1 Cor 1:10. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren.” Up to this point he has praised the Corinthians, but now he passes, by a gentler step, to their rebuke. Yet, lest he give offense, he begins again with an entreaty. From the Greek it could also be translated “I exhort you,” as some interpreters have rendered it; but “I beseech” fits this place better, as Erasmus also translated it. For what follows belongs properly to an earnest entreaty: “Through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He beseeches—indeed, he solemnly adjures—by the name of the Savior, by that name as sacred and venerable above all. For what some suppose, namely that nothing else is meant here than if he had said “through our Lord Jesus Christ,” without regard to the name itself, is not very probable. In adjurations, names themselves carry weight, as when a Jew adjures someone by the name of God, τὸ τετραγράμματον (the Tetragrammaton).
“That you all say the same thing.” “The same thing” in Greek is τὸ αὐτό (the same), which the interpreter frequently renders idipsum. The sense is: that you may be in agreement among yourselves, that you may think the same. The former is to be understood from the latter, for harmony of speech follows agreement of minds.
“And that there be no schisms among you.” Σχίσματα (schísmata), that is, divisions, dissensions, rifts, factions. The interpreter retained the Greek word as one already received among the Latins. Yet Paul does not here mean those schisms by which one departs from the unity of the Catholic Church—those who do so are properly called schismatics—but rather certain quasi-sects within the Church, as when some favor one teacher or patron, others another, and glory in their names, as he himself shortly explains.
“But that you be made perfect.” Understand perfection as that of a whole and sound body, made up of all its members well fitted together among themselves. For this is what the Greek participle κατηρτισμένοι (katērtismenoi, “well joined together, restored, fitted”) signifies; some translate it compact. Cyprian reads compositi (“well composed”) in De unitate Ecclesiae and in book 3 of the Testimonia, chapter 86. Erasmus translated it an integral body. The Apostle repeats the same word at the end of 2 Corinthians, where again our interpreter renders it “be perfect.”
“In the same mind and in the same judgment.” Mind in Greek is νοῦς (nous, mind). Moreover, in many Latin manuscripts scientia (“knowledge”) is read instead of sententia (“judgment”), but sententia is found in the better corrected texts, supported by the Roman edition. So also in Cyprian, in both places already mentioned, and in a certain letter of Charlemagne written to the bishops of Spain, which you may find in Baronius’ Annals under the year of the Lord 794. For the Greek is not γνώσει (gnōsei, knowledge), as in verse 5 above, except in a few manuscripts of little authority, but γνώμῃ (gnōmē, judgment, resolve). Finally, there are Latin codices in which it is read “in the same mind and the same judgment.”
The sense of the Apostle is this: that you may be perfect, like a sound and well-composed body, endowed with the same mind and the same will. For although some confuse mind and judgment, they seem to be distinguished thus: mind is concerned with understanding, judgment determines what is to be done. Hence γνώμη is also used for counsel later in chapter 7. Friendship, moreover, is perfected in this: to will and not to will the same things.
1 Cor 1:11 “For it has been made clear to me about you, my brethren, by those who belong to Chloe.” Here he explains the cause of the general exhortation he has set before them. Some wish Chloe to be the name of a place, as of a town or village; others, more correctly, interpret it as the name of a woman, as it appears in Horace’s Odes. For I nowhere read of a place called by this name. Add that the Greek expression ὑπὸ τῶν Χλόης (“by those of Chloe”) does not admit a local interpretation; for it would have had to be ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν Χλόῃ (“by those in Chloe”), as Erasmus rightly observed. This expression is nearly like that in Romans 16, “those who belong to Aristobulus,” “those who belong to Narcissus,” that is, from the household or family. Thus here he wishes us to understand the household members or associates of Chloe, a Christian woman well known among the Corinthians. He mentions the name to show that he learned these things not from uncertain rumor but from definite and trustworthy persons, and at the same time he hints that this was a matter about which he ought rather to have been warned or consulted by the presbyters of Corinth themselves, just as he had been consulted by them concerning matters of marriage later in chapter 7. For the matter was of no small importance, namely, that which concerned schisms.
