The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
2. Because by fornication he weakens and exhausts his body, and often destroys it, by contracting venereal disease. So S. Athanasius, quoted by Œcumenius. In both these ways the glutton and drunkard sin against their body, because the first disgraces it, exposing it to unhealthy humours, to vomiting, and other disgusting things, while the latter weakens, injures, and finally ruins its natural heat and strength. Hence under the name of fornication, here gluttony and drunkenness, as being akin to it, or rather its mother, may be understood. It was for this reason that the Apostle, in ver. 13, spoke of gluttony. For these two sins, gluttony and lust, are vices peculiar to the body, and are thence called sins of the flesh : other sins belong to the spirit alone, as I have just said.
3. The fornicator does injury to his own body, inasmuch as he alone brings his body, which was created free, pure, and noble, under the jurisdiction, service, and power of the most degraded harlot, so that he becomes as one thing with her. In the same way that, if any one were to bind his own body, that was noble, healthy, and beautiful, to the body of some loathsome leper, he would be said to do his body a great wrong, so does he who unites to a common, base, and infamous harlot his body, that was created by God pure, noble, and free, and redeemed and washed by the blood of Christ, do to it grievous injury. In all these verses the Apostle lays stress upon this wrong.
4. The fornicator does injury to his body, because he excites in it a foul and shameful lust, which so absorbs the mind that in carrying it out into action the man can think of nothing else. He makes his body, therefore, the slave of his lust, in such a way that he is wholly ruled by it. Neither gluttony nor any other sin in the body excites such shameful and vehement lust as this is. Impurity alone then holds sway over the body, and by its lust and outward action stains, subjugates, and destroys it.
Ver. 19 . — Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? They, therefore, who pollute their bodies by impurity are guilty of sacrilege, for they sin against the Holy Ghost. They do Him wrong by robbing Him of the body dedicated to Him, and transferring it to the demon of lust. Further, the bodies of the faithful are the temple of the Spirit of Christ, because they themselves are members of Christ, and because the faithful are one spirit with God. (See notes to vers. 16, 17, and 2 Cor. vi. 16.) Tertullian cleverly and beautifully says (de Cultu Femin . c. i.) that the guardian and high-priestess of this temple is chastity. He says : “ Since we are all the temple of God, because endowed and consecrated with the Holy Spirit , the guardian and high-priestess of His temple is chastity , who suffers nothing unclean , nothing unholy to be carried in, lest God, who inhabits it, be offended, and leave His polluted shrine .” The faithful and just is therefore a temple in which by grace dwells and is worshipped the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given us, to work in us all holy thoughts, affections, words, and works. Wherefore it is altogether unseemly that His soul and body should by fornication become the temple of Venus and Priapus : this is a grievous wrong done to God and the Holy Spirit. Hence it was that S. Seraphia, virgin and martyr, when asked by the judge, “Where is the temple of the Christ whom you adore, where you sacrifice ? ” replied, “I, by cultivating chastity, am the temple of Christ, and to Him I offer myself a sacrifice.” The judge retorted, “If your chastity, then, were taken from you, you would, I suppose, cease to be a temple of Christ?” The virgin rejoined: “If any man defile the temple of
God, him shall God destroy.” The judge then sent two young men to violate her, but at her prayer an earthquake took place, and the young men fell down dead : they were, however, at her prayers restored to life. This is to be found in her life by Surius, under the
3rd of September.
Ver. 20. — For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body . Value highly your bodies, though the devil bids for them with a shameful and brief bodily delight. Do not despise your bodies, do not sell them for nothing — rather think them of the highest possible worth ; for it is to the glory of God if these bodies, which God bought at a great price, even with His own blood, become of great importance in our eyes. Hence the well-known proud name of a Christian is, “Bought and Redeemed,” viz., from sin and heathenism, by the precious blood of Christ. So in olden times the children of Christians were bought by the Turks, and became, instead of Christians, Mahometans, and were called Mamelukes, or “the bought;” for when the Tartars had subdued Armenia they sold the children of the Christians. Melech-Sala, Sultan of Egypt, bought them in great numbers, and had them trained as soldiers, and called Mamelukes. After the death of Melech-Sala the Mamelukes began to appoint a king for themselves, a.d. 1252, out of their own society of apostate Christians. As they took their rise under the Emperor Frederick II., so under Solyman, who filled the Egyptian throne, they were exterminated, a.d. 1516. Then their reign and existence ceased together. Glorify God in your body , by keeping it pure in obedience to the Spirit and to God.
The Latin has, “ Glorify and carry God,” but the carry is not in the Greek. “As a horse,” says S. Thomas, “carries its lord and rider, and moves as he wills, so does the body serve the will of God.” The Greek also adds, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Observe that the Corinthians were greatly given to impurity, and consequently to gluttony. This is evident from Suidas, who, under the word “Cothys,” says: “Cothys is a devil worshipped by the
Corinthians as the ruler of effeminate and unclean persons.”
Herodotus says the same thing (Clio), and Strabo (lib. viii.). The latter says: “The temple of Venus at Corinth was so wealthy that it had more than a thousand harlots as priestesses, whom men and women dedicated to the goddess.” Thus Κορινθιάζειν became a common word for lasciviousness, self-indulgence, and impurity generally. Hence it is that the Apostle takes such pains to warn the Corinthians against their common sin of fornication; and he does this by various reasons drawn from different sources : (1.) from creation, (2.) from the resurrection of the body, (3.) from the shamefulness of impurity, and the injury it does to the body, (4.) from the dignity of the body.
From these we may collect six arguments by which he seeks to
save them from fornication : (1.) Because our body is not our own but the Lord’s (ver. 13) ; (2.) Because, if it is pure, it shall rise again with glory (ver. 14) ; (3.) Because our body is a member of Christ, (ver. 15); (4.) Because the body is a pure temple of the Holy Spirit, in order that by clinging to God in chastity it may become one spirit with Him (ver. 17) ; (5.) Because impurity disgraces and defiles the body (ver. 18); (6.) Because our body has been bought with the blood of Christ, and therefore it is an unworthy thing, and an injury to God, to Christ, and the Holy Spirit, to give it to a harlot (ver. 20). See Chrysostom (in M or alii).
S. Bernard (Serm. 7 on Ps. xci.) moralises thus : “ Glorify, dearly beloved, and bear meanwhile Christ in your body , as a delightful burden , a pleasant weight, a wholesome load, even though He seem sometimes to weigh heavily, even though sometimes He use the spur and whip on the laggard, even though sometimes He hold in the jaws with bit and bridle, and curb us wholly for our good. Be as a beast of burden in the patience with which you bear the load, and yet not as a beast, heedless of the honour that its rider gives. Think wisely and sweetly both of the nature of the load you bear, as well as of your own future benefit.” So S. Ignatius, the martyr, was called “God-bearer” and “ Christ-bearer ,” and he salutes the Blessed Virgin by the same name, “ Christ-bearer ,” in his letters to her, as S. Bernard says.