1 Corinthians 10:19

10:15-22 Did not the joining in the Lord's supper show a profession of faith in Christ crucified, and of adoring gratitude to him for his salvation ? Christians, by this ordinance, and the faith therein professed, were united as the grains of wheat in one loaf of bread, or as the members in the human body, seeing they were all united to Christ, and had fellowship with him and one another. This is confirmed from the Jewish worship and customs in sacrifice. The apostle applies this to feasting with idolaters. Eating food as part of a heathen sacrifice, was worshipping the idol to whom it was made, and having fellowship or communion with it; just as he who eats the Lord's supper, is accounted to partake in the Christian sacrifice, or as they who ate the Jewish sacrifices partook of what was offered on their altar. It was denying Christianity; for communion with Christ, and communion with devils, could never be had at once. If Christians venture into places, and join in sacrifices to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, they will provoke God.

1 Corinthians 10:19-22 . What say I then — Do I , in saying this, allow that an idol is any thing divine? Or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing — Is a sacrifice to a real deity? Or is made either better or worse, or to differ from ordinary meat, by being thus offered to idols? You well know that I intend to maintain nothing of this kind: so far from it, that I aver the things which the Gentiles sacrifice — To supposed deities; they sacrifice to devils — For, though I grant the idol is nothing, yet those spirits that sometimes dwell in the images of these idols, and give answers from them, are something: they are demons, most wicked and unclean spirits, defiling every person and thing that has any relation to them. We may observe here, “The word δαιμωνια , demons, is used in the LXX. to denote the ghosts of men deceased; and Josephus ( Bell., lib. 1 Corinthians 7:6 ) says, demons are the spirits of wicked men. It is therefore probable, that the writers of the New Testament use the word demons in the same sense, especially as it is well known that the greatest part of the heathen gods were dead men.

The heathen worshipped two kinds of demons: the one kind were the souls of kings and heroes, deified after death, but who could have no agency in human affairs; the other kind of demons were those evil spirits who, under the names of Jupiter, Apollo, Trophonius, &c., moving the heathen priests and priestesses to deliver oracles, greatly promoted idolatry.” — Macknight. Such in reality, as if he had said, are the gods of the heathen, and with such only can ye hold communion in those sacrifices. And not to God — The heathen in general had no idea of God; that is, of an unoriginated, eternal, immutable, and infinitely perfect being, the Creator and Governor of all things. And I would not ye should have fellowship with devils — Or with their votaries, either in their worship, their principles, their practices, or their hopes; — ye who have at your baptism solemnly renounced the devil and all his adherents. For certainly it is not a small sin, nor a thing to be made light of, to have fellowship with them. Ye cannot of right — Or in reason, you ought not, it is contrary to your Christian profession so to do; drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils — Ye cannot have communion with both; cannot reasonably make profession of the worship of God, (which you do in the Lord’s supper in the highest instance,) and also of the worship of devils, (as you do in the idol feasts,) these being so contrary one to the other.

19 . What say I then? that the idol is any thing ] St Paul does not mean to say here, any more than in ch. 1 Corinthians 8:4 , that an idol, or the god represented by it, has any real objective existence, or that the sacrifices offered to such idols are the property of any such being as that they are intended to represent. But for all that, it may stand as the representative of that which has a very real existence indeed; he kingdom of evil, and those beings which maintain it.

(19) What say I then? —It might have been argued from the preceding verse that the Apostle admitted the heathen offerings and the idols to which they were offered to be as real as were the offerings and Being to whom the altar was erected by Israel, whereas in 1Corinthians 8:4 he had asserted the contrary.

