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1 Corinthians 9

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1 Οὐκ εἰμὶ ἐλεύθερος; οὐκ εἰμὶ ἀπόστολος; οὐχὶ Ἰησοῦν τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν ἑόρακα; οὐ τὸ ἔργον μου ὑμεῖς ἐστε ἐν κυρίῳ; 2 εἰ ἄλλοις οὐκ εἰμὶ ἀπόστολος, ἀλλά γε ὑμῖν εἰμι: ἡ γὰρ σφραγίς μου τῆς ἀποστολῆς ὑμεῖς ἐστε ἐν κυρίῳ. 3 ἡ ἐμὴ ἀπολογία τοῖς ἐμὲ ἀνακρίνουσίν ἐστιν αὕτη. 4 μὴ οὐκ ἔχομεν ἐξουσίαν φαγεῖν καὶ πεῖν; 5 μὴ οὐκ ἔχομεν ἐξουσίαν ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα περιάγειν, ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ Κηφᾶς; 6 ἢ μόνος ἐγὼ καὶ Βαρναβᾶς οὐκ ἔχομεν ἐξουσίαν μὴ ἐργάζεσθαι; 7 τίς στρατεύεται ἰδίοις ὀψωνίοις ποτέ; τίς φυτεύει ἀμπελῶνα καὶ τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἐσθίει; ἢ τίς ποιμαίνει ποίμνην καὶ ἐκ τοῦ γάλακτος τῆς ποίμνης οὐκ ἐσθίει; 8 μὴ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον ταῦτα λαλῶ, ἢ καὶ ὁ νόμος ταῦτα οὐ λέγει; 9 ἐν γὰρ τῷ Μωϋσέως νόμῳ γέγραπται, οὐ κημώσεις βοῦν ἀλοῶντα. μὴ τῶν βοῶν μέλει τῷ θεῷ; 10 ἢ δι' ἡμᾶς πάντως λέγει; δι' ἡμᾶς γὰρ ἐγράφη, ὅτι ὀφείλει ἐπ' ἐλπίδι ὁ ἀροτριῶν ἀροτριᾶν, καὶ ὁ ἀλοῶν ἐπ' ἐλπίδι τοῦ μετέχειν. 11 Εἰ ἡμεῖς ὑμῖν τὰ πνευματικὰ ἐσπείραμεν, μέγα εἰ ἡμεῖς ὑμῶν τὰ σαρκικὰ θερίσομεν; 12 εἰ ἄλλοι τῆς ὑμῶν ἐξουσίας μετέχουσιν, οὐ μᾶλλον ἡμεῖς; ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐχρησάμεθα τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ ταύτῃ, ἀλλὰ πάντα στέγομεν ἵνα μή τινα ἐγκοπὴν δῶμεν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 13 οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι οἱ τὰ ἱερὰ ἐργαζόμενοι τὰ ἐκ τοῦ ἱεροῦ ἐσθίουσιν, οἱ τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ παρεδρεύοντες τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ συμμερίζονται; 14 οὕτως καὶ ὁ κύριος διέταξεν τοῖς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καταγγέλλουσιν ἐκ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ζῆν. 15 ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ κέχρημαι οὐδενὶ τούτων. οὐκ ἔγραψα δὲ ταῦτα ἵνα οὕτως γένηται ἐν ἐμοί, καλὸν γάρ μοι μᾶλλον ἀποθανεῖν ἤ τὸ καύχημά μου οὐδεὶς κενώσει. 16 ἐὰν γὰρ εὐαγγελίζωμαι, οὐκ ἔστιν μοι καύχημα: ἀνάγκη γάρ μοι ἐπίκειται: οὐαὶ γάρ μοί ἐστιν ἐὰν μὴ εὐαγγελίσωμαι. 17 εἰ γὰρ ἑκὼν τοῦτο πράσσω, μισθὸν ἔχω: εἰ δὲ ἄκων, οἰκονομίαν πεπίστευμαι. 18 τίς οὖν μού ἐστιν ὁ μισθός; ἵνα εὐαγγελιζόμενος ἀδάπανον θήσω τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, εἰς τὸ μὴ καταχρήσασθαι τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ μου ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ. 19 Ἐλεύθερος γὰρ ὢν ἐκ πάντων πᾶσιν ἐμαυτὸν ἐδούλωσα, ἵνα τοὺς πλείονας κερδήσω: 20 καὶ ἐγενόμην τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις ὡς Ἰουδαῖος, ἵνα Ἰουδαίους κερδήσω: τοῖς ὑπὸ νόμον ὡς ὑπὸ νόμον, μὴ ὢν αὐτὸς ὑπὸ νόμον, ἵνα τοὺς ὑπὸ νόμον κερδήσω: 21 τοῖς ἀνόμοις ὡς ἄνομος, μὴ ὢν ἄνομος θεοῦ ἀλλ' ἔννομος Χριστοῦ, ἵνα κερδάνω τοὺς ἀνόμους: 22 ἐγενόμην τοῖς ἀσθενέσιν ἀσθενής, ἵνα τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς κερδήσω: τοῖς πᾶσιν γέγονα πάντα, ἵνα πάντως τινὰς σώσω.

