Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

1 Corinthians 7:5

5. [τῇ νηστείᾳ καί] rec. before τῇ προσευχῇ with Peshito. Text אABCDEFG, Vetus Lat. Vulg. ἦτε אABCDEFG. Rec. συνέρχησθε is supported by some versions. But Vetus Lat. Vulg. and Peshito support a different reading to rec., while some copies of the first omit the verb altogether. The evidence, therefore, on the whole, is strongly in favour of the text having been amended on doctrinal grounds. See notes below. It is remarkable that St Chrysostom, in the present text of whose commentary the words omitted appear, makes no allusion to them in his remarks upon it. But he refers to them expressly elsewhere.

5. εἰ μήτι ἄν. Unless perhaps; a permission hesitatingly given. On ἄν without a verb see Dr Moulton’s note on Winer, Gr. Gram. p. 380. In later Greek (see Green, p. 230), ἄν is sometimes combined with καὶ and ὡς so as to produce a strengthened term, without being material to the syntax. Buttmann says that if we supply γένοιτο we depart from St Paul’s usus loquendi, and that we must either supply the indicative or conjunctive. Or, Dr Moulton adds, we may supply ἀποστερῆτε or γένηται. It should be added that B omits ἄν altogether.

ἐκ συμφώνου, by mutual consent.

σχολάσητε. The rec. σχολάζητε would indicate a more habitual practice than the aorist, and may possibly, like the rest of the rec. text here, have had an ascetic origin.

ἦτε is more habitual than the rec. συνέρχησθε. The Apostle’s language has been strengthened throughout in an ascetic direction.

ὁ Σατανᾶς. Cf. 1 Peter 5:8.

διὰ τὴν�. On account of your incontinency, not for, as A.V.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

1 Corinthians 7:5

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