form. The
thought thus will be not so much of unity as the object of thought or
feeling as of unity as (so to speak) the substance or spirit of it.

[4] _Kata eritheian_: my long paraphrase attempts to give the suggestion
that the _eritheia_ might be either purely individual self-assertion or
the _animus_ of a clique.

[5] _Hegoumenoi_: the participle practically does the work of an
imperative. See Rom. xii. for a striking chain of examples of this
powerful and intelligible idiom.

[6] _Hekastoi_, not _hekastos_, should probably be read in the first
clause here, and certainly in the second. By Greek idiom, the plural
gives the thought of a _collective_ unity under "each."

[7] The Greek gives no verb. I have written "was, and is," in the
paraphrase, because the _limitation_ of the reference of our blessed
Lord's _phronema_ to the pre-incarnate past is not expressed in the Greek.

[8] _En morphe_: _morphe_ is imperfectly represented by our common use of
the word "form," which stands often even in contrast to "reality."
_Morphe_ is _reality in manifestation_.

[9] _Uparchon_: R.V. margin, "originally being." The word lends itself
to such a reference, but not so invariably as to allow us to press it
here.

[10] _Arpagmon_: the word is extremely rare, found here only in the Greek
Scriptures, and once only in secular Greek. Strictly, by form (_-mon_),
it should mean, "_a process_ of plunder" rather than "an object of
plunder" (_-ma_). But parallel cases forbid us to press this. The A.V.
rendering here suggests the thought that our Lord "thought it no
usurpation to be equal with God, _and yet_ made Himself void," etc. But
surely the thought is rather, "_and so_ made Himself void." So sure was
His claim that, so to speak, with a sublime _un-anxiety_, while with an
infinite sacrifice, He made Himself void.

[11] _Isa Theo_: the neuter plural calls attention rather to the
Characteristics than to the Personality.--Through this whole passage we
cannot too distinctly remember that it occurs in the Scriptures, and in
the writings of one who was trained in the strictest school of Pharisaic
Monotheism. _St Paul_ was not the man to use such terms of his Saviour
and Master had he not seen in Him nothing less than the very "Fellow of
JEHOVAH" (Zech. xiii. 7).

[12] _Eauton ekeose_: _Heauton_ is slightly emphatic by position; I
attempt to convey this by the words "by His own act."

[13] See further below, pp. 98, e