The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
For the present distress. The necessity, say some, of travelling about to evangelise the whole world, which would be difficult for one who was hampered by a wife and children. But Paul is not writing this to Apostles or Evangelists, but to the citizens of Corinth; and, therefore, others understand a reference to the distress of the persecutions and flights in the primitive Church. The virgins were well able to escape from tyrants, but the married, being weighed down with wife and children, found this difficult. At that time, therefore, celibacy was preferable to marriage. This is the way that heretics understand this passage.
But Calvin finds fault with this. He admits that the Apostle here counsels celibacy for the whole world and in all ages, even in such peaceful times as our own ; but he understands the distress to be the disquiet and the various afflictions by which the saints are harassed in this life, because of which celibacy is to be counselled before matrimony. But this, though true, is far-fetched. I say, then, that the present distress is that which the Apostle defines and explains in vers. 28 and 29, and is two-fold. And here observe that the Greek word for present has two significations : (a) the literal present, opposed to the future, as in Rom. viii. 38 and 1 Cor. iii. 22; (b) it signifies imminent, urgent, pressing. Both meanings are suitable here.
1. This present distress is that which is incumbent on matrimony, and inseparable from it, arising from the difficulties, annoyances, and troubles, such as child-bearing, labour, the bringing up of children, the cares, anxieties, rivalries, quarrels, and maintenance of the family ; the solicitude to grow rich and to form good alliances ; overbearingness on the part of the husband; hastiness of temper, drunkenness, extravagance, poverty, bereavement, and the constant distraction of mind springing from all these, and the being occupied about such things. Explaining himself in ver. 28, he calls all these “trouble in the flesh,” and opposes this to the pleasure of marriage. So Ambrose, Anselm, Chrysostom, Theophylact.
2. It is simpler and more obvious to say that the present distress is the shortness of this life, which is always pressing upon us, and hurrying us onwards towards death and eternity. The present distress thus denotes the shortness of the time which is given us to gain eternal life, and which, therefore, is to be given, not to the world nor to matrimony, but to the soul and to God. So Chrysostom, Anselm, and S. Jerome (contra Jovin. lib. i.). “ This distress ,” he says, “is the necessity of dying shortly.” In this short life we have the necessity laid on us of pleasing God, and of carefully preparing good works, that so we may live in bliss throughout eternity. Therefore we are counselled to virginity; for virginity can give itself wholly to God, while the married are distracted by the burdens of wedlock. As the ant throughout the summer lays up store of grain for the winter, so should we collect merits for eternity. S. Paul explains this distress in ver. 29: Do you, he seems to say, long for a wife, for children, for conjugal delights? Do you thirst for these things, and set your affections and thoughts on them ? Is it your sole purpose to perpetuate your name, your family, your race ? Are you heaping up riches, buying farms, building houses, as though you would dwell in them for ever? Recollect the saying of Horace, “Land and home and beloved wife must be left behind” ( Carm . ii. 14, 21).
1. Why do you weary and torment yourself with toils ? Why buy with such sorrows a short-lived pleasure, the fame of your name and family? Why hope for long endurance? Transient is whatever you see here, whatever you lust for ; transitory this present life.
Thirty years of manhood is all that is given us here below. Listen to the poet: “The short span of life forbids us to entertain any far-reaching hope.”
2. Death is pressing upon you : towards it you are hastening with relentless speed. Judgment awaits you; an eternity is at hand, unending and inevitable. God is constraining you, and forcing you to prepare yourself for it and hasten towards it.
3. God has given you this short life, this present time — not that you may spend it in wedded bliss, not that you may found a family, or establish a seat, or enjoy the present as though you were to remain here for ever — but solely and entirely that in it, as the arena for virtue, you may hasten to your goal and to the prize of an eternity of bliss ; that on that bliss you should hang with eyes, with mind, with soul, and for it earnestly strive, and keep it ever before you as your goal and the end of all your actions. Wherefore though the world is full of folly, there is none greater or made to suffer more than that which so neglects its supreme and everlasting good, and so eagerly pursues what is perishable and empty, at so great risk of eternal damnation.
4. Reflect daily. So much of my life has now flown by that perhaps not much is left. Every day that I live brings me nearer to death : what if it should meet me to-day or to-morrow ? Have I so lived as not to fear to die ? Have I laid by in store merits and good works by which I may live throughout eternity ? On this thy salvation turns as on a hinge : why then dost thou not give thyself wholly to it ?
