The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 59

,simplicity of my teaching was part of a plain facts, so repellent to the natural fixed design. Not to know anything. Not, intellect, were driven home with matchles- that is, to depend on any human lmowleclge. force by spiritual conviction. The only Of comse, St. Paul neither means to set asicle heathen critic who has mentioned St. Pan!', all human knowledge nor to clisparnge other method is Longinus, the author of the Christian cloctrines. His worcls must not treatise on 'The Sublime and Bea,utiful,' be pressccl out of their clue context ancl who calls him "a master of unproved rlogmn," proportion. Jesus Christ, and him cruci1led. meaning apparently that his force lay in the Christ, in the lowest clepth of his a.basement irresistible statement of the facts wbich he o.nd self-sn.crifice. He would " know" came to preach. nothing else; that is, he would make this Ver. 5.-In the power of God. So iri the central point and essence of. a.II his 2 Cor. iv. 7 he says that the treasure they knowledge, because he knew the "excel- carried was "in earthen vessels, that the lency" of this knowledge (Phil. iii. 8)- excellency of the power may be of God and knew it as the only knowledge which rose not of us." to the height of wisdom. Christ is the Yers. 6-16.-The apparent foolishness is only Foundation (eh. iii. 11). In the person the only uisdom. nnd the work of Christ is involved the whole Ver. 6.-Howbeit. In this passage he gospel. shows that in reality a crushing irony la~ Ver. 3.-I was with you; literally, I in his description of the gospel as being, i11 became or proved myself, towctrcls you, as in the world'sjudgment, "weak" ancl "foolish." eh. xvi. 10. In weakness. St. Paul was It was the highest wisdom, but it coul,I physically weak and liable also to nervous only be understood by the perfect. Its weakness and depression (eh. iv. 7-12; apparent folly to the Corinthians was a Gal. iv. 13; 2 Cor. x. 1, 10; xii. 7, 10). proof of their blindness and incapacity. He shows o.n occasional self-distrust rising Among the perfect. The word eithel' mea11s from the consciousness of personal infirmities. (1) the mature, the full-grown, as opposed This enhances our sense of his hernic to babes in Christ ( eh. iii. 1); or (2) tl,e courage and endurance. Doubtless this fully initiated into the mystel'ies of godliness 1ihysical weakness o.nd nervous depression (eiro,,..,.a.,. 2 Pet. i. 16). A wisdom not of this were connected with his "stake in the flesh," world; literally, of this awn. The woril which seems to have been an acute and dis- lwsmos means the world in its material tressing form of ophthalmia, accompanied aspect; awn is read for the worl<I in its with cerebral disturbance (see my 'Life of moral and intellectual aspect. "The wisdom :St. Paul,' i. 215-221). In fear, and in much of this world is foolishness with God" ( eh. iii. trembling. Probably the words are even liter- 19). Nor of the rulers of this world. Some ,a.lly true, though they aro a common phrase have taken these " rulers" to be the same .(2 Cor. vii. 15; Phil. ii. 12, 13; Eph. vi. 5). as " tho world-rulers of this darkness," i.e. lt must be remembered that in his first the evil spirits, in Eph. vi. 12 (John xiii. visit to Corinth St. Paul had gone through 27; Luke xxii. 53). Ignatius (?) seems to stormy and troubled days (Acts :xviii. 1- have understood it thus; for he adopted the 12). strange notion that ".the prince of this raon ·• Ver. 4.-My speeoh and my preaohing; (i.e. Satan) had been deceived and frustrated the form and matter of my discourse. He by the incarnation from a virgin, and the would not attempt to use the keen sword of death on the cross (lgnat., 'Ad. Eph.,' 19). philosophical rlialectics or human eloquence, It means more probably "wisdom," 11s under- but woulcl only use the weapon of the cross. stood by Roman governors and Jewish Wus not with enticing words of man's Sanhedrists, who treated the Divine wisdom wisdom; rather, with persuasive words of of the gospel with sovereign contemp' wisdom (the word anthi-opines is e. gloss). (Acts iv. 27). That [who) oome to nought·, This simplicity was the more remo.l'kable literally, toho are being done away with. because " Corinthian words" was a proverb Amid all the feebleness of the infant Church, for choice, elaborate, and glittel'ing phr11ses St. Po.ul so.w empires vanishing before it. (Wetstein). It is not improbable that the , Ver. 7.-In a mystery; that is, "in a almost total and deeply discouraging want truth, once hidden, now revealed." The of success of St. Paul in preaching at Athens word is now used for whu& is dcll'k and in- had impressed him more strongly with the comprehensible, but it has no such meaning uselessness of attempting to fight Greek in the New Testament, where it means" what philosophers with their own blunt and im- was once secret, but has now beeu made perfect weapons. In demonstration of the manifest" (Rom. xvi. 25; Eph. iii. 4, 9 ; Col. Spirit and of power. So he says to the i. 26; 1 Tim. iii. 16). It implies the very Thessalonians, " Our gospel oame not to you reverse of any esoteric teaching. Hidden. in word only, but also in power, and in the It was " hidden from the wise and prudeu t, Holy Gho8t, and in much assurance." The hut revealed to babes" (lUu.tt. xi. 25 ).  GO TIIE FIHST EPISTLE TO THE COlUNTIHANS. [cH. 11. 1-16