For if any man sees you who have knowledge eating in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him who is weak be encouraged to eat those things which are offered to idols;
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 8:10 Go To 1 Corinthians 8
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Sit at meat in the idol"s temple. Erasmus takes the word which we have idol"s temple to mean idol"s feast. The text, however, gives the better translation. S. Paul speaks of their siting at meat in an idol"s temple, or at a table consecrated to idols. Those who were about to partake of the idol-sacrifices were wont to have tables set out in the temple, as Herodotus says in Clio, and Virgil (Æn. viii283), in his description of the sacrifice of Evander and the subsequent feast with the Trojans. So too did the Jews eat of the peace-offerings in the court of the Temple ( Deuteronomy 16:2).
It hence follows that to eat of things offered to idols in an idol temple is not only an evil because of the scandal it causes, but also is an evil in itself, because it is a profession of idolatry, as will be said at chap. x.
Anselm says tropologically: "The knowledge of idol-offerings is the knowledge of the vanity of heathen philosophy, poetry, and rhetoric. This must be guarded against. Far be it from a Christian mouth to say, "By Jove," or "By Hercules." or "By Castor," or to use other expressions that have more to do with monsters than with Divine beings,"
Emboldened here is either (1.) provoked to eat of things offered to idols, as though they were sacred and the channels of grace, and so he will be led to sacrifice to some deity and return to idolatry; or (2.) he will be provoked to act against his conscience, which tells him that food offered to an idol has been breathed upon by it and polluted, and that therefore he will be polluted if he eat. Cf. note to ver7.
