And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one untimely born.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 15:8 Go To 1 Corinthians 15
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And last of all Ale was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. Born out of due time Isaiah , (1.) according to Theophylact and Theodoret, contemptible and despised, because young that come too soon to the birth are generally imperfectly formed, thin, and undersized. (2.) According to Ambrose and Chrysostom it is untimely; that Isaiah , after Christ had ascended into heaven, Paul was born in Christ and received his Apostleship. (3.) According to Anselm he thus calls himself, because he was struck to the earth by Divine power, compelled, and violently born again: untimely young are forced into the world by the violence of nature. (4.) Or, as S. Anselm again remarks, such births are of young half-dead, and they are often born blind. So S. Paul was smitten with blindness at his conversion. (5.) S. Paul was expelled from the womb of his mother, the people of the Jews, and was sent, not to his fellow-countrymen, but to the Gentiles outside. (6.) Baronius (Annals, A.D44) thinks that Paul was so called as an Apostle, because he was made an Apostle in addition to the twelve; for the Senators at Rome, he says, were so called, when they were co-opted into the Senate, in addition to the fixed number; but it cannot be said that S. Paul alludes to this, for he is writing in Greek to the Greeks, not to Romans.
It appears from this verse that Christ appeared to Paul, not by an angel, as Haymo thinks (Comment. on Apocalypse, c. ii.), but in person; not in a vision, as He appeared to him in Acts xxii18 , nor in a trance, as is recorded in2Cor. xii2 , but in the air in bodily form; for it was in this way that Christ appeared to Cephas, James , and the other Apostles; moreover, if it were any other kind of appearance it would be no proof of the resurrection of Christ. The appearance of Christ alluded to here is the one at Paul"s conversion (Acts ix3), when he saw Christ before the bright light blinded him.
Hence it further appears that Christ then descended from heaven, for, as S. Thomas and others say, S. Paul heard the voice of Christ speaking in the air. Whence it follows again that Christ was then in two places, in the empyrean and in our atmosphere, close to Paul; for, according to Acts iii21 , Christ has never left the highest heaven to which He ascended. If Christ was then in two places, why cannot He be at once in heaven and in the Eucharist?
Hegesippus (Excid. Hierosol. lib, iii. c2) and others say that Christ appeared in the same way to S. Peter at Rome, when He called him back as he was flying from martyrdom with the words, "I go to be crucified again."
