THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
“In return for the same, I speak as to children, you also be enlarged” (v. 13).
Although it is not the same thing to be loved first and then to love others afterward, since one who loves afterward stands lower even if he repays with equal love, because the other anticipated him in love.
Yet I do not enter, he says, into a strict examination. It is enough for me if, taking me as an example, you show the same measure of love with which I love you.
Then, to show how necessary this is for them, and how his words are free of all flattery, he adds, “I speak as to children.”
What does “as to children” mean? It means, “I ask nothing more from you than your love for me as for a father.”
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Notice the Apostle’s prudence and humility. He no longer speaks here of the misfortunes he endured for them, nor of his labors, nor of dangers of death.
He could have said much about these things, so far was he from pride. But he speaks only of his love and asks from them love in return.
He says, “because I am your father and love you greatly.”
One who is loved is sometimes greatly irritated when he is reminded of benefits, because he sees in this a reproach against himself.
Therefore Paul does not do this. He only says, “Love me as children love a father.” This is much closer to human nature and is everyone’s duty toward a father.
Then, lest anyone think that he says this for his own benefit, he next shows that he desires to gain their love for himself for their own good.
For this reason he adds, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (v. 14).
He did not say, “Do not mingle with unbelievers.” To rebuke them more strongly as violators of righteousness, he says, do not turn aside onto their paths.
“What communion has righteousness with lawlessness?”
Here he no longer makes a distinction between his own love and the love of those who were corrupting the Corinthians.
Rather, he distinguishes between the nobility of the latter and the baseness of the former.
Because of this, his speech became weightier and more fitting to his dignity, and more attractive to the Corinthians.
If someone said to a son who did not honor his parents and gave himself to corrupt men, “What are you doing, child?
“You despise your father and prefer to him corrupt men, given over to every impiety.
“Do you not know how much better and nobler you are than they?” By such words he would better draw him away from fellowship with them than if he only praised the father.
For if he said, “Do you not know how much better your father is than they?” he would accomplish nothing by this.
On the contrary, if he leaves the father aside and points to the son’s superiority over them, he will say, “Do you not know who you are and who they are?
“How do you not think of your own nobility and free birth, and of their baseness?
“What do you have in common with such thieves, adulterers, and robbers?”
Having thus, as it were, winged him by such praises, he will easily dispose him to leave their company.
He will not so easily receive the first exhortations, because praise of the father will already serve as an accusation.
In this case he appears as an offender not only against his father, but against precisely such a father. Here, however, he hears nothing of that kind.
Besides, who does not love praise? Therefore a rebuke joined with praise of the hearer is more readily received.
It softens, raises the spirit, and makes one abhor fellowship with evil people.
But here not only this distinction is worthy of wonder. It is also worthy of wonder that he devised something greater to awaken fear in them.
First he conducts his speech through questions, as usually happens when something known and evident to all is being discussed.
Then he expands it through many and various names.
Indeed, he places before the listeners’ eyes not one, not two, not three, but many names of the things compared.
On the one hand, he depicts the height of the virtues. On the other, he depicts the extreme baseness of vice.
Through the great, even infinite, distance between them, he shows that the matter needs no further proof.