1 Corinthians 11:19

For there must be also heresies among you, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you.

Verse 18 Read Chapter 11 Verse 20

Ambrosiaster

AD 400

Paul did not want heresies or choose them, but he foresaw the future and knew that they would come. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

People become heretics, even though they would still have held wrong opinions if they had remained within the church. Now that they are outside, they do us more good, not by teaching the truth, for they do not know it, but by provoking carnal Christians to seek the truth and spiritual Christians to expound it. In the church there are innumerable people who are approved by God, but they do not become manifest among us as long as we are content with the darkness of our ignorance and prefer to sleep rather than to behold the light of truth.

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Clement Of Alexandria

AD 215

Further, it is said that it is on account of "those that are approved that heresies exist."

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Cyprian of Carthage

AD 258

In this way the faithful are approved and the faithless are detected.

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Cyprian of Carthage

AD 258

The Holy Spirit forewarns and says by the apostle, "It is needful also that there should be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.". In the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: "Heresies must needs be, in order that they which are approved may be made manifest among you."

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

There must be also heresies: By reason of the pride and perversity of man's heart; not by God's will or appointment; who nevertheless draws good out of this evil, manifesting, by that occasion, who are the good and firm Christians, and making their faith more remarkable. (Challoner) Not that God hath directly so appointed, as necessary: this originates in man's malice, and his sole pride, and great abuse of free-will. The providence of God draweth good out of evil, but wo to the man, says the Scripture, by whom scandal cometh, such as sects and heresies. Hence St. Augustine, chap. viii. de vera relig. says: "Let us use heretics not so as to approve their errors, but to make us more wary and vigilant, and more strenuous in defending Catholic doctrine against their deceits."

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Hippolytus of Rome

AD 235

, to furnish an account and refutation of those heresies that have sprung up in our own day, by which certain ignorant and presumptuous men have attempted to scatter abroad the Church, and have introduced the greatest confusion

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

In speaking here of factions, Paul did not have doctrinal heresies in mind, though it would apply to them as well. Christ himself said that occasions of stumbling would have to come (Mt :). He did not thereby destroy man’s free will or decree any necessity or compulsion over human life, but he foretold what would be the inevitable result of the evil in the human mind. Divisions did not come about because Christ foretold them; rather he foretold them because they were inevitable.

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

By factions, here he means those which concern not the doctrines, but these present divisions. But even if he had spoken of the doctrinal heresies, not even thus did he give them any handle. For Christ Himself said, it must needs be that occasions of stumbling come, Matthew 18:7 not destroying the liberty of the will nor appointing any necessity and compulsion over man's life, but foretelling what would certainly ensue from the evil mind of men; which would take place, not because of his prediction, but because the incurably disposed are so minded. For not because he foretold them did these things happen: but because they were certainly about to happen, therefore he foretold them. Since, if the occasions of stumbling were of necessity and not of the mind of them that bring them in, it was superfluous His saying, Woe to that man by whom the occasion comes. But these things we discussed more at length when we were upon the passage itself ; now we must proceed to what is before us. Now... Read More

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Justin Martyr

AD 165

And, `There shall be schisms and heresies.'

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Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius

AD 320

Before all things, it is befitting that we should know both that He Himself and His ambassadors foretold that there must be numerous sects and heresies,

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Severian of Gabala

AD 425

Paul is not talking here about doctrinal error but about moral failures. .

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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220

Nor the fact that they subvert the faith of some, for their final cause is, by affording a trial to faith, to give it also the opportunity of being "approved.". And therefore "heresies must needs be in order that they which are approved might be made manifest. Now, that which he subjoins to evil things, he of course confesses to be itself an evil; and all the greater, indeed, because he tells us that his belief of their schisms and dissensions was grounded on his knowledge that "there must be heresies also.". necessary that there should be heresies;. that the very Scriptures were even arranged by the will of God in such a manner as to furnish materials for heretics, inasmuch as I read that "there must be heresies. Now if there are no heresies at all but what those who refute them are supposed to have fabricated, then the apostle who predicted them. Now it is no matter of surprise if arguments are captiously taken from the writings of (the apostle) himself, inasmuch as there "must needs... Read More

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Vincent of Lérins

AD 445

It is as if the apostle meant that the authors of heresies are not instantly rooted out by God, in order to make manifest those who are approved, that is, in order to make evident to what degree each one is a steadfast, faithful and firm lover of the orthodox faith.

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