i. e. knowledge in that form in which it was the foundation of the office of teacher, is to be done away with. Whether this means that hereafter there will be no need of the office of teacher, and therefore that the gift which qualified for that office shall cease ; or whether Paul means to say that the im- mediate vision of truth is to be hereafter so different from our present discursive, obscure, and imperfect mode of cognition, that it deserves to be called by a different name, may be mat- ter of doubt. Both are probably true. There will be no ig- norance in heaven to be removed through the intervention of human instructors ; and there will probably be as great a dif- ference between knowledge hereafter and what we call know- ledge here, as there is between hearing of an object and seeing it. We may hear a description of a person or place and have thereby a certain form of knowledge of him or it ; but that form passes away, or is merged in a higher, as soon as we see what we had before only heard about.
9. 10. Eor we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
This is the reason why knowledge and prophecy are to cease. They are partial or imperfect, and therefore suited only to an imperfect state of existence. The revelations grant- ed to the prophets imparted mere glimpses of the mysteries of God ; when those mysteries stand disclosed in the full light of heaven, what need then of those glimpses? A skilful teacher may by diagrams and models give us some knowledge of the mechanism of the universe ; but if the eye be strength- ened to take in the whole at a glance, what need then of a planetarium or of a teacher ? The apostle employs two illus- trations to teach us the difference between the present and the future. The one is derived from the difference between childhood and maturity; the other from the difference be- tween seeing a thing by imperfect reflection, or through an obscure medium, and seeing it directly.
11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I un- derstood as a child, I thought as a child : but when I became a man, I put away childish tilings.
When I was a child ; not an infant, but as opposed to one