1 Corinthians 1:22-23

“ For indeed the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; 23. but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness.”

This second ἐπειδή, for indeed, should, according to Meyer and Kling, begin a new sentence, the main proposition of which is found in 1 Corinthians 1:23: But as for us, we preach. The δέ, but, would not be irreconcilable with this construction. The δέ is often found in the classics as the sign of the apodosis when this expresses a strong contrast to the preceding proposition (see Meyer); comp. in the New Testament, Colossians 1:22. But two reasons are opposed to this construction: first, the absence of a proper particle to connect this new sentence with the preceding; then the simple logic; for the idea of 1 Corinthians 1:22, that Greeks and Jews ask for wisdom and miracles, cannot form a ground for that of 1 Corinthians 1:23: that preaching presents a Christ who is to them an offence and folly. The object of God, in this mode of preaching, could not have been to scandalize the hearers; in 1 Corinthians 1:24 the apostle even expressly adds the opposite thought: to wit, that Christ is to the believers of both peoples power and wisdom. The ἐπειδή of 1 Corinthians 1:22 does not therefore begin a new sentence, like that which began 1 Corinthians 1:21, and which related to εὐδόκησεν, it pleased God. Yet it is not on this account a repetition and amplification of that sentence. The first ἐπειδή (1 Corinthians 1:21) served to explain the rejection visited by God on human wisdom; the second (1 Corinthians 1:22) simply affirms the reality of this judgment: “for in reality, as experience may convince you, while men demand wisdom and miracles, we preach to them a Saviour who is quite the contrary, but who nevertheless is to them who receive Him miracle and wisdom.” We have not to see, then, in these three verses the development of the words, them that believe...(Hofmann), nor that of the term, “ foolishness of preaching” (Rückert, de Wette); they give the proof of the fact of the decree expressed in 1 Corinthians 1:21: “It pleased God to save...” (Billroth, Osiander, Beet, Edwards). What a strange dispensation! The world presents itself with its various demands: prodigies, wisdom! The cross answers, and the apparent meaning of the answer is: weakness, foolishness! But to faith its real meaning is: power, wisdom! Thus in the gospel God rejects the demands of the world so far as they are false, but only to satisfy them fully so far as they are legitimate.

The apostle divides the ancient world into two classes of men; those whom God has taken under His direction and enlightened by a special revelation, the Jews; the others whom He “has left to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16), the Gentiles, designated here by the name of their most distinguished representatives, the Greeks. The two subjects are named without an article: Jews, Greeks; it is the category which the apostle would designate.

The particle καί... καί, both...and, indicates that each of those groups has its demand, but that the demands are different. For the Jew it is miracles, the Divine materialized in external prodigies, in sensible manifestations of omnipotence. The plural σημεῖα, miracles, ought certainly to be read with almost all the Mjj.; the received text reads the singular σημεῖον, a sign, with L only. This last reading is undoubtedly a correction occasioned by Matthew 12:38; Matthew 16:1, where the Jews ask from Jesus a sign in heaven. Paul's object is not to refer to a particular fact, but to characterize a tendency; this is indicated by the plural, signs, and yet more signs! For it is of the nature of this desire to rise higher and higher in proportion as it is satisfied. “On the morrow after the multiplication of the loaves,” says Riggenbach, “the multitudes ask: What signs doest thou then?” Every stroke of power must be surpassed by a following one yet more marvellous.

The Greek ideal is quite different; it is a masterpiece of wisdom: the Divine intellectualized in a system eloquently giving account of the nature of the gods, the origin, course, and end of the universe. This people, with their inquisitive and subtle mind, would get at the essence of things. The man who will satisfy Greek expectation will be, not a thaumaturge, making the Divine appear grossly in matter, but a Pythagoras or a Socrates of double power.

Thus we have the two great figures of the ancient world ineffaceably engraved. Let us remark, finally, with what delicacy the apostle chooses the two verbs used to characterize the two tendencies: for the Jew, αἰτεῖν, ask; the miracle comes from God it is received; for the Greek, ζητεῖν, seek; system is the result of labour it is discovered. It is obvious that in this description of the ancient world, from the religious standpoint, the figure of the Jew is placed only for the sake of contrast; the Greeks are and remain, according to the context, the principal figure. It is always wisdom contrasted with the fact of salvation.

Vv. 23. As 1 Corinthians 1:22 went back on the first proposition of 1 Corinthians 1:21, “The world by wisdom knew not God in His wisdom,” so 1 Corinthians 1:23 (with 1 Corinthians 1:24) goes back on the second, “It pleased God to save by...” The δέ is strongly adversative. By the ἡμεῖς, we, the subject of these verses is also contrasted with that of the previous verse. I mean the preachers of the crucified Christ with the unbelieving Jews and Greeks. Instead of a series of acts of omnipotence transforming the world, or of a perfect light cast on the universe of being, what does the apostolic preaching offer to the world? A Crucified One, a compact mass of weakness, suffering, ignominy, and incomprehensible absurdity! There is enough there absolutely to bewilder Jewish expectation; in the first place, it is a stone against which it is broken. Σκάνδαλον : what arrests the foot suddenly in walking and causes a fall. And the Greek? The term Christ seems at first sight not to apply to the expectation of this people. But all humanity, as is seen in Greek mythology, aspired after a celestial appearance similar to that which the Jew designated by the name of Christ, after a communication from above capable of binding man to God. So Schelling did not hesitate to say, when paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 1:5 of the prologue of John: “Christ was the light, Christ was the consolation of the Gentiles.” The apostle can therefore speak also of the Christ in relation to the Greeks. But here again, what a contrast between the desired manifestation and the reality! Must not salvation by the Crucified One be to the Greek, instead of the solution of all enigmas, the most sombre of mysteries?

The participle ἐσταυρωμένον is an attribute, as crucified, otherwise it would be preceded by the article; the two substantives, σκάνδαλον and μωρίαν, are appositions.

It might be asked, no doubt, in connection with this verse, whether Jesus, by His numerous miracles, did not satisfy the Jewish demand? But His acts of miraculous power had been annulled, so to speak, in the eyes of the Jews by the final catastrophe of the cross, which seemed to have fully justified His adversaries, and did not suffer them to see in Him any other than an impostor or an agent of diabolical power.

And yet as to this preaching which so deeply shocks the aspirations of men, Jews and Gentiles, so far as these are false, it turns out and daily experience demonstrates the fact that received with faith, it contains both for the one and the other the full satisfaction of those same aspirations so far as they are true: