Fragments on 1 Corinthians (complete)

Human beings, when they sin, sin, speaking generally, in two ways: by falling short of the commandments or by overstepping them. For when we do not conduct our lives from knowledge, and do not know the measures of righteousness, we stumble; and sometimes, overstepping the rule in the fancy of doing something better, we fall away from what is set before us … The standard, then, which is neither great nor small but proportionate, is to know how one ought to live. Are you bound to a wife? If you make the standard great, you take no thought for your wife, but say, “I can be continent and live more purely.” But see that your wife is perishing, unable to bear your purity, she for whom Christ died. Something of this sort had happened in Corinth, and there was disorder in the households of the brothers, with men in some places and women in others attempting continence and rising up against one another. So those in Corinth wrote a letter about this to the apostle, and to this letter the apostle writes back what is written above. And, like a good steward, he neither stretched the teaching on chastity so far as to abolish the teaching on marriage, nor, preferring the teaching on marriage, abolished the teaching on virginity; but through the whole discourse he keeps his intention in a certain way: he urges them to keep pure; and having conceded, he condescends; he urges them again to practise chastity; and having urged them to practise chastity, he brings them back again to the need to condescend to the weakness of the weaker. He began, not from the lesser things, for that was not fitting, but from the more perfect matters, saying: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.” As if to say: I praise you insofar as those who have withdrawn from intercourse with their wives wished to be chaste; but consider not only your own interest but also your wife's, for “love does not seek its own.” “Because of sexual immorality, then, let each man have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.” It is not because of his own sexual immorality that the stronger is to have his own wife, but lest perhaps through the continence of the husband the wife commit sexual immorality, and through the continence of the wife the husband. For it is preferable that the two be saved, found in the works of marriage, than that on the pretext of the one the other fall from the hope that is in Christ. For how will he be saved who is answerable for his wife's death? The husband's modesty, then, is not pure when the discipline does not come about with the wife's agreement, so that both may devote themselves to prayers according to God. [vii 3] “Let the husband render to the wife what is due, and likewise also the wife to the husband.” He provided both for healing human weakness and for ordering the matter in these passages most decorously; that is why he said that a debt is owed by the husband, and to the husband by the wife. Then, so as not to shame those in marriage, as being slaves of one another, into not coming to the practice of purity without agreement, he says: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband; likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.” The husband, then, has authority over the body of the wife; and having authority, if he wishes, let him not use the authority. “But we did not use this authority,” says the apostle, teaching this, I think, when he says, “Do we not have authority to take along a sister as a wife, as also the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” The wife, then, has authority over the body of the husband; and can she not refrain from using the authority? The word “likewise,” set down twice, gives us to understand that the husband should not think that he is superior to the wife in the affairs of marriage: there is likeness and equality between married people toward one another.

For you both ought to know that prayer offered from the purity of husband and wife is not the same as prayer offered from intercourse. For if the Greeks sometimes keep themselves chaste for their idols, how much more you who pray to the God of the universe? It is good, then, to condescend because of weakness, but to hold back for the sake of prayers. And Moses purifies the people and says, “For three days do not go near a woman,” so that they might be able … to become hearers of God. And in the Kingdoms, Abiathar or Abimelech the priest wishes to set holy loaves before David as he flees Saul's plot; and wishing to set out holy loaves, what does he say but, “If the young men are clean from a woman”? — not, of course, from another man's wife, but from their own wife. Then, if one is to receive the loaves of presentation, he ought to be clean from a woman; but to receive the greater loaves of presentation, over which the name of God and of Christ and of the Holy Spirit has been invoked, ought one not much more to be purer, so as to receive the loaves truly for salvation and not for judgment?

Most people think that “defrauding” is said only of gold or silver or something of that kind; but the apostle clearly called it defrauding also in the case of those who are in marriage and practise chastity out of season and without agreement. In a word, the one who does not render what is owed defrauds the one to whom he owes it, by not rendering what is owed. But sometimes a person is shut in so that he cannot render two debts at once; therefore it is written, so that he may render the necessary debt. What I mean will be clear in this way: it is not possible both to render prayers to God as one should and for the married man to render the debt to his wife; therefore, if the debt toward God presses, the other must be withheld. For hear him saying: “Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again” — since prayer is not sent up pure by those who have come together, even if they have come together lawfully. One must also abstain from a wife at the time of her menstruation, and coming together with a woman who is in her menstruation is reckoned a great charge. At any rate, in the list of good deeds and the list of sins in Ezekiel it is written that one should not approach a woman in her separation. And one must by all means keep pure even from one's own wife at a time of prayer and fasting. [vii 5–6] “And come together again,” he says, “so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But I say this by way of concession, not of command.” Everywhere he relaxes the teaching because of weakness, and again tightens it in order to turn the hearers … [vii 7] “I wish all people to be as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that.” Marriage breathes of a gift when the measures are kept, the measures of agreement. And truly it may be said of some that for this person marriage is a gift, when there is no disorder, when there is all peace, all agreement. But to say that the marriage of a believer to a pagan woman, or of a pagan to a believing woman, is a gift from God? That I would not say. For the gift of God cannot reach pagans; if he believes, if he is saved, then he will receive the beginning of the gift. The followers of Marcion also use this saying, and senselessly forbid marriage, saying that chastity is a command of the other God, whom they invented besides the Creator. Yet from the saying itself one can show them that they wrongly forbid marriage and wrongly divide the Godhead. For if it is a gift, to one in this way and to another in that, marriage too is a gift; if marriage too is a gift, the gift, marriage, is wrongly forbidden; if the one in this way and the other in that are from God, it is clear that one God gave chastity and gave marriage, and that there is one God of the law and of the gospel, whom first the prophets proclaimed and afterwards Christ Jesus.

