What? know you not that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? for two, says he, shall be one flesh.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 6:16 Go To 1 Corinthians 6
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? One body by a union and blending of the two bodies. Just as merchants in partnership have but one capital, because it is common to both, so those who join in committing fornication have one body, because their bodies are common to both, as Cajetan says. So two are one flesh: that Isaiah , out of two there is made but one human being, and that not spiritual, but carnal—wholly fleshly.
For two, saith Hebrews , shall be one flesh. S. Paul is here quoting from Gen. ii24 , where the words are applied to those married. But he refers them truly enough to fornicators, because the external Acts , whether of them or of those married, do not differ in kind, though they differ morally by the whole sky, for the acts of the former are lustful and vicious, but those of the latter are acts of temperance, righteousness, and virtue, as S. Thomas says.
1. Observe that it is said of the married that they too shall be one flesh (1.) by carnal copulation, as the Apostle her takes it; (2.) by synecdoche, they shall be one individual, one person: for the man and the woman civilly are, and are reckoned as one; (3.) because in wedlock each is the master of the other"s body, and so the flesh of one is the flesh of the other (cf. 1 Corinthians 8:3); (4.) in the effect produced, for they produce one flesh, that is one offspring.
2. Observe again that Scripture employs this phrase in order to show that of all human relationships the bond of matrimony is the closest and the most inviolable. Hence it was that God made Eve out of the rib of Adam, to show that the man and the woman are not so much two as one, and ought to be one in heart and will, and therefore, if need be, each for the sake of the other ought to leave father and mother, as is said in Genesis 2:24. The Apostle quotes this passage to show the fornicator how grievously he lowers and disgraces himself, inasmuch as he so closely joins himself to some abandoned harlot as to become one with her, and as it were he transforms himself into her and himself becomes a harlot.
