_Dare any of you... go to law?_ Literally, _be judged_, _i.e._, contend in judgment. Cf. 1 Samuel 12:7; Ezekiel 20:35; and Jeremiah 2:35. The Apostle is not censuring those who were dragged before the heathen tribunals, but those who dragged their brethren before them, or who appeared before them by... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 6 SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER i. The Apostle passes on to the subject of lawsuits and trials, and reproves the Corinthians for instituting proceedings before the heathen judges, and he declares those proceedings to be thereupon unjust and unfair. II. Then (ver.9) he declares that the unrighte... [ Continue Reading ]
_If the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?_ If the saints are to judge the whole world how much more ought they to be able to act as arbiters in composing their own small differences?... [ Continue Reading ]
_Know ye not that we shall judge angels?_ Some think that _angels_ here means priests, and they refer to Malachi 2:7, "For he is the angel of the Lord of hosts," spoken of the priest. But this is foreign to the mind of S. Paul, and therefore the Fathers unanimously take it literally. Observe that,... [ Continue Reading ]
_Is it so that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?_ This is severe irony, and a tacit reproof and condemnation. Sedulius and Gregory (_Mor._ lib. xix. c. 21) take it a little differently, as if said seriously, as though he meant: Let those... [ Continue Reading ]
_Now, therefore, there us utterly a fault among you. Fault_ Theophylact renders _condemnation and shame._ It is simpler to take it as a defect of shortcoming, as when a man is overcome by another his strength and courage are thereby diminished. Imperfection, meanness, and feebleness of mind are amon... [ Continue Reading ]
_But ye are washed... by the Spirit of our God._ Ye were justified in baptism by the Holy Spirit. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, Œcumenius. S. Cyprian gives a beautiful example of this washing and change of character, produced in his own case by being baptized into Christianity, in Ephesians 2, to Dona... [ Continue Reading ]
_All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient._ All things, say Theodoret and Œcumenius, are through free-will lawful unto me, are in my power, _e.g_., to commit fornication, to rob, to be drunken, and all the other sins mentioned above. But they are not expedient for the salvatio... [ Continue Reading ]
_And God... will also raise up us by His own power._ As He raised up Christ when crucified and dead, so too if with Christ we die to lust and gluttony, and crucify them, will He raise up us.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?_ For ye yourselves, and consequently your body and soul, are members of the Church of Christ. S. Augustine (_Serm._ 18. _in hæc Verb._) says beautifully: " _The life of the body is the soul, the life of the soul is God. The Spirit of God dwell... [ Continue Reading ]
_Flee fornication_. Because, as Anselm, Cassian, and the Fathers generally teach, other vices are conquered by resistance, lust alone by flight, viz., by fleeing from women, from the objects and occasions of lust, by turning aside the eyes and the mind to see and think of other things. For if you op... [ Continue Reading ]
_Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?_ They, therefore, who pollute their bodies by impurity are guilty of sacrilege, for they sin against the Holy Ghost. They do Him wrong by robbing Him of the body dedicated to Him, and 120 transferring it to the demon of lust. Further, the... [ Continue Reading ]