{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-295","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":6,"verse_to":6},"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 mature are those who preach the cross as wisdom because of the witness of Christ's power at work. They know that actions speak louder than words. Their wisdom is not of this age but of the age to come, when the truth of God will be manifested to those who now deny it.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Expressly then respecting all our Scripture, as if spoken in a parable, it is written in the Psalms, \"Hear, O My people, My law: incline your ear to the words of My mouth. I will open My mouth in parables, I will utter My problems from the beginning.\" Similarly speaks the noble apostle to the following effect: \"Howbeit we speak wisdom among those that are perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought. But we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery; which none of the princes of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 5</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Akin to this is what the holy Apostle Paul says, preserving the prophetic and truly ancient secret from which the teachings that were good were derived by the Greeks: \"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them who are perfect; but not the wisdom of this world, or of the princes of this world, that come to nought; but we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery.\" Then proceeding, he thus inculcates the caution against the divulging of his words to the multitude...<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 5</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: And was it not this which the prophet meant, when he ordered unleavened cakes to be made, intimating that the truly sacred mystic word, respecting the unbegotten and His powers, ought to be concealed? In confirmation of these things, in the Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle plainly says: \"Howbeit we speak wisdom among those who are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, or of the princes of this world, that come to nought. But we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery.\" And again in another place he says: \"To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God in Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.\" These things the Saviour Himself seals when He says: \"To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.\" And again the Gospel says that the Saviour spake to the apostles the word in a mystery. For prophecy says of Him: \"He will open His mouth in parables, and will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 5</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but vivâ voce: wherefore also Paul declared, \"But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world.\" [1 Corinthians 2:6] And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself.<br/><i>— Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 2)</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus ((Reporting Valentinian Views))</b>: They also assert that by Anna, who is spoken of in the gospel [Luke 2:36] as a prophetess, and who, after living seven years with her husband, passed all the rest of her life in widowhood until she saw the Saviour, and recognised Him, and spoke of Him to all, was most plainly indicated Achamoth, who, having for a little while looked upon the Saviour with His associates, and dwelling all the rest of the time in the intermediate place, waited for Him till He should come again, and restore her to her proper consort. Her name, too, was indicated by the Saviour, when He said, \"Yet wisdom is justified by her children.\" [Luke 7:35] This, too, was done by Paul in these words, \"But we speak wisdom among them that are perfect.\" [1 Corinthians 2:6]<br/><i>— Against Heresies (Book I, Chapter 8)</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: Now God shall be glorified in His handiwork, fitting it so as to be conformable to, and modelled after, His own Son. For by the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, was made in the likeness of God. Now the soul and the spirit are certainly a part of the man, but certainly not the man; for the perfect man consists in the commingling and the union of the soul receiving the spirit of the Father, and the admixture of that fleshly nature which was moulded after the image of God. For this reason does the apostle declare, \"We speak wisdom among them that are perfect,\" [1 Corinthians 2:6] terming those persons \"perfect\" who have received the Spirit of God, and who through the Spirit of God do speak in all languages, as he used Himself also to speak. In like manner we do also hear many brethren in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages, and bring to light for the general benefit the hidden things of men, and declare the mysteries of God, whom also the apostle terms \"spiritual,\" they being spiritual because they partake of the Spirit, and not because their flesh has been stripped off and taken away, and because they have become purely spiritual. For if any one take away the substance of flesh, that is, of the handiwork [of God], and understand that which is purely spiritual, such then would not be a spiritual man but would be the spirit of a man, or the Spirit of God. But when the spirit here blended with the soul is united to [God's] handiwork, the man is rendered spiritual and perfect because of the outpouring of the Spirit, and this is he who was made in the image and likeness of God. But if the Spirit be wanting to the soul, he who is such is indeed of an animal nature, and being left carnal, shall be an imperfect being, possessing indeed the image [of God] in his formation (in plasmate), but not receiving the similitude through the Spirit; and thus is this being imperfect.<br/><i>— Against Heresies (Book V, Chapter 6)</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: [Daniel 10:13] \"But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for twenty-one days.