Sorry, I didn't mean that he mean that he finds a distinction in Luke 14.27, but that he employs a distinction that he found in Matthew 16.24, which reads:Also, your conclusion doesn't follow. How does Bengal's "rendering" make the distinction between ἔρχεται ὀπίσω μου and ἀκολουθεῖ μοι?
.. εἴ τις θέλει ὀπίσω μου ἐλθεῖν, ἀπαρνησάσθω ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι.
Bengel writes: [Gnomon, Vol 1, Translator J. Bandinel, T & T Clark 1873] ὀπίσω μου ἐλθεῖν, to come after Me - This denotes the state and profession, as ἀκολουθείτω (let him follow) does the duty, of a disciple.
Then there's an explanatory note by 'I.B.' (Bandinel?), with part of Bengel's Latin text, which reads:
"Id denotat statum et porfessionem; sequatur, officium." For a person may go after or behind another without following in his steps. In the one case, he appears and professes to walk in his steps; in the other, he really does so: the one implies profession - the other involves practice.
So it looks like he had a view that was consistent between the two passages (made explicit by the editor/translator). I am not particularly trying to defend it, but I was aware that Bengel is highly regarded. Thanks, Stephen, for the correction and the links.
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Assuming that the normal way of looking at it is correct, I wonder if an explanation of the καί could be that the saying was known in its positive form so that eg ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι could have become an expression in its own right - so that one might naturally make the whole expression (admittedly not exactly the same) negative, and leave the καί in?
Andrew