“For there are contentions among you.” Contentions are verbal disputes and contests, in which each wishes to prevail. What these contentions were, and about what matters, he declares in what follows.
“Now this I say, that each one of you says …” In Greek: λέγω δὲ τοῦτο ὅτι (“Now I say this, that …”). Ὅτι is taken determinatively, as the interpreter usually renders it with the causal quia (“that” or “because”), not relatively, as if the sense were, “What you say, that I say and repeat,” by imitation; for in Greek it is not ὅ but ὅτι, which Paul does not customarily use as a relative. It depends on the verb “it has been made clear to me,” just as the preceding ὅτι does (“that there are contentions,” etc.). The sense will be clear if you express it thus: It has been made clear to me that there are contentions among you, that is to say, to speak plainly, that each of you says …
When he says each one of you, understand not that all say the same thing, but that one says one thing, another another—namely, those things which follow.
1 Cor 1:12 “I indeed am of Paul; but I of Apollos; and I of Cephas.” The speech must be supplied thus, or in a similar way: I am a disciple of Paul, a follower of him as the better teacher, and so of the others. That by Cephas Peter is meant is beyond doubt, he to whom it is said in John 1:42, “You shall be called Cephas,” that is, Peter, as the evangelist interprets it. And it is likely that those who said “I am of Cephas” were Jews, namely, those devoted to Peter as the Apostle of the circumcision. For this reason he does not say Petri but uses the Hebrew-Syriac name Cephas.
Apollos in Greek is Ἀπολλώς (Apollōs), whose genitive is of the third declension, in the Attic manner, from the nominative Ἀπολλώς, as is written below in chapter 3 and in Acts 18. This needed to be noted because some inflect this name as if it were the profane name of the pagan god Apollo (Apollo, Apollinis), whereas among the Greeks both the name and the declension are different.
As for the origin of the contention here mentioned, some assign it to this cause: that since Apollos was an eloquent man, as is said in the passage of Acts just mentioned, while Paul was unskilled in speech, as he himself confesses in 1 Corinthians 2, and since both had preached Christ to the Corinthians—Paul first, Apollos afterward—some of them called themselves disciples of Paul and gloried in him as their teacher, as truly learned and their first Apostle, not being offended by his lack of eloquence, especially those who had believed through his preaching. Others, however, boasted of Apollos as their teacher, extolling the man’s eloquence and thus, by comparison, diminishing Paul. From this it came about that each side contended more sharply with the other, as each zealously preferred his own teacher.
But the Greek commentators, with whom the commentator Ambrose and not a few of the Latins agree, think that the Apostle is adopting assumed persons and, under the honorable names of those who rightly and sincerely preached Christ—such as Paul, Apollos, and Cephas—he is tacitly censuring the Corinthians for having factions among themselves under the leadership of certain men, whose names, out of regard for the Corinthians’ sense of shame, he did not wish to mention: whether philosophers, against whom he argues in this chapter and the following one, or false apostles, against whom he inveighs more fully in the second Epistle, chapters 10, 11, and 12. As though the Apostle were saying this: if it is blameworthy, through contentiousness, to say that one belongs to Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, how much more worthy of blame is it for some to boast of themselves under the names of philosophers or false apostles.
They support this interpretation from the fact that the Apostle says later in chapter 4: “These things, brothers, I have transferred to myself and Apollos for your sake, so that in us you may learn …” Nor would there be any falsehood in the words of Paul if he were to say one thing in place of another. For, as Hugh of St. Victor replies, the sense could be this: What I say is similar to that which each of you says; what exists among you is such as if one were to say, “I am of Paul,” another, “I am of Apollos,” and so on.
