1 Corinthians 13:1-13

CHAPTER 13

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER

i. He points out that of all gifts and graces, charity is the first, and that without charity no gift or virtue is of any use.

ii. He enumerates (ver. 4) the sixteen conditions of charity, or the modes of its manifestation towards our neighbours.

iii. He shows (ver. 8) the eminency of charity from the fact that it will remain in heaven, when faith is changed into sight and hope into fruition.

The whole of this chapter is in praise of charity. The Apostle treats of charity at such length, not only because charity is the queen of all virtues, but also because he wishes by charity, as by a most effectual medicine, to cure the pride and divisions of the Corinthians; for charity effects that superiors do not despise inferiors, and that inferiors do not feel bitter when their superiors are preferred before them. But, especially, he commends charity to them as a most excellent gift, that they may seek it rather than the gift of tongues, or of prophecy, or of miracles, which things the Corinthians were in the habit of considering most important. And this is why, in preparing his passage to charity, he said, at the end of the preceding chapter: " Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a more excellent way," viz., of charity.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. Some hold that the tongue of angels is Hebrew, and that this was the tongue used by God, the angels, and Adam in Paradise (of which see below, ver. 8). Secondly, the Glossa, Durandus, Greg. Ariminensis (in 2 dist. 9, qu. 2), and Molina (i p. qu. 106 art. i.) think from this passage of the Apostle, that angels speak as men, not only by forms impressed on the angel who hears, but also by gestures and signs, spiritual signs (since they are as it were a kind of spiritual conversation and form of speech), imprinted on them at their creation, as the Hebrew tongue was imprinted on Adam. Hence Franciscus Albertinus (Lib. Corollariorum Theologicorum Corollario ii) says that each angel has his own proper tongue, different from the tongue of every other angel, because the Apostle says, "Though I speak with the tongues of angels," not with the tongue. But it seems to follow from hence, that if angels make use of those signs and speak to one, they cannot conceal them from others; for nothing natural can practise concealment but only that which is free; but these signs are natural, imprinted on them with their nature at their creation. Whence others, with S. Thomas, think that angels speak in this way, that they direct their thoughts to another, and form a wish to make them known to him, and that then, from the meet appointment of God and their meeting, a proportionate object is formed, and that this is placed as it were within a sphere of knowledge, and becomes intelligible to him, to whom they wish to speak, and not to another, so that he and none else sees and understands this object placed as it were before his eyes; from which some conclude that angels by their nature cannot lie. But the contrary seems truer, viz., that they can lie; because angels can form in their intellect a concept that is false, and opposed to the judgment of their mind, and can direct it to the other, to whom, in this way, they speak: even as man forms a false mode of speech and one opposed to his judgment when he lies. For angels do not exhibit to the sight of others the very acts of their will in themselves, that is, the very volitions and intentions, but they form in their mind concepts of these actions, whether true or false, just as they will, and represent them to him to whom they speak. But we may leave these points to be more thoroughly disputed and settled by the Schoolmen.

The tongues of angels mentioned here are not therefore addressed to the senses, as Cajetan thinks, but to the intellect, since these tongues are the very concepts of angels, most perfect and most beautiful. The tongues of angels is certainly a prosopopœia and hyperbole, that is, it denotes a most exquisite tongue. So we say in common phrases "He speaks divinely;" by a similar hyperbole it is said "the face of an angel," that is, a most beautiful face. So Theodoret and Theophylact speak, because, as we know, angels are most beautiful in themselves, and show themselves such, both in appearance and speech, when they assume a body. So therefore Paul here, as elsewhere afterwards, speaks on a supposition by hyperbole, chiefly for the sake of emphasis. His meaning, is If there were tongues of angels surpassing the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and I knew them, but yet did not use them for the good of my neighbour, what else would it be but an empty and noisy wordiness? So Gal. i. 8; Rom. viii. 39. Paul here points at the Corinthians, who were wont to admire the gift of tongues more than other gifts.

A tinkling cymbal, giving forth an uncertain and confused sound. The Greek α̉λαλάξον is an onomatopœia, and denotes sounding "alala, alala." So Apion Grammaticus, because of his garrulity, was called "the cymbal of the world" (Suetonius, Lib. de Præclaris Grammaticis).