which, in the Greek, 'ye' stands last in the sentence, and implies,
'ye poor, ignorant fishermen.'

The last time that Peter had been in the judgment-hall his courage
had oozed out of him at the prick of a maid-servant's sharp tongue,
but now he fronts all the ecclesiastical authorities without a
tremor. Whence came the transformation of the cowardly denier into
the heroic confessor, who turns the tables on his judges and accuses
them? The narrative answers. He was 'filled with the Holy Ghost.'
That abiding possession of the Spirit, begun on Pentecost, did not
prevent special inspiration for special needs, and the Greek
indicates that there was granted such a temporary influx in this
critical hour.

One cannot but note the calmness of the Apostle, so unlike his old
tumultuous self. He begins with acknowledging the lawful authority of
the court, and goes on, with just a tinge of sarcasm, to put the
vague 'this' of the question in its true light. It was 'a good deed
done to an impotent man,' for which John and he stood there. Singular
sort of crime that! Was there not a presumption that the power which
had wrought so 'good' a deed was good? 'Do men gather grapes of
thorns?' Many a time since then Christianity has been treated as
criminal, because of its beneficence to bodies and souls.

But Peter rises to the full height of the occasion, when he answers
the Sanhedrin's question with the pealing forth of his Lord's name.
He repeats in substance his former contrast of Israel's treatment of
Jesus and God's; but, in speaking to the rulers, his tone is more
severe than it was to the people. The latter had been charged, at
Pentecost and in the Temple, with crucifying _Jesus_; the former are