Yet perhaps both interpretations must be joined together, if we are fully to grasp the Apostle’s meaning. For from what he writes in chapter 3 it is quite clear that the Corinthians actually did glory contentiously under the names of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas. Indeed, this is sufficiently evident from what he adds in this same passage, when he denies that he baptized anyone, lest anyone should say that he had been baptized in the name of Paul. In trying to resolve this argument, Cajetan and others seem to me to labor in vain.
But why does Paul also mention Cephas, that is, Peter, since he is not read to have preached the Gospel at Corinth? This can be asked. Cardinal Baronius thinks (in the Annals, under the year of the Lord 57) that those who said they were “of Cephas,” just as those who said they were “of Christ,” did not say this out of a spirit of contention, but rather in order to avoid that contention and schism in the Church, by referring the matter back to its principle—saying that they were disciples of Peter, as of the supreme pastor and head of the whole Church after Christ. In this way, those who said they were “of Christ” were recalling the parties to the head and primary shepherd of the Church.
But this opinion is refuted by the words of the Apostle, by which he clearly shows that those who said they were “of Cephas” were just as blameworthy as those who gloried in the names of Paul or Apollos. First, because he distinguishes those who say “I am of Cephas” from those who say “I am of Christ,” as if they were divided among themselves; for according to the aforesaid opinion they ought not to have been distinguished, since those who said they were “of Cephas” and those who said they were “of Christ” would have been of one mind and judgment. Secondly, because he adds: “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”—which could equally well have been said of Peter. Finally, because toward the end of chapter 3, where he concludes his exhortation intended to heal the aforesaid contention, he again explicitly includes Cephas among those men in whom one must not glory: “Let no one boast in men; for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas.”
Indeed, this third clause, “but I am of Cephas,” just like the first and second, is referred by the Apostle to blame, according to the judgment of all the commentators, and also of Augustine. In his book On the One Baptism, chapter 5, Augustine writes these words: “In the times of the Apostles, those who said, ‘I indeed am of Paul, but I of Apollos, but I of Cephas,’ although not under the names of the impious but of saints, nevertheless were making impious schisms.” Likewise, in Sermon 13 on the words of the Lord, he says: “Men wishing to be built upon men said, ‘I indeed am of Paul, but I of Apollos, but I of Cephas’—that is, Peter. And others, who did not wish to be built upon Peter but upon the rock, said, ‘But I am of Christ,’” and so forth.
It must therefore be said that certain of the Corinthians boasted under the name of Peter, either because they had been baptized by him, or rather because they had received the faith of Christ while he was preaching—not indeed at Corinth, but elsewhere—especially those who were from the circumcision, because they revered Peter as their own particular Apostle, as I said before. Yet it is also credible that whether Jews or others, they gloried more readily in Peter’s name because they knew how great his dignity and eminence were above the other Apostles.
Nor should it be thought that because Paul mentioned Cephas, that is, Peter, not first but third, he was ignorant of the prerogative of Peter’s primacy—just as neither did he diminish the dignity of Christ, whom he placed last. For he ascends by degrees to the greater, placing himself first in a matter deserving reproach, that is, in reality assigning himself the lowest place, Christ the highest, and Peter next to him. This has been carefully noted by the Greek commentators. Thus this order of enumeration in fact serves more to establish Peter’s primacy than to weaken it. That Apollos, according to this order, placed himself before Peter was due to his modesty.
But now, going further with regard to this passage of the Apostle, someone may ask whether those are to be rebuked in the same way today who say, “I am of Thomas Aquinas,” or “I am of John Duns Scotus,” or those who say, “I am of Francis,” or “I am of Dominic,” or “I am of Benedict.” For voices of this kind are entirely similar to those, “I am of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas,” and are contended by some to be condemned with the same censure—not only by our adversaries, the heretics, but even by Erasmus and Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, who so maintain.
