Fathers

1 Corinthians 13

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If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.

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What the Fathers say

1 Corinthians 13:9

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

"We know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." It is not therefore knowledge that is done away, but the circumstance that our knowledge is in part. For we shall not only know as much but even a great deal more. But that I may also make it plain by example; now we know that God is every where, but how, we know not. That He made out of things that are not the things that are we know; but of the manner we are ignorant. …

Homily on 1 Corinthians 34 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

If knowledge will be abolished: will we then live in ignorance? By no means! But he says that knowledge "in part" will be abolished when perfect knowledge comes, that is, the knowledge proper to the future life. For then we will know not merely as much as we know now, but far more. For example, we know even now that God exists everywhere, but how this is, we do not know; that the Virgin gave birth, we know, but how this is, we do not know. But then we will learn about these mysteries something greater and more beneficial.

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗

Irenaeus

"It is sown an animal body, it rises a spiritual body." He has taught, beyond all doubt, that such language was not used by him, either with reference to the soul or to the spirit, but to bodies that have become corpses. For these are animal bodies, that is, [bodies] which partake of life, which when they have lost, they succumb to death; then, rising through the Spirit's instrumentality, they become spiritual bodies, so that by the Spirit they possess a perpetual life. …

Against Heresies Book V ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Our knowledge in this life remains imperfect, but it is reliable within its limits. Believers trust the witness of their senses, which are subservient to their intelligence. They may occasionally be deceived, but even so they are still better off than those who maintain that the senses can never be trusted.

City of God 19.18 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Then when he says: for our knowledge is imperfect, he proves what he had said: first, he presents a proof; secondly, he clarifies things contained in the proof (v. 11). To prove the proposition he presents this proof: When the perfect comes, the imperfect ceases; but gifts other than charity have imperfection. Therefore, they will cease, when the perfection of glory triumphs. First, therefore, he proposes the minor proposition referring to the imperfection of knowledge, when he says: for we know in part, i.e., imperfectly. …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