Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He proves the resurrection of the dead against the false teachers who deny it. First, from the fact that Christ rose. Then, in verse 23, he hands down the order of the resurrection. Secondly, in verse 29, he proves the resurrection by the authority of those who are baptized for the dead. Thirdly, in verse 35, he teaches what kind of body there will be in the resurrection. Hence, in verse 42, he assigns the four endowments of the glorified body. Fourthly, in verse 51, he teaches that we shall all rise, but not all shall be changed, and that in the resurrection, which shall take place in a moment when the trumpet sounds, death shall be utterly absorbed.
Vulgate Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-58
1. Now I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2. by which also you are saved: in what manner I preached to you, if you hold fast, unless you have believed in vain. 3. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; 4. and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; 5. and that He was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. 6. Then He was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. 7. Then He was seen by James, then by all the Apostles. 8. And last of all, as by one born out of due time, He was seen also by me. 9. For I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. 10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace in me has not been void, but I have labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11. For whether I or they: so we preach, and so you have believed. 12. Now if Christ is preached, that He rose from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ risen. 14. And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith also is vain: 15. and we are found also false witnesses of God, because we have given testimony against God, that He raised up Christ; whom He did not raise up, if the dead do not rise. 16. For if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen. 17. And if Christ has not risen, your faith is vain, for you are yet in your sins. 18. Therefore those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19. If in this life only we are hoping in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable. 20. But now Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who sleep, 21. for indeed by a man came death, and by a Man the resurrection of the dead. 22. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. 23. But each one in his own order, Christ as the firstfruits; then they who are of Christ, who have believed at His coming. 24. Then the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, when He shall have brought to nothing all principality, and power, and virtue. 25. For He must reign, until He puts all enemies under His feet. 26. And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death: for He has put all things under His feet. And whereas He says: 27. All things are subject to Him, undoubtedly except Him who subjected all things to Him. 28. And when all things shall be subjected to Him, then the Son also Himself shall be subject to Him who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. 29. Otherwise, what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why are they then baptized for them? 30. Why also are we in danger every hour? 31. I die daily, by your glory, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32. If (according to man) I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me, if the dead do not rise? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. 33. Be not deceived. Evil conversations corrupt good manners. 34. Awake, ye just, and sin not: for some have not the knowledge of God, I speak to your shame. 35. But some man will say: How do the dead rise? Or with what manner of body shall they come? 36. Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive, unless it first die. 37. And what you sow, you do not sow the body that shall be, but a bare grain, as of wheat, or of some of the rest. 38. But God gives it a body as He will: and to every seed its own body. 39. All flesh is not the same flesh; but one indeed is of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes. 40. And there are bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and that of the terrestrial another. 41. One is the brightness of the sun, another the brightness of the moon, and another the brightness of the stars. For star differs from star in brightness: 42. so also the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption. 43. It is sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory. It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power. 44. It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual, as it is written: 45. The first man Adam was made into a living soul, the last Adam into a quickening Spirit. 46. Yet that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural: then that which is spiritual. 47. The first man was of the earth, earthly: the second Man from heaven, heavenly. 48. Such as is the earthly, such also are the earthly: and such as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly. 49. Therefore as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly. 50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God: neither shall corruption possess incorruption. 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed. 52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorruptible: and we shall be changed. 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54. And when this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. 55. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? 56. Now the sting of death is sin: and the strength of sin is the law. 57. But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, and immovable: always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Verse 1: I Make Known to You the Gospel
1. I MAKE KNOWN TO YOU (I recall to your memory; so the Greeks) the Gospel.
2. IN WHAT MANNER I PREACHED. — Repeat: "I make known"; or refer this to what follows, "if you hold fast," so that it is a transposition.
3. THAT CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES: 4. AND THAT (which) HE WAS BURIED, AND THAT HE ROSE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES. — For in Hosea VI:3, it is said of Christ: "He shall give us life after two days: on the third day He shall raise us up," namely when He Himself shall rise on the third day from death to life. For the resurrection of Christ was the cause why we were raised from the death of sin, and why we are to be raised from the death of the body, that after the manner of Christ we may rise on the day of judgment to immortal life. See what was said at Rom. IV:25. So Anselm, Dorotheus in the Synopsis, at the beginning; indeed the ancient Hebrews, Galatinus, book VIII, ch. XXII. Theophylact adds from St. Chrysostom that Christ's rising on the third day was written allegorically in Jonah: for Jonah, brought out from the whale's belly on the third day, was a type of Christ brought back to life from death and hell on the third day.
Again the same is written in Genesis XXII, in Isaac, who, about to be sacrificed by his father, was preserved from death, and on the third day was returned alive and well to his mother: for Isaac was a figure of Christ delivered by the Father into death and sacrificed, and on the third day raised again. But these testimonies are taken from the allegorical sense, while the previous one from Hosea is taken from the literal sense.
5. AND THAT HE WAS SEEN BY CEPHAS, — Peter. Paul places this as the first apparition of Christ: hence he indicates that Christ first appeared to Peter among the men. The same Luke indicates, ch. XXIV:34. I say "among the men"; for Christ appeared to Magdalen before Peter, Mark, last ch., v. 9.
AND AFTER THAT TO THE ELEVEN. — Namely, on the octave of the Passover, Thomas now being present, Christ appeared to the eleven Apostles; for the twelfth, Judas, had already hanged himself. Or rather "eleven," that is, the whole college of the Apostles, which had now been reduced to eleven (although Thomas alone was absent), Christ appeared to on the very day of Easter, or of Christ's resurrection. The Greek has εἶτα τοῖς δώδεκα, "then He was seen by the twelve." Augustine also so reads it, book I of Questions on the Gospels, Quest. CXVII. Because (he says) although Judas was dead, yet they are reckoned as twelve, because they were twelve. So the decemviri are said to convene, though only seven or eight of them are present. Chrysostom otherwise: "Twelve," he says, because Christ appeared to the twelfth, Matthias, after the ascension. But neither is this anywhere written, nor does Paul here commemorate other apparitions of Christ than those which happened before Christ's ascension.
6. THEN HE WAS SEEN BY MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED BRETHREN. — The Greek ἐπάνω signifies first, "more than"; secondly, it signifies "from heaven, above"; and so Chrysostom and Theophylact translate it here: For Christ, they say, was seen by them, not as walking on the earth, but above their heads, as though descended from on high, and that to show and confirm to them not so much His resurrection as His ascension: whence one might gather that Chrysostom thought this appearance of Christ took place after His ascension. But this is neither true, nor necessarily gathered from the words of Chrysostom.
For it plainly seems that this apparition of Christ took place before the ascension, with Christ showing Himself to the five hundred brethren from a place on high, as if from heaven or the air. And this is the common opinion of the Doctors — opinion; for of any public appearance made after the ascension we read nothing anywhere.
To five hundred brethren. — Many think this is that most celebrated apparition on the mountain of Galilee, so often promised before by Christ. Therefore, having been forewarned, all the Christians flocked there: and it was not at the ascension, but before: for Christ ascended into heaven, not from Galilee, but from Judea, from the Mount of Olives. So Jerome, Question VII to Hedibia, and the interpreters on Matt. XXVIII, 16.
7. THEN HE WAS SEEN BY JAMES — son of Alphaeus, who is called the brother of the Lord, and was the first Bishop of Jerusalem: for James had vowed (says Jerome, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, in James) that he would not eat until he saw Christ rising. Hence Christ, appearing to him, said: "My brother, eat your bread, for the Son of Man has risen." But this tradition is uncertain, and drawn from some apocryphal source. Hence Jerome does not approve it; and so this tradition seems false and fabricated. For first, from this passage of Paul it is plain that Christ appeared to James after the five hundred brethren, that is, long after the resurrection, longer than James's fast could naturally have extended. Secondly, because all the Apostles (among whom was James) doubted at His death about the resurrection; therefore James did not swear that he would not eat until then. Thirdly, because Jerome says he took this story from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is apocryphal. Hence also what is added in the same place, that Christ had then a shroud, and gave it to the priest's servant, seems to be false. For Christ's linens remained in the tomb, Matt. XXVIII, and a glorified body, such as Christ's was, is clothed not with shroud or garments, but with splendor and rays.
THEN TO ALL THE APOSTLES, — and to the disciples at the ascension into heaven. So Anselm and others.
8. AND LAST OF ALL, AS BY ONE BORN OUT OF DUE TIME, HE WAS SEEN ALSO BY ME. — "Abortive," that is, despised and rejected. So Theophylact and Theodoret; because abortive fetuses, being imperfect, are wont to be thinner and weaker.
Secondly, "abortive," because out of time — namely, with Christ received into the heavens, Paul, born in Christ, received the apostolate last of all. So Ambrose and Chrysostom.
Thirdly, "abortive," because, as Anselm says, prostrated to the earth by divine force, Paul was forced and violently reborn; for abortive infants are cast out by the violence of nature.
Fourthly, "abortive," because, as the same Anselm notes, abortive fetuses are often born half-dead and blind. So Paul at his conversion was struck with blindness.
Fifthly, Paul was an "abortive" of the Jews, because he was sent as Apostle not to his own Jews, but to foreign peoples. So some, in Chrysostom.
Baronius, in the year of Christ 44, page 377, holds otherwise: for he thinks that Paul is called "abortive," that is, Apostle, because he was created an Apostle beyond and outside the number of the twelve Apostles. For at Rome, as Suetonius attests in his Octavius, ch. XXXV, those senators were wont to be called "abortive" who were chosen into the senate beyond the number by favor. But whether Paul alludes to this is uncertain: for he himself wrote these things in Greek to Greeks, namely the Corinthians, not to Romans.
Hence it is plain that Christ appeared to Paul, not through an angel, as Haymo will have it on Apoc. ch. II, but in His own person; nor through imagination, as He appeared to the same Paul, Acts XXII:18; nor in a rapture, as happened to him, II Cor. XII:2; but corporeally in the air: for so Christ appeared to Cephas, James, and the Apostles, as preceded: and because otherwise Paul would not from this apparition sufficiently prove the resurrection of Christ.
Note: This appearance of Christ to Paul took place at his conversion, Acts IX:3, where Paul saw Christ, but the light immediately blinded him.
Hence again it is plain that Christ then descended from heaven; for Paul heard the voice of one speaking in the air. So St. Thomas and others. Whence it again follows that Christ was then in two places, namely in the empyrean heaven and in the air, near Paul. For the empyrean heaven, to which Christ ascended, He never thereafter leaves, as is said in Acts III:21. If Christ here was in two places, why can He not be at once in the Eucharist and in heaven?
Likewise Christ was seen by Blessed Peter at Rome, when He recalled him from flight to martyrdom, saying: "I come to be crucified again," as Hegesippus relates, in book III of The Destruction of Jerusalem, ch. II, and others.
9. I AM THE LEAST OF THE APOSTLES, WHO AM NOT WORTHY TO BE CALLED AN APOSTLE. — "Worthy," in Greek ἱκανός, that is, fit, as if to say: I am not only the least and unworthy because of my sins, but also unfit for the apostolate; for he who was a persecutor of the Church is unfit to become in it a prince and Apostle.
