weeks after the crucifixion. Is it possible, therefore, that he should give such an account as that in vs. 18, 19, of the end of Judas, which he himself, indeed, says was known to all the dwellers at Jerusalem? Is it possible that, speaking in Aramaic to Jews, probably in most part living at and near Jerusalem, he could have spoken of the field being so called by the people of Jerusalem "in their own tongue?" Is it possible that he should, to such an audience, have translated the word Acheldamach?
The answer of most unprejudiced critics is that Peter could not have done so.(1) As de Wette remarks: "In the composition of this speech the author has not considered historical decorum."(2) This is felt by most apologists, and many ingenious theories are advanced to explain away the difficulty. Some affirm that verses 18 and 19 are inserted as a parenthesis by the Author of the Acts,(3) whilst a larger number contend that only v. 19 is parenthetic.(4) A very cursory examination of the passage, however, is sufficient to show that the verses cannot be separated. Verse 18 is connected with the preceding by the [———], 19 with 18 by [———], and verse 20 refers to 10, as indeed it also does to 17 and 18, without which the passage from the Psalm, as applied to Judas, would be unintelligible. Most critics, therefore,
are agreed that none of the verses can be considered parenthetic.(1) Some apologists, however, who feel that neither of the obnoxious verses can be thus explained, endeavour to overcome the difficulty by asserting that the words: "in their own tongue" [———] and: "that is: the field of blood" [———] in verse 19, are merely explanatory and inserted by the Author of Acts.(2) It is unnecessary to say that this explanation is purely arbitrary, and that there is no ground, except the difficulty itself, upon which their exclusion from the speech can be based.
In the cases to which we have hitherto referred, the impossibility of supposing that Peter could have spoken in this way has led writers to lay the responsibility of unacknowledged interpolations in the speech upon the Author of Acts, thus at once relieving the Apostle. There are some apologists, however, who do not adopt this expedient, but attempt to meet the difficulty in other ways, while accepting the whole as a speech of Peter. According to one theory, those who object that Peter could not have thus related the death of Judas to people who must already have been well acquainted with the circumstances have totally overlooked the fact, that a peculiar view of what has occurred is taken in the narrative, and that this peculiar view is the principal point of it According to the statement made, Judas met his miserable end in the very field which he had bought with
the price of blood. It is this circumstance, it appears, which Peter brings prominently forward and represents as a manifest and tangible dispensation of Divine justice.(1) Unfortunately, however, this is clearly an imaginary moral attached to the narrative by the apologist, and is not the object of the supposed speaker, who rather desires to justify the forced application to Judas of the quotations in verse 20, which are directly connected with the preceding by [———]. Moreover, no explanation is here offered of the extraordinary expressions in verse 19 addressed to citizens of Jerusalem by a Jew in their own tongue. Another explanation, which includes these points, is still more striking. With regard to the improbability of Peter's relating, in such a way, the death of Judas, it is argued that, according to the Evangelists, the disciples went from Jerusalem back to Galilee some eight days after the resurrection, and only returned, earlier than usual, before Pentecost to await the fulfilment of the promise of Jesus. Peter and his companions, it is supposed, only after their return became acquainted with the fate of Judas, which had taken place during their absence, and the matter was, therefore, quite new to them; besides, it is added, a speaker is often obliged on account of some connection with his subject to relate facts already known.(2) It is true that some of the Evangelists represent this return to Galilee(3) as having taken place, but the author of the third Gospel and the Acts not only
3 Mt. xxviii. 10, 10; Mk. xvi. 7; John xxi. 1. I)r. Farrar,
somewhat pertinently, asks: "Why did they (the disciples)
not go to Galilee immediately on receiving our Lord's
message? The circumstance is unexplained... Perhaps the
entire message of Jesus to them is not recorded; perhaps
they awaited the end of the feast." Life of Christ, ii. p.
441, note 1.
does not do so but excludes it.(1) In the third Gospel (xxiv. 49), Jesus commands the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they are endued with power from on high, and then, after blessing them, he is parted from them, and they return from Bethany to Jerusalem.(2) In Acts, the author again takes up the theme, and whilst evidently giving later traditions regarding the appearances after the resurrection, he adheres to his version of the story regarding the command to stay in Jerusalem. In i. 4, he says: "And being assembled together with them he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father," etc.; and here again, verse 12, the disciples are represented, just before Peter's speech is supposed to have been delivered, as returning from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem. The Author of Acts and of the third Synoptic, therefore, gives no countenance to this theory. Besides, setting all this aside, the apologetic hypothesis we are discussing is quite excluded upon other grounds. If we suppose that the disciples did go into Galilee for a time, we find them again in Jerusalem at the election of the successor to Judas, and there is no reason to believe that they had only just returned. The Acts not only allow of no interval at all for the journey to Galilee between i. 12-14 and 15 ff., but by the simple statement