1 Cor 2:6 “But we speak wisdom among the perfect.”
Up to this point he has said that he preached Christ to the Corinthians plainly and simply—Christ and Him crucified—without elegance of speech or human wisdom. Nor had he added that he had set forth among his hearers the hidden depths of divine wisdom, something which nevertheless was required after human wisdom had been rejected. He now explains this matter and teaches two things, extending to the end of the chapter: first, that knowledge of the hidden wisdom of God was not lacking to him; second, that he does not put forth this wisdom indiscriminately before just anyone, but only among the perfect and the spiritual. Both points are embraced in this statement, “We speak wisdom among the perfect,” as if he were saying: although we apostles, who preach Christ, do not seek the supports of human wisdom, our preaching is nevertheless not devoid of wisdom. For we do indeed speak and teach true wisdom—namely, as will be shown below, the wisdom of God—among the perfect.
The Greek commentators generally understand wisdom here as the preaching of Christ crucified, and the perfect as believers in general. But more rightly others, along with them, understand the perfect to be those whom he later calls spiritual, whom he sets in opposition to the carnal and the animal, and whom he again calls perfect in Hebrews 5 when he says: “Solid food is for the perfect, for those who by habit (consuetudine) have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.” These words are, as it were, a commentary by Paul himself on the present passage.
From this it is also clear that when we say the Apostle speaks wisdom among the perfect, we are not to understand just any doctrine about God and Christ, but that which contains the more secret and elevated mysteries of our religion—such as those which Paul hands on in the Epistles to the Romans, Ephesians, and Colossians concerning divine election and reprobation, the calling of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews; those to the Thessalonians concerning Antichrist; those to the Hebrews concerning the priesthood of Christ; and those in this very epistle concerning the state and manner of the resurrection of the dead.
For such higher mysteries were either not handed on at all to beginners, or were delivered only briefly and summarily, not being reserved for fuller and deeper exposition except to those who were already established in Christ. To this may also be referred certain tropological meanings of the articles of the Christian faith—such as the Passion, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord—which Peter and Paul weave into their epistles for the exhortation of Christian life.
Here also belongs the mystery of God’s counsel, by which He willed through the disgrace of the Cross and the humility of preaching to confound human wisdom and to destroy the tyranny of the devil. This divine wisdom is what Paul chiefly considers here in what follows. And this is the wisdom which Peter did not yet possess when, as Christ foretold His Passion, he said: “Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen to you.” For which reason he heard from Christ: “You are not savoring (οὐ φρονεῖς) the things that are of God, but the things that are of men” (Matthew 16).
The Apostle calls this wisdom in a special way, because wisdom properly concerns things that are higher and removed from common human knowledge. This is the exposition of the Latin commentators, and especially of Saint Thomas, both in his commentary and in the Summa (II–II, q. 45, a. 1, ad 1), where he proves it from the Apostle’s subsequent words: “We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which has been hidden.”
Moreover, this passage is similar to what the Lord said to His disciples in John 16: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” Explaining this statement, Augustine in Tractates 96, 97, and 68 proposes and examines the question, clarifying it by comparison with other Scriptures: whether spiritual people have something in doctrine which they keep silent from the carnal, and say only to the spiritual.
The substance of his response is this: although the apostles did not immediately hand on all matters pertaining to the doctrine of the Christian religion to those carnal persons to whom they were first preaching the Gospel, nevertheless neither they nor other spiritual men instructed by the apostles possessed anything in doctrine which they would never at a fitting time draw forth and openly proclaim before the multitude—so that they would teach the same truths to the greater and the lesser, that is, to the perfect and the imperfect—but with such care that they proposed them according to the capacity of each. To the little ones, indeed, as milk to drink gladly and easily; but to the more mature, as solid food, by explaining the reasons, order, manner, and other circumstances of the things that are to be believed. This is what it means to speak wisdom among the perfect.
