Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 2:42

42. Omit καὶ after κοινωνίᾳ with אABCD. The Vulg. has ‘et communicatione fractionis panis,’ which also supports the omission of καί.

42. προσκαρτεροῦντες. This means that they allowed nothing to interfere with the further teaching which the Apostles no doubt gave to the newly baptized. The converts would naturally seek to hear all the particulars of the life of Him whom they had accepted as Lord and Christ, and such narratives would form the greatest part of the teaching of the Apostles at the first.

The phrase ἡ διδαχὴ τῶν� has acquired a new interest since the recent discovery and publication of a MS. with that title. But the subjects treated of in this new discovery, a work manifestly of the first or beginning of the second century, are not such as could be spoken of immediately after the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit. They relate to the Church when she has taken a firm hold on the world.

κοινωνίᾳ, that communion, or holding all things common, of which a more full description is given in the following verses, and which would bind them most closely into one society.

Chrysostom calls this ‘an angelic republic’: τοῦτο πολιτεία�. ἐντεῦθεν ἡ ῥίζα τῶν κακῶν ἐξεκόπη, καὶ δι' ὧν ἔπραττον ἔδειξαν ὅτι ἤκουσαν.

The omission of the conjunction after κοινωνίᾳ makes a division between the educational and social duties on one hand, and the strictly devotional on the other.

τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου. The earliest title of the Holy Communion and that by which it is mostly spoken of in Scripture. (See Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 10:16, &c.) In consequence of the omission here and elsewhere of any mention of the wine, an argument has been drawn for communion in one kind. But it is clear from the way in which St Paul speaks of the bread and the cup in the same breath, as it were, that such a putting asunder of the two parts of the Sacrament which Christ united is unwarranted by the practice of the Church of the Apostles.

It is worth notice that in the ‘Teaching of the XII Apostles’ to which allusion has just been made, the directions concerning the cup stand first. See chap. 9 περὶ δὲ τῆς εὐχαριστίας, οὕτως εὐχαριστήσατε. πρῶτον περὶ ποτηρίου· κ.τ.λ.

ταῖς προσευχαῖς. There is the article here too. Render, the prayers. See note on Acts 1:14.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 2:42

Old Testament

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