Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 14:11 - 14:11

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 14:11 - 14:11


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11. Λυκαονιστί, in the speech of Lycaonia. Which would come more naturally to their lips than any other. The people were bilingual, and St Paul had been speaking to them in Greek. This fact may give us some additional light on the question of what the gift of tongues was which was bestowed upon the Apostles. Clearly, from what we see here, it was not such a power as enabled them at once to understand and converse in the various dialects of all the people into whose countries they might be brought in their missionary labours. For it is manifest that neither Paul nor Barnabas understood the cry of these Lycaonians. If they had, we cannot suppose that they would have allowed a moment to elapse before they corrected the false impression which the words conveyed, and at which, when they came to know its purport, they expressed such horror. They, however, left the place where the multitude of listeners had been assembled, and departed to their own lodgings without any knowledge of what the mistaken people were about to do.

On this compare the words of Chrysostom, Ἀλλ' οὐκ ἧν τοῦτο (the intention to offer sacrifice) οὐδέπω δῆλον. τῇ γὰρ οἰκείᾳ φωνῇ ἐφθέγγοντο λέγοντες ὄτι οἱ θεοὶ ὁμοιωθέντες ἀνθρώποις κατέβησαν πρὸς ἡμᾶς. διὰ τοῦτο οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς ἔλεγον. ἐπειδὴ δὲ εἶδον τὰ στέμματα τότε ἐξελθόντες διέῤῥηξαν τὰ ἱμάτια.

οἱ θεοὶ ὁμοιωθέντες κ.τ.λ., the gods are come down to us. Nothing was more familiar to the heathen mind than the thought of the gods assuming human shape and going about among mankind, and it has often been noticed that the scene of the legend of Baucis and Philemon related by Ovid (Metam. VIII. 611 seqq.), and in which Jupiter and Mercury are said to have wandered on earth and to have been received as guests by Baucis and Philemon, is laid in Phrygia, which province was close to Lycaonia.