Philippians 3:8

μενοῦνγε. אA, 17 37, and many other cursives, Bas (in one place) Cyr. μὲν οὖν γε. BD2G, many cursives, Bas (in one place) Chrys read μὲν οὖν only. LTr Ell μὲν οὖν: Tisch μενοῦνγε: WH μὲν οὖν γε.

σκύβαλα. So (without εἶναι) א*BD2*G2, 17, vulg syr (pesh) arm æth, Orig. אcAD2c, 37 47, and most other cursives, Bas Chrys Cyr add εἶναι after σκύβαλα.

8. ἀλλὰ μενοῦνγε καὶ. Μὲν οὖν corrects by emphasis; its common use in dialogue and discussion. “Nay rather, I even, &c.”

ἡγοῦμαι. The present tense emphasizes the present consciousness; the ἥγημαι is carried full into the present moment of thought.

πάντα. He has enumerated many things, but he will sweep everything into the scale which CHRIST has over-weighed. All that goes under the head of personal ambition, for example, must go; his prospects of national and Church distinction; all, all is ζημία, as against Christ.

διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον. “On account of the surpassing(ness).” See on Philippians 2:9 for St Paul’s love of superlative and accumulative words.

τῆς γνώσεως. For αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ αἰώνιος ζωή, ἵνα γινώσκωσι, κτλ. (John 17:3). On the conditions and bliss of such knowledge see e.g. John 1:10-12; John 14:7; John 17:25; Ephesians 3:19.—St Paul sometimes depreciates γνῶσις (e.g. 1 Corinthians 8:1; 1 Corinthians 13:2; 1 Corinthians 13:8). But there he means a knowledge separable from Divine light and life, a knowledge of mere theory, or of mere wonder, not of God in Christ. The γνῶσις here is the recognition of the glory of the Son of the Father, a knowledge inseparable from love; see the great paradox of Ephesians 3:19, γνῶναι τὴν ὑπερβάλλουσαν τῆς γνώσεως�.

Note the implicit witness of the language before us to the Deity of Christ. In Him this man had found the ultimate repose of his whole mental and moral nature.

Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου μου. Observe the solemnity and fulness of the terms; a “final cadence” of faith, as its glorious Object is viewed anew. See too the characteristic μου (cp. note on Philippians 1:3 above). The Gospel has an individualism, perfectly harmonious with its communism, but never to be merged in it. The individual “comes to” Christ (John 6:35; John 6:37); and has Christ for Head (1 Corinthians 11:3); and lives by faith in Him who has loved and redeemed the individual (Galatians 2:20). And such individual contact with the Lord is the secret of all true diffusion and communication of blessing through the individual.

διʼ ὃν. Again, “on account of whom”; because of the fact of His glory.

τὰ πάντα ἐζημιώθην. “I was deprived of my all.” He echoes the ζημίαν twice uttered above. His estimate was rudely verified, as it were, by circumstances. The treasures he inwardly surrendered were, as far as could be done, torn from him by man, when he deserted the Sanhedrin for Jesus Christ.

Deeply moving is this passing reference to his tremendous sacrifice, a sacrifice which has of course a weighty bearing on the solidity of the reasons for St Paul’s change, and so on the evidences of our Faith. On this last point see the deservedly classical Observations on the Character &c. of St Paul, by George, first Lord Lyttelton, 1747.

τὰ πάντα. Rendered above, “my all.” This may be just too much as a translation for the τὰ, but fairly indicates its reference.

σκύβαλα. Stercora, Vulg. “Refuse,” R.V. marg. In the medieval Lexicon of Suidas the word is explained by κύων and βάλλειν: Κυσίβαλόν τι ὅν, τὸ τοῖς κυσὶ βαλλόμενον. Others “connect it with σκὼρ (cp. scoria, Lat. stercus), al. with a root meaning ‘to shiver,’ ‘shred’  ” (Grimm, ed. Thayer, s.v.). “The word seems to signify generally ‘refuse,’ being applied most frequently in one sense or other to food, as in Plut. Mor. p. 352 D περίττωμα δὲ τροφῆς καὶ σκύβαλον οὐδὲν ἁγνόν … ἐστι [κ.τ.λ.]. The two significations most common are (1) ‘Excrement …’ This sense is frequent in medical writers. (2) ‘The … leavings of a feast …’ So again σκυβάλισμα, Pseudo-Phocyl. 144 … σκυβάλισμα τραπέζης” (Lightfoot). “The Judaizers spoke of themselves as banqueters … at the Father’s table, of Gentile Christians as dogs … snatching up the refuse meat … St Paul has reversed the image” (Lightfoot).

ἵνα Χριστὸν κερδήσω. The verb echoes the κέρδη of Philippians 3:7. The repudiation of those “gains” was the condition for the reception of the supreme “gain,” Christ Himself, received by faith. In a sense he paid them down in exchange for Christ, and so “gained” Him; Christum lucri fecit (Vulg.). Cp. the language of Revelation 3:18, συμβουλεύω σοι�ʼ ἐμοῦ. True, they were worse than nothing, and Christ was all; but the imagery only enforces this by its paradox.

Ἵνα κερδήσω, We might expect the optative here, as he is dealing with a past experience; and so with εὑρεθῶ just below. The conjunctive may be explained as expressing, in present terms, a past crisis, vividly realized. But besides, the subtle distinction between conjunctive and optative was not kept up in the popular language; so that the conjunctive was as a rule used for both “may” and “might.” Cp. 1 Timothy 1:16, ἠλεήθην … ἵνα ἐν ἐμοὶ … ἐνδείξηται Ἰ. Χ., κτλ., and Acts 5:26, ἐφοβοῦντο τὸν λαόν, [ἵνα] μὴ λιθάσθωσιν.

Possibly the clause καὶ ἡγ. σκ. is parenthetic; the passage would thus present a vivid antithesis: “I suffered the loss of my all (and mere refuse I now see it to be) that I might make Christ my gain.”