The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Chapter 7
In this chapter he answers five questions of the Corinthians about the laws of matrimony, and about the counsel of virginity and celibacy — i. The first question is whether matrimony and its use are lawful for a Christian, as being born again and sanctified. The answer is that they are lawful, and that, moreover, when either party demands his due, it ought to be given, and that therefore it is better to marry than to burn.
ii. The second is (ver. 10) concerning divorce, whether it is lawful, and S. Paul answers that it is not.
iii. The third is (ver. 12), If a believer have an unbelieving partner, can they continue to live together ? He answers that they both can and ought, if the unbeliever consents to live in peace with the believer.
iv. The fourth is (ver. 17) whether a man's state is to be changed because of his faith ; whether a married person who was a slave when a heathen becomes free when a Christian, whether a Gentile becomes a Jew. He answers in the negative, and says that each should remain in his station.
v. The fifth is (ver. 25) whether at all events those who are converted to Christ as virgins ought to remain so. He replies that virginity is not enjoined on any as a precept, but that it is on all as a counsel, as being better than matrimony for six reasons : —
(a) Because of the present necessity, inasmuch as only a short time is given us for obtaining, not temporal but eternal gain : she that is a virgin is wholly intent on these things (ver. 26).
(b) Because he that is married is, as it were, bound to his wife with the wedding-bond, but the unmarried is free and unconstrained (ver. 27).
(c) Because the unmarried is free from the tribulation of the flesh which attacks the married (ver. 28).
(d) Because a virgin thinks only of what is pleasing to God, but one that is married has a heart divided between God and his wife.
(e) Because a virgin is holy in body and in soul, but the married not in body, and often not in soul (ver. 34).
(f) Because he that is unmarried gives his virgin an opportunity to serve God without interruption, whereas the married have a thousand hindrances to piety and devotion (ver. 35).
Ver. 1. — Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me. In answer to the questions you have put to me about the rights, use, and end of matrimony and the single life, I answer that it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Notice here from S. Anselm and Ambrose that certain false Apostles, in order to seem more holy, taught that marriage was to be despised, because of the words of Christ (S. Matt. x. 12), “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,” which they interpreted as applying to all Christians, especially since the act of fornication, which had been so severely condemned by the Apostle in the preceding chapter, is physically the same as conjugal copulation. The
Corinthians, therefore, asked S. Paul by letter whether Christians ought to be so chaste, and ought to be so much free for prayer, godliness, and purity as to be bound, even though married, to abstain altogether from intercourse with their wives.
It is good for a man not to touch a woman . It is beautiful, exemplary , and excellent. The Greek here is καλόν. So Theophylact.
Good is not here the same as useful or expedient, as Erasmus turns it, but denotes that moral and spiritual good which of itself conduces to victory over passion, to piety, and salvation (cf. vers. 32, 34, 35). To touch a woman or to know is with the Hebrews a modest form of speech denoting the act of conjugal copulation.
S. Jerome (lib. i. contra Jovin.) adds that the Apostle says touch , “because the very touching of a woman is dangerous, and to be avoided by every man.” These are his words : “ The apostle does not say it is good not to have a wife , but ‘it is good not to touch a woman,’ as though there were danger in the touch, not to be escaped from by any one who should so touch her: being one who steals away the precious souls of men, and makes the hearts of youths to fly out of their control. Shall any one nurse a fire in his bosom and not be burnt? or walk upon hot coals and not suffer harm? In the same way , therefore , that he who touches fire is burnt, so when man and woman touch they feel its effect and perceive the difference between the sexes. The fables of the heathen relate that Mithras and Ericthonius , either in stone or in the earth, were generated by the mere heat of lust. Hence too Joseph fled from the Egyptian woman, because she wished to touch him ; and as though he had been bitten by a mad dog and feared lest the poison should eat its way, he cast off the cloak that she had touched.” Let men and youths take note of these words.
