Tipología del amor

The two textual matters taken up in this section—1 Thess. 2:7 and 2 Thess. 2:13—

were chosen not only because they are well-known textual questions in which the editors of the NA²⁶ seem to have the better of it over the commentaries, but also because they reveal the worst side of textual criticism in commentaries: the tendency

27 Cf. Frame, p. 156, “the εἰς is for the dative or for ἐν; ‘give to be in,’ ‘put in.’ ”

28 As Hiebert (p. 176), e.g., explicitly says.

29 Apparently to avoid the implication of the present participle, some suggest that the emphasis is substantival, “God the Giver of the Holy Spirit” (e.g., Moffatt, 35;

Findlay, 90; Hiebert, 176; Dunn, Baptism, 106, at least as referring to conversion).

The expressed concern here is to avoid the concept of “continuous or successive impartation” (Moffatt). But that is to avoid “second blessing theology” by an

unnecessary expedient. Paul’s concern is not on “successive gifts” of the Spirit, but on the present, ongoing work of the Spirit in their lives.

to make textual decisions ultimately on the weakest—at least most subjective—of all the textual criteria, namely intrinsic evidence, based on our prior commitments to what is most in keeping with Pauline usage/theology. The problem from a text-critical point of view is that mere lip-service is paid to truly text-critical questions, so as to dismiss them, in order to comment on the text one believes is most in keeping with Pauline style or theology.

In both cases, as in the former section, I will illustrate by offering my translation with textual footnotes; however, in the interest of space the “commentary” is basically limited to the textual arguments.

a. 1 Thessalonians 2:7 Translation:

6… nor seeking glory from people, neither from you nor from others—⁷although as apostles of Christ we could have made our weight felt—but³⁰ we became babes^a among you. Even as a nurse cares for her own children, ⁸so we, deeply yearning after you, were willing to impart to you …

The textual note reads as follows:

aGk. νήπιοι (supported by P⁶⁵

א

א

The commentary reads as follows:

Paul’s concern up through v. 6 has been easy to follow, both in terms of the argument itself and in light of its Hellenistic (Cynic) background. But with vv. 7–8, everything in Paul’s sentence begins to break down, both structurally and

metaphorically. The problem is twofold: the structure of the sentence itself, and the textual choice in v. 7 between “babes” and “gentle,”³¹ which rests upon the presence or absence of a single Greek letter (nu). These two issues in fact are interrelated, since if one understands Paul to have written “babes,” one will structure the clauses in one way; if one thinks he wrote “gentle,” the structures will be seen in another way (see n.

30 above). Since the structural question is largely determined by the textual one, some words are first of all necessary about the text itself, as to what Paul is most likely to have written.

30 Depending in large measure on how one resolves the textual matter in note a, the punctuation of this especially complex sentence is not at all easy. Most translations and commentaries put a full stop after the first clause in v. 7 (here bracketed with dashes) and begin a new clause with 7b. Thus they read this ἀλλά as beginning a new clause, as they also do the οὕτως that begins v. 8. That also means that the ὡς ἐάν that begins the third clause in v. 7 (here seen as the beginning of a new sentence) is

understood as dependent on 7b (= “But … even as …”). Read this way, there is indeed a “violent transition in the same sentence” (B. M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament [2nd edn.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1968], p. 231); but as argued below, this is a most unnatural way to handle Paul’s Greek.

31 See n. a above.

While it is true that a very good contextual case can be made for “gentle,” there are in fact no purely textual arguments that favor this reading. On the other hand, the following textual considerations strongly favor “babes” as the Pauline original.³²

1. The most common text-critical “reason” for choosing “gentle” suggests that νήπιοι is the result of common dittography, wherein a scribe (or scribes) repeated the final nu of the immediately preceding verb. In fact, however, this is no textual

argument at all, but is rather an explanation as to how νήπιοι might have arisen if one makes the prior assumption that ἤπιοι is the original reading. But in such a case the textual choice is made on the prior grounds of what Paul is most likely to have written in context, not on textual grounds, since if one begins with the opposite prior

assumption, that νήπιοι is original, then one can just as easily argue that ἤπιοι came about as the result of haplography—which happens just as frequently, since there is no scribal predilection toward one or the other. The point is that the possibility of dittography or haplography is open-ended. Either may have happened; but neither is an argument for one reading or the other as original.³³

