1 Corinthians 4:7

For who maketh thee to differ from another? 1. The Greek word denotes as much the act of placing a man above others as separate him and dividing him off from them. So Theophylact paraphrases it, By whose suffrage was it that this separation and pre-eminence was given thee?" It was not of men, but of God. It is God's to make to differ and to judge, and therefore you ought not to care for man's judgment. So understood, these words hark back to ver. 4.

But it is better to understand them: Who gives you any pre-eminence over the herd of your fellow-Christians, O Corinthian catechumen? No one but yourself, who are puffed up, because you think that you have been baptized and taught by one that is a more holy, eloquent, and wise teacher than others: even so it does not follow that you share in his good qualities. It is this schismatic spirit that the Apostle has before him, as is evident from what has gone before, and as is pointed out by Ambrose, Anselm, and Theodoret.

3. But what, it seems to me, is most within the scope of the Apostle's aim, who, as I said, is addressing the teachers, is this Who, O teacher, makes you to differ from another, as to be a better teacher and a better Christian, but yourself, who vainly extol your own wisdom and eloquence above that of others, or of your followers whom you have taught, as Psaphon did his birds, to sing your praises? If you say, "It is my labour, my zeal and industry, that mark me off from others," I answer, "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?" Thy talent for labour, thy abilities, and all the natural gifts of which you boast came to you from God. Much more came from Him thy supernatural gifts; therefore to Him give all the glory. S. Ephrem (de Pænitentiâ) wisely says: "Offer to God what is not thine own, that he may give thee what is His." Hence the Council of Arausica (Can. 22) lays down that we have nothing of our own except falsehood and sin. This is the literal sense, and the Apostle's meaning.

Nevertheless, we must take notice that S. Augustine frequently, prosper, Fulgentius and the Council of Arausica (Can. 6) transfer these words of the Apostle's by parity of reasoning from the natural gifts of eloquence and wisdom, primarily referred to here, to the supernatural gifts and good works achieved by natural strength alone, as well as the labour, zeal, and industry of teachers, affect nothing for grace and holiness; and if these gifts to not warrant a man in boasting himself of his natural abilities, much less will they allow him to glory in the sphere of the supernatural, that they have made him holy, or more holy than others. This is the reason why S. Augustine refers these words to grace and predestination, in the sense that no one can separate himself from the mess of sinful human nature and make a beginning of his own salvation, by his own efforts and his own natural strength, as the Pelagians and Semi-pelagians held.

It is, then, not the powers of nature but God that separates the man justified from the man not justified; for God is the great First Cause of all the gifts that the justified has, in such a way that he has nothing to mark him off from the non-justified, save what he has received from God. He is, therefore, debarred from all boasting. This, however, does not remove the fact that all this at the same time depends for its efficacy on the free co-operation if our will. For as S. Augustine lays down, through free-will assisted by grace, he who is converted can separate himself from him that is not. He says (de Spir. et Lit. c. 34): " To yield to the call of God, or to resist it, is an act of my own will. And this not only does not weaken the force of the words, 'What hast thou that thou didst not receive?' it even strengthens them. The soul cannot receive and have the gifts spoken of here except by consenting; and through this consent what it has, and what it receives, are of God. For to receive and to have are the acts of one that receives and has. " In other words they are the acts of one that consents freely to the grace of God calling him. S. Bernard (de Grat. et lib. Arbit.) says tersely: " What God gives to our free-will can no more be given without the consent of the receiver than without the grace of the Giver."

If then it be asked: What makes a man that believes to differ from one that refuses to believe, it being understood that each received from God an equal grace of calling to faith, I should reply: He that believes does so through free-will, and not through his natural powers, as Pelagius supposed, and through the strength given him by Grace he makes himself to differ from one that believes not. For it was in his own power to assent, or not to assent, to grace, and therefore to believe or not to believe: when, then, he believes, he does so freely: he assents freely to the grace of God; he freely distinguishes himself from him that believes not.

It may be said that he can boast himself, then, of having so distinguished himself from the other. But I answer that boasting is excluded, since he should attribute the chief glory, nay, the whole to God, by whose grace he has so separated himself. The reason is that by the strength of grace alone, not by natural powers, did he perform, or have power to do, or to wish for, the act by which he separated himself. From the same source came his strength for the embracing of grace, which is not distinguishable from assent to it, and for any attempt, or movement, or inclination towards it. For in that act there is not the least ground for saying that it has been effected by the power of free-will alone; for the whole of it, as far as its substance and real modes is concerned, is of grace and all of free-will; just as every work is wholly from God as its first cause, and wholly also from its secondary cause. But from grace it has it that it is supernatural and meritorious, and thence comes all its worth; it has from free-will its freedom only. As, then, the act itself and the co-operation with them, a man can no more boast of his co-operation and election than a beggar who is offered a hundred pieces of gold can boast of his having accepted them. And all that the Apostle means is that no one can so boast himself of anything as though he had nor received it from God. Otherwise, all virtue by itself, and the virtuous man by himself, are worthy of praise and honour; but this praise and virtue must be attributed to God; for whoever converts himself and separates himself from others does so not by his own natural abilities but by the power of the grace of God.

Nor is it to be said that the Apostle's meaning is otherwise from the fact of his speaking literally, as I said before, of differences in wisdom, eloquence, and other natural gifts, which undeniably a man can acquire, or excel in by his own labours, zeal, and industry, and so make himself to differ from others less learned, and can also therefore give his own labour and zeal the credit, and boast moderately of his advancement. The Apostle is merely excluding that boasting which arises from pride and contempt of others: as if, for instance, you were to arrogantly boast that what you have is your own and came not from God. This is evidently S. Paul's meaning, from the words he adds: "Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" If, then, you accommodate this sentence to supernatural things, it only excludes, according to S. Paul's meaning, that boasting which arises from a pride despising others, attributing all to itself, and not referring everything to God and His grace as the Well-spring of all. But you do not do this if you say that by the power of God's grace you have freely distinguished and divided yourself from sinners who prefer to remain in their sin; for you then give the praise and glory first and last to God and His Grace. All the same, however, free-will has its own praise and glory, though that praise and glory, be it recollected, was received by the grace of God.

From what has been said it follows that he who is converted is to be distinguished from him who is not, and that he is converted as well by grace as by free-will. For although both have prevenient grace, which is often equally exerted on many, yet the one has as well co-operating grace, which is wanting to the other who has no wish to be converted, and by this he is freely distinguished from the other and converted. Moreover, it was foreseen that his prevenient grace would be effectual in him here and now; and because God foresaw this, He predestinated him to it, knowing that with it he would most surely co-operate and be converted: but such grace He does not give to another man who is nit converted. We are, therefore, in general to think of this as the actual cause of our conversion and salvation. For this effectual grace is peculiar to the predestinate and the elect, if only it remains with them to the end of their life, as S. Augustine says. Hence, it is clear that it id not so much free-will as grace that divides the just from the unjust: for grace effects the conversion and justification of the righteous man who does not hinder the efficacious working of grace, but freely consents to it. But grace does not do this with the unjust, because he places an opposing barrier in the way of grace in refusing to consent to it and co-operate with it, and so grace becomes in him ineffectual and vain. Wherefore S. Ephrem's advice in c. 10 of the tractate, "Look to thyself," is wise, "Have charity with all, and abstain from all." For these two, benevolence and continence, are the principal mark of holiness, which soften the most barbarous of men and bind them to themselves.