^5Νεκρώσατε οὖν τὰ μέλη τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς· πορνείαν, ἀκαθαρσίαν, πάθος,
ἐπιθυμίαν κακήν, καὶ τὴν πλεονεξίαν,
5–11. ‘So then realise this death to the world; kill all your earthly
members. Is it fornication, impurity of whatever kind, passion, evil
desire? Or again, is it that covetousness which makes a religion, an
idolatry, of greed? Do not deceive yourselves. For all these things
God’s wrath will surely come. In these sins ye, like other Gentiles,
indulged in times past, when your life was spent amidst them. But now
everything is changed. Now you also must put away not this or that
desire, but all sins whatsoever. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy
abuse; banish it from your lips. Be not false one to another in word or
deed; but cast off for ever the old man with his actions, and put on the
new, who is renewed from day to day, growing unto perfect knowledge and
refashioned after the image of his Creator. In this new life, in this
regenerate man, there is not, there cannot be, any distinction of Greek
or Jew, of circumcision or uncircumcision; there is no room for
barbarian, for Scythian, for bond or free. Christ has displaced, has
annihilated, all these; Christ is Himself all things and in all things’.
5. The false doctrine of the Gnostics had failed to check sensual
indulgence (ii. 23). The true doctrine of the Apostle has power to kill
the whole carnal man. The substitution of a comprehensive principle for
special precepts—of the heavenly life in Christ for a code of minute
ordinances—at length attains the end after which the Gnostic teachers
have striven, and striven in vain.
νεκρώσατε οὖν] i.e. ‘Carry out this principle of _death_ to the world
(ii. 20 ἀπεθάνετε, iii. 3 ἀπεθάνετε), and kill everything that is
mundane and carnal in your being’.
τὰ μέλη κ.τ.λ.] Each person has a twofold moral personality. There is in
him the ‘old man’, and there is in him also ‘the new’ (vv. 9, 10). The
old man with all his members must be pitilessly slain. It is plain that
τὰ μέλη here is used, like ἄνθρωπος in ver. 9, not physically, but
morally. Our actual limbs may be either τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς or τὰ ἐν τοῖς
οὐράνοις, according as they are made instruments for the world or for
Christ: just as we—our whole being—may identify ourselves with the
παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος or with the νέος ἄνθρωπος of our twofold potentiality.
For this use of the physical, as a symbol of the moral of which it is
the potential instrument, compare Matt. v. 29 sq. εἰ δὲ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου ὁ
δεξιὸς σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔξελε αὐτὸν κ.τ.λ.
I have ventured to punctuate after τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. Thus πορνείαν κ.τ.λ.
are prospective accusatives, which should be governed directly by some
such word as ἀπόθεσθε. But several dependent clauses interpose; the last
of these incidentally suggests a contrast between the past and the
present; and this contrast, predominating in the Apostle’s mind, leads
to an abrupt recasting of the sentence, _νυνὶ δὲ_ ἀπόθεσθε καὶ
ὑμεῖς _τὰ πάντα_ in disregard of the original construction. This
opposition of ποτέ and νῦν has a tendency to dislocate the construction
in St Paul, as in i. 22 νυνὶ δὲ ἀποκατηλλάγητε (or ἀποκατήλλαξεν), i. 26
νῦν δὲ ἐφανέρωθη: see the note on this latter passage. For the whole run
of the sentence (the parenthetic relative clauses, the contrast of past
and present, and the broken construction) compare Ephes. ii. 1–5 καὶ
ὑμᾶς ... ἐν αἷς ποτέ ... ἐν οἷς καὶ ... ποτε ... ὁ δὲ Θεός ... καὶ ὄντας
ἡμᾶς συνεζωοποίησεν.
With the common punctuation the interpretation is equally awkward,
whether we treat τὰ μέλη and πορνείαν κ.τ.λ. as in direct apposition, or
as double accusatives, or in any other way. The case is best put by
Severianus, σάρκα καλεῖ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, ἧς καὶ τὰ μέλη καταριθμεῖ ... ὁ
παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπός ἐστιν τὸ φρόνημα τὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, μέλη δὲ αὐτοῦ αἱ
πράξεις τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων; but this is an evasion of the difficulty, which
consists in the direct apposition of the instruments and the activities,
from whatever point they are viewed.
πορνείαν κ.τ.λ.] The general order is from the less comprehensive to the
more comprehensive. Thus πορνεία is a special kind of uncleanness, while
ἀκαθαρσία is uncleanness in any form, Ephes. v. 3 πορνεία δὲ καὶ
ἀκαθαρσία πᾶσα; comp. Gal. v. 19 πορνεία, ἀκαθαρσία, ἀσέλγεια, with the
note there. Thus again πάθος, though frequently referring to this class
of sins (Rom. i. 26, 1 Thess. iv. 5), would include other base passions
which do not fall under the category of ἀκαθαρσία, as for instance
gluttony and intemperance.
