The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Chapter 10
From speaking of the contest, in which those who deny themselves and strive lawfully are rewarded, and in which the slothful and self-indulgent are condemned and put to confusion, of which the Apostle treated at the end of the preceding chapter, he goes on to the manners of the Hebrews of old, their lusts and vices, especially idolatry, its punishment and condemnation, that by such examples he may teach the Corinthians how vices and temptations, and especially idolatry, are to be guarded against.
Consequently, in ver. 18 he descends and returns to things offered to idols, and answers a question concerning them which had been broached in chapter viii. And — i. He lays down that it is not lawful for them to eat of things in so far as they are offered to idols; for this would be to give consent to the sacrifice, and to profess idol worship.
ii. In ver. 22 he points out that it is not lawful to eat of them when the weaker brethren are offended at it. Hence in ver. 31 he recommends to the Corinthians edifying above everything, and bids them do everything to the glory of God and the salvation of their neighbours.
Ver. i. — Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud. The particle for gives the cause of what was said at the end of the preceding chapter. He means, I have said that Christians must strive after baptism in their contest, lest they become reprobates and lose the prize, as the Hebrews, after their typical baptism and heavenly food, lost slothfully through their sins the land of promise, their prize, so that out of 600,000, Joshua and Caleb alone entered the Promised Land. So do you, O Corinthians, take care, lest, through your sloth, and a life out of harmony with your faith and baptism, you be excluded from heaven. So Chrysostom and Anselm. The argument is from the type or figure to the thing prefigured.
Our fathers, i.e., the fathers of the Jews, of whom I am one, as many of you are, O Corinthians.
Under the cloud. This cloud was the pillar which overshadowed the Hebrews in the daytime as a cloud, and shone at night as a fire, which led them for forty years through the wilderness, which settled over the ark and went before their camp, and protected them from the heat by spreading itself over the camp. Its mover and charioteer, so to speak, was an angel. See Exod. xiii.
And all passed through the sea. The Red Sea, and dry shod, because Moses smote the waters with his rod, and divided them.
Ver. 2. — And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. See Exod. xiv. The passage of the Red Sea is a type of baptism, in which we are reddened with the blood of Christ, and drown the Egyptians, viz., our sins. Moses is a type of Christ; the cloud is the Holy Spirit, who cools the heat of lust and gives us light. Theodoret says: “Those things were typical of ours. The sea stood for the font, the cloud for the grace of the Spirit, Moses for the priest, his rod for the Cross. Israel signified those who were baptized; the persecuting Egyptians represented the devils, and Pharaoh himself was their chief.”
Unto Moses as the legislator signifies, according to some, that the Hebrews were initiated into the Mosaic law by a kind of baptism when they passed through the sea. So we are baptized into Christ or initiated and incorporated into Christ and Christianity, by baptism. Hence in Exod. xiv., after the account of the passage through the sea, it is added, “They believed the Lord and His servant Moses.” But our baptism was not a type of the baptism of the Hebrews in the Red Sea, but, on the contrary, theirs was a type of ours. Moreover, in this passage the Hebrews were not initiated into the law of Moses, for they did not receive it till they reached Sinai.
I say, then, that since the Apostle frequently puts into for in, it is more simple to understand the phrase to mean through Moses, or under his leadership. So Ephrem, Chrysostom, Theophylact take it. The sense, then, is: All the Hebrews were baptized by Moses spiritually and typically, or bore the type of our baptism, in that, when they saw the sea divided by Moses, and Moses passing through it before, they, as Chrysostom says, also ventured to trust themselves to the sea, and that in the cloud, that is, under the guidance and protection of the cloud going before them, and in the sea, viz., in which the Egyptians were drowned, and through which they passed from Egyptian slavery to liberty and newness of life, just as we pass through the waters of baptism from the service of the devil to the Kingdom of Christ So Anselm, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theophylact.
Notice, too, with Chrysostom, that the Scriptures give the name of the type to the antitype, and vice versa. Here the passage through the Red Sea is called a baptism, because it was a type of one. Hence ver. 6 is explained, where he says, “These things were our examples.”
Ver. 3. — And did all eat the same spiritual meat. Not, as Calvin supposes, the same as we, as though Christians and Hebrews alike feed, not on the Real Body of Christ, but on the typical. You will say, perhaps, that S. Augustine (tract. 25 in Johan.) and S. Thomas explain it to be the same as we eat. I reply: They understand “the same” by analogy, for the Hebrews received typically what we receive really. But this is beside the meaning of the Apostle, who understands the same to refer, not to us but to themselves. All the Hebrews, whether good or bad, ate the same food, that is the same manna. This is evident from the context, “But with many of them God was not well pleased,” that is to say, that though all ate the same manna, drank of the same water from the rock, yet all did not please God. As, then, they had one baptism and one spiritual food, so too have we; and as, notwithstanding, they were not all saved, but many of them perished, so is it to be feared that many of us may perish, although we have the same sacraments common to us all. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, Anselm, and others. And notice with them that manna is here called “spiritual food,” or mystical, or typical, because the manna was a type of the Eucharist. So the water from the rock is called “spiritual drink,” because it was a type of the blood of Christ. Others take “spiritual” to mean miraculous, i.e., not produced by the powers of nature but of spirits, viz., God and the angels; for of this kind was manna, of which the Psalmist says, “So man did eat angels’
1. Manna allegorically stood for Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, as is evident from S. John vi. 49, 50. Especially did it represent the contained part, and the effect of the sacrament, as Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Cyril point out at length, in commenting on the passage of S. John just quoted. Hence the Apostle says here: “They did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink.” Even Calvin takes this of the Holy Communion, and says that the manna was a type of the body of Christ. From this you may rightly infer that in the Blessed Sacrament the flesh of Christ is truly present, since manna was a symbol of a thing really existing, and not merely imagined; for some of us as well as of the Jews will eat the spiritual meat, i.e., the typical and symbolical flesh, and will not have more of the truth signified than the Jews, nay, much less; for manna was sweeter than our bread, and far more clearly than dry bread represented the body of Christ A certain minister of this new flock has lately yielded this point as a clear consequence. But who does not see that it is at variance with Holy Scripture and with reason? For the New Law is more excellent than the Old, and therefore the sacraments of the New surpass those of the Old. Therefore the Apostle says: “These things were our examples.” But the thing figured is better than the figure, as a body is than its shadow, and a man than his likeness. Therefore the sacraments of the New Law, and especially the Eucharist, as a thing figured, must be more noble than the sacraments of the Old Law, and than the manna itself, which was but a type and figure of our Eucharist. Again, in S. John vi., Christ at some length puts His body in the Eucharist before the manna (vers. 48 and 59). The bread that He there speaks of is that which is Divine, consecrated and transubstantiated into the body of Christ. Who does not see that the manna was a better representation of the body of Christ than bread? It can be shown in many ways.