1Co 2:1. Κἀγώ] I too, as is the duty, in accordance with the previous explanation (1Co 1:17-31), of every preacher of the gospel. The construction is such, that καθʼ ὑπεροχὴν κ.τ.λ[314] belongs to ΚΑΤΑΓΓ., as indicating the mode adopted in the ΚΑΤΑΓΓΈΛΛΕΙΝ: I too, when I came to you, brethren, came proclaiming to you, not upon the footing of a pre-eminence of speech (eloquence) or wisdom (philosophy), the testimony of God. Against connecting the words it this way (which is done also by Castalio, Bengel, and others, Pott, Heydenreich, Schrader, de Wette, Osiander, Ewald), it is objected that ἐλθὼν ἦλθον gives an intolerable tautology. But this is of no weight (see the passages in Bernhardy, p. 475; Bornemann, a[315] Cyrop. v. 3. 2; Sauppe, a[316] Anab. iv. 2. 21 comp on Act 7:34), and would, besides, apply to the construction ἮΛΘΟΝ Οὐ … ΣΟΦΊΑς, ΚΑΤΑΓΓΈΛΛΩΝ (Luther, Erasmus, Calvin, Grotius, and others, including Flatt, Rückert, Hofmann); further, it is more natural and more in accordance with the sense to think in connection with ΚΑΘʼ ὙΠΕΡΟΧῊΝ Κ.Τ.Λ[318] of the manner of the preaching than of the manner of the coming. For that reason, too, ἦλθον is not placed after σοφίας. The preposition κατά, again, to express mode (Winer, p. 375 [E. T. 501]), is quite according to rule; comp καθʼ ὑπερβολήν, κατὰ κράτος, and the like.
As to ὑπεροχή, eminentia, comp 1Ti 2:2; Plat. Legg. iv. p. 711 D; Def. 416; Arist. Pol. iv. 9. 5. Also κακῶν ὑπεροχή, 2Ma 13:6.
καταγγέλλων] Paul might have used the future, but the present participle places the thing more vividly before us as already begun with the ἦλθον. So especially often ἀγγέλλων (Valck. a[321] Phoen. 1082); e.g. Xen. Hell. ii. 1. 29: ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας ἔπλευσεν, ἀγγέλλουσα τὰ γεγονότα, Plat. Phaed. p. 116 C, and Stallbaum in loc[322] See, in general, Winer, p. 320 f. [E. T. 429 f.]; Dissen, a[323] Pindar. Ol. vii. 14.
τὸ μαρτύρ. τοῦ Θεοῦ] in substance not different from τ. μαρτ. τ. Χριστοῦ, 1Co 1:6; 2Ti 1:8. For the preachers of the gospel give testimony of God, as to what He has done, namely, in Christ for the salvation of men. Comp 1Co 15:15. In accordance with 1Co 1:6, the genitive is not, with Calvin, Bengel, Osiander, and Hofmann, to be taken subjectively, as in 1Jn 5:9 f.
[314] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[315] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[316] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[318] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[321] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[322] n loc. refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[323] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
1Co 2:2. For I did not resolve (did not set it before me as part of my undertaking) to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and that the crucified, i.e. to mix up other kinds of knowledge with the proclamation of Jesus Christ, etc.[325] Had Paul not disdained this and not put aside all other knowledge, his καταγγέλλειν would not have remained free from ὑπεροχὴ λόγου ἢ σοφίας. The ordinary reference of the negation to τι: I resolved to know nothing, etc., is in arbitrary opposition to the words (so, however, Pott, Flatt, Rückert, Osiander, Ewald). In ἔκρινα Calvin and Grotius find too much, since the text does not give it: magnum duxi; Hofmann again, too little, with Luther and others: I judged, was of opinion; for Paul could indeed discard and negative in his own case the undertaking to know something, but not the judgment that he did know something. His self-determination was, not to be directed to know, etc. Comp 1Co 7:37; 2Co 2:1; Rom 14:13; Κρῖναί τι καὶ προθέσθαι, Polyb. iii. 6. 7; Wis 8:9; 1Ma 11:33; 2Ma 6:14, al[327] He might have acted otherwise, had he proposed to himself to do so.
τὶ εἰδέναι] πρὸς ἀντιδιαστολὴν τῆς ἔξωθεν εἴρηται σοφίας· οὐ γὰρ ἦλθον συλλογισμοὺς πλέκων, οὐδὲ σοφίσματα, οὐδʼ ἄλλο τι λέγων ὑμῖν, ἢ ὅτι ὁ Χριστὸς ἐσταυρώθη, Chrysostom. But the giving up of everything else is far more powerfully expressed by εἰδέναι (comp Arrian, Epict. ii. 1) than if Paul had said λέγειν or λαλεῖν. He was not disposed, when among the Corinthians, to be conscious of anything else but Christ. The notion of permission (Rückert), which might be conveyed in the relation of the infinitive to the verb (see Lobeck, a[329] Phryn. p. 753; Kühner, a[330] Xen. Mem. ii. 2. 1; Anab. v. 7. 34), would here only weaken the force of the statement. Were τοῦ εἰδέναι τι the correct reading (but see the critical remarks), the right rendering of the genitive would not be: so that (Billroth), but: I made no resolution, in order to know anything. Comp on Act 27:1.
κ. τοῦτ. ἐσταυρ.] notwithstanding the offence therein implied for Jew and Gentile, 1Co 1:18; 1Co 1:23. Comp Gal 6:14.
[325] Causaubon remarks well, that Ἰησ. x. refers to the person, and κ. τοῦτ. ἐσταυρ. to the officium, and “in his duobus totum versatur evangelium.” But the strong emphasis on the latter point arises from looking back to 1Co 1:17-24.
[327] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[329] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[330] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
1Co 2:3-4. After the probative sentence, 1Co 2:2, Paul takes up again the connection of 1Co 2:1, and that with the simple καί: And I for my part (with others it may have been different!) fell into weakness and into much fear and trembling among you (πρὸς ὑμ.; see on Joh 1:1).
γίγνεσθαι ἐν, to fall into a state, etc. (and to be in it); so Thuc. i. 78. 1; Plato, Prot. p. 314 C; Dem. p. 179, ult. Comp Luk 22:44; 1Ma 1:27; 2Ma 7:9; Hist. Sus. 8. We might also join πρὸς ὑμᾶς to ἐγενόμην, not, indeed, in the way in which Hofmann interprets it, as if for ἐγενόμην there stood ἤμην (Mar 14:49), but in the sense: I arrived among you (2Jn 1:12, and see generally, Fritzsche, Ind. ad Lucian. Dial. Deor. p. 85; Nägelsbach on the Iliad, p. 295, ed. 3); 1Co 2:4, however, shows that what is here spoken of is not again (1Co 2:1) the coming thither, but the state when there.
The three phrases, ἀσθ., φόβος, and τρόμος, depict the deep bashfulness with which Paul was in Corinth, through his humble sense of the disproportion between his own powers and the great enterprise to which his conscientiousness kept him bound. In facing it he felt himself very weak, and was in fear and trembling. As for want of natural strength of will and determination, of which Hofmann speaks, there were no signs of anything of the kind in Paul, even judging from his experience at Athens; and no such weakness betrays itself in Act 18:4-11. The connection forbids us from thinking, with Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Erasmus, Cornelius a Lapide, Grotius, and others, of the sufferings and persecutions (ἀσθ.), and of the apprehension of dangers, which he had to undergo in Corinth; for the text hints nothing of persecutions and dangers, and these would not necessarily furnish the motive for simplicity in preaching (1Co 2:1; 1Co 2:4 f.), nay, might even excite to the greater rhetorical exertion. The weakness, etc., was of a deep ethical nature, being based on the entire renunciation of human wisdom and strength (1Co 2:5). Other exegetes wrongly understand ἀσθενεία even of bodily weakness, either generally sickliness (Rückert), or more especially weakness in the chest and voice (Storr, comp Rosenmüller).
φόβος κ. τρόμος] always denote with Paul (comp also Psa 2:11) the deeply vivid and keen apprehension of humility, lest it should be unable to meet the emergency concerned. See 2Co 7:15; Php 2:12; Eph 6:5.
ὁ λόγος μου κ. τ. κήρυγμά μου] are indeed emphatically separated from each other by the repetition of the μου; but it is an arbitrary distinction to make the former of the two refer to the form, the latter to the contents (Heydenreich), or the former to the privata, the latter to the publica institutio (so Rückert and the majority of commentators). The former is the more general expression, the latter the particular: my speech generally (comp 2Co 10:10), and especially my public preaching.
οὐκ ἐν πειθοῖς σοφ. λόγοις] sc[337] ἦν, non versabatur in, did not move in the element of persuasive words of wisdom, such words as are philosophically arranged and thereby fitted to persuade. Πειθός is found nowhere else in the whole range of extant Greek literature, πιθανός being the word in use (Xen. Cyr. vi. 4. 5; Thuc. iv. 21; Dem. 928. 14; Josephus, Antt. viii. 9; and the passages from Plato in Ast, Lex. III. p. 102. Meineke, Menand. p. 222). Πειθός, however, is formed from πείθω by correct analogy as φειδός from φείδομαι, etc. Comp Salmasius, de ling. Hellenist, p. 86; Reiche, Comment. crit. I. p. 136 f. It was in all likelihood an adjective belonging only to the colloquial language of common life. Kypke, indeed (Obss. II. p. 193), would find some trace of it in Plato, Gorg. p. 493 A; but what we have there is a play on the words τὸ πιθανόν and πίθος, a cask, which has no connection whatever with πειθός. Pasor and Schrader make πειθοῖς to be the dative plural of πειθώ, suada, and what follows to be in apposition to it: in persuasions, in words of wisdom. But the plural of πειθώ also has no existence; and how abrupt such an apposition would be, as well as wholly at variance with the parallel in 1Co 2:13! The following are simply conjectures (comp the critical remarks): Beza and Erasmus Schmid (after Eusebius), ἐν πειθοῖ σοφίας λόγων; Grotius, ἐν πιστοῖς κ.τ.λ[340]; Valckenaer, Klose, and Kühn (Commentat. a[341] 1 Cor. ii. 1-5, Lips. 1784), ἐν πιθανοῖς or ΠΕΙΘΑΝΟῖς Κ.Τ.Λ[342] (comp also Alberti, Schediasm. p. 105); Alberti, ἐν πειθοῦς (suadae) σ. λόγοις, or (so, too, Semler, Flatt, Rinck, Fritzsche in the Hall. Lit. Zeit. 1840, Nr. 100) ἐν πειθοῖ σοφίας (without λόγοις).
ἐν ἀποδείξει πνεύματος κ. δυνάμεως] Without there being any necessity for explaining the two genitives by a ἓν διὰ δυοῖν as equivalent to πνεύματος δυνατοῦ (so still Pott, Flatt, Billroth, Olshausen, Maier, with older expositors), the meaning may, according to our interpretation of ἀπόδειξις and to our taking the genitives in an objective or subjective sense, be either: so that I evinced Spirit and power (so Vatablus and others, with Pott and Billroth); or: so that Spirit and power made themselves known through me (Calvin: “in Pauli ministerio … quasi nuda Dei manus se proferebat”); or: so that Spirit and power gave the proof (Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Neander, and Maier, following older commentators). The latter is most in keeping with the purposely-chosen expression ἀπόδειξις (found here only in the N. T.; Dem. 326. 4; Plato, Phaed. p. 77 C, Theaet. p. 162 E, and often; 3Ma 4:20), and with the significant relation to οὐκ ἐν πειθοῖς σ. λόγοις. Paul means the Holy Spirit (1Co 2:10 ff.) and the divine power communicating itself therein, 1Co 2:5 (Rom 1:16; 2Co 4:7; 1Th 1:5), which wrought through his preaching upon the minds of men, persuading them of its truth,-the testimonium Spiritus Sancti internum.[344] At variance with the text is the view of several of the older expositors (following Origen, contra Celsum, i. p. 5), who refer πνεύματος to the oracles of the O. T., and δυνάμ. to the miracles of the apostle; as well as the view of Grotius, that the former applies to the prophecies, and the latter to the cures, by means of which Paul had given the ἀπόδειξις.
[337] c. scilicet.
[340] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[341] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[342] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[344] Theophylact is right in supposing as regards πνεύματος: ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ τρόπῳ πίστιν ἐνεποίει τοῖς ἀκούουσι. He makes δυνάμεως, however, apply to the miracles, as does Theodoret also, who takes the two elements together, and explains the clause of the θαυματουργία τοῦ πνεύματος. So, too, in substance, Chrysostom, according to whom it is by πνεύματος that the miracles are made to appear as true miracles.
1Co 2:5. Aim of the divine leading, the organ of which the apostle knew himself to be, in what is set forth in 1Co 2:4 : in order that your faith (in Christ) may be based, have its causal ground (comp Bernhardy, p. 210), not on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power (which has brought conviction to you through my speech and preaching). That ἵνα introduces not his own (Hofmann), but the divine purpose, is clear from ἐν ἀποδείξει κ.τ.λ[346], in which Paul has stated how God had wrought through him. Comp ἽΝΑ in 1Co 1:31.
[346] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
1Co 2:6. Wisdom, nevertheless (unphilosophical as my discourse among you was), we deliver among the perfect.
λαλοῦμεν] we speak it out, hold it not back. That the plural does not refer to Paul alone (so usually), but to the apostolic teachers in general, is clear from the καὶ ἐγώ in 1Co 3:1, which introduces the particular application of the plural statement here.
