Homilies on 1 Corinthians

“Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of sexual immorality let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.” … [Having corrected first] the division of the church, second the case of the man who had committed sexual immorality, third that of the covetous man, he now [uses] a gentler discourse; and in between he places exhortation and counsel about marriage and virginity, [giving relief to] the hearer. In the second letter he does the opposite: he begins with the gentler matters and ends with the more sombre. And here too, having completed the discourse about virginity, he goes out again to the more rebuking matters, not placing everything in sequence, but varying the discourse in each kind, as the occasion and the need of the matters at hand required. That is why he says: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me.” For they had written to him whether one ought to abstain from a woman or not. And in writing back on these matters and legislating about marriage, he introduces also the discourse about virginity: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” If you seek what is excellent and far superior, he says, it is better not to have to do with a woman at all; but if you seek what is safe and helps your weakness, have to do with marriage. And since it was likely, as happens even now, that the husband would wish it and the wife no longer, or the opposite, see how he discusses both. Some say that this word was addressed by him to priests; but I, judging from what follows, would not say that this is so, for he would not then have laid down the exhortation in general terms. If he had written this to priests only, he would have said, “It is good for the teacher not to touch a woman”; but as it is, he has laid it down generally, saying, “It is good for a man,” not for a priest only; and again, “Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” He did not say, “You, the priest and teacher,” but spoke indefinitely; and the whole discourse proceeds so throughout. And having said, “Because of sexual immorality let each man have his own wife,” by the very cause of the concession he led them to continence. “Let the husband render to the wife the honour due, and likewise the wife to the husband.” What is the honour due? “The wife does not have authority over her own body,” but is both the slave and the mistress of her husband. And if you withdraw from the fitting service, you have offended God; but if you wish to withdraw, [do so] when the husband permits, and even then for a short time. For that is why he called the thing a debt: to show that neither is master of himself, but that they are slaves of each other. When, then, you see a prostitute tempting you, say: “My body is not mine, but my wife's.” Let the wife too say this to those who wish to undermine her chastity: “My body is not mine, but my husband's.” And if neither husband nor wife has authority over the body, much less over money. Hear, you who have husbands and you who have wives! If one must not have one's own body, much less one's own money. Elsewhere, indeed, he gives the husband great precedence, both in the New and in the Old [Testament], saying: “Your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you”; and Paul distinguishes thus and writes: “Husbands, love your wives; and let the wife see that she fears her husband.” But here there is no longer greater and less, but one authority. Why? Because his discourse was about chastity. In other things, he says, let the husband have the advantage; but where the question is chastity, no longer. “The husband does not have authority over his own body,” nor the wife. Great is the equality of honour, and there is no advantage. “Do not deprive one another, except by agreement.” What does this mean? Let the wife not practise continence against her husband's will, he says, nor the husband if the wife does not wish it. Why? Because great evils are born from this continence: adulteries, acts of sexual immorality and the overturning of households have often come from it. For if, having their own wives, men commit sexual immorality, much more if you deprive them of this consolation. And he spoke well, “Do not deprive,” having said “deprivation” here and “debt” above, to show the strictness of the mastery. For one to practise continence against the other's will is deprivation; but with consent, it is no longer. If you take something of mine having persuaded me, I do not say I am deprived; for he who takes from one who is unwilling and forced is the one who deprives. Many wives do this, committing a sin greater than [their] righteousness, becoming answerable in this way for their husband's licentiousness, and tearing everything apart. But one must prefer concord above all, since this is more important than everything; and, if you will, let us examine it in practice. Suppose there is a wife and a husband, and the wife practises continence against her husband's wishes: what then, if he commits sexual immorality because of this, or does not commit it, but grieves and is disturbed and inflamed and quarrels and gives his wife countless troubles? What is the gain of fasting and continence, when love is torn apart? None. For how many insults come from this, how many troubles, how great a war must arise!

