1 Corinthians 1:12

Calvin has translated, “I say this because...;” but it is more natural to make the τοῦτο, this, refer to the following ὅτι : “When I speak of contentions, I mean this that...” The phrase, Every one of you saith, is of course inexact; for every member of the Church did not pronounce the four watchwords. Paul thus expresses himself to indicate that the sin is general, that there is not one among them, so to speak, who has not in his mouth one of these formulas. The four are presented dramatically and in the form of direct speech; we hear them, as it were, bandied from one to another in the congregation. Their painful character appears first from the ἐγώ, I, put foremost, there is a preponderance of personal feeling, then from the δέ, which is evidently adversative: but, there is the spirit of opposition, finally and chiefly, from the names of the party leaders. Some ancient commentators supposed that the apostle had here substituted the names of eminent men for the obscure names of the real party leaders, to show so much the better how unjustifiable such rivalries are. The passage 1 Corinthians 4:6 is that which induced Chrysostom, and others after him, to make so unnatural a supposition. But we shall see that this verse gives it no countenance.

The apostle puts in the forefront the party which takes name from himself; he thereby gives proof of great tact, for by first of all disapproving of his own partisans, he puts his impartiality beyond attack. It has been supposed that in the enumeration of the four parties he followed the historical order in which they were formed; but from the fact that Paul was the founder of the Church, and that Apollos came after him, it does not follow that Paul's party was formed first and that of Apollos second; we must rather suppose the contrary. Paul's partisans had only had occasion to pronounce themselves as such, by way of reaction, against the exclusive partiality inspired by the other preachers who came after him. We have indicated in the Introduction, p. 22 seq., how we understand these opposite groups to have been formed. We cannot concede the least probability to the suppositions of Heinrici, who ascribes to Apollos a Gnostic and mystic tendency, and particularly views on baptism of the strangest kind. From the fact that he arrived at Ephesus as a disciple of John the Baptist, we have no right to conclude, with this theologian, that Apollos established a special bond of solidarity between the baptized and their baptizer like that which, in the Greek mysteries, united initiated and initiator! Heinrici goes the length of supposing that to Apollos and his party is to be ascribed the practice alluded to 1 Corinthians 15:29, of baptizing a living Christian in place of a believer who died without baptism! Is it possible to push arbitrariness further? This has been well shown by Hilgenfeld (Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1880, p. 362 seq.). What distinguished Paul from Apollos, according to 1 Corinthians 3:5 seq. and 1 Corinthians 4:6, could not be an essential difference, bearing on the substance of the gospel; it could only be a difference of form such as that indicated by the words, “I have planted, Apollos watered, and God gave the increase.” By his exegetical and literary culture, acquired at Alexandria, Apollos had gained for Christ many who had resisted Paul's influence; perhaps Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue during Paul's stay, was of the number. If it is so, we can better understand how the apostle was induced to associate this person's name with his own in the address of the letter.

We have already said that the existence of a Cephas-party does not necessarily imply a visit of Peter to Corinth. Personal disciples of this apostle might have arrived in the city, or Jewish Christians from Corinth might have met Peter at Jerusalem, and on their return to Achaia they might have reported that this apostle differed from Paul in continuing personally to keep the law, though without wishing to impose it on Gentile converts. The Aramaic name Cephas is perhaps a proof of the Palestinian origin of the party.

As to the last watchword, the Greek Fathers, and Calvin, Mosheim, Eichhorn, Bleek among the moderns, think that it, according to the apostle, gives the true formula by which Paul would designate those whom he approves. Mayerhoff and Ebrard go even the length of thinking that by the word I, Paul means to designate himself: “But as for me, Paul, this is my watchword: I am of Christ, and of Christ only!” The symmetry of the four formulas evidently excludes these interpretations. The fourth comes under the censure which falls on the three preceding, “Every one of you saith...,” and it is this one above all which gives rise to the following question, “Is Christ divided?” There was really then a fourth party which claimed to spring directly from Christ, and Christ alone, without having need of any human intermediary. As Paul adds not a single detail regarding this party, either in this passage or in the rest of the Epistle, the field of hypothesis is open, and we shall consecrate to the much discussed question the appendix to be immediately subjoined.

