'The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain.' Wordy eloquence confers nothing profitable unto salvation. 'Therefore let no man glory in men'—in false apostles, nor indeed in any other, whether king or priest. 'For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death.' We are yours, not you ours. 'Whether things present, or things to come; for all are yours.' All things were created for the sake of the saints, 'as having nothing, and possessing all things.' Or if you would refer it to liberty: whatever you wish to choose—whether death or life, whether things present or things to come. 'And you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' Thus Christ is God's, as God is Christ's, if you apply it to the divinity:
although he treats of him according to his manhood, who was anointed. CHAPTER IV. 'Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God.' Not as equals to Christ. Here now it is required among the dispensers that one be found faithful. It is the voice of one questioning: that is, do you now here think to judge consciences? 'But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man's day: but neither do I judge my own self.' 'And I have not desired man's day'—that is, his time. For here 'man's day' is not unfittingly taken as the understanding, or the wise heart, which is able to judge. 'For I am conscious to myself of nothing.' Of nothing evil. 'Yet am I not hereby justified.'
In this time, or day; or truly, if no one blames me, I ought not therefore to flatter myself or be exalted: or if I have admitted no crime, perhaps I have not been altogether free of small faults. 'But he who judges me is the Lord.' Before the day of judgment. 'Therefore judge not before the time.' The hidden thoughts: because man looks upon the face, but God upon the heart. 'Until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.' Because the Lord knows me better than either I or any man knows. 'And then shall every man have praise from God.' He indeed is praiseworthy whom God makes praiseworthy. 'But these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos, for your sakes, that in us you may learn.'
That from us you may take an example of humility. 'That not above what is written.' It is 'above' which is not written. 'That one be not puffed up against another for one man's sake.' That is, when contention has arisen, you are puffed up as to who is the better. 'For who distinguishes you?' Of what account are you? Here he turns to those puffed up with the knowledge of speech. Or truly: Who distinguishes you from the mass of perdition, save God? For neither your merits, nor your knowledge. It is said to the man presuming as it were about himself: 'For who distinguishes you'—namely, from the vessels of wrath, from the mass of perdition, which through one man sent all into damnation? Who distinguishes you? And as if he had answered, 'My faith distinguishes me, my resolve, my merit': 'For what have you,' he says, 'that you have not received?'
'But if you have received it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it?' That is, as though that whereby you are distinguished were from yourself; therefore he distinguishes you who imparts that whereby you are distinguished, by removing the debt of punishment and bestowing undeserved grace. 'But what have you that you have not received?' What have you of yourself, save perhaps sin? For whether it be knowledge, or any good in you, it is the gift of God: and if you believe it to be from yourself, it will be said to you, 'What have you that you have not received?' And if you ascribe anything to yourself, and not to God, there befalls you that word of the Gospel spoken of the ungrateful man: 'For he that has not'—that is, from God—'even that which he seems to have shall be taken away from him.' And therefore let us shun pride, and give glory to God, in whom is every best gift:
lest, if we believe that either faith or good works come from ourselves, we lose what we seem to possess. 'But if you received it, why do you glory as though you had not received it?' As though you had anything of your own. 'You are already filled, you are already made rich; you reign without us.' This is said in doctrine or knowledge, uttered with the feeling of one rebuking, because they were ascribing to themselves what they seemed to be. 'And would that you did reign, that we also might reign with you.' You have need of us in nothing, nor have you ever had need: whether you reigned and we reigned with you, or whether you reckoned us at least as companions, if not as masters. 'For I think that God has shown forth us apostles as the last, as men appointed to death.' Even as he promised in the Apocalypse that in the last time he would send two to death:
or rather us now, who have been sent to the Gentiles. 'For we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men.' All await our injuries or our combat, both Christians and pagans; or else he speaks simply of angels. 'We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ.' We endure all things for Christ; but you wish to be Christians in such a way that you do not lose the prudence of the world, nor suffer anything for Christ. 'We are weak, but you are strong in Christ.' As though we could not repay in kind what worldly prudence can. 'You are noble, but we are without honour.' Because the false apostles, or certain believers, put forward both their own knowledge and their nobility of birth. 'Even unto this hour we both hunger,'
'and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted.' From the time we began to preach even unto this present time we have abounded in nothing. 'And we have no fixed abode.' Nowhere do we have a dwelling, or at least so it seems to you. 'And we labour, working with our own hands: we are reviled, and we bless: we suffer persecution, and we endure it.' So he worked, teaching all day and labouring by night, that the next day he might eat bread, not to lay up coin by spending day and night in such toil, but that both he himself and his disciples might live from it. 'We are blasphemed, and we entreat.' On behalf of those who blaspheme us. 'We are made as the offscouring of this world.' The just man is unclean in the sight of the wicked. 'The refuse of all, even until now.'