5. Why do you busy yourself about other matters ? Why do you divide your mind between your wife, your children, your household, so as to think throughout the day scarcely once of God or heaven ? Why do you not collect yourself wholly for that one thing which is needful, and choose with Mary the best part? Why hunger after gain, wealth, position, and family alliances ? All men’s cares— how empty are they! Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee, and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ? Your sons succeed you and forget you ; you will leave all your goods to ungrateful heirs, for whom you toiled and laboured and gave your body to death and your soul to hell. Even if they be grateful, they will have no power to set you free from hell.
6. Have pity on your soul : on that one precious soul which God gave you to take care of and save, bestow some thought. Call away your mind from wedlock, from your wife, from your children ; your thoughts from your family, from the cares and business attending on a wife, all which things distract you, drown you, and swallow you up in the earth and earthly things.
7. Why do you not embrace that single life that I advise? It will give you leisure for thought how you may please God, not how you may please the world ; how you may get yourself ready for your journey to heaven; how you may compose your ideas as befits the judgment that is to come; how you may stand before God. It will enable you to serve the Lord without hindrance freely, to worship Him constantly, so as by perseverance in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to merit in heaven to shine in glory, to stand close by God, and most blissfully to enjoy Him throughout eternity — where with S. Agnes (S. Ambrose, Serm. 90) you may ever sing, “I am united in heaven to Him whom on earth I loved with all the power of my mind;” and, “The kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them I despised, because of the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, on whom I believed, whom I loved, and for whom I longed.”
Maldonatus (in Notis Manusc.) says : “ Because of the present distress, the approaching end of the world, let us not involve ourselves in earthly business such as matrimony, that so we may prepare ourselves for that end.”
From what has been said, the argument of Jovinian and Calvin falls to the ground. They say that the Apostle opposes the present to the future ; therefore, if the single life is a good merely because of the present distress, it is not so because of the future reward. I answer that the antecedent is false; for the present distress is that which urges us to seek to prepare ourselves in this short life, by a single life, for our eternal reward. Moreover, S. Jerome (contra Jovin . lib. i.) says : “The Apostle joins together the present and the future, that no one may suppose that virgins are indeed happier so far as concerns spiritual things, but not as concerns material, when they are better off in both than those that are married — better off in time, better off in eternity.” S. Augustine says the same, and refutes at length this argument of Calvin’s (de Sancta Virgin . lib. vi. c. 22), as does the Apostle here in vers. 33 and 35, as I will prove there at greater length.
That it is good for a man so to be . This is merely a repetition of the first clause of this verse for the sake of emphasis. It is good for a man to remain unmarried.
Ver. 28. — If a virgin marry she hath not sinned. A virgin here of course is one that is capable of matrimony — free, and unwedded, and not dedicated to God. If such marry she does not sin. Cf. notes to ver. 2. So Theodoret, Theophylact, Photius, and Jerome.
Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh . By letting loose on themselves a host of ills through the bond of wedlock, says S. Basil (de Sancta Virgin.). It is the cares of marriage, of children, and of household matters that the Apostle means when he speaks of trouble in the flesh . Cf. S. Augustine (de Sancta Virgin, c. 16), S. Ambrose (de Virg. lib. i.), and S. Jerome (contra Jovin.). (1.) Trouble in the flesh , therefore, is that which has to do with the flesh and fleshly things, and which troubles the flesh. It is opposed to that pleasure of the flesh which is found in matrimony. This pleasure is so counterbalanced by this “trouble” that it is scarcely felt. For the pleasure derived from the conjugal act is very base and brutish, and makes a man, as Alexander the Great used to say, epileptic; it carries with it great shame, and is gone in a moment, and is followed by numerous inconveniences. For from the moment of its conception it is accompanied by loathing, sleeplessness , giddiness, melancholy, palpitation of the heart, foolish longings, and a thorough disturbance of the bodily economy. The grievous pains of child-bearing follow, which often end in death. (2.) When children are born they need to be constantly washed, fed, enswathed, clothed, put to bed, rocked to sleep, taken out for fresh air, and kept healthy, and sung to sleep to prevent them