πάθος, ἐπιθυμίαν] The two words occur together in 1 Thess. iv. 5 μὴ ἐν
πάθει ἐπιθυμίας. So in a passage closely resembling the text, Gal. v. 24
οἱ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τὴν σάρκα ἐστάυρωσαν σὺν τοῖς παθήμασιν καὶ ταῖς
ἐπιθυμίαις. The same vice may be viewed as a πάθος from its passive and
an ἐπιθυμία from its active side. The word ἐπιθυμία is not used here in
the restricted sense which it has e.g. in Arist. _Eth. Nic._ ii. 4,
where it ranges with anger, fear, etc., being related to πάθος as the
species to the genus (see Gal. l.c. note). In the Greek Testament
ἐπιθυμία has a much more comprehensive sense; e.g. Joh. viii. 44 τὰς
ἐπιθυμίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν θέλετε ποιεῖν. Here, if anything, ἐπιθυμία is
wider than πάθος. While πάθος includes all ungovernable affections,
ἐπιθυμία κακή reaches to all evil longings. Ἰδού, says Chrysostom,
γενικῶς τὸ πᾶν εἶπε· πάντα γὰρ ἐπιθυμία κακή, βασκανία, ὀργή, λύπη. The
epithet is added because ἐπιθυμία is capable of a good sense: comp. 1
Cor. x. 6 ἐπιθυμητὰς κακῶν.
καὶ τὴν πλεονεξίαν] ‘_and_ especially _covetousness_’. Impurity and
covetousness may be said to divide between them nearly the whole domain
of human selfishness and vice; ‘Si avaritia prostrata est, exsurgit
libido’ (Cypr. _de Mort._ 3). The one has been already dealt with; the
other needs now to be specially denounced; comp. Ephes. v. 3 πορνεία δὲ
καὶ ἀκαθαρσία πᾶσα ἢ πλεονεξία. ‘Homo extra Deum’, says Bengel (on Rom.
i. 29), ‘quærit pabulum in creatura materiali vel per voluptatem vel per
avaritiam.’ Comp. _Test. xii Patr._ Jud. 18 φυλάξασθε οὖν, τέκνα μου,
ἀπὸ τῆς πορνείας καὶ τῆς φιλαργυρίας ... ὅτι ταῦτα ἀφιστᾷ νόμου Θεοῦ.
Similarly Lysis Pythag. 4 (_Epistol. Græc._ p. 602, ed. Hercher)
ὀνομάξαιμι δ’ ἂν αὐτῶν [i.e. the vices] πρᾶτον ἐπελθὼν τὰς ματέρας,
ἀκρασίαν τε καὶ πλεονεξίαν· ἄμφω δὲ πολύγονοι πεφύκαντι. It must be
remembered that πλεονεξία is much wider than φιλαργυρία (see Trench _N.
T. Syn._ § xxiv, p. 77 sq.), which itself is called ῥίζα πάντων τῶν
κακῶν (1 Tim. vi. 10).
The attempt to give πλεονεξία here and in other passages the sense of
‘impurity’ (see e.g. Hammond on Rom. i. 29) is founded on a
misconception. The words πλεονεκτεῖν, πλεονεξία, will sometimes be used
in relation to sins of uncleanness, because such may be acts of
injustice also. Thus adultery is not only impurity, but it is robbery
also: hence 1 Thess. iv. 6 τὸ μὴ ὑπερβαίνειν καὶ πλεονεκτεῖν ἐν τῷ
πράγματι τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ (see the note there). In other passages again
there will be an accidental connexion; e.g. Ephes. iv. 19 εἰς ἐργασίαν
ἀκαθαρσίας πάσης ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ, i.e. ‘with greediness’, ‘with entire
disregard for the rights of others’. But no where do the words in
themselves suggest this meaning. Here the particles καὶ τὴν show that a
new type of sin is introduced with πλεονεξίαν: and in the parallel
passage Ephes. v. 3 (quoted above) the same distinction is indicated by
the change from the conjunctive particle καί to the disjunctive ἤ. It is
an error to suppose that this sense of πλεονεξία is supported by Clem.
Alex. _Strom._ iii. 12 (p. 551 sq.) ὡς γὰρ ἡ πλεονεξία πορνεία λέγεται,
τῇ αὐταρκείᾳ ἐναντιουμένη. On the converse error of explaining ἀκαθαρσία
to mean ‘greediness’, ‘covetousness’, see the note on 1 Thess. ii. 3.
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