Acts 26:8-11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Why should it be thought a thing incredible (It was thought so by Festus, Acts 25:19, to whom Paul answers as if he had heard him discourse;) that God A Being of infinite perfections, and the original author of the human frame; should raise the dead And continue their existence in a future state? Will not his Almighty power enable him to do it? and will not the honour of his moral attributes be hereby illustrated and vindicated? And if it be credible, is it not important enough to deserve the most attentive regard? I verily thought, &c. That is, when I was a Pharisee; that I ought to do many things (which he now enumerates) contrary to the name Destructive of the cause and religion; of Jesus of Nazareth Or, Jesus the Nazarene, whom under that title I once impiously derided, esteeming all his pretences to be the Messiah at once false and contemptible. He now proceeds to give an account of the extraordinary scenes through which he had passed, and which had occasioned a change in his views and conduct. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem Where many, now living, were witnesses of my rage against the Christians; and many of the saints Persons not only innocent, but just, good, and holy; I shut up in prison Φυλακαις, in prisons; having received authority from the chief priests to do it; and when they were put to death Were condemned to die; I gave my vote against them I joined with those who condemned them. It does not appear that Paul had any vote in the sanhedrim: and we do not certainly know that, before Paul's conversion, any more than Stephen were put to death for Christianity, in whose condemnation there was no voting at all. But the meaning plainly is, that he instigated the people against them as much as he could, in that instance, and in others which possibly might occur, whether at Jerusalem or elsewhere, though not recorded in the New Testament. Accordingly the Syriac renders it, I joined with those that condemned them; and Grotius observes, that the original phrase, κατηνεγκα ψηφον, has evidently sometimes this general signification. And I punished them oft in every synagogue Wherever I met with them; and When I could possibly effect it, I compelled them to blaspheme The name of the Lord Jesus, and openly to renounce all faith in him, and subjection to him. This was the most dreadful of all the sinful acts which he committed; and, it seems, grieved him most: and no guilt can lie heavier upon persecutors, than that of forcing men's consciences, and triumphing over them, by putting them to the torture, and thereby compelling them to abjure their religion. How light soever they may make of such guilt, and even rejoice in the proselytes they gain by their acts of violence and cruelty, awful, sooner or later, will be the condition of all such! For if Spira, who was compelled, suffered so terribly, what will become of those who compel like Saul, but do not repent like him? And being exceedingly mad against them Περισσως εμμαινομενος, beyond measure furious; I persecuted them even unto strange cities To which some of them had fled, to avoid or escape my outrageous cruelty, pursuing and hunting out the poor refugees, and endeavouring to drive them, not only out of their country, but out of the world.