Acts 5:17

17, 18. The excitement which now prevailed throughout Jerusalem and the neighboring villages, and found utterance in the most enthusiastic praise of the apostles, was too much for the equanimity of the dignitaries who had so strictly forbidden them to preach or teach in the name of Jesus. (17) " Then the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, being the sect of the Sadducees, and were filled with zeal, (18) and laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the public prison. " Here we have the same Sadducees at work who had arrested and threatened Peter and John. They were "filled with zeal;" but it was a zeal inspired less by love for their own cause, than by hatred for that which was triumphing over it. The advocates of error will generally appear quite easy, and sometimes, even generous, when their cause is merely standing still; but their zeal is always kindled when the truth begins to make inroads upon them. The zeal of these Sadducees was fanned to its fiercest heat by recent events, and they determined to execute the threats with which they had recently dismissed two of the apostles, making all the twelve their present victims.