The textual question, therefore, must be answered on other grounds. At this point the issues are two—whether the interchange was accidental or intentional—both of which favor “babes.” That is, (a) if the add/omit nu were accidental, then one should surely opt for νήπιοι on the basis of its superior attestation (see next paragraph); (b) likewise if the add/omit were intentional, then one should also opt for νήπιοι on the twin grounds that the “more difficult” reading is to be preferred as the original and that that reading which best explains the origin of the other is most likely the original.

A few more words about each of these matters.

2. The external evidence is decisively in favor of νήπιοι, being supported by the earliest evidence in the West (all the Old Latin) and in the East (Clement, P⁶⁵), as well as by the predominance of what is most often considered the best evidence (in this case, all but Codex A of the Egyptian witnesses). One would seem to need especially strong transcriptional arguments to overrule this combination of evidence. In fact, the evidence for ἤπιοι is so much weaker than for νήπιοι that under ordinary

circumstances no one would accept the former reading as original.

What is seldom noted, however, is a further significant historical factor: Since all the known early evidence—empire-wide—attests νήπιοι, anyone who favors ἤπιοι needs to offer good historical reasons as to how the (accidental) corruption happened so early (and so often) that it came to be the only text known for several centuries, while the “original” reading escaped all the known early evidence only to emerge much later in the monolithic, but patently secondary, evidence of the Byzantine tradition. This is not thereby to deny that such could have happened; but one wonders why only the “accident” is universally known in the first four Christian centuries.³⁴

32 Contra Metzger, Text, pp. 280–83; cf. his minority report in the Textual

Commentary, p. 630; so also Best, Bruce, Ellicott, Hendriksen, Marshall, Moffatt, Thomas, Wanamaker. Cf. Koester, “Text,” p. 225, who is characteristically bold:

“There cannot be the slightest doubt that νήπιοι is wrong.” In fact, of course, there is every kind of doubt, since all the purely textual arguments are quite in its favor. It is also favored, inter alia, by Westcott-Hort, Frame, Lightfoot, Milligan, and Morris.

33 In fairness it must be pointed out that Metzger, Text, p. 231, acknowledges this reality—although not all commentators do so.

34 It must be noted that the split evidence of Clement and Origen noted in the UBS apparatus offers no substantial evidence at all, since the reading ἤπιοι is almost certainly due to corruptions in the transmission of these patristic texts.

On this matter, I want to “plead the cause of history, and in the name of history to plead the cause of the documents.”³⁵

3. The same holds true with regard to the issues of transcriptional probabilities (having to do with scribal proclivities). It turns out, in fact, that the only thing that favors ἤπιοι is internal evidence, predicated on what scholars deem Paul most likely to have written. But the arguments raised in favor of ἤπιοι and against νήπιοι on transcriptional grounds actually favor νήπιοι only. That is, it was to alleviate the very difficulty that present-day scholars have with νήπιοι, as malapropos to the argument, that best explains why some (not very early) scribes changed it to read ἤπιοι. This is further corroborated by the fact that several manuscripts have been “corrected” in this case, and that the direction of correction in every case but one is away from νήπιοι in favor of ἤπιοι. Such “corrections” are obviously intentional, suggesting that most of the later corruptions to this text also moved intentionally in this direction (thus it is unlikely the result of pure accident).

What this means, then, is that all the evidence that is purely textual favors the reading “babes.” The task of the interpreter, it must be pointed out, is not to choose the more weakly attested reading for theological or stylistic reasons, but to make sense contextually of the reading which alone best accounts for the other, which is almost certainly the Pauline original.

