The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
It may be said, it is remarkable that S. Luke should have said nothing in the Acts of so important an incident and so fearful a fight. But it is clear that S. Luke passed over things of no less moment, as, e.g., those related by S. Paul himself in 2 Cor. xi. 25: “Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck,” &c. Hence Nicephorus (Hist. lib. ii. c. 25) relates, on the authority of tradition apparently, that this fight of S. Paul’s was a literal fight with beasts.
Gagneius says that the Greek means, not only to fight against beasts, but to fight against them to extremities, even for life. He turns it: “For the defence of the Gospel I was thrown to beasts, and fought with them to the last breath, and by the help of God I overcame them, and slew them not with weapons or fists but with faith and prayer, or I fled from them and escaped them.”
Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die. S. Paul is quoting Isa. xxii. 13. Those who deny the resurrection or who do not believe it are not far from the position of the wicked in Isaiah; for if there is no resurrection it will be lawful to join with the Epicureans in saying, “Eat, play, drink: there is no pleasure after death.”
Ver. 33. — Evil communications corrupt good manners. Viz., with atheists and unbelievers who deny the resurrection. This is an iambic senarius of Menander’s, as S. Jerome points out.
Ver. 34. — Awake to righteousness and sin not. Awake from sin to be righteous. The Greek copies give “awake righteously;” Ephrem, “Stir up your hearts righteously.” Sin not, because some know not that God can call the dead to life.
I speak this to your shame. It is a shame for a Christian to have any doubt about the resurrection or the power of God.
Vers. 35, 36. — But some man will say ... except it die. The Apostle strikes here at the root of their disease and the cause of their error, which was that some were despairing of and denying the resurrection of the body, because they saw that it rotted in the ground, and they thought therefore it was incredible and impossible for it to be raised again and refashioned. S. Paul here answers this objection by pointing to a grain of corn which is sown. It first rots and dies away in the earth, and then as it were is born again and springs up, and brings forth, not merely one grain, but many grains from the one. In this way the one grain which is sown is clothed and laden at the harvest with many ears and grains, so that it seems to rise with greater glory. In the same way our bodies will rot in the ground, and thence rise to greater glory.
Ver. 37. — Thou sowest not that body that shall be. When you sow, you do not sow the body which will rise from the seed, as, e.g., a tree or an ear, but bare seed of apple, or of wheat, &c., and yet God gives to this seed sown, when it springs from the earth, not any other seed, but a complete and beautiful body, e.g., of a tree or of an ear, which is beautifully composed of its own stalk, beard, blossoms, and grains. Hence S. Augustine says (Ep. 146) that the Apostle implies, “if God can add to the new seed something it had not before, much more can He at the resurrection restore man’s body.”
Ver. 38. — But God giveth ... to every seed his own body. He gives to each seed the body that belongs to its own natural species, as, e.g., to a grain of wheat He gives a body of wheat, and not of barley or of oats.
Ver. 39. — All flesh is not the same flesh. He goes on to prove what he has said, viz., that God gives to each seed its own body as He hath pleased and determined. He proves it by analogy. “God,” he says, “gives one flesh to man — his own, another to beasts, another to fishes, another to birds. He gives one body to the heavens and the stars, and another to things on earth.” So, too, to the blessed in the resurrection, which will be a kind of regeneration and new creation, will God give their own body, such as
He sees fit to give, and such as is becoming to men beatified and glorified. He will give to each as he had deserved; for there is a similitude and proportion between nature and merit. Such a nature demands such a body; so such a degree of merit demands a correspondingly glorified body: the less the merit, the less glorified the body to be received; the more the merit, the more the glory of the body.
Ver. 41. — There is one glory of the sun, &c. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Primasius, Œcumenius, Bede, Augustine (de
Sanct. Virg. c. 26), Jerome (contra Jovinian. lib. ii.), prove from this that not only is the resurrection of the saints glorious, but that there is also an inequality of rewards in heaven, just as there is an inequality in the seeds of merits sown here.
Ver. 42. — So also is the resurrection of the dead. As there is one of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars, so will God give to each of the blessed the blessed and glorious body that belongs to him, and that is proportioned to his merits.
The saints and blessed are well compared to stars for reasons which I have given when commenting on Rom. iv. 18. Moreover, as one star outshines another, so does one saint in heaven excel another — as in grace and merits, so in the glory and' reward that he receives, and “the star of virginity shines among all as the moon among lesser lights.”
So S. Dominic, while still a boy, appeared to a noble matron in a vision, wearing on his forehead a bright star which irradiated the whole world (Vita, lib. i. c. 1, and cap. ult.); and it is said of the high-priest Simon, son of Onias (Ecclus. l. 6): “As the morning star shines in the midst of a cloud, and as the full moon in her days, or as the noonday sun, so did he shine in the Temple of God.” Similar things are told us of other saints. Learned men and teachers of righteousness and holiness will call to mind the verse (Dan. xii. 3): “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” (Cf. Wisd. iii.) Hence Christ, too, says (Rev. xxii. 16): “I am the bright and morning star,” and in Rev. i. 20: “The seven stars are the angels” (i.e., the doctors and bishops) “of the seven churches;” and in Rev. xii. 1, the Church appeared to S. John like a woman having on her head a crown of twelve stars, that is of the twelve Apostles, who, like stars, shed their light over the Church, and that on the head, i.e., in the beginning of the Church, as Primasius, Aretas, Andrew Bishop of Caesarea, Bede, and others explain it. Lastly, in Rev. ii. 28, Christ says: “And he that overcometh, to him will I give the morning star,” i.e., glory and the beatific vision, which is called a star because of the brightness of its light and the clearness of the vision. It is called the morning star, both because it is given after the night of this world, and because it is the beginning of the blessedness which will be completed at the resurrection of the body. Cf. Richard Victor, Primasius, and Aretas.
It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. 1. It is sown in creation, when the corruptible body is produced by the direct act of God, or from the seed of the father. So Anselm.
2. Better, it is sown a human body when it is buried, and thrown like seed into the ground to be eaten by worms and changed into dust; for so grain, when sown in the ground, is cast forth, buried, and corrupted. So Chrysostom, Ambrose, Anselm.
Hence they have erred who supposed that the resurrection will take place through the powers of nature, and that we shall rise by natural strength; as though in the ashes of the corpse were latent seminal powers, able to make it rise again. S. Thomas refers to these men. This is an error opposed to the faith and to true philosophy, both of which declare that the resurrection is above the powers of nature. The Apostle does not compare the body to seed sown in this respect, but he merely points to the fact that, as God has given to each seed its own body, so that, e.g., wheat springs from wheat and not barley, so to each of the blessed will He give a body corresponding to his work and merit That this is his meaning appears from the following verses. To bring this out more clearly, S. Paul adduced, in vers. 39 and 40, a similitude drawn from the difference existing in the flesh and bodies of different creatures.