tinguished from νοῦς in the preceding verse, and from καρδία in the last clause of this one.
“ Alienated from the life of God,” means strangers to that life. “The life of God,’ means the life of which God is the author. It is spiritual life. That is, the life of which the indwelling Spirit is the principle or source. “ Vitam Dei,” says Beza, “ appellat vitam illam, qua Deus vivit in suis.” Comp. 3, 16, 17, and the remarks on that passage.
In the last clause of the verse πώρωσις is rendered blindness, it more properly means hardness. It does not come from πωρός, blind, but from πῶρος a peculiar kind of stone, and then any thing hard or callous. The yerb πωρόω is rendered to harden, Mark 6, 52; 8, 17; John 12, 40, and in all these passages it is used of the heart. So in Rom. 11, 7, “‘ the rest were hardened.” The noun is rendered “ hardness” in Mark 3, 5, and “blindness” in Rom. 11, 25. This is easily accounted for, as the verb is often used in reference to the eyes when covered with an opaque hardened film, and hence πεπώρωται is the same at times with τετύφλωται. The phrase, therefore, πώρωσις τῆς καρδίας, may be ren- dered either blindness or hardness of the heart. The latter is the proper meaning, unless the other be re- quired by the context, which is not the case in the present instance.
The principal difficulty in this verse concerns the relation of its several clauses. First, the participle ὄντες may be connected with the second clause, 80. as to read, “ Dark as to the understanding, being (ὄντες)
CHAP. Iv. VER. 18. 2538
alienated from the life of God.” This is the view taken by our translators, which supposes that the first clause merely expresses a characteristic of the heathen, for which the second assigns the reason. ‘They are dark ened, because alienated.’ But this is not consistent with the relation of this verse to the preceding. ‘The heathen walk in vanity because darkened,’ ἅς. Be- sides, according to the apostle, the heathen are not in darkness because alienated from the life of God, but they are alienated from that life because of their ignor- ance. Secondly, the four clauses included in the verse may be considered as so related that the first is con- nected with the third, and the second with the fourth. The passage would then read, ‘ Having the under- standing darkened on account of the ignorance that is in them; alienated from the life of God on account of the hardness of their hearts.’ But this unnaturally dissociates the clauses, contrary to one of the most marked peculiarities of the apostle’s style ; whose sen- tences are like the links of a chain, one depending on another in regular succession. This mode of construc- tion also makes ignorance the cause of the darkness, whereas it is the effect. A man’s being enveloped in darkness is the cause of his not seeing, but his not see- ing is not the cause of the darkness. Idiocy is the cause of ignorance and not the reverse. The apostle conceives of the heathen as men whose minds are im- paired or darkened, and therefore they are ignorant. Thirdly, the clauses may be taken as they stand, ὄντες being connected with the first clause. ‘The heathen