Augustine of Hippo

In his own words on 1 Corinthians

• 1 Corinthians 1:25

  There is no way that this gospel truth could have been made acceptable to some philosophers and debaters. They follow a way of life that does not stand in the truth but is only an imitation of it. They deceived themselves and others.

  LETTER 120, TO CONSENTIUS

• 1 Corinthians 1:29

  Paul's intention is perfectly clear—to accost the pride of man, that no one should take glory in human works and that no one should glory in himself.

  PREDESTINATION OF THE SAINTS 5.9

• 1 Corinthians 2:2

  For the apostle also says, "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified;" because he was speaking to those who were not able to receive higher things concerning the Godhead of Christ. To whom also a little while after he says, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal." He was "ignorant," therefore, among them of that which they were not able to know from him. And that only he said that he knew, which it was fitting that they should know from him. In short, he knew among the perfect what he knew not among babes; for he there says: "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect." For a man is said not to know what he hides, after that kind of speech, after which a ditch is called blind which is hidden. For the Scriptures do not use any other kind of speech than may be found in use among men, because they speak to men.

  ON THE TRINITY 1.12

• 1 Corinthians 2:8

  But if Christ had not been put to death, death would not have died. The devil was overcome by his own trophy, for the devil rejoiced when, by seducing the first man, he cast him into death. By seducing the first man, he killed him. By killing the last man, he lost the first from his snare.

  THE ASCENSION 263

• 1 Corinthians 3:1

  Paul was not speaking of their bodies but of their carnal spirits.

  City of God 22.21

• 1 Corinthians 3:7

  Since the apostles would not have accomplished anything if God had not given the increase, how much more true is this of you or me, or anyone else of our time, who fancies himself as a teacher.

  LETTER 193

• 1 Corinthians 3:11

  It should not be denied that this is the distinctive basis of the orthodox faith, just because it is shared between us and certain heretics as well. For if we think carefully about the meaning of Christ we shall see that among some of the heretics who want to be called Christians, the name of Christ is held in honor, but the reality to which the name points is not.

  Enchiridion 2.5

• 1 Corinthians 3:13

  The fire will try the quality of everyone's work. If his work remains, he will receive his reward. If his work burns, he will lose his reward, but he himself will be saved. In this fire neither man will be lost forever, though the fire will profit the one and harm the other, being a test for both.

  CITY OF GOD 21

• 1 Corinthians 4:7

  The people who boast imagine that they are justified by their own efforts, and therefore they glory in themselves, not in the Lord.

  LETTER TO VALENTINE

• 1 Corinthians 6:4

  Therefore the apostle wished wise, holy, and faithful persons who were well established in the various places to be judges of such matters, and not persons who, in preaching, traveled about here and there.… If wise judges were lacking, he wished even the lowly and contemptible to be appointed so that the affairs of Christians might not be brought to the public eye.

  On the Work of Monks 29

• 1 Corinthians 6:11

  Paul says that they have been changed for the better, not so as to lose concupiscence altogether, a condition never realized in this life, but so as to not obey the desire to sin.

  AGAINST JULIAN 16.49

• 1 Corinthians 7:5

  According to this, if he had wished to practice continence but you had not, he would have been obliged to give in to you, and God would have given him credit for continence for not refusing intercourse out of consideration for your weakness, not his own, in order to prevent you from committing adultery. How much better would it have been for you, for whom subjection was more appropriate, to yield to his will in rendering him the debt, since God would have taken account of your intention to observe continence, which you gave up in order to save your husband from destruction.

  LETTER 262, TO EUDICIA

• 1 Corinthians 7:5

  It is not arduous and difficult for faithful married people to do for a few days what holy widows have undertaken and which holy virgins do throughout their lives. So let devotion be kindled and self-gratification be checked.

  LENT 209.3

• 1 Corinthians 7:8

  We must not understand these words to mean that widows are not unmarried because they once embraced the married state. Widows are unmarried, but not all unmarried are widows. That is why Paul makes a distinction here.

  THE EXCELLENCE OF WIDOWHOOD 2

• 1 Corinthians 7:9

  Why do you acknowledge that there is a necessary remedy for lust yet contradict me when I say that lust is a disease? If you recognize the remedy, then recognize the disease as well.

  AGAINST JULIAN 15

• 1 Corinthians 7:12

  We are here given to understand that neither spouse may divorce the other if both are believers.

  QUESTIONS 83

• 1 Corinthians 7:15

  A Christian husband may leave his wife without any blame, even if they are lawfully married, if she refuses to live with him because he is a Christian.

