37—38.
+ - , a“ , κἀκεῖνος ἀπώλετο, καὶ πάντες ὅσοι ἐπείθοντο αὐτῷ διεσκορπίσθησαν.
s A ~ ‘ 38. καὶ τὰ νῦν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀπόστητε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων τούτων, καὶ
have held that it is by no means impos- sible that even here he may have been (cf. Alford, Rendall, Belser, and com- pare the remarks of Zahn, ubi supra), we may at least claim the same proba- bility of freedom from error for St. Luke, ““temporum bene memorem se scriptor monstrat: quo minus est probabile eum de Theuda tam graviter errasse quam plerique putant” (Blass), and see the recent remarks of Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? p. 252 ff. It cannot be said that some recent attempts at a solution of the difficulty are very pro- mising; for whilst H. Holtzmann severely
blames Blass for maintaining that some.
Christian had interpolated the name Theudas in the text of Josephus (see Blass, im loco, and p. xvi., edit. min.), he himself is prepared to endorse the view recently maintained amongst others by Clemen that the writer of Acts in his mention of Theudas gives us a vague but yet recognisable recollection of Jos., Ant., xx., 5, 1; see im loco and Theol. Literaturzeitung, 3, 1896, and 13, 1897. B. Weiss thinks that the notorious diffi- culty may easily be got rid of by suppos- ing that the reviser inserted the example of Theudas in the wrong place, Eznlei- tung in das N.T., p. 574.- λέγων εἶναί τινα ἑαντόν: of consequence, really “somebody,” ef. viii. ο (and R.V.); ‘ein grosser Mann,” Blass, Grammatik des ΔΝ. G., p. 76; so we have its opposite, οὐδείς, cf. instances in Wetstein in classical Greek; so in Latin quidam, aliquis, Juvenal, i., 74; Cicero, ad Atti- cum, iii., 15; and cf. also 1 Cor. iii. 7, Gal. ii. 6, vi. 3; Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 148 (1893). And yet the jealous eye of the Pharisees was blind to the dif- ference between such a man as Theudas, whom Gamaliel so contemptuously de- scribed, and the Apostles who sought not their own honour (Nésgen) ; cf. Vulgate, ‘“‘dicens se esse aliquem,” so Rhem. and Wycl., ‘“‘ saying that he was somebody’’. ---“προσεκολλήθη: better reading προσε- κλίθη, a word not found elsewhere in N.T., cf. 2 Macc. xiv. 24; and so also in LXX, cf. Ps. αχχὶχ. (xl.) 2, Symma- chus; cf. Polyb., iv., 51, 5; so also πρόσκλισις; for its further use see Clem. Rom., Cor., xlvii., 4.---ὡσεὶ (ώς) τετρα- κοσίων, see above on ‘ Theudas”’,— ἀνηρέθη, see also on ἀναιρέω, ver. 33, often of violent death in Acts. The two clauses stand in sharp contrast—the
one emphasises the large number which joined Theudas, the other the fact that notwithstanding he was slain; cf. iv. το. —B8rehvOnoav κ.τ.λ.: nowhere else in N.T., but its use is quite classical, cf. Thuc., ii., 12; Xen., Cyr., v., 5,43; Polyb., iv., 2. Blass remarks that the whole phrase “‘apte de secta que paullatim dilabitur, minus apte de multitudine per vim disjecta”.—éyévovro eis οὐδέν : phrase only here in N.T. (cf. xix. 27), but see in LXX, Job xxiv. 25, Isa. xl. 17, Wisd. iii. 17, xx. 16. γίνομαι eis in LXX and also in classics; in N.T. cf. Luke xiii. 19, xx. 17, Acts iv. rr, and cf. 1 Thess. iii. 5. In the first passage it is Hebraistic; in the passage before us and in 1 Thess. the phrases are quite possibly Greek, cf. especially Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 143. The phrase is more frequent in St. Luke’s writings than in any other books of the N.T., except the Apocalypse.
Ver. 37. ᾿Ιούδας 6 Γαλ.: here too an inaccuracy might have been charged against St. Luke, but it is to be noted that while Josephus speaks of Judas as a Gaulonite in one passage, Jos., Ant., XViii., I, 1, he frequently, as both Belser and Wendt point out, speaks of him as a Galilean, cf. Ant., xviii., 1,6; xx., 5, 2; B. F., ii., 8, 1,and 17, 8. But the name Galilean might easily be given to him because Galilee was the scene of his ex- ploits, or because Gamala, his home, be- longed to Lower Gaulonitis, which was reckoned as part of Galilee. The accur- acy ot St. Luke in the account of Judas is remarkable, for Gamaliel speaks of his insurrection as coming to nothing. He could so speak, say in 34 or 35 A.D., but not some ten years later, when the fol- lowers of Judas had again gathered to- gether, and formed a kind of school or party, to say nothing of the rebellion of his three sons, James, Simon, and later, Menahem; see Belser, 14. s., Ῥ. 61, so Lightfoot, u. s., Nésgen, and Alford’s note.