεῖς ποιήσετε τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰ. ἀπὸ τῶν ἀκαθαρσιῶν αὐτῶν, נָוַר hi. The adverb εὐλαβῶς is found once, 2Ma 6:11. St. Luke uses the word chiefly at all events of O.T. piety. In Luke 2:45 it is used of Simeon, in Acts 2:5 of the Jews who came up to worship at the feasts in Jerusalem, and in Acts 22:12, although Ananias was a Christian, yet the qualifying words εὐλ. κατὰ τὸν νόμον point again to a devout observance of the Jewish law. Trench, N. T. Synonyms, i., pp. 38, 198 ff.; Westcott, Hebrews, on Acts 5:7; Grimm-Thayer, sub v., and sub v. δειλία. ἄνδρες εὐλ.: much discussion has arisen as to whether they were Jews or Christians. They may have been Christians who like the Apostles themselves were still Jews, attending the temple services and hours of prayer, some of whom were doubtless left in the city. But these would have been described more probably as ἀδελφοί or μαθηταί (so Felten, Page, Hackett). Or they may have been devout Jews like Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, who would show their respect for Stephen, as Nicodemus and Joseph for Jesus (so Holtzmann, Zöckler). Wetstein (so too Renan and Blass) explains of Gentile proselytes, men like Cornelius, who rendered the last offices to Stephen out of natural respect for the dead, and who stood outside the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim, so that the funeral rites need not have been performed in secret. But St. Luke as a rule uses other words to denote Gentile proselytes, and the Sanhedrim would probably not have interfered with the burial, not only on account of the known Jewish care for the dead, but also because devout Jews would not have been obnoxious in their eyes to the charges brought against Stephen, Acts 6:14 (so Nösgen). The word might therefore include both devout Jews and Jewish Christians who joined together in burying Stephen. κοπετὸν μέγαν, from κόπτω, κόπτομαι, cf. planctus from plango, to beat the breast or head in lamentation. Not used elsewhere in N.T., but frequent in LXX; cf., e.g., Genesis 1:10 1Ma 2:70; 1Ma 4:39; 1Ma 9:20; 1Ma 13:26, for the same allocation as here, and for ποιῆσαι κοπετόν, Jeremiah 6:26; Micah 1:8, and cf. also Zechariah 12:10. In classical Greek κομμός is found, but see Plut., Fab., 17, and Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 74, for reference to the comic poet Eupolis (cf. also Blass), and Grimm-Thayer, sub v. For the Jewish customs of mourning cf. Matthew 9:23, Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, i., 7, 996, “Trauer”; Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, i., p. 616, and Sketches of Jewish Social Life, p. 172 ff. If the mourners included Jews as well as Jewish Christians, it may well have been that the lamentation was not only a token of sorrow and respect, but also in the nature of a protest on the part of the more moderate section of the Pharisees (see also Trench's remarks, u. s., p. 198). According to the tradition accepted by St. Augustine, it is said that both Gamaliel and Nicodemus took part in the burial of Stephen, and were afterwards laid in the same grave (Felten, Apostelgeschichte, p. 167, and Plumptre in loco).

[214] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.