1 Corinthians 15:55

νῖκος before κέντρον אBC Vulg. They are transposed in rec. with DEFG Vetus Lat. Peshito. Rec. also reads ᾅδη for the second θάνατε with Peshito. Text אBCDEFG Vetus Lat. Vulg. Also Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen.

55. ποῦ σου θάνατε τὸ νῖκος; Neither the LXX. nor Hebrew of Hosea 13:14 are followed in this quotation. The latter has, ‘I will be (where are, R.V.) thy pestilences, O death, I will be (where is, R.V.) thy destruction, O Hades’ (or ‘grave,’ for the Hebrew Sheol is used in both senses). The LXX. version is ποῦ ἡ δίκη σου, θάνατε; ποῦ τὸ κέντρον σου, ἅδη; So that the probabilities seem to be in favour of the alteration in the rec. text of St Paul’s words (1) by the substitution of ἅδη from the LXX., and (2) by the transposition of κέντρον and νῖκος so as to agree with the next verse.

ποῦ σου θάνατε τὸ κέντρον; Bishop Wordsworth suggests that the text was altered from a fear lest the passage should give any countenance to the idea of a god of the shades below, known to the Greeks by the name of Hades. But in later Greek and in the Septuagint its use to denominate the condition of departed spirits was well established.