Homily 5 — First Corinthians 1, verses 26 to 31

“For look at your calling, brothers and sisters: not many wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many of noble birth are called. But God chose the foolish things of the world, so that he might put to shame those who are wise.” [a]

He has said that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” He has shown that wisdom is cast out, both by the testimony of Scripture and by the outcome of events: by the testimony, where he says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise”; by the events, when he puts his argument as a question and says, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe?” At the same time he proved that the thing is not new but ancient, since it was hinted at and foretold from the beginning. For “it is written,” he says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.” Along with this he shows that it was neither unprofitable nor without reason for things to take this course. For, he says, “since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God, God was pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.” And he shows that the cross is a demonstration of power and wisdom beyond words, and that the foolishness of God is far mightier than the wisdom of man.

And this again he proves, not by means of the teachers, but by means of the disciples themselves. For “look at your calling,” he says. Not only were the teachers he chose untrained men; the disciples too were of the same kind. He chose “not many wise men” — that is his word — “according to the flesh.” And so what he is speaking of is proved to surpass everything in strength and in wisdom, because it convinces both the many and the unlearned. For it is extremely hard to convince an ignorant person, especially when the discussion is about great and necessary things. Yet they did convince them. And he calls the Corinthians themselves as witnesses of this. “Look at your calling, brothers and sisters,” he says: consider it; examine it. For that teachings so wise — yes, wiser than all others — should be accepted by ordinary people bears witness to the greatest wisdom in the teacher.

But what does “according to the flesh” mean? According to what can be seen; according to this present life; according to the training of the pagans. Then, so that he would not seem to contradict himself — for he had won over the proconsul (Acts 13, verse 12), and the Areopagite (Acts 17, verse 34), and Apollos (Acts 18, verse 26, through Aquila and Priscilla), and we have seen other wise men too coming over to the good news — he did not say, “No wise men,” but, “Not many wise men.” For he did not deliberately call the ignorant and pass over the wise. He received these too, but the others in much larger numbers. [b]

And why? Because the man who is wise according to the flesh is full of utter folly, and he is the one who most deserves the name “foolish,” when he will not throw away his corrupt teaching. Think of a physician who wanted to teach certain people the secrets of his art. Those who knew a little, and had a bad and wrong-headed way of practicing it that they insisted on keeping, would not put up with learning quietly; but those who knew nothing would take in what he said most readily. So it was here. The unlearned were more open to persuasion, for they were free of that extreme madness of thinking themselves wise. Indeed, the height of folly is found in these men more than in anyone — I mean those who hand over to reasoning things that cannot be known except by faith. Suppose a smith is drawing the red-hot iron out with his tongs. If someone insisted on doing it with his hand, we would pronounce him guilty of utter folly. In the same way the philosophers, who insisted on finding these things out for themselves, treated faith with contempt. And that is why they found none of the things they were looking for.

“Not many powerful, not many of noble birth.” For these too are full of pride. And nothing is so useless for an accurate knowledge of God as arrogance and being nailed down to wealth. These make a person admire what is present and take no account of the future, and they stop up the ears with a crowd of cares. But “God chose the foolish things of the world.” This is the greatest sign of victory: that the men through whom he conquers were uneducated. For the Greeks do not feel so much shame when they are defeated by the “wise”; they are put to confusion when they see the craftsman, and the kind of person one meets in the marketplace, more of a philosopher than they are themselves. That is why he himself said, “so that he might put to shame the wise.” And he has not done this in this one respect only, but also with the other advantages of life. For, to go on, it was not the weak only but also the needy, the despised and the obscure whom he called, so that he might humble those who were in high places.

