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2Co_8:23 f. Summary closing recommendation of all the three delegate.
εἴτε ὑπὲρ Τίτου ] sc. λέγω or γράφω . Be it that I speak on behalf of Titus, he is my associate and (especially) in regard to you my fellow-worker, and my intercession is thus made with good reaso.
εἴτε ἀδελφοὶ ἡμῶν ] be it that they are brothers of ours, namely, for whom I speak, they are delegates of churches,[283] an honour to Christ, people, whose personal character and working redound to Christ’s honour. The words to be supplied with εἴτε in both cases would occur of themselves to the reader of the incomplete passage. Comp. Fritzsche, ad Rom. III. p. 47 f. Observe, however, that ἀδελφοὶ ἡμῶν is predicative, and therewith qualitative; hence the absence of the article appears to be strictly regular,[284] denoting the category to which the subjects meant in this second half of the verse belong, and therefore neither unsuitable (Rückert) nor yet erroneous (Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 76 [E. T. 87]; comp. Hofmann).
ἡμῶν ] as in 2Co_8:22. The distinguishing of the two others from Titus, who holds a higher position, by the qualitative ἀδελφοὶ ἡμῶν , shows that ἀδελφοί are not official associates. Such a one Titus was; the two others, however, were only distinguished church-members—as it were, lay-brothers commissioned ad hoc, the one by the churches, the other by Paul.
[283] In so far as they did not come as private persons, but as agents in the business of the church, as which they were appointed partly by destination of the apostle (namely, the second of the brethren), partly by the choice of the Macedonian churches (the first of the brethren, ver. 18 f.).
[284] This absence of the article has led Hofmann wrongly to take all the nominatives in ver. 23 as subjects, but ὑπὲρ Τίτου as a parenthesis (“which holds true of Titus”), and then οὖν in ver. 24 as the οὖν of the apodosis. A groundless artificial construction, in which the awkward and unprecedented parenthesis (Paul would have said something like Τίτον δὲ λέγω , and that after συνεργός , comp. 1Co_10:29; Joh_6:71) would be simply superfluous in the highest degree, since, if κοινωνὸς κ . τ . λ . is the subject, the person thereby indicated would be self-evident. Just as uncalled for here after the short alleged protasis would be the epanaleptic οὖν of the apodosis. Comp. on Rom_2:17-24.