Acts 13:16

κατασείσας, see above on Acts 12:17, and cf. Acts 19:33; Acts 21:40 (Acts 26:1), “made a gesture with his hand,” a gesture common to orators, “nam hoc gestu olim verba facturi pro contione silentium exigebant,” and here a graphic touch quite characteristic of Acts. The speech which follows may well have remained in the memory, or possibly may have found a place in the manuscript diary of one of Paul's hearers (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 100), or St. Paul may himself have furnished St. Luke with an outline of it, for the main sections, as Ewald suggested, may have formed part of the Apostle's regular mode of addressing similar audiences; and if not St. Paul himself, yet one of those who are described as οἱ περὶ Παῦλον, Acts 13:13 (Zöckler), may have supplied the information. On the other hand it is maintained that the speech in its present form is a free composition of the author of Acts, since it is so similar to the early addresses of St. Peter, or to the defence made by St. Stephen, and that St. Luke wished to illustrate St. Paul's method of proclaiming the Messianic salvation to Jews. But considering the audience and the occasion, it is difficult to see how St. Paul could have avoided touching upon points similar to those which had claimed the attention of a St. Peter or a St. Stephen: “non poterat multum differre vel a Petri orationibus, vel a defensione Stephani … hæc igitur non magis in Paulum cadunt quam in quemvis novae salutis praeconem” (Blass), while at the same time it is quite possible to press this similarity too far and to ignore the points which are confessedly characteristic of St. Paul, cf., e.g., Acts 13:38-39 (Bethge, Die Paulinischen Reden der Apostelgeschichte, pp. 19 22; Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 244, 245; Lechler, Das Apostolische Zeitalter, p. 272; Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., i., p. 46 (1896)); see further, Farrar, St. Paul, i., p. 369, note, and Alford references for the several Pauline expressions, and the remarkable list of parallels drawn out recently by Ramsay between the speech at Pisidian Antioch and the thoughts and phrases of the Epistle to the Galatians, Expositor, December, 1898 (see below on pp. 295, 297); also Nösgen's list of Pauline expressions, Apostelgeschichte, p. 53, in this and in other speeches in Acts. ἄνδρες Ἰ., cf. Acts 2:22; Acts 3:12; Acts 5:35, a mode of address fitly chosen as in harmony with the references to the history of Israel which were to follow. οἱ φ. Θεόν, cf. Acts 10:2; Acts 13:43; Acts 13:50; Acts 16:14, etc.