But what about the questions of Pauline usage? Here again the evidence favors

“babes.” If “usage” = the meaning of words, it must be pointed out that ἤπιος is found elsewhere in the NT only in 2 Tim. 2:24, ³⁶ whereas νήπιος occurs as a frequent metaphor. This latter fact has sometimes been used to condemn “babes” here, on the grounds that this metaphor is always pejorative in Paul. But such a comment is at best prejudicial, and fails to come to terms with Paul’s own fluid use of metaphors. After all, in 1 Corinthians alone he uses it pejoratively in 3:1–2, in a neutral sense in 13:11, and positively in 14:20.³⁷

Furthermore, when “usage” is expanded to include syntax and sentence structures, the evidence again favors “babes.” If “gentle” were the original text, then one seems compelled to structure Paul’s sentence in the following way (cf. NRSV, NIV, NASB):

Nor did we seek praise from mortals, neither from you nor from others,

even though as apostles of Christ we might have made our weight felt.

But (ἀλλά) we were gentle among you,

like (NRSV for ὡς ἐάν) a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.

So (NRSV for οὕτως) deeply do we care for you …

35 The language is Jean Duplacy’s.

36 It has sometimes been argued that this makes ἤπιοι the “more difficult” reading in this case. But that implies, quite incorrectly in a case like this one, that a scribe was more conscious of how many times Paul used each word than he was of the sense of the immediate context. Scribes, after all, did not carry concordances with them, and ἤπιοι is a common enough word, even if found only once in the NT.

37 See G. D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 679, n. 15. This point has also been made recently by Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Apostles as Babes and Nurses in 1 Thessalonians 2:7,” in Faith and History: Essays in Honor of Paul W. Meyer, ed. J. T. Carroll, C. H. Cosgrove, and E.

E. Johnson (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), p. 196.

But there are several problems with this structural arrangement, having to do with Pauline usage elsewhere. First, under all normal circumstances an ἀλλά following a negative (in this case the intensified threefold repetition of οὔτε) would be understood as the second part of a “not/but” contrast. The same holds true, secondly, for the combination of ὡς … οὕτως, which would seem to require overwhelming evidence of an unusual kind for the one (ὡς) to be the concluding member of a former clause, and the latter (οὕτως) the beginning member of the following clause.³⁸ The solution of such translations as the NRSV and NASB, which treat the normally correlative οὕτως as an adverb denoting degree, founders on Pauline usage elsewhere, not to mention ordinary Greek usage. There are simply no parallels in Paul where this adverb functions as the first member of its clause and intensifies a verb form. All other examples are correlative (either stated or implied).

On the other hand, the preferred textual choice, “babes,” yields to a structural and syntactical arrangement that is quite in keeping with ordinary Pauline usage:

Nor did we seek glory from people, neither from you nor from others,

although as apostles of Christ we could have made our weight felt, but we became babes among you.

Even as a nurse cares for her own children,

so we, deeply yearning after you, were willing to impart to you… .

If this seems like an abrupt change of metaphors, it is so only if one thinks the

“nurse” clause is syntactically related to the “babes” clause. But seen as separate sentences, they can be easily explained as in keeping with similar sudden shifts of metaphor elsewhere in Paul, where one metaphor triggers another in the apostle’s mind, and thus are related primarily by “catchword” and not by consistency in application.

At this point, of course, the commentary needs to explain both the sense of the two metaphors and how they most likely function in the argument. Given that one can in fact make perfectly good sense of these metaphors in context—as concluding one and beginning another sentence³⁹—one should all the more opt for the reading that best explains the existence of the other. It should be noted finally that although this discussion is somewhat longer than most textual discussion in a commentary, such can be justified here on two grounds: that the choice so thoroughly affects the

meaning of the whole passage, and that several significant exegetical points are being made in the course of this discussion (especially as to the structures of Paul’s

argument).

b. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 Translation:

38 And with asyndeton at that, which makes for triple jeopardy in terms of Pauline usage.

39 As, e.g., does Gaventa, “Apostles” (n. 87). Even if one were disinclined toward her specific interpretations of the metaphors, she has demonstrated both the tenuousness of Malherbe’s contention as to the Cynic background of “gentle as a nurse” and the possibility of making perfectly good sense of the two metaphors “babes” and “nurse”

as one following the other.

But we, on the other hand, are bound always to give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord,⁴⁰ that God chose you to be firstfruits^a for salvation by means of the sanctifying work of the Spirit and your own belief in the truth.

