3 John 1:7

For ἐθνῶν ([958][959]) read ἐθνικῶν ([960][961][962][963]).

[958] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[959] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[960] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[961] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[962] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[963] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1 John 1:1 to 1 John 4:2; 3 John 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

7. ὑπὲρ γὰρ τοῦ ὀνόματος. For for the sake of the Name: the αὐτοῦ of some texts is a weak amplification followed in several versions. A similar weakening is found in Acts 5:41, which should run, ‘Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the Name.’ ‘The Name’ of course means the Name of Jesus Christ: comp. James 2:7. This use of ‘the Name’ is common in the Apostolic Fathers; Ignatius, Eph. iii., vii.; Philad. x.; Clem. Rom. ii., xiii.; Hermas, Sim. viii. 10, ix. 13, 28. Bengel, appealing to Leviticus 24:11, wrongly explains τ. ὀνόματος as Nomine Dei: so also Lücke, appealing to John 17:11.

ἐξῆλθαν. The word is used in the same absolute way Acts 15:40; Παῦλος δὲ ἐπιλεξάμενος Σίλαν ἐξῆλθεν: i.e. on a missionary journey from a Christian centre.

μηδὲν λαμβάνοντες. The tense indicates that this was their custom, not merely that they did so on one occasion. Hence the greater necessity for men like Gaius to help. These missionaries declined to ‘spoil the Egyptians’ by taking from the heathen, and therefore would be in great difficulties if Christians did not come forward with assistance. We are not to understand that the Gentiles offered help which these brethren refused, but that the brethren never asked them for help. ‘The Gentiles’ (οἱ ἐθνικοί) cannot well mean Gentile converts. What possible objection could there be to receiving help from them? Comp. Matthew 5:47; Matthew 6:7; Matthew 18:17, the only other places where the word occurs. There was reason in not accepting money or hospitality at all, but working for their own living, as S. Paul loved to do. And there was reason in not accepting help from heathen. But there would be no reason in accepting from Jewish converts but not from Gentile ones.

Some expositors render this very differently. ‘For for the Name’s sake they went forth from the Gentiles, taking nothing’; i.e. they were driven out by the heathen, penniless. But ἐξῆλθαν is too gentle a word to mean this; and the negative (μηδέν not οὐδέν) seems to imply that it was their determination not to accept anything, not merely that as a matter of fact they received nothing. For λαμβάνειν� in a similar sense comp. Matthew 17:25. Winer, 463.