1 Corinthians 4:15

Reason for this lighter reproof, where stern censure was due “For if you should have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet (you have) not many fathers! ” The relation of the ἐποικοδομοῦντες to the θεμέλιον τιθείς (1 Corinthians 3:10) is exchanged for that of the παιδαγωγοὶ to the πατήρ. The παιδαγωγός (boy-leader) was not the schoolmaster, but the home-tutor a kind of nursery-governor who had charge of the child from tender years, looking after his food and dress, speech and manners, and when he was old enough taking him to and from school (see Lt [762] on Galatians 3:24). This epithet has a touch of disparagement for the readers (cf. Galatians 3:25); as Or [763] says (Catena), referring to 1 Corinthians 3:1 f., οὐδεὶς ἀνὴρ παιδαγωγεῖται, ἀλλʼ εἴ τις νήπιος καὶ ἀτελής. μυρίους (1 Corinthians 14:19) indicates the very many probably too many teachers busy in this Church (cf. James 3:1; James 3:18 above), in whose guidance the Cor [764] felt themselves “rich” and Apostolic direction superfluous (1 Corinthians 4:8). ἀλλά (at certe) introduces an apodosis in salient contrast with its protasis: “You may have ever so many nurses, but only one father!” From this relationship “non solum Apollos excluditur, successor; sed etiam comites, Silas et Timotheus” (Bg [765]): ἐγώ (I and no other) ἐγέννησα ὑμᾶς (cf. Philemon 1:10; Galatians 4:19); in the Rabbinical treatise Sanhedrin, f., xix. 2, the like sentiment occurs, “Whoever teaches the son of his friend the law, it is as if he had begotten him”; similarly Philo, de Virtute, p. 1000. διὰ τ. εὐαγγελίου : cf. 1 Peter 1:23; also 1 Corinthians 1:18 above, 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; John 6:63, etc.

[762] J. B. Lightfoot's (posthumous) Notes on Epp. of St. Paul (1895).

[763] Origen.

[764] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[765] Bengel's Gnomon Novi Testamenti.