To these I reply as follows: such persons are not to be rebuked, provided they mean only this—that they follow this or that outstanding scholastic doctor as a teacher, guide, and instructor in sacred doctrine, with respect to method, positions, and certain principles that may probably be disputed; not, however, in such a way that they submit themselves to his opinions in all things, cling to them obstinately, believe that he has erred nowhere, or contend pugnaciously for his views as if sworn to the words of a master. Rather, having recognized the truth, they readily yield to it, indeed even to the greater probability, with every spirit of partisanship and appearance of faction set aside. Otherwise, certainly, such persons would not escape just rebuke, just as the Corinthians in this passage did not.
Those latter, too, ought not to be reproved, so long as by such expressions nothing else is signified than that each professes to follow the devout rule of life of his own patriarch and to adopt his manner of living; and so long as, within this diversity of institutes and, as it were, families, Christians nevertheless cultivate charity, and keep in mind that all must come together into one religion and one family of Christ and tend toward the same goal. Nor should they, with childish contention, strive to prefer one patron to another, or one institute to another, or arrogate to themselves something above others on the basis of the excellence of a patron or the perfection of an institute. For in such matters it is not professions that are to be condemned, but offenses and vices; and one must abstain from every appearance of evil.
“But I am of Christ.” Cajetan thinks that even those who say this are reproved by Paul, on the ground that they make Christ the head of one faction. But the settled opinion of other interpreters, both Greek and Latin, is that Paul adds this as something rightly and Christianly said, and that he grieves that not all say the same. For this was a voice of unity, not of schism, since Christ is the head of all. And this sense is confirmed by what is written in chapter 3, especially that final statement: “You are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
It is true, however, as the Greeks point out, that Christ seems to be placed as one among the parties by those who say “I am of Christ,” but this happens through the fault of the others, when they say “I am of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas.”
Now next, by proposing three questions in the form of interrogations, he overthrows the schisms of the Corinthians.
1 Cor 1:13 “Is Christ divided?” This must not be read as a statement, as Theodoret reports that some have done, and as Oecumenius explains it, but as a question. Indeed, some Greek manuscripts even have the interrogative particle μὴ (mē, “surely not?”) prefixed. The sense is: Is the body of Christ cut up into parts?—as if he were saying, as he often does, Far be it! For not even Christ’s own mortal and passible body, when it suffered, underwent any severing or breaking of a member, so that what was written might be fulfilled: “You shall not break a bone of it” (Exod 12; John 19). Therefore, neither in his mystical body, which is the Church, ought you to make divisions and sects; for that too would be to divide Christ the indivisible.
“Was Paul crucified for you?” As if he were saying: Did Paul redeem you by his own passion? By no means; for this belongs to Christ alone, who alone is our Redeemer. Hence neither Peter—although he later suffered the punishment of the cross—can be said to have been crucified for us in the sense intended here by the Apostle, even though his passion, like that of Paul and of the other martyrs, may avail us not only as an example but also for some remission of the temporal punishment due for sins, whether this be through the mere communion of charity or through the power given to the Church by Christ. Yet such remission of punishments, although it rests entirely on the merit of Christ crucified, is not that absolute redemption of mankind of which Augustine speaks in Tractate 84 on John: “Although,” he says, “brothers may die for brothers, yet no martyr’s blood is shed for the remission of the sins of brothers; that is what Christ did for us.” The same is attested by Pope Leo in more than one place, as in letters 83 and 87, and again in Sermon 12 on the Passion of the Lord. A fuller treatment of this matter is found in the fourth book of the Sentences, distinction 20.
The sense of Paul’s argument may be explained thus: since it is clear that neither Paul nor Apollos nor Cephas was crucified for you, but Christ alone, nevertheless your expressions—“I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Cephas,” alongside others saying “I am of Christ”—sound as if not Christ alone had died for you, but as if Paul had died for some, Apollos for others, Christ for others.
Moreover, Paul names himself, says Theophylact, lest he seem to have mentioned the names of others out of envy.
“Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” In the name in Greek is εἰς τὸ ὄνομα (eis to onoma, “into the name”), just as it is read at the end of Matthew, where the form of Baptism is indicated. Nevertheless, interpreters almost everywhere translate it “in the name,” both in this passage and in Matthew, as well as elsewhere. For sometimes it is also read ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι (epi tō onomati, “in the name”), even where Baptism is in question, as in Acts 2.
Some explain the sense of this clause thus: Or were you baptized by the power and merit of Paul, that is, did you obtain the remission of sins in Baptism as if from him?—as if he were saying, By no means, for this too is proper to Christ alone. Hence so often in the Acts of the Apostles we read that people were baptized in the name of Christ (Acts 2; 8; 10; 19). By this expression, however, it is not the formula of words used in baptizing that is signified, as some have thought, but rather the authority, power, and merit of him in whose name they are said to be baptized.
Others explain it thus: Or were you enrolled through Baptism into my name, so as to be called Paulinians, as if you had received the Baptism of Paul? For what else do those mean who say, “I am of Paul”? This sense is found in the Greek commentaries and is more in harmony with the Greek text and with what follows.
But what some Latins, among them Cajetan, explain—namely, that “in the name of Paul” means that the name of Paul was expressly uttered and invoked during Baptism, as if the baptizer had said, “I baptize you in the name of Paul”—is easily refuted by the following clause: “lest anyone should say that you were baptized in my name,” where “in my name” cannot be explained in that way. This Cajetan himself also noticed, and so he is forced there to interpret the same phrase differently than he does here, whereas otherwise there would have been no need.
1 Cor 1:14. "I give thanks to God.” Some manuscripts add “my” (meo), which the Syriac edition supports, but it is not found in the Greek manuscripts, nor in the more reliable Latin ones.
“That I baptized none of you.” He treats of this not because it was evil to baptize, but because it could be—and in fact likely was—an occasion of evil. And indeed he gives thanks to God, by whose providence it came about that this fact, namely that Paul did not baptize the Corinthians, turned to their good, that is, to the avoidance of the sin by which they would boast that they had been baptized into Paul’s name, or would say, as if inscribed into his name through Baptism, “I am of Paul.”
“Except Crispus and Gaius.” Crispus had been the ruler of the synagogue of the Jews at Corinth; Luke writes in Acts 18 that, while Paul was preaching, he believed in the Lord together with his whole household. Some identify Crispus with Sosthenes, whom Paul names at the beginning of the Epistle, because Luke also reports that Sosthenes was a ruler of the synagogue at Corinth (Acts 18), as if they were one and the same person. But it is more likely that they were different persons, as Lorinus thinks, along with many others who have written on the Acts of the Apostles. For there was no reason why, within so short a space, both Luke in the passage mentioned and Paul in this chapter should refer to the same man by different names. The martyrologies also assign them different feast days.
But you will ask: how could both be rulers of the synagogue in the same city? I reply with Lorinus: either Sosthenes succeeded Crispus, or there were several synagogues in the same city—for it is clear from Acts 6 that there were many in Jerusalem, and from what Carolus Sigonius reports in book 2 of De republica Hebraeorum, chapter 8—or else Crispus had held the office of synagogue ruler at some earlier time. Of these possibilities, the first is especially pleasing: that Crispus, because he had become a Christian, was removed from office, and Sosthenes was given as his successor, who himself not long afterward followed the example of Crispus.
Moreover, Gaius was Paul’s host, as he himself testifies at the end of the Epistle to the Romans. On him see more in volume II, page 729, in the commentary on that passage. It is therefore not without reason that Paul himself baptized these two with his own hands.
There follows the reason for the thanksgiving.
