Translated from Latin.
(1) Those errors which Paul lists as contrary to love in 1 Corinthians 13 cannot prevail with faith in Christ.
(2) For they are no less than those found among the heathen, the haughty, the wrathful, the envious, and the ungodly.
3 For it would be foolish for Paul to praise such a faith that would make such people or let them stay that way.
4. faith in Christ brings with it the forgiveness and death of sins through the Holy Spirit,
5. who crucifies the old man with his lusts and desires and renews him according to the image of God [Gal. 5, 24].
Therefore, faith in Christ without love, if it does not follow, is not faith at all.
7) Although the Spirit or its gifts can be given and be present without faith in Christ and love.
Just as faith cannot be without love, so faith, which is the fruit of love, cannot be without love.
9 For the ungodly can teach rightly, administer the sacraments, govern the holy church.
(10) Yes, they can do wonderful and even greater things when they are in a church office or assembly than a private believer.
(11) Faith in Christ is first of all useful only to him who has it, for his justification alone.
(12) But the ministry, though it profiteth not him that hath it, yet it profiteth another to salvation.
(13) But after the person has been justified, he [faith] is active through
love against others, that is, against God and neighbor.
(14) The miracles performed by faith working through love are not less than moving mountains and the like.
15. namely, he can fight and overcome the faults enumerated by Paul and make a triumph out of them in the obedience of righteousness.
For overcoming sin, the world and the devil is far greater than moving mountains.
(17) To love God and one's neighbor freely and persistently is as much as raising the dead.
This cannot be done by that faith (which Paul calls a display of the gifts of the Spirit for the benefit of the church),
19 For he clearly says that those who have such are subject to the vices of wrath and pride.
20. they love only as far and as much as the flesh and reason loves god and neighbor.
21 That is, they do not bear the wrath of God and the insults of their neighbor, nor are they constant in love, but rather full of hatred and pride.
22. at the time [when they are taken in] they do not consider that they are loved by God, nor do they consider their neighbor worthy of love, but of hatred and contempt.
I would like to say that this faith, which serves the common good, is like the movements by which heroic persons are driven.
Heroes must be driven by a very special confidence if they are to accomplish something great and memorable.
*) This disputation is found in the Latin Wittenberg edition, Dorn. I, toi. 417; in the Jena (1579), Dom. I, toi. 532 and in the Erlangen, o^. var. ar§., vol. IV, p. 468. We have translated according to the Jena.
1480 D- V.". IV, 469 f. 344 f. 171. of the justifying and miracle faith. W. LIX, 1795-1797. 1481
For Thersites 1) would not have been able to do what Hector or Achilles did, even if he had possessed their powers and wisdom.
26. Their many do not lack strength and wisdom, but they do not have that enthusiasm and confidence of the spirit and [therefore] do nothing.
Thus God raised the spirit of the kings of Medes (as the prophet says) against Babylon [Jeremiah 51:11].
28 Thus also Naaman the Syrian, while he was still an idolater, served God by having him
1) Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, 1899, note 4.
and equipped it with gifts for the salvation of the land of Syria.
(29) Thus, even among the ungrateful nations, God has always scattered excellent gifts, like miraculous gifts.
30. How much more can he do great things and bestow glorious gifts on his people, both through the pious and the wicked!
Therefore, the bestowal of various graces, offices, and powers is done by grace, for the common good, thereby serving the church [Cor. 12:7].
Faith in Christ is a gift that serves each one for his own person, and by it he lives, Rom. 1:17.