148 Chrys C. Caragounis in the average Church today.90 It is enough to state that the quality of life expected of the followers of Jesus was diametrically different from the quality of life rife round about them. 6. Vs. 6a: τὸ μὴ ὑπερβαίνειν καὶ πλεονεκτεῖν ἐν τῷ πράγματι τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ has caused a great many problems. The articular infini- tives have been thought to introduce a new item91, and this has opened the way to seeing behind Paul’s words a Christian scrutiny of dishonesty in business transactions. This interpretation has been buttressed by a mistaken exegesis of ἐν τῷ πράγματι as ‘business’, and then been corro- borated by the apparent impossibility of understanding ἀδελφός here in any other way. The articular infinitive occurs some 33 times in the NT, of which some 20 times in the nominative neuter, and always preceded by a preposition, apart from three instances. These are: Rom 14:13 τοῦτο κρίνατε ... τὸ μὴ τιθέναι πρόσκομμα, where the article of necessity substantivizes the infinitive after the demonstrative τοῦτο; Rom 14:21 καλὸν τὸ μὴ φάγειν κρέα, in which the infinitive as the predicate of καλόν [ἐστιν] is necessa- rily articular, and 2 Cor 2:1 ἔκρινα τοῦτο ... τὸ μὴ πάλιν ... ἐλθεῖν, which is similar to Rom 14:13. In our text the articular infinitives are neces- sitated by the digressional vs. 5, which has interrupted the flow from vv. 3-4. Τὸ μὴ ὑπερβαίνειν etc. thus marks the end of the digression of vs. 5, and the resumption of the same theme that formed the subject of vv. 3-4, abstention from πορνεία.Ἐν τῷ πράγματι can under no circumstances be referred to any business transactions.92 The meaning is ‘the matter in hand’, ‘the subject under consideration’93. The two infinitives ὑπερβαίνειν and πλεονεκτεῖν may be used of business matters, but are not typically business language. The hapax legomenon ὑπερβαίνειν can have positive94 (‘to go beyond’, ‘to pass over’) or negative (‘to overstep’) significance. It is often used of going beyond the legitimate bounds, of transgressing. This is the meaning here though what is being transgressed is not specified. See my comments in “Fornication and Concession? Interpreting 1 Cor 7,1-7” in The 90 Corinthian Correspondence (ed. R. Bieringer), BETL 125), Leuven 1996, 544. R. Beauvery, Πλεονεκτεῖν in 1 Thess 4.6a” VD 33 (1955), 78 ff. 91 In Rom 16:2 πράγματι refers to any matter that may arise during Phoebe’s sojourn 92 in Rome. This may include business, but this is not the uppermost idea here. In 1 Cor 6:1 πρᾶγμα refers to a law-suit. 2 Cor 7:11 ἐν τῷ πράγματι simply means ‘matter’, though the issue behind it is probably the case of incest (1 Cor 5:1). Similarly taken by R. F. Collins, Studies on the First Letter to the Thessalonians, 93 335. E.g. Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 213 βραχέα βούλομαι εἰπεῖν, τὰ δὲ πολλά 94 ὑπερβήσομαι; Chrysostomus, Πρὸς Θεσσαλονικεῖς, 450, uses it positively as an equivalent to περισσεύητε (4:1).