The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
from crying; and so mothers have to be occupied day and night about their children, and can think of nothing else. (3.) The more children, the greater the number of anxieties. How great is the grief if he happen to die, or be led by bad society into crime and disgrace, or if he show himself rebellious to his parents; if he waste his father’s goods by gambling and drinking, if he make a reckless marriage! For even if the parents be most holy, yet it often happens that the children are wicked, and so torture their parents most grievously. We have examples in Adam and Cain,
Noah and Ham, Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac and Esau, Jacob and Reuben with nearly all his brothers, David and Amnon and
Absalom, and many others.
It was because of these burdens attending on marriage that S. Augustine, following S. Ambrose, would never advise any one to marry. Possidonius, in his life of him (c. xxvii.), says that he recommended these three things to be observed by a man of God : (a) never to ask for any one a wife, ( b ) not to support any one who thought of entering the army, ( c ) and in his country not to go to a banquet when invited. The reasons he gave were ( a ) that if the married couple were to quarrel they would blame him by whom they were united; ( b ) that if the soldier behaved himself so as to be unsuccessful, he would lay the blame on his adviser ; (c) that if he frequently attended banquets, he might lose the measure of temperance that was fitting.
But I spare you . Since you prefer the state of trouble, viz., matrimony, I permit it. So Ambrose.
Ver. 29 . — But this I say , brethren , the time is short. The duration of this life is short, so that we may not think of merely enjoying our wives and the things of this present life, but, as strangers and sojourners, use them for a short time, in order to travel better towards that glorious City into which we shall be enrolled as everlasting citizens. Ambrose takes the time here in a wider sense, as denoting the duration of the world. Time is short, and the day of judgment is at hand : do not, therefore, spend your time on the temporal pleasures of the world, but prepare yourselves for judgment.
It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none . That they do not greatly devote themselves to the things of marriage so as to give their spirit, their mind, and their love more to their wives than to the Lord. So Ambrose and Anselm ; S. Augustine (de Serm . Dom. in Mont lib. i. c. xiv.), that they should by mutual consent live in chastity, if possible.
Ver. 30. — And they that buy as though they possessed not. Let them not regard themselves as possessors for ever, but only as tenants for life. For Paul is forbidding that inordinate love of things which makes them possess us rather than we them. We are not to fix our heart on transitory things, nor with inordinate affection cling to any creature that so soon passeth away. S. Anselm, S. Augustine ( in Joan . Tract . 40), in giving to a rich man a rule for the due use of money, says beautifully: “Use money as a traveller in an inn uses a table, or a cup, or a ewer — as one soon to depart, not to abide for ever.”
That God might effectually teach the Jews this lesson, He appointed every fiftieth year to be a year of Jubilee, when all lands that had been sold should return without payment to their first owner. Cf. Lev. xxv. 23. He said to them in effect: I, the Most High, have true and real dominion over your land;
and therefore it belongs to Me to lay down what conditions of sale that I please, especially since I have put you into possession as settlers and colonists, and wish you to always remain such. Wherefore I will and decree that all possessions whatsoever return in the year of Jubilee to their first owners, and that for this reason, that you may know, says Philo (de Cherubim ), that God alone is the true Lord and possessor of all things, and that men have but usufruct of them, not dominion. “Hence,” says Philo, “it is clear that we use the goods of another ; that we possess in the way of right and dominion neither glory , nor riches , nor power, nor anything whatever , even if it be some power of the body or faculty of the mind: we merely have the usufruct of them while we live.* 9 Ver. 31. — And they that use this world as not abusing it . By not giving themselves to it overmuch. The Latin version translates the compound word as if it were a simple one — as not using it ; but the meaning is the same. Not to use it is to abuse it by holding too tightly to it ; for we must use things according to what they are. A world that is fleeting must therefore be used loosely, and by the way as it were, which is as though it were not used. But if you cling to the world you abuse it, for you use a thing that is ever changing, as though it were firm, fixed, and solid. For abuse, as Theophylact says, is use that is immoderate— exceeding the measure and nature of the thing. Hence the Syriac renders this passage, “Let not those that use this world use it beyond its proper measure.” Abuse is found in 1 Cor. ix. 18 in the sense of “use to the full.” Wherefore S. Basil (Reg. Brev. Jnterrog. 70) says : “ The Apostle condemns abuse in the words, ‘I use the world as not abusing it .’ The very need that we have of things that are for use is the measure of their use. He who goes beyond what necessity enjoins is a victim , either to covetousness , or lust , or vain glory .”
S. Leo (Serm. 5 de Jej. Sept. Mensis) says excellently : “ In the love of God is no excess ; in the love of the world everything is harmful. And therefore should we hold fast to the things that are eternal ; use the things of time in passing , as being pilgrims hastening along the road which takes us back to our country , and regarding whatever good things the world has given us as rather sustenance on the road than inducements to remain. Therefore is it that the Apostle says: ‘ The time is short , it remaineth that they that have wives be as though they had them not , &c. ; for the fashion of this world is passing away .’ But it is not easy to turn aside from the blandishments of form, of abundance , of novelty , unless in the beauty of visible things we love the Creator and not the creature .” Again (Serm. xii. de Quadrag .), after quoting these words of the Apostle, he adds: “ Happy is the man who , in pure self-control , passes the time of his pilgrimage here , and does not rest contentedly in those things amongst which he must walk; who is a guest rather than a master in his earthly home ; who does not depend on human affections , nor lose sight of the Divine promises.”
For the fashion of this world passeth away. The Greek verb may be also translated “ is deceitful ” or “ acts falsely.” For, as S. Augustine says (Ep. xxxix. ad Licentium ) : “ The chains of this world gall while they seem to please , bring certain pain and uncertain pleasure, painful fear and fearful rest ; a reality full of misery , and an empty hope of happiness. Will you of your own accord bind your hands and feet with these ? ” And again ( Serm. xxiii. de Verb. Apostol.) he says : “ Temporal things never cease to enflame us with expectation of their comings to corrupt us when they do come , and to torture us when they have gone by. When longed for they enkindle , when obtained they lose their value , when lost they vanish away.” And S. Bernard says : “ Do not love the things of this world; for they burden us when we have them , defile us when we love them, and torture us when we lose them.”
Again, S. Gregory (lib. vi. Ep. ad Andream) says : “ Our life is as the journey of a sailor: for the sailor stands , sits, lies down, and is borne along whither the ship carries him. So is it with us : whether waking or sleeping, whether silent or speaking, or walking, or willing or not willing, through the moments of time we are hastening daily to our end. When, then , the day of our end comes, what good will all that do us that we have so eagerly sought after, and so anxiously got together ? It is not honour nor riches that we should seek after : all these things must be left behind. But if we want to find what is good, let us love those things which we shall have for ever ; if we fear what is evil, let us fear those sufferings which the lost suffer eternally.” Then, shortly after, he advises Andrew for the short span of our life and pilgrimage here, “to give himself to sacred reading, to meditate on heavenly words, to kindle himself with love of eternity, to do all good works in his power with his earthly things, and to hope for an everlasting kingdom as a reward for them. So to live is to have a part already in the life of eternity.” S. Jerome says, in his life of S. Hilarion, that “he was wont to remind every one that the fashion of this world is passing away, and that that is the true life which is purchased by the sufferings of this present life.”