Acts 14:15

ἄνδρες : brief address in accordance with the hurry of the moment. ὁμοιοπαθεῖς, James 5:17, “of like passions,” so R.V. in both passages, but ‘ nature ' in margin, so Ramsay. But to others the latter word seems too general, and they explain it as meaning equally capable of passion or feeling, as opposed to the ἀπάθεια of the idols; or, equally prone to human weakness, and not all-powerful as the people seemed to infer from the miracle (Bethge); whilst others again take it as meaning ὁμοίως θνητός (so Blass). On its meaning in Wis 7:3 see Grimm, sub v., and Speaker's Commentary. In 4Ma 12:13 it is also used to mark the atrocious nature of persecution inflicted by one who, a man himself, was not ashamed τοὺς ὁμοιοπαθεῖς γλωττοτομῆσαι : cf. its use in medical writers and in classical Greek (Wetstein); by the Fathers it was used of our Lord Himself, Euseb., H. E., i., 2, cf. Hebrews 4:15 (see Mayor on James 5:17). εὐαγγελιζ.: we preach not ourselves Paul was a “messenger of God” in a higher sense than the people conceived; on the construction see above p. 210 and Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 79. For reading in [269] see critical note = bringing you glad tidings of “the God” in Asia Minor a familiar term for the great God, so that just as St. Paul introduces the Christian God at Athens as “the Unknown God,” whom the Athenians had been worshipping, so here he may have used a familiar term known to the crowd around him at Lystra, Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 118. ἐπιστρέφειν ἐπὶ, cf. especially 1 Thessalonians 1:9, in Acts 9:35; Acts 11:21; Acts 15:19; Acts 26:20; on the construction see Wendt, and Weiss, in loco, cf. Acts 4:18; Acts 5:28; Acts 5:40, infinitive after παραγγέλλειν. τὸν ζῶντα, see critical note. τούτων : may be used contemptuously, as if St. Paul pointed to the preparations for the sacrifice. ματαίων, cf. Jeremiah 2:5; Jeremiah 10:3, of the gods of the nations and their worship, cf. also 2 Kings 17:15; Jeremiah 8:19; cf. Romans 1:21; Ephesians 4:17. R.V. and A.V. take it as neuter, others as masculine, sc., Θεῶν. ὃς ἐποίησε κ. τ. λ., cf. especially Jeremiah 10:11-15, l6, for the contrast between the gods who are no gods, and the God Who made the heavens, and cf. also Acts 17:24 for a similar appeal from the same Apostle. The “living” God manifests His life in creation a manifestation to which St. Paul would naturally appeal before such an audience; even in writing to Christian converts of the deepest mysteries of the faith he does not forget that the God of Nature and the God of Redemption are one, cf. Ephesians 3:9, R.V.; so too St. Peter prefaces the first Christian hymn with the same words used here by the Apostle of the Gentiles, Acts 4:24. On the tact of St. Paul at Lystra and at Athens, laying the foundation of his teaching as a wise master-builder in the truths of natural religion, and leading his audience from them as stepping-stones to higher things, see notes on 17. That he did not even at Lystra confine his teaching or his appeal simply to Nature's witness, see notes on Acts 14:22-23.

[269] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.