Some commentators seem to us to have exaggerated the character of the division, by supposing that the different parties no longer met in common assemblies, and that the rending of the Church into four distinct communities was an accomplished fact. The contrary appears from the passage 1 Corinthians 14:23, where Paul speaks of the assembling together of the whole Church in one and the same place, and even from the term ἔριδες, contentions, which would be too weak in that case. On the other hand, Hofmann has far too much attenuated the importance of the fact mentioned when he reduces it to hostile pleadings in the meetings of the Church, arising from the personal preference of each group for that servant of Christ who had contributed most to its edification. Undoubtedly the external unity of the Church was not broken, but its moral unity was at an end, and we shall see that the disagreement went much deeper into the way of understanding the gospel than this commentator thinks.

Otherwise, would the apostle have spent on it four whole Chapter s? It has often been attempted to distribute the numerous subjects treated by the apostle in our Epistle among these different parties, as if they had been furnished to him, one by one party, another by another. These attempts have not issued in any solid result. And we must say the same of the most recent attempt, that of Farrar. This critic sees in the Apollos-party the precursors of Marcion and of the Antinomian Gnosticism of the second century; in the Peter-party, the beginning of the anti-Pauline Ebionism of the Clementine Homilies. Finally, in the Christ-party, an invasion of Essenism into Christianity, which continued later. The division which Farrar makes of the questions treated by Paul among those different tendencies is ingenious, but lacks foundation in the text of the Epistle.

The party called “those of Christ.”

We have already set aside the opinions of those who take the fourth formula to be the true Christian profession approved by the apostle, or the legitimate declaration of a group of believers, offended by the absorbing partiality of the other groups for this or that teacher.

I.

The opinion which comes nearest this second shade is that developed by Rückert, Hofmann, Meyer, Heinrici, and to a certain extent by Renan, according to whom the fourth party, pushed by the exclusive preferences of the others, was carried to the opposite extreme, and declared itself independent of the apostolate in general, putting itself relatively to Christ in a position absolutely equal to that of Paul or Peter. “Some,” says Renan, “wishing to pose as spirits superior to those contentions, created a watchword sufficiently spiritual. To designate themselves they invented the name ‘Christ's party.' When discussion grew hot..., they intervened with the name of Him who was being forgotten: I am for Christ, said they” (Saint Paul, p. 378). It is for them, it is held, that Paul calls to mind, 1 Corinthians 3:22, that if the Church does not belong to the teachers who instruct it, the latter are nevertheless precious gifts bestowed on it by the Lord. Nothing simpler in appearance than this view. An extreme had led to the contrary extreme; partiality had produced disparagement. It was the rejection of apostolical authority as the answer to false human dependence. We should not hesitate to adopt this explanation, if certain passages of Second Corinthians, which we shall afterwards examine, did not force us to assign graver causes and a much graver importance to the formation of this party; comp. especially 2 Corinthians 10:7; 2 Corinthians 11:22-23.

II.

Have we to do, as Neander once thought, with Corinthians of a more or less rationalistic character, with cultivated Greeks who, carried away by enthusiasm for the admirable teachings of Christ, and especially for His sublime moral instructions, conceived the idea of freeing this pure gospel from the Jewish wrapping which still veiled it in the apostolic preaching? In order to make faith easy for their countrymen, they tried to make Jesus a Socrates of the highest power, which raised Him far above the Jesus taught by the Twelve, and by Paul himself. It is against this attempt to transform the gospel into a pure moral philosophy, that it is said the apostle conducts the polemic 1 Corinthians 1:18-24, and 1 Corinthians 3:18-20. This hypothesis is seductive, but the passages quoted can be explained without it, and the Second Epistle proves that the party those of Christ had not its partisans at Corinth among converted Gentiles, but in Palestine, among Christians of Jewish origin and tendency.

III.

This is recognised by some commentators, such as Dähne and Goldhorn; these seek the distinctive character of this fourth party in the elements of Alexandrine wisdom, which certain Jewish doctors mingled with the apostolic teaching. We shall no doubt discover the great corruptions introduced by the Judaizing heads of the Christ-party into the evangelical doctrine. But it is impossible to establish, by any solid proof whatever, the Alexandrine origin of these new elements.

IV.

