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in ver. 42, or whether it is used here of merely ordinary meals. ‘The additional words µετελάμβανον τροφῆς have been taken to support this latter view, but on the other hand if the two expressions are almost synonymous, it is difficult to see why the former κλῶντες ἄρτον should have been introduced here at all, cf. Knabenbauer in loco. It is not satis- factory to lay all the stress upon the omission of the article before ἄρτον, and to explain the expression of ordinary daily meals, an interpretation adopted even by the Romanist Beelen and others. In the Didache the expression κλάσατε aprov, chap. xiv. 1, certainly refers to the Eucharist, and in the earlier chap. ix., where the word κλάσμα occurs twice m the sense of broken bread, it can scarcely refer to anything less than the Agape (Salmon, Introd., p. 565, and Gore, The Church and the Ministry, p. 414, on the value of the Eucharistic teaching in the Didache).—pere. : the imperf. denotes a customary act, the meaning of the verb with the gen. as here is frequently found in classical Greek; cf. LXX, Wisdom xvili. 9, 4 Macc. viii. 8, AR., and xvi. 18.---ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει: exulting, bounding joy; Vulgate, exultatione, ‘‘ extreme joy,” Grimm, used by St. Luke twice in his Gospel, i. 14, 44—only twice elsewhere in the N.T., Heb. i. 9, quotation, and in Jude, ver. 24. The word, though not occurring in classical Greek, was a favou- rite in the LXX, where it occurs no less than eighteen times in the Psalms alone. This “gladness” is full of significance —it is connected with the birth of the forerunner by the angel’s message to Zacharias, Luke i. 14; the cognate verb ἀγαλλιάω, -άομαι, common to St. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts, denotes the spiritual and exultant joy with which the Church age after age has rejoiced in the Song of the Incarnation, Luke i. 47.--ἀφελότητι καρδίας: rightly derived from a priv. and Φελλεύς, stony ground =a smooth soil, free from stones (but see Zéckler, in loco, who derives ἀφέλεια, the noun in use in Greek writers, from φέλα, πέλλα, Macedon. a stone). The word itself does not occur elsewhere, but ἀφέλεια, ἀφελής, ἀφελῶς are all. found (Wetstein), and just as the adj. ἀφελής signified a man ἁπλοῦς ἐν τῷ βίῳ, so the noun here used might well be taken as equivalent to ἁπλότης (Overbeck) “in simplicity of heart,” simplicitate, Bengel. Wendt compares the words of Demosthenes, ἀφελὴς καὶ παρρησίας µεστός.
Ver. 47. αἰνοῦντες τὸν Θεὸν: a favou- rite expression with St, Luke, cf. Gospel
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