The most lowly of all, cast down and despised, a dishrag. 'I write not these things to confound you, but I admonish you as my dearly beloved sons.' They could have been confounded, had he not comforted them: I write not for your confusion, but for your profit. 'For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers.' All those who are set over the newly born cannot be fathers. 'For in Christ Jesus, by the Gospel, I have begotten you.' You believed at my first preaching of the Lord. 'I beseech you therefore, be imitators of me.' It belongs to good sons to imitate their parents in all things. 'For this cause have I sent to you Timothy, who is my dearly beloved son and faithful in the Lord.' The more faithful than the rest, the dearer to all. 'Who shall put you in remembrance.'
Who would teach you both by my letters and by his own example: for the one without the other could not be perfect. 'My ways, which are in Christ.' My life, my course, and my labours. 'As I teach everywhere in every Church.' My ways, my doctrine, and my manner of life, in which I everywhere walk uniformly, and from no one do I take any gain or advantage of the present time. 'Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you.' A man remains puffed up so long as he does not come who has true knowledge: not that knowledge which is folly with God. 'But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will: and I will know, not the speech of them that are puffed up, but the power.' The power of faith, which is in the works of Christ, or in signs.
'For the kingdom of God is not in speech, but in power.' The New Testament. 'What will you?' A kindly master, who placed the correction of his disciples in their own will. If you do not amend, it shall be with the rod; but if you do, in consolation. 'Shall I come to you with a rod, or in charity and the spirit of meekness?' With the rod of justice, the rod which Peter used against Ananias and Sapphira, and Paul against the Magus: and at the same time it must be considered that this very anger is placed within our own power, not we within its power: and it is roused when an injury done to God is avenged. Chapter 5. 'It is altogether reported that there is fornication among you.' In the Church over which you preside. 'And such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles.' He shows why he set anger before it. 'So that someone should have his father's wife.'
He has taken his father's concubine to himself. 'And you are puffed up.' You are puffed up with vain knowledge or with pride, and you have no care for those who perish, that they may be gathered together and either corrected or cast out. 'And you have not rather mourned.' Good shepherds have always wept for the sins of the people, as Jeremiah says: 'Who will give water to my head?'—he to whom not the will, but only tears, were lacking. 'That he might be taken away from among you who has done this deed.' Whether he who did it, or Satan, be taken away, so long as he has no one through whom to work. 'I indeed, absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged, as though present, him who has so done, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together.' Lest he should be thought to judge only from hearsay.
'And with my spirit.' By the judgement of my letters. 'With the power of the Lord Jesus.' Nor shall the Lord's power be lacking. 'To deliver such a one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.' That Satan may have power to receive him, so that at least in this way he may be converted, when he sees that he shall have rest neither here in the flesh nor hereafter in the spirit. It must be guarded against: because whoever is excommunicated is delivered over to Satan. 'That the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.' But if Satan has not received power over the spirit, when he corrects him, he is reserved to the judgement of the Lord alone. 'Your glorying is not good.' You who admit such a one in the Church. 'Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump?'
Do you not know that by the example of one evil man many can perish, and that through the transgression of one the wrath of God fell upon the whole people, upon the people of the Jews? 'Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened.' Let nothing of your former manner of life remain in you. 'For Christ our passover is sacrificed.' Being made clean through baptism from the vices of the world, let us pass over to the virtues of the Lord. 'Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.' 'I wrote to you in an epistle not to keep company with fornicators.'
