1 Corinthians 3:1-23

CHAPTER III.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER

He endeavours to put an end to the divisions among the Corinthians, by reminding them of their mutual subjection and union in Christ and God.

i. He points out that Paul and Apollos are but ministers of Christ (vers. 1 9).

ii. He reminds them that Christ is the foundation of the Church: let each one, therefore, take heed what he builds on that foundation; for if it is only hay and stubble he will be saved indeed, but as by fire (vers. 10 15).

iii. He tells them that they are the temple of God, and bids them beware how they break in pieces or violate that temple (vers. 16 20).

iv. He forbids party strife (vers. 21 23). Vers. 1, 2. As babes in Christ I have fed you with milk and not with meat. In the preceding chapter the Apostle, to support his own authority, and to remove from the minds of the Corinthians the false opinion that they had about his ignorance and lack of speaking powers, said that he spoke wisdom among them that were perfect: hidden wisdom which the eye had not seen, nor the ear heard, but which God had revealed. Now, anticipating an objection, he gives the reason why he had not displayed this wisdom to the Corinthians, and transfers the blame from himself to them. It was because they were like children and carnal, not yet capable of receiving such wisdom, and to be fed, therefore, not with meat but with milk.

Notice that the Apostle designates as milk that easier, pleasanter, and more teaching about the Manhood of Christ, His grace and redemption, which befits catechumens recently converted and still carnal. He calls "meat," or solid food, the more perfect and robust teaching about the deeper mysteries, such as about God, about the Spirit of God and spiritual things, about the wisdom, power, and love of the Cross. So say Ambrose, Theophylact, S. Thomas. S. Anselm moralises thus: " The same Christ is milk to man through the Incarnation; solid food to an angel through His Divinity. The same Christ crucified again, the same lection, the same sermon is taken by carnal men as milk, by spiritual as solid food."

S. Paul is here alluding, as his custom is, to Isa. xxviii. 9, and to Isa. Leviticus 1. In this connection notice that what Isaiah calls "meat," which represents the full spiritual wisdom of the perfect, as milk signifies the discipline of children and of the imperfect. Hence, in former times wine and milk were given to the newly baptized, when they had been clad with the white robes, and this custom, as S. Jerome says in his commentary on Isaiah, is still kept up in the churches of the West. In other places honey and milk were given, as Tertullian testifies (contra Marcion lib. i. c. 14), to denote (1.) their infancy and innocence in Christ, milk being a symbol of both. Hence Homer calls men that are innocent and just "feeders on milk," as Clemens Alexandrinus says (Pædag. lib. i. c. 6). (2.) To denote their likeness to Christ, of whom Isaiah sang (Isa 7:15), "Butter and honey shall we eat." (3.) To symbolise the infantine gentleness, humility, and meekness of the Christian life. Hence it was that at the first sacrifice of the Mass, which the newly baptized heard at Easter, viz., on Low Sunday, there was read as the Epistle that portion of S. Peter's Epistle in which occur the words, "As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word." Hence S. Agnes, on the authority of S. Ambrose (Serm. 90), used to say, "Milk and honey have I received from His mouth," Clement (Pædag. lib. i.c. 6) discourses at length about this milk.