Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Thessalonians 2:7 - 2:7
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
7. Evidence for νηπιοι: א*BC*D*G, some dozen minuscc., latt vg (parvuli) cop aeth, Clem Or Cyr. Origen, on Mat 19:14, writes: Παυλος ως επισταμενος το Των γαρ τοιουτων εστιν η βασιλεια των ουρανων, δυναμενος εν βαρει, κ.τ.λ., εγενετο νηπιος κ. παραπλησιος τροφῳ θαλπουσῃ το εαυτης παιδιον. To the like effect Augustine (De catech. rudibus, 15): “Factus est parvulus in medio nostrum tamquam nutrix fovens filios suos. Num enim delectat, nisi amor invitet, decurtata et mutilata verba inmurmurare?” For ηπιοι: AאcCbDcKLP, most minn., cat. txt, syrr sah basm, Clem Bas Chr. νηπιοι has by far the better attestation; yet it is rejected by most editors and commentators in favour of ηπιοι as alone fitting the context, since gentleness is the opposite of the arrogance disclaimed in 1Th 2:6, while in the next clause the writer describes himself as a nurse, not a babe: the mixture of metaphors involved in the reading of אB is violent, despite Origen’s explanation. WH (with whom Lightfoot agrees), on the other hand, denounce ηπιοι as a “tame and facile adjective” characteristic of “the Syrian revisers” (Appendix, p. 128). In the continuous uncial writing Ν (after εγενηθημεν) might be insinuated or dropped with equal ease. The rarity of ηπιος (only 2Ti 2:24 besides in N.T.), and the frequency of νηπιος (esp. in Paul), tell for the former in point of transcriptional probability. νηπιοι is clearly the older extant reading: we must either regard ηπιοι as a corruption, or a happy correction, of νηπιοι on the part of the Syrian revisers. On the latter view, νηπιοι must be attributed to a primitive and widely spread dittography of the final ν of εγενηθημεν, which however, as A and the Sahidic Version testify, was not universal. The confusion of these two words is rather common in the mss.: see 2Ti 2:24; Eph 4:14; Heb 5:13.