Homily 4 — First Corinthians 1, verses 18 to 25

“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will reject.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this world?” [a]

To people who are sick and gasping for breath, even wholesome food is unpleasant, and friends and relatives are a burden. Often the sick do not even recognize them, but take them rather for intruders. Much the same often happens with those who are perishing in their souls. They do not know the things that lead to salvation, and they think the people who take trouble over them are a nuisance. This does not come from the nature of the thing, but from their disease. Just as the insane hate those who look after them, and abuse them besides, so it is with unbelievers too. But with the insane, those they insult pity them all the more and weep for them, taking it as the worst symptom of the disease at its height that they do not know their best friends. Let us act the same way toward the pagans. Yes, let us wail over them more than we would over our wives, because they do not know the salvation that belongs to all. For a man ought not to love even his wife as dearly as we should love all people and draw them over to salvation, whether a man is a pagan or anything else at all. So let us weep for them, for “the word of the cross is foolishness to them,” though it is itself wisdom and power. For he says, “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.”

It was likely that the Corinthians, with the cross being mocked by the Greeks, would push back and fight with the help of that wisdom which, so they supposed, was their own, because the Greeks’ talk unsettled them. So Paul comforts them and tells them, in effect: Do not think what is happening strange or unaccountable. This is the nature of the thing: its power is not recognized by those who are perishing. They are out of their minds and behave like madmen, and so they rail at the medicines that bring health and are disgusted by them.

But what are you saying, my friend? Christ became a slave for you, “taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2, verse 7); he was crucified, and he rose again. For this you ought to worship him now that he has risen, and marvel at his love for humankind. What no father, no friend, no son ever did for you, the Lord did, all of it, for you, his enemy who had wronged him. When, I say, you ought to marvel at him for these things, do you call foolishness what is full of such great wisdom? [c]

Well, it is nothing to wonder at. It is the mark of those who are perishing that they do not recognize the things that lead to salvation. So do not be troubled. It is nothing strange or unaccountable that truly great things are mocked by people who are out of their minds. People in this state of mind you cannot convince by human wisdom. No, if you want to convince them that way, you only do the opposite. For things that go beyond reasoning require faith alone. So if we set out to convince people by reasoning how God became man and entered the Virgin’s womb, and do not entrust the matter to faith, they will only laugh the more. It is those who inquire by reasoning, then, who perish.

And why do I speak of God? Even with created things, if we did this, there would be a great deal of ridicule. Suppose there is a man who wants to work out everything by reasoning. Let him try to convince himself by your argument how we see light, and you try to convince him by reasoning. No, you cannot. If you say that it is enough to open the eyes in order to see, you have stated the fact, not the manner. For he will say: “Why do we not see with our hearing, and hear with our eyes? And why do we not hear with our nostrils, and smell with our hearing?” Now if he is in doubt about these things, and we cannot give the explanation, and he begins to laugh at us, shall we not rather laugh him to scorn? “Since both have their origin in one brain, and the two organs are near neighbors, why can they not do the same work?” We will not be able to state the cause, or the way that indescribable and intricate working is done; and if we tried, we would be laughed to scorn. So let us leave this to God’s power and boundless wisdom, and be silent.

It is the same with the things of God. If we want to explain them by the wisdom from outside, there will be great ridicule, not because of their weakness, but because of human folly. For no language can explain the greatest things of all.

Now observe. When I say, “He was crucified,” the Greek says: “And how can this be reasonable? He did not help himself when he was being crucified and sorely tried at the moment of the cross. How then did he rise again after all this and help others? If he had been able to, the proper time was before his death.” (The Jews actually said this: Matthew 27, verses 41 and 42.) “But he did not help himself. How did he help others? There is no reason in it.” So he says. True, my friend, for it is indeed above reason, and the power of the cross is beyond words. That he should be in the very midst of horrors and show himself above all horrors, that he should be in the enemy’s grip and overcome: this comes from infinite power. [d]

In the case of the three young men, not entering the furnace would not have been so astonishing as entering it and trampling on the fire. In the case of Jonah, it was a far greater thing, after he had been swallowed by the fish, to suffer no harm from the monster than if he had not been swallowed at all. So it is with Christ too: his not dying would not have been so inconceivable as his loosing the bonds of death after he had died. So do not say, “Why did he not help himself on the cross?” He was hurrying on to come to grips with death himself. He did not come down from the cross, not because he could not, but because he would not. The tyranny of death could not hold him back; how could the nails of the cross?

