1 Cor 1:10. I beseech you by the name of our Lord.
By the most sweet name of Jesus Christ, from whom you are all called Christians, that you all say the same thing, that is, that you all speak in agreement, and that there be no schisms among you. Let there be no divisions of mind among you. Schism is taken here in a general sense so as to include heresy, which is opposed to faith, and schism properly so called, which is opposed to charity and dissolves the unity that charity produces, as St Thomas teaches (II–II, q. 39, a. 1), and St Augustine likewise (Contra Faustum, bk. 20, ch. 3). The word schism is derived from the Greek verb σκίζω (schízō, “to cut,” “to split,” or “to divide”).
But be perfect, that is, be graciously fitted together or compacted—namely into one perfect body, complete in every respect—in the same mind (grace) and in the same judgment. “In the same mind” refers to matters of faith that are to be believed: not only that you say the same thing verbally, but that you also believe the same thing with one assent of mind and understanding. “In the same judgment” refers to matters of action: so that you not only believe the same things intellectually, but also choose the same course of action with your will. Thus Chrysostom and Theophylact explain it.
1 Cor 1:11. For it has been signified to me—in Greek, it has been made manifest—so that it might not seem that he believed an obscure or uncertain rumor—by those who belong to Chloe, that is, by members of the household of Chloe, a devout Corinthian matron. He names the household so that it might not be thought fabricated, yet he keeps silent about the individual persons from whom he heard it, lest he create envy against them.
1 Cor 1:12. Now this I say, that is, this is what I mean when I say that each one of you says: one says, “I am of Paul,” that is, a spiritual follower or disciple of Paul; another says, “I am of Apollos,” a man eloquent and learned, who had preached at Corinth in Achaia (Acts 18:27). Each assigns himself to one party distinctly; the sense is not that the same person said all these things together, but that one said this and another that. “I am of Cephas,” that is, a disciple of Peter, for Cephas in Syriac signifies “rock.” Although Peter did not evangelize Corinth, some Jews who had been baptized or instructed by him at Rome, having been driven out from there by Claudius, withdrew to Corinth; Aquila and Priscilla also came there (Acts 18:2). Moreover, as Corinth was a commercial emporium, many people commonly gathered there from elsewhere because of trade.
Paul places himself first, that is, in the lowest place, out of humility, preferring Apollos to himself, and rightly preferring Peter to himself, just as he does Christ, as Chrysostom and Theophylact note. “But I am of Christ.” Chrysostom thinks these are Paul’s words, by which, to reprove the Corinthian factions, he says that he is a disciple of Christ, not of Apollos, nor of Cephas, and so on. But it is more likely that these are the words of certain Corinthians who hated the other factions. These indeed did not err, but they entered by the door, as Augustine says, for the door through which both shepherds and sheep enter the sheepfold of the Church is Christ (John 10:9; 1 John 10:9).
1 Cor 1:13. Is Christ divided? The body, that is, the Church, is not to be cut into opposing sects, so that one head and the members of another head would teach or believe differently. Was Paul crucified for you? That is, did Paul redeem any of you by the cross, so that he himself should be the head of one sect and Christ of another? Against those who said, “I am of Paul,” he cries out: “O miserable sheep, where are you going? I am not the door,” as Augustine says (Tractate 47 on John). Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? That is, were you baptized by a baptism instituted in the name or by the authority of Paul? In what sense, then, are people said to be baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts 19)? I am only a minister of another’s baptism, not of my own. No one should be called Pauline from a baptism received from me, but only Christian from Christ. Thus he calls back to one name those who wished to make many names for themselves, and he repels them from love of himself so that Christ may be loved, as Augustine says in his Tractates on the Epistle of John (Tractate 2). Because of this abuse among the Corinthians, it is thought that the Eastern Church once established that, in the form of baptism, the name of Christ—as the sole author of baptism and supreme head of the Church—should be expressly indicated: “The servant of Christ is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
1 Cor 1:14. I give thanks to God that I baptized none of you. So little is it a great matter to baptize any of you that I rather give thanks to God that I baptized so few among you—and none except Crispus, that ruler of the synagogue of the Jews at Corinth (Acts 18:8), and Gaius, with whom he was staying at Corinth when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans (Romans 16:23). He does not say this, as Chrysostom explains, to diminish the excellence of baptism, by which one enters the kingdom of heaven, but to diminish the mere ministry of baptizing, in which the pseudo-apostles boasted and made factions for themselves, although it is an easy task and requires far less labor and effort than the office of preaching.
1 Cor 1:15. Lest anyone should say that you were baptized in my name. In Greek, that I baptized in my name. Therefore, he says, I give thanks to God that I baptized so few—and only prudent men—lest, if I had baptized many, they themselves might say, and foolishly boast, that I baptized them in my name, and that those who ought to be called Christians would call themselves Paulines. Hence it is clear that there were two kinds of sects among the Corinthians: some boasted in the baptizers, others in their teachers. Those who said, “I am of Paul,” “of Apollos,” and so forth, boasted chiefly of their teachers; others boasted of the baptism administered by the pseudo-apostles, who, on account of the mere ministry of baptizing, made themselves equal to Paul and the other Apostles.
