Acts 6:1

Acts 6:1. In those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied. The literal rendering was multiplying is more forcible; while the apostles after their liberation went on with their high mission, every day the number of believers continued to increase in spite of the second arrest of the apostles and the scourging.

There arose a murmuring. This dissatisfaction was the first and immediate consequence of the attempts of the Church of Jerusalem to bring about a general community of goods.

Of the Grecians. The words τω ͂ ν ῾Ελληνιστω ͂ ν are better rendered of the Grecian Jews. These were persons converted to the religion of Jesus from Judaism, but who, owing to their origin or habitation, spoke Greek as their ordinary language, and used the Greek version of the LXX. There were at that time a vast number of Jews who, residing chiefly in foreign parts, had lost the use of their native Hebrew, and generally spoke the Greek language. Many of these, belonging to Jewish families settled in Egypt and other countries, had come to reside in Jerusalem, then as ever the capital city of their people.

Against the Hebrews. The ‘Hebrews' were the pure Jews who, not residing necessarily in Palestine, still used the Hebrew Scriptures and spoke the dialect of the sacred tongue then current the Aramaic. The distinction between the Grecians and the Hebrews was not one of nationality, but of language.

Because their widows were neglected. Some commentators have supposed that these widows are mentioned as representatives of all the poor and needy who claimed their daily subsistence from the Church; but this is improbable. It is easy to conceive of these poor lonely women, who belonged to what was considered an inferior caste, being neglected in such a distribution.

In the daily ministration. This refers to a daily distribution either of food or money among the poorer and more helpless members of the Church. The funds which defrayed the cost of such a distribution were supplied by the free donations of the richer brethren (see chap. Acts 2:45 to Acts 4:34). The almoners were, in the first instance, no doubt the apostles themselves; but when the number of the believers had increased, this duty of course was deputed to assistants.

There is no doubt that the real cause of these ‘murmurings' which disturbed the peace of the early Church, must be sought for in the jealousy which always existed between the Jews who, with the ancient language, had preserved more rigidly the old customs and tone of Hebrew thought, and the Grecian or foreign Jews who, with the Greek language, had adopted broader and less rigid views generally; the former dwelt for the most part, though not exclusively, in Palestine. We find, for instance, the family of St. Paul, which belonged to this exclusive ‘Hebrew' caste, settled in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia.

The adoption of Christianity does not seem to have welded together these two great divisions of the people. As years went on, the schism even appears to have widened. The pure Hebrew Jews seem to have resented the broad inclusive spirit which soon welcomed the Gentile of every land and race into the fold of the Church, and, standing partly aloof, to have gradually formed themselves into that company of schismatics known later as Judaizing Christians, who so bitterly opposed St. Paul, and then the men of St. Paul's school of thought. Of this first great schism in the Church, which appears in this sixth chapter of the Acts, we find traces existing as late as the third century.