Acts 9:31

αἱ ἐκκλησίαι if we read the singular ἡ ἐκκλ. with the great MS. the word shows us that the Church, though manifestly assuming a wider range, is still one: Hort, Ecclesia, p. 55, thinks that here the term in the singular corresponds by the three modern representative districts named, viz., Judæa, Galilee, Samaria, to the ancient Ecclesia, which had its home in the whole land of Israel; but however this may be, the term is used here markedly of the unified Church, and in accordance with St. Paul's own later usage of the word; see especially Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 126, 127, and also p. 124. καθʼ ὅλης : the genitive in this sense is peculiar to St. Luke, and always with the adjective ὅλος; Luke 4:14; Luke 23:5; Acts 9:42; Acts 10:37, the phrase, although not the best classically, seeming to “sound right,” because καθόλου, only in Acts 4:18 in N.T., had come into common use since Aristotle (Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 148; Vogel, p. 45). οὖν connects with the preceding narrative; so Bengel, Weiss, Wendt, Blass, Zöckler; the Church had rest because the persecutors had become converted; but see also Rendall, Appendix, on μὲν οὖν, p. 164, and Hackett, Felten. οἰκοδομούμεσαι : “being edified,” R.V. (see critical notes) (not “and were edified,” A.V.) as an accompaniment of the peace from persecutors. The term may refer primarily to the organisation of the Church as a visible institution, but would also indicate the spiritual edification which is so often expressed by the word in St. Paul's Epistles, where both the verb and its cognate noun are so frequent; cf. Acts 20:32, and note. The fact that the verb is employed only once in the Gospels, Matthew 16:18, of the Church, as here in a non-literal sense, as compared with its constant use by St. Paul as above, is a striking indication of the early date of the Synoptic Gospels or their source (see Page, in loco). For the metaphorical use of the word in the O.T. of good fortune and prosperity, cf. LXX, Psalms 27:5 (Psalms 28:5), Jeremiah 12:16; Jeremiah 40:7 (Jeremiah 33:7); Jeremiah 38:4 (Jeremiah 31:4), Jeremiah 49:10 (Jeremiah 42:10). (Hilgenfeld refers the whole section Acts 9:32-42 to the same source A from which his “author to Theophilus” derived the founding, and the first incidents in the history, of the early Church, 1:15 4:42, although the “author to Theophilus” may have added the words καὶ τῇ παρακ.… ἐπληθύνοντο. But if we desire a good illustration of the labyrinth (as Hilgenfeld calls it) through which we have to tread, if we would see our way to any coherent meaning in Acts 9:31 to Acts 12:25, it is sufficient to note the analysis of the sources of the modern critics given us by Hilgenfeld himself, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., pp. 481, 482; 1895.) οἰκοδ.: may refer to the inward spiritual growth, ἐπληθ. to the outward growth in numbers; a growth attributed not to human agency but to the power of the Holy Ghost. παράκλησις only here in Acts of the Holy Ghost. Hort renders “and walking by the fear of the Lord and by the invocation [παρακ.] of the Holy Spirit [probably invoking His guidance as Paraclete to the Ecclesia] was multiplied” (Ecclesia, p. 55), and it is not strange that the working of the Παράκλητος should be so described; while others connect the word with the divine counsel or exhortation of the prophets in opening hearts and minds; others again attach παρακ. to ἐπληθ. as expressing increase of spiritual strength and comfort (see Blass, Rendall, Felten, and cf. Colossians 1:11; 1 Peter 1:2). On the verb and its frequency in Acts see p. 73.