The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
These words of the Apostle were once the occasion of the conversion of S. Adrian, and made him a martyr. He was a soldier and in the flower of his age, viz., twenty-eight years old, and when he beheld the constancy of the Christian martyrs in the tortures that they had to endure for the faith of Christ, he asked them what they expected in return for such sufferings, what enabled them to overcome such tortures. They replied, “ We hope for those good things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” By these words Adrian was touched and converted, and he hastened to get himself enrolled in the list of martyrs, and eagerly bore a cruel death at Nicomedia, with his wife Natalia looking on and encouraging him. This was a.d. 306, under Diocletian.
3. The meaning of this passage will be complete if you combine the two interpretations given above thus : Those good things which Thou, God, through Christ, hast prepared for them that wait for Thee, surpass all our senses, experience, natural understanding, and all human desire, not only in this life in the case of those who have already caught some sounds of Thee, but also chiefly and most properly in future glory. There will God, who is Himself all that good is, give Himself to the blessed, and will be as all in all, as Anselm says. For by these words of Isaiah, the Apostle proves what he had said, viz., that the wisdom as well as the glory of Christ was secret and hidden, as we saw above.
Neither have entered into the heart of man. Has not come into the mind of man : no man can by nature think of or understand them. The heart with the Hebrews stands for the mind. For what the heart is to the body — its chief and noblest part, the source and principle of life — that is the mind to the soul. Moreover, the heart supplies the brain with its vigour, and so is a kind of handmaid to the imagination and consequently the understanding. Hence Aristotle, though against Galen and all other physicians, placed the apprehension of external objects not in the brain but in the heart. He distinguished the vital organs of man by their functions in these verses :
“ The heart gives wisdom, the lung speech, and anger comes from the bile. The spleen is the cause of laughter, and love comes from the liver.” Where Isaiah has “them that wait for Thee,” S Paul has “them that love Thee.” The sense is the same, for love is one cause of expectation.
Ver. 10. — But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. S. Paul here anticipates an objection. It might be said, “If eye hath not seen, neither have entered into the heart of man, the wisdom and the glory that Christ has prepared for His friends, how is it that you boast yourself of its possession?” Paul replies that he knows them, not by sensation, or by the understanding, but by the inspiration and revelation of God. Hence, Clement of Alexandria (Pædag. lib. i. c. 6) interprets the phrase, “ear hath not heard,” by adding, “except that ear which was taken up into the third heaven,” viz., Paul’s, who heard with the ear in Paradise mystic words which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Paul means, then, that God has revealed these things to us His Apostles and Prophets filled with His Spirit, in order that we may teach you and others. It appears from this that not only is our longing for bliss and glory supernatural, but that our knowledge of them is also, whether that knowledge be of them in their essence, or merely the obscure and fragmentary knowledge of the Apostles and of all others who are still “in the way.” Consequently there is not naturally in man any perfect and effectual desire, or appetite, for this bliss.
The Spirit searcheth all things , yea, the deep things of God. That is, penetrates into and perceives everything. For when men want to learn something of which they are ignorant, they are wont to search and inquire about it. But God, without any such searching, knows everything at a glance, and as it were by a single application of His mind. (S. Thomas, Theodoret, Theophylact.)
The deep things of God are all the most secret and inward counsels of God. Amongst them the chiefest is this mystery of man’s glory and redemption by Christ. All these the Holy Spirit penetrates into and clearly views, because He is of one essence and knowledge with God, and therefore He so “searches the deep things of God,” that nothing in God remains unknown to Him. His knowledge and sight equal their object, and He knows God as He can be known ; the Holy Spirit, because He is God, comprehends
God and His Divinity as completely as He comprehends
Himself. (Molina part i. qu. 14, a. 3, Theodoret, S. Thomas.) From this passage Ambrose and other Fathers prove the Godhead of the Holy Ghost against the Macedonians. To sum up S. Paul’s meaning : The Holy Spirit has revealed to us these mysteries and secrets of God : He knows all the secrets of God, and therefore He searches and clearly views the deep things of God.
Ver. 11. — What man knoweth the things of a man? Those in the inner recesses of his being, which are buried in his heart and mind, as, e.g., his thoughts, resolutions, and intentions, and the foundation of the character itself.
Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit knows them as well as Himself. For the Holy Spirit is internal to God, just as the spirit of a man is internal to him ; and as the spirit of a man is a sharer of his humanity, so the Spirit of God is a partaker of Godhead, and of the Divine omniscience and power. “The things of God” are those which are hidden in the mind of God — the thoughts, counsels and determinations of the Divine Will.
After “knoweth no man, but the Spirit” must be understood, “and He to whom the Spirit has willed to reveal them, as to me and the other Apostles,” as was said in ver. 10.
“No man, but the Spirit” does not exclude the Son. For since He is the Word, He knows the deep things of God. For in Divine things, when an exclusive or exceptive word is applied to one Person in respect of the Divine attributes, it does not exclude the other Divine Persons, but only all other essences from the Divine, i.e., it only excludes those whose nature differs from that of God. The meaning then is : No one knows the secret things of God, save the Spirit of God, and they who have the same nature with the Spirit, the same intellectual and cognitive powers, viz., the Father and the Son. These alone know the deep things of God.
Ver. 12. — Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit which is of God. He contrasts the spirit of the world with the Spirit which is of God, claims the latter for himself and the
Apostles, and assigns the other to the wise men of this world. The spirit of the world, therefore, is that which is infused by the world, and carnal wisdom, which aspires after worldly, earthly, and carnal goods, and makes men worldly and carnal. On the other hand the Spirit of God is that which is infused by God and Divine Wisdom, which makes us pursue heavenly and Divine goods, and makes men spiritual and heavenly. Therefore the Apostle adds —
That we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. On this passage the heretics found their peculiar belief that each Christian knows for a certainty that he ought by heavenly faith to believe that he has through Christ had given to him by God the forgiveness of his sins, with grace and righteousness, and as Calvin says, that he has been chosen to eternal glory. But this is not faith, but a foolish and false presumption, not to say blindness ; because we do not certainly know that we have been duly disposed for righteousness, and whether we surely believe, and as we ought; nor is it anywhere said or revealed in Holy Scripture that I believe as I ought to do, or that I am righteous or one of the elect. The best answer to them is the sense of the passage, which is this: The Holy Spirit shows and reveals to us what and how great are the gifts given to us, the Apostles, by God, and to others who love God — so great indeed that eye has not seen them, nor have they entered into the heart of man ; for the Apostle looks back to ver. 9.