Have we not power to eat and to drink? Viz, at your expense. This is the glory and defence of me and my apostleship, that it is gratuitous, unlike that of the false apostles. Notwithstanding I have the same right, the same power to look for means from you for my eating and drinking.
Wherefore, from what was before alleged and from my having instructed you and from this which I have now said, I have matter sufficient to make my defence to you: and all who examine me I meet upon this ground, alleging both what has gone before and this which follows: Have we no right to eat and to drink? Have we no right to lead about a wife that is a believer? Yet for all this, having it I abstain?
What then? Did he not use to eat or to drink? It were most true to say that in many places he really did not eat nor drink: for 1 Corinthians 4:11 in hunger, says he, and in thirst, and in nakedness we were abiding. Here, however, this is not his meaning; but what? We eat not nor drink, receiving of those whom we instruct, though we have a right so to receive.
Have we no right to lead about a wife that is a believer, even as the rest of the Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Observe his skilfulness. The leader of the choir stands last in his arrangement: since that ...