ἐν means nothing else than in, surrounded by, among, coram; λαλεῖν ἐν corresponds to the λαλεῖν with the dative in 1Co 3:1. We must therefore reject not only the rendering for the perfect (Flatt, with older expositors), which is in itself linguistically untenable (for even in such passages as those cited by Bernhardy, p. 212, the local force of ἐν should be retained), but also the explanation: according to the judgment of the perfect (Grotius, Tittmann, de Spir. Dei mysterior. div. interprete, Lips. 1814, in the Syn. N. T. p. 285), which would have to be referred, with Billroth, to the conception of among, since the corresponding usage of ἐν ἐμοί, ἐν σοί, in the sense, according to my or thy view, applies exclusively to these particular phrases (Bernhardy, p. 211).
The τέλειοι (comp on Eph 4:13), who stand in contrast to the ΝΉΠΙΟΙ ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ, are those who have penetrated beyond the position of beginners in Christian saving knowledge to the higher sphere of thorough and comprehensive insight. The σοφία, which is delivered to these, is the Christian analogue to philosophy in the ordinary sense of the word, the higher religious wisdom of Christianity, the presentation of which (1Co 12:8) is not yet appropriate for the beginners in the faith (1Co 3:1-2). The form of this instruction was that of spiritual discourse (1Co 2:13) framed under the influence of the holy πνεῦμα, but independent of the teachings of philosophic rhetoric; and its matter was the future relations of the Messianic kingdom (1Co 2:9; 1Co 2:12) in their connection with the divine counsel of redemption and its fulfilment in Christ, the μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν (Mat 13:11),-that, which no eye hath seen, etc. Comp Bab. Sanhedr. f. xcix. 1 : “Quod ad mundum futurum: oculus non vidit, O Deus, praeter te.” The definitions now given[350] respecting the σοφία Θεοῦ are the only ones that neither go beyond the text, nor are in the least degree arbitrary, while they comprehend also the doctrine of the κτίσις as regards its Messianic final destination, Romans 8,-that highest analogue to the philosophy of nature. It may be gathered, however, with certainty from 1Co 3:1-2, that we are not to think here of any disciplina arcani. With the main point in our view as a whole,-namely, that σοφία denotes that higher religious wisdom, and τέλειοι those already trained in Christian knowledge, grown up, as it were, to manhood,
Erasmus, Castalio, Estius, Bengel, Semler, Stolz, as well as Pott, Usteri, Schrader, Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Ewald, Neander, Maier, Hofmann, accord. Chrysostom, however, Theophylact, Theodoret, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Rosenmüller, and others, including Tittmann, Flatt, Billroth, and Olshausen, understand by the τέλειοι the Christians generally, or the true Christians, to whom the apostle’s doctrine (σοφίαν λέγει τὸ κήρυγμα καὶ τὸν τρόπον τῆς σωτηρίας, τὸ διὰ σταυροῦ σωθῆναι, τελείους δὲ τοὺς πεπιστευκότας, Chrysostom), appeared as wisdom, not as folly. “Ea dicimus quae plena esse sapientiae judicabunt veri ac probi Christiani,” Grotius. But 1Co 3:2 is decisive against this view; for there γάλα denotes the instruction of beginners as distinguished from the σοφία (βρῶμα). Comp the appropriate remarks of Castalio on this passage.
σοφίαν δὲ οὐ τ. αἰῶν. τ.] wisdom, however, which does not belong to this age (δέ, as in Rom 3:22; Rom 9:30; Gal 2:2; Php 2:8), which is not, like the Jewish and Hellenic philosophy, the product and intellectual property of the pre-Messianic age. Comp 1Co 1:20. Αἰῶνος τούτου σοφίαν ὀνομάζει τὴν ἔξω, ὡς πρόσκαιρον καὶ τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ συγκαταλυομένην, Theophylact.
οὐδέ] also (in particular) not.
τῶν ἀρχ. τ. αἰῶν τ.] These are the rulers generally (comp Act 13:27), the dominant powers (proceres) of the pre-Messianic time among Jews and Gentiles. But to say that Paul’s meaning is that he does not teach politics (Grotius), is to limit his words in a way foreign to the connection; he affirms generally that the σοφία in question is a wisdom to which holders of temporal power are strangers. Comp 1Co 2:8. It is a mistake to explain the ἄρχ. τ. αἰῶν. τ. as referring either to influential philosophers and men of learning[355] (Theodoret, Theophylact, and others, including Pott; comp Neander: “the intellectual rulers of the ancient world”), or to the demons, connecting it with 2Co 4:4, Joh 12:31 (Marcion, Origen, some writers referred to by Chrysostom and Theophylact, also Ambrosiaster, Estius, Bertholdt), both of these interpretations being incompatible with the words, and forbidden by 1Co 2:8; or lastly, to the Jewish archontes alone (Cameron, Hammond, Vorstius, Lightfoot, Locke, Stolz, Rosenmüller), which is contrary to the general character of the expression, and not required by 1Co 2:8 (see on 1Co 2:8).
τῶν καταργ.] which are done away with, i.e. cease to subsist (1Co 1:28, 1Co 15:24; 2Th 2:8; 2Ti 1:10; Heb 2:14), namely, when Christ returning establishes His kingdom. Comp Revelation 16-19. This reference is implied in the context by the emphatic repetition of ΤΟῦ ΑἸῶΝΟς ΤΟΎΤΟΥ. The expedient of explaining it into: “Whose power and influence are broken and brought to nought by the gospel,” Billroth (comp Flatt and Rückert), rationalizes the apostle’s conception, and does not even accord with history.
The present participle, as in 1Co 1:18. Comp 2Co 3:7.
[350] Comp. Rückert, who, as respects the matter, is of opinion that it includes the higher views regarding the divine plan of the world in relation to the development of the kingdom of God, and especially to the providential government of the Jewish people; regarding the import of the divine ordinances and appointments before Christ, for example, of the law in reference to the highest end contemplated-the kingdom of God; regarding the way and manner in which the death and resurrection of Christ bear upon the salvation of the world; as well as regarding the changes yet in the womb of the future, and, in particular, the events which are linked with the second coming of the Lord. Similarly, and still more in detail, Estius. According to de Wette, portions of this wisdom are to be found in the Epistle to the Romans, in the discussions on justification, on the contrast between Christ and Adam, and on predestination; in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, in the indications there given as to the divine plan of redemption and the person of Christ; in our Epistle, chap. 15; views of the same kind in Hebrews 7-10, comp. 1Co 4:11 ff. Osiander makes this σοφία to consist in the deeper dogmatic development of the gospel as regards its historical foundations and its eternal consequences reaching on to the consummation of the kingdom of God. Comp. Ewald, p. 139, according to whom its contents turn upon the gospel as the centre and cardinal point of all divine-human history, and for that very reason touch all the problems both of history as a whole, and of the creation. Hofmann rightly includes also the final glory of believers.
[355] These are not even included (in opposition to Chrysostom and others, including Osiander), although the ἄρχοντες may have accepted their wisdom, played the part of patrons to them, etc.
1Co 2:7. Θεοῦ σοφίαν] God’s philosophy, of which God is the possessor, who has made it known to those who proclaim it, 1Co 2:10. This Θεοῦ is with great emphasis prefixed; the repetition of λαλοῦμεν, too, carries with it a certain solemnity, comp Rom 8:15; Php 4:17.
ἘΝ ΜΥΣΤΗΡΊῼ] does not belong to ΤῊΝ ἈΠΟΚΕΚΡ. (with which it was connected expressly as early as Theodoret; comp Grotius: “quae diu in arcano recondita fuit”), but to ΛΑΛΟῦΜΕΝ (Erasmus, Estius, Rückert, Schrader, de Wette, Osiander, Hofmann), not, however, in the sense: “secreto et apud pauciores” (Estius, Cornelius a Lapide), since there is no mention of a disciplina arcani (see on 1Co 2:6), but rather: by means of a secret, i.e. by our delivering what has been secret (a doctrine hidden from the human understanding, and revealed to us by God, see on Rom 11:25). To this is to be referred also the rendering of Rückert and Neander: as a mystery. Most interpreters, however, join ἐν μυστηρίῳ with ΣΟΦΊΑΝ, sc[362] οὖσαν: God’s secret wisdom (unknown but for revelation). So also Pott, Heydenreich, Billroth, Tittmann, Usteri, Ewald. But the article, although after the anarthrous σοφίαν not in itself absolutely necessary, would be omitted here at the expense of clearness. Paul would have expressed himself with ambiguity, while he might easily have avoided it by ΤῊΝ ἘΝ ΜΥΣΤΗΡΊῼ. On the other hand, if he joined ἘΝ ΜΥΣΤ. to ΛΑΛΟῦΜΕΝ, he could not, seeing that he wished to prefix λαλ. for the sake of emphasis, write otherwise.
ΤῊΝ ἈΠΟΚΕΚΡ.] as respects its nature, by virtue of which it not only had been hidden from all preceding generations, but remained unknown apart from divine revelation. Comp 1Co 2:9-10; Rom 16:25. The word, which in itself might be dispensed with, is added in order to introduce the following statement with completeness and solemnity.
ἫΝ ΠΡΟΏΡ. Ὁ ΘΕῸς Κ.Τ.Λ[364]] There is no ground here for supplying (with the majority of expositors, including Pott and Heydenreich) ἀποκαλύπτειν, γνωρίσαι, or the like, or (with Olshausen) a dative of the person; or yet for assuming, as do Billroth and Rückert, that Paul meant by ἥν the object of the wisdom, the salvation obtained through Christ. For προώρ. has its complete and logically correct reference in εἰς δόξαν ἡμ. (comp Eph 1:5), so that the thought is: “to which wisdom God has, before the beginning of the ages of this world (in eternity), given the predestination that by it we should attain to glory.” This εἰς δόξ. ἡμ. corresponds significantly to the τῶν καταργ. of 1Co 2:6, and denotes the Messianic glory of the Christians which is to begin with the Parousia (Rom 8:17; Rom 8:29 f.; 1Th 2:12). That wisdom of God is destined in the eternal divine plan of salvation not to become (Hofmann) this glory, but to establish and to realize it. This destination it attains in virtue of the faith of the subjects (1Co 1:21); but the reference to the spiritual glorification on earth is not even to be assumed as included with the other (in opposition to de Wette, Osiander, Neander, and many older expositors), as also the correlative τῆς δόξης in 1Co 2:8 applies purely to the heavenly glory. Bengel says well: “olim revelandam, tum cum principes mundi destruentur.” It reveals itself then as the wisdom that makes blessed, having attained in the δόξα of believers the end designed for it by God before the beginning of the world.
[362] c. scilicet.
[364] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
1Co 2:8. Ἥν] Parallel with the preceding ἥν, and referring to Θεοῦ σοφίαν (Calvin, Grotius, and most commentators, including Flatt, Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Hofmann), not to δόξ. ἡμῶν (Tertullian, contra Marc. v. 6, Camerarius, Pott, Billroth, Maier); for the essential point in the whole context is the non-recognition of that wisdom.[366]
εἰ γὰρ ἔγνωσαν κ.τ.λ[367]] parenthetical proof from fact for what has been just asserted; for the ἀλλά in 1Co 2:9 refers to ἫΝ ΟὐΔΕῚς … ἜΓΝΩΚΕΝ. The crucifixion of Christ, seeing that it was effected by Jewish and heathen rulers together, is here considered as the act of the ἄρχ. τ. αἰῶν. collectively.
τὸν Κύριον τῆς δόξης] Christ is the Lord, and, inasmuch as His qualitative characteristic condition is that of the divine glory in heaven, from which He came and to which He has returned (Joh 17:5; Luk 24:26; Php 3:20 f.; Col 3:1-4, al[368]), the Lord of glory. Comp Jam 2:1. In a precisely analogous way God is called, in Eph 1:17, Ὁ ΠΑΤῊΡ Τῆς ΔΌΞΗς. Comp Act 7:2; Psa 24:7; Heb 9:5. In all these passages the expression of the adjectival notion by the genitive has rhetorical emphasis. Comp Hermann, a[372] Viger. p. 887. This designation of Christ, however, is purposely chosen by way of antithesis to ἐσταύρωσαν; for Ὁ ΣΤΑΥΡῸς ἈΔΟΞΊΑς ΕἾΝΑΙ ΔΟΚΕῖ, Chrysostom. Had the ἌΡΧΟΝΤΕς known that ΣΟΦΊΑ ΘΕΟῦ, then they would also have known Christ as what He is, the ΚΎΡΙΟς Τῆς ΔΌΞΗς, and would have received and honoured instead of shamefully crucifying Him. But what was to them wisdom was simply nothing more than selfish worldly prudence and spiritual foolishness; in accordance with it Annas and Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod, acted. Comp., generally, Luk 23:34; Act 3:17.
[366] The simple uniform continuation of the discourse by ἥν has a solemn emphasis here, as in Act 4:10, and especially often in the Epistle to the Ephesians. All the less reason is there for taking it, with Hofmann, as equivalent in this verse to ταύτην (Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 243 [E. T. 282]), and as introducing a new principal sentence. The asyndetic similar co-ordination of several relative clauses is, from Homer onward (see Ameis on the Odyss. xxiii. 299, append.), a very common usage in the classics also.
[367] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[368] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[372] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
The passage of Scripture, which Paul now adduces, is to be translated: “What an eye hath not seen, nor an ear heard, and (what) hath not risen into the heart of a man, (namely:) all that God hath prepared for them that love Him.” In the connection of our passage these words are still dependent upon λαλοῦμεν. Paul, that is to say, instead of affirming something further of the wisdom itself, and so continuing with another ἥν (which none of the rulers have known, but which), describes now the mysterious contents of this wisdom, and expresses himself accordingly in the neuter form (by ἅ), to which he was induced in the flow of his discourse by the similar form of the language of Scripture which floated before his mind. The construction therefore is not anacoluthic (Rückert hesitatingly; de Wette and Osiander, both of whom hold that it loses itself in the conception of the mysteries referred to); neither is it to be supplemented by γέγονε (Theophylact, Grotius). The connection with 1Co 2:10, adopted by Lachmann (in his ed. min[373]), and in my first and second editions, and again resorted to by Hofmann: what no eye has seen, etc., God, on the other hand (δέ, see on 1Co 1:23), has revealed to us, etc., is not sufficiently simple, mars the symmetry of the discourse, and is finally set aside by the consideration that, since the quotation manifestly does not go beyond ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτόν, καθὼς γέγραπται logically would need to stand, not before, but after ἅ, because in reality this Ἅ, and not the ΚΑΘῺς ΓΈΓΡΑΠΤΑΙ, would introduce the object of ἈΠΕΚΆΛΥΨΕΝ.
