And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of you: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
Read Chapter 12
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
The person who is greater in rank or dignity cannot do without those who are lower. For there are things which a humbler person can do which an exalted one cannot, just as iron can do things which gold cannot. Because of this, the feet perform an honorable function for the head. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
The church has real eyes: its teachers and leaders who see in sacred Scripture the mysteries of God… It also has hands, effective persons who are not eyes but hands. Do they plumb the mysteries of sacred Scripture? No, but they are powerful in works. The church has feet: those who make official journeys of all kinds. The foot runs that the hand may find the work it is to do. The eye does not scorn the hand, nor do these three scorn the belly as if it were idle and unemployed.
Having checked the envy of those in lower rank, and having taken off the dejection which it was likely that they would feel from greater gifts having been vouchsafed to others, he humbles also the pride of these latter who had received the greater gifts. He had done the same indeed in his discourse also with the former. For the statement that it was a gift and not an achievement was intended to declare this. But now he does it again even more vehemently, dwelling on the same image. For from the body in what follows, and from the unity thence arising, he proceeds to the actual comparison of the members, a thing on which they were especially seeking to be instructed. Since there was not so much power to console them in the circumstance of their being all one body, as in the conviction that in the very things wherewith they were endowed, they were not left greatly behind. And he says, The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you: or again the head to the feet, I have no need of y...
The greater gifts cannot do without the lesser ones, because if even the lesser ones are harmed, the body will not function properly. What is lower than the foot? Or what is more honorable or necessary than the head? But the head, however important it is, is not selfsufficient, nor can it do everything by itself. If that were so, there would be no need to have feet.
