1 Corinthians 12:15-17

“If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it not, in spite of that, of the body? 16. If the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it not, in spite of that, of the body? 17. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?”

The foot and the ear speak here as less conspicuous and favoured members than the hand and the eye, which represent the most highly valued gifts.

Many take the last proposition of 1 Corinthians 12:15-16 as an affirmation in the form of two negatives which destroy one another: “It does not come about, therefore, that the foot is not of the body.” But it is more natural to regard it, with Erasmus, Calvin, de Wette, etc., as a question in the sense of a reductio ad absurdum. The doubling of the negative οὐ is caused by the παρὰ τοῦτο, in spite of that: “Is it not in spite thereof...is it not of the body?”

The meaning ordinarily given to παρά is because of (see Meyer, Edwards). But I do not think that this meaning occurs elsewhere in the New Testament. Why not understand simply: passing alongside of that, that is to say: in spite of that; comp. Romans 1:26; Romans 11:24. Meyer, Hofmann, and others understand by τοῦτο, that, the erroneous affirmation of the foot and the ear: “What these members say wrongly does not prevent them from being of the body.” But it is more natural to refer it to the fact itself of the inferiority of the foot and the ear. “In spite of this inferiority, are not these members really of the body?” Comp. Holsten.