ΚΑΘῺς ΓΈΓΡ.] Chrysostom and Theophylact are in doubt as to what passage is meant, whether a lost prophecy (so Theodoret), or Isa 52:15. Origen, again, and other Fathers (Fabricius, a[374] Cod. Apocr. N. T. p. 342; Pseudepigr. N. T. I. p. 1072; Lücke, Einleit. z. Offenb. I. p. 235), with whom Schrader and Ewald agree, assume, amidst vehement opposition on the part of Jerome, that the citation is from the Revelation of Elias, in which Zacharias of Chrysopolis avers (Harmonia Evang. p. 343) that he himself had actually read the words. Grotius regards them as “e scriptis Rabbinorum, qui ea habuerunt ex traditione vetere.” Most interpreters, however, including Osiander and Hofmann, agree with Jerome (on Isaiah 64 and a[375] Pammach. epist. ci.) in finding here a free quotation from Isa 64:4 (some holding that there is, besides, a reference to Isa 52:15, Isa 65:17); see especially Surenhusius, ΚΑΤΑΛΛ. p. 526 ff., also Riggenbach in the Stud. u. Krit. 1855, p. 596 f. But the difference in sense-not to be got over by forced and artificial interpretation of the passage in Isaiah (see especially Hofmann)-and the dissimilarity in expression are too great, hardly presenting even faint resemblances; which is never elsewhere the case with Paul, however freely he may make his quotations. There seems, therefore, to remain no other escape from the difficulty than to give credit to the assertion-however much repugnance may have been shown to it in a dogmatic interest from Jerome downwards-made by Origen and others, that the words were from the Apocalypsis Eliae. So, too, Bleek in the Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 330. But since it is only passages from the canonical Scriptures that are ever cited by Paul with καθὼς γέγρ., we must at the same time assume that he intended to do so here also, but by some confusion of memory took the apocryphal saying for a canonical passage possibly from the prophecies, to which the passages of kindred sound in Isaiah might easily give occasion. Comp also Weiss, biblische Theol. p. 298.
ἃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδε Κ.Τ.Λ[377]] For similar designations in the classics and Rabbins of what cannot be apprehended by the senses or intellect, see Wetstein and Lightfoot, Horae, p. 162. Comp Empedocles in Plutarch, Mor. p. 17 E: οὔτʼ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδʼ ἀνδράσιν, οὔτʼ ἐπακουστὰ, οὔτε νόῳ περιληπτά. With respect to ἀναβ. ἐπὶ καρδ., עָלָה עַל לֵב, to rise up to the heart, that is, become a consciously apprehended object of feeling and thought, so that the thing enters as a conception into the sphere of activity of the inner life, comp on Act 7:23.
ΤΟῖς ἈΓΑΠ. ΑὐΤΌΝ] i.e. in the apostle’s view: for the true Christians.[380] See on Rom 8:28. What God has prepared for them is the salvation of the Messianic kingdom. Comp Mat 25:34. Constitt. Apost. vii. 32. 2 : οἱ δὲ δίκαιοι πορεύσονται εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον κληρονομοῦντες ἐκεῖνα, ἃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδε Κ.Τ.Λ[382]
[373] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.
[374] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[375] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[377] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[380] Clement, ad Cor. I. 34, in quoting this same passage (with his usual formula for scriptural quotations, λέγει γάρ), has here τοῖς ὑπομένουσιν αὐτόν, remembering perhaps Isa 64:4 in the LXX. Clement also, there can be no doubt, held the passage to be canonical, which is explained, however, by the fact of his being acquainted with our Epistle. The Constitt. apost. too, vii. 32. 2, have τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτόν. The so-called second Epistle of Clement, chap. 11, has the passage only as far as ἀνέβη.
[382] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
1Co 2:10. Having thus set forth the hitherto hidden character of the divine σοφία, Paul now turns to its unveiling, as a result of which it was that that λαλοῦμεν of 1Co 2:6 f. took place. In doing this he puts ἡμῖν emphatically first in the deep consciousness of the distinction implied in so signal a mark of divine favour. The object of ἀπεκάλ. is the immediately preceding a ἃ ἡτοίμασεν κ.τ.λ[383]
ἩΜῖΝ] plural, as λαλοῦμεν in 1Co 2:6, and therefore neither to be referred to the apostle alone (Rosenmüller, Rückert, and others), nor to all Christians (Billroth, etc.).
ΔΙᾺ ΤΟῦ ΠΝΕΎΜ. ΑὐΤΟῦ] The Holy Spirit, proceeding forth from God as the personal principle of Christian enlightenment, of every Christian endowment, and of the Christian life, is the medium, in His being communicated to men (1Co 2:12), of the divine revelation; He is the bearer of it; Eph 1:17; Eph 3:3; Eph 3:5; 1Co 12:11; 1Co 14:6, al[384]
ΤῸ ΓᾺΡ ΠΝΕῦΜΑ Κ.Τ.Λ[385]] Herewith begins the adducing of proof for that ἡμῖν δὲ ἀπεκάλυψεν κ.τ.λ[386] which continues on to 1Co 2:12, to this effect, namely: For the Spirit is familiar with the mysteries of God, because He alone stands in that unique relation as respects knowledge to God, which corresponds to the relation of the human spirit to man (1Co 2:10-11); but what we have received is no other than this Spirit of God, in order that we might know the salvation of God (1Co 2:12), so that no doubt remains that we have actually the ἀποκάλυψις in question through the Spirit. That ΤῸ ΠΝΕῦΜΑ means not the human spirit, but the Holy Spirit, is certain from what goes before and from 1Co 2:11-12.
ἐρευνᾷ] rightly interpreted by Chrysostom: ΟὐΚ ἈΓΝΟΊΑς, ἈΛΛʼ ἈΚΡΙΒΟῦς ΓΝΏΣΕΩς ἘΝΤΑῦΘΑ ΤῸ ἘΡΕΥΝᾷΝ ἘΝΔΕΙΚΤΙΚΌΝ. Comp Psa 139:1; Rom 8:27; Rev 2:23. The word expresses the activity of this knowledge. But Paul was not thinking of “God’s knowing Himself in man” (Billroth, comp Baur), or of any other such Hegelian views as they would impute to him.
ΠΆΝΤΑ] all things, without limitation. Comp Wis 7:23; Psa 139:7.
ΤᾺ ΒΆΘΗ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ] Comp Jdt 8:14 : ΒΆΘΟς ΚΑΡΔΊΑς ἈΝΘΡΏΠΟΥ; see on Rom 11:33, also Plato, Theaet. p. 183 E. The expression: “depths of God,” denotes the whole rich exhaustless fulness which is hidden in God,-all, therefore, that goes to make up His being, His attributes, His thoughts, plans, decrees, etc. These last (see 1Co 2:9; 1Co 2:12), the βαθύβουλον (Aeschylus, Pers. 143) of the Godhead, are included; but we are not to suppose that they alone are meant. The opposite is τὰ βαθέα τοῦ Σατανᾶ, Rev 2:24. The depths of God, unsearchable by the cognitive power of created spirits (comp Rom 11:33), are penetrated by the cognitive activity of His own immanent principle of life and manifestation, so that this, i.e. the Holy Spirit, is the power [Potenz] of the divine self-knowledge. God is the subject knowing and the object known in the intrinsic divine activity of the Spirit, who is the substratum of the absolute self-consciousness of the Godhead, in like manner as the human spirit is the substratum of the human Ego.
[383] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[384] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[385] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[386] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
assigns the reason for the καὶ τὰ βάθη τοῦ Θεοῦ just mentioned, and that in such a way as to represent the searching of these βάθη as exclusively pertaining to the Spirit of God, according to the analogy of the relation between the spirit of man and man himself.
1Co 2:11 assigns the reason for the καὶ τὰ βάθη τοῦ Θεοῦ just mentioned, and that in such a way as to represent the searching of these βάθη as exclusively pertaining to the Spirit of God, according to the analogy of the relation between the spirit of man and man himself.
ἀνθρώπων] should neither, with Grotius, be held superfluous nor, with Tittmann, be suspected (it is wanting in A, Or. 1, Athan. Cyr. Vigil, taps.); on the contrary, it is designed to carry special emphasis, like τοῦ ἀνθρώπου afterwards (which is wanting in F G, and some Fathers), hence also the position chosen for it: ἀνθρώπων τὰ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου: no man knows what is man’s, save the spirit of the man which is in him.[392] Comp Pro 20:27. Were what is peculiar to him not known to the spirit itself of the man (who is made the object of contemplation), in that case no man would have this knowledge of the man; it would not come within the region of human knowing at all. The man’s own spirit knows it, but no other man.
We are not, with many expositors, including Pott and Flatt, to add βάθη by way of supplement to τὰ τοῦ ἀνθρ. or to τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ. This would be a purely arbitrary limitation of the universal statement, to which τὰ βάθη, as a qualitative expression, is subordinated. What are meant are the relations in general of God and of man, more especially, from the context, the inner ones. The illustration adduced by Grotius serves to bring out the sense more clearly: “Principum abditos sensus quis novit nisi ipse principis animus?”
ἔγνωκε] cognita habet. See Bernhardy, p. 378. For the rest, this οὐδεὶς ἔγνωκε is, as a matter of course, said not as in distinction from the Son (Luk 10:22), but from the creatures.
[392] The τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ is an argumentative definition.-In the man the subject knowing is the Ego of the personal self-consciousness, hence τὸ πνεῦμα, not ἡ ψυχή. comp. Delitzsch, biblische Psychologie, p. 198; Krumm, de notionib. psychol. Paul. p. 16 f.
REMARK.
The comparison in 1Co 2:11 ought not to be pressed beyond the point compared. We are neither, therefore, to understand it so that the Spirit of God appears as the soul of the divine substance (Hallet; see, on the other hand, Heilmann, Opusc. II.), nor as if He were not distinct from God (see, on the contrary, 1Co 2:10), but simply so that the Spirit of God, the ground of the divine personal life, appears in His relation to God as the principle of the divine self-knowledge, in the same way as the principle of the human self-knowledge is the πνεῦμα of the man, which constitutes his personal life. Hence God is known only by His Spirit, as the man is only by his spirit, as the vehicle of his own self-consciousness, not by another man. With τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, Paul does not again join τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ, because the man’s spirit indeed is shut up in the man, but not so the Divine Spirit in God; the latter, on the contrary, goes forth also from Him, is communicated, and is τὸ τνεῦμα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ. See 1Co 2:12.
1Co 2:12. Δέ] leading on to the second half of the demonstration which began with τὸ γὰρ πνεῦμα in 1Co 2:10 (see on 1Co 2:10).
ἡμεῖς] as ἡμῖν in 1Co 2:10.
τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ κόσμου] i.e. the spirit which unbelieving mankind has. This spirit is the diabolic πνεῦμα, that is, the spirit proceeding forth from the devil, under whose power the κόσμος lies, and whose sphere of action it is. See 2Co 4:4; Eph 6:11-12; Eph 2:2. Comp Joh 12:31; 1Jn 4:3; 1Jn 5:19. Had we received this spirit,-and here Paul glances back at the ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου in 1Co 2:6; 1Co 2:8,-then assuredly the knowledge of the blessings of eternity would have remained closed for us, and (see 1Co 2:13) instead of utterances taught by the Spirit we should use the language of the human wisdom of the schools. It is indeed the πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης as contrasted with the πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, 1Jn 4:6. Most commentators take τὸ πνεῦμα in the sense of mode of thought and view, so that the meaning would be: “Non sumus instituti sapientia mundana et saeculari,” Estius. So Theophylact, and after him Beza, Calvin, Grotius, and many others, including Morus, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Heydenreich, de Wette, Maier, and similarly Pott. But, according to 1Co 2:10, τὸ πνεῦμα must denote, in keeping with the context, the objective spirit opposed to the Spirit of God; and that is, according to the decided dualistic view of the apostle (comp esp. Eph 2:2), the diabolic πνεῦμα, which has blinded the understanding of the unbelievers, 2Co 4:4. Billroth’s explanation: that it is the non-absolute spirit, the finite, in so far as it persists for itself and does not resolve itself into the divine, is a modern un-Pauline importation; and this holds, too, of Hofmann’s exposition: that it is the spirit, in virtue of which the world is conscious of itself, knowing itself, however, only in that way in which alone its sinful estrangement from God leaves it possible for it to do so, not in God, namely, but out of God. If that is not to be taken as the diabolic spirit, then the conception is simply an un-Pauline fabrication, artificially worded so as to explain away the diabolic character. Lastly, Rückert’s view, that Paul meant: “we have received our πνεῦμα not from the world, but from God,” cannot even be reconciled with the words of the passage.
τὸ ἐκ τ. Θεοῦ] The ἐκ is employed by Paul here not in order to avoid the appearance of making this πνεῦμα the principle that determines the action of God (so Kling in the Stud. u. Krit. 1839, p. 435), which were a needless precaution, but because this form of expression has a significant adaptation to the ἵνα εἰδῶμεν κ.τ.λ[396]; there can be no doubt about this knowing, if it proceeds from the Spirit which is from God (which has gone forth upon believers; comp 1Co 2:11, ΤῸ ἘΝ ΑὐΤῷ), Joh 15:26.
