Acts 6:1

δὲ; cf. Acts 1:15, and see above in Acts 5:41. There seems no occasion to regard δὲ as marking a contrast between Acts 5:41 and the opening of this chapter, or as contrasting the outward victory of the Church with its inward dissensions (as Meyer, Holtzmann, Zechler, see Nösgen's criticism in loco); simply introduces a new recital as in Acts 3:1. It may refer back to the notice in Acts 5:14 of the increase of the disciples, and this would be in harmony with the context. On the expression ἐν ταῖς ἡμέρ. ταύτ., as characteristic of Luke, see above, and Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, p. 9; in both his Gospel and the Acts expressions with ἡμέρα abound. Harnack admits that in passing to this sixth chapter “we at once enter on historical ground,” Expositor, 5, p. 324 (3rd series). For views of the partition critics see Wendt's summary in new edition (1899), p. 140, Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., p. 390 ff. (1895), and also in commentary below. Wendt sees in Acts 6:1-7 the hand of the redactor, the author of Acts 2:5; others suppose that we have in 6 the commencement of a new Hellenistic source; so Feine, J. Weiss, Hilgenfeld. Clemen refers Acts 6:7-8 to his Historia Petri, whilst Acts 6:9 commences his Historia Hellenistarum (Acts 6:1-6 belong to a special source); others again see in chap. 6 the continuance of an earlier source or sources. πληθυνόντων, when the number of the disciples was multiplying (present part [188]); verb frequent in LXX, sometimes intrans. as here, Exodus 1:20, etc., and see Psalms of Solomon, Acts 10:1, and note in Ryle and James' edition; cf. also its classical use in its more correct form, πληθύω, in the Acts: Acts 6:7; Acts 7:17; Acts 9:31; Acts 12:24. On St. Luke's fondness for this and similar words (Friedrich) see p. 73. Weiss calls it here a very modest word, introduced by one who knew nothing of the conversions in many of the preceding Chapter s. But the word, and especially its use in the present participle, rather denotes that the numbers went on increasing, and so rapidly that the Apostles found the work of relief too great for them. μαθητῶν, the word occurs here for the first time in the Acts (surely an insufficient ground for maintaining with Hilgenfeld that we are dealing with a new source). The same word is found frequently in each of the Gospels, twenty-eight times in Acts (μαθήτρια once, Acts 9:36), but never in the Epistles. It evidently passed into the ancient language of the early Church from the earthly days of the ministry of Jesus, and may fairly be regarded as the earliest designation of the Christians; but as the associations connected with it (the thought that Jesus was the διδάσκαλος and His followers His μαθηταί) passed into the background it quickly dropped out of use, although in the Acts the name is still the rule for the more ancient times and for the Jewish-Christian Churches; cf. Acts 21:16. In the Acts we have the transition marked from μαθηταί to the brethren and saints of the Epistles. The reason for the change is obvious. During the lifetime of Jesus the disciples were called after their relationship to Him; after His departure the names given indicated their relation to each other and to the society (Dr. Sanday, Inspiration, p. 289). And as an evidential test of the date of the various N.T. writings this is just what we might expect: the Gospels have their own characteristic vocabulary, the Epistles have theirs, whilst Acts forms a kind of link between the two groups, Gospels and Epistles. It is, of course, to be remembered that both terms ἀδελφοί and ἅγιοι are also found in Acts, not to the exclusion of, but alongside with, μαθηταί (cf., e.g., Acts 9:26; Acts 9:30; Acts 21:4; Acts 21:7; Acts 21:16-17): the former in all parts of the book, and indeed more frequently than μαθηταί, as applied to Christians; the latter four times, Acts 9:13; Acts 9:32; Acts 9:41; Acts 26:10. But if our Lord gave the charge to His disciples recorded in St. Matthew 28:19, bidding them make disciples of all the nations, μαθητεύσατε (cf. also Acts 14:21 for the same word), then we can understand that the term would still be retained, as it was so closely associated with the last charge of the Master, whilst a mutual discipleship involved a mutual brotherhood (Matthew 23:8). St. Paul in his Epistles would be addressing those who enjoyed through Christ a common share with himself in a holy fellowship and calling, and whom he would therefore address not as μαθηταί but as ἀδελφοί and ἅφιοι. They were still μαθηταί, yet not of man but of the Lord (only in one passage in Acts, and that a doubtful one, Acts 9:43, is the word μαθηταί or μαθητής used