Ver. 15. καιροῖς ἰδίοις : See note on ii. 6. In due season may refer primarily either to the appropriateness of the occa- sion of the ἐπιφάνεια or to the supreme will of the δυνάστης. The wording of the discouragement given by Jesus, in Acts i. 7, to those who would pry into the future makes it natural to suppose that this latter notion chiefly was in St. Paul’s mind here (καιροὺς ots ὁ πατὴρ ἔϑετο ἐν τῇ ἰδίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ). We may per- haps put it thus: A devout mind recog-
148
Ecclus. xlvi. 5, 16, 2 Macc. (8), 3
μόνος " Δυνάστης, ὁ 3 Βασιλεὺς τῶν βασιλευόντων καὶ Κύριος τῶν Γκυριευόντων, 16. ὁ μόνος ἔχων " ἀθανασίαν, φῶς ' οἰκῶν " ἀπρόσιτον,
Macc. (). ὃν εἶδεν οὐδεὶς ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ ἰδεῖν δύναται ' ᾧ τιμὴ καὶ ᾿ κράτος
q Cf. τ Tim. 1 αὐχὸ
αἰώνιον - ἀμὴν. τ Luke xxii.
25. 5 Here only
Wisd. (5), 4 Macc. (2). v. 11, Jude 25, Rev. i. 6, v. 13. ie only, not LXX, cf. Rom. xi. 20, xii. 16.
nises the providential ordering of past events as having taken place at the time best fitted for them, and shrinks from the presumption of guessing the appropriate time for future events. Thus there is πὸ presumption in saying “ When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son’’; and when the time is ripe, He will send Him again (Acts iii. 20).
δείξει: Ell. well explains the force of this verb from John ii. 18, τί σημεῖον δεικνύεις ἡμῖν ; The last ἐπιφάνεια will be the final proof offered by God to the human race.
The terms of this magnificent char- acterisation of God are an expansion of the epithets in the doxology in i. 17 q.v.
μακάριος: See on i. 11. Philo (de Sacrific. Abelis et Caini, p. 147) has the remarkable parallel, περὶ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀγεννήτου, καὶ ἀφθάρτου, καὶ ἀτρέπτου, καὶ ἁγίου, καὶ μόνου μακαρίου.
δυνάστης ἰ5᾽ found as a title of God in the Apocrypha. See reff., esp. 2 Macc. 11. 24, ὃ «.. δυνάστης ἐπιφανίαν μεγάλην ἐποίησεν. It occurs in the ordinary sense, Luke i. 52, Acts viii. 27. The choice of the phrase μόνος Suv. here was perhaps suggested by the thought of His absolute and irre- sponsible power in arranging the times and seasons for the affairs of men. It is umnecessary to seek any special polemical object in μόνος, as exclusive of dualism. As has been already suggested (on i. 17), the predications of glory to God that occur in these epistles are prob- ably repeated from eucharistic prayers uttered by St. Paul in the discharge of his prophetic liturgical functions.
6 βασιλεύς, κ.τ.λ.: The Vulg. renders rather inconsistently, Rex regum et Dominus dominantium. So also in Rev. xix. 16. Itis not quite obvious why the phrase is varied from the usual βασιλεὺς βασιλέων (2 Macc. xiii. 4; Rev. xvii. 14, xix. 16) and Κύριος [τῶν] Κνρίων (Deut. x. 17; Ps. exxxvi. 3; Enoch 1% 4). Ῥετ- haps the participle gives new Vigour to a phrase that had lost its freshness.
17. Tots πλουσίοις ἐν " τῷ
t Rom. (4), 1 Cor. (3). w 2 Tim. iv. το, Tit. ii. 12.
“ νῦν αἰῶνι
παράγγελλε μὴ 7 ύψη-
vi Pet. iv. 11
u Here only, not LXX. i y Here
x See 1 Tim. i. 3.
Ver. 16. ὁ μόνος ἔχων ἀθανασίαν: God the Father is the subject of this whole attribution; and it is the Catholic doctrine that He alone has endless exist- ence as His essential property. (οὐσίᾳ ἀθάνατος ov μετουσίᾳ, Theod. Dial. iii. Ῥ. 145, quoted by Ell.). God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are co-eternal with the Father; but Their life is derived from and dependent on His. This is expressly declared by Christ of Himself, “ As the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself’’ (John v. 26). On this Westcott notes: “The Son has not life only as given, but life in Himself as being a spring of life.. .. The tense (gave) carries us back beyond time’’. Accord- ingly, the creed of Czsarea, which formed the basis of that adopted at Nicea, spoke of the Son as Ζωὴν ἐκ Ζωῆς; a doctrine sufficiently expressed in the other phrase, Φῶς ἐκ Φωτός, which has survived.