Acts 14:8,9

Acts 14:8-9

Several Western witnesses introduce a variety of expansions. At the close of ver. Acts 14:8 it^h adds (according to Berger) the phrase [habens ti]morem dei (“having the fear of God”) [Buchanan could not read dei in the manuscript, which is a palimpsest]. According to Blass, the intention of the addition is to describe the cripple as a Jewish proselyte. In accord with this interpretation of the phrase is the addition to ver. Acts 14:9 in the same witness, “he heard the apostle gladly” (libenter = h`de,wj). Codex Bezae moves the phrase to ver. Acts 14:9, and after lalou/ntoj reads u`pa,rcwn evn fo,bw|, where its meaning is more difficult to interpret; Zahn thinks it means “being in despair,” but Ramsay still takes it to mean that he was a “Godfearer.” ²⁸⁶ The reading of it^gig makes the man’s faith the result of Paul’s preaching, hic cum audisset Paulum loquentem, credidit (“When he had heard Paul speaking, he believed”). After “speaking” cop^G67 expands with circumstantial detail: “He had been wishing to hear Paul speak. When Paul saw him he looked in his face; he knew in the spirit that he had true faith to be cured.”

²⁸⁶ W. M. Ramsay. St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (London, 1905), p. 116.