For when husband and wife in a house are at variance, the house will be in no better state than a ship in a storm when the helmsman is at odds with the man at the prow. That is why he says: “Do not deprive one another, except by agreement for a time, that you may devote yourselves to fasting and prayer,” meaning here prayer made with greater earnestness. For if [intercourse] prevented those who come together from praying, how would “pray without ceasing” have any occasion? So it is possible both to have to do with a wife and to give oneself to prayer; but by continence prayer becomes more exact. For he did not say simply, “that you may pray,” but “that you may devote yourselves,” as though the thing causes lack of leisure, not uncleanness. “And come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you.” So that the thing would not seem to be a piece of legislation, he adds the reason. And what is it? “So that Satan may not tempt you.” And so that you may learn that it is not the devil alone who works this, I mean adultery, he added: “because of your lack of self-control. But I say this by way of concession, not of command. For I wish all men to be as I myself am,” in continence. He does this in many places when he gives counsel about difficult matters: he puts himself in the middle and says, “Be imitators of me.” “But each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that.” For since he had strongly accused them by saying, “because of your lack of self-control,” he consoled them again by adding, “each has his own gift from God,” not to show that the achievement does not need our effort, but, as I said already, to console them. For if it is a gift, and man contributes nothing to it, how do you add: “But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they remain as I am. But if they are not self-controlled, let them marry”? Have you seen Paul's wisdom, how he both shows continence to be better and does not compel the one who cannot attain to it, fearing that some fall might occur? “For it is better to marry than to burn.” He showed how great the tyranny of desire is. What he says is this: If you endure great violence and burning, he says, be rid of the toils and sweats, lest you be overturned. “But to the married I command, not I, but the Lord.” Since he was about to read a law laid down expressly by Christ, about not sending away a wife except for sexual immorality, he therefore says, “not I.” For the things said before, even if they had not been said expressly, he also approves; but this he handed down expressly. So “I” and “not I” differ in this. And so that you would not think even his own words to be human, he added: “For I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” What, then, is it that the Lord commanded the married? “That a wife is not to be separated from her husband; but if she is in fact separated, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; and that a husband is not to send away his wife.” For since it happened that separations occurred both because of continence and because of other pretexts and petty quarrels, it is better, he says, that it should not happen at all in the first place; but if it does happen, let the wife remain with her husband, if not by intercourse, at least by not bringing in any other husband. “To the rest I say, not the Lord: if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, let him not send her away. And if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, let her not send him away.” For just as when he discussed separating from those who commit sexual immorality he made the thing easy by the correction, saying, “not at all with the sexually immoral of this world,” so here too he provided great ease, saying: “If any wife has an unbelieving husband, or a husband an unbelieving wife, let him not send her away.” What do you say? If he is an unbeliever, let him stay with his wife, but if he commits sexual immorality, no longer? And yet sexual immorality is less than unbelief. Sexual immorality is less, but God greatly spares what is yours. He does this in the case of the sacrifice too, saying: “Leave the sacrifice, and be reconciled to your brother”; and this too in the case of the one who owed ten thousand talents. For he did not punish him who owed him ten thousand talents, but punished him when he demanded a hundred denarii from his fellow servant. Then, so that the wife would not fear that she becomes unclean through intercourse, he says: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband.” And yet if he who is joined to a prostitute is one body, it is clear that she who is joined to an idolater is one body too. One body indeed, but she does not become unclean: the purity of the wife overcomes the uncleanness of the husband, and again the purity of the believing husband overcomes the uncleanness of the unbelieving wife.

