Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not you my work in the Lord?
Read Chapter 9
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Am I not an apostle? am I not free? It may be asked what connection this has with the preceding chapter: it seems to be an abrupt transition to another subject. I reply that Paul had spoken at the end of the last chapter of the necessity of avoiding all that might cause offence. Now, that he may enforce this, he puts himself forward as an example, and points to his having refused to receive any payment for his preaching, and his having earned his bread by his own labours; this cession of his rights he made, both to void causing any to offend, and to give an example of singular virtue. He would so teach the Corinthians not to stand upon their rights, especially in the matter of eating idol-sacrifices, out of regard for their neighbours, if they saw that they were thus made to stumble, or led into sin. Yet at the same time Paul, by implication, guards in this declaration the sincerity and authority of his preaching against the false apostles who impugned them; he points indirectly to his...
SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER
i. He proceeds to show by his own example how offences are to be avoided, and he says that he had refused to accept payment, or the maintenance due to a preacher of the Gospel, both to gain greater merit and for the sake of edification.
ii. He then (ver7) proves by six arguments (summarised on the notes to ver12) that this maintenance is due to himself and other preachers of the Gospel.
iii. He shows (ver, 20) that for the same reason he had become all things to all men, that the Corinthians might learn how each one must care for his own edification and the salvation of his neighbour.
iv. He urges them (ver24) to that same edification, pointing out that our life is a race and trial of virtue, and in them we must run and strive after better things, and after the prize, buy abstinence and bodily mortification.
St. Chrysostom, om kb, p. 382. meta sphodrotatos arneitai. Ver. 5. Mulierem sororem, adelphen gunaika. Sororem mulierem, where Estius brings examples to show that it is the same sense and construction, whether we read mulierem sororem, or sororem mulierem. Tertullian, the most ancient of the Latin fathers, read: mulieres circumducendi, not uxores. De pudicitia, chap. xiv. p. 566. Ed. Rig. and lib. de monogam. chap. viii. p. 519. he first says, Petrum solum invenio maritum. And on this place, non uxores demonstrat ab Apostolis circumductas.sed simpliciter mulieres, quæ, illos eodem instituto, quo et Dominum comitantes, ministrabant. St. Jerome, Ubi de mulieribus sororibus infertur, perspicuum est, non uxores debere intelligi, sed eas, ut diximus, quæ de suâ substantiâ ministrabant. St. Augustine, Hoc quid am non intelligentes, non sororem mulierem, sed uxorem interpretati sunt, fefellit illos verbi græci ambiguitas.quanquam hoc ita posuerit, ut falli non debuerint, quia nequè mulierem t...
Am not I free? The apostle in this place wishes to teach the Corinthians, how careful and solicitous they should be not to give cause for scandal to their neighbour, and how anxious for his spiritual welfare, informing them, that as he refused to take even what he had a just right to, as a minister of the altar, that is, to live by the altar, so they must do in like manner, abstaining even from things lawful, for the good of religion. (Estius)
Am not I an apostle? St. Paul here, to the 20th verse, answers those reflections, which the new preachers at Corinth made against him and Barnabas, as if they were only an inferior kind of apostles. To this he answers, that he had seen Jesus Christ, who appeared to him. He tells the Corinthians, that they at least, ought to respect him as their apostle, who had converted them. He tells them, that when any persons ask about his apostleship, he has this to say for himself, that he not only laboured as an apostle in converting them, but also labour...
The really great thing was that the Corinthian Christians were Paul’s workmanship in the Lord. Even Judas was an apostle and saw Christ, but because he did not have the work of an apostle, these things were of no benefit to him.
Inasmuch as he had said, If meat make my brother to stumble I will eat no flesh forever; a thing which he had not yet done, but professed he would do if need require: lest any man should say, You vaunt yourself at random, and art severe in discourse, and utterest words of promise, a thing easy to me or to any body; but if these sayings come from your heart, show by deeds something which you have slighted in order to avoid making your brother stumble: for this cause, I say, in what follows he is compelled to enter on the proof of this also, and to point out how he was used to forego even things permitted that he might not give offense, although without any law to enforce his doing so.
And we are not yet come to the admirable part of the matter: though it be admirable that he abstain even from things lawful to avoid offense: but it is his habit of doing so at the cost of so much trouble and danger. For why, says he, speak of the idol sacrifices? Since although Christ had enjoined that...
-shall we therefore so interpret Paul as if he demonstrates the apostles to have had wives?.
And, "(I think) God hath selected us the apostles (as) hindmost, like men appointed to fight with wild beasts; since we have been made a spectacle to this world, both to angels and to men: "And, "We have been made the offscourings of this world, the refuse of all: "And, "Am I not free? am I not an apostle? have I not seen Christ Jesus our Lord? "
