1 Corinthians 1:20 - Exposition

Where is the wise? etc. ( Isaiah 33:18 ); rather, Where is a wise man? i.e. a scribe, etc., which is even more incisive. These questions are triumphant, like the "Where is the King of Hamath and of Arpad?" The same impassioned form of speech recurs in 1 Corinthians 15:55 and in Romans 3:27 . The questions would come home to the Jews, who regarded their rabbis and the "pupils of the wise as exalted beings who could look down on all poor ignorant persons ( amharatsim, or "people of the land"); and to the Greeks, who regarded none but the philosophers as "wise." The scribe . With the Jews of that day" the scribe" was" the theologian," the ideal of dignified learning and orthodoxy, though for the most part he mistook elaborate ignorance for profound knowledge. The disputer. The word would specially suit the disputatious Greeks, clever dialecticians. The verb from which this word is derived occurs in Mark 8:11 , and the abstract substantive ("an eager discussion") in Acts 28:29 . If St. Paul has Isaiah 33:18 in his mind, the word "disputer" corresponds to "the counter of the towers" (comp. Psalms 48:12 ). Even the rabbis say that when Messiah comes human wisdom is to become needless. Of the world; rather, of this age, or aeon. The old dispensation, then so rapidly waning to its close, was called "this age" ( olam hazzeh ) ; the next or Messianic age was called "the age to come" ( olam habba ) . The Messianic age had dawned at the birth of Christ, but the old covenant was not finally annulled till his second coming at the fall of Jerusalem. Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? rather, Did not God (by the cross) stultify the wisdom, etc.? The oxymoron, or sharp contrast of terms—a figure of which St. Paul is fond (see 1 Timothy 5:6 ; Romans 1:20 , etc.; and my 'Life of St. Paul,' 1:628)—is here clearly marked in the Greek. The thought was as familiar to the old prophets ( Isaiah 44:25 ) as to St. Paul ( Romans 1:22 ); and even Horace saw that heathen philosophy was sometimes no better than insaniens sapientia (Horace, 'Od.,' 1.34, 2).