Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Hebrews 5:14

τελείων δὲ.… “But solid food is for the mature, those who, by reason of their mental habits, have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.” τέλειος commonly opposed in classical and Biblical Greek to νήπιος; as in Polyb. 5:29, 2, ἐλπίσαντες ὡς παιδίῳ νηπίῳ χρήσασθαι τῷ Φιλίππῳ, εὗρον αὐτὸν τέλειον ἄνδρα. Cf. Ephesians 4:13; and Xen., Cyr., viii. 7, 3. They are here further defined as τῶν … κακοῦ. ἕξις [from ἔχω, as habitus from habeo], a habit of body, or of mind; as in Plato, Laws (p. 666), τὴν ἐμμανῆ ἕξιν τῶν νέων. Also, p. 966, Ἀνδραπόδου γάρ τινα σὺ λέγεις ἕξιν. Aristotle (Nic. Eth. ii. 5) determines that virtue is neither a δύναμις nor a πάθος, but a ἕξις, a faculty being something natural and innate, while virtue is not. Plutarch (Moral., 443), following him, defines ἕξις as ἰσχὺς … ἐξ ἔθους ἐγγινομένη, which resembles Quintilian's definition (x. 1, 1), “firma quaedam facilitas, quae apud Graecos ἕξις nominatur”. Aristotle (Categor., viii. 1) distinguishes ἕξις from διάθεσις, τῷ πολὺ χρονιώτερον εἶναι καὶ μονιμώτερον, but elsewhere he uses the words as equivalents. Longinus (xliv. 4) uses it of faculty. ἕξις, then, is the habitual or normal condition, the disposition or character; and the expression in the text means that the mature, by reason of their maturity or mental habit, have their senses exercised, etc. αἰσθητήρια : “senses”. Bleek quotes the definition of the Greek lexicographers and of Damascene τὰ ὄργανα ἢ τὰ μέλη διʼ ὧν αἰσθανόμεθα. So Galen in Wetstein, “organs of sense”. Here the reference is to spiritual faculties of perception and taste. γεγυμνασμένα … πρὸς διάκρισιν …, “exercised so as to discriminate between good and evil,” i.e., between what is wholesome and what is hurtful in teaching. [Wetstein quotes from Galen, De Dignot. Puls., ὃς μὲν γὰρ τὸ αἰσθητήριον ἔχει γεγυμνασμένον ἱκανῶς οὗτος ἄριστος ἂν εἴη γνώμων.] The child must eat what is given to it; the boy is warned what to eat and what to avoid; as he grows, his senses are exercised by a various experience, so that when he reaches manhood he does not need a nurse or a priest to teach him what is nutritious and what is poisonous. The first evidence of maturity which the writer cites is ability to teach; the second, trained discernment of what is wholesome in doctrine. The one implies the other. Cf. Isaiah 7:16, πρὶν γνῶναι τὸ παιδίον ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακόν, and Deuteronomy 1:39. Chrysostom says οὐ περὶ βίου ὁ λόγος … ἀλλὰ περὶ δογμάτων ὑγιῶν καὶ ὑψηλῶν διεφθαρμένων τε καὶ ταπεινῶν; the whole passage should be consulted.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Hebrews 5:14

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