Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible · 1 Corinthians Capitolo 1

1 Corinthians 1:1. Concerning the city of Corinth, see Acts 18:1-2.—a city no less famous for its luxury and vice, than for its wisdom and elegance: but notwithstanding the luxuryof the rich, and the profligacy of the poor, notwithstanding the pride of its wise men, and the prejudices of its priests, St. Paul, without using the charms of eloquence, the advantages of philosophy, the splendour of riches, the favour or concurrence of the great, planted a church among them, and won them to embrace a crucified Saviour. So great was his success, that he abode near two years in this place; but about three years after his departure, the church was overrun with great disorders, and split into various sects and factions. This occasioned thefollowing Epistle, which was written by St. Paul just before his departure from Ephesus, about Easter, (see ch. 1 Corinthians 16:7-8.) in the year of Christ 57, and the third of the emperor Nero. It was intended partly to correct some corruptions and abuses among the Corinthians, and partly to answer certain questions which they had proposed to him. In the introduction he expresses his satisfaction at all the good that he knew of them, particularly at their having the gift of the Holy Ghost for the confirmation of the Gospel; ch. 1 Corinthians 1:1-9. After which, he first corrects their corruptions and abuses; first, rebuking the sectaries among them, and defending himself against one or more false teachers, who had alienated most of the Corinthians from him; ch. 1Co 1:10 to 1 Corinthians 5:1. Secondly, considering the case of a notorious offender, who had married his father's wife, that is, his own step-mother; ordering them to excommunicate this person, and to acknowledge no public fornicator as a brother; ch. 5. Thirdly, reproving them for their covetous and litigious temper, which caused them to prosecute their Christian brethren before heathen courts of judicature; ch. 1 Corinthians 6:1-9. Fourthly, cautioning them against fornication, a vice to which they had been extremely addicted before they were converted, (ch. 1Co 6:10 to the end,) and which some of them still reckoned among the things indifferent;orwhichmightbepractisedorletalone, without breach of morality. And we can scarcely wonder at this inveterate prejudice, when informed that Corinth was so notorious for fornication and lasciviousness, that a Corinthian woman among the ancients, was a synonimous term for "a prostitute." The natives made the increase of prostitutes one part of their prayers to their gods, and the bringing of prostitutes into the city a part of their vows. In the next place, he answers certain questions which they had proposed; and, first, he determines some questions relating to the marriage-state, ch. 7. Secondly, he instructs them how to act with respect to idol-offerings; ch. viii-ix. 1. It could not be unlawful in itself to eat the meat which had been offered to idols; for the consecration of flesh or wine to an idol did not make it the property of an idol, an idol being nothing, and therefore incapable of property; but some Corinthians thought it lawful to go to a feast in the idol-temples, which at the same time were places of resort for lewdness, and to eat the sacrifices, while praises were sung to the idols: this was publicly joining in idolatry. St. Paul advises to abstain even from such participation as was lawful, rather than give offence to a weak brother; which he enforces by his own example, who had abstained from many lawful things rather than create offence to the Gospel. Thirdly, he answers a third question concerningthe manner in which women should deliver any thingin public, when called to it by divine impulse: ch. 1 Corinthians 11:2-17. And here he censures the unusual dress of both sexes in prophesying, which exposed them to the contempt of the Greeks, among whom the men usually went uncovered, and the women veiled. He also takes occasion here to censure the irregularities committed at their love-feasts, &c. and in the exercise of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost; ch. 1Co 11:18 to 1 Corinthians 15:1. Fourthly, he affects the resurrection of the dead, which some among the Corinthians doubted, and others denied, ch. 15. He then concludes with some directions to the Corinthian church concerningthe manner of collecting alms, promises them a visit, and salutes some of the members, ch. 16. See Michaelis, Locke, Whitby, Lardner, and Calmet.

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1 Corinthians 1:2. To them that are sanctified, &c.— Nothing could better suit the candid and catholic views whichSt. Paul was so much concerned to promote in this Epistle, than the declaration of his good wishes in this verse for every true Christian upon earth, whether Jew or Gentile, learned or unlearned, Greek or barbarian. The original, which we render call upon the name of Jesus Christ,— τοις επικαλουμενοις το οιομα, Mr. Locke renders, all that are called by the name of Jesus Christ,—the Greek words being a periphrasis for Christians, as is plain from the design of this verse, and from a variety of proofs given by Dr. Hammond on the place. See on ch. 1 Corinthians 8:6.

