But Friedrich proceeds to emphasise the many points in which the history of the Ascension in Acts reminds us of the close of the Gospel (see also Zeller, 1. s., ii., pp. 226, 227, E.T., and also Feine). Only St. Luke knows of the command of Jesus, that the Apostles should not leave Jerusalem, and of the promise οί the Holy Spirit associated with it, Luke xxiv. 49, and Acts i. 4-8. So also Luke xxiv. 47 reminds us unmistakably of Acts. i. 8; also Luke xxiv. 52 and Acts i. 12, Luke xxiv. 53 and Acts i. τά (ii. 14) (cf. also Acts i. 5 and Luke iii. 16). But there is no need to adopt Friedrich’s defence of the supposed contradiction with regard to the time of the Ascension. Certainly in the Gospel of St. Luke nothing is said of any interval between the Resurrection and the Ascension, but it is incredible that “ the author can mean that late at night, vv. 29, 33, Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany and ascended in the dark!”” Plummer, St. Luke, p. 569, see also Felten, Afostelgeschichte, p- 59, and Blass, Acta Apostolorum, p. 44. It is of course possible that St. Luke may have gained his information as to the interval of the forty days be- tween the writing of his two works, but
II. τ---2.
71
ΤΙ. 1. ΚΑΙ ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι 1 τὴν ἡμέραν τῆς Πεντηκοστῆς, ἦσαν ἅπαντες 7 ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό. 2. καὶ ὃ ἐγένετο ἄφνω ἐκ τοῦ
| συµπληρουσθαι SB*; συνπλ. AB*CDE, so Tisch., W.H., Weiss.
2 awavtes cursives; παντες ΝΕΑΒΟ 61, so Tisch., W.H., R.V. (omit in ΝΕ). οµοθυµαδον Ο2Ε, Chrys.; οµου ΜΑΒΟ” 61, ε, Vulg., Ath., so Tisch., W.H., R.V., Weiss, Wendt; οµοθ. very common in Acts, οµου only elsewhere in John (3 times). D instead of και ev tw συμπλ. reads και εγενετο εν Tats μεραις εκειναις TOV συµπλ., very likely as Blass says in notes on B text, ‘ut in principio lectionis”. d, e, Gig., Par., Vulg., Aug. read τας ηµερας (e.g., Par., “ει dum complerentur dies” —ev τω συµπληρουσθαι την ηµεραν is now read by Blass in B, see comment.). (See Page, Classical Review, July, 1897, p. 319, and cf. also Weiss, Codex D, p. 55, note.) D
also reads before επι το αυτο the words οντων αυτων παντων.
Hilg. follows D.
3 After και D inserts ιδον (cf. Syriac characteristic, Chase).
however this may be (cf. Plummer, but against this view Zdéckler, Apostelge- schichte, p. 173), it becomes very im- probable that even if a tradition existed that the Ascension took place on the evening of the Resurrection, and that Luke afterwards in Acts followed a new and more trustworthy account (so Wendt), that the Evangelist, the disciple of St. Paul, who must have been ac- quainted with the continuous series of the appearances of the Risen Christ in 1 Cor. xv., should have favoured such a tradition for a moment (see Zéckler, u. s.). On the undue stress laid by Harnack upon the famous passage in Barnabas, Epist., xv., see Dr. Swete, The Apostle’s Creed, p. 68, Plummer, 14. s., p. 564, and on this point and also the later tradi- tion of a lengthy interval, Zéckler, w. 5. For the early testimony to the fact of the Ascension in the Apostolic writings, and for the impossibility of accounting for the belief in the fact either from O.T. precedents or from pagan myths, see Zahn, Das Abpostolische Symbolum, pp. 76-78, and Witness of the Epistles (Long- mans), p. 400 ff. The view of Steinneyer that St. Luke gives us a full account of the Ascension in the Acts rather than in his Gospel, because he felt that the true position of such an event was to empha- sise it more as the beginning of a new period than as a conclusion of the Gospel history, Die Auferstehungsgeschichte des Herrn, pp. 226, 227, deserves attention, and may be fitly compared with W.H., Notes on Select Readings, p. 73. CHAPTER II.—Ver. 1. ἐν τῷ συµπλη- ροῦσθαι, lit., ‘when the day of Pente- cost was being fulfilled’’ (filled up). R.V. renders “ was now come,” and a question arises as to whether the words mean this, or that the day was only being filled up, and not fully come. Blass interprets the expression to mean