Acts 9:20

For Χριστόν read Ἰησοῦν with אABCE. Vulg. ‘Jesum.’

20. ἐκήρυσσεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν κ.τ.λ., he proclaimed Jesus that He is the Son of God. This is undoubtedly the correct reading. The preaching which was to be to the Jews a stumbling-block was that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, their long-expected Messiah.

Saul went, as was Christ’s custom also, into the synagogues as the most likely places where to find an audience who would listen to his proclamation. His letters to the synagogues (Acts 9:2) were not delivered, but he came as the herald of one of higher authority than the chief priests. For St Paul’s constant practice of teaching in the Jewish synagogues see Acts 13:5; Acts 14:1; Acts 17:1; Acts 17:10; Acts 18:4; Acts 18:19; Acts 19:8.

Chrysostom’s note on this practice from the first is ὄρα, εὐθέως διδάσκαλος ἦν ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς· οὐκ ᾐσχύνετο τὴν μεταβολήν, οὐκ ἐδεδοίκει ἐν οἶς λαμπρὸς ἦν ταῦτα καταλύων· οὐχ ἁπλῶς ἦν διδάσκαλος�.

The construction is not entirely simple, for a portion of the predicative clause has been attracted into the antecedent part of the sentence. The simpler order would have been ἐκήρυσσεν ὄτι Ἰησοῦς ὲστιν κ.τ.λ. But κηρύσσειν Ἰησοῦν (or Χριστίν) had a distinct sense on the lips of the early Christians (cf. Acts 8:5; 1 Corinthians 1:23, &c.), which will account for the order of the words here.