使徒行傳 23章6節 到 23章6節     上一筆  下一筆
 {But when Paul perceived} (gnous de ho Paulos). Perceiving
(second aorist ingressive of gin(9373)k(935c)). Paul quickly saw that
his cause was ruined before the Sanhedrin by his unwitting attack
on the high priest. It was impossible to get a fair hearing.
Hence, Vincent says, "Paul, with great tact, seeks to bring the
two parties of the council into collision with each other." So
Alford argues with the motto "divide and conquer." Farrar
condemns Paul and takes  24:21  as a confession of error here,
but that is reading into Paul's word about the resurrection more
than he says. Page considers Luke's report meagre and
unsatisfactory. Rackham thinks that the trial was already started
and that Paul repeated part of his speech of the day before when
"the Sadducees received his words with ostentatious scepticism
and ridicule: this provoked counter-expressions of sympathy and
credulity among the Pharisees." But all this is inference. We do
not have to adopt the Jesuitical principle that the end justifies
the means in order to see shrewdness and hard sense in what Paul
said and did. Paul knew, of course, that the Sanhedrin was nearly
evenly divided between Pharisees and Sadducees, for he himself
had been a Pharisee. {I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees} (Eg(930a)Pharisaios eimi huios Pharisai(936e)). This was strictly true as we
know from his Epistles ( Php 3:5 ). {Touching the hope and
resurrection of the dead I am called in question} (peri elpidos
kai anastase(9373) nekr(936e) krinomai). This was true also and this is
the point that Paul mentions in  24:21 . His failure to mention
again the fact that he was a Pharisee throws no discredit on
Luke's report here. The chief point of difference between
Pharisees and Sadducees was precisely this matter of the
resurrection. And this was Paul's cardinal doctrine as a
Christian minister. It was this fact that convinced him that
Jesus was the Messiah and was "the very centre of his faith"
(Page) and of his preaching. It was not a mere trick for Paul to
proclaim this fact here and so divide the Sanhedrin. As a matter
of fact, the Pharisees held aloof when the Sadducees persecuted
Peter and the other apostles for preaching resurrection in the
case of Jesus and even Gamaliel threw cold water on the effort to
punish them for it ( Ac 5:34-39 ). So then Paul was really
recurring to the original cleavage on this point and was able to
score a point against the Sadducees as Gamaliel, his great
teacher, had done before him. Besides, "Paul and Pharisaism seem
to us such opposite ideas that we often forget that to Paul
Christianity was the natural development of Judaism" (Page). Paul
shows this in  Ga 3  Ro 9-11 .

重新查詢 專卷研經 使徒行傳系列
錯誤回報,請聯繫