1 Corinthians 5:1

PART SECOND. ST. PAUL’S TEN APOSTOLIC RESPONSES,

1 Corinthians 5:1 to 1 Corinthians 16:4.

PAUL’S FIRST RESPONSE: TO THE RUMOURS TOUCHING THE REPORT OF INCEST, 1 Corinthians 5:1-13.

a. Judgment upon the incestuous man, 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 .

1. Reported This report, like those touching the Church strifes in the first chapter, must have come from the “household of Chloe,” or from the three special messengers; probably the latter. Commonly Literal Greek, wholly. This cannot mean, as it is rendered by some, “every-where,” or “generally;” for in Ephesus it could have not been generally spread, and at Corinth Paul could know nothing of the extent of its spread. The Greek word, with a negative in a sentence, would signify “not at all;” as here, with an affirmative, it must signify, reversely, absolutely, or as Alford, actually. The word, then, does not indicate the extent of the report, but aggravates the heinousness of the sin reported.

Fornication A term here comprehending any sexual criminality, and designating a case of incest.

So much as named According to the best manuscripts this clause should be omitted.

Have The word would indicate either by marriage or by concubinage. How dissolute a city Corinth was, how prostitution was even there made a religious rite, and courtezans were regular priestesses to the goddess of lust, we have stated in the introduction to this epistle. The present transgressor was a member of the Church, and so probably was his father, against whom the sin was committed. 2 Corinthians 7:12. We may suppose the transgressor to have been a Gentile, who construed the morality of the new religion to be “liberal” on the laws of sex. Paul, therefore, in the next clause admonishes them that such a looseness would place Christianity below the average morals of paganism.

Among… Gentiles Though from the necessity of the case marriage among near relations at the commencement of the race was tolerated, yet in time it would be disclosed by experience that such “marrying in” would depreciate and destroy the race. Then the powerful intuitions of our nature have placed abhorrence of incest among the fundamentals of moral law.

Instances of incest as narratives of abomination and horror are given in many of the classic authors. Edipus, by sad mistake marrying his own mother, is the subject of one of the most thrilling dramas of Sophocles.