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`Now here it was that, upon the many hardships which the Romans
underwent, Pompey could not but admire ... the Jews' fortitude' (Wars
of the Jews, 1:7.4).
Again, in the Antiquities of the Jews, speaking of the father of
Nebuchadnezzar, he writes:
`When
his father ... heard that the governor ... had revolted ...,
while
he was not himself able any longer to undergo the hardships (of
war),
he committed to his son Nebuchadnezzar ... some parts of his
army'
(Ant. of Jews, 10: 11.1).
It is highly significant to learn that kakos, evil, is derived from
chazo, to recede, retire, retreat in battle (so Eustath, quoted by Leigh).
Homer and other Greek writers frequently use kakos in this sense, and so the
word meant cowardly, dastardly, faint -hearted. If these unsoldierly
qualities inhere in* the word kakos, `evil', one can readily appreciate the
apostle's choice of the word kalos for the `good' soldier.
*
inhere in = exist essentially in.
Coming to the word kakopatheo, `to suffer evil', we find it in two
forms.
Let us see them together:
Kakopatheia, `a suffering of evil'.
`Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the
Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience' (James
5:10).
Kakopatheo, `to suffer evil'.
`Thou therefore endure hardness (kakos), as a good (kalos) soldier of
Jesus Christ' (2 Tim. 2:3).
`Wherein I suffer trouble (kakos), as an evil doer (kakos)' (2 Tim.
2:9).
`Endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist' (2 Tim. 4:5).
`Is any among you afflicted? let him pray' (Jas. 5:13).
Sugkakopatheo, `to suffer evil together'.
`Be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God' (2 Tim. 1:8).
In addition to this willingness to suffer evil, the apostle says of the
good soldier: `No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of
this life' (2 Tim. 2:4). Conybeare and Howson translate the above passage:
`The soldier when on service', and draw attention to the force of
strateuomenos.
The military law of Rome did not allow a soldier to engage in
merchandise or mechanical employment; armis non privitas negotus
occupari.
That which the apostle says will `entangle' the good soldier if he
yields, is called `the affairs of this life'. The word translated `life'
here is not zoe but bios, and refers more to the `livelihood' than the life -
principle itself.