1 Corinthians 2:15

“But the spiritual man tries (tests) everything” a maxim resembling, perhaps designedly, the Stoic dicta concerning “the wise man”. Paul sees “in the Πνεῦμα, the Divine power creatively working in the man and imparted to him, the κριτήριον for the right estimate of persons and things, Divine and human. The Stoa on its part was intently concerned ‘to know the standard according to which man is judged by man' (Arrian-Epictetus, II., xiii., 16) … it found this criterion in the moral use of Reason.… The Christian believer and the Stoic philosopher both practise an ἀνακρίνειν; both are conscious of standing superior to all judgment from without; but the ground of this superiority, and the inferences drawn from it, are equally opposed in the two cases. The Stoic's judgment on the world leads him, under given conditions, to suicide (‘The door stands open,' Epict.): the Christian's judgment on the world leads to the realisation of the victory of the children of God” (Hn [440]). πάντα (not every one, but neut. pl [441]) is quite general everything; cf., for the scope of this faculty, 1Co 6:2 f., 1 Corinthians 10:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:21 1 John 2:20 f., 1 Corinthians 4:1; Revelation 2:2. Aristotle (Eth. Nic., III., iv.) says of ὁ σπουδαῖος (the man of character), ἕκαστα κρίνει ὀρθῶς, καὶ ἐν ἑκάστοις τἀληθὲς αὐτῷ φαίνεται … ὥσπερ κανὼν καὶ μέτρον αὐτῶν ὤν; Plato, De Rep., iii., 409 [442] (quoted by Ed [443]), ascribes the same universally critical power to ἡ ἀρετή. Paul's πνευματικὸς judges in virtue of a Divine, all-searching Presence within him; Aristotle's σπουδαῖος, in virtue of his personal qualities and attainments. Paul admirably displays in this Ep. the powers of the πνευματικὸς as ὁ ἀνακρίνων πάντα. There are, of course, limits to the exercise of the ἀνακρίνειν, in the position and opportunities of the individual.

[440] C. F. G. Heinrici's Erklärung der Korintherbriefe (1880), or 1 Korinther in Meyer's krit.-exegetisches Kommentar (1896).

[441] plural.

[442] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[443] T. C. Edwards' Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians. 2

αὐτὸς δὲ ὑπʼ οὐδένος ἀνακρίνεται, “while he himself is put on trial by none,” since none other possesses the probe of truth furnished by the Πνεῦμα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ; the πνευματικὸς stands on a height from which he overlooks the world, and is overlooked only by God. The statement is ideal, holding good of “the spiritual man” as, and so far as, he is such. Where a Christian is σάρκινος (1 Corinthians 3:1), his spiritual judgment is vitiated; to that extent he puts himself within the measure of the ψυχικός (cf. 1 John 3:1; 1 John 4:5). If μέν, after ἀνακρίνει, be genuine, it throws into stronger relief the superiority of the man of the Spirit to unspiritual judgment: he holds the touchstone and is the world's trier, not the world his. This exemption P. will claim for himself, on further grounds, in 1 Corinthians 4:3 ff. Ἀνακρίνω, used by P. nine times in this Ep., and in no other, was probably a favourite expression with the over-weening Cor [444] like “criticism” to-day.

[444] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.