152 and he does this by personating the Corinthians, that his description
Commentary on the Corinthians denied what with their mouth they professed (Titus 1:16.) Observe, however, the elegant arrangement that Paul here pursues: for from envying spring up contentions, and these, when they have once been enkindled, break out into deadly sects: but the mother of all these evils is ambition.
Walk as men From this it is manifest that the term flesh is not restricted to the lower appetites merely, as the Sophists pretend, the seat of which they call sensuality, but is employed to describe man's whole nature. For those that follow the guidance of nature, are not governed by the Spirit of God. These, according to the Apostle's definition, are carnal, so that the flesh and man's natural disposition are quite synonymous, and hence it is not without good reason that he elsewhere requires that we be new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17.)
4. For while one saith He now specifies the particular kind of contentions, 152 and he does this by personating the Corinthians, that his description may have more force — that each one gloried in his particular master, as though Christ were not the one Master of all (Matthew 23:8.) Now, where such ambition still prevails, the gospel has little or no success. You are not, however, to understand that they declared this openly in express words, but the Apostle reproves those depraved dispositions to which they were given up. At the same time it is likely, that, as a predilection arising from ambition is usually accompanied with an empty talkativeness, 153 they openly discovered by their words the absurd bias of their mind, by extolling their teachers to the skies in magnificent terms, accompanying this at the same time with contempt of Paul and those like him.
1 Corinthians 3:5-9
1 Corinthians 3:5-9 5. Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
5. Quis ergo est Paulus, aut quis Apollos, nisi ministri, per quos credidistis, et sicut unicuique Dominus every dedit?
6. I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 6. Ego plantavi, Apollos rigavit; at Deus incrementum dedit. 7. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
7. Ergo neque qui plantat aliquid est, neque qui rigat; sed Deus qui dat incrementurn.
8. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.
152"Qui estoyent entr'eux;" — "Which were among them." 153"Cette ration de jetter son coeur sur un homme par ambition, est accompagnee d'un sot babil;" — "This way of setting one's heart upon an individual through ambition, is accompanied with a foolish talkativeness."