ἽΝΑ ΕἸΔῶΜΕΝ Κ.Τ.Λ[398]] the divine purpose in imparting the Spirit which proceeded forth from God. This clause, expressive of design, containing the object of the ἀπεκάλυψεν in 1Co 2:10, completely winds up the adducing of proof for the ἡμῖν δὲ ἀπεκάλ. ὁ Θ. διὰ τ. πν. αὐτ.
τὰ ὑπὸ τ. Θεοῦ χαρ. ἡμῖν] are the blessings of the Messianic kingdom, the possession of which is bestowed by divine grace on the Christians (ἡμῖν), not, indeed, before the Parousia as an actual possession, but as an ideal one to be certainly entered upon hereafter (Rom 8:24; Rom 8:30; Col 3:3-4); comp Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8-9. That to take it ideally in this way is correct (in opposition to Hofmann), is clear from the consideration that τὰ χαρισθέντα must be identical with ἃ ἡτοίμασεν ὁ Θεὸς κ.τ.λ[400] in 1Co 2:9, and with the ΔΌΞΑ ἩΜ. in 1Co 2:7.
[396] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[398] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[400] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
1Co 2:13. Having thus in 1Co 2:10-12 given the proof of that ἡμῖν δὲ ἀπεκάλ. κ.τ.λ[401], the apostle goes on now to the manner in which the things revealed were proclaimed, passing, therefore, from the εἰδέναι τὰ χαρ. to the λαλεῖν of them. The manner, negative and positive, of this λαλεῖν (comp 1Co 2:4) he links to what has gone before simply by the relative: which (namely, τὰ … χαρισθ. ἡμ.) we also (in accordance with the fact of our having received the Spirit, 1Co 2:12) utter not in words learned of human wisdom (dialectics, rhetoric, etc.), but in those learned of the Spirit. The genitives: ἀνθρωπ. σοφ. and πνεύματος, are dependent on διδακτοῖς (Joh 6:45). See Winer, pp. 182, 178 [E. T. 242, 236]. Pflugk, a[403] Eur. Hec. 1135. Comp Pindar, Ol. ix. 153: πολλοὶ δὲ διδακταῖς ἀνθρώπων ἀρεταῖς κλέος ὤρουσαν ἑλέσθαι· ἄνευ δὲ θεοῦ κ.τ.λ[405], comp Nem. iii. 71. Sophocles, El. 1Co 336: τἀμὰ νουθετήματα κείνης διδακτά. It is true that the genitives might also be dependent upon ΛΌΓΟΙς (Fritzsche, Diss. II. in 2 Cor. p. 27); but the context, having διδακτοῖς πνεύματος, is against this. To take ΔΙΔΑΚΤΟῖς (with Ewald) as meaning, according to the common classical usage, learnable, quae doceri possunt (see especially Demosth. 1413. 24; Plato, Prot. p. 319 B: οὐ διδακτὸν εἶναι μηδʼ ὑπʼ ἀνθρώπων παρασκευαστὸν ἀνθρώποις), does not agree so well with 1Co 2:4; 1Co 2:15.
The suggestio verborum, here asserted, is reduced to its right measure by διδακτοῖς; for that word excludes all idea of anything mechanical, and implies the living self-appropriation of that mode of expression which was specifically suitable both to the divine inspiration and to its contents (“verba rem sequuntur,” Wetstein),-an appropriation capable of being connected in very different forms with different given individualities (Peter, Paul, Apollos, James, etc.), and of presenting itself in each case with a corresponding variety.
ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΟῖς ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚᾺ ΣΥΓΚΡΊΝΟΝΤΕς] connecting[407] spiritual things with spiritual, not uniting things unlike in nature, which would be the case, were we to give forth what was revealed by the Holy Spirit in the speech of human wisdom, in philosophic discourse, but joining to the matters revealed by the Spirit (πνευματικοῖς) the speech also taught by the Spirit (πνευματικά),-things consequently of like nature, “spiritualibus spiritualia componentes” (Castalio). So in substance also Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Balduin, Wolf, Baumgarten, Kling in the Stud. und Krit. 1839, p. 437, de Wette, Osiander, Maier, etc., and rightly, since this sense suits the connection singularly well, and does not in any degree clash with the classical use of συγκρίνειν (Valckenaer, p. 134 f.; Porson, a[408] Med. 136). Plato has it frequently in this meaning, and in contrast to διακρίνειν. See Ast, Lex. Plat. III. p. 290 f. Other commentators, while also taking πνευματ. as neuter, make συγκρίνειν, explicare, namely, either: explaining the N. T. doctrine from the types of the O. T. (Chrysostom and his successors[409]), or: “exponentes ea, quae prophetae Spiritu Dei acti dixere, per ea, quae Christus suo Spiritu nobis aperuit” (Grotius, Krebs), or: “spiritualibus verbis spiritualia interpretantes” (Elsner, Mosheim, Bolten, Neander). But the first two of these renderings are against the context, and all the three are against the usus loquendi; for συγκρίνειν is never absolutely interpretari, either in profane Greek (in which, among later writers, as also in 2Co 10:12, Wis 7:29; Wis 15:18, 1Ma 10:71, it very often means to compare; comp Vulgate: comparantes, and see Lobeck, a[411] Phryn. p. 278) or in the LXX. With the latter it is indeed the common word for the interpretation of dreams (פתר, see Gen 40:8; Gen 40:16; Gen 40:22; Gen 41:12; Gen 41:15; Dan 5:12); but in such cases (comp the passages from Philo, where ΔΙΑΚΡΊΝΕΙΝ occurs, in Loesner, p. 273) we have to trace it back to the literal signification of judging,[413] namely, as to what was to be indicated by the vision in the dream (comp κρίνειν τὸ σημαινόμενον τῶν ὀνειράτων in Josephus, Antt. ii. 2. 2, also the Ὀνειροκριτικά of Artemidorus). The meaning, to judge, however, although instances of it may be established in Greek writers also (Anthol. vii. 132; Polybius, xiv. 3, 7, xii. 10. 1; Lucian. Soloec. 5), would be unsuitable here, for this reason, that the phrase πνευματικοῖς πνευματικά, both being taken as neuter, manifestly, according to the context, expresses the relation of matter and form, not the judging of the one πνευματικόν by the other (Ewald), notwithstanding that Luther, too, adopts a similar interpretation: “and judge spiritual things spiritually.” Lastly, it is incorrect to take πνευματικοῖς as masculine, and render: explaining things revealed by the Spirit to those who are led by the Spirit (the same as τελείοις in 1Co 2:6; comp Gal 6:1). This is the view of Pelagius, Sedulius, Theophylact (suggested only), Thomas, Estius, Clericus, Bengel, Rosenmüller, Pott, Heydenreich, Flatt, Billroth, Rückert. To the same class belongs the exposition of Hofmann, according to whom what is meant is the solution of the problem as to how the world beyond and hereafter reveals and foreshows itself in what God’s grace has already bestowed upon us (1Co 2:12) in a predictive sign as it were,-a solution which has spiritual things for its object, and takes place for those who are spiritual. But the text does not contain either a contrast between the world here and that hereafter, or a problematic relation of the one to the other; the contrast is introduced into τὰ χαρισθέντα in 1Co 2:12, and the problem and its predictive sign are imported into συγκρίνοντες.[416] Again, it is by no means required by the connection with 1Co 2:14 ff. that we should take πνευματικοῖς as masculine; for 1Co 2:14 begins a new part of the discourse, so that ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος only finds its personal contrast in ὁ δὲ πνευματικός in 1Co 2:15. Tittmann’s explanation (Synon. p. 290 f., and comp Baur) comes back to the sense: conveying (conferentes) spiritual things to spiritual persons, without linguistic precedent for it.
Note the weighty collocation: πνεύματος, πνευματικοῖς, πνευματικά.
[401] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[403] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[405] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
[407] Not proving, as Theodore of Mopsuestia takes it: διὰ τῶν τοῦ πνεύματος ἀποδείξεων τὴν τοῦ πνεύματος διδασκαλίαν πιστούμεθα.
[408] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[409] So, too, Theodoret: ἔχομεν γὰρ τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης τὴν μαρτυρίαν, καὶ διʼ ἐκείνης τὴς καινὴν βεβαιοῦμεν· πνευματικὴ γὰρ κἀκείνη … καὶ διὰ τῶν τύπων δείκνυμεν τὴν ἀλήθειαν. Several of the older interpreters follow the Greeks in substance, including Calovius, who, on the ground of this passage, declares himself against the explanation of Scripture from profane writers!
[411] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[413] Hence, in Dan 5:16 (in the history of the mysterious writing on the wall, which had to be judged of with respect to its meaning): δύνασαι κρίματα συγκρῖναι, thou canst pronounce, utterances of judgment. Comp. the phrase, recurring more than once in that same story of Belshazzar, in Daniel 5 : τὴν σύγκρισιν γνωρίζειν, or: ἀναγγέλλειν: to make known or declare the judgment (as to what that marvellous writing might signify).
[416] Hofmann expounds as if Paul had written in ver. 12 f.: τὰ ἤδη νῦν ὑπὸ τ. Θ. χαρισθέντα ἡμῖν, σημεῖα ὄντα τῶν μελλόντων, ἃ καὶ συγκρίνομεν … πνευματικοῖς πνευματικὰ λαλοῦντες. Comp. on the latter expression, Maximus Tyrius, xxii. 4 : συνετὰ συνετοῖς λέγων.
1Co 2:14. To receive such teaching, however, in which πνευματικά are united with πνευματικοῖς, every one has not the capacity; a psychical man apprehends not that which is of the Spirit of God, etc.
ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος is the opposite of the πνευματικός who has received the Holy Spirit (1Co 2:12 f., 15); he is therefore one πνεῦμα (the Holy Spirit) μὴ ἔχων (Jud 1:19). Such a man-who is not essentially different from the σαρκικός (see on 1Co 3:1), but the mental side of whose nature is here brought forward by the word ψυχικός-is not enlightened and sanctified by the Spirit of God, but is governed by the ψυχή, the principle of life for the σάρξ, so that the sphere in which he works and strives is not that of the divine truth and the divine ζωή, but the purely human activity of the understanding, and, as regards practical things, the interests of the life of sense, the ἐπιθυμίαι ψυχικαί, 4Ma 1:32, the ἐπιθυμίαι ἀνθρώπων, not the θέλημα Θεοῦ, 1Pe 4:2. Comp generally, Weiss, biblische Theol. p. 270 f. The higher principle of life, the human πνεῦμα,[419] which he has, is not laid hold of and quickened by the Holy Spirit; the regeneration by the Holy Spirit, who operates upon the human spirit and thereby brings about the renewal of the man (comp Joh 3:6), has not yet taken place with him; hence the psychical man is really the natural man, i.e. not yet enlightened and sanctified by the Spirit of God, not yet born again,[421] although, at the same time, ψυχικός means not naturalis (i.e. φυσικός in contrast to διδακτός, τεχνικός, and the like; comp Polyb. vi. 4, 7 : φυσικῶς καὶ ἀκατασκεύως), but animalis (Vulgate). Comp ψυχικὴ σοφία as contrasted with that ἄνωθεν κατερχομένη, Jam 3:15. Many have taken up the idea in a one-sided way, either in a merely intellectual reference (τὸν μόνοις τοῖς οἰκείοις ἀρκούμενον λογισμοῖς, Theodoret; see also Chrysostom, Theophylact, Beza, Grotius, Heydenreich, Pott; comp too, Wieseler on Gal. p. 451), or in a merely ethical one (a man obedient to sensual desires; so, and in some cases, with an exaggerated stress on the sinfulness involved, it is interpreted by Erasmus, Vitringa, Limborch, Clericus, Rosenmüller, Valckenaer, Krause, and others). The two elements cannot be separated from each other without quite an arbitrary act of division.
οὐ δέχεται] The question whether this means: he is unsusceptible of it, does not understand (Vulgate, Castalio, Beza, Piscator, Grotius, Rückert, et al[425]); or: he does not accept, respuit (Peschito, Erasmus, and others, including Tittmann, Flatt, Billroth, de Wette, Osiander, Ewald, Maier), falls to be decided in favour of the latter view by the standing use of δέχεσθαι in the N. T. when referring to doctrine. See Luk 8:13; Act 8:14; Act 11:1; Act 17:11; 1Th 1:6; 1Th 2:13. Comp 2Th 2:10; 2Co 8:17.
τὰ τοῦ πν.] what comes from the Spirit. This applies both to the matter and form of the teaching. See 1Co 2:13.
μωρία γὰρ … γνῶναι] ground of this οὐ δέχεται κ.τ.λ[427]: It is folly to him, i.e. (as 1Co 1:18) it stands to him in the practical relation of being something absurd, and he is not in a position to discern it. The latter clause is not covered by the former (Hofmann), but appends to the relation of the object to the subject the corresponding relation of the subject to the object.
The statement of the reason for both of these connected clauses is: ὅτι πνευματικῶς ἀνακρίνεται: because they (τὰ τοῦ πνεύμ.) are judged of after a spiritual fashion (1Co 4:3, 1Co 14:24), i.e. because the investigative (ἀνα) judgment of them (the searching into and estimating their nature and meaning) is a task which, by reason of the nature of the subject-matter to be dealt with, can be performed in accordance with its own essential character in no other way than by means of a proving and judging empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit (a power which is wanting to the ψυχικός). ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚῶς, that is to say, refers not to the human spirit, but to the Holy Spirit (see 1Co 2:13) who fills the human spirit, and by the hallowing influence of divine enlightenment and power capacitates it for the ἀνακρίνειν of the doctrines of teachers filled with the Spirit who address it, so that this ἈΝΑΚΡΊΝΕΙΝ is an activity which proceeds in a mode empowered and guided by the Spirit. We may add that ἀνακρίν. does not mean: must be judged of (Luther and many others, among whom are Tittmann, Flatt, and Pott), but it expresses the characteristic relation, which takes place; they are subject to spiritual judgment. That is an axiom. But this very sort of ἀνάκρισις is what is lacking in the ΨΥΧΙΚΌς.