1 Cor 1:15. "Lest anyone should say that you were baptized in my name.” In Greek: ὅτι εἰς τὸ ἐμὸν ὄνομα ἐβάπτισα (eis to emon onoma ebaptisa, “that I baptized into my name”). Augustine also reads “that I baptized” (baptizavi) in book 3 Against Cresconius, chapter 11. Tertullian likewise reads thus in De pudicitia, chapter 14: “lest anyone should say that I baptized into my name.” Although in some Greek manuscripts one finds ἐβαπτίσθητε (ebaptisthēte, “you were baptized”) and in others ἐβαπτίσθη (ebaptisthē, “he was baptized”), these variants do not change the sense.
There is a twofold sense of this passage. Many indeed explain it thus: lest anyone should ascribe your sanctification in Baptism to my power and merit, as though the effect of Baptism depended on the merit of the one baptizing. In this way the Latins, following Augustine, argue against the Donatists, who taught that the effect of Baptism depends on the holiness of the minister.
But another explanation, more in harmony with the Greek wording, is this: lest anyone should slander me and say that by baptizing you I enrolled you into my own name and wished you to be called Paulinians, as though sanctified by my baptism.
1 Cor 1:16. "And I baptized also the household of Stephanas.” Stephanas is masculine, from the nominative Stephanas, as is clear from the Greek declension. Household means the family. Since under the name of household children and infants are also included, Catholic writers draw a very probable argument from this passage—together with Acts 16, where the jailer is said to have been baptized with his whole household—that infants too were baptized, and therefore rightly baptized according to the custom of the Catholic Church, so that they may be incorporated into Christ, since it certainly cannot be denied that they are capable of the salvation that is in Christ.
As to who Stephanas was, it is not known except that Theophylact writes that he was a great and notable man among the Corinthians. This is sufficiently evident from the last chapter of this Epistle, where Stephanas is mentioned once and again with honor, and where it is said of his household that they are the firstfruits of Achaia.
“Moreover, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.” That is, besides this, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. Understand this either absolutely, or from among you, that is, among the Corinthians; for he seems to be speaking properly of those to whom he is writing. It is not likely that Paul baptized no one at all throughout the whole world except the few Corinthians whom he here names. Indeed, I would believe that the jailer mentioned above was baptized by Paul, since, apart from Paul himself and Silas—who baptized his whole household—no one else was present.
Someone may ask: if Paul baptized almost none of the Corinthians, and from this it followed that no one could say that he had been baptized in the name of Paul, how then had he already said that some were saying, “I am of Paul”? They said this not because they had been baptized by Paul, but because they had been taught the faith and the Gospel by him. In the same way others said, “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas.” For neither did Peter baptize by himself, as we shall soon show. Thus they gloried in the teachers of the faith, but they would have gloried even more if they had also been baptized by them.
1 Cor 1:17. "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel.” This is an anticipation, as if someone were to say to Paul: How can you rejoice that you did not baptize, when that is part of your office? He replies that he was not sent to baptize but to evangelize. But you will ask: if Christ did not send the Apostle Paul to baptize, by what authority then did he baptize? For he himself here admits that he baptized some, which certainly no one may do unless he has been sent for that purpose.
I reply: when Christ, by revelation, made Paul an Apostle, he did not impose on him the ministry of baptizing as such, but of preaching the Gospel—that is, he entrusted him with the apostolate; yet to that office the power of baptizing was joined as a consequent and secondary function. Hence when he says, “Christ did not send me to baptize,” understand it thus: he did not send me principally for this; it is not the primary part of my commission. This is a form of expression like that: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”—that is, I desire mercy rather and principally than sacrifice.
Moreover, this passage teaches us that since there are two offices of a bishop or pastor—to preach the word of God and to administer the sacraments—the preaching of the divine word is the greater and more principal, and also the more arduous and necessary, office, in which therefore he ought to be more diligently engaged. Hence it is also shown by what was said to the Apostles: “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them” (Matthew 28), where two offices of the pastors of the Church are indeed signified—teaching and administering the sacraments—but the former is the more principal and also the more laborious. For, as Augustine says in book 3 Against Petilian, chapter 56: “To baptize perfectly even the unlearned can do; but to evangelize perfectly is a work of greater difficulty and rarity.”
