1 Corinthians 1:11,12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For it hath been declared Not out of ill-will, but to procure a remedy of the evil; unto me Whom it concerns to know such things, that I may redress them; of you, my brethren Brethren, says Locke, is a name of union and friendship, and is twice used by the apostle in this exhortation to these virtues. By them of the house of Chloe According to Grotius, these were Stephanas, Fortunatus, Achaicus, mentioned 1 Corinthians 16:17; who, he thinks, were Chloe's sons, and the bearers of the letter which the Corinthians sent to the apostle, 1 Corinthians 7:1. That there are contentions among you A word equivalent with schisms, in the preceding verse: now this I say That is, what I mean is this; that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, &c. There are various parties among you, who set themselves one against another, in behalf of the several teachers they admire. And I of Cephas This seems to have been the boast of the Judaizing teachers: for as they came recommended by letters from Judea, they might be particularly attached to Peter, perhaps having been converted under his ministry: and I of Christ Such spoke well, if they did not, on this pretence, despise their teachers. It seems there were now in the church at Corinth some Jewish Christians, who, having heard Christ preach, had been converted by him, and who claimed greater respect on that account. Chrysostom thought this was said by Paul himself, to show the Corinthians that all ought to consider themselves as the disciples of Christ, and of no other master; otherwise they derogated from the honour due to Christ. The Greeks, it must be observed, “valued themselves greatly on account of the fame of their masters in philosophy and the arts. This humour the Corinthians brought with them into the church. For some, especially the heads of the faction, claimed an authority over others on account of the dignity of the persons who had converted them, and to whom they had attached themselves, as their masters in the gospel. But others, who reckoned themselves equally honourable on account of the reputation of their teachers, opposed their pretensions. Hence arose those envyings, strifes, and divisions, which prevailed in the Corinthian church, and which the apostle termed, a walking after the manner of men, 1 Corinthians 3:3.” Macknight.