Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Now this I mean (legw de touto). Explanatory use of legw. Each has his party leader. Apollw is genitive of Apollwv (Acts 18:24), probably abbreviation of Apollwniuv as seen in Codex Bezae for Acts 18:24. See on Acts for discussion of this "eloquent Alexandrian" (Ellicott), whose philosophical and oratorical preaching was in contrast "with the studied plainness" of Paul (I Corinthians 2:1; II Corinthians 10:10). People naturally have different tastes about styles of preaching and that is well, but Apollos refused to be a party to this strife and soon returned to Ephesus and refused to go back to Corinth (I Corinthians 16:12). Chfa is the genitive of Chfav, the Aramaic name given Simon by Jesus (John 1:42), Petrov in Greek. Except in Galatians 2:7-8 Paul calls him Cephas. He had already taken his stand with Paul in the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15:7-11; Galatians 2:7-10). Paul had to rebuke him at Antioch for his timidity because of the Judaizers (Galatians 2:11-14), but, in spite of Baur's theory, there is no evidence of a schism in doctrine between Paul and Peter. If II Peter 3:15 f. be accepted as genuine, as I do, there is proof of cordial relations between them and I Corinthians 9:5 points in the same direction. But there is no evidence that Peter himself visited Corinth. Judaizers came and pitted Peter against Paul to the Corinthian Church on the basis of Paul's rebuke of Peter in Antioch. These Judaizers made bitter personal attacks on Paul in return for their defeat at the Jerusalem Conference. So a third faction was formed by the use of Peter's name as the really orthodox wing of the church, the gospel of the circumcision.
And I of Christ (egw de Xristou). Still a fourth faction in recoil from the partisan use of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, with "a spiritually proud utterance" (Ellicott) that assumes a relation to Christ not true of the others. "Those who used this cry arrogated the common watchword as their peculium" (Findlay). This partisan use of the name of Christ may have been made in the name of unity against the other three factions, but it merely added another party to those existing. In scouting the names of the other leaders they lowered the name and rank of Christ to their level.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing 1 Corinthians 1:12:
Mark 9:41
John 1:42
1 Corinthians 9:5
2 Corinthians 1:14
Titus 3:13
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