The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 440

would, porl1ape, be better given by "listened" gen. Mor. Mercury Is Hermes in bis special to Paul ep,•aldng. There le great resem- charMter as tlie god of market8 and trade. blance between this miracle of bealin;.t, nnd But tlie Lyce.oniariR here th,,ught of liim that of the lame man laicl at the gate of the in his principal cl,aracter of herald and temple, who wae healed by Peter (oh. iii. 2- messenger of the gods, and hence the god of 10), and, not unnature.lly, considerable eloquence and speech. iclentityof expression in the narratives. Both Ver. 13.-.And for then, A.V.; whose temple men were lame from their birth; the apostles was before the city for which was be/Me /,heir fastened their eyes upon both; both, when city, A.V. and 1'.R.; the multitudes for the healed, leaped and walked; and in both caeeH people, A.V., as in ver. 12. The priest of the miracle had a great effect upon the Jupiter. The words, A 3~ 1,p,~< Tou ti.,li, Tou muititudes who beheld it. Zeller (vol. ii. IJ~To<, 1<.T,>:,, may be construed in two ways- p. 6), with ohare.oteristic recklessness, infers either as m the A. V., or the priest. of the that" this narrative was ... merely in imita- temple of Jupif£:r, etc., understanding, by a tion of the early miraculous story of Peter;" common ellipse, l,pov, or, vcwu, after t.,&,, as and so relegates both it and the subsequent in the Latin phrase," Ubi ad Dianai veneris;" narrative to the regions of fu.ble. •• When you come to the temple of Diuna," Ver. 10.-Leaped up fur leaped, A.V. etc. But it is not a Greek phrase to speak Ver. 11.-Multitudea for people, A.V.; of Jupiter being before the city, meat.ing roioe for 'lloices, A. V. In the speech of Lyca- the temple of Jupiter. Therefore the proper onie.. It is not known what the language way of translating is to take the full phrase of Lycaonie. was, whether Cappadocian, or as bei11g 6 lt:pt:Ur -roV ~,Os- i•a.oV or iepoV, the Celtic, or Lycian : but we learn incidentally article Tov belonging to vczoii, and t.«!. berng, from Stephanus Byzantinus, that there was as in so many instances, without the article a Lycaonie.n language, for he tells us that (see Matt.,• Gr. Gr.,' 2;;1). The gates; viz. Delbia (as some write the name Derbe) was of the city. The temple was just outside the Lyce.onian for lip1«u8os, e. juniper tree or the gates; the lame man, it is likely, eat berry. No other Lyce.onian word is known iWlide near the gates through wl1ich men (see" Jablouskii Disquis. de Ling. Lycaon," were passing in and out. Paul and Barnabas in Stephan., • Thesaur.'). The Lycaonians would address the people in the square or doubtless understood Greek as the language open space inside the gates. Seeing a stir of intercommunication all over Roman Asia, at the gates, and bearing that it was the but among themselves would speak their priest of Jupiter coming with oxen an,! gar- native dialect. The belief that the gods lands to sacrifice to them, they immediately were oome down in the likeness of men, and ran forward to prevent it. The ox we.s the that these gods were Jupiter and Hermes, proper sacrifice for Jupiter. or Mercury, was most natural to Lyce.onians, Ver. 14.-But ..• heard of it for u:hich. who were conversant with, and doubtless ••. heard of, A. V.; garme11ts fur clothes, A. V.; believed, the Phrygian legend of Philemon sprang forth for ran in, A. V. ; multitudes for and Baucis, • who ent.erte.iued hospitably people, A.V., as before. The conduct of Bar- Jupiter nnd Hermes, when no one else would ne.bas and Paul, in abhorring the, honours take them in, and whose cottage was by the offered to them, h11.s been well contrasted gods turned into a temple (when all the with the profane vanity of Herod in accepting neighbourhood was drowned by e. fiood), Divine honours (eh. xii. 23). of which they were made priest and Ver. 15.-Bring you good tidings for preach. priestess during life, and simultaneously unto you, A. V .; flair& things for vanities, A.V.; met11.morpbosed into an oak and lime tree who for which., A.V.; the heaven and the eartl~ when their life ended (Ovid, ' Metamorph.,' for heaven and earth, A.V.; that in them ia viii. 611, etc.). Ovid places the scene of the for things that are tht!Tein, A. V. For the legend at Tyane., the site of which hos been declaration, We also are men of like passions ascertained by Hamilton to be near Erekli, in with you,compare Peter's saying to Cornelius Cappadocia, close to the borders of Lyoaonia. (eh. x. 26), "l:itund up; I myself also am a 'fhe moral eh-awn in the legend itself seems man." St. Paul finely contra8ts the utter to huve been that wLioh infiuenced the v11.nity, i.e. the impotence, lifelessness, use- peoplo of Lycnoniu in their conduot towards lessness, and unprofitablencss of the idols, the two strangers: "Cura pii dis aunt, et with the power of the living God, who by his qui onluere coluntur," which may be Eng• wor<l created heavon an<l earth and sea. ,md lished, "Tllem that honour me I will llonour" filled them nil with beauty, shape, and lifo. (l Sum. ii. 30). Ver. 16.-17ie ge-nerations go11e by for timea Ver. 12.-Meroun; for Mercttrius, A.V. past, A.V.; the Hatio11s for 1talio11s, A.V. For the Le.tin Jupiter and lllercury the Ver. 17.-.And yet for ne11i;rthdcss, A.V.; Greek original has Zeus and Hermes. you fr01n heaven rafos for us rain from J'U;piter isJ ovie Pater, whereJovis or Diovis or heave11, A.V. und T.R.; your for our, A.V. Dies (in Diesp1terJ is tlae Latin form of Z(;UB, and 'f.R. Observe how the apostlo adapts 138 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [oB, UV, 1-28,