Morally: Note here the humility of St. Paul, who calls himself the least, and by that very fact was the greatest. Excellently St. Bernard, Sermon 13 on the Canticle: "It is truly a great and rare virtue, that, although you are doing great things, you should not know yourself to be great, and that your sanctity, manifest to all, should lie hidden in yourself alone: that you should appear admirable, and reckon yourself contemptible — this I judge more wonderful than the very virtues themselves. You are truly a faithful servant, if of much glory of your Lord, although it does not come out of you, yet passing through you, nothing should cling to your hands. Therefore you shall hear: Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things."
Verse 10: By the Grace of God I Am What I Am
10. BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM, — that I am Apostle and teacher of the Gentiles.
— HIS GRACE IN ME WAS NOT VOID (in Greek κενή, empty, idle, that is, without work and fruit). — Ambrose reads: His grace in me was not poor, as if to say: Although I persecuted the Church of Christ, not did I therefore receive a poor, scant, and lesser apostolic grace than the other Apostles, but rather a greater grace of apostolate. So Ambrose.
BUT I HAVE LABORED MORE ABUNDANTLY THAN THEY ALL. — Beautifully St. Jerome, in his epistle to Paulinus: "Sudden," he says, "heat overcomes long warmth; the Apostle Paul, changed from a persecutor, last in order, is first in merits: because, although the latest, he labored more than all." For, as St. Gregory says in part III of the Pastoral Care, ch. XXIX: "For the most part, a life burning with love after fault becomes more pleasing to God, than innocence dull through security."
BUT NOT I (alone), BUT THE GRACE OF GOD WITH ME. — Note first: From this passage, against Luther and Calvin, it is plainly clear that there is in man free will, and that God does not work all things in us alone, but that free will cooperates with Him, even in supernatural works. For the Apostle says: "With me," not "in me," and: "I have labored more than all."
You will say: The Greek here has otherwise, namely οὐκ ἐγὼ δέ, ἀλλ' ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ σὺν ἐμοί, that is: "yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me": therefore Paul attributes his labor to grace alone.
I answer: When Paul says ἡ σὺν ἐμοί, that is, "which is with me," supply not "is" but "labored." For this verb ἐκοπίασα, that is, "labored," which preceded, must be understood and repeated here. Nor is it strange that the person is then changed: for this enallage is frequent in the Apostle, as I said at Ch. 38. The sense therefore is, as if to say: "Not I alone, but the grace of God which labored with me." That this is so is plain from the verb "I labored," namely I. When therefore Paul adds: "Not I, but the grace of God with me," he does not exclude the proper cooperation of free will, but only ascribes the praises of the work to grace, as to the worthier cause of the work. Nor will the sense be otherwise, even if with some Greeks and St. Jerome we read: "Not I, but the grace of God which is with me." For it is understood, "the grace which is present to me as help, and supplies aid," and works with me, as if to say: I indeed by my free effort labored greatly, yet I did not so labor as to attribute or arrogate to myself the honor and praise of this labor; but it is the grace of God which roused, helped, and strengthened me to this labor: to which therefore I attribute the first and chief praise of my labor, and I say and openly profess that not so much I, as the grace of God which is with me, labored and accomplished the work itself. See Ch. 36.
But our Latin reading is more apt, and therefore truer; for the Greek words seem in appearance to fight with themselves: for if I labored, then grace did not labor, unless you add with our Interpreter "with me," namely "grace labored." Whence elsewhere the Apostle everywhere glories in his labors, as is plain from II Cor. XI:23 and following.
Hence St. Bernard, in his book On Grace and Free Will, near the end, says: "Paul says, 'Not I, but the grace of God with me,' presuming himself to be not only the minister of the work by its effect, but also in a certain way the partner of the One working through consent. Finally Paul also pronounces of himself, 'We are God's helpers,' I Cor. III:9. Hence we also presume that we are deservers of the kingdom, because by consent, certainly voluntary, we are joined to the divine will." The same teaches Anselm here, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, book II Against the Pelagians, before the middle; Gregory, book XVI of the Moralia, ch. X, and St. Augustine, in the book On Free Will, to Valentinus, ch. XVII, and Sermon 13 on the Words of the Apostle: "If there were not," he says, "a worker, God would not be a co-worker."
Verse 11: Whether I or They, So We Preach
11. WHETHER I OR THEY: SO WE PREACH, AND SO YOU HAVE BELIEVED, — as if to say: Both I and the other Apostles, all of us, as I said in v. 3, preach and affirm as eye-witnesses, namely that Christ died and rose from the dead, and was seen by us and appeared to us. For after a long digression the Apostle returns to it as to the aim of the whole chapter, namely that from the common and concordant opinion and preaching of all the Apostles he may prove the resurrection of Christ and of other dead. So Chrysostom, Anselm, and others.
Verse 12: How Do Some Among You Say There Is No Resurrection?
12. IF CHRIST IS PREACHED, THAT HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD, HOW DO SOME AMONG YOU SAY THAT THERE IS NO RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD? — "Some." These were Cerinthus and his followers, who, the first heresiarch after Simon Magus in the time of St. Paul, denied the resurrection. For, as Eusebius reports, book VII of the History, ch. XXIII, and book III, ch. XXVIII, from Dionysius of Alexandria, and Epiphanius, in heresy 28, Cerinthus, fighting for Judaism, from Jewish traditions referred whatever had been foretold concerning the Church and the felicity of the Evangelical Law, to an earthly kingdom, and to riches and bodily pleasures: he later abused for this Apoc. XX:4, and became the parent of the Chiliasts, or heretical Millenarians. Whence some thought Cerinthus the author of the Apocalypse, and therefore that it should be rejected. See Eusebius.
St. Ignatius also condemns this error along with its author, in his epistle to the Smyrnaeans, and in his epistle to the Trallians. Hymenaeus and Philetus also denied the resurrection, as the Apostle attests, II Tim. II:17.
Verse 13: If There Is No Resurrection, Neither Has Christ Risen
13. AND IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, NEITHER HAS CHRIST RISEN, — both because Christ was one of the dead, and because this was the primary cause of Christ's death and resurrection, namely the full abolition of death, the restoration of life; and Christ's resurrection was the exemplar of ours, that other men might rise to justice in this life, and to glory in the next. For other five causes why it was necessary for Christ to rise, see St. Thomas, III part, Question LIII, art. 1.
Verse 17: If Christ Has Not Risen, Your Faith Is Vain
17. AND IF CHRIST HAS NOT RISEN, YOUR FAITH IS VAIN: FOR YOU ARE YET IN YOUR SINS. — It rightly follows, if Christ has not risen, that we are still in sins. For first, if Christ has not risen, then faith in Christ — they would have admitted [the resurrection]: because these things are naturally connected, as I said in the preceding verse. For there is in the soul a natural inclination toward the body, such that without the body it cannot exist except violently and contrary to nature. Hence the resurrection, with respect to its substance and the requirement of human nature, is in a manner natural, although in its mode and execution it is supernatural: for the separated soul cannot be reunited to the body by any created power, but only by the supernatural power of God. Paul therefore rightly infers, from the denial of the resurrection and beatitude of the body, both according to the common opinion of men and according to the very nature and truth of the matter, the denial of the immortality and beatitude of the soul, namely such that Christians, if they do not rise, are the most wretched of all men.
Verse 18: Those Who Have Fallen Asleep in Christ Have Perished
18. THEREFORE THEY ALSO WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP IN CHRIST (namely, who have died in the hope, faith, grace and charity of Christ), HAVE PERISHED. — Because if the body does not rise, but utterly perishes in death, the soul too will perish, which cannot exist eternally without the body, since by its nature it is the form of the body; so that, unless God violently take away from the soul its as it were nature and natural state, He must restore to it its body, of which more in the following verse.
Verse 19: We Are of All Men Most Miserable
19. IF IN THIS LIFE ONLY WE HAVE HOPE IN CHRIST, WE ARE OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE. — Note first: the word "hoping" here signifies not the act of hope (for it is certain that this exists only in this life), but the object of hope, namely the thing hoped for, as if to say: If in Christ we are hoping only for those goods which are in this life, then we are more miserable than all men, that is, we are the most wretched of all men; for example, we are the most foolish of men, inasmuch as with a false and empty hope of resurrection, which will never come to pass, we suffer fasts, mortifications, persecutions and other most harsh things, we renounce the pleasures of the world and the flesh, while others indulge in them. Although therefore we are happier than they on account of the good of the virtue of abstinence, of charity, and of a serene conscience; yet we are more miserable than they with respect to hope in Christ, indeed foolish from a foolish hope. So Anselm and Chrysostom. Hence the Apostle does not say "we are worse," but "we are more miserable": for it is a miserable thing to afflict oneself for virtue, if no reward follows; and the reward of Christian virtue is the resurrection.
You will say: The soul can have its reward and be blessed, even though the body does not rise. I reply: God could have ordained that the soul alone be rewarded and beatified by the vision of God; but He did not will it: for in fact He has ordained otherwise, namely that, if the soul be beatified, the body too be beatified; if not the body, neither the soul: because otherwise Christ would not have fully conquered sin, which in death dominates both body and soul. Secondly, the opinion of men at that time was such (as Paul said in verse 17) that if you had proved to them the immortality of the soul, they would at once have admitted the resurrection of the body: because these are naturally connected, as I said in the preceding verse. Secondly, because the death of Christ would have been ineffective for the remission of sins, if Christ remained in death and was conquered by it. For if by His resurrection He could not conquer death, then neither could He conquer sin: for to conquer this is a graver and more difficult matter than to conquer death; and so sin is not fully abolished unless its effect, that is, death, is abolished. So Chrysostom. Thirdly, because the resurrection of Christ is the cause of our justification, as I said in Rom. IV, last verse. But when the cause is taken away, the effect is taken away: therefore, when Christ's resurrection is taken away, our justification from sins is taken away, and consequently we are still and remain in our former sins.
Verse 20: Christ Is Risen, the Firstfruits of Them That Sleep
20. CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD, THE FIRSTFRUITS OF THEM THAT SLEEP, as if to say: The first of those rising was and is Christ; the first, I say, in the order of dignity and merit; secondly, because in the divine will and intention He was first; thirdly, by causality. For through Christ we shall all rise. Fourthly, properly Christ was the first in time among those rising to immortal life. For although some before Christ raised by Elijah and Elisha rose again, yet they rose only to the present mortal life, and died again: but Christ was the first who rose to a blessed, glorious and eternal life. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Ambrose, Anselm and others everywhere. For this is what the word "firstfruits" properly signifies, and the following words indicate. Thus Christ is called the firstborn of the dead, that is, rising before all, and as it were being reborn from the dead.
Hence it seems to be of faith, that no one before Christ rose to immortal life: those therefore who are said to have risen at Christ's death, Matt. XXVII, 52, did not rise except after Christ, at least posterior in nature, because their resurrection was dependent on the resurrection of Christ as its cause, as among others Francisco Suarez rightly notes, Part III, Question LIII, art. 3.
Note: "Firstfruits" are called the first fruit of the earth, which formerly in the old law was offered to God. So Christ after the resurrection, as it were the first-grown fruit from the earth, into which He had fallen as a grain of wheat, sprouting again and reborn through the resurrection, was offered to God.
Verse 21: By a Man Came Death, by a Man the Resurrection
21. FOR BY A MAN (Adam) CAME DEATH (introduced into men), SO BY A MAN (Christ, was introduced) THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. — The word "for" gives the reason why Christ is the firstfruits of those rising, namely because through Christ, as the standard-bearer and conqueror of death, the resurrection of the dead has been brought into the world.
