Ver. 41. Οἱ μὲν οὖν: a truly Lucan formula, see i. 6. There is no anacolu- thon, but for the answering δέ see v. 43. The words therefore refer to those men- tioned in v. 37; in contrast to the three
40---42.
73
λόγον αὐτοῦ éBanticOncav-: καὶ προσετέθησαν 1 τῇ Hepa ἐκείνῃ
Ν ε ‘ ψυχαὶ ὡσεὶ τρισχίλιαι.
42. Ἠσαν δὲ προσκαρτεροῦντες τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ τῇ
1 προσετεθησαν; after the verb εν inserted by NABCD 15, 18, 61, Vulg., so Tisch.,
W.H., R.V., Weiss, Wendt, Hilg.
thousand fear came upon every person, Ψυχή, so Mr. Page, on μὲν οὖν, in loco. Mr. Rendall finds the answering δέ in v. 42; two phases of events are con- trasted; three thousand converts are added in one day—they clave stedfastly to the Christian communion. See also his Appendix on μὲν οὖν, p. 162.-- ἀποδεξάμενοι τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ: used in classical Greek, especially in Plato, of receiving a teacher or his arguments with acceptance, and in the N.T. of receiving with approval; cf. xxiv. 3. The verb is only found in St. Luke in the N.T. with varying shades of meaning, twice in his Gospel, and five times in Acts in all parts. Only foundin LXX in Apocryphal books, Tob. vii. 17, Judith xiii. 13 (but see Hatch and Redpath, sud v.), and in the Books of the Maccabees; cf. xviii. 27, XXi. 17, XXiV. 3, Xxxviii. 30, see below. --ἐβαπτίσθησαν. There is nothing in the text which intimates that the Baptism of the three thousand was performed, not on the day of Pentecost, but during the days which followed. At the same time it is not said that the Baptism of such a multitude took place at one time or in one place on the day of the Feast, or that the rite was performed by St. Peter alone. Felten allows that others besides the Twelve may have baptised. See his note, iz loco, and also Zoéckler, Apostel- geschichte, p. 183.--προσετέθησαν, cf. ver. 47, and ν. 14, xi. 24. In the LXX the same verb is used, Isa. xiv. 1, for a proselyte who is joined to Israel, so too Esth. ix. 27.--ψυχαὶ, “souls,” {.ε., per- sons. See on ver. 43.--ὡσεὶ τρισχίλιαι : the adverb is another favourite word of St. Luke (Friedrich)—it is not found in St. John, and in St. Mark only once, in St. Matthew three times, but in St. Luke’s Gospel eight or nine times, and in Acts six or seven times. As ini. 15 the intro- duction of the adverb is against the sup- position that the number was a fictitious one. We cannot suppose that the in- fluence and the recollection of Jesus had vanished within a few short weeks with- out leaving a trace behind, and where the proclamation of Him as the Christ followed upon the wonderful gift of tongues, in which many of the people
would see the inspiration of God anda confirmation given by Him to the claims made by the disciples, hearts and con- sciences might well be stirred and quick- ened—and the movement once begun was sure to spread (see the remarks of Spitta, Apostelgeschichte, p. 60, on the birthday of the Church, in spite of the suspicion with which he regards the number three thousand).
Ver. 42. The growth of the Church not merely in numbers but in the in- crease of faith and charity. In R.V. by the omission of καὶ before τῇ κλάσει two pairs of particulars are apparently enumerated—the first referring to the close adherence of believers to the Apostles in teaching and fellowship, the second expressing their outward acts of worship ; or the first pair may be taken as expressing rather their relation to man, the second their relation to God (Ndsgen). Dr. Hort, while pointing out that the first term τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποσ- τόλων (‘the teaching,” R.V., following Wycliffe ; cf. Matt. vii. 28, ‘* doctrine,” A.V., which would refer rather to a de- finite system, unless taken in the sense of the Latin doctrina, teaching) was obvi- ously Christian, so that the disciples might well be called scribes to the king- dom, bringing out of their treasures things new and old, the facts of the life of Jesus and the glory which followed, facts interpreted in the light of the Law and the Prophets, takes the next words τῇ κοινωνίᾳ as separated altogether from τῶν ἀποστόλων, “and with the com- munion’’: κοινωνία, in Dr. Hort’s view by parallelism with the other terms, ex- presses something more external and concrete than a spirit of communion; it refers to the help given to the destitute of the community, not apparently in money, but in public meals, such as from another point of view are called ‘‘ the, daily ministration” (cf. Acts vi. 2, τραπέζαις). There are undoubtedly in- stances of the employment of the word κοινωνία in this concrete sense, Rom. xv. 26, 2 Cor. vili. 4, ix. 13, Heb. xiii. 26, but in each of these cases its meaning is determined by the context (and Zéckler, amongst recent commentators, would so