of any human teacher), and the word was still true of them with that significance, and is still used up to a period subsequent (we may well believe) to the writing of several of Paul's Epistles, Acts 21:16. How the word left its impress upon the thought of the Church, in the claim of the disciple to be as his Master, is touchingly evidenced by the expressions of St. Ign., Ephes. i. 2; Magn., ix., 2; Rom. iv. 2; Tral., v., 2 (St. Polyc., Martyr, xvii., 3, where the word is applied to the martyrs as disciples of the Lord, and the prayer is offered: ὧν γένοιτο καὶ ἡμᾶς συγκοινωνούς τε καὶ συμμαθητάς γενέσθαι). γογγυσμὸς and γογγύζειν are both used by St. Luke (cf. Luke 5:30), by St. John, and also by St. Paul, Philippians 2:14, and 1 Corinthians 10:10, the noun also by St. Peter, Acts 1:4; Acts 1:9. The noun is found seven times in the LXX of Israel in the wilderness (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:10); so in Philippians 2:14 it is probable that the same passage, Exodus 16:7, was in the Apostle's mind, as in the next verse he quotes from the Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:5, LXX; so γόγγυσις is also found in LXX with the same meaning, Numbers 14:27. γογγυσμός is also found in Wis 1:10, Sir 46:7, with reference to Numbers 14:26-27, and twice in Psalms of Solomon Acts 5:15; Acts 16:11. In Attic Greek τονθυρισμός would be used (so τονθρίζω and τονθυρίζω). Phrynichus brands the other forms as Ionian, but Dr. Kennedy maintains that γογγυσμός and γογγύζειν from their frequent use in the LXX are rather to be classed amongst “vernacular terms” long continued in the speech of the people, from which the LXX drew. Both words are probably onomatopoetic. Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, pp. 38 40, 72, 73, 76; see also Rutherford, New Phrynichus, p. 463; Deissmann, Bibelstudien, p. 106. Here the word refers rather to indignatio clandestina, not to an open murmuring. Ἑλληνιστῶν. The meaning of the term, which was a matter of conjecture in St. Chrysostom's day, cannot be said to be decided now (Hort, Judaistic Christianity, p. 48). The verb Ἑλληνίζειν, to speak Greek (Xen., Anab., vii., 3, 25), helps us reasonably to define it as a Greek-speaking Jew (so also Holtzmann and Wendt). The term occurs again in Acts 9:29 (and Acts 11:20 ? see in loco), and includes those Jews who had settled in Greek-speaking countries, who spoke the common Greek dialect in place of the vernacular Aramaic current in Palestine, and who would be more or less acquainted with Greek habits of life and education. They were therefore a class distinguished not by descent but by language. This word “Grecians” (A.V.) was introduced to distinguish them from the Greeks by race, but the rendering “Grecian Jews” (R.V.) makes the distinction much plainer. Thus in the Dispersion “the cultured Jew was not only a Jew but a Greek as well”; he would be obliged from force of circumstances to adapt himself to his surroundings more or less, but, even in the more educated, the original Jewish element still predominated in his character; and if this was true of the higher it was still more true of the lower classes amongst the Hellenists no adoption of the Greek language as their mode of speech, no separation of distance from the Holy City, no defections in their observances of the law, or the surrender as unessential of points which the Pharisees deemed vital, could make them forget that they were members of the Commonwealth of Israel, that Palestine was their home, and the Temple their pride, see B.D. 2, “Hellenist,” Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 282, E.T.; Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, ii., 3, “Griechenthum”. But bearing this description in mind, we can the more easily understand the conflict with Stephen, and his treatment by those who were probably his fellow-Hellenists. If as a cultured Hellenist St. Stephen's sympathies were wider and his outlook less narrow than that of the orthodox Jew, or of the less educated type of Hellenist, such a man, who died as St. Stephen died with the prayer of Jesus on his lips (see Feine's remarks), must have so lived in the spirit of his Master's teaching as to realise that in His Kingdom the old order would change and give place to new. But the same considerations help us to understand the fury aroused by St. Stephen's attitude, and it is not difficult to imagine the fanatical rage of a people who had nearly risen in insurrection because Pilate had placed in his palace at Jerusalem some gilt shields inscribed with the names of heathen gods, against one who without the power of Pilate appeared to advocate a change of the customs which Moses had