kinah (from the root [δω “to dwell’)
436
c1Cor. ii, στιν τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ 1 τῆς “δόξης.2
da
2. ἐὰν γὰρ
i Cf. > > UR "τὰ , a Acts vii. εἰσέλθῃ εἰς ' συναγωγὴν΄ ὑμῶν ἀνὴρ χρυσοδακτύλιος ἐν ἐσθῆτι “Aap
2. ἃ Acts vi.
9, etc.; Heb. x.25. e Luke xxiii. 11.
1 Χριστου, WH (altern. reading).
2 Pesh. places της δοξης after πιστιν , SO too 69, 73, a,c; it is om. by 13, Sah,
and rendered ‘‘honeris” by /f, though the Vulg. reads “ gloriae”’.
δοξης; 3 Autem ff.
enoted the visible presence of God dwelling among men. There are several references to it in the N.T. other than in this passage, Matt. ix. 7; Luke ii. 9; Acts vii. 2; Rom. ix. 4; cf. Heb. ix. 5; so, too, in the Targums, 6.5., in Targ. Onkelos to Num. vi. 25 ff. the “ face (in the sense of appearance or presence) of the Lord” is spoken of as the Shekinah. A more materialistic conception is found in the Talmud, where the Shekinah ap- pears in its relationship with men as one person dealing with another ; e.g., in Sota, 3b, it is said that before Israel sinned the Shekinah dwelt with every man sever- ally, but that after they sinned it was taken away; cf. Sota, 17a, where it is said: “ Man and wife, if they be deserv- ing, have the Shekinah between them” ; so, too, Pirge Aboth., iii. 3: ‘ Rabbi Chananiah ben Teradyon [he lived in the second century, A.D.] said, Two that sit together and are occupied in words of Torah have the Shekinah among them” (cf. Matt. xviii. 20); see further Oesterley and Box, ΟΡ. cit., pp. 191-194. The She- kinah was thus used by Jews as an in- direct expression in place of God, the localised presence of the Deity. ‘In the identification of the Shekinah and cognate conceptions with the incarnate Christ, ‘a use is made of these ideas,’ as Dalman says, ‘which is at variance with their primary application’. It marks a speci- fically Christian development, though the way had certainly been prepared by hypostatising tendencies” (Box, in Hastings’ DCG., ii. 622a). That Christ was often identified with the Divine She- kinah may be seen from the examples given by Friedlander, Patristische und Tal- mudische Studien, pp. 62 ff. If our inter- pretation of δόξα here is correct, it will follow, in the first place, that the mean- ing of the phrase. . « ᾿'ησοῦ Χριστοῦ τῆς δόξης is free from ambiguity, viz., δές» Have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Shekinah” (literally “ the glory”); this is precisely the same thought that is contained in the words,
WH read της,
4 Pr. την $°AKLP, curss., Thl., Oec., rec.
“. .. who being the effulgence of his. glory . . . (Heb. i. 2-3). And, in the second place, this rendering shows that the words are an expression of the Divinity of our Lord; cf. Bengel’s note: “ τῆς. δόξης : est appositio, ut ipse Christus dicatur 4 δόξα”. [Since writing the above the present writer finds that Mayor, Ρ. 78, refers to Mr. Bassett’s comment on this verse, where the same interpreta- tion is given, together with a number of O.T. quotations; it seems scarcely pos- sible to doubt that this interpretation is. the correct one.]
Ver, 2. εἰς συναγωγὴν ὑμῶν: as the Epistle is addressed to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion no particular synagogue can be meant here; it is a
‘general direction that is being given.
In the N.T. the word is always used of a Fewish place of worship; but it is used of a Christian place of worship by Her- mas, Mand., xi. 9. . « - ες συναγωγὴν ἀνδρῶν δικαίων . «. καὶ ἔντευξις γένη- ται πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν τῆς συναγωγῆς τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐκείνων. Harnack (Expansion εως 1. 60) says : “I know one early Chris- tian fragment, hitherto unpublished, which contains the expression: Χριστιανοί τε καὶ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι Χριστὸν ὁμολογοῦντες ”. This latter may well refer to a place of worship in which converted Gentiles and Jewish-Christians met together. And this is probably the sense in which we must understand the use of the word in the verse before us. The Jewish name for the synagogue was FDIS Md (“house of assembly”); according to Shabbath, 32a, the more popular designa-