  EIGHT QUESTIONS OF DULCITIUS 1

• 1 Corinthians 7:34

  This should not be interpreted to mean that a married woman is not meant to be holy in body as well as in soul.

  THE EXCELLENCE OF WIDOWHOOD 6

• 1 Corinthians 7:39

  The death referred to here is clearly the death of the body, not of the soul. Forgiveness and attempts at reconciliation of the offending person are offered as better solutions than divorce.

  ADULTEROUS MARRIAGES

• 1 Corinthians 8:1

  Paul means that knowledge only does good in company with love. Otherwise it merely puffs a man into pride.

  City of God 9.20

• 1 Corinthians 8:3

  And the apostle: "if any man," he says, "think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of Him." He has not said, has known Him, which is dangerous presumption, but "is known of Him." So also in another place, when he had said, "But now after that ye have known God:" immediately correcting himself, he says, "or rather are known of God." And above all in that other place, "Brethren," he says, "I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press in purpose toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Perfection in this life, he tells us, is nothing else than to forget those things which are behind, and to reach forth and press in purpose toward those things which are before. For he that seeks has the safest purpose, until that is taken hold of whither we are tending, and for which we are reaching forth.

  On the Trinity 9.1

• 1 Corinthians 8:4

  For although man made gods, it did not follow that he who made them was not held captive by them, when, by worshipping them, he was drawn into fellowship with them,—into the fellowship not of stolid idols, but of cunning demons; for what are idols but what they are represented to be in the same scriptures, "They have eyes, but they do not see," and, though artistically fashioned, are still without life and sensation? But unclean spirits, associated through that wicked art with these same idols, have miserably taken captive the souls of their worshippers, by bringing them down into fellowship with themselves. Whence the apostle says, "We know that an idol is nothing, but those things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I would not ye should have fellowship with demons."

  THE CITY OF GOD 8.24

• 1 Corinthians 8:6

  Also, when the same apostle says, "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him," who can doubt that he speaks of all things which are created; as does John, when he says, "All things were made by Him"? I ask, therefore, of whom he speaks in another place: "For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." For if of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so as to assign each clause severally to each person: of Him, that is to say, of the Father; through Him, that is to say, through the Son; in Him, that is to say, in the Holy Spirit,—it is manifest that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one God, inasmuch as the words continue in the singular number, "To whom be glory for ever."

  ON THE TRINITY 1.13

• 1 Corinthians 8:6

  You have made not only what is created and formed but also whatever can be created and formed. Everything which is formed from the formless must first be formless before it can be a formed thing.

  Confessions 12.19

• 1 Corinthians 8:8

  "Neither shall we have any abundance if we do eat, nor shall we suffer any loss if we do not eat." That is to say: neither will the former make me rich, nor will the latter make me poor.

  Confessions 10.45

• 1 Corinthians 8:11

  If you love the weak person less because of the moral failing that makes him weak, consider the One who died on his behalf.

  QUESTIONS 71

• 1 Corinthians 8:12

  It is the very law of Christ that we bear one another's burdens. Moreover, by loving Christ we easily bear the weakness of another, even him whom we do not yet love for the sake of his own good qualities, for we realize that the one whom we love is someone for whom the Lord has died.

  QUESTIONS 71

• 1 Corinthians 8:13

  Those who are stronger and are not troubled by scruples are nevertheless commanded to abstain so as not to offend those who, on account of their weakness, still find abstinence necessary.

  THE WAY OF LIFE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 71

• 1 Corinthians 9:5

  But let us return to the order of our discourse, and the whole of the passage itself of the Epistle let us diligently consider. "Have we not," saith he, "leave to eat and to drink? have we not leave to lead about a woman, a sister?" What leave meant he, but what the Lord gave unto them whom He sent to preach the kingdom of heaven, saying, "Those things which are (given) of them, eat ye; for the workman is worthy of his hire;" and proposing Himself as an example of the same power, to Whom most faithful women did of their means minister such necessaries? But the Apostle Paul hath done more, from his fellow-Apostles alleging a proof of this license permitted of the Lord. For not as finding fault hath he subjoined, "As do also the other Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas;" but that hence he might show that this which he would not accept was a thing which, that it was lawful for him to accept was proved by the wont of the rest also his fellow-soldiers.

