Acts 17:18 - Exposition

And certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers for then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, A.V. ; would for will, A.V. ; preached for preached unto them, A.V. and T.R. The Epicureans (so called from Epicurus, their founder) and the Stoics (so called from the στοά , the colonnade or piazza where Zeno their founder taught) were the most numerous scots at Athens at this time; and their respective tenets were the most opposite to the doctrines of the gospel. Encountered him ; σύνεβαλλον . In Acts 4:15 it is followed by πρός , and is properly rendered "conferred;" here it is followed by the dative, and may be understood to mean "disputed" ( συμβάλλειν λόγους ). It may, however, not less properly be taken in the sense of a hostile encounter of words, as Luke 14:31 , and frequently in classical Greek. This babbler ( σπερμολόγος ); literally, a picker-up of seeds , applied to a crow. Plutarch too ('Demet.,' 28) has σπερμολόγοι ὅρνιθες , birds picking up seeds. Hence it is used of idle hangers-on in the markets, who get a livelihood by what they can pick up, and so generally of empty, worthless fellows. Hence it is further applied to those who pick up scraps of knowledge from one or another and "babble them indifferently in all companies" (Johnson's 'Dictionary,' under "Babble"). A setter forth of strange gods. There does not seem to be the least ground for Chrysostom's suggestion that they took Anastasis (the Resurrection) for the name of a goddess. But the preaching of Jesus the Son of God, himself risen from the dead ( Luke 14:31 ), and hereafter to be the Judge of quick and dead at the general resurrection, was naturally, to both Stoics and Epicureans, a setting forth of strange gods . ξένα δαιμόνια are "foreign deities," or "daemons," inferior gods. The word καταγγελεύς , a setter forth, does not occur elsewhere. But the nearly identical word κατάγγελος is used by Plutarch.