another motive, namely, the desire to witness a variety of miracles, considered merely as sights. Their lust1 (libido) is indicated by the word QeXopsv, we icish, in ch. xii. 38.
2. 'o%j//ag, vpu'i, evening — morning) Two most common and most popular signs ;2 for when the sky is red in the evening, the coldness of the night astringes the thinner vapours, so that no storm occurs, even though there be wind ; on the other hand, when in the morning the sky is red and dark, the thick vapours burst into a storm by the heat of the sun.
3. 'TToxp/ra/,3 hypocrites) The hypocrisy was their greater skill in natural than in spiritual things ; for they who have the former have much less excuse than dull men for being wanting in the latter, although they are often wanting in it. For an example of both united, see ch. ii. 2. — xpoauxov rov ovpavov, the countenance of the sky) not face. A man's countenance varies, his face is always the same. An instance of Prosopopoeia,4 as just before in the word ffTwyvd^uv, lowering. — ra, g^/LtTct ruv xaipuv, the signs of the times) i. e., those which are suitable to (congruentia) each time. Our Lord indicates, that not only are times to be distinguished by their signs, but also signs by the character of the times, and signs and the kinds of them from each other. For the mode of God's dealing with man5 is various —by various
1 The word is, of course, not to be taken in the literal force of its ordinary signification, but rather in the wider sense which it has in English writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (cf. 1 John ii. 16, and Gal. v. 17), though there is a special allusion to the epithet adulterous in Matt. xii. 38, and infra ver. 5, and to the common source of the various manifestations of the ^>fgfnfm actpx.o;. — (I. B.)
3 Although, from the different relations of the powers of nature, they are not applicable to all climes. — App. Crit., Ed ii., p. 124.
3 The larger Ed. gave more weight to the reading of this word than the margin of the second Edition : however, the Ver. Germ, has not rejected it. — E. B.
Rec. Text has vKoxpiral with b. But CDLA ac Vulg. omit it. It is plainly an interpolation through the harmonies from Luke xii. 56. Lachm. reads x.u.1 before TO i*tv with C. But Tischend. omits it, with DLAac Vulg. —Bo.
4 i.e. Personification. See explanation of technical terms in Appendix. -(I. B.)
* " Influxus Dei in homines," the influx of the Deity into and among men. —Bo.