Ver. 10. τῇ Φιλαδελφίᾳ = in point of brotherly love, {.ε., your love to each other as children in the one family of God. Cf. 1 Thess. iv. 9, Heb. xiii. 9, 1 Pet. i. 22, 2 Pet. i. 7, 1 Pet. iii. 8. ἀδελφὸς in the apostolic writings does not mean fellow-man, but fellow-Christian; and φιλαδελφία is the mutual affection of the members of the Christian community, In this they are to be Φφιλόστοργοι, ‘tenderly affectioned”. The moral purity required in ver. g is not to be the only mark of Christian love; since they are members of one family, their love is to have the characters of strong natural
ας,
i Ἠετε οπ]γ. ἀλλήλους ' προηγούμενοι ᾿ 11. τῇ σπουδῄ μὴ " ὀκνηροὶ, τῷ πνεύµατι
at ζέοντες, τῷ Kupiw! Soudedovtes* 12. τῇ ἐλπίδι Χαίροντες, τῇ θλίψει
ὑπομένοντες, τῇ προσευχῄ προσκαρτερούντες᾽ 13. ταῖς χρείαις ” τῶν
1 For κνυριω NABD*SLP, etc., some Western authorities (D!F gr. G lat.) read καιρω, and this appears in the received text, though not in the A.V. The confusion may have arisen from a contraction of the one word being mistaken for that of the other; but was “‘ probably supported by a sense of the difficulty of so comprehensive a clause as τῷ κυριῳ δουλευοντες in the midst of a series of clauses of limited sense” (W. and H., Appendix, p. 11ο).
ΣΤαις xpetats KRABD*LP is no doubt the correct reading, but there is a curious variant ταις µνειαις in DFG, some MSS. known to Theod. Mops., and in the Lat. transl. of Origen, where, after usibus (= χρειαις) sanctorum communicantes, we read Memini in latinis exemplaribus magis haberi, memoriis sanctorum communicantes Evidently, as S. and H. remark, this must have arisen at a time when the αγιοι were no longer the members of the community and fellow-Christians whose bodily wants required to be relieved, but the “saints” of the past whose lives were to be
commemorated.
affection (στοργή); it is to be warm, spontaneous, constant. τῇ τιμῇ ἀλλήλους προηγούμενοι: “in honour preferring one another’. This, which is the rendering of both our English versions, is a good Pauline idea (Phil. ii. 3), but gives προηγούμενοι a meaning not found else- where. Hence others render: ‘in show- ing honour—.e., to those whose χαρίσ- pata entitle them to respect in the Church—giving each other a lead”: each, so to speak, being readier than the other to recognise and honour God’s gifts in a brother. In this sense, how- ever, προηγούμενοι would rather take the genitive (see Liddell and Scott, who seem, nevertheless, to adopt this render- ing); and probably the former, which involves only a natural extension of the meaning of the word, is to be preferred. Ver. 11. TH σπουδῇ μὴ ὀκνηροί: σπουδὴ occurs twelve times in the N.T., and is translated in our A.V. seven different ways. It denotes the moral earnestness with which one should give himselfto his vocation. In this Christians are not to be backward: Acts ix. 38. τῷ πνεύματι ζέοντες: the same figure is frequent in the classics, and we still speak of the blood “boiling”. The spiritual temperature is to be high in the Christian community: cf. 1 Thess. v. 20, Acts xviii. 25. If we are to distinguish at all, the πνεῦμ.α meant is the Spirit of God, though it is that spirit as bestowed upon man. τῷ κυρίῳ δουλεύοντες: we can point to no special connection for this clause. Perhaps the thought is on the same lines as in 1 Cor. xii. 4 f.: there are spiritual gifts of all kinds, but one service in which they are all ex-
hausted—the service of Christ—and in that we must be constantly engaged. Ver. 12. τῇ ἐλπίδι χαίροντες: the hope in which they are to rejoice is that of Christians: cf. v. 2. The meaning is practically the same as in that passage, but the mental representation is not. τῇ ἐλπίδι is not = ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι there, but in a line with the other datives here: in point of hope, rejoicing. τῇ θλίψει ὑπομένοντες: ὑπομ. might have been con- strued with the accusative (τὴν θλῖψιν), but the absolute use of it, as here, is common (see Mt. x. 22, Jas. v. 11, 1 Pet. ii. 20), and its employment in this instance enables the writer to conform the clause grammatically tothe others. τῇ προσευχῇ προσκαρτεροῦντες: cf. Col. iv. 2, Acts i. 14, ii. 42. The strong word suggests not only the constancy with which they are to pray, but the effort that is needed to maintain a habit so much above nature. Ver. 13. ταῖς xpelats τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες: “the saints” as in viii. 27, 1 Tim. v. 10 are Christians generally. The curious variant ταῖς µνείαις--- “taking part in the commemorations of the saints ’—dates from an age at which “the saints’’ were no longer Christians in general, but a select few, as a rule martyrs or confessors in the technical sense. Weiss asserts that the active sense of κοινωνεῖν, to communicate or impart, is foreign to the N.T., but it is difficult to maintain this if we look to such examples as this and Gal. vi. 6, and also to the use of κοινωνία in 2 Cor. ix. 13 (where ἁπλότητι τῆς κοινωνίας εἰς αὐτοὺς means the liberality of your con- tribution to them), and Heb. xiii. 16, where κοινωνία is a synonym of εὐποιία,.