1 Corinthians 1:29Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It is like a teacher who orders his pupil to follow where he leads him. When he sees that the pupil runs ahead and wants to learn everything by himself, he leaves him to wander. After letting him experience that he cannot learn by himself, the teacher then begins to guide him. So also God in the beginning commanded men to walk by the contemplation of creatures. When they refused this, He let them experience that they could not walk by themselves, and then began to lead them to Himself in another way.

He gave us the world as a little tablet. But the philosophers did not think about this. They did not wish to obey Him and go to Him by the path He had commanded. Therefore He offered another path, clearer than the first, which teaches that man alone is insufficient for himself.

Formerly one could devote oneself to reasoning and use external wisdom, under the guidance of nature. But now, unless a man becomes “foolish,” that is, unless he leaves every kind of reasoning and every conceit of wisdom and gives himself over to faith, he cannot be saved.

Thus He accomplished no small thing. He offered an accessible path, and at the same time destroyed the former disease. He taught men not to boast and not to be high-minded: “so that no flesh should boast.” Sin comes from the fact that men want to be wiser than the laws of God. They do not want to learn as He commanded, and therefore they learn nothing.

So it was also in the beginning. God said to Adam: do this, and do not do that. But Adam, thinking he would find something greater, disobeyed and lost what he had. Then He said: do not stop at creation, but through it know the Creator. Yet men, as though finding something wiser than what had been said, built for themselves countless labyrinths. Therefore they themselves were lost and entered into conflicts with one another. They neither found God nor learned anything clear about creation. They formed no proper and true understanding of it.

After this, wishing decisively to destroy their arrogance, He first called simple men. By this He showed that all need wisdom from above. Not only in regard to knowledge, but also in all other respects, men and all other creatures have great need of Him. He did this to give them a strong impulse toward obedience and surrender, lest they perish by being separated from Him. Therefore He did not allow them to be self-sufficient.

For if even now, when they need Him, many abandon Him, then if this were not so, to what forgetfulness would they not have come? It was not from envy that He deprived them of a basis for exaltation, but in order to deliver them from the destruction that comes from it.

Or by flesh one may understand what is fleshly, outward, and visible. Then the thought is this: let nothing fleshly boast. Let it not be considered anything important or worthy of attention. Let those who possess it not boast, saying: I am rich, I am learned, I am noble. None of this leads to anything worthy of esteem. On the contrary, it turns one away from it.

Behold, God called not those who possess these things, but those who do not have them. When He called them, He did not enrich them with these things, but with perfections in the spirit. He rejected those things after the calling just as He had not looked upon them in the calling. Thus what is prominent according to the flesh is not worth praising, nor is it worth boasting in.

St. Chrysostom draws highly edifying conclusions from this passage. “God did this in order to humble pride and arrogance, and to cast down self-boasting. Above all, by this He showed that it is impossible for us to be saved by ourselves. He arranged it so also in the beginning. For even then it was impossible to attain salvation by oneself. It was necessary to contemplate the beauty of heaven and the majesty of the earth, and to investigate the nature of other creatures, in order to ascend to the Creator of creatures. By this He wished to cast down the arrogance that was to appear.

It is like a teacher who orders his pupil to follow where he leads him. When he sees that the pupil runs ahead and wants to learn everything by himself, he leaves him to wander. After letting him experience that he cannot learn by himself, the teacher then begins to guide him personally. So also God in the beginning commanded men to walk by the contemplation of creatures. When they refused this, He let them experience that they could not walk by themselves, and then began to lead them to Himself in another way.

He gave us the world, as it were, as a tablet. But the philosophers did not think about this. They did not wish to obey Him and go to Him by the path He had commanded. Therefore He offered another path, clearer than the first, and one that teaches that man alone, by himself, is insufficient for himself.

Formerly one could devote oneself to reasoning and use external wisdom, under the guidance of nature. But now, unless a man becomes foolish, that is, unless he leaves every kind of reasoning and every conceit of wisdom and gives himself over to faith, he cannot be saved.

Thus He accomplished no small thing. He offered an accessible path, and at the same time destroyed the former disease. He taught men not to boast and not to be high-minded: that no flesh should boast. Much evil comes from the fact that men want to be wiser than the laws of God. They do not want to learn as He commanded, and therefore they learn nothing.

So it was also in the beginning. God said to Adam: do this, and do not do that. But Adam, thinking he would find something greater, disobeyed and lost what he had. Then He said: do not stop at creatures, but through them know the Creator. Yet men, as though seeking something wiser, built for themselves countless labyrinths. Therefore they themselves were lost and came into conflict with one another. They neither found God nor learned anything clear about creatures. They formed no proper and true understanding of them.

After this, wishing decisively to destroy their arrogance, He first called simple men. By this He showed that all need wisdom from above. Not only in regard to knowledge, but also in all other respects, men and all other creatures have great need of Him. He did this to give them a strong impulse toward obedience and surrender, lest they perish by being separated from Him. Therefore He did not allow them to be self-sufficient.

For if even now, when they need Him, many abandon Him, to what forgetfulness would they have come if this were not so? It was not from envy that He deprived them of a basis for self-boasting, but in order to deliver them from the destruction that comes from it.”