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ἄν before θῇ (in Elz. and Scholz) is omitted in preponderant authorities, and has come in from the LXX. Psa_110:1.—1Co_15:29. αὐτῶν ] Elz. reads τῶν νεκρῶν , against decisive evidence; a correct gloss;—1Co_15:31. ὑμετέραν ] A, min. Or. have ἡμετέραν . So Rück. But the former not being understood, the latter appeared to be required by ἣν ἔχω .
After καύχησιν Lachm. and Tisch. have ἀδελφοί , on the testimony of A B K à , min. vss. and Latin Fathers. Rightly; it is in keeping with the impassioned address, but was easily overlooked by the transcribers, since no new section of the address begins here (comp. on 1Co_11:2).—1Co_15:36. ἄφρον ] Lachm. Rück. Tisch. read ἄφρων , following A B D E G à , min. The former is a correction.—1Co_15:39. Before ἀνθρώπων Elz. has σάρξ again, which is deleted by Griesb. and the later editors, in accordance with decisive evidenc.
ἰχθύων , ἄλλη δὲ πτηνῶν ] A preponderance of authority—and this alone can decide here—has it in the inverse order πτηνῶν … ἰχθύων . So Rück., also Lachm. and Tisch., who, however, read σάρξ again before πτην ., which has, it is true, important attestation, but is a mechanical addition. Paul repeated σάρξ in connection with the first kind of animals only, and so arranged his enumeration.—1Co_15:44. ἔστι σῶμα κ . τ . λ .] εἰ ἔστιν σῶμα ψ ., ἔστιν καὶ πνευματ . occurs in A B C D* F G à , min., and several vss. And Fathers. Recommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. Rück. Tisch. And how easily the form of the preceding clauses might occasion the passing over of the εἰ , which, besides, was so exposed to omission from the way in which the following word begins ( Ει Εστιν ).—1Co_15:47. After ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρ . Elz. and Scholz have ὁ κύριος , in opposition to B C D* E F G à * 17, 67** and several vss. and Fathers. Suspected by Griesb., deleted by Lachm. Rück. Tisch. A gloss. See Reiche, Comm. crit. I. p. 294 ff.—1Co_15:49. φορέσομεν ] Lachm. reads φορέσωμεν , following A C D E F G K L à , and many min. Copt. Slav. Vulg. It. Goth. Theodot. Or. (ed. de la Rue) Method. Bas. Chrys. Cyr. Macar. Epiph. Damasc. Ir. Tert. Cypr. Hilar. Zeno, Ambrosiast. Jer. Pel. al. A great preponderance of testimony! Nevertheless, the very ancient Recepta still retains the important attestation of B and many min. Syr. utr. Arr. Aeth. Arm. Or. ed. Theodoret; Oec. and Theophyl. give and explain both readings. The Recepta is to be retained, because it is necessary in the connection (see the exegetical remarks); the subjunctive is unsuitable, but was easily brought into the text from the fact that σὰρξ κ . αἷμα in 1Co_15:50 was taken in the ethical sense (see especially Chrys.); as in the physical sense, indeed, it would have stood in opposition to the doctrine of the “resurrectio carnis.” Φορέσομεν was first of all interpreted as hortative (which interpretation Theodoret felt it necessary expressly to reject), and then the hortative form of the verb was inserted in the text.—1Co_15:50. κληρονομεῖ ] Lachm. reads κληρονομήσει , following C* D* F G, Vulg. It. and Latin Fathers. Occasioned by the similarity of sound of the preceding κληρονομῆσαι .—1Co_15:51.[21] ΠΆΝΤΕς ΜῈΝ … ἈΛΛΑΓ .] Lachm. reads ΠΆΝΤΕς [ ΜῈΝ ] ΚΟΙΜΗΘ ., Οὐ ΠΆΝΤΕς ΔῈ ἈΛΛΑΓ . Altogether there are many variations, but all of them arose from the offence which was taken, in connection with the reading of the text, at the idea of Paul and his readers having all of them undergone death. The Recepta occurs in B (which merely omits μέν ) D** E K L and almost all min. codd. in Jer. al. Goth. Syr. utr. Copt. Aeth. Arr. and many Fathers, an attestation which, considering how the readings otherwise vary, is a very strong one, although among the uncials C G à support Lachm.—1Co_15:54. Both the omission of the first part of the protasis (in à * also) and the transposition of the two clauses are insufficiently attested, and are to be explained from the homoeoteleuta.—1Co_15:55. ΝῖΚΟς is put first and ΚΈΝΤΡΟΝ last by B C J à , 17, 64, 71, Copt. Aeth. Arm. Slav. ms. Vulg. and several Fathers. So Lachm. Rück. But they are evidently transposed, after the LXX. in Hos_13:14.
Instead of ᾍΔΗ , B C D E F G J à * 39, 67** and several vss. and Fathers have ΘΆΝΑΤΕ again. So Lachm. Rück. Tisch.; and rightly, for ᾍΔΗ has come in from the LXX.
[21] See on the passage Reiche, Comment. crit. I. p. 297 ff., who defends the Recepta with thoroughness and triumphant success. Tischendorf also has retained it, deleting only the μέν (which is certainly open to the suspicion of being an addition).
