The interpretation timeline

1Cor 12:19

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

1 Patristic · 2 Reformed

1Cor 12:19 · Douay-Rheims
“And if they all were one member, where would be the body?”
Patristic before A.D. 750
407
A.D.
John Chrysostom Patristic
A.D. 347–407
“"And if they were all one member, where were the body?" "But now are they many members, but one body." Thus having silenced them sufficiently by God's own arrangement, again he states reasons. And he neither doth this always nor that, but alternates and varies his discourse. Since on the one hand, he who merely silences, confounds the hearer, and he, on the contrary, who accustoms him to demand reasons for all things, injures him in the matter of faith; for this cause then Paul is continually practising both the one and the other, that they may both believe and may not be confounded; and after silencing them, he again gives a reason likewise. And mark his earnestness in the combat and the completeness of his victory. For from what things they supposed themselves unequal in honor because in them there was great diversity, even from these things he shows that for this very reason they are equal in honor. How, I will tell you. "If all were one member," saith he, "where were the body?" Now what he means is, If there were not among you great variety, ye could not be a body; and not being a body, ye could not be one; and not being one, ye could not be equal in honor. Whence it follows again that if ye were all equal in honor, ye were not a body; and not being a body, ye were not one; and not being one, how could ye be equal in honor? As it is, however, because ye are not all endowed with some one gift, therefore are ye a body; and being a body, ye are all one, and differ nothing from one another in this that ye are a body. So that this very difference is that which chiefly causeth your equality in honor. And accordingly he adds, "But now they are many members, yet one body."”
Source
1,364 years pass — nothing from this stretch is hosted yet
Post-Reformation c. 1650 – 1900
1771
A.D.
John Gill Reformed
1697–1771
“And if they were all one member,.... As all eye, or all ear, or all hand, or all foot: where were the body? where would be the body? it would not be a body consisting of such proper and suitable members, as now it is: so if the community of the saints were either all ministers, or all hearers, &c. there would be no body, consisting of different persons, to receive any benefit or usefulness from either; the church of Christ would not be that uniform, useful, and consistent community it is.”
Source
1871
A.D.
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.