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Mat_24:12. And in consequence of the growing prevalence of wickedness (as the result of what is mentioned in Mat_24:10-11), the love of the greater number will become cold; that predominance of evil within the Christian community will have the effect of cooling the brotherly love of the majority of its members. The moral degeneracy within the pale of that community will bring about as its special result a prevailing want of charity, that specific contrast to the true characteristic of the Christian life (Gal_5:6; 1Co_13:1 ff.; 1Jn_4:20). For ἀνομία , the opposite of moral compliance with the law of God (= ἁμαρτία , 1Jn_3:4), comp. Mat_7:23, Mat_13:41, Mat_23:28; 2Co_6:14; 2Th_2:7. For ψύγειν with γ , comp. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 318.
τῶν πολλῶν ] are not the πολλοί mentioned in Mat_24:10 (Fritzsche), whose love, as that verse informs us, is already changed into hatred, but the multitude, the mass, the great body (Kühner, II. l, p. 548; Ast, Lex. Plat. III. p. 148) of Christians. In the case of those who were distinguished above the ordinary run of Christians, no such cooling was to take place; but yet, as compared with the latter, they were only to be regarded as ὀλίγοι . According to Dorner, Mat_24:11-12 apply not to the apostolic age, but to a subsequent stage in the history of the church. But such a view is inconsistent with the numerous testimonies to be met with in the Epistles, with the apprehensions and expectations regarding impending events to which they give expression. Comp. on Gal_1:4.