St. Thomas Aquinas

Pauline Commentaries

2 Corinthians

Lecture 2 (4:3-6)  Light of the Gospel


https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~2Cor.C4.L2

4:3 And if our Gospel is also hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost, [n. 122]

4:4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine unto them. [n. 124]

4:5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord: and ourselves your servants through Jesus. [n. 127]

4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus. [n. 129]

122. Here the Apostle answers a tacit objection. For someone could say to him: you say that you do not grow faint in manifesting the truth of Christ. But this does not seem true, because many people contradict you. To this question, therefore, he responds. And in regard to it he does two things:

first, he responds to this question;

second, he removes a doubt which seems to follow from his answer, at for we do not preach ourselves.

In regard to the first he does three things.

First, he shows from whom Christ’s truth is hidden;

second, the reason for this hiding, at in whom the god of this world;

third, he shows that it is not due to a deficiency in the truth of the Gospel that it is hidden, at that the light.

123. He says, therefore: I have said that we do not faint in manifesting the truth; but even if our Gospel, which we preach, is also hidden, it is not veiled from all, but it is veiled only to those who are lost, namely, who offer an obstacle to its manifestation to them. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).

124. The cause of this concealment is not on the part of the Gospel, but on account of their own guilt and malice; and this is what he adds: in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. This can be explained in three ways:

in one way so that the god of this world is God, who is the Lord of this world and of all things by creation and nature: the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (Ps 24:1), has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, not by producing malice, but by the merit, or rather demerit of preceding sins, by withdrawing his grace: make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes (Isa 6:10). Therefore he hints at their preceding sins when he says, of unbelievers, as though their unbelief is the cause of this blindness.

In a second way, so that the god of this world is the devil, who is called the god of this world, i.e., of those who live in a worldly manner, not by reason of creation but by imitation, because worldly persons imitate him. They follow him who are on his side (Wis 2:25). Here he blinds them by suggesting, by attracting and by inclining to sins. And so, when they are already in sin, they work in the darkness of sin, lest they see: darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God (Eph 4:18).

In the third way thus: God has the nature of the ultimate end and fulfillment of the desires of every creature. Hence, whatever a person assigns to himself as an ultimate end in which his desire rests, can be called his god. Hence, when you have pleasure as end, pleasure is called your god, and the same for pleasures of the flesh and for honors. Then it is explained so that the god of this world is that which men living in a worldly way set up as their end, say pleasure or riches and the like. And God blinds their minds, inasmuch as he prevents them from seeing the light of grace here, and the light of glory in the future. Fire, namely of concupiscence, has fallen on them, and they shall not see the sun (Ps 57:9). Thus, therefore, the blindness of unbelievers is not on the part of the Gospel, but from the sin of unbelievers.


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