delivered (see Nösgen, Apostelgeschichte, p. 69). Ἑβραῖοι in W.H [189] with smooth breathing, see W.H [190], Introduction, p. 313, and Winer-Schmiedel, p. 40; here those Jews in Palestine who spoke Aramaic; in the Church at Jerusalem they would probably form a considerable majority, cf. Philippians 3:5, and Lightfoot's note. In the N.T. Ἰουδαῖος is opposed to Ἕλλην (Romans 1:16), and Ἑβραῖος to Ἑλληνιστής, Acts 6:1. In the former case the contrast lies in the difference of race and religion; in the latter in the difference of customs and language. A man might be called Ἰουδαῖος, but he would not be Ἑβραῖος in the N.T. sense unless he retained in speech the Aramaic tongue; the distinction was therefore drawn on the side of language, a distinction which still survives in our way of speaking of the Jewish nation, but of the Hebrew tongue. See Trench, Synonyms, i., p. 156 ff. In the two other passages in which Ἑβρ. is used, Philippians 3:5 and 2 Corinthians 11:22, whatever difficulties surround them, it is probable that the distinctive force of the word as explained above is implied. But as within the nation, the distinction is not recognised by later Christian writers, and that it finds no place at all in Jewish writers like Philo and Josephus, or in Greek authors like Plutarch and Pausanias (Trench, u. s.). πρὸς, cf. St. Luke 5:30, ἐγόγγυζον πρὸς τ. μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ. παρεθεωροῦντο : not found elsewhere in N.T. and not in LXX, but used in this sense in Dem. (also by Diodorus and Dion. Hal.) = παρορᾶν, Attic: imperfect, denoting that the neglect had been going on for some time; how the neglect had arisen we are not told there is no reason to suppose that there had been previously Palestinian deacons (so Blass in [191], critical notes), for the introduction of such a class of deacons, as Hilgenfeld notes, is something quite new, and does not arise out of anything previously said, although it would seem that in the rapidly growing numbers of the Church the Hebrew Christians regarded their Hellenist fellow-Christians as having only a secondary claim on their care. Possibly the supply for the Hellenists fell short, simply because the Hebrews were already in possession. The Church had been composed first of Galileans and native Jews resident in Jerusalem, and then there was added a wider circle Jews of the Dispersion. It is possible to interpret the incident as an indication of what would happen as the feeling between Jew and Hellenist became more bitter, but it is difficult to believe that the Apostles, who shared with St. James of Jerusalem the belief that θρησκεία consisted in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, could have acted in a spirit of partiality, so that the neglect, if it was due to them, could be attributed to anything else than to their ignorance of the greatness of the need. διακονίᾳ, see below on Acts 6:2. καθημερινῇ : not found elsewhere in N.T. or in LXX, only in Jdt 12:15. It is a word only used in Hellenistic Greek, cf. Josephus, Ant., iii., 10, 1; but it may be noted that it is also a word frequently employed by medical writers of a class of fevers, etc. See instances in Hobart, pp. 134, 135, and also in Wetstein, in loco. αἱ χῆραι αὐτῶν : not merely a generic term for the poor and needy under the Mosaic dispensation no legal provision was made for widows, but they would not only receive the privileges belonging to other distressed classes, but also specific regulations protected them they were commended to the care of the community, and their oppression and neglect were strongly condemned it is quite possible that the Hellenistic widows had previously been helped from the Temple Treasury, but that now, on their joining the Christian community, this help had ceased. On the care of the widow in the early Church, see James 1:27 (Mayor's note); Polycarp, Phil., vi., 1, where the presbyters are exhorted to be εὔσπλαγχνοι μὴ ἀμελοῦντες χήρας ἤ ὀρφανου ἤ πένητος, and cf. Acts 4:3. The word χήρα occurs no less than nine times in St. Luke's Gospel, three times in the Acts, but elsewhere in the Evangelists only three times in St. Mark (Matthew 23:14, omitted by W.H [192] and R.V.), and two of these three in an incident which he and St. Luke alone record, Mark 12:42-43, and the other time in a passage also peculiar to him and St. Luke (if we are justified in omitting Matthew 23:14), viz., Mark 12:40.

[188]art. grammatical particle.

[189] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

[190] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

[191] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.

[192] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.