\" In my opinion this was the angel to whose charge Persia was committed, in accordance with what we read in Deuteronomy: \"When the Most High divided the nations and distributed the children of Adam abroad, then He established the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God\" (Deuteronomy 32:8). These are the princes of whom Paul also says: \"We speak forth among the perfect a wisdom which none of the princes of this world knew. For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory\" (1 Corinthians 2:6-8). And so the prince or angel of the Persians offered resistance, acting on behalf of the province entrusted to him, in order that the entire captive nation might not be released. And it may well be that although the prophet was graciously heard by God from the day when he set his heart to understand, the angel was nevertheless not sent to proclaim to him God's gracious decision, for the reason that the prince of Persia opposed him for twenty-one days, enumerating the sins of the Jewish people as a ground for their justly being kept in captivity and as proof that they ought not to be released.<br/><i>— St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER TEN</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect:\" for when I, accounted foolish and a preacher of follies, get the better of the wise, I overcome wisdom, not by foolishness but by a more perfect wisdom; a wisdom, too, so ample and so much greater, that the other appears foolishness. Wherefore having before called it by a name such as they named it at that time, and having both proved his victory from the facts, and shewn the extreme foolishness of the other side: he thenceforth bestows upon it its right name, saying, \"Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect.\" \"Wisdom\" is the name he gives to the Gospel, to the method of salvation, the being saved by the Cross. \"The perfect,\" are those who believe. For indeed they are \"perfect,\" who know all human things to be utterly helpless, and who overlook them from the conviction that by such they are profited nothing: such were the true believers.</p><p>\"But not a wisdom of this world.\" For where is the use of the wisdom which is without, terminating here and proceeding no further, and not even here able to profit its possessors?</p><p>Now by the \"rulers of the world,\" here, he means not certain demons, as some suspect, but those in authority, those in power, those who esteem the thing worth contending about, philosophers, rhetoricians and writers of speeches. For these were the dominant sort and often became leaders of the people.</p><p>\"Rulers of the world\" he calls them, because beyond the present world their dominion extends not. Wherefore, he adds further, \"which are coming to nought;\" disparaging it both on its own account, and from those who wield it. For having shewn that it is false, that it is foolish, that it can discover nothing, that it is weak, he shews moreover that it is but of short duration.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 7</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: Look also in another Scripture, and you will find that it was Christ's will that the devil should not know the coming of the Son of God. For the Apostle, affirming that the opposing powers did not know his passion, says: \"we speak wisdom among the perfect, yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the princes of this world, who are brought to nothing; but we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which none of the princes of this world knew. For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory\". The mystery of the Savior, therefore, was hidden from the princes of this world.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF Luke 6</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: When Paul talks about the wisdom of the rulers of this world he seems to be talking not about one wisdom common to them all but about different kinds of wisdom which are peculiar to each.<br/><i>— ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.3.1</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: And in teaching that not every man is able to be a hearer and a receiver of that wisdom which he had, Paul crieth out, saying, \"We speak wisdom among the perfect: not the wisdom of this world nor that of the rulers of this world, which are brought to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which none of the wise men of the world hath been able to hear.\" The wisdom of this world is not sufficient for a foundation, nor is it able to receive the building of the wisdom of God, and for this reason our Lord placed simplicity in us for a foundation.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 4 -- On Faith: First Discourse on Simplicity</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: By all these statements, therefore, does he show us what God he means, when he says, \"We speak the wisdom of God among them that are perfect.\" It is that God who has confounded the wisdom of the wise, who has brought to nought the understanding of the prudent, who has reduced to folly the world's wisdom, by choosing its foolish things, and disposing them to the attainment of salvation.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: When this Mantle itself, arranged with more rigorous care, and sandals after the Greek model, serve to flatter Aesculapius, how much more should you then accuse and assail it with your eyes, as being guilty of superstition-albeit superstition simple and unaffected? Certainly, when first it clothes this wisdom which renounces superstitions with all their vanities, then most assuredly is the Mantle, above all the garments in which you array your gods and goddesses, an august robe; and, above all the caps and tufts of your Salii and Flamines, a sacerdotal attire.<br/><i>— On the Pallium</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: And accordingly the Jew at the present day, no less than the younger son, having squandered God's substance, is a beggar in alien territory, serving even until now its princes, that is, the princes of this world. Seek, therefore, the Christians some other as their brother; for the Jew the parable does not admit.<br/><i>— On Modesty</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"f9f1b4c337509b7b49f16cf6eb48b04ec36134a105791ee26af677567d8c2dbf","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":295,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"07e2892b3fefd3ab81a845e54189b4ad87344b0e06ead9b09bd3762fa3dcc326","translator":null,"work":null}