If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what is the gain to me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 15:32 Go To 1 Corinthians 15
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
If after the manner of men. (1.) According to Photius, as far as man could; (2.) better, with human hope only, human courage, enterprise, love of glory, by which men are for the most part driven to face dangers. (3.) Others explain it as meaning, "I speak after the manner of men," who readily dwell on their fights and conflicts.
I have fought with beasts at Ephesus. Theophylact, Anselm, Primasius, and Baronius think that "beasts" refers to Demetrius and his savage companions, who fought fiercely and like beasts against Paul in defence of Diana (Acts xix.). We may then translate it. "If I have fought against a man who was as a beast." So Paul calls Nero a lion ( 2 Timothy 4:17). Such men too are called bulls ( Psalm 68:30); and S. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Romans , says: "I fight daily with beasts," i.e, with the soldiers guarding him.
But Chrysostom, Ambrose, and others think that Paul was actually thrown to the beasts at Ephesus and fought with them; for this is the strict meaning of the Greek, and, moreover, that contest with Demetrius at Ephesus took place after this Epistle was written, for after that outbreak, Demetrius and his followers, by their violence, forced Paul to leave Ephesus at once, so that he had no time to write this letter at Ephesus; therefore it was written before. It is pretty certain, as Baronius holds, that it was about that time that this letter was written at Ephesus. The fight with beasts, here spoken of, was not the one with Demetrius, which had not yet taken place, but an earlier one.
It may be said, it is remarkable that S. Luke should have said nothing in the Acts of so important an incident and so fearful a fight. But it is clear that S. Luke passed over things of no less moment, as, e.g, those related by S. Paul himself in 2 Corinthians 11:25: "Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck," &c. Hence Nicephorus (Hist. lib. ii. c25) relates, on the authority of tradition apparently, that this fight of S. Paul"s was a literal fight with beasts.
Gagneius says that the Greek means, not only to fight against beasts, but to fight against them to extremities, even for life. He turns it: "For the defence of the Gospel I was thrown to beasts, and fought with them to the last breath, and by the help of God I overcame them, and slew them not with weapons or fists but with faith and prayer, or I fled from them and escaped them."
Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die. S. Paul is quoting Isaiah 22:13. Those who deny the resurrection or who do not believe it are not far from the position of the wicked in Isaiah; for if there is no resurrection it will be lawful to join with the Epicureans in saying, "Eat, play, drink: there is no pleasure after death."