Some among us teach beyond what is written; and thinking they are doing something, when they ought to urge people toward a single marriage while not putting a noose on those who are unable, this they do not do, but they impose compulsion and want neither to admit those who have married twice to the assembly nor to have communion with them, as transgressors, not respecting even the words of the apostle. For he who says to the unmarried and the widows, “If they are not self-controlled, let them marry,” plainly permitted a woman, after her first marriage, after being widowed, to marry — though with a reproach to the man who marries, with a reproach to the woman who is married. For he said, “If they are not self-controlled, let them marry”: see whether not being self-controlled is not already an accusation, such as can be said to Christian people: “It is better to marry than to burn,” since he named as “burning” the desire of the flesh that is not quenched by the Word but masters the soul of the sinner. We, then, taught by the apostle, do not forbid second marriage, for compared with burning, second marriage is preferable; but when something is thought better by comparison with evils, that thing is plainly not good. Second marriage is not chastity; it is not according to nature for Adam, the first-formed; for it cannot be said to a second wife, “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Abraham had Hagar too, and was also with Keturah; but when he died, none was laid with him except the wife by nature: for Abraham and Sarah were in the tomb. And Jacob too, … though he had children with Rachel and was with Leah and also with the maidservants, yet in the tomb only Leah was with him. … that the dispensation of the fathers was a mystical one; but surely the man who now takes a second wife does not say, “I am carrying out a mystical dispensation.” For Paul will come, saying, “Tell me, you who read the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that So-and-so had two sons,” and what follows; it will not be said of him too, “These things are allegorized; for these are two covenants.” For these things happened to them as types, but were written for our sake, “on whom the ends of the ages have come.” “I say to the widows and the unmarried: it is good for them if they remain as I am.” This is a second good; for there is another good before it: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” What is the second good? “It is good for them if they remain as I am; but if they are not self-controlled, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.” Therefore let those who are in first marriages and have not yet experienced second ones practise chastity, so that if something human happens, they may not be caught unpractised and behave unseemly. It is better, then, to marry a second marriage — for he is not speaking here of the first, as is clear from the word “burn.” From here he passes on to another legislation: “To the married I command, not I but the Lord.” The legislation for the married is not from me but from the Lord. At the same time he keeps a necessary distinction, that he called “married” those of whom both are believers, the husband and the wife. That he did not name among the married the others, all who are unequally yoked, is clear from his adding, “To the rest I say, not the Lord.” Are the rest, then, not married? He does not count them as married; for in their case a woman is not joined to a husband by God; but in the case of the believers, when both share in prayers and in holy childbearing and in all things in which Christians must share, he says that marriage is not foreign to God. “I command, then, not I but the Lord, that a wife not separate from her husband.” The leading principle is this: that a union once bound should not be loosed. “But if she does separate” — for there could be many causes for separating; for instance, if sexual immorality occurs on the wife's part, it is a sin to keep the wife who has committed sexual immorality. “If, then, she does separate,” and some cause of separation occurs, “let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.” And likewise I want the husband to be such that he does not put away his wife. “To the rest I say, not the Lord.” To the married it is not I who legislate but the Lord; but to those who are not married but unequally yoked with unbelievers I cannot give a law from God, for they are not worthy of the laws of God; but let them hear us. And to make what is in this passage understood I will use what is written in the law. Of the laws given through Moses, some are God's and some are Moses'. And the Lord, knowing this difference between the laws of God and the laws of Moses, said of those legislated by God, “For God said, Honour your father and your mother,” but of those by Moses, “Moses, because of your hardness of heart, permitted you to put away your wives.” Indeed, if you observe the contents of the book of divorce, you will find that the law was not written by the Lord's command. Moses, then, serving God, gave second laws besides the laws of God; and Paul, serving the gospel, gave second laws to the members of the church after the laws from God through Jesus Christ. And it is better to hear laws from the Lord than to hear laws of Paul the apostle. For even if he is holy, he has laws much inferior to the laws of the Lord …

