a celebrated rabbi, and doctor of the Jewish law, under whose
tuition the great Apostle of the Gentiles was brought up, Acts xxii, 3.
Barnabas and Stephen are also supposed to have been among the number of
his pupils. Soon after the day of pentecost, when the Jewish sanhedrim
began to be alarmed at the progress the Gospel was making in Jerusalem,
and consequently wished to put to death the Apostles, in the hope of
checking its farther progress, they were apprehended and brought before
the national council, of which Gamaliel seems to have been a leading
member. It is very probable that many zealots among them would have
despatched the affair in a very summary manner, but their impetuosity
was checked by the cool and prudent advice of Gamaliel; for, having
requested the Apostles to withdraw for a while, he represented to the
sanhedrim that, if the Apostles were no better than impostors, their
fallacy would quickly be discovered; but on the other hand, if what they
were engaged in was from God, it was vain for them to attempt to
frustrate it, since it was the height of folly to contend with the
Almighty. The assembly saw the wisdom of his counsel, and very prudently
changed the sentence, upon which they were originally bent against the
Apostles’ lives, into that of corporal punishment.
2. It may here also be remarked, that the sanhedrim could not themselves
believe that tale which they had diligently circulated among the people,
that the disciples had stolen away the body of Jesus, and then pretended
that he had arisen from the dead. If the Jewish council had thought
this, it would have been very absurd in Gamaliel to exhort them to wait
to see whether “the counsel and work” was of God, that is, whether the
Apostles related a fact when they preached the resurrection, and
grounded the divine authority of their religion upon that fact.
Gamaliel’s advice was wholly based upon the admission, that an
extraordinary, and to them an inexplicable, event had happened.
tuition the great Apostle of the Gentiles was brought up, Acts xxii, 3.
Barnabas and Stephen are also supposed to have been among the number of
his pupils. Soon after the day of pentecost, when the Jewish sanhedrim
began to be alarmed at the progress the Gospel was making in Jerusalem,
and consequently wished to put to death the Apostles, in the hope of
checking its farther progress, they were apprehended and brought before
the national council, of which Gamaliel seems to have been a leading
member. It is very probable that many zealots among them would have
despatched the affair in a very summary manner, but their impetuosity
was checked by the cool and prudent advice of Gamaliel; for, having
requested the Apostles to withdraw for a while, he represented to the
sanhedrim that, if the Apostles were no better than impostors, their
fallacy would quickly be discovered; but on the other hand, if what they
were engaged in was from God, it was vain for them to attempt to
frustrate it, since it was the height of folly to contend with the
Almighty. The assembly saw the wisdom of his counsel, and very prudently
changed the sentence, upon which they were originally bent against the
Apostles’ lives, into that of corporal punishment.
2. It may here also be remarked, that the sanhedrim could not themselves
believe that tale which they had diligently circulated among the people,
that the disciples had stolen away the body of Jesus, and then pretended
that he had arisen from the dead. If the Jewish council had thought
this, it would have been very absurd in Gamaliel to exhort them to wait
to see whether “the counsel and work” was of God, that is, whether the
Apostles related a fact when they preached the resurrection, and
grounded the divine authority of their religion upon that fact.
Gamaliel’s advice was wholly based upon the admission, that an
extraordinary, and to them an inexplicable, event had happened.