Acts 24:12

οὔτε ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ … οὔτε … οὔτε : step by step he refutes the charge. οὔτε εὗρον, cf. Acts 24:5, εὑρόντες, a flat denial to the allegation of Tertullus; R.V. reads more plainly: both acts, the disputing and the exciting a tumult, are denied with reference to the Temple, the synagogue, the city. In διαλ. there would have been nothing censurable, but even from this the Apostle had refrained. ἢ ἐπισύστασιν ποι. ὄχ.: R.V. reads ἐπίστασιν; the Apostle had been accused as κινοῦντα στάσεις, Acts 24:5; here is his answer to the charge, they had not found him “stirring up a crowd,” R.V. This rendering however seems to make ἐπίστασις almost = ἐπισύστασις, a stronger word, cf. Numbers 26:9 1Es 5:73, conjuratio. In 2Ma 6:3 we have ἐπίστασις τῆς κακίας, incursio malorum, Vulgate, but its meaning here would seem to be rather concursus, in the sense of a concourse, an assembly, not an onset or attack; and the phrase expresses that the Apostle had not been guilty of even the least disturbance; not even of causing the assembling of a crowd (see Wendt and Weiss, in loco), “aut concursum facientem turbæ,” Vulgate. In 2 Corinthians 11:28 it is possible that ἐπισύστασις may be used of the presence of a multitude, almost like ἐπίστασις, see Grimm-Thayer. συναγωγαῖς : plural, because so many in Jerusalem, cf. Acts 6:9. κατὰ τὴν πόλιν : Alford renders “up and down the streets,” cf. Luke 8:39; Luke 15:14.