Verse 22: As in Adam All Die, So in Christ All Shall Be Made Alive
22. AND AS IN (that is, through, and because of) ADAM ALL DIE, SO ALSO IN CHRIST ALL SHALL BE MADE ALIVE. — It is asked whether even the reprobate, through Christ and the merits of Christ, are to rise and be made alive? St. Augustine denies it, epistle 28, because their resurrection is to damnation, and is to be called not life but rather death. So also D. Thomas says that Christ is the meritorious cause of resurrection only for the good, but the efficient cause for all.
But I reply: For all, even the reprobate, Christ is the cause of rising. First, because Christ willed entirely to abolish death from the whole human race through the resurrection (for this is a great good for all of nature); therefore also from the reprobate, not as reprobate, but as they are men, or abstracting from reprobation. So St. Ambrose, book On the Resurrection, ch. XXI, and more clearly Cyril, book IV on John, ch. XII. Add that Christ merited resurrection for the reprobate, as reprobate, as for His enemies in just vengeance, namely that the glory of Christ might be celebrated by the eternal punishment of His enemies.
But all these things are beside the mind of the Apostle: for the Apostle properly treats not of the wretched [resurrection] of the reprobate, but of the blessed resurrection of the Saints, as is clear from what follows.
Note: Up to this point the Apostle has proved by six arguments that Christ has risen, so that he might thence conclude that we too shall rise from the dead. Of these arguments, the first is, in verse 5, drawn from the witnesses, and is as follows: Christ after death appeared alive to Peter, Paul, James, the other Apostles, and to five hundred brethren; therefore He truly rose. The second, in verse 14: If Christ has not risen, then both the preaching of the Apostles and the faith of Christians is false and empty. The third, verse 17: If Christ has not risen, then we are still in our sins. The consequence is proved, because the faith that justifies and expiates sins is that by which it is believed that Christ died for us and rose again. The fourth, verse 18: If Christ has not risen, then all who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished, and have died both in body and soul; for the soul cannot always exist without the body. The fifth, verse 19: If we serve Christ only in this so straitened life and Christian law without hope of resurrection, then we are more miserable than all men. The sixth, verse 21: Through Adam all die, therefore through Christ all shall rise and be made alive; for as much as Adam harmed, so much and more has Christ profited us, who came for this, that He might not only repair all the falls and damages of Adam and his posterity in him, but also raise and exalt them higher.
Thirdly, Œcumenius and Primasius explain thus: All who are to be made alive in Christ shall rise in this order, namely that Christ be first, both in time and in dignity; secondly, the just shall rise; thirdly, the consummation of the world shall follow. This sense is genuine. For so the Apostle explains himself in what follows, when he soon adds: "The firstfruits Christ; then they that are of Christ, who have believed at His coming. Then the end." Paul speaks in a similar way in 1 Thessalonians IV, 16, as I shall show there more fully.
Verse 23: Every One in His Own Order
23. EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN ORDER, — namely, that if he be just, he rise among the blessed; if impious, among the reprobate. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact.
Secondly, the Commentary attributed to St. Jerome: "Every one," he says, "in his own order," namely because he will rise higher and more blessed who has been holier here.
WHO HAVE BELIEVED AT HIS COMING. — Note first: The Greek does not have "have believed," but the Latin does, and it is understood in the Greek. He says, Ἀπαρχὴ Χριστὸς, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, that is, "the firstfruits Christ; then those who are of Christ at His coming," supplying "believing," these will rise after Him. Although Vatablus and others simply take it thus: "at His coming," supplying "shall rise."
Verse 24: Then the End, When He Shall Have Delivered Up the Kingdom
24. THEN THE END. — Supply "shall be"; the end, I say, of the whole dispensation of Christ concerning the salvation of the human race; and consequently then will be the end of the age, of time, of generations, of corruptions and of the whole universe. So Anselm. For the end of the whole universe is Christ, and His elect, so that if these are ended, the universe too is ended.
Secondly, the Greek τέλος, which Our Translator renders "end," can also be rendered "consummation," that is, as Theodoret says, the general and consummate resurrection of all, even of the wicked; for then all things will receive their end.
WHEN HE SHALL HAVE DELIVERED UP THE KINGDOM (that is, the Church of the faithful, and the congregation of the elect) TO GOD AND THE FATHER. — Not as though God did not already reign in it, since Christ says: "The kingdom of God is within you;" but because in some measure sins, the devil, death and the miseries of mortals dominate within it, as if to say: Then will be the end, when Christ has offered the Church of the elect, and as it were rendered her to the Father, she who in the struggle of this life had been entrusted to Him to be governed and guarded, that in her He might reign gloriously forever, saying to the Father: "Father, You sent Me into the world, and after I ascended to heaven to You, I have always ruled these, and I have protected them from the power and assault of the devil, of the flesh, of the world. Behold these are Yours, who are now ready before You. This is My possession, delivered to Me by You; this is My labor, brought forth with My sweat and blood; this is My kingdom, and Yours, now free from all sin, temptation, disturbance, affliction, purified, polished, that in them through glory and triumph You may reign forever." So Ambrose and Augustine, ch. VIII and X, book On the Trinity, vol. III.
Note secondly, "to God and the Father," that is to God the Father: for it is a hendiadys, by which Paul divides these two, to signify that Christ, as He is man, will offer His faithful to God; as He is Son, will offer them to His Father.
WHEN HE SHALL HAVE BROUGHT TO NOUGHT ALL PRINCIPALITY, AND POWER, AND VIRTUE. — As if to say: When He shall have abolished all power and subordination of the demons, so that they may no longer be able to assail [the Church]; of which assault I shall say more on Ephesians VI, 12. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Ambrose, Œcumenius.
Note: "Principalities, Powers and Virtues" are three names of choirs of angels. From which, hence it is clear, that some have fallen and become demons, who have retained the same names; because, as they have kept the same nature and excellence of nature, so also they have each kept the same order, grade and power, as if to say: When Christ shall have abolished all principality of the demons, who are and are called Principalities and Virtues, that they may no longer assail the faithful, then He will deliver the aforesaid kingdom to the Father, and there will be the end and consummation of all things.
Otherwise St. Augustine explains this, book I On the Trinity, ch. VIII, as if to say: "When He shall have brought to nought," that is, when there shall no longer be need, and therefore the dispensation and governance of the Church through the angelic Principalities, Dominations and Virtues will have been abolished.
But the former sense is the truer. For that the discourse here is about the enemies of Christ is clear from the next verse, where He says thus:
Verse 25: He Must Reign Until He Puts All Enemies Under His Feet
25. HE MUST REIGN (that is, Christ must rule the Church), UNTIL HE (God the Father) HAS PUT ALL HIS ENEMIES (demons and all the reprobate) UNDER HIS FEET. — "Until," that is, up to that point, not only, but further into eternity, because, when His enemies have been conquered, there is no doubt that Christ will most certainly reign, although in another mode and with another glory than now. So Chrysostom.
Note: "Until" signifies only what has previously been done, about which there might have been doubt, not what was done afterward. So Joseph, Matt. I, 23, is said not to have known Mary his wife, until she brought forth her son; not as though he knew her afterward, as the impure Helvidius inferred, but that until conception and birth he did not know her. For Matthew wished only to assert a marvellous matter, and one naturally incredible, namely the conception of Christ without a father from a virgin mother. So here Paul asserts that Christ even now, while the Church struggles with her enemies, reigns in her: which could be doubted. But the other, which follows from this, namely that after the struggle and triumph Christ will reign, he leaves and presupposes as certain to all. Excellently St. Augustine, in the Sentences, n. 169: "As long as," he says, "vices are resisted, there is no full peace (some wrongly read 'night'): because both those which resist are conquered in a perilous battle, and those which have been conquered are not yet enjoyed in secure triumph, but are still pressed by an anxious rule."
Verse 26: The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed Is Death
26. THE LAST ENEMY THAT SHALL BE DESTROYED IS DEATH. — "Death," which still in some measure reigns in the bodies of the saints, will be entirely abolished in the resurrection. So Anselm. Secondly, this passage can be taken with Jerome in many places on Isaiah, with Vatablus in the Greek: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." It is a hysterologia: for the sense is, as if to say, Among the enemies, death shall be destroyed last; for this is what the Greek signifies, ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος. For the first enemy of Christ and of Christians is the devil, who was conquered by Christ on the cross. The second is sin, which is conquered by Christians through the grace of Christ in this life. The third is death, which in the resurrection will be conquered last.
HE HAS SUBJECTED ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET. — As if to say: All men and angels, good and bad, in the resurrection God will fully subject to Christ. Note: Prophetically "has subjected" is the same as "will most certainly subject," as if He had already subjected.
27. AND WHEN HE SAYS: ALL THINGS ARE SUBJECTED TO HIM; UNDOUBTEDLY, EXCEPT HIM WHO SUBJECTED ALL THINGS TO HIM. — "He says," that is, He is saying. It is an enallage of mood: our Interpreter renders faithfully word for word; for in Greek it is the simple form. Paul adds these things lest anyone think that the Father has so granted all things to the Son, that He has stripped Himself of dominion over them, so that now the Father is less than the Son, and as it were subjected to Him. For so among men, some parents while they grow old are accustomed to strip themselves of their goods and estates, and transfer them to their sons; but God the Father does quite otherwise, as I said.
Verse 28: Then the Son Himself Shall Be Subject, That God May Be All in All
28. THEN THE SON HIMSELF ALSO SHALL BE SUBJECT TO HIM WHO SUBJECTED ALL THINGS TO HIM. — Some first take "subject" according to His divinity, as if to say: Christ, as God, will show that He has received all things and the divinity itself from the Father; and so He will declare Himself to be as it were subject to the Father. But this is said too harshly: for the Son is not subject to the Father from the fact that He has all things from the Father, but is equal in honor in all respects. Hence others everywhere take this of Christ according to His humanity; and that
First, as Chrysostom holds: "He will be subject," that is, He will show Himself subject, and then it will be clear to all how perfect Christ's obedience and subjection has been here. See Canon 36.
Secondly and more aptly Anselm: Christ as man will be subject, that is, He will subject and offer Himself with His elect to the eternal praise of God and to participation in divine goodness, dominion and glory. For this "subjection" of Christ is the same with what he said in verse 24, namely that then Christ will deliver the kingdom to God and the Father, that in Himself and in all His own God the Father may reign most fully and most gloriously. For this subjection of Christ and of the Saints toward God is not wretched and servile, but blessed and glorious. For those who in heaven are subjected to God, God holds them for sons, whom He commands and blesses, and whom He beatifies with supreme felicity and glory. Rightly therefore so to be subject and to serve God is to reign, and such servitude is to be desired with David, Psalm LXI: "Shall not my soul," he says, "be subject to God? for from Him is my salvation." On the contrary, the reprobate, who will not be subject to God, by this very fact will be enemies of God, and the most unhappy of all men: and there is here in the name "subject" a certain antistasis, or contrary signification of the same word, of which I spoke in Canon 31. So Gregory of Nyssa, oration on these words of the Apostle, in which he says thus: "God's subjection is perfect and on every side an absolute alienation from evil: Christ therefore in the resurrection will be subjected to the Father, because in it all the faithful and elect of Christ will be removed from all evil, and then they will receive the principality of good, and will most closely be joined with the deity and its immortality, kingdom and felicity; and then God will be all in all, when there will be no evil in those things which are. For God cannot be in evil, but necessarily is in every good. Christ therefore will be subjected to the Father, when the Church of Christ will be subjected to the Father, and so will be liberated from all evil. For the subjection of the Church is called the subjection of Christ."
