Note 9 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUDING THE MIRACLES.

Schleiermacher (s. 175) does not perceive the connexion of the discourse on the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, in Matthew (xii. 31 f.), though it links on excellently to the foregoing expression, ἐγὼ ἐν πνεύματι θεοῦ ἐκβάλλω τὰ δαιμόνια (v. 28). It is more easy, however, to understand this difficulty, than that he should think (s. 185 f.) that discourse better introduced in Luke (xii. 10). For here, between the preceding proposition, that whosoever denies the Son of Man before men, shall be denied before the angels of God, and the one in question, the only connexion is that the expression ἀρνεῖσθαι τὸν υἰὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου brought to the writer’s recollection the words εἰπεῶ λὸγος εἰς τὸν υίὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. One proof of this is that between the latter passage and the succeeding declaration, that the necessary words would be given to the disciples, when before the tribunal, by the πνεῦμα ἅγιον, the connexion consists just as superficially in the expression πνεῦμα ἅγιον. What follows in Matthew (v. 33–37), had been partly given already in the Sermon on the Mount, but stands here in a better connexion than Schleiermacher is willing to admit. ↑