The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Chapter 15
He proves the resurrection of the dead against the false teachers who denied it : —i. From the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Thus (ver. 12) he gives the bearing of it on our resurrection.
ii. He proves the resurrection by the authority of those who are baptized for the dead (ver. 29).
iii. He declares what the body will be like in the resurrection (ver. 35), and then names the four endowments of the glorified body (ver. 42).
iv. He shows that we shall all rise again, but shall not all be changed, and that in the resurrection which shall take place, in a moment, when the trumpet shall sound, death will be completely swallowed up.
Ver. 1. — I declare unto you, i.e., recall to your memory.
Vers. 3, 4. — How that Christ died for our sins . . . according to the scriptures . Hos. vi. 2 : “After two days will He revive us; in the third day He will raise us up,” i.e,, when He shall on the third day Himself rise from death to life ; for the resurrection of Christ was the cause of our rising from the death of sin, and of our future resurrection from bodily death, so that we are to rise like Christ on the Judgment Day to everlasting life. See notes on Rom. iv. 25. So Anselm, Dorotheus, in the beginning of his Synopsis, and also the Jewish writers of old in Galatin . lib. viii. c. 22. Theophylact, following S. Chrysostom, says that it was prophesied under an allegory that Christ should rise again on the third day; for Jonah, from the whale’s belly on the third day, was a type of Christ back to life from death and hell on the third day.
Isaac, too, typified the same event, in his being rescued from death when about to be sacrificed by his father, and restored to his mother alive and well on the third day. So Christ was given by His Father and sacrificed, and raised again on the third day. But these two instances are drawn from the allegorical sense, that of Hosea is from the literal.
Ver. 5. — Was seen of Cephas . Paul puts this appearance of Christ first, and therefore implies that the first man that Christ appeared to was Peter. I say “ the first man,” for He appeared to the Magdalene before S. Peter (S. Mark xvi. 9).
Then of the eleven. On the Sunday after the resurrection, when Thomas was now present, Christ appeared to the eleven, for the twelfth, Judas, had by that time hanged himself, or better still, “ to the eleven,” i.e., to the whole Apostolic College, which then had been reduced to eleven, Christ appeared on the day of His resurrection , though Thomas was absent. The Greek copies have, “ then of the twelve.” S. Augustine has the same reading (Quasi. Evangel. lib. i. qu. 17), and he says there that, though Judas was dead, “ the twelve ” were still so called as by a corporate name. So the Decemvirs are said to assemble if only seven or eight are present. Chrysostom explains it otherwise. He says that Christ appeared to the twelfth, Matthias, after His ascension. But this is not recorded anywhere, and Paul is here naming the appearances of Christ before His ascension only.
Ver. 6. — After that He was seen of above five hundred brethren. The Greek word for above means (a) “more than,” (b) “from heaven.”
Chrysostom and Theophylact take it here in the latter sense. For Christ appeared, they say, not walking on the ground, but above their heads, as though descending from the sky ; and He did this that He might show them that He had ascended as well as risen, and might confirm their faith in His ascension. Hence any one may gather that Chrysostom thought that this appearance of Christ took place after His Ascension; but still it is not true, nor is of necessity gathered from what Chrysostom says.
This appearance of Christ, whether on a higher spot, as if from heaven, or in the air, evidently was prior to His ascension ; and this is the common opinion of doctors ; for we read nowhere of any public appearance after His ascension.
Many suppose that this was the well-known appearance of Christ on a mountain in Galilee, which He had so many times promised. All His disciples met there, as He had bidden. This was not at His ascension, but before it; for Christ ascended into heaven, not from Galilee, but from the Mount of Olives. See S. Jerome (ad Hedibiam , qu. 7).