But these things, though we know them, are not yet known to unbelievers. That is why he said that “the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will reject.’” Up to this point he puts forward nothing of his own that might give offense. First he comes to the testimony of Scripture; then, with the boldness he takes from it, he uses stronger words and says (verses 20 and 21): “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.” [e]

Having said, “It is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,’” he adds proof from the facts, saying, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe?” and glances at Gentiles and Jews together. For what kind of philosopher, which of those who have studied logic, which of those learned in Jewish matters has saved us and made the truth known? Not one. It was the fisherman’s work, the whole of it.

So he has drawn the conclusion he had in view, brought down their pride, and said, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” Now he also gives the reason why these things were done. “For since, in the wisdom of God,” he says, “the world through its wisdom did not know God,” the cross appeared. What does “in the wisdom of God” mean? The wisdom that shows itself in the works through which he willed to make himself known. It was for this that he made them, and made them as they are: so that, by a kind of proportion, people might learn from the things that are seen to admire their Maker. Is the heaven great? It was not only made by him, but made with ease. And that boundless earth, too, was brought into being as if it were nothing. That is why he says of the first, “The heavens are the works of your fingers” (Psalm 102, verse 25), and of the earth, “Who made the earth as if it were nothing” (Isaiah 40, verse 23, in the Greek Old Testament).

Since, then, the world was unwilling to discover God by this wisdom, he used what seemed to be foolishness, that is, the good news, to persuade people, not by reasoning but by faith. It follows that where God’s wisdom is, there is no longer any need of man’s. Before, it was the part of human wisdom to reason out that he who made the world what it is, and so great, must surely be a God with a power no one can resist and no one can describe, and by these means to grasp him. But now we need no more reasoning, only faith. For to believe in him who was crucified and buried, and to be fully convinced that this very person both rose again and sat down on high, needs neither wisdom nor reasoning, but faith. The apostles themselves came in not by wisdom but by faith, and they surpassed the pagan wise men in wisdom and loftiness, and by as much more as raising disputes is a lesser thing than receiving the things of God by faith. For this goes beyond all human understanding.

But how did he “destroy wisdom”? When he was made known to us through Paul and others like him, he showed it to be useless. For when it comes to receiving the proclamation of the good news, the wise man gains nothing from his wisdom, and the unlearned man loses nothing by his ignorance. If anything, ignorance is the better ground for that impression, and easier to work with. The shepherd and the countryman will receive it more quickly, once and for all putting down every doubting thought and handing himself over to the Lord. This, then, is how he destroyed wisdom. Since she threw herself down first, she is good for nothing ever after. When she ought to have shown her own powers and seen the Lord through his works, she would not. So even if she were willing now to bring herself in, she cannot. The matter is not of that kind; this way of knowing God is far greater than the other. You see, then, that faith and simplicity are needed. This we should seek everywhere, and prefer it to the wisdom from outside. For “God,” he says, “has made wisdom foolish.”

But what does “has made foolish” mean? He has shown it to be foolish when it comes to receiving the faith. Since they prided themselves on it, he lost no time in exposing it. For what kind of wisdom is it that cannot discover the highest of good things? So he made her appear foolish, after she had first convicted herself. If, when discoveries could have been made by reasoning, she proved nothing, how will she accomplish anything now, when things go forward on a larger scale, now that what is needed is faith alone and not cleverness? You see, then, that God has shown her to be foolish.

It pleased him, too, to save by the foolishness of the good news: foolishness, I say, not real, but seeming so. For what is more wonderful still is that he prevailed by bringing in, not another wisdom of the same kind, more excellent than the first, but what seemed to be foolishness. He drove out Plato, for example, not by means of another, more skillful philosopher, but by an unlearned fisherman. This made the defeat greater and the victory more splendid.

Verses 22 to 24: Next, to show the power of the cross, he says, “For Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” [i]

What a weight of meaning there is in these words! He means to say how God has overcome by opposites, and how the good news is not of human making. What he says is something like this. When, he says, we tell the Jews, “Believe,” they answer: “Raise the dead! Heal the demon-possessed! Show us signs!” And what do we say instead? That the one who is preached was crucified and died. That is enough not only to fail to win over the unwilling, but to drive away even those who are willing.

Nevertheless it does not drive them away. It draws them, holds them fast, and overcomes.

Again, the Greeks demand of us a polished style of speaking and the sharpness of sophistry. But we preach the cross to them too, and what seems weakness to the Jews is foolishness to the Greeks. So we not only fail to produce what they demand, but we produce the very opposite. The cross does not merely fail to look like a sign that reasoning could search out; it is the very abolition of a sign. It is not merely thought to be no proof of power; it is taken as proof of weakness. It is not merely no display of wisdom; it suggests foolishness. When, then, those who seek signs and wisdom not only do not receive what they ask for, but even hear the opposite of what they want, and yet are persuaded by means of opposites, how is the power of the one who is preached not beyond words?

