814 ΠΡΟΣ ΚΟΡΙΝΘΙΟΥΣ.Α VI. name oiSare ὅτι "οἱ Σ ἅγιοι τὸν ' κόσμον |! κρινοῦσι; καὶ εἰ "ἐν ὑμῖν 31 sii ἱκκρίγεται 6 ' κόσμος, | ἀνάξιοί ἐστε ™ κριτηρίων ἐλαχίστων; 3. "obK µενην);, 4 times in fy 4 J aes Ἡ John. k Acts xvii. 31; Lk. xi. 15. 1H.l.; -tws, Xie 27; ουκ αξιους, Acts xiii. 46. πι Jas. ii. 6;
Judges v. 10; 3 Kings vii. 7 (44); Dan. vii. το.
ori (Quintilian, xi., 3. 58). There exists
a similar Rabbinical inhibition: “It is forbidden to bring a matter of right before idolatrous judges. . . . Whosoever goeth before them with a law-suit is impious, and does the same as though he blas- phemed and cursed; and hath lifted his hand against the law of Moses our Teacher,—blessed be he!” (Shulchan avruch, Choshen hammishpat, 29). The Roman Government allowed the Jews liberty of internal jurisdiction; the Beth- din (house of judgment) was as regular a part of the Israelite economy as the Beth-keneseth (synagogue). In Rom. xiii. x ff. P. regards the power of the State from a diff. point of view.
Ver. 2. ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε κ.τ.λ.; “Or (is it that) you do not know?” etc. If the appeal to non-Christian tribunals is not made in insolence (τολμᾶ) towards the Church, it must be made in ignorance of its matchless prerogative. That ‘the saints will judge the world” is involved in the conception of the Messianic king- dom (Dan. vii. 22; cf. Matt. xx. 21); Israel, with its Christ, is to rule, and therefore judge, the nations (Acts i. 6, etc.: cf. Gal. vi. 16). See Wisd. iti. 7 f., where participation in this Messianic power is asserted for “the souls of the righteous”’ in their future state. After the manner of Jesus, the Ap. carried over to the new Israel of God the promises of dominion claimed under the Old Covenant, transforming in transferring them (2 Tim. ii. 12; Rey. xx. 4, xxii. 5, etc.). Paul τε- minds his readers of a truth they should have known, since it belongs to the nature of “the kingdom of God”’ (9) and to the glory they look for at “the un- veiling of Christ” (i. 7 ff.; cf iv. 8, Rom. viii. 17, etc.). Cm. and others see here a virtual judgment of the world, lying in the faith of the saints as contrasted with its unbelief (cf. Luke xi. 31, John it. 18 ff., Rom. viii. 3),—a thought irrelevant here. Ver. 3, moreover, carries the judgment in question into a region far beyond that of Christian magistrates, whose appointment some prosaic inter- preters see here predicted. The Ap. argues ἃ majori ad minus, from the grand and celestial to earthly commonplace. The early Church ascribed this dignity esp. ‘to the martyrs: τοῦ Χριστοῦ πάρεδροι
+ +» καὶ μέτοχοι τῆς κρίσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ συνδικάζοντες (Euseb., Η.Ε., vi., 42; see Ed.).—év ὑμῖν, in consessu vestro—pictur- ing Christ and His saints in session, with “the world” brought in for trial before them. ‘It is absurd in itself, and quite inconsistent with the Divine idea and counsel, that any of you should now appear at their bar, who shall some day appear at yours” (Εν.).-- κρίνεται, pr. tense, of faith’s certainty (cf. v. 13).— κριτήριον (see 4) signifies place rather than matter of judgment (see parls.) ; for the latter sense lexical warrant is want- ing. The question is: “Are you un- worthy of (sitting on) the smallest tri- bunals ?”’ of forming courts to deal with trifling affairs of secular property ?—cf. our ‘petty sessions”, Cm. reads the sentence as affirmative, ἀνάξιοι as nimis digni, and τ. κριτηρ. ἐλαχ. as the heathen tribunals: “It is beneath your dignity to appear before these contemptible courts ! ” But this does not square with ver. 4. Ver. 3. The question of ver. 2 urged to its climax: ‘“‘ Know you not that we shall judge angels ?”’ Paul already does this, hypothetically, in Gal. i. 8. In- structed through the Church (Eph. iii. 10), the heavenly powers will be subject to final correction from the same quarter. The angels were identified, in later Jewish thought, with the forces of nature and the destiny of nations (Ps. civ. 4; Dan. x. 13, xii. 1); they must be affected by any judgment embracing the κόσμος. ‘There is, it seems, a solidarity between the Princes of the nations (cf. Paul’s ἀρχαὶ κ. ἐξουσίαι, xv. 24, etc.) and the nations directed by them; according to Shir rabba, 27 b, God does not punish a people until He has first humbled its Angel-prince in the higher world, and according to Tanchuma, Beshallach, 13, He will hereafter judge the nations only when He has first judged their Angel- princes’ (Weber, Altsynag. paldst. Théo- logie, p. 165); Satan is kat’ ἐξοχὴν ‘the god of this world” (2 Cor. iv. 4; ¢f. John xiv. 30, Luke iv. 6), and has his “angels ” whom P. styles ‘‘ world-rulers”’ (Eph. vi. 12, Matt. xxv. 41). On the throne of world-judgment Christ will sit (Acts xvii. 31, Matt. xxv. 31 f.), and “the saints ’— sc. after their own acquittal—as His assessors. κοινοῦσιν in this context