{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-47","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":1,"chapter_to":1,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":21,"verse_to":21},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrosiaster</b>: The world has not recognized God but has attributed divine majesty to his creatures and to the elemental powers of the universe, thinking that visible things ought to be worshiped. God has therefore chosen a form of preaching which will seem foolish to such people. Those who reject what the apostles preach will be condemned, while believers are being saved.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES</i></p><p><b>Athanasius of Alexandria</b>: Given that men had rejected the contemplation of God and were looking for him in nature and in the material world, making gods for themselves out of mortal men and demons, the loving and general Savior of all, the Word of God, took to himself a body and walked about like a man, in order to meet the senses halfway, so that those who think that God is corporeal might perceive the truth by observing what the Lord accomplishes in his body, and through him recognize the Father.<br/><i>— On the Incarnation of the Word 15</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: And if you ask the cause of their seeming wisdom, he will say, \"because of the blindness of their heart;\" since \"in the wisdom of God,\" that is, as proclaimed by the prophets, \"the world knew not,\" in the wisdom \"which spake by the prophets,\" \"Him,\" that is, God—\"it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching\"—what seemed to the Greeks foolishness—\"to save them that believe. For the Jews require signs,\" in order to faith; \"and the Greeks seek after wisdom,\" plainly those reasonings styled \"irresistible,\" and those others, namely, syllogisms.<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 1</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Paul says that the wisdom of God is teaching in conformity with the Lord, which will show that true philosophy is conveyed through the Son.<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 1</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe.\" The wisdom apparent in those works whereby it was His will to make Himself known. For to this end did he frame them, and frame them such as they are, that by a sort of proportion, from the things which are seen heaven great as it is, not only was made by Him, but made with ease; and that boundless earth, too, was brought into being even as if it had been nothing. Wherefore of the former He saith, \"The works of Thy fingers are the heavens,\" and concerning the earth, \"Who hath made the earth as it were nothing.\" Since then by this wisdom the world was unwilling to discover God, He employed what seemed to be foolishness, i.e. the Gospel, to persuade men; not by reasoning, but by faith. It remains that where God's wisdom is, there is no longer need of man's. For before, to infer that He who made the world such and so great, must in all reason be a God possessed of a certain uncontrollable, unspeakable power; and by these means to apprehend Him;-this was the part of human wisdom. But now we need no more reasonings, but faith alone. For to believe on Him that was crucified and buried, and to be fully persuaded that this Person Himself both rose again and sat down on high; this needeth not wisdom, nor reasonings, but faith. For the Apostles themselves came in not by wisdom, but by faith, and surpassed the heathen wise men in wisdom and loftiness, and that so much the more, as to raise disputings is less than to receive by faith the things of God. For this transcends all human understanding.</p><p>But how did He \"destroy wisdom?\" Being made known to us by Paul and others like him, He shewed it to be unprofitable. For towards receiving the evangelical proclamation, neither is the wise profited at all by wisdom, nor the unlearned injured at all by ignorance. But the shepherd and the rustic will more quickly receive this, once for all both repressing all doubting thoughts and delivering himself unto faith. For the matter is not of that kind; this way of knowing God being far greater than the other. You see then, faith and simplicity are needed, and this we should seek every where, and prefer it before the wisdom which is from without. For \"God,\" saith he, \"hath made wisdom foolish.\"</p><p>But what is, \"He hath made foolish?\" He hath shewn it foolish in regard of receiving the faith. For since they prided themselves on it, He lost no time in exposing it. For what sort of wisdom is it, when it cannot discover the chief of things that are good? He caused her therefore to appear foolish, after she had first convicted herself. For if when discoveries might have been made by reasoning, she proved nothing, now when things proceed on a larger scale, how will she be able to accomplish aught? now when there is need of faith alone, and not of acuteness? You see then, God hath shewn her to be foolish.</p><p>It was His good pleasure, too, by the foolishness of the Gospel to save; foolishness, I say, not real, but appearing to be such. For that which is more wonderful yet is His having prevailed by bringing in, not another such wisdom more excellent than the first, but what seemed to be foolishness. He cast out Plato for example, not by means of another philosopher of more skill, but by an unlearned fisherman. For thus the defeat became greater, and the victory more splendid.