Fragments on 1 Corinthians

1Fragments from the commentaries on the First Letter to the Corinthians. On 1 Corinthians 1:2: “to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, together with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, theirs and ours.” Origen says: if everyone were already the church, what need would there still be to add “together with all who call upon”? And if all alike were calling upon the Name, what need would there be for the letter not to be written only to all who call upon it, but beyond them also to the church of God? We have already shown that only those who deserve praise ought to be styled “church,” while those who deserve blame are not yet apostates—they are still wrestling with sin—but are still calling upon him, and are not yet the church itself. So let us hurry on from mere calling upon him to rising up into the church that is spotless and without blemish.

On 1 Corinthians 1:4–10: “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in every word and all knowledge, just as the testimony of Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. I appeal to you, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be fitted together in the same mind and the same judgment.” Origen says: neither do these praises suit sinners, nor do those rebukes suit the righteous alone—I mean the words “I appeal to you, brothers… that you all say the same things and that there be no divisions among you,” and whatever is like them. So the church was mixed, if one may even call “church” this whole blend of just and unjust. Still, those who were gathering were mixed; therefore, when the apostle was about to convict the gathering for sins done with wickedness, he first, of necessity, offers praise for those who come together well upon the same thing.

“I thank my God always”: it is right to give thanks over the praiseworthy things he names, and not sometimes to thank and sometimes not, but always to thank. If I see someone sometimes doing well and sometimes sinning, I do not thank God concerning him always, but when he does well—and so also concerning myself. In whom, then, does the thanksgiving Paul offer find its ground? In his own hearers, of whom he has become a father according to God. Just as a father gives thanks over sons when they are healthy and when they prosper, so too, whenever a teacher sees his hearers boiling with the Spirit, rich in word and wisdom, worthy of praise, he thanks God always concerning them. Let us look, then, at the grace of those praised in Corinth, so that we may be eager for it.

“That in everything you were enriched in him.” Blessed are those who are rich in everything and lack nothing that belongs to God, but practice every virtue and enjoy his gifts freely and richly—in every word and in all knowledge—so that they are at a loss over no Scripture, but seek and find everywhere; and when a text must be explained they can use every kind of discourse, both the so called continuous exposition and question and answer, and are ready to speak against every heresy, to stand with the dogma of the truth, and to fulfill what the apostle said: “Always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you.” So also “in all knowledge”: not only according to the Scriptures, but so that one may say, “For he himself gave me unfailing knowledge of the things that are,” and what follows from that. For knowledge shows knowing alone, while word also interprets what is known. “Just as the testimony of Christ was confirmed”

2among you. Christ is, if I may put it this way, the chief martyr; and though there are many witnesses to Christ through their death, he is the ruler of the martyrs. This testimony of Christ is firm in some, and in others it is not firm but shaken. For if faith about the testimony is such that from a true disposition one can say, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life” and what follows “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” then the testimony is firm in such a person; but if we are not like that, and are shaken by what happens, the testimony of Christ has not yet been confirmed in us. And again we may take the saying another way: every Scripture that bears witness about Christ is a testimony of Christ; so it is good to be confirmed also in the testimony of Christ that comes from the Scriptures. And otherwise: look at the testimony of Christ—signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will also bore witness with him; and the testimony of Christ is firm in the saints.

“So that you are not lacking in any gift”: as there are many gifts, he will discuss them also later in the letter. “Awaiting the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ”: the righteous person does not have his hopes in this age, but while suffering and facing danger he awaits the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ—that is, what Christ Jesus reveals. “Who will also confirm you to the end”: who confirms? Christ Jesus, the Word, Wisdom; and the testimony that is being confirmed is not for a few days, but to the end. “Blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ”: until we arrive there, we do not yet have blamelessness; for we do not know what the coming day will bring forth, and even if someone seems to have blamelessness for the present, it is in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On 1 Corinthians 1:9: “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Origen: keep believing him always; for you were called so that we might simply be under Jesus. Great is what God grants the saints: we were called into fellowship with his Son; therefore heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. On 1 Corinthians 1:10: “and that there be no divisions among you.” Origen: the one who agrees in everything with the right word and the church’s dogma concerning Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and further concerning the economy that touches us, concerning resurrection and judgment, and who also follows the church’s canons, is not in a schism.

On 1 Corinthians 1:14, 17: “I thank God that I baptized none of you… for Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of word, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied.” Origen: preaching the gospel is greater than baptizing; and because Paul knew that some were set apart for baptizing, he thanks God for having a better lot than baptizing. In Acts the apostles’ works appear: Philip baptized, but Philip did not minister the Spirit to the baptized; rather Peter laid hands on those Philip baptized, and the Spirit came upon them. Philip baptized with water those being born again of water and Holy Spirit, and Peter with the Spirit. Origen again: there is need not so much of word as of power; therefore it is written, “The Lord will give a word to those who preach good news with great power,” the King of the powers of the Beloved. So Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of word, not in clarity of diction; for if I do that and want to hand on the word that way, the power of Christ does not reach the soul of the hearers, and I empty and tear down the grace of the power.

On 1 Corinthians 1:18: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Origen: the name of the cross seems a scandal; but if someone lends his ears to the word of God and to grace, he will see that this too is a great mystery. Even the pagans have handed down that often, when great plagues or floods or droughts came, these ceased when a person gave himself up for the common good. Why then is it surprising if, when the whole world was sick with error, one had to die for the true plague—to destroy the plague of ignorance and darkness and ruin? And who was able to take this on? Not a prophet, not an apostle, nor any other righteous person; but a divine power had to come down from heaven

3able to take on dying for all, with a kind of public display, so that through that death a trophy might be raised against the devil. For those who triumph in the world are accustomed to set up trophies against the conquered in the manner of a cross. So the cross of Christ is a trophy against Satan; therefore he says, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross”—for the one who has come to know what the power of the cross is: that I was freed from evils through that One who died to rescue me from death—“except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” It is a great good that the world has been crucified to me; through what did this good come to me? Through the cross of Christ. It is a great good for me to be crucified to the world; for if I died to the world, I have been crucified to the world with Christ; but if I live in sins, I have not yet been counted worthy of the good that belongs to the cross. At the same time let us also prepare for trials and for martyrdoms, knowing that whoever denies him has no salvation.

On 1 Corinthians 1:19–21: “For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will set aside.’ Where is the wise? Where the scribe? Where the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased through the folly of the preaching to save those who believe.” Origen: it is not the same to be wise and to be wise in this age; for without such an addition the word covers true wisdom. You will understand folly likewise: it is not the same to be a fool and to be a fool in this age; for without the addition “in this age” one is truly a fool. We who believe the words of wisdom are therefore commanded to become fools in this age; for so we seem to people when we believe in Christ Jesus crucified, and believe the resurrection of bodies, and believe that we shall live—not only that those now on earth will later be in the heavens, but that if we sin we shall be handed over to eternal fire. Such we seem to people…

On 1 Corinthians 1:23–31: “but we preach Christ crucified, a scandal to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God… For consider your calling, brothers, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many of noble birth; but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the of low birth of the world and the despised, and the things that are not, to abolish the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before God. And from him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’” Origen: we received power from believing in Jesus Christ crucified; and as far as we fall short in that faith, so far we fall short in the power of having in ourselves the things that come from God. And if you want to understand “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and set aside the discernment of the discerning,” picture for me someone very formidable in heretical arguments—say Marcion or Basilides—who seeks with such force for the heretical case that not just anyone can stand against him; then picture someone competent according to the truth, whom God also made competent as a minister of a new covenant, showing all those things to be folly on which the deceived man relied. So he destroys their wisdom—not that of the truly wise, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Solomon; he destroys seeming wisdom, not the true. And how “in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom”? The wisdom of God is in law and prophets; the world did not know Christ preached in law and prophets. Therefore at the end of the ages he sent Jesus Christ to be crucified for the human race, so that by the folly of the preaching those who believed in Jesus Christ crucified might believe. And he added “according to the flesh” to “not many wise,” knowing there are differences among the wise: some wise according to flesh, some according to spirit; and wise according to flesh are those who have practiced only little phrases and dress up whatever is not truth as if it were truth

4—what is not truth. Yet even so he did not shut the wise according to flesh out of the faith; for he did not say “No one wise according to the flesh comes to the word,” but that they are exceedingly few. Powerful according to the flesh are those who hold the offices; according to the Spirit you will understand if you see how the Savior was not powerful according to the flesh—he was handed over and crucified from weakness—yet was powerful according to the Spirit, healing every disease and every illness in the people. So look at the apostles: how they were powerful according to the Spirit. One is powerful according to the Spirit also who lives according to the Spirit and by the Spirit puts to death the deeds of the body. Likewise with the of noble birth: of noble birth according to the flesh are those from rich and famous fathers; according to the Spirit the of noble birth are the sons of God, of whom it is written, “As many as received him, he gave them authority to become children of God.” Whom then did God choose? Not simply the foolish, but with the addition “of the world”: we who believe are fools as far as the world is concerned. So they laugh and call us fools: “Christians say there is a resurrection of the dead, and that we live after death, and that Jesus whom the Jews crucified was born of a virgin,” and such things. Let them laugh and call us fools; for the soulish person does not receive the things of the Spirit—they are folly to him. So God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise—not simply the wise, but, by common construction, of the world: God chose the world’s foolish to shame the world’s wise; for truly the world’s wise are put to shame when they worship idols while the unlettered and simple die rather than commit idolatry.

“And God chose the of low birth of the world and the despised”—again with the addition “of the world.” For what is nobler than a soul that leaves the idols and says, “Our fathers acquired false idols, and there is none among them who brings rain”? So God chose the of low birth of the world but of noble birth of God; only let us succeed so that we are not despised before God, of whom it is written that the one who does evil is despised before him. “And the things that are not, to abolish the things that are”: he named “things that are not” the foolish, weak, of low birth, and despised of the world; “things that are,” the of noble birth of the world—for in the world they are somebody, and we are not, worn down by all and despised. Now God chose the things that are not to abolish the things that are, so that no flesh may boast and say, “I was chosen because I am of noble birth.” “And from him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption”: for this reason Christ is all these for us, so that what is written may come to pass—“Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” For if the one who boasts in wisdom ought to boast, and Christ is the wisdom, clearly the one who boasts in Christ boasts; and likewise for the rest—I mean sanctification and righteousness.

On 1 Corinthians 2:4–7: “and my word and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of Spirit and power, so that your faith might not be in human wisdom but in the power of God. Yet we speak wisdom among the perfect—wisdom not of this age nor of the rulers of this age who are being abolished. But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Origen: lest someone say, “Then, since he brought the proofs of faith in power and in Spirit, he had no wisdom at all, but the mystery of piety is only to believe, and there is no promise of wisdom in it,” he adds, “Yet we speak wisdom among the perfect—wisdom not of this age nor of the rulers of this age who are being abolished.” For it is one thing to lead people into the faith, and another to unveil the wisdom of God. So we unfold God’s wisdom not to those being introduced, nor to beginners, nor to those who have not yet given proof of a sound life; but when someone, having exercised the senses as one ought toward distinguishing good and evil, becomes fit also to hear wisdom, then we speak wisdom among the perfect—and I mean wisdom not

5of this age, nor anything like the wisdom of the rulers of this age. At the same time he has made clear that the lessons circulating among others are not, in their origin, of humans but of invisible powers that are being abolished. And I would say that the poetic wisdom is of this age, and perhaps rhetoric too; and so is the wisdom that claims to speak about heaven and earth and the administration of the whole. So if we speak wisdom and say it among the perfect, we do not mean the wisdom of this age; for it is not through poems or through any such art. Origen: but we speak wisdom in a mystery—things unknown to the rulers of this age who work the wisdom of the wise of this world; and thus they did not know: they plotted against our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ and crucified him; for if they had known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Therefore wisdom must also be sought in the word—but after faith, after the way of life, according to what is written: “Desire wisdom; keep the commandments.”

On 1 Corinthians 2:9–11: “But as it is written, ‘What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not risen upon a human heart—what God prepared for those who love him.’ But to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who among humans knows the things of a human except the spirit of the human that is in him? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God.” Origen: Scripture knows a difference between those who love God and those who fear God, and knows that those who love far surpass those who fear. Some things have been prepared also for those who fear; yet he prepared something greater for those who love than what was prepared for those who fear. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. There is a Spirit that can search everything; the human soul cannot search everything, but a better Spirit had to come to be in us, so that when that Spirit is in us searching everything—even the depths of God—and is mingled with us, we may search together with it everything and the depths of God.

On 1 Corinthians 2:12–15: “Now we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may know the things freely given us by God; which things we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the soulish person does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he cannot know them because they are spiritually examined. The spiritual person examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one.” Origen: let us understand the things freely given us by God; for if the Spirit from God that teaches us is not in us, we cannot say that we know the things freely given us by God—for no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. “Which things we also speak,” he says, “not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit,” and what follows. All the wisdoms of this world are words taught by humans, which one learns in each of the rational arts; but they do not teach the things taught by the Spirit; and you would not say that the teacher, taught by the Spirit about what he says, taught them. For the Spirit present in the one who seeks and searches the truth shines in, and so always, by the renewal of the mind, he finds what he has not learned from humans. Therefore the Savior says, “Do not seek a teacher on the earth; for one is your Teacher, the Father in the heavens,” or “one is your Guide, the Christ.” A human sets down a few things—say Paul teaching Timothy—and Timothy, taking starting points, comes himself to the spring where Paul came and draws, and Timothy becomes equal to Paul. And how one is taught from the

6Spirit is to be understood from the apostolic words: “comparing spiritual things with spiritual”—by examining this wording with that wording and gathering like with like, the mind of Scripture is uncovered as it were. In this way I understand the things of God and become taught by the Spirit: not only by having learned the things of the Spirit that moved Isaiah, but also by having the same Spirit that shut and sealed Isaiah’s words; for unless the Spirit opens the prophets’ words, what is shut cannot be opened. And since he said these things, he necessarily adds that there are some people who do not receive the things of the Spirit of God—not because of nature, as the heterodox suppose, but because they have not prepared themselves. For the soulish person does not receive the things of the Spirit—he was soulish; but when he inclined toward piety and received the Spirit, he became spiritual. And the soulish cannot know that he is examined spiritually; therefore he does not know, about what he hears, that it is examined spiritually; and when the power is tested it convicts the fool—as when I speak taught by the Spirit and speak with power, and the hearer testing the power thinks otherwise and does not assent: the power being tested convicts the fool. And it is not so much that he has rejected what is said as that what is said has rejected him; for “wisdom will not enter a soul that devises evil, nor dwell in a body in debt to sin.” “The spiritual person examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one.” The one who no longer walks according to flesh but according to Spirit, and always by care grows it and kindles more the gift of God, prepares for himself to become spiritual; and having become so he is able to examine all things—the Greeks’, the barbarians’, the wise’, the senseless’; and no one can examine him because of the greatness of his understanding and of his reasonings. And if you want to recognize the spiritual person, “by their fruits you will know them.” What then are the fruits of the Spirit by which one must know who is spiritual? Hear the apostle: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self control”; where these are, there is the Spirit, and that one is spiritual; and where any of these is missing, that one is not yet spiritual.