1 Am I not free to do as I will? Am I not an apostle, have I not seen our Lord Jesus Christ? Are not you yourselves my achievement in the Lord?[1] 2 To others I may not be an apostle, but to you at least I am; why, you are the sign-manual of my apostleship in the Lord. 3 This is the answer I make to those who call me in question.[2] 4 Have we not a right to be provided with food and drink; 5 nay, have we not the right to travel about with a woman who is a sister, as the other apostles do, as the Lord’s brethren do, and Cephas?[3] 6 Must I and Barnabas, alone among them, be forbidden to do as much? 7 Why, what soldier ever fought at his own expense? Who would plant a vineyard, and not live on its fruits, or tend a flock, and not live on the milk which the flock yields? 8 This is not a plea of man’s invention; the law declares it. 9 When we read in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn, must we suppose that God is making provision for oxen?[4] 10 Is it not clear that he says it for our sakes? For our sakes it was laid down that the ploughman has a right to plough, and the thrasher to thrash, with the expectation of sharing in the crop. 11 Here are we, who have sown in you a spiritual harvest; is it much to ask, that we should reap from you a temporal harvest in return? 12 If others claim a share of such rights over you, have not we a better claim still? And yet we have never availed ourselves of those rights; we bear every hardship, sooner than hinder the preaching of Christ’s gospel.[5] 13 You know, surely, that those who do the temple’s work live on the temple’s revenues; that those who preside at the altar share the altar’s offerings. 14 And so it is that the Lord has bidden the heralds of the gospel live by preaching the gospel. 15 Yet I have not availed myself of any such right.

I am not writing thus in the hope of being treated otherwise; I would rather die than have this boast taken from me. 16 When I preach the gospel, I take no credit for that; I act under constraint; it would go hard with me indeed if I did not preach the gospel. 17 I can claim a reward for what I do of my own choice; but when I act under constraint, I am only executing a commission. 18 What title have I, then, to a reward? Why, that when I preach the gospel I should preach the gospel free of charge, not making full use of the rights which gospel preaching gives me.[6] 19 Thus nobody has any claim on me, and yet I have made myself everybody’s slave, to win more souls. 20 With the Jews I lived like a Jew, to win the Jews; 21 with those who keep the law, as one who keeps the law (though the law had no claim on me), to win those who kept the law; with those who are free of the law, like one free of the law (not that I disowned all divine law, but it was the law of Christ that bound me), to win those who were free of the law. 22 With the scrupulous, I behaved myself like one who is scrupulous, to win the scrupulous. I have been everything by turns to everybody, to bring everybody salvation.

1 Non sum liber? non sum Apostolus? nonne Christum Jesum Dominum nostrum vidi? nonne opus meum vos estis in Domino? 2 Et si aliis non sum Apostolus, sed tamen vobis sum: nam signaculum apostolatus mei vos estis in Domino. 3 Mea defensio apud eos qui me interrogant, hæc est: 4 Numquid non habemus potestatem manducandi et bibendi? 5 numquid non habemus potestatem mulierem sororem circumducendi sicut et ceteri Apostoli, et fratres Domini, et Cephas? 6 aut ego solus, et Barnabas, non habemus potestatem hoc operandi? 7 Quis militat suis stipendiis umquam? quis plantat vineam, et de fructu ejus non edit? quis pascit gregem, et de lacte gregis non manducat? 8 Numquid secundum hominem hæc dico? an et lex hæc non dicit? 9 Scriptum est enim in lege Moysi: Non alligabis os bovi trituranti. Numquid de bobus cura est Deo? 10 an propter nos utique hoc dicit? Nam propter nos scripta sunt: quoniam debet in spe qui arat, arare: et qui triturat, in spe fructus percipiendi. 11 Si nos vobis spiritualia seminavimus, magnum est si nos carnalia vestra metamus? 12 Si alii potestatis vestræ participes sunt, quare non potius nos? Sed non usi sumus hac potestate: sed omnia sustinemus, ne quod offendiculum demus Evangelio Christi. 13 Nescitis quoniam qui in sacrario operantur quæ de sacrario sunt, edunt: et qui altari deserviunt, cum altari participant? 14 Ita et Dominus ordinavit iis qui Evangelium annuntiant, de Evangelio vivere. 15 Ego autem nullo horum usus sum. Non autem scripsi hæc ut ita fiant in me: bonum est enim mihi magis mori, quam ut gloriam meam quis evacuet. 16 Nam si evangelizavero, non est mihi gloria: necessitas enim mihi incumbit: væ enim mihi est, si non evangelizavero. 17 Si enim volens hoc ago, mercedem habeo: si autem invitus, dispensatio mihi credita est. 18 Quæ est ergo merces mea? ut Evangelium prædicans, sine sumptu ponam Evangelium, ut non abutar potestate mea in Evangelio. 19 Nam cum liber essem ex omnibus, omnium me servum feci, ut plures lucrifacerem. 20 Et factus sum Judæis tamquam Judæus, ut Judæos lucrarer: 21 iis qui sub lege sunt, quasi sub lege essem (cum ipse non essem sub lege) ut eos qui sub lege erant, lucrifacerem: iis qui sine lege erant, tamquam sine lege essem (cum sine lege Dei non essem: sed in lege essem Christi) ut lucrifacerem eos qui sine lege erant. 22 Factus sum infirmis infirmus, ut infirmos lucrifacerem. Omnibus omnia factus sum, ut omnes facerem salvos.