Thus Hugh of Saint Victor also explains this (Quest. 16). And yet even this, in a certain way, is to hand on something different to the perfect—namely, the reasons and certain hidden and profound circumstances of things which the little ones believe simply, but of which they are not yet capable.
For example, it is proposed for all to believe that Christ died to rescue us from the power of the devil. But to the perfect it is explained by what right the whole human race had been subjected to the power of the devil, and again by what right and justice it was freed from it through the death of Christ. This is expounded subtly and distinctly by Saint Leo and other Fathers, yet it is not grasped by beginners, but by the perfect. And the wiser anyone is, the more of these mysteries he knows; and the more perfect he is, the more capable he is of understanding them.
The explanation of these things belongs to the word of wisdom, which is placed first among the charisms that are given for the benefit of others, as will be said below in chapter 12.
“But not the wisdom of this age.”
He explains what wisdom he meant. Not, he says, of this age, which above he called human wisdom.
“Nor of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed.”
Some manuscripts wrongly read “who destroys”, although Hugh reads it so and interprets it thus. It is doubtful whom Paul here calls the rulers of this age, especially since a little later, naming the rulers of this age again, he says that they crucified the Lord of glory.
There are three opinions which Aquinas reports in his commentary concerning the rulers of this age, corresponding, as he says, to a threefold wisdom of this age. First, they may be understood as the kings and princes of the earth, from whom proceeds the wisdom of human laws. Second, the demons, who have great power in this world and from whom comes the wisdom of superstitious arts. Third, philosophers, who presented themselves as rulers in teaching men, from whom all human philosophy proceeded. To this group he adds the Pharisees and scribes skilled in the Law, since they too devoted themselves to wisdom.
Theophylact and Oecumenius, following Chrysostom, understand the rulers of this age in this place to mean philosophers and orators. But later, under the same name, they think either Herod and Pilate or the Jewish high priests and Pharisees, the authors of Christ’s crucifixion, are designated. Concerning all of these, the Church of the faithful explains in Acts 4 that verse of the Psalm: “The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.”
Yet this interpretation of the Greeks seems less convincing, since it holds that the rulers of this age are to be understood in different ways, whereas it is clear that the Apostle intended to signify the same persons in both places. In this respect even the exposition of Cajetan fails, who thinks philosophers are meant in the first place and demons in the second. The true and genuine interpretation seems to us to be that of those who understand the rulers of this age everywhere as demons—such as Ambrosiaster, Lombard, the Carthusian, Titelmann, and, to pass over others, both the interlinear and the ordinary Gloss, although many of these weave in other explanations as well. Chrysostom and Theophylact also mention this view, though they do not follow it.
Why this interpretation seems more probable to us is because it fits best with the later passage, as will be shown there with testimonies from the Fathers, and because nothing compels us to vary the meaning within the same context of discourse.
Accordingly, the sense of this passage is: We speak wisdom not of this age, that is, not the wisdom of secular philosophy which could be acquired by the natural light of reason; nor of the rulers of this age, that is, wisdom introduced by demons, such as that of astrologers and superstitious philosophy, with which the doctrine of Simon was filled, and especially the worship of false gods with their ceremonies—whose rulers, that is, the demons, are being destroyed or abolished. For the Greek word καταργεῖσθαι signifies to be abolished or wiped out. They are destroyed, I say, by Christ, “who appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3), and so that “the ruler of this world might be cast out” (John 12). They are therefore destroyed because their power is destroyed.
1 Cor 2:7 “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which has been hidden.”
Lefèvre preferred to translate this as “wisdom hidden in a mystery”, and he did not like that the Vulgate translator wrote “which has been hidden”. For he wanted the wisdom to be understood as hidden in the mystery. But the participle with the article, τὴν ἀποκεκρυμμένην, clearly shows him to be mistaken. Hence Erasmus also translated it: “which is hidden.”
