You know that you were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as you were led.
Read Chapter 12
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Now that he is about to give them spiritual teaching, Paul recalls their former way of life. His intention is that, just as they have been worshipers of idols in the shape of statues and used to be led about by the will of demons, so now, as worshipers of God, they may walk according to the model of the law, so as to be pleasing to God. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Ye know that ye were Gentiles, &c. You were led like slaves, by custom, by the institutions of your ancestors, by religious tradition, and by diabolic agency to these dumb idols. For the Hebraism in the employment of the participle instead of the finite verb, cf. Rom. xi111. Remember, he says, 0 Corinthians, that when you were Gentiles you used to worship idols, as sticks and stones which have neither breath, feeling, power of speech, nor strength of any kind, and much less can give such things to their worshippers. But now that you have become Christians you can worship God, who is pure spirit, full of all grace and Wisdom of Solomon , and sheds these same spiritual gifts abundantly upon you, as you daily experience. Recognise, therefore, the grace bestowed upon you by Christ, the chance wrought in you, and worship Christ, the author of all this, together with the Holy Spirit.
You went to dumb idols. He speaks to the Gentiles before their conversion, to put them in mind, how much happier they are by receiving the faith of Christ, and such graces and favours from God. (Witham)
What Paul means is that if anyone in a pagan temple was at any time possessed by an unclean spirit and began to divine, he was led away by that spirit like a man in chains and had no idea what he was saying. For it is peculiar to the soothsayer to be beside himself, to be under compulsion, to be pushed, to be dragged, to be greeted as a madman. But the prophet is not like this, because he has a sober mind and composed temper and knows exactly what he is saying.
Paul shows that there is a very big difference between Christian prophecy and pagan soothsaying. Pagans do not address the unclean spirit but are possessed by it and say things which they do not understand. The soothsayer’s soul is darkened, and he does not know what he is saying, whereas the prophet’s soul is enlightened and reveals what the prophet has learned and understood. .