It is as if you were to show a man tossed by a storm and longing for a harbor, not a harbor but another, wilder stretch of sea, and yet could make him follow you gratefully. Or as if a doctor could draw to himself a man who was wounded and needed remedies by promising to cure him, not with medicines, but by burning him again! This is indeed the work of great power. So the apostles too prevailed, not simply without a sign, but by something that seemed contrary to every sign anyone knew.

Christ did this too in the case of the blind man. When he was going to heal him, he took away the blindness by something that made it worse: he applied clay (John 9, verse 6). As he healed the blind man by means of clay, so by means of the cross he brought the world to himself. That was certainly adding a stumbling block, not taking one away. He did the same in creation, working things out by their opposites. With sand, for instance, he walled in the sea, making the weak a bridle for the strong. He set the earth on water, arranging that the heavy and the dense should be carried by the soft and the fluid. Again, through the prophets, he raised iron from the bottom with a small piece of wood (Second Kings 6, verses 5 to 7). In the same way he has drawn the world to himself with the cross. As the water bears up the earth, so the cross bears up the world. You see, then, that it is proof of great power and wisdom to convince by means of the very things that tell directly against us. So the cross seems to be a stumbling block; yet far from making anyone stumble, it even draws them.

Verse 25: Paul, then, bearing all these things in mind and struck with astonishment, said that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” He is speaking of the cross, and of a foolishness and weakness that are not real but apparent, for he is answering in terms of the other side’s opinion. What philosophers could not accomplish by reasoning, this, what seemed to be foolishness, accomplished excellently well. Which, then, is the wiser: the one who persuades the many, or the one who persuades few, or rather no one? The one who persuades people about the greatest questions, or about matters that are nothing? [k]

What great labors Plato and his followers went through, discoursing to us about a line and an angle and a point, and about numbers odd and even, equal to one another and unequal, and suchlike spiderwebs! Indeed, those webs are no more useless to human life than those subjects were. And without doing good to anyone, great or small, by these means, he ended his life. How hard he labored trying to show that the soul was immortal! And as he came, so he went away, having said nothing with certainty and persuaded no one who heard him.

But the cross brought persuasion by means of unlearned men. Yes, it persuaded the whole world, and not about ordinary things, but in speaking of God, and of the godliness that goes with the truth, and of the way of life the good news teaches, and of the judgment to come. And it made philosophers of everyone: the very countrymen, the utterly unlearned. Do you see how “the foolishness of God is wiser than men,” and “the weakness stronger”? How is it “stronger”? Because it overran the whole world and took everyone by main force. While people in their tens of thousands were trying to stamp out the name of the Crucified, the opposite came to pass: that name flourished and grew more and more, but they perished and wasted away. The living, at war with the dead, had no power.

So when the Greek calls me foolish, he shows himself foolish beyond measure, since I, whom he takes for a fool, plainly prove wiser than the wise. When he calls me weak, he shows himself to be weaker. For the noble things that tax collectors and fishermen were able to accomplish by the grace of God, philosophers and orators and despots, in short the whole world, rushing ten thousand ways this way and that, could not even form an idea of. For what did the cross not bring in? The teaching of the immortality of the soul; the teaching of the resurrection of the body; the teaching of contempt for things present; the teaching of desire for things to come. Yes, it has made angels out of men, and everyone, everywhere, practices philosophy and shows every kind of courage.

But someone will say: “Among them too, many have been found who despised death.” Tell me, who? The man who drank the hemlock? If you like, I can bring forward ten thousand such from within the church. If it had been allowed them, when persecution fell on them, to drink hemlock and depart, all of them would have become more famous than he. Besides, he drank when he was not free to drink or not to drink. Willing or unwilling, he had to suffer it; and robbers and murderers, once condemned by their judges, have suffered worse things. But with us it is entirely the opposite. The martyrs did not endure against their will, but willingly, when they were free not to suffer, showing a courage harder than any diamond. [l]

So you see, it is no great wonder that the man I was mentioning drank hemlock, when it was no longer in his power not to drink, and when he had reached a very great age besides. For when he despised life, he stated that he was seventy years old, if this can be called despising it. I for my part could not say so, and what is more, no one else could either. But show me someone standing firm under torture for godliness’ sake, as I show you ten thousand everywhere in the world. Who nobly endured while his nails were torn out? Who, while the joints of his body were wrenched apart? Who, while his body was cut to pieces limb by limb, or his head? Who, while his bones were forced out with levers? Who, while he was laid on frying pans without a break? Who, when he was thrown into a cauldron? Show me these examples.

