The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 311

for thef'II came a 'fllpflr, A.V.: by f"eaacm of bite of a viper (Dioscorides, Galen, eh). for out of, A.V. Had gathered; f1'u11-rpl,J,av-rar, J'nstioe ( JI .o.iK'IJ). In Greek mythology Dice only hero and in the LXX. of Jurlg. xi. 3 (Justitia) wae the daughter and assessor or and xii. 4, for "to collect," "go.ther to- Zeus, anrl the avenger of crimo. In her gether." But t1'uu-rpotpf, ( eh. xix. 40 ; xxiii. train was Pcena, of whom Horace says, " Raro 12) meo.ne "R concourse," "o. oonspimcy." antecedentem scelestnm Deseruit pede Pcana. In olo.ssical Greek uut1'-rpl,p .. v is " to twist claudo" (' Od.,' iii. 2, :l2). " The idea of up together," to " form into e. compact Dioe as justice personified is most perfectly body," nnd the like, A bundle of eticke; developed in the dramas of Sophocles and ,Ppu-ydvo,v ,r;\,)0or. The word only occurs in Euripides" (article "Dice," in 'Diet. of the New Testament here; it means "dry Greek and Roman Biog. and Mythol.'). It sticks," "kindlers," e.ny combustible mate- does not appear whether the islanders had rial. In the LXX. it is used as the equi- learned the name and office of Dice from the valent of ~R• straw or stubble (Iso.. xl. 24; Greeks in Sicily, or whether they had any xli. 2, etc.), o.nd for" nettles" (Job xxx. 7). native divinity whose name St. Luke trans- 'fheophrastus seems to use it for plants lates into that of Dice. The gods whose sme.ller than e. shrub(' Hist.,' Plant., i. 3, 1, names are found in ancient Maltese inscrip• quoted by Bobe.rt). Lewin (vol. ii. p. 208) tions are Melkarlh, another name of Hercules, writes as follows :-" When in Malte. in 1853, the tutelar god of Tyre; Osiris, and Baal. I went to St. Paul's Bay e.t the so.me season Other Phcenician divinities are named in of the year as when the wreck occurred. . . . the Carthaginian inscriptions (see Gesenius, We noticed eight or nine stacks of small 'Monument. Phcenic.'). Hath not suffered. faggots .... 'flley consisted of e. kind of They assume that death will certainly follow thorny heather, and had evidently been cut for from the bite. firewood." This is a conclusive answer, if Ver. 5.-H<nJJbeit for and, A.V.; fbok for any were needed, to the objection to Melita felt, A.V. being Mo.Ito., drawn from the absence of Ver. 6.-But they ezpeded that he woul,d wood in the island. But besides this, it for howbeit, they looked when he should, A.V.; is not a foot that even now there is no when they were long in expectation for after wood at all (see Lewin). A viper came out. they had looked a great while, A. V. ; beheld It is objected that there are no vipers in nothing amiss for saw no harm, A.V. They Malta. But it is obvious that the condition expected ; 1rpat1'eoo1<0,v, This word is used of Malta now, a very thickly inhabited eleven times by St. Ln.ke, twice by St. island (one thousand two hundred people Matthew, and three times in the Second to the square mile, Lewin, p. 208), is very Epistle of Peter (see eh. iii. 5; Luke i. 21, different from what it was with a sparse etc.). It is also common in the LXX. But population in the days of St. Paul. Vipers it is a word much employed by medical may well have been destroyed during one writers in speaking of the course they ex- thousand eight hundred and sixty years. pect a disease to take, and the resnl ts they Lewin mentions that his travelling oom- look for. And this is the more remarkable panions in 1853 started what they thought here beoe.use there are no fewer than three was a viper, which escaped into one of the other medical phrases in this verse, ,r(µ- bundles of heather. Came out. .O.«( ,Moun ,rpau6a,, Ka-rcurl,r-re,v, and /L110~v lho1rov, be- is the reading of Tischendorf, Alford, Meyer, sides those immediately preceding o«(<pxe- etc., "came out throngh the sticks." It is u8a, (according to several good manuscripts a frequent medical term. The heat; -rijr and editions) 6/pµ11, ,caedrreiv, and 97,pfov. 6epµ'l)r. Thie form of the word is only used So that it looks as if, having once got into ll, here in the New 'festament, instead of the medical train of thought from the subject he more common 6epµ&-r'l)r. It occurs, however, was writingabout,medical language naturally repeatedly in the LXX. (Job vi.17; Ps. xix. came uppermost in his mind. Have swollen : 7; Ecolus. xxxviii. 3-l, etc.), and woe the ,r[/L,rpau8w, only here in the Bible, and not usual medical word for feverish heat. found in this sense in older classical writers. Fastened; ,cc/.8'111"•, here only in tlio Bible; But it is the usual medical word for " inflam- but not uncommon in classical Greek, and mation" in any part of the body. Fall&11 of general use among medical Wl'iters. down; Ka-ra,r[,r-re,v, only here and in eh. Ver. 4.-Beast for venomous beast, A.V.; xxvi. 14, and twice in the LXX.; but com- hanging from for hang on, A.V.; ono to mon in Homer and elsewhere, and especially another for among themselves, A.V. ; escaped frequent in medical writers of persons fall- from for e8caped, A. V.; justice for vengeance, ing down in fits, or weakness, or wounded, A. V.; hath not suffered for su.ffei·eth not, or the like. Nothing amiss (µ'l)o~v ~-ro,rov). A.V. The beast (-ro 611plav). It is peculiar Mr. Hobart quotes a. remarkable parallel to to medical writers to use 6'1)pCav as synony- this phrase from Damocrites, quoted by mous with tx,ova, e. viper. So also ew,&0,1,c- Galen. He says that whosoever, having been Tos, bit by a viper, 67101a1<~, !ln antidote to the bitten by a mad dog, drinks a certain anu-  THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [oH. xxvm. 1-81,