On 1 Corinthians 3:1–3a: “And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to fleshly, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able; but neither are you able even now.” Origen: of hearers some are perfect—the spiritual, of whom we were also speaking earlier; and those who are not spiritual yet believe in Christ are, as the apostle says, infants in Christ and fleshly in Christ—for I hear “in Christ” as common to both. So those not yet more perfect and not yet exercised in the sacred Scriptures need lesser lessons, which the apostle named milk: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, but neither are you able even now.” And I think there is a scale among spiritual foods: milk, food, true food, solid food, flesh of the Word, and spiritual vegetable. And I dare to say this persuaded by the Scriptures; for he did not say every spiritual food is true food when he says, “My flesh is true food.” What then is not solid food? The more ethical teachings and whatever among ethical matters is weaker—said by way of concession, not by command, stewarded because of the hearers’ weakness. But whatever more perfect teaching among ethical matters belongs to eager and hardworking hearers—these I would call solid food among ethical teachings: teaching about perfect chastity, about virginity or temperance, about martyrdom; these are solid food. And solid food in mystical matters is teaching about Father and Son. So also the law sometimes hands on solid food, sometimes lesser. For example we come to the word about the snakes that killed the sons of Israel because of murmuring: if we read more simply, we say, “Let us not murmur, as some of them murmured and were destroyed by the snakes.” But if the hearer can hear a mystical word, we say who the snakes are and who the snake hung upon the wood, and how one is saved by looking to that snake—and so with each spiritual Scripture. And who those given milk to drink are, Peter will show in the

7letter when he says, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk”; and in Hebrews also, “You have become ones who need milk and not solid food; for everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, because they are infants; but solid food is for the perfect, who because of habit have their senses exercised toward distinguishing good and evil.”

On 1 Corinthians 3:3–5: “For where there is jealousy and strife and divisions among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to a human? For whenever someone says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ are you not humans?” Origen: among human sins the lesser ones are jealousy and strife. If someone is in fornication, such a person is no longer fleshly but worse than fleshly. What then would such a one be? Let us see. I think there is a difference between fleshly and earthy: “As we bore the image of the earthy,” he says, “let us also bear the image of the heavenly.” So if you sin unto death, you are not fleshly but earthy; but if you sin, yet not unto death, you are not wholly earthy nor fallen away from the grace of Christ, but then you are fleshly. And of our walks, one is according to a human, another according to God. If we walk as most humans do, we walk according to a human; but if according to “Let your light shine before humans,” we differ from the many and do not walk according to a human. So the life is clear to the one who can see what is according to a human and what according to God. For whenever someone says, “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Cephas”—let us also attend to these. We shall see that sometimes we are not even humans but worse than humans. For the one who then said “I am of Apollos” was speaking of a learned and holy and blessed man; the one who said “I am of Paul,” of a sacred and blessed apostle. But sometimes leanings arise not like the leaning toward Paul or Apollos, but someone leans toward a sinner and sometimes toward a heterodox person. So if those are humans and walk according to flesh who say “I am of Apollos” and “I of Paul,” whenever you say you belong to someone lesser, clearly you are no longer even a human but worse than human; and perhaps it will be said to you, “Brood of vipers.”

On 1 Corinthians 3:6–8: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth; so neither the one who plants is anything nor the one who waters, but God who gives the growth… and each will receive his own wage according to his own labor.” Origen: if Paul planted, he planted together with God who plants first of all; if Apollos watered, he watered together with Christ who waters first of all; for God plants—therefore it is written, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted,” and again, “My Father is the farmer.” So let us bear fruit lest we be cut down like the barren fig tree. For every tree not producing good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Let us take care that it not be said of us, “I waited for it to produce grapes, and it produced thorns.” For if he says these things about us, he will also say what follows: “And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it shall be for plunder, and I will tear down its wall and it shall be for trampling.”

On 1 Corinthians 3:9–15: “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds upon it. Let each watch how he builds; for no one can lay another foundation besides the one laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear, for the day will disclose it, because it is revealed in fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has. If anyone’s work remains which he built, he will receive a wage; if anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, yet he himself will be saved, but so as through fire.” Origen: since we are not only a field but also God’s building, I seek the master builder of the building and those who work with him. Understanding this the apostle says, “According to the grace given me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation”; for Paul established the church in Corinth that before the apostle was in no way present. And since there were divisions among them he says that, grace having been given him by God, as a wise master builder he laid the foundation, and another builds upon it; for if another comes and builds upon the foundation of the church

8builds upon it, that one is not the master builder of the church but builds upon the church. So if you want to see that Paul is a wise master builder, hear him: “From Jerusalem and as far as Illyricum I have fulfilled the gospel of God, making it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ was named, so that I might not build upon another’s foundation.” And he not only laid a foundation as a wise master builder, but also wrote, as it were, architectural books—how the master builder must build a house, what sort the overseer must be, and elders and deacons and the rest of the church’s fullness; for all these were as it were architectural laws. “So another builds upon it,” he says; “let each watch how he builds.” For this also speaks to me, so that I may not build carelessly, knowing that the work I build—what sort it is—the fire itself will test on that day. And I take care lest, building, I build wood, hay, straw. For if I bring worthless souls uncritically into the church, I have brought to the good foundation Christ Jesus wood, and others hay, and others straw; just as again, if some shine out from the building, and shine so much that some are found analogous to what is written about Jerusalem and the temple—chosen stones and crystal stone and sapphire stones and whatever stones are named there—clearly I have built precious stones upon the foundation. And since God’s temple and building must also have gold, as the temple Solomon built is a symbol of a temple having much gold and silver, if another comes being built up and is found more precious than silver, he would be gold. But I fear lest through me wood and hay and straw enter, and wretched I (even if otherwise judged worthy of salvation—since it is written, “yet he himself will be saved, but so as through fire”) be saved in this way as one who became a cause, by not holding the grace nor building well, of filling the building with wood, hay, straw, which the word of God does not want; for the fire will test what sort each one’s work is.

I want also to take another way the saying, “For no one can lay another foundation besides the one laid, which is Jesus Christ,” and what follows. From the time my Lord Jesus Christ sojourned, this foundation has been preached into the world; and the apostles laid this foundation in Judea, and among the nations the apostle of the nations and his fellow worker Barnabas—“for they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we to the nations and they to the circumcision.” So once Jesus Christ the Word of God has been preached and this foundation laid, no one can lay another foundation besides Jesus Christ; and those who build upon it, if they are orthodox through everlasting doctrines and divine thoughts and good words and holy deeds, build upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stone. For gold has often been kept, taken for mind and thoughts; if I speak well, I build silver; if I interpret as I ought and urge hearers well toward a way of life, I build precious stones. Yet as many of those who teach Jesus Christ have missed the truth, they have built upon the foundation wood, hay, straw; and I would say that of those from the heresies the more blasphemous are wood, those who sinned less in teaching are hay, and those with thin and, so to speak, lesser faults are straw.

Come, let us also see it according to the letter. What will be said touches each of us; each of us, having received the word of the gospel, received Jesus Christ as foundation, so that in all he does and says and thinks he may build upon this foundation. So if we think and intend good things, we build gold; if speaking purely we say every word spoken in a holy way, we build as silver; if every deed we do is good, we build as precious stone—and God judges the worth and quality of the stones. Yet if I sin after the foundation, my great sins will be wood, the lesser hay, and the still lesser straw. And I ask whether perhaps †the roots† and the thoughts, when they are mistaken, are wood—for thoughts are a spring of evils; and the words are hay, and the deed straw—for the worth of the deed is lesser than the reasoning. And the one who plants and the one who

9—watering, they are one.

1 Cor. 3:16–20: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone ruins God’s temple, God will ruin him; for God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness,’ and again, ‘The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are futile.’”

Origen says: If you want to learn what the true temple of God is, seek living stones, cleanly quarried, set in place by the Word, standing four-square, with nothing unstable or rolling. For even if holy stones roll on the earth, the stonecutters do not let them keep rolling to the end. So you, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And with the Apostle it is said that all of us are one temple, each of us a stone of the temple. So he speaks in Ephesians: “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

So no stone must be ill-fitted to the building. For if two of you agree on earth about any matter they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven—how much more, then, if all the stones agree in one harmony and all share one heart and one soul, will their prayer be able and strong? It is good, then, that we all say the same thing, that we may be fitted together in the same mind and the same judgment; for so you are a building fitted together into a holy temple in the Lord.

And in another sense each of us can be a temple by himself. For if a temple is what has God’s glory, everyone who has God’s glory in himself is in that respect God’s temple. One has more glory or less who makes the name of the Father in heaven glorified by his deeds; therefore it is written, “Those who glorify me I will glorify.” Then we will most of all be God’s temple if we prepare ourselves to receive the Spirit of God. Yet no one who has a spirit of some sin can be God’s temple, because the Spirit of God alone dwells where he judges it right to dwell.

“If anyone ruins God’s temple, God will ruin him.” As far as each person can, even if he is a stone, he ruins God’s temple when he sins; and anyone who puts a stumbling-block before the church also ruins God’s temple. Still more properly the one who fornicates ruins God’s temple, since your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God. So the pure person is called uncorrupted, and the one who is no longer a virgin is called corrupted—as if this deed alone were the corrupting. If, then, this is a work of corruption, let us guard against it above all; for the Lord also, with all who love God, is in incorruption.

So much for that stretch on its own. But because the Corinthians were proud of the world’s wisdom, he says to them, “If anyone among you thinks he is wise”—not “if anyone is wise,” but “thinks he is wise among you”—“in this age let him become a fool.” He did not say simply “a fool,” but “in this age,” as people call us fools relative to this age. So let him become a fool in this age, that by becoming a fool to this age he may become truly wise; for the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For how is he not a fool who says there is no providence, or that from atoms and void the

10all things have been put together—or that pleasure is the end of goods—and saying the rest of what outward, seeming wisdom chatters and prates; for such a person is truly a fool, and those doctrines are folly. And when you examine all Greek and barbarian philosophy simply, you will say that wherever it disagrees with Christ’s teaching it is folly. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness.”

I say it is no great thing if God, as God, catches the wise in their craftiness—but rather in Paul, who says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly but powerful with God for the tearing down of strongholds, tearing down reasonings and every height raised against the knowledge of God.” To understand this more clearly, picture Paul arriving in Athens and seeking opportunity among those he meets, so that some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers even clash with him; then by Christ’s grace he was catching hold of them and exposing their sophisms. Here I take “the wise” to mean the sophists—whoever spins entangled sophisms and does not teach truth.

And again: “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are futile.” It is no wonder if the Lord, by himself, knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile. But I want the Lord, come to be in me, to know that the reasonings of the wise are futile. For if Christ comes to be in me, he can set beside me how the reasonings of this world’s wise are futile, and how God’s wisdom alone shines, conquering and trampling every seeming wisdom.

1 Cor. 3:21–23: “So let no one boast in human beings. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Origen says: The one who can renounce all human beings and become wholly worthy of the boast that is in Christ does not boast in a human being. How, then, is death mine? So that I may die to sin; so that I may say, “If we died with him, we will also live with him.” For the other death—by which the sinning soul itself will die—is not mine. Present things too are ours: that we gather in the present age, hear the holy Scriptures, pray. And the future: when the perfect comes, then what is in part will be done away. And it is not possible to come to the future unless the present first becomes mine.

“All things are yours.” Among the Greeks a saying of this sort is admired: “All things belong to the wise, and nothing to the worthless.” But the word of God first taught that all things belong to the holy. Of the faithful, then, he says, the whole world of goods; of the unfaithful, not even an obol. For the unfaithful holds what he holds as a robber: not knowing how to use these things, nor knowing the God who made them, nor hearing the one who says, “Mine is the silver and mine the gold,” he does not hold them as his own. But we see that all things are ours; and of the faithful the whole world of goods, of the unfaithful not even an obol.

1 Cor. 4:1–5: “This is how one should regard us: as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be examined by you or by a human day. I do not even examine myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby justified. It is the Lord who examines me. So do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes, who will also bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will disclose the purposes of the hearts. Then each one will receive his praise from God.”

Origen says: The one who has not crossed over in the word to the grasp of the mysteries hidden in Scripture can be a servant of Christ, but cannot be a steward of God’s mysteries. For the steward has what is administered and knows the mysteries of God. Perhaps, then, the servant of Christ is understood according to the more common ministry, while the steward of God’s mysteries is understood according to the management that concerns the mysteries once known—so that he does not toss them about at random, nor hand them over unexamined, but first cleanses, prepares, and draws away from the world the one who is about to hear supra-worldly lessons, and only then speaks them.

“We,” he says, “are servants of Christ.” And for the most part the Apostle served the service of Christ more than the stewardship of the mysteries

11of God. He administers the mysteries of God, for example, toward Luke so that he may be able to write the Gospel, and toward Timothy so that he may begin to be able to manage those in Ephesus who have received more—and to steward the mysteries of God. I even dare to say that in Corinth he became a servant of Christ, but in Ephesus a steward of God’s mysteries.

Having learned from the Savior’s words—“Who then is the faithful and prudent steward whom the Lord will set over his household to give the food allowance in season to his fellow servants?”—Paul says, “Moreover, it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” For it is not enough to have come to know, nor should the one who knows speak at random; rather, understanding that one must give the food allowance in season to his fellow servants, he must see which of the fellow servants ought to receive a larger measure of God’s mysteries, or a smaller, and when. For if he administers the stewardship well and blamelessly, what promise does he have? “Over all his goods,” he says, “the master of the house will set him.” And if Paul fears and says these things about himself and about Cephas and Apollos, how much more must the stewards among us fear that they may be found faithful stewards.

Then about himself he says, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be examined by you or by a human day.” Those in Corinth examined as far as they could—not truly examining. For examining would be saying that Paul is better than Cephas and Apollos, and another’s examining would be saying that Peter far surpasses Paul; for in the Gospel Paul is not called an apostle. So Paul says that with him it is a very small thing to be examined by you. He was conscious in himself of the finest things, and that he did not fall under the Corinthians as people able to examine him; for “the spiritual person examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one”—as elsewhere he says, “I have become a fool; you compelled me.” Something of that kind he means here too.

There is a human day, and there is a divine day, about which countless things are written, including “Behold, the day of the Lord comes.” So my examination, he says, cannot take place in a human day; for a human day cannot contain my examination. If I am going to be examined, I will be examined in the day of the Lord.

