But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 2:9 Go To 1 Corinthians 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But, as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. After "but" there is an ecthlipsis, and we must supply, "this wisdom and the glory which was its end were hidden from them," as it is written, &c. He then quotes Isaiah 64:4.
1. Isaiah , in the passage quoted, is speaking of the Incarnation of Christ and of this present life. And hence Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theophylact, Å’cumenius take this verse of the miracles of Christ, and of the Wisdom of Solomon , virtues, and grace which Christ by living here on earth has imparted to us.
2. It is more agreeable to the context to say that Isaiah seems to fly away in admiration from the Incarnation and manhood of Christ to the celestial glory, which is the fruit and end of the Incarnation of Christ; for such flights and sudden changes are common with the Prophets, because of the sublime and ample light if prophecy which they enjoyed.
This appears from the words used; as, e.g, "Him that waiteth for him," and "Thou meetest him that worketh righteousness." He is speaking then of the fruit of the works of the just, viz, the eternal life which we wait for; for the fruit of the Incarnation and faith does not meet them that work righteousness, but those that are sitting in darkness and sin. So says S. Jerome (in Isa. lxiv.), S. Dionysius (De Clest. Hierarch12), and Vasquez, in the passage above quoted. Hence S. Bernard (Serm4on the Vigil of the Nativity) says: "Eye hath not seen that unapproachable light, ear hath not heard that incomprehensible peace . . . And why is it that it has not ascended into the heart of man? Surely because it is a spring and cannot ascend. For we know that the nature of springs is to seek the rivers in the valleys, and to shun the tops of the mountains; for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."
S. Augustine, in his "Meditations," ch22et seqq, and "Soliloquies," ch35,36 , discourses most beautifully about the greatness of this bliss. The author too of the book on "The Spirit and the Soul" (which is found in vol. iii. ch36 of S. Augustine"s works), very appropriately says on this passage of the Apostle: "As the outward man is affected by temporal things through his five senses, so the inward Prayer of Manasseh , in the life of bliss, is affected by the five ineffable attributes of God through his ineffable love for Him. For when he shall love his God, He will know him as a certain light, a voice, a sweet odour, a food, and an inward embrace. For there shines the light which no place can contain; there sounds the music which no time steals away; there is the sweet odour which no wind can scatter; there is the food which is eaten and yet undiminished; there clings to us the good which knows no satiety; there is God seen without intermission, known without error, loved without disgust, and praised without wearying."
These words of the Apostle were once the occasion of the conversion of S. Adrian, and made him a martyr. He was a soldier and in the flower of his age, viz, twenty eight yeas old, and when he beheld the constancy of the Christian martyrs in the tortures they had to endure for the faith of Christ, he asked them what they expected in return for such sufferings, what enabled them to overcome such tortures. They replied, "We hope for those good things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of Prayer of Manasseh , which God hath prepared for them that love Him." By these words Adrian was touched and converted, and he hastened to get himself enrolled in the list of martyrs, and eagerly bore a cruel death at Nicomedia, with his wife Natalia looking on and encouraging him. This was A.D306 , under Diocletian.
3. The meaning of this passage will be complete if you combine the two interpretations given above thus: Those good things which Thou, God, through Christ, hast prepared for them that wait for Thee, surpass all our senses, experience, natural understanding, and all human desire, not only in this life in the case of those who have already caught some sounds of Thee, but also chiefly and most properly in the future glory. There will God, who is Himself all that good Isaiah , give Himself to the blessed, and will be as all in all, as Anselm says. For by these words of Isaiah , the Apostle proves what he has said, viz, that the wisdom as well as the glory of Christ was secret and hidden, as we saw above.
Neither have entered into the heart of man. Has not come into the mind of man: no man can by nature think of or understand them. The heart with the Hebrews stands for the mind. For what the heart is to the body—its chief and noblest part, the source and principle of life—that is the mind to the soul. Moreover, the heart supplies the brain with its vigour, and so is a kind of handmaid to the imagination and consequently the understanding. Hence Aristotle, though against Galen and all other physicians, placed the apprehension of external objects not in the brain but in the heart. He distinguished the vital organs of man by their functions on these verses:
"The heart gives Wisdom of Solomon , the lung speech, and anger comes from the bile,
The spleen is the cause of laughter, and live comes from the liver."
Where Isaiah has "them that wait for Thee," S. Paul has "them that love Thee." The sense is the same, for love is one cause of expectation.