23 πάντα δὲ ποιῶ διὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, ἵνα συγκοινωνὸς αὐτοῦ γένωμαι. 24 οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι οἱ ἐν σταδίῳ τρέχοντες πάντες μὲν τρέχουσιν, εἷς δὲ λαμβάνει τὸ βραβεῖον; οὕτως τρέχετε ἵνα καταλάβητε. 25 πᾶς δὲ ὁ ἀγωνιζόμενος πάντα ἐγκρατεύεται, ἐκεῖνοι μὲν οὖν ἵνα φθαρτὸν στέφανον λάβωσιν, ἡμεῖς δὲ ἄφθαρτον. 26 ἐγὼ τοίνυν οὕτως τρέχω ὡς οὐκ ἀδήλως, οὕτως πυκτεύω ὡς οὐκ ἀέρα δέρων: 27 ἀλλὰ ὑπωπιάζω μου τὸ σῶμα καὶ δουλαγωγῶ, μή

23 All that I do, I do for the sake of the gospel promises, to win myself a share in them.[7] 24 You know well enough that when men run in a race, the race is for all, but the prize for one; run, then, for victory. 25 Every athlete must keep all his appetites under control; and he does it to win a crown that fades, whereas ours is imperishable. 26 So I do not run my course like a man in doubt of his goal; I do not fight my battle like a man who wastes his blows on the air. 27 I buffet my own body, and make it my slave; or I, who have preached to others, may myself be rejected as worthless.[8]

23 Omnia autem facio propter Evangelium: ut particeps ejus efficiar. 24 Nescitis quod ii qui in stadio currunt, omnes quidem currunt, sed unus accipit bravium? Sic currite ut comprehendatis. 25 Omnis autem qui in agone contendit, ab omnibus se abstinet, et illi quidem ut corruptibilem coronam accipiant: nos autem incorruptam. 26 Ego igitur sic curro, non quasi in incertum: sic pugno, non quasi aërem verberans: 27 sed castigo corpus meum, et in servitutem redigo: ne forte cum aliis prædicaverim, ipse reprobus efficiar.

[1] ‘Am I not free to do as I will?’ St Paul here alludes to the principle laid down in 6.12 and 10.23. He is free to take stipends if he will, but he abstains for fear of giving scandal; the Corinthians, too, must be careful not to give scandal.

[2] ‘This’ probably refers, not to what follows, but to what has gone before; when St Paul’s apostleship is challenged, he points to the Corinthian church as the proof of it.

[3] ‘Woman’ may also be translated ‘wife’; and that may be the sense intended. We know that St Peter was married, and his wife, if she was still alive, may have travelled with him on his missionary journeys. But it is not impossible that he, or other apostles, may have been cared for by pious women, as our Lord himself was (Lk. 8.3). ‘Sister’ does not imply any relationship, physical or spiritual; it only means that the woman was a Christian. St Paul is not claiming credit here for avoiding the society of women; he only claims credit for living at his own expense, when other apostles supported not only themselves, but the women who waited on their needs, out of offerings made by the faithful. ‘The Lord’s brethren’; see p. 13, note 2.

[4] Deut. 18.1.

[5] This verse explains the connexion of the present passage with what has gone before. St Paul cites his own thoughtfulness in the matter of accepting stipends, by way of encouraging the Corinthians to shew a similar thoughtfulness in sparing the consciences of the weaker brethren. We ought to forgo some of our rights, he says, so as not to hinder the preaching of Christ’s gospel.

[6] vv. 17, 18: ‘I can claim a reward’, literally, ‘I have a reward’; ‘what title have I to a reward’, literally, ‘what reward have I?’ The word ‘reward’ is thus used in the sense of something which entitles one to a reward in Mt. 5.46 and 6.1; no other meaning appears to suit the context here. St Paul takes no credit to himself for preaching, since he is only fulfilling an express command (Lk. 17.10); he does, however, take credit to himself for preaching Christ free of charge, since he does this ‘of his own choice’.

[7] vv. 23 and following: Here St Paul alters the bearing of his argument. So far, he has been urging the Corinthians to abstain from the contact of idolatry for fear of giving scandal. Now he begins urging them to abstain from it for fear of a relapse into heathen ways. He prefaces this part of the argument by telling them that he himself does not regard his own salvation as assured; it calls for watchfulness.

[8] ‘Rejected’, probably in the sense of being a competitor disqualified in a race; the word ‘preached’ might also be rendered ‘been a herald’, with the same reference.

Knox Translation Copyright © 2013 Westminster Diocese
Nihil Obstat. Father Anton Cowan, Censor.
Imprimatur. +Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. 8th January 2012.
Re-typeset and published in 2012 by Baronius Press Ltd