as Grotius (cf. Delitzsch and von Soden) «θε qua,” of which priesthood. It is simplest to refer the relative to the last word Μελχισεδέκ; possible to refer it tO ἀρχιερεὺς . .. Μελχ. The former seems justified by the manner in which ο. vil. resumes οὗτος yap 6 Μελχ. No doubt the reference is not barely to Mel- chizedek, but to Melchizedek as type of Christ’s priesthood. Concerning Mel- chisedek he has much to say πολὺς ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος, not exactly equivalent to ἡμῶν ὁ λόγος, but rather signifying “the ex- position which it is incumbent on us to undertake”. [Cf. Antigone, 748, 6 γοῦν λόγος σοι πᾶς ὑπὲρ κείνης ὅδε. The exposition is necessarily of some extent (ο. vii.), although of his whole letter he finds it possible to say (xiii. 22) διὰ βραχέων ἐπέστειλα. It is also δυσερμη- νευτος ‘‘difficult to explain,” ‘hard to render intelligibie,” ‘‘ininterpretabilis ”
10—Iz2.
νωθροὶ νεγόνατε ταῖς ἀκοαῖς. ΥΕΥ
καλοι διὰ τὸν χρόνον, πάλιν χρείαν ἔχετε τοῦ διδάσκειν ὑμᾶς, τίνα
201
12. " καὶ γὰρ ὀφείλοντες εἶναι διδάσ- k τ Cor. iii.
1. Peter ii.z.
τὰ στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν λογίων τοῦ Θεοῦ: καὶ γεγόνατε χρείαν
1 τίνα as in Syr., vg., “quae sint elementa”’. τινὰ Lachmann, WH, Baljon; after CEcumenius and as giving better sense. practice the life of theory’’ (Roberts, Clavis
Cyril. ‘“‘ Theory is the guide of practice,
So Origen, Jerome, Augustine,
Bibliorum). ‘ The interpreter needs oratio, meditatio, tentatio.”
(Vulg.) ; used of dreams in Artemidorus, τοῖς πολλοῖς δυσερμήνευτοι (Wetstein). This difficulty, however, arises not wholly from the nature of the subject, but rather {rom the unpreparedness of the readers, ἐπεὶ νωθροὶ γεγόνατε ταῖς ἀκοαῖς ‘‘see- ing that you are become dull οἵ hear- ing’. νωθρός = νωθής[δεε Prom. Vinct., 62] slow, sluggish; used by Dionysius Hal., to denote λίθου φύσιν ἀναίσθητον, ἀκίνητον. But Plato was said to be νωθρός in comparison with Aristotle. Babrius uses the word of the numbed limbs of the sick lion and of the ‘stupid’ hopes of the wolf that heard the nurse threaten to throw the child to the wolves. ταῖς ἀκοαῖς ‘in your sense of hearing.” Both in classical and biblical Greek ἀκοή has three meanings, ‘the thing heard,” as in John xii. 38; ‘‘the sense of hearing,” as in 1 Cor. xii. 17; and “(πε ear,” as in Mark vii. 35, ἠνοίγησαν αὐτοῦ αἱ ἀκοαί ; cf. Plummer on Luke, p. 194. Here the ear stands for intelligent and spiritual reception of truth. γεγόνατε, “γε are become,” and therefore were not always. It is not a natural and inherent and pardonable weakness of understanding he complains of, but a culpable incapa- city resulting from past neglect of oppor- tunities.
Ver. 12. καὶ γὰρ ὀφείλοντες. . - - ‘“‘For indeed, though in consideration of the time [since you received Christ] ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the beginning [the elements] of the oracles of God.”—®8.a τὸν χρόνον, cf. ii. 3, x. 32; how long they had pro- fessed Christianity we do not know, but quite possibly for twenty or thirty years. Those who had for a time themselves been Christians were expected to have made suth attainment in knowledge as to become διδάσκαλοι. This advance was their duty, ὀφείλοντες. Instead of thus accumulating Christian knowledge, they had let slip even the rudiments, so far at any rate as to allow them to fall into the background of their mind and to become inoperative. Their primal need
of instruction had recurred. The need had again arisen, τοῦ διδάσκειν ὑμᾶς τινὰ ‘‘of some one teaching you,” the genitive following χρείαν, as in ver. 12 and in x. 36. The indefinite pronoun seems preferable, as the form of the sen- tence requires an expressed subject to bring out the contrast to εἶναι διδάσ- καλοι, and to ὑμᾶς. τὰ στοιχεῖα. . - Θεοῦ. The meaning of τῆς ἀρχῆς would seem to be determined by τῆς ἀρχῆς τ. Χριστοῦ in vi. 1, where it apparently denotes the initial stages of a Christian profession, the stages in which the ele- ments of the Christian faith would naturally be taught. Here, then, ‘the beginning of the oracles of God” would mean the oracles of God as taught in the beginning of one’s education by these oracles. This of itself is a strong enough expression, but to make it stronger τὰ στοιχεῖα is added, as if he said ‘‘the rudiments of the rudiments,” the A BC of the elements. τῶν λογίων τ. θεοῦ, “oraculorum Dei, z.e,, Evangelii, in quo maxima et summe necessaria sunt Dei oracula, quae et sic dicuntur, 1 Peter iv. 11” (Grotius). The ‘‘Oracles of God” sometimes denote the O.T., as in Rom. iii. 2, Acts vii. 38; but here it is rather the utterance of God through the Son i. 1), the salvation preached by the Lord Ἢ 3) (so Weiss). καὶ γεγόνατε χρείαν ἔχοντες γάλακτος . . . “and are be- come such as have need of milk and not of solid food,” “εἰ facti estis quibus lacte opus sit, non solido cibo” (Vulgate). For the metaphor, cf. 1 Peter ii. 2; 1 Cor. iii. 1-3, a strikingly analogous passage, cf. John xvi. 12, and the Rabbinic term for young students ‘ Theenekoth ”’ “ Sucklings ” (Schoettgen). The same figure is found in Philo, De Agric., ii. (Wendland, vol. Π., p. 96) ἐπεὶ δὲ νηπίοις μέν ἐστι γάλα τροφή, τελείοις δὲ τὰ ἐκ πυρῶν πέμματα" καὶ ψυχῆς κ.τ.λ. Abundant illustrations from Greek litera- ture in Wetstein. Instead of becoming adults, able to stand on their own feet, select and digest their own food, they had fallen into spiritual dotage, had entered a second childhood, and could