The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Ye are honourable , but we are despised. You are honoured, we are held in no honour. He teaches modestly, but yet sternly by his own example as a teacher, that the Christian’s boast must not be in renown, wealth, wisdom, eloquence, or the applause of men, but in being despised by others, and in despising glory, and in the Cross of Christ; and especially is this true of the Christian teacher and preacher. So S. Chrysostom. And in this way he endeavours to shame these self-indulgent, vain, and luxurious teachers, and also the Corinthians who preferred to follow such men, rather than the Apostles of Christ, who were giving for them their strength, their substance, and their lives. So Isaiah (viii. 18) says, in the name of himself and the other Prophets, as well as of Paul and the Apostles, “ Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel.” And as the Annales Minorum relate, S. Francis used to say that he was a despised fool of Christ’s in the world, and was for this beloved of Christ Himself.
Ver. 11. — Even unto this present hour we . . . have no certain dwellingplace. This remarkable description of the Apostle’s life is very like that contained in the Second Epistle (xi. 23), which those that are called to the ministry ought to put before them as an example, as the Apostolic men of great zeal do in England, Holland, India, and Japan.
S. Chrysostom (Hom. 52 on Acts of the Apostles) says excellently on the words of xxvi. 29 : “ Such is the soul that is raised on high by celestial love that it thinks itself a prisoner for Christ because of the greatness of the promised glory. For as one in love has no eyes for any save her he loves, who is to him everything, so he who has been laid hold of by Christ’s fire becomes like one who should be living alone on the earth, caring nothing for glory and shame. For he so utterly despises temptations and scourgings and imprisonment that it is as though another body endured them, or as though he possessed a body made of granite. For he laughs at those things which are pleasant in this life ; he does not feel their force as we do ; his body is to him as the body of one dead. So far is he from being taken captive by any passion, as gold that has been purified in the fire is from showing any stain. All this is effected by the love of man for God, when it is great.” But we do not attain this height because we are cold, and ignorant of this Divine philosophy. The philosopher Diogenes saw this, though but darkly and afar off, for when he was asked what men were the noblest, he replied, “They that despise riches and glory and pleasure and life; they that draw their force from the opposite things to these, from poverty, obscurity, hunger, thirst, toil and death.” Diogenes saw this, but could not practise it, for he was himself a slave to vain-glory.
Ver. 12. — Being reviled, we bless . Infidels and Jews mock us, and call down imprecations on us, saying, “ Let these new preachers of a crucified God be slain, let them perish and hang on the accursed cross.” We, however, pray for their peace, that God would give them His light, His grace, and salvation. S. Basil (in Reg. Brevior. 226) points out that to do evil and to do good are connoted by cursing and blessing. He says : “We are bidden to be patient towards all, and to return kindly deeds to those who persecute us unjustly. We are to love fervently, not only those that curse us, but whosoever shows us unkindness in any way whatever, that so we may obey the precept, ‘ Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.’”
Ver. 13. — Being defamed, we entreat. When we are reviled, called evil dealers in evil arts, and railed at. The word “blaspheme ” has this meaning also in Tit. iii. 2. When thus treated we speak with meekness after the manner of suppliants, as the Greek Fathers take it, or else we entreat God for them. But the first is nearer the Greek. S. Basil (Reg. 226, quoted above) renders it “comfort,” in the sense of filling their minds with a perception of the truth. Comfort is used in this sense in Rom. i. 12.
We are made as the filth of the world. We are made, as Theophylact and Theodoret say, as it were the excrement of the world — not once, but always, down to this present hour. We are made like filth that has been collected from all sides, is the literal force of the Greek. We are reckoned as most contemptible, as wretches unworthy of man’s society, fit only to be driven away and destroyed.
S. Paul is here alluding to Lam. iii. 45 : “Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.” For Jeremiah was imprisoned by the Jews, cast off, and rejected, and so was a type of Paul and the Apostles, imprisoned, rejected, and at length slain by the Jews and Gentiles.
But Gagneius and others translate this word “ expiatory victims.” Hence S. Ambrose, too, commenting on Ps. cxix. 8, reads it, “We are made for the world’s purging.” We should notice that the Greek word here used was applied to the wicked men and others doomed to sacrifice by the Gentiles, in order to get rid of famine or tempests or any other public calamity. So, for instance, did the Decii devote themselves for their country, and Curtius, who, to banish a common plague and appease the Deity, leaped in full armour into a gulf in Rome. So, too, Servius, on the line of the Æneid, “ O accursed thirst for gold, to what villainy do you not impel the hearts of men?” notes that famine is called accursed or sacred after the manner of the Gauls. For when the citizens of Marseilles were suffering from pestilence, a certain poor man offered himself to the state to be fed for a full year on the best food at the public expense, and then to be led through the city with execration, clothed with evergreens and sacred garments, that on his head might fall all the evils of the state ; and then he was either sacrificed or drowned. Hence Budaeus, following Suidas and others, says that καθάρματα were men dedicated to death, and thrown into the sea, bearing the burden of all the wickedness of the state, and so sacrificed to Neptune, with the words added : “ Be thou our expiatory victim.” Such a victim was the goat sent into the wilderness by the Hebrews (Lev. xvi. 21). But the Greek and Latin versions support the first meaning in preference, and that gives the more literal and simple sense. For S. Paul is here treating of the contempt meted out to him and his companions, whereby they were trodden under foot as the vilest wretches living.
And are the off scouring of all things unto this day . Offscouring is the translation of a word which denotes such things as scabs, nail-parings, and such worthless things as are cast aside and trodden under foot by all. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, Anselm. Œcumenius understands it to mean a little rag or cloth by which sweat is wiped off the face; others follow Budaeus, and take it to mean “ expiatory victim,” as I have said. This is supported, too, by the Syriac Version.
Vers. 14, 15. — I write not these things . . . for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel. And therefore I alone am your spiritual father. Other teachers are but schoolmasters who educate the child sent them by the father. Paul hints that the Corinthians should be ashamed of themselves for passing by the Apostles, who had converted them to Christ, and who were suffering so much for their sake, and for following after vain-glorious teachers, and for wishing to be called their disciples,
Ver. 17. — Who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways. My doctrine and Christian life, say S. Thomas and Anselm.
In Christ. In Christ’s religion.
Ver. 20. — For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power. The spiritual energy and Christian, and especially Apostolic perfection , in which God reigns, and displays in us and in the Church the effectual working of the Gospel of His grace and Spirit, are not to be found in eloquence, but in the powerful working of the Holy Spirit, viz., in convincing speech, in the power of miracles, in the expulsion of demons, and, as Theophylact and Cajetan say, still more in the sufferings of the Apostle’s life described in vers. 9-11, and in conversion of character and in holy living. So, too, say S. Chrysostom and Anselm : For S. John Baptist did no miracle, and yet began to preach the Kingdom of God in the power of a holy life, in the spirit and efficacy of preaching and exhortation. Cf. the parallel expression in Rom. xiv. 17.
Ver. 21. — What will ye ? Shall I come unto you with a rod? Such as becomes the father I spoke of in ver. 15. The rod is a symbol of severity of rebuke and power of punishing. So Chrysostom , Theophylact, Anselm.
Observe here the power of punishing lodged in the Church and her prelates, and exercised by Paul in the next chapter. Œcumenius and Cajetan refer these words of the Apostle's to the next chapter, in which he sternly rebukes the Corinthians for the incest of the fornicator. However, these words can well be joined with the preceding , in which he reproved the Corinthians for their pride.