The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 222

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER VII. very different. The example of St. Paul should have shown the medireval moralists Vere. 1--40.-.A.nswers to the inquiries of and even the later Fathers how wrong it the Corinthians respecting marriage. is " to give themselves airs of certainty on Vera. 1-11.-The lawfulness of marriage, points where certainty is not to be had." and its duties. Not to touch, a woman. St. Paul means Ver. 1.-Now concerning, This refers to genernlly "not to marry" ( comp. Gen. xx. questions of the Corinthians (comp. eh. vii. 4 [LXX.]). Celibacy under the then exist- 25; viii. 1; xii. 1). It is good for a man ing conditions of the Christian world is, he not to touch a woman. The word used is admits, in itself an honourable and morally not agathon, good, but kalon, fair; "au salutary thing, tilough, for the majority,. excellent thing." In ver. 26 he limits the marriage may be a positive duty. He is not word by the clause, "good for the pi·esent drellming of the noini11al mo.rriag-es of necessity." There is no limitation here, and medireval ascetics, for be assumes ,md ,lirects it is probable that St. Paul is quoting the tilat all who marry should live in conjugal actual words of the letter which he had union. received from Corinth. There had sprung Ver. 2.-Nevertheless. In this single up among them some antinomilms, who, word St. Paul practicnlly refutes nil the perhaps by perverting his own teaching dangerous nnd unwarrantable inferences or that of Apollos, bad made liberty a dro.wn by St. Jerome and others from the cloak of lasciviousness. In indignant re- previous clause. St. Jerom£> argues:" If it is action against such laxity, others, perhaps, good for a man not to touch a woman, it with Essene proclivities, be.d been led to must be bad to do so, and therefore celibacy disparage matrimony as involving ,m inevit- is a ilolier sto.to than marringe." Ho also able stain. Gnosticism, and the spirit says, "I suspect the goodness of a thing whicil led to it, oscillated between the two which the greatness of another evil enforces extremes of asceticism and uncleanness. as e. Jesse,· evil." Such reasoning shows~ Botil extremes were grounded on the asser- 1. Tllo danger of pressing words to tile full tion that mutter is inherently evil. Ascetic extent of the logical inferences which m.1y Gnostics, therefore, strove to destroy by be deduced from them. 2. The errors severity every camul impulse; antinomian which nlways uriso from ar~uing upon Gnostics argued that the life of the spil'it isolated texts dbsevcred from their context, was so utterly independent of the flesh and from all consideration of the circum- teat whe.t the flesh did wus of no conse- stances undor which tiley were written. quence. We find the germs of Gnostic 3. Tile necessity of following the guidance heresy long before the name appeared. of the Holy Spirit when ho shows, by ilistory Theoretically, St. Panl inclines to the as- and experience, tile need for nltering precepts cetic view, uot in the abstruct, but in view with roference to altered conditions. There of the near nd vent of Christ, and of tile cares, is in celibacy a morn) benuty-it is ka/011; distractions, e.nd even trials whicil mauiage there are cnsos in which it becomes a duty. involved in dnys of struggle and persecution. Dut in most cnses marriage, being no less a Yet his wisdom is shown in the cautious duty, as St. Paul proceeds to show, is even moderation with which he expresses himself. fairer and moro excellent. Neither state, The tone of tile letter written by Grogo1·y tilo wedded or tbo unwedded, is in itsdf the Great to Augustine with reference to moro holy the.a the other. Each has its own eitnilo.r inquiries about Saxon converts is honour and loveliness, and. can only be  THE FIHST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cu. vu. 1-40.