Thirdly, from Canon 32, the word "shall be" can be taken in continued action: "He shall be subject," that is, in the subjection of the Father, which Christ now has, He shall persevere forever. Hilary wrote against the Arians on this sentence of the Apostle, book XI On the Trinity; St. Jerome, epistle to Principia; St. Augustine, Question LXVI, no. 83, and book I On the Trinity, ch. VIII, where he says thus: "Christ, inasmuch as He is God with Him [the Father], has us as subjects: inasmuch as He is priest, [is] subject with us to Him."
THAT GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL. — That, namely, God may be having and showing every power over all things; or, that God in the elect may be all things, that is, in place of all things; namely, that He Himself may be our life, salvation, virtue, abundance, glory, honor, peace, all goods, and the end and satiety of our desires. So Anselm. Thus in all things then through all things God will rule, and will subject all things to Himself and His glory. From this place St. Augustine infers, book XXII On the City of God, ch. XXIX, that the Saints know our prayers and matters in heaven.
Aptly St. Jerome, epistle to Amandus: "What the Apostle says, 'That God may be all in all,' is to be taken in this sense. Our Lord and Savior now is not all in all, but a part in each: for example, in Solomon, wisdom; in David, goodness; in Job, patience; in Daniel, knowledge of the future; in Peter, faith; in Phinehas and Paul, zeal; in John, virginity; in the others, the others. But when the end of all things shall come, then He shall be all in all, that the individual Saints may have all virtues, that Christ may be wholly in all." From this place, as St. Augustine reports, book I On the Trinity, ch. VIII, some have thought that the humanity of Christ would reign until the day of judgment; but then would be converted into divinity, and that this conversion is that subjection of Christ to the Father, of which Paul subjoins. This is delirium. For it is, both according to faith and according to nature, ἀδύνατον [impossible].
Wrongly therefore certain contemplatives (who pursued a certain excessive and impossible union with God), nay rather fanatical men, from this and similar passages of Scripture have thought, that in the resurrection all men, and all created things, will return to their ideal and divine being, which they had from eternity in God, and so are to be converted into God Himself; so that then all created being must vanish, and be absorbed by uncreated being itself, namely by the divinity itself. Which error Gerson at length impugns, and attributes to Ruysbroeck. But Ruysbroeck himself purges himself of this error, and he himself sharply attacks the same error, in his book On True Contemplation, ch. XIX, and in the book entitled Samuel, or On the High Contemplation and Union with God, ch. II, III and IV.
But this passage of the Apostle does not favor this error, but rather is contrary to it: for if in the resurrection God will be all in all, then all things, that is, all created things, will exist and remain. Otherwise God would not be all in all, but would be only all in none, or in nothing. Furthermore, in what manner and way God will be all in all the Blessed, is rightly declared by similitudes. The first is, as a few drops of water poured into a vast cask of most powerful wine are immediately absorbed and incorporated by the wine; so all the Blessed through vision and love will as it were lose themselves in God, so that they seem to be absorbed and incorporated by God as by the supreme Good supremely loved. The second is of solar light. For as the light of the sun occupies the whole air, so that the air now seems not to be air, but light; so also God by the light of glory will so fill the Blessed, that they will seem to be not so much men as certain gods. The third is of iron heated and ignited. For as iron seems to be ignited by the force of fire, and as it were transformed into fire; so also the Blessed will be so kindled by the love and enjoyment of God, that they will seem to be transformed into God. The fourth, as a great vessel of sugar or honey poured into a small porridge makes it not only honey-like, but as it were honey and sugar itself; so God by His sweetness so sweetens and inebriates the Blessed, that they seem to be sweetness itself. For God is a sea of sweetness, and an ocean of joy and consolation. The fifth, as the sweetest music and harmony fills and soothes the ears of all who hear; again, as the same adamant, carbuncle, or emerald fills and ravishes the eyes of all who behold them: so also God ravishes, soothes and fills the minds of all the Blessed in Himself. The sixth, as a mirror exhibits, represents and contains the faces and forms of all things placed before it, so that all seem to exist, live and move in the mirror: so all the Blessed exist, live and are moved in God. For God is the most clear and most ardent mirror of all things.
Finally, beautifully and piously St. Bernard, sermon 11 on Canticles: "Who," he says, "can comprehend how great a multitude of sweetness is comprehended in this brief saying: God will be all in all? To say nothing of the body, in the soul I behold three things, reason, will, memory; and these three are the soul itself. How much in each of these in the present age is wanting of its integrity and perfection, every one who walks in the spirit perceives. Why this, except because God is not yet all in all? Hence it is that reason is very often deceived in its judgments, and the will is tossed by a fourfold disturbance, and the memory is confused by manifold forgetfulness. To this threefold vanity the noble creature is subjected not willingly, but in hope. For He who fills the desire of the soul with good things, He Himself will be to the reason fullness of light, He Himself to the will multitude of peace, He Himself to the memory continuation of eternity. O truth, charity, eternity! O blessed and beatifying Trinity, to You my wretched trinity miserably sighs, because from You it is unhappily in exile." And a little later: "Hope in God, for I will still confess to Him: when, namely, all error has receded from the reason, sorrow from the will, and fear from the memory; and there has succeeded that for which we hope, marvellous serenity, full sweetness, eternal security. The first God Truth will accomplish, the second God Charity, the third God Supreme Power, that God may be all in all, with the reason receiving inextinguishable light, with the will obtaining imperturbable peace, with the memory eternally clinging to the unfailing fount. You shall see whether you rightly assign that first thing to the Son, the second to the Holy Spirit, the last to the Father."
Verse 29: Otherwise What Shall They Do Who Are Baptized for the Dead?
29. OTHERWISE WHAT SHALL THEY DO WHO ARE BAPTIZED FOR THE DEAD, IF THE DEAD RISE NOT AT ALL? — "Are baptized," namely metaphorically, with the baptism of penalty, afflictions, tears, prayers, etc., that they may aid the dead, that they may be liberated from the baptism of fire in Purgatory. "They are baptized," I say, even those Judaizers themselves who deny the resurrection, like Cerinthus and the like, or at least their fellow-mystics the Jews, and that from the received faith and custom of the Hebrews; for that the Hebrews were accustomed to make suffrages for the dead is clear from 2 Maccabees XII, 43, and from their modern rituals. This sense coheres very well with what follows. In this sense baptism is often taken elsewhere, as in Mark X, 38, Luke XII, 50, Psalm XXXI, 6. For everywhere in the Scriptures waters and floods signify tribulations and afflictions.
Secondly, it can be taken thus: "they are baptized," that is, they are purified for the sacrifices which are offered for the dead; for the Jews were accustomed to baptize themselves before sacrifice, prayers and every divine matter. See Mark VII, 8; Hebrews VI, 2, and IX, 10.
Bellarmine pursues at length the various interpretations of others, book I On Purgatory, ch. IV, and Suarez, Part III, Question LVI, disputation 50, section I, and they almost all are referred to baptism properly so called. And to include them in summary: first, D. Thomas explains thus: "They are baptized for the dead," that is, for the washing away of sins, which are dead works.
Secondly, Theodoret: "for the dead," that is, after the manner of the dead rising from death, namely so that when they are baptized, and emerge from baptism as from a sepulchre, they signify the resurrection from the dead.
Thirdly, Epiphanius, heresy 28: "for the dead," that is, when death is imminent, and they are as it were held for dead. For then those who had deferred baptism wished altogether to be baptized on account of the faith and hope of eternity and of the resurrection. Hence those to be baptized recited the Creed, in which there is this article: I believe in the resurrection of the dead.
Fourthly, Claude Guilliaud, doctor of Paris: "They are baptized, he says, for the dead," the Martyrs, who suffer and are afflicted for the faith and the article of the resurrection of the dead. This sense coheres aptly with what follows; for there follows: "Why are we also in danger every hour?"
Fifthly, others explain thus, as if to say ad hominem: Why do certain ones from among you (as the Marcionists afterwards did), erring and superstitious, undertake baptism for the dead, who have died without baptism? So Ambrose and Irenaeus, heresy 28, and Tertullian, book On the Resurrection, ch. XXIV; likewise Chrysostom.
Sixthly, some explain thus: To be baptized for the dead is the same as to be baptized from the dead, that is, from contact or for contact with the dead, by washing and purifying. For in Numbers XIX, it was prescribed that whoever touched the body of a dead person should be considered unclean, until he was washed with the water of purification, the rite of which is there prescribed. For so says Ecclesiasticus chapter XXXIV, verse 30: "He that is baptized from a dead man, and toucheth him again, what does his washing avail?" To which place Paul here alludes: and from there he aptly proves the resurrection of the dead, as if to say: That ceremony of baptism, that is, of ablution and purification after contact with a corpse, would be considered altogether useless, unless the future resurrection of bodies were believed. For God ordained it for this purpose, that through it the future resurrection might be indicated: for no other cause can be assigned for it. To what purpose, on account of contact with a corpse, especially a human one, is so seriously prescribed washing and purification, except to signify that flesh, although polluted and corrupted by death, is not always to remain in death, but at some time will rise again? as if through this purification and cleansing the human flesh seemed to be prepared and fitted for immortal life: and therefore one touching a human body was much more unclean and to be purified, than if he had touched the corpse of another animal; for he who touched the corpse of a man was unclean seven days; but he who touched another animal, only until evening, as is clear from Leviticus XI. Paul therefore says: "Otherwise what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for them?" As if to say: Rather they ought to cease from this ceremony of baptism and purification, since it would be altogether vain, if there were no hope of resurrection. So Gabriel Vasquez, Part III, vol. II, Question LXIX, disp. 157, ch. III, n. 48, 31 and following. But this exposition and reasoning seems too cold and thin to prove the resurrection.
Seventhly, the same St. Chrysostom just cited offers and prefers another exposition, namely, as if Paul said: Why properly do all the faithful undertake baptism in the hope of resurrection from the dead, or for the state of the dead, that in it things may be well with them after death, if the dead do not rise? Surely they do this in vain. But this is not credible, since this is the common sense of all the faithful; so much so that many now defer baptism until the end of life, and are baptized in bed, that fully purged by baptism from every guilt and penalty they may fly to heaven, to obtain the blessed resurrection. Hence they are also called Clinics, as if you should say 'Bedridden,' concerning whom many canons exist that they are not to be repelled from baptism.
This sense seems the simplest and plainest of all: for this is what the word 'are baptized' properly signifies. The phrase 'for the dead' also intimates this: "for while the Sacrament of baptism is bestowed on the body, the body is consecrated to immortality," says Tertullian.
WHY ARE THEY THEN BAPTIZED FOR THEM? — namely, as the Greek has, ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, 'for the dead': if indeed there is no resurrection from death to life, nor do the dead rise, why are they baptized for them, that is, for the state of the dead, and for the resurrection from the dead? So everywhere all interpreters.
