“τοῖς λοιποῖς πᾶσι, 14. καὶ τοὺς πλείονας τῶν ἀδελφῶν ἐν Κυρίῳ " πεποιθότας τοῖς δεσμοῖς μου ὃ περισσοτέρως τολμᾷν ! ἀφό- 15. Τινὲς μὲν καὶ διὰ φθόνον καὶ ἔριν, τινὲς
1 80 Alf., W.H. Ti., Trg., Ws. τολμᾶν.
38ο DcE**K, Chr.(occas.), Thdrt., Ell. (who calls τον Θεον “a nearly certain gloss”), Hpt. Other edd. add τον Θεον with NABD*E*P, d, ε, f, vg. sah. cop.
arm., Clem., Chr,(some places),
lingering in the province, should be sent in chains ad praefectos praetorii mei, who are not the prison officials but those con- cerned with the hearing of cases. This explanation also would agree well with what Paul says about his bonds and the progress of the Gospel. We would hesi- tate to decide between (1) and (4), the context seeming to support the latter, while, perhaps, ὅλῳ favours the former.— καὶ τ. λοιποῖς π. Cf. CIG., i., 1770, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐν τοῖς λοιποῖς πᾶσιν φανερὰν πεποήκαμεν τήν τε ἰδίαν καὶ τοῦ δήμου τοῦ Ρωμαίων προαίρεσιν. Apparently a vague phrase = everywhere else.
Ver. 14. τοὺς πλείονας. Vaughan holds that “from the universal practice of deciding matters by the vote of a majority the term comes to mean the main body, the society as a whole,” but this scarcely seems needful.—rév 48. ἐν K. These words surely make up one phrase (so Alf., Weizs., Ws., etc., as against Lft., Lips., Myr., εἰς). Cf. Col. i. 2. It is difficult to see where the tautology, which is said to be involved in this interpretation, comes in. Prob- ably it is an almost technical combina- tion. Dsm. (BS., p. 82) notes from Papyri a precisely similar technical use of ἀδελφός in the language of the Serapeum at Memphis. ---πεποιθ. τ. . “Having confidence in my bonds,” ἑ.ε., being encouraged by the favourable light in which his imprisonment was beginning to be regarded when seen in its true character. [This tells in favour of (4) in ver. 13.) Cf. Philm. 21, πεποιθὼς τῇ ὑπακοῇ σου.--λαλεῖν. Hpt. believes that λαλ. is used here expressly instead of λέγειν as emphasising the physiolo- gical process rather than the word spoken. In the later language these refinements were apt to be overlooked. Still it is
interesting to find that in LXX 495 is almost invariably transl. by λαλεῖν and VON by λέγειν.
Vv. 15-18. THE RESULT OF HIS MORE FAVOURABLE CIRCUMSTANCES: CHRIST PREACHED, WHETHER OF SPITE OR GOOD- WILL.—Ver. 15. τινές, Are these in- cluded in the πλείονες of ver. 14 or not? We prefer to believe (so also Weizs., Fahrb. f. deutsche Theol., 1876, p. 294 ff.) that the Apostle has chan his point of view. For is it conceivable that those who “ had confidence" in his bonds should, on the other hand, “raise afflic- tion” (ver. 17) for those bonds? He thinks now not so much of the em- boldening of his Christian brethren as of the fact that the Gospel is being preached with great vigour over a wide area. Accordingly τινές may be taken by itself.—Probably καί goes with φθόνον. “Some preach . . . actually from envy and rivalry.” — ἔριν = “ rivalry” (not “ strife’), as often. re Thuc., vi., 31,
al
4; 48sch., Eumen, (ed. Paley), 933 (where used in a good sense). Το whom does Paul refer? It has usually been taken
for granted that it must to his un- wearying opponents, the Judaisers. So Myr., Alf., Lft., Franke (esp. SK., 1895, P 772), Duchesne and others. But, as
pt. clearly shows, we have no grounds for assuming the existence of a definitely anti-Pauline Jewish-Christian party at Rome (so also Hort, ¥udaistic Christi- anity, pp. 112-113). At the same time this jealousy of the Apostle, a matter of personal feeling, may well have arisen in the Jewish wing of the Roman Church. They would naturally be roused to some bitterness by Paul's emphasis on the universality of the Gospel and his neglect of its specially Jewish setting. But it is unreasonable to divide all the Chris- tians of the ο Age into Gentile- Christians and Judaisers. There would Jewish-Christians who never favoured the extreme methods or even doctrines of the latter. (Cf. M‘Giffert’s instructive discussion, Apost. Age, pp. 393-395, and Pfl., Urchrist., pp. 147, 151.) It is indeed quite possible that those re-