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Ac 6:13; 16:20,21; 17:6,7; 21:28; 22:22; 28:22 1Ki 18:17,18 Jer 38:4

Verse 5. For we have found this man, &c.] Here the proposition of the orator commences. He accuses Paul, ant his accusation includes four particulars:- 1. He is a pest, loimov; an exceedingly bad and wicked man.

2. He excites disturbances and seditions against the Jews. 3. He is the chief of the sect of the Nazarenes, who are a very bad people, and should not be tolerated. He has endeavoured to pollute and profane the temple, and we took him in the fact.

A pestilent fellow] The word loimov, pestis-the plague or pestilence, is used by both Greek and Roman authors to signify a very bad and profligate man; we have weakened the force of the word by translating the substantive adjectively. Tertullus did not say that Paul was a pestilent fellow, but he said that he was the very pestilence itself. As in that of Martial, xi. xc2: - Non vitiosus homo es, Zoile, sed vitium.

"Thou art not a vicious man, O Zoilus, but thou art vice itself." The words loimov, and pestis, are thus frequently used.-See Wetstein, Bp. Pearce, and Kypke.

A mover of sedition] Instead of stasin, sedition, ABE, several others, with the Coptic, Vulgate, Chrysostom, Theophylact, and OEcumenius, read staseiv, commotions, which is probably the true reading.

Among all the Jews] Bp. Pearce contends that the words should be understood thus-one that stirreth up tumults AGAINST all the Jews; for, if they be understood otherwise, Tertullus may be considered as accusing his countrymen, as if they, at Paul's instigation, were forward to make insurrections every where. On the contrary, he wishes to represent them as a persecuted and distressed people, by means of Paul and his Nazarenes.

A ringleader] prwtostathn. This is a military phrase, and signifies the officer who stands on the right of the first rank; the captain of the front rank of the sect of the Nazarenes; thv twn nazwraiwn airesewv, of the heresy of the Nazarenes. This word is used six times by St. Luke; viz. in this verse, and in ver. 14, and in chap. v. 17; xv. 5; xxvi. 5; xxviii. 22; but in none of them does it appear necessarily to include that bad sense which we generally assign to the word heresy.-See the note on chap. v. 17, where the subject is largely considered; and see farther on ver. 14.

Ver. 5. For we have found this man a pestilent fellow , etc.] Pointing to Paul, the prisoner at the bar; the word here used signifies the �pest� or �plague� itself; and it was usual with orators among the Romans, when they would represent a man as a very wicked man, as dangerous to the state, and unworthy to live in it, to call him the pest of the city, or of the country, or of the empire, as may be observed in several places in Cicero�s Orations. And a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world : sedition was severely punished by the Romans, being what they carefully watched and guarded against, and was what the Jews were supposed to be very prone unto; and Tertullus would suggest, that the several riots, and tumults, and seditions, fomented by the Jews, in the several parts of the Roman empire, here called the world, were occasioned by the apostle: the crime charged upon him is greatly aggravated, as that not only he was guilty of sedition, but that he was the mover of it, and that he stirred up all the Jews to it, and that in every part of the world, or empire, than which nothing was more false; the Jews often raised up a mob against him, but he never rioted them, and much less moved them against the Roman government: and to this charge he adds, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes ; not Nazarites, as Calvin seems to understand the passage; for these were men of great repute among the Jews, and for Paul to be at the head of them would never be brought against him as a charge: but Nazarenes, that is, Christians, so called by way of contempt and reproach, from Jesus of Nazareth; which name and sect being contemptible among the Romans, as well as Jews, are here mentioned to make the apostle more odious.