Commentary on 1 Corinthians
Lecture 2
Unleavened bread of truth
5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump? [n. 238]
5:7 Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened. For our pasch is Christ sacrificed. [n. 242]
5:8 Therefore, let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. [n. 247]
238. After reminding the Corinthians of two crimes, namely, that of the fornicator and that of those who condoned the sin, the Apostle now censures both crimes.
First, the crime of condoning his sin;
second, the sin of the fornication, at but the body is not for fornication (1 Cor 6:13).
As to the first he does two things.
First, he rebukes the Corinthians for failing to pass judgment;
second, for other vices concerning judgment, at dare any of you (1 Cor 6:1).
In regard to the first he does two things.
First, he blames them for not casting out the fornicator;
second, he corrects the false understanding they took from his words, at I wrote to you (1 Cor 5:9).
As to the first he does two things.
First, he reprehends what they had done;
second, he shows what should be done, at purge out the old leaven.
239. First, he reprehends their past crime as to its root; for he had said above that as a result of being puffed up they lack compassion, from which followed their failure to set others straight by correcting them. First of all, therefore, he censures them for being puffed up, saying, your glorying is not good, because you boast of the defects of others, as though you were without faults.
For everyone should boast of the blessings given him by God and not of others: let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor (Gal 6:4). And it is especially evil to glory in the failures of others: why do you boast of mischief? (Ps 51:3).
240. Second, he gives the reason for what he had said, saying, know you not that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump? As if to say: certainly you cannot be unaware of this.
It should be noted that there are two factors to consider in leaven: the first is the taste it gives to bread. In this way leaven signifies the wisdom of God, through which everything human is rendered tasteful: the kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened (Matt 13:33).
The second factor is corruption. Then in one way leaven can signify sin, because by one sin all of a man’s works are corrupted; for example, by the sin of hypocrisy which is compared to leaven: beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (Luke 12:1). In another way a sinful man himself can be signified by leaven.
241. And this is precisely the point of his metaphor, for just as the entire lump of dough is corrupted by a little leaven, so by one sinner a whole group can be defiled: from one spark comes a great fire and from one deceitful man much blood (Sir 11:34). This happens when by the sin of one person others are prompted to sin or even when they consent to his sin, by not at least correcting him when they can: they are worthy of death not only who do these things but also who consent to those that do them (Rom 1:32). Consequently, the Corinthians should not have boasted of another’s sin but rather taken steps to prevent others from being defiled by associating with him: as a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens (Song 2:2), on which a Gloss says: he was not a good man, who could not endure evil men.
242. Then when he says, purge out the old leaven, he shows what should be done in the future.
First, he presents the teaching;
second, he assigns reason, at for our pasch.
243. He says, therefore, first, that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump, therefore purge out the old leaven, i.e., purge yourselves by casting out from your midst the old leaven, i.e., the fornicator who returned to the old state of former corruption by sinning: you are growing old in a foreign country, you are defiled with the dead (Bar 3:10). And this is what he says, because by cutting off one sinner the whole group is purged; hence when Judas left the Lord said: now is the Son of man glorified (John 13:31).
By the old leaven can also be understood the old error: the old error is passed away (Isa 26:3), or even the corruption of original sin: our old man is crucified with him (Rom 6:6), or even any actual sin: seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices (Col 3:9), for a man is purged by removing them.
244. Second, he mentions the effect of this cleansing, saying, that you may be a new paste. Here paste means a mixture of water and new flour, before leaven is mixed with it. Therefore, once the leaven, i.e., the sinner or sin, is removed from the faithful, they become as it were a new paste, renewed in purity: your youth is renewed like the eagle’s (Ps 103:5); be renewed in the spirit of your minds (Eph 4:23).
Third, he mentions the form purging should take when he says, as you are unleavened, i.e., without the leaven of sin. In this sense the Lord says: beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt 16:6).