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1 Corinthians 1:5. That in every thing ye are enriched— These respectful congratulations and acknowledgments of the things in which they did really excel, had a most happy tendency to soften their minds, and to dispose them the better to receive the plain reproofs that he was going to give them, and which, in their circumstances, faithful love extorted from him.

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1 Corinthians 1:6. Confirmed in you— Among you. Doddridge. As they could not but know that they had received these gifts by the hand of St. Paul, this expression suggests a rational and tender argument to reduce them to their former affection to him, as their spiritual father.

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1 Corinthians 1:9. God is faithful— That is, "If we continue obedient, God for his part will certainly perform his promise faithfully."

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1 Corinthians 1:10.— There were great disorders in the church of Corinth, caused chiefly by a faction raised there against St. Paul; the partisans of the faction mightily cried up and gloried in their leader, and did all they could to disparage St. Paul, and to lessen him in the esteem of the Corinthians. The Apostle makes it his business in the first part of this Epistle, to take off the Corinthians from siding with, and glorying in this pretended apostle, whose followers and scholars they professed themselves to be; and to reduce them into one body as the scholars of Christ; united in a belief of the Gospel, which he had preached to them, and in an obedience to it, without any such distinction of masters and leaders, from whom they denominated themselves. He also here and there intermixes a justification of himself against the aspersions which were cast upon him by his opposers. See 2 Corinthians 11:13-15. Many are the arguments used by St. Paul to break the opposite faction, and put an end to all divisions. The first before us, from this to 1Co 1:16 is, that in Christianity they all had but one Master, namely, Christ; and therefore were not to fall into parties denominated from distinct teachers, as they did in their schools of philosophy. Locke.

By the name of our Lord Jesus Christ——Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is, and ought to be named. If any one has thought St. Paul a loose writer, it is only because he was a loose reader. He who takes notice of the Apostle's design will find, that there is scarcely a word or an expression which he uses, but with relation and tendency to his immediate subject:—as here, intending to abolish the names of leaders, by which they distinguished themselves, he beseeches them by the name of Christ,—a form which we do not remember that he uses any where else. Instead of in the same judgment, some read, in the same sentiment. It was morally impossible, considering the diversity of their educations and capacities, that they should all agree in opinion; norcould the Apostle intend this, because he does not use any argument to reduce them to such an agreement, nor so much as declare what that one opinion was, in which he would have them agree. The words must therefore express that peaceful and unanimous temper which Christians of different opinions may and ought to maintain towards each other; which will do a much greater honour to the Gospel and to Christian churches, than the most perfect uniformity that can be imagined. See Locke and Doddridge.

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1 Corinthians 1:11. Which are of the house of Chloe— Grotius supposes Fortunatus and Achaicus mentioned ch. 1Co 16:17 to have been her sons. We may observe, that St. Paul uses twice, in the compass of this and the preceding verse, the word brethren, as a term of union and friendship, in order to put an end to their divisions.

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1 Corinthians 1:12. Now this I say, &c.— I mean that one or other of you says, &c. Chrysostom and Augustin place a full stop at Cephas.—But the next clause may stand in opposition to all the others. "Some or other of you saith, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas:—but I am of Christ; 1 Corinthians 1:13 and is Christ divided?" See Beza and Bengelius.

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1 Corinthians 1:13. Was Paul crucified for you?— As if he had said, "Are your obligations to me equal or comparable to those which you are under to our common Master? To him who died for us upon the cross?" He mentions himself, as it was least invidious to do so; though the application was equally just as to every other instance. See ch. 1Co 3:6 the word εις, rendered in, properly signifies into: so the French translate it here. The phrase βαπτισθηναι εις, —to be baptized into any one's name, or into any one, means, solemnly by that ceremony to enter himself a disciple of him into whose name he was baptized; with profession to receive his doctrine and rules, and submit to his authority: a very good argument here, why they should be called by no one's name but Christ's. See Locke.

