20. Strange (fevifovta). A participle: swrprising. Com- pare 1 Pet. iv. 4, 12.
21. Allthe Athenians. No article. Lit., “ Athenians, all of them.” The Athenian people collectively.
* For fuller descriptions, see Lewin, Life and Epistles of St. Paul; Davies,
St. Paul in Greece ; Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, Art,, Athens.
Cu. XVIL] THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 541
Strangers which were there (oc émridnpodvres Eévor). Rev., more correctly, the strangers sojourning there. See on 1 Pet. nate
Spent their time (evxaipouv). The word means to have good opportunity; to have leisure : also, to devote one’s leisure to some- thing ; to spend the time. Compare Mark vi. 31; 1 Cor. xvi. 12.
Something new (te Kkaworepov). Lit., newer: newer than that which was then passing current as new. The comparative was regularly used by the Greeks in the question what news ? They contrasted what was new with what had been new up to the time of asking. The idiom vividly characterizes the state of the Athenian mind. Bengel aptly says, ‘‘ New things at once became of no account; newer things were being sought for.” Their own orators and poets lashed them for this peculiarity. Aristophanes styles Athens the city of the gapers (“ Knights,” 1262). Demades said that the crest of Athens ought to be a great tongue. Demosthenes asks them, “Is it all your care to go about up and down the market, asking each other, ‘Is there any news?’” In the speech of Cleon to the Athenians, given by Thucydides (iii., 38), he says: “No men are better dupes, sooner deceived by novel notions, or slower to follow approved advice. You despise what is familiar, while you are worship- pers of every new extravagance. You are always hankering after an ideal state, but you do not give your minds even to what is straight before you. In a word, you are at the mercy of your own ears.”
22. | perceive (Jewpa). I regard you, in my careful obser- vation of you. See on Luke x. 18.
Too superstitious (Sevcvdaioverrépous). This rendering and that of the Rev., somewhat superstitious, are both unfortu- nate. The word is compounded of ded, to fear, and daipor, a deity. It signifies either a religious or a superstitious sentiment, according to the context. Paul would have been unlikely to begin his address with a charge which would have awakened
542 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. ([Cu. XVII.
the anger of his audience. What he means to say is, You are more divinity-fearing than the vest of the Greeks. This pro- pensity to reverence the higher powers is a good thing in itself, only, as he shows them, it is misdirected, not rightly conscious of its object and aim. Paul proposes to guide the sentiment rightly by revealing him whom they ignorantly worship. The American revisers insist on very religious. The kindred word SevcwSapovia occurs ch. xxv. 19, and in the sense of religzon, though rendered in A. V. seperstition. Festus would not call the Jewish religion a superstition before Agrippa, who was him- self a Jew. There is the testimony of the Ephesian town-clerk, that Paul, during his three years’ residence at Ephesus, did not rudely and coarsely attack the worship of the Ephesian Diana. “Nor yet blasphemers of your goddess” (Acts xix. 37).
23. As | passed by (dsepyouevos). More strictly, ‘‘ passing through (Sua) ” your city, or your streets.
Beheld (avaJewpov). Only here and Heb. xiii. 7. Rev., much better, observed. The compound verb denotes a very at- tentive consideration (ava, up and down, throughout).
Devotions (ceSdcpuata). Wrong. It means the objects of their worship—temples, altars, statues, ete.
An altar (Gwpov). Only here in New Testament, and the only case in which a heathen altar is alluded to. In all other cases Juovactnpcov is used, signifying an altar of the true God. The Septuagint translators commonly observe this distinction, being, in this respect, more particular than the Hebrew script- ures themselves, which sometimes interchange the word for the heathen altar and that for God’s altar. See, especially, Josh. xxii., where the altar reared by the Transjordanic tribes is called Bwpos, as being no true altar of God (vv. 10, 11, 16, 19, 23, a 34); and the legitimate altar, Sucvacrypsov (vv. 19, 28, 29).