Verse 28: “And the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, so that he might bring to nothing the things that are.” Now what does he call “things that are not”? Those people who are considered to be nothing because they are so very insignificant. In this way he has shown his great power, throwing down the great by means of those who seem to be nothing. He says the same thing elsewhere in these words (Second Corinthians 12, verse 9): “For my strength is made perfect in weakness.” For it is a great power to teach outcasts, and people who never applied themselves to any kind of learning, how all at once to speak wisely about the things above the heavens. Take a physician, an orator, or anyone else: we admire him most when he persuades and instructs people who are completely uneducated. Now if it is a very wonderful thing to instill the rules of a craft into an uneducated man, it is much more so with things that belong to so high a philosophy.

But he has not done this only for the wonder of it, or to show his own power, but also to check the arrogant. That is why he said before, “so that he might put to shame the wise and the strong, so that he might bring to nothing the things that are,” and here again, in verse 29, “so that no flesh should boast in the presence of God.” For God does everything to this end: to hold down empty glory and pride, to pull down boasting. “You too,” he says, “must give yourselves to that work. He does everything so that we may put nothing to our own account, so that we may credit everything to God. And have you handed yourselves over to this person or to that? And what pardon will you get?” [e]

For God himself has shown that it is not possible for us to be saved by ourselves alone, and he did this from the beginning. Even then people could not be saved by themselves. They needed to take in the beauty of the heavens, the breadth of the earth, and the whole mass of creation besides, if by these they might be led by the hand to the great Craftsman of all these works. And he did this to hold down in advance the self-conceit that was to arise later. It is as if a teacher had told his pupil to follow wherever he led; then, seeing him run ahead and wanting to learn everything by himself, he lets him go completely astray; and when he has proved him unable to acquire the knowledge, he at last brings in what he himself has to teach. So God too, in the beginning, commanded people to trace him out by the idea of him that creation gives. But since they would not, he showed them by experience that they are not sufficient for themselves, and then he brings them back to himself by another way.

He gave them the world as a writing tablet. But the philosophers did not study in it, nor were they willing to obey him or to approach him by the way he himself commanded. So he brings in another way, clearer than the first, one that might convince people that man is not sufficient for himself on his own. For then, reasoning could raise its doubts, and the wisdom of the pagans could be brought into play, on the part of those whom he was leading by the hand through creation. But now, unless a man becomes a fool — that is, unless he dismisses all reasoning and all wisdom and hands himself over to faith — it is impossible to be saved.

You see that besides making the way easy, he has by this rooted out no small disease, in forbidding people to boast and to think high thoughts: “so that no flesh should boast.” For this is where sin came from: people insisted on being wiser than the laws of God, and were not willing to gain knowledge in the way he had laid down, and so they did not gain it at all. So it was from the beginning. He said to Adam, “Do this, and this other thing you must not do.” Adam, thinking he would find out something more, disobeyed, and lost even what he had. He said to those who came after, “Do not stop at the creation, but through it contemplate the Creator.” They, if you please, as if they were working out something wiser than what had been commanded, set countless twisting paths in motion. So they kept dashing against themselves and against one another. They neither found God nor had any clear knowledge about creation, nor any fitting and true opinion about it.

That is why once again, with power to spare, he lowered their conceit and admitted the uneducated first, showing by this that all people need the wisdom from above. And not only in the matter of knowledge, but in everything else too, he has made both people and all other creatures to be in great need of him, so that they might have this too as a most powerful reason to submit to him and cling to him, and not turn away and perish. That is why he did not let them be sufficient for themselves. For if even now many despise him, for all their need, what would they not have wandered into in their arrogance if it were otherwise? So he stopped them from boasting as they did, not from any grudge against them, but to draw them away from the destruction that comes from it.

Verse 30: “But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption.” [g]

I think he uses the expression “of him” here, not of our being brought into existence, but with reference to faith: that is, to our having become children of God, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh” (John 1, verse 13). “Do not think, then, that after taking away our boasting he left us like that. There is another boasting, a greater one: his gift. For you are the children of him before whom no one may boast, and you became so through Christ.” And since he had said, “The foolish things of the world he chose, and the lowly,” he shows that they are nobler than all, since they have God for their Father. And of this nobility of ours, not this person or that, but Christ is the cause, since he has made us wise, and righteous, and holy. For that is what the words mean: “He became for us wisdom.”