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1 Corinthians 1:15. Lest any should say, &c.— If any one should object that others might do it for him, it may be answered that St. Paul's attendants, who seem to have been Timothy and Silas, (Act 18:5, 2 Corinthians 1:19.) were persons of an established character, so as to be above suspicion; and that the Apostle herein, as it were, appealed to the baptized persons themselves; challenging any one of them to say that the ordinance was administered to him in Paul's name. See Doddridge and Cal

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1 Corinthians 1:16. Besides, I know not, &c.— This expression of uncertainty as to such a fact, is by no means inconsistent with that inspiration wherewith the Apostles of our Lord were endued; which certainly was neither continual, nor reached to every accident and circumstance in life. The office of baptism was probably in general assigned to inferiors, as requiring no extraordinary abilities. The proper office of an apostle was not so much to perform the ceremony of baptism with his own hands, as to attend constantly to the work of preaching the Gospel. See the next verse, and Burnet on the 27th Article.

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1 Corinthians 1:17. Should be made of none effect— If the doctrine of the crucifixion of the Son of God for the sins of men be indeed true, it is undoubtedly a truth of the highest importance; and it might reasonably be expected that a person who had been instructed in it by such extraordinary methods, should appear to lay the main stress of his preaching upon it. The design of this wonderful dispensation might therefore have been in a great measure frustrated, if it had been the care of the first preachers of it, and particularly of St. Paul, to study a vain parade of words, and to set off their discourses with those glittering ornaments which the Grecian orators so often sought, and which the Corinthians were so ready to affect. But amidst all the beautiful simplicity which a deep conviction of the Gospel tended to produce, there was room left for the most manly and noble kind of eloquence; which therefore the Christian preachershouldlabourto make habitual to himself, and of which this Apostle himself is a most illustrious example. From this verse to 1 Corinthians 1:31. St. Paul uses another argument to stop their followers from glorying in these false apostles; observing, that neither any advantage of extraction, nor skill in the learning of the Jews, nor in the philosophy and eloquence of the Greeks, was that for which God chose men to be preachers of the Gospel. Those whom he had made choice of for overturning the mighty and the learned, were mean, plain, and illiterate men. See Doddridge and Locke.

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1 Corinthians 1:18. For the preaching of the cross, &c.— "The doctrine of the cross is a doctrine of such a nature as could not recommend itself by human eloquence to the imaginations of vicious and vain disputants, such as were most of the heathen philosophers; but to those who are saved,—to serious and well-disposed persons, who embrace truth wherever they find evidence of it, and who are more pleased with what improves their minds, than with the vain eloquence of the heathen oratory; to such persons the Gospel, in its greatest plainness and original simplicity, is, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, the power of God,—not to amuse men's understandings with needless speculations, but to convert their wills to righteousness and true holiness." See Calmet.

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1 Corinthians 1:21. For after that, in the wisdom of God— There is some difficulty in ascertaining the precise meaning of these words. Some understand it to be, "That since the world, in the wisdom of God, that is to say, by contemplating the works of the creation, had not by wisdom, that is, by the exercise of their reason, arrived to the true knowledge of God, it pleased God to take another method, and by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." It may seem strange, that the preaching of the Gospel should be called the foolishness of preaching, by an Apostle of Christ. But the meaning and language of St. Paul will be accounted for, by considering what led him to this kind of expression. The doctrine of the cross, and of the redemption of the world by the death and passion of Christ, was received by the great pretenders to wisdom and reason with scorn and contempt; The Greeks, says the Apostle, seek after wisdom,—and Christ crucified is to the Greeks foolishness. The pride of learning and philosophy had so possessed the politic parts of the heathen world, that they could not submit to a method of salvation which was above the reach of their philosophy, and which refused to be tried by the disputes and subtilties of the schools. The Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 1:17. Christ sent him to preach the Gospel, not with the wisdom of words. The wisdom of the world, thus discarded, took its revenge of the Gospel in return, and called it the foolishness of preaching. "Be it so (says the Apostle); yet by this foolishness of preaching, God intends to save those who believe: for this method is of God, and not of man; and the foolishness of God is wiser than man." Thus we see what led St. Paul to use this expression, and to call the preaching of the Gospel the foolishness of preaching. The great and learned so esteemed it, and so called it: the Apostle speaks to them in their own language, and calls upon them in the text to compare their much-boasted wisdom with his foolishness of preaching, and to judge of them by their effects: The world by wisdom knew not God; but the foolishness of preaching is salvation to every believer. The religion common to the heathen was idolatry; the knowledge of the Deity taught in the schools of the philosophers was such as deprived him of his noblest attributes, justice and mercy; and these very philosophers themselves ran down with the stream, and not only taught that the deities of their country should be worshipped, but likewise enforced their doctrine by their own examples, by worshipping them themselves. Such was the state of religion before the coming of Christ; philosophy had been tried; but instead of holding out a light to those that were in the gloom, it put out the little glimmering of light which remained. See Sherlock's Dis. vol. 1: Disc. 4: p. 139, &c. and Acts 7:18.