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 4</i></p><p><b>Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius</b>: Since, therefore, human wisdom has no existence (Socrates says in the writings of Plato), let us follow that which is divine, and let us give thanks to God, who has revealed and delivered it to us; and let us congratulate ourselves, that through the divine bounty we possess the truth and wisdom, which, though sought by so many intellects through so many ages, philosophy</p><p><b>Methodius of Olympus</b>: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord: the King against the tyrant; not with omnipotent power and wisdom, but with that which is accounted the foolishness<br/><i>— Methodius Oration on the Psalms</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: Although faith hath been implanted in our construction by God our Creator, yet hath it been corrupted and changed from faith to error, and after the manner of that natural wisdom which hath also been given to us in our construction we have changed it, and instead of the wisdom of God we have gathered together the wisdom of [this] world with it. And something else which is external to God through the wisdom of God have we changed, even as Paul saith, \"Through the wisdom of God the world knew not the wisdom of God.\" And thus also hath the natural faith which is in us been turned into error, and these things which have been given to us by the Creator for [our] advantage have been found by us to be a loss, for we have changed their profitable orderings, and we have made use of them in a manner other than that for which they were designed. Our faith hath believed in what is unseemly, and our wisdom hath made acquaintance with what is not befitting; for where faith was unnecessary there have we made use of faith.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 2 -- On Faith</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: \"Because, by the wisdom of God, the world knew not the wisdom of God, God willed that by the simplicity of preaching, He might make to live those that believed.\" And it is well known that the Apostles were the simplest of men, and it was for this reason Jesus chose them, that by their simplicity He might mock at the wisdom of the world, and that by their ignorance He might make manifest the emptiness of the learning of the wise and learned.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 4 -- On Faith: First Discourse on Simplicity</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: What follows will confirm this suggestion, when he asks, \"Hath not God infatuated the wisdom of this world? \" and when he adds the reason why: \"For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.\" But first a word about the expression \"the world; \" because in this passage particularly, the heretics expend a great deal of their subtlety in showing that by world is meant the lord of the world. We, however, understand the term to apply to any person that is in the world, by a simple idiom of human language, which often substitutes that which contains for that which is contained. \"The circus shouted,\" \"The forum spoke,\" and \"The basilica murmured,\" are well-known expressions, meaning that the people in these places did so. Since then the man, not the god, of the world in his wisdom knew not God, whom indeed he ought to have known (both the Jew by his knowledge of the Scriptures, and all the human race by their knowledge of God's works), therefore that God, who was not acknowledged in His wisdom, resolved to smite men's knowledge with His foolishness, by saving all those who believe in the folly of the preached cross.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: The Lord had come, of course, to save that which \"had perished; \" \"a Physician.\" necessary to \"the sick\" \"more than to the whole.\" This fact He was in the habit both of typifying in parables and preaching in direct statements. Who among men \"perishes,\" who falls from health, but he who knows not the Lord? Who is \"safe and sound,\" but he who knows the Lord? These two classes-\"brothers\" by birth-this parable also will signify. See whether the heathen have in God the Father the \"substance\" of origin, and wisdom, and natural power of Godward recognition; by means of which power the apostle withal notes that \"in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom knew not God,\" -(wisdom) which, of course, it had received originally from God.<br/><i>— On Modesty</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: Paul enumerates two or even three different kinds of wisdom here. First there is what the world calls folly, wisdom greater than the others. Then there is the wisdom given to human beings by which we reason and act, by which we develop and invent things and by which we can know God. Finally, there is a third kind of wisdom, which is found in the contemplation of the creation. The wisdom which is folly to the world is given to us by the Savior, so that people who know God by natural wisdom and who are led to him by contemplating the created order may attain the salvation which neither of these kinds of wisdom can provide and be delivered from error.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 171</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"a151b051892d2d45cd40ae775bbae701c8de60a0e42564be82d1bda8bea1b9f4","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":47,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"278a1545744d2777c79f77af0f1f41faf2b8b44f65068038c8f631165240891e","translator":null,"work":null}