Verse 30: Why Are We Also in Danger Every Hour?
30. WHY ARE WE ALSO IN DANGER EVERY HOUR? — As if to say: Foolishly do we expose ourselves to so many dangers and persecutions for the hope of resurrection, if there is no resurrection. This is a new argument, or rather a new part of the argument to be joined to the preceding part and reasoning, so that from both this complete argument may be forged, as if to say: That we are all to rise is clear from the common sense and instinct of all the faithful, which both nature and faith have implanted in them. For on account of this hope of resurrection all pant after baptism; again others, and we above all, on account of the same hope, boldly undertake all dangers and labors, indeed assail them. Nature therefore and God, who instilled in us this sense and these spirits for the cause and hope of resurrection, clearly by this very fact testify that we are to rise.
Verse 31: I Die Daily
31. I DIE DAILY, — that is, daily I expose myself to dangers of death for the Gospel and the conversion of the Gentiles.
BY YOUR GLORY, — that is, on account of the glory which will come to you in heaven, namely that I may obtain it for you; or rather, "by your glory," that is, by the boasting in which I glory of you, as my children in Christ, inasmuch as I, as Apostle and your father, swear, and call God to witness, that "I die daily," and offer myself to death for the hope of resurrection: for in Greek it is νὴ τὴν ὑμετέραν καύχησιν: but νὴ in Greek is a particle of one swearing, and καύχησις signifies not so much glory as boasting. Hence St. Augustine, epistle 89, proves that it is lawful to swear. Whence the Syriac translates, 'I swear by your glory'; Ambrose reads, 'for your glory.'
WHICH I HAVE IN CHRIST. — That is, which glory I hope to have in you in the future, relying on Christ the Lord: so Anselm; or rather, which glory, namely the boasting, I have, that is, by which I glory in Christ: for I glory that it has come to me through the merits of Christ. Gagneius and Photius expound otherwise, so that νὴ is not only of one swearing, but also of one entreating: for they translate, 'daily I die on account of your,' or, as some Greek manuscripts read, 'our boasting,' namely so that I may glory in you, converted by me and acquired for Christ.
Remember always here that the Apostle, even from the immortality of the soul alone, proves the resurrection of bodies; because these two are naturally connected, and because men then did not doubt so much about the resurrection in itself, as about the immortality of the soul; so that if anyone had demonstrated to them the immortality of the soul, they would at once have admitted the resurrection. So St. Thomas.
Verse 32: If (According to Man) I Have Fought with Beasts at Ephesus
32. IF (ACCORDING TO MAN) I HAVE FOUGHT WITH BEASTS AT EPHESUS. — "According to man," that is, as Photius says, as much as was possible for a man.
Secondly and better: "according to man," that is, with merely human hope, human spirit, boldness, rashness, zeal for glory, by which driven men rush headlong into dangers.
Others explain thus: "according to man," namely, I shall speak in the manner of men, who readily narrate their fights and contests.
I HAVE FOUGHT WITH BEASTS AT EPHESUS. — Theophylact, Anselm, Primasius and Baronius understand by 'beasts' Demetrius and his savage and barbarous companions, atrociously and bestially fighting for Diana against Paul, Acts XIX. Hence the Greek κατὰ ἄνθρωπον can be rendered: 'if I fought against a man as if against a beast.' Thus Paul calls Nero a lion, II Tim. IV, 17. Such persons are elsewhere called bulls, as in Psalm LXVII, 31: "The congregation of bulls among the cows of the peoples." So St. Ignatius, epistle to the Romans: "I fight, he says, daily with beasts," that is, with soldiers and guards.
But Chrysostom, Ambrose and others, take it for Paul's being thrown to wild beasts at Ephesus and fighting against them; for this is the proper meaning of the Greek ἐθηριομάχησα ('I fought with beasts'). Furthermore, since that disturbance with Demetrius at Ephesus occurred after this Epistle was written — for after that uproar, Demetrius and his crowd in their tumult forced Paul to leave Ephesus immediately, so that he had no time to write these things at Ephesus — therefore he wrote this beforehand at Ephesus; for it is more true that this Epistle was written by him at Ephesus about that same time, as Baronius teaches. Therefore the fight with wild beasts of which he writes here was not the fight with Demetrius, since that had not yet happened, but another earlier one.
You will say: It is strange that Luke in the Acts kept silent about so great and so dreadful a battle of Paul. I answer: It is plain that Luke passed over many other things of no less moment, such as what the Apostle relates of himself, 2 Cor. xi. 25: "Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck," etc. Luke omitted nearly all of these, as I will say there. Hence Nicephorus, Bk. II Hist., ch. xxv, narrates this battle of Paul with the beasts literally, as it took place, having received it (it would seem) by tradition.
Gagneius notes that θηριομαχεῖν means not merely to fight with beasts, but to fight against beasts to the last breath, that is, for one's very life. As if Paul were saying: Thrown to beasts in defense of the Gospel, I fought with them to my last breath, and by God's help either conquered and slew them — not with arms and blows, but with faith and prayer — or escaped and got away.
LET US EAT AND DRINK, FOR TOMORROW WE SHALL DIE. — Paul uses the words of Isaiah xxii. 13, as if to say: You who deny the resurrection, or do not believe in it, are little removed from these words of the impious in Isaiah; for if there is no resurrection, it will be lawful for us to say what Epicurus said and the Epicureans: Eat, sport, drink — after death there is no pleasure.
Verse 33: Evil Communications Corrupt Good Manners
33. EVIL COMMUNICATIONS CORRUPT GOOD MANNERS — that is, [communications] of the aforesaid error, namely, conversations with atheists and unbelievers who deny the resurrection. This verse is a senarius of Menander, as St. Jerome says. The Greek ὁμιλίαι signifies not only conversations but also dealings and all manner of intercourse; for these no less than conversation with the wicked are evil and harmful.
Verse 34: Awake, Ye Just
34. AWAKE, YE JUST — rouse yourselves from sin, that you may be just. Wherefore the Greek has 'awake δικαίως,' that is, 'justly'; the Syriac, 'rouse your hearts justly,' that is, unto righteousness. Whence follows: "And sin not; for some have ignorance of God."
I SPEAK TO YOUR REVERENCE [I.e. to your shame]. — In Greek πρὸς ἐντροπὴν, that is, 'unto shame'; for it is a shame to a Christian to doubt the resurrection and the divine power. So the Psalmist says: "Thou knowest my confusion and my reverence," that is, my shame. And often in the Psalms 'reverence' is taken for confusion and shamefacedness.
Verse 35: But Some Man Will Say: How Do the Dead Rise Again?
35. BUT SOME MAN WILL SAY: HOW DO THE DEAD RISE AGAIN? OR WITH WHAT MANNER OF BODY SHALL THEY COME? 36. SENSELESS MAN, THAT WHICH THOU SOWEST IS NOT QUICKENED EXCEPT IT DIE FIRST. — Here the Apostle touches the root of the sore and the cause of the error: namely, that some despaired of and denied the resurrection of bodies, because they saw them rotting in the earth, as though it were incredible and impossible that putrefied bodies should be re-formed and raised. Paul here cuts away this cause by the example of a seed which is sown: for it first rots and dies in the earth; then, as it were rising again, it sprouts, and from one grain produces not one but many; so that the single bare grain which is sown, when clothed in the harvest with ears and grains and heaped up, may seem to rise in greater glory. In like manner our bodies will rot, and thence rise again unto greater glory.
Verse 37: And That Which Thou Sowest Is Not the Body That Shall Be
37. AND THAT WHICH THOU SOWEST IS NOT THE BODY THAT SHALL BE, BUT BARE GRAIN, etc. — that is: When you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be born from the seed (such as a tree or an ear), but the bare seed and grain of an apple, for example, or of wheat; and yet to this grain, sown and reborn out of the earth, God restores not another grain, but a whole and beautiful body, namely of a tree or an ear, furnished and adorned with its stalk, flowers, beards, and grains. Hence, as St. Augustine says (Epist. 146), the Apostle tacitly infers: "If God can add what was not in the new seed, much more can He at the resurrection restore what was in the body of man." Wherefore the Apostle adds:
Verse 38: But God Giveth It a Body as He Will
38. BUT GOD GIVETH IT (i.e. the seed and the grain) A BODY AS HE WILL: AND TO EVERY SEED ITS OWN BODY. — 'Its own,' that is, of its proper nature and species, because to the grain — for example, of wheat — God gives an ear and a body, not of barley or of oats, but of wheat: and so of the rest.
Verse 39: All Flesh Is Not the Same Flesh
39. ALL FLESH IS NOT THE SAME FLESH. — He proves what went before, namely that God gives to each seed and thing its own body, as He Himself wills and ordains. He proves it, I say, by example: God, he says, gives one and a proper flesh to man, another to cattle, another to birds, another to fishes; one body He gives to the heavens and the heavenly stars, another to earthly things — as if to say: So also to the Blessed at the resurrection, as in a kind of regeneration and re-creation, God will give a proper body, such as He shall will and such as befits blessed and glorious men; He will give, I say, to each one such a body as he has merited. For there is a likeness and analogy between nature and merit, so that just as such a nature — for example, that of a man — demands such a body, namely a human one, so such merit demands such a glorious body: so that he who has merited less may receive a less, and he who has merited more, a more glorious body.
Verse 41: One Is the Glory of the Sun, Another the Glory of the Moon
41. ONE IS THE GLORY OF THE SUN, ANOTHER THE GLORY OF THE MOON, AND ANOTHER THE GLORY OF THE STARS. — Hence Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Primasius, Oecumenius, Bede, Augustine (in his book On Holy Virginity, ch. xxvi), and Jerome (Bk. II Against Jovinian) prove not only the glorious resurrection of the Saints, but also the disparity of rewards in heaven, just as here the seeds of merits are unequal.
Verse 42: So Also Is the Resurrection of the Dead
42. SO ALSO IS THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, — that is, just as the brightness of the sun is one, of the moon another, of the stars another: so likewise God will give to each Blessed soul its own body, blessed and glorious, unequal in proportion to its merits, as Paul explains in what follows.
Aptly are the Saints and the Blessed compared to the stars, for the reasons I gave at Rom. iv. 18 in fine. Again, just as one star outshines another, so also one Blessed soul outshines another in glory and rewards, as it does in grace and merits, and:
There shines amid all,
The star of the Virgin, as among lesser fires
The Moon shines forth.
Thus Blessed Dominic, while still a boy, appeared in a vision to a certain noble matron, bearing a brilliant star on his forehead, by whose excessive splendor the whole world was illumined, as is recorded in his Life, Bk. I, ch. i and the last chapter, near the end. And of Simon the High Priest, son of Onias, it is said in Ecclus. l. 6: "As the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at the full shineth in her days, and as the bright sun, so did he shine in the temple of God." We read similar things of many other Saints. Let learned men, and teachers of righteousness and holiness, take note of that passage in Daniel xii: "They that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity." And that of Wisdom iii: "The just shall shine forth." Hence Christ Himself in Apoc. xxii. 16 says: "I am the bright and morning star." And Apoc. i. 20: "The seven stars are the seven angels (that is, the Doctors and Bishops) of the seven Churches." And in Apoc. xii. 1, the Church appeared to St. John as a woman having on her head "a crown of twelve stars," namely the twelve Apostles, who shone forth in the Church as stars, and that 'on her head,' that is, at the very rising and beginning of the Christian Church, as Primasius, Aretas, Andrew Bishop of Caesarea, Bede, and others explain there. Finally, Apoc. ii. 28: "To him that overcometh," says Christ, "I will give the morning star," that is, the glory and beatific vision, which is called a star because of the brightness of its light and vision; and 'morning,' both because it is given after the night of this present age, and because of the beginning of beatitude, which will be completed at the resurrection of bodies. So Richard of St. Victor, Primasius, and Aretas in the same place.
