Acts 5:34

Acts 5:34. A Pharisee named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people. This Gamaliel (גַּמְלִיאֵל, benefit of God. See Numbers 1:10; Acts 2:10) is generally acknowledged to be identical with the celebrated Gamaliel the elder, who lived at the time, and was the grandson of Hillel, the famous founder of one of the rabbinical schools. His name frequently occurs in the Mishna as an utterer of sayings subsequently quoted as authorities. Although liberal in his views and a student of Greek literature, he was held in high estimation as a most learned and devout Pharisee. ‘As among the Schoolmen Aquinas and Bonaventura were called respectively the “Angelic” and “Seraphic” Doctor, so Gamaliel among the Jews has received the name of the “Beauty of the Law,” and in the Talmud we read how since Rabban Gamaliel died, the glory of the law has ceased. He is one of the seven among the great Rabbis to whom the Jews have given the title of Rabban. Among his pupils, St. Paul and Onkelos (the author of the well-known Targum) are the most famous. The latter, when Gamaliel died, some eighteen years before the fall of Jerusalem, about the time when Paul was shipwrecked at Malta, raised to his master a funeral pile of such rich materials as had never before been known save at the burial of a king' (Howson, S. Paul) .

Partly from the statement of his interference in behalf of the apostles contained in this chapter, partly from a well-known passage in the Clementine Recognitions, where Peter is represented as saying, ‘which, when Gamaliel saw, who was a person of influence among the people, but secretly our brother in the faith' (i. 65), he has been supposed to have been, like Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and other wealthy and distinguished Pharisees, a Christian; but this supposition is totally without authority. Gamaliel lived and died a Pharisee in all the rigid acceptation of the term. A well-known prayer against Christian heretics was composed, or at least approved, by him; in it the following words referring to the followers of Jesus occur: ‘Let there be no hope for them who apostatize from the true religion, and let all heretics, how many soever they may be, perish as in a moment.'

The motives which influenced Gamaliel's conduct on this occasion have been much discussed: he prevailed upon the Sanhedrim not to adopt any violent measures towards these leaders of the rising sect, persuading them to let the matter alone; for if it were of mere human origin, it would come to nothing without any interference of theirs; if, on the other hand, it were divine, no human effort would prevail against it. He seems to have acquiesced in the temporary expedient of allowing the accused to be scourged, as the public teaching of the apostles had been carried on in direct defiance of the Sanhedrim (see chap. Acts 4:17-21), and the honour of the great council seemed to demand some reparation for its outraged authority. Two considerations seem to have influenced him (1) After all, the main accusation on the part of the high priest and his influential followers was the earnest teaching of those men of a great truth the resurrection from the dead: in this Gamaliel and the Pharisees sympathized with the apostles against their Sadducee enemies in the council. (2) The rumours of the mighty works which publicly accompanied the teaching, no doubt caused grave misgiving in minds like Gamaliel's, whether some basis of truth did not underlie the whole story.