Babbler

Babbler [NAVE]

BABBLER, a sarcastic epithet applied to the apostle Paul, Acts 17:18.

BABBLER [ISBE]

BABBLER - bab'-ler ba`al ha-lashon; the King James Version of Eccl 10:11 literally, "master of the tongue"; the Revised Version (British and American) CHARMER; lapistes, the King James Version of Ecclesiasticus 20:7; the Revised Version (British and American) BRAG; spermologos; the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) of Acts 17:18): The latter Greek word is used of birds, such as the crow, that live by picking up small seeds (sperma, "20 seed," legein, "to gather"), and of men, for "hangers on" and "parasites" who obtained their living by picking up odds and ends off merchants' carts in harbors and markets. It carries the "suggestion of picking up refuse and scraps, and in the literature of plagiarism without the capacity to use correctly" (Ramsay). The Athenian philosophers in calling Paul a spermologos, or "ignorant plagiarist," meant that he retailed odds and ends of knowledge which he had picked up from others, without possessing himself any system of thought or skill of language--without culture. In fact it was a fairly correct description of the Athenian philosophers themselves in Paul's day.

Ramsay, Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen, 141 ff.

T. Rees