2 We shall hereafter have to go more fully into this, and
shall not discuss it here. The third Gospel really
represents the Ascension as taking place on the day of the
Resurrection; and Acts, whilst giving later tradition, and
making the Ascension occur forty days after, does not amend,
but confirms the previously enunciated view that the
disciples had been ordered to stay in Jerusalem.
with which our episode commences, v. 15: "And in these days" [———], Peter conveys anything but the impression of any very recent return to Jerusalem. If the Apostles had been even a few days there, the incongruity of the speech would remain undiminished; for the 120 brethren who are said to have been present must chiefly have been residents in Jerusalem, and cannot be. supposed also to have been absent, and, in any case, events which are represented as so well known to all the dwellers in Jerusalem, must certainly have been familiar to the small Christian community, whose interest in the matter was so specially great. Moreover, according to the first Synoptic, as soon as Judas sees that Jesus is condemned, he brings the money back to the chief priests, casts it down and goes and hangs himself, xxvii. 3 ff. This is related even before the final condemnation of Jesus and before his crucifixion, and the reader is led to believe that Judas at once put an end to himself, so that the disciples, who are represented as being still in Jerusalem for at least eight days after the resurrection, must have been there at the time. With regard to the singular expressions in verse 19, this theory goes on to suppose that, out of consideration for Greek fellow-believers, Peter had probably already begun to speak in the Greek tongue; and when he designates the language of the dwellers in Jerusalem as "their own dialect," he does not thereby mean Hebrew in itself, but their own expression, the peculiar confession of the opposite party, which admitted the cruel treachery towards Jesus, in that they named the piece of ground Hakel Damah.(1) Here, again, what assumptions! It is generally recognized that Peter must have spoken in
Aramaic, and even if he did not, [———](1) cannot mean anything but the language of "all the-dwellers at Jerusalem." In a speech delivered at Jerusalem, in any language, to an audience consisting at least in considerable part of inhabitants of the place, and certainly almost entirely of persons whose native tongue was Aramaic, to tell them that the inhabitants called a certain field "in their own tongue" Acheldamach, giving them at the same time a translation of the word, is inconceivable to most critics, even including apologists.
There is another point which indicates not only that this theory is inadequate to solve the difficulty, but that the speech could not have been delivered by Peter a few weeks after the occurrences related. It is stated that the circumstances narrated were so well known to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that the field was called in their own tongue Acheldamach. The origin of this name is not ascribed to the priests or rulers, but to the people, and it is not to be supposed that a popular name could have become attached to this field, and so generally adopted as the text represents, within the very short time which could have elapsed between the death of Judas and the delivery of this speech. Be it remembered that from the time of the crucifixion to Pentecost the interval was in all only about seven weeks, and that this speech was made some time before Pentecost, how long we cannot tell, but in any case, the interval was much too brief to permit of the popular adoption of the name.(2) The whole passage has much more the character of a narrative of
events which had occurred at a time long past, than of circumstances which had taken place a few days before.
The obvious conclusion is that this speech was never spoken by Peter, but is a much later composition put into his mouth,1 and written for Greek readers, who required to be told about Judas, and for whose benefit the Hebrew name of the field, inserted for local colouring, had to be translated. This is confirmed by several circumstances, to which we may refer. We shall not dwell much upon the fact that Peter is represented as applying to Judas two passages quoted from the Septuagint version of Ps. lxix. 25 (Sept lxviii.) and Ps. cix. (Sept cviii.) which, historically, cannot for a moment be sustained as referring to him.(2) The first of these Psalms is quoted freely, and moreover the denunciations in the original being against a plurality of enemies, it can only be made applicable to Judas by altering the plural "their" [———] to "his habitation" [———], a considerable liberty to take with prophecy. The Holy Spirit is said to have