1 Cor 1:16. I baptized also the household of Stephanas. Yet now that I recall it, I did baptize the household of Stephanas. St Bonaventure and Haymo call Stephanas a noble matron, but it is the name of a man, from the nominative Stephanas, as is clear from 1 Corinthians 16:15. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else, that is, I do not remember whether I baptized anyone else; for in particular matters memory is fallible, as St Thomas remarks.
1 Cor 1:17. For Christ did not send me principally to baptize. And therefore I baptized so few with my own hands. But to evangelize. This is the chief part of my commission and a task more arduous and proper to Apostles and bishops, for it requires excellent doctrine, great prudence, and holiness of life. “The strongest syllogism for persuading,” says Chrysostom, “is that which is accomplished by the works of preaching.” Baptism, however, does not require such qualities in the minister, and therefore it is often entrusted to inferior ministers and, among us, to elders who are unfit for other tasks.
Not in wisdom of words, that is, not through eloquence and elegance of speech such as the wise of this world employ in their persuasions. That the Apostles were nevertheless eloquent is maintained by St Augustine (On Christian Doctrine, bk. 4, ch. 7), and in chapter 20 he shows Paul’s eloquence from Romans 8:35 and 2 Corinthians 6:4. Here, therefore, he denies only that the Apostles adopted that curled and affected eloquence of secular orators for persuading. Lest the cross of Christ be made void, that is, lest the cross lose, in human estimation, the power it has to convert souls. For if the Apostles had used polished and elegant speech, the conversion of people would have been attributed rather to their eloquence than to the grace obtained for us through the cross of Christ. Apollos, however, a learned and eloquent man, was admitted among the evangelists by the Apostles, because, as Chrysostom says, it was enough that the first planters of the faith were unlearned, and those who were learned later need not be rejected. Yet, in treating matters of faith, even these greatly relaxed their former cultivation of eloquence, as Augustine teaches by the example of Cyprian (On Christian Doctrine, bk. 4, ch. 14).
1 Cor 1:18. For the word of the cross, to those who perish, that is, the preaching of Christ crucified to unbelieving reprobates, is foolishness, because they do not understand how such great power could be present in the death of one crucified man. But to us who are being saved, that is, to us the elect, it is the power of God. We know it to be the power of God and the instrument by which He works in us faith, grace, and eternal life, for God bestows all these things only through the merit of the cross.
1 Cor 1:19. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will cast away the doctrine and eloquence of the wise of this world. And the prudence of the prudent I will reject. In Greek, the understanding of the understanding ones I will remove from its place, lest they perform the office of apostleship for me and the cross of Christ be made void; and further, lest they adulterate the truth of faith with their false doctrines, as happened formerly in Origen and certain others who, imbued with Platonic philosophy, introduced heresies into the Church. Hence philosophers are called by Tertullian “the patriarchs of heretics.”
1 Cor 1:20. Where is the wise man?—the Gentile philosopher. Where is the scribe?—one skilled in the Jewish law and its interpretation. The Hebrew word סֹפֵר (sopher, “scribe”) does not signify only one who writes, but one who studies the Scriptures and answers questions about difficult matters from them. Hence the Seventy translators consistently render סֹפֵר as γραμματεύς (grammateús, “learned man”). Where is the debater of this age?—the investigator of the secrets of this world, which Haymo understands especially of astrologers who inquire into horoscopes and conjecture human actions from them. As if he were to say: God did not choose these, nor did we receive the hidden truths of faith from them, but from fishermen. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Has not God shown the wisdom of worldly philosophers to be foolish by teaching, through fishermen, a truth which they could not find?
1 Cor 1:21. For since, in the wisdom of God—which shone forth in the structure of this world as in a most excellent work of art, displaying the skill and genius of the artificer—the world did not know God—worldly men generally did not know Him—through wisdom, that is, through philosophy (though a few philosophers of keener mind did know Him speculatively, yet did not glorify Him practically, Romans 1:21). Therefore, when men could not be led to the love of God by contemplation of the world, which had been created for that purpose, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching—through the preaching of the incarnate and crucified God, which seems foolish to worldly men—to save those who believe. As St Thomas explains, just as a teacher, when he sees that slow students do not grasp his meaning, lowers himself to their capacity and begins to stammer with them in simpler words.
1 Cor 1:22. For the Jews demand signs. They wish to be led to faith by prodigies and miracles, for they had long been accustomed to such things, and Moses and the prophets had once performed many before their fathers. Hence, when these ceased, they said, “We do not see our signs” (Psalm 73), and in Matthew 12:38, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But Greeks seek wisdom. The Gentiles, accustomed in the schools of philosophers, wish to assent only to what is demonstrated and to be led to faith by human reasoning.
