The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Lastly, S. Bernard ( Serm . xi. in Cant.) devoutly and beautifully says: “Who can understand how great sweetness is contained in the one short saying, ‘God shall be all in all?’ To say nothing of the body, I see in the soul three things — reason, will, and memory, and these three are the soul. How much of its integrity and perfection is lacking to each of these in this present life is known to every one who walks in the Spirit. Why is this, except that God is not yet all in all? Hence is it that the reason is so often deceived in its judgments, and the will weakened by a fourfold disturbing cause, and the memory clouded over causes of forgetfulness. To this threefold vanity a noble creature has been made subject, not willingly, but in hope. For He that filleth the desire of the soul with good things will Himself be to the reason fulness of light, to the will a multitude of peace, to the memory eternal continuity. O Truth! O Love! O Eternity! O Trinity, blessed and blessing, to Thee does my miserable trinity, after a wonderful fashion, aspire, a miserable exile apart from Thee … Put thy trust in God ', for I will yet praise Him, when my reason knows no error, my will no grief and my memory no fear; and when we enjoy that wondrous calm, that perfect sweetness, that eternal security which we hope for, God, as Truth, will give the first, as Charity the second, as Power the third, that He may be all in all, when the reason receives unclouded light, when the will obtains unbroken peace, and the memory drinks for ever of an inexhaustible Fountain. May you see all this, and rightly attribute it, first to the Son, then to the Spirit, and lastly to the Father.”
Ver. 29. — Else what shall they do? ... why are they then baptized for the dead? 1. This baptism is metaphorical, the baptism of pain, afflictions, tears, and prayers, which they endure on behalf of the dead, in order to deliver them from the baptism of fire in purgatory. For even those Judaisers are baptized who deny the resurrection, like Cerinthus and others, or, at any rate, their fellow-religionists, the Jews, and this, according to the faith and custom of the Hebrews, who are wont to pray for the dead, as appears from 2 Macc. xii. 43, and from their modern forms of prayer. This meaning best fits in with what follows. Baptism is in other places often used in this sense, (as S. Mark x. 38; S. Luke xii. 50; Ps. xxxii. 6). Throughout Scripture, waters and waves typify tribulations and afflictions.
2. “Baptism” can also be understood of purification before the sacrifices which were offered for the dead. The Jews were in the habit of being purified before sacrifice, prayer, or any Divine service.
3. The different interpretations of others are dealt with at length (de Purgat. lib. i c. 4) and Suarez (p. 3, qu. 56, disp. 50, sect. 1), and they all are referred to literal baptism.
(a) S. Thomas explains it to mean baptism for washing away sins, which are dead works.
(b) Theodoret thinks that “for the dead” is “like the dead,” when they rise from death, viz., when they are baptized, and emerge from the waters of baptism as from the tomb, they symbolise the resurrection of the dead.
(c) Epiphanius (Hares. 28) takes “for the dead” to mean when death is close at hand, and they are looked on as already dead. For then those who had deferred baptism wished to be baptized in hope and faith in eternal life and resurrection. Hence those to be baptized used to recite the Creed, in which is the Article, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.”
(d) Claud Guiliaud, a doctor of Paris, thinks that the phrase refers to the martyrs, who suffer for the faith and the article of the resurrection of the dead. This meaning agrees well with the words that follow: “Why stand we in jeopardy every hour?”
(e) Others refer to a custom which the followers of Marcion afterwards observed, and suppose the meaning to be that some, in mistake and out of superstition, received baptism for the dead who had died without baptism. Cf. Ambrose and Irenaeus (Hares. 28), Tertullian (de Resurr. c. 24) and Chrysostom.