Then, more paradoxically conscious of himself, he says, “But I do not even examine myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself.” Here the Apostle’s conscience appears greatly purified—so much so that he dared to write not only to those then living, but so that generations until the end may also read what is said. True, then, is Paul when he says, “Become imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.” How Paul imitated Christ, hear: “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me”; and Paul says, “I am not aware of anything against myself.” And he did not say, “I am not aware of any worthless deed against myself.” For if he had said that, we could say he is cleansed in works but not yet in words; or again, cleansed in these, while his heart still sinned. Now he seems to know in himself an excess of purity—not earlier when he persecuted, or when he came to the faith, but now when he was saying these things.

Then, lest he seem to have spoken above a human being, he adds and says, “But I am not thereby justified. For I,” he says, “am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby justified.” For it is possible that I know nothing against myself, and yet some sin of mine escapes me. For many such things happen in human nature that one sins not according to reason, not with grasping or assent, not with seeing that we have sinned. So that one who in all things is aware of nothing against himself says, “But I am not thereby justified; it is the Lord who examines me.”

As one who has passed beyond the examination of angels and of the other powers, he says this: “Until the Lord comes.” Since judgment lies ahead—and that of the Lord alone is true, who knows how to weigh thoughts and set words in a balance and search out all deeds and render to each of us what is due—therefore even if we condemn someone, let us not pass final sentence. For we do not know by what measure he sinned, nor with what disposition he sinned, nor whether he has good counterweights to his sin. If we become careful, we will not judge anything before the time, but will refer everything to the judgment of God through our Savior Jesus Christ.

Here it is said, “Do not judge anything before the time,” and what follows; but in another place in the letter: “Do you not judge those who are inside? But those outside God judges.”

12So do the Scriptures have contradictions, and must we both judge and not judge under the same sense of judgment? If those entrusted to judge those inside do not judge those inside, the church is about to become, instead of God’s church, a synagogue of evildoers. Then, with those inside being judged, how is “Do not judge, that you may not be judged” true?

We say, then: those entrusted to judge those inside are not so senseless that, when judging those inside, they claim, “We are judging God’s judgment.” Rather, they make the judgment with a view to the stewardship of what benefits the church. If it benefits that this person be put out of the assembly, having judged that, they do it. And again they will take their stand toward what benefits—not judging God’s judgment, but the judgment given them. For the judgment that God judges in Christ it is impossible for us to judge; we neither search hearts nor know with what reasonings each person’s deeds were done. The hidden things the judges according to the Gospel leave to the Lord God; the manifest things, as it is said, “to you and to your children.” Whatever has reached them and is known among them, these they judge.

So never anticipating God’s judgment let us say, “So-and-so is lost,” or, blessing, “So-and-so is saved.” For we do not know how to measure and compare deeds with deeds, or reasonings, or thoughts. So do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes, who will also bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will disclose the purposes of the hearts.

Of two things named, there ought to be a difference between them: some he called hidden things of darkness, others purposes of hearts. See, then, whether our sins are hidden things of darkness, and our brave deeds purposes of the hearts. For whatever we do well we do with counsel; but whatever we sin, we sin being in darkness. Since, then, some have these or those, and a human being does not know them, let us not judge anything before the time until the Lord comes, who will also bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will reveal the purposes of the hearts. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive what was done through the body, whether good or worthless.

I found a Gospel saying near this to expound: “Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, and nothing covered that will not be revealed.” You see the Savior giving a difference between hidden things made manifest and covered things revealed. What, then, are the hidden and made-manifest if not the good? And what the covered and revealed if not the bad?

Someone who investigates everything might ask: why did he not say, “And then praise or blame will come to each from God,” but only “the praise”? One will explain it this way: he attached the more favorable word to God, keeping silent about the rest as not fitting him. But I will dare to say that God praises and accepts the good, while our evils the father of evils—the devil—does; and praise from God comes to the saints, while blame for those who have done blameworthy things comes from the devil. Therefore it is said to you by the Apostle, so that the one from the opposite side may be put to shame, having nothing worthless to say about us.

1 Cor. 4:6–8: “These things, brothers, I have applied to myself and Apollos for your sake, so that in us you may learn the saying, ‘Not beyond what is written,’ that none of you may be puffed up for the one against the other. For who distinguishes you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Already you are filled! Already you have become rich! Without us you have begun to reign! And would that you did reign, so that we might reign with you!”

Origen says: These things are written in a transfer shaped to the circumstances then—not so that we may know them only about Paul and Apollos, but so that in every generation, seeing what happens analogously to these things, we may take care lest we too fall into such things and, as in theaters that split over performances, we split over teachers.

But let us see the line, “So that in us you may learn, ‘Not beyond what is written.’” If someone with a lesser habit, before fulfilling what is written, wants to ascend to what is beyond what is written, he will not even understand what is written. For just as it is not possible to climb a ladder except by going the way from the lower steps according to one’s ability, so also with the divine lessons. Those from the heresies who did not understand this well

13They promise traditions and say, “These are beyond what is written; for our Savior handed these to the apostles in secret, and the apostles to so-and-so or so-and-so.” And thus through this myth-making they deceive the hearts of the simple. But the rest say, “It is written, ‘Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the beam in your own?’ and ‘Do not judge, that you may not be judged.’” For if we are one and bound to one another, we must not rise against one another. For “the one who humbles himself will be exalted,” and “the one who wants to be first among you must be last of all,” and “each should remain in that in which he was called.”

These and such things are written, so that none may be puffed up for the one against the other. For those who divided themselves—some wanting to be called of this one, some of that—fought one another, each eager to set their own teachers above the others, and then against the teachers themselves. “For who distinguishes you? Who appointed you of a party? Why are you not called teacher of all alike? What do you have that you did not receive? On what do you think highly? On fluency of speech? But God has granted you this. On knowledge? This too is a divine gift. On wonder-works? This also is the Spirit’s working. And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” No one thinks highly over another’s deposits; he watches over them to keep them for the one who gave them.

One must gather from the Scriptures what “distinguish” means, so that we may apply it to what is now said. “God stands in the assembly of gods; in the midst he distinguishes gods.” Here distinguishing appears as God’s work. Judging being something else—what falls on those worthy of judgment—it is good to be found a god in the assembly of gods, so that one is no longer judged but distinguished, and as it were entrusted one rank of those entrusted to the gods in assembly. But also in “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others distinguish,” distinguishing there seems taken as articulating—clarify what is said, distinguish it, and understand it. And in “The one who distinguishes, if he eats, is condemned, because it is not from faith,” the one distinguishing appears spoken of for blame. And again: “Welcome one another, not distinguishing with reasonings when you sin.” So from Scripture the word is sometimes set on the better and sometimes on the opposite.

Here, then, “distinguish” means: no one among those in Corinth distinguishes you or judges you; but you distinguish a steward of God’s mysteries and say, “I am of Paul,” and claim, “I of Cephas,” or say, “I am of Apollos.” Distinguishing the apostles is God’s work, not yours. Just as you must not judge, you must not distinguish the servants of the gospel. For in the distinction by which you distinguish the apostles, you distinguish and separate yourself, sinning. For Christ came to unite what had been distinguished, so that we would no longer be divided. If we are perfected so that the flesh no longer desires against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh—by putting to death the members that are on the earth—we will no longer be in distinction but as it were in mixture and in our gathering to the same. Let it also be understood more simply of various schisms.

Let us also see “What do you have that you did not receive?” For the wording is ambiguous. It can mean that every possession we have we have received from God; and again, “Why pretend to have what you did not receive?”—as when someone, not having received a gift from above from God, pretends to be in a gift, it is said to such a one who did not receive, “What do you have that you did not receive?” And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Already you are filled? Already you have become rich? Without us you have begun to reign? The one who hungers and thirsts for the righteousness of the oracles of truth is not satisfied with one

14teacher, but if he finds a second he also uses him, for he is unsated of good things; if he has a third as well, he also comes to the third. Not cutting off one for himself, he says, “I am of Paul,” or “of Cephas,” or “of Apollos.” Since, then, “being filled” suggests that when there are more teachers—Paul teaching, and Cephas, and Apollos—one who leans to one is not helped by all, therefore he says to the Corinthians, “Already you are filled?” Following this is “Already you have become rich?”—as in, “Have you gathered the wealth from Paul’s lessons and no longer need those from Apollos or from Cephas?” Or do you despise all, as stuffed and rich in every word and all knowledge? And following also: “Without us you have begun to reign?” For as far as you could you cut me off from the kingdom—and yourselves too—leaning to one from among the rest. And he does not say “without me” but “without us,” so as to include and make it common; “and would that you did reign, so that we might also reign with you.”

At once, perhaps, he also suggests a mystery at this place. For the lesser come more quickly into the promise, while the more perfect receive the promises later. And I will show this from Scripture: those allotted under Moses first received the promise; those allotted under Joshua later. And of all the righteous it is said, “These all, having been attested through faith, did not receive the promise, God having foreseen something better concerning us, so that they would not be perfected apart from us.” Therefore he says, “Without us you have begun to reign? And would that you did reign, so that we might also reign with you.” For when you the disciples and hearers reign, then it is necessary that we also arrive at the perfect kingdom of God and the Lord Jesus.

1 Cor. 4:9–10: “For I think God has exhibited us apostles last, as sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world and to angels and to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored.” Origen says: The more one claims the true and heavenly first places, so much the more, from humility, he becomes last of all human beings. I think the Apostle meant something like this when he said, “To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given.” Not that in holiness he was less than all the saints—for he neither thought this, nor if he said it would he speak truly—but among all believers he made himself lower, becoming gentle in the midst of all, as a nurse cherishes her own children.

Since, then, the apostles practiced being last by their own choice—and for every good practice, unless God witnesses and fills the practitioner’s will, the good end does not follow through the practitioner—therefore perhaps the Apostle said, “For I think God has exhibited us apostles last, as sentenced to death.” For even if I, he says, and the apostles have acted so that we become last, we still needed exhibition and grace from God to be perfected in being last to the world. And “I think” is as elsewhere he said, “I think I too have the Spirit of God.”

Fitting also for those exhibited last by God is becoming first with God; for it is true that the last become first. Fitting also for them is being sentenced to death. For the more perfectly one lives as a Christian, so much more is he death-bound. When does he not risk danger—reproving the sinner who is often stronger in life and able to punish, visiting places where Christ was not named, and laying a foundation strange and disturbing to hearers? Truly Paul said, “I die daily—by your boast which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But as I search the word, “sentenced to death” can be taken two ways: one the way already said, by which one must always carry about the dying of Jesus in the body; another, the righteous is death-bound, being conformed to the death of Christ, always dying to the world. So it is fitting that God exhibit the apostles of Christ as both last and sentenced to death.

Then one must see “because we have become a spectacle to the world and to angels and to human beings.” If Paul contends and Peter, the angels of God hurry to this new spectacle to see a human being clothed in flesh wrestling against the principalities,

15against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And human beings also came to see a new spectacle—a herald and teacher of a new word. Thus Paul was a spectacle of all on earth and of the angels who rejoice over one sinner repenting.

Then such a one, as last in the world, rebukes the puffed up and says to them, “We are fools for Christ.” For Paul, giving me a command and saying, “If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise,” much more himself kept becoming a fool in this world. For how was he not a fool in this world—announcing the crucified one and the resurrection of the dead and the things about the coming age, and persuading people to despise the present life? Then with irony: “You are wise in Christ.” For they were not truly wise in Christ; but saying this ironically he urged them to become wise in Christ. “You are honored, but we are dishonored”—he no longer added “you are honored in Christ.” For if you see many who seem to believe holding worldly ranks, say to them, if you yourself are humble in the world, “You are honored, but we are dishonored; we are weak, but you are strong.” For nothing is weaker than a true Christian as toward this world.

1 Cor. 4:15: “For though you have countless guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Origen says: These things seem simplest and to need no exposition; yet they have hidden meanings. No man is put under a guardian unless he is a child and incomplete. And he would not write these things to the Ephesians but to the Corinthians, to whom he says, “I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not yet able. But neither are you able even now, for you are still fleshly.” And: “I could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to fleshly, as to infants in Christ.” Still this too must be noted: if we need a guardian, the one entrusted must give the pattern—the word, the life—to our good order. So a father is the one who first sowed Christianity in a soul; a guardian is the one after him who receives the child and leads him.

4:16: “I urge you, then, brothers, become imitators of me.” That is: as I practice moderation, practice it; as I suffer, suffer; boast from sufferings, not from gifts. 4:17: “For this reason I sent you Timothy, who is my beloved child and faithful in Christ, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.” He showed both his disposition toward them by sending Timothy, and his affection for Timothy by naming him beloved child; and his other virtue by calling him faithful in the Lord. This one, he says, will recount my deeds; for he calls deeds “ways.” These he did not say “he will teach,” but that “he will remind.” The word charges them with forgetfulness; for they had been eyewitnesses of apostolic virtue. He added that he is accustomed to bring this teaching to all the churches.

Having charged all in common, against the one who fornicated he then issues the vote. 4:18: “Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.” Foreseeing his repentance, the divine Paul does not set the name, lest he become known to all human beings, but indefinitely said “some.”

4:19–20: “And I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.” Origen says: By “talk” he means fluency of speech, as elsewhere, “even if unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge”; by “power,” that from God. For when the word is from God it has power; therefore it is written, “The Lord will give a word to those who evangelize with much power.” And trusting more in power, the apostles visited the churches and cities than in talk. For it is not that if someone phrases well he thereby has the kingdom of God; but where there is power in words, there is the kingdom of God—which also drives out the sin reigning in souls and prepares God’s kingdom to come within us.

4:21–5:2: “What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness? It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among Gentiles—that someone has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned,

16so that the one who did this deed might be removed from among you.” Origen says: Neither God nor his divine disciples always use kind words toward hearers, nor always harsh ones, but sometimes these and sometimes those. Since, then, Paul’s word had a rod and also a spirit of gentleness and kindness, he asks the Corinthians, not wanting to use the harsher too rashly and quickly—not that the rod comes without love, but that love is hidden in the one holding the rod and does not show the love in the severity of the rebuke. Then he adds the cause of such a question, saying, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you of a kind not even among the nations.”

We learn that we must be charmed concerning sexual immorality lest we fall; and another lesson, so that those not aware of sexual immorality in themselves, yet aware of those gathering who fornicate, may not be puffed up—knowing that they too are sinners because the one gathering with them is a sinner. For he charges the whole church about one who fornicated, and charges their puffing up as not according to reason, especially because a fornicator is still among them. And third we learn that there are differences of sexual immoralities, so that there is a heaviest and another lesser and another still lesser. Therefore in God’s judgment fornicators are not simply judged, nor will they receive the same condemnation for having fornicated; but quantity and quality increase the punishment, and choice and time.

