Acts 12:17

κατασείσας … σιγᾶν : only in Acts 13:16; Acts 19:33; Acts 21:40, prop. to shake down (as fruit from trees), thus to shake up and down (the hand), to beckon with the hand for silence, used with accusative, and later with dat [253] instrument. χειρί : so in classical Greek and Josephus, cf. Ovid, Met., i., 206; Æneid, xii., 692, and instances in Wetstein; not in LXX as parallel to this; on the phrase, and also on σιγᾶν, as characteristic of Luke, see further Friedrich, pp. 26, 79. διηγήσατο, Acts 9:27, only in Luke and Mark (except Hebrews 11:32). Ἀπαγγείλατε : “tell,” R.V., characteristic of Luke, eleven times in his Gospel, thirteen or fourteen in Acts. Ἰακώβῳ : “the Lord's brother,” Galatians 1:19; Galatians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 15:7 (from Mark 6:3 it has been inferred that he was the eldest of those so called). This James may have become more prominent still since the murder of James the son of Zebedee. On his position in the Church at Jerusalem see below on Acts 15:13, and also on Acts 11:30. For arguments in favour of the identification of this James with James the son of Alphæus, see B.D., 1 2, p. 1512; Felten, Apostelgeschichte, p. 239; and, on the other hand, Mayor, Introd. to Epistle of St. James; Zahn, Didache 1 N. T., i., 72; Lightfoot, Galatians, pp. 252 ff. and 364; Hort, Ecclesia, pp. 76, 77. In this mention of James, Feine points out that a knowledge as to who he was is evidently presupposed, and that therefore we have another indication that the “Jerusalem tradition” is the source of St. Luke's information here. εἰς ἕτερον τόπον : all conjectures as to the place, whether it was Antioch, Rome, Cæsarea, are rendered more arbitrary by the fact that it is not even said that the place was outside Jerusalem (however probable this may have been); ἐξελθών need not mean that he went out of the city, but out of the house in which he had taken refuge, cf. Acts 12:9. For all that can be said in support of the view that he went to Rome, see Felten, u. s., pp. 240 244, Knabenbauer, p. 214. Harnack, Chronol., i., p. 243, apparently is prepared to regard the visit to Rome in the reign of Claudius, A.D. 42, as not impossible, although unprovable. But see the whole question treated from the opposite side by Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 233, 234 (second edition). The notice is so indefinite that we cannot build anything upon it, and we can scarcely go beyond Wendt's view that if Peter left Jerusalem at all, he may have undertaken some missionary journey, cf. 1 Corinthians 9:5.

[253] dative case.