to this passage, is the professional term for a disease without distinctive symptoms, and is applied by Hippocrates to a city. “ Delivered the letter” (avadovtes, Acts xxiii. 33). The verb occurs only here in the New Testament, and is a medical term for the distribution of blood through the veins, or of nourish- ment through the body. Hippocrates uses it of a messenger de- livering a letter. In the parable of the sower, Matthew and Mark have ftfav, “they have no root.” Luke (viii. 6) has ixudda, moisture, the medical term for the j uices of the body, of plants, and of the earth. In the same parable, for sprung up Matthew and Mark have é£avéreie, while Luke has pvev—oup- gueicar (vv. 6, 7), a grew—grew with it (Rev-). These latter words are used by medical writers to describe the growth of parts of the body, of diseases, of vegetation, ete. Hippocrates uses together ixuds, moisture, and dvecIat, to grow, comparing the juices of the body with those of the earth. Yupdverdar, to grow together, was the professional word for the closing of wounds and ulcers, the uniting of nerves and of bones, and is used by Dioscorides precisely as here, of plants growing together in the same place.
Such peculiarities, so far from being strange or anomalous, are only what might naturally be expected. It is an every-day fact that the talk of specialists, whether in the professions or in mechanics, when it turns upon ordinary topics, unconsciously takes form and color from their familiar calling.
The attempt has been made to show that Paul’s style was in- fluenced by Luke in this same direction ; so that his intercourse with his companion and physician showed itself in his use of certain words having a medical flavor. Dean Plumptre cites as illustrations of this, bysatvew, to be healthy, in its figurative ap- plication to doctrine as wholesome ov sound (1 Tim. i. 10; vi. 3; 9 Tim. i. 13): yayypawa, canker (2 Tim. ii. 17): tudodeis, lifted up with pride; Rev., puffed up (A Tim. iil. 6 ; vi. 4): kexavTnpiacpévov, scared ; Rev., branded (1 Tim. iv. 2): «vn- Jopevor, itching (2 Tim. iv. 8): amoxdryovtat, cut themselves off (Gal. v. 12). > Luke is also circumstantial, as well as technical, in his de- scriptions of diseases ; noting their duration and symptoms, and