John Kilgallen, «`The Apostles Whom He Chose because of the Holy Spirit' A Suggestion Regarding Acts 1,2», Vol. 81 (2000) 414-417

In Acts 1,2 Luke has placed `through the Holy Spirit' between two verb forms, the participle `having given orders' and the verb `he had chosen'; suggestions have been offered over the years as to which of these two verb forms `through the Holy Spirit' is supposed to modify. In this note, there is offered a fresh suggestion to resolve this syntactical problem; moreover, with this suggestion Luke's intention is better clarified.

central elements of the Gospel story: he chose his apostles because one day they should wait for the coming of the Spirit.

        It seems reasonable, then, to think that Luke began his second volume with the reminder that Jesus had given orders to his apostles because of the imminent coming of the Holy Spirit.

        Given the difficulties of the traditional interpretations of dia_ pneu/matoj a(gi/ou (Acts 1,2), and the fitting sense given the text if the preposition be understood to mean ‘because of’ — a sense allowed to dia_ with the genitive, inside and outside the New Testament — it seems reasonable to translate Acts 1,2: ‘until the day when, having given orders to his apostles whom he had chosen because of the Holy Spirit, he was taken up’.