So Schenkel, de Wette, Grimm have pronounced for a more natural notion. According to them, the heads of this party founded their rejection of the apostolic teaching and the authority of their own on supernatural communications which they received from the glorified Christ, by means of direct visions and revelations. Similar claims were put forth a little later, as we know, among the Judaizing teachers of Colosse; why should they not have existed previously in Asia Minor, and thence invaded the Churches of Greece? To support this opinion, there has been alleged chiefly the way in which Paul dwells on that transport even to the third heaven, which had been granted to himself (2 Corinthians 12:1 seq.); and it is thought that he meant thereby to say: “If these men pretend to have had revelations, I have also had them, and still more astonishing.” But this would be a mode of argument far from conclusive and far from worthy of the apostle; and we shall see that those teachers probably did not come from the land of mysticism, Asia Minor, but from that of legal Pharisaism, Palestine.

V.

This is now recognised by most critics. No doubt we do not see the Judaizing teachers who are concerned here presenting themselves at Corinth, exactly as they did formerly at Antioch and in Galatia. They understood that to gain such men as the Greeks of Corinth, they must avoid putting forward circumcision and gross material rites. But they are nevertheless servants of the legal party as formed at Jerusalem. To be convinced of this, it is enough to compare the two following passages of 2 Corinthians 10:7: “If any one trust to himself that he belongs to Christ (Χριστοῦ εἶναι, lit. ‘to be Christ's'), let him of himself think this again, that as he is Christ's, so are we Christ's.” To whom is this challenge addressed? Evidently to persons who claim to be Christ's by a juster title than the apostle and his partisans, precisely like the men who specially call themselves those of Christ in the First Epistle. And who are they? The second passage, 1 Corinthians 11:22-23, informs us: “Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool); I am more.” They were then Jewish believers who boasted of their theocratic origin, and who sought to impose, by means of their relations to the mother Church, on the young Churches founded by Paul in the Gentile world, no doubt with the intention of bringing them gradually under the yoke of the Mosaic law.

But in what sense did such men designate themselves as those of Christ?

1. Storr, Hug, Bertholdt, Weizsäcker suppose that they took this title as coming from James, the head of the flock at Jerusalem, known under the name “the Lord's brother;” and that it was because of this relationship between James and Jesus, that they boasted of being in a particular sense men of Christ. But this substitution of Christ's name for that of James is rather improbable, and this explanation could in any case only apply to the few foreign emissaries who came from Palestine, and not to the mass of the Corinthian party which was grouped around them.

2. According to Billroth, Baur, Renan, these people were the same as “those of Cephas.” They designated themselves as those of Peter when they wished to denote their human head; as those of Christ when they wished to declare the conformity of their conduct with that of the Lord, who had constantly observed the law, and had never authorized the abolition of it, which Paul preached. In reality, the third and fourth party were thus only one; its double name signified, “disciples of Peter, and, as such, true disciples of Christ.”

In favour of this identification, it is alleged that in a dogmatic point of view the two first parties, that of Paul and that of Apollos, also formed only one. But we have proved without difficulty the shade which distinguished the partisans of Apollos from those of Paul, and though it did not bear on dogmatic questions, we cannot confound these two parties in one, nor consequently can we identify the last two parties so clearly distinguished by the apostle. Besides, nothing authorizes us to ascribe to Peter a conception of the gospel opposed to that of Paul. We know, from Galatians 2, that they were agreed at Jerusalem on these two points: that believers from among the Gentiles should not be subjected to the Mosaic rites, and that believers from among the Jews might continue to observe them. But we know also from the same passage, that there was a whole party at Jerusalem which did not approve of this concession made to Paul by the apostles. Paul distinguishes them thoroughly from the apostles and from James himself, for he declares that if he had had to do only with the latter, he might have yielded in the matter of the circumcision of Titus; but it was because of the former, to whom he gives the name of “false brethren, brought in,” that he was obliged to show himelf inflexible in his refusal. There was therefore a profound difference in the way in which the circumcision of Titus was asked of him by the apostles on the one hand, and by the false brethren on the other. The former asked it of him as a voluntary concession, and in this sense he could have granted it; but the latter demanded it as a thing obligatory; in this sense the apostle could not yield without compromising for ever the liberty of the Gentiles. Consequently, beside Peter's followers, who, while observing the law themselves, conceded liberty to the Gentiles, there was room for another party, which, along with the maintenance of the law for the Jews, demanded the subjection of the Gentiles to the Mosaic system. What more natural than to find here, in those of Christ, the representatives of this extreme party? We can understand in this case why Paul places those of Christ after those of Peter, and thus makes them the antipodes of his own party.

