1. I declare (yvwpigw). Reproachfully, as having to declare the Gospel anew.
2. If ye keep in memory what, etc. I see no good reason for departing from the arrangement of the A. V., which states that the salvation of the readers depends on their holding fast the word preached.* Rev. reads: through which ye are saved = I make known, I say, in what words I preached it unto you, of ye hold rt fast, etc. This is certainly very awkward, making Paul say that their holding it fast was the condition on which he preached it. American Rev. as A. V.
3. That Christ, etc. Stanley remarks that vv. 1-11 contain the earliest known specimen of what may be called the creed of the early Church, differing, indeed, from what is properly called a creed, in being rather a sample of the exact form of the apostle’s early teaching, than a profession of faith on the part of converts. See his dissertation in the commentary on Corinth- ians.
4. Rose (éyjyepra). Rev., correctly, hath been raised. Ded and was buried are in the aorist tense. The change to the perfect marks the abiding state which began with the resur- rection. He hath been raised and still lives.
5. Was seen (#6397). Rev., appeared. The word most commonly used in the New Testament for seeing visions. See on Luke xxii. 43. Compare the kindred émtacla vision, Luke Tis nts Rev 2) Oor) xi. 1
8. One born out of due time (ro éxtpwpati). Only here in the New Testament. It occurs, Num. xii. 12; Job iii. 16; Keel. vi. 83. The Hebrew nephel, which it is used to translate, occurs in the same sense in Ps. lviii. 8, where the Septuagint
* Edwards’ distinction between the word and the Cospel itself is overstrained, Aéyos being constantly used specifically for the gospel doctrine. Vou. III.—18
O74 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. _[Cu. XV.
follows another reading of the Hebrew text. In every case the word means an. abortion, a still-born embryo. In the same sense it is found frequently in Greek medical writers, as Galen and Hippocrates, and in the writings of Aristotle on physical science. This is the rendering of the Rheims Version: an abortive. Wye. a dead-born child. The rendering of the A. V. and Rev. is unsatisfactory, since it introduces the notion of time which is not in the original word, and fails to express the abortive character of the product; leaving it to be inferred that it is merely premature, but living and not dead. The word does not mean an untimely living birth, but a dead abor- tion, and suggests no notion of lateness of birth, but rather of being born before the time. The words as unto the aborivon are not to be connected with last of all—last of all as to the abortion—because there is no congruity nor analogy between the figure of an abortion and the fact that Christ appeared to him last. Connect rather with He appeared: last of all He appeared unto me as unto the abortion. Paul means that when Christ appeared to him and called him, he was—as compared with the disciples who had known and followed Him from the first, and whom he had been persecuting—no better than an unperfected foetus among living men. The comparison em- phasizes his condition at the time of his call. The attempt to explain by a reference to Paul’s insignificant appearance, from which he was nicknamed “The Abortion” by his enemies, requires no refutation.*
10. Was not (ov éyevndn). Rev., better, was not found : did not turn out to be.
11. Ve believed (érictevcare). When the Gospel was first
preached: with a suggestion of a subsequent wavering from the faith.
12. There is no resurrection. Compare Aeschylus: “ But who can recall by charms a man’s dark blood shed in death, when once it has fallen to the ground at his feet? Had this