Acts 26:19

ὅθεν : “wherefore,” R.V., so in Hebrews 2:17; Hebrews 3:1; Hebrews 7:25; Hebrews 8:3; Hebrews 9:18 (locally in Luke 11:24; Acts 14:26; Acts 28:13); probably best taken here as referring to the whole revelation from Acts 26:12, marking the natural result of what had gone before; not used in St. Paul's Epistles. βασ. Ἀ.: “cum ad sua facta redeat, apte regem denuo compellat,” Blass, marking the commencement of his real defence. ἀπειθὴς : only in Luke and Paul in N.T., cf. Luke 1:17; Romans 1:30; 2 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:16; Titus 3:3; in LXX and in classical Greek. ὀπτασίᾳ : here and here only Paul himself apparently speaks of the appearance of Christ vouchsafed to him before Damascus by this word, but ὀπτασία, as Beyschlag shows, is not confined to appearances which the narrators regard as visions, cf. Luke 1:22; Luke 24:23, and its meaning must be explained from the entire “objectivity” with which St. Paul invests the whole narrative of his Conversion, cf. Witness of the Epistles, p. 383 (1892), and p. 380 for further reference to Beyschlag in Studien und Kritiken, 1864, 1890, and his Leben Jesu, i., p. 435. In modern Greek ὀπτασία = a vision (Kennedy).