The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
1. By way of satisfaction and meritoriously ; and this is what the Apostle specially has in his mind here : because Christ paid man’s debt with the most precious price of His own Blood, and so made satisfaction for man, and merited for us righteousness, wisdom, and sanctification. In this way He was made for us righteousness, because the righteousness, i.e., the satisfaction of Christ, is ours, just as much as if we had ourselves made satisfaction to God. And hence it is that theologians teach that the satisfaction of Christ is applied to us in justification through the Sacraments, as if naturally first, and that then as a natural consequence our sins are forgiven through that satisfaction, and grace is infused. This condemns the error of Peter Abelard, in which he is followed by the Socinians, who teach that Christ was the teacher of the world, not its redeemer — nay more, that He was sent by the Father to give to man an example of perfect virtue, but not to free him from sin or to redeem him. S. Bernard refutes this in Ep. 190, to Pope Innocent, where he says: “ Christ is the end of the law to every one that believeth. In short, S. Paul says that He was made to us righteousness by God the Father . Is not then that righteousness mine which was made for me? If my guilt is brought against me, why am I not given the benefit of my righteousness? And indeed what is given me is safer than what is innate. For this has whereof it may glory, but not before God. But the former, since it is effectual to salvation, has no ground of glorying, except in the Lord. ‘For if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head,’ says Job, lest the answer come, ‘What hast thou that thou didst not receive? But if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hast not received it?’ This is the righteousness of man in the blood of his Redeemer, which Abelard, that man of perdition, scoffs and sneers at, and so tries to empty of its force, that he holds and argues that all that the Lord of Glory did in emptying Himself ... in suffering indignities . . . is to be reduced to this, that it was all done that He might by His life and teaching give to man a rule of life , and by His suffering and death set up a goal of charity.” Abelard’s argument was fallacious and frivolous: the devil, he said, had no right over man; therefore man needed no liberator. The premiss is doubtless true when understood of lawful right, but not of usurped right, under which man through sin by his own free will had submitted himself to the power of the devil, of sin, and of hell.
2. By way of example ; because the righteousness of Christ is the most perfect example, to which all our righteousness ought to be conformed. In this sense S. Paul’s meaning is, Christ is an example and mirror of righteousness.
3. Efficiently; because Christ effects and produces this righteousness in us through His Sacraments, and because He teaches the Saints true wisdom and understanding; as, e.g., how to live a good and Christian life, by what road to attain to heaven, and how we must strive after bliss.
4. As our end ; because Christ Himself and His glory are the end of our righteousness and sanctification. S. Bernard, in his 22nd Sermon on the Canticles, deals with these four, wisdom , righteousness , sanctification, redemption , symbolically. In the first place, he adapts them to the four works of Christ. He says, “ Christ was made for us wisdom in His preaching , righteousness in the forgiveness of our sins , sanctification in the life that He spent with sinners , redemption in the sufferings that He bore for sinners.” And again further on he says, “ Christ was made for us by God wisdom prudence , righteousness by forgiving us our trespasses , sanctification by the example He set of temperance and of chaste life , redemption by the example He left of patience and of fortitude in dying. Where, I ask, is true wisdom, except in the teaching of Christ? Whence comes true righteousness but from the mercy of Christ ? Where is there true temperance but in the life of Christ? Where true fortitude save in the Passion of Christ?”
In the second place, S. Bernard naturally adapts these four to
the four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, which Christ imparts to us. He goes on to say: “ Only those, then, who have been imbued with His doctrine are to be called prudent ; only those, who by His mercy have obtained forgiveness of their sins, are to be called righteous ; only those are to be called temperate who strive to imitate His life ; only those are to be called brave who bravely bear adversity and show patience like His. In vain surely does any one strive to acquire virtues, if he thinks that they are to be obtained from any other source but the Lord of virtues, whose teaching is the school of prudence, whose mercy the working of righteousness, whose life the mirror of temperance, whose death the pattern of fortitude.”
Ver. 31. — That, according as it is written. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. He is quoting not the words but the sense of Jeremiah ix. 23. So Ambrose, Theophylact, Anselm, St. Thomas. In Jeremiah the passage runs : “ Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me.” This it is to glory in the Lord. Jeremiah is speaking of liberation from the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and from slaughter by the Chaldeans , which were then threatening the Jews. In other words, then, he says : The Jews glory in the counsels of their wise men, in the strength of their soldiers, in the riches of Jerusalem, as though these would make them secure against the Chaldeans ; but they err, for their true glory is to know and understand God, that is, His Providence , and that it is He alone who worketh mercy, and mercifully sets free whom He will, and not the wisdom, might, or riches of man. Moreover, He alone inflicts just punishment on whom He will, and no wise, mighty, or rich man can set free from this — even as, O Jews, He will inflict it on you, and will bring it to pass, that death (that is, the Chaldeans, shall bring death upon you) shall climb up into your houses, through your windows, and slay all your little ones.
The Apostle rightly adapts this in this passage to those who were calling others, or who had been called into Christianity, that no one may attribute the grace of Christ to himself, his virtues, or the gifts of nature, but only to Christ, and consequently his tacit exhortation is : “ Do not, O Corinthians, glory in yourselves, or in Paul, or in Apollos, your teachers, but in the Lord alone.” For this is what in the beginning he proposed to prove, and therefore all that is here said must be referred to it. Anselm says : “ That man glories in the Lord only who knows that it is not of himself but of Him, not only that he is, but also that it is well with him.” Again, that man glories in the Lord who, if he has anything which makes him pleasing to God, holds that he has received it, not because of his own wisdom, power, good works, talent, or merits, but merely through the grace of God. Thirdly, he who in all that he does seeks not his own glory, but that of the Lord.
S. Bernard wrote a noteworthy sermon on these words of the
Apostle; see also Sermon 25 on Canticles. He says: “ Moreover , the whole glorying of the Saints is within and not without, that is, not in the flower of grass, or the mouth of the vulgar, but in the Lord; for God alone is the sole judge of their conscience, Him alone they desire to please, and to please Him is their only real and chief glory.” And Sermon 13 on Canticles: “ Brothers , let none of you desire to be praised in this life . For whatever favour you gain for yourselves here which you do not refer to Him, you steal from Him. For whence, thou dust that perishest, whence comes thy glory?” And in his Sentences : “ The Apostle knew that glory properly belongs to the Creator, and not to the creature . But he also knew that the rational creature so seeks after glory that it can scarcely or perhaps never overcome this desire, just because it was made in the image of the Creator. Therefore he gave most wholesome advice when he said: ‘ Since you cannot be persuaded not to glory, let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.’” Let us, too, say in company with the Psalmist, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give the praise,” and with the four and twenty elders who cast their crowns before the throne, “Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb for ever.”