Acts Chapter 1 verse 14 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 14. - With one accord continued steadfastly for continued with one accord, A.V.; prayer for prayer and supplication, A.V. and T.R. The women. St. Luke, in his Gospel, makes frequent mention of the women who followed our Lord, and generally of things that happened to women (see Luke 23:27, 49, 55; Luke 24:10, 22, etc. See also Luke 7:37, etc.; Luke 8:23; 10:38, 42; etc.). We notice the same tendency in the Acts, here, and in Acts 2:17, 18; Acts 5:14; Acts 9:36; Acts 12:13; Acts 16:14, 16; Acts 17:4, 34; Acts 18:26; Acts 21:9; Acts 24:24; Acts 25:23; etc. Mary the mother of Jesus appears here not as an object of worship, but as humbly joining in the prayers of the Church. And with his brethren. The Lord's brethren are spoken of by name in Matthew 13:55 as "James, and Joses ['Joseph,' R.V.], and Simon, and Judas." So also Mark 6:3 (see too Acts 4:31-35). "James the Lord's brother" is mentioned by St. Paul (Galatians 1:19); "the brethren of the Lord "are mentioned 1 Corinthians 9:5; and again in John 7:3, 5, 10, "the brethren of Jesus" are spoken cf. This is not the place to enter upon the difficult question of their parentage. But it may suffice to say that if James and Judas are the two apostles of that name (which Alford, however, thinks they certainly were not, referring- to John 7:5, compared with John 6:67), then the brethren here spoken of as distinct from the apostles would be Joses and Simon.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) With the women.--Looking to what we have seen in the Gospels, it is a natural inference that here, too, the "devout women" of Luke 8:2-3, were among St. Luke's chief informants. This may, perhaps, account for the variations in the list just noticed. The women were less likely than the disciples to lay stress on what we may call the accurate coupling of the Twelve. The mention of "the women" as a definite body is characteristic of St. Luke as the only Evangelist who names them. (See Notes on Luke 8:1-3; Luke 23:49.) We may reasonably think of the company as including Mary Magdalene, Salome, Susanna, Joanna, Mary and Martha of Bethany, possibly also the woman that had been a sinner, of Luke 7:37. Here we lose sight of them, and all that follows is conjectural. It is probable that they continued to share the work and the sufferings of the growing Church at Jerusalem, living together, perhaps at Bethany, in a kind of sisterhood. The persecution headed by Saul was likely to disperse them for a time, and some may well have been among the "women" who suffered in it (Acts 8:3); but they may have returned when it ceased. St. Luke, when he came to Palestine, would seem to have met with one or more of them.Mary the mother of Jesus.--Brief as the record is, it has the interest of giving the last known fact, as distinct from legend or tradition, in the life of the mother of our Lord. St. John, we know, had taken her to his own home, probably to a private dwelling in Jerusalem (see Note on John 19:27), and she had now come with him to the first meeting of the Ecclesia. Here also we trace the influence of the women as St. Luke's informants. They could not have left unnoticed the presence of her who was the centre of their group. The legends of some apocryphal books represent her as staying at Jerusalem with St. John till her death, twenty-two years after the Ascension; while others represent her as going with him to Ephesus and dying there; the Apostles gather around her death-bed; she is buried, and the next day the grave is found emptied, and sweet flowers have grown around it; Mary also had been taken up into heaven. The festival of the Assumption, which owes its origin to this legend, dates from the sixth or seventh century. . . .