Love … be mindful … seek. The Aoris

Love … be mindful … seek. The Aorist imperatives here are ingressive, expressing “the coming about of conduct which contrasts with prior conduct” (BDF 337.1).
2. test him. Cf. Deut 6:16; Mal 3:15; Pss 78:18; 95:8–9; Isa 7:12 (see also Lieberman 1950:177; F. Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption [New York, 1970–71], 265–267).
3. Devious thoughts. Cf. Theognis 1.1147: adikōn andrōn skolion logon.
full trust. Cf. 6:12; Jer 29:13–14, Isa 55:6; Prov 8:17.
cut men off. Cf. Isa 59:2; Test.Reuben 4:6 (chōrizousa theou); Test.Simeon 5:3; Philo Mut. 265: “God is the season which departs far away from all the impious.”
4. fraudulent. kakotechnos, a poetic word. Cf. ILIAD 15.14; AP 5.129 (where it refers to lascivious postures); IV Macc 6:25. Philo refers to the intellectually uprooted apostates as kakotechnountes or malicious critics of the law (Agr. 157; cf. Sacr. 32; 3 Macc 7:9).
nor make her home. We have here a favorite conception of the Late Stoa, which was frequently used by Philo: “Be zealous therefore, O soul, to become a house of God (theou oikos), a holy temple, a most beauteous abiding-place, for perchance, perchance the Master of the whole world’s household shall be thine too and keep thee under his care as his special house, to preserve thee evermore strongly guarded and unharmed” (Somn. 1.149); cf. QE 2.51; Virt. 188; Sob. 62; Somn. 2.251; Fug. 117; Praem. 123; Plato Tim. 90C; Epictetus Discourses 2.8.14: “It is within yourself that you bear Him, and do not perceive that you are defiling Him with impure thoughts and filthy actions. Yet in the presence of even an image of God you would not dare do anything of the things you are now doing. But when God Himself is present within you, seeing and hearing everything, are you not ashamed to be thinking and doing such things as these, O insensible of your own nature, and object of God’s wrath!” id.1.14.13; Seneca Ep. 83: “Nothing is shut off from the sight of God. He is witness of our souls, and he comes into the very midst of our thoughts—comes into them, I say, as one who may at any time depart”; Ep. 87.21; Porphyry Ad Marcellam 11 and 19; 1 Cor 3:16; Theophilus Ad Autolycum 1.2: “As a burnished mirror, so ought man to have his soul pure. When there is rust on the mirror, it is not possible that a man’s face be seen in the mirror, so also when there is sin in a man, such a man cannot behold God.” For the non-Platonic body-soul distinction, cf. 2 Macc 7:37; 15:30; 14:38; Ps 84:3.
mortgaged. katachreos is first attested in Polybius 13.1.1, and used metaphorically only here. Cf. 2 Kings 17:17; Jub 7:23; 1 Macc 1:15; Rom 7:14.
5. The holy spirit. The LXX uses the same expression (to pneuma to hagion) at Isa 63:10 and Ps 51:13. For the association of Wisdom and Spirit, cf. Isa 11:2, “where every attribute assigned to the Spirit of the Lord is connected with wisdom,” and I Enoch 49:3, where the spirit which dwells in the Elect One is the “spirit of wisdom, insight, understanding, and might” (Suggs 1970:54).
will take umbrage. The word elengchthēsetai has baffled all the commentators. Grimm translates: ‘frightened or driven off’ (citing late Greek usage, especially Chrysostom); Fichtner (1938): ‘insulted’; RV: ‘will be put to confusion’; JB: ‘is taken aback’; NEB: ‘will throw up her case.’ The idea is clearly that the holy spirit is unable to abide the presence of evil, and is virtually driven away by it. Cf. BTKid. 31a: “R. Isaac said: He who transgresses in secret is as though he pressed the feet of the Shekhinah, for it is written, ‘Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool’ (Isa 66:1)”; BR 19.7: “The main dwelling of the Shekhinah was originally below, but after the sin of Adam, she took off to the first heaven”; I Enoch 42:2: “Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling among the children of men, and found no dwelling-place. Wisdom returned to her place, and took her seat among the angels”; 44:5; 4 Ezra 5:10: “Then shall intelligence hide herself and wisdom withdraw to its chamber”; II Bar 48:36; CH, Asclepius 24: “Godhead will go back from earth to heaven”; Philo QG 1.40: “For wisdom is most common, most equal and most helpful. But when it sees them perversely increase in the opposite direction and being altogether uncontrolled and willful, it returns to its own place.” (For wisdom’s dwelling in heaven, see 1 Bar 3:29; Sir 24:4–5.) We find the same notion in Greek literature: Theognis 1.1135: “Hope is the one good God yet left among mankind; the rest have forsaken us and gone to Olympus. Gone ere this was the great Goddess Honesty (Pistis), gone from the world was Self-Control (Sōphrosyneō)”; Hesiod Op. 197: “And then Aidōs and Nemesis, with their sweet forms wrapped in white robes, will go from the wide-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the company of the deathless gods”; Aratus Phaenomena 96–136; Virgil Ecl. 4.6. Similarly, in Egyptian literature, we find that in the era of the primordial gods “Maat came down from heaven and joined those who lived on earth. At that time there was no injustice, no pain, no hunger” (Theban Temple, 95K, from the Greek and Roman period. This text clearly implies the return of Maat to heaven. See K. Sethe, Amun und die acht Urgötter von Hermopolis [Berlin, 1929]:125). It was on the basis of some of this data that Bultmann had suggested that Matt 23:34–39 (Luke 11:49–51; 13:34–35) was based on a speech by Sophia cited from some lost wisdom document which recounted the myth of a searching and disappointed Wisdom, whose conclusion “you will not see me again until …” was explained in terms of “the myth of the divine wisdom who, after tarrying in vain on earth, and calling men to herself takes departure from earth, so that one now seeks her in vain (cf. Prov 1:28; Gospel of Thomas, Saying 38; I Clement 57.3ff).” (R. Bultmann, “Der religionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Prologs Johannesevangelium,” in Eucharisterion, Festschrift H. Gunkel [Göttingen, 1923]:II. 1–26; Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition [Göttingen, 1964]:120–121); J. M. Robinson and H. Koester, Trajectories Through Early Christianity (Philadelphia, 1971): 103–104. A critique of Bultmann’s theory may be found in E. S. Fiorenza 1975:17–41.