Brethren, be not children in understanding: but in malice be children, but in understanding be men.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul wants them to be mature intellectually so they will grasp accurately what is needed for the upbuilding of the church. In this way they will leave behind malice and errors, striving instead for the things which are conducive to the good of the brotherhood. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
With the greatest clearness the blessed Paul has solved for us this question in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writing thus: "Brethren, be not children in understanding; howbeit in malice be children, but in understanding be men."
Brethren, be not children in understanding. Understanding here is not the same word in the Greek as in the preceding verse: It can, with Chrysostom and Ephrem, be rendered "mind."—Do not become children in mind, judgment, and reason, so as to display your gift of tongues as children might.
Howbeit in malice be ye children. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Ephrem render this: "Let malice be as unknown to you as to infants." Song of Solomon , too, S. Augustine (qu. lxi. lib73) says: "Be, like infants, free from malice." As "infant" is derived from in, "not," and fans, "speaking," and as a child who cannot speak knows still less of malice or anything else, so too the Christian is to be an infant in evil, not to know it nor to be able to speak of it, e.g, not to know what emulation, defilement, fornication are. So Theophylact following S. Chrysostom. Tertullian (contra Valent. lib. ii.) beautifully says: "The Apostle bids us after God be children again, that we may be infants in malice throug...
Tongues are for a sign, not to believers, but to unbelievers, according to what the law (under which he comprehends the prophet Isaias, xxviii. 11.) said: In other tongues, and other lips, I will speak to this people: and neither so will they hear me. St. Paul here gives the sense, rather than the words of the prophet, and expounds them of what happened particularly on the day of Pentecost, when the miraculous gift of tongues was designed to strike the unbelieving people with admiration, and to bring them afterwards to the true faith: but when he adds, that tongues are not for the believers, and that prophecies are not for the unbelievers, he cannot mean that tongues, used with discretion, may not also be profitable to believers, or that prophecies and instructions may not also be profitable to unbelievers, as well as to the believers; for this would be to contradict what he teaches in this chapter, and particularly (ver. 24.) where he says, that by prophecy the infidel is convinced St...
But who are they that are saved now, and receive life eternal? Is it not those who love God, and who believe His promises, and who "in malice have become as little children? "
As might be expected, after his long argument and demonstration he adopts a more vehement style and abundance of rebuke; and mentions an example suited to the subject. For children too are wont to gape after trifles and to be fluttered, but of things very great they have not so much admiration. Since then these also having the gift of tongues, which was the lowest of all, thought they had the whole; therefore he says, Be not children, i.e., be not without understanding where ye ought to be considerate, but there be ye childlike and simple, where unrighteousness is, where vain-glory, where pride. For he that is a babe in wickedness ought also to be wise. Since as wisdom with wickedness would not be wisdom, so also simplicity with folly would not be simplicity, it being requisite both in simplicity to avoid folly, and in wisdom wickedness. For as neither bitter nor sweet medicines in excess do good, so neither does simplicity by itself, nor wisdom: and this is why Christ enjoining us to ...
