And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone;
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
This means that the household of God is built upon both the old and the new covenants. For what the apostles preached had been foretold by the prophets. In his words to the Corinthians, that “God placed in the church first apostles then prophets,” he is concerned with the order of the church. But in this case he is speaking of the foundation in the prophets of old.
Jesus Christ and his teachings are the foundation for the apostles. The edifice built on this foundation consists in life and character and one’s conduct and discipline. The primary foundation is for life; the rest of the edifice is for its adornment and edification. The primary foundation, I say, is to believe in Christ, hope in him and trust in God. This foundation is the teaching of the apostles, which is also heard in the word of the prophets. Note the order of this distinction, first apostles and then prophets. The apostles beheld [God incarnate]; the prophets received the Spirit. These are the saints mentioned above: those who saw and those who were inhabited by the Spirit. Hence the teachings of the apostles and prophets are indeed the teachings of Christ, which proclaim the foundation of all eternal hope. .
Observe how he blends all together, the Gentiles, the Jews, the Apostles, the Prophets, and Christ, and illustrates the union sometimes from the body, and sometimes from the building: built, says he, upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets; that is, the Apostles and Prophets are a foundation, and he places the Apostles first, though they are in order of time last, doubtless to represent and express this, that both the one and the other are alike a foundation, and that the whole is one building, and that there is one root. Consider, that the Gentiles have the Patriarchs as a foundation. He here speaks more strongly of that point than he does when he speaks of a grafting in. There he rather attaches them on. Then he adds, that He who binds the whole together in Christ. For the chief corner-stone binds together both the walls, and the foundations.
""And the stones, sir "I said, "which were taken out of the pit and fitted into the building: what are they? ""The first "he said, "the ten, viz, that were placed as a foundation, are the first generation, and the twenty-five the second generation, of righteous men; and the thirty-five are the prophets of God and His ministers; and the forty are the apostles and teachers of the preaching of the Son of God."
, among the Jews from Jerusalem "among the other things named, "the wise architect "too.
Stones are they, even foundation stones, upon which we are ourselves edified-"built "as St. Paul says, "upon the foundation of the apostles".
since the apostle himself never fails to build us up everywhere with (the words of) the prophets. For whence did he learn to call Christ "the chief corner-stone"
