needle ῥαφίδος: διὰ τρυπήµατος ῥαφίδος, Matt., T.R.; but W.H τρήµατος in text, τρυπήµατος in margin, διὰ (τῆς) τρυμαλιᾶς (τῆς) ῥαφίδος. Mark. But when we turn to St. Luke, he introduces at least one different word (if we adopt W.H. for St. Matt.), and a combination peculiar to himself, διὰ τρήµατος Bedovns (W.H. and R.V.). It cannot be said that the words used by St. Luke occur in LXX, since neither of them is found there (although St. Mark’s tpupadia occurs in LXX possibly six and at least three times). But both words used by St. Luke were in technical medical use, τρῆμα being the great medical word for a perforation of any kind, βελόνη being the surgical needle ; and not only so but the two words are found combined as here by Galen: διὰ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν βελόνην τρήµατος and again τοῦ διατρήµατος τῆς βελόνης (cf. Hobart, ρ. 60, J. Weiss, 4. s., p. 567, Zahn, 1. s., p. 436, and Nestle, Einfihrung in das G. N. T., p. 228).
Dr. Plummer points out that τρῆμα is not peculiar to St. Luke (see W.H. above), but the combination is peculiar to St. Luke, and the force of this fact and of the combination of undoubted medical terms is not lessened by Grimm’s description of βελόνη as a more classical word than ῥαφίς.
Once again: St. Luke’s characteristic medical style shows itself in abstention as well as in employment. In three passages, e.¢., µαλακία is used by St. Matthew to denote disease, but in medical language it is used as in its primary classical sense of delicacy, effeminacy, and St. Luke never uses it in St. Matthew’s sense. although he employs the cognate adjective µαλακός Of “soft” raiment in vii. 25. But this non-usage of the noun by the medical Luke is all the more significant, since in the LXX it is found at least a dozen times to denote sickness and disease.
In St. Matt. iv. 24, viii. 6, both βασανίζειν and βάσανος are used of bodily sickness, but in medical writers the words are not employed in this sense, and St. Luke refrains from so employing them (Hobart, p. 63, and Zahn, uw. s., p. 435). But here again significance is added to this non-usage by St. Luke when we remember that βάσανος is not only used of the torments after death in Wisd. iii. 1, 4 Macc. iii. 15, cf. Luke xvi. 23, 28, but also of the pain of bodily disease, lMacc, iz.56,
ΤΗΕ Aim ΟΕ THE Book. Not only the aim but the purpose and contents of the book are set forth, according to Lightfoot, in the Preface, chap. i. 1-8. The prophetic words of the Lord in ver. 8 implicitly involve a table of contents: “Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost,” etc., ii. 1-13; ‘witnesses unto me”’ (1) “in Jerusalem,” ii. 14-viti. 1, and (2) “in all Judzea and Samaria,” viii. 2-xi. 18, (3) “and to the uttermost part of the earth,” xi. 19-xxviii.
πο INTRODUCTION
31 (on the latter expression see comment. im loco and reference to Psalms of Solomon, viii. 16). The writer closes with the event which his aim required, the preaching of the Gospel in Rome, the capital of the world, the metropolis of the human race, without hindrance; and the fulfilment of the third section mentioned above is thus given, not actually, but potentially, while an earnest is afforded of its ultimate accomplishment ; Philippians, p. 3; Β.Ὀ.", i., p. 26; cf. also Weiss, Einleitung, p. 562, Blass, Acta Apost., Proleg., p. 3: ‘At hic liber non est imperfectus, cum longi cursus evangelii Roma terminus sit”. But starting from the distinction which Lightfoot himself thus draws between the potential and actual, is it not quite possible that there may thus be room for the τρίτος λόγος for which Lightfoot, it is true, saw no conceivable place, cf. Harnack, Chron., i., p. 248, but for the purpose of which Pro- fessor Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 380, and others, notably Zahn, Einlei- tung, ii., p. 380, have so strongly argued (see list of earlier advocates in Bleek-Mangold, Einleitung, p. 462, and note in comment. on xxviii. 31)? It is perhaps worth noting that Bengel, to whom we owe the oft-quoted words, Victoria verbi Dei, Paulus Rome, apex evangelit, Actorum Finis, reminds us on the same page of the words of Estius : «“ Portasse Lucas meditabatur tertium librum, in quo repeteret acta illius biénnii; sicut, Act. i., quedam exposuit tacita ultimo capite evangelii”. Moreover, if we take Acts i. 8 as giving us in outline the programme of the book, it seems that its purpose would have been fulfilled not so much in the triumph of the Gospel, but in the bearing witness to Christ in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the end of the earth: the Apostles were to be witnesses, i. 8; St. Paul was told that he was “to bear witness” in Rome, μαρτυρῆσαι xxiii. 11, cf. xxviii. 23; the triumph would succeed the witness, and the keynote of victory is struck in the word ἀκωλύτως.