  OF THE WORK OF MONKS 8

• 1 Corinthians 9:5

  To the Corinthians, namely, writing of this same thing, he saith thus, "Am I not free? am I not an Apostle? Have I not seen Christ Jesus our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an Apostle, to you assuredly I am. For the seal of mine Apostle-ship are ye in the Lord. My defense to them which interrogate me is this. Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a woman who is a sister, as also the other Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?" See how first he shows what is lawful to him, and therefore lawful for that he is an Apostle... Which being proved, he shows that to be lawful to him which was so to the other Apostles; that is, that he should not work with his hands, but live by the Gospel, as the Lord appointed, which in what follows he has most openly demonstrated; for to this end did also faithful women which had earthly substance go with them, and minister unto them of their substance, that they might lack none of those things which pertain to the necessities of this life. Which thing blessed Paul demonstrates to be lawful indeed unto himself, as also the other Apostles did it, but that he had not chosen to use this power he afterwards mentions. This thing some not understanding, have interpreted not "a woman which is a sister," when he said, "Have we not power to lead about a sister a woman;" but, "a sister a wife." They were misled by the ambiguity of the Greek word, because both "wife" and "woman" is expressed in Greek by the same word. Though indeed the Apostle has so put this that they ought not to have made this mistake; for that he neither says "a woman" merely, but "a sister woman;" nor "to take" (as in marriage), but "to take about" (as on a journey). Howbeit other interpreters have not been misled by this ambiguity, and they have interpreted "woman" not "wife."

  OF THE WORK OF MONKS 5

• 1 Corinthians 9:6

  "Or I only and Barnabas, have we not power to forbear working?" Lo, he hath taken away all doubt even from the slowest hearts, that they may understand of what working he speaks. For to what end saith he, "Or I only and Barnabas, have we not power to forbear working?" but for that all evangelists and ministers of God's word had power received of the Lord, not to work with their hands, but to live by the Gospel, working only spiritual works in preaching of the kingdom of heaven and edifying of the peace of the Church? For no man can say that it is of that very spiritual working that the Apostle said, "Or I only and Barnabas, have we not power to forbear working?" For this power to forbear working all those had: let him say then, who essays to deprave and pervert precepts Apostolical; let him say, if he dares that all evangelists received of the Lord power to forbear preaching the Gospel. But if this is most absurd and mad to say, why will they not understand what is plain to all, that they did indeed receive power not to work, but works bodily, whereby to get a living, because "the workman is worthy of his hire," as the Gospel speaks.

  OF THE WORK OF MONKS 8

• 1 Corinthians 9:7

  The church has its own soldiers and its own provincial officers … its vineyard and its planters, its flock and its shepherds.… Thus some are rightly fed and clothed at the expense of the charitable rich. They accept nothing for their own necessities except from those who sell their goods. They are not to be judged and condemned by the more perfect members of Christ who furnish their own needs with their own hands—a higher virtue which the apostle strongly commends. They in turn ought not to condemn as Christians of lower grade those from whose resources they are supplied.… The servants of God who live by selling the honest works of their own hands could, with much less impropriety, condemn those from whom they receive nothing than could those others who are unable to work with their hands because of some bodily weakness yet who condemn the very ones at whose expense they live.

  LETTER 157, TO HILARIUS

• 1 Corinthians 9:11

  By these words the Apostle Paul sufficiently indicates, that it was no usurping unto themselves of aught beyond their due on the part of his fellow-Apostles, that they wrought not bodily, whence they might have the things which to this life are necessary, but as the Lord ordained, should, living by the Gospel, eat bread gratuitously given of them unto whom they were preaching a gratuitous grace. Their charges, namely, they did like soldiers receive, and of the fruit of the vineyard by them planted, they did, as need was, freely gather; and of the milk of the flock which they fed, they drank; and of the threshing-floor on which they threshed, they took their meat. But he speaks more openly in the rest which he subjoins, and altogether removes all causes of doubting. "If we unto you," saith he, "have sown spiritual things, is it a great matter if we shall reap your carnal things?" What are the spiritual things which he sowed, but the word and mystery of the sacrament of the kingdom of heaven? And what the carnal things which he saith he had a right to reap, but these temporal things which are indulged to the life and indigency of the flesh? These however being due to him he declares that he had not sought nor accepted, lest he should cause any impediment to the Gospel of Christ.

  OF THE WORK OF MONKS 8-9

• 1 Corinthians 9:14

  The apostle says this [here and in Timothy :-] so that Timothy might understand that what he took from those for whom he was, as it were, fighting, and whom he was cultivating as a vine, or feeding as a flock, was not a sign of begging but an acknowledgment of a right.

