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STE ver. 27. ἀλλὰ τὰ “wpa τοῦ κόσμου "ἐξελέξατο] 6 Geds,* ἵνα καταισ- 5 Eph. 4; xdvq” τοὺς σοφούς 2: καὶ τὰ * ἀσθενῆ τοῦ κόσμου * ἐξελέξατο ὁ Θεός,
Ja. iL 5; Acts i. 2, 24, xiii.17,
9 ο / s @? ΄ ἵνα "καταισχύνῃ τὰ "ισχυρά :
28. καὶ τὰ ? ἁγενῆ τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὰ
αν. 21 ΜΚ. 9 ἐξουθενηµένα ” ἐξελέξατο ] 6 Θεός,} καὶ ὃ τὰ ” μὴ " ὄντα, ἵνα τὰ ὄντα
Xiil. 20; Lk 1x. 35; ο. Vi. 70, ΧΙΙ. 18, xv. 16. k. xiii. 17; frequent in Ο.Τ.
0 xi. 4 f., 22; 2 Cor. vii. 4, ix. 4; thrice in Rom.; 1 Pet. ii. 6, iii. 16; t pN.T. A.1.; in cl. Gr. commonly αγεννης. 2 Cor. x. 10; Rom. xiv. 3, 10; Gal. iv. 14; 1 Th. v. 20; four times besides.
ᾳ Vi. 4, Xvi. 11; r Rom. iv. 17.
1 AG, with above 15 minuscc., following some common (? Western) exemplar, jump from εξελεξατο ο Θεος in ver. 27 to the same words in ver. 25, omitting all
between. there is much repetition.
ἔτουςσοφονς καταισχυνγῃ: all uncc.
Similar omissions occur in other individual MSS. in this context, where
The T.R. rests on minuscc. only.
® NAC*D*G, 17, om. και; ins. by Band Syrian Codd. W.H. bracket the conj.
The ellipsis of predicate to ob πολλοί κ.τ.λ. is commonly filled up by under- standing ἐκλήθησαν, as implied in κλῆ- σιν: “not many wise, etc. (were called)”. Μτ., Bt., and others, supply εἰσίν, or preferably ἐστέ: “‘(there are) not many wise, etc. (among you),” or ‘‘not many (of you are) wise, etc.’’; the omission of wpets courteously veils the disparage- ment.
Vv. 27-28. ‘Nay, but (ἀλλά, the but of exclusion) the foolish . . . the weak . .. the base-born things of the world God did choose out (when He chose γοι).'---ἐξελέξατο (selected, picked out for Himself) is equivalent to ἐκάλεσεν (2, 9, 26), εὐδόκησεν ... σῶσαι (21), τὴν χάριν ἔδωκεν ἐν Χ. Ἰ. (4); this word in- dicates the relation in which the saved are put both to God and to the world, out of (ἐξ) which they were taken (see parls.); nothing here suggests, as in Eph. i. 4, the idea of eternal election. ---ἐξελέξατο 6 Θεός: the astonishing fact thrice repeated, with solemn em- phasis of assurance. The objects of God’s saving choice and the means of their salvation match each other; by His τὸ μωρὸν and τὸ ἀσθενές (25) He saves τὰ μωρὰ and τὰ ἀσθενῆ: ‘ the world laughs at our beggarly selves, as it laughs at our beggarly Gospel!” The neut. adj. of vv. 27 f. mark the category to which the selected belong; their very foolishness, weakness, ignobility deter- mine God’s choice (cf. Matt. ix. 13, Luke xX. 31, εἴς.)-- τοῦ kégpov is partitive gen.: out of all the world contained, God chose its (actually) foolish, weak, base things—making “fax urbis lux orbis!”” In this God acted deliberately, pursuing the course maintained through previous ages, ἐν τῇ σοφίᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ (see note, 21): He “selected the foolish
things ot the world, that He might shame its wise men (τοὺς σοφούς)... the weak things of the world, that He might shame its strong things (τὰ ἰσχυρά), and the base-born things οἱ the world and the things made ab- solutely nothing of . . . the things non- existent, that He might bring the things existent to naught’. In the first in- stance a class of persons, immediately present to Paul’s mind (cf. 20), is to be ““put to shame’’; in the two latter P. thinks, more at large, ot worldly forces and institutions (cf. vii. 31, 2 Cor. x. 4-6). The pride of the cultured and ruling classes of paganism was to be confounded by the powers which Chris- tianity conferred upon its social outcasts ; as, ¢.g., Hindoo Brahminism is shamed by the moral and intellectual superiority acquired by Christian Pariahs.—ra ἀγενῆ τοῦ κόσμου, third of the categories of disparagement, is reinforced by ra ἐξουθενημένα (from ἐξ and οὐδέν, pf. pass.: things set down as of no account whatever), then capped by the abruptly apposed τὰ μὴ ὄντα, to which is attached the crowning final clause, ἵνα τὰ ὄντα καταργήσῃ. For καταργέω (ut ener- varet, Bz.), see note on κενόω (17), and parls.; the scornful world-powers are not merely to be robbed of their glory (as in the two former predictions), but of their power and being, as indeed befell in the end the existing social and political fabric. In τὰ μὴ ὄντα, '' μὴ implies that the non-existence is not absolute but estimative’’ (Al.); the classes to which Christianity appealed were non-entities for philosophers and statesmen, cyphers in their reckoning: contrast οὐκ ὤν, of objective matter of fact, in John x. 12, Acts vii. 5; also Eurip., Troad., 600.— τὰ ὄντα connotes more than bare εχ--