222
Ἱερουσαλὴμ. εἰς Γάΐζαν: αὕτη ἐστὶν ἔρημος.
καὶ ἀναστὰς
27.
ἐπορεύθη : καὶ ἰδοὺ dvnp Αἰθίοψ εὐνοῦχος δυνάστης Κανδάκης τῆς 1 βασιλίσσης Αἰθιόπων, ὃς ἦν ἐπὶ πάσης τῆς γάζης αὐτῆς, ὃς ἐληλύθει
Ἱτης HLP, Chrys.; om. ΒΑΒΟ(Ώ)Ε 61, so Tisch., W.H., R.V., Blass, Weiss,
Wendt, Hilg.; D adds twos, but Blass rejects in B, Hilg. retains.
os (2)
s$BC*D°EHLP, Syr. Harcl., Arm., Chrys., so Weiss (see comment. below), [W.H.]; om. SAC'D!, Vulg., Sah., so Tisch., Blass, Hilg. Blass suggests orig. reading was ουτος, which might easily fall out after αντης--ουτος in Gig., Boh. For αντης D reads αντον, but Blass rejects, so Hilg.—suggested as due from retrans.
of Latin, or unpointed Syriac.
Smith strengthens these references, not only by Jos., Amt., xiv., 4, 4, and Diodorus Siculus, xix., 80, but by main- taining that the New Gaza mentioned in the Anonymous Fragment was on the coast, and that if so, it lay off the road to Egypt, which still passed by the desert Gaza; the latter place need not have been absolutely deserted in Philip’s time; its site and the vicinity of the great road would soon attract people back, but it was not unlikely that the παππε Ἔρημος might still stick to it (see also ver. 36 below). If we take the adjective as re- ferring to the road, its exact force is still doubtful ; does it refer to one route, specially lonely, as distinguished from others, or to the ordinary aspect of a route leading through waste places, or to the fact that at the hour mentioned, noon-day (see above), it would be de- serted? Wendt confesses himself un- able to decide, and perhaps he goes as far aS one can expect te go in adding that at least this characterisation of the route so far prepares us for the sequel, in that it explains the fact that the eunuch would read aloud, and that Philip could converse with him _ uninterruptedly. Hackett and others regard the words before us as a parenthetical remark by St. Luke himself to acquaint the reader with the region of this memorable occur- rence, and αὕτη is used in a somewhat similar explanatory way in 2 Chron. v. 2, LXX, but this does not enable us to decide as to whether the explanation is St. Luke’s or the angel’s. Hilgenfeld and Schmiedel dismiss the words as an explanatory gloss. The argument some- times drawn for the late date of Acts by referring ἔρημος to the supposed demoli- tion of Gaza in A.D. 66 cannot be main- tained, since this destruction so called was evidently very partial, see G. A. Smith, u. s., and so Schirer, wu. 5. Ver. 27. καὶ ἀναστὰς ἐπορεύθη: im- ‘mediate and implicit obedience. — καὶ ἰδού, see on i. 11; cf. Hort, Ecclesia,
εις om, in D! εν in D?,
p. 179, on the force of the phrase; used characteristically by St. Luke of sudden and as it were providential interposi- tions, i. Io, x. 17, xii. 7, and see note on xvi. Ι.---εὐνοῦχος: the word can be taken literally, for there is no contra- diction involved in Deut. xxiii. 1, as he would be simply ‘‘a proselyte of the gate”? (Hort, ¥udaistic Christianity, p. 54). The instances sometimes referred to as showing that the exclusion of eunuchs from the congregation of the Lord was relaxed in the later period of Jewish history can scarcely hold good, since Isa. lvi. 3 refers to the Messianic future in which even the heathen and the eunuchs should share, and in Jer. XXXViii. 7, xxxix. 15 nothing is said which could lead us to describe Ebed Melech, another Ethiopian eunuch, as a Jew in the full sense. On the position and in- fluence of eunuchs in the East, both in ancient and modern times, see ‘‘ Eunuch,”’ B.D.?, and Hastings’ B.D. St. Luke’s mention that he was a eunuch is quite in accordance with the ‘‘ universalism” of the Acts; gradually the barriers of a narrow Judaism were broken down, first in the case of the Samaritans, and now in the case of the eunuch. Eusebius, H. Ε., ii., 1, speaks of him as πρῶτος ἐξ ἐθνῶν, who was converted to Christ, and even as a “‘proselyte of the gate’’ he might be so described, for the gulf which - lay between a born Gentile and a genuine descendant of Abraham could never be bridged over (Schiirer, Fewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 326, E.T.). Moreover, in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, de- scended from the accursed race of Ham, this separation from Israel must have been intensified to the utmost (cf. Amos ix. 7). No doubt St. Luke may also have desired to instance the way in which thus early the Gospel spread to a land far distant from the place of its birth (McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 100). --δυνάστης: noun in apposition to ἀνὴρ Aié., only used by St. Luke here and in