Acts 9:30

ἐπιγνόντες : the preposition may signify here as elsewhere accurate and certain knowledge or information a favourite word with St. Luke, in the Gospel seven times, in Acts thirteen times; it was also a favourite word with St. Paul, cf., e.g., 1Co 13:12, 2 Corinthians 6:9; frequent in LXX, or it may simply mean to find out, to ascertain (Grimm); see Blass in loco on its force in LXX. 5. οἱ ἀδελφοὶ : the expression seems expressly used to imply that the disciples at Jerusalem recognised Saul as a brother. Wendt (1899) rejects all the narrative in Acts as unhistorical, and compares with the statement here Galatians 1:22; but there mention is only made of the “Churches of Judæa,” whilst the inference that Paul could scarcely fail to have been known to the members of the Church in Jerusalem seems quite justifiable, Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 86. κατήγαγον, i.e., brought him down to the sea coast, ad mare deduxerunt, word used only by Luke and Paul; but by St. Luke only as a nautical expression, cf. Acts 27:3; Acts 28:12 (Acts 21:3), and Luke 5:11; so in classical writers. εἰς Κ. as in Acts 8:40 (not Cæsarea Philippi which is always so called); if he found Philip there (Acts 21:8), the friend and the accuser of the proto-martyr would meet face to face as brethren (Plumptre). ἐξαπέστειλαν : the word might mean by sea or by land, but the former is supported amongst recent commentators by Blass, so too Page (cf. Lightfoot on Galatians 1:21, p. 85), Knabenbauer, p. 174. But if so, there is no contradiction with Galatians 1:21, where Paul speaks of coming into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, as if hwent to the latter through the former. The expressions in Galatians have sometimes been explained on the supposition that the two countries, Syria and Cilicia, are named there as elsewhere in that order, Acts 15:23; Acts 15:41, as a kind of general geographical expression (Felten), the most important country being mentioned first, so Lightfoot, Nösgen, Conybeare and Howson; or that as Paul would remain at Syrian ports on the way to Cilicia, he might fairly speak as he does, or that he went first to Tarsus, and thence made missionary excursions into Syria. If neither of these or similar explanations are satisfactory, we can scarcely conclude with Blass that Galatians 1:21 is accounted for “inverso per incuriam ordine”. Ramsay has lately argued with much force that here as elsewhere Paul thinks and speaks of the Roman divisions of the empire (cf. Zahn, Einleitung in das N. T., i., p. 124 (1897)), and that here the two great divisions, Syria and Cilicia, of the Roman province are spoken of; and he accordingly reads, with the original text of [232], τὰ κλίματα τῆς Σ. καὶ Κ., the article used once, and thus embracing the two parts of the one province (sometimes three parts are enumerated, Phœnicia being distinguished from Syria). There is apparently no example of the expression Prov. Syria et Cilicia, but Ramsay points to the analogy of Bithynia-Pontus; see Expositor, p. 29 ff., 1898, and “Cilicia” and “Bithynia” (Ramsay) in Hastings' B.D. Ramsay therefore concludes that Galatians 1:21 simply implies that Paul spent the following period of his life in various parts of the province Syria-Cilicia. Ταρσόν, see above, Acts 9:11; on the years of quiet work at Tarsus and in its neighbourhood, see Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 46, 47, and below on Acts 11:25.

[232] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.