[419] The distinction between ψυχή and πνεῦμα, as that which separates from each other the agencies of the lower and the higher life, answers certainly to the Platonic threefold division of man’s nature into body, soul, and spirit (see, especially, Olshausen, de naturae humanae trichotomia N. T. scriptoribus recepta, in his Opusc. Berol. 1834, p. 143 ff.; and, on the other side, Hahn, Theol. d. N. T. I. p. 391 ff.). Not, however, as if Paul had borrowed this trichotomy (see, especially, 1Th 5:23; comp. also Heb 4:12) from the Platonic philosophy, but this Platonic type of anthropology, current also with Philo and the Rabbinical writers, had, like the phrase ὁ ἔσω and ὁ ἔξω ἄνθρωπος (see on Eph 3:16), become popular (comp. Josephus, Antt. i. 1. 2, according to which God breathed τνεῦμα and ψυχήν into man when first formed), and subsisted alongside of the twofold conception and the corresponding mode of expression (1Co 5:3 f., 1Co 7:34; 2Co 7:1; Rom 8:10 f., al.). Comp. Lünemann on 1Th 5:23. Luther, as early as 1521, has some excellent remarks on the trichotomy (printed also in Delitzsch’s bibl. Psychol. p. 392 f.). He likens the πνεῦμα to the Sanctum sanctorum, the ψυχή to the Sanctum, and the σῶμα to the Atrium. Against Hofmann’s arbitrary explaining away of a real threefold division (in his Schriftbeweis, I. p. 297 f.), see Krumm, de notionibus psychol. Pauli, p. 1 ff.; Delitzsch, loc. cit. p. 87 ff.; Ernesti, Ursprung d. Sünde, II. p. 76 f. We may add, that Hofmann is wrong in saying, with respect to this passage, that it has nothing whatever to do with the question about the dichotomy or trichotomy. It has to do with it, inasmuch as in virtue of the contrast between ψυχικός and πνευματικός, the ψυχή cannot be the seat and sphere of operation of the Divine Spirit, which is to be found rather in the human πνεῦμα, and consequently must be conceived as specifically distinct from the latter.
[421] Luther’s gloss is: “The natural man is as he is apart from grace, albeit decked out as bravely as may be with all the reason, skill, sense, and faculty in the world.” Comp. Calovius, who insists with justice against Grotius, that ψυχικός and σαρκικός differ only “ratione formalis significationis.” Paul might have used σαρκικός here too (see on 1Co 3:1); but ψυχικός naturally suggested itself to him as correlative to δέχεσθαι; for the ψυχή cannot be the receptaculum of that which is of the Spirit of God. According to Ewald, the word points to the Greek philosophers, being a gentle way of designating them. But the expression is quite general; and how easy it would have been for Paul to let it be definitely known that the reference was to the philosophers (by σοφός τοῦ κόσμου, for example, or in some other way)!
[425] t al. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[427] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
1Co 2:15. He who is spiritual, on the other hand, judges all things, but is for his own part (αὐτός) judged by no one; so lofty is his position, high above all the ψυχικοῖς, to whom he is a riddle, not to be read by their unenlightened powers of judging, to which τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος are folly!
ὁ πνευματικός] he who stands under the influence of the Holy Spirit, enlightened and led by Him. Comp on ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚῶς in 1Co 2:14.
ΤᾺ ΠΆΝΤΑ] (see the critical remarks[429]) receives from the context no further limitation than that of the article, which is not unsuitable (Hofmann), but denotes the totality of what presents itself to his judging, so that it does not apply merely to τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος (Ewald: “all the deepest and most salutary divine truths”), the ἈΝΑΚΡΊΝΕΙΝ of which, on the part of the ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΌς, is a matter of course, but means all objects that come within the sphere of his judgment. To everything that comes before him he can assign the right estimate in virtue of his power of judgment, enlightened and upheld by the Holy Spirit. He has the true critical eye of the δοκιμάζειν (1Th 5:21) for all that offers itself to him to be judged. How often has Paul himself displayed this ἈΝΆΚΡΙΣΙς ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΉ, and that, too, in matters not connected with doctrine, under situations the most varied! e.g. in his wise availing himself of circumstances when persecuted and put on trial, during his last voyage, etc.; in his decisions concerning matrimonial questions, contendings at law, slavery, collections, and the like, in regard to which he manages with consummate tact, and with the most wonderful clearness, precision, and impartiality, to subject everything to the standard of a higher spiritual point of view; in his estimate of the different persons with whom he comes into contact; in the mode in which he adapts himself to given relations: in his sublime judgments, such as 1Co 3:22; in his powerful self-witness, 2Co 6:4 ff.; in his noble independence from earthly things, 1Co 7:29 ff.; Php 4:11 ff.
ὑπʼ οὐδενός] namely, who is not also ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΌς. This follows necessarily from the foregoing Ὁ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤ. ἈΝΑΚΡΊΝΕΙ ΤᾺ ΠΆΝΤΑ. Comp too, 1Jn 4:1. The standpoint of the psychical man is too low, and his mode of thought too foreign in its presuppositions and principles, for him to be able to understand and judge of the pneumatic. In like manner, the blind (see as early as Chrysostom and Theophylact) cannot judge of the painter, nor the deaf of the musician.
How Roman Catholic writers have sought to render 1Co 2:15, standing opposed as it does to the authority claimed by the church, serviceable to their own side, may be seen, e.g., in Cornelius a Lapide: “Sin autem nova oriatur quaestio in fide aut moribus, eaque obscura et dubia, eadem prudentia dictat homini spirituali … ejusdem Spiritus judicio recurrendum esse ad superiores, ad doctores, ad ecclesiam Romanam quasi matricem,” etc.
[429] In connection with the reading πάντα, those who take it as masculine explain the clause very variously; either: “Quando audit alium loquentem vel docentem, illico dignoscere potest et dijudicare, utrum sit ex Deo necne” (Bos, Alberti); or: “Ego quidem … quemlibet profanum … dijudicare adeoque a τνευματικοῖς s. vere collustratis dignoscere possum” (Pott); or: “Convincere quemlibet profanum erroris potest” (Nösselt, Rosenmüller). Were the reading genuine, and πάντα masculine, it is only the first of these renderings that would be admissible; for, according to ver. 14, ἀνακρ. cannot mean erroris convincere (against Nösselt), and to restrict πάντα to the profane would be entirely unwarranted by the context, as is plain from πνευματικῶς ἀνακρίνεται in ver. 14 (against Nösselt and Pott). At the same time, it would also be arbitrary in adopting the first view to refer it only to the loqui or docere, and not also to deeds and other expressions of the life.
1Co 2:16. Proof for the αὐτὸς δὲ ὑπʼ οὐδενὸς ἀνακρινεται. “For in order to judge of the πνευματικός, one would need to have known the mind of Christ, which we πνευματικοί are in possession of-to be able to act the part of teacher to Christ.” The form of this proof is an imperfect syllogism, the last proposition in which, as being self-evident, is not expressed.[431] The major proposition is clothed in the words of Isa 40:13 (substantially after the LXX.), comp Rom 11:34. There, indeed, ΚΎΡΙΟς applies to God; but Paul, appropriating the words freely for the expression of his own thought, applies it here to Christ (against Calvin, Grotius, and most older interpreters, also Flatt, Osiander, Ewald, Hofmann), as the minor proposition ἡμεῖς δὲ Κ.Τ.Λ[433] proves.
The νοῦς Κυρίου is the understanding of the Lord, embracing His thoughts, judgments, measures, plans, etc., the νοῦς being the faculty where these originate and are elaborated. The conception is not identical with that of the πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ (against Billroth, Neander, and many others), which rather, when imparted to man, makes his νοῦς the νοῦς Χριστοῦ, not being itself the νοῦς Χ., but that which constitutes its substratum.
ὃς συμβιβ. αὐτόν] qui instructurus sit eum, i.e. in order (after thus coming to know him) to instruct Him. See on this use of ὅς, Matthiae, II. p. 1068; Kühner, II. p. 529 ff. Regarding συμβιβάζειν, which is frequent in the LXX. in the sense of instruere, docere, but does not occur with that meaning in Greek writers, see Schleusner, Thes. V. p. 154. This ὃς συμβ. αὐτόν is not “rather superfluously” taken in along with the rest of the quotation (Rückert), but is included as essential to the proof of the ὑπʼ οὐδενὸς ἀνακρίνεται, since the forming a judgment assumes the capacity to instruct (act as master). This, then, is what he who would judge the πνευματικοί must be capable of doing with respect to Christ, since these have the mind of Christ. Chrysostom says well: ὃς συμβιβάσει αὐτὸν, οὐχ ἁπλῶς προσέθηκεν, ἀλλὰ πρὸς ὃ εἶπεν ἤδη, ὅτι τὸν πνευματικὸν οὐδεὶς ἀνακρίνει· εἰ γὰρ εἰδέναι οὐδεὶς δύναται τοῦ Θεοῦ (rather Christ’s) τὸν νοῦν, πολλῷ μᾶλλον διδάσκειν καὶ διορθοῦσθαι.
To refer αὐτόν, with Nösselt (Opusc. II. p. 137 f.), to the πνευματικός (so, too, Rosenmüller and Tittmann, l.c[434] p. 294), is an involved construction rendered necessary only by failure to catch the simple course of proof.
ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χ. ἔχ.] the minor proposition, with the emphasis on ἡμεῖς, and the explanatory Χριστοῦ in place of Κυρίου. Paul includes himself along with the rest among the πνευματικοί. These are the possessors (ἔχομεν) of the mind of Christ. For, since they have the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9; Rom 8:16), and since Christ is in them (Rom 8:10; 2Co 13:5), their νοῦς, too, can be no mental faculty different in kind from the νοῦς Χριστοῦ, but must, on the contrary, be as ideally one with it, as it is true that Christ Himself lives in them (Gal 2:20), and the heart of Christ beats in them (Php 1:8), and He speaks in them (2Co 13:3). Comp respecting this indwelling of Christ in His believers, the idea in Gal 3:27; Rom 13:14. Οὐ γὰρ Πλάτωνος, οὐδὲ Πυθαγόρου, says Chrysostom, ἀλλʼ ὁ Χριστὸς τὰ ἑαυτοῦ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ ἐνέθηκε διανοίᾳ. Many commentators (not recognising the process of proof) have interpreted ἔχομεν as perspectam habemus (see Tittmann, l.c[436]), as e.g. Rosenmüller and Flatt: “We know the meaning of the doctrine of Christ;” or Grotius: “Novimus Dei consilia, quae Christo fuere revelata.”
[431] Fully expressed, it would run thus: No one can know the mind of Christ so as to instruct Him: but we, πνευματικοί, are they who have the mind of Christ; therefore we are they also whom no one can know so as to instruct them, that is, just they who ὑπʼ οὐδενὸς ἀνακρίνονται, ver. 15.
1. And I, when I came Paul having begun to speak of his own method of teaching, had straightway fallen into a discussion as to the nature of gospel preaching generally. Now again he returns to speak of himself, to show that nothing in him was despised but what belonged to the nature of the gospel itself, and did in a manner adhere to it. He allows therefore that he had not had any of the aids of human eloquence or wisdom to qualify him for producing any effect, but while he acknowledges himself to be destitute of such resources, he hints at the inference to be drawn from this — that the power of God shone the more illustriously in his ministry, from its standing in no need of such helps. This latter idea, however, he will be found bringing forward shortly afterwards. For the present he simply grants that he has nothing of human wisdom, and in the meantime reserves to himself this much — that he published the testimony of God Some interpreters, indeed, explain the testimony of God in a passive sense; but as for myself, I have no doubt that another interpretation is more in accordance with the Apostle’s design, so that the testimony of God is that which has come forth from God — the doctrine of the gospel, of which he is the author and witness. He now distinguishes between speech and wisdom (λόγον ἀπὸ τὢς σοφίας.) Hence what I noticed before (103) is here confirmed — that hitherto he has not been speaking of mere empty prattling, but has included the entire training of human learning.
(103) Calvin refers to what he had said when commenting on an expression which occurs in 1. o 1:17 — not with wisdom of words.
2. For I did not reckon it desirable. As κρίνειν, in Greek, has often the same meaning as εκλεγειν, that is to choose out anything as precious, (104) there is, I think, no person of sound judgment but will allow that the rendering that I have given is a probable one, provided only the construction admits of it. At the same time, if we render it thus — “No kind of knowledge did I hold in esteem,” there will be nothing harsh in this rendering. If you understand something to be supplied, the sentence will run smoothly enough in this way — “Nothing did I value myself upon, as worth my knowing, or on the ground of knowledge.” At the same time I do not altogether reject a different interpretation — viewing Paul as declaring that he esteemed nothing as knowledge, or as entitled to be called knowledge, except Christ alone. Thus the Greek preposition ανδ, would, as often happens, require to be supplied. But whether the former interpretation is not disapproved of, or whether this latter pleases better, the substance of the passage amounts to this: “As to my wanting the ornaments of speech, and wanting, too, the more elegant refinements of discourse, the reason of this was, that I did not aspire at them, nay rather, I despised them, because there was one thing only that my heart was set upon — that I might preach Christ with simplicity.”
