This fellow]. — fi pri, except) A vehement affirmation. — ev rw BzsX?s[3ovX apyjDvn ruv dai'Moviuv, by Beelzebub the prince of the devils) They call Satan thus. In the Old Testament this was the name of an idol. Cf. 1 Cor. x. 20.
25. 'Ev6v,u,fiffei;, thoughts) most bitter ones; cf. ver. 34, 35. — — j8a<r/Xg/a, kingdom) First the kingdom of Satan is treated ofj then his house, and, in ver 26, Satan himself; whose kingdom contains wicked men, whose-housc, devils. — ou crad^ffsrai, shall not, be established, shall not be made to stand) sc. by its master or lord. AmillOllius1 says : aradrivou ftsv sari rb lap1 ertpou' ffrrivai ds, rb XO.T ibiav pw/Aqv, xal ffpoou'psffiv, i.e. aradqvai is to stand by means of another, but erf,vai is to stand by its own strength and will.
26. E/ 6 2arav«£ rov 5aravav sx.[3dX\ii, if Satan cast out Satan) Satan or the devil is one. I, says our Lord, cast out Satan. In the kingdom of darkness there is none greater than Satan. If therefore your words are true, it must be Satan who casts out Satan. But this is clearly absurd : one kingdom, one city, one house, is not divided against itself ; neither is one spirit divided against himself. The noun is used for the reciprocal pronoun (eavrov) as in Exod. xvi. 7 ; Lev. xiv. 15, 26 ; 1 Kings viii. 1, x. 13, xii. 21 ; 2 Kings xvii. 31. This does not however prevent the supposition, that the accusative TOV 'Saramv, Satan, is put by synecdoche for his comrades. Thus, for example, you might say, " The Gaul destroyed himself," if at any time one Gallic cohort should put another to the sword. Thus Satan would cast himself out, i.e., Satan, the prince, who is one, would cast out those whom he knew to be his own, his comrades. — /3a<r/>.f/a, kingdom) which is however very stable. Satan is said to have a kingdom, and yet he is never called a king, for he is an usurper.
27. 28. E/— si ds, if— but if) A dilemma.
27. O'i viol v/j.uv, your sons) whom you cannot but accuse, says Jesus, if you calumniate Me. See also Mark ix. 38, and cf. Acts xix. 13. — vpuv, yoiw) whom you do not harass in this
1 Not the author of the Ammonian Sections, but AMMONIUS, the son of Hermias, a Peripatetic philosopher, disciple of Proclus, who flourished in the sixth century. His work, De differentia dictionum, is to be found in a Greek dictionary, published in folio at Venice in 1497 ; and it is also printed ir a collection of ancient Grammarians which appeared in quarto at Leyden in 1739.— (I.E.)