The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Chapter 9
i. He proceeds to show by his own example how offences are to be avoided, and he says that he had refused to accept payment, or the maintenance due to a preacher of the Gospel, both to gain greater merit and for the sake of edification.
ii. He then (ver. 7) proves by six arguments (summarised in the notes to ver. 12) that this maintenance is due to himself and other preachers of the Gospel.
iii. He shows (ver. 20) that for the same reason he had become all things to all men, that the Corinthians might learn how each one must care for his own edification and the salvation of his neighbour.
iv. He urges them (ver. 24) to that same edification, pointing out that our life is a race and trial of virtue, and in them we must run and strive after better things, and after the prize, by abstinence and bodily mortification.
Ver. 1. — Am I not an apostle? am I not free? It may be asked what connection this has with the preceding chapter; it seems to be an abrupt transition to another subject. I reply that Paul had spoken at the end of the last chapter of the necessity of avoiding all that might cause offence. Now, that he may enforce this, he puts himself forward as an example, and points to his having refused to receive any payment for his preaching, and his having earned his bread by his own labours; this cession of his rights he made, both to avoid causing any to offend, and to give an example of singular virtue. He would so teach the Corinthians not to stand upon their rights, especially in the matter of eating idol-sacrifices, out of regard for their neighbours, if they saw that they were thus made to stumble, or led into sin. Yet at the same time Paul, by implication, guards in this declaration the sincerity and authority of his preaching against the false apostles who impugned them; he points indirectly to his having preached the Gospel without money and without price, while the false apostles made gain out of it. He says, therefore: “Am I not an Apostle? am I not free? Am I not within my rights, as the Apostle of Christ, if I demand and receive from you means for my maintenance? Yet this I do not do, because I wish to show you what our neighbour's salvation demands from us, and how you ought, therefore, to avoid all causes of offence.” Cf. Chrysostom's homily on this text (No. 20).
Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord? It is clear that I am an Apostle, for I have seen Christ, and been sent by Him to preach the Gospel. Cf. Acts ix.
Ye are my work in the Lord, because I begat you by the Gospel in Christ. Your Church was built up by me: ye are my building.
Ver. 2. — For the seal of mine Apostleship are ye in the Lord. A proof of my apostleship may be seen in you, in my preaching, in my miracles, in the toil and the dangers which I have either borne or performed amongst you for your conversion; by such things as seals have I sealed, confirmed, and proved my apostleship. All these things loudly testify that I am a true Apostle, sent by God to teach and save you.
Ver. 3. — Mine answer to them that do examine me is this. Those who ask about my Apostleship may take what I have said as their answer. So Anselm. But Chrysostom and Ambrose just as suitably refer this to the following verse.
To examine or interrogate is a judicial term, and is purposely used by S. Paul to point to the audacity of those who called in question his jurisdiction.
Ver. 4. — Have we not power to eat and to drink? Viz., at your expense. This is the glory and defence of me and my apostleship, that it is gratuitous, unlike that of the false apostles. Notwithstanding I have the same right, the same power to look for means from you for my eating and drinking.
Ver. 5. — Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles? The Greek is ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα, which the Latin version turns mulierem sororem; and Beza, Peter Martyr, Vatablus, and Valla render sororem uxorem. They argue from this that Paul was married, urging that, though the Greek word stands both for woman and wife, yet here its meaning is fixed to the latter by the term “lead about.” Men do not, they say, lead about sisters but wives.
They mistake: 1. Christ led about women, not as a husband might a wife, but as a teacher is accompanied by disciples and handmaidens, who see to his necessities. Cf. Luke viii. 3.
2. It would be absurd to call a sister a wife, and the term sister would be superfluous.
3. The definite article is wanting in the Greek, which would be required if a certain woman, as, e.g., a wife, were designated.
4. It is evident from 1 Cor. vii. 8 that Paul was unmarried. This passage is explained at length in the sense I have given by Augustine (de Opere Monach. c. iv.), Jerome (contra Jovin. lib. i.), Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theodoret, Theophylact in their comments on the verse, and by other Fathers generally, except by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. lib. iii.). S. Jerome indeed says that, among the Apostles, Peter was the only one that had a wife, and that only before his conversion. Tertullian's words (de Monogamia) are: “I find that Peter alone was a husband.”
I say, then, that the phrase here is literally “sister woman,” and denotes a Christian matron who ministered to Paul's necessities from her means. We have a similar phrase in Acts xiii. 26, “men,” i.e., Christian men. S. Paul says then that he might, if he so saw fit, lead about a matron to support him, as much as Peter; but he does not do so, because it might be a cause of offence to the Gentiles, whose Apostle he was, and might only cause evil surmisings. So Ambrose, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Œcumenius, Anselm.
It may be said that Ignatius, in his letter to the Philadelphians, classes Paul among the married. Baronius (a.d. 57, p. 518) and others well reply that Paul’s name was inserted there by later Greek copyists, to serve as an excuse for themselves being married. The oldest and best copies of the Epistles of S. Ignatius, including that of the Vatican and of Sfort, have not S. Paul's name.
It may be said again that Clement of Alexandria (Strom. lib. iii.) understands this passage of a wife of Paul. I reply, firstly, that that is true, but that he goes on to say that after he became an Apostle she was to him as a sister, not as a wife, which is against the heretics, and in the second place that all the Fathers are against Clement.
And the brethren of the Lord. Brethren is a common Hebraism for kinsmen. James, John, and Judas are here meant. So Anselm.
And Cephas. Nay, as well as Peter, the prince of the Apostles and of the Church.
Ver. 7. — Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Just as it is right for soldiers to be paid and to live on their pay; just as it is right for a vine-grower to eat of the fruit of his vine, for a shepherd of the milk of the flock that he feeds, so is it right for the preachers of the Gospel to live of the Gospel, of their vineyard the Church, and of their flock, the members of Christ. The Apostle is beginning here to prove in various ways his right to receive payment for his preaching, that all after him might know that this is owing to preachers of the Word of God, and that he may show how undeniable and how clear is the right that he has freely given up by refusing to receive payment out of regard to the Corinthians. He so acted in order that by this generosity of his he might draw them to Christ and help forward their salvation. I will summarise his reasons at ver. 12.
Ver. 8. — Say I these things as a man t Do I prove or strengthen my arguments by human reasons merely, and by similitudes drawn from the life of the soldier, the vine-grower, the shepherd? By no means. Nay, rather I establish and fortify them from the law of God.
Ver. 9. — For it is written in the law of Moses, &c. Deut. xxv. 4. The reason doubtless was that it was right that the animals who laboured should also eat. Hence God forbade that the mouths of the oxen that trod out the corn should be muzzled, to prevent them from eating of what they trod out. It was the custom in Palestine, as it is now in some places, for the oxen to thresh out the grain by treading the corn-ears with their hoofs. That this is the literal meaning appears from the words in which it is enjoined on the hard-hearted Jews.