What Does Acts 4:13 Mean?

(13) **When they saw** **the boldness of Peter and John.**—John, so far as we read, had not spoken, but look and bearing, and, perhaps, unrecorded words, showed that he too shared Peter’s courage. That “boldness of speech” had been characteristic of his Lord’s teaching (Mark 8:32; John 7:13). It was now to be the distinctive feature of that of the disciples: here of Peter; in Acts 28:31, 2Corinthians 3:12; 2Corinthians 7:4, of St. Paul; in 1John 4:17; 1John 5:14, of the beloved disciple. It is, perhaps, characteristic that the last named uses it not of boldness of speech towards men, but of confidence in approaching God. The Greek word for “when they saw” implies “considering” as well as beholding; that for “perceived” would be better expressed by *having learnt, *or *having ascertained.* The Greek verb implies, not direct perception, but the grasp with which the mind lays hold of a fact after inquiry. In Acts 25:5, it is rightly translated “when I found.” **Unlearned and ignorant.**—The first of the two words means, literally, *unlettered.* Looking to the special meaning of the “letters” or “Scriptures” of the Jews, from which the scribes took their name (*grammateis, *from *grammata*), it would convey, as used here the sense of “not having been educated as a scribe, not having studied the Law and other sacred writings.” It does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The second word means literally, *a private person, *one without special office or calling, or the culture which they imply: what in English might be called a “common man.” It appears again in 1Corinthians 14:16; 1Corinthians 14:23-24, with the same meaning. Its later history is curious enough to be worth noting. The Vulgate, instead of translating the Greek word, reproduced it, with scarcely an alteration, as *idiota.* It thus passed into modem European languages with the idea of ignorance and incapacity closely attached to it, and so acquired its later sense of “idiot.” **They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.**—Better, *they began to recognise.* The tense is in the imperfect, implying that one after another of the rulers began to remember the persons of the two Apostles as they had seen them with their Master in the Temple. These two, and these two alone, may have been seen by many of the Council on that early dawn of the day of the Crucifixion in the court-yard of the high priest’s palace (John 18:15).