IT IS SOWN IN CORRUPTION, IT SHALL RISE IN INCORRUPTION. — 'It is sown,' namely in creation, when the corruptible body of man is produced either by God or from the seed of a parent. So Anselm.
Second, and more aptly: the human body is 'sown' when it is buried, and as it were cast into the earth as a seed, that it may decay into worms and ashes. For thus the grain, when it is sown into the earth, is cast in, buried, and decays. So Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Anselm.
From this some have erred, supposing that the resurrection will come about through the powers of nature, and that we shall rise by natural strength — as if certain seminal causes effective of the resurrection were dissolved within the dust of the corpse, as St. Thomas reports here. For this error is against the faith and against true philosophy, which teach that the resurrection is above all the powers of nature; nor does the Apostle place the likeness in this, but only in the fact that, just as God gives to each seed its proper body — so that from wheat, for example, wheat is born and not barley — so to each Blessed soul He will give a body according to its kind and merit. That this is so is clear from the next verse. To declare the same thing, Paul in vv. 39 and 40 adduced the likeness of flesh and bodies, which is varied in various animals and creatures, as I said there.
Note: A signal image and proof of the resurrection lies in the seed that dies and sprouts again, as though rising. Whence St. Augustine, Serm. 34 On the Words of the Apostle: "The whole administration of this world," he says, "is a testimony of the future resurrection. We see indeed at the time or coming of winter that trees are stripped of their fruits, bared of their leaves; but in the springtime they likewise express an image of the resurrection: which first begin to swell in buds, then to be adorned with flowers, then clothed with leaves, and afterwards laden with fruits. I ask you, unbelieving man who doubts the resurrection: where are these things that are produced at the time God has appointed? Tell me where they hide before they are brought forth? They are nowhere seen, and yet God, who is omnipotent and made them from nothing, by His secret power produces them. Now look at the fields and meadows, which after the summer is past are stripped of their grasses and flowers, and the very expanses of the earth remain bare; yet they are again clothed in springtime, and the farmer rejoices when new growth begins everywhere. Surely the grass that lived before and dies, lives again from its seed; so also our body lives again from the dust."
Verse 43: It Is Sown in Dishonor, It Shall Rise in Glory
43. IT IS SOWN IN DISHONOR. — That is, the human body when it is buried, and as it were cast as a seed into the earth, is base, gross, dense, and dark. St. Ambrose reads 'is sown in ignominy'; St. Augustine, in Epist. 140, 'is sown in contumely'; Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. lii, 'is sown in disgrace.'
IT SHALL RISE IN GLORY, — that is, it shall rise glorious, bright, shining. Here the Apostle cuts away the second root of the error; for there were in that day men who denied the resurrection of bodies on this argument, that bodies, being gross and fleshly, were unsuited (as they said) to blessed souls already enjoying the divine life — as St. Dionysius testifies in refuting them, Eccles. Hierarch. ch. vii. This the Apostle cuts away here, saying that at the resurrection a glorious body must be given like to the glorious soul.
IT IS SOWN IN WEAKNESS — that is, an infirm, slow, sluggish, lazy body dies and is buried. IT SHALL RISE IN POWER — in δυνάμει, in might; that is, mighty, swift, agile.
Verse 44: It Is Sown a Natural Body, It Shall Rise a Spiritual Body
44. IT IS SOWN A NATURAL [animal] BODY, — that is, one which lives, or rather which has lived a vegetative and sensitive life, like the animals, needing food and drink; likewise gross, hard, unable to yield, and impenetrable. For such was the body of Adam even in Paradise. The 'animal' body, therefore, is one that eats, drinks, sleeps, digests, eliminates, labors, grows weary, and weighs down and resists by its own weight.
IT SHALL RISE A SPIRITUAL BODY. — Not that the body is to be turned into spirit, or into an aereal body, as Origen wished and Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the time of St. Gregory (by whom being convicted he recanted the error); but 'spiritual,' that is, wholly subject and conformed to the spirit, so that it needs neither food nor drink, neither labors nor grows weary, but is as it were heavenly and deified, and (as Tertullian says) as it were transformed into an angelic state. So St. Augustine, On Faith and the Creed, ch. vi: "A body is called spiritual," he says, "not as though it were turned into spirit, but because it will be so subject to the spirit that it may be fitted for a heavenly dwelling, every fragility and earthly stain being changed and converted into a heavenly stability." Yet the same Augustine in ch. x of that work seems to say that at the resurrection there will be not a fleshly but an angelic body; whence he retracts this in ch. xvii of Bk. I of his Retractations, and more fully in the last book of the City of God, chs. v and xxi.
Second, 'spiritual' means subtle, lacking, that is, that grossness and replete hardness — namely, that property of bodily quantity by which here a quantity so fills a place that it excludes every other body from it. For the body shall be without this property, subtle, so that, like a spirit, it penetrates and pervades all other bodies. So Damascene, On the Faith Bk. IV, ch. xxviii; Epiphanius, in [his treatment of] the heresy of Origen. For just as God can take from man his proper attribute, namely being capable of laughter, and from fire can take the heat that is proper to fire, so from quantity He can take this replete hardness, which is the natural property of quantity.
Note: This dowry of subtlety will not be a quality infused into the soul — for this does not seem possible — but it will be an assistance of the divine omnipotence, intimate to the blessed soul, so that through it the soul may at will lay aside that replete hardness which excludes other bodies, when it wishes to penetrate another body; and may retain it, when it wishes to fill a place and exclude other bodies. And thus this assistance of the divine power seems to be a kind of dowry inhering in the blessed soul; just as the grace of miracles in Christ was the assistance of God, by which God assisted the humanity of Christ, so that through it Christ could work miracles at His will. See Francis Suarez, Pt. III, Quaest. LIV, art. 3.
Hence theologians gather the four dowries of the glorious body: impassibility from the Apostle's first antithesis, where he says "It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption"; clarity from the second antithesis, "It is sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory"; agility from the third, "It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power"; subtlety from the fourth, "It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body."
Suarez adds that the agility of the blessed bodies will be such and so great that the Blessed in an instant can pass from one place to another, without traversing the intervening space — because it is probable that angels move naturally in this way. But others, and more probably, deny both. And indeed the mind of man can scarcely conceive how anyone could be moved from one extreme to another without passing through the intervening space.
St. Bonaventure, in IV [Sent.], dist. xlix, part 2, art. [unique], Q. i, holds that these four dowries are signified in Wisd. iii. 7, where it is said: "The just shall shine, and as sparks among reeds shall they run to and fro." For in 'shining,' he says, clarity is signified; in 'justice,' impassibility, because justice is perpetual and immortal; in 'spark,' subtlety; in 'running,' agility. He then adds subtly that the number of these four dowries can be deduced from a twofold cause, namely formal and material, but more from the material. First, from the formal, because (he says) in our body there is a twofold nature and form, namely the elemental, which now prevails, and the heavenly, which is the nature of light, and which will be as it were the formal and completing principle of the glorious body and will dominate at the resurrection. "Therefore, since light has these four properties, as is plain in a ray — namely clarity, because it illumines; impassibility, because nothing corrupts it; agility, because it goes swiftly; penetrability, because it passes through transparent bodies without corrupting them — so also the glorious body, in which the nature of light dominates, has four dowries." In the second way the number of the dowries is taken according to material cause: thus our body is composed of four elements. And because the elements are imperfect, it has from them a fourfold defectibility. From water, which is the moist and passible element, it has passibility and corruption. From earth it has darkness, because [earth] is an opaque element. From fire, animality, because heat continually consumes: therefore [the body] continually needs the nourishment of food. From air it has infirmity: for air is most easily altered and yields to whatever pushes it. Since then these four defects must be removed by opposed goods so that the body may be perfect with complete perfection, therefore there are four dowries: against corruption, impassibility; against darkness, clarity; against animality, spirituality, that is, agility; against infirmity, strength, or penetrability, that is, subtlety. And this last derivation is more fitting above all others, since it corresponds both to authority and to reason. To the Apostle's authority — for thus the Apostle takes it, saying: It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption: behold impassibility. It is sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory: behold clarity. It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power: behold penetrability, that is, subtlety. It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual one: behold agility. Hence the Apostle takes the dowries by comparison with those four defects which they remove. Likewise St. Augustine, On the City of God: "There shall be absent from our bodies," he says, "every deformity, every slowness, every infirmity, every corruption: every deformity by clarity, every slowness by agility, every infirmity by subtlety or penetrability, every corruption by impassibility." Thus far St. Bonaventure.
AS IT IS WRITTEN. — Our [Latin] translator reads ὥσπερ, that is 'as.' Some now read οὕτω, that is 'so.' Note that these words are to be referred only to the earlier part of the following verse, namely to "the first man Adam was made into a living soul," and not to the latter, "the last Adam into a quickening spirit." For the latter is nowhere written in Scripture: Paul here proves from Scripture only that the body is sown an animal body, from the fact that Adam, the parent of all, was made into a living soul and consequently was an animal, having an animal body both in death and in life. Hence more conveniently and plainly, by the hyperbaton customary to the Apostle, you may transpose these words thus: "The first man Adam was made (as it is written, Gen. ii. 7) into a living soul."
However, second, with Theophylact, these words 'As it is written' could be referred to the whole following verse, being as it were an explanation and proof of what immediately preceded — namely, "if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one" — so the sense would be: In this universe, where there is a natural body, there must also be a spiritual one. For this is required for the perfection and completion of the universe, that it embrace all species and grades of things, even those mutually contrary; "as it is written," that is, as Scripture intimates, Gen. ii. 7. For for this reason it expressly says: "Adam was made into a living soul"; so as tacitly and implicitly to suggest that Christ, who is the second Adam, opposed to the first, was destined to be a quickening spirit.
Verse 45: The First Man Adam Was Made into a Living Soul
45. THE FIRST MAN ADAM WAS MADE INTO A LIVING SOUL (that is, Adam was made a soul, i.e. a living animal living the sensitive and vegetative life, and therefore needing to be fed by food, drink, and other supports, and to be preserved in this animal life of his; this is a synecdoche. On the contrary), THE LAST ADAM (that is, Christ, was made) INTO A QUICKENING SPIRIT — namely, that He might have after the resurrection a glorious soul which, like a quickening spirit, would entirely vivify the body and render it spiritual, that is, glorious like a spirit, free from food, impassible, and immortal — both His own body, I say, and ours. Here again is a synecdoche: for Christ is said to have been made "into a quickening spirit," that is, He was made a quickening spirit, because He received a spirit (i.e. a soul) that gives life both to Himself and to His own.
