The Divine Lamp

Synopsis of the Chapter:

He endeavors to put an end to the divisions among the Corinthians, by reminding them of their mutual subjection and union in Christ and God.

a.  He points out that Paul and Apollos are but ministers of Christ (vers. 1-9).

b.  He reminds them that Christ is the foundation of the Church: let each one, therefore, take heed what he builds on that foundation; for if it is only hay and stubble he will be saved indeed, but as by fire (vers. 10-15).

c.  He tells them that they are the temple of God, and bids them beware how they break in pieces or violate that temple (vers. 16-20).

d.  He forbids party strife.

Text:

3:1  And I, Brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
3:2  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3:3  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
3:4  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
3:5  Who then is Paul, and  who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
3:6  I have planted, Apollos watered; But God gave the increase.
3:7  So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
3:8  Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.
3:9  For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry (i.e., garden, planting), ye are God’s building.

Commentary:

In the preceding chapter the Apostle, to support his own authority, and to remove from the minds of the Corinthians the false opinion that they had about his ignorance and lack of speaking powers, said that he spoke wisdom among them that were perfect: hidden wisdom which the eye had not seen, nor the ear heard, but which God had revealed.  Now anticipating an objection, he gives the reason why he had not displayed this wisdom to the Corinthians, and transfers the blame from himself to them.  It was because they were like children and carnal, not yet capable of receiving such wisdom, and to be fed, therefore, not with meat but with milk.

Notice that the Apostle designates as milk the easier, pleasanter, and more simple teaching about the Manhood of Christ, His grace and redemption, which befits catechumens recently converted and still carnal.  he calls “meat”, or solid food, the more perfect and robust teaching about the deeper mysteries, such as about God, about the Spirit of God and spiritual things, about wisdom, power, and love of the Cross.  So says Ambrose, Theophylact, St Thomas.  St Anselm moralises thus:  “The same Christ is milk to man through the Incarnation; solid food to an angel through His Divinity.  This same Christ crucified, the same lection, the same sermon is taken by carnal men as milk, by spiritual as solid food.”

St Paul is here alluding, as his custom is, to Isaiah 28:9, and to Isaiah 55:1.  In this connection notice that what Isaiah calls “wine” St Paul calls “meat,” which represents the full spiritual wisdom of  the perfect, as milk signifies the discipline of children and of the imperfect.  hence, in former times wine and milk were given to the newly baptized, when they had been clad with white robes, and this custom, as St Jerome says in his commentary on Isaiah, is still kept up in the churches of the West.  In other places honey and milk were given, as Tertullian testifies (Contra Marcion lib. i. c. 14), to denote (1) their infancy and innocence it Christ, milk being a symbol of both.  Hence Homer calls men that are innocent and just “feeders on milk,” as Clemens Alexandrius says (Pædag. lib. c. 6).  (2) To denote their likeness to Christ, of whom Isaiah sang (7:15), “Butter and honey shall he eat.” (3) To symbolize the infantine gentleness, humility, and meekness of the Christian life.  hence it was that at first the sacrifice of the Mass, which the newly baptized heard at Easter, viz., on Low Sunday, there was read as the Epistle that portion of St Peter’s Epistle in which occur the words, “As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of th word.” Hence St Agnes, on the authority of St Ambrose (Sermon 90), used to say, “Milk and honey have I received from His mouth.”  Clement discourses at length about this mild (Pædag. lib. i. c. 6).

3.  Whereas there is among you envying and strife…are ye not carnal? (1) The word carnal is here applied to one who not only has in his natural use of sense and reason, but also to one who follows the motions and dictates of the flesh, that is, of his animal nature.  And, therefore, as St Thomas rightly remarks, he who follows hte motions of lust, or of his fallen nature, is carnal, natural, walking according to man, and destitute of the Spirit of God.  (2) Both here and in Galatians 5:19, the works of the flesh, i.e., of our corrupt nature, include envying, jealousy, strife, which are spiritual sins, as well as gluttony and lust, which are, strictly speaking, fleshly. ( Cf. notes to Romans 7:22, and Galatians 5:17).  The meaning is: You, O Corinthians, are carnal, i.e., contentious, because you fight like boys foolishly about the dignity of your teachers, and extol and put up for sale, on Paul, another Apollos.

