et 335 ἀνθρώπων, ἐν | πανουργίᾳ] πρὸς τὴν " μεθοδείαν 2 τῆς ᾿ πλάνης, i= Luke xx 15. '' ἀληθεύοντες " δὲ ἐν ἀγάπῃ " αὐξήσωμεν " εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα, i. το; a
or. iv. 2,
xi. 3 only; Josh. ix. 4. xiii. 18. n Ch. ii. ar.
1 Matt. xxvii. 64; Rom. i. 27; Prov. xiv. 8.
κ Ch, vi. 11 only, see 2 Kings xix. 27; Polycarp. ad Phil., 7; 2 Macc.
πι Gal. iv. 16 only; Gen. xlii. 16.
1 Insert τη before πανουργια FG 39, 116. 2 μεθοδειαν B®CD®E, etc., Chr., etc.; μεθοδιαν SB*D*FGKLO®, etc., Euth.; τας
μεθοδιας A, 3 After πλαν. add του διαβολου A.
But it is doubtful whether that sense fully meets the case in some of the passages thus cited, e.g., 1 John iv. 6. In such passages as Rom. i. 27; James i. 20, it denotes error in practice, a wrong way of life or action. This seems to be its force here. Conse- quently the idea of the clause is more definite than ‘‘in craftiness tending to the settled system of error” (Ell.). It means ‘‘in craftiness, furthering the scheming, deceitful art which has for its result the false way of life that strays fatally from truth.”
Ver. 15. ἀληθεύοντες δέ: but truthing it. A participial clause qualifying the following αὐξήσωμεν and introducing the positive side of the change in view as contrasted with the negative aspect of the same in the μηκέτι clause. The δέ has the force of “ but rather ” or ‘‘ but on the other hand”. Opposition of one thing to another is usually expressed by ἀλλά; but the advers. δέ is also used at times with that force, with the difference, how- ever, that δέ connects while it contrasts or opposes; cf. Win.-Moult., p. 551. The precise meaning of ἀληθεύοντες is dis- puted. The RV marg. makes it “" dealing truly”; but that is a doubtful sense. Calvin takés it = veritati operam dare; Rickert, ‘‘ holding fast the truth’’; Ell., “holding the truth’; Olsh., ‘ walking in truth”; Alf., ‘‘ being followers of truth”. But in classical Greek the verb seems to mean to speak truth as opposed to ψεύ- δεσθαι (Plato, Rep., p. 589 ο; Χεῃ., Anab., i., 7, 18, iv., 4, 15, etc.), and that is its sense also in Gal. iv. 16. It is best to take it here, too, as = “ speaking truth”; or more definitely ‘ confessing the truth”. The point of this brief, but significant clause, therefore, may be this —these Ephesians had learned the saving truth (ἡ ἀληθεία ; cf. Gal. ii. 5, 14; 2 Cor. We, ο, τΈεςἹ οσο. ἨΠεῦυ, x4°20, εἰσ) οὗ Christ. They had been exposed to the treacheries and risks of false teaching. Christ had given them Apostles, prophets, and evangelists to secure them against
4 For αληθ. δε, αληθιαν δε ποιουντες FG,
all teachers of craft, and they are here charged to continue to confess the truth in which they had been instructed and so grow to the maturity of the Christian life, —év ἀγάπῃ : in love. The question is— to what is this to be attached? It is con- nected by many (Syr., Eth., Theophy., Oecum., Erasm., Calv., Riick., Bleek, de Wette, Alf, AV, RV, etc.) with the ἀληθεύοντες, and it is taken to express the idea that love is the element in which truth is to be spoken (or the truth con- fessed), if it is to conduce to unity and brotherliness. This construction is sup- ported by the considerations that the simple ἀληθεύοντες δέ would be some- what bald if it stood wholly by itself ; that it is natural to associate Jove and truth ; that the position of ἐν ἀγάπῃ after the ἀληθεύοντες and also the parallel structure of ver. 14 point to this con- nection ; and that we thus get a contrast between πανουργία and ἀγάπη and again between πλάνη and ἀληθεύειν. The main argument for connecting the clause rather with the following αὐξήσωμεν (= ‘but speaking truth (or rather, confessing the truth) may in love grow πρ) is the fact that in ver. 16, where the climax is reached, ἐν ἀγάπῃ qualifies the main thought—that of the growth or the edi- fication of Christ’s body. This is a con- sideration of such weight as to throw the probability on the whole on the side of the second connection (Mey., Alf., Haupt, etc.).—avfjowpev εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα: may grow up unto him in all things, αὐξήσωμεν, which is under the regimen of the tva, has here, as in ii. 21 and in various other passages of the NT, the intr. sense of growing. In earlier classical Greek it meant to cause to grow. That sense it has in the LXX and also occasion- ally in the NT (1 Cor. iii. 6, 7; 2 Cor. ix. 10), while the pass. is used to express growing. But from Arist. onwards it came also to have the intr. sense. Meyer takes eis αὐτόν to mean simply ‘‘in reference to him”. The idea then would be that it is only by being in relation to Christ that