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Mat_23:15. Instead of helping men into the Messiah’s kingdom, what contemptible efforts to secure proselytes to their own way of thinking! This representation of pharisaic zeal is doubtless hyperbolical, though it is, at the same time, based upon actual journeyings for the purpose of making converts (Joseph. Antt. xx. 2. 4). On Jewish proselytism generally, see Danz in Meuschen, N. T. ex Talm. ill. p. 649. Wetstein’s note on this passage.
ἕνα ] a single.
καὶ ὅταν γένηται ] sc. προσήλυτος .
υἱὸν γεέννης ] one fit for Gehenna, condemned to be punished in it. Comp. on Mat_8:12; Joh_17:12.
διπλότερον ὑμῶν ] is commonly taken in an adverbial sense (Vulg.: duplo quam), a sense in which it is consequently to be understood in the corresponding passage of Justin (c. Tr. 122): νῦν δὲ διπλότερον υἱοὶ γεέννης , ὡς αὐτὸς εἶπε , γίνεσθε . Coming as it does after υἱόν , it is more natural to regard it, with Valla, as an adjective: who is doubly more so than you are. For the comparative itself, comp. App. Hist. praef. 10 : σκεύη διπλότερα τούτων . But it is still rendered doubtful whether διπλότερον is to be taken in an adverbial or adjective sense by a passage from Justin as above: οἱ δὲ προσήλυτοι οὐ μόνον οὐ πιστεύουσιν , ἀλλὰ διπλότερον ὑμῶν βλασφημοῦσι . This passage is likewise unfavourable to Kypke’s interpretation: fallaciorem, which adjective would be of a more specific character than the context would admit of. But in how far was Jesus justifiable in using the words διπλότερον ὑμῶν ? According to Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Euthymius Zigabenus: in consequence of the evil example of him who made the convert, which was such that “ex malo ethnico fit pejor Judaeus” (Erasmus); according to de Wette: in consequence of the high estimate in which the teachers are held by their disciples, and because superstition and error usually appear with a twofold greater intensity in the taught than in the teachers; according to Olshausen: because the converted heathen had not the advantage of enjoying the spiritual aid to be found in Mosaism; according to Bleek: because it was common also to admit as converts those who were influenced by mere external considerations. According to the context ( ποιεῖτε ): on account of the manner in which the proselytes continued to be influenced and wrought upon by those who converted them, in consequence of which they were generally found to become more bigoted, more unloving, and more extreme than their instructors, and, of course, necessarily more corrupt.