the synagogue using the title `Men and brethren' we find the first occurrence in the Pauline section of the Acts of the

term `the people'. When the appellation is first used by Paul he expands it, as he did the other title. He says, `The

God of this people of Israel', and, with the exception of two references, namely Acts 15:14 and 18:10, every one of

the remaining occurrences, twelve in number, refers exclusively to Israel. In Acts 28 the references are pointed:

`Nothing against the people' (Acts 28:17).

`Go unto this people' (Acts 28:26).

`For the heart of this people' (Acts 28:27).

What of `the customs'? Ethos, `customs', occurs in the Acts seven times. In Acts 16:21 and 25:16 it is the

`custom' or `manner' of the Romans that is intended, but in the remaining passages it is used of the peculiar customs

of Israel.

It is of great interest to realize that the first occurrence of ethos in the Acts is found in the charge which brought

about the stoning of Stephen, to which Paul had consented:

`That this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us'

(Acts 6:14).

The apostle makes it clear in more passages than one, that those dreadful, persecuting, days of his earlier life

never left his memory, and it would be with humbled heart that he now defended himself against the very charge

that had been laid against the man to whose death he had consented years before. That the ethos of the fathers was

not to be confined to superficial customs is made clear from its use in Acts 15:1, where circumcision `after the

manner of Moses' is in view. Paul's present imprisonment had been brought about because he had sought to rebut

the charge made against him that he taught:

`the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their

children, neither to walk after the customs' (Acts 21:21).

and Paul acted as he did, so that all might know that, as the elders said to him, `those things, whereof they were

informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself walkest orderly, and keepest the law' (Acts 21:24).

These most explicit statements reduce the issue to two heads. Either Paul did walk orderly and kept the law, or he

did not. If he did, then the truth of the Mystery could not have been made known during the period of the Acts. If

he did not, then his statements are false and we are of all men the most miserable.

`The fathers'. To whom do these words refer? Again, and for the third time, we return to the synagogue at

Antioch and hear the apostle speak.

`We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled'

(Acts 13:32,33).

His own written testimony in the epistle to the Romans is conclusive, `My brethren, my kinsmen according to the

flesh: who are Israelites ... whose are the fathers' (Rom. 9:3,5). In Acts 28, immediately before he said `this people',

the apostle exclaims, `Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers' (Acts 28:25). Further on in

his statement to the chief of the Jews the apostle used another expression, `My nation' (Acts 28:19). The word

translated `nation' is ethnos, and is frequently rendered `Gentiles', when found in the plural, as it is in Acts 28:28.

Paul mostly uses the word to designate the Gentiles, but when he said:

`I came to bring alms to my nation' (Acts 24:17).

`My own nation at Jerusalem' (Acts 26:4),

it is evident that he speaks of Israel, `the nation', as distinct from the rest of the `nations'. At Acts 28:19, Israel was

still Paul's nation.

Up to this point, however, what has been brought forward is negative in character: e.g., Paul had committed

nothing against this people or its customs. But lest his testimony should be misconstrued he recapitulates,

introducing a positive note.