Therefore “in a mystery” is to be referred to the verb “we speak wisdom.” For the order and sense is this: we speak and teach the wisdom of God, which has been hidden—that is, the counsels of divine wisdom which God willed to be hidden and, before the Passion of His Son, revealed to very few. This is what the same Apostle in Ephesians 3 calls “the mystery hidden from the ages in God.” We speak and teach it not openly and everywhere among all, because not all can grasp it, but in a mystery, that is, secretly and among the few—namely, those who are spiritual and perfect.
Some supply and explain it thus: We speak the wisdom of God, latent in a mystery—that is, hidden—that wisdom which God predestined, and so forth.
“Which God predestined before the ages unto our glory.”
The sense is this: which wisdom—that is, which counsels of His wisdom—God from eternity foreordained and decreed to be carried out in time, by which He might lead us to the glory of the adoption of sons.
1 Cor 2:8. “Which none of the princes of this age knew.”
This can be referred either to the glory or to the wisdom, for in both Greek and Latin it admits of either reference. Tertullian (Against Marcion, book 5, chapter 6) refers it to the glory, and several others agree with him on account of what immediately follows: “for had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” Yet it accords more closely with the Apostle’s intention to refer it to the wisdom of God. For he wishes to teach that the wisdom of God—by which the princes of this age are brought to nothing—was unknown to them. Thus the sense is this: which wisdom of God, that is, those counsels of divine wisdom decreed from eternity, none of the princes of this age—that is, the demons—knew before God carried them into effect; only then did they begin to know them by experience. Otherwise, that plan of God’s wisdom, by which through the death of His Son and the ignominy of the Cross He procured salvation for the human race and overthrew the kingdom of the devil, was to the demons beforehand wholly unknown and utterly unsuspected.
Moreover, demons are called princes of this age in Scripture on account of the power which, by God’s just judgment, the devil together with the angels subject to him obtained over the human race corrupted by sin and over these lower things which serve human uses. Hence he himself is especially called the prince of this world (John 12, 14, 16), and the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4), and the demons are called the rulers of this world (Ephesians 6). The reason why this name is attributed to demons will be explained more fully in that place.
Now that the Apostle says that the princes of this age—that is, the demons—did not know that wisdom of God, he proves by this most certain argument: “For if they had known it…” Understand the wisdom of God of which he has just been speaking. For he does not say, If they had known God or Christ, since that would not be a certain proof of what follows: “They would never have crucified the Lord of glory.”
Never—in Greek οὐκ ἄν, “by no means.” The sense is: they would never have taken care to have Christ, who is the Lord of glory, crucified; they would never have incited the Jews to His death. The reason is obvious: they would never have wished to do that by which they knew the salvation of the human race would be advanced and their own kingdom destroyed.
This meaning is clearly suggested to us by Pope Leo, especially in his sermons on the Passion of the Lord. Although in Sermons 9 and 15 he also refers this passage to the scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests, yet he adheres more strongly and emphatically to the interpretation just mentioned concerning the demons, as can be seen in the same Sermon 9 and again in Sermons 11 and 18. The same interpretation is adopted by Haimo, Hervaeus, and others, even though they interpret the earlier part differently. To these may be added Innocent III (Sermon for Friday after the First Sunday of Lent) and St. Thomas (I, q. 64, a. 1, ad 4).
Furthermore, the aforementioned Pope Leo often and diligently explains the mystery—that is, the hidden counsel of God’s wisdom—in redeeming humanity from the power of the devil. For it seems that power was given or permitted to the devil over the human race from the beginning on account of the first transgression, so long as he did not go beyond his right and refrained from laying hands on the innocent. But because he laid hands on Christ, the Innocent One, in whom he had absolutely no right, he lost his permitted power over sinners. For, as Leo says (Sermon 2 on the Nativity of the Lord), when he pursued the general claim arising from corrupted origin, he exceeded it by exacting punishment from one in whom he found no fault. Thus the bond of the deadly passion is annulled, and by the injustice of demanding more, the entire sum of the debt is canceled. See Leo’s Sermons on the Passion of the Lord, 8, 9, 10, and following.
