Acts 1:3

οἷς καὶ παρέστησεν, “he also showed himself,” R.V., but margin “presented himself” (cf. Acts 9:41), praebuit se, Vulg. In Acts 9:41 monstravit, h. 1. magis demonstravit (Blass). The verb is used thirteen times in Acts (once in a quotation, Acts 4:26), both transitively and intransitively. St. Luke in his Gospel uses it three times, and as in Acts both transitively and intransitively. In this he is alone amongst the Evangelists. In the Epistles it is found only in St. Paul, and for the most part in a transitive sense. μετὰ τὸ παθεῖν, “after his passion,” so in A. and R.V.; post passionem suam, Vulg.; “too sacred a word to be expunged from this the only place where it occurs in the Bible,” Humphry, Commentary on R.V.; cf. Acts 3:18; Acts 17:3; Acts 26:23. ἐν πολλοῖς τεκμηρίοις τεκμήριον only here in N.T. twice in Wis 5:11; Wis 19:13, and 3Ma 3:24. The A.V. followed the Genevan Version by inserting the word “infallible” (although the latter still retained “tokens” instead of “proofs”). But R.V. simply “proofs” expresses the technical use of the word τεκμήριον, convincing, certain evidence. Although in a familiar passage, Wis 5:11, τεκμήριον and σημεῖον are used as practically synonymous, yet there is no doubt that they were technically distinguished, e.g., Arist., Rhet., i., 2, τῶν σημείων τὸ μὲν ἀναγκαῖον τεκμ. This technical distinction, it may be observed, was strictly maintained by medical men, although St. Luke may no doubt have met the word elsewhere. Thus it is used by Josephus several times, as Krenkel mentions, but he does not mention that it is also used by Thucydides, ii., 39, to say nothing of other classical writers. Galen writes to τὸ μὲν ἐκ τηρήσεως σημεῖον τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἐνδείξεως τεκμήριον, and the context states that rhetoricians as well as physicians had examined the distinction; Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, p. 184. The word also occurs in the Proem of Dioscorides to his De Materia Medica, p. 3, which Vogel and Meyer Weiss hold that Luke imitated in the Prologue to his Gospel (but see Zahn, Einleitung, ii., 384). διʼ ἡμερῶν τεσσαράκοντα. St. Chrysostom comments οὐ γὰρ εἶπε τεσσαράκοντα ἡμέρας, ἀλλὰ διʼ ἡμερῶν τεσσαράκοντα · ἐφίστατο γὰρ καὶ ἀφίστατο πάλιν. To this interpretation of the genitive with διά Blass refers, and endorses it, Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Griechisch, p. 129, following the Scholiast. The meaning, if this interpretation is adopted, would therefore be that our Lord did not remain with His disciples continuously (οὐ διηνεκῶς, Schol.) as before, but that He appeared to them from time to time; non perpetuo, sed per intervalla, Bengel. But cf. also Simcox, Language of the N.T., p. 140. Men have seen in this period of forty days, mentioned only by St. Luke in N.T., what we may reverently call a symbolical fitness. But in a certain sense the remark of Blass seems justified: Parum ad rem est quod idem (numerus) alias quoque occurrit. The parallels in the histories of Moses and Elijah to which Holtzmann and Spitta refer are really no parallels at all, and if it be true to say that there was nothing in contemporary Jewish ideas to suggest our Lord's Resurrection as it is represented as taking place, it is equally true to maintain that there was nothing to suggest the after sojourn of the forty days on earth as it is represented as taking place; see Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, ii. 624. ὀπτανόμενος : if we could call this a frequentative verb with some scholars, it would in itself give the meaning “appearing from time to time,” but it is rather a late Hellenistic present, formed from some parts of ὁρᾶν; Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 57, 181. But it certainly does not mean that our Lord's appearances were merely visionary. The verb is found only here in N.T., but also in LXX 1 Kings 8:8 and in Tob 12:19 (not in.). In these two passages the word cannot fairly be pressed into the service of visionary appearances. In 1 Kings the reference is to the staves of the ark which were so long that the ends were seen from the holy place before the oracle, but they were not seen from without, i.e., from the porch or vestibule. In Tobit it is not the appearance of the angel which is represented as visionary, quite the contrary; but his eating and drinking are represented as being only in appearance. But even if the word could be pressed into the meaning suggested, St. Luke's view of our Lord's appearances must be judged not by one expression but by his whole conception, cf. Luke 24:39-43 and Acts 10:41. That he could distinguish between visions and realities we cannot doubt; see note below on Acts 12:12. τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θ.: “speaking the things concerning,” R.V., not “speaking of the things,” A.V., but speaking the very things, whether truths to be believed, or commands to be obeyed (Humphry, Commentary on R.V.). On St. Luke's fondness for τὰ περί τινος in his writings see Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, pp. 10 and 89 (so also Zeller and Lekebusch). The exact phrase is only found in Acts, where it occurs twice (in T.R. three times); cf. Acts 19:8 (Acts 8:12), and see also Acts 20:25; Acts 20:28 (23):31. The expression ἡ βασ. τοῦ θ., instead of τῶν οὐρανῶν of the Hebrew Evangelist St. Matthew, is characteristic of St. Luke's writings, although it is found frequently in St. Mark and once in St. John. In St. Luke's Gospel it occurs more than thirty times, and six times in Acts (only four times in St. Matt.). Possibly the phrase was used by St Luke as one more easily understood by Gentile readers, but the two terms ἡ βασ. τοῦ θ. and τῶν οὐρ. were practically synonymous in the Gospels and in Judaism in the time of our Lord (Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 171; E. T. and Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (second edit.), p. 67; Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, i. 267; and Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, p. 76 ff.). Dr. Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 226, draws attention to the important fact that the preaching of the original Apostles after the Ascension is not described as that of the preaching of the kingdom of God, but that the phrase is only used of the preaching of St. Paul, and of St. Philip the associate of St. Stephen. But in view of the fact that the original Apostles heard during the Forty Days from their Master's lips to τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλ. τοῦ θεοῦ, we cannot doubt that in deed and in word they would proclaim that kingdom. On the question as to whether they conceived of the kingdom as present, or future, or both, see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i., 409, E. T., and Witness of the Epistles (Longmans), p. 309 ff., and on the conception of the kingdom of God in the Theology of A. Ritschl and his school see Orr, Ritschlian Theology, p. 258 ff. For the relation of the Church and the Kingdom see also Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, pp. 28, 36 ff., “Church,” Hastings, B.D., p. 425; Hort, Ecclesia, p. 5 ff.