1 Corinthians 4:8
You are now full; you are now become rich; you reign without us; and I would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Jam saturati estis, jam divites facti estis : sine nobis regnatis : et utinam regnetis, ut et nos vobiscum regnemus.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Ἤδη κεκορεσμένοι ἐστέ, ἤδη ἐπλουτήσατε, χωρὶς ἡμῶν ἐβασιλεύσατε· καὶ ὄφελόν γε ἐβασιλεύσατε, ἵνα καὶ ἡμεῖς ὑμῖν συμβασιλεύσωμεν.
Haydock's commentary
Now you are satiated, &c. You great, vain preachers, you are rich in every kind, blessed with all gifts, &c. You reign over the minds of the people, without us, you stand not in need of our assistance. And I would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you. I wish your reigning and governing the people were well grounded on virtue and truth, that we might be sharers of the like happiness. St. Chrysostom takes notice, that St. Paul speaks thus, meaning the contrary, by the figure called irony: and so also St. Chrysostom understands the two following verses, as if St. Paul only represented what those vain preachers said with contempt of him, as if he were only an apostle of an inferior rank, not one of the chief, nor of the twelve. And when he says, we are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise: it is certain the apostles were not fools, nor these preachers whom he blames, wise, especially in Christ. But though the apostle partly use this figure of irony, intermixing it in his discourse, yet he also represents the condition of all true apostles, and preachers of Christ crucified, whose persons and doctrine were slighted, ridiculed, and laughed at by men that were wise only with worldly wisdom, especially by profane libertines, and atheistical men, that make a jest of all revealed religion. To go about preaching in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, in want, under afflictions and persecutions, is what they think is to be miserable: they despise such men as the out-cast, the dross,1 and the dregs of mankind. (See the Greek text.) (Witham)
Read on
He speaks to the Corinthians, who forgetting their first fervour, and the Christian modesty which St. Paul had taught them, both by word and example, were endeavouring to distinguish themselves by the reputation and honour of the apostle, who had converted them, by their antiquity of faith, and by other things more frivolous. (Calmet)
1 Tanquam purgamenta, omnium peripsema, os perikatharmata, Sordes, quisquiliæ, panton peripsema, Scobes, ramentum. See Mr. Legh, Crit. Sacra.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian On Fasting, Chapter XII
For, by this time, in this respect as well as others, “you are reigning in wealth and satiety”, not making inroads upon such sins as fasts diminish, nor feeling need of such revelations as xerophagies extort, nor apprehending such wars of your own as Stations dispel. Grant that from the time of John the Paraclete had grown mute; we ourselves would have arisen as prophets to ourselves, for this cause chiefly: I say not now to bring down by our prayers God’s anger, nor to obtain his protection or grace; but to secure by premunition the moral position of the “latest times;” enjoining every species of ταπεινοφρόνησις , since the prison must be familiarized to us, and hunger and thirst practised, and capacity of enduring as well the absence of food as anxiety about it acquired: in order that the Christian may enter into prison in like condition as if he had (just) come forth of it, to suffer …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Argument
[2.] The devil, therefore, seeing that a great and populous city had laid hold of the truth, a city admired for wealth and wisdom, and the head of Greece; (for Athens and Lacedæmon were then and since in a miserable state, the dominion having long ago fallen away from them;) and seeing that with great readiness they had received the word of God; what doth he? He divides the men. For he knew that even the strongest kingdom of all, divided against itself, shall not stand. He had a vantage ground too, for this device in the wealth, the wisdom of the inhabitants. Hence certain men, having made parties of their own, and having become self-elected made themselves leaders of the people, and some sided with these, and some with those; with one sort, as being rich; with another, as wise and able to teach something out of the common. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XII
Ver. 8 . “Already ye are filled, already ye are rich:” that is, ye want nothing henceforth; ye are become perfect; ye have attained the very summit; ye stand, as ye think, in need of no one, either among Apostles or teachers. “Already ye are filled.” And well saith he “already;” pointing out, from the time, the incredibility of their statements and their unreasonable notion of themselves. It was therefore in mockery that he said to them, “So quickly have ye come to the end;” which thing was impossible in the time: for all the more perfect things wait long in futurity: but to be “full” with a little betokens a feeble soul; and from a little to imagine one’s self “rich,” a sick and miserable one. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XXIII
“If ye receive a different Spirit, if a different Gospel which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear” with him. What sayest thou? Thou that saidst to the Galatians, “If any preach another Gospel to you than that ye have received, let him be anathema;” dost thou now say, “ye do well to bear” with him? And yet on this account it were meet not to bear with, but to recoil, from them; but if they say the same things, it is meet to bear with them. How then dost thou say, ‘because they say the same things, it is not meet to bear with them?’ for he says, ‘if they said other things, it were meet to bear with them.’ Let us then give good heed, for the danger is great, and the precipice deep, if men run past this carelessly; and what is here said giveth an entrance to all the heresies. …
Theodoret The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, Synodical letter from the council at Constantinople
“So, as we have already said, we needs must labour all the longer. Since however you showed your brotherly love to us by inviting us (as though we were your own members) by the letters of our most religious emperor to the synod which you are gathering by divine permission at Rome, to the end that since we alone were then condemned to suffer persecution, you should not now, when our emperors are at one with us as to true religion, reign apart from us, but that we, to use the apostle’s phrase, should reign with you, our prayer was, if it were possible, all in company to leave our churches, and rather gratify our longing to see you than consult their needs. …
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book III
13. And whereas you think he is blessed who is undefiled in the way, and walks in His law, you must interpret the former clause by the latter. From the many proofs I have adduced you have learnt that no one has been able to fulfil the law. And if the Apostle, in comparison with the grace of Christ, reckoned those things as filth which formerly, under the law, he counted gain, so that he might win Christ, how much more certain ought we to be that the reason why the grace of Christ and of the Gospel has been added is that, under the law, no one could be justified? Now if, under the law, no one is justified, how is he perfectly undefiled in the way who is still walking and hastening to reach the goal? Surely, he who is in the course, and who is advancing on the road, is inferior to him who has reached his journey’s end. …