Now that demons, in the sense just explained, crucified Christ—that is, were the authors of His crucifixion and death—is evident from Scripture. For the Lord Himself says to the Jews who wished to kill Him (John 8): “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you wish to do.” And to the disciples (John 14): “The prince of this world is coming,” namely to bring about My death, “and he has nothing in Me,” that is, nothing of his own, because I am without sin. And again to the Jews who arrested Him (Luke 22): “This is your hour and the power of darkness,” that is, of the demons. John also clearly testifies of Judas (John 13) that the devil put it into his heart to hand Jesus over to the Jews.
Nor should it seem strange that demons are said to have crucified Christ because they suggested to men that He be crucified. For in a similar way it is said (Revelation 2): “Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison,” namely by instigation and suggestion. Indeed, even the Jews crucified Christ only by suggesting, handing over, and inciting—and yet both in Sacred Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers and in the common speech of the faithful, it is most usual to say that the Jews crucified and killed the Lord.
From this it is also clear that that dream sent to Pilate’s wife, by which she, terrified, warned her husband not to do anything against that just man (as Matthew 27 relates), was not sent by the devil—as some suppose, thinking he wished to prevent Christ’s death by which he himself was to be crushed and deprived of power—but by a good angel, calling Pilate through his wife away from the unjust condemnation of a righteous man. This is the opinion of Jerome in his commentary on Matthew and of Ambrose on Luke, and likewise of the Greeks: Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Titus, and Euthymius. Yet this was not done by the good angel with the intention of preventing Christ’s death—far be it—but in order that Christ’s innocence might be established by many testimonies from every side.
It remains to explain in what sense the Apostle calls Christ the Lord of glory, and to which of His natures this belongs. Augustine (On the Trinity, book 1, chapter 12) refers it to the form of God, so that He is called the Lord of glory because by the power of His divinity He is able to glorify His saints, according to Romans 8: “Those whom He justified, He also glorified.” Others, also referring it to the same nature, simply understand the Lord of glory as the glorious Lord, just as in the Psalms He is called the King of glory and the Lord of majesty.
The Greek interpreters, however, wish Christ to be called the Lord of glory because through the Cross He was to be raised to glory, so that there is a tacit antithesis between the word crucified and the name glory, both referring in turn to the same nature, namely the human nature which first suffered the Cross and afterward was glorified. This sense, though probable, is in my judgment less probable than another, according to which the Apostle looks back to what he said shortly before: “unto our glory.” Thus Christ is called the Lord of our glory, that is, the prince, author, and consummator of the glorification of His elect—and this through His Cross and death.
For since the demons envy our salvation above all things, they would never have sought Christ’s crucifixion if they had suspected that through that punishment the way would be opened for our redemption, salvation, and glory—which was the hidden mystery. And in this way Christ is rightly understood as the Lord of glory according to that nature in which He suffered. For Christ as man redeemed us, made satisfaction for us, merited eternal glory for us, and Himself first attained it, so that where the Head has gone before, the members might follow.
Now since from what has already been said it is sufficiently clear to whom the words ‘For if they had known’ belong in this passage, it is foreign to this place to inquire whether the Jews or their rulers knew that Jesus was the Christ and even the Son of God, according to what the Lord reports them as having said under a parable in Matthew 21: ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him.’ Or whether, on the contrary, they were ignorant of this, as Peter says to the Jews, the killers of Christ, in Acts 3: ‘I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.’ On this question Aquinas and Lyra dispute in their commentaries, and dissenting from both of them, Paul of Burgos adds his own opinion in his Additiones.
It is likewise beside the point to ask whether the demons themselves knew this. For the Apostle denies only that they knew the wisdom of God, that is, the hidden counsel of God concerning the destruction of the demonic principality and the leading of His elect to glory through the death of His Son.
