14.
61
προσκαρτεροῦντες ὁμοθυμαδὸν τῇ προσευχῇ καὶ τῇ δεήσει, σὺν
ν ‘ A Τα ‘ a2 a Ay th A 3 πας gas γυναιξὶ καὶ Mapia? τῇ μητρὶ τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ, καὶ σὺν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς αὐτοῦ.
1 Maptap BE (some very good cursives), Sah., Aeth., Chrys.; so Tisch., W.H., Weiss—the latter is said to be put always for the Virgin, but here evidence seems equally divided (see Winer-Schmiedel, pp. 99, 91).
(Ecumenius, in loco). There may also have been the desire of the author to intimate that although only the works of a few on the list would be chronicled, yet all alike were witnesses to Christ and workers for Him (Lumby).
Ver. 14. καὶ ἦσαν προσκαρτεροῦντες: on the construction see ver. 1ο. In N.T. found only in St. Luke and St. Paul (except once in St. Mark iii. 9); most frequently with the dative of the thing, of continuing steadfast in prayer; cf. vi. 4, Rom. xii. 12, Col. iv. 2, and cf. also ii. 42 or ii. 46 of continuing all the time zx (ἐν) a place; in Acts viil. 13, x. 7, it is used with the dative of the person, and in Rom. xiii. 6 with εἴς τι. It is found in Josephus with the dative of the thing, Ant., v., 2, 6, and in Polybius, who also uses it with the dative of the person. In LXX it is found in Numbers xiii. 21 and in Susannah ver.6, Theod., also in Tobit v. 8, Ἑ.---ὁμοθυμαδὸν, a favourite word of St. Luke: Luce in Actis in deliciis est (Blass) —used ten or eleven times in Acts, only once elsewhere in N.T., Rom. xv. 6, where it has the same meaning, Vulgate unanimiter. In the LXX it is oftener found as the equivalent of Hebrew words meaning simply “together,” and Hatch, Essays in B. G., p. 63, would limit it to this meaning in the N.T., but the word cannot be confined to mere outward assembling together ; cf. Dem., Phil., iv., 147, ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἐκ μιᾶς γνώμης (Meyer- Wendt); so Luther einmiithig. It was very natural that St. Luke should lay stress upon the absolute unanimity of the early believers, and the word is used with reference to the Twelve, to the hundred- and-twenty, to the whole number of believers; truly the Holy Ghost was ““amator concordie” (Corn. 4 Lapide). --τῃ προσευχῇ καὶ τῇ δεήσει: the latter noun cannot be supported by MS. author- ity; the two words mark the difference between general and specific prayer; cf. Bengel on 1 Tim. ii. 1, and cf. Luke, v., 33. It is very doubtful whether we can confine προσευχή here to the Temple prayers; rather the article, cf. vi. 4 and ii. 42, seems to point to a definite custom of common prayer as a bond of Christian fellowship (Hort, Ecclesia, p. 43, so Speaker’s Com- mentary, in loco). As in his Gospel, so
here and elsewhere in Acts, St: Luke lays stress upon frequency in prayer, and that too in all parts of the book (Friedrich, Pp. 55-6ο).--σὺν γυναιξὶ: it is natural to include the women already mentioned in St. Luke’s Gospel, cf, ¢.g., viii. 2, 3, xxiii. 55, ‘‘ with the women,” R.V., or the ex- pression may be quite indefinite as in margin R.V. In this mention of the presence of women, as in the stress laid upon prayer, there is another point of unity between the book and the third Gospel, ‘‘ The Gospel of Womanhood” (see also Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? p. 50). (The mention of women would certainly indicate a pri- vate house rather than the Temple.) Erasmus and Calvin both interpret the words cum uxoribius, probably not without desire to make a point against celibacy. J. Lightfoot allows that this meaning may be correct, since the Apostles and disciples who had wives took them with them, “but,” he adds, ‘it is too strait ’.—Mapudp (for Μαρίᾳ), so always according to W.H. of the Blessed Vir- gin, nominative, vocative, accusative, dative, except twice in a few of the best MSS. (Matt. i. 20, and Luke ii. το). Cf. Appendix, p. 163. See also Simcox, Language of the N. Τ., p. 28, and Winer- Schmiedel, p.g1, note. The καί may be taken either to comprehend her under the other women, or as distinguishing her from them. This is the last mention of her in the N.T., and the Scripture leaves her “in prayer’’.—otv τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς αὐτοῦ : they are previously mentioned as unbelieving (John vii. 5, and compare Mark vi. 4), but not only the Resurrec- tion of the Lord but also that of Lazarus may well have overcome their unbelief. St. Chrysostom (so too Gécumenius) con- jectures that Joseph was dead, for it is not to be supposed, he says, that when the brethren had become believers Joseph believed not. As the brethren are hére distinguished from the Eleven, it would seem that they could not have been included in the latter (see, however, ‘“‘ Brethren,” B.D.? pp. 13, 14). But whatever meaning we give to the word ‘‘brethren’’ here or in the Gospels, nothing could be more significant than the fact that they had now left their