Acts 20:29-30. Ἐγώ] with similar emphasis, as in Acts 20:25 : After my departure

I know it—not only will enemies from without intrude among you (Ephesian Christians, as whose representatives the presbyters were present), who will be relentlessly destructive to the welfare of the church; but also within the church itself, out of the midst of you, will men with perverse doctrines arise.

That by the very common figure of ravenous (vehementes, comp. βαρύτατος ἀνταγωνιστής, Xen. Ages. 11, 12) wolves (Matthew 7:15; Luke 10:3; John 10:12) is not meant, as Grotius supposes, persecutio sub Nerone, but false teachers working perniciously, is rendered probable by the very parallelism of Acts 20:30, and still more certain by the relation of εἰσελεύσ. to μετὰ τὴν ἄφιξίν μου, according to which Paul represents his presence as that which has hitherto withheld the intrusion of the λύκοι,—a connection which, in the case of its being explained of political persecutors, would be devoid of truth.

ἄφιξις is here not arrival (as almost constantly with Greek writers), but departure, going away, Dem. 58, pen.; Herod. vii. 58. Paul does not specially mean his death, but generally his removal (discessionem, Vulgate), on which the false teachers necessarily depended for the assertion of their influence. Moreover, his prediction without doubt rests on the observations and experiences (comp. 1 Corinthians 16:9) which he had made during his long ministry in Ephesus and Asia. He must have known the existence of germs in which he saw the sad pledge of the truth of his warning; and we have no reason to doubt that the reality corresponded to this prediction. At the time of the composition of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the false teachers may not yet have been working in Ephesus itself, but in Colossae and its neighbourhood these—they were Judaists of an Essene-Gnostic type—had made themselves felt (see Introduction to Colossians, § 2), and in Asia Minor generally the heretics of the First Epistle of John and probably also of that of Jude are to be sought, not to mention those of the Apocalypse and Pastoral Epistles. The indefinite and general expressions, in which the false teachers are here described, correspond to the character of prophetic foresight and prediction. According to Zeller, a later writer has by these sought to conceal his otherwise too glaring anachronism; whereas Baur finds the sectarian character, such as it existed at most toward the close of the first century, so definitely delineated, that he from this circumstance recognises a vaticinium post eventum! Thus the same expression is for the one too indefinite, and for the other too definite; but both arrive at the same result, which must be reached, let the Paul of the Book of Acts speak as he will.

ἀποσπᾷν κ.τ.λ.] to draw away, from the fellowship of true believers, after them. “Character falsi doctoris, ut velit ex se uno pendere discipulos,” Bengel. On ὀπίσω αὐτ., comp. Acts 5:37.

Acts 20:29. ἐγὼ γὰρ οἶδα, see critical note. Baur and Zeller could only see in this assertion a vaticinium post eventum—the heresiarchs are portrayed in the general expressions in vogue in the second century; so too Renan thinks that the writer gives us the ideas of a later date, although he does not carry us further than 75–80 A.D. But if we accept the early date of the Didaché, that document is quite sufficient to show us that similar phraseology to that in the address before us was current in the Church at an earlier date than Baur and Zeller supposed. If St. Paul had been engaged all his life in struggling with false teachers, it would have been inconceivably short-sighted if he had thought that such dangers would cease after his departure, and still more inconceivable if with such presentiments he had neglected to warn the Church. The vagueness of the description of the heretical teachers is in itself a proof of genuineness, and a writer of a later date would have made it far less general, and more easily to be identified with some current error. It has been further objected by Zeller and Overbeck, and even by Wendt, that it is strange that with present opponents before him, 1 Corinthians 16:8-9, St. Paul should speak only of the future; but whilst he had himself been present among them he had been their protector against their enemies, but now that he was about to withdraw from them nothing was more natural than that he should warn them against the subtle attacks which might be more easily made when his own careful superintendence was no more.—εἰσελεύσονται: so men outside the fold—the when of their entrance is not specified precisely, but the words were amply fufilled in the presence of the emissaries of the Judaisers, creeping in from the Jewish communities into the Churches of Asia, as they had slunk into the Churches of Galatia, cf. Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 130–146, on the teaching of the Judaisers and its evil influence in the Pastoral Epistles. There is at all events no need to refer the words with Grotius to outward persecution, such as that of Nero.—ἄφιξιν, i.e., his departure from amongst them (not necessarily including his death), not arrival, although the latter meaning attaches to the word in classical Greek, so too 3Ma 7:18; Jos., Ant., iv., 8, 47 (but see both Alford and Blass, in loco).—λύκοι: continuing the imagery of Acts 20:28, cf. Matthew 7:15, Luke 10:3, John 10:12; so in the O.T. λύκοι of presumptuous and cruel rulers and judges, Ezekiel 22:27, Zephaniah 3:3. The similar kind of language used by Ignat., Philadelph., ii., 1, 2; Justin Martyr, Apol., i., 58; Iren., Adv. Hær., i., Præf. 2, may well have been borrowed from this, not vice versâ as Zeller maintained; but such imagery would no doubt be widely known from its employment in O. and N.T. alike.—βαρεῖς, cf. for the sense of the adjective, Hom., Il., i., 89; Xen., Ages., xi., 12; so too Diog. Laert., i., 72.—μὴ φειδ.: litotes, cf. John 10:12. The verb occurs six times in St. Paul’s Epistles, twice in Romans and four times in the Corinthian Epistles (only twice elsewhere in N.T. in 2 Pet.).

