* This would appear from 2 Co III2, where St. Paul asserts that his object in refusing to accept maintenance was that in the very matter of which the.v boasted they mig'ht be found even as he. This seems to make it clear that they did not accept maintenance, and the phrase ei rts KarevOiei (1120) must be interpreted in accordance with this fact.
256 CORmXHIAis^S, EPISTLES TO THE CORmTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE
these opponents were Jews does not make it im- possible that they were also irpev/j-ariKoi. We have evidence that there were Jews who did not attach importance to circumcision and the ceremonial Law, but treated the Law as symbolic (of. Philo, de Migratione Abrahami, quoted by Lake, op. cit. i^p. 24, 25). The attack on the apostolicity of St. Paul is also intelligible from this point of view. An 'apostle' was not much more than a missionary (cf. Didache). ol inrep\iav dTrdaroXoi cannot in any case be the Twelve, for St. Paul was at this time on good terms with them. Their attack on his apos- tolicity was based on his lack of spiritual power and yvuxns, and therefore cannot be regarded as in- consistent with this view of their character. The fact that they seem also to have prided themselves on their Jewish birth, though logically inconsistent, is not at all unnatural. For such pride of birth often remains in people whose view of life makes it wholly irrelevant.
It would seem, then, that the opponents of St. Paul at Corinth were men who boasted that they were above the Law as being in the Spirit. They attacked St. Paul because he was stUl held in the bonds of a legalism from which they had emanci- pated themselves, and attached an altogether un- due importance to such carnal matters as morality. St. Paul's answer is a claim that he too is irvevfiari- k6s ; but there underlies this answer an undertone of protest. He does not reallj'^ accept their tests of apostolicity. While asserting that he can meet them on their own ground, he continually reminds them that spiritual power and knowledge must show themselves in zeal for morality and in actual suffering for Christ's sake. It is on these points that he laj^s the greatest stress.*
9. The doctrine of the Epistles.— (a) The Person and Work of Christ. — No one can read the first chapter of 1 Cor. without perceiving that the writer places Jesus Christ in a position which is more than human. There is, of course, no devel- oped doctrine of God to be found either in this chapter or elsewhere in the Epistles, but where St. Paul places God and man over against one another, he consistently puts Jesus Christ on the side of God over against man. Grace and peace are to come to man from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Co 1^ 2 Co P). Jesus is never re- garded as a man among men. He is the source, or at any rate the medium, of God's gifts to men. Christians call upon His Name, and the bond of union between Christians in every place is that they recognize the common Lordship of Christ. When St. Paul wants to reprove the Corinthians for the existence of factions among them, his crown- ing argument is that they are actually degrading Christ to the position of a party-leader, and so
Eutting Him on a level with ApoUos, Cephas, or imself. Always he disclaims any independence of Christ. 'We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord ' (2 Co 4^). When he is speaking of the exalted position of 'spiritual men' (I Co 2io-i6j^ he points out that the spiritual man is su- perior to all others, for whereas the ' natural man' can understand and form estimates only of ' natural things,' the spiritual man can form estimates of all things. He has all that the ' natural man ' has, and he can move freely in a sphere where the ' natural man ' is helpless. And he crowns his argu- ment by a quotation from the OT : ' Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should in- struct him ? ' Tliat is to say, no one can understand the thoughts of Jahweh. 'But we,' lie adds, 'have the mind of Christ.' The 'natural man' cannot understand the mind of God. But we who are spiritual actually have the mind of Christ.
• For this whole section see Lake, op. cit., where the case is lucidly and convincingly stated.
The argument of this passage shows that St. Paul, at any rate here, identified Christ with the Jahweh of the or. This is perhaps the most striking example of the position which he gives to Christ, but it is what the language of the Epistle throughout would lead us to expect. He clearly regards Christ as having existed before He was born upon earth. ' Though he was rich, for our sake he became poor ' (2 Co 8"). Yet it would be dangerous to assert that he had a clear and consist- ent view of the relation of Christ to the Father. He regards Christ as sent by the Father, as in some sense belonging to the Father (1 Co 3^). And in IP he seems to imply that the relation of God to Christ is parallel with the relation of Christ to man, and again with the relation of man to woman. It seems superfluous, however, to sup- pose that he had a very definite conception in his mind. He need not have meant more than that, as Christ does the will of God, so man is to be obedient to Christ, and woman to man. In 15"® he looks forward to the time when the mediatorial Kingdom of Christ shall come to an end, and God shall be all in all. There is no reference here to any termination of the personal existence of Christ ; he is only thinking of the end of His mediatorial Kingdom. But it seems clear from this and the other passages mentioned that he regards Christ as being definitely subordinate to the Father, though, as has been said above, always on the God ward side of things, over against man. He had not faced the question of the bearing of this view on monotheism.