Ver. τῷ, ἔχοντες οὖν τοιαύτην κ.τ.λ.: having therefore such a hope (sc., of the glorious Ministration of the Spirit, ver. 8; αι ver. 4) we use great boldness of speech.
he verses which follow are parentheti- cal down to ver. 18, where the subject is again we, i.e., all Christian believers, as contrasted with Jews.
Ver. 13. καὶ οὐ καθάπερ κ.τ.λ.: and (we put no veil upon our face) as Moses puta veil upon his face. The construc- tion is broken, but the sense is obvious; cf., for a somewhat similar abbreviation, Mark xv. 8, ὁ ὄχλος ἤρξατο αἰτεῖσθαι καθὼς ἐποίει αὐτοῖς.-- πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενί- σαι κιτιλ.: to the end that the children of Israel should not look steadfastly on th: end of that which was passing away, sc., the evanescence of the g on Moses’ face. The A.V., “could not steadfastly look to the end of that which
15. ἀλλ᾽ " ἕως " σήμερον, ἡνίκα ᾿ ἀναγινώσκεται ” Μωσῆς, κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν κεῖται ϑ- 16. ' ἡνίκα δ᾽ ὁ ἂν ™ ἐπιστρέψῃ πρὸς
ο 1 Κύριον, | περιαιρεῖται τὸ ᾿ κάλυμμα.
k Ecclus. xIvii. 7; Matt. XXVil. 8; cf. Deut. XXIX. 4. Exod.
m Exod. xxxiv. 31.
17. ὃ δὲ Κύριος τὸ Πνεῦμά
XXXiV. 34.
1 DEGKLP support ηνικα αναγιν.; better ηνικα αν αναγιν. with ΑΒΟ 17.
ΣΚΙ, support ἀαναγινωσκεται ; better αναγινωσκηται with SABCDEP,
3 D*EG, the Latins and the Bohairic place κειται before επι τὴν καρδιαν αυτων.
4 $8cBDEGKLP support δ᾽ av; but ΝΑ 17 give δε εαν.
was abolished,” evidently takes τέλος as standing for Christ, the fulfilment of the Mosaic law (Rom. x. 4). But this is not suitable to the context. πρὸς τό with an infinitive is sometimes found to express the aim or intention (ever the mere re- sult), as, e.g., Eph. vi. 11, 1 Thess. ii. 9, 2 Thess. 111. 8.
Ver. 14. GAN ἐπωρώθη τὰ νοήματα.
(αὐτῶν: but their minds were blinded, sc., in reference to what they saw (cf. Rom. xi. 25); they took the brightness for an abiding glory (cf. Deut. xxix. 4). πῶρος, which primarily means a kind of marble, came to mean, in medical writers, a hardening of the tissues; and hence we have πωρόω, (1) to petrify, (2) to become insensible or obtuse, and so (3) it comes to be used of insensibility of the organs «οἱ vision, to blind. (See J. A. Robinson in ¥ournal of Theological Studies, Oct., 1901, and cf. reff. above.)—aypu γὰρ τῆς “σήμερον ἡμέρας κ.τ.λ.: for until this very day at the reading of the Old Covenant the same veil remaineth unlifted (for it is only done away in Christ). (1) Some com- mentators take μὴ ἀνακαλυπτόμενον as a nominative absolute, and translate ‘‘the ‘same veil remaineth, it not being revealed that it (sc., either the veil or the Old Covenant) is done away in Christ”. But the order of the words seems to force us ‘to take the present participle with μένει —it having a merely explanatory force and being almost redundant. (2) Again both A.V. and R.V. (text), while trans- lating the first part of the clause as we have done, render 6 τι ἐν Xp. καταργεῖται “‘which veil is done away in Christ’. But it seems indefensible thus to take 6 τι as equivalent to 6. (3) Field arrives at yet another rendering by taking κάλυμ.- “μα per synecdochem for the thing veiled, which is here declared to be the fact that the Old Covenant is done away in Christ. Herenders ‘‘ the same mystery remaineth unrevealed, xamely, that it is done away in Christ”. But it is a grave objection
C omits αν.
to this that τὸ κάλυμμα has to be taken in a sense different from that which it has all through the rest of the passage. (4) We prefer, therefore (with Schmiedel and Schnedermann), to read 6 τι as ὅτι, for, and to regard the phrase ὅτι ἐν Xp. καταργεῖται as parenthetical: ‘ until this day the veil remains unlifted (for it is only in Christ that it is done away)”’; 2.6., the Jews do not recognise the vanish- ing away of the glory of the Law, which yet is going on before their eyes. How completely Judaism was dissociated in St. Paul’s mind from Christianity is plain from the striking phrase ἣ παλαιὰ διαθήκη (here only found; but cf. ver. 6), by which he describes the religious system of his own early manhood, which had only been superseded by ἣ καινὴ διαθήκη thirty years before he wrote this letter. ἀνάγνωσις is (see reff.) the public reading of the Law in the synagogues; it seems, however, unnecessarily ingenious to see here, with Schmiedel, an allusion in τὸ κάλυμμα to the covers in which the Synagogue Rolls were preserved.