1 Cor 1:23. But we preach Christ crucified, a thing that appears weak and foolish, and therefore contrary to the power of performing signs which the Jews seek, and contrary to the human wisdom which the Greeks seek. To Jews indeed a stumbling block, because the weakness of the crucified one, by which He seemed unable to avert death from Himself, caused the Jews to fall into unbelief so as not to believe Him to be the Messiah. But to Gentiles foolishness, because it seemed foolish to pagans that God, out of love for creatures, should have become man and been crucified for them. Yet this is said of reprobate Jews and Gentiles.
1 Cor 1:24. But to those who are called, according to purpose, that is, the elect—both Jews and Greeks—Christ the power of God, that is, the admirable instrumental power of God by which He destroyed the kingdom of sin and the devil, which the called Jews and Gentiles acknowledge; and the wisdom of God, not human wisdom, but divine wisdom, which they also acknowledge in the divine counsel whereby God willed that God-made-man should die for men in the nature that had sinned, so as to satisfy God, according to the rigor of justice, for the offense.
1 Cor 1:25. For the foolishness of God—the work of God that appears foolish to men, namely, that He should will to draw the whole world to faith in a crucified man through unlearned fishermen—is wiser than men, having more wisdom than all the wise of the world. For Plato and other philosophers persuaded only a few—indeed, scarcely even one city or man—of their doctrines, whereas the Apostles made the whole world philosophize, as Chrysostom says. And the weakness of God—the work of God that appears weak—is stronger than men, surpassing all human strength. For the cross of Christ seems weak, yet by that wood God subdued the world, which no emperor ever could by the sword.
1 Cor 1:26. For consider your calling, passive and active—that is, consider whom God called to the faith from among you and through whom He called you. For He chose mostly unlearned and ignoble teachers and disciples. Not many, he does not say none, for Cornelius the centurion (Acts 10), Sergius Paulus the proconsul (Acts 13), Paul himself who sat at the feet of Gamaliel, Dionysius the Areopagite, Luke the physician, Apollos the Alexandrian, and Nicodemus, a teacher in Israel, were wise men. Wise according to the flesh, that is, learned in the doctrine that carnal men esteem; such wise men are more difficult to convert to the faith than the unlearned, just as it is often easier to teach one who is completely ignorant than one imbued with contrary principles. Hence Timotheus, the noble musician of Miletus and flute-player, used to demand double payment from those who had learned music from others. Not many powerful, that is, wealthy men and those established in dignities; for riches and power fix the mind on the administration of present things and do not allow it to be raised to the consideration of future things, as Chrysostom says. Hence it is gathered that most Christians at Corinth were artisans and common folk. Not many noble, for these think their nobility is defiled if they are mingled with the ignoble in the profession of the same faith, although all nobility except that of virtue is base and adulterated. As Gregory Nazianzen says (Oration 28): if nobility comes from parents, it is drawn from mud and corrupt seed; if from princely diplomas, I will venerate such men, he says, when I begin to venerate a monkey—when lions are commanded to be so.
1 Cor 1:27. But God chose the foolish things of the world, men who are held to be foolish and dull in the world, such as the unlearned and illiterate in the eyes of the learned, to shame the wise, to put philosophers and scholars to shame when they see that they had to be taught the highest truths of faith by illiterate fishermen—truths they could not reach by their own intellect and study. And God chose the weak things of the world, humble and faint-hearted men such as artisans often are, who fear not only the speech but even the gaze of the powerful, to shame the strong, while they fearlessly proclaim the name of Christ before kings and princes, and receive not only their looks but their claws and iron plates without trembling.
1 Cor 1:28. And the things that are not, men of no account and so abject that they scarcely seem to exist among men, to bring to nothing the things that are—those who stand above others and seem alone to be something—so that they may be destroyed. In Greek, to render void and reduce to nothing. The interpreter renders this in Romans 3:3 as to make void, namely by restraining, through Christian humility, the swelling pride by which they exalt themselves above others.
1 Cor 1:29. So that no flesh may glory, that no man may boast that he was chosen to the office of preaching from his own merits, or that he was called to faith by human wisdom. In the sight of God, that is, before God, as the interpreter renders Luke 1:6—true glory, such as God’s eye sees to be such; for one may falsely glory in vain glory.
1 Cor 1:30. But from Him you are in Christ Jesus. You are created in faith and grace from God, not from your baptizers or preachers. Who became for us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption. By the Father’s beneficence in sending Him to us, He became our teacher and author of true wisdom, by which we know the highest divine realities through faith; then the author of justice, by whose infusion we are made holy; and the author of redemption, by which, through sanctification and the expulsion of sin, we are redeemed from its bondage.
1 Cor 1:31. Let him who glories glory in the Lord. The just man has something in which he can glory, for the unjust has nothing in which to glory, as Augustine says; yet he should glory not in himself or in any good thing as though it were his own, but in Christ, attributing to Him his wisdom, justice, sanctification, redemption, and the whole matter of his glory, because he has nothing from himself but has received everything from Him—for He is our glory and the lifter up of our head (Psalm 3).
CONTINUE
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