What was commanded to the apostles by Christ must also be understood to have been entrusted to Paul, at least implicitly, since he was in no way inferior to the other apostles (cf. 2 Cor 12). He therefore did both, but he did the one through others, by whom it could easily be done, while he himself was wholly occupied with that which was greater and more difficult. Hence, in Acts 19, those Ephesians who had known only the baptism of John, though more fully instructed by Paul himself, were nevertheless not baptized by him; rather, he himself laid hands upon them, because that could not be done by others. In the same way, Peter in Acts 10 commanded Cornelius and his household—whom he himself had instructed in the faith of Christ—to be baptized, but he did not baptize them personally.
This was done quite deliberately according to the example of Christ the Lord, who himself taught but did not himself baptize; rather, his disciples baptized (John 4). By this example he wished to teach that those who are suited to the ministry of the word should be especially engaged in that task, and that the administration of the sacraments, when circumstances permit, should be entrusted to others through whom it can be carried out, lest they themselves be impeded from the more important part of their office. This applies especially to bishops, who should learn to delegate lesser matters to others so that they themselves may be more free to carry out greater tasks personally.
Although the apostles also refrained from baptizing with their own hands for another reason as well: namely, lest they provide occasions for schisms, with some saying, “I am of Peter,” others, “I am of Paul,” and so forth—since such things were said even when they had not been baptized by them personally.
What Paul says here concerning the ministry of baptism may, I think, be said by any bishop concerning other similar functions. For example: “The Lord did not send me to exorcise, but to evangelize.” For I see no reason why certain great men should so greatly occupy and exhaust themselves in exorcising the demon-possessed, when this can be entrusted to any simple presbyter, especially since this is not even properly the office of presbyters, as baptism is, but rather of those who are lower in order than presbyters and are called exorcists by name. And it is far better to snatch a single soul from the power of the devil by the preaching of the divine word than to free the bodies of many from his external vexation.
“Not in the wisdom of speech.” Here he passes subtly to another head of rebuke, namely those who either affected eloquence and worldly wisdom in preaching the Gospel, or else demanded such qualities from their preachers and teachers. “Of speech” in Greek is λόγος (logos), a word which signifies both “word” and “reason.” St Thomas thinks that in this place it may more suitably be understood as “the wisdom of reason,” that is, of human reasoning, since the things that belong to faith exceed human reason. Others, both Greek and Latin, understand it of “word,” that is, of speech—and this interpretation is more correct.
For Paul regularly uses λόγος (logos) in this sense elsewhere, and especially in the present argument. He had already said that they were made rich “in all speech” and in all knowledge, and here he immediately adds: “For the word of the cross is indeed foolishness to those who are perishing.” Nor is it otherwise in the following chapter. For although in these places we sometimes hear “speech” and sometimes “word” in translation, in Greek it is always the same term, λόγος (logos).
Paul therefore says that he was sent by Christ not to baptize but to preach the Gospel, and not in the wisdom of speech—that is, not in discourse refined and equipped with secular learning. This is what he repeats at the beginning of the next chapter: that he came not in loftiness of speech or of wisdom. He excludes both—the ornament of speech and the display of worldly wisdom. Wishing to express this sense, Erasmus translates it: “not with learned speech.”
“So that the cross of Christ might not be emptied.” “Emptied” in Greek is κενωθῇ (kenōthē), “made void,” “rendered empty.” Cyprian renders it, “that it might become empty” (inanis fiat). The sense is this: lest the cross of Christ be deprived of the praise of its power and efficacy. For if the apostles had been sent to preach with the wisdom of speech, men would have attributed the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith not to the power of the cross—that is, to the divine power which works through the Crucified—but to human eloquence and human wisdom. This was especially the case with the Corinthians, who attributed very great weight to worldly wisdom when it was joined to eloquence.
CONTINUE
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