1 Corinthians 15:46

might have been expressly aimed at the Philonian exegesis; it affirms a development from lower to higher, from the dispensation of ψυχὴ to that of πνεῦμα, the precise opp [2553] of that extracted from Genesis 1:2 by Philo. (ἀλλʼ οὐ) “Nay, but not first is the spiritual, but the psychic after that (ἔπειτα : cf. 23) the spiritual”. P. states a general law (σῶμα is not to be understood with the adjs.): the ψυχικὸν as such demands the πνευματικὸν to follow it (1 Corinthians 15:44); they succeed in this order, not the reverse. “The Ap. does not share the notion, long regarded as orthodox, that humanity was created in a state of moral and physical perfection.… Independently of the Fall, there must have been progress from an inferior state, the psychic, which he posits as man's point of departure, to a superior state, the spiritual, foreseen and determined as man's goal from the first” (Gd [2554] ad loc [2555] : see the whole passage).

[2553] opposite, opposition.

[2554] F. Godet's Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[2555] ad locum, on this passage.