In Corinth, then, someone contracted an unlawful marriage; he took his stepmother. But the Apostle calls such a marriage sexual immorality, and of a kind one does not even hear among the nations—to teach us that if ever we marry unlawfully, the supposed marriage is not counted to us as marriage but as sexual immorality. Then leaving him he brings the charge against his company: “And you are puffed up and have not rather mourned, so that the one who did this deed might be taken from among you.” He rebukes all as having received him badly. For when the one who sinned is in the midst and we who seem to ourselves aware of better things are puffed up, it is said, “And you are puffed up.”

:3–5: “For I, though absent in body yet present in spirit, have already judged, as though present, the one who has done this thing. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” Origen says: Not for destruction of the soul, not for destruction of the spirit, but for destruction of the flesh—for so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord he is handed over. For Paul cast such a one out, not knowing that he would repent and turn, but wanting to discipline him. For it is one thing to cut someone off as incapable of repentance and turning, another to put him off for the present and cast him from the flock, as a shepherd casts out a sheep with mange so that the pasture of that wound not spread over the whole flock.

So let those living badly be healed outside the flock, confessing and mourning their own sins, bringing the things of repentance in fasts and mourning and weeping and the like. For they are handed over to be disciplined so that their flesh may be destroyed—that is, the mindset of the flesh—not so that he may touch their soul, not so that he may drive them out of their minds, not so that he may do anything else, but so that he may receive authority only over their flesh, not I giving the authority but the power of Jesus in me.

From the better part he named the whole salvation, lest he say “and spirit and soul and body be saved in the day of the Lord,” but “the spirit be saved,” naming from the better the salvation of the whole human being. For as one to be saved he orders him received into the church in the second letter. To be absent in body and present in spirit belongs to Paul and those like him; for he said elsewhere, “For though I am absent in flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.” But none of us can say, “I am present and see the church’s excellences or the order and the firmness of faith in Christ.”

17Such was Elisha. Even when he was not present in the body, he went along with Gehazi in the spirit and said to him: “Was not my heart with you when he took the two talents of silver and the garments from Naaman the Syrian?” (2 Kings 5:26). Did Elisha then have this gift, while Paul, the apostle of Christ who was zealous for the greater gifts—and above all that he might prophesy—did not have such a gift? I declare, and I speak with confidence, that Paul was not only an apostle but also a prophet. He was such when he said: “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents” (2 Timothy 3:2); for he said these things not as an apostle but as a prophet. And he says: “The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith” (1 Timothy 4:1). Which Spirit? As if he were saying: the Spirit in me. Having this gift, then, even if he was absent in the body, wherever he wished he was present in the spirit; for he was not alone present in the spirit, but the power of Jesus was also present.

Clean out the old leaven, then, that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:7–8).

The one who has put off the old man with his deeds and has nothing of the old leaven in himself, but has made a new lump according to Christ Jesus, has kept the feast of unleavened bread. Then after the feast of unleavened bread the new leaven appears. Jesus the Christ is the new leaven. Let us therefore first eat unleavened bread, abstaining from every malice and wickedness. Teaching about these things the apostle says: “Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened.” Something of this sort happens among the Jews: when the day of unleavened bread dawns, they clean out all old leaven, searching every place of the house lest leaven be found there. In the same way you also examine the storehouses within yourself lest leaven be there somewhere, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. Since in Corinth some were holy and others were not such but sinners—as we said earlier in the preface of the letter—on account of the praiseworthy ones he says “as you are unleavened.” For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Seeing that according to the law of Moses the Passover comes first and the lamb is slain, and then after the lamb they eat unleavened bread, for this reason he said: Already the Passover has been sacrificed—Christ. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth—sincerity according to the way of life, truth according to knowledge; for in both the true unleavened bread is characterized.

I wrote to you in the letter not to associate with the sexually immoral—not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I write to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is sexually immoral or greedy or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a robber—not even to eat with such a one (1 Corinthians 5:9–11).

Some have supposed from this saying that before the former letter to the Corinthians another letter had been written by the apostle which is not now preserved; and that he wrote to them not to associate with the sexually immoral, so far as the present wording goes. But having heard that the Corinthians were disturbed, thinking he meant they must not associate even with the immoral of the world—which is impossible, for one who lives in the world cannot avoid dealing with Gentile coworkers, traders, and others of that sort—he clarifies, they say, what had then been left out: I do not mean the immoral of this world, but those who are named brothers yet are not honorable. Those who do not wish there to have been another letter before this one will say that this wording refers to

18this letter itself: that in this letter I wrote that you should not associate with the sexually immoral—and by “immoral” I mean these, not those. The apostle seems by comparison of fornicators to say that those among us who are immoral are far worse. For the outsider who fornicates does not destroy a temple of God, does not make the members of Christ members of a prostitute, and does not leaven the whole lump. And that one, whenever he wishes, repents and has forgiveness of sins; but the one who fornicates after the faith, even if he later repents, does not have forgiveness of sins in the same way, though he can cover the sin. For he says: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven”—of those who came over from the nations—“and whose sins are covered”—of those who sin after the faith yet cover them with good works, for example covering license with abundant self-control (Psalm 32:1).

And not at all with the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy, or robbers, or idolaters. Just as there are fornicators of the world and fornicators called to Christ, so also there are greedy people of this world and of the church. Let us therefore guard against greed even in the smallest matters; for it too is yoked to the sin of fornication. And third he names certain robbers, when they seize what belongs to their neighbors. And there are also some idolaters among us besides the idolaters of this world—those who want to teach that idolatry is a matter of indifference. This sin is found especially among those in military service. They say: Necessity is laid on me; the army requires this; I risk my head if I do not sacrifice or, dressed in white, offer frankincense according to the customs of the world’s army—and such a one still calls himself a Christian. With such a one, he says, do not even eat. And the denier of God in a time of persecution is also an idolater among us. So he says: I wrote to such a one who is not yet out of the world not to associate, since otherwise you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to associate if anyone is named a brother. Well does he no longer call such a one a brother, but a brother only as far as the name.

These evils many of us can know in ourselves that we do not have. But at what follows I fear for myself as well, lest somehow I be liable to the other sins. For he says: or a reviler or a drunkard or a robber—with such a one do not even eat. With how great evils he numbered the reviler together with the fornicator, the greedy, and the idolater! Therefore the reviler too is already an enemy of the church. For this reason we hear the Lord saying: “Bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28), and the apostle saying: “When reviled, we bless” (1 Corinthians 4:12); for a reviler will not inherit the kingdom of God. We must therefore keep the mouth clean. For what is it to me to judge those outside? Let drunkards be outside; I eat and spend time with fornicators—does their little leaven not harm me? Does it not leaven this whole lump?

For what is it to me to judge those outside? Is it not those inside you judge? And those outside God will judge (1 Corinthians 5:12–13). He has permitted all of us to judge those inside who sin. We ourselves bring the sin up to the bishop, that such a one may be cast out of the church by law. And you will remove the wicked person from among yourselves. From these too remove the wicked one; but seek lest, while wishing to remove the wicked from outside, you have the wicked one within yourself. Therefore do everything to remove the wicked from yourself; for when that one has gone out, Christ Jesus will dwell in you.

Does any of you, having a matter against another, dare to go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy of the smallest courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels—how much more matters of this life? (1 Corinthians 6:1–3).

He puts to shame those in Corinth who sin and are busy with law courts and worldly needs and miseries, and says: You were called to this, that when perfected you may judge angels; will you not rather be able, if ever a brother goes to law with a brother, to judge the brothers’ worldly affairs? So if you have worldly courts, and so on. Truly sometimes the cases of those judged are such that they do not need a wise judge, but rather you should seat those who are despised in the church; yet sometimes the cases of those on trial may be such as to need a wise judge as well. What I mean will be clear thus: if those on trial need worldly laws and experienced judges—not Scripture and the law in Scripture, but as it were sons of this age who seem wiser—then the judges will be the faithful who are despised in the

19church; and there will be blame on those judged when they need even the despised rather than the wise. For the one who follows the Word, if he needs a judge, should seek a wise one, that he may be admonished by the wisdom of the wise man who brings him words that build up. Therefore seat those who are despised in the church. I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you anyone wise who will be able to decide between his brother? He charges the Corinthian church that, though seated in the middle of Greece, they had no true wise men, although he had said earlier that many among them profess wisdom—on whose account he also said: “He catches the wise in their craftiness” (1 Corinthians 3:19). But some are wise of this age, and others wise according to God. Paul knew those former ones; therefore he says: Is it so, that there is not among you a wise man who will be able to decide between his brother?

But brother goes to law with brother, and this before unbelievers? We have rulers of the church to whom we ought to bring our judgments, that we may not be laughed at in the courts of the nations. Already it is altogether a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Corinthians 6:7). Let us withdraw from the judgments of Gentile tribunals, from having lawsuits and disputes. For the one who has lawsuits with his brother is already defeated, and the one who is wronged has conquered; the one beaten and reviled who does not repay the one doing these things has conquered, for he keeps the command that says: Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? But you wrong and defraud, and that your brothers. Everyone who does these things sins; and the more honorable the person wronged, the heavier the sin. For if someone wrongs the blessed one, he wrongs Christ in effect and defrauds Christ.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? If the kingdom of God is in Christ, and Christ is righteousness, the righteous inherits the kingdom of God in Christ who is righteousness; and accordingly the one in the opposite state does not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral… Let no one deceive you with persuasive words: “God is merciful, kind, and loving toward humankind; he forgives sins.” We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the things done through the body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10). Let no one make excuses: I was young; I was unmarried; before taking a wife I committed fornication. Why then did you not take a wife? Do you not believe that if anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him? Do you take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? The one who fornicates acts impiously toward the God of all.

Do not be deceived, then: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters will inherit the kingdom of God; and so neither adulterers. The one who fornicates destroys the temple of God; the adulterer, in addition, also sins against the husband. Neither adulterers, then; nor the soft / effeminate. We exhort you also, children, to keep your own season pure and not to be defiled with such womanish pollution. Nor will men who lie with men inherit the kingdom of God; and may it be far from the church that even one such be found. Then he descends also to sins that seem lesser, saying: nor thieves. This sin of theft nearly all who serve in the army commit, not content with their wages, as the gospel taught, but shaking people down and bringing false charges. And those who lie in business are thieves, not inheriting the kingdom of God; and so also those who overreach in business are greedy; and others are drunkards; and he says revilers also do not inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore let sin reign over no one; for the kingdom of God must be pure from all sins and stumblings, that God may reign.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything (1 Corinthians 6:12). One must stand above the things over which one has received authority—things which, even if we do them, we will not sin. For those who live more ambitiously live in this way. Do we not have authority to eat and drink? Do we not have authority to take along a sister as wife, as also the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? (1 Corinthians 9:4–5).

20of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? But we have not used this right. Therefore it was permitted to the apostle to do all these things in the places I set out; yet examining them with a view to his own advantage and to the ordering of the church he saw that it is permitted—if he does it, he will not sin—yet he does better by not using the right. And again: every virgin is permitted to marry; but the good and noble woman abstains from marriage not as if marriage were forbidden, but having raised the right higher and wishing to be pure in body and spirit she remains a virgin. And when a husband has died, remarriage is not wholly forbidden: “For if the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39). But when the good woman hears: “She is more blessed if she remains as she is, according to my judgment” (1 Corinthians 7:40), she does not use the right. “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anyone.” The saying has something higher: for if our wrestling is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities (Ephesians 6:12), when the authority masters me I have been mastered by it; but if I conquer every authority, I will not be mastered by anyone.

Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food—and God will destroy both this and these. But the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us through his power (1 Corinthians 6:13–14).

Do not think that just as the stomach came to be for foods and foods for the stomach, so also the body came to be for intercourse. If you wish to learn the primary reason why it came to be, listen: that it may be a temple for the Lord, and that the soul, being holy and blessed, may become, as it were by serving, a priest of the Holy Spirit within you. For Adam also had a body in paradise, yet in paradise itself Adam did not know Eve his wife, but when he was cast out after the disobedience. I say these things not as marking off marriage; for I know that if anyone is not continent he ought to marry; for it is better to marry than to burn (1 Corinthians 7:9). Yet even if the matter is conceded, it is not primarily but because of weakness. For what is primary is to live in chastity and purity and to have leisure for prayer. For of the one already raised with Christ and made conformed to his resurrection and to the newness of life, the body ought to belong to nothing except the Lord.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Corinthians 6:15). Human bodies are instruments of the soul; and when the soul rules, the body serves and is used for whatever the soul wishes. But the Word especially wills that our bodies no longer be energized by our own soul but by Christ himself; therefore Paul says: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). They become members of Christ, then, when we move everything according to his word.

Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body (1 Corinthians 6:18). Someone will ask whether every sin is outside the body. For someone will say: Drunkenness is a sin; taking oneself out of life by hanging or by a cliff is a sin; is this sin also outside the body? But one must hear fairly how this was said. We will take a starting point for understanding the place from Leviticus; for there it is said that from the flow his body has wasted. Since therefore the constitution of the body is from seeds, for this reason the one who sins according to the outflow of seeds sins against his own body; and this sin arises from those things from which also the beginning of the body’s constitution comes.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? And you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Well did he, anticipating an objection and guarding against it, say: You are not your own. For someone will say: I sin against my own body; I have authority over my own body. Then he says: Or do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? We act impiously toward the Holy Spirit, and through him toward Father and Son in whom we have been baptized, if we commit fornication—toward Christ when we make the members of Christ members of a prostitute; toward the Holy Spirit when we

21someone destroys of the Spirit; but toward the Father, when I destroy the temple of God. In addition, then, however many sins we commit—even if we commit murders—yet if we remain uncorrupted and have not tasted the corruption that belongs to intercourse, we are not said to have been corrupted by having murdered. But since both incorruption and corruption concern the nature that is without taste of sexual pleasure—for we say “the virgin was corrupted,” and again “the young man is uncorrupted,” or “he was corrupted”—every sin that a person commits is outside the body (1 Corinthians 6:18). Since therefore a ransom was given for you, the blood of Christ, and he took you from the authority of the devil, glorify God in your body, that your body may become worthy of blessedness as of those who have loved incorruption, as also the apostle says: the grace of God be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption (Ephesians 6:24).

Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the cases of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband give to the wife her due, and likewise also the wife to the husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does (1 Corinthians 7:4).

