Oct 13 2008
Cornelius a Lapide on 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
10. I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, into whose one and the same fellowship, family, house, and Church we are all called, as many as are faithful and Christians, that ye all speak the same thing-that is to say, that, like brothers, ye agree in words and in speech, and that ye all say at the same time “I am of Christ;” but let not one say, “I am of Paul,” another, “I am of Apollos.” And, again, that ye agree not only in speech, but also in mind; otherwise your verbal confession would be feigned and false. Whence he adds as the root of concord:-
That ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment, that ye think the same thing and agree among yourselves in Christ, that ye be fitly united to each other in one mind and spirit in Christ. For the Greek signifies, aptly and harmoniously to join and cement anything, so that the parts agree with each other and with the whole. And because a thing is then perfect and complete when it has in this way been neatly and harmoniously united, hence the word signifies also to perfect, as Psalm 8:2; 2 Cor 13:11. Be perfect, i.e., mutually agree amongst yourselves and with your Head; and Psalm 40:6 (LXX).
11. For it has been declared unto me by them of Chloe. Some think that Chloe is the name of a place, ut this place is nowhere else mentioned; nor does the Greek word allow Chloe to be a place. Whence more truly Chrysostom and the Syriac suppose it to be the name of a family or of a woman, and then the meaning is, I have heard from the family of Chloe. By a similar Greek idiom it is said, Romans 16:10-11: “Salute them which are of Aristobulus, of Narcissus,” viz., of the house and family.
12. That every one of you; i.e., Whoever of you contend with one another, and foment any part of schism. (For there were among the Corinthians many others well-disposed and peaceful, unconnected with the schism, and consequently with the following words): says, in turn, alternately or respectively; for not each one was saying I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas. In other words, “every one,” therefore, there is a distributive and disjunctive force familiar to the Hebrews; for every one ambitiously and contentiously was saying, “I am of Paul,” &C., I am of Paul, viz., a disciple, a catechumen; I of Cephas, that is to say, taught or baptized by the Blessed Pontiff Peter at Antioch, at Rome, or elsewhere. For Peter had not yet been at Corinth, as is deduced from chapter 4:15. Whence Baronius thinks that these are the words of those who were avoiding divisions, which had probably arisen because of Paul and Apollos, as appears in chapter 3:4, and that, to escape from them, while others were boasting of their teachers, they would declare they were the disciples neither of Paul, nor of Apollos but of Peter, the head of the Church; as though they should say, “This man says and boasts that he is a disciple of Paul, that man of Apollos; but i say that I am of Cephas, that is, that I am a disciple of Peter, who is the head of the Church, and the Vicar of Christ: for to him I cling, in him I glory; he converted and baptized me by Paul or Apollos or some other.” Whence another rising higher would say: “I am of Christ, who is the supreme Head of Apostles and of the Church, whose Vicar Peter is, whose ministers are Paul and Apollos.” For it is to be noted that he adds I am of Christ as words of those who speak not amiss but rightly, if there is not contention and contempt of the Apostles and the Vicars of Christ, as the Anabaptists now despise prelates; for it became all to say, “We are of Christ,” viz., Christians; whereas some called themselves disciples of Paul, or of Apollos, or of Cephas. So Ambrose, Theophlact, St Thomas. The occasion of the schism seems to have been that Apollos, who was eloquent, acute, and learned in the Scriptures, was then teaching at Corinth (Acts 18:27), and compared to him St Paul seemed to some cold and bald, because he avoided in his preaching all display of knowledge or of rhetorical ornament, as he says himself (2:4).
Lastly, St Jerome gathers from this passage that Bishops were given jurisdiction over presbyters, so as to remove all scandals, and that the Church before this was governed by the Presbyters in common council. This opinion must be discussed when we come to the Epistle to Titus.
13. Were ye baptized in the name of Paul? Christ is one, and in His name all were alike baptized. In vain then, he says, do ye contend for us, which of us is to be the greatest, when we are but the ministers of baptism. Hence, theologians teach that the validity of Baptism and the other Sacraments depends not on the disposition of the receiver, or of the minister, but flows from the Sacrament itself.
Note 1. that to be baptized in the name of Christ is the same as to e baptized in the invocation, profession, power, merit, and baptism of Christ, and so to have a right to the name of Christ. Therefore we are called Christians form Christ, and not Paulians, or Apollonians. For the power of excellency which Christ has in Baptism and the other Sacraments, see St Thomas.
Note 2. St Thomas and others, as well as the history of the Greek Church, show that that Church uses as its form of Baptism, not “I baptize thee,” but “Let the servant of Christ be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” so that no one can say, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos.”