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1 Corinthians 1:24. Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God— St. Paul in the 21st verse argues thus in general: "Since the world, by their natural parts and improvements, did not attain to a right and saving knowledge of God, God by the preaching of the Gospel, which seems foolishness to the world, was pleased to communicate that knowledge to those who believed." In the three following verses, he repeats the same reasoning, a little more expressly applied to the people whom he had here in view,—namely, Jews and Gentiles: and his sense seems to be this: "Since the Jews, to make any doctrine palateable to them, require extraordinary signs of the power of God to accompany it, and nothing will please the nice palates of the learned Greeks but wisdom; and though our preaching of a crucified Messiah be a scandal to the Jew, and foolishness to the Greek, yet we have what they both seek; for both Jew and Gentile, when they embrace the Gospel, find the Messiah whom we preach, to be the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

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1 Corinthians 1:25. The foolishness of God is wiser than men— As it is absolutely impossible that there should be either folly or weakness in God, so it is certain that the world did not in general believe there was; and consequently these strong phrases must be used in a very peculiar sense, and must mean that scheme which was really his, though the world, for want of understanding it, represented it as weakness and folly, unworthy of God. See Doddridge.

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1 Corinthians 1:26. Are called— Call you: which words I would supply from the first clause of the verse. Our translators have supplied the words are called, for which there are no correspondent words in the original, and which convey a sentiment neither true nor suitable to the Apostle's design. It is not true: for even in Judea among the chief rulers, many believed on him, Joh 12:42 particularly Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Other Jews likewise of rank and learning were called; such as the nobleman whose sick son Jesus cured, Joh 4:53 and Manaen, Herod's foster-brother, and Cornelius, and Gamaliel, and that great company of priests mentioned Acts 6:7. Who were obedient to the faith. At Ephesus, many who used the arts of magic and divination were called, and who were men of learning, as appears from the number andvalue of their books which they burned after embracing the Gospel, Acts 19:19. And in such numerous churches as those of Antioch, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Rome, it can hardly be doubted, that there were disciples in the higher ranks of life. There were brethren even in the emperor's family, Philippians 4:22. In short, the precepts in the Epistles, to mastersto treat their slaves with humanity, and to women concerning their not adorning themselves with gold and silver and costlyraiment, shew that many wealthy persons had embraced the Gospel.—On the other hand, though it were true, That not many wise men, &c. were called, it did not suit the Apostle's argument to mention it here. For surely God's not calling many of the wise, &c. joined with his calling the foolish ones of the world to believe, did not put to shame the wise and strong, &c. Whereas, if the discourse be understood of the preachers of the Gospel, who were employed to convert the world, all is clear and pertinent. God chose not the learned, the mighty, and the noble ones of this world to preach the Gospel, but illiterate and weak men, and men of low birth: and by making them successful in reforming and converting mankind, he put to shame the legislators, statesmen, and philosophers among the heathens, and the learned scribes and doctors among the Jews, who never had done any thing to purpose in that matter. See Macknight.

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1 Corinthians 1:28. And base things— And mean things. In this and the preceding verse, though the Apostle makes use of the neuter gender, which occasioned our translators to insert the word things, yet it is evident from the context, that he means persons; and if the word things were omitted, the sense would be more plain. By the things which are not, may be understood the Gentiles, who were not the visible people of God, and were counted as nothing by the Jews. By the foolish and weak things, that is, by simple, illiterate, and mean men, God would make ashamed the learned philosophers and great men of the age; and by the things which are not, he would abolish the things that are, as in effect he did abolish the Jewish church by the Christian; taking in the Gentiles to be his visible people, in the place of the rejected Jews, who till then were his visible people. St. Paul mentions this here, notby chance, but pursuant to his main design, to stop their glorying in their false apostle, who was a Jew; by shewing that whatever that head of the faction might claim under that pretence, as it is plain he did stand upon it, (see 2 Corinthians 11:21-22.) he had not the least title to any esteem or respect upon that account; since the Jewish nation were laid aside, and God had chosen the Gentiles to take their place, and to be his church and people instead of them. See on ch. 1 Corinthians 2:6, Deuteronomy 32:21, Isa 40:17 and Whitby.

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