Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Luke 6:22

μισήσωσιν … ἀφορίσωσιν … ὀνειδίσωσιν … ἐκβάλωσιν. We have here four steps of persecution increasing in virulence: (1) General hatred; (2) Exclusion from the synagogue, a lesser excommunication, viz. the Nezîphah or exclusion for 30 days, or Niddouî for 90 days (Gfrörer, Jahrh. d. Heils, I. 183; John 9:34,—hence ἀφορισμὸς means ‘excommunication’); (3) Violent slander; (4) The Cherem, Shammatta, or greater excommunication,—permanent expulsion from the Synagogue and Temple (John 16:2). The Jews pretended that our Lord was thus excommunicated with the blast of 400 rams’ horns by Joshua Ben Perachiah (Wagenseil, Sota, p. 1057), and was only crucified forty days after because no witness came forward in His favour.

ὡς πονηρόν. ‘Malefic’ or ‘execrable superstition’ was the favourite description of Christianity among Pagans (Tac. Ann. XV. 44; Suet. Nero, 16), and Christians were charged with incendiarism, cannibalism, and every infamy. (The student will find such heathen views of Christianity collected in my Life of St Paul, Exc. XV. Vol. I.)

ἕνεκα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ�. The hatred of men is not in itself a beatitude, because there is a general conscience which condemns certain forms of wickedness, and a man may justly incur universal execration. But the world also hates those who run counter to its pleasures and prejudices, and in that case hatred may be the tribute which vice pays to holiness; 1 Peter 2:19; 1 Peter 3:14. “The world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world;” John 17:14. Still a man may well tremble when he is enjoying throughout life a beatitude of benediction. And ‘the world’ by no means excludes the so-called ‘religious world,’ which has hated with a still fiercer hatred, and exposed to a yet deadlier martyrdom, some of its greatest prophets and teachers. Not a few of the great and holy men enumerated in the note on Luke 6:23 fell a victim to the fury of priests. Our Lord was handed over to crucifixion by the unanimous hatred of the highest religious authorities of His day.

On the title Son of Man, which occurs in all the four Gospels, see p. 168. In using it Christ “chooses for Himself that title which definitely presents His work in relation to humanity in itself, and not primarily in relation to God or to the chosen people, or even to humanity as fallen.” Canon Westcott (on John 1:51) considers that it was not distinctively a Messianic title, and doubts its having been derived from Daniel 7:13. “The Son of God was made a Son of Man that you who were sons of men might be made sons of God.” Aug. Serm. 121. As the “Second Adam” Christ is the representative of the race (1 Corinthians 15:45) in its highest ideal; as “the Lord from Heaven” He is the Promise of its future exaltation.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Luke 6:22

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