1 Corinthians 2:1-2

“And I also, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God; 2. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

In the first word, κἀγώ, and I also, there is contained the connection between this conclusion and the passage as a whole. It does not signify, as de Wette thought: “I, as well as the other apostles,” but: “I also, like the gospel itself.” Paul has abstained, in harmony with the nature of the gospel, from seeking his strength in the help of human eloquence or wisdom: like Evangel, like evangelist.

The form ἔλθων ἦλθον is a frequent expression in Greek (see examples in Edwards), the object of which is to emphasize the verbal notion. The idea the apostle would bring out is that it was with this full-drawn plan that he arrived among them. This method was not the result of a passing state of mind, or of painful experiences he might have made at Corinth in a different way; from his first step in their city, his resolution was taken.

The adjunct καθ᾿ ὑπεροχήν does not bear on the verb ἦλθον, I came; it rather explains the mode of preaching than that of arriving (Meyer). It therefore qualifies the complex phrase ἦλθον καταγγέλλων, I came declaring. The word ὑπεροχή denotes strictly the act of overhanging, or the thing which overhangs; hence superiority, preeminence. By Byzantine writers it is used in the sense, “Your Excellency.” There is a slight touch of irony in the use of this sonorous and emphatic word.

This exhibition of superiority which he disdained might have been that of philosophic depth (σοφίας), or that of dialectic and oratorical form (λόγου). He would no more have the one than the other.

The term καταγγέλλειν is here chosen deliberately to denote preaching. He came as a man who simply announces (καταγγέλλων) a fact. And this is what is expressed by the use of the word τὸ μαρτύριον, the testimony, to designate the gospel. The matter in question is not a system of ideas to be exhibited, but merely a testimony rendered to a fact. The genitive θεοῦ is that of the author and not of the object. The idea: the testimony which has God for its subject, would be much too general and would have little ground in the passage. Paul means that he has simply reproduced the testimony which goes forth from God, inasmuch as it is God who, after having effected salvation, has charged him to proclaim it. The reading of the Sinaït., μυστήριον, followed by Westcott and Hort, Edwards, etc., is absolutely misplaced in this context, though Edwards tries to account for it by reference to σοφία. This word μυστήριον has been imported here from 1 Corinthians 2:7.

We must note well the two adjuncts, πρὸς ὑμᾶς, among you, and ὑμῖν, to you; the more that we shall again meet in 1 Corinthians 2:2 with the same idea in the ἐν ὑμῖν, among you. On another theatre the apostle would not perhaps have guarded himself with so much care against the danger of lending to the gospel another force than that which properly belongs to it. But arriving at a city like Corinth, where he knew that philosophical and literary curiosity reigned, the apostle had said to himself that, to prevent the Divine work from being corrupted in its essence, preaching must from the first have the simplest character and address itself solely to the conscience. Origen, and in our day Neander, have thought that this resolution was the consequence of the failure which Paul had experienced at Athens when using a more philosophical procedure in his preaching. But the apostle here represents this method as connected with the very essence of the gospel; and it must be remembered that his discourse at Athens was not preaching strictly so called. He had first of all to explain himself in reference to the accusation raised against him, and only after that could he come to the proclamation of salvation; this is what he was about to do at the moment when he was interrupted.