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?Meyer's Critical and Exegetical Commentary - 1 Corinthians (Vol.
1)?(Heinrich Meyer)

Commentator
Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer (10 January 1800 - 21 June 1873), was a
German Protestant divine. He wrote commentaries on the New Testament and
published an edition of that book.
Meyer was born in Gotha. He studied theology at Jena, was pastor at Harste,
Hoye and Neustadt, and eventually became (1841) pastor, member of the
consistory, and superintendent at Hanover.
He is chiefly noted for his valuable Kritischexegetischer Kommentar zum
Neuen Testament (16 vols.), which began to appear in 1832, was completed in
1859 with the assistance of Johann Eduard Huther, Friedrich Düieck and
Gottlieb Lün, and has been translated into English. New editions have been
undertaken by such scholars as A. B. Ritschl, Bernhard Weiss, Hans Hinrich
Wendt, Karl Friedrich, Georg Heinrici, Willibald Beyschlag and Friedrich A.
E. Sieffert. The English translation in Clark's series is in 20 volumes
(1873-82), and there is an American edition in 11 volumes (1884-88).
Meyer also published an edition of the New Testament, with a translation
(1829) and a Latin version of the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church
(1830).

Introduction

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL
COMMENTARY
ON
THE NEW TESTAMENT
HANDBOOK
TO THE
EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS
BY
HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, TH.D.,
OBERCONSISTORIALRATH, HANNOVER.
VOL. I.
FIRST EPISTLE, CH. I.-XIII.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FIFTH EDITION OF THE GERMAN BY
REV. D. DOUGLAS BANNERMAN, M.A.
THE TRANSLATION REVISED AND EDITED BY
WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D.D.,
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET
MDCCCLXXIX.
PREFATORY NOTE
T HE translation of the present volume has been executed by Mr. Bannerman
with great care and scholarly accuracy; and I cannot but specially
acknowledge my obligations to him for the pains which he has bestowed upon
the work. Having taken charge of it in its passage through the press, I am,
of course, responsible for the form in which it appears; but under the
circumstances my revision has addressed itself mainly to such modifications
as seemed needful or desirable in the interest of securing throughout the
series that uniformity of rendering, which from the nature of the work is
peculiarly important, but which translators acting independently of each
other could hardly be expected to attain.
The explanations given in previously issued volumes of the series apply to
the present, and need not be here repeated. But I may be allowed perhaps to
express my belief that, as the Epistles to the Corinthians are peculiarly
fitted, alike by the presence of elements of deep historical and personal
interest, and by the comparative absence of doctrinal discussions, to
illustrate the application of the principles and methods of pure exegesis,
this portion of Dr. Meyer's Commentary-confessedly one of its best sections-
will be found to furnish an invaluable discipline of initiation into
exegetical study.
W. P. D.
GLASGOW COLLEGE, May 1877.
PREFACE
A FTER having been mainly occupied of late years with the historical books
of the New Testament, I have now to turn to the Epistles of Paul, and to
devote renewed labour to their exposition. In the present sadly distracted
age of the church I feel the deep gravity and responsibility of the task
which I have to face all the more strongly, because I cannot but bear in
mind that among all the sacred writings it was those very Epistles of Paul
which were pre-eminently to the Reformers the conquering sword of the
Spirit, and which exercised the most powerful influence in moulding the
doctrinal system of our church. The characters of Paul and Luther form a
historical parallel, to which nothing similar can be found in the whole
series of God's chosen instruments for the furtherance of evangelical
truth. We possess the divine light which Paul bore through the world, and
in whose radiance the Reformers did their work; the whole Scripture, with
all its treasures, becomes day by day more richly opened up to us by the
labours of science; but everywhere, from the extreme right to the extreme
left, there is party-strife; and, amid the knowledge that puffeth up, the
unity of the Spirit is broken, faith languishes, and love grows cold. It
is, in truth, as though we were giving all diligence to afford the
confirmation of increasing experience to the malicious assertion of the
Romanists, that Protestantism is already in full course of decomposition.
Our wounds will not be healed, but only deepened and widened, by arrogant
boasting about our Confessions, which are after all but the works of men.