Far, then, from finding in our passage, as Baur and Renan will have it, a proof of Peter's narrow Judaism, we must see in it the proof of the opposite, and conclude for the existence of two classes of Jew-Christians, represented at Corinth, the one by Peter's party, the other by Christ's.

3. Schmidt has thought that the Judaizers, who called themselves those of Christ, were those who allowed the dignity of being members of the kingdom of Christ, the Messiah-King, only to the Jews and to those of the Gentiles who became Jews by accepting circumcision. In this explanation the strict meaning of the term Χριστός, Messiah, must be emphasized. But it seems evident from our two Epistles that the Judaizing emissaries at Corinth were wise enough not to demand circumcision and the Mosaic ritual from the believers there, as from the ignorant Galatians.

4. Reuss, Osiander, Klöpper think those emissaries took the name of those of Christ, because they relied on the personal example of Jesus, who had always observed the law, and on certain declarations given forth by Him, such as these, “I am not come to destroy the law,...but to fulfil it;” and “Ye have one Master, Christ.” Starting from this, they not only protested against Paul's work, but also against the concessions made to Paul by the Twelve. They declared themselves to be the only Christians who were faithful to the mind of the Church's Supreme Head, and on that account they took the exclusive title, those of Christ. This explanation is very plausible; but, as we shall see, certain passages of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians lead us to ascribe a quite special dogmatic character to the teaching of those of Christ; and it would be difficult to understand how, while wishing to impose on the Corinthians Christ's mode of acting during His earthly life, they could have freed them, even provisionally, from circumcision and the other Mosaic rites.

5. Holsten and Hilgenfeld suppose that the title, those of Christ, originated in the fact that these emissaries had been in personal connection with Jesus during His earthly life. They were old disciples, perhaps of the number of the Seventy formerly sent out by Christ, or even His own brothers; for we know from 1 Corinthians 9:5 that these filled the office of evangelist-preachers. Persons who had thus lived within the Lord's immediate circle might disparage Paul as a man who had never been in personal connection with Him, and had never seen Him, except in a vision of a somewhat suspicious kind. There is mention, 2 Corinthians 3:1, of letters of recommendation with which those strangers had arrived at Corinth. By whom had those letters been given them, if not by James, at once the Lord's brother and head of the Church of Jerusalem?

In answer to this view, we have to say that if James acted thus, he would have openly broken the solemn contract of which Paul speaks (Galatians 2:5-10), and taken back in fact the hand of fellowship which he had given to this apostle. Holsten answers, indeed, that it was Paul who had broken the contract in his conflict with Peter at Antioch; and that after that scene James felt himself free to act openly against him. But supposing what we do not believe that Paul went too far in upbraiding Peter for his return to the observance of the law in the Church of Antioch, there would have been no good reason in that why James should retract the principle recognised and proclaimed by himself, that of the liberty of the Gentiles in regard to the law. What has been recognised as true does not become false through the faults of a third.

