Reproachfully, as having to declare the Gospel anew.

I see no good reason for departing from the arrangement of the A.V., which states that the salvation of the readers depends on their holding fast the word preached. Rev. reads: through which ye are saved; I make known, I say, in what words I preached it unto you, if ye hold it fast, etc. This is certainly very awkward, making Paul say that their holding it fast was the condition on which he preached it. American Rev. as A.V.

Stanley remarks that 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 contain the earliest known specimen of what may be called the creed of the early Church, differing, indeed, from what is properly called a creed, in being rather a sample of the exact form of the apostle's early teaching, than a profession of faith on the part of converts. See his dissertation in the commentary on Corinthians.

Rev., correctly, hath been raised. Died and was buried are in the aorist tense. The change to the perfect marks the abiding state which began with the resurrection. He hath been raised and still lives.

Rev., appeared. The word most commonly used in the New Testament for seeing visions. See on Luke 22:43. Compare the kindred ὀπτασία vision, Luke 1:22; Acts 26:19; 2 Corinthians 12:1.

Only here in the New Testament. It occurs, Numbers 12:12; Job 3:16; Ecclesiastes 6:3. The Hebrew nephel, which it is used to translate, occurs in the same sense in Psalm 58:8, where the Septuagint follows another reading of the Hebrew text. In every case the word means an abortion, a still-born embryo. In the same sense it is found frequently in Greek medical writers, as Galen and Hippocrates, and in the writings of Aristotle on physical science. This is the rendering of the Rheims Version: an abortive. Wyc., a dead-born child. The rendering of the A.V. and Rev. is unsatisfactory, since it introduces the notion of time which is not in the original word, and fails to express the abortive character of the product; leaving it to be inferred that it is merely premature, but living and not dead. The word does not mean an untimely living birth, but a dead abortion, and suggests no notion of lateness of birth, but rather of being born before the time. The words as unto the abortion are not to be connected with last of all - last of all as to the abortion - because there is no congruity nor analogy between the figure of an abortion and the fact that Christ appeared to him last. Connect rather with He appeared: last of all He appeared unto me as unto the abortion. Paul means that when Christ appeared to him and called him, he was - as compared with the disciples who had known and followed Him from the first, and whom he had been persecuting - no better than an unperfected foetus among living men. The comparison emphasizes his condition at the time of his call. The attempt to explain by a reference to Paul's insignificant appearance, from which he was nicknamed "The Abortion" by his enemies, requires no refutation.

Rev., better, was not found: did not turn out to be.

When the Gospel was first preached: with a suggestion of a subsequent wavering from the faith.

Compare Aeschylus: "But who can recall by charms a man's dark blood shed in death, when once it has fallen to the ground at his feet? Had this been lawful, Zeus would not have stopped him who knew the right way to restore men from the dead" ("Agamemnon," 987-992).

Empty, a mere chimaera.

A different word, signifying fruitless. The difference is between reality and result.

To be taken with the whole clause, at the end of which it stands emphatically. If in this life we are hopers in Christ, and if that is all. If we are not such as shall have hope in Christ after we shall have fallen asleep.

See on James 1:18. Omit become. Compare Colossians 1:18, and see on Revelation 1:5.

What the all means in the one case it means in the other.

Only here in the New Testament. In Sept., a band, troop, or cohort; also a standard; Numbers 10:14; Numbers 18:22, Numbers 18:25. How the one idea ran into the other may be perceived from the analogy of the Latin manipulus, a handful of hay twisted round a pole and used by the Romans as the standard of a company of soldiers, from which the company itself was called manipulus. In classical Greek, besides the meaning of company, it means an ordinance and a fixed assessment. Here in the sense of band, or company, in pursuance of the principle of a descending series of ranks, and of consequent subordinations which is assumed by Paul. The series runs, God, Christ, man. See 1 Corinthians 3:21-23; 1 Corinthians 11:3. The reference is not to time or merit, but simply to the fact that each occupies his own place in the economy of resurrection, which is one great process in several acts. Band after band rises. First Christ, then Christians. The same idea appears in the first-fruits and the harvest.

Abstract terms for different orders of spiritual and angelic powers; as Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 1:16.

God, speaking through the Psalmist (Psalm 8:6). Some, however, give a future force to the verb, and render but when He shall have said; i.e., when, at the end, God shall have said, "All things are put under Him. The subjection is accomplished." See Rev., margin.