Ver. 7 . — After that He was seen of James. The son of Alphaeus, first Bishop of Jerusalem, and styled brother of the Lord. There is a tradition mentioned by Jerome (Lib. de Scrip . Eccles. in Jacobo) that James had taken a vow not to eat anything till he should see Christ risen. S. Jerome, however, does not think the tradition of any value. Its falsity is seen, too, (1.) for it is evident, from this passage of S. Paul, that Christ appeared to him after appearing to the five hundred brethren, and therefore long after His resurrection, too long for S. James’s fast to have been prolonged naturally. (2.) All the Apostles, and therefore S. James, were confounded at Christ’s death, and did not believe in His resurrection. It is not likely then that James would take such a vow. (3.) S. Jerome says that he took this story from the “ Gospel according to the Hebrews,” which is apocryphal. It is also said there that Christ wore at the time a linen garment, and that He gave it to the servant of the priest, which also seems false; for the garments of Christ remained in the sepulchre (S. Matt xxviii.), and a glorified body, such as Christ’s was, is not clad with linen or any such garments, but with splendour and rays of light.
Then of all the apostles , and the disciples as well, says S. Anselm, at the ascension.
Ver. 8. — And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. Born out of due time is, (1.) according to Theophylact and Theodoret, contemptible and despised, because young that come too soon to the birth are generally imperfectly formed, thin, and undersized. (2.) According to Ambrose and Chrysostom it is untimely ; that is, after Christ had ascended into heaven, Paul was born in Christ, and received his Apostleship. (3.) According to Anselm he thus calls himself, because he was struck to the earth by Divine power, compelled, and violently born again : untimely young are forced into the world by the violence of nature. (4.) Or, as S. Anselm again remarks, such births are of young half-dead, and they are often born blind. So S. Paul was smitten with blindness at his conversion. (5.) S. Paul was expelled from the womb of his mother, the people of the Jews, and was sent, not to his fellow-countrymen , but to the Gentiles outside. (6.) Baronius ( Annals , a.d. 44) thinks that Paul was so called as an Apostle, because he was made an Apostle in addition to the twelve ; for the Senators at Rome, he says, were so called, when they were co-opted into the Senate, in addition to the fixed number ; but it cannot be said that S. Paul alludes to this, for he is writing in Greek to the Greeks, not to Romans.
It appears from this verse that Christ appeared to Paul, not by an angel, as Haymo thinks (Comment. on Apocalypse, c. ii.), but in person ; not in a vision, as He appeared to him in Acts xxii. 18, nor in a trance, as is recorded in 2 Cor. xii. 2, but in the air in bodily form ; for it was in this way that Christ appeared to Cephas, James, and the other Apostles ; moreover, if it were any other kind of appearance it would be no proof of the resurrection of Christ. The appearance of Christ alluded to here is the one at Paul’s conversion (Acts ix. 3), when he saw Christ before the bright light blinded him.
Hence it further appears that Christ then descended from heaven, for, as S. Thomas and others say, S. Paul heard the voice of Christ speaking in the air. Whence it follows again that Christ was then in two places, in the empyrean and in our atmosphere, close to Paul; for, according to Acts iii. 21, Christ has never left the highest heaven to which He ascended. If Christ was then in two places, why cannot He be at once in heaven and in the Eucharist ?
Hegesippus ( Excid . Hierosol. lib. iii. c. 2) and others say that Christ appeared in the same way to S. Peter at Rome, when He called him back as he was flying from martyrdom with the words, “ I go to be crucified again.”
Ver. 9 . — For I am the least of the apostles , that am not meet to be called an apostle. Not only the least and unworthy because of my sins, but not fit for the apostleship ; for it is not meet that one who was a persecutor should be a leader and Apostle of the Church.
Morally, see the humility of S. Paul in calling himself the least ; by so doing he was the greatest. S. Bernard (Serm. xiir. on the Canticles) says well : “ A great and rare virtue surely is it that you , who work great things , do not know your own greatness ; that your holiness , which is evident to all, escapes your own observation ; that you seem wonderful to others , despicable to yourself. This, I think , is more wonderful than your very virtues. You surely are a faithful servant, if of the great glory of God which passes through you rather than proceeds from you , you let none stick to your hands. Therefore you will hear the blessed words: ‘Well done , good and faithful servant ; because thou hast been faithful over a few things , I will make thee ruler over many things.’ ”