1 Corinthians 10:19 . Τί , what ) In the Protasis, he has derived his argument from the sacred rites of the Christians and Jews; and now about to give the apodosis, he uses προθεραπεία , precaution in the way of anticipation, and sets down by implication the apodosis itself with pious caution, εὐλαβῶς , in 1 Corinthians 10:20 : he who eats things offered to idols, cultivates communion with demons. An idol[88] is a piece of wood, and nothing else; what is offered to an idol is a piece of flesh, and nothing else; but that cup and that bread, which have been spoken of at 1 Corinthians 10:16 , are not a mere cup and mere bread. [88] By inverting the order, the margin of both editions intimates, that εἰδωλόθυτον is to be placed first, and that εἴδωλον should be second in the order; but the Germ. Ver. follows the reading of the text.—E. B. BC corrected later, D Vulg., d Memph., Theb. Versions, have the order εἰδωλόθυτον — εἴδωλον . A omits ἢ ὅτι εἴδωλόν τι ἔστιν .—ED.

Verse 19. - What say I then? What is it, then, which I am maintaining ( φημι )? That the idol is anything. St. Paul repudiates an inference which he had already denied ( 1 Corinthians 8:4 ). Is anything. Has any intrinsic value, meaning, or importance. In itself, the idol offering is a mere dead, indifferent thing. Of itself, the idol is an eidolon - a shadowy, unreal thing, one of the elilim ; but in another aspect it was "really something," and so alone could the rabbis account for phenomena which seemed to imply the reality of infernal miracles ('Avoda Zarah,' fol. 54, 2; 55, 1; and see note in 'Life of St. Paul,' 2:74). 1 Corinthians 10:19

19, 20. What say I then?—The inference might be drawn from the analogies of the Lord's Supper and Jewish sacrifices, that an idol is really what the heathen thought it to be, a god, and that in eating idol-meats they had fellowship with the god. This verse guards against such an inference: "What would I say then? that a thing sacrificed to an idol is any real thing (in the sense that the heathen regard it), or that an idol is any real thing?" (The oldest manuscripts read the words in this order. Supply "Nay") "But [I say] that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils (demons)." Paul here introduces a new fact. It is true that, as I said, an idol has no reality in the sense that the heathen regard it, but it has a reality in another sense; heathendom being under Satan's dominion as "prince of this world," he and his demons are in fact the powers worshipped by the heathen, whether they are or are not conscious of it (De 32:17; Le 17:7; 2Ch 11:15; Ps 106:37; Re 9:20). "Devil" is in the Greek restricted to Satan; "demons" is the term applied to his subordinate evil spirits. Fear, rather than love, is the motive of heathen worship (compare the English word "panic," from Pan, whose human form with horns and cloven hoofs gave rise to the vulgar representations of Satan which prevail now); just as fear is the spirit of Satan and his demons (Jas 2:19).

I do not by this contradict what I before said, nor now affirm that an idol is any thing, or the sacrifices offered to it any thing. An idol hath nothing in it of a Deity, nor can it either sanctify or pollute any thing that is set before it; the error is in your action, as you communicate with such as are idolaters; it is your own action that polluteth you, not the idol, nor yet the meat set before it.

1 Corinthians 10:19-20 . Paul’s appeal to the meaning of the Lord’s Supper is leading up to a prohibition of attendance at the idol-feasts. Against this veto the men of “knowledge” will argue that idolatry is illusion ( 1 Corinthians 8:4 ff.), its rites having no such ground in reality as belongs to Christian observances; the festival has no religious meaning to them, and does not touch their conscience (contrast 1 Corinthians 8:7 ); if friendship or social feeling invites their presence, why should they not go? Paul admits the non-reality of the idol in itself; but he discerns other terrible presences behind the image—“demons” are virtually worshipped at the idol-feast, and with these the celebrants are brought into contact. “What then do I affirm (the φημὶ of 1 Corinthians 10:15 resumed)? that an idol-sacrifice is anything ( has reality )? or that an idol is anything? (to say this would be to contradict 1 Corinthians 8:4 ). No, but that ( ἀλλʼ ὅτι ) what the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons , and not to God; and I would not that you should be communicants of the demons!” How could the Cor[1529], as “men of sense, judge” of a situation like this? The riot and debauch attending heathen festivals showed that foul spirits of evil presided over them: cf. 1 Corinthians 10:6 ff., referring to the worship of Baal-Peor, with which the allusion here made to Deuteronomy 32:17 ( cf.