Not the lamb, which was a figure of Christ—and they indeed ate unleavened bread for seven days, but we always, if we are pure, because the world too was made in seven days: daily the lamb is slain for us, daily the passover is celebrated—by him who has not the leaven of malice and wickedness. Not in fullness of belly, which does not pertain to God, but in simplicity of mind and purity of heart. For what is leaven but the corruption of nature, that same thing which from sweet has become sour? 'Not indeed with the fornicators of this world, or the covetous, or the rapacious, or those who serve idols.' Not the fornicators of the Gentiles. 'Otherwise you would have needed to go out of this world.' By another manner you would have had to depart, not in this way; or at least if in this way, it were better for you to die.
'But now I have written to you not to keep company.' This very thing I have now written, which I say: 'If any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner.' He is to be called a brother not from the name alone, but from his deed. But if anyone is named a fornicator—which is found also in the Old Testament: 'He who joins himself to fornicators shall be wicked: rottenness and worms shall inherit him.' 'With such a one not so much as to take food.' 'For what have I to do to judge those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are within?' Nor do I forbid that common fellowship which I have conceded, if you wish to go about with the Gentiles. 'For those who are outside God will judge.' Outside the Church are the Jews, heretics, and Gentiles.
'Put away the evil one from among yourselves.' Not from among the Gentiles, but from among you. Chapter 6. 'Dare any of you, having a matter against another.' Someone has dared to go against the precept of the Lord who says: 'If any man will contend with you in judgement and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.' Here it is understood that they were accused in the secular court chiefly on account of fornications: because he here inserted this in the very midst of the case of fornication. 'To be judged before the unjust, and not before the saints?' Here it is proved that the judges were Gentiles, because they are called unjust. 'Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world?' As the Saviour says: 'You shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'
But what he said to them, he said to all who shall have imitated them. For of those twelve one perished, and another who had not heard him succeeded in his place: and Paul and Barnabas were apostles. 'And if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?' Whether by yourselves, or by your example. 'Do you not know that we shall judge angels?' Those angels who sinned against nature shall be judged by these who, above nature, preserved chastity with God's help. 'How much more the things of this world?' Concerning the affairs of the world. 'If therefore you have secular matters of judgement, set those to judge who are of least account in the Church.'
Even those who are least in the Church can judge these matters, or at least those who despise their own wrongs. It is to be noted that he calls those 'least' who are not instructed in the law of God, but in that of the world. 'I speak to your shame.' What I am about to say, that such men may blush. 'Is it so that there is not a wise man among you who can judge between his brother?' Is there really none? But brother contends with brother in judgement, and this before unbelievers. They double their sin, both that they go to law, and that they go to law before unbelievers. 'Now indeed there is altogether a fault in you, that you have lawsuits among yourselves.' First, because you despise the precept of Christ, you already have sin. 'Why do you not rather accept the wrong?'
'Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?' He speaks to those who were doing the wrong, not to those who were suffering it: To bear it is meet, if anyone does you an injury. 'But you do wrong and defraud, and that to your brethren. Do you not know that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God?' They to whom it is not even permitted to repay their enemies in kind. 'Do not err: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God.' Do not be seduced, thinking that punishment is for many sins and not also for a single one. 'And such some of you were.' Do not fear concerning things past: only commit nothing criminal after baptism.
'But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.' Washed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, sanctified through the Holy Spirit. Here understand the whole Trinity. 'All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.' Because he is treating of fornication, he wishes to show the occasion of fornication. 'All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.' It is lawful for us to eat and drink, but if we subject ourselves to gluttony, this very lawful thing will lead us to what is unlawful, that is, to fornication. So too concerning marriage, and riches, and other such things it can be understood, which are not sin, but can lead to the occasion of sins.
'Food for the belly, and the belly for food: but God shall destroy both this and these.' Both these two, that is, both the belly and the food, and the man himself who is engaged in them. 'But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.' God is with you, so long as you are with him: but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 'And God has raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power.' If he raised the Lord, he will also raise us by the same power. If we are his members, therefore we ought to sanctify our members, that we may be worthy to abide in him. 'Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ?' The whole Church is the body of Christ; individuals are its members. 'Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid.'
