1 Corinthians 1:28 - Exposition

And the base things; literally, low-born, unborn; "those who are sprung kern no one in particular"—nullo patre, nullis majoribus. Nothing could be more ignoble in the eyes of the world than a cross of wood upheld by feeble hands, and yet before it "kings and their armies did flee and were discomfited, and they of the household divided the spoil." And the things that are not . The not is the Greek subjective negative ( μὴ ); things of which men conceived as not existing—"nonentities." It is like the expression of Clement of Rome, "Things accounted as nothing." Christianity was "the little stone, cut without hands," which God called into existence. We find the same thought in St. John the Baptist's sermon ( Matthew 3:9 ).