1 Corinthians 1:13

In his expostulation P. uses, with telling contrast, the first and last only of the party names: “Is the Christ divided? Was Paul crucified on your behalf? or into the name of Paul were you baptised?” Lachmann, W.H [176], Mr [177], Bt [178], read μεμέρισται ὁ Χ. as an exclamation: “The Christ (then) has been divided!” torn in pieces by your strife. But μερίζω (here in pf. of resultful fact) denotes distribution, not dismemberment (see parls.): the Christian who asserts “I am Christ's” in distinction from others, claims an exclusive part in Him, whereas the one and whole Christ belongs to every limb of His manifold body (see 1 Corinthians 12:12; also 1 Corinthians 11:3; Romans 10:12; Romans 14:7-9; Ephesians 4:3 ff., Colossians 2:19). A divided Church means a Christ parcelled out, appropriated κατὰ μέρος. ὁ Χριστὸς is the Christ, in the fulness of all that His title signifies (see 1 Corinthians 12:12, etc.). While μεμέρισται ὁ Χ.; is Paul's abrupt and indignant question to himself, μὴ Παῦλος ἐσταυρώθη; (aor [179] of historical event) interrogates the readers “Is it Paul that was crucified for you?” From the cross the Ap. draws his first reproof, the point of which 1 Corinthians 6:20 makes clear, “You were bought at a price”: the Cor [180] therefore were not Paul's or Kephas', nor some of them Christ's and some of them Paul's men, but only Christ's and all Christ's alike.

[176] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

[177] Meyer's Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[178] J. A. Beet's St. Paul's Epp. to the Corinthians (1882).

[179] aorist tense.

[180] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

The cross was the ground of κοινωνία Χριστοῦ (1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 Corinthians 10:16); baptism, signalising personal union with Him by faith, its attestation (Romans 6:3); to this P. appeals asking, ἢ εἰς τὸ ὄνομα Παύλου ἐβαπτίσθητε; His converts will remember how Christ's name was then sealed upon them, and Paul's ignored. What was true of his practice, he tacitly assumes for the other chiefs. The readers had been baptised as Christians, not Pauline, Apollonian, or Petrine Christians. Paul's horror at the thought of baptising in his name shows how truly Christ's was to him “the name above every name' (Philippians 2:9; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:5).