2 Corinthians 4:4

ἐν οἷς ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος : among whom the god of this world, sc., Satan. αἰών is an “age,” a certain limit of time, and so ὁ αἰὼν οὑτός (1 Corinthians 1:20; 1 Corinthians 2:6) is “this present age,” over which the devil is regarded as having power (cf. Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 6:12). We have the expression αἱ βασιλεῖαι τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου in Ignatius (Romans, 6). Wetstein quotes a Rabbinical saying, “The true God is the first God, but Sammael (i.e., the evil angel who was counted Israel's special foe) is the second God ”. Many early writers, beginning with Origen and Irenæus, through dread of Gnostic speculations, dissociate ὁ Θεός from τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, which they join with τῶν ἀπίστων. But this is a mere perversity of exegesis, suggested by controversial prejudice. Beliar is twice called “the ruler of this world” in the Ascension of Isaiah (ed. Charles, pp. 11, 24). ἐτύφλωσε τὰ νοήματα τῶν ἀπίστων : hath blinded (the “ingressive aorist” again; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:2) the minds (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:14) of the unbelieving. Out of sixteen occurrences of the word ἀπιστος in the Pauline Epistles, fourteen are found in the Epp. to the Corinthians; it consistently means “unbelieving,” and is always applied to the heathen, not to the Jews (except, perhaps, Titus 1:15). εἰς τὸ μὴ αὐγάσαι κ. τ. λ.: to the end that the light (lit. “the illumination”) of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the Image of God, should not dawn upon them. This is the force of αὐγάσαι, even if, as we seemingly must do, we omit αὐτοῖς from our text; αὐγή is the “dawn,” and αὐγάσαι is to be taken intransitively. The R.V. marginal rendering “that they should not see the light,” etc., does not suit the context so well. The A.V. “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ” is inadequate, as it does not bring out the force of the phrase τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης. δόξης is the genitive of contents (cf. the similar phrase, 1 Timothy 1:11); the substance of the good tidings preached is the δόξα, the glorious revelation of Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:6 below). That Christ is the Image or εἰκών of God is the statement of St. Paul which approaches most nearly in form to the λόγος doctrine of St. John (see reff. and, for the general sense, 1 Corinthians 11:3; Philippians 2:6; cf. Hebrews 1:3). P. Ewald, who maintains that St. Paul was acquainted with a Johannine tradition of our Lord's words, finds in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 reminiscences of conversations reported in the Fourth Gospel. Thus we have in consecutive verses (John 8:44-45) ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὲ … οὐ πιστεύετέ μοι, and the expression ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου is comparable with ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου (John 12:31; John 14:30; John 16:11). The parallels are certainly interesting; cf. also the phrase εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ with John 8:19; John 8:42.