1 Corinthians 8:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

If we have exact knowledge of nothing, how have some reached such madness that they say they know God with complete exactness? Even if we had exact knowledge of everything else, we still could not have such knowledge of God. It is impossible to express how great the distance is between Him and everything else.

See how he cast down their pride. He did not say, "You do not have proper knowledge of the proposed matters," but of everything in general. He did not say, "you," but "anyone," whether Peter, Paul, or whoever it may be. By this he excellently both consoled and humbled them.

"If anyone loves God, he is known by Him." Here the thought is suggested of the greatness of the person who loves God. The Master of the universe Himself knows him. The Russian reads: "But if anyone loves God, knowledge is given to him by Him." Love is a necessary condition for every kind of knowledge, especially of God, Who is Love itself. The person who loves God receives knowledge from Him and becomes capable of understanding and feeling the needs of his brothers.

Those who still feared idols had not learned to despise them. Seeing that the more perfect did the same, they also took part in the suppers there and received great harm from it.

For they touched what was set before them not with the disposition of the perfect, but as an idol-offering. By this idolatry was sustained.

At the same time the perfect themselves fell into no small sin, defiling themselves with demonic tables."

The Corinthians just mentioned, reasoning abstractly and without relation to circumstances, one may say, had a correct view of idols.

The Apostle fully agrees with it and proclaims, with the greatest expressiveness, the teaching about the one God: "there is no other God but one."

He proclaims the unity of His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the vanity of supposed gods.

At the same time he teaches that such a correct view of idols, when taken not abstractly but in practical application, becomes not only incorrect but unworthy of a Christian.

This happens in eating idol-offerings and in relation to others, in whose sight this eating occurs.

Christians must keep in mind the influence of their opinions and actions not only on themselves, but also on others.

For Christians, the basic guiding principle of life must be not knowledge, but love. Knowledge often leads to self-exaltation and division, but love always leads to building up and strengthening.

Christians must nourish love first toward God, and then toward men. But both forms of love are incompatible with eating idol-offerings.

Therefore, if someone who eats idol-offerings thinks that he acts according to knowledge, he is mistaken.

He proves to be ignorant of the basic Christian law of love, and in general to lack full knowledge, which depends upon God and love for Him.

In this teaching the Apostle Paul reproduces the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself, Who says, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word" (Jn 14:23).

He is also very close to John the Theologian, who taught: "Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love" (1 Jn 4:7-8).

"Knowledge needs love," says Chrysostom. "He who loves, as one who fulfills the chief of all commandments, can quickly acquire knowledge through love, even if he has certain defects.

But he who has knowledge without love not only gains nothing, but often loses even what he has."

Blessed Theodoret, as though summing up the Apostle's thoughts, writes: "We need much knowledge, and in the present life it is impossible to acquire perfect knowledge.

Therefore let us love God, that we may be made worthy of His providential care for us.

This is what the Apostle expressed in the words, 'If anyone loves God, he is known by Him,' that is, he is made worthy of His care."

Or, as blessed Theophylact says, "he is made known to God, and receives knowledge from Him, though even then he possesses it imperfectly."

When dwelling on the Apostle's well-known saying about the unity of the Godhead, our interpreters chiefly focus on clarifying the equal honor of the Father and the Son.

Thus Chrysostom says: "You will say that God the Father is called the one God, and therefore the name God is not proper to the Son.

But see, the same is said also of the Son, and the Son is called the one Lord. Yet we do not therefore say that the name Lord is proper to Him alone.

Just as the Son's being called the one Lord does not prevent the Father from being Lord, so the Father's being called the one God does not prevent the Son from being God.

Nor does it prevent Him from being such God as the Father is."

The same is also seen in the words, "through Whom are all things, and we through Him," which are referred to creation and salvation.

"We are from God in two ways: by being and by faith. The same must be understood of Christ. For through Him the human race was brought from non-being into being, and from error to truth" (Chrysostom).

Examples stand before us. Say how we see, how we hear, how we speak. Therefore the one who truly knows and enters deeply into the realm of knowledge will by no means say, "I know; we all know this." If this is so with simple things, how much more with spiritual things.

This rebuke is very strong, but the Apostle softens it by expressing his thought as a general proposition. "By this the Apostle showed that the Corinthians not only lacked love, but were also deprived of the knowledge which they ascribed to themselves and by which they thought highly of themselves. He expresses the accusation indefinitely, because he wishes to heal rather than strike" (Theodoret).

"See how he cast down their pride. He did not say, 'You do not have proper knowledge of the matters proposed,' but of everything in general. He did not say, 'you,' but 'anyone,' whether Peter, Paul, or whoever it may be. By these words he excellently both consoled and humbled them" (Saint Chrysostom).