And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
And I - i:e., as the natural (animal) man cannot receive, so I also could not (was not able-namely, at my second visit-to) speak unto you deep things of God, since spiritual things can be made intelligible only to the spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:13); but I was compelled to speak to you as I would to MEN OF FLESH. 'Aleph (') A B C Delta G f g, Vulgate, read this for "carnal." Fleshy х sarkinois (G4560)] implies men wholly of flesh. Carnal, or fleshly, implies not that they were wholly unregenerate (1 Corinthians 2:14), but that they had a carnal tendency [1 Corinthians 3:3, sarkikoi (G4559)] (for instance, their divisions), notwithstanding their conversion (1 Corinthians 1:4-9).
Babes - neophytes; contrasted with the perfect (fully matured) in Christ (Colossians 1:28: cf. Hebrews 5:13-14). They had life in Christ, but it was weak. He blames them for being still in a degree (not altogether; therefore he says "as") babes in Christ, when by this time they ought to have "come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). In Romans 7:14, also the oldest manuscripts, read, 'I am a man of flesh,' which goes toward proving that Paul there describes his regenerate but imperfect state.