In adding the word crucified, he does not mean that he preached nothing respecting Christ except the cross; but that, with all the abasement of the cross, he nevertheless preached Christ. It is as though he had said: “The ignominy of the cross will not prevent me from looking up to him (105) from whom salvation comes, or make me ashamed to regard all my wisdom as comprehended in him — in him, I say, whom proud men despise and reject on account of the reproach of the cross.” Hence the statement must be explained in this way: “No kind of knowledge was in my view of so much importance as to lead me to desire anything but Christ, crucified though he was. ” This little clause is added by way of enlargement (αὔξησιν,) with the view of galling so much the more those arrogant masters, by whom Christ was next to despised, as they were eager to gain applause by being renowned for a higher kind of wisdom. Here we have a beautiful passage, from which we learn what it is that faithful ministers ought to teach, what it is that we must, during our whole life, be learning, and in comparison with which everything else must be “counted as dung.” (Phi 3:8.)
(104) Xenophon uses κρινω in the sense of choosing out, or preferring: in Mem. 4. 4, sec. 16, ουχ ὁπως τους αυτους χορους κρινωσιν οἱ πολιται — not that the citizens should prefer the dances.” See also Menander, prefer the same line 245, edit. Cleric. In the New Testament we find κρινω used in the sense of esteeming, in Rom 14:5. — Ed
(105) “Ne fera point que ie n’aye en reuerence et admiration;” — “Will not prevent me from holding in reverence and admiration.”
3. And I was with you in weakness He explains at greater length what he had previously touched upon — that he had nothing shining or excellent in him in the eyes of men, to raise him to distinction. He concedes, however, to his adversaries what they desired in such a way as to make those very things which, in their opinion, tended to detract from the credit of his ministry, redound to its highest commendation. If he appeared less worthy of esteem from his being so mean and abject according to the flesh, he shows that the power of God shone out the more conspicuously in this, that he could effect so much, while sustained by no human helps. He has in his eye not merely those foolish boasters (107) who aimed at mere show, with the view of obtaining for themselves a name, but the Corinthians, too, who gazed with astonishment on their empty shows. Accordingly a recital of this kind was fitted to have great weight with them. They were aware that Paul had brought nothing with him in respect of the flesh that was fitted to help him forward, or that might enable him to insinuate himself into the favor of men, and yet they had seen the amazing success which the Lord had vouchsafed to his preaching. Nay more, they had in a manner beheld with their own eyes the Spirit of God present in his doctrine. When, therefore, despising his simplicity, they were tickled with a desire for a kind of wisdom, I know not of what sort, more puffed up and more polished, and were captivated with outward appearance, nay, even with adventitious ornament, rather than with the living efficacy of the Spirit, did they not sufficiently discover their ambitious spirit? It is with good reason, therefore, that Paul puts them in mind of his first entering in among them, (1. h 2:1,) that they may not draw back from that divine efficacy, which they once knew by experience.
The term weakness he employs here, and in several instances afterwards, (2. o 11:30; 2. o 12:5,) as including everything that can detract from a person’s favor and dignity in the opinion of others. Fear and trembling are the effects of that weakness There are, however, two ways in which these two terms may be explained by us. Either we may understand him to mean, that when he pondered the magnitude of the office that he sustained, it was tremblingly, and not without great anxiety, that he occupied himself in it; or that, being encompassed with many dangers, he was in constant alarm and incessant anxiety. Either meaning suits the context sufficiently well. The second, however, is, in my opinion, the more simple. Such a spirit of modesty, indeed, becomes the servants of the Lord, that, conscious of their own weakness, and looking, on the other hand, at once to the difficulty and the excellence of so arduous an office, they should enter on the discharge of it with reverence and fear For those that intrude themselves confidently, and in a spirit much elated, or who discharge the ministry of the word with an easy mind, as though they were fully equal to the task, are ignorant at once of themselves and of the task. (108)
As, however, Paul here connects fear with weakness, and as the term weakness denotes everything that was fitted to render him contemptible, it follows necessarily that this fear must relate to dangers and difficulties. It is certain, however, that this fear was of such a nature as did not prevent Paul from engaging in the Lord’s work, as facts bear witness. The Lord’s servants are neither so senseless as not to perceive impending dangers, nor so devoid of feeling as not to be moved by them. Nay more, it is necessary for them to be seriously afraid on two accounts chiefly — first, that, abased in their own eyes, they may learn wholly to lean and rest upon God alone, and secondly, that they may be trained to a thorough renunciation of self. Paul, therefore, was not devoid of the influence of fear, but that fear he controlled in such a manner as to go forward, notwithstanding, with intrepidity through the midst of dangers, so as to encounter with undaunted firmness and fortitude all the assaults of Satan and of the world; and, in fine, so as to struggle through every impediment.
(107) “Thrasones.” The appellation is borrowed from Thraso, a foolish captain in Terence (Eun. 3:1.) — Ed.
(108) “Ne cognoissent ni eux ni la chose qu’ils ont entre mains;” — “They know not either themselves or the thing that they have in hand.”
4. And my preaching was not in the persuasive words. By the persuasive words of man’s wisdom he means that exquisite oratory which aims and strives rather by artifice than by truth, and also an appearance of refinement, that allures the minds of men. It is not without good reason, too, that he ascribes persuasiveness (τό πιθάνον) (109) to human wisdom. For the word of the Lord constrains us by its majesty, as if by a violent impulse, to yield obedience to it. Human wisdom, on the other hand, has her allurements, by which she insinuates herself (110) and her blandishments, as it were, by which she may conciliate for herself the affections of her hearers. With this he contrasts the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, which most interpreters consider as restricted to miracles; but I take it in a more general sense, as meaning the hand of God powerfully exercised in every way through the instrumentality of the Apostle. Spirit and power he seems to have made use of by hypallage, (111) (καθ ᾿ ὑπαλλαγὴν,) to denote spiritual power, or at least with the view of showing by signs and effects in what manner the presence of the Spirit had shown itself in his ministry. He appropriately, too, makes use of the term ἀποδείξεως, (demonstration;) for such is our dullness in contemplating the works of God, that when he makes use of inferior instruments, they serve as so many veils to hide from us his influence, so that we do not clearly perceive it. On the other hand, as in the furtherance given to Paul’s ministry, there was no aid furnished from the flesh or the world, and as the hand of God was as it were made bare, (Isa 52:10,) his influence was assuredly the more apparent.
(109) This passage has largely exercised the ingenuity of critics, from the circumstance that the adjective πειθοῖς, occurring nowhere else in the New Testament, or in any of the writings of classical authors, it is supposed that there has been some corruption of the reading. Some suppose it to be a contraction or corruption of πείθανοις or πίθαςοις, and Chrysostom, in one or two instances, when quoting the passage, uses the adjective πίθανοις, while in other cases he has πειθοῖς It is perhaps in allusion to those instances in which Chrysostom makes use of the adjective πίθαςοις, that Calvin employs the phrase το πίθανον (persuasiveness.) Semler, after adducing various authorities, suggests the following reading: — ἐν πειθοῖ σοφαις taking πειθοῖ; as the dative of ἡ πειθω, (persuasion.) Bloomfield considers πειθοῖ, to be a highly probable reading, but prefers to retain πειθοῖς. — Ed
(110) “Secrettement et doucement;” — “Secretly and softly.”
(111) A figure of speech by which words change their cases with each other. — Ed.
5. That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men. To be is used here as meaning to consist His meaning, then, is, that the Corinthians derived this advantage from his having preached Christ among them without dependence on human wisdom, and relying solely on the Spirit’s influence, that their faith was founded not on men but on God. If the Apostle’s preaching had rested exclusively on the power of eloquence, it might have been overthrown by superior eloquence, and besides, no one would pronounce that to be solid truth which rests on mere elegance of speech. It may indeed be helped by it, but it ought not to rest upon it On the other hand, that must have been most powerful which could stand of itself without any foreign aid. Hence it forms a choice commendation of Paul’s preaching, that heavenly influence shone forth in it so clearly, that it surmounted so many hindrances, while deriving no assistance from the world. It follows, therefore, that they must not allow themselves to be moved away from his doctrine, which they acknowledge to rest on the authority of God. Paul, however, speaks here of the faith of the Corinthians in such a way as to bring forward this, as a general statement. Let it then be known by us that it is the property of faith to rest upon God alone, without depending on men; for it requires to have so much certainty to go upon, that it will not fail, even when assailed by all the machinations of hell, but will perseveringly endure and sustain every assault. This cannot be accomplished unless we are fully persuaded that God has spoken to us, and that what we have believed is no mere contrivance of men. While faith ought properly to be founded on the word of God alone, there is at the same time no impropriety in adding this second prop, — that believers recognize the word which they hear as having come forth from God, from the effect of its influence.
6. We speak wisdom Lest he should appear to despise wisdom, as unlearned and ignorant men (Act 4:13) condemn learning with a sort of barbarian ferocity, he adds, that he is not devoid of that wisdom, which was worthy of the name, but was esteemed as such by none but competent judges. By those that were perfect, he means not those that had attained a wisdom that was full and complete, but those who possess a sound and unbiased judgment. For תם, which is always rendered in the Septuagint by τελειος means complete (112) He twits, however, in passing, those that had no relish for his preaching, and gives them to understand that it was owing to their own fault: “If my doctrine is disrelished by any of you, those persons give sufficient evidence from that very token, that they possess a depraved and vitiated understanding, inasmuch as it will invariably be acknowledged to be the highest wisdom among men of sound intellect and correct judgment.” While Paul’s preaching was open to the view of all, it was, nevertheless, not always estimated according to its value, and this is the reason why he appeals to sound and unbiased judges, (113) who would declare that doctrine, which the world accounted insipid, to be true wisdom. Meanwhile, by the words we speak, he intimates that he set before them an elegant specimen of admirable wisdom, lest any one should allege that he boasted of a thing unknown.
Yet not the wisdom of this world He again repeats by way of anticipation what he had already conceded — that the gospel was not human wisdom, lest any one should object that there were few supporters of that doctrine; nay more, that it was contemned by all that were most distinguished for intellect. Hence he acknowledges of his own accord what might be brought forward by way of objection, but in such a way as not at all to give up his point.
The princes of this world By the princes of this world he means those that have distinction in the world through means of any endowment, for sometimes there are persons, who, though they are by no means distinguished by acuteness of intellect, are nevertheless held in admiration from the dignity of the station which they hold. That, however, we may not be alarmed by these imposing appearances, the Apostle adds, that they come to nought, or perish. For it were unbefitting, that a thing that is eternal should depend upon the authority of those who are frail, and fading, and cannot give perpetuity even to themselves: “When the kingdom of God is revealed, let the wisdom of this world retire, and what is transient give place to what is eternal; for the princes of this world have their distinction, but it is of such a nature as is in one moment extinguished. What is this in comparison with the heavenly and incorruptible kingdom of God?”
(112) “Thus we read, (Gen 25:27,) that Jacob was איש תם, “a perfect man,” i.e. without any manifest blemish. See also Job 1:1. The corresponding word תמים, is frequently applied to the sacrificial victims, to denote their being without blemish Exo 12:5; Lev 1:3. — Ed
(113) “Il ne s’en rapporte pas a vn chacvn, mais requiert des luges entiers;” — “He does not submit the case to every one, but appeals to competent judges.”
7. The wisdom of God in a mystery He assigns the reason why the doctrine of the gospel is not held in high esteem by the princes of this world — because it is involved in mysteries, and is consequently hidden For the gospel so far transcends the perspicacity of human intellect, that to whatever height those who are accounted men of superior intellect may raise their view, they never can reach its elevated height, while in the meantime they despise its meanness, as if it were prostrate at their feet. The consequence is, that the more proudly they contemn it, they are the farther from acquaintance with it — nay more, they are removed to so great a distance as to be prevented from even seeing it.
Which God hath ordained. Paul having said that the gospel was a hidden thing, there was a danger lest believers should, on hearing this, be appalled by the difficulty, and retire in despair. Accordingly he meets this danger, and declares that it had notwithstanding been appointed to us, that we might enjoy it. Lest any one, I say, should reckon that he has nothing to do with the hidden wisdom, or should imagine it to be unlawful to direct his eyes towards it, as not being within the reach of human capacity, he teaches that it has been communicated to us in accordance with the eternal counsel of God. At the same time he has something still farther in view, for by an implied comparison he extols that grace which has been opened up by Christ’s advent, and distinguishes us above our fathers, who lived under the law. On this point I have spoken more at large in the end of the last chapter of the Romans. First of all then he argues from what God had ordained, for if God has appointed nothing in vain, it follows, that we will be no losers by listening to the gospel which he has appointed for us, for he accommodates himself to our capacity in addressing us. In accordance with this Isaiah (Isa 45:19) says —
“I have not spoken in a lurking place, or in a dark corner. (114)
I have not in vain said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me.”
Secondly, with the view of rendering the gospel attractive, and alluring us to a desire of acquaintance with it, he draws an argument still farther from the design that God had in view in giving it to us — “for our glory. ” In this expression, too, he seems to draw a comparison between us and the fathers, our heavenly Father not having vouchsafed to them that honor which he reserved for the advent of his Son. (115)
(114) “In allusion, it is generally thought, to the deep and dark caverns from which the heathen oracles gave forth their responses. Such was the cave (antrum) of the Cumean Sibyl, described by Virgil, AEn. 6:42-44, and also the cavern in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, described by Strabo (lib. 9.) “φασι δ ᾿ ειναι το μαντειον αντρον κοιλον μετα βαθους, ου μαλα ευροστομον;” — “They say that the oracle is a hollow cavern of considerable depth, but not at all wide in the opening.” — Ed
(115) Locke, in accordance with Calvin’s view, understands Paul as if he had said: “Why do you make divisions, by glorying, as you do, in your distinct teachers? The glory that God has ordained us (Christian teachers and professors) to, is to be expounders, preachers, and believers of those revealed truths and purposes of God, which, though contained in the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament, were not understood in former ages.” — Ed.
