Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 15:38 - 15:38

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 15:38 - 15:38


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38. τὸ καταπέτασμα κ.τ.λ. All three mention the portent of the rending of the Temple-veil, about which we have no further information. Possibly the Evangelist regards it as the Temple rending its clothes in grief for the death of the Messiah, a death which sealed its own doom, lamentans excidium loco imminens (Clem. Recog. i. 41). The Gospel of Peter has it, and there is a passage in the Testaments (Levi ix. 3) which predicts that “the veil of the Temple shall be rent, so as not to cover your shame”; but in the latter passage ἔνδυμα may be the true reading rather than καταπέτασμα. Jerome says that in the Gospel according to the Hebrews there was a statement that superliminare templi infinitae magnitudinis fractum esse atque divisum, which points to a tradition of some extraordinary occurrence. The veil in question is that between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, and it is mentioned nowhere else in N.T., for Heb 9:3 refers to the Tabernacle. Its rending might signify that by the death of Christ the exclusiveness of the Jewish religion was done away, and that even the Holy of Holies was now accessible to all who desired to enter.

ἀπʼ ἄνωθεν. Mt. omits the superfluous ἀπό. See on ἀπὸ μακρόθεν (Mar 5:6).