1δ,
need not refer to the two sects of philo- sophers this unfavourable criticism on St. Paul; “ Epicureans,’’ Conybeare in Hastings’ B.D. Certainly the οἱ δέ has no οἱ µέν as if two opposing schools were meant. The punctuation in R.V., which simply states the fact that amongst those in the Agora certain also τινὲς δὲ καὶ of the philosophers, etc., admits of this view that the criticisms were uttered not by the philosophers, but by the curious crowd which thronged the Agora. Ram- say however takes the verse as marking the opinions of the philosophers, and the use of the word oweppoddyos by Zeno of one of his followers may help to confirm this.—rl ἂν θέλοι: “what would this babbler say?” R.V., not future as in A.V.; the ἄν with optative being used to express what would happen as the fulfil- ment of some supposed condition, Bur- ton, p. 79, so Viteau, Le Grec du N. Τ., Pp. 33 (1893), the condition being if we would listen to him, or if his words have any meaning; optative with ἄν only in Luke, see Burton, 4. σπερµολόγος: primarily an adjective, -ov; as a substantive 6 σπερ. of a rook or crow, or some small bird, pick- ing up seeds, cf. Arist., Av., 233, 580. σπέρµα-λέγω: so far as derivation is concerned it is not connected with σπείρω-λόγους, Latin, seminiverbius (so Augustine, Wycliffe, ‘‘sower of words”’). The accent shows that this latter deriva- tion is incorrect. Hence a man hanging about the shops and the markets, picking up scraps which fell from the loads and thus gaining a livelihood, so a parasite, one who lives at the expense of others, a hanger-on, Eustathius on Hom., Odys., v., 490; seein Grimm, sub v.; so Dem. speaks of Aeschines, 269, I9, aS σπερ. περίτριµµα ἀγορᾶς. The word thuscame to be used of a man who picked up scraps of information, and retailed them at second hand. So Eustathius speaks of rhetoricians who were mere collectors of words and consistent plagiarists δι ὅλου σπερμολογοῦντες; SO again he remarks that the word is applied to those who make a show in unscientific style of knowledge which they have got from misunderstanding of lectures (see for these quotations Ramsay, Exfosttor, September, 18090, Ρ. 222, and the whole article ‘St. Paul in Athens”). Ramsay maintains therefore that there is no instance of the classical use of the word as a babbler or mere talker, and he sees in the word a piece of Athenian slang, caught up as the Athenians had them- selves used it (“sine dubio hoc ex ipso
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