60
Pérdgdwoe τὰ “νοήματα τῶν ἀπίστων, εἰς
5. οὐ γὰρ ἑαυτοὺς
t Wisd. vii. 26; reff.
δ chap- γέλιον " ἡμῶν, ἐν τοῖς »ἀπολλυμένοις ἐστὶ κεκαλυμμένον 4. ἐν οἷς ὁ ΚΝ Jakn Θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου
ἤν 1 only τὸ μὴ τ αὐγάσαι } αὐτοῖς 2 τὸν "φωτισμὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης
« XL. ΓᾺΡ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν "εἰκὼν τοῦ ' Θεοῦ." επ. Ι. 11.
τΗετὲ only, ® κηρύσσομεν, ἀλλὰ " Χριστὸν ἢ ᾿Ιησοῦν Κύριον’ ἑαυτοὺς δὲ δούλους
Fit a, τῶν s Ver. 6 only; cf. Job iii. 9; Ps. xxvi. 1, Ixxxix. 8, etc.
iii. 18. u wiii 5; τ Cor. 1. 23; Phil. i. 15.
ΓΙ SBGKLP support ανγασαι; CDEH have κατανγασαι, and A 17 διανγασαι. 2 DbcEKLP and the Syriac vss. add αντοις after avy.; om. NABCD*GH 17, d,e,
f, g, τ, etc, °C has κνριον for Χριστον.
* SycLP and the Harclean add τον αορατον (from Col. i. 15) after Θεον.
5 BHKL, the Peshitto and Bohairic support
Ἴησ.; NACDE, the Harclean,
x . ἁ, ε, f, τ, etc., give "ln. Xp. Kv. ; G, g give Kv. “ly. Κρ. ; P πας Ἴη. Xp. (omitting Κν.).
Ver. 3. εἰ δὲ καὶ κ.τ.λ.; but even if our gospel (sc., the good news we preach ; see reff.) is veiled (returning again to the metaphor of iii. 12-18), it is veiled in them that are perishing ; i.e., the fault lies with the hearers, not with the preacher (cf. vi. 12, and see Rom. i. 28). Blass (Gram, of N.T. Greek, § 41, 2) points out that ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλνμένοις is almost equivalent to “ for them that are perish- ing" (cf. chap. viii. 1 and 1 Cor. xiv. 11 for a like use of ἐν).
Ver. 4. ἐν οἷς ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος: among whom the god of this world, sc., Satan. αἰών is an ‘‘age,” a certain limit of time, and so ὁ αἰὼν οὗτός (1 Cor. i, 20, ii. 6) is ‘this present age,” over which the devil is regarded as having
power (cf. Eph. ii. 2, vi. 12). We have the expression al cia, τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτον in Ignatius (Rom., 6). Wetstein
quotes a Rabbinical saying, ‘‘ The true God is the first God, but Sammael (i.¢., the evil angel who was counted Israel's special foe) is the second God". Many early writers, beginning with Origen and Irenzus, through of Gnostic specu- lations, dissociate ὁ Θεός from τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτον, which they join with τῶν ἀπίσ- των. But this is a mere perversity of exegesis, suggested by controversial pre- judice. Beliar is twice called ‘ the ruler of this world" in the Ascension of Isaiah (ed. Charles, pp. 11, 24). τὰ γοήματα τῶν ἀπίστων : hath blinded (the ‘*ingressive aorist '’ again ; τὰ ver. 2) the minds (cf. iii. 14) of the unbelieving. Out of sixteen occurrences of the word ἄπιστος in the Pauline Epistles, fourteen are found in the Epp. to the Corinthians ; it consistently means “ unbelieving,”’ and is always applied to the Acathen, not to
the Jews (except, perhaps, Titus i. 15).— εἰς A μὴ αὐγάσαι κ.τ.λ.: fo the end that the light (lit. “the illumination”’) of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the Image of God, should not dawn upon them. This is the force of αὐγάσαι, even if, as we seemingly must do, we omit αὐτοῖς from our text; αὐγή is the ‘*dawn,” and αὐγάσαι is to be taken in- transitively. The R.V. marginal render- ing “that they should not see the light,” etc., does not suit the context so well. The A.V. “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ" is inadequate, as it does not bring out the force of the phrase τοῦ εὐαγγελίον τῆς δόξης is the genitive of contents (αι, the similar phrase, 1 Tim. i. 11); the substance of the good tidings preached is the δόξα, the glorious revelation of Christ (cf. ver. 6 below). That Christ is the Image or εἰκών of God is the statement of St. Paul which approaches most nearly in form to the λόγος doctrine of St. John (see reff. and, for the general sense, 1 Cor. xi. 3, Phil. ii. 6; cf. Heb. i. 34). , Ewald, who maintains that St. Paul was acquainted with a Johannine tradition of our Lord’s words, finds in vv. 3, reminiscences of conversations r in the Fourth Gospel. Thus we have in consecutive verses (John viii. 44, 45 ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ - ++ οὐ πιστεύετέ μοι, and the expres- sion 6 Θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτον is compar- able with ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμον τούτον (John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11). The parallels are certainly interesting; cf. also the phrase εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ with John viii. 19, 42.