Acts 11:26 - Exposition

Even for a whole year for a whole year, A.V. and T.R.; they were gathered together for they assembled themselves, A.V.; and that the disciples for and the disciples, A.V. The phrase ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ occurs again in 1 Corinthians 11:18 (T.R.), where it has, as here, very nearly the sense of "in the church," as a place of meeting. It should be "in," not "with." The "Church" is the assembly of disciples gathered together in their house of meeting. Were called ; χρηματίσαι , bore the name of. It is a peculiar use of the word occurring in the New Testament only in Romans 7:3 besides, but found also in Polybius, Strabo, Josephus, and some other writers. Its common meaning is, in the passive voice, "to be warned of God," as in Acts 10:22 , where see note. Christians . It was a memorable event in the history of the Church when the name of Christians, which has distinguished them for nearly eighteen centuries and a half, was given to the disciples of Christ. Hitherto they had been called among themselves disciples, and brethren, and saints, and, by the Jews, men "of the Way" ( Acts 9:2 ), or "Nazarenes" ( Acts 24:5 ), but now they received the name of Christians, as followers of Christ, from the outside world, and accepted it themselves ( Acts 26:28 ; 1 Peter 4:16 ). From the Latin form of the word Christians, i.e. followers of Christ, the designation most have been invented by the Gentiles, either by the Roman court or camp at Antioch, or by the Greek population, influenced as they were by Roman forms of speech current amongst them (compare the Greece-Oriental Nestorians, Arians, etc.). We may be sure that Christians, i.e. followers of Messiah, is not a name likely to have been given by Jews. There is no evidence either of its having been given in derision. The well-known account of Tacitus is " Vulgus Christianos appella-bat. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat " ('Annal.,' 15.44). Suidas says that those who had been previously called Nazarenes and Galileans, in the reign of Claudius Caesar, when Euodius had been made Bishop of Antioch by Peter, had their name changed into that of Christians. He seems to refer to the statement of Malalas (quoted by Conybeare and Howson, 1.131), that they who had been before called Nazarenes and Galileans received the name of Christians in the time of Euodius, who succeeded St. Peter as Bishop of Antioch, and who himself gave them this name." Malalas is thought to have lived somewhere between the sixth and ninth centuries, at Byzantium. A beautiful passage in the Clementine Liturgy is also quoted at p. 130: "We give thee thanks that we are called by the Name of thy Christ, and are thus reckoned as thine own," where the allusion is to James 2:7 . The name Christian is frequent in the epistles of Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch; Polycarp's dying words were, "I am a Christian" (Bishop Wordsworth).