8. None of the princes of this world knew If you supply the words by their own discernment, the statement would not be more applicable to them than to the generality of mankind, and the very lowest of the people; for what are the attainments of all of us as to this matter, from the greatest to the least? Only we may perhaps say, that princes, rather than others, are charged with blindness and ignorance — for this reason, that they alone appear in the view of the word clear-sighted and wise. At the same time I should prefer to understand the expression in a more simple way, agreeably to the common usage of Scripture, which is wont to speak in terms of universality of those things that, happen επι το πολυ, that is commonly, and also to make a negative statement in terms of universality, as to those things that happen only ἐπι ἔλαττον, that is very seldom In this sense there were nothing inconsistent with this statement, though there were found a few men of distinction, and elevated above others in point of dignity, who were at the same time endowed with the pure knowledge of God.
For had they known The wisdom of God shone forth clearly in Christ, and yet there the princes did not perceive it; for those who took the lead in the crucifixion of Christ were on the one hand the chief men of the Jews, high in credit for holiness and wisdom; and on the other hand Pilate and the Roman empire. In this we have a most distinct proof of the utter blindness of all that are wise only according to the flesh. This argument of the Apostle, however, might appear to be weak. “What! do we not every day see persons who, with deliberate malice, fight against the truth of God, as to which they are not ignorant; nay, even if a rebellion so manifest were not to be seen by us with our eyes, what else is the sin against the Holy Ghost than a willful obstinacy against God, when a man knowingly and willingly does not merely oppose his word, but even fights against it. It is on this account, too, that Christ declares that the Pharisees, and others of that description, knew him, (Joh 7:28,) while he deprives them of all pretext of ignorance, and accuses them of impious cruelty in persecuting him, the faithful servant of the Father, for no other reason but that they hated the truth.”
I answer that there are two kinds of ignorance. The one arises from inconsiderate zeal, not expressly rejecting what is good, but from having an impression that it is evil. No one, it is true, sins in ignorance in such a way as not to be chargeable meanwhile in the sight of God with an evil conscience, there being always a mixture of hypocrisy, or pride, or contempt; but at the same time judgment, and all intelligence in the mind of man, are sometimes so effectually choked, that nothing but bare ignorance is to be seen by others, or even by the individual himself. Such was Paul before he was enlightened; for the reason why he hated Christ and was hostile to his doctrine was, that he was through ignorance hurried away with a preposterous zeal for the law. (116) Yet he was not devoid of hypocrisy, nor exempt from pride, so as to be free from blame in the sight of God, but those vices were so completely covered over with ignorance and blindness as not to be perceived or felt even by himself.
The other kind of ignorance has more of the appearance of insanity and derangement, than of mere ignorance; for those that of their own accord rise up against God, are like persons in a frenzy, who, seeing, see not. (Mat 13:13.) It must be looked upon, indeed, as a settled point, that infidelity is always blind; but the difference lies here, that in some cases malice is covered over with blindness to such a degree that the individual, through a kind of stupidity, is without any perception of his own wickedness. This is the case with those who, with a good intention, as they speak, or in other words, a foolish imagination, impose upon themselves. In some cases malice has the ascendancy in such a manner, that in spite of the checks of conscience, the individual rushes forward into wickedness of this sort with a kind of madness. (117) Hence it is not to be wondered, if Paul declares that the princes of this world would not have crucified Christ, had they known the wisdom of God. For the Pharisees and Scribes did not know Christ’s doctrine to be true, so as not to be bewildered in their mind, and wander on in their own darkness.
(116) “Vne zele de la loy desordonne et real regle;” — “An inordinate and ill regulated zeal for the law.”
(117) The distinction drawn by Calvin is illustrated by a statement of Solomon in Pro 21:27. “The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind. ”בזמה — “with a wicked design.” — Ed
9. As it is written, “What eye hath not seen.” All are agreed that this passage is taken from Isa 64:4, and as the meaning is at first view plain and easy, interpreters do not give themselves much trouble in expounding it. On looking, however, more narrowly into it, two very great difficulties present themselves. The first is, that the words that are here quoted by Paul do not correspond with the words of the Prophet. The second is, that it seems as though Paul had perverted the Prophet’s declaration to a purpose quite foreign to his design.
First then as to the words; and as they may be taken in different senses, they are explained variously by interpreters. Some render the passage thus: “From the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived with their ears, and eye hath not seen any god beside Thee, who doth act in such a manner towards him that waiteth for him.” Others understand the discourse as addressed to God, in this manner: “Eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard, O God, besides thee, the things which thou dost for those that wait for thee.” Literally, however, the Prophet’s meaning is: “From the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor have they perceived with the ears, hath not seen a god, (or O God,) besides thee, will do (or will prepare) for him that waiteth for him.” If we understand אלהים (God) to be in the accusative, the relative who must be supplied. This exposition, too, appears, at first view, to suit better with the Prophet’s context in respect of the verb that follows being used in the third person; (118) but it is farther removed from Paul’s meaning, on which we ought to place more dependence than on any other consideration. For where shall we find a surer or more faithful interpreter than the Spirit of God of this authoritative declaration, which He himself dictated to Isaiah — in the exposition which He has furnished by the mouth of Paul. With the view of obviating, however, the calumnies of the wicked, I observe that the Hebrew idiom admits of our understanding the Prophets true meaning to be this: “O God, neither hath eye seen, nor hath ear heard: but thou alone knowest the things which thou art wont to do to those that wait for thee.” The sudden change of person forms no objection, as we know that it is so common in the writings of the Prophets, that it needs not be any hindrance in our way. If any one, however, prefers the former interpretation, he will have no occasion for charging either us or the Apostle with departing from the simple meaning of the words, for we supply less than they do, as they are under the necessity of adding a mark of comparison to the verb, rendering it thus: “who doth act in such a manner. ”
As to what follows respecting theentering of these things into the heart of man, though the expression is not made use of by the Prophet, it does not differ materially from the clause besides thee For in ascribing this knowledge to God alone, he excludes from it not merely the bodily senses of men, but also the entire faculty of the understanding. While, therefore, the Prophet makes mention only of sight and hearing, he includes at the same time by implication all the faculties of the soul. And without doubt these are the two instruments by which we attain the knowledge of those things that find their way into the understanding. In using the expression them that love him, he has followed the Greek interpreters, who have translated it in this way from having been misled by the resemblance between one letter and another; (119) but as that did not affect the point in hand, he did not choose to depart from the common reading, as we frequently have occasion to observe how closely he follows the received version. Though the words, therefore, are not the same, there is no real difference of meaning.
I come now to the subject-matter. The Prophet in that passage, when mentioning how signally God had on all occasions befriended his people in their emergencies, exclaims, that his acts of kindness to the pious surpass the comprehension of human intellect. “But what has this to do,” some one will say, “with spiritual doctrine, and the promises of eternal life, as to which Paul is here arguing?” There are three ways in which this question may be answered. There were no inconsistency in affirming that the Prophet, having made mention of earthly blessings, was in consequence of this led on to make a general statement, and even to extol that spiritual blessedness which is laid up in heaven for believers. I prefer, however, to understand him simply as referring to those gifts of God’s grace that are daily conferred upon believers. In these it becomes us always to observe their source, and not to confine our views to their present aspect. Now their source is that unmerited goodness of God, by which he has adopted us into the number of his sons. He, therefore, who would estimate these things aright, will not contemplate them in their naked aspect, but will clothe them with God’s fatherly love, as with a robe, and will thus be led forward from temporal favors to eternal life. It might also be maintained that the argument is from the less to the greater; for if man’s intellect is not competent to measure God’s earthly gifts, how much less will it reach the height of heaven? (Joh 3:12.) I have, however, already intimated which interpretation I prefer.
(118) “Assauoir, Fera, or Preparera;” — “Namely — He will do, or He will prepare.”
(119) The word made use of by Isaiah is מחכה, which is a part of the verb חכה, to wait for, and Calvin’s meaning most probably is, that the “Greek interpreters had (from the resemblance between ב and כ) been led into the mistake of supposing it to be a part of the verb חבב, to love, while the corresponding part of the latter verb — מחובב, manifestly differs very widely from the word made use of by the Prophet. There appears, how ever, to have been an oversight, in this instance, on the part of Calvin, as the word in the Septuagint version is not the word made use of by the Apostle — ἀγαπῶσιν, “them that love” (him,) but (corresponding to the word made use of bythe Prophet ὑπομένουσιν, “them that wait for” (him.) It is not a little singular, that Clemens Romanus (Ep. ad Cor. Sect. 34.) quotes the words of Isaiah precisely as Paul quotes them, with the exception of the last clause, which he gives as follows: ὅσα ἡτοιμασε τοις ὑπομένουσιν αὐτὸν — “which he hath prepared for them that wait for him.” Some have supposed the citation to have been taken from one or other of the two Apocryphal books, entitled, “The Ascension of Esaiah,” and “The Apocalyps of Elias,” in both of which this passage was found, but, as is justly observed by Horne in his Introduction (volume 2,) “it is so near to the Hebrew here both in sense and words, that we cannot suppose it to be taken from any other source, nor in this case would the Apostle have introduced it with the formula of quotation — as it is written. ” In accordance with Calvln’s remark, that “though the words are not the same, there is no real difference of meaning,” it is well observed by Poole in his Annotations, that “waiting for ” God is “the certain product and effect of love to him. ” — Ed
10. But God hath revealed them to us. Having shut up all mankind in blindness, and having taken away from the human intellect the power of attaining to a knowledge of God by its own resources, he now shows in what way believers are exempted from this blindness, — by the Lord’s honoring them with a special illumination of the Spirit. Hence the greater the bluntness of the human intellect for understanding the mysteries of God, and the greater the uncertainty under which it labors, so much the surer is our faith, which rests for its support on the revelation of God’s Spirit. In this, too, we recognize the unbounded goodness of God, who makes our defect contribute to our advantage.
For the Spirit searcheth all things This is added for the consolation of the pious, that they may rest more securely in the revelation which they have from the Spirit of God, as though he had said. “Let it suffice us to have the Spirit of God as a witness, for there is nothing in God that is too profound for him to reach.” For such is the import here of the word searcheth By the deep things you must understand — not secret judgments, which we are forbidden to search into, but the entire doctrine of salvation, which would have been to no purpose set before us in the Scriptures, were it not that God elevates our minds to it by his Spirit.
11. For what man knoweth? Two different things he intends to teach here: first, that the doctrine of the Gospel cannot be understood otherwise than by the testimony of the Holy Spirit; and secondly, that those who have a testimony of this nature from the Holy Spirit, have an assurance as firm and solid, as if they felt with their hands what they believe, for the Spirit is a faithful and indubitable witness. This he proves by a similitude drawn from our own spirit: for every one is conscious of his own thoughts, and on the other hand what lies hid in any man’s heart, is unknown to another. In the same way what is the counsel of God, and what his will, is hid from all mankind, for “who hath been his counselor?” (Rom 11:34.) It is, therefore, a secret recess, inaccessible to mankind; but, if the Spirit of God himself introduces us into it, or in other words, makes us acquainted with those things that are otherwise hid from our view, there will then be no more ground for hesitation, for nothing that is in God escapes the notice of the Spirit of God.
This similitude, however, may seem to be not altogether very appropriate, for as the tongue bears an impress of the mind, mankind communicate their dispositions to each other, so that they become acquainted with each other’s thoughts. Why then may we not understand from the word of God what is his will? For while mankind by pretenses and falsehoods in many cases conceal their thoughts rather than discover them, this cannot happen with God, whose word is undoubted truth, and his genuine and lively image. We must, however, carefully observe how far Paul designed to extend this comparison. A man’s innermost thought, of which others are ignorant, is perceived by himself alone: if he afterwards makes it known to others, this does not hinder but that his spirit alone knows what is in him. For it may happen that he does not persuade: it may even happen that he does not properly express his own meaning; but even if he attains both objects, this statement is not at variance with the other — that his own spirit alone has the true knowledge of it. There is this difference, however, between God’s thoughts and those of men, that men mutually understand each other; but the word of God is a kind of hidden wisdom, the loftiness of which is not reached by the weakness of the human intellect. Thus the light shineth in darkness, (Joh 1:5,) aye and until the Spirit opens the eyes of the blind.
The spirit of a man Observe, that the spirit of a man is taken here for the soul, in which the intellectual faculty, as it is called, resides. For Paul would have expressed himself inaccurately if he had ascribed this knowledge to man’s intellect, or in other words, the faculty itself, and not to the soul, which is endued with the power of understanding.
12. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world He heightens by contrast the certainty of which he had made mention. “The Spirit of revelation,” says he, “which we have received, is not of the world, so as to be merely creeping upon the ground, so as to be subject to vanity, or be in suspense, or vary or fluctuate, or hold us in doubt and perplexity. On the contrary, it is from God, and hence it is above all heavens, of solid and unvarying truth, and placed above all risk of doubt.”
It is a passage that is most abundantly clear, for refuting that diabolical doctrine of the Sophists as to a constant hesitancy on the part of believers. For they require all believers to be in doubt, whether they are in the grace of God or not, and allow of no assurance of salvation, but what hangs on moral or probable conjecture. In this, however, they overthrow faith in two respects: for first they would have us be in doubt, whether we are in a state of grace, and then afterwards they suggest a second occasion of doubt — as to final perseverance. (120) Here, however, the Apostle declares in general terms, that the elect have the Spirit given them, by whose testimony they are assured that they have been adopted to the hope of eternal salvation. Undoubtedly, if they would maintain their doctrine, they must of necessity either take away the Spirit of God from the elect, or make even the Spirit himself subject to uncertainty. Both of these things are openly at variance with Paul’s doctrine. Hence we may know the nature of faith to be this, that conscience has from the Holy Spirit a sure testimony of the good-will of God towards it, so that, resting upon this, it does not hesitate to invoke God as a Father. Thus Paul lifts up our faith above the world, that it may look down with lofty disdain upon all the pride of the flesh; for otherwise it will be always timid and wavering, because we see how boldly human ingenuity exalts itself, the haughtiness of which requires to be trodden under foot by the sons of God through means of an opposing haughtiness of heroical magnanimity. (121)
That we may know the things that are given us by Christ. The word know is made use of to express more fully the assurance of confidence. Let us observe, however, that it is not acquired in a natural way, and is not attained by the mental capacity, but depends entirely on the revelation of the Spirit. The things that he makes mention of as given by Christ are the blessings that we obtain through his death and resurrection — that being reconciled to God, and having obtained remission of sins, we know that we have been adopted to the hope of eternal life, and that, being sanctified by the Spirit of regeneration, we are made new creatures, that we may live to God. In Eph 1:18, he says what amounts to the same thing —
“That ye may know what is the hope of your calling.”