As a kind of mixing of the two, husband and wife, takes place into one flesh, like that of wine and water; and as the believing husband imparts sanctification to his pagan wife, or conversely the believing wife to her unbelieving husband, so also the unbelieving husband imparts defilement to the believing wife, or the unbelieving wife to the believing husband. For why, he says, is the unbelieving wife or the unbelieving husband sanctified by receiving something from the believing husband or from the believing wife, and the believer not defiled by receiving something from the unbelieving partner? For each, speaking to the other out of the abundance of the heart, either imparts or receives, and in time one altogether prevails over the other. And what need, he says, of such a contest and danger? For he will either succeed or fail, and either lose his own soul besides, or after much toil barely manage to gain the other. For this reason it is good, before a person is taken, to consider carefully not only this but also the future, and having considered, either not to marry or, if marrying, to marry in the Lord. “For a wife is bound for as long a time as her husband lives; but if the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” We do not hear the “only in the Lord”; we read “she is free to be married to whom she wishes,” but we no longer join to it the “only in the Lord.” And yet there too, when he said “only in the Lord,” he drew back his word again, saying, “But she is more blessed if she remains as she is, in my judgment.” So the apostle, in saying the more auspicious thing, “is sanctified,” left the other for us to understand.

[vii 18] He will seem to have brought in out of season, into the discussion of marriage and chastity — when no inquiry had arisen about whether those who believe from the circumcision ought not to draw up the foreskin, or again whether those in uncircumcision ought not to be circumcised — also the passage “Were you called a slave? Do not be concerned,” and what follows. Perhaps, then, he took slavery and freedom as an example for the married and the unmarried, calling “circumcised” the man who has cast off his wife, and “uncircumcised” the married man? For as “the two will be one flesh,” and the wife and the husband are one flesh, and the circumcised man has cast off what belongs to the flesh, so the man who has cast off his wife has, as it were, circumcised his own flesh. So too he calls him a slave; for since he says elsewhere also, “The brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases,” as though the married were slaves, for this reason here too he names as a “slave” the one called after marriage, and as “free” the unmarried. What is said in the passage, then, is said as though about circumcision and about slaves. Yet it is not out of place sometimes to use the saying against those who think that after faith one must be circumcised out of piety — but a piety “not according to knowledge” — because of what is written in the Old Testament about circumcision. Again, it is not good, because of some who believe from the circumcision and think that circumcision brings them shame and want to draw on a foreskin, to use the saying, “Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not draw up the foreskin.” And indeed there is reason to say to such people that in itself circumcision is an indifferent matter. So the passage is now neither about circumcision nor about uncircumcision, but about the unmarried and the married: “Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not draw up,” as though he said, “Let him not draw a wife to himself; he has already been circumcised: he has cast off his wife; let him not marry another.” “Was anyone called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised,” as if to say: “Were you called in marriage? Do not cast off your wife.” “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing”: since some think that the unmarried man has something more in this respect than the married, and the married something less than the unmarried by the very fact of being married, we wish, he says, to teach that by its own account celibacy is indifferent and by its own account marriage is indifferent. For even the unmarried man who truly keeps pure from all intercourse, but otherwise lives badly, may get no benefit from celibacy; and one who is in marriage and does the things of marriage, but does them in order and season, preserving the rest of his way of life, may be no less than the unmarried. That celibacy, and purity itself, is indifferent we will show in this way. If only those of the church practised celibacy, one could say that celibacy by its own account is a pure and divine thing; but in fact one can also find people unmarried with a wicked intention. The followers of Marcion, at any rate, also practise celibacy and purity, but not as the members of the church do: these do it to please God who created the world, those so as not to cooperate with the God of the world. Celibacy is adorned by the church's way of life and teaching, by pure knowledge and truth. So the unmarried man too is indifferent by his own account; and it is possible for one in marriage to be blameless, as we have shown earlier. Circumcision, then, is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, both according to the letter and according to the matter before us. But what is it that saves? “Keeping the commandments of God.” For “whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches people so” — he did not say “will not enter the kingdom of heaven,” but “will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” But if the one who breaks one of the least commandments will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, where will the one who breaks two commandments be found? “Let each, then, remain in the calling in which he was called.” Were you called in marriage? Do not envy the unmarried. Were you called unmarried? Do not by all means draw a wife to yourself, if you can live more purely.

