Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 8:18

συνεπέμψαμεν δὲ κ. τ. λ.: and we have sent (the epistolary aorist; cf. Acts 23:30, chap. 2 Corinthians 9:3; Philippians 2:28; Philemon 1:12) together with him the brother, sc., the brother whom you know (cf. chap. 2 Corinthians 12:18), whose praise in the Gospel, i.e., whose good repute as a labourer in the cause of the Gospel (cf. chap. 2 Corinthians 10:14; Philippians 4:3; Romans 1:9), is throughout all the Churches, i.e., is spread abroad in all the Churches through which I have passed (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:17; 1 Corinthians 14:33; see 2 Corinthians 11:28). The Patristic reference (Origen, Jerome, etc.) of these words to St. Luke is stereotyped in the Collect for St. Luke's Day, but there is hardly room for doubt that this is due to a mistaken interpretation of εὐαγγέλιον as signifying a written Gospel, rather than the “good news” of God delivered orally by the first Christian preachers. We have no positive data by which to determine which of St. Paul's contemporaries is here alluded to. It has been argued that as this unnamed “brother” is seemingly subordinate to Titus, he must not be identified with persons so important as (e.g.) Apollos or Silas; and, again, that, as he was apparently not a Macedonian (2 Corinthians 9:4), he cannot be any of the prominent members of the Macedonian Church (see on 2 Corinthians 8:5 above). Trophimus the Ephesian is not impossible (see Acts 20:4; Acts 21:29), but it is idle to speculate where the evidence is so scanty. The important point about this unnamed brother is that he was selected not by St. Paul, but by the Churches who took part in the work of collecting money as their representative as is now explained.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 8:18

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