Indeed, Cajetan thinks that even if the demons had known Jesus to be the true God, they nevertheless, out of the hatred with which they pursue God and divine things, would still have persecuted Him unto death and the ignominy of the Cross. Lest Cajetan’s opinion seem insufficiently grounded, it is confirmed by the authority of Pope Gregory, who testifies that the devil both knew Him to be the Son of God and yet was the author of His death. For thus he speaks of him under the name Behemoth in Book 33 of the Moralia, chapter 7: ‘And indeed this Behemoth knew the incarnate Son of God, but he did not know the order of our redemption. For he knew that the Son of God had been incarnate for our redemption, but he was wholly ignorant that by dying our Redeemer would pierce him through.’ These words, and others that follow in the same sense, are especially helpful for understanding this passage.
Moreover, this same point can be proved from the testimony of all those who confess and teach that the demons truly knew Christ to be the Son of God when, commanded by Him to leave the bodies of the possessed, they cried out: ‘What have we to do with you, Son of God?’ and again, ‘We know who you are, the Son of God.’ Nor do those who teach this deny that Christ was sought for crucifixion and death by the Jews at the instigation of evil demons. Whether, however, the demons truly knew at that time—when they uttered such cries—that Christ was the Son of God, or whether they said it only by way of flattery so as not to be expelled, as some maintain, must be sought from the interpreters of the Gospels in those passages where the demons are read to have cried out thus. On this matter we too have treated elsewhere, in our commentary on the Sentences, Book 2, distinctions 7 and 9.
1 Cor 2:9 “But as it is written.”
One must supply from what precedes: ‘But we speak.’ For he repeats this in order to explain more fully what he has said. Now it is written in the prophet Isaiah, chapter 64. As for the opinion of some that this testimony was taken from certain apocryphal writings of Elijah or Isaiah, Jerome sufficiently refutes it in his commentaries on Isaiah.
“What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man.”
“To ascend into the heart” is a Hebrew idiom frequently found in Scripture, corresponding to what we Latins say, to come into the mind or into thought. Moreover, in Greek these things are said in the plural: ‘Things which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and which have not ascended into the heart of man.’ Thus this passage is cited by Tertullian (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 26) and by Jerome in the letter prefixed to his translation of the Pentateuch, and also in Epistle 184 to Marcella, although there he later repeats it in the singular number. For although the Greek verb ἀνέβη (“has ascended”) is singular, it must be translated in the plural according to the proper syntax of Greek. It seems most likely to me that the translator rendered it ‘which eye has not seen’ because what follows is also in the same number:
“Which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
More correctly, Him, for αὐτόν is taken reciprocally, and Jerome reads for those who love. The Apostle has rendered the sense of the prophet rather than the exact words. For from the Hebrew Jerome translates: ‘From of old they have not heard nor perceived by ear; eye has not seen, O God, besides You, what You have prepared for those who wait for You.’ The Septuagint renders it thus: ‘From of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides You and the works You will do for those who wait for mercy.’ Here we see that the Apostle’s citation approaches more closely the Hebrew source than the Septuagint version, although it can also be translated from the Hebrew with God in the accusative case, as Pagninus and Vatablus have done—though Leo of Castro objected. Certainly this matters little for the present passage, since the Apostle omitted that clause ‘God besides You’ and, as Jerome testifies, aimed to reproduce the sense rather than the words.
The sense, then, is this: We speak those things which, according to the prophet, have neither been seen by human eyes, nor heard by ears, nor conceived by the mind—that is, things utterly unknown to men—namely, the things which God has prepared and predestined for those who love and await Him. These are salvation and glory: the adoption of sons and eternal happiness, to be brought about by so marvelous an order of divine wisdom. For the prophet in that place is speaking of the benefits of Christ, of which these are the chief.
Erasmus suspects that the Apostle read those who love in the Hebrew instead of those who wait, and whether this be so I leave to the judgment of scholars. For our purposes it is enough that one is well explained by the other in this passage.