How, then, is the uncleanness overcome here, so that intercourse is permitted, while in the case of a wife who commits sexual immorality the husband is not blamed for casting her out? Because here there is hope that the lost part will be saved through the marriage, but there the marriage has already been dissolved; and there both are corrupted, while here the charge lies against one. What I mean is this: she who has once committed sexual immorality is defiled. If, then, he who is joined to a prostitute is one body, he too becomes defiled by uniting with a woman who commits sexual immorality; therefore all purity flies away. But here it is not so; how then? The idolater is unclean, but the wife is not unclean. If she shared with him in that in which he was unclean, I mean impiety, she too would become unclean; but as it is, the idolater is unclean in one respect, and the wife shares with him in another matter, in which he is not unclean. For marriage is a union of bodies too, and in this lies the fellowship. Again, there is hope that this man may be recalled by his wife, for she has been made his own; but that one, not very easily. For how will she who dishonoured him in the time before, became another man's and destroyed the rights of marriage, be able to recall the man she wronged, who moreover remains [to her] as a stranger? Again, there, after the sexual immorality the husband is not a husband; but here, even if the wife is an idolater, the husband's right is not lost. He does not simply join [the believer] to the unbeliever, but to one who is willing; that is why he said, “and he consents to live with her.” For what harm is there, tell me, when the things of piety remain and there are good hopes about the unbeliever, for those already joined to remain together and not to bring in occasions of needless wars? He is not speaking now about those who have not yet come together, but about those who already have. He did not say, “If anyone wishes to take an unbeliever,” but, “If anyone has an unbeliever”; that is, if someone, after marrying or being married, received the word of piety, and the other party then remained in unbelief and is content to live together, let [the marriage] not be broken. “For the unbelieving husband,” he says, “is sanctified in the wife.” So great is the abundance of your purity. What then? Is the Greek holy? By no means; for he did not say, “is holy,” but, “is sanctified in the wife.” He said this not to show that man holy, but to remove the wife's fear abundantly and to lead him to desire the truth. For uncleanness belongs not to the bodies, in which the fellowship lies, but to the will and the thoughts. Then a proof as well: if you remained unclean and bore children, and the child is not from you alone, then the child is either unclean or half clean; but as it is, it is not unclean. That is why he added, “Otherwise your children would be unclean; but as it is they are holy,” that is, not unclean. He called them holy, again by the abundance of the expression casting out the dread of such a suspicion. “But if the unbeliever separates, let him separate.” For here the thing is no longer sexual immorality. And what does “if the unbeliever separates” mean? For instance, if he bids you sacrifice and share in his impiety because of the marriage, or else depart, it is better that the marriage be torn apart than piety. That is why he added: “The brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases.” If he fights every day and makes wars because of this, he says, it is better to be released. For he hints at this by saying, “But God has called us in peace.” For it is he who has then furnished the cause, just as the one who committed sexual immorality did. “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?” This again refers to “let her not send him away.” If he does not make strife, remain, he says; for there is gain in it too; remain, and exhort and counsel and persuade; for no teacher will be able to prevail as a wife can. And he neither lays necessity on her and demands the thing from her absolutely, so as not again to make it more burdensome, nor bids her despair, but leaves it suspended in the uncertainty of the future, saying: “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” And again: “Only, as God has apportioned to each, as the Lord has called each, so let him walk. Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not undo it. … Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God. Let each remain in the calling in which he was called. Were you called as a slave? Do not let it trouble you.” These things contribute nothing to faith, he says; do not, then, quarrel or be disturbed; for faith has cast all these things out. “Let each remain in the calling in which he was called.” Were you called having an unbelieving wife? Remain having her; do not cast out your wife because of the faith. Were you called being a slave? Do not let it trouble you; remain serving. Were you called uncircumcised? Remain uncircumcised. Did you believe being circumcised? Remain circumcised. For this is “as God has apportioned to each.” For these are no hindrances to piety. You were called being a slave; another, having an unbelieving wife; another, circumcised.

