Cornelius a Lapide

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. God has rejected the wisdom of the world as worthless, (1.) because vol. 1. s Digitized by v^,ooQle 66 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE it has nothing in it that is wholesome and Divine, and does nothing towards salvation ; (2.) He would not use it in the preaching of the Apostles, but employed instead unlettered Apostles; (3.) It is often contrary to the faith, not only in speculative matters (as, e.g., all who are merely worldly-wise reject the mystery of the Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation and death of the Son of God as being impossible and incredible), but also in matters of practice and morals. For Christ bids us love our enemies ; the wisdom of the world bids us hate them : Christ bids us overcome evil with good, the world says, “ Return evil for evil;” Christ calls blessed the poor, the meek, them that mourn, that hunger, that suffer persecution, but the world says that it is the rich, those that are in high station, that laugh, feast, and rule, that are happy. For it is written , , He taketh the wise in their own craftiness . This is from Job v. 13. They are the words, not of Job, but of Eliphaz, who wished to show that Job had deserved his calamities through his sins. He was reproved by God (Job xlii. 7), and therefore these words of Eliphaz have not the authority of Holy Scripture, but only that of a wise man. For S. Paul approves of this saying of Eliphaz as being true, and wisely said by a wise man. God takes the wise in their craftiness when He fulfils His will by the very means by which they thought to reverse it. When the brothers of Joseph, wishing to stultify his dreams about his future leadership, threw him into a pit and sold him into Egypt, God, through their action, exalted him, and made him ruler over Egypt, and forced his brothers to do him reverence. In like manner God overruled the wisdom of Pharaoh at the Red Sea, of Saul and Achithophel in their attempts to destroy David, of Haman at the gallows, where he thought to slay Mordecai. So S. Thomas