(3.) None whatever, would have been the reply. But in the meantime Dr. Davidson hints that the verb _ought_ to have been employed by S. Mark in chap. ii. 14.(277)—It is, I presume, sufficient to point out that S. Matthew, at all events, was not of Dr. Davidson’s opinion:(278) and I respectfully submit that the Evangelist, inasmuch as he happens to be here _writing about himself_, must be allowed, just for once, to be the better judge. (4.) In the meantime,—Is it not perceived that θεᾶσθαι is the very word specially required in these two places,—though _nowhere else in S. Mark’s Gospel_?(279) The occasion is one,—viz. the “beholding” of the person of the risen SAVIOUR. Does not even natural piety suggest that the uniqueness of such a “spectacle” as _that_ might well set an Evangelist on casting about for a word of somewhat less ordinary occurrence? The occasion cries aloud for this very verb θεᾶσθαι; and I can hardly conceive a more apt illustration of a darkened eye,—a spiritual faculty perverted from its lawful purpose,—than that which only discovers “a stumbling-block and occasion of falling” in expressions like the present which “should have been only for their wealth,” being so manifestly designed for their edification. (VII.) But,—(it is urged by a Critic of a very different stamp,)—ἐθεάθη ὑπ᾽ αὐτῆς (ver. 11) “is a construction only found here in the New Testament.” (1.) Very likely; but what then? The learned writer has evidently overlooked the fact that the passive θεᾶσθαι occurs but _three times_ in the New Testament _in all_.(280) S. Matthew, on the _two_ occasions when he employs the word, connects it with a dative.(281) What is there _suspicious_ in the circumstance that θεᾶσθαι ὑπό should be the construction preferred by S. Mark? The phenomenon is not nearly so remarkable as that S. Luke, on one solitary occasion, exhibits the phrase μὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπό,(282)—instead of making the verb govern the accusative, as he does three times _in the very next verse_; and, indeed, eleven times in the course of his Gospel. To be sure, S. Luke in this instance is but copying S. Matthew, who _also_ has μὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπό once;(283) and seven times makes the verb govern an accusative. This, nevertheless, constitutes no reason whatever for suspecting the genuineness either of S. Matth. x. 28 or of S. Luke xii. 4. (2.) In like manner, the phrase ἐφοβήθησαν φόβον μέγαν will be found to occur once, and once _only_, in S. Mark,—once, and once only, in S. Luke;(284) although S. Mark and S. Luke use the verb φοβεῖσθαι upwards of forty times. Such facts are interesting. They may prove important. But no one who is ever so little conversant with such inquiries will pretend that they are in the least degree _suspicious_.—I pass on. (VIII.) It is next noted as a suspicious circumstance that ἀπιστεῖν occurs in ver. 11 and in ver. 16; but nowhere else in the Gospels,—except in S. Luke xxiv. 11, 14.