Acts xvii. 21.:
"For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing."
Can any of your biblical correspondents inform me in what commentary upon the New Testament the coincidence with the following passages in Demosthenes is noticed, or whether any other source of the historical fact has been recorded? In the translation of Petrus Lagnerius, Franc. 1610 (I have not at hand the entire works), we find these words:
"Nihil est omnium, Athenienses, in præsentiâ nocentius, quam quod vos alienati estis a rebus, et tantisper operam datis, dum audientes sedetis, si quid Novi nuntiatum fuerit" (4. contr. Phil.).
Again:
"Nos vero, dicetur verum, nihil facientes, hic perpetuo sedemus cunctabundi, tum decernentes, tum interrogantes, si quid Novi in foro dicatur."—4 Orat. ad Philipp. Epist.
Pricæus, in his very learned and valuable Commentarii in varios N.T. Libros, Lond. 1660, fol., at p. 628, in v. 21., says only—
"Videantur quæ ex Demosthene, Plutarcho, aliis, Eruditi annotarunt."
Matthew xiii. 14.: