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Mat_5:47. And if ye shall have welcomed your brethren alone (saluted them lovingly), what special thing have you done? The conception, “to act in a friendly manner” (Luther, Tholuck, Bleek, Hofmann), is not the significatio, but certainly the adsignificatio of ἀσπάζεσθαι , as often in classic writers. Comp. ἀσπάζεσθαι καὶ φιλεῖν , Stallbaum, ad Plat. Ap. p. 29 D, and Rep. 499 A.
τοὺς ἀδελφ . ὑμῶν μόνον ] is not to be limited to the members of families and other close associations (Tholuck and others), as was already done by the reading φίλους , approved of by Griesbach; but it refers to the members of the nation, and applies to the national particularism of the Jews; consequently the national antithesis is οἱ ἐθνικοί . Comp. Bleek.
τί περισσόν ] what preference? what distinguishes you above others, “ut decet filios Dei,” Bengel. Comp. Rom_3:1; Soph. O. R. 841. Instead of τί περισσόν , Justin, Apol. i. 15, quotes τί καινόν , which substantially agrees with τί περισσόν , and belongs only to another form of the idea, not to a higher point of view (Hilgenfeld). See Ritschl in the Theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 490 f.