By

By in 1 Corinthians 4:4 (King James Version) is used in the archaic sense of “against,” translating the Greek preposition hypo in the reflexive context: “For I know nothing by myself” (KJV), meaning “I am not aware of anything against myself” (ESV, RSV). This usage—“by” in the sense of “against”—was current in sixteenth and seventeenth century English but is now confined to dialectal use. The Revised Version correctly renders it as “against.”

Paul's statement in its context is a careful reflection on self-assessment and divine judgment: his clear conscience does not acquit him, since it is the Lord who judges. The passage (1 Cor. 4:1–5) is a significant text on the limits of introspection and the sufficiency of divine evaluation alone as the final standard. The archaic use of “by” in the KJV illustrates more broadly the way in which shifts in the meaning of common English prepositions over four centuries can obscure rather than illuminate the sense of passages that were transparently clear to seventeenth-century readers.