(/) Chrysostom proffers and prefers another explanation, viz., that S. Paul’s meaning is: Why do all receive baptism in hope of the resurrection of the dead, or to benefit their state when dead, that it may be well with them after death, if the dead do not rise? Surely, then, in vain do they do this. But this is not credible, for the common faith of all the faithful is that they do rise, so much so, that many of them put off their baptism, even to the end of life, and are baptized on their death-bed, in the hope that, being free from all pain and guilt, they may fly to heaven, and obtain a joyful resurrection. Hence we get the name “clinical baptism.” Many canons are extant ordering that such baptism be not refused to those who ask for it.
This last meaning seems the simplest of all, and the one most on the surface, and is taken from the literal meaning of “baptized.” Tertullian says that “for the dead” means, “When the sacrament of baptism is performed over the body, the body is consecrated to immortality.”
Ver. 30. — And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? It is folly for us to expose ourselves to so many dangers and persecutions, in hope of the resurrection, if there is none. This is a fresh reason, or rather a fresh part of the reason joined to the preceding verse. That we all shall rise again is evident from the common belief and instinct of all the faithful, instilled into them both by grace and nature; for all long for baptism, because of this hope of the resurrection. Others again, and we especially, because of the same hope, boldly meet and even attack all dangers and sufferings. God, therefore, who by nature and grace has given us this feeling and this courage, through hope of the resurrection, plainly testifies the very fact that we shall rise again.
Ver. 31. — I die daily, i.e., I expose myself every day to danger of death, on behalf of the Gospel and the conversion of the Gentiles.
By your rejoicing. That is, I die daily for the sake of the glory which awaits you in heaven, in order that I may win it for you; or, better still, as your father and Apostle, I swear, and call God to witness, by your glory, i.e., by the glorying with which I glory over you as my children in Christ, that I die daily, and expose myself to death in hope of the resurrection. Hence S. Augustine (Ep. 89) proves the lawfulness of oaths. [Cornelius à Lapide follows the Latin Version, which gives glory where the A. V. has rejoicing.]
Which I have in Christ This is, according to Anselm, the future glory which, in reliance on Christ, I hope that you will have, or, better, the glory or glorying which I have, i.e., with which I glory in Christ; for I glory that by the merits of Christ I have obtained it. Gagneius and Photius explain the phrase differently, and make it a protestation rather than an oath, and read it, “I die daily because of your” (or, according to some Greek writers, “our”) “glorying;” i.e., that I am able to boast of you as having been converted and won to Christ by my efforts.
Take notice that the Apostle here proves the resurrection of the body from the immortality of the soul alone, because these two things are naturally connected, and because men doubted then not so much the resurrection in itself as the immortality of the soul; so that if any one should prove to them the immortality of the soul, they would at once admit the resurrection. So S. Thomas.
Ver. 32. — If after the manner of men, (1.) According to Photius, as far as man could; (2.) better, with human hope only, human courage, enterprise, love of glory, by which men are for the most part driven to face dangers. (3.) Others explain it as meaning, “I speak after the manner of men,” who readily dwell on their fights and conflicts.
I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, Theophylact, Anselm, Primasius, and Baron ius think that “beasts” refers to Demetrius and his savage companions, who fought fiercely and like beasts against Paul in defence of Diana (Acts xix.). We may then translate it: “If I have fought against a man who was as a beast.” So Paul calls Nero a lion (2 Tim. iv. 17). Such men too are called bulls (Ps. lxviii. 30); and S. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Romans, says: “I fight daily with beasts,” i.e., with the soldiers guarding him.
But Chrysostom, Ambrose, and others think that Paul was actually thrown to the beasts at Ephesus and fought with them; for this is the strict meaning of the Greek, and, moreover, that contest with Demetrius at Ephesus took place after this Epistle was written; for after that outbreak, Demetrius and his followers, by their violence, forced Paul to leave Ephesus at once, so that he had no time to write this letter at Ephesus; therefore it was written before. It is pretty certain, as Baronius holds, that it was about that time that this letter was written at Ephesus. The fight with beasts, here spoken of, was not the one with Demetrius, which had not yet taken place, but an earlier one.