• 1 Corinthians 9:15

  And he comes back again, and in all ways, over and over again, enforceth what he hath the right to do, yet doeth not. "Do ye not know," saith he, "that they which work in the temple, eat of the things which are in the temple? they which serve the altar, have their share with the altar? So hath the Lord ordained for them which preach the Gospel, to live of the Gospel. But I have used none of these things." What more open than this? what more clear? I fear lest haply, while I discourse wishing to expound this, that become obscure which in itself is bright and clear. For they who understand not these words, or feign not to understand, do much less understand mine, or profess to understand.

  OF THE WORK OF MONKS 10

• 1 Corinthians 9:15

  "In the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as are with them: for the workman is worthy of his hire." Here it appears that these things were not commanded, but permitted, that whoso should choose to use, might use that which was lawful unto him by the Lord's appointment; but if any should not choose to use it, he would not do contrary to a thing commanded, but would be yielding up his own right, by demeaning himself more mercifully and laboriously in the Gospel, in the which he would not accept even the hire which was his due. Otherwise the Apostle did contrary to a command of the Lord: for, after he had shown it to be lawful unto him, he hath straightway subjoined, "But yet have I not used this power."

  OF THE WORK OF MONKS 7

• 1 Corinthians 9:17

  Up to now I am so far restored in that glory that I confess I am ignorant not only how near I come to it but even whether I shall come to it at all. It is true I am a dispenser of eternal salvation along with my other innumerable fellow servants. "For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward." To be a dispenser of that salvation by word and sacrament is not at all the same as to be a partaker of it. Letter , To Audax.

• 1 Corinthians 9:20

  You do not require me to teach you in what sense the apostle says, "To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews," and other such things in the same passage, which are to be ascribed to the compassion of pitying love, not the artifices of intentional deceit. For he that ministers to the sick becomes as if he were sick himself; not, indeed, falsely pretending to be under the fever, but considering, with the mind of one truly sympathizing, what he would wish done for himself if he were in the sick man's place. Paul was indeed a Jew; and when he had become a Christian, he had not abandoned those Jewish sacraments which that people had received in the right way, and for a certain appointed time. Therefore, even although he was an apostle of Christ, he took part in observing these; but with this view, that he might show that they were in no wise hurtful to those who, even after they had believed in Christ, desired to retain the ceremonies which by the law they had learned from their fathers; provided only that they did not build on these their hope of salvation, since the salvation which was foreshadowed in these has now been brought in by the Lord Jesus. For the same reason, he judged that these ceremonies should by no means be made binding on the Gentile converts, because, by imposing a heavy and superfluous burden, they might turn aside from the faith those who were unaccustomed to them.

  LETTER XL (To Jerome), Chap. IV

• 1 Corinthians 9:21

  He did this by compassion, not by lying. For each one becomes like him whom he wants to help when such great mercy prevails as that each one would wish for himself if he were in the same misery. And so he becomes like the other—not by deceiving him but by putting himself in the other's place.

  Against Lying 12

• 1 Corinthians 9:22

  This is correctly interpreted to mean that he, not by lying but by sympathy, brought it about that he enabled their con-version by his own great love which made it seem as though he himself were afflicted with that evil of which he wished to heal them.

  On Lying 21

• 1 Corinthians 9:24

  It is not from the one who wills nor from the one that runs but from God who has mercy that we obtain what we hope for and reach what we desire. Esau was unwilling and did not run. Had he been willing and had he run, he would have obtained the help of God who by calling him would have given him the power both to will and to run.

  TO SIMPLICIAN 10

• 1 Corinthians 9:25

  When we enter upon the way of the Lord, let us fast from the vanity of this present life and refresh ourselves with the hope of the future life, not focusing our heart on things here but feasting it on things above.

  SERMON 263

• 1 Corinthians 9:27

  Paul chastises what is of him and not what is himself. For what is of him is one thing, what is himself is another. He chastises what is of him so that he, being just, may bring about the death of bodily wantonness.

  AGAINST JULIAN 24

• 1 Corinthians 10:2

  The history of the exodus was an allegory of the Christian people that was yet to be.

  THE USEFULNESS OF BELIEF 8

• 1 Corinthians 10:4

  All symbols seem in some way to personify the realities of which they are symbols. So, St. Paul says, "The rock was Christ," because the rock in question symbolized Christ.

  City of God 18.46

• 1 Corinthians 10:7

  What is as similar to the play of children as the worshiping of idols?

  QUESTIONS 61

• 1 Corinthians 10:13

  Why is this written if we are now so endowed that by the strength of our free will we are able to overcome all temptations merely by bearing them?

