Note.—The difficult expression (τροπῆς ἀποσκίασμα) rendered in the Authorized Version "shadow of turning," and in the Revised "shadow that is cast by turning," has received a great variety of translations and explanations. The Old Latin, modicum obumbrationis, like the Greek commentators, makes ἀποσκίασμα = σκιά = "shade, trace, small amount." It is doubtful whether the rare compound ἀποσκίασμα ever acquired this meaning; but the opinion of Greeks on this point is of great weight, and certainly this meaning makes good sense. The Vulgate, vicissitudinis obumbratio, is as difficult as the Greek; and Augustine's momenti obumbratio comes from the false reading ῥοπῆς. "Shadow cast by turning" does not seem to be very helpful, whether we interpret "turning" to mean the revolutions of the sun or of the earth, or the changes of nature generally. Perhaps the genitive is the genitive of quality, "shadow of change" for "changing shadow;" so Stier and Theil, wechselnde Beschattung, and Stolz abwechselnde Verdunkelung. Comp. ἀκροατὴς ἐπιλησμονῆς (i. 25), and, see the Expositor, Sept. 1889, pp. 228-30.
[45] In the Acta Philippi, Apocal. Apocr., ed. Tischendorf, p. 147, we have, "Blessed is he who hath his raiment white; for he it is who receiveth the crown of joy." See A. Resch, Agrapha; Aussercanonische Evangelienfragmente (Leipzig, 1889), p. 254.
[46] The punctuation and order of words in both A.V. and R.V. seem to be faulty: "enticed," quite as much as "drawn away," belongs to "by his own lust." Moreover, the metaphor is not seduction from the right road, but alluring out of security into danger.
[47] See R. H. Hutton on The Service of Man, in the Contemporary Review, April, 1887, p. 492.
[48] Or, "led astray" (πλανᾶσθε). The word implies fundamental departure from the truth (v. 19; John vii. 47; 1 John i. 8; ii. 26; iii. 7; Rev. xviii. 23).
[49] The words form an hexameter in the original, which may be either accidental or a quotation: πᾶσα δόσις ἀγαθὴ καὶ πᾶν δώρημα τελειον ("Every gift that is good, and every boon that is perfect").
[50] See F. D. Maurice, Unity of the N.T. (Parker, 1854), pp. 320-23.
CHAPTER IX.
THE DELUSION OF HEARING WITHOUT DOING.
THE MIRROR OF GOD'S WORD.
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. For if any one is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But he that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing."—St. James i. 22-25.