Cornelius a Lapide

We are fools for Chrisfs sake, but ye are wise in Christ This is a continuation of the irony of ver. 8. We are reckoned fools because of Christ crucified, whom we preach, and for whose sake we seem to expose ourselves rashly to so many dangers. For 86 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE the Cross is to the Greeks foolishness. But you in your own eyes are wise in the Gospel of Christ, because of the eloquence and philosophy which you mingle with it, and because you take care to so preach Christ that you run no risk for His sake. We are weak , as bearing without resistance many grievous adversities, such as hunger, thirst, nakedness, toils, injuries, cursings, persecutions, as is said in ver. n. But ye are strong. For you easily by your worldly eloquence, wisdom, and friendship turn the edge of all evils that attack you. Ye are honourable , but we are despised. You are honoured, we are held in no honour. He teaches modestly, but yet sternly by his own example as a teacher, that the Christian’s boast must not be in renown, wealth, wisdom, eloquence, or the applause of men, but in being despised by others, and in despising glory, and in the Cross of Christ; and especially is this true of the Christian teacher and preacher. So S. Chrysostom. And in this way he endeavours to shame these self-indulgent, vain, and luxurious teachers, and also the Corinthians who preferred to follow such men, rather than the Apostles of Christ, who were giving for them their strength, their substance, and their lives. So Isaiah (viii. 18) says, in the name of himself and the other Prophets, as well as of Paul and the Apostles, “ Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel” And as the Annales Minorum relate, S. Francis used to say that he was a despised fool of Christ’s in the world, and was for this beloved of Christ Himself. Ver. 1 1. — Even unto this present hour we . . . have no certain dwellingplace. This remarkable description of the Apostle’s life is very like that contained in the Second Epistle (xi. 23), which those that are called to the ministry ought to put before them as an example, as the Apostolic men of great zeal do in England, Holland, India, and Japan. S. Chrysostom {Horn, 52 on Acts of the Apostles) says excellently on the words of xxvi. 29 : “ Such is the soul that is raised on high by celestial love that it thinks itself a prisoner for Christ because of the greatness of the promised glory. For as one in love has no eyes for any THE POWER OF LOVE 87 save her he loves, who is to him everything, so he who has been laid hold of by Christs fire becomes like one who should be living alone on the earth, caring nothing for glory and shame. For he so utterly despises temptations and scourgings and imprisonment that it is as though another body endured them, or as though he possessed a body made of granite. For he laughs at those things which are pleasant in this life ; he does not feel their force as we do ; his body is to him as the body of one dead. So far is he from being taken captive by any passion, as gold that has been purified in the fire is from showing any stain. All this is effected by the love of man for God, when it is great” But we do not attain this height because we are cold, and ignorant of this Divine philosophy. The philosopher Diogenes saw this, though but darkly and afar off, for when he was asked what men were the noblest, he replied, “They that despise riches and glory and pleasure and life; they that draw their force from the opposite things to these, from poverty, obscurity, hunger, thirst, toil and death.” Diogenes saw this, but could not practise it, for he was himself a slave to vain-glory