Acts 4:2

διαπονούμενοι, cf. Acts 16:18, only in Acts in the N.T., not, as often in classical Greek, referring to the exertions made by them, but to the vexation which they felt, “being sore troubled,” R.V. (πόνος, dolor, Blass), cf. LXX, Ecclesiastes 10:9, used of pain caused to the body, and 2Ma 2:28, R. (A. al. ἀτονοῦντες), but cf. Aquila, Genesis 6:6; Genesis 34:7; 1 Samuel 20:3; 1 Samuel 20:34, of mental grief. ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ : not “through,” but as in R.V., “in Jesus,” i.e., “in persona Jesu quem resurrexisse dicebant” (Blass). Others render it “in the instance of Jesus” (so Holtzmann, Wendt, Felten, Zöckler). τὴν ἀνάστασιν τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν : on the form of the expression see Plummer on St. Luke, Luke 20:35, and Lumby's note, in loco. It must be distinguished from (ἡ) ἀνάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν. It is the more limited term implying that some from among the dead are raised, while others as yet are not; used of the Resurrection of Christ and of the righteous, cf. with this passage 1 Peter 1:3 (Colossians 1:18), but see also Grimm-Thayer, sub ἀνάστασις. It was not merely a dogmatic question of the denial of the Resurrection which concerned the Sadducees, but the danger to their power, and to their wealth from the Temple sacrifices and dues, if the Resurrection of Jesus was proclaimed and accepted (see Wendt and Holtzmann, in loco, and Plummer on Luke 23:1-7, note). Spitta agrees with Weiss, Feine, Jüngst, in regarding the mention of the distress of the Sadducees at the preaching of the Apostles as not belonging to the original source. But it is worthy of notice that in estimating the positive value of his source, A., he decides to retain the mention of the Sadducees in Acts 4:1 it would have been more easy, he thinks, for a forger to have represented the enmity to the Church as proceeding not from the Sadducees but from the Pharisees, as in the Gospels. But the Sadducees, as Spitta reminds us, according to Josephus, included the high-priestly families in their number, and it was by this sect that at a later date the death of James the Just was caused. Only once in the Gospels, John 12:10, the chief priests, rather than the Pharisees, take the initiative against our Lord, but this was in the case of what was essentially a question for the Sadducees (as here in Acts 4:2), the advisability of getting rid of Lazarus, a living witness to the truth which the Sadducees denied. It is no unfair inference that the chief priests in St. John occupy the place of the Sadducees in the Synoptists, as the latter are never mentioned by name in the fourth Gospel; and if so, this is exactly in accordance with what we should expect from the notices here and in Acts 5:17, and in Josephus; see on the point Lightfoot in Expositor, 1890, pp. 86, 87.