Cardinal Vitriaco, a wise and learned man, relates of S. Mary d’Oignies that she had so weakened and dried up her body by fastings that for several years she felt not even the first motions of lust, and that when a certain holy man clasped her hand in pure spiritual affection, and thus caused the motions of the flesh to arise, she, being ignorant of this, heard a voice from heaven which said, “ Do not touch me." She did not understand it, but told it to another who did, and thenceforward she abstained from all such contact.
S. Gregory (Dial. lib. iv. c. 11) relates how S. Ursinus, a presbyter, had lived in chastity separated from his wife, and when he was on his death-bed, drawing his last breath, his wife came near and put her ear to his mouth, to hear if he still breathed. He, still having a few minutes to live, on perceiving this, said with as much strength as he could summon, “ Depart from me, woman — a spark still lingers in the embers ; do not fan it into a flame." Well sung the poet : —
“ Regulus by a glance, the Siren of Achelous with a song,
The Thessalian sage with gentle rubbing slays :
So with eyes, with hands, with song does woman burn,
And wield the three-forked light of angry Jove.”
S. Jerome rightly infers from this (lib. i. contra Jovin.) that it is an evil for a man to touch a woman. He does not say it is sinful, as Jovinian and others falsely alleged against him, but evil. For this touching is an act of concupiscence, and of the depraved pleasure of the flesh ; but it is nevertheless excused by the good of wedlock, but is wholly removed by the good of the single life.
It may be urged from Gen. ii. 18, where it is said that it is not good for a man to be alone, that it is therefore good to touch a woman. I answer that in Genesis God is speaking of the good of the species, S. Paul of the individual ; God in the time when the world was uninhabited, Paul when it is full ; God of temporal good, Paul of the good of the eternal life of the Spirit. In this it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Ver. 2. — Nevertheless to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife. Lest being unmarried, and unwilling to live a chaste life, he fall into fornication. Every man , say Melancthon and Bucer, must include the priest and the monk. I reply that every man means every man that is free, not bound by vow, disease, or old age : for such are incapable of matrimony. Laws and documents must be interpreted according to their subject-matter: they only apply to those capable of receiving them, not to those who are not. To him then who is free, and unbound, and can fulfil the requirements of matrimony, the apostle gives no precept, but advice and permission, that if he fears to fall into fornication he should marry a wife, or keep to her that he has already married, rather than fall into any danger of committing such a sin. So the Fathers whom I will quote at ver. 9 all agree in saying. This must be the Apostle’s meaning, for otherwise he would contradict himself, for throughout the whole chapter he urges the life of chastity.
Moreover, the apostle is speaking primarily to the married alone, and not to the unmarried. To these latter he begins to speak in ver. 8, Now I say to the unmarried and widows , where the adversative now marks the change. He says too here let every man have, not let every man marry, because he is speaking to those who already had wives. So S. Jerome (lib. i. contra Jovin.) says, “ Let every man that is married have his own wife,” i.e., continue to have her, not dismiss or repudiate her, but rather use her lawfully and chastely. The word have signifies not an inchoate but a continuous action. So 2 Tim. i. 13: “Hold fast the form of sound words,” where the same word is used. So in S. Luke xix. 26 : “ Unto every one that hath (that uses his talent) shall be given ; and from him that hath not (does not use), even that he hath shall be taken away from him ; otherwise there cannot well be taken from a man what he has not. That this is the true meaning is evident from what follows in ver. 3.
Ver. 3. — Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence. A modest paraphrase for the conjugal debt.
Ver. 4. — The wife hath not power of her own body but the husband. She has not power, that is, over those members which distinguish woman from man, in so far as they serve for the conjugal act. Power she has not over them so as to contain at her own will or to have intercourse with another. That power belongs to the husband alone, and that for himself only, not for another. Cf. S. Augustine ( contra Julian . lib. v.). The Greek is literally, has no right over her body, whether to contain or to hand it over to another.