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2Th_3:2. In deliverance from his adversaries lay the condition that he, the apostle, could work the more effectively for the diffusion of the gospel. Theodoret: Διπλῆ μὲν ἡ αἴτησις εἶναι δοκεῖ , μία δὲ ὅμως ἐστίν · τῶν γὰρ πονηρῶν ἀνθρώπων ἡττωμένων , ἀκωλύτως καὶ ὁ τοῦ κηρύγματος συντρέχει λόγος .
ἄτοπος ] is used of that which is not in its right place. Used of persons, it denotes one who does or says that which is inappropriate under the circumstances. Thus it is equivalent to ineptus (Cic. de orat. ii. 4). From “propriety” it passes to its wider ethical meaning, and is used of men who act contrary to human or divine laws. Thus it receives the general signification of bad or godless. See examples in Kypke, Observ. II. p. 145 f.; Loesner, and Wetstein.
But the Thessalonian Jews are not to be understood by the ἄτοποι καὶ πονηροὶ ἄνθρωποι , from whose persecution the apostle had already, at an earlier period, frequently suffered (so, as it would seem, Pelt), for their influence hardly extended to Corinth. Persons must be meant who were then present in Corinth itself. But we are not to think on Christians who were only so in name (Zwingli, Musculus, Hemming, Flatt, Schrader, and others), and particularly on false teachers among the Jewish Christians (Schott), but on fanatical Jews.[70] Comp. Act_18:6; Act_18:12 ff. That the adversaries of the apostle could not have been already Christians, follows from the inferential clause setting forth the naturalness of the existence of such people, οὐ γὰρ πάντων ἡ πίστις , for faith is not an affair of all, i.e. it finds not a place among all, all have not a susceptible heart for it. On the form of the expression, compare the well-known proverb: Οὐ παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἐς Κόρινθόν ἐσθʼ ὁ πλοῦς (Strabo, viii. 6. 20, ed. Siebenk.; Suidas, T. 2, p. 739.)
ἡ πίστις ] on account of the article, can only denote the Christian faith simply and generally. To understand the expression of fidelity or honesty, with Schoettgen, Moldenhauer, Koppe, Bolten, Krause, Flatt, and others, is as incorrect as to interpret it of true faith, with Schott. For in the first case οὐ γὰρ πάντες πιστοί would require to have been written, and in the second case οὐ γὰρ πάντων ἡ πίστις ἀληθής .
[70] Hammond also finds here another reference to the Gnostics!