where a disputer of this age?” These orders of men are swept from the field; all such pretensions disappear (cf. 29)— “Did not God make foolish the wisdom of the world?” The world and God are at issue; each counts the other’s wisdom folly (cf. 18, 25, 30). But God actually turned to foolishness (infatuavit, Bz.:cf.Rom.i. 21 f., for µωραίνω; also Isa. xliv. 25) the world’s imagined wisdom: how, vv. 21-25 proceed to show. On αἰὼν see parls., and Ed.’s note; also Trench’s Synon., lix., and Gm., for the distinction between αἰὼν and κόσμος: “aidv, like se@culum, refers to the pre- vailing ideas and feelings of the present life, κόσμος to its gross, material char- acter’’ (Lt.).
_ Vv. 21-25. The ἐπειδὴ of ver. 21 and that of vv. 22-25 are parl., the second restating and expanding the first (cf. the double ὅταν in xv. 24, and in xv. 27 f.: see notes), rather than proving it; to- gether they justify the assertion implied in ver. 20b, which virtually repeats νετ. 18.
Ver. 21. ἐπειδὴ γάρ (quoniam enim, Cv.) introduces the when and how of God’s stultifying the world’s wisdom by the λόγος τοῦ σταύρου: “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God, God was. pleased,” εἰς.--οὐκ ἔγνω ... διὰ τ. σοφίας τ. Θεὸν records Paul’s experience, e.g., at Athens, in disclosing the ἄγνωσ- τον Θεὸν to philosophers. Of the em- phatic adjunct, ἐν τῇ σοφίᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ.
20—23.
22. ἐπειδὴ καὶ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι " σημεῖον }
νο ~ { ς a Low , wr ο αλ ζητοῦσιν: 23. ἡμεῖς δὲ ΙΡΙΗΡΑΑΡ Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον,
in Jo.; Acts iv. 30. t ( 1 Tim. iii. 16; Acts viii. 5, ix. 20, xix. 13.
"σημεια: all uncc. (with anc. verss.)
there are two explanations, following the line of Rom. i. 1g f. or Rom. xi. 32 f.: on the former view, the clause qualifies éyvw— the world did not come to know God in His wisdom,” evidenced in crea- tion and Providence—so most inter- preters (‘amid the wisdom of God,” Bt.; in media luce, Cv.; in nature and Scripture, addressed to Gentile and Jew, Bg.; Mr.); on the other hand, Rickert, Reuss, Al., Lt., Ev. attach the clause to οὐκ tyvw,—in God's wise plan of the world’s government, the worid’s wisdom sailed to win the knowledge of Him. The latter is the sounder explanation, being (a) in accord with Paul’s reff. else- where to σοφία Θεοῦ, (b) presenting a pointed antithesis to σοφία κόσμου, and (c) harmonising with Paul’s theory of the education of mankind for Christ, ex- pounded in Gal. 11. 10-iv. 5 and Rom. ν. 20 f., vil. 7-25, x1. ‘‘ Through its (Greek) wisdom the world knew not God,” as through its (Jewish) righteousness it pleased not God; both results were brought about “in the wisdom of God” —according to that “plan of the ages,” leading up to “the fulness of the seasons,’ which embraced the Gentile “times of ignorance” (Acts xvii. 26-31) no less than the Jewish dispensations of covenant and law. “It is part of God’s wise providence that He will not be apprehended by intellectual speculation, by ‘dry light’” (Ev.). The intellectual was as Signal as the moral defeat; the foliowers of Plato were '' shut up,” along with those of Moses, eis τ. µέλλονσαν πίστιν (Gal. iii. 22 f.).
Now that God’s wisdom has reduced the self-wise world to ignorance, εὐδό- κησεν σῶσαι: man’s extremity, God’s opportunity. “It was God’s good wiill”’ (placuit Deo: see parls. for the vb.) ; εὐδοκία P. associates with θέλημα, βονλὴ on the one hand, and with χάρις, ἀγαθωσύνη on the other: God’s sove- reign Bae rescues man’s bankrupt wis- dom. διὰ τ.µωρίας τ. κηρύγματος states the means, τοῦς πιστεύοντας defines the qualified objects of this deliverance. fe ae the folly (as the wise world calls it, 18) of the κήρυγμα ”—which last term signifies not the act of proclamation