Acts 17:7

ὑποδέδεκται : no notion of secrecy as Erasmus and Bengel, but as in Luke 10:38; Luke 19:6; only found in these three passages in Luke, and in James 2:25, cf. LXX, Tob 7:8, Judges 13:13 (see Hatch and Redpath for both instances), 1Ma 16:15, and 4Ma 13:17, often in classical Greek without any notion of secrecy. οὗτοι πάντες : the words may be taken as referring not only to Jason and the accused, but with Alford, “all these people,” i.e., Christians wherever found. ἀπέναντι : only here in N.T. in this sense (common in LXX and Apocrypha, so also Polyb., i., 86, 3), cf. Sirach 36 (33):14. δογματων, see on Acts 16:4. The word may here refer to the successive decrees of the emperors against treason, and there is no need to refer it in this passage to the decree of Claudius, see on Acts 18:2, but rather to the Julian Leges Majestatis. β. λέγοντες ἕτερον εἶναι : this was the charge, the political charge of high treason, brought against our Lord Himself by the Jews, Luke 23:2; John 19:12; John 19:15. The nature of this charge may fairly point to a Jewish source, for the Jews thought of the Messiah as a king, and in their hostility to Paul they could easily accuse him of proclaiming Jesus or another king, another emperor (Ramsay), instead of Caesar; so McGiffert on this passage, “whose trustworthiness can hardly be doubted” (Apostolic Age, p. 246). The Epistles to the Thessalonians contain passages which might be as easily perverted in the same direction, 1 Thessalonians 2:12; 1Th 4:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 1:5-8, or the fact that Jesus was so often spoken of as Κύριος, “that deathless King Who lived and died for men,” might have given colour to the charge, cf. on the coincidence and accuracy of the Acts and 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16, Paley, Horæ Paulinæ, ix., 5, and McGiffert, u. s.