NOTES for Деян 22:30-23:35

The dispute that split the Sanhedrin after Paul’s words may seem to have been artificially provoked by him, and his speech itself merely a cunning move. Yet we have no reason to doubt that Paul quite sincerely calls himself a Pharisee, since he has no intention of renouncing his origins. He is prepared to offer to Christ and the Church the best that characterized the Pharisees: firm hope in the Lord and knowledge of the Law.

Yes, Christ repeatedly rebuked the Pharisees and warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees. Yet He Himself, pointing to the Pharisees, advised them not to reject the standard of their righteousness but to surpass it. Much had been given to the Pharisees, and therefore more was required of them; for the same reason, more temptations surrounded them. The self-righteousness characteristic of many of them is not the exclusive privilege of this one category of people, so anyone can turn out to be a Pharisee in the bad sense of the word. And in the way the Pharisees of the Sanhedrin began to defend Paul, one can see not only that they set about protecting “one of their own,” having fallen for his cleverness, but also that not everything in their hearts had hardened beneath the crust of formal legalism.