Now you are full, now you are rich, you have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Now ye are full. This Isaiah , as Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Anselm say, ironical. Ye are filled with wisdom and grace, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and so it is your boast that you are not so much Corinthians as teachers, having nothing further to learn of Christianity. You think yourselves perfect as teachers when you are scarcely disciples at all of the true and perfect wisdom. S. Chrysostom says, To be satisfied with little is the mark of a weak mind: and to think one"s self rich by a small addition of means is the mark of one that is sick and miserable; but true godliness is never satisfied."
S. Thomas notices that S. Paul here points out four kinds of pride in the Corinthians, or rather in their teachers. First, when one thinks that he has from himself and not from God whatever good he possesses: this is alluded to in the words, "Why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" In these words also is contained the second, which Isaiah , when any one attributes to hi...
Now you are satiated You great, vain preachers, you are rich in every kind, blessed with all gifts You reign over the minds of the people, without us, you stand not in need of our assistance. And I would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you. I wish your reigning and governing the people were well grounded on virtue and truth, that we might be sharers of the like happiness. St. Chrysostom takes notice, that St. Paul speaks thus, meaning the contrary, by the figure called irony: and so also St. Chrysostom understands the two following verses, as if St. Paul only represented what those vain preachers said with contempt of him, as if he were only an apostle of an inferior rank, not one of the chief, nor of the twelve. And when he says, we are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise: it is certain the apostles were not fools, nor these preachers whom he blames, wise, especially in Christ. But though the apostle partly use this figure of irony, intermixing it in his disc...
Arguments like these, which appeal to our sense of shame, have two advantages. On the one hand, they cut deeper than open invective would ever do. On the other hand, they cause the person reprimanded to bear that deeper wound with greater patience.
Already you are filled. And well says he already; pointing out, from the time, the incredibility of their statements and their unreasonable notion of themselves. It was therefore in mockery that he said to them, So quickly have you come to the end; which thing was impossible in the time: for all the more perfect things wait long in futurity: but to be full with a little betokens a feeble soul; and from a little to imagine one's self rich, a sick and miserable one. For piety is an insatiable thing; and it argues a childish mind to imagine from just the beginnings that you have obtained the whole: and for men who are not yet even in the prelude of a matter, to be high-minded as if they had laid hold of the end.
Then also by means of what follows he puts them yet more out of countenance; for having said, Already you are full, he added, you have become rich, you have reigned without us: yea and I would to God you reigned, that we also might reign with you. Full of great austerity is the...
Again, of how open censure (does) the free expression (find utterance), how manifest the edge of the spiritual sword, (in words like these): "Ye are already enriched! ye are already satiated! ye are already reigning!".
For, by this time, in this respect as well as others, "you are reigning in wealth and satiety"
