Now concerning the things of which you wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 7:1 Go To 1 Corinthians 7
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
s10 , 11.—And unto the married I command, &c. The Apostle now passes from the question of marriage to that of divorce; for, as this verse indicated, the Corinthians had put to Paul a second question, one relating to divorce. Granted that in matrimony its use was lawful, nay obligatory, as S. Paul has said, at all events may not one that is faithful to his marriage vow dissolve it and have a divorce? And again, when a divorce has taken place, may not the wife or the husband marry again? This verse and ver11give the answer to the question.
He says let her remain unmarried. Hence it follows that divorce, even supposing it to be just and lawful, does not loose the marriage knot, but only dispenses with the marriage debt; so that if the wife os an adulteress it is not lawful for the innocent husband to enter into another marriage. And the same holds good for the wife if the husband is an adulterer.
We should take notice of this against the heretics Erasmus, Cajetan, and Catherinus, who say that this cannot be proved from Scripture, but only from the Canons. But they mistake, as is evident from this passage of S. Paul"s. For the Apostle is here speaking evidently of a just separation made by the wife when she is innocent, and injured by her husband committing adultery, for he permits her to remain separated, or to be reconciled to her husband. For if he were speaking if an unjust separation, such as when a wife flies from her husband without any fault on his side, he would have had not to permit of separation but altogether to order a reconciliation.
It may be said that the word reconciled points to some offence and injury done by the wife who caused the separation, and that therefore S. Paul is speaking if an unjust separation. I reply by denying the premiss. For reconcile merely signifies a return to mutual good-will; and the offending party in spoken of as being reconciled to the offended just as much as the offended to the offending. For instance, in2Macc. i5 , it is said "that God may hear your prayers and be reconciled to you." The Councils and Fathers explain this passage in this way, and lay down from it that fornication dissolves the marriage bond so far as bed and board are concerned, but not so that it is lawful to marry another. Cf. Concil. Milevit. c17; Concil. Elibert. c9; Concil. Florent. (Instruct. Armen. de Matrim.); Concil. Trident Sess. xx. can7); Pope Evaristus ( Ephesians 2); S. Augustine de Adulter. Conjug. (lib. ii. c4); S. Jerome (Ep. ad Amand.); Theodoret, Å’cumenius, Haymo, Anselm and others.
It may be said that Ambrose, commenting on this verse, says that the Apostle speaks of the wife only, because it is never lawful for her to marry another after she is divorced; but that it is lawful for the husband, after putting away an adulterous wife, to marry another, because he is the head of the woman. I answer that from this and similar passages it is evident that this commentary on S. Paul"s Epistles is not the work of S. Ambrose, or at all events that these passages are interpolations. For in matrimony and divorce the same law governs the wife which governs the husband, as the true Ambrose lays down (in Lucam viii. and de Abraham, lib. i. c4). What then the Apostle says of the wife applies equally to the husband; for he is speaking to all that are married, as he says himself; and moreover, in ver5 , he declared that the marriage rights of husband and wife are equal, and that each has equal power over the other"s body.
Let not the husband put away his wife. I.e, without grave and just cause; for it is allowed to put her away because of fornication and other just causes.