People who sin, speaking generally, sin in two ways: by falling short of the commandments or by going beyond them. For when we do not live from knowledge and, not knowing the measures of righteousness, we slip, and sometimes by overshooting the rule in the fancy of doing something better we fall away from what is set before us. The proper weight, then—which is neither large nor small but commensurate—is to know how one ought to live. You have been bound with a wife: you make one large weight; you do not care for the wife but say: I am able to practice continence and live more purely. But see that your wife is being destroyed, unable to bear your purity, for whom Christ died. Something of this sort happened in Corinth, and there was disorder in the households of the brothers, husbands in one place and wives in another trying to practice continence and rising up against one another. So those in Corinth wrote a letter to the apostle about this, and to that letter the apostle writes back what has been written above. He neither stretched the word about chastity so as to abolish the word about marriage, nor, preferring marriage, abolished the word about virginity, as a good steward; but throughout the whole discourse he somehow keeps his wish and exhorts to purity; and having conceded condescension, he again exhorts to practice chastity; and having exhorted to practice chastity, he again brings them to the need to condescend to the weakness of the weaker. He began not from the lesser things—for that would not have been fitting—but from the more perfect matters, saying: Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman—as if: I praise you for having wished to live chastely, those who withdrew from mixture with the wife; but reckon not only your own interest but also the wife’s. For love does not seek its own (1 Corinthians 13:5). Therefore because of the cases of sexual immorality let each have his own wife, and each her own husband. Not because of his own fornication should the stronger keep his own wife, but lest somehow the wife fornicate because of the husband’s continence, and the husband because of the wife’s. For it is more choiceworthy that the two be saved while found in the works of marriage than that on the pretext of the one the other fall from the hope that is in Christ. For how will he also be saved who is liable for the death of the wife? The husband’s solemnity is not pure, then, when the exercise does not arise from the wife’s agreement for both to have leisure for prayers according to God.

Let the husband give to the wife her due, and likewise also the wife to the husband. He made provision also for

22to heal human weakness and to arrange the matters in those places most becomingly; therefore he said a due is owed from the husband and to the husband from the wife. Then, lest he shame those in marriage as being slaves of one another who must not come to the exercise of purity without agreement, he says: The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband; likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife. The husband therefore has authority over the wife’s body, and having authority, if he wishes, let him not use the authority; “but we did not use this right,” says the apostle, teaching this, I think, when he says: Do we not have a right to take along a sister as wife, as also the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? (1 Corinthians 9:5). Does the wife then have authority over the husband’s body and is she unable not to use the authority? The word “likewise” set twice gives us to understand that the husband must not think that in the matters of marriage he excels the wife; there is likeness and equality for those married toward one another.

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a time, that you may have leisure for prayer, and be together again (1 Corinthians 7:5). You both ought to know that prayer from a man’s and a woman’s purity is not the same as prayer from intercourse. For if Greeks sometimes practice chastity before idols, how much more you who pray to the God of all? It is good, then, to condescend because of weakness, and to hold back because of prayers. Moses also purifies the people and says for three days not to approach a woman, that by having purified beforehand they may become hearers of God (Exodus 19:15). And in the Kingdoms, when Abathar or Ahimelech the priest wishes to set holy bread before David fleeing Saul’s plot, what does he say except: If the young men are clean from a woman?—not from a strange woman but from a wife (1 Samuel 21:4–5). Then, that someone may receive the bread of the Presence, he ought to be clean from a woman; but that he may receive the greater breads than the Presence, over which the name of God and of Christ and of the Holy Spirit has been invoked, how much more ought someone to be cleaner, that he may truly receive the breads unto salvation and not unto judgment?

Many think “deprive” is said only of gold or silver or something of that sort; but the apostle clearly named deprivation also concerning those in marriages who practice chastity unseasonably and without agreement. Once for all, simply, the one who does not render what is owed deprives the one to whom he owes by not rendering the due. Sometimes a person is shut in so that he cannot render two dues at once; therefore it is written that he may render the necessary due. What I mean will be clear thus: it is not possible both to render prayers to God as one ought and for the married man to render the due to the wife; therefore if the debt toward God presses, one must deprive the other. Hear him saying: Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a time, that you may have leisure for prayer and be together again—as if prayer sent up is not pure even for those who have come together, even if they have come together lawfully. One must also abstain from a woman in the time of her period, and it is counted a great charge to come together with a woman who is in her period. In Ezekiel’s catalog of brave deeds and of sins it is written that he will not approach a woman in her separation (Ezekiel 18:6). And one must be wholly pure also from one’s own wife in a time of prayer and fasting.

And again, he says, be together, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of command (1 Corinthians 7:5–6). Everywhere he loosens the word because of weakness, and again tightens it to turn the hearers. I wish all people to be as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one in this way and another in that (1 Corinthians 7:7). Marriage breathes of gift when the measures are kept—those of agreement. And one can truly say of some that for this one marriage is a gift, when there is no disorder, when there is all peace, all agreement. Yet to say that marriage of a believer with a Gentile woman, or of a Gentile with a believing woman, is a gift from God—this I would not say. For the gift of God cannot reach the Gentiles; if she believes, if she is saved, then she will begin to receive the gift.

23Those from Marcion also use this saying, and without sense they forbid marriage, saying that chastity is a command of the other god whom they invented beside the Creator. Yet from the saying itself one can prove to them that they forbid marriage badly, and badly divide the Godhead. For if there is a gift to one in this way and to another in that, marriage also is a gift; if marriage is a gift, marriage the gift is badly forbidden; if the one in this way and the other in that are from God, it is clear that one God is the giver of chastity and the giver of marriage, and one is the God of the law and of the gospel, whom the prophets first proclaimed and later Christ Jesus.

But I say to the unmarried and to the widows that it is good for them if they remain as I also am; but if they are not practicing self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. To the married I give charge—not I but the Lord—that a wife not be separated from a husband—but if she is separated, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to the husband—and that a husband not send away a wife. To the rest I say, I not the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:8–12).

Some among us teach beyond what is written; and thinking they are doing something, when they ought to exhort to single marriage without laying a snare on those who cannot, they do not do this, but impose necessity and wish not to gather the twice-married nor to share with them as with those who have transgressed, not respecting even the apostle’s voices. For the one who says to the unmarried and the widows, if they are not continent let them marry, openly permitted after the first marriage, after a woman has been widowed, to marry—while blaming the one who marries and the one who is married; for he said: If they are not continent, let them marry. See whether not being continent is not already an accusation—as when it is said to Christian people: Better to marry than to burn—he naming as burning the desire of the flesh not quenched by the Word but mastering the sinner’s soul. We therefore, taught by the apostle, do not forbid remarriage; for by comparison with burning, remarriage is more choiceworthy. Yet when something is thought better by comparison with evils, that thing is clearly not good. The second marriage is not temperance; it is not according to the nature of Adam the first-formed; for one cannot say to the second wife: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Genesis 2:23). Abraham had also Hagar, and came to be also with Keturah; yet when he died, none was laid with him except the wife by nature; for Abraham and Sarah were in the tomb. And Jacob too, even if he had been with Rachel and with Leah and also with the maidservants, yet in the tomb only Leah was with him. With the mystical economy of the fathers; yet surely even now the one who takes a second does not say: I am fulfilling a mystical economy. For Paul will come saying: Tell me, you who read the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written: So-and-so had two sons, and so on; it will not also be said over him: These things are allegorized, for these women are two covenants; for these things happened typically to them, but were written for us upon whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Corinthians 10:11; 1 Corinthians 10:11).

I say to the widows and to the unmarried that it is good for them if they remain as I also am. This is a second good; for there is another good first before this: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. What second good? It is good for them if they remain as I also am; but if they are not continent, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn. Therefore those in first marriages who have not yet experienced second ones should practice chastity, that if something human happens they may not, caught untrained, behave shamefully. Better, then, to marry a second marriage—for he does not mean the first here, as is clear from the wording “to burn.” From here he passes to another legislation: To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord; the legislation toward the married is not from me but from the Lord. At the same time he keeps a necessary observation: he named “married” when both are believers, both the husband and the wife. That he did not name among the married the others who are unequally yoked is clear from his adding: To the rest I say, I not the Lord. Are the rest then not married? He does not measure them as married; for on these a wife is not fitted to a husband from God; but on the believers, when both share and

24of prayers and of holy childbearing and of all things in which Christians must share, he says that marriage is not alien to God. I charge, then—not I but the Lord—that a wife not be separated from a husband. The primary point is this: a yoking that has already been bound must not be loosed. But if she is also separated—for many causes of separation can arise; for example if fornication happens to the wife, it is a sin to keep the wife who has fornicated. If then she is also separated and some cause of separation arises, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to the husband. Likewise I also want a husband to be such that he not send away a wife. To the rest I say, I not the Lord. To those who have married I do not legislate, but the Lord; to those not married but unequally yoked with unbelievers I do not have a law to give from God; for they are not even worthy of God’s laws; but let them hear us. And I will use what is written in the law to make the matters of the place understood. The laws according to Moses—some are God’s, and some are Moses’. And knowing this difference of God’s laws and Moses’ laws, the Lord said concerning those legislated by God: For God said, Honor father and mother; and concerning those by Moses: Moses, because of your hardness of heart, allowed you to dismiss your wives (Matthew 19:8). If you keep the matters of the book of divorce you will find the law written not from a command of the Lord. Moses then, serving God, gave second laws beside the laws of God; Paul, serving the gospel, gave second laws to those of the church after the laws from God through Jesus Christ. And it is good to hear laws from the Lord rather than to hear laws of Paul the apostle. For even if he is holy, still he has laws far lesser than the laws of the Lord.

For the unbelieving husband is made holy in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy in the brother (1 Corinthians 7:14). As a kind of blending happens of the two, husband and wife, into one flesh, as of wine and water; and as the believer imparts holiness to the Gentile spouse, or the reverse—the believing woman to the unbelieving husband—so also the unbeliever imparts pollution to the believing wife, or the unbelieving wife to the believing husband. Why then does he say the unbeliever is made holy by receiving something from the believer, and is not also profaned by receiving something from the unbelieving part? For each, conversing from the abundance of the heart with the other, either imparts or receives, and in time the one entirely conquers the other. And what need, he says, of such a contest and danger? For either he will succeed or fail, and either he will lose his soul as well or, after much toil, scarcely be able to gain. Therefore it is good, before a person is forestalled, carefully to look not only at this but also at what is coming, and having looked either not to marry or, marrying, to marry in the Lord. For a wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:39). We do not hear the “only in the Lord,” but we read “she is free to be married to whom she wishes,” and we no longer set beside it “only in the Lord.” And yet even there, when he said “only in the Lord,” he again checked the word saying she is more blessed if she remains so, according to my judgment. So the apostle, having said the more auspicious thing—“For she is made holy”—left us to understand the other.

Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Was anyone called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping God’s commandments. Let each remain in the calling in which he was called (1 Corinthians 7:18–20). It will seem that he has unseasonably cast beside the word about marriage and chastity, since no inquiry had arisen about those from circumcision who believe not needing to draw the foreskin, and again those in uncircumcision not needing to be circumcised, and about “Were you called a slave? Do not be concerned,” and what follows. Perhaps then he took slavery and freedom as a paradigm of the married and the unmarried, calling circumcised the one who has put away the wife and uncircumcised the one who has married? For as the two will become one flesh and wife and husband are one flesh, and the circumcised has put away the things of the flesh, so the one who has put away the wife has as it were circumcised his own flesh; so also he calls a slave; for since he says also elsewhere the brother or the sister is not enslaved in such things, as if the married are slaves, through

25this also here he names a slave the one called after marriage, and free the unmarried. What is said about circumcision and about slaves is therefore said with a view to the place. Yet it is not out of place sometimes to use the saying against those who think after the faith one must be circumcised from a reverence—yet a reverence not according to knowledge—because of what is written in the old covenant about circumcision. Again it is not good, because of certain ones from circumcision who believe and think circumcision brings them shame and wish to draw a foreskin, to use the saying that says: Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. And there is reason to say to such that in itself circumcision is a matter of indifference. So now it is neither about circumcision nor about uncircumcision, but about the unmarried and the married: Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised—as if he were saying: Let him not draw a wife; he has already been circumcised; he put away a wife; let him not marry another. Was anyone called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised—as if: You were called in marriage; do not put away your wife. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing. Since some think the unmarried has something more in this respect than the married, and the married something less than the unmarried by the very fact of having married, we wish, he says, to teach that in its own account celibacy is indifferent and in its own account marriage is indifferent. For the one who is unmarried and truly pure from every mixture, yet living badly in other ways, may gain no benefit from celibacy; and someone in marriage, doing the things of marriage in order and season, keeping the rest of the way of life, may be no less than the unmarried. That celibacy itself and purity itself are indifferent we will prove thus. If only those from the church practiced celibacy, one might say that celibacy in its own account is something pure and divine; but now one can find also those unmarried with a base intention. Those from Marcion also practice celibacy and purity, but not as the church’s people do; for these do so to please the God who created the world, those so as not to cooperate with the god of the world. Celibacy is adorned by an ecclesiastical life and word, by pure knowledge and truth. So also the unmarried is indifferent in his own account; and it is possible also for one in marriage to be without blame, as we have already given. Circumcision then is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, both according to the wording and according to what is set before us. But what is it that saves? Keeping God’s commandments. For everyone who looses one of these least commandments and teaches people so—he did not say will not enter the kingdom of the heavens but will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens (Matthew 5:19). And if the one who loosed one of the least commandments will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens, where will the one who loosed two commandments be found? Let each therefore remain in the calling in which he was called. Were you called in marriage? Do not envy the unmarried. Were you called unmarried? Do not by all means draw a foreskin, if you are able to live more purely.

Were you called a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you are also able to become free, rather use it. For the one called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman; likewise the one called free is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human beings. Brothers, let each remain with God in that in which he was called (1 Corinthians 7:21–24). He named a slave of necessity the married man; for the husband is a slave of the wife, not having authority over his own body, and the wife of the husband; for she does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Were you called a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you are also able to become free, rather use it—that is, if you are not transgressing according to the Word, you are able to be free; how? By agreement, that you may have leisure for prayer with all concord. For the one

26called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freedman; as if: Were you called a slave? Know this, that you are not only not a slave, but you also have something of freedom because of the Lord. For the freedman is neither purely free nor still a slave, so that the one wholly pure is free and the one in marriage a slave; but when he is a slave in the Lord, then we say he is the Lord's freedman. And the one called free is a slave not of a wife but of the Word of God. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human beings. With all your strength understand the one who bought us out, the Word of God; let us propitiate the blood poured out for us. We were saying in the word about unmarried and married that he tightens and loosens the word. So also here he has done, saying: Do not become slaves of human beings; for he as it were tightens and makes the word sharper, exhorting those able, as far as possible, to live purely, and each to live purely in the calling in which he was called. And one must know that the other interpreters have given the sense about uncircumcision and circumcision according to the letter; for customarily, they say, he passes from what is before him to other things, legislating for all what is fitting.

