Acts 21:23

Acts 21:23. Do therefore this that we say unto thee: We have four men which have a vow on them. ‘ We,' that is, James the presiding elder and his brother-presbyters of the Jerusalem Church. The advice which was tendered, and which Paul followed, was the counsel of the whole assembly. The ‘four men' here spoken of were, of course, Christian Jews, and were doubtless members of one of the Jerusalem congregations. It is curious to observe how, in the Christian brotherhood of the Holy City, the old Jewish customs were still rigidly observed. Doubtless this was owing in great measure to the influence of their presiding elder, James ‘the Lord's brother,' as he was called. He, we know, from the tradition preserved by Hegesippus (in Eus. H. E. iii. 23), lived the life of a Nazarite, bound by a perpetual vow like Samson and Samuel, and possibly like John the Baptist. ‘James drank,' we read, ‘no wine nor strong drink, neither did he eat flesh. No razor ever touched his head; he did not anoint himself with oil; he did not use the bath.... He would enter into the temple alone, and be found there kneeling on his knees, and asking forgiveness for the people; so that his knees grew hard like a camel's knees, because he was ever upon them worshipping God, and asking forgiveness for the people.'

Thus the advice to Paul to associate himself with these men came from one a perpetual Nazarite himself. These four poor Jewish Christians of Jerusalem had taken the Nazaritic vow. This involved their leading an ascetic life for a certain time, usually (when the vow was for a season only) for thirty days. When the time specified in the vow was completed, a certain group of offerings had to be presented in the temple. They could not legally be released from the obligations they had taken upon themselves, until these offerings had been presented; and it seems to have been the custom for the wealthier Jews to take upon them the expenses and cost of these offerings for their poorer brethren, and so enable them to complete their vow. Such a deed of benevolence was looked upon by the more earnest Jews as an act of special merit. Josephus tells us of Agrippa the First, who, on his arrival in Jerusalem after having obtained the crown of Palestine, paid the expenses of many poor Nazarites who were waiting to be released from their vows. This was the king's thankoffering for his good fortune. It was also an act well calculated to win the hearts of his more zealous Jewish subjects. In the Gemara we read how Alexander Jannæus contributed towards supplying nine hundred victims for three hundred Nazarites.