Much less will the end be attained by a wanton attenuating, explaining
away, or setting aside of the positive teachings of the N. T., and of the
miraculous facts in the history of redemption; for these have subdued the
world, and must continue to subdue it. Only in that which is and remains
the "norma normans" for all faith and all teaching, and for the Confessions
themselves,-only in the living word of revelation resides the God-given
power to heal, which will promote the restoration to health, and the union,
of the body of the church with surer and more lasting effect, just in
proportion as the word is more clearly and fully understood and more truly
and energetically appropriated, and as, through such understanding and
appropriation of it, the supremacy of the word and of its high moral forces
becomes more absolute and all-controlling. To this sacred supremacy the
church herself with her doctrine must bow as well as the individual. For in
laying down her principle of appeal to Scripture, the church assumed not
only the possibility and allowableness, but also the necessity of a further
development and-where need should be shown-rectification of her doctrine in
accordance with Scripture. In this way the Confession points to an
authority transcending its own; and the church, built as she is immoveably
upon the everlasting Rock, has placed herself under the law of growth,
thereby giving augury of a future, which, according to the apostle's
promise (Ephesians 4:13 ff.), despite all the sorrows of the present, will
not fail to be realized. To aid in preparing for this bright future, is
what all exposition of Scripture should recognise as its appointed task,
being mindful at the same time that the steps in the development of the
divine kingdom are centuries, and that the ways of Him who rules over it
are not our ways. If, therefore, a thorough and conscientious searching of
the Scriptures should arrive, as regards this or that point of doctrine, at
results which are at variance with confessional definitions, its duty, at
the bidding of the exegetical conscience, is not in an un-Lutheran and
unprincipled fashion to disguise such results or to cloak them with a misty
phraseology, but, trusting to the sifting and conquering power of divine
truth, openly and honestly to hand them over to the judgment of science and
the church. To science and the church, I repeat; for it is one of the
follies of the day to seek to set these at variance-to impose limits upon
the former which are opposed to its essential nature, and to set aside its
voice and relegate it to silence under an imaginary belief that a service
is thereby rendered to the church. Such a piece of folly is unevangelical,
and fit only for the Tridentinum and the Syllabus of the Bishop of Rome.
Now, if nothing save the pure word of God may or ought to prepare the way
towards a better future for the church, then all expounders of that word
have but one common aim placed before them,-namely, just to ascertain its
pure contents, without addition or subtraction and with a renouncing of all
invention of our own, with simplicity, truth, and clearness, without being
prejudiced by, and independent of, dogmatic à priori postulates, with
philological precision, and in strict objectivity as historical fact.
Anything more than this they ought not as expositors to attempt; but in
this-and it is much-it is required of them that they be found faithful. The
plan of procedure adopted may vary; one may prefer the glossematic, another
the inductive, method. I attach but little weight to this question of
method in itself, although I cannot ignore the fact, attested by various
works appearing at the present day in the region of Old and New Testament
exegesis, that the inductive mode runs more risk of giving to subjective
exegesis a free play which should be rigorously denied to it. One is very
apt, under the influence of this method, to give something more or less, or
other than, the pure contents of the sacred text. The ingenuity, which in
this way has ampler room for manipulating the premisses-how often with the
aid of refining sophistry!-and thinks itself justified in so doing, always
miscarries in spite of all its plausibility and confidence, when it gives
to the world expositions that offend against grammar and linguistic usage,
or against the general and special connection, or against both. Often in
such cases the doubtful recommendation of novelty(1) is purchased only by
strange strainings of the text and other violent expedients, while
clearness has not unfrequently to be sought for beneath the cloak of a
laboriously involved phraseology, which itself in its turn seems to require
a commentary.
In preparing this fifth edition, which was preceded by the fourth in 1861,
I have not neglected to give due attention to what has since been done for
the criticism and