Acts 26:28

Acts 26:28. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Modern commentators very generally, on the ground that no clear instance has been adduced of the Greek word ε ̓ ν ο ̓ λι ́ γω ͅ signifying ‘almost,' give up this ancient, time-honoured rendering, and translate the king's reply either (a) With but little persuasion thou wouldest induce me to be a Christian; (b) In a little time thou persuadest me to be a Christian; in other words, ‘If thou goest on speaking as thou art doing, thou wilt soon persuade me to become a Christian.' Now both (a) and (b) suppose that the words were spoken in irony; but this is very unlike what we should expect. The address of Paul on this occasion would never have called out a sarcastic reply from Agrippa. It would be quite at variance with the whole tenor of the scene. It is clear from what took place immediately after, the Jewish king and Roman governor were moved deeply, and that both of them were glad to be rid of the responsibility either of condemning or acquitting a man whom they felt was in very truth one of earth's great ones, and wholly innocent of the charge of sedition and treason.

One cannot help calling to mind a somewhat similar but far more momentous scene, when a famous predecessor of Festus, moved too by the transparent innocence of the accused before him, ‘washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it' (Matthew 27:24). Irony here seems utterly out of place, and simply inconceivable.

In his reply, too, Paul evidently accepted the words of Agrippa as spoken in earnest. He saw no tinge of irony or even of playful courtesy in the king's reply. To him it was all terribly real. To him the Jewish sovereign was a soul just grasping with feeble uncertain hand the rope of safety which would save it from eternal death, but letting it slip through his weak nerveless fingers. To win that perishing soul, he made a last brave attempt in his reply (see Acts 26:29). That earnest loving appeal never surely would have been made to one who could dismiss with cruel scornful sarcasm such a defence as had been spoken that day by the prisoner Paul in the Cæsarean judgment-hall.

Considering the laxity which then confessedly existed in the forms of the Greek language used by the many peoples who had adopted Greek as the medium of their intercourse, and that in this so-called Alexandrian or Hellenistic Greek the use of prepositions especially had undergone considerable modifications owing to the orientalisms which naturally among these eastern nations had crept into the language adopted as the general vehicle of communication in the populous countries which fringed the Mediterranean seaboards, we prefer as the exegetical difficulties attending the adoption of either of the renderings (a) or (b. above suggested are so great to retain the old translation of the English Version, ‘Almost (propemodum) thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' Among the distinguished scholars and expositors who thus (in the sense of ‘almost') understand the exclamation of Agrippa, must be reckoned the famous Greek commentator and writer Chrysostom. In later times, Luther, Castalio, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Stier, understand the words of the original in the same sense as our English Version.

Moved already by the splendid eloquence and the weighty argument of Paul, the words of the apostle appealing to the king's known reverence for the words of the Hebrew prophets a reputation greatly affected by these last princes of the Herodian dynasty elicited from Agrippa the memorable exclamation, ‘Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,' thus publicly testifying his admiration for Paul, and his conviction of his innocence of the charges alleged against him a conviction repeated in the decision arrived at by himself and the Roman governor together shortly after (see Acts 26:31); at the same time, however, he cautiously avoided committing himself decidedly to the opinions of a sect which he was aware was generally unpopular among the leading Jews.

From this use of the term ‘Christian' by the king, it would seem that the appellation had now become one generally used in speaking of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.