_Taking their food at home._――This is my interpretation of κλωντες κατ’ οἶκον αρτον, (_klontes kat’ oikon arton_.) Acts ii. 46, commonly translated “breaking bread from house to house,” a version which is still supported by many names of high authority; but the attendant circumstances here seem to justify this variation from them. A reference to the passage will show that the historian is speaking of their regular unanimous attendance in the temple, and says, “they attended every day with one accord in the temple,” that is, during the regular hours of daily worship, but as they would not suffer untimely devotion to interfere with their reasonable conveniences, he adds, “they broke bread,” (a Hebraistic form of expression for simply “taking food,”) “_at home_, and partook of their food in humility and thankfulness.” This seems to me, to require a sort of opposition in sense between ἱερον, (_hieron_,) “temple,” and οικος, (_oikos_,) “house” or “home,” for it seems as if the writer of the Acts wished in these few words, to give a complete account of the manner in which they occupied themselves, devoting all their time to public devotion in the temple except that, as was most seemly, they returned to their houses to take their ♦necessary food, which they did humbly and joyfully. But the _distributive_ force which some wish to put upon κατ’ οἶκον, by translating it “from house to house,” is one which does not seem to be required at all by any thing in the connection, and one which needs a vast deal of speculation and explanation to make it appear why they should go “from house to house,” about so simple a matter of fact as that of eating their victuals, which every man could certainly do to best advantage at one steady boarding-place. That the expression, κατ’ οἶκον, most commonly means “at home,” is abundantly proved by standard common Greek usage, as shown in the best Lexicons. But κατα, in connexion with a singular noun, has the _distributive_ force only when the noun itself is of such a character and connection in the sentence as to _require_ this meaning. Thus κατα μηνα, would hardly ever be suspected of any other meaning than “monthly,” or “every month,” or “from month to month;”――so κατα πολεις means “from city to city,” but the singular κατα πολιν, almost uniformly means “in a city,” without any distributive application, except where the other words in the sentence imply this idea. (Acts xv. 21: xx. 23.) But here the simple common meaning of the preposition κατα, when governing the accusative, (that is, the meaning of “at” or “in” a place,) is not merely allowed, but required by the other words in the connection, in order to give a meaning which requires no other explanation, and which corresponds to the word “temple” in the other clause; for the whole account seems to require an opposition in these words,