erfected hereafter. The preposition ὑπέρ, ‘on behalf of" (cf. chap. xii. το), employed in these verses is the one usually employed in the N.T. to express the relation between Christ’s Atoning
man after the fresh, i.é., are quite in- different as to his mere external quali- fications as a preacher of the Gospel, his eloquence, Jewish birth, etc.: we are not like those who glory ἐν π
and not ἐν καρδίᾳ (ver. 12); cf. Gal. ii. 6.—el καὶ ώκαμεν κ.τ.λ.:; even though we have known (the — between οἴδαμεν and ἐγνώκαμεν is hardl to be pressed) Christ after the flesh, i.e., though there was a time in my life when I, like my Judaising opponents now, laid great stress on the local and hereditary, and, so to speak,
“notes’’ of the Messiah who was to come, yet now we know Him so no more, i.e., 1 know better now, for I have learnt since my conversion that the national Messiah of the Jews is Himself the In- carnate Word, to whom every race οἱ men is alike related, for He is the Christ of the Catholic Church of God. In per-
a tae
16—17.
ἀλλὰ νῦν οὐκ ἔτι γινώσκομεν.ὶ
Ῥ κτίσις - τὰ “ ἀρχαῖα "παρῆλθεν, ἰδοὺ γέγονε καινὰ TA? πάντα.
14; cf. Rom. viii. 1; 1 Cor. i. 30; Eph. ii. 10, 13.
Paul. τ Here only in Paul.
17. ὥστε εἴ τις “ἐν “Χριστῷ, " καινὴ 9
Rom. xvi 7; chap. ΧΙ]. 2; Gal. i. 22; 1 Pet. v.
p Gal. vi. 15 and see below. q Here only in
1 DEG, d, e, g add κατα σάρκα (to clear up the sense) after γινωσκ.
2 DbcEKLP and the Harclean support καινα τα παντα; the stronger combination, NBCD%*G, the Latins and the Bohairic, omit τα παντα.
sonal religion the merely historical must yield precedence to the mystical element ; it is of great interest and of real value to learn all that can be known about the Birth, Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, but it is the present Life of Christ, ‘‘in whom” we may be found if we will, that is of religious im- port, as is further explained in ver. 17. This ‘‘is the same feeling which appears in the fact... that no authentic or even pretended likeness of Christ should have been handed down from the first century; that the very site of His dwell- ing place at Capernaum should have been entirely obliterated from human memory; that the very notion of seeking for relics of His life and death, though afterwards so abundant, first began in the age of Con- stantine. It is the same feeling which, in the Gospel narratives themselves, is expressed in the almost entire absence of precision as to time and place ”’ (Stanley). Beyschlag and others (see Knowling, Witness of the Epistles, p. 2) conclude from the words εἰ καὶ ἐγνώκαμεν κατὰ σάρκα Χριστόν that St. Paul had seen, and possibly heard, Jesus during His public ministry at Jerusalem (cf. 1 Cor. ix. I); on this interpretation the words would be introduced at this point to indicate that, however much stress the other Apostles and their adherents might lay on such outward knowledge, yet to St. Paul, though he could lay claim to it as well as they, this did not seem the essential matter. But (a) the words do not necessarily imply this; it is note-
— worthy that-he says Χριστόν, not Ἰησοῦν,
which we should expect on Beyschlag’s hypothesis. (b) The explanation given above is quite in accordance with the usage of κατὰ σάρκα with a verb (see reff.), and the order of the words here and in the preceding clause does not allow us to take κατὰ σάρκα with οὐδένα in the one case and with Χριστόν in the other. (c) As Schmiedel points out, if St. Paul really had had personal experi- ence of the public ministry of Jesus, he would hardly have failed to mention it