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a See iv. 16. » ig iat ΤΕ ΜΗ πολλῶν, ἵνα σωθῶσι: XI.
Rom. xv.
στι br
xvi. 8;
-νος, iv. 5. c In this
Χριστοῦ.
I. ᾽μιμηταί µου γίνεσθε, καθὼς Kayo μιμη μου Υ Y
b? - ε A 2. ᾿ Ἐπαινῶ δὲ buds, ἀδελφοί,ὶ ὅτι πάντα pou "µέμνησθε, καὶ
tense, 2 Tim. ἶ. 4. Ο/. ἵν. 17. µνηήµονευω common in this sense.
10Η. αδελφοι ΝΑΒΟΡ, 46, 73, sah. cop.—a Western addition.
modate oneself to, not give enjoyment to (cf. Rom. xv. 1, 3)—no need to speak of a ‘conative presents” resembling ζητῶ ἀρέσκειν. Paul’s universal com- pliance is qualified by its purpose, tva σωθῶσιν, in the light of which the verbal contradiction with Gal. i. το, 1 Thess. ii. 4, is removed; there is nothing in his power that P. will not do for any man, to help his salvation (cf. ix. 22b).—Between the ἀρέσκω and its purpose lies the μὴ ζητῶν clause, in which the Ap. professes for himself the rule commended to the Cor. in νετ. 27. The “self-advantage’’ which P. sets aside, touches his highest welfare (cf. Rom. ix. 3); P. sacrificed what seemed to be his spiritual as well as material gain—spending, e¢.g., weary hours in teat-making that might have been given to pious study—to secure spiritual gain for others; thus ‘losing himself,” he ‘‘found himself unto life eternal.” ‘The many,’’ in contrast with the single self; cf. ver. 17, Rom. v. 15 ff. —Through his own pattern P. points the readers to that of his Master and theirs: “Show yourselves (γίνεσθε, see 32, vii. 23) imitators of me, as I also (am) of Christ’. P. does not point his readers backward to the historical model (‘of Jesus,” or “‘ Jesus Christ,’’ as in Eph. iv. 21), but upward to the actual ‘‘ Christ,’”’ whose existence is evermore devoted to God (Rom. vi. 10 f.) and to men His brethren (Rom. viii. 34 f., i. 30), ‘‘in”’ whom the Cor. believers ‘‘are’’ (i. 2, 30). Paul’s imitatio Christi turns on the great acts of Christ’s redeeming work (Eph. v. 2, Phil. ii. 5-11), rather than on the inci- dents of His earthly course.
Division IV. DisorDERS IN WorRSHIP AND CHURCH LIFE, xi.-xiv. The Ap. returns to the internal affairs of the Church, which occupied him in Div. Ἱ., dealing however not as at the outset with the relations of the Cor. Church to its ministry, but with the mutual rela- tions and behaviour of its members within the society. The questions arising under this head are bound up with the moral and social problems of Divs. II. and III., and several leading topics of former
chaps. reappear in a new connexion— e.g., the Christian relationship of the sexes (common to v., vi., and xi.), the Lord’s Supper (x. and xi.), the superiority of Love to Knowledge (viii. and xiii.). The matters treated in these chaps. are well defined: (1) the unveiling of the head by women in public worship, xi. 2-16; (2) profanation of the Lord’s Table, 17-34; (3) the exercise of spiritual gifts, xii. Τ-11 and xiv.—.a subject which leads the Ap. into two digressions: (a) on the corporate nature of the Church, xii. 12-31; (b) on the supremacy of love, xiii. As in the earlier parts of the letter, the train of thought is objectively dictated; the matters taken up arise from the faulty state of the Cor. Church, and were sup- plied to the writer partly, as in chh. vii.-x., by the Church Letter, and partly by information conveyed in other ways (see xi. 18, and Introd., chap. ii.), which indicated the existence of disorders and scandals within the community of the gravity of which it was unaware.
§ 35. ΤΗΕ WomMaNn’s VEIL, xi. 2-6. P. is glad to believe that the Church at Cor.
a
18 loyal to his instructions (2); he inter-
ταρίς his censures by a word of praise. This commendation, however, he pro- ceeds to qualify. First, in respect of a matter whose underlying principles his readers had not grasped: he hears that some women speak in Church-meetings, and that bareheaded! For a woman to discard the veil means to cast off mas- culine authority, which is a fixed part of the Divine order, like man’s subordina- tion to Christ (3 Ε). She who so acts disgraces her own head, and only needs to go a step further to rank herself with the degraded of her sex (5 f.).