by the aorist iple stands to that expressed by che silleniad finite verb. The rule certainly is that the iciple expresses an action going : one thing having ha: another there- after took place. But there is an impor- tant class of exceptions. The aorist participle ‘ may express time coincident with that of verb, when the actions of the verb and the participle are prac- tically one”. Goodwin, Syntax, p. 52, and vide article there referred to by
ϐ---τα.
9. Οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπορεύθησαν ' καὶ ἰδού, 6 ἀστήρ,
73
q Mk. x. 32. Mt. xxi. g
να. 3 ~ 3 a" @ a 3 , of > Δ 4 i.e 2 with TE ὃν εἶδον ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇῃ, “mpoiyev αὐτούς, ἕως ἐλθὼν ἔστη 1 "ἐπάνω (with, ai
οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον. 10.
μεγάλην "σφόδρα: 11.
1 «σταθη in $$BCD.
Σειδον in all uncials, ευρον only in minusc.
Prof. Ballantine in Bibl. Sacra., 1884, on the application of this rule to the N. T., in which many instances of the kind occur. Most frequent in the Gospels is the expression ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπε, which does not mean ‘“‘having first answered he then proceeded to say,” but ‘‘in answering he said”. The case before us may be one of this kind. He sent them by saying ‘‘ Go and search,” etc. Vv. 9, 10. The Magi go on their errand to Bethlehem. They do not know the way, but the star guides them. ἰδοὺ 6 ἀστὴρ: looking up to heaven as they set out on their journey, they once more behold their heavenly guide.—év
εἶδον & τ. ἄνατολῃ: is the meaning:
that they had seen the star only at its rising, finding their way to Jesus with- out its guidance, and that again it appeared leading them to Bethlehem? So Bengel, and after him Meyer. Against this is φαινομένου, ver. 7, which implies continuous visibility. The clause év εἶδον, etc., is introduced for the purpose of identification. It was their celestial guide appearing again.—mpojyev: it kept going before them (imperfect) all the way till, arriving at Bethlehem, it ‘took up its position (ἐστάθη) right over the spot where the child was. The star seemed to go before them by an optical illusion (Weiss-Meyer) ; it really, in the view of the evangelist, went before and -stopped over the house (De Wette, who, of course, regards this as impossible in fact). Ver. το, ἰδόντες δὲ . . . χαρὰν μεγάλην «σφόδρα: seeing the star standing over the sacred spot, they were overjoyed. Their quest was at an end; they had at last reached the goal of their long journey. σφόδρα, a favourite word of our evangelist, and here very appropriate after μεγάλην to express exuberant glad- ness, ecstatic delight. On the convoy of the star, Fritzsche remarks: ‘‘ Fuit certe stellae pompa tam gravi tempore digna”’. Some connect the seeing of the star in ver. 10 with the beginning of the journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. They re- joiced, says Euthy. Zig. ὡς εὑρόντες τὸν ἀψευδέστατον ὁδηγόν
καὶ ἐλθόντες εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν, εὗρον 5 τὸ
vW.H.)
ἰδόντες δὲ τὸν ἀστέρα, ἐχάρησαν χαρὰν : Ch, v. 14,
χα, αἱ, xxiii. 18.
é s Ch, xvii. 6,
23; xviii. 31; xix.25; xxvi. 22; xxvii. 54.
Came in probably from ver. 8 (ευρητε).
Ver. 11. The Magi enter and do homage. ---καὶ ε. ε. τ. οἰκίαν : the house. In Luke the shepherds find the holy family in a stable, and the holy child lying in a man- ger; reconcilable by assuming that the Magi arrived after they had found refuge in a friend’s house (Epiphan. Theophy.). ---εἶδοντ.π... . αὐτοῦ: εἶδον better than εὗρον, which seems to have been intro- duced by the copyists as not only in itself suitable to the situation, but relieving the monotopy caused by too frequent use of εἶδον (vv. 9, 10). The child with His mother, Joseph not mentioned, not in- tentionally, that no wrong suspicions might occur to the Gentiles (Rabanus in Aquin. Cat, Aur.).—kat πεσόντες... σμµύρναν. hey come, eastern fashion, with full hands, as befits those who enter into the presence of aking. They open the boxes or sacks (θησαυροὺς, some ancient copies seem to have read πήρας =sacculos, which Grotius, with proba- bility, regards as an interpretative gloss that had found its way into the text, vide Epiphanius Adv. Haer. Alogi., c. 8), and bring forth gold, frankincense and myrrh, the two latter being aromatic gums dis- tilled from Ίεες.---λίβανον: in classic Greek, the tree, in later Greek and N. T., the gum, τὸ θυμιώμενον = λιβανωτός, vide Phryn. ed. Lobeck, p. 187. The gifts were of three kinds, hence the inference that the Magi were three in number. That they were kings was de- duced from texts in Psalms and Prophe- cies (e.g., Psalm Ixxii. 10, Isaiah Ix. 3),