The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 163

CT rertCTin person hCTs his fCTther's 1r(fe. .Ap- conceit." This was indccrl Kop1v81d.(ea-8a1,. parently this was some nominal Christiu.u, "to play the Corinthian," iu the worst. who was living in open sin with his step- sense of that provel'bial taunt. Pos~ibly the mother, and thereby braTing the curse of prominence or wealth of the offender may LeT. xviii. 17: Dent. xxvii. 20. We gather have led to a mol'e easy condouation of his from 2 Cor. Tii. 12 that the father was living, crime. Exculpatory sophism may have been, and had also joined the Christian com- suggested by self-interest. That ; i.e. in munity. From the complete siler.ce as to order that, as a result of your godly sorrow,. the crime of the woman, it must be in- the offender might be removed from your ferred thut she was a heathen. Whether midst. He that hath done this deed. The· she had been divorced or not does not language of St. Paul, as always, i1 as appear, nor whether the offender was delicate as clearness would allow. The fact nominally married to her or not. His that the verb is in the past aorist may per- father's wife. He might have used the one haps allow us to hope that the offence, at Greek word for step-mother (µ.71Tpv1d.), but any rate in its most aggravated forms, had the periphrasis might remind some of the ceased to be committed. The manner of heinousness of the sin, and of Lev. xviii. 8. the crime (" in such a way ") seems to ,er. 2.-And ye are puffed up; perhaps have been nn aggravation of the crime it- rather, And have ye been p11ffed up? The self. In this indignant verse we have, as "ye," being expressed in the Greek, is Stanley says, " the burst of the storm, the emphatic-" ye, the very persons whose mutterings of which had been heard in the horror ought to have been most intense." earlier chapters." So intense was the effect It might seem inconceivable that any com- produced by St. Paul's stern severity, that n munity calling it.self Christian would fall so great part of the Second Epistle had to be low as to be puffed up at the existence of devoted to allaying the agitation which such an offence among them. There is, in- these words had excited (see especially 2· deed, a subtle and close connection between Cor. vii. 8-12). arrogance and sensuality, and both are Ver. 3.-For I verily. The broken struc- sometimes fatally linked to the conceit of ture of the verse shows the deep emotion religious knowledge without the reality. with which it was penned-as it were with But not even a heathen community could sobs. St. Paul contrasts the line which he have been "puffed up" on such grounds. means to take with the lax condonation Yet the Corinthia.ns may have been" puffed granted by the Corinthian Church. As up" with the conceited reasons which in- absent; rather, being abBent or though absent. duced them to leave the offence uurebuked, The as is omitted in the best manuscripts. because they boasted the possession of some lint present in spirit; literally, in the spirit; spurious "knowledge." Perhaps they had but he is referring to his own spirit : seized some deadly notion of antinomian "Bodily I am absent; but speaking as though liberty, such e.s has existed at times among my spirit were present in your assembly Gnostic sects, like the Ophites in ancient [comp. 2 Kings v. 26), I Lave already and the Anabaptists in modern days. Per- judged," etc. Have judged already. My haps they sheltered themselves under the decision was instantaneous and is final. arrogant Jewish rule that all a man's con- As though I were present. My sentence is ditions of life were altered by becoming a as clear as though I were at this moment proselyte-that old relationships were for him standing in the midst of you. That hath so entirely abolished; for the Jews held that a done. The verb is not as before, poiesas, but. proselyte was like " a new-born child," and katergasamenon, which is stronger, "the had begun life a second time (Bechoroth, f. perpetrator of this deed." The " so " means 47, 1), and might marry any of his relatives. "with all these circumstances of aggrava- Such miserable sophisms would acquire fresh tion." The same verb is used in Rom. i. 27. force from the universal impurity with which The broken periods of the Greek reflect the Corinthian society was stained, and which emotion of the writer. The passage is as rendered it necessary for St. Paul in these it were written with sobs (Wordsworth). Epistles to utter his most solemn warnings Ver. 4.-In the Name of our Lord J'esUB against every kind of sensuality (eh. v. 11 ; Christ. The word "Christ" is probably an vi. 15-18; x. B; xv. 33, 34; 2 Cor. v. 11, addition. The clause may either be taken etc.). But be,ides all thiij, St. Paul's with "when ye are gathered together," or remark does not necessarily mean that their with "to deliver" (comp. I Tim. v. 21). "inflation" was exclusively connected with With the power of our Lord J'eeUB. Each Gnostic excesses, which bore on the case of clause adds solemnity to the scene in which this offender. It may mean, "Here is a St. Paul imagines himself as standing gross fault in the midot of you, and yet- with them in the spirit, and joining with uot propter hoe, but e\jm hoe-the character- the assembly of the Church, and armed with it;iic of your religious factione is pride and the authority of Christ, while he pl'onounces OH. v, 1-13.] THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 167