Interpretation of the First Letter to the Corinthians

Contents

Only the comment on 1 Cor 7 (marriage, separation and remarriage) is published; the rest of the commentary is not yet on the site.

1. 7.1Theodoret explains that the Corinthians had asked whether baptized married people should continue marital relations, and that Paul praises continence while allowing marriage.
2. 7.2Theodoret notes that Paul gives the same rule to husbands and wives because they share one nature.
3. 7.3Theodoret reads 1 Cor 7:3 as a law of equal chastity for husbands and wives, unlike human laws made by men for their own indulgence.
4. 7.4Theodoret explains that husband and wife, being one flesh, have authority over each other's bodies, and that abstinence must be by agreement, for a time, for fasting and prayer.
5. 7.6Theodoret explains that Paul sets out continence as perfection while conceding marriage, and calls marriage too a gift of God.
6. 7.8Theodoret takes 1 Cor 7:8 to show that Paul was himself unmarried, not a widower, and begins to explain that the counsel applies to both sexes.
7. 7.9Theodoret explains that the unmarried and the widowed may marry if they cannot master desire, “burning” meaning the soul's enslavement to it.
8. 7.10Theodoret ties 1 Cor 7:10–11 to the Lord's saying on putting away a wife, and explains that by forbidding a separated wife to marry another, Paul keeps the way open for her return to her first marriage.
9. 7.12Theodoret explains that Paul's “I, not the Lord” means that the rule is not written in the Gospels, though Paul's laws are Christ's laws.
10. 7.13Theodoret explains that 1 Cor 7:12–14 concerns marriages made before conversion, not believers marrying unbelievers, and urges the believing spouse to stay and work for the other's salvation.
11. 7.15Theodoret explains that when an unbelieving spouse departs, the believer is guiltless if he gave no cause, and that the Gospel brings true peace even when it first divides.
12. 7.17Theodoret notes that Paul's rule to remain as called confirms that he addressed marriages made before conversion.
13. 7.18Theodoret explains that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision should be changed, since what matters is keeping God's commandments.
14. 7.20Theodoret reads 1 Cor 7:21 as advice to remain a slave even if freedom is possible, so that piety is not made a pretext for flight.
15. 7.22Theodoret explains Paul's paradox of the free man as Christ's slave and the slave as the Lord's freedman.
16. 7.23Theodoret explains that “bought with a price” makes slaves and masters fellow slaves, and that Paul forbids a servile mind, not servitude.
17. 7.25Theodoret explains that Paul has no command on virginity because Christ left it to those able to receive it, so Paul gives counsel, not law.
18. 7.26Theodoret explains that Paul speaks tentatively (“I think”) so that his counsel of virginity does not become a law with penalties.
19. 7.28Theodoret explains that marriage is not sin, though Paul spares his hearers its troubles, and that 1 Cor 7:28 concerns those who have not yet vowed virginity.
20. 7.29Theodoret reads “the time has been shortened” as the nearness of the end of the present age.
21. 7.30Theodoret applies 1 Cor 7:29–31 to the use of wealth, citing Ezekiel's rams and Isaiah's levelling of ranks in the age to come.
22. 7.32Theodoret explains that virginity frees the soul from the cares of married life for undistracted service of God, referring to his own discourses on virginity.
23. 7.36Theodoret reads 1 Cor 7:36–38 of a father and his virgin daughter, defends marriage against heretics, and explains that a widow may marry again “only in the Lord”, that is, a fellow believer.
24. 7.40Theodoret notes that Paul calls the widow who remains unmarried “more blessed”, so that one who remarries is also blessed, against the Novatians who called a second marriage sexual immorality; he then introduces 1 Cor 8.