Who, then, is wiser than we are, who have — not the wisdom of Plato, but Christ himself, since God so willed it?

But what does “from God” mean? Whenever he says great things about the only Son, he adds a mention of the Father, so that no one should think the Son is unbegotten. So since he had declared his power to be so great, and had credited the whole to the Son, saying that he had “become for us wisdom, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption,” he once again refers the whole, through the Son, to the Father, and says, “from God.”

But why did he not say, “He made us wise,” but, “He became for us wisdom”? To show how lavish the gift is. It is as if he had said, “He gave us himself.” And notice how he goes on in order. First he made us wise by setting us free from error, and then righteous and holy by giving us the Spirit; and he has so set us free from all our evils that we are “of him.” And this is not said of our being given existence; it is spoken of faith. Elsewhere we find him saying, “We were made righteousness in him,” in these words: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (Second Corinthians 5, verse 21). But now he says, “He has become righteousness for us, so that whoever wishes may share in it abundantly.” For it is not this man or that who has made us wise, but Christ. So “let him who boasts boast in him,” not in this person or that. Everything has come from Christ. That is why, after saying, “who became for us wisdom, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption,” he added, “so that, as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

That is also why he had attacked the wisdom of the Greeks so fiercely: to teach people this lesson and no other, that they should boast in the Lord, which is no more than just. For when we seek by ourselves the things that are above us, nothing is more foolish, nothing weaker than we are. In that case we may have a well-sharpened tongue, but firm teaching we cannot have. Rather, reasonings left to themselves are like spiders’ webs. For some have gone so far in madness as to say that nothing at all that exists is real; yes, they flatly maintain that everything is the opposite of how it appears.

So do not say that anything comes from yourself, but in everything boast in God. Never credit anything to any human being. For if nothing ought to be credited to Paul, much less to anyone else. For he says (First Corinthians 3, verse 6), “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” The one who has learned to boast in the Lord will never be puffed up, but will be moderate at all times and thankful in all circumstances. But the mind of the Greeks is not like this. They credit everything to themselves; that is why they even make gods of men. Such is the shame into which their reckless arrogance has thrown them headlong.

It is time, then, with what remains, to go out to battle against these people. Remember where we left our discussion the other day. We were saying that by human cause and effect it was not possible for fishermen to get the better of philosophers; and yet it did become possible, from which it is clear that it became possible by grace. We were saying that it was not possible for them even to conceive such great exploits; and we showed that they not only conceived them but carried them through with great ease. Today let us take up the same point of our argument: where did they get the idea of expecting to overcome the world, unless they had seen Christ risen? [i]

What? Were they out of their minds, to count on any such thing thoughtlessly and at random? For it goes beyond all madness to look for success in so great an undertaking without divine grace. How did they succeed at it, if they were insane and frenzied? But if they were in their right minds, as the events indeed showed, how could they have undertaken it, unless they had received trustworthy pledges from heaven and enjoyed the strength that comes from above? How else would they go out to such great wars, make their venture against land and sea, strip for the contest and hold their ground so nobly, for a change in the customs of the whole world, fixed for so long a time — they who were only twelve men?

And more than that, what made them expect to convince their hearers, when they invited them to heaven and the dwellings above? Even if they had been brought up in honor, wealth, power and learning, not even then would it have been at all likely that they would be roused to so heavy an undertaking. Still, there would have been somewhat more reason in their expectation. But as things actually were, some of them had worked on lakes, some with hides, some at the tax booth — and no occupations are more useless for philosophy, and for persuading people to think lofty thoughts, especially when a man has no example to point to.