6. As none of these explanations fully satisfy us, we proceed to expound the view to which we have been led. We shall find ourselves at one partly, but only partly, with the result of Beyschlag's studies, published by him in the Studien und Kritiken, 1865, ii., and 1871, iv. We have seen, while refuting Baur's opinion, that there existed even at Jerusalem a party opposed to the Twelve, that of the “false brethren, brought in,” whom Paul clearly distinguishes from the apostles (Galatians 2:4; Galatians 2:6). They claimed to impose the Mosaic law on Gentile converts, while the Twelve maintained it only for Christians of Jewish origin, and the further question, whether these might not be released from this obligation in Churches of Gentile origin, remained open. We think that this ultra-party was guided by former members of the priesthood and of Jewish Pharisaism (Acts 6:7; Acts 15:5), who, in virtue of their learning and high social position, regarded themselves as infinitely superior to the apostles. It is not therefore surprising that once become Christians, they should claim to take out of the hands of the Twelve, of whom they made small account, the direction of the (Christian) Messianic work, with the view of making this subservient to the extension of the legal dispensation in the Gentile world. Such were the secret heads of the counter mission organized against Paul which we meet with everywhere at this period. It had now pushed its work as far as Corinth, and it is easy to understand why the portion of the Church which was given up to its agents, distinguished itself not only from the parties of Paul and Apollos, but also from that of Peter. They designated themselves as those of Christ, not because their leaders had personally known Jesus, and could better than others instruct the Churches in His life and teaching, who in these two respects would have dared to compare himself to Peter or put himself above him? but as being the only ones who had well understood His mind and who preserved more firmly than the apostles the true tradition from Him in regard to the questions raised by Paul. They were too prudent to speak at once of circumcision and Mosaic rites. They rather took the position in regard to converted Gentiles which the Jews had long adopted in regard to the so-called proselytes of the gate. And moreover and here is where I differ from Beyschlag when they arrived on Greek soil, they certainly added theosophic elements to the gospel preached by the apostles, whereby they sought to recommend their teaching to the speculative mind of the cultivated Christians of Greece. It is not without cause, that in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul speaks, 1 Corinthians 10:5, of “reasonings exalted like strongholds against the knowledge of God,” and of “thoughts to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” and that, 1 Corinthians 11:3, he expresses the fear that the Corinthians are allowing themselves to be turned away from the simplicity which is in Christ, as Eve let herself be seduced by the cunning of the serpent. Paul even goes the length of rebuking the Corinthians, in the following verse, for the facility with which they receive strange teachers who bring to them another Jesus than the one he has proclaimed to them, a Spirit and a gospel different from those they have already received. Such expressions forbid us to suppose that the doctrine of those emissaries was not greatly different from his own and that of the Twelve, especially from the Christological standpoint (another Jesus). There is certainly here something more than the simple legal teaching previously imported into Galatia. It was sought to allure the Corinthians by unsound speculations, and Paul's teaching was disparaged as poor and elementary. Hence his justification of himself, even in the First Epistle, for having given them only “milk and not meat” (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). Hence also his lively polemic against the mixing of human wisdom with the gospel (1 Corinthians 3:17-20). All this applied to the preaching of those of Christ, and not in the least to that of Apollos. We do not know what exactly was the nature of their particular doctrines. It did violence to the person and work of Jesus. Thus is explained perhaps Paul's strange saying, 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No man speaking by the Spirit of God saith: Jesus is accursed!” The apostle is speaking of spiritual manifestations which made themselves heard even in the Church. There were different kinds of them, and their origin required to be carefully distinguished. The truly Divine addresses might be summed up in the invocation, “Jesus, Lord!” While the inspirations that were not Divine terminated though one can hardly believe it in declaring Jesus accursed! Such a fact may however be explained when we call to mind a doctrine like that professed by the Judaizing Christian Cerinthus, according to which the true Christ was a celestial virtue which had united itself to a pious Jew called Jesus, on the occasion of His baptism by John the Baptist, which had communicated to Him the power of working miracles, the light from which His doctrines emanated, but which had abandoned Him to return to heaven, before the time of the Passion; so that Jesus had suffered alone and abandoned by the Divine Being. From this point of view what was to prevent one pretending to inspiration from exclaiming: “What matters to us this crucified One? This Jesus, accursed on the cross, is not our Christ: He is in heaven!” It is known that Cerinthus was the adversary of the Apostle John at Ephesus; Epiphanius on what authority we know not asserts that the First Epistle to the Corinthians was written to combat his heresy. It is remarkable that this false teacher was Judaizing in practice, like our false teachers at Corinth. But it is by no means necessary to suppose that it was exactly this system which Paul had in view. At this epoch many other similar Christological theories might be in circulation fitted to justify those striking expressions of Paul: “another Jesus, another Spirit.” Thus the name of Christ, in the title which these persons took, those of Christ, would be formulated, not only in opposition to the name of the apostles, but even to that of Jesus. Let us mention, by way of completing this file concerning those of Christ, the apostle's last word, 1 Corinthians 16:22, a word certainly written with his own hand after the personal salutation which precedes: “If any man love not the Lord, let him be anathema!” It is the answer to the “Jesus anathema!” of 1 Corinthians 12:3.

