These people were carnal because they were still slaves to the desires of the present age. Although they had been baptized and had received the Holy Spirit, they were carnal because after their baptism they had returned to their old lives, which they had renounced. The Holy Spirit dwells in a person into whom he has poured himself if that person stays firm in the conviction of his new birth. Otherwise he departs, but only provisionally. If that person repents, the Spirit will return, for he is always ready for what is good, being a lover of repentance.

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

In spiritual matters, solid food means the teaching about the Father and the Son. In the Old Testament, solid food appears under the guise of typology, as, for example, when we read about the serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness.^[1] This serpent was a picture, or type, of Christ, which explains why it was that the people were saved when they looked at it.

Not unfittingly, dearly beloved, do elders seem to bear a likeness to cows. Just as a cow has two udders to nurse her calf, so also elders ought to feed the Christian people with two udders: both the Old and the New Testaments.

By milk Paul means moral teaching and miracles. Solid food, by contrast, is the proclamation of the doctrines of God.

Although they had been born again in Christ, they were not yet fit to receive spiritual things. Although they had received the faith which is the seed of the Spirit, they had produced no fruit worthy of God, but like babies, they were eager for the sensations of imperfection. But Paul, who was a man of God and a spiritual physician, gave to each of them according to his strength, so that no one should suffer scandal where spiritual matters were concerned because of imperfection or inexperience. Paul is also arguing strongly against those who were complaining that they had not heard anything spiritual for a long time, when in fact they were not worthy to hear it. The false apostles conveyed their message indiscriminately to anyone who would listen, but it is generally agreed that our Lord and Master spoke one way in public and another way to his disciples in private, and that even among the latter a distinction was made, for he displayed his glory on the mountain to only three disciples and told them to say nothing about what had happened until he should rise again from the dead.

The Corinthians’ inability to receive solid food was not by nature but by choice, so they were without excuse.

Paul is saying that he adjusted the level of his teaching to their lack of understanding.

Here Paul talks about the particular problem which made the Corinthians carnal. There were other matters, like fornication and uncleanness, which he would deal with later, but first he wants to tackle something which he has clearly been trying to put right for some time. If jealousy makes people carnal, every one of us ought to be crying out because of our sin and covering ourselves in sackcloth and ashes. Who is not tainted with this? I say this of others only because I know how true it is of me.

It was the factionalism of the Corinthians that produced jealousy, and that in turn made them carnal. Once they were carnal, they were no longer free to hear truths of a more spiritual kind.

If Paul and Apollos counted for nothing, what can we say about those who glory in the flesh?

Paul denigrates himself in order to show the Corinthians that he is not mistreating them. It is a great thing to be a servant, used by God to bring others to faith, but compared with the source and the root of all good, it is nothing. Note also that Paul called Apollos and himself servants, not evangelists. This is because they had not merely preached the gospel, but they had also ministered to the people at Corinth. The first was a matter of word only, whereas the second includes deeds as well.

To plant is to evangelize and to bring to faith, to water is to baptize with the approved form of words. To forgive sins, however, and to give the Spirit belongs to God alone. We know that the Holy Spirit is given by God without the laying on of hands, and it has happened that an unbaptized person has received the forgiveness of his sins. Was such a person invisibly baptized, considering that he received the gift which belongs to baptism?

I have been planted in the house of the Lord, I mean in the church; not in the walls but in its doctrines. Everyone who has been planted in the house of the Lord, who has put down roots there, brings forth flowers.

Paul and Apollos had different functions, but everything they did was of God.

In relation to God’s honor, human honor is nothing. As far as the ministry is concerned, a man may be honored in the way that a servant is honored.

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.

Our labor is in vain without the help of God.

Even though they are equal, the one who preaches the gospel is still greater than the one who baptizes and will receive a greater reward.

Paul points out that he and Apollos are merely hired hands on someone else’s farm. They have nothing apart from the payment they get for their labor.

Paul says this in order to show that the Corinthians have no reason to think that some of them are superior to others. He did not allow those who worked hard to regard themselves as superior to those who did less, nor did he permit the latter to be jealous of the former. But in order to avoid the temptation to idleness which naturally results when everybody is treated equally, whether they have worked hard or not, Paul adds that the rewards will be distributed to each one according to the work accomplished.