To die by hemlock is no different from going on sleeping. Indeed, this kind of death is sweeter even than sleep, if the reports are true. And if some of them did endure torments, even their praise has come to nothing. For they perished on some disgraceful occasion: some for revealing mysteries, some for reaching after power, others caught in the foulest crimes; others again rashly, pointlessly and foolishly, with no reason for it, did away with themselves. But it is not so with us. That is why nothing is said of their deeds, while these flourish and grow every day. Paul had this in mind when he said, “The weakness of God is stronger than all men.”

That the good news is divine is plain even from this. Where could it have occurred to twelve ignorant men to attempt such great things? Men who spent their lives by marshes, by rivers, in deserts; who perhaps had never once set foot in a city or a public square: where did it occur to them to array themselves against the whole world? That they were timid and unmanly is shown by the one who wrote about them. He does not make excuses for them, nor can he bear to throw their failings into the shade, which is itself a very great sign of the truth. What, then, does he say about them? That when Christ was arrested, after ten thousand wonders, they ran away, and the one who stayed, the leader of the rest, denied him. [n]

How was it, then, that those who could not stand up to the attack of the Jews while Christ was alive, now that he was dead and buried, and, as you say, had not risen again, had not talked with them or put courage into them, how did they array themselves against so great a world? Would they not have said among themselves: “What does this mean? He could not save himself, and will he protect us? He did not defend himself when he was alive, and will he stretch out his hand to us now that he is dead? When he was alive he did not subdue even one nation, and are we to convince the whole world by speaking his name?” How, I ask, could any of this be reasonable, I will not say as something to be done, but even as something to be imagined? From this it is plain that if they had not seen him after he rose, and received the fullest proof of his power, they would not have staked so much on one throw.

Suppose they had had countless friends. Would they not have turned every one of them into an enemy at once, by disturbing ancient customs and moving their fathers’ boundary stones? As it was, everyone was their enemy, their own countrymen and foreigners alike. Even if every outward advantage had commended them to people’s respect, would not everyone have loathed them for bringing in a new way of life? But in fact they had nothing at all, and for that reason too it was likely that everyone would hate them and despise them at once. For whom will you name? The Jews? No, the Jews bore them a hatred beyond words, because of what had been done to their Teacher. [o]

Plato did not change anything about the worship of the gods; he merely proposed one way of living in place of another. Yet for that he was thrown out of Sicily and came close to losing his life. That did not happen in the end, but he lost his freedom. And if a certain barbarian had not been kinder than the usurper in Sicily, nothing could have saved the philosopher from spending the rest of his life as a slave in a foreign land. And yet innovating in the affairs of a kingdom is not the same thing as innovating in matters of worship. Worship, more than anything else, stirs up disturbance and upsets people. To say, “Let such a man marry such a woman, and let the guardians of the state carry out their guardianship in such a way,” is not enough to cause any great uproar, especially when it all sits in a book and the lawgiver shows no great eagerness to put his proposals into practice. But to say, “The beings people worship are not gods but demons; the one who was crucified is God” — you know well what fury that stirred up, how heavily people must have paid for it, what a flame of war it fanned.

Protagoras, one of their own, dared to say, “I know of no gods” — not going around the world and proclaiming it, but in a single city — and he was in the gravest danger of his life. Diagoras the Milesian, and Theodorus, who was called the Atheist, had friends, and the influence that eloquence brings, and they were admired for their philosophy; yet none of this did them any good. And the great Socrates, who surpassed all of them in philosophy, drank hemlock for this very reason: in his discourses he was suspected of innovation. Now if the mere suspicion of innovation brought such danger on philosophers and wise men, on men who had won boundless popularity, and if they were not only unable to do what they wished but were themselves driven out of life and out of their country, how can you help being filled with wonder and astonishment when you see that the fisherman has had such an effect on the world and accomplished his purpose, and has overcome everyone, barbarians and Greeks alike?

But you will say: “They did not bring in strange gods, as the others did.” Well, in saying that, you name the very thing most to be wondered at: their innovation was twofold — to pull down the gods that were there, and to announce the one who was crucified. Where did it come into their minds to proclaim such things? Where did they get their confidence about how it would turn out? Which of those before them could they see had succeeded in any such attempt? Was not all the world worshiping demons? Did not everyone make gods out of the elements? Was not the only difference in the kind of ungodliness? Yet for all that they attacked everything, overthrew everything, and in a short time overran the whole world as if they had wings. They took no account of dangers, of deaths, of how hard the thing was, of how few they were, of how many their opponents were, or of the authority, the power, and the wisdom of those at war with them. For they had an ally greater than all these: the power of the one who had been crucified and had risen again.