We adopt fully, therefore, the words of Kniewel (Eccl. Cor. vetustiss. dissentiones, 1842), who has designated those of Christ as “the Gnostics before Gnosticism.”

There remains only one question to be examined in regard to those of Christ. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians Paul twice speaks of persons whom he designates as οἱ ὑπερλίαν ἀπόστολοι, that is to say, “the apostles transcendentally” or “archapostles” (1 Corinthians 11:5 and 1 Corinthians 12:11), and whom he puts in close connection with the Christ-party. Baur alleges that he meant thereby to designate the Twelve ironically as authors of the mission carried out against his work by their emissaries arrived at Corinth. We have here, according to him, the most striking testimony of the directly hostile relation between Paul and the original apostles; it was they, and James in particular, who furnished those disturbers with letters of recommendation. On this interpretation rests Baur's whole theory regarding the history of primitive Christianity. But this application is inadmissible for the following reasons:

1. The Twelve had recognised in principle Paul's preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles, and had found nothing to add to it; they had moreover declared his apostleship to have the same Divine origin as Peter's; this is narrated by Paul, Galatians 2:1-10. How should they have sent persons to combat such a work?

2. If the expression “archapostles,” which Paul evidently borrows from the emphatic language of the party recruited by those persons at Corinth, referred to the Twelve, who in that case must have been considered as being an apostle in the simple sense of the word? Obviously it could only be Paul himself. His adversaries would thus unskilfully have declared an apostle the very man whose apostleship they were contesting!

3. In the passage, 2 Corinthians 11:5, Paul says, “he supposes he is not a whit behind the archapostles, for though he be rude in speech (ἰδιώτης), he is not so in knowledge.” Now it cannot be held that the Twelve were ever regarded at Corinth as superior to Paul in the gift of speech, first because they had never been heard there, and next because they were themselves expressly characterized as ἀγράμματοι and ἰδιῶται (Acts 4:13).

4. The apostle gives it to be understood ironically (1 Corinthians 12:11 seq.) that there is a point undoubtedly in which he acknowledges his inferiority as compared with the archapostles, to wit, that he has not, like them, been supported by the Church. Now it is certainly of the Church of Corinth that he is speaking when he thus expresses himself; this appears from 1 Corinthians 11:20, where he describes the shameless conduct of those intruders toward his readers. As yet the Twelve had not been at Corinth; it is not they, but the newcomers whom Paul designates by this ironical name.

5. How could St. Paul, justly asks Beyschlag, in this same letter in which he recommends a collection for the Church of the saints (that of Jerusalem), designate men sent by that Church and by the apostles, as “servants of Satan whose end will be worthy of their works” (1 Corinthians 11:14-15)?

Hilgenfeld and Holsten have themselves given up applying the expression archapostles to the Twelve. Agreeably to their explanation of the term, those of Christ, they apply it to those immediate disciples of Christ, such as the Seventy or the brothers of Jesus, from whom the party had taken its name, and whom the apostles had recommended to the Corinthians. But this comes nearly to the same, for the brothers of Jesus were at one with the apostles (1 Corinthians 9:5). And besides, how would those of Christ have contrasted their leaders as archapostles with Peter himself?

There remains only one explanation. These archapostles are no other than the emissaries of the ultra-Judaizing party, of whom we have spoken. Their partisans at Corinth honoured them with this title, to exalt them not only above Paul, but above the Twelve. We have already explained how this was possible: their object was to break the agreement which was established between the Twelve and Paul; and the letters of recommendation which they had brought were the work of some one of those high personages at Jerusalem who sought to possess themselves of the direction of the Church.

In the following verses, the apostle summarily condemns the state of things he has just described, and defends himself from having given occasion to it in any way. Edwards thinks he can divide the discussion which follows, thus: condemnation of the parties by the relation of Christianity: 1, to Christ, 1 Corinthians 1:13 to 1 Corinthians 2:5; 1 Corinthians 2, to the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 2:6 to 1 Corinthians 3:4; 1 Corinthians 3, to God, 1 Corinthians 3:5-20; 1 Corinthians 4, to believers, 1 Corinthians 3:21-23. But such tabulation is foreign to the apostle's mind. His discussion has nothing scholastic in it. The real course of the discussion will unfold of itself gradually.