1 Corinthians 4:11-13

“Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, are naked, buffeted, without certain dwelling - place; 12. labour, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; 13. being defamed, we intreat; we are made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all, even until now.”

The first words, even to this present hour, reproduce the thought of the whole passage: “As for us, up to this hour, we are little aware that the dispensation of triumph has already begun.” The following enumeration bears, in the first place, on the privations and sufferings of all kinds endured by the apostles (1 Corinthians 4:11-12 a). To the want of suitable food and clothing there is sometimes added bad treatment; the word κολαφίζεσθαι may denote either blows with the fist or with the palm of the hand. Besides, as the rule, want of a fixed dwelling-place, of a home. Finally (1 Corinthians 4:12 a), the manual labour imposed on Paul, especially the voluntary obligation to gain his livelihood by his own work (1 Corinthians 9:6).

The enumeration goes on by indicating the humble and patient conduct of the apostles in the midst of these sufferings (1 Corinthians 4:12-13). Three particulars form a double gradation: insults with sneering (λοιδορεῖσθαι), persecutions in a judicial form (διώκεσθαι), calumnies which assail honour (δυσφημεῖσθαι). The T. R. reads βλασφημούμενοι; but as the verb δυσφημεῖσθαι is much more rarely used in the New Testament, and as it is found in almost all the Mjj., it deserves the preference.

To sneering the apostles reply with blessing. The word εὐλογεῖν in the New Testament signifies to wish well, and that in the form which alone can render the wish efficacious, that of prayer.

To ill-treatment they reply by suffering (ἀνέχεσθαι, to exercise self-control); they do not even complain. Finally, they oppose to calumnies kindly intreating; they beseech men not to be so wicked, to return to better feelings, to be converted to Christ.

But with this way of acting what do they get from the world? They become the object of its more complete disdain. This is what is expressed by 1 Corinthians 4:13 b. The term περικάθαρμα, filth, denotes literally what is collected by sweeping all round the chamber (περί); and περίψημα the dirt which is detached from an object by sweeping or scraping it all round. These two figures therefore represent what is most abject. It has been sought to give to these two terms a tragical meaning, that of an expiatory victim, a sense in which they were sometimes taken among the Greeks. At times of public calamity, a criminal was chosen who was devoted to the angry gods to appease their wrath. This man, who was, as it were, the defilement of the people incarnate, bore the curse of all and perished for all. He was designated by the terms κάθαρμα or περίψημα. The formula with which the priest hurled him into the sea was this (according to Suidas): περίψημα ἡμῶν γενοῦ, ἤτοι σωτηρία καὶ ἀπολύτρωσις (“be our expiatory victim, and so our salvation and deliverance”). Did Paul mean to allude to the religious sense of the two terms which he uses? I do not think so; the saying thus understood would take an emphasis which hardly suits the sorrowful humility of the whole passage.

The plural of the first substantive relates to the different apostles, while the second substantive in the singular makes them one mass, an object of contempt, which is still more forcible. The adjuncts of the world and of all both indicate the totality to which the apostles naturally belong, but from which they are distinguished as being the most contemptible it contains. To the plural, sweepings (filth), there corresponds the singular, of the world; and to the singular, the offscouring, the plural, of all: They are what Paul says: each for all, and all for each.

The last words, even until now, betray yet once more before closing the feeling of sorrowful irony which inspired the whole passage. They are the counterpart of the ἤδη, now, with which he had begun, and they sum it up likewise as a whole. Rückert cannot approve of the sarcastic tone of this passage. He says, frankly (pp. 124, 125): “This passage of Paul's has always produced on me a repulsive impression....There are found in it undeniable traces of wounded personal feeling, of irritation caused him by the loss of the consideration which he enjoyed at Corinth...everywhere there reigns concern about his own personality. I am pained to have to pass such a judgment on this great man; but he too was human...” This eminent commentator has not considered, 1. that as against proud infatuation, the weapon of ridicule is often the only efficacious one; 2. that the indignation which inspired this passage bore on a state of things which was not only an attack on the apostle's person, but a mortal danger to the spiritual life and the whole future of the Church; 3. that the following words, expressive of incomparable fatherly tenderness and solicitude, do not well agree with those wholly personal feelings, which he ascribes so daringly to the apostle.