CONTENTS.[22]
Disquisition on the resurrection of the dead, occasioned by the deniers of it in Corinth (1Co_15:12). That these deniers had been formerly Sadducees, and had brought forward again their Sadducean views in connection with Christianity (so recently Flatt, following Heumann, Michaelis, Storr, Knapp; and comp. earlier, Calvin, and Lightfoot, Chron. p. 110) is not to be assumed, partly because, in general, Sadduceism and Christianity are too much antagonistic in their nature to mingle with each other, and also because in that case Paul could not have based his refutation upon the resurrection of Christ (Act_4:2). Nor is it more probable that the opponents had been Epicureans, for it is plain from 1Co_15:32-34 that the Epicurean turn which they had taken was not the ground, but the consequence of their denial of the resurrection; as, indeed, Epicureanism in general is such an antichristian element that, supposing it had been the source of the denial, Paul would certainly have entered upon a discussion of its principles, in so far as they were opposed to faith in the resurrection. It is certain at the same time that the deniers were not Jewish Christians; for with them the belief in the Messiah stood in the most necessary connection with the belief in the resurrection; comp. Act_23:6. On the contrary, it must have been Gentile Christians (Baur, de Wette, van Hengel, Ewald, and many others) to whom the resurrection seemed impossible, and who therefore (1Co_15:35-36) denied it. And it is probable, at all events, that they were persons of philosophical training (Beza, Grotius, Estius, and others, including Ziegler, theol. Abh. II. p. 35 f., Neander, Olshausen, Osiander; Rückert is undecided), because they must in asserting their thesis, ὅτι ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔστιν , have caused some sensation, which, in such a place as Corinth, is hardly conceivable on the part of men strangers to any degree of philosophical education and practice in dialectics; and because the anti-materialistic explanation of the matter, which Paul gives to combat the doubts of his opponents (1Co_15:35 ff.), makes it probable that the antagonism on the part of the sceptics was a spiritualistic one, i.e. an antagonism resting on the philosophic ground that the restoration of the matter of the body was impossible. That the apostle does not contend at the same time against the world’s wisdom in general (a doubt expressed by de Wette) is the less strange, as he has to do now with a special subject, and has also already delivered a general polemic of this nature, chap. 1Co_2:3. The small number, however, of men philosophically trained (1Co_1:26) permits of no further inference than that the sceptics in question also were not numerous ( τινές , 1Co_15:12). In Athens, too (Act_17:32), the resurrection of the dead was the stone of stumbling for philosophic culture; and how often has it been so since, and even to the present day!
But to which of the four parties in Corinth did these deniers belong? That they were not of the Petrine or Judaistic party is self-evident. Neither were they of the Christ-party (as Neander, Olshausen, Jäger, and Goldhorn hold them to have been), for Christ has so often and so distinctly taught the doctrine of resurrection of the body, that the denial of it would have been at the most palpable variance with the ἐγὼ Χριστοῦ εἶμι . Nor yet were they of the party of Paul, seeing that the doctrine of the resurrection was a most essential article of the Pauline Gospel. There remains, therefore, only the party of Apollos (so also Räbiger and Maier), some of whom having been converted, doubtless, only after the apostle had ceased to labour in Corinth, or having come thither subsequently from other quarters, may have found what he had taught in Corinth regarding the resurrection of the dead not compatible with their philosophical standpoint, and hence—being the more incited to it, perhaps, through party variance—altogether denied that there was a resurrection of the dead.[23] Only we must not take this to mean that the adherents of Apollos as such—their party as such—had denied the resurrection, and that accordingly this denial formed part of their party principles,[24] but only that the “some” (1Co_15:12) were preponderantly from the number of those who had attached themselves to Apollos and to the party named after him. Of the idea that the denial was a party matter, there is not only no trace whatever in the treatment of the subject, but it would also conflict with what is a necessary presupposition, namely, that the Christianity of the Apollos-party as such cannot have stood in such an essential and real contradiction in point of doctrine to that of Paul. We may add that the denial in question is not to be regarded as a theory, such as we find in 2Ti_2:17 f., in the case of Hymenaeus and Philetus, who understood the doctrine allegorically, and maintained that the resurrection had already taken place. So, following Chrysostom, Grotius, Usteri, Lehrbegr. p. 362, Billroth, and Olshausen. The whole elaborate treatment of the subject does not show the slightest trace of this (see, on the contrary, especially 1Co_15:12), although the main aim in that case would have been to prove that the resurrection was not a thing past, but something future.
[22] See regarding the whole chapter, W. A. van Hengel, Commentar. perpet. in 1 Cor. xv. cum epistola ad Winerum, Sylvae ducis, 1851; Krauss, theol. Kommentar z. 1 Kor. XV., Frauenfeld 1864 (who stands, however, in express antagonism to grammatico-historical exegesis). Comp. also Klöpper, zur paulin. Lehre v. d. Aufersteh. in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1862, p. 1 ff.
[23] That they denied also the continued life of the spirit after death, which Calvin expressly leaves undecided, cannot be maintained, with Flatt and others, from passages such as vv. 19, 29, 30–32, 58. On the contrary, these passages show merely this, that Paul attached no value to the continued life of the souls in Hades, regarded in itself, and not ended by the resurrection. It was to him a vita non vitalis (comp. Kling in the Stud. u. Krit. 1839, p. 502), and the true everlasting ζωή was conditioned for him by the near Parousia and resurrection. This, at the same time, serves to correct what is asserted by Rückert and others, that in Paul’s mind, as in that of the Jews and Pharisees, the ideas of continued existence and of resurrection were so blended into each other, that whoever denied the one seemed not to be capable of holding fast the other. According to Php_1:21; Php_1:23 (comp. also 2Co_5:8; Act_7:59), Paul has the conviction that if he should die as a martyr, he would pass, not into Hades, but to Christ in heaven, into a blessed intermediate state until the resurrection of the body. See on Phil. l.c.
[24] Comp. also Krauss, p. 12.