The life and work of St. Paul

CONDITION Ot THE CHURCH At CORINTH. 395
) to save them from final condemnation 1
(xa.TdKpiiJ.ci). All minor matters
about \vhich they may have asked him, though they kept back the confession of this
their shame, are left by the Apostlo to be regulated by himself personally on his
arrival.*
14. The next three chapters of which the thirteenth, containing the description
of charity, is the most glorious gem, even in the writings of St. Paul are occupied
with the answer to their inquiries about spiritual gifts. Amid the wild disorders
which we have been witnessing we are hardly surprised to find that the Glossolalia
had been terribly abused. Some, we gather either because they had given the reins
to the most uncontrollable excitement, and were therefore the impotent victims of
any blasphemous thought which happened for the moment to sweep across the
troubled horizon of their souls; or from some darkening philosophical confusion,
which endeavoured to distinguish between the Logos and Him that was crucified,
between the Man Jesus and the Lord Christ or ; perhaps again from some yet unsolved
Jewish difficulty about the verse " Cursed is he that hangeth on a tree ;"*
amid their unintelligible utterances, had been heard to exclaim, Anathema lesou*,
"
Jesus is accursed ;'' and, having as yet very vague notions as to the true nature of
the " gift of tongues," the Corinthians had asked Paul in great perplexity what they
were to think of this ? His direct answer is emphatic. \Vhcn they were the ignorant
worshippers of dumb idols they may have been accustomed to the false inspiration
of the Pythia, or the Sibyl the possessing mastery by a spiritual influence
which expressed itself in the broken utterance, and streaming hair, and foaming lip,
and which they might take to be the spirit of Python, or Trophonius, or Dis. But
now he lays down the great principles of that " discernment of spirits," which
should enable them to distinguish the rapt utterance of divine emotion from the
mechanical and self-induced frenzy of feminine feebleness or hypocritical supersti-
tion. Whatever might be the external phenomena, the utterances of the Spirit were
one in import. No man truly inspired by Him could
"
say, Anathema is Jesus
" *
or
;
uninspired by Him could say from the heart, " Jesus is the Lord." The charismata,
or gifts, were different ; the "administrations" of them, or channels of their working,
were different ; the operations, energies, or effects of them were different ; but the
source of them was One one Holy Ghost, from whom they are all derived ; one
Lord, by whom all true ministries of them are authorised; one God, who worketh
all their issues in all who possess them. 5 And this diverse manifestation of one
Spirit, whether practical wisdom or scientific knowledge ; whether the heroism of
faith with its resultant gifts of healing, or energies of power, or impassioned utter-
ance, or the ability to distinguish between true and false spiritual manifestations ;
or, again, kinds of tongues, or the interpretation of tongues, 6 were all subordinated
to one sole end edification. And, therefore, to indulge in any conflict between gifts,
any rivalry in their display, was to rend asunder the unity which reigned supreme
to throw doubt on the unity of their origin, to ruin
through this rich multiplicity ;
the unity of their action. The gifts, whether healings, helps, governments, or
tongues, occurred separately in different individuals ; but each of these whether
1 These distinctions, so essential to the right understanding of the passage, are hopelessly
obliterated in the E.V., which also swerves from its usual rectitude by rendering ij "and" instead
of "or" inver. 27, thatit might not seem to sanction " communion in one kind." The "unworthily"
In ver. 29 is perhaps a gloss, though a correct one. The K\U>II*VOV, " broken," of ver. 24 seems to have
been tampered with from dogmatic reasons. It is omitted in m, A, B, C, and D reads Opvirroiievov,
perhaps because of John xix. 36.
xi. 1734. i Deut xxi. 23.
*
Perhaps a gross and fearful abuse of the principle Involved in 2 Cor. v. 16, as though people of
spiritual intuitions were emancipated from the mere acknowledgment of Jesus. One could easily
expect this from what we know of the " everlasting Gospel " In the thirteenth century, and of similar
movements in different times of the Church (Maurice, Unity, 445). How startling to these illuminati
to be told that the highest operation of the Spirit was to acknowledge Jesus I
* James i. 17.
* rii. 8 10. I have indicated, without dwelling on, the possible classification hinted at by the
trtp* (9, 10), as contrasted with the & niv and aM. "Knowledge (yvwats) as distinguished from
," deals with "mysteries" (xiii. 2; xv. 51 ; viii. passim).