denied, and alleged it as having occurred 'in Jesus.'

The position of Sadducees and Pharisees is inverted in Acts as
compared with the Gospels. While Christ lived, the Pharisees were the
soul of the opposition to Him, and His most solemn warnings fell on
them; after the Resurrection, the Sadducees head the opposition, and
among the Pharisees are some, like Gamaliel and afterwards Paul, who
incline to the new faith. It was the Resurrection that made the
difference, and the difference is an incidental testimony to the fact
that Christ's Resurrection was proclaimed from the first. To ask
whether Jesus had risen, and to examine the evidence, were the last
things of which the combined assailants thought. This public activity
of the Apostles threatened their influence or their pet beliefs, and
so, like persecutors in all ages, they shut their eyes to the
important question, 'Is this preaching true or false?' and took the
easier course of laying hands on the preachers.

So the night fell on Peter and John in prison, the first of the
thousands who have suffered bonds and imprisonment for Christ, and
have therein found liberty. What lofty faith, and what subordination
of the fate of the messengers to the progress of the message, are
expressed in that abrupt introduction, in verse 4, of the statistics
of the increase of the Church from that day's work! It mattered
little that it ended with the two Apostles in custody, since it ended
too with five thousand rejoicing in Christ.

The arrest seems to have been due to a sudden thought on the part of
the priests, captain, and Sadducees, without commands from the
Sanhedrin or the high priest. But when these inferior authorities had
got hold of their prisoners, they probably did not quite know what to