What will they effect or accomplish. Not, What will they have recourse to? nor, How will it profit them? The reference is to the living who are baptized for the dead.

Baptized for the dead (βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν)

Concerning this expression, of which some thirty different explanations are given, it is best to admit frankly that we lack the facts for a decisive interpretation. None of the explanations proposed are free from objection. Paul is evidently alluding to a usage familiar to his readers; and the term employed was, as Godet remarks, in their vocabulary, a sort of technical phrase. A large number of both ancient and modern commentators adopt the view that a living Christian was baptized for an unbaptized dead Christian. The Greek expositors regarded the words the dead as equivalent to the resurrection of the dead, and the baptism as a manifestation of belief in the doctrine of the resurrection. Godet adopts the explanation which refers baptism to martyrdom - the baptism of blood - and cites Luke 12:50, and Mark 10:38. In the absence of anything more satisfactory I adopt the explanation given above.

I protest is not expressed, but merely implied, in the particle of adjuration, νὴ by. The order of the Greek is noteworthy. I die daily, by your rejoicing, etc.

Your rejoicing (τὴν ὑμέτεραν καύχησιν)

Rev., better, that glorying in you which I have. Paul would say: "You Corinthian Christians are the fruit of my apostolic labor which has been at a daily risk to life; and as truly as I can point to you as such fruit, so truly can I say, 'I die daily."'

I die daily

I am in constant peril of my life. Compare 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 11:23; Romans 8:36. So Clytaemnestra: "I have no rest by night, nor can I snatch from the day a sweet moment of repose to enfold me; but Time, ever standing over me, was as a jailer who conducted me to death" (Sophocles, "Electra," 780, 781). And Philo: "And each day, nay, each hour, I die beforehand, enduring many deaths instead of one, the last."

As men ordinarily do, for temporal reward; and not under the influence of any higher principle or hope.

I have fought with beasts (ἐθηριομάχησα)

Only here in the New Testament. Figuratively. Paul, as a Roman citizen, would not have been set to fight with beasts in the arena; and such an incident would not have been likely to be passed over by Luke in the Acts. Compare similar metaphors in 1 Corinthians 4:9, 2 Timothy 4:17; Titus 1:12; Psalm 22:12, Psalm 22:13, Psalm 22:20, Psalm 22:21. Some, however, think it is to be taken literally. They refer to the presence at Ephesus of the Asiarchs (Acts 19:31), who had charge of the public games, as indicating that the tumult took place at the season of the celebration of the games in honor of Diana; to the fact that the young men at Ephesus were famous for their bull-fights; and to the words at Ephesus as indicating a particular incident. On the assumption that he speaks figuratively, the natural reference is to his experience with the ferocious mob at Ephesus. There was a legend that Paul was thrown, first of all, to a lion; then to other beasts, but was left untouched by them all. In the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans occur these words: "From Syria even unto Rome, I fight with beasts, both by land and sea, both night and day, being bound to ten leopards. I mean a band of soldiers, who, even when they receive benefits, show themselves all the worse" (5). Compare Epistle to Tralles, 10: "Why do I pray that I may fight with wild beasts?" So in the Epistle to Smyrna he says: "I would put you on your guard against these monsters in human shape" (θηρίων τῶν ἀνθρωπομόρφων); and in the Antiochene "Acts of Martyrdom" it is said: "He (Ignatius) was seized by a beastly soldiery, to be led away to Rome as a prey for carnivorous beasts" (ii.).

Let us eat and drink, etc.

Cited, after the Septuagint, from Isaiah 22:13. It is the exclamation of the people of Jerusalem during the siege by the Assyrians. The traditional founder of Tarsus was Sardanapalus, who was worshipped, along with Semiramis, with licentious rites which resembled those of the Feast of Tabernacles. Paul had probably witnessed this festival, and had seen, at the neighboring town of Anchiale, the statue of Sardanapalus, represented as snapping his fingers, and with the inscription upon the pedestal, "Eat, drink, enjoy thyself. The rest is nothing." Farrar cites the fable of the Epicurean fly, dying in the honey-pot with the words, "I have eaten and drunk and bathed, and I care nothing if I die." Among the inscriptions from the catacombs, preserved in the Vatican are these: "To the divine shade of Titus, who lived fifty-seven years. Here he enjoys everything. Baths and wine ruin our constitutions, but they make life what it is. Farewell, farewell." "While I lived I lived well. My play is now ended - soon yours will be. Farewell and applaud me." Compare Wisdom of Solomon, 2:1-9.