Acts 15:1

καί τινες κατελθόντες�, and certain which came down from Judæa, i.e. to Antioch. The words of the new comers would derive authority from the place whence they had come, and would be received as the latest ordinance of the heads of the Church at Jerusalem. Thus the mission of inquiry to Jerusalem was rendered necessary.

ἐδίδασκον τοὺς�, taught the brethren. These were a mixed body, composed of Jews, proselytes and Gentiles (see Acts 11:19-20, and the notes there). Thus it was precisely the place where such a question would arise. Gentile converts who had not passed into Christianity by the gate of Judaism would be sure to be regarded as wanting something by the people in whose mouths ‘uncircumcised’ had been from old times the bitterest term of reproach. (Cf. 1 Samuel 17:26 and Acts 11:3.) The tense of the verb used implies that these men were persistent in their teaching, they kept constantly to this theme.

τῷ ἔθει τῷ Μωϋσέως, after the custom of Moses. The word is found before (Acts 6:14) ‘the customs which Moses delivered’ and signifies those rites and usages which had their foundation in the Law (cf. Luke 1:9; Luke 2:42; Acts 21:21) and so were more than a ‘manner’ or ‘fashion.’ Cf. also John 7:22, for circumcision as the ordinance given to the people by Moses.

ἔθος is not common in the LXX. and appears to be only once used (2Ma 11:25) for the observances of the Jewish religion.

The dative case is put here to express the rule or order by which a thing is done, but a much more frequent mode of expressing this is, as in Acts 17:2, by κατὰ with the accusative. But cf. 2Ma 6:1 τοῖς τοῦ θεοῦ νόμοις πολιτεύεσθαι.

οὐ δύνασθε σωθῆναι, ye cannot be saved. Such a statement was likely to cause debate and questioning among those who had just learnt (Acts 14:27) that ‘God had opened the door of faith’ (independent of the observance of the ceremonial Law) ‘unto the Gentiles.’