The building does not belong to the workman but to the master. If you are a building, you must not be split in two, since then the building will collapse. If you are a farm, you must not be divided but rather surrounded with a single fence, the fence of unanimity.

Paul calls us God’s fellow workers, not his servants or slaves.

Coworkers of God are those who, when once they see the poison of pride creeping into the heart of a brother, with all haste try to destroy it with the medicine of true humility.

This warning applies to you and me as well. If I do not build properly on the foundation already laid for me, then the fire will consume my work on the day of judgment.

The wise master builder is one who preaches the same gospel as that which was preached by the Savior. Afterward other people build on the foundation, sometimes well and sometimes badly. We need to pay attention to make sure that what we build coheres with the foundation, because if it is crooked or lightweight it will collapse, though the foundation itself will remain intact. Even when people have taught badly, the name of Christ endures, because it is the foundation, although the bad teaching collapses.

Paul is not exalting himself by taking the example of a skilled master builder, because whatever skill he possesses comes entirely from the grace of God that has been given to him. Furthermore, because it is grace, it is not divided but rests securely on the one foundation, which is Christ.

We need to build on the foundation, not overthrow it.

Now our work is, according to our different virtues, to prepare for ourselves a different future. . . . If we are all to be equal in heaven, in vain do we humble ourselves here that we may be greater there. . . . Why do virgins persevere? Widows toil? Why do married women practice continence? Let us all sin, and when once we have repented, we shall be on the same footing as the apostles.

The other apostles laid this foundation among the Jews, while Paul and Barnabas laid it among the Gentiles.

Nobody can lay another foundation, because even if some people are heretics, they do not teach except in the name of Christ. They cannot commend the inventions of their error in any other way. So through the dignity of his name they try to make contradictory and absurd ideas acceptable.

The foundation is already in place, and no one can change it. Let us therefore build on it and cling to it in the way that branches cling to the vine, so that there is no gap between us and Christ. For the minute a gap opens up between the vine and its branches, the branches wither and perish. Similarly, if a building is not cemented to its foundation, it will collapse. Therefore, let us not merely cling to Christ, but let us be cemented to him, for if we stand apart we shall perish.

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.

If we think what is right and good, then we are building on a foundation of gold. If we repeat every holy word that has been spoken without corrupting it, then we are building on a foundation of silver. If all our works are good, then we are building on precious stones. But if I sin after laying the foundation, then I am building on wood; if I continue, I am building on hay, and finally, if I still go on, I am building on straw.

The house does not build itself; somebody has to put the walls up. This is the role of teachers in the church. The gold, silver, etc., represent six different types of hearers. Gold stands for good respondents, silver for better ones (because silver is stronger than gold) and precious stones for the best of all. Similarly, wood stands for bad people, hay for those who are worse and straw for the worst of all.

Our faith is the foundation, and it is the same for everyone. But in life, not everyone is the same. Some are diligent, others lazy. Some are high achievers, others more average. Some do well in greater things, others shine in lesser matters. Some people’s mistakes are more serious than others’. This is why we find the variety here. Furthermore, the judgment applies to the effort, not to the results. A teacher cannot be faulted merely because his pupils refuse to listen.

Some people think that this refers to the development of Christian doctrine, but a glance at the context will show that Paul is talking about morals and behavior here.

In the fire, bad teaching will become clear to everyone, though for the moment it is deceiving some.

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.

Gold, silver and precious stones will survive the fire of judgment, but wood, hay and straw will be burned up.

If anyone’s work proves lasting, he will receive his wage. He will be just like the three brothers in the fiery furnace,^[1] destined to receive as his wage heavenly life with glory.

To suffer loss is to endure reproof. For what person, when subjected to punishment, does not lose something thereby? Yet the person himself may be saved. His living soul will not perish in the same way that his erroneous ideas will. Even so, however, he may suffer punishments of fire. He will be saved only by being purified through fire.

If someone has the right faith but leads a wicked life, his faith will not protect him from punishment, because his work will be burned up. A man in gold armor will pass through a river of fire and come out shining all the more brightly, but a man who passes through it with hay will lose it all and destroy himself besides.

The teacher teaches what is right. Some follow him; others do not. Those who follow will be like gold and silver—purified by the fire and shining when they emerge from it. The others will be burned up. But the teacher will not lose anything by this. If he has been faithful, he will receive his reward regardless.

