1 Corinthians 10:19,20

Paul's appeal to the meaning of the Lord's Supper is leading up to a prohibition of attendance at the idol-feasts. Against this veto the men of “knowledge” will argue that idolatry is illusion (1 Corinthians 8:4 ff.), its rites having no such ground in reality as belongs to Christian observances; the festival has no religious meaning to them, and does not touch their conscience (contrast 1 Corinthians 8:7); if friendship or social feeling invites their presence, why should they not go? Paul admits the non-reality of the idol in itself; but he discerns other terrible presences behind the image “demons” are virtually worshipped at the idol-feast, and with these the celebrants are brought into contact. “What then do I affirm (the φημὶ of 1 Corinthians 10:15 resumed)? that an idol-sacrifice is anything (has reality)? or that an idol is anything? (to say this would be to contradict 1 Corinthians 8:4). No, but that (ἀλλʼ ὅτι) what the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I would not that you should be communicants of the demons!” How could the Cor [1529], as “men of sense, judge” of a situation like this? The riot and debauch attending heathen festivals showed that foul spirits of evil presided over them: cf. 1 Corinthians 10:6 ff., referring to the worship of Baal-Peor, with which the allusion here made to Deuteronomy 32:17 (cf. Psalms 106:37 f.) is in keeping. “That the worship of heathen cults was offered quoad eventum not indeed quoad intentionem to devils was, consistently with their strict monotheism, the general view of later Jews” (Mr [1530]). Heathenism P. regarded as the domain of Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 6:12; cf. Luke 4:6; 1 John 5:19), under whose rule the demons serve as the angels under that of God (2 Corinthians 12:7; 1 Timothy 4:1; cf. Matthew 12:24; Matthew 25:41, etc.); idolatry was, above everything, inspired by Satan. δαιμόνιον (= δαίμων, of which it is neut. adj [1531]) was primarily synon. with θεῖον “ δαίμων is related to θεὸς as numen to persona divina ” (Cr [1532]); τὸ δαιμόνιον οὐδέν ἐστιν ἀλλʼ ἢ θεὸς ἢ θεοῦ ἔργον (Arist., Rhet., ii. 23. 8); hence Socrates called the mysterious guiding voice within him δαιμόνιόν τι. Ed [1533] observes a tendency, beginning with Eurip. and Plato and accentuated in the Stoics, “to use the word in a depreciatory sense”; already in Homer it often suggested the uncanny, the supernatural as an object of dread. The word was ready to hand for the LXX translators, who used it to render various Heb. epithets for heathen gods. Later Judaism, which peopled the unseen with good and evil spirits, made δαιμόνια a general term for the latter, apart from any specific refer. to idols (see, already, Tob 3:8, etc.); hence its prominence in the Gospels, and the origin of the word demoniac (ὁ δαιμονιζόμενος): on the whole subject, see Cr [1534] s.v., also Everling's Paulinische Angelologie u. Dãmonologie. For κοινωνοὶ τ. δαιμονίων, cf. Isaiah 44:2, where the “fellows” of the idol signify a kind of religious guild, brought into mystic union with their god through the sacrificial meal (see Cheyne ad loc [1535]); also Isaiah 65:11; 1 Corinthians 10:20 c is calculated to bring home to the Cor [1536] the fearful danger of trifling with idolatry.

[1529] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[1530] Meyer's Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[1531] adjective.

[1532] Cremer's Biblico-Theological Lexicon of N.T. Greek (Eng. Trans.).

[1533] T. C. Edwards' Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians. 2

[1534] Cremer's Biblico-Theological Lexicon of N.T. Greek (Eng. Trans.).

[1535] ad locum, on this passage.

[1536] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.