Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks in rebellion and not after the tradition which they received from us.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 6. Charge, or declare; or by the Greek, we command.—In the name of our Lord. This may signify a separation by excommunication. Witham.—That you withdraw, and so forth S. Chrysostom upon this place, Saint Augustine, Theophylactus, and others understand Saint Paul as speaking of a kind of excommunication. But Saint John Chrysostom on verse 13 and 14 seems to restrain its meaning to a prohibition for the guilty to speak to any body, unless they spoke to him, if their conversation tended to exhort him to repentance. Theophylactus likewise remarks that this punishment was formerly much dreaded, though now not in use.