Ver. 35. “AAAa ἐρεῖ τις: this form of interlocution belongs to Jewish dialectic (see parls.); cf. ver. 12, also ἐρεῖς por, Rom. ix. 19, and the familiar Pauline challenge, τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν ;—‘* How are the dead raised up? With what sort of (woiw δέ) body moreover do they come?” —two distinct questions. δὲ might in- deed introduce the same question in an altered form (Mr., Bt., El., Sm.), but the vbs. and the interr. prons. are both dif- ferent. The first (cf. Luke i. 34, John iii. 9, vi. 52, Heb. ii, 3, 1 John iii, 17)
934
Thus in
, ” 39 εν 1 Ακ , Du Ἰ a Lk xi go, σώματι έρχονται ; 36. ᾿ἄφρον, σὺ ὃ σπείρεις οὗ "ζωοποιεῖται
ΧΙ], 20; Ps. xciii. 8; five times in
2 Cor.
xi., ΧΙ. (ref. to P. himself) ; Rom. ii. 20; Eph. v. 17; 1 Pet. ii. 15. usage. For common use, see 2 Cor. v. 3, etc. xiv. 10.
2agpoy, all uncc, but KL.
u See ver. 22.
z In like connexion, Mt. xiii. 25, a9 f.; Mk. iv. 28.
> ‘ -
ἐὰν pi)’ ἀποθάνῃ: 37. καὶ ὃ σπείρεις, οὐ τὸ σῶμα τὸ γενησόµενον ΄ a
σπείρεις, ἀλλὰ “ γυμνὸν Σ κόκκον, 7 εἰ ᾿τύχοι **olTou ἤ τινος "τῶν
Αλοιπῶν: 38. ὁ δὲ Θεὸς αὐτῷ”Ζ Bidwor? σῶμα " καθὼς " ἠθέλησε,
w Η.Ι. in this- κοκ., Mt. xiii. 31, xvii. 20. y See a See vii. 12, xi. 34. b See xii. 18.
v Cf, Jo. xii. 24. x Jo. xii. 24.
ἔδιδωσιν avt@: NABP, 17—chief pre-Syrian and non-Western witnesses.
intimates the imposstbility of the thing, and is answered in ver. 36; the latter, the inconceivability of the manner, an- swered in vv. 37 ff. (so Cm., Cv., D.W., Hf., Ed.). The sceptics advance their second question to justify the first: they say, “The resurrection P. preaches is absurd; how can any one imagine a new body rising out of the perished corpse— a body suitable to the deathless spirit ?”’ The vbs. are logical pr., as concerned with general truths (cf. 26); ‘‘actio rei declaratur absque significatione tem- poris ” (Er.).—€pxovrar (cf. John v. 29; t Thess. iv. 14, 6 Θεὸς ἄξει) graphically represents the difficulty of the objectors: ‘In what bodily form do we picture the dead coming on the scene?”’
Ver. 36. ἄφρων (opposite of φρόνιµοι, iv. 1ο, x. 15) taxes the propounder of these questions not with moral obliquity, but with mental stupidity (see parls.). Wanting the art. (cf. Luke xii. 20), the word is an assertion rather than an ex- clamation: ‘‘Insensé que tu es, toi qui te crois si sage!”’ (Gd.). Some attach σὺ as subject to ἄφρων, but this weakens the adj., and the pron. is required to give due emphasis to ὃ σπείρεις following. With a little sense, the questioner might answer himself; every time he sows his garden-plot, he assumes the principle denied in regard te man’s material form, viz., that death is the transition to a further life—‘that which thou thyself sowest, is not made alive except it die’’. This answers πῶς ἐγείρονται; by ref. to the analogy ofnature. P. does not explain, any more than Jesus, the modus operandi of the Resurrection ; what he shows is that the mystery raises no prejudice against the reality, for the same mystery is wrapped up in every vegetating seed.—éyelpovrat in the question is substituted by ζωο- ποιεῖται in the answer (See note on 22; cf. other parls.), since it is léfe that rises out of the dying seed, and the Resurrec- tion is an evolution, not a reinstatement. Our Lord uses the same figure with the
like implication, but another application, in John xii. 23 f.
Vv. 37, 38 make answer to the second branch of the question of ver. 35, by the aid of the same profound analogy.—xai ὃ σπείρεις, οὐ τὸ σῶμα τὸ γενησόµενον σπείρεις, “' Απά what thou sowest—not the body that will come to be dost thou sow”’. It is the object of the sower to realise a new ποιότης in hisseed. If any one interrupted him with the question, ‘What sort of a body can the grain take that you drop in the earth to rot?” the sower would dismiss him as a fool; he has seen in this case “‘the body that ig to be’’. Now the actuality of the lower resurrection vindicates the conceivability of the higher.—ro γενησόµενον states not merely a future certainty (that shall be; quod futurum sit, Vg.), but a normal process (oriturum, Bz.: quod nascetur, Cy., Bg.).—aAAa γυμνὸν κόκκον, “ but 2 naked grain ’’—unclothed with any body, wanting the appearance and furnishing of life (cf. 2 Cor. v. 3, ἐνδυσάμενοι, οὗ yupvol).—For εἰ τύχοι (‘if it should chance, of wheat”’), see note on xiv. 1Ο: the kind of grain is indiff.—‘‘or of any of the rest (of the seeds)”. The grain of wheat gives to the eye no more pro- mise of the body to spring from it than a grain of sand.—é δὲ Θεὸς stands in op- position to σὺ ὃ oweipers—God the life- giver responding to the sower’s trustful act. ‘But God gives it a body, accord- ing as He willed” (46éAnoev)—not “as He wills” (according to His choice or liking), but in accordance with His past decree in creation, by which the propaga- tion of life on the earth was determined from the beginning (Gen. i. 11 f.; for the vb., cf. note on xii. 18). To allege an impossibility in the case is to impugn the power and resources of the Creator (¢/. Acts xxvi. 8), manifested in this very way every spring-time. The Divine will is the efficient nexus between seed and plant (cf. xii. 6).—‘‘ And (He gives) to each of the seeds a body of its own