Acts 6:14

ὁ Ναζ. οὗτος : not part of the words of Stephen, but of the witnesses see however Blass, in loco. καὶ καταλύσει : the closest similarity to the words in Mark 14:58 (cf. Matthew 26:61), and in both passages the same verb καταλύειν is used. It is also found in all three Synoptists in our Lord's prophecy of the destruction of the Temple, Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 21:6, and we find it again in the bitter scorn of the revilers who passed beneath the cross (Mark 15:29; Matthew 27:40). The prophecy, we cannot doubt, had made its impression not only upon the disciples, but also upon the enemies of Jesus, and if St. Stephen did not employ the actual words, we can easily understand how easily and plausibly they might be attributed to him. ἀλλάξει τὰ ἔθη, cf. Ezra 6:11; Isaiah 24:5. ἔθος is used by St. Luke seven times in Acts, three times in his Gospel, and it is only found twice elsewhere in the N.T., John 19:40; Hebrews 10:25; in the Books of the Maccabees it occurs three or four times, in Wis 4:16 (but see Hatch and Redpath), in Bel and the Dragon Acts 6:15, in the sense of custom, usage, as so often in the classics. Here it would doubtless include the whole system of the Mosaic law, which touched Jewish life at every turn, cf. Acts 15:1; Acts 21:21; Acts 26:3; Acts 28:17. For the dignity which attached to every word of the Pentateuch, and to Moses to whom the complete book of the law was declared to have been handed by God, see Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. i., p. 307, E.T., and Weber, Judische Theologie, p. 378 (1897). We have moreover the testimony of Jewish literature contemporary with the N.T. books, cf., e.g., Book of Jubilees, placed by Edersheim about 50 A.D., with its ultra-legal spirit, and its glorification of Moses and the Thorah, see too Apocalypse of Baruch, e.g., xv., 5; xlviii., 22, 24; li., 3; lxxxiv., 2, 5.