There are many people who understand this text incorrectly, deceiving themselves with a false assurance. They believe that if they build serious sins upon the foundation of Christ, those very offenses can be purified by transitory flames, and they themselves can later reach eternal life. This kind of understanding must be corrected. People deceive themselves when they flatter themselves in this way. For in that fire it is slight sins which are purged, not serious ones. Even worse, it is not only the greater sins but the smaller ones as well which can ruin a person.

We should remember that in the world to come no one will be purged of even his slightest faults unless he has deserved such a cleansing through good works performed in this life.

Although the apostle [Paul] has mentioned many grievous sins, we, nevertheless, lest we seem to promote despair, will state briefly what they are: Sacrilege; murder; adultery; false witness; theft; robbery; pride; envy; avarice; and, if it is of long standing, anger; drunkenness, if it is persistent; and slander are reckoned in their number. If anyone knows that these sins dominate him, if he does not do worthy penance and for a long time, if such time is given him . . . he cannot be purged in that transitory fire of which the apostle spoke [1 Cor 3:11–15], but the eternal flames will torture him without remedy. But since the lesser sins are, of course, known to all, and it would take too long to mention them all, it will be necessary for us only to name some of them. . . . There is no doubt that these and similar deeds belong to the lesser sins that, as I said before, can scarcely be counted, and from which not only all Christian people, but even all the saints could not and cannot always be free. We do not, of course, believe that the soul is killed by these sins, but still they make it ugly by covering it as if with pustules and horrible scabs.

And after the exhibition, Tryphaena again receives her. For her daughter Falconilla had died, and said to her in a dream: Mother, you shall have this stranger Thecla in my place, so that she may pray for me, and that I may be transferred to the place of the just.

[T]hat very night, this was shown to me in a vision: I [Perpetua] saw Dinocrates going out from a gloomy place, where there were several others, and he was very thirsty, with a filthy countenance and pallid color, and the wound on his face that he had when he died. Dinocrates, who had been my brother after the flesh, seven years of age, died miserably with disease. . . . For him I had made my prayer, and between him and me there was a large interval, so that neither of us could approach the other . . . and [I] knew that my brother was in suffering. But I trusted that my prayer would bring help to his suffering; and I prayed for him every day until we passed over into the prison of the camp, for we were to fight in the camp’s [wild beast] show. Then . . . I made my prayer for my brother day and night, groaning and weeping that he might be granted to me. Then, on the day on which we remained in fetters, this was shown to me: I saw that the place that I had formerly observed to be in gloom was now bright; and Dinocrates, with a clean body well clad, was finding refreshment. . . . [And] he went away from the water to play joyously, as children do, and I awoke. Then I understood that he had been removed from the place of punishment.

But when he shall have judged the righteous, he will also try them with fire. Then they whose sins shall exceed either in weight or in number shall be scorched by the fire and burned. But they whom full justice and maturity of virtue has imbued will not see that fire; for they have something of God in themselves that repels and rejects the violence of the flame. So great is the force of innocence that the flame shrinks from it without doing harm; it has received this power from God, that it burns the wicked, and is under the command of the righteous.

If a man distinguishes in himself what is peculiarly human from what is irrational, and if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted, and overcome the irrational by reason. If he has inclined to the irrational pressure of the passions . . . %, using for the passions the cooperating hide of irrational things,.

he may afterward, in a very different manner, be very much interested in what is better, when, after his departure out of the body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire.

Let us then give them aid and perform commemoration for them. For if the children of Job were purged by the sacrifice of their father, why do you doubt that when we too offer for the departed, some consolation arises to them, since God is wont to grant the petitions of those who ask for others?

[T]emporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But of those who suffer temporary punishments after death, all are not doomed to those everlasting pains that are to follow that judgment; for to some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal punishment of the world to come.

During the time, moreover, that intervenes between a man’s death and the final resurrection, the soul dwells in a hidden retreat, where it enjoys rest or suffers affliction in proportion to the merit it earned by the life it led on earth. Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead are benefited by the piety of their living friends, who offer the sacrifice of the Mediator, or give alms in the church on their behalf. But these services are of advantage only to those who during their lives have earned such merit that services of this kind can help them. For there is a manner of life that is neither so good as not to require these services after death, nor so bad that such services are of no avail after death.