Whence Theophylact, Chrysostom, and Theodoret note that he does not say 'a living spirit,' but 'a quickening spirit'; for the soul or spirit of Christ does not only live gloriously in Himself, but also gives life, and bestows the same glorious life upon both our souls and our bodies. The Hebrew terms are more beautifully contrasted: נפש חיה nephesh chayah, that is, 'a living soul,' and נשמת חיים nismat chaiim, that is, 'a spirit of life' or 'quickening.' Again, nismat alludes to שמים shamaim, that is, 'heaven,' whence he adds: "The second man, from heaven, heavenly."
Verse 47: The First Man, of the Earth, Earthy: The Second Man, From Heaven, Heavenly
47. THE FIRST MAN, OF THE EARTH, EARTHY: THE SECOND MAN, FROM HEAVEN, HEAVENLY. — In Greek ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ὁ Κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, 'the second man, the Lord, from heaven': that this was corrupted by Marcion is plain from Tertullian, Bk. I, ch. v, Against Marcion. Whence it is clear that the Latin Bible is uncorrupted in comparison with the Greek. The true reading therefore is: the second man from heaven, heavenly.
Valentinus and the Gnostics wished from this passage that Christ had had a body not elemental and human, but had brought a heavenly body from heaven, and had passed through the Blessed Virgin not as through a mother, but as rainwater passes through a channel. But this is a heresy long since condemned, as St. Augustine attests in 'On Heresies' ch. ii, and Irenaeus in Bk. I, ch. v.
Truly therefore Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, ch. viii, and Bede say: Christ is called heavenly because He led a heavenly life and was always sinless; but Adam is called earthy because he was subject to sin. Whence follows: "As is the earthy, such also are the earthy; and as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly."
Second, Christ is called "heavenly" because beyond the whole order of nature He was conceived and born of the Virgin by the heavenly power of the Holy Spirit. So St. Ambrose, Hilary (Bk. I On the Trinity, after the beginning), and St. Augustine (Dialogue to Orosius, Q. iv).
Third, Christ is called "heavenly" by reason of His divine and heavenly Person (suppositum): thus Christ is called the Son of Man — that is, the man — "who came down from heaven," John iii. 13. So nearly Nazianzen, Or. 51, about the middle, and Augustine indicates the same in Epist. 57 to Dardanus.
Fourth, genuinely and most aptly, Christ is called "heavenly," that is, glorious and incorruptible, as the heavenly bodies are. Christ had this heavenly glory in His soul really from the beginning of His nativity and conception; in His body He had the same then in first act, because it was due and connatural to it; but on account of the Passion it was suspended and deferred, that He might assume it in second act at the resurrection. Yet incidentally before His death Christ from time to time assumed this glory, or the four dowries of the glorious body — namely, clarity at the Transfiguration; agility, when He walked upon the sea; subtlety, when He passed through the womb of His mother; impassibility, in the Eucharist. So on the contrary, Adam is called "earthy," because he was made from the earth, and from there and from sin he contracted mortality and the other qualities of an earthly, animal, mortal, and corruptible body. So St. Chrysostom; Augustine, On the City of God, Bk. XIII, ch. xxiii; Tertullian, On the Resurrection, ch. xlix. For the Apostle is here treating of the resurrection and the glory of the bodies of the Blessed, whose exemplar is the glorious body of Christ — and for that cause he calls Christ heavenly and Christ's body heavenly.
Verse 48: As Is the Earthy, Such Also Are the Earthy
48. AS IS THE EARTHY, SUCH ALSO ARE THE EARTHY (just as Adam, earthy from the earth, died and returned to the earth, so all the earthy ones born from him will return to the earth; on the contrary), AS IS THE HEAVENLY, SUCH ALSO ARE THE HEAVENLY — so that just as Christ by the resurrection obtained a heavenly body, that is, immortal and glorious, so the Saints reborn from Him become heavenly, that is, immortal and glorious.
Verse 49: As We Have Borne the Image of the Earthy, Let Us Bear Also the Image of the Heavenly
49. AS WE HAVE BORNE THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHY, LET US BEAR ALSO THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY. — 'Let us bear': our Latin translator reads φορέσωμεν with ω; some now read φορέσομεν with o, 'we shall bear' (namely at the resurrection, as preceded), the image of the heavenly Christ, that we may be configured to Him in a heavenly, that is glorious, body — just as in this life we were configured to the earthly Adam in the animal life by eating, sleeping, and dying. But our translator more aptly reads 'let us bear,' to fit what follows, because the Apostle in his usual manner is saying: As we once lived in unbelief and sins, like earthy men fastened to the earth and animal-like in the manner of brute animals, similar to the earthy and sinful Adam, so now reborn in Christ, and called by Him to the fellowship of immortal life and glory, let us strive and aspire toward that with all our strength, and consequently let us bear the image of the heavenly Christ, so as to live a heavenly life here. Namely: first, let us be, like Him, impassible, that is, unperturbed amid prosperity and adversity, so that we may say that Socratic word: "I have ascended in mind to heaven, and despise this sun and this earth alone." Second, let us be bright like Christ, so that our good works may shine before all. Third, let us be agile like Christ, for the works of charity, obedience, and other virtues. Fourth, let us be subtle, as Christ was — that is, let us penetrate the heavens through prayer and contemplation, so that, with mind raised from earth to God and heavenly things, we may be joined with the Saints and united with God. A little differently, St. Cyril, On the Faith to the Emperor Theodosius: "As we bear the image of the earthy," he says, "let us bear also the image of the heavenly. By the image of the earthy he calls the propensity to sinning and the death which arises from it. But by the image of the heavenly, that is of Christ, he denotes constancy in holiness, and the return and restoration from death and corruption to life and immortality."
Beautifully St. Bernard, expounding these words of the Apostle in Sermon 30 among the 'Lesser Sermons': "There are," he says, "two men, old and new: Adam the old, Christ the new. That one is earthy, this one is heavenly: the image of that one is oldness, the image of this one is newness. There is moreover a triple oldness, and on the contrary a triple newness. For there is oldness in the heart, in the mouth, and in the body — in which three ways we have sinned: in thought, in word, and in deed. In the heart are carnal and worldly desires, that is, the love of the flesh and the love of the world. In the mouth is a twofold oldness, arrogance and detraction. Likewise twofold in the body, vile deeds and crimes. All these are the image of the old man, and all these must be renewed in us." Whence he concludes: "Dwelling therefore in the heart is wisdom, dwelling in the mouth is truth, dwelling in the body is righteousness."
Verse 50: Flesh and Blood Cannot Possess the Kingdom of God
50. NOW THIS I SAY, BRETHREN: THAT FLESH AND BLOOD CANNOT POSSESS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. — First, Origen and Euthymius explain it thus: because in heaven the Blessed (they say) will not have a fleshly body but an aereal one. But this is an open error contradicting v. 53, as I will show there. Second, Theophylact and Ambrose say: 'flesh,' that is, the works of the flesh, will not possess the kingdom of God. Third and genuinely, 'flesh and blood' — namely the natural and corruptible kind, such as the earthy Adam had, and such as we have in this life — will not possess the kingdom of God; for what the Apostle in vv. 46 and 47 called an animal and earthy body, here he calls flesh and blood. For he only wishes to show that in heaven there will not be an animal and fleshly body such as this is, but a spiritual and heavenly one, in the sense in which I expounded v. 47. Whence in explanation he adds: "Neither shall corruption" — that is, animal and corruptible flesh — "possess incorruption." So Theodoret, Theophylact, Ambrose.
Second, by these words the Apostle leaves it to be inferred that in heaven there will not be a carnal and animal life, which consists in the use of food and the begetting of children, of the kind that life and beatitude which the Jews and the Mohammedans expect after the resurrection.
And third, he hints that those who strive toward the kingdom of God ought to live not according to flesh and blood, but according to the spirit of Christ, so that they may bear the image not of the earthy and carnal Adam, but of the heavenly and spiritual Christ — that they may merit to reign with Christ and lead in heaven a blessed and heavenly life. Thus 'flesh' often elsewhere signifies the corruption of the flesh. See Augustine, Epistle 146 to Consentius.
Verse 51: Behold, I Tell You a Mystery
51. BEHOLD, I TELL YOU A MYSTERY. — By these words the Apostle stirs up the attention of his readers, and intimates that he is about to say something great, awesome, and secret concerning the resurrection. So Theophylact.
WE SHALL ALL INDEED RISE AGAIN, BUT WE SHALL NOT ALL BE CHANGED. — Note that there are three readings here. The first is that of the Greeks and the Syriac: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed," which Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Origen (Bk. II Against Celsus), Theodore of Heraclea, and Apollinaris (apud Jerome, Epistle to Minerius and Alexander), Tertullian (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. xli and lxii), and Augustine (Q. iii to Dulcitius), following — they think that not all men will die, namely those who at the end of the world, being alive, shall be caught up to meet Christ the Lord and shall thus be glorified. For this change, says Theophylact (from Chrysostom), will be death to them: for in them corruption will die, being changed into incorruptibility.
The second reading is: "We shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed." This is found in St. Augustine, On the City of God, Bk. XX, ch. xx, and St. Jerome approves it in the place already cited.
The third is Our [Vulgate]: "We shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed" — namely, by glory. This reading St. Augustine above prefers to the others, and without doubt this reading is plainer, truer, and more certain, and fits better with what precedes and follows and with other passages of St. Paul where he teaches that it is appointed to all men once to die. For, as he himself says here in v. 22: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive."
Although the first opinion does not seem true, yet on account of its authors it is not to be condemned of rashness, as Soto and Catharinus would have it, nor of error. Hence Francis Suarez, in the place cited above, and others say that this opinion, which teaches that absolutely all men shall die and rise again, is only more probable than the contrary.
Verse 52: In a Moment, in the Twinkling of an Eye
52. IN A MOMENT. — Repeat 'we shall rise,' which preceded. In Greek, ἐν ἀτόμῳ, 'in an atom,' that is, in something indivisible, like a point of time and the blow or twinkling of an eye, as follows. "An atom," says St. Jerome, "is a point of time which cannot be cut or divided."
IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE, — ἐν ῥιπῇ ὀφθαλμοῦ, 'in the swiftest cast of the eye': for ῥιπή signifies the casting of a thunderbolt or a missile, from ῥίπτω, which means 'I cast.' Others read ῥοπῇ, according to St. Jerome's testimony to Minerius, which signifies a motion, propensity, or downward inclination of a beam or balance, which is most swiftly raised or lowered to a weight; whence the Wise Man calls it the 'momentum of the balance,' Wisd. xi. 23. Hence ῥοπή also signifies a moment, as ῥοπὴ χρόνου is called a moment of time.
From this passage Theodoret, Oecumenius, Anselm, Gregory of Nyssa (Oration On the Resurrection), Jerome (Epistle to Minerius already cited), and Augustine (Epist. 49, ch. i) gather that the resurrection will be not in the briefest time, but in an instant: which is true of the formation, organization, animation, and quickening of bodies, and this is what these words of the Apostle signify when he says 'in a moment'; but as to local motion — for example, that the parts of the body to be resuscitated should be gathered together in a moment from various places into one — this is greatly doubtful. St. Augustine asserts, and Suarez teaches can come about (Pt. III, Q. liii, disp. 44, sect. 4), that namely by the power of God these parts of the body should pass from one extreme to another without an intermediate, and so all come together in one place in a moment of time. But, as I said at v. 44, the nature of space and motion does not seem to allow this, but rather demands that a thing cannot be moved from one extreme to that extreme without first passing through the intermediate space.
