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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Corinthians 1:12 - 1:12
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
12. λέγω δὲ τοῦτο. The force of this is well given by the A.V. Now this I say, and still better by the R.V. (especially if transposed) Now I mean this.
ἕκαστος ὑμῶν. This is not to be pressed literally. It is a Hebraism for ‘the great majority of you.’
ἐγὼ μέν εἰμι Παύλου. The idea of some commentators that there were defined parties in the Apostolic Church under the leadership of Apostles and their Master, a Paul-party, a Peter-party, a Christ-party, is refuted by ch. 1Co 4:6, where St Paul plainly states that he had replaced the names of the antagonistic teachers at Corinth by those of himself and Apollos, in order to secure his rebukes from assuming a personal form.
Ἀπολλώ. See Act 18:24-28. From this passage we gather that he was a Hellenistic Greek, of the school of philosophical Judaism which flourished at that time at Alexandria, and was an admixture of the doctrines of the Platonic philosophy with those of the Jewish religion. It is possible that he may have been a disciple of the celebrated Alexandrian teacher Philo, who was contemporary with the Apostles. Learned and zealous, he could not be confined within the bounds of any particular school, but diligently acquainted himself with all the movements which sprang up in the Jewish Church. Thus he became a disciple of John the Baptist, whose doctrines had been widely spread abroad by that time (Act 19:1-3), and as his fervent spirit was allied with the gift of eloquence, he speedily endeavoured to communicate to others the new light he had received. He is described as being ‘accurately instructed in the things concerning the Lord,’ although he knew ‘only the baptism of John.’ We are not to suppose by this that he had a perfect knowledge of the system of Christianity, or it would have been impossible for Aquila and Priscilla to have explained it to him ‘more accurately.’ His knowledge was probably confined to the Baptist’s witness to Christ as the Messiah, to the more general moral teaching of Christ, as contained in the first three Gospels, to a grasp of the spiritual meaning of the O. T., such as is displayed by Philo and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (who may have been Apollos himself), to the facts of the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension, though without a clear comprehension of their spiritual significance, and to those remarkable glimpses of the inner mysteries of God’s kingdom (see Mat 3:9; Joh 3:27-36, and compare Joh 8:39; Rom 2:28-29; Rom 9:7) which our Gospels shew the Baptist to have had. But with that inner teaching as a whole, as confided by Christ to His disciples, and afterwards given to the world in the preaching and writings of the Apostles, and in the Gospel of St John, he had no acquaintance when he came to Ephesus. Endowed with this knowledge through the instrumentality of Aquila and Priscilla, he became an effective preacher of the Gospel, and filling St Paul’s place when the latter had left Corinth, ‘he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ.’ But disgusted possibly by an attempt on the part of some (see note on ch. 1Co 16:12) to set him up as a rival to St Paul, he left Corinth and returned to Ephesus, and we know not whether he ever visited Corinth again. See also Tit 3:13.
Κηφᾶ. See Joh 1:42.