(120) The reader will find this subject treated of at greater length in the Institutes, volume 2, p. 143. — Ed.
(121) “Fondee en vne magnanimite heroique;” — “Founded upon a heroical magnanimity.”
13. Which things also we speak, not in the learned words, etc. He speaks of himself, for he is still employed in commending his ministry. Now it is a high commendation that he pronounces upon his preaching, when he says of it that it contains a secret revelation of the most important matters — the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the sum of our salvation, and the inestimable treasures of Christ, that the Corinthians may know how highly it ought to be prized. In the meantime he returns to the concession that he had made before — that his preaching had not been adorned with any glitter of words, and had no luster of elegance, but was contented with the simple doctrine of the Holy Spirit. By the learned words of human wisdom (122) he means those that savor of human learning, and are polished according to the rules of the rhetoricians, or blown up with philosophical loftiness, with a view to excite the admiration of the hearers. The words taught by the Spirit, on the other hand, are such as are adapted to a pure and simple style, corresponding to the dignity of the Spirit, rather than to an empty ostentation. For in order that eloquence may not be wanting, we must always take care that the wisdom of God be not polluted with any borrowed and profane luster. Paul’s manner of teaching was of such a kind, that the power of the Spirit shone forth in it single and unattired, without any foreign aid.
Spiritual things with spiritual Συγκρινεσθαι is used here, I have no doubt, in the sense of adapt This is sometimes the meaning of the word, (123) (as Budaeus shows by a quotation from Aristotle,)and hence συγκριμα is used to mean what is knit together or glued together, and certainly it suits much better with Paul’s context than compare or liken, as others have rendered it. He says then that he adapts spiritual things to spiritual, in accommodating the words to the subject; (124) that is, he tempers that heavenly wisdom of the Spirit with a simple style of speech, and of such a nature as carries in its front the native energy of the Spirit. In the meantime he reproves others, who, by an affected elegance of expression and show of refinement, endeavor to obtain the applause of men, as persons who are either devoid of solid truth, or, by unbecoming ornaments, corrupt the spiritual doctrine of God.
(122) “A similar rendering is given in some of the old English versions of the Scriptures. Thus, Wiclif’s version, (1380,) it is rendered “not in wise wordis of mannes wisdom:” in Tyndale’s version (1534) — “not in the connynge wordes of mannes wysdome: and in Rhemls version (1582) — “not in learned wordes of humane wisedom.” — Ed.
(123) “Es bons autheurs;” — “In good authors.”
(124) Beza’s view is substantially the same — “Verba rei accommodantes, ut, sicut spiritualia sunt quae docemus, neque sinceritas doctrinae caelestis ullis humanis commentis est depravata, ita spirituale sit nostrum illius docendae ghenus : — “Accommodating the words to the subject, so that as the things at we teach are spiritual, and the purity of heavenly doctrine is not corrupted by human contrivances, our mode of teaching it may in like manner be spiritual.” — Ed.
14. But the animal man. (125) By the animal man he does not mean (as is commonly thought) the man that is given up to gross lusts, or, as they say, to his own sensuality, but any man that is endowed with nothing more than the faculties (126) of nature. (127) This appears from the corresponding term, for he draws a comparison between the animal man and the spiritual As the latter denotes the man whose understanding is regulated by the illumination of the Spirit of God, there can be no doubt that the former denotes the man that is left in a purely natural condition, as they speak. For the soul (128) belongs to nature, but the Spirit is of supernatural communication.
He returns to what he had previously touched upon, for his object is to remove a stumblingblock which might stand in the way of the weak — that there were so many that despised the gospel. He shows that we ought to make no account of a contempt of such a nature as proceeds from ignorance, and that it ought, consequently, to be no hindrance in the way of our going forward in the race of faith, unless perhaps we choose to shut our eyes upon the brightness of the sun, because it is not seen by the blind. It would, however, argue great ingratitude in any individual, when God bestows upon him a special favor, to reject it, on the ground of its not being common to all, whereas, on the contrary, its very rareness ought to enhance its value. (129)
For they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them. “The doctrine of the gospel,” says he, “is insipid (130) in the view of all that are wise merely in the view of man. But whence comes this? It is from their own blindness. In what respect, then, does this detract from the majesty of the gospel?” In short, while ignorant persons depreciate the gospel, because they measure its value by the estimation in which it is held by men, Paul derives an argument from this for extolling more highly its dignity. For he teaches that the reason why it is contemned is that it is unknown, and that the reason why it is unknown is that it is too profound and sublime to be apprehended by the understanding of man. What a superior wisdom (131) this is, which so far transcends all human understanding, that man cannot have so much as a taste of it! (132) While, however, Paul here tacitly imputes it to the pride of the flesh, that mankind dare to condemn as foolish what they do not comprehend, he at the same time shows how great is the weakness or rather bluntness of the human understanding, when he declares it to be incapable of spiritual apprehension. For he teaches, that it is not owing simply to the obstinacy of the human will, but to the impotency, also, of the understanding, that man does not attain to the things of the Spirit. Had he said that men are not willing to be wise, that indeed would have been true, but he states farther that they are not able. Hence we infer, that faith is not in one’s own power, but is divinely conferred.
Because they are spiritually discerned That is, the Spirit of God, from whom the doctrine of the gospel comes, is its only true interpreter, to open it up to us. Hence in judging of it, men’s minds must of necessity be in blindness until they are enlightened by the Spirit of God. (133) Hence infer, that all mankind are by nature destitute of the Spirit of God: otherwise the argument would be inconclusive. It is from the Spirit of God, it is true, that we have that feeble spark of reason which we all enjoy; but at present we are speaking of that special discovery of heavenly wisdom which God vouchsafes to his sons alone. Hence the more insufferable the ignorance of those who imagine that the gospel is offered to mankind in common in such a way that all indiscriminately are free (134) to embrace salvation by faith.
(125) “Or l ’homme naturel. A le traduire du Grec mot a mot, il y auroit l’homme animal;” — “But the natural man. Rendering the Greek literally it means the animal man.”
(126) “Les facultes et graces;” — “The faculties and gifts.”
(127) Beza’s definition of the term is much similar — “Homo non alia quam naturali animi luce praeditus;” — “A man that is not endowed with anything more than the natural light of the mind.” — Ed.
(128) “Anima “ “the soul” corresponds to the Greek term ψυχη, and the Hebrew term נפש, while spiritus (spirit) corresponds to πνευμα and רוח; but Calvin employs the epithet animalis (animal)as a derivative from anima , (the soul,) and as designating the man whose soul is in a purely natural state — without supernatural illumination — in other words, the man of mere mind. — Ed
(129) “D’autant qu’il est fait a peu de gens, d’autant doit-il estre trouue plus excellent;” — “The fewer it is conferred upon, it ought to be accounted so much the more valuable.”
(130) “Et n’auoir point de goust;” — “And has no relish.”
(131) “O quelle sagesse! “ — “O what wisdom!”
(132) “Vn petit goust;” — “A slight taste.”
(133) “The reader will find the Apostle’s statement respecting the “natural man” commented upon at some length in the Institutes, volume 1. — Ed.
(134) Calvin obviously does not mean to deny that “all indiscriminately” are invited and warranted to “embrace salvation by faith.” He says in the Harmony, volume 3, “For since by his word he [God] calls all men indiscriminately to salvation, and since the end of preaching is, that all should betake themselves to his guardianship and protection, it may justly be said that he wills to gather all to himself.” His meaning is, that the will requires to be set free by the Spirit of God. — Ed.
15. But the spiritual man judgeth all things. Having stripped of all authority man’s carnal judgment, he now teaches, that the spiritual alone are fit judges as to this matter, inasmuch as God is known only by his Spirit, and it is his peculiar province to distinguish between his own things and those of others, to approve of what is his own, and to make void all things else. The meaning, then, is this: “Away with all the discernment of the flesh as to this matter! It is the spiritual man alone that has such a firm and solid acquaintance with the mysteries of God, as to distinguish without fail between truth and falsehood — between the doctrine of God and the contrivances of man, so as not to fall into mistake. (135) He, on the other hand, is judged by no man, because the assurance of faith is not subject to men, as though they could make it totter at their nod, (136) it being superior even to angels themselves.” Observe, that this prerogative is not ascribed to the man as an individual, but to the word of God, which the spiritual follow in judging, and which is truly dictated to them by God with true discernment. Where that is afforded, a man’s persuasion (137) is placed beyond the range of human judgment. Observe, farther, the word rendered judged: by which the Apostle intimates, that we are not merely enlightened by the Lord to perceive the truth, but are also endowed with a spirit of discrimination, so as not to hang in doubt between truth and falsehood, but are able to determine what we ought to shun and what to follow.
But here it may be asked, who is the spiritual man, and where we may find one that is endowed with so much light as to be prepared to judge of all things, feeling as we do, that we are at all times encompassed with much ignorance, and are in danger of erring: nay more, even those who come nearest to perfection from time to time fall and bruise themselves. The answer is easy: Paul does not extend this faculty to everything, so as to represent all that are renewed by the Spirit of God as exempt from every kind of error, but simply designs to teach, that the wisdom of the flesh is of no avail for judging of the doctrine of piety, and that this right of judgment and authority belong exclusively to the Spirit of God. In so far, therefore, as any one is regenerated, and according to the measure of grace conferred upon him, does he judge with accuracy and certainty, and no farther.
He himself is judged by no man. I have already explained on what ground he says that the spiritual man is not subject to the judgment of any man — because the truth of faith, which depends on God alone, and is grounded on his word, does not stand or fall according to the pleasure of men. (138) What he says afterwards, that
the spirit of one Prophet is subject to the other Prophets,
(1. o 14:32,)
is not at all inconsistent with this statement. For what is the design of that subjection, but that each of the Prophets listens to the others, and does not despise or reject their revelations, in order that what is discovered to be the truth of God, (139) may at length remain firm, and be received by all? Here, however, he places the science of faith, which has been received from God, (140) above the height of heaven and earth, in order that it may not be estimated by the judgment of men. At the same time, ὕπ ᾿ οὐδενός may be taken in the neuter gender as meaning — by nothing, understanding it as referring to a thing, and not to a man. In this way the contrast will be more complete, (141) as intimating that the spiritual man, in so far as he is endowed with the Spirit of God, judgeth all things, but is judged by nothing, because he is not subject to any human wisdom or reason. In this way, too, Paul would exempt the consciences of the pious from all decrees, laws, and censures of men.
(135) “En cest endroit “ — “In this matter.”
(136) “Pour estre ou n’estre point selon qu’il leur plaira;” — “So as to be or not to be, according as it shall please them.”
(137) “Et foy;” — “And faith.”
(138) “N’est point suiete au plaisir des hommes, pour estre ou n’estre point, selon qu’ils voudront;” — “It is not subject to the pleasure of men, so as to be, or not to be, according as they shall choose.”
(139) “La pure verite du Seigneur;” — “The pure truth of the Lord.”
(140) “Mais yci il establit et conferme la science de roy, laquelle les eleus recoyuent de Dieu;” — “But here he establishes and confirms the science of faith, which the elect have received from God.”
(141) “Et expresse;” — “And exact.”
16. For who hath known ? It is probable that Paul had an eye to what we read in the 40. h chapter of Isaiah. The Prophet there asks,
Who hath been God’s counselor? Who hath weighed his Spirit, (142) (Isa 40:13,)
or hath aided him both in the creation of the world and in his other works? and, in fine, who hath comprehended the reason of his works? Now, in like manner Paul, by this interrogation, designs to teach, that his secret counsel which is contained in the gospel is far removed from the understanding of men. This then is a confirmation of the preceding statement.
But we have the mind of Christ. It is uncertain whether he speaks of believers universally, or of ministers exclusively. Either of these meanings will suit sufficiently well with the context, though I prefer to view it as referring more particularly to himself and other faithful ministers. (143) He says, then, that the servants of the Lord are taught by the paramount authority of the Spirit, what is farthest removed from the judgment of the flesh, that they may speak fearlessly as from the mouth of the Lord, — which gift flows out afterwards by degrees to the whole Church.
(142) The expression made use of by Isaiah is, Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord? Our author, quoting from memory, seems to have had in his eye an expression that occurs in a preceding part of the same passage, “and weighed the mountains in scales.” — Ed.
(143) Calvin, when alluding to this passage, as he evidently does in his Commentary on Rom 11:34, views the expression, We have the mind of Christ, as applicable to believers universally — “Nam et Paulus ipso alibi, postquam testatus erat onmia Dei mysteria ingenii nostri captum longe excedere, mox tamen subjicit, fideles tenere mentem Domini: quia non spiritum hujus mundi acceperint, sed a Deo sibi datum, per quem de incomprehensibili alioqui ejus bonitate edocentur;” — “For even Paul himself, in another place, after testifying that all the mysteries of God far exceed the capacity of our understanding, does nevertheless immediately add, that believers are in possession of the Lord’s mind, because they have received not the spirit of this world, but that which has been given them by God, whereby they are instructed as to his otherwise incomprehensible goodness.” — Ed.
