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Jam_3:15. The character of the σοφία from which bitter zeal and partisanship proceed.
οὐκ ἔστιν αὕτη ἡ σοφία ] αὕτη is not to be separated from ἡ σοφία , but forms along with it the subject. Luther incorrectly translates: “for this is not the wisdom,” etc. By αὕτη ἡ σοφία is meant that wisdom by which man has ζῆλον πικρόν in his heart, or that from which it springs; the predicate to it is: οὐκ ἔστιν ἄνωθεν κατερχομένη .
οὐκ ἔστιν ] emphatically precedes, and the participle takes the place of an adjective (de Wette, Wiesinger, Winer, p. 313 [E. T. 439]). Gebser, Pott, Schneckenburger incorrectly explain ἐστιν κατερχομένη = κατέρχεται . On the idea ἄνωθεν κατέρχ . comp. chap. Jam_1:17.
As an ungodly wisdom it is characterized by three adjectives which form a climax: ἐπίγειος , ψυχική , δαιμονιώδης .
ἐπίγειος ] expresses the sharpest contrast to ἄνωθεν κατερχομένη , that wisdom being designated as such which belongs not to heaven, but to earth. That it is sinful (“taking root in a whole life of sin,” Kern, Wiesinger) is not yet expressed. James calls it ψυχική ] inasmuch as it belongs not to the πνεῦμα , but, in contrast to it, to the earthly life of the soul; see Meyer on 1Co_2:14, and author’s explanation of Jud_1:19. These two first ideas are abstractly not of an ethical character, but they become so by being considered in contrast to the heavenly and the spiritual. It is otherwise with the third idea: δαιμονιώδης . This word ( ἅπ . λεγ .) = devilish, betokens both the origin and the nature, and is to be taken not in a figurative, but in its literal sense; comp. Jam_3:6, chap. Jam_4:7; incorrectly, Hottinger: impuro genio magis quam homine digna.
The explanation of Hornejus contains arbitrary statements: terrena, quia avaritiae dedita est, quae operibus terrenis inhiat; animalis, quia ad animi lubidines accommodatur; dacmoniaca, quod ambitioni et superbiae servit, quae propria diaboli vitia sunt; and equally so that of Lange, who finds here characterized “Judaistic and Ebionite zealotism,” and refers ἐπιγ . to “the chiliastic claims to the dominion of the earth.”[184]
[184] Without any justification, Schwegler finds here an allusion to the wisdom of the Gnostics.