245. Then when he says, for our pasch is Christ sacrificed, he assigns the reason for what he had said, namely, why the faithful should be unleavened; and this reason is taken from the mystery of Christ’s passion.
First, therefore, he mentions the mystery;
second, he concludes to his point, at therefore, let us feast.
246. As to the first it should be noted that the most excellent sacrament of the old law was the paschal lamb which, as was commanded in Exodus 12, was sacrificed by the whole multitude of the children of Israel in commemoration of the event in which the angel striking the first born in Egypt passed by the homes of the Jews, whose posts were smeared with the blood of a lamb. The word pasch is derived from this event: it is the Lord’s Passover (Exod 12:11). It was in virtue of the blessing that the people passed over the Red Sea (Exod 14:15ff).
But this lamb was a figure of the innocent Christ, of whom it is said: behold the Lamb of God (John 1:36). Therefore, just as that lamb was slain by the children of Israel in order that God’s people be delivered from the avenging angel and after being freed from the slavery under the Egyptians, pass over the Red Sea, so Christ was slain by the children of Israel, in order that God’s people be delivered from the attacks of the devil by his blood and from the slavery of sin by baptism, as though by the Red Sea. Now that lamb was called the pasch of the Jews, because it was immolated as a sign of the passing; hence the disciples ask: where do you wish us to prepare for you to eat the pasch? (Matt 26:17), i.e., the paschal lamb.
Therefore, the Apostle says: you ought to be unleavened, for, i.e., because as the pasch of the old people was the sacrificed lamb, so our pasch, i.e., of the new people, is Christ sacrificed. His immolation deserves the name ‘pasch’ both by reason of what the word means in Hebrew, namely, ‘passage’: it is the Lord’s Passover (Exod 12:11), and what it means in Greek, namely, ‘passion’: for Christ passed from this world to the Father by means of the passion, in which he was sacrificed (John 13:1).
247. Then when he says, therefore, let us feast, he reaches his conclusion.
To understand this it should be noted that the paschal lamb, after being sacrificed, was eaten with unleavened bread. Therefore, just as the paschal lamb was a figure of our sacrificed pasch, so the observance of the new pasch should conform to the old paschal observances. Accordingly, because the sacrificed Christ is our pasch, therefore, let us feast the festival by eating Christ not only sacramentally: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you (John 6:54), but also spiritually by relishing his wisdom: those who eat me will hunger for more, and those who drink me will thirst for more (Sir 24:21), and doing so with spiritual joy: with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving; a multitude keeping festival (Ps 42:4).
248. Then he describes the way to feast by conforming the truth to the figure, saying, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness. For it was commanded in Exodus 12 that no leaven be found in the homes of those eating the paschal lamb. But leaven involves oldness and corruption.
Hence the removal of leaven could mean the removal of the obligation to observe the precepts of the old law, which was made dead by the passion of Christ: the new coming on, you shall cast away the old (Lev 26:10). Second, the removal of leaven could mean the removal of the corruption of sin, as we said above, namely, that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump. In this sense, therefore, he says, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, where malice would refer to perverse actions: casting away all uncleanness and abundance of malice (Jas 1:21), and evil would refer to crafty mischief: when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven mischiefs in his heart (Prov 26:25).
Or, according to a Gloss, when he says, not with the old leaven, he refers to sin in general, but in adding, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, he becomes more precise, because malice refers to sin committed against oneself, and evil a sin against someone else.
249. Therefore, having set aside the improper way to feast, he describes the proper way when he continues, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, i.e., in sincerity and truth which are signified by unleavened bread.
Here sincerity is set in opposition to the corruption of sin, which he signified when he said, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness: for sincere means without corruption: we do not adulterate the word of God but with sincerity in Christ we speak (2 Cor 2:17). But truth is set in opposition to the figures of the old law: truth and grace came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17), namely, because we should celebrate the true pasch in truth and not in figures. Hence according to a Gloss, by sincerity is understood innocence from vices or newness of life; by truth the righteousness of good works or directness which excludes deception.