The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 480

any interruption, no c-rented thing ciaiming The "interprctRtions" of this verse ere so a pln<'C', no enemy creating opposilion, shnll numerous that it is not uven possible to be subordinated to the Son, the Son to the give n catalogue of them. Many of them Fnther. All things shall sny, 'God is all arc not w01th recording, and am only worth things to me.' This is the consummation; alluding to at nll 11.s specimens of the wilful this the end and summit. Further than bins which goes to Scl"ipture, not to seek this not e,.en an apostle can go." truth, but to support tradition. They are Yers. 29-34.-.,frgnments from the pmc- mostly futile and fantastic, because they lices 011d lives of Chr~lians. The thrne pern,rt the plain meaning of the plain arguments med iii these verses are: If thero words. It is a waste of time ancl space to be no resurrection : 1. Why do some of you give perpetuity to baseless foncied. Such get yourselves baptized on behalf of your are the notions that "for the dead" can dead friends? 2. Wliy do we face lives of mean "for our mortal bodies" (Chrysostom) ; daily peril? 3. How would it be otherwise or" for those o.bout to die" (Estius, Calvin, possible to resist Epicurean views of life? etc.); or "over (the sepulchres of) the dead" Yer. 29.-Else what shall they do which (Luther); or "to supply the vacancies left are baptized for the dead, etc.? This clause by the dead" (Le Clerc, etc.). Eq ua!Iy can have but one meaning, and that its un warruntable are the "explanations " (?) ob·dous one, namely. that, among the many which make those who are being "bapLized" strange opinions and practices which then mean those who o.re "pns&ing through 11, prevailed, wa.s one which was entirely un- baptism of suffering" (!). Not a single warranted-but which St. Paul docs not argument which is worth a moment's con- here stop to examine---0f persons getting sideration can be urged in favour of any one tbemsel\'cs baptized as it were by pro-:r.y for of these, or scores or similar views. If we others who had died. Doubtless some of are to get rid of everything that is surprising the deaths alluded to in eh. xi. 30 had on the ground that it is " immensely im- happened to persons who bad been cut off probo.ble," we may as well discard Scripture before they were actually baptized; and o.t once, aud reconstruct early Cbristio.n their friends had as it were gone through history out of our own consciousness. It the rite in their ~tead, in the hope of bas been very usual to represent it as we extending to them some of its benefits. think that it ought to have been, and not It is argued that St. Paul could not as it was. The disuse of this vicarious possibly mention such a practice without baptism among orthodox Christians may reprobation; but that is an a priori assump- have been due to the discouragement of it tion not warranted by St. Paul's methods by St. Paul when be went to Corinth, and (see eh. x. 8; xi. 6). He al ways confines " set in order " val"ious erroneous customs his attention to the question immediately (eh. xi. 34). • before him, and bis present object is merely Ver. 30.-Why stand weinjeopardyevery to urge a passing argumentum ad hominem. hour 1 The verb means "Why do we incur There is nothing at all surprising in the peril?" The best comment on it will be existence of such an abuse in the medley of found in 2 Cor. xi. 26. Cicero says (' Tusc. wild opinions and wild practices observable Diep.,' i. 15) that "no one would be so mo.d in this disorganized Church. It accords with as to live in labour and perils if our instiuc- the known tendency of later times to post- tive anticipation of future life were taken pone baptism, as a rite which was supposed away." to work as a charm. We also find that the Ver. 31.-I protest. The particle of adju- actual pr11Ctice of baptism on behalf of the ration here used (v¾,) is fount! nowhere dead lingered on among Cerinthians else in the New Testo.ment. By your re- (Epipb., 'Hrer.,' xxviii. 7) and Marcionites joicing. This is an erroneous translation. (Tertullian, 'De Resurrect.,' 48; 'Adv. Marc.,' The words meo.n "by my glorying in you." v. 10). 'l'ertullian accepts the words in St. Po.ul's one subject of earthly glory, his their obvious sense in bis' De Prmscr. Hrer.,' "hope, and joy, and crown of rejoicing," was 48, but accepts the absurdity of" the dead" the conversion of Churches (ltom. xv. Hi, meaning "the body" (" pro mortuis tingui 17). In Christ Jesus onr Lord. His boasting est pro corporibus tingui ") in bis book was not a worldly boasting, but was so.ncti- against Marcion (v. 10). St. Cbrysostom fied by its reference to the work of Christ. tells us further that the proxy who was to I die de.ily. St. Paul" died daily" 11, double be baptized used to be concealed under the death-the ever-deepening death unto sin bier of the dead man, who was supposed to and unto the world; and the do.ily death answer in his name that be desired to be of sufferings borne for Christ's Eake (see hnptized. How perfectly natural the custom 2 Cor. iv. 10, 11). It is the latter to which was may be seen from the fact that among he here alludes. "For thy sako are we the Jews also a man dying under cere- killed nil the day long" (Rom. viii. 36). monial pollution was clean~ed by proxy. Ver. 32.-After the manner of men. ~11. xv. 1-58.J 'l'UE FlHST EPISTLE TO THE COBI~TlIIA~S. 48()