The textual note reads as follows:

a On the surface, this is one of the more difficult textual choices in 2 Thessalonians (between ἀπαρχήν, “firstfruits” [B F G P 33 81 326 1739 itc,dem,div,f,x,z

vg syr^h cop^bo] and ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς “from the beginning” [

א

Nonetheless, the weightier arguments both transcriptional and intrinsic point to ἀπαρχήν as the original text. Given its lack of theological grist in comparison with “from the beginning,”

it is easily the lectio difficilior. That this same interchange (from ἀπαρχή to ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς) happens twice elsewhere in the NT (Rom. 16:5 [P⁴⁶ D* g m]; Rev. 14:4 [

א

another (in each case ἀπαρχή lay before them; they “saw,” or anticipated Paul to have said, ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς). The primary argument usually raised against ἀπαρχήν is that the Thessalonians were not in fact the “firstfruits” of Macedonia; but this makes the rather unwarranted

assumption that Paul would indeed have intended “of Macedonia” had he used this word (it is common to note that although Paul uses ἀπαρχή elsewhere [Rom. 8:23; 11:16; 16:5; 1 Cor.

15:20, 23; 16:15], only in Rom. 11:16 does he use it without a qualifying genitive [most recently Wanamaker, 266]). To the contrary, Paul almost certainly intended “the firstfruits of Thessalonica,” wanting them to see themselves as the “firstfruits” of many more in

Thessalonica who would come to know the Savior—despite (or as the result of?) the persecution that they are presently enduring. Added to this is the fact that when Paul elsewhere wishes to place something “in eternity,” he never uses the phrase ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς nor anything close to it (cf. 1 Cor. 2:7; Col. 1:26; Eph. 1:4).

The commentary reads as follows:

As noted above (in note a), it is not absolutely certain as to how Paul in this case modifies the verb “God chose,” whether he said “God chose you from the beginning for salvation,” or whether he said, “God chose you as firstfruits for salvation.”

Although the textual evidence finally seems to be against it, what favors the former is Paul’s strong emphasis in this passage on God’s prior activity (where he is contrasting their “salvation”—and its security—with the “judgment” of the deceived in vv. 10–

12). Thus he would be assuring them that God’s choice of them is “from the

beginning [of time, can be the only possible intent, if original].” Great confidence can indeed be gained from such theological reassurance.

Nonetheless, the textual arguments seem rather fully on the side of “firstfruits,”

which is likewise intended to be an encouraging word, but in a slightly different way.

Since Paul does not qualify “firstfruits,”⁴¹ he almost certainly intends them to see

40 As argued for in the preceding section of this paper, in a commentary I would also note the reading of θεοῦ here by D* b m vg, as conforming to Pauline usage in 1 Thess. 1:4, but as thereby missing the trinitarian implications of Paul’s inclusion of Christ in this sentence by this shift from “God” to “Lord.”

41 As noted in n. a, this is often seen as condemning the choice of ἀπαρχήν in this passage, but that is hardly so. In fact, Paul qualifies this word geographically only in Rom. 16:5 and 1 Cor. 16:15, in both cases referring to individuals, with no particular

themselves as God’s “firstfruits” in Thessalonica. Thus the imagery would function in two directions. First, it is intended to encourage them that right in the midst of those who are responsible for their present grief, who are described in vv. 10–12 as to their wickedness and eventual ruin, God has chosen a people for his own name—his firstfruits, if you will, of the great eschatological harvest alluded to in v. 14, a theme that recurs throughout this letter. At the same time, therefore, it would also function to encourage them that God has chosen still others from among their Thessalonian

themselves as God’s “firstfruits” in Thessalonica. Thus the imagery would function in two directions. First, it is intended to encourage them that right in the midst of those who are responsible for their present grief, who are described in vv. 10–12 as to their wickedness and eventual ruin, God has chosen a people for his own name—his firstfruits, if you will, of the great eschatological harvest alluded to in v. 14, a theme that recurs throughout this letter. At the same time, therefore, it would also function to encourage them that God has chosen still others from among their Thessalonian