subject1 of, which occurs here in the singular number, cannot possibly be divided into three classes of good hearers of the word by 6 fj.iv — 6 dt — o bt (one — another — a third), which is the common reading.2 Moreover the protasis has o in ver. 8, and the parallel passage in Mark iv. 8, 20, has ev also twice over.3 A single hearer's plentiful, moderate, and less plentiful progress from three several grains, so to speak, is signified by a hundred, sixty, and thirty* As there are three degrees of hearing with out fruit, so there are also three degrees of fruitfulness ; which is not, however, restricted precisely to the proportions an hundred, sixty, and thirty fold : for another grain might also produce forty, fifty, seventy, eighty, ninety fold, etc. : since there is a greater distance between the numbers one hundred and sixty, than there is between sixty and thirty. To him that hath shall be given.
1 The word " Subject" is used here in its logical sense, viz. the Subject of the Proposition, i.e. the person or thing concerning which something else is predicated or asserted. — (I. B.)
2 Such is the reading of E. M. In his App. Crit. Bengel writes : " S ter) codd. nonulli vetusti apud Stapulensem, vel etiam alii apud Rus T. i., Harm. Evang. p. 1047 ; Ephrem Syrus f. V.K.$. in vita Abraham!! ; Isidorus Pelus. 1. 2, ep. 144. Lat. Neogreec. vel plures nee non Syr. (o ter) edd. Aug. 1, 13yz., etc., perinde ut versu 8, 6 pro S, et Marc. iv. 8, tv pro 'iv, non nulli habent codices." — (I. B.)
Beng. does not seem to me to speak of a different reading, but of the common interpretation, that there are here three classes of good hearers. He plainly understands there to be the one and the same good hearer, who bears fruit from the same seed in different degrees at different times. Hence Luke viii. 8 gives the one degree only, viz. the hundredfold, as the normal state of the believer's fruitfulness. However, in opposition to Beng., the transition from Sg to S piv, o Is, neut. nominative, would not be unnatural (whether taken of one and the same good hearer, or of different classes of good hearers), as the individual becomes in a manner identified with the seed in process of time, just as the nutritive elements of the soil become identified with, and taken up into, the young germ : hence ax-apsi:, he who is sovm (ap plicable to the seed, but here also to the person), occurs in ver. 19, and «!AA«, ver. 8, is nominative neuter, and plural, followed by o piv, o Is. There is no notable variety of readings in the case. — ED.
3 i.e. the ev, which occurs three times in Mark iv. 8, is repeated as many times in ver. 20. — (I. B.)
4 When such a hearer turns the one and the same doctrine, on the oppor tunity of hearing it being given him even a hundred times, to his own profit ;uid that of others. — V. g.