Now concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy (1 Corinthians 7:25). Of the commandments some are commanded, and some are not commanded but left free and entrusted to choice by God. For those without which one cannot be saved—these are the ones commanded; but the greater ones than the commanded, which even if we do not do we are saved, are not a command of God. Hear, he says, the gospel of Jesus Christ teaching in it and saying: when you have done all that is commanded you, you ought to say we are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to do (Luke 17:10). And if, when I do all that is commanded, I am an unprofitable servant, when will I flee being an unprofitable servant? If being more ambitious you ascend from what is commanded; for example: if I keep "you shall not commit adultery" and not looking at a woman to desire her, I have done what I ought. But if I remain a virgin, not ordered and not commanded, I no longer say over the achievement of virginity: we are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought. So also on the remaining commandments: if I do not steal or overreach, we ought to say we are unprofitable servants. But if I sell all that I have and give to the poor, I no longer say I am unprofitable; I have done what I ought. Therefore the apostle says: Concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. For in the Lord's saying to the disciples not all receive the word but those to whom it has been given, and he adds: let the one who is able to receive it receive it (Matthew 19:11–12); he did not command, but left it free. So I give an opinion, says the apostle, and to show that the Lord speaks in him he said as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.

I think therefore that this is good because of the present necessity, that it is good for a person to be thus (1 Corinthians 7:26). By necessity he means the sojourn in the body, as also elsewhere he says: but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake (Philippians 1:24). Four times in the place the apostle named the good; for he says first: it is good for a man not to touch a woman; second: it is good for them if they remain as I also am; third: I think therefore that this is good because of the present necessity; fourth: it is good for a person to be thus. You see how many things said about chastity are named with the good; but whatever is said about marriage, with the marrying person's not sinning.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife (1 Corinthians 7:27). Through the whole discourse, as has been said, he tightens and loosens, that the hearer, taking it in his own authority, may judge what he is able and to what exercise he can give himself. So also here he turned away from loosing marriage, and again exhorts to live purely. Therefore he called the married husband bound; and if to be bound is a circumstance, one must flee circumstances as far as possible. And do not seek to loose being bound to a wife; and the one not bound ought to guard himself lest he be bound; for truly you will find them bound by the marital love-charm. It is not permitted, then, for the one forestalled in marriage to seek untimely freedom, but to remain in the slavery; and if someone has been loosed, not to seek a wife. But if you also marry, he says, you have not sinned. He did not say: If you marry, it is good; but: If you marry, you have not sinned; keep the difference. And

27if the virgin also marries, she has not sinned; again he did not say "good," but "she has not sinned." But such will have affliction in the flesh (1 Corinthians 7:28). For how will they not have affliction when what was said to the woman comes upon the married woman: In pain you will bear children, and your turning will be toward your husband, and he will rule over you (Genesis 3:16)? From all these the virgin is free, set free by purity, awaiting a bridegroom of blessing. Every marriage happens in darkness; therefore not in beds and wantonness (Romans 13:13). But Christ's marriage, when he receives his church, happens in the light. Why then do virgins enter the wedding with lamps and oil that lasts? Because that marriage is of seemliness. The one joined to flesh is one body; but the one joined to spirit is one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:16–17). And what is more seemly than a soul joined to spirit and united with it, no longer being a soul but becoming what the spirit is? For of marriage it was said: the two will become one flesh; but of the one joined to the Lord: he will be one spirit.

Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things according to a human way? Or does not the law also say these things? For in the law of Moses it is written: You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing (1 Corinthians 9:7–9). As a God-fearing soldier the apostle says: Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? As one entrusted with God's field and farming the church: Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? As a disciple of the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep: Who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock? And as a soldier he also teaches us to serve, saying: No one serving as a soldier entangles himself in the affairs of life, that he may please the one who enlisted him (2 Timothy 2:4); as a farmer he also teaches us to farm: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). And about shepherds the prophets taught us, recounting the wages of the good and announcing the punishments of those who shepherd otherwise. And the apostle will seem to one not attending to the Scripture to have forgotten what is before him through these things; but the truth is not so—he holds to the word. It is before him to teach about food offered to idols, that even if someone professing knowledge says he is not harmed by using idol-food, yet if he becomes a cause of harm to others, he ought to have cared for his neighbor, lest on his pretext others be destroyed. For this he takes the examples and says: Not in every case, if we have authority over something, ought we to make full use of the authority. For whether he is a soldier, he does not serve so as to secure nothing for himself from the rations; or a farmer, he is not content with the wage but eats from the grape; or a shepherd, besides the wage he shares the milk. So also I ought, besides the promises laid up for me from having served or farmed or shepherded well, to share in this world the things needed from those under me as soldiers, those farmed, those shepherded. Yet even if I have authority over the things needed, looking to the building up of people I do not make full use of the authority, in awe of giving some cutting-off to the gospel of Christ, or of giving a pretext to those who walk disorderly and work nothing but are busybodies (2 Thessalonians 3:11). Just as I do not use the authority I received from the Word, in the same way you also who claim to be wise ought not to use the authority but to provide for the building up of neighbors. And if the word seems to some to be without witness and spoken by human reasoning, let him hear the law saying: You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing, and what follows.

Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he speak entirely for our sake? For it was written for our sake, that the one plowing ought to plow in hope and the one threshing to share in hope. If we sowed spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things? (1 Corinthians 9:9–11). Therefore these things were said for our sake who have received the new covenant, and they were written about human beings, the saying being understood spiritually according to the divine apostle. And what is the sense? That the one plowing ought to plow in hope and the one threshing to share in hope. Paul the farmer plows a catechumen's soul, making fresh plowings in his soul according to

28the divine Jeremiah who says to them: Break up your fallow ground, clearly for the reception of seeds, about which it is written: The sower went out to sow (Jeremiah 4:3; Matthew 13:3). And after sowing the newly broken ground he says: I watch the seeds, lest the birds of the heaven come and take the seed; and when it bears fruit and makes fruits of righteousness and when it is already white toward harvest, it is then permitted me to take. For he will not be scandalized when he remembers how much I have toiled that I may plow his soul, that I may sow, how I persisted up to the point his seed came finished to the threshing floor. And for this reason it is permitted me to take foods from him. But I have not by all means used the authority; yet I do this in hope, to present the produce to the master of the house; for I am a farmer; not that I may take into my own storehouses the things owed to be rendered to God. Then teaching something about the same the apostle says: If we sowed spiritual things for you, is it a great thing… and what follows.

For if I proclaim the gospel, it is no ground for me to boast; for necessity is laid upon me; and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel. For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I have been entrusted with a stewardship (1 Corinthians 9:16–17). We are taught that whatever we do from necessity has no boast; but whatever we do by choice, with no necessity laid on, these things have a boast. For example: the one who does not commit adultery or murder does not have a boast, but the one who lives as a virgin; for he did not come to virginity from necessity but from choice. And where "woe" stands beside if I do not do it, I have no boast. Therefore he says: If I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I have been entrusted with a stewardship. Again we are taught something catholic. Some things we do willingly with the whole soul; some things we do, yet not willingly nor with the whole soul, but from grief or from necessity. Of the things done by us willingly there is a reward; of the things done, yet as from grief, there is neither reward nor punishment. For example: I give alms; if willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I am not charged with those who hear: I was hungry and you did not give me to eat, and what follows (Matthew 25:42). This then is the reward: that where I have authority I may not do it.

For though I am free from all, I enslaved myself to all, that I might gain the more; and I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those under the law as under the law—though not myself under the law—that I might gain those under the law; to those without law as without law—not being without law toward God but under Christ's law—that I might gain those without law; I became to the weak as weak, that I might gain the weak; I have become all things to all, that by all means I might save some. And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow-sharer in it (1 Corinthians 9:23). To be free from all is of a perfect apostle. For someone can be free from fornication but a slave of anger, free from love of money but a slave of empty glory; he can be free from one sin but a slave of another. But to say "being free from all" is of a perfect apostle—such as Paul was. And according to what is before us the sense is such: I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain Jews—for being free from Judaism I enslaved myself to Jews, that I might gain Jews; being free from being under the law I made myself as under the law, that I might gain those under the law. For Paul would go down into synagogues of Jews, would go in to them, would do according to their customs without harm, not sharing their pretense but hunting some from them. Some have asked what the difference is of those under the law beside the Jews; we say then that those under the law are other than Jews, as Samaritans. To those without law as without law: he came to Athens; he found philosophers there; he used not prophetic words nor legal ones, but wherever there was a lesson from Greek preparatory education he, recalling it, spoke to Athenians; for he says: as also some of your own poets have said, for we too are his offspring (Acts 17:28). There to those without law he became as without law, that he might gain those without law. And again he says: going through and observing your objects of worship, I found also an altar on which was inscribed: To an unknown god. What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you (Acts 17:23). And through these he begins to hand on reverence for God. To those without law then as without law, not being without law toward God. Not in condescending to them did I do any lawlessness, but I kept myself under Christ's law, that I might gain those

29—the lawless. At the same time he keeps his own exactness. “I became to the Jews as a Jew”: he did not say here, “not being a Jew.” For he was a Jew in secret, no longer in the open. And again: “to those under law as under law, though not myself under law”—here he had to put “not myself under law,” for Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us; as if he said, “not being a Samaritan.” “To the lawless as lawless, not being lawless toward God.” Someone will suppose I have become an apostate from the law and lawless toward God; I say that even if I do not keep the law according to the letter, I am not lawless toward God but under Christ’s law, keeping the polity according to the gospel, that I may win the lawless.

“I became to the weak as weak”: he did not say here “not myself being weak.” For it would have been boastful and arrogant, and not according to the apostle, to say “not myself being weak,” when he had heard from the Lord that my power is perfected in weakness and for that reason boasts in weaknesses. How then was he weak to the weak? When he permits those who burn to marry; when he sympathizes with women who have lost husbands; when he says, because of porneias let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband, and the rest. In these he became weak to the weak, that he might win the weak. Then after this he says, “I have become all things to all, that I may save all or some.” Whichever person you take, he is one of the five: either Jew, or under law, or lawless, or weak, or “all.” The perfect is all; so to all—that is, to the perfect—I have become perfect, that I may win all. For he says, we speak wisdom among the perfect, and what follows. This one can say, “I am a debtor both to Greeks and barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.”

[Origen:] Only the perfect can utter the perfect apostle’s word in the Lord: “I do all things for the sake of the gospel.” The one who sins cannot say this. If the one who does all for the gospel is a partner of the gospel, the one who commits porneia is a partner of the porneia of the spirit—and likewise with the other passions. Each becomes partner of that with which he shared. But someone among the hearers will say, “My life is mixed: I do not do all for the gospel, nor all for sin and pleasure.” To this we will say: God has these judgments; according to his many and varied judgments he repays.

44 on 1 Corinthians 9:24: “Do you not know that those who run in a stadium all run, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain.” [Origen:] Then do we all run and one receives the prize, and the rest perish? For he said one receives the prize while many run. All who are being saved are one and one body; for if we all share one bread and the same bread, we are all Christ’s body. So all the saved are the one who receives the prize. In the stadium, then, all run who order their life by a doctrine—those from the heresies who live by a doctrine, and perhaps Jews, and those who live by Greek doctrines while philosophizing. These are all who run in the stadium; the church also runs; but one receives the prize—the one man of whom the apostle says, until we all attain to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Yet every judgment of God must be found concerning all who run in the stadium, so that one may take first place and then each according to his worth.

45 on 1 Corinthians 10:5: “But with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were struck down in the wilderness.” [Origen:] The apostle wants to show us that it is not merely obtaining a gift of God that saves the one who obtained it, but that after obtaining the gift one must remain, having become worthy of it. For also—

30—the sons of Israel, though benefited so greatly, were not saved when they proved unworthy of God’s benefaction. For God was not well pleased with most of them; they were struck down in the wilderness. And since the sinners were more and the righteous fewer, for that reason God was not well pleased with the many sinners rather than with the few righteous.

on 1 Corinthians 10:6: “These things became types for us, so that we should not be desirers of evils, as they also desired.” [Origen:] He says these things have become types for us, so that we should not be desirers of evils as they desired. Those things were written typologically with a view to us, so that when we read the sins for which they suffered these things, we may keep ourselves from falling into the same desires as theirs.

on 1 Corinthians 12:3: “Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God says ‘Jesus is anathema,’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” [Origen:] There are many differences among spirits, which no one will know accurately unless he has the gift of discernment of spirits. And so that we may not too rashly either reject the spirits in those who speak or approve them, John says in the letter, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God; every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not of God. He also teaches us that when we hear people speaking we should neither assent at random nor rashly deny that what is said is from a divine spirit, but that each hearer, knowing he risks in the very act of approving or rejecting, should attend carefully neither to trust the false nor to distrust the true.

About this the apostle also adds next: If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that what I write is of God; but if anyone is ignorant, he is ignored. So not only is the one who ignores the apostle’s things ignored by God, but if someone ignores while speaking by a divine spirit—and were to say that he does not speak by a divine spirit—he is ignored by God. Through these things the apostle seems to teach that there is no human who does not have another spirit in him besides the spirit of the human that is in him. Whether he is alien to the faith or belonging to it, he has a spirit belonging to him from God.

How do we who hear the divine word need to learn that no one speaking in God’s Spirit says “Jesus is anathema”? Let us see: some can be ambiguous to those who do not know the facts accurately—whether they speak by God’s Spirit or not—while they anathematize Jesus. If ever you see a Jew expounding the divine Scriptures and not contemptibly, to the many, prophetic words, you might perhaps be in doubt whether God’s Spirit is also in that one. So that you may not be pulled about over such a person—whether a holy spirit is in him or not—Paul teaches that since every Jew says Jesus is anathema, and no one speaking in God’s Spirit says Jesus is anathema, the one who claims to know the law and the prophets while anathematizing Jesus does not have God’s Spirit. There is a heresy that does not receive the one who approaches unless he anathematize Jesus. And that heresy is worthy of the name it loved; for it is the heresy of the so-called Ophites, who say unlawful things in praise of the serpent, which is cursed by God.

48 on 1 Corinthians 12:8–10 and 12:27–28: gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, powers, prophecy, discernments, tongues, interpretation; and God set in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then powers, then gifts of healings, helps, governances, kinds of tongues. [Origen:] There he kept the word more in order; here he comes on as if by allotment and mentions the gifts as they occur to him. Yet even so, from the second saying it rings out that the gifts worked beside the powers are lesser than the gift according to apostleship and prophecy and teaching—unless someone will grant two kinds of prophecy, so that here too the order may be kept, so that there is a—

31—prophecy that has surpassed and a prophecy that has gone up. He will call the more catholic sort, imitating the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, second rank after the apostleship; but this last-ranked sort after the gifts already named is such as: if you prophesy, and an unbeliever or ungifted person comes in, he is convicted by all, examined by all, the secrets of his heart become plain, and so falling on his face he will worship God and announce that God is truly among you. For this is not far from the working of powers and the gift of healings that happen for the amazement of those who see, so that the one prophesying may say, “You have this in your heart; from this sin you have come to the church.” This prophecy can also be later in rank than the former ones, while that more divine and greater one is second, of which he says, God set in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.

