1 Corinthians Xv. 29.

disappointed, their efforts will be vain, if the dead sleep the eternal sleep. (3 ) The term baptism continues to be used in its ordinary meaning ; and indeed in this epistle Paul has made more mention of baptism than in any other, ch. i. 13-17, x. 2, xii. 13. y) The preposition imp with the genitive might be thus also taken in various senses ; of the object simply, as the Latins use super , with respect to , about , so far as it concerns ; with this meaning, that they may put the dead before them with- out consideration of the resurrection ; or the words may be used of paying as it were a price, viz., that they should account the dead as nonentities ; or of obtaining as the price for their trouble, viz., that they should be gathered to the dead for ever ; but we maintain the propriety with which imp denotes nearness , hanging over [such propinquity as that one hangs immediately over] anything , whence Theocritus speaks of a<r<pod&\ov rbv imp yag, the asphodel (king’s spear) that grows on the ground , Idyl. 26. Lexicographers give more examples, especially from Thucydides. So they are baptized over [ immediately upon ] the dead, who will be gathered to the dead immediately after baptism : and then over the dead is said here, as if it were said over the sepulchre , as Luke xxiv. 5, with [Engl. Vers., among] the dead , i.e.y in the sepulchre. Nor is it incredible, that baptism was often ad- ministered at funerals, d) The term dead is used in its ordinary sense of the dead generally, as the article also requires, taken in as wide a sense as the resurrection, s) The adverb o\wg, after all , is used by a Corinthian who is supposed to be led on by Paul, and who had rather peevishly opposed the resurrection, not reflecting on the loss of the advantages even in this life, which result in baptism : and e/ oXug is employed in the same way as inuhri oXojg in Chrysost. homil. 5, c. Anomoeos : Not- withstanding , though man differs little from an angely since there is nevertheless [after all] some difference (m/djj oXug ear/' n ffsaov), we know not accurately what angels are. Q xa/ is not redundant, but strengthens the force of the present tense, powr/fyvrai, what do they do who are baptized ? in antithesis to the future, rt KQtri<rov<ri, what shall they do? Comp, xa/, 2 Cor. i. 14, xi. 12; Phil. iii. 7, 8, iv. 10. Paul in fact places those who are bap- tized for the dead, as it were at the point of death, and shows that no reward awaits them either for the future, if they denied