Acts 8:7

πολλῶν γὰρ κ. τ. λ.: if we accept reading in R.V. (see critical notes above), we must suppose that St. Luke passes in thought from the possessed to the unclean spirits by which they were possessed, and so introduces the verb ἐξήρχοντο (as if the unclean spirits were themselves the subject), whereas we should have expected that ἐθεραπεύθησαν would have followed after the first πολλοί as after the second, in the second clause of the verse. Blass conjectures that ἄ should be read before βοῶντα, which thus enables him, while retaining ἐξήρχοντο, to make πολλοί in each clause of the verse the subject of ἐθεραπ. One of the most striking phenomena in the demonised was that they lost at least temporarily their own self-consciousness, and became identified with the demon or demons, and this may account for St. Luke's way of writing, as if he also identified the two in thought, Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, i., 479, 647, ff. As a physician St. Luke must have often come into contact with those who had unclean spirits, and he would naturally have studied closely the nature of their disease. It is also to be noted that πολλοί with the genitive, τῶν ἐχόντων (not πολλοὶ ἔχοντες), shows that not all the possessed were healed, and if so, it is an indication of the truthfulness of the narrative. Moreover, St. Luke not only shows himself acquainted with the characteristics of demoniacal possession, cf. his description in Luke 8:27; Luke 9:38-39, but he constantly, as in the passage before us, distinguishes it from disease itself, and that more frequently than the other Evangelists. Hobart draws special attention to Luke 6:17; Luke 8:4; Luke 13:32, which have no parallels in the other Gospels, and Acts 19:12. To which we may add Luke 4:40; Acts 5:16 (Wendt); see further on Acts 19:12. βοῶντα, cf. Mark 1:26; Luke 4:33. παραλελυμένοι : St. Luke alone of the Evangelists uses the participle of παραλύειν, instead of παραλυτικός, the more popular word; and here again his usage is exactly what we should expect from a medical man acquainted with technical terms (Hobart, Zahn, Salmon), cf. Acts 9:33 and Luke 5:18; Luke 5:24 (παραλυτικῷ, W.H [215] margin). Dr. Plummer, St. Luke, Introd., 65, points out that Aristotle, a physician's son, has also this use of παραλελυμένος (Eth. Nic., i., 13, 15), but he adds that its use in St. Luke may have come from the LXX, as in Hebrews 12:12, where we have the word in a quotation from Isaiah 35:3 (cf. also Sir 25:23). It may be added that the participle is also found in 3Ma 2:22, καὶ τοῖς μέλεσι παραλελυμένον, and cf. 1Ma 9:15, where it is said of Alcimus, καὶ παρελύθη. But the most remarkable feature in St. Luke's employment of the word is surely this, that in parallel passages in which St. Matthew and St. Mark have παραλυτικός he has παραλελυμένος, cf. Luke 5:18; Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:3; in Luke 5:24 this same distinction is also found in the Revisers' text (but see W.H [216] above), when this verse is compared with Matthew 9:6 and Mark 2:10.

[215] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

[216] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.