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26. τότε ὁ Παῦλος παραλαβὼν τοὺς ἄνδρας, then Paul having taken the men. This consent of Paul to the advice of James and the elders has been taken by some for a contradiction of the words and character of the Apostle as represented in his own writings. But he has testified of himself (1Co 9:19-23) that for the Gospel’s sake he was made all things to all men, unto the Jews becoming as a Jew that he might gain the Jews, and for the same end, to them that are without law, as himself without law. And these brethren of the Church of Jerusalem to whom St Paul joined himself were Christians, and therefore were not clinging to legal observances as of merit towards salvation, but as ordinances which were of divine origin, and which education had made them careful to observe. The same spirit had actuated the Apostle to manifest by an outward act his thankfulness for some deliverance when, on a former occasion, he took this vow on himself without the suggestion of others (Act 18:18). In the Christian services of the earliest days there was very little outlet for the expression by action of any religious emotion, and we cannot wonder that a people whose worship for a long time had been mainly in external observance should cling still to such outward acts, though they had grown to estimate them as of no saving virtue in themselves. With reference to the supposed contradiction in the two pictures of St Paul as given by St Luke and by himself, we need only compare his language about Judaizers in the Epistle to the Galatians with what he says of the preaching of the Gospel at Rome by similar adversaries, when he was writing to the Philippians, to see that the Apostle in what he said and did had ever an eye to the circumstances. To the Galatians he speaks in the strongest terms against the Judaizers because their influence was to draw away the Christians in Galatia from the simple Gospel as offered by him in Christ’s name to the Gentiles, and to make them substitute for it the observance of the law of Moses as a necessary door to Christianity. He has no words strong enough to express his horror of such teachers in such a place. But the same Paul concerning Rome, the condition of whose people may be learnt by a perusal of the first chapter of his letter to that Church, says (Php 1:15-18), ‘Some preach Christ even of envy and strife, supposing to add affliction to my bonds. Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.’ Assuredly there is as much of so-called contradiction between Paul as described in different places by himself, as between his own description and what St Luke has left us of his history. Contradiction it is not, but only such concession as might be expected from one strong in the faith as St Paul was when he was dealing, as he was called upon to deal, with two classes of men who could never be brought to the same standpoint. To observe the ceremonial law was not needful for the Gentiles, therefore the Apostle decried its observance and opposed those who would have enforced it. The ceremonial law was abolished for the Jew also in Christ, but it had a divine warrant for those who had been trained in it from their youth up, therefore all that the Apostle here desired was that their true value only should be set on externals. He felt that time would develop Christian worship to fill the place which the Temple Service for a long time must hold among the Christians of Jerusalem.
τῇ ἐχομένῃ ἡμέρᾳ … εἰς τὸ ἱερόν, the next day, having purified himself with them, he entered into the Temple. The regulation was that the Nazirite should avoid all persons and things that would cause ceremonial defilement, and that this might be more thoroughly accomplished the closing days of the vow appear, at this time, to have been passed within the Temple precincts. This, of course, must have been a later arrangement than any which is spoken of in the institution of the vow (Numbers 6).
On the Apostle’s action at this time Chrysostom remarks: ὅρα τὸν Παῦλον. οὐ λέγει … καὶ μὴν δύναμαι πεῖσαι τῷ λόγῳ· ἀλλ' ἐπείσθη αὐτοῖς καὶ πάντα ἐποίησε. καὶ γὰρ οὕτω συνέφερεν. οὐ γὰρ ἦν ἴσον εἰς ἀπολογίαν καταστῆναι, καὶ οὐδένος εἰδότος ποιῆσαι ταῦτα. ἀνύποπτον ἦν τὸ καὶ δαπανᾶσθαι.
διαγγέλλων τὴν ἐκπλήρωσιν τῶν ἡμερῶν τοῦ ἁγνισμοῦ, declaring the fulfilment of the days of purification. The meaning is that St Paul gave notice to the proper officials of the Temple that the completion of the vow would be at a certain time. It would be needful for him to do this, as otherwise they would have expected him to keep the full number of days which the others observed. After his explanation that he was only a sharer for a time in the vow of his companions, it would be understood that his days of purification should terminate when theirs did.
ἕως οὗ προσηνέχθν … ἡ προσφορά, until the offering was offered for every one of them. ἕως οὗ depends on εἰσῄει, ‘he entered in … (to stay) till the offering, &c.’ The words are not a part of St Paul’s notice to the priests, but of St Luke’s history. The Apostle performed these observances, and intended to continue as a Nazirite till the whole ceremonial for all of them was ended.