To establish that two things are signified from the name “prophecy,” I set out beforehand what I said. See whether I can still show the saying more clearly: God set in the church first apostles—but not all are apostles; for if all were apostles, to whom would they minister the apostleship? Second, prophets—not all are prophets; yet according to the other prophecy, “if you all prophesy, and an unbeliever or ungifted person comes in,” it is spoken not as of an impossibility but as of a possibility that all prophesy in that way. So there are two significations from the name “prophecy.” Therefore here too the apostle’s order is kept that says first apostles, second prophets, and the rest. So much concerning the order, since the phrase “to another prophecy,” ranked last in another wording, seemed to press us.

On 1 Corinthians 13:1–2: “And I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of humans and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” [Origen:] We ask here whether someone in this life can both have prophecy and know all the mysteries without love, and altogether whether it is given to anyone to know all mysteries; for Paul says, If anyone thinks he has come to know something, he does not yet know as he ought to know; and again, we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. Saying these things about himself and the apostles like him shows that it is not possible to know all mysteries and all knowledge. How then does he speak as if it were possible to know all knowledge and understand all mysteries?

If we look at the preface of the words, in which he says, “And I show you a still more excellent way,” and understand what “excellence” (hyperbole) is, all this will be clarified. Hyperbole, then, as even the Greeks defined it, is speech that for the sake of emphasis overshoots the truth; and they use the example that some are said to be whiter than snow—not that anything can be whiter than snow, but it is said by hyperbole. And again: some horses run like wind—not that such a thing is possible, but for emphasis, so that the horses’ speed may be shown, such a thing is said of them. And in the Scripture of the Psalms it is said of the sea, their waves go up to the heavens and go down to the abysses—which is impossible, but said for emphasis. And in the law you will find the manner of hyperbole written where it is written, We saw cities great and walled up to heaven. How can this be? Yet it is said hyperbolically, the speech not altogether presenting the thing signified itself but showing the greatness of the waves or the lowliness, and the greatness of the walls, or something near these.

So also here the apostle takes a hypothesis in order that the nature of gifts and the nature of love may be examined—not that it is possible for a gift, and so great a gift, to exist without love; or that it is possible in this life for someone to know all knowledge without love, or to have such faith as to move mountains; but wanting to show that if love were set in a balance—the word being spoken by hypothesis. He says, then, that one must especially zealously pursue love. Do angels—

32—conversing with one another—do they converse in these same tongues humans use, so that some angels would happen to be Greek, some Hebrew, others Egyptian? Or is it absurd to say this about the upper angelic ranks? Then perhaps, just as there are many dialects among humans, so also among angels? And if God grants us to be ranked from human nature into the angelic—my Lord Jesus Christ promising that they will be as angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection—will we no longer use a human dialect but the angelic dialect? And just as children’s dialect differs from that of those whose voice is clear, so every human dialect is somehow a children’s dialect, while the angelic is somehow that of perfect and clear-voiced men? And perhaps there too, according to the analogy of their station, there are dialects. “If then I speak with the tongues of humans and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal.” Just as sounding bronze gives an indistinct voice, and the clanging cymbal nothing clear, in the same way, without love, a tongue—even of angels among humans by hypothesis—is unclear; for nothing makes human or angelic speech clear and plain as love does; when love is absent, what is spoken is nothing.

What is the difference between knowledge and knowing the mysteries? For the apostle speaks about two things. I hold, then, that knowing about the open things is knowledge, more generic than the mysteries; for within a part of knowledge lies the science of the mysteries. But knowing about the more unspeakable and more divine things is knowing the mystery—so that there is a generic account of knowledge, yet not every grasp of knowledge is grasp of mysteries, about which it is said, But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages for our glory. When I know these things, then I have the knowledge of the mysteries. “And if I have all faith so as to move mountains”: it is written in the gospel, If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. For the one who has faith as a mustard seed has the whole of faith.

50 on 1 Corinthians 13:3: “And if I give away all my possessions as food, and if I hand over my body that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” [Origen:] “If I feed people with all my goods” not because of love; “if I hand over my body that I may boast”—as if it were possible to give away goods not for love but for empty glory, and as if it were possible also to bear witness for the sake of boasting and the glory with which martyrs are glorified in the churches.

51 on 1 Corinthians 13:4–5: “Love is patient, is kind; love does not envy; love does not brag, is not puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not seek its own.” [Origen:] He goes through the praises of the love that surpasses the gifts. For he had to teach both what love is and how the one who has love is. “Love is patient”: if you have patience that is a fruit of the Spirit, you have it because of love. “Is kind”: what is opposite to kindness? Wickedness. If you act wickedly against anyone, you do not have love. If you are kind and sweet toward all humans, you have love. “Love does not envy”: if there is envy in you like Cain’s toward Abel or like Joseph’s brothers toward Joseph, you do not have love. Loving and envying are fighting things. “Love does not brag”: when someone is rash, professing to know about a craft or a science or knowledge, that one is the braggart because he does not have love. “Does not behave indecently”: no one who has love does anything indecent; so if ever a brother and sister claiming to love one another according to God fall through weakness under the pretext of love, let us tell them they do not have love; for love does not behave indecently. “Does not seek its own”: no one who has love seeks his own things; for example a mother loving her son, or a father, does not seek his own as he seeks the son’s; for having love is not self-loving. If the Savior, being in the form of God and equal with God, had sought his own, he would have remained in that form; but now, wanting to save a perishing world, he emptied himself, taking a slave’s form; and being found in fashion as a human he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto—

33of death, even death on a cross. Come also to the saints; see Moses’ love: If you forgive them their sin, forgive; if not, blot me out of your book which you have written. And the apostle also says, just as I also please all in all things, not seeking my own advantage but that of the many, that they may be saved, and I could wish to be anathema from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. He prays to be anathema from Christ for the salvation of others.

52 on 1 Corinthians 13:8: “Whether tongues, they will cease.” [Origen:] Tongues will cease when I converse with mind to the one with whom I wish to speak.

53 on 1 Corinthians 13:9–12: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, then the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, thought as a child, reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I did away with the things of the child. For now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face.” [Origen:] The one who seems to advance here advances as among children; but when the perfect comes and we attain to a perfect man, then we will contain the things of men—knowledge and prophecy and the vision of God which the blessed will see because of purity of heart.

54 on 1 Corinthians 14:5: “For the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive building.” [Origen:] The one who has the building gift is greater than the one who does not, inasmuch as the one with the building gift is more useful to the common good; but if the one speaking in tongues also has interpretation for building the church, the prophet is no longer greater. For sometimes he speaks high things, speaking to himself and to God, so that the church cannot hear.

55 on 1 Corinthians 14:6: “But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either in revelation or in prophecy or in knowledge or in teaching?” [Origen:] Prophecy is knowledge that signifies the unseen through speech—knowledge of the world’s constitution and of the working of elements and times. Teaching is the instructional word distributed to the many. Revelation is when the mind goes outside earthly things and puts away every fleshly practice by God’s power; the one who obtains this has come into revelation. Perhaps also knowledge about future things can be called revelation; and one who has understood each term’s proper sense may use the names more loosely.

56 on 1 Corinthians 14:7–9a: lifeless flute or lyre without distinction of notes; trumpet without clear call; tongues without clear speech. [Origen:] He wants to shame those who speak in a tongue into silence in church if there is no interpreter. Lifeless flute and lyre that give no distinction of musical notes are not known by what rhythm they played; the soldier does not arm for war unless the trumpet utters the voice that rouses to war; and those who speak in a tongue and do not interpret ought not to speak, as giving no distinction to the words for understanding. He called the doctrines of contemplation flute and lyre as showing nothing ethical, and those who urge toward virtue a trumpet. Hence one may say that the unclear parts of Scripture—such as the sacrifices in Leviticus and the tent in Exodus—should not be read unless someone clarifies their mind by exposition.

57 on 1 Corinthians 14:9b: “For you will be speaking into the air.” [Origen:] The one who speaks in a tongue speaks in God; even if humans do not understand, still the powers about the air hear.

58 on 1 Corinthians 14:10: “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is voiceless.”

34[Origen:] So even the lifeless give voice, some with this distinction of notes, some without it; for every body has a property of voice when it strikes another body.

On 1 Corinthians 14:11: “If then I do not know the force of the voice, I will be a barbarian to the speaker and the speaker a barbarian in me.” [Origen:] Everyone who speaks to someone what that one does not understand seems a barbarian to the hearer, and that one to him.

60 on 1 Corinthians 14:12: “So also you, since you are zealots for spirits, seek to abound toward the building of the church.” [Origen:] Abounding happens by the superiority of gifts from seeking what builds the church, inasmuch as the one who does not seek the common good does not abound in the gifts. For likely the working of the gift is idle when it does not shine before humans. Therefore if we want the gifts to grow, we will give ourselves over to the benefit of the many.

61 on 1 Corinthians 14:13–14: “Therefore let the one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.” [Origen:] If the tongue speaker does not have the gift of interpreting, even if others do not understand, he himself understands what is cast into him from the spirit so that he is moved to speak. But when what is spoken is understood by others, then that seems to be fruit of the speaker toward those who understand.

62 on 1 Corinthians 14:15–17: pray and sing with spirit and mind; otherwise the ungifted cannot say Amen and is not built. [Origen:] Through these too we are taught to seek the common good of the church.

63 on 1 Corinthians 14:18–19: “I thank my God, speaking in tongues more than you all; but in church I want to speak five words with my mind, that I may also catechize others, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.” [Origen:] Even speaking the sense words spiritually is seeking the common good of the five senses; and the word of catechesis through the five senses is set for the hearers in church, as they too are catechized by the five words. For those who do not know the clarity of what is said, but attend only to the bare sound of the Scriptures, are called catechumens; but those who hear the distinction of the notes from Scripture are not catechumens but faithful.

64 on 1 Corinthians 14:20: “Brothers, do not be children in your minds, but be infants in evil, and in your minds become perfect.” [Origen:] Since what he commands is possible, it is possible for us to become perfect in our minds. This nearly interprets, Unless you turn and become as the children; for the one who is an infant in evil, having turned, becomes as a child.

65 on 1 Corinthians 14:21: “In the law it is written, ‘In other tongues and with other lips I will speak to this people, and not even so will they hear me, says the Lord.’” [Origen:] He also called the prophetic word “law”; and we found these words in Aquila and the other editions, not indeed in the Seventy.

66 on 1 Corinthians 14:24–25: if all prophesy, the unbeliever is convicted, heart secrets laid bare, and he falls and worships, announcing God is truly among you. [Origen:] Since the prophetic gift makes known the secrets of the unbeliever’s and ungifted person’s heart when he draws near them, clearly when the perfect comes they will know perfectly every ungifted and unbeliever’s secrets—and likely then also the holy person’s secrets become plain to the prophets, perhaps the greater knowing the lesser’s. And the one benefited is cautious to look into God’s face; therefore imagining God he falls on his face, giving him the superiority and glory, and so worships God. Convicting and examining the heart’s secrets—that is, making them plain—marks that God is in the spirit of such people. And if the other gifts too are signs that God truly is, in what must one seek?

67 on 1 Corinthians 14:26–27: when you come together each has a psalm, teaching, tongue, revelation, interpretation; let all be for building; if anyone speaks in a tongue, by two or at most three, and in turn, and let one—

35interpret. [Origen:] When we come together, all who have gifts and are able to teach must be allowed to speak.

68 on 1 Corinthians 14:29: “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others discern.” [Origen:] By “others” he means those who have the gift of clarifying the prophets’ spiritual words, if indeed the prophesying ones themselves did not have the gift of discernment; for in what they lack this, they may well have been deceived by some wicked spirit transforming itself into an angel of light, as if they had obtained prophetic rank.

69 on 1 Corinthians 14:30–31: “If a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one.” [Origen:] Therefore the prophets were not beside themselves; for in them was the power to be silent and to hold back the spirit upon them.

70 on 1 Corinthians 14:32: “And spirits of prophets are subject to prophets.” [Origen:] For this reason the subjection shows willingly in silence; that the spirits are subject to the prophets, but it is the prophets’ souls that prophesy.

71 on 1 Corinthians 14:34–35: “Let your women be silent in the churches; for it is not permitted them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law says. If they wish to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home.” [Origen:] Since from the beginning the men had authority to speak and benefit the hearers, and the women asked about what they were unsure of. And by “law” he means what is said in Genesis, Your turning shall be to your husband.

72 on 1 Corinthians 14:37–38: “If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that what I write to you are the Lord’s commandments; but if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.” [Origen:] Spiritual is the one able to test every word and every mind, and through great depth of mind hard to diagnose so as not to be examined. It is not for just anyone to know that what Paul writes is the Lord’s, but for a prophet or spiritual; therefore the one who does not know it is the Lord’s is neither prophet nor spiritual. Believing is one thing and knowing another; therefore the one ignorant that it is the Lord’s is ignorant, not yet having arrived at truly being God’s; for the one known is somehow mixed into the one who knows him.

73 on 1 Corinthians 14:31: “For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all be encouraged.” [Origen:] There is danger for those who read to declare simply, and likewise for those who hear. Hear Paul saying, If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual among you, let him acknowledge that what I write is of God, as if not everyone knows the things of God unless he is prophet or spiritual. And the apostle sketched the spiritual when he said, The spiritual examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one. Who is the one discerning all things but the one able to scrutinize and judge every word? And he is examined by no one, because the depth of his thoughts is not grasped. For the spiritual has the mind of the Lord. Just as a child cannot examine a man’s mind and scrutinize his thoughts—for the small child does not even follow a man’s thoughts at the start—so neither can the soulish know which things are God’s and which are not; this work belongs only to the spiritual.

I often asked myself why, when there were God’s prophets and false prophets, the false prophets were in favor with their kings more than the prophets; and the false prophets’ books were not written or preserved among the people, while the books of the prophets who were condemned, hated, and suffered what we know came into the open and are honored. What was the beginning of this? Taking cues from the apostle I say: there was a gift among the people, as of prophesying, so also of discerning prophets. “For you can all prophesy one by one”: there was then abundance of speakers and of those permitted to speak. For this reason the apostle allowed all to speak in church; he almost allowed even the women to speak, if he had not said what follows.