He was right to name the married man a slave; for the husband is the wife's slave, not having authority over his own body, and the wife is the husband's, for she does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. “Were you called a slave, then? Do not be concerned; but even if you can become free, rather make use of it.” That is: if you do not transgress against the teaching, you can be free. How? “By agreement, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer,” with all concord. “For the one called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord.” As if to say: Were you called a slave? Know this, that not only are you not a slave, but you also have something of freedom through the Lord. For the freedman is neither purely free nor any longer a slave; so that the pure man is entirely free, and the one in marriage a slave; but when he is a slave in the Lord, then we say that he is a freedman of the Lord. “Likewise the one called free is a slave” — not of a wife, but of the Word of God. “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.” As far as you can, consider the Word of God who redeemed you; let us propitiate the blood shed for us. We say in the discussion of the unmarried and the married that he tightens and relaxes the teaching. So too he has done here, saying, “Do not become slaves of men”; for he as it were tightens it and makes the teaching more forceful, urging those who, as far as possible, are able to keep pure, to keep pure, each in the calling in which he was called. One should know that the other interpreters have rendered the sense of the passage about uncircumcision and circumcision according to the letter; for, they say, he habitually passes from the subject at hand to other matters, legislating for all what fits them.

Of the commandments some are enjoined, others are not enjoined but left to free will and entrusted by God to our choice. For those without which it is not possible to be saved are the ones that are ordered; but those greater than the ordered ones, which even if we do not do them we are saved, are not an injunction of God. For hear, he says, the gospel of Jesus Christ, teaching in it and saying, “When you have done all that has been commanded you, you ought to say, We are unworthy slaves; we have done what we ought to do.” And if, when I do all that is commanded, I am an unworthy slave, when shall I escape being an unworthy slave? If, being more ambitious, you go up beyond what is commanded. For instance: if I keep “You shall not commit adultery,” and also not looking at a woman to desire her, I have done what I ought to do. But if I remain a virgin, not ordered or commanded, I no longer say upon the achievement of virginity, “We are unworthy slaves; we have done what we ought to do.” So too with the other commandments: if I do not steal or covet, we ought to say, “We are unworthy slaves.” But if I sell all my possessions and give to the poor, I no longer say, “I am unworthy; I have done what I ought to do.” For this reason the apostle says, “Concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.” For when the Lord says to the disciples, “Not all receive the saying, but those to whom it has been given,” and adds, “Let the one who is able to receive it receive it,” he did not command, but left it to free will. “I give an opinion,” then, says the apostle; and to show that the Lord speaks in him, he said, “as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.” [vii 26] “I think, then, that this is good because of the present necessity, that it is good for a person to be so.” By “necessity” he means the sojourn in the body, as he also says elsewhere, “but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.” Four times in the passage the apostle used the word “good”: for he says first, “it is good for a man not to touch a woman”; second, “it is good for them if they remain as I am”; third, “I think, then, that this is good because of the present necessity”; fourth, “it is good for a person to be so.” You see: whatever is said about chastity is named with “good”; but whatever is said about marriage, with the one who marries “not sinning.” [vii 27] “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek release. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” Through the whole discourse, as has been said, he tightens and relaxes, so that the hearer, taking it into his own authority, may judge whether he can do anything, and to what discipline he can give himself. So here too he turned them away from dissolving marriage, and again urges them to keep pure. Accordingly he called the married man “bound”; and if being bound is a hardship, one must also flee hardships as far as possible. And if you are bound to a wife, do not seek to loose it; but the one not bound must guard himself so as not to be bound; for truly you will find them bound by the love-charm of marriage. It is not permitted, then, for one already taken in marriage to seek an untimely freedom, but to remain in the slavery; and if someone has been released, not to seek a wife. [vii 28] “But if you marry,” he says, “you have not sinned.” He did not say, “If you marry, it is good,” but “If you marry, you have not sinned”: keep the difference. “And if the virgin marries, she has not sinned”; again he did not say “good,” but “she has not sinned.” “But such people will have affliction in the flesh.” For how will they not have affliction, when what was said to the woman comes upon the married woman, “In pains you will bear children,” and, toward her husband, “your turning will be to him, and he will rule over you”? From all these things the virgin is free, freed by her purity, awaiting the bridegroom of blessing. Every marriage takes place in darkness, hence “not in beds and licentiousness”; but the marriage of Christ, when he receives his church, takes place in the light. For why do virgins enter the wedding with lamps and oil that lasts? Because that marriage is one of decorum. “The one who joins himself to flesh is one body; but the one who joins himself to the spirit is one spirit.” What is more decorous than a soul joined to the Spirit and united with it, no longer being soul but becoming what the Spirit is? For of marriage it is said, “the two will become one flesh”; but of the other, “the one who joins himself to the Lord will be one spirit.”