Now the question arises whether even the good angels are excluded from this knowledge of the mysteries, so that in past ages they too were ignorant of them. The Apostle indeed says only that these things did not ascend into the heart of man. But the prophet, by saying ‘O God, besides You’, seems to remove this knowledge from all others. And the Apostle appears to agree with this, since otherwise he would not by this prophetic testimony prove that the demons were ignorant of that mystery. Moreover, when man is named, an angel can easily be understood as well, since both are intellectual creatures, and it is impossible by natural powers to attain the knowledge of things that are above nature. To this point tend the words of the same Apostle in Ephesians 3—‘that it might be made known to the principalities and powers’—and in 1 Timothy 3—‘He appeared to the angels.’ For these indicate that such mysteries were previously hidden even from the angels.
But how were they hidden from the angels, when they were not hidden from the prophets, to whom they were revealed by the ministry of angels? I answer that the sense of both the prophet and the Apostle is that these mysteries could not come into the thought of any man or angel unless God—by whom they were hidden from eternity—revealed them. Before the coming of His Son in the flesh, God revealed them both to angels and to a few men, His friends, insofar as He judged fitting for the time—more or less—but in such a way that a more perfect and fuller revelation was reserved for the time of the manifestation of the grace of the Savior. But on this matter more will be said when we come to the other passages of the Apostle which I have just cited.
Furthermore, someone may ask how these words of the Apostle—‘which God has prepared for those who love Him’—do not conflict with the gratuitous predestination of God. For if the benefits of redemption are prepared for those who love God and await Him—that is, hope in Him—then God seems to have regard to some merit of theirs in the preparation or predestination of these benefits. For hope and love call forth God’s beneficence.
I answer briefly that the clause ‘for those who love Him’ is not to be referred to all the mysteries or benefits of our redemption, but to that benefit which is the completion of all mysteries, namely eternal life, which consists in the vision of God. Thus the statement is to be understood in this way: Which things God has prepared—ordered unto salvation and eternal life—which He has determined to give to those who love Him. Thomas hints at this solution in his commentary, teaching that in this sense God has prepared—that is, predestined—that which has not ascended into the heart of man for those who love Him, because the essential reward of eternal glory is owed to charity, according to John 14: ‘If anyone loves Me, he will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.’ For although predestination to glory is gratuitous insofar as glory is considered as an end first in intention, it must nevertheless be admitted that this same glory is prepared by God for men as a reward promised to those who love Him.
1 Cor 2:10. “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.”
Lest anyone object, How then are you able to speak these things if they could not even come into the mind of anyone?—God, he says, has revealed them to us through His Spirit. By us, therefore, understand not all the faithful, but the Apostles, who hand on the same mysteries to others, and, as he said above, we speak wisdom among the perfect. This is that Holy Spirit of whom the Lord said to the Apostles in John 14: ‘The Father will send Him in My name; He will teach you all things,’ and in chapter 16: ‘He will teach you all truth.’
“For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.”
Depths—in Greek τὰ βάθη—that is, profundities, or as the interpreter of Irenaeus (Book 2, chapter 4) rendered it, heights. The Spirit of God is said to search. Some explain this as meaning in us, that is, He makes us search, just as the Spirit cries out, groans, and intercedes in us (Romans 8; Galatians 4). Thus the sense would be: the Spirit of God causes us by understanding to penetrate even into the hidden and age-long concealed counsels of God. For the word all is to be understood fittingly of all the mysteries which God willed to be known by men.
Others understand it more simply: that the Spirit of God Himself searches or penetrates all things—that is, He has all things known and fully perceived—and therefore is sufficient to reveal to us whatever He wills. Properly speaking, to search is to investigate and seek the knowledge of hidden things; but here it is taken to mean the possession of such knowledge itself, by that figure of speech in which the consequence is understood from what precedes. Thus Scripture frequently attributes to God the searching of hearts and reins—that is, the intimate knowledge of men—as in Psalm 7 and Jeremiah 17. And since Scripture wishes this to be proper to God, it is rightly established from this passage that the Holy Spirit is God.
And this interpretation is in harmony with what follows.
CONTINUE
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