Bah! Where he has placed slavery! As circumcision does not profit, nor uncircumcision harm, so neither does slavery, nor freedom. And to show this more clearly and abundantly, he says: [“But even if you can become free,] use it rather”; that is, rather remain a slave. And why does he bid one who can be freed remain a slave? Wishing to show that slavery does no harm but even profits. I am not unaware that some say that “use it rather” was said of freedom, taking it as “If you can be freed, be freed”; but the saying would be quite contrary to Paul's manner if it hinted at this. For when he was consoling the slave and showing that he was in no way wronged, he would not have bidden him become free; someone might perhaps have said, “What then? If I cannot, am I wronged and lessened?” So this is not what he says; but, as I said, wishing to show that nothing more comes to one who has become free, he says: Even if you have the power to be freed, rather remain serving. Then he adds the reason too: “For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freedman; likewise the one called as free is a slave of Christ.” In the things that are according to Christ, he says, both are equal; for likewise you are Christ's slave, and likewise your master too. How, then, is the slave a freedman? Because he freed you not only from sin, but also from outward slavery while you remain a slave. For he does not let the slave be a slave, even though he is a man remaining in slavery; this is the marvel. And how is the slave free while remaining a slave? When he is rid of passions and the diseases of the soul, when he despises money and anger and the other such passions. “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.” This word was said not only to servants but also to free men. For it is possible for one who is a slave not to be a slave, and for one who is free to be a slave. And how is one who is a slave not a slave? When he does everything for God's sake, when he does not pretend nor do anything with eye-service toward men; that is, he is free while serving men. Or how again does one who is free become a slave? When he renders men some wicked service, for gluttony, or desire of money, or power. Such a man is more slavish than all, even if he is free. Consider both of these: Joseph was a slave, but not a slave of men; that is why even in slavery he was freer than all the free. He did not yield to his mistress, at any rate, in what his owner wanted. Again, she was free, and more slavish than all, flattering and entreating her servant; but she did not persuade the free man to do what he did not wish. So the thing was not slavery, but freedom of the highest kind. For in what was he hindered toward virtue by his slavery? … Which was the slave: the one who was entreated, or she who entreated? She who begged, or he who despised her supplication? For there are bounds for slaves laid down by God; how far they must be kept has also been legislated, and they must not be overstepped. When the master commands nothing of what does not please God, one must follow and obey; but beyond this, no longer; for so the slave becomes free. But if you go further, even if you are free, you have become a slave. This, at any rate, he hints at when he says, “Do not become slaves of men.” If this is not so, but he commanded them to leave their masters and strive to become free, how did he exhort, saying, “Let each remain in that in which he was called”? And elsewhere: “Let all who are slaves under the yoke regard their own masters as worthy of all honour; and let those who have believing masters not despise them because they are brothers, since those who partake of the benefit are …” And writing to the Ephesians and Colossians he orders and legislates the same. Whence it is clear that he does not abolish this slavery, but the slavery that comes from vice and befalls free men too, which is the most grievous, even if it is a free man who serves it. For what did Joseph's brothers profit by being free? Were they not more slavish than all slaves, lying to their father, saying what was not true to the merchants, and to their brother? But the free man was not such; he was true everywhere and in everything; and nothing could enslave him, not bonds, not slavery, not the passion of his mistress, not being in a foreign land; he remained free everywhere. For this above all is freedom, when it shines out even in slavery.

Such is Christianity: in slavery it grants freedom. And just as a body that is invulnerable by nature is shown to be invulnerable when it receives an arrow and suffers nothing terrible, so too the truly free man is revealed when, even having masters, he is not enslaved. That is why he bids him remain a slave. But if it is not possible for one who is a slave to be a Christian as he should, the Greeks will accuse piety of great weakness; whereas if they learn that slavery does piety no harm, they will marvel at the preaching. For if death does not harm us, nor scourges, nor bonds, much less slavery. Fire and iron and countless tyrannies, diseases, poverty, wild beasts and countless things harsher than these have not harmed the faithful, but have made them even stronger. And how will slavery be able to harm? It is not this slavery that harms, beloved, but the slavery that is real, that of sin. If you are not a slave of this slavery, take courage and rejoice; no one will be able to wrong you at all, since you have a character that cannot be enslaved. But if you are a slave of this, even if you are ten thousand times free, your freedom is no use to you. For what use is it, tell me, when you are not a slave to a man, but bow yourself beneath the passions? Men often know how to spare, but those masters are never sated with your destruction. Are you a slave to a man? But your master too serves you, managing your food, caring for your health, your clothes and your shoes, and taking thought for everything else. And you are not so afraid of offending your master as he is afraid that you may lack something necessary. “But he reclines, and you stand.” And what of