Erasmus, Faber, and the other innovators, wrongly argue that by parity of reasoning it is wrong to say, “I am of Scotus,” and “I of Thomas;” “I am a pupil and follower of Francis,” “I of Dominic;” because the Apostle is only censuring contentions for the pre-eminence, and the schisms of which some at Corinth boasted, and which divided the Church into hostile factions: so that they attributed the power and excellence of Baptism and of the faith not to Christ, but to Paul or Apollos. But this is no condemnation of monastic institutions, or of the schools and academies of the philosophers and theologians; for though they differ from one another in their customs, their rites, and opinions, yet they are joined together in the same faith, the same Christian charity and humility. If anyone does otherwise, his religion will be vain, and we will hand over his vanity and contentiousness to be corrected by St Paul with that of the Corinthians. This is the sin of the individual, not of the Order; as in this chapter it is the sin of the individual Corinthians that is dealt with, not that of the Church. Far more truly and suitably may we use this passage against the schisms of modern innovators. For they say, “I am of Calvin,” or “I of Luther,” or “I of Menno,” and this in matters of faith and religion. For Calvin teaches one faith, Luther another, Menno another. But the diversity of Religious Orders make for the greater beauty, strength, and unity of the Church; just as a camp is beautified, strengthened and united by the due distribution of its legions. For without this distribution it would be in confusion.
The religious of the various Orders are united not only under one head, the Supreme Pontiff, in the one Church, but also by their living under the same Order, whether their state be lay or cleric. For the Religious Orders make, as it were, one legion in the Church, and that its strongest one. As, then, the members of the same body are joined in one, and as the soldiers of the same legion are more united to one another than the soldiers of different legions, so the Religious who are aspiring to the heights of perfection are bound together more closely than all others by the bond of religion and of prayer to God.
If there is nay amongst them who calumniates, envies, opposes another Order, that man’s religion is vain; he is not a Religious, nay, he is not a Christian, but a heathen; he is not led by the Spirit of God, but by that of the Devil. For the true Religious says with St Bernard in his Apology, “For one Order I work; to all others I show charity.” In work, I am a Franciscan, in charity a Dominican, an Augustinian, a Benedictine, &C. And therefore I am a Religious of all Orders; I have work for one, charity for all. Therefore I rejoice in the good of all Orders: I am pleased at the prosperity of all, I envy none. For all are mine, and I belong to all. Is Christ divided in the different states? God forbid. For the same Christ is the Instituter, Author, and Governor of all Religious Orders, and that makes for the greater concord. Let not then that which ought to be the cause of greater harmony be the cause of the most disgraceful division, which is hateful to God, lest we hear the words, “Whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal?” And again, “Is thine eye evil because I am good?” If it has pleased God to add Order to Order, to raise up new ones to supplement the old, to give them fresh supplies of His grace and of His Spirit, who can find fault with God? Who can envy the new Orders? who deprive the Church of such workmen? Suppose that they do carry off the prize; I will rejoice that God is honored through them, and that more souls are saved; and may I be a sharer of their labors, for I seek not my own glory, but that of God.
16. And I baptized also the house of Stephanus. Stephanus, says Theophylact, was a well-known inhabitant of Corinth, whose faith and charity are praised by St Paul (16:17).
17. For Christ sen me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. Preaching and the administration of the Sacraments are the two duties of Pastors, but especially the former. And therefore the chief work of Bishops, Archbishops, and Primates is to preach the Gospel: and this they are bound to do themselves, unless lawfully hindered (Council of Trent, Sess. V. c. 2, and Sess. IV. c 4). But they may with Paul entrust the administration of Baptism and the other Sacraments to Parish Priests and their assistants.
Not with words of wisdom. I.e., with eloquence and rhetorical adornment, not according to the Gospel. The Greek word for wisdom gives us the word Sophists, Greek orators who particularly pleaded in the law courts. Of this kind are modern innovators in religion, who style themselves “ministers of the word.” Not so St Paul, “lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect,” i.e., should become emptied of its force, by men supposing that they had obtained salvation, and their belief in the faith through human eloquence, instead of by the power of the Passion of Christ. This was the origin of the schism of those who said, “I am of Paul,” “i of Apollos,” because the eloquence of Apollos was pleasing to some of the more fastidious Corinthians, and to those who loved eloquence; while on the other, Paul pleased those who sought for the spirit rather than the words, inasmuch as he was unskilled indeed in rhetoric but not in knowledge. And thence it is that St Paul here and in the next three chapters attacks and abases in different ways eloquence and worldly wisdom. The “wisdom of words” can be taken for natural philosophy and human reason and prudence (Maldonatus).
