scheme, which is really plausible, substitutes a carefully marshalled topical order for the spontaneity and discursiveness of the true epistle. The hypotheses of reconstruction have no historical basis, no external evidence in their favour ; their sole appeal is to internal probability. The actual 1 Corinthians vindicates its unity to the sympathetic reader who transports himself into the situation.
Other critics, again, who regard the reconstruction of the Epistle as needless or impracticable, see reason to eliminate certain passages as interpolations. Holsten (Das Evang. d. Paulus, 1., i., 1880), Baljon (De Tekst d. Brieven aan de Rom., Cor., en Gal., 1884), Bois (Adversaria critica de I. ad Cor.: Toulouse, 1887), are fertile in suggestions of this kind. Heinrici will not exclude the suppo- sition of ‘improvements in detail, attempts [made by the first editors] to smooth over or supplement rough or defective passages of the Apostle, which criticism may be able to detect’. Such insertions he finds in the ᾿Εγὼ δὲ Χριστού of i. 12, and in xv. 56: so Schmiedel and Clemen in the latter place. We do not deny the abstract possibility of the Epistle having been “‘ touched up” in this way; glosses such as those the Codices reveal in ii. 4, iv. 6, vii. 3, etc., for aught we know may have crept in before, as well as after the divergence of our extant witnesses. None, however, of the alleged “‘ primitive corruptions ’’ are made out convincingly,—except perhaps the transcriptional error which W.H. have detected in xii. 2. Some of these conjectures there will be occasion to notice in the course of the exposition.
Anatysis. After the Introduction (i. 1-9), the body of the Epistle falls into six principal divisions, as follows: Drv. I., The Corinthian Parties and the Gospel Ministry, i. 10-iv. 21; Div. Π., Questions of Social Morals, v.-vii.; Div. II1., Contact with Idolatry, viii.-xi. 1 ; Div. IV., Disorders in Worship and Church Life, xi. 2-xiv.; Div. V., The Resurrection of the Body, xv.; Div. V1., Business, News, and Greetings, xvi. Within these main Divisions, the matter is broken up for clearer elucidation into sixty short Sections, each furnished with a heading and prefatory outline.