it? This is so not with him alone, but with you too. Often, at any rate, while you recline and sleep sweetly, he not only stands, but endures countless pressures in the marketplace, and keeps vigil more painfully than you. What then? Did Joseph suffer such things from his mistress as she did from her desire? He did not do what she wished to command; but she did everything that her mistress (licentiousness, I mean) commanded, and it did not desist until it had disgraced her. What master commands such things? What cruel tyrant? “Beg your slave,” it says, “entreat the captive; persist, even if you speak often and he does not bear it …” What is more dishonourable, what more shameful than these words? “And if you accomplish nothing even so, …” See how servile, how shameful the commands, how harsh and cruel and mad! What master commands such things as licentiousness then commanded that royal woman? Yet she did not dare to disobey. But Joseph suffered nothing of the kind, but in everything the opposite, which brought him glory and honour. Do you wish to see another man too, given many commands by a harsh mistress and not daring to disobey in anything? Consider Cain, how much he was commanded by envy. She commanded him to slaughter his brother, to lie to God, to grieve his father, to be shameless; and he did it all, and disobeyed in nothing. And why do you marvel that this mistress has such strength over one man? She has often destroyed whole peoples. The women of the Midianites, at any rate, took the Jews, bound, almost as captives … This slavery, then, Paul was casting out when he said, “Do not become slaves of men”; that is, do not obey men who command absurd things, nor even yourselves. Then, lifting up their thought and making it lofty, he says: “Now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord; but I give my judgment as one who has received mercy from the Lord to be faithful.” Proceeding in order and sequence, he now mentions virginity too. For since he had trained and shaped them in the discourses on continence, he goes on to the greater, saying, “I have no command, but I think it is good.” Why? For the same reason that he gave concerning continence. “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek release. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” These are not the words of one opposing what was said before, but of one in strong agreement. For there too he says, “except by agreement”; and here again, “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek release.” This is not contrary; for what is against the other's will is release; but if both practise continence by agreement, it is not release,

Then, lest this seem to be legislation, he added: “But if you marry, you have not sinned.” Then he blames the present circumstances, the present necessity, the shortened time, and the affliction. For marriage drags many things with it, which he hinted at both here and in the discourse on continence: there saying, “The wife does not have authority over herself,” and here saying, “You are bound.” “But if you marry, you have not sinned”: not of the one who has chosen virginity, for she has already sinned. For if widows have condemnation when they engage in second marriages after they have once chosen widowhood, much more virgins. “But such will have affliction in the flesh.” But also pleasure, someone says. But see how he cut this short too by the brevity of the time, saying, “The time is shortened”; that is, we are commanded to depart and go out at last, and you run further in. And yet, even if marriage had nothing burdensome, even so one ought to hasten toward the things to come; but when it also has affliction, why must one load oneself with a burden? Why must one take on such a weight, when even after taking it one must use it as though not having it? For “those who have wives,” he says, “should be as though they had none.” Then, having put in something of the things to come, he again brought the discourse to the present. For the spiritual things are these: that the one cares for the things of the husband, the other for the things of God; but those of the present life, “I wish you to be free from care.” But nevertheless even so he leaves them masters. For one who, after showing what is to be chosen, still compels, seems not to trust his own words. So by the concession he rather drew them on and held them, saying, “I say this for your own benefit, not to lay a noose upon you, but for what is seemly and for constant devotion.” Let virgins hear that virginity is not defined by this alone; for she who cares for the things of the world would be neither a virgin nor seemly. For having said, “The wife and the virgin are divided,” he set down this difference, by which they differ from each other. And giving a definition of the virgin and the non-virgin, he spoke not of marriage nor of continence, but of freedom from affairs and of busyness. For intercourse is not evil, but being hindered from philosophy. “But if anyone thinks he is behaving unseemly toward his virgin.” Here he seems to be speaking for marriage, but the whole is about virginity, he says; since he grants a second marriage too, saying only, “in the Lord.” And what is “in the Lord”? With self-control, with decorum. For this is needed everywhere, and one must pursue it; for otherwise it is not possible to see God. And if we have passed over the things about virginity, let none of you condemn us for sloth. For we have devoted a whole book to this passage, and we thought it superfluous to set them down again here, since we had treated them with exactness there. So, referring the hearer there for these things, here we will say this, that one must pursue continence. “For pursue peace,” he says, “and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” That we may be found worthy to see him, then, whether we are in virginity, or in a first marriage, or in a second, let us pursue it, so that we may obtain the kingdom of heaven, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honour, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.