  LETTER 179, TO BISHOP JOHN

• 1 Corinthians 10:16

  That chalice, or rather, what the chalice holds, consecrated by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. Through those elements the Lord wished to entrust to us his body and the blood which he poured out for the remission of sins. If you have received worthily, you are what you have received.

  EASTER SERMON 227

• 1 Corinthians 10:17

  So by bread you are instructed as to how you ought to cherish unity. Was that bread made of one grain of wheat? Were there not, rather, many grains? However, before they became bread, these grains were separate. They were joined together in water after a certain amount of crushing. For unless the grain is ground and moistened with water, it cannot arrive at that form which is called bread. So, too, you were previously ground, as it were, by the humiliation of your fasting and by the sacrament of exorcism. Then came the baptism of water. You were moistened, as it were, so as to arrive at the form of bread. But without fire, bread does not yet exist.

  EASTER SERMON 227

• 1 Corinthians 10:17

  The one who is properly said to eat the body of Christ and to drink his blood is the one who is incorporated into the unity of his body. Heretics and schismatics can receive the sacrament but to no avail—in fact, to their harm—since the result is to increase their pain rather than to curtail the length of their punishment.

  City of God 21.25

• 1 Corinthians 10:26

  One does not sin who afterward unwittingly eats food which he had previously refused as belonging to idols. Vegetables and any kind of fruit grown in any field are God's who created them.

• 1 Corinthians 10:33

  The apostle says in a certain place, "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ;" and the same apostle says in another place, "I please all men in all things," and adds the reason, "Not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved."... What the apostle says, then, in the first of these passages, "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ," is to be understood as if he said, If the good things which I do were done by me with human praise as my motive, if I were puffed up with the love of praise, I should not be the servant of Christ. The apostle, then, wished to please all men, and rejoiced in pleasing them, not that he might himself be inflated with their praises, but that he being praised might build them up in Christ.

  Letter 231 (to Darius)

• 1 Corinthians 11:3

  For the man is the head of the woman in perfect order when Christ who is the Wisdom of God is the head of the man.

  AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.12.16

• 1 Corinthians 11:7

  This image made to the image of God is not equal to and coeternal with him whose image he is, and it would not be, even if it had not sinned at all. The meaning of the words of God when he said: "Let us make man to our image and likeness" must be understood. They were not spoken in the singular but in the plural. For man was not made in the image of the Father alone, or of the Son alone, or of the Holy Spirit alone, but in the image of the Trinity.

• 1 Corinthians 11:7

  It is not as though one part of humanity belongs to God as its author and another to darkness, as some claim. Rather the part that has the power of ruling and the part that is ruled are both from God. Thus the apostle says, "A man certainly should not cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but a woman is the glory of man." .

• 1 Corinthians 11:7

  [The Manichaeans say]: "The devil should not have been allowed to approach the woman." On the contrary, she should not have allowed the devil to approach her. She was made so that, if she were unwilling, she could have prevented his approach. Then they say: "Maybe the woman should not even have been made." This would be to admit that something good should not have been made. For there can be no doubt that the woman is good—so good that the apostle says that she is the glory of man and that all things are from God. .

• 1 Corinthians 11:12

  Concerning the male and female sexes, what has the son of perdition to say? That the two sexes are not from God but from the devil? What has the vessel of election to say about this? "For as the woman is from the man, so also is the man through the woman— but all things are from God." What does the devil say through the mouths of the Manichaeans about the flesh? That it is an evil substance, a creature not of God but of the enemy.

• 1 Corinthians 11:14

  What is the reason, I wonder, why men wear their hair long contrary to the precept of the apostle? Is it to furnish greater leisure to the barbers? Or is it because they wish to imitate the birds of the gospel? Maybe they fear being plucked so that they might be unable to fly? I refrain from saying more concerning this habit, because of certain long-haired brothers whom, in almost all other respects, we hold in high esteem. But in proportion as we love them the more in Christ, to that degree do we advise them the more earnestly.

  On the Work of Monks 31

• 1 Corinthians 11:19

  People become heretics, even though they would still have held wrong opinions if they had remained within the church. Now that they are outside, they do us more good, not by teaching the truth, for they do not know it, but by provoking carnal Christians to seek the truth and spiritual Christians to expound it. In the church there are innumerable people who are approved by God, but they do not become manifest among us as long as we are content with the darkness of our ignorance and prefer to sleep rather than to behold the light of truth.

  ON TRUE RELIGION 7.15

• 1 Corinthians 11:25

  Old things are passed away and are made new in Christ, so that altar yields to altar, sword to sword, fire to fire, bread to bread, victim to Victim, blood to Blood.

  LETTER 36