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Php_1:15. This is not indeed the case with all, that they ἐν κυρίῳ πεποιθότες τοῖς δεσμ . μου περισσοτ . τολμ . κ . τ . λ . No, some in Rome preach with an improper feeling and design; but some also with a good intention. (Both parties are described in further detail in Php_1:16-17.) In either case
Christ is preached, wherein I rejoice and will rejoice (Php_1:18).
τινὲς μὲν καὶ διὰ φθόνον κ . ἔριν ] These do not form a part of those described in Php_1:14 (Ambrosiaster, Erasmus, Calvin, and others, also Weiss, Hofmann, and Hinsch), for these latter are characterized by ἐν κυρίῳ πεποιθ . τοῖς δεσμ . μου quite otherwise, and indeed in a way which excludes the idea of envy and contention (comp. also Huther, l.c.), and appear as the majority to which these τινές stand in contrast as exceptions; but they are the anti-Pauline party, Judaizing preachers, who must have pursued their practices in Rome, as in Asia and Greece, and exercised an immoral, hostile opposition to the apostle and his gospel.[65] We have no details on the subject, but from Romans 14 we see that there was a fruitful field on which this tendency might find a footing and extend its influence in Rome. The idea that it refers to certain members of the Pauline school, who nevertheless hated the apostle personally (Wiesinger, comp. Flatt), or were envious of his high reputation, and impugned his mode of action (Weiss), is at variance with the previous ἐν κυρίῳ , assumes a state of things which is in itself improbable, and is not required by the utterance of Php_1:18 (see the remark after Php_1:18). See also Schneckenburger, p. 301 f.
ΚΑΊ ] indicates that, whilst the majority were actuated by a good disposition (Php_1:14), an evil motive also existed in several,—expresses, therefore, the accession of something else in other subjects, but certainly not the accession of a subordinate co-operating motive in a portion of the same persons designated in Php_1:14 (Hofmann).
διὰ φθόνον κ . ἔριν ] on account of envy and strife, that is, for the sake of satisfying the strivings of their jealousy in respect to my influence, and of their contentious disposition towards me. Comp. Php_1:17. On διὰ φθόνον , comp. Mat_27:18; Mar_15:10; Plat. Rep. p. 586 D: φθόνῳ διὰ φιλοτιμίαν .
ΤΙΝῈς ΔῈ ΚΑΊ ] But some also; there also are not wanting such as, etc. Observe that the δὲ καί joins itself with ΤΙΝΈς , whereas in ΜῈΝ ΚΑΊ previously the ΚΑΊ is attached to the following ΔΙᾺ ΦΘΌΝΟΝ . The ΤΙΝΈς here are they who in Php_1:14 were described as ΠΛΕΊΟΝΕς , but are now brought forward as, in contrast to the ΤΙΝῈς ΜΈΝ , the other portion of the preachers, without any renewed reference to their preponderance in numbers, which had been already intimated.[66]
διʼ εὐδοκίαν ] on account of goodwill, that is, because they entertain a feeling of goodwill towards me. This interpretation is demanded by the context, both in the antithesis διὰ φθόνον κ . ἔριν , and also in Php_1:16 : ἘΞ ἈΓΆΠΗς . As to the linguistic use of ΕὐΔΟΚΊΑ in this sense (Php_2:13), see Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 372. Comp. on Rom_10:1. Others take it, contrary to the context, as: “ex benevolentia, qua desiderant hominum salutem” (Estius, comp. already Pelagius); or, “quod ipsi id probarent,” from conviction (Grotius, Heinrichs, and others), from taking delight in the matter generally (Huther), or in the cause of the apostle (de Wette), or in his preaching (Weiss).
[65] For the person to whom individually their φθόνος and ἔρις (as likewise the subsequent εὐδοκία ) had reference was self-evident to the readers, and Paul, moreover, announces it to them in ver. 16 f. Without due reason Hinsch finds in this the mark of a later period, when the guarding of the apostle’s personal position alone was concerned. See against this, Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschr. 1873, p. 180 f.
[66] Van Hengel has not taken this into account, when he assumes that in τινὲς δὲ καί Paul had in view only a portion of those designated in ver. 14. It is an objection to this idea, that what is said subsequently in ver. 16 of the τινὲς δὲ καί completely harmonizes with that, whereby the πλείονες generally, and not merely a portion of them, were characterized in ver. 14 ( ἐν κυρ . πεπ . τ . δεσμ .). This applies also in opposition to Hofmann, according to whom the two τινές , ver. 15 f., belong to the πλείονες of ver. 14, whom they divide into two classes. Hofmann’s objection to our view, viz. that the apostle does not say that the one party preach solely out of envy and strife, and the other solely out of goodwill, is irrelevant. He could not, indeed, have desired to say this, and does not say it; but he could describe in general, as he has done, the ethical antitheses which characterized the two parties. Moreover, ἔρις means everywhere in the N. T., and especially here in its conjunction with φθόνος (comp. Rom_1:29; 1Ti_6:4), not rivalry—the weaker sense assigned to it here, without a shadow of justification from the context, by Hofmann (“they wish to outdo him”)—but strife, contention. Just as little is ἐριθεία to be reduced to the general notion of egotism, as is done by Hofmann; see on ver. 17.