a 5— Ig.
18. ΄Ἠλθε γὰρ Ἰωάννης µήτε ἐσθίων µήτε πίνων, καὶ λέγουσι,
Δαιμόνιον ἔχει. 19. ἦλθεν ὁ
4 , καὶ λέγουσιν, Ιδού, ἄνθρωπος Ppdyos καὶ 3 οἰνοπότης, ρ καὶ ἐδικαιώθη ἡ σοφία ἀπὸ τῶν τέκνων 1
Φίλος καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν.
1 Μ4Β have εργων, which Tisch. and W.H. adopt.
υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐσθίων καὶ πίνων,
τελωνῶν p Lk. vil. 34. Lk. vii. 34.
Though supported by a great
array of MSS. (including CDL) τεκνων may be suspected of assimilation to the
reading in Lk.
Jesus as reported in ver. ΙΟ. Who can they have been but the men who asked: Why does He eat with publicans and sinners (ix, 11)? These vile calumnies are what have come out of that feast, in the same sanctimonious circle. Luke evidently understood the Pharisees and lawyers (νομικοὶ) to be the class referred to, guided probably by his own im- pression as to the import of the passage (vide Lk. vii. 39). --- παιδίος . . . ἀγοραῖς: Jesus likens the Pharisaic Ὕενεά to children in the market-place playing at marriages and funerals, as He had doubtless often seen them in Naza- reth. The play, as is apt to happen, has ended in a quarrel.—mpoo®. τοῖς ἑτέροις . « λέγουσιν. There are two parties, the musicians and the rest who are ex- pected to dance or mourn according to the tune, and they are at cross purposes, the moods not agreeing: ἑτέροις, the best attested reading, may point to this discrepancy in temper = a set differently inclined.—qvAjoapev : the flute in this case used for merriment, not, as in ix. 23, to express grief.—20pyvycapev: we have expressed grief by singing funeral dirges, like the mourning women hired for the purpose (vide ad ix. 23).--ἐκόψασθε: and ye have not beat your breasts in re- sponsive sorrow. This is the parable to which Jesus adds a commentary. With- out the aid of the latter the general import is plain. The γενεά animadverted on are like children, not in a good but in a bad sense: not child-like but childish. They play at religion; with all their ‘seeming earnestness in reality triflers. They are also fickle, fastidious, given to peevish fault-finding, easily offended. These are recognisable features of the Pharisees. They were great zealots and precisians, yet not in earnest, rather haters of earnestness, as seen in different ways in John and Jesus. They were hard to please: equally dissatisfied with John and with Jesus; satisfied with nothing but their own artificial formalism. They were the only men in Israel of whom these things could be said with emphasis, and it may be taken for
granted that Christ’s animadversions were elicited by pronounced instances of the type.—Ver. 18. The commentary on the parable showing that it was the reception given to John and Himself that suggested {ε.---μήτε ἐσθ. µήτε πιν.: eat- ing and drinking, the two parts of diet ; not eating nor drinking = remarkably abstemious, ascetic, that his religious habit; µήτε not οὖτε, to express not merely the fact, but the opinion about John. Vide notes on chap. v. 34.---δαι- µόνιον ἔχει: is possessed, mad, with the madness of a gloomy austerity. The Pharisee could wear gloomy airs in fasting (vi. 16), but that was acting. The Baptist was in earnest with his morose, severely abstinent life. Play for them, grim reality for him; and they disliked it and shrank from it as something weird. None but Pharisees would dare to say such a thing about a man like John. They are always so sure, and so ready to judge. Ordinary people would respect the ascetic of the wilderness, though they did not imitate him.—Ver. το. 6 vids τ. a-: obviously Jesus here refers to Him- self in third person where we might have expected the first. Again the now famil- iar title, defining itself as we go along by varied use, pointing Jesus out as an ex- ceptional person, while avoiding all con- ventional terms to define the exceptional εἰεπιεπί.---ἐσθίων καὶ πίνων: the ‘Son of Man” is one who eats and drinks, {.ο., non-ascetic and social, one of the marks interpretative of the title=human, frater- nal.—«ai λέγουσι, and they say: what? One is curious to know. Surely this genial, friendly type of manhood will please | --ἰδοὺ, lo! scandalised sancti- moniousness points its finger at Him and utters gross, outrageous calumnies.— Φάγος, οἰνοπότης, φίλος, an eater with emphasis = a glutton (a word of late Greek, Lob., Phryn., 434), a wine-bibber ; and, worse than either, for φίλος is used in a sinister sense and implies that Jesus was the comrade of the worst characters, and like them in conduct. A malicious nick-name at first, it is now a name of honour: the sinner’s lover. The Son of