74 on 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 again: women silent in churches; ask husbands at home; shameful for women to speak in church. [Origen:] As if all speak and can speak when a revelation comes to them, he says women are to be silent in the churches. The women’s disciples—those discipled by Priscilla and Maximilla—were not of this commandment, not of Christ the—

36husband of the bride. But still let us be fair and meet even their plausible points. They say Philip the evangelist had four daughters and they prophesied. If they prophesied, what is absurd, as those people say, if our women also prophesy as prophetesses? We will solve this. First by saying: our women prophesied—show the signs of prophecy in them. Second: even if Philip’s daughters prophesied, they did not speak in the churches; for we do not have this in the Acts of the Apostles. Nor in the old: Deborah is attested a prophetess, and Miriam sister of Aaron took the tambourine and led the women. But you would not find that Deborah harangued the people like Jeremiah and Isaiah; you would not find that Huldah, being a prophetess, spoke to the people but to one who came to her. And in the gospel Anna is recorded a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel of Asher’s tribe; but she did not speak in church. So even if a woman is granted to be a prophetess from a prophetic sign, she is still not permitted to speak in church. When Miriam the prophetess spoke she was leader of certain women; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church, and I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

I will also show this from elsewhere, even if that was said more securely about the woman not becoming leader by the man’s word: an older woman in a deportment sacred, a good teacher, that she may train the young women—not simply that they teach. For let women also be good teachers, not so that men sit and hear women as if men able to be ambassadors of God’s word were lacking. “If they wish to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.” It seems to me “their own husbands” does not refer only to married men; for virgins would either speak in church or have no teachers, and widows likewise; but perhaps “own men” such as brother and household member and son? Once for all let a woman inquire of her own man according to the generic name “man” over against “woman”; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church, whatever she may say, even if she says wonders, even if holy things, only because it comes from a woman’s mouth. “Woman in church” is clearly said under the shameful for accusation of the whole church.

1 Corinthians 14:36: “Or did the word of God go out from you, or did it come to you alone?” As if this disorder was in Corinth along with the other sins. So he says God sent his word into the world. Did the truth and the church rule then come only to you Corinthians?

75 on 1 Corinthians 14:37–38: acknowledge what I write are the Lord’s commands; if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant. [Origen:] So that we may know the things of God, let us ask the Giver of gifts to give us a prophetic gift and make us spiritual from the ruling spirit; and so be ready to judge which things are God’s and which are not. For the one deprived of this grace cannot understand; hence he added, “If anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.”

76 on 1 Corinthians 15:1–2: “I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I gospelled to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, through which also you are saved, by what word I gospelled to you, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain.” [Origen:] He calls gospel what he gospels, for this he also handed on; and this one stands in the gospel who has his soul mounted on it as on a boat, through which he is also saved. And he says the one who does not hold the gospel’s word has believed in vain—having heard irrationally and by chance and not by examination. [Origen:] Jews have not stood in the gospel, not receiving Jesus; those from the heresies stand badly, not understanding the gospel but taking it in their own way; those who sin have not stood, not living according to the gospel. Who then have stood in the gospel but those who received it and accepted it and live according to it? And if “by what word I gospelled to you, if you hold fast” is understood, and the following “unless you believed in vain” is understood reasonably with these, we will know that it is impossible for the one who believed in vain thus—

37—believed a falsehood; but to have believed what is true is not yet a work; belief is in judgment. Those who believe before the time and fall away in a time of trial believe in vain; and yet they have not believed false things but the true—yet because they have not believed firmly, for that reason they fall away in a time of trial. For one who believes well will not fall.

On 1 Corinthians 15:5: “And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.” [Origen:] He says the Lord appeared to the Twelve after the resurrection; for it is likely that Matthias also was present, who was set as apostle in Judas’s place.

78 on 1 Corinthians 15:9: “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” [Origen:] Conscious of the sins from which he was freed, he says, “I am not fit to be called apostle.”

79 on 1 Corinthians 15:10: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not empty, but I labored more abundantly than they all—yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” [Origen:] Having said that his grace toward me was not empty, he taught that those who live unworthily of the grace received it empty. It is not that grace labors, but it must be understood thus: “I did not do these things, but the grace that is with me.”

80 on 1 Corinthians 15:11: “Whether then I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” [Origen:] All the apostles having been fully persuaded about Christ’s resurrection from the dead, the proof is firm; therefore we say the same things; for you also believed thus.

81 on 1 Corinthians 15:12–13: if Christ is preached raised, how do some say there is no resurrection of the dead? [Origen:] Christ’s resurrection with the flesh he had is clear from the text before us. But some, or rather the heterodox, want to allegorize humans’ resurrection; let them allegorize the Savior’s too, badly rejecting the wording.

82 on 1 Corinthians 15:14: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is empty.” [Origen:] Since neither the preaching nor the faith is empty, it is clear Christ has been raised. We noted these things to show that even if Paul knew dialectical arguments, he used them naturally; for from nature and custom the dialectical art was embodied by those who philosophize.

83 on 1 Corinthians 15:15–16: false witnesses of God if the dead are not raised. [Origen:] If the one who says Christ rose bears false witness against God, then also everyone who says there is a resurrection of the dead; but if Christ rose as firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, it is clear the dead are raised.

84 on 1 Corinthians 15:20–23: Christ raised as firstfruits; through a human death and resurrection; in Adam all die, in Christ all made alive; each in his own order. [Origen:] Since those from the heresies who say the church faith and sneer at it as faith of fools reject in deed, if not in word, that resurrection happens as the church believes—see how one must meet them from this apostolic wording and from countless others. Did Christ rise from the dead, or not? But every heresy has agreed about this. If Christ rose from the dead, and he is firstborn from the dead, and no one is firstborn of another kind, his resurrection must be of the same kind as the resurrection of those who rise. For example: Reuben is firstborn, being a son of Jacob—

38—of brothers of the same kind; for Reuben is not of another nature and Simeon or Levi and the rest of another. And with the other firstborns it is the same. If then Jesus also is firstborn from the dead, the resurrection of those who rise must be of the same kind. And if he wore a body, and his resurrection was with a body so that he even ate, as is written in the Gospel according to John, while those who rise among believers in Christ rise otherwise, as those from the heresies think, they cannot show how Jesus is firstborn from the dead. For if we have become conformed to the death of Christ, we shall also be conformed to his resurrection; and how does Paul teach saying, who will transform the body of our humiliation conformed to the body of Christ’s glory?

Some shamelessly admit that Christ has been raised from the dead, yet say there is no resurrection of the dead. Therefore the apostle says, If Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?. Even if someone does not say it with the mouth, but says in the heart “there is no resurrection of the dead,” he effectively rejects also Jesus Christ’s resurrection. For if the universal is false, clearly the one who rose from the dead is also contained in the universal. For if the dead are not raised, and Jesus also was among the dead, then Jesus has not been raised either; but if he has been raised, through him the resurrection of the dead is shown—unless we disbelieve the thing as impossible in itself, forgetting who promised. For what, among impossibles so to speak, is more impossible: that the body be made alive, or that heaven come to be from things that are not, or the sun, or the rest of the creatures?

Come also to the human’s very beginning; recall his beginning. A human seed is shown you. If someone said, “This seed will be a human; it will be formed; there will be bones from it, flesh, sinews, veins; he will walk; from this small, cheap seed a human raised on earth will use organs”—would we not call the one preaching this to us mindless, if we had not taken experience of it? So then let me dare also to show you the resurrection, and you will rather accept it, trusting God’s perfection. What that seed was toward this present body—now the present, the generic, the sowing, the organ of words and works according to righteousness—this body becomes toward that: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it falls into the earth and dies and decays, from the decay of the wheat grain a hundredfold ear comes. That your body is seed of what will rise, hear Paul saying: It is sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a soulish body, raised a spiritual body. You see how there, upon the seed, something cheap and of no account was sown, and a fair and beautiful human was raised; in the same way this dead thing is a grain of wheat to God as what is about to rise. Just as God had means from the wheat grain to make an ear—not outside the starting points in the small seed; for from that he raised the ear, and from each seed he raises what potentially exists in the seed—so from a human seed according to the beginning this human came to be. And if his body dies, it becomes seed of the one who will rise from the dead in glory in Christ Jesus.

And the apostle took unbelief in the resurrection from the dead as equal to not believing that we shall exist at all after departure. Therefore to those who do not believe there will be a resurrection of the dead he says, as if according to them there is no other life besides the present, If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all humans most pitiable. And in what follows also, as according to those who say there is no resurrection of the dead, nor life existing beyond this life, he says, Why are we also in danger every hour? I die daily, and the rest. And the heresy of the Sadducees who reject the resurrection of the dead also shows that it follows for them that you do not even live after the present life. Therefore the Savior toward them takes from the law alone an example about there being a resurrection from the dead, saying the wording—

39About the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that God said at the bush, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead but of the living. “But now Christ has been raised from the dead; he became firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Firstfruits is firstfruits of many. As we saw in the law’s examples: firstfruits of wheat is offered by those who harvested wheat; and say of wine by those who gathered wine; and of oil from those who crushed olive; so if our Lord Jesus Christ is firstfruits of those fallen asleep, there must be many of whom he is firstfruits; and we ask whether he is firstfruits of all or of many? For Christ, it says, is firstfruits of those fallen asleep. If we did not have a wording from the start, we might even say—thinking it somehow ill-omened here to call him firstfruits of all—that he is firstfruits of the righteous fallen asleep only, not of the rest. But now the apostle himself also says, For since through a human came death, through a human also resurrection of the dead; how then does he say of some what he says of all? For as in Adam all die, so in Christ—he did not say “the righteous will be made alive” but all will be made alive.

Then so that you not be disturbed and say, “Was so much toil poured out for me in vain, if Christ raised from the dead is firstfruits of all who have fallen asleep and in Christ all will be made alive?” he says, But each in his own order. So all died in Adam, and all will be made alive in Christ; yet even though all died in Adam, Abraham was no less righteous, Isaac was a patriarch, Jacob who fathered the twelve patriarchs was Israel; and so one will come also to the other righteous. I dare say that while the apostle said Christ Jesus is firstfruits of those fallen asleep, I would put beside that: this one is firstfruits unto life of those who will live, while Adam has become firstfruits of humans’ death; for in Adam all die, he having taken the firstfruits of death; but the Savior, wanting to take up the firstfruits of life, first took up the death of the dead, that having abolished death he might become firstfruits of those fallen asleep and of the living.

85 on 1 Corinthians 15:31: “I die daily, by your boasting which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Origen:] One must inquire whether he did not transgress the gospel command that says Do not swear at all.

86 on 1 Corinthians 15:32: “If according to man I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what is the profit to me?” [Origen:] There are also intelligible beasts.

87 on 1 Corinthians 15:35–38: how are the dead raised, with what body; fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies; you sow bare grain; God gives each seed its own body. [Origen:] Then is the human seed useless to the Craftsman beside all those bodies, so that one hopes for a resurrection of the dead, if one may say so, in olive fashion and vine fashion and wheat fashion, and from the fig’s pip so great a fig rises, and you do not laugh at what you see by experience? And if someone tells you that from this small thing a fruit-bearing fig rises, having learned by experience you do not mock; but because the time has not yet come for what will rise from the human body according to the resurrection from the dead to spring up, you will not wait to see this too? Or do you not know that for all other seeds not every season is fit for seeds to spring? But a wheat grain rises at this time of year; the grape-stone at this hour of year; the olive pit in this month, not at every time. And do you want, for the human body, so that you may believe, the dead to rise yearly like the grape-stone, like the olive, and not see one paradoxical time that you may know the resurrection of the dead? What is the one time? At the consummation of the age, so that after the resurrection from the dead you may no longer be in the present evil age. For Jesus Christ suffered that he might deliver us from the present evil age; and we redeem the time because the days are evil. So God well stewarded this too with the rest.

88 on 1 Corinthians 15:51: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”

40[Origen:] Paul in the first letter to the Thessalonians calls all like himself living; for the God of the living is also God of Paul and of those like him.

89 on 1 Corinthians 16:10–12: if Timothy comes, see that he be with you without fear, for he works the Lord’s work as I also do; let no one despise him; send him on in peace; about Apollos I urged him much to come, and it was not at all will that he come now; he will come when he has opportunity. [Origen:] At the letter’s start he said, I hear there are divisions among you; each of you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ ‘I am of Apollos’—this Apollos about whom he speaks while such faction and turmoil is in the Corinthians’ church. This admirable Apollos, being overseer of those at that time, fled as to a judge to the apostle. Paul was doing the work of the apostleship; it was not fitting for him, spending time then in Asia, to leave the things in Asia and come to Corinth; but instead of himself he chose Timothy and sent him to set right the things in Corinth, and necessarily sending him with the letter entrusted him to the church.

For when the saints visited benefiting the hearers, they did not arrive in weakness or in fear or in trembling; but when they came to the weaker, they visited in weakness and in fear and in trembling. Such were the Corinthians, so that not the great Paul visited them but the weak one, inasmuch as he said, I became to the weak as weak, that I might win the weak. And for this reason he said, I also was with you in weakness; for this reason he also came in fear and much trembling, so that he might prevail with the hearers. Since then arriving in fear and trembling for the one about to benefit concerns the hearers, he now asks the Corinthians that Timothy be with them without fear; for he works the Lord’s work as I also do; what I would have done if I had visited you, Timothy does for you. So let no one despise him; for if you despise this one, you despise me also; for he works the Lord’s work as I also do. And send him on in peace, that he may come to me; now he comes to you to make peace. For he finds your faction in the church; but having agreed and been set right by what he says and taken up peace, send him on in your concord and peace, that he may come to me. For I await him with the brothers—which brothers? those of whom he said earlier, Whomever you approve by letters, these I will send. So I await hearing him return, announcing to me your affairs.

About brother Apollos I urged him to come to you; and it was not at all will that he come now. He was a human, as is likely, holy, a friend of peace, and seeing faction and turmoil in the church under him, he did not claim this but yielded. Then the apostle asks him, having been patient, to return to his sojourning. And this one did not see Corinth at all, not disobeying the apostle; for he would not thus have recommended his seeming, if not subject; for he says, “It was not at all will that he come now”—that is, not without God’s will did he do the not coming to you; but he will come when he has opportunity. And when does he have opportunity? If you are at peace, if you do not despise Timothy.

90 on 1 Corinthians 16:13–14: “Watch, stand in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all your things be done in love.” [Origen:] For there is a sleep of soul and a watching; therefore the word, turning the soul from sleeping, says through Solomon, Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, that you may be saved like a doe from snares and like a bird from a snare. And the Savior says, Watch at every time and pray that you may be able to escape the trials that are about to come. “Stand”: do not be shaken but become firm. The double-souled has not stood in the faith, or the one doubting about the things according to the faith. “Act like men”: he speaks as to soldiers; for put on the panoply of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. “Be strong”: that is, take up the strength, that having been strengthened you may be able to say, I can do all things in Christ Jesus who strengthens me. “Let all your things be done in love”: for beginners, doing in fear; for the perfect, doing in love.