No, they not only had no examples to make their success likely; they had examples against any likelihood of success, and those close to home. For many who had attempted to bring in something new had been wiped out completely — I do not mean among the Greeks, for all that was nothing, but among the Jews themselves at that very time — and they had set to the work not with twelve men but with great numbers. So both Theudas and Judas, who had large bodies of followers, perished together with their disciples. And the fear arising from their examples was enough to hold these men back, had they not been firmly convinced that without divine power victory was out of the question.

Yes, and even if they did expect to prevail, with what kind of hopes did they undertake such great dangers, unless they had their eye on the world to come? But suppose they hoped for nothing less than victory. What did they expect to gain by bringing all people to him “who has not risen again,” as you say? For if people now, who believe in the kingdom of heaven and countless blessings, face dangers reluctantly, how could those men have undergone so many for nothing — or rather, for harm? For if the things done had not taken place, if Christ had not gone up into heaven, then surely, in their stubborn zeal to invent these things and to convince the whole world of them, they were offending God, and must have expected ten thousand thunderbolts from above.

Or look at it another way. Even if they had felt this great zeal while Christ was alive, at his death they would have let it go out. For if he had not risen, he would have seemed to them a kind of deceiver and fraud. Do you not know that armies hold together while their general and king is alive, even if they are weak, but when those in command have departed, however strong the armies may be, they break up? [l]

Tell me, then: what persuasive reasons moved them to act, when they were about to take up the good news and go out into the whole world? Was any kind of obstacle missing that could have held them back? If they had been mad — for I will not stop repeating it — they could not have succeeded at all, for no one follows the advice of madmen. But if they succeeded, as in truth they did, and as the outcome proves, then no one was as wise as they were. And if no one was as wise as they were, it is quite plain that they would not have entered on the preaching lightly. If they had not seen him risen, what was there strong enough to draw them out to this war? What was there that would not have turned them away from it?

He had said to them, “After three days I will rise again,” and he had made promises about the kingdom of heaven. He had said that they would master the whole world after they had received the Holy Spirit, and ten thousand other things besides, surpassing all nature. So if none of these things had come to pass, then although they had believed in him while he was alive, after his death they would not have believed in him, unless they had seen him risen. For they would have said: “‘After three days,’ he said, ‘I will rise again,’ and he has not risen. He promised that he would give the Spirit, and he has not sent him. How then will his sayings about the other world be believed by us, when his sayings about this one have been tested and found wanting?” And why, if he did not rise, did they preach that he had risen? You will say: “Because they loved him.” But surely it was likely that they would hate him afterward, for deceiving and betraying them. He had lifted them up with countless hopes, torn them away from home and parents and everything, and set the whole Jewish nation against them — and then he had betrayed them after all. If the thing had come from weakness, they might have forgiven it; but as it was, it would have been counted the work of extreme malice. For he ought to have told the truth, and not have promised heaven, being a mortal man, as you say.

So the very opposite was the likely course for them to take: to proclaim the deception, and to declare him a fraud and an impostor. In this way, again, they would have been rid of all their dangers; in this way they would have put an end to the war. Moreover, since the Jews gave money to the soldiers to say that the disciples had stolen the body, if the disciples had come forward and said, “We stole him; he has not risen,” what honor would they not have enjoyed? So it was in their power to be honored — no, to be crowned. Why then did they trade these things for insults and dangers, if it was not some divine power that moved them and proved mightier than all these things?

But if we have not yet convinced you, consider this as well. Had these things not been so, then however well disposed they were toward him, they would not have preached this good news in his name; they would have turned from him in disgust. You know yourselves that when someone has deceived us in this way, we cannot bear even to hear his name. Why, then, did they preach his name as well? Did they expect to win the day through him? The natural thing was to expect the opposite: that even if they had been on the point of winning, they were ruining themselves by putting forward the name of a deceiver. And if they wanted to cast what had happened into the shade, the course to take was silence. To fight hard for it, at any rate, was only to stir up ever more serious hostility and ever more ridicule. [n]

Where, then, did it even enter their minds to invent such things? I say “invent,” because what they had heard, they had forgotten. When there was nothing to fear, they forgot many things, and some things they did not even understand, as the evangelist himself says. Now that so great a danger had come upon them, how could everything not have slipped away from them?

