Ver. 18. The counsel is conveyed in the
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Col. ii. 3, ; ; ος : igs mh i
iv.16. . γυμνότητός σου: καὶ ᾿κολλούριον " ἐγχρίσαι x Zech. xiii. ,
9. For ἵνα Bdérys.
constr. ii.
II, Vili. II ᾿
= dative. y ΠΠ. 4, vii. 9, 14, xix. 14. z See on xvi. 15.
iii. 11-12 = Heb. xii. 5-6, Ps. Sol. x. 2, 1 Cor. xi. 32.
τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς σου
Ig. ἐγὼ 'ὅσους ἐὰν φιλῶ "ἐλέγχω καὶ παιδεύω"
α1 John ii. 20, 27. b Prov. ς John iii. 20, xvi. 8 (R.J. 365), Sir. xviii. 13.
1¥For εγχρισον (P, 1, g2 marg., 96, etc.) read εγχρισαι (infin. not imper; the technical term; Gz. Aey. in N.T.) with SQAC, etc., vg., Pr., Anda, edd.
dialect of the local situation. ἀγοράσαι in the poor man’s market (Isa. lv. 1, cf. Matt. vi. 19, 20), significant words as addressed to the financial centre of the district. ‘From me,” is emphatic; the real life is due to man’s relation with Christ, not to independent efforts upon his own part. Local Christians needed to be made sensitive to their need of Christ; in Laodicea evidently, as in Bunyan’s Mansoul, Mr. Desires-awake dwelt in a very mean cottage. ‘‘ Re- fined”’=genuine and fresh, as opposed to counterfeit and traditional (cf. Plato, Rep. iii. 413 ε, 416 e). For παιδεία wrought upon the people of God by a divine Davidic king whose words are πεπυρωµένα ὑπὲρ χρυσίον τίµιον, see Ps. Sol. xvii. 47, 4δ.--ἵμάτια. Laodicea was a famous manufacturing centre, whose trade largely consisted of tunics and cloth for garments. The allusion is (cf. below, on ver. 20 and xvi. 15) to care- less Christians caught off their guard by the suddenness of the second advent. κολλούριον or κολλύριον (cf. the account of a blind soldier’s cure by a god [Aescu- lapius ?] who bade him κολλύριον συντ- ρῖψαι, Dittenberger’s Sylloge Inscript. Graec. 807, 15 f.), an eye-salve for tender eyes: an allusion to the ‘‘ Phrygian powder ’”’ used by oculists of the famous medical school at Laodicea (C. B. P. i. 52). To the Christian Jesus supplies that enlightenment which the Jews found in the law (Ps. xix. 8); ‘‘uerba legis corona sunt capitis, collyrium oculis” (Τγαεί. Siphra fol. 143, 2); ‘‘uerba legis corona sunt capitis, torques collo, collyrium oculis”’ (Vajikra R., fol. 156, 1). True self-knowledge can be gained only by the help of Christ, z.e., in the present case mediated by Christian prophecy. Like Victor., Lightfoot (Colossians, p. 44) interprets this allusion by the light of Eph. i. 8, Col. i. 27, as a rebuke to the vaunted intellectual resources of the Church; but there is no need thus to narrow the reference. It is to be ob- served that John does not threaten Lao-
dicea with the loss of material wealth (cf. Pirke Aboth, cited above on ii. g) in order to have her spiritual life revived. Ver. το. The prophet now relents a little; the church has still a chance of righting herself. Such a reproof as he has given in Christ’s name, and the discipline it involves (παιδεύω, wider than ἐλ.) are really evidence of affection, not of antipathy or rejection. This is ths method of God at least (ἐγώ, emphatic ; ‘“‘whatever others do’’), with whom cen- sure does not mean hostility. Φφιλῶ, the substitution of this synonym (contrast Heb. xii. 6) for the LXX Gyamd is τε- markable in view of the latter term’s usage in the Apocalypse; the other variation ἐλέγχω καὶ παιδεύω (ἐλ. B, παιδ. $A, LXX) is probably ornate rather than a duplicate. The love of Christ for his people is mentioned in the Apoca- lypse only here (with a reminiscence if not a quotation of O.T.), ini. 5, and in 11. g (incidentally). In the latter pas- sage, the divine love sustains and safe- guards those who are loyal; here it in- flicts painful wounds upon the unworthy, to regain their loyalty. {€yAeve (pres.)= a habit, µετανόησον (aor.)=a definite change once for all. The connexion (οὖν) seems to be: let the foregoing τε- buke open your eyes at once to the need of repentance, and also to the fact that it is really love on my part which prompts me thus to expose and to chastise you; such a sense of my loving concern, as well as of your own plight, should kindle an eager heat of indignation (2 Cor, viii. 11, ἄλλα ῆλον) gathering into a flame of repentance that will burn up indiffer- ence and inconsistency (cf. Weinel, 188 f.). The urgent need of immediate τε- pentance rests not only on the special character of the temptation to which the local Christians were succumbing (‘It is a great grace to find out that we are lukewarm, but we are lost if we do not act with vigour. It is like going to sleep in the snow, almost a pleasant, tingling feeling at the first, and then—lost for