29. For I know this] The oldest MSS. (and the Rev. Ver.) have only “I know.”

that after my departing] This noun is only used here, and most frequently in classical Greek signifies “arrival,” though not always. But as the person who departs from one place arrives at another, it is only a difference of the point of view. Here there can be no doubt of its meaning. It does not refer to the Apostle’s death, but his leaving Asia, with the thought that he should return no more.

shall grievous wolves … flock] The Apostle seems first to refer to false teachers who should come in from without. He must have been familiar with the dangers to which the Ephesian church was exposed, and we know from his Epistles how much harm was already inflicted on the Christian Church by the Judaizers and Gnostics. Even when writing to so undisturbed a church as that in Philippi, we find the Apostle giving warning against both kinds of error. And if we turn to those early parts of the Apocalypse in which the condition of the churches of Asia is described, we can read of a crop of errors the sowers of which St Paul may have had in his mind as he spake at Miletus. “Nicolaitans,” “those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan,” “those that hold the teaching of Balaam,” “the woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess,” all these could not have risen in a moment, but must have given indications of their existence long before they became so prominent as they were when St John wrote. He must have read the New Testament with little appreciation who speaks of the words here ascribed to St Paul as a “prophecy after the event” made by the writer of the Acts in the second century.

Acts 20:29. Ἐγὼ, I) A sure and confident prediction.—εἰσελεύσονται, enter in) from elsewhere. In antithesis to, from among your own selves, Acts 20:30. Concerning both kinds of pestilential evils among the Ephesians, see Revelation 2:2; Revelation 2:6.—μετὰ, after) Immediately after the departure and death of the apostles, the Church lost a great part of its purity, as is evident from their (the apostles’) predictions, warnings, and complaints. As to the Church of the Ephesians, see the Epp. to Tim. and the writings of John.—μετὰ τὴν ἄφιξίν μου) Hesychius says, ἄφιξις, i.e. ἔφοδος, παρουσία, arrival, presence. Comp. Romans 16:19, “Your obedience is come (ἀφίκετο) unto all men;” where see the note. Nor does ἄφιξις signify departure. Zosimus, lib. v.: μετὰ τὴν Ὀνωρίου εἰς τὴν Ῥάβευναν ἄφιξιν, i.e. after Honorius had set out from Ravenna to Bononia (not after his departure to Ravenna). Eusebius, lib. vi. Demonstr. Evang. last chapter: μετὰ τὴν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἄφιξιν (τοῦ Χριστοῦ) ὁ νεὼς ἐπυρπολεῖτο. Therefore the sense is, “First Paul came: then afterwards shall come wolves.” Comp. John 5:43.—λύκοι, wolves) Allegorical.—μὴ φειδόμενοι, not sparing) A Meiosis, i.e. (not only) not spring, but) most baneful. It is the part of a pastor φείδεσθαι, to spare.

Verse 29. - I know for, for I know this, A.V. and T.R.; grievous wolves shall for shall grievous wolves, A.V. After my departure (ἄφιξιν, not ἀνάλυσιν, as 2 Timothy 4:6). The word, which is only found here in the New Testament, usually means "arrival" in classical Greek, but it also means, as here, "departure." It is not to be taken in the sense of "departure from this life," but refers to that separation, which he thought was forever, which was about to take place. Grievous wolves; still keeping up the metaphor of the flock. The wolves denote the false teachers, principally Judaizers. See 2 Timothy 3:1-12, and 13, "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." These came from Judaea. Acts 20:29Grievous (βαρεῖς)

Lit., heavy: violent, rapacious.

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