But why do I speak of words? Even their love for their Teacher himself was beginning to fade little by little, out of fear of what was coming, and he reproached them for this very thing. Before this they hung on him and kept asking, “Where are you going?” But afterward, when he drew his talk out to such length and told them of the terrors that would fall on them at the very time of the cross and after it, they simply stayed speechless, frozen with fear. Listen to how he puts this very point to them: “None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart” (John 16, verses 5 and 6). Now if the expectation that he would die and rise again grieved them so much, what would it have been but utter ruin if they had not seen him after he had risen? Why, they would have wanted to sink into the depths of the earth, what with dejection at being so deceived and dread of the future, feeling themselves sorely hard pressed.

Again: where did their lofty doctrines come from? He had told them they would hear the higher things later. “I have many things to say to you,” he says, “but you cannot bear them now” (John 16, verse 12). So the things left unsaid were the higher ones. And one of the disciples was not even willing to go with him into Judea when he heard of the dangers, but said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11, verse 16), taking it hard because he expected that he would die. Now if that disciple, while he was still with him, expected to die and shrank back for that reason, what must he not have expected afterward, when he was parted from him and from the other disciples, and when their shameless conduct had been so completely exposed?

Besides, what were they to say when they went out? His suffering, certainly, all the world knew about. He had been hung up on high, on the wooden frame, at midday, in a chief city, at a principal feast, and the very feast from which it was least allowed for anyone to be absent. But the resurrection no one outside saw, and that was no small obstacle to their persuading anyone. Again, that he had been buried was common talk everywhere, and that his disciples had stolen his body the soldiers and all the Jews declared. But that he had risen again, not one of those outside knew by sight. [r]

On what grounds, then, did they expect to convince the world? If, while miracles were actually taking place, some soldiers were persuaded to testify to the contrary, on what grounds did these men expect to do the work of preachers without miracles, and without owning a penny to convince land and sea about the resurrection? Again, if it was out of a desire for glory that they attempted this, they would far rather have claimed the doctrines each man for himself, and not credited them to one who was dead and gone. Will someone say that people would not have believed them? Then which of the two was more likely to win belief when preached: the one who had been arrested and crucified, or those who had escaped the hands of the Jews?

Next, tell me: with what aim were they to take such a course? They did not leave Judea at once and go into the Gentile cities, but went up and down within its borders. Yet how did they convince anyone unless they worked miracles? If they really worked them, and work them they did, it was the doing of God’s power. If, on the other hand, they worked none and still prevailed, what happened is more wonderful still. [u]

Tell me, did they not know the Jews, their evil ways and their souls full of grudges? They stoned even Moses (Numbers 14, verse 10; compare Exodus 17, verse 4): after the sea they had crossed on foot; after the victory and that marvelous trophy which, by means of his hands, they raised without shedding blood over the Egyptians who had enslaved them; after the manna; after the rocks and the springs of rivers that broke out of them; after ten thousand miracles in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness. Jeremiah they threw into a pit, and many of the prophets they killed.

Here, for example, is what Elijah says, after that terrible famine, and the marvelous rain, and the torch he brought down from heaven, and that astonishing whole burnt offering, when he had been driven out to the very farthest edge of their country: “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life” (First Kings 19, verse 10). And yet those men who were so persecuted were not overturning any of the established rules.

Tell me, then: what reason did people have to pay any attention to these men we are speaking of? On the one hand, they were of lower standing than any of the prophets; on the other, they were bringing in exactly the kind of new things that had made the Jews nail even their Teacher to the cross. And in another way, too, it seemed less strange for Christ to say such things than for them. He, people might suppose, was doing it to win glory for himself; but these men they would have hated all the more, as waging war against them on behalf of someone else.

