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ore Atheniensium auctor excepit” Blass), and applied to one who was quite outside any literary circle, an ignorant, vulgar plagiarist. At the same time it is per- haps difficult to find any single word more to the point than ‘“babbler,” A. and R.V. (Tyndall), for, as Alford urges, it both signifies one who talks fluently to no purpose, and hints also that his talk is not hisown. We may, however, well owe this rendering to the fact that σπερµολόγος was wrongly derived, as if it meant seminaior verborum, whereas its true derivation is given above. De Wette, Overbeck, Nésgen, Weiss, Holtzmann, Zockler, Wendt, all so render it. An ingenious attempt has been made to connect the word with the Aretalogi (Juvenal, Sat., xv., 16; Suet, Aug., 74) or praters about virtue, who hired them- selves as entertainers for the wealthy Roman nobles at their dinners: “‘ mendax aretalogus,” Juv., 1. s.; Zéckler, in loco. For instances of the use of the word see Wetstein, Ramsay, Ndésgen, Bethge, Die Paulinischen Reden, p. 77; Ren- dall (who agrees with Ramsay), and “ Babbler,” Hastings’ Β.Ὀ.---ξένωνδαιμ. δοκεῖ καταγ.: The same kind of accusa- tion had been already made against Socrates, Xen., Mem., i., 1, as also against Anaxagoras and Protagoras, see Josephus, C. Afion., ii., 38, who also tells us how a certain priestess had been con- demned in Athens ὅτι ξένους ἐμύει θεούς. In Athens the introduction of strange gods was a capital offence, if by such an introduction the home deities were re- jected and the state religion disturbed, but there is nothing to show that the Athenians regarded Paul’s teaching in this light, and there is no evidence that the Areopagus had cognisance of serious charges of impiety or of the introduction of foreign religion (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 247).—tévev: “strange,” t.e., foreign.— δαιµονίων used here like the Greek δαιµόνιον in a neutral sense which might refer to deities good or bad. In classical Greek we have καινὰ δαιμόνια, cf. the charge against Socrates, Xen., Mem., i., 1 ; Plato, Afol., 24 B. καταγ- γελεὺς: only here in N.T., not found in LXX or classical Greek, the verb καταγ- γέλλειν occurs twice in 2 Macc. viii. 36, ix. 17, of declaring abroad the power o the God of the Jews. In Plutarch we have κατάγγελος.---δοκεῖ, see Burton, p. 153: on the personal construction with δοκεῖ cf. Gal. ii. 9, Jas. i. 26, etc.—rdv Ἰ. καὶ τὴν ἀνάστασιν, see critical note. It is possible that the Athenians thought that Paul was preaching two strange
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