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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 22:5 - 22:5
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5. ὡς καὶ ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς μαρτυρεῖ μοι, as also the high priest doth bear me witness. The Apostle refers not to the high priest at the time when he was speaking, but to him who had held that office when (Act 9:1) in his earnestness against the Christians he had desired a commission from the authorities to carry his persecuting measures as far as Damascus. Josephus (Ant. XVIII. 5. 3) tells us that in A.D. 37 Teophilus, son of Ananus, was made high priest in the place of his brother Jonathan. The high priest to whom St Paul here alludes was one of these two brothers, for Theophilus held office till he was removed by Agrippa and his place occupied by Simon, called Kantheras (see Jos. Ant. XIX. 6. 2, and cf. Farrar’s St Paul, I. 178). Ananias was high priest at the time of St Paul’s arrest. See Act 23:2.
καὶ μᾶν τὸ πρεσβυτέριον, and all the estate of the elders. Though it was now more than twenty years since St Paul’s conversion, it was not improbable that some members of the Sanhedrin which granted him his commission were still alive, and the records of the transaction were doubtless preserved and could be appealed to.
πρεσβυτέριον is used for the position of an elder in LXX. Susanna 50.
ἐπιστολὰς δεξάμενος πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς, having received letters unto the brethren, i.e. to the Jewish authorities in Damascus. The Jews spake of all their race as brethren from the earliest times (cf. Deu 18:15). The whole family were Jacob’s children.
ἄξων καὶ τοὺς ἐκεῖσε ὄντας, to bring them also which were there, i.e. any Christians whom I was able to find in Damascus. ἐκεῖσε has here the force of ἐκεῖ, as it sometimes has in the Greek poets.
δεδεμένους εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ, to Jerusalem in bonds. Thus they were to be treated as the veriest criminals.