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Col_4:10. Sending of salutations down to Col_4:14.
Ἀρίσταρχος ] a Thessalonian, known from Act_19:29; Act_20:4; Act_27:2, Phm_1:24, was with Paul at Caesarea, when the latter had appealed to the emperor, and travelled with him to Rome, Act_27:2.
ὁ συναιχμάλωτός μου ] Οὐδὲν τούτου τοῦ ἐγκωμίου μεῖζον , Chrysostom. In the contemporary letter to Philemon at Phlemon Col_1:24, the same Aristarchus is enumerated among the συνεργοί ; and, on the other hand, at Phm_1:23 Epaphras, of whose sharing the captivity our Epistle makes no mention (see Col_1:7), is designated as συναιχμάλωτος , so that in Philem. l.c. the συναιχμάλωτος is expressly distinguished from the mere συνεργοί , and the former is not affirmed of Aristarchus. Hence various interpreters have taken it to refer not to a proper, enforced sharing of the captivity, but to a voluntary one, it being assumed, namely, that friends of the apostle allowed themselves to be temporarily shut up with him in prison, in order to be with him and to minister to him not merely as visitors, but continuously day and night. Comp. Huther, de Wette, and Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. xxi. According to this view, such friends changed places from time to time, so that, when the apostle wrote our letter, Aristarchus, and when he wrote that to Philemon, Epaphras, shared his captivity. But such a relation could the less be gathered by the readers from the mere συναιχμάλωτος (comp. Lucian, As. 27), seeing that Paul himself was a prisoner, and consequently they could not but find in συναιχμάλ . simply the entirely similar position of Aristarchus as a συνδεσμώτης (Plat Rep. p. 516 C; Thuc. vi. 60. 2), and that as being so at the same time, not, as in Rom_16:7, at some earlier period. Hence we must assume that now Aristarchus, but when the Epistle to Philemon was written, Epaphras, lay in prison at the same time with the apostle,—an imprisonment which is to be regarded as detention for trial, and the change of persons in the case must have had its explanation in circumstances to us unknown but yet, notwithstanding the proximity of the two letters in point of time, sufficiently conceivable. It is to be observed, moreover, that as αἰχμάλ . always denotes captivity in war (see on Eph_4:8; also Luk_4:18), Paul by συναιχμ . sets himself forth as a captive warrior (in the service of Christ). Comp. συστρατιώτης , Php_2:25; Phm_1:2. Hofmann (comp. also on Rom_16:7) is of opinion that we should think “of the war-captive state of one won by Christ from the kingdom of darkness,” so that συναιχμάλωτος would be an appellation for fellow-Christian; but this is an aberration, which ought least of all to have been put forth in the presence of a letter, which Paul wrote in the very character of a prisoner.
Upon ἀνεψιός , consobrinus, cousin: Herod, vii. 5, 82, ix. 10; Plat. Legg. xi p. 925 A; Xen. Anab. vii. 8. 9, Tob_7:12, Num_36:11; see Andoc. i. 47; Pollux, iii. 28. Not to be confounded either with nephew ( ἀδελφιδοῦς ) or with ἀνεψιάδης , cousin’s son, in the classical writers, ἀνεψιοῦ παῖς . See generally, Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 506. To take it in a wider sense, like our “kinsman, relative” (so in Hom. Il. ix. 464, who, however, also uses it in the strict sense as in x. 519), there is the less reason, seeing that Paul does not use the word elsewhere. Moreover, as no other Mark at all occurs in the N. T., there is no sufficient ground for the supposition of Hofmann, that Paul had by ὁ ἀνεψ . Βαρν . merely wished to signify which Mark he meant Chrysostom and Theophylact already rightly perceived that the relationship with the highly-esteemed Barnabas was designed to redound to the commendation of Mark.
περὶ οὗ ἐλαβ . ἐντολ .] in respect of whom (Mark) ye have received, injunctions[173]—a remark which seems to be made not without a design of reminding them as to their execution. What injunctions are meant, by whom and through whom, they were given, and whether orally or in writing, Paul does not say; but the recalling of them makes it probable that they proceeded from himself, and were given ἀγράφως διά τινων (Oecumenius). Ewald conjectures that they were given in the letter to the Laodiceans, and related to love-offerings for Jerusalem, which Mark was finally to fetch and attend to. But the work of collection was probably closed with the last journey of the apostle to Jerusalem. Others hold, contrary to the notion of ἐντολή , that letters of recommendation are meant from Barnabas (Grotius), or from the Roman church (Estius); while others think that the following ἐὰν ἔλθῃ κ . τ . λ . forms the contents of ἐντολάς (Calvin—who, with Syriac, Ambrosiaster, and some codd., reads subsequently δέξασθαι ,—comp. Beza, Castalio, Bengel, Bähr, and Baumgarten-Crusius),—a view against which may be urged the plural ἐντολάς and the absence of the article. Hofmann incorrectly maintains that περὶ οὗ ἐλάβ . ἐντολάς is to be taken along with ἐὰν ἔλθῃ π . ὑμ .: respecting whom ye have obtained instructions for the case of his coming to you. This the words could not mean; for ἐὰν ἔλθῃ π . ὑμ . signifies nothing else than: if he shall have come to you, and this accords not with ἐλάβ . ἐντολ ., but only with δέξασθε αὐτόν ,[174] which Hofmann makes an exclamation annexed without connecting link (that is, with singular abruptness).
ἐὰν ἔλθῃ κ . τ . λ .] Parenthesis; Mark must therefore have had in view a journey, which was to bring him to Colossae. δέχεσθαι of hospitable reception, as often in the N. T. (Mat_10:14; Joh_4:45) and in classical authors (Xen. Anab. iv. 8. 23). From the circumstance, however, that δέξασθε stands without special modal definition, it is not to be inferred that Paul was apprehensive lest the readers should not, without this summons, have recognised Mark (on account of Act_15:38 f.) as an apostolic associate (Wieseler, Chronol. des apost. Zeitalt. p. 567). Not the simple δέξασθε , but a more precise definition, would have been called for in the event of such an apprehension.
[173] περὶ οὗ is not to be referred to Barnabas, as, following Theophylact and Cajetanus (the former of whom, however, explains as if παρʼ οὗ were read), Otto, Pastoralbr. p. 259 ff., has again done. The latter understands under the ἐντολάς instructions formerly issued to the Pauline churches not to receive Barnabas, which were now no longer to be applied. As if the παροξυσμός of Act_15:39 could have induced the apostle to issue such an anathema to his churches against the highly-esteemed Barnabas, who was accounted of apostolic dignity! Paul did not act so unjustly and imprudently. Comp., on the contrary, Gal_2:9 and (notwithstanding what is narrated at Gal_2:11) 1Co_9:6.
[174] In 1Ti_3:14 f., a passage to which Hofmann, with very little ground, appeals, the verb of the chief clause is, in fact, a present ( γράφω ), not, as would be the case here, a praeterite, which expresses an act of the past ( ἐλάβετε ). There the meaning is: In the case of my departure being delayed, however, this my letter has the object, etc. But here, if the conditional clause were to be annexed to the past act ἐλάβετε , the circumstance conditioning the latter would logically have to be conceived and expressed in oblique form (from the point of view of the person giving the injunction), in some such form, therefore, as: εἰ ἔλθοι πρὸς ὑμᾶς (comp. Act_24:19; Act_27:39; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 491 f.).