Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place;
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 4:11 Go To 1 Corinthians 4
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Even unto this present hour we . . . have no certain dwelling-place. This remarkable description of the Apostle"s life is very like that contained in the Second Epistle (xi23), which those that are called to the ministry ought to put before them as an example, as the Apostolic men of great zeal do in England, Holland, India, and Japan.
S. Chrysostom (Hom52on Acts of the Apostles) says excellently on the words of xxvi29: "Such is the soul that is raised on high by celestial love that it thinks itself a prisoner for Christ because of the greatness of the promised glory. For as one in love has no eyes for any save her he loves, who is to him everything, so he who has been laid hold of by Christ"s fire becomes like one who should be living alone on the earth, caring nothing for glory and shame. For he so utterly despises temptations and scourgings and imprisonment that it is as though another body endured them, or as though he possessed a body made of granite. For he laughs at those things which are pleasant in this life; he does not feel their force as we do; his body is to him as the body of one dead. So far is he from being taken captive by any passion, as gold that has been purified in the fire is from showing any stain. All this is effected by the love of man for God, when it is great." But we do not attain this height because we are cold, and ignorant of this Divine philosophy. The philosopher Diogenes saw this, though but darkly and afar off, for then he was asked what men were the noblest, he replied, " They that despise riches and glory and pleasure and life; they that draw their force from the opposite things to these, from poverty, obscurity, hunger, thirst, toil and death." Diogenes saw this, but could not practise it, for he was himself a slave to vain-glory.
