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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"Who is weak, and I am not weak?" He did not say, 'and I share not in his dejection?' but, 'so am I troubled and disturbed, as though I myself were laboring under that very affection, that very infirmity.' "Who is made to stumble, and I burn not?" See, again, how he places before us the excess of his grief by calling it "burning." 'I am on fire,' 'I am in a flame,' he says, which is surely greater than any thing he has said. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Then, how he expressed the excess of grief, for "I am inflamed," he says. Enduring everything else, he rejoiced, knowing that he endures for the Lord's sake; but here he is wounded in soul, so that the stumbling of another, even of an insignificant and rejected person, causes him great grief. And that the word "I am inflamed" must be understood in the sense of "I am caused to stumble," David teaches us. …
Cyprian
That you bewail and grieve over the downfall of our brethren I know from myself, beloved brethren, who also bewail with you and grieve for each one, and suffer and feel what the blessed apostle said: "Who is weak," said he, "and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
You do not require me to teach you in what sense the apostle says, "To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews," and other such things in the same passage, which are to be ascribed to the compassion of pitying love, not the artifices of intentional deceit. For he that ministers to the sick becomes as if he were sick himself; not, indeed, falsely pretending to be under the fever, but considering, with the mind of one truly sympathizing, what he would wish done for himself if he were in the sick man's place.
Gregory the Dialogist
For the cross is taken up in two ways: either when the body is afflicted through abstinence, or when the mind is troubled through compassion for one's neighbor. Let us hear of the cross of the mind in compassion for one's neighbor. For Paul says: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?" Indeed the perfect preacher, in order to give an example of abstinence, carried the cross in his body. And because he drew upon himself the losses of another's weakness, he carried the cross in his heart.
Thomas Aquinas
The second affliction he suffered concerned the failings of his subjects, and this he does in two ways, namely for spiritual failings; hence he says, Who is weak, namely, in faith and in goodness, and I am not weak? In heart, grieving over them as though over myself? "To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak" (1 Cor. 9:22); "O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" (Jer. 9:1). …
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