1 Corinthians 9:15

“But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void.”

Paul contrasts the sacrifice which he has made of his right, and consequently of his well-being and ease, with the selfishness of those of the Corinthians who, without any self-restraint, used their liberty in regard to sacrificed meats.

The aorist ἐχρησάμην, in the T. R., would refer to the initial act of renunciation; the perfect κέχρημαι, in almost all the Mjj., denotes the permanent state of privation founded on the act. This reading is preferable.

The expression: these things, may refer to the manifold rights which are comprehended in that of being supported (comp. 1 Corinthians 9:4-5), or to all the numerous reasons alleged, from 1 Corinthians 9:4 onwards, to justify this right. “I have used none of them,” signifies in this second case: “I have not made them good.” After such an enumeration, the second meaning is more natural.

It is remarkable that Paul, after speaking in the first person plural, 1 Corinthians 9:4-6, here passes to the first person singular. This is because in what follows, the matter in question, as we shall see, is a fact absolutely personal, the consequences of which do not concern the others except as his fellow-labourers in the work of the apostleship among the Gentiles.

But Paul will not have it supposed that he has written all this long demonstration, that in the future a different treatment should be observed toward him than that which has hitherto prevailed. The word οὕτω, so, signifies in the context: “ As I might be entitled to require, and as in fact is done for others;” comp. the similar elliptical οὕτω, 1 Corinthians 7:26; 1 Corinthians 7:40. The ἐν ἐμοί here signifies, as often: in regard to me (Matthew 17:12). It is so far from being the desire of the apostle to induce the Church to make a change in this respect, that he would rather be deprived of his ministry by death, than discharge it on any other condition than its being gratuitous. The reading of the T. R. is simple, provided we allow a very common inversion in the words τὸ καύχημά μου, which belong to the proposition of ἵνα; comp. 1 Corinthians 3:5, and 2 Corinthians 2:4. Thus the meaning is: “Than the fact that as to my cause of glorying, any one should deprive me of it.” This cause of glorying is certainly the fact of preaching the gospel gratuitously. “I should like rather to be taken from my work by death, than to do it without having this cause of glorying.” But there exist two readings different from this; and first that of the two ancient Alex. (Vatic. and Sinaït.) and of the Cantabr.; see the critical note. Those who bind themselves to the readings of these MSS. are greatly embarrassed by such a text. Meyer, in his second edition, explained the ἤ in the sense of than, and held an aposiopesis: “Than this that as to my cause of glorying....No! no man shall make it void.” This construction is excessively forced. Edwards, without being disposed to justify it, accepts it from want of having anything better to propose. Meyer himself, since the date of his fourth edition, no longer gives to the ἤ the sense of than, but that of or, and he thus explains: “It is better for me to die (than to preach the gospel without having this ground of boasting); or, if I must still live, no one shall make void my ground of glorying (by preventing me from continuing to act as I have hitherto done).” Every one must feel how wire-drawn this meaning is in comparison with the simple sense expressed by the received reading; and in any case, after the comparative μᾶλλον, rather, it is unnatural to give to the conjunction ἤ any other meaning than that of than. The other divergent reading from that of the T. R. is that of the two Greco-Lats., F G: “Or, as to my ground of glorying, who shall be able to make it void?” But this question does not logically agree either with the preceding or the following sentence; then the order of the words would be far from natural in this sense; finally, the ἤ ought after μᾶλλον to signify than, rather than or. Lachmann puts a period after ἀποθανεῖν, as Ambrosiaster had already done:... magis mori. Nemo gloriam meam evacuabit. Then, himself perceiving the impossibility of this interpretation, he proposes to read νή, instead of ἤ, in the sense of a solemn affirmation: “By my ground of glorying, no one will make it void,” a sense more impossible still. Holsten, after proposing some conjectures (κενῶσαι or ἐξουδενῶσαι), despairs of restoring the authentic text. Rückert likewise concludes his excellent discussion by saying: “The result to which I come, therefore, is that we do not know what Paul himself wrote, but that of all proposed to us, the best is the received reading.” Klosterman (Probleme im Aposteltexte, 1883) concludes for the meaning of the text F G, but by putting the following verse in the mouth of one who he supposes attempts to make void the apostle's ground of glorying by alleging that he preaches, not from moral motives, but from constraint. Such interpretations do not call for discussion. In my view, it was evidently the Greco-Latin documents which in 1 Corinthians 9:10 had preserved the true reading, and it is no less clear that here it is the Byzantines (supported in this case by Cod. Ephrem and by the Peschito) which we ought to follow. There is nothing impossible in admitting the required inversion. Only it is better to read the future κενώσει, shall make void, than the subjunctive κενώσῃ. The copyists finding that the indicative did not agree with the ἵνα, replaced this conjunction either by the interrogative pronoun τίς (F G) or by the pronoun οὐδείς (Alex.). Others (Byz.) transformed the indicative into the subjunctive. As to the ἵνα, in order that, it does not lose its signification of an end to be reached. This end is, making void the subject of Paul's glorying, an end which he ascribes to the man who should wish to induce him to accept a salary.

And why would the apostle prefer no longer to preach at all, and even to die, to exercising a paid ministry of the gospel? It is because the act of preaching in itself contains nothing which furnishes him with a ground of glorying. For to fill this office is with him a matter of necessity; it is an: I must!