He did not say 'of a fornicator,' but 'of a harlot': to show that the man is of the same crime and name as the harlot with whom he fornicates: because to men the man seems to sin less than the woman. At the same time it is to be noted that he takes away the members of Christ who is about to make them members of a harlot: in this the fornicator is guilty of the greater crime, because he takes away the members of Christ and makes them the members of a harlot. 'Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is made one body? For the two, he says, shall be in one flesh.' Just as with a wife lawfully, so also with a harlot one flesh is made through unlawful love. 'But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.' Just as he who does the works of the flesh is flesh, so also he who does the works of God is one spirit. 'Flee fornication.'
Seeing how grievous it is. 'Every sin, whatever a man does, is outside the body.' Every sin can be committed by one person, who cannot be called a body but a member: but in fornication two perish, and the two can be called a body: it is therefore more grievous where two perish than where only one: because the other sins can be committed even without a body. 'But he who commits fornication sins against his own body.' Some think this is said of the body of the Church; but he says 'against his own body': either he thus declares fornication to be more grievous—which he knew to be, among them, in those matters that seemed to them trivial, because it had passed into custom. 'Do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? whom you have from God, and you are not your own.'
'For you are bought with a great price.' He who is not his own ought not to live for himself, but for him whose he is, having been purchased with his blood. 'He who wishes,' he says, 'to come after me, let him deny himself.' If a man demands continual servitude from a slave bought with a small sum of money, how much more he who had nothing greater to give for us than his very self? 'Glorify God.' Do this, that God may be glorified through you and through your works. 'And carry the Lord in your body.' That we may carry the heavenly image. It is to be noted that here he calls the God whom we are bidden to carry the Holy Spirit: of whom above he testified that our members are the temple, saying: 'You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.'
And now he says, 'Glorify and carry God in your body,' surely God the Holy Spirit. Chapter 7. 'Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me.' Being asked, he answers: 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman.' That was good which I proclaimed as the best: if therefore it is good for one who has a wife not to touch her, how much more if he has not married is it better! Incontinence is prevented by time, and age, and infirmity: but chastity can always be preserved, with God as helper and guardian. That therefore is more to be sought which is eternal. Why then, 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth'? but now even the earth itself no longer holds the men. 'But could he,' he says, 'have made all men from the earth?' He could, but he would not:
for he could have made men both winged and horned. But he made all things best, according to a reason known to himself. Eve herself, indeed, he willed not to make from the earth, but from a rib. But if you think that this is to be done thus in all cases, imitate Cain and the others who married their own sisters. If therefore it was thus, let us believe that God ordained all things for their times according to the foreknowledge whereby he is God. This too is to be believed: that even now, if they marry according to the law, they do not sin; for the law permits marriage for the sake of children, not for the sake of lust. In this men make themselves worse even than the beasts, that when they spare not even pregnant women, they show that they took wives not for the sake of children.
But he who abstains himself solely for the sake of children—after the woman has given birth, and while the infant is being nursed, and perhaps when by reason of age childbearing has now ceased—ceases also from the marriage act: 'not to touch,' according to use, not according to simple touch. 'But on account of fornication let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render the debt to the wife: and likewise the wife to the husband.' To fornicators he conceded that they might marry, lest the incontinent man commit fornication: as if a physician should say to a sick man, 'It was good for you not to eat apples': and he cannot restrain himself but wishes to eat figs: afterward the physician grants him a hearty meal, only that he not eat what would kill him. Hence perfection is to be proclaimed:
but to him who cannot, the remedy of marriage is to be given. 'The woman has not power over her own body, but the husband.' Because she of her own accord took away her freedom from herself. 'And likewise the husband has not power over his own body, but the wife.' Let husbands acknowledge that it is not lawful for them to know another besides their wife, because by equal lot they are mutually subject to and debtors of one another. 'Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer: and return again together.' He who is incontinent cannot give himself to prayer. Not only in the New Testament is continence praiseworthy, but also in the Old Testament: when God was about to descend upon Mount Sinai, he bade the people be sanctified from women for three days;
how much more, then, shall he be able to see God who has willed to be always chaste? Likewise the priest also forbade David the holy bread until he should learn that he was clean from women: and Peter bids us abstain even from lawful things. 'Lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence.' Lest, one withdrawing herself, the other commit fornication, and Satan find room for tempting. 'But this I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command.' 'For I wish all men to be as myself.' This I indulge to the weak, I do not enjoin upon the perfect—I who would wish all men to imitate me in all things, I who know how greatly chastity avails with God. 'But each has his own gift from God, one indeed after this manner, and another after that.'