It would not have been so wonderful if they had chosen to make war on the world in the ordinary, visible way, as this war that actually took place. For by the rules of battle they could have taken up a position facing the enemy, held some ground opposite them, drawn up their lines to meet their foes, and chosen their moment to attack and close in. But here it was not so. They had no camp of their own; they were mingled among their enemies, and that is how they overcame them. Going about in the very midst of their enemies, they slipped out of their grasp, got the upper hand, and won a splendid victory — a victory that fulfills the prophecy that says, “Even in the midst of your enemies you will have dominion” (Psalm 110, verse 2). This was what was so utterly astonishing: their enemies had them in their power, threw them into prison and chains, and not only failed to defeat them but in the end had to bow down to them themselves — those who flogged to those they flogged, those who put others in chains to those in chains, the persecutors to the fugitives.

All these things, then, we could say to the Greeks, and far more besides, for the truth has more than enough to spare. And if you will follow the argument, we will teach you the whole method of fighting against them. For now, let us hold on to two main points. How did the weak overcome the strong? And, being what they were, where did these men get the idea of forming such plans, unless they had help from God?

That, then, is what we have to say. But let us show every excellence of conduct in our actions, and kindle the fire of virtue in abundance. For “you are lights,” says Christ. And to us he has entrusted a greater work than he gave to the sun — greater than heaven and earth and sea, and greater by as much as spiritual things surpass the things of the senses. So when we look up at the sun and admire the beauty of that great light, its body and its brightness, let us remember that the light within us is greater and better — just as the darkness, too, is more dreadful if we do not take care. And in fact a deep night lies heavy on the whole world. This is what we must scatter and dispel. It is night not only among heretics and among the Greeks, but also among the crowd on our own side, both in doctrine and in life. Many do not believe in the resurrection at all; many barricade themselves behind their horoscope; many cling to superstitious observances, to omens, to signs read from birds, and to forecasts of what is coming. Some also use amulets and charms. But we will speak to these people too, later on, when we have finished what we have to say to the Greeks. [t]

Meanwhile, hold on to what has been said, and be my fellow workers in this battle, drawing the Greeks to us and changing them by the way you live. For, as I am always saying, whoever teaches philosophy ought to teach it first in his own person, and be the kind of man his hearers cannot do without. So let us become such people, and win the goodwill of the Greeks. And this will happen if we make up our minds not only not to do wrong but even to suffer wrong. Do we not see how little children, carried in their father’s arms, hit him on the cheek, and how gently the father lets the boy have his fill of anger, and how his face lights up when he sees the child’s temper is spent? Let us act the same way. As fathers speak with children, so let us speak with the Greeks.

For all the Greeks are children. Some of their own writers have said as much: that “that people are always children, and no Greek is an old man.” Now children cannot bear to give thought to anything useful; so too the Greeks want to be at play forever, and they lie on the ground, groveling in their posture and in their desires. Again, when we are talking about important things, children often pay no attention to anything that is said, but keep laughing the whole time. So do the Greeks: when we speak of the kingdom, they laugh. And just as spittle dribbles in quantities from a baby’s mouth and often spoils its food and drink, so are the words that flow from the mouths of the Greeks — empty and unclean. Even when you are giving children the food they need, they keep pestering the people who give it with abuse, and we have to put up with them all the while. Again, when children see a thief come in and carry off the furniture, far from resisting, they even smile at the scheming fellow; but take away their little basket, or their rattle, or any other of their toys, and they take it to heart and fret, tear at themselves, and stamp on the floor. The Greeks do just the same. When they see the devil stealing their whole inheritance, even the things their life depends on, they laugh and run to him as to a friend; but if anyone takes away some possession of theirs, whether wealth or any childish thing of that kind, they cry and tear at themselves. And as children uncover their bodies without a thought and do not blush, so the Greeks, wallowing in sexual immorality and adultery, breaking the laws of nature and bringing in unlawful unions, feel no shame.

You have given me loud applause and cheering. But for all your applause, take care that you are not among those these things are said about. That is why I beg you all to become men. For as long as we are children, how will we teach them to be men? How will we restrain them from childish folly? So let us become men, so that we may reach the measure of the stature that Christ has marked out for us, and may obtain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, power, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and for all the ages to come. Amen.