Α COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. BY THE REV. WILLIAM GILSON HUMPHRY, M.A. FELLOW AND LATE ASSISTANT TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; EXAMINING CHAPLAIN OF THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. Αρά γε γινώσκεις ἃ ἀναγινώσκεις; LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND; M.DCCC. XLVII. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PREFACE. THE following pages were commenced while the Author was engaged in the duties of Tuition at Trinity College. An attempt to illustrate the Book of the Acts will not be considered unnecessary by those who, like himself, have been occupied in giving instruction on this part of Holy Scripture. To them at least a work on this subject would not be unwelcome, which should briefly and in due proportion "bring forth things new and old," on the one hand applying the researches of modern critics, and on the other having regard for the authority and piety of the ancient Fathers. The Book of the Acts has of late years received frequent and careful attention from English and German scholars. The difficulties which have been overlooked by them, or which admit of a new solution, are happily few in number, and, except in two or three instances, not material. But it has become a necessary task to reduce and make a summary of their labours; to gather up what is useful, and cast aside what is trivial in the writings α of each; to sift the mass of their quotations, and verify such as are found appropriate; to give to the materials which are thus obtained a concise and commodious, yet not a dry or spiritless form. From ancient sources the diligent reader of Scripture may derive two kinds of assistance; the incidental illustrations scattered up and down the writings of the Antenicene Fathers, and the more direct and systematic expositions which are generally of a later date. The former constitute not a large, but an important element in our Annotations: they are highly valued, not only for the light which they throw on Scripture, but for the testimony which they offer to its genuineness and veracity. The latter class forms a considerable body of commentary, from which it has been attempted to transfer into the present volume such passages of sensible, terse, and thoughtful exposition, as could without violence be separated from their context. Some occasions have arisen in the course of the work for illustrating the doctrine and discipline of the early Church; but it has not been the Author's object either to go over the ashes of extinct controversies, or to enter the flames of those which are still active. |