_Covetousness. [1] The Latin word is generally taken for a coveting or immoderate desire of money and riches. St. Jerome and others observe, that the Greek word in this an divers other places in the New Testament may signify any unsatiable desire, or the lusts of sensual pleasures; and on this accou... [ Continue Reading ]
_Nor obscenity. [2] What is here meant by this word, St. John Chrysostom tells us at large in the moral exhortation after his 17th homily; to wit, jests with immodest suggestions or a double meaning, and raillery or buffoonery against the rules of good conversation, scarce made use of by any but by... [ Continue Reading ]
_Nor covetous person, which is a serving of idols. It is clear enough by the Greek that the covetous man is called an idolater, whose idol in mammon; though it may be also said of other sinners, that the vices they are addicted to are their idols. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
The apostle here puts them in mind of the general judgment, when the angel of God will, on account of their crimes of avarice, fornication, &c. fall on the children of unbelief; by which are meant the wicked. He had before assured them that the perpetrators of such crimes would be excluded from the... [ Continue Reading ]
_Be ye not, therefore, partakers with them: do not imitate their wickedness, or the wrath of the Almighty will likewise fall on you. (Estius)_... [ Continue Reading ]
By _darkness is here meant the state of infidelity into which they had been plunged so far as to adore stones as God, and committed without remorse the above-mentioned grievous sins. But delivered by Christ from this darkness, they have become light in the Lord, shining in faith and justice. (Estius... [ Continue Reading ]
_For the fruit of the light. So the Latin and divers Greek copies; not the fruit of the spirit, as we read in many Greek manuscripts; and in this Dr. Wells thought fit to change the Protestant translation. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
With solicitude seek out what things are pleasing to God, and carefully perform them. (Estius)... [ Continue Reading ]
You are light, they are darkness; do you, therefore, shew by the light of your good works how base and detestable their works of darkness are. (Estius)... [ Continue Reading ]
_Rise, thou that sleepest. The sense may be taken from Isaias lx. 1. St. Jerome thinks they may be cited from work not canonical. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_For the husband is the head of the wife. Though St. Paul here speaks of a man, who is a husband, we may rather translate man than husband, being the same sentence and the same words as 1 Corinthians xi. 3. where even the Protestant translation has, that the man is head of the woman. --- He (Christ)... [ Continue Reading ]
_As the church is subject to Christ. The Church then, according to St. Paul, is ever obedient to Christ: and can never fall from him, but remain faithful to him, unspotted and unchanged to the end of the world. (Challoner)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Cleansing it by the laver [3] of water, in the word of life. By this washing is generally understood the sacrament of baptism; and by the word of life, not the word of the gospel preached, but the words or form used in the administration of baptism, according to Christ's institution: but this is no... [ Continue Reading ]
_Not having spot or wrinkle. St. Augustine and others expound it of the glorious Church of Christ, in heaven: others even of the Church of Christ in this world, as to its doctrines, sacraments, and disciplines, or practices approved by the Catholic Church. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. St. Paul would have this a love like that which a man hath for himself, or for his own flesh, when they are now joined in wedlock, and are become as it were one flesh and one person, as a civil life and society. See Matthew xix. 5. The wife is to be consider... [ Continue Reading ]
_This....sacrament, (or mystery).... in Christ, and in the Church. This sacrament, in construction, must be referred to what immediately went before, i.e. to the conjunction of marriage betwixt man and wife; and this is called a great sacrament, or mystery, as representing the union or spiritual nup... [ Continue Reading ]