In i. 34 and also in Mt. i. 25 γινώσκω is by no means a “Hebraistic euphemism”,[57] yet it is probable that the influence of the Septuagint is to be found in both passages. In the LXX there are several instances of γ. used, as in i. 34, of a woman. It is so used in Gen. xix. 8 (of Lot's daughters), in Judg. xi. 39 (of Jephthah's daughter), and in Num. xxxi. 17 (of the women of Midian). If, then, we are right in tracing the influence of the LXX, in i. 34, we have ground for finding the hand of St. Luke in that passage, even though he never again uses γ. in that sense. For it is just in Lk. i, ii that the influence of the LXX is most marked.[58]
Even if we do not press LXX influence (for γ. in this special sense is found “in Greek writers from the Alexandrian age down”),[59] it is not at all apparent why St. Luke himself should not have used the word. And if the argument in favour of the theory of interpolation is to be sustained, it is scarcely enough to urge the bare fact that St. Luke does not use γ. as in i. 34 elsewhere. An idiom which occurs in Greek writers from the time of Menander[60] (b.c. 325) may well have been known to a writer like St. Luke, apart from its presence in the Septuagint. If verses 34, 35 are indeed Lukan, it is quite probable that in γ. we should find the influence of the Septuagint, but we are not at all shut up to Septuagint usage. In the connexion in which it occurs γινώσκω was a suitable word to employ, and its presence there is in no way incongruous with Lukan authorship.
3. In these verses the word which is of greatest difficulty is without doubt ἐπεί. In the rest of the New Testament it occurs 25 times. Of these 10 are found in the Pauline Epistles and 9 in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The remaining 6 appear [pg 063] in the Gospels; 3 in Mt., 1 in Mk., and 2 in Jn. Apart then from i. 34 ἐπεί occurs nowhere in St. Luke's works.
There are, it is true, two Lukan passages, one in the Gospel (vii. 1) and the other in the Acts (xiii. 46), where ἐπεί δέ occurs in some MSS. The true reading, however, in both cases is probably ἐπειδή.[61] We have, therefore, to face the fact, that not only is ἐπεί found nowhere else in St. Luke's works, but that elsewhere he seems to prefer ἐπειδή and ἐπειδήπερ (the latter in the Prologue to the Gospel, and the former five times out of the ten cases in which it occurs in the New Testament). Here is the strongest argument, which on linguistic grounds can be urged against the genuineness of i. 34 f. The richness of St. Luke's vocabulary increases the difficulty.[62] Why, if he has used ἐπεί in i. 34, he should never employ it again, is a question which it is not easy to answer. If, in view of the evidence as a whole, the case for an interpolation fails, we shall have to content ourselves with the fact, however strange, that here and here only έπεί occurs in Lk. A writer indeed may use a word once and never again. Ἐπεί occurs but once in Mk. (xv. 42), and it may be so here. Assuredly, in a linguistic argument room must always be left for the occurrence of ἅπαξ λεγόμενα in an individual writer. The force of this contention is, however, somewhat weakened by the preference which St. Luke seems to show for ἐπειδή, and it must be allowed that the case for an interpolation does receive support from ἐπεί.
c.
We have now to consider the third division of the linguistic evidence. It includes the following words and phrases:
τὸ γεννώμενον (the construction),
κληθήσεται,
δύναμις Ὑψίστου,
διὸ καί,