Ver. 2. ἐν ὑποκρίσει ψευδολόγων: The three genitives ψευδολ. κεκαυστ. Kod. are coordinate, and refer to the hwyman agents of the seducing spirits and demons. ἐν ὑποκρίσει depends on πνεύμασι and διδασκαλίαις. The spirits work, and the teachings are exhibited, in the hypocrisy of them that speak lies ; and this hypo- crisy finds detailed expression in regula- tions suggested by a false asceticism.
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, Ἂς i - :στηριασµένων τὴν ἰδίαν συνείδησιν, 3. κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, © ἀπέχεσθαι i Acts xv.
* βρωμάτων ἃ ὁ Θεὸς ἔκτισεν εἰς ' μετάλημψιν μετὰ εὐχαριστίας τοῖς
k Rom. xiv. 15, 20, 1 Cor. viii. 8, 13, Heb. xiii. 9.
Although the ψευδολόγοι are included in the τινες . . - προσέχοντες, yet there is a large class of persons who are merely deceived; who are not actively deceiving others, and who have not taken the initi- ative in deceit. These latter are the ψευδολόγοι. For this reason it is better to connect ἐν ὑποκρίσει with προσέχοντες (Ell, von Soden) rather than with ἀποστήσονται (Bengel, Alf.), though no doubt both verbs refer to the same class.
ἐν ὑποκρίσει of course is not adverbial as A.V., speaking lies in hypocrisy. ‘This could only be justified if ψευδολόγων referred to δαιμονίων. The absence of an article before ὑποκρίσει need cause no astonishment.
ψευδολόγων: This word expresses per- haps more than ψεύστης the notion of definite false statements. A man might be on some occasions and on special points a Ψψευδολόγος, a speaker of that which is not true, and yet not deserve to be classed as a ψεύστης, a liar.
κεκαυστηριασμένων τὴν ἰδίαν συνεί-
-8yo.v: These speakers of falsehood are radically unsound. They are in worse case than the unsophisticated heathen whose conscience bears witness with the law of God (Rom. ii. 15). The con- science of these men is_ perverted. κεκαυστ. may mean that they are past feeling, ἀπηλγηκότες (Eph. iv. το), that their conscience is callous from constant violation, as skin grows hard from sear- ing (A.V., Κ.Υ. m., so Theodoret); or it may mean that these men bore branded on thety conscience the ownership marks of the Spirit of evil, the devil’s seal (ctr. 2 Tim. τι. 19), so perhaps R.V.; as St. Paul ‘“‘bore branded on his body the marks of Jesus” (Gal. vi. 17), as ‘‘ Christ’s bondservant’* (1 Cor. vii. 22). (So Theophylact). Either of these interpre- tations is more attractive than that of Bengel, followed by Alford, who takes it to mean that the marks of crime are burnt into them, so that they are self- condemned. See Tit. 1, 15, iii. 11.
‘here is no special force in ἰδίαν (see- -on chap. ili. 4), as though a course of deceiving others should, by a righteous judgment, result ina loss to themselves -of moral sensitiveness.
Ver. 3. κωλυόντων γαμεῖν: Spurious asceticism, in this and other departments -of life, characterised the Essenes (Joseph.
20, 29, I Thess. iv 3, I Pet. 1. If.
1 Here only, not LXX. Bell. Fud. ii. 8, 2) and the Therapeutae (Philo Vit. Contempl. § 4), and all the other false spiritualists of the East; so that this feature does not supply a safe ground for fixing the date of the epistle. At the same time, it is not likely that this particular heresy was present to St. Paul’s mind when he was writing 1 Cor. vii. 25-40; see especially 38, ὁ μὴ γαμίζων κρεῖσσον ποιήσει; but similar views are condemned in Col., see especially Col. ii. 16, 21, 22. See also Heb. xiii., iv. St. Paul had come to realise how tyrannous the weak brother could be; and he had become less tolerant of him,
ἀπέχεσθαι: The positive κελευόντων, commanding, must be supplied from the negative κελευόντων μή; commanding not = κωλυόντων.
d. f. g. Vulg. preserve the awkward- ness of the Greek, prohibentium nubere, abstinere a cibis. But Faustus read abstinentes, and Origen int. et abstinentes se a cibis. Epiphanius inserts παραγ- γέλλουσιν after βρωμ., and Isidore in- serts καὶ κελευόντων before ἀπεχ., which was also suggested by Bentley. Theo- phylact inserts similarly συμβουλευόντων. Hort conjectures that ἀπέχεσθαι is a primitive corruption for ἢ ἅπτεσθαι or καὶ γεύεσθαι. He maintains that “no Greek usage will justify or explain this combination of two infinitives, adverse to each other in the tenor of their sense, under the one verb κωλυόντων ; and their juxtaposition without a conjunction in a sentence of this kind is at least strange”. Blass, however (Grammar, p. 291) alleges as a parallel κωλύσει ἐνεργεῖν καὶ [σο. ποιήσει) ζημιοῦν from Lucian, Charon, § 2. Another instance of zeugma, though not so startling as this, is in ii. 12, οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω . . « εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ. See also x Cor. x. 24, xiv. 34 (T.R.). For ἀπέχεσθαι, as used in this connexion, see reff,