5.  Even as the Lord gave to every man.  God gave to each one of His ministers powers of such  kind and such extent as befitted his ministry.  Therefore they should glory in God alone, not in Paul or Apollos, His ministers.  These latter were not the lords or the authors of their faith, but merely the instruments used by God.  So Anselm, Ambrose, Tehophylact.

6.  I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.  I was the first to sow the seeds of faith at Corinth, and then Apollos coming after me helped it forward (acts 18:26).  But it was God who gave the inner life and strength  of grace for growth and maturity in Christian faith and virtue: this belongs to God alone (Cf. Augustine, in Joan. Tr. 5).

God gives to plants their increase, not, s rustics suppose, by directly adding some special daily power of growth, but by bestowing upon and preserving to the nature itself of the seed or the root a vigorous power of growth.  In other words, He is continually bestowing it and preserving it, and co-operating with it: for the Divine work of preservation is nothing but a continuation of the primal creative power.  He does this by ordering and tempering according to His counsel the rain, heat, and winds, and other things needed by the fruits of the ground, so that these are tempered, the fruit is larger or smaller.  So it is in the sowing of the Word of God, and in its growth, perfecting and harvest in the minds of men.

It appears from this (1) that outward preaching, calling, examples, and miracles are not alone sufficient for conversion and the beginning of the spiritual life, or for its further growth.  (2) That, though all alike hear the same word of preaching, yet some profit little, some profit much by it, viz., those whom God works upon by a special inward calling, and whose hearts he touches to change their lives, or to continue to raise to higher things.  Hence, both those who preach and those who hear profit most who earnestly beseech God for this inward influence.

7.   So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. The husbandman who plants and waters does hardly anything when compared with God; for he works from without only, and whatever he does he receives it from God, and works as His instrument.  But God works within directly as the chief agent, and supplies the power of vigorous growth.  For action is assigned to the chief agent, and especially to the first cause.  St St Thomas and Theophylact; St Augustine (in i. Ep. St. John. Tr. 7) says beautifully: “Outward ministries are helps and warnings, but He that teacheth the heart has His throne in heaven.  These words, which we address to another from without are to him as the husbandman to the tree.  For the husbandman acts upon the tree from without, by diligently watering and tending it, but He does not fashion its fruits.” It is God that co-operates with the tree, and lends it the power to bring forth fruit.  In the same way the words of the preacher do but little, for they sound from without only.  But it is God who co-operates with them within, and by His grace illuminates and converts the soul

8.  Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one. They are one, says St Thomas, Anselm, and others, in office and one in their ministry, i.e., they are both alike ministers.  Therefore one is not to be despised or extolled in comparison of another, e.g., Paul in comparison to Apollos.  Moreover, all ought to be knit together as one by the same bond of charity, and ought not to cause divisions on account of their ministries.  For although they may have different gifts, yet they all discharge the self-same duty, and are one in Christ, who hates schisms, loves unity, and carefully watches over His ministers, however feeble they be, and wishes them to be esteemed and honored by all, not as men but as His representatives.

And every man shall receive his own reward according to his labor. This passage show clearly the merits of good works; for where there is reward there is merit, the two terms being correlatives.

He does not say, it should be noticed, that “each one shall receive a reward according to the fruit that he has brought forth,” but simply, “according to his labor,” for the fruit is not in our power, but in the hand of God that giveth the increase.  You will receive, therefore, a full reward for all genuine labor, even though no fruit follow-though no heretic or sinner be converted.  Nay, the  reward will be greater, because it is more dificult and more disheartening to preach when little or no fruit is seen than when many applaud the sermon, or profit by it.

9.  For we are laborers together with God. St Dionysius says, “A great, an angelic, nay, a Divine dignity is it to become a fellow-worker with God in the conversion of souls, and to show openly to all the Divine power working in us” (Cælest. Hierarch. c. 3).

Ye are God’s husbandry.  Not Paul’s or Apollos’: so you cannot boast yourselves in them.  St Paul continues the illustration drawn from agriculture.  The chief tiller is God; Paul and Apollos are his servants; the Corinthians are the field; the seed is grace, the fruits good works.  God by His Spirit cultivates withing; Paul assists Him by his preaching from without.  So Anselm.

Ye are God’s building.  He inculcates the same truth by another illustration from building and architecture.  The first architect is God; the secondary minister is Paul; the building is the Church and every Christian soul.  So Anselm.

We should observe that the Hebrew and Syrians rejoice in metaphors and parables, and run them together, easily passing from one to another.