Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 8:35 - 8:35

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 8:35 - 8:35


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

35. ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν θέλῃ. For whosoever would save (R.V.), or de sireth to save. “Will save” (A.V.) is too like the simple future, a defect found again in A.V. in Luk 19:14; Joh 6:67; Joh 7:17; Joh 8:44. The meaning of ψυχή varies in N.T., and we have no exact equivalent in English. It is (1) the physical life, which animates the flesh and perishes in death, Mar 10:45; (2) the immaterial part of man’s nature, which does not perish in death, and which is also called πνεῦμα, Luk 1:46; (3) where man’s nature is regarded as threefold, ψυχή is the lower side of the immaterial part, πνεῦμα being the upper, 1Th 5:23, where see Jowett, Lightfoot, and Milligan. Here the word fluctuates between (1) and (2). “Life” must be kept throughout the three verses, the context showing whether physical life or spiritual life is meant. The sweep of this Saying is immense. The world thinks that “nothing succeeds like success,” and that the chief end of human activity is one’s own happiness. Experience confirms Christ in teaching that nothing fails like success, for it is generally disappointing and often depraving to character, and that to seek one’s own happiness in all things is a sure way of missing it. Bede gives a good illustration; Frumentum si servas, perdis; si seminas, renovas. Cf. Joh 12:24; 1Co 15:36.

ὃ δʼ ἂν ἀπολέσει. The fut. indic. may be caused by the preceding ἀπολέσει, but the constr. is found elsewhere both in LXX. (Winer, p. 385) and in N.T. (W.H. App. p. 172). Cf. Rev 4:9. It is, however, exceptional and anomalous.

ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ. This important condition is in all three reports of this occasion, but not in Luk 14:26; Luk 17:33 or Joh 12:25. Καὶ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου is peculiar to Mk both here and Mar 10:29; see on Mar 1:15. Syr-Sin. has “and whosoever shall lose his life for My gospel’s sake.”