Hence to others it seems more likely that by the power of God a movable thing can in an instant pass through all the intermediate spaces, and thus in an instant can be moved from one extreme to another, yet through the intermediate; for just as light from the sun is diffused throughout the entire hemisphere uniformly-differently in an instant, why may not a body likewise, by the power of God, transfuse itself through various places in an instant? For if the illumination of the hemisphere is instantaneous, why cannot the transfusion of bodies through various places also be instantaneous?
But it can conveniently be replied that the case of light and of bodies is unequal: for although the diffusion of both seems alike, yet in the case of light it is not the same light, but one light and another, that is sent forth into one and another space in its order; whereas here in the case of the body the very same body would in the same instant have to leave that space and pass through the next, again in the same instant cross the neighboring space, and in the same instant leave this second space and pass through a third, and so consequently through the fourth, fifth, sixth, and all intermediate spaces up to the extreme — which seems impossible: for thus in the same instant the body would both cross and leave the same space; it would be in this space and not be in it; nay, in all the intermediate spaces it would both be and not be. Whence better do St. Thomas and others deny that this transfer of the body's parts to the same place will be in an instant — especially since it will be done through the angels, who move bodies not in an instant but in the briefest time. The Apostle therefore here speaks only of the resurrection itself, not of the transfer of the bodies to be resuscitated, when he says it will be in the twinkling of an eye, indeed in a moment.
AT THE LAST TRUMPET. — This trumpet is called 'last' in respect to all those preceding; for, as is plain in Apocalypse chs. viii and ix, at the end of the world seven angels, to whom the universal care of mankind is committed, will sound seven trumpets, that with these they may foretell with trumpet voice the extreme calamities and punishments of the world, and as it were summon, effect, and bring them forth. After these will follow this last trumpet sounding: "Arise, ye dead, come to judgment" — concerning which I shall say more at 1 Thess. iv. 16.
Verse 53: For This Corruptible Must Put On Incorruption
53. FOR THIS CORRUPTIBLE MUST PUT ON INCORRUPTION. — Note τὸ hoc ('this'): from this it is plain against Origen that the body that rises is numerically the same. So St. Jerome to Pammachius and Oceanus; for the pronoun 'this' indicates the same individual body.
Verse 54: Death Is Swallowed Up in Victory
54. THEN SHALL COME TO PASS THE SAYING THAT IS WRITTEN: DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY. — You will ask: Where is this written? Some answer that it is written in Isaiah 25:8, where it is said: "He will cast death down forever"; where the Septuagint translates κατέπιεν, that is, "prevailing death has devoured." 'Devoured,' by a Hebraism, is the same as 'has been devoured.' So Eusebius, Book IV of the Demonstration, chapter 12, and Athanasius in the book On the Passion and the Cross. Or rather, death (namely Christ's death) devoured the death of the world. So Ribera on Hosea 13, number 27.
But these things appear somewhat obscure and twisted. For in Isaiah the Septuagint clearly translates with the active voice, primus (= κατέπιεν), that is, 'he devoured'; but Paul here has aréndon (= κατεπόθη), that is, 'it has been devoured, swallowed up' — which seem to be opposites. Therefore we shall more aptly say that Paul fits the aforementioned passage of Isaiah not according to the Septuagint but according to the Hebrew text, and in place of ברע billa ('he cast down, swallowed up') he read with different vowel-points ברע bulla, that is, 'death has been swallowed up'; and לנצח lanetsach, which firstly can be translated 'in victory,' as Paul translates it here, secondly 'forever,' as St. Jerome translates it in Isaiah 25. See our Gaspar Sanchez on the same passage.
Secondly, others judge that these words are taken not verbatim but in sense from Hosea 13:14, where it is said: "I will deliver them from the hand of death; from death I will redeem them"; for this is in substance the same as what the Apostle here says: "Death is swallowed up in victory." For it is clear that the following words of the Apostle, which he immediately appends to these, are drawn from the same passage of Hosea, when he says:
Verse 55: O Death, Where Is Thy Victory? O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?
55. O DEATH, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING? — Paul cites Hosea 13:14, where our (Vulgate) translates: "I will be thy death, O death; I will be thy sting, O hell." Whence it is clear that there are here two translations of the Hebrew, both canonical; for both our reading in Hosea and the Septuagint, which Paul here follows, are canonical.
Where note first: The Hebrew אהי ehi means 'I shall be,' as our (Vulgate) translates it in Hosea 13:14, already cited. Secondly, as Rabbi Jonah holds, ehi by metathesis is taken for אי aye, that is 'where,' as the Septuagint and Paul here translate it; and so the Septuagint and Chaldaic translate the word ehi at Hosea 13:10.
Note secondly: For 'thy death,' the Hebrew is דבריך debarecha. If you derive it from דבר deber, it means 'thy plagues,' as if to say: O death, I shall be thy fullest plague and death; and, as Symmachus translates, 'I shall be thy stroke.' But if you derive it from דבר dabar, that is 'word,' it means 'where are thy words, or thy sayings?' as Aquila and the fifth edition translate. The Septuagint translates δίκη, that is 'cause/case,' for which Paul here has νῖκος, that is 'victory.' Whence some think that Paul read in the Septuagint νῖκος (or νῖκη) instead of δίκη; but all the ancient copies of the Septuagint interpreters, on Jerome's testimony, have δίκη, that is 'cause.' Better, then, shall we say that the Apostle altered the words but not the sense, when in place of 'cause' he put 'victory.' For the Greek δίκη means four things. First, a forensic cause; and, as Jerome translates in Hosea 13, 'contention' — as if to say: Where, O death, is thy contentious case, by which in God's judgment thou used to convict and conquer men, holding them guilty of death because of sin? Secondly, it means a pronounced sentence, as if to say: Where, O death, is thy sentence, by which all are adjudged to thee, that is to death? Thirdly, it means a right, as if to say: Where is the right thou once held over all? Fourthly, it means a penalty, as if to say: Where is that most harsh punishment with which thou used to chastise and destroy men? And this fourth meaning alludes to the Hebrew deber, that is 'plague'; the first three allude to dabar, that is 'word.' From which it appears that, in fact, 'cause' is the same as 'victory.'
Note thirdly: For 'thy sting,' the Hebrew is קטבך katabcha, which Symmachus translates 'encounter'; Theodotion and the fifth edition, 'stroke and termination'; the Septuagint κέντρον, that is, 'goad, sharp point,' with which death used to pierce and slay men. Properly katabcha signifies a cutting-down, by which Christ cut down death which cuts down everything. For this is what קטב katob means — namely, plucking-out, cutting-off, destruction, or annihilation; that is, a plague suddenly tearing away and cutting off, such as a violent fever, pestilence, or apoplexy, which suddenly brings death; and likewise sudden death itself, which tears the man away and cuts him off.
Our (Vulgate) aptly translates 'a biting/sting.' Where note that 'sting/biting' can here be taken either passively or actively, as if to say: I, Christ, shall be bitten by thee, O death and O hell; but in such a way that, having been bitten by thee, I in turn bite thee — so that, as if absorbed by thee, I burst thy bowels and thus draw out the faithful elect from thy belly.
Note fourthly: For 'O hell,' as the Hebrew has it, and our (Vulgate) in Hosea, and the Greek here, ποῦ σου, ᾅδη, τὸ νῖκος; "where, O hell, is thy victory?" — our translator renders it, "O death, where is thy victory?" — with the same sense; for hell and death signify the state of the dead, since formerly all, before Christ, after death descended into limbo. Thus at Acts 2:24 and elsewhere our translator renders the Greek θανάτου ('of death') as 'of hell.' The Septuagint version, which Paul follows, therefore comes back to the same as our (Vulgate) and the Hebrew of Hosea 13.
The sense, therefore, is: "Where is thy victory and thy sting," by which thou used to slay and dominate men? — as if to say: It has perished, it has been broken in pieces by Christ, who is thy death, O death; and by His biting He has burst and absorbed thee, O hell.
Where note: This began to be fulfilled when Christ rose again and led the souls of the saints back from limbo, and so by His biting, as it were, took this portion from the underworld. So Anselm and Origen, Homily 22 on the Gospels, and Augustine, Sermon 137 On the Season; but it shall be perfectly fulfilled in the general resurrection, as the Apostle here teaches. Beautifully also St. Jerome in the epitaph of Nepotianus to Heliodorus, addressing death and, with Paul, taunting it: "He," he says, "who once threatened thee more sternly through Hosea, 'I shall be thy death, O death; I shall be thy biting, O hell' — by His death thou art dead; by His death we live: thou hast devoured, and thou hast been devoured; and while thou art enticed by the bait of Christ's assumed body, and dost reckon the prey held in thy greedy jaws, thy inwards have been pierced through by a hooked tooth (or, as others read, by a hook). Thanks to Thee, O Christ our Savior, do we Thy creatures give, that, in slaying so mighty an adversary of ours, Thou didst slay him while being slain."
Thus St. Francis, when he was burning with the most grievous bodily pains, had no other comfort than to sing the divine praises himself and to hear others singing them; and when he was rebuked by Elias, who said that this last hour ought to be given over to penance, not to joy, he replied: "It was not lawful for him to do otherwise, since he knew he would shortly be with God."
Blessed Reginald, one of the first companions of St. Dominic, when he was being admonished to prepare himself with extreme unction, as is the custom, for the contest with the demon, said: "I do not in the least dread this contest; rather I joyfully await it. For long ago the Mother of mercy anointed me, in whom I have the greatest trust, and to whom I am eagerly setting forth." St. Bernard, Sermon 26 on the Canticle, speaking of the death of his brother Gerard, who, breathing his last, had broken forth into that verse of the Psalmist: "Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights," thus says: "Now for thee, my brother, even at midnight it was beginning to dawn, night was being lit up like day. I was summoned to behold that miracle — to see a man exulting in death, taunting death: O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? Now there is no sting, but a jubilee. Now the man dies singing, and singing he dies."
Verse 56: The Sting of Death Is Sin
56. NOW THE STING OF DEATH IS SIN. — "The sting" through which death especially harms and pricks us: for just as the scorpion, though small, slays through its sting, so death through sin slays all, says Theophylact — for without sin death would have been able to do nothing. Again, death through sin and through the consciousness of sin, as a kind of goad, prods and pricks us, saying to the soul: Deservedly thou diest, deservedly thou sufferest, because thou hast sinned.
BUT THE STRENGTH OF SIN IS THE LAW. — As if to say: Sin most especially exerts its powers through the law, that is, through the occasion of the prohibiting law: for we always strive after what is forbidden, and we desire the things denied, as I said more fully on Romans 7:8 and 13. So Theodoret, Theophylact, Ambrose, Anselm.
Verse 57: Thanks Be to God, Who Hath Given Us the Victory
57. THANKS BE TO GOD, WHO HATH GIVEN US THE VICTORY — over sin and death.
Verse 58: Therefore, My Brethren, Be Ye Steadfast
58. THEREFORE, MY BRETHREN, BE YE STEADFAST — namely in the faith of the resurrection, that you may abound in good works which are pleasing to the Lord God, rousing yourselves to them through the hope of the resurrection and of eternal reward: knowing that your labor will not be in vain, nor without reward with the Lord. For this is what 'in the Lord' means.