But did the laws of the Romans help them? No; these entangled them in even greater difficulties. For this is what was said: “Whoever makes himself a king is no friend of Caesar” (John 19, verse 12). So this alone was obstacle enough: that they had first been disciples of a man counted a usurper, and afterward wanted to strengthen his cause. What in the world, then, drove them to rush into such great dangers? And by what claims about him were they likely to win belief? That he was crucified? That he was born of a poor Jewish woman who had been engaged to a Jewish carpenter? That he belonged to a nation the world hated? Why, all these things were enough not only to fail to persuade and win the hearers, but to disgust everyone, and especially when they were asserted by the tentmaker and the fisherman. [w]

Would the disciples not have kept all this in mind, then? A timid nature imagines more than the reality, and such were their natures. On what grounds, then, did they hope to succeed? No, rather they had no hope at all, since there were countless things to turn them aside, if Christ had not risen. Is it not plain even to the most thoughtless that unless they had enjoyed a rich and mighty grace, and had received pledges of the resurrection, they could not — I do not say have done and undertaken these things, but even so much as have them in their minds? For if, with such great obstacles in the way of their planning, let alone of their succeeding, they nevertheless planned, and carried out, and accomplished things greater than all expectation, anyone, I suppose, can see that it was not by human power but by divine grace that they did what they did.

Now these are arguments we ought to practice, not only on our own but with one another; that way, finding out what remains will be easier for us as well.

And do not suppose that, because you are a craftsman, this kind of exercise is outside your line; Paul too was a tentmaker. [x]

“Yes,” someone says, “but at that time he was also filled with abundant grace, and it was out of that grace that he said everything he said.” Well, but before this grace he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. Yes, and what is more, he received the grace because he showed a mind worthy of it; and after all this he put his hand to his craft again.

So let no one who has a trade be ashamed. The ones who should be ashamed are those brought up to nothing, who are idle, who keep many attendants and are waited on by an immense retinue. For to be supported by continual hard work is a kind of philosophy. The souls of such men are clearer, and their minds better tuned. The man who has nothing to do is more likely to say many things at random and do many things at random; he is busy all day long about nothing, and a great stupor takes hold of him entirely. But the man who works will not easily let anything useless into himself, whether in deeds, or in words, or in thoughts, for his whole soul is wholly bent on his hard-working way of earning a living.

So let us not look down on those who support themselves by the work of their own hands; let us rather call them happy for it. For tell me, what thanks do you deserve when, after receiving your share from your father, you go on without any calling at all, squandering the whole of it at random? Do you not know that we will not all give the same account? Those who have enjoyed greater license here will give a stricter one; those who were worn down by labor, or poverty, or anything else of that kind, one not so severe. This is plain from Lazarus and the rich man. For just as you are rightly accused for neglecting the right use of your leisure, so the poor man who, though fully occupied, has spent what time he had left on the right things will receive great crowns.

But do you plead that a soldier’s duties at least excuse you, and blame them for your lack of leisure? The excuse has no reason behind it. Cornelius was a centurion, and yet the soldier’s belt did not harm his strict way of life in the least. But you, when you are keeping holiday with dancers and actors and wasting your whole life on the theater, never think of excusing yourself from these engagements on account of military service or fear of those in command. It is only when it is the church we are calling you to that these endless obstacles turn up.

And what will you say on that day, when you see the flame, and the rivers of fire, and the chains that can never be broken, and hear the grinding of teeth? Who will stand up for you on that day, when you see the man who worked with his own hands and lived uprightly enjoying every glory, and you yourself, who are now in soft clothing and smelling of perfumes, in misery beyond remedy? What good will your wealth and your abundance do you then? And the craftsman: what harm will his poverty do him?

So then, so that we may not suffer on that day, let us fear what is said now, and let all our time be spent on occupations that are truly necessary. For in this way, having made God gracious to us for our past sins and adding good deeds for the future, we will be able to attain the kingdom of heaven, through the favor and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, power, and honor to the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and to everlasting ages. Amen.