His own gift, because God divides to each as he wills, for not all can receive this word. But if all can, how does Scripture say that no one can be continent unless you have granted it? 'A gift from God, one indeed after this manner, and another after that.' You hear 'gift'—let presumption cease. 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows.' He begins concerning those who have no wives, and concerning widows. 'It is good for them if they so remain, even as I.' Who can say that is not good which he himself says is good? Who, I ask, could, unless perhaps Jovinian? 'But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry.' Either you will suffer incontinence, or you ought not to marry, if you wish to be continent. 'For it is better to marry than to burn.'
Fornication is punished by fire, as Judah says concerning his daughter-in-law: 'Let her be brought forth,' he says, 'and burned.' In comparison therefore with fornication, it is better to marry. 'But to those who are joined in matrimony I command, not I, but the Lord.' Here he speaks properly to the married, that they should not put away their wives and marry others either beautiful or rich, as the Jews were doing. 'That the wife depart not from her husband. If any man put away his wife, save for the cause of fornication, he makes her to commit adultery. But if she depart, let her remain unmarried.' Not to depart so as to marry another: if for some cause she departs, let her not marry another. 'Or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband put away his wife. For to the rest I speak, not the Lord.'
It is better if she return to her own husband than that she marry another. 'If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not put away her husband.' If one of the two believed: not that he permitted the unbeliever not to be joined to the believer, but he speaks of those already joined. 'For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the believing wife.' Often it has happened that he was won through the wife. Therefore blessed Peter says that if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word through the manner of life of the wives, and when they see, from drunkards, sober women, from proud, humble women, they may say: 'Truly it is the law of God, which was able so to change ingrained habits.'
I believe it had already come about that some women through believing husbands, and some men through believing wives, came into the faith: and although he does not give names, yet by examples he exhorted them to confirm his counsel. 'And the unbelieving woman is sanctified through the believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.' If you were both unbelievers, of necessity the children would imitate you: but now perhaps they imitate the believer, and are holy: because even if they be born of two believers, they are so born as if a wild olive from an olive tree. I say 'wild olive' on account of original sin, and on account of this they are under the devil, unless they be born again in Christ: because the devil is the author of fault, not of nature.
I now believe that there were little Christian children who, whether through one parent being the author, or through both consenting, had been sanctified: which would not happen if, one believing, the marriage were dissolved. 'But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. For the husband is not greater than God. For a brother or a sister is not made subject to servitude in such cases.' Is she to marry in such a way that she serve and perish on account of another unbeliever? And it is to be noted that they are mutually servants. 'In such cases.' In such a matter or cause. 'But God has called us in peace.' In freedom: therefore we ought not of our own accord to depart. 'For how do you know, O wife, whether you shall save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you shall save your wife? Only as the Lord has distributed to each:'
as God has called each one. He has left it in doubt: but always, if anything is ambiguous, the understanding is to be led to the better part. 'So let each walk: and so I teach in all the churches.' Whether with a wife or without a wife. Whether circumcised or in uncircumcision: whether slave or free. 'Is any called being circumcised? let him not bring on uncircumcision.' Whether he is called with a wife, let him not put her away; whether without a wife, he has no need to marry, if he acquiesces in that counsel, and if he can contain himself. For the circumcised man, since he had had a foreskin, cannot recall himself to being uncircumcised—that which was needful in its own time was superfluous: let him not say, 'It would have been better had I not been circumcised,' let him not live after the manner of the Gentiles. 'Is any called in uncircumcision?'