1 Corinthians 4:9

“For I think that God hath set forth us apostles, as the last, as appointed to death, for we are made a spectacle unto the world, both to angels and to men.”

Most modern commentators make the irony stop here; they take the verb δοκῶ seriously: “ I deem that our position is full of sufferings.” But the for rather leads us to suppose that the irony continues. There was in the thought of being associated later in the kingship, which the Corinthians already enjoyed, something very strange when it was applied to the apostles, the founders and guides of the Church; for was it not they who seemed entitled to enter on possession of kingship before all other Christians? Hence the words, for I think. “Ye outstrip us in the kingdom of God; for I think that God has assigned us the last place, us the apostles!” To justify this ironical supposition, the apostle in what follows draws a picture of the reproaches and sufferings of the apostolic life, contrasting them with the royal airs which certain of the Corinthians assume. Some understand the words τοὺς ἀποστόλους ἐσχάτους in the sense of “the last of the apostles,” as if Paul alone were spoken of; comp. 1 Corinthians 15:9: “I am the least of the apostles,” and Ephesians 3:8: “To me who am the least of all saints.” Paul thus designates himself, it is said, either as the last called to the apostleship, or as formerly a persecutor. But why should Paul put the plural here if he was speaking of himself personally? comp. 1 Corinthians 4:3-4. Besides, to express this idea he must have used one or other of these forms: τοὺς ἐσχάτους ἀποστόλους, or τοὺς ἀποστόλους τοὺς ἐσχάτους, or τοὺς ἐσχάτους τῶν ἀποστόλων. Finally, the idea thus expressed would be opposed to the spirit of the context; for the peculiarity of being last of the apostles would be the very thing to justify God's supposed way of acting towards him, whereas Paul wishes to bring out the absurd character of such a supposition. We must therefore take τοὺς ἀποστόλους, the apostles, as in apposition to ἡμᾶς, us, and ἐσχάτους, the last, as the attribute of ἀπέδειξεν, He hath set forth: “He hath set us forth, us the apostles, as the last.” By the words us the apostles, Paul understands, not only himself, or himself and his fellow-labourers, but himself and the Twelve who still share with him both the labours and the reproaches of the testimony borne to Christ. May there not be in this extension of the thought to the Twelve (as in the analogous passage, 1 Corinthians 15:11), an evidence of the contempt with which those of Christ treated the Twelve no less than Paul? (See pp. 71, 79.)

The word ἀπέδειξεν (Beza: spectandos proposuit) indicates public exposure either to honour or reproach. The following words, as condemned to death, are explanatory of the attribute, the last. Down to the end of the verse the apostle is alluding to the gladiators who were presented as a spectacle in the games of the amphitheatre, and whose blood and last agonies formed the joy of a whole population of spectators. The passage 1 Corinthians 15:32 seems to prove that the figure was once at least a reality in apostolic life.

The term θέατρον, spectacle, is in keeping with this public exhibition. The κόσμος, world, here denotes the whole intelligent universe which plays the part of spectator. It is subdivided (comp. the two καί, both...and...) into men and angels. By the former we need not understand merely unbelievers, persecutors, but all mankind, hostile or in sympathy. And by angels should not be understood, with some, only bad angels, with others, only the good. The bad are not excluded, that of course; the good are naturally embraced in the term, as appears to follow from Ephesians 3:10.

Instead of the past ἐγενήθημεν, we were, or we became, it seems as if the present ἔσμεν, we are, were required. But the aorist serves to designate this mode of existence as the lot which was assigned them once for all. “It seems truly that it was God who arranged things thus: the Church on the throne, and the apostles under the sword!”