Saint Paul — "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
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More from Saint Paul
"For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that."
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
"Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."
"For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."
"But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
If our faith in Christ only helps us in this earthly life and nothing follows after death, then believers are the most pitiable people alive. We endure hardship, sacrifice, and persecution based on the promise of resurrection and eternal life. Without that future hope, all the suffering we accept for our beliefs is pointless, and we would be worse off than those who simply enjoy life without religious commitments.
Relevance to Saint Paul
Paul wrote this defending the bodily resurrection to skeptical Corinthians. His entire life pivoted on encountering the risen Christ on the Damascus road, transforming him from persecutor to apostle. He endured beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonment, and eventual martyrdom specifically because he believed death was not final. Without resurrection, his abandonment of status as a Pharisee and his suffering missionary life would have been a tragic mistake.
The era
Written around 55 AD to Corinth, a Greek city where Hellenistic philosophy rejected bodily resurrection as absurd, preferring ideas of the soul escaping the body. Some Corinthian Christians were denying physical resurrection while keeping Christ's teachings. Meanwhile, Roman society offered pleasure-focused philosophies like Epicureanism. Paul confronted a culture that found resurrection intellectually embarrassing, insisting Christianity collapses entirely without it, distinguishing the faith from mere ethical philosophy.
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