The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 548

the Ephesian brethren. Let them renew their fellowship and pledp;e their love ouain "with a holy kiss.'' The work of the amanuensis over, St. Paul adds the salutation, from himself with his own hand, •• The salutation of me Paul." And the words follow "Ir any man love not the Loni Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema," let him becom~ nccursed ; "Maran-ntha," the Lord comes. Between the greeting "of me Paul" and " the gra~e of our Lord ,Je_sus Christ be wite yo_u," followed i~medi,\tely ~vith "my ]ol"e be with you all m Chnst Jesus. Amen, this utterance of mtense feehn<Y occurs. "'hnt his tone of mind was, we understand fully from the chapter, which ;.'i:presses confidenet>, hope, and brotherly affection. \Vhat his emotions were at the inst11nt we know from the salutation which precedes and the benediction which succeeds' the· Anathema Maran-atha. The warning is terrible, but it is one of love and tenderness. Had he been less conscious of the obligation to love the Lord Jesus Christ, less sensible of its immeasurable worth to the soul, less aware of the stupendous folly and guilt of rejecting it; or if the profound sense of that love had not been present in the full blaze of his own consciousness ;-then, peradventure, words less stern and denunciatory might have been used. As it is, he speaks from the same high level of love to God and man and the sentence of condemnation has its preface in a greeting and its sequel in; benediction. So closes this wonderful Epistle. Writing under the zenith of his years, if we rate those years by the chronology of his preaching and pen, St. Paul comes before us in its successive pages as one whose temperament, nervous vigour, observation, culture experience, had been so far co-ordinated and interblended as to fit him, in an eminent degree, to give birth to this production. Never did a human soul exhibit its individu- ality more perfectly through all its organs of expression. Those organs are varied in every man. They were singularly diversified in the apostle. He cannot reason long without waking other forces of utterance. Imagination, in its form of relativity rather than its creative quality, is stirred into activity. Most of all, impassioned emotion is quickly evoked. And, in this Epistle, the transitions from one topic to another, and from one aspect of a t,,pic to its contrast, are vivid tokens of his superabundant energy. Much is left without minute elaboration. Hints are given that might be expanded into essays and disquisitions. But he was not writing these; he was writin!{ apostolic letters, and " first and last and midst" he adhered to his plan and method. Judging from his recorded speeches, he is quite as much or more of a speaker when writing than whe-a addressing a multitude. The spirit in him is often impetuous and finds it easy work to loose itself from restraints. Keenly conscious of himself, still more keenly conscious of Divine truth in himself, his personality is as nearly merged in his apostleship as we can conceive possible, and hence it is Paul, the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, who. has the pre-eminence in all the manifestations of his genius and character. This Epistle, a manual of Church order, an epitome of cardinal principles adapted to the ever-changing externality of Church life, presents many a germ-idea for future development. Not one of his Epistles bears so directly on certain questions of the day. If we study the human body from the Pauline point of view, we shall be rid. very soon of those dangerous teachin"s which some of our physiologists are pressing on popular acceptance. If we follow St. Paul, we shall know more of the human soul than most of our philosophical systems teach us. There are no "wandering mazes" here in which men are "lost," but over every realm he traverses, light gathers as he advances, and the splendour always bangs its noon where the radiance is most wanted. Christ is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. Christ is therefore bis Power and Wisdom, wherever the duties of the apostleship have to be discharged and its sorrows have t? be endu~ed. The day has not come for this Epistle to be fully understood and appreciated. Science has_many years -:,f apprenticeship to serve before it can reach the plane of thought on which ~t. Paul stood. And our Christian thinkers have much to learn before culture and piety can open to them the hidden treasures of this Epistle. As true Biblical criticism advances, the profundity of this letter to the Corinthians grows more apparent, and we feel in our day, as was never felt, ~fore the amazing compass of its power. Here are ideas which wait on time and have given as yet scarcely more than a fragment of themselves to our foremost scholars. Here artl latent inspirations that will one day astound the world. Nothin(7 that he wrote has a better-grounded assurance of a great future, and when that future :hall come, the world will have a far juster sense of its indebttdncss to St. Paul aa a grand tcacber.-L. cu. :xvi. 1-24.] THE FIRST EPISTL!!, TO THE CORINTHIA:N'S. 5131