The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
If you take the Roman reading, the meaning is, When, as is often the case, any temptation of those which I have mentioned, or any other, attacks your minds, do not take it in and foster it, so as to let it grow imperceptibly in power, and to become at last unconquerable : for it is impossible to exclude altogether human and light temptations so as to never feel them. Anselm says : “ To be overcome by temptation and to sin from malice is devilish: not to feel its power is angelic ; to feel it and overcome it is human.” See also S. Gregory (Pastoral, pt. i. cxi.).
God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able. 1. If God does not suffer us to be tempted beyond our strength, therefore much less, or rather in no way does God impel us to sin, as Calvin thinks.
2. Nor does God enjoin impossibilities, as Luther thinks, nor does He even permit them.
3. It follows from this that we can be so strongly tempted by the devil and the flesh as to be unable to resist if the grace of God does not succour us, as Chrysostom and Anselm say.
4. As a matter of fact there is no temptation so great but that it can be overcome by the grace of God.
5. The best remedy, therefore, against temptation is prayer, by which we call down the help of God from distrust of our own strength.
6. This grace is promised here and elsewhere, not only to the elect, but to all who duly call on God. See also decrees of the Council of Trent (Sess. xxiv. can. 9, and Sess. vi. can. 11). For the Apostle is speaking to the Christians at Corinth, many of whom were not elect, but some contentious, causing offence, and drunken (chap. xi. 21). What is more, none of them knew that they were elected, so as to be able to apply this consolation to themselves exclusively.
7. It is in the power of each Christian to obtain sufficient help to overcome all temptations and all sins; for God pledges His word to them to this, and He is One to be trusted, as the Apostle says here. His meaning is: no temptation can take you, except on your own side and by your own negligence; for on God’s side I pledge myself that God, who is faithful, will perform what He has promised, and will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, i.e., will not allow you to be tempted, except by human temptation . Understand, however, that this is if you seek His grace and help, as is right, and co-operate with Him. “God,” as S. Augustine says (de Nat et Gratia , c. 43), and following him, the Council of Trent (Sess. vi. can. 11), “ God does not order impossibilities when He orders us to resist every temptation ; but when He orders , it is to bid us to do what we can , to seek help for what we cannot ; and then He lends the strength.” See S. Matt xi. 30 and 1 S. John v. 3.
S. Ephrem beautifully illustrates this saying of the Apostle as follows : “If men,” he says, “do not put upon their beasts more weight than they can bear , much less will God put on men more temptations than they can bear. Again , if the potter bakes his vessels in the fire until they are perfected , and does not remove them before they are properly baked and of the right consistency , and again does not leave them in too long, lest they be burnt too much and so become useless : much more will God do the same with us , trying us with the fire of temptations until we are purified and perfected ; but beyond that point He will not suffer us to be scorched and consumed with temptation ” (de Patientia).
But will with the temptation also make a way to escape . God, who suffers you to fall into temptation, will also make it turn out well, as Erasmus and Augustine (in Ps. lxii and Ep. 89) understand it. He makes it good for you and your salvation, and will enable you to come out of it without loss, nay, rather victoriously and with glory, as Anselm says.
1. The word translated “ way of escape,” according to Theophylact, CEcumenius, and the Greeks, means a happy end of the temptation, so that it turns out well and promotes the good of the tempted ; for God will either bring the temptation to a speedy ending, or not permit it to go on to the fourth day, if He knows that we cannot bear it for more than three days, as S. Ambrose says ; or if He gives it longer life He gives us the power of bearing it, as Ambrose and Anselm say.
2. It does not signify any way of escape, but such a way as when a soldier comes out victorious from a battle or a single combat, more renowned and even with increased strength and courage. So have the saints come out of temptation. The Greek word then also means a progress. Not only will God make the temptation no obstacle, but a means even of advancement, causing an increase of strength, virtue, grace, victory, and glory, a more certain walk in the way of virtue and in the road to heaven. So Photius.
That ye may be able to bear it. The Greek literally means, “ to more than bear it,” i.e., so to bear it that strength remains over and above to bear something farther. God gives such help that any one can overcome temptation with flying colours. Hence the Fathers often remark that men advance in virtue through temptations chiefly ; the reason is, that no one can resist them, except by putting forth contrary acts of virtue strongly and intensely, and where temptation calls out such acts it strengthens and intensifies their habits.
3. The righteous wins merit by such acts ; he seeks and receives from God an increased infusion of grace and all virtues.
Ver. 14. — Wherefore , my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry . Not only avoid the worship which is given in sacrificing to and calling on idols, but also abstain from eating things offered to idols from any feeling of their sanctity, as the heathen eat them when the sacrifice is completed, either at the altars or in the temples. So you would share in their sacrifices, and would be thought to approve of them, and even to offer them. The Apostle is now going on to speak of the eating of things offered to idols. Chapter ix. was a long digression about a paid or unpaid ministry, about the Christian contest, the prize, and the competitors ; the earlier part of chap. x. has been about the sins and punishments of the Hebrews ; and now, after this long digression, he returns to the subject of things offered to idols, which was begun in chap. viii. The “ wherefore ” signifies, then, that he had written all that precedes for the purpose of warning them against idolatry and idol-offerings.
Ver. 16 . — The cup of blessing which we bless . (1.) That is the wine in the chalice which is blessed by the priest, and hence the chalice itself, containing this consecrated wine, does it not communicate to us the blood of Christ? (2.) It may be called the cup of blessing, because it blesses us and loads us with grace, as Anselm and Chrysostom say. (3.) More accurately, it is called “the cup of blessing,” because Christ blessed it before consecration, i.e., called down the power of God to afterwards effect a change both in the bread and in the cup (S. Matt. xxvi. 26).
1. We see from the accounts of the Last Supper in S. Matt xxvi., S. Luke xxii., and here and in chap. xi., that Christ, before consecration of the Eucharist, gave thanks to God the Father, and, as He was wont, lifted up his eyes to heaven, as is enjoined in the Roman Canon of the Mass and in the Liturgy of S. James. Hence this sacrament is called the Eucharist, or Thanksgiving, because it is the greatest act of grace, and consequently is to be received with the greatest thanksgiving.
2. Christ blessed the bread and wine, not, as heretics say, His Father. And so Paul says expressly, “The cup which we bless.” Christ blessed the bread and the cup, i.e., invoked the blessing and power of God on the bread and wine, that it might be present, both then and at all future consecrations, to change the bread into the body, and the wine of the chalice into the blood of Christ, whenever the words of consecration should be duly pronounced. Of the same kind was the blessing of the bread in S. Luke ix. 16. This blessing, then, was not the consecration, though S. Thomas thinks that it was (pt. iii. qu. 78, art. 1, ad 1), but a previous prayer. (See Council of Trent, Sess. xiii. can. 1). Hence in the Liturgies of S. James and S. Basil, and in the Roman, after Christ’s example, God is prayed to bless the gifts, that the Divine power may descend upon the bread and the cup to complete the consecration ; and it is thence that we have “the cup of blessing,” i.e., the cup blessed.