For what have I to do to judge them also that are outside? do not you judge them that are within?
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
A bishop cannot do anything about unbelievers. But a brother who is caught doing such things he can bar not only from the sacraments but also from common intercourse with his fellows, so that when he is avoided he may feel ashamed and repent. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
For what have I to do to judge them that are without? To judge is here and elsewhere the same as to condemn and punish fornicators, e.g, by excommunicating them, which is done in order to warn others who are pure and innocent not to mingle with them. When S. Paul says that they were not to mingle with fornicators, he at the same time judges indirectly the fornicators, by ordering them to be avoided and shunned as guilty and dangerous. He condemns not those outside the Church, because as pagans they were beyond his jurisdiction, but only the faithful, who were subject to his pastoral care.
It may be said that if we cannot judge them that are without, the Church cannot judge and punish heretics and schismatics, for they are without, i.e, outside the Church. I answer that they are without the Church in the sense of being deprived of all her benefits, but within so far as jurisdiction is concerned. The very fact that they still retain the character of baptism makes them subject and bound ...
To judge them that are without. Those who are said by the apostle to be without, are those who have never been converted to the faith, and therefore are not within the jurisdiction of the Church.
Did Paul not care about those who were outside the church? Of course he did! But it was not until after they had received the gospel and he had made them subject to the teaching of Christ that he laid down requirements for them. As long as they despised Christ, it was pointless to speak to them about his commandments.
For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Calling the Christians and the Greeks, those within and those without, as also he says elsewhere, 1 Timothy 3:7 He must also have a good report of them that are without. And in the Epistle to the Thessalonians he speaks the same language, saying, 2 Thessalonians 3:14 Have no intercourse with him to the end that he may be put to shame. And, Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Here, however, he does not add the reason. Why? Because in the other case he wished to soothe them, but in this, not so. For the fault in this case and in that was not the same, but in the Thessalonians it was less. For there he is reproving indolence; but here fornication and other most grievous sins. And if any one wished to go over to the Greeks, he hinders not him from eating with such persons; this too for the same reason. So also do we act; for our children and our brethren we leave nothing undone, but of strangers we do not make ...
