1 Corinthians 9:25

πᾶς δὲ ὁ ἀγωνιζόμενος κ. τ. λ.: “But every combatant is temperate in everything they, to be sure, that they may win a perishable garland; but we an imperishable.” The stress in the first clause lies on πᾶς, πάντα no competitor can afford to be self-indulgent in anything; in the second on ἐκεῖνοι, ἡμεῖς if they are so abstinent for so poor a prize, what should we be? For ten months before the contest in the Great Games, the athletes were required, under oath, to follow a prescribed diet (ἀναγκοφαγία and regimen (ἄσκησις): Pausanias. 24. 9; Philostratus De Gymn., p. 4; Arrian-Epict., iii., xv., 3, xxiii., 2; Xenoph. Symp. viii., 37; Horace, Ars Poet. 412 ff., “Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam, Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit, Abstinuit venere et vino.” ἐγκρατεύεται (see 1 Corinthians 7:9) implies temperance in a positive degree not mere abstinence, but vigorous control of appetite and passion; πάντα is acc [1387] of specification. The “garland” of the victor in the Isthmian Games was of pine-leaves, at an earlier time of parsley, in the Olympian Games of wild-olive; yet these were the most